Archive of Our Own

“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
– Oscar Wilde

The skin of Minho’s wrist burns under the clasp of the man’s fingers as he leads Minho from the bar where they had been sitting together for minutes before. The blur of his alcohol-hazed mind leads him forward and he gives in to the physical pull of this man—Jisung—but also his intoxication is growing to idolize the idea of proximity. It’s been too long since Minho has felt the touch of another, and he’s craving it now with this man he’s barely touched.

Minho’s hand has slipped to lace with the Jisung’s as they hurry the blocks towards their destination, and by the time Jisung is ushering him inside an apartment building and tugging him through into the elevator, Minho’s skin is tingling with the cold. Cold buried beneath layers of alcohol-induced heat, but it’s there nonetheless, like a reminder in the back of Minho’s mind of who he is. His final grasp of reality.

The ride up in the elevator is all too slow and Minho shifts foot to foot, listening to the crackle of a music station come from a measly speaker up in the ceiling of the cabin. His hand tightens around Jisung's when the metal doors finally part as if expecting their pace to quicken once more, and it is so. They travel down the carpeted hall at a near-stumbling pace, and Jisung is even quicker when he's pulling Minho into an apartment after unlocking the door.

They're on each other in a second, lips meeting and kissing openly, messily, as they hadn't been able to in the bar earlier. Jisung crowds Minho, pushing him back until his shoulder blades meet the wood panels of the door. Minho doesn't register the slight pain, whether it's from the alcohol still running in his system or the feel of Jisung's lips on his; rough, needy, and leaving him with nothing aside from the want of more.

There's a hand slipping down his chest while Jisung's other is pressed to the door beside his head, bracketing him in place. Minho could easily push him aside if he wished, if he desired to dominate Jisung for even a second, but he finds that he doesn't mind his current position; he doesn't mind Jisung's thigh between his own, he doesn't mind Jisung's hand pressing at his nipple until the fabric of his shirt is rubbing against his skin, nearly painful but arousing all the same.

Maybe it's the stress of his job looming so loftily above his head that leaves Minho breathless as he grinds down against Jisung's thigh, letting the other man run his hands under the hem of his shirt to play with his nipples in full. Maybe it’s the exhaustion of nights alone that turns Minho into a mess of gel for Jisung to play with as he chooses, but at this point he is too far gone, too deep into Jisung’s greys to pull away, even if he wished.

“Bedroom,” Minho finds himself saying, and pushes Jisung from him to emphasize his point.

“Yeah.” Jisung looks winded, but grabs Minho’s hand without a second thought and pulls him through the apartment and into a new room, flicking on the light as they enter. They’re touching once more immediately, hands sliding under shirts and fingers toying with belt buckles until Minho finds himself being pushed backwards onto the mattress, his bare back sliding against the sheets. Jisung is above him, hands at Minho’s waistline, and he’s toying with the material of his jeans while eyeing Minho. Minho feels caught, almost as if he’s prey, and finds himself nodding his approval for Jisung to remove his pants and underwear without a heavy thought corroding his way.

Laying before Jisung completely bare is more thrilling than Minho could have anticipated. Jisung isn’t harsh with the way he skims his eyes along Minho’s frame, over the edges and the curves of his body. Instead he seems almost reverent, almost fond. Minho can’t remember the last time he was looked at in this way, and it’s enough to bring Minho closer to the edge of the cloud earlier liquor had wrapped around him.

Jisung snaps them from their stagnant bubble by leaning down to kiss Minho. This time, though it’s fevered, when Jisung pulls from him he doesn’t fully draw away before kissing him carefully, quickly, which Minho finds to have a bit more meaning than their exchanges should.

“How do you want to do this?” Jisung asks, while his hands rub up and down Minho’s thighs as if he can’t follow through with the idea of letting go. “I’m fine with either way.”

Minho finds himself smiling a bit at Jisung’s want for his agreement, and reaches up to pull Jisung to him. “You’re on top of me already, so how about we stay like this,” he proposes, receiving a peck to the lips to prove Jisung’s consent.

Minho takes his turn to watch Jisung finish undressing, and does nothing but grin lopsidedly when he’s caught. Jisung raises an eyebrow, teasing, and Minho huffs out a laugh, and pushes up on his elbows to meet Jisung for another kiss.

And Jisung must have the magic touch when it comes to Minho because Minho finds himself grappling for something to hold onto as Jisung opens him up, all the while smiling at him as if he knows what he’s doing to Minho with just his fingers and a bottle of lube.

“You’re a dickhead.” Minho wishes he could say the words are more of a growl then a moan, but he can’t. Not when Jisung has slipped a second finger in beside his first and is angling them up to hit his prostate dead on.

“You definitely don’t hate it,” Jisung says, his laughter imprinting onto Minho’s skin where he’s mouthing at his collar. He’s pressing a third finger to Minho’s rim, not in like he wishes, but teasing. “Hm?”

Minho is caught still, even as Jisung’s fingers run against his walls, as if he’s trying to feel every bit of him. Unsure of what to say, incapable of saying anything, Minho simply melts into another kiss, and lets Jisung hide his whimpers as a third finger enters him between their lips.

It feels as if he’s entered a dream state—he’s present, with Jisung, watching him as he pulls away from Minho to reach for the condom he had set on the sheets next to him. He feels Jisung, as he reaches out to roll the condom onto Jisung’s length himself, and feels him further still when the head of Jisung’s dick catches at his rim.

But he seems dazed, but not from the alcohol that has worn down to nothing more than a dull tingling. He’s caught in this haze, this state, because of the way Jisung finds Minho’s hands to hold, and never once looks away from Minho’s eyes as he pushes inside of him.

It’s a strange feeling, being filled to this extent, Minho recognizes. There’s something intimate about even the least intimate sex, Minho realizes. And he is quickly finding that his state of consciousness fueled with the look of pure devotion Jisung is giving him, all of which is joined by the feeling of Jisung, in full, inside of him, feels intimate without rival. It’s heartwarming and terrifying all at once.

“Please,” Minho finds himself whispering, lacing their fingers together for a stronger bond. “I want you.”

And there’s a thousand different things he could have said, should have said, but he doesn’t stop to think. Not when Jisung leans in to kiss him, not when he begins to fuck into Minho, at first slowly but then growing in speed when Minho begs for more in the minimal space between their lips.

Minho knows he won’t last long like this; feeling too much under the warmth of Jisung’s body, being kissed like he has seconds left to live. And he tells Jisung when the man takes Minho’s cock into his hand, that he’s close, so close, just a bit more.

The pull of his orgasm cracks through his euphoric shell and he’s hit with what feels like ten times the pleasure he’d felt as he comes with a cry, clenching down around Jisung as he presses his cheek to the fabric beneath him, panting heavily.

Jisung follows him not a minute later, gripping Minho’s hands so hard he fears he might crack. Jisung falls limp, sliding from within Minho so that he can shift off of him to lay on his back, chest rising and falling as a sign of his own exertion. Minho wonders faintly, as his eyes slip closed and he lets himself soak up the afterglow of his orgasm, what it would be like to roll to his side and rest against Jisung. To share this bliss with him. To kiss through it, until they resign themselves to sleep.

But he doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t reach for that feeling of what lovers share. Because who is this man to him? Nothing but a stranger, though Jisung had looked at Minho like Minho was everything.

"I'll go get something to clean you up with."

Jisung’s words snap Minho from his uncollected thinking, and before Jisung can move but one leg Minho is climbing off of the bed and standing with a wince. In acting as such he begins to feel a bit closer to normal, less like the person he’d shifted into when sleeping with Jisung. He reaches towards Jisung, beckoning, and the man realizes and stares at him with a look of something akin to shock.

When Minho is in possession of the tied condom and clothed in his boxers, he makes his way to the ensuite, all the while with the heavy feeling of Jisung's gaze on his back, scorching him. As he sets about finding a clean washcloth in the open shelving rack across from the toilet and cleans himself off, he wonders if Jisung expected anything more from this night. The way he looks at Minho declares him to be someone who craves attachment, so had he come up to Minho wanting more than a quick fuck?

Minho scoffs quietly, all the while shivering at the feeling of wisps of cold air brush along his skin. He and Jisung are just two people who have engaged in a one night stand. Nothing more.

Yet something in him feels shaken a bit by the way Jisung had wanted to care for him after sex. Of Minho’s other hookups it's been nothing more than him letting himself out of the apartment after partaking in the infamous walk of shame, but then again he’s never been stared at as Jisung did, with undertones of wishes beneath the want in his eyes.

When Minho has gathered himself enough and steps back inside the bedroom, Jisung is pulling on a pair of sweats, smiling softly when their eyes meet. Minho rubs at his wrist, feeling the speed of his pulse jump beneath his fingertips. A voice inside of him is telling him something. That Jisung...

That Jisung is different.

