Thread by @mlk_bread

Cw // mild gore #joongdok Hanahaki au where dying by hanahaki means having flowers burst from your chest and crush your bones like weeds pushing through cement cracks, or flowers sprouting so aggressively from the lungs up to the mouth that the jaw unhinges

Cue immortal—

kdj who loves yjh through each reincarnation cycle but is never quite loved back in the same way. Yjh loves and care for kdj, yes, but it’s not the same. So, we have kdj whose ribs beneath his coat look more like fences overrun by weeds and decaying flowers, whose lips are often—

bloodied by hanging flowers.

But still, kdj loves like the way he is—eternal and undying—until even the flowers become weeds.

(#plotja enter stage right)

sp is also an immortal who loves and carries a garden within his body. His flowers? For kdj, whose mortal memories were fragmented upon being granted immortality.

Sp was content to endure his love and roam the earth, at least until he sees kdj—

suffering—is this love now? unexpectant, unrequited, and punishing?—from the same situation.

No, sp thinks, he cannot and will not stand for this.

Sp approaches kdj, offers company and friendship, tends to the garden of his body, and shares the burden of—

grieving love. It softens kdj, widens his heart enough that its grip on yjh losens. There is space now, for sp and something new.

The flowers in kdj’s lungs and chest and ribs do not recede—they stop sprouting after one last bursting and bloody bouquet. It’s terrifying to—

watch, but sp holds strong. he keeps kdj in the circle of his arms as kdj coughs and coughs and coughs until there is little else physically rooted in him. kdj’s body knits itself together, flesh and sinew finally closing now that there is nothing to obstruct his recovery.

Kdj smiles weakly at sp and jokes about decaying gardens and shitty fertiliser. Sp laughs along, albeit bloody and petal filled.

This—a flowerless kdj and his own field of blooms—is enough. He will not ask for more.

But there is no need to.

One day, sp wakes with a clogged cough that sounds dull in the cacophony of his cracking bones. Petals, brambles, vines, and fully blossomed flowers spill from his mouth. The sheer amount of it unhinges his jaw and tears at his throat. Bloody—

stalks rip his chest open, bits of his bones entangled in some of them. The pain far sharper than before, as if his heart is holding a spring festival.

His eyes sting with tears as he continues to choke, alone and perhaps unloved still—

“I am here, Plotter-ah.”

Slender arms wrap around sp, holding him ever so close. Beyond the rush of blood in his ears, he hears a heartbeat. It’s almost enough to distract him through the pain.

“I am here and I will not leave.”

Kdj is there even after sp is capable of laying—

still and sore in a pile of his flowers. Sp closes his eyes and rests.

When sp awakens, he breathes easily. His lungs feel light and his chest is—

empty.

His chest is empty and bandaged. Sp can see the rise and fall of his chest and there—there are no flowers.

Sp wipes his mouth and stares at his hand—clean. He tries a cough and it is—

somehow, clearer. His mind is in a whirl as it theorises and conjectures and guesses and—

“Plotter-ah! Good morning!” Kdj settles by his side and shoots him a smile that is soft at the edges. His eyes crinkle in delight when sp croaks back a reply.

—hopes.

??????? where are these ideas coming from _(:3 」∠)_ rather ominous sksksk