Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

– ☆ –

To me, you’re strange and you’re beautiful

You’d be so perfect with me

But you just can’t see

You turn every head but you don’t see me

Strange and Beautiful (I’ll Put a Spell on You) – Aqualung

– ☆ –

There was beauty in the setting of the sun. The last dregs of light bleeding from the sky, the usual blue glowing with all the shades of a rainbow. It was fleeting, and it was beautiful, and it was often taken for granted—why would one stop to admire it today, when it was promised for tomorrow?

Seonghwa loved the sunset. He loved the way his skin was bathed in the swirling orange hues, the way the red roses on his tea table burned brighter. Sunset signified the closing of the day. It was the transition from day to night, proof that life continued to move on. 

It was, perhaps, its fleeting nature that had inspired him to capture its beauty. A small passion project, born from his love of its allure. 

He had sparked his little project last Summer when he was strolling through Gyeongsangnam-do Arboretum in his home city, Jinju. He’d come across a small lake in the middle of the gardens, and his breath had been taken instantly by the scene. He fell in love with the way the leaves soaked in the remnants of the sun, the way the water reflected the yellows and the oranges and the pinks of the sky above, the way the sun glowed like candlelight overhead. He wanted to be there forever, held in the beauty and grace that was the sunset.

He’d returned the following evening, canvas tucked under one arm and a box of oil paints under the other. A photo could not do this place justice, he’d thought, as he settled on the damp, grassy banks of the lake. He’d spent that first evening roughly sketching out the scene in a light blue before finishing for the night with a bright orange wash.

He came back the next day, then the one after that, painting at his little spot by the lake, memorising the shape of the leaves, the slight brown hue of the water, the little flowers dotting the bank. He never allowed himself to snap a photo, never allowed himself to return earlier in the day to get the shapes and textures down—he could only paint the scene in the short few minutes of sunset, when the lake was bathed in golden light and leaves were wrapped in orange hues. It was only in those few minutes that he could capture the lake in all its beauty.

So, it took him a little longer than he’d originally planned, or how long it would have taken if he hadn’t limited himself to the few minutes of sunset. But finally, after three weeks, he’d completed his masterpiece.

It was bittersweet, finishing the painting. It had consumed so many afternoons for those first few weeks, and while seeing it completed was its own reward, he’d felt slightly empty. Those evenings on the bank, taking in the cool, afternoon air, listening to families chatter away as they wandered by, the birds chirping as they returned to the trees for the night, the little kids running up to him to see what he had painted—he’d miss it. He’d miss it all.

It was when he walked by that following autumn, when the leaves were no longer their bright green hue, but instead a palette of orange and brown, and the flowers had lost their saturation, that he had realised his painting wasn’t quite over: autumn brought a new shade of beauty to the sunset.

So, he continued his little project, invigored by the colours of autumn. He would paint this beautiful scene a total of four times—one for each season—showing the beauty of golden hour in all its glory. 

He’d started the second painting of his series the following day, spending the afternoon sketching the now-familiar sight and unifying his palette with a slightly darker orange. He eventually brought with him an easel and a stool, which—admittedly—added quite a load to carry through the gardens but saved his back from the strain. Once again, the project took up most of his afternoons. The scent of oil paints and the smooth brush strokes consumed his week as he sat painting by the lake to the sound of someone strumming a guitar. He went to work with paint staining his forearms and fell asleep with the image burned in his vision.

Now, Seonghwa dipped his paintbrush into a blob of chestnut brown, spreading the colour across the edges of the lake. It was Spring, which meant he had finally reached the end of his project. He’d intended to prolong this one, knowing that the joy of completing the series would be overshadowed by a sense of nothingness—what would he have to do once this is over? When his entire year had been taken up with his silly little paintings?

He dabbed the tip of his brush into the burnt orange, blending it into the wet brown he had already laid down as the sun dipped in the sky overhead. A group of little kids were dancing about on the sidewalk, giggling amongst themselves while their mothers strolled slowly along overhead. The giggles, mixed with the sounds of the late-flying birds and the guitar strums he’d become accustomed to, made a lovely little soundtrack to the painting.

“That’s beautiful.” 

Seonghwa jumped, nearly sending a stray brush of orange into the low-hanging tree leaves. He turned his head, ensuring his brush was safely out of reach from the canvas, to see an apologetic face smiling back at him.

“Sorry,” the young woman said, bowing slightly, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Seonghwa shook his head, spinning around in the chair to face her front-on.

“It’s alright,” he told her with a soft smile. “And thank you. I found the lake to be quite beautiful, so I had to capture it.”

She straightened up and returned his smile. “I think you’ve done a good job of it thus far.”

The wind rustled through her hair, blowing a few loose strands of black hair from her ponytail and across her round face. She was short, only matching his seated height, and was practically drowning in a loose, purple sweater. Her cheeks were tinted with a light blush, and she squinted at him, as if trying to figure something out.

“Have you done this before? I could’ve sworn I saw a man painting here mid-winter.”

“Ah,” Seonghwa said, blushing under her gaze and turning back to the canvas. “Yeah, that was me.”

