Seek
Michael was coughing up bloodied- up flowers every other sentence now. He’d had the disease for a bit over a month now and he wrote – Judd made him write everything down on a stupid chalk thing – to Dean several times that he hated it.
Dean was concerned for him, and he didn’t know why. He was supposed to hate him, but he couldn’t remember why at the time. He found himself staring every time Michael walked into the room.
He didn’t want this.. Feeling that he got whenever Michael laughed or smiled at something he said.
Dean remembered planting mint in his old house. After about a year, the mint was overgrown, and no amount of weeding would eliminate it. He felt the same sort of hopelessness when he was with Michael. No matter how much he tried to squash the feeling, it would never be gone.
And he hated that he didn’t mind
♥
“Guess who’s not home!” Lia sang, skipping into the kitchen where the group was eating breakfast. No one answered. “Wow. Dry-ass friend.” She murmured, sitting down. “It’s Briggs and Sterling. You know what that means!” She grinned. Lia looked at all of them like they were prey. Dean didn’t like being looked at like prey.
“What’s that mean?” Celine asked from her chair next to Sloane. “It means Truth or Dare 2.0. Meet all of you in the back yard in 10.” And she left.
This was going to suck. Dean felt it.
♥
10 minutes later, they were all sitting at a table by the pool.
Dean was trying to act calm, but he was really panicking so damn hard. Celine was curious, Sloane was neutral, and Lia was excited. Cassandra was just annoyed. At what, Michael didn’t know. But he did want to know why Dean was so nervous. He had played this game before (Note: IVE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE) and was fine.
“Okay. First, some rules.” And then Michael saw the bottles next to her. “What’s the drink of the night?” She answered without hesitating. “Whisky.” Someone raided the alcohol cabinet. “Anyways, the rules are that if you don’t want to say truth, drink. If you don’t want to do a dare, drink. Simple!” Huh. The first one up was Lia. “”Cassandra, Truth or Dare.” She paused for a second, and then said “Dare.”
“I dare you to... Drink a ladle of hot sauce. The one that Judd never uses.” Cassandra’s eyes widdened. “Fuck. I’ll do it. Where’s the hot sauce?”
♥
A couple rounds later and everyone was more tipsy than before. It was after midnight before they all crashed on the same bed.
The next day, none of them could remeber what had happened the night before. Which was a sort of big problem because Michael’s Hanahaki was gone.
Judd walked in on the room of sleeping kids. He hadn’t been there with them last night, so he had no idea what happened when he wasn’t there. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.
A few hours later, around midday, Lia woke up. And her head hurt like a bitch. What had even happened last night? She couldn’t remember. It took forever to get out of bed (who’s bed?) and think straight. Okay. Everyone was on the bed. The TV was on, but nothing was playing. Had they watched a movie? Or more? Everything hurt. They were all squished together on the bed. Celine was sitting on the bedframe with Sloane on her lap, hair half braided. Cassandra ws sitting sideways on her face, covered in pillows. Dean and Michael were entangled together. Were there cameras in the house? She had to ask Sloane. But, maybe, a few advil first.
The next to wake up was Cassie. Lia watched her blink awake and sit up. Then, she spotted Lia. “What even happened last night to make me hate myself now?” And Lia couldn’t answer her. “I honestly have no idea. I’m gonna ask Sloane when she wakes up.” Cassie groaned and flopped back onto the bed. “Oh, get up. It’ll only get worse from here. We need a cover story anyways.” She finally sat up. “Fine. Who’re we waking up first?”
They started with Sloane, then Celine woke up from Sloane moving around. Next was Dean, and because Michael sleeps like a dead person, it took all of them to wake him up. Also because Michael held onto whatever he was holding when he was sleeping, Dean was trapped.
After Michael woke up and they disentangled, Cassandra reminded Lia of the game plan. “So, first. We need a cover story. We were up late last night watching movies and got distracted with the time. Besides that, does anyone remember what happened last night? Or does Sloane need to hack the cameras?” Everyone shook their head. “ Well, prepare to be embarassed. Sloane, pull ‘em up.” Sloane whisked out her computer and started typing furiously. After a few minutes, she pulled up the camera footage.
♥
“I regret everything I did last night and everything that led me to get there.” Michael said into a pillow. They had switched to a bedroom camera. (Note: they get dressed in the bathroom so it’s appropriate.) Suddenly, he noticed something. His throat and lungs didn’t hurt anymore. Was his Hanahaki gone? It doesn’t matter; He was just glad the footage didn’t have sound thought, because he thought he could remember just one part.
“Michael? How’re you talking?”
“Well, obviously my Hanahaki’s gone. I just don’t know who.” Lia couldn’t catch him in a lie, because it wasn’t. He had an idea of who it was, but he wasn’t sure.
♥
The night before
Dean and Michael were curled up together on a bed, all their friends passed out around them. The TV was on, and they were just watching whatever came on Netflix.
After all the dare’s and truth’s and drinks, all of them had come inside and started watching movies. Now, only Dean and Michael were awake. Dean forgot how much he missed his stupid voice every time Michael said something. What am I thinking? He thought, it must be Lia’s alcohol. She would be a good bartender. First was whatever was in the flask, then a lemonade vodka, and other things he didn’t know. “Thanks Dean.” Michael leaned more into him. “You’re welcome.” And then they fell asleep
♥️
Present
Lia was right; it was embarrassing. And since there wasn’t any sound, they still had no idea who cured Michael’s Hanahaki.
But the biggest mystery was what caused it. They all had a feeling it wad the flower Cassandra brought from the rainforest, but they couldn’t find it.
Finally, after a week of searching, they found it.