we were like pomegranates (1/2)
we were like pomegranates
~11,300w; pg-13 (woozi-centric, friendship!woozi/hoshi and woozi/s.coups)
jihoon tries to navigate his life as a second year art major.
a/n: written for the jamjam fic exchange. i thought this fic would be 5k tops but then it kept expanding into what it is now lol. this is so far from the fic i wanted to write (and not my best writing because i was writing this instead of sleeping), but it has a special place in my heart now, i think.
warnings: inaccurate representations of being an art major, emotional turmoil
Seungcheol's feet are sticking out from beneath his blanket when Jihoon walks past the living room to the kitchen. The heater's been off since midnight, and Jihoon wonders why Seungcheol hasn't retracted his legs, letting his toes numb and redden in the cold instead. He sighs, makes himself a cup of instant coffee. It looks more like water than a caffeine fix even in the darkness.
As Jihoon's heading back to his study, he makes his way over to Seungcheol, moving to pull the blanket over his exposed toes. Shakes his head with a little smile on his lips. Maybe lets his gaze linger on how peaceful Seungcheol looks for a moment longer than he should. Suddenly, he feels tired, tired and cold and uninspired, and it's six in the morning, mug filled with instant coffee in his hand, and he suddenly just wants to fall asleep.
Jihoon frowns once he's back at his desk, white page of his sketchbook staring up at him blankly. Lays his head down on it, hoping some dormant part of his creativity will spill out onto it. He closes his eyes and sighs again.
The next thing Jihoon remembers is dreaming about colorless pomegranates.
There's a new model in the three o'clock life drawing class the next day. Jihoon's still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he sets up his easel before he realizes it.
The model looks about his age - sophomore university student - which Jihoon finds strange. In the few life drawing courses Jihoon had attended before, the models were at least in their late twenties to thirties. He looks around at his other classmates, busy setting up their pencils and charcoals, to see if anyone else has noticed the change, too.
Jihoon has this weird itchy feeling building under his skin as the clock hand approaches the twelve to mark the beginning of class. He doesn't know why - maybe it's the subpar caffeine he's been getting from the only shitty instant coffee he can afford, maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe a bit of both. Maybe it's remembering Seungcheol's bare toes sticking out from under his blanket, ice cold when Jihoon's fingers grazed them as he covered them. That kind of feeling. Unnerved and unnerving.
Three o'clock. The model-who-can't-be-older-than-him steps up onto the platform and takes off his robe as Jihoon leans over to take his charcoals out of his backpack. All Jihoon can really see is an almost too-slim back, strong like a bow string being pulled back by an archer, curved as he leans over his knees slightly, seated.
He draws. Lets out the deep breath he'd been holding at the end of class.
"Dreamed about pomegranates last night, I bet," Seungcheol chuckles when Jihoon just grimaces in response. He takes another bite of his sandwich from his seat in his rolling chair while Seungcheol props his feet up on the coffee table beside their couch, covered with open textbooks and loose homework sheets.
Jihoon wrinkles his nose as he thinks about all the assignments he has due just by staring at Seungcheol's. "I should've never told you about that," he mutters through gritted teeth. Seungcheol just smiles that all-knowing, annoying, but not that annoying, smile.
"You'd tell me eventually," Seungcheol says through a mouth full of lettuce. "Or I'd just know, or something."
Jihoon snorts. "Oh yeah?" Seungcheol nods.
"Definitely," he affirms with a sheepish grin and Jihoon can only roll his eyes with a ridiculous smile that probably mirrored Seungcheol's on his face. "I just know, you know, Jihoon." He leans over to nudge Jihoon with his elbow.
"Mhm-hmm," Jihoon hums through his mouthful of food, unconvinced.
Seungcheol feigns a hurt look. "You doubt our friendship, Jihoonie?" He reaches over and loops his arm over Jihoon's shoulders in some warped kind of choke hold. "I'm so heartbroken!"
Jihoon groans and swats him away. "You think you're so funny." He laughs half-heartedly when Seungcheol loses his balance and almost falls off his perch on the couch armrest.
It was impossible to discern when Jihoon met Seungcheol or vice versa. Seungcheol was in all of Jihoon's earliest memories - from skinning his knee on the pavement during tag, the blood continuing to flow like a "volcano," as Seungcheol put it (that only made Jihoon start to cry) - and Jihoon was in all of Seungcheol's. Jihoon's childhood wasn't Jihoon's unless Seungcheol was in it, their lives interconnected like Jihoon saw their shadows sometimes when Seungcheol rested his head on his shoulder - a conjoined, two-headed entity shifting in the corner of his eye.
Maybe we were just born knowing each other, Seungcheol decided one day when they were twelve, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling of Jihoon's bedroom. Though that didn't make much sense to Jihoon then, or maybe he just actively didn't want to believe it, Seungcheol's words are what come to mind whenever someone (usually one of Seungcheol's new friends) asks how they became friends. Most of the time, Jihoon ends up smiling and nodding along to whatever variety of we go way back Seungcheol feels like offering that night.
We were just born knowing each other. A rather romantic notion, though he doubts Seungcheol remembers even saying those words. Words were always flowing out of Seungcheol, warm sounds, bright like hues of apricot and various shades of salmon that made Jihoon's hands itch with the need to pick up charcoal or a paintbrush or a pencil just to shade them into objects that could lift off the page and become something real. Jihoon never took the phrase actions speak louder than words to heart, because Seungcheol's actions were his words: the way he smiled softly when he spoke about his family or the new song he loved, furrowing his brows when he asked Jihoon if he was okay after falling asleep in class, eyes wet when they graduated high school and whenever they made up from some stupid fight that spiraled out of control.
But words lacked the dimension actions could give. So Jihoon poured Seungcheol's words into strokes of lavender and tawny gold, sketched them into coral skeletons beneath the sea, where the fish could whisper their secrets and never get caught. They could speak without words in Jihoon's stead - say I love you, Seungcheol, I love you, love you, love you, in ways that Jihoon's words - so lacking compared to Seungcheol's - couldn't. Jihoon's voice just never sounded like the truth, even when he was telling it.
And in between the canvases and sketchbooks and pastels, Jihoon created a universe where it was possible that he could speak it, and have Seungcheol say it back to him.
Jihoon’s eyes are again focused on a clock approaching three o'clock. He sets his supplies on his easel without his fingers fumbling and manages to sit still in his seat as his professor and that new model walk in the door together, chatting amicably. Said model does not acknowledge his presence. Everything unfolds smoothly.
He takes his place on the platform, this time standing, arms loose and relaxed at his sides, face tilted down. His profile faces Jihoon, one sharp eye - a fox eye, Jihoon thinks absentmindedly as he drags his charcoal over the paper - focused on the ground before him. His strokes feel heavy and slow, the lines on his paper darker than usual, as class goes on.
