The first rays of the rising sun start a mad dance in the morning dew covered garden. The rays flaunt their sparkly golden dresses and twirl between the still sleeping flowers and quietly rustling bushes, giggling at their own reflections in the clear water droplets. They carelessly jump over leaves and petals, the slightest breeze making the dew drops shake and fall on the lush green grass.  Their laughter fills the still chilly air and soon the flowers begin to wake up, greeting the noisy morning guests.

“Wake up, sleepy head!” A bright and loud sun-boy perches on a freshly sprouted green leaf of a pale white rose. He pokes the white petals with his finger, dew drops shaking on the very top of them. He stands up, tiptoeing on the leaf, his golden skirt flailing as a playful breeze rushes by, and gently tries to peal the petals open.

“Stop it!” comes an irritated voice from inside the flower and the petals slowly fold down. A boy is sitting in the middle of the flower - his hair in the color of amber, a crown of small white flowers sitting on top of them. His skin glistens white with dew drops - just like the petals around him - and he rubs sleep out of his eyes before looking at the sun-boy. “It’s you again,” he murmurs and lays back down in the petal bed around him, but the flower remains open.

“Indeed! It’s me!” the boy cheers and jumps up from the leaf on to a petal, leaning over the sleeping rose. “Do you remember my name?” he asks and as the rose spirit tries to catch it by the edge of the golden skirt, the sun-boy jumps over him to stand on the other side of the white petals.

“Of course I do. You’re Minhyuk,” he replies with a frown in his voice. “Why would I forget?” he sits up and reaches for the hem of the flailing golden skirt, but misses again and pouts at the sun-boy jumping down to one of the green leaves again.

“Because flowers come and go - you all disappear so fast - while I am eternal,” he cheers almost obnoxiously, his white hair catching a dew drop falling down and he giggles loudly before twirling up in the air and then sitting down next to the rose spirit.

“If you’re eternal, then do you remember all names you encounter?” the rose spirit smirks expecting a negative answer. The restless ray of sunlight jumps again, the light from him hitting each and every petal, before he dances to the edge of the flower.

“Of course I do! You’re ChangKyun! The grumpy man sitting on the edge of the peony is Kihyun! The delphinium in the far corner - still in shadow and sleeping - is Hyungwon. And the one at the bottom of your feet, just starting to rise, is Wonho!” he points at every flower and spirit he mentions and perches on the edge of a petal looking down.

“At the bottom of my feet?” ChangKyun repeats and crawls from the center of the flower to the very edge, leaning over it and looking down.

Indeed, as Minhyuk said, there’s something at the bottom of the rose bush, the exact branch ChangKyun called home. Deep green leaves have sprouted from a stem that has started to twirl around the branch almost midway through already. How come ChangKyun never noticed this? Small, thin, curly leaves along with bigger and smaller wider ones sported from near each part of the stem and on one of those, a flower spirit was sitting. He was swinging his legs over the edge, humming a melody only he knew. His hair pitch black, two green antena like leaves sprouting out of them almost like horns. His outfit almost plain, green upon green hugging a sturdy form from bell sleeves around his wrists to his ankles.

“Good morning!” Minhyuk suddenly cheered, the dark-haired spirit looking up, his eyes going from the loud sun-boy to ChangKyun and the latter gasped. He jumped back, hiding his face against a petal, before hesitantly looking over the edge again. The flower spirit Minhyuk had called ‘Wonho’ was still looking up at him, his lips spread in a wide smile. In almost a goofy way, he waved at the two above him and all ChangKyun could do was to wave back.

“I’ll leave you two then!” Minhyuk giggled and before ChangKyun could object, he twirled away to the next flower, his laughter still ringing in the air.

“I’m Wonho!” comes a voice from below and ChangKyun averts his eyes from Minhyuk’s dance to look down again.

“I’m ChangKyun,” he replies and the one sitting lower smiles again. His smiles is contagious and the rose-spirit feels he’s smiling in return.  “What are you doing?” he asks, still looking down from the white petals.

“Going up, growing,” comes a quite obvious answer. Wonho stands up and quickly climbs to the highest spot of the stem, standing on a barley sprouted leaf there.

“Why?” ChangKyun instead leans over the edge a bit more, holding to the petal with both hands not to fall over.

“Because I want to meet you,” the answer is said casually, but ChangKyun feels his cheeks flushing. He tries to avert his eyes from the spirit below and clears his throat, fixing the flower crown on his head.

“W… why?” he repeats the same question again and even though his cheeks are flushed red he doesn’t want to look away.

“I’m not sure. But when I opened my eyes for the first time and looked up, I saw you just appearing as bud and I decided I want to be up there - with you!” he replies and ChangKyun can swear he sees the antena like leaves on Wonho’s head twitch and the stem that had wrapped around the rose branch moving a millimeter higher.

“Won’t it take too long for you to get here?” ChangKyun crosses his arms on the edge of the rose and rests his chin on them.

“Give me a few days, and I’ll reach you,” Wonho smiles brightly yet again, his hand holding onto the rose branch right beneath a thorn, which ChangKyun remembers about just now.

“The thorns. You’ll get hurt,” he frowns and Wonho just shakes his head.

