Painted Blue (JOOKYUN✔️)

colors

Changkyun remembers how the world looked before Jooheon wandered across his field of vision. Everything was stark white, with every shade of black, grey, and emptiness warped within. He had been an addict for too long to know what the world was like anymore.

His muscles, depleted beneath his clothes, couldn't even fight to obtain a single spark of color. Not a single drug could give him anything beautiful like the man that stumbled into him one day. There wasn't a permanent fix for the wait of death. Changkyun had searched and searched.

Beneath every tablet was a wild adventure of oxygen and sweat. Behind every needle was a deep darkness and thoughts. Each lungful of smoke was another phrase on a page. Each deep exhale was another cry out for help.

Changkyun remembers how everything changed in just one moment. He was sober for only the day, and there Jooheon had been. A light shade of blue arching over his broad shoulders. A deep denim encompassing his legs. And eyes every ounce deeper than any black Changkyun had ever seen. They reflected back the blue in his own shirt. He was beautiful and colorful. He was wild and right.

"You know I was lost before you, right?"

Changkyun had asked that question more times than both he and Jooheon could count. Nearly everyday, the words passed his lips, truer each time he uttered them. He never lied to Jooheon. Not until the end. Not until he couldn't control the shell of the man he once was any longer. Until he came to realize that he would always make mistakes, and throw his own world into a storm.

"You know I love you more than anything, right?"

Changkyun doesn't know what love is anymore. Not when Jooheon sits somewhere else, leaving him alone in this black and white world. This colorless, drab life that seems to pause and fast-forward from moment to moment. He can't keep track of the minutes, nor the days. Each blends into itself just like the paintings left behind.

"You know I need you, right?"

Jooheon can't hear his question now. The painter doesn't have time for the words of an old wasted poet. He should be moved on by now. He should be with someone new. Someone he can need and depend on just the same. He should forget Changkyun before Changkyun can forget himself.