Thread by @tictactaetertot

Subverted TAEKOOK hanahaki AU where when you fall in love, the things that you touch burst into bloom when you pine over the person who holds your affections. Guk's been in love with his best friend, Tae, for years so he becomes the town's florist out of sheer shelf preservation.

"Gosh Guk, you always have such rare flowers, idk where you find them," Tae mutters, running long, elegant fingers over the vanda orchids on display in the shop window. Guk weakly summons up a laugh.

The rarity of the flowers that appear is dependant on how valuable the object

in hand is at the time of pining. Guk had been relaxing with a game in front of the TV when Tae had messaged him with an short video of himself playing with Yeontan.

His heart stuttered in his chest and, depressingly familiar with the signs, he immediately flings his controller

to the other side of the room, but it's too late.

Guk watches helplessly as, mid-trajectory, his controller (the second one that month) explodes into a bouquet of fragrant purple petals.

"Goddamnit," he curses. He stomps over and gathers up the from orchids floor, resigned.

***the orchids from the floor, resigned.

*

Guk doesn't wake up at the crack of dawn to head down to the markets like most florists do.

He makes up for his later morning by putting in most of his work the night before. At night, Guk wanders the town collecting any little

trinkets that catch his eye.

He picks up the newspapers that have been left behind on park benches, a red ribbon that had been used to wrap a gift, lost earrings from the sidewalk and then carefully lines the items up on the counter inside the shop.

When morning comes, in the small moment after the rush of the basic flowers deliveries and when the air is still flushed with the potential of the upcoming day, Guk puts on some music and lets his mind wander.

Sometimes, he thinks of lazy afternoons on the couch where he's

resting his head in Tae's lap, listening to his stories.

Sometimes, he remembers the way Tae's eyelashes create inky shadows high on his cheekbones when throws his head back and laughs, loud and unabashed, on Guk's balcony and the light from the sunset hits them just right.

Sometimes, Guk remembers the sound Tae's heartbeat from when he presses his cheek to the other man's chest and the trinkets bloom, unfurl into coloured petals, strong and beautiful beneath his hands.

"It feels a little like I'm being cheated," Jimin, the one in charge of

deliveries, had commented once when he had stayed behind to watch Guk work. "Like, that was literally a milk bottle two seconds ago.

"Maybe," Guk hums, small smile caught in the soft curve of his lips because he's still basking in the remembered comfort of Tae's gentle fingers

running through his hair.

When he continues, his voice comes out a little thicker because he's also thinking of how the fingers never touch him like he really wants them to. They have never trailed down his skin with dark, possessive intent and it makes his own hands shake.

"But not everyone can make the flowers that I can."

On his more fanciful days, Guk likes to think that the world is trying to give him a small measure of comfort through manifesting the constant, heavy longing in his gut into something so gentle.

The flowers that bloom from

unrequited love, he's been told, also vary in accordance to to the depth their creators emotions: the deeper they are, the more intense the bloom.

For some, their emotions manifest as small daisies, or fragile dandelions that fall apart with the wind.

His flowers, Jeongguk knows, are the most beautiful ones for miles.

On the days where he feels like his emotions are suffocating him, he looks at the strong, vibrant flowers that those emotions have created takes a strange pride in that.

*

When making one of his deliveries, Guk spots Tae in the park and makes his way over. A moment later, he sees that Tae is not alone.

He's sat with a woman of approximately the same age and they're hunched together, looking at an image on the woman's phone. When Guk gets

closer, he gets a glimpse of white and lace before the screen gets hidden when the two move away from each other and look up.

"Guk!" Tae greets, beaming at him. Guk clutches tighter at the bouquet in his hands and hopes that it is too dark for anyone to notice the way the

flowers inside it perk up the longer he soaks in Tae's attention.

"Guk, meet Choi Jia, Choi Jia, Jeon Jeongguk," Tae introduces, "Guk is one of my oldest friends."

He and the woman bow at each other, make a little small talk, and Guk excuses himself to go complete his delivery.

Nothing about the encounter had marked it as special.

Jeongguk thinks he would've forgotten about the encounter completely, if it weren't for the letter that came in the mail about a month later.