Jihoon feels the itch begin beneath his skin. He wonders if pomegranates will come to mind. They, for some odd reason, don't.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right -
"Do you ever have these bursts of memory?" Jihoon asked Seungcheol one night, when they were walking back from the library, the street light in front of their apartment flickering like a strobe light. "You just remember - really clearly - and then you're not sure if it's even..." he searches for the right words, "something that actually happened."
Seungcheol considered, looking up at the flickering light. One of the best things about Seungcheol was that he never judged Jihoon for anything. Maybe they'd known each other for so long that Seungcheol was just used to it, or that Seungcheol even anticipated the heavy questions Jihoon sometimes threw his way, but Jihoon never felt exposed or ridiculous for voicing his thoughts aloud to the other boy. "Hmm...maybe," he answered truthfully, turning his eyes back to Jihoon.
"I don't know why but everytime I'm uninspired and stuck and don't want to, I don't know...art, I remember pomegranates." Jihoon scraped the bottom of his sneaker on the scratchy cement of the curb. Did it again. Seungcheol looked at him with his full attention, waiting for him to go on. "My first drawing class, or, I guess, the first one I remember going to? We drew pomegranates. Or we were supposed to. I don't remember if I did or not. I just remember that it was hard - really fucking hard - and some other student started crying about it because our teacher was pretty strict...it was a mess. I probably would've quit art but I think I threw the pomegranate against my easel and then my parents signed me up for a different class...yeah." Ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Random but yeah. I think about pomegranates when I have artist's block."
Seungcheol nodded, processing all Jihoon's told him. Silence settled between them for a bit. Jihoon's mind wandered to unrelated thoughts in the quiet, wondering if Seungcheol regretted telling Jihoon all his horrible hygiene tales when all he had to hold against Jihoon was his pomegranates. "So," Seungcheol started, putting his hands in his pockets, quite sincere. "Are you thinking about pomegranates now?"
Jihoon looked up from the curb he'd been scraping with his shoe. Seungcheol looked back at him - Seungcheol, whose words became salmons and purple-toned blues, things that Jihoon could touch. His heart beat in his chest, painfully loud, red like the pomegranate that bled after it cracked open and hit the ground, leaving a juicy red stain on the white of the blank canvas -
Took a deep breath. Let it out. "No."
“Jihoon, right?”
Jihoon looks up from where he’s setting up his pencils. It’s been two weeks since the new model has come to their class and the said boy leans slightly over Jihoon’s easel, enough to be interested, but not overwhelming enough that he blocks Jihoon’s peripheral vision. Innocuous, maybe. The weird feeling begins to crawl under his skin. He blinks and the boy goes a little fuzzy, blinks again and looks back down at his easel.
“What’s it to you?” he says, taking out some charcoals. The model boy smiles, and it lights up his whole face. Jihoon’s only ever seen him from at least five feet away, and never quite face-on, so if it hadn’t been for the almost-white blond hair, Jihoon might not have even remembered who he was.
“I saw your sketches of me and I really like them,” he starts, words tumbling out quickly - but rather than tripped over and forced out, they traveled with an ease that Jihoon could never speak with. “They’re very inspiring. I’m not sure if that’s the right word for it, but I couldn’t stop staring at them! Other people drew like a science textbook figure…really anatomical and accurate, but lifeless. But yours were really art. I could feel the body language of the figures on the paper. That’s talent, for sure. You’re talented, Jihoon.”
Jihoon looks up at him again, not sure how to react. He didn’t even remember what his sketches in the past two weeks looked like - if he liked them, if he wanted to never lay eyes on them again, if he felt like redoing them all. All that came to mind was pomegranates.
“By the way, I’m Soonyoung,” the model says, stretching out a hand. He leans back a bit, again respecting Jihoon’s personal bubble. Jihoon considers taking it, but glances down at his charcoal dusted fingertips before holding them up to Soonyoung. The smile’s still on his face even when he retracts his hand, his eyes sharper than Jihoon remembers them being.
Instead of the robe, he’s clothed in a simple t-shirt and faded jeans. “Are you not modeling today?” Jihoon asks, trying to string a sentence together. Soonyoung laughs lightly and nods.
“Yeah,” Soonyoung shrugs. “I’ll be back next week, though. Just wanted to stop by and tell you I appreciated your art. Do you think I could take a picture of them or something? Is that okay with you?”
Jihoon furrows his eyebrows. The professor walks in, the clock close to three, the rustling of paper and pencils and charcoals reaching its zenith. “Uh…you should probably ask the professor about that,” he tries, but Jihoon doesn’t even know if it really matters. People have never asked to take pictures of his class assignments before.
Soonyoung laughs, a little louder this time. “Well, I better go now. Nice meeting you, Jihoon.”
“Yeah,” Jihoon echoes, disoriented, the itch strange on his skin. Soonyoung grins at him before walking away, his thin frame disappearing out the doorway. He turns back to the platform Soonyoung stood on just last week, dragging dark, dark lines of charcoal on his paper yet again.
Seungcheol’s not home when Jihoon gets back. He throws his backpack down next to the couch Seungcheol sleeps on more often than not, sighs at Seungcheol’s unfolded blanket crumpled behind a clump of pillows, tosses Seungcheol’s socks in the laundry basket. It’s that time of the semester again, when everything Seungcheol owns is thrown around haphazardly and forgotten about until needed or remembered.
Sometimes, Jihoon wonders if he’s like one of Seungcheol’s things. This is one of them. Flops onto the couch. It doesn’t smell like anything, really. Good, Jihoon thinks, closing his eyes, seeing pomegranates. Good.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not -
“How’s your final project going?” Jeonghan asks him as they’re packing up their things after their still-life class. Jihoon’s known Jeonghan ever since they’d been in all the same classes during their first semester. They’d been friendly since then, eating the occasional meal out together with other art majors, giving each other feedback on past works.
Jihoon shrugs. “It’s…going. I guess.”
Jeonghan laughs, loud, each “ha” clearly enunciated. He brushes his long hair out of his eyes. “Same,” he says with a lopsided grin, patting Jihoon on the shoulder. “Well, as long as we have an idea.”
“Uh, yeah,” Jihoon frowns. Jeonghan swings his messenger bag over his shoulder and takes in the look on Jihoon’s face.
They’re exiting the building, winter evening outside the glass doors already dark, when Jeonghan just says it. “You’re kinda fucked, Jihoon.”
Jihoon pulls his scarf closer to his face. “You think I don’t know that?” he groans, the words muffled. Jeonghan laughs his carefree laugh again, puffing translucent cream clouds into the shadowy dusk. For some strange reason, it makes Jihoon crave shitty instant coffee.
