Chapter Text
Nobody knew why Yoo Jeongyeon moved away. Whenever anyone asked, she always gave vague excuses of moving for work, or needing the sea air for her ‘asthma’. The truth of the matter was that she moved away because she had to, because she was sick. And nobody could know, nobody could see. Jeongyeon moved away because she was beginning to get to the stage where her shortness of breath was affecting her daily life, where she was coughing up four or five perfect little forget-me-not flowers in one go. Perfect, except for that fact that they came out covered in her blood.
Hanahaki disease is one of the most feared illnesses in society, right up there with cancer and dementia. The overwhelming feeling for Jeongyeon when she coughed up that first, tiny petal was irony, not fear or sadness. Because of course, there was no way in this life (or indeed, in any other) that Im Nayeon would reciprocate her feelings. It was as impossible as the horses that Jeongyeon could see from her living room window suddenly sprouting wings and flying away across the sea. Not to mention that Nayeon had a steady relationship with her boyfriend, whom she’d met about eighteen months ago.
The most important thing to Jeongyeon was that Nayeon never, ever found out, because after all, they were best friends, and had been for nearly twenty years. Nayeon was happy in her relationship, and the last thing that Jeongyeon wanted was to come between that. If Nayeon knew, she would never forgive herself, her life would be marred by guilt for something that wasn’t her fault. Not in the slightest was it her fault.
And so, Jeongyeon had a plan. When the end was near, she was going to divulge her secret to Jihyo, she trusted her to make sure that Nayeon never found out the real reason behind Jeongyeon’s death. She would understand why that was so important to Jeongyeon that Nayeon never found out.
As Jeongyeon sat in her cosy living room by the fire, she looked out of the large bay window across to where the open fields met the sand and the sand met the sea. It was snowing gently, the large flakes settling over everything like a large, white blanket. She wondered if maybe she could be buried in the horse meadow by her house, maybe forget-me-nots would sprout from the soil above her and maybe the horses could graze above her forever, standing guard over her broken body like quiet, calm sentinels.
It was right after this thought occurred to her that Jeongyeon felt something bigger than anything she’d coughed up before begin forcing its way up her throat. She made a run for the bathroom and draped herself over the toilet bowl as the biggest bloom of bloody forget-me-not flowers Jeongyeon had ever seen hit the water. Immediately, the blood began seeping from the blue flowers, diffusing into the water, and staining it red. Jeongyeon stared, feeling a cold trickle of fear slide down her spine. The bloom had exactly nine flowers, and it was attached to a thin but woody stem.
No wonder it had hurt as she coughed it up.
Jeongyeon squeezed her eyes shut and collapsed onto the floor, trying to breathe as steadily as she could.
She’d barely calmed her breath before she was heaving into the toilet again, and this time it didn’t just hurt, it felt as though her throat was being ripped apart from the inside. Tears pricked at Jeongyeon’s eyes as she struggled to breathe through the intense pain and continual retching; she was clutching the toilet seat so hard her bony knuckles had gone white. Finally, what could only be described as a small bush clawed its way out, along with an alarming amount of blood as well as several dark red chunks of flesh, which, Jeongyeon realised with a sickening lurch of her stomach, were pieces of the lining of her windpipe that had been ripped off as the flowers forced their way out.
‘Shit,’ Jeongyeon rasped out hoarsely as her body collapsed once again. The relief from the physical pain was gut-wrenchingly short, as the sickening guilt and overwhelming emotional agony washed over Jeongyeon like a rogue wave. Jeongyeon braced herself, waiting for the shivers that she knew were about to come. When they did, they were tenfold anything that Jeongyeon had experienced before, ripping through Jeongyeon’s frail body like a storm. She jerked uncontrollably on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
In her mind, Jeongyeon thought of Nayeon. She thought about Nayeon’s earth-shattering smile, about the way Nayeon made her feel. She thought about their long friendship, about how Jeongyeon would do anything, even rearrange the cosmos, if it meant making Nayeon happy.
And then, she couldn’t think of anything more.
