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Xia Fei felt nauseous, it was the third time that day. It was getting worse with the passing of time, he knew it.
He held it in so well during all the time he was outside, letting out just some coughing like it was a cold, no one cared enough to ask if he was sick anyways. So he arrived home and rushed all the way to the bathroom. He could feel a pain in his throat and something trying desperately to come out of his mouth, suffocating him.
It hurts, once again. His throat made the effort to expel the nature that was inevitably starting to use too much space to be existing inside him, feeling like a painful sudden mess.
And the flower fell ironically slowly on his own hands, cause he didn’t dare to let them go.
To let him go.
A single red Dahlia between his palms, like it just bloomed from the center of his lungs and now it had to get out, to let him breathe once again.
He wished, but it still felt suffocating. Still coughing up petals and sparks of blood, trying to cover his mouth in a useful try of stopping it.
The petals stopped for some minutes, and when his eyes weren’t longer in tears from the effort in his tired system, he cleaned his mouth using one hand and water. He could see himself in the reflection of the mirror, how his face was with some drops of blood like a splatter painting. And after he was all clean he went out of the bathroom to his room, still holding the Dahlia.
He sat in the middle of his bed and observed the flower in silence, gaze empty with dark eye bags like he had never slept in years. It was the first time the complete flower went out of his mouth. So yeah, the symptoms were escalating, it was getting worse. He held the Dahlia close to his chest and lay back on his pillow. His state was worse, but it was beautiful.
It was the same red as his hair.
He kept it there laying close to his heart and caressed the soft petals with his fingers. He inhaled and exhaled, body exhausted in every way, and carefully turned his gaze to his desk with the first petals he collected when it started to happen. he picked his phone and for the fourth time in a month, he searched the disease up.
Not cases of hanahaki disease for a person who was already dead.
He knew it was for him, there was no other person.
No other person he has ever loved in his life, and no other person that he would stop loving even after death.
He knew some stuff about the disease, had heard from people about it, it wasn’t that weird to get it, he could remember a makeup artist at the workplace who had it and didn’t attend for some time. The exact reason was still uncertain, for some people it was unrequited love, for others it was just falling and couldn’t be capable of facing it, others didn’t even realize they were feeling such an intense emotion before getting sick. And because well, love was abstract like that, everyone felt it different. Love wasn’t in a manual with instructions, it just happened.
He wondered when he started to love him, maybe when he got him out of that pool at first sight, maybe when he saw how he was taken away from him for the last time.
But there were only two solutions. The most common one; confess to the other person. Consequences, maybe a broken heart, maybe even a relationship if you were lucky and the other person decided to give it a try.
Xia Fei couldn’t do that one.
His boss was dead. His boss was dead. Still felt like a lie.
But he saw his body by far that night, he was not in this world anymore. His thoughts felt like a seed and was interrupted by another flower getting caught in his throat.
He couldn’t control it this time, messing his sheets with blood, once again. It was less than half of a Dahlia. Exhausted he left it by the side of the petals in his desk, guessing that maybe in some hours the other part will eventually come out. He was still gently touching the complete one with one hand on his chest, like the texture could calm him a little.
It felt so painful, but it reminded him of him so much, the flower felt light and elegant. Every way of describing it fitted his boss, it felt like it was on purpose. Cruel, from his body to grow something to make him remember him that much.
Remember him, and all their memories.
The second solution. The most extreme one; forget about that person completely by extracting all the flowers from the root, it was a disease so they found a cure, a surgery. Forget him.
To stop feeling this pain in his chest and making him a normal student who hasn’t been spending all his free time in the search of answers.
He wished he could call him, to tell him, ask him; Boss, what happened, how could you die in that way? How could you leave me so suddenly?
So he could laugh at Xia Fei like he used to, and tell him he is talking nonsense. To flick his head and tell him that how could he dare to believe that his boss was weaker than dead.
He would do anything to have another chance, to keep his desire and the promise he made to his own heart, that they would spend July together, on his birthday, on the rest of their days.
Could he ever get called Felix by that voice again?
He wanted to listen to him, his weird choice of words, that always made him laugh, to his humming, anything.
He missed him. He couldn’t, deleting those memories wasn’t an option.
Not remembering the affection in those red eyes was more painful than dying slowly surrounded by Dahlias
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“Delete them, all of them”
It was the second time Vein told it to Liu Xiao, and he never mentioned the specifications of the topic. it wasn’t necessary, he knew anyway.
“You know you can’t, it’s too risky, we need you with all the details and memories of those days”
All those memories. He knew it, he knew that if he erased those days on Bridon, nothing was worth it, everything he sacrificed for this.
Even him.
He felt nauseous again.
He didn’t answer this time, he simply cut the call. It was an answer with no words.
Vein always thought he smelled like blood and enjoyed the taste of it in his mouth, but not in this way, not like this.
He didn’t rush to the bathroom, he walked and felt after two coughs how the blood dripped from his slightly open mouth and fell to the floor, leaving a tray of yellow petals on the way.
He was used to physical pain and blood, not a problem. The problem was that it didn’t compare, and wasn't even close to the ache in his chest every time it happened, because he thought of the blonde.
He stopped when he reached the sink of the toilet.
He took it with his hands as soon as it came out from his throat. A sunflower, a smaller one.
