Minho woke up staring blankly at the ceiling his head was throbbing from the effects of all the champagne he had lost track of the night before. He felt a void next to him, and noticed that he was alone. Was it just a dream? Am I going to look around and see myself in my own room. Minho looked and saw unfamiliar hardwood floors and snow white sheets. For once dry blood didn’t stain his heavily scarred arms and he didn’t remember waking once during the night. The smell of coffee wafted through the warm air, he rose rubbing his eyes and taking in the sight of Jinwoo’s apartment in the daylight with a sober mind. It was minimalistic but calming, Jinwoo’s makeshift art studio smelled heavily of acrylic but Minho was filled with a longing for the paint. He wanted to see it freshly splattered on the canvas, he wanted to see Jinwoo’s long slender fingers eloquently gripping the paint brush. To see his little artist in his truest form. 

  “Good morning, I brought you some coffee and an Advil.” Jinwoo smiled down at Minho hardly believing that last nights events had really taken place. Even in the cool spring morning he was felt warmth spread from his fingertips as his fingers brushed against Minho’s who took the mug willingly from his hands. Minho smiled realizing that this was the first time anyone had ever come to take care of him. Minho was expected to be perfect, and perfect people don’t cry for help because that would mean they were flawed in some way. Feelings are flawed. Human emotion is seen as an imperfection because it is unbalanced and messy and cannot begin to be controlled. Minho had never had any control in his life, he spent his time living behind a facade living one way while feeling another. He had never known reality as it could have been. His little artist was imperfect but every part of him radiated a warmth that couldn’t be matched by anything of this world. The coffee barely even registering in his hands compared to the things Jinwoo made him feel. 

  But something inside of him realized that he wouldn’t be able to keep this feeling with him forever. There was Yumi and his father and the business, and he had to remain perfect rather than remain happy. He would never be able to lead a quiet life with his paint-streaked artist in the modest apartment in the back Seoul alleyway. He would never be able to wake up feeling warm on a cold day all just because he had the man he loved beside them. Life wasn’t a fairytale there were not happily ever afters, no happy endings. Life does begin and life does end, but life rarely ever ends happily and he knew his life was one that wasn’t destined to. He looked up into Jinwoo’s soft brown eyes smiling down at him and he felt something inside himself break completely. Before he could allow his tears to ruin that perfect smile he set his mug aside and pulled Jinwoo’s mouth to his kissing him to freeze that perfect smile forever. He wanted their last moments together to be ones that he would always remember. 

  “What was that for?” Jinwoo said laying with his head on Minho’s legs while smiling up at him. 

  “You just looked a little cold thats all.” Minho smiled back and it was genuine but it shot pain through every nerve in his body. He couldn’t let the light escape from Jinwoo’s eyes while he was still there to witness it. 

 His mind flashed back to the first time they had met, he stumbled soggily into a poorly lit gallery not knowing what exactly about the painting drew him in. He saw a man with nothing left inside of himself, and nothing left to live for. Empty in every sense of the word, his cheeks hallow and gaunt from days without proper food or sleep. Void of everything except those dark hallow eyes screamed for someone, anyone to look into them like they existed. To look at Jinwoo like he was an actual human being and not some worthless piece of trash. He remembered how he felt almost the opposite but still entirely the same. He felt to much and yet was never feeling the right things, in a way he had almost immediately envied the Artist for his ability to attain being perfectly empty. But when it all came down to it they were both screaming to be heard by someone, whether that be screaming into the void or out into the open.  

    Now he looked down at a smiling Kim Jinwoo who had light in his eyes, and color in his cheeks and he didn’t want to think about what it would look like when he left him. He never wanted to see Jinwoo empty again, he especially knew that the money wouldn’t matter to Jinwoo as it didn’t matter to him. Sometimes its the people who seemingly have it all together that are the most fragile. That are the most vulnerable to falling apart at any moments notice. Jinwoo had the money to leave this place and go onto better things, and in a way Minho wished that he would do exactly that. He knew he didn’t nor wouldn’t ever deserve Jinwoo’s warmth. But that didn’t stop him from craving it. He reached down and twirled his wild brown hair lightly, while taking small tips of his coffee. 

