Work Text:
The studio windows were still glowing when Sunghoon pulled up, warm light spilling onto the wet cobblestones of the street.
He cut the engine and stayed in the car for a moment, watching through the glass.
At the second easel, Jongseong was crouched beside a small boy, one hand planted on the table while the other gently guided the boy’s wrist through a slow arc of blue. He kept talking as he worked, explaining something about the paint, and the boy followed every word with the solemn focus of a scholar, his eyes fixed on the brush as it moved across the paper.
Around them, the rest of the class carried on in a loose, cheerful mess of rinsing brushes, shifting stools, calling for more water, and holding up half-finished paintings to be admired.
Sunghoon stayed where he was, watching through the window.
He loved seeing him here. Teaching brought out a side of him that Sunghoon didn’t get to see in quite the same way at home. There, Jongseong was softer, always drifting close without seeming to notice, his attention settling naturally on Sunghoon even while he was doing something else. Here, all of that focus went into the children. They crowded around him whenever he spoke, eager to see what he would show them next. A little girl with red ribbons in her hair had climbed onto a stool beside him, clearly determined to miss nothing.
When Jongseong laughed at something one of the children said, Sunghoon smiled to himself, the sound carrying faintly through the glass.
By the time the class ended, the room had emptied by degrees. Parents arrived to collect their children, coats were pulled on, damp paintings were tucked carefully under arms, and every few minutes another small voice called goodbye from the doorway. Jongseong stayed there to see each child out, crouching to say a few final words when someone had something they needed to show him. Three different mothers stopped long enough to beam at him before heading into the street, and Sunghoon watched until the last of them was gone.
Jongseong locked the door behind them and turned toward the car.
The moment he spotted him waiting inside, his entire expression softened. The change was so immediate Sunghoon could see it even through the windshield. His shoulders loosened, the tired teacher’s smile fell away, and his face opened into the familiar one Sunghoon knew better than anyone. He picked up his bag and hurried across the pavement, the strap knocking against his hip with every quick step.
He yanked the passenger door open and dropped into the seat in a rush of cold air and the familiar smell of paint clinging to his clothes. As he pulled the door shut, he turned toward him with a bright, breathless smile.
“Hi,” Jongseong said.
“Hi.” Sunghoon smiled back, barely getting the word out before Jongseong was already reaching for his seatbelt.
“I have so much to tell you.” He fastened it one-handed, a feat he had never once managed without fumbling, then twisted around in his seat to face his husband properly. He tucked one knee up beneath himself, angling his whole body toward him as though the seatbelt were the only thing keeping him from turning completely around. “Okay, okay. Two things. First, Areum finished her whole landscape today. The one with the river. She’s seven, Sunghoon.”
“Seven?” Sunghoon repeated, glancing over at him as he pulled away from the curb.
“Seven,” Jongseong said, settling deeper into the seat for all of three seconds before leaning toward him again. “And she did the reflection all by herself. I didn’t touch it, I didn’t even breathe on it, and it worked. It actually worked.” He lifted both hands beside his cheeks, fingers spreading in a little burst of excitement as his eyes widened. “She looked at it and her whole face just... you know?”
“I know,” Sunghoon said, amused as he watched the road.
“And then, then...” Jongseong twisted farther around, getting his other knee onto the seat as he tried to gather enough momentum for the next story. Sunghoon reached across without taking his eyes from the street and gently pressed him back down before he could climb straight into the driver’s lap.
“Stay on your side,” he said.
“I am on my side,” Jongseong protested, laughing as he lowered himself again. “Anyway, there’s this boy, Minsuk. He’s been so shy, he hasn’t spoken to anyone in three weeks, and today he asked me a question out loud, about mixing green... I nearly fell over.”
That finally pulled a laugh from the man sitting beside him. “What did you tell him?”
“Yellow plus blue, obviously.” Jongseong tucked his leg back beneath himself, then pointed at him as if making an important correction. “But I told him the real thing too, which is that green is the color that never quite agrees with itself. Every green is a little bit wrong, and that’s why it’s the best one.”
Sunghoon shook his head, smiling as he turned onto the main street and let him carry on.
From there, Jongseong talked almost without pause as they followed the river road. He told Sunghoon about the drying rack and how they needed to move it because the afternoon sun was cracking the papers, then launched into a story about Sora, who had burst into tears because her painting “wasn’t good.” He described how he had crouched beside her and explained that every artist he had ever admired had made a thousand bad paintings. Sora had sniffled, wiped at her face, and asked whether he had made a thousand bad paintings too.
“I told her I’d made more,” Jongseong said, laughing at the memory as he rubbed his thumb over the edge of his seatbelt. “And then she laughed, Sunghoon. She actually laughed through her tears.”
