Rosen Maiden

It was all once his realm. Now it's all a toll of steel, iron, and pavement. Buildings have overgrown the trees and people have cut off all the beautiful crops that for immemorial times had fed them. Hard times, he sighs, contemplating the ruin of his land. Nothing of his memories reminds, not even the lovely granny that used to take care of him. Not that he needed it, but it was nice to be treated like he mattered, to have someone to talk about flowers, about trees, about all the wonders of nature and farming. But even she is gone and the only thing he has now is a patch of grass and the old farm, uninhabited - but not for long.

He settles in like a storm. He comes and goes and Jinwoo can't have a clear sight of him, of the new inhabitant of his land. Not that he knows, not that he has to pay tribute to him. But Jinwoo feels compelled to meet his tenant - kind of, - and so he stays around, crafting himself a room out of oak and leaves on top of the highest tree, from where he can puke the sky, feel the clouds passing by, leaving a trace of humid sensation, the first rain on a summer night, refreshing breaking the stillness, bringing something new, an explosion of colors blooming. He likes it here - it rings like home, like the fairyland he has been in and out for the past thousands of years.

His name is Minho, he learns soon enough - he reads the tag on the mailbox. And he likes flowers. All around the entrance, following the tiled path, there are flower pots filled with brownish sand. He feels the seeds beneath the earth, feels them pushing roots deep down, feels the energy running from them, the birth of marigold and chrysanthemum and wild roses. But something is wrong - he digs his hand on the soil and the roots are tiny, breaking apart at his gentle pat. They are sick, he feels it on his blood, trickling his senses. He closes his eyes and the magic flows from his heart to their radix. He casts his own spell, the pots stirring, the soil boils , up the nutrients it lacks. He waters them with a tear of his eyes and they bloom in the air, spreading its perfume to the whole terrace. Jinwoo smiles at his work, he takes one golden sunny daisies and brings it home.

Song Minho is a mess of blond hair and baggy clothes and he has the brightest smile in the world.

Jinwoo spots him from his little home and beams, amused at his jolt of joy when greeted by his new flowers. He looks at them in awe, surprised and Jinwoo knows he has a soft spot for him - that he is fond of Minho because he wears sunflowers on his hat, printed on his t-shirt and even covering his shoes. He likes him enough to bless his dreams with flowers germinating by the fields surrounding the farmhouse.

Minho is as cute as he is a disaster gardening. Jinwoo core shakes when Minho tries to dig on the mud, ploughing flowers that don't belong to here. The earth repels them, expels them from the ground but Minho persists, insisting on growing tulips when this is a good field for wild-flowers and wheat. Horticulture on the greenhouse, but it's been out of use for so long it's barely worth to bother - and there is no point growing your own vegetables when you don't even know how to cook them, as Minho doesn't, Jinwoo has seen all the delivery service coming to the house, he has missed the taste of the lettuces and beetroot growing under his hands, using his magic to prevent plagues from visiting, eating the leaves and ruining the harvest.

Minho keeps on trying, though, even when the whole soil is telling him to stop - it can't hold any more water and Jinwoo will have to drain it again, later on. Minho waters it, covering the field with puddles and hopes for a better outcome this time around.

Jinwoo uproots them and throws the unwilling seeds to the wind - they dispel in a whirl of sparkles - and he plants new ones - Flowers adapted to this ground and climate, flowers that will bloom under Jinwoo's command. He puts away a strand of his golden hair behind his pointy ear and smiles looking at his work. Minho will be happy - Minho doesn't even know what he was planting so he will be delighted to see that they have flourished just fine.

When Minho comes home he is greeted by a big chunk of the field covered in full sunflowers looking up at him - as if his warmth was what kept them alive.

He is joyful, delighted, Jinwoo can hear the ringing of his laugh, his back rolling down the hill, letting stems to touch his skin, a sky-colored in bright yellow and orange glowing beautifully. Jinwoo loves the sight under him, he treasures the moment deeply in his heart.

Curiosity killed the cat. And it might kill Jinwoo too.

He is restless, pacing around the house. His power dispels in between closed walls and when he touches a silver pot his flesh flushes red, itching. Iron, steel, they are meant to chain fairies, they hurt like thorns prickling, ripping fair skin and broken bones. He breathes in, inhaling as much air as he can and looks around.

Minho hasn't settled in yet, he only comes over from time to time, once or twice a month for the weekend - Jinwoo thinks, he doesn't understand how humans measure times, it's always the same for him, for all the immortal beings. Though he finds a pattern and, when Minho is gone again, he sneaks inside his place, to take a look, to get a better view of him, to get to know him better.

He likes what he sees. Not the iron, can smell it in the air, covering the surface. It itches, it caught up on his throat and he has to open the windows to let nature come in. Refreshing.