*

The month leading up to the letter though, is bliss. Tae is an interior designer who often travels for consultations but he's recently taken on a local project, and then it's like they are suddenly spending every waking moment together.

Tae is there in the mornings, popping by

on his way to work with a steaming bag of chapssal doughnuts. He returns in the afternoons after Guk closes the shop & sits on the counter, fills the quiet with his voice, his laughter, himself as Guk works on the special bouquets that have been ordered for the next day.

Those evenings, Guk breathes Tae's words into his lungs; feels them pump through his veins, spread to his fingertips & all around him, his flowers bloom, and bloom. The shop has never looked more beautiful.

"Tell me your secret," Tae demands every day after he finishes watching

Guk work, "how are your flowers always so breathtaking?

'Maybe one day,' Guk would always laugh off in reply, but tonight, there is something in the air that makes him feel brave.

Tonight also marks the start of the 7th year since the day Guk had conjured up his first flower,

and lately he's been thinking that, maybe, he should stop keeping this secret.

It's been a month from the day that he'd run into Tae at the park, and they have been spending every day in each other's company since.

So tonight at Tae's question, Guk takes a deep breath and says,

"come by at 8 tomorrow morning & maybe I'll show you."

Tae is radiant for the rest of the evening, almost bouncing off the walls with his excitement at getting to learn yet another one of Guk's secrets, and Guk is forced to send him home because the older man is making himself

too much of a nuisance.

"No take backs," Tae says, popping his head back into the shop, "we did the handshake, so you can't change your mind tomorrow."

Guk rolls his eyes, presses down at the crown of Tae's head to shove him back out.

After he laughingly closes the door

behind the other man, Guk notices an important looking envelope sitting in his mail basket. The envelope is made of heavy stock and has his name written in cursive on the front.

Inexplicably, at the sight, a sense of dread floods his veins and his blood runs cold. Guk picks up

the envelope and carefully peels it open.

The first thing he sees is the bright gold embossing that has been stamped to the top. With trembling hands he pulls the paper inside it up a little bit more.

The letters on the page scramble in front of his eyes, not making sense and

then, like rocks slowly slipping to the bottom of a lake, the words begin to form, one by one. The envelope flutters to the ground & is left there, forgotten.

The paper that was inside it twists into dark roses whose thorns scratch at his hands. Blood wells up from the cuts.

Guk can't feel anything save for the way his heart is threatening to collapse in on itself.

Before disappearing completely, the gold lettering glitters at him again. Jeongguk closes his eyes so he won't have to read them, but it doesn't make a difference.

Burnt into the back of his eyelids are the words: Wedding Invitation

*

Jeongguk rages. He tears down the display of rare flowers that seem to be mocking him with their soft elegance - because how could something that causes so much pain continue to look so gentle?

He takes a pair of scissors to the calla lilies, cuts the heads clean off the

stems and when that doesn't feel like enough, he crushes the buds savagely between his fingers.

How could Tae have not told him? How could he have been so blind?

Guk's chest feels like an open wound and he digs his fingernails into the fragile petals of the deep red roses,

rips them into tiny broken pieces and imagines that he's purging himself of his now impotent emotions.

At the end of the night, throat raw, Guk picks himself up from the floor and gathers the broken pieces of his shop back together.

/Taehyung/, his heart beats when he sweeps up

the scattered petals.

/Taehyung/, it calls again when he straightens out the tools that have been strewn across the floor.

"Tae," he breathes as he runs his fingertips up the broken stems. They straighten back out and then bloom, full and radiant.

Jeongguk takes a long breath and looks around. His shop is as beautiful as ever.

He covers his face with his hands and, finally, he lets himself cry.

*

In the morning, he is numb.

He gets to the shop early, clears his mind and waits.

At 8, Tae pops in with two breakfast sandwiches in hand. The sight of him makes Guk's heart creak in his chest and for the first time, flowers bloom in the open and Guk is too slow to hide them.

Tae doesn't notice the roses that have appeared though. He rushes forward, cups Guk's face between his soft palms and breathes, "Guk, holy shit, what happened? Are you okay?"

And Guk wants to tell him. A dark part of him wants to spill his every emotion and see if he can hurt

Tae as much as he is aching right now. He knows Tae will ache for him, ache so much he might not even marry /her/ and it's tempting. It is so, very, tempting.

