• M a k t u b : Spirit of the desert • [ Taekook ]

14. Taehyung, think

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March 2006
(5 years later)
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It was a beautiful spring day in Seoul.

A four-year-old boy was running through the garden of the family home. His red jacket reached his knees when he suddenly tripped and fell.

He started to cry, which was immediately lifted to their feet two young people. The woman came running from the house with an apron around her waist, while the man left the book on the garden table and took the boy in his arms.

- Hey Yeontan, I told you to be careful. - the father kissed the boy and the child calmed down.

- Is he hurt? - the woman asked, but the man shook his head, and then put the child back on the ground while wiping his dirty knees.

The mother smiled and with the sentence that lunch will be ready soon, headed back to the kitchen.

- Papa, let's go to the garden!

- Tannie, I showed you the garden yesterday. You know you can't go there without my or mom's permission.

- Please papa! - the child insisted. The man sighed with an ok and headed towards the garden with the little boy.

Colourful flowers overshadowed the child again. The boy went from flower to flower while looking excitedly at each one, and some even touched it.

He finally found himself in front of his favorite porcelain pot, which was standing on a special stand that Taehyung had made himself.

Tannie walked over to the violet flower without taking his eyes off it. The flower stood proudly on a trunk that resembled a bonsai tree.

- Papa, papa, tell me the flower story again!

- This is a desert rose, son, my desert rose... - the man smiled while saying the name. He put the boy on his lap while sitting on the chair next to the table with the rose.

Taehyung has been sitting in the garden a lot for the past few years. Almost every weekend morning during the late spring and summer he would drink tea on that chair while looking at the flower.

The garden seemed to have become his comfort and his shelter. Hours could have passed, he wouldn't have noticed. It was only important that this beautiful flower be nurtured and cared for.

Even when he traveled somewhere because of business, he used to call Marissa several times to ask if she had watered or visited his desert rose. In winter he would bring the same pot into his office and it would decorate the whole room.

- Wow... desert rose... go on...

- Well, you know this flower is very poisonous, that's why you can't touch it like other flowers. You can only look at it and admire it from afar, because once you get close to it, you can get hurt. And we don't want that, do we?

- Yes, we don't want that! Flower is very beautiful! When I grow up, I will grow a thousand desert roses!

Taehyung chuckled at his son's cute statement.

- Trust me, Tannie, one is quite enough. And you will love that one so much. So much that you will lose your mind. - he said the last word quietly, almost inaudibly for a child.

- Ok, let's go check the mail and then eat. Mom has prepared your favorite dish. - he said and he let the child to the ground, who immediately went to the mailbox at the gate.

- Papa, we have a letter! - the boy ran towards Taehyung with several envelopes in his hands.

A beige envelope of a different shape immediately caught the man's attention.