“Really?” She stepped back, voice holding an air of disbelief, “But that was months ago! Are you still not done?”

Seonghwa shook his head, pressing the head of his brush back into the burnt orange and continuing to blend the colours. It wasn’t like the paint would dry out—he was using oils, which took a year to be completely and fully dry—but he still preferred to blend while the paint was fresh on the canvas. That, and the sun was waning. He was losing light and colour.

“I finished that piece a while ago—this is a new one. I’m doing one for each season.”

“That’s incredible! Can I see the others?” She asked, bouncing on her feet.

Seonghwa just shook his head, dabbing his brush in a slightly lighter orange and continuing on the surface of the lake. “I don’t have them here, sorry.”

“What about a photo?”

He shook his head again, being careful to pause in his painting while he moved, though he was early in the process and could afford a fuck-up if he made one. “I haven’t taken any photos of them.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Seonghwa turned to face her again, watching as her eyebrows drew to a frown, loose black hair dancing over her forehead. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there’s something romantic about being away from technology. I like how it’s only visible in person.”

She grinned at him, “I suppose so.”

Silence stretched on between them for a moment. Seonghwa tucked a loose strand of white hair behind his ear as he continued with the piece. The young woman stayed a few moments longer, happily watching him dab colours on the canvas, slowly filling in the base colouring of the lake. 

Eventually, though, she bid him a thank you and a cheerful goodbye, and continued on her way. The sun had completely fallen from the sky by that point, and Seonghwa used the last remnants of light to finish the surface of the water before he began to pack up.

After painting at the lake so many evenings, Seonghwa had become a master of packing up and taking everything to his car in one singular trip. He’d moved his oil paints from a box into a little duffel bag—which made it less organised but was much easier to carry—and he’d attached a little string to the back of his canvas so that he could carry it from his fingertips as he lugged the fold-up easel and stool back across the gardens to his little red Fiat. 

Unfortunately, this evening his stool didn’t want to cooperate, stubbornly staying open. He tugged on it a few times, pushing with all his might so that the stool folded up against the metal legs, but it stayed open and ready for use.

“Stupid little…” Seonghwa muttered, glaring at the unassuming black leather seat. He was going to have to juggle the open stool all the way back to his car. He didn’t want to risk multiple trips, in case someone snatched it up. It was a good, reliable little stool, all else considered.

Seonghwa hitched the duffle bag as far over his shoulder as he could, the bag of paints and brushes clanging against his back. Hooking one arm under a wooden bar across the easel, he picked up the stool by the seat, his other hand grasping the other side with the painting hung carefully on his fingertips.

He took a step forward, then another, careened slightly to the left, then continued making his way off the bank and to the gravel garden path. He stopped for a minute there, shoes crunching against the hard gravel, and he placed the stool down in a huff. This was going to be a long trek home.

It certainly was slow going—every few metres he had to stop again, placing the stool down before he stumbled too far to the left and fell off the path, coating his knees and his painting in dirt. The weight of the stool made his hands go red with the strength of his grip, and the wooden beam from his easel dug uncomfortably in the crook of his elbow. The duffel bag had swung off his back multiple times, clashing against the easel and making him pause before he went tumbling over. A few people glanced his way, pitying looks on their faces as they made way around him, but not one offered for help, until—

“Did you need a hand?” A soft voice called out, and Seonghwa lifted his head from the gravel pathway to spot a young man, likely somewhere around his own age, strutting down the grassy hill. His hair was a curly brown and he was wearing tight black skinny jeans hiked far above his waist. Strapped across his back was a tawny brown acoustic guitar, and a cream-coloured tote bag with a yellow smiley face hung at his side.

When he grinned, the corners of his mouth turned up almost cat-like, and his eyes disappeared into little crescent moons. Seonghwa heard his heart thump slightly in his chest, a little blush creeping high on his cheeks. The young man looked at him almost expectantly, and it was then that Seonghwa had remembered he’d asked him a question.

“Oh! Uh, yeah! That would be helpful, thank you.”

The young man smiled wider, stepping forward to take the stool from Seonghwa’s hands. Instantly, Seonghwa felt lighter. He grinned in appreciation, shifting the easel more conformably on his arm, before leading the way down the gravel path, the young man following along with a bounce in his step.

They continued along in silence. Seonghwa didn’t really know how to start up a conversation with the helpful stranger, but it didn’t seem like he needed to—the young man seemed happy enough strolling by his side, listening to the bugs of the night begin to chirp as they made their way for the exit. Seonghwa eyed the guitar at his back, wondering whether he was the same guitar player that had been the soundtrack to so many of his evenings painting by the lake, but he had no way of knowing for sure—he’d never seen the allusive guitar player.

“This is me,” Seonghwa said as they had finally reached his little red Fiat, sitting on the side of the road. The young man dropped the stool down on the nature strip beside it, stretching out his arms and fixing the guitar strap across his chest.

“Did you want help putting everything in the car?”

“Yes, please,” Seonghwa breathed with a thankful sigh, happy to have the extra hands. 

