[exo] aerosol hearts; minseok/jongin (1/3)
Pairing: Minseok/Jongin
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 20k
Summary: Minseok understands that his work is, on a fundamental basis, impermanent. But these kids have been walking a dangerous line, and are getting awfully close to stepping over to the wrong side of it. (street artists!au)
A/N: originally posted here at minseokful 2014 for jinwann
Minseok slides into his Theory of Computing lecture five minutes late and tries to sneak into his seat as stealthily as possible. He’s setting up his laptop when a faint but unmistakable high-pitched “Katalk!” emanates from his back pocket. The professor turns to fix him with an icy stare, and Minseok ducks his head and mumbles apologies as he fumbles to get his phone out of his pocket and turn his message notifications to silent.
Minseok steadfastly ignores his phone for almost ten minutes, despite the way the screen continually lights up with notifications. They’re all from Lu Han, Minseok can tell that much from the on-screen previews, and they’re all obnoxious emoticons. He shoves the phone to the corner of his desk and tries to concentrate on the notes he’s taking on his laptop.
Eventually Lu Han switches from emoticons to just sending “minseok,” “minseok,” “minseok” over and over. When Lu Han switches to Chinese, Minseok finally gives in and grabs his phone.
“what?” he sends, and is immediately greeted with a tearfully overjoyed emoticon with a flower in its hair as a reply. Minseok rolls his eyes and quickly types out another message.
“you’re at work now right? shouldn’t you be helping customers?”
He expects Lu Han to say something about being bored of categorizing rows of comic books, but instead he gets a message saying, “the kids are at it again.”
Seconds later Lu Han sends a picture. It’s the wall that runs along the side of the comic book store Lu Han works at - Minseok immediately recognizes it because of the giant mural that completely covers it from one end to the other. It was the first piece Minseok had ever been commissioned to do, two years before. It’s primarily black and white, designed to look like a manhwa page, with the hero and heroine bursting out of the lines in full-colored glory in the middle. Now, as evidenced by Lu Han’s picture, it also features a large garish tag in red spray paint in the upper left corner.
“cute,” Minseok replies, faking calm. He knows that he’s not fooling anyone, though, most certainly not Lu Han. Lu Han had been the one who had originally recommended Minseok to his boss for the piece, and he knows just how proud of it Minseok still is.
Minseok enlarges the picture to get a closer look at the tag. There’s no mistaking it, it’s the same tag that has been popping up lately near old works by Minseok and his crew. Judging by the tags, they are being thrown up by a new crew going by the name Young Blood - no points for creativity in Minseok’s books - that is apparently trying to prove some point about “out with the old and in with the new.” At first they had only tagged near older artists’ works, but lately they’ve been getting bolder. Minseok supposes he should feel lucky that they only slashed his work. Just a few days before someone had completely gone over one of Chanyeol’s pieces with a roller brush and only left a tag in its place.
Lu Han apparently knows exactly what Minseok’s thinking, because he sends a message saying, “at least it’s small.”
“your dick is small,” Minseok absentmindedly types back. In his head he’s running through a list of everyone he knows who might have any information on this crew. Up until now Minseok hadn’t been too bothered - he’s a street artist, he understands that his work is, on a fundamental basis, impermanent. But these kids have been walking a dangerous line, and are getting awfully close to stepping over to the wrong side of it.
“that’s not what your ex said,” Lu Han replies, and Minseok has to resist the urge to snort and draw his professor’s ire once more.
“you don’t know any of my exes,” Minseok sends back. He pauses for a moment, considering, before typing out another message. “nice try tho. btw do you know if yixing is working tonight?”
--
StarStar Coffee is tucked down an alleyway, partly hidden behind a sushi restaurant. If not for its famous hand drip coffee and the almost daily indie performances and open mic nights it would probably have faded into obscurity long ago. The Hongdae area of Seoul, where StarStar is located, has enough attractions that it’s all too easy for a small coffee shop to get lost in the larger wave of bars, music, art, and shopping.
As it is, when Minseok arrives at a little past eight in the evening the coffee shop is still bustling. There’s a duo playing on the small stage, a girl singing with a guy accompanying her on guitar, and almost all of the tables are full. There are three baristas behind the counter who seem busy making drinks and cleaning, but one of them pulls away as soon as he notices Minseok coming through the door. Yixing looks every inch the indie coffee shop manager he is, in his plaid button up shirt with rolled up sleeves and black thick-framed glasses. He motions with his head towards an empty table in the corner farthest from the stage before disappearing into the back room.
Minseok heads over to the table and is just pulling out a chair to sit down when Yixing reemerges from the back apron-less and with a tupperware container in one hand. Yixing sits down in the chair across from Minseok and offers a smile.
“Hey, stranger,” Yixing says as he pops the lid off of his tupperware. He has some sort of noodles, and Minseok can’t help but eye them enviously. The convenience store gimbap he’d grabbed before his evening class had been less than stellar. “It’s been a while.”
Minseok guiltily glances up from the noodles to Yixing’s face. Yixing’s right, it has been a while. Back in freshman year the three of them, Minseok, Lu Han, and Yixing, had been almost inseparable. But three and a half years later everything is more complicated, and it seems like no one ever has time. Minseok hasn’t seen Yixing in more than a month, and now he’s here because he needs information, not even with the primary purpose of visiting his friend.
Yixing must pick up on Minseok’s mood, because he suddenly leans over and uses his chopsticks to shove some of the noodles into Minseok’s mouth. Minseok laughs and accepts the food. “Yeah, sorry about that,” Minseok manages to say around his mouthful of noodles. “And sorry for being late. My professor wouldn’t stop talking.”
Yixing waves him off as he takes his own bite of dinner. “It’s fine, we had a rush just before you came anyway.” Yixing swallows and leans forward until his elbows are resting on the table. “So what was it you wanted to talk about?”
Minseok considers his words for a second before saying, “I was wondering if you could get me in touch with someone. Or, preferably, several someones.”
Yixing hmms as he stabs his chopsticks absentmindedly into his noodles. “This doesn’t happen to be about that new crew going around tagging over everyone’s stuff, does it?” Yixing’s hands still and he looks up Minseok with one eyebrow raised slightly.
Minseok blinks at Yixing in surprise for a moment before laughing and shaking his head incredulously. “Someone else already asked you about it, didn’t they?”
“Hyoyeon noona and Chanyeol were in earlier this week,” Yixing says calmly. He takes another bite of his noodles. “They seemed about ready to find these kids and set them on fire.”
That must have been right after the crew went over Chanyeol’s piece. Minseok winces. Chanyeol’s rage had been palpable enough even over their Kakao Talk group chat, and with Hyoyeon in on it too Minseok is sure that fire would have been the least of Young Blood’s worries.
“But unfortunately,” Yixing continues, “I’m going to have to tell you the same thing I told them. These kids are new enough that I don’t know anything about them.” Yixing’s face is carefully vague as he says this. To most people it would probably seem as if he’s on the verge of spacing out - not too surprising, since Yixing himself willingly says that spacing out is his specialty. Minseok, however, has known Yixing too long to be fooled.
“You must know someone who does know about them, though,” Minseok says. Yixing is still carefully not meeting Minseok’s gaze, and Minseok knows he’s got him. “And you know me. I’m not going to go burning things down.”
Yixing is quiet for almost a minute, considering, and Minseok waits patiently. He knows that if he tries to rush things he’ll be leaving with no information at all. At last Yixing says, “Do you remember earlier this year when Lu Han dragged us along to that birthday party in Itaewon? At that Mexican restaurant.”
Minseok nods, although more than the restaurant itself he remembers the ridiculous amount of tequila he had consumed.
“There was a kid there named Zitao who hung out with us for most of the night. He’s a good kid, he likes to hang out here to do his homework.” Yixing trails off, staring at some point over Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok is sure that Yixing is trying to decide exactly how much to say. “Anyway, lately he has a job at some clothing boutique over by the elementary school.” Yixing rests his elbows on the table and leans forward. He meets Minseok’s gaze now, and holds it. “I don’t know anything about the crew tagging your stuff, but he might.”
--
It turns out that Zitao knows quite a bit about Young Blood, but not very much that he’s willing to share.
Zitao plays with his phone while he talks to Minseok, popping it in and out of the giant panda-shaped case he has it in. “My friend’s a member of the crew,” he says and frowns at his phone like it’s personally committed some kind of crime against him. “But I’m not sure how much I want to tell you, even if you’re friends with Lu Han hyung and Yixing hyung. Actually, particularly because you’re friends with Lu Han hyung.”
Eventually he caves, though, giving Minseok a place and time that his friend will supposedly be hitting a piece. “I overheard Sehun mentioning it. Lately that stupid crew is all he talks about,” Zitao says by way of explanation. “The crew and Soojung. I’m so sick of it.”
This is how Minseok finds himself in the alley behind a barbeque restaurant at 2 a.m. on a Monday. He tries not to think about his 9 a.m. class the next day as he weaves his way through dumpsters and overflowing garbage bags. He had recognized what piece Zitao was talking about as soon as Zitao started describing it. Minseok and Jongdae had done it together as a quick joke - a pair of optical illusion angel wings with space between them that people can take pictures posing in front of, but placed in a back alley and up too high for people to actually be able to take pictures with them. It’s nothing like either of their usual styles; they had done it as a self-proclaimed tribute to Junmyeon after he fell while trying to paint a high up “heaven” spot and broke his arm. The wings were never meant to be more than a private joke, but some blogger had featured a picture of the piece in one of their posts, and somehow the piece had gained a bit of fame.
