Yubin hated flowers.

 

She hated flowers, and no matter how often she was asked for a reason, Yubin never elaborated on why. After being met with enough resistance, her members eventually dropped the subject of her seemingly odd aversion.

 

She knew their curiosity would not be so easily quelled, but even then, she refused to answer honestly.

 

(Once they knew the answer, they wouldn’t stop bugging her about the real problem, Yubin knew this to be true. She figured it was for the best to keep shut in the meantime.)

 

The first time she got it - Yubin thought back - had to be during MINX. She was hardly seventeen, nothing but a baby-faced rookie hoping to make it big in the idol scene. Six years later, she was a very different person, but she still had held onto that dream - and the memories stuck in her head, clear as day.

 

Yubin may have changed as a person, but if there was anything that truly remained constant in her life, it was Minji’s eternal kindness.

 

If memory served her well enough, the five of them decided to spend their off-day together in one of Seoul’s less prolific arcades on a sunny April afternoon. Well, ‘the five of them’ was a bit of a stretch. Bora and Siyeon were too busy competing with each other to really pay attention to anything other than the arcade machines - and Yoohyeon… well, that girl was a dedicated gamer if Yubin ever saw one.

 

If there was one thing that had never changed about Yubin, it was her homebody tendencies. She felt so terribly out of place in such a loud, chaotic environment. It was common knowledge at that point that Yubin would much rather be reading a book in bed, or listening to music at her own leisure in the dorms. Yet, she was somehow powerless to resist Yoohyeon’s pleading puppy eyes - so there she was, alone, completely out of her element and overwhelmed by the abundance of rapid stimuli.

 

Or so she thought, anyhow. Minji, bless her kind soul, had been the one to stick with her the entire day. The older woman didn’t necessarily show her caring nature with large gestures - she was more suited to niceties than she was to the big picture. No, Minji’s style of caregiving was so precisely nuanced to her members’ each and every need, and Yubin really admired that.

 

Minji was incredibly attentive to Yubin throughout the entire day, to the point where the younger idol almost felt bad for hogging their leader all to herself - but Minji, the angel she was, insisted that it was quite alright.

 

At some point, Yubin felt a tickle in her chest, and what an odd sensation it was - almost bordering on some miserable mix of a cough and a sneeze - but she was quick to dismiss the anomaly. Out of all the possibilities, Yubin had ruled out all but two likely conclusions; either it was a flutter of sentimentality from the butterflies stirring in her stomach, or that allergy season was well upon them.

 

(Oh, how Yubin wished it was just some dumb allergy.)

 

That was not the last time she would feel that tickle in her chest. That much was guaranteed by the time she coughed up her first blood-speckled petal of pastel yellow. It was easy enough to hide from her members, but the company….not so much. Within weeks of the disease appearing, she was given explicit, albeit discreet orders to surgically remove the infection. Yubin was an obedient idol by all means, but Happyface had scheduled the surgery without even asking for her opinion. Still, she didn’t think much of it, at the time.

 

(Getting the surgery in the idol industry was and still continued to be quite a controversial topic, both among fans and entertainers alike. The procedure permanently removed those budding feelings of love, and many believed that was morally unjust and unfair to the idols. Diseased idols, however, were not cash cows to exploit when compared to their much healthier counterparts, and it was a quick fix to keep that money in companies’ pockets. Thus, the surgery was likely going to stay as standard procedure for most of the entertainment industry.)

 

The surgery itself was hardly pleasant, but at least it was a quick affair. Yubin disliked the odd emptiness she felt in her heart - the utter lack of feeling whenever she looked at Minji, but Yubin supposed she preferred that emptiness to a full garden in her lungs.

 

Over time, she must have gotten used to that emptiness. It became second-nature, and soon enough, Yubin was back to some semblance of normalcy. If Minji noticed a change in attitude from the youngest, she certainly didn’t bring it up.

 

Yubin supposed it had been nearing a year free of any feelings for their leader when life started to go wrong once again. Mere weeks before their promotions for Love Shake, that odd tickling feeling manifested in her chest again.

