Smile Flower | Jihan

Act II - Chapter 5

'247' - Seventeen

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"I'm always careful when I sleep,
so that someone doesn't sneak into my dreams.
I'm afraid that someone will discover how I feel,
since my dreams are only of you."

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After crying a bit, and coughing a lot more, Joshua comes to his senses. He washes his face and takes some deep breaths to try and calm himself down- his priority now was cleaning up the mess of flower petals in the bathroom. He gets to work and his phone rings. Seungkwan. Right. How does he keep forgetting about the poor guy? He quickly cleared his throat, and took a deep breath.

"Hyung! Finally, you answered your goddamn phone. Are you okay?" Seungkawn almost yelled through the receiver, causing Joshua to reel away from the phone. He puts him on speaker and lowers the volume as he looks for the broom.

"Seungkwan, I'm fine. I just woke up, so I'm getting washed up in the bathroom."

"Okay, okay. So, how did yesterday go? What happened? Were you right?" Joshua spots the broom and dustpan in the corner of the room and gets to work.

"Well, the two of us went to the cafe and Jeonghan told me exactly what I expected- he's going to ask out Seungcheol." He paused.

"..."

Joshua continued, "I visited Jeonghan's room last night and he told me he was going to ask him out today and he asked me to stay over to help calm his nerves."

"Oh, Shua-hyung... I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I said it yesterday, but he'll come to his senses eventually! This whole Seungcheol thing is only gonna make him realize quicker, I'm sure of it. If you want, we can meet up today and talk about how you're feeling?" Joshua stopped and thought for a minute. He didn't know whether he should take Seungkwan's offer or not, but he looked down at what he was sweeping and remembered 'Oh yeah, I'm coughing up petals, maybe I should go to a doctor about this.'

"I appreciate it, but maybe some other day? I want some time to myself to process all of this and... get myself together." He pushes the pile of petals into the dustpan.

"Ah, okay, I get it. Just don't be too hard on yourself, okay? And look after yourself too, okay?? Call me if you need anything, okay???" His motherly concern was touching and warmed his heart. Joshua smiled, even if everything was shitty right now, at least he had Seungkwan.

"What would I do without you, Seungkwan? I won't be too hard on myself, don't worry. I'm hanging up now, I'll see you around."

"Bye hyung! Take care!"

Joshua dumps all the petals into the toilet and flushes them promptly. He scans the bathroom to make sure he didn't miss any, and leaves. On his way back to his room, he picks the tangerine back out of his pocket and starts peeling it- a bittersweet smile plastered on his face after remembering Jeonghan's caring gesture. It makes him feel a bit sick, but he quickly eases the nausea with the acidity of a tangerine slice. When he gets back to his room, he opens up his laptop and decides to start researching this strange flower petal situation.

'Hanahaki? Sounds fictional, this can't be real- right?'

He clicks around and watches some videos talking about the strange phenomenon, and looks at interviews about real people's experiences with the disease. He also reads some articles; seems real enough. Despite all of the evidence, he decides to see the doctor anyway. He looks at the time, '12:30? How long did I spend in the bathroom this morning?'

He got himself dressed and he headed downstairs. He was met with his fellow members, Soonyoung, Wonwoo, and Chan. They seemed to be having some sort of discussion.

"My conclusion is the chicken existed first to have eggs. Anyways, without that, you can't have eggs on their own. So chickens existed first." Chan said, tapping his fingers insistently on the coffee table. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. Wonwoo nodded and agreed in hums.