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jihoon wakes up to the sound of a heart monitor slowly beeping beside him, the television blaring on a random channel and the uncomfortable sensation of a tube hooked to a vein in his arm. he doesn't need to see past his currently foggy vision or mind to know that he was in a hospital room and was the one lying helplessly in a hospital bed. when he tries to move his body, any part of him would have sufficed, it only alerts the person he didn't notice was accompanying him in the room.
the said person infiltrates his blurred vision, but he recognizes him as jeonghan yoon -- his good friend who was practically his mother figure. there was no mistake, he could recognize the dark brown fringe that falls over his face, the angelic beauty of the man's face and the tight but comforting grip on his hand.
even though he was dazed and felt like he was being plunged under the surfaces of deep waters, he still manages to hear jeonghan as he whispers to him.
"jihoon? are you okay? can you hear me?"
"yeah ...? yeah, i can, um, hear you." jihoon mumbles, sounding almost half-asleep.
jeonghan releases a bated breath and smiles thru the tears jihoon could spy in his eyes.
"what ... what happened? jeonghan ... what happened? why ... am i here?"
the angel pats and rubs the pad of his thumb over jihoon's hand comfortingly, as if easing him thru the pain he could not feel.
"you had surgery, jihoon." suddenly, jihoon feels more alert and awake than ever. his form shifts abruptly in his bed, causing a pain to explode from his torso. he whimpers in pain and jeonghan places a worrying hand over him, causing him to freeze in place. he looks at the man, pleadingly, for an answer as to why did he get surgery.
"we were hanging out together at starbucks, remember? and then ... you just stopped breathing." jeonghan explains, his voice cracking. "i know you said you were willing to die for love, for soonyoung, but i wasn't going to let you. the ambulance brought you to the hospital and did an operation to remove the flowers. the doctors were talking about how there was a slim chance of you surviving because of how far along you were in the disease, but you survived. you survived and that's all that matters."
jeonghan is crying now and he starts to cry along with him, but not for the same reason.
jeonghan was crying because jihoon had survived the operation and was alive.
jihoon was crying because he never wanted the surgery. he wanted to love soonyoung as much as he could in his final moments. even if it meant for the sunflowers that were so deeply embedded into the muscles of his body were to suffocate him to death ... even if it meant he was going to throw up an entire garden until he could no longer breathe.
the doctors told him he wasn't allowed to leave until his insides and scars healed over. it meant hospitalization and it made jihoon's stomach churn, flipping over multiple times until he felt a sense of nausea (but not the same choking nausea he felt when he was vomiting flowers).
fortunately, jeonghan visited him often with leisure activities he was sure to enjoy, but the time they shared together in that hospital room was tense. they sometimes got into heated arguments about jeonghan's decision to have jihoon receive surgery and how jihoon didn't want it to be this way.
it is the fifth day after the surgery when they have this argument:
"you would have died." jeonghan informs him like the younger didn't already know even after the 50th time he has said it to him.
"then you should have let me die!" jihoon exclaims thru his own tears and balled fists. the tube in his arm throbs with a dull ache due to the sudden tension and he is forced to relax. instead, he cradles his head in his hands. jeonghan stares at him, surely startled by his exclamation. "i would die any day for soonyoung. why wouldn't you just listen to me ...?"
"for him ... you would have thrown everything away ... just for him?"
jihoon breathes an airy laugh. for some odd reason, he misses the way he would commonly choke if he even so much breathed.
"yeah. i would have." he confirms.
he felt nothing for soonyoung kwon after this fated event, but he tries to convince his empty self that he was still passionate or maybe still felt something. (he wasn't and he didn't.)
day seven, it isn't jeonghan who visits him this time.
soonyoung enters, hand-in-hand with who he presumes is his boyfriend, when jihoon is blindly composing lyrics without music. (he thought it was a load of bullshit when jeonghan warily told him that he wasn't allowed to bring in his keyboard or guitar to play with.)
when he looks up from the lined papers littering his bed, he sees the face of his best friend. time stops, but not in the way it usually does. jihoon no longer feels lost in the moment, but feels a certain emptiness when soonyoung steps into the room. he feels alright, like he can breathe even when he was staring at his previous love in the face.
"hey, jihoonie!" soonyoung coos him a greeting. jihoon shoots him a look, but still shoves away all his papers to look less busier than he was. his friend breaks away from his boyfriend to pull up a chair beside the bed and cradles the composer's hand. "jeonghan shocked me when he called me to say you were in the hospital for surgery. it must have been for the hanahaki disease, right? i'm sorry i didn't visit you for an entire week ..."
his best friend has barely been here an entire 10 minutes, but he is already weeping at his bedside.
jihoon glances behind him to look at the boyfriend. handsome, a big friendly smile despite the circumstances. of course this was the man that soonyoung pined after. he thinks about how smiley soonyoung was as himself and how the two probably deserve each other.