 

It was with a twisted mix of tears and blood-spattered flowers in the Inkigayo bathroom toilet, and silent sobs fueling the dread pooling in her stomach, that Yubin realized.

 

Like an infected wound, the hanahaki affliction festered in her chest as if it had never left.

 

---

 

Over the years, it more or less became a routine for Yubin.

 

Fall in love with Minji. Let the flowers blossom in her chest. Get the surgery.

 

Rinse and repeat.

 

The first few times she completed the cycle, Yubin felt like crying. The surgeries were far from painless, and the recovery period left her body weak - feeble, even. But comparable still was the pain that rooted in her lungs as she continued to fall in love with Minji, again and again. It was a vicious cycle, and a never-ending one at that.

 

Six years later, and Yubin still felt like crying - just for a different reason.

 

(“Yubin-ssi, it’s time for your doctor’s appointment. The car is ready for you,” their manager would say. Sometimes it would be after practice, but she wasn’t always so lucky with their schedules.)

 

The numbness she felt now compared to the pain of back then was almost worse. She supposed the pain never left, but Yubin got used to it. She was sure she’d be crazy for thinking so, but the dulled sting of the hanahaki almost felt good to her. In some morbidly intriguing way, she somewhat garnered an understanding for the poor fellows that hurt themselves to feel again - not that she would ever admit that out loud, lest she be removed from the girls who were her family, complete with her would-be murderer and object of affections, Kim Minji.

 

They would take her away from Minji, and Yubin wouldn’t be able to handle that. She’d rather die, even if Minji was her killer.

 

She would gladly die at Minji’s hands.

 

(There was always a part of Yubin that wanted to refuse - to just let the hanahaki take her life. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, this cycle of surgeries would not be a permanent fix to the problem. But Yubin was nothing if not an obedient idol. “I understand,” she would answer like clockwork, because that’s what an obedient idol would say.)

 

Her love for Minji - and her festering disease caused by it - were secrets that Yubin eventually realized she’d likely be taking to the grave, sooner or later - both figuratively and literally.

 

She would be lying if the thought of writing Minji a letter at the very least didn’t cross her mind. But despite her confidence in her abilities as a lyricist, she just couldn’t commit to it. Even if she could put down the right words to paper, Yubin figured she’d die of embarrassment before the hanahaki would even have an opportunity to take her life.

 

And yet, she didn’t want Minji to live without some sort of closure… even if the older idol continued to be oblivious about Yubin’s tragic pining.

 

(Was it selfish that Yubin wanted to take Minji with her into the afterlife? She constantly pondered this, and struggled to come to a coherent answer every time.)

After countless tears, countless meltdowns, wasted words and crumpled sheets of ripped up paper - Yubin finally came to a conclusion that satisfied her agony, if only a temporary solution to her chronic madness:

 

If she couldn’t take Minji with her when death would inevitably come to claim her, Yubin would do everything in her power to stay alive, instead. To stay with Minji, she would do anything. Even if it meant enduring a miserable existence in which her decaying body was only kept afloat by the flowers in her weakening lungs.

 

No matter what it took, Yubin would stay with Minji until the bitter end.

 

(Of course, that was easier said than done, but Yubin was willing to try, regardless.)

 

---

 

So, maybe Yubin was starting to think that a unit stage with Minji was a mistake.

 

Scratch that, she knew a unit stage with Minji was a mistake. But when they had been discussing special stages for the online concert, Minji had almost immediately picked out Yubin, and the younger idol couldn’t exactly say no to their leader.

 

The actual concert itself wasn’t the problem. Far from it, in fact - as she and Minji performed Full Moon, it allowed Yubin to believe, if only for a few minutes, that the older idol felt something more for her than mere friendship, even if it was only a self-indulgent illusion of hers. There was no way in hell that Minji actually loved her; her expressive acting was nothing more than that - acting. 

 

(Minji was very good at that. In a way, so was Yubin.)

