The young but talented sculptor lived in an old building with a satisfying workshop attached to it. Just large enough for his equipment, which he needed for creating beautiful and life-like sculptures of anything one could think of – mostly humans because he was fascinated by the beauty of the human body. He especially revered the ancient Greek sculptures of proportional men which had refined muscles one couldn’t help but stare at in awe. Of course all his affection was purely related to his artistic instincts; actually, he was more of an aual individual.

Tao is his name, of Chinese origin. He graduated from an art University with no difficulties whatsoever at the tender age of 18. That was a year ago and this of course, means that he skipped a few grades. He was known as the mysterious genius who overshadowed all his professors with his outstanding skills and artistic sense. But that’s not all: One might think that he would have been a very popular kid who everyone wanted to know but the reality was quite different. Tao was never seen with anyone and he emitted this dark aura that seemed to say “Don’t come near me or I’ll cut your throat with my chisel”. Because of this, he was shunned and ignored.

But the real Tao wasn’t like that. Sure, he might have a scary face but that’s just his outer appearance. It’s not his fault that he was born with fierce eyes that look like they’d burn a hole right through you if you looked at them directly. Being alone all his life made him to be the uncaring and devoted artist he is now. He never felt the love or warmth of another human being and therefore being alone doesn’t really bother him, it’s like the environment he grew up in made him immune to everything. Tao isn’t one to feel strong emotions or even understand them. He found pleasure only in sculpting. And that pleasure would soon turn into something he didn’t quite expect.

---

Tao had been suffering from lack of inspiration for months now. He had created sculpture after sculpture only to smash them to pieces out of frustration right after completing one. Nothing seemed to satisfy him, even if the sculptures he made might have seemed perfect and complete works of invaluable art in someone else’s eyes. Everything felt so hollow and lifeless. A tear of despair escaped from the corner of his left eye and he bit his bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed. He felt he’d soon go insane if he didn’t get an inspiration from somewhere, to create anything at all.

The black haired Chinese boy had been locked up in his atelier for the past week. Or more, he isn’t sure anymore. Everything’s a blurry mess and he doesn’t remember the last time he ate. At the corner of the spacious room there’s a home-delivery mexican pizza rotting, giving off a strong stench, which makes his head hurt all the more.  In his entire life he’s never faced a situation like this and it confuses him.

Finally Tao’s body can’t take it any longer and decides to shut down against his will. The boy feels his head get lighter and his vision blurs. In a matter of seconds, he collapses and his body hits the concrete floor hard, with a loud clearly audible ‘thud’. It’s a wonder he didn’t hit his head too seriously.

---

Tao rises in to a sitting position from where he’s lying and slightly touches his head to make sure it isn’t bleeding from the fall. When he feels nothing life threatening, he gets up with wobbly legs and looks around. The room he was in surely wasn’t anything he was familiar with. The interior was foreign to him with all the fancy furniture and western (maybe European, or so he thought) fabrics used to cover the unnecessarily large bed in the middle of the unknown room, including the thick curtains which prevented sunlight from entering. Tao didn’t think much of it though and brushed it off as just a weird dream caused by the stress he’s been in for the past three months. He’d expected to get some pretty weird dreams anyway, or even hallucinations.

Tao walks over to the bed and sits down on it, surprised by how comfortable and soft it is. The bed cover’s fabric feels like silk under his rough hand, but much thicker than silk could ever be. He briefly wonders if it’s a new kind of a fabric or a creation of his tired mind. He lies down on the bed with his feet still touching the wooden floor and he feels his body relax. Suddenly, all the tension in his muscles is gone and this causes a light smile to appear on his beautiful lips.

A door that he doesn’t remember registering before, opens but he doesn’t bother to look at the direction of the squeaking sound. Only when he hears calm footsteps approaching him, does he open his eyes and cautiously rises up. The sight that greets him is probably the most beautiful he’s ever seen. And yes, he admits it, even more beautiful than any sculpture he’s seen in his entire life. And that says a lot, him being the devoted artist he is, who only feels affection or any kind of emotions towards sculptures and no human.

But there it was, the picture perfect LIVING human he never thought he’d ever see. The man before him was just like the Greek sculptures he so admired and loved, but with clothes on. No, scratch that, he was more perfect than any of those.

Something inside Tao begun to awaken but the feeling was foreign to him, just like the room he was in. He didn’t know how to react so he just sat there comfortably on the bed and devoured with his eyes every inch of the unknown perfect man in front of him. Neither of them seemed to mind the silence and they just stayed still like that for a good couple of minutes, before the tall man broke the silence and spoke in an unexpectedly manly voice:

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Tao didn’t seem to register what was said to him because he was too bewitched by the plum lips that had spoken the words.