Zitao said that his friend Sehun, supposedly a member of Young Blood, was planning to not just diss the piece with a tag, but to completely roller over it and just leave a tag in its place, like had been done to Chanyeol’s piece. If nothing else, Minseok has to admire their guts. Young Blood have declared war, and now they’re going all out. However, any admiration he has for them ends there. Bravado doesn’t make up for the sheer stupidity of trying to make their mark on the scene by tagging over established artists’ work like puppies trying to mark their territory by peeing on everything. Minseok doubts that they even fully realize what they’re getting themselves into, or exactly how many people are soon going to be out for their precious “young” blood.
At last Minseok turns down the alley the piece is in, and finds more or less exactly what he had expected. There’s just enough light seeping in from the street that he can clearly see two guys: one standing in front of the piece with a roller in his hands and paint at his feet, and the other leaning against the opposite wall and staring at his phone. They both look up when Minseok turns the corner, but only the guy against the wall seems surprised. The guy holding the roller merely looks bored as he blatantly stares Minseok down. His hair looks vaguely like a rainbow puked all over it - Minseok assumes that he’s Sehun, then, since Zitao had only described his friend by saying that Sehun is impossible to miss.
“What do you want?” Sehun asks, without any honorifics to speak of. Minseok snorts.
“What has become of kids these days,” Minseok wonders aloud. “Do they not teach them manners anymore?” He shakes his head with exaggerated sadness before meeting Sehun’s gaze and holding it steady. “What I want is for you to stop marking over my work.”
Sehun narrows his eyes slightly. “Who are you?” he asks, still impolite.
“Xiumin,” Minseok replies simply, gesturing to his signature in the bottom corner of the piece. The Chinese characters of his tag look almost plain next to the English letters spelling out CHEN in barely legible graffiti print.
This finally elicits an emotion from Sehun, whose eyes widen in surprise. The guy leaning against the wall had gone back to his phone fairly quickly after Minseok arrived, but now he looks up again. He looks surprised too, as well as something else that Minseok can’t quite read. Minseok wonders who they had expected him to be, if not Xiumin. Chen? They’d better be glad he wasn’t Chen. Jongdae would more than happy to join Hyoyeon and Chanyeol’s crusade of fire.
Sehun quickly schools his face back to impassiveness, as if he hadn’t been affected at all. “So you’re the sell out,” Sehun says. The words ‘sell out’ are full of disdain, as if they leave a bad taste in Sehun’s mouth.
It does hurt a bit, even though Minseok refuses to show it, mostly because it’s true. Minseok rarely ever does illegal work now that he can actually get people to pay him to doodle on their walls rather than sneaking around in the middle of the night. But Sehun’s far from the first person to throw this at him, and Minseok already went through this back when he first started taking commissions. Sehun’s late to the game.
“Is that what this is about?” Minseok asks. He keeps his voice light, even as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Teaching the sell out a lesson? Because if it is, I can tell you right now that you’re wasting your time.”
Sehun hunches his shoulders slightly, and he looks so much like a sulky teenager that Minseok wants to laugh. Then Minseok remembers that Sehun very well could still be a teenager, and suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so funny.
“It’s not just you,” Sehun says sullenly. “It’s your entire crew, and all of the older artists. You’re all irrelevant now, so we’re just doing everyone a favor and opening up space for new art.”
Minseok had figured that was Young Blood’s mission, but hearing it spoken just makes it seem even more ridiculous. Turnover is natural; it happens even without new crews going out and dissing older artists. Minseok wonders if Sehun truly believes what he’s saying, or if he, like Minseok, realizes that his reasoning is just a weak disguise for a blatant attempt to stir up drama.
“Look kid, there are better ways to build your rep than dissing established artists,” Minseok says. He rocks back on his heels and nods at the angel wings for emphasis. Sehun had only gotten one coat down before Minseok arrived, and the design is still visible through the damp white paint covering it. “All you’re going to do is start trouble for yourself.”
“Thanks, kid,” Sehun replies. He pointedly looks Minseok up and down as he says it, while simultaneously pulling himself up to his full height, which is considerably taller than Minseok. “But I can look after myself.”
Minseok grins. “I may be small,” he says amiably, “but I could eat you alive. So I suggest that you take what I’ve said into consideration and watch yourself.”
Minseok figures there isn’t much more for him to say and he turns to leave, only to stop when Sehun calls out after him. “Aren’t you going to call the cops?” Sehun sounds petulant, almost as if he wants Minseok to call the cops. Minseok laughs incredulously as he turns back with his eyebrows raised.
“And what exactly would that do?” Minseok asks. “If you had any sense you’d be long gone before they even got here. Besides, they have better things to do than chase down some taggers in Hongdae. Trust me, cops will be the least of your worries if you keep this up.”
Minseok turns to leave again, but this time he locks gazes with the guy leaning back against the wall. Compared to Sehun’s garish hair and stylish clothes, this guy seems almost bland. He has a snapback hat jammed down backwards over dark hair, and he’s wearing an oversized hoodie and jeans. Minseok wonders if he’s another member of the crew, or if he’s just a friend of Sehun’s who got dragged along for the ride. The guy leans forward, almost as if he wants to say something, then glances over to Sehun and ends up just biting his lip uncertainly instead. Minseok shrugs mentally and walks away. He has more important things to do than worry about what some kid who probably thinks he’s a washed up sell out might want to say to him.
--
After that night, it seems like Sehun is everywhere. Minseok, like countless other people, spends a good deal of his time in the combined Sinchon and Hongdae area. He lives there, his school is near there, his friends work there, and the restaurants and bars are good. The area is are almost always crowded by nature, but despite this it seems that everywhere Minseok turns Sehun’s rainbow head is there. Sometimes Sehun is by himself, but sometimes he’s with friends. He even turns up at StarStar - Minseok spots him when he stops by to chat with Yixing.
Minseok isn’t sure if he’s suddenly just hyperaware and Sehun’s always been there, or if the universe is conspiring to make things awkward. He and Sehun don’t speak again, but every time their eyes meet a miniature staredown ensues. It’s a battle of wills with both parties determined to win, and Minseok always finds himself irritable afterwards. He had known from the beginning that talking to the new crew probably wouldn’t change anything, but it’s still frustrating to constantly find himself face to face with a kid who’s determined to destroy his work.
And the confrontation hadn’t changed anything, that’s the worst part. If anything the dissing gets worse, to the point that Amber threatens flying back from the States to kick some ass and even Yuri reemerges in the crew group chat to ask what’s going on. Minseok knows that other crews and even individual artists are being targeted, too; even if he hadn’t heard about it through his friends he can clearly see it every time he walks through Hongdae. Young Blood’s tags are everywhere, located in practically every alleyway and easy to spot for anyone who’s looking for them. Everyone in the graffiti scene is on edge. Even Minseok, who is famous among his friends for being easygoing, has to acknowledge that he’s let Young Blood get under his skin.
For all that he sees Sehun, though, Minseok never sees the other guy from the alley. In fact, Minseok is in his school’s main library when he spots Sehun’s friend for the first time since that night. Minseok spends a substantial amount of time in the library. One of his classes for the semester is essentially just one big project, and sometimes Minseok feels like it’s eating him alive. He’d met with some classmates earlier, but they had left hours previously and Minseok is studying alone with his computer and notes when he spots the guy. His head is spinning with lines of computer code, and when he looks up and sees Sehun’s friend at first he doesn’t recognize him. Then, once it clicks, he thinks he might be hallucinating.
Minseok blinks, and when his eyes open again the guy is still there, only now he’s staring back at Minseok like a deer caught in the headlights. If it had been Sehun, Minseok probably would have attempted to keep up a proud front, but it’s not Sehun and Minseok hasn’t had nearly enough coffee today to deal with this so he just groans and rests his head in his hands. “I can’t escape them,” he mumbles into his palms.
When Minseok looks up again, the guy is staring down at his books and biting his lip again just like he'd done that night in the alley. The girl sitting next to the guy says something but he just shakes his head and refuses to take his eyes off his books. Minseok watches him carefully for almost a minute, but when it becomes obvious that the guy isn't going to try to start something he too goes back to his studying.
Minseok works like that for nearly another hour. Every now and then he glances over at Sehun’s friend - he dubs him ‘snapback guy’ because he's wearing another hat today, although he has abandoned the baggy sweatshirt - and sometimes the guy is looking at him. Each time this happens snapback guy quickly turns his eyes back down at his work, as if he's embarrassed. It's strange after all the staring matches with Sehun, but Minseok doesn’t have the energy to dwell on it.
After a while Minseok’s bladder starts staging painful protests and he reluctantly gets up to go to the bathroom. He shoves his laptop into his backpack and takes it with him, because he's afraid that if he doesn't he might come back to find a Young Blood tag scrawled across it in sharpie, but leaves his textbook and notes to save his place.
When he comes back his things are all still there and tag-free. However, there is a canned coffee, probably from the vending machine by the entrance to the library study room, and a note sitting next to his textbook. Curious, Minseok picks the note up and looks it over. All it says is "Sorry" in neat writing. Minseok contemplates it for a second before looking over to where snapback guy had been sitting. He and his friend are gone.
Minseok sits down slowly and puts down the note so that he can pick up the coffee and turn it over in his hands. The can is still cold from the vending machine. Minseok glances once more at where the guy had been sitting as he pops the can open. Huh.
