Chapter Text
Sunday
The studio smells like oil paint, turpentine and stale coffee. They opened a window to let some of the crisp Brooklyn air flood in.
A few feet away, Hyunjin leans back from his easel, stretching his long arms over his head with a groan. He turns his head, eyes landing on Jisung's canvas.
"You know," Hyunjin says, tapping a clean paintbrush against his chin. "For an assignment about negative space, you sure are filling it with a lot of light."
Jisung blinks, pulling his focus away from the canvas. He finally managed to squeeze in little time for his own canvas after finishing the morning studio prep. Looking back down, he takes in the warm yellow, golden hues dominating the center of his painting, blending outward into the darker edges.
"You really like yellow, huh? You used it a lot for every piece you’ve done this month." Hyunjin notes, a teasing lilt in his voice.
A tiny, private smile tugs at the corner of Jisung’s mouth, but he simply shrugs in response, before dipping his brush into his water cup. He doesn’t explain to Hyunjin that yellow isn't even his favorite color, but it might be the one that holds the most meaning. It’s the shade of over a dozen letter papers that he stores carefully in a shoebox like his most prized possessions. It's the color of certain window curtains 7,000 miles away.
"Anyway," Hyunjin says, tossing his rag onto a nearby stool. "I'm starving. It's almost 1:30. You want to grab shawarma down the street before we finish up?"
Jisung freezes.
1:30 PM.
"Shit. It's been that long?"
"Yeah? It's like, 1:28."
"Damn, I was going to leave earlier," Jisung sighs, quickly wiping his hands on a paint-stained rag and tossing it into the laundry bin.
"So I'm guessing this is a no?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm so sorry. I still have leftover food in my fridge anyway, and a call to take. Maybe another time, Hyunjin?"
"Don’t worry about it." Hyunjin waves him off easily, though he scoffs softly as he leans against a desk. "A call? Who the fuck schedules a call for Sunday afternoon?"
It sounds like a rhetorical question rather than a genuine one, and Jisung knows Hyunjin isn’t actually annoyed anyway, so he doesn’t even bother answering, only smiles a little to himself as he packs up his things with hurried efficiency. He leaves the canvas exactly where it is on the easel. He can continue painting tomorrow; the oil won't fully dry anyway. Right now, he just needs to get home.
Not even the loudness and stuffiness of the New York commute could bring down the giddy anticipation already thrumming in Jisung’s chest. It didn’t matter how many times they had done this exact same weekly routine, the fluttery feeling was still there every Sunday without fail.
He bursts through his front door with exactly four minutes to spare. Tossing his bag by the entrance, Jisung makes a beeline for the kitchen, grabbing yesterday's leftover noodles from the fridge and shoves them into the microwave.
By 1:59 PM, the warm bowl is sitting squarely on his desk. Laptop plugged and logged in, so he can see the face he misses the most on the biggest screen possible.
Jisung could have easily taken this call on the train. He could have propped his phone up against his paint tubes at the studio and kept working, or chatted with his AirPods in while walking through the streets. Other people did that all the time. Hell, Jisung did it all the time throughout the week, taking calls while multitasking through the day.
But not on Sundays.
The one waiting on the other end of the line treated his seven hours of sleep like they were sacred. Yet, without fail, he willingly sacrificed his rest once a week, forcing himself awake from 3:00 to 4:00 AM just as Sunday bled into Monday in South Korea. He did it just so they could share this exact pocket of time — their own little eclipse window. If he was going to drag himself out of sleep in the dead of the night just to look at him, Jisung was going to give him his absolute, undivided attention.
At exactly 2:00 PM, the call connects.
"Happy Moonday, Minho," Jisung greets instantly, his chest blooming with warmth at the sight of his boyfriend’s face and the familiar background of his bedroom.
"Happy Sunday, Ji," Minho’s voice comes through the speaker. It’s low and heavy with sleep, wrapping around Jisung like a comforting blanket.
Completely content, Jisung immediately launches into his day. He happily gestures with his chopsticks, twirling leftover noodles and rambling between bites about his assignments, his professors, and the general chaos of the studio he part-times at.
But halfway through explaining the newest gossip from the studio owner Jisung stops.
He leans closer to the laptop screen. He knows Minho’s face better than his own, so he notices. Minho is smiling, his chin propped heavily on his hand as he listens, but his blinks are sluggish. His eyes hold a glassy, unfocused sheen in the dim glow of the bedside lamp, and there is an unnatural flush high on his cheekbones that doesn’t seem to be from simple tiredness.
"Hyung, why are your cheeks so red?"
Minho blinks, rubbing his face with his sleeve. "Just warm under the blankets."
"You look exhausted. Are you sick?"
Minho sighs, the sound crackling softly through the speaker. He doesn't lie — he never lies to Jisung — but he does try to brush it off. "My throat just hurts a little. And my head is a bit heavy. I'm fine though. Keep talking, I wanted to hear about your painting."
"I'm not talking about my painting until you get your temperature," Jisung says gently, but firmly. Minho was clearly feeling unwell, yet he had still dragged himself out of sleep at a ridiculous hour just because he promised he would be there. It makes Jisung's heart ache. He wishes more than anything that he could just reach through the screen and press the back of his hand to Minho’s forehead. "Do you still have the thermometer in the nightstand?"
