xie

Taeyong had never seen someone that quite looks like you. From your eyes, to your lips, to the proportions of your body. You were wearing a simple summer dress, one that was maybe too light for the chilly autumn weather but pretty nonetheless. It seemed like angels had descended from heaven, leading you into his arms with their serene singing; he could hear it clearly in his head.

He lets you in his dorm politely, catching a whiff of your cologne that has him hooked already. His fingers are itching to grab a medium, any medium- charcoal, watercolor, oil paints and immortalize you, in fear that you might vanish suddenly, slip from his line of sight.

He still hasn’t muttered a single word, he realizes when he sees the indexes of the melting clock moving steadily, reminding him that time still does go by. The small couch that he barely managed to fit in the entrance area of his dorm struggles to fit you both, the proximity making him dizzy. You’d be the one to break the silence.

“So, do you like Surrealism?”

“Not really”

Taken aback by his statement, you turn your body sideways to face him, at least as much as the limited space allows you to. You could start off with something lighter, like “I like your place” or “How did you meet Ten?”, yet you hated small talk.

“How come?”

“It’s just… a mess. It makes no sense. Most of the art isn’t even nice to look at. You have to search and search for some kind of meaning, only to be left even more confused.”

“Don’t you think that looking for meaning in a surrealistic painting negates the whole point of the movement itself?”

“But there must be a meaning. Even if the artists are painting from their subconscious, they are pulling something out of the deepest recesses of their minds. Surely it means something.”

“Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Do you like making sense out of people, Taeyong?”

“People are pretty similar. They act in certain behavioral patterns. They reflect whatever it is they are feeling inside on the surface.”

“And what sense do you make of me?”

Taeyong gets startled by the question. Surely he has an answer, calculating people was sort of like his hobby, yet he doesn’t know how candid he can be with someone he just met. He takes the matted-down cigarette he put out earlier and places it between his lips, lighting it again.

“You dress neatly. You’re pretty, and not afraid to show it. If I can read through that nice manicure correctly, I’d say you grew up with French and piano tutoring. You’re close with your mom and want to be like her. A good girl.”

Your sardonic smile is visible even through the thick smoke. You seem to mutter something that Taeyong’s ears can’t quite catch, before taking out a piece of paper with a painting printed on it.

“The False Mirror, 1928. It’s the first piece we have to analyze.”

Taeyong takes the print from your hands carefully, squinting his eyes as they scan through its entirety. It’s an eye, not very realistically depicted, with a circular sky placed inside the otherwise ordinary oculus.

“An eye”, he states matter-of-factly, and you scoot right next to him on the couch.

“Yes, without the face. Out of its usual context.”

“So you’re saying that the artist purposefully makes a bizarre combination to stimulate the viewer?”

“Not just to stimulate, but to force them to raise a question.”

“The eyes are the mirror to the soul?”

“A parody of that, yes. Magritte said that the function of painting is to make poetry visible, after all.”

Taeyong stares at the piece some more as he finishes his cigarette, and it makes him feel more uneasy with every second that passes by. Is the sky a reflection of what the eye is seeing? The lack of detail in the artistry makes it hard to tell.

“It almost seems like it’s an opening to a new reality.”

“It’s an invitation to see the world differently. Not everything is as it seems.”

The last comment feels like a jab at your conversation earlier, and it makes Taeyong leave the painting on the table finally. It all seems ugly and weird and the piece is making him upset by forcing him to look past the obvious that he loves so much.

“You seem really good at this”, he says and lets some of the ashes smoke out the white, fluffy clouds, “I’m not worried about the assignment at all. I can send you a small analysis tomorrow and we can combine it with yours-”

“Is this your way of nicely kicking me out of your dorm?”, you joke and Taeyong panics, moving his hands frantically over his face. Your presence was more than welcome, even if you did make him a little nervous. He wasn’t used to such beauty being so close to him, alive, breathing. As he sees you smile back at him brightly, he thinks that life truly imitates art.

“No, not at all! You can stay as long as you want! I can order pizza and you can tell me more about yourself.”

“Hmmm. I have a better idea.”

