the art of stillness
Title: the art of stillness
Pairing: Chanyeol/Kai
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,056
Chanyeol sees the world in snapshots.
It’s like being in father’s darkroom back when he was ten. There had been still shots of people, buildings, and animals strung across the walls in endless streams of film. Each of the images had been like frozen pieces of time encased under the red lights and Chanyeol had wished he could look at them for forever.
Now, as he sits in a hospital room listening to words that seem to come from the doctor’s closed lips, Chanyeol thinks of the irony in his childhood wish. He sees his mother in the corner of the room and then suddenly she’s in front of him, eyes wet and lips pursed. The doctor has disappeared and by the time Chanyeol realizes this, the room is empty. A clock on the wall ticks to an unmoving second hand and he can hear the quiet sobbing of his mother outside the door. Loud honks of traffic blare in from the window where he sees cars and trucks fixed on the highway, static pieces of metal on a black strip.
It’s called akinetopsia. Chanyeol doesn’t pay attention to what the doctor says after that, only catching “brain lesions” and “motion blindness” in between medical terms that sound more professional than helpful. There seems to be no reason to listen anymore when “no cure” is the diagnosis and “getting worse” only increases the volume of his mother’s tears.
Life, for Chanyeol, is frozen.
---
“Are you sure Wufan will take care of you?”
His mother’s voice is as worried as ever, exhaustion seeping at the edge of her words, and Chanyeol barely manages to suppress a sigh. Breathing through his nose, he replies slowly.
“Wufan’s been helping me since freshman year. I’ll be just fine.”
“But-”
“Mom.”
“I know, I know. I just worry.”
She has every right to worry. It’s not easy going back to college in his third year with a diagnosis that turns what began as a minor inconvenience into a serious medical condition. Thankfully he has Wufan, his roommate of three years, who has been nothing but supportive. Chanyeol can’t even remember the number of times Wufan has stopped him from walking into oncoming traffic or guided him around campus with encouraging smiles.
“Tell her I’ve got you covered,” Wufan calls out. Chanyeol hears the clink of dishes and knows that his roommate is setting up breakfast. “For a fee, of course.”
Chanyeol chuckles softly before speaking into his phone again. “Everything will be fine,” he repeats. It takes awhile but Chanyeol eventually ends the call and makes his way to the kitchen table.
“She must be really upset,” Wufan says. Chanyeol notices the empty glass in Wufan’s hand is suddenly filled with orange juice.
When Chanyeol blinks again, Wufan is seated across from him. “She can’t help it, especially since the doctor says it’s worse now.”
Chanyeol carefully lifts his spoon, feeling it dunk into his cereal bowl, before he brings it to his mouth. He still sees the spoon a good foot away from him when he feels the cold metal hit his lips. Milk runs down his chin as he quickly opens his mouth to catch whatever is left on the spoon. He feels a napkin across his lips and looks up to see Wufan leaning over the table. The next second, he’s sitting back down with his mouth partially open.
“It’s gotten worse,” Wufan says. It’s not a question.
“Not as good as freshman year,” Chanyeol shrugs. He closes his eyes and instead tries to maneuver the cereal into his mouth by memorizing the distance from his bowl. He gets it in three tries.
“Look, Chanyeol, I’ve got research and swim team this year so I don’t think I can help as much-”
“Don’t worry about it.”
When Chanyeol opens his eyes, Wufan’s eyebrows are creased and little wrinkles line his forehead.
“I’m only in major-related courses now so I don’t even have to walk around much,” Chanyeol reassures him. Wufan is still frowning, lips closed, but Chanyeol hears the words tumble out.
“Just check in with me every now and then.”
“Yes, mother.”
Wufan snorts and Chanyeol sees his smile for a brief second before his friend is diving into his breakfast. Chanyeol watches as the food on Wufan’s plate diminishes with each image and soon he hears the clatter of dishes being piled up. Wufan stands before the sink and a second later he’s gone, a fading scent of cologne the only indication he had ever been there. Chanyeol stirs his unfinished cereal a few times before pushing it away.
I’ll be fine.
---
His father had once said that in order to succeed one must conquer his greatest weakness. As Chanyeol steps into the art department’s dark room, he wonders if maybe his father had foreseen the future when he had said those words.
Entering college, Chanyeol had wanted nothing more than to study photography. Now that he is finally achieving that dream, he sees the world just like he sees his dark room. It’s like going through hundreds and thousands of photos for the rest of his life and nothing more. Every sound and touch seems a beat off from what he sees, everything is either too fast or too slow, and Chanyeol doesn’t know if he can keep up anymore. He kicks a table and hears rolls of film clatter to the ground.
Life is becoming a bit too ironic for Chanyeol’s tastes.
---
“So how did classes go?”
It’s a cloudy afternoon and they’re walking back to the apartment. Wufan keeps his hand on Chanyeol’s forearm, steering him through traffic and tugging him away from the occasional passer-by.
“All right. Just took some history course and a lighting class,” Chanyeol replies. “Mostly shot trial images though. You?”
“I learned that research demands my soul and swim team requires my body. I’m considering an alternative life of hoboism.”
