the first time she coughs a petal up around seungwan, she pulls up the collar of her sweater, hoping the petal gets caught in the hemming. it’s a light cough, and her petals have only just begun to show tiny bloodied spots. her condition has certainly worsened over a month, but it wasn’t unbearable.

but seungwan presses her hand to sooyoung forehead then sooyoung’s neck, and sooyoung swears she’s done for. she hasn’t got a fever. her immune system doesn’t exactly have antibodies for plant cells, so it hasn’t been doing much. whether that’s luck or misfortune, sooyoung has yet to decide.

“hey, i’m all right. just a little cough.” sooyoung ducks away from any more touches, but allows seungwan to hug her with a doubtful expression. “it’s probably allergies. we didn’t have any zyrtec.” allergies is a stretch. she isn’t really sure what allergen is going to be floating through the cold, arid late october atmosphere, but she hopes she didn’t completely make them up. at least she is sure she didn’t have any zyrtec that morning.

seungwan let’s up, not without squeezing sooyoung’s hand, and sooyoung feels her heart tighten with the motion.

she gets winded easily now. cardio used to be her thing. before the infection, she would’ve been first to the line every time. now she can barely make it through two suicides without drying up and a few petals falling into her hand. with seungwan watching practice, she has to persevere just to run one and promptly dismiss herself to the locker room for a coughing fit.

her teammates throw her a water bottle as it happens. they have a little routine and everything. whoever reaches the lines first takes their momentum to the bench to grab one of those deep green water bottles with the orange lids. it buys them all a little extra rest time between sets, and they certainly don’t mind helping sooyoung out a little.

studying alone with seungwan after every practice can’t be helping her. she keeps herself so hydrated in front of seungwan that she should be more shy about having to go the restroom every 20 minutes rather than the lasting cough she has.

she sometimes forgets that her condition is more or less indefinite. that sounds better than trying to make seungwan’s so painfully platonic affections grow into something more. it’s a quick thought, maybe an even more rapid decision. it flashes in her mind as she looks between seungwan and their design project. she will definitely be getting surgery at this rate. that’s rash and most definitely a decision she needs to think over again, but not right now. not when seungwan is pressed against her, trying to glue something she told sooyoung to hold still.