VI -Blue Roses

The blue rose inked in his chest stands for the impossible, for the mystery of life, for beauty that can't be contained in worlds and for him, Kim Jinwoo. He caresses the swollen skin, the remaining bits of colour that, gracefully, gives form to the embodiment of his heart and soul. It has taken him long time to decide to do it but the idea has been on his mind for months and, finally, he has found the courage to chisel out deep inside, the reflexion of what he wants; to show his true feelings – and the meaning behind the flower carved out there will remain a secret for nobody knows it, but he doesn't care; it matters to him and, in the end, that's why he has done it – because it’s important to him, because it represents what is hidden inside his mind and now it’s in the open under a veil of an enigma to them to solve. Jinwoo smiles all softly, looking fascinated at the traces over his flesh and, for just a moment his fingers glance at it as if wanting to feel it but he thinks twice and let go, hands falling to his sides and Minho's heart falls too, built anticipation shattering on the ground. However, he giggles at him adorable and tells him how beautiful the draw in his chest is and, for a moment, he feels proud of it – and he is ok even if his hands aren’t lingering over his flesh or if he has left again.

He has always known that his love was hopeless, impossible, unattainable: that he would never see him like he does; adoration filling his eyes and chest contracted, strangling ribs and his heart throwing in pangs of trembling beats. He knows it all very well, he thinks, the blue rose pressed between his fingers as the only proof he needs, telling him the truth that he has always been certain about: Jinwoo is totally out of his reach, that he will never love him back as he wants – that, for him Minho is only a friend even when he dreams about it, it’s something that merely lives in his imagination, unreal like Jinwoo’s beauty and kindness.

The rose is so beautiful lying dead in his palm, cerulean hues are painting it like a sky and its smells strangely like him too – like spring and something new, - even when he has coughed it with blood and tears; sweat covering his forehead and falling down from his eyes. It hurts; loving him was easy before, sweet and lonely: his core shaking with every glance of his eyes but now, with the embodiment of his affection blooming in his chest, covering all the holes in between bones and veins with soft blue petals and thorns that scratch his skin every time he breathes his name in loving him has turned up into pain and drops, a curse when it was always been a blessing – considering that his mere name made him happy.

He can't stop it – this love that knows only how to grow, invading all the hollowed bits inside his ribs, in between his flesh – and so he stops staying with him, he doesn’t talk or breathes next to him because it causes him suffer, it's anguish and the ache is more than he can take and Jinwoo revolving around him is only messing with his feelings, rooting these flowers deep inside his body; it makes it hard to just being – Jinwoo has permanently been his healing, his smile taking away all the sorrows and regrets.

He wants to die; loving Jinwoo is too painful now but, again, he is engraved in his flesh, he lives under his thorax (has always been, since that instant he first lied his eyes on his beautiful laugh and his hands had removed the stains of his torn soul, he has felt for him then and never would he dare to let go: Jinwoo is all he wants and needs; it hurts so much, flowers that tumble from his lips and revolves in the air, painting the room in azure and cobalt, tinting the floor like watercolours splashed on a canvas, a cerulean painting that he steps over to smash these petals that have altered what was once just pure delight and simple affection, simple in a way that it has never caused him troubles to breathe, vines entwined around his heart).

He can't do it anymore. He doesn't want to, though, but the aftertaste of a kiss that is only made out of soft petals that resemble his lips is way too much to take it and Minho thinks that this, his love, is better if forgotten (in the end is useless, he can't even write a song out of it and he can't stand to witness the sadness that turmoil in Jinwoo's eyes whenever he parts ways with him, trying so hard to ignore him, to get over him (but he can only feel an infinite misery, sadness covering his orbs whenever Jinwoo’s touches die in the tin air instead of over his shoulders, he needs him, to be lost in his stare, to listen to the joy that exists in his laugh). He misses him like crazy, more than enable to express, but he is doing it for the best – to put an end to this torment. He makes an internal vow that it will only take a few weeks, a month at most and then it will all be as if it never happened; as if he never woke up at night throwing up flowers that scratched his throat like knives. Nothing will matter and everything will be over, just a game, a reset, a halt on his endless love for Jinwoo. But the flowers keep on coming out of him like a blushing spring: the petals fall from his open mouth in a swirl of blue.

And he thinks he should stop it (but how can love be stopped? He wonders as he stares at the petals piled in the palm of his hand. They are beautiful as much as he is, soft and perfect, coloured in shades that aren’t real in this earth, unique and special there is no wonder that they epitomize him so impeccably; he feels pity when he throws them to the bin because don't they represent Jinwoo, the love he has for him? Aren’t all these petals his name engraved in his soul?). He should do it – because the ache lingering in his chest burns and combust as if germinating them with warm and pain – but there is only one way to erase the flowery trace of the petals coming up from his neck, tickling his tongue; one and only method and he is scared of it – he has never been the bravest one to begging with and the idea of losing him in a vacuum of nothing and blackness, a starless night where Jinwoo’s face won’t be able to shine, losing him into a void of nothingness since Jinwoo is his everything, his universe, all he can see hurts more than anything, more than these roses blooming inside him, using his tears and every beat of his heart to grow up, watering them with pain and suffering and his name whispered between pillows, suffocated; he doesn't want to put an end to his love, to forget that, once, he adored someone so much that flowers, navy and cerulean roses, bloomed deep inside, digging their roots in his blood –; he can't say goodbye to all the memories he holds on so dearly, he can't let him go because Jinwoo is the person for whom he is who he is now: he has crafted him with his thoughtfulness, his beloved smile, with all the words and the laughs, with all the songs he sang and the games shared in between six years together; he is unable to step out but he knows that he has to let it go or he will perish with thorns clawing and ripping his skin, blooming from a red pool next to him, he can't stay still forever, waiting for a miracle that will never come - God won't help him even if every night he prays, kneeling in silence in his room, asking for a wonder to kill the flowers with one stare filled with something more than friendship and sympathy that is now falling apart because his mere presence makes the petals swirl up like butterflies twisting inside his stomach, itching and scratching, a pain that brings his dazzlingly face with every throb it takes; Jinwoo is only a dear memory, he wants to think while avoiding him, seeking refugee inside his sacred room where he can’t step in).

