Chapter Text
Yoongi huffs out a tired groan. His back is killing him, and he’s not even begun working. But the old gardener has loaded his arms with such a wide variety of soil mixes, fertilizers, shovels and rakes that going back and forth between the gardens and the old gardener’s house has destroyed Yoongi’s muscles.
And he should be used to this.
Matter of fact, he is, but manually taking everything back where it should have been proved to be a lot. The old gardener apparently decided he liked to have everything in his own house, but he might have been wrong in doing so, since now he’s retiring quite soon, for an esteemed gardener as he seems to be.
Well. Better for Yoongi and his work.
If there’s something he can do, that’s taking care of plants. And the royal garden has lots of those.
Even while sweating through his shirt, Yoongi couldn’t keep his eyes fixed on the gardening tools, and instead peeped every now and then at the tall, young trees and at the thick, shorter and older ones. He couldn’t wait to explore every inch of the garden and breathe in all the history of it.
Standing at the entrance of the small storage area next to his new home, a wooden depandance, Yoongi passes the back of his arm on his forehead, collecting beads of his sweat with it. The blinking sun makes him squint his eyes for a second, but there’s an unmistakable smile pulling up the corners of his lips.
Sweating, tanning under the sun and hearing all the bones in his spine cracking from the hard work: that’s what his father taught him. And he is proud to make him proud, even if this is not easy work.
Of course, the old gardener made a list. Because the royal family has some rules, and some preferences, and Yoongi can’t just take it upon himself to decide what plants need to be here and what plants need to be there. Someone who doesn’t know much about plants decided which ones they were going to plant and where, so now it is Yoongi’s job to make sure plants that don’t like each other actually survive together.
“Okay, Yoongi. Time to do your job. Aren’t you happy?”
-
With a soft grunt, Yoongi rises from the sod that his rake was trying to get into. The soil’s too dehydrated to be useful for any of the plants in it, and Yoongi doesn’t even know how it is possible that they’re still showing any part of green leaves and stems. Yoongi looks at the compact soil with an eyebrow raised. Violets. Alive and well. Green stems. Yoongi can get behind the sweet woodruff, that can make sense. Some are very resilient, even in the least moist of soils. But violets?
He doesn’t question it much. He has a whole garden to go through, with various big sods in vases, big trees that needs checking for parasites and pruning, whole flower gardens and a pot with water plants in it.
Advancing through the greenery, taking in the sweet scent of jasmine, crawling and hanging on the wood racks against the old castle’s stones, Yoongi gets closer to the walls just to get some shadow, refreshing in the hot hours of the day.
Leaning for a second on the cool stone, he looks sweetly at the white flowers, the small leaves a bright green, a nice contrast to the heather’s dark color, a couple of feet away. The shade’s so nice…
But how is it nice for the jasmine too? That’s what Yoongi’s asking himself. But as he rises from the stones, his shears fall to the ground. Right next to his foot. Matter of fact, exactly where his foot was, and they’d be slowly wiggling on it instead of the ground, if Yoongi didn’t move it fast as he did.
So, Yoongi decides to move on. Just to get the most of the day before it’s too late.
A ginkgo stands tall and silent, its leaves green, their peculiar form leaving a trace on the ground that Yoongi follows along with a half-smile. There are no traces of its sarcotestas, though, and walking around the tree, Yoongi raises his head to search for them on the branches. Some of them stand against the leaves, their skin dark, but still on the branches. scratching his head, Yoongi looks for some of them on the ground, their sticky and strong odor apparently not even getting to his nose. There are none on the ground. But maybe the old gardener removed them all.
Still, there are no traces of any of those on the ground. Taking a step forward, Yoongi almost trips on a root sticking out of the ground. Which he’s sure was not there, three seconds ago.
Either Yoongi’s going absolutely insane, or this garden has beef with him. And he hasn’t even started working in it.
“Okay. Pruning the leaves. No way I can mess this up.”
The shears fixed between his fingers, Yoongi looks at the trees in front of him. Each of them has a specific shape, and Yoongi has been instructed on them all. Maybe the worst one is a dolphin shaped bush that Yoongi has trouble understanding the dynamics of.