Chanyeol starts to laugh loudly when something collides painfully with his side. He hears Wufan swear under his breath and feels himself being moved aside. Chanyeol barely manages to catch someone mumble apologetically before he looks up to see the individual halfway down the street. Chanyeol clenches his teeth, realizing it’s getting more difficult to judge distance proximities. He could have sworn that person had been further away.
“You okay?”
Chanyeol wants to know what part of this- how am I supposed to know where people are when they keep jumping across my vision, I can’t even tell how close they are- is okay but he bites his lip, offering a small nod instead.
“I should have been more careful,” Wufan sighs. “Your mom would kill me if something happened to you.”
Speaking of Mom. Chanyeol reaches a hand into his pocket and groans when he doesn’t feel the plastic of his cell phone.
“Shit. I left my phone back in the art building.”
He mutters numerous apologies to Wufan on the entire walk back. His friend is kind enough to wave them away but it doesn’t quell the feeling of self-disgust that grows in Chanyeol’s gut as they re-cross streets and campus lots. Wufan’s steady touch on his arm feels like a crutch with every step.
“I’ll be right back,” Chanyeol says when they reach the art department. When Wufan moves to come with him, Chanyeol pushes him back. “I can handle this much on my own.”
He turns quickly, running through the halls and up flights of stairs. Chanyeol has spent enough days and nights in this building to make his way blind if needed; it’s liberating, the feeling that he can at least maneuver around here without much trouble. He finally finds his phone hidden underneath some old pictures when Chanyeol hears classical music float in from the corridor. He thinks of Wufan waiting downstairs and the long walk back home, but curiosity gets the better of him and Chanyeol slowly follows the music down the hall.
He peers into what appears to be an empty practice room, a lone boombox sitting in the corner, and moves to turn back when he sees it. Something jumps in his vision, a flash of white, and then suddenly it’s gone. Chanyeol leans forward, barely catching another glimpse of what appears to be a boy in mid-twirl, and then the boy is on the other side of the room, frozen in a jump. Chanyeol doesn’t know how long he stands there outside the room, watching shot after shot of the boy dance across his vision, each image as beautiful as the next.
Chanyeol thinks he sees the boy fly.
---
Chanyeol had never been very interested in the other fine arts majors, and he had been fine with this until he had discovered just how difficult it was to track down a student within the department
“A dancer? That’s all you know?” Baekhyun, his darkroom partner, mutters. “Do you even know how many dancers there are in this school?”
“Look, he was practicing here a few nights ago. He dances to classical music and he didn’t leave until around 11 pm.”
“You’re starting to sound like a stalker now.”
“Do you know him or not?”
Baekhyun stares blankly at him. “Have you checked the practice room logs? All the students have to sign in when they use-”
He doesn’t get to finish as Chanyeol is already out the door. The sign-in sheets are located right next to the practice rooms, and Chanyeol scans down the list. Tuesday night, 11 pm, practice room two...
“Kim Jongin.” The name rolls off his tongue easily as he mumbles it under his breath.
“You called my name?”
Chanyeol turns to see Kim Jongin peering up at him. Tousled black hair, thick parted lips, and hooded dark eyes flicker through Chanyeol’s vision as he tries desperately to find words to answer Jongin’s questioning stare.
“Wait a minute.” Jongin’s eyes are narrowed, his lips pulled back in a grimace. “You’re that guy who was creeping on me a few nights ago.”
---
Wufan doesn’t say anything when Chanyeol says that he’ll be staying late in the art department. Chanyeol does, however, catch a raised eyebrow followed by a knowing smile.
“So we’ll meet up to go back to the apartment after my swim practice then?”
Chanyeol nods. “Yeah, don’t rush or anything.”
Wufan laughs, ruffling his hair lightly, as he walks away. Chanyeol watches his retreating figure for a bit, waiting for Wufan to disappear from his vision before heading into the art building. He tries to calm his racing heart as he climbs the stairs and tries to remember how to breath as he’s walking down the practice room halls. When he reaches room number two, Chanyeol pauses outside the door. He licks his lips nervously and fiddles with the camera in his hands as he waits.
“Don’t just stand there.”
Jongin’s dressed in black tights today with a thin blue t-shirt that exposes sharp collarbones. His eyes are narrowed like before but there is less of a grimace on his face he lets Chanyeol in. Despite their awkward first encounter, Chanyeol had managed to convince Jongin that he was not in fact a stalker but a photographer interested in taking a few shots of his dancing. The ballet dancer had looked at him hesitantly before eventually agreeing.
“So how are we going to do this?” Jongin asks.
“Just dance and let me do the work.” Chanyeol offers a grin as he lifts his camera. Jongin shrugs before he stretches with some warm-ups.
With every zoom of the lens and flicker of the shutter, Chanyeol attempts to capture the way Jongin dances. The smooth spread of his arms, the deep arch of his back, the crisp points of his toes as they reach high in the air; Chanyeol tries to print every image that he sees behind the lens into his mind. And for a second, he thinks he sees Jongin move.