Soonyoung happens to be sitting next to the easel Jihoon’d been eyeing since Monday class when he walks in on Wednesday. They’d been talking more and more before class since that first day Soonyoung approached him (mostly Soonyoung initiating the conversation and Jihoon filling in the designated blanks from his inquiries). But Soonyoung didn’t always talk to only him - Jihoon saw him chatting with other students before and after class, too.
“Hey,” he greets Jihoon when he stops in front of his seat. “Those are some crazy dark circles you got there.”
Jihoon absentmindedly touches them. Usually, Seungcheol would point them out to him (and then he’d say something along the lines of you have to start sleeping more, Jihoon and make sure Jihoon was in bed before settling down for another round of studying until four in the morning), but Jihoon hasn’t seen him awake for most of the past two weeks. He snorts. “Yeah, I guess so, huh,” he says, unzipping his backpack.
“Final project?” Soonyoung asks. Jihoon shrugs nonchalantly, Soonyoung watching him with his sharp eyes.
“Not really sure what I’m going to do yet,” Jihoon tries, tone airy. Seungcheol hadn’t been home or conscious enough when he was home for Jihoon to ask him for any favors - Jihoon was pretty sure he’d be able to pull off a figure-drawing even with Seungcheol fully clothed. Seungcheol didn’t make him think of pomegranates - after all, last year, he’d gotten compliments for his final project that he’d painted thinking of Seungcheol’s words. Soonyoung leans back in his stool, his tilted back leaning on nothing for support, eyes still on Jihoon.
“Me and the other models have already posed for several final projects, if you’re doing something like that,” Soonyoung suggests, twirling one of Jihoon’s pencils he placed on his easel between his index and middle finger. “All standing.” He smiles at Jihoon before pushing himself upright once again with a languid ease.
“Don’t you get tired from posing?” Jihoon asks, though the answer is obvious. But Soonyoung’s not like other models - other models are more about posing for getting the extra pay, while Soonyoung actually seems excited about seeing the results of not only Jihoon’s, but other people’s, sketches of him.
Soonyoung chuckles. “Of course I do,” he starts, tone not patronizing Jihoon at all. Glances at Jihoon in the corner of his eye, a twinkle somewhere in there. “But I always stand for art.”
Jihoon pays extra attention to Soonyoung’s posing that day, taking in the controlled lines - fluid but strong, and the way how he stands exudes some kind of emotion. Today, he’s all slumped shoulders, not too hunched, but not upright; loose arms, looser than the sharper lines he usually holds them as, a thumb barely making contact with his chin, but still there, as if it could drop down at any moment; weight on his left leg, the right bent and relaxed, toes on the ground. Lazy, Jihoon tries at first, tracing in the lines loosely. Halfway, he changes his direction, once he realizes the sturdy and sure look in Soonyoung’s eyes.
I always stand for art, Soonyoung had said. Jihoon sees planes of periwinkle and indigo in the angles of his torso.
Confident, he tries instead.
Class Email for Art 1B
Please do check in your final project progress with me at some point before the week of the deadline.
Best.
“What if I just draw you instead?” Jihoon jokes to Jeonghan as they’re waiting for their food. Jisoo, Nayeon, Myungeun, and Wonwoo are sitting at the table with them, each taking turns describing their final project woes over greasy food. Jihoon usually didn’t spend the night out with friends this late in the semester, but Seungcheol had been too busy to eat a meal with him for weeks now and it’d been lonely in their freezing apartment by himself.
“Me? No way,” Jeonghan laughs. “I don’t want my face to become distorted into your abstract lines and shit,” he teases. Jihoon kicks him under the table.
Nayeon grins, amused, while Myungeun shakes her head. “I mean, your hair would be pretty interesting to draw, you know,” she says through a mouth full of fries. Jeonghan pretends to throw his drink at her and Nayeon just opens her mouth in response, as if she could catch all the liquid in there.
“You at least have an idea, though, right, Jihoon?” Jisoo tries. Jeonghan shoots him a look and then Jisoo’s eyes widen. “Oh, uh, so you don’t. Uh. Sorry.”
“You could be stuck with sculptures,” Myungeun mutters bitterly out of the corner of her mouth that’s not occupied in biting her straw. “Me and Wonwoo are losing our fucking minds.”
“Sculpting was fun though,” Jeonghan says, to which Myungeun just grumbles more. Wonwoo looks like he’s doing his best not to fall asleep. Jihoon feels relatively lucky in comparison, before remembering he still hasn’t figured out what to do.
“It’s fucking artist’s block, though,” Jihoon groans, reaching for Nayeon’s last handful of fries. She glares at him as he stuffs them in his mouth, but he doubts she minds much at all. Myungeun flicks Wonwoo’s forehead on the other end of the table, and he flinches back awake with a dazed sheepish grin.
Jeonghan puts his elbows on the table. “But I’ve seen you drawing things for life drawing? Maybe you could do something with that.”
Jisoo pipes up. “It doesn’t even have to be phenomenal, you know, just…pass this semester and then worry about the next one?”
Jihoon groans into his arms. “Sounds like the life of a normal university student to me,” he hears Wonwoo say. Everyone else choruses lifelessly in agreement.
Pencil to paper later that night. Closes his eyes, thinks of Seungcheol’s words. We were born just knowing each other.
Jihoon hadn’t heard Seungcheol’s voice much in weeks. Muffled through his blanket as he talked in his sleep. Distorted by static over the phone. Weeks were too little a fraction of time compared to how long they’d known each other to forget completely how Seungcheol sounded like, but the colors Jihoon always associated with the softness of Seungcheol’s words were growing muddy and unclear.
After an hour of sketching, all Jihoon can make out are scribbled lines that don’t even connect to form anything. His fingers, stiff from the cold, still insist on weaving through his pencil through the doodles again and again, repeat.
When he tilts his head a little to the left at five thirty-six in the morning, Jihoon swears he sees pomegranate seeds in between the graphite.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not - this is hard and the girl’s crying in the corner and the teacher’s mean -
“I was actually a dancer before this,” Soonyoung confesses over a cup of coffee. Class had ended earlier than usual, and Jihoon wasn’t in a rush to return to an empty apartment, so he’d agreed to Soonyoung’s suggestion on getting something to drink together. Talking to Soonyoung was surprisingly easy - after their first conversation, Jihoon hadn’t anticipated he’d want to talk to Soonyoung much more, but Soonyoung was bubbling with words. He was kind in a way different from Seungcheol - his kindness came from how genuinely curious he was about everything anyone had to say.
Jihoon puts down his coffee cup after burning his tongue on it. “Really?” He thinks about how easy Soonyoung used his body to express himself in the studio, and even just by the way he was crossing his legs and leaning far back in his chair over coffee. It made sense to Jihoon now.
