“Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza…”

Jinki scratched his head thoughtfully as Yoogeun continued to chime, surveying the packets of rice on display as if each was a martian from an opposite cosmological course to his own; his usual go-to brand seemed to have slipped up in price since he'd last purchased it, whereas a less familiar sort had halved under some special offer. The glaring red labels promoting the offer seemed to make the decision clear – however, Jinki’s mind was anything but. Yoogeun was a notoriously fussy eater, and he'd taken after his father. Both had high standards when it came to food, and Jinki became hesitant every time he was faced with a conundrum that could upset his tastes.

Frowning at his own idiocy, Jinki shook his head in mild bemusement and threw the cut-price rice into the trolley. He couldn't afford the luxury of his peculiar habits any more than he could the overpriced rice that had attempted to sway him.

Continuing down the isle, Jinki scanned the shelves with an expression of confusion. He didn’t ever plan his shops, not really. As there were only two mouths to feed, he supposed it wasn’t necessarily hard to cater towards them both, it was just hard to remember what he did and didn’t have lingering in his kitchen cupboards, and it was hard to remember the ever-decreasing balance remaining on his credit card. His eyes flitted from row-to-row of ingredients, completely absorbed, so much so that he barely heard Yoogeun’s careless clattering as he smashed a Spiderman figurine against the trolley’s frame and continued to bop his head in delirious amusement. Unlike Jinki’s suggestion of walking alongside the trolley, Yoogeun preferred to sit inside the fickle vehicle, which often had a mind of its own whenever Jinki attempted to steer it. Such scenarios had bred close calls – the threat of battered packages and burst vegetables – but so long as Yoogeun was content, Jinki was content, and valued his son’s distracted nature whilst trying to calculate a plan for the week.

As Jinki rounded the corner of the near-empty supermarket, he squinted heavily, shaking his head as the fingers of tiredness massaged his joints. He preferred to shop in the evenings, when the stores were quieter and the hum-drum of workers less, however his fixation with a painting earlier that day had knocked back his schedule, and now it was later than planned, and he was almost sure he'd surpassed Yoogeun’s bedtime. Listening to the background chatter of the hyperactive younger almost confirmed it. Jinki forced himself to push the trolley onwards, so enraptured by his own state, the inebriating buzz of the blueish lights and the encompassing scent of bleach that he almost missed his son’s small exhalation of, “Woah…”

Jinki frowned, having to another cold, limpid isle, and gazed at his son with curiosity. Noticing the toddler was distracted, eyes wide, Jinki followed the gaze until he too was gaping quite noticeably at the man who had caught Yoogeun’s attention. He paused, arms tensing, and tilted his head in wry amusement.

The young man was small, narrow-framed, with a tanned complexion and the largest eyes Jinki believed he'd ever seen. Gaunt cheekbones were accompanied by full lips, and a strong jawline helped accentuate the man’s structured features, however the most captivating thing – and the thing that had no-doubt caused Yoogeun to stare in such bewilderment – was the way in which the man’s hair was coloured a pale, dusty pink, a colour not too dissimilar from a cherry blossom.

As the man stood, he contemplated a packet of instant-noodles that sat limply, just out of his reach. Dignity forcing him to shake his head, he reached up for his fingers to only scrape the bottom of the item – which was placed on the inconveniently tall top shelf. Drowned in his vivid orange hoodie, he was an enigmatic light against his depressive surroundings – his facial expression just didn’t seem to match. Jinki grinned, unconditionally endeared, despite the fact the man must have been only a few years younger than himself.

“Look,” Yoogeun gasped uncontrollably, “it's a supa’hero!” As Yoogeun exclaimed, Jinki’s cheeks flushed with an intrusive embarrassment, and when the toddler went so-far as to point at the young man, Jinki didn’t know whether to scold or bury himself in shame.

It took the strangers several seconds to notice the interruption – whether it was due to his enraptured train of thoughts or the several metres between them, Jinki did not know – but given they were the only two parties in sight and any audible noise was derived solely from the muted jingle the shop played on a constant loop, the man turned as soon as he had registered the call, eyes feline and intent.

