Arriving at his apartment Minho went inside and slammed his body against the hard metal doorway. 

  “We’ve been waiting a long time for you where were you?” Minho jumped at the sound of his fathers voice and turned to see his parents sitting in his living room with glasses of wine in their hands. What if… no thats impossible they couldn’t have known about that. 

  “Sorry you should have called me I wouldn’t have left if I known you were coming.” Minho said trying to rid any pain from his strained vocal chords. 

  “It would have been kind of hard to call you considering your phone is lying on the kitchen counter.” His fathers voice rose, and Minho poured himself a full glass of wine and sat down at his fathers side. Just now noticing the presence of Choi Yumi he didn’t know what to expect from this impromptu family meeting. Usually they made a conscience effort to avoid each other at all costs. Minho had such a striking resemblance to his older brother that it pained them to look him in the eye. He was just a living reminder of how much they had lost and how much they had yet to lose if the same thing happened to Minho. 

  “Whatever that doesn’t matter now. But now that you are here me and your father have something very important to tell you.” He looked at his mother and then back at the floor not wanting to hear the words that came next. 

  “As you know I am not as young as I used to be and some things are beginning to fail me. In a couple months we are having a meeting to discuss my retirement, so we have decided to move your wedding up by a month so we have all of the finalizations in place for you to replace me as head of the company. As you know by our clause you must marry before this can take place, and I thought it wouldn’t be a problem because you and Yumi have been dating for so long.” Minho knocked over his nearly full glass of wine and the sound of shattering glass penetrated the deathly silent room. He heard gasps fill the room but he put on his biggest smile and attempted to laugh it off as an excited twitch. 

  “Of course there is nothing wrong with that, the sooner the better, I apologize for my actions I just was so overwhelmed by emotion.” They all relaxed and Yumi’s smile lit up her eyes and he felt the last part of himself break in half. Yes he had been overwhelmed with emotion of the blackest color, and the darkest shade. But he knew that if it had been at the original date he probably wouldn’t have survived all that waiting. It would have only been merely prolonging the inevitability of his fate. He cleaned up the spill still while plastering that perfect puppet smile on his face, even though he felt as shattered as the wine glass that was lying in shards on the hardwood floor. 

  “Perfect. We will start preparations right away, I have already scheduled for you 2 to meet with some different chefs tomor…” Everything after that blurred together and not even the warmth of alcohol could clear the pain that was building in his arms. He made an effort not to scratch at the scars knowing that soon this wouldn’t be an intimate secret between him and Jinwoo to know any longer. People would know of his imperfection, and he didn’t think he would ever be ready to face them. But he was a member of the Song family after all, perfect in every way. Destined to pretend until the day he died.  

      The first day Jinwoo got the invitation in his mailbox, he drank until the world blurred at the edges, and puked until he was empty inside. He didn’t remember the lips he had kissed, he didn’t remember the warmth that radiated from his fingertips. He only remembered the unsatisfying burn of the alcohol as it made his way back up his paper thin throat. He distracted himself through painting every brushstroke held something dark and bitter behind it. But nevertheless he was on high demand and the more money he made the less he felt. It was as if through every painting he was giving away, he was giving away the remaining pieces of his tattered soul. 

   The rich taste of expensive green tea felt wrong in his mouth because the flavor only reminded him of how he obtained his wealth, and who it was he obtained it through. The watercolor painting that hung above his bed eventually felt out of place and wrong, as if it was a memory didn’t deserve to be there. With each passing day no matter how much company he had he still couldn’t retain any of the feeling he had slowly been losing since that day. He hated himself for allowing a man to develop feelings for him that wasn’t Minho because he knew that he was never going to be able to return those same feelings back to him. But every morning Kang Seungyoon showed up at the gallery with a smiling face and a steaming cup of the wrong kind of tea, no matter how many times Jinwoo turned away from him. 

   He had met Seungyoon through a gallery showing because after Minho had shut the door, Jinwoo had bought out a space that was worthy of such a prominent young artist. Even if he didn’t feel as though he deserved anything other than flickering lights and cracking ceilings. He tried to keep busy, but on sleepless nights where the silence was deafening he found himself screaming the name of the one he had let slip through his fingers. The name of the only man he would ever truly be able to love. It was a silent kind of scream that could only be heard by the void itself. But it was ugly and dripping and the tears that slid down his face burned his porcelain skin. Every day he awoke with puffy cheeks and tired eyes now once again void of any light, and just in a few short days he would have to face the one he loved, his tragically beautiful puppet. 