--
For Minseok, starting work on a commission piece is always exciting. It's heady enough when people appreciate his art, much less like it enough to want to pay him for it. Every time he receives money from a satisfied client he feels slightly bewildered. He can still clearly remember the day his mother told him she had cancelled his art classes because they were a waste of time. At first Minseok’s love for drawing had been cute, something his parents could brag about to their friends, but when he was in middle school and putting more effort into his art lessons than his supplementary math and English tutoring his parents were no longer amused.
At the time Minseok had entertained thoughts of eventually becoming a famous manwha artist, and in response to the loss of art lessons had retreated into his room and spent months drawing pages of comics in secret. Eventually, of course, his mom found him out and threw all of Minseok’s work into the trash. That was the first time Minseok truly fought with his parents, a screaming match that lasted nearly an hour and ended with his father throwing all of Minseok’s art supplies into the trash can with his comic pages. Somehow after that Minseok had found himself stopping by the store on his way home from school, taking a can of spray paint down from the shelf and quietly slipping it into his backpack when no one was looking.
The solid gates of the abandoned construction site behind his school became Minseok's first canvas. He covered them in shaky lines and failed attempts to copy the pictures of graffiti writing he found online. When he ran out of space, layers and layers of paint now coating the construction company’s logos, he moved on to other isolated places. His collection of paints, carefully lifted from stores all across town, slowly grew, and he kept them in a gym bag that he stored in the bottom of his closet under a pile of clothes that even his mother never bothered picking up.
It’s weird now, to Minseok, to think about his life in middle and high school, all the nights he spent sneaking out and all the mornings he spent dozing off in class. And now here he is, standing in front of a blank wall that someone is paying him to paint. Minseok feels almost giddy as he stares at the expanse of cement. This commission is for a cafe in Hapjeong, a new place owned by an enthusiastic middle-aged man who contacted Minseok after seeing one of his other pieces. He commissioned Minseok for a full-wall mural, and after finishing the planning and getting approval from the owner Minseok is ready to get started.
When he works on group pieces with his friends, particularly when they're just doing a quick throwup, Minseok usually works on coloring. But when Minseok is doing his own work and has time he likes to focus on doing intricate line work. He could even brag that his lines are what he's known for. Minseok likes to create black and white designs that twist and turn into themselves and then burst into color in select areas. The wall by Lu Han's work, where Minseok had shamelessly embraced his seventh grade manwha artist dreams, is probably his most popular example of this style.
For this piece Minseok is planning to draw two girls sitting and sipping coffee with their hair flowing out behind them, the locks shifting into ocean waves complete with sea creatures in their own version of a coffee shop. The owner, who is from Busan and had asked Minseok for a design that featured the ocean - to help with his homesickness, he said - was delighted by the sketches Minseok showed him.
Minseok surveys the wall for a moment longer, idly shaking a can of paint in one hand. In his mind he can already see the design stretching out across the surface, and he grins. Time to get to work.
--
The next time Minseok spots snapback guy is back in the library again. Minseok is tucked away in a corner with his laptop and the annoyingly large textbook for his theory class when he sees the guy. This time snapback guy doesn’t notice Minseok - he’s staring at his laptop screen with his eyebrows drawn in concentration as his hand flies across the drawing tablet lying next to his computer. Without really realizing it Minseok finds himself thinking of the coffee and the note next to it. Before he can change his mind he sets his laptop aside and stands up, then makes his way over to snapback guy’s table.
When Minseok slides into the chair across from him snapback guy looks up. His eyes widen in surprise and the hand holding his tablet pen jerks; Minseok is sure that he now has a mark across whatever he’s working on. Minseok puts on his best friendly smile and says, “Hey.”
“Um, hi?” the guy replies uncertainly with a bob of his head. He’s blushing, Minseok notices with amusement. The tips of his ears are red and there’s a slight flush spreading out across his cheeks. Cute.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Minseok says. The guy opens his mouth to protest or deny knowledge of what Minseok is talking about, and Minseok raises an eyebrow. The guy shuts his mouth and bites his lip instead. Must be a habit, Minseok decides. It’s kind of endearing, if Minseok is honest. “Are you a member of the crew?” Minseok asks, when it’s obvious that the guy isn’t sure what to say.
“Kind of,” the guy replies. He frowns and spins his tablet pen around in his fingers. Minseok doubts that he even knows he’s doing it. “I help out sometimes with bigger pieces. Se- um, my friend joined and he kind of dragged me along with him.”
“It’s okay, I already know Sehun’s name,” Minseok says. “Good catch, though.” The guy looks so horrified that Minseok can’t help but laugh. “I thought we already established that I’m not going to rat anyone out. I don’t like the police any more than anyone else. Besides, if I had wanted to then I would have already, so don’t worry.” Since the guy still seems a little uncertain of what to say, simply nodding in acknowledgment, Minseok leans his elbows on the table. “So if you’re in the crew, then why are you apologizing and buying coffee for a guy you guys are trying to slash?”
The guy is blushing again. “I’m a fan,” he mumbles, steadfastly avoiding Minseok’s eyes. “I really like Xiumi- um, your work. I was there that night because I was trying to convince Sehun to stop.” He pauses for a second and now Minseok is the one staring in surprise. “I was so angry when Sehun hit your piece by the comic store. I go to that store pretty often,” he looks embarrassed as he says this. Minseok wonders if Lu Han knows him, but decides that asking isn’t worth Lu Han sticking his nose into Minseok’s business. “That piece is one of my favorites. I couldn’t believe Sehun disrespected it like that.”
“Yes, well that seems to be your crew’s entire mission,” Minseok says wryly. The guy frowns again.
“It wasn’t like that at first. I mean, back when Sehun brought me in I thought it was pretty fun to be around a bunch of people who liked the same things I did.” The guy’s lips pull into a crooked half-smile. “But then one of the members decided that there should be a message or something and they started the slashing and dissing. Since then it hasn’t really been fun anymore.” He finally looks up, hesitant.
Minseok nods slowly as he takes it all in. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, considering. “Thank you,” he finally settles on saying. “For liking my art, and for the coffee and apology. It means a lot, knowing that not every kid younger than me on the scene hates my guts.”
The guy has a shy smile now, which broadens when Minseok smiles back. “I honestly still can’t really believe that I’m talking to Xiumin right now,” he blurts out. He’s so earnest that Minseok can’t help but laugh again.
“Come on, it’s not like I’m famous or anything,” Minseok says. “And my name is Minseok, so you can call me that. Or hyung, if you’d rather. I am, as your friend so lovingly put it, a sell out, so I don’t do enough illegal work anymore to worry about the cops learning my name.”
“Minseok hyung,” the guy tries out. He hesitates before adding, “I’m Jongin.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jongin,” Minseok says, and Jongin’s entire face brightens. Definitely cute.
--
The next time they meet, Jongin approaches Minseok first. Minseok is sitting in the coffee shop right next to the library, desperate for a change of scenery. It’s the time of day when most people are in class, so the cafe is pretty empty, but Jongin walks right past all the free tables to come up to Minseok’s table and shyly ask if he can sit there.
Jongin is a good study tablemate. He doesn’t spread his materials out over the entire table, and he’s quiet as he works away with his laptop and tablet. It reminds Minseok of freshman year, and the long hours he and Lu Han had spent studying together. Although those sessions had usually ended with Lu Han declaring he would die of boredom if he studied for one minute later and dragging Minseok out to have fun. Lu Han’s nights out had been how Minseok originally met Jongdae and Amber, who had eventually brought him into their crew. Another difference is that Lu Han had spent a considerably larger amount of time swearing at his computer when things weren’t going well.
They work in silence for almost half an hour before Minseok’s curiosity gets the better of him. “Can I see what you’re working on?” he asks, craning his body around towards Jongin’s side of the table.
“It’s not much yet,” Jongin says. His bottom lip is between his teeth again, and he worries it for a second before slowly turning his laptop towards Minseok. “It’s not, like, anything impressive.” On the screen is an open animation file with the storyboard thumbnails on display. Jongin reaches over to press play, and a ballerina leaps to life. She twirls and leaps her way across the screen before the animation ends and loops back to the beginning. It’s obviously still a preliminary work, just rough sketches on a white background, but somehow it feels like the ballerina might pirouette out of the screen and across the table.
“Wow,” Minseok breathes. “What are you talking about, this is amazing.”
“Not really,” Jongin objects uncomfortably. He presses a key and stops the ballerina in the middle of her endless dance. “This is just an assignment for class, and I’m still really amateur. Someday I want to go on to movies and stuff.” Jongin hunches over, almost protectively, as he turns his laptop back towards himself. It’s like he expects Minseok to make fun of him, and Minseok’s mom’s voice rings in his mind, “What a waste of time.”
“That’s so cool,” Minseok says with enthusiasm, and Jongin immediately starts to uncurl. “Animation movies are the best.”
Jongin is smiling now. “Yeah,” he says, “and I think that they’re really important, because they’re one of the types of movies that everyone can enjoy no matter their age, you know?” As he speaks Jongin seems to literally light up. He’s sitting up straight, holding eye contact with Minseok, all traces of his previous shyness quickly disappearing. “And they can also help teach important lessons, or like, be deeper than just cute characters running around.” From there Jongin launches into comparing the South Korean and international film markets, and talking about how he wants to work locally. Minseok finds himself listening attentively, even though he had never given particular thought to South Korea’s potential for animated films before. Jongin is practically glowing as he talks, and his enthusiasm is contagious.
