Work Text:
Every dot on a drawing is just a set of coordinates. Every line is just a path between one dot and another. Every shape is just a set of lines.
They should all be equal, really. All dots and lines and shapes should, scientifically speaking, have equal value. They should all be equally beautiful.
And yet… they are not.
People like some dots, lines and shapes far more than other dots, lines and shapes. The audience rises to enthusiastically applaud some fashion shows for several minutes, while other shows barely get a polite clap. As if there is a voice inside their heads, an ancestral choir gushing through millenia of evolution, yelling this one, this is pretty, this is IT, I like THIS and not THAT!! Like a gaggle of caveman children gathering at a beach and picking one single stone among the thousands on the shore, nodding to each other in agreement. Yes. This one is beautiful, they'd think, and carry it with them through wilderness and danger, knowing full well that every gram of extra weight will slow them down and risk their survival.
Rough sketches stared back at Hongjoong from the large surface of his wooden desk. They stood haphazardly thrown about - there was never any order in the designer's office (even though Hongjoong angrily claimed he knew where everything was).
Is this it? thought Hongjoong. Would people like these? Would it cause that immediate feeling of beauty? The kind that everyone agrees on, yet can't define?
He'd been at it since morning, filling in paper after paper. They were all highly artistic sketches, aiming for more of a concept, a general feel, rather than something with precise measurements.
And on every one, there was a head of not-quite-shoulder-length black hair, and a pair of full red lips. These were the parts Hongjoong fancied himself to have had no control over. Sure, the outfits he drew deliberately. But the faces were entirely unnecessary. A fashion sketch would work as a sketch even with just a circle for a head. Yet, every single time, he watched his hand draw, as if of its own volition, the same hair, the same lips.
Hongjoong let out a long, tired breath. The weight of exhaustion pulsed behind his eyelids. He felt like flopping onto the desk like a deflated starfish, but contented himself with simply putting his head down onto the desk.
Even if his wish was to be granted - even if people liked his work - that would not be enough.
Because it was not enough to create something conventionally beautiful. His work also needed to stand out. It needed to be new, bold, to drag one's attention away from other designers’.
In other words… it couldn't just be pretty. It needed to be a little weird, too. A little specific.
And where exactly the line between fresh and fun and too fcking weird is… well, no one really knows. Not even Hongjoong, for all his success as a fashion designer.
Feeling stuck, Hongjoong was just about to let his mind sink into an exhausted 10-minute nap, when he heard a quiet yet familiar clomp clomp clomp outside in the hallway.
He startled, frozen for a second. In that second he wasn't a grown man anymore. He was a spotty closeted teen, watching explicit videos on the family Windows XP at night, hearing the tell-tale creak of his parents’ bed as one of them got up to get a glass of water.
The moment passed, but the panic didn't. He struggled to gather all the papers, but there were simply too many. The clomps grew louder, slowly trailing up the long, long hallway, right towards his office.
clomp clomp clomp cLOMP CLOMP CLOMP
CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP -
Right when Hongjoong decided he wasn't above shoving the sketches down his desk onto the floor and hoping they remain unseen, the approaching sound stopped, apparently right in front of his door. Then, he heard it retreat.
CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP Clomp clomp clomp
Head sinking back down onto his desk, Hongjoong let out a shaky sigh of relief. He had never been caught watching explicit videos on the family computer. And thankfully, this time, he wasn't caught drawing Park Seong Hwa by Park Seong Hwa, either.
There was nobody else the clomping of the heels could belong to. The sound was just that distinct. Hongjoong could pick it out from any other model who worked there.
If every dot on his drawings was just a set of coordinates, then every sound in those clomps was just a collection of data: tone, timbre, volume, pitch. A certain pressure of Seonghwa's foot onto the sole of his shoe. A certain chemical in Seonghwa's brain that made him put that exact amount of pressure. Then, another chemical, deciding the speed.
Clomp clomp clomp, the sound continued evenly. It proceeded along the same trajectory, coming closer, right up to Hongjoong's door, then away, along the long hallway. There and back again, pleasantly, rhythmically. clomp clomp clomp.
This is IT, thought Hongjoong sleepily. This was exactly what he had been thinking about. There was a universal beauty in the even speed of those clomps, a symmetry. And yet, there was a bit of oddity, too. A bit of… emotion.
Head flat against his heavy desk, Hongjoong deluded himself into thinking he could feel the vibrations of those clomps through the wooden surface. His eyes fluttered closed. He thought he could sense everything going on in that hallway. Seonghwa was wearing the black heels with the red soles, surely. Perhaps he was in a dress of some kind. His hands would be relaxed, moving next to his body with fake ease.
