Several days had passed since Black Day and most of them had been filled with deep contemplation, although Jongin would have never admitted his thoughts out loud, even to Sehun. Even though that evening had been filled with funny jokes and playful insults, the core subject of their conversation had ingrained itself in the artist’s mind and he found himself thinking about why he was still single.

At first, the reason seemed fairly obvious.

For as long as he could remember, art was Jongin’s only love. He lived and breathed art, like it was his only source of oxygen. There was simply no time to waste on casually meeting people who most likely wanted nothing more than to use him for his fame and money. Just as Sehun had pointed out, having to carefully filter out the bad apples from anyone who was possibly worth getting to know expended too much energy that could be otherwise spent on perfecting his craft.

Not to mention, most people were terribly boring and average, like Jongdae. It was bad enough having to deal with his older brother on a daily basis and witness his incompetence firsthand. Jongin had no interest in willingly subjecting himself to that kind of torture from others he barely knew.

The artist was happiest when he was in his work room, splashing vibrant colors onto his canvas and creating something new for the world to laud. With his art by his side, Jongin already felt more fulfilled than a romantic relationship could ever elicit within him.

But if that were the case, then why did his insides feel hollow when he thought about spending the rest of his life with only his art and no one to share it with? Was it because the artist was no longer producing content for the world to see? Was it because he was getting older, his biological clock steadily ticking as another second was added to his lifespan, while the days passed unhindered?

Sehun and Yixing were both content with their single status, wholly focusing their energy on their scheduled tasks each week. Even Jongdae, despite Jongin’s jabs at him on Black Day, had thrown himself completely into his work and couldn’t be bothered with the emotional baggage that came with dating.

Jongin used to be just as indifferent to dating as the other three were. The artist would even argue that he had been even more apathetic about the subject than they had ever felt.

Even while living in Paris, the City of Love, he hadn’t felt anything. Envy never stirred within him whenever he passed by couples holding hands with each other as they strolled down the streets, whenever he sat near couples on dinner dates at fancy restaurants, or even whenever he watched his surroundings and found himself looking at couples ardently kissing each other. To Jongin, these were just daily occurrences, like someone going grocery shopping or riding the subway train.

Couples weren’t considered special. Love wasn’t special.

So why was he bothered now, after years of solitude and exclusively thinking of himself? Why were tiny seeds of doubt starting to take root in his mind and spring up as the days passed? How had one holiday, one simple evening of conversation, completely upended something that he used to consider as an irrefutable fact of his life?

It didn’t make sense that he would suddenly question his perspective on dating. There weren’t any tell-tale signs that anything in his life had changed in regards to a romantic relationship.

In fact, it was actually quite terrifying how everything that he thought he knew was completely crashing down around him.

Jongin attempted to shake these ludicrous thoughts out of his head, even going for a physical approach by haphazardly flailing around in his big bed and repeatedly face-planting into his fluffy pillow. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could knock himself out and conveniently forget that these thoughts had ever existed in the first place. By the end of it, the artist was completely tangled up in his blanket and the beginnings of a migraine were forming.

He groaned loudly into his pillow, the sound of his voice largely muffled by the pillow’s thickness, which he was thankful for since he didn’t want either Yixing or Jongdae checking up on him. Despite being close friends with Yixing for so many years, the manager being his sturdy pillar of support, Jongin didn’t know how he would even begin to express the tumultuous feelings within him to Yixing. There was no doubt that the Chinese male would do his best to offer support and advice, but Jongin also knew that there would be dozens of probing questions from his manager. And that would only make the artist feel even more confused about the situation than he already was.

As for Jongdae… Well, Jongin would rather throw himself off of a cliff than ever admit to his older brother that he was currently bewildered by romance. Especially after he and Sehun had joked around at Jongdae’s expense on Black Day.

Speaking of Sehun, even if the model were here to help, Jongin wasn’t sure how he would approach the subject with his best friend. It wasn’t a topic they often broached, since they were both so accustomed to the bachelor life, and any brief mentions of the subject were usually borne from mindless celebrity gossip. Not even seeing attractive people could prompt Sehun to delve more into dating, since he was surrounded virtually twenty-four-seven by people he thought were airheads, despite their beauty.

Knowing this made Jongin’s mood sink even lower, since it made the realization that he was utterly single even more prominent. Having a significant other meant he could talk for hours and hours about anything and everything with this person. He wouldn’t have to scroll through his extremely short list of close friends and berate himself for being too cowardly to talk about certain subjects with them.

But this thought also angered the artist, as he clawed himself free from his blanket and kicked it to the side. Despite feeling comforted by its warm embrace earlier, he now only felt suffocated and trapped by how the fabric clung to his skin like a blood- leech. The mere notion of his relationship status defining him and the value of his friendships was absolutely ridiculous.

He had survived thirty-plus years without a significant other and he could survive thirty more the same way.

Love was a human construct, one that large corporations commercialized for their financial benefit. In fact, his home country was one of the biggest offenders of profiting from romance and idealistic relationships. Every season, the highest rated television dramas were always ones that showcased a supposedly heart-wrenching, spectacular romantic relationship—Jongin never bought into the dramatics despite Jongdae and Yixing always becoming invested, almost fanatically so at times—that encompassed the entire plot. And the story was always the same.

A boy and a girl fatefully met. They fell in love, almost instantly, despite knowing nothing about each other. Or they blindingly loved each other without recognizing the other’s glaring faults.

Jongin hated how the media sometimes skirted over real issues, treating them like they were nonexistent, simply because these television dramas were classified as fiction. It seemed like a childish excuse to shed the responsibility of romanticizing existing problems.

Even the shows that truly were harmless seemed to portray such unrealistic relationship standards that would never actually happen in real life. They were setting up so many of their viewers to raise the bar just as high, only to be thoroughly disappointed when they ended up never meeting their leading star.

