artificial hearts ↝ᵐᵉᵃⁿᶦᵉ ᵎ

II: one

Mingyu opens his eyes and all he can see is the light blue sky. He sits up, eyes squinting at the sunlight and the utter confusion of waking up in an old playground. His backpack is beside him, slightly opened and the edge of his sketchbook is peaking right from it.

A wave of heaviness roll through him.

He doesn't remember how he got there, where he is and what is he even doing, but something is pulling him to take his sketchbook and skim through. But he doesn't do that. Instead, Mingyu stands up and brushes off the dust on his ripped jeans, noticing his knees clad in bandaids.

"Huh." He stares at the blue dog prints, wondering where he had hurt himself.

He doesn't remember. In fact, even if he tries, nothing comes up in his mind.

Mingyu shrugs and picks up his backpack, then slings it over his shoulder. A sudden urge to drink something. He looks around, hoping there's a convenience store somewhere, but he sees a café instead. Thinking it's the best place to go to nurse an upcoming headache, he walks towards it.

"Young Pourever. Cute." Mingyu whispers under his breath, smiling a little as he comes in. There are a handful of people around, some either with their friends or working on their laptops. The café smells like freshly baked bread and brewed coffee, it hits close to home.

Mingyu frowns. Where is home?

"Hello, welcome to Young Pourever! What can I get you, cute stranger?" A boy behind the counter waves him over, eyes disappearing into crescents with the sweetest smile Mingyu has ever seen (since he woke up). He has feathery ash grey hair, just falling above his eyes. His frame is quite big but slender, giving him an impression of somewhat an angel. Mingyu finds him somehow interesting to draw.

Mingyu steps closer, giving a quick glance on the menu. Somewhere deep inside him screams caramel macchiato for some reason, so he orders that.

Junhui, his nametag says, shows another bright smile. "Nice choice. May I ask for your name so I can call you up when it's done?"

"Uh... Ming-Mingyu, um no, Gyu is fine."

The way his name rolls in his tongue sounds wrong. He doesn't know why.

The angelic barista nods, scribbling down his name with a whiteboard marker. "Alrighty, Gyu! One caramel macchiato, coming right up!"

While Junhui turns away to make his order, Mingyu takes in his surroundings. Somehow he feels like there's something that's about to happen, kind of like when you feel the start of an earthquake. A small rumble from the ground, unpredictable to whether the ground will eat you up or it'll pass off as nothing. He finds an empty booth near the window where he could see the old playground. Mingyu drops his backpack on the floor beside the table instead of the other cushion.

He takes his sketchbook out and pencil, along with his watercolors and color pencils. Mingyu thinks he's gonna be here for a while if he he needs to process where he's at. Junhui calls his name and gives him his mug with a sweet smile. Mingyu smiles back, already thinking he should draw the barista.

But first, he goes through the sketchpad.

Mingyu opens it and frowns.

There's nothing in it, despite it looking so used as evident from the folded edges.

So, he shrugs and draws the playground and the people in the café for a long while. As he drew them, he places it on the table, thinking of coloring them later. For now, he focuses on the barista behind the counter, his side profile looking so godly Mingyu can't resist drawing him.