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gif credits to @pledisseventeen on tumblr, gifset source here
A man like stone. His name is Wonwoo. He made a name for himself in this world, a world where he could create whatever he wanted. And not have it come to life.
In another world, another lifetime, Wonwoo made himself a creation like no other. He spent days, weeks, months on his project. He chiseled stone away to create something perfect. He’d work until his hands were raw and red and sore, until they made an ugly cracking sound when he moved his joints a different way. What did he make that had him destroying his hands, his most beloved tool?
Why, he created you.
In a world where he could give life to his works of art, you were born. He created what he deemed was perfection, and it truly was. A beautiful piece that was you, blinking – breathing – for the first time, had Wonwoo awestruck. To him you were everything. When the monotone stone faded away into a rich and delightful color, when the slightly bumpy and rough texture evened out into a smoother one, that was when Wonwoo decided that all the time he spent working was worth it. Especially when he heard your voice for the first time. To him, it was like honey.
You were nothing like anything else he ever created. You saw proof when he led you through a hall of beautiful statues, all of them so realistic and as if they could blink at any second. But the only one that could was you. When you asked him why you were different, he merely replied, “Because you’re special.”
You had to ask what he meant by that. He didn’t reply afterwards. He kept leading you past the beautiful statues.
The room he showed you was what he called home. A simple looking room, and a small one at that. A bed in one corner, a kitchen in the other with a table for two right next to it, and separate room that he told you was the bathroom to the right. The door behind you led to his workshop, where he created you. Now you were to live with him in this little house. He gave you a set of rules.
One. Do not mess around with the other statues, they’re delicate and not worth your time. Two. Do not go rummaging through the drawers of the nightstand. They’re locked anyways, but they’re very private. Three. Wonwoo can be found in three places: his workshop, the bed, or the kitchen. If you needed anything, go to those three places.
And so you lived a perfect life. When Wonwoo would go to his workshop for the day, sometimes you followed him and watched him shape a bird from its stone prison. When he was done with the full bodied bird, he would set it aside and ask you to find an empty spot where it could fit. When you returned to report back to him he was already facing you. He had waited for you to come back before he resumed working, after checking up on you of course. There were some times where you had to pry the tools out of Wonwoo’s grip, urging him to bed when you saw the slightest quiver or his arms or slow blink of the eyes. He never fought you on this, always giving into your soft touch.
Sometimes you marveled at how his hands were still soft after the many days of gripping onto the handle of a hammer and chisel. They were extremely gentle when it came to you as well. When he brought one of his hands to cup your cheek fondly in thanks of getting him into bed one night, you knew you’d never forget the feel and shape of his hand.
Wonwoo doesn’t really need to eat. He’s a Creator, a god of sorts. He can eat if he wants to, but he feeds off of the energy from his creations. Creating sculptures feeds his creative energy and spirit. He’s not too good in the kitchen anyways, but it’s one of his favorite reading spots. Sometimes he’ll read a book to you about two lovers, but you’ll never get to the end of it. You have already heard of the countless outings and stolen kisses between the couple. But every story has an end, right?
At the end of another day, you were found roaming the hall of statues while Wonwoo worked. You never touched them or moved them around like Wonwoo told you, but you admired them greatly. There great detail in every piece made each one different. A set of twins were your favorite. While they both looked extremely alike, you noticed that one of the twin’s eyes were slightly bigger than the other’s. A small detail you’d noticed after looking at it for so long.
You decided you were bored and would start to prepare Wonwoo’s bed for when you fetch him to rest. When adjusting the blanket tucking into the corner by the pillow, you accidentally bumped into the nightstand. A couple of items have fallen over. A picture frame that held an old, candid photo of Wonwoo was placed back in it’s rightful spot on the left side of the nightstand. You also checked his glasses to make sure they were alright, which thankfully they were. While inspecting the frames and lenses of the glasses, you noticed how flimsy one side of the frames were. It wasn’t because you bumped into the dresser or something fell on them… well, perhaps, but they weren’t broken. One of the sides of the frames came off in the form of a key, the outline of the teeth creating a distinct shape.
The key to the nightstand was a piece of Wonwoo’s glasses frames.
You told yourself that it wasn’t right to snoop, after all it was a rule. Wonwoo gave you anything you wished for, so you had no reason to go against his rules. You clicked the frames back together and put the glasses away.