He was tired of covering sunflowers with blood . They were supposed to be facing the sun like the beautiful thing they were, not stained with red. So he washed it with water, delicate, like something precious. Till the yellow petals were bright no sight of dark carmin on them.
It was the third complete flower that left the inside of his body, and he knew there was more growing, even stronger, probably bigger in the center of his now beating heart.
He went to his room and placed it in a vase alongside the other ones. They were growing beautifully, he liked to take care of them. The sunflowers lighted that corner of his room. Felt warm.
Vein arrived at his place some time ago before calling Liu Xiao. He was ready to go to sleep after another non-existent day.
Cause he was supposed to be dead, but he wasn't. He wasn’t resting neither at peace at all.
So he got into the sheets of the bed and tried to not think about how all of this was actually killing him, literally and metaphorically. Making him feel more death than the real cease of his heart. He thought he could bear it, he thought he could be over it. And then the first symptoms appeared, and the memories flooded into his mind the second he took a glimpse of that gold color.
He knew about this disease and the consequences of it, so he wanted to act immediately to get rid of it. First solution; confess. He wished he wasn’t in his shoes, for the first time in his life he wished he was another person. Cause maybe it would be possible that way. He was supposed to be dead.
And Xia Fei...Xia Fei was missing.
No questions, no doubts, no worries, they weren’t allowed in his mind. He just had to put it all on the back of his brain. He had other priorities, he agreed with leaving all behind after that day so everything could work. He had his reasons. So all this was a method, very easy. Practical. Useful. His life and death was a tool.
But He couldn’t, he tried but he couldn’t. He was arrogant, so sure that he could get anything he wanted, anytime, by his own hands. But hearing that voice calling him boss again was impossible.
Sharing one more second with him was out of his reach.
He felt another cough and twitched on the bed with the strength of it. He refused to not control the disease on his own body so he got a long petal from the inside of his throat with his own hands.
This was starting to become a problem, and interruption, an obstacle.
So he wanted the second solution; to forget. Want. He could laugh. Did he really want that?
It didn't matter, it was a foolish move in the game with chances to lose more than winning and Vein knew how to play his cards well. He left a tired sight. The worst it’s that he knew it was the best option. Felix was full of life and potential he probably already moved on, if he was alive.
If he was alive.
He felt nauseous again and not because of the flowers this time.
Could someone get the disease for someone else who was dead?
It wasn’t possible. Not proof of it anywhere. and that thought calmed his mind.The only calm thought he felt in a while. Felix being alive in another place, probably studying something, with friends, having a normal life. Far from him. From everything. Like he had always deserved.
He turned around and faced the sunflowers on the vase in his desk before closing his eyes to sleep. And he could swear he heard the sunflower speaking to him with the same thought on his mind
“If bleeding flowers till I die means he may be alive, then I would do it in every life”
Xia Fei thought and heard the same thing from the Dahlia on his chest before falling asleep that night.
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Xia Fei woke up, just another morning in his life. He slept wonderfully. He stretched his body to get ready to start another day. The side of the big bed, empty.
No red on sight.
He got up and looked at the vase with beautiful dahlias on the desk on his side of their room, and smiled softly. If someone told him he would grow that same flower in his own garden years ago he would think they were making fun of him.
He wore his sleeping robe and got up, he was sure where he wanted to go first thing in the morning. Because he was going to be there.
So he calmly walked to the kitchen and made himself some warm coffee. Just new and still a little warm. So he didn’t wake up long ago then, good. He didn't want to make him wait.
He followed the sunlight that came from the big pair of windows that guided to the garden. They were open, and Xia Fei leaned his body in the frame of one. He smiled softly with coffee in hands.
He allowed himself to contemplate the view of the long loose red hair and the pink sleeping robe wrapping his body.
There he was like every morning, humming some song while he water the sunflowers. His boss, his own dahlia.
He never thought Vein liked gardening, but like everything he did, he was amazing at it. In no time their garden was full with different types of flowers and plants. For some reason he was always at the yellow flowers first thing in the morning.
Xia Fei left his cup of coffee on a table, their table. Of their house.
And calmly got closer to hug him by his waist and leaned his chin on his neck. Vein wasn’t surprised at all; he probably felt Xia Fei approaching the moment he woke up.
“Boss you are gonna drown them” Vein caressed Xia Fei's hair with the hand that didn’t hold the watering can. “You dare to question my gardening skills?” He said entertained.
Xia Fei let out a soft laugh “I could never” and gave a little kiss to Vein's neck. They let the silence pass a little and Vein returned to humming the same song.
“Felix, did you have breakfast?”
“Not yet, just coffee”
Vein turned around and moved a messy hair out from Xia Fei eyes “Lets go inside then”
“Wait” Xia Fei, still hugging him, reached with one of his arms one of the types of the smallest sunflowers. Vein stayed still. And Felix took a little distance to place the flower behind his boss' ear and contemplated him like he was testing something.
Vein smiled softly “What it’s my dear Felix thinking I wonder”
“No, I was right” he stopped for a second looking proud of his sentence “Dahlias suits you better than sunflowers” Vein didn’t hold back his laugh between kisses.
Maybe bleeding flowers wasn’t necessary to love each other, making them grow in their garden was more than enough.