SinB loathes the taste of the flowers.

It was bearable, in the beginning, if deeply annoying. The briefest sensation of a tickling in the back of , the lightest of tastes of violets blossoming under her tongue in the middle of a conversation, and she would be forced to rush off to the washroom, holding back the coughs as the smallest of petals rise to her lips.

So, annoying. But bearable.

For a time, she feared the flowers, too; she worried constantly over when they would hit. Would she be overtaken by coughs on the stage, spewing flowers across her members’ feet? Or in the middle of a variety show when she can’t quite get away in time, shock and pity in the eyes of the MCs?

And it isn’t until that fear begins to fade that she realizes she hates the flowers.

Because the flowers, they don’t hit when she’s on stage. Or when she’s on a show, or when she’s talking to Eunha, or Sowon, or Yerin, or any of the others.

They hit in the moments where she realizes that Umji smiles so sweetly at her the very same way she smiles at everyone else, the moments where she watches Umji turn away from her, the moments where she has to remember that-

Ah. Umji doesn’t love me the way I love her.

And as that realization settles for SinB, she begins to find other annoyances, other frustrations that’ve never crossed her mind before. Like-

The way Umji clings to Yerin and Sowon, her reliable older sisters – platonically, SinB knows, it’s always platonic with Umji, but it’s not like that makes the stupid flowers, or her stupid heart, any more obedient.

The look in Eunha’s eyes that she tosses her sometimes from her place next to Sowon, arm looped around the leader’s waist, the sympathy that SinB has too much pride to acknowledge.

The way Sowon stalls once in a while, when they’re alone in the car, in the dorm, in the dressing room, and looks at SinB like she has something to tell her, that motherly concern in her eyes, forcing SinB to make up the silliest of excuses just so she can flee a conversation as unwanted, as uncomfortable as the flowers themselves.

And the pattern repeats, SinB muses, as she watches Umji leans into Yuju, lips pressed against the older girl’s ear as they giggle, Yuju pointing enthusiastically at one of the more familiar fans – a fansite of Yuju’s, SinB thinks - in the crowd, both girls raising their hands to wave. There’s a roaring in her ears as SinB rises from her seat, fighting off the urge to cough as she gestures to catch Sowon’s attention, pointing towards the general direction of the toilet that stands outside the hall in which they’ve chosen to hold their fanmeet.

Sowon’s brows furrow, eyes darting over to Umji, then back again, and Eunha herself turns to face SinB as she notices the change in the leader’s expression, but SinB doesn’t wait for an interrogation, throwing the fans a quick wave as she hops off the back of the stage, headed for the doors.

Her footsteps are hurried as she makes her way along the corridor – over the past three years, SinB’s found, the attacks no longer just come harder, with petals nearly as big as her fingers, enough to make a bouquet. They come more often, faster, sometimes so fast she finds herself choking on the flowers, struggling to breathe.

And so she’s not really thinking about beyond keeping her airways clear - the memory of the one time the petals burst up so fast so hard she’d actually thrown up still vivid in her mind -  as she pushes open the door to the washroom, but then she hears it.

A cough that’s not her cough, but familiar all the same, the whistle of a voice straining for air, the hacking, almost spitting sound of a cough derivative of the so-called Hanahaki disease. For a moment, SinB considers backing out of the washroom, giving her fellow sufferer the same modicum of privacy she desires for herself. But the cough that erupts from her, the surging in reminds her that that’s not an option; she ends up darting forward to the sink, violets already spewing out of , petals falling to land with the lilies already strewn on the ground. It takes one, two, three coughs, before she can bring herself to turn around, to see the other person bent over the toilet bowl and it’s–

In her sixth month as a trainee, Yerin wakes up coughing, the slightest of coughs, just enough to dislodge the tiny, delicate lily petal that falls from her lips into the cusp of her hand. She’s baffled by the sight – the only plant in her room is, after all, a cactus, a testament to her utter lack of green fingers. It takes her a moment to remember the excited whispers she’d heard when she was younger, how she and her friends had giggled together about the grief of unrequited love, the allure of lovelorn, secret pining in a way only the youthful with no measure of heartbreak could.

But it’s enough to bring up the memory of– a dream, the slightest pressure in the corners of her mind. She clutches for it, chases after it but finds only remnants – the sound of full-bodied laughter, a flash of deep red, the warmth that accompanies that undefinable sense of contentment.

It’s the alarm that pulls Yerin out of her stupor, that irritating tang tang tang that drives her out of her bed, practically leaping towards her table to turn the alarm off. She isn’t late for school, not by any means, especially when she was wide awake even before her alarm rang. But the reminder of the busy day to come does not go amiss. She puts the thoughts of the dream out of her mind, hurries to her wardrobe to prepare both her uniform for school and a change of clothes for after, when she heads to the company.

The petal falls out of her grasp, unnoticed by Yerin in her hurry to disable her alarm, and she doesn’t miss its absence when she returns later in the night either, exhausted and blurry-eyed from her long practice, the petal swept away by her mother hours prior. In fact, when nothing of note happens in the coming weeks – not the recurrence of any such dream or any further expulsion of petals from – Yerin puts the incident out of her mind entirely, chalking it up to stress over her (hopefully) upcoming debut and the pressures of her schoolwork.

