III. Zinnias

Both have been together since long ago and he doesn’t regret it, kissing him under the snow one winter day, saying in a song all the feelings he had for him and, since then they have been happy.  He is happy, the happiest because he loves him.

He is thinking about him, about how the way his smile creates sweet dimples on the corner of his cheeks when the first petal swims throw his agape mouth. The colour is red and so are his feelings while staring at it, unarming, innocent but so much threatening. He squishes it and it bleeds between his pressed fingers but, even then, it’s unsettling, a bothering sensation taking all over him.

Later on, Seunghoon will tell him it was a zinnia the one that is growing within him, but he doesn't understand. He is in a relationship; he has been there for years (he has seen the merriment in both of them, so he can’t comprehend why he is withstanding this illness that is meant for lonely hearts, not him, who has so many pictures of his smile smiling at him, lovely, endearingly). Why, then, does he has flowers blossoming inside his chest when his love is mutual? It makes no sense but he looks at his hand, covered in petals and he blows them away (the aesthetic is great, but the pang in his heart is also very real and he gasps for air, feeling sick, his lungs providing nothing but the taste of these zinnias that he is growing up). The sweet scent spreads all over the bathroom and it's intoxicating; he opens the window and throws them away, a waterfall of red floating over the city (he takes a picture of it and upload it to his Instagram; a story that he fakes; Mino likes it in a heartbeat). 

It takes him a whole minute and, when the realization hits him, it makes him throw up again for a whole different reason, petals and tears and his broken heart, all blended in one motion and he lays on the floor, shattered. His mind goes blank and he can’t think but the fact that he has been lying to him. It hurts deeply, raw and coarse, a cut that opens him, ripping his chest in two beautiful sides, flowers swirling all around.

"You don't love me anymore," he states when he meets him again; there isn't regrets, only sadness, exhaustion, betrayal coating it all, a small layer that covers the whole truth and that hurts the most.

Mino looks at him, impressed. His eyes are wide open and he blinks, confused.

"I'm sorry. I truly am but..." there is no need for him to be sorry, it's alright (it's not, he reflects, rain on his eyes and his heart isn't hurt because it isn’t real anymore, because he doesn’t have one since he has given it away long time ago, under snowflakes that now are tainted in red). And Seungyoon knows that he isn't doing this on purpose, that a heart has its own paths (he knows it but it doesn't make it less painful).

"How did you know?" Mino wonders, tenderly, his voice slow and soft and it weighs inside his core (he misses his warm and the way he hasn't looked straight into his eyes and he already knew it; that they were stretching this only, keeping something broken alive, afraid of becoming only one, to part ways and been alone in the dark).

He only has to show him a handful of those red zinnias, the ones he has puked this morning for him to know why. It is raining silently again.

“I’m so sorry” but Seungyoon touches his eyes, wiping away the tears he doesn’t deserve, and smiles. It’s ok, he wants to say, but his lips are dry and his voice is lost into the wind of memories, all the moments shared and that are now only fragments of something that was wonderful, only his. It’s ok because hearts can change, even if he still belongs to him (always will; he is his pocket sunshine, his spring, a name that waters the flowers colouring his chest in bright scarlet).

He is alright (he lies to himself) but lets the pain flourish inside his chest along with other burgeoning plants and he coughs more for a while, little zinnias coming throw his mouth and falling on his feet, white under red and it all looks beautiful, like blood covering a snowy field; it’s also freezing and he can’t move, time is pressed toward his heart and he still feels Mino’s lips catching his from that last kiss he didn’t know.

He should have done more, he should have said less, he should have fight to change his mind and the beats of his chest, but Seunghoon says that, eventually, the tears will subdue and he will smile again, even if it feels impossible, the mere thought is like a stab on his back, a disgrace, a betrayal and he cries in Seunghoon’s arms tonight (and some others nights too, when the feelings are too much, when he remembers all the broken promises, all the places they were going, all the places they went and that now are only that, just a saddening memory and he can’t breath – Seunghoon counts to ten and reassures him that he is going to be ok).