"If you want clean clothes feel free to take something of mine, I don't mind," Jisung says, running a hand through his hair that has become a mess, unsavable without a shower and a fresh start with hair products. Minho watches the light colored strands as they’re combed by Jisung’s fingers and remembers how it had felt against his own hands; a little dry. He can only assume it’s dyed the shade of grey it sits at, and he faintly wonders what Jisung’s natural hair appears as.

"Me taking your clothes would mean we would see each other again." Minho cannot lie; he's tempted to take fresh clothes, but that would mean attachment to this man. Attachment to a man who already looks at Minho like he wants something.

"Would that...be so bad?" Jisung asks, and he's scratching the back of his neck now, very obviously on edge with his words. "What I mean to say is that this was really good. I wouldn't mind seeing you again, even if it's for just sex." Minho's eyes narrow at the word choice and Jisung is quick to catch on. "It's fine if you're not into that, I just thought I'd put that on the table in case you would consider."

“You're suggesting we become strangers with benefits?" Minho’s words turn to be incredulous as he watches Jisung tug at his bottom lip with his teeth.

Jisung shrugs, and the lighting shifts, which sends a white glow across his skin which is normally a darker shade of grey than Minho's own. Not too much of a difference, but enough that Minho notices. Jisung must have tanned skin, is what Minho turns to in conclusion, one last thought before he speaks. "Yes, I guess so. I know you aren't very into the idea, so can I leave you my number?” He looks hopeful, something that is so easily stamped out in Minho’s world. “Would you take some time to consider it?"

As Minho folds his arms over his chest in an attempt to battle the slight dip in the warmth of the air, he wonders what it is that has Jisung so attracted to him. He finds Jisung attractive, after all he came home with the man, but not enough to suggest to become something more than just a simple one night stand. While he considers Jisung to be one of the best he's ever been with, he wouldn't have dared to ask for something other than this one time.

"How about this." Minho lets himself play into Jisung's fantasy just a bit, and watches in amusement as Jisung's eyes widen as he offers up something other than a harsh no. "If by some serendipitous turn of events we happen to meet again, then yes, I'll sleep with you again. Maybe consistently."

The chance of them seeing each other again is miniscule; the population of the city they’re in is in the hundreds of thousands, let alone all the people who commute from outside the city limits to work in the business district. Minho has no doubt in his mind that Jisung knows the logistics, but his face seems to brighten as he smiles anyhow.

Does he believe in destiny? Maybe he's more of a fool than Minho has already considered him to be.

"I'll take what I can get from you," Jisung says, one side of his smile higher than the other. It’s endearing, Minho has to admit.

"Then I will too," Minho quips, and walks to Jisung's closet, pulling open the top drawer of the dresser within to find what appears to be sleep shirts. He takes the first he touches, admiring the soft of the fabric against his fingers. Jisung directs him to find a pair of sweatpants and he pulls them on with a slight wince.

"I'll grab you a bag for your clothes," Jisung says, reaching for Minho’s pants from their place of abandonment on the floor, but Minho shakes his head.

"I took yours, you keep mine. Fair trade, right?"

Jisung scoffs, but he's smiling, like a dog eager for whatever Minho has to give. "For someone who appears to have no desire to meet me again, you're quick to leave behind what's yours."

Any part of Minho’s expression that has softened during their exchange drops, and he chooses to stare down at his borrowed pants. He’s hit with a fact that has been glued into his memory; sweatpants are easy to pair with shirts, since they normally range in shades of grey, which tend to go with all other colors. He thinks back to his own home, where the shirts in his closet are labeled and sectioned into color groups, and he thinks further still to the color wheel kept in his desk drawer, which tells him what pairs well together and what clashes.

Jisung, as far as he knows, can see color. Is privileged to see what colors Minho is made of; the natural shade of his skin, his hair, his eyes. The color of his lips, the color of his blush.

Minho pushes these thoughts aside, unwilling to fall further into the depths of his head, and instead focuses on Jisung's previous words. "It doesn't matter what I think, not when we’ve already chosen Lady Luck," Minho decides to say, his voice dropping slightly. "Let's leave it up to her, hm?"

Jisung nods, and sensing the end of their conversation, he turns to guide Minho from the bedroom. This time, Minho takes a moment to look around and gauge his surroundings, to maybe learn a bit about who Jisung is as a person, even as he’s being escorted from his life.

What he finds surprises him; he had assumed maybe a couch and a television would be his main furnishings, maybe a personalized touch or two, but instead he's met with a ratty couch pushed up against the wall of the open living room, as to leave space for the centerpiece of the relatively small area. A large easel is set up as the crowning touch, with canvases stacked high on an open shelving unit across from the couch. The floor is covered with splotches of what Minho can only assume is paint, and he wonders briefly if Jisung rents the place; he can only assume getting paint out of carpet is expensive.

Just outside the kitchen on Minho’s other side sits a square table with four chairs, and the top is piled high with textbooks and scattered pens. There's a half-closed laptop covered in stickers of what must be bands Minho has never heard of, and some others that appear to be art-related.

"Are you in college?" Minho hadn't assumed Jisung to be that young; he knows he must be at least twenty-one as he’d been allowed in the bar, but he himself is nearing twenty-eight and hadn't considered there to be that much of a gap.

"Grad school." Minho nods at Jisung’s rule to his assumptions. "I'm twenty-five, but my friends say I have a young appearance. I assume you did too, given the look." He gestures widely to Minho's face.

Minho scoffs, "I can see it. The cheeks." Jisung pinches one, a dejected look clouding his expression, and Minho has the urge to smile. "Are you an artist?"

Jisung hums a yes. "Painting, generally." He points over to the easel. "I've...always been connected to color, I guess you could say."

Minho ignores the slight nausea that flares in his stomach at the word that so haunts him. "I don't know any artists personally, so I suppose you're the first."

"You know what I do," Jisung scratches at his skin just below his shoulder, and it turns a darker shade under his fingertips. "It's your turn to share."

Minho rolls his eyes at his childishness, but gives all too easily. "I write."

"Books, newspapers, articles, you've got to give me something," Jisung teases, smiling along with his own found mirth.

"I'll tell you if we ever meet again," Minho chooses to say, and runs his fingers through his hair, which, from the way it’s tangled, he assumes is just as messy as Jisung's. It’s hitting him now that Jisung is so cheerfully smiling, that he’s stayed much longer than he should. "I should get going, it's," he pulls his phone from his sweatpants pocket, which he had swiped from his jeans, and makes a point of checking the time. "Late. I don't want to be caught out too late."

Jisung opens his mouth, as if he's about to direct a proposition, but he shakes his head ever so slightly as if reprimanding himself. "Yes, I suppose you should."

Minho lets out a harsh breath when he realizes what Jisung had begun to say, and reaches an understanding of the implications of Jisung's almost spoken words. "Were you going to ask me to stay the night, Jisung?"

Jisung looks caught, and the skin of his cheeks noticeably darkens a shade or two of dull grey. "If I had, would you have even considered my offer?"

It's Minho's turn to be caught off guard. Minutes ago, when he'd climbed out of bed to clean himself up even after Jisung had expressed want to care for him, he had desired to leave more than anything. But something draws him towards Jisung; whether it's his overall attitude, or the way his apartment is filled with colors that Minho can't see.

Something is different about Jisung. This man he met by chance, who he slept with on a whim. Jisung...

Jisung.

"Ask me," is what he chooses, letting his own livelihood rest in fate’s hands. He watches as Jisung's eyes grow wide, quick to catch on. "You never know what someone will say until you ask."

Jisung gapes at him, completely startled. But Minho is committed to his ideas at this point, and steps up to him. “This doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow we’ll be strangers again.” He’s admitted that they’re something more than strangers for this night, and for a reason he can’t quite grasp, that he chooses not to grasp, he doesn’t wish to retract those words, either.

“Okay,” Jisung rubs at his neck, over a dark bruise Minho knows he must have made at some point during their evening. “Then let me get you a toothbrush.”

They go about a quickly sewn together evening routine, in which Minho distances himself from Jisung; turns away from him as they brush their teeth so they don’t face each other in the mirror, like a couple would.

Minho crawls into the freshly made bed before Jisung, and lets out a sigh of relief when his exhaustion-taught body meets the plush mattress. He finds it to be somewhat of a relief that he doesn’t have to go home this late, but as he watches Jisung sit on the edge of the bed and reach for the light switch, he falls into swirling thoughts of self-doubt. Did he choose correctly?

Minho rolls onto his side, facing away from Jisung, but not moments later he feels the stroke of a hand run down his back, to the left of his spine. He turns to look over his shoulder to act on his confusion, but is instantly caught in a kiss, which startles him much more than it should have.

“Sleep well, Minho,” Jisung whispers when he’s let Minho turn back over. “I don’t know what made you stay but I’m glad.” This time his lips land on the back of Minho’s neck, and gooseflesh spreads over Minho’s skin. “I’m glad you didn’t try to get home so late at night.”

Minho doesn’t reply. Instead he closes his eyes and listens to the rustle of Jisung settling into a comfortable position underneath the sheets. Though they aren’t touching, somehow Minho feels a crippling warmth, as if his presence beside Jisung in this bed has slowly begun to thaw him into something beyond his now-melting and unreliable exterior.

