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taeguiary-blog · 7 years

Text

never forget them (always treat them well)

pairing: jeon jeongguk | kim taehyung { minor: kim taehyung | min yoongi }

genre: angsty fluff

word count: 3,496

All Taehyung sees is splashes of color. Red of the winter rose, yellow of the sunflower, sunset orange of the tulips. Sometimes he sees the lavender fields, its pale violet petals spread for miles into the horizon. But he can’t smell them. He never can.

Taehyung has always had a miscommunication with flowers. Taehyung thinks the flowers hate him, but they just want to be his friend. The flowers think Taehyung hates them, so they pretend to hate him too, even though when they wilt at night, they always think of Taehyung.

Taehyung was thirteen when the flower bloomed on his wrist. He jolted out of his slumber with jolts of searing pain throbbing throughout his muscles, pinging his nerves. The only thing he could do was scream for someone to hear him, so he would have someone to take care of him, to explain to Taehyung what is happening to him. The only person that ended up hearing him, unfortunately to the younger’ demise, was Jeongguk himself, sleeping right next to him.

Jeongguk rubbed his wide eyes, mouth hanging with uncertainty of what to do. “TaeTae!” Taehyung looked next to him, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Gukkie, it hurts.” That was when it clicked. The younger has always been more observant, coming to his senses, he pointed at Taehyung’s arm, the shock of the situation adjusted his eyes to the dark for him. Jeomgguk grew scared at the sight before him, what would Taehyung do?

“Your flower..”

Taehyung’s flower began in a thin black line, stretching across, slowly binding into a cluster of weeds. “N-no, Jeongguk, make it stop. I don’t want it.” Taehyung scratched at the flower forming hoping it wouldn’t seep into his skin.

“Taehyung stop!” The smaller boy pulled at his arms, putting them around his thin waist to stop him from scraping into his own flesh. “You’re going to hurt yourself. I need you.”

Jeon Jeongguk was only eleven. He had only known the flower appears whenever it wants to, and since his own flower hasn’t came yet, he figured his was a late bloomer. Jeongguk always wanted one. His parents had one, his cousin, his teacher. And now his best friend had one. He began to feel left out, but a warm drop hitting his shoulder pulled him out from the thoughts flooding slowly in his mind. “Guk, take it away, I don’t like it.”

How he wished he could.

But it was Taehyung’s flower and no matter how much he hated it, he was stuck with it until death finally caught up to him, vines clutching around his ankles, dragging him away. Jeongguk never knew exactly why Taehyung hated flowers so much, he never tried to smell them on the way to school like Jeongguk did. He never bought them for his teacher on the last day of school, and when he was presented with flowers for his first grade recital, Taehyung threw them on the ground running off the stage and to his car. He never told Jeongguk why, so he never pushed the reason, he thought it would push Taehyung further away from him.

Jeongguk couldn’t do anything but rub his friend’s back and wipe away the stray tears that got away smiling at him, softly telling him it would all be alright. That night Jeongguk hummed him back to sleep, not letting Taehyung see the flower on his wrist. Maybe when they both woke up it would be gone, or even on Jeongguk’s wrist instead.

It was still there.

Jeongguk woke up to Taehyung thrashing out of his arms and throwing a lamp to the floor. “Taehyung!” Taehyung turned his head towards Jeongguk, a blubbering mess may he add, and snickered colby, looking down at the mark.

“Who would of thought? The kid that hates the flowers most will have petals and leaves running throughout his whole arm one day.”

“Why do you hate them so much?”

“They hated me first, Jeongguk.”

“Hey—”

“Don’t. You don’t have to deal with this. Stop trying to coddle me and keep me sheltered from it, you know nothing.”

And with that, Taehyung turned back around and stomped out of the younger’s bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

When Taehyung was fifteen, he covered the marking on his wrist with a bandage so no one would have to see him with it. So he wouldn’t have to see himself with it. It was only a reminder. A reminder of the thing he could never have. Jeongguk always covered it for him so it wouldn’t be so hard on Taehyung, he could see it in his eyes he never wanted to see that flower bloom. Jeongguk is just lucky the vines haven’t started growing yet, he never wanted to see the day. There wouldn’t be enough bandages for when that day would come.

