At first, it was easy to ignore: the faint taste of flowers lingering on your tongue, the occasional cough, the ache in your chest whenever your thoughts wandered to someone you could never have. Someone already promised to another. Someone too distant to reach. Someone who would never love you back.

Then came the petals.

Tiny fragments of blossoms now accompany every coughing fit, collecting in your hands as undeniable proof of your condition. Hanahaki. A disease born from unrequited love. One that will continue to bloom within your lungs until there is no room left to breathe.

Unable to bear the pity of family or the certainty of your own fate, you leave in secret, following rumors carried by merchants, travelers, and wandering spirits. They all speak of the same place: Tsukihana, a lantern-lit town where humans and yokai live side by side beneath endless nights.

Somewhere at the center of it all waits the healer.

Whether they can truly cure Hanahaki remains uncertain.

After all, if removing the flowers means letting go of the person you love, what remains of the heart once the bloom is gone?

Rooted in your heart