(modern greek lovers au)

 
1. sungjin; 

(pygmalion x galatea — legends tell of how the great sculptor pygmalion loved no mortal woman and fell instead for the statue he carves of a young woman he names galatea, or “she who is milk-white.” aphrodite, the goddess of love, touched by his passion and faith, grants his wish and she comes alive in his adoring embrace.)

you’ve known him for ages, for so long that you don’t even remember how you even met, for so long that sometimes you wonder if your world had really begun with him.

maybe it did, because how else can those concentrated eyes and cleverly crafting fingers understand you so well? how can he notice the annoyance before it weaves between your brows or rub away the tiredness from your skin before it settles in your bones? or when the laughter is already spilling from his lips before it even leaves yours or the tears that you never need to explain? how he knows you inside and out, chipped edges and all, and still cherish every piece? 

all you know, though, is how you come alive every time beneath his loving touch – a contact so tender and adoring that they almost feel like stolen moments from someone else’s life. hardly enough to satisfy the deep connection you both worship and desire.

so, when you settle down on your knees beside him at the pottery wheel, he immediately stops his work to cradle your face between rough, callused hands. you let the murmurs sand away your corner and feel doves take flight behind the broken bridge of your collarbones. and, beneath such adoring eyes, you don’t care that he’s smudging mushy clay all across your skin. 

not when he’s the only end you could ever want or even imagine having.

“you’re my masterpiece,” he murmurs, fitting his breath and whispered words like filler into all the empty spaces, and you know it’s the truth. 
because only with each other, can you be soft.

2. wonpil; 

(eros x psyche — legends tell of how psyche’s beauty was so unmatched that the even son of aphrodite falls for her and whisks her away to a faraway palace where they spend their nights together, forbidding her to see his face. however, he is woken one night by the wax that her betraying candle and broken promise, then he leaves, only returning when she completes aphrodite's three impossible tasks to earn her husband and his trust again. thus, is the story of psyche (the soul) losing, searching, and finding eros (true love).)

he tells you that before you, his whole life it had always been him, just him. only him for so long that he became so used to watching others move in and out of the spectrum of life and most of all, fall in love. he never minded, though, almost preferring to play vital parts in many schemes and plots, and gleaning secondhand happiness from the joy their union.

yet he never thought of it for himself. finding love to him was more something he saw silhouettes of in the distance like hidden castles or gated gardens, though he also never quite believed in it – or at least something for him.

but after you? you are slowly teaching him over shared literature in secluded parts of abandoned libraries, playing hide-and-seek with meanings between lines and breathing. you are slowly teaching him the nuances and connotations of a language he had thought he was long fluent, realizing that only now is he truly understanding. finding how much he had been missing, only to discover them in you.  

you’re deep in more assigned reading when strong arms wrap around your waist from behind. without looking, you nuzzle back into him, knowing without seeing that it’s him, know him by his feather-light touches and piercing arrow-straight honesty.

“you’re my soul,” he whispers, his warm breath tucked behind your ear. 

and you believe him, without a shadow of a doubt.

3. dowoon;

(achilles x patroclus — legends tell of how deeply loved was young patroclus by the fie