They talk, their respective projects completely abandoned, until Jongin has to run to class. Even after Jongin leaves, Minseok is still smiling.
--
Jongin becomes an unexpected constant in Minseok’s life. Minseok’s not sure if Jongin is originally a dedicated student who spends a great deal of time in the library, or if he’s hanging out in the library more to see Minseok. Whichever it is, Minseok ends up seeing more of Jongin than any of his friends. He runs into Jongin almost every day, and after a straight week of this Minseok offhandedly asks Jongin to exchange phone numbers. Jongin immediately breaks into a grin that has Minseok smiling in return.
Jongin is apparently the type of person who likes to use nicknames for all his contacts. He has his own Kakao Talk display name preset as “Jonginnie,” and edits Minseok’s simple “Kim Minseok” so that it shows up as “Hyung-nim” on his phone. It’s pretty cute, and Minseok would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit flattered. They message each other every now and then, even though they’re seeing each other on practically a daily basis. More often than not Jongin is the one sending the first message - Minseok has a habit of forgetting about his phone whenever he’s not actively using it. Jongin’s messages always make Minseok smile, even when he feels ready to crumble under stress.
And really, stress has become another, much less pleasant, constant in Minseok’s life. His project deadline is quickly approaching, and with each passing day Minseok can feel the pressure mounting. Everything is a blur of classes, the library, and his one room apartment. He’s glad that the cafe owner had allowed him a long period of time to finish his commission piece, because he can barely squeeze in any time for it. Minseok turns working on the piece into his study breaks; he comes whenever he can fit it in, and lets the weight of aerosol cans in his hand and the methodical process of laying down layers of paint temporarily erase all thoughts of codes and project deadlines.
In the back of his mind there is also a niggling worry about Young Blood. Yixing had texted Minseok to say that he’d heard different store owners in the Hapjeong area complaining about Young Blood’s tags turning up on their walls. Normally this wouldn’t bother Minseok, but Yixing said that the tags were primarily in the area nearby the cafe Minseok’s working on. And, in his roundabout Yixing way, also suggested that he thought this might be because the cafe owner kept bragging to anyone who would listen about the piece he’s having done. Minseok’s piece.
Minseok tries not to think about it too much, which is honestly not hard to do. He tucks his concerns away in the back of his mind and lets them get swept up in the midst of his other worries. He doesn’t even have time to think about life beyond school, much less some punks running around with spray paint.
In fact, the person who seems concerned with Minseok’s lack of social life isn’t Minseok but Lu Han. Aside from Jongin, almost all of the texts Minseok receives are from Lu Han. Lu Han whines about how long it’s been since he’s seen Minseok, and at one point even jokingly accuses Minseok of being in a secret relationship. That idea makes Minseok snort - the only relationship he’s having at the moment is marriage to his laptop and textbooks - but one morning he finally gives in and agrees to come hang out at the comic book shop. All he’d been doing was sitting at home and contemplating banging his head into his keyboard anyway, and Lu Han had promised that he would let Minseok sit behind the counter and read the newest volume of the action series Minseok has been following for years.
Minseok knows all the best shortcuts to get him to the comic book store in the least amount of time and through the largest amount of back alleys, discovered over years of trying to dodge crowds. There aren’t many people around today, not at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, but habit carries him down the back streets anyway. Rather than businesses or street names he tends to use pieces of street art as his landmarks. The alleys are overflowing with art, from the simplest paint-pen tags to full on mural pieces. Minseok makes his way past works he’s grown familiar with over the past three years of making this exact same trek, as well as taking time to stop every now and then to admire new pieces that catch his eye.
He’s in an alley only a few minutes away from the comic shop when he spots her. Minseok stops dead in his tracks, staring in a combination of astonishment and awe. Jongin’s ballerina dances from one end of the wall to the other, as if someone had frozen her animation frame by frame and then pasted the frames up on the cement. She leaps over and around the couple of other works on the same wall, landing lightly on a tiger’s head and springing off into a grand jeté to go skip across the top of some text. She’s made of stencils and black paint, not individual drawings, and as Minseok follows her path along the wall he wonders at Jongin’s patience. The wall is not short by any means, and it must have taken Jongin hours to make all the stencils. All the way at the end of the corridor Minseok finally finds the signature. The ballerina is dipping into a curtsey, and under her feet there’s a tag that says “KAI.”
Minseok stands and admires the wall for a little longer before pulling out his phone and snapping a photo. “kai, huh?” he quickly texts to Jongin, accompanied with a copy of the picture. Before Jongin can reply Minseok tucks his phone back into his pocket and quickly walks the rest of the way to the comic book store.
Lu Han greets Minseok enthusiastically, immediately handing him a copy of the book he had promised. Minseok plops himself down on one of the chairs behind the counter, and it almost feels like he’s back in second year, when he had practically lived in the comic shop during Lu Han’s shifts. Minseok settles down and starts reading his manhwa, but he doesn’t manage to get very far with Lu Han’s interruptions. Lu Han alternates between whining about how slow work has been this morning and demanding updates on Minseok’s life. Minseok honestly doesn’t really mind. Lu Han is his best friend, and it has been a long time since they last got to properly hang out. It’s nice to just spend time together like this, even if Minseok doesn’t get to read his book.
Minseok is in the middle of complaining about his theory of computing professor when his phone interrupts with a loud Kakao Talk notification. Minseok pauses to unlock his phone, and finds a message from Jongin.
“ah…,” quickly followed by, “you saw it?”
“yeah,” Minseok replies. it looks really good. i like how you made your art interact with the other pieces. your style is great
Minseok has seen some of Kai’s pieces before, before he even met Jongin. Kai first caught Minseok’s attention when a piece similar to the ballerina, but on a smaller scale and showcasing some kind of Latin dance, had popped up back in May near the don katsu restaurant Lu Han likes. Minseok had been intrigued, and tried to keep an eye out for more of Kai’s work. He hadn’t been disappointed - once he started looking it wasn’t hard to find more. All of the works featured a similar style of stencils and animation frames, and primarily showed different types of dance with a few other subjects occasionally thrown in. Right from the start Minseok had felt a lot of admiration for the artist, and now that he knows it’s Jongin… well, he’s not quite sure what he feels now.
“not really,” Jongin sends back. “i just spend a lot of time cutting tiny shapes out of pieces of plastic.”
Minseok laughs, and when he glances up from his phone Lu Han is looking at him contemplatively. “Who are you talking to?” Lu Han asks. He tries to look over Minseok’s shoulder, but Minseok holds the phone away from him. “Is it your secret boyfriend who has been stealing all your time away from me?”
“No,” Minseok says, trying to type out a reply to Jongin while still keeping his phone out of Lu Han’s reach. “dont sell urself short. ur stuff is srsly cool.”
“Girlfriend, then? Did you go changing your orientation without telling me?” Lu Han is pouting now. Minseok gives him an incredulous look.
“I already told you, I’m not seeing anyone other than my textbooks,” Minseok says. “It’s just a junior from school.”
“Really?” Lu Han may have been joking around before, but he’s curious for real now. Minseok can tell from his face, and resists the urge to sigh. A curious Lu Han will stop at nothing to find answers. “That means he’s my junior too, technically. Is he in your department?”
“No, he’s in animation,” Minseok says. He finally gives up and hands his phone over to Lu Han, who immediately breaks out into a victorious grin. The screen had gone into power-save mode while they argued, but Lu Han quickly unlocks both the phone’s main passcode and Minseok’s Kakao passcode. Fucker.
“Hey, I know him,” Lu Han says as he pulls up the chat with Jongin and, from there, Jongin’s profile picture. “He comes in here all the time. He really likes that same series you do.” For a second Jongin’s voice echoes in Minseok’s head, I go to that store pretty often. Minseok had been right when he guessed that Lu Han would know him. “I’ve gotta say, he’s pretty cute. Should have guessed that dashing good looks would be your type.”
“He’s a sweet kid,” Minseok says blandly, completely ignoring Lu Han’s jibe. He grabs his phone back and gives Lu Han a warning look. “Please don’t do anything weird the next time he comes in.” Lu Han smiles brightly in reply, making Minseok’s stomach sink. One of Lu Han’s favorite pastimes is telling embarrassing stories about his friends. Usually Minseok just laughs it off and counters it with his own stories about Lu Han, but this is different. Jongin actually respects Minseok, and Minseok won’t be around to defend himself. Well, Minseok supposes, at least being respected had been nice while it lasted.
Just then a customer comes in, and Lu Han leaps into customer service mode. Left in peace, Minseok settles back onto his chair again and stares at Jongin’s enlarged profile picture for a second before closing out back into the chat. Jongin still hasn’t replied. Minseok types, “so does kai have some sort of profound meaning?”
“just thought it sounded cool,” Jongin sends back almost immediately. Minseok can imagine Jongin hunching over his phone, getting ready to pull back into his turtle shell.
“that’s ok,” Minseok replies. “xiumin is just my name from chinese class. i had to get my friend to help me design my tag, cuz my characters usually look like a six year old wrote them.”