Silence fell upon them once again, but this time the one standing seemed to grow uncomfortable.

“I… I don’t have much time so I ask you to please listen to my request.”

This time Tao blinked his eyes a few times before seemingly regaining his senses and nodding tad too eagerly against his usual character.

“I will grand you what you have been seeking for as it benefits me as well, but with success, there’s a price to pay and you can’t ignore the condition I’m giving to you,” the look in his eyes was serious and it made Tao immediately more taken in by his charm.

“You will be granted the inspiration you desperately want, but it’s not that simple. Your next sculpture, powered by the inspiration from me, will come to life, no matter the form it is sculpted in. It will be the greatest piece in human history yet. But… you can’t fall in love with it. Once you do, it will lose its life and forever remain as just another white piece of marble.”

Tao looked at him questioningly and couldn’t progress very well what the other - most probably older - male had just told him. His dream started to feel a bit too realistic to his liking and it confused him. There’s no way something like this could actually be true, or so he reasoned. Coming to a conclusion that this really is a dream and nothing more, he decided he should just go along with it (how hard could satisfying that condition actually be when he was an aual?) and nodded as an answer:

“Yes, I do understand and I can promise you that.”

The unknown beautiful man nodded in approval and just then everything around Tao started to fade. His dream was coming to an end and it was time to wake up. Desperately he tried to cling on the bed covers thinking as if it would prevent him from waking up. But it was impossible to prevent fate from taking its rightful course. Nothing lasts forever, but he hadn’t learnt that just yet.

---

The next time Tao opened his eyes he noticed he was once again laying on a hard floor, this time made out of cold concrete. The light coming from the small window on his left side suggested it was early morning, as that was the direction the sun always rose from. Groggily he got up on his two feet, this time more stable than in the weird dream. The artist looked around the room just to make sure it’s his own workshop and not another strange and creepy place. Satisfied with his confirmation that it indeed is his, with all the tall blocks of marble, equipment and dusty air which most probably would have been the death of a person who suffered from a bad asthma, he let out a deep sigh and moved his hands to both sides of his face only to give the cheeks a few hard slaps. This was Tao’s method of clearing his head and getting rid of the sleepiness - not that it’s been working too well for the past three months.

Tao made his way to the part of his house meant for living, which he by the way rarely used as the workshop was his whole life, and headed straight to the kitchen. He glanced hesitantly at the metal colored tall fridge in front of him but opened it nonetheless. Besides the lamp that was the moment he opened the door, there really wasn’t anything edible. A carton of milk and a piece of moldy cheese could be found – both giving off an unimaginable smell rivaling that of a rotting human body. Not that he knew how that would smell anyway. Suppressing the urge to throw up, Tao hastily closed the door and sighed in defeat. Was there really nothing to eat? His stomach began making annoyingly loud protesting sounds after being ignored for so long, which got Tao even grumpier by the moment. He decided to try his luck with the dry-food cabinet. And there really was a curry tuna tin along with a few cups of instant ramyun, which he decided should make do for now. Food is food and everything would fill his angry stomach all the same.

Tao ate his humble meal like it was the most delicious thing in the world and returned to his workshop right after, feeling refreshed from the fuel and sleep his fatigued body had just gotten. The raven haired boy wasn’t sure is it was the rest he had gotten, or the strange dream, which caused his inspiration to suddenly surface light and make his whole body tremble with excitement. He didn’t really care either way. All he knew was that he had to get to work and fast. Every cell in his body screamed at him to grab a chisel and a hammer and to start without any further delay.

He walked over to a large and beautiful marble block even taller than he himself. He had his work tools on his left hand in a tight grip and with his right hand he traced the cold surface affectionately. Tao closed his eyes to enhance his other senses and got lost in his own world of the mysterious artistic realm he found his only pleasure in. This block surely was his best material. He had saved it for an occasion like this when nothing could describe the strong inspiration and want to sculpt that he felt at that moment.

Tao opened his eyes slowly after taking a deep breath and switched the chisel to his right hand. Without hesitation he raised the hammer on his left hand and hit the end of the chisel hard against the white marble block he had deemed worthy of the masterpiece he was about to make. The sound of metal hitting the hard surface and a crack forming on it echoed in the room, and Tao could hear it in his ears long after it had quieted down. Yes, this was the feeling. He was ready to lose his mind and devote his soul to this sculpture. The boy let his instincts take over and after feeling the second hit on the marble, everything blurred and he didn’t take notice of his surroundings or body any longer.

