Chapter Text
There were many things Han Jisung would say he was less than equipped with handling when it came to his night shifts at the museum. Intruders trespassing to rob a relic of some sort, the out-of-date security systems malfunctioning, or a spontaneous fire somehow breaking out in one of the exhibits; none of these things were situations he'd ever dealt with, and he sincerely hoped he never would.
The last thing he expected to add to that list was the inanimate coming to life.
Jisung had worked here for the last couple of years, having managed to pass a course to get registered as a security guard after high school—to his friends’ surprise and his own—and find work at the museum some time after he started college.
It was a local museum, a small one, but one he held close to his heart because of the refuge it would offer him during the darker times of his teenagehood. Afternoons were spent roaming the monochrome halls and studying the various artefacts and artworks—whenever he needed to get away from reality and lose himself in something else, somewhere away from home, it was his escape.
But even in all that time he'd spent in this place, now knowing each turn and case like the back of his hand, it wasn't until he began to work here that he'd found a new object of his obsession.
A marble statue.
Sculptures weren't uncommon when it came to museums, far from it—hell, anyone that'd ever been to a museum could tell you the same. They were practically a staple when it came to ancient artwork, being one of the few mediums that could manage to survive thousands of years of war and erosion. If you asked the average person the first thing they'd think of when it came to art before the Common Era, chances were they'd name ancient statues.
Yet, despite it all, there was one in particular that managed to captivate Jisung no matter how many times he saw it.
It was of a man, in all simplicity, standing with a column by his side. His fingertips trailed over the surface as his body stepped forward, almost hanging in motion, and an arm raised towards his focus. Folds of cloth draped from his shoulder across his chest, the humble lines of his Adonis belt disappearing underneath and leaving little to the imagination as the fabric hung under his hip and modestly wrapped around his legs, spilling around his feet. Carved marble dipped and swelled with indescribable smoothness, shades and speckles of dark and light eggshell dancing in waves across his body.
Jisung couldn't count the amount of times he swore that if he could just come close enough to wrap his fingers around his arm, he would be able to feel the muscle under his silky skin, or the softness of the cloth that circled him.
Above all, his face was what enraptured him the most.
The strong light that hung over him cast stark shadows across its planes, the contrasting values putting that much more emphasis on his visage. A strong jaw with high cheekbones to match outlined his features, and strands of short hair, straight and polished, framed them. The tall bridge of his nose swooped down into an upturned point, and underneath, plush lips pushed into a soft pout, parted as if frozen amidst speech.
Dark shade hooded his sharp, cat-like eyes, deepening his gaze which trained somewhere ahead of him to his side, intense and direct. His lifting hand followed his focus, its fingers splayed open as if reaching towards someone. Whether in request or offer, Jisung didn't know. Sometimes he wished he could ask.
No matter how long he stared at this statue, he couldn't bring himself to imagine that it had been carved by a human. It felt unworthy to describe it as anything less but the creation of an artist guided by God's hands.
A masterpiece that took your breath away the moment your eyes fell upon it.
It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
Soon after Jisung had first encountered it, he'd tried asking about who had made it, where it came from, but there was little more anyone could offer other than what was already engraved on the plaque nailed to the side of the podium it stood upon. He couldn't find himself to care all that much, though, finding far more interest in its existence than its origin.
At first, he hadn't planned to do much more than do the work to earn enough to support himself through his studies, but Jisung found himself taking more shifts than he really needed to, just to spend more time studying the sculpture in the dark solitude of the night. He had the occasional day shift at times, but to his reluctance it rarely had him posted near the object of his obsession.
The few times that he had been, though, watching the crowds of visitors mill through the halls, he was always in covert disbelief just seeing how many completely ignored the paragon of beauty standing amidst them all in favour of taking selfies without even a glance at the art they were photographing. It wasn't his place to complain, though. Sold tickets were sold tickets after all.
His deeply onset obsession was, admittedly, a secret he kept to himself. A guilty pleasure, you could say.