The other man glanced at him for a moment, catching the grin still lingering on his face before returning his attention to the road.
Jongseong kept going, moving easily from one story to the next. He told him about the pear tree starting to lose its leaves, and about one of the children carefully collecting them in a jar because she wanted to “save the color.” By then, his hands were moving almost as much as his mouth, tracing shapes in the air as though he could somehow show Sunghoon every little thing he had seen that afternoon.
His hands seemed to be involved in every part of the story, rising to illustrate a shape, dropping to his lap, then lifting again whenever he remembered another detail. His voice climbed with his excitement, softened when he reached the sweeter parts, and rose again as soon as another thought occurred to him. Every so often, he turned toward Sunghoon while he talked and then forgot to turn back, leaving him to keep his eyes on the road with an effort that was becoming increasingly necessary.
The longer he went on, the harder it became for Sunghoon to contain the urge to reach across the console and gather him up. Affection had filled his chest to the point of discomfort, his fingers flexing against the steering wheel whenever Jongseong laughed or leaned closer to tell him something. He wanted to squeeze his cheeks, bite them, and pull the car over just so he could hold him tightly enough to make him squeak.
The internet called it cuteness aggression, which Sunghoon had always thought was a ridiculous phrase for something that felt so overwhelming when the person in question was his husband.
Jongseong broke off in the middle of a story and narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re not listening.” He shifted closer in his seat, watching his face as though he were looking for evidence.
“I’m listening to every word.” Sunghoon glanced at him briefly before returning his attention to the road.
“You’re smiling weird.” Jongseong tipped his head, studying the curve of his husband's mouth with growing suspicion.
“I’m smiling normally.”
“That is not your normal smile.” He paused, squinting as he searched for the right description, until recognition finally brightened his expression. “You have that look! You know, the one you get when you’re about to do something.”
Sunghoon let out a quiet laugh and shook his head. “What?”
“The look, Sunghoon.” He gave him a pointed stare, as though the answer should have been obvious, then settled back against the seat while continuing to watch him from the corner of his eye.
Sunghoon pulled into the courtyard, cut the engine, and kept both hands on the wheel for one long, composed second before turning toward Jongseong. Then he reached across the console, caught his face between his hands, and kissed his cheek.
“You,” he said, giving the other cheek the same treatment, “have been...” Another kiss landed on the tip of Jongseong’s nose. “The most...” Sunghoon kissed his forehead, then the corner of his mouth. “Ridiculous...” He paused only long enough to look at him before pressing another kiss against his cheek. “Beautiful thing...” At that point, whatever sentence he had intended to finish had clearly disappeared. He kept both hands around Jongseong’s face, squishing his cheeks together while he stared at him.
Jongseong’s laugh came out muffled, his mouth barely able to move under his palms. His eyes went wide with helpless delight as he tried to speak. “Wha...”
“Seven-year-olds,” Sunghoon said, still holding him there. “Crying children, leaves in a jar... You’re insufferable.”
“I’m telling you things,” Jongseong managed, his words distorted by the pressure on his cheeks as he tried to pull his face free.
“You’re telling me things in a voice that makes me want to bite you.” Sunghoon watched the color spread across Jongseong’s face, creeping all the way to his ears, and let out a low, frustrated sound before giving up on restraint altogether. He hooked an arm around Jongseong and pulled him across the console into a hug, squeezing him close enough that he gave a small, happy protest.
“Keep doing that and I’m going to stop breathing,” Jongseong said, laughing as he tucked his face against his shoulder.
“Shut up,” Sunghoon murmured, burying one hand in his hair while the other stayed firm around his back.
“Are we hugging in the car?” Jongseong asked, his arms curling around him as he settled against him.
“We’re hugging in the car.” He held him there, and Jongseong relaxed almost immediately, resting his chin on his shoulder. His hands stayed warm against Sunghoon’s back through the coat, and the quiet breath he let out fogged faintly against Sunghoon’s collar.
They lingered like that while the car cooled around them, neither seeming particularly interested in being the first to move. Then Jongseong’s voice came softly against his coat as he returned to the story he had been telling before the interruption.
“...Sora put three little stars in the corner of her painting... said they were for luck...”
“I know.” Sunghoon stroked a hand slowly down his back, smiling against his hair. “You did that.”
“I did that,” Jongseong repeated, sounding quietly pleased with himself.
“Yes.” Sunghoon gave him another squeeze, and Jongseong sank a little more heavily against him before finally lifting his head.
“Can we go inside now?” he asked, his voice smaller as he glanced toward their home. “I’m hungry.”
That made Sunghoon laugh. He pressed one last kiss into the hair of the little chatterbox he got to call his husband, then loosened his arms and let him go.