Work Text:
From a very young age, Lee Hwitaek painted the world.
When he was but seven years of age, he used to tug on his mum’s hand, pointing to a tree somewhere off in the distance as they walked through the park.
“Look, mum!” he’d said, joyful, eager and alight. “Look at that tree!”
His mother would look down, smile fondly as all mothers do. “I see, Hwitaek. It’s a lovely little tree.”
Hwitaek had nodded, very serious, very sincere. “It’s lovely,” he’d agreed and his mum had laughed.
Later that day, he’d pulled out his box of crayons and made quick work of his memory. He sketched the itchy brown bark and the optimistically pointed branches and the leaves that hung softly like little green tongues, read to lap up the sun. Hwitaek used his best crayons, was careful to colour dark enough for added emphasis, and only when he was absolutely certain he was finished (and did the best that he could do) did he show his mum and dad.
“Why, Hwitaek!” Mum had all but gasped. “That’s beautiful, honey!”
His father agreed and Hwitaek smiled wide as his mother hung the picture on the fridge. He’d felt so good about it, so proud and sure about the tree and the crayons and the way it made the world smile, that he painted another tree the next day. And then a garden the day after that. And for all the days after, Hwitaek painted the world.
That is.
Until he met Hyojong.
Hwitaek painted Hyojong.
He didn’t always though, of course. From when he was that fresh, young pup with a chipped palette and mismatched paintbrushes to the time he’d graduated from uni with an unwanted degree in literature and a canvas bag filled with rolled up parchment paper and long, wooden brushes with fine bristles, he’d only painted the way the willow trees swayed in time to the crickets and the water reflected happy promises and new beginnings. Hwitaek painted the same beautiful, happy things—the world—until he was the sweet age of twenty-four.
At twenty-four, the world changed.
It was the sunniest sort of day the day that Hwitaek found Kim Hyojong. Freshly graduated and on the brink of a promising future as a baker and part-time artist, Hwitaek had found a lovely routine in life. Every afternoon after he’d left work, smelling of fresh bread and spattered with globs of icing, Hwitaek would haul his old, worn leather bag the colour of squirrel fur down to the bridge that arched gently over the river. Set in the middle of the city, the bridge was a beautiful spot to set up his easel and paint the varying colours of the sky and the way the water rippled beneath it. From his spot—smack dab in the middle of the sturdy, bridge made of stones and wood and made only for those on foot—he was also able to see the blue, peaked mountains in the distance and, oftentimes, the tops of bristly evergreens as well. His city was a beautiful city, though, for it was filled with happy, happy trees and sunny, smiling flowers and gentle breezes that carried all the words that Hwitaek always thought but so very rarely spoke.
For Hwitaek was not a boy of words, but a boy of colours. In his bag he carried his thoughts and on the canvas and the parchment he released them into the world. And though oftentimes passerby would smile at him and send forth warm greetings of, “Hello, Hwitaek,” or “Good to see you, Hwitaek,” or even, “How beautiful, Hwitaek! You get better and better every day!”, Hwitaek would only offer forth a humbled smile and a small sincere bow of thanks. For he held so much love in his heart, but he only understood it best when it was streaked in oils and pigments.
And so Hwitaek lived and became known for his daily presence upon the bridge, always smearing earthtones onto portraits and charting the sun’s path and wearing a large brimmed hat (that shaded only some of the sun from his eyes) and soft, worn boots that peeled at the toes. And every day, Hwitaek painted the world.
Until the sunniest sort of day happened, of course.
That day, Hwitaek had arrived at his bridge a little late, for he had so carelessly burnt the bread before he left the bakery; he had been too lofty, too lost in his dreams as he stared out of the cracked window in the backroom and blinked against the cloudless expanses of blue and warm gold. Only after the first tendrils of smoke licked at his nostrils did he realize his error and, luckily, it was just in time.
So he had walked a bit faster that day since he was later than he’d ever been, the sweat pooling in the hollows of his skin and gleaming across his forehead as his heels clicked upon the stone paths that wound their way to the bridge that housed chatting passerby and vendors and small children with balloons and puppies and bright eyes. He had walked as fast as his heeled boots could go until he reached his spot, his usual, happy spot, and was just beginning to set up when he noticed a boy walking across the bridge.