Fake, because Seonghwa was nervous. He was nervous when practicing, he was nervous when performing, he was probably nervous even when sleeping. But there was something earnest about that nervousness, something almost heartbreaking in how it spoke of how much all this meant to Seonghwa. Park Seonghwa was always nervous because he always cared. And his caring and his passion and his beauty, heartbreakingly unaware of itself, reverberated through the tiled hallway floor. Hongjoong was certain he could feel it now. The superficial symmetry of his heeled step was marred. The imperfections were there, clearly audible to Hongjoong's practised ears. And they were it. They were that absolutely perfect blend of universally beautiful AND original. They were the beauty Hongjoong had desperately been searching for.
CLOMP CLOMP Clomp.
Hongjong felt himself take a long breath in every time the heels approached, culminating in an almost painful second of holding his breath when the clomps were at his door. Then the heels retreated, and he could slowly exhale.
God, please step on me like that, a feral little voice in his head piped up, only to be routinely silenced.
He almost chuckled to himself. He'd found it - found the most beautiful thing in this world. The sound of these particular heels, worn by this particular man. It was his Sistine Chapel and his Birth of Venus.
But it was a sound and not a drawing.
Hongjoong knew he was talented. He'd never been one for false modesty. Yet, even he couldn't turn sound into an outfit.
… Could he?
Just when he was on the verge of mustering all the feeble atoms of hope in his body and trying to draw one more sketch, the worst possible thing happened.
The clomping stopped.
It was as if someone had turned off the sun. Hongjoong's inspiration seemed to seep back into the floor below like water down the drain.
Furiously, the designer stood up, scattering papers about. Seonghwa's face stared at him from each one. He felt like ripping them up. He slammed the door open.
“PARK SEONG HWA.”
Whether from the sudden movement or from Hongjoong somehow knowing who it was before he had even seen him, Seonghwa's whole body startled.
Framed by the narrow grey hallway, Seonghwa crouched to pick up the jacket he's just dropped at Hongjoong's intrusion. The tall model was in a slim black dress, its intricately beaded edges swaying just below his knees. Sure enough, he was wearing black heels with a red sole, the ones he usually practised in. They were heavily distressed, the shiny black surface scratched and cracked from countless hours of practise. It was nearly inconceivable to Hongjoong that such a sorry pair of banged-up shoes could possibly partake in producing that heavenly sound he had been listening to, yet it was true.
The dress was sleeveless. The jacket was clearly supposed to go on top, not fully worn but casually draped over the shoulders like a cape. Without it, the skin of Seonghwa's muscular arms reflected the harsh overhead light. Yet, his strong build never seemed to give Seonghwa an aura of strength. There was always a scared gleam in his eyes, a sag of his shoulders whenever he wasn't on the runway.
Every cell in Hongjoong's body rebelled against the very thought of treating Park Seonghwa harshly. As always, he overrode those complaints with practised ease.
“What are you doing?” he asked sharply. He saw Seonghwa wince. The model fumbled with his jacket. He pushed not-quite-shoulder-length black hair out of his face and parted his red, red lips to stumble out an apology. “I'm - I'm sorry, I was just practising. I'm sorry if it was loud, I'll go somewhere el-”
Those lips were always slightly dry, no matter what make-up he wore, delicate little lines appearing in the middle. Once, Hongjoong had toyed with the idea of asking make-up artists to draw them on all his models for a show. He gave up from a vague fear that, somehow, someone would figure out why.
“I didn't ask what you did. I asked what you were doing.”
Seonghwa's face froze in the guilty confusion of a child sent to the principal's office not knowing what he did wrong, but knowing he must have done something. The teacher couldn't be wrong. Hongjoong couldn't be wrong. “I - I don't underst- “
“You were practising. But what are you doing right now?”
Seonghwa blinked. Hongjoong wished he model wouldn't be such an open book, so sensitive, so easy to bully.
“I'm… doing nothing?” said Seonghwa in a whisper, more of a very tentative suggestion than a statement.
“Exactly. You're doing nothing. We have a show in a week and you're doing nothing!!”
As if physically hit, Seonghwa suddenly stood up very straight, then almost stumbled backwards. He held onto the wall with one hand. “I - Yes - I'm sorry!! I'll continue right away!!”
Seonghwa was always this way, always sensitive, taking every criticism to heart. Closing the door, Hongjoong wondered if Seonghwa would ever find out that people sometimes had ulterior motives for their criticism.
