“Lee Donghyuck,” He heard his name get called, and he tried to raise his head, but as he did, the itch at the back of his throat got worse. The thorn stuck in his throat scratched against his insides and Donghyuck only just realised he wasn’t breathing. “Are you okay?”

The question his teacher (or classmate, Donghyuck didn’t know who was calling out to him) went over his head and he kept his eyes glued to the ground. The pain in his body worsened and he could feel a petal travel up his throat. Why did the universe hate him? He never did anything bad (except maybe make everyone’s life a hell) so why did this happen to him? Why is he the one, sitting in a room filled with some of his childhood friends and the person he loves, about to get exposed for having the hanahaki disease? Why did it have to be Donghyuck?

“Hey, are you okay?” The boy sitting next to Donghyuck (Hyenjun? Hyunjin? Donghyuck couldn’t even remember his name in that state) shook him, holding his arm with the softest touch, yet it still stung as hell since the skin was getting pressed into a thorn lying right beneath it. “Holy shit, you’re bleeding!”

He was? Donghyuck didn’t even realise blood was pouring out of his mouth, a petal closely following the substance. Donghyuck barely managed to bring a hand to his mouth when the petal reached his teeth, pushing with so much force that it slid down his lips, bringing along a small stem. 

“Shit! Someone call an ambulance!” Someone yelled, but all Donghyuck could see was darkness. When did the lights turn off? He turned his head, grimacing as he felt the flower inside him shift again, but everything was black. Was this perhaps the end? Was he going to die because of a stupid one-sided love? He was indeed an idiot, believing that maybe he could’ve moved on from Minhyung, who didn’t even exist anymore. 

Donghyuck heard some screams and cries from people, obviously shocked by the sight of their classmate suddenly throwing up blood and a flower was growing out of his body. He felt hands reach for him, pick him up, place him on a hard platform and then it started moving. Cold air hit him quite quickly, and shrieks from the students continued. He heard the sirens of an ambulance and blue and red was flashing behind his eyelids. But he couldn't open them. As every second passed, Donghyuck felt his body get torn apart even more. The flower was pricking his insides with its thorns. The same thorns Donghyuck used to love when he was younger.

Even when he used to play in his garden, Minhyung beside him. The two would run around and help Donghyuck's mum with gardening. There were many flowers growing that he didn't know the names of. Some yellow ones, a few purples ones, but the ones that caught Donghyuck's eyes were red ones. The blood coloured roses, sitting at the back of his garden. Donghyuck still remembers (in his horrible state of mind) the first time he saw them. Without a second thought, Donghyuck had grabbed the roses before immediately crying out as the thorns bit into his skin. His mum has rushed over and scolded him for touching her flowers without any permission. 

"This is a red rose," His mum had said, taking the delicate flower out of Donghyuck's palm. Her fingers held onto the stem, avoiding the thorns, and she looked at it with a fond smile. "A red rose is an unmistakable expression of love." 

She began to explain what the flower meant and at what times to use it. Donghyuck sat by her side, nodding along, though he didn't remember anything, but only listened in to the last bits.

"A dark red rose represents deep emotions, like heartfelt regret and sorrow," His mum said softly, carefully taking Donghyuck's hand and placing the flower back in his palm. Donghyuck quickly took ahold of the thorn-less area before he turned to his mum. She finally finished talking, and then got up, a hand reached up to Donghyuck's hair and told him to clean his own before it got infected.

The next day, Donghyuck snuck a red rose for Mark, hoping the older would like it.

He said he did, but Donghyuck saw him throw it in the bin halfway through the day.

The buzzing of machines and the constant chatter of doctors was the first thing Donghyuck heard when he regained consciousness. He squirmed under the grip of the doctors and tried to break free. He felt his throat constrict and his eyes pooled up with tears. The feeling of something piercing his skin was all over his lower body and Donghyuck opened his mouth to let out a scream, but nothing came. The cuts became deeper and his skin was torn apart, slowly and slowly, so painfully that Donghyuck didn't know how he was still alive.