“Sorry,” Jinki instantly offered, alongside an awkward shrug – and then it was the turn of the stranger to smile, and he did so with a crooked grin, lopsided in its childishness.

“I've been called many things,” he offered, “but never a superhero.” He chuckled, and Jinki smiled, pushing the trolley towards the man, as was subsequent of his passage. There was something so soft, so soothing, about the stranger’s velvety voice. It was thick, ridden in a foreign comfort, and seemed to speak wisdom even if the words were joyful.

“Why is you’ hair that colour?” Yoogeun continued, words smudged in childish abandon. His face was wrought with awe as he gazed at the now-still man, who didn’t seem to know where to quite place himself. He rubbed his arm tentatively, before widely grinning at Yoogeun.

“It's part of my magic powers,” he teased, and Jinki laughed, trying to distract himself with the shelves of groceries.

“Now, Yoogeun,” he scolded, albeit good-naturedly, “let's leave this nice man alone.” Jinki’s eyes met the stranger’s again, and he noticed how they glinted, an intense hazel flecked with the offspring of gold. They seemed to capture Jinki’s gaze for longer than he intended, as he looked back to a packet of pasta that had somehow found its way into his slender fingers. He swallowed, oddly nervous.

“But ​Appa," Yoogeun stressed, a failed attempt at a whisper, “his hair’s pink!”

The stranger chortled again, seemingly becoming more comfortable with the painter and his son.

“Mmm, that it is,” Jinki nodded, placing back the pasta and offering the soft-spoken stranger another apologetic shrug.

“Have you ev’ met Spida'man?" Yoogeun quizzed, waving his dislocated figurine pointedly at the man.

Kind-hearted in his nature, the stranger replied fondly and vibrantly, “Unfortunately not, but I have heard he's thinking of getting his hair the same colour as mine…”

“Seriously?!” Yoogeun remarked, Jinki’s trolley aligning with the still man. Gazing up in idolisation, Yoogeun’s face was ridged in awe and a stringent gullibility.

“You have my word,” the man nodded, and a sudden thought occurred to Jinki. Halting the squeaking trolley, he moved beside the man and paused, furrowing his brow. As the man glanced at him confusedly, he took a step back, Jinki reaching above himself to fetch the item the stranger had so-recently been attempting to obtain.

“Ah,” mumbled the pink-haired man, casting his eyes to the ground as Jinki offered the packet to him. “This probably leaves some kind of wound on my manhood.”

He grinned again, and dragged his eyes back up to Jinki’s just as he took the package from his hands. Their fingers brushed, and Jinki blinked, and indescribably the world fractured. He couldn’t hear the sound of the jingle, nor his sons own barrage of questions. A surreality emerged as his eyes locked to the man’s, and for a moment there was a peaceful calm, until the man looked away, and Jinki took a step backwards, dizzying in curiosity.

“It's a shame they have to stack things so high,” the man joked, and Jinki could have sworn to a mild nervousness in his voice, an emergent unsureness that he hadn’t presented around Yoogeun. Jinki nodded at the handsome man, still too stunned to respond with a worthwhile comment.

“Ca’ you teach me how to be a supa’hero?” Yoogeun interrupted, and Jinki sighed, relieved at his son’s penchant for outspokenness.

“Maybe someday,” the stranger nodded, “but I can tell you'll get there all by yourself.” He smiled at Yoogeun warmly, fondly, and Jinki caught the scent of coconut. It was a comforting scent, relaxing. He clenched his fists, suddenly urgent to say something, anything, to dispel the awkwardness he'd created between them – but no words formed.

“But I should go,” the man answered, “let you two finish shopping in peace. It was nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Jinki responded, considering asking the man’s name, but deciding otherwise. They were strangers, and it was unlikely they'd ever meet again.

The man nodded, and shot Yoogeun a quick wave, before disappearing around the corner, taking his vibrancy with him. Jinki paused, and stood stoic, events already replaying in his mind.