"hey ... hey, it's okay." jihoon reassures, using his free hand to pet soonyoung's charcoal black hair.
"no, it's not!" soonyoung yells, nearly launching himself off of his chair and the boy that lies in the bed flinches from his outburst. even his boyfriend seemed prepared to contain soonyoung, but the yelling man already calms himself down. "it's not." soonyoung repeats, quieter and softer, "i knew you were coughing up flowers, but you wouldn't tell me anything when i caught you that day ... i thought you would eventually tell me, but you never did. i was so goddamn worried." the hand that grips his tightens.
jihoon stares at soonyoung in the eyes that he thought was beautiful, is beautiful. he isn't shocked when he realizes the feeling of being free. there is no pressure in his chest anymore, no restrictions inside his body and a certain clearness in his mind. he can't believe it took him a week to realize:
the flowers are gone and jihoon can finally breathe.
truth be told, jihoon never imagined what his chest would feel like if he were to take the flowers out. he only imagined the event of him dying because the love of his life didn't love him back.
what would he have looked like as he died? ugly on the floor, surrounded by bloodstained sunflower petals and grotesque crimson-mixed bile, most likely. he thought about how much prettier he would be after being cleaned up for his funeral, lying in his casket and lowered into a rectangular hole going six feet under. he thought about what the weather would be like. sunny and warm? rainy and distressing? he thought about who would cry if he were to die.
(he couldn't imagine anyone.)
"jihoonie, i know that, uh, the circumstances right now are bad, but i really wanted to introduce you to my boyfriend." soonyoung straightens up. a hand gestures to the man that has been waiting patiently in the background, "seokmin, this is jihoon, my best friend. jihoon, this is seokmin, my boyfriend."
"nice to meet you! i've heard a lot of great things about you, jihoon!" seokmin enthusiastically greets him, revealing a full clean smile. it's like looking directly into the sun, jihoon has to squint.
"ah ... yeah. it's nice to meet you. i'm sorry that we're meeting like this."
"no, don't apologize! i'm just happy i finally get to meet you." seokmin dismisses his apology with a wave. jihoon feels a little irritated when he does that, but gnaws on his lower lip to resist from saying anything. "since its not really my place to stay here, should i ...?" he gestures towards the door. his smile has been exchanged with a concerned frown.
"can he stay?" soonyoung inquires for him.
"whatever he wants. i don't really care. i just want to compose my songs." jihoon breathes because he knows that he won't care. if he still had the flowers growing in his system, then he might have wanted the man to leave. but right now, with the flowers out, he wanted to get to know the person that captured soonyoung's heart.
it's an entire two months or so before jihoon is released. he was actually supposed to be discharged a long time ago, but the doctors were concerned that they didn't give him enough time to rest, thus asking for him to stay within their care for a bit longer. he was advised to take the time out of his work for rest. while the scar on his torso had closed up enough, there was a high risk of internal bleeding if he stressed his body out with something so simple as running or walking for a long period of time. the chances for other complications was considerably high too, but he figured he would care about it once he started to cross that bridge.
having barely walked the entire time he was in the hospital, he struggles to even stand straight. he wobbles and nearly trips several times like a newborn deer, but manages to get the hang of walking again before a nurse could call someone.
when he finally signs himself out for discharge and heads to the hospital doors to meet the outside, he breathes. it's different than how it was when he was being pushed around in a wheelchair or gazing outside the window of his room, watching the lights of the sky change.
he was finally outside.
being a more indoor person, he didn't expect to miss the outdoors so much.
jihoon pats his hands around his person, searching for his phone. he makes a noise when he discovers it in his jacket pocket and immediately dials a number.
"congratulations on getting discharged!" soonyoung squeals the moment jihoon opens his car door.
it was an impulsive decision to call for soonyoung to pick him up from the hospital, but he didn't want to risk getting into another argument with jeonghan. (though, he imagines that the elder would be a little pleased if jihoon were to finally admit that there was some pros to the situation. it would be a while until he were to set down his pride to do that, though.)
jihoon smiles as he slips right into the passenger seat and buckles down. he releases a breath once soonyoung restarts the car and backs out of the parking lot.
"i would have thought you'd be more excited that you're finally out of the hospital. it's been an entire two months and a half, you know. an entire two months and a half we didn't get to hang out, so i say we should catch up sometime. i'm willing to put aside any of my plans with seokmin if you want to go somewhere! he'd surely understand!"
ah, yes, seokmin.
jihoon, after their initial meeting, did not see what he hated so much about him now.
sure, seokmin carried around an annoying smile and was positive and bright. he wasn't really the type of person jihoon would personally talk to unless he had a reason to. he remembers that his best friend is the one and only soonyoung kwon, though -- soonyoung was silly, but could be serious sometimes. he'd be a hypocrite to dislike seokmin based on his sunshine personality when he had his own personal sunshine right here.
and as soonyoung said, the man was understanding of his situation. he understood that they were best friends. shortly before they left that day, seokmin had told him that he shouldn't worry about him taking away his best friend and that if soonyoung cancelled plans with him to be with jihoon, he would be okay with that.
he was just a nice man overall.