Guk licks his lips and takes a breath.

A pain in his hand brings him back to his senses and when he looks down, he sees

that the rose trapped in his hands has grown vicious thorns.

He sighs.

"I had a Goblin marathon last night," Guk lies instead because he knows that Tae cannot be blamed for this.

It had been Guk's own choice to love him in silence. He had hidden behind his own cowardice, had

chosen to call it romanticism and now, Guk is coming to realise that he cannot do anything but lay in the bed that he has made.

Tae makes a face like he doesn't believe him, and his eyes say that he's only letting the subject drop because Guk is asking him to.

To distract him,

Guk steps back so that his hands are in Tae's line of vision and he picks up the wrapper that had come with Tae's sandwiches.

"I told you I'd show you the secret to my flowers today right?" he asks and before Tae can answer, Guk looks into Tae's eyes as gives him a small smile.

Yesterday, before last night, this moment had been full of hope. Today, it feels like a fresh bruise.

"Wow," Tae gasps, stepping closer to run his fingers over the petals. "But this means..Guk! You never told me you've had a crush on someone, you dog. I thought we were friends."

"It's," he starts but his voice cracks at the word so he clears his throat, "it's a little complicated right now. I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh," Tae slumps, eyes alight with sympathy, "I'm sorry Gukkie."

Guk sees the way Tae's eyes cast about the room, trying to look

for another topic that would be less painful for him and his heart /hurts/ with love. Then, Tae makes a small triumphant noise and picks the discarded envelope from the night before up from the floor.

"I wanted to talk to you about this today actually," the other man says,

making a surprised noise when he opens up the envelope and discovers the lack of invitation inside.

"I was going to ask you to do the flowers for the wedding. I mean, you don't have to," he adds, scratching a little behind his ear like he always does when he's nervous.

"Especially since —" here he makes an aborted gesture to Guk and flower in his hands.

"But you're my best friend and well," Tae continues, "noone is as good with flowers as you."

Guk's first instinct is to say no. That he can't imagine anything that he wants to do less.

But then he thinks of Tae being surrounded by someone else's flowers and finds that there is still a little possessiveness left inside him after all.

"Of course I'll do it," he croaks out.

He tells himself he'll give himself this last bit of selfishness before he lets go

completely. This time, he'll pour all his unvoiced dreams into his hands for Tae to finally see them.

He takes the envelope from Tae's hands & thinks of the time, five years ago now, when Tae had driven through the night to come see him after Guk had told him he was missed.

The envelope fades into the silky petals of a hibiscus flower and Guk reaches up to tuck it behind Tae's left ear.

"You must love this person very much," Tae observes. His voice is quiet, almost reverent.

"Yes," Jeongguk agrees in the same tone, "I do."

*

Life goes on.

Now, Guk gets up a little earlier in the morning and he stocks up by going to the flower market across town and by ordering more flowers to be delivered.

There is still a special display of the rarer flowers, of course. He doesn't think he'll be able to escape

that, but now, the shelf is only stocked with the flowers that he has created by accident.

Tae still stops by in the mornings and most evenings after work, but now, when he does, he looks at Guk's dwindling rare flower display and makes a face like he is hurting.

"Are you sure

this is okay?" Tae asks for the umpteenth time when they're looking over sketches and designs. "If weddings...aren't something you want to think about right now, you can tell me."

"I want to do this," Guk insists when he does, "it's something that I need to do."

("Why are you the one deciding on all the decor?" Guk had blurted once. He's never worked on a wedding where the bride had been absent — usually, they're almost permanently underfoot, so he's curious.

There's also darkness inside him that he can't fully quash and sometimes, in

moments like these, that darkness rears its ugly head and whispers that a bride who was /truly/ excited for a wedding, would never be absent like this.

Sometimes, that darkness makes him prod for cracks, sharp claws scratching at the surface, just to see if anything will give.

"Well, I've been told that it's because my sense taste is superior," Tae had laughed, "but now, after all the cake testing, colour matching and tableware meetings, I'm starting to suspect that I just got conned into doing all the work."