This was the mysterious sculptor he is, completely led by instincts that it’s scary and fascinating at the same time. This was his gift.

---

Tao doesn’t remember when he had stopped working, but he found himself in his bed, safely tucked in with warm blankets covering his body. He rose up too quickly after remembering what he had been doing the whole day yesterday till dawn, and fell right back because of the dizziness caused by the sudden rising. He patiently waited for his head to calm down and rose to a sitting position, this time more calmly to prevent it from happening again. A quick glance at the miraculously still ticking clock on his bedroom’s wall told him that it was already past noon. He got on his feet and made his way to the workshop to take a good look at his creation, wondering if he had already finished it.

There it was, under a white sheet that had been put to cover it from dust. With hands trembling from excitement, Tao grasped the fabric curling his fingers in it, and with a strong yank which made him aware of his sore arms, the sheet fell beautifully from the sculpture. Tao took in every detail of his handiwork looking at it in awe. It really was the most beautiful and perfect thing he’d ever seen. This was exactly what the boy had been waiting for. All his soul was in this sculpture and it didn’t feel empty as the others. It was beyond perfection.

It wasn’t until Tao got over his amazement that he took a real good look at the face of the sculpture before him. He was beyond shocked. Though he could only remember vaguely the dream he had before the inspiration of a millennium struck him, he hadn’t forgotten that face. No, everything but that face. It was the face of the man that had come to him in his dream. Though the whole statue was white, including the face and empty eyes, he couldn’t help but get lost in them. Without realising what he was doing Tao had already stretched his arm out to touch the face, to run his fingertips along the flawless shape he had begun to doubt was really created by his own hand.

Tao didn’t know what he had expected he’d feel if he touched it, and the disappointment that followed after feeling the cold material left him confused but sad nonetheless. Nothing made sense anymore. Sure he had had other times like this when he got lost in his work and didn’t register anything, but this was the first time it had happened so strongly.

Not wanting to part with the statue he took out a chair from the other side of the room and set it in front of the art piece. He sat down on it; legs and arms crossed and just stared at the piece of marble-y wonder. The sculpture was in the shape of a well build man but with no clothes on, much like the ancient Greek statues he revered. But this seemed to be more special than any of those historically significant works, though he couldn’t quite put a finger on why it was so. The ness didn’t bother him in the least. He felt attracted to it, to him, like a moth towards a bright light in the darkness.

The boy doesn’t know for how long he’s been there, sitting in the chair and just staring at the sculpture of the man from his dream. It doesn’t take long for his eyes to start feeling heavy and they force themselves closed and Tao begins to slip in and out of consciousness. Before he completely falls asleep, he faintly hears the sound of something cracking but he’s too tired to care, which is a mystery since it wasn’t long ago that he woke up from a goodnight’s sleep.

---

Tao feels like he’s been sleeping a lot lately and losing consciousness too often. He blames it on the lack of nutrition. What makes him wake up this time is the feel of a warm and strong hand shaking him awake. His eyes snap open in an instant and a beautiful man with the same face as his latest statue greets him. Tao’s eyes widen in shock and he tries to scoot backwards, animalistic instincts of self-defense and survival kicking in. He soon finds out that he had still been seated in the chair when his body begins to feel the wrath of gravity. The boy shuts his eyes tightly and waits for the impact that never comes. Instead, he feels the arms that had been shaking him awake a moment ago, to snake around his waist and cut his fall short, saving his body from further injuries. Only the loud sound of a chair falling down could be heard shortly after.

Only after calming down and moving to the kitchen to converse does Tao realize that the man that’s now sitting across the table, looks like a perfect copy of his statue, and that his statue has disappeared. Furthermore, the gorgeous man insists that he’s the statue and that he had come to life, nurtured by the strong inspiration Tao had had when making him. Though the statue-man speaks perfectly and seems to be in perfect control of his own… body, he still lacks common sense and doesn’t know how to do the simplest task, like a newborn baby.

As they talk, Tao mostly being the one asking questions in his drugged like state of mind (caused by the curiosity and interest towards the perfect being), it is revealed that the man doesn’t have a name. Tao decides to give him one and he finds the name “Kris” worthy enough to be given to the statue. A stunning smile could be seen on Kris’s face as he rose from his seat and walked next to his maker only to pull him in a warm hug. Tao feels his body stiffen under the foreign feeling but seemingly relaxes after the warmth from the other’s body spreads to his. Instinctively he wraps his hands that had been resting on the table, around Kris’s waist and buried his face on his broad chest. It was weird that it didn’t feel uncomfortable, Tao being the antisocial person he is. Kris seemed to awaken newfound feelings in him but he thought of them as fatherly feelings –he was Kris’s creator after all, and a proud one at that. Who wouldn’t be? Kris was the most perfect sculpture he’d ever made. A living one at that.