---
They set up a routine soon; weekday afternoons are spent with Chanyeol photographing Jongin during his practices and what began as thirty minute sessions turn into hours past sunset. They sometimes talk about academics, complaining about professors or failed courses, and other times they lie on the hard wooden floors and listen to Tchaikovsky filter through the small stereo speakers. Wufan has to drag him away by then, but Chanyeol always turns back for one last glimpse of Jongin.
Rolls of film begin to pile up on Chanyeol’s desk over the weeks, and Baekhyun soon starts to complain about the “same pictures taking up space in the darkroom.” Chanyeol only grins sheepishly, reaching to hang another image of the dancer on the wall. Jongin caught in mid-pirouette in this picture, hair flying across his face and eyes focused on a distant point. Sunlight from the window highlights his sharp cheekbones and brings out the dark shadows underneath his eyes.
“You must look beautiful,” Chanyeol says one day. Jongin looks up from stretching, arms extended across a split.
“If I could see you moving, that is,” Chanyeol quickly adds. He lowers his gaze, tapping his camera. “I bet you look amazing when you dance.”
Jongin snorts quietly. He hadn’t said anything when Chanyeol had mentioned his condition a few days ago, eyes only tilting sadly before he continued to dance. But it had been a different kind of sadness in his eyes, unlike the anguish in his mother’s gaze or the looks of pity his friends often gave him. It was as if Jongin had understood.
“I don’t think I’m as awesome as you make me out to be,” Jongin chuckles softly. Chanyeol sees him standing and then Jongin is next to the barre, one leg thrown over the metal bar and a hand stretched above his head.
But you are, Chanyeol wants to say. Instead, he bites his lips. “Maybe if my eyes weren’t broken, I could see you-”
Jongin’s laugh interrupts him, a harsh sound that echoes through the still practice room.
“Everyone is broken, Chanyeol,” he says. “Some just hide it better than others.”
---
Chanyeol doesn’t really see beauty anymore. Life becomes a little bland when the beauty is in the change, when things go from ordinary to something breathtakingly beautiful. Sunsets are just flashes of red that turn to dark blue, and night skies are no different from the pictures he sees in textbooks. Laughter isn’t the same without smiles, without flashing teeth and crinkling eyes, and crystals don’t shine as brightly without a sparkle.
But when he sees Jongin dance, brief glimpses of leaps and twirls that flash by with every blink, Chanyeol feels his heart stir because even if his vision is broken, Jongin is perfect.
---
Blink. Grand jeté. Blink. Deboulé. Blink. Fouetté. Blink.
---
“I hurt my waist before a huge audition once,” Jongin says one day. He’s collapsed on the practice room floor, sweat soaking his shirt. He has an arm thrown over his eyes and Chanyeol can hear the tremble in his harsh breaths. “And the doctors tell me that I’ve taken it too far this time, that I’m done after this.”
When Chanyeol looks up, Jongin is standing, facing the practice room mirror. His hand is pressed into his side as he gazes at his reflection of sunken eye sockets and a twisted grimace.
“What did you do?”
“I kept dancing,” Jongin replies. He’s looking at Chanyeol now, lips partially open in a half-grin. “Just like you keep taking pictures.”
“That’s because this is the only thing I can do,” Chanyeol mutters.
“Exactly.”
---
Sometimes, if he tries hard enough, Chanyeol thinks he can see people move. He will blink quickly, hoping that the little photos of his mind will flicker by fast enough for the pictures to blur together and create some semblance of motion. The muscles in his eyes will start to hurt but he keeps going because he’s so close. He can almost see the words connect with each open and close of his mother’s lips, or a passing person will move with consistency instead of jumping in and out of his vision.
Sometimes, if he watches close enough, Chanyeol thinks he can see Jongin move. He’ll will his mind to catch up with the music that echoes in the studio as Jongin flies across the floor, arms extended at one moment and then suspended mid-jump in the air the next. An arabesque to his left and then a pirouette to his right, Chanyeol tries to piece together how breathtaking Jongin must look when he’s dancing like that.
---
Chanyeol finally gets the courage to ask Jongin on a date. Wufan says “about time” with a clap on the back while Baekhyun only asks if this means their workbench can finally be cleared of all those photos. “You’re just like a sasaeng fan,” he grumbles, but there’s a smile on his face.
They go for coffee, chatting lightly over cappuccinos, before Chanyeol leads them to a nearby park. It’s a wide expanse of green that overlooks a river, and they settle on the smooth grass, gazing at the city’s skyline that rises above the water. Chanyeol can feel the wind blow through his hair, and he watches as the trees shift across his vision- left, right, left.
“I used to come here all the time when my condition first started,” Chanyeol says. He closes his eyes and breathes in, catching a hint of Jongin’s cologne mixed with the crisp afternoon air. “Things don’t really move here, so it made the whole ordeal a little less real.”
Jongin doesn’t respond, and Chanyeol doesn’t turn to see his expression. They sit in silence like that with only the setting sun signaling that anything has changed.
“I wish I had found this place,” Jongin eventually says. “It definitely beats the hospital room I had stayed in when I had my waist surgery.”