The word library has meant more to Minho than the word home ever has; he could spend an eternity trapped between shelves of books and never grow bored or lonely. Every text is an adventure, an escape from his world of greys to a place where he can imagine the extent of color.

He doesn't hate the world he's been given to live in, but he's always been drawn to what else there is to discover. And so he found writing; began creating novels based from situations of his own creation, birthed lives filled with color and wonder and so much more than what Minho can see with his naked eye.

After wandering the library he’s come to call his own for a handful of minutes, Minho's eyes fall to the art history shelves and he smiles a bit as he walks over, thinking back to his time spent with the graduate student. Jisung, the man with an easel that takes up his living room instead of a television. Jisung, who has grown into a memory that is a little bit more than average. Maybe even a lot more.

He trails his fingertips over the spines of the books ordered on one shelf as he walks down the row, taking in the many shades of grey that he can only assume is color. He wonders faintly what it would be like to paint as Jisung does, to explore and mix and create with the colors of the rainbow. He wonders what it would be like to paint and not be mocked for the colors he'd chosen, that have no correlation but make sense as greys.

A lilac sky isn’t anything compared to a pretty blue sky, he’s learned.

Minho spots a book on a shelf just above his height, and is pulled by a force unknown to the swirls drawn onto the part of the book he can see. He reaches for it, wondering if he will actually find it at all interesting, but just as his fingertips barely brush the spine a hand knocks against his own and he is forced to pull back, alarmed. As he turns to look at whoever has reached for the book as well, he nearly gasps when he's met with a face that, even after what must be a month, is still fresh in his mind.

"Jisung?"

Jisung's expression morphs from confusion into something like merriment as he takes in Minho's presence right in front of him.

"Fate is a funny, funny thing, isn't it."

"So, we've run into each other," Jisung says, beginning the conversation because Minho can't force the words out, overwhelmed, and has left them in a turbulent silence. They've migrated to sit in plush chairs across from each other, cramped in the back corner of the library behind the psychology section where Minho likes to seek his privacy. “A serendipitous event has come into play, hasn't it?”

Minho rolls his eyes, as Jisung appears a little too pleased with himself, but the action doesn’t deter Jisung in any way. "Maybe so, but what do you expect to come out of this meeting?"

"What you said that night," Jisung says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, intent on facing Minho and his tricks to find escape head on. He looks different in the daylight Minho notes; he seems to glow in the glare of light from the window. Jisung is dressed in a thick wool coat with jeans and boots, and a beanie covers most of his hair. It's obvious Jisung is meant for the daytime, as he looks so bright and cheerful caught here with Minho. He looks happy.

"You really want to go through with it? Become," Minho gestures between them, as if letting his hands speak for him, but follows up with the word anyhow. "Fuckbuddies?"

Jisung nods, suddenly strikingly serious. "Yes. And I don't think you're denying the idea, after you willingly chose to stay the night at my place. That in itself means you had to at least like something about me."

Minho glances him up and down, as if the action of appraising Jisung will shake him off. "I like your dick and that's all. Don't get all wound up thinking it's more than that."

He sounds harsh, even to his ears, but Jisung waves the chill away with a laugh. "I'm not asking for anything other than sex, Minho."

Minho looks Jisung hard in the eyes, truly attempting to dissect his thoughts. He can tell the type of person Jisung is; while he obviously does sleep with people outside of commitment, he's serious about his life, and is most assuredly drawn to long-term relationships. He seems to be someone who craves stability, and it's something Minho can't give him. Right now he can't date, or think of anything of the sort, no matter how pretty and seemingly nice this man is on the exterior.

He can’t become close to this man who lives and breathes color.

"Jisung." His voice has gone soft, as if he's trying to explain a point to someone young. "I can't promise you anything permanent. I can't promise you a relationship. Do you still want to do this knowing I can't give you anything certain other than sex? I don't want an attachment to form between us that's more than what we can handle."

Jisung appears a bit taken aback, looking up at Minho with wide, doe eyes. Minho wishes he could tell what color they are; but even in his line of vision they're beautiful. They sparkle with the light, making Jisung out to be almost as if he's out of this world.

Yet, though Minho had tried to cut them off, Jisung's words do not fail to startle him. "If I fall in love with you we'll work through it then. If you fall in love with me, we'll do the same. Don't go thinking you can predict and therefore control the future, Minho. You may write your own universes, but this world isn't something you can control."

Minho blinks, taking his turn to be knocked off balance. He stabilizes himself fairly quickly, though, and chooses without much more hesitation to seal their fate. "Then...I suppose we should do this. After all, I said that if somehow we met again, destiny inclined, we'd follow through."

Jisung smiles, and Minho thinks that maybe he doesn't need colors to recognize vibrancy radiating from the man. "I'm glad you're honoring your word with me, Minho."

They fall into a silence, one that isn't quite comfortable, and is further tipped towards the negative as Jisung stares at Minho, brow furrowed, like he can't quite piece something together. After what feels like too long but can't be more than a minute or two, Minho speaks, asking what it is that Jisung finds to be so interesting about his face.

Jisung's skin tinges to a darker shade over the soft of his cheeks, and Minho nearly smiles at how easily he was caught, but is turned quiet when Jisung speaks. “Our names are complementary colors.”

"What do you mean?" Minho shivers, trying to comprehend what Jisung means with his words.

Jisung shrugs, glancing to Minho and then away. He appears almost shy, as if nervous for what he's brought to Minho's attention. "I have synesthesia. Grapheme-color, which, to put it simply, means I see color with words."

Minho's heart begins to sink, so slowly, as if it's being pulled through molasses towards the pit of his stomach. Unsure, he chooses to ask his question, because he can't find it within himself to smile freely.

"Our names are colors to you?"

Jisung nods, appearing thankful that Minho hadn't said much else. "The first part of my name, Ji, has always been a burnt red color, but not too vibrant. Sung is green, similar to the color of healthy grass." Jisung smiles to himself, and looks far off in his own mind. "Together they create a hue of yellow, and that is how I've always seen the entirety of my name; a bright lemon yellow. My friends say it matches my personality." Minho attempts a nod although he can't begin to picture what yellow is.

"For you, ever since I first heard your name Min has stood out as a royal blue, and the second half of your name as a lavender purple." Jisung leans forward ever so slightly, and his eyes are darting all over Minho's face as if he’s seeing Minho in the colors he brings to light. "I would say that your name is the color periwinkle." He nods to himself, as if happy with his comparison. "But it leans more towards purple instead of blue, which makes our names complementary. It's kind of funny, don't you think?"

Minho nods again without feeling, as he is struggling to keep his hands still in his lap; he's desperate to fidget, to release some of the tension that has built up inside of him at Jisung’s blatant understanding of what he’s so removed from. "Yes, it is," he says, smiling a bit because truly, what are his other options?

"Maybe this whole meeting really is at the hands of fate," Jisung says, and Minho wonders if the smile he's smiling is yellow, like his name.

"Maybe so."

When at home later that evening, exhausted from conversation and with a new contact in his phone, Minho opens a new tab on his laptop and types in complementary colors. He's met with a few images of color wheels, all of which he can't comprehend, and also a definition.

Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale color.

Minho closes his laptop slowly, all the while wondering why exactly he had agreed to become something more than a one night fling with Jisung. Jisung who sees color in everything.

Jisung who turns him to grey.

Minho wonders how it has gotten to this point, this point being that he looks forward to seeing Jisung, looks forward to being close to him. The sex is great, but Minho hasn't felt such companionship in a long time. And how Jisung never forces him to leave right away after they sleep together has begun to feel like it means something. And when they wind up at Minho's place and he doesn't tell Jisung to be on his way, it is solidified that yes, something is different between them.

He wonders why it feels so intimate; he and Jisung hardly know each other, but whenever Jisung kisses him with a bit too much meaning, or when he caresses Minho's cheek as he is now, it feels like they're more than just two people fucking. It feels as if they're something closer to lovers.

"You're so pretty," Jisung whispers, his palm against Minho's cheek, and just the feel of skin on skin tethers Minho in place; ties him to Jisung. And Jisung is smiling, as if he's been blessed with a vision from the angels with the way he peers up, eyes half-lidded from pleasure and lips turned a darker shade of grey than normal from heavy kissing on both their parts. Minho doesn't think he deserves to be looked at as he is, not when Jisung appears equally beautiful, spread out beneath him with his newly-dyed black hair messy against the white of Minho's sheets. Minho thinks he prefers his hair this way; it's soft now, unlike the dry feeling his, what he assumes to have been bleached blond, hair was like.

"You should see yourself," Minho murmurs in a moment of vulnerability, but only regrets the words the slightest bit when Jisung beams up at him. "Can I add another?"

Jisung nods, but the action is cut short when Minho's second finger slips into his hole beside his first, increasing the stretch, and Jisung falls into a moan, and his hand resting on Minho's shoulder tightens in grip.