Tae had shaken his head at the admission,

thumbed through Guks initial designs and he had looked so terribly fond that Guk takes it for the punishment he deserves and he never brings the subject up again.)

"I want to make the first centrepiece a surprise," Guk concludes, detailing the final comments from Tae on the

boutonnieres and bouquet in the margins, "if that'll be okay with you?"

Tae hums his agreement, "of course Guk, I trust you. The flowers you create are always so -" he breaks himself off, gives a sheepish smile and then continues. "God...I really hate that I still find them so

beautiful, even after you showed me what they were," here, Tae reaches over and brushes a strand of hair out of Jeongguk's eyes.

"But the way you look when you create them, Guk. I'm going to sound crazy, but some days, I walk out of here and I can't get it out of my mind."

*

The design of the first centrepiece is a little different from his usual. Instead of sketching in the areas where the dahlias & lilacs would go, Guk is planning to fill each of the vases with memories.

The arrangement for the guests' tables will be filled with blossoms made

from the moments of their first summer together; when Tae had just gotten his drivers license & had driven them across the country to spend a weekend by the sea. Guk thinks these blooms will be bright & fiery like the colours of the sunset when it had shone through Tae's hair.

The flowers for their own table will be made from all the quiet mornings he had sat & watched Tae dream. He'll fill the vases with the times he'd watched the other man chase Yeontan around the park, the feeling in his heart the one time Guk had daringly leant in close enough to

feel the ghost of the other man's breath, hot on over his own lips.

These blooms, Guk knows, will be made of blush & cream. Soft, delicate and bursting at the seams with all the words he will never get to say. Until the very last moment he is allowed, he wants Tae to be

surrounded by the evidence that there had never been a minute over the past 7 years where the man hadn't been loved.

But after the vows, Guk knows that there will no longer be a place for his flowers. So when Tae finishes saying the words that will bind him and Jia together,

Guk will switch his flowers out for the ones Tae had chosen.

Standing in front of his bathroom mirror, Guk pastes on a wide smile.

He will need to be able to look Jia in the eye when he hands to her the bouquet in three weeks time, and he knows that he will need every

single one of those days to prepare.

It is unfortunate then, that Jeongguk ends seeing her much, much earlier than that.

*

The morning market is located at the outer edges of town. Lately, Guk's been having trouble sleeping so he gets there early, spends his time sitting on the grassy hill just outside of it as the first shops begin to open.

(He'd tell himself his insomnia has nothing to do with

the wedding that is happening in two weeks, but he's so tired of lying.)

Then, he sees her. They had only met for that one brief moment, but Jia's image is now burnt into the very core of him. He knows he's not mistaken.

In the distance Jia leans down to speak to one of the breakfast food vendors at the market entrance. As Guk watches, barely breathing in his attempt to remain unnoticed, strong arms wrap around her middle and pull her back.

Jia jumps in surprise but in the next moment, she laughs and pats the man's hands fondly. The man's face is tucked into her neck so Guk can't see it, but Guk knows every inch of Tae — he would recognise the other man anywhere.

Guk doesn't recognise the man wrapped around Jia right now.

Sickeningly, the first emotion that Guk feels is the heady rush of joy. His heart leaps out of his chest and his hands shake from the rush of endorphins suddenly pumping through his system. The grass beneath his palms

bursts into bloom.

Then, Guk realises the reality that he is so happy for, and is immediately swamped with self loathing. His mind fills with images of the quietly content expression on Tae's face whenever they work on the designs in the shop, the excitement in his eyes

whenever he speaks about the wedding day.

Guk stumbles his way to his feet. His body flushes hot, then cold then hot again.

Jeongguk barely makes it into a side street before he falls to his knees and is messily sick all over the pavement.

*

The week following the moment at the market passes by in a haze and somehow, like molasses oozing through his fingers, time still slips by and then Guk has to start working on the wedding flowers.

The fact that Tae has been absent for an out of town project for most of the

week is both a blessing and a curse. Guk spends the week oscillating between feeling bone-deep self hatred and abject terror from knowing that he cannot keep quiet about what he had seen.

Most nights, he sits in his bed barely able to breathe from how the weight of the new

knowledge crowds out the space in his lungs. Some nights, he dreams that after showing Tae what he had seen, Tae pulls him close, kisses the breath out of him. He dreams of Tae telling him he had never wanted her anyways.