“Appa,” Yoogeun murmured, seemingly doing the same, “was he really a superhero?”

Jinki frowned, glimpsed down at Yoogeun, and with a hesitant shrug, decided, “Honestly, I don’t know.”

•••

Jinki surveyed the large canvas with a perplexed frown, stance the paragon of wonder as he studied his painting with both care and experience. Positioned as it was on the easel, the painting sat proclaiming a bold and candid demeanour, almost as if a monarchic figure. The subject within was poised, ambivalent, a young woman who wore her pinkish lips in a winsome smile. She gazed through the picture wherever one would stand, the subtle palette of the piece near-soothing to gaze upon. Her painting was reflective of her true-life nature: When Jinki had met her, she'd been both quiet and confident, too reserved to fully decipher.

Tapping the end of his brush against his lip, Jinki ran his eyes over the half-painted image, the grooves of the cream canvas and the faint traces of sketch-lines. He wouldn't be able to truly tell the painting’s worth until he was finished, however he was already unhappy with the way the woman’s hair tumbled down her shoulder as opposed to behind it. Although a feature of his reference-photo, it seemed out-of-place in the painting.

Sighing, he placed the brush on the table beside himself and rubbed his eyes with two calloused palms. He had several days to finish the painting. The acrylic woman could wait.

The scent of paint and pencil-lead an invariable intoxication, Jinki stood from his stool, stiff as a winter-oak, and unravelled the apron from behind his back. He removed it, grimacing at how his spine seemed to pulse with rigid indignation, and frowning at how his shirt had still somehow become mottled in a series of paint-stains – ones that likely wouldn’t wash out. Although his paintings were neat and concise, Jinki couldn’t say the same for his methods.

“Yoogeun, you want to come up and get some lunch?”

Turning, Jinki cracked a slight smile at the sight of his son, furrowed into the corner of the basement-workshop with a strain on his brow, intensely focussed just as his father had been. Unlike Jinki, however, Yoogeun’s equipment was far from professional. He sat on a blue child’s stool, the cemented ground beneath him shrouded in a carpet of old, stained white bedsheets. His easel was small and his brushes were large, and his face apoplectic with an array of primary colours. Only his clothes were unscathed, protected by a large, child’s apron, designed to cover the entire body. He bit his lip, dabbing the canvas furiously with a paintbrush, Jinki unable to see the product of his endeavours.

“Yoogeun?” Jinki reiterated, stepping towards his son, and closer to the doorway. The basement was seemingly small due to the way it was brim-full of art supplies and cardboard boxes. A rickety flight of stairs led to the doorway, and above the electric lights blurted incandescent whispers. Though many artists hated such lighting, Jinki preferred it to natural. It was far less temperamental, much more of a constant than the cloud-guarded sun. Trailing his fingers along the dusty workbench, Jinki approached his enraptured son, who still didn’t seem to be hearing his father’s requests.

“I'm making pizza…”

Yoogeun’s ears pricked, his eyes widened, and he dropped the paintbrush in a pot of muddy water with a spontaneous cry of, “Pizza?!”

Jinki laughed as his son leapt from the stool, stumbling haphazardly towards his father to help him removed the shapeless red apron. When they had, Jinki chucked it carelessly to Yoogeun’s corner of the basement, and extended his hand towards him.

“Come on,” he ushered, somewhat urgent to leave the cold basement. Yoogeun grinned, wrapping his small, incredibly warm hand around Jinki’s slender finger, and allowed his father to lead him up the creaking stairs. At the top, Yoogeun immediately bolted.

“Wash your hands!” Jinki called, flicking off the light-switch and clicking the door shut behind him. He heard a jumbled shout from the living room that was probably supposed to be a response, but its coherency was lost and its origin unseen as Jinki padded to the kitchen sink, washing his hands and drying them on a suspect tea-towel. So small was his house that each room led seamlessly to the next, and as he craned his neck to catch his son hopping onto the leather sofa, he made note on hand-washing and hygiene and that a three year-old’s grimy hands would probably not be good for white, fluffy cushions.