"He's awake!" One of the nurses yelled and Donghyuck forcefully cracked open one of his eyes, squinting against the bright light and looked around the room. Instead of finding the source of the voice, his eyes darted straight to his stomach. To be honest, all he saw was red. He couldn't tell where the flower started and where he ended. It was tied up around his skin, looping through holes and pulling on them in an attempt to stay together. As much as Donghyuck wanted the pain to end, he didn't want it either.

The nurse numbed an area of his skin, which was hilarious since he was feeling pain coarse through his body already, and then poked in a needle, injecting some drugs to make him fall asleep. Just as his eyes felt drowsy, despite the agony he was experiencing, Donghyuck looked to his right. There was a small crowd of people gathered in the emergency hall but Donghyuck was most surprised to not only see his family, but also to see a certain black haired male, who stared back at Donghyuck. Donghyuck felt his heart warm up and he swears he felt as if the pain subsided for a few seconds. That was, until a random girl appeared besides Mark, wrapping her arm around his waist and hooked her chin over his shoulder. 

Donghyuck's body shook violently as he watched the girl whispered something in Mark's ear, to which he smiled and then turned to the girl, whispering something against her lips. The doctor's panicked, not knowing how the surgery was going wrong. The heart beat monitor went crazy with the amount of beeps it let out and his body was not stopping. He shook so much that he nearly fell off the platform. A hand grabbed his arms, a stupid thing to do since he still had a flower stuck there, and it tried to hold him down.

He didn't exactly know what was going on with him, or why he was reacting in such a way, but as the seconds ticked on, the grip the flower had on him tightened. Donghyuck took one last glimpse at the flower tangled up with him. His heart hurt - not only because the flower was clutching onto it but because of the sadness that washed over him - his eyes watered and Donghyuck felt his mind empty out. He let out a shaky breath, the one he had been holding and surviving off, before glancing over at Mark.

And suddenly, Donghyuck hated red roses.

"Mrs Lee?" The doctor said, quietly closing the door to the hospital room behind him. Donghyuck's mum jumped from her seat, eyes searching the man's expression and hands shaking around in panic. "I'm...I'm sorry."

That was all she needed to collapse. She fell to the floor, harshly coming in contact with the cold marble tiles and cries escaped her throat. The doctor bowed down, another apology leaving his mouth before he hurried away, feeling guilty that he wasn't able to save the patient. Donghyuck's mum stay on the floor, surrounded by Donghyuck's friends, who were as teary as she was. The passer-by patients and visitors sent them looks of pity, but they didn't help much. 

"You," Donghyuck's mum choked out, scrambling to her feet and charging straight for Mark, who stood by the wall with his arms crossed. "You're the reason my son's dead! Do you even know what he went through because of you? The pain he experienced? The way he felt every time he saw you with someone else? Don't you at least feel bad for him?"

Mark stared down at the lady, his collar was pulled down by her and he didn't even seem affected. With a sigh, Mark brought his hands to hers, peeling them off his shirt before taking a step down. He looked down at her, no emotion present on his face as he said, "Honestly, I don't care."

Jaemin gasped loudly behind the group and immediately ran towards Mark, his hands clenched into fists and his anger toppling off the top. 

"How could you say that?!" Jaemin yelled, putting both his hands on Mark's chest before pushing him with a great force, making him stumble and trip on his feet. As Mark fell with a thud, Jaemin kneeled down, and glared at him. "First, you left Donghyuck to go to Canada. Then, you act as if he doesn't matter once you returned, and now you're saying you don't care about your former best friend? Not even any pity that he died so young and over the love he felt for someone so pathetic?"

Mark scoffed, shoving Jaemin to the side and stood up. He brushed off imaginary dust before he spun on his heels. The group watched as Mark walked away, not a single worry on his shoulders and they wondered why he even came to the hospital. The older boy walked round the corner before the rest fell back into a dreadful silence.

Donghyuck's mum held her phone to his chest, too scared to call her husband up and inform him about their son's death. 

She regretted ever allowing Donghyuck to sneak away with that rose.

-

One last chapter remaining