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jinki trips over the small step in the doorway of the cosy flower shop when he rushes in. as he swears to himself and dusts off, he meets the amused gaze of the shop assistant. she's leaning forward on her elbows, her chin in her hands, and her smile is a little mocking. she's pretty, he decides, if you liked that kind of beauty, sharp angles and edges, long nails polished red, jet-black hair in a sleek ponytail. she's like a racecar, he thinks. all elegance and danger.
"can i help you?" she asks, and he's pretty sure he's meant to hear the hint of laughter under her words.
"no...yes, maybe?" he's not even attracted to her but of course once his brain is aware that someone is good-looking it manifests in humiliating awkwardness.
"so? which is it?" she's still smiling, still amused, and he notices she has a scar on her right eyebrow, and very very high cheekbones.
sucking in a nervous breath, he carefully removes the flower from his pocket, the one that had been expelled from his lungs that morning, the only whole flower since the entire debacle of this inconvenient disease that had decided to infect him. he had washed it, dried it off, and then carried it in his pocket for seven blocks, looking for an empty florist shop, looking for courage.
thrusting it out at her, he asks without fanfare, "do you know what flower is this?" it's a delicate, tiny flower, vivid pink in colour, which due to some reason he refuses to think about, had fallen out of his mouth.
her eyebrows furrow at the question, and her head cocks to the side quizzically. like a sparrow, he thinks. cute. when she picks up the flower, it's with gentle, tentative fingers, the skin of her fingertips brushing against his palm, soft as the petals.
"it's a sweet pea flower," she says softly, and her eyes, when she looks up at him, are contemplative.
"in flower language," she adds distantly, gaze still fixed on him, "it means goodbye."
jinki chokes out a laugh, and it occurs to him it might sound too close a sob.
"they're not in season right now though," she tells him, and there's a look in her eyes that makes him think she just might understand.
gesturing at his mouth and then his chest, he starts to try explaining it. "there's a boy," he says, almost stammering. "and i love him, and-"
her voice cuts across his, completing the sentence. "and he doesn't love you." her smile, still sympathetic, has also turned conspiratorial, like with those words he has unknowingly joined a secret club.
it's the truth, and it has broken his heart enough that flowers have grown in the wake of the pain. but laid bare like that it feels trite. "stupid, isn't it?" he asks her.
"not really," she replies, walking over to the shelf just outside of jinki's view. there's a bunch of purple narrow-petaled flowers clasped gently in her hand when she comes back. "these grew in my lungs," she tells him. "they're irises. they mean hope and faith, and i thought... i hoped that was a good thing, until he introduced me to taemin and i realised...flowers in your body never really ever mean good things. flowers grow in soil, not flesh."
"taemin?"
"yeah, that's his boyfriend's name. the boyfriend of the boy i loved, i mean. his name is jonghyun." she looks at jinki and her eyes are clear, and jinki marvels at how frank she is able to be.
"what's your name?" somehow, he thinks he knows.
"oh! i'm gwiboon! and you are?" she colours prettily, as if belatedly realising that she's been sharing unrequited love stories with a stranger.
"i'm jinki," he replies, stretching out his hand, and his smile tastes bittersweet. "i'm the one who's in love with taemin."
"oh," gwiboon says again, softer this time. her grip on his hand is strong. "hello jinki."
~-~
jinki doesn't remember when he first fell for taemin, he thinks maybe it was in taemin's first year of high school, if he even knew what love was then. he just remembers always wanting to be around taemin, to catch all his laughter, feel the careless way his limbs would clash against jinki's. taemin used to look at jinki with the entire galaxy shining from under his lashes, and jinki had willingly taken that to mean reciprocation, taken it to mean taemin was just his. for a while, taemin had been; the timid wallflower to jinki's open friendliness, the pliant shadow under jinki's wing. three years younger and cripplingly shy, jinki had been his doorway to social life, jinki had been his crutch.
until the second year of high school, when taemin discovered the dance club and he bloomed, grew his own roots, stopped using jinki's. at first, jinki had been happy, proud of the success, of everyone seeing taemin the way he always had. but dance had also brought jonghyun into taemin's life. an aspiring composer, the dance club liked to ask him for music in their performances. it was win-win, taemin told jinki, jonghyun would get exposure, and the dancers would have specialised music.
although never sure about the truth of that -- jinki privately thought it seemed more like the dance club was making use of jonghyun, capitalising on his weakness for lithe, graceful, pretty boys, he couldn't deny that meeting jonghyun, for taemin, had been nothing but miraculous. by the time jinki had gotten settled into college life, jonghyun had replaced him in taemin's life. and perhaps it fell into inevitability after that, the two of them navigating the rest of high school together, entering an arts college together -- a very different one from jinki's rather traditional business centric one, rooming together, and on their graduation day, confessing together.
jinki still remembers the incandescent light in taemin's face when he had told him, still remembers the tenderness in the way they touched each other, still remembers the searing pain that had cut across his chest -- what he now knows was the first roots of the flowers that had been with him for two months now.