Jongin replies with a stream of chatspeak laughter, and Minseok is smiling when Lu Han slides back behind the counter. Lu Han gives him a look, but doesn’t say anything, so Minseok ignores him and goes back to reading his book. It isn’t worth it to worry about whatever idea Lu Han has gotten into his head. Minseok is just going to enjoy the rest of his short break with his friend, and try not to think about the half finished programming waiting for him at home or whatever feeling it is that rises in his chest when he thinks about Jongin’s ballerina.
next ➞
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 20k
Summary: Minseok understands that his work is, on a fundamental basis, impermanent. But these kids have been walking a dangerous line, and are getting awfully close to stepping over to the wrong side of it. (street artists!au)
A/N: originally posted here at minseokful 2014 for jinwann
Minseok slides into his Theory of Computing lecture five minutes late and tries to sneak into his seat as stealthily as possible. He’s setting up his laptop when a faint but unmistakable high-pitched “Katalk!” emanates from his back pocket. The professor turns to fix him with an icy stare, and Minseok ducks his head and mumbles apologies as he fumbles to get his phone out of his pocket and turn his message notifications to silent.
Minseok steadfastly ignores his phone for almost ten minutes, despite the way the screen continually lights up with notifications. They’re all from Lu Han, Minseok can tell that much from the on-screen previews, and they’re all obnoxious emoticons. He shoves the phone to the corner of his desk and tries to concentrate on the notes he’s taking on his laptop.
Eventually Lu Han switches from emoticons to just sending “minseok,” “minseok,” “minseok” over and over. When Lu Han switches to Chinese, Minseok finally gives in and grabs his phone.
“what?” he sends, and is immediately greeted with a tearfully overjoyed emoticon with a flower in its hair as a reply. Minseok rolls his eyes and quickly types out another message.
“you’re at work now right? shouldn’t you be helping customers?”
He expects Lu Han to say something about being bored of categorizing rows of comic books, but instead he gets a message saying, “the kids are at it again.”
Seconds later Lu Han sends a picture. It’s the wall that runs along the side of the comic book store Lu Han works at - Minseok immediately recognizes it because of the giant mural that completely covers it from one end to the other. It was the first piece Minseok had ever been commissioned to do, two years before. It’s primarily black and white, designed to look like a manhwa page, with the hero and heroine bursting out of the lines in full-colored glory in the middle. Now, as evidenced by Lu Han’s picture, it also features a large garish tag in red spray paint in the upper left corner.
“cute,” Minseok replies, faking calm. He knows that he’s not fooling anyone, though, most certainly not Lu Han. Lu Han had been the one who had originally recommended Minseok to his boss for the piece, and he knows just how proud of it Minseok still is.
Minseok enlarges the picture to get a closer look at the tag. There’s no mistaking it, it’s the same tag that has been popping up lately near old works by Minseok and his crew. Judging by the tags, they are being thrown up by a new crew going by the name Young Blood - no points for creativity in Minseok’s books - that is apparently trying to prove some point about “out with the old and in with the new.” At first they had only tagged near older artists’ works, but lately they’ve been getting bolder. Minseok supposes he should feel lucky that they only slashed his work. Just a few days before someone had completely gone over one of Chanyeol’s pieces with a roller brush and only left a tag in its place.
Lu Han apparently knows exactly what Minseok’s thinking, because he sends a message saying, “at least it’s small.”
“your dick is small,” Minseok absentmindedly types back. In his head he’s running through a list of everyone he knows who might have any information on this crew. Up until now Minseok hadn’t been too bothered - he’s a street artist, he understands that his work is, on a fundamental basis, impermanent. But these kids have been walking a dangerous line, and are getting awfully close to stepping over to the wrong side of it.
“that’s not what your ex said,” Lu Han replies, and Minseok has to resist the urge to snort and draw his professor’s ire once more.
“you don’t know any of my exes,” Minseok sends back. He pauses for a moment, considering, before typing out another message. “nice try tho. btw do you know if yixing is working tonight?”
--
StarStar Coffee is tucked down an alleyway, partly hidden behind a sushi restaurant. If not for its famous hand drip coffee and the almost daily indie performances and open mic nights it would probably have faded into obscurity long ago. The Hongdae area of Seoul, where StarStar is located, has enough attractions that it’s all too easy for a small coffee shop to get lost in the larger wave of bars, music, art, and shopping.
As it is, when Minseok arrives at a little past eight in the evening the coffee shop is still bustling. There’s a duo playing on the small stage, a girl singing with a guy accompanying her on guitar, and almost all of the tables are full. There are three baristas behind the counter who seem busy making drinks and cleaning, but one of them pulls away as soon as he notices Minseok coming through the door. Yixing looks every inch the indie coffee shop manager he is, in his plaid button up shirt with rolled up sleeves and black thick-framed glasses. He motions with his head towards an empty table in the corner farthest from the stage before disappearing into the back room.
Minseok heads over to the table and is just pulling out a chair to sit down when Yixing reemerges from the back apron-less and with a tupperware container in one hand. Yixing sits down in the chair across from Minseok and offers a smile.
“Hey, stranger,” Yixing says as he pops the lid off of his tupperware. He has some sort of noodles, and Minseok can’t help but eye them enviously. The convenience store gimbap he’d grabbed before his evening class had been less than stellar. “It’s been a while.”
Minseok guiltily glances up from the noodles to Yixing’s face. Yixing’s right, it has been a while. Back in freshman year the three of them, Minseok, Lu Han, and Yixing, had been almost inseparable. But three and a half years later everything is more complicated, and it seems like no one ever has time. Minseok hasn’t seen Yixing in more than a month, and now he’s here because he needs information, not even with the primary purpose of visiting his friend.
Yixing must pick up on Minseok’s mood, because he suddenly leans over and uses his chopsticks to shove some of the noodles into Minseok’s mouth. Minseok laughs and accepts the food. “Yeah, sorry about that,” Minseok manages to say around his mouthful of noodles. “And sorry for being late. My professor wouldn’t stop talking.”
Yixing waves him off as he takes his own bite of dinner. “It’s fine, we had a rush just before you came anyway.” Yixing swallows and leans forward until his elbows are resting on the table. “So what was it you wanted to talk about?”
Minseok considers his words for a second before saying, “I was wondering if you could get me in touch with someone. Or, preferably, several someones.”
Yixing hmms as he stabs his chopsticks absentmindedly into his noodles. “This doesn’t happen to be about that new crew going around tagging over everyone’s stuff, does it?” Yixing’s hands still and he looks up Minseok with one eyebrow raised slightly.
Minseok blinks at Yixing in surprise for a moment before laughing and shaking his head incredulously. “Someone else already asked you about it, didn’t they?”
“Hyoyeon noona and Chanyeol were in earlier this week,” Yixing says calmly. He takes another bite of his noodles. “They seemed about ready to find these kids and set them on fire.”
That must have been right after the crew went over Chanyeol’s piece. Minseok winces. Chanyeol’s rage had been palpable enough even over their Kakao Talk group chat, and with Hyoyeon in on it too Minseok is sure that fire would have been the least of Young Blood’s worries.
“But unfortunately,” Yixing continues, “I’m going to have to tell you the same thing I told them. These kids are new enough that I don’t know anything about them.” Yixing’s face is carefully vague as he says this. To most people it would probably seem as if he’s on the verge of spacing out - not too surprising, since Yixing himself willingly says that spacing out is his specialty. Minseok, however, has known Yixing too long to be fooled.
“You must know someone who does know about them, though,” Minseok says. Yixing is still carefully not meeting Minseok’s gaze, and Minseok knows he’s got him. “And you know me. I’m not going to go burning things down.”
Yixing is quiet for almost a minute, considering, and Minseok waits patiently. He knows that if he tries to rush things he’ll be leaving with no information at all. At last Yixing says, “Do you remember earlier this year when Lu Han dragged us along to that birthday party in Itaewon? At that Mexican restaurant.”
Minseok nods, although more than the restaurant itself he remembers the ridiculous amount of tequila he had consumed.
“There was a kid there named Zitao who hung out with us for most of the night. He’s a good kid, he likes to hang out here to do his homework.” Yixing trails off, staring at some point over Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok is sure that Yixing is trying to decide exactly how much to say. “Anyway, lately he has a job at some clothing boutique over by the elementary school.” Yixing rests his elbows on the table and leans forward. He meets Minseok’s gaze now, and holds it. “I don’t know anything about the crew tagging your stuff, but he might.”
--
It turns out that Zitao knows quite a bit about Young Blood, but not very much that he’s willing to share.
Zitao plays with his phone while he talks to Minseok, popping it in and out of the giant panda-shaped case he has it in. “My friend’s a member of the crew,” he says and frowns at his phone like it’s personally committed some kind of crime against him. “But I’m not sure how much I want to tell you, even if you’re friends with Lu Han hyung and Yixing hyung. Actually, particularly because you’re friends with Lu Han hyung.”
Eventually he caves, though, giving Minseok a place and time that his friend will supposedly be hitting a piece. “I overheard Sehun mentioning it. Lately that stupid crew is all he talks about,” Zitao says by way of explanation. “The crew and Soojung. I’m so sick of it.”
This is how Minseok finds himself in the alley behind a barbeque restaurant at 2 a.m. on a Monday. He tries not to think about his 9 a.m. class the next day as he weaves his way through dumpsters and overflowing garbage bags. He had recognized what piece Zitao was talking about as soon as Zitao started describing it. Minseok and Jongdae had done it together as a quick joke - a pair of optical illusion angel wings with space between them that people can take pictures posing in front of, but placed in a back alley and up too high for people to actually be able to take pictures with them. It’s nothing like either of their usual styles; they had done it as a self-proclaimed tribute to Junmyeon after he fell while trying to paint a high up “heaven” spot and broke his arm. The wings were never meant to be more than a private joke, but some blogger had featured a picture of the piece in one of their posts, and somehow the piece had gained a bit of fame.
