The following week, Hana visited Jimin’s tree every day. Even though the springtime meant fickle weather, she dutifully appeared, rain or shine. She did most of the talking, filling him in on her life, her fears, her plans. And each day, Jimin felt a little more comfortable being close to her, moving from his secluded high branches to lower ones. By the end of the week, he sat at the edge of her blanket, listening intently as she told her stories and munched on her strawberry mochi.

She was beautiful, for sure. Jimin never got tired of looking at her raven hair gently blowing in the breeze, of listening to her voice, of gazing at her face, no matter the expression. She would usually smile, her genuine looks of joy warmed him more than any ray of sun. Even her eyes, the color of storm clouds, were tinged with warmth when she smiled.

But there was also a melancholy about her. She tried hard to cover it up with cheer, mostly for his benefit. But there were times when her smile was more of a bitter grimace, and these moments sent pangs through Jimin’s chest in a way he had rarely experienced since he died.

He made a conscious effort to get genuine smiles out of her, he began counting them and playing a game with himself in which he tried to beat his own record of genuine smiles-per-visit. It was very gratifying.

Just as it became routine to see her, however, there came a day where she didn’t come as usual. Jimin tried to convince himself that he wasn’t disappointed, but as he sat in human form on the highest branch, keeping watch for her yellow sun hat bobbing up and down on the hike up the cliffs, for a wash of black hair in the breeze, there was no denying his loneliness.

He made excuses for her, she was probably sick or busy. But thinking about what she might be doing only made him miss her more.

When the sun began to set, Jimin resigned himself to the fact that she wouldn’t come that day. It’s okay, he told himself. You’re used to solitude. You like being alone.

But then he sensed it. She was there. Today, she was dressed entirely in black, no hat, no blanket, moving unsteadily in his direction. He immediately dove to a lower branch, and in closer proximity, her emotions filled him up, swirled inside him like a typhoon. This was despair, regret, sorrow.

She made it to the base of the tree and crumpled like a paper doll. Her body wracked with sobs. She curled into a tiny ball, and Jimin wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms. To run his fingers through her hair and pat her back until she fell asleep.

He settled for kneeling by her side, willing the chilly breeze to instead warm her up, willing the fragrance of the cherry blossoms to relax her, willing the rustling of the branches to cover up her sounds of anguish. At the same time, though he hadn’t done so in many long years, Jimin parted his lips and began to sing a soft, lilting tune in Korean, one his mother used to sing:

Just as there are many stars in the clear sky,

There are also many dreams in our heart.

There, over there, that mountain is Baekdu Mountain

Where, even in the middle of winter days, flowers bloom.

His sweet tenor reached Hana’s ears and she slowly calmed down. Her breathing became even and deep, and sleep overtook her.

Jimin fell silent. He smiled, thinking of his kind mother, humming “Arirang” as she bent over a pot of seaweed soup. She could barely hold a tune, but it was her favorite song. He wished he had made it back from Japan to see her again. To hold her in his arms. Instead, he was sure, she had looked like Hana did now. Like a broken woman.

He studied her tear-stained face, her black clothes. He had caught on that the memorial was coming soon, but he wished he had some better way to comfort her about Hiroki’s death. Whenever Hiro came up in conversation, Hana became at once happier and sadder than Jimin had ever seen her. It made him a bit envious in spite of himself; he wanted to bring that much joy to her life, to make her think of him the way she thought of Hiro. But now it hit home how selfish that was. She was still suffering, still grieving, and Jimin was thinking of his own desire.

Jimin stayed by Hana’s side all night, dozing off next to her until the sun peeked over the horizon. It was then that he heard approaching footsteps. Spooked, he vanished, leaving her dusted with flower petals, and fled back to the higher branches. He soon picked up on a low voice.

“Hana.”

Jimin’s initial fear was suppressed by curiosity, and he silently moved closer, catching sight of a short, sullen boy with black hair. He bore a great resemblance to Hana, and watched her sleep with a deep concern. He briefly eyed the tree with disbelief, and Jimin could swear he locked eyes with the boy, if only for a second, but then his gaze fell back to the girl on the ground. He looked like he was debating waking her, but in the end, he simply scooped her up in his arms and started down the hill. He didn’t look back at the tree once.

Jimin took human form again when they were gone. It was starting to feel more natural to him than simply being a disembodied spirit. But with that connection to humanity came resurgences of memories he would rather have forgotten.