It isn’t until a month later, when she’s slumped onto the floor of Source Music’s practice room, body limp from exhaustion, fingers playing idly with dark red hair that she remembers. It’s the most mundane of things that triggers it, Sojung reaching back lazily to hand Yerin her water bottle, too tired to even drag herself off the younger girl, telling her to keep herself hydrated before they get back to practising. Their fingers brush as Yerin retrieves her water bottle, and it’s then that it strikes her: Ah, that’s right. That’s what I was dreaming of that night.

Warmth.

But then their dance trainer enters the room and the moment is lost; Sojung heaves herself upward with the loudest of groans, earning her a teasing “Hey, watch those joints, grandma!” from Eunbi, tucking her own water bottle into her bag in the corner. Sojung practically roars at the maknae, their dance teacher actually roars at them both as they chase each other around the room, and the trio find themselves on their feet again, ready for their seventh hour of practice.

Then it’s just one thing after another – first quirky, talented Yuna with her lanky limbs and beautiful voice; then Yewon, soft-voiced and introspective in a way Yerin finds herself admiring; then another Eunbi, who takes quiet offence at Yerin and Eunbi calling her Old Eunbi, so they resort to calling her Big Eunbi instead, an irony not lost on any of the girls. And all of a sudden they’re preparing for their debut, which, in a span of weeks, goes from a maybe to a could be to a will be. Yerin watches the way Sojung grows tenser and tenser under the pressure from the company, under the pressure from herself to step up as leader, snapping at Little Eunbi in earnest instead of the joking manner they’re both so used to, and she thinks Now isn’t the time; I can’t add any more to Sojung-eonnie’s plate. And so Yerin promises herself that when they debut, the moment they’re finally rewarded for their months and years of practice, that’s when she’ll tell Sojung.

And it’s not that Yerin is dense, really. In fact, she tends to consider herself fairly observant, even as she watches the way Little Eunbi – SinB, she has to remember to call her SinB now – dances around their unresponsive maknae, struggling to hide her grief and heartbreak and the violet petals Yerin inevitably finds littering the floor in SinB’s wake. The way Yuju sneaks out of the dorm every morning, always an hour early for school despite their nearly crippling trainee schedules, and that one time she finds Yuju practically skulking about in the school car park, humming their debut song to herself as she waits, and the radiance in her face as a tall boy with an easy smile comes running up to her with a wave – her classmate, Yerin thinks, although she can’t be sure. So, no, Yerin isn’t oblivious. But – that certainty, perhaps even that complacency, that comes with security, with belief in the strength of your own feelings, is disarming in a way Yerin never even considers. And in this world that’s so rapidly changing around her, Yerin holds onto her feelings, her flowers, her only constant, with such faith, that the idea of something going wrong never even occurs to her.

And so Yerin misses the way Sojung pushes past her exhaustion to stay late with Eunha nearly every day after practice, as the younger girl struggles to make up for her shorter training period; misses the way Eunha presses featherlight kisses against Sojung’s cheek when she thinks no one else is looking, misses the way Sojung looks at Eunha, with tentativeness and uncertainty and adoration all bundled up in one.

It’s not until she walks into their room, to the sight of Sojung pressing Eunha up against the wall, fingers curled into the younger girl’s hair, Eunha’s arms tight around Sojung’s neck, hands tugging at the leader’s maroon sweatshirt, that she realizes – and with that realization comes a torrent rushing up , that makes her whirl around, stumbling towards the bathroom, hand cupped over . She closes the door to the toilet, and barely makes it in time, a cacophony of wine-stained lilies bursting out of as she doubles over the toilet bowl.

Yerin sinks to the floor, heaving, palm pressed against red-streaked mouth, and she thinks: idiot, idiot, idiot.

It’s Umji who comes after her then, slipping quietly into the bathroom, voice soft and worried. And later still, it’s Umji who watches her with knowing, pitying eyes; Umji who keeps a bag in her pocket, just in case; Umji whom she finds bent over the toilet with her, palm resting comfortingly against the small of her back, voice low and soothing. When she wakes in the middle of the night, spitting whole flowers from her lips, it’s Umji who sneaks out of the dorm with her, Umji who walks lonely, deserted streets with her as they talk about one-sided feelings and a lack of feelings, and as Yerin watches innocent, quietly empathetic Umji by her side she finds herself holding the burden of two unrequited, unspoken loves on her shoulders – her own, and SinB’s.

And so when Yerin finds herself hunched over the toilet bowl, struggling to breathe – through your nose, Yerin-unnie, remember you need to breathe through your nose – a sea of crumpled, stained lilies below her, and she hears the sound of rapid-fire footsteps, of the bathroom door swinging open, she thinks it’s Umji, here to check on her again, the same way Umji always does.

But it’s not Umji’s familiar, comforting tone that comes – it’s a hacking, spurious cough, and Yerin watches as SinB practically flings herself onto the sink, violets spilling from . She waits for SinB to turn around – there’s no point in avoiding it now, not unless she intends to ninja-sneak her way out of the bathroom, and frankly, Yerin doubts that would work anyway. And when SinB inevitably does, she gapes at her, a predictably stunned expression the only testament to the effort Yerin has put into maintaining this secret. “Yerin-unnie?”

And Yerin presses a finger to blood-stained lips, holding out her other hand.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

And SinB reaches out and takes Yerin’s hand.