Work Text:
“Tell me about your life, Hyunjin.”
For as long as he’s lived, Felix has never felt complete. He’s always felt as if something has been missing from his life — or even from his being, like some sort of piercing in an abnormal spot on his body, or an adventure that he hasn’t conquered, or a specific style of clothing, or maybe a particular person. Something, anything that could be some kind of puzzle piece to make up for him feeling unwhole.
He took up dancing when he was twelve, chess when he was thirteen, gymnastics at fourteen and painting at fifteen. He got into photography when he was sixteen and into guitar when he was seventeen. Each and every activity has filled Felix with the delight and wholeness he longs for, however, before he can even acknowledge the feeling, it leaves him. It flees from his being and hides from him until it decides to come out and toy with him once again.
Now…well. Now, Felix is eighteen. He loves pastries and meals (specifically muffins and chicken alfredo) and enjoys making them, too. With enough practice, he’s become quite good at it and can whip up just about anything if he has the right ingredients (which he always does, somehow).
One interest that tends to come and hide from him often are adventures. Oh, how Felix adores adventures. Discovering new and unexplored horizons has always striked interest in him ever since he was young, and it still does. He’s gone on your average family road trip and your ordinary school field trip, and even though most of them are dreary and dull due to the adults maneuvering said trips, they still fascinate him. Seeing mountains that reach the beginning of the sky and paintings older than time itself leave a glint in his eyes; a bright, stunning one, one that can be spotted from space itself.
Felix adores baking and cooking and adventures. He wants to until the end of time, and he wants them — longs for them to be the puzzle piece he’s been yearning for for ages. But he can’t be too sure — he can never be too sure that they are what he’s been missing. Who knows when they will decide to quit providing him with life and thrill? Who knows when they will abandon him and leave him all frigid and lonely?
“My life?” He chuckles. “What do you want to know?”
Rome, Italy.
It was an impulsive decision that was sort of made on a whim (clearly), but time was running out for university applications and his parents were constantly pestering him on settling on one major, so, like any anxious eighteen-year-old boy who’s horrified out of his mind for university, he chose to attend school in a completely different country where he knows absolutely no one.
His parents…Felix's parents weren’t too happy about his decision, and knowing Felix, they had no idea if (or when) he was going to lose interest in Culinary Arts and Italy and arrive back home with his suitcase clutched in one hand and his dignity nearly slipping out of the other.
Howbeit, they support him anyway. Tears are shed and hugs are shared as they bid him and kiss him goodbye at the airport. They tell him to call every night and let them know if he’s ever feeling down. They tell him to let them know if he ever wants to come back and that their front door will be wide open for him if he does. They hug him twice more, kiss him thrice more and watch him as he boards the plane.
As the plane launches into the sky, a salty tear rolls down Felix’s cheek.
“Your favorite color. Your biggest worries. Misconceptions people have about you.”
Rome is absolutely gorgeous. Each and every street is brimming with life and color. The sun beams down mirthfully on the city while the sky is painted a stunning sheet of blue. Chalky-white clouds hang up in the sky, hovering over the sun from time to time.
Usually, Felix hates it when this happens as whenever he begins to enjoy the warm, mellow feeling of the sunlight on his skin, it’s instantly destroyed by a cloud attempting to snatch all the spotlight. But, today? He doesn’t mind.
Within each step he takes on the cobblestone, bliss seems to be drenching his being a sweet, rosy pink, from the top of his head all the way down to his toes. It leaves his mind thrilled and his lips curved in a lively grin.
With a little more walking, Felix finally reaches his university’s campus. It’s brilliant — absolutely brilliant. It’s grand, and baronial and has a certain look to it that can leave even the most difficult to impress in awe. It’s brilliant. Oh, it’s so, so brilliant. Felix has never seen a building so flawless. He nearly sheds a tear.
His tour guide is quite nice, too. She shows him around campus and gives him some backstory on how the university came to be — you know, how tours usually go. Once she finishes, she politely directs him to his dorm which takes them roughly forever to get to as the university is almost bigger than Italy itself.