***
When Jeongyeon came back into her body, she was lying curled in the foetal position on her side, aftershocks occasionally jerking through her body. There was only one thought that stood out amongst the mush that her mind had turned into.
I’m so, so sorry, Nayeon.
Slowly, and with immense effort, Jeongyeon hauled her frail body up off the floor, clinging onto the sink with her bony hands to keep herself steady. She glanced over into the toilet bowl. The clumps of forget-me-not in there were too big to flush away, but she was too weak to clean them out at the moment, so she turned away.
As she turned, Jeongyeon briefly caught sight of herself in the mirror above the sink. She was so thin, her face pale and gaunt and her eyes were dull and sunken. Her cheekbones were exceptionally prominent, as were her collarbones. She’d known the basics about the symptoms of Hanahaki disease before she developed it, like the persistent coughing and the shortness of breath, but nothing she’d heard or read about mentioned this, the way the flowers growing parasitically inside her respiratory system stole the nutrients from her blood, causing rapid and extreme weight loss. It seemed no matter what or how much she ate; the flowers syphoned it all, barely leaving her enough to stay alive.
Not that Jeongyeon felt like eating very much at all these days.
Feeling tears prick at her already wet eyes, Jeongyeon wrenched her gaze away and leant over the sink, splashing some warm water over her mouth and chin and rubbing with her hand to try and remove some of the blood that had dried there. She didn’t look back into the mirror to see if she got it all, she just turned away and slowly hobbled back out down the stairs and into her living room.
Jeongyeon could see that it was now dark outside through the window in front of her armchair. She must’ve been unconscious for several hours. She shuffled to the chair slowly, only just realising that she was freezing cold. The once roaring fire had long since died without anyone to tend it, and Jeongyeon didn’t have the energy to get it going again, so she weakly took the throw that was draped over her sofa and sat down heavily, panting. She wrapped the blanket around her narrow shoulders and closed her eyes.
For the first time since she coughed up that initial forget-me-not petal nearly a year ago, Jeongyeon felt genuinely afraid. This felt like the end. She knew it, the roots of the flowers were burrowing deep into the tissues of her lungs, stealing her breath, stealing her life.
She had hoped to see Nayeon one last time, but there was no chance of that now, not with her in this state. Nayeon was exceptionally perceptive, and even if she wasn’t, it didn’t take a genius to work out that Jeongyeon was unwell just by looking at her. And if that last episode was anything to go by, Jeongyeon would be hacking up large clumps of flowers covered in blood into Nayeon’s toilet every few hours, which might be a bit of a giveaway as to why she looked so gaunt and sallow.
After resting for several minutes, Jeongyeon felt like getting up and making a cup of honey tea to soothe her throat. Just as she rose unsteadily to her feet, her door knocker sounded.
Jeongyeon turned to the door to the hallway, feeling slightly uneasy. It was late for someone to be calling round. She shuffled out of the living room and over to her front door, pausing to peer through the peephole.
It was Hirai Momo.
Jeongyeon grimaced, she knew she looked like she’d been starved for several weeks and then promptly run over by a bus, but there was no turning Momo away. Her friend would break down the door if Jeongyeon refused to let her in.
As soon as she opened the door, Jeongyeon caught Momo’s smile falter briefly, before another, less convincing one appeared in its place, the worry evident in her eyes. The older woman chuckled humourlessly to herself, Momo was terrible at hiding her emotions, they always showed on her face as clear as day.
Momo stepped forwards and hugged her friend extremely gently, as though she were afraid that she would break. Jeongyeon honestly didn’t feel her body was too far away from doing just that.
‘Come in, I was just going to make some tea, do you want some?’ Jeongyeon asked as Momo closed the front door behind herself and toed off her shoes. She ran her hands through her dark hair, melting the snowflakes that had landed there.
‘I’ll make it,’ Momo said immediately, padding into Jeongyeon’s kitchen in her socks.
Jeongyeon followed at a slower pace, the blanket still around her shoulders. When she entered her small, country-style kitchen, Momo had already filled her stovetop kettle with water and placed it on the range. Jeongyeon sat down heavily on one of the two chairs at her small wooden table, bracing herself for the inevitable questions she knew were coming.
