Meanings
- JapaneseuncountablefictionA fictional illness in which a person bearing an unrequited love coughs up flower petals until they die or their feelings are reciprocated. The disease can also be cured by a surgical procedure that removes the flowers, but this will result in them losing their feelings of affection and all memories of the person they loved.
The cascading emotions are giving me hanahaki tonight, they're beautiful but it's suffocating.
2019, Unzila Iftikhar, Before Your Eyes - Despite It All, You Still Rise, page 92 more examples
It is familiar. In that most everyone is familiar with a coffee shop and thus understands the AU’s basic premise on sight. Unlike, say, Hanahaki fics.
2020, Katharine Elizabeth McCain, "Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe", dissertation submitted to Ohio State University, page 27However, to a hanahaki patient, it's probably far more terrifying for them to have the surgery to cure their feelings than the disease.
2020, Ivy Wong, "The Cure for Hanahaki", English Literary Magazine (St. Paul's Co-Educational College, Hong Kong), page 22
Origin
Cite this entry
hanahaki. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanahaki
“hanahaki.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanahaki. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hanahaki,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hanahaki.
Source: hanahaki on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.