When Woohyun entered the shop after making a delivery, he knew something was, for lack of a better term, off. First, with the door opened, the wafting scent knocked him off balance. Woohyun actually tripped over a step because of it. The usual mix of floral and woody scents welcomed him, but it was quickly overtaken by a particularly strong odor that Woohyun couldn’t accurately describe. He wasn’t familiar with it. It seemed almost…fruity. What was it? Who was it? Second, when he came into the shop, Woohyun came to a complete stop and his head tilted off to the right, staring blankly at the man sitting down in the middle of the room. What a strange sight! Normally it wouldn’t be strange if it were Dongwoo or Jangjun. Woohyun had found the two of them doing stranger things. But Jangjun was organizing accounts at the counter, and Dongwoo was probably elsewhere arranging flowers. This man on the floor right now, Woohyun didn’t know who he was, or at least he never saw that back before in his life. And the strange man didn’t even turn around when the shop’s bell rang, heralding Woohyun’s arrival. He was too absorbed in whatever he was doing to care about the shop’s (possible) future owner. The man’s neck was bent over, revealing ink-stained skin peaking over the pristine color of his button down. The tattoo reached the bottom of his pink hair.

Was this man an idol? His style seemed too much of an odd mix between prep and punk for him to be anything else.

“What’s that kid doing?” Woohyun whispered to Jangjun after he reached the counter.

“Sketching flowers,” Jangjung responded under his breath along with a string of numbers, which he soon jotted down on a pad of paper. After resolving the accounts, he turned his attention towards the older. “I told him that he could! He looks harmless. He’s not touching anything,” Jangjun explained. The two of them then turned to the strange man, who had just gotten up and was now fondling roses. Jangjun laughed out of nerves. “Well, he wasn’t touching anything earlier.”

Woohyun shot a thorny look at Jangjun, and then melted into a slight warm smile, before shaking his head and approaching the man on the floor. “Hey,” he called out to him.

The man quickly turned around and greeted Woohyun with a great grin. “Hello! Thank you for letting me practice here. Sungyeol-hyung was right. You guys are nice!”

Woohyun stopped in his tracks. “Sungyeol sent you?” he asked. The chilly tattoo artist was the last person Woohyun expected this idol-looking man to know.

“Yes!” the young man chirped and then straightened himself up proudly. He introduced himself, “I’m his new apprentice, Joochan. Nice to meet you!”

“You’re his new apprentice?!” every word that came out of this man’s mouth was more surprising than the next. And the more Woohyun stared at him, the younger Joochan looked. The kid didn’t even look old enough to legally hold a cigarette but Sungyeol was training him to hold a needle? This kid who, in spite of his pink hair, looked more preppy than punk? Woohyun’s gaze dropped down to the sketchbook in the kid’s hands, and it was filled with thinly drawn flowers, from multiple angles. But when Woohyun’s eyes traveled a bit higher, to the hands clutching at the book, he saw thin lines of dark ink traveling along the bones of Joochan’s hands.

And Woohyun was reminded that he shouldn’t be one to judge whether or not a person should look like he/she had an interest in tattoos or not.

“Yes!” Joochan exclaimed with a sharp nod.

“Okay,” Woohyun replied and stepped back towards the counter. But he didn’t leave Joochan alone. He left a warning to keep him company. “Just don’t touch anything. Flowers are more fragile than you think. If you look at them the wrong way, they’ll wilt.”

“Got it! I will keep my hands to myself!” Joochan chirped back and sat back down on the ground. His hands soon swooped across the paper again in broad , and the young apprentice was immersed back in his work.

And Woohyun was just as immersed, watching him from the counter. It was something about the apprentice, about his tattoos. He squinted his eyes in order to make the outline of the inked drawing. Was it…were they…petals? Just like…Woohyun’s eyes widened when he realized it. He sniffed again just to make sure. The odd scent had been coming from Joochan.

“What is it, hyung?” Jangjun’s voice broke into his mind.

“He’s a strange kid,” Woohyun remarked nodding over to the apprentice, who was now humming a happy tune as he sketched. “He seems too straight-laced to be a tattoo artist.”

“And you’re the perfect image of a florist, hyung,” Jangjun came back, without even looking up from the accounts. Half a second later, Jangjun realized the words that had come from his mouth (and heard the soft whimper coming from his hyung). “The perfect image of a y florist. I love you,” he tried to amend.