~-~
he tells all of this to gwiboon over multiple trips to the flower shop on the weekends, in the afternoon lulls when customers peter out. and maybe he's talking a lot more than he usually does, maybe he shouldn't be telling someone who is only slightly more than a stranger all this, but she listens with sleepy eyes and indulgent smile, and if he exaggerates some parts to make her laugh far too loudly, mouth open wide, she doesn't comment and neither does she.
everyone has a story to tell, gwiboon tells him, as she waves goodbye to a customer holding a large elaborate bouquet. "that one," she says, "just got dumped by a girl he didn't actually mean to fall in love with. so he cheated, and she left and now he wants her back."
"he will fail," she continues, shrugging. "but he gives me money and trying is better than not."
"isn't that a little cruel?"
at his tentative question, gwiboon's laugh is light. "it's not, it's realistic," she tilts her head into her hand. "would you take back someone who cheats?"
"maybe once," jinki admits, after a beat. "maybe more. depends how repentant they are."
"must be nice to be so forgiving," she says.
"not really," he replies. and gwiboon says nothing to that.
~-~
"jonghyun is a very forgiving person," she says, a few customers later. jinki looks up from his laptop in the little corner behind the counter that has become his. "is he?"
"yeah, it's dumb." she glances away then back, walks over to jinki and peers at his work, casually changing the subject.
"what are you doing?"
"an essay due for next tuesday."
"you could teach me some of that business stuff, you know. help my family business grow."
jinki laughs softly. "or you could go to college and get a degree yourself." it's a habit now, this conversation. gwiboon doesn't like academics; prefers to while her time away tending to the little flower shop.
"jonghyun used to tell me to do that stuff too. now...he doesn't really." but there's no real sadness in her tone.
"i did the surgery, you know," she says abruptly, and jinki looks up, raising his eyebrows.
"wanna hear a story, mister masters student?"
~-~
they were childhood friends; parents who were best friends, children flung together. it was a convenience at first probably, but it had lasted. jonghyun called gwiboon best friend, and gwiboon called him boyfriend.
the flowers grew in their last few months of high school, just as jonghyun started telling her about his college plans, and gwiboon watched their paths split. but she also told herself she could wait.
~-~
"they used to tease jonghyun about me," gwiboon says with a smile. "used to tell him how lucky he was to have a hot girlfriend. it didn't matter that we weren't actually dating, because i thought...it was coming. it was inevitable. the flowers...they meant hope. so, i hoped."
~-~
when she told him she loved him, she had expected reciprocation, had expected happy endings and strings tied up into pretty bows. instead jonghyun stared and then sighed. he reached over and ruffled her hair, then said quietly, "gwi, i'm not- i don't...like girls."
"oh," gwiboon breathed out, and there's a stinging in her chest, the flowers pressing against her lungs. "oh." it made sense really, the easy acquiescence when she made him watch male celebrities with her, the way he paid absolutely no attention to the girls who came up to him, attracted by his lonely musician aura, the way he watched their male classmates sometimes, far too alert, far too conscious.
"i love you," jonghyun said. "just not-"
"yeah, i get it," gwiboon interrupted. she wrapped arms around him in a brief hug then sped home to throw up purple petals into the dustbin.
~-~
"hope is stupid sometimes," gwiboon says, grinning. "and far too easy to hold on to."
"it wasn't until he came here with taemin one day, their last year of college, that i let the hope die. there's a way that jonghyun looks at him, smiles at him, different, soft. and even though they weren't...yet, i knew."
"i called to book the surgery the moment they left. you gotta be realistic, you know?"
she smiles directly at jinki then, turning to a customer before jinki can respond.
you gotta be realistic, you know. as jinki repeats the words under his breath, the flowers push against the back of his throat, and he wonders if gwiboon is right.
~-~
he doesn't notice the couple coming into the shop until he nearly crashes into them.