“Well, you can stay here now.”
With me. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but Chanyeol stops himself when Jongin gives him a heartbroken smile.
---
“Tell me, Chanyeol,” Jongin says on a rainy Monday. He’s lying on the floor, a wince printed on his face every now and then when his fingers dig too deep into his side. Chanyeol had photographed him for hours, long after the rolls of film ran out, and Jongin had continued to dance until his back had given out.
“Is it crazy to want this, even if it only lasts for a brief moment of my life?”
Chanyeol thinks of grand jetés suspended in the air and pirouettes that seem to catch the light with every turn. He thinks of the perfect pictures that line his studio walls and rolls of film that will never justify what he cannot see. He lies down on the floor next to Jongin and holds his camera up so that it’s facing down at them.
“I think that’s all you need to survive for a bit longer.”
Jongin laughs and clutches Chanyeol’s hand tightly. Chanyeol presses the shutter.
---
For Chanyeol, the world moves too quickly. One moment there are people standing before him and the next they’re gone. It’s like the film projector in his head has a glitch in it, and there’s a pause between every film instead of a smooth transition. It’s as if he closes his eyes for too long during a movie and he’s missed a big chunk of the plot. Because by the time he catches up, the people have already moved on and he’s left alone again.
Sometimes, Chanyeol just wishes people would stop for him.
---
“I’m moving to New York,” Jongin says on a Wednesday. “I got accepted to a program and-”
“You’re leaving?”
There’s an apologetic look on Jongin’s face before he’s turned away and all Chanyeol sees is his back.
“I can’t stay here waiting for something to happen. What if I get hurt again? This might be my last chance.”
“But you’ve almost got your degree. If you just wait a little longer-”
“The world doesn’t just stop for some of us, Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol feels his hands shaking, his lips curling upwards into a snarl, as the camera slips from his grasp. He storms towards Jongin, barely noticing as he slams them both into the wall, and growls into his face. “What the fuck would you know about stopping? Do you have any idea, any fucking clue, about what it’s like?! You- you see people standing in front of you and then they’re suddenly somewhere else. I can still hear them. Shit, I sometimes even feel them, but they’re slipping away and it’s only a matter of seconds before they’re gone, Jongin. Gone. Hell, it’s as if they never existed. I’m fucking missing that- that connection to existence.”
I’m missing you.
He takes extra care to slam the door shut on his way out, relishing the sharp thud that shakes the walls, as he runs down the halls.
---
Blink. Tours en l’air. Blink. Piqué. Blink. Jeté.
How do you stop someone who needs movement to live?
---
Chanyeol hears the smash before he sees it. It starts with the kitchen cabinet plates, white porcelain that Chanyeol drops one by one and watches as they go from one to a hundred pieces with each shatter. No matter how many plates he flings to the ground, they never quite match up with the sound. Letting out a frustrated cry, Chanyeol clenches his eyes shut and throws everything he touches.
“What the hell happened here,” Wufan says when he returns. He sighs deeply as he looks around the apartment, taking in the shattered dishware and torn furniture. “I thought you had gotten better.”
“I can never get better,” Chanyeol grits out. “This, this disease, whatever the fuck this thing is, is going to ruin my life forever.”
He digs the heel of his palms into his eyes, wishes he could just rub away whatever was wrong with him. He wants to reach inside his head and turn on the switch that will make everything just flow.
“I’m not talking about your problem,” Wufan responds. Chanyeol feels Wufan grab his hand and press a photo into his palm. “I’m talking about you, Park Chanyeol. You were getting better.”
---
Chanyeol finds Jongin in the second practice room at one in the morning. He doesn’t bother to knock and instead walks right in to sit in the center of the room. Jongin doesn’t say anything, pausing the music before he slowly comes closer. They sit in silence, listening to each other’s breaths as their gazes meet in the mirror.
“You better be real famous,” Chanyeol eventually says. When he glances up, Jongin is staring down at him with wide eyes. “But don’t get too attached to New York.”
“I have to come back, you know.” Jongin’s voice is trembling slightly. “I don’t let just any creeper take my photos.”
Chanyeol laughs. He takes in the dip of Jongin’s nose, the parted lips that seem to say his name with every open and close, and he commits everything to memory. “Well, lucky me then.”
---
Chanyeol sees the world in snapshots.
Some of the pictures are forgotten easily, and a lot of the pictures are unnecessary. But there is this one picture that will always be special. It’s of him and Jongin; the latter is sweaty but smiling, eyes crinkling beautifully as he’s caught mid-laugh, and Chanyeol is staring into the lens, the smallest of grins on his face. Their hands are grasping tightly to one another and a little bit of sunlight is caught in their eyes. Chanyeol keeps this one picture because everything about it is broken, from Jongin’s tired eyes to Chanyeol’s tilted lips, and it’s perfect.
Chanyeol moves on.
---
A/N: this was originally written for a creative writing course. names were switched out, of course, so classmates wouldn’t know i’m a closet psycho about these boys. also, the french terms are ballet terminology. if you don’t know any, go look them up- the poses are so very beautiful ;~;
Pairing: Chanyeol/Kai
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,056
Chanyeol sees the world in snapshots.