And that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Their society’s obsession with matching clothing and accessories was also tremendously excessive in Jongin’s opinion. There was no need to constantly show off one’s relationship to the world; people had more important matters to concern themselves with. And it was obvious that these clothing companies were perpetuating this culture in order to make more sales, which Jongin didn’t think would otherwise be made since the designs were extremely cheap and gaudy.

But, even worse, were those that fed into the fake holidays of White Day, Black Day, and Pepero Day. Valentine’s Day was already enough as the universally designated holiday to celebrate true love. Having several more holidays that essentially commemorated the same thing was an evident money-grabbing opportunity. These businesses were shamelessly capitalizing on the happiness—or unhappiness, for the restaurants that sold black bean noodles—of the general public for the sake of making a quick buck.

Jongin didn’t want to become another statistic, another victim of this marketing ploy.

He was an autonomous individual. He always had been and he always would be.

And it was foolish to rely on another person for emotional support. The only one he could truly rely on to be there—through thick and thin, at every moment of the day, even when the chips were down—was himself and only himself.

Granted, his friends had been there for the artist during his ups and downs, but they wouldn’t be there forever. They had their own lives to manage and he couldn’t always expect them to be there when he desperately needed someone to help pick up the broken pieces. Jongin had been lucky so far, but he couldn’t rely on this luck forever.

After all, relying solely on his muse had led him to his artistic downfall. And Jongin’s life was now in shambles after years of never worrying about anything, thinking life would always be in his favor. Why wouldn’t it? Why wasn’t it?

But there was also the appeal of someone being his support system, catching him when he fell and helping him stand back up. Sehun had mentioned that on Black Day, although more for Yixing’s benefit than Jongin’s.

There had to be someone out there who would love every fiber of his being. Someone who would understand the artist whenever he had his moody fits and caused destruction. Someone who would cherish him like a diamond. Someone who would never fail to put a smile on his face, no matter how horribly his day had gone.

Jongin didn’t want to entertain the possibility that he would grow old and die alone, unloved by anyone.

He didn’t want to be a pathetic loser who was incapable of being cared about.

However, these sentiments also made the artist extremely resentful of how he seemed so dependent on another person. How it sounded like he couldn’t take care of himself and had to lower himself to seek validation from someone else.

It made him appear weak and useless which he refused to accept.

He kept flip-flopping between the two sentiments, causing his head to whirl even more. And the entire time, Jongin cursed his best friend for planning that “celebration” and talking so much about dating throughout the evening. It was a conversation that he hadn’t wanted to participate in and now it was tormenting him, day and night.

As he internally argued with himself over how he felt about his single status, Jongin found himself staring at his desk—more specifically, he stared at the neatly folded maroon turtleneck and black Adidas soccer pants that Kyungsoo had lent him the previous week. His thoughts then shifted to how peculiar it was that the ophthalmologist’s best friend was virtually another inhabitant of that giant house.

And Kyungsoo had spoken about it so nonchalantly. He hadn’t batted an eyelash upon lending his best friend’s clothes to a stranger, as if they were his own clothes to lend.

Even though he didn’t want to make any assumptions due to barely knowing the ophthalmologist, Jongin couldn’t help but wonder if Kyungsoo had a significant other of his own. Now that wouldn’t be strange, considering how most people in their thirties were in romantic relationships. Perhaps this best friend was actually someone more intimately linked to the ophthalmologist? And perhaps Kyungsoo had used a more platonic term so that Jongin wouldn’t be uncomfortable wearing the clothes? But Jongin wouldn’t have cared—much—about who the clothes belonged to, especially knowing that the ophthalmologist’s clothes were too small to fit the artist’s lankier body.

Or maybe Jongin was reading too much into this, placing so much unwarranted significance on the fact that Kyungsoo regularly had sleepovers with his best friend. Maybe that was just how their friendship dynamic worked, much like how Sehun liked to invite himself over for dinner without prior warning if he had a free evening. Maybe that was how they kept up with each other, since Jongin couldn’t imagine Kyungsoo having a lot of free time due to his profession.

But if it turned out that his best friend was nothing more to Kyungsoo, then was there someone else who occupied that spot in the ophthalmologist’s heart? Was that why he was able to act so obliviously to Kim Junmyeon, Park Sojin, and Baekhyun the coffee shop owner’s very obvious flirtatious words and actions?

No, that didn’t make sense. Surely they would have known whether their friend was in a relationship or not, even if Jongin didn’t have a clue. Unless Kyungsoo kept his personal life strictly separate from his professional life. But even then, as the ophthalmologist’s friend rather than his coworker, Baekhyun should have known if Kyungsoo had a significant other. Unless that friendship wasn’t as deep as the coffee shop owner made it out to be.

While Kyungsoo didn’t seem like the type to actively hide a relationship from others, he also didn’t seem like the type to offer up this kind of information to just anyone. He seemed to be the kind of person who would smoothly divert the conversation to something completely unrelated if asked about his personal affairs.

Then again, this was all pure conjecture on Jongin’s part. He had no evidence to support any of his hypotheses and the likelihood of him being wrong was just as high as—or even higher than—the likelihood of him being right.

Even so, the artist couldn’t help but let his mind wander with the possibilities as he briefly stood up from his bed to pick up the maroon turtleneck and bring it back to his mattress. Jongin gently smoothed out the wrinkles near the hem while he imagined Kyungsoo wearing the turtleneck sweater, his small body drowning in the dark woolen fabric. The image itself was a comical one, but something was nagging at the back of his brain when his mind’s eye then imagined Kyungsoo holding the turtleneck like it was his most prized possession.

Jongin wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

♈♈♈