Jisung wasn't blind to how odd his infatuation with a sculpture—an inanimate object, of all things—was, so he refrained from telling his friends, knowing they'd find a million and a half ways to make fun of him for it. He learned his lesson the last time he told them about a crush he got. It wasn't like he needed someone to tell him he was a weirdo, he knew it full well. He just couldn't bring himself to care.
And now, Jisung was on one of his usual night shifts, after a morning—well, afternoon, but who's counting—of waking up groggy from another terrible attempt at sleeping, and dragging himself to a lecture after inhaling a cup of ramyeon.
Once the museum doors were closed and most of the staff had gone home to enjoy their feierabend, he picked up his usual routine check, looping the halls as he flicked his flashlight about to look for trespassers and troublemakers that were never there.
He continued his path for a handful of hours, before finally letting himself relax as his shift started to come to a close. His pacing slowed when an all-too familiar silhouette came into view as he rounded the corner, coming to a stop once he reached the podium it stood upon. Though all of the lights were meant to be off after hours, he allowed himself to switch the spotlight on like he always did, in order to take a proper look; one amongst many he already had. To say this was something he'd done before would be an understatement—he couldn't count how many hours of his life he'd spent doing nothing more but marvel over every inch of the sculpture, committing each flaw and perfection to memory. If he really tried to, he could probably recreate an exact copy of it in his mind. But even something as mutable as imagination couldn't possibly capture the magnificence of the real thing.
It didn't matter how often Jisung saw it; it always felt like his first time when his eyes fell upon its face, his breath taken away in one fell swoop.
His eyes traced every curve, every line, drinking in any detail it could.
It only made sense that nothing but a sculpture could be so heavenly, to his sorrow. No living thing could ever reach such beauty and exist.
His gaze continued to explore until it finally rested on its lips—soft, and full.
He was suddenly filled with the irresistible urge to kiss them.
Maybe it was the fact that he'd barely slept and had lost any scraps of common sense he'd possessed, or that he had finally properly gone insane from his obsession reaching its peak, but for some reason he was genuinely considering it.
Jisung knew he was impulsive—incredibly so—which should've deterred him from pulling any stupid shit, especially at a job he really wanted to keep. He shouldn't entertain such a ridiculous thought as touching a museum artefact—he was a security guard after all, his whole damn job was keeping other people from doing the same.
That was how he found himself dragging one of the chairs the daytime guards used to rest over to the side of the podium, dumbly ignoring his inner rational voice yelling at him that he was being an idiot.
He was an idiot.
The good thing was that this was one of the areas that barely had coverage by the museum security cameras, which were sparse to begin with due to the antiquity of the whole electronics situation the museum had going on.
The bad thing was that it was just adding fuel to the flame of Jisung being an impulsive dumbass.
His hands trembled as he gripped the back of the chair to steady himself climbing on top, making sure he was stable as he dug his sneakers into the cushioning. He couldn't help but be nervous, whether it was of accidentally losing balance and toppling over with risk of damaging the sculpture, or possibly getting his ass fired. Probably both. His body had a questionable relationship with gravity—which is to say they loved each other a little too much. The last thing he wanted was the writing on his gravestone to be “split his head open while trying to smooch a statue because he was single and a total loser.”
Jisung shuddered at the thought.
He better be extra careful.
Once he was sure he wasn't going to trip over himself like a fawn, he finally let himself look back at the statue, only to startle much like a fawn at the sight of it staring back at him. It was jarring to see it from such a new perspective, regardless of how many times he'd already viewed it from every angle he possibly could. Despite being logically aware it was lifesize, it still took him aback just how different it was to truly stand on the same footing and see how little their heights differed. It almost felt like he was standing across from a real person.
Its hollow pupils burrowed into his soul, nesting warmly inside Jisung's chest as it filled with an unidentifiable emotion. For a moment, he was swept up in the addictive feeling that he was the subject that the man that stood before him was speaking to. Maybe for that instant, he even believed it.
