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25-long live the king

"We're up to eight new greenhouses now, with plans for an additional eight in Sector 9 to be established by the end of the year. It's slow going, all of us feeling like we're fumbling around in the dark without a handbook. The archives of the Institute have only yielded so much information about the nature of our abilities and how to hone and control them. So much data was lost or destroyed, either by the Cataclysm, at the behest of various monarchs, or Choi Nayoung in the final days before her arrest. But we are moving forward, step by step, little by little. I can grow five different kinds of crops now, and that has to count for something. Someday soon, the rationing system will be gone and we'll have trees in the city again. I can feel it."

- Entry from the personal journal of Kim Namjoon, head of the city-state of Seoul's first agricultural development unit

_ _

For the second time in recent memory, Jung Hoseok wakes up to unfamiliar surroundings, shivering at the chill of Death's breath on his skin and shocked that it didn't take him. Awareness comes to him in stages: an ornate, patterned ceiling stretched out above him, a soft bed beneath his aching body, the lack of vision in his right eye, the press of someone else against him, the twine of another person's fingers through his.

He exhales slow, wincing at the twinges running through his chest and torso, and manages to turn his head. Taehyung is asleep at the bedside, slumped over in a fancy-looking armchair with his face pressed to the mattress, holding Hoseok's hand. Relief rushes through him. That's one precious person still alive. He shifts again, to glance at his other side, and his breath hitches at the sight of Yoongi next to him. He's also asleep—face turned toward Hoseok, giving Hoseok a clear view of the bandages covering his eye and the upper part of his cheek. But his chest is rising and falling in a gentle rhythm and his face is lax and peaceful and he is alive.

He is alive and Taehyung is alive and Hoseok ... he hiccups through the first sob that rises up his torn throat from the depths of his ruined chest. He was ready to die, if that was a price that needed to be paid, he was. But the relief is nearly overwhelming. He worms a shaking hand out of the covers to wipe at his non-bandaged eye, embarrassed by his tears and glad the other two are asleep.

Once he's managed to calm himself somewhat, he pushes up from the mattress with one arm in an attempt to get a more accurate bearing on where he is. The room is perhaps the biggest bedroom he's ever seen, easily twice the size of the ones in Namjoon's apartment. It's sparsely furnished: just a dresser against one wall, a large mirror next to it, and a few white chairs clustered in a corner. A red rug covers the granite tile surrounding the bed and when Hoseok glances back to his right, he realizes that one wall appears to be made of doors. Two of them are open to a small courtyard beyond and sheer curtains flutter in the spring breeze.

The courtyard, upon a closer inspection, seems to actually be a private garden and Hoseok's mouth drops open at the sight of real plants scattered artfully throughout the space. He must be in the palace. Only the fucking king would have actual gardens.

Though, he supposes, there must be a new king now. He wonders what Seokjin will look like seated on the throne. After all this blood, it's hard to believe their plans have actually become reality. A knife-edged wave of pain ripples through his chest and he collapses back on the bed with a faint gasp. It's enough to wake Taehyung, though, who sits up so fast he might be in danger of giving himself whiplash.

"Hyung," he says, tightening his grip on Hoseok's hand.

"Hey," Hoseok wheezes and squeezes weakly back.

Taehyung pushes himself to his feet. "Don't move. I'm gonna go get the court physician." He kisses the back of Hoseok's hand and then slips from the room while Hoseok tries to wrap his head around the fact that he's apparently being treated by a court physician. Gods, he wants to find that guard commander, just to see the look on his face.