Chapter 30 - The way things fall apart

One might not have thought it to be possible, I certainly didn't, but I felt better with every week. Minhyuk would always tell me how much he enjoyed being around me and the more time I spent just calming his drugged self and talking to him, the more I started to share his opinion. He respected my privacy, but he still found topics to discuss with me anyway, not giving silence a single chance.

As much as I hate to admit it Minhyuk was growing dear to me and I'd soon find myself waiting for work to end so that I could get home quickly and listen to the things he and the other guys had to share.

For that moment everything was perfect.

But it was, like I said, just a moment.

And like every moment, it had to pass.

The day Minhyuk asked about my tattoo was the day my nightmares began to get worse again and I happened to wake up several times at night, drenched in sweat and with all kinds of alarms going off in my head. I didn't get enough sleep anymore but tried not to let it show. I repressed every memory that tried to resurface. If I didn't think about it, it would just go away; or so I thought.

Minhyuk had to hand out drugs on Sunday, meeting up with the dealers who would then forward the flowers to the customers they had in their respective regions, which is why I was left without my white-haired superball. Since he'd be out longer than usual due to a discussion he had to have, we – Jooheon, Shownu and I – were responsible for picking up our proper share of drugs at Shownu's uncle's shop.

We were almost there, it was around noon, when I heard the two vehicles, stopping with big eyes. “Guys, we should hide, there are officers coming.” Jooheon wanted to ask something, furrowing his brows but Shownu seemed to be rather worried, motioning us to move forward quickly. “Why are they here?”, I asked between two big steps and our gang's leader glanced at me.

“It's once every four or five months in this area”, he began breathlessly while rounding another corner. “They check the stores and everything for possible signs of a riot.”

Something clicked in my mind and I took a few controlled breaths to calm down from the quick jog when we slowed down. I had heard about that before, but it hadn't been my department so I didn't know about the exact procedure. Another thing came to my mind. “The flowers.”

“They mustn't find them”, Shownu insisted with a firm nod, opening the door to our destination to be greeted with a cheerful 'hello' by his uncle. “Officers. They're going around again.”

The older man's cheerful expression turned into an annoyed yet serious one. “Gosh, give me a break. Where are they now?”

I glanced through the dirty window with narrowed eyes. “Seems like they only just got here, the cars seemed to be rather far away. If they check another shop first we have twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five.”

I met Shownu's gaze who smirked a little to lighten up the atmosphere. “Time to keep that oath you made when you were affiliated.” I took a deep breath before bowing my head.

Jooheon just observed our faces, nodding in agreement. “Then let's go.”

They had things planned out for these cases, I found out soon enough as Shownu and Jooheon headed to the basement where methodical rustling hinted at a systematic procedure. I glanced at Shownu's uncle who signaled me to go after them and walked down the old wooden stairs, not knowing what would await me there.

The sight caused me to forget how to breathe for a moment, I hadn't expected this: The cellar was much wider than expected and there were many rows of tables above which weird lamps were hanging. On the tables there were boxes of potting compost and I could make out the thin green stems of what I classified as Delphinium.

So this was it: The basement the whole Clan lived from.

I strode through the rows of tables while Shownu and Jooheon were rummaging around at the sides and let my fingers graze the brown soil in fascination. The lamps were giving off a certain warmth and the air was humid to create an atmosphere the plants would grow in. There was a plastic bag on an otherwise empty table and I didn't even have to look to know that these were the flowers Shownu's uncle had prepared for us to take beforehand. The finished product.

The sweet scent reached my nostrils, mixed with a bit of the salty air like you'd smell it at a coastline and I reached out with my hand to wrap my fingers around one of the fragile stems, taking a single flower out of the bag. It was beautiful, all those little details you could see from up close, the little capillaries traversing each petal like veins and the dainty short hairy structures making the stem softer to the touch. I inhaled the scent once more, it smelled so good, almost as good as it tasted...

“Hyungwon, don't stand around, help me move this!” Jooheon's voice hauled me out of my trance and I hid the flower in my hoodie's pocket out of reflex like a kid that's being caught stealing a cookie. I don't know why I didn't just put it back to where I had taken it from, I felt like I couldn't let it go that easily. I had to keep it for myself somehow.