It’s like being in father’s darkroom back when he was ten. There had been still shots of people, buildings, and animals strung across the walls in endless streams of film. Each of the images had been like frozen pieces of time encased under the red lights and Chanyeol had wished he could look at them for forever.
Now, as he sits in a hospital room listening to words that seem to come from the doctor’s closed lips, Chanyeol thinks of the irony in his childhood wish. He sees his mother in the corner of the room and then suddenly she’s in front of him, eyes wet and lips pursed. The doctor has disappeared and by the time Chanyeol realizes this, the room is empty. A clock on the wall ticks to an unmoving second hand and he can hear the quiet sobbing of his mother outside the door. Loud honks of traffic blare in from the window where he sees cars and trucks fixed on the highway, static pieces of metal on a black strip.
It’s called akinetopsia. Chanyeol doesn’t pay attention to what the doctor says after that, only catching “brain lesions” and “motion blindness” in between medical terms that sound more professional than helpful. There seems to be no reason to listen anymore when “no cure” is the diagnosis and “getting worse” only increases the volume of his mother’s tears.
Life, for Chanyeol, is frozen.
---
“Are you sure Wufan will take care of you?”
His mother’s voice is as worried as ever, exhaustion seeping at the edge of her words, and Chanyeol barely manages to suppress a sigh. Breathing through his nose, he replies slowly.
“Wufan’s been helping me since freshman year. I’ll be just fine.”
“But-”
“Mom.”
“I know, I know. I just worry.”
She has every right to worry. It’s not easy going back to college in his third year with a diagnosis that turns what began as a minor inconvenience into a serious medical condition. Thankfully he has Wufan, his roommate of three years, who has been nothing but supportive. Chanyeol can’t even remember the number of times Wufan has stopped him from walking into oncoming traffic or guided him around campus with encouraging smiles.
“Tell her I’ve got you covered,” Wufan calls out. Chanyeol hears the clink of dishes and knows that his roommate is setting up breakfast. “For a fee, of course.”
Chanyeol chuckles softly before speaking into his phone again. “Everything will be fine,” he repeats. It takes awhile but Chanyeol eventually ends the call and makes his way to the kitchen table.
“She must be really upset,” Wufan says. Chanyeol notices the empty glass in Wufan’s hand is suddenly filled with orange juice.
When Chanyeol blinks again, Wufan is seated across from him. “She can’t help it, especially since the doctor says it’s worse now.”
Chanyeol carefully lifts his spoon, feeling it dunk into his cereal bowl, before he brings it to his mouth. He still sees the spoon a good foot away from him when he feels the cold metal hit his lips. Milk runs down his chin as he quickly opens his mouth to catch whatever is left on the spoon. He feels a napkin across his lips and looks up to see Wufan leaning over the table. The next second, he’s sitting back down with his mouth partially open.
“It’s gotten worse,” Wufan says. It’s not a question.
“Not as good as freshman year,” Chanyeol shrugs. He closes his eyes and instead tries to maneuver the cereal into his mouth by memorizing the distance from his bowl. He gets it in three tries.
“Look, Chanyeol, I’ve got research and swim team this year so I don’t think I can help as much-”
“Don’t worry about it.”
When Chanyeol opens his eyes, Wufan’s eyebrows are creased and little wrinkles line his forehead.
“I’m only in major-related courses now so I don’t even have to walk around much,” Chanyeol reassures him. Wufan is still frowning, lips closed, but Chanyeol hears the words tumble out.
“Just check in with me every now and then.”
“Yes, mother.”
Wufan snorts and Chanyeol sees his smile for a brief second before his friend is diving into his breakfast. Chanyeol watches as the food on Wufan’s plate diminishes with each image and soon he hears the clatter of dishes being piled up. Wufan stands before the sink and a second later he’s gone, a fading scent of cologne the only indication he had ever been there. Chanyeol stirs his unfinished cereal a few times before pushing it away.
I’ll be fine.
---
His father had once said that in order to succeed one must conquer his greatest weakness. As Chanyeol steps into the art department’s dark room, he wonders if maybe his father had foreseen the future when he had said those words.
Entering college, Chanyeol had wanted nothing more than to study photography. Now that he is finally achieving that dream, he sees the world just like he sees his dark room. It’s like going through hundreds and thousands of photos for the rest of his life and nothing more. Every sound and touch seems a beat off from what he sees, everything is either too fast or too slow, and Chanyeol doesn’t know if he can keep up anymore. He kicks a table and hears rolls of film clatter to the ground.
Life is becoming a bit too ironic for Chanyeol’s tastes.
---
“So how did classes go?”
It’s a cloudy afternoon and they’re walking back to the apartment. Wufan keeps his hand on Chanyeol’s forearm, steering him through traffic and tugging him away from the occasional passer-by.
“All right. Just took some history course and a lighting class,” Chanyeol replies. “Mostly shot trial images though. You?”
“I learned that research demands my soul and swim team requires my body. I’m considering an alternative life of hoboism.”