But he’ll comply, nevertheless. Some branches are thicker than others, but the dolphin’s beak starts to appear from the leaves. Yoongi’s working on the fins, now, his nose scrunching and head tilting to see the result with each cut.
The eyes are just starting to come into the picture when Yoongi feels something hitting the back of his head. Softly, but there. Surely there.
Turning to see what that was, Yoongi looks around, but nothing comes into the picture. Just trees, sun, bees buzzing and branches on the ground, next to his feet.
Best to just keep working, as the sun blinks hard and he just wants this part to be done. At least the dolphin, for today.
Another hit on his cheek, now, as him jumping around.
Now.
Yoongi’s not scared of bugs. Nor of ghosts. He’s scared of very little things, honestly, but he’s alone, in a place he doesn’t know, and branches keep hitting him? For no reason?
This dolphin will survive without a tail, for today.
Moving towards the flower paths, the bushes full of roses and the sods filled with beautiful, colorful buds ready to spring free, blessing with pollens the bees.
“Okay, flowers. Must be easy, right? Flowers are pretty. Flowers can’t hurt me. I’m fine. I’ll be fine”, Yoongi reasons with himself. One way to fill space when you’re all alone in a huge garden.
Checking all the stems, Yoongi fills his head with the perfume coming from the petals, his hands delicately passing on the green leaves, caressing their fuzzy surfaces. His nerves calm down then, and he starts to move less mechanically.
He knows how to do this job, after all. He just needs to relax, and things will go perfectly fine.
There are some stems browning up, their leaves drooping downwards, and Yoongi takes his shears out of his tool belt to cut them. The plant is better without them, anyway.
“Stop messing with my house, oh my god!”
Yoongi freezes with a stem half-cut in his hand. He didn’t imagine this. He didn’t just randomly hear someone talking.
“What?”
Nothing. Silence. Some birds, in the background. But they don’t talk. Never talked to Yoongi, surely.
“Okay, I’ll ignore that. I’ll just do my job, and get the hell out of this.”
Talking to himself is a great way to do this. A great way. Yoongi just cuts branches here and there, with precision yet rush in his hands. Oh, he’s so quitting this job.
“Not that one too!”
Almost tripping on his own feet, Yoongi watches as his fingers get covered in what seems to be pollen. Which can’t be coming for a cut down steam.
Matter of fact, since Yoongi’s fingers are now warming a bit up, and blinking in the sun, that’s surely not pollen. Great.
Oh, also, the tiny figure aggressively biting the back of Yoongi’s hand.
The. The figure. It is. Biting. Yoongi.
Yoongi flicks his hand so hard that he hears the bones in his wrist’s articulation cracking, and sends the tiny thing flying somewhere on his right. Not that he wanted to hurt it or anything, just reflection from doing so with bugs. And that was one weird bug.
The tiny ball of light disappears in the grass, waving in the wind. Yoongi blinks at the silence for a couple of heartbeat, resuming his work without any further questions in his head. For his own peace of mind, he’s just been having visions all morning long.
He’s happily cutting some dead leaves when a pebble hits the back of his head, making him hunch forward in pain. Turning around, Yoongi’s blind sighted by someone, standing right behind him with hands on his hips, naked. Almost naked.
“What the fuck!”
“Yeah! Exactly that! What the fuck!”
Yoongi covers his eyes, even if the picture of a pretty boy with brown, mousy hair and a very low sense of public decency hangs tight to the back of his eyelids. That’s the worst first day of work of his life.
“You’re naked!”
“I’m not?”
Slowly uncovering one of his eyes, Yoongi looks at the boy again, his shear veils pretty but definitely not covering his… appendices. He resume his darkness confinement behind his hands.
“You are.”
“I am not, dumbass.”
Yoongi’s eyebrows furrow even behind his hands. Dumbass?
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, you better say sorry.”
“No, hey, listen, you’re freaking naked, spawning out of thin air, and you want me to apologize?”
