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He’s always thought that he was better than this. Hikaru never really saw himself as the spare tire to anyone before. His life has been an emotional rollercoaster, sure. But Hikaru is, if anything, the main character of his own life. He’s dictated by fear and love, by anger and the passion of his desires to be better.
But never had he even ponder the fact that he might just not be enough for someone, much less someone whom he has been longing to be with for most of his life. In a way, Hikaru’s supposed that it’s normal and deserved. After all, there is nothing that is worth having that doesn’t require at least a bit of suffering.
So he trudges on, enamoured by the pain of having to work for the affection that he has been yearning for his entire life. The cruel, unyielding pain of having to wait for love to come to him like the flowers waiting for fresh water at dawn.
Magnus had come to him tender, wounded and upset about things that he shouldn’t have had to go through by himself. And for that, Hikaru is grateful. Never in his life that Hikaru ever think that he would one day be the shoulder that Magnus would cry on, nor the body that the younger man would eventually go on to sleep next to as he goes to bed at night.
For that, Hikaru is lucky. He has been chosen, he thinks, as the one who would bring this incredible man back to life. The one who will go on to make Magnus believes in love all over again.
That’s him. Hikaru Nakamura.
For now, Hikaru has to suffer. His pain, though long and tedious, will be fruitful. Magnus has already told him many times that he loves him, has he not? But Hikaru’s heart and mind wander. They wander to where he fears the most, because Hikaru knows, better than anyone, that this love isn’t true. This love, most importantly, isn’t fair.
His lover has been giving him empty kisses and cold hugs. Magnus’ words land nicely in his ears, but Hikaru hears no conviction in them.
At first, he brushes them off as insignificant. He can’t possibly expect Magnus to be ready to love again so soon, after all. It’s selfish to demand the younger man to jump straight into another relationship after getting his heart broken by his ex.
But still, Hikaru couldn’t help but wonder if he’s being used to heal wounds that Magnus knows could never be healed. That’s the core of it. The other man has always been so skilled at these things. He has spent the better part of his life being one step behind Magnus. So now, Hikaru fears that it is the same. He’s afraid that whatever Magnus has in mind, he cannot see.
Most importantly, he’s scared that he will be left again. But it’s a selfish thought. Hikaru knows exactly what he was getting into when they started this. It shouldn’t be a surprise at all that there are things and quirks to figure out as their relationship progresses.
It’s natural, he knows. So why, then, does it hurt so much?
Right now, as he’s lying in bed with the love of his life, Hikaru couldn’t help but feel like there is an impending doom that is marching towards him. His chest is heavy, and he tries his best to slow his breathing so that he wouldn’t disturb Magnus’ slumber.
The sensation, as far as he can tell, is just the urge to cough. He quickly slips out of bed and fumbles his way to the balcony, intending to throw a coughing fit there to not wake his lover up.
Slamming the glass door behind him, Hikaru covers his mouth and coughs, bellowing loud gagging sounds as he tries to cough up whatever that is stuck in his throat out of his mouth.
What comes out surprises him.
It’s yellow, large, and elongated in a way that makes him uneasy. He wonders, at first, if the myth about accidentally eating seeds and growing some sort of tree in his belly is true. Because what Hikaru is holding in his palm is a petal. A flower petal to be exact. Fresh and new, like he had just plucked it out of the stem.
“Man,” Hikaru breathes, inspecting the petal more carefully. It’s soft. It glides easily between his fingers as he tries to make sense of it, yet nothing comes to mind.
Quickly after, as he’s still working on trying to define the flower. Hikaru’s stomach cramps up. It’s not like he wasn’t already feeling it before, but it seems to have intensified since.
Another petal falls out of his mouth. The same colour, same flower, but with a different smell. He didn’t even cough that time. Hikaru merely bends over to clench his stomach when he falls out of his mouth, flying in the wind, before he catches it between his fingers.
Hikaru recognises that it’s a Marguerite now, a golden one. Bright and pretty like it has been showered by the delightful sun before coming out of his body. The sense of impending doom seems to have imploded within him.