He dropped the duffel bag of paints on the ground, deciding to first wrestle with getting the easel into the car as it was the longest and generally most difficult thing to fit. Luckily, he’d kept his passenger seat down on the drive there, so it was relatively easy to slip in. 

The young man tried his hand at getting the stool to fold in, but he was smaller than Seonghwa, so he didn’t believe he’d have a chance. True to his thoughts, the young man gave up after struggling for a few minutes, huffing in much the same way Seonghwa had.

“Bastard of a thing,” the man muttered, and Seonghwa let out a light chuckle.

“You said it.”

Together, they lifted the stool into the car and let it rest atop the folded-up art easel. Seonghwa just hoped that the open metal rungs wouldn’t splinter the paint-stained wood.

“Thanks for all your help,” Seonghwa told him, dumping the duffel bag behind the driver’s seat after securing his wet painting in a small, open wooden box he’d built for the purpose of travelling with wet paintings. “Really, it was kind of you.”

The young man shrugged, tucking his fingers into his tight jean pockets. “It was nothing. I’m just surprised no one else did.”

With soft smiles, the pair bid each other farewell, Seonghwa watching the young man’s guitar bounce along with his step as he walked away. He stepped into his car, hit with a wave of heat from the mid-Spring air, and turned on whatever songs were on the radio’s rotation.

It was only when he got home, heaving his stool into his parent’s garage—this time, thankfully, on its own—that he realised he’d never gotten his helpful stranger’s name.

With a sorrowful sigh, Seonghwa reached into the backseat to grab his duffel bag of paints, grumbling when he saw that he hadn’t even zipped it up fully. He tugged the strap upwards, taking care to rest the bag on the seat and not atop his painting, and reached as far as he could for the zipper.

As he did so, his eyes caught onto a sliver of silver, reflecting the car lights back at him. Frowning, Seonghwa pressed his hand into the bag until his fingers brushed against something foreign. He pulled the object out, hands dusting off the bits of dried paint and eraser shavings that had collected in the bag.

There lay a little CD, shoved in a square, plastic sleeve. He ran his fingers along the top, admiring the looping handwriting on the CD’s front:

To My Beautiful Stranger.

– ☆ –

How can you miss someone you’ve never met?

‘Cause I need you now but I don’t know you yet

IDK You Yet – Alexander 23

– ☆ –

Seonghwa shoved the portafilter into the grouphead, tugging it three times to ensure it was safe and secure before letting the machine run water through the ground coffee beans. He glared at the machine, hand still on the handle, as he watched the timer tick beside it. After a few too many seconds, the coffee began to pour.

The little coffee shop Seonghwa spent most of his days working at sat two streets down from Gyeongsang National University, making it a hot-spot for sleep-deprived university students in need of a pick-me-up, and was only about a 20-minute drive from the botanical gardens where he spent his evenings painting. Sometimes, he wished his shifts ended slightly later, as the coffee shop was on the way from his home to the arboretum, but then again, after experiencing the dead silence of the afternoon shift, he was thankful the latest they closed was 2 o’clock.

The coffee shop was small, filled with only three two-seater coffee tables along the wall. The tiny space seemed stuffy, even though it was only minimally decorated—tall plants sat in three of the shop corners, and some corny posters a mother would buy for her kitchen were plastered on the bare, white walls, reading: Live, Love, Coffee. Besides the few trinkets and sole pot plant on the counter, the place was quite bare. But students loved the bronze swooping lights on the ceiling and tapping their toes at the white tiles you could purchase at the counter for a name inscription. Seonghwa had considered buying his own tile, but had decided against having his name permanently scratched into the floor of the coffee shop he worked at in his 20s, especially when it would only be stained with dirt and coffee in time.

He sighed as he watched the stream of coffee pour into the cup, the colour slightly off. He quickly glanced over at his co-worker at the register. “Has management even read the letter about a machine replacement yet?”

His co-worker, Yunho, who was as tall as he was kind, slapped a tea towel over his shoulder and shrugged. “It took them two months to check the leaking fridge, and another two months before they had someone out to fix it. We only sent the letter three weeks ago.”

Seonghwa groaned, tapping at the handle as the coffee was still running—taking far longer than it should have. Though, he supposed, he’d rather serve burnt coffee in a cup than wear it on his brand-new white button-up. Unlocking the portafilter, he tapped it against the bin where all the sopping-wet coffee grains went and began to steam the milk.

“We’ve been losing customers because the coffee tastes like shit.” Seonghwa said, raising his voice over the sound of the steam wand until he found the little sweet spot. Who cares if he didn’t steam the milk properly anyway? The coffee was going to taste terrible either way. “I’m surprised we haven’t gotten any bad google reviews. That would make management check their emails.”

Yunho laughed, using a pair of tongs to re-arrange the glass cookie display, even though Seonghwa had straightened it only ten minutes ago. Always make sure you look busy, his manager’s voice chanted in his head. Even when there’s only two customers in the store, his mind added.

“We need more pretentious customers, that’d do it. Uni students are just too kind and show their disappointment by never coming back.” 