Taehyung envied the thirteen year old boy. Jeongguk’s wrist was clear of the flora that haunted his own, he was pure, not a petal in sight. Taehyung longed to go back to the night where his flower etched across his skin and somehow stop it from happening. Transmit it to Jeongguk instead. He knew that Jeongguk envied him as well. Whenever he unwrapped the bandage on his wrist he always felt Jeongguk’s fingers graze amongst the ink forever seeped into his skin. He marveled at the cluster of wild daisies, Taehyung ignored how his breath hitched when he saw the marking. Taehyung ignored it all. Jeongguk always sighed and placed a new bandage on the skin and pulled down the sweater sleeve once it was out of his way.

When Taehyung was seventeen, he fell in love with Jeongguk.

“Taehyung, we can’t. I am not your flower. I don’t have one, it isn’t me.”

Jeongguk always went by the book when it came to falling in love. If there was one action that didn’t match what his professor told him during spontaneous soulmate lectures, then it wasn’t love at all.

“I don’t need a flower to confirm anything about me, especially how I feel about you, Jeongguk, you got that?”

Taehyung, on the other hand, threw the book at the person who invented on love. He wanted his own path to fill with mile markers of memories and speed limit signs documenting how fast his heart raced. Maps scribbled with Sharpie, circling landmarks of the moments where he knew that love existed.

“Why did they hate you first?”

“They never answered me.”

Jeongguk didn’t press matters any further with him, he knew he would get nowhere with the older boy.

When Taehyung was nineteen a vine slowly grew on his skin. He was of age, and he was determined that they finally came to torment him climbing up from the depths of hell.

His soulmate’s first cry, the first cry Taehyung could know about anyway. He wished he wouldn’t cry so much, it only bombed him with more vines, spreading like a disease through his whole body.

Those markings only grew when the other would cry, leaves marking the times they thought about their soulmate. No leaves grew. Only vines distanced themselves towards his left shoulder and glittered across his collarbones. Taehyung never thought about them either after all, Jeongguk was the only person he needed.

Until Jeongguk had enough.

“Taehyung, you have someone else’s life etched into your arm! All the times they cry, how much they think about you! Do you know how terrible that makes me feel? Knowing you supposedly love me but see every action the person makes on your body? When we are together and another vine grows, how could you just ignore it? How can you not stare until your eyes water and mind freezes with anything but that damn vine? It makes me sick knowing that I am not the one on your arm, Tae. I can’t.. I love you, but I cant anymore.”

“Do you really think I want this all over my arm, Jeongguk? Don’t you really think if there was a way to take it all off I wouldn’t have done it already? If I want anyone’s flower, it should be yours! I don’t want this person, I want you.”

His neck began to burn, teeth grinding to distract him from the pain. Taehyung’s hand clutched to the side of his neck wanting to hide what ever was happening away from Jeongguk’s vision. He didn’t want to hurt him anymore.

“Let me see, Tae.”

Taehyung fell to his knees wrapping his fingers around his neck tighter. “N-no.”

“Move your hand,” Tears began to drip down his cheeks. “I need to see.”

Taehyung hung his head, shaking it violently avoiding Jeongguk’s gaze. “Don’t, Jeongguk please, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Taehyung,” Jeongguk pulled up his sleeve and gently raise Taehyung’s head moving all of the hair away from his eyes so he could look into them. “You’re crying.” Taehyung looked down to his bare arm only to find a vine growing from a small lavender bundled by his wrist, surrounded by leaves.

He was right, he was a late bloomer after all. The smile of happiness Jeongguk accumulated when he was in the middle of reading a book, when it started forming, quickly changed courses to a dull frown. Tears grew in his eyes, throwing the book across the room. He didn’t know if the flower was meant for Taehyung until the first leaf appeared when he called Jeongguk between classes and said he loved him.

“When? When did this happen? Why am I there but you’re not here?!” Taehyung scraped the daisies that embraced his wrist. “I hate them, I hate the person who is on my arm. I hate it all. And I am going to lose the only thing I don’t hate.”

“It happened last month. I didn’t know until you called later and said you loved me. I a, sorry I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I know how bad you don’t want someone else, and it only seemed rude to say I had the privilege of your flower but you don’t have mine,” Jeongguk pulled him into a hug and held him in his embrace. “Taehyung, please stop.”

“I hate them!”

“Why, Taehyung? How could you hate them so much? Why wouldn’t they answer you?”

“My mother died when I was seven, you know that.” Taehyung sighed into Jeongguk’s chest. “She loved flowers, we used to put them in every empty corner of the room, made space for them amongst the clutter in the tables. Her favorite was lavender, said they reminded her of me. Saying they were a social plant, bees always were attracted to them and everything naturally just surrounded themselves around them. My favorite were daisies, they were always many of them, but one flower always meant more to the others than other people. She was my daisy, amongst all the other ones growing, she was the one that was special to me, the only person that mattered. About a year earlier, mom became really sick. She could hardly walk out of bed and eat anything. So, I talked to them, prayed to them to keep her with me, to not let her go. But they didn’t listen. She said they would always be there for me when I needed them most.”

