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Minjeong is awakened by a familiar tickle in her lungs. It's dark, late at night, and she has no idea what time it is.
She was sleeping, for fuck's sake. Can't she even have peace for just a couple of hours?
She feels that painful irrepressible urge to cough again, but she can't, she can't. Not with Jimin sleeping peacefully, unaware, right there across the room...
It's cold and she doesn't want to get out of bed, but she has to. The alternative is to lie here painfully until Jimin inevitably hears her cough. The thought is enough to make her stir and she rises, pushing aside the warm blankets and swinging her legs out of bed.
It's freezing; she barely has time to shiver before the tickle comes again and she has to press her lips together firmly to prevent making a noise that could wake Jimin up.
She's tired, she's so tired. Physically and mentally... of this.
She stumbles out of their shared room, down the hall to the bathroom, where she hopes she can cough in peace without waking Jimin up and making her worry.
Closing the door, not bothering to turn on the light, she hastily leans over the sink and gives in, coughing as the familiar tickle returns, intensifying into the horrible stabbing feeling she's been experiencing more often than not over the past few days. It's getting worse, she knows. She's not sure how much longer her body can take this. The disease is already taking its toll, alarmingly obvious even after only a few days. Maybe sometime in the near future, when the roots completely take over her lungs, she'll simply asphyxiate, robbed of oxygen by her own stupid, stupid love. She hopes it'll be painless. But if it's not... well, she deserves it anyway.
It's strange that the flowers have only just developed recently, despite her having harbored this... feeling for so long; too long to remember.
She coughs hard, retching into the sink again, and a horrible sensation passes through her already raw throat as she does so. A sharp metallic taste bathes her tongue as jagged leaves poke at her uncomfortably, and she squints in the dark to see into the sink.
Flowers. Not the tiny delicate petals from the start, barely a week ago. These are fully grown blossoms, pure white and splattered with starkly contrasting blood, complete with small leaves and thorns. She would be worried if she hadn't already coughed these up too many times to count. (And they don't ever become less painful.)
She turns the faucet on to try and rinse away the gruesome sight, and almost jumps out of her skin when she hears a cautious knock on the bathroom door.
"Minjeong? Are you okay?"
"H-huh?" she panics. That single word grates against her already sore throat, coming out hoarsely.
"I woke up and you weren't in your bed, so I assumed you were in here, and I don't mean to pry, but... it's been ten minutes since then, and I got worried. And you've been looking kind of sick lately, so..." Jimin's concerned voice trails off. Minjeong can just imagine her anxious face on the other side of the door. Damn Jimin and her kindhearted nature, she thinks fiercely to herself. If only she wasn't so— platonically caring, maybe she wouldn't have fallen in love with her so irrevocably.
"I— I'm fine! Don't worry—" her voice cracks on the last word and she breaks into a coughing fit, one of the worse yet, despite her desperate attempts to muffle the noise.
"Minjeong? Minjeong, what's going on?! Are you sick? I'm coming in!" Jimin's alarmed voice echoes through the door.
"No! No, don't come in here!" But she's too late; her roommate has already barged through the door. She stops in pure shock, staring as she stands in the doorway. The sink, white porcelain starkly splattered with blood, obvious even in the dim light, riddled with rapidly wilting, equally stained blossoms. Minjeong, standing in front of it, pale and exhausted, the same blood on her lips.
"Minjeong!? Oh my god, why didn't you tell me? How long has this been— no, don't answer. Too long; look at the state of the flowers! Minjeong, who caused this? Why didn't you say anything?" she bursts out, and Minjeong can only stand there, gripping the edge of the sink with shaky hands to keep her balance, because how can she explain anything? How can she tell her roommate, her best friend, her soulmate... that she's the reason for all of this?
She can only stay silent, but that seems to work Jimin up into even more of a frenzy. "Minjeong, talk to me. How— why? Who caused this? Why didn't you say anything?"
The questions. They're so annoying, relentless, meaningless. Minjeong is suddenly swamped with a sense of fury, so intense it makes her dizzy. Why? Why did she have to fall in love with her best friend? Why did she have to ruin everything they had together? Why does Jimin have to be so fucking perfect?
"You," she manages to rasp out. Talking is painful. "You, Jimin; you asked why. Who. It's you! Why did I have to fall in love with you? Why do you have to be so perfect? Why did this have to happen? I hate you, Jimin! I hate this! I hate everything. I hate myself!"
She sees Jimin take a step back, hurt and confused. "I— Minjeong, why— I never imagined—"
Her bewilderment is innocent, completely understandable and utterly rage-inducing. She's right. She knew it all along. Of course her feelings aren't reciprocated.
"Say it!" Minjeong yells at her best friend. "Say you don't fucking love me back!"
Jimin is visibly torn, emotions flashing through her eyes as she hesitates. Guilt, indecision, pain, and... pity. The sight of that is heart-wrenching. Minjeong's vision blurs and she realizes she's crying. Warm wetness streams down her cheeks. She can taste it, metallic and jarring. Blood, she realizes. Is she crying blood or is it just another figment of her broken imagination?
She takes a ragged breath. It's getting harder to breathe. The roots in her lungs constrict, digging deeper into her, stabbing painfully every time her chest heaves for air.
"Minjeong, don't. You're making it worse. We need to call an ambulance—" Jimin starts, reaching out hesitantly.
"Just leave it!" she snarls at her. Thorns pierce her throat with every word. It's unbearable. Her legs finally give out and she collapses, only just managing to catch herself on her hands and knees on the floor. "Why do you even care? It's all your fault!" It's not. It's her own fault. She's being unreasonable, but she doesn't care. Everything is fucked up.
She looks up to see Jimin's expression, one of torment and painful uncertainty. "Minjeong, I— I'm sorry, truly, but I'm not—"
She breaks off, but those words alone are enough. The most excruciating pain rips through her lungs and throat, so intense that Minjeong almost expects roots to burst out through her chest at any moment. She can't help but release a sound of agony, even though vocalizing the sound is just bringing even more pain.
She looks down at herself, on her hands and knees on the cold bathroom tiles, in a puddle of her own pain, blossoms and blood mixing on the floor before her.
It's painful, but she can't control it anymore. Coughs rack her weakened body, more flowers flowing past her lips, scraping against the roof of her mouth. What seems like a whole river of blood comes out with it, with an equal amount of warm wetness spilling down her cheeks.
"Minjeong, stop," Jimin begs, dropping to her knees beside her, sobbing out of pure helplessness.
You think I want this? Minjeong wants to scream at her, but "I... can't," is the only thing she can choke out. Every breath is agonizing now, seemingly made worse by Jimin's proximity to her. But she's too weak to push her away; simply keeping herself upright is a miracle in itself.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She can't. It hurts too much. There's no more space for air in her lungs anymore; she's all clogged up with flowers, blooming to fill every last gap. Her chest feels heavy, weighed down by the blossoms and their roots. All she can feel is the wetness still coming from her eyes and the thorns, the relentless thorns, always there, stabbing at her throat.
Then she knows.
She forces herself to inhale, to embrace the pain encircling her airways, breathing as deeply as she possibly can, pushing through the flashes of bright light stabbing at her vision.
Every breath feeds the flowers. She can feel them sprouting with every painful breath, blooming bigger, brighter, taking up every last possible space in her lungs and pushing outward, seeking more space. Always growing.
"Minjeong? Minjeong! Stop! Can you hear me?" is the last thing she registers as the roots finally push past her lungs and pierce into her heart, bringing blissful, painless darkness.