Seungyoon stands still for few seconds, trying to understand what’s happening. His eyes are scanning his figure, his mouth mumbling “It’s him, I’m sure it’s him” as his disbelief turns in conviction.

He starts running toward him without noticing, not losing the eye-contact. I must reach him, he thinks, as he puts his hands ahead and pushes the people around him, in an attempt to get closer to him. He must.

He doesn’t see anything else but him. Someone curses at him, but Seungyoon ignores everything and presses ahead. As he goes on, still pushing and elbowing people, his feet slips and he loses balance. He falls hard on the ground, he winces and then gets up, his entire body full of a frenetic, antsy energy - the same he had when he was painting him.

He looks around, nervous, and yells when he doesn’t find him. He’s nowhere to be seen.

Seungyoon gets down, he sits on the floor and breathes heavily. He hugs himself, making himself smaller as the crowd is still on him, a black wall he can’t overcome, all around his tiny spot. As he panics, he covers his eyes with his hand and starts to cry.

He has thought he’s finally found him, but as usual that has been just his delusional mind tricking him.

Seungyoon mourns.

It’s already nightfall when Seungyoon comes back home. His mother asks him where he’s been, but he doesn’t reply and he flies to his room, avoiding her accusing eyes.

He quietly closes the door behind him, then runs to the painting. And there he is: the nameless beauty.

He has lost the track of time, that afternoon. After he saw him, he sat for a long time, as he reconsidered everything he did until that very day. All the hours spent on that portrait, all the meals he skipped, and the sleepless nights he passed thinking over and over again about each detail of his painting, how real he was in his mind and how he wished he truly was someone he could meet one day.

He is getting crazy. He needs help, but it’s not ready to confirm his madness, not yet - he justifies everything with the word obsession, but he knows that’s not fair.

All the thoughts he had that afternoon are flowing in his mind. He sits on his bed, trying to erase all the doubts he has, and he massages his temples to avoid the headache he knows he’ll get.

“So, that was just a dream. My eyes, my mind, everything tricked me and made me think you were there, right in front of me; I wanted to believe it was real, but that makes me even more hopeless, isn’t it?”, he tells him, a scorning grin on his face.

“Am I the crazy one?”, Seungyoon sighs.

He looks at him, trailing his facial features with his eyes. A deceiving smile welcomes him.

“Of course I am”, he laughs. “I even remember I painted that- that grin of yours in a different way. Weren’t you more ecstatic, dreamy, less seductive and sure of yourself? Less confident, that’s the adjective I was missing out”.

“Of course I am”, he repeats.

Seungyoon sleeps and that night he’s with him.

Or, to be precise, he’s over Seungyoon.

Seungyoon lays still, half-smiling, startled by all that proximity. He can feel the tip of his nose right on his cheekbone and his silky hair on his forehead. He smells old paper, ink and dust; he must be a writer or a librarian, he guesses.

He looks, more than anything else; he fixes his eyes right on him, all the flesh color of his face, with a hint of yellow and lavender right under his kitty hazel eyes and his dark brown eyelashes, and the delicious, yummy amaranth of his cheeks, as he has exercised till some minutes ago; then the inviting, even promising, bright pink of his lips. He pants over him, making his heart skip a beat, and that’s when Seungyoon notices his hand on his crotch.

Seungyoon lets out a moan, surprised, and he smirkes at him, accomplice.

“When, how- but you weren’t- I was- you weren’t”, he inarticulates, but the other one stops him, kissing him deeply.

Seungyoon wakes up. It’s still night, but it must be 5 AM, because the darkness is less thick and he can hears some noises outside, some people already going to work.

He runs a hand right to his pants and, as he feels the wetness of his underwear, he looks at him. The painting is strangely glowing in the dark, staring Seungyoon intensely.

Seungyoon shivers.

Some days pass and Seungyoon lives in the kitchen. His mother is very happy to see him more and she keeps feeding him with a bright smile on her face, but Seungyoon suspects she’s aware there is something going on. He can’t hide himself from her; his mother knows him too well and, even if that could be considered annoying sometimes, most of the time that’s a thing Seungyoon appreciates. It was always the two of them, and so it is now.

“Do you want to eat breakfast?”, she asks, slightly smiling.

Seungyoon can see how she narrows her eyes, trying to read his expression - he finds himself in her face, in her features, her plump lips, her pale complexion, and he understands her without hesitation. “Mh”, he nods.

She doesn’t ask why every night he pretends to go in his room and then, later at night, he sneaks out and sleeps on the couch. She doesn’t need to.

“I prepared a healthy soup for my son… to make you recover”, she says instead.

“Thank you, mom”, he grins.

As they finish eating, the sun sets high in the sky. That morning is very warm and bright for a autumn day and the light enters the kitchen, defining and coloring all the furnitures and the utensils hanged up on the wall.

That would be a perfect day for painting, but Seungyoon doesn’t feel like grasping a brush right now. He’s actually scared to do such a thing.