You moved your feet to the workshop to usher Wonwoo to bed. He’d always looked so thankful and caring whenever you did so. He didn’t need to sleep either, but it was something that allowed him to relax and rest his body. He liked to sleep. Especially with you. Of course, not in a sensual kind of way, he never dared farther than to hold your hand. There was only one bed in the little house, and there was no couch. Not wanting either to sleep on the floor, the two of you opted to share the bed. You had woken up the next morning snuggled up with Wonwoo, who had been woken up by your constant wiggling and greeted you with a sleepy smile.
When you entered the hall filled with countless other statues, you noticed one thing straight away. The twins, who ironically were the second statue seen in the hall, were missing. Not exactly missing. They no longer stood in their frozen time frame where they smiled at one another and had their arms wrapped around their shoulders. They were now lying on the floor in pieces. Shattered. You crouched down and softly held onto the pieces of stone. They instantly warmed by your touch, making you drop them. Now standing, you looked ahead and witnessed that a couple of other statues were all smashed into bits and pieces.
The workshop was empty, surprisingly. You checked everywhere you could think of that Wonwoo would be hiding. Even when you called out for him, there was no reply. When you turned around to exit the workshop, Wonwoo was found leaning against the door, eyes shut and fists clenched. He called out a name in frustration, your name. But he added on a question. “Why?” Another. “Why did you leave me?”
“Wonwoo?” He opened his eyes and found himself staring at you. He shook his head, clearing himself of his thoughts from before. He looked frightened and heartbroken. “I’m here. It’s okay.” Wonwoo pushed off of the door and walked over to you. He wrapped his arms around you and hugged you tightly, but still having his arms loose enough as if he were frightened that you’d break.
“Sorry. I had a nightmare and couldn’t think straight.” He sounded unsure, but you nodded anyways. Wordlessly you guided the man back to the room with the bed, tugging on Wonwoo by his hand. He followed you like a lost puppy, unsure of what to do but finding safety with you. He climbed into the bed by himself and then you after him. There were no nightmares that night.
You woke up earlier than Wonwoo this time. The mess out in the hall was still present, and someone had to clean it up. Concluding that Wonwoo didn’t have the time to work as he planned on finishing another statue that morning, you head out to clean it yourself. Once again, you were greeted with the twins, still lying on the floor. They were apart from each other and the least you could do was reunite them when cleaning them up. You started out with the bigger pieces first, the pieces too heavy to be swept away by a broom. When you grabbed the first piece, you felt it warm up in your hands like it did the night before. Instead of dropping it you held on, but when you carried it away you weren’t able to see clearly anymore. Your vision warped.
You looked at your hand and saw that it was still holding the piece of statue, but the statue was intact. When you tried to move your hand away you found that you couldn’t. What was this?
“That’s always been your favorite,” Wonwoo said from right beside you. He took your hand away from the cheek of one twin and moved it so that it was now on his cheek, his hand still layered over yours. The Wonwoo before you looked much different, yet the same Wonwoo you’d always known. He teased you and cheekily smiled. “Is it because you told me you had a dream where we had twins? I was in such a hurry to finish this as soon as possible that I made a set of eyes larger than the other.”
Before you could reply, you found yourself staring into the empty spot where the twins used to lay. A vision? Was this why Wonwoo told you to never touch the other statues? The piece you were holding before, which you saw clearly was the cheek of the twin you had been cupping in the strange event, was dropped. That was most likely the reason for you coming back. You kicked the piece to the side, now using this method instead of carrying the pieces over. A slight nudge with your foot wouldn’t bring you back.
When you’d finished sweeping away the twins, Wonwoo had finally come out of bed. His hair was messy and his movements still sluggish, but the first thing he did every morning was to find where you were, which most often times you were in his arms or staring at the other statues.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“It’s fine, I can deal with it. You wanted to finish that other statue this morning. Do you still want to do that?” Wonwoo nodded, looking a little reluctant to leave you here with such a task. He cupped your cheek gently, just like what had happened in that vision, and then padded away to his workshop, hair still a mess but his movements quicker than before.