Minho knows Jisung's body well enough after what must be close to two months of fucking to find his prostate easily, and smiles when the pad of his finger grazes over the spot, sending Jisung’s back into an arch, ever responsive to Minho’s touch.

“Feels good,” Jisung murmurs, his hand sliding up and down Minho’s free arm as if he’s unsure of where to hold him. His free hand grasps at the bedsheets, twisting in the fabric as if to pull himself from reaction. Minho stares down at Jisung, watching as sweat beads on his forehead, and brings a hand to brush it away but lets his fingertips brush along his hairline.

They’re looking fast into each other’s eyes when Jisung is fully prepped and Minho’s tip is at his rim, and as he pushes in Minho watches as Jisung’s eyes close and his lips part, tension building in his expression until Minho is fully seated within him. Witnessing Jisung relax and begin to truly be pleasured is even more enthralling than his beginning response; his eyes gloss over and little noises escape him, even though he bites his lip to a darker grey when trying to hold them back.

Minho runs a hand over the underside of Jisung’s thigh, pressing Jisung’s knee to his chest. Jisung whines at the shift in position, and tips his head to the side when Minho thrusts in, his hips meeting the swell of Jisung’s ass. The position is more intense, especially for Jisung as Minho is now brushing his prostate with every move, but somehow Jisung manages to pull himself from his pleasure enough to startle Minho.

"Your eyes are so beautiful." Jisung is blearily smiling.

Minho’s throat closes at the few words, "Yeah? Tell me about my eyes."

“They’re brown,” Jisung starts, voice breathy. “But they aren’t dull. There’s hazel bleeding into the rich brown color, and patterns distort the coloring so slightly around your pupils.”

Minho's forehead drops to Jisung's shoulder, feeling overwhelmed and somehow much closer to his orgasm than he was before. "Jisung..." He doesn't know what to say, so he leaves the whisper of Jisung's name open.

"Minho, please, a bit faster, I'm so close."

It's then that Minho realizes how drastically their pace has slowed during their exchange; almost to a point of intimacy a relationship like theirs cannot have. He chooses to kiss Jisung as he snaps his hips up, swallowing Jisung’s moans that only increase when his hand slides around Jisung’s cock, pulling him closer to the edge.

And Minho kisses Jisung as the coil in him bursts and he slumps forward, at the same time feeling Jisung tense beneath him and warmth spill over his fist.

He kisses Jisung through it all so he doesn’t hear him come with a cry of Minho’s name.

Minho’s hands slide down Jisung’s sides, resting at his thin waist when he pulls out and rolls to the side, coming to rest on his back with a groan. Jisung shifts beside him, and, not to Minho’s surprise, curls up with his forehead brushing Minho’s bicep; close, but not too close.

It’s become obvious to Minho that Jisung wants the comfort of companionship, of a lover, after sex, and it makes him unsure. Instead of letting his arm fall around Jisung’s body to pull him close, he strips off the condom and ties it, then moving to slip from the bed. "I'll clean you up," Minho whispers, still a bit shaky from the strength of his orgasm, but sure that he needs to leave Jisung’s intoxicating proximity.

"Wait," Jisung calls before his feet have touched the floor, and tugs Minho back to kiss him. It's nothing more than a peck but there's meaning behind it, a type of meaning Minho can't ignore. "Thank you."

Minho chooses to scoff at the words as he leans back and Jisung falls from his position he'd held on his elbows. "Are you thanking me for sex, Han?"

Jisung scrunches up his nose at Minho but Minho can tell there's a shade of hurt in his eyes, and it stings more than he'd like to admit. "Something like that. Now go get something to clean me up with, Lee."

Minho crosses to his bathroom, and once inside he partially shuts the door behind him. When the condom is disposed of he rests his hands on the counter and leans forward above the sink to observe himself in the mirror. His hair is disheveled and there's a darker hue of grey to his skin than normal, the signs of a flush. There’s blotches on his neck, where blood vessels have been bruised to cause blooms of shadows to appear.

Minho sighs, rubbing at his forehead. He can’t help but think to Jisung, alone in Minho’s bed, wondering if tonight will be a day where he walks home or one where he stays the night but in a bed with a man who shies from his touch.

And Minho realizes all too slowly that he wants to be in bed with Jisung, holding him and kissing him until they fall asleep, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets. He can’t do that though, but he decides to settle for the only thing that comes to mind that is possible for them.

He moves towards the shower and pushes open the door, turning the handle to on.

Jisung is sitting up in bed when Minho returns, scrolling through his phone. The hurt from his eyes has bled into his expression when he meets Minho’s gaze, but he plays it all off with a smile, one that Minho’s learned is created solely to hide pain. "I thought you were going to shower?" Jisung cocks his head, making himself appear slightly confused. "It certainly sounds like it."

"I'm not that mean," Minho huffs, realizing with a punch to his chest that Jisung had expected for him to leave him alone. To prove Jisung’s fears false, he gestures for the man to follow him. Jisung winces as he stands, but he appears more enthralled with the secrets Minho is holding than concerned with his discomfort, and trails after Minho into the bathroom.

"Are you..." Minho can feel Jisung's eyes on his back as he runs his fingers under the streams of water, testing the temperature. "Is this you proposing that we shower together?"

Minho shrugs, still choosing not to turn around

"What if I jump you in the shower?" Jisung looks a bit too smug when Minho does face him, but the pain has disappeared from his eyes and Minho is hit with a tidal wave of relief. "What will you do then?"

Minho rolls his eyes and gestures for Jisung to step into the shower. "Come on, Jisung."

“Fine, fine.” Minho follows Jisung, letting the glass door swing shut behind them. Jisung sighs when he steps into the spray and Minho smiles, finding himself ever caught up in every action, every smile the man shares.

Instead of lingering on his thoughts, Minho sets about pumping some body wash into his hand from the container on the shower shelf and prods at Jisung’s shoulder until he turns around. Jisung’s eyes are large, sparkling, as he stares at Minho, and a smile too shy for to be exchanged between fuckbuddies breaks out onto his lips when Minho begins to rub the wash into his skin, working away the remnants of their activities.

“You gonna give me a massage?” Jisung asks as Minho’s thumbs dig into the flesh at his shoulders.

“Are you going to get turned on?” Minho teases, and Jisung swats away his hands to in turn take a handful of soap to spread on Minho’s chest.

"Your skin is so fair," Jisung murmurs as he rubs body wash over Minho's skin. "Just a few shades above pale."

"You're definitely an artist, telling me what colors my eyes are and skin is." Minho takes Jisung's hands from his torso and pushes Jisung further into the spray of the shower so they both fit under. His arms wind around Jisung as the suds are washed from their bodies, and he hears the intake of breath from Jisung at the contact.

“Yes, I guess so,” Jisung murmurs, his own hands coming to rest on Minho’s chest, one just over his heart.

Minho, suddenly feeling the repercussions of his actions, shifts gears and runs the tips of his fingers up Jisung’s sides, tickling him. Jisung shrieks, shoving Minho away, but his grin is prominent. “Meanie.”

Minho snorts his faux annoyance but lets Jisung come up to him again, even though he knows from the glint in Jisung’s eyes that he’s up to no good. He’s out to get payback.

Jisung is getting handsy, is what Minho notices after no less than a minute, with one of his hands creeping down to the curve of Minho’s ass. Minho shivers at the touch, and swats Jisung’s hand away when his fingertips find his rim. “Stay away from me,” he hisses, unserious, and is met with Jisung’s bubbly and infectious laughter in return.

“Maybe…we could get tested? So that we could, you know, experience it all.”

The words come out of the blue and Jisung must catch on to the meanings behind Minho’s dumbfounded expression because he backtracks quickly.

“I mean, I’m sorry I assumed that you were solely sleeping with me,” Jisung laughs it off, turning away to reach for the shampoo bottle. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Are you sleeping with anyone else?” Minho isn’t quite sure why he asks. Maybe it’s just interest, or maybe it has something to do with the flare of jealousy that beats into his heart at the thought of sharing this man.

“I’m not,” Jisung murmurs, not turning around, simply playing with the gel in his hands.

“I’m not either,” Minho tells him, reaching around to take the bottle from Jisung’s hand and squeeze some shampoo onto his own palm. After returning the bottle to the shelf, he rubs the substance between his hands and begins to saturate Jisung’s hair. “I think that maybe we should get tested. Unless you have plans to hook up with anyone else?”

Jisung pushes Minho’s hands away as he turns around, wide-eyed. “Are you sure?”

Minho nods, knowing he won’t be able to go back on anything with the way Jisung is looking at him; like he’s the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Jisung is trying not to smile and he’s doing an awful job at it. Minho wants to tell him that it’s okay, that he can smile as he always does so beautifully, but instead he steps into Jisung’s space and kisses him. He catches Jisung completely off guard but the man succumbs to the kiss easily, and whines softly when Minho grabs ahold of his hips to draw them together. And though Minho had come onto Jisung, intent on making him feel good, Jisung gets Minho pressed against the wall, and caught between Jisung’s body and the tile, Minho suddenly feels so small.