Taeyong doesn’t know how he ended up with you at a stranger’s house party, nor exactly how you convinced him to tag along. He follows you inside the stuffy apartment, the led lights and loud music already giving him a headache. The sweat of the people dancing is dripping from the ceiling, making him even more claustrophobic, clinging onto you.

You pour him a drink and Taeyong reluctantly accepts it, well aware of how strong it is for him. He takes a small sip while you down your whole glass in one shot, making his eyes bulge out of his head in shock. He tries to make small talk, ask you about the party thrower and advise you to slow down, yet your attention is fixated on a group of loud men.

“Be right back”, you tell him as you excuse yourself, and he watches as you tackle the tallest of them all in a big hug.

You scream his name and look up at him dearly, and Taeyong can already tell that you and ‘Johnny’ are more than just friends. He notices how you try to make yourself bigger in front of him, how nervous you seem as you initiate conversation. He can also notice how much more interested you seem in him than he does in you.

Taeyong feels as if he’s probing at something he shouldn’t, so he turns around and gulps the rest of his drink with difficulty. Defeated and with a hint of sadness coating your eyes you return to the kitchen and pour yourself another drink, stronger this time.

He asks you questions about your interests to distract you, maybe even calm you down. While the alcohol confuses you both and the loud music muffles a lot of the words together, Taeyong manages to learn a lot about you. You started painting as a means of escape, surrealism and gore being your favorite. Carbonated drinks give you the hiccups and you unironically like the most pretentious of indie bands. You have a tattoo of your first pet on your left buttcheek that you will never let your parents know about. Your smile has the ability to raise his heart rate in a split second.

Taeyong stays silent as you empty the glass once more, but he has to interrupt when you try to drink straight from the bottle. You hop on the counter so that he’s sat between your thighs, whining as he takes it out of your hands. The extra sips you stole made you just as tipsy as him and you ground yourself with the feeling of his palms on your thighs.

“You shouldn’t drink so much”, he slurs and squeezes the muscles a little, the fabric of your dress, making his fingers run effortlessly over them. You love the attention.

Your own fingers weave through his locks, tugging them a little so that you pump out even more attention from him. He looks so pretty looking up at you like that, blown-out pupils taking everything in and waiting for your next move.

“Let’s do something else then.”

You seal the proposal with a kiss, tasting the alcohol on Taeyong’s soft lips. He kisses you back feverishly after he’s over the initial shock, his brain unable to realize if this moment he shares with the pretty girl that visited his dorm earlier this evening is real or not. Soon his tongue disappears inside your mouth, running over your teeth and playing with you further.

You guide his hands under your skirt as he breaks the skin of your neck with his teeth, and a single finger over your panties makes a shiver go down your spine. He toys with the hem some more, slowly feeling the fabric dampen but never taking it further.

“I want your fingers inside me”, you plead in his ears, your voice airy and breaking with desperation.

“There are people around”

“No one gives a fuck. I need you.”

Taeyong hisses in an inner battle with his self-control, yet your glossy doe eyes take the win. He pushes your panties to the side carefully, moving even closer between your legs to hide the sinful act as much as he can. His body feels hot against you and when he dips his middle finger inside you have to grip onto his shoulders so that you don’t dissolve in the feeling.

“Faster”, you beg and he inserts his index as well, painting a pearly purple love bite over your collarbones. With every drag of his fingertips against your walls, he drags a moan out of your lips as well, the pretty sound getting buried in the deep bass of the loud music.

Just as he feels you falling over the edge, searching your face for the lewd expressions of orgasmic pleasure, he realizes that your eyes are glued provocatively onto another man.

PART II - EMPIRE OF LIGHT

It’d been exactly 33 hours since the last time he saw you. You were both stumbling outside of the house party, drunk and disoriented and with the taste of your orgasm still on your tongues, yet Taeyong somehow managed to call you a cab. He remembers being pissed off and confused over your behavior, refusing your advances and your proposal to follow you home.

You texted him later that next day, thanking him for taking care of you and asking him to meet up for your project. You didn’t mention your moment of intimacy, nor Johnny, neither did you apologize for that night. Taeyong agreed and offered his place once again for your rendezvous. The indexes of the melting clock taunt his anxiety as he waits for you to arrive.

