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The castle’s royal garden is filled with blooms of hydrangea, from soft orange to warm yellow. They surround lines of short sitting orange trees that bear fruit all year long, and the scent of citrus fills the air just enough to calm any visitor’s nerves.
For the young prince who loves the forest and the florals they bear, this wonder is one of the many that lies in the garden.
To celebrate his birthday one year, the garden grew an entire field of buttercups. The wildflowers only found deep in the forest clearings sit as nicely trimmed patches of yellow like a painting surrounding the castle’s wings.
All these wonders contained within the walls of the castle is an awe to any traveler of the town. Though its residents have known for long about the sorcerer who, to everyone’s memories, had been by the prince’s side since the beginning of time.
His magic seems to have made anything possible, and though he would not hesitate to help anyone in need, he often keeps to himself somewhere beyond the walls of his hut.
Only a handful of people have entered Min Yoongi’s hut, though always with a knock or a call of his name, a period of wait, then entering only at his accord.
Although, there is an exception to the sorcerer’s ruling.
Yoongi startles at the swift sound of the door sliding open, mindful of the draught in his hands as he sets the cup down with a grumble. He glares at the cloaked figure comfortably entering the hut as though it is their own property. “Your highness.”
The hood is pulled down to reveal the prince’s unamused face. “How many times must I tell you not to call me that?”
“I can assure you that this is not out of formality. It is your title,” The sorcerer replies, “for you are a prince with no manners.”
“Harsh words,” The prince tuts, though he breaks into a smile. “Must you be so cruel to someone you are so fond of?”
The sorcerer does not answer as he takes a sip of his draught. The seeds he had gathered for this give a nice aroma but are so bitter on the palate. “You should not be here, Hoseok.”
“You say that every time I visit,” Hoseok helps himself to a spot near Yoongi, settling down gracelessly on the wooden floor. “Though never once have you driven me away. Is there some kind of magic behind that?”
“Your persistence is more powerful than any curse,” The sorcerer murmurs. “Your birthday is tomorrow.”
“As though I have not been reminded of such at every encounter for the past few days, here you are again.” Hoseok smiles. “That is why I am here, old love. I suspect another patch of flowers this year from you again.”
“A pond of lotus with two swans,” Yoongi corrects him before he diverts his gaze elsewhere, “to commemorate your marriage in the spring.”
The sentence deters the prince’s smile as well, as though he is faced with a reality he has been trying to avoid. “That is not what I want,” He says with a grimace. “Not from you.”
Yoongi holds his cup to his lips, “What is it then that will aid you?”
“A kiss.”
“Any maiden would be willing.”
“A kiss from you.”
The draught sprays onto the wooden table and Yoongi hastily wipes his lips with his sleeve. He hears Hoseok’s quiet laughter from next to him as he gathers himself.
“You, the crown prince of Silla, will be wedded with a princess from Baekje in the coming spring to unite the kingdoms and then crowned king in fall.” He scolds with an accusing finger, as if the things he is saying are anything that the prince himself is not aware of. It speaks audibly loud how the princeʼs scheduled future can be used to reprimand him. “And now you are asking me for the one thing I can not give you, out of all the things I can make possible. You are too reckless, too selfish.”
The prince appears unaffected, as though he had expected such a hostile reaction to his wish. His smile is soft with just a touch of sad, “Is it so wrong to love you?”
“It is,” Yoongi answers him frankly, the truth leaving a bitter taste in his throat. “Because of who you are and what we are to each other, it is.”
Even with all the magic in this world, Yoongi doubts that he will ever aid the drop in his stomach or the ache in his heart, and perhaps he has tried. There is no path in this life that they can take to embrace each other and simultaneously be unafraid.
Though with all that said, and the million ways they have said to each other the same old notion, the force that draws them towards each other is undefeatable with any magic.
“Yoongi, my spring,” Hoseok whispers, “if now is not good, I shall make it a wish.” His fingers skim over to Yoongi’s hand that still has an unusually tight grip on the now empty cup. “It is a wish for when it is possible. If not this life, then the next. One where kissing me will make you forget about the things that ache you.” His touch grows hesitant, suddenly. “Unless you would dread it, then it will never be.”
Yoongi is still for a second before he moves away, getting up to clear the mess of seeds and kettles from his table. The prince follows his movements with his eyes and a pout.
He only starts speaking once he has his back turned. “You know what you are in my heart.”
“And you are awfully good at hiding it in the buttercup fields,” Hoseok murmurs. “But I believe that there will be a time where you can fearlessly show it. I know you will make it possible.”
He smiles when Yoongi turns to look at him. “There will come a time where it will be right, my love. Perhaps not this life or the next, but I look forward to the day where you will not hesitate to kiss me and never regret it.”
“You are speaking in fantasies,” Yoongi mutters through his pounding heart.
