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Yoongi stands with his hands on his hips, releasing a long exhale through his nose as he stares down at the once-thriving patch of his garden, now brown and brittle. He blinks a few times before pressing the heels of his palms over his closed eyes, hoping to reset them somehow, but when he looks again, the patch is still just as dead as it was before. He doesn’t know how long he stares at the patch of land before he hears the telltale sound of Jungkook’s tires spinning in the gravel out front.
“Not you too,” Jungkook says as he easily takes the spot next to Yoongi, bumping their hips together as a form of greeting.
“Me too?” Yoongi asks, flicking his eyes over to Jungkook momentarily before continuing his inspection of the garden. “What do you mean?”
“Namjoon’s been having trouble with his flowers, too,” Jungkook says before mimicking Yoongi’s stance and tilting his head to look at the patch of land alongside him.
Yoongi’s heard about Namjoon from the others, but they’ve yet to have more than a formal introduction. He opened up a flower shop in the main square a few months ago and has quickly earned the affections of all of Yoongi’s friends. Yet Yoongi has somehow managed to avoid him with little to no effort so far. Yoongi likes to keep to himself on the outskirts of town, and most of the time Jungkook is his only connection to the rest of the townspeople.
“What sort of trouble?” Yoongi asks.
“I don’t know,” Jungkook shrugs. “They’re just a bit wilty these days, which is unusual for Namjoon.” He straightens up before fully turning to look at Yoongi’s side profile. “It’s unusual for you, too, isn’t it?” Jungkook asks. “It’s not very often you stumble across a green witch with a dead patch of land.”
“It’s not dead,” Yoongi says, clearing his throat a little. “Yet, at least.” He finally forces himself to turn away from his garden to give Jungkook his full attention instead. “Are you here for a delivery?” he asks, trudging out front to Jungkook’s truck without checking to see if he’s following behind.
“What, I can’t just want to visit?” Jungkook asks cheekily, ruffling Yoongi’s hair as he hops up onto the bed of his truck.
“Of course you can visit,” Yoongi says quietly, albeit too sincerely for the tone of their conversation, judging by the way Jungkook’s face softens instantly.
“I have your order from Hoseok’s shop,” Jungkook explains, heaving a box out of his trunk and waddling over to Yoongi’s front door.
“Thanks,” Yoongi says, circling his fingers around Jungkook’s wrist and pressing his fingers into the spaces between the tendons.
“Of course,” Jungkook nods, ducking his head as he ambles back out to his truck. He’s halfway out of the driveway before he calls out of the open window. “Don’t forget to talk to Namjoon!”
🌱
It takes Yoongi several weeks of tending to his garden as gently as possible before he works up the courage to talk to Namjoon. The bell jingles overhead when Yoongi pushes open the door to the florist’s shop
“I’ll be with you in just a moment!” Namjoon’s voice filters out from the backroom.
“No rush,” Yoongi mumbles to himself so quietly that there’s no way Namjoon could have heard him, but he’s distracted enough by the sheer amount of flowers overflowing the shelves around him that he can’t be bothered to speak any louder. He spins in a slow circle taking in everything around him before gravitating toward a hyacinth just inside the door. It hums contentedly when Yoongi brushes his fingers through the dew drops on its leaves, leaving behind streaks of water.
“Sorry for the wait, what can I help you with?” Namjoon asks as he emerges from the backroom. “Oh,” he says, pausing for a minute to take in Yoongi’s form, still mostly in the doorway. “She seems to have taken a liking to you.”
Yoongi furrows his brows at that, glancing up at Namjoon as he pulls his hand back from the hyacinth. It was a weird thing to say, even for a green witch, and from what little Yoongi knows about Namjoon, he’s not a witch at all. Plants don’t so much have feelings rather than just needs that Yoongi can pick up on. They don’t like him. He just knows how to take care of them better than most.
“Do you have… magic?” Yoongi asks. The words come out stilted and unsure, but he can’t keep his curiosity in check for some reason. “Sorry if that was a rude question.” He tacks on, ducking his head in embarrassment as he pulls his hand back from the hyacinth.
“No, no,” Namjoon laughs. “You just seem to be good with her is all.”
“Her?” Yoongi asks, unable to keep the hint of a smile off of his face. “Did she tell you that?”
“Well, no, she’s a hyacinth,” Namjoon says, laughing a little as if they’re both in on the joke. “She doesn’t speak so much, not to me at least.”
“Do you speak to her?” Yoongi asks, backing away from the entrances and slowly making his way over to Namjoon at the counter.
“Oh constantly,” Namjoon laughs, and Yoongi can’t help the way his gaze catches on the deep dimples etched into his cheeks. “I’m enough of a conversationalist for us both, I think.” Yoongi gets the distinct feeling he’s not just talking about the flowers. He turns his eyes toward the floor, scuffing his toe against the tile and ignoring the heat trickling across his face.
“So,” Namjoon prompts again. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m not sure,” Yoongi says, sucking in air hard enough to let it whistle through his teeth. “I’ve been having issues with a patch of my garden, and Jungkook said you’ve been having similar issues with your flowers?” He poses the statement as a question, hoping Namjoon will fill in any blanks without Yoongi having to pry.
“You too?” Namjoon asks, and Yoongi thinks this might be the first time he’s seen the smile drop from Namjoon’s face.
