we the cursed, nct dream ✔

part twenty-four

⇉ the one where they paint.

part twenty-three

"Huang Renjun!"

The shout almost makes him drop his paintbrush, but he manages to catch it before it falls to the floor. He can't see over the crowd of people around him, but there's only one person he knows who yells like that. He sighs inwardly.

"Excuse me, ladies." Juno's voice is smooth as she pushes her way through the throng of girls watching Renjun paint, and they immediately make way for her, throwing some greetings and pleasantries her way as she moves. Juno stops every so often to respond every bit as effusively, even throwing in a few winks here and there. "Do you mind giving us a minute? We'll be quick." Before Renjun can even blink, the room is cleared out and she's pulled up a chair beside him.

He stares at her in simultaneous relief and disbelief. "I've been trying to get them to leave for hours. How did you...?"

"I'm just charming," Juno replies immodestly.

Renjun is about to retort until he takes a closer look at her face. It wasn't that visible from afar, but now he notices her pink nose, blotchy cheeks, and red eyes since she's closer. "What happened?" he demands immediately. "Who made you cry?" He's already formulating a confrontation plan in his head (it's very violent and just might include drawing a Glock pistol inside his sketchbook) as she just stares at him.

Then Juno raises something up. "This."

It's a book.

His shoulders sag with relief, glad he won't have to shoot anyone today. "What the hell? You actually had me worried."

"Shut up, this is serious!"

"Okay, sorry, sorry." But he's finding it difficult to keep a straight face, as usual. "What's wrong?"

"How could you let me read this?" Juno wails loudly. "Six hundred and fifty-seven pages of pure and utter devastation! You know how many hours I wasted on this goddamn story? Only for not one of them but both of them to fucking die in the end? What the hell kind of ending was that? I can't even begin to imagine how fucked up of a person the author must be to have created this crap-"

And now Renjun's laughing aloud. "You're so dramatic."

Juno watches him laugh, momentarily forgetting about her spiel. Then she frowns. "I'm never reading again."

"It was still a good book though, right?"

"... I guess."

"Exactly." He gives her one more side-smile and turns back to face his canvas. "Didn't it feel nice to lose yourself in another world, at least for a while?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Let's go to the library soon, there's so many more books I need to make you read."

"Okay, you nerd." Juno watches him paint for a few minutes in silence. And yet because he remains acutely aware of her presence beside him, Renjun isn't startled when she speaks again. "How do you manage to make the shapes without them... you know," she finishes helplessly, but he understands what she's trying to ask.

"Without them climbing out of the page?" he finishes for her.

Juno nods.

"It's like how you can still move things manually without your telekinesis," he says. "I can still draw without having them come alive. Of course, they could if I wanted them to."

"So, it's all in your brain?"

"There are limitations, but yeah," he shrugs. "I can envision how large I want the thing to be, how it should move or what it should do. Even how long it should last, but there's a very specific range for that. And it works out well enough."