“But that is what you are,” Hoseok tells him. “You came to me like the spring and made me feel the most fantastical things. Surely I will be able to repay you for everything one day.” He looks at Yoongi and shines a smile more beautiful than anything, “Surely I will be the one gifting you with the prettiest flowers one day.”
Count on Hoseok to still have hope in a life where there is none. Perhaps that is what made Yoongi so enamoured. “You sound certain.”
“As certain as a promise,” He says. “As certain as faith.”
“For the prince, the sorcerer has gifted a brand new lotus pond made of the finest stones for a long life,” A courtier announces as guests gather in the castle gardens. “And in addition, to commemorate his royal highness’ wedding in the spring, two white swans for a happy marriage.”
For his birthday, the queen has thrown a banquet large enough that it extends beyond the castle walls to the streets. Though as big as a celebration it is, the prince is nowhere to be seen to the public or those who have entered the castle.
“Shocked to learn that I could not find you in the courtyard,” Hoseok turns to the voice when the door to his chamber opens. “Why is such a charming prince kept away from the public that is celebrating him?”
He keeps his eyes fixed on the view from his window, eyeing the lights and colors of the banquet. “I do not feel too well. Such a commotion right now seems a bit much for me.”
“Is it best that I leave you then?” Hoseok turns at the question, looking at Yoongi who is still standing a reach away.
“I had guessed that you were upset with me,” The prince says, and it makes Yoongi stay.
“How so?”
“Because of what I said, and the present.”
“Do you not like it?”
“I do,” He quickly answers. “I can see it from here. It is very pretty.” Though he did tell Yoongi that he did not want it. It strikes him then that this is his response to what Hoseok had said the day before.
Something begins to well up inside him. “Does it mean what I think it means?”
Yoongi looks at him, “What do you think it means?”
“That I have scared you away because of what I said to you,” Hoseok says. “Is this gift meant to break my heart?”
He hopes so desperately that he is wrong, but then Yoongi’s eyes become distant and he knows. “Perhaps.”
Hoseok’s hands clench into fists, letting his nails dig sharply into his palms against his seat as he stares down again at the pond and the two swans that are circling each other. And it really is beautiful. It is so beautiful that he wonders how such a beautiful thing can bring him so much pain.
“You are doing it in the most beautiful way.” He whispers.
“But I believe what you said.”
Yoongi is closer now when Hoseok turns back to look, and his hand is holding a little white flower delicately between his fingers. “Happy birthday, old love.”
Hoseok looks down at the gift, “A crocus.”
“This crocus is a promise,” Yoongi tells him. “It will be the only one that will remember us, and soon our promise will be in every new bloom. So I promise you now...”
The moonlight pales the crocus in Yoongi’s hand as it is lifted up between them. “I promise you that in another spring, at another time,” He says, looking at the flower, “we will find each other again, so long as the crocus will continue to rise each spring. And by then,” He brings the crocus to his lips, “do not even think of letting me go.”
The moment he kisses it, the petals of the crocus turn into a soft yellow. The prince can not believe his eyes, nor the sudden race of his heart as the meaning of everything begins to grow inside him so flourishingly like the spring.
His words occur to him as quiet breaths when he asks, “Crocuses are only ever white, are they not?”
“This one is the first to have color,” The sorcerer tells him, “Then it shall be the first to grow as spring arrives and slowly the world will be filled with it. It is the promise of a new life that shall come, certain as the spring.”
He holds the flower towards Hoseok and when he speaks, it is with all the sincerity in the world.
“I will find you in every life that it blooms.”
With those words now deep in his heart, Hoseok takes the yellow crocus from Yoongi’s hand and looks at the promise that is now in his palm. Yoongi is smiling when he looks up.
“Do you love me, Yoongi?” He asks, though he already knows. He just wants to hear it now.
“More than you can imagine,” Yoongi tells him, “for longer than you will ever know.”
“Then I promise.”
Hoseok kisses the petal that Yoongi’s lips had touched, and stares in awe as the yellow turns into a vibrant purple in his hand. Their promise is purple.
A faint pink dusts Yoongi’s cheeks, and Hoseok could not imagine loving anyone else as much, no love as beautiful as the one he has right now.
He looks down at the crocus in his hand, the stem delicate yet the purple so striking.
The prince whispers to it,
Please keep growing and growing, from now until the end of time.
❀
The sky has darkened long ago, though the lights at the work table are still on. It’s a mess of flowers and leaves scattered everywhere, with the paper and ribbons still set neatly at the side.
“You’re way too messy when you work,” Yoongi comments.
“I’ll clean up when I’m done,” Hoseok tells him pointedly, “and you’re not supposed to comment this time.”
Their shifts have finished since the afternoon, but Hoseok insists on working on the bouquet tonight.
He likes to think that heʼs getting better. This bouquet should look better than the one on his first day when he gathered all the spare flowers that were left unused and browning at the back of the store to make a little bouquet for himself.
