The Last Piece of Me {HyunLix}

How to go Out with a Bang.

Hyunjin.

It was quite a unique way for someone to give me their number, but I was almost certain the boy didn't mean much by it. He looked too worried about too many unrelated things to try anything so sneaky, not that I wouldn't have been flattered either way. He was fair skinned and blonde, with wide, light eyes that never stayed in the same place for too long. He was in a hurry; dancers always were, I'd known Leeknow long enough to gather that much.

The painting I'd been struggling to look at for weeks was now snapped in various places, the fabric ripped, oil paint smudged beyond repair. I probably should have been more angry, but honestly the way the piece was going, I would have broken it on purpose anyway, albeit after putting more worthless effort into it. I was more relieved to have it off my hands than anything. Still, I was broke with no commissions and had run out of materials, so a new canvas was the least the boy could do.

I stared after him as he practically flew up the last three flights of stairs, then sighed and picked my life up off the floor; I hadn't been off campus in days, I needed to go home; shower, eat, make myself feel somewhat like a person again. I got a call from Jisung just as I left the main building.

"Hyunjin!" He yelled down the line; I flinched and made a beeline for an industrial trash container around the back of the fine arts campus.

"Han, it's early." I grumbled, too tired and frustrated with my failed work to deal with his cheer.

"It's noon, sad-sack, lighten up."

"What did you call me for, Jisung?"

"What are you doing for the exhibition?"

I sighed and made my way across the road in a wave of rush-hour crowd, "I don't know yet; we have months left and exams to pass, why would I even be thinking about the exhibition?"

"Uh, maybe because you're literally the top art major in the school? You need to show everyone up; It's our last year, man, go out with a bang!" The term 'go out with a bang' tweaked my heart a little; it reminded me that I was leaving soon. I didn't regret leaving Paris for my last year of Uni, but making new friends and settling back into Korea only to leave again made me really sour sometimes.

"Yeah, I'm planning stuff right now," I lied, "but I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing."

"What?" Han said, shocked, "why not? We're close enough as friends..."

"It's only been a year, I haven't known you for too long, Han..."

There was no reply. I sighed, "sorry, I didn't mean it like that." I said, "honestly, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing or if I'm even going to enter anything at all; I can't show you something I don't even have."

"Oh," he said, tone still dull, "you could have just said that... sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy, you're just... you're something else, Hyunjin."

"Something else?" I was confused; I wasn't any better than our classmates, but Jisung always had a way of trying to idolise me. It made me feel bad.

"Nah, it's stupid... just, promise me you'll enter at least one thing into the exhibition?"

I flipped my keys out of my pocket as I got to the ground floor of my apartment building, "I don't know, Han... I'm in kind of an art-block right now." I paused at my door and scrambled through my keys with one hand.

"Please, Hyunjin? You're too talented not to enter something."

"Han..."

"Please!" He whined, "I don't want to do it alone, Hyunjin! Please, please!"