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Taehyung's home is his favourite place in the entire world. It's small, with dark, old brick walls, and the ceiling is high and has a lot of plant pots hanging from the brown beams. There's some very carefully trimmed ivy growing in a corner, and on a long, rectangular stand, a strip of sunflowers, right under the counter where the vintage cash register is. At night, when the adorable flower cart is pushed on to the road to decorate the facade is inside, it is a bit crammed. All the plants are happy and healthy, bright and colourful, and their happy whispers fill Taehyung's heart at all times.
Another thing that fills Taehyung's heart with glee is Jimin's singing.
The human really likes to sing. He sings softly to himself every day as he walks into his shop and starts watering the plants that need it, checking that everyone is healthy and getting enough nutrients, and pushing the flower cart outside. He sings to the top of his lungs when he deep cleans the place on Sundays, and he hums to himself when he caresses the tips of flower petals before he closes down the shop and walks away.
Sometimes, Taehyung wants to follow the human. See where he lives, what he does when he's not in the flower shop, meet his friends... But then he shakes the idea off.
Taehyung is a fairy who lives in a plant pot in Jimin's store, and he can't let his tiny, minuscule, almost non-existent crush on the store owner become the reason he's discovered. So instead, every day when Jimin sings as he shuts the door to the shop, Taehyung flies out of his nest under the baby pine tree and sprinkles fairy dust around. He talks to the cordyline- why do you look so sad? Ah, true, it's been raining for a few days, they miss the sun. But after he's done with them, the petals look stronger and firmer, and the leaves are greener. He sits down by the pot of bulbs, warming up the earth so they grow healthy and strong. He struggles a bit more with the tropical plants-orchids, clivias, hibiscus. He’s a forest fairy, after all, the rainforest plants are a bit harder to speak to. But, after half a year of living inside Jimin's shop, he's learnt how to keep them alive and bright.
Jimin always smiles the widest when people tell him he must be magic, that his flower shop is the prettiest one they've ever seen.
And Taehyung? He smiles the widest when Jimin smiles.
It is a funny thing, how Jungkook always laughs at him for taking pride in keeping the plants in the shop in top form. After all, Jungkook puts magic in Hoseok's food, so he really shouldn't talk. Taehyung once caught him sprinkling the cupcakes with it while the baker had his back turned.
Jungkook will never admit to his crush on the human, though. He had simplytiptoed back to the top of the cookie jar, sitting delicately next to Taehyung, and scrunched his nose. "He didn't add enough sugar", he had said. Taehyung didn't believe a word.
But both the fairies knew: they shouldn’t be found out. So Taehyung kept waking up with the soft morning light and Jimin’s sweet singing voice, and taking care of his flowers when he retired for the night. He kept admiring Jimin’s thoughtfulness and kindness, how intelligent and talented and beautiful he was, how caring and sweet and adorable. But he also kept hiding under the leaves and tiny branches of his nest when he slept.
At least, until the camellias went sick.
The camellias were Jimin’s favourite plant. He always said they were the good version of roses: more delicate, less pretentious, elegant but also simple. He had pink flowers in his shop, and one day, the petals simply started falling. One by one, turning white and then brown and then falling onto the wet soil below.
Jimin tried adding iron supplements, warming the ground, giving them less water and then more, but nothing worked.
“You are going to get healthy,” Taehyung reprimanded the plant, tapping on its thin trunk twice with his small fingers. “What is wrong with you? You’re getting so much good care! Why do you crave even more attention!”
So Taehyung sprinkled his fairy dust on all the flower stems, plucked the flowers that looked the saddest so the plant didn’t waste energy on them, snuck under the trunk to see the state of the leaves in there. He warmed the ground with his powers, sang to the plant, and when the sun started peeking on the horizon and the sky over their small shopping street turned light white and then pink, he fell asleep on the camellia plant pot.
…
There was something on his lower back. Something soft but heavy, pressing onto him. Then, it was gone. And there it was again!
Taehyung stirred in his sleep, groaning and turning around. His wings fluttered, helping him push himself up, sit down on the soil, bring his arms to his eyes and rub them. What kind of big insect was bothering him oh so rudely?
And then, Taehyung opened his eyes, only to find a pair of very wide, very scared, human eyes looking straight at him from, well, closer than he had ever seen a human before.
Taehyung screamed, and Jimin screamed back.
Jimin covered his mouth, going quiet first. He took a step back, forgetting he was kneeling in front of the camellia tree and falling on his butt. Taehyung went quiet then, too.
“The camellia,” Jimin said, looking over Taehyung’s head. He seemed dazed, and when Taehyung looked up, he saw why. The plant was looking radiant, flowers big and bright and wide open, leaved green and glossy and healthy.
Of course he had fallen asleep there. He could still feel the tiredness in his bones, he had used a lot of energy in convincing the plant to stay alive and flower once again.
“You fixed it?” Jimin asked, mouth agape, one index finger pointing at Taehyung. There was something akin to distrust in his eyes.
