They meet on a whim—when night turns into lumber and the streetlights flicker with gold.

Jongin is intoxicated; wicked punches of alcohol and nicotine burn his breath into whispers of hushed foolishness.

And so Kyungsoo—he likes to call names like Kyungsoo because they fall effortlessly from his drunken lips—is intoxicated too. A mere replica of Jongin strung across cloth canvas and dirty pastels.

Orange flesh and red bones, black hollows and white trims.

That’s what Jongin knows—Kyungsoo is a painting. They are so much alike, haunting flesh, drunken lips and burning lingers.

Sometimes, Jongin likes to pretend Kyungsoo can speak—a few simple words a day:

Hello, Jongin.

How are you?

I love you.

And he will paint across Kyungsoo’s features with imperfect of a brush, blinding colours against a whitewashed wall.

Quiet murmurs of comforting sentences, and the careful blend of pencil and paint.

~~~

The second time they meet, Kyungsoo’s face is rippled across the canvas, curved into perplexed curves of misery and mistakes of cigarette ashes.

Why, Jongin doesn’t even bother covering the fogged burns on his art piece.

He likes to pretend Kyungsoo can curve his lips, blink his eyes and ruffle his hair:

How are you, Jongin?

I was lonely today.

I love you.

And Jongin will continue to paint across famished flesh—flickers of yellow and daunting specks of grey.

~~~

Jongin thinks, one afternoon, that Kyungsoo is a real mess.

Torn canvas, careless paint splatters, uneven curves.

How could he have possibly found beauty in Kyungsoo, he thinks.

Why was he so stupid, he thinks.

But then Kyungsoo’s eyes appear—pale smoke and glittering movements. His ghostly palms touch Jongin’s; incomplete features morph against the thin air. Dusty fingernails scrape against human skin.

Kyungsoo smiles.

And Jongin thinks, one afternoon, that Kyungsoo is real magnificence.

~~~

That night, when Jongin lies in bed and draws his knees to his chest, Kyungsoo is there—broken skin and sketched pencil lines that form the creases of his palm.

His flesh is a paint-beige and yellow swirl of inconsistent brush .

His wraithlike fingers Jongin’s hair and fiddle with dark locks of sweaty clumps.

Goodnight, Jongin.

I love you.

Oil and canvas eventually fade into nothing; Kyungsoo burns back into the depths of his painting.

~~~

Too many days pass with Jongin staring at the man before him—defined jawline and disproportionate features, oil paints and spilled ink.

Kyungsoo gradually becomes whole—flesh and bones slicing the seizure of air.

His words are unsteady—sentences chopped and brisk—his wide eyes speak for themselves. Kyungsoo’s skin glows bright with blinding warmth, his hair a burnt magenta that was coloured in too many times.

They normally spend the morning bathed in Jongin’s hushed whispers and foolish secrets—with Kyungsoo’s loud cries and heavy laughter. He punctuates the air with careless slips of the tongue, brief mentions of his fated destiny or mistaken future.

Kyungsoo is sometimes too dramatic, Jongin thinks, too emotional and too sensitive, too weak and too strong.

~~~
 

The next time they meet, Jongin suggests they watch a movie.

Kyungsoo requests for a movie with a happy ending.

And so—on that day their fates cross in between reality and imagination—Jongin and Kyungsoo huddle together under a fortress of blankets.

What movie is this?

“Peter Pan,” Jongin says, “a classic. You’ll love it.”

And Jongin is right—Kyungsoo does love it.

A little too much.

The movie eventually ends when the credits roll, muffled by sobs and heavy sniffing.

“What’s wrong? It was a happy ending,” Jongin points out.

Exactly. It’s so beautiful, I’m crying. Kyungsoo’s saliva dribbles onto the couch.

Jongin only stares at Kyungsoo, wondering why someone so complicated could have such a simple heart—why someone whose features resonated with fine of an artist’s hand, could be so careless as to let his tears fall.

He gradually enfolds his arms around Kyungsoo’s delicate frame—paper arms and canvas chest, ink veins and painted cheeks.

But he doesn’t feel anything under the space that Kyungsoo rests on—only hollow bones and the translucent lines of fading body.

Because Jongin is ignorant—Kyungsoo’s flesh belongs to the fine imprint of painting, and Jongin will never be able touch the flesh of a painting.
 

~~~

True it is, though, how you could fall for someone so genuine and honest—it felt like destiny.

Jongin gradually inhales the smell of paint like a drug, swallows yellow ink containers of Kyungsoo’s flesh—in the hopes of connecting with the one man he truly understands.

He sees Kyungsoo everywhere now—in between cracks of glass, hollow in the numbness of sound, when the thunder cackles and lightning strikes. Kyungsoo is the coffee in his mug, the fire on his stove, the numbers on his clock.

Kyungsoo is laughing.

Kyungsoo is crying.

Kyungsoo is giggling.

Kyungsoo is shouting.

Kyungsoo is everything.

~~~

There are no words for the day when Jongin discovers the nails stabbed to the back of his canvas, the rust that consumes the back of Kyungsoo’s picture, the tiny insects that settle themselves under the shadows between his canvas and the wall.

There are no words for the day Jongin realises that no one is truly real.

Because the only real person in his life was a carving of lies and imagination.

How could Kyungsoo be so honest and pure, so innocent and sensitive—yet so monstrous and unfaithful?

How could Kyungsoo be so real and free—yet have his own flesh bound to a canvas hung onto the wall of Jongin’s bedroom?

Life is a contradiction, Jongin realises.

Life is merely a contradiction upon itself—honest yet lying, pure yet devilish.

Kyungsoo is a contradiction—real yet fake, flesh yet paint.

Jongin is a contradiction—firm yet crazy, in love yet torn apart.

Honesty only exists in the back of his head, in the dusty corners of his imagination.

Jongin finally understands:

he made it all up.

~~~

And so he will walk back to his memories—rubber soles against stone floor—to spin another web of careless imagination.

Where he becomes a god of tiny, intricate dimensions unto themselves.

So many honest worlds.

~~~

A/N: In case you guys need an explanation: Jongin is a painter. He paints a man named Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo is pure and innocent and kind and emotional—Jongin gradually finds Kyungsoo’s presence more real and human. And so, eventually, he falls in love with his own painting.

Gosh, what am I even writing otl.