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According to the sign on the door, the art shop didn’t open until 9 am…officially. Yet, one would be hard pressed to walk by the shop front and see it plunged in darkness even as early as 6 am. Junmyeon simply couldn’t stop himself.
It helped that his flat was upstairs, a mere few steps away from all of the art pieces his heart could possibly desire, streams of emails requesting a coveted place on his shop wall. To Junmyeon it was a dream come true, to live surrounded by the object of his life's passion; to actually dream in slumber didn’t quite compete.
Of course, very few customers arrived at such an early hour but Junmyeon was content to simply brew himself a hot cup of coffee and watch the world wake up from the large window that overlooked the pedestrian area of the town centre. The people coming and going, rushing to work or strolling home after a night shift, gradually becoming bathed in the light of dawn…he could have basked in the view all day long. He wished he could capture every life fleeing past his little shop window and put it into a painting, giving it pride of place on his wall. But you can’t fit life into a painting.
Junmyeon knew that it was almost time for the shop to spring to life when he heard footsteps creaking along the loose floorboards upstairs. Since their breakup, Junmyeon’s friends had asked him why Sehun still haunted the flat, like a lost spirit who was too tied to the place to leave it behind. It was unorthodox, Junmyeon supposed, to live with one's ex, changing nothing about their set-up other than their sleeping arrangements but it didn’t feel right to let Sehun go. Like a painting marred by age, damaged by time, what they had oughtn’t be thrown out to the wind, like it never meant anything.
Besides, Junmyeon thought the ringing in his ears would become too loud without Sehun as his background noise.
“Morning.” Sehun’s voice was hoarse and gravelly, as it often was in the morning, dry from having the heating too high in the night. Junmyeon had told him countless times to be more attentive about these things, to consider the small things like how humid his room was and how well he was sleeping but that wasn’t Junmyeon’s responsibility anymore. Sehun wasn’t his responsibility.
Junmyeon cleared the thought from his mind and the lump in his throat with an awkward cough and smiled. “Hello, Sehun. Sleep well?”
Sehun ruffled his bed hair. It was sprouting at every angle and Junmyeon automatically felt his hands itching to smooth it down. Before meeting Sehun, Junmyeon had taken little interest in his own appearance, never thinking to brush or style his hair but now he even noticed when Sehun had a stray lock. He knew it mattered to Sehun so, in turn, it mattered to Junmyeon.
“Ah, not really,” Sehun sighed, now looking in the glass of one of the frames hanging up, flattening his eyebrows and straightening the collar of his shirt. “I told you, you have to sort that dripping tap in the kitchen. It drives me insane. All night long drip, drip, drip…shit." Sehun grunted as he struggled to fix the back of his collar, not able to reach it himself.
Instinctively, Junmyeon stood up and reached out to straighten it. Sehun hadn’t ironed the collar so it was refusing to fold neatly. Junmyeon struggled with it, twisting and tugging. When he was satisfied, he moved his hands to rest on Sehun’s shoulders, gently massaging the tension in his muscles. Until he caught Sehun’s eyes in the glass, his disconcerted gaze a contrast to the yellows and greens in the painting behind the reflective pane. Sehun was uncomfortable because of Junmyeon, his eyes silently pleading for him to let go.
“Junmyeon…” the name came out as a weak whisper as Sehun’s gaze dropped to his feet. “Stop.”
The muscles in his hands tensed so suddenly that Junmyeon could feel sharp pains in his fingers, jolting away as though Sehun had shocked him. “Sehun, I’m sorry. I just-”
“I know,” Sehun cut him off mid-sentence, his tone defeated as his shoulders shot up towards his ears in discomfort, protecting himself from the tension in the room.
Whether he actually ‘knew’ was up for debate. Did Sehun know? That, despite Junmyeon knowing that Sehun wasn’t his to have anymore, every fibre of his being, every atom, every muscle, was still drawn him to like a moth to a flame, as though his entire body craved Sehun’s presence. As though Junmyeon had lost a part of himself, a part that resided within the man who flinched away from him like he was on fire.
“I really am sorry, Sehunnie," Junmyeon insisted, apologising for much more than the present moment.
“And I know,” Sehun sighed, defeated, meeting Junmyeon’s gaze in the glass once more. He wouldn’t look him in the eyes anymore. “Just…fix the tap, Junmyeon.”