Work Text:
The main gallery was gut-busting full, trickles of art aficionados flowed into vicious fjords of eyes and murmuring whispers. There were analytics and phrases, "ah, I see the complexities of this," and that and so on and so forth. And Jimin really needed a drink.
He kept himself tucked in the far corner of the massive room, shouldered with stark white walls. Overhead were beaming lights angled precisely at each piece, and Jimin managed to blend in fairly well for the time being.
Working the crowd wasn't his thing. Unfortunately, there was an unspoken rule that the artist was supposed to work it, network, buzz here and there to exchange names and numbers, link faces with potential buyers. Where did it end, Jimin wondered, taking another sip from his champagne.
His exhibit wasn't particularly fantastic. Kept simple to the ten pieces that Jimin, two weeks ago as he was finalizing the details for the show, had found peace in selecting as he sorted through his countless works in progress. They were all in various stages of finishing, because no artist ever felt that their work was really, really done.
"Wonderful," he overheard a nearby couple exchange whispers, nudging shoulders like sharing the world between their bodies. "The use of the flowers is so haunting."
Jimin still felt so foreign to hearing compliments about his work, still trembled like the words would dissipate if he accepted them, float up past the petals and twist into turntables of disgust. He almost preferred criticism, at least that was grounded in something solid like room to improve, room to grow. But these compliments were wafting, effulgent and momentary. If only he could grasp them in his hands like his floral material and model it into something striking, something like art.
"Jimin-ah, why are you cooped up in the corner?"
Yoongi and Hoseok. Two people whom Jimin felt he owed a large portion of his life. They were two presences of support and deep affection, doing everything to encourage Jimin's desire to create. They even pitched in together to rent out a space for Jimin to work, a safe haven away from the worries of his apartment or the university.
"Hyungs! You made it," he whispered, the affairs of his heart beating faster at the gestures. He hugged them, they stood as a tight trio of fondness wrapped up in a single corner of a busy art room.
"Of course," beamed Hoseok with a smile unlike any other, swaddling tightly around Jimin, an impenetrable fortress.
"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Yoongi continued, a firm hand coming up to Jimin's shoulder.
"You guys don't know how much this means to me. I've been hiding here, it's terrifying."
Yoongi let out a guffaw, deep and throaty. "Yeah, I get that. A bunch of sharks out for the kill."
Hoseok bumped Yoongi's hip in a reprimanding show, but his face was still impossibly fond. Jimin watched the subtle exchange in elation. They were his two best friends, after all, and they had been dancing around each other for god knew how long.
He felt the odd ache, fleeting and brief, a hollow reminder of something he had pushed away, content with burying six feet under.
Hoseok wrapped an arm around Jimin, flailing out the other in a grand sweep toward the room. "May we request a personal tour of the artwork, sir?"
Yoongi flashed Jimin a gummy smile, that one beyond pretensions and social constructs. Just genuine love. Just what Jimin needed to step out into the gallery.
He inhaled sharply.
"Okay, yeah, okay. Let's do this."
"That's our Jiminnie."
"And this one I made solely out of lilies," he mumbled, still finding the step in his voice, still searching for the right words. As an artist, Jimin found it much easier to speak through his hands, through his work, hiding hints of things he could never possibly bring himself to say out loud.
Hoseok nodded, letting out an appreciative hum and Yoongi continued to look on, a studious press to his lips.
"Honestly, I don't know what it all means, but it's really really something, Jiminnie. Really somethin’."
Jimin giggled, feeling a pleasant yield to the champagne and good company.
"There's really nothing more to it than what you make of it, hyung," he tried to clarify. "I use dead flowers because there's beauty in them that most people often disregard. You never buy someone a bouquet of dead flowers, right?" Yoongi nodded. "But there's still so much depth in them after their life passes."
He paused, took another sip and became more aware of the dissonance around him.
"It sounds like crap or whatever, I know how artists can be when they talk."
"Nah, you're not like that, Jimin-ah," Yoongi said, still raking his eyes over the flower arrangement. It stood stark and blinding in whites and blacks, the dead lilies contorted in loops, tugging the eyes to look deeper, to consider beyond the commercial suggestion of appeal.
They moved on to the next few pieces, Yoongi and Hoseok voicing their appreciative praises, gesticulating how proud they were of him, how impressive his works were. Jimin gobbled it up, reveled in it, because honestly, what better words were better tasted than those from close friends?
The last piece, a conglomeration of forget-me-nots and babies breath withered and strung together with crackling vines, held the most spectators in its view, heads tilted and spectacles adjusted to try to take in the most intricate piece in the room. In the packed space, at least two thirds of Jimin's audience stood in front of the final piece, entitled "The End." The name felt appropriate.
Jimin hesitated to bring his hyungs to this one, the one he had pointedly avoided, the one he had crafted during one of the lowest points of his life.
Each flower held a piece of himself, parts of him that had been severely broken during a particularly difficult season of shattered love six months ago. He had attempted to piece those segments of himself back together through the perishing plants. And standing in front of it in that moment, surrounded by strangers who sung the applause of Park Jimin, he felt like maybe it had worked.
Yoongi and Hoseok naturally gravitated to join the group in order to get a better view, so Jimin hung back, tried to breathe in the anticipation that had been stealthily building up ever since he got the invitation to present his works at the local museum.
