Architecture was harder than it looked. Not the measuring and scaling- that was the easy part for senior class-valedictorian and mathematician Lee Taeil. The art - that was hard.
 

Not like he needed to know it, his roommate Yukwon constantly reminded him.
 

But Taeil wanted to understand the designs he would soon someday help engineer.
 

Unfortunately, Taeil couldn’t draw for - something Yukwon attested daily; laughing wide-mouthed at the little drawings Taeil sprinkled over cramped class notes. Yukwon was more than willing to help Taeil find an art tutor - a few buddies at the design college should be enough, right?

Or just one.

 

Woo Jiho had been suspended from high school twice, reportedly stolen (and then sold) a pair of diamond earrings for spray-paint money, and constantly ditched his after-school study sessions. Yet he had still been recruited by the art college on a prestigious scholarship - Taeil could never grasp this last fact. Well, maybe he believed it, just a tiiiiiiiny bit, when he saw the mural spanning a canvas the size of an entire wall. He would’ve let out a tiny gasp of surprise if Jiho hadn’t beat him to it.
 

“What?” Taeil turned around, but staggered back a few steps, genuinely alarmed by Jiho’s height, which left him towering more than a dozen centimeters over the shorter boy’s head.

Jiho squinted at Taeil, his cigarette as he took in the shorter man’s pierced ears, eyebrow stud peeking from under his band, and the dark edge of a tattoo, which Taeil quickly covered with a jerk of his sleeve.

“I thought you’d look...different. Nerdier. More...pristine.” Jiho blew a stream of smoke, screwing up his mouth to aim towards the open windows.

Taeil crossed his arms. “I’m just here to learn art.”

“And it’s art you’ll learn,” Jiho replied, taking one last drag of his cigarette before stomping it out beneath his heavy black boots. His blonde hair was swept back with the heel of a sweaty hand, button-up undone over his undershirt, sleeves pushed up, jeans wearing at the knees. He beckoned Taeil over to a large drawing table, thick sheets of white drawing paper spread out.

“The most important thing,” Jiho explained, “is that you don’t draw what you think you see. Too often, people think things look one way - the trees, mountains, clouds - but you have to really look. You think you know what you see, but you don’t. Too often, people assume.”

Taeil glanced at Jiho while he explained; the white drawing paper reflecting light over his bleached hair, across his pale forehead, into his passionate eyes.

He picked up a pencil and gently sketched soft, curved lines on the paper, tongue-in-cheek straight lines and wispy, playful curls - a tall tree, blushing gently in the autumn sunset. Taeil swore he could hear the leaves whispering,the roots knotting beneath his feet, bark scraping his summered shoulders.

“See this? It looks like a tree because it is a tree. People focus too much one what they already know, instead of what they have to learn.” Jiho motioned to the windows, and Taeil stepped closer to find the same tree Jiho had just drawn, green and brown and purple in the hot evening wind. But, Taeil reminded himself, he was just here to learn.