🌱
“Have you tried combining your magic?” Hoseok asks, and Yoongi blinks back at him, a little dumbfounded.
“Combining our magic?” Yoongi repeats back, bringing his hand up to chew absentmindedly on the corner of his thumb. He refuses to admit it just yet, but it’s the best suggestion he’s gotten so far.
Taehyung offered to put a charm on his water that he uses for the plants, and in hindsight, it was Yoongi’s fault for not asking any follow up questions before handing over the hose. Now his watering can echoes with giggles every time he so much as grabs the handle, and while it didn’t actually help the problem, it does lift Yoongi’s spirits every time he does yard work. All Jimin did was offer a comforting pat on the back, which admittedly did serve to ease the tension in Yoongi’s shoulders, but the patch of his garden was still just as sad and dilapidated when Jimin finally pulled his hands away. But still, he was a better visitor than Seokjin, who only wiggled his eyebrows every time Yoongi so much as mentioned Namjoon’s name. He gave up on talking to him rather quickly. However, Yoongi hadn’t even considered combining their magic.
“It’s a bit unconventional,” Hoseok shrugs. “But I think your magics complement each other enough that it might actually work.”
“He doesn’t really have magic, does he?” Yoongi asks, blinking slowly as he mulls over the idea.
“He has traces,” Hoseok says earnestly. “It manifests in something of a green thumb, but I think it’s enough to reach out to you at least.” Yoongi stands there for a moment, gnawing on his thumb until it starts to feel raw.
“It’s worth a shot, I guess,” Yoongi says slowly, rolling his shoulders back to loosen his spine a little before making his way toward the door of Hoseok’s shop. “I wonder if Namjoon would agree to it.”
“He would,” Hoseok laughs, pulling out his phone and tapping distractedly on the screen.
“You don’t have to ask him,” Yoongi says, eyeing him wearily. “I’ll just head over there now and talk to him myself.”
“Oh, I’m not asking him, don't worry,” Hoseok replies, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Seokjin will just be very excited to hear about this.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes before swiftly exiting Hoseok’s shop, doing his best to ignore the bright peals of laughter that trail after him as he makes his way down the street toward Namjoon’s instead.
🌱
“So how do we do this?” Namjoon asks. He’s sitting cross-legged in Yoongi’s garden, just next to the dead patch of grass, and Yoongi refuses to think about how natural it feels for him to be here in Yoongi’s space. The bright smile is, thankfully, back on Namjoon’s face and Yoongi finds that he breathes easier seeing him look so hopeful.
When Yoongi first opened the gate to the garden and waved Namjoon in, he could have sworn he saw the dead patch of grass shrink, just a little, as if acknowledging Namjoon’s presence somehow. Yoongi’s been eyeing it ever since, but it has yet to react any further to him.
“I want to try planting some of your dead flowers here,” Yoongi says, bending over slightly to get trowels for them. They set to work, breaking apart the roots of Namjoon’s flowers and burying them in the ground. It’s a slow process because of how brittle everything is and, once they're done, the patch of land looks somehow worse than it did before.
“Now, I guess we should try to let our magics reach out to each other,” Yoongi says, trying to sound more confident than he feels as he dusts off the soil from his palms. They sit across from one another while Yoongi tries to conjure some of his magic forward.
“Maybe we should hold hands?” Namjoon suggests, combing his fingers through the blades of grass that are standing at attention between them.
“We don’t technically need to be physically touching for our magic to touch,” Yoongi says, clearing his throat. He keeps his eyes trained on the movements of Namjoon’s fingers in the grass, unable to meet his searching gaze.
“I know,” Namjoon says, simply. Yoongi waits a beat before reaching across the short distance and replacing the blades of grass with his own fingers, weaving them together soundly and pressing their palms together.
“Better?” Yoongi asks, glancing up once to make sure that Namjoon’s smile is still in place.
“Much,” Namjoon laughs. Yoongi huffs in response, but can’t stop his own small smile from twitching at the corners of his mouth.
“Ready?” Yoongi asks, and Namjoon nods, closing his eyes to focus on the task at hand.
Yoongi starts to tentatively reach his magic forward toward Namjoon, brushing softly against the front wall of Namjoon’s magic. To Yoongi’s surprise, it gives rather easily. He imagines their magics as if they were additional limbs, weaving around each other in some sort of practiced dance. It’s familiar somehow, and so natural that Yoongi feels himself relaxing into the feeling almost immediately. His eyebrows raise slightly as he squints an eye open to look at Namjoon, jumping slightly when he sees him already staring back with something akin to awe.
Yoongi stares back, drinking him in unabashedly until he feels something brush against their hands, still interlocked in the space between them. When he glances down, he sees a long vine, weaving its way around their joined hands, not quite tying them together, but circling slowly. Yoongi whips his head to the side to survey his garden, unable to stop the gasp that punches out from his lungs at the sight.
The small patch of dead earth is now overgrown with greenery, bright and unyielding, spilling over the edges of Yoongi’s makeshift fence. Namjoon’s flowers are vibrant and practically trembling from how excited they are about their new home. Yoongi keeps his eyes trained on the flowers, giddy at how seamlessly they blend in with the rest of his garden, as if they were always meant to be there.
He squeezes Namjoon’s hand tightly, practically fusing their palms together as his thumb trails over the backs of Namjoon’s knuckles.
And he can’t bring himself to care about the blush that rises to his cheeks when Namjoon squeezes back.