strawberry fields

“flaked out once again, huh?”

seokjin smiles faintly. “don't hold it against him. he's a busy man.”
“sure he is,” prattles hoseok, voice rough with equal parts static and disbelief. “and he's so reliable, too.
he always fails to show up and i bet that you'll get a text in a few minutes saying how sorry he is for
not being able to make it and how he'll make sure to bring you something from the flower shop next
time he sees—”
sure enough, his call is interrupted by the ping of his phone. seokjin stops whipping the egg whites for
this batch of strawberry-matcha-mango souffle he is testing and leans over the counter, tapping at the
screen of his phone with a wet finger.
park jimin (neighbor)
hey!!! im sosososo sorry but i cannot make it tonight
my little brother got himself into some trouble :(
can i see you later?
i'll bring you peonies (they're in season!!)
“tell me,” hoseok says.
seokjin locks his phone. the call doesn't stop because technology has advanced too much to be
advantageous for him. “you don't have to be mean just because you're right.”
something in hoseok softens at the end of the other line, and he doesn't sound so rough when he says,
“i just think it's best to start shedding expectations. i don't want you to miss out on something or
someone great because you're holding out for a man that won't be there.”
the stand mixer stops beating, stiff peaks achieved. seokjin takes a little bit of the merengue and
beats it into the strawberry-mango mixture on the bowl. “i know,” he says, and the merengue flops to
the side and he's just too tired today. “i know. i just don't want to talk about it tonight.”

“that's okay,” says hoseok kindly, giving him an out. “what else you have left?”

“just this batch,” he says, transferring the mixture to the bigger bowl and carefully folding it in. “then
i'm done. lock up, go home.”
“that's good! that's very good!” hoseok's very bright most of the time but he's specially so when seokjin
is feeling down. he has to give it to him. “what do you say? i grab some beer and chips and we
marathon all the pokemon movies?”
seokjin snorts. “it's 11pm.”
“so what? the night is young, hyung,” he scoffs. “live a little.”
“sure, i'll live. but you? with your 9 to 5 job? no way.”
“says the man that's up at five to proof some dough,” hoseok remarks dryly. “i've gone through worse.”
“so have i,” reminds him seokjin gently. “besides, i've been wanting to take a long, relaxing bubble bath
in a while. maybe this is the time. you know, settle with a glass of wine, put in some candles, sit on
water until i shrivel like a raisin. fun stuff. might reread me some arlea.”
“oh, no! not again!” hoseok exclaims, and seokjin can see him throwing his hands in the air in
exasperation.
“what?” seokjin asks, defensively. “what's wrong with that? it's a perfectly good way to spend one's
evening.”
“sure, once or twice. you do it weekly, hyung, and i think that's an underestimation.”
“well, what's with the persecution today?” seokjin complains. “i like those books! i can reread them
however much i want!”
hoseok scoffs. “maybe if you actually got anything out of it. admit it. you're just in it because you want
to solve the mystery.”
“blasphemy!” seokjin gasps. “i love jungkook! i have seen him fight monsters and teachers since he
was fifteen—”
“technically you read it. we don't talk about the movies.”
“—to where he is now about to defeat the gods! i've seen him grow! i have practically raised him!”
“and then author min vanished him into the forest, which is a complete narrative faux pas and not
something your baby deserved, etcetera, etcetera,” hoseok says droll. “i know.”
“so you see why i have to keep reading? to find some measure of sense?”
“i frankly think he just went mad. fans too crazy. just —” hoseok makes a wet, screeching sound like
fake static, “done for. you said it yourself. jungkook disappearing makes no sense. so it must've been
a whim. a way to shock readers. you know it's the trend, right?”

seokjin rolls his eyes. “yes, tony stark dying, daenerys going insane, jungkook disappearing. holy trinity
of undeserved character development.”
“right? so just let it rest.”

but seokjin can't.

there's a very clear difference between seokjin and hoseok, beyond the fact that hoseok can speak
faster than humanly possible in the spirit of hip hop and seokjin is more about softly carrying a tune.
seokjin's a fan. a dedicated fan. that's not to say hoseok has no interests or that he doesn't have
passion the way seokjin does — hoseok is to dancing what seokjin is to baking and that's just one of
the universe's unshakable truths — because he has plenty of them. but although he may have read and
like and know a lot of these books, he doesn't have what seokjin does: a deep attachment.

