Chapter Text
Assholes. Park trees are all assholes.
Yoongi is fully aware that to the humans he is passing on the street he must look insane; grumbling to himself with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. His mint-coloured hair and ripped jeans certainly aren’t doing him any favours on the “ordinary and sane” front either.
“How would you like it if you were rooted in place and some gross teenagers came along and carved hearts and initials into your skin? Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Stop them, Yoongi. It’s your job.”
It isn’t his job. It is the whole reason for his existence and he doesn’t need to be reminded. It also isn’t his fault teenage hormones seem to overwhelm his protection wards. At least he had managed to keep drunk old men from relieving themselves on the saplings this spring. It had taken him months to work out a spell that could pierce the haze of a soju filled brain and redirect it towards the nearest public restroom. What thanks had he gotten for all that work? Almost none.
Some rude prick in a suit hits Yoongi’s shoulder hard and spits out a “watch where you’re going, punk,” on his way past. Yoongi lifts his gaze from his feet with every intention of giving this guy the shit he deserves, but a radiant smudge of colour steals his attention.
Across the busy street is a row of very ordinary buildings plastered with signs for cafes, hair salons, and the like. However, towards the far end there is a rather vivid interruption.
It’s as if nature is erupting through the concrete and glass. Everything around this tiny shop is grey and sharp and empty, but the shop itself is rounded, lush, alive and so very green. Vines and branches, leaves and flowers spilling out through the doorway and windows, climbing the neighboring walls like a contagious joy. The low afternoon sun makes it look ethereal. Too perfect for the human world, Yoongi thinks, too perfect to be anything but magic. And he can hear them. He can hear the petals and leaves giggling and sighing contentedly in the rays of sunshine. He can hear their happiness calling him over.
From the outside this shop is impressive but stepping past the threshold is like coming home for Yoongi. Every trembling leaf and quivering petal is purely and utterly happy; humming with it. Hues and shades of green Yoongi is sure he has never seen outside of the Hidden Realm roll around him, broken up by spots of colour where flowers are blooming. He steps softly and slowly, admiring every tendril of every plant. Not a single one is anything less than blissful.
And then.
And then, nestled in heart of this living paradise, Yoongi sees a tousle of lavender hair and long limbs coloured warmly by the sun. A boy with a watering can is tickling an orchid that coos back at him with all the gratitude in the world. A boy with a smile like a breaking sunrise is caring for these plants with such a tenderness that Yoongi’s breath gets caught somewhere in his swelling chest.
It is only a moment. It is one tiny moment before the boy turns to Yoongi and, if possible, smiles wider and brighter. It is only a moment but for Yoongi who has all the time in the world, it feels like a billion moments colliding and bursting.
“Hello!” The boy’s voice is vibrant but with a deep timbre that Yoongi feels in his marrow. “Welcome to The Enchanted Florist! I’m Taehyung-”
Taehyung. Yoongi can feel the whisper of the name run through the wrinkles of his brain and settle in. (If Yoongi could step out of himself for a moment, really recognize his own corny thoughts right now he would surely grab the nearest vine and strangle himself with it.)
“-is there anything I can help you with?” And as this brilliant beating heart steps towards Yoongi the swelling in his chest washes from the center of him through his tummy, rushes down to his toes and up to the tips of his ears and nose. A warmth like the coziest hug swirls around his heart.
“Uhm.”
Yoongi can’t remember the last time he spoke to a human. He was always doing whatever he could to avoid the wretched creatures.
“No.”
This human though, this human is making life flourish in everything around him, and Yoongi wants to know how .
“I mean- yes. Sorry. I just came in to look, but- um.”
Taehyung waits patiently, smile unfaltering. Before it gets awkward he swoops in to save Yoongi from his own floundering tongue. “I could show you around the shop, if you’d like?”
“That’dbegreat.” The words rush out of Yoongi’s mouth like a sigh of relief.
Taehyung bobs his head and spins to set the watering can on a bench next to a pot full of very cheeky daffodils. He does a full 360 that is a truly inspired combination of graceful and awkward, then beams at Yoongi.
“Where should we begin?” He asks as he claps his hands together.
“You strike me as someone who likes ‘em hung.” Taehyung wiggles his eyebrows. Yoongi isn’t sure how he’s supposed to respond. Taehyung’s smile falters for a beat.
“Uh hanging- do you like hanging plants? Drapey vines?” Yoongi nods and the boy’s smile returns in full force.
“Follow me this way…?”
“Yoongi.”
“Follow me this way, Yoongi.”
The ease with which Taehyung navigates the maze of greenery is inspiring. Looking at it from the outside, Yoongi would never have believed this place was so big. As they wander deeper into the foliage Yoongi notices Taehyung brushing his fingers along the plants so so delicately, and every single one of them is delighted by his gentle fingertips. Yoongi is so focused on the boy’s hands that he fails to notice when Taehyung stops.
Yoongi crashes right into his back.
His warm, muscular back that smells like a forest after rain.
