The Artist Behind |Seongjoong|

4

I spent the whole night reading his diary, reading every single page inked by him. At first, it started in the same tone the previous one ended, only to rapidly progress into a darker, deeper depressing manner. There were even surprisingly twisted drawings and scribbles. He had a tough time drowning in his misery. His family was the main cause of it. They were pressuring him and driving him to the edge. Well, essentially his strict mother. His diary held some sections about self-harm as cutting himself, attempting to drown in the bathtub, and more, which seriously bothered me. Nevertheless, what truly shattered my heart was the very last page. In it, he described how exhausted he was of his life, and his extreme desire to die so all could finish quiet, "vanishing from this world for good". Such was written as the end line of it.

...

It's been a week since I read it. Most of the time I wasted locked in my room, reading that last page repeatedly. Numerous wild thoughts raced in my head, mainly about him running deep into the woods to commit suicide or something worse. It disturbed my sleep because every time I shut my eyes I got frightening nightmares. Also, I couldn't eat because my appetite was gone.

I guess it worried my parents cause they contacted my closest friends. Everybody called and texted me, asking if I'm alright, also showing me they are there for me. I ignored most of this, yet when Wooyoung, San, and an unfamiliar person, probably Yeosang, came to my home, I could no longer hide.

The three guys stepped into my room, led by Wooyung who almost got in with the door. I lifted my head from the pillow and stared at them, they immediately gave me the concerned look. Then Woosan sat on the bed next to me, dragging me up.

"Come on, Hwa, get up!" Woo yelled loudly at me taking me out of bed moving on the carpet. Now, the four of us were resting down, a second later mom walked in bringing us drinks and snacks.

"He's in your hands now," mom told San before leaving my bedroom.

I stared confused between the three guys. Woo and San were glancing at me as if I was a ticking bomb. And about the person I didn't know, he stood there eating jam-filled biscuits peacefully. He probably had no clue what was going on.

"Hyung, we contacted your friends from the city, they are waiting to call so please do." San used his delicate voice, it was somehow enchanting, I did as he told me to do. Grabbed my phone from the bed, set a video call on. Yunho, my dear puppy-like friend, picked up right away, on the other side, I could see him, Mingi, and Jongho.

"Okay, all of us are here now, let's proceed," Jongho said. "Hyung, tell us what's going on," he commanded me. I gulped because if he acted bossy like this it was bad.

I gulped loud once again and took a look at my friends before sharing my whole story. They listened thoroughly, I had to take breaks a couple of times so everybody could understand better everything they heard. I guess the story was weird but they didn't judge me at all. Moreover, in the end, both my friends hugged me.

"So, to sum it up, you fell for a painter from 1995 thanks to his diaries, and the reason you're this grim is him going missing, maybe even dead," Yeosang stated, it was my first time listening to his voice since I met him earlier, anyways, he was right. I nodded in response. "Is it that the person?" he pointed to the portrait on the side of my bed. I nodded once again. Then he stood up and went to the painting, taking it to bring it with himself. Now everyone could see it, in the room and on the call. My friends observed it in silence. I overheard two or three of them humming before anyone spoke.

"He's pretty but looks short," Mingi commented, a lot of people were short for him, I didn't take that seriously.

"True, he's eye candy," Woo smirked in his flirty manner. It made me forget my blues and burn in...  jealousy? They sensed it immediately. I gave them the death stare, both looked away acting distracted.

"Back to the topic, the main cause of this all is the possibility he's dead?" Yunho asked me while pinching his boyfriend's cheek, he got jealous too.

"Yes..." I answered realizing how weird sounds.

"Then, if we find him, alive and healthy, will you return to normal?" Jongho asked next. The idea of it never came to me before but hearing it from him was great. It gave me some hope. I nodded like a puppy. Still, something worried me.

"Sure, but how are we going to do it?" San asked as confused as I was.

At that moment Yeosang and Jongho came with a plan of how we could do it. The first step was to take photos of Hongjoong's artworks, so we could spread them online and see if anyone recognize them. As well the boys could go around the different galleries in the city and ask about them, after all, the curators are more familiar with the painters. We could do it. So we took action.

The call ended and the four of us rolled up our sleeves getting to work. I and Woosan carried all paintings from the attic, Yeosang ran back home to get his professional camera. We then had to modify the environment for better photos. Adjusting the lights, setting the place where we could put them, at some point I remembered about the tripod up in the atelier, it helped a lot.

It took us a couple of hours to do everything including editing and sending the photos to my friends but we made it. Probably the biggest influence on our mission was Yeo and Jjong because they had many followers on social media, perhaps more than 100 000 each. But so far we couldn't be certain of anything. Still, it took me out of the black hole I was stuck in. I was grateful for their efforts.