Roses in the Snow - Tao & Sehun
Red Roses, standing atop a coffee table in a pretty birch tree vase. These were the roses now adorned in the small living room of the apartment owned by one Huang Zitao. But how did they get there? Did he simply buy them? Where had they come from, exactly, and what was their purpose? No, Huang Zitao, had not in fact, bought these roses now sitting upon his coffee table. The roses had been a much needed gift at the time.
Let’s back up to point A, where all of this started. Today was a rather lazy day for Sehun and Tao as they had been lying around their apartment all day, doing nothing more than chatting about anything and everything, simply hanging out. At some point, Tao had ended up in the kitchen baking something sweet for his precious little boy, and Sehun had watched rather excitedly at first.
Over the course of a few minutes, somehow Sehun had made his way to the window in the family room he’d become accustomed to flying in through, and he had watched Tao from there. Tao hadn’t taken much notice at first, he was too busy preparing a nicely decorated cake for his little prince. When he had looked up, however, he saw Sehun sitting on the open windowsill, looking out into the city so far below. Tao didn’t really know if he liked the idea of Sehun sitting so close to the edge, and he had furrowed his eyebrows a bit, stopping the mixer he was using and powering it down momentarily as he turned to face Sehun. “Sehun, get down from the windowsill. That’s dangerous you could fall,” he said, voice stern yet still loving.
It was this moment that Sehun decided to make a mistake. The younger boy was feeling quite defiant today, not because he was angry at Tao, he just didn’t feel like listening to orders at the moment. In fact, he thought it would be much funnier to carry out an entirely different plan of action, and so he did. Turning to face Tao with a wide grin on his face, he waved at the other and giggled out, “Toodles!” before he fell backwards out the window.
Normally this might not have been a big deal for a boy like Sehun, but as soon as it had happened, Zitao had forgotten that the younger boy knew how to fly. In fact the only thing he could think of as he screamed out the other’s name in panic was that they were 70 stories up and Sehun had just chosen with a smile on his face to fall to his death.
Tao had immediately felt the tears, they stung at his vision and streamed down his face rapidly and he collapsed to his knees momentarily. A moment later he’d righted himself, though, and he slowly walked towards the window his beloved boy had just fallen out of. As he was walking, Sehun flew right up into vision, floating a few meters out from the window, grin still plastered on his face. “Miss me, Hyung?” he asked playfully, and he did a couple flips in the air.
Tao’s brain decided to come online again at that moment. Eyes widening, he realized Sehun could fly, he’d always been able to fly, and Tao had forgotten and thought his beautiful prince had just fallen out the window to his death. Sehun took that moment to realize what had just happened. He’d just fucked up, done something Tao was obviously not happy about, and the smile dropped off of the younger boy’s face.
“Oh Sehun,” Tao finally breathed out through gritted teeth, tears still flowing freely down his cheeks, “You get your ass back in this apartment. Now.” The tone in his voice was one Sehun didn’t want to mess with, the younger recognized he was in trouble, and he flew into the apartment and set himself down in front of Tao, looking up at him with wide eyes.
“S-Sir I—“
“Do you even know what kind of heart attack you just gave me, Sehun?!” Tao quickly cut the younger off, staring down at him, eyes still wider than ever. “You just fell backwards out of a window 70 stories up off the ground and I thought you just fell to your death!”
Sehun was speechless, he didn’t know how to form words as the other yelled at him, how to even start apologizing for what he’d just done. When Tao reached out a hand Sehun flinched at the idea that Tao might hit him even if he knew Tao wouldn’t ever purposely hurt the boy. Instead he felt a hand grabbing his white shirt, pulling him in as Tao wrapped his arms around Sehun and held him closely, gripping him tightly as if he were afraid to let Sehun go.
“You don’t ever do that again, you hear me?” Tao let out almost breathlessly. “You don’t ever scare me like that again. I’ve already almost lost you once I’m not going through that again. I love you way too much, you just can’t do this Sehun.” Tao had buried his face in Sehun’s stark, white blonde hair.