The room is white and clean; the smell of antiseptics and ammoniac stuff his nose and he swallow it (three red pills that taste like fire, burning his inside with flames, leaving behind ashes that he will cough later, next morning). It feels strange but he breathes in, inhaling all the smoke that is fuming from his chest; he closes his eyes and comes back to sleep, hoping that tomorrow this futile pain will be done, that the cuts in between his rips, the scorching over his liver and lungs will end and all the roses will be death for real (he hopes to expel them soon, when the sun is up and he will be alone in this hospital room). He coughs and the flowers that come up with it are dried and, when he pressed them between his fingers they turn into blue dust he blows away.

It takes four days but Minho feels good again, he doesn't feel anything special (he doesn't feel anything, his heart has been emptied of any emotion with every gulped contraceptive he has taken, there is nothing inside of him but the tickling sensation of something beautiful, something he should remember but its name it’s only on the tip of his tongue, unable to say it, unable to review it and he feels melancholic, as if an autumn leaf). He coughs a bit again but, this time nothing comes up and he smiles, happy, content – his heart skips a bit that tastes familiar, a wordless face blurred.

There is a blue rose embroiled in his chest and, fascinated, he caresses it, looking at the reflexion in the mirror, hiding in the bathroom, exposing his flesh and revealing all the ink he has; he recognizes the calligraphy that traces words in his shoulders, the inside down crown under his rips, near his hip, the yellow ribbon in his arm that stands in support to all tragedies in the world, the "oxygen" that comes across his thorax and swings air in. He remembers them all but not that colourful stain on his shoulder; he touches it and sighs in disbelieve, a myriad of stars falling from his eyes that he can’t contain nor understand.

When he wakes up the next day there is someone sitting next to his bed. He has his eyelids halfway closed, long eyelashes shadowing his face, playing with the sunlight. His hair is scattered over his features, pale skin and rosebud lips that, glossed, shines. For some reason he wants to kiss him, appealed (his hollowed chest explodes in delight, fireworks in a night sky, at the sight of this strange man that means something he can’t catch up; a bugging sensation telling Minho that he knows that he is a dear person to him but he can't figure out who he is, why he is there, why he seems to care about him, his hands a centimetre away from his). He lets him sleep, contemplating all his factions, all that there is to be seen about him (and everything is so beautiful, his hands want for nothing but to touch him, draw him on the ceiling, embroil him inside his eyes; it's all impossible but, at the same time, fascinating, mysterious, there is no way Minho can resist the temptation, the urge to fall for him). He kisses, stealthily, his smooth forehead, the skin warm under his lips and wishes for him to have sweet dreams – as sweet as he is, head tilting and parted rims that are pinkish and gleaming, appealing him to kiss them and verify if they taste like cherries.  

Jinwoo has been there, in his new, vacuity life, for two days now but Minho is totally sure that he is in love; familiar and comfortable, he feels as if knowing him since forever and he is sure that he wants to be by his side constantly too. His hands entangled and his head resting on the rose that he has (and that it has become to have a meaning that it's only Jinwoo, his heart beating in agreement, flashes that make sense and that carry the significance behind it; love, impossible, beauty and him), flocks of soft brown falling, covering his chest. When Jinwoo smiles the world stops spinning and Minho finds that breathing is easier, that the emptiness, the coldness left behind by the pills are dissipating, like clouds after a storm; the fog is dispelling and he feels relieved, he feels loved.

Jinwoo curls up around him and kisses his pinkish hair with so much care, so much affection that he warms up as if heated, his skin burning.

"You are so beautiful," he murmurs and his words travel down his spine, nestling inside his mind, taking his soul away. He blushes hard and he smirks at him adorable. "Minho, Song Minho, I thought I lost you. It took me so long to realize what was wrong but now I'm sure" he says, gently, his fingers brushing his forehead, his lips an inch away from his cheeks and the breeze that comes from them blows over his skin; his heart awaits, excited (aching in a way he should remember, building castle up in the air and it's all way too familiar but he can't name it; he only knows that he has been waiting for this even without knowing, that he has forgotten it but the sentiment has stayed with him, pressed inside his heart like dried petals tinted in gentle hues of blue) "I love you and I'm sorry, so sorry to force you to undergo all this pain, all this suffering" there is something wetting his hands and, when he looks up, from his stunning, soft, brown eyes, tears are falling down. He rushes to take them away, sweeping them as they slide over his cheekbones.

He loves him too. He loves him back and all the pain he can’t remember feeling waves back but this time it’s just a memory that shakes his core for a moment before pulling away, leaving traces of something intimate, required.

Minho cradles his face, lovingly, his eyes staring into his, absorbing him all before parting his lips to give away his first, real kiss.

"I might have forgotten your name but I always knew that I loved you, that it has to be you, Jinwoo".

The blue rose tattoo shakes when Jinwoo kisses it devotedly, finally understanding what it stands there: for him alone.