 

It was little more than wishful thinking and glorified lying, but at the very least, it eased the dull ache of numbness in her chest.

 

Temporarily.

 

No, the issue came after the concert. Mere hours after the concert, to be precise. The rest of the girls continued their celebrations of a successful set well into the early morning, but Yubin decided she just wanted to get some rest. Maybe it was the constant surgeries, but lately, her body felt awfully weak.

 

Some sleep should hopefully fix that, she found herself thinking. Whether or not that was something she actually believed, or if it was just a lie she was trying to convince herself of, Yubin did not know.

 

That night, Yubin did not end up sleeping much at all. Rather, she spent it in the bathroom, knelt over the toilet as her feeble body shuddered, cultivating a new arrangement of yellow roses in the water.

 

“It happened again, unnie,” Yubin had said on the phone the next day to their manager. Her tone sounded about as deathly numb as she felt, but if the manager could tell, she didn’t verbally acknowledge it.

 

“Okay,” the older woman replied over the line, and for a while, she didn’t say anything, to the point where Yubin thought she might’ve already hung up - only for the manager to speak up once more. “I’ve scheduled for the earliest available slot, but we can’t you to the hospital until after the jacket shooting is over.”

 

That isn’t so bad, Yubin had thought to herself at the time, and she bid the manager farewell before ending the call with a sigh.

 

That’s what she thought before they had reached the filming location for the jacket shooting, at least. The car ride over, Yubin hummed softly to herself along with whatever was playing on the radio. She didn’t pay attention to what song it was, but in the back of her mind, she thought it sounded nice.

 

(Minji would like this, she thought to herself.)

 

She felt surprisingly okay walking with the girls to the venue, and for a blissful five minutes, she forgot about the new batch of flowers blooming in her lungs. That fake sense of solace promptly came crumbling down when they walked on-set, however. The bar - Art Monster, she vaguely remembered it being called - nearly every table, even the bar, was adorned with yellow roses as far as the eye could see. Handfuls of pastel yellow petals littered the stained wood, a sight that Yubin gradually came to resent over her years of painful acquaintance with the sunshine-hued flowers.

 

This has to be a joke, Yubin thought to herself incredulously.

 

She wanted to laugh, cry, kick and scream all at once. And yet she couldn’t. No, she wouldn’t - because that would mean the girls finding out. Finding out about her chronic struggle with those godforsaken roses being curated in her chest like some funeral bouquet.

 

(Did that mean they would bury her with a bouquet of yellow roses at her inevitable funeral? Gods, Yubin prayed they wouldn’t. She’d rather be buried with no flowers at all.)

 

And so Yubin swallowed whatever emotion fought to escape from her lips, and decided to just grin and bear it. It was only a few more hours - she could handle posing with a few dumb yellow flowers until it was time to have her chest cut open again.

 

With some sick, twisted satisfaction, she almost looked forward to her surgeries, now.

 

(But then again, maybe that was because having herself cut open was the only time she could feel anything anymore.)

---

 

The procedure, in all honesty, was over before Yubin even knew it. One second she was being coaxed onto the operating table; the next, she was coming to, all sore and drugged up out of her mind.

 

Today was yet another day of asking the doctors to stop giving her anesthesia for the surgery...and yet another day of them refusing her request. It just added another layer of numbness to her already present lack of feeling, which frustrated Yubin to no end. She would likely have to wait another hour or so until she'd be able to feel the soreness - the utter weakness of her body post-op. If she was lucky, the medication would wear off sooner rather than later.

 

Vaguely, Yubin could recall the brief exchange she had with her manager on the drive over to the hospital. It was an awkward one, just like all the other conversations they had during her hospital commutes.

 

("I don't know how much time I have left," Yubin had commented about ten minutes into the drive, in an attempt to disrupt the silent tension that permeated through the car. "It probably isn't very long until I….you know."

 

The manager didn't reply for several seconds, but Yubin eventually saw the older woman open in the rear view mirror. "Have you at least considered telling her, Yubin-ah? You know Minji will be crushed, if you...pass. I'm not sure how well she'd handle finding out the reason why."

