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Ever since Namjoon could remember, he had been enchanted by the bonsai tree that lived on his family’s bookshelf, ceramic pot decorated with red patterns and pretty Chinese characters he didn’t understand just yet. Every time the shape got a bit too distorted, Namjoon saw his father fetch the little metal secateurs from a kitchen draw, and with bright eyes watched as every leaf fell, until the shape was perfect.
Unlike the small tree that sat next to an old copy of Lord of the Rings, Namjoon grew taller until one day, his father just handed him the small clippers, telling him to be careful not to cut himself. Just like cleaning his room and doing his homework, caring for the bonsai became one of his jobs in the house, watering it once a week, ensuring the light was right and that the roots were healthy. In the growing season, he routinely shaped the leaves; hours spent ensuring it was just like he remembered, the small tree he could recall as a toddler.
He held pride in the fact he had never missed a day, had never forgotten to care for the plant. It wasn’t until he went to high school that Namjoon became distracted, the small dependant tree slipped from his mind just like water, pouring out of his ears, eyes, mouth. One weekend away from home with friends became every weekend, leaving Friday night and only returning on Sunday, spending the day rushing homework and projects due the next morning.
It was one such weekend, and he was on his way to the front door, bag haphazardly slung over his shoulder, looking for his keys. As he rounded the lounge, he chanced a glace to the dark oak bookshelf; to the red pot with Chinese characters he couldn’t quite state the meaning of, so long since he had learned them when he was ten. The sight made him halt in his tracks, eyes wide as he surveyed the alien tree before him, the dead leaves scattered on the wooden shelf, in front of the old books and artefacts his parents proudly brought home.
The once thriving tree was almost void of its colour, green fading to brown and yellow, leaves sparser than he had ever seen. The branches were unruly, sticking in all directions, sharp and uncoordinated and just wrong, like a nightmare he would have as a child of the precious tree dying, someone stealing into his home to poison it, to trim and snip every leaf off to the twig.
It was like a stab to the chest, a dagger through the heart, and forgetting the random party he was meant to be going to, the person he didn’t really know who he was going to stay with for the night, he dropped his bag to the floor. Namjoon used his evening doing all that he could, watering the desert dry soil, finding one of his mother’s unused flower foods and squeezing the liquid into the pot, clearing away the brown litter of dead leaves from the sides and the floor.
With movements as careful as he possibly could, always having been clumsier than his own good, he cut the branches to the length he remembered, trimmed the twigs that weren’t green when he scraped the bark away, the ones that were dead and rotten the whole way through. Every time a segment was alive, he resisted the urge to cheer, celebrate, maybe even cry, his actions more gentle than ever with the areas that showed potential, showed he still had time.
When his father came through to go to the kitchen at midnight, an empty glass held in his hand, Namjoon watched him sigh with pity, a forlorn glance in the tree’s direction. It was Namjoon’s fault, he knew it was, neglecting the thing he once loved the most, and it solidified his determination to be the one to fix it, to make things right again.
Over the next months, there was a newfound enthusiasm in his actions, and every morning he would come down the stairs, bee lining to the small bonsai tree that lived on his bookshelf, the red pot now cleaned and dusted, Chinese characters slowly sticking in Namjoon’s mind, more important than the lessons at school, the pointless parties he had stopped frequenting once he realised they had no true purpose. They didn’t give life, or grow day by day into something new, or help clean the air in their small home in Ilsan, the city of flowers.
After years, months upon months of perfectly timed watering, pruning, anything it seemed to need, the small tree was perfect again. The shape was exactly how Namjoon remembered, every level just as healthy as the last, and the next, and the one after that. The green was just as bright as the pot, enhanced like the colours were under a chrome filter, something from a fantasy book filled with faeries and nymphs, magic winding its way into the heart of every living thing.
It was just in time for Namjoon to leave for university, to leave Ilsan and travel to Seoul, an even busier city which never slept, never took a minute’s rest. It would be suffocating, he knew, a small dorm room with a shared kitchen and a small walk to the university buildings, textbook to the very word. The small ball of anxiety in Namjoon’s gut grew as he checked his room for the last things he might need, his father and sister packing the car outside, mother cooking him his last homemade meal for a while.