Those are the nights where he is happy.

Some nights, he

dreams he tells Tae just before Jia walks down the aisle and Tae's curses at her, walks away from her standing at the alter with tears and rage on his face. And Guk is happy then too. Until he wakes up.

Those nights, like a compulsion he can't shake, Guk sits and weaves flowers

into long, winding chains with his hands. He makes as many as he can, holds his breath and breathes a sigh of relief every time he touches something new and they still appear; as vibrant and as healthy as ever.

He has always taken a quiet pride in the strength of his blooms, but

now, with the darkness in his heart creeping in, he is scared of facing the love that is becoming a sick & twisted thing inside of him.

There is a poison running through his veins now, so Guk knows that it is only a matter of time.

There are only two reasons that can explain

why flowers would stop blooming.

The first is when the person's feelings have grown into something that has strayed too far from an emotion as gentle as love.

The second is too much for Guk to bear.

*

The next morning, Guk startles awake after yet another dream where he breaks Tae's heart and immediately grabs for one of the daisies left on his nightstand.

It withers to dust and slips through his fingers, like sand.

*

"I saw Jia with someone else," Guk blurts, voice tight and filled with remorse. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and he looks pale. He knows his hands are shaking.

They're both in Guk's room, Tae had called him up the second he'd returned and told him he'd wanted for

them to meet.

Guk's had been changing the whole design for the first set of flowers (the ones he had originally planned to create with their memories) because he can no longer touch the flowers that he had transformed without them disappearing.

He know that the ache in his

chest is real. He knows the hollow that he's feeling in his bones at the thought that Tae is about to walk down the aisle into the arms of someone else hurts in a way that can't be anything other that the way people mourn for loves lost. But the truth stares at him in the empty

spaces left behind by all the disappearing flowers.

His affections are monstrous now. Selfish & full of possessive intent. He /wants/ Tae to stop the marriage, he's realised, wants him to be so hurt he doesn't give Jia a single chance for reconciliation.

So he says, "I saw

her in someone else's arms," and Tae stops in his tracks.

"What?" he breathes. "Guk, are you telling me what I think you are telling me?"

"I'm sorry Tae," Guk says, knees threatening to give out. He staggers backwards and sits on his bed. "I'm so sorry," he repeats.

"I saw her," he chokes out between breaths. He clutches at his shirt and he can't /breathe/. "I'm sorry Tae, but I can't just — "

Guk is scared of this new side of himself that claws at his heart and feels satisfaction for what had happened. It shouts that he could love Tae

better, love Tae /more/ and it's pulsing with the hope that Tae will now turn his way.

Guk feels like he's rotting from the inside, and the grey dust that sometimes coats his fingers proves it. He clutches desperately at the bedclothes, wishes for anything, the barest hint of

colour, just to reassure himself that there is still some of the old love left inside him.

Nothing happens.

"Guk," Tae says, kneeling on the floor at Guk's feet so that he can look the younger man in the eye. He pries Guk's hands off the bedclothes and soothes and the bloody

crescents in his palm.

Tae's face is white with shock, but he looks grimly determined.

"I want you to tell me everything about what you saw, but this time, I'm going to need you to start from the beginning."

*

"You're a fvcking idiot," Tae sighs when Guk is done, and Guk hunches in on himself. He trembles from where Tae's got his face held between his palms and his heart stops beating, falls like a stone to the pit of his stomach.

Then, mystifyingly, Tae starts to laugh.

"That was

Jihun-hyung. Fvck, Guk you scared the life out of me. I know you haven't seen him since his secondment to the new branch, but this is too much."

Tae shakes his head, laughs louder still and says, "I can't wait to tell him you forgot his face, he's going to piss himself laughing

at you."

"What?" Guk breathes because nothing makes sense. Jihun? Tae's brother? "But, it was an invitation from you. For you and her," he joins in on Tae's laughter, but his own is pitched high with hysteria.

At the sound of it, Tae abruptly sobers. He stands up, crowds a

little closer and slides a hand into Guk's hair. At the touch, Guk lets out a low noise, buries his face into Tae's stomach and tries to breathe.