A soft groan and a stubborn pout forming on lips. "Ji, I'm fine—"
"Thermometer. Now. Or I'm hanging up and calling Seungmin to break into your room."
With a reluctant, breathy laugh, Minho shuffles under the heavy duvet. He reaches off-screen until he produces a small white digital thermometer, slipping it under his tongue. His eyes flutter shut as they wait for the beep together in the shared silence.
Tuesday
"I haven't seen the sun in forty-eight hours. I don't think I've left my bed for more than an hour in the last two days. I can't even sleep anymore. Sungie, I'm going insane."
Minho's voice is raspy and pitiful, but a fond smile still touches Jisung's lips. It’s a good sign that he’s at least well enough to whine.
"I know, baby," Jisung coos, voice filled with warmth, and the wind rustling against his microphone. "That’s why I am taking you out."
Minho finally cracks one eye open and squints at Jisung through the screen. “What are you doing?”
"Well, you can't go outside, so I'm bringing the outside to you. I skipped my morning lecture for this, so you better appreciate it. I'm going to walk you through the city."
Jisung watches Minho bury his face deeper into the pillow, leaving only his tired, expectant eyes visible.
"Tell me what you see," he murmurs.
For the next twenty minutes, Jisung becomes Minho's eyes. He drops his voice into a low, steady cadence, painting the city for him. He describes the sharp, biting blue of the sky, and the amber autumn leaves swept into big piles along the road. He talks about the smell of roasted nuts and espresso drifting through the air from a corner cart, and the vibrant, colourful petals spilling out of buckets at a flower shop. His voice softens even further as he murmurs about an elderly couple walking ahead of him, their hands sweetly clasped together in the brisk chill.
He doesn't stop walking, and he doesn't stop talking. And every few minutes, Jisung glances down at his screen. Slowly, beautifully, it starts to work. The frown line between his boyfriend’s eyebrows melts away. His tense shoulders drop into the mattress, and his breathing deepens, evening out into a soft, rhythmic hum over Jisung’s earphones.
By the time Jisung finally reaches his destination, Minho is fast asleep.
When he notices, he stops walking for a moment, and traces his thumb lightly over the cold glass, gently brushing it across Minho’s pixelated cheek with fondness, and a bit of longing. God, he misses him.
He tucks his hand back into his pocket and steps through the rusty gates of a community garden tucked away in a quiet, sun-drenched corner of Brooklyn. Jisung iis instantly surrounded by towering stalks of green and brilliant, blooming gold. Sunflowers. Dozens of them, all standing tall, their heavy heads turned in a perfect uniform angle to soak up the late morning light.
Simple joy spreads in his chest at the beautiful sight. He keeps looking from the massive flowers to the sleeping boy on his screen. It was a natural instinct, finding the brightest thing in the room and naturally angling toward it to survive. The flowers did it with the sun, chasing the warmth. And Jisung did it with Minho. It didn't matter that the other was resting half a world away, dreaming under a quiet midnight sky. Minho was still the absolute brightest star in Jisung's universe, and his entire orbit instinctively turned toward him anyway.
Careful not to make a sound, Jisung sits down on a weathered wooden bench right in the middle of the yellow bloom. He quickly taps his screen, muting his own microphone so the city noise won't disturb the quiet on the other side of the screen.
After sitting for a while, his fingers begin to itch with inspiration, suddenly filled with the urge to pick up a pencil or a brush. Jisung casually glances over his shoulder. The garden is perfectly empty. Knowing full well he isn't supposed to touch the flowers, Jisung reaches out with a quick, guilty movement and plucks three vibrant yellow petals from the nearest sunflower, tucking them safely into his jacket pocket. For inspiration.
Pulling out the digital camera he always carries around, he snaps a dozen quick pictures from different angles for himself, and also so he can show Minho later.
Even then he doesn't hang up the call. Instead, just leans back against the bench, closing his eyes and letting the autumn sun warm his face. Through his earphones, he listens to the soft, steady sound of Minho breathing. A soft smile touches Jisung's lips, his chest blooming with a quiet, undeniable warmth. Sitting there in the golden light, he realizes that happiness isn't some abstract, distant thing. It isn't far away at all. It is right here, pressed softly against his ear, making his heart feel completely and overwhelmingly full.
Sunday
At exactly 2:00 PM once again, Jisung’s laptop screen lights up.
"You look better now," he breathes out, a happy grin breaking across his face.
On the screen, Minho is sitting up against his headboard, the glassy, feverish sheen from earlier in the week completely gone.
"Yeah, I finally feel human again. The past week was awful," Minho sighs, before a small, fond smirk takes over his features. "Now please, put me out of my misery and open the box. Mom’s already been asking if you've tried some of the food."
The battered cardboard box, heavily wrapped in Korean customs tape, had been sitting on Jisung's kitchen counter since Friday afternoon. It took an agonizing amount of self-control not to tear into it immediately, but opening it without Minho felt wrong. It was a shared ritual.