“You should wash yourself”, his mother adds.

Seungyoon looks at her, a little bit bothered. “Mom”.

“You know, it’s ok to stink in your studio, while you’re working and you can’t think about anything but your painting… it’s unsettling and probably unsanitary, but it’s ok. I can understand on such degree. But not at home, while you’re lazily laying around all day long”, she grins honestly and Seungyoon smiles once again, seeing how much of her is in him. So similar, even in their sharp but caring words. “And I would be even more proud of a clean and tidy son”.

“Got it”, he gets up and walks to his room, to take some clothes and his bathrobe.

Seungyoon doesn’t fool around and doesn’t look at the painting. He runs to his wardrobe and sticks his head inside it, trying to avoid him and his gaze.

“Where did I put my robe, though, it should be here”, he fidgets, wanting to get out of his room as soon as possible.

When a hand reach his shoulder he leaps but manages not to cry out. As his heart beats furiously, he turns around and faces him.

Him.

He’s there, alive, in flesh and blood, wearing only his bathrobe, with a small, precious smile on his lips - a smile Seungyoon wishes he could paint - that reaches his eyes, now sparkling happily.

“So it was really you that day?”

He bobs his head.

“How did you get out from the canvas? And how- why were you there? And why did you come back here?”, Seungyoon looks at him in awe. He’s curious, but more than anything else he’s stunned by his beauty. The painting was realistic, but he’s way more charming in person.

“It was the first time you left me”, he speaks and his voice is a little bit hoarse, as he hasn’t talked in a long time - as he never talked before. “I’ve heard you… I’ve heard all of you since you painted the first brushstroke on that canvas. At first, just indistinct sounds, you positioning your chair, the soft scraps of the brush; then you, talking, and your breath when you got closer to check each detail, and your humming when you mixed the colors… your light snoring, but mostly you tossing and turning on that couch at night. Your curses and your sweet words.

I remember how you started to talk to me. I wasn’t finished and you said “What a pretty chin you got… but I’ll paint a better mouth”, those were the first words...”, he touches his lips with a hand, hesitating, “I remember how you fell off that chair when you were just a child and you got that scar on your elbow, your daily struggle to interact with children when you were in primary school and your failure. How you looked cool and sharp, but you were caring inside - they didn’t understand and the only thing you had left was your messed family and your sketchbook”. He looks at him and Seungyoon wants to cry.

“And when your father left, how happy but sad you were. You and your mother didn’t have to bear his tantrum any longer, but you still felt left behind”, he whispers now. “I knew only you all this time, as you were making me, and- in those moments I wanted to tell you weren’t alone, but I couldn’t. I wanted to meet you”.

Seungyoon nods.
“So that day, when you left, I prayed with all my strenght to be able to follow you. I don’t know how it happened, but I was able to get out from that canvas. I- I suddenly felt how I could leave that place and I just jumped out. I took your clothes and ran to reach you… I found you soon and trailed behind you. Then I lost you in the crowd and I was actually looking for you when you saw me.

I was taken aback, I didn’t want you to see me like that, outside - I thought you could be scared. I ran off, trying to get back to your home; fortunately it wasn’t that far and I didn’t get lost… not that much. After two attempts I found this street and entered the house from the backdoor. Your mother didn’t see me and I was able to return inside the painting”.

Seungyoon asks: “Then why did you waited all these days to show yourself?”

He smiles. “You left me once again. I think, I think I felt angry. You’re the only thing I know in this world, but you gave me your back and you went away all these days, just to come back for few minutes in the morning and few at night”.

“You thought I’ve left you?”

He nods.
“If you’ve heard everything I said, you must know how- how obsessed I was with you. I haven’t slept or eaten for weeks, I’ve talked you as you were a friend, a companion… I clearly said I thought I was crazy”, Seungyoon explains. “I couldn’t forget you, but that was not sane, I- I was scared of the power you had on me. You were just an idea I had one night, a face I saw in my dreams. And yet I couldn’t escape you”, he pauses.

He looks at Seungyoon with curious eyes.

Seungyoon wants him. Before today he didn’t know how twisted and dark his mind was, but it must be, as this can’t be normal. He’s a fictional guy he painted and still his beauty is enough to mesmerize him and make him excited.

“I dreamt about you. That night when I saw you… you were real. I’ve made, I’ve thought things you shouldn’t know. You’ve just started being the day I painted you. You know me and nothing else”, he can’t say what he really feels, he can’t impose all his delusional feelings on him. He’s like a child born few months ago. A pretty child, Seungyoon thinks.

“But I never meant to leave you. I was scared by myself, not you”, Seungyoon ends.

He reaches his hand and Seungyoon trembles, but he doesn’t move. His fingers are soft and warm on his skin. He winces a little, looking conflicted about what he wants to say, then he speaks: “I only have you. Don’t leave me”.

“I won’t”.