Yellow lights // yoonminseok

8

- A year later -

The sky was blue, like it was all those nights, all those weeks, months ago. There was a single cloud in it, seemed to be following Hoseok's car as it drove down the highway.

Hoseok was scared of going there.

The fields. Anyone with the hanahaki disease, that hits the one year mark, meaning they've loved the same person for over a year and suffered from it, started to have this urge to move to these fields. It was a big field, filled with flowers to the brim and still going.

The flowers were people who died from the hanahaki disease. If you decide not to get the flowers removed and to keep the memories of the person the love, they slowly turn into a flower. Some become a single small flower, others are big like trees. Some are even bushes.

As flowers they live on forever on that field. The theory is, hanahaki came from a witch that cursed a woman who fell in love with a man. The witch loved the woman but the woman ignored her, despised her even. It made the witch angry, seething. So she cursed the woman and turned herself into a flower, so small no one would notice but could live on forever. You cannot destroy a hanahaki flower.

Besides the hanahaki flowers aren't real in a sense. Each is unique.

They say the witch is still there, in the fields and that's why the urges come. She invites everyone who suffers to go there. To live on without the pain forever.

Hoseok's thinking was stopped by a shocked Yoongi, his boyfriend: "Hoseokie, these fields are really big. How do you know where they are?"

"Well, Namjoon is a very big red bush, Taehyung and Jeongguk are smaller yet the darkest blue roses Seokjin has ever seen and my sister is a special flower. She's average height but my mom said she her petals sparkle and only one of her petals is colored," responded Hoseok and squeezed Yoongi's hand.

"We search for them, then?"

"Yes, hyung. We'll find them now worries," Hoseok assured Yoongi and Yoongi relaxed.

Taehyung and Jeongguk, Jimin's best friends died before Yoongi could meet them and Namjoon died while Yoongi was on a business trip, back when he still had his own company and Yoongi wasn't able to meet either in flower form. His sister however died not long ago, two weeks ago actually.

She just said she was going on a walk but kissed everyone and hugged them. The whole family knew what was going to happen and they followed her. They followed her car and drove behind her to the fields. They saw which path she took and waited.vno one ever saw how a person gets consumed by their flowers and it felt disrespectful to do that. So, they waited until it was about mid morning and one went to check and saw there stood a new flower, white, sparkling in the morning sun.

Hoseok still needed to see her.

He stopped the car about fifty feet from different paths and got out. He went to the other side to help Yoongi.

Together, they walked hand in hand, slowly. Chose a path and walked, like they would on a stroll in the park. Though quieter and slower. Respectfully. Each flower was a person and each petal meant pain. At least that's how Yoongi's brain put it.

He never wanted to experience hanahaki, though he's sure he never will. Hanahaki is mostly carried through a gene that can skip many generations.

Namjoon loved Seokjin too early and Seokjin loved him too late.

Taehyung loved Jeongguk and Jeongguk loved Taehyung. Except they both loved another and died from it.

First they found Namjoon. He really was a big red bush. The petals were round and curved at the end, the floor around him was green with red leaves inbetween.
They spoke to him, updated him on stuff that's happened and anything they could think of.

Some people believed that the person can still hear you if you speak to them.

Hoseok found his sister next. She really was white except for one petal colored green. She didn't have leaves and sparkled in the high sun.
Hoseok had to sit down for a few minutes as the thought finally settled in. He'll never be able to hug her again, or kiss her forehead.

Then they went for a search for Jeongguk and Taehyung. They found them fast enough, right in the middle between a bunch of rainbow colored flowers.
As they did with Namjoon they updated them with everything, with Jimin even. They told them about their relationship and how they fell in love.

Then they walked around, payed respects to everyone else. Hoseok looked down as he fished out his phone to check the time and stumbled into Yoongi who was looking up in amazement.

"Look, Hoseokie, this one has many flowers amd it's beautiful."

Hoseok looked up and didn't proceed it at first. It simply didn't click.

Then he noticed all the thorns, the flowers, the way they bloomed and the way they welcomed Yoongi. How they subtly shifted towards him and then he saw the big flower, that he and Seokjin watched grow out of Jimin right there smack in the middle.

His throat closed up and a tear fell down, Jimin will live forever now. He won't be in pain anymore. He'll be happy now. With his yellow petals, and the yellowish stems. With his beautiful flowers in the blue sky and the grey nights, in the orange-yellow sunsets and cold sunrises.

Yellow lights, the sun's sunrays, accompanied him to forever.