So, it’s no surprise when he doesn’t wait another second. He eagerly drags the box onto his desk and slices through the tape with a box cutter.
When he pulls the cardboard flaps back, a sheer wave of fondness and gratitude hits him. He pulls out specific, hard-to-find ramyeon packets he had casually mentioned missing two months ago, and three boxes of a limited-edition Pepero you could only get in Korea. Beneath the snacks are two carefully sealed Tupperware containers: one filled with sweet yakgwa, and another packed with savory myeolchi bokkeum, both made by Minho's mom.
Tucked carefully along the inner edge of the box are several folded pieces of that familiar yellow paper. Resting just beneath them is a thick envelope. When Jisung gently tips it open, a stack of Polaroids spills into his palm. They are little pieces of home: candid shots of Minho, of both their families and shared friends, familiar glimpses into the mundane, everyday beauty of the Seoul streets and nearby nature.
Jisung gets hit with a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion. His eyes water, a wobbly pout forming on his lips as he looks from the carefully packed box to the boy on the screen. "You know I love you so much, right?"
"Obviously," Minho says deadpan, though the tips of his ears turning red give him away. He could not be easier to read.
Laughing wetly, Jisung wipes his eyes before reaching for his phone to turn on his desk speaker. They share a single Spotify playlist — a massive, chaotic collection of songs spanning years. The unspoken rule is that they never announce when they add something new; it is much more fun to let the other discover it organically.
He hits play. The soft, moody R&B beat of instagram by DEAN fills the Brooklyn bedroom.
"You added this today."
Minho just hums, taking a sip of water, his eyes shining with that specific gleam he always gets when he's waiting for the other person to connect the dots.
Jisung knows a clue when he hears one. He picks up his phone and clicks open his Instagram app — an app Minho knows he keeps muted and rarely checks. When his feed loads, he immediately sees Minho’s profile picture at the top of the screen, glowing with the bright green ring of a 'Close Friends' story.
He taps it, and his breath catches.
The video launches into a fast-paced, montage of their FaceTime screenshots that is perfectly synced to a trendy audio. There are dramatic cross-fades of Jisung mid-laugh blending right into Minho resting his chin on his hand. It has all the classic hallmarks of a cheesy edit: a vintage film filter, slow panning over their pixelated faces, and italicized lyrics pasted across the bottom of the screen.
It is the exact kind of hyper-romantic, cheesy video Minho usually pretends to hate.
Jisung completely loses it.
He bursts into loud, unfiltered laughter, throwing his head back and clapping his hands over his face. He is laughing so hard his shoulders are shaking, wheezing as tears prick the corners of his eyes, but beneath the humor, his chest is physically aching with how overwhelmingly much he loves this man.
"Hyung!" Jisung gasps out between breathless laughs, wiping at his eyes as he looks back at the laptop screen. "Did you really just make a sappy ship-edit of us?"
"Yes. I think this is my best work yet.” Minho doesn't look embarrassed in the slightest. Instead, a deeply satisfied, smug smirk spreads across his face as he leans back against his headboard. “I spent forty-five minutes picking out the absolute worst, most obnoxious audio I could find, by the way."
"You're a menace." Jisung's cheeks hurt from smiling so wide.
Minho doesn't even deny it, looking entirely too pleased with himself. His smug expression slowly melts into something impossibly softer as he watches Jisung try to catch his breath, his eyes warm and completely unguarded. He doesn't say it out loud, but as he listens to the sound of his boyfriend's laughter over the speaker, it is obvious; he had put himself through the effort of editing that video for this exact reaction.
"Now, are you going to watch my masterpiece on loop all day, or do we have time for the exchange?"
Jisung clears his throat, still giggling as his heart practically beats right out of his chest. "Always."
It one of their weekly sunday-moonday-call traditions: Show me the best thing you saw this week. "You go first," Jisung prompts, leaning his chin on his palm and looking at the screen with bright, expectant eyes. He was curious since Minho was trapped in his room all week, pretty much.
His boyfriend just reaches out, picks up his phone from his nightstand, and holds the glowing screen up to the camera.
Jisung leans closer, squinting at the screen to properly see the photo from the camera roll.
It takes him exactly three seconds to process what he is looking at. It is a screenshot of Jisung himself, taken not even ten minutes ago — right when his eyes had watered and his lower lip had jutted out in a wobbly pout over the care package he received.
"Hyung, that is so incredibly cheesy. You're losing your edge. The fever completely melted your brain."
"You asked for the best thing I saw this week.".
Jisung peeks through his fingers. Minho is smiling so hard his cheeks are bunched up high, his eyes crinkling into half-moons.
"I'm just following the rules of the game," he adds, his voice thick with a quiet, undeniable devotion that bridges the entire 7,000 miles between them.
Jisung doesn't argue. He can’t. Not when his throat is tight and his chest is this overwhelmingly full. He just drops his hands, reaching out to lightly trace his fingertips over the edge of his laptop screen.
"You're so stupid," Jisung whispers, his voice watery but bubbling with pure joy at the same time.
"You never stop reminding me," Minho replies, a soft, sleepy smile lingering on his lips.
"And I never will."
"Promise?"
"Promise."