“Half of those uni students don’t even like the taste. They just need it to get through the day,” Seonghwa replied, shaking a generous helping of chocolate over the foam in hopes it would hide some of the burnt coffee taste. He slapped a lid on the top and called out the name Yunho had scribbled on the side of the cup. One of the only two customers in the store, a young girl with bags under her eyes, came forward to receive the cup, giving him a small bow before hurrying out of the store.

When he turned back around, Yunho was already at the machine, cleaning down the grouphead and steam wand, though it wasn’t going to do much to help the taste of the burnt coffee. 

“Honestly, though,” Yunho said, spinning around to face Seonghwa and leaning back against the bench. “I’d prefer to serve sleep-deprived uni students burnt coffee than deal with some middle-aged man yelling at me because he wants a cappuccino with no chocolate, not a latte,” He finished, voice raising in mocking toward the end. He swung his dirty tea towel over his shoulder, luckily wearing a black shirt that would hide the flakes of coffee beans. Seonghwa preferred to wear white, which unfortunately meant any mess showed up much more obviously, but also didn’t soak in the smell of milk as much as the black did.

They paced around behind the counter, mumbling the lyrics to Yunho’s playlist as they attempted to find something to do. Yunho continued straightening pastries, while Seonghwa began to scrub the same spot of mould along the fridge door that he’d been attempting to get rid of the past two weeks—Yunho said it wouldn’t budge, but Seonghwa swore there were fewer black spots than there was two weeks ago. Afternoon shifts were quiet and dull on a regular day, but had become even more excruciating ever since the coffee machine broke and began churning out burnt coffee. Seonghwa spent most of that time replaying moments that had happened over the past few days, or planning what parts of the painting he was going to complete the following evening.

This particular afternoon, Seonghwa’s mind was filled with the strange little CD he had found in his paint bag.

“Oh!” Seonghwa exclaimed, sitting back on his heels and pausing in his mission of scrubbing the fridge door, realising he hadn’t shared the news with Yunho yet. Yunho spun to face him; a croissant still clamped in his pair of metal tongs. “Did I tell you? Something weird happened to me the other day.”

Yunho gestured for Seonghwa to continue with the croissant.

“After my painting session yesterday, I came home and found a CD in my paint bag!”

“Oh?” Yunho said, voice raising in interest.

Seonghwa hummed through a grin. “I don’t know who gave it to me, but they’d written ‘to my Beautiful Stranger’ on the front, so they might be a creep.”

“What was on the CD? Any weird audio messages or something about watching you in your sleep?” Yunho asked through a cheeky grin.

Seonghwa shook his head, spinning to spray even more Ajax spray against the mould spot and continue his mission. “I haven’t listened to it.”

Yunho paused, the croissant in his tong’s grip beginning to crush—though it wasn’t like anyone else was going to come in before close anyway, Yunho may just win the prize of taking the crushed croissant home. “What do you mean you haven’t listened yet?”

Seonghwa frowned, “It’s creepy!” He argued, scrubbing harder into the fridge door. “What if it’s some scary old guy who wants to kidnap me? And listening to the CD will alert him of my location and he’ll take me from my bed in the night!”

Yunho heaved a sigh. “It’s a CD, hyung. If it had a GPS tracker on it, you’d see it.” He turned away from him then, placing the poor, crushed croissant back in the glass case. “Besides, what if it’s some cute girl waxing poetry?”

“I don’t like women like that, you know this,” Seonghwa told him, ignoring Yunho’s previous comments.

“Guy, then.” He replied, waving his hand dismissively.

Seonghwa sighed, dropping the dirty rag onto his knees. “Even if I wanted to listen, I don’t have anything to listen to a CD on.”

Yunho frowned. “You don’t have a CD port in your car?”

He did, but it had been jammed with some old Cho Yongpil album from the 80s by the owners of the car before him, and no matter how many times his mother had gone on about how great of an artist he was, there was only so many times he could listen to Forgotten Love before he was sick of it. He’d tried to get the CD out, but no matter what he did, the damn thing was as stubborn as his art stool.

“Then buy a CD player,” Yunho told him, pressing his tongs on either side of the crushed croissant in an attempt to give it more life again. “They’re quite cheap, you know.”

– ☆ –

Beautiful Stranger, sitting right there

Looked up at me and my dark curly hair

Looked back for a second, didn’t want to be rude

I tend to fall in love on the tube

Beautiful Stranger – Laufey

– ☆ –

The silver bell above the doorframe chimed as Seonghwa stepped into his favourite little vintage shop, his shoes tapping on the worn wooden flooring.

He knew he could go to some department store to grab a CD player, or one of the various music shops around town, but as soon as Yunho had mentioned buying a player, Seonghwa knew the one he wanted.

He’d seen it there weeks ago, sitting atop a glass shelf filled with various little trinkets—old wooden statues of war-time figures, a set of mis-matched ceramic cups with floral designs, a blue glass-blown goose. It was white with little pink accents along the sides, probably belonging to some teenage girl in the late 2000s. He wondered whether she’d danced along to SHINee in her bedroom, blaring the songs throughout the house and using a hairbrush as a microphone. There was a string of letters on the back of the player, too faded with obvious scrubbing to tell what they read, but still visible enough to know that it had been well-loved. Well, loved enough before it had made its way to the vintage store.