He barely managed to break away from the spell of its gaze, having stood there swooning much too fondly for longer than he really wanted to admit. His focus fluttered instead to the outstretched hand at his side, taking in the lifelike creases of its palm that he hadn't been able to glimpse before. He wanted to reach out and run his fingertips over them, feel each detail, but he was terribly reluctant to do so from the fear that if he touched it too soon, the magic of it all would be broken for him. He wanted every moment before that to last.
It took him longer than it should've to fully summon the courage to meet the eyes of the statue once more.
The second he did, he was suddenly overwhelmed with a conflicting mixture of both shyness and the borderline painful awareness of what he was seriously doing, shrinking under the intensity of the statue's permanently engraved stare.
He mentally kicked himself for the absolute ridiculousness of his actions right now—he was a grown adult god damn it. He couldn't be seriously doing this.
But it was too late to turn back now.
His cheeks burned with heat as he squeezed his eyes shut, and leaned in, finally closing the distance.
The museum around them empty and silent.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected to feel.
Maybe some deeply delusional part of him hoped that, by some miracle, it'd be the warmth and softness of real lips.
But all that pressed back against Jisung's kiss was nothing more than the icy, immoveable touch of polished marble.
Still, he didn't move right away in dejection, holding on just long enough to savor the chance he knew he'd never get again. Breaking away with a quiet breath, Jisung opened his eyes to meet the statue's gaze one last time, his lips pursing into a small pout.
Before he could convince himself against it, his hand slid against the statue's cheek to cup it gently, careful not to catch any of the meticulously carved strands of hair. He caressed his thumb over its cheekbone, and heaved out a petulant sigh. Just like many things in his life, it was never meant to be.
If he was honest, there was little to be offered in his relationships outside of the platonic; it had stayed that way throughout most of his life.
Jisung never really found the need to consider why that was—the answer was fairly obvious without consideration. Between his endless hunger to strive towards his passions, and his reclusive nature when confronted with anyone he didn't know well, it was safe to say he was an expert self-saboteur when it came to pursuing any serious romantic interests. It was even rougher during his teenage years, when he struggled the most with his outbursts.
It was how he found his love for songwriting, after all. Spilling his emotions out in the form of ink and paper was the best remedy, it let him express his feelings in a safe way when they threatened to overflow.
His emotional turbulence followed him into adulthood, the pressure of his studies and having to scrape by to remain stable after beginning to live alone only worsening his struggles with anxiety. He’d often watch dramas and wish for what the couples on the screen had, but the momentary comfort did little more than just remind him of the absence of love in his life. His roommates were wonderful friends, of course, but it was a different kind of love he longed for.
When he finally found the statue, it changed everything.
At first, there was no underlying infatuation, no love at first sight, only a fascination for the masterful execution it embodied. Being a student studying the arts, after all, Jisung appreciated creativity deeply, and the sculpture was nothing if not a testament to it. Seeing it for the first time captured him like nothing else ever had; so lifelike you could blink and expect it to have moved. It was simply… remarkable.
The turning point truly began when it played a part in him discovering his sexuality.
He wouldn’t say that it was something that had been on his mind in the past, which was why it was that much more groundbreaking when Jisung began to realize he wasn’t only attracted to girls. Perhaps it was due to the fact that such subjects were still heavily considered taboo to even acknowledge—making him choke down anything of the sort that tried to arise. Denying himself any notion that he could possibly like men.
In spite of it all, being faced with the beauty of the sculpture was… different. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it for one second. And for a long time, it scared him. Scared him that what he felt, what he had felt in the past, could be real.
At first he wrote it off as nothing, but the feeling persisted. Only growing further and further each time he visited the museum for his work. He tried to repress it, tried to smother its flame. But no matter what he did, how desperate he was—each time he returned, the statue rekindled that flame.
And yet, unlike many others in his life, the statue never judged. It never condemned or blamed. It was the only thing he could disclose every fiber of his being to without the fear of rejection.
It became the one person he confided in. The only one that knew his true self.