Zitao said that his friend Sehun, supposedly a member of Young Blood, was planning to not just diss the piece with a tag, but to completely roller over it and just leave a tag in its place, like had been done to Chanyeol’s piece. If nothing else, Minseok has to admire their guts. Young Blood have declared war, and now they’re going all out. However, any admiration he has for them ends there. Bravado doesn’t make up for the sheer stupidity of trying to make their mark on the scene by tagging over established artists’ work like puppies trying to mark their territory by peeing on everything. Minseok doubts that they even fully realize what they’re getting themselves into, or exactly how many people are soon going to be out for their precious “young” blood.
At last Minseok turns down the alley the piece is in, and finds more or less exactly what he had expected. There’s just enough light seeping in from the street that he can clearly see two guys: one standing in front of the piece with a roller in his hands and paint at his feet, and the other leaning against the opposite wall and staring at his phone. They both look up when Minseok turns the corner, but only the guy against the wall seems surprised. The guy holding the roller merely looks bored as he blatantly stares Minseok down. His hair looks vaguely like a rainbow puked all over it - Minseok assumes that he’s Sehun, then, since Zitao had only described his friend by saying that Sehun is impossible to miss.
“What do you want?” Sehun asks, without any honorifics to speak of. Minseok snorts.
“What has become of kids these days,” Minseok wonders aloud. “Do they not teach them manners anymore?” He shakes his head with exaggerated sadness before meeting Sehun’s gaze and holding it steady. “What I want is for you to stop marking over my work.”
Sehun narrows his eyes slightly. “Who are you?” he asks, still impolite.
“Xiumin,” Minseok replies simply, gesturing to his signature in the bottom corner of the piece. The Chinese characters of his tag look almost plain next to the English letters spelling out CHEN in barely legible graffiti print.
This finally elicits an emotion from Sehun, whose eyes widen in surprise. The guy leaning against the wall had gone back to his phone fairly quickly after Minseok arrived, but now he looks up again. He looks surprised too, as well as something else that Minseok can’t quite read. Minseok wonders who they had expected him to be, if not Xiumin. Chen? They’d better be glad he wasn’t Chen. Jongdae would more than happy to join Hyoyeon and Chanyeol’s crusade of fire.
Sehun quickly schools his face back to impassiveness, as if he hadn’t been affected at all. “So you’re the sell out,” Sehun says. The words ‘sell out’ are full of disdain, as if they leave a bad taste in Sehun’s mouth.
It does hurt a bit, even though Minseok refuses to show it, mostly because it’s true. Minseok rarely ever does illegal work now that he can actually get people to pay him to doodle on their walls rather than sneaking around in the middle of the night. But Sehun’s far from the first person to throw this at him, and Minseok already went through this back when he first started taking commissions. Sehun’s late to the game.
“Is that what this is about?” Minseok asks. He keeps his voice light, even as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Teaching the sell out a lesson? Because if it is, I can tell you right now that you’re wasting your time.”
Sehun hunches his shoulders slightly, and he looks so much like a sulky teenager that Minseok wants to laugh. Then Minseok remembers that Sehun very well could still be a teenager, and suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so funny.
“It’s not just you,” Sehun says sullenly. “It’s your entire crew, and all of the older artists. You’re all irrelevant now, so we’re just doing everyone a favor and opening up space for new art.”
Minseok had figured that was Young Blood’s mission, but hearing it spoken just makes it seem even more ridiculous. Turnover is natural; it happens even without new crews going out and dissing older artists. Minseok wonders if Sehun truly believes what he’s saying, or if he, like Minseok, realizes that his reasoning is just a weak disguise for a blatant attempt to stir up drama.
“Look kid, there are better ways to build your rep than dissing established artists,” Minseok says. He rocks back on his heels and nods at the angel wings for emphasis. Sehun had only gotten one coat down before Minseok arrived, and the design is still visible through the damp white paint covering it. “All you’re going to do is start trouble for yourself.”
“Thanks, kid,” Sehun replies. He pointedly looks Minseok up and down as he says it, while simultaneously pulling himself up to his full height, which is considerably taller than Minseok. “But I can look after myself.”
Minseok grins. “I may be small,” he says amiably, “but I could eat you alive. So I suggest that you take what I’ve said into consideration and watch yourself.”
Minseok figures there isn’t much more for him to say and he turns to leave, only to stop when Sehun calls out after him. “Aren’t you going to call the cops?” Sehun sounds petulant, almost as if he wants Minseok to call the cops. Minseok laughs incredulously as he turns back with his eyebrows raised.
“And what exactly would that do?” Minseok asks. “If you had any sense you’d be long gone before they even got here. Besides, they have better things to do than chase down some taggers in Hongdae. Trust me, cops will be the least of your worries if you keep this up.”
Minseok turns to leave again, but this time he locks gazes with the guy leaning back against the wall. Compared to Sehun’s garish hair and stylish clothes, this guy seems almost bland. He has a snapback hat jammed down backwards over dark hair, and he’s wearing an oversized hoodie and jeans. Minseok wonders if he’s another member of the crew, or if he’s just a friend of Sehun’s who got dragged along for the ride. The guy leans forward, almost as if he wants to say something, then glances over to Sehun and ends up just biting his lip uncertainly instead. Minseok shrugs mentally and walks away. He has more important things to do than worry about what some kid who probably thinks he’s a washed up sell out might want to say to him.
--
After that night, it seems like Sehun is everywhere. Minseok, like countless other people, spends a good deal of his time in the combined Sinchon and Hongdae area. He lives there, his school is near there, his friends work there, and the restaurants and bars are good. The area is are almost always crowded by nature, but despite this it seems that everywhere Minseok turns Sehun’s rainbow head is there. Sometimes Sehun is by himself, but sometimes he’s with friends. He even turns up at StarStar - Minseok spots him when he stops by to chat with Yixing.
Minseok isn’t sure if he’s suddenly just hyperaware and Sehun’s always been there, or if the universe is conspiring to make things awkward. He and Sehun don’t speak again, but every time their eyes meet a miniature staredown ensues. It’s a battle of wills with both parties determined to win, and Minseok always finds himself irritable afterwards. He had known from the beginning that talking to the new crew probably wouldn’t change anything, but it’s still frustrating to constantly find himself face to face with a kid who’s determined to destroy his work.
And the confrontation hadn’t changed anything, that’s the worst part. If anything the dissing gets worse, to the point that Amber threatens flying back from the States to kick some ass and even Yuri reemerges in the crew group chat to ask what’s going on. Minseok knows that other crews and even individual artists are being targeted, too; even if he hadn’t heard about it through his friends he can clearly see it every time he walks through Hongdae. Young Blood’s tags are everywhere, located in practically every alleyway and easy to spot for anyone who’s looking for them. Everyone in the graffiti scene is on edge. Even Minseok, who is famous among his friends for being easygoing, has to acknowledge that he’s let Young Blood get under his skin.
For all that he sees Sehun, though, Minseok never sees the other guy from the alley. In fact, Minseok is in his school’s main library when he spots Sehun’s friend for the first time since that night. Minseok spends a substantial amount of time in the library. One of his classes for the semester is essentially just one big project, and sometimes Minseok feels like it’s eating him alive. He’d met with some classmates earlier, but they had left hours previously and Minseok is studying alone with his computer and notes when he spots the guy. His head is spinning with lines of computer code, and when he looks up and sees Sehun’s friend at first he doesn’t recognize him. Then, once it clicks, he thinks he might be hallucinating.
Minseok blinks, and when his eyes open again the guy is still there, only now he’s staring back at Minseok like a deer caught in the headlights. If it had been Sehun, Minseok probably would have attempted to keep up a proud front, but it’s not Sehun and Minseok hasn’t had nearly enough coffee today to deal with this so he just groans and rests his head in his hands. “I can’t escape them,” he mumbles into his palms.
When Minseok looks up again, the guy is staring down at his books and biting his lip again just like he'd done that night in the alley. The girl sitting next to the guy says something but he just shakes his head and refuses to take his eyes off his books. Minseok watches him carefully for almost a minute, but when it becomes obvious that the guy isn't going to try to start something he too goes back to his studying.
Minseok works like that for nearly another hour. Every now and then he glances over at Sehun’s friend - he dubs him ‘snapback guy’ because he's wearing another hat today, although he has abandoned the baggy sweatshirt - and sometimes the guy is looking at him. Each time this happens snapback guy quickly turns his eyes back down at his work, as if he's embarrassed. It's strange after all the staring matches with Sehun, but Minseok doesn’t have the energy to dwell on it.
After a while Minseok’s bladder starts staging painful protests and he reluctantly gets up to go to the bathroom. He shoves his laptop into his backpack and takes it with him, because he's afraid that if he doesn't he might come back to find a Young Blood tag scrawled across it in sharpie, but leaves his textbook and notes to save his place.
When he comes back his things are all still there and tag-free. However, there is a canned coffee, probably from the vending machine by the entrance to the library study room, and a note sitting next to his textbook. Curious, Minseok picks the note up and looks it over. All it says is "Sorry" in neat writing. Minseok contemplates it for a second before looking over to where snapback guy had been sitting. He and his friend are gone.
Minseok sits down slowly and puts down the note so that he can pick up the coffee and turn it over in his hands. The can is still cold from the vending machine. Minseok glances once more at where the guy had been sitting as he pops the can open. Huh.