“It’s worth it, isn’t it?”

The next day Wonho has climbed even higher. The stem is a bit scratched against the thorns, as ChangKyun suspected, but it doesn’t seem to stop it moving up. The day after that more leaves have sprouted from the stem, flower buds appearing here and there and Wonho’s hair has changed color to a deep deep purple, matching the soon bursting buds.

On day three ChangKyun wakes up to alluring scent. He rushes to the edge of his flower, just to see blue and purple blooming on the usually dull and prickly branch that held him up. He looks for the usually dark haired spirit bellow, but he finds bright purple and blue instead of black or deep purple.

“You’ve bloomed!” ChangKyun cheers and has to remind himself to hold on to the edge of the rose as he leans forward. “You look so beautiful!” he knows he is probably a bit too loud, but he does not care as Wonho indeed looked beautiful.

His hair in purple and blue, his petal like skin now white and smooth - not green and rough -, flailing into soft pink bells around his wrists and gradually going to deep pink around his ankles. There were some tears, some scars left from ChangKyun’s thorns he had so stubbornly ignored when climbing up, but it didn’t make him any less gorgeous.

“Then I am finally a match for you,” he smiles is blinding smile again and ChangKyun feels his cheeks coloring red again. “Two more days. Give me two more days and I will reach you,” he reaches his soft white hand up and ChangKyun reaches his down. There’s still a distance to go and ChangKyun can already feel the wind spirits kackling at the petals falling from the rose - tearing them apart and throwing them around the garden - but he could wait for two more days.

It’s a long wait, the distance becoming smaller each passing hour, but it’s all laced with sense of urgency. The wind is getting rougher and ChangKyun feels the cold rustling through the petals that start to get thinner day by day. He remembers Minhyuk’s words of flowers fading fast and he would like to throw them back and the loud ray of sunlight, but he is busy hiding in peony leaves and teasing the spirit of the cherry tree.

Two days pass. It’s a blink of an eye that should have closed the distance between ChangKyun and Wonho, but when the morning comes and they reach their hands for each other once more, it’s still too far. Their fingertips almost touch but no matter how far down ChangKyun leans or how Wonho ignores the thorns poking his sides as he reaches up, they can’t seem to grab onto each other.

“Who let this happen?” a voice from above, not belonging to a spirit of a breeze booms and a shadow howers above ChangKyun and Wonho. “Who let this pest of a flower grow here?” it repeats and a hand larger than 5 rose flowers together grabs onto the stem of Wonho’s flower. It yanks it with full strength and Wonho loses his balance, tumbling back on a leaf.

“Wonho!” ChangKyun near falls from the last petals of his rose as he tries to grab onto the sweet pea spirit.

“Don’t move!” however Wonho stops him. “I will reach you! Be it the last thing I do!” he exclaims and despite the human hand yanking on the flower, the climbs up the the remains of the leaves and stem, thorns tearing his soft petal skin. He reaches his hand up again and this time ChangKyun doesn’t care.

He let’s go of the edge of the fade white petal he was holding on and dives straight down. The rose flower scatters in the wind, the nasty spirits grabbing most of the white petals and throwing them around in mad glee.

“Damn it,” the voice from above curses as it tears the sweet pea stem out, just a single purple and blue flower landing on the dark soil and the scattered rose petals. Right between them, the two spirits have finally met. The thorn torn sweet-pea, just like it’s stem used to, has wrapped around the shivering and fading rose, holding the one he reached for as close as he can.

“I was supposed to reach you, not you fall down to me,” he breathes out his limbs aching, his breath caught in his chest as his hair begin to turn brown, the pink bell sleeves shriveling up.

“Doesn’t matter. Not now,” ChangKyun shivers as his white petal skin begins to turn yellow, the flower crown slipping off his head and turning into dust as it hits the soil.

“Is this worth it?” Wonho’s eyes get heavy, the smile he that was still on his lips fading, his intoxicating scent disappearing in the breeze.

“Absolutely,” ChangKyun replies a his eyes fall shut.

Loud cackling of the wind rings in the air, he spirits throwing petals around - all but two, where a sun-boy has just landed, the edges of his golden skirt grazing the dark soil. He squats down next to the torn up flower of sweet pea and the last rose petal, both laying together on the ground, their spirits faded from this world and waiting to be reborn one day again.

“How sad,” he sighs and one last time lets the light from him to rain down on the withering petals. “I will wait for you both to return, as I have done so many times before,” he blows a kiss at the soil and then twirls back up, hiding in the leaves of bushes and long, green grass. He will observe time and time again, as flowers return and grow, how they love and how they fade, how they cheer and how they forget - as they all were fading, while he was eternal.

Notes:

The visual inspiration on how the flower spirits look is taken from my all time favorite manga Berserk.

 

Find me on: Twitter
OTHER WONKYUN 

|| WonKyun drabbles : The Last Of The Real Ones || The Blue Flower || Come Back Alive || Addiction Series || Leashes and Kisses || Ribbons and Rings || I'm Thankful for You || Silent Appreciation || Worth It || Beneath The Surface || A Little Less 16 Candles || Turning Gears|| Tightening Bolts||Cat Person