“Hurt myself two years ago though. So I can’t dance much until that heals up and even then,” he shrugs. “I might not be able to dance the way I used to. You never know, though.” An optimistic smile tugs on his lips behind his coffee cup.
“Then how’d you become a model for a life drawing class?” Jihoon asks. Soonyoung sits back up, tapping his fingers against the table, almost rhythmically.
“Like anyone becomes a model for a life drawing class,” he deadpans. Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay, well, I had a friend who graduated last year, but he told me they needed new models. So I let him sign me up for it since I needed the extra cash, and,” Soonyoung shrugs. “Yeah.”
“I mean, my mom was super against it when I told her my new part-time job. Said I was ‘selling my body,’ like I was a gigolo or something,” Soonyoung laughs a little, his eyes darkening. “I almost quit after my first week because she said stuff like that.”
Jihoon spins his cup of coffee, waiting for him to continue.
“But then I got to see what you guys work on in class and it was just,” Soonyoung shakes his head, eyes brightening again. “Amazing. The way I pose can be captured so many ways, that was so incredible to me.” He leans his elbows on the table to look at Jihoon a little closer. “It reminded me a lot of dancing - all art is just different people expressing themselves in their own unique ways. And I really wanted to be a part of it, now that I can’t dance like I used to, you know?”
Jihoon takes a sip of his coffee - too cold for his taste now - as he considers all this. “But can’t the way you pose be considered an art, too? Not just a part of it,” he says, honest.
Soonyoung smiles in that way that lights up his entire face. “I’ve never heard of it like that but,” his eyes crinkle happily. “If you put it that way, then yes.”
Jihoon blinks, not sure what to do. He’s never really made anyone smile that wide - usually it was sarcasm and teasing that brought lopsided smiles or short laughs out of people - not looks of pure happiness. Maybe with Seungcheol, but even then, Seungcheol was usually the one coercing smiles out of Jihoon.
Soonyoung acts for him. Places a hand over his on his coffee cup. “Thanks, Jihoon.”
For the first time in a while, the itch crawls uncomfortably under his skin.
Jihoon’s nursing a cup of watered-down (shitty) instant coffee at one AM, watching Seungcheol solve equations, hunched over his textbooks. It’s the first time he’s seen Seungcheol on the couch, awake, in a while. The way he’s sitting reminds Jihoon of that one pose Soonyoung did - sitting on a block on the platform, the curve of his lean back and the sharpness of the one eye Jihoon could see from where he was sitting. A fox eye.
“Hey, Seungcheol,” Jihoon tries. Seungcheol lifts his head slightly to show he’s listening, eyes still focused down on his homework. “I feel like I don’t see you anymore.”
Seungcheol looks up completely at that, pencil still in his hand. His eyebrows crease toward each other. “What do you mean by that?” he says, voice even. Jihoon laughs a little, but it gets stuck in his throat.
“I mean, you’re never here anymore. Or you’re sleeping. And…you’re busy, I know, but it’s just. I don’t know,” Jihoon sighs. Seungcheol still looks confused, but concerned now and Jihoon is starting to feel like a huge dick.
“Actually, this is really dumb,” he starts muttering, and Seungcheol’s eyebrows just furrow together more, but is it wrong to just want to see you because I love you and there’s just so much distance between us these days that it hurts a lot, you don’t have to love me back or know or say anything, but just be here or something, Seungcheol. “You know, just forget it.”
“Jihoon,” Seungcheol starts, his voice so soft that Jihoon almost wants to cry and he doesn’t even know why. His voice is that voice that makes the words that escape his lips so kind and warm and caring and Jihoon doesn’t know why he can’t be sincere and just tell him - i love you, i love you, i love you - instead of swallowing again and pretending his eyes are still dry. “You know you can tell me anything. It’s not dumb if it’s bothering you -”
He shrugs, his heart swelling and bursting in place of every beat in his chest. It hurts like a motherfucker, but Jihoon doesn’t even know what to say anymore. “Stressed out,” he manages, and Seungcheol puts his pencil down, walking over to Jihoon and wrapping his arms around him.
Jihoon stiffens before relaxing into Seungcheol’s hug, warm in the cold, Seungcheol’s scent a mix of the cheap soap brand they decided on during freshman year and the hint of foregoing a shower in favor of studying. “I miss you, too, Jihoon,” he hears Seungcheol say against his shoulder and Jihoon smiles a little. Seungcheol doesn’t know that’s only half of it - doesn’t have to know that that’s only half of it.
Jihoon dreams of pomegranates again that night.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not - this is hard and the girl’s crying in the corner and the teacher’s mean -
Throw the pomegranate, throw the pomegranate, throw, throw -
“Why don’t you just tell him?”
Jihoon flinches, blinking away the flashes of green burned into his eyes from staring out the window for too long. He looks over at Jeonghan, who isn’t even looking back at him, brush mixing his paints together. I can’t work alone, he told Jihoon last year, and always had to have him, or Jisoo, or Nayeon sitting in the studio with him as he worked. The crisscrossing planes of color Jeonghan tended to paint in seemed to capture even the faintest hums of noise that the people surrounding him gave off - a sigh here, a particularly sharp inhale there.
“What?” Jihoon says, squinting. The green is still there. Jeonghan shakes the one strand that always falls out of his ponytail away from his face.
He starts painting, bold, unapologetic strokes on a canvas already half-filled with color. Kind of like his words. “Seungcheol, Jihoon,” Jeonghan sighs. “Seungcheol.”
Jihoon shrugs. “What’s there to tell?” Jeonghan’s known since Jihoon introduced him to Seungcheol - you’re the first friend Jihoon’s made at university, please take care of him! and then he noticed the way Jihoon looked at him and just knew.
Later that year, Nayeon tried to introduce Jihoon to one of her friends. (She’s an economics major! Don’t you think that’s great?) Jeonghan had just placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
“Jihoon already likes someone.” And that’s how Jihoon figured out Jeonghan knew.
Jeonghan puts his brush down. “Maybe just bottling it up inside you has something to do with your artist’s block,” he tries. Jihoon stares at him with wary, tired eyes. Looks away once Jeonghan looks back at him. “I don’t know…I just get the feeling that you need to get it off your chest. You’ve been friends for so long, you know, nothing bad could happen -”
Jihoon swallows. “What’s there to tell?” he repeats, glancing out the window again. It’s not that easy, he wants to tell Jeonghan. Out there existed a universe where Jihoon could tell Seungcheol all sorts of things without his tongue actually tripping over the words, and that universe consisted of flat paper images and the smell of drying paint and deep breaths of exhaustion because he’d poured himself out onto the canvas and left nothing inside, his body but an empty husk -
And that universe wasn’t here, or now, or close.