Now, this was no unusual occurrence—plenty of boys walked across the bridge all of the time. But there were two special things about this moment in particular. One: Hwitaek often set up his easel well before the lunch-rush of midday occurred, and rarely saw actual people after he would begin painting, for he was always too lost in the sky. And two: This boy was far more beautiful than the sun.
No, perhaps this boy was the sun! He was certainly striking as such. He was a golden thing, small and svelte and smooth in ways that made the water bend to see. His bright blond hair glazed across small dark brown eyes in soft sweeps that had the trees sigh and his eyes were of such an alarming and unforgettable blue that the sky momentarily dimmed in its brief consideration of stealing the hue for itself. He walked in time with the breeze and his face was sculpted more delicate than the rocks that paved the river and this single boy possessed more beauty than every painting Hwitaek had ever had the good grace to paint.
Hwitaek was momentarily struck. And he immediately fell in love.
Every day after, Hwitaek arrived at that same time, in hopes to catch another glimpse of the boy. Every day after, Hwitaek moved his easel, so that instead of facing the river and the sky and the blue peaked mountains in the distance, it faced both the sky and the bridge and the chattering passerby. Every day after, Hwitaek painted the boy.
And it was luck and beauty and the world wrapping Hwitaek up in its warm embrace that brought the boy back into Hwitaek’s life. Every day, the boy would cross the bridge, eyes always set ahead, skin always alight. And every day, Hwitaek would blush and duck his head as he swirled his paints together to try and find the right shade for the boy’s skin, the right shade for the boy’s eyes. For, though he knew the colours of the world and the colours of the happy trees, he knew not the colour for love and the colour for breath. So Hwitaek swirled and Hwitaek smiled and Hwitaek tucked his blush into the folds of his worn collar brushed with flour.
It was only after careful observation did Hwitaek soon discover that this boy—his boy—worked at the restaurant across the street. The one with the terraces and ornate tables bent from wire. The one with white cotton table clothes and glass vases possessing just one single blushing rose. The boy was a waiter there, and soon, upon discovering this, Hwitaek began to stay on the bridge well into the evening, watched as the sun fell down. Distantly in his mind he wondered if he should be painting the way the sunbeams seemed to burn and bronze as the day went on, but he couldn’t care much. Not when his boy was so lovely and so gentle as he carried champagne flutes to smiling couples and elegant elderly ladies with clean pearls clipped around their necks. For how could he love a sightless, orange sun when there was a living, breathing one right before him?
No, Hwitaek could not paint the sun falling for he was still painting the crisp white collar of his boy’s starched shirt. He was painting the black, flawless apron tied primly around his small waist. He was painting his ebony work trousers that sung a song over the momentous arch of his bum and he was painting the polished onyx of his shoes that clicked across the stone of the terrace. And though these paintings held no sense or reason or, sometimes, not even a shape, they somehow made sense to Hwitaek. Because Hwitaek painted what this boy made him feel and cast the world into new directions and new colours and somehow it made sense.
After awhile, after weeks turned into months, Hwitaek began to move closer.
He began to set up his easel closer to the other side of the bridge—closer to the restaurant. And every day, after his boy would walk by and Hwitaek would get a little bit closer to finding the brosen of his eyes, Hwitaek would paint him and watch his graceful movements and hear him. He would hear the cadence of his voice.
And, oh, what a beautiful voice he had! It was the sound of tinkling bells and speckles of sunlight at dawn and birds taking flight into the sky, carried by mountain winds and the oxygen that escaped from the sighs of the trees. It was the sound that Hwitaek wanted to hear forever, and he tried to find a colour for it because he wanted to understand it.
Then, one day, his boy looked up while he was crossing the bridge.
Just as Hwitaek was selecting the right brush to paint his laugh, his boy looked up, his rolled up black apron in hand, and Hwitaek looked up, too.
Of course, Hwitaek froze.
Hwitaek froze as suddenly as he ever had, his entire body pausing under the weight of circumstance as his eyes met with the blue ones he had been so carefully painting for so, so long. And these brown eyes, these earnest and wonderful brown eyes that will never have a name, softened, much like the way the lark sounds when it sings its last trill.
