Painted Blue (JOOKYUN✔️)

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After three days, Jooheon is distraught. He hasn't touched a brush since leaving his lover alone, and he can't bear to do so anytime soon. He is scared that Changkyun will do something terrifying, but he is too strong to admit and call the younger out of worry. So he rests and cries on the couch of an old friend.

Hyunwoo, a gentle giant with no clue of this Changkyun man, has always been a safe place for Jooheon. A kind heart with soft hands and a smile saved just for the painter. Once upon a time, they had been in love and happy together, but now they are desperate and sad apart. Jooheon can barely apologize to the larger man for imposing, his tears rampant and begging for a savior.

After one week, Jooheon returns home to collect the remainder of his belongings. He has found an apartment for himself and knows that his best chance at happiness will come when he puts Changkyun behind him. But it hurts more than he thought it would we he enters his home to find all his things gathered in the kitchen, Changkyun nowhere to be found.

Changkyun has either moved on already, or simply given up and gone back to find something else to hold his attention. Jooheon doesn't want to think of Changkyun or his addiction. He can't help the younger. He'd tried to for years of their relationship. The younger had fallen into depressions, and he'd looked for drugs many times, but Jooheon had always been there to sway him back and talk him down. But Jooheon failed, and he shouldn't worry about it now.

So he gathers what he can fit from the apartment into his small car, leaving his old canvases half-finished on the kitchen table. He doesn't want them. All he's painted is Changkyun. He doesn't want that reminder anywhere near him.

He leaves silently, locking the door and tucking the key back beneath the wood so it rests within the apartment beyond.

When Changkyun returns, his arms full of groceries and his chin tucked low to hold the mail, He almost misses the empty kitchen table as he enters. His arms drop, and some of the bags slip from his hands as he stares. The dark wood of the table shouldn't be visible here. There should be boxes and clothes prepared to be dropped off. Hyunwoo and he had spoken about it. Changkyun would apologize, he would let Jooheon go. The hulking stranger must have lied. Changkyun should never have trusted someone he didn't know.

He was anticipating the pain. He was ready to let Jooheon live away from his rampant self.

But this is more painful. Looking at the last remaining shreds that Changkyun has of Jooheon, he wants to cry. He doesn't want to see paintings of himself if Jooheon isn't there to finish them, sign them, gaze at them with a smile. Without Jooheon, he can't even interpret the colors painted there. Blue, blue, and blue again. But what they mean and why, he's left no clue.

Blue is their favorite color, something they share together in almost a secret. Yet seeing himself now, in every shade of the color, Changkyun can't imagine why he would love something so much. Why he would beg for Jooheon to color him in like that. Why he would ask for only that color to return when Jooheon left.

Changkyun does not know any more. He only knows now that he is utterly alone.