Schwanenfeder || woosansang

「chapter 2」: Tchaikovsky's Pumpkin Soup

With a little sigh, San followed Seonghwa into the tattoo studio. A chime sounded softly as the door opened and closed, though it nearly got lost beneath the music filling the space; the over abundance of plants gave the place a lively touch that he quite liked. His best friend seemed to think this too, as they quietly, nervously talked on and on about how they hadn't expected the studio to feel so much like a living room, and how nice the plants were, and how they had that one - and those two, and that one and oh! That one is lovely they should get it - too, and how excited they were and how they hoped the artist would be nice, and it went on and on.

He tried to keep up with the conversation as best as he could, but he suspected that they weren't really talking to him anyway. If this helped them, he wouldn't say a word against it. And he was used to it, anyway.

As they checked in with the young woman at the counter, he let his gaze wander around the room, lazily regarding the framed artworks, colorful walls and strangely shaped lamps. This whole place screamed queer. From the many plants over the funky, vivid shapes of the furniture to the literal progress pride flag behind the counter, he could've walked over a rainbow and it wouldn't have been as gay. In comparison to the studio Seonghwa had gone to for their chest tattoo, this was a paradise.

He turned his attention back to his best friend just in time to see the woman check their ID, take another look at them, give the ID back and ask for their pronouns. They visibly relaxed at this, though not much, and their smile widened a little.

He chuckled to himself. Like it wasn't obvious from the suspiciously dick-shaped bottle of alcohol on one of the shelves that this was a queer-owned studio. Though, given how they were treated at the other studio, he wasn't surprised that this was a comfort to them.

The young woman told them to wait in this part of the studio until the artist - she called him Monsieur Ink, though he didn't think that was an official name of any kind - was done with whatever he was doing at the moment. So the two sat down on a moss green couch and occupied their time by ranking the various decorative objects in the room in the categories 'gayest', 'sluttiest' 'cutest' and 'overall most satisfactory' (the dick bottle ranked highest in this category). After a short discussion Seonghwa agreed to add 'most glittery' to the list of categories too.

After a particularly agitated discussion about the ranking of what looked like a crystal scorpion, Seonghwa worried a few more minutes on their choice of design (they had moved on from worrying about color to worrying about being judged for the choice); this however got interrupted by the appearance of who San could only assume was this 'Monsieur Ink'.

His hair? Purple. His clothes? Undeniably fashionable in the way that gay people manage to always look fashionable. His walk? That of a man who likes other men.

As San's mind concluded that this was the artist, the young man introduced himself and struck up an easy conversation with Seonghwa; in German. When he asked San to introduce himself and the man struggled a little with his German, the artist immediately switched to English - like almost any other German person ever (it was infuriating) - and included him in the conversation.

This went on for another thirty minutes, then the artist - Hongjoong, as he'd told them - began his last questions on the design. San marveled at the way the man managed to make Seonghwa at ease just by talking and occasionally complimenting them, though he supposed that the fact that Hongjoong looked as gay as they come and that he was quite handsome helped this quite a bit.