 

"I have considered it," Yubin hummed noncommitally, resting the side of her head on her palm. "Every time I try though, I end up chickening out at the last second. So I probably won't," she shrugged, giving off the appearance of being unbothered by her predicament. "Maybe I should just let it kill me. What's the point of prolonging my life when these surgeries hardly even help?"

 

Either the manager didn't have an answer for Yubin, or she didn't want to say it out loud. The two of them fell back into an equally uncomfortable silence, and Yubin didn't dare to open again for the duration of the car ride.)

 

"Ms. Lee," A voice interrupted her thoughts, causing Yubin to sluggishly lift her head in its general direction. After several moments, recognition flashed across her face as she identified it to be one of the hospital's surgeons from earlier. "You're free to leave, now. I was informed that a colleague of yours has arrived to you home."

 

Colleague was a bit of a peculiar way to refer to Yubin's manager, but the young idol didn't think much of it, simply nodding in a dismissive manner and watching as the surgeon took his leave.

 

Much to Yubin's surprise (and dread), she was not greeted with the face of her manager once the visitor was allowed into the room. Even before taking off the white mask that obscured most of her facial features, Yubin could tell it was Minji. She couldn't say she felt terribly excited to see the older woman, after everything.

 

(The last person she wanted to see, in fact. It felt like God just loved to play one sick trick on her after another, this week.)

 

"Why are you here?" Yubin asked in a blunt tone, letting her head fall back to the pillow with a barely audible sigh. "Aren't you supposed to be practicing?"

 

"I'm here to take you home," Minji responded, if a bit defensively, crossing her arms. "Practice ended hours ago. Which you weren't at, by the way," she pointed out in what almost seemed like an accusatory manner, but Yubin's mind was too clouded by the medication to really decipher the intent of the older woman's words. "So, were you going to keep this a secret, too? The surgeries."

 

Yubin finally turned her head to actually look at Minji, pointedly avoiding the latter question. "You don't have to pick me up, you know. That's what the manager is for," she commented bitterly, inwardly wincing when an expression of hurt briefly flashed across Minji's features. No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn't control the words coming from . "I'm sure you're busy enough as it is."

 

Their conversation didn't continue any further, after that. If the car ride to the hospital with their manager had been uncomfortable, then the drive back to the dorms with Minji was downright awkward.

 

Not for the first time, Yubin was glad to have a room to herself when they arrived back at the dorms. Had she still shared a room with Siyeon and Minji, Yubin was positive she'd be met with an interrogation of sorts from the older members.

 

I really don't have much time left, Yubin thought to herself. It had been merely a handful of hours, and those damned flowers were already starting to grow back.

 

Maybe I should tell Minji after all, she pondered, resting her head in defeat on the wooden desk. Is it too late to write an apology?

 

---

 

As it turned out, Yubin couldn't bring herself to write that apology after all.

 

All week, Yubin avoided Minji like the plague, in an attempt to delay the spread of her hanahaki affliction. On the occasions she couldn't evade group schedules, she took to minimizing their interactions. She figured the less exposure she had to Minji, the less amount of surgeries she would have to inevitably undergo.

 

Granted, that approach worked better in theory than it did in reality. Given their job, Yubin would have to see Minji and interact with her eventually - there was no avoiding her in the practice room, much to the younger idol’s dismay. Every little part of being an idol Yubin was beginning to detest, rather than love, like she used to.

 

Truth be told, she gave quite a bit of thought to the consideration of just...not going to practice. After all, her body was growing more feeble by the day - she could barely run through one choreographed song without feeling totally winded, which is why she appreciated that Dear was the other song they were promoting, since it required little to no physical tenure - but she had already skipped practice a few days ago. The last thing she wanted was to bring the other girls down due to being too sloppy in her own efforts on stage.

