The Tour for the 'Four' album is painful and he almost gets caught several times. It's hard to hold the coughs and the petals that come with them, Zayn spending more time than necessary inside bathrooms in general, spitting dozens of bright yellow at once. He has to stop smoking so much, the smoke generally irritating the captive lungs to the point of him coughing blood together with the sunflowers, the scarlet red making an ugly contrast with the pretty yellow.
Singing the high notes is equally hard; his throat burns and Zayn has to cough silently – lifting the microphone so the others won't notice the sounds – against his hands, swallowing the sunflowers and feeling the tears fogging his eyes at the foul taste – blood and earth and sorrow – before continuing.
Perrie calls every day. She's the only person in the whole world who knows, and she cries, begging for him to stop being so damn stubborn and just endure the surgery. He's grateful for her, his broken heart taking comfort on her motherly one, sucking like a parasite all the care he can before... well, dying. There's no other way to say the reality. He always denies though, explaining over and over again his reasons for not simply getting rid of his poisonous love. Perrie doesn't understand, but she respects his decision; still, she tries.
He knows Lou suspects something is wrong with him; he feels her eyes glued on his back like a hawk's, analyzing his actions and how he deals with food – which he doesn't eat – fans – to whom he smiles strained – and the other One Direction members – he avoids Liam's sharp eyes, Niall's contact, Louis' outings and Harry's... entirety – and his appearance, whose he changes at every given opportunity.
Paul also suspects there's something going on; the man stays by his side more frequently, and puts one comforting hand on his shoulder when no-one's looking.
The fans, of course they notice. They can beat a FBI equip with their searching abilities, scare a SWAT team with their sharpness and make the best MI-6 agent spill their secrets to them due their ruthlessness. Some think he lost the will to sing, some think he just got too cocky to deal with 'dirty mundane' while others spit words of hate about his skin and religion. Few think Perrie is the one to blame – the engagement façade persisting – and a minority express their worry about his health.
cough cough
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Sunflower | ZARRY
Fanfictionwhere there's a type of disease that makes people throw up flowers when they suffer from one sided love, and Zayn is one of them.
