Winter passes and spring comes.

Seungyoon doesn’t bother too much about the weather changes. The new canvas on the easel remains blank - a white space he can’t fill in, now that he feels all black.

He doesn’t grab the brush nor mix the colors, he doesn’t live in his usual way. He just goes out, every day, and walks until his legs are sore and he’s so tired he passes out on the bed as soon as he comes back home.

Seungyoon isn’t himself. He forgets what he was before Taehyun, the pleasure to convey himself and his inner world in an image, and the accomplishment he felt when he finished a painting. He’s constricted in a narrow place he calls melancholia.

After an unspecified amount of time, Seungyoon finally starts painting. He doesn’t really have any idea, his mind is a deep pit without a hint of light, but he still tries.

He draws some lines, black scars on the white canvas.

He actually wants to paint him, but he’s scared. He doesn’t want to remember, but at the same time it’s what he desires the most. He’s afraid he’ll forget the shape of his mouth, the line of his eyes, the bridge of his nose - he’s scared he’ll never feel the same way with anyone else.

More than anything, he fears to draw him for what he’s not: a mere part of his imagination. For he’s more, so much more.

Blue is the color he uses the most.

His feelings are azure bare trees on a white background; then, ultramarine deepness and black amorphous shapes; a midnight sky crossed by a yellow comet, and a faceless monster that resembles him.

There are times he sells his works well and times he has to depend on his mother, but one day he finally gets famous. He doesn’t know if it’s a twist of fate or pure coincidence, but everyone is talking about his “Guy with an apple”.

It’s Taehyun, or an attempt of him.

Seungyoon is starting to forget some of the details, even if he still has the first sketch and some other drafts hidden in the black folder in the drawer of his studio table. Sometimes, he feels like Taehyun is still there, real and vivid in his memory, but there are other times his face is just a pink blur.

So he painted him a year ago. Just few lines. Then he had to modify his face and change the droopy eyebrows and his hair turned black and his eyes two golden pools - and one day, a half-eaten and oxidized apple was in his hand, rotting.

Now that painting is hanged in a famous gallery of his country and soon he’ll get a solo exhibition.

Seungyoon turns thirty-three when he speaks at the opening. He doesn’t talk too much, he even stutters and he smiles thinking of how he did the same when he talked to Taehyun that last time.

“My art are my words and my sincerity”, he finishes.

After some months, as he has opened his first website and he has an official email account and a postal address for his fans, he gets a postcard from the Cinque Terre, in Italy.

Just few words on it: “I miss your red shades”.

Seungyoon amplifies his spectrum.

There are sudden times he misses Taehyun. It really happens randomly: when he’s with his lover (never the same, they always last a month or two at most), when he’s eating melon bread or when his mother brews green tea; when it’s autumn and the streets of his city are crowded and the yellow and orange leaves are blown away by the wind. And every time it snows.

He’ll never forget the cold of the morning after their last night together.

Seungyoon grows older, but he never talks about him with anyone, not even once.  As the time passes he’s afraid it was just a dream and, every time he gets edgy, he just checks the box containing the postcards sent by Taehyun: it’s almost filled up, and each card is from a different place.

He travels a lot when he finally has a solo exhibition in New York and then in Europe and then again in South Korea. This time, his new lover accompanies him. Seungyoon is forty now and he enjoys his new life as he gets used to it, trying to erase some of his saddest memories of when he was young and desperate about his success or some of his first attempts to create his own personal style… his memory is leaky and blurred, nevertheless there is always a place for Taehyun inside him.

His paintings are more abstract and expressionist than ever. He tries new textures and patterns - there are times he doesn’t know how to continue and leaves the work undone, and other times he writes stories with the pen on the canvas, and days he just colors and then scratches away what he painted, trying to find himself or his past under all those brushstrokes. There are moments Taehyun is there and other ones he doesn’t anymore.

Seungyoon lives his life with success, apparently, but he always struggles to feel truly satisfied with himself and his work. He never thinks he’s enough, deep down inside. It’s not just about the unfinished business with Taehyun, it’s more personal than that, if it’s possible.

