Find You [Monsta X AU]

iii.

Hyunwoo waited a moment before settling down into the chair Jooheon had vacated and grabbing a new sheet of paper. He scoped out all the crayons before grabbing a purple one.

A B C D E F G

He passed the sheet over to the boy and held out the purple crayon. The boy stared at the letters before looking up at Hyunwoo, trying to read his intentions from his face. He took the crayon, studied the letters some more, then went about recreating them in the space beneath. He pushed the sheet back towards Hyunwoo, then hesitantly set the crayon down on top of it.

A B C D E F G

Hyunwoo turned to the boy and smiled, nodded. Then he added a new line below the boy's handwriting.

H I J K L M N O P

He pushed the sheet back towards the boy, and they repeated the process. When the boy pushed the sheet back this time, he'd copied Hyunwoo's second line, and his lines appeared to be growing stronger, more confident after just several iterations.

Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Hyunwoo passed the paper once more, sending away more letters than the previous two times, and the boy returned the paper with a replica of his writing, only the S was mirrored. Hyunwoo made a show of crossing out the boy's S and shaking his head before writing the S once more by itself. Then he handed the paper back to the boy.

The boy's eyes darted to the crossed-out S, and his brow furrowed as his eyes flicked between the original S and the crossed out one. Then he examined the new S before jumping back to his previous one. Finally, he took the purple crayon and drew a new S next to Hyunwoo's, matching the correct style this time. He looked up to Hyunwoo for a reaction, and Hyunwoo smiled, nodding encouragingly.

And the boy gave him a shy smile.

Hyunwoo's mouth parted, just a bit, because he'd never seen the boy smile before this, and it made him feel all sorts of confusing emotions. Happy because the boy was happy, sad because all it took to make him happy was drawing an S correctly.

But he returned the boy's smile, not wanting to discourage him from doing so, and grabbed a new sheet of paper, this time writing the whole alphabet at once, and he switched to a blue crayon this time. He had the absurd fear that if he only wrote in purple, the boy would only understand purple writing, which would be an issue. So he needed to keep varying the colors and mediums to show the boy that the letters were the constant, not the stylistic elements.

He handed over the paper and watched in awe as the boy worked, staring at the letter before copying it and moving on to the next one. He was writing twice as fast as the first time, and the letters were more pronounced, stronger already. He slowed down for a minute on the S, studying it for longer than the other letters before tracing it once then copying it slowly. He looked over to Hyunwoo quickly for confirmation before finishing the rest. Then he passed it back over to Hyunwoo, who gave him another smile before setting the sheet of paper off to the side.

He picked up a new paper and slid a blank one in front of the boy as well. Then he drew a blue A on his own paper, holding it up so the boy could see the letter before flipping the paper over so it was hidden. He held out a red crayon to the boy.

The boy took the crayon slowly, his eyes trailing off to Hyunwoo's right as he recalled the image. Then he drew his own letter A.

They repeated the process for each of the twenty-six letters. Each time, the boy was able to correctly recall the shapes. Sometimes, Hyunwoo would hand him a yellow crayon or a green crayon or a black crayon, and although the boy would slow down initially on the first letter or two with the new color, he sped up again after he'd adjusted. It was remarkable. Hyunwoo didn't know much of anything about psychology or kids, but he could tell this boy was special.