I turned around in a hurry and took in the atmosphere of the drug cellar again before walking up to the younger male. “What are we going to do about all this? They'll know what it is the moment they see it”, I mentioned with another glance at the growing flowers, hands playing with the one in my front pocket.

“That's why they mustn't see it”, Shownu retorted as a matter of fact, pointing at something on the ground I recognized as a small furrow. He then knocked the back of his hand against a weird plaster-like panel. “We can move this to form an artificial wall. I'll fix it from the other side while you go get some boxes and stuff to put in front of it. The room has to look like it's being used as a storage room or something like that. Jooheon knows how.”

My eyes darted around the room, watching as Shownu put the first panel in place. “So you'll be locked in the flower part?”

“There's another way out through one of the abandoned buildings to allow the air to circulate, I'll head out once I know everything's good here.”

The three of us nodded in unison and I began to help with aligning the panels until they formed a neat and seemingly sturdy wall, fixed to their positions by a long rubber sealing and I examined the result in admiration.

“It's a simple yet effective way to hide the stuff”, I mumbled to Jooheon who banged his fist against the wall to make sure it wouldn't budge. “Impressive.”

“Uncle has done this with Shownu for several years, of course it's effective”, he retorted before pointing towards a gigantic pile of cardboard boxes. “Let's go, we need to make this look like a normal basement.”

Again I nodded, taking a deep breath. “The more chaos the better?”

“It has to look like organized chaos”, Jooheon retorted and I actually managed to smirk at him.

“Say no more, I got this.”

It had been twenty minutes since our arrival at the shop, the officers could get there at any moment and Jooheon and I were sitting upstairs at the back of the store, resting our feet on the table. We had practically taken every box we could find upstairs and carried them down into the basement so that now it looked like a stockroom instead of a drug cellar.

I chewed on my bottom lip, afraid of possibly being confronted with the army again, while Jooheon let his arms dangle from his sides with a deep sigh. “Thank God it was the three of us, it would've been fatal if it was just Shownu.” I hummed in agreement, burying my hands in my pocket when something thin touching my right hand had me freeze.

I had completely forgotten about the flower I had put there due to the previous stress but with the reminder came the memory of the sweet scent and the trance it had put me in. I swallowed, the soft petals before my fingers plucked one of them on their own accord. It was so easy and I kept holding it between my right hand's index finger and thumb.

I then used my other hand and pulled the flower out of my pocket. It looked so beautiful, I wished I could just become one of these flowers, that's all I could think of. Fragile but beautiful and making others happy through their sacrifice, it was an easy life.

Jooheon cocked his ears when harsh voices sounded from the outside and he glanced at me wanting to say something when he stopped with panic in his eyes. “Hyungwon, why do you have that?”, he hissed and I blinked, ripped from my trance yet again.

“Huh? Oh, this...” I my lips, twisting the stem between my fingers until Jooheon snatched it from me with a growl and put it down on the table.

“They mustn't see it, they're already suspicious enough. Hide it.” I nodded absentmindedly and he got up, stretching his back. “Let's go outside, maybe the old man needs our help to get rid of them.”

“I don't like officers”, I groaned, still playing with the petal I had plucked before in my pocket, hidden from Jooheon's eyes. The other glared at me until I sighed. “Fine. I'll follow you out in a second, you go first. I'll just get rid of the flower.” He stared at me for another three seconds before averting his eyes and walking towards the entrance at the front, leaving me alone in the room.

Once I could be sure he'd remain gone, my left hand reached out for the flower again and I took the other hand out of my pocket to examine the petal. Minhyuk only had three of them and was knocked out for about seven hours, I recalled with that new voice nagging at the back of my mind at the same time.

They surely won't mind if you had a bit beforehand. It's already Sunday anyway, don't you miss that bittersweet taste?

“Sure I do, but what would the others say? They'd be disappointed. And we're in a difficult situation right now”, I mumbled, able to make out my friends' voices mixing with new ones, ones that had a heavy Chinese accent. I knew my intense reaction to the flower was due to my countless bad dreams. I needed positive compensation for them and my mind was trying hard to convince me. I swallowed and shook my head with a whisper. “I'm not that we