On the outer he’s confident and has a good, nice and young lover to be happy about, but there is a dark frenetic emotion he hides in his heart that never gets away.

He paints his nightmares and exorcises his fears. However, when he fails at that and his lover sleeps, he wanders around the house, trying to placate his insomnia.

At those times, he opens his three boxes and read his postcards.

It’s winter once more.

Seungyoon can’t seem to stand the cold anymore and covers himself with as many layers of fabric as he can. His once pink and pretty long- hands are now parched and hurting all the times and he tries to forget the pain wearing gloves, so that he doesn’t have to look at them anymore.

The heaters are on all day long and the house is hot, but he isn’t able to cope. He just roams the rooms, the big and bright and spacious rooms of his new house. And empty and cold, he feels to add in his mind list, even if the air is dry for the hotness of heating system.

He laughs at himself when he realizes he misses that small, dusty old studio he used when he was young, the studio where Taehyun was created - he haven’t sold it, of course he couldn’t, but he’s too proud to come back there.

He smiles bitterly. Now Seungyoon knows how fool he was when he tried to forget a part of his best years: the struggles he had to overcome and how his mother always cheered him, the failures, the hunger and desperation he felt as an unknown artist.

He was alive.

When he dreamt of Taehyun, right in the middle in those hard years, he was alive. Before and after that - he was alive.

Now he doubts.

Seungyoon covers himself with another blanket.

It’s Christmas Eve.

Seungyoon is at his old studio. He hasn’t switch on the lights, so the only light source is from outside: the Christmas luminaries color of yellow, green and red the faded walls and the sagged couch. Seungyoon sits there, pensive.

Minutes fly away without he notices.

Then, as a ghost, Taehyun appears from the darkness of the front door. The light is behind him, a halo of yellow and red just around his head, and Seungyoon can only glimpse his face in the grey and blue of the room.

Seungyoon sits still. He doesn’t blink nor breath.

Taehyun winces and ruffles his hair, inhaling deeply. He’s out of breath and Seungyoon notices his cheeks are bright red - it must be cold outside, more than here, and he must has run.

“I- I knew your address, your villa is famous in the neighborhood, but you weren’t there”, Taehyun speaks without looking at him, “Then I thought you might be here, I don’t know, I just had a feeling you could- you could remember what day is today”. His voice is almost a whisper - yes it really is a ghost, Seungyoon thinks. Taehyun raises his eyes.

There is not a wrinkle in his baby face.

Seungyoon is suddenly aware of himself, of how much he aged in those thirty years and how much Taehyun hasn’t; he’s aware of the blanket around his shoulders and the two jumpers he wears and the gloves on his hands; of his face, once smooth and now signed by the years they spent apart.

“Don’t look at me”, it’s the first thing Seungyoon says.

Taehyun wavers and shakes his head.

Seungyoon looks away. “Why did you come?”, his words sounds hard and his voice is croaking, as he feels like crying. “I… I thought you would never come back. After a lifetime, what’s the matter now?”

Seungyoon would like to be calm, but he can’t. There is so much to say and not enough words to do it, there is a turmoil under his skins that has no definition - moreover, Taehyun is there for him. And he’s old.

He’s a mid-aged man with nothing to offer to him.

“I’m here to give you a present”, Taehyun says and Seungyoon feels his hands right on his ones. Taehyun squeezes his fingers and Seungyoon looks into his eyes, his sight blurred by few tears. “You gave me the freedom to go… to leave and travel all around the world”.

Taehyun his thumbs on his palms and Seungyoon wishes he hasn’t the gloves on. He can still feel the warmth of his touch through the fabric, though, and for once he isn’t cold.

“You made me. Literally”, Taehyun speaks softly and smiles. “And I never gave you anything-”

“You gave me a lot, Taehyun”, Seungyoon thinks of that night and the months they spent together, when Taehyun listened to him and followed him around; and of the amount of postcards he has stored in those boxes. “You never really left me, even if I lived my life all this time and I become who I am now - and you don’t know how I lived, who I met, what choices I did - you still were with me”.