‘Jeongyeon unnie, I’m going to cut to the chase here,’ Momo said firmly, turning back to Jeongyeon after she’d got two teacups out from the cupboard. ‘Have you eaten today?’
Jeongyeon nodded, for it was the truth. ‘I ate breakfast and lunch, but I didn’t feel like eating dinner today.’
That’s one way to put it, hacking up several large clumps of flowers and destroying half the lining of your trachea is a well-known appetite killer.
‘You look like you haven’t eaten for weeks, Jeong,’ Momo said, her expression gentle. ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight.’
‘I know,’ Jeongyeon rasped, her throat suddenly feeling dry again. ‘I’ve been really stressed at work for the last couple of months and I’ve had a sickness bug for these past few weeks, but I’ve been feeling a little better.’
Liar. And Momo certainly didn’t need to know that you quit work about six months ago, when you had to leg it out of an important meeting to bring up a few flowers into their newly refurbished toilet.
Momo raised an eyebrow at her friend, not believing a word of it. Then, the kettle whistled, and she turned to pour the steaming water into the cups she’d set out beside the cooker. She bought the cups to the little round table and Jeongyeon stared into hers, wondering if she could be bothered to get up to get some honey to add to her tea. She decided against it, and watched Momo as her friend sat down in the other wooden chair and drank from her teacup, her little finger sticking out cutely.
Jeongyeon loved her so much, the thought that this might be the last time she’d get to see her made Jeongyeon want to leap across her small table and hold onto her until the end of time. For the first time, Jeongyeon allowed herself to think:
This is not fair. I should be able to be there for her, for all of them. I can’t believe I won’t get to see this wonderful woman across from me finally confess to Dahyun, or attend their wedding. Or tease her when she sprouts her first grey hair.
And so, against her better judgement, Jeongyeon asked Momo about every last detail of her life, and about what all of their friends were doing too. She knew she didn’t have much longer; every breath was more painful, more laborious than the last these days. She wanted to take her last one thinking about the people that were most dear to her.
So, she listened as Momo told her about her feelings for Dahyun – which must be reciprocated in some capacity or another because Momo looked perfectly fit and healthy and she hadn’t coughed once since she arrived. She listened as Momo talked about Jihyo’s promotion, about Sana’s new modelling job, about Tzuyu’s new boyfriend (who seemed very sweet) and Jeongyeon drank in every last word.
When Momo paused to take a sip of tea, having mentioned everybody apart from Nayeon, Jeongyeon was just beginning to think that by some miracle, she’d gotten away with it.
Of course not.
‘As for Nayeon unnie, well, I know she’s still really struggling without you close by…’
The words had barely registered in Jeongyeon’s brain when she felt the flowers begin to climb her already shredded trachea. She had no choice but to smack her hand over her mouth and make a break for it. She rushed to the bathroom as fast as her still-weakened legs would go, praying to anyone that would listen that she made it quick enough to lock Momo out.
Unfortunately, no such luck.
Momo had always been fitter than Jeongyeon, but the difference now was that she was healthy and strong, and Jeongyeon wasn’t. Momo caught the bathroom door easily as Jeongyeon tried to shut it behind her and stroked Jeongyeon’s bony back as the older woman leant over the toilet retching uncontrollably.
Momo wasn’t great with bodily fluids, so she fixed her gaze on Jeongyeon’s sink as she heaved into the toilet bowl. She stroked circles on her back with both hands, trying to hold back tears as she felt how prominent Jeongyeon’s vertebrae were, even through the thick material of her hoodie.
Then, the sickening sound of something solid splashing into the water caused Momo to snap her gaze away from the sink and stare into Jeongyeon’s toilet. What she saw made her want to cry, scream, and retch all at once. There, covered in blood that was splattered all up the sides of the toilet bowl, were several bunches of little blue flowers.
‘No,’ Momo found herself saying. ‘No, no, no. Not you, not now. This can’t be happening. Oh, Jeongyeon.’