“I want to fuck you,” Jisung whispers, his lips at the skin of Minho’s neck, adding to the array of marks he so loves to create.

“You’re still horny?” Minho says, too breathily for it to come off as annoyed.

Jisung trails a hand up Minho’s thigh to his lower abdomen where his cock is half-hard, and runs his fingers up the shaft to tease Minho. “Look who’s talking.”

Minho shoves him away but he’s smiling. “Let’s not fuck in the shower, I don’t want to slip and die.”

Jisung sighs, as if he’s receiving crushing news, but returns to washing Minho’s hair without a fight, and makes a new game of kissing Minho whenever they come face to face.

Minho steps into his bedroom a handful of minutes after Jisung had left the shower before him, only to be taken aback by the sight in front of him. Instead of falling asleep as Minho had assumed he would, Jisung has waited up for him, and is sat up in bed with the script Minho had offered him earlier to prove that yes, he really does write. He’s mouthing some of the words as he reads, his glasses a bit crooked and slipping down his nose.

Something shifts in Minho’s chest and he knows that he’s been fooling himself. To what extent, he still isn’t quite sure, but Jisung here, so invested in Minho’s passion, stirs a warmth around his heart. It’s not been more than two months since their agreement began, but Jisung has become familiar to him, and Minho to Jisung.

Jisung doesn’t blink when Minho slides under the covers next to him, and instead leans down to kiss him with a few mumbled words of enjoyment and approval towards Minho’s work.

“Your words are so bright at points,” Jisung mumbles as he kisses Minho sleepily, one of his thighs hitched up over Minho’s hip as they lay on their sides. “Generally warm colors, it feels like you were happy when you wrote those parts.” His lips drag from Minho’s mouth to kiss along his neck, nosing at the skin there. “Other parts are all blues and darks, like you were so sad when you chose the words you did.” He draws back up to stare Minho in the eyes, and his hand cradles Minho’s cheek so gently. “What’s made you so sad?”

“The things I can’t understand,” Minho chooses to say, and his words are a bit choked when they leave his lips.

Jisung leans in to kiss him again, and then brushes his lips over both of Minho’s eyelids, as if he’s granting him vision. Minho wonders, before he opens his eyes, if when he does he’ll be able to see color. But when he cracks them open he’s met with nothing but grey.

“Can I help you understand what you can’t?” Jisung looks so young, so honest in this moment, that Minho’s heart clenches and he feels something that he hasn’t ever before.

Looking into Jisung’s eyes like this, Minho thinks maybe he can start to understand color.

Maybe Jisung can be the color he’s needed.

“Yes, Jisung. I think so.”

It begins with a simple call; Minho is knee-deep in drafting out a chapter of his upcoming book when his phone vibrates on the wood of his desk beside his laptop. When he picks the device up, he finds that the contact name displayed is Jisung's, and it takes him but a second to pick up the call.

He doesn't stop to think about why that is.

And now he finds himself in Jisung's living room, in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, sitting on a stool in the place where the easel usually is set up. Jisung is scurrying about the room, collecting various pallets and paint brushes to join the collection of paints he had already laid out on the floor.

"So you're really painting me," Minho says as he watches Jisung make the final touches to his setup, and his voice has quieted, almost as if they're words to be kept just within the foot between them.

Jisung nods, and the smile he directs to Minho is gentle to a point where it scalds Minho’s bare skin. In this moment he appears as if he'd put up with anything Minho could ask him for; through his fondness shines a kind of devotion. "Are you sure you want to do this? This is your last chance to back out without leaving with paint all over you."

"Are you insinuating you would let me go if I asked, even if you hadn't finished your project?"

"Yes." Minho's breath hitches at Jisung's blatant sincerity. "I would never force you to do something you don't want to do, especially with the sole purpose being to benefit myself."

Minho gapes at Jisung, startled by his words. Yet he knows he shouldn't be, not at this point; he’s grown to realize what Jisung's attitude is like, but he is always taken aback by his sweet understanding nature. Jisung always seems five steps in front of him, and Minho is beginning to grow tired from chasing this man without hope.

Jisung’s explanation leaves him without an idea of what to say, aside from words that are maybe just too close to his heart. But he doesn't hold them back, not this time.

"Then...paint me, Jisung. Make me pretty for you."

Jisung's lips part and his eyes grow wide at Minho’s freely expressed wants, but he doesn't comment aside from nodding once. "The paint I'm using is safe for your skin, it won't be damaging," he tells Minho as he picks up a tube of what Minho reads to be some fancily-named shade of green. "Tell me if anything is uncomfortable and we'll stop right away, scout’s honor."

Minho smiles at Jisung's antics but gives his acceptance. "I trust you."

And perhaps the most frightening thing of this all is that he does. He truly trusts Jisung, with more of himself than he can even begin to comprehend.

It tickles, is what Minho gauges first, when Jisung has taken a flat brush to his back, painting over the ridge of his spine carefully, but with enough force to apply the paint without it coming off as streaky.

"You okay?" Jisung asks when Minho visibly shivers, from the texture of the paint on his skin but also the pressure at his waist where Jisung's hand is holding him steady.

"Yes, it just feels a little odd," Minho replies, and focuses on distracting himself by drawing patterns on the fabric of his pants.

There's the soft call of music coming from the speaker set on Jisung's dining room table, and it proves to alleviate the mood between them as Jisung changes brushes to begin to detail in work. Minho wishes he could see, but chooses instead to focus on each time Jisung dips his paintbrush into a puddle of greyed color on his pallet.

Minho wishes he could see Jisung as well, and after what seems like nothing short of an eternity he gets his wish when Jisung begins to work around his body, and finally moves his own stool to directly in front of Minho for better access. He sets about working on Minho's arms first, but as he paints, this time Minho is able to gauge the concentration on his face, to see how deeply Jisung involves himself emotionally with his art.

Minho comes to realize, as Jisung is painting beautiful and intricate patterns onto the skin of his chest, that Jisung's art has nothing on the man himself.

There's a smudge of dark grey paint on Jisung's cheek from where he'd pushed his hair out of his eyes, and Minho can't help but reach forward, careful as to not damage the paint on the back of his own hand, to rub at the smudge, hoping to clear it away. It only proves to smear the color further, to his dismay, and Jisung must realize Minho's plight through his expression because he huffs out a laugh and gently pushes Minho's hand from him. Then, after not more than a few seconds of hesitation through contact of their eyes, he leans up and presses their lips together.

Before Minho can blink Jisung is back to painting along his neck with a thin brush, pulling away to let him swallow every so often so that the developing painting isn't damaged. They don’t mention the kiss, but then again they hardly speak at all aside from Jisung telling Minho to shift certain ways.

Yet it’s still comfortable, this bubble they’ve found themselves in.

When Jisung moves to paint Minho's face something changes; it's been intimate, but Jisung's focus has been solely on coloring Minho's skin. Now they're face to face, so close that Minho can feel Jisung's warm breath on his lips as he spreads color around Minho's eyes and over the height of his cheekbones.

"I'm going to paint your lips, okay?" Jisung asks, in nothing more than a whisper, and his eyes search Minho's for the exact truth of his agreement.

"Okay."

Minho feels his breath hitch as Jisung leans closer, placing one kiss, then another, and one final to Minho's mouth. "You've done so well," Jisung tells him, resting his lips to Minho's one last time before pulling away and raising his paintbrush, freshly dipped in a dark color.

Minho is lost more than half of the time when it comes to Jisung, but as Jisung touches up the last few spots on Minho's skin to ready him for the photos, he knows with frighteningly clear certainty that he can't lie about his understanding of color to Jisung any longer.

"You make the colors appear so beautiful," Jisung whispers, his fingertips pressing in at the waistband of Minho's sweats. They've come to stand in front of the mirror hung on the back of Jisung's bedroom door, with Jisung peering over Minho's shoulder as they both stare at Minho's reflection.

Minho truly has become a work of art, as he's been draped in intricate patterns to a puzzle he doesn't know the answer to; he thinks that Jisung is the only one in this world to truly understand and navigate the display of color mapped onto his skin.

As Jisung continues to stare at Minho, directly at him, not his body, Minho feels a sea or torment stir in his chest and he knows he has to tell Jisung. This isn't fair to him, it isn't fair to accept that he's colored with shades he can't see. He can't conceal what he's kept secret any longer.

"Jisung." Jisung is looking back at him through the mirror, nodding slightly to encourage him on. He appears so gentle, docile, caring, that Minho almost wants to retract his next words, to keep in the warmth of the space they've been in. But he doesn't, and instead takes possibly the most daunting leap of faith he’s ever attempted.

"Jisung, I can't see color." Minho looks anywhere but at the reflection of Jisung's face, knowing that he’ll find that crushing grief is transforming Jisung’s expression to hate. "I have monochromacy. Complete color blindness. All I see is the grey scale. I can't...I can't fathom the truth of what colors are. I can't understand this, your passion, because I can't see it, Jisung. I...I wish to God I could. I wish to God I could tell you that your artwork is beautiful in full; but I'm confined to grey.” He takes a tortured breath, and delivers the line to finish it all. “When you see a rainbow you experience the wonder of so many shades of color, but the rainbow I see is nothing but greys. Monochrome."