Taehyung simply nodded.
“It made you sad,” he said. His voice came out croaky and dry, after sleeping and screaming bloody murder in shock. “She only needed a bit of… energy.”
“You can speak,” Jimin said. “What even are you?” he asked, brining a hand up and towards where Taehyung sat, reaching for him.
Taehyung jumped to his feet, unsure if he should feel scared.
Jimin was a soft and kind human, sure, but he had still hear horror stories about what happened to fairies when humans found out about them.
Fairies were meant to stay hidden from humans, even from kind humans, because when humans don’t understand things, they get scared and destroy them.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin said then, removing his hand fast, as if realising what he was doing. “I didn’t mean to touch you without your permission. I’m just… I’ve never seen anything like you. Are you… a fairy? An elf?”
Taehyung sighed in relief, studying Jimin’s face as the florist went back onto his knees getting closer to the edge of the plant pot, studying Taehyung carefully. “I am a fairy,” he said. No point in denying. With his translucent wings, blue hair and spider silk dress, what else could he say he was? An oversized butterfly?
“That’s so cool,” Jimin said. “I like your hair.”
Taheyung lifted his fingers to his hair, self-conscious for an instant, and then looked back at Jimin. “Thank you. I like yours. It looks very soft.”
Jimin’s cheeks went a slight pink, and Taehyung felt proud of himself for an instant, only to be instantly reminded of his current situation.
He had been found by a human.
That was generally a bad thing.
“Jimin-ssi,” he said, using human honorifics, going serious. He took step back. He knew the shop like the palm of his hand. If he had to run away, he had enough time to fly towards the dahlias and then to the hydrangeas, turn left at the sunflowers and then beeline towards the top of the window, which Jimin opened every morning when he walked in to let the cool air from the street come into the shop. “Jimin-ssi, I need you to not tell anybody about me.”
“You know my name,” Jimin said, “can I know yours?”
Taehyung hesitated for a moment. Names give people power.
“I’m Taehyung,” he replied.
And Jimin smiled.
Taehyung had seen his smile many, many times before, but this was the first time the smile was directed at him, Kim Taehyung, resident fairy of the Neverland Flower Shop.
“Why did you heal the camellia?” Jimin asked.
“It made you sad,” Taehyung replied. “She only needed a little bit of extra help.”
“Did it make you tired?”
Taehyugn shook his head first, then nodded.
“Do you do it to other plants?”
Taehyung swallowed, thick. Should he admit to it? “I… Yes. But only a little bit! You’re always so happy when they are extra pretty! I am a forest fairy, you see. It’s my job to take care of plants!”
Jimin’s smile grew bigger with every word Taehyung waffled, until he stood up and shook some soil that had fallen on his trousers off.
“So people are right when they say this shop seems to be magical.”
Taehyung felt his cheeks burn, embarrassed. He had never meant to offend Jimin, or to make him feel less talented with plants. The plants were incredibly healthy and happy without Taehyung’s help, their vibrant greens and healthy smell what had led him to find the shop and made it his home in the first place when the city grew so far away that the forest that had been his home got destroyed, replaced by a highway.
“What do you usually have to replenish your energy?” Jimin asks. Taehyung shrugs. “Beries? Nuts, too. I usually get some food from the fruit shop around the corner, or the bakery a bit further away…”
“Hobi’s place?” Jimin gasped. “Has he never seen you before? He would love you! You’re so colourful and pretty!”
Taehyung was so, so, so close to saying he knew more about the baker he would like to admit, with Jungkook’s massive crush on him, but he kept that quiet. “You can’t-”
Jimin chuckled. “I can’t tell him, I know. I won’t. I promise. But I can offer you one of his blueberry muffins, if you’d like. In payment for taking care of my plants. Especially this one.”
Jimin was holding a hand up.
Taehyung had seen that gesture before, it was like Jimin was holding his hand out for him to grab. But that made no sense, Taehyung could not just grab Jimin’s hand, it was too big. But, he could… Could he?
With a hesitant flutter of his wings, Taehyung jumped into Jimin’s extended hand, feeling the warmth of his skin through his bare feet.
Jimin didn’t try to grab him forcefully or touch his wings or anything of the sort, instead just letting him jump off by himself when they were at the counter.
“I’ll even let you pick,” Jimin said with a radiant, bringing two cupcakes out. “Rhubarb and raspberries, or blueberries and crumble.”
When Taehyung bit into the fluffy, delicious treat, he could taste a little bit of Jungkook’s magic on it.
Maybe they were getting a bit too caught up in the human world.
But when he looked back at Jimin, who was looking at him with curiosity, but also held him up with delicate hands and talked to plants so that they grew happy and healthy, he didn’t feel scared at all.
Maybe it would all turn out all right.
Taehyung took another bite of the cupcake, dipping it in icing before bringing it to his mouth, and hummed contentedly, under Jimin’s happy eyes.