#painter!au

His life was a paradox. Paint splattered his skin, the secondary hues mixing in with his moles and scars. The canvas suffered more so, fat strokes painted in shapes he couldn’t quite identify. By the time he had completed the work the syndrome had already gone too far, clouding his vision with dizziness and a thick smog that only seemed to disappear when he ripped his eyes from the canvas he spent hours hunched over. It was a punishing gift, and a hugely ironic tragedy. 

A painter, Lee Minho, who couldn’t look his own art in the face. Waves would crash on his body, pinning him to sharp rocks until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Only then would he drag himself away, wheezing out of his studio as he clutched the doorframe. It had many names, though most commonly Stendhal syndrome. He never truly understood what it entailed, but from what he had experienced it was nothing good. There were parts of the diagnosis he had cut out, his eleven year old mind figuring his older self could fill in the gaps - he was wrong. The doctor had mentioned it was psychosomatic, would cause him physical and emotional anxiety, dizziness, fainting, maybe hallucinations if it was particularly bad. They were selective symptoms, in the fact they would only occur when he viewed art. No one was quite sure how it happened or what it meant, just that it had originated in the 19th-century with French author Marie-Henri Beyle. Some thought it was poetic, some thought it was bizarre, Minho tried not to think about it. 

 A deep sigh left his defined lips as his hand came up to wipe his forehead. It was only transitioning to spring, yet the heat had already picked up dramatically. Sweat tickled at his hairline, threatening to spill down his forehead in river streams. All he wanted was some water, a fan, anything to cool him down. Instead he stood in front of an incomplete canvas, the light breeze from the window doing nothing to calm his rising body temperature. He could distinctly make out half of a face, oddly familiar in its features and dimensions, but still no masterpiece. At first, he resented all forms of art. How dare such beauty bring him such immense pain, so much panic and suffering. It wasn’t until he tried picking up his own paintbrush that he realised how freeing it was. His hatred soon transformed into appreciation, which then upgraded to motivation. In Minho’s warped reality, a hard time breathing and remaining conscience while viewing his art was rewarding, as it proved to him he’d made a masterpiece. If that didn’t happen, then he’d hang the painting up in his house and try again. Three out of forty works remained in his house, the rest being shipped off to independent collectors, friends or family. Not once did the thought of his art being in a gallery strike him. Nothing about his style was traditional, nor was he. The top layer of strokes shook with overwhelming emotion, some having large lines out of place from where he’d collapsed in the final moments of painting. Yet in his eyes, there was something perfect about them. The way they shook so meticulously - such a beautiful contradiction. His hand reached for the damp cloth hanging from the waist of his shorts, touching it to his forehead as he closed his eyes in momentary bliss. When he was looking for the best room for his studio, the one with the most sunlight seemed like a good idea. Perfect lighting for almost all hours of the day, never a need to adjust his easel to reflect such light. He hadn’t considered the lack of fans and air conditioning in the room that would surely make him suffer during the warm weeks spring and summer. But it was okay, he was used to suffering. 

 Your eyes drifted absentmindedly, taking in the full lecture hall. A 10:00am lecture, yet you could barely keep your eyes open. The eyelids would weigh heavily on you momentarily in the hopes of making you crumble under the pressure of exhaustion. Everything had been building up lately - you had design tasks due left and right, and you still had to haul ass to the Art Theory lectures you were expected to do, despite not having art as your main course. A sigh forced its way up your throat at the thought. Every night it became harder to sleep. You could practically feel the bags under your eyes sinking as each hour passed under the moonlight, but nothing changed. Of course you’d tried sleeping pills, three different kinds in all honesty, yet nothing could defeat the heavy weight of anxiety that kept you up at night. There were too many questions inside your head: what will my design be? How many materials will I need? Who should be my model? Why do I still drink coffee when it just makes me crash in the middle of class? It was exhausting, tiring enough to make you rest your head on the table for a second. Your laptop was open in front of you, a fresh word document open and waiting for you to type some notes about the lecture you begrudgingly attended. But your hands never met the keyboard. They remained in your lap as you kept your head down throughout the lecture, fading in and out of sleep as your professor droned on about the theoretical concepts of art. Line, shape, colour, what good were they to you? Art wasn’t your major, you shouldn’t have cared. Key word: shouldn’t. You still cared, far too much evidently, as you woke up and came to the realisation that you missed an entire lecture. You cursed yourself repetitiously, how could you fall asleep like that? You probably missed important information for the exam! You bunched your hair in your fist. You were truly and utterly screwed. 

