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10
Jungkook is ten when he realises.
It’s already late in the morning, and father did not come in last night.
That is not such a strange happening — the city is far, and sometimes sandstorms keep him from coming back home after he’s done with the market.
Jungkook doesn’t like it, though. Mother is jumpy whenever father hasn’t come back by six. She doesn’t want to talk, or help him with his homework, or find his uniform socks when he can’t find them and has to get ready for school.
The last one doesn’t matter that much, really, since if father isn’t back yet, they have no car to take the kids to school.
Jungkook likes school. He likes learning, asking questions and receiving answers, letters and numbers. He also likes the library. There are so many books there. He can never be bored there.
They only have five books at home. Two of them are old novels, two of them are cook books. Jungkook is not particularly interested in learning how to make easy five minute recipes (and none of the ingredients mentioned in the recipes look familiar), and he’s already read the novels more times than he can count, so, with a sigh, he resigns himself to read the fifth book.
It’s an old treaty on botany. The pages are yellow with age and dust, the beautiful drawings of flowers a bit dimmed.
He looks at the flower in his arm. It has long mottled orange petals, dangly stamens in the centre. He’s always found it beautiful, much more bright and colourful than the simple lavender in his father’s arm, the blue spire on his mother’s. It also stands out from among the flowers on his classmates—you must have a very original soulmate, jungkook-ah, they say on the rare occasions the topic comes up.
His father arrives at noon. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes, hair ruffled and clothes rumpled. He greets his wife with a kiss on the cheek, and ruffles Jonghyun’s hair where the toddler is sitting at the table, playing with some old discoloured toys.
“You’re not happy to see me, Jungkookie? I can take you to school now,” his father says, frowning. Jungkook usually jumps into his arms the instant he crosses the door, pulling him back into the car and talking his ear off.
Jungkook looks up and shuts the book, which makes a loud slap. He hurries to put it back into its place on the shelf, and stands up.
“Of course I do, dad. Can we go now? I have maths at last period, and I don’t want to miss it.”
Father gives him a tired smile, and Mother grabs Jonghyun’s backpack and slides his tiny arms into the holes.
“Come on, Jonhyunnie, let’s not make your brother even more late.”
His dad’s warm smile does nothing to calm the fast beating of Jungkook’s heart inside his chest.
He’s looked at every single plant in the botany textbook, and he has been unable to find an image that resembles, even remotely, the flower tattooed on his arm. His soulmate flower.
He’s heard stories of people born without a flower. He’s never heard stories of people born with flowers that don’t exist.
They don’t make it in time for math class. He goes to the library to work after his last period is over, and gets his homework done while the other students are still busy, as usual.
As he fiddles with his pen, looking at the clock that hangs on the wall to see how much longer he has until father comes pick him up, he makes eye contact with the librarian. The man loves Jungkook, finds the young kid’s interest in learning refreshing, and encourages him to read more. Jungkook has a sudden idea, then.
Decisively, he stands up, trying to be quiet as the old chair cracks against the cracked linoleum of the floor, and walks to where the teacher is sitting.
“Do you have any books on botany?” he asks. “I want to look at flowers.”
When father comes to pick him up, Jungkook is even more certain than before.
He has realised that his flower does not exist.
9
Jungkook is fourteen when he starts to wonder.
He’s laying on his bed, the old mattress uneven where his body lays, the shape of his body imprinted on it from years of use. There is another dust storm outside, the second this month already. They’re becoming more frequent. They make the house creak and the windows shake, and Jungkook is too old to feel safe only because his parents are near.
He has already finished all his homework. He doesn’t know what the teachers sent yesterday, or today, and judging for the strength of the wind, he won’t know what they’ll send tomorrow, either.
Jonghyun cries in the ground floor, but not even his cries are strong enough to be heard over the storm.
Jungkook is scared. Not of the storm, but of its consequences. If the dust lasts too long, if the wind is too strong, the storm will damage their crops. If the damage affects too much area, their income will be affected. They need to be able to afford food, water and electricity. Gas for the car, which keeps becoming more and more expensive, but they can’t afford a new vehicle that doesn’t rely on it.
