Jackson does come to his studio a few days later with two coffees in hand. Jinyoung is covered in paint and set up on an easel is a big canvas with a picture of the reflections from the bridge that night. He can’t help but smile even though Jinyoung’s bashfully tries to explain how the colours were too nice not to recreate. As they go round each painting Jinyoung explains the story behind them and Jackson realise now he is seeing the world through Jinyoung’s eyes. He favours light colours and crowded scenes and he gets a desperate sense of loneliness from them, he doesn’t comment on this however because he feels it isn’t his place. The way he paints is soft and gentle and underneath his blunt exterior Jackson can see the nurturing side of him in these pictures, Jackson was awestruck.

“...and this one is almost finished and it would kill me if I left it so if you could get comfortable I’ll only be another half an hour then I’m all yours,” Jinyoung said as he wandered back towards the easel. Jackson sat himself down on a stool to watch him. As Jinyoung painted there was a deep calm in his eyes that Jackson found almost hypnotising, everything was gentle right down to the flick of his wrist as he lifted the paintbrush away and Jackson could tell that right now only the painting existed for Jinyoung and it made him fall deeper for him, for this fascinating boy with so many layers of compassion.

      Jinyoung finishes 40 minutes later and cleans himself up while Jackson goes around and admires the paintings once more. He hasn’t talked to Jinyoung much and now Jinyoung has work but despite all that he feels closer to him than he ever has before and he’s grateful to Jinyoung for that. As Jinyoung locks up his studio he holds out his hand to him as an offer and Jinyoung takes it, lacing his smooth fingers with Jackson’s calloused ones and they walk to work like that, deciding the day was too nice to use the car.

       They walk into the cafe hand in hand and the other two don’t even seem surprised, Jackson supposed they weren’t as friends never seemed to be and Jackson had learnt pretty early on that these two were Jinyoung’s closest friends. He wants to stay but he has a theory paper to do so he apologises to Jinyoung leaving a lingering kiss on his cheek before turning to go. He jumps as Jinyoung urgently grabs his wrist to stop him leaving, turning to look at him with expectation “Next week is my exhibition, I forgot to tell you. You’ll come right?”  

“Of course I will”

______________________________

Jackson had never seen Jinyoung so nervous, he was fretting over everything spending probably too much time arranging and rearranging his canvases despite the amount of times Jackson assured him it looked fine. He explained that the exhibition went towards his final grade and Jackson did his best to comfort him but it was in Jinyoung’s nature to perfect it and so mostly he left it to him. Of course the exhibition went down successfully and although Jackson got  a little bored mostly he enjoyed it. They went round to look at other peoples art and showed off Jinyoung’s proudly to JB and Youngjae who popped in after the cafe had been closed down for a little while.

     After it was all over Jinyoung looked exhausted but insisted they went out for a drink to celebrate which Jackson was not opposed to so that’s exactly what they did. They sat at the back in comfortable silence nuzzled into each others sides and Jackson couldn’t help but wonder what they were and what they could be in the future. Jinyoung must have been thinking the same thing because he leant up and pressed his lips to Jackson’s and he promised himself that Jinyoung’s paintings would never look lonely again as long as he was around.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading my silly little fic. I don’t write very often but I really wanted to get this idea down so I did my best! I hope you enjoyed it. x