D.O. is the last pencil out, not used until all the colors are discarded carelessly on the table, not until he is the only pencil left untouched and unsharpened. It saddens him a little but when the artist holds him in her fingers, gently brushing his head along the paper to make the necessary to blend her colors, he feels his heart burst with happiness because he is finally useful.

 

Kai watches and sees the smile that D.O. makes as the artist makes the colors blend with him as her medium, making lighting effects and complementing the darkness he adds to the picture. He can’t help the smile that paints his face when D.O. closes his eyes and fully immerses himself in the feeling of being held and being used to draw on paper. 

 

Kai is the first one in the box, he watches as all the other colors are placed around him and waits for D.O. to be miraculously placed beside him. He waits with bated breath as D.O. is held by the artist and is placed on the other end of the box, the complete opposite side of where Kai is. He frowns and turns his head to watch D.O. sigh contentedly at the day’s events. There are tiny pinpricks in his pencil heart as he watches D.O. converse with the other colors. He turns his head away and lets the color gray disturb him to his heart’s content. It hurts a little but when he sees D.O.’s smile and he begins wishing to be the cause of it, he wonders and questions just what is his purpose. 

 

The artist is messier this time around, pouring the contents of the box on the floor carelessly, pencils of different colors mixing with each other, still, even with that, Kai finds D.O. on the other side and he wonders just how unlucky can he get. 

 

He doesn’t have too much time to wonder as the artist sharpens him and readies him for another day of drawing and coloring. 

 

That day, D.O. is the only pencil unused. He is the only pencil unsharpened. He knows he should be happy about being unsharpened but he doesn’t like being unused. 

 

As the artist places them back in the box, colors arranged as always, he wishes he was another color. He looks to the pencil beside him and wishes he could be that color instead, then he turns his head and spots the pencil on the opposite side of the box and recognizes him as the black pencil, the first one out and the first one in. He looks at him with longing in his eyes, a longing to be him for a day because the black pencil is the favorite and the most used.  

 

Days blur into weeks and weeks turn into months and Kai wonders how many more days does he have left. He is not small yet but he knows it won’t be long until he’s half of his original length and then, and then there will be nothing left. On the days the artist sharpens him, he wonders what it’s like to be the color white, unused, unsharpened and unharmed. Beautiful still unlike the rest of them, old and little and soon they will all disappear, but not the white, definitely not the white. Then he shakes his head and thinks, the white deserves it, deserves to live the longest life than them all because he is the prettiest of them all. 

 

The first time D.O. meets Kai is when the artist carelessly puts them back into the box, tired from another sketching session that she couldn’t even bother with the usual coloring arrangement. Kai is smaller now that D.O. has to look down a little to look at him, but when their eyes meet and Kai smiles up at him he can’t help the feeling in his pencil heart that makes it beat wildly. 

 

I’m D.O.

 

Kai. 

 

Kai sounds a little tired and he looks around and sees that a lot of them seem tired. When D.O. asks him about it, Kai replies that as they get used and sharpened, they lose some of their youth and strength; they begin to age and get old. It’s the way of the pencil life, nothing to worry about. It’s not as if D.O. didn’t know but it makes him worry how wearier Kai seems to be than the rest of them all. 

 

There are days when only Kai is taken out and he comes back panting and a little bit smaller than the last time D.O. saw him. D.O. gives him worried looks and asks him if he’s ok all the time, fussing and wishing he could take Kai’s place, wishing any of these colors could take Kai’s place, but Kai only shakes his head and tells D.O. he’d always known this was how it was going to happen. 

 

Ever since that day the artist had placed them together in the box, D.O. and Kai had always found themselves placed side by side. They didn’t mind, not at all, especially Kai because D.O. was his new found strength. Every day when he felt overused and over sharpened, just one smile from D.O. and he’d be ok. D.O. likes being beside Kai because he wants to be able to take care of the pencil in times like these, he wants to be able to do more than just stand beside him, he wants to be able to take his place so Kai can rest and not be tired and not grow smaller. But this is all he can do, and Kai reassures him that’s it’s more than enough. 

 

D.O. once dreamed of being useful to the artist, of being sharpened and weakened like the rest of them, now he just wishes he could have an opportunity to be used alongside Kai. Because their fates are inevitable and he knows there’s nothing he can do so he doesn’t dream for false hopes but for a possible future. Kai tells D.O. of his dreams, to see D.O. be used and smile like he’s having the greatest time of his life, fulfilling his purpose. 

 

Tears escape D.O.’s pencil eyes when he sees that Kai is half of his original length, his strength depleted so that he can barely look up at D.O., and his smiles so weary it breaks D.O.’s pencil heart. Kai shakes his head and tells D.O. then that he should smile for him because D.O.’s smiles are the brightest.

 

D.O. doesn’t tell him that he thinks Kai’s smiles are the brightest, that it isn’t their color that makes them bright but the feelings they have when they do. 