Jinki shook his head.

“Right,” he murmured to himself, “pizza.”

Turning to the fridge and running a hand through his unkempt hair, it was only when his hand wrapped around the handle that he heard a familiar ​knock knock knock from the door frame, and instantly straightened, glancing over at Yoogeun, who hadn’t heard the disruption. His son looked messy, his son looked chaotic, but in the fragrant imbues of his home, well-lit by the lunchtime sun, he at least looked presentable. Or, so, Jinki hoped.

“Yoogeun,” he warned, “visitor!” But Jinki doubted his son had heard, and was too busy smoothing down the fabric of his own green and white shirt to inform him further. Hopefully, the visitor would be a salesman or an advertiser, someone Jinki could dismiss quickly, with as little hassle as possible. He was hungry, and he hated being hungry just as much as he hated the incompetent nosiness of many suffocating visitors.

Nodding to himself, Jinki plastered a smile across his cheeks, opened the door, and instantly allowed the smile to fall.

“Have you been painting?” was the visitor’s first question.

Jinki rolled his eyes as he raised an eyebrow at the man on his doorstep, as casually handsome as ever in a tan summer jacket and distressed denim jeans, flaunting that look of wry amusement he always seemed to hone when Jinki was around. Too familiar with the younger to wait for pleasant courtesy, Jinki stepped aside begrudgingly to allow the man entrance, closing the door behind him, silencing the autumn-breeze.

“​Minnie-ho!" shrieked an excitable voice, and Jinki could do nothing but laugh as Yoogeun charged at the visitor, face wild with happiness. Leaning down, it was all the man could do to soften the impact by scooping the small toddler into his arms, spinning him around once to a melody of chattering giggles before composing himself to murmur, “Seems your dad wasn't the only one painting, huh?” With that, he turned to Jinki with a childish grin, waiting for the elder’s usual stubbornness.

“Minho, don’t you know not to visit at lunch time?” Jinki cocked his head with widened eyes, lips twitching into a smirk as he regarded the tall, strong form of his best friend. Minho was a basketball player who looked like a basketball player – tall and lean, with strong features and tousled brunette hair. His handsomeness annoyed Jinki, his height annoyed Jinki, but, most of all, his very ​being annoyed Jinki, in the most affection-deserving way possible.

“Oh,” he commented brightly, lowering Yoogeun to the ground, “what's for lunch?”

“Pizza!” Yoogeun answered gleefully, his face reddened with the wonder of having Minho visit. Jinki rolled his eyes. Yoogeun was so infatuated with his elder that at times he practically worshipped the basketballer; aside from granting him the respect of formal address, Yoogeun’s very manner would change. Minho was his best friend, his uncle and his role-model all rolled into one – Yoogeun even ​looked somewhat like him, given both had wide eyes, soft noses and the most reassuring of smiles.

“Pizza’s nice, I like pizza,” Minho shrugged, as Jinki returned to the fridge, tutting as he did so. As Minho leant over the kitchen-bar, radiant in his composure, Yoogeun scrambled up onto the stool beside him – something most toddlers would find difficulty in doing, but not Yoogeun. After living in the home for three years, he'd become something of an expert.

“​Minnie-ho," Yoogeun spoke quietly, in private conversation now as Jinki switched on the oven, “guess what I painted today?”

“What?” Minho asked, voice beset in hyperbolic wonder as he too assumed a seat. Unpacking the pizza and throwing it carelessly into the oven, Jinki turned, leant the small of his back against the kitchen counter, and folded his arms across his chest.

Leaning forward, Yoogeun cupped his hands and whispered gently into Minho’s ear. Jinki frowned.

“No way!” Minho exclaimed, as Yoogeun dropped his hands. “That's so cool! You have to show me when you're done, promise?”

When Yoogeun nodded enthusiastically, Jinki saw it only fitting to interrupt with, “Hey, why can't you tell me what you painted?”

He was ignored.

“Ca’ you come watch TV with me?” Yoogeun pondered, using his hand to tug lightly on the sleeve of Minho’s corduroy jacket.