“Forget it,” Woohyun responded with a chuckle. “I have to get the next delivery ready,” he announced before heading over the to refrigerated room. Also before he did, Woohyun shot one last look at the curious apprentice.

Joochan, something about that kid reminded him of Sunggyu. Why? If Woohyun knew that, he wouldn’t have spent the rest of his day trying to find a connection between the two. In the end, Woohyun couldn’t think of anything more than those delicate petals staining their necks and hands.

But then again, it was the start spring, and flowers were blooming at all corners of the country after the long winter chill. This time of year, why couldn’t flowers sprout on skin too?

More than just flowers grew in the spring. Weeds did, which Sunggyu always tried to tempt Woohyun with ever since the Joe-pye incident. Green barley also coated a corner of the garden, growing up to Woohyun’s hip before he cut them down. (The barley always made for good frames in arrangements. Not every flower could be the focal point or even the foundation of the arrangement. Some plants in floristry just exist to enhance the beauty of others. Woohyun could relate to that sometimes, often thinking of himself as the frame of the trio at the shop since he didn’t have much of a gift for arranging, just a passion for the art).

But something else was also known for blossoming in the spring, and Woohyun could already feel a seed of it being planted in his heart. Would it sprout? If it did, how great would it grow before it’d wither away? Or maybe, just maybe, would this seed actually bear fruit?

It was all scary and exciting at the same time. But Woohyun didn’t try to let it show, very much.

“Do you want some water?” Sunggyu called out to the other after placing an armful of barely into the cart. They’d been at this for hours. Not only did they harvest the green barley, but earlier they’d pluckseed flowers, crocus, and…well, Woohyun couldn’t remember what flower was before that. The warm spring sun was affecting his head.

They needed a break.

“Yes, please!” Woohyun hoped he sounded as exasperated as he felt.

“Follow me!” Sunggyu exclaimed, pleased that Woohyun was just as ‘done’ with harvesting as he was. Surprisingly, Sunggyu didn’t hop onto his bike immediately and pedal on ahead as he usually did, expecting the other to catch up with him. He waited for Woohyun to get onto his bike first.

Perhaps there was a seed in his heart too.

Before they rested, the piled the green barley into the truck along with theseed flowers, forsythia, crocus, and other plants that they’d been gathering since the morning. But they finished with that task quickly and Sunggyu then led him deep within the garden, towards the outer edge that Woohyun hadn’t seen before. While they were pedaling, they passed several trees and bushes which were either budding or in full bloom, each one as pretty as the next. Each one a potential focal point for a bouquet. Perhaps, Woohyun thought, the prettiest flowers in the world were the ones on trees or bushes.

And that thought took deeper root when they reached a small white cottage, tucked in the back of the garden and hidden behind a great wall of azaleas. Woohyun couldn’t help but to mutter out a ‘wow’ when he saw it. It looked like a place that he’d only seen in animated fairy tales.

His wonderment didn’t escape Sunggyu, who shot the other a curious glance. “Do you live here?” Woohyun asked as he got off from the bike, following the older.

“Yes, it’s small, but it’s home,” Sunggyu answered and parked his bike. “Come inside,” he said as he ushered into the cottage. “I’ll get us some water.” The man then went into the kitchen area, only a few steps away from the door.

Woohyun stood by the door and scanned the cottage. It was mainly one open room, with a kitchen to one side, a dining area at the other, and near the front was a living area. He assumed that somewhere there were stairs that led up to the bedroom. He couldn’t see them though, or any sign of another person living at the home besides Sunggyu. “So it’s just you?” Woohyun pried.

“Not really,” Sunggyu answered with a shake of his head and a coy grin. “I have a lot of visitors. So I can’t really say it’s just me.”

“Oh,” Woohyun muttered and dropped his eyes to the floor, mulling over what he met by that. Seconds later, a glass appeared into his sight. “Ah, thank you.” He lifted his head and took the glass with both hands.

“Let’s go sit outside,” Sunggyu suggested. “I have a porch!” Indeed having a detached house was rare and owning a porch was even more rare, Sunggyu bragged about it with an iota too much of excitement which made Woohyun chuckle.

“Yeah, let’s sit outside,” he agreed and followed the gardener.

And perhaps his porch was worth bragging about. It was really pleasant sitting out there, but Woohyun didn’t know how much he could attribute the pleasantness to the porch, or to the company, or to the nice cold glass of water after a long day in the sun.