He puts the seeds he throws in pots and plats them, looks them grow there as they bloom inside his chest and it’s beautiful, how the flowers open and how crazily they smell, providing the room with the perfume of red zinnias. They blossom in spring and in winter when Seungyoon’s heart is broken, filled with a love that hasn’t gone anywhere, that has stuck with him even when Mino has moved on, forgetting him with promises of friendship (and he has believed them all, but he hasn’t called yet and Seunghoon thinks it’s for the best; that he isn’t ready for it). They flourish at the same pace as the pain that beats, uncovered, inside his eyes, all his tears nourishing them, making them even more precious; he sends them to his mother on her birthday and tells her about how Mino has left (but that he is cool with it).

He lies to himself as much as he lies to anyone else. He dreams about it; the moment he has turned around to never come back, his last words echoing in his nights. It aches and he wants to cry, he covers his head with blankets and swears to never go outside (that under his sheets nothing bad would happen again, that here he is saved, but the phantom of Mino lulls him to sleep, putting inside his mind all the memories they held together, dearly, and it is agonic to the point that he wants to die; what has he done wrong? How can he go back in time and change his fate, make him stay?)

The recollections are still beautiful because he is in them all; he riddles with his presence them and Seungyoon cherish all those moments because of him, because they belong to him, even when his departure left him with a dull, lifeless life, he still loves him; he is always soaring on his mind, wounding his heart and skin with his last “be well” and a shadow of a smile; he can’t laugh again but he knows that he will heal, that this state that sedates him won’t last forever; one day he will wake up and rise and he will be, definitively, alright.

Seungyoon thinks about all the things he did, all the ways that can explain Mino’s changes of sentiments but, in the end, it doesn’t matter because Mino is not here, so he closes his eyes and allows the petals to growl inside him, climbing on his throat. It is fine, letting them cover pillows, polychromatic dark nights with vivid, brilliant hues of pure red; he sleeps surrounded by them and, when morning comes, the timid sun crashing against his curtains, his cheeks are coloured too, eyes sallow and a disarray of hair (Seunghoon laughs and it’s so hilarious that he joints it too).

He smiles at his reflection and the gesture doesn’t hurt; it’s not as natural as it used to be, but it’s something, it’s a start. He washes away all his sorrows and his troubles and, when he comes out of the bath, he feels good. Today he doesn’t think about him (but misses him sometimes, always). He is alive.

Next morning he doesn’t wake hid under the uncountable amount of petals but he coughs some at night but, this time the motion hurts less (no more seeds scratching his skin, only soft, gentle petals that left the aftertaste of a kiss). He is doing fine, he believes when, a week after, the puking has started to submit and the petals are coming in puffs of two or three at most. He is fine. His chest still aches and he still thinks about him sometimes, but he smiles more and cries less and the world that was blue and black now looks more bright than yesterday.

It takes a whole month and it ups to four, but he remembers Mino and the memories are only tender, his heart doesn’t ache, doesn’t crawl or long and when he is about to cough, nothing comes out. The smile that reflexes on the mirror look relaxed, normal, his plump lips curbed up naturally and Seunghoon tells him that he looks great. He goes out tonight and he lives and he laughs and he has survived.

He breathes, inhaling hard, filling his lungs with all the air possible. When he exhales the smell of the zinnias doesn’t come up. He does it again. And again. Nothing. All the flowers have disappeared as suddenly as they came in. He is alright. Mino is just a lovely name that once meant the world to him but now it’s nothing more than a recollection that doesn’t hurt anymore.

When he cries it’s for the emptiness he feels in his heart, for all the zinnias that his love has killed and that now are only a bunch of dried petals hued in maroon laying on the floor.

He stumbles onto a picture of them: they are both smiling happily, the sea and the beach under their feet, the sun caressing tanned skin. He remembers last summer, last year. He smiles back at the memory cherishes it dearly but it doesn't make him cry, it doesn't make him miss what they had had (it's just that: a part of him, his past).

He calls Mino tonight, the promise of friendship still lingering in his mind. This is alright.