Jeongguk moved the fingers combing through Taehyung’s hair, letting his chin rest against the top of his head, holding him tighter. “Taehyung, she is still with you. She is there on your arm.”

“No. No she isn’t, Gukkie.”

“All those vines aren’t her crying, they are for every time she says I love you. And that leaf one your neck, the ones that will grow after that, they are when she kisses you goodnight when we get into bed.”

Taehyung moved his head and looked straight at Jeongguk. “Don’t leave me. I already lost her, I can’t lose you too.”

“You won’t lose me, Taehyung. I am right here, always.”

When Taehyung was twenty-three that was when Jeongguk was by his side for the last time.

“Kim Taehyung,” he says, with a smile as sweet as hyacinths.

“Jeon Jungkook,” Jungkook says, watching Taehyung as the nurse roll him in, helping him into the bed next to where Taehyung sat.

“So I’ve heard a lot about you from around here,” Taehyung says, settling into Jeongguk’s best, pushing himself down into the pillows with a steady laugh.

“Really? How could anyone be talking about me?” Jungkook quirks an eyebrow. Taehyung grins, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Some weirdo went around the whole floor talking about his boyfriend and how much he loved him. Don’t know who that was, but you really became the topic of conversation.” Jungkook rolls his eyes, grabbing Taehyung’s wrist, placing a kiss to the cluster of daises. He would hope that would make Taehyung shut up, but Taehyung keeps talking. And Jeongguk doesn’t necessarily mind to hear about the stuffed animal he bought Jeongguk waiting at home on his side of the bed.

The next day, Taehyung visited him again after his shift of work, and was greeting with squinting eyes and a laughter as melodic as honeysuckle.

“I made this waiting for you. I know you don’t like flowers and all but—"Taehyung looked at Jeongguk’s hands, shaking wondering what reaction he would have. A flower crown of lavender was placed into his grasp and he marveled at the creation.

“I hate them, but it’s still prefect. It’s…you.” he answers glaring at the bouquets and bouquets of flowers taking up space in Jeongguk’s room.

“You’re going to grow a flower allergy one day with all these flowers in your room. When we go home I am not letting you take a single petal home, you got that? You deserve a flower free life.”

Jeongguk chuckled, “Can’t, sorry. There’s this one flower, for some idiot, some people call him my boyfriend, it can’t go away no matter how bad I want it to.”

Taehyung scans over his lips, leaning over the side of the bed watching Jeongguk reach for another flower, bending the stem just so, reaching out for another, tying each stem to the next until it is a knotted mess with irises popping up here and there. Taehyung watches with a sense of enlightenment, wondering how someone could be so bad and making flower crowns, but look so cute doing it, proud of his creation treating it as if he won the world.

“Will I ever get to go home?” he’d said, gripping onto Taehyung’s shirt pulling him into the empty space that resided next to him in his bed.

Jungkook nods like he is certain he will. He does but he really doesn’t. How could he? Jeongguk knew how bad he was getting, Taehyung did too.

Please, this time. Save him, I love him.

The flowers grew no reply.

“Weeds from outside,” Jeongguk exclaims, holding out a thin stem of white hued with a flush of pink. “I went outside today, they let me before you got here. They’re pretty basic but they go nicely everything else,” Jeongguk’s skills at flower crowns hadn’t grown any better, but he enjoyed it all the same, they were the prettiest things to him in the world. Well, besides Taehyung anyway.

“Don’t leave me.” Jeongguk says.

Taehyung blinks back tears threatening to escape, not wanting to grow another vine across Jeongguk’s arm. Jeongguk knew he would go home and cry. Cry for him, even though he pretended not to notice the way purple rings bloomed under Taehyung’s eyes and his build became daintier, completion fairer. The vines hurt, but he realized it could never be as terrible as what Taehyung was feeling. He could deal with the pain.

“I could never.”

“What’s up, stud-muffin,” Taehyung asks, waltzing through the door, stopping in front of a patch of flowers, blocking them from view.

“I hate you,” Jeongguk sighs.

“You love it,” Taehyung winks and blows him a kiss, sitting across from the boy. “Your parents are doing better. Your mom is almost over the flu and your dad told me to say he misses you.”

He thumbs at his daily flower crown in his hands for another minute or two leaning into where Jeongguk laid.