He lets his mind fly away, trying to leave all the fear and noise behind. He stares at the ceiling, the paint old and cracked in places. It’s ugly.
The only beautiful thing is his flower. His flower is beautiful, always has been. The twelve petals a vibrant orange, the pistils burgundy, the leaves green in a way he has never seen in real life. Almost as if they were full of water. Of water!
He wonders where the flower is from. It must be from somewhere, represent something, someone. The fact that he can’t find it in any of the textbooks he’s look into can’t mean a thing. He lives in the middle of nowhere, the textbooks must be outdated, or exclude certain varieties of plants. His younger self must have been wrong: he has the flower in his arm, and therefore it must be real. People who don’t have soulmates simply don’t have flowers.
And he has a flower, so he has a soulmate. He has a soulmate.
8
Jungkook is sixteen when he sees just how big the world is with his own eyes.
He graduates that year. He was jumped three years up in middle school, but he missed so many classes in the last year because of the sandstorms, that he was forced to repeat the year. It was boring—even if he hadn’t taken the tests, he already knew all the content.
Mother hugs him after he comes home with his diploma in his hand, sweaty from the ride from school in his rush, second (third? Fourth?) hand bike. Father is in the city, and he might have to stay there for a couple more days.
Jonghyun is not going to graduate, he knows that now. Someone has to take care of the crops, now that father has to spend so much time in the city, transporting and selling their cereal, trapped because the roads are unsafe.
“What are you going to do now?” mother asks over dinner. They have a candle on the middle of the table, the electricity is down again. Father has not returned. Mother is not as scared of him being missing anymore, it’s become too much of a normal occurrence.
“I’ll help father and Jonghyun,” Jungkook replies, fiddling with his fork.
Mother furrows her brows.
“No,” mother says. “You’ll go to university,” mother says, determined look on her eyes.
“We can’t afford it,” Jungkook says.
“You’ll get a grant,” mother cuts. “You have the brain.”
“But father and Jonghyun need the extra help in the fields,” Jungkook retorts, trying to control the beating of his excited heart. It’s not reasonable. It won’t happen. Calm down.
“There have been more sandstorms than usual in the past two years,” mother says. “The world needs more people like you, Jungkookie,” she says, something akin to softness in her features, so hardened by the circumstances. “That need is greater than ours. We can wait.”
Jungkook swallows thickly, but nods.
He applies to the astrophysics degree at Seoul National University the day after. He receives an offer letter two weeks later, and less than a month after graduating, Jonghyun is driving him to the bus stop to go to the capital.
They have never been close. They’re too different. Even as children, they very rarely played together. Maybe because, by the time Jonghyun was born, Jungkook was already too used to being a single child, and preferred to keep himself entertained but to play with a baby. Maybe they’re just too different.
Jonghyun hugs him warmly, though. He’s wide and strong for his age from working in the fields, especially compared with his older brother.
“Do well,” Jonghyun says. “We will miss you.”
Jungkook knows he’s saying the truth, and they will miss each other. At the same time, having the grant to study at university means that his parents have one less mouth to worry about.
It also means he won’t see them or hear from them in long periods of time. He won’t know how they’re doing, not when the sandstorms disrupt phone signal. And the sandstorms are becoming increasingly frequent.
He hugs his brother tightly, and then even tighter, before he sees the bus come from the end of the street, and lets him go.
Jonghyun stays at the bus stop until JUngkook’s bus has left the street. It does something to Jungkook’s heart, but he doesn’t cry.
The city is big, and the buildings are tall. There are no wide, empty spaces, like the fields that surround his house and the school, the entire small town they live in. Even the city where his father goes to sell their crops is much smaller than Seoul.
Seoul, from the rooftop of the university, feels like one of the cities from the old fiction books Jungkook read as a child.