And this is it, Minho thinks. This is where they end, because an artist can never be drawn to someone who cannot understand what their life work is.

“I think...I’ve noticed some things that made me wonder,” Jisung admits, and Minho’s jaw falls open, swept off his feet by surprise. “But I wanted you to tell me if you actually were.”

“You’ve known?” Minho breathes, and his chest has constricted so that it feels as if he’ll never taste oxygen again.

Jisung nods slowly, and he can’t meet Minho’s eyes as if he’s despairing in his own choice of silence. “You seem like a person who would be very organized, and every once in a while the colors you’re around get scattered, almost messy.” Jisung’s fingertips brush the back of Minho’s arm as he steps to the side, away. As the distance grows, Minho’s heart plummets further and further, until his heartstrings are tearing along the seams.

“Tell me, Minho.” Jisung’s words are quiet, as if spoken from far, far away. “Am I a monster for painting you in color? For seeing you as color?”

Minho feels suffocated as he looks at Jisung; the man he so admires is growing smaller with every second, reverting into himself. His eyes seem glassy and he appears ashamed, and Minho can’t do anything for him, as he’s covered in paint, but reach for his hands.

“You’re not a bad person for painting me,” Minho tells him, and as his words leave his lips he can feel Jisung’s hands tremble in his own. “I’m so happy you wanted me to be your subject, Jisung. This was my choice, and I was selfish enough to want to be yours, your color, for what time I could unfairly steal.”

Jisung shakes one of his hands free of Minho’s grasp to raise to his lips, smudging away the paint. Minho tries to draw from him, alarmed, but Jisung drags him back and into a kiss.

Minho breaks from it immediately, caught breathless, “Have you gone mad? You’ve messed the painting up!”

“I got pictures already,” Jisung tells him, his fingers slipping into the band of Minho’s sweatpants to pull him closer. “I...just need to be close to you right now, can I?”

Minho allows Jisung to lead him into a kiss this time. It’s slow and deep, and Minho feels as though Jisung is taking over him—he feels that if Jisung asked, he’d do anything for this man in this moment.

When they draw apart Minho can see Jisung’s lips have darkened a few shades and he cradles Jisung’s cheek, brushing his thumb along the line of Jisung’s lips with all the tenderness he has to give.

“What color is it?”

Jisung giggles at the touch and the question, bringing his fingers to pass over Minho’s own lips again. “Blue. Caerulean blue.”

“Don’t...lips turn blue when they’re cold?” Jisung blinks at Minho, confused, and Minho can’t help but laugh. “Kiss me, please. So we’ll warm up, hm?”

Jisung rolls his eyes with a joined grin, and appears ever-fond as he stares at Minho. It seems as if he’s trying to say something, trying to tell Minho something more than what simple words can say. But before Minho can decode his eyes, he’s bridged the gap between them again.

They bump noses as the kiss grows a bit too deep and Minho takes his turn to break away giggling, and his expression is mirrored across Jisung's face. "You're going to get covered in paint if we keep this up," Minho says, reaching to brush the spot on Jisung's cheek again. The paint has crusted over, matching the pigment on his own skin. "Let's get cleaned up, hm?"

Jisung agrees, but not without a last lingering kiss, which Minho makes no attempt to avoid. He follows Jisung into the bathroom where he watches him grab a pack of wipes from his counter. "I use these for paint," Jisung explains, opening the lid of the pack. "I can...help you so you don't miss any spots, and then you can shower?"

He seems unsure of himself and Minho almost wants to laugh, as they’ve crossed so many lines in the last handful of hours, but instead he nods and moves to sit on the ledge of the bathtub with his back facing towards Jisung.

It's a slow process, not as slow as the painting, but Jisung is taking his time as he trails the wipes over the expanse of Minho's back. He truly is trying to dissolve every patch of pigment, as to ease Minho’s time washing down. When he tells Minho he's finished, he ushers him to stand, which Minho does but not without an air of confusion. "Jisung?"

Jisung just smiles at him, a look so familiar, and grabs a dark colored towel from the exposed shelving unit. Stepping past Minho he spreads it along the floor of the bathtub. "You've been sitting for so long," he explains, taking Minho's hand and squeezing once. "Lay down and rest. I'll finish cleaning you up."

Minho feels a warmth spread in him at the way Jisung is looking at him; like Minho is something to be treated well and to be cared for dearly. It's overwhelming, and when he sinks down into the bathtub and rests his back against the slant, he lets his eyes fall shut so he won't see Jisung descend with him and settle between his legs. It’s beginning to feel like too much, too easy that Jisung has chosen to move forward with their relationship after finding out Minho’s truth.

"Minho?"

He hums softly, opening his eyes to meet Jisung's. It leaves him breathless, staring up at this man who is radiant in greys, but he lets his thoughts pass and nods when Jisung holds up a fresh wipe. "Go ahead."

Jisung starts off at his abdomen this time, smiling when Minho's muscles contract as he shivers from the cold of the cloth. "Still okay?"

Minho nods.

It's intoxicating, how close Jisung is to him. As minutes of silent proximity pass Minho wonders weakly where along the way Jisung cleaning paint from his skin has turned into a feeling of so much more.

When the quiet begins to betray the noise of Minho’s pounding heart, he chooses to act. "Let me have it for a moment," Minho tries, and takes a wipe from Jisung's hand to find a clean spot that isn’t discolored. He reaches up, brushing it over the curve of Jisung's cheek to rid his skin of the smudge of paint that has lingered for so long.

Jisung smiles at him and takes the wipe from Minho when the natural grey of Jisung’s skin is shining clean. “Thank you.”

Minho shutters as one of Jisung’s hands passes over Minho’s ribs to rest at the base of his jaw, and then when Jisung leans close to him, to kiss him, he can’t help the dry sob that escapes him, only to be caught in the mirror of Jisung’s mouth. He’s feeling so much, here in this bathtub being kissed by an artist who cares for him, and it’s overwhelming to a point where he feels as if he’s just seconds from tears.

"It's all off," Jisung whispers after several more long, torturous minutes, and climbs out of the bathtub first as to help Minho to his feet. He pauses when they’re both at their full heights with their feet pressing into the plush bathroom mat. His hand is still on Minho's and they engage in a battle of who will look away first, which Jisung suddenly chooses to forfeit, as if accepting a fate Minho is unaware of. "There's clean towels on the shelf and feel free to use whatever products you want for the shower." Jisung smiles faintly at Minho, a look so different from his other grins, before slipping past him, the used towel clutched in his hand.

Minho stands alone after the door has closed, staring at his reflection in the mirror, thinking. There’s a reason why Jisung didn’t even ask to shower with him, and Minho knows why.

It’s because they’re fuckbuddies. And fuckbuddies don’t have feelings—have whatever this is.

It’s clear that something has always been different about them, but when Jisung shows up at Minho’s house with a large cased portfolio tucked under his arm, Minho feels like their something is about to teeter them off the edge of what they’ve already barely clung to.

And fall they do, when Jisung sets the portfolio on Minho’s table and unzips it, revealing Pandora’s hidden secrets; brings to light what each word, each kiss, each touch has come to mean.

For a long minute, Minho does nothing but stare. He can’t describe what is in front of him, but at the same time every word he needs is at the tip of his tongue. But Jisung is the one who speaks, and he pulls together all the right words.

"It's your monochrome rainbow."

The rainbow laying presented to Minho on canvas, curves from behind a swell of trees and reflects over the ripples of a lake. It’s beyond realistic, and Minho can picture himself standing under the hues of the rainbow. Yet the beauty is cruel, so terribly painful that he feels as if the bits of his soul he’s clung to for so long are finally crumbling to nothing more than dust.

He never wants to hurt Jisung, he never could even dream of inflicting grief into his eyes. But he asks, with a strain in his voice, because he’s being consumed by molten despair. "Why would you paint this for me? You’ve just wasted colors, Jisung. Why entice me with these colors when you know that I don’t hold the ability to interpret them?"

Jisung shakes his head, seeing through to the layers dissolving within Minho. He takes Minho's hand into his own, and Minho feels somewhat grounded, though it feels as if his feet have left the floor. "As I said, this is yours, Minho. This is what you see, and when I look at it, I see what you do."

Minho's heart drops to the pit of his stomach as fast as the words sink into his understanding, and he feels the burn of heavy, overwhelming tears. Jisung looks so sincere, so truthful, standing here that Minho has no reason to doubt his words.

"You painted me something that I truly can see? That I can see in full? What I see is what it actually is?" His voice grows thin, wobbly, and his grasp on Jisung's hand tightens immensely, yet Jisung doesn’t flinch. "Don't lie to me, Jisung. I...If you lie to me I can’t..."

