OF HERBALISM AND OTHER MURDERS

There’s a sharp ring, and then footsteps. Kyungsoo barely lifts his eyes, though a suitable smile is already forming.

The three men that come in followed by muddy prints and freezing November wind are a funny bunch. One looks like he got hit by a Maybelline ad on his way; another seems to be bored by the mere fact that he’s breathing; the one in the middle towers over the rest and obviously has no idea that his megawatt smile can actually blind people under the right light.

They argue about something absurd, loud and thin and deep tones echoing in the empty shop, and Kyungsoo impatiently taps his fingers on the wood. He thinks about home. He thinks about the small house left by his parents on the outskirts of Seoul, about the tiny bit of paradise behind it, about flowers with roots buried deep into the ground. There is an awkward tremble in his hands now. He fixes his attention on the clients.

“No, I mean that you can’t simply wear pink socks and sandals. It’s just gross,” the one sporting eyeliner and thick BB cream says. “I would personally strangle anyone who commits such a crime.”

“But if you wear the right hairclip-”

“Oh, please, combine it with a leather jacket and-”

“There is no reason to bash high fashion, you know, you’re just bitter that-”

“Will you shut up, Jesus ! No one cares.”

The tall one seems to be the only person to have actually entered with the idea to buy something. He flashes Kyungsoo a quick grin, as if posing for a dental magazine. A strand of unruly hair falls above his glasses.

“What can I get you?” Kyungsoo returns a more reserved version of the smile.

“There was a weird herb that I bought some time ago, but I can’t remember the name.” the man replies. His cheeks redden a bit.

“It sounded like that brand, Givenchy,” the makeup-guy adds.

“Ginseng?”

“Ah! Yes, that was the one!”

“Sure. I’ll get it.”

Kyungsoo slows down to a crawl. The voices of the three men boom in his ears (it smells like a teapot in here; do you think they sell weed; no chanyeol and you don't need weed to look high anyway; where did he go; he looked odd; how can you not look odd when you inhale weirdass herbs all day, moron) so unbearable, so absorbing, stuffed down his throat and injected through his brain. His head is pulsating, colors look brighter than ever, and – good God – they just won’t shut the up.

He has to stop for a while just to get himself back together.

The tall guy doesn’t stop staring at him. It’s getting on his nerves, frankly; hell, all of them are. It’s one of Kyungsoo’s bad days. He’s had a lot of them recently. More flowers in his garden.

“What’s taking so long?” the eyeliner-guy yells in annoyance. “Are you planting it at the moment or something?”

Kyungsoo  peeks from the storage room and sends an apologetic smile his way, “Sorry, felt a bit lightheaded.”

Skin feels fake and pressed too tightly onto his bones. He hands the package to someone – can’t really make out whom – and in the next few seconds he’s blind, deaf, dead. The bell rings.

Kyungsoo pulls out a notebook and writes down in neat, small letters: Day 129. I nearly did it again.

They visit every day, perhaps because of that moronic asswipe Byun Baekhyun who thinks it’s hilarious to make a point of ordering the most bizarre and complex teas the herbal shop has to offer. Sehun doesn’t really buy anything ever, just as he never really talks. He’s just there. Chanyeol appears to be the most bearable and most irritatingly bright out of the three.

“I’d like a cup of light green tea, eleven milliliters of semi-skimmed milk, two teaspoons of sugar and a dash of vanilla. Make sure the temperature of the milk is only three to four degrees lower than the tea, and the vanilla should just add the scent without taste,” Baekhyun lays out in a single breath. Kyungsoo doesn’t bother writing down the instructions any longer.

December knocks with muffled engines and thick scarfs. Chanyeol looks flustered and freezing under the yellow-tinged lights.

“And would you like anything?” Kyungsoo nods to him. “Yet another package of Ginseng perhaps?”

“Someone isn’t feeling entertained today,” Chanyeol remarks through chattering teeth.

“Christmas is near, which means I have twice the work to do. I’m just tired.”

The man shrugs understandingly.