However, no matter how big the world outside of his small town is, Jungkook can’t still find his flower anywhere. Not even the fancy university library.
7
Jungkook is almost eighteen when he loses everything.
A stronger sandstorm, an old house in need of repairs. A letter arrives in the mail, it looks official. We regret to inform you your relatives Jeon Ilsung, Kim Mina and Jean Jonghyun, have perished when their house fell down during last sand storm. We advise you see a lawyer to arrange the transfer of assets.
The letter is so dry. So impersonal. Jungkook can’t even remember what his last words to his mother were, they spoke on the phone last two weeks ago. It was a perfectly boring conversation. He remembers hugging them all goodbye two years ago, when he enrolled in his university program.
He goes to the university lawyer to try and get everything sorted out. The man tells him that this is not his specialty, his job is to deal with landlords when students need help. He has to find an external lawyer.
He discovers that lawyers are expensive.
Then, he turns eighteen, and his first petal falls off.
He doesn’t need a lawyer, he’ll be dead by the end of the year, anyway. Once twelve months pass, and the twelve petals of his flower that does not exist fall off. He can’t find his soulmate before then, not with that flower.
Jungkook graduates early again, and enrols in the space program. Nobody better to go on a risky mission to space than someone who has nothing to lose anymore.
6
Jungkook is eighteen and four months when he’s selected for the next space mission.
He’s bigger and broader, now. He thinks of his brother, sometimes. What would Jonghyun have liked to be, if he had lived to be? What about his parents? How different would their lives have been if the planet hadn’t been dying by the time they were born?
Their mission is to find a new earth.
Jungkook has read books about this. Fiction books, very old, from his school library. It usually doesn't end too well.
Their mission is well-equipped. Commander Kim Namjoon is one of the brightest minds of the generation. Flight Engineer Min Yoongi is the best engineer KSA has to offer. Pilot Jung Hoseok is the most skilled navigator in the last ten years. Jungkook is the young prodigy who thinks outside of the box.
He’s not sure how much of his creativity comes from desperation. But he figures he’s not the only one in that situation.
“Are you scared?” Namjoon asks one evening, two days before their rocket is launched into space. They’re standing on the edge of the rooftop of the KSA building, the orange sky surrounding them in its warmth. There are some purple clouds in the distance, but there are no predictions of sandstorms that might interfere with their mission.
“Not really,” Jungkook replies. He looks at the concrete behind his fingers, it feels coarse and rough, and a couple of pebbles escape the structure under his ministrations, falling hundreds of meters below. “I’m more scared of what’s down here,” he admits.
“Earth is becoming unlovable,” Namjoon sighs. “It used to not be like this,” he adds. “I have always wanted to visit a forest. It’s so hard to imagine, isn’t it? Plants taller than humans. Wild animals roaming free. Rain.”
Jungkook chuckles.
“I can’t imagine rain,” he admits. “I can imagine oversized plants, but the only way I can see rain is as a giant showerhead was on the sky.”
Namjoon laughs at that.
“I hope our mission succeeds,” Namjoon hesitated. The commander’s eyes found his, full of emotions Jungkook wasn’t completely sure he understood the full scope of. “Humans need a new home.”
Jungkook felt a knot on his throat.
“I’m not sure I hope we succeed,” he admitted, hesitantly. “I don’t think humans deserve a new home.”
5
Jungkook is eighteen and seven months when their mission starts to feel like a failure.
They are running out of options. They had five candidate plates to visit. They have gone to three. Yoongi had been oh so excited in the first one—stars in his eyes, more emotion in his usual calm demeanour. He had pushed himself off the hatch and into their small shared habitable with a smile on his face and all his hair floating around his head like a halo, and asked Hoseok to give him a haircut. I want to be ready to meet our new planet, he had said. But after they had entered the planet’s orbit, their probes told him the atmosphere was not breathable, after all. Their data was too old. It was the worst candidate, anyway, Yoongi had said. But the engineer had gone to bed unusually early that night.