“Hello,” smiled the boy with the nameless eyes and the smile that encompassed every colour in Hwitaek’s bag.
“Hi,” Hwitaek smiled back while bowing slightly, feeling crimson begin to lick his cheeks. And he ducked his head and swirled the colours of his boy’s laughter on his brush and by the time he looked up, he was gone. Still though, Hwitaek smiled until the moon rose, and he smiled after that, too.
Every day after that, Hwitaek and his boy said hello.
“Afternoon,” he would say just as Hwitaek’s chest would swell and the stars he saw in his boy’s eyes nearly quivered on the canvas.
“Afternoon, friend,” Hwitaek would eventually say back, voice barely above a whisper and shivering in time with the newly budded leaves on the tallest limbs of the tallest tree. And his boy would smile far and wide before continuing across the bridge, leaving more colours and more images and neverending possibilities in his wake.
And then one day the boy stopped.
“Hi, there,” he’d said, as was custom. But instead of continuing on his way, the boy walked to Hwitaek, his smile never breaking, nor his stride. “How are you today?”
Feeling the very tips of his toes burning with colour and fire and sun, Hwitaek cleared his throat, clutching at his paintbrushes in trembling hands. He gulped, looked from beneath the brim of his hat and up into the boy’s light.
“Hi,” he said first, then shuffled his feet and continued. “I’m really nice today. Can’t find a reason not to be nice when the sun is shining. How are you?” And he was almost positive that his voice hadn’t cracked, though he couldn’t be sure.
His boy seemed to smile wider, his eyes crinkling as fluidly as the ripples upon the surface of a lake. “Well, I suppose I have to say I’m nice, as well.” He said it with amusement, the words dyed with his grin. Hwitaek immediately wanted to find the colour. “Since you said so about the sun.”
“It’s true, though!” Hwitaek had replied immediately, momentarily forgetting that his heart wasn’t beating quite right. “If the world is throwing warmth and light upon you, how can you not throw it back? It would be rude!”
And his boy smiled still wider as he fell silent and caught Hwitaek’s eyes up in his own, and Hwitaek swallowed with whatever saliva was left in his throat.
“I’m Hyojong,” his boy said eventually, murmured and soft and tucked into his quirked lips.
“I’m Hwitaek,” Hwitaek beamed in a squeak and he extended one of his large, clumpy hands and adjusted the brim of his hat.
They shook hands, both smiling in time to each other, and the trees momentarily calmed in their dance with the wind, with a curious tilt to their trunks.
“I’m going to be late for work,” Hyojong had said, but it didn’t stop him from letting go of Hwitaek’s hand so very, very slowly, his fingertips sliding against Hwitaek’s own, “But it was nice to finally meet you.” And he began to stride off, each step procuring a new burst of imagery within Hwitaek, when suddenly he turned around and began to walk backwards, never once tripping or breaking stride as Hwitaek was sure he himself would have done.
“And by the way,” Hyojong added, face light and windswept, “Your paintings are brilliant.” And with that, he turned around and crossed the bridge.
And Hwitaek was never the same.
After the day that altered the earth, Hwitaek began to get a little bit braver with Hyojong.
“Hyojong!” he would say first, upon spotting the beacon of light making his way across the old stone bridge. And Hyojong would smile as if they were old school chums and trot a bit faster before reaching Hwitaek. They would chat, about little things like what time Hyojong worked and what Hwitaek did for a living and why Hwitaek always smelled so “delicious, like biscuits” all the time, and then Hyojong would say goodbye, tell Hwitaek that his painting was brilliant, and Hwitaek would feel wings sprouting on his heart.
Then eventually, Hyojong began to arrive even on the days he didn’t work.
“I thought I could just watch you paint? If you don’t mind?” he asked that first time, his legs exposed in oceanic blue shorts with tiny anchors speckling the surface. His limbs looked carefree and warm, exposed to the sun and air, and his hair was even less styled than usual, soft and fluffy and unkempt. The most beautiful boy in the world.
“Of course I don’t mind!” Hwitaek had said, delighted and wanting to laugh because his joy bubbled up inside of him and wanted to spill out. “How could I? I love the sun. And friends always make sure there are no clouds!”
