okay, so maybe the blossoming of her lungs is no longer completely bearable.

she lays in the athletic trainer’s office more often than she practices. that’s when she isn’t crumbling over the side of a trash can somewhere in the athletics facility halls. the trainers’ faces always drop when she comes in, and she hates it. the pitiful looks will end her before her feelings for seungwan do because she’ll be damned before she becomes a walking pity party.

her feelings are no one’s fault but her own. it’s difficult to say that when seungwan does everything right, but it’s the truth. she hasn’t exactly come to terms with how her life might literally be ending, but she is at least taking up her own reigns.

she’s been actively trying to get over this. though the blossoms are normally a late sign, sooyoung wills herself to at least try. because if her trainer tsks and sighs over her the racing of her resting heart rate one more time, she might actually lose it.

she has to ask seungwan not to come to her practices anymore. her excuse is that they’re cleaning the bleachers during practice now, (coach makes it a reality, bless her). seungwan honest to god pouts when she says she’ll wait in the library, and sooyoung’s petals seem to be soaked in even more blood that night.

it’s a temporary thing. her petals are half as soaked the next day, so her efforts are mitigating something. they had better if sooyoung is telling herself not to take anything seungwan does to heart. she kills any thoughts about seungwan insisting on helping sooyoung keep up with her athlete metabolism and bringing her lunch everyday. she ignores how her entire chest tightens between every rally, benched or not, when she remembers for a second that seungwan is there for her- for them. she abandons being present when seungwan is with her, opting instead to focus on the book laying open in front of her or the way her shoes flex when seungwan walks with her, holding her hand.

the flowering hasn’t been all bad. she uses her emotions as fuel like any gym rat would. her cardiovascular health might be atrocious, but she hits a new pr for some lift during conditioning almost every other week. her grades have never been better. lifting and academics have been such great distractors that sooyoung has hope she might actually outlive the love she has for seungwan. without surgery. but she also does a lot of thinking.

and more often than not, the person pulling her out of those thoughts is seungwan. and sooyoung’s hope diminishes as quickly as it rose.

“what’s on your mind?” seungwan doesn’t stop at asking. she starts to trace circles on sooyoung’s thigh, close to where her head lays. sooyoung can feel her flowers winding, like seungwan is her own poison ivy. seungwan isn’t done. she stops for a moment, just to, (gently, as if sooyoung might stop her), take sooyoung’s hand from where it was combing through her hair. intertwined fingers and all, seungwan kisses their thumbs, and for a moment, sooyoung can breathe clearly. like the love in the gesture alone was enough.

the turkish league volleyball game becomes background music to sooyoung’s suffering.

“mostly you.” sooyoung doesn’t know why she says that. it’s against everything she’s been attempting for two months now, but it doesn’t matter when she sees seungwan glance up at her shy smile before turning back to the face the tv.

“that’s why you’re my best friend.” seungwan whispers, and sooyoung feels her lungs lurch like they’ve been shoved into the front of her chest cavity. the worst cough her body has ever conjured starts to come up, and she wonders why she couldn’t have had the tv playing any louder, to let herself have just that moment of peace where she wasn’t chained to the friendzone.

then the fridge slams closed, and sooyoung’s head snaps back to see her setter grabbing a midnight snack. and sooyoung can’t be anymore thankful as she lets a petal flutter into a purple trash bin most definitely from joohyun’s room down the hall.