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Daehyun wasn’t supposed to find out.
He wasn’t supposed to stay awake in wait for Jaewon to return from whatever club he was at either, but whenever midnight passed and Jaewon’s bed remained empty, Daehyun couldn’t help but worry.
“Why would someone who couldn’t be bothered about being caught by paparazzi care about making it home by midnight?” Minsoo would say, anger having long since made way for defeat regarding Jaewon. “Don’t work yourself up about it Daehyun, just go to sleep.”
But when it came to Jaewon, Daehyun often found himself caring when he shouldn’t, and staying up when he should be sleeping.
(Not that Minsoo knew about what Daehyun was doing. He already had enough on his plate.)
Daehyun was about to give up and accept that Jaewon was probably sleeping in some random woman’s bed when the front door clicked open. Daehyun, half asleep, scrambles to hide after hearing what he assumed was the sound of Minsoo’s bedroom door opening.
It takes a minute for him to realise the figure standing in the middle of the unlit living room was Jaewon. It takes another minute to realise that he was coughing his lungs out.
Daehyun trips over himself rushing to help Jaewon, who is now bent over with the force of the cough. Jaewon flinches when Daehyun’s hand landed on his shoulder, looking up reflexively. A strangled scream rises in Daehyun’s throat.
A single bloom rests in between Jaewon’s lips, glistening with blood. Jaewon stares at him, eyes wide with guilt and fear. Daehyun stumbles backwards, choking on the beginning of a sentence.
"Jae-Jaewon-” He manages. Jaewon continues to stare at him, shocked mute.
“It’s not hana-…that. Right? It isn’t, right?” Daehyun blabbers, voice growing higher with each word. He trips over something, falling hard. He doesn’t bother getting up.
It can’t be that. Jaewon isn’t sick. He’s just silent because he’s surprised. Daehyun is probably overreacting. Daehyun is definitely overreacting. Any minute now Jaewon will snap out of it and give him an explanation and they’ll laugh at Daehyun’s reaction. Right? There’s a logical explanation for the flower, right? Daehyun refuses to believe otherwise.
“Daehyun.” Daehyun snaps out of his thoughts. Jaewon is looking at him determinedly. He rises, towering over Daehyun.
“You can’t tell anyone else.” Jaewon stares into his eyes, focused. “Alright?”
Daehyun stares back up at him, horror mounting.
“Alright?” Jaewon repeats, louder. Instinctively, Daehyun nods jerkily.
They stay in silence a few moments, gaze locked on each other. An eternity passes in those few minutes, and in the darkness Daehyun’s vision is filled with Jaewon. Daehyun’s gaze lands upon the bloom, lying on the floor behind Jaewon, and the spell is broken. Jaewon follows his line of sight, fist clenching once he sees. He averts his eyes and heads towards their bedroom.
“Wait, Jaewon-” Daehyun tries to grab Jaewon’s sleeve, but he shakes him off and brushes past him, leaving Daehyun alone with a bloody flower and the truth crashing down on him.
Daehyun tries talking about it to Jaewon the next day.
“What is it?” Jaewon asks, allowing himself to be pulled into the dorm balcony. Daehyun ignores the question, looking around to make sure Dongho and Minsoo aren’t in earshot.
Once he’s sure the coast is clear, Daehyun turns back to Jaewon, who's gazing at him quizzically.
“What is it, Daehyun?” He asks, as if there’s nothing worth asking about, as if everything is alright and he’s not weeks away from his last breath.
A thousand questions to ask, and they all disappear the second Daehyun is actually standing in front of Jaewon. Daehyun just stares at him, stares at him until a lump forms in his throat and words spill out on their own.
“Jaewon…how could you hide it?”
Jaewon figures out what he’s referring to instantly. He steps forward, hands reaching for Daehyun’s arm, but Daehyun shakes him off, tears blurring his vision.
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Daehyun struggles to speak past the lump in his throat. “When were you planning on letting us know?”
