* Countdown;

Peony roses stay beautiful, dried dead or breathing and alive.

                “What are these flowers called?” A ten-year-old boy asked his best friend, holding onto the other’s hand as he points at a scrub of rose-like flowers. They smell like roses, and they look a little bit like roses, but they’re not – they’re not really roses. They don’t seem to fit. Byun Baekhyun, a boy grown with quandary all around him, just couldn’t stop asking himself questions relating to…practically everything that he sees.

                “These?” A denser, deeper voice of a fifteen-year-old teenager replied. Baekhyun tilted his head and watched his best friend, Cho Kyuhyun, who only smiled and reached over to pick out one of the flowers that were recently planted into his backyard. Baekhyun’s lips broke into a smile as soon as Kyuhyun kneeled down and slipped a rose behind his ear. “These are called Peony Roses. You see the color of it? It’s called coral. Any flower that has this color, especially Peony Roses, stays beautiful even if they were dead.” Kyuhyun explained, his hand moving up to ruffle the younger boy’s hair. Baekhyun couldn’t stop himself from giggling whilst asking more questions about this so-called Peony Rose. Soon enough, he found out that he’d fallen in love with a certain flower with a cutesy little name.

                Inside the small house, painted in white, light-brown, and sky-blue, was quieter than it usually would be. Baekhyun steps his foot inside the wooden floor, his body shivering a slight bit when the coldness of the wood came into contact with his skin. It seems that…Kyuhyun never had visitors in a long while.

                “Hyung?” He half-yells. The echoes of his own voice that reflected back to him sent chills down his spine. Not that he minded being in a house…a quiet one…that belongs to Kyuhyun, but the atmosphere that used to be so filled with exhilaration just wasn’t the same anymore. Everything changed the moment the world knew that…Kyuhyun was diagnosed with some rare disease that death was guaranteed. Baekhyun didn’t want Kyuhyun to die. That had always been the last thing that he wants to see in his lifetime; a best friend – a person he loves most – dying in front of him.

                Though, Kyuhyun’s house never changed too much, except for the silence. Each furniture were still clean like new, and the sweet smell of Peony Roses still fly in the air, always welcoming the one and only Byun Baekhyun to step in and admire it. But as Kyuhyun’s timer ticks down – hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight… - the sweet smell turns into a deceiving scent that only makes Baekhyun want to cry.

                Eighty, seventy-nine, seventy-eight…

                The, now, eighteen year old boy, dressed in his graduation uniform carefully steps up the staircase leading to a particular room that the love of his life, Cho Kyuhyun, lies still. Baekhyun couldn’t care less about the endless stream running down sides of his face. In his hand, a bouquet of Baby’s Breath and Peony Roses, given indirectly to him as a graduation gift by Kyuhyun, was held tightly as if never wanting to let go.

                Seventy, sixty-nine, sixty-eight…

                Baekhyun bows his head and pushes the cotton curtain open, revealing to his eyes a peacefully decorated bedroom. Everything was white, just the way Kyuhyun liked it. His eyes move towards the bed, the frown on his lips immediately turning into a smile, though the tears streaming down his face continues to flow. Endlessly, never having an exact point where it would stop.

                Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…

                Kyuhyun’s skin was…pale; almost as pale as the white sheets covering his weakly breathing body. “Hyung…” Baekhyun whispers as he slowly kneels down next to the bed. He places the bouquet of flowers next to Kyuhyun’s body…and the strong, beautiful scent of it made Kyuhyun’s eyelids twitch, slowly showing the visions of reality to him. Kyuhyun’s lousy eyes were filled with tiredness; Baekhyun could only silently sob inside his head in hopes of not letting Kyuhyun worry about him. Especially in his last minutes…

                Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight…

                “Hey…” Kyuhyun’s hoarse whisper was almost too painful for Baekhyun to hear. He could feel his heart shattering every second that Kyuhyun’s lips twitch, trying his best to smile. The younger’s tears couldn’t stop now, Baekhyun was surely aware of it. His quiet sobs start to slip out of his lips as he grabs Kyuhyun’s hand, pressing it against his soaking-wet cheeks.

                “Kyuhyun hyung, I…”

                “No need to be sorry…this wasn’t your fault at all, Bacon. Did you like the graduation gift? You’re a grown-up now, baby boy…”

                “I liked it…I loved it…”

                Forty, thirty-nine, thirty eight…

                “Hyung, I need to tell you that…” Baekhyun pauses, choking softly on his own tears as Kyuhyun’s eyes slowly start to flutter. The smile on the older’s lips never seem to be tired or wary. It stays there, only for Baekhyun to be the last one to see.

                Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty eight…

                Emotional pain strikes Baekhyun right in his left chest, and the pain of it pushes up to his throat, advocating his tears to fall out like a never-ending waterfall. Kyuhyun’s lips open again, his voice getting quietly by seconds. “Don’t cry, baby boy…I’ll always be with you…in here.” Kyuhyun pushes; using the last bit of his energy to place his hand onto Baekhyun’s breaking heart. “In your heart. Always.”

                Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…

                “Please, don’t go, don’t leave me like this, hyung, I can’t live without you.” Baekhyun cries.

                Ten…

                “I won’t ever leave your side, Baekhyun. Ever.”

                Nine…

                “Don’t go like this…”

                Eight…

                “Byun Baekhyun…”

                Seven…

                “Kyuhyun hyung, I…”

                Six…

                “…”

                Five…

                “I want to say one last thing before you go…”

                Four…  

                “What is it, baby boy?”

                Three…

                “I…love…”

                Two…

                “…”

                One…

                “I love you, Kyuhyun hyung.”

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