Work Text:
Pen in hand, one leg tucked underneath him, Saeran perched on the edge of the couch like a rabbit: tense and coiled even at rest. He heard her come into the room before he saw her and jumped a little in his spot in recognition, a nervous habit he hadn’t really managed to shake even now, months into his freedom. The sight of her was decidedly more pleasant than anything he’d had to deal with in Magenta, though, and Saeran quickly settled back into his semi-alert state from before.
He turned his attention from the blank sheet of paper in front of him to her sleepy form, eyes crinkling at the corners from a small smile, and patted the spot next to him invitingly. She didn’t wait for long, plonking down with a small a grunt and sprawling over into his lap. His girlfriend was not unlike a cat, Saeran reflected while his hand brushed against her hair affectionately, except maybe even less talkative.
As if in response to his unspoken comments, she cracked open one bleary eye and said:
‘Ugh.’
There was a small pause while Saeran doubled his head caressing efforts in sympathy. She opened the second eye and tried to focus on his face.
‘Ughhhhhhh,’ she tried again, this time with more feeling.
‘Good morning.’ He shouldn’t laugh, really, but there was something about seeing her go through the same motions each morning, with varying degrees of annoyance, that made him feel incredibly amused. Saeran was neither a morning or an evening person. Mint Eye had turned him into someone who got his sleep whenever he could find it and who could spring back into action in about three minutes flat, but seeing other people display their preference fascinated him. Reading Zen’s 3am soliloquies and hearing his despairing explanation about the effects of the full moon on the psyche had been an educational experience and he was eager to learn more.
‘No morning is ever good, Saeran,’ she replied matter-of-factly and reached out to poke his nose with an unsteady index finger. ‘Unless they’re lazy mornings, in which case they don’t count as mornings.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, they’re bonus night.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said, and then, teasingly, moving from patting her head to playing with the mass of tangled brown in his lap, ‘You’re very wise.’
She stuck her tongue out at him before pointing to the pile of pristine, high quality paper on the coffee table. ‘What’s that?’
‘Supplies,’ Saeran replied airily, hoping she wouldn’t comment on the rising colour in his cheeks. It still felt strange to be noticed like this with no ill intent. He became very aware of his breathing and a rope-sized patch of skin on his ankle started itching suddenly. ‘I’ve…I’ve been thinking about keeping a diary again. Drawing, too.’
‘Again?’ she inquired, eyes brimming with interest.
She was making a little humming noise in the back of her throat and Saeran could feel the vibrations through the couch. Definitely like having a cat, he mused while he began absentmindedly trying to undo a knot in her hair. It was incredible how messy it could be before she had a chance to smooth it down, but he had mixed feelings about it. Watching her pull at it with her brush always made him slightly uncomfortable. He remembered things. A different mop of hair, in a different room, in a sprawling mansion. With great difficulty, Saeran tore his eyes away from the searing pain in those mind chambers and managed a small grin.
‘Yeah.’ He stopped for a while to collect his thoughts. In his lap, she continued to hum, adding in a little cheerful bounce to her leg to that. Saeran tried to smother a wild, stray thought telling him she was bored listening to him trying to find his words. There had been a lot less of those recently, but they still splattered themselves against his skull from time to time, screaming about betrayal in a high pitched anxious chatter. ‘I used to do it a while ago. When…’ When Saeyoung was there, he wanted to say, but that thought felt heavy like a metal chain around his neck. It made him choke on his words. ‘When I was younger,’ he finished, a bit unsteadily. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything, and he was grateful for that, for the chance to keep some things private still.
‘What made you pick it up again?’ she asked, reaching over to grab the top most ones. ‘I think it’s a great idea, by the way. It’s great for looking back on your day and organising your thoughts. Sorting through events, that sort of thing.’
