Blooming Period

I. Red Carnations

It didn't take him by surprise when he found out, for the first time, the little colourful stain of carmine lying on the sink after he coughed there. It was soft, beautiful, frightening.

He was scared; he knew way too well what did that little carnation's petal meant. It was his fears showing under the form of a flower, his feelings exposed and he felt vulnerable. He caught it in between his fingers and pressed it there, hard, until his palm was also covered in liquid red, his hand smelling as if gardening and he prayed for no-one to notice.

He knew it because that was, partially, the cause of Nam Taehyun’s departure (he has been there for him before, the only one not busy nor mad enough at him to care; he never said the name of it, but the petals coming throw his mouth, white like snowflakes, told him all the story behind and the reason why he had to choose to leave).

He was in love. Of course, he was. He has known it all the time. And it was his fault; he indulged himself, letting smiles and warm words nestled in his chest, taking away his beat and his thoughts were always filled with images of him. He shouldn't have allowed it to happen, he should have cut this all before it was out of control; he didn’t even try to make the delving feeling disappear but he cared for it instead, protecting his heart, giving winds to his own sentiments, to that endless affection he has for him and that now has turned into scarlet petals flowing, swirling into his mouth to punish him for a cheered love he wasn’t supposed to have because it was wrong and it will be his end (soon enough he would be breathing into the essence of the carnations growing inside of him, its poisonous aroma will be the last sensation he will have).

Now it is too late, the flowers in bloom inside his chest, bright colours painting the inside of his ribs with the same scarlet that dyed his cheeks when he was giggling. It is too late to forget: the feeling rooting not only inside his heart but everywhere, so intense, so vehement that there is no way to ignore it, to avoid his inextricable fate and soon enough the flowers will take away all the space in his lungs and covering the stream of his blood on his veins, red over red until he will be death. That was what he told him; that was why he has left, to skip a destiny of endlessly flowers dying inside of his body, obligating him to perish like them, like one of them, dried and beautiful, bathed in pure white. But Jinwoo isn’t strong or brave and the idea of being without him weighs more than the fact that, not doing anything will mean his own end.

He has tried to hide, to build walls and fences, to protect his heart but he has his own way to shatter all his defences, rebuilding bridges he has to burn down, sticking by his side like always, not knowing what he is doing to him, the beautiful pain he has created on his mind, the blemish that he spurts alone in the dark.

He looks disgusted at the mess of petals on his hands. Like blood, a pool of red; light like feathers he blows them away. It’s pleasant to see them swirls around, a splash of hues lingering on the bathroom (aesthetical is what Seungyoon would say, his camera ready to take it all) but for Jinwoo it's just another puff of tasteless petals, the conjure of a love he can't face, a love he is the only one feeling: a love that will kill him as if curse, dammed. But his options are few and he has seen the result of forgetting; of being treated, of being ripped open to remove the root of a life that has grown so deep inside a core, so high, so precious. Taehyun no longer remembers loving Seunghoon but he doesn't admit his mere existence, a name without a meaning that was once so fierce to seed his chest with daisies. How wrong does that feel? Even if it hurt so much, he won't forget it, only regretting falling irremediable in love with him. He will love him to death because, after all, he has no other way, thinking about undergoing the surgery makes his heart trembles, shaking in fear of not been able to recognize the person he has love once, the reason after all the red he spits and the lies he throws at them in order to keep them blind (but he smells like flowers all the time).

He is afraid of all the stems that are growing inside him, all the spring that is blossoming even when outside its only late September and his birthday is so close he is scared about not been able to hide it, the coughing in red, that they will see it like he had seen before on Taehyun's hands, the colour white that came from his mouth like foam and his worried expression. He is not that brave, he isn't courageous, he wants it to remain the same, but time passes, ignoring the pain it causes just the same way that Minho does, smiling warmly at him, disarmingly, beaming as if delighted to be there, with him, unknowing that he is the one killing Jinwoo. He isn't going to tell him, he won't put that burden on his shoulders; he already feels like a sin to them, a chain that doesn't let them go further, do more. And the petals decorating his lips, tinting them in scarlet, are his secret, that something that nobody needs to know.

And, if in the end, he is going to die, well, that's his choice as it wasn't falling in love with him. But he is there, the mud has been seeded and his late-night tears have watered it all, allowing those flowers to grow prettily and to take away his breathe, collapsing his lungs and heart once they will be fully bloom, his throat stuffed with red carnations and he will be suffocated by it and the idea is beautiful, the picture of himself, lying on the floor, his pale skin covered with the remaining bits of his errors, of his love, like blood. And then they will know.

But he won't care; he will be gone by then. He has accepted his fate already since the other option is to not be able to remember who the flowers blossomed for and he can't permit that, the mere thought pickles his heart as if instead of carnations he was growing thorns.