 In a perfect world he would wake up every morning and smell fresh coffee brewing, and see his artist moving about the kitchen with his lanky eloquence and huge sweater. At night he would play some soft music and sit with warm tea and watch Jinwoo paint from afar. Finally he would be using shades of pastels and everything would have an airy feel to it. Finally he would know what living with happiness inside of you would mean. Finally his scars would begin to heal, and even on the nights when he woke himself up with tearstained cheeks he would have someone there to remind to kiss the pain away and tell him that it would all be alright in the morning. 

  But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a broken destructive world that destroys light at its core and doesn’t allow happiness to be universal. Minho felts he would only be met with forced unfeeling kisses from a women he wanted to love but would never be able to, and a life that never felt fulfilling no matter how perfect it seemed on the outside. It would be drunken nights and bloody sober mornings, and tear stained cheeks. He would never experience the full reality of sweaters and pastels.  

   Jinwoo wasn’t naive he knew that this probably wouldn’t be forever, and that once Minho was completely sober he would leave, and never come back. At least not in the way that Jinwoo wanted him too. But he wasn’t going to let this ruin what was happening right now. Jinwoo was used to the emptiness by now, that he knew he owed it to Minho to give him some memories of warmth for him to look back on when he returned to being the perfect puppet. Jinwoo wished he lived in a world where he could cut his puppets strings and set him free, but he was to small and weak to re-write what fate had already set in stone. This wasn’t meant to work. This was meant to be a relationship of what if’s, we could haves. There wasn’t meant to be a happy ending with sleepy morning coffee and warmth radiating conversation. 

  So Jinwoo smiling genuinely laid against Minho’s legs without hesitation, and let himself enjoy this moment without thoughts of all of the feelings that would come after Minho got up and closed that door, theoretically severing these kinds of ties between them. It was the first and the last time he would be able to sleep soundlessly through the night in the arms of his small giant. The first and the last time he would ever be able to hear him nearly silently whisper, “I think I am in love with you.” into his ear when he thought he was sleeping. This caused Jinwoo’s smile to waver above all else. Knowing that he would have to watch the man he had come to love walk out the door and probably never come back. He had never really believed in love, he always saw it as some foreign emotion that would continue to stay that way as all of the others had. He never believed someone would be able to look into his empty eyes and want to know what had been done to drain the light from them. But it had happened. 

   He knew once that door closed that he would never experience love again, that this was a one shot thing and he was going to let it pass him by without even putting up a fight. There was nothing he could do. Minho was meant to be perfect and poised. This meant he could never be himself. He could never be open about who he really was inside. Minho would marry Choi Yumi, he would live his life the perfect husband. Just not to the one he really loved. Jinwoo thought that Minho would eventually find something in Yumi, something Jinwoo would never be able to give to him. Jinwoo wasn’t proper, he wasn’t poised, he wasn’t perfect. He was noticeably human a luxury Minho would never be able to have. He was noticeably flawed, and wore all of his emotions through the art that he created. People would see his anger, they would see his lust, his sadness, his pain. He would never be able to hide from the world, and that was exactly what Minho needed to do. Hide. Hide his uality, hide his emotions, hide his humanity. 

  Jinwoo would never be able to be perfect for him, he would only be able to bring him all that he had. Maybe in another life, another universe, another reality, they would be together. He knew Minho didn’t really want perfection, he knew that something about himself was enough for him and yet he couldn’t feel the same worth inside of himself. Yes he was warm and electric, and the smiles weren’t forced. But Jinwoo was lying to himself in the hopes that it would change the outcome. In the hopes that the door would never really close.  