The knock on his door came 20 minutes late again, and Taeyong writes it down as another one of your habits. Your eyes look tired and your skin looks dull, yet you’re still styled in a neat and pretty outfit. It was weird seeing you in the light of day, without being surrounded by the darkness that fits you so well. All the flaws that Taeyong could see in you in the morning were humanizing while simultaneously showing him just how different you are compared to him.

You walk in confidently, almost as if you own the place, and throw your body onto his couch. Taeyong chuckles incredulously, joining you after he lights a new cigarette. You take out another print from your bag and he hears the faint clanging of glass bottles as you do.

The painting looks a little more artistically pleasing this time, yet there’s something that still gives off an unsettling feeling. After his eyes get used to the high contrasts, he notices that the nocturnal street scene is set against a light-drenched morning sky. One of the most fundamental premises of life is being messed with, and light, while usually something that’s a source of clarity, causes him confusion and uneasiness.

“Empire of Light, 1950”, you start explaining, fanning out the smoke with your hands when it reaches you, “Magritte painted this scene numerous times. It’s a paradoxical combination of day and night. The conception of a picture, that is, the idea, is not visible in the picture: an idea cannot be seen with the eyes. What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eyes, it is the thing or things that must have been ideated. The landscape evokes night and the sky evokes day. He called this power: poetry.”

Taeyong blows his smoke on the house depicted, as if the landlady would open one of the small windows and tell him off, providing another small light source in the painting.

“A paradox”, he repeats, toying the sour word with his tongue and mixing it with the bitterness of the tobacco, “Like the paradox of a girl with pretty dresses that’s addicted to alcohol.”

You realize he’s talking about you yet you decide to play dumb, hiding in the silence of the room. And Taeyong lets you hide but only for a few seconds, before he grabs the alcohol bottles from your bag and places them over the painting. One of them, a digestif, gets stuck on the paper, adding a caramel-colored ring over the light-blue sky.

“I like to drink. So what?”

“You have a problem. Who the fuck carries three half-empty bottles of booze in their school bag?”

“You don’t know when I drunk them”

“You reek of liquor”

His stare is unnerving, shoving you into an imaginary corner and casting an interrogation beacon on you. With trembling hands and heated cheeks, you grab a pack of gums from the jean jacket you brought along and start to chew aggressively. There’s a caretaker value in him that makes your stomach warm and your head foggy at the same time.

“Says the guy with the lung cancer between his lips. Since you like playing therapist so much then you’d know that we all have our coping mechanisms. We all have that something or someone to use that makes us feel better.”

Something in Taeyong shifts after what you said, evident in the way his jaw tightens.

“Is it because of this Johnny guy? You can tell me you know, I’m no therapist but I’m your friend.”

You scoff, giving him a once over. “A friend? Is that what you call everyone you finger fuck in a room full of people?”

You try your hardest to hold back your laughter at Taeyong’s reddening cheeks as he notices the healing hickeys he’s left on you. His intentions are clear and they seem as pure as they can be, so you pace around the room a little to organize your thoughts.

“It’s not because of Johnny. It’s because of my ex. He was the type of guy that can take you to heaven and then drag you to hell in the same breath. When someone you love tells you daily just how worthless you are the insult ends up staying inside your skull for longer than bearable.”

You get dizzy from the circles you paced so you sit down on his desk chair this time. The rolling motion comforts you a little so you find the courage to spill more of your heart out.

“The booze makes the voice shut up. Sex helps too. Johnny is just a fuck buddy of mine. He has his eyes.”

Taeyong gulps dryly at your confessions but listens carefully nonetheless. There is a weight in his chest and an itch over the fingers that he used that night.

“So I was a distraction too?”

“I’m sorry if you feel used, but aren’t all hookups a distraction if you think about it? Besides, it was good. The finger fucking, I mean. I don’t regret it.”

Taeyong weighed all the possible responses to your compliment, but he soon concluded that avoiding them all would be best.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, no one deserves this. But this coping mechanism is going to ruin you.”