And Hyojong laughed because there were indeed clouds that day, but Hwitaek insisted there couldn’t be, and Hyojong laughed more until finally he sat upon the bridge and watched Hwitaek paint.
“Oh no, you’ve made a mistake!” he said sadly, pointing his slim, golden finger at the spot Hwitaek had smudged so unexpectedly.
“There’s no such thing as mistakes,” Hwitaek had said with a smile as his brush continued its work, undeterred. “Just happy accidents.”
And Hyojong lowered his hand and settled it back in his lap, and when Hwitaek looked up to catch his eye, he was staring at him with a small smile. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.
As time went by, Hyojong came to Hwitaek every single day. Often, he would arrive well before his shift at the restaurant and merely sit with Hwitaek and watch him paint as they conversed about all the things Hwitaek never before knew how to say. Because Hyojong loved to talk and Hwitaek didn’t always know how, but Hyojong always seemed to coax the words and understand the unsaid ones, and Hwitaek loved the way Hyojong’s fingertips would skim the drying chunks of paint on the canvas, as if sealing all of Hwitaek’s rough edges with a kiss.
Then Hwitaek began bringing Hyojong little treats. Just little bakery treats. Like carefully frosted pink cupcakes and warm muffins and delicious biscuits and small loaves of bread.
“For me?” Hyojong had laughed that first time, face open and joyful as he protectively huddled the cupcake to his chest. He looked up into Hwitaek’s face with something that sounded like adoration when the birds chirped it.
Hwitaek nodded, pleased hands twisted behind his back. “For you,” he smiled, flushing and staring at his toes, and Hyojong had wrapped him inside of a hug without any pretense of hesitation, cupcake clutched in the golden hold of his hand.
“Thank you, happy painter friend,” he’d sighed sincerely, and the sound was Hwitaek’s next painting.
Eventually, after months and weeks and more months filled with words and laughter and baked goods and undiscovered brown eyes, Hwitaek brought Hyojong to his flat because Hyojong asked very politely if he could see where it was that Hwitaek dwelled. It was a silly, old place, small and tucked away at the edge of town. It was mildly unkempt and dull, save for the stacks of paintings everywhere and mason jars filled paint water that housed soaking paintbrushes. His couch was small and had a few holes, with neatly folded blankets thrown over the back of it and the only other furniture he possessed were bookshelves filled with secondhand novels highlighted with words he wished he could say.
“Your paintings,” Hyojong had breathed after taking off his shoes and sniffing at the books, now stroking careful hands over the stacked canvases and landscapes. “They’re so incredible. So beautiful. So inspiring, Hwitaek. You paint the way I want to feel.”
And Hwitaek had almost wanted to laugh in response because it was Hyojong that Hwitaek was painting in the first place.
“I paint what comes natural to me, I guess,” he said instead, skin warm and sliced by the light that cut through his curtain-less windows. “It chooses me. I’m just here to hold the brush. Painting makes me happy in my heart.”
And Hyojong beamed brilliantly and lit up the shadows of the flat, for Hyojong was very good at smiling and the proof was in the canvases that lay at his fingertips.
The rest of the evening, they spent in a wonderful myriad of colour and sound and texture.
“Let’s go on a walk!” Hwitaek had enthused, already tugging Hyojong along with him, and he marveled at how easy the words came, at how easy they felt when they procured such delighted laughter from his boy.
“Let’s walk to the end of the earth, shall we?” were the words that tumbled out in response, and they hung somewhere near the low-set moon that glowed pallid on the quiet sun of Hyojong’s flesh.
And so they walked and walked, walked towards the blue peaked mountains and evergreens that housed furry squirrels and enquiring owls with their clipped blinks and sharp beaks, talons dug into the soft black bark. They walked amongst trees and trees and the quiet sounds of inquisitive nocturnal animals, poking their heads out beneath the brush to watch their guests as their feet crunched twigs and avoided the wildflowers. A breeze carried through the night air, one that possessed the lingering scent of new-budded grass and pond water, and both boys inhaled deeply as their limbs brushed and the twigs snapped and the lazy leaves and mournful branches of willow trees swayed gently beneath a smattering of stars.