Jisung smiles so softly and runs a thumb over the height of Minho's cheek, wiping away a tear that has escaped his inner turmoil. "I have never, and will never lie to you, Minho."

Minho lets out a shaky breath, suddenly feeling too light-headed to stand. Jisung notices and pulls him into a close hug, tight enough to keep him upright and steady on his feet. Minho presses even closer, feeling a shiver run up his spine at the tension between them.

It’s clear now, as Minho hides against the warmth of Jisung’s body, that they’ve transcended the title of two people who hook up. Jisung means far too much to Minho now, as Minho does to Jisung.

When Jisung is touching his cheek, running his fingers over the skin of Minho’s nose, chin, forehead, the look in his eyes tells Minho everything he needs to know; that Jisung wants him.

In every way.

“I want to touch you, please,” Jisung whispers, and Minho nods his agreement, letting Jisung lead him through his own home, as he’s beyond familiar with the layout after all these months. Minho lets himself think back to the night they met--the night when Jisung first led him to bed, brought him to the night that began it all. Back then it was sex; they were fueled by the idea of release from frustrations. But now…

But now.

Minho is hyper aware of every movement between them. It’s overwhelming, being looked at as he is, being touched as if he’s the most precious flower in a field of petals. He’s forced to sit first, on the edge of the bed, as he’s afraid his legs will give out if Jisung continues to look at him so.

And Jisung continues to, until Minho is close to shaking under his gaze. Until he chooses to speak.

“You’re so beautiful, Minho.” His words saw a path straight to Minho’s heart, leaving his life source open for Jisung’s taking. “All the words in the world could never describe how beautiful you truly are.”

“If you don’t have the words…” Minho trails off as he reaches out for Jisung, pleading for his touch. “Show me, Jisung. Please show me.”

Jisung steps up to him, taking Minho's face between his palms. "You want this?" Minho nods rapidly; he knows Jisung is one for explicit consent, in everything they do.

"Please," Minho finds himself begging, because Jisung is so close, but still so far.

"Okay," Jisung finally leans down to kiss him and Minho sighs in instant relief, his hands coming to tug at the fabric of Jisung's shirt. But he's gone too soon, leaving Minho breathless as he sinks to the floor between Minho's legs. He begins by raising one of Minho's feet at a time to pull off his socks, smiling up at Minho when he's completed his first task.

Next come Minho's pants, and he raises his hips up off of the bed so Jisung can slide the fabric down and off of his legs. Minho whines under his breath when Jisung trails kisses from the side of his knee along the inside of his thigh, landing just short of where the material of his underwear ends.

Jisung stays kneeling on the floor until Minho is bare before him, aside from his shirt that hangs loose off his frame. “Come here,” Minho reaches for Jisung, wanting to kiss the man more than all else, but Jisung doesn’t comply, and instead moves onto the bed, between Minho’s legs, and pushes him backwards until Minho’s back is flush with the bed.

Minho gapes up at him, startled, but before he can do much aside from take a fresh breath he feels Jisung’s hands sliding beneath his shirt, over his skin that flares with goosebumps. Minho wishes Jisung would kiss him, cradle his face and call him pretty names, but Jisung takes Minho further by surprise when he pushes Minho’s shirt to his chin and begins to paint a path of kisses from his navel to the dip where his collar bones meet.

Minho shivers beneath Jisung, eyes squeezing shut at the feelings of Jisung truly touching him. Almost treating him as if he is the product of the desires every man longs for.

They exchange few words when Minho’s shirt is slipped over his head and discarded to the floor, and Jisung returns all to quickly to his worship of Minho’s body; he kisses down from the joint of Minho’s shoulder to his forearm. His lips linger at Minho’s pulse, as if taking time to feel Minho’s life run through him.

Minho feels himself sinking into a deep haze, in which Jisung is all he can see and all he can feel. When Jisung’s lips are at his neck he nearly convulses, grasping at Jisung’s shirt with shaking hands. It’s enough of a violent reaction that Jisung draws back, and finally his hands are at Minho’s face, fingers stroking his cheek "Tell me what you want, baby."

The words are almost cruel; Jisung knows what Minho craves, knows that he’s reduced Minho to nothing but a puddle of feelings that stings like the lick of fire.

"You," Minho can hardly take a breath with how quickly the words spill from him. "Jisung, please, I want you." He feels as if he's on the edge of hyperventilating, with how his hold on reality is slipping faster by the second. "Only you, I only want you."

"I know," Jisung whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to Minho's forehead as his hands move to Minho’s sides, rubbing his skin soothingly. "Breathe with me first, hm?"

Minho whines, tempted to let himself fall into that state of heightened disarray, but he ultimately lets Jisung guide him into a realm of easier breathing, and he finds himself relaxing once again. When Jisung is satisfied with Minho’s rate of exhales, he cages Minho in to kiss him.

It’s a euphoric moment, Minho finds, as their kiss deepens and Jisung has pushed through the barrier of his lips and they are breathing in each other’s air to the full. After an eternity of Jisung’s focus on his body, Minho finally feels as though he’s gained some sense of focus.

“Jisung,” Minho pushes him back, one hand against his still-clothed chest as emphasis. “I want you, please.”

Jisung smiles, and pecks his lips once more before dropping off the bed to stand up. He makes him undressing into a little show for Minho, who moves to prop himself up on his elbows to have a better view. It becomes more of an act of alleviating some of the heaviness between them, with the way Jisung wiggles his ass as he takes off his pants, all to get Minho to laugh.

Minho, in turn, stretches out his legs as far as he can to try and poke Jisung with his toes, while he rummages in the nightstand for the products to further the night. He shows Minho the box of condoms there but he shakes his head, instead reaching out his arms for Jisung, which the man chooses to fall into, nearly squashing Minho beneath his weight.

Minho giggles as Jisung kisses him after his drop, and soon they’re both grinning against each other’s mouths and the attempt of a kiss turns into nothing but smiling eyes and happiness. Minho wonders, staring up at Jisung, what it would be like to see Jisung as he sees his name. As his friends describe him.

“I wish I could see your yellow,” Minho finds himself whispering, his fingers caught in the tangle of dark strands haloing around Jisung’s head. “Of all the colors, I want to see lemon yellow most of all.”

Jisung’s smile fades slightly, and Minho realizes the extent of meaning to his words. But as always, Jisung catches Minho by surprise. “Tell me about my eyes, baby. What do they look like?”

Minho is brought full circle to the night he’d been gifted the same; when Jisung had described Minho’s colors. But instead of focusing on their past, or their future, Minho chooses to indulge Jisung, and shifts one of his hands to the soft of Jisung’s cheek as to keep him in place.

“They’re a dark grey,” he begins, “somewhere close to what charcoal is. But there are little patterns of lighter greys, varying in shades, that float in the space between the outer edge of your iris and pupil.” He pauses, focusing hard on every last detail of Jisung’s eyes. “And your pupils are a pure black, but with the light like this, I can see my reflection.” He laughs a bit at his last observation.

Yet Jisung challenges him, looking perhaps more serious than Minho has ever seen him. “How do you look in my eyes?” His hand brushes over Minho’s shoulder, evoking a rush of gooseflesh. “Tell me how I see you.”

Minho’s lips part, his own eyes widening in size at hearing the vocalization of Jisung’s wants. “I…” he takes a breath, wanting to prove his honesty. Staring up into Jisung’s heavy gaze he finds the answer to Jisung’s search, and it sends a flood of heat from his heart to his head.

“You look at me as if you’re in love.”

The soft of Jisung’s expression doesn’t falter, and instead of answering Minho’s claim, legitimizing it, he runs a hand over the thick of Minho’s thigh, drawing patterns on the flesh. “Are you still up for this?”

Minho is still trying to wrap his head around his own words, realizing slowly the implications of what he’s presented to the man who was meant to be a simple fuck. But he selfishly chooses to be closer, to be with Jisung in full.

To take this moment as true lovers do.

“I am.”

It’s eye contact that keeps them bound to each other as Jisung fingers Minho, rubbing against his walls to find that spot that never fails to make Minho mad with pleasure. Jisung doesn’t veer away from Minho’s lips this time around, and kisses him over and over until Minho feels the flesh begin to bruise.

And it feels as if they’re more than just two people in a city full of strangers when Jisung’s forehead is pressed to his own when he’s finally entering Minho, bottoming out deep within him. Minho sighs into Jisung’s mouth, and his noises turn to whines as Jisung draws back to thrust back in.

Unlike all their other times, their pace starts slow and stays slow, giving Minho time to get lost in the greys of Jisung’s eyes, become melted to something to be molded by Jisung’s hands alone.

Jisung hikes Minho’s legs up further around his waist to penetrate him deeper still, and Minho finds himself blurry-eyed, as if he’s grown delirious with pleasure as Jisung rocks into him gently.

Jisung, ever watchful of Minho’s changes of expression, brushes sweaty bangs from Minho’s eyes, bringing him closer to earth once more. "How do you feel?"