‘Yeah, that’s what my therapist said,’ he said, and then hurried to add ‘Not that I’m only doing it because of that. I’m doing it for me.’ Saeran felt the familiar elation at hearing himself say those words and grinned a bit wider at that. She returned the emotion twofold, face splitting in a wide, inviting smile. In a haze of blissfulness, Saeran thought he’d never get tired of saying it. He tried it again. ‘For me, yeah. I liked drawing. It was…V used to show me.’
He had rushed into that admission, startling her with a nervous twitch in his leg. In other circumstance he might have felt embarrassed at the sudden outburst, even ashamed on one of his worse days, but there was an urgency to the way some of his more latent memories were bubbling to the surface. Saeran grabbed on to that idea and pressed forwards, curious to see where it would take him.
‘He wasn’t around that much.’ Something painful hit him in the pit of his stomach, part resentment, part fear. He filed the twisted knot away for future inspection. ‘When he wasn’t away on business trips he liked to work with me on things, though. Photography, drawings. Food. I could tell him any stupid thing I wanted to make and he was always up for it.’ Saeran could feel a small frown forming. ‘They were very stupid things.’
She tried punching his arm lightly, but her angle made it difficult to aim and she just ended up pumping her fist in the air.
‘Oh, come on. You were a kid. You’re not supposed to make good things.’
‘No, you don’t understand. They were stupid, not bad. I once tried to make an edible Eiffel tower out of dried noodles but I glued the pieces together with actual glue instead of…I don’t know, what works for that? Egg?’
She hid a loud giggle behind her hand.
‘Ah,’ she said eventually, ‘I see. What did V think about this?’
Saeran snorted.
‘Oh, he looked like he was about to try eating the glue. He looked very determined, but…’ Rika had stopped him. He felt nauseous at the thought and struggled to keep his heartbeat down to a manageable level. She had stopped him, hadn’t she, and V had looked apologetic, and Saeran had apologised back, and Rika had linked her arm with V’s and took Saeran’s other hand and said she’d make something nice for everyone to enjoy. They had had take-away in the end. Thai? It was probably Thai. He could practically feel the taste clog up his mouth. There had been a notch on the table and he had dug his nail in there a lot during the meal. There were reruns of some drama or the other on TV and Rika had complained because she had seen every episode and…
Something popped into his field of vision and Saeran was startled to discover he was breathing shallowly, erratically. She must had risen from her spot in his lap and was now tentatively touching his face, a picture of worry framed by a mass of unruly brown hair. Saeran wanted to kiss her, to tell her how much it meant to him that she was still here after everything, but what he actually ended up doing was taking a big, painful gulp of air and choking unceremoniously.
‘Do you need space?’
He managed to grab on to her shoulder and shake his head.
‘N –‘ It took a while before he could the rest of the word out. ‘No. No, it’s…it’s better now. Sorry. I remembered something.’
She bit her lip, hard enough that he could see the indents forming, and frowned.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, and he was relieved to find a reservoir of softness still available for this. Sometimes episodes like this drained him of the energy to do much other than nod and request some alone time. ‘It’s okay,’ he repeated, as much for himself as for her, ‘it was a good memory up to a point.’ The note of bitterness in that last part didn’t go unnoticed, but she didn’t say anything more on the topic.
They sat like that for a while, barely touching each other, letting the last waves of panic wash away. It wasn't comfortable, Saeran felt too anxious for that, but it was familiar and comforting. He let the scene play out while he made efforts to control his breathing. Finally, she spoke up.
‘Maybe you should take it up again with him.’
Saeran’s head snapped back up, a bit confused by the sudden shift in conversation.
‘What?’
‘Take a drawing to him the next time you go visit him at the hospital. I think it would be good for the both of you.’ She shrugged, as if this wasn’t a big deal, but Saeran suspected this had been the only thing on her mind during those last ten minutes. ‘You know, it’s a conversation starter.’
He considered that for a moment. It wasn’t a bad idea. It would certainly improve the atmosphere during those visits, at least. He’d made a lot of progress as far as V was concerned, but there were still a lot of occasions when something the other one would do or say would make him so angry he’d feel like suffocating. A nice, quiet activity that could help him breathe and keep V focused on things that weren’t infuriating to Saeran sounded...nice, actually. Reasonable.