“Maybe in a minute,” Minho offered, glancing over at Jinki, “I have to talk to your Appa about a few things first.”

Frowning at Minho, Jinki barely even noticed as Yoogeun nodded, before slipping off the stool and muttering, “I'll wai’ for you!” Quietly, he scampered to the sitting-room, leaving Jinki and Minho both out of ear’s reach and alone.

“Something up?” Jinki asked, tone instantly more serious, shoulders tensing in posture. Minho’s expression too changed, his smile withering away and his lips firming to a taut line.

“Just hear me out-“ Minho began, and Jinki instantly scowled, pivoting to the cupboard to reach down a plate for the pizza.

“You did ​not come here to lecture me about Friday, did you?” Jinki asked, distracting himself by bustling for a plate amidst the disorganised plethora of cups and bowls. “Because I swear to God, Minho, if you did-“

“I said hear me out,” Minho mumbled, “so just- just give me the courtesy, hyung, would you?”

Finding a plate, Jinki placed it on the counter beside him and turned again, resuming to his initial stance and exhaling deeply, to punctuate his discontent. Pointedly staring, the painter waited.

“Look,” Minho started, words yet-again careful, as they had been those two nights previous, “I called Taemin yesterday to ask about Friday, and you know what the first thing he asked me was?”

“What?”

“Is Jinki coming?"

Noticing Jinki was about to complain yet again, Minho interjected before the painter could, firm in his venture, determined in his will.

“Now, I'm not saying to come just because Taemin wanted you to,” Minho continued, shifting slightly on the stool, “and I’m not saying to come just because it's Kibum’s birthday. I'm saying to come because it wouldn’t be the same without you. I'm saying to come because, without you, we're a friend short. Come on, hyung! It's one night.”

Jinki’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter as he lowered his head. It was much harder dismissing his friend face-to-face than over the phone. There was something so sincere, so compassionate, about Minho’s efforts, that it seemed a shame to let them dissipate amidst a painter’s reservations.

“What about Yoogeun?” he asked, raising his head. From across the room, the lowly jangling of a cartoon marred the air into tepid little embers, that drifted over everything, a flambeau of moods and thoughts, each one different, yet each intertwined.

“I already told you,” Minho explained, “my mum would be happy to babysit. Everything is arranged, all you have to do is say you're coming. One night, hyung. One night.”

“And Taemin’s definitely coming?”

“Yeah, definitely. You need to see him, Jinki – or at least, see him dance. He's incredible.”

“Really?”

“Really. He'll make it big someday, I'm sure of it. I've never seen someone dance quite like him.” A ghost of a smile flickered across Minho’s lips as he gazed at the counter-top, as if lodged like a bookmark between the pages of a memory. Jinki grinned. Minho was practically an older brother to Taemin – but a younger brother to the painter, also.

“I miss him,” Jinki remarked slowly, “it feels like a lifetime since we've spoken.”

“Don’t you have his number?” Minho asked, tilting his head curiously.

“Yeah, but…” Jinki shrugged. “Things just get in the way, you know how it is.”

Minho nodded, drumming his fingers on the breakfast bar as he leant back on the stool.

“So,” he decided, looking up at Jinki again, “Friday night, what do you say?”

Jinki bit his bottom lip.

“Alright,” he decided. “Let's do it.”

•••

Jinki cursed and dropped the paintbrush atop the bench, aggravated, alone. The night left him a solivagant, but it may as well have been morning, for the restricted basement left no room for time; unlike the sun that dawned and set, the lights remained constant, routinely, always shaping the same shadows, always draping the room in that unnatural glow. Jinki leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, cold even despite the thick jumper he wore.

His head seemed to pang with a wrought discontent. At first, the muted thump had been insouciant, but soon proliferated leaves of greater root than most. The headache had grown with the minutes, curving slender stalks around every fragment of his conscience; weeds sprouted from his attempts to visualise the finalised painting, and doubts formed as prolifically as Japanese knotweed, ever-pestering the compost of his methods. It was too late to be painting, too late to be awake – but Jinki had a deadline to meet, and he couldn’t afford to surpass it.

