A Work of Art is a Confession (AU)
Every Monday, Thursday, and occasional Saturday, Jongwoon sits in the park with a gingerbread latté at three o clock to relax after his vocal class before his evening English class. It’s a schedule he sticks to religiously, rain, snow, or hurricane.
He likes to watch the people go by: Short, fat, tall, or skinny, all kinds of people. He likes to hum into his steaming drink and make up their life stories. Married with two point five kids, broken up with their significant other, of those just gotten a job promotion, narrating all of their lives as they rush on through.
Occasionally he sings. He puts his hat out in front of him and sings slow ballads of love lost, love gained, and love waiting to be found. Usually enough coins fill the hat for his next latté, and that’s all that really matters.
It’s on a frigid January afternoon that Jongwoon first sees the artist. He watches from his permanent seat on the wall, bundled in many layers, as the petit boy sets up his easel to draw. His English homework lays forgotten beside him as he settles for warming his hands on his coffee and watching the boy set up his supplies. He weaves the young man a story in his mind, of how his life may have gone and why he is here today.
He dismisses the thought of the young artist coming back, but considers watching him draw a well spent afternoon, even if it does have him cramming on the subway back to campus.
The next time Jongwoon goes to the park, he is pleasantly surprised to see the artist already has his sketchbook out and eyes focused in concentration, charcoal sweeping across the page. Jongwoon watches him delicately set his long brown bangs behind his ear and smudge a black line up his high cheekbones in the process. He decides to cut his regular alone time a bit short before he does something embarrassingly stupid like wipe it off himself. It generally isn’t a polite thing to do to someone you’ve only met in your thoughts.
Around week three, Jongwoon thinks he might be stalking the man who draws in the park. He says might simply because he just happens to be there when the other is, it’s merely circumstantial that the time he takes there on his break between classes is the same time the adorable artist shows up.
He’s merely admiring the view presented, that’s not stalking. It makes him feel better at least.
When March rolls around, Jongwoon decides to start singing again. His coffee habits are running his wallet a bit empty, so it’s time to fill it with a few appreciative coins. He puts his hat in front of him, closes his eyes and begins to sing.
He chooses a song about new love, about the melting snow around them and the arrival of spring. When he finishes singing, the young artist is kneeling in front of his hat and smiling up at him.
The young man doesn’t do anything other than lightly smile up at him, and then sit beside him on his usual wall, quietly pulling out his sketchbook. Jongwoon creeps over his shoulder a bit to see the worn pages, but he gets his hand smacked for his troubles and another shy smile. He decides to smile back and sing another song.
He’s late to class that day, but a snide remark from his professor is worth it when compared to the shy smiles he got from under those overgrown bangs.
He doesn’t hear the artist speak until a particularly sunny March afternoon when he sings about old love, love that transcends time and space.
He’s surprised to hear a soft voice after he raises his drink back to his lips. “Do you believe in that?” Jongwoon almost spits out his coffee in surprise at the first words he’s heard from the man’s lips. He does manage a nice burn on the roof of his mouth for his trouble though.
He manages a soft curse before replying. “Not particularly. Love like that is very pretty to sing about, but highly unlikely in real life. Kim Jongwoon by the way.” Jongwoon furrows his eyebrows as the burning in his mouth continues.
“Kim Ryeowook.” Ryeowook flashes him a lightning quick smile before leaning over his sketchbook again, charcoal moving delicately across the paper, rapidly sketching the view from the wall.
Jongwoon hums along and feels comfortable enough to wipe the charcoal off of Ryeowook’s cheekbones this time around, and the black is replaced by bright red under the pad of his thumb.
He asks Ryeowook out without preamble on a windy day in April, and they continue on much as usual. The only deviation from their regular schedule is they sit in a coffee shop instead of their usual place on the wall. It’s where they have their first kiss, and it tastes of Jongwoon’s gingerbread latté and Ryeowook’s sugar sweet excuse for coffee, but it’s picture perfect in its own way.
Jongwoon wanders around in even more of a fog then usual that day, and creatively manages to run into the door of his classroom and trip over a desk. Ryeowook spends their next date of sorts fussing over him and patting his head to make sure everything was all right.
Jongwoon finds it adorable, and gets smacked on the uninjured side of his head for his trouble. He starts to sing as Ryeowook continues sketching.
Sometimes Ryeowook sings for him too, in the privacy of his apartment. He sings slow love songs, sitting on Jongwoon’s bed as he types an essay for one of his classes. Jongwoon listens at the foot of the bed, or sometimes joins in. Ryeowook’s high and clear voice weaves along Jongwoon’s low pitch, the two melting over each other like sweet honey on gravel.