‘I need inspiration, though,’ he declared to the world at large and she finally relinquished her concerned frown for a laugh.
‘Draw something you like.’
‘You, then,’ Saeran replied shyly. He had meant it in a sincere way, but the blush she was now sporting was bright enough to match his brother’s hair.
‘Ah, that’s…’ she cleared her throat. ‘That’s very sweet of you, but I’m not sure if I want my face to be the first piece V gets to critique.’
Saeran frowned.
‘Why? It’s a beautiful face.’
She buried her face in her hands in response. The blush was practically fluorescent by this point.
‘Oh my god, please, you’re killing me. Killing me with kindness. Just…ask the RFA for inspiration, okay? And,’ she chanced a look from behind her fingers, ‘we can figure something out if you really want to draw me. But no face critique.’
Asking the RFA, as it turned out, was easy. Saeran logged in to find Yoosung and Zen already in there, arguing about the merits of a movie they had recently seen. Zen seemed to hate the abundance of special effects and how it detracted from the acting and Yoosung was just happy to have something cool to look at. Saeran made a mental note to check the movie out on his own so he could have an opinion on it.
He struggled with greeting them, going over the message a couple of times. It was very hard to get out of the habit of addressing them by their full names, even after everything that had transpired. It was part force of habit and part a mental block that came up again and again, a fear that he wasn’t really in the group and should keep his distance. They hadn’t really done anything to deserve those thoughts, MC and his therapist had both pointed that out, so he had settled on a wait and see policy. His trust had been rewarded for now, but at times it still felt a lot like being skinless and trusting a big Bengal tiger not to bite straight into the flesh.
He typed out his greeting and waited for their response.
It was immediate.
Saeran, welcome!
saeran, please tell me you like the Habbit movies.
zen won’t listen to me when i tell him they’re good
There it was, the dreaded pop culture question. Saeran deployed his emergency tactic for situations like these.
Sorry, I’ll talk to you about this later.
That always seemed to work. For some reason, they both seemed to assume that meant Saeran had some official business to attend to instead of the actual reason, which was that he had no earthly idea what they were talking about even if he wanted to join in and was thus trying to buy time so he could familiarise himself with The Thing. He typed out the next part quickly, before either of them had time to derail the conversation.
I need some quick suggestions from you. What should I draw?
Me.
Zen was normally the slowest to type, but that had pinged his phone so fast Saeran could have sworn he’d started writing that before he had even had a chance to finish his first message. While he was struggling to come up with a way to respond to that, Zen had already typed out a mini essay. It talked at length about the exact mathematical proportions of his cheekbones and the beauty which confounded the poets and how it was a moral, nay, sacred duty to immortalise his looks whenever possible so that future generations may gaze upon them like the treasure that they were. It had taken Saeran a long time to get used to these monologues, and even longer to stop comparing himself to him almost immediately.
zen, are you being narcissistic again?
i thought we’d agreed to only have those moments after 7pm
Why, is it because that cat freak gets back from his meetings by then?
yeah
and because jaehee said she likes to be around for your selfies
i think she said they’re better fresh
speaking of!
My selfies are always good, Yoosung, my boy!!
And there it was, something he could use. Saeran saved the newest image on his phone. The lighting was very good, he had to admit. Zen tended to react well to compliments and Jaehee had been pushing him for artistic angles when he could spare the time. For Zen, that was all the time, so the newest batch of portraits had been significantly better in quality than his usual stuff.
Witness the beauty the gods envy!
i made bread! my mom got me a bread maker as a gift for getting back on track with my studies
Attached was an image of golden buns in neat rows on Yoosung’s fancy tray. He knew that tray, it had been a gift from Zen to instil some health consciousness into the chaotic mess that was college life. Saeran dutifully saved that photo as well. You never knew.
Thank you both. Zen, I will draw you.