He'd by-passed the player on his trip there a few weeks back, justifying the decision given he didn’t really have reason to buy a CD player, no matter how cute it would look in his room. He listened to all his favourite songs on his phone, anyway, and could easily spend his money on a speaker if he truly wanted better sound quality.

But now, though, he supposed he did have a reason to splurge on a player, despite his fears that it was some creepy audio threatening him with a kidnapping. Yunho was right—there wasn’t much someone could do from a CD. If he’d been gifted a hard drive, that’s where his worries would be valid—all the different ways someone could hack him, or give him a virus, or track his location. A CD was just that, and the worst harm that could come to him was listening to a disturbing audio. 

He made his way through the small vintage shop. It was quite a squeeze, filled to the brim with racks of clothing and shelves of odd little trinkets. He’s found a fair few treasured clothing items amongst the old pieces—a shimmering scarf, a long black coat with a furred trim, a pair of old denim jeans with embroidered stars on the bottoms—and once even stumbled across an old set of paintbrushes, still in relatively good condition. The shopkeeper had sold them to him for a measly ₩4500, which he’d believed was a steal. Since then, he’d been back as much as his coffee shop salary would let him.

Clothes of black satin and covered in gemstones brushed against his arm and sung for his name, but he was determined to find that CD player, hoping that it hadn’t already been taken to a new home. A soft song trilled over the shop, some old band he’s sure his mother had raved on about at some point in time, when he finally laid his eyes on his desired player.

He grazed his hand carefully over the lid, elbow bent at an awkward angle to not accidently bump one of the delicate pieces off the shelf. A few new porcelain trinkets had joined the player and the glass goose, but his eyes stayed admiring the CD player.

Carefully, he picked it up, shocked to remember how heavy CD players actually were. He walked it over to the counter, resting it gently on the wooden surface as the shopkeeper eyed him.

“CDs back in fashion then?” She said, dragging the player carelessly towards her and tipping it upside down to check the marked price.

She was a little old lady, co-owner of the shop along with her husband. She lived in the housing unit above the store, and though she smelt as damp as the air in the shop, she had a lovely little smile, and always offered Seonghwa the wrapped little chocolates on the countertop. Many didn’t see her kindness, for she spoke in a brash sort-of way, but she truly had a heart of gold.

“Hmm?” Seonghwa hummed in confusion.

“First it was the vinyls, now this. Personally, I thought cassettes would make a comeback first.” She said, eyes on the till as she tapped the price in.

“Oh!” Seonghwa said, finally registering what she’d meant. “No, I don’t think they are. I just found an old CD and needed somewhere to play it.”

The lady hummed, tapping away at the till before finally telling Seonghwa the price, obviously not so interested in whatever reason Seonghwa was buying the player for if it was not made of small talk. He handed over the cash and left the store with his wallet lighter but his hands heavy with his little white-and-pink CD player.

His ride home fell to the sound of IU blaring through his speakers on the radio, the little CD player nestled in the passenger seat that Seonghwa had sat upright for that very reason. 

His parents were out as he let himself into the quaint little home, shuffling out of his shoes and leaving them on the stand by the door. He moved swiftly through the house, surprised to find himself eager to get to his room and open the little CD from the creepy stranger. He paused for a second to grab a piece of fruit from the bowl on the tea room counter, using his foot to nudge open his bedroom door.

His bedroom was his haven, filled with memories of old and new. His desk was covered in neatly stacked sketchbooks and pencils, with a pegboard above it covered in some of his favourite pieces and a few hanging plants. A glass cabinet sat to the left of it, holding a few lego pieces and projects, illuminated by strings of LED lights. His bed leaned against the right-hand side of his room, covered in a neat stack of pillows and plushies, with a grid of polaroids plastered above the backboard. He had a few stray plants in the room and a brass watering can settled on the floor beside the biggest pot.

He knew it would be hell to pack everything away when he inevitably moved out, but for now this place was his own personal heaven.

He settled the CD player on a little trolley by his bedside, reaching behind his bed to plug it in the wall socket. It flared alive; an out-of-sync clock blinking awake on the small stretch of black screen.

Shoving the piece of fruit in his mouth, Seonghwa moved across the room to his wardrobe, where he’d discarded the CD in the bottom of his sock drawer, as if it was some kind of secret he didn’t want his parent’s discovering (though, to be fair, his mother probably would’ve taken one look at the permanent marker scrawled across the CD front before telling him to light the thing on fire).

He pulled it out of the drawer, fingertips dancing over the looping handwriting before spinning it over to its back to pull out the CD. It was then that he noticed the letter.

While the font of the sleeve was clear plastic, the back was a white mesh-type material. And along the back, in the same loopy handwriting that covered the front of the CD, was a small letter written in a blue ball-point pen.