“They seem to be dancing, almost,” Hyojong remarked, tugged on Hwitaek’s hand and pulling him to a stop. He was pointing towards the small cluster of willows, set just beyond the clearing. “Like they’re swaying to a song.”
“But which song?” Hwitaek asked very seriously and though he wished to look upon the elegant trunks and their rhythmic sways, he could only stare upon Hyojong who was far more beautiful and far more elegant and who possessed words and expressions that clicked into place inside of Hwitaek’s bones.
Hyojong smiled, teeth flashed white in their dim, blue surroundings, before grabbing both of Hwitaek’s awaiting hands, sweeping him up in a waltz that was careful to avoid vines and roots and ill-placed shrubs.
“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream,” Hyojong sang into the clearing, and the forest creatures smiled as they listened. “I know you, that gleam in your eye is so familiar a gleam.”
And, though Hwitaek was a boy of acrylics and water colours and very few good words and even less melody, Hwitaek sang that night. He sang without a second’s thought! And he sang as the moon rose and the trees stilled and the crickets chorused their violins to glide along the natural harmony of Hwitaek and his darling boy.
It was only when they were walking home, hands linked for no foreseeable reason other than just because, that Hwitaek tucked his blush away and said, “I think you’re more beautiful than the trees are when they’re happy, Hyojong. I sure think you’re more beautiful than the world—and the world is awful, beautiful, Hyojong, when you look to see it. But it’s still not nearly as beautiful as you.”
But after they were unleashed, Hwitaek was so, so scared about the words that suddenly seemed unable to stop pouring forth, that he turned immediately around and left before Hyojong could even breathe a response, scuttling up the steps to his flat and locking the door behind him. For, though he had always yearned for words, now that they had come, there were too many! He didn’t know what to do with them all and he certainly didn’t know if Hyojong liked his words. So he fell asleep with a heavy heart and too, too many words sitting on his tongue.
Hwitaek had a short, unrestful sleep before he finally awoke to the sun.
“Good morning, friend,” he mumbled amongst the thin sheets as the sneaky clouds slinked by and curled their fingers in a wave. Hwitaek, of course waved back—for it was rude to not return the gesture.
He assembled himself like any other day. He put on his soft, flannel shirt and buttoned it most of the way. He slid on his jeans with their paint stains and little happy holes, and he slid his belt through the loops before clinking it closed on the fifth notch. Before leaving, he slid on his peeled leather boots and large-brimmed hat, and slung on his worn, leather bag filled with paints and brushes over his shoulder, and then he opened the heavy wooden door to leave his flat—only to reveal Hyojong!
There was Hyojong, hand poised midair in a knock, his hair ruffled and soft and eyes that carried the remnants of half-sleep. The unnamed brown of his eyes widened in surprise and the indescribable pink of his small mouth formed a soft ‘o’ that Hwitaek wanted to trace with smiles and bristles and the cool, wet oily paint that stained his fingers.
“Hyojong!” Hwitaek would like to think he didn’t squeak but did, as he took a startled step back and readjusted his worn, leather bag. He began to fiddle with the strap, his eyes falling to his boots. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Hyojong said, somewhere from above, but Hwitaek was far too frightened to look up.
“Why not? Was the moon too bright?”
“No, it wasn’t the moon, Hwitaek.”
“Were the stars too twinkly?”
“No, it wasn’t the stars, Hwitaek.”
“Was the sky too dark?”
“No, it wasn’t the sky, Hwitaek.” Hyojong didn’t move and Hwitaek kept fiddling with the strap of his bag, his skin very warm and his heart very loud. “It was you.” And Hwitaek’s face shot up.
“Me?” he enquired, brow furrowing in confusion, and Hyojong’ very soft, sweet face possessed a gentle smile that one could almost call ‘exasperated.’
“Yes, you,” he said with a very slight shake of the head, and Hwitaek’s brows could only furrow farther because they certainly didn’t know what else to do.
What did Hyojong mean?
“Can I see your paintings?” Hyojong then asked, and for someone very sleepy looking, he was very adventurous and bright.
“Of course. You can always look at my paintings, Hyojong. They belong to you, anyways. They’re not mine, never were.”
Hwitaek followed Hyojong as his boy walked up to the stacks and stacks of beautiful canvases.