He stumbles to the chair in the balcony, planting his ass down on the seat as he looks at the petals. Harmless as they are, Hikaru knows why they’re here.
“I come soon.” The flower signifies.
He looks back into the bedroom. Now separated by the glass panel window and the space between the bed and the balcony outside, Hikaru observes his lover. There’s something so peaceful and vulnerable that Magnus is sleeping there with him.
There he is, the man of his dreams. The object of his desires. He’s close enough that Hikaru can be with him at any time, yet his heart is so far away that even Hikaru’s body know that he will never belong to him.
Magnus looks so young from here. From where he sits, through his blurry eyes that Hikaru didn’t even know have been shedding tears, Magnus is wonderful. Vulnerable and peaceful, unaware of what he is doing to him by dragging Hikaru along in this journey where they both should know isn’t going to end well.
But really, can anyone blame him?
Hikaru doubts that Magnus doesn’t feel anything for him. At the very least, the younger man has to be thankful for all the things that they’ve been doing since they got together. It’s not like Hikaru had nothing in his life and has just thrown away everything for the sake of having Magnus with him.
Zooming out from the figure on the bed, Hikaru stares at his own reflection in the glass window. Is he so unloveable that even after going through the past few months with Magnus, still doesn’t convince the other man to love him?
What is so terrible about him that Magnus can’t reciprocate his love? And what is his body trying to say by growing this disease within him, like Hikaru hasn’t already suffered enough?
He drops the petals from his fingers. They glide down with the wind, making their way to the ground before getting crushed by his foot. Hikaru can hear how fast his heart is beating. His chest is tightening up again, and this time, the truth is too real and too intense for him to pretend that nothing is wrong.
“Of course,” he shakes his head. Fate just have to take a turn for the worse when he’s about the happiest that he’s been in his entire life.
“What’s wrong, lovely?” Magnus asks when he comes into the kitchen in the morning. He reaches for his tea with one hand and Hikaru with another, pulling him close to kiss his forehead like nothing is wrong.
Hikaru smiles when he feels Magnus’ lips pressed against his forehead. He loops his arms around Magnus’ neck, pulling him close to kiss the area right under his chin, before letting the younger man pull away.
“Nothing,” he murmurs.
“Yeah? You look a bit pale, sweetheart.”
It’s really nice of Magnus to notice, which is why Hikaru is so confused as to why he’s coughing flowers. He had woken up to a few more petals in the morning and had rushed to the bathroom to flush them down the toilet as fast as he could.
Maybe Fate has made a mistake. Perhaps his body is just malfunctioning, and there is actually nothing wrong with his relationship. He closes his eyes and wait, smiling when Magnus immediately kisses his lips and pulls him flushed against his chest.
“You sap,” he hits him.
“Because of you.”
These words seem to come so easily to the younger man. Hikaru wonders if it is easy because there is no meaning behind it Normally, he wouldn’t question it. Hikaru has never questioned it since they got together.
But what can he say? The petals between his lips and his constricting chest are telling him otherwise.
Magnus lets him go and heads for the stove now, digging into the pot of soup that Hikaru has been cooking since before dawn because he couldn’t fall back to sleep. He wonders if Magnus would question it, the cooking and all the coughing that has been happening.
“You cooked so early?” His boyfriend raises his brows.
“Because of you,” Hikaru echoes the sentiment. “Anything for you, my love.”
The second flower that comes out of Hikaru’s mouth is pink. The petal looks deranged in his palm when he coughs it out. These days, the flower doesn’t come in just one petal anymore. It comes out in a group of two to three, making themselves known every time he so much as coughs lightly or bend down.
He’s been hiding them from Magnus to the best of his ability. The younger man is just getting better, after all. They’re going out more, and there is nothing worse than telling your boyfriend bad news when things are going so well.
It’s not just Magnus. Hikaru himself has been changing too. With his boyfriend’s help and advice, Hikaru has been learning to diversify his appearance, mainly through his clothes.