But that bouquet was also special in itself, he thought, as hideous as it had looked. It was terrible enough that it made Yoongi, who was then a very distant co-worker, approach him and tell him what he was doing wrong.
And now theyʼre here, hundreds of bouquets later, alone at the back of the closed store hours after their shifts.
“Why did you want to become a florist, Hoseok?”
The question comes out of nowhere; Yoongi isnʼt usually one to start conversations. Nevertheless, Hoseok answers him, hands still occupied with gathering yellow sunflowers and pink roses together
“I guess I just like the idea of giving someone pretty flowers?” He says, inspecting the bouquet in his grip carefully. It’s a mess of colors; Yoongi has always been more lenient on a color scheme, and it suits him as a person, though Hoseok canʼt seem to ignore the other bright colors; theyʼre all so pretty. “I know I’m no good at this, but I just really wanna do it for some reason? Like it’s written in the stars that I have to do this.”
Yoongi whistles lowly. “How romantic.”
“What about you, hyung?”
“Itʼs what I do,” He murmurs. “I guess I just like flowers.”
“Anyone can say that,” Hoseok tells him. “But not everyone’s a florist.”
Yoongi is playing with the scraps Hoseok had trimmed out, sorting them into little groups on the table. “Flowers represent the things we are too afraid to say,” He continues. “Theyʼve been here long before humans even existed and so they carry the past with them. When you gather them together to make a bouquet, Itʼs like youʼre listening to those stories that they kept with them from a hundred lives ago.”
Hoseok smiles and lets out a chuckle, “And you called me romantic. I guess thatʼs why your arrangements are always so pretty.”
Yoongi shrugs before gesturing to the flowers in Hoseokʼs hand, “Donʼt slack off.”
Not looking to start another banter when he needs to concentrate, Hoseokʼs eyes wander around the different buckets of flowers on the table, keeping in mind now the stories he wants to hear. “Do you know where the crocuses are, hyung?”
“The white ones?”
“I want the purple ones.”
“I don’t think there are any leftovers since they’re popular,” Yoongi mutters almost to himself as he gets up from his stool, “I’ll go get some from the back.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” Hoseok asks him with a teasing tone.
“Yeah. We just have to get up early to buy more at the flower market tomorrow.”
“‘We’?” He croons and bites back a smile. “Look at you, so sweet all of a sudden. Am I gonna see pigs flying on my way home tonight too?”
“Shut up,” Yoongi re-emerge and sets the fresh jar of purple crocuses on the table.
“Jokes,” Hoseok tells him as he pulls out a few, admiring the color with a softened smile. “Youʼre always so nice to me. Is there some kind of magic behind that?”
“No, youʼre just…” Itʼs only the two of them left in the shop, so the both of them are in control of when itʼs silent. Yoongi lets it proceed for a while before he continues, “Youʼre weird.”
“Iʼm weird?”
“Not like that. But yeah, a little.”
“So youʼre nice to me because you pity me for being weird?”
“No, no.” He turns to see Yoongi struggling to find his words. “Something about you just makes me feel… different, right from the start.” He sighs, “You… seeing you makes me feel weirdly nostalgic and you trust me like you've known me for years. Itʼs that kind of weird.”
“But you don't hate it,” Hoseok supplies, calmer than usual.
“I don't hate it,” Yoongi repeats, “for some reason… It's weird because it's new and it makes me uncertain, I guess.”
“Is that why you never gave me an answer when I asked you out?”
Now you’ve done it, Hoseok thinks to himself. What a way to ruin a perfectly fine evening.
He doesnʼt know how he manages to sound so neutral, not to mention how he let that question slip out. It sounds unusual even to himself, but perhaps this is an unusual situation. This affected him because it actually means something to him.
“Yeah,” Yoongi whispers, “that’s why.”
They let the room go quiet again, though it has never been an obligated task to keep it alive anyway.
“Why are you constantly going out of your way to help me, hyung?” Hoseok feels himself ask, and it strains him to concentrate and nestle the purple crocuses into the bunch in his hand. “Why do you treat me like someone so dear if you donʼt like me?”
“I donʼt know,” It aches him to hear how quick Yoongi is to admit that, how certain he is that he is uncertain. “Has anyone ever told you that you have first love vibes?”
Hoseok frowns, “What does that mean?”
“You just have the face of an old love,” Yoongi rephrases his point, “like someone would be so in love with you that theyʼd still find you in their next life, somehow.”
“Oh I get that a lot. It’s probably my nose,” Hoseok jokes dryly, “kinda hard to play along when what you said makes no sense.”
“Iʼm just drawn to you, I guess. It was like the first thought I had when I met you.” Yoongi whispers. “I feel like I have to keep coming back to you.”