“I think about these a lot,” Hyojong said, sweeping reverent hands across their surfaces. “They’re the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah,” Hwitaek agreed in a sigh as he stared upon Hyojong.
“You create the most wonderful things,” Hyojong said, picking up one of the paintings that mapped the constellation of Capricorn in fiery colours and calm. “I love the things you create and the way you think and the things you say.”
Hwitaek was so nervous, he could only bring a hand to his cheek, feeling the hot, bristling blush of his skin. He wanted to say ‘thank you’ but somehow his words were gone once again. He didn’t like when he had too many, but he sort of wished he had too many again.
“You’re so talented, Hwitaek,” Hyojong said as he turned around, after setting the painting apart from the others. “I love your work.”
And then suddenly all the words came back to Hwitaek.
“They’re all for you,” Hwitaek said, skin positively burning. “I only paint you, you know. Ever since I saw you a year ago. I only ever paint you, Hyojong, because everything else seems less remarkable next to you. There is beauty all around us but it’s such a small amount of beauty when there’s you standing in the middle of it.” He was, perhaps on fire, but Hwitaek kept going and released all of the words in his mouth. “Sometimes I wonder if the only reason the sun and trees and mountains look so lovely is because they’re trying to match you in beauty. Or maybe they’re just trying to honour you. I’m not sure quite yet, but I’m trying to find the answer and I’m trying to find the colour of your eyes. You have such beautiful eyes, Hyojong. I only ever want to paint you.”
And Hyojong was glowing. Where Hwitaek was a forest fire, Hyojong was a glowing sunrise and he stepped just one step closer, his features opened with pleasant shock.
“Me?” he repeated, dumbfounded and stricken, small, golden hand settled atop his incandescent heart that housed Hwitaek’s own as well. “These are all of me?”
Hwitaek nodded earnestly, daring himself not to look away because he never could—not without taking the light away. And Hwitaek could never live without the light. “I painted you before I even met you,” he said in his most truthful of voices because it was true and Hyojong deserved to know all the truths. “Ever since that first day you walked across the bridge.” He gulped, shuffling his feet. “I used to only paint landscapes and happy trees and happy rocks and things with definite shapes and reason. And I painted what I couldn’t say. But then I saw you and I painted what I felt without care for rhyme or reason. And suddenly I found words, as well.”
And there was just a single moment of Hwitaek burning and biting on his lips as he stared at Hyojong’ wide, wide eyes and parted mouth, before suddenly his boy was leaping and bounding across the distance between them, colliding into his body with his own!
“You are the most beautiful thing in the world!” Hyojong sang, wrapping lithe, unbreaking arms around Hwitaek’s neck and pulling him so very close that the tips of their toes brushed and almost their noses, too. His eyes crinkled as he smiled up at Hwitaek and his breath was fresh like the mist that coated the petals of the dandelion in the morning. “If you see any beauty at all in me, it’s only because I’ve reflected it back from you.”
And Hwitaek very much wanted to protest—Hyojong was the pinnacle of beauty!—but before he could, all the words that filled his mouth were replaced with the colour of Hyojong’s lips. So without another second of unnecessary thought, Hwitaek wrapped his arms around his boy and kissed him until the colour of their lips matched.
Ever after, life continued as much the same, only far more magnificent and beautifully. Hwitaek painted the feel of Hyojong’s skin and the quiet noises he made while he slept and the way he sighed when he returned to Hwitaek’s arms. Hwitaek painted every single day—sometimes on his bridge, sometimes not—and eventually Hyojong gave him enough strength to show his paintings to the world.
“To give them back,” as Hwitaek would say, and Hyojong would smile so widely as he nodded and tucked his lips into the crook of Hwitaek’s neck.
People from far and wide came to see Hwitaek’s paintings—and many even bought them! And Hyojong was so, so proud and Hwitaek was so, so happy. Happy everything, as they linked hands always and kissed always and filled their moments with words and laughter and warm, baked goods and flowers that Hyojong always brought Hwitaek every time another painting sold.
Together, they painted their own world, ever after.
And, eventually, Hwitaek found the colour of Hyojong’s eyes. And all the colours of their children’s eyes, too.