“They miss you,” he says, eyes starting to glaze over with something unidentifiable to Jeongguk. But something so very common.

“I miss you,” a voice chokes out, trying not to break apart in front of the person he was supposed to make feel better.

“Thanks for spending all the time you could with me, up to the very end,” Jeongguk says, head turned on his pillow enough to see Taehyung staring at him. Taehyung is clutching his hand so tight both their knuckles have gone white, losing all feeling.

“Jeongguk, Don't—"but the younger cuts him off with a smile, a laugh, that still made Taehyung feel weak when he heard it.

"You know the very first time your flower came, I thought it would never be me. That you would fall in love with someone from your class and go to college together and I would visit on the weekends. I am glad that it was me instead. Even if I wasn’t the one on your arm, even though I knew it wasn’t me, eventually it felt like I was. You didn’t need a vine to see when I was crying because you were always right by my side. You didn’t need a leaf to see how much I was thinking of you because you were already there for me to tell those words to when I felt like it. You were right, I didn’t need a flower on you after all. But promise me something, find that flower, Tae. It is there for a reason, don’t give up on it. Don’t cut your life short just because mine was.”

“Don’t fucking say that.” Taehyung almost squeezes too tight digging his fingertips into the other’s hand. He didn’t want to hear those words. He didn’t want to hear that goodbye. Jeongguk was supposed to be with him forever, they were supposed to raise twenty cats together at fifty and knit blankets for one another. They were supposed to take walks together outside of confined hallways that smelled like dull saline and linen sheets. They were supposed to lay back in a bed of their own and not worry about feeding or medicine schedules. They were supposed to live their lives. Together.

“It’s true,” Jeongguk says, running his thumb along the back of Taehyung’s hand. “I never understood why you hated flowers so much, until I realized that they never answered my prayers either. But I think I am okay with them not granting my will to live, but for the one to live yours. To move on, after I am no longer here to make you shitty knotted flower crowns and corny jokes to make it seem like I wasn’t dying,”

“Jeon Jeongguk, I swear to God, don't—” Taehyung is not crying. He isn’t. They both ignore the blast of pain Jeongguk fills grow to his back from his chest. He isn’t crying. He isn’t.

He is.

“Fucking let me finish, Tae,” Jeongguk says, and Taehyung slams his feet on the floor, looking back into his lover’s eyes. There it was again, that look. Jeongguk finally thought he knew what it meant: Goodbye.

“So thank you, Taehyung. For loving me, every second, even when I never doubted you did, and all people on their death bed can’t say that, but I can because I have you.”

“I fucking hate flowers,”

“Good,” Jeongguk says, and he giggles. Taehyung wants to reach out and grab Jeongguk, but he knew he was too fragile, his porcelain doll. “But even if you hate them, never forget them. Don’t forget me even if I wasn’t your flower, always treat them well.”

“You were always my flower laced in invisible ink for only my eyes to see.”

He wasn’t supposed to have flowers at his funeral, but lavender hung from the ceiling woven in golden thread knotted terribly together, daisies danced across the room, blooming towards Jeongguk and the bountiful life he lived. A tribute, a goodbye to their old friend.

He lets his eyes trace over the name engraved into the marble—Jeon Jeongguk , “Never forget them.” and then his date of birth, date of death, years ago.

“You’re a fucking terrible person, Jeon,” he says, scratching at the corners of his eyes because even now, all those years later, he can still see Jeongguk’s smile like the night has wrapped it around his mind long enough to scar, just like those daisies did. “We grew up together, fell in love together, everything we did, we never had to go through it alone. You changed me, Gukkie. And if the roles were switched, if you were the one talking to me right now, I know that you would have done the same thing for me. Only you wouldn’t bitch as often and complain about my side of the bed being cold. Thank you, for teaching me that flowers don’t define what I feel. Hatred doesn’t define. Only I define. And you defined me.”

He squeezes his eyes shut if only to stop the tears.

“I would’ve wanted… to spend the rest of my life with you too… but you asshole, you didn’t let me.” He hiccups. It’s been so many years.

Taehyung visited him every week with a fresh bouquet of lavender and daisies, crumbling the old ones to blow in the wind above his headstone. Taehyung smiled, “I know I have already told you, but I want you to know your prayers, the ones you thought they would listen to…they did come true. We met at this terrible bar a couple miles from where we lived. He drove a terribly blue colored Chevy and almost ran into me drunk off his ass. Turns out he is allergic to flowers so I don’t have to worry about that,” Taehyung chuckles. “ Min Yoongi. You would like him, I think. He’s a complaining bitch, but he is my complaining bitch. We got married about four years ago, you were my best man, you should know. I knew even though we couldn’t see you, you were there. I just hope you weren’t watching the honey moon, your poor eyes…I miss you, Jeongguk. I love you.”