The only one would accept him for who he truly was.
It was the one constant in his life.
Every evening, the statue was there without fail. Serene and unchanged, unlike everything else in his life that was always changing. It grounded him, in some way or another. Gave him stability—an anchor to remind him that the passage of time wasn't the end of the world. When he was being crushed under the weight of that change, it was all he had left.
Maybe that was why he became infatuated with it as time went on.
Maybe that was why he fell in love with a thing instead of a person.
A concept.
He knew it didn't make a grain of sense, but maybe he didn't care if it did. Nothing changed whether others understood him or not.
It was real to him. And that was all that mattered.
It didn't mean he never wished for more.
But it was useless to have thought he could ever find it here. There was no magic in the cold truth of reality.
“If only you were real.”
A crack snapped from under his finger through its face.
And out from it, several more.
A dark spiderweb of fractures.
Bursting through every inch of marble, as the entire sculpture shattered in a single wave.
Jisung's hand slipped as he lost his grip under the splintering marble, and a bloodcurdling shriek ripped out of his chest.
The last thing he saw before the ground disappeared from under him was a single silver eye.
The deafening thud of his body slamming into the unforgiving solid floor and the unmistakable clatter of thousands of falling shards of marble echoed through the halls. Jisung had no time to recover his bearings before he was suddenly crushed by another weight landing on top of him, knocking his head back against the porcelain tiles with a blinding jolt of pain, and he cried out.
Just as quickly as he was pinned under it, the weight suddenly lifted off of him, but he was too jarred to think much of it because of the agony quickly filling his head and back from the bad fall taking up all of his immediate attention.
“Fuck, shit, fuck,” he cursed with the elonquence of a middle schooler, immediately rolling onto his side to curl up and cradle his head with a loud whine.
As he rolled over, his knee knocked against something, and a soft grunt came from above him. It didn't register right away, with Jisung too preoccupied with groaning under his breath over his pain that slowly ebbed away into an annoying ache. But the moment the dizziness faded from his mind and his blurry vision focused on an all too familiar shard of marble lying in front of his eyes, he was suddenly faced with a horrifying realization.
He was so done for.
“Oh god, no, no no no fuck I broke it oh my god no—” Jisung exclaimed as he whipped around to face the damage he had wreaked, his heart dropping to the depths of hell.
However, instead of an image of a destroyed sculpture entering his view, his eyes fell upon a man right above him.
At first, he only made out a silhouette against the white glow of his fallen flashlight; but as his eyes adjusted to the dark, more details came into view. Details that were both unrecognized to him, yet somehow incredibly familiar.
Dark hair with the sheen of a raven's wing and sun-kissed skin. His arms, toned and bare, propped him up where his palms pressed against the floor on either side of Jisung's head, and he could feel muscled and impossibly firm thighs locked around Jisung's knees, which had glued together by now. To the detriment of poor Jisung, his torso was equally toned and bare, the thinnest sliver of coverage given to him by a white cloth draped over his hips that was coming dangerously close to falling off from the precarious position the both of them found themselves in.
Dark irises fixed intently on Jisung, seemingly pitch black in nature. That was, until they caught a ray of light, the pools illuminating with satiny iridescence. Bright silver flashing through them.
The man slowly blinked at Jisung from where he hung over him, shimmering silver fading to black once more.
His anxious rambling came to an abrupt halt as all of the breath left his lungs.
It was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.
He wasn't just done for.
He was royally fucked.
Jisung couldn't even manage to gather the broken pieces of his voice up as he simply stared up dumbfoundedly, but the gorgeous stranger seemed to notice his struggle as the corners of his mouth quirked up in an amused smirk. Jisung suddenly felt like a tiny mouse trapped under a cat.
His lip quivered for a moment, and a breathless squeak left him before he could even think. “ Hi. ”
Alright, pack it up, he was officially the worst flirt in the entirety of human history.
But instead of cringing at how horribly uncharismatic Jisung was, the stranger let out a chuckle. Rich and smooth. At that moment, all Jisung knew was that he would do anything to hear it again.
