She didn't want it to be Jennie.

She didn't want it to be anyone, if she could help it, but especially not Jennie.

If it could have been anyone else, she would choose Jisoo. She'd always felt better letting her walls down around her unnie. 

But, right then, it was Jennie who found Park Chaeyoung sprawled on the bathroom floor of Blackpink's shared apartment, in a coughing fit; and scattered around her, yellow flower petals dipped in blood.

Marigolds. Death was practically jumping at the chance to claim her.

"Rosie!"

Jennie dropped to her knees and scrambled to get Chaeyoung to sit up. Getting the younger girl's head on her lap was all she could manage before another bout of coughs brought out bright yellow petals flecked with ominous dark red.

"Rosie, hey, stay with me, okay? Okay?" 

Vision blurring, the metallic tang of blood on Chaeyoung's tongue and Jennie's tears on her lips, the only thing she could say before losing consciousness was, "Unnie, don't tell."

-----

She didn't exactly remember when she'd started to fall.

She couldn't exactly remember when she'd started to wish for Lisa's cheek kisses instead of actively avoiding them.

Chaeyoung couldn't remember a specific moment when she could say, "There. That's when I fell in love."

Maybe she'd fallen at first sight. Or maybe she'd fallen suddenly, all at once, through a series of the many moments the Thai girl and her shared, doing everything and nothing, sharing homesickness, sharing the best part of their youth.

Sharing everything except their feelings.

But what she did remember was the way Lalisa Manoban looked so beautiful with the brightness of the sun in her smile, and a million stars in her eyes.

She remembered who Lisa was staring at that day, with the same eyes Chaeyoung always had as she gazed at her herself.

She remembered realizing it was not her. (It was Jisoo.)

And she remembered the exact moment she started swallowing down the first marigold petals trying to make their way up .

-----

The first thing she felt was a hand on hers.

She opened her eyes and found she was in a hospital room. Thick, heavy black curtains were drawn, so she couldn't tell if it was day or night.

She was breathing through a ventilator, was the third thing she noticed. The itching on was still relentless, petals perpetually pushing their way up, trying to smother her even after she'd stop breathing.

She looked back to the girl whose head was lying at the side of her bed, asleep. Why is it you, Jennie unnie? Why did it have to be you?

If there weren't tears trailing down her cheeks, Chaeyoung just might have noticed three white rose petals crushed by Jennie's other hand.

As well as the petals that had fallen to the floor, pure white speckled with scarlet.

-----

She was glad that Lisa was with her the next morning, even if all she did was beg.

"Chaeng, I hope I'm not being presumptuous when I say this but... I know it's me."

Chaeyoung could only give her a sad smile in response.

"I'm so sorry, Chaengie," Lisa said, words cracking. She buried her face in her hands as she sat on the chair next to Chaeyoung's bed. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Lili," the other girl answered, her usual honey-laced voice reduced to whispered rasps. 

"Chaeyoung! The ventilator—"

She shook her head, taking the ventilator mask off completely. 

"You're too young to cry over someone you don't love."

"What are you saying all of a sudden? You're not much older!" the younger girl retorted, never one to back down from bickering with Chaeyoung.

The blonde haired girl managed to release a small chuckle despite the pain in .

"Put the mask back on Chaeng, please," Lisa sobbed. "And please get the surgery. I can't bear to see you hurting because of me."

Then just love me back, were the words Chaeyoung couldn't say, the unspoken plea that hung in the air between them. 

"I wish I could love you too, Chaeng. And I really do. But I can't do it the way you want me to. I..."

"I know." The same sad smile. "I'm happy for you and Jisoo unnie."

"And I'll have the surgery," she added, biting the inside of her cheek to forget the burning in . Repeating Lisa's words, she said, "I can't bear to... see you hurting... because of me."

Lisa took her hand and returned her smile. "You'll get through this, okay? You will. We'll be with you."

Chaeyoung squeezed her hand, the last gesture she would do with her affections for Lisa still intact.

That night, she dreamed not of yellow marigolds, but of red splattered on white roses.

-----

Jisoo and Jennie were with Chaeyoung the morning before the surgery.

She'd told Jisoo the same thing she had told Lisa ("I'm happy for you," she said, lips trembling.), before she cried in the older girl's arms.

"I'm sorry, Chaeyoungie. I wish there was something I could do," Jisoo said, equally tearful. 

Chaeyoung shook her head. "You both need to be happy, okay? When my feelings for Lisa are removed, I need to see you both happy. Then I'll know this is worth it."