He left and got to work. A couple of hours later he had something he could use but ended up spending a bit more time on the drawing. It was a very stupid idea. The talk with MC had got him thinking about it, though. V did always seem to like it when he did something unusual…And this was all to help him talk with the man without getting angry, yes? So it made a lot of sense to follow through with his impulse. Satisfied with that line of logic, Saeran got to work on the additions.
By the time he was done with the revised version, there was no one around to talk to. It was better like this. He didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with everyone and then sticking around to see their reaction, not when they could so easily mock it. Or rather. Banter? With him? He had never really managed to grasp the concept. MC had tried to explain it to him, but the idea of being mean in a fake way was completely alien. He found himself dreading the moment they would start treating him like they sometimes treated each other, while at the same time fervently hoping they would. On his worse days, he spent hours locked in this limbo between wanting and hating, hovering around chatrooms without ever interacting.
He dropped the photo in a new chatroom with a brief Thank you for the inspiration.
Three days later, he saw the other chatroom. It had been a joint one between Yoosung and Zen again. It was very brief, barely a few lines long, but it had a different photo attached.
It was the two of them in front of a fridge. From the tiling, Saeran guessed it was Zen’s apartment. There was an A4 print out stuck to the fridge with magnets. With his heart thundering in his ears, he recognised it as his own interpretation of Zen as Venus rising from a sea of golden bread buns.
look what we made
i had to show zen how to print it, but he loves it!!
I could feel the emotion you put into depicting my otherworldly looks coming in through the screen.
Thank you!
Something warm and engulfing struggled in Saeran’s chest for a long time. He typed out his reply slowly, with trembling fingers. It took him three tries until he could get everything in with no spelling errors.
You’re welcome.
After a while, he added something more for fear of looking rude.
I’m glad you like it.
The final part took him longer. He was still debating if he should send it even as he was writing it, but eventually decided on going for it. They hadn’t made fun of him yet, it was worth pushing his luck.
I call it The Breadticelli.
Yoosung was the one to reply to that, a couple of hours later, back from a cramming session at the library.
wow.
And then:
guess you really are seven’s brother huh
Saeran wasn’t quite sure how to take that.
V took his time analysing his piece, just enough time for Saeran to take a journey through the seven circles of hell. In those few minutes of silence he had managed to create a complicated drama in which, disgusted by his lack of talent, the fledgling relationship they had been rebuilding falls apart, turning Jumin away from him by association. The RFA disintegrates as it now lacks both its de facto leader and Jumin’s cool headedness. His life is ruined, his friend group thrown into chaos, he is forced to run away with Saeyoung and life out the rest of his life as…a turnip farmer? Saeran wasn’t quite sure what occupation best expressed a bland, joyless existence in the wilds, but he settled on that.
V finally looked up. He was smiling faintly, but it was a neutral expression at best. Saeran squared his shoulders and braced for impact.
‘It’s very fun, I love it.’ V’s voice was as soft as ever. It was a strange feeling, a dreamlike memory of something similar that Saeran couldn’t really place in time of space. There was just a familiar tug and pull to how this encouragement slotted into his complicated pile feelings towards V. ‘It has a lot of personality.’
‘Zen liked it too,’ Saeran added quickly and felt the aftertaste of embarrassment at his neediness. V looked a bit more interested at that.
‘Don’t look so surprised. Hyun needs reassurance as much as you do, you know.’
Saeran blinked. That felt too personal, too quick, and his brain reeled from the unwanted exposure.
‘I don’t know about that. I thought he might get a bit upset,’ he said, trying to steer the conversation away from himself. ‘The bread wasn’t wholemeal.’
V actually laughed at that, a full, genuine laugh. Not particularly loud, more of a happy chuckle fraying slightly at the edges where he was still having difficulty breathing, but it filled the small room in an instant. It was startling. Saeran thought of the pains V always took to chop bits off from himself, to make himself smaller than anyone else in a room and felt…something. A small glob of something viscous and warm nestled in his chest. Not affection, but something approaching it. An understanding.
