Seokjin has decided that the orange crocuses might just prove a passable counterpoint to the rainbow of pansies growing by the back wall, maybe not what he’d have chosen himself but with crocuses it can be hard to exercise any real control over their distribution. 

“I told them! Two years ago now I said to Joonmyun that if she planted crocuses the garden would be full of them before we knew what was what but did she listen?”

“I like them,” Namjoon says from his position on the lawn chair, eyes closed against the sun and a smile on his face. Seokjin huffs,

“You’re not even looking,”

“I’ve seen them enough.”

“What?”

“I said I’ve seen them enough! Did someone forget their hearing aid this morning?”

“You’re one to talk Mr ‘I left my glasses on the night stand for the third day in a row’” Seokjin makes to cuff Namjoon on the back of the head playfully, like he’s been doing since they were teenagers but Namjoon’s hand gets in the way before he can hit home, his skin like tissue paper discolouring in the sun as his fingers close over Seokjin’s. 

“I’m blind and you’re deaf,” mutters Namjoon, squeezing Seokjin’s hand as hard as he can which Seokjin is always a little alarmed to find, is not very hard at all anymore. 

Seokjin squeezes back and feels bones lying too close to the surface for comfort, “I think you’ve been out here for long enough Namjoonie, I’ll go and get a nurse and we’ll move you back inside,”

“Don’t,” Namjoon mumbles, too quietly for Seokjin to really hear but they’ve had this conversation enough times for them both to know how it goes, “please I like the sun, let’s just….let’s just stay out here for a little while longer.”

So Seokjin lets his joints crack as he lowers himself to sit in the grass by Namjoon’s chair, he counts the crocuses and enjoys what’s left for him to hear of the birds and the bees; the other residents playing cards across the lawn, spring bleeding into summer before his eyes. 

With his eyes closed, Namjoon’s breathing soon evens into snores, and though Seokjin knows he should get the nurses so that they can move him back inside, he’d feel like a traitor for doing so. 

Namjoon doesn’t like the stuffy living room, and he doesn’t have many more springs left to sleep through.