A Meadow of Sorrow - Hyunchan

Despair

The door opened. When did the door open? Hyunjin didn't even notice - how long had the locked door to his secret garden been open?

"Is that - is that blood?"

The voice makes Hyunjin's poppies run cold, frost appearing at the edge of their petals as his veins of ivy freeze over like a forgotten lake in winter. Hyunjin doesn't want to look away from his meadow of poppies, he doesn't want to look up and see Chan standing there, he doesn't want to see the disappointment on his face.

Hyunjin desperately tries to wipe up the fallen petals from the bathroom with his sleeve even though Chan has already seen them. Oh God. Chan has already seen them. He's already witnessed the utter destruction of Hyunjin's perfect little garden. The petals have spilled all over the floor, oh what must Chan think of him?

"It's - it's not, I didn't - I just...I just..." Hyunjin rasps, unable to get his words out the confines of his head. He short-circuits, unable to formulate a proper sentence.

Chan doesn't say a thing, he just stares. Eyes large and owlish, he can't stop looking at Hyunjin's ravaged garden. The poppies have devastated the white tiles below, completely tainting the pure white with a sinister red.

Oh please stop staring. Please stop. Oh please oh please. Staring won't bring the flowers back to life, it won't salvage anything .

"Jinnie..." Chan whispers finally, ever so desperately wanting to reach out yet unable to move his shaking hand from his side.

Hyunjin can feel his breathing start to pick up again, heart thumping rapidly in his splintering chest. It's like he's caged by his own bones, skin just waiting to be torn off. He wants to shriek, to yell and scream and run away but all he can do is pathetically defend himself. His words come out broken and disorientated, no closer to a real sentence than that of a baby's babbling.

"It's not - I didn't, I would never, I just-" Hyunjin hopelessly rambles, his words merely broken strings of a massacred symphony.

His flowers continue to spill over the ashen skin of his arm, dripping like the streams of a nightmare.

Chan doesn't know where to place his eyes. He tentatively reaches out his hand, unsure if his own limb is under his control. But then Hyunjin flinches away from the touch as if expecting to be slapped straight across the face, he's almost...cowering. Cowering like a small animal being hunted on the street who's been backed into a corner.

"Oh Hyunjin..." Chan breathes softly, voice laced with fear and uncertainty. He places his shaking hand against his chest, heart knocking in his chest.

Hyunjin looks like he's splintering, cracking almost. His soul shattered behind his dull eyes. People say the eyes are the window to the soul, Chan sees only darkness and distress in Hyunjin's. Oh. Why is that? What did Chan miss? How could he not see that Hyunjin was hurting so much? Oh how miserably he failed his boy, his everything, his reason for living.

It was as clear as the tears staining his cheeks...Hyunjin is just a mere physical manifestation of agony and desolation.

Chan swallows thickly, suddenly feeling lost in his own home, "Hyunjin...darling...can you look at me?"

Can he? Hyunjin doesn't know if he can bear it.

He weakly raises his head, hands still covering his face as tears stream down his face. His flowers....his beautiful beautiful flowers. Everything has been destroyed. Hyunjin destroyed it all. He's pathetic. Worthless. Oh god why must Chan look at him like that?

Like he's the whole entire the world. Like he isn't a monster. Like he isn't sitting here in a whirlwind of shredded petals and anguish.

Chan please. Don't do this to him. Please stop. He isn't worth it.