--
For Minseok, starting work on a commission piece is always exciting. It's heady enough when people appreciate his art, much less like it enough to want to pay him for it. Every time he receives money from a satisfied client he feels slightly bewildered. He can still clearly remember the day his mother told him she had cancelled his art classes because they were a waste of time. At first Minseok’s love for drawing had been cute, something his parents could brag about to their friends, but when he was in middle school and putting more effort into his art lessons than his supplementary math and English tutoring his parents were no longer amused.
At the time Minseok had entertained thoughts of eventually becoming a famous manwha artist, and in response to the loss of art lessons had retreated into his room and spent months drawing pages of comics in secret. Eventually, of course, his mom found him out and threw all of Minseok’s work into the trash. That was the first time Minseok truly fought with his parents, a screaming match that lasted nearly an hour and ended with his father throwing all of Minseok’s art supplies into the trash can with his comic pages. Somehow after that Minseok had found himself stopping by the store on his way home from school, taking a can of spray paint down from the shelf and quietly slipping it into his backpack when no one was looking.
The solid gates of the abandoned construction site behind his school became Minseok's first canvas. He covered them in shaky lines and failed attempts to copy the pictures of graffiti writing he found online. When he ran out of space, layers and layers of paint now coating the construction company’s logos, he moved on to other isolated places. His collection of paints, carefully lifted from stores all across town, slowly grew, and he kept them in a gym bag that he stored in the bottom of his closet under a pile of clothes that even his mother never bothered picking up.
It’s weird now, to Minseok, to think about his life in middle and high school, all the nights he spent sneaking out and all the mornings he spent dozing off in class. And now here he is, standing in front of a blank wall that someone is paying him to paint. Minseok feels almost giddy as he stares at the expanse of cement. This commission is for a cafe in Hapjeong, a new place owned by an enthusiastic middle-aged man who contacted Minseok after seeing one of his other pieces. He commissioned Minseok for a full-wall mural, and after finishing the planning and getting approval from the owner Minseok is ready to get started.
When he works on group pieces with his friends, particularly when they're just doing a quick throwup, Minseok usually works on coloring. But when Minseok is doing his own work and has time he likes to focus on doing intricate line work. He could even brag that his lines are what he's known for. Minseok likes to create black and white designs that twist and turn into themselves and then burst into color in select areas. The wall by Lu Han's work, where Minseok had shamelessly embraced his seventh grade manwha artist dreams, is probably his most popular example of this style.
For this piece Minseok is planning to draw two girls sitting and sipping coffee with their hair flowing out behind them, the locks shifting into ocean waves complete with sea creatures in their own version of a coffee shop. The owner, who is from Busan and had asked Minseok for a design that featured the ocean - to help with his homesickness, he said - was delighted by the sketches Minseok showed him.
Minseok surveys the wall for a moment longer, idly shaking a can of paint in one hand. In his mind he can already see the design stretching out across the surface, and he grins. Time to get to work.
--
The next time Minseok spots snapback guy is back in the library again. Minseok is tucked away in a corner with his laptop and the annoyingly large textbook for his theory class when he sees the guy. This time snapback guy doesn’t notice Minseok - he’s staring at his laptop screen with his eyebrows drawn in concentration as his hand flies across the drawing tablet lying next to his computer. Without really realizing it Minseok finds himself thinking of the coffee and the note next to it. Before he can change his mind he sets his laptop aside and stands up, then makes his way over to snapback guy’s table.
When Minseok slides into the chair across from him snapback guy looks up. His eyes widen in surprise and the hand holding his tablet pen jerks; Minseok is sure that he now has a mark across whatever he’s working on. Minseok puts on his best friendly smile and says, “Hey.”
“Um, hi?” the guy replies uncertainly with a bob of his head. He’s blushing, Minseok notices with amusement. The tips of his ears are red and there’s a slight flush spreading out across his cheeks. Cute.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Minseok says. The guy opens his mouth to protest or deny knowledge of what Minseok is talking about, and Minseok raises an eyebrow. The guy shuts his mouth and bites his lip instead. Must be a habit, Minseok decides. It’s kind of endearing, if Minseok is honest. “Are you a member of the crew?” Minseok asks, when it’s obvious that the guy isn’t sure what to say.
“Kind of,” the guy replies. He frowns and spins his tablet pen around in his fingers. Minseok doubts that he even knows he’s doing it. “I help out sometimes with bigger pieces. Se- um, my friend joined and he kind of dragged me along with him.”
“It’s okay, I already know Sehun’s name,” Minseok says. “Good catch, though.” The guy looks so horrified that Minseok can’t help but laugh. “I thought we already established that I’m not going to rat anyone out. I don’t like the police any more than anyone else. Besides, if I had wanted to then I would have already, so don’t worry.” Since the guy still seems a little uncertain of what to say, simply nodding in acknowledgment, Minseok leans his elbows on the table. “So if you’re in the crew, then why are you apologizing and buying coffee for a guy you guys are trying to slash?”
The guy is blushing again. “I’m a fan,” he mumbles, steadfastly avoiding Minseok’s eyes. “I really like Xiumi- um, your work. I was there that night because I was trying to convince Sehun to stop.” He pauses for a second and now Minseok is the one staring in surprise. “I was so angry when Sehun hit your piece by the comic store. I go to that store pretty often,” he looks embarrassed as he says this. Minseok wonders if Lu Han knows him, but decides that asking isn’t worth Lu Han sticking his nose into Minseok’s business. “That piece is one of my favorites. I couldn’t believe Sehun disrespected it like that.”
“Yes, well that seems to be your crew’s entire mission,” Minseok says wryly. The guy frowns again.
“It wasn’t like that at first. I mean, back when Sehun brought me in I thought it was pretty fun to be around a bunch of people who liked the same things I did.” The guy’s lips pull into a crooked half-smile. “But then one of the members decided that there should be a message or something and they started the slashing and dissing. Since then it hasn’t really been fun anymore.” He finally looks up, hesitant.
Minseok nods slowly as he takes it all in. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, considering. “Thank you,” he finally settles on saying. “For liking my art, and for the coffee and apology. It means a lot, knowing that not every kid younger than me on the scene hates my guts.”
The guy has a shy smile now, which broadens when Minseok smiles back. “I honestly still can’t really believe that I’m talking to Xiumin right now,” he blurts out. He’s so earnest that Minseok can’t help but laugh again.
“Come on, it’s not like I’m famous or anything,” Minseok says. “And my name is Minseok, so you can call me that. Or hyung, if you’d rather. I am, as your friend so lovingly put it, a sell out, so I don’t do enough illegal work anymore to worry about the cops learning my name.”
“Minseok hyung,” the guy tries out. He hesitates before adding, “I’m Jongin.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jongin,” Minseok says, and Jongin’s entire face brightens. Definitely cute.
--
The next time they meet, Jongin approaches Minseok first. Minseok is sitting in the coffee shop right next to the library, desperate for a change of scenery. It’s the time of day when most people are in class, so the cafe is pretty empty, but Jongin walks right past all the free tables to come up to Minseok’s table and shyly ask if he can sit there.
Jongin is a good study tablemate. He doesn’t spread his materials out over the entire table, and he’s quiet as he works away with his laptop and tablet. It reminds Minseok of freshman year, and the long hours he and Lu Han had spent studying together. Although those sessions had usually ended with Lu Han declaring he would die of boredom if he studied for one minute later and dragging Minseok out to have fun. Lu Han’s nights out had been how Minseok originally met Jongdae and Amber, who had eventually brought him into their crew. Another difference is that Lu Han had spent a considerably larger amount of time swearing at his computer when things weren’t going well.
They work in silence for almost half an hour before Minseok’s curiosity gets the better of him. “Can I see what you’re working on?” he asks, craning his body around towards Jongin’s side of the table.
“It’s not much yet,” Jongin says. His bottom lip is between his teeth again, and he worries it for a second before slowly turning his laptop towards Minseok. “It’s not, like, anything impressive.” On the screen is an open animation file with the storyboard thumbnails on display. Jongin reaches over to press play, and a ballerina leaps to life. She twirls and leaps her way across the screen before the animation ends and loops back to the beginning. It’s obviously still a preliminary work, just rough sketches on a white background, but somehow it feels like the ballerina might pirouette out of the screen and across the table.
“Wow,” Minseok breathes. “What are you talking about, this is amazing.”
“Not really,” Jongin objects uncomfortably. He presses a key and stops the ballerina in the middle of her endless dance. “This is just an assignment for class, and I’m still really amateur. Someday I want to go on to movies and stuff.” Jongin hunches over, almost protectively, as he turns his laptop back towards himself. It’s like he expects Minseok to make fun of him, and Minseok’s mom’s voice rings in his mind, “What a waste of time.”
“That’s so cool,” Minseok says with enthusiasm, and Jongin immediately starts to uncurl. “Animation movies are the best.”
Jongin is smiling now. “Yeah,” he says, “and I think that they’re really important, because they’re one of the types of movies that everyone can enjoy no matter their age, you know?” As he speaks Jongin seems to literally light up. He’s sitting up straight, holding eye contact with Minseok, all traces of his previous shyness quickly disappearing. “And they can also help teach important lessons, or like, be deeper than just cute characters running around.” From there Jongin launches into comparing the South Korean and international film markets, and talking about how he wants to work locally. Minseok finds himself listening attentively, even though he had never given particular thought to South Korea’s potential for animated films before. Jongin is practically glowing as he talks, and his enthusiasm is contagious.