“Is that Uncle Jeongguk?”

Taehyung turned around only to find a small boy looking up at him, beaming, a curious smirk growing at the corners of his lips. “Yeah it is. Jeongguk you remember him right? He visited after me and Yoongi adopted him. Yoongi had to work today, so he had to come along, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Are those all for him?” The boy looked around the marble and saw piles and sprinkles of daisies and lavender.

“They sure are.”

“You must really like flowers, huh?”

Taehyung chuckled, “Actually I hate them,” he turned for a brief moment to look back at Jeongguk. “but he loved them, and I loved him.”

“Well do you want me to bring you flowers too?” He placed his small hand in Taehyung’s jacket pockets, trying to grow warm from the cool breeze that hits his frozen cheeks.

“Only if you want me to haunt you from the grave.” He giggled, throwing the boy in his back. “Come on, Daddy should be home from work any second now and he will get pissy if we don’t bring him food.”

“Oh shit.” Taehyung froze at the word, he had to or he would have dropped the boy from laughing too hard. “That’s my boy. Alright, hop in and I will race you to the front door when we get home, deal?”

“Deal!”

If only the dead could speak.

I miss you too, Taehyung.

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taeguiary-blog · 7 years

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Never Forget Them (Always Treat Them Well)

Work Text:

Taehyung was thirteen when the flower bloomed on his wrist. He jolted out of his slumber with jolts of searing pain throbbing throughout his nerves and muscles. The only thing he could do was scream for someone to hear him, so he would know what was going on. The only person that ended up hearing him, unfortunately to the younger' demise, was Jeongguk himself, sleeping right next to him.

Jeongguk rubbed his wide eyes, mouth hanging with uncertainty of what to do. "TaeTae!" Taehyung looked next to him, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Gukkie, it hurts." That was when it clicked.

"Your flower.."

Taehyung's flower began in a thin black line, stretching across, slowly binding into a cluster of weeds. "N-no, Jeongguk, make it stop. I don't want it." Taehyung scratched at the flower forming hoping it wouldn't seep into his skin.

"Taehyung stop!" The smaller boy pulled at his arms, putting them around his waist to stop him from scraping into his own flesh. "You're going to hurt yourself. I need you."

Jeon Jeongguk was only eleven. He had only known the flower appears whenever it wants to, and since his flower hasn't came yet, he figured it was a late bloomer. Jeongguk always wanted one. His parents had one, his cousin, his teacher. And now his best friend had one. He began to feel left out, but a warm drop hitting his shoulder pulled him out from his mind. "Guk, take it away, I don't like it."

How he wished he could.

But it was Taehyung's flower and no matter how much he hated it, he was stuck with it until death finally caught up to him, vines clutching around his ankles, dragging him away. Jeongguk never knew exactly why Taehyung hated flowers so much, he never tried to smell them on the way to school like Jeongguk did. He never bought them for his teacher on the last day of school, and when he was presented with flowers for his first grade recital, Taehyung threw them on the ground running off the stage and to his car. He never told Jeongguk why, so he never pushed the reason, he thought it would hurt Taehyung all over again.

Jeongguk couldn't do anything but rub his friend's back and wipe away the stray tears that got away smiling at him, softly telling him it would all be alright. That night Jeongguk hummed him back to sleep, not letting Taehyung see the flower on his wrist. Maybe when they both woke up it would be gone, or even on Jeongguk's wrist instead.

It was still there.

Jeongguk woke up to Taehyung thrashing out of his arms and throwing a lamp to the floor. "Taehyung!" Taehyung turned his head towards Jeongguk, a blubbering mess may he add, and snickered.

"Who would of thought. The kid that hates the flowers most will have petals and leaves running throughout his whole arm one day."

"Why do you hate them so much."

"They hated me first, Jeongguk."

"Hey—"

"Don't. You don't have to deal with this. Stop trying to coddle me and keep me sheltered from it, you know nothing."

And with that, Taehyung turned back around and stomped out of the younger' bedroom slamming the door behind him.

When Taehyung was fifteen, he covered the marking on his wrist with a bandage so no one would have to see him with it. So he wouldn't have to see himself with it. It was only a reminder. A reminder of the thing he could never have. Jeongguk always covered it for him so it wouldn't be so hard on Taehyung, he could see it in his eyes he never wanted to see that flower bloom. Jeongguk is just lucky the vines haven't started growing yet, he never wanted to see the day.