V’s eyes were shinning with amusement.
‘Something to correct in your second sketch?’
The bubble of warmth burst at that suggestion and a directionless panic settled in instead. Saeran stood up straighter in his chair and gripped the edges until his knuckles turned white.
‘Correct? Is there something wrong with it?’ He tried to keep the sharpness out of his voice as much as possible, but some of it slipped through and, judging from the way his expression changed from soft to concerned, V must have heard it. The turnips were back at the forefront of Saeran’s mind. It couldn’t be that bad of a drawing, no? V had said it was good and he wouldn’t lie. Not now, not after everything. But he was also telling him to fix it. What was there to fix if it was good? He voiced that thought out loud and was annoyed at how erratic he sounded.
V looked increasingly more agitated himself, but seemed to be handling it better. Saeran felt a pang of jealousy at that breezy display of normalcy.
‘It’s not about fixing, it’s about practice. Lots of serious artists draw the same thing a lot to get used to it and be better at it. It’s normal to study something when you’re trying to find a style. You have to practice if you want things to be good.’
Saeran frowned.
‘But…you said it has personality. That’s style, isn’t it?’
‘How should I put this,’ V said tentatively. ‘It is and it isn’t. It has personality in the sense that…I could tell it was you who drew it. But I could also tell where you had traced it and where you weren’t sure of what to do.’ Saeran blushed at that. The explanation made some sense though. It still felt painfully pointed and critical, but he could start to untangle the immediate emotional response from the actual point V was making.
‘Anyway, study drawings also teach you what the rules are. You need to know them before you can break them.’
‘But I don’t want to break rules, I just want to draw.’ Saeran was starting to feel like the conversation was getting away from him. He had never been very good at following V’s complicated way of explaining very simple concepts, but today seemed to be particularly bad for communication. ‘Should I be breaking rules?’ His voice rose slightly in panic at the end of that, filled with dread at the possibility that he had been missing something essential all along.
Saeran had been getting a lot better at not comparing himself with others, he could recognise that in himself, a shy, zig zagging sort of progress. And yet. And yet, there were days when the idea that other people had been gifted a different set of life skills he’d never have access to or understand sent him in a downwards spiral of fear and loathing that paralysed his ability to interact with anyone. Had he been drawing wrong all along?
Opposite him, V was a picture of growing apprehension.
‘No, no. No rule breaking for now. Later, when you’ve mastered the basics.’
‘The basics?’ Something was gnawing at the back of his brain, trying to get his attention. ‘V…are you trying to tell me my drawing is ugly?’
‘What? No!’ He seemed genuinely upset at that and Saeran breathed out a shaky sigh of relief. ‘Goodness, no, whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Well, you seem so scared of talking to me. And you keep fidgeting and avoiding my eyes and telling me I should be breaking rules but only after I fix whatever rule I broke that you didn’t like.’
‘I…look, how about I just show you?’ V looked to the side at that, playing with the bandages poking out from under his sleeves. ‘I haven’t drawn in a while, but they say it’s like riding a bike, right? I’m sure I can remember something.’
Saeran considered this for a while. When he couldn’t find a way this be turned against him to humiliate and punish, he finally nodded and handed the sketchbook over along with the pack of pencils he’d brought with him.
V got to work quickly and was done in less than five minutes, his arm moving fast across the page.
‘There,’ V said, finishing up his own take on The Breadticelli. It was more than anything Saeran would have ever considered basic. ‘How’s that? Did you understand what I was doing with the shading there?’
‘No,’ Saeran replied, still staring at the drawing. It was messy, way messier than his had been, but the important details were there. It was also beautiful, but completely useless to him. ‘You did everything way too fast.’
V’s face was now sporting an aggressive blush that had spread down towards his neck. His shoulders tensed up again and Saeran recognised the signs. V had retreated back into himself again.
‘Ah,’ was all he said. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while until Saeran decided to take a wild plunge into the unknown. He couldn’t really leave it like this, not after how well this meeting had started.