Taehyun nods. “And I’ve always carried you in my heart”.

“I know”.

Taehyun fixes his eyes into his. As he’s kneeled on the floor, they’re at the same height.

Seungyoon whispers: “Nevertheless, I wish you could just not look at me, I don’t feel comfortable”.

“You don’t like who you’ve become?”, Taehyun mocks him lightly.

“Maybe. And I’ve aged a lot, but you’re as beautiful as you were the first day”.

“You made me”, Taehyun says, “You painted me like this... you wanted to show this to the world, but I prevented it”.

“I painted you for myself and no one else. I was so obsessed with you, you must remember how I didn’t sleep to finish you”.

He nods, but he looks doubtful, like he wants to tell something but he’s not sure he can.

Seungyoon holds his hands tightly. “What present, anyway?”

Taehyun looks down while he speaks: “I’ve seen the world. I’ve lived the life I wanted and I don’t want to wander anymore… there were times I felt alone, even if I’ve met people and made friends and knew their stories. I never could tell mine, though, because my life before traveling was just those few months together. And about that I couldn’t talk, I didn’t want to, it was the only treasure I had”, he breathes unevenly and Seungyoon can hear the eagerness in his voice, “And now I’m not gonna leave you anymore”.

Seungyoon smiles, then he realizes what he’s implying. He feels his face turning to stone. “Why would you…”

Taehyun smiles at him, his eyes watery. “This is the only thing I can give to you”.

“You- I- you could leave once again, it would be ok for me, or if you feel alone we could live together, even if I’m not the same I was a long time ago, but-”

“I don’t want to. This is the best solution, everything will just comes back as it was meant to be”, Taehyun says and he leans on him, kissing him very lightly on his full lips.

Seungyoon feels like crying - no, it’s not that, he’s already crying and he didn’t notice. Salty tears are burning his eyes.

He doesn’t really fight back. He doesn’t talk. He just grabs Taehyun and hugs him strongly for few seconds - he can smell the winter on his hair, a very dry cologne and his own scent under it - and cries.

When Taehyun leaves his hands for the last time, Seungyoon feels cold.

*

“Did you see the last exhibition by Kang Seungyoon? I went to the gallery yesterday - what, you didn’t know? You must go. I went yesterday and well, you know, there were his new pieces and as always I was overwhelmed by his style, I don’t know, there were some paintings that really looked like emotions, true emotions painted on the canvas.

There were some sketches from when he was young, then, and an entire room dedicated to this painting of his; this huge portrait of a young man in red and bordeaux and pink and, I just, you could see how - alluring he was? and how Kang was attracted by him somehow - in the way he used some thick brushstrokes to paint his hair and-- and his cheeks, two cherry blossoms in a white silky sea - his skin, and how translucent his lips were, so realistic, and parted, inviting you to kiss him deeply-

Ah. I was carried away.

So, I was so amazed and I wanted to know more and there was this other room with a video about the artist and with an interview set in his old studio. And they talked about who inspired that painting and how that person kept sending postcards to him for an entire lifetime - a lifetime, can you imagine?

And then I saw there were some quotes from his postcards on the white wall of the room and--

But I talked too much, didn’t I?”

*

How are you, Seungyoon? I’m in Brazil and they have an amazing amount of fruits with strange names, shapes and colors. The passion fruit remembers me of your palettes.

With love, Taehyun

Hi! I saw a guy who had your eyes and I missed you.

Kisses from New York, Taehyun

Everytime I look at the sky I remember the first time we saw the stars together. The Grand Canyon is probably a better spot for skywatching, but that night the stars shone brighter for us.

At that time I became Taehyun.

I finally went to the Van Gogh museum. Some paintings really pierced through my soul, I could almost feel my body shaking in emotion.

I wish you were here, Taehyun

I love you,

Taehyun

*

the end