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Dust.
Jungkook bites on dust, his hair unruly. He feels blood seep through his injured cheek and taint his senses. The teacher’s slap stings on his skin, an imprint of humiliation. He glances up, the ringing of Yoongi-hyung’s piano playing still reverberating in his ears.
Yoongi stands before the teacher, hands clenched into angry, trembling fists.
“You don’t get to hit Jungkook-ah like that.” Yoongi spits, fire and venom laced in his voice. His small frame seems magnified, sheltering the fallen Jungkook from harm. “I was the one who led him to flaunt the inspection rules. I was the one playing the piano in here. None of this is his fault. I will defend him because I am in the wrong.”
Jungkook’s heartstrings threaten to tear into a million crying pieces.
Yoongi had been playing a soft ballad before the teacher came in. It was one of Jungkook’s favourites. He’d always remarked, “The music flows like a river when you play, hyung. I love your music.” I love you. Always, this would be rewarded with a quirk of Yoongi’s lips, the ghost of a smirk that could only be ignited by Jungkook’s words.
Jungkook feels the blood build up in his mouth. Yoongi pushes the teacher back forcefully, his eyes brimming with a protective flame, the anger in his tone spilling out and lacing the air. Jungkook thumbs the broken piano key clutched in his hand, and chokes. Painfully. There are thorns rising in his throat.
As Yoongi’s led out by the teacher, he casts a glance back at Jungkook, crumpled on the secret base’s floor. He mouths a few words. Stay safe, Jungkook-ah. I’m sorry. I tried my best.
Later when everything dissipates, when the teacher has shoved Yoongi out into the hallway, Jungkook crawls back to the piano and rests his fingers on the keys. A discordant sound.
He coughs, and a spray of blood decorates the keys like little water-drops. Accompanied by a single baby-blue flower petal with faded violet edges.
His heart hurts for Yoongi-hyung.
---
Smeraldo flowers.
Jungkook learns the name of the thing that is killing him, one night when he passes by a flower shop. It is dainty, the tiny flower that grows in Jungkook’s chest and threatens to take his life day by day. The petals are soft and deadly.
Yoongi has been expelled, and Jungkook hurts for him every single waking moment. It was his fault, all the same. No matter what Yoongi lied about, their separation is on him.
“Hyung, how are you so talented? Hyung, how do you create such beautiful music? Hyung, will I ever be as amazing as you one day?”
“Kook-ah, you really have to learn to shut up sometimes,” It’s spoken in a soft voice, a tone of affection. Yoongi’s smile shining, the rare appearances of happiness etched across his face. So tenuous. So breathtaking.
Jungkook tries to breathe. The memories dredged up from their shared past bring even more pain and sorrow. In the twilight hours he huddles his knees close to his chest and plays old recordings of Yoongi’s piano playing, after all those hours he shared with Yoongi in the secluded secret base.
He chokes up more flowers.
His pain has a name.
His impending death has a name.
Hanahaki, the realisation that Yoongi-hyung will only ever be Yoongi-hyung, that Jungkook’s love for him has grown and expanded beyond the point of no return, that Yoongi must hate him. Or worse, he has forgotten him.
“What’s the symbolism of smeraldo flowers?”
“The truth that could not be told.”
---
He frequents the music store with its broken window weekly, and then on alternate days. The sensation of the piano keys is at once foreign and familiar. Touching the black-and-white surfaces is like connecting with a part of Yoongi.
“I can’t imagine you without a piano. You’re bound to go into the music industry, I’m sure you’re going to become the most successful pianist the world has ever seen, hyung.”
They are talking about their futures, Yoongi’s hand gently interlocked with Jungkook’s. It sets off butterflies in the pit of Jungkook’s stomach, how the curve of Yoongi’s fingers fit so perfectly with his, how the feeling of skin on skin feels like a whispered secret with the brush of Yoongi’s thumb over his knuckles.
“You wish.” Yoongi laughs, the sound like warm honey. “The world isn’t waiting for a musician like me. I’m not trying hard enough. I’m not being the best version of me yet. There are countless people like me, hoping desperately for a dream that will only be granted to a few. I don’t believe I’ll get that.”
“I believe in you though, and maybe that counts for something?” Jungkook grins toothily, his head tilted to a side. “You’re the one who’s always by my side, shielding me from the world. Let me return that favour just once. Let me trust in you.”
Yoongi’s lips part slightly. Twin rose petals, charred lightly by wind and weathering. Shock flits across his features, then gratefulness, then understanding.
“Thank you.”
Rivulets of tears stream down Jungkook’s cheeks as he stares down at the piano, so empty and devoid of Yoongi’s presence. His hands curl into fists, so reminiscent of those twin fists that protected Jungkook all those years ago, the embodiment of strength in pain.
His fingers move slowly, then all at once across the keyboard. Dancing. The tunes that Yoongi played flow into his mind easily, and though the petals in his throat clog up his breathing, though the metallic taste of blood threatens to drown him in its callous grip, Jungkook keeps playing. To remember Yoongi. To remember his love, however vicelike, however torn.