The second planet was too hot. The star has grown older since they data was collected—it’s now bigger and closer to the planet, and it has thick clods of steam covering the atmosphere, but the rain evaporates again before it can wet the ground below.
The third planet had been a fiasco, too. There was water, yes, but the strong currents and waves would be too much to introduce an external ecosystem.
“We are looking for another Earth,” Namjoon says that night, head in his hands, “but there is only one. We have selected our habitable planet candidates from what we know of Earth and how it’s able to sustain life: water, size, atmosphere composition, distance to the closest star. But this is a desperate measure. Just because a planet has water and the distance to the closest stars allows the temperature to have it be liquid does not mean that’s enough to sustain us. Evolution takes thousands and thousands, even millions of years. We can’t try and bring all the species we have on earth and place them somewhere new, they won’t have time to evolve. Even climate change was too much for them-it was too fast, and they did not have time to evolve and adapt to the circumstances, and they died, and they killed us with it, because we killed the planet.”
None of the others speak up. Jungkook feels his throat tight. Yoongi places a hand on Namjoon’s back. “Leave the ecology to the biologists,” he soothed, but his voice wavers. Jungkok knows that what Namjoon has said is only what they all believe. “We only have to find the location”.
“Ecologists have no idea what they’re doing, not to that degree. And genetics are not that advanced, not to a degree where we can just grab out animals and modify them to what we think is a way they’ll survive in a new environment. Look at how well that went. And we’d need to take them all. How much rocket fuel is that? Our priority should be the people, not the animals. Even just bringing all the humans whats left of the planet is… impossible.”
It’s all quiet again. Jungkook looks at his meal, a retort pouch full of rehydratable ramen, which looks less and less appetising by the moment.
“Have you guys ever wondered whether we’re just a decoy? A way to showcase the everyday man that the government still cares about them. That they’re looking for a way out. There is no way on earth they’re taking everyone out of that death trap.”
It’s midnight, not that that matters on space, and another petal on Jungkook’s arm falls. He only has four left.
4
Jungkook is eighteen and ten months when he realises he truly lost all hope long ago.
Their landing module has been destroyed. They were approaching their fourth planet, slightly bigger than earth. They have to cross an asteroid field, which is always a risk regardless of the ability levels of the pilot.
There is no sound in space, so they don’t hear the horrible screeching sound, but they feel the jostling, and then their alarms go off and their oxygen levels start dropping. Yoongi gets into his space suit and grabs his toolkit, pecking Namjoon on the lips before Jungkook and the commander have to leave the vacuum chamber and Yoongi leaves their spacecraft, the knots and cables tying him to its structure the only link between the engineer and them.
Namjoon’s hands are steady as he gives orders, guiding Hoseok to avert the asteroid field and stay within the planet’s gravity until Yoongi comes back and lets them know the state of the disrepairs. His pupils are dilated, though, and scared. His soulmate is out there, in the absolute void that is space, where sounds are not and there is no air.
Their combustible storage is low, Yoongi says when he gets back. They lost the entire landing module, which is bad, but what is worse is that they have very limited possibility to manoeuvre the spaceship. They can only rely on inertia until they have to redirect their course, and there are no direct highways that connect planets.
“The planet looks too cloudy from up here”, Namjoon decides. “It’s probably sulphuric acid. Not livable. We should save our fuel and go to the last planet.”
The commander looks sure of himself as he gives the instructions, but Yoongi sleeps in his bed that night.
3
Jungkook is eighteen and eleven months when they arrive to the last planet.
Their last hope, and the last hope for humanity. If there’s anything back there that has the ability to have hope.
They haven’t received any communications back from earth in a very long time. There are planets and planets and entire solar systems between them, now. Communications have always been short and far in between. They are moving very, very, very fast. It has been several years on earth, by now.
The planet has rings, and forty-three moons. It looks beautiful from up there, and there seems to be oceans and green and brown earth. They have sent their probes, and the atmosphere seems to be habitable.
Nobody looks too excited on the spacecraft, though.