Jaewon, to his credit, has the decency to look regretful, but decency doesn’t stop him from saying what he does next.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Daehyun gapes at Jaewon, who, despite looking apologetic, does not stop talking.
“I wasn’t going to tell any of you, and I’d really appreciate it if you pretended like you didn’t know either. I’ll take care of it myself.”
With that, Jaewon walks past Daehyun, who is frozen to his spot (in anger or in shock? He doesn’t know either).
Before Jaewon actually reenters the apartment, Daehyun shouts a question at him.
“When’s your surgery!”
Jaewon glances back before stepping inside.
“I don't have one scheduled.”
Forget Jaewon, this whole situation is going to kill Daehyun first.
Jaewon is surprisingly good at avoiding Daehyun.
A week goes by, and somehow Jaewon manages to evade interrogation. No matter how hard Daehyun tries, someone else is always in the room with them.
That is, until Jaewon slips up at dance practice.
They’ve been in the practice room all day, and everyone is exhausted.
It takes all three of them to convince Minsoo to let them take a break, and Daehyun collapses the second he agrees. Jaewon, possibly not wanting to give Daehyun an opportunity to approach him, possibly just being nice, volunteers to go refill their water bottles.
Daehyun doesn’t even last three minutes after Minsoo calls a break for Daehyun before he starts complaining about being hungry. Minsoo is ready to ignore Daehyun and get the break over with, but Dongho silently drags him out to buy something anyway.
Jaewon arrives just after they leave, noticing too late that Daehyun’s the only one in the room. He opens his mouth to say something but Daehyun beats him to it.
“Don’t run away.”
Daehyun has spent a week staying up all night because, everytime he closed his eyes, all he could see was that bloodstained flower. He has spent a week trying desperately to corner Jaewon, and failing. He isn’t ready to spend another one the same way.
“Just...listen.”
Jaewon, against all of Daehyun’s expectations, stays. He remains standing in the opposite corner of the room, staring curiously at Daehyun sprawled on the floor. Daehyun is suddenly reminded of another horrible night, when Jaewon stood over him the same way, bloodstained lips and blood splattered secrets unveiled.
Daehyun scrambles to a sitting position, and gestures for Jaewon to sit next to him. Jaewon obeys.
“Listen, Jaewon. I don’t know why you don’t want anyone to know about it, but I’ll keep it a secret. Just don’t... don’t avoid me.”
Jaewon nods and whispers a small thank you. Daehyun smiles at him but before either of them can say anything else, Minsoo bursts into the room and throws a paper bag full of snacks at Daehyun.
”I’m giving you five minutes to stuff your face before the break ends!”
Daehyun doesn’t think much of Jaewon’s condition after that. It’s selfish but he’d rather avoid thinking about it, act like nothing’s wrong, turn his back whenever he hears Jaewon coughing in his sleep.
Sometimes, though, Daehyun has no option but to deal with it.
They’ve had more dance practices this week than Daehyun can ever remember having. He complains to Minsoo that they didn’t practice this much for their debut. But Minsoo is relentless. The more Jaewon wheezes and falls short of breath, the more Minsoo pushes him, trying to get him into shape.
“You seriously need to join a gym or something.” Minsoo admonishes after Jaewon collapses for the third time that day. Jaewon doesn’t reply, folded in on himself. Daehyun can hear him gasping from across the room. He sympathises. Minsoo’s ‘training’ is probably only making things worse.
Minsoo’s prods Jaewon, telling him to get up, but Jaewon remains curled up, choking and hacking. Minsoo tries to pull Jaewon up by his shoulders and Daehyun catches a flash of red.
Blood. There’s blood dribbling from the corner of Jaewon’s lips.
Dongho isn’t paying attention and Minsoo is still facing Jaewon’s back. None of them have seen it yet. Daehyun doesn’t think Jaewon has even realised the blood’s there.