( part two)
~11,300w; pg-13 (woozi-centric, friendship!woozi/hoshi and woozi/s.coups)
jihoon tries to navigate his life as a second year art major.
a/n: written for the jamjam fic exchange. i thought this fic would be 5k tops but then it kept expanding into what it is now lol. this is so far from the fic i wanted to write (and not my best writing because i was writing this instead of sleeping), but it has a special place in my heart now, i think.
warnings: inaccurate representations of being an art major, emotional turmoil
Seungcheol's feet are sticking out from beneath his blanket when Jihoon walks past the living room to the kitchen. The heater's been off since midnight, and Jihoon wonders why Seungcheol hasn't retracted his legs, letting his toes numb and redden in the cold instead. He sighs, makes himself a cup of instant coffee. It looks more like water than a caffeine fix even in the darkness.
As Jihoon's heading back to his study, he makes his way over to Seungcheol, moving to pull the blanket over his exposed toes. Shakes his head with a little smile on his lips. Maybe lets his gaze linger on how peaceful Seungcheol looks for a moment longer than he should. Suddenly, he feels tired, tired and cold and uninspired, and it's six in the morning, mug filled with instant coffee in his hand, and he suddenly just wants to fall asleep.
Jihoon frowns once he's back at his desk, white page of his sketchbook staring up at him blankly. Lays his head down on it, hoping some dormant part of his creativity will spill out onto it. He closes his eyes and sighs again.
The next thing Jihoon remembers is dreaming about colorless pomegranates.
There's a new model in the three o'clock life drawing class the next day. Jihoon's still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he sets up his easel before he realizes it.
The model looks about his age - sophomore university student - which Jihoon finds strange. In the few life drawing courses Jihoon had attended before, the models were at least in their late twenties to thirties. He looks around at his other classmates, busy setting up their pencils and charcoals, to see if anyone else has noticed the change, too.
Jihoon has this weird itchy feeling building under his skin as the clock hand approaches the twelve to mark the beginning of class. He doesn't know why - maybe it's the subpar caffeine he's been getting from the only shitty instant coffee he can afford, maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe a bit of both. Maybe it's remembering Seungcheol's bare toes sticking out from under his blanket, ice cold when Jihoon's fingers grazed them as he covered them. That kind of feeling. Unnerved and unnerving.
Three o'clock. The model-who-can't-be-older-than-him steps up onto the platform and takes off his robe as Jihoon leans over to take his charcoals out of his backpack. All Jihoon can really see is an almost too-slim back, strong like a bow string being pulled back by an archer, curved as he leans over his knees slightly, seated.
He draws. Lets out the deep breath he'd been holding at the end of class.
"Dreamed about pomegranates last night, I bet," Seungcheol chuckles when Jihoon just grimaces in response. He takes another bite of his sandwich from his seat in his rolling chair while Seungcheol props his feet up on the coffee table beside their couch, covered with open textbooks and loose homework sheets.
Jihoon wrinkles his nose as he thinks about all the assignments he has due just by staring at Seungcheol's. "I should've never told you about that," he mutters through gritted teeth. Seungcheol just smiles that all-knowing, annoying, but not that annoying, smile.
"You'd tell me eventually," Seungcheol says through a mouth full of lettuce. "Or I'd just know, or something."
Jihoon snorts. "Oh yeah?" Seungcheol nods.
"Definitely," he affirms with a sheepish grin and Jihoon can only roll his eyes with a ridiculous smile that probably mirrored Seungcheol's on his face. "I just know, you know, Jihoon." He leans over to nudge Jihoon with his elbow.
"Mhm-hmm," Jihoon hums through his mouthful of food, unconvinced.
Seungcheol feigns a hurt look. "You doubt our friendship, Jihoonie?" He reaches over and loops his arm over Jihoon's shoulders in some warped kind of choke hold. "I'm so heartbroken!"
Jihoon groans and swats him away. "You think you're so funny." He laughs half-heartedly when Seungcheol loses his balance and almost falls off his perch on the couch armrest.
It was impossible to discern when Jihoon met Seungcheol or vice versa. Seungcheol was in all of Jihoon's earliest memories - from skinning his knee on the pavement during tag, the blood continuing to flow like a "volcano," as Seungcheol put it (that only made Jihoon start to cry) - and Jihoon was in all of Seungcheol's. Jihoon's childhood wasn't Jihoon's unless Seungcheol was in it, their lives interconnected like Jihoon saw their shadows sometimes when Seungcheol rested his head on his shoulder - a conjoined, two-headed entity shifting in the corner of his eye.
Maybe we were just born knowing each other, Seungcheol decided one day when they were twelve, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling of Jihoon's bedroom. Though that didn't make much sense to Jihoon then, or maybe he just actively didn't want to believe it, Seungcheol's words are what come to mind whenever someone (usually one of Seungcheol's new friends) asks how they became friends. Most of the time, Jihoon ends up smiling and nodding along to whatever variety of we go way back Seungcheol feels like offering that night.
We were just born knowing each other. A rather romantic notion, though he doubts Seungcheol remembers even saying those words. Words were always flowing out of Seungcheol, warm sounds, bright like hues of apricot and various shades of salmon that made Jihoon's hands itch with the need to pick up charcoal or a paintbrush or a pencil just to shade them into objects that could lift off the page and become something real. Jihoon never took the phrase actions speak louder than words to heart, because Seungcheol's actions were his words: the way he smiled softly when he spoke about his family or the new song he loved, furrowing his brows when he asked Jihoon if he was okay after falling asleep in class, eyes wet when they graduated high school and whenever they made up from some stupid fight that spiraled out of control.
But words lacked the dimension actions could give. So Jihoon poured Seungcheol's words into strokes of lavender and tawny gold, sketched them into coral skeletons beneath the sea, where the fish could whisper their secrets and never get caught. They could speak without words in Jihoon's stead - say I love you, Seungcheol, I love you, love you, love you, in ways that Jihoon's words - so lacking compared to Seungcheol's - couldn't. Jihoon's voice just never sounded like the truth, even when he was telling it.
And in between the canvases and sketchbooks and pastels, Jihoon created a universe where it was possible that he could speak it, and have Seungcheol say it back to him.
Jihoon’s eyes are again focused on a clock approaching three o'clock. He sets his supplies on his easel without his fingers fumbling and manages to sit still in his seat as his professor and that new model walk in the door together, chatting amicably. Said model does not acknowledge his presence. Everything unfolds smoothly.
He takes his place on the platform, this time standing, arms loose and relaxed at his sides, face tilted down. His profile faces Jihoon, one sharp eye - a fox eye, Jihoon thinks absentmindedly as he drags his charcoal over the paper - focused on the ground before him. His strokes feel heavy and slow, the lines on his paper darker than usual, as class goes on.