Taehyung envied the thirteen year old boy. Jeongguk's wrist was clear of the flora that haunted his own, he was pure, not a petal in sight. Taehyung longed to go back to the night where his flower etched across his skin and somehow stop it from happening. Transmit it to Jeongguk instead. He knew that Jeongguk envied him as well. Whenever he unwrapped the bandage on his wrist he always felt Jeongguk's fingers graze amongst the ink forever seeped into his skin. He marveled at the cluster of wild daisies, Taehyung ignored how his breath hitched when he saw the marking. Taehyung ignored it all. Jeongguk always sighed and placed a new bandage on the skin and pulled down the sweater sleeve once it was out of his way.

When Taehyung was seventeen, he fell in love with Jeongguk.

"Taehyung, we can't. I am not your flower. I don't have one, it isn't me."

"I don't need a flower to confirm anything about me, especially how I feel about you, Jeongguk, you got that?"

"Why did they hate you first?"

"They never answered me."

Jeongguk didn't press matters any further with him, he knew he would get nowhere with the older boy.

When Taehyung was nineteen a vine slowly grew on his skin. He was of age, and they finally came to torment him from the depths of hell.

His soulmate's first cry, the first cry Taehyung could know about anyway. He wished he wouldn't cry so much, it only bombed him with more vines, spreading like a disease through his whole body.

Until Jeongguk had enough.

"Taehyung, you have someone else's life etched into your arm! All the times they cry, how much they think about you! Do you know how terrible that makes me feel? Knowing you supposedly love me but see every action the person makes on your body? When we are together and another vine grows, how could you just ignore it? How can you not stare until your eyes water and mind freezes with anything but that damn vine? It makes me sick knowing that I am not the one on your arm, Tae. I can't.. I love you, but I cant anymore."

"Do you really think I wanting this all over my arm, Jeongguk? Did you really think if there was a way to take it all off I wouldn't have done it already? If I want anyone's flower it should be yours! I don't want this person, I want you."

His neck began to burn, teeth grinding to distract him from the pain. Taehyung's hand clutched to the side of his neck wanting to hide what ever was happening away from Jeongguk's vision. He didn't want to hurt him anymore.

"Let me see, Tae."

Taehyung fell to his knees wrapping his fingers around his neck tighter. "N-no."

"Move your hand," Tears began to drip down his cheeks. "I need to see."

Taehyung hung his head, shaking it violently avoiding Jeongguk's gaze. "Don't, Jeongguk please, it doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Taehyung," Jeongguk pulled up his sleeve and gently raise Taehyung's head moving all of the hair away from his eyes so he could look into them. "You're crying." Taehyung looked down to his bare arm only to find a vine growing from a small lavender bundled by his wrist, surrounded by leaves.

"When? When did this happen? Why am I there but you're not here?!" Taehyung scraped the daisies that embraced his wrist. "I hate them, I hate the person who is on my arm. I hate it all. And I am going to lose the only thing I don't hate."

"Last month," Jeongguk pulled him into a hug and held him in his embrace. "Taehyung, please stop."

"I hate them!"

"Why, Taehyung? How could you hate them so much? Why wouldn't they answer you?"

"My mother died when I was seven, you know that." Taehyung sighed into Jeongguk's chest. "She loved flowers, we used to put them in every empty corner of the room, made space for them amongst the clutter in the tables. Her favorite was lavender, said they reminded her of me. Saying the were a social plant, bees always were attracted to them and everything naturally just surrounded themselves around them. My favorite were daisies, they were always many of them, but one flower always meant more to the others than other people. She was ,y daisy, amongst all the other ones growing, she was the one that was special to me, the only person that mattered. About a year earlier, mom became really sick. She could hardly walk out of bed and eat anything. So, I talked to them, prayed to them to keep her with me, to not let her go. But they didn't listen. She said they would always be there for me when I needed them most."

Jeongguk moved the fingers combing through Taehyung's hair, letting his chin rest against the top of his head, holding him tighter. "Taehyung, she is still with you. She is there on your arm."

"No. No she isn't, Gukkie."

"All those vines aren't her crying, they are for every time she says I love you. And that leaf one your neck, the ones that will grow after that, they are when she kisses you goodnight."

Taehyung moved his head and looked straight at Jeongguk. "Don't leave me. I already lost her, I can't lose you too."

"You won't lose me, Taehyung. I am right here, always."