“What a cute little thing you are.”
Jisung thanked every god that was possibly out there that it was too dark to see how red his face definitely was right now.
“Wait, y-you— What is—” he finally stammered out as he clumsily scooted back as fast as he could, the stranger smoothly moving away to let Jisung detach himself and sit up, his silver eyes following Jisung's every move. His mind was racing at several miles a second, trying to piece together any possible logic to the events that just transpired in the last few seconds.
As soon as he knew his knees weren't going to turn into jelly, Jisung scrambled to his feet to fully take in the state of the podium, his chest heaving as anxiety coiled in his stomach. He wasn't going to pay any mind to how he might've patted his hair down and tucked a lock behind his ear in doing so to make sure he looked vaguely presentable despite just eating shit on the floor a moment ago.
But to his shock, the statue he had come to adore was no longer there.
The podium was completely empty.
Trembling, he hurried to his abandoned flashlight and grabbed it to wave the spotlight around the room, trying to find any of the broken pieces of marble he swore he'd seen lying next to him. But he found nothing.
It was like everything had vanished into thin air.
If his eyes could fall out of his head, they would've by now.
“How the hell…” he whispered, grabbing his head as if it would somehow help him figure this insane situation out faster. It wasn't.
Was he seeing things? He had to be. The sleep deprivation had finally hit him and he was losing his mind for good. That's what was happening.
He was so boggled by his confusion that he'd somehow already completely forgotten about the stranger, before the recall hit him and he lurched back to point the beam of his flashlight towards them, the bright spotlight finding them kneeling on the floor right where he had left them.
They lifted a hand to shield their eyes, squinting slightly against the blinding light.
Jisung gripped the handle of the flashlight with both hands as he steadied himself, suddenly awfully aware that there was somehow a stranger in the museum. He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish as he tried to find the right words.
“How in the world did you get in here?? It's after hours, the museum is…” The moment he finally got a good look at them under the light, his words trailed off. The color draining from his skin. “Closed…”
It was him.
The stranger before him was undeniably, undoubtedly, him.
The man from the statue.
The revelation must have been evident on Jisung's face, as the man—the statue , somehow alive and moving —got to his feet, his fingers wrapping around the cloth Jisung now recognized as the exact cloth that adorned the sculpture, and he slung it back over his shoulder.
“I've always been here, haven't I?” His voice was silky smooth, just like the marble he'd emerged from.
Jisung was frozen.
“H-How…” he started to shake his head, backing away. “No, this isn't possible, none of this is…” he choked out a nervous laugh. “Of course, I hit my head and got a concussion, and now I'm hallucinating, that's it! It's gotta be!”
The man silently watched Jisung with an expression of patient amusement, cocking his head to the side.
“I-I mean, this can't possibly be real,” Jisung continued to ramble, even though he should've already shut up by now if he knew what was good for him. “ None of this is real—”
In two swift strides the man closed the distance between them and swept Jisung into his arms before he could even manage a surprised squeak, shutting him up as he pressed his lips against Jisung's in a gentle kiss.
Lips just as soft and warm as he had always imagined them.
They were perfect.
Any momentary thought of resistance was washed away along with the world around them as Jisung melted into the embrace, returning the act without a care in the world. It was too easy to let his whirlwind of thoughts and worries go in favour of giving in to the kiss.
Sweet, and so impossibly tender.
After a few heartbeats, the man carefully broke it off, pulling back to meet Jisung's eyes once more.
“Does that feel real enough to you?” he murmured, grasping Jisung's chin as he traced his thumb over his lower lip, pulling it gently down.
Jisung stared back with doe eyes, wide and glistening, taken aback by the sudden intimacy of someone he'd only just met. Still unable to believe his own eyes, nor what had just happened.
None of it made sense, and it was making less sense by the second.
“Why did you…?”
“I just wanted to return the favour,” the man from the sculpture hummed softly, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Now that I finally can.”