The next statue was the bird that Wonwoo had told you to find an empty spot for. You nudged the pieces off to one side again before sweeping the dust away. You paused, seeing a word on one of the wings to the bird. Key. You immediately thought back to the glasses frames on the nightstand. Wonwoo wasn’t wearing them today, so they were left there. You shook your head and tried to distract yourself by trying to find out if there was a sentence. It turns out that there was, and with all of the pieces somewhat back together you read out: You are the key to my happiness. At the end of the sentence, there was a couple of grooves for a keyhole. It looked very familiar to the one on the nightstand, so you deducted that they were the same. There was nothing to be found by the pieces of the statue, so you guessed that the bird was empty all along or Wonwoo took whatever it was that was in there. The rest of the statues were easier to clean up as they were all relatively smaller and not as smashed to pieces as the others. When you made it back to the room you felt a powerful urge to check out the nightstand. And so you did. The first thing you checked out was the keyhole. The grooves you saw before were definitely familiar now as they held the same pattern as the one in front of you. Your eyes darted up to the frames right on the edge of the nightstand. Normally you would have more self-control. For some reason, you just didn’t. Perhaps it was the scene from before that made you curious about Wonwoo.
It was strange. He acted somewhat distant, but very loving towards you anyways. In that one vision he looked so happy and warmer than you were used to. When you used the frame to turn the lock, the drawer slowly rolled open. There wasn’t much in it. A small notebook titled ‘The Two Lovers,’ something extremely cheesy, and another picture frame. You looked at the notebook first, seeing how intricate the writing was.
The first page was super cheesy, but extremely familiar to you. These were the same words of the story that Wonwoo would tell you. Figuring this out, you flipped to the end. Just like how Wonwoo told the story, there was an abrupt cut off at the end of the book. It seems like someone was in the middle of writing this though, as there were small scribbles on the next page for how to start off the next sentence. The handwriting was much different than Wonwoo’s though. Who did it belong to?
You set the notebook down and picked up the picture frame. Wonwoo was there, just like the picture frame up top. But this time, someone accompanied him in this shot. It was you. The thing is, you’ve never taken a photo like this before. On the photo there was some handwriting, the very same strokes as the letters in the little notebook.
‘To my beloved Wonwoo: May you be always be as happy as you make me.’
The same cheesiness, even a little heart at the end. Apparently, this was you. Except it wasn’t. Who is this person? You looked exactly alike, and no doubt your handwriting was similar, yet these strokes were more careful and precise with the words a little smaller than yours usually ended up. You were about to put the frame back in it’s place had you not noticed the single photo on the bottom of the drawer.
Slightly wrinkled and discolored from age, this photograph was older. Again, it was you, or the person who looked like you. They were not looking into the camera, instead looking fondly with a smile at a bird. The bird you’d seen before as the statue now broken. The picture was simple, yet the lighting and whatever colors were left made the picture look beautiful. So who is this mysterious person? Maybe you should look back into the notebook. When you did, you realized that the notebook was written in first person. This was something you hadn’t noticed the first time. There were also some little doodles in the margins of some pages, going along with the words that told the story. Then it hit you.
This wasn’t a notebook. It was a diary. It made sense as there were separated paragraphs in between different scenes and events, but there weren’t any dates which made you unsure.
This person, the person in the photos, knew Wonwoo. They were Wonwoo’s past lover. So who are you? What are you? Closing the notebook once more, but with unintended roughness, a small letter fell out of the back. Great, even more discoveries.
The letter, like the photo, was wrinkled and aged. The author without a doubt was the author of the diary. The summary of it was of a passing, someone passing away. Putting two and two together it was quite obvious that the person had passed away. Were they human? Wonwoo was a Creator, someone given life eternally in return for creating beautiful pieces of art. This person had passed, and Wonwoo was unable to move on. So he created you.
You were a statue. Given life. To be used as a coping mechanism for grief that never went away. This is what you were. Feeling used and like you had no sense of anything anymore, you sat there crouched. You cupped your own face and sobbed into your hands, muting all of your cries.
Just like that… you were shattered.
When Wonwoo came back into the room, deciding that it was time to stop working and apologize for having you clean up after him, he was met with the sight of another mess. Another mess that he caused. On the floor were pieces of a statue, dust scattered all over the floor. If the pieces were put back together again, they’d form the shape of you.
Once again, Wonwoo was alone. So he left this world and went to another. A world where he could start anew, be a new person. The world he went to already held life, which swayed him to believe he no longer had a reason to create life with his statues anymore. Yet they all seemed so lifelike in the museums and displays.
A man like stone. His name is Wonwoo. A name he made for himself in this world, a world where he created whatever he wanted. Because surely if it came to life, he’d never forgive himself ever again.