Baby’s Breath

It starts suddenly, just like any other day: Jinwoo is playing at their home and Haute is barking, running around him as he always does, but it comes to him like a sudden rain and, soaked by it, overwhelmed, reality hits him hard, tugging his heart; all the beats that before were meaningless are blooming inside him with a new connotation. He smiles because the feeling is warm and nice and embraces him like the phantom of a summer day. It is so like him to become jealous of his own dog Jinwoo's skin playfully - he wants to do the same and the thought is just stupid but he can't help it, the image already embed in his mind and he laughs hard, giggling at it, too weird even for someone like Seunghoon.

At the beginning it's only these small petals, so little that they are nearly insignificant; he doesn't care because they are harmless, staring back at him from the end of his fingers; in a way they are pretty, white and rose, they smell like nothing but, somehow, they also remind him of Jinwoo - maybe because they are just like him, small and cute and special. He doesn’t say anything because, really, how such a little thing could kill him? He doesn’t believe in it all, so he lets it blossom while observing Jinwoo, staring at him lovingly.

It’s only when he coughs a bunch of stems string together with thousands of these little, innocent flowers, that he starts to worry about it. His chest hurts; his throat is on fire, all these little roots are getting caught in his tonsils, rasping it, scratching until it bleeds, blood dripping from his mouth, splashing against the floor. The flowers grow up wild inside him: he feels them against his ribs, brushing his bones and skin. When he breathes in the air smells like them, too; like fresh and forests and Kim Jinwoo. He loathes it. He hates what they mean – he hates that this is real, that the pain he feels is not in his head but belongs to his undying love, that these baby’s breaths are going to kill him even when they are so insignificant and tiny, like a puff of pastel colours entangled around stems so lithe that feels like paper, delicate and beautiful but dangerous nevertheless; he is now totally aware of it. He also knows why they are blooming freely in his inside and, when the realization hits him, he sighs, Haute nuzzling the pile of thrown flowers on the ground and Seunghoon wants to delete them, burn them to the core.

There is nothing to do but to stare at the result of his love, the meaning wrapped between wires and leaves entangled,  a mess of these minuscule, tiny flowers that represents what he feels, that are the embodiment of him; innocence, freedom, purity – and it’s like reading his name written on them. Seunghoon takes them out, throwing it to the bin with more fury than needed, pushing them harsh to the back; he doesn’t want them to remind him of what he cannot have – a love that, for him, is only a dream, a far away, distant star.

If he is going to die then he will do the most out of it, enjoy all the days he has left with blossoming feelings and flowers that are taking his breath away, blocking his circulatory system with those soft petals, so tiny and innocent that, at the beginning Seunghoon mistook for something innocuous but that is killing him with a smile and the perfume that he has learnt to associate with Jinwoo – in the end, these gypsophilas are the spitting image of him, what he stands for, what he is and what he means to him.

Seunghoon is not scared – he has no time for that, he has so many things to do, he wants to enjoy them all by his side, even if he doesn’t understand why, he needs to, for him it’s a must – but Jinwoo agrees and he is happy, joyful, all the delight painting his eyes bright and brown and he beams like loved – but it’s just temporary, once back home Jinwoo will parts ways and he will be missing him again, pocking flowers that are him and nothing more but a nightmare, the countdown to his end.

Jinwoo comes to his place unexpectedly taking him by surprise – Haute barks, revolving around him happily, tail waiving and waiting for him to be petted (Seunghoon’s heart breaks at the sight of Jinwoo kneeling down to play with his dog when he wants it to himself; it’s stupid and he is inane and silly, that Haute is a puppy – his own, the one he loves the most, his partner when life was sad and lonely, he chased away the sorrows with his presence only and, yet, he is going nuts because the person he is enamoured to the point to have raised flowers inside is petting him as if he cared – and that he is just acting insane.

Is then, when he pokes from the bathroom, the remaining bits of stem falling to his feed, crashing tenderly against the ground, that Jinwoo notices, his eyes staring intently at him, following the slow fall as if fascinated.

“What is this?” he asks, pointing at what has been left from the flowers he has thrown earlier, before his arrival. He looks at it with fears, his adorable eyes that are usually gentle and warm and candid are now staring harsh at something that is just a small posy lying completely defenceless as if dangerous – he would laugh at him if he wasn’t concerned about the consequences, about his secret being revealed, becoming undercover in front of the cause of it; he doesn’t want to share this load with Jinwoo; he knows that Jinwoo would try to do something, that he will drag him to the hospital to get his feelings, under the form of roots and petals and stems, removed. He can’t let it go, he can’t forget him; he would rather die (in the end this is what will happen soon).

Even someone like Jinwoo knows what does it mean to have flowers on the chest, wetting them with tears, making rain with blood that will turn into their sustenance but, unlikely he has first thought, he doesn’t force him but looks at him sadly, holding his hands in understanding. He doesn’t question him, he stays there, quiet, engulfed by silence and Jinwoo's presence that has become so reassuring, peaceful – for a moment he forgets that this might be the last moment shared with him.