‘I could,’ he started tentatively, ‘come around here again, though? With supplies. I might get it if – if you show me again. How to study. Or do studies. What you said.’ He licked his lips, trying to urge some moisture back in his mouth. ‘I want to draw with you.’ The ending was weak, but the way V’s face went from shocked to absolutely delighted eased him past the embarrassment. Slow progress, but progress. You have to practice if you want it to be good, he thought, and another strand of V-shaped emotion uncoiled slightly in his chest.
And that’s how Saeran found himself sprawled on another couch, this time at his brother’s bunker, trying to will his brain to give him something to draw for his next meeting with V. He’d tried to fall back on flowers and found that he couldn’t really get the details right. He’d texted V to ask about it and he had suggested going for something which allows for poses, which had seemed like the kind of decent advice he’d want to follow up until it got to the point where Saeran actually had to pick a subject. He tapped his pencil angrily on the side of his sketchbook.
Out of the corner of his eye, Saeran caught his twin sneaking glances his way. Saeyoung’s eyes would dart between the blank page in his lap and the pile of materials on the table, briefly look like he was going to say something, fidget nervously in his seat, then go back to his phone for several minutes before the whole thing would start again. Finally, with his concentration broken yet again, Saeran sighed deeply and stared his brother down.
‘What do you want?’
Saeyoung had the decency to look sheepish. There was a pale blush already starting to spread across face.
‘Want? Me? Nothing. I…’ And there it was again, that darting look at the coloured pencils. ‘You should draw a cat.’
Saeran stared.
‘I mean,’ Saeyoung started again looking increasingly more excitable by the moment. ‘If you want to, of course. But I think it would help you.’ When Saeran didn’t answer, he carried on with the kind of baffling ability to say weird, unconnected things with all the self-assurance of someone who couldn’t possibly be derailing entire conversations. ‘They make great therapy animals.’
‘That’s not how that works, and you know it,’ Saeran said with a frown. He could feel the beginning of a headache forming. The artist’s block was bad enough, but he definitely didn’t have in him to keep up with his brother’s leaps in logic.
‘It could work, you never know until you try.’ When Saeran didn’t seem too convinced by his claims, Saeyoung leaned forward and nodded empathically to underline his point. ‘It could work Saeran, you just have to trust me. Draw a cat. Or –’ another stolen look what is it with him and those pencils he can just ask for one ‘—I could show you? Not that you don’t know how to draw,’ he hurried to add when he saw the look on Saeran’s face, ‘but I’d like to draw. With you.’ That embarrassed blush bloomed magnificently and Saeran could swear it had started climbing up his brother’s ears. ‘Please?’ he finished a lot softer than he had started. His eyes avoided the other one for a one time, but when Saeyoung did finally make eye contact, something ancient stirred in Saeran’s chest. He just looked so. damn. eager.
Saeran reluctantly handed him the notepad. It’s not like he was getting anything done by himself, might as well try.
‘Okay. Yeah, sure. Show me.’
The smile that spread on his brother’s face at that could melt the skin off Saeran. It split his entire face in two, both sections looking positively ecstatic to be included in something. A half guilty, half satisfied pang shot between his ribs and Saeran wondered how many other times his brother had wanted to join him in something and avoided asking for fear of upsetting him. He considered that thought for a moment.
‘Hey, Saeyoung? Were you ever going to ask me yourself? To draw with me, I mean.’
His twin gave a one shouldered shrug as he struggled to choose some coloured pencils. There was…a surprising colour selection, considering the subject matter. Whatever was he going to use purples and pinks for?
‘I didn’t want to bother you.’
That was the end of that conversation, or the end to what his brother seemed willing to disclose. Saeyoung settled into the pillows with a wink and a conspiratorial ‘no peeking while the master is working’ and Saeran was left by himself to figure out when exactly had their roles been reversed. Having Saeyoung be the one afraid to demand too much was unnerving. He decided to work on making some time for brother bonding. MC was right, he did seem to be worried about infringing on this new-found independence Saeran had finally carved out for himself.
