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In this Superbia (Pride) created by Hieronymus Bosch, a vain noblewoman primps in the mirror trying to make herself as beautiful as possible. She puts on her fine jewels and best clothes to look admiringly at her own image for entirely too long, but the demon holding the mirror invites the woman indulge her narcissistic self-admiration.
She reappears in Bosch's depiction of Hell with a frog crawling over her body, representing the devil entering her. Alongside her sits a demon who forcefully encourages her to eternally gaze at her transformed ugly face in the mirror.
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Call it artist's dysmorphia, Hongjoong thought as he slouched in the bruised darkness, grimacing at the weightless figures beneath the pads of his fingertips. To the causal onlooker, his work seemed fine, but Hongjoong was cursed with a painter's vision - he could see how the muddy, loose forms of color made his benevolent muse look like a dispirited paper skeleton.
Hongjoong couldn't fix it now, his grip tightening around his revolver when he heard the red and blues calling. The gun was his tribute to Van Gogh, the man who inspired him to trade a pen for a brush in the first place.
As he brought the firearm to his head, he smiled a smile that made crescent moons glower in envy. Happiness, indeed, is a sort of madness, but Hongjoong didn't care if he was crazy, even though he wasn't able to properly convey his feelings, he was just glad that he could go out protecting the one he cared for.
San's world would be much better without Hongjoong in it, so he relinquished his worldly tethers, ending this lifetime love so he could start anew. And maybe one day, they would reunite as Pluto and Venus, frolicking in the land of stars for forevermore and beyond.