Chanyeol starts to laugh loudly when something collides painfully with his side. He hears Wufan swear under his breath and feels himself being moved aside. Chanyeol barely manages to catch someone mumble apologetically before he looks up to see the individual halfway down the street. Chanyeol clenches his teeth, realizing it’s getting more difficult to judge distance proximities. He could have sworn that person had been further away.
“You okay?”
Chanyeol wants to know what part of this- how am I supposed to know where people are when they keep jumping across my vision, I can’t even tell how close they are- is okay but he bites his lip, offering a small nod instead.
“I should have been more careful,” Wufan sighs. “Your mom would kill me if something happened to you.”
Speaking of Mom. Chanyeol reaches a hand into his pocket and groans when he doesn’t feel the plastic of his cell phone.
“Shit. I left my phone back in the art building.”
He mutters numerous apologies to Wufan on the entire walk back. His friend is kind enough to wave them away but it doesn’t quell the feeling of self-disgust that grows in Chanyeol’s gut as they re-cross streets and campus lots. Wufan’s steady touch on his arm feels like a crutch with every step.
“I’ll be right back,” Chanyeol says when they reach the art department. When Wufan moves to come with him, Chanyeol pushes him back. “I can handle this much on my own.”
He turns quickly, running through the halls and up flights of stairs. Chanyeol has spent enough days and nights in this building to make his way blind if needed; it’s liberating, the feeling that he can at least maneuver around here without much trouble. He finally finds his phone hidden underneath some old pictures when Chanyeol hears classical music float in from the corridor. He thinks of Wufan waiting downstairs and the long walk back home, but curiosity gets the better of him and Chanyeol slowly follows the music down the hall.
He peers into what appears to be an empty practice room, a lone boombox sitting in the corner, and moves to turn back when he sees it. Something jumps in his vision, a flash of white, and then suddenly it’s gone. Chanyeol leans forward, barely catching another glimpse of what appears to be a boy in mid-twirl, and then the boy is on the other side of the room, frozen in a jump. Chanyeol doesn’t know how long he stands there outside the room, watching shot after shot of the boy dance across his vision, each image as beautiful as the next.
Chanyeol thinks he sees the boy fly.
---
Chanyeol had never been very interested in the other fine arts majors, and he had been fine with this until he had discovered just how difficult it was to track down a student within the department
“A dancer? That’s all you know?” Baekhyun, his darkroom partner, mutters. “Do you even know how many dancers there are in this school?”
“Look, he was practicing here a few nights ago. He dances to classical music and he didn’t leave until around 11 pm.”
“You’re starting to sound like a stalker now.”
“Do you know him or not?”
Baekhyun stares blankly at him. “Have you checked the practice room logs? All the students have to sign in when they use-”
He doesn’t get to finish as Chanyeol is already out the door. The sign-in sheets are located right next to the practice rooms, and Chanyeol scans down the list. Tuesday night, 11 pm, practice room two...
“Kim Jongin.” The name rolls off his tongue easily as he mumbles it under his breath.
“You called my name?”
Chanyeol turns to see Kim Jongin peering up at him. Tousled black hair, thick parted lips, and hooded dark eyes flicker through Chanyeol’s vision as he tries desperately to find words to answer Jongin’s questioning stare.
“Wait a minute.” Jongin’s eyes are narrowed, his lips pulled back in a grimace. “You’re that guy who was creeping on me a few nights ago.”
---
Wufan doesn’t say anything when Chanyeol says that he’ll be staying late in the art department. Chanyeol does, however, catch a raised eyebrow followed by a knowing smile.
“So we’ll meet up to go back to the apartment after my swim practice then?”
Chanyeol nods. “Yeah, don’t rush or anything.”
Wufan laughs, ruffling his hair lightly, as he walks away. Chanyeol watches his retreating figure for a bit, waiting for Wufan to disappear from his vision before heading into the art building. He tries to calm his racing heart as he climbs the stairs and tries to remember how to breath as he’s walking down the practice room halls. When he reaches room number two, Chanyeol pauses outside the door. He licks his lips nervously and fiddles with the camera in his hands as he waits.
“Don’t just stand there.”
Jongin’s dressed in black tights today with a thin blue t-shirt that exposes sharp collarbones. His eyes are narrowed like before but there is less of a grimace on his face he lets Chanyeol in. Despite their awkward first encounter, Chanyeol had managed to convince Jongin that he was not in fact a stalker but a photographer interested in taking a few shots of his dancing. The ballet dancer had looked at him hesitantly before eventually agreeing.
“So how are we going to do this?” Jongin asks.
“Just dance and let me do the work.” Chanyeol offers a grin as he lifts his camera. Jongin shrugs before he stretches with some warm-ups.
With every zoom of the lens and flicker of the shutter, Chanyeol attempts to capture the way Jongin dances. The smooth spread of his arms, the deep arch of his back, the crisp points of his toes as they reach high in the air; Chanyeol tries to print every image that he sees behind the lens into his mind. And for a second, he thinks he sees Jongin move.