"Hey," Tae says, trailing the fingers of his free hand down the curve of Guk's ear, "hey, no, Guk. What's all this? Tell me what's

wrong."

"What's going on?" he shakes, " I don't understand."

"The invitation was sent from our families, Guk," Tae explains, then he continues, hesitant, "are you sure you read the whole thing?"

"Of course I — " he didn't, he suddenly realises, lightheaded from how

ridiculous the situation is.

He can't believe he had just glimpsed at the two family names before the invitation had disappeared and never questioned it. Can't believe he had forgotten the possibility of Tae's whole /brother/.

Guk thinks that he should probably be embarrassed.

And maybe he will be, later, but right now he feels a sense of relief so heady his ears ring with it. Kim Taehyung isn't getting married.

"But you were in charge of all the decor," Guk insists, numb. Because, surely, this comedy of errors cannot be real.

"I'm the in designer

in the family Guk, of course they'd foist it off on me."

"She's not cheating on you," Guk says into Tae's stomach, he feels like he's in a dream.

"No, Gukkie," Tae reassures, "Jia isn't cheating on anyone."

Tae moves back and Guk makes a protesting noise & he clutches at the

other man's shirt to keep him close. Tae untangles Guk's hands and keeps them between his own warm palms.

"She's going to be Jihun-hyung's wife," confirms and then he sighs, "you always were the type to bottle things up inside. When I noticed that there was something wrong,

I should've pushed. I'm sorry."

Tae reaches into his own pocket and drops a handkerchief into Guk's hands. He brings his own palms together and, because Guk's own are resting between them, they close on the thin piece of cloth.

"I actually came to talk to you about something

else today," Tae says, "but if you're not up to it, we can do it tomorrow instead."

"No," Guk insists, he's still a little numb from all the revelations of the night but, "tell me". Distantly, he wonders if the revelation he's just had might bring back his flowers.

As if reading his mind, Tae asks him, "can you still make things bloom?"

Guk startles. Licks his lips, "I," he starts and then looks at the cloth in his hands.

He thinks of the warmth of Tae's palms cradling his own, thinks of the way he always feels under Tae's gaze — powerful, like they are the only two in the world.

Guk's eyes drop to their intertwined hands and the handkerchief stares back at him, dull and unchanged.

It feels like they are still inside him though. Setting root in his lungs and pushing their way up in throat, suffocating him from the inside. He coughs from the sensation and when he looks down at his hands he expects to see petals, red like the blood that's pumping the panicked

denial through his veins.

He thinks that he would've been happy with even that, but when he looks down, his hands are empty.

The irony of the situation might just kill him. Running away from the possible consequences of confessing had lead him to what he had thought would be

Tae being taken away. Running away the second time because he didn't want to even /think/ of the wedding had gotten him to where they are now, with him so twisted up inside that everything beautiful is now gone

Tae puts a finger to Guk's chin and uses it to tilt his head up so

that he can look into the younger man's eyes.

"There are only two reasons for why flowers would stop blooming Guk," Tae states, "which one is yours?"

His voice is soft, and his eyes are sad.

"Flowers will stop blooming," Guk whispers, softly, reluctantly, "flowers will stop

blooming when when what you feel becomes too bitter for love."

If only, Guk thinks, if only he had been braver.

If only, Guk thinks, if only he had tried sooner then maybe this moment would be different.

But, despite how he knows it's too late, he won't run away

this third time.

This time, even if after he opens himself up and Tae catches sight of the parts of him that aren't so beautiful, it will have to be okay because Guk knows now that there is nothing to be gained from hiding.

"Is that true for you?" Tae asks.

"There were moments over the past few weeks where I wished for the most horrible things," Guk admits, eyes downcast and ashamed. "And even now that the flowers are gone," he swallows, "even though you must know that I thought things terrible

enough to make them disappear, can we… will you still let me try?"

Guk takes another breath. Outside, the sun sets and for a moment, Tae is bathed in its soft golden light. Guk's heart trembles in his chest and then he is sure.

He knows this feeling, knows all its curves and

edges. He's held it inside himself every moment of every day for the past seven years.

