cherry blossoms || ot7 [#Wattys2017]

[let me explain]

*WARNING: There are SPOILERS if you haven't started reading this story yet!!! Tread with caution!*

Hey guys! As promised, here's an explanation of "cherry blossoms" so far!

Honestly, this story is solely inspired by the Spring Day MV and the concepts of HYYH and WINGS/YNWA; however, it's mostly based on the lyrics of Spring Day and the emotions that it evokes in me.

I'm actually a baby ARMY since I became one the day the Spring Day MV dropped, but my friend convinced me to write fanfics again and this story was conceived.

At first, this was gonna be a trilogy: Spring Day, Stigma, and Young Forever; but then I realized that I could consolidate it into one big story so that people don't read it out of order. Thus, cherry blossoms is born.

To be honest, I leave a lot of hints and subliminal messages throughout the story. For example, when I do time skips, I have the dots in the middle, but there's only enough dots for the 7 boys (at least that's how it started). Slowly, there's less dots present in the time skips because of the instances where a boy is lost. 

I made references to azaleas twice because they hold a deeper meaning to the story. Azaleas actually represent first love, fragility, and passion which can be interpreted multiple ways in this story. How you choose to take it is up to you.

Obviously, I make references to cherry blossoms which represent the fragility of life as well. However, the tree also corresponds with renewal and spring time, hence the park being frozen in a perpetual spring time and only visited during the spring. However, when Yoongi and Jimin visit the park during autumn, it signals the fall and demise of one person since it's autumn (or fall). The rebirth of each member into the park is the revival and renewal of their lives into a different life, which is why it happens in the spring.

This story is not an AU, but I wanted to see what would happen if I placed the boys in a strange circumstance such as this one. I try to emulate their personalities but being placed under a heavy circumstance like that one, there's no telling how they'd act.

Indeed, I added Baekhyun as a plot twist and many people have noticed the tight bond between Taehyung and Baekhyun in real life, so I thought of that.

When I thought of the plot for this story, I based it off of how the song made me feel; I would close my eyes and just listen to the lyrics and absorb it. That's how I came up with the idea: "What would happen if BTS...?" So I tossed the idea around in my head and I wanted this story to be different from a lot of other stories.

For some odd reason, I wanted everything (by everything I mean the emotions) to be implicit. I didn't want to come to any conclusions and explicitly say anything because there's already a lot going on in the story. I know many people were frustrated with me because of how the boys don't really say anything at all, but the thing is: what if that's how they'd handle the situation because of all the craziness going on around them?

Now one of the biggest symbols in this story is a butterfly because I'm obsessed with BTS's papillon concept. When Jimin tells Yoongi about Taehyung's love for butterflies, little did he know that Taehyung knew a lot about butterflies. I used the butterfly as a symbol of the butterfly effect. The first time a butterfly appeared was the very first chapter: [lost]. If Taehyung didn't chase after the butterfly, what would've happened? Would he be captured as well? Would they be in the underground system? Who knows.

Another instance of the butterfly was when Jimin went to the park after Taehyung's, Jungkook's, and Baekhyun's deaths. This wasn't particularly about the butterfly effect but the butterfly as  a symbol of resurrection because that particular butterfly was Taehyung. Now I know what you're thinking: how does Jimin know? He really doesn't, but he'd like to believe that any butterfly is Taehyung since that's his best friend and it's a symbol of their friendship. He hopes to see Tae one day.

There was also a butterfly in [rain] and then another one appeared. However, the most significant instance was when Yoongi sent the butterfly to Jimin after the car crash. Yoongi's butterfly didn't represent a symbol of resurrection this time but of hope. He wanted to reassure Jimin that everything will be alright and that they will see each other again (another part that was inspired by Spring Day).

Yes, all the chapter titles are song titles. I tried to incorporate their unreleased songs and their covers, but they have a lot of content, so I tried to stick with what's been released on albums and what not.

Now I know there are a couple theories that people have been thinking since there's only four members left.

1) Some think that everyone's going to die and live in an eternal spring day over in the park at Daegu because that's their favorite place and they can all live happily ever after. I really thought about this ending but I thought that's way too predictable because three members are already gone. I would've just named this story Final Destination if that were the case. HOWEVER, it's still a likely possibility that they'll all die considering how the Rancher is still out there. *wink, wink*

2) Some think that Jimin will be the only one alive because everyone's trying to make him happy and they'll do anything to keep him that way. I thought about this ending as well because Park Jimin is my ultimate bias, but since he's my bias, that seems predictable as well. So who knows? Maybe I'll keep him alive and he'll meet someone who reminds him of Taehyung or someone who emulates characteristics of all his friends.

3) Some think that this is all a dream and that one of the members had the wildest dream ever and they're going to wake up in the park at Daegu. Now this trope is overplayed. This idea of everything all being a dream is also predictable and just an excuse to allow everything to happen without harming any of the characters. The only one really hurting here will be the readers because they'll be distraught and want answers, which incites a sequel. Maybe Yoongi wakes up and sees all his friends sleeping underneath the cherry blossom tree that they actually do plant in the park in Daegu.

There's a lot of speculation that I won't delve into any further, but all I can say is that some people are close and some are not. I won't say who's right, but I guess you'll just have to find out by reading :)