IV. Lavender.

When he tastes it, the flavour coming through his throat, he is just surprised, but not amazed. In the end, he has been waiting for it, the crystallization of his feelings under the misused form of hot lilac escaping his lips, small fragrance of lavender. Taehyun has loved him for so long that, for a moment, he even thought that he loved him back: until now, the flowers telling him that his expectations are nothing but shatter glass, meaningless, refutable; useless. He looks at them, all piled on his hands, the confirmation of what he has already known, coloured in purple, in a haze, twinkling in the air when he lets them go, a firework that smells like lilacs exploding against the wall and colliding, gracefully, on the floor.

When the soft, perfumed petals land to his hand he knows how deep it is, how impossible and irrevocable it is too and that there is only one thing he can do. He has known it since the first time when his chest beats slowly, at the same pace as his name sounded in his lips trapped between his teeth and it felt just right as if finding the piece that he has lost long ago.

How can he conceal the flowers on his heart, the fact that he is growing things beneath his flesh just for him, just because he exists inside his chest always and he breathes his name like oxygen, drawing all the little moments they share and that are precious to him only.

 More than love this is a sickness and he should threat it the way it has to before it is too late – before the lavender roots too deep, blooming too much that his blood would be floated with purple. The aftertaste of the petals is sour and so is the aching in his heart. It's painful, it's ugly but it's also Seunghoon; who he is, all that he means, the high place he doesn't know he owns inside his heart and mind; all the hours he has fantasized about his lips gracing his, his beautiful hands holding him. All his dreams are about him when he manages to sleep. In the end it doesn't matter; he is always on his mind, he can’t delete is name of his skin where he has written it, sticking into him like a tattoo. It’s alright.

He tells Jinwoo, trusting that he won’t let it slip, that he will keep his secret and so he does. Taehyun pokes blissfully in front of him and his hyung is surprised but not repelled by it. He grazes with a finger one of the soft, lilac petals and smiles, dreamily, smelling the residual perfume that it has left on his fingerprint.

“That is the start of a nice song,” he says and he is right.

He writes it – but never shows it, not the lyric, not his voice singing – but keeps it close to his heart, where it belongs – and Seunghoon, but he owns him all.

When he is sure that he is deep sleep he opens the door and sneaks into his room – Haute is curling next to him and he envies the puppy so much to the point that he hates himself for his thought: he wants to be it. – He steals a kiss out of his lips and the flowers inside twist, content, growing a bit, watered by the fact that this is a secret, that the night is high in the sky and that nobody knows – but his core trembles and he feels the flames burning his chest, a heart that has stopped to beat.

He is sure about what to do next. He has to leave first, though. He tells them and stares at them cry, asking him why. He has no answers to offer; it feels so wrong, so sad, but it’s what he needs to do, he can’t risk it – and Jinwoo knows it, comforting them, holding him for a second longer, kissing his parted hair gently, reassuringly.

“You will be alright. Come back to us.”

He doesn’t. He doesn’t look back once the door of the place he called home for so long is closed, the place where his heart lingers, longs too. These rooms where he was with him, all the memories he holds onto, tightly; his tears fall and mingle with the voices calling his name – but he doesn’t bother, he can’t, he has to go, he has to let go of it.

The surgery goes well; they are able to remove all the roots and stems, absorbing all the petals in his torrent, cleaning his body of blossoming flowers and, when he wakes up, the room smells like lavender and antiseptic and hospital. He breathes in, the air filling his lungs and it doesn’t hurt, his heart doesn’t ache, there is no waiting, no expecting, nothing; he is empty and he is grateful for it. He closes his eyes and his face doesn’t come to mind. Who was him? His name escapes his chest but he can’t catch it, forgetting it for a moment – forever, his chest is now a hole, vacuumed of all feelings he holds there and he can’t remember the way he loved him so much. It’s alright; he is alive.

He tries to call him, let him know that he is fine but in his phone there are only unknowing numbers and he isn’t brave enough to face him, them, all the people he has let down – and that he can’t recall, who they are, those boys he used to call hyung? He doesn’t know and he feels like crying, but tears don’t come to reach his eyelids; he is ok.

He isn’t because with every heartbeat he notices how empty he is, the bits that are missing and that, until now, he thought he didn’t need, didn’t want. He does it now though; it’s too late, he can’t have what once bloomed in his chest, filling his pockets with petals that talked about him, about forever, about death; he wants it back, he wants to remember him, a face he has adored too much, he wants to be able to picture who he was the one who sowed seeds beneath his skin.

He can’t remember him, at all. He forgets him with every step away he takes and he misses something he doesn’t recognize but that tastes in his lips just right, just perfect, like coffee and flowers painted in blue and lilac and sounds like Seunghoon but he can’t be sure – but his head spins and the migraine doesn’t let him sleep. But he is alive and that’s what matters in the end, that he is here and the music swirls around him, lyrics of songs he will sing about (and he finds one in his pocket; he will produce it one day, when the weather is nice enough and he won’t be feeling this melancholy).