They talk, their respective projects completely abandoned, until Jongin has to run to class. Even after Jongin leaves, Minseok is still smiling.
--
Jongin becomes an unexpected constant in Minseok’s life. Minseok’s not sure if Jongin is originally a dedicated student who spends a great deal of time in the library, or if he’s hanging out in the library more to see Minseok. Whichever it is, Minseok ends up seeing more of Jongin than any of his friends. He runs into Jongin almost every day, and after a straight week of this Minseok offhandedly asks Jongin to exchange phone numbers. Jongin immediately breaks into a grin that has Minseok smiling in return.
Jongin is apparently the type of person who likes to use nicknames for all his contacts. He has his own Kakao Talk display name preset as “Jonginnie,” and edits Minseok’s simple “Kim Minseok” so that it shows up as “Hyung-nim” on his phone. It’s pretty cute, and Minseok would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit flattered. They message each other every now and then, even though they’re seeing each other on practically a daily basis. More often than not Jongin is the one sending the first message - Minseok has a habit of forgetting about his phone whenever he’s not actively using it. Jongin’s messages always make Minseok smile, even when he feels ready to crumble under stress.
And really, stress has become another, much less pleasant, constant in Minseok’s life. His project deadline is quickly approaching, and with each passing day Minseok can feel the pressure mounting. Everything is a blur of classes, the library, and his one room apartment. He’s glad that the cafe owner had allowed him a long period of time to finish his commission piece, because he can barely squeeze in any time for it. Minseok turns working on the piece into his study breaks; he comes whenever he can fit it in, and lets the weight of aerosol cans in his hand and the methodical process of laying down layers of paint temporarily erase all thoughts of codes and project deadlines.
In the back of his mind there is also a niggling worry about Young Blood. Yixing had texted Minseok to say that he’d heard different store owners in the Hapjeong area complaining about Young Blood’s tags turning up on their walls. Normally this wouldn’t bother Minseok, but Yixing said that the tags were primarily in the area nearby the cafe Minseok’s working on. And, in his roundabout Yixing way, also suggested that he thought this might be because the cafe owner kept bragging to anyone who would listen about the piece he’s having done. Minseok’s piece.
Minseok tries not to think about it too much, which is honestly not hard to do. He tucks his concerns away in the back of his mind and lets them get swept up in the midst of his other worries. He doesn’t even have time to think about life beyond school, much less some punks running around with spray paint.
In fact, the person who seems concerned with Minseok’s lack of social life isn’t Minseok but Lu Han. Aside from Jongin, almost all of the texts Minseok receives are from Lu Han. Lu Han whines about how long it’s been since he’s seen Minseok, and at one point even jokingly accuses Minseok of being in a secret relationship. That idea makes Minseok snort - the only relationship he’s having at the moment is marriage to his laptop and textbooks - but one morning he finally gives in and agrees to come hang out at the comic book shop. All he’d been doing was sitting at home and contemplating banging his head into his keyboard anyway, and Lu Han had promised that he would let Minseok sit behind the counter and read the newest volume of the action series Minseok has been following for years.
Minseok knows all the best shortcuts to get him to the comic book store in the least amount of time and through the largest amount of back alleys, discovered over years of trying to dodge crowds. There aren’t many people around today, not at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, but habit carries him down the back streets anyway. Rather than businesses or street names he tends to use pieces of street art as his landmarks. The alleys are overflowing with art, from the simplest paint-pen tags to full on mural pieces. Minseok makes his way past works he’s grown familiar with over the past three years of making this exact same trek, as well as taking time to stop every now and then to admire new pieces that catch his eye.
He’s in an alley only a few minutes away from the comic shop when he spots her. Minseok stops dead in his tracks, staring in a combination of astonishment and awe. Jongin’s ballerina dances from one end of the wall to the other, as if someone had frozen her animation frame by frame and then pasted the frames up on the cement. She leaps over and around the couple of other works on the same wall, landing lightly on a tiger’s head and springing off into a grand jeté to go skip across the top of some text. She’s made of stencils and black paint, not individual drawings, and as Minseok follows her path along the wall he wonders at Jongin’s patience. The wall is not short by any means, and it must have taken Jongin hours to make all the stencils. All the way at the end of the corridor Minseok finally finds the signature. The ballerina is dipping into a curtsey, and under her feet there’s a tag that says “KAI.”
Minseok stands and admires the wall for a little longer before pulling out his phone and snapping a photo. “kai, huh?” he quickly texts to Jongin, accompanied with a copy of the picture. Before Jongin can reply Minseok tucks his phone back into his pocket and quickly walks the rest of the way to the comic book store.
Lu Han greets Minseok enthusiastically, immediately handing him a copy of the book he had promised. Minseok plops himself down on one of the chairs behind the counter, and it almost feels like he’s back in second year, when he had practically lived in the comic shop during Lu Han’s shifts. Minseok settles down and starts reading his manhwa, but he doesn’t manage to get very far with Lu Han’s interruptions. Lu Han alternates between whining about how slow work has been this morning and demanding updates on Minseok’s life. Minseok honestly doesn’t really mind. Lu Han is his best friend, and it has been a long time since they last got to properly hang out. It’s nice to just spend time together like this, even if Minseok doesn’t get to read his book.
Minseok is in the middle of complaining about his theory of computing professor when his phone interrupts with a loud Kakao Talk notification. Minseok pauses to unlock his phone, and finds a message from Jongin.
“ah…,” quickly followed by, “you saw it?”
“yeah,” Minseok replies. it looks really good. i like how you made your art interact with the other pieces. your style is great
Minseok has seen some of Kai’s pieces before, before he even met Jongin. Kai first caught Minseok’s attention when a piece similar to the ballerina, but on a smaller scale and showcasing some kind of Latin dance, had popped up back in May near the don katsu restaurant Lu Han likes. Minseok had been intrigued, and tried to keep an eye out for more of Kai’s work. He hadn’t been disappointed - once he started looking it wasn’t hard to find more. All of the works featured a similar style of stencils and animation frames, and primarily showed different types of dance with a few other subjects occasionally thrown in. Right from the start Minseok had felt a lot of admiration for the artist, and now that he knows it’s Jongin… well, he’s not quite sure what he feels now.
“not really,” Jongin sends back. “i just spend a lot of time cutting tiny shapes out of pieces of plastic.”
Minseok laughs, and when he glances up from his phone Lu Han is looking at him contemplatively. “Who are you talking to?” Lu Han asks. He tries to look over Minseok’s shoulder, but Minseok holds the phone away from him. “Is it your secret boyfriend who has been stealing all your time away from me?”
“No,” Minseok says, trying to type out a reply to Jongin while still keeping his phone out of Lu Han’s reach. “dont sell urself short. ur stuff is srsly cool.”
“Girlfriend, then? Did you go changing your orientation without telling me?” Lu Han is pouting now. Minseok gives him an incredulous look.
“I already told you, I’m not seeing anyone other than my textbooks,” Minseok says. “It’s just a junior from school.”
“Really?” Lu Han may have been joking around before, but he’s curious for real now. Minseok can tell from his face, and resists the urge to sigh. A curious Lu Han will stop at nothing to find answers. “That means he’s my junior too, technically. Is he in your department?”
“No, he’s in animation,” Minseok says. He finally gives up and hands his phone over to Lu Han, who immediately breaks out into a victorious grin. The screen had gone into power-save mode while they argued, but Lu Han quickly unlocks both the phone’s main passcode and Minseok’s Kakao passcode. Fucker.
“Hey, I know him,” Lu Han says as he pulls up the chat with Jongin and, from there, Jongin’s profile picture. “He comes in here all the time. He really likes that same series you do.” For a second Jongin’s voice echoes in Minseok’s head, I go to that store pretty often. Minseok had been right when he guessed that Lu Han would know him. “I’ve gotta say, he’s pretty cute. Should have guessed that dashing good looks would be your type.”
“He’s a sweet kid,” Minseok says blandly, completely ignoring Lu Han’s jibe. He grabs his phone back and gives Lu Han a warning look. “Please don’t do anything weird the next time he comes in.” Lu Han smiles brightly in reply, making Minseok’s stomach sink. One of Lu Han’s favorite pastimes is telling embarrassing stories about his friends. Usually Minseok just laughs it off and counters it with his own stories about Lu Han, but this is different. Jongin actually respects Minseok, and Minseok won’t be around to defend himself. Well, Minseok supposes, at least being respected had been nice while it lasted.
Just then a customer comes in, and Lu Han leaps into customer service mode. Left in peace, Minseok settles back onto his chair again and stares at Jongin’s enlarged profile picture for a second before closing out back into the chat. Jongin still hasn’t replied. Minseok types, “so does kai have some sort of profound meaning?”
“just thought it sounded cool,” Jongin sends back almost immediately. Minseok can imagine Jongin hunching over his phone, getting ready to pull back into his turtle shell.
“that’s ok,” Minseok replies. “xiumin is just my name from chinese class. i had to get my friend to help me design my tag, cuz my characters usually look like a six year old wrote them.”
Jongin replies with a stream of chatspeak laughter, and Minseok is smiling when Lu Han slides back behind the counter. Lu Han gives him a look, but doesn’t say anything, so Minseok ignores him and goes back to reading his book. It isn’t worth it to worry about whatever idea Lu Han has gotten into his head. Minseok is just going to enjoy the rest of his short break with his friend, and try not to think about the half finished programming waiting for him at home or whatever feeling it is that rises in his chest when he thinks about Jongin’s ballerina.
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