36 MINUTES TO FALL, jaemin ✓

15 | greatest accomplishment

❝ What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?❞

"I think you know this one," Yumi grinned.

"I do?"

"Yes, you do," she said. "Think about it. Remember? Last year?"

"Um..."

"I put up an argument about it for once," Yumi said patiently. "Even you told me that I should go for it."

Jaemin gave it some serious thought. "I can't..." he began, then stopped. "Wait, you mean the national competition we basically forced you to enter?"

"That's the one." The year before, when Yumi had just been appointed club president, the supervisor had brought to the club's attention the national competition that was happening in just three months. At the time, the club members had either been reluctant to participate or below the age limit. But not Yumi. She'd said that it sounded like a good opportunity, and that was all it took for everyone to start pleading with her.

"I can't," she'd protested. But they'd gone on and on about how Yumi was the perfect representative from their school, how she was one of the few who fit the age limit—the other ones being Jaemin and some of her classmates—until she finally gave in just to shut them up. Later, she'd given it some serious thought and realized that as scared as she was, it was too good an opportunity to let go of. With the prize money, she could get a few things she'd wanted for a while, and more than that, if she won any place at all—that alone just sounded like a dream come true.

So she'd gone ahead and entered, spending the three months before the deadline putting together a piece that she couldn't believe took so much time. It took a lot of effort and a little help from the other members of the club, but in the end, she'd created something she was truly proud of.

The artwork in question was a large painting of a multicolored sky, in a kind of swirling shape, like it was about to lose its tranquility and become a storm. Beneath the sky, on the desolate ground, stood a few boys, and snow fell, covering the ground. The boys were looking at a single, solitary star high up the sky.

It took much too long, but in a way, that was good, because it came out perfect.

"You won second place with it," Jaemin remembered. "You're that proud of it?"

"Considering how long it took, yes, I am," Yumi said. "It took a lot of work, too. You remember how sleep-deprived I was by the end of it. I loved it, and to think that it won second place? Yes, I'm incredibly proud of that."

"Now you make my accomplishment sound dumb," Jaemin complained. "Remember the time I was whining about how my mother made me enter an essay-writing contest?"

"Yep, clear as day," she said. "You didn't win, but you got into the top ten runners-up, right?"

"That's my amazing accomplishment," he said. "Mostly because my sister spent plenty of time teasing me. She was absolutely certain I would fail. The look on her face was priceless when she found out, though. I wish you'd seen it."

"Damn, your sister really sounds like an unpleasant person."

"She's not that bad, I just make it sound like that," he protested. "It's hard to talk about her redeeming qualities when I don't care about those anymore. But let's not talk about her anymore unless we have to. She was less than nice to you today."

Yumi grabbed the brush again. "That, she was," she agreed. "Come on, third coat, and sixteenth question."

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WORD COUNT: 608

A/N: i'm pretty sure some of you have already figured it out, but the art piece yumi and jaemin talk about is that one photocard from txt's the dream chapter: eternity album! i couldn't think of anything else that 'wowed' me, so :")