Work Text:
Joong’s deadline always pressed forward like rain on a still lake, barely a ripple at first, then impossible to ignore.
He sat cross-legged on the grass behind the Fine Arts building, his sketchpad empty and the sun slipping slowly into a golden hue. His final portfolio was due soon, and while the technicals were all there, he still felt hollow whenever he’d look closer.
He didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t had time to figure that part out between oil stains and late-night ramen cups.
He let out a sigh and tilted his head back, watching clouds roll past like time-lapse brushstrokes.
Then—
A silhouette.
Under the tree, across the lawn, someone was curled on the sun-dappled bench. A boy, whose knees were pulled in, with one sneaker hanging loose and hair falling ever so effectively in front of his closed eyes. The light clung to him, with the shadow and sunlight playing on his cheekbones like a chiaroscuro painting come alive.
Joong blinked.
Then grabbed his sketchpad and moved closer.
The pencil moved before thoughts did.
It was only meant to be a quick gesture drawing, hoping to get Joong out of the art block. But there was something about the way the boy’s hand was half-curled, limp and soft. There was peace in his stillness.
Joong didn’t stop drawing for an hour. The sun had almost set.
When the boy finally stirred, yawning and blinking up into the orange sun like it had personally offended him, Joong panicked. He closed his pad and jumped up, but it was too late.
“You were… staring.”
Joong froze.
The boy’s voice was sleep-rough and deep, but held a sense of curiosity. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “With a pencil.”
“I was drawing you,” Joong blurted. “I– I’m so sorry. You were just… perfectly lit! You looked—”
“Like I was asleep under a tree?”
“Exactly!”
The boy smiled, and Joong’s heart tripped.
“I’m Dunk,” he said, standing up and stretching. “You owe me a snack.”
Joong blinked. “What?”
“For using my likeness. That’s how it works, right?” Dunk grinned widely. “Free snacks or I sue.”
It was just the beginning.
Joong didn’t know how it kept happening.
Or maybe he did.
Maybe it was the way Dunk smiled every time he found Joong with his sketchpad. Or how he started bringing juice boxes and granola bars, claiming it made his mindset for modelling better.
All Joong knew was that he didn’t sit alone anymore. Dunk began showing up around the golden hour mark, with a book or nothing at all, curling into the bench like he belonged there.
“Okay,” Joong would say, crouched on the grass, his pencil ready. “Don’t move.”
Dunk would smirk. “What if I need to itch my nose?”
“Then I lose the composition of your likeness of being.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
But still, Dunk would stay still, in that slouchy, relaxed way only he could manage. With his legs kicked out, head tilted, and eyes half-closed against the sun.
One sketch became five.
Then ten.
Then the whole sketchbook.
Joong completely stopped sketching anything else.
There was a quietness to Dunk’s presence. It didn’t demand attention, but made you want to give it anyway. His expression changed with the wind, brow furrowing slightly when he thought too hard, mouth twitching when a stray dog darted across.
He wasn’t conventionally still.
He was alive in that stillness.
Sometimes he’d hum, soft and tuneless. Sometimes Joong would ask him questions just to hear the rhythm of his voice. What his favourite colour was, what kind of soup he hated, whether he believed in soulmates.
Dunk had blinked at the last one. “You mean like fate?”
“Yeah,” Joong said, lightly shading the curve of Dunk’s neck. “Like maybe… some people are meant to be in your life. Even if they show up sort of randomly.”
Dunk had gone quiet and Joong didn’t press.
One afternoon, Joong showed up to the tree late. His class had run long, and his mood was foul, and he was sure Dunk wouldn’t even be there anymore.
But he was. Sitting cross-legged with a juice box, waiting.
He opened the sketchpad and sat down across from Dunk.
But when he lifted his pencil, he hesitated.
Because Dunk wasn’t just still anymore. He was looking at him. Straight on, eyes steady.
“I want to see how you draw me like this,” Dunk said softly.
Joong’s chest tightened. “Like what?”
“When I’m looking back.”
The pencil shook a little in his fingers.
Still, he drew.
He took longer than usual, tracing the outline of Dunk’s jaw, the curve of his shoulder, the way sunlight caught the edges of his irises and turned them amber. The page filled slowly. And Dunk didn’t look away.
“Why me?” Dunk asked, just as Joong was finishing.
Joong looked up.
“I’m not that interesting. I mean, I sit well. But you could’ve picked anyone.”
Joong’s voice was quiet. “You… make the world quieter.”
Dunk blinked.
“When I draw you, it’s like everything else softens. My head. My hands. Everything feels so much more peaceful.”
“Oh,” Dunk said.
And then, even quieter: “That’s kind of a lot, huh.”
Joong closed his sketchpad carefully.
“I’ll stop,” he said. “If it’s too much.”
“No,” Dunk said, too quickly. “I like it. I just… didn’t expect to be seen like that.”
Joong’s voice caught in his throat. “You should be.”
On the last day before the portfolio was due, Joong asked Dunk to come to his dorm.
“I want to paint you,” he said. “Properly.”
Dunk raised an eyebrow. “Clothed?”
Joong flushed. “Yes! I mean—unless you want to—no, wait. Sorry. Just... how you are. You. I just, I don't know why I asked for my room, I—”
Dunk laughed. “Joong.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll come.”
So he did.
Joong set up the canvas by the window, where the sun filtered in golden and soft. Dunk sat on the stool, elbow draped on his knee, eyes half-lidded.
Joong painted.
It wasn’t just technical anymore. It was familiar now. He knew the way Dunk’s hair curled at the tips. The way his collarbone cast a soft shadow. The way his lips pulled when he was trying not to laugh.
The painting came alive with each stroke.
At one point, Dunk asked, “Is this the one you’ll turn in?”
Joong nodded.
“Then I hope I’m worth it.”
Joong looked up. “You are.”
Dunk looked away. His cheeks flushed, but he didn’t move.
“Don’t,” Joong said instinctively. “Don’t move. Stay like that forever.”
The room went still.
And Joong realized, he didn’t want the painting to end.
Because that meant this moment would end too.
That night, he finished the painting in silence.
Dunk sat cross-legged on his floor, eating crackers and watching quietly.
When Joong stepped back and looked at the canvas, something shifted in his chest. The painting was beautiful, yes. But it wasn’t just a portrait.
It was a confession.
He turned to Dunk. “Come see.”
Dunk stood beside him, studying the image, his own likeness, soft and full of unspoken emotion.
“Is this really how you see me?” Dunk asked.
Joong’s voice cracked. “It’s how I feel you.”
Dunk looked at him. And for once, he didn’t tease or deflect. Instead, he whispered, “Then maybe… it’s how I feel you too.”
Joong’s breath caught.
The room felt like a held breath.
And then, Dunk stepped forward.
Dunk touched Joong’s hand where it held the brush, gently pulling it down. He leaned his forehead against Joong’s and whispered, “I don’t want to be just a painting.”
Joong closed his eyes. “You’re not.”
And when they finally kissed, it wasn’t dramatic or wild. It was slow. It was sunlight inching across skin, the moment just before the colours blend.
It felt like home.
A week later, Joong’s professor called his painting “intimate”.
Joong didn’t say much in response. He just smiled and closed his sketchbook.
That evening, he found Dunk already under the tree, legs kicked out, a book resting on his stomach.
Joong sat beside him this time.
They didn’t need to talk.
The golden hour came as it always did. Soft and inevitable.
And Joong didn’t reach for his pencil.
He reached for Dunk’s hand instead.