Still life. Seokjin saw the world for all it’s still moments. Capturing the frozen parts of life. Pencil to paper, color blossoming in the center of his canvas. Thriving in the silence between conversations, the moments when the sun fell and it felt like everything simply stopped. The world became still and he came to life, hands moving on autopilot, paint flecked against his cheeks, eyes drooping with the heavy exhaustion that chased the end of passionate inspiration. Sleeping at odd hours, scraping the bottom of his wallet for enough money to fill his fridge. He existed on the rush of his creativity. He floated through school, head in the clouds, running on a few hours of sleep and the anticipation of the light weight of a brush in his hand.
Motion. You were always in motion. Careening through life with your foot pressed to the gas pedal, the brakes to your metaphorical car cut a long time ago. Seokjin tried to capture you but there were no still moments. You didn’t slow down, didn’t ever stop. Every breath you took propelled you forward, on a one way path to a glorious existence and you couldn’t take breaks, not even for Seokjin. He tried though, he really did. Pressing pencil to paper he tried to capture your forever moving form, but the stillness didn’t suit you. He dreamt of you, images of you haunted him at night. He was mesmerized by you. The way words constantly flowed from your lips like a bubbling stream of constant thought, the way you were always moving in some way, fingers tapping, leg bouncing, eyes darting all over the place.
Staring at you now, perched on a wooden stool with a silk robe hanging loosely off your frame, he saw the motion. Your lips curled at the edge periodically, eyes darting to his own form behind the easel. Fingers twitching, chest rising and falling with each measured breath you took. He painted you for hours, desperately trying to create a still life out of you but you were just beyond his grasp, couldn’t wrap his mind or his fingers around you. He dreamt of you at nightl, black and white charcoal grey sketches of all the things he wanted. Of your cherry sweet scent and the way you laughed, he dreamt of the way you’d look stretched out in his bed, fingers pressing against your skin. You were like a disease and his mind was absolutely sick, he dreamt of you still. Fabricated realities in his head of what it’d be like if for a moment you’d just simply, stop.
He painted you for days, spending hours with you on the same wooden stool, the tip of his pencil snapping under the pressure of having a muse that didn’t seem to cooperate. You filled his studio with mindless chatter, rambling on and on about the world and your day and the way rain made you crave sweets and the way his studio reminded you of back home. You didn’t mind that he was mostly quiet, throwing in his own conversational pieces to keep you fired up but for the most part Seokjin kept his mouth shut and eyes focused. You wanted to see him break, to unravel him, pull him apart starting with the edges. You craved the delicious satisfaction that would come with seeing him lose his cool. The way he was always so still, face almost always unreadable, passive and gentle in his existence. Sighs slipped past your parted lips, the sun was filtering in through the large windows of the studio, the city a small outline outside the glass. Seokjin was beautiful in the light. Standing slowly you ignored the way he grunted as you broke your pose, tip toeing over to him. You kissed him for the first time that day.
Switching roles for a second as your lips pressed to his, the newly sharpened pencil in his hand slipping from his grip as you felt him crumble against you. Fingers running through the light brown locks of hair on his head you pulled him closer. His hands came up to rest against your hips, head tilted to the side, mouth parting and hot breath mixing with yours. You loved to make the beautiful things in life fall apart. For once in your life it felt like you were at a standstill, mind not racing towards the future or backpedalling to the past but instead you felt yourself frozen in time as your mouth worked against his. It was the first time you kissed him but it would not be the last.
There was no name for what the two of you became after that. The both of you were on a fast track to disaster, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care when your lips pressed to his neck in the dark of his room and your face covered every easel, every page of his sketchbook and every passing thought in his ravaged mind. Everyone has always said opposites attract but they never said that opposites destroy. You pulled at the loose bits of him, watching the beautiful boy crack slowly. You were always meant to crash and somewhere along the way you dragged Seokjin into the burning car along with you to smash right into the brick wall with his hands on your body and his name resting on the tip of your tongue. Seokjin should have known it never could’ve worked. He fell in love at the wrong time with the wrong person, you were terrified of stability and ran at the first signs of it.
When he began to whisper I love you into your hair at night you heard the alarm bells blaring, screaming to get out now before this whole thing blew. You stuck around a little longer anyways. You liked the way you looked in sketches, rifling through his books to see the things he created. He painted you in pastels, all soft pinks and light yellows that reminded you of melted butter and sunlight on a winter morning. You loved him too. You were playing a balancing act, standing on a tightrope between what you feared and what you were familiar with, swaying back and forth between the two things you could fall into. No nets below to catch you. His voice made your heart race, the way he touched you made all rational thought fly away. That’s why you had to leave, he was stability, he was everything you feared. He was gentle and soft and treated you like something a little less like a disaster and more like a blessing but you were the poster child for destruction and needed to run. He should’ve seen it coming.
After you left him alone and broken he felt his inspiration drain from him. Pulling the plug he felt the creativity drain from him like a bathtub full of cold water finally being emptied. His art all became the same. Black and white sketches of the life outside his studio but he had become bored of still life. He dreamt in endless motion, falling through different times and places in his own head where maybe you could have loved him the way he needed you to. The canvases in his room still held you and they seemed to laugh at him. Seokjin refused to cry over what could have been though, turning a blind eye to the mocking paintings and memories. Nightmares filled his head of the way you used to press against him at night, sleepy sighs filling his ears as your arms would wind around his body. You used to be all soft colors and gentle curves to him but now you were jagged edges cutting deep into him, the sweet words you used to say to him echoing in his mind like salt in his self imposed wounds. You got your wish to unravel him, pulling him apart and leaving him to force himself back together again. But he couldn’t quite get it right. Not after you. Now he lived in motion, forever running from the stillness he found solace in for so long. Desperate to forget what it felt like to be still with you, setting himself on a one way track to ruin. Slipping over the edge of what he used to know and into an uncertain future of trying to chase the motion you carried with you. Still life. Seokjin had forgotten what the world looked like when it stopped moving.