"Good." Minho tucks his face against Jisung's neck as realizations begin to strike. This man, who is moving against him and breathing his shared air, means so much. Jisung, a man who sees color in everything, in Minho, means more than what his words can express. Jisung is what he has never been able to portray in his books, because Jisung is the color of the grass and the sky and the sunlight that encircles the earth. To Minho, Jisung is the only color he’s ever been gifted to see.

It hits like a bullet, but Minho feels it with startling certainty.

He loves Jisung.

Minho orgasms prematurely with a shattering cry, his back arching up off of the bed as pleasure rolls within him like waves. The pressure that had been so taught inside of him finally snaps and the intensity of his feelings drowns out all else until everything around him is dark, and he feels completely encased by the pitch of Jisung’s pupils; trapped under Jisung’s eyes.

There’s a faint call of his name and Minho forces his eyes open the smallest bit, to be met with Jisung’s worried gaze. “Don’t cry,” Jisung runs the pads of his thumbs along Minho’s cheeks, catching the tears Minho hadn’t realized had fallen. “Was it too much? Did I hurt you at all?”

Sweet, sweet Jisung, who cares so much.

“It was good.” Minho’s voice is a bit hoarse and here, with Jisung leaning over him and touching him as if he’s fragile and so important, he feels as if he’s going to begin to cry again. “You haven’t?” Jisung is still warm and heavy inside of him.

“No, I’ll get myself off, don’t worry—”

Before Jisung can pull out Minho has wrapped his legs around Jisung’s waist, and rocks up against him. “Please, Jisung. Finish in me.”

Jisung leans in for a kiss of disbelief, and he pulls away to make sure. “It’s not too much?”

“Fuck me, Jisung, I swear to God,” Minho tries to pull Jisung closer, as far as he can.

The overstimulation does make him whine with slight discomfort, as he had expected, but the moment Jisung gives into his own desire and fucks him anew, they lock eyes. And he isn’t sure what Jisung sees in his face, in his eyes, but it’s enough to send him over the edge after naught but a couple of minutes, releasing into Minho with a barely-muffled moan.

They lay still, panting, but all too soon Jisung is slipping away from him to go clean them up; as Minho had denied him all those months ago. Minho is hit with the feelings all over again, feelings of realization, of dedication, of love. His tears are what brings Jisung back to him, the man whispering worried words while Minho does nothing but sob into his hands, hateful towards himself for exposing such a side of himself.

Jisung has found one of their shirts from the floor and wipes Minho's stomach off, and then settles it under Minho's ass in a vain attempt at saving the sheets. When all is settled he pulls the covers over them as he takes Minho into an embrace. It’s warm and tight and everything Minho needs to feel. "Shh, baby, it's going to be alright. I promise, hm?"

Minho listens to Jisung's promises as his tears die down, and he wonders if everything will turn out okay. As he is pulled towards the dark of sleep, tear tracks still damp on his cheeks, he wonders if he'll ever lay like this with Jisung again.

Minho isn't proud of it; he isn't proud of the fact he's actively avoided Jisung since the night he gave him the monochrome rainbow. The night they made love. He feels horrible because along with all of his own confused and turbulent thoughts, Jisung has texted him with the occasional call thrown in every day for the past two weeks since Minho began to push him aside.

He should have assumed that Jisung would look for him and try to figure out what went awry, because Minho can easily admit there is enough of something between them for him to ruin.

Even though he should have known, when a knock on his front door sounds throughout the house followed by the noise of a key in the lock, Minho freezes up.

"Minho?" Jisung's voice is projected but still soft as he calls out for him.

Minho cants forward over his desk, his forehead nearly brushing his monitor screen as he hides his face in his hands. He hears Jisung's sigh when his eyes must land on Minho, but to his surprise the man says nothing more and instead sets what must be a bag down on the kitchen counter, given the quiet thud.

Jisung's footsteps, now with just the pressure of socked feet, grow closer to Minho, until Minho is sure Jisung can't be but a step from him. He still doesn't dare turn around or move from his position, though he knows he should.

"I brought dinner for you," Jisung begins, and the depth of saturation to his voice sends Minho's heart lurching, as if could ever forget Jisung's tone. "I figured that if you were caught up in writing you would be stuck eating microwave meals, or nothing at all."

Sweet, good, wonderful Jisung, who Minho is so undeserving of.

"You shouldn't have," Minho says, his voice muffled by his palms. "Why didn't you call?"

Jisung laughs a bit, but it's not in mockery of Minho. "I did. You didn't pick up and I figured the only way to get through to you would be to come over here. I was right, hm?"

Minho doesn't respond, unable to figure out the words to this scenario. He shivers when he feels Jisung's fingertips pass over his shoulder blade through the fabric of his thin sleep shirt to land on his shoulder.

When it's apparent Minho won't reply to his first words, Jisung switches gears. "How long have you been sitting here?" he asks, and his words continue to be light but are potent with concern and care.

"Not too long," Minho lies and Jisung scoffs, clearly not believing him.

"Let's sit down on the couch for a bit," Jisung suggests after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, and moves to gently tug at Minho's arm. "I want to talk."

Minho feels like sinking into the floor; as far as he knows those words are dooming, and although he knows he shouldn't stay with Jisung any longer, that he should accept the meaning behind the words, it's terrifying nonetheless.

He trails after Jisung, keeping his eyes lowered, and sinks onto the couch with a sigh. He truly doesn't know how long he's been sitting at his desk, it could be hours or days for all he can comprehend, so he admits with a heavy heart that Jisung has once again brought him comfort.

"Please Minho, talk to me. What's going on?"

Minho shivers at the words, "I've just been stressed. My deadline is coming up and I'm just not scheduling well or something. I'm sorry I've not been answering your messages."

Jisung touches his fringe, brushing his fingertips through Minho’s fine hair. "You're not telling me the whole truth, Minho. I'll never force you to say anything you don't wish to though, so I'll accept it if you don't want to tell me what's up. Just know that I'm here to listen."

They are so past the point of fuckbuddies that Minho can't even remember when their relationship was purely that. Jisung has always meant more, meant so much, and it's overwhelming.

"Jisung, I just...I don't know if I can keep sleeping with you."

Minho expects for Jisung's face to change to an expression of shock, but instead he appears calm, as if he'd been expecting Minho's words. And perhaps he has, as Minho thinks back to his declaration of Jisung’s care for him the last time they had been together.

"I can't keep doing this, either," Jisung says, and Minho's heart plummets. He has been wanting to break things off, but hearing that his thoughts are reciprocated feels like he's been torn clean in half.

"You agree with me?" he whispers, head spinning.

"I can't keep sleeping with you under the pretense that we're nothing but fuckbuddies," Jisung says, and Minho's eyes widen. "If you say you don't feel that there's something between us, you're lying," Jisung tells him, and it rings true. "I want to take you out, on a date. I want to build a relationship where we share more than sex."

Minho gapes at Jisung, feeling completely winded from just the few words. He's known from the beginning that Jisung isn't someone to continue a fubus relationship, and that he's found Minho to be more than that anyhow. But hearing him suggest that he does want more, that he wants Minho, is overwhelming.

"You’re being serious? You want to be with me?" Minho's throat feels too tight and he can hardly get the words out.

"More than anything," Jisung says, reaching forward to take Minho's hands. "Do you want to be with me?"

Minho pulls away as he stands, but if he had turned away to run from Jisung he's held in place by the painting hung over the fireplace. It's Jisung's gift—after some debate he'd chosen to hang it there, making it the centerpiece of the living room. That in itself has meaning, that he has chosen to ingrain Jisung so heavily into his everyday life.

"I can't understand what you love," Minho whispers, eyes fixed on the rainbow. "I can't be who you need. I'm so sorry Jisung, but I can't do this, it's not fair to you."

"Who says you can't give me what I need?" Jisung's arms are wrapping around Minho's waist from behind, and the action makes him jolt. "I care about you as you are, Minho. You, being you, is all I need."

Minho closes his eyes and lets himself lean back against Jisung's chest, lets himself pretend he can be touched with this meaning. "I can't give you color, Jisung."

"You've given me color," Jisung whispers, pressing a kiss to the spot behind Minho's ear. "Your words are color to me, Minho."

Minho lets Jisung turn him until they’re face to face, and nearly beings to cry when he meets Jisung’s hopeful expression. “Jisung…”

“Minho.” Jisung takes Minho’s hands in his and squeezes lightly. “Don’t ever think that you aren’t more than what I’m worthy of.”

“I can’t, Jisung,” Minho can hardly breathe.

"Minho, sweetheart, look at me.” Jisung is holding Minho’s face, thumbs wiping away his new falling tears. “Your writing, Minho. Of all the colors I've painted with, your words—your colors are the most beautiful."

And it takes Minho’s breath away. He hadn’t once considered he’d already given so much to Jisung, but he has. He has given Jisung colorful words and Jisung has brought him so much.

Minho can see the painting over the fireplace now, past Jisung’s shoulder, and he’s reminded of who this man in front of him truly is.

Jisung is his color; and though Minho will never know what that in full may be, Jisung is everything he’s ever wanted to see.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller