daisies were taehyung's favorite flowers.
even after he found himself hunched over as he assisted a teenager on buying roses for the girl she had been going out with, unable to ignore the painful constriction on his chest which led him to cough out their petals.
the young girl was about to ask for advice, determined to have her relationship status changed by the end of the day– oh how much he misses having just met jeongguk, misses the rush of feelings that were so unusual to him at the time but now seem so natural, so instinctive for every i love you he pronounces–, when the burn on his lungs begins, spreading from his very bronchi up to his larynx, a fluttering sensation that made him feel as if he was about to burst at the seams.
he barely caught the worried "sir, are you okay?" as he stared down at his palms, crimson petals lying delicately on his palms and slipping through the gaps between his fingers.
(red was jeongguk's favorite color.)
"yes", taehyung lied, "don't worry about me, now– now where were we?"
"you were telling me about the meaning behind red roses."
"oh, yes– you give those to the ones who you want to show love and passion, those who you have great respect for, and so on", he explains and wipes at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, unsure if the few tears he had shed were due to the physical ache on his chest or the emotional one. "it's a great choice for a situation like yours, in my humble opinion."
the girl's lips twitch as if suppressing a smile, cheeks resembling the flower in color, "i'll have those."
"mhm, i'm sure she'll love it", he rid the flowers of their thorns and wrapped them up in metallic green and a red bow, "i wish you the best with your girl."
"will do", she exclaimed with a face-splitting grin as she handed him a few thousand won. bouquet in hand, the customer leaves with a bounce to her step that would have made taehyung's day if he had managed to push certain thoughts away from his mind.
people are supposed to grow flowers in soil, not their lungs.
taehyung knew, and jeongguk didn't.