    “I should be going now they have probably already sent search helicopters out looking for me.” Minho laughed trying to hide the weight of everything that he was feeling inside. All of the underlying meanings that were fused into his seemingly simple phrase. I have to go now. We will never be able to be alone. That is what Minho really felt those words meant even though he wanted none of it to be true. For what he thought would be the final time he pulled Jinwoo forcefully to him and wrapped his arms around his slight waist. Jinwoo returned the hug by wrapping his arms around his small giants neck and letting himself feel everything that went along with it. Even though none of them said it they almost felt like this was goodbye and not just a see you later. 

  Minho shut the door lightly behind him but felt himself crumbling as if physically feeling the effects of the broken world. He left his fragile little artist with a smile on his face and yet he knew that the weeks would go by without a word and the smile would fade slowly as it had when he realized all that he had left behind on Imja island. Minho took those last moments to be completely imperfect and wept silently as he made his way down those creaking stairs. Every part of him wanted to turn around, and run back into the only place he would ever truly feel warmth. But this wasn’t his life this isn’t what he was meant to do. The Song family was meant to be perfect, and if this got out it wouldn’t only ruin Minho but it would send his whole family crumbling into controversy. No matter how much he wanted it, no matter how good it felt to hold Jinwoo in his arms, he couldn’t do that to his family even if he despised them on the inside. 

   Everyone was trying to make it in this world, and Minho was just a person among billions so why should he value his own happiness above the well being of others. He could feel the shards in his arms as they perforated his veins, and no longer did he feel alive. He didn’t want to treat Jinwoo as his drunken play thing, he knew that what he was doing would ultimately be what was best for a just upcoming artist like Jinwoo. He couldn’t stand to ruin his life any further than he already had. Or was him leaving it all behind going to just ruin both of them completely? Jinwoo would be void of light and color and be left screaming into the void. Song Minho would be left scratching at glass that wasn’t there and bleeding just to combat the phantom pain that never really left. 

   He didn’t know what was right or what was wrong, but nothing teared him apart inside more than the thought of those paint streaked hands losing their color. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to turn around, because he knew that this would just mean that he had lost. That there was nothing left inside of himself to remain dignified. He got into the taxi whose yellow seemed offensive and gaudy, and made his way back to a women he would never love in a world he would never really belong in. 

      Every noise cause Jinwoo to turn expectantly as if some part of him was waiting for Minho to come running back through the door saying that he never wanted to leave. Jinwoo wasn’t stupid. He knew what had to happen, he knew what path Minho would ultimately choose and it wouldn’t be the weak artist who has known nothing other than emotionless struggling. He wasn’t strong strong enough to sever those puppet strings, and maybe he never would be. His phone blazed with messages of offers and inquiries and yet he felt nothing for the newfound success he had obtained quite literally overnight. If he closed his eyes he still felt Minho’s lips lightly against his and the world was nothing more than a lukewarm blur. 

  He answered the messages in words that were not his own, and realized that he to would have to withstand a varying level of perfection to be able to continually succeed in a world of this caliber. He sat in front of a blank canvas and began created a scene that would only be for his eyes to gaze upon, and let the last bit of lingering emotion to flow out of him, but not through acrylic through watercolor. The medium that had brought him and Minho together, and would be the last time he would ever find himself using it again. Except this time it wasn’t messy, angry, black and screaming.

  It was a modest apartment room with hardwood floors and messy white sheets, and a man holding his lover tightly in his arms. It was intimate and brightly colored but it also spoke volumes of pain, and loss. Maybe thats why they say that art wasn’t meant to be beautiful. It was meant to make you feel something. Jinwoo’s eyes swelled with watercolor tears and they fell haphazardly onto the palate in his hands. Maybe he would never see his love again, but he would always be reminded of this scene as it played in a never ending cycle through his mind. 

             I am so sorry I haven't updated in a while I just went back to school and things have been really busy, but there was a snow day today! :)... I know this chapter is really sad and gloomy and sounds like the end and its the end of something but this is definitely not ove yet. So please bare with me this was just a necessary part of the story even if it doesn't seem like it! Thank you all for being so patient I really appreciate your comments and subscribtions <3 

               ~Cai >.<