Colours have been added to his wardrobe. Pastels and bright yet mature shirts entered his closet. As much as he initially hated it, Hikaru embraces it now. He loves how brighter colours emphasise his good features, as Magnus had pointed out. He loves that Magnus sees him and wants him to be better.
What can that be but love?
Hikaru sees him too. He sees Magnus when his eyes wander off of him, as if he’s trying to recall something from a lifetime ago. He knows when Magnus rolls off of him in the middle of the night, knows the look on his face when he makes him tries certain things on, as if he’s imagining another face on Hikaru’s body.
“The sky is so nice,” Hikaru says.
Magnus has his head on his lap, and he blinks up cluelessly, surprised by his words like his eyes hasn’t been trained on the other side of the horizon. It’s times like this when Hikaru’s reminded that Magnus isn’t with him, his mind is wandering, and he’s going to places where Hikaru isn’t at.
“Yeah, it is.” He responds after a while. “So pretty, just like you.”
That too. Hikaru has been noticing it as of late. Magnus doesn’t use masculine words with him much. Normally, Hikaru wouldn’t mind. Again, sometimes in the bedroom, a little feminisation works in his favour. It turns him on.
But Magnus’ past lovers have been mostly women, especially the one before him, and it’s hard to differentiate between how he treated them compared to how he treats Hikaru now.
He knows. Hikaru understands that it’s not very good to compare. After all, Magnus can’t help how he subconsciously acts but…but sometimes, he refers to him so femininely that Hikaru can’t help but wonders if Magnus sees him as some sort of shell for his past lover to project into.
They’re at a picnic surrounded by flowers and the meadows, soft and sweet like they are at some sort of pastoral afterlife. Hikaru chuckles at the thought and brushes a strand of hair from Magnus’ eyes.
“You are wonderful too, as wonderful as the sky above us.”
One of the flowers that are around them is pink wild roses. Hikaru knows it all too well. Lately, it has been coughing up from his lungs like he is a factory mass-producing flowers.
“More beautiful than all the flowers, my love.” Magnus says. The words land bitterly in Hikaru’s ears.
He thinks back to the pretty pink flowers in his sink, the clothes in his wardrobe, and all the jewelleries that Magnus has been buying for him. It hurts to think. It hurts to even recall memories of Magnus calling him names that he knows Magnus would only use with his female lovers.
“Are you with me, princess?” Magnus coos, and Hikaru can’t help but smiles.
“Yes,” he utters. “Always.”
Wild roses are supposed to be a symbol of pain and pleasure, something that Hikaru is highly familiar with by now. He stares at his lover, his lips, his brows, and his nose. Hikaru can’t help but lean down and plant a big, fat kiss on his nose, laughing when Magnus pulls him down and playfully bite on his nose.
“What a pretty princess I have,” Magnus kisses him again.
He knows who Magnus is thinking of by now. Hikaru’s expecting his ex’s name to slip out any moment now. His touch at the back of his neck is cold. He’s squeezing Hikaru like he’s someone smaller, someone younger.
He feels disgusting.
“Or a prince,” he smiles.
“My queen,” Magnus ignores him, sitting up and stilling him with his hands. “My love.”
Hikaru can feel himself tearing up, can feel the petals coming up from his lungs. He turns away, not wanting his lover to see how much all these sweet, faux words are hurting him.
They aren’t meant for him. Just empty, baseless words that are meant for someone else, words that were heard by someone better, someone whom Magnus is still thinking about when they’re together.
It’s okay, though. Hikaru tries to reassure himself. Magnus is kind. They both just need to heal a bit before they can love each other honestly. It will pass, this feeling. Magnus will learn to love him for who he is.
But for now, Hikaru lets himself sob when Magnus excuses himself to the toilet. Petals of pretty wild roses fall from his lips. Traces of blood can be seen with them, painting the pretty pale pink a striking red that he doesn’t even know is possible.