There was something else puzzling Woohyun too. Sunggyu’s arms really looked like they were sprouting flowers now. More magenta blossoms were covering the bright green leaves. Did his tattoo really change? Did he get new ones? Was it even possible to layer tattoos like that? Woohyun would have to ask Sungyeol about it next time.

“What do you think?” Sunggyu suddenly asked. Woohyun was taken about. What was he referring to? The gardener answered the unspoken question. “Of the azalea?” he posed and quickly took a sip of his own glass (nervously?).

“I’ve never seen one this big,” Woohyun replied, directing his gaze back towards the bush in front of him. He felt like he was in the middle of a sea of flowers, on that porch. “I like it. Did you grow this?”

“Yep, all by myself,” Sunggyu appeared to be very pleased with Woohyun’s answer. It must’ve been his pride and joy of this entire garden. Certainly his favorite flower, Woohyun concluded. Sunggyu literally covered his entire self with it. What was the reason for that? Woohyun wanted to know.

Maybe he would if he explored its beauty more.

Woohyun got up from his seat and walked closer to the edge of the porch, closer to the bush. “Can I take a few…”

A hand grabbed at Woohyun’s wrist as it reached towards a nearby bud. The florist glanced over. When did Sunggyu get up? “NO! Don’t touch it! Don’t!” the gardener threatened.

Woohyun pulled his hand away and put them both up into the air, giving in. “Okay, I won’t,” he promised.

Sunggyu himself stepped back from the bush too and shook his head at himself and his own behavior. “Sorry, it’s just…some plants here are off limits. This one especially. Don’t even look at it anymore,” he tried to veil a warning with a joke. But Woohyun could still see it clearly: don’t touch any plant without Sunggyu’s permission, especially his favorite.

And Woohyun went along with both the warning and the joke. He closed his eyes immediately. “Okay, okay, I won’t look!” With his hands, he blindly searched for his chair and sat back down. He could hear the other chuckling at his antics, and that pushed Woohyun further. The florist tried to act as usual but with his eyes closed, chatting with the other and rocking in his chair. But there was one thing that he couldn’t do so well blind: drink. “Aish!” Woohyun swore after spilling the rest of his drink down his shirt.

But even at that moment, his eyes were still closed.

Sunggyu was trying to stifle his laughter, but it still escaped in squeaks and snickers. “Hold on,” he muttered under his breath, and then Woohyun heard steps approaching him. A few seconds later, a cloth was dabbing his skin, soaking up the mess and smelling like dirt and Sunggyu’s sweat (somehow still sweet smelling underneath the layers of musk). Woohyun still didn’t open his eyes. He just winced and moved his head away. “You’re ridiculous,” Sunggyu grumbled and tossed the cloth at the other’s lap. “You can open your eyes now. And clean yourself up.”

Woohyun did finally open his eyes, but not to grab at the rag he was given. Instead he stared at the other. The tattoos weren’t the only thing that had changed. “Did you dye your hair?” Woohyun asked as his eyes narrowed. Sunggyu’s hair, it was more on the purple end of the spectrum than before, lighter and brighter. Normally dyed hair didn’t ‘fade’ into a more vibrant color.

“No, it’s just the sunlight,” Sunggyu remarked as he backed away into the shadows. His hair, however, scarcely looked any darker. He gave Woohyun no room to argue with him because he was already heading towards the edge of the porch. “When you’re done with your water, I’ll help you organize the stuff in the truck.”

He wasn’t so subtly telling Woohyun to finish up and go. In fact, Sunggyu was gesturing at the florist with his hands, telling him to hurry up. Woohyun, however, was in no rush. He stared the gardener down, raised the glass slowly to his lips, and took the tiniest sip from it before setting it back down and flashing the other a proud smile.

Sunggyu scoffed. “If you go any slower, the flowers will wilt by the time you go back to the shop.”

He had a point. So Woohyun chugged the rest of his water and then joined the other. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, I was wondering,” Woohyun started as he was locking the truck’s back door. They didn’t do much organizing, but they’d secured the cargo and called it good enough. Well, Sunggyu called it good enough. Woohyun knew he was being rushed out of the property, yet he didn’t mind it because he had a feeling that it wasn’t because Sunggyu didn’t like him. And playing on that feeling, he asked: “Can come back here after work or on the weekend? I feel like I can learn a lot here and from you.”