Lifting his head, he recounted the day with weary carelessness. Minho had left in the mid-afternoon, and Jinki had become enflamed by regret and a quaint nervousness, already suspect that Friday was a bad, bad idea, both for his temperament and his comfort. He'd put Yoogeun to bed a few hours ago – a job relatively easier than most nights, as Minho had decided to play various precarious games with the toddler, resulting in a grumbling exhaustion that even the three year-old couldn’t fight, despite the ammunition of candy and chocolate. Then, knowing he had no other choice, Jinki had retired to the basement to paint – a reality that had consisted much more of him observing the canvas than adding to it.

Something played on Jinki’s mind. Skeletal fingers plucked the strings of his thoughts, however their tune was discordant moreover than harmonic, and every major had minored, eerie and upset. Each note was a stray, fleeting thought, most those he'd experienced time and time again, haunting him despite his fatigue and lethargy. Loneliness, fear, guilt and confusion, their membranes were thick and no efforts could pierce them. But something else lingered, something foreign, and as it surfaced, Jinki couldn’t tell why it was there, or why he even remembered.

A man rested amidst his thoughts, feline and curious, boasting hair the pastel pink of ardent cherry blossoms. The man smiled a sweetened smile, spoke a whimsy laugh, and vanished before Jinki’s hand could reach to grab him. Something twisted in Jinki’s stomach and he frowned, brows near-knitted in misunderstanding. He couldn’t tell why the man hung in his memory, whether it was his kindness or appearance that had made the impression, but, either way, he was a resident in the painter’s thoughts, and this made him near-nauseous in unease.

Deciding his endeavours were pointless, Jinki stood, eyes grey and sleet-like, vapid in their dysphoria. Without the distraction of his son, his mind was too free to wander. Jinki blamed the stranger’s appearance in his thoughts on that freedom, though knew there was more to it than that – he just didn’t know what.

Thinking of his son, something occurred to Jinki, and as he threw off his apron for the second time that day, he made his way towards Yoogeun's toddler-proof canvas, needlessly quiet, avoiding whatever paraphernalia lay scattered across the floor. Yoogeun’s ‘secret’ painting – he supposed it was his right to see it, given he was the toddler’s father.

Jinki froze when he saw what his son had been working on.

The painting was a maelstrom of colours, each one inappropriate or unrealistic and bold. Despite matching Jinki’s passion for painting, Yoogeun certainly didn’t match his ability – but Jinki didn’t expect a masterpiece, certainly not from a three year-old. It was the content of the painting that shocked him.

Three figures were decipherable beneath the miasma of block acrylics – one a tall, lean basketballer and the second an apron-clad painter, clearly meant to resemble both Minho and Jinki. It was the third figure that seemed the strange addition, a small man in the page’s corner, donned in an over-sized hoodie and flaunting bright-pink hair and a gaudy red cape.

The stranger from the supermarket.

Jinki’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes darkened, and memories resurfaced with their usual ambiguity. Perplexed as he was, he was stoic by the painting, unable to move, or think, or understand a damned thing. Loneliness wrung out towels of doubt across him, and the more he was drenched, the stronger the stranger’s visage became, until all Jinki could think about was his pink hair, his crooked grin, his reticent manner and his playful tone. He wouldn't leave Jinki’s mind, and this unnerved the painter greatly, unnerved him so much that-

He began to cry.

The tears were soft, some frailty of ephemera, and Jinki barely knew they were there until he touched a hand to his cheeks and felt the damp little streaks, cold and submissive, wet beneath his touch. He shuddered, knowing a grown man shouldn’t cry, shouldn't show emotion so easily. He had to remain strong, upright – if not for him, for his son – but it was so hard in his mind to avoid the sullen memories, the thoughts of his past, the thoughts of her.

Crouching to his knees, Jinki buried his head in his hands. Maybe Minho had been right.

He wasn’t Lee Jinki, and nor was he a painter. Far from it, Jinki was just another lonely widow.