When Taehyung was twenty-three that was when Jeongguk was by his side for the last time.

"Kim Taehyung," he says, with a smile as sweet as hyacinths.

"Jeon Jungkook," Jungkook says, watching Taehyung as the nurse roll him in, helping him into the bed next to where Taehyung sat.

"So I've heard from around here," Taehyung says, settling into Jeongguk's best, pushing himself down into the pillows with a steady laugh.

"Really? How could anyone be talking about me?" Jungkook quirks an eyebrow. Taehyung grins, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Some weirdo went around the whole floor talking about his boyfriend and how much he loved him. Don't know who that was, but you really became the topic of conversation." Jungkook rolls his eyes, grabbing Taehyung's wrist, placing a kiss to the cluster of daises. He would hope that would make Taehyung shut up, but Taehyung keeps talking. And Jeongguk doesn't necessarily mind to hear about the stuffed animal he bought Jeongguk waiting at home on his side of the bed.

The next day, Taehyung visited him again after his shift of work, and was greeting with squinting eyes and a laughter as melodic as honeysuckle.

"I made this waiting for you. I know you don't like flowers and all but—"Taehyung looked at Jeongguk's hands, shaking wondering what reaction he would have. A flower crown of lavender was placed into his grasp and he marveled at the creation.

"I hate them, but it's still prefect. It's...you." he answers glaring at the bouquets and bouquets of flowers taking up space in Jeongguk's room.

"You're going to grow a flower allergy one day with all these flowers in your room. When we go home I am not letting you take a single petal home, you got that? You deserve a flower free life."

Jeongguk chuckled, "Can't, sorry. There's this one flower, for some idiot, some people call him my boyfriend, it can't go away no matter how bad I want it to."

"Will I ever get to go home?" he'd said, gripping onto Taehyung's shirt pulling him into the empty space that resided next to him in his bed.

Jungkook nods like he is certain he will. He does but he really doesn't. How could he? Jeongguk knew how bad he was getting, Taehyung did too.

Please, this time. Save him, I love him.

The flowers grew no reply.

"Weeds from outside," Jeongguk exclaims, holding out a thin stem of swhite hued with a flush of pink. "I went outside today, they let me before you got here. They're pretty basic but they go nicely everything else," Jeongguk's skills at flower crowns hadn't grown any better, but he enjoyed it all the same, they were the prettiest things to him in the world. Well, besides Taehyung anyway.

"Don't leave me." Jeongguk says.

Taehyung blinks back tears threatening to escape, wanting to grow another vine across Jeongguk's arm. Jeongguk knew he would go home and cry. Cry for him, even though he pretended not to notice the way purple rings bloomed under Taehyung's eyes and his build became daintier, completion fairer. The vines hurt, but he realized it could never be as terrible as what Taehyung was feeling. He could deal with the pain.

"I could never."

"What's up, stud-muffin," Taehyung asks, waltzing through the door, stopping in front of a patch of flowers, blocking them from view.

"I hate you," Jeongguk sighs.

"You love it," Taehyung winks and blows him a kiss, sitting across from the boy. "Your parents are doing better. Your mom is almost over the flu and your dad told me to say he misses you."

He thumbs at his daily flower crown in his hands for another minute or two leaning into where Jeongguk laid.

"They miss you," he says, eyes starting to glaze over with something unidentifiable to Jeongguk. But something so very common.

"I miss you," a voice chokes out, trying not to break apart in front of the person he was supposed to make feel better.

"Thanks for spending all the time you could with me, up to the very end," Jeongguk says, head turned on his pillow enough to see Taehyung staring at him. Taehyung is clutching his hand so tight both their knuckles have gone white, losing all feeling.

"Jeongguk, Don't—"but the younger cuts him off with a smile, a laugh, that still made Taehyung feel weak when he heard it.

"You know the very first time your flower came, I thought it would never be me. That you would fall in love with someone from your class and go to college together and I would visit on the weekends. I am glad that it was me instead. Even if I wasn't the one on your arm, even though I knew it wasn't me, eventually it felt like I was. You didn't need a vine to see when I was crying because you were always right by my side. You didn't need a leaf to see how much I was thinking of you because you were already there for me to tell those words to when I felt like it. You were right, I didn't need a flower after all. But promise me something, find that flower, Tae. It is there for a reason, don't give up on it. Don't cut your life short just because mine was."