There is a bookshelf with lots of gardening pieces. Jinwoo takes one and turns the pages, reading. For someone as cultivated as Minho seems to be - if his collection of books about plants has anything to do with it - he is doing a very poor job with his own garden.

Jinwoo leaves them alone, cautious winning the battle against withering the pages of all the rubbish books he owns - they are all wrong. No wonder flowers aren't even germinating when. Minho is following unclean steps.

Jinwoo does it instead. He seeds more flowers and plants oak trees all around. He grows roses bushes over the fences and an orange tree on the middle of the field, covering the floor with its fragrant blossoms. He adds yellow daffodils and all-around daisies bloom in a mess of sunshine and white-snow. It's beautiful to see, even when summer is over and flowers wither, Minho's garden is in full spirit, spurting everywhere as if in a perpetual spring, lush and evergreen.

Minho blinks at his harmonious, luxury garden. He has only been out a week but he is astonished by his knowledge about floriculture. His courtyard is crammed with splashes of lively colors when the rest of the forest surrounding his home, around his field, is all surrounded by the autumn that chills on his bones and refreshes the road with clean rain.

From the top of his glade, Jinwoo smiles, proud of the result of his hard, diligent work tending the scrubs and flora. And just to see Minho’s expression - between surprise and joyful - it pays off his efforts - Jinwoo would do it all again, would do anything to protect that smile that baths him like thousands of suns dangling in the sky.

Minho is lovely. He sings with a deep voice, songs about lost love and tears and it melts Jinwoo’s core. He sits under Jinwoo’s tree and paints - and his art is a window to another reality, to a world that only lives inside of Minho’s mind, and Jinwoo gets lost on it, contemplating him from above. As a fairy, though, Jinwoo doesn’t have a notion about it but finds it just as beautiful as his tender flowers blooming on his hands, his magic taking over, flowing with every beat of his heart.

Minho looks up when a petal - a red carnation - falls on top of his canvas, sticking on the paint like blood on water. He shrugs, taking away the mysterious flower, observing it with caution. It is strange because he is relying on an oak tree and this doesn’t belong here. Maybe the wind blew it to him. Minho gets up and resumes his painting inside - and Jinwoo sighs, missing the warmth coming from his smiles.

Everything that grows and lives in this field bows to Jinwoo. He rules on them and it's his magic that keeps them safe and well. So if Jinwoo asks birds to chirp alongside Minho’s songs, they obey graciously. If Jinwoo arranges a bucket of wild-flowers they will allow him to change their colors to fit Minho’s taste - or if he wants to turn puppies into sunflowers, they let him do that, his spells nourishing them through their roots. They are all connected by blood - Jinwoo has watered this land with it, raining red over it, to own it with his life, to sustain it with every one of his heart-beats. He nurtures the ground, he feeds the animals with the magic of his kind, he stands up to them, caring for them all - but, on top, he cares for Minho, the man who can’t grow flowers but that can stop his core.

Minho shows his floral forest to everyone, his designed garden he has been working on. Minho cultivated, and Jinwoo, beside him like a shadow, mending all he did wrong, allowing the plants to germinate and bloom. It is all Jinwoo’s magic and talent, nothing to do with Minho, but he is the one getting recognized, getting praised, and rewarded as the owner of the most luxurious garden.

Minho talks nonsense about techniques to farm flowers to whoever is walking next to him, touring on his lands. He shows them proudly, names the pots and Jinwoo laughs from the branches above, delighted to see Minho so happy, joyous. He beams under the sun with a bunch of flowers tucked on his arms, a present to someone named Danha. Jinwoo jumps from tree to tree, following his steps all around the farm, looking at the flowers blooming under his command.

Jinwoo doesn’t mind that Minho is taking credits for something he hasn’t done - for something that belongs to Jinwoo. He likes him enough to give it to him, to let him think that he has hands of a gardener - when he has hands that only know how to paint and create on paper, not on the ground. But he smiles and Jinwoo melts at it, like petals floating on water, its color dissolving. It is beautiful to be the cause and reason behind that smile, even when Minho doesn't know when he isn’t aware that all he has achieved is thanks to Jinwoo.

Jinwoo is happy to hear him talking, even if what he says is totally stupid and Jinwoo aches to correct him, to prove him wrong - because, underneath all, Jinwoo cares for his plants, and Minho is a constant threat to them, to their survival.

The wind caresses Jinwoo’s golden, long hair, and it waves, alive. Just when Minho glances up to the crown of the tree Jinwoo lives in. A flash of a star, bright and pure and gilt. The air smells like peaches and fruits and Minho blinks, unsure. Maybe he is too tired and his mind is playing tricks but he swears that he has seen a blur of flowers crossing between branches. But, it can’t be; it’s only his excited imagination, the number of stories about enchanted forests he has heard. Nothing is real, it’s only folklore, isn’t it?