It takes three more weeks for them to go on a proper date, with a proper dinner at proper restaurant with an honest to god meal. Ryeowook smiles cutely at Jongwoon when he picks up the check, telling him that as a starving artist and the younger, it is Jongwoon’s duty to pick up the tab. Jongwoon tosses a straw wrapper at him, but smiles back and laces their fingers together as they walk out of the restaurant.
Their first time is not perfect. It’s awkward and sweaty and Ryeowook bites Jongwoon’s shoulder, hard, and he’s hissing and clutching it afterwards. Jongwoon laughs off Ryeowook’s mother hen tendencies and pulls the other man up against him with the simple request of kissing it better. Those soft lips touch his shoulder and Jongwoon buries his face in Ryeowook’s hair, humming contentedly. It gets better as time goes on, after all, practice makes perfect.
Ryeowook draws his picture for him. It’s the charcoal drawing he was working on the day they met, lines dark around his eyes and sweeping strokes feathering out his hair. Ryeowook blushes to the tips of his ears when he finds Jongwoon looking through the sketchbook, and furiously snatches it out of his amused hands. It seems he wasn’t the only one doing some stalking.
Ryeowook’s birthday comes around in June, and Jongwoon spends the day proud that he even remembers the date. Ryeowook smacks him on the shoulder when he tells him this, and threatens bodily harm if he really did forget to buy him a gift. He hands over the wrapped bundle of art supplies, and gets a kiss and a bit more for his trouble. Turns out practice does make perfect.
Jongwoon’s sunny birthday in August is spent much the same way, only much more carefully and well planned as it’s Ryeowook and not Jongwoon doing the planning. Jongwoon gets a silver necklace of headphones, and wears it religiously, only taking it off for showering and bed, and occasionally not even that. It’s worth it to see the bright smile on Ryeowook’s face whenever he’s wearing it.
They spend September in a strange game of tag with their schedules, Ryeowook’s art projects and classes conflicting with Jongwoon’s schedule of vocal and regular classes. They don’t get to sit on their wall in the park anymore, but content to send text messages under the table in classes, Ryeowook’s filled with pictures of his projects and Jongwoon’s with song lyrics. Jongwoon knows Ryeowook still goes to the park and draws, so he contents to think about what he draws while sitting in class.
They move in together around October, which only adds to the general chaos surrounding their lives, moving vans and boxes becoming the norm around Jongwoon’s apartment. Ryeowook’s long accepted that Jongwoon is happy to simply leave his apartment a sty, so in his free time he contents to unpacking things and making it so you can actually walk through the hallway. He makes Jongwoon do it when he’s home and avoiding homework with the threat of no sex hanging over his head. It’s a system that works well for them in the long run, their apartment clean and sharing a bed.
Things get even more hectic once midterms approach, schedules thrown to the wind as time is taken up by studying. Ryeowook makes coffee and stays up until odd hours of the night for days before, diligently studying and keeping Jongwoon awake with the constant lights. Jongwoon doesn’t start until two days before his first, not getting any sleep before and crashes the moment he walks back in the door. Their daily conversation consists of mumbled greetings against their hair in the morning, alternating schedules and time in the library with much needed sleep. They celebrate hard enough afterwards to make up for a week without proper conversation.
Christmas and Winter break pass as a blur, time spent with each other’s families and friends and making up lost sleep. It’s unproductive and Jongwoon relishes in it, the simple pleasure of having nothing to do. It makes Ryeowook restless for the season to come, but Jongwoon just pulls him back whenever he tries to think too hard about things.
On the anniversary of their meeting, Jongwoon skips class to go to the park. He stands at the edge to admire Ryeowook drawing, face lined in concentration as always, brows furrowed and over grown bangs hanging in his eyes. Long lines of charcoal from pushing his ever over grown bangs back from his face present, Jongwoon smiles as he sneaks behind the brown haired man to wipe it off. Ryeowook smiles before leaning back into Jongwoon, the other man humming happily into his hair. He doesn’t say anything, simply starts to sing, a soft song for only Ryeowook to hear.
He continues to sing all the way back to their apartment, and when Ryeowook burrows into his collarbone in the aftermath and asks him if he believes in what he sings about, he smiles.
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Sometimes it's nice to write mindless fluff :) Hopefully a more plot like thief verse later in the week ahaha. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed~~