His right hand hits a wrong note.
Jungkook stills, feeling a presence behind him. He lifts his hand from the piano. He does not want to turn around, does not want to see whether the owner of those hesitant footsteps towards him is truly who he believes it is.
He turns.
“Hyung.”
And in his throat, the smeraldo flower petals rise.
---
Jungkook stumbles to the top of the construction site. The night is hot, humid, wind tangling in the locks of Jungkook’s hair and rendering it unruly. He’s doubled over in pain, the Hanahaki in its final stage wrecking his mind and body.
He hacks messily into his palm, and opens it.
A single, complete smeraldo flower lies still in the middle of his hand, so pristine save for the blood smeared all over its petals. Till now Jungkook has been shying away from the prospect of telling Yoongi - never, his heart says, because he’ll be disgusted. You’d rather be dead than be loathed by Yoongi-hyung. And so Jungkook keeps silent.
The construction site is empty space and Jungkook’s salvation.
Jungkook closes his eyes as he steps up onto the ledge, staring straight ahead at the starry night. He imagines he hears Yoongi’s melodic piano playing drifting off in the distance. He imagines Yoongi’s smile, Yoongi’s touch, Yoongi’s laughter, Min Yoongi, the love of his life. He breathes.
“Jungkook-ah! Jeon goddamn Jungkook don’t you dare fall off that ledge, get off right this instant!”
A hand catches his wrist. Frantic. Jungkook’s descent is broken off by Seokjin, a hassled look on his face, fright and shock and anxiety written all over his features. Seokjin tugs Jungkook angrily off the ledge, his grip shaky but firm.
“Please let me go, Jin-hyung.”
“I won’t until you explain yourself. Care to tell me exactly what you thought you were doing up there? I’m going to save you this time round, I swear. You’re not going to die.”
Jungkook has no idea what Seokjin is rambling about. The death knell in his head intensifies, and he can’t bear it any more; he doubles over, the blood gushing out of his mouth as he buckles down and his knees scrape the floor.
“Oh my god - Jungkook!” Seokjin screams at the sight, rushing over to catch Jungkook in his hands before Jungkook collapses. “What is this? What happened to you? This didn’t happen in the previous time loops, I don’t understand...is this an illness?”
In response, Jungkook retches up a smeraldo petal. Seokjin’s face turns white at the sight, the calculations and possibilities running through his mind.
“Who is it?” Seokjin finally asks brokenly, and Jungkook shakes his head.
“You can get it removed, you know.” Tears brimming, Seokjin takes Jungkook’s hands in his, and Jungkook savours the warmth of his trusted hyung’s touch, the care and worry with which Seokjin cradles him. “You’re going to forget about whoever it is once you undergo the surgery, and you will live. We will all live.”
Jungkook blinks. He tries, with difficulty, to speak. Seokjin pats his back, indicating that he can take all the time he wants, for the petals to settle in his throat.
“I’d rather die than forget him.”
Seokjin’s expression is stricken.
“No!” Seokjin fairly yells, disbelief clouding his handsome face. He takes hold of Jungkook’s shoulders forcefully and shakes him hard, as if to make him see sense. “Tell me! Tell me who it is and I’ll get rid of him for you. I’ll do anything to help you become whole again. That bastard who ruined you, he’s going to pay. Just say the name and it’ll all be solved.”
Jungkook knows he’s breaking his hyung’s heart.
All the same, he presses his lips together, staring unblinkingly at Seokjin. I won’t tell you.
---
The sound of a ringing phone breaks the silence.
It’s Jungkook’s.
He reaches down, fishes the smartphone out of his pocket, his bloody fingerprints marring the display. The name flashing insistently on the screen is Min Yoongi.
Seokjin sees the name at the same time as Jungkook does. He makes a grab for the phone, but Jungkook is faster. Jungkook swipes Accept Call, and places the phone to his ear precariously, gently, like the phone is made out of breakable glass.
“Jungkook-ah, where the hell are you?”
Jungkook musters all of the remaining strength he has in his body to swallow the looming smeraldo petals in his throat. Clearing his voice, he tries his best to affect nonchalance, as if he isn’t at the end of his lifeline, swaying unsteadily at the top of a construction site.
“Yoongi-hyung, listen.”
The air stills. Seokjin’s released his hold on Jungkook, but his eyes are firmly trained on Jungkook’s form, unblinking, a few paces away. Jungkook stands up shakily and signals to Seokjin that it’s easier for him to breathe this way.
Jungkook takes a few tentative paces forward. Seokjin watches.
“There’s a truth I’ve never told you before. I wasn’t able to. I’m sorry.” He whispers, and the sentiment hangs suspended in the air, quivering in that infinitesimal period of time.
Too late Seokjin bolts up from where he’s seated, rushes towards Jungkook with eyes widened. But Jungkook’s already dashed forward, hoisted himself up on the ledge once more, a serene smile on his face as he speaks fondly into the receiver,
“Yoongi-hyung, I love you.”
Jungkook falls.