"sorry!" he squeaks, trying to get out of the way, and he's halted by a small hand grasping his elbow, and his name in a voice that sounds suspiciously like taemin's.
when he looks up, he sees taemin standing with jonghyun, and they're both smiling at him, a little lopsided, a little stiff.
"long time no see," taemin says softly, his hand still tight on jinki's elbow.
"yeah," jinki agrees. "it's been a while." he ducks a little, scratching the back of his head. it hadn't been that deliberate, but the weeks had passed easier knowing he had the option of hiding out with gwiboon at the shop, avoiding taemin in the first self-absorbed blush of love, stay with gwiboon and her obnoxious laughter and stories about customers, some true, some completely invented. the flowers hadn't twisted too aggressively in his lungs, hadn't bloomed as quickly, as if the illness had plateaued, not moving as fast as he's heard it could.
"jinki! i forgot to say! please get chocolate this time, you keep getting the weird ones. yuzu, coconut, hibiscus, lavender...seriously. although the coconut one wasn't so bad- oh hello." gwiboon's voice comes to a halt as she herself comes to a stop at the doorway, and she sees jonghyun and taemin. her arms are filled with flowers, petals caught in her ponytail. shaking his head, jinki walks over to pick them out, and her grateful smile is pretty.
"hello jjong!" she says, eyes shifting back to the couple. "nice to see you've finally remembered your best friend." she sticks out her tongue at him when he rolls his eyes. "jinki's gonna go get cakes from the shop three doors down, we do that every other weekend. you guys wanna eat with us? he can buy more."
she doesn't see the suspicious glance that jonghyun throws at jinki because she turns away to arrange the flowers. "how do you two even know each other?"
"fate," gwiboon answers, with her back still facing them. and when jonghyun's gaze focuses on jinki, as if waiting for his answer, jinki shrugs.
"you could call it something like that."
the sunlight moves across jonghyun's face, across his hand clasped tightly in taemin's, and the words gwiboon said sound in his ears again.
you gotta be realistic, you know.
"are you two...dating?" taemin's question is hopeful and jinki can't keep back a scoff.
"if we are, it would make things easier, wouldn't it?" strangely, his voice isn't as harsh as he planned it to be. taemin just wants jinki to be happy, it's there in every look.
"we would make a pretty good looking couple though, don't you think?" gwiboon comes over, slides an arm into the crook of jinki's elbow and leans against his shoulder. she casts a stunning beam at jonghyun and taemin, and just like that, the tension is gone.
they only stay a short while, talking a little, catching up. finally came out of your lovey couple bubble to remember the rest of the world exists huh? gwiboon had teased, and when jinki laughed, it hadn't hurt as much as it used to. jinki buys back a chocolate cake but also rose, salted caramel and earl grey, and when gwiboon glares at the choices, he laughs a bit more.
"expand your horizons, miss kim," he tells her.
~-~
"does it hurt? the operation."
"not really."
"gotta be realistic, right?"
"gotta live."
gwiboon smiles at him, and there's a weight on jinki's chest that lifts.
~-~
two days before the scheduled operation, jinki wakes up without a pain in his chest, brushes his teeth and showers without stopping to throw up pink petals, and he's humming to himself while picking clothes when he realises he can breathe, without choking on petals, without sucking in stems.
his hand closes on the collar of the white shirt he's wearing. you look nice in fitted shirts he remembers gwiboon saying.
he can breathe. and he doesn't quite know what that means.
~-~
"this rarely happens," the doctor informs him later, eyes widening behind her bright pink frames.
"am i dying?" jinki asks.
"on the contrary. you're cured, no surgery required."
jinki blinks. sure he's part of a hidden camera practical joke.
"your x ray is completely clear," the doctor says. "completely."
then she looks at him carefully. "did you fall in love with someone else?"
"of course n-" an image of gwiboon intently making flower crowns out of unwanted flowers flits across his mind. she had placed one of them on jinki's head without a word and when he looked up in confusion, she had smiled innocently.
the doctor nods knowingly when jinki doesn't continue the sentence. "it happens sometimes, when the love dies away, so do the flowers."
~-~
"i'm in love with you," jinki announces the minute he steps through the shop door.
gwiboon looks up almost in slow motion, she blinks a few times then smiles, and it is radiant. "oh that's a relief, now i won't need to keep checking for flowers every morning," she quips.
"that means i'm in love with you too," she goes on to explain when jinki only stares.
"oh, i- oh."
"silly," she says gently and she walks over, cups her hands around his face, and kisses him, soft, sweet.