The partings were surprisingly tame, and it wasn’t until he was kissing his mother’s cheek before he stole a single last glance at the bookshelf, the oak bookshelf that had been there for longer than he had been born, a gap where his beloved tree used to live. It made his heart jump out of his chest, looking around for a moment before he dashed outside, to where his father was carefully lowering the plant and its bright red pot into a box in the car boot, out of place between the cardboard boxes and bags full of clothes, Namjoon’s worthy belongings.
Just a smile was sent his way, small and slightly melancholy, aged hands shutting the back of the car gently to wordlessly wander to the driver’s side, slipping behind the steering wheel. Waving goodbye almost ripped his soul in two, Namjoon trying to neatly stitch the breaks in time to also bid his father farewell for a while, just until he found the time to return for a day, a weekend, anything he could manage.
The bonsai tree made its home on Namjoon’s window ledge, the netted fabric hanging from the ceiling filtering the light enough for it to be ideal. Every Saturday, he allotted the time to dampen the soil with water, and every time it needed a trim he was there with the small metal secateurs, shaping it until it was just as he remembered. Occasionally, he sent a picture to his parents, himself and the tree together, logging the seasons, how he was feeling.
As Namjoon’s life went by, the tree was a constant, watching him work, make his friends in the strange city. Seokjin was the first person Namjoon showed his most prized possession to, allowed the elder to admire the leaves, showed him just how to cut them just right. The tree watched his first kiss, Seokjin standing in the doorway, hands loosely grasped between their chests, laughing the whole way through.
Depending on his guardian, the year went by like a blur, and before he knew it Namjoon was carefully loading his bonsai into his father’s car boot, kissing Seokjin goodbye with a promise to be back soon for the start of the next term, to call him every day and send his periodic pictures of himself with the tree like he sent to his parents. Returning home, his family seemed just as exited to see the tree as to see Namjoon himself, and it reclaimed its spot on the bookshelf, Lord of the Rings having stayed in its place the whole time of its absence.
The following summer had Namjoon buried in work, but not enough to neglect his most important charge, to again forget to care for his longest friend. It was what made the article in front of him so much more painful to read, misery settling in his throat like birds in a nest, refusing to leave until the world outside changed its colours. The bold Korean headline was just the start, the passage undoing the stitches Namjoon had so carefully worked on throughout the years.
The Amazon Rainforest Has Been Burning For Three Weeks
Majority Of Fires Suspected To Be Human Lit
Fires 80% Higher Than Last Year And Growing…
It was on the small television he and Seokjin managed to afford when they moved in together for their second year, Seokjin’s roommate also living in their small apartment. It was in almost every one of his phone’s notifications, the buzzing making his heart sink lower and lower each time it sounded. Newspapers on the train, radios all over the university, a lingering reminder the world’s lungs were dying. His little bonsai tree suddenly seemed to look sadder in its perch now in their shared bedroom, leaves drooping like tears falling from the branches.
It was the melancholy tree that made Namjoon wake one morning, ideas moving through his head like a river, violent and controlled in balance. It was what made him paint the posters, get his friends to design papers upon papers, collection boxes and information leaflets, pasting them all over the city, the university, social media alike. It fuelled him through fundraisers, bake sales, anything he could think of, posters changing over time and yet the statement at the bottom stayed the same, anything can grow back with a little bit of help.
The tree watched as donations flooded in, being redirected to charities, causes, all pledging their job as the ones responsible for the future, to help the world breathe again. The little leaves perked up with every smile from the seven people always in the apartment, thinking new schemes to help, to try and make an impact in the world when so many things were going wrong, didn’t seem to have an end.
The red pot was beginning to fade, Chinese characters Namjoon knew off by heart being repainted in gold, polished until they shined. The leaves didn’t brown again, shape staying just how Namjoon remembered it, and if his parents mentioned that the tree looked healthier than ever before, he denied it. It was as he always recalled, sitting on an oak bookshelf in his new home, small curious eyes watching as Namjoon trimmed the leaves, Seokjin watching further away from the doorway of the kitchen.