Work of Art || Luwoo

25

~~Jungwoo~~

Jungwoo sat in his small studio. The soft lights of morning shone through the window he had cracked open earlier. It provided a nice light for the painting that stood propped up on the easel in front of him. The canvas took up much of his workspace and the scale of the painting seemed a little intimidating. Jungwoo knew the piece would take a while to finish, but he felt extremely inspired. He had finally talked to Lucas and he felt a new sense of happiness. Jungwoo knew that their conversation was only a small accomplishment, but that small action meant everything to him. Jungwoo seemed to fall more and more for that boy, despite not truly knowing him. He played soft music as he painted. He listened to the noise mindlessly as he focused on his art piece. The favourite part of the painting process for Jungwoo was painting eyes. Eyes were such a small feature of a portrait, but they carried the emotions of the piece. He continued to focus as he drew the face of his subject. The dark brown hair slicked back, defined jaw line and deep gold eyes of one of his biggest inspirations. He wanted to draw Lucas as perfectly as possible. The clothing from the show was amazing and the outcome of the night was even better.

The wooden palette's paint supply that rested on the bench beside Jungwoo slowly depleted. He reached for the tubes of colour that were scattered on the desk and unscrewed the cap of a dark brown shade. He pressed his thumb against the tube, but was met with a small rush of air. Jungwoo figured an air bubble was stuck, so he tried to force the colour out once more, but failed. Jungwoo frowned slightly in disappointment. He ran his hand through the small pile of paints to try to find another tube of colour that matched the empty one. He couldn't find a similar colour and noticed that the dark brown wasn't the only one that he was running low on. The tan and peachy tones that Jungwoo had used for the model's skin also laid flattened from Jungwoo's attempts at using the colours as much as possible.

Jungwoo huffed and blew small strands of hair out of his eyes. The dark blue slowly fell in front of his face while he painted, and they blocked his vision. He turned to the sink to wash his hands. He watched as the rainbow of colours spiralled together before falling down the drain. He scrubbed until his fingers began to turn pink, but small spots of paint still stuck underneath his nails and in the groves of his skin. He gave up on the task and dried his hands before grabbing his phone and turning off the music. Jungwoo didn't bother changing into a clean pair of clothes. As soon as he returned from the small craft store near his house, he would continue painting. He felt excited to be working on his newest painting and knew that there was no point in changing into something else, only to get it covered in paint as well.

Jungwoo headed for his apartment door and reached into the pocket of his coat that hung agains the wall. The weather was nice out and didn't require heavy clothing. All he needed were his car keys and wallet. Jungwoo padded the coat's pockets but was unable to feel anything inside. He unhooked his coat from the wall to take a better look, but still couldn't find what he was looking for. Jungwoo paced around the main living area and scanned the room. He looked on his counter tops and still could find anything. It didn't make sense to leave keys in his bathroom, but he checked there anyway before searching his bedroom. His thoughts lightened when he rose from under the bed. He was kneeling against the floor, eye level with his laundry basket that was placed in the corner. His jacket from the night before was stuffed in the basket. Jungwoo trotted over and reached for his belongings. He heard the clicking sound of the keys smacking together and felt the cool leather of his wallet. Something else, however, was also sitting in the bottom of his jacket's pocket. He pulled out his hand and held a small lime green sticky note. The paper was folded in half, but Jungwoo could see the dark black ink bleeding through the paper. He unfolded it and nearly forgot to breath when he read the name that was scrawled on the top of the note-

Lucas

Jungwoo felt his heart skip a little. He reread the name at the top of the page, not sure that he was reading it right. A set of ten digits followed the familiar name.

~~~

Jungwoo was ecstatic to find the piece of paper in his pocket, but he didn't know what to do. After sitting on the edge of his bed for a few minutes, he decided to pull out his phone and dial for Haechan. Once again, he called upon his close friend for help.

"Hello?"

"Haechan! He noticed me!" Jungwoo was feeling too many emotions at once and didn't know how to explain.

"Who noticed you?" Haechan tried to speak calmly through the phone. Jungwoo's loud voice echoed through and Haechan pulled his head away to keep from going deaf.

"Lucas noticed me, Haechan. I found his number in my jacket pocket." Jungwoo spoke quickly and Haechan needed to focus harder than usual to understand the boy.

"Oh, right." Haechan remembered what Sicheng had told him and Mark. He explained to them that he dropped Lucas' number into Jungwoo's pocket. Lucas hadn't known at the time, but Yuta explained what Sicheng had done to him later that night after he sat through another agonizing conversation about Lucas not being able to get Jungwoo out of his thoughts.

"You still there?" Jungwoo called. Haechan hadn't realized that he went silent, getting caught up in his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm here. You just caught me off guard." Haechan lied. Sicheng and Yuta seemed to have a well thought out plan for Lucas and Jungwoo and he figured that he shouldn't try to get involved by telling Jungwoo about it.

"What do I do? You know I'm not good at this."

"Just text him." Haechan explained. Jungwoo felt nervous to start up another conversation. He was worried that their previous conversation had just been a one time thing, but Haechan tried his best to settle his friend down. Like Haechan explained, he wouldn't have found a number in his pocket if their conversation was a one time occurrence. Of course, Haechan wasn't going to tell him that Lucas couldn't stop thinking about Jungwoo.

Jungwoo hung up from the call and stared at his phone for a while. His thumb hovered over the New Contact option. His feet tapped against the floor from anxiousness as he copied the number. He typed a small introduction, explaining himself. Don't be so formal. Jungwoo shook his head and deleted his sentence for the third time. He finally settled on- Hi, it's Jungwoo. We talked at the show last night. Jungwoo stared at his phone again, too afraid to hit send. He tried to calm himself and counted down from three. On one, he pressed on the screen and watched the message send. He continued to stare at his phone, in shock and unsure of what to do next. The screen lit up a few minutes after.

Hi! Sorry about my friends last night, they can be a little much.