Limbo

Chapter 8: The Project

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Jongdae draped himself over the end of the shopping cart like a rug as he lazily pushed it through the aisle, following Baekhyun and Chanyeol as they discussed what to buy. He occasionally tapped at his phone, checking for messages while the couple in front of him argued over whether they wanted mackerel or cod and if they even needed two bags of rice when it took Jongdae and Baekhyun months to finish one bag.

“’Dae!” Jongdae looked up when he heard Baekhyun’s exasperated cry. “Tell Yeol that we’ll be fine with just one bag!”

“We’ll be fine with just one bag,” Jongdae repeated in a monotone. Nevertheless, it satisfied Baekhyun because the film major turned back to his boyfriend with an expectant look.

“But what if something happens and you need a second bag?” The music major, Chanyeol, protested as he cradled the second bag of rice to his chest. Jongdae thought he looked like an overgrown child who was told he couldn’t buy one of his favorite treats, but the art student stayed quiet, not wanting to be dragged into the middle of the couple’s debate.

When the duo didn’t seem to be reaching a conclusion any time soon, Jongdae sighed and pushed himself off the cart. “I’m going to go get the chicken,” he announced before turning and walking away from the bickering couple.

It didn’t take long for Jongdae to find the meat and bring it back to the cart. He was somewhat impressed by the two bags of rice that were sitting in the shopping cart: Chanyeol had gotten Baekhyun to concede.

The art student dropped the package of chicken in the cart and turned to the red-haired giant. “Where did Baek go?”

“Went to get kimchi,” Chanyeol replied easily, briefly looking up from the label on the salt canister, “He said I would just fight him on his choices, so he told me to stay here.” Rather than look offended by his boyfriend’s words, the music student merely smiled that wide, toothy smile of his. He dropped the salt into the cart and leaned against the vehicle, still grinning happily at Jongdae. “So how are your classes?”

“Good, good,” Jongdae mumbled distractedly as his thoughts traveled to the graduation project that was outright taunting him now. He still had no idea what he wanted to draw for it. “The graduation project is still being a jerk though.”

“Still got nothing for it?” Chanyeol’s gaze darted away when Baekhyun came back, carrying a large jar of kimchi, but his tone was sympathetic, having been in Jongdae’s shoes before.

“No. The professor told us we could draw anything, but I think the freedom just made the project more difficult,” Jongdae admitted, ambling alongside the cart as Chanyeol started pushing it down the aisle. “I don’t want to draw something I’ve already used for a past assignment though.”

“You’ve drawn animals?” Chanyeol asked.

“Yep.”

“How about plants?”

“Done.”

“Friends and family?”

“Drawn them, too.”

“What about that handsome man from your dreams?” Chanyeol asked as casually as one would talk about the weather.

Jongdae’s brain shut itself down then because all the art major could do was sputter and stumble over his words. It didn’t help that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were both looking at him with amusement. Chanyeol even went so far as to slap the shopping cart in a laughing fit.

“How did you know?” Jongdae finally got out, but then his eyes fell on the smirking film student and he couldn’t bring himself to be surprised.

Jongdae knew his face was turning a faint pink, and he hid behind his hands, a habit that always showed up when he got shy. He could feel Baekhyun patting him on the back in a patronizing manner.

“Aww, is our little Jongdae getting embarrassed?” The film major teased as he pretended to coddle his roommate. The art student peeked between his fingers to see Chanyeol almost crying from mirth, so Jongdae did what he did best.

“Why are you like this!” The art student whined and shook Baekhyun off, not caring that other shoppers were giving them judgmental looks.

“Why are you like this!” Baekhyun mimicked, and under normal circumstances, Jongdae would have been impressed by how accurate his best friend’s mimicry was, but right now, he was embarrassed as hell and just wanted the couple to stop.

He couldn’t even tell if Chanyeol was laughing or crying anymore.

Thankfully, the two of them stopped their antics and went to check out their cart of items. It gave Jongdae time to consider Chanyeol’s suggestion seriously. It was true that he had drawn Junmyeon before, but he always did it as a personal project rather than an actual assignment. Maybe he could use Junmyeon as a muse for his graduation project.

Jongdae decided that it wouldn’t hurt to try. He would just ask Junmyeon for permission to draw him later that night in Limbo.

Wait. Jongdae actually stopped and laughed quietly to himself. It would be the first time he was asking a dead person for permission to draw them, and Jongdae hadn’t realized that he had forgotten that Junmyeon was a dead man until now. He couldn’t help but think of how ridiculous the situation would have sounded before he officially met Junmyeon.

“’Dae.”

Baekhyun’s voice pulled Jongdae from his thoughts, and the art student looked up to see his friends looking at him. Several bills were clasped in Baekhyun’s hand as the film student gazed at him hopefully. “Do you have five hundred won on you?”

Jongdae clearly remembered tucking some change into his wallet a few days ago, so he patted down his pockets until he felt the padding of his wallet. He pulled it out and rifled through the contents, pulling out a bill and handing it over to Baekhyun so they could pay for their groceries.

The three of them stopped by Chanyeol’s dorm first, where they put most of the groceries away into the refrigerator and Chanyeol pulled out a bag of Tupperware full of small dishes that he had made the day before.

Jongdae leaned against the cabinets as he tuned out the squabbling of the couple, choosing to mull over his graduation project. He wondered what angle would be best for Junmyeon. Perhaps it would look best if the viewer was staring at Junmyeon’s side-profile, or should he draw Junmyeon with his face turned towards the front? Did he want a color scheme for the project? What color suited Junmyeon best? What should he include in the background?