“I love you,” Seunghoon says suddenly, unable to keep it forever as he wanted to. If he is going to perish soon he will go clean, he will tell him all the truths.

“So you are growing flowers for me? You shouldn’t have to go to this extend to captivate me” he jokes but his voice trembles and he hides his face in his chest, listening to the beats of his heart, accelerated, and the pounds of the flowers whenever he breathes. It’s lulling him, he knows, the sound is so relaxing, like a song that has put him to sleep before. It spanks him hard, the dullness painting his eyes when he thinks he isn’t looking – but his eyes are always on him – and he doesn’t want his pity but his love, an affection that he is sure he doesn’t retail but that he can fake for his lasts days. In the end it was Jinwoo’s idea, to stuck by his side – “it’s my fault” he has said, wrapping himself under shared blankets, his head an inch apart from his lips and his hands tickling his skin, his fantasies blooming like the gypsophila inside his system but only one of these is real and the realization hurts more than all the branches scratching his throat, the overwhelming feeling of being stuffed with flowers instead of a throbbing heart. It is ok; he lies to himself while pressing him closer, listening to the sounds of his dreams: it is ok to die today he murmurs to the night, whispering his wish to the stars that found a home under Jinwoo’s eyes. It will be alright because he is by his side.

Jinwoo moves in with him the next morning, carrying suitcases that once belonged here, putting clothes in wardrobes already filled, fighting for space with Seunghoon and Haute and Thor, who has joined the party of loud laughs and importunate yells – it’s good that Seungyoon isn’t there to nag, it’s good that they are alone by themselves so he can enjoy his company, greedy and freely. This might be his last chance. He traps him between the wall and the green grass under his feed is tickling his mind with the reveries of something new; Jinwoo stares inside his soul and he is left in awe, fascinated – the moment is broken when he starts coughing, the first flowers been pushed and his face loses all the colour; they end in the hospital, Jinwoo sitting next to him, holding his hand still.

The X-Ray reveals and portraits the forest of ghysphilias blooming inside his ribcage, entangled wires around his thoracic conduct and blooming directly through his blood, sailing like ships in an ocean of red; it’s no good news but Jinwoo gawks at the picture as if he wants to frame it; it’s dazzlingly, stunning, beautiful; it is his doing, it is the embodiment of Seunghoon’s feelings and they are so pretty, he feels touched by it, he wants to caress his inside, opening his chest and smell these baby’s breath that are taking him away, to get rid of them, uproot them from his bones, strip it and clean his system from the danger that they represent, that they are – a reminder that he is going to die soon. The flowers cover all the space in between his organs and his nerves and, the doctor explains, this will make him collapse in pain in no more than a week – two at most but his time has already an expiration date.

Jinwoo feels it, hitting him like a revelation, like something new that he can’t name even when it settles into his heart, sneaking in like a secret; the beauty of a garden that is bathed with his light and tears, a wonderful thing that belongs to Seunghoon’s pure and honest emotions and feelings and it nestles in him like something unknown but pleasant, bubbling and soft.

“I wish I could save you” Jinwoo weeps this night, his eyes softly crying, wetting his shirt – he doesn’t mind because he has him pressed down, his lips kissing his chest and his hands are caressing his hair, telling him that everything will be alright.

“It’s ok hyung, it’s not your fault as much as you want it to be” he explains, a reassuring smile that Jinwoo can’t see because he is hiding, not strong enough to face the truth; this is his last night.

“I could have loved you,” he says, slowly and desperate, all his emotions showing up, the regrets from not being able to love him back the way he deserves, the way he wants to obligate him to, untangling his body from Seunghoon, pinning on top of him. His eyes hold something unreadable, a determination, a fire gleaming like fireworks. He kisses him then; Jinwoo’s lips aren’t gently against his, dominance and passionate, exploring tenaciously his inside, when they part - his face is scarlet and his breathe is agitated, his chest pumping up and down arrhythmic; Jinwoo looks like a mess, an adorable, perfect, blushed mess and Seunghoon wants to laugh because he glances at him with so much seriousness: as if a matter of life or death.

There is a lonely petal stuck in between his lips and Seunghoon rushes to take it away from him – his fingers long to touch his skin and Jinwoo melts under the brush, fingertips smoothing his cheeks warmly.

Jinwoo kisses him again. And then again. And again. Softly and carefully, pouring all his love into it. He likes it, how Seunghoon allows him, how his hands fit perfectly, how he makes his heart tremble and shake in content, awaking in him emotions that are unfamiliar but have his name engraved.

Seunghoon wakes up next morning breathing in just air – Jinwoo by his side, kissing the hollow space in his neck, saying sweet nothing to his ear filled with something more than just friendship.