When Hanbin woke up and rolled out of bed it was already half past 12. Groggily he stretched and rubbed his eyes and remembered how much of a jet lag was. Pulling on an old university tee worn soft by time and wear and a pair of sweatpants over his boxers he padded into the kitchen. Jinhwan had already left for work but there was a note on the fridge. Squinting a little blearily Hanbin read Hope you slept well! There’s coffee in the coffee pot and some left overs in the fridge for lunch. I’ll be back around 5:30 but make yourself at home in the meantime. –Jinhwan Hanbin turns, pouring himself a cup of coffee and searches for a minute for sugar, he’s never been able to take his coffee black. Pulling open the fridge doors he grabs the Tupperware container of left overs, smirking at Jinwhan’s overly organized shelves of food. Scraping the cold japchae onto a plate he sticks it into the microwave. As his food heats he rummages in Jinhwan’s drawers till he finds a clean pair of chopsticks. When he has everything he sets his plate and cup on the small kitchen table and pulls out his laptop. As he eats he replies to his emails and scrolls idly through Facebook, when he’s done he sets his dishes in sink, grabs a clean set of clothes and goes to shower.

It feels good to wash off almost 14 hours of travel, sweat and grime and god knows what else from grubby airport seats. Hanbin tilts his head back and lets hot water beat a rhythm against his face, scrubbing hard at the bags beneath his eyes. He couldn’t bring his own shampoo from the US but he figures Jinhwan won’t mind if he steals some of his. When he reaches for the shampoo though he sees two bottles side by side, and he smiles. He grabs one, hoping it’s Jinhwan’s not Yunhyeongs. Stepping out of the shower he grabs a towel off the rack and dries himself off before getting dressed. Checking the time he sees it’s barely one, meaning four and a half hours of nothing to do till Jinhwan gets home from work. Hanbin sighs and resists the urge to just crawl back into bed and fall asleep. He ends up blasting terrible rap music and cleaning the kitchen from floor to ceiling (not that there’s much to clean, Jinhwan’s always been a bit of a neat freak) starting with his dirty dishes in the sink and ending with scrubbing every surface in the small space till it shines but that only eats up about 45 minutes. So, he moves on to the rest of the apartment.

A little bit of rummaging around and he finds a small closet with a vacuum, duster, and a bucket of cleaning supplies. As strange as it is Hanbin actually enjoys cleaning, there’s something cathartic about it. He likes the fresh smell of detergent, and the simple but methodical labor that leaves him with a feeling of productivity. Likes something to do with his hands, he’s always been a tactile person. So he doesn’t mind this so much, plus Jinhwan’s letting him stay in his house so he owes him anyways. As he cleans Hanbin takes in the life that Jinhwan’s built for himself in the time that he’s been gone. He sees it in the framed photos on desks and bookshelves with new faces, the t-shirt emblazoned with the call of duty logo Hanbin finds under the couch that he knows Jinhwan would never wear, the extra toothbrush and cologne in the bathroom cabinet. It makes him a little sad, that this is what he left behind, to think that this is what he might have had if he’d stayed. But as his mother always said if’s and might’ves never did anyone any good so he brushes the thought aside and scrubs a little harder at a stain on Jinhwan’s coffee table. Two hours later the apartment is sparkling, he’s changed the sheets on his little cot bed, and there’s a load of laundry going. He pulls out his phone and groans, still over an hour alone.

Figuring he’s gotten in his daily dose of productivity in he collapses onto the couch and switches on the TV. Flipping through channels he discovers that a year away hasn’t made South Korean television any better so he finally settles on a random soap opera. He’s only half paying attention to it, idly flipping through his phone and his mind finally starts to wander. He’d been very careful not to think about Jiwon the whole day, distracting himself with cleaning but now as he sits and listens to some pretty actress drone on about her eternal love for a handsome but bland man there’s nothing to keep his mind off Jiwon. He thinks about what they had and what they lost and it hurts more then he wants to admit (even to himself) because loving Jiwon was like loving a star. At first Hanbin to blinded by Jiwon’s passion, his fire, to really think about what he was doing and before he knew what he was doing and before he knew what had happened he was pulled into Jiwon’s orbit like planetary dust and he didn’t know how to escape (didn’t want to). But the trouble with loving a star is that no matter how bright shines it is a cold light, a distant one. And it’s hard to love someone who doesn’t really know how to love you back.

Shaking thoughts of the past from his head Hanbin feels his fingers start to itch, like they always do whenever he thinks too much, feels to strongly. Reaching for the remote he turns of the soap opera, cutting of the pretty girl mid proclamation of passion. Standing he walks over to his larger suitcase, pulling it out from under his bed and ping it. He rifles through messily folded clothes and books till he finds his bag of oil paints, and a middling sized scrap of canvas, and his brushes and palate. Hanbin had learned long ago the feeling of being struck with inspiration and having nowhere to paint it so he’d got into the habit of bringing canvas everywhere with him. It’s not very good quality and he doesn’t have any tools to stretch it onto a frame but it’s better then nothing. He pulls a few old newspapers out of Jinwhan’s recycling, spreading them across the kitchen table and sets his supplies on top. He pulls a glass out of Jinhwan’s cupboard and fill it with water, grabbing a paper towel for blotting as well.