Jihoon feels the itch begin beneath his skin. He wonders if pomegranates will come to mind. They, for some odd reason, don't.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right -
"Do you ever have these bursts of memory?" Jihoon asked Seungcheol one night, when they were walking back from the library, the street light in front of their apartment flickering like a strobe light. "You just remember - really clearly - and then you're not sure if it's even..." he searches for the right words, "something that actually happened."
Seungcheol considered, looking up at the flickering light. One of the best things about Seungcheol was that he never judged Jihoon for anything. Maybe they'd known each other for so long that Seungcheol was just used to it, or that Seungcheol even anticipated the heavy questions Jihoon sometimes threw his way, but Jihoon never felt exposed or ridiculous for voicing his thoughts aloud to the other boy. "Hmm...maybe," he answered truthfully, turning his eyes back to Jihoon.
"I don't know why but everytime I'm uninspired and stuck and don't want to, I don't know...art, I remember pomegranates." Jihoon scraped the bottom of his sneaker on the scratchy cement of the curb. Did it again. Seungcheol looked at him with his full attention, waiting for him to go on. "My first drawing class, or, I guess, the first one I remember going to? We drew pomegranates. Or we were supposed to. I don't remember if I did or not. I just remember that it was hard - really fucking hard - and some other student started crying about it because our teacher was pretty strict...it was a mess. I probably would've quit art but I think I threw the pomegranate against my easel and then my parents signed me up for a different class...yeah." Ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Random but yeah. I think about pomegranates when I have artist's block."
Seungcheol nodded, processing all Jihoon's told him. Silence settled between them for a bit. Jihoon's mind wandered to unrelated thoughts in the quiet, wondering if Seungcheol regretted telling Jihoon all his horrible hygiene tales when all he had to hold against Jihoon was his pomegranates. "So," Seungcheol started, putting his hands in his pockets, quite sincere. "Are you thinking about pomegranates now?"
Jihoon looked up from the curb he'd been scraping with his shoe. Seungcheol looked back at him - Seungcheol, whose words became salmons and purple-toned blues, things that Jihoon could touch. His heart beat in his chest, painfully loud, red like the pomegranate that bled after it cracked open and hit the ground, leaving a juicy red stain on the white of the blank canvas -
Took a deep breath. Let it out. "No."
“Jihoon, right?”
Jihoon looks up from where he’s setting up his pencils. It’s been two weeks since the new model has come to their class and the said boy leans slightly over Jihoon’s easel, enough to be interested, but not overwhelming enough that he blocks Jihoon’s peripheral vision. Innocuous, maybe. The weird feeling begins to crawl under his skin. He blinks and the boy goes a little fuzzy, blinks again and looks back down at his easel.
“What’s it to you?” he says, taking out some charcoals. The model boy smiles, and it lights up his whole face. Jihoon’s only ever seen him from at least five feet away, and never quite face-on, so if it hadn’t been for the almost-white blond hair, Jihoon might not have even remembered who he was.
“I saw your sketches of me and I really like them,” he starts, words tumbling out quickly - but rather than tripped over and forced out, they traveled with an ease that Jihoon could never speak with. “They’re very inspiring. I’m not sure if that’s the right word for it, but I couldn’t stop staring at them! Other people drew like a science textbook figure…really anatomical and accurate, but lifeless. But yours were really art. I could feel the body language of the figures on the paper. That’s talent, for sure. You’re talented, Jihoon.”
Jihoon looks up at him again, not sure how to react. He didn’t even remember what his sketches in the past two weeks looked like - if he liked them, if he wanted to never lay eyes on them again, if he felt like redoing them all. All that came to mind was pomegranates.
“By the way, I’m Soonyoung,” the model says, stretching out a hand. He leans back a bit, again respecting Jihoon’s personal bubble. Jihoon considers taking it, but glances down at his charcoal dusted fingertips before holding them up to Soonyoung. The smile’s still on his face even when he retracts his hand, his eyes sharper than Jihoon remembers them being.
Instead of the robe, he’s clothed in a simple t-shirt and faded jeans. “Are you not modeling today?” Jihoon asks, trying to string a sentence together. Soonyoung laughs lightly and nods.
“Yeah,” Soonyoung shrugs. “I’ll be back next week, though. Just wanted to stop by and tell you I appreciated your art. Do you think I could take a picture of them or something? Is that okay with you?”
Jihoon furrows his eyebrows. The professor walks in, the clock close to three, the rustling of paper and pencils and charcoals reaching its zenith. “Uh…you should probably ask the professor about that,” he tries, but Jihoon doesn’t even know if it really matters. People have never asked to take pictures of his class assignments before.
Soonyoung laughs, a little louder this time. “Well, I better go now. Nice meeting you, Jihoon.”
“Yeah,” Jihoon echoes, disoriented, the itch strange on his skin. Soonyoung grins at him before walking away, his thin frame disappearing out the doorway. He turns back to the platform Soonyoung stood on just last week, dragging dark, dark lines of charcoal on his paper yet again.
Seungcheol’s not home when Jihoon gets back. He throws his backpack down next to the couch Seungcheol sleeps on more often than not, sighs at Seungcheol’s unfolded blanket crumpled behind a clump of pillows, tosses Seungcheol’s socks in the laundry basket. It’s that time of the semester again, when everything Seungcheol owns is thrown around haphazardly and forgotten about until needed or remembered.
Sometimes, Jihoon wonders if he’s like one of Seungcheol’s things. This is one of them. Flops onto the couch. It doesn’t smell like anything, really. Good, Jihoon thinks, closing his eyes, seeing pomegranates. Good.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not -
“How’s your final project going?” Jeonghan asks him as they’re packing up their things after their still-life class. Jihoon’s known Jeonghan ever since they’d been in all the same classes during their first semester. They’d been friendly since then, eating the occasional meal out together with other art majors, giving each other feedback on past works.
Jihoon shrugs. “It’s…going. I guess.”
Jeonghan laughs, loud, each “ha” clearly enunciated. He brushes his long hair out of his eyes. “Same,” he says with a lopsided grin, patting Jihoon on the shoulder. “Well, as long as we have an idea.”
“Uh, yeah,” Jihoon frowns. Jeonghan swings his messenger bag over his shoulder and takes in the look on Jihoon’s face.
They’re exiting the building, winter evening outside the glass doors already dark, when Jeonghan just says it. “You’re kinda fucked, Jihoon.”
Jihoon pulls his scarf closer to his face. “You think I don’t know that?” he groans, the words muffled. Jeonghan laughs his carefree laugh again, puffing translucent cream clouds into the shadowy dusk. For some strange reason, it makes Jihoon crave shitty instant coffee.