They have to go down there. They don’t have their landing module anymore, so they have to land with their emergency shuttles, which are not the safest options. Most importantly, they don’t have the ability to come back to the mother ship like the landing module does.
Once they go down, they’ll either find a habitable planet, or die.
Namjoon sends what might be their last message to Earth.
None of them really think there’s anyone left to receive it.
Yoongi and Namjoon hold hands when they sit in the shuttle. Hoseok’s smile is faltering, but the pilot sits in the front, hands as steady as they always are, and tells them to tighten their seatbelts. Emergency shuttles have barely any control over them. They’re going to go very fast, and must land in water.
Hoseok starts the motor. He has to manoeuvre their small ship so that the gravitational pull will be enough to guide them to the surface of the planet. The G-force will be too strong to make any changes to the trajectory past a certain point, and that’s even if they don’t pass out.
There seems to be large masses of water in this planet. 134340, is its code. The same as pluto. The one that wasn’t really a planet. Not the most encouraging piece of information, Jungkook thinks.
Yoongi’s fingers are crossed, his other hand held tight against’s Namjoon’s.
Their flower is larch. A plant that can get through thick and thin, resilient, that keeps pushing. Just like them.
Jungkook doesn’t envy them, though. He’s accepted his fate, the one lonely petal that remains in his arm, with only a few more days to go until it fells off and it, he dies.
Dying for a lover you’ve never met is such a stupid concept, he thinks, and then he passes out from gravitational force.
2
Jungkook is eighteen, eleven months and three weeks when they arrive to Pluto2.
When Jungkook opens his eyes, it’s to warmth. There is light behind his eyelids, warm, yellow, real light. Not like the one from the spacecraft.
There are voices around him. Unknown voices.
“Jungkook-ah!” Yoongi says. “Jungkook-ah, wake up, come on!”
Jungkok forces an eye open, and groans in pain. The light is too intense, and his head hurts.
“He’s alive, he’s alive!” Hoseok interjects. There are hands all over, and he feels…wet. He licks his lips. Salty.
Suddenly, the light behind his eyelids is blocked, the warmth touching his skin no longer there. He huffs and makes an effort to open his eyes, and although it takes him a moment to focus, when he gets used to it, he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
People. There’s more than three of them.
Yoongi is kneeling by his side, one hand cradling his head and the other grasping at his hand, and Namjoon is behind his soulmate with his hand on the engineer’s shoulder. Hoseok is on his other side, also staring down at him with worried eyes. But above them, standing around them, there are three more people.
“We are glad you’re all alive,” one of them says, and oh, it’s so strange to hear the voice of someone other than his three crewmates. “Come with us, we’ll get you a full medical.”
“You… you speak our language,” Namjooon says, startled.
The other… not human, then. Person, chuckles. “Earthlings have been blaming signals about who they are and what they are like to outer space for over a century. We learnt of you many years ago.
Jungkook gulps.
“What… what are you?”
The person smiles at him, not unkindly, and gently offers Jungkook a hand in greeting. “I suppose you would call us aliens.”
1
Jungkook is eighteen, three weeks and four days when he realises he wants to live.
He hadn’t cared about his flower rapidly losing its petals before. Life was not good. Life was lonely, unpleasant, scary. He had lost his family, his home. Earth was almost dead by the time he had been born — there was no beauty left to live in it. He had never had many friends, not in school and not in university either. He had his crewmates, but they were all going to die together, anyway.
But now, as the strange, floating transport flies over greenery, he realises that this, life in Pluto, is something he would like to live.
Yoongi and Namjoon are holding hands, faces plastered onto the transparent windows of the transport, and Hoseok is very happily trying to learn the extraterrestrial language that the local people speak in this area from the driver, who introduced himself as Jimin.
Jungkook is sitting next to Seokjin, the leader of Pluto’s space research team, who were already aware of their mission approaching thanks to their overheard radio transmissions and prepared to collect them when they arrived.
“Your friends look very excited to have found us,” Seokjin commented. “Are you not?”