It was easy to hide it at the beginning when he coughed once or twice a day, just a little petal at a time. Seungyoon smiled at him and patted his back, reassuringly, knowing nothing about what was squeezed in his palm, tainting the skin with shame and regrets. But now it's constant, he coughs a bunch of inconvenient petals, spreading them all around his room and he has got to forbid them from coming in; a carpet of red blanketing the floor and he is the only one allowed to step onto them, a canopy of flowers that he has created, the hues of a love that is dying and that has no way out but to end him. He doesn't know what else he can do with it. It's out of control, faking been sick in order to avoid having to face the truth, the fact that he is running out of time and out of breath and Mino looks at him suspiciously. He pulls him even closer whenever he pushes him aside, talking to him on the phone ("I don't want to infect you" was a lame excuse, but it kept him from coming to his soothe) but Mino stays away but at his side, always a ring apart. It makes it harder, painful, it hurts like demons, thinking that all he is going through is completely his fault (and he regrets not stopping falling in love earlier, not trying, and not giving up).

He can’t give up because he doesn’t know how to (he has chased his dreams the same way he has persuaded his love, unstoppable, without rest, always moving forwards) and now it’s just too much, too much coming from his mouth, the throwing up has become constant and he is so afraid that Minho will discover the truth, finding the flowers that fall from between his teeth. He coughs again, the last petal coming up and he feels the trickles it makes in his neck, its shape under his tongue, slim and perfect, smudged between his palatal and he takes it out pressing it with fingers to use to it. It’s scarlet and it wrinkles; a little ball of ink that is spreading its colours around itself. Jinwoo sighs, flicking it away. He has to do something, he thinks, watching the carnations lasting under his feet, perfectly formed. He catches one and stares at it intently; is that what his love means? They look like little crowns and he wonders why he has them inside if it means anything or if everybody has a type of seed already packed somewhere in its physique.

Later on, he looks up the meaning of the flowers he is cultivating, raising up with his blood and his heart beats, all the throbs fertilizing the floor where they are rooting, nourishing it with sweat and tears and the constant fear of been catch up. Red carnations mean love and affection and, as his feelings, he can’t ignore that they are right; Minho is the love of his life, his flowers couldn’t be more accurate denoting anything but the truth (and he hopes that no one will associate the one he has put on the table with the underneath meaning of it, but Minho hasn’t paid any attention to the flower and, for his scatterbrain he is more than grateful).

A week has passed and he can fill his lungs stuffed with petals, blocking the air and his head spins, dizzy, the word swings and he feels tired, sick. He wants it to stop, he wants to die. It’s not the answer he is longing for but the only way he has to halt it all, to get rid of the pain that is swelling from his interior, these blossoming buds that know no boundary, invading his chest with flowers that blooms under his own particular season (a spring that never ends and it sounds lovely, like the start of a song and maybe, just maybe, he should try to compose one before expire, his last bequest to the people he loves the most).

He writes a letter instead, an envelope filled with another bunch of tussis stained corollas painted in bloody red (and this time is more his blood covering them, it escaping through his gasping lips and it hurts deeply, madly). He pours there all the trues he hasn’t told anyone and he is about to let them know first, talking about flowers growing and spurting petals throw his throat that didn’t ache as much as it does now, his feelings on the verge and he wants to push them down the cliff, to end his pinning, this always longing for something unreachable, for Song Minho, who shines like a star, always brightening his nights. He confesses his love and his sins, the fact that he is so sorry, how he can’t stop loving him and how much he hates it; to burden them with his fail, with his incompetence. He prays for them to redeem him, for him to be able to be free.

The sun illuminates his way, his figure bend down and, behind him, a path of carnations, leaves and stem and the petals, everything perfectly crafted, and there are some still remaining on his lips, lingering there, flooding his sense with his taste (like iron and blood and something that he associates completely with Minho). His lungs are collapsing and his mouth has been spitting blood blended with flowers that the wind of an autumn morning makes swim around, tossing them up and down and, for a moment he contemplates it fascinated; it’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, elegant and simple, graceful, just like him, and all his thoughts belong to Minho.

He walks the streets, leaving after him a trail of carmine, the shameful stain of a love that is becoming his end, the proof that he is about to die. He falls on the concrete between another violent coughing, his head resting against the wall and the petals like a waterfall, red and pure and hateful; he wants to shove them back, to choke himself, to stop this rattling suffering that is seeing all these plants coming outside his chest. It’s just then when he manages to inhale again, that he notices that the last bunch of petals, lying on the ground and over his lap, are dried, death. He gasps. Another bundle is rising, a gradient of petals and corollas and leaves, he feels them scratching his throat. But, again, they are all droughty, coarse and, when he touches them, they perish, turning into colourless dust that he blows away. He throws up again and this time the pain is so real; as if someone was trying to uproot his inside; this time he pukes radix of all his concerns. He blinks at it, brown and dried and forgettable; he can breathe again, the air filling his lungs and it all tastes just natural, his lips parched and tainted in pure red, a beautiful hue of fake lipstick and he kisses the back of his hand, cleaning any remaining stain.

His phone flickers and he stares at it, confused; on his inbox there is a text awaiting (the letter still in his pocket, after all, he wasn’t brave enough to deliver it, to afflict his friends with the weight of his own weakness).

It’s from Minho.

“Hyung, I just realized that I love you” and he has never felt more alive in his life, seeing all the dying petals on his lap, forgotten roots untangled of his veins and thr air comes in fresh, pure. And Minho loves him, too.