"Don't fucking say that." Taehyung almost squeezes too tight digging his fingertips into the other's hand. He didn't want to hear those words. He didn't want to hear that goodbye. Jeongguk was supposed to be with him forever, they were supposed to raise twenty cats together at fifty and knit blankets for one another. They were supposed to take walks together outside of confined hallways that smelled like dull saline and linen sheets. They were supposed to lay back in a bed of their own and not worry about feeding or medicine schedules. They were supposed to live their lives. Together.

"It's true," Jeongguk says, running his thumb along the back of Taehyung's hand. "I never understood why you hated flowers so much, until I realized that they never answered my prayers either. But I think I am okay with them not granting my will to live, but for the one to live yours. To move on, after I am no longer here to make you shitty knotted flower crowns and corny jokes to make it seem like I wasn't dying,"

"Jeon Jeongguk, I swear to God, don't—" Taehyung is not crying. He isn't. They both ignore the blast of pain Jeongguk fills grow to his back from his chest. He isn't crying. He isn't.

He is.

"Fucking let me finish, Tae," Jeongguk says, and Taehyung slams his feet on the floor, looking back into his lover's eyes. There it was again, that look. Jeongguk finally thought he knew what it meant: Goodbye.

"So thank you, Taehyung. For loving me, every second, even when I never doubted you did, and all people on their death bed can't say that, but I can because I have you."

"I fucking hate flowers,"

"Good," Jeongguk says, and he giggles. Taehyung wants to reach out and grab Jeongguk, but he knew he was too fragile, his porcelain doll. "But even if you hate them, never forget them. Don't forget me even if I wasn't your flower, always treat them well."

"You were always my flower laced in invisible ink for only my eyes to see."

He wasn't supposed to have flowers at his funeral, but lavender hung from the ceiling woven in golden thread knotted terribly together, daisies danced across the room, blooming towards Jeongguk and the bountiful life he lived. A tribute, a goodbye to their old friend.

He lets his eyes trace over the name engraved into the marble—Jeon Jeongguk , "Never forget them." and then his date of birth, date of death, years ago.

"You're a fucking terrible person," he says, scratching at the corners of his eyes because even now, all those years later, he can still see Jeongguk's smile like the night has wrapped it around his mind long enough to scar, just like those daisies did. "We grew up together, fell in love together, everything we did, we never had to go through it alone. You changed me, Gukkie. And if the roles was switched, if you were the one talking to me right now, I know that you would have done the same thing for me. Only you wouldn't bitch as often and complain about my side of the bed being cold. Thank you, for teaching me that flowers don't define what I feel. Hatred doesn't define. Only I define. And you defined me."

He squeezes his eyes shut if only to stop the tears.

"I would've wanted... to spend the rest of my life with you too... but you asshole, you didn't let me." He hiccups. It's been so many years.

Taehyung visited him every week with a fresh bouquet of lavender and daisies, crumbling the old ones to blow in the wind above his headstone. Taehyung smiled, "I know I have already told you, but I want you to know your prayers, the ones you thought they would listen to...they did come true. We met at this terrible bar a couple miles from where we lived. He drove a terribly blue colored Chevy and almost ran into me drunk off his ass. Turns out he is allergic to flowers so I don't have to worry about that," Taehyung chuckles. " Min Yoongi. You would like him, I think. He's a complaining bitch, but he is my complaining bitch. We got married about four years ago, you were my best man, you should know. I knew even though we couldn't see you, you were there. I just hope you weren't watching the honey moon, your poor eyes...I miss you, Jeongguk. I love you."

"Is that Uncle Jeongguk?"

Taehyung turned around only to find a small boy looking up at him, beaming, a curious smirk growing at the corners of his lips. "Yeah it is. Jeongguk you remember him right? He visited after me and Yoongi adopted him. Yoongi had to work today, so he had to come along, I hope you don't mind."

"Are those all for him?" The boy looked around the marble and saw piles and sprinkles of daisies and lavender.

"They sure are."

"You must really like flowers, huh?"

Taehyung chuckled, "Actually I hate them," he turned for a brief moment to look back at Jeongguk. "but he loved them, and I loved him."

"Well do you want me to bring you flowers too?" He placed his small hand in Taehyung's jacket pockets, trying to grow warm from the cool breeze that hits his frozen cheeks.

"Only if you want me to haunt you from the grave." He giggled, throwing the boy in his back. "Come on, Daddy should be home from work any second now and he will get pissy if we don't bring him food."

"Oh shit." Taehyung froze, he had to or he would have dropped the boy from laughing too hard. "That's my boy. Alright hop in and I will race you to the front door when we get home, deal?"

"Deal!"

If only the dead could speak.

I miss you too, Taehyung.

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