“Sure,” Woohyun’s feeling was correct. Sunggyu gave his answer quickly and happily. And on top of that, he pulled out his phone. “Just call me first. Let me give you my number, and you can give me yours.”

It was an open invitation to the garden, and perhaps Woohyun thought that the garden was a little too open to him. Woohyun came to visit again and again and again, whenever he had days off or whenever he got off from work. Some visits were longer than others. Sunggyu tolerated him some times better than others, but he never turned Woohyun away or told him not to come. It probably was because Woohyun would help him out whenever he came over, and he even fixed the gate. And it was definitely because they were both interested in each other.

But interest comes in many, many forms. For Woohyun, at least, he was mainly interested in becoming closer to Sunggyu. That was it. Just closer. Close enough to nurture the seed in his heart. And as for Sunggyu...

“You know, it might be your day off today, but I’m working,” Sunggyu remarked. They were delicately pruning a sprawling yet bare crape myrtle tree. Well, Sunggyu was. He took a small snip here and there with his shears and analyzed the tree’s mottling bark. Woohyun, on the other hand, was relegated to weed duty. Always weeds. Other than the flowers and the barley, Woohyun was pretty sure that weeds were the only other thing that he could touch freely here. He once leaned against a pine tree for a moment’s rest, and Sunggyu nearly had a conniption. But that reaction was nowhere as severe as the one Sunggyu had when Woohyun bent down to drink from the garden’s fresh-water spring. Every time Sunggyu flipped out like that, it would be followed by a stream of words about ‘respect for nature’ and ‘you just can’t do that!’. Yet it was okay for Woohyun to pluck petals off of wild flowers and kill weeds. He didn’t get it. But he wanted to. He wanted to understand  allof this.

“So am I. This is professional development. I’m learning a lot from you,” Woohyun replied as he pulled out another weed and tossed it into a growing pile of them.

“You’re slowing me down,” Sunggyu snapped back, his hand patting the tree softly after t off a dead twig.

“Slowing you down?” Woohyun picked out as he stood up with a soft groan. “I wasn’t slowing you down when I was lifting bags of fertilizer earlier.”

Sunggyu paused and looked over at the other with a grin. “Thank you!” he chirped but then he turned back around and continued in a distracted voice, “I guess, what I am trying to say is…” he paused to examine a leaf but then spoke again, “If you want to hang out with me, then let’s go somewhere where I can have fun too.”

Woohyun studied the gardener. Sunggyu said that so casually but how casual was this proposal exactly. What sort of interest in Woohyun did he have? There was only one way to find out.

“Sure,” the florist answered. “What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Dinner?” Sunggyu suggested (and his shy glance towards Woohyun suggested something else).

Woohyun grinned. “Dinner would be great.”

Their relationship outside of the ivy-covered walls of the garden wasn’t much different from their relationship inside of them. Sunggyu snapped at Woohyun less for ‘inappropriately’ touching plants, but they talked just as much about all sorts of things, especially about music. Woohyun mentioned about he occasionally busked on the streets of Guri, and Sunggyu mentioned that he might’ve  watched Woohyun’s performance once or twice before. The gardener frequented those streets often, drawn by the siren call of music, Woohyun’s call sometimes. And Woohyun remembered him, from the shadows of his memory, he remembered Sunggyu standing in the crowd listening to his music and nodding along.

Woohyun also remembered that Sunggyu didn’t use to have an azalea flower on the back of his hand or a cluster of buds tracing his collar bone.

When was he getting these done? Where was he getting these done? These didn’t seem like normal tattoos.

To find an answer, Woohyun went to go see the most abnormal tattoo artist he knew: Sungyeol. Luckily, he was already scheduled to have lunch with the man. So that afternoon, Woohyun came into the shop and was still surprised to see Joochan sitting behind the reception desk, no matter how many times he’d seen the apprentice there. The apprentice still looked out of place.

“Hey, Joochan,” Woohyun greeted.

“Oh! Woohyun-hyung, hello!” That was it. That was why Joochan didn’t seem to fit this place. He was entirely too cheerful, especially when compared to Sungyeol’s cool aura. But Joochan appeared to be a welcomed change to this shop and much loved by his coworkers and their clients alike, Woohyun included. He walked up to the desk and leaned up against it to talk to the boy. “Do you want to make another appointment already?” Joochan asked.