 

Thus, it was with a heavy heart that Yubin begrudgingly climbed into the company van, infinitely glad that they were split up according to age - which meant a reprieve from seeing Minji, although it would only last for a few minutes. She’d have to face the older woman eventually, she knew, but the company of Yoohyeon and Gahyeon was much more bearable.

 

Not a sentiment I’d normally find comfort in, Yubin mused silently to herself, but it’s better than the alternative. Gahyeon and Yoohyeon are perceptive, but they know when to leave me alone, at least.

 

She once more plugged her headphones in, spending her precious alone time trying to immerse herself in her own world for a little while. The low-tempo hum of R&B filtered through her speakers, Bibi’s just slightly raspy timbre whispering to Yubin like music to her ears. The gritty texture of her vocal tone bordered on out-of-tune, but the young idol found that she quite liked it. Before she knew it, Yubin was unlocking her phone to save the song to one of her playlists.

 

“I’m good at goodbyes,” she murmured the title aloud to herself.

 

“Did you say something, Yubin-ah?” Yoohyeon suddenly chimed in, bringing the rapper out of her stupor. “Something the matter?”

 

Yubin shook her head, managing a neutral expression. “Everything’s fine,” she replied, loud enough for the older idol to hear. Yoohyeon looked like she wanted to inquire further, but the younger’s demeanor made it clear that Yubin wasn’t in the mood for conversation, so she dropped the issue altogether.

 

Though their commute to the dance studio continued in silence, Yubin was plenty talkative in her own head. As if in a trance, she copied a link to the song and found herself opening her list of contacts to locate Minji and hers’ last conversation - Yubin found herself inwardly cringing at her obvious avoidance of the older idol. Minji’s last message was time-stamped over a week ago - Yubin never claimed to be terribly adept at maintaining conversation, but her dismissal of their leader’s concerned messages was abysmal conduct, even by her standards.

 

This entire time, I’ve been trying to find the words to tell you, when someone’s already written them better than I ever could, Yubin lamented, pasting the link into the text window, thumb hovering over the send button. I don’t claim to be good at goodbyes, but maybe you’ll understand, unnie. You at least deserve this much.

 

A single tear trickled down her cheek.

 

You don’t know it yet, but I’ll have to part with you soon, she lamented. Even in the end, I still manage to be a total coward, hiding behind someone else’s heartfelt message…

 

She finally pressed send.

 

I’m sorry, Minji.

 

---

 

Somehow, it hurt more to see Minji in person than it did to think about her, as she tended to do every minute of the day, for the past six years.

 

(Or maybe it was the throb of the yellow bouquet of death cutting into her airway - she could no longer distinguish between the emotional hurt and the physical pain.)

 

Without a second thought spared for those damned roses, Yubin went to set her bag down in the corner, paying no further attention to any of the members, or the staff members, for that matter. If she wanted to make it through practice in one piece today, it would take every ounce of her concentration. And yet despite that, the weight on her chest made it hard to breathe.

 

The more she thought about it, though, it wasn’t just her chest that hurt. She had acutely adjusted to the numbness that was a common feeling for her, but if she really focused, there was a dull ache that spanned the entirety of her body. Her limbs felt reminiscent of lead, as if every move that was usually executed with a nimble sense of grace was instead reduced to an infuriating sluggishness. Yubin would almost liken it to being trapped in a drunken stupor, despite an obviously sober consciousness commandeering her peculiarly clear mind. But if her thoughts maintained the clarity of spring water, then every other part of her was tainted in a murky sludge that just wouldn’t come off.

 

(Yubin was quick to blame the pain meds that she was given too often post-surgery, because there came to be a point in which she was nearly dependent on their numbing effects - but the more rational part of her knew that the problem lay with the excessive surgeries, instead. Clay in its purest form naturally held together as intended, but once subjected too many times to being reformed and molded into different shapes, it too was quick to break apart at the slightest touch. Yubin, not unsimilarly, might as well have been a living rendition of Frankenstein with how often she was cut open and stitched back together.)