They sat like that for a while, with Saeyoung working on completing his drawing and Saeran enjoying the quiet. From time to time, his twin would grab his phone and type up something, stare at his screen for a bit and then go back to drawing. Probably using a reference, Saeran thought. It was a very pleasant feeling, sharing a space like this while doing nothing of importance. The opportunity to enjoy each other’s presence brought about the kind of peace that he’d longed for in his childhood. He could feel his thoughts drifting aimlessly, filling up the space in the room. It felt soft and light inside his chest, a tiny bit like he’d somehow gotten some cotton candy in there.
Finally, after a couple more minutes, Saeyoung capped the grey marker he’d been scribbling with and waved his hands about, the notepad still hidden from view.
‘Are you ready?’
Saeran stood up straighter, straining his neck to get a glimpse, but his brother held the paper in question even tighter to his chest.
‘Nu-uh. No previews.’
Saeran rolled his eyes at that, but obediently leaned back again and waited for the reveal. It was always easier if he just played along.
Saeyoung raised the sketchbook up and started to turn it over to his side with excruciating slowness. When it completed its arc, Saeran could only stare.
‘She’s perfect, isn’t she?’
Saeran stared again, this time for longer, with a pointed look.
‘Saeyoung, that has to be ugliest fucking cat I’ve seen in my life,’ he finally said when he had managed to compose himself. The swear came out unbidden and he caught the tail end of another Saeran retreating abruptly across his mental landscape. Under different circumstance, he’d find it absolutely incredible that this is what riled something up cohesive up from amongst the chatter in his head, but no. No, Saeran agreed that it was a hideous-looking…cat-thing, worthy of scorn.
To his surprise, his brother looked a bit hurt at his words.
‘It’s an elegant and sophisticated creature, Saeran.’ His jaw was set in a determined line. Now that was something he hadn’t seen in a while. That look generally meant that he was about to do something brave, but stupid. Well he certainly got the second part right, Saeran thought ruefully, and instantly bit the inside of his cheek. That was another one of those thoughts that weren’t proper thoughts, the hurt-think, and that was the impulse to hurt himself again. He released the skin as soon as he realised that. Deep breaths.
‘I worked hard on this,’ his brother whined. God, he really did look upset. ‘Come on, don’t say that.’
Saeran fought hard against his unkinder instincts. His brain had unhelpfully decided that this must have been some kind of attempt at mocking him, given how much he cared about this, and it was taking a lot of his willpower to convince himself that this was too much, that no one would spend time drawing with him only to pull back the curtain and reveal the…his forehead scrunched a little in thought. Flying monkey? Something like that. References did not come easy to him. It felt a lot like trying to build up a non-existent muscle.
‘Saeyoung,’ he finally started, words clipped by the roaring engine of his insecurities, ‘there’s a rainbow coming out of its ass. The cat has a rainbow. In its backside.’
‘Yeah.’
Saeran felt his eye twitch. His brother really wasn’t helping his case here.
‘What do you mean yeah? It’s a cat! Cats shouldn’t be doing that.’
‘Well, Nyan cat does.’
‘The what now?’
‘Nyan cat. It’s a meme. Look!’
‘No!’ They both flinched a little at the loudness in his voice. ‘No,’ Saeran repeated, this time softly. ‘It’s okay, I believe you. I know I said that I wanted you to show me things I’ve –' his eyes darted around the room. There was an incoming hurt-thought, a bitter tinge to ideas of catching up. ‘I’d like,’ he recovered quickly, ‘but I really don’t think I need to know about this one. No, actually, I know I don’t want to know about the butt rainbow cat.’
‘Are you sure?’ Saeyoung grinned. ‘It very cute. Has a catchy song and everything.’