Soonyoung happens to be sitting next to the easel Jihoon’d been eyeing since Monday class when he walks in on Wednesday. They’d been talking more and more before class since that first day Soonyoung approached him (mostly Soonyoung initiating the conversation and Jihoon filling in the designated blanks from his inquiries). But Soonyoung didn’t always talk to only him - Jihoon saw him chatting with other students before and after class, too.
“Hey,” he greets Jihoon when he stops in front of his seat. “Those are some crazy dark circles you got there.”
Jihoon absentmindedly touches them. Usually, Seungcheol would point them out to him (and then he’d say something along the lines of you have to start sleeping more, Jihoon and make sure Jihoon was in bed before settling down for another round of studying until four in the morning), but Jihoon hasn’t seen him awake for most of the past two weeks. He snorts. “Yeah, I guess so, huh,” he says, unzipping his backpack.
“Final project?” Soonyoung asks. Jihoon shrugs nonchalantly, Soonyoung watching him with his sharp eyes.
“Not really sure what I’m going to do yet,” Jihoon tries, tone airy. Seungcheol hadn’t been home or conscious enough when he was home for Jihoon to ask him for any favors - Jihoon was pretty sure he’d be able to pull off a figure-drawing even with Seungcheol fully clothed. Seungcheol didn’t make him think of pomegranates - after all, last year, he’d gotten compliments for his final project that he’d painted thinking of Seungcheol’s words. Soonyoung leans back in his stool, his tilted back leaning on nothing for support, eyes still on Jihoon.
“Me and the other models have already posed for several final projects, if you’re doing something like that,” Soonyoung suggests, twirling one of Jihoon’s pencils he placed on his easel between his index and middle finger. “All standing.” He smiles at Jihoon before pushing himself upright once again with a languid ease.
“Don’t you get tired from posing?” Jihoon asks, though the answer is obvious. But Soonyoung’s not like other models - other models are more about posing for getting the extra pay, while Soonyoung actually seems excited about seeing the results of not only Jihoon’s, but other people’s, sketches of him.
Soonyoung chuckles. “Of course I do,” he starts, tone not patronizing Jihoon at all. Glances at Jihoon in the corner of his eye, a twinkle somewhere in there. “But I always stand for art.”
Jihoon pays extra attention to Soonyoung’s posing that day, taking in the controlled lines - fluid but strong, and the way how he stands exudes some kind of emotion. Today, he’s all slumped shoulders, not too hunched, but not upright; loose arms, looser than the sharper lines he usually holds them as, a thumb barely making contact with his chin, but still there, as if it could drop down at any moment; weight on his left leg, the right bent and relaxed, toes on the ground. Lazy, Jihoon tries at first, tracing in the lines loosely. Halfway, he changes his direction, once he realizes the sturdy and sure look in Soonyoung’s eyes.
I always stand for art, Soonyoung had said. Jihoon sees planes of periwinkle and indigo in the angles of his torso.
Confident, he tries instead.
Class Email for Art 1B
Please do check in your final project progress with me at some point before the week of the deadline.
Best.
“What if I just draw you instead?” Jihoon jokes to Jeonghan as they’re waiting for their food. Jisoo, Nayeon, Myungeun, and Wonwoo are sitting at the table with them, each taking turns describing their final project woes over greasy food. Jihoon usually didn’t spend the night out with friends this late in the semester, but Seungcheol had been too busy to eat a meal with him for weeks now and it’d been lonely in their freezing apartment by himself.
“Me? No way,” Jeonghan laughs. “I don’t want my face to become distorted into your abstract lines and shit,” he teases. Jihoon kicks him under the table.
Nayeon grins, amused, while Myungeun shakes her head. “I mean, your hair would be pretty interesting to draw, you know,” she says through a mouth full of fries. Jeonghan pretends to throw his drink at her and Nayeon just opens her mouth in response, as if she could catch all the liquid in there.
“You at least have an idea, though, right, Jihoon?” Jisoo tries. Jeonghan shoots him a look and then Jisoo’s eyes widen. “Oh, uh, so you don’t. Uh. Sorry.”
“You could be stuck with sculptures,” Myungeun mutters bitterly out of the corner of her mouth that’s not occupied in biting her straw. “Me and Wonwoo are losing our fucking minds.”
“Sculpting was fun though,” Jeonghan says, to which Myungeun just grumbles more. Wonwoo looks like he’s doing his best not to fall asleep. Jihoon feels relatively lucky in comparison, before remembering he still hasn’t figured out what to do.
“It’s fucking artist’s block, though,” Jihoon groans, reaching for Nayeon’s last handful of fries. She glares at him as he stuffs them in his mouth, but he doubts she minds much at all. Myungeun flicks Wonwoo’s forehead on the other end of the table, and he flinches back awake with a dazed sheepish grin.
Jeonghan puts his elbows on the table. “But I’ve seen you drawing things for life drawing? Maybe you could do something with that.”
Jisoo pipes up. “It doesn’t even have to be phenomenal, you know, just…pass this semester and then worry about the next one?”
Jihoon groans into his arms. “Sounds like the life of a normal university student to me,” he hears Wonwoo say. Everyone else choruses lifelessly in agreement.
Pencil to paper later that night. Closes his eyes, thinks of Seungcheol’s words. We were born just knowing each other.
Jihoon hadn’t heard Seungcheol’s voice much in weeks. Muffled through his blanket as he talked in his sleep. Distorted by static over the phone. Weeks were too little a fraction of time compared to how long they’d known each other to forget completely how Seungcheol sounded like, but the colors Jihoon always associated with the softness of Seungcheol’s words were growing muddy and unclear.
After an hour of sketching, all Jihoon can make out are scribbled lines that don’t even connect to form anything. His fingers, stiff from the cold, still insist on weaving through his pencil through the doodles again and again, repeat.
When he tilts his head a little to the left at five thirty-six in the morning, Jihoon swears he sees pomegranate seeds in between the graphite.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not - this is hard and the girl’s crying in the corner and the teacher’s mean -
“I was actually a dancer before this,” Soonyoung confesses over a cup of coffee. Class had ended earlier than usual, and Jihoon wasn’t in a rush to return to an empty apartment, so he’d agreed to Soonyoung’s suggestion on getting something to drink together. Talking to Soonyoung was surprisingly easy - after their first conversation, Jihoon hadn’t anticipated he’d want to talk to Soonyoung much more, but Soonyoung was bubbling with words. He was kind in a way different from Seungcheol - his kindness came from how genuinely curious he was about everything anyone had to say.
Jihoon puts down his coffee cup after burning his tongue on it. “Really?” He thinks about how easy Soonyoung used his body to express himself in the studio, and even just by the way he was crossing his legs and leaning far back in his chair over coffee. It made sense to Jihoon now.