 

Honestly, the practice room was quickly becoming one of Yubin’s least favorite places to be. The mirrors flanking the walls forced her to acknowledge how obvious it was that she was on the verge of falling apart at the seams. Everything from her discolored skin, to her sunken eyes and cheeks, finally to how her skin practically hung off a wiry frame of bones, it was a glaring reminder of her severely declining health. From the bottom of her heart, she thanked every god above that none of the members made any comments about her decidedly...lackluster appearance. Rifling through her bag, Yubin snatched up her practice outfit and trudged to the bathroom so she could change.

 

After closing the door and making sure she wouldn’t be disturbed for at least a little while, Yubin finally relaxed enough to let out a pent-up breath, gripping the hem of her shirt and lifting it over her head. She stared in the mirror at her mostly bare torso. grew tight at the sight of it, though she wasn’t sure if it was due to her own appearance, or if it was a new assortment of flowers clawing their way up her trachea.

 

Though her bra obscured some of it, the pinkened scars from her countless surgeries were plenty visible against her discolored skin. However, the criss-cross of hardly sealed, uneven ridges wasn’t what caught her attention. Instead, her focus was stolen by the appearance of a thin stencil of cracks that ran from the base of her neck down to the edge of her ribcage. Idly, she noted that the pattern seemed to mimic the roots of a blossoming plant.

 

She didn’t have very much time to ogle at the odd markings, however, as a new burning in captured her attention, and it wasn’t long before she was leaning over the sink, gagging and retching uncontrollably. Black spots danced in Yubin’s vision as she desperately tried to expel the flowers dredged up in her airway, until she finally watched the clump of crimson-soaked petals fall into the otherwise-pristine basin. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the putrid smell. That’s a lot of blood.

 

Usually, she would only cough up one rose, maybe two - but no matter how hard Yubin tried to get rid of the suffocating pressure in , more flowers took their place. Her vision was starting to fail her, but there was no mistaking the absolute mess of ensanguined petals cultivating themselves in the sink - and now on the counter. Above the roar in her ears as she choked on the thorny plants, Yubin could vaguely register the sound of the door swinging open to her right.

 

I thought I locked the door..?

 

She didn’t have the time to contemplate her lapse in memory, however, and she failed to get a good look at the apparent intruder, no thanks to her spotted vision. The last thing she registered was the familiar call of ”Yubin!” before her head thudded against the porcelain sink and everything went black.

 

---

 

“Is she awake yet?”

“Even if she is, Ms. Lee is in no shape to be doing much else besides rest. Have you administered the anesthesia yet?”

Voices, she thought to herself sluggishly. All I can hear are voices.

 

“Yes, it should have kicked in already. Her vitals seem stable, for now, at least…”

 

Where am I?

 

Most of her senses weren’t exactly functional at the moment, but Yubin could feel the numbness in her bones - although she supposed that meant she wasn’t feeling anything in the first place. She felt light as a feather, floating on cloud nine, yet also heavy as cinder blocks weighing her down to the bottom of Han River all at once. Merely opening her eyes took more effort than she was willing to admit, and she was just as quick to close them when the fluorescent lighting overhead burned and blinded her tired retinas. The ache was stronger in her chest and than anywhere else in her body, but she dismissed it without a second thought.

 

A few seconds later, she decided to try and open her eyes again, this time forcing herself to adjust to the brightness of the room. The lack of color on the pallid walls was a tad disorienting, but Yubin supposed she preferred that to an oversaturated paint job. Blinking away her soreness, she was met with two unfamiliar faces in easily recognizable white coats - they were surgeons, no doubt about it. In the corner of her eye, she swore she saw a third figure dozing off in the visitor’s chair. Who could that be?

 

(Yubin thought it weird that she didn’t recognize them - she’d been operated on by nearly every practicing hanahaki specialist in the entirety of Seoul - but her brain didn’t have enough processing power at the moment to ponder the issue any further.)