That makes Hoseok stop everything heʼs doing for a moment. The hand holding the bouquet together clenches so hard the uncut thorns dig into his palm as he closes his eyes.
This pain feels so nostalgic. Of what exactly, Hoseok doesnʼt actually know. He was foolish to have thought it was that straightforward. He thought that he must mean something more for Yoongi to stay back for hours to help him practice arranging flowers and scrub the buckets even when Hoseok told him that he didn’t have to. Was it so wrong of him to have thought the person he liked had liked him back?
But his hope canʼt even die because he was never rejected. Yoongi doesnʼt even allow him that.
Hoseok recomposes himself with a sigh. “Ah, I take it back,” He grabs the sheets of paper wrap with a huff, but he tunes his tone into a playful one again, “you're so mean. You broke my heart.”
“I didn't say no,” Yoongi rebuts, almost panicking.
“I think that's worse than actually saying no, hyung,” Hoseok carefully sets his bouquet down and cuts up the sheets to its size. “Now I don't know what to do. If you had given me an answer then I could at least move on.”
“But then Iʼll lose you,” Yoongi blurts out, unfiltered. “A selfish part of me wants to keep you like this.”
“Thatʼs not fair to me.” Hoseok feels so tired of the storm he had created; he doesnʼt want to talk about this when theyʼre supposed to have a quiet platonic night arranging flowers. “You refuse to let anything go but at the same time you wonʼt let yourself have those things.”
He stops listening when Yoongi, all the more embarrassed now, begins to garble out stuttered excuses he can think of from the top of his head which doesnʼt make any sense when put together. Hoseok doesnʼt let himself respond—no more of this.
He speaks again once he has tied a ribbon around the wrapped bouquet and looks over everything one last time.
“Here,” He says, handing it to Yoongi, “how is it?”
Yoongi reacts to the topic shift with a blink. He reaches out to hold the bouquet, but itʼs over Hoseokʼs hands and he doesnʼt let go.
The bouquet features little pinks and purples and a stark yellow sunflower, off-center at the top. Yoongi wouldn't make arrangements so asymmetrical, but Hoseok likes it this way.
The sunflower is supposed to be the main point, yet for some reason Yoongi can't seem to take his eyes off of the purple crocuses that are in the mix. He stares at it as though heʼs listening to what it has to say.
“Itʼs pretty,” He murmurs then, “this is your best arrangement so far.” Hoseok feels his hands tighten their hold on him.
“Really?” He breathes, and he doesnʼt know why his heart begins to race. “You like it?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi tells him, and his voice sounds lighter. “You said this bouquet is for me?”
“It is,” Hoseok whispers.
The moment feels like a microcosm of something that is beyond two florists holding a bouquet together in a closed flower shop. The things they say feel like they mean more, and the flowers between them know somehow. The flowers had known for a very long time, and they kept their promise.
Hoseok doesnʼt even realize when he had leaned in so close but now Yoongiʼs eyes are all he can see. The world looks prettier this way, reflected in his pupils.
“Hyung,” He whispers as he tilts his face closer, and he feels so afraid of being too loud. “Stop me.”
Yoongi doesnʼt speak and the silence makes it feels like they will be staying like that forever. This moment is between them and the flowers.
Before Hoseok can even break it and ask him again, one of Yoongiʼs hands leaves the hold and pulls Hoseok closer by the back of his neck until their lips meet.
Neither of them actually know how it has come to this, Hoseok thinks. Yet at the same time their breaths are still and Yoongi still stays close even with Hoseokʼs nose poking his cheek.
There is something beneath the soft lips and the gentle hands, some kind of magic that has magnetized them. The kiss breaks as they part to breathe, but one inhale is all they allow themselves before theyʼre kissing again and feel the sighs on their skin. Hoseok feels overwhelmed but something beneath him yearns for more and he pushes closer, fuelled by this childish want overpowering him.
Yoongi pushes him back by a hand on his shoulder suddenly. His face is ducked down when he murmurs, “Youʼre gonna crush the flowers if you do that, silly.”
“Oh,” Hoseok breathes, “sorry.”
Yoongi looks like he was going to say something at the apology before he lets it go with a wave. A sudden laugh escapes his lips and he breaks into a smile. “That was out of nowhere,” He chuckles, and his shoulders shake. “I canʼt believe you.”
Before Hoseok can say anything to that, Yoongi is taking the bouquet from his hands and heading to the back.
“Clean up the table,” He says, “Iʼll go clean the buckets and lock up.”
From behind, Hoseok can see the burning red tips of Yoongiʼs ears and his heart makes a little tumble. He can imagine that heʼs no different. The mess on the table remains there for a minute as he drops himself down onto the stool like his soul has just escaped him.
His fingers come up to trace his lips like a child after having their first kiss. That actually happened.
His heart feels full, like he had just accomplished something he had been waiting for—perhaps for longer than his life.