“Sorry, I uh...sorry.”
Taehyung giggles and an image of cherry blossoms landing softly on a calm river fills Yoongi’s head.
“No worries, man. So, I keep the philodendrons back here because it doesn’t matter how much light they get, and if any pets wander into the shop they aren’t as likely to find ‘em here and snack on something poisonous. They’re pretty as long as no one eats ‘em, and very easy to grow. You don’t have pets do you?”
Yoongi shakes his head ‘no’.
“Kids?”
Another negative.
“Really stupid friends who like to eat leaves?”
Yoongi is reminded of the time he found Hoseok and Jimin digging around his greenhouse with a book on identifying psychedelic mushrooms. “No, but I should maybe mention that I’ve already got some philodendrons. I actually have a lot of plants.”
“Oh? Why have you never been in before? Do you need any plant food? I just started ordering from this new company and I think their recipes are doing my ficuses a world of good. One of them had these weird splotches I had never seen before on the trunk and this stuff cleared it right up. I could show you-”
There is a clamorous noise from somewhere in the front of the shop and a voice calls out. “Yah! Kim Taehyung! You told me that if I ever had to deliver another tree to an old lady who lives at the top of a GIANT FUCKING MOUNTAIN you’d get me a car, you punk.”
Taehyung seems to blush a little. “Sorry, that’s my delivery guy, Jungkook. He’s a bit of a rascal. Excuse me for just a minute.”
As Taehyung moves to pass he puts a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder and Yoongi fully understands why every plant in this nursery coos at feeling of these fingers.
When Taehyung disappears around a corner Yoongi leans back against a wall, much to the chagrin of the vines he is pressed against.
One of the most important rules that Yoongi and the rest of the fae try to follow is never ever falling in love with anyone mortal. It isn’t expressly forbidden, but everyone knows that all it can lead to is pain. What else could exist between someone who would live on infinitely longer than whoever they fell in love with. There could only be heartbreak under such circumstances. Heartbreak that would be suffered for eternity. Yoongi is in no position to find this human so enrapturing. He knows in his rational mind exactly how the best case scenario will go, which is towards very painful places.
That is why Yoongi is going to leave this shop right now and never look back. He tries fumbling through all the plants towards the exit and wanders right into Taehyung and his ‘delivery boy’.
“-then this crazy old woman has the nerve to-oh! You didn’t say there were customers in….hyung.” Jungkook splutters.
“Are you leaving?” Taehyung speaks over Jungkook.
Yoongi looks between the two. “Uh, yeah I should probably get home-”
“Did I interrupt something?” Jungkook’s eyes dart back and forth between Taehyung and Yoongi.
“No-” Yoongi begins.
“Sort of-” Taehyung’s eyes fall on Yoongi. “I just mean, I was showing Yoongi around the shop. He’s a fellow plant enthusiast!” Taehyung spins to face the register behind him, “Yoongi-ssi let me get you a sample of that plant food! Just to see what you think of it.”
Taehyung has half his body flopped over the counter and is rummaging around behind it, teetering precariously like a very long and fleshy playground attraction. Yoongi absolutely does not let his eyes pause near the base of Taehyung’s spine where his soft yellow shirt is riding up and revealing tan skin and the bright pink elastic of his boxers. Which is why when he realises this delivery boy Jungkook is watching him with keen eyes Yoongi has no reason to blush. Yoongi doesn’t blush.
“Aha! Got you!” Taehyung reorients himself, once again Yoongi marvels at his chaotic grace, and then a small bag of plant food and what appears to be a pamphlet on how to use it is being shoved into his hands. “That’s all the information on it and what sort of plants it’s good for and how often to dispense it. I’d recommend just testing it on one of your smaller plants first, you said you had a lot right? So pick a test subject just in case you find it doesn’t work so well or does something funky-not that it will! Like I said I think it’s great stuff and I’m pretty sure you will too-”
“You’re doing that thing hyung. Where you babble and scare customers away.” Jungkook has his head cocked to the side with an eyebrow raised at Yoongi.
“Ah, sorry Yoongi. You said you had to go and here I am rambling, but um please come by again! Maybe I can send this nuisance,” he cocks his thumb at Jungkook, “on a run so we can have some real good plant-chat, yeah?”
Yoongi, for the first time in a very, very, very long time, feels the corners of his mouth twitching towards a smile. “Yeah, sure. I’ll let you know how this food works out.”
Taehyungs big bright smile does not fade from Yoongi’s thoughts the whole way home. It’s there as he passes through the Veil that keeps the palace hidden from humans. It’s so much his only focus that he doesn’t even notice his cousins as he breezes by Jimin and Hoseok lounging around their pools. He doesn’t catch Namjoon off in the distance with a book whose pages flutter in a light breeze. He doesn’t even spare a thought about where his Royal Highness might be. No, as Yoongi scurries into his bedroom that night and tosses himself on the pile of blankets and pillows in the far back by his own philodendrons the only thing he can think about is giggling buds and Taehyung’s smile.