“No, I’m here to see Sungyeol. We made plans for lunch, but I wanted to ask you something,” Woohyun said, creeping further up the desk and closer to Joochan as he lowered his voice at the end.

“What is it?” Joochan followed and whispered to the other.

“Have you guys done work on a man named Sunggyu recently? I don’t know his surname, but he has tons of azalea blossoms all over,” Woohyun asked. A flash of recognition darted across the other’s eyes. So Woohyun pushed it. “Does that ring a bell?”

“No!” Joochan yelped and jumped back a bit from the other. He quickly realized how extreme his reaction was, so he cleared his throat and repeated more calmly, “No.” His eyes flew over to the right, and Woohyun followed. He then saw Sungyeol standing at the other end of the desk, shaking his head at his apprentice. “We don’t know this Sunggyu-hyung,” Joochan said with his eyes fixed on his master and flashed him a thumbs up. At that, Sungyeol slapped his forehead.

“Sunggyu-hyung?” That didn’t escape Woohyun’s notice. You don’t call a complete stranger ‘hyung.’

“Well, he’s hyung’s friend so…” Joochan reasoned, dropping his voice and gaze lower and lower. His guilt shining through his reddening face.

“Sunggyu doesn’t get his done here,” Sungyeol spoke up and slipped between Woohyun and Joochan, as fluid as water. “How do you know him?” he turned the question around.

But Woohyun wasn’t going to be distracted. Something was up. These two were acting weird. “How do you know him?”

“I asked first,” Sungyeol was firm and rigid.

“I get wildflowers from his garden,” Woohyun decided to give in and answered. Maybe if he a little more lenient, Sungyeol would be too.

But Joochan was the one to speak up. “From our…since when?!” the boy exclaimed, eyes darting between the two others. Sungyeol shook his head again at the apprentice and put a finger to his lips, shushing him.

“I don’t know. Miss Gong always had. She’s friends with the woman who started it, from what I know,” Woohyun addressed the both of them. ‘Our,’ did Joochan mean that they had associations with the garden too? Maybe, but in any case, without a single doubt in his mind, Woohyun knew that these two knew Sunggyu. But he didn’t know why they were acting like they didn’t? What kind of person was Sunggyu? What kind of people were they?

“How do you know him?” Woohyun pressed.

“We all grew up on the same block,” Sungyeol explained, and Joochan nodded emphatically at that.

But Woohyun didn’t find that answer as satisfying. He crossed his arms over his chest and challenged them: “Then why did you say that you didn’t know him?” No, he challenged Joochan alone, the weak one with loose lips. And the apprentice was already breaking down.

“Ah, well, about that…”  Joochan began stuttering and nervously wrung his hands.

“Sunggyu doesn’t want a lot of people knowing about him,” Sungyeol jumped in. He put a hand on Woohyun’s shoulder and turned his friend towards him. Sungyeol’s dark eyes washed over him. “We’re used to protecting him.”

“Why is that?” Every time he got an answer, Woohyun was only left with more questions.

Especially when Joochan replied, “Because he protects us.”

“What? Is he some sort of spy?” Woohyun shot back with a scoff. Protect? He could see how someone like Joochan needed protection (especially from himself), but Sungyeol certainly didn’t need it. And Sungyeol certainly didn’t need to be protected by a gardener who spent most of his days slowly riding a bike and pruning trees leaf by leaf.

Sunggyu, however, wasn’t who Woohyun thought he was. Sungyeol made that clear.

The tattoo artist stepped in closer and hissed into Woohyun’s ear, “If you know, then you’re a dead man.” He then turned around and began heading towards the door. “Let’s get lunch.”

Woohyun dropped it right then and there because he didn’t want to drop dead.

But Woohyun didn’t stop seeing Sunggyu (both inside and outside of the garden), and he wasn’t afraid of seeing him, in spite of Sungyeol’s warning, in spite of gardener’s veiled identity. Woohyun still felt comfortable around him. And even though parts of the gardener were intentionally hidden away, Woohyun felt like he knew him well enough. The parts that Woohyun knew, he liked. And that was all that mattered for now.

And the parts that Woohyun knew seemed oddly intimate. At times, he wondered if Sungyeol or Joochan knew about this side of the gardener. Like Sunggyu’s regrets. Sunggyu often mentioned about how he would’ve gone into music if it weren’t for his job and expressed envy at Woohyun’s freedom to busk, at Woohyun’s freedom to leave his profession and potential to go into music. But Woohyun was happy just busking and he wanted to continue to be a florist, disregarding Sunggyu’s very strong encouragement to pursue a music career. Both music and flowers brought him satisfaction and joy that one alone could not bring. He thought Sunggyu would understand. But instead Sunggyu would get this lost look in his eyes whenever Woohyun suggested that he should quit or that they should busk together. “I can’t,” was Sunggyu would say. “There are things in this world that you cannot understand.”

Oh, but Woohyun did understand, or at least he understood more than Sunggyu thought he did. Woohyun was attentive. He noticed the edges of azaleas’ petals not fading but browning, all over Sunggyu’s body. The gardener’s hair color was darkening, and the man himself was eating less and less every time they met.

Woohyun had asked if Sunggyu was going on a diet or if he was sick. And the older would just answer ‘no’ and then turn the conversation back around, commenting on how much Woohyun ate and the plump, mandu-like cheeks he had. But the florist wasn’t distracted. Sunggyu was losing weight.

It was worrisome.

It wasn’t as worrisome as when Woohyun watched the tattooed blossom on Sunggyu’s hand whither and fall off right in front of his eyes. Was he seeing things? Was he sleeping and this was a dream? Ah, no, it wasn’t a dream. While he’d been staring at Sunggyu’s hands, Woohyun pricked his own on a thorn of floribunda rose that he’d been harvesting, and his finger was bleeding now. He put the injured finger in his mouth as his gaze returned to Sunggyu, to his hand, where the azalea was still gone.

Sunggyu caught his gaze, quickly took the gloves from his pocket, and shoved his hands into them. “Why are you looking at me strangely?” he asked and continued to select roses for the other. “This one will do.”

“Thanks,” Woohyun muttered as he walked while crouching over to Sunggyu’s side. He cut the rose from the bush, carefully because the gardener was watching him very closely. But Woohyun was watching the other closely too. He nodded down to Sunggyu’s hand. “You lost a tattoo.”

Sunggyu covered his hand with the other, even though his skin was already hidden underneath his gloves. “No, I didn’t,” he argued and got up.

Snip! Woohyun had it, with everything, with all of these secret, with the tiptoeing around. He got up too and pointed at the other with the freshly cut rose.

“You did!” Woohyun exclaimed. “There used to be a blossom right there!” He pointed right at the hand.

“Where? Where was it?” Sunggyu was in a panic. He tore off the glove and inspected his hand. He winced, as if in pain, but then hid the hand behind his back while insisting, “I never had one there.”

“Sunggyu,” Woohyun spoke sternly. He lowered the rose and stepped closer to the other. “Tell me the truth.”

“There’s no truth! There never was a tattoo there,” Sunggyu was rooted in his stance. “You should be more respectful and not wave that thing around,” he lectured the other and gestured towards the rose. “She worked really hard to grow it, and I had to ask for special permission for you to…”

Sunggyu’s rant fell on deaf ears. Woohyun wasn’t listening to him. His eyes fell from Sunggyu’s face to his neck, where one flower had curled at the edges. And it…it really was teetering, moving so subtlety over the edge of Sunggyu’s collar as if it were waving to Woohyun. Back and forth, back and forth the flower went until it tipped and fell entirely below Sunggyu’s collar and never came back up again. It had disappeared too.

“Ah! It happened again!” Woohyun exclaimed. “On your neck! The one on your neck went away too!” His finger was nearly pressing into the other’s skin, where the flower had been.

Sunggyu fell back several steps and pulled away at the collar of his shirt so that he could look at it himself. When he’d seen it, or hadn’t seen it in this case, curses spilled from his lips. The gardener his feet and ran over towards his bike. “It’s too fast this year.” Woohyun caught him saying amidst the curses.

“What’s going on?” Woohyun shouted at the other who was already pedaling away.

“I don’t know!” Sunggyu yelled back and kept on going.

And Woohyun didn’t know if he should follow the other, but he did. He followed Sunggyu to his cottage, where Sunggyu had tossed his bike onto the ground and was frantically walking around the azalea bush, shears in his hand. Woohyun dropped his bike next to the other.

“Sunggyu, what’s going on?” Woohyun asked again. He came up to the other and followed in his hurried step. “Tell me. Tell me so that I can help you.”

Woohyun could practically see the other’s ears twitch at the word ‘help.’ Sunggyu spun around. For a moment, his face was blanketed in shock and terror, but it then melted when Sunggyu sighed. “ it. Sungyeol says that you’re catching on anyway. There’s really no point in hiding it from you,” he muttered and turned back towards the cottage. He gestured at the sprawling plant in front of them. “I’m the god of this azalea bush.”

“There’s a god of azaleas?” Woohyun was skeptical, not only in spoken words but unspoken as well. His arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows even questioned the gardener. Woohyun just wanted the truth after being skirted around all of this time, not more distractions.
“Well, I’m not sure of that. But I’m the god of this one,” oh, wait, Sunggyu sounded earnest and very very concerned.

“You’re the god of a single plant?” Woohyun asked and crouched down next to Sunggyu, who was now kneeling besides the azalea bush as he examined its branches.

“I’m a nymph,” Sunggyu replied in a distracted voice. He was juggling the shears in his hands, eyes darting everywhere. “What’s wrong?”

“A nymph?!” Woohyun exclaimed. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the other, until Sunggyu nodded. Then Woohyun’s gaze dropped to his feet as he struggled to register everything. A nymph? Woohyun had only seen nymphs in paintings before, and to him, it always seemed like an excuse to draw girls. So how could Sunggyu be…a god of a bush, a god of an azalea bush, this azalea bush in front of him. Woohyun lifted his eyes from the ground to the bush, watching Sunggyu hurriedly prune it. Leaves shook and fell, both from the bush and from Sunggyu’s tattoo.

Well, that explained that. But what about…Woohyun immediately got up and spun around, scanning the rest of the garden with a fresh perspective. The trees that he couldn’t touch, could they be…

“Are there more of you?” Woohyun asked with his back still to the other. He was looking for traces of the trees coming to ‘life’ too.

“Nymphs? Of course,” Sunggyu answered as if it were ordinary. And for him it was. “For trees and water sources.” He then knocked into the other. “Can you move? I have to get to the other side.” Woohyun, still stunned, didn’t so much step of of Sunggyu’s way but ignore the gardener bumping into him. But Sunggyu could’ve pushed him over and he wouldn’t have noticed. Woohyun was too distracted by his mind falling to pieces and putting it back together with this new reality he just entered into. A reality where gods and nymphs were real. Where trees and bushes had spirits. Where water…

“Water,” Woohyun repeated, suddenly recalling the tattooed waves on his friend’s skin and his cooling touch. Finally he turned towards Sunggyu and asked, “Wait. Is Sungyeol one of you too?”

“Eung,” Sunggyu grunted. He was cutting away at the bush quicker than Woohyun had ever seen him cut anything. He also tossed the branches carelessly to the ground. “His spring is near the entrance, next to Joochan’s tree, the kousa dogwood.”

At that, Woohyun closed his eyes and side. Joochan, of course, he was a nymph too. It made sense. As crazy as everything sounded, it all made sense. But it was still difficult to come to terms with. Woohyun opened his eyes again and caught sight of the joe-pye weeds that he’d mercilessly cut down the first time he’d come here. “Does this have a nymph?” he asked, panicked and pointed at the weeds.

“No, Woohyun, that’s a weed. Stop being stupid and help me out!” Sunggyu snapped at him. “You said that you’d help me, but you’re just standing there! Ugh, I can’t believe I forgot to prune.” He switched from chiding to Woohyun to chiding himself. More and more branches fell to the ground. Sunggyu’s tattoo grew smaller and smaller. Woohyun’s eyes stayed fixed on the growing pile of branches on the ground. The leaves, Woohyun didn’t notice it at first or he didn’t care to notice, but several of them were spotted with yellow. This azalea…Sunggyu…

Woohyun didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help. This plant was Sunggyu, Sunggyu was this plant. Didn’t…didn’t this hurt him? Was he sick?

“Stop looking,” Sunggyu growled at him.

“Sorry,” Woohyun apologized quickly and closed his eyes.

But his ears were still open and he heard Sunggyu sigh heavily. “It’s okay. Just gather up the branches.”

And Woohyun did, silently. He followed Sunggyu’s every request then until the gardener calmed down and deemed his bush well pruned.

Right after azaleas are finished blooming, they need to be pruned. Sunggyu didn’t do that. He’d forgotten, spending his time and energy tending to the other plants, spending his time with Woohyun. It’s the typical story, isn’t it? Having no time to take care of yourself? Woohyun could relate to that. That was his story too.

Nymph or human, some things were universal.

“So do I need to sign like an NDA now or something? So I won’t tell anyone that you’re nymphs?” Woohyun finally broke his silence. The both of them were sitting on the porch now, drinking, washing away the stress from the day. Sunggyu couldn’t look away from his bush. He didn’t want to part from it either. And Woohyun didn’t want to part from him, not when he was like this.

“No,” Sunggyu replied with a slight laugh. Gradually his anxiety was falling away (just like the leaves from his…). “It’s not really that big of a deal.”
“Sungyeol said that you don’t like a lot of people knowing about you,” Woohyun responded. “He said I would die if I knew.”

Now Sunggyu let out a hearty laugh. “That sounds like Sungyeol,” he revealed. “But some people can know. It’s just…” he paused to sigh again and to rub his face. “It’s just…this is my job. I look after this place. It’s this place that I don’t want people to know about. And you already knew about it so…”

“Oh,” Woohyun mumbled as he took in the sights that laid beyond the bright pink azalea bush. There was so much life within these walls, actual living spirits tied to every single tree, bush, shrub, maybe even every puddle of water. And Sunggyu was the protector of them all, nothing close to the gardener Woohyun always thought he was. Sunggyu was a god. They all were.

And Woohyun wasn’t.

All of this was somewhat terrifying. Woohyun’s hands clutched onto his beer. “I won’t tell anybody about this place. I swear,” he made a solemn vow.

Sunggyu noticed a shift in Woohyun’s tone, and his entire demeanor. He reached over to place his hand on the younger’s arm, but Woohyun flinched before he did so. It didn’t stop Sunggyu though. No, instead he touched Woohyun with as gentle of a hand as he usually treated the other trees, soothing. “I know you won’t. That’s why Miss Gong chose you,” after he said that, Sunggyu removed his hand from the younger and placed it on his armrest. Woohyun’s eyes followed the hand as it left him, and then raised up to Sunggyu’s smiling face. Even though he knew the older was a god now, Sunggyu still wasn’t intimidating. But would it hubris to think that they still had a connection?

“You know, this isn’t my first time telling a human about us. We kinda do it all of the time,” Sunggyu continued. He then broke into a small chuckle before revealing, “I think Joochan told his whole class when he was in middle school.”

“Really?” Woohyun chuckled himself. Sunggyu nodded. “I’m not surprised.” Really, the image of a young Joochan announcing that he was a nymph to all of his little friend came all too easily.

“Right?” Sunggyu laughed more and turned towards the other. “But I can’t blame him. Doesn’t everyone want to talk about where they come from to friends?”

“I guess,” Woohyun replied. “But I’ve been friends with Sungyeol for years, and he hadn’t told me.”

“Sungyeol’s from the time when they were more secretive about it. He’s older than all of us, you know? Much, much older,” Sunggyu clarified, and something about the tone of his voice made it seem like this was something he’d gone over time and time again with the water nymph. It was tired. “But today, everyone overshares personal information. And it’s fine. You can trust humans.”

“True,” Woohyun agreed, not just because he wanted Sunggyu to trust him but because he genuinely trusted other people, so many other people. Sometimes he didn’t even realize that he was trusting other people, like when he tagged his Instagram posts with his location. And other times he was well aware. He’d come out to several people, including his own family, when it was verboten not that long ago. “Things really are different now,” Woohyun concluded.

“Right? That’s what I keep telling Sungyeol,” Sunggyu was still on what they had just been talking about, whereas Woohyun was miles away in thought.

“So,” Woohyun started and finally turned towards the other too. “So just how many people have you told about this?”

“Not many,” Sunggyu answered. “Only my friends.”

“Hm? We’re friends?” Woohyun asked.

Sunggyu cocked his head. “Are we not?”

Woohyun grinned, as bright as the setting sun. “I’m just making sure,” he responded. “I want to be friends with you.”

Sunggyu nodded, biting back his own smile, trying to act cool. “Good. Then I’m glad I told you.”

The seed in his heart had sprouted, awhile ago, and now it had grown into a sapling. It would bear fruit for certain. But what would come of this relationship? Only time would tell.

But what Woohyun didn’t know was that their time was limited. He knew what happened to trees during the winter. But what happens to the nymphs?