When Minho goes to sleep, Jinwoo observes him through the open window, staring at his dreams, counting the stars lingering on his skin. He likes him better awake but he can’t rick being catch up, not until he is sure that Minho won’t hurt him, won’t be mad for what he has done to what belongs to him - despite that all the grows in Minho’s land bows always to Jinwoo, is shielded by his power and lives through Jinwoo’s blood.

He can feel it, eyes upon him, following, tracing, threatening. He stops breathing, searching the room, finding nothing. Minho looks at the mirror and explodes in giggles. How stupid to think that there was someone else in this big, lonely house. It is only fear, it’s only stories that have grown on his head - bedtime stories from his infancy that, in this farm, silent and spooky, have taken another meaning but that doesn’t make them any real. Fairies don’t exist, he is sure of that. Fairies are only tales, pretty and innocents, but unreal. He says it out loud to scare the ghosts, the phantoms following him around, chases shadows on the wall, the only one that Jinwoo casts - small, distant.

He says it to the wind and Jinwoo cries when the words reach him - drops that prickle like rosebuds and thorns down his cheeks.

Jinwoo stops watering the plants. He stops caring about them, abandoning his tree-house, and going back to the land where he is believed, trusted, where he exists by himself. He stays there and tries to forget Minho’s harsh words, the way he slaughtered his feelings, how he is still the one brightening his dreams, swirling like flowers and butterflies that he wants to catch, to keep inside the paradise under the palm of his hands.

Jinhwan tells him that he is in love - but he already knows, he has been there before on his uncountable years, he is familiar with the feeling even though he hasn’t felt it in centuries, his heart asleep, frozen to the emotions, now is rooting on Minho, on the taste of his name on his chest, the way it warms the ground, nourishing it with care and affection, pulsing through it like the beats of his heart.

“He is just ignorant,” Jinhwan encourages him. He hasn’t seen his brother so low in so many years and he doesn’t like it - he likes when he laughs at everything, when the flowers follow him, when he brings ambrosia that bees gifted him only for being kind to them. Jinwoo is the sweetest fairy and, in the week he has been separated from Minho, the field has withered, cold with a winter wind that has left them all dry, covered in white. “Prove him wrong,” Jinhwan pushes him back to a reality where he doesn’t want to be - but he knows that Jinhwan is right, that he is only worried about him wasting tears that bring only dried sunflowers that dwindle on his hand, that he wants his joy sparkling inside his eyes back, to hear him singing the songs that Minho plays, to talk about love under the shade of a tree - as they used to do when they both lived in the outside world (before it turned too dangerous for Jinhwan).

Jinwoo steps out of the portal and lands again on firm ground and the sight in front of him is devastating - a field that has disappeared under the winter’s rigors.

In a blink of an eye, all his flowers perished. One morning they were alive, covering the field with their bright shades, and the very next, nothing remained.

Minho checks on his books, but they know nothing, they can’t provide him with a reason or put sense into his head. There is no explanation: the roots are gone, the stems turn to dust under his touch and the petals are gone with the wind. It all disappears and Minho looks at his land, burnt and bare, scared.

He tries more seeds, different types, but the earth spits the water on his face like a geyser, hot and bubbling as if angered as if insulted by him when he has done nothing wrong. Minho is confused, staring blankly at his yard, empty, the one that won all the awards, the pride of his soul that is now disappointing, disgusted, all the buds and sprouts refused on his feet, dejected by the soil.

"Prove him wrong," Jinhwhan's words spin in his mind. How come? He feels it in his blood, how his land is suffering when he is not around to mind it, how all that he grew is withered and dusted, disappearing with his absence. Without Jinwoo all the magic ruling this world has gone and nothing stands there to keep it from the elements, the cold winds of winter, the white snow murdering roots with ice and fire and dulling all the colors that once were shining like the sun. He feels it paining his heart, thumbing like an earthquake.

If he decides to come back home is only because he is worried about his flowers, about all that he has created and belongs to him, that depends on him to survive, to win over the seasons. It has nothing to do with the name that is always prone to his tongue and mind.

When Jinwoo steps back to his realm, he is greeted by thorns and death.

He waters the land with his tears and splashes of his blood. The ground beneath his feet trembles and shakes and, in a minute, all the flowers that had perished are reborn again. The trees bear fruits and the leaves are green and clean, covered with a crow of green the infinite sky. The impulse of life beats again on his veins and he smiles at his work, the magic sparkling around his fingers like fireworks, blue, electric, splendidly - he feels the energy on his bones and he is content even when he knows that Minho will be soon out and that he will have to face him.