seokjin first discovered the chronicles of arlea when he was eighteen. he had just moved out to the
city to start university, studying business like his parents wanted him to. it was around that time when
he had been made prey of a deep sort of sadness—homesickness coupled with insecurity coupled
with the ruthlessness of the world—that he had taken to nursing like an abandoned kitten one intends
to set free. arlea had been seokjin's escape, his anchor. in the days nothing much mattered, he would
pick the books up and he would get strength from the way jungkook kept rising every time they
knocked him down. he had finished his business degree at the same time book fourth came out and
jungkook entered university and the thought of having had a junior like him, who he could tease and
dote on, coloured the memories of his own four years trying to hold down a fort he very much wanted
to let crumble a little sweeter. it made him yearn for university, if only for the fact they were not
together. if jungkook was here was often how many of his thoughts began, but it was not a sentiment
he voiced often or to anyone other than hoseok.
it was easy to love jungkook. he was hardly the first one to do so. the series had garnered international
attention, even, and seokjin knew, for example, that the novels received a lot of attention in places like
brazil and the caribbean. (he was always sorry he could not read the languages they spoke — it
seemed they had so much fun). to many readers, it was the fantastical premise that drew them in. an
unseemly boy from the most average of streets in busan suddenly plunged into this world of magic
and mystique after he accidentally steals something from a minor god and is recognized as the son of
the godly emperor in the trial. the fights are so precise as to be choreographed, the sights inviting, the
mere thought of magic (magic! there in busan!) riveting.

but, author min's precise and raw craftsmanship aside, seokjin knows the real crowd puller is the main
character and his struggles. and boy, does jungkook struggle. juggling schoolwork and friends and a
crush on a wizard that won't stay still enough for jungkook to bolster up courage to kiss him—all while
fighting hordes of gods that want him dead and trying to connect with a father that's too busy to listen
to him? it's as hard as it sounds. and author min doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of what
jungkook lives. jungkook hurts and cries and feels like an actual human being (well, part god)—he
even has a comic book he likes as much as seokjin likes him.

and he gets up, is what matters. he keeps fighting. he doesn't know anything else. he wants to live.
seokjin thinks it's admirable. and it gives him strength to do what he can do as well. he loves jungkook
for that.

which is why he can't let go of what happened to him at the end of the latest book. number six in the
chronicles of arlea was supposed to be the second to last book in the series and it had been received
with great excitement by the fanbase and even the general public, only to fall flat by the time
everybody reached the end. a few weeks after that, author min yoongi had announced an extended
break—everybody said the backlash had gotten to him but once seokjin had watched a video of him
throwing hands with a disrespectful fan at a fansign—and arlea had been put on hold by its publishers
until further notice.

as the months went by and author min didn't announce his return, the forums had started to go mad.
what if there was no other book? publishers were ruthless and the backlash they had given might've
put them off producing more. or perhaps it was author min. maybe he intended to finish off the series
like that. after all, the book concluded very finally: the woods stood empty, save for a lone figure
retreating into the shadows, already forgetting that they had been occupied not two seconds ago—
indeed, forgetting, as the rest of the world, that there had even been a jeon jungkook at all.
but seokjin wouldn't abide by it. it didn't make sense. jungkook had stepped into those woods in the
middle of a great battle, looking for his father, met a wizard (a god? a fae? nobody knew yet) that
offered him to leave everything behind—friends and life included—for the respite he had always
wanted… and he had taken it. he had taken the stone from that mysterious personage in the middle of
a battle, without knowing who he was and what he wanted, and then disappeared with the flimsy
promise of a coward's way out. jungkook would never. seokjin knew him better than anybody—better
than min yoongi, at this point. he would never.
so there had to be a reason. and seokjin would dry his eyes out reading until he found it.

“hyung?”
seokjin shakes himself out of his reverie, looks at the deflating merengue and smiles. “sorry, hoseok.
it's just getting late.”

hoseok hums at him. “that's fine. just make sure you don't drown if you take that bath later.”
the line ends with a beep and the screen of seokjin's phone lights up to ask him if he wants to do
anything else. the song he had been playing before hoseok called begins softly again where it left off,
a soft breakup ballad that maybe said more about seokjin's mood tonight than he'd like it to.