“Hurt myself two years ago though. So I can’t dance much until that heals up and even then,” he shrugs. “I might not be able to dance the way I used to. You never know, though.” An optimistic smile tugs on his lips behind his coffee cup.
“Then how’d you become a model for a life drawing class?” Jihoon asks. Soonyoung sits back up, tapping his fingers against the table, almost rhythmically.
“Like anyone becomes a model for a life drawing class,” he deadpans. Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay, well, I had a friend who graduated last year, but he told me they needed new models. So I let him sign me up for it since I needed the extra cash, and,” Soonyoung shrugs. “Yeah.”
“I mean, my mom was super against it when I told her my new part-time job. Said I was ‘selling my body,’ like I was a gigolo or something,” Soonyoung laughs a little, his eyes darkening. “I almost quit after my first week because she said stuff like that.”
Jihoon spins his cup of coffee, waiting for him to continue.
“But then I got to see what you guys work on in class and it was just,” Soonyoung shakes his head, eyes brightening again. “Amazing. The way I pose can be captured so many ways, that was so incredible to me.” He leans his elbows on the table to look at Jihoon a little closer. “It reminded me a lot of dancing - all art is just different people expressing themselves in their own unique ways. And I really wanted to be a part of it, now that I can’t dance like I used to, you know?”
Jihoon takes a sip of his coffee - too cold for his taste now - as he considers all this. “But can’t the way you pose be considered an art, too? Not just a part of it,” he says, honest.
Soonyoung smiles in that way that lights up his entire face. “I’ve never heard of it like that but,” his eyes crinkle happily. “If you put it that way, then yes.”
Jihoon blinks, not sure what to do. He’s never really made anyone smile that wide - usually it was sarcasm and teasing that brought lopsided smiles or short laughs out of people - not looks of pure happiness. Maybe with Seungcheol, but even then, Seungcheol was usually the one coercing smiles out of Jihoon.
Soonyoung acts for him. Places a hand over his on his coffee cup. “Thanks, Jihoon.”
For the first time in a while, the itch crawls uncomfortably under his skin.
Jihoon’s nursing a cup of watered-down (shitty) instant coffee at one AM, watching Seungcheol solve equations, hunched over his textbooks. It’s the first time he’s seen Seungcheol on the couch, awake, in a while. The way he’s sitting reminds Jihoon of that one pose Soonyoung did - sitting on a block on the platform, the curve of his lean back and the sharpness of the one eye Jihoon could see from where he was sitting. A fox eye.
“Hey, Seungcheol,” Jihoon tries. Seungcheol lifts his head slightly to show he’s listening, eyes still focused down on his homework. “I feel like I don’t see you anymore.”
Seungcheol looks up completely at that, pencil still in his hand. His eyebrows crease toward each other. “What do you mean by that?” he says, voice even. Jihoon laughs a little, but it gets stuck in his throat.
“I mean, you’re never here anymore. Or you’re sleeping. And…you’re busy, I know, but it’s just. I don’t know,” Jihoon sighs. Seungcheol still looks confused, but concerned now and Jihoon is starting to feel like a huge dick.
“Actually, this is really dumb,” he starts muttering, and Seungcheol’s eyebrows just furrow together more, but is it wrong to just want to see you because I love you and there’s just so much distance between us these days that it hurts a lot, you don’t have to love me back or know or say anything, but just be here or something, Seungcheol. “You know, just forget it.”
“Jihoon,” Seungcheol starts, his voice so soft that Jihoon almost wants to cry and he doesn’t even know why. His voice is that voice that makes the words that escape his lips so kind and warm and caring and Jihoon doesn’t know why he can’t be sincere and just tell him - i love you, i love you, i love you - instead of swallowing again and pretending his eyes are still dry. “You know you can tell me anything. It’s not dumb if it’s bothering you -”
He shrugs, his heart swelling and bursting in place of every beat in his chest. It hurts like a motherfucker, but Jihoon doesn’t even know what to say anymore. “Stressed out,” he manages, and Seungcheol puts his pencil down, walking over to Jihoon and wrapping his arms around him.
Jihoon stiffens before relaxing into Seungcheol’s hug, warm in the cold, Seungcheol’s scent a mix of the cheap soap brand they decided on during freshman year and the hint of foregoing a shower in favor of studying. “I miss you, too, Jihoon,” he hears Seungcheol say against his shoulder and Jihoon smiles a little. Seungcheol doesn’t know that’s only half of it - doesn’t have to know that that’s only half of it.
Jihoon dreams of pomegranates again that night.
Pomegranate in his left hand, charcoal in his right - he’s got a weak throw with his left, but why not - this is hard and the girl’s crying in the corner and the teacher’s mean -
Throw the pomegranate, throw the pomegranate, throw, throw -
“Why don’t you just tell him?”
Jihoon flinches, blinking away the flashes of green burned into his eyes from staring out the window for too long. He looks over at Jeonghan, who isn’t even looking back at him, brush mixing his paints together. I can’t work alone, he told Jihoon last year, and always had to have him, or Jisoo, or Nayeon sitting in the studio with him as he worked. The crisscrossing planes of color Jeonghan tended to paint in seemed to capture even the faintest hums of noise that the people surrounding him gave off - a sigh here, a particularly sharp inhale there.
“What?” Jihoon says, squinting. The green is still there. Jeonghan shakes the one strand that always falls out of his ponytail away from his face.
He starts painting, bold, unapologetic strokes on a canvas already half-filled with color. Kind of like his words. “Seungcheol, Jihoon,” Jeonghan sighs. “Seungcheol.”
Jihoon shrugs. “What’s there to tell?” Jeonghan’s known since Jihoon introduced him to Seungcheol - you’re the first friend Jihoon’s made at university, please take care of him! and then he noticed the way Jihoon looked at him and just knew.
Later that year, Nayeon tried to introduce Jihoon to one of her friends. (She’s an economics major! Don’t you think that’s great?) Jeonghan had just placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
“Jihoon already likes someone.” And that’s how Jihoon figured out Jeonghan knew.
Jeonghan puts his brush down. “Maybe just bottling it up inside you has something to do with your artist’s block,” he tries. Jihoon stares at him with wary, tired eyes. Looks away once Jeonghan looks back at him. “I don’t know…I just get the feeling that you need to get it off your chest. You’ve been friends for so long, you know, nothing bad could happen -”
Jihoon swallows. “What’s there to tell?” he repeats, glancing out the window again. It’s not that easy, he wants to tell Jeonghan. Out there existed a universe where Jihoon could tell Seungcheol all sorts of things without his tongue actually tripping over the words, and that universe consisted of flat paper images and the smell of drying paint and deep breaths of exhaustion because he’d poured himself out onto the canvas and left nothing inside, his body but an empty husk -
And that universe wasn’t here, or now, or close.
( part two)