Seonghwa reread the letter a few more times, in hopes that he could identify the writer or, at the very least, their intentions. But, unfortunately, he had no clue as to who could have slipped the CD into his bag. The young woman with the loose black ponytail? The young man who had helped him carry his bags to his car? Some other, random stranger who had stumbled upon him as he was so enraptured with his work, slipping it in the bag without Seonghwa even being aware someone else was there? It seemed this stranger had been watching him for a while, it wasn’t far of a stretch to say that they’d been able to slip a CD in Seonghwa’s bag unknowingly when he’d never even noticed someone had been watching him for so long.

Carefully, he drew the CD out of the sleeve, slotting it over his index finger as he opened the lid on his new CD player before placing it inside. 

His finger danced over the play button, nerves making balls of sweat gather at his fingertips. The worst that could happen is a disturbing audio, he reminded himself, pushing out a careful breath of air before he finally hit play.

He waited with bated breath for a few moments, only the sound of the CD softly whirring alive, before the soft taps of a drumbeat echoed around the room, a piano chiming in a few seconds later. He let go of the breath, relaxing back onto his bed. Not a creepy audio, but, truly, a little playlist made by an admirer.

I’ve been watching your world from afar,

I’ve been trying to be where you are,

And I’ve been secretly falling apart,

Unseen.

Seonghwa closed his eyes, laying back fully onto his bed as the melody began. The song was in English, only a few words he could recognise from his classes in school, and the artist was unfamiliar, but there was something about the soft melody that made him smile.

So, he spent the rest of the day there, letting the songs wash over him, promising himself that later that evening he would translate the songs. But for now, the soft melody and the piano keys were enough.

– ☆ –

I wanna tell you how I feel

But I don’t know if you are real

So I guess that I’ll have to wait and see

Flower Girl – Nozzi

– ☆ –

“Seonghwa-hyung!” A voice yelled from the other end of the receiver, making Seonghwa pull the phone away from his ear in annoyance. “You never call!”

Seonghwa grumbled, placing the phone on the marbled countertop and tapping the speaker button as he went about putting away the groceries he’d just purchased. The plastic bag rustled as he answered, “There’s a reason for that.”

“Rude.” The voice replied, mock offense dripping in his tone. Seonghwa grabbed a packet of noodles from the top of the bag and spun to place it on its designated shelf. “It’s okay. I know you love me.”

“Debateable,” Seonghwa muttered, but his phone speaker must’ve picked up his voice because the man on the other end began cackling.

Seonghwa had known Wooyoung from when he was young, the two briefly attending the same elementary and middle schools. Wooyoung was a city boy, but had moved away to the countryside after his parent’s divorce. Though he’d been in the grade below, the two of them were new to Jinju at the same time, so had become friends easily, especially with Wooyoung’s rowdy and clingy personality. By high school, however, Wooyoung’s younger brother had been born, and his family had decided to move back to the city to raise the boy. He and Wooyoung kept in touch often, more on Wooyoung’s part if he were honest, and their friendship had only strengthened in their time apart.

“You should move here, Hwa-hyung.” Wooyoung recited, his usual opening to their calls. “The city’s so nice, and there’s so many art programs. I recently met a cute guy that you might be interested in, too!”

Seonghwa stacked two cans of tomatoes in the pantry, pushing them against the side of the wall to make more room. Ignoring Wooyoung’s usual persistence of moving to the city and his match-making, he said, “actually, I kinda wanted to talk to you about something.”

He heard Wooyoung gasp on the other end, and a fumbling of material made it sound as if he’d dropped his phone. A few seconds later, Wooyoung was gasping into the phone, a string of guesses on his tongue. “You’re moving here?”

“No.”

“You’re coming to visit?”

“No. Sorry.”

“You met someone?”

“Well—”

“No way!” Wooyoung gasped, light giggles filling the air as Seonghwa paced back and forth from his grocery bags to the fridge and pantry. “Sangie, Seonghwa-hyung’s finally got himself a man!”

“That’s not…” he mumbled as distant words of congratulations trickled over the connection from Wooyoung’s boyfriend. Seonghwa groaned, resting his head against the countertop as he would now have to explain to not only Wooyoung, but Yeosang—who he’d never actually met—that he hadn’t actually found himself a boyfriend. Just some secret admirer too scared to show their face.

“How did you meet?” Wooyoung rushed out, returning to their conversation with renewed interest. “Was it a meet-cute? Did you fall into his arms and declare your love? Oh! Did he fall into your arms and declare his love?”

“Slow down, Young-ah.”

Wooyoung giggled into the phone as Seonghwa sighed, pushing upwards from the bench and swaying his body forward to lean over the phone. 

“I didn’t actually meet them.”

“Huh?” Wooyoung asked, pure confusion ringing over the line. He heard a distant voice call out something, and Wooyoung yelled back in reply before quickly getting back to the conversation. “What do you mean you haven’t met them?”

Seonghwa sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s kind of a weird story.” He said, finally moving from the bench and shoving the empty shopping bags into his bag of bags under the kitchen sink. “I found this CD—”

“Hold on a sec,” Wooyoung said, as Yeosang’s voice rang over the line again. “It should be on the second shelf!” He yelled out, then pressed the phone back against his ear, “Sorry, you were saying? A CD?”