---

It might have been because Tao didn’t have any experience dealing with people, and so he didn’t find living with a living statue weird or unacceptable. It’s been only a few days since the naming of Kris and Tao had been teaching him about basic things in life. These of course included that he had to wear clothes (now that Kris came to life, it felt weird looking at him go around the house ). He also taught the tall man how to use the washroom and take baths by himself. The first times Tao had bathed with Kris since the other didn’t know how it worked. It was much like raising an overgrown kid. Tao laughed at this thought to his own surprise. He was capable of laughing?

Now that there were two mouths to feed, Tao’s cup noodle storage had ran out earlier than expected. It was time to go grocery shopping to a small convenience store nearby. He didn’t like going out that much but they couldn’t live without food, so what could he do? He didn’t have a choice. The sculptor was afraid of leaving Kris alone, who knows he might set the whole house on fire if left alone, so he decided to take him with him.

The two males stepped out the gloomy house and headed to a direction where the store supposedly was. Tao walked with confident steps and Kris came right behind him, wearing a long black coat and shoes which Tao had found from the back of his closet. The weather was chilly but neither of them seemed bothered by it. The people who walked past them looked at Tao cautiously and tended to avoid coming too near. It didn’t bother Tao, he was used to it and actually appreciated it. He didn’t like dealing with people anyway. Kris thought it was weird and grabbed a hold of the shorter’s arm, making him stop absurdly.

“Why is everyone avoiding you?” he asked sincerely, not having a clue why anyone would act like that. Was it a human thing?

“I am someone who doesn’t fit in with other people. Like alien species,” came the reply and it seemed to satisfy Kris. He didn’t understand much anyway.

They arrived at the small store and they stepped in, gaining strange and curious looks from other customers as well as the staff working there. Suddenly it got completely silent. Tao just walked straight to get what he needed, not really interested at his surroundings. But when Kris entered the store with his radiating handsome face, the whispers and excited “Is he a model?” “He’s so good looking! Like a statue!”  squeals from the female population started to break the earlier tension. For an unknown reason Tao didn’t like that his Kris was getting so much attention and without realizing it, he moved his hand to clutch at his shirt at the spot where his heart beat, protected by his ribcage. It ached.

The sculptor quickly grabbed whatever they would need for the next week and proceeded to pay for everything. He wasn’t poor, quite the opposite, he was wealthy but preferred not to think about monetary things. He didn’t really care; money came to him on its own when some strange people who claimed to know about art came to his house, and bought his sculptures for a large sum of money from time to time.

After scaring the cashier to death with his glare and getting ready to leave, he saw Kris being surrounded by all the females in the store. He sensed the hungry looks they gave his statue and without thinking cleared his throat before opening it to speak loudly:

“Kris, we’re leaving.”

The one whose name was called turned around and Tao could have sworn he looked like a scared puppy in the middle of hyenas. Kris forced his way through the mass of people, not bothering to apologize when a few women fell on the floor from the power he used to push them aside, and stopped in front of Tao, the only person he felt he could trust. Without a word, Tao led them out the store and they headed back to their home.

That was when Tao’s feelings started developing in a way they weren’t supposed to, and it would break him later on if he couldn’t suppress them. But he didn’t remember the warning.

---

Two months passed and the weather chanced from chilly to moderately warm, summer was nearing. Tao had become painfully aware of the strange feelings building up inside him. He thinks it might have started when he saw his Kris being surrounded by all the nasty females in the store. After that incident, he hadn’t brought Kris outside out of selfishness. But the tall man didn’t seem to mind.

It might have been because Tao was the one who raised Kris, but the statue seemed to have a character similar to his creator. Meaning they both rarely smiled and were quite quiet (though they smiled at each other without a word from time to time). They enjoyed the silence between them and had developed a habit of using unnecessarily lot of skinship. Mainly Tao being the one embraced in Kris’s strong arms. Every time he did that, Tao’s heart would start beating quicker and the blood would rush to his cheeks.

One fateful day, when Kris couldn’t suppress his curiosity anymore and went to Tao’s atelier alone, without his creator’s permission he looked through all the equipment there was. He stopped when he saw a chisel and took it to from the table where it was set. Tao hadn’t done any sculptures after completing Kris so all the tools were dusty and had signs of not being used in a long time.