“I know. And I know that you deserve better than whatever mess I am. Sorry for dragging you into this.”

“You didn’t force me into anything, don’t worry. I am a little guilty of indulging as well.”

You take a minute to take him all in, and you almost lose him in his all-black attire. Some of his works that you hadn’t noticed last time are hanging from the walls. It’s mostly beautiful women, surrounded by lines and shapes in bright colors. The intensity and liveliness of the paintings surprise you, so very different than the man who’s sitting in front of you.

“Enough about me. What is it with you? Besides our friend Ten, you seem to be like a ghost to everyone else.”

“I like blending in, sticking out is uncomfortable.”

“Is that why you dress like a watered-down Hot Topic employee?”

“Being invisible isn’t such a bad thing.”

“Yeah. Maybe I should try that. You know, sometimes, I like to hang around the train station for hours. I daydream of packing my necessities and leaving this place forever. Start a new life with a new name, a new life that is not as cursed as this one is. I don’t even know what’s stopping me from leaving everything I am behind.”

You watch curiously as Taeyong gets up from the couch and walks slowly up to you. You think he’ll probably ask you to leave, or tell you to at least get up from his comfortable chair you’re occupying, yet you still in shock when he wraps his arms around you. He smells nice, very sweet, and homey, just like his embrace. It’s been years since the last time you felt so light.

“No. You’re meant to be here.”, he murmurs through your hair, “You’re meant to be seen. You’re full of color.”

“Like the women in your paintings?”

Taeyong hums affirmatively, the vibration relaxing you even more. “You’re the type of person artists make whole oeuvres about.”

You continue working on the project pleasantly, and your little team is starting to gel. You guide Taeyong with your valuable knowledge on surrealism, and in return he lets you play your pretentious indie bands as background noise. You love how kind and understanding he is, and you admire his effortless leadership skills. He’s been glued next to your leg the entire time, looking up at you from his seat on the floor. And when he rests his head on your thigh and you pet his hair until he purrs, you both telepathically agree not to comment on it.

It’s getting late and Taeyong’s walking you out of his dorm, his jacket hanging from your shoulders since the sun is down by now. You can feel the anxiety oozing from his body.

“So, ummm. I was wondering if you’d ummm, like to go out somewhere tomorrow.”

“Lee Taeyong, are you asking me out on a date?”

“No no! I mean, I just want to hang out with you. Unless you want it to be a date. Then I’m completely fine with that.”

You giggle at his rambling, high on the warmth of his clothes that remind you of his embrace earlier.

“There’s an art exhibition downtown. We can go check it out if you want.”

“I’d love that.”

You peck his cheek sweetly before leaving, and the contact of your lips against his skin will burn him for the rest of the night. You don’t even notice that you forgot the bottles of alcohol at his apartment.

PART III - THE LOVERS

For your gallery date, you were early for the first time. Drenched in a healthy glow, with crystal eyes and the brightest smile. How could anyone expect Taeyong to pay attention to the art pieces when you were standing right next to him? The whole time you were silently appreciating the artwork, he had his own studying to do as well. His talent in reading people would find a creative purpose for the first time as he thought of what earthy tones and stroke techniques would best depict you on paper. You always seemed too much for him to paint, too complex and deep and beautiful for his level of artistry.

If you noticed his staring, you didn’t say a thing, but when he decided to intertwine his fingers with yours, your palm sweated a little. He thought your hand was made for his, with how perfectly it fit inside it, and Taeyong wished he could cling onto the feeling forever. He walked you home like the gentleman he is, but not before he treated you with your favorite ice cream as you talked about art for hours. He didn’t make a move to kiss you, nor did you suggest to lead him inside your place and then inside you.

When you asked him how come he hadn’t lit a cigarette the entire night, he simply told you he quit. Tobacco tastes so bland compared to the smell of your perfume without the hints of alcohol.

And that’s how the rest of the week flew by, meeting every day and spending most of their duration together. You’d study for your project, or watch movies, or cuddle in between those two. An undisclosed desire was dripping from your lips, yet what you have is too delicate to be recklessly disrupted, so you toy between the lines of platonic love. A hug that lingers for too long, a growing hard-on hiding under thick jeans, curious fingers that dance too close to the top of your thighs.