Jungkook shrugs, the almost dead flower on his arm tingling strangely.
“Namjoon’s biggest desire while on Earth was to see a forest,” he replied. “I guess it’s not the exact same, since… well, you mentioned that life in this planet is based in silicon and not carbon, right?”
Seokjin nods. “We have generated some carbon-based plants, though. First as science, but for the past couple of months, also to sustain you all when you landed. I’m not sure it will tastes like what you’re used to, but…” the scientist informed.
“To be fair, we have been eating dehydrated food for almost a year. I don’t even remember how food is supposed to taste. I don’t even think I ever tasted what food is supposed to taste.”
Seokjin hums.
“Yeah, we saw what your planet was going through. It might recover, and a new life form arise.”
Jungkook feels his through tighten. So Earth no longer is.
He is not surprised, and even though he never truly felt at home there, he still feels a pang of sadness. Maybe for what it had been at some point of the past, not for what he had known himself. For all the millions of innocent lives, like those of his mother, father and brother, who died because nothing was done to take care of the planet while it was still possible to save it.
“Are there any more intelligent lifeforms out there?” he inquires, changing topics. “It’s remarkable how we look so alive yet have nothing in common on a molecular level.”
Seokjin shrugs. “None that broadcast their existence as loudly as yours, that’s for sure. Oh, we’re almost there. There will be some officials to receive you all, it’s not every day that extraterrestrial beings move in to our planet!” Seokjin jokes. “Rooms have been prepared for you all, and we just ask of you respect while you integrate yourselves into our society.”
The four humans nod as Jimin lands the small shuttle, and opens the door. It smells good, floral. The air coming in is warm, and Jungkook can’t wait until he feels the warmth of Pluto’s sun on his skin again. He’s going to enjoy that for as long as he humanly can before his last petal goes.
“You go first, Joonie,” Hoseok says, excitedly tapping the commander’s shoulder. “You’re the mission commander, after all.”
Yoongi comes out second, and Hoseok follows suit. Jungkook is last, and as he pukes his head out of the door of the shuttle, he can hear the applause of the extraterrestial people that have gone there to watch them arrive to the city.
Even though they’re in the city, it’s still green. There’s colourful flowers on the sides of the grey path that leads to the centre of the plaza, where some probably important figures are waiting to greet them.
The four humans are walking towards their reception committee when Jungkook notices the orange flowers. They have long mottled orange petals, dangly stamens in the centre. They’re much more bright and colourful than the simple lavender in his father’s arm, the blue spire on his mother’s.
He stumbles and almost falls on the side of the path, but a hand reaches out and keeps him from crashing down completely.
“Oh, hey, huh. Are you— are you okay?” a smooth baritone voice speaks. They have a slight accent, one Jungkook has never heard before, and are clearly less fluent than Seokjin. Jungkook looks down at his feet, now buried in orange flowers, and then up, until his eyes meet the most beautiful pair of brown eyes he’s ever seen. There’s long lashes and a small mole under one of them and a perfect nose and another mole in its tip and—
Suddenly, his arm feels warm. He looks down, and his flower is full again: all twelve petals around the pistils, and the orange is more vibrant than ever before, and, “oh,” his saviour, his soulmate, says. “You also have that tattoo.”
0
Jungkook is nineteen. Jungkook is nineteen, and he’s never been happier.
Teahyung is also nineteen. He’s got the softest dark curls and the craziest ideas, loves art and music, and is showing Jungkook all the small intricacies and details of Pluto’s cultural scene to Jungkook. Jungkook tells Taehyung what he can about that of the Earth, but everything he has to tell pales in comparison to what they’re experiencing in this new planet.
Taehyung has so much love inside his body. He gives it to his plants, and the animals, and their neighbours, and Jungkook. A lot of it goes to Jungkook.
There’s a long pot full of tiger lilies on their window. Jungkook knows they won’t die, because this planet is okay. Its people are okay. There is, after all, hope for the future.