Work Text:
Perhaps it was the way his hair shone in the summer rain. Or the way his eyes, like constellations telling a story, would glow a beautiful mahogany that contrasted the falling leaves of Autumn. The way that the smaller boy would look at him through lowered lashes in their younger years, as they spent countless nights huddled up beside each other, struggling over the same equation. A drunken kiss that they had shared at a friend’s party one night in the winter, a kiss between brothers that had meant the world to Johnny but was performed just in good humour for the man who he’d fallen head over heels with. The way that man got excited when they saw a kitten in the street, or the way he had convinced Johnny to let him take said kitten home. Whichever it was, Johnny was, and for the longest time had been addicted.
He hid it well. Behind his bubbly personality, he managed to hide his affliction from those around him. Though it only got harder as time went on.
The deep scratches at the back of his throat. The raw and agonising pricks from inside his lungs making it hard to breathe, unable to heal for each stab would be replaced with another. The hoarseness of his dry, bloodied throat when he wakes in the morning, the lacerations inside his body so painful he wishes he could gouge out every inch that hurt him just so he wouldn’t have to feel again.
Sometimes he thinks he could do it, reach deep down his trachea and pluck the monster from its roots. However, he knows that would be the end, and if he did, he would never again see the man who held his heart.
It was hard to tell when Johnny had first admired Taeyong, he lost count of the days around the fifth month. Throwing away all the remnants of his torture once he gave up hope for a cure.
“We’re sorry Mr. Suh, but there is still much to be learnt about your disease and we’re afraid the only solid remedy we are aware of at this time is for whatever you feel to be requited.” They had told him. That night was the worst he had had it. Should you enter his apartment, evidence of his suffering was still visible. Deep carmine stained in crevices inaccessible to a sponge or a cloth, in the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom. Wherever he had traversed that night blood followed in its wake. Much unlike the deep brown of Taeyong’s eyes that Johnny had fallen in love with, the colour that he had grown accustomed to seeing within his home did nothing but make him sick to his core.
It wasn’t uncommon for Johnny to spend the nights he felt particularly bad doing nothing but cry into his pillow, screaming about how cruel the world was. At those points in time, he felt unconcerned that his actions would worsen his condition, he was already broken beyond repair after all. It was hard to fight through burning rasp the mornings after when he would break down to Ten, Ten being the only person Johnny could ever trust with a secret so big. He often found comfort in his best friend’s shoulder, his company reminding him that he was more than his sickness.
Though, not even Ten and his hot drinks and magic sentences could cure how he felt tonight.
It was meant to be fun, his problem had lay dormant as of late, a feat that left Johnny elated and ready for a good night out. Ten had helped him freshen up as much as possible, before they met Taeyong and Jaehyun at a bar downtown. What wasn’t expected, however, was for tall dark and handsome to accompany the apple of Johnny’s eye. For Taeyong to act as normal as possible around Johnny while deeply clinging to the sleeve of his boyfriend. For everyone ignore Ten’s best efforts to steer conversation and talk about how gorgeous the couple were. For Johnny’s heart to shatter, every time Taeyong pressed his lips to the other man’s. For his soul to ache whenever soft words were exchanged from lip to ear between the pair and Johnny craved for that to be him. For Jaehyun to whine about how Ten never holds him like that and tell Johnny that he’s lucky because ‘everybody loves him so he’d have no trouble finding a partner’.
Except the only person that mattered to him seemed to be the exception to that philosophy. The predicament he was in was driving him to an early grave as much as he would like to attest that he’s stronger than his curse.
So, when Johnny felt the vines starting to twist around his heart, his lungs clogging, throat blocking, he insisted he must leave. Ten knew what was up but Johnny would be damned if he had let his best friend leave his boyfriend and friends to take him home, so he swiftly ordered a taxi, feigning illness before going on his way.
That was how he found himself in this position. Standing in front of his mirror, eyes bloodshot with alcohol coupled with the deprivation of oxygen. Hacking up every thorn and stem that scraped its way up his windpipe. He dreamed of Taeyong. The way his russet locks perfectly framed his face and how he always smelled like peppermint. Tears streamed down his face as thought of how stupid he had been. Of course he wasn’t cured, he wasn’t ready enough to leave the house and deep down he knew it, yet he did it anyway. He had no one to blame for his situation but himself. Nothing to blame but his weak heart. And as the leaves kept coming and the gnawing from within grew more unbearable he reminded himself of how useless he was. He was unable to get Taeyong to fall in love with him. He was unable to get over his stupid crush. Unable to cure himself and unable to stop the emptiness of his heart from growing and fermenting his brain.
He felt useless. Unloved. Pathetic. He stared at himself in the mirror, splatters of claret red painting his reflection. In that moment he was the ugliest thing he had ever seen, and the dark thoughts only became darker the longer he stared.
In the dim light of the bathroom. Johnny’s phone caught his attention as the display glared at him from the counter. Below Ten’s concerns and missed calls, a single text cracked the screen as the device catapulted to the ground. Message still haunting, flickering through the newly developed fractures that covered the glass. That covered his being.
00:38 Taeyong: youngho he proposed!! o(* ﾟ▽ﾟ *)o
And with that, red filled the sink. A distorted, scarlet symphony of anguish erupted through every fibre of Johnny’s breath, staining the walls the mirror, his hands. Palpable chokes, that left him short of air. His eyes streaming, harder than before, bulging. Everything curling tighter as he wheezed and clawed at his neck trying his hardest to break free of the chokehold he had been encased in. His throat mutilated as thorns ripped his flesh from the inside, leaving him unable to do anything but clutch and cry as his world came crashing down on him from above.
Blocking the plughole, fused with a sticky, cardinal mucus was an assortment of petals. Striking blue were the torn corolla that dotted his surrounding eyeline, nothing short of aching beauty, as though they had been melded with the tissue of his broken heart itself.
In the centre, a singular columbine had remained intact, it’s ivory centre oozing ruby as if it were pollinating. And as Johnny felt his body give way under his weight, his eyes fading to black, he wished happiness upon his love and his love in return. He wished he had the strength to congratulate him, and even more strength to type out the confession he had been putting off for years. Though, perhaps he wished he could thank Ten one last time. Thank him for staying with him and reminding him that he was still human and alive.
But as he lay on the cold tiles of his bathroom, what he possibly wished for most, was to see the fresh sunrise as it lit up the city skyline of his hometown one last time.
All he had ever wished for was to feel content.