---
They set up a routine soon; weekday afternoons are spent with Chanyeol photographing Jongin during his practices and what began as thirty minute sessions turn into hours past sunset. They sometimes talk about academics, complaining about professors or failed courses, and other times they lie on the hard wooden floors and listen to Tchaikovsky filter through the small stereo speakers. Wufan has to drag him away by then, but Chanyeol always turns back for one last glimpse of Jongin.
Rolls of film begin to pile up on Chanyeol’s desk over the weeks, and Baekhyun soon starts to complain about the “same pictures taking up space in the darkroom.” Chanyeol only grins sheepishly, reaching to hang another image of the dancer on the wall. Jongin caught in mid-pirouette in this picture, hair flying across his face and eyes focused on a distant point. Sunlight from the window highlights his sharp cheekbones and brings out the dark shadows underneath his eyes.
“You must look beautiful,” Chanyeol says one day. Jongin looks up from stretching, arms extended across a split.
“If I could see you moving, that is,” Chanyeol quickly adds. He lowers his gaze, tapping his camera. “I bet you look amazing when you dance.”
Jongin snorts quietly. He hadn’t said anything when Chanyeol had mentioned his condition a few days ago, eyes only tilting sadly before he continued to dance. But it had been a different kind of sadness in his eyes, unlike the anguish in his mother’s gaze or the looks of pity his friends often gave him. It was as if Jongin had understood.
“I don’t think I’m as awesome as you make me out to be,” Jongin chuckles softly. Chanyeol sees him standing and then Jongin is next to the barre, one leg thrown over the metal bar and a hand stretched above his head.
But you are, Chanyeol wants to say. Instead, he bites his lips. “Maybe if my eyes weren’t broken, I could see you-”
Jongin’s laugh interrupts him, a harsh sound that echoes through the still practice room.
“Everyone is broken, Chanyeol,” he says. “Some just hide it better than others.”
---
Chanyeol doesn’t really see beauty anymore. Life becomes a little bland when the beauty is in the change, when things go from ordinary to something breathtakingly beautiful. Sunsets are just flashes of red that turn to dark blue, and night skies are no different from the pictures he sees in textbooks. Laughter isn’t the same without smiles, without flashing teeth and crinkling eyes, and crystals don’t shine as brightly without a sparkle.
But when he sees Jongin dance, brief glimpses of leaps and twirls that flash by with every blink, Chanyeol feels his heart stir because even if his vision is broken, Jongin is perfect.
---
Blink. Grand jeté. Blink. Deboulé. Blink. Fouetté. Blink.
---
“I hurt my waist before a huge audition once,” Jongin says one day. He’s collapsed on the practice room floor, sweat soaking his shirt. He has an arm thrown over his eyes and Chanyeol can hear the tremble in his harsh breaths. “And the doctors tell me that I’ve taken it too far this time, that I’m done after this.”
When Chanyeol looks up, Jongin is standing, facing the practice room mirror. His hand is pressed into his side as he gazes at his reflection of sunken eye sockets and a twisted grimace.
“What did you do?”
“I kept dancing,” Jongin replies. He’s looking at Chanyeol now, lips partially open in a half-grin. “Just like you keep taking pictures.”
“That’s because this is the only thing I can do,” Chanyeol mutters.
“Exactly.”
---
Sometimes, if he tries hard enough, Chanyeol thinks he can see people move. He will blink quickly, hoping that the little photos of his mind will flicker by fast enough for the pictures to blur together and create some semblance of motion. The muscles in his eyes will start to hurt but he keeps going because he’s so close. He can almost see the words connect with each open and close of his mother’s lips, or a passing person will move with consistency instead of jumping in and out of his vision.
Sometimes, if he watches close enough, Chanyeol thinks he can see Jongin move. He’ll will his mind to catch up with the music that echoes in the studio as Jongin flies across the floor, arms extended at one moment and then suspended mid-jump in the air the next. An arabesque to his left and then a pirouette to his right, Chanyeol tries to piece together how breathtaking Jongin must look when he’s dancing like that.
---
Chanyeol finally gets the courage to ask Jongin on a date. Wufan says “about time” with a clap on the back while Baekhyun only asks if this means their workbench can finally be cleared of all those photos. “You’re just like a sasaeng fan,” he grumbles, but there’s a smile on his face.
They go for coffee, chatting lightly over cappuccinos, before Chanyeol leads them to a nearby park. It’s a wide expanse of green that overlooks a river, and they settle on the smooth grass, gazing at the city’s skyline that rises above the water. Chanyeol can feel the wind blow through his hair, and he watches as the trees shift across his vision- left, right, left.
“I used to come here all the time when my condition first started,” Chanyeol says. He closes his eyes and breathes in, catching a hint of Jongin’s cologne mixed with the crisp afternoon air. “Things don’t really move here, so it made the whole ordeal a little less real.”
Jongin doesn’t respond, and Chanyeol doesn’t turn to see his expression. They sit in silence like that with only the setting sun signaling that anything has changed.
“I wish I had found this place,” Jongin eventually says. “It definitely beats the hospital room I had stayed in when I had my waist surgery.”