     The weeks had gone by in excruciating blurs, and Minho could barely remember that last day he had made it through completely sober. The caterers, the chefs, and the bakers would have been a distraction if Choi Yumi hadn’t been attached to him at the hip everywhere he went. It hurt him all the more to see her genuine smiling face, and her perfection that was unparalleled by anything else in this world. He wished he could return the same warmth back to her, but he was a shattered man living his life on cracking foundation.   

    Everywhere he went he saw his little artist, since the gala Kim Jinwoo had made a name for himself, and it seemed as though the whole world recognized it. He was in all the papers, and art magazines and even on electronic billboards high above the heart of Seoul. As if they were larger than life mockeries of Minho’s eternal suffering. He had cried himself to sleep the night after Yumi told him she had sent Jinwoo an invitation for the wedding as a valued member of the wedding party. The last thing he wanted was to see Jinwoo’s lifeless eyes staring back at him with the fakest of smiles plastered across his face. He had thought things would get easier, he truly believed that time would heal him, but it was as if with each passing day the shards dug deeper into his aching veins. So much for the scars healing before his wedding night came, if anything there was more blood than ever and scars weren’t just the product of his late night clawing. 

  The day had come for his rehearsal dinner, and as the groom he was probably the least excited about the added night of pretending. His father had poured over a million dollars to make sure his son’s wedding was the quintessence of perfection. Minho stared at himself in the mirror with his perfectly fitting tux and his perfectly styled hair. Song Minho the only eligible son of the Song family, was perfect in every sense of the word on the outside. Just as everyone had always expected him to be. Yet his eyes were puffy and glazed over and he feared that if someone were to really look at him they would see a tattered soul broken far to much to ever be repaired. He stepped inside the car, and took Yumi’s hand in his smiling as if he were the happiest man in all of the world. When just under his layer of sleeve were arms that were covered in scars and permanently crimson. 

“Wow you look.. really nice.” Kang Seungyoon smiled at Jinwoo from behind the wall length mirror, and Jinwoo didn’t even bother to return the gesture. He wanted to be able to return some kind of emotion to the man who had shown him so much kindness but he had nothing to give. One last time Jinwoo stared at his reflexion in the mirror, and he knew Minho had probably been doing the same thing. Looking into the colorless eyes of an otherwise perfect man. 

  “Let’s just get this over with.” Jinwoo walked out of the all to familiar wooden apartment door, without glancing back to make sure if his plus one had even followed him out of it. He couldn’t stand the idea of walking into that room alone while being surrounded by images of the man he loved but couldn’t stand to see.  While he was drunk one night he had told Seungyoon some things he regrettably can’t remember, and he willingly volunteered to accompany him. He got into the car he had last seen weeks before, and Seungyoon sat down next to him and yet he still felt completely alone. 

  “Hey. I know how this must feel to you, but I will be with you the whole time you don’t have to go through this alone.” Seungyoon’s usually exuberant expression turned serious as he turned to face the broken man he was so foolishly drawn to. He knew nothing would come of it and yet he couldn’t help but keep fighting a losing battle. If just to enter the world of the reclusive artistic genius for as long as he was allowed. 

  Jinwoo said nothing in return because the words wouldn’t come no matter how many times he formed them in his mouth. It wouldn’t have mattered who he had come with the fact was that nothing could dilute the sickening weakness that had spread over him. Every part of him was shaking with every passing mile he could feel himself slipping away into the feelingless shell he had tried so hard to stay away from. He had vowed to himself that no matter how hard it got, and no matter how much it hurt that he wouldn’t let himself be defeated. That he would force himself to feel all of it. But the thought of him seeing Minho’s face after all these weeks was a pain that no human being would ever be able to handle. The car stopped and Jinwoo got out silently, hardly registering the sound of Seungyoon’s heavy steps behind him. He let the man grab his arm and guide him to the doors, because he didn’t have the will inside of him to enter them himself. 

   “Name?… Oh sorry Kim Jinwoo of course how foolish of me, please forgive me sir.. and this is?” A jittery woman said awkwardly while bowing in the artist’s direction. 

  “This is Kang Seungyoon. He is my plus one.” Jinwoo replied mechanically. 

 “Ahh yes he is right here. Please go right on in you are just on time.” She motioned for yet another set of towering double doors and Seungyoon resumed guiding Jinwoo’s placid legs towards the reception hall. Jinwoo didn’t even have it in himself to be disappointed about his return to complete numbness because it was the only way he was going to be able to survive the evening ahead of him. That and one to many trips to the bar. He detached himself from Seungyoon’s arm only to move towards the direction of the alcohol. He didn’t dare to turn around because he knew he would see the disappointment in Seungyoon’s eyes if he did. But he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything except for the burn of the vodka as it slid smoothly down his ravaged throat. The bartender looked at him strangely but poured the second shot, which Jinwoo swallowed without even reacting. 