As always, a tiny yet persistent voice in his head reprimanded him for treating one of his models - his secret muse, no less - so harshly. And as always, he ignored it.
Back in his office, Hongjoong gathered the papers in his arms, almost lovingly. Slowly, he sorted through them. The CLOMP CLOMP Clomp was back in the hallway. At first, it wasn't what it was before. It was shaky, uncertain. Once again, Hongjoong felt like he could see the hallway through the wall. He could see the model hold onto the wall for a bit, trying to catch his breath, trying to steady the guilty racing of his heartbeat. There seemed to be nothing that threw Seonghwa off his game more than Hongjoong reprimanding him. But, perhaps fearing another - and, no doubt, worse - reprimand from the designer, the model soon continued his practice. At first shyly, then very slowly easing into a familiar rhythm. Even if the spring in his step wasn't quite there anymore. Clomp clomp clomp.
Hard work won't betray you, but inspiration is also important. It coursed through Hongjoong like electricity, like a power line directly to God.
Seonghwa walked, his heels clicked on the tiled floor. On the other side of the door, Hongjoong drew, ignorant of the entire world except that one sound - the sound which soon swelled to its full glory, the model perhaps temporarily forgetting Hongjoong's scolding.
What felt like an eternity later, the drawing was complete.
Hongjoong was panting as if he had just run. Seonghwa still walked, perhaps entranced with some inspiration himself, or - more likely - scared to stop before Hongjoong told him to.
Had it been hours? Had it been minutes? Had it been centuries?
Seonghwa's face stared back from the drawing, the unmistakable black hair, the uncertain red lips. And the outfut - the outfit -
This is IT, Hongjoong knew, more certain than ever. It probably couldn't be made in a week, but whatever show the outfit premiered on, whether tomorrow or in a century, Hongjoong was sure it'd be successful. It was his magnum opus. It was the little bit of God that humans can, sometimes, on rare and precious occasions, reach up and grab like a holy fruit.
Hongjoong needed to get this drawing to his staff ASAP - out of courtesy, more than anything, since he was certain another set of eyes would see the same beauty in it that he did. The ancestral choir, that panel of judges sitting in our DNA, was sure to approve. And so was the bored child within us, petulantly demanding mommy, gimme something fun! gimme something new!!
But there was one more thing left to do.
Spotty closeted teen Hongjoong had never been caught watching explicit videos on the family computer. And child Hongjoong had rarely been caught crying, learning quickly that a quick temper and a dominant personality were taking him much farther than tears were.
He couldn't be weak. He couldn't be like Seonghwa, vulnerable to a fault.
Hongjoong had never been strong enough to be weak.
Grabbing a pair of scissors in one hand, Hongjoong held up his precious drawing in the other.
He hated to interrupt the revered sound of Seonghwa's heels, but did so anyway. He hated the quiet snip-snip of the scissors on paper for ever-so-slightly overlapping with the clomps.
Now, the outfit was as dazzling as ever, but the drawing stood headless, cut off at the neck.
The small top of the paper with Seonghwa's head on it fluttered to the floor. Hongjoong didn't dare look at it.
The outfit works just as well without it, he reasoned. The rest of the drawings he haphazardly stashed into the drawers. Finally, almost by themselves, his hands reached for the cut-off strip of paper, putting the decapitated black-haired, red-lipped head on top of the pile with an unnecessary, almost pathetic care. Then, he tightly locked the drawers.
No one would ever know. No one would ever know the drawing had ever had a head. It wasn't needed. He didn't need it.
He swallowed his own lie with practised ease.
No one would ever know.
Already deep in his 20s, Seonghwa would soon age out of the fashion world, replaced by younger, fresher hopefuls. No one else would ever walk like that in the grey hallway again.
No one would ever know.
If asked, Hongjoong could offer a whole variety of supposed inspiration for his latest work. He could say he was inspired by God, and it wouldn't even be untrue.
No one would ever know.
Hongjoong knew for a fact he could never be as brave as Seonghwa. Falling yet always getting up, getting hurt yet finding strength to trust again. Hongjoong was a glass king in his own glass castle, praying that the enemy army mistakes it for diamond.
He could, theoretically, turn back at the door. He could grab the cut-off head again. He could fold it carefully, put it in his pocket. He could keep it. He could carry it around like the world's weirdest good-luck charm, commemorating this ignoble victory over his own most earnest desires, over his own compromising weakness.
No one would ever know what he felt for Park Seong Hwa.