 

“Oh, you’re awake,” the taller surgeon prompted, which took Yubin’s focus away from the third occupant of the room and directing it towards him instead. She squinted at his nametag, barely able to make out the thinly-printed font that read Kim Hansol. Dr. Kim cleared his throat, kneeling beside her hospital bed. “You were in critical condition for a little while, but we managed to remove the flowers in time… how are you feeling?”

 

“Weak,” Yubin mumbled, voice gravelly and scratchy from a lack of use. “Throat...hurts.”

 

“That’s normal,” the second surgeon chimed in, crossing the room to enter something into her chart on the computer at the desk. “It is my understanding that your body has developed a bit of a...unique immunity to the hanahaki surgery, is that correct?” He paused, waiting for her nod before continuing. “Dr. Kim and I are going to meet with your company representative and some of our specialists to determine a course of action for you, Ms. Lee. The infection has become beyond hazardous to your health, which is why we are trying to resolve this as soon as possible.” The surgeon, whose name she didn’t catch, eventually got up from his seat. “Ms. Kim is here to assist you in the meantime. We’ll be back to check on you in a little while, alright?” He and Dr. Kim took turns bowing to the younger idol, before finally leaving the room.

 

Yubin watched them depart, and finally turned her attention to the only other person in the room. She was expecting it to be a member of hospital staff, or maybe one of the company’s managers - but was instead met with Minji. Despite the lack of feeling that permeated her frail body, Yubin felt her chest tighten at the sight of the older idol. “Unnie?”

 

“Yubin- gods, you’re finally awake,” Minji blurted out, abruptly shooting to her feet. Yubin found it admittedly difficult to really focus on the taller woman’s fast-approaching form, but she could at least recognize Minji’s voice easily enough. “You… you had me really worried,” she admitted with an expression that the younger couldn’t quite decipher. “Are you feeling alright?”

Yubin opted to shrug, letting her head drop back against the hardly comfortable pillow of the hospital bed. She held eye-contact with Minji for a few more moments, before directing her gaze to stare at the bleak, white ceiling. “Can’t feel much,” she mumbled, fingers lightly twitching. “How ‘m I supposed to feel?”

 

Perhaps as expected, Minji didn’t have a response to that. From her peripheral view, she could see the dark haired idol walk away from the bed. Oh, she thought, feeling a slight weight of disappointment settle over her, only to wince as the sound of the chair dragging noisily across the linoleum floor grated on her ears. Glancing back over, she was surprised to find Minji sitting maybe a foot away from her bed.

 

“How long?” Minji asked, voice toned in a familiar sort of quiet; barely above a whisper, but Yubin could hear her clearly. “Is this… When did it start?”

 

“Short answer or long answer?” Yubin prompted dryly, relaxing against the mattress. “Don’t wanna bore you with the details.”

 

Minji shook her head. “Please just answer the question, Yubin.”

 

“Hm… when did it start, indeed?” She mused out loud to herself. Her fingers twitched as she tried to silently count on her hand how long she had been hopelessly in love with their leader. “Five? No… it was definitely six.”

 

“Five...six, what? Months?”

 

“Gods, I ing wish,” Yubin snorted, closing her eyes with a sigh. “Years. Guess it started back in MINX.” Minji opened to respond, but the younger idol kept talking instead, leaving no room for commentary from the older woman. “It didn’t used to be like this, unnie. I remember getting the surgery for the first time… feeling strong and healthy, but it always came back in the end. Thought it was a dumb allergy or some stupid cold at first...obviously wasn’t. I had to keep getting it removed, but it’d just grow right back!” Yubin chuckled bitterly, shaking her head. “The surgeries didn’t make me stronger, though. They made me weak, unnie. The love made me weak. All those cheesy love songs make out falling in love to be this wonderful thing, but I hated it. Made me crazy for all the wrong reasons… I wanted to stop feeling, but then I got used to that numbness, too. It made me despise the person I loved sometimes, unnie.”

 

“But-”

 

Yubin took a shaky breath, closing her eyes to try and re-compose herself. “To think that I’ll die without ever being loved,” she let out a heavy sigh and, despite her despondent demeanor, a small smile crossed her pale features. “Six years of hoping and praying and suffering just to die knowing you would never love me back, unnie… but it’s okay.”