Sehun raised his arms to wrap around Tao, snuggling into the other with a weak, “I’m sorry, Sir..” as he let his eyes shut.
When they had parted, Sehun’s master and boyfriend sighed a little, trying to calm his tears. “You’re not getting off the hook so easily on this one, Sehun. Give me some time to think of a proper punishment, but I can promise you won’t like it, whatever it is.”
Sehun whimpered a little but he nodded, knowing he deserved whatever was to come. He had done something awful by scaring Tao so terribly, and he knew from now on sitting at the windowsill was probably a bad idea in itself.
Speeding up to where they were now, Tao was lying with Sehun on the couch in the living room, Sehun resting on top of the other as Tao played with his hair and held him. Whatever punishment Tao was planning still hadn’t come, but Sehun hoped maybe he’d lessened it some at this point. He’d gone out and gotten a nice vase with red roses for Tao as a way to apologize for his major screw-up, and now the two of them were staring at the lovely, fragrant flowers as they decorated the living room in a way that seemed to light it up nicely.
Tao had long since stopped crying, and he quietly spoke to the other as he watched the unmoving flowers, voice barely above a whisper. “Mm..baby why did you choose red roses, just curious? You know they’re my favorite flower, yes?”
Sehun blinked and looked at Tao, chin resting on the older male’s chest. “Well now I do, but they’re my favorite too so..I thought..maybe if I liked ‘em you would too.”
The answer Tao received made him smile as he ran his fingers through the silky blonde locks of hair he’d come to love. “Mm why are they your favorite? Just the look or the fragrance..or..?”
Sehun re-adjusted so he was once more looking at the flowers, cheek resting on Tao’s chest as he purred a bit from the hand making him oh so comfortable. “Mm..well yeah those things..but there’s more to it. Like..hmm. Red’s always been a nice color to me but it signifies so many things. A bloody rose in the snow can signify death, whereas at a fancy restaurant a rose may be considered romantic. The red color signifies lust between lovers, tragedy between friends at funerals, and a simple purity, though they’re not white, at weddings. When I look at a rose I see a poem waiting to be written, the fragility and beauty in a rose shows how delicate it is.”
He stopped momentarily and lifted himself, reaching out and taking just two of the roses gently from their vase, holding them like a wine glass next to each other. “When I look at a rose I see a person. I see that two roses together may be waltzing in the moonlight, whisking each other away through the crisp, cool night air on a perfect spring evening. I see that each rose has its thorns, as do people. Everyone has been stabbed in the back one too many times, everyone knows pain and everyone makes mistakes..maybe like..like I did today.. No one is perfect, and like the rose and its thorns we all go through different walks of life. We all have different stories to tell, the beautiful, delicate petals of our memories which we can share fondly with one another, and the painful moments, the mistakes we’ve made, the people who have hurt us and the stories we don’t want to relive, but every breathing moment the reality is there. But the rose knows..that every other rose is also in pain, has gone through unspeakable things, and in that sense the two roses who waltz together as one, may share in each other’s pain, as people do, as we do for each other. The rose is bloody red and painful with its thorns, yet it is also delicately beautiful and light, spreading romance and beauty and love through the pain, proving nothing, no matter how painful, can pull two people who are in love, two delicate, fragile roses on the walks of life, apart. I always compared myself to a rose, my future partner to one as well, should I have had one. I always wanted him to share his own thorns with me, and I with him, to create beautiful new memories even if the thorns are still there and we might make mistakes.”
At this, Sehun looked back to Tao once more with a little smile on his face. “And look how lucky I’ve been. I found you, and I’ve never seen a more perfect rose in the world.” He then leaned up and pressed his nose to Tao’s, bringing him into a gentle, loving kiss, as delicate and soft as the petals of two roses on the wind.