He tried to imagine how Junmyeon would look from different angles, painting the various pictures in his head and giving them different color schemes. However, there was something off about all the prospective paintings he envisioned, and it frustrated Jongdae like a word that lingered on the tip of his tongue. The art student dismissed the feeling for now, figuring that it would be easier to identify the problem if he had a physical copy of the artwork in front of him.

Jongdae looked away as Chanyeol and Baekhyun kissed goodbye, not wanting to gawk at a private moment. As usual, it took a while before the couple could finally detach themselves, and Baekhyun reluctantly shuffled towards the door with the bag of Tupperware in hand. Stepping out behind his roommate, Jongdae waved at Chanyeol, who returned the gesture with a big smile before shutting the door with a small click.

The two of them hugged the bags of rice to their chests on the way back to the dorm, garnering a few strange looks from fellow students, but they were more concerned about the weight they were carrying. Luckily, their dorm wasn’t far from Chanyeol’s residence hall, and it wasn’t long before Jongdae was unlocking and opening the door to their room.

Baekhyun groaned dramatically as he stumbled into the dorm and dropped one bag of rice on the couch. Jongdae followed, dumping his load besides Baekhyun’s and collapsing on the sofa beside the rice.

“We should have stolen a cart or something,” Baekhyun lamented as he stumbled over to the refrigerator, opening it up and shoving Chanyeol’s food inside. Then, the film student headed over to the bedrooms, shedding his sweater as he went.

“Then who’s going to return it? You?” Jongdae called as he forced himself to his feet and started dragging the rice to their spot next to the fridge.

“Who said we were going to return it?” Baekhyun retorted. Jongdae snorted loudly at the joke.

They retreated to their rooms after that, intent on tackling the piles of work that have been waiting for them since they went out in the morning. Dinner was eaten quickly and with little small talk, as both of them wanted to finish as many assignments as they could before the weekend ended and more work would be handed out.

When Jongdae finally collapsed on his bed that night, he was exhausted from drawing and redrawing Junmyeon as he struggled to figure out what was missing from every portrait. He wanted to fall asleep quickly, but the excitement of falling asleep kept him up longer than he would have liked. It was past one in the morning when he finally closed his eyes.

“Jongdae.” The familiar voice made the art student’s mouth curl up into a smile. He heard Junmyeon let out a soft exhale. “I’m guessing you had a good day?”

Jongdae opened his eyes and sat up, looking around in confusion when he couldn’t find Junmyeon anywhere.

“Up here,” Junmyeon noted in amusement, and Jongdae lifted his head to see the other sitting on a low branch in a tree. He watched as Junmyeon jumped down from the tree, landing somewhat unsteadily on his feet before straightening up and dusting himself off, and settled down at the base of the tree like he always did whenever the two of them met. “So what have you been up to?”

Without hesitation, Jongdae spilled everything about the shopping trip he had gone on with Baekhyun and Chanyeol, and Junmyeon listened as attentively as ever. When it came time to ask Junmyeon’s permission regarding the graduation project, Jongdae hesitated, trying to calm the butterflies that were fluttering around inside his stomach.

“About the project,” Jongdae swallowed, “is it okay if I draw you?”

Junmyeon’s face morphed into an expression of surprise. “You want to draw me?”

“If it is alright with you, then yes, I would.” Jongdae didn’t know why he sounded so formal all of a sudden, but he guessed that it was from the nerves.

“I don’t mind,” Junmyeon said simply, “I just didn’t expect you to want to draw me.”

Relief and happiness flooded Jongdae’s body. It confused him a little since he did not recall feeling this elated when his friends and family had agreed to be drawn, but it did not matter. He finally had a subject for his project.

His felicity must have been contagious because one end of Junmyeon’s mouth twitched upwards, but the man rested his head in one hand and turned away resolutely.

“Are your classes demanding?” Junmyeon questioned as his gaze flicked back to Jongdae before darting away again.

Jongdae explained that each individual class wasn’t much work, but it was the time of the semester when all of his professors would start piling on the assignments and schedule tests back-to-back, so his classes as a whole were starting to prove more stressful than they seemed at the beginning. Junmyeon offered a few encouraging words and a sympathetic look, but there was nothing more that the former music major could do to help alleviate Jongdae’s stress. Nevertheless, the art student appreciated the effort and made sure to thank Junmyeon with another one of his catlike grins.

“Do you have a favorite class?” Junmyeon inquired as he leaned back against the trunk.

“I like Independent Study.” Jongdae picked up a small twig and spun it between his fingers. “I get to relax and draw whatever I want during that class. Art History is the most difficult since note-taking isn’t really my thing,” he confessed. He had started daydreaming during that class more times than he cared to admit.

Suddenly, memories of his childhood came flooding in, and Jongdae couldn’t hold back a breathy chuckle. “I remember I used to draw on the walls back when I was a kid,” he explained when Junmyeon gave him a confused look. “I even drew on Minseok’s bedroom wall whenever I went to his house. His mom scolded me for doing it, and when I got home, my mom scolded me, too.” The art student ducked his head, covering his mouth with one hand as he felt blood rushing to his cheeks.

A sound that he never heard before came in response to his words, and Jongdae looked up to see Junmyeon’s shoulders shaking. The latter’s eyes were narrowed to crescents, and his lips were pulled back to reveal his upper row of teeth, and Jongdae found himself reveling in the gentle ringing of Junmyeon’s laughter.

A/N: I'm back with an actual chapter this time! :D

I've spent the last few days rereading what I've already written and reworking the plan that I had for this story. So far, some filler bits have been removed, and I've combined a couple of chapters here and there. I've also gone on a mad writing spree (not for Limbo but for another EXO fanfic I have in the works), so I guess you could say I'm ecstatic to be back haha

Enjoy a bit of Suchen bonding to celebrate the end of my impromptu hiatus~<3