“Yes,” Seonghwa moved from the kitchen and sat himself on the living room couch, curling his legs underneath himself. “After painting at the gardens—I’ve told you about my painting project before—I found a CD in my paint bag from a so-called secret admirer. It had a playlist of love songs about falling for a stranger.”

“It’s on the left-hand side!” Wooyoung called again. “A secret admirer you said? Oh Hwa-hyung! This is better than I could have imagined!”

Seonghwa groaned into the speaker, shifting so he was laying more comfortably on the back of the couch. “That’s the thing though—it’s a secret admirer. They could be anyone!”

“Well, do you have any guesses?”

He did. Ever since he’d finally listened to the playlist the day before, he’d spent the entirety of last night and his whole morning shopping trip thinking over all possible identities of his admirer. There was the girl he had spoken to, the helpful stranger who had carried his stool, the few people that had passed him by that day that may have had a chance to slip the CD into the bag without him even noticing. And even if it were the young man or woman who had spoken to him that day, they could have just slipped it in on someone else’s behalf. Maybe it wasn’t even from that day, and some other time before, and he had only just found the CD due to all the thrashing his bag went through as he juggled with the easel and the open stool on his way back to the car. It still could have been a creep, or someone way out of his acceptable age range. The possibilities were truly endless.

“So you’re saying you could have a sugar daddy,” Wooyoung giggled after Seonghwa had dropped his extensive list of potential admirers, “or mama—I’m not misogynistic. I support women in male-dominated fields.”

“I listed a hundred different options, and that was what you got from it?”

Before Wooyoung could reply, Yeosang’s voice echoed over the phone again. He heard Wooyoung sigh and a shift of material before he told him, “give me one second, I’ll be back.”

Seonghwa shuffled about on the couch for a moment until he was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling as he listened to Wooyoung and Yeosang’s distant voices on the phone. Finally, after one loud smacking-noise that Seonghwa was sure was a slap on the arse that he did not need to hear from however many rooms away, Wooyoung returned to the call.

“So, a sugar daddy, huh?”

“I’m never talking to you again.”

“Wait, wait! Don’t end the call! I’m sorry.” Wooyoung apologised, though he immediately broke into giggles afterwards which made Seonghwa sceptical of the sincerity. “So, have you tried looking for them?”

“No.” Seonghwa said, biting a nail that had suddenly flicked up and caught on every thread of his clothing.

“Why not!?”

“Because I haven’t been back to the park yet. I found it, like, two days ago.” 

“So go tonight! Look out for any handsome men, women or dilfs that might be trying to catch your attention.”

“And if it’s some creepy guy?” Seonghwa said, ignoring the comment about dilfs as he sat up to throw the chewed-off nail in the bin.

Wooyoung scoffed, obviously unconcerned with the prospect of some possible kidnapper after him. “There’s creeps everywhere, men and women, hyung!” He scolded. “Besides, I don’t think some kidnapper would go to the effort of curating an entire playlist full of songs about falling in love with a stranger. They’d just kidnap you.”

“You never know.” Seonghwa said, leaning against the kitchen counter again after throwing the bin lid closed. “Could be some weird-ass kink of theirs.”

“Don’t kink shame,” he scolded again. “This could be your chance at a drama-level romance! Get back out there and start looking for the love of your life!”

“And if it’s a woman?”

“Smile at her and she’ll take the hint,” Wooyoung told him simply. “Honestly, hyung, you exude such gay energy and you wonder why you haven’t been asked out by many women. It’s because they know from one look at you that you like it up the butt!”

“I’m ending the call now.”

“No, wait!” Wooyoung said, scrambling with the phone. “I’m sorry, hyung. I promise I won’t say something like that again.”

“You say that a lot.” Seonghwa told him, rolling his eyes. Honestly, there was a reason Wooyoung was often the one calling him. And even then, he could never escape his comments.

“Pinkie promise.”

“So I should just, what, look around?” Seonghwa asked instead, shifting the conversation back on topic.

“Yeah, it’s that simple.” Wooyoung said, likely taking the shift in conversation as an acceptance of his pinkie promise. “They’ve clearly been watching you a while. I’m sure you’ll find some handsome stranger in the shadows.”

“And then what?” Seonghwa was disappointed to find him hanging onto every word, taking whatever piece of love-wisdom Wooyoung seemed to possess.

“And then you go up to them! If they’re a woman, refer to what we’ve just discussed. If they’re a man—or non-binary, who knows—and if they’re hot, ask them out. Go on a million dates, fall in love, and then have the roughest, most tear-jerking sex you’ve ever had in your lif—”

Seonghwa ended the call before Wooyoung had even finished his sentence.

He placed the phone on the countertop, pushing air from his lungs. Wooyoung, with all his jokes, was a nice voice of reason to hear, anyway. He had no idea who the admirer was, but it couldn’t hurt to look for them. Whatever came after that was something Seonghwa would let fate decide.

