The Artist and His Muse

Chapter 26

Jungkook walked back into his room.  It was still early morning.  Everyone was exhausted since they had been at the hospital all night.  The company reluctantly let the boys have the day off to catch up on sleep.  No one really had any schedules today anyway. 

He collapsed onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.  Looking down at his arms, he smiled as he imagined holding Jenna and Taehyung's newborn son.  Little TaeKook.  He laughed softly to himself.  He felt honored that they would name their son using part of his own name. 

He sighed as he thought about when he would be able to ever experience such a thing as parenthood.  Looking over at his desk, he saw his sketch pad and pencil laying there, almost begging him to come and use them. 

His mind was going a mile a minute so sleep wouldn't come to him anytime soon.  He sat up on the bed and then got up, walking over to the window to pull down the shades and close the curtains.  The room became increasingly darker.  He moved to his desk and stood looking at the unfinished sketch on his desk.  It was the one he had started in the stairwell of the hospital.  He smiled down at the face of the woman who haunted his dreams and owned his waking thoughts. 

He sat down in the desk chair and leaned on the desk with his elbows. His eyes never moved from her face and he frowned deeply.  She was married now.  She belonged to another man.  What good would it do him to sit and daydream about her?  His hand moved slowly to the sketch.  Sliding his hand across the paper,  he narrowed his eyes at the smile of the woman.  I have no right.  His face was covered in sadness.  He quickly snatched the paper out of the book and crumpled it into a small ball. 

His breath hitched as he looked at the wrinkled ball of paper in his hand. Black smudges of pencil dust were scattered around his palms.  He took a deep breath, his eyes still on the ball in his hand.  Suddenly he reared back and slammed the paper up against the far wall.  He huffed, his shoulders moving up and down.  A tear rolled down his cheek as he stared angrily at the pitiful ball of paper now resting on the floor. 

Starting today, I will move on. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Eonnie!"

Yeon Ah's ears perked up at the voice of her young friend's voice on the other side of her bedroom door.  "Come in," she replied happily.  She love her visits from Eun Mi.

The door opened and Eun Mi's happy face poked into the room.  "Eonnie!  Hi!  I'm glad to see you today," she said happily.  She practically bounced into the room and went to sit on Yeon Ah's bed.  At least three times a week, Eun Mi would come to visit her and bring her various small things to make her smile.  Today it was a pack of new sketching pencils. 

"Here, these are for you.  I thought you might be due for some new ones," she laughed as she looked around at the walls now covered in new sketches Yeon Ah had drawn.

"You must be psychic," teased Yeon Ah.  "I just used up my last one today," she said, holding up a small nub of a pencil to prove her point. 

"What have you been drawing," asked Eun Mi, handing the pencils to her friend.  She walked around the room with her hands behind her back.  She observed cherry blossom trees, mountain scenes, beach scenes, maids cleaning a room, a lone girl sitting on a river bank, and other peaceful scenes.  She moved around the room and stopped with a gasp. 

"Eonnie, this...this is beautiful!"  She took down the sketch of Jungkook and walked with it over to Yeon Ah's desk.  "What picture reference did you use?"

"Oh...well, I didn't use one.  It's a memory I have of him."  She smiled softly at the drawing of Jungkook leaning back on the couch in the lounge at BigHit.  In her memory, it was one of the days he had made her read his fan mail to him.