~~

Hana came back the next day, her eyes ringed in red. Instead of talking, she spread her blanket under the tree and closed her eyes, leaning back against the trunk as she often did. The wind was strong, and mankai was at its end. The sakura tree’s petals were blowing away in beautiful torrents, and their sweet smell was pleasant and comforting. It was especially strong today, just as it had been last night, and she wondered if Jimin was somehow responsible for that. The thought sent a smile to her lips.

Her brother had given her a hell of a lecture that morning about sleeping outside on the cliffs, something about “It’s not my fault if you get pneumonia, dammit,” but she didn’t regret coming to Jimin’s tree in her time of distress.

Are you alright?

Hana started a bit. It wasn’t like Jimin to start conversations. She usually supplied the majority of the banter.

“I’ll be okay,” she responded honestly.

I’m glad you didn’t try to jump.

That thought chilled Hana to the bone. It was something she had considered in the darkest of times. But there was always something keeping her from it: people she loved, experiences she had yet to enjoy, hope. Hana was, at her heart, an optimist. “Me, too.” She simply said.

Do you mind if I tell you a story?

Jimin’s human form dropped from a low branch to sit cross-legged in front of her. His expression was a bit solemn, and his pink hair was a touch faded—a result of the blossoms falling?

“Please, go ahead.” Hana sat up and matched his gaze. “You have my attention.”

Then I’ll start from the beginning.

Many Years Ago

“I think that will do.”

The baby-faced young man placed his brush delicately next to his palette, shifting on his blanket on the grass and eyeing his colorful canvas once more. He was satisfied with the beautiful vista depicted in his newly-finished painting, though it had taken him hours. He let his arms stretch to the sky, let his eyes wander back to the orchard of sakura trees in full bloom, or kaika, as they called it in Japan.

He’d waited so long to come back to this place.

On his first trip to Japan with his father as a young boy, Jimin had been immediately fascinated with the cherry blossoms. The way they swayed in the spring breeze, the way their pleasant scent tickled his nose, the idea that this beauty was special—only for a short time and only there for him in that moment. Seeing them filled Jimin with joy.

And after he returned to Korea, Jimin spent hours sketching cherry trees, bought anything that smelled like them or was the same soothing pink. He was teased by the other kids for having such ‘girly’ taste, but their words never lessened his infatuation. His second trip to Japan was in high school, and only reaffirmed his love for all things sakura-related.

This most recent trip was Jimin’s first time in Japan alone, and being there felt like he was a kid again. It had been worth the extra hours at work, worth the long journey.

Having had his fill of the orchards for now, Jimin packed up his art supplies and set off in search of another location to paint. He settled on a rocky outcropping along the shoreline, a bit higher than most tourists were willing to risk climbing, slowly picking his way up the hill. Recently, he had been experimenting with painting sakura trees in strange places, and he adored the idea of such a climate-sensitive tree sprouting from the rocks, blooming against all logic. The thought of the contrast of the light, delicate petals with the dark, swelling waves compelled him to begin. 

Jimin perched on a rock, swirling his brush through measured amounts of gold, orange, red. It would be sunset soon, so if Jimin could begin mixing the correct colors to capture it, and could then burn the image into his retinas, he could return to the painting and refine the details later.

His progress was stopped, however, when the sunlight faded and night took hold. Mentally and physically tired from focusing on tiny differences in color and from a day’s worth of painting in general, Jimin stood up a bit shakily. A strong gust of wind whipped at his jacket, and his eyes watered. It was a mistake to stay this late, he realized. Now he would have trouble making it down the cliffside.

“No, it’ll be fine,” Jimin breathed.

But he wasn’t.

It all happened so fast.

A freak gust of wind. Jimin misstepped, a jolt of pain shooting through his ankle, and while he expected to fall onto uneven rocks, instead, there was no ground beneath him at all.

His arms windmilled frantically. He clawed at the rocks, but he still dropped like a stone from the cliff’s edge into the endless deep sea. Falling was a blur. He felt his heart pound faster than it ever had before, heard the overwhelming sound of wind rushing past, felt a wash of pain as he hit the water’s surface.

He couldn’t breathe.

And then…

Then, he was lying on the cliff again.