"Because Tae," he pushes again when Tae is silent, "the lore must be wrong this time. I know it"

"Oh Guk," the older man sighs, shaking his head a coming closer, "do you know why I came to

ask you about your flowers today?"

"No," Guk whispers back, barely breathing at the look in the other man's eyes.

"For the past few months, I've been watching my best friend create flowers with his hands," Tae starts, and his voice is a warm caress. "I didn't know who it was

that had captured your heart, but all I knew was how you looked when you thought of them."

"But I was thinking of you Tae," Guk whispers, "every single flower I've ever made, I made them all for you."

Tae cups Guk's cheek with one of his hands, runs his thumb down Guk's

cheekbone and the younger man's breath hitches.

"But last week, when I was away, I realised that I haven't been able to get you out my head because I kept wishing that you would look like that when you looked my way. And I kept waiting for the flowers to appear, but

they never came"

Sliding a hand to the back of his neck, Tae reels the younger man in and Guk comes easily, Tae's words ringing inside him.

Pressing his lips to the shell of Guk's ear, Tae whispers like a terrible secret,

"Guk, I was so scared that I had made you wait for too long. I was willing have you in any way that you would let me, even if your flowers had really died inside you. But that's not what this is, is it?"

"Tae," Guk interrupts. He can't believe what he is hearing. "Please Tae, if you don't. If this isn't—"

He turns his head, drags the soft of his lips down Tae's cheek. Guk pauses at the corner of Tae's mouth, closes his eyes and breathes in the heat from the other man's skin.

It's the closest they have ever been.

"Flowers also stop blooming after the one that is loved, falls in love and realises that they're actually loving someone back," Tae breathes, turning his head just that little bit more. "The original blooms die out when the love is no longer

unrequited.

"I've fallen in love with you Guk," Tae whispers, pressing his lips to a corner of Guk's mouth like he can't help himself and Jeongguk lets out a small, desperate noise.

"Please tell me I'm not too late," Tae whispers again, pressing his lips to the other corner,

"because I don't think I would survive it."

"I —" Guk wobbles, finally breaking. He can't get the words out, his throat is so tight, so he closes final breath of space between them and presses his answer into Tae's mouth.

When Tae presses back, Guk tangles them together and

loses himself in the colour that bursts in the backs of his eyes.

*

"Do you miss being able to make flowers?" Tae wonders out loud a few months down the road. They're laying side by side in Guk's bed.

"No," Guk answers. Then he smiles, "besides, I can still make them, anytime

that I want." At Tae's confused noise, Guk rolls over so they're facing each other and adds, "but I think only I can see them now."

To prove his point, Guk pushes himself up to sitting. Then, he moves so that his knees are on either side of the man below him. He remembers how

Tae had looked minutes earlier, content in his bed and traces a finger down the slope of Tae's nose, the length of his neck and then back up to cup his face.

Tae follows his every movement like a sunflower to the sun.

Jeongguk leans down and presses their lips together.

He had planned for a short peck, a sweet press of their mouths, but, as would often happen with them, the kiss quickly turns heated.

Tae pushes himself up off the mattress, presses Jeongguk back into the warm heat his body had left behind. Jeongguk arches into him and runs

greedy hands up Tae's sides.

He slides his hands into Tae's shirt and at the first touch of skin to skin, they groan into the contact.

When they part, they're both a little breathless. Jeongguk noses at Tae's hair, presses himself up again to grind their hips together.

He thinks about how they must look now, flushed and panting.

Jeongguk runs his fingertips up Tae's neck, pushes his face into the dip of the other man's collarbone and breathes in the way the other man's scent has darkened into black orchids and spice.

Then, he smiles a little in secret.

He prefers these flowers much better.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

6.2K words lol RIP + a bonus rough video because the flowers were pretty and the imagery of the petals being the physical manifestation of Guk's suppressed emotions scattered across a town over the years was too tempting to resist

[Surrender - Natalie Taylor]

🌼THE END🌼

HOLY SH*T HOLD ME, I THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME. The initial tweet was one made in a fit of pique over hanahaki AUs b/c i DESPISE THEM & the main angst was literally meant to be the ss below (LOL). Tysm for sticking w me until this point. Hope to see y'all again soon 💜