123.

Dec 29, 2011 01:18

remix of canttakeabreath's icarus though i hesitate to call it a remix - can be read as a standalone, i only stole, like, one line. fluttershy and puppy ♥

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Donghae's father owns the shop, and teasingly tells him that it must be in the blood.

"Our blood runs rainbow," his father says, winking. "Must be our artistic streak."

Donghae snorts. He always thought he was more like his mother, going into business at university, than his father, who opened this shop in his final year of art school, organising all the tubes and colours by feel more than anything else.

"It's how I met your mother," his father says wistfully, before taking out a box of yellows and stacking them.

His father passes on several years later, just after Donghae graduates and Donghwa moves overseas, too overcome with memories. Donghwa was always his father's little boy.

His mother tells him to close the shop, to just treat it as a loss and move on, to go into a corporation like he wanted to before and earn money so he could provide for a family, but Donghae walks into that shop one last time, hovers his hand over the pinks and oranges, and he can't bear to. This was his father's love and life, and he couldn't do that, so he reopens the doors, restocks all the paints, the brushes, the canvases, the pens, the paper and redecorates the place.

"Welcome," Donghae says at the first customer, smiling, and feels at peace.

Donghae considers hiring someone to help out sometimes when he's feeling tired, or when he's just sick of sitting at the counter all day, every day, but he doesn't have the finances for it, and he doesn't want to let go.

There are perks, though, to sitting in the store everyday, watching as some art students come in, or parents with their kids, hands going for the most basic of the acrylics.

"That's twenty-two thousand won," Donghae says as he rings up the purchase, and the boy hands over some crinkled notes. He stifles a yawn, and Donghae grins.

"Late night?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," the boy says, and thanks him before leaving.

There are some people that come in every second week, grabbing five tubes of the same colour and a few scalpel blades, blearily rubbing their eyes and yawning, clearly art students. Donghae recognises those tired eyes and crinkled notes, and grins when the boy navigates the shop with haphazard steps.

"Get some sleep," Donghae says, pitying him as he rings up the canisters of film and drops a chocolate into the bag.

"I can't remember what sleep feels like," he confesses, and Donghae laughs. He reaches below the counter and offers him a can of coffee, but the other boy just squints and shakes his head.

"I'm going to battle it out," he says bravely before crumpling into a yawn, eyes all scrunched up.

Donghae laughs. "Well, good luck then!"

"Thanks," the boy says, rubbing at his eyes, and grabs at his bag and leaves.

He returns two weeks later, this time for a large canvas print that Donghae remembers had barely fit through the door.

"Need help with that?" Donghae says as he watches the boy lift it. He struggles, waddling through the aisles, before Donghae calls out again, "I can deliver it, if you want."

At that, the boy pauses, wriggles backwards and deposits it back against the wall.

"Would you?" he asks, puffing. "That would help a lot."

"No problem," Donghae says, wondering if Kangin will let him borrow his car. "Just write down your details here."

That's how Donghae finds out his name is Lee Sungmin.

There's another boy who comes in sometimes, who runs his finger along the tubes of paint, able to reach the highest shelves that Donghae always has to grab a ladder for.

He's familiar in an unfamiliar way -- Donghae sees him so often that feels like he should know him, but all that he knows is that the boy loves paint. He sees the way the boy trails his fingers lovingly along the lines of acrylic, hover over the tubs of oils and how he has smudges of charcoal on his hands and arms.

"My father has synesthesia," Donghae offers one day as the boy trails his finger along the top shelf of acrylic paints. It's the one filled with blacks and reds, and Donghae remembers his father telling him that these two colours and all the shades in between told him the story of 'Little Red Riding hood', the one below it, with yellows and pinks and one ugly splash of crimson, 'Snow White', and the frosty whites and blues under that, 'The Snow Queen.'

"This is what makes sense to him," Donghae says, before his throat closes up and he has to blink fast to keep the tears in check.

"Really," the boys says, before he grabs a few tubes of acrylic and the story is broken. "I can see it."

Donghae musters up a smile as the boy approaches the counter. "That makes one of us."

Sungmin tells him later that the other boy is a prodigy at the art school, how he's able to make you feel a whirlwind of emotions with only a few stubs of charcoal and a handful of paint. He's the one to look out for, Sungmin says, the next van Gogh, except he's ridiculously smart as well, so he probably won't cut off his ear.

"He's in big trouble though," Sungmin says as he holds up a polaroid to the light, squinting at it. "Seems like he's given up."

"What do you mean?" Donghae asks as he watches Sungmin frown at the polaroid.

"Shitty lighting," Sungmin mutters but dates it anyway. He looks up when Donghae pokes him and shakes his head. "Oh, he hasn't submitted stuff for ages. He's in danger of being suspended or expelled."

Donghae watches Sungmin arrange the polaroids in chronological order, then by subject, then colour before he can't take it and traces the white border around the one of neat shelf of acrylic paint. The red and black, yellows and pinks and frosty whites and blues, all arranged neatly on the old bookshelf, symmetrical gaps between them all.

The next one Donghae takes and puts to the side is of a girl Sungmin had recognised, someone from art school who was majoring in sketching or something. It's a profile shot of her, the sun shining behind her through the open door, her hair a bit messy, stray strands catching the sunlight, her eyes serious as she studied the different graphite on display.

"You're getting better," she had remarked, studying the photo, before paying for two pencils and leaving, smiling at Donghae as she did so.

Donghae picks up one final photograph, an accidental one that he had posed for that shows the bottom of his smile and his elbow on the counter, his shirt open and rumpled.

"That's a love story," Sungmin says when Donghae stacks the rest of his photographs into a pile, leaving the three on the counter.

"Does that mean you're going to introduce me?" Donghae asks, and smiles brightly with his teeth.

Sometimes, when Sungmin has a day off, he sits with Donghae, from opening to closing, his camera by his side.

"You have good lighting here," he says as a way of an excuse. "Plus your backdrop is really pretty and colourful."

"Um," Donghae says, as he eyes all the art materials, organised the way his father had made them - by touch and feel. "Thanks, i guess."

It seems the Sungmin knows everyone in Seoul, greeting all Donghae's customers by name and smiling, waving or bowing.

super junior, haemin, unfinished, sungmin, donghae

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