Had this whole scenario been a nightmare? He was back where he started. Only now, it was different. Jimin felt strange somehow, light and lacking in substance. It required no effort to push himself off the ground, and when he moved, it felt less like walking and more like floating. When he attempted to pick up his bag and begin the hike back to the hotel, Jimin’s hand went straight through.

Shocked, and unsure of how to proceed, Jimin turned to see a huge, magnificent sakura tree, just as he had imagined, jutting from the craggy cliff’s edge. For a moment, his excitement got the better of him, and the blossoms seemed to glow in the dark, brighter than any other tree Jimin had ever seen. He reached a hand out for the trunk, and was surprised to find that he could touch it without his hand phasing through. What did this mean?

Jimin spent the better part of an hour inspecting the tree, climbing it. He found that if he willed it, he could appear on any branch he pleased, though that felt somehow unnatural. When he tried to move away, however, he couldn’t. He could only go as far the clifftop’s edge before he began to feel faint and headed back to the base of the trunk.

Days passed, weeks. What had at first seemed an intriguing turn of events now seemed like a curse. He distracted himself by singing all the songs he could think of and coming up with little dances in the light of the rising sun, formulating color palettes in his mind for the ever-changing waves. He held out hope that maybe this was still a dream, a long, extended illusion.

But one windy day, Jimin’s belongings were whipped away by the wind toward the raging water below. He tried to reach them, the branches of the tree coiling forth at his outburst of emotion, but he couldn’t take hold of his precious paintings. They scattered like multi-colored leaves into the sky, never to be seen again.

Jimin was overtaken by a vast, all-consuming loneliness. The sunlight shining on the tree’s bark, the breeze whipping the branches, none of it resembled the human touch he longed for. He wanted to talk with people, to talk about stupid nothings like how their day was going, how their families were holding up. The absence of his own family seemed to eat away at his insides like a disease. He dematerialized from his human form, the bark of the tree growing dull and the sakura petals slowly but surely dying out.

It was as if he was half-asleep, months blurred into years. He wondered if he would have to stay this way forever. Sunrises didn’t fascinate him anymore. Tourists didn’t come this far up the cliffside, and he stopped imagining otherwise. Until one day, a lone, hunched figure did come.

It was a middle-aged man, his shoulders scrunched and his back stooped. Jimin couldn’t make out his face in the dark, but he could tell something was off. The man’s steps were heavy, unsteady. There were little noises of distress emanating from his mouth. Sobs, Jimin remembered.

The man stopped three feet from the edge of the cliff, staring at the black, uncaring void of the sea and taking a deep breath. He held out his arms and let the wind beat against his arms. Jimin felt his chest stirring for the first time in an eternity.

The man took a step forward. Another.

Jimin panicked, but he told himself it wasn’t his place to interfere. What could he even do to help this person?

The man teetered.

Jimin acted instinctively, materializing in his human form and throwing his arms in the direction of the would-be dead-man. The branches of the tree did as he bid, wrapping around the man’s torso protectively and pulling him away from the edge. The man fell onto his behind, understandably shocked, and stared at the branches in disbelief.

“What… what the hell?” The man stared at the tree. “But I’m not… I’m not worth saving.”

But you are. Please believe that you are.

Jimin’s voice wasn’t exactly his own anymore. It wasn’t audible, per say. But he could feel that it reached the man, whose eyes immediately overflowed. He cried at the base of the tree for hours, and though he couldn’t shed real tears, Jimin cried, too. He let out his grief as he willed the man’s cold body to be warmed by the breeze. He willed the rustling of the wind to carry the scent of sakura, and, for the first time in years, the tree’s branches were no longer barren, it was gradually restored to its former glory.

As the dark of night began to fade, replaced by the slightest hints of dawn, the man stood up. Bathed in the pink light of the sakura petals, he looked like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Facing Jimin and meeting his eyes for the first time, the man bowed.

“Thank you.”

Watching his form retreat, a sensation unlike any he’d ever felt before overtook Jimin. He made himself a promise that if this was his lot, his purpose, he would fulfill it wholeheartedly. He would remain in bloom for all to see. Whether or not he could really help them, he wanted to offer one thing: hope.

The Present

 

Hana swiped tears from her eyes at the conclusion of Jimin’s tale. She reached forward instinctively to embrace him, a bit shocked when her arms went right through. But that didn’t matter, she re-adjusted so that it looked as if her arms were around his shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispered tenderly. “Thank you, Jimin.”