He can recall what this place is now. It’s the exact place where Magnus used to take his ex. They were captured here by the paparazzi many times before. He tries to think that Magnus is just bringing him here because he likes the place, but he really can’t do it anymore, not with all the things that they carry with them today.
Upset, he gets up and throws the cake away. The pushes the entire cake into the bin before storming away and picks the cookies apart. He can recall how she was captured with those cookies between her lips, how Magnus was eating from the other end of it.
The photos were lovely. They looked like the perfect couple from a movie. And here, Hikaru looks like a cheap imitation of whom she used to be.
Sometimes, Hikaru wonders if Magnus can see a glimpse of himself and his ex when they’re together. Whenever they passed a theatre or a place that he knows Magnus has been to with her, he wonders if Magnus pictures her when he looks at him.
They are much alike, after all. But he’s willing to bet that she can’t produce flowers like he can. Lovely as she may be, Hikaru doubts that she can make the wonderful smelling flowers that Hikaru has been making in his lungs for Magnus.
He’s decided now that these flowers he has been coughing up are all for Magnus. One day, when the petals that come out from his lungs accumulate to the point where he can make a bouquet, Hikaru will wrap them up and give them to Magnus. He will tell his lover that it is homemade, and he’s going to watch the smile itched onto Magnus’ face, the same smile that Magnus used to show.
His lover doesn’t even smile the same with him, and Hikaru has since internalise that too. He understands it now. His hopes have been demolished since a new flower came into his life.
Daisy. As lovely and as pretty as spring itself. He wonders if Magnus would love it, if Magnus will like it more if he learns that it comes naturally from him. No pesticide nor chemicals needed. Hikaru is building a garden for a lover who doesn’t even see him when he looks at his face.
The flower itself is supposed to symbolise true love, he recently learnt. If anything good comes from all the blood that comes out with the petals, it is the fact that Hikaru has been learning about these flowers more than he had before.
It would be a good retirement plan. Hikaru has always wanted a garden, now he has one. A beautiful, curated one in his body that is born out of his unconditional love for the person whom he’s been yearning for all his life.
“Baby?” He can hear Magnus calls from downstairs.
“Coming!”
He looks at his reflection again. It’s got to a point now where he himself can also see her in his own reflection. Wide round eyes, dark orbs, and thick pouting lips that seem to be begging for kisses all the time.
Hikaru wipes the tears away from his eyes and tries not to think about how this is their one-year anniversary, as insisted by Magnus himself. It’s smacked right on the day of Magnus and her anniversary, too. Something he only learnt yesterday through his own live chat.
His chat mentioned that it is a freak coincidence, but Hikaru knows. They started dating a while later from this date, but Magnus insisted this be their date because “Hikaru texted him on that day.”
It’s silly and pathetic. Hikaru wants to slap him every time he thinks about it. But he can’t. He spits another petal of daisy from his lips, wet and rotten, just like his core is.
True love, it mocks him with its appearance. Hikaru swallows and finds himself tasting blood. His eyes are getting blurry, and he prays, Hikaru prays to the Gods above that he makes it out of this room because his bouquet isn’t complete yet. His love is undying, and his lips are still asking for kisses. Magnus will learn to love him yet.
“Please…” He spits out blood before falling to the floor.
The last flower that Hikaru leaves the love of his life is the honeysuckle. The old man never has the chance to read about it, but it means devoted affection.
He would have love to look at it. The honeysuckle grows into a full flower in his lungs, it came out blossoming and pretty, a full yellow that’s comparable to the sun itself.
The garden is completed, symbolised by his undying love for the man he has devoted his life into catching, the same man whom he despised to being better than him, and the very man whose affection he has been chasing after since he realised that he has feelings for him.
It’s pretty, Hikaru would tell you so himself. As much as he loves to deny it, flowers are the way to the heart, it’s why he wanted to make Magnus a bouquet the moment he’s cursed with the disease.
Flowers, like any other living thing, are highly finite. They grow old and wither, just like how Hikaru’s fading heart continues to give and give until his body withers with it.