I got a bit distracted… Jongin repeated those words in his head as he laid in his useless bed.

It’s not too bad is it…? The constant playback of words halted and an image flashed behind Jongin’s lids. A re-run of earlier in the day clouded his mind – what he could remember of the day at least.

He shifted onto his back, just an idle habit of his to seem more lively. It was a silly thing he did – the act of attempting to seem normal. Maybe it wasn’t for the fact of acting normal, convincing others of his beating heart, but instead to convince himself of the lively nectar that he forced himself to believe still pumped throughout his body. It was one of those life-like notions he ran through every day. A convincing pep talk in the morning, an afterthought of his chest rising and falling in breaths, and a light in his eyes that didn’t seem so dead. It got him through the day.

~

His eyes ran over the showcased 18×24 painting, taking it all in. He mechanically rose his eyes to look up at Kyungsoo’s face, though unlike the imprinted image of the colors on canvas, in his mind’s burrowed eye, he didn’t quite absorb the hopeful light that resided in the boy’s.

~

Plastered behind his own deserted eyes was the image of the heavy paint , and himself sitting on the bench. He remembered the distraction Kyungsoo was speaking of. In the lower right hand side was a mosh of sully acrylic where grass used to lay. He remembered trailing his eyes up to see the beginnings of the heel of Kyungsoo’s palm, the culprit of the obscurity.

His arm moved behind his head and pressed gently on the worn flattened pillow beneath his head as he capered down the lane of remembrance. His lips lay slightly ajar and his lids covered his dry eyes still, though never providing any substantial moisture. An invisible breath passed his plump tissue as he was drawn in again, away from the magnum opus and back to Kyungsoo’s face.

~

I know it’s not the greatest…

~

Jongin wanted to say he was wrong, that it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, to him and his swiss cheese conscience, it was gallery worthy because despite his fingers that held the frame and canvas all too tightly, the smears they made, exposing the gessoed white beneath and the slip of focus on the bottom, it was beautiful. It was something that would never be looked down upon by those who understood all corners of artistry… What really made it worthwhile, in a way to Jongin, was that it was a reflection of what he knew from the 45 minute meeting – it personified him perfectly – an artist, but a slip of the mind.

~

Choayo… Jongin said to Kyungsoo to reassure him it was good, holding his thumb up to pair as well as their native tongue. The amount of numb effort it took for him to do such an action was mind boggling. Even the smile he forced onto his lips, the light that he falsely pushed into his eyes, would have rendered him breathless. On the flip though, the reaction he received from his efforts – the wide smile pushing Kyungsoo’s eyes into arches as he set the wet canvas onto the bench next to Jongin’s leg – was worth it.

~

Thinking back now, using that muscle memory response of furrowing his brows, Jongin looked down at his straight splayed legs. Using what little energy he had, he tilted his body to look down at his pant leg. The memory reminded him, just now realizing the current affair. On his right pant leg, right where Kyungsoo set down his wet canvas, was a large green dappled stain. Blues, yellows, complementary to such green, swirled on the fabric.

If Jongin had the muster to care, he probably would, looking to it as an obstruction to his article of clothing by a slip minded RISD student, like any other Brown student would. Instead though, he looked at it as a reminder. Whenever he wore those pants, he would be reminded of the boy, misplaced at the John Carter Brown Library, falsely there, in unwanted territory that gave him more than an ugly stain that day.

~

He remembered watching that same run away on Kyungsoo’s toes as he pranced to gather his belongings. Meanwhile, Jongin was left alone to the painting and the unbeknownst stain.

His eyes robotically skimmed over the painting, but mostly himself in it. Somewhere in him, found it interesting, to see himself depicted from another person’s mind. If it was a year ago, he may have found what Kyungsoo had painted insulting.

~

His blinked numbly, looking up at the patched white ceiling from the past bunkers spackling it sloppily to cover up the indecent stains acquired from the bunkees on top.

Instead of seeing the patches zigzagged across the otherwise white ceiling and glow in the dark neon stars, he saw himself on the canvas. Muscle memory response again, he saw those two fluorescent lines protruding from his implied paper sharp shoulder blades.

~

If Jongin could have felt the cold hand invading his personal space and claiming his wrist for its own, he would have jumped. The only token that tipped him off was the shadow that over casted the already dark patches overclouding the piece.

Turning his eyes back up at Kyungsoo, he pressed his brows close together, about to pull his hand away.

~

For that seemed like a natural human reaction…

~

Besides the paint that littered his fingers and calluses that marred his middle appendage, Kyungsoo had beautiful, fairly gentle, hands. They were thin, slightly boney, but well worn in a way you knew great things came from them. They were an artists hands.

~

Jongin gradually rose his left wrist up before his face.

~

Between Kyungsoo’s pale fingers and around his own slightly caramel wrist was a black silk ribbon in the becomings of a bow.

~

He let the loose ends skim his nose as it hung, the fibers reflecting the low light of the rain outside, closing the evening.

~

It’s good luck… Kyungsoo whispered quietly, intend on the wrapping and tying process.

Jongin’s eyes leisurely moved up to meet the dead set Kyungsoo’s

Why would I need good luck? Jongin asked first.

Instead of properly answering though, Kyungsoo looked back into Jongin’s confusion and smiled even more than before.

Your voice… he started.

~

“It sounds like dry firewood…” Jongin repeated with a questioning tone, into the abandoned atmosphere.

~

Like a fire p- Kyungsoo cut himself off with a jerk, tightly closed eyes, and a drop of his hands.

Anyway! A thank you. It representsgood luck, he rephrased and then nodded once, bending down and picking up his apparently packed supplies and his canvas haphazardly.

~

For such a dainty nit-picking artist, he handles his work shamefully… he thought to himself as he rolled over and told himself to close his eyes.

~

Keep it! Kyungsoo said.

~

His voice started to echo.

~

It as nice meeting you by the way! he continued, eyes turning to smile their own again.

Jongin was about to answer a “No problem,” but he was already walking away, free arm swinging by his side, something trailing with it from his own thin wrist.

~

His image started to fade.

The novocane amnesia began to gain hold.

It left him with one last illegitimate thought, Were those wings…?

Everything went black.