Daehyun gets up and walks towards them, hands shaking.
“Minsoo, I think there’s something stuck in his throat. I’ll take him to the bathroom.” Daehyun internally cries in relief when his voice comes out steady.
Minsoo looks at him suspiciously at the unusual request. “You’re trying to get a break for him, aren’t you? You know he needs the practice-” Minsoo stops and sighs, “You know what, just go.”
Daehyun silently thanks the heavens that Minsoo assumed that was the reason and leads a still coughing Jaewon to the bathroom, making sure Minsoo and Dongho can’t see his face.
It takes a while, but eventually Jaewon hacks out a fully formed flower into the sink. He runs it under the faucet, and eventually Daehyun can actually see the flower, without the blood. It’s tiny, and Daehyun nearly mistakes it for a bulb.
“Arborvitae.”
Daehyun looks up at Jaewon, who’s staring at him, expression unreadable.
“It’s not a native flower. The name is arborvitae. It means unchanging friendship.”
Daehyun merely nods, wondering how to respond.
“You’re coughing out whole flowers now.” Daehyun says instead. Jaewon hums in response, leaning over the sink to avoid Daehyun’s eyes.
“Jaewon, what are you going to do about this?”
Jaewon stills, hand on the faucet. “What do you mean?” He asks, still looking down. Any other situation and Daehyun would have just sighed and let him feign ignorance.
“You coughed up a whole flower. There isn’t much time left. Are you waiting for it to disappear the natural way or-”
“No.” Jaewon interrupts, “That’s not happening.”
“So why won’t you get the surgery done?”
Jaewon falls silent.
They remain in silence for a few moments. When Jaewon doesn’t respond Daehyun sighs and heads towards the door.
“Do you think they would forgive me?”
Daehyun turns around to see Jaewon staring straight at him determinedly.
“Do you think they would forgive me,” he repeats, “if i just cut out all my memories of them?”
Daehyun had wondered about the recipient of Jaewon’s feelings more times than he could count. But he had always assumed it was some girl he had slept with and caught feelings for. Now, hearing the meaning of the flower and the reason for Jaewon’s reluctance, he isn’t so sure.
Still, he looks Jaewon directly in the eyes and says, “Yes. If it’s your life or your memories of her, I think she’ll forgive you.”
Surprise ripples across Jaewon’s expression at his words. Once he regains composure, he just heads out of the bathroom.
“You’re going to take me to the hospital then.” He says right before the door swings shut behind him, leaving Daehyun to gape at a closed door.
Jaewon is going to be so shocked when he sees me.
Daehyun waits outside of the surgery room, leg bouncing impatiently. Jaewon, for some reason, had insisted that Daehyun not bother waiting for him and just go home.
(“They’re gonna keep me for a day anyway, so don’t wait up.”)
What bullshit.
Daehyun didn’t know if Jaewon was trying to push him away again, or if he was simply shy, but there was no way Daehyun was going to leave him alone after this.
Ahn Jaewon, if you think it’s that easy to run away from me, just wait.
He spends at least an hour after the nurses inform him the surgery has ended waiting, unable to concentrate on the music playing through his earphones for more than a minute at a time. He doesn’t even realise that he’s tapping his feet until a woman tells him he’s being too loud.
Daehyun’s anxiously sifting through his songs, none of them catching his interest, when the nurse that told him Jaewon’s surgery had ended approaches him once more. Daehyun takes out his earphones the second he notices him coming his way. He smiles at him and tells him Jaewon’s awake.
Daehyun doesn’t need to hear more, and follows the nurse to Jaewon’s room.
He marches in and flops onto the chair beside his bed.
“Hey, Jaewon.” He grins at Jaewon, who’s looking a lot more surprised than Daehyun had expected.
“What is it? Did you really think I would just go home?” Daehyun teases.
Jaewon looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, head tilted in confusion.
“I’m sorry...do i know you?”