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Sehun remembers. He doesn't always do, but when the lights are out and it's back to just him and his works of art, he remembers.
He grabs his palette and reaches over his paint brushes, his fingers going over and over the wooden handles until his hand is slowing down, until he gives up as none of the choices felt right. They suddenly looked all the same; suddenly lost all their meaning. Ignorance indeed used to be bliss, and when it's gone and he realizes he's been mixing colours of a life that remains only in his memory, it leaves nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth.
He drops the palette back onto the table with an exasperated breath. “I can't.” He lied down in the middle of his studio with a groan, deciding that staring up at his ceiling was better than the glare of the blank canvas still waiting for him. “I can't go back to this.”
“Yes, you can,” Junmyeon says as he enters the room, but Sehun doesn't look his way and closes his eyes instead. Junmyeon has seen him at his worst, and it's a wonder why he's still by his side despite what he's put him through. “I believe in you.”
“You always did.” The painter felt Junmyeon lie beside him, his scent as sweet as hyacinths blooming in Spring. Junmyeon loved the season so much, he became Spring himself.
And Sehun painted what he loved.
He sits up, racking his eyes at the bunch of paintings he left leaning on the wall in stacks, the moonlight shining on them through the windows. “They don't look as good as they do in daylight.”
Junmyeon hums.
It's odd, how his paintings are cold yet somehow alive; how his vivid greens could embrace the chillest of white. There was hope dancing in the stillness of his art, and he genuinely questions himself if he could do it all again.
“I used to make them when I was waiting for you.” He starts. Junmyeon listens quietly. “Back then, you told me you would go out with me only if we visited spring fields every time.”
“I did,” Junmyeon was smiling as he spoke, Sehun knew this much, and he couldn't help but smile with him. “But you know I'd still go out with you no matter where you'd take me.”
“I know.”
“Then,” Junmyeon whispers, with a voice so soft, so careful, it almost couldn't break silence. “Why didn't you?”
It's this conversation again. The one they've gone through a lot of times when Sehun forced himself to try and go back to painting. “What do you want to hear?”
“Anything.”
“I waited.” A pause. “I took my chances that maybe, you'll find me. Or maybe I would. At the right time.”
If fate was so strong then why did they come to this? Sehun was a fool to believe that his art was enough to bring them together again. A big fool.
“It's not your fault.”
“They all said the same.” Sehun sneered. “But then why do I feel like this?”
It isn't his fault, they said. But all he has left is regret and grief and all his eyes could see is gray. All his hands could do is touch the dried hues of spring flowers on fabric, watch as if it was a different person who made the strokes he faintly remembers himself doing.
“I wanted to bring you the spring fields themselves.” But I can't anymore. Sehun wanted to say it, but the words were caught in his throat, as if it was to blame for making it hard for him to breathe.
“I understand.”
“Stop– please stop saying you do,” His throat was feeling tighter, like his voice won't come out any moment more. “Because you don't, Jun, and you would never. I should've tried to find you. Shouldn't have spent my life away from you. I learned all of this, and I have made you my muse, but in the end I still lost you before you knew. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”
Junmyeon doesn't respond, and Sehun feels tears cold against his cheek.
He ended up crying. Again.
Sehun has lost count of the number of times he's said the same excuse and apology, only for them to be left unheard and unforgiven. Junmyeon is gone again, like a breeze that Sehun could desperately try to grasp but still slip through his fingers.
He can't paint anymore. He falls back on the floor on his back, greeted by the same familiar ceiling equally as empty as his canvas– as his heart. It was all for Junmyeon, but he's gone before Sehun has brought him the spring fields as beautiful as he was.
Sehun remembers. And more. He sees his face, and hears his voice. He smells his cologne and feels him close. He doesn't always do, but when the lights are out and it's back to just him and his works of art, he does.