– ☆ –

Our eyes meet

And I can tell you’re just the same as me

It’s the way we

The way we see ourselves through walls of trees

All This Time – Louis Tomlinson

– ☆ –

The evening couldn’t have come fast enough.

Seonghwa spent the rest of the day after his call with Wooyoung re-ordering the pantry and pacing about his home before finally deciding to take the drive across the river to the arboretum. He’d gotten there way too early, with at least 2 hours to spare until sunset after he’d unpacked his entire set-up. 

He wanted to start looking for his secret admirer, but he didn’t want to stray too far from his set-up in fear of having something stolen—he’d lost his ultraviolet blue and favourite detail brush before, and didn’t want to risk the same thing happening again—so he stayed put. He didn’t think that would truly matter, though, as his admirer would obviously have to spend their time watching him from somewhere within his own line of sight.

So, as he waited for the sun to dip, he cast his eyes around him. It was shocking, honestly, to notice details he hadn’t before, after spending so many hours in this very spot.

For the first time, he’d noticed a patch of forsythia in the bank just before him, tipping forward so a few sprigs of flowers lightly grazed the water’s surface. The grass there was long and unkempt, but he noticed the dottings of clovers sprinkled amongst the tall blades. The trees beside him had begun to bear flowers, filling up the space with more colours of spring. It was, truly, a gorgeous sight.

Across the lake sat a small gazebo, its roof curved to the sky. Seonghwa had spent hours on its detailings, making sure to get every intricate wood carving just right. People spilled beneath it, twisting their way through the garden on the other side as they admired the stretch of lake. A few people noticed him, but they were the usual surprised or intrigued looks he got whenever he sat by the lake with his easel and canvas. He watched a mother sit her three, restless kids down on the gazebo steps and feed them sandwiches she’d pulled out of her backpack before moving his eyes elsewhere.

He spun around, his eyes darting between the stretch of trees and spreads of flowers behind him. There was a little stone bench on the opposite side of the gravel path, with dots of little pink flowers at its feet. A couple sat there, sharing a plate of whatever food they’d purchased from the restaurant at one of the entrances to the gardens. Likely not one of his admirers.

Beyond the path was a gentle slope, filled with winding trails of bushes and dotted with trees. Occasionally, he’d seen a few people sit in the shade below the trees, whose arms were wide and domed. A boy sat there most often, strumming away at his acoustic guitar, though he was not there today. Seonghwa briefly wondered if it was his helpful stranger all that time, but he could’ve sworn the boy with the guitar sported bright orange hair, and not the dark brown curly mop that his helpful stranger had pushed from his sweaty forehead when he placed the stool down on the roadside.

Could that boy with the guitar have been his secret admirer? Perhaps—he clearly had a love and appreciation for music. But he was always so far away and so enraptured in his guitar strings and song that Seonghwa believed the man didn’t even have an idea of his surroundings, let alone a young man sitting by the lakeside with his canvas and brush. It was so easy to be all-consumed by one’s art that you forget to notice the simple details of the world around you, of the beauty in it. Seonghwa spent his time trying to capture just a piece of that beauty, but in doing so, often forgot to admire what sat outside that small field of view.

He spent the next two hours by that lakeside, watching people live in their own little worlds. One of the workers strolled past at one point, nodding at Seonghwa. He was quite renown amongst the small spattering of staff here, them having spent multiple evenings over his shoulder admiring his work—and also possibly watching to ensure he didn’t spill any toxic paint onto the garden floor and mess with the nature and tranquility of the place. They were cautious at first, but after so long there, he’d garnered their respect and admiration, so he could continue his little project in peace.

Colours began to sink into the sky, and Seonghwa finally cracked open his pre-mixed palette to continue his painting. It was slow-going this evening, given he kept a hyper-vigilant eye out for any passing strangers and possible admirers. He stopped every few minutes, hearing the rustle of the wind in the trees, a bird taking flight, a young child giggling somewhere out of sight. As soon as someone’s shoes crunched on the gravel behind him, Seonghwa would spin around, eyeing them as they moved from one side of his vision to the other. A few curious looks were sent his way, but they were all the usual inquiry of his art, not his person.

By nightfall, he’d only managed to get the base colouring down on the trunk and branches of a singular tree, having spent most of his time with his eyes beyond his canvas. He stayed a little longer than usual, hoping for approach, hoping for a sign.

But no one attempted to return his looks or try to catch his eye. No one came over to talk to him or even stare longingly his way. There was no new playlist in his paint bag or tucked under the seat of his stool. It was possible that the secret admirer wanted to stay just that—a secret. Too shy to show their face, or perhaps only wanted to make it known that they saw Seonghwa as their muse, and wanted to pursue nothing more than a relationship of distant strangers.

Whatever the case, his secret admirer did not come by that evening, nor did they drop a new playlist in his lap. They either didn’t want to try or, more simply—

They weren’t there.

– ☆ –

At morning when the air is new, your presence lingers on 

Tears upon the pillow where you lay 

My coffee’s getting colder while I wonder where you’ve gone 

Better off alone than be 

A fool in the rain, hoping you’ll come by

I wish for the rain – Liana Flores

– ☆ –