"i'll tell you if i think of something we could do." jihoon chuckles into his palm. this time, he didn't have to worry about a petal in his hands.
"great," soonyoung says, smiling as he drives. gradually, as time passes, the smile slips, his eyes grow serious and his grip on the wheel tightens. he calls, "hey jihoon?"
"hmmm?"
"why were you vomiting flowers?" jihoon looks at soonyoung, his smile gone. "who was the person you were waiting for?"
his mind was clear. there was no pressure in his chest, but he hears the hard pound of his heart in its cage. it was most likely because of the situation and the questions that soonyoung was interrogating him with. he was scared, but there was nothing to fear because there was no more disease in him. he was void of romantic feelings for soonyoung and that was okay with him.
no more pain.
"it was you." jihoon answers shortly. he hears his companion inhale sharply and the rubber underneath his hands squeak when his grip on the wheel tightens until his knuckles turn white. jihoon directs his gaze out the window than at his friend. there was nothing more to say. his boisterous friend seemed to realize that.
the journey thru the streets was a silent one.
"did you know? did you know?" soonyoung, one with blue hair, shrieks in excitement as he jostled an annoyed jihoon.
"did i know what?" jihoon gruffly says, swatting at his companion so he would stop. he eventually does stop, but the smile on his face remains.
"sunflowers are my favorite kind of flower! they're bright and look like the sun! they mean happiness!"
jihoon simply wanted to know what his point was. soonyoung pouts when he doesn't react, throws his arms around the younger and rubs his plump cheek with his.
jihoon protests against the physical contact until soonyoung says in a childishly sad voice --
jihoon sees his apartment from the place of the curb soonyoung parks next to.
he was ready to open the door and say his "see you later." maybe even part with a full goodbye because of how awkward it had become between them. even though soonyoung was happily in a relationship and jihoon had the petals of deep emotion extracted from his system, perhaps it would be better to part ways.
a noise, similar to choking, stops him.
"you're my favorite sunflower, jihoonie."
he wants to look, but he can't.
he has an idea of what is occurring right next to him, but he can't dare himself to see for himself.
but why? why now? why did this have to happen right after his operation? why couldn't the feelings that the opposite was having exist when he was coughing up petals of his own? why did he have to feel this way?
"seokmin is okay with this too." soonyoung says, his voice raspy and hoarse. jihoon closes his eyes at the sound of something gargling in the other's throat and more incessant coughing. "i told him-- about this. i don't know when it started happening ... b-but it was after your operation. maybe ... a week after we visited you? i-i thought about you so much ... and seokmin, he was so at loss ... what changed? why did i begin to feel this way? only after you stopped feeling for me?"
one.
and a two.
and a three.
"jihoon ... jihoon lee." coughing. "please look at me."
jihoon stared at soonyoung, who was now bashful, in shock. a pink hue paints the paleness of his cheeks and he's sure he is about to die.
softly, soonyoung asks, "what's your favorite flower, jihoonie?"
i t takes the younger a few moments to answer because he is too distracted by the warmth of soonyoung's embrace around him and his skin on his. it was innocent, pure and not at all meant to be something it was not, but his mind swirled in dizziness anyways.
"my favorite flower is ..."
brown eyes betray him.
he turns his head to look at soonyoung.
his mind was clear, bright.
was.
now the images of clouds conceal the sun that is beyond it infiltrates his mind.
the light that exists dims.
"the american cowslip."
"what does it mean ...?"
"it means ..."
they're purple, lilac. their color is ugly with the crimson red liquid drops that attaches itself to the petals that sticks up to point at the car top. the flower's core looks like the beak of a hummingbird, pointing down at soonyoung's lap. jihoon is in awe at the flurry of petals in soonyoung's lap, but its not the beauty of it that makes his heart hum.
the american cowslip.
it's the feelings behind them. where they came from.
furious tears blur his vision.
his mind was no longer clear. thunderclouds clouded his mind and he was blinded by the lightning, deafened by the thunder of his blood. no matter how he felt about this, he couldn't seem to find the romantic feelings felt for soonyoung he misplaced.
(then jihoon remembers: they weren't misplaced. they were lost lost lost.)
no matter what, he couldn't return the feelings that soonyoung vomited because he lost them to the cruel hands of extraction and surgery. if he were to be in the car with jeonghan right now and he were to ask if he thought about it, whether having the surgery was a good idea in the end, he would tell him: no. it was not a good idea.
he looks up at soonyoung, who is smiling with such serenity for someone whose blood colors his chin and skin has lost some of its vibrant color.
"you are my divinity."