Ghostly Beauty - Minsung

Chapter 20

Minho stirred and opened his eyes. He was greeted with the warmth of a blanket. He blinked away the sleep and looked around. Jisung was no where to be found.

Confused, he got up and tried to walk, immediately, he stumbled and clutched onto the barrier of the ice rink. He felt dizzy and nauseous.

Just then, Jisung walked into the building via the garden door, he hurriedly rushed over to Minho after seeing the state he was in.

"Minho! You can't walk around, you need to rest." Jisung's voice softened after every syllable as he held Minho tentatively, guiding him to the makeshift bed.

"I'm gonna th-throw up." Minho mumbled, his voice was shaking and quiet.

Jisung hurriedly found something that Minho could throw up in. It was a large bowl. He didn't even know where it had come from, but at least it was there.

He gave the bowl to Minho and the boy immediately coughed and heaved, leaning over the bowl and spitting blood out of his mouth. His eyes glassed over as tears collected in them. He didn't know what was happening to him and he was terrified.

Again, he spit a petal out. But what was different about this time was that there were more petals. A lot more. He choked them up with Jisung patting his back to get them out.

After a while, he'd spit the left over blood out of his mouth and Jisung gave him a tissue. He could taste the metallic flavour in his mouth and it made him cringe.

"J-Jisung." He sobbed after gaining some of his breath back.

Jisung only brought him into his arms. Minho clutched weakly onto the fabric of his clothes, only wanting the boy closer.

"Shh." Jisung shushed him calmly, caressing his back gently and kissing his head softly.

When his sobs turned to sniffles, Jisung moved his head out of the crook of his neck and delicately cupped his face, caressing his cheeks.

"Jisung..." Minho choked out a whisper, "what's happening to me?" His voice was barely audible but Jisung heard it.

"Minho...I think you have..." Jisung felt tears well up his eyes, he took a deep breath, he was just as scared as Minho was, "I think you have hanahaki disease." He said quietly.

"Wh-what's that?"

"It's when...you have unrequited love and cough up petals and blood."

'Does he not love me back?' Minho wanted to cry again and even more. Jisung didn't love him back, this was proof.

Jisung caressed Minho's hand softly as he kept explaining, "there are three stages I'm aware of: you cough up petals and then you cough up buds and sometimes fully bloomed flowers..." his voice trailed off.

"What's...what's the third stage?" Minho wasn't even sure if he wanted to know.

"I...I don't...it's..." Jisung couldn't bring himself to say what it was.

Because it was death.

The victims airwaves would be strangled by roots growing up their throat. They would suffocate.

"It's okay, just tell me Jisung." Minho squeezed his hand back, his voice trembling as new tears threatened to fall.

Jisung brought a shaky hand up to Minho's face and wiped away the older tears.

"Death." He mouthed, not even trusting his own voice, not even wanting to face the reality by saying it out loud.

Minho gasped and sobbed, his body fell weak and he collapsed further into Jisung's arms. Even if the boy didn't love him back, he couldn't help but feel safe in his arms.

"It's gonna be okay." But of course, no one could guarantee that.

It was scary, both boys were scared because the strange thing was, Jisung loved Minho. He was so hopelessly in love with him. So why was Minho now suffering?

It made Jisung think that Minho was in love with someone else, and it crushed him, but he couldn't say anything. He had no control over Minhos feelings. He shouldn't get jealous when the boy was going to die because of it.

Of course you could get surgery for it, but that would be too expensive, Minho's living situation was already unstable financially as well as other things, and it would cause the older to fall out of love completely with the person.

Jisung felt useless. He didn't know what to do.

He felt hopeless.

He was hopeless.