Momo soothed Jeongyeon as she hacked up several more bunches, each one bigger than the last. When she was finally done, Jeongyeon’s body went suddenly limp and Momo barely managed to catch her before she collapsed onto the toilet. She immediately began shaking uncontrollably, and Momo gently lowered the pair of them to the floor, holding Jeongyeon close to her and whispering nonsense to try and comfort her.
After several, agonising minutes, the tremors began to slow down and eventually, Jeongyeon passed out.
***
When she awoke, Jeongyeon expected to be sprawled out on her bathroom floor as always, but she was surprised to find that she was in her pyjamas, tucked up in her bed.
As she struggled to sit up, Momo padded back into the room, a steaming cup clutched in her hands.
‘Oh unnie, you’re awake,’ she said, relieved, sitting in the small armchair beside Jeongyeon’s bed. ‘I was so worried about you.’
‘Thank you for taking care of me,’ Jeongyeon rasped hoarsely, gratefully accepting the cup of honey tea that Momo offered her with shaky hands. The warm amber liquid soothed her throat gently. ‘I’m so sorry that you had to see that,’ she said, her voice coming out slightly easier than before. ‘I didn’t want anyone to find out.’
‘You should have told me right away,’ Momo said firmly, taking Jeongyeon’s free hand in hers, running the pad of her thumb over her protruding knuckles. ‘Then you wouldn’t have had to go through this alone.’
‘Being alone is the very nature of Hanahaki, Momo-yah,’ Jeongyeon smiled sadly, blowing on her tea to cool it.
They sat quietly for several minutes, Jeongyeon drinking her tea and Momo holding her hand. Finally, Momo broke the silence.
‘How…how long do you have, unnie?’ she breathed, as though asking the question as softly as possible would somehow make the answer hurt less.
‘I’m not sure,’ Jeongyeon answered truthfully. ‘Although I think weeks or maybe a month if I’m lucky, rather than a few months, it has steadily been getting worse over the last week or so.’
‘Has your doctor not given you an estimate?’ Momo asked worriedly.
‘I don’t have one,’ Jeongyeon said calmly. She shook her head at the startled look on Momo’s face. ‘They can’t do anything, Momo-yah. There’s no medication, no treatment. They’d only try and convince me to have the surgery, and I decided long ago that that was never an option for me.’
‘Surely surgery is better than this, Jeong,’ Momo said sadly.
‘If the surgery went well, I’d forget that she even existed. If it went badly, I would be stripped of all emotion, forever. Neither of those is how I want to be, Mo. That’s not living, it’s existing.’
‘But you’d be pain free.’
Jeongyeon didn’t reply, she closed her eyes and turned away from her friend. Only one, gut-wrenching thought occurred to her.
This is not how I imagined my life would go.
‘I’m staying here, with you,’ Momo said suddenly, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I rang my work whilst you were asleep and explained the situation to them, there’s government-provided gratuity for working people with family members with Hanahaki. I’m staying here, to take care of you.’
The tone of Momo’s voice let Jeongyeon know that it wasn’t up for discussion. She turned her hand around under Momo’s and squeezed tightly without turning to face her. If she did, Jeongyeon didn’t think she could hold back the tears.
‘Thank you,’ she croaked, her voice dry.
Another few minutes passed, and then Momo broke the silence again.
‘It’s Nayeon unnie, isn’t it.’
It came out as more of a statement than a question, and Jeongyeon’s head whipped round in a flash to stare at Momo, making her head swim. Jeongyeon wanted to argue, to deny it forever, but she was just too exhausted, too spent, and the words tumbled out before she could stop them.
‘How on Earth did you know?’
‘Because I know you, Yoo Jeongyeon. I mentioned all of the other girls and you were absolutely fine, I mentioned her name once and you had to bolt to the bathroom. And, forget-me-nots are her favourite flowers.’
Right. Bit of a giveaway.
‘Momo-yah, can you promise me something?’
Momo nodded. ‘Anything,’ she said, bringing Jeongyeon’s hand up and kissing her sallow skin gently. There was so much love and care shining in her dark eyes.
‘Will you watch over her for me?’
Jeongyeon watched as a tear finally slid down Momo’s bright, healthy cheek.
‘Always.’