On the opposite side of the hall, Minho had sat with his back against the wall, half-focusing on the lecture and half-searching for a new art inspiration. He tended to get bored of subjects easily, so painting the same people he saw everyday was utterly dissatisfying. Perhaps the curve of the professors bald head, or the glow of the rectangular laptop, or the sunlit person sleeping through the lecture. Minho’s eyes darted back to their figure to confirm what he had thought so absentmindedly. There, in plain sight, someone had the audacity to sleep through Professor Kang’s numbing lecture. He smiled slightly to himself, what a reckless maniac; I love it. The sun filtered through the window gently to form an angelic glow around their head. He had a clear view of their face, forme with delicate and peaceful eyes, yet sharp cheekbones and distinct lips. Something about them was so perfect, as if they had been hand sculpted by the gods, hours spent meticulously crafting every last feature. They were truly a masterpiece - Minho’s smile dropped. Oh no, his vision began to cloud, the pressure around his neck tightened and he found himself struggling to breathe. Get out, get out, get out, get out. He packed his things in a daze, based purely off of muscle memory. His sight was stripped from him and if he wasn’t quick enough then his breath would be too. Clumsily, he stumbled out of the lecture theatre, muttering profuse apologies until he had left the suffocating area. Go home, go to your studio, get the fuck out of here. Something wasn’t right, but it simultaneously felt as if everything had fallen into place. All of his painting life, Minho had searched for the muse that would bring him to his knees in agony, reflect the very distress his paintings caused him. Now, as he speed-walked back to his home, he was convinced he had found that in the mysterious person at the back of the lecture hall. Inspiration was a vital part of his work, his hobby, his future career, but at what cost did he owe? Part of him was conflicted. Shall he fall to his knees, burn under your gaze without a second thought? Or shall he hide in the shadows, paint around the panic and become breathless from his imitation of life? No matter which choice he went with, Minho would still suffer. Life truly liked to do that to him. 

 Minho panted slightly, his movements getting more erratic as the colours melted together. Yellows trickled into browns trickled into whites, yet in all the chaos he still managed to highlight beauty. His vision was getting spotty, rarely moving his eyes from the canvas even if it meant dipping his paintbrush in the wrong colour - he could find ways around that, but letting himself lose the momentum he built up was something he simply could not compromise. Line after line, shape by shape, the detail slowly filled in as he recreated the image in the lecture theatre. The one that had him wheezing all the way home, clutching at his dry chest as he ran and silently prayed his legs wouldn’t collapse under him. His sharp eyebrow furrowed in concentration, the light tickling of his bangs going unnoticed. Stay awake, just a little longer. He urged himself, pleading with life to be on his side for once. Frantic, maniacal movements spurred him on at this point, his eyes darting to different sections of the page where he could add something new. More detail on the shirt, more lighting on the hair, quickly, just a little more. With a finally stroke of his smallest paintbrush, he allowed himself to step back heavily. He haphazardly threw his palette on the stool beside him, hoping his paintbrush landed in the cup of water before his vision went out completely and he collapsed. It was truly a scene, one that would baffle yet inspire anyone who walked in on it. A palette placed perfectly on a stool, right next to a paint-tainted cup of water with numerous brushes poking from it, all diagonal to the man laying on the floor unconscious. His eyebrows were furrowed, hair blowing slightly as the breeze trickled in, light blue shirt unstained despite his vigorous work. His work, almost photograph like, good enough to bring anyone to the same state as he. A simple scene, yet a devastating impact. Someone sleeping on a table, opened laptop and sunlight threading through their hair. It was an accurate representation of the life of the student, yet it was captured so surreal. Not a stroke was out of place, no shaky final layers or misplaced colours in moments of intense emotion. Everything was perfect, just as Minho had always hoped. Something had changed in that one painting - it had proved to him that he could work through shaky hands and spotty visions, still producing paintings that could be mistaken as photographs. When Minho’s eyes eventually fluttered open, only to be met with the image of you sleeping across from him, he truly thought he’d lost his mind. He recalled the painting, but this wasn’t about the painting. You weren’t in the painting anymore; instead, you were lying beneath the canvas in front of him. Minho’s dark orbs rolled back into his head as he fell backwards once more, I suppose I’ve truly lost my mind. 

