It’s You

“Sorry, hyung, I gotta go,” he says, watching the time on his phone. He mumbles some kind of lame excuse to leave and rushes to his car.

Once inside the vehicle, the engine on, roaring, he turns the volume up to hear him clearly. His voice is so soft, sometimes he has it hard to understand, but right now his melodious, clean, tingling laugh is filling the space between them and Minho sighs, content. The show has just begun and he hasn’t missed a bit of it. He reclines on the seat and lets his head rest against the softness of his voice, eyes on the road, hands tapping at the same pace as his worlds against the steering wheel. He has half an hour before the break and a ten minutes worth journey back home that he turns into an hour by getting lost on his voice, daydreaming again.

Since he first discovered it, every week he has listened to it, his voice is a religious experience, the hues that paint his paintings; he needs to bow down to him, devoted his own existence to the peaks of his voice, the valleys of his speech, the way he talks, the way he hums, the way he laughs that haunts him in dreams as if heavenly fire. He might not comprehend what he says all the time but his voice alone can heal his wounds, put colours to his fingers, bring life to his works like splashes of light and stardust. It is like magic – and the more he listens to him the deeper he falls, the more he understands all that is behind Jinwoo’s world. Like pages in an old book, he is rereading again, every day discovering something new, under covering a new meaning, a new shade.

He is in love with all the modulations of Jinwoo’s words. He can’t explain it otherwise; the urgency, the need, the electricity of the waiting, the elation whenever he hears him, whenever his name is dropped. A blizzard of warm feelings drowning his sense, a bliss, a blessing, a beaming instant once every seven days; a moment of happiness, of forgetting the world and get lost on a gentle, soothing voice.

Like water on chocolate, like sunshine kissing skin on summer, the fragrance of the sun on the ocean. He is all that is beautiful in the world captured inside words alone. He draws new worlds for only Minho to see, though syllables and letters he creates new universes where Minho wants to live. He makes Minho’s heartbeats to have a meaning. Across cities and stars, wherever Jinwoo is, is where Minho wants to be – inside his voice, inside his secret eyes he wants to see so much.

Jinwoo is the warm wind of an autumn afternoon, a swarm of leaves swirling on the wind, painting the air red and orange. The taste of spicy pumpkin latte. A winter day spent in front of the chimney,the creeping sound of the logs burning. Quiet, relaxing, reassuring. His voice contains all the light and the iridescence of diamonds: clean like water, soft like milk. Like an old child riddle: familiar and, yet, remains a mystery – a mystery he wants to solve.

Because the only thing he knows about Jinwoo other than his voice is that he works as a Radio DJ every Friday. Even when for two hours he talks, he hasn’t disclosed much about him, only some bits and pieces that Minho has traced, mapped, followed to finally get to see him, to put a face to the worlds that he holds dear inside his chest, that beats through his heart.

There are only four facts about Jinwoo that Minho is sure about: that he is from Imjado – he let it slip once, though his way of speech isn’t fully Seoul-like, there is a hint of a province accent (something at the end of some words that he pronounces differently). He loves cats and owns two – Rei and Bei, he is always talking fondly of them, relating their little adventures around his house. That he is a fan of BigBang and IU – he doesn’t need to say it, it is present on the way he is always humming to their songs in between recordings. And that he is beautiful – he is beautiful because he pours love through everything he does; he is sweet and caring and thoughtful and nice and wonderful beyond words. He knows it because Minho lives inside his words, he knows them by heart and they are always gentle, sincere.

Minho parks while the adds are playing and run home.

With a brush on his hand and Jinwoo’s voice filling the studio, paintings come to life. He works through the rest of the radio-show and then he replays old ones. The moon is long-hidden, replaced by the sun when he sets down the oils and lets the canvas to dry. It is for his next exhibition about love and enigmas – about the mystery that Kim Jinwoo is to his life.

All his artwork is about Jinwoo – all of them created by the sound of his voice, an image of him that belongs completely to Minho’s dreams and that is yet shimmering, gleaming.

Faces that are otherworldly, strangers, not real.

Since he first listened to Jinwoo, nearly by accident, he has been working on this project for his art gallery. He calls it “Secret People” but he fully knows who is this all for: it is for Jinwoo even if he will never be aware of. It’s been two years and his canvas are ready to be exposed, to be seen, to be revealed to the world and let it see what lingers on his mind – the secret word that is Kim Jinwoo. By accident he discovered him, by choice he has stated, never ready to go, never wanting to quick listen to his heavenly voice.

Minho has two more podcasts to listen to before his exhibition begins.

It is Saturday and, so far, it has been a success. Art critics and other experts have come and praised his work. Seungyoon is covering the event, taking official pictures for the press, Seunghoon, as usual, has excelled the catering he has ordered for the inauguration day. Visitors are pleased by his art and Minho smiles at it, a glass of champagne on his hand. He hasn’t slept in a week but the energy buzzes on him like the bubbles of the fizz coming from his drink. He takes a sip and lets it drown his taste. But something drowns his mind too.

“Is this me?” a voice says, breaking the stillness of the gallery.

A voice he knows too well, a voice that swirls on his dreams, a voice that beats inside his heart, colouring the way he sees the world.

He turns around, looking for him, reaching out to him. Standing still, like a fool, eyes searching, eyes finding.

There is a pout. Then, a smile. Then, again, his voice tingling his ears.

“I’m nothing like this. I’m not this beautiful”, he says, facing a painting that is paler than himself. Nothing can’t compere, Minho thinks while getting closer. Nothing at all and he will never be talented enough to paint him as he is; ethereal, graceful, magnificent, perfect. His eyes gleam under the light like stars and his lips are slightly parted in surprise. He is staring at his art, in awe, and Minho wants to reassure him, tell him that he is his muse.

“You are far better than any of them,” he replies, voice coarse, pink cheeks and a bright smile. Up close he is even better than all of his dreams combined. “I’m Minho”.

Minho turns Jinwoo’s show on, a blank canvas in front of him, his voice filling the space.

When Jinwoo comes back home, there is another portrait of him. He sighs, rolling eyes and a shyness shadowing his expression. Minho comes from the kitchen to kiss the pout out of his lips.

“Stop drawing me, your fans are sick of it,” Jinwoo nags, bitting him gently. “It’s been four years already and you haven’t paint anything else but me,” he keeps complaining but Minho isn’t listening - he is busy imagining his voice saying sweeter things under a mess of sheets and the moon silvering his skin.