“Well, you can stay here now.”
With me. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but Chanyeol stops himself when Jongin gives him a heartbroken smile.
---
“Tell me, Chanyeol,” Jongin says on a rainy Monday. He’s lying on the floor, a wince printed on his face every now and then when his fingers dig too deep into his side. Chanyeol had photographed him for hours, long after the rolls of film ran out, and Jongin had continued to dance until his back had given out.
“Is it crazy to want this, even if it only lasts for a brief moment of my life?”
Chanyeol thinks of grand jetés suspended in the air and pirouettes that seem to catch the light with every turn. He thinks of the perfect pictures that line his studio walls and rolls of film that will never justify what he cannot see. He lies down on the floor next to Jongin and holds his camera up so that it’s facing down at them.
“I think that’s all you need to survive for a bit longer.”
Jongin laughs and clutches Chanyeol’s hand tightly. Chanyeol presses the shutter.
---
For Chanyeol, the world moves too quickly. One moment there are people standing before him and the next they’re gone. It’s like the film projector in his head has a glitch in it, and there’s a pause between every film instead of a smooth transition. It’s as if he closes his eyes for too long during a movie and he’s missed a big chunk of the plot. Because by the time he catches up, the people have already moved on and he’s left alone again.
Sometimes, Chanyeol just wishes people would stop for him.
---
“I’m moving to New York,” Jongin says on a Wednesday. “I got accepted to a program and-”
“You’re leaving?”
There’s an apologetic look on Jongin’s face before he’s turned away and all Chanyeol sees is his back.
“I can’t stay here waiting for something to happen. What if I get hurt again? This might be my last chance.”
“But you’ve almost got your degree. If you just wait a little longer-”
“The world doesn’t just stop for some of us, Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol feels his hands shaking, his lips curling upwards into a snarl, as the camera slips from his grasp. He storms towards Jongin, barely noticing as he slams them both into the wall, and growls into his face. “What the fuck would you know about stopping? Do you have any idea, any fucking clue, about what it’s like?! You- you see people standing in front of you and then they’re suddenly somewhere else. I can still hear them. Shit, I sometimes even feel them, but they’re slipping away and it’s only a matter of seconds before they’re gone, Jongin. Gone. Hell, it’s as if they never existed. I’m fucking missing that- that connection to existence.”
I’m missing you.
He takes extra care to slam the door shut on his way out, relishing the sharp thud that shakes the walls, as he runs down the halls.
---
Blink. Tours en l’air. Blink. Piqué. Blink. Jeté.
How do you stop someone who needs movement to live?
---
Chanyeol hears the smash before he sees it. It starts with the kitchen cabinet plates, white porcelain that Chanyeol drops one by one and watches as they go from one to a hundred pieces with each shatter. No matter how many plates he flings to the ground, they never quite match up with the sound. Letting out a frustrated cry, Chanyeol clenches his eyes shut and throws everything he touches.
“What the hell happened here,” Wufan says when he returns. He sighs deeply as he looks around the apartment, taking in the shattered dishware and torn furniture. “I thought you had gotten better.”
“I can never get better,” Chanyeol grits out. “This, this disease, whatever the fuck this thing is, is going to ruin my life forever.”
He digs the heel of his palms into his eyes, wishes he could just rub away whatever was wrong with him. He wants to reach inside his head and turn on the switch that will make everything just flow.
“I’m not talking about your problem,” Wufan responds. Chanyeol feels Wufan grab his hand and press a photo into his palm. “I’m talking about you, Park Chanyeol. You were getting better.”
---
Chanyeol finds Jongin in the second practice room at one in the morning. He doesn’t bother to knock and instead walks right in to sit in the center of the room. Jongin doesn’t say anything, pausing the music before he slowly comes closer. They sit in silence, listening to each other’s breaths as their gazes meet in the mirror.
“You better be real famous,” Chanyeol eventually says. When he glances up, Jongin is staring down at him with wide eyes. “But don’t get too attached to New York.”
“I have to come back, you know.” Jongin’s voice is trembling slightly. “I don’t let just any creeper take my photos.”
Chanyeol laughs. He takes in the dip of Jongin’s nose, the parted lips that seem to say his name with every open and close, and he commits everything to memory. “Well, lucky me then.”
---
Chanyeol sees the world in snapshots.
Some of the pictures are forgotten easily, and a lot of the pictures are unnecessary. But there is this one picture that will always be special. It’s of him and Jongin; the latter is sweaty but smiling, eyes crinkling beautifully as he’s caught mid-laugh, and Chanyeol is staring into the lens, the smallest of grins on his face. Their hands are grasping tightly to one another and a little bit of sunlight is caught in their eyes. Chanyeol keeps this one picture because everything about it is broken, from Jongin’s tired eyes to Chanyeol’s tilted lips, and it’s perfect.
Chanyeol moves on.
---
A/N: this was originally written for a creative writing course. names were switched out, of course, so classmates wouldn’t know i’m a closet psycho about these boys. also, the french terms are ballet terminology. if you don’t know any, go look them up- the poses are so very beautiful ;~;