- Basic Trope: A character coughs up flowers related to their unrequited love interest.
- Straight: Bob is in love with Sakura, but for whatever reason(s), she doesn't love him back. He keeps coughing up cherry blossoms, and when he dies from his Incurable Cough of Death, an autopsy shows an entire (albeit bonsai-sized) cherry tree in each of his lungs.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob has never had luck with any women. In his lungs, there's an entire garden of roses, cherry trees, daisies, lilies, violets, lobelias, dianthus, and more, all flowers that either his love interests liked or were named after.
- Bob has never even spoken to Sakura, only admired her from afar. (Or, maybe not so afar.)
- Downplayed: Bob hacks up a single cherry blossom upon finding out that Sakura doesn't love him back.
- Justified: Love Goddess Suki believes that not admitting your feeling for someone is the worst crime you can commit and so punishes those who do so with Hanahaki.
- Inverted:
- Bob coughs up cherry blossoms because Sakura loves him.
- Sakura starts coughing up cherry blossoms because someone is in love with her.
- Sakura and Bob love each other and they start having a craving for eating cherry blossoms.
- Subverted:
- It turns out Sakura does return Bob's feelings.
- Bob confesses unsuccessfully, but getting his feelings out in the open seems to cure the disease.
- Bob manages his condition with medication and/or therapy.
- Bob has surgery to excise the cherry trees from his lungs and forgets all about Sakura.
- Bob coughs, but there are no flowers, and he's diagnosed with something else, such as pneumonia or tuberculosis.
- Double Subverted:
- But since she's married, there's not much that can be done about it, and Bob continues to cough up cherry blossoms.
- The relief is short-lived; he still has feelings for Sakura, and coughs up cherry blossoms, before eventually dying.
- The medication and/or therapy doesn't help.
- But then he sees her again, falls in love with her again, is rejected again (or never has the courage to speak to her), and the trees begin to grow again.
- As the disease progresses, the flowers appear in Bob's sputum.
- Parodied:
- A cherry tree bursts out of Bob's chest.
- Bob has a gun that shoots cherry blossoms in his mouth.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some people who are rejected develop flowers in their lungs, while others do not.
- The disease starts affecting others, even those who don't seem to be in love or who have their feelings reciprocated.
- Averted:
- Bob never meets Sakura.
- Bob's unrequited love is does not involve coughing up flowers.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Lampshaded: "Did you... uh... accidentally swallow a cherry seed or something?"
- Invoked: Someone is going around magically planting flowers in people's lungs to force them to act on their feelings.
- Exploited: Bob guilts Sakura into going out with him (even though she doesn't want to) to prevent his illness.
- Defied: Sakura catches onto Bob's unspoken feelings, and steers him toward Alice before the disease takes hold.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Why is it that every time someone in fiction loves someone they suddenly have a tree in their lungs?"
- Deconstructed: Rather than being portrayed as tragic yet clean and beautiful, Bob's death is shown with all the horrifying and disgusting detail that such a death would realistically have; the petals are covered in blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids, while Bob's cough is agonizing and painful.
- Played For Laughs: Bob has a coughing fit of flowers every time he talks to Sakura, much to her confusion.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob becomes angry with Sakura and murders her.
- Or one of his friends or family members does.
- Bob stalks Sakura
- Bob has surgery and forgets who she is
- It turns out Sakura does love him back, but by the time they realize this, Bob dies.
- Bob rapes Sakura in hopes of curing his disease.
Back to Hanahaki Disease.