  “I think thats enough for now.” Seungyoon said pulling Jinwoo away by the hand to their assigned table. Jinwoo followed complacently only after the false comfort of the alcohol worked its way into his bloodstream. He wasn’t nearly drunk by any means but the burning in his lungs was enough for him to see everything in a fuzzy haze as if looking through lenses.  

     Minho entered the room to loud applause and smiling faces, and returned them convincingly while holding the hand of the one whom he would soon marry. He tried to look at her like she was the world as he had seen in all the movies but had never experienced in actual life, until he saw the face of the one who consumed his universe. His heart ceased its already sporadic beating and his perfect smile wavered slightly. He could feel the presence of the glass make itself known but tightened the grip on Yumi’s hand instead unaware of her quiet outburst of pain as he did so. He guided her nearly blindly to the table at the front of the room, and before the rehearsal could even begin he found himself tightly clutching an empty glass of a substance he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone the name of. He was surrounded by family he hadn’t seen in years, and the family of the women he couldn’t love who looked at him expectantly to take care of their shining jewel. It was supposed to be relaxed but he couldn’t help but feel like 1,000 spotlights where shining down at him at once. All beaconing him to reveal how imperfect he really was. He smiled through the toasts, and through the meal, and talked with Yumi about things he could hardly even remember.  

   As the time for socializing began he scanned the room to find Jinwoo being dragged around by the hand by a handsome man with expensive taste in footwear. He didn’t really know how the shot glass had gotten into his hand, and he didn’t remember the second one either. But all he knew was that he wanted the alcohol to burn away the pain that was growing inside of himself. To burn away the image of his artists pain-streaked hand being held by someone else. Maybe this means he’s moved on maybe this is a g… His couldn’t even complete his thought because he was to the point where self-control was no longer a physically possible option for him. 

  Stopping dead in his tracks he stared at Jinwoo’s smiling face as he spoke politely with Yumi and offered his congratulations. Jinwoo’s plus one hovering beside him like his shadow smiling warmly and genuinely. Maybe Minho hadn’t known Jinwoo for very long but he knew what his real smile looked like. He remembered the way his eyes crinkled and all his teeth showed, and how he put his hand in front of his face because he was embarrassed by it. This smile he saw before him was nothing more than an empty performance. Unable to think Minho pulled Jinwoo by the arm so quickly no one would have been able to register it had been him. He dragged him across the reception hall out the double doors and into a small lounge room slamming the door behind him. 

  “What the hell w…” Before Jinwoo could answer Minho’s lips pressed forcefully against his and his anger melted into something else entirely. 

  With fire running through Minho’s veins he pushed Jinwoo harshly against the wall and let himself disappear into the feeling of Jinwoo’s mouth against his. Running his fingers up into Jinwoo’s now black perfectly styled hair, he felt Jinwoo’s hands slid into his jacket and he let him throw it across the room. Next Jinwoo worked his hands over the buttons on Minho’s shirt, and slowly worked its way over his head without once breaking their kiss. Once again Minho felt electricity in a once feelingless place. As the nerves in his back awakened at Jinwoo’s careful touch. Nothing else in the world existed except his artists lips against his and those paint-streaked hands holding onto only him. 

  “I love you.” Jinwoo said breathlessly into Minho’s ear. Jinwoo stumbled backwards in shock at the words that had just escaped his lips, and stared at the ground not wanting to look into Minho’s eyes as he finally sobered to the situation. Put instead he was met with a soft smiling kiss and eyes that were clear and yet not filled with horror. He responded with another kiss that was deep yet gentle. Maybe it was his lack of self-control, but tears slid down his cheeks and yet this time they didn’t burn his pale skin. This was the most foolish thing he had ever done, and yet it transported him back to the night when he had finally been able to dream in pastels.

  “I love you too.” Minho finally said back pulling Jinwoo into his chest. In this moment he didn’t care about the consequences he didn’t care about the questions and the headlines. All he wanted was for his little artists hands to be intertwined with his, and to feel like he was actually living. 

          **This is a little longer chapter since the last one was a little short :) it was actually one of my favorites to write. I hope you like it! I guess we will see what consequences occur in the next chapter >.<  Thank you all for your subscribtions and comments it really means a lot to me xx 

                                                                          -Cai <3