“This is what made me,”Kris thought to himself and looked at the sharp flat object in awe.

He touched the sharp blade carefully, but got his skin cut open. Out of surprise he yelped and dropped the tool on the floor. Not ten seconds passed before Tao came running to the room and looked at Kris with a worried expression. Kris thought the boy had become more expressive over the time they had been together.

“What happened, are you hurt?” Tao darted towards the tall man and noticed he was holding his finger and dark liquid was oozing out of it.

“You’re bleeding!” his voice became panicked and Kris didn’t know what to do, he just stood there and watched as Tao took his bleeding finger in his mouth.

It didn’t feel awkward. Tao the blood away without thinking much of it, only worried about Kris and his perfect skin being damaged. He still treasured the man as his masterpiece after all. He only stopped after the bleeding did. Kris gave one of his rare smiles as a thank you and it made Tao realize what he had just done. Embarrassed, he dropped his gaze on the floor and tried calming his violently beating heart. As the raven haired boy tried hastily leaving the room, he felt the strong arms that he so loved feeling around him, pull him in to a warm embrace. His back rested against Kris’s chest and he allowed himself relax enough to lean his head backwards against the other’s shoulder. Kris rested his chin on Tao’s shoulder as well and they stood there for good couple of minutes. They did that many times, it was one of the habits the two males had developed while living together. To Kris it might not have held any deeper meaning thank to make Tao feel better, but to the shorter, the feeling was pure torture as well as a drug he got addicted to.

That was when he made his last mistake. Tao turned around and placed his trembling hands on both sides of Kris’s face. The taller just looked directly at Tao’s eyes and caressed his cheek affectionately. Without a warning, the doomed sculptor’s face leaned closer to the statue man’s face and their lips met. The kiss was chaste, neither of them knowing what to do. Tao moved his lips and was about to break the kiss shortly after, but Kris placed his hand on the back of Tao’s head and pulled him closer to him, deepening the kiss.

Tao was shocked at first and he was sure his heart would break free from its bony prison, but he relaxed soon. Kris bit on his lower lip and slid his tongue inside the boy’s mouth experimentally. The kiss didn’t last long and they pulled apart to inhale some air to their lungs.

Neither said a thing and they stared at each other’s eyes intensively. Tao was the one to break the silence.

“I… I think I fell in love.”

Kris brushed a strand of hair that was on Tao’s face and placed a kiss on his forehead.

“You taught me about life, you gave me life, I love you too.”

Tao smiled brighter than he had ever done, and his whole body felt a warm fuzzy sensation spreading all over it. Kris was the best thing that ever happened in his life, they had taught each other the meaning of emotions and love. Happiness was evident on both of their faces the whole day as they cuddled together, bather together and finally, went to sleep together, all the while Tao being in the embrace of Kris, his Kris.

---

Tao woke up the next morning, not feeling anyone besides him on the bed. He got up thinking Kris had already woken up and headed to the kitchen. However, Kris wasn’t there either. Getting an uneasy feeling, he checked the bathroom, the whole house, before heading to his workshop with an ominous feeling clouding his heart.

A tear escaped as he opened the door and the sight sunk in him. There Kris was, his Kris. But turned back into a marble sculpture.

“No…”

Tao took hesitant steps closer to the statue and carefully touched the cold and hard surface of the sculpture in front of him. The statue that had been alive only yesterday, embracing him. Tao could feel his knees weaken and he fell on the dusty grey concrete floor. He began crying uncontrollably for the first time since he was born as he looked at the happy and perfect expression of the statue Kris. Kris was just like he had been when Tao first finished him, , and flawless.

But the sculptor couldn’t feel the proud and amazed feeling he had back then. Not now, when he had fallen in love with his own creation, developed human-like emotions only to have them shattered as soon as he became aware of them.

It was then that the dream from over two months ago came back to him and realization hit him. Hard.

He had been warned not to fall in love.

It hadn’t been a dream.

But it was already too late.

He would never feel the warm embrace of those strong arms again.

_____________

I didn't think I'd get this many subscribers with a foreword like that OTL Thank you all for being interested in my fic! I hope you don't find this unsatisfying... I'm still growing as a writer so go easy on me!

To be honest I feel like I rushed through this fic at times and dragged the plot too much at other parts.
Oh, also, I'd appreciate it if you lovely readers pointed out my grammatical mistakes, it'd help me improve my English a lot! Thank you.

Especially big thank you for those who commented!!! *sends love*

All hail the TaoRis couple.
(Ps. Kris is a bias list wrecker.)