Saeran eyed his twin with a mix of affection and annoyance growing in his heart and he found himself surprised at the soft mundanity of it. Out of all the things he felt for his brother, this particular blend was the most unusual. It was too normal, too safe, far from Saeyoung’s idealised younger self and the subsequent fissures in that pedestal. Saeran wondered what it might be like to think like this all the time, to have a mind that sees things as they are, instead of what he’s afraid they might be.
The catchy song. His menace of a brother knew him far too well. Saeran licked his lips nervously.
‘A song isn’t going to cut it,’ he said, but there wasn’t any bite to it any more. ‘You said you wanted to help me get inspired and then drew me a meme. I’d say that counts as sabotage.’
‘Well,’ Saeyoung puffed, just a tad irritably, ‘sorry, but it’s the one thing I know how to draw well.’ He paused for a bit and his shoulders sagged just a fraction, but enough to catch Saeran’s eye. It was a hard to lose habit, obsessively monitoring the people around him for changes in mood. ‘I really, really wanted to help, Saeran.’
His brother sighed and put the sketch pad on the table and Saeran relented.
‘Okay.’ He sighed too and ran a hand through his hair. He had been toying with growing it out, testing out how he felt about it by letting his roots show for a tad longer, and the difference in texture always threw him off when he did this. Saeyoung’s eyes were glued to his hand, right where it was buried in the shy beginnings of red. ‘Okay,’ he repeated, ‘how about I show you how to draw literally anything else that’s not a meme?’
‘Is there even such a thing as a life without memes?’ Saeyoung replied, throwing an overdramatic hand over his eyes again. ‘That’s not a world I want to live in.’
‘Yes, actually,’ Saeran snapped, ‘many people manage to live long, fulfilling lives without memes. Now sit still.’ Saeyoung froze at that. ‘I mean,’ he tried again, fighting to control his mood, ‘scoot over and grab some paper from the pile. And a normal pencil. No rainbows.’
‘Got it, no rainbows.’
‘And no glitter.’
Saeyoung stuck his tongue out.
‘Mean. Why even bring glitter pens if you won’t let me use them?’ He looked eager, though, and took a comfortable spot next to Saeran. ‘What next?’
Saeran wasn’t sure either, but he wasn’t about to let that get in the way of having an excuse to order Saeyoung around.
‘Now,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative, ‘you follow my lead. Just do what I do. Don’t worry,’ he added, ‘I’ll slow down for you.’
They spent the next hour like that, jointly trying to figure out how cats actually looked like and moved. And if Saeran noticed how his brother tensed when he reached over to pat his shoulder and tell him he did a good job, almost like he was expecting something painful, or if Saeyoung paid less attention to his own sketch and more to Saeran’s focused expression, neither said anything.
They had managed to produce a handful of sketches that could be feasibly presented to V and a massive pile of rejected concepts. Saeran felt satisfied at the end of it, he said as much, and his brother laughed.
‘No need to thank me, if you ever need some more expert advice on drawing you can always just drop by,’ he said with a wink. It was such a casual remark, but Saeran caught the darting eyes again, the way his voice raised pitch just a smidge at the end.
When they were younger, he had believed his brother when he’d said they were same, but lately it felt more and more like he was looking in a mirror for the first time. The main elements were there, but in reverse, and he had to train his brain to translate everything the right away around. Like this right here, the shallow confidence that turned right back into uncertainty as soon as you squinted a bit, or how things in the chatroom that he had once been so sure were aimed at mocking him, the jokes and the pranks and the comments about thinking positive, all squirmed and screeched like a living thing if you thought about them for too long.
‘I think you mean if you need any more advice,’ he said, and Saeyoung laughed again, even louder. They stayed like that for a bit, unsure of how to proceed. For the second time in a week, Saeran found himself taking initiative. It takes practice, he thought, you need to practice to be good at it.
‘Now, about that…cat song.’
Saeyoung was instantly by his side.
‘There’s a smooth jazz version too,’ he assured him. Saeran wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do with that information, but he filed it away for future reference and sat politely next to his brother while the animation played.
It really was a catchy song.