 “It’s been awhile since you came in for a checkup,” the crinkled man smiled from behind his glasses, gesturing for the patient to sit in the plastic chair across from him, “so, what seems to be the problem?” Minho rubbed his hands together slightly, eyes darting to the side as he went over his pre-planned explanation. 

“Uh, I was painting the other day, and I passed out. But, when I woke up the painting was-like-alive,” Minho blinked rapidly before continuing, “the… thing, I painted was in front of me when I woke up. It-it wasn’t in the painting anymore, it was mimicking the painting in front of me.” 

The panic began to rise in his chest as he awaited a response from the doctor. The older man had sat there, nodding every few seconds to indicate his understanding of what Minho was saying, but just because he understood didn’t mean he had an answer. He adjusted his glasses before unclasping his hands, “it seems that you had a particularly vicious episode, this time including hallucinations. Minho, I really wish I could do more, but we just don’t know enough about it. The best advice I could give is to find an anchor of some sorts,” he gestured with his hands, “you know, something that can just ground you in that moment.” Minho nodded softly despite his dissatisfaction. They don’t know enough about it, even after two centuries have passed. 

 The paintbrush lingered over the canvas, tickling the material with saturated hues of blue to mirror the Spring sky. Flowers had quickly bloomed, cold weather had been temporarily eradicated, tranquility whistled through the trees and along the crystal clear water of ponds. Though Minho could not be at peace, even if he tried. As his colours blended together in a dance of dark and light, he allowed his mind to be captivated by the sight - directly ignoring the doctor’s advice to “find an anchor”. This artwork wasn’t for the purpose of bettering himself, it was rather to experiment on how far he could push it. How much of his mind had he truly lost? White paint arched into the blue background as Minho delicately stroked the canvas, watching his work form intently. Something about it was soothing to watch, but caused him such stress and anguish. What an awful paradox. The black dots started to stipple their way into the clouds, darkening the sky into a thunderstorm. Minho panicked - he wasn’t done yet. Frantic hands reached for the purple-stained paintbrush, swiftly striking the canvas with dark slaps of the colour. Petal after petal, stroke after stroke, Minho created a new landscape through blurred vision and shaking hands. His lungs begged for air, releasing wheezes and gasps from Minho’s throat. He couldn’t breathe, not yet, not until he was complete. The painting was a simple still-image, mirroring the purple Bellflower that sat in a crystal vase by his window. Light twinkled in the fragile possession, framing the flower in an angelic glow. It was a simple image that caused much harm to Minho, making him stumble over his feet and straight to his knees, paintbrush and palette still in hand. Unconsciousness beat him stiffly, but at least the painting was complete. Thirty minutes later, his eyes fluttered open as a hefty weight fell on his head. The painting stood across from him, no change in its contents. Nothing out of the painting, nothing replicating its contents. There was no hallucination, everything stayed the same. Minho pushed himself into a sitting position, mouth open slightly as the wind blew outside. Now he understood why doctors didn’t understand how to help people with the illness, he couldn’t even make sense of his own symptoms. 

