A number of people would describe walking into an art gallery as falling into a rabbit hole.  Like being transported into the artist’s own world, seeing the reality from the artist’s eyes.  It was as if the spectators are given a chance to be in the painter’s shoes, see what she saw, feel what she felt, be who she was as she held the paintbrush in her hand.

Re-encounter.  A large poster of this month’s art exhibit hung on the wall.  No one was certain when or if the art show would push through after all that has happened.  And after postponement after postponement, the exhibit was finally given a go.  All the art pieces that were labored on for almost a year would finally be up on the white walls in lights.

Nichkhun steps cautiously into the large front entrance lined with congratulatory flower stands as the sunlight breaks through the large windows at the lobby, casting rays and warming the white walls.  He touched a ribbon with your name written on it with a proud smile.  The young lady who welcomes the guests stood by the door handing Nichkhun a pamphlet for the show, which he flipped through the pages hurriedly.  He was restraining himself from boasting to everyone how he knows the artist quite personally.  He had seen all these paintings before and heard the stories for each one from the artist herself, save for one, the centerpiece for the show.  The one you couldn’t seem to start on when he first visited you at your studio.

He wandered straight ahead and through the hallway that led to another area, carefully dodging the onlookers and picking up bits and pieces of people’s conversation as he moved further.  Most of what they were saying was how they felt about the paintings and how they felt about what had happened to the artist.  Nichkhun could hear the same words being muttered repeatedly, the accident, Jack, your name and his.  He tried to ignore the chatters and walked on.  He just couldn’t get himself to care for all the whispers shared in the background.

One by one he began to view the paintings that he once saw in your studio and remembered how you described each one to him.  He thought they were as intriguing as the day you first showed them to him.  Telling him they all had the feeling of nostalgia…a little bittersweet.  It was too much, everything there was.  And just like that all the memories started to flow in his head.

Nichkhun closes his eyes and he can see you in his head so perfectly, he can smell your scent and feel the warmth of your touch.  It was as if you were there with him.  At that point, he has that overwhelming desire to hold you in his arms again, to touch your hair and take a whiff of that familiar scent of your shampoo and sweat.  It was almost making him burst into tears.  It hurts to think about everything all at once.  To remember you drifting away in his arms and him being too powerless to do anything about it.

He shakes away the thoughts that cloud his mind and opens his eyes, moving into another area were the centerpiece was that immediately caught his eyes.  It was a significantly large floor painting of a man sitting on a red couch, hands behind his head and obscenely long legs stretched out in front and crossed at the ankle seemingly resting so comfortably.  Half of the man on the painting was obscured by the shadow.  A smile slowly spreads across Nichkhun’s face as he recognizes the image as his own.  He was your centerpiece.  He was the best re-encounter you’ve had in your life and you never regretted crossing paths with him again.  He walked up to the sign that hung just beside the painting.  It read, “I could never lose again.”  Just then, he felt a warm hand hold his, the softness of its touch he’s very much familiar with.

“How do you like it?”  You whispered as you laced your fingers together with his.  Standing beside him, you were still a few inches shorter than him in the heels that you are wearing.

He turns his gaze away from the gigantic painting hanging over the wall to face you with an ever growing grin.  “That’s me.”  He points to the painting.

You shrugged and looked at the painting tilting your head to the side.  “You think?  I think there’s very little semblance.”

“You know I could ask for compensation from this.  Big compensation.  I believe you need to get the model’s consent first before you could actually include the image in your exhibit.  I don’t remember giving you my permission.”  You watched Nichkhun try and fight back a smile as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Do I need to?”  You smiled and lifted your scrunched up face.  “You did present yourself before and asked to make you my model.  You even said you’d pose a la Rose in Titanic for me.  Remember?”

Nichkhun’s arm slid around your waist and pulled you until the curve of your belly was flush against his stomach.  “Yes.”  He nodded.  “I would do that for you.  You should’ve asked me to do that for you.”  He murmured.

“Yeah.”  You nodded as he held you in a warm embrace taking a deep breath full of the scent of your skin and your perfume.  “I should have.”

He chucked you under the chin so you had to look up at him.  His face was a few inches away from yours and he stared into your eyes with a smile as if they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.  He was like that for a while, gazing at you with no words to say and yet you could somehow feel what he wanted to convey.

You cocked your head to the side and raised an eloquent eyebrow.  “What?”

“It’s just that…you make me believe in a loving God.”  He your face lovingly.  He had given this much thought in the past few months.  After all the twists and turns that your separate paths had taken you both, it should have made it impossible for you two to become a couple again, but your paths have kept overlapping and now it had turned into one path you walk together.  “Do you realize how happy I am that you’re here in my arms?  I almost lost you…again…and in a way I couldn’t get you back.”  He doesn’t know what to say or how to say it.  All he can feel is the rising pressure in his throat and the stinging behind his eyes.  Nickhun knows, if he starts crying, he might not be able to stop even in front of the growing onlookers who have started to look at them instead of the massive painting in the middle of the hall.  “It scared the hell out of me, knowing I might…you might…but I believe God brought you back to me and for a reason too.  I feel like I’ve been so blessed, that I couldn’t possibly ask for anything from Him anymore.  It would be wrong to ask anything more.”

You have woken up from the accident a few months ago, but never did he talk to you about what happened.  He would tell you how glad he is that you have survived, but this is the first time that he

Is telling you how he felt.  “What are you doing?”  You pulled him out of the crowd’s eyes and behind a pillar.  “Are you going to start to cry during my exhibit?”

“I’m sorry.”  He wiped at the tears forming in his eyes.

“I’m sure the headline would read, ‘strange artist causes Nichkhun to cry’ in the morning paper.”  You chuckled.

“Sorry love, I just…”

“I know…”  And then you begin to touch his face, softly, tenderly with a warmth that seems to heal instead of burning bright.  “I heard your voice and I knew I just had to open my eyes.  I had to open my eyes and find you.  I needed to show you that painting of yours on your favorite red couch.  I needed to let you know that I never stopped loving you and I had to be with you.”  Nichkhun brushed back the strands of your hair that teased across your face as you spoke.  “I think God gave us another chance at life to be with each other to get it right, to get us right this time.  Oh gorgeous man of mine, YOU kept me alive.  You made me want to live.”

His touch and yours on each other’s skin makes you both real, it made that moment real.  There are not a lot of people who could be so lucky as to have another chance in love and you both know that so well making you both all the more grateful for the day you met and braved the chaos of each other’s lives and decided you both wanted a bit of that chaos for your own.  The tears spilled down his cheeks, scalding hot and stinging as he fought them back.  “No more leaving, alright?”  Nichkun said with a smile along with a soft sub that made him look like a little boy in a suit.

You wrapped your arms around his waist as you rested you head against his chest.  “It’s a good thing I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Well, you can still go places, you just have to take me with you all the time.”  He kissed the top of your head.  “Take me with you for the rest of our lives.”

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