Tonight, Taeyong is waiting for your study date at his dorm, as always. He still hasn’t realized how late it’s gotten, lost between the painting materials that are scattered across the floor. Prussian blues, bright reds, and cad yellows. He jumps when he hears you knocking, startled by the sudden noise and his own excitement.

You appear in another one of your dresses, a red one this time, topped with his jacket that’s now a wardrobe staple for you. Taeyong thinks you look pretty as ever because tonight, you look his.

Peeking over his shoulder, you notice his half-finished work, and you’re immediately enamored with the plethora of colors that seem to reel you in. In the middle of the canvas, you see a woman that resembles you in the most flattering way possible. She’s you but more interesting, more caring, brighter, kinder. It’s an image of you, an impression of you. It’s how Taeyong chooses to see you.

You don’t even tell him hi as you walk through his doorstep, the electric look you share already saying it all. He leans over his door to lock it, just a deep breath away for your chests to meet, and the moment he’s turned the key for the last loop you’re pressed up against it. You know you’re too close when you can tell he smells like those cinnamon gums you love so much, so you decide to have a taste.

Your teeth clash as your lips crash against his, and the hunger that you feel for him overwhelms you. The night you shared at that party couldn’t even compare to the way he kisses you now, so full of purpose that he almost scares you. He leads you blindly over the small couch, grunting as he falls on top of you, and you continue to nibble his pretty lips over and over again.

Time freezes when you’re one like that, lightheaded and moving your tongues to taste each other. Taeyong grinds against your clothes, making your abdomen feel like it’s on fire, and your mouth waters at the conceivable length. He pulls away for just a moment, raw in his messy hair and puffy lips. The hem of your dress curls into his fists, and you’re shocked at how it doesn’t rip from the force.

He does the same for your underwear, impatiently taking it off of you until you’re bear and wet underneath him. He pushes you higher up the cushions, throwing your legs over his shoulders when he’s fit himself semi-comfortably. The shaky breaths he leaves against your lower lips make your whole body tingle, and when he first licks your clit you swear you’re seeing stars. His tongue gets covered in your sweet taste, tirelessly sucking and kissing that one spot that makes your voice sing for him louder. You’re just so beautiful when you finally come against his mouth, covering his chin in your juices and shaking in pleasure.

As he waits for your body to cool off, spreading loving kisses around your navel, Taeyong notices the fingerprints of paint that he has left on your inner thighs. The mere sight of you marked by a color he made on his own fires up the embers in him again, and you urge him to take his clothes off in agreement.

The first thing you notice is the delicate tattoos that subtly decorate his body. They’re small but meaningful, just like himself, and the thought of kissing every single one of them turns into a challenge. The next thing that demands your attention is his angry member that is staring right back at you, a pretty pink in color and thick enough to make you scream.

You bring him closer by the back of his thighs, pulling him in until you’re level-headed with his hipbones. Your tongue teases his tip until the whole thing bounces against it uncontrollably, so you take him all in, in hopes of calming him down. He’s hard already, so hard in fact that you’re scared he’s going to come in a few minutes if you keep at it. You bob your head enthusiastically either way, locking your eyes with his seductively and moaning around his throbbing cock. The salty excitement tingles your taste buds and he pulls you away with a sob and a tug on your hair, his face all fucked out and sexy.

“I want to fuck you first.”

The dirtiness that contrasts him excites you, so you put on your most innocent expression as you open up your hole with your index and middle finger.

“Dive in”

And that’s exactly what Taeyong does, bottoming out inside your tight wetness that feels as heavenly as he’d ever dream of. His hands roam all over your body as he snaps his hips against you, feeling up the softness of your breasts and pressing down your carotid until you mewl for him. It drives him insane just how submissive you look for him so he picks up the pace, fucking into you so fiercely that you slip from the small furniture and pile up on top of him on the floor.