 Your head rested on your palm, pushing your cheek upwards as you attempted to keep yourself awake. In your head you whispered thank you’s to whatever higher power made sure your teacher did a theoretical lecture today, you didn’t think you could stay attentive enough to avoid sewing something wrong or stabbing yourself with the needle. Although you certainly enjoyed sewing, the possibility of spilling your own blood on your work wasn’t appealing - sure, the symbolism of ‘blood, sweat and tears’ becoming a reality sounded artistic, but blood stains were harder to remove than you had expected. Your eyes focused on the digital clock stationary behind the professor, only ten minutes left. In your mind, you pleaded for no assigned work - no extra reading or online theoretical tests. At the moment, you had a major work for your practical due. An entire fashion collection, birthed out of your colourful imagination in dark shades of soft fabrics, velvet that would hug the skin of your model. If you even had a model. With a heavy sigh, you packed away your belongings into the leather shoulder bag beside you. 

Minho checked the time on his phone as he strolled through the campus, absentmindedly calculating whether he should bother catching the bus or running home. Majority of the time, the bus was late enough for Minho to walk home before it even arrived, though he was never sure why. The route it traveled wasn’t typically congested on a Wednesday afternoon. Lowering his phone to the pocket of his jeans, he allowed his eyes to raise across the campus. An exploration of the blue sky, old brown brick buildings and cobblestone path began in his mind. He drifted, allowing himself to imagine painting such a scenery, wondering whether the shades of brown would blend as easily as he would like. Though his fantasy was cut short, sliced through with a sharp and unexpected knife. His footsteps halted as he watched. Again, the sleeping person from the lecture, fell into his line of sight. With open eyes he could clearly distinguish pigmented skin from deep-sunken eye bags, it was no wonder they slept through that lecture. In the two times Minho had observed them, the light had managed to cascade down on them to provide a heavenly glow. Perhaps it was a message from the beyond, singling this person out as the muse he’d always searched for, longingly. Then, it started. Blurry, the buildings shifted, and Minho felt himself moving without thinking. There was no time to catch the bus. 

 He lay still, head tilted slightly to the left as an arm rested on his upper abdomen. The painting was once again replicatory, vividly so. To the point where any passerby would question how you could print a photo onto a canvas, only to then become aware of the unconscious artist who lay across from his work. His work. It was a large portrait of you - that nameless, sleepy person - as you moved through the campus. Surroundings blurred, colours melted together to convey your speed, but there was a distinct fixation on you. Every feature mirrored to perfect, even the attention to your eye bags. Minho had only glanced for twenty seconds, yet he had managed to perfectly replicate the glance hours later. With heavy eyelids and a bruise forming on the back of his head, Minho lifted himself into a seating position, rubbing his eyes. As he focused on his surroundings, his eyes widened and he jumped back in shock at the sight ahead of him. The painting, a blurred background of brown buildings and greenery. That was all. In front of him, you stood. Side-on, the exact direction of the paintings, mimicking his work as he woke. If he reached out and touched you, surely you’d disappear, evaporate as a figment of his imagination. But, you seemed so real. Just as you did in his painting, only this time you weren’t a two-dimensional subject on a canvas. You were a physical, life-sized artwork come to life - almost like a sculpture, but less obvious. Minho allowed unconsciousness to tug his hair backwards and into the realm of darkness. He had no answers to his questions, nor did he have an understanding of what was happening, but he had already made the decision that avoiding you - a random student at the same university as him - was the best option. 