No response. Yoongi looks up to the boy’s pretty face. Ignoring whatever’s down there. He’s staring at Yoongi with eyebrows so arcuated they’re almost touching his hairline. “I am not naked.”
“Okay, listen, put this on”, Yoongi removes his shirt, remaining in his tank top, and hands it the boy’s way, “and we can discuss whatever the fuck is the reason you’ve thrown a pebble my way.”
The boy scoffs, but complies. Yoongi has to blink away the excessive light when he removes his hands from his face. “So.”
“You are fucking with my plants.”
He looks ridiculous. He has a pretty dress, all sheer and veils and glitters, and Yoongi’s shirt badly wrapped around his hips. But he’s still pretty, nevertheless, and Yoongi can’t keep his head away from the thought.
“I am the gardener. I am supposed to do that”, he points his shears to the boy, a light accusation in his voice. “You shouldn’t be here, anyway. Nobody should be in the castle’s gardens, if not me.”
The boy’s face turns smug, and irritated. “You’re not the gardener. I know the gardener. You’re an imposter. No gardener of the royal gardens would do the monstrosities that you’ve already done, just in today’s time! And I even tried to stop you! you’re just so stubborn!”
He must be a crazy person, wandering in the gardens, lost and confused. Yoongi almost feels sorry for him.
“I’m sorry. Gary retired, and I’m the gardener now. You must be upset about that, huh? But not worry much, I will accompany you to the castle and someone will help you on your way to… wherever you’re supposed to be.”
He gets closer to the boy, gesturing towards the castle with a condescending smile. That only makes the crease in between the boy’s eyebrows get deeper. “What?”
“Yeah, don’t worry! You’ll be fine. It’s not good to get yourself lost in the gardens, isn’t it? Let’s go get you back outside of them.”
The boy slaps away the hand that was trying to guide him outside, and looks at Yoongi with his arms crossed on his chest. “These are my gardens.”
“Yeah, right. C’mon, now.”
“Hey! I am the fairy resident of the royal gardens, and you better watch your mouth and hands!”
Yoongi stills. Stops in his track, looking at the boy. He must be out of his mind, and unfortunately, that’s out of Yoongi’s mental capacity and pay range.
“Yeah, surely.”
With his mouth agape, the boy stares at Yoongi. “You don’t believe me.”
“Should I even.”
“That’s not a question!”
“It is not, you’re right. But you’re interfering with my work, so I really, greatly would appreciate you, how can I say, getting out of my way?”
That most be one of the most dramatic person Yoongi’s ever met. The boy’s now looking at him with wide eyes, in disbelief. “I am a fairy, you dumbass!”
“Yes! Surely! Fairy all swears at strangers, turn up unannounced, naked, and throws pebble at them!”
“You have such nasty set of preconceptions on fairies.”
Yoongi rubs at his temples, turning around. If he doesn’t want to leave, Yoongi will just work with him in the way.
“What are you doing!?”
“My job, resident fairy of the gardens.”
“Your job is just follow my command.”
“No, it is not.”
The boy gets in front of Yoongi. “Do you think this garden is thriving on its own accord?”
Yoongi’s head’s gears turn faster and faster with each word, every piece clicking, but he ignores the sound. He just gets pass him, checking the plants as he goes.
“Listen to me! Have you ever seen butterfly weed and astilbe together?”, he points at the colorful flowers, thriving next to each other. Yoongi sighs, getting past him.
“C’mon! You shouldn’t mess with my garden! I will make your life a living hell, new gardener.”
That Yoongi can see and understand. But he’s confident the royal family will remove the naked creep from the gardens, as soon as he goes and talk to them. He smiles to himself, going forward in the garden, leaving the boy behind. “I’ll like to see you try that, boy!”
“I’m not a boy! I’m a fairy, asshole! And I have a name!”
Yoongi starts to whistle, trying to cover the sound of the boy’s voice. And he cuts another dead leaf.
“You’re not gonna ask my name!?”
“Nope!”
Silence, for a couple of feet. Yoongi almost believes he will be free to work the rest of the day without another word, but surely, that won’t happen.
“Well, I’m Jimin!”
“Didn’t ask!”
“Asshole!”