The ground, cold and uninviting, reminded Jimin that nothing else had gotten him here, no complimentary gratis or get-out-of-jail-free passes. He had started from nothing. Nothing but a ridiculous desire to build, create and make something that could stir the hearts of those who happened upon his work.
"It's really beautiful," came a soft voice to his side, bringing Jimin back to earth. Jimin almost dropped his phone in surprise and turned to look at the boy standing next to him.
For the whole room to be filled with nameless faces and people who claimed to be able to read into Jimin’s work as if it were their own, Jimin felt the extraordinary shock of having someone look at him instead.
The boy, who couldn’t have been more than a few years younger than himself, had soft coal-black eyes and a soft smile, all of the softness flowing out at Jimin. His attire screamed college student, loose Stussy shirt and ripped jeans, slightly off-kilter but refreshingly candid amongst the formal garments of choice that the museum crowd seemed to prefer.
Jimin didn’t know whether to pretend to be just another member of the audience or to play into the boy’s suggestion that he was who he thought he was: the artist.
But something in the rapt and mystifying way the boy looked at Jimin made him want to just indulge, just this once, in being proud of his work, out loud.
“Thank you.”
Claiming it felt like coming home.
“Can you tell me what it all means?”
Jimin had two versions of an answer, one pointedly rehearsed, bland and appropriate for a speech or short blurb, and the other, the one he felt compelled to say.
“I used dead flowers because they hit me as an ironic medium,” he started, cautious. The boy nodded, an urge to continue.
So he did.
“People buy each other flowers to celebrate. Then they throw them away after they die. That made me think of all the times I’ve thrown away flowers or gotten them for someone in hindsight, like not really thinking about it. What happens after the flowers die? Do our feelings become any less? It felt ironic and fucked up but I wanted to explore that.”
“You think there’s irony in that?”
“A lot,” Jimin nodded. “A lot.”
“So you’ve bought someone flowers? Or thrown them away?”
“I have.”
“So you know?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“What happens after they die? Did you figure it out?”
Jimin shrugged and brought up a hand to dab at his warm forehead, feeling the soothing effects of the alcohol slip into something more tentative rather than thrilling. The droning voices around him seemed to fall to a hush, and it was just him and the boy and the spotlights on his art.
“I’m Jungkook,” the boy offered, eyes skimming from Jimin to the flowers, back to Jimin.
“Jimin. But you knew that already, right?”
Jungkook nodded, face shining like mid-morning, talks over coffee and reading between the lines.
Then, the warbling of voices synthesized, a hodgepodge of blurred words and mixed meanings and it pulled Jimin’s attention away from the peaceful landscape of Jungkook’s features back to “The End.”
People were skittering, tentatively jerking back from the piece and between the twisting heads, Jimin caught sight of something that should’ve been impossible.
Jungkook must have seen it too because he grasped Jimin’s hand, his hold tough and sure, and brought him to get a closer look.
“Oh my god.”
Between the spiraling florets that should have been colorless and dull, Jimin spotted the vibrant hue of cerulean blue sparkling, a vivid landmark in a sea of grey.
“Wow, this is amazing. He’s outdone himself,” came the whispers. “Is this performance art or something?” “It’s growing!” “Truly a piece of work.”
Jimin, dumbfounded, felt a tug on his hand. In the moment, he had forgotten that Jungkook was there. The soft eyes locked on his, tenderness latching onto his bewilderment, soothing, you got this.
Another collective gasp and Jimin turned back to see that the entire canvas of “The End” had erupted into full color, cobalts and sapphires and navy blues and indigo and aquamarines and steels and robin’s egg and milky creams and snowy ivories and pale dawns.
Jimin clutched Jungkook’s hand under the spotlight, wonderfully confused.
“You did that,” Jungkook said, no hint of question in his voice. “It’s your answer to my question earlier.”
Jimin let out a breathy laugh. “I guess you’re right.”
Not a moment later came more whispers and muted gasps, and like a script, a synchronous dance, each of Jimin’s other arrangements began to bloom one by one and the room slowly flourished into a hive of multicolored dreams, stains of rainbows and tinted palettes.
“This can’t be real,” he wondered out loud and Jungkook answered with a squeeze. Dizzy and lightheaded, Jimin tore his eyes away from his artwork and peeked up at Jungkook.
“But it is real. Somehow, it’s your art speaking for itself.”
“Must be,” Jimin replied, still so mystified, yet completely at ease with the boy who didn’t look like he had ever walked into an art exhibit, the boy who knew his name, and the boy who really wanted to know what his art meant.
"But Jungkook, I think you made this happen, too."
Jungkook took on a blush that rivaled the roses on display and sighed with a soft giggle that made Jimin want to stay.
So Jimin let himself enjoy the sound of Jungkook’s laugh and the way it made his eyes crinkle and his nose scrunch up. He let himself swim in the overwhelming praise of what would become one of the museum’s most buzzed about exhibits of the year.
And he let himself remain in Jungkook’s hold, their fingers slotting so natural,
like lines upon a page,
like promises on a starry night,
like forever in a moment,
like a new blossom in the crown of dead flowers.