Under his sight, everything changes as if a spell has landed on his yard. Out of nowhere his plants burgeon and sprout as if new, as if the coat of winter and snow meant nothing to them, blooming despite of it, willing to endure the cold and the rain. Minho stares at it, feeling the magic grow, beating through his core. And he can’t take his eyes away, out of the figure calmly walking atop the snow, sprinkling the land with tears - and where they roost, something different arouses. Minho identifies warm sunflowers following him like the sun, blue roses that are impossible to cultivate, peach trees with their sprouts ready to be collected, spreading a delicious aroma on a winter afternoon, the moon pale on the horizon, waiting to fall on them all. Like a mirage, a miracle, he takes his jacket and runs outside.

He is gleaming, light dancing around his form, a dazzle of gold and silver, and petals swirling around. It is beautiful. And when the figure turns around to face Minho…

He is beyond lovely; blond hair, pointy ears, eyes made of stars, voice like the song of the universe. Slender, tall, the prettiest face in the world. Such a glorious view, Minho’s hands itch to sketch it - he traces his contours on the air, painting him on the snow. He is not leaving footprints on the white coat, instead, he is floating, his feet a centimeter from the surface, dancing in the space in between, pulling down gravity. He is captivating, an angel, a dream.

“Minho, I just came out to tell you that fairies do exist,” Jinwoo says, the smile that he is bearing trembles on the edges but he pushes it just to show him his magnificence.

He is iridescent, shining in every color painting the world - he irradiates light, gleams like gems and jewels. And flowers are entangled all around his extended, welcoming arms, blooming from his skin, his blood nourishing roots and veins.

When the creature smiles at him, floating over the coat of pure snow under his bare feet, he is wonderful, a glorious sight sent from heaven above. He is ethereal, gracefully looking at him, beaming like dragonflies on the bank river, the same light as a thousand fireworks sparkling the night. Clouds fall on him but he still twinkles, fireflies on his fingers like torches, illuminating him with a pale reflection of the moonlight. He has to be a product of nature because it shows through his eyes, through all his flesh, leaves growing on his hair, long, unleashed, blond with a sheen of gold, his orbs are neverending oceans of stars and constellations. His words take shape on the sky, lingering in the air, falling heavily on Minho’s mind.

It takes him a minute to proceed with it all - the fact that, in front of him, alive, there is a fairy, exposing himself, his true form, for only him to see.

“I’ve been taking care of your garden since long before you came,” he explains, arms open, embracing the field, the house, the empty spaces that Minho doesn’t know. “I’m sorry I walked away, but you said I wasn’t real and it hurt me greatly.”

Minho wants to kill himself. How insensitive. How ignorant. Of course, fairies are real, elsewhere, how could flowers keep blooming in his field even in the middle of December, under ten centimeters of snow? It has to be magic working, a charm, a spell, but not his doing, not his hands that were continuously refused by the earth. He should have gotten the hang of it, that he wasn’t wanted, that he was messing up with someone else's labor.

Minho needs to apologize - the guilt is bubbling inside his mind, shaking on the tip of his fingers, ready to explode on his tongue, burning to say his name, to say him sorry.

“I’m Jinwoo, the fairy in charge of this zone,” he says, pointing to the vast land enclosing patches that he hasn’t visited.

And Minho falls to his knees, praying to be worthy of Jinwoo, to be enough for him to stay, to claim him as his loyal server. Or whatever that fairies do with humans - he wants that, he wants Jinwoo. Because he is godly, he is what is left after the storm.

He dreams of an endless patch of green, grass splashed with evergreen trees, flowers he can’t name from foreign regions, birds of paradise chirping. And Jinwoo reining from a throne made of roots and flowers, his crown sprouting from his hair, golden matched with a summer night.

He closes his eyes but the memory is engraved on his mind, persists under his eyelids. Minho opens his eyes and Jinwoo it’s all he can see. Jinwoo in his land, splashing the world with his magic, flowers that are born from his flesh, resting now on Minho’s hands.

Jinwoo giggles and it reverberates, beautiful, the sound of the earth, and Minho wants to register it, keep it pressed inside his heart - all that Jinwoo is, all the things he does, how his chest beams under his sight, how his smiles meant the world to Minho, how he wants to keep him close, always present, always next to him even when he can’t stay inside the house (Minho climbs to Jinwoo’s chambers on the royal tree and sleeps under leaves and the stars above, his hands-on Jinwoo’s hips, his lips in paradise.

It is not a spell, Jinwhan sees all the love beating from Jinwoo to Minho and back. He feels content watching his brother happy - even if Minho can’t grow a single flower and Jinwoo still has to do all the work. It is lovely to see them running on the fields, collecting flowers to decorate their house up the clouds, Minho more than welcomed. They laugh and he joins them in the distance, a last glance over the fields that belong to Jinwoo, where flowers and plants are everlasting, eternal under Jinwoo’s care, and Minho’s love painted in a million canvas that has been exposed in galleries all over the planet. "The Rosen Maiden", Minho called it, the hands of a gardener, a heart of a fairy that now belongs to him.