 

There are days when Kai doesn’t get used and D.O. gets sharpened instead. D.O. doesn’t hide the happiness he feels at being used, not because he wants to be used but because this time, Kai’s getting the rest he needs. D.O. thinks, as his head touches the paper, that dreams change and he wishes that Kai stays a little while longer, holds on a little more tighter so that D.O. can make his dreams come true. It’s a little selfish he knows but he also knows  that Kai would want the same thing. 

 

Sometimes, when they’re the only ones left in the box, they pretend they aren’t pencils and that their lifespan isn’t determined on the times they are sharpened and used but on the days that pass. Sometimes they look at each other and pretend they have a hundred days or so to live, a time longer than this life they have. It’s a pretty good dream, Kai would. They pretend not to hear the implied but that is all it will ever be, a dream.

 

It doesn’t take long for Kai to be so short that D.O. strains to look down at him, that he has to be placed on top of another pencil so they can be eye to eye. D.O. can’t help the tears anymore as he loses hope on fulfilling his dreams. 

 

I just want to color beside you, to watch you paint lines and pictures on paper and have my color blend with yours. That’s all I want. D.O. would cry and Kai would bump their heads together with the help of the blue pencil.

 

It will come. Our time will come, don’t worry. Is all Kai says.

 

Kai is so small now that with even the help the second tallest pencil, he is still shorter than D.O., they are all shorter than D.O. now. 

 

The artist takes Kai from the box and then takes D.O., she then closes the box and leaves them on the table, holding on to the two colors, side by side in her hands. There is a twinkle in D.O.’s eyes and Kai gives him the brightest smile he can muster. When D.O. sees the smile, he can’t help but think that this smile is the brightest of all of Kai’s smiles.  

 

The artist uses only a small illustration board as her canvass. On the white surface she colors and draws using Kai, on the black she uses D.O. Kai isn’t used as much as D.O. is and D.O. is so elated at the thought that with so much usage, he might be able to join Kai sooner than he thought. 

 

There are white planes on the black surface and the artist uses Kai and draws on them, blends it with the white, she then holds the two pencils together in her hands and swirls them  making obvious lines of white, black, and, whenever their colors blend, gray. Kai and D.O. laugh as they are pressed close together and it feels like something, a term the humans had but they can’t remember. It feels as if they’re floating on air but much more, it feels like their dreams are coming true, their purpose in life is being served.

 

When the day ends, the illustration board is filled with black and white and gray and D.O. is half of his original length but Kai is so small he can’t be used anymore. 

 

As the artist leaves to go place her newest work someplace else, she leaves Kai and D.O. side by side, bodies touching almost as if to comfort each other. 

 

Don’t go. D.O. cries and pleads but he knows it’s futile because Kai is dying.

 

Don’t leave me.

 

Kai shushes him and tells him it will be ok but they both know that’s not true.

 

Thank you. Kai says smiling again but there are tears in his eyes and D.O. can’t help but feel a little bittersweet about it.

 

No, I should be thanking you, you made my dreams come true.

 

Ah, but you see, I lied. Kai says, his voice tired and broken. You were my dream, D.O. and you being here with me now, I can say that you’ve made my dreams come true. So thank you.

 

D.O. wails and sobs as he pleads Kai not to leave him after that, but Kai only shakes his head and bumps it with D.O.’s.

 

I love you. He whispers before he takes his last breath.

 

D.O. goes back to the box but Kai doesn’t.

 

It takes longer than a few years for D.O. to become small, so small he thinks he might’ve been smaller than Kai. He tries to live his pencil life the way Kai had always seen him, useful and beautiful. It pushes him on until he too is of no more use to the artist. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jongin bumps into someone as he rushes to his classroom in the hallways. He drops the book he’s holding along with the pencil inside of it he’d used as a bookmark of sorts; only to have the person he bumped into drop everything inside of his pencil case. 

 

“I’m so sorry!” Jongin hurriedly says as he begins to bend down and put writing materials back in the pencil case and grabbing at his pencil as soon as he sees it.

 

“It’s ok.” The deep voice says with a laugh as Jongin hands him his pencil case. They stand and meet each other’s gaze for a moment. Jongin feels his world take a momentary pause as he is filled with this nostalgic feeling. He ends up staring a little longer at the boy’s face, admiring the wide eyes, pale face and slightly chubby cheeks. 

 

“I’m Kyungsoo.” The boy with the deep voice says and Jongin finds himself blushing as he shakes the hand before him, introducing himself in the process.

 

“See you around.” Kyungsoo waves as he walks past Jongin. 

 

When Jongin goes to his classroom, he finds that the pencil he’s holding, is not only not his but not a pencil, either, but a ball pen with a little name tag inside of it. His lips tug a little upwards as he realizes that he now has an excuse to see Kyungsoo.

 

The next time Kai meets D.O., they aren’t coloring pencils, and they are called Jongin and Kyungsoo. They are humans and they like to dance with each other, foreheads resting against one another and bodies moving together to create imaginary lines on the floor.