"And what're you grinning for?" 

Son Chaeyoung, self-proclaimed portraiture rebel-in-the-making, lets her vision fall from the cracking cream paint of the ceiling to the woman's waiting eyes. With sable waves of hair caressing the gentle curves of her face, Chaeyoung can't help but allow a soft sigh to escape her lips. 

"For lots of things," she replies, teeth still showing in an awestruck smile. She's tempted, ridiculously so, to bid farewell to her past few months of labor, of drawing, then redrawing, painting, then repainting. To bid farewell to a desperate attempt to revolutionize the stagnant art scene of Seoul. 

Because she wants to capture Myoui Mina now in as much vibrance and fluidity as Matisse, as much light and depth as Vermeer. But that'd be too derivative. So she puts the thought away in favor of glancing once more at her new lover (if that's what she could call her). 

"Thinking of so much, so early in the morning?" Mina questions, an early morning raspiness lingering in the socialite's throat. The corners of Chaeyoung's lips are pulled up tighter and a careless laugh originating from deep within is let out in an almost-bellow, an almost-roar. Mina takes note of this, analyses it as she would the artworks she would wish for her collection, and finally allows this side of her to fall. 

Because Chaeyoung's laugh echoes against the walls as pure, unadulterated near-childish joy and it's an uncommon sensation in the field of science she works in. 

The Japanese woman inches closer to the enfant terrible of Seoul, gently wrapping an arm around the latter's small, wool-covered waist, pulling her closer for warmth. Son Chaeyoung is warm, is warmth, is unconventional, is unique. Is someone she's been waiting for since leaving Kobe all those years ago. 

And so her hand leaves the puft warmth of the woolknit jumper and travels up to the Korean girl's face. A tender digit traces along the younger one's face, along her youthful features, by her large, seeking eyes, and lands at the girl's dimple. She feels a sense of playfulness within her and so she presses into the small dip of her soft cheek. 

"You're beautiful, has anyone told you this?" The clarity now in Mina's voice sends a slight shiver down Chaeyoung's spine, mostly because it makes the experience less dreamlike, more real, more in the moment. Lets the artist absorb what who she instead would consider to be the most breathtaking woman in all of history is saying. 

 

And so Chaeyoung doesn't reply. She cannot. Words always seem to fail her the way pictures never do. 

 

"Do you do self-portraits? You should. You're as much of a masterpiece as your works are. Yet your exhibition yesterday, it…" Mina hears her own words fade away as another addition to the atmospheric tune of the chirps of pigeons, of the clangs of construction, of the shouts of neighbors having their daily dispute.

 

Sees the hooded nature of Chaeyoung's eyes, sees that same look she had in them yesterday when they'd met, the intrigue, the wonder, the yearning for something more than the distance and air between their bodies. 

 

She cups the artist's cheek and guides the girl's body to face hers, shifting closer so as to close the depressing gap they had between their figures. And then, a type of warmth she knows she'll grow to thirst for when they're apart as Mina presses her lips against Chaeyoung's. 

 

Gone are the remnants of Chaeyoung's philosophies of human affection and their effects on one's soul after one sober, seven a.m. kiss with a woman she'd only previously heard of in whispers of friends. 

 

She moves her lips with Mina's, first calmly and with a hint of trepidation, then a little more rough, a little more sure. It's bliss as the scent of lavendar and pomegranate overwhelms her once more, as she hugs the Japanese woman's torso even more flush against hers. 

 

And those sable locks look as if they intertwine with Chaeyoung's as they get lost together in an artwork of their own. And the space between them is non-existant. And Chaeyoung feels a compulsion build with every pause that Mina takes between their kisses. 

 

"I."

 

A kiss. 

 

"Want."

 

Another.

 

"To."

 

And another. 

 

"Paint."

 

Another, now more deeply. 

 

"You."

 

A pause, then she plants a kiss so delicate it sends the tops of Mina's cheeks under a blanket of a rosey pink blush. 

 

Chaeyoung moves her hand from Mina's back and settles it near her palm, slowly letting her fingers fall into the spaces between Mina's. She uses the other to prop herself up, not once allowing Mina's gaze to escape her vision, and tilts her her head towards a blank canvas propped by a stained wooden easel. 

 

She notices Mina's eyes light up in the most endearing way, the maroon of her lips freshly tinted with the rouge of Chaeyoung's, and tightens her hold, pulling at her to get up off of her squeaky bed. Mina obliges, a light giggle as she stumbles off with a loud creak from the mattress. 

 

The scientist adores the smallness of Chaeyoung's palm against her own, senses an all-too-familiar feeling creep into her chest as she follows the girl across the tiled floor to a stool stood stark in front of the old easel. 

 

"Here," Chaeyoung utters with as much composure as she had the day before, after the few bottles of wine they poured and shared, as she gestures for Mina to take her seat. The painter than scampers over to her coatrack and pulls off an ebony cardigan thrown lazily over one of its hooks. She tosses it over to Mina. 

 

"I want to paint you as I first saw you," she adds, picking up half-empty tubes of mid-quality oil paints off of the floor around her workspace. With a few selected ones in hand, she ambles to her easel and inhales, then exhales as she looks into Mina's awaiting eyes. 

 

She's put on the black cardigan, and it's snug as it hugs the curves of her upper body, embraces the lengths of her arms as they cross swiftly in front of her. "Then paint me as you first saw me," Mina requests. Chaeyoung's staring into her and she's staring into Chaeyoung and admiring the girl for the breath of fresh air that she is. 

 

For her spontaniety. For her beauty. For her sweet and soft, yet deep and addictive lips. For her radiance. For her talent. For how she views the world in a way Mina's never seen before. For how she can foresee waking up like this for longer than she'd imagined yeaterday. 

 

With the first layer, a cream-colored background already layed down on the cold canvas, the tip of Chaeyoung's brush begins to mix another hue, one resembling the vibrance of Mina's skin, as she lets out a, "I've got a feeling I'd want to paint you for the rest of my life, darling."

 

Mina's chin dips momentarily as she feels another wave of something lovely come over her. And does it again upon seeing the artist's tooth biting down on her lower lip as she makes her first , solidifying Mina's form down onto the canvas. 

 

"And so you shall, Son Chaeyoung."