Anyone, But A Jock | Jikook (Mini)

Chapter Five: The Muse

Jimin shifted nervously, holding his thumb on the neck of a champagne glass while well-dressed men and women walked around the art gallery MMCA rented to host their 'Still Life' Fellowship Showcase. The only rule for the submissions was that no fruit or vases could be the subject. The fellows had to explore what "Still Life" meant to them personally, beyond the traditional art style sharing the same name.

"Wow...Jimin-ssi." Min Yoona, an MMCA fellow, said as she approached Jimin's painting. The beta pushed a curl of magma-colored red hair behind an ear, then adjusted the string of her similar-colored floor-length slip dress. "Your portrait is so...nice."

Jimin rolled his eyes so hard he almost saw his own brain.

"Thanks Yoona-ssi. I could say the same about your ... dress."

Yoona frowned. Jimin ignored her, searching for their professor. The room featured several large, white blocks of walling to display the fourteen art pieces, set up like petals unfurling from a rose. The maze-like environment made it hard to keep an eye on where he was in the rotation of critiques.

After a moment, Jimin finally caught sight of their mentor rounding the corner of free-standing white walling. Professor Kim greeted another fellow, Seonghwa, with a smile. The omega had painted a forest, manipulating varying sizes of vague, dark shapes to create the impression of dead trees. The trees appeared endless, with bare branches and hollow trunks stretching out like long shadows. The artwork felt deeply personal; as if the omega had poured part of himself into the spaces between the branches and shadows. Jimin hoped their mentor would get lost in Seonghwa's work and entirely forget that Jimin was next in his rotation.

For Jimin's piece, he'd layered different hues of blue over Jungkook's facial outline, creating a water-like effect around his eyes. The negative space added a surreal feel to the painting, introducing an unsettling note to an initially tame piece. The massive canvas represented a month and a half of blood, sweat, and tears. Staring at it too long made Jimin feel nauseous. He couldn't help but assess how he could have used a darker blue in the right corner or how Jungkook's eyes needed just one more touch-up to truly encapsulate their roundness.

The itch to keep refining his work was a hard one to ignore. It was the main skill he hoped to gain from MMCA: knowing when to stop and be okay with whatever the final product looked like when it left his hands. As per the standard routine for their showcases, Jimin couldn't escape his personal perfectionism hell until Professor Kim stopped by.

Yoona had been the first to receive her feedback, so she was already free to roam. Jimin just wished the beta would roam literally anywhere else.

"Is he your alpha? The wolf in the portrait?" Yoona asked, eyeing the handsome face painted in varying saturations of blue. "A bit of a waste of a submission if you ask me, but it's cute that you painted him."

Jimin rolled his eyes again, squeezing as much sass into it as possible. There was no reason for her to assume he knew the wolf in the portrait at all – let alone believe he was an alpha. It'd been years since he'd heard someone refer to an omega as someone's wolf, too.

There was a light smirk on her lips as Yoona scratched the neck of her champagne glass with her manicured nail. "The way the paint bleeds over itself is nice, too. I bet it took a while for each layer to dry. It's a shame you only used blue, though. You shouldn't be afraid to use more colors, Jimin-ssi. I know it's hard for you to keep track of more than one."

Jimin clicked his tongue. "Right. Thanks, Yoona. Yours is the meadow portrait, right?"

If Jimin didn't think Yoona was such a bitch, her painting style might have been his favorite out of their cohort of fourteen fellows. She often gathered items from nature to press onto a canvas for her art, forming unconventional images. For reimagining 'Still Life,' she had created a 'meadow' by alternating fresh and dried flowers. Petals were pulled apart to form the impression of a sunset that could only be seen by taking several steps away from the canvas. The balance of fresh and dried petals added a cyclical depth to her art, contemplating the persistence of beauty. The fresh petals were vibrant; while the dried ones were more muted, their edges slightly curled in the piece. The contrast suggesting a sunset freezing life in its final, lingering light.