You both laugh blithely at the accident and continue making out on his rug, your bodies warmed up and ready to continue. You roll your way to the middle of the living room, where Taeyong was painting earlier, and he sits you up on all fours for him. Your hands get dirty with the acrylics but it doesn’t really matter when he starts fucking you again, successfully reaching the deepest spots of you. It gets too much as you’re sucking him in, and you reach for the canvas itself for some sort of stability. As your dirty palms drag down on the freshly dried-up painting, you realize that you and Taeyong are now part of the artwork. And he surely adds the finishing touch just seconds later when he pulls out of you, painting ropes of white over your back.

This is usually the point when you have to take your walk of shame, so staying in his arms to cuddle after he cleans you up is a pleasant first for you. He helps you up your wobbly legs and leads you to his more comfortable bed, where he offers you a glass of water and plants a kiss over the carpet burns. It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep soundly next to you, leaving you in awe of his sleeping beauty.

Somewhere close to the entrance, the print of The Lovers that you were supposed to analyze still lays untouched. Two figures with their faces covered by a white, deathlike cloth that keeps them forever apart, unable to truly communicate or touch. A frustrated desire is depicted. To some, the inability to fully unveil the true nature of even our most intimate companions.

Your phone that is thrown lazily on top of Taeyong’s bedside table flashes in bright blue light.

Johnny

I miss you, wanna come over? I have whiskey.

PART V - TIME TRANSFIXED

The sweet memories of last night flood Taeyong’s mind before he even opens up his eyes. He smiles at the morning light that bounces off his skin, stretching his arms to pull you in his embrace, yet he’s met with the flat mattress instead. He looks for you in the room that seems too empty all of a sudden, when he hears the wrenching sound of someone getting sick in the bathroom.

You crawl out of it a minute later, disheveled and wearing a t-shirt that Taeyong doesn’t recognize as his own. You were in the middle of collecting your things from his apartment when he clears his throat loudly to catch your attention.

“Did you leave last night?”

He’s met with silence. Cold, guilty silence.

“Did you drink again?”

The birds that chirp outside in cruel contradiction seem to mock him, so he moves quickly to his closet, turning a pile of clothes upside down. He finally finds an old pack of Parliaments and he lights one up, waiting for any sort of honesty from you. Your eyes stay glued to the floor, the pounding headache not making anything easier for you.

“You went to Johnny’s didn’t you.”

“Why are you asking me questions you already know the answers to?”

It’s so hard to excuse you this time. So hard to see the bigger picture. Taeyong implodes within himself like a dying star, and the tears start streaming down his pretty face. The big emotions combined with the smoke make a sob get caught in his throat, his hands pulling on the strands of hair that were previously flattened from sleep.

“Why? I thought you decided to quit. I thought we both made progress. I thought-”

“Well, you thought wrong Taeyong! People aren’t straight, symmetric lines and pretty shapes that you can place wherever you want on your canvas. They’re ugly, like cracking, bleeding paint, and I will never be the masterpiece you so badly want me to be.”

You grab your last belongings from his couch and charge towards the door, ignoring his calls of your name. The next Magritte painting Taeyong would have to see on his own.

He’s been staring at the print for about an hour now. You hadn’t contacted him for a day, and he was too proud to text you first. Your presence has become a routine, and for a moment he thinks that if he looks to his right you’d be right there, sprawled on the small couch.

The painting confuses him, as always, and with the loss of your guide he feels helpless against it. He waits for the clock on the top of the fireplace to come alive, and that is when Taeyong realizes that he’s stuck in a loop. In a life that he doesn’t have any reign over, in fear that its largeness will devour him whole.

He grabs his things like a maniac, leaves his place and gets on the first cab he sees. He screams at the driver to get to the train station quickly, a speeding ticket be damned. Strangers take weird looks at him as he hurries past them, most of them thinking that he’s late for a departure.

“Ladies and gentlemen. The train to ___ will depart in exactly one minute.”

You’re wearing the same dress you did when he saw you for the first time, entering the wagon with an overfilled suitcase. Taeyong shouts your name as if you’re the only person there because to him, you truly are. He doesn’t know when he started crying again, but the smile on your face when you see him makes his world colorful again.