 It was successful to say the least. Not that you noticed, but Minho stopped looking at you for inspiration. In fact, he didn’t paint much at all anymore. There was a period after his discovery where he tried, even without seeing your face prior. Yet his pink sky ended up having your face blended into the hues, the city scape had you looking out a window, and the bowl of fruit had a hand reaching in with an identical dainty ring on. Subconsciously, you became the focus of all of his work, and it scared him to no end. Certainly more than the first time he passed out or panicked while seeing art. So he had temporarily retired his paintbrush and freshly woven canvases, opting instead for the limitless control of the sculpting medium. Clay gave him more control than painting. With painting, it was an out of body experience. There are no thoughts, only movement and creation. But he has a conscious thought process while shaping clay, making note of which areas to push which way. His temporary retirement from painting extended to longer than anyone could have expected. One week turned into month, turned into three months, then into six, then to where he was now. Eight months without stepping into his studio or analysing his environment as if it were an incomplete painting. Eight months closer to his practical assessment.  

The concern about Minho’s artwork had grown, only in his professor, though. His art wasn’t something he indulged in with friends or family, it was more an off-handed gift under the guise of “spring cleaning”, even in the middle of autumn. Though his professor had somehow figured out his work. He could sense the passion in every painting, and the rate at which Minho produced them impressed him to no end. So when Minho seemingly gave up on the medium, he obviously found it concerning, “Minho, a word?” Minho shoved his hands in his hoodie as he approached the professor, raising his eyebrows confusedly, “you’re not in any trouble if that’s your concern,” it wasn’t, “I just wondered why you’d given up on painting so suddenly.” Minho grew tense - that question was his concern. 

“Oh-uh, I-I’m just not feeling it anymore, I guess.” 

“You guess, or you know?” The professor raised his eyebrows as Minho silently cursed himself for his revealing slip up, “Minho, you’re an incredibly talented painter. Whatever has put you off painting needs to leave your mind, just let yourself be guided by the paintbrush. I expect to see it for your major work,” the younger male nodded softly before leaving the room. With a sigh, he began the walk to the bus stop. Although he hated late buses, he didn’t want to go back home. Something in him didn’t want to be confronted with the closed door to his studio. He didn’t want to unleash his talents again, as strange as it was. Though when he made it home, yellow coated paintbrush hovering over the canvas with the intention of letting the paint guide him, nothing happened. No emotion overwhelmed him, there was no exiting of his soul as passion took over. He just stood there, blank faced as he stared at the blank canvas. Then the questions came to him: I wonder how sleepy student is doing. Is their hair any different? Do they still sleep through Art Theory lectures? Are they still the inspiration I need? He couldn’t paint without inspiration, and you’d unknowingly become his muse. Neither of you knew it, you’d never even made eye contact before, let alone spoke. Minho let out a huff as he slammed the paintbrush on the stool beside him, golden toxicities spilling onto the wooden material, certain to stain if he didn’t clean it up fast enough. He didn’t. Instead, he turned his back on his paintings, the bare canvas and fresh paint. All he did was turn around and walk through the door. 

 Minho tried his best to approach you, running over ways to start conversation in his head, but as soon as you even glanced in his direction - not necessarily at him - it became far too hard to breathe. Pitiful, slightly. Pathetic, certainly. In his utopia, you would be the anchor to ground him, the sense of tranquility to calm his flurry of emotions brought on by messy paint and beautified canvases. Clearly, you were not. You were a paradox. You brought so much inspiration to Minho, so many bursts of inspiration in the midst of lectures, enough for him to start frantically sketching you over his notes - which was certainly a mess, but so was he. Simultaneously, you made life so much more difficult for him. You gave him a muse for his major work, but you made it hard to get reference glances. All you did was make him dizzy, high on a perfect mix of elation and panic, before sending him crashing down as you disappeared from eyesight. You would never know about it - mainly because Minho would never be able to tell you, but also because he’d be too embarrassed to let anyone catch a glimpse. It was almost stalkerish of him. Only almost. The most he knew about you was your face, the way your hair framed it, the way the light brought out the colours that tinted you, the way you slept through lectures or typed notes one letter every half-a-second. No name, no major, nothing. That didn’t stop the concern growing in him as every time he saw you your eye bags were darker than the last. He would never have the strength to ask about it.