He takes a while to choose his brush, finally settling on a medium sized flat brush. It’s new and unused, part of a set his art school friends got for him as a going away present and fairly high quality. He spreads his hand out and runs the brush against his palm, letting the fine hairs tickle his skin, feels a shiver run up his arm and down his spine. Setting it down beside his canvas he empties his bag of tubes onto the table. Hanbin’s always loved the names of the paints he buys and he mouths them to himself, letting his lip shape the words and savoring their flavor as he squeezes the thick paint onto his palate: navy, slate blue, midnight, indigo, goldenrod, lemon chiffon, ivory and old lace. Picking up his brush again, he takes a deep breath, dips the tip into the paint, and begins.

Hanbin lets the world fall away around him as his arm moves bends and shifts, paintbrush dancing like a ballerina across the surface of the canvas. He doesn’t quite know what he’s painting till he finishes, sometimes it’s like that when inspiration strikes. Most of the time it’s a long laborious slog through artists block, botched lines, too many colors mixing to nothing but muddy brown. Half of the time it ends in him painting the canvas over with white for a second use, but then there are times like this. Times when the picture in his head runs down his arm and through his paintbrush and onto paper like water and everything comes together just like it should. Times when inspiration hits like lightening and he can feel it in his skull, his spine. Times like these are why Hanbin loves to paint.

When he finishes he sits back, hands a little shaky and looks at the canvas in front him. It’s a night sky, inky black fading to deep blues and purples. The dark background punctuated by bright golden yellow stars. One large starburst takes up most of the upper right corner, painted with pale yellows and icy blues this one seems different then the others, colder maybe. It looks lonely to him, but beautiful and bright. He’s pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the front door creaking open. Glancing at the stove top clock he sees it’s 5:35, he smiles and calls out

“You’re five minutes late!”

Pushing back his chair and standing he walks out of the kitchen and sees Jinhwan standing in the hall, two take out bags in his left hand and keys in his right. Seeing Hanbin he snipes back

“Do you not know what ‘around 5:30’ means?”

Jinhwan looks around at his now sparkling apartment and raises an eyebrow

“You really did a number on this place. Looks like I won’t have to hire a maid after all.”

Hanbin shrugs and replies,

“I was really bored.”

Jinhwan laughs and drops his keys in a bowl on a little table by the door before holding up the plastic bags

“Well are you hungry? I brought chinese.”

Hanbin nods,

“Let me just go grab some chopsticks.”     

As he walks to the kitchen Jinhwan follows him, and he hears him stop at the kitchen table and let out a deep appreciative breath.

“Damn, sometimes I forget how good you are.”

Hanbin turns, chopsticks in hand, and rubs at the back of his head a little embarrassed. He’s been painting for years now and he still doesn’t know how to react to praise, whether it’s from his mom or from a professor.

“Oh it’s nothing, like I said, I was bored.”

Jinhwan stares at the painting a little longer, a look Hanbin quite place in his eyes.

“You know, I can’t quite say why but that star” he points to the large one in the corner “it looks sadder then the rest for some reason.”

He shakes his head and laughs

“Maybe I’m crazy, stars can’t really be sad can they.”

Hanbin shrugs, and says quietly

“I don’t know, I think anything can be sad. Seen plenty of sad stars in my life.”

And Jinhwan gives him a look, forehead a little crinkled and eyes searching like he sees something in Hanbin’s face that goes beyond a throw away comment. It’s a little to piercing for Hanbin’s taste so he shrugs again uncomfortably and tries to change the subject.

Anyways, let me just clean this up so we can eat.”

Jinhwan shakes his head and waves him off

“Don’t worry about it, we can eat on the couch. It’s just take out anyway.”

So they sit on the couch, take out boxes in hand and feet up on the coffee table. Something about it brings Hanbin back to their college days, when he and Jinhwan were living in a ty little apartment right off of campus. They barely had furniture back then, no coffee table or nice couches but they had been happy and content and excited for the future. Now everything’s different, things changed as they always do and Hanbin can’t help but miss the simplicity of those days. Not that what he had now was bad, he was so lucky with so many things in his life, but with all those good things came complications and he couldn’t help but long for the days when the biggest worry on his mind was whether or not he would finish an essay in time for the deadline. Jinhwan’s voice brings him back to reality

“Earth to Hanbin! Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

Hanbin shakes his head, realizing he’d spaced out with a bite of jjangmyeon halfway to his mouth. Hurriedly he takes a bite and swallows

“Sorry, still a little jet lagged I think.”

Jinhwan just rolls his eyes.

“I was saying, I was talking to the guys and we made plans to meet up at Woodstock tomorrow night. Sound good?”

Hanbin nods and smiles,

“Yeah, sounds great! Will I finally get to meet your tall dark and handsome boyfriend?”

Jinhwan rolls his eyes and looks away but Hanbin sees the faint blush on his cheeks and smiles. “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

Jinhwan throws a pillow at him, he barely dodges it lifting his box of noodles into the air to save it and laughs and for a moment he feels young again.