Her eyes drifted to Jennie, who was at the far side of the room, arms hugging herself as the other girl watched them.

She looked in as much pain as Chaeyoung felt. That was what Jennie was to her these days; she was a reminder to Chaeyoung of how painful having unrequited feelings could be.

"Rosie!" Jennie called, running to her as soon as she'd coughed up yet another bundle of bloodstained marigold petals.

Later, when Chaeyoung was put to sleep by drugs for the surgery, she would, for some reason, remember the feel of Jennie's hand on hers rather than Lisa's.

-----

As expected, the surgery went well.

It took a few weeks for Chaeyoung to completely recover. Jennie was by her side as much as she could.

Until she no longer could.

It started with Jennie's frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Chaeyoung should have known then—She had been that way, herself, just months before.

Then, a month after the surgery, Jennie stopped sleeping in Chaeyoung's room. The younger girl didn't think she would miss her. She couldn't. 

The doctors said that the surgery had removed any possibility of her getting romantic feelings anymore.

This was true whenever she looked at Lisa. The ache she used to feel knowing she didn't have the same feelings were no longer there. She could even feel a genuine happiness whenever Lisa and Jisoo were laughing about something together.

When Chaeyoung followed a path of white petals one night to the bathroom, though, it would dawn on her that the same ache was still present, but was caused by a girl that was not Lisa.

"Jennie unnie!"

She saw Jennie hunched over the bathroom sink, white rose petals swimming in red water.

Chaeyoung drew closer, placing a firm hand on the older girl's back and rubbing circles around it, a vain attempt to ease the pain.

"Sorry... Was I too loud?"

"No. Not loud enough."

"I don't want you seeing... me like... this. You should... go," Jennie barely got out before she covered , yet another cough escaping.

Chaeyoung watched as she drew back her hand, revealing it soaked with petals and blood.

"No, unnie. Please. We need to get you to the hospital," she said tersely, pulling on Jennie's arm.

The older girl shook her head.

"Why? You could die!"

"Aren't you... going to ask who?"

When Chaeyoung saw the small smile on Jennie's face, she saw herself. Her pain she had forgotten about.

"I—I already know who. And you can't die because of me. You can't, okay?"

Jennie turned to face her. She slowly, gently reached for her cheek. "I don't want to forget my feelings. I'm sorry. Just go. Pretend... you don't know."

Chaeyoung knew it would be easier to do what she said. But seeing Jennie's dry, cracked lips and her deathly pale face and knowing it was all her fault, for being selfish and not seeing anything but her own pain...

The ache in her heart made her want to do something, anything to take away Jennie's pain that she'd overlooked for the longest time.

"Then I'll—I'll love you back, Jen. I'll return your feelings. Please—" 

"You had surgery. You can't... return anyone's feelings now. You... know that."

Chaeyoung put a hand to the side of her face Jennie's bloodstained hand had been, and felt tears streaming down, mingling with the blood.

"If that's true, why does seeing you like this... hurt me so much?"

Jennie gave a small shrug before turning away and coughing on to the sink.

"Guilt," she looked up answered, a few minutes later. "It could be guilt."

Chaeyoung reached out from behind, wiping blood from the corner of the other girl's mouth with her thumb. "Let me try, Jennie."

"Please," she pleaded, wrapping her arms around Jennie. "Please let me."

The brunette girl let out a ragged breath and slumped against Chaeyoung, turning her head so it was resting on the younger girl's collarbone.

"Okay," she said, finally relenting. "Try to love me back, Chaeyoung."

Chaeyoung slowly turned Jennie around, cupping her pale cheeks, and closed the distance between their lips.

The metallic tang of blood was unmistakable as she tasted it on Jennie's mouth, and she found she wouldn't have had it any other way.

She would kiss the blood away, kiss the hurt away, until there was nothing left but the feelings Chaeyoung were beginning to have for Jennie, and the affection Jennie had always harbored for Chaeyoung.

"I love you, Rosie."

-----

Jennie would still be coughing out white rose petals three days later, but the blood on the flowers were starting to thin.

Chaeyoung would kiss her every time, and as the color started to come back on her once pale face, Jennie convinced herself that was all she needed.

A month or so later, when Jennie's doctor told her the disease was completely gone, Chaeyoung was waiting outside the hospital with a smile, an embrace, and a whispered, "I love you, Jennie."

Back then, Chaeyoung remembered thinking she wished it wasn't Jennie who had first found her coughing up her unreturned feelings.

Right then, though, she wouldn't wish for anyone else but Jennie Kim.