Night Sky Bloom

2- Mountain Laurel

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"Jisuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!"

The long, drawn out form of his name made Jisung smile instinctively. He stuck his garden trowel into the greenhouse soil and turned around from his sitting position on the ground to face his friend, his carnation. Loyal, classy. Stunning, dramatic.

"Jin. How's your dad?"

Hyunjin grabbed the frame of the entrance door with both hands and swung into the entryway dramatically. "He's great. The balm you gave him is literal fucking magic. No joint aches or pains. You're a god. You're incredible. Literally heaven-sent."

"The fuck do you need, Hyunjin?" Jisung laughed, tilting his head and staring at his friend, no malice in his tone.

Hyunjin grimaced. "Eunchae has some sort of stupid cold because she literally refuses to take care of herself."

"Jin, she's like... 12."

"Okay? And I'm 20. And you're almost 20. And we definitely knew how to take care of ourselves at her age." Hyunjin was waving his hand around as if he was explaining the most obvious statement in the world.

"Hyunjin, when you were 12, you hid in the back of the travel van going into town, simply because you wanted to 'see if the town had horses, too'." Jisung used air quotes with his rough-edged gloves, shaking his head with a chuckle.

"Being curious and being stupid are two very different things."

"You literally got lost and sent the village on a chaotic search spree. They found you talking to two older guys who were arrested for trafficking like... a month later."

"Dude." Hyunjin dropped his hand dramatically and gave his signature deadpan glare. "Tomato, potato. Can you come check on her, or not?"

Jisung licked his lips and smiled, still shaking his head slightly as he stood up, tossing his gloves on the bench nearest him. "Yeah, I'll walk with you."

Jisung exited the elongated greenhouse, and walked back into his own home to change his shoes, wash his hands, and grab his notebook. "You know... there's a literal doctor like 20 minutes from here. Someone who actually went to medical school and has like... a degree." He wrapped his hand around his new forest-green backpack, next, and threw it over his shoulder, hearing the small plastic jars inside jostling around and hitting each other with noisy clanks.

"And it's wild that the weird-ass doctor can't seem to solve half the shit you can. Remember when Chaeryoung had that stomach bug for like a month? Her family took her to that doctor twice. Each time, she was sent home with a different prescription they had to go into town for, and neither worked. You had her all fixed up in less than a day with that creepy looking jar of liquid you gave her."

"That's because the doctor didn't bother getting to the root of the problem. He was trying to treat her symptoms, and not the cause." Jisung said, grimacing at the memory of Chaeryoung doubled over in her bed, crying from stomach pain that wouldn't subside. Her parents looked terrified. She hadn't presented, there was no indication of what it could be, and she didn't have any other pain or symptoms that they could see.

"Right, right, and what were your thoughts after checking up on her?" Hyunjin asked, kicking a rock to the side of the road as they traveled down it. He slid both of his hands into his jean pockets and looked at Jisung with eyebrows raised.

"It was just digestive issues. She had blockage because she was eating things her body couldn't tolerate." Jisung mumbled, remembering clearly when he'd lightly pressed into her stomach to check pain levels and she had screamed, tears falling from her eyes like rain falling down in the Spring. But there was no bruising, no hardened masses under her skin- so no sign of internal bleeding or actual damage. It meant that internally, her organs were swollen. The most likely possibility- extreme levels of digestive issues.