 

“Yubin, just let me talk for- wait, what?” Minji blanched, finally processing the younger’s confession.

 

“I’ve already accepted that I’m going to die, unnie… don’t waste your breath on a patchwork corpse like me,” the blue-haired idol muttered, shaking her head again. “There’s no way you’d love someone like me, anyways.”

 

“How- how was I supposed to know if you never told me, Yubin?” Minji asked with an emotional edge to her voice, and Yubin would be lying if she said it didn’t catch her off-guard. “A-and how could you say that about you… about us, Yubin?” The younger idol pointedly avoided eye contact with Minji. “Of course I care about you… I love you!”

“No you don’t,” Yubin retorted, letting out a heavy sigh and letting her eyelids close once more. “You’re only trying to make me feel better. It’s more complicated than that. You saying you love me isn’t going to magically cure me-”

 

Yubin was surprised to feel a sudden warmth on her chapped lips, the pressure firm but not unpleasant. Her eyes fluttered open to find Minji slightly too close for comfort, and it was in that moment that Yubin realized that Kim Minji was, in fact, kissing her.

 

The kiss was admittedly sloppy, and certainly not how Yubin envisioned her first kiss to go, but in a way, it felt uniquely perfect to the younger idol. Due to her surprise, she didn’t immediately reciprocate, but the moment she returned the kiss, butterflies danced in her stomach and warmth blossomed through her entire body.

 

(Yubin much preferred that to the flowers that once inhabited her lungs, she had no problem admitting.)

 

“Do you...understand now?” Minji asks breathlessly after finally pulling away for air, wetting her slightly swollen lips with a swipe of her tongue. “Or do I need to kiss you again, ?”

 

“I can’t say I really understand why,” Yubin responded dryly, before her expression turned a tad cheeky. “I don’t know, maybe another kiss would help, unnie.”

 

Minji rolled her eyes, but obliged her nonetheless. The second kiss was softer than the first - more tender, soft as feathers - not like the previous touch of their lips, which reminded Yubin of a more velvety texture. “There isn’t much to exactly understand, Yubin-ah. You said it yourself… Love makes you crazy, sometimes for all the wrong reasons. But I’m glad you at least told me while you’re living, breathing… not from a post-mortem apology letter while you’re six feet underground.”

 

“I wanted to tell you,” Yubin admitted quietly, doing her best to make room for Minji to lie down beside her. “But I was scared. Scared you’d hate me… scared you’d let them take me away from everyone.”

 

Minji didn’t exactly know how to respond to the confession, so she settled for giving Yubin chaste kisses across her features instead. Her expression softened as she briefly pulled away to take in the younger idol’s peaceful, albeit slightly guilty expression. “I’m sorry I put you through so much pain, Yubin-ah… I wish I could take it back.”

 

“You don’t need to,” Yubin mumbled simply, a gentle smile crossing her countenance. “I would live through all of it if it meant I would finally get you to love me back… and I don’t regret falling in love with you, either.”

 

Minji was comfortable to maintain the silence that soon followed Yubin’s words, and so was the younger woman. She got the feeling that words weren’t needed - just that their shared presence was enough reassurance for Yubin.

 

It was far from a perfect outcome, both of them were plenty aware - for all they knew, Yubin would potentially never make a full recovery from the damage done by the hanahaki in her lungs. Likewise, the excessive amount of surgeries had taken a similar toll on the idol’s body, to the point where she wasn’t even certain that she’d be able to perform like she used to.

 

But of course, love was never meant to be easy or kind to its prisoners. Love made you weak - it was a cruel mistress and once it leeched onto you like a parasite, it seldom would let go without a fight - without suffering and loss at your expense. Yubin just figured that as long as Minji was by her side, everything would be a little more okay. It wouldn’t be easy, but she had already been prepared for that possibility from the very beginning.

 

And for the first time, in six years -

 

Yubin was able to feel again.