“If you hurry up with the order, it’d be nice,” Baekhyun sniffs. “Some of us actually have lives to return to.”

The badly masked amusement in his voice stirs something in Kyungsoo. His skin crawls with horror.

“I’ll get to it, then,” he smiles.

He jots down a reminder to water his garden later.

Chanyeol and Sehun look strangely alert.

“Where’s that brat of a human?” Kyungsoo scoffs. “Couldn’t think of any more absurd orders?”

“We don’t really know,” Sehun replies. His weight shifts awkwardly from one leg to the other. Kyungsoo’s lips shut in a firm line.

“He hasn’t returned our calls,” Chanyeol explains. “We were thinking of visiting his flat later.”

“Probably a good idea,” Kyungsoo muses. “He’s sick, I reckon. Or Satan has finally admitted him into his army.”

Quiet, cautious laughter erupts. They stare at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but at each other.

“A cup of strawberry tea, please.”

Kyungsoo adds a piece of lemon cake because he feels bad for Chanyeol and that barely-there frown set on his forehead.

Maybe it’s snowing. He isn’t sure, because he’s lost between the friction and awful tension when their knuckles brush.

Kyungsoo has always been good at gardening. Even amid winter, his little parade of bushes and flowers is alarmingly bold in colors. He’s kneeling in the mud, somewhere in the afternoon, digging multiple rather deep holes. The new flowers are going to be pretty, albeit annoyingly pink he thinks. Especially if he feeds them right.

Cold melts to April.

Chanyeol comes and goes along with Sehun. Kyungsoo keeps his notebook intact, cursive characters perfectly aligned together with no dates and numbers because they scare him, they’re too precise, too methodical, and there’s nothing precise or methodical or neat or sensible about him.

“Two plain green teas,” Chanyeol orders absentmindedly, holding off Sehun from an expensive box of mixed medical herbs. His fingers linger on Sehun’s wrist seconds too long, and Kyungsoo swallows.

His head is burning. The day bursts into starlight flames, fumes of dried lemon basil, and he wishes he could bring himself to skip a day of writing.

Day 193. His face is becoming my favorite flower.

“Where’s Sehun?”

Chanyeol shrugs, “Possibly running around with that black man wannabe Joonmyeon. Haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

Light pours in symmetrical lines, fuses with clouds of dust, evaporates in herbal aromas. The afternoon is a perfect shade of gold and rose, and as five o’clock strikes, Chanyeol sits for a cup of tea, and Kyungsoo sits next to him, and it’s quiet, terrifyingly, obnoxiously quiet, still quiet after they tangle fingers and breaths and lace kisses through each other’s hair with tense pressure.

Chanyeol’s skin is beautiful even with the bluish marks over his neck, even with the red tint on his cheeks. His eyes are a flawless portrait of dimmed desire. His lips die out in a sigh, rise back again with a moan, press and play against Kyungsoo’s, and they structure themselves in a meticulous crash, crush, come together, fall apart, gasp, cry, beg with Chanyeol forced on his body inches too close so he every breath out of Kyungsoo’s mouth, exhales it back in, s harsh and irregularly, deep but not deep enough and Kyungsoo can’t get enough, simply can’t get enough because – Jesus Christ – ing Jesus – he’s addictive, a plain wrapping of a complex being, and Kyungsoo is drowning or suffocating in his skin.

It ends with shudders. Kyungsoo blinks and suddenly it’s all over.

The garden is a circular mess of wild scents. In the middle is a patch of green big enough to be an eyesore. When Kyungsoo is finished with t ribcages, cutting off roots, measuring heartbeats, slicing off silky flesh and stacking bones in his closet, he proceeds through the afternoon to dig up a hole in that patch. He dumps two or three bags there, nothing too obvious, buries them. He sips tea every evening for a whole year before the first flower of the set of Stargazer lilies blooms one July morning in an attempt to reach out to the sun.

Kyungsoo looks at it, and it strangely reminds him of Chanyeol’s smile.