She hands him his key and wishes him a good year with a bright smile. Felix retrieves his key and thanks her for the lovely tour. She has a nice smile, he thinks.
When Felix gracelessly swings the door to his dorm open (thanks to his 100-pound suitcase), he sees a sight more beauteous than the alleys and streets of Rome and the university’s breath-taking library altogether: a boy.
Felix sees a boy.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I like green, but more of the sage kind of green. Something soft, quiet…gentle.”
Felix hums in surprise. “Thought you would like red.”
When Felix opens the door and sees this boy, time seems to slow down by a millisecond.
He’s seated on a wooden stool painting a landscape, Felix observes. It’s of a house and its garden shed sitting peacefully on a small hill, encircled by a world of greens. Daisies can be spotted here and there in the bushes as a rickety fence wraps around it all. In the midst of this, a cerulean body of water brimming with serenity floats behind all the green. It’s a soft, quiet — gentle piece.
His hands are veined yet smooth, his fingers long and slender. They hold his paintbrush with a certain type of elegance that Felix can’t describe and taps the brush against the canvas with poise and pulchritude.
He’s a brunette. His fingernails are painted a sweet, pinkish-lavender. He has silver rings curled round his pointer and ring finger. Not one hangnail in sight.
Oh, this boy, Felix thinks. This boy.
“I did when I was younger.”
“When did it change?”
Once the boy spots Felix, he places his paintbrush into his cup of paint water and jolts up from his seat to introduce himself. His voice is smooth and glossy, Felix thinks — satiny and silky; glistening and gleaming. His name leaves his lips with complete and utter ease and perfection. He smiles while saying it, too.
Hyunjin pauses for a split second. “I’m not sure.”
“What else?”
Hyunjin. His name is Hwang Hyunjin.
“I worry if I made the right choice in majors. My parents always doubted my decision and I don’t blame them because there were some nights when I questioned everything. I worry that people will leave me or that people will let me leave them even if they know that’s just me self-sabotaging.”
“That’s deep.” Felix says.
“You’re awful.”
“You’re still here though.”
Hyunjin rolls over onto his stomach and grins at Felix. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Hyunjin is a sweet guy. He paints — lots actually. He takes walks round campus every morning while listening to TV Girl through his eight-year-old earbuds. He drinks an unhealthy amount of coffee and washes the guilt down with a mango smoothie ever so often. He watches The Sopranos and Community aloud on his faulty laptop and The Corpse Bride at least once every week.
He smells like an assortment of paint, cucumbers and nail polish. His smile is as bright as The Sun and his eyes glint like a star, and if he’s being completely honest, Felix likes him. He likes their lively conversations about Community, and rock bands, and food and art, and as time passes, maybe they will share some deep conversations, too. Felix won’t say he’s looking forward to it, but he is. Maybe Hyunjin is what he’s been missing.
“Misconceptions?”
“People think I don’t care about my work. I never start anything in class and always excuse myself once the main lecture is over. They’ve never seen me outside of the studio and it’s not because I’m lazy. I just…I work better without their eyes constantly boring into my back.” He takes a breath. “Because of that people also believe I don’t like making new friends which is far from the truth. I like making friends. I'm just a very reserved person and it takes time.”
When Hyunjin spots Felix aimlessly scrolling through Instagram and suggests he comes on his daily walk around campus, Felix instantly agrees. They stroll down the path that circles round the building, conversing about everything and anything and stop to relax on the grass.
Once they do, Felix gathers every bit of courage in his body and asks a question; a generic, boring one that comes up in every awkward conversation: Tell me about your life, Hyunjin.
This one isn’t generic and boring, though, nor is it awkward. It has meaning, lots of it. So much so that Hyunjin pauses his music and removes his left earbud when he asks.
“Are we friends, Hyunjin?”
Hyunjin snorts. “I’d like to think so.”
“Tell me about your family.”
“I’m the only child. My parents split once I graduated high school which was exhausting.”
Felix glances down at his hands and hesitates. “Do you miss them?”
“I do sometimes. I don’t miss them enough to feel homesick though.”
“So you like it here?”
Hyunjin smiles with his teeth this time. “I do.”