"Jin-kyu!"
Jin-kyu groaned as he listened to the voicemail Sun-hee had left on his phone.
"...I called Camille yesterday,"
And wait, what? Since when did Camille and Sun-hee talk to each other?
"...and she told me you finished a new piece? I am seriously proud of you baby bro. I'm going to insist that I get to see it before everybody else okay? So I want a sneak preview before the New Year's Exhibition."
"Also I'd like you to come round for dinner on Friday night. It's just me and Will and also I'm going to be inviting some friends and maybe you could just try be sociable for once?"
Jin-kyu's head was already starting to hurt. He had talked to a stranger for an hour yesterday – that was his entire 'sociable' quota used up for the week. To be honest, he was half thinking about cancelling his appointment with Helena on Sunday. He had his limits.
"...I know it's hard but remember Helena said we have to keep setting new goals to get you reintegrated - so give me a call back and I love you! Ooh also the weatherman said it's going to snow next week so I totally want to go ice skating okay? I promise this year we won't have any broken bones!"
Jin-kyu groaned darkly again and ignored the judgmental look from the mother with a small child as she moved further away from him at the traffic lights. She probably thought he was on a phone sex line.
Jin-kyu ended the call as he crossed the road, stowing his phone back in his pocket and cursing that he forgot his gloves at home that day.
He was pretty sure that he had a voicemail from Camille too but he was just going to ignore that one for as long as possible.
It wasn’t really that he would mind having dinner with Sun-hee, or even with her partner Will who was a lawyer but nice enough. It was just if Sun-hee invited all her friends then Jin-kyu would have to smile and those muscles were really not much in use at the moment.
By the time he arrived at the studio, Jin-kyu was in a pretty foul mood. He unlocked the door and flicked the lights on, jumping when he heard movement coming from the main workspace.
"Lebedev?" he called out. Lebedev didn't normally come in on Tuesdays, but perhaps he had come back to finally clear up all his equipment, that or just hide out from his irate wife.
There was another clattering that sounded like paint cans toppling over, causing Jin-kyu to hurry through the double doors. His eyes darted around the room before they came to rest on the place where his newly finished sculpture should be, however, now there was just an empty podium.
"What the hell?" Jin-kyu shouted as he rushed forwards.
"Lebedev? You here?" Jin-kyu wheeled round wildly, his gaze suddenly falling on a figure in the corner of room next to the propped easels. Jin-kyu blanched as he realised the person was;
a) not Lebedev
b) naked
"Who the hell are you?" Jin-kyu snapped at the boy, who just huddled further into the corner. It all made sense now - probably a load of dumb students playing a prank. He knew he should never have rented studio space so near to a college.
The boy shifted on his haunches but kept his head down. Jin-kyu sighed, the kid was probably a victim of the prank as well - hence the lack of clothes.
"Look, I'm going to report this to the cops okay, what's your name kid?"
Suddenly the figure looked up and Jin-kyu took a startled step backwards.
That face...
"You...you..." Jin-kyu stammered, unable to get the words out. "I know you," he managed to choke eventually, his eyes flying wildly from the empty podium to the crouched figure.
Jin-kyu crossed the room in a flash, he grabbed the shoulders of the boy, heaving him up and effectively pinning him against the wall.
Jin-kyu gasped as his eyes took in the high angular cheekbones that took so long to get right, the full plump lips that his thumbs had caressed in wet clay.
The boy had soft honey brown hair and features that were a cross somewhere between Korean and Caucasian. The shells of his ears were thin and pale, almost too fragile for a normal adult’s and his eyes…
"It's impossible," Jin-kyu breathed slowly, bringing his fingers up to run along the top of the boy’s right cheek, below a startlingly blue eye, the left eye being a warm cocoa brown.
"C-cold," the boy stuttered, squirming away from the wall and letting out a breathy puff of steam.
"Impossible," Jin-kyu repeated numbly as he released his hold on the younger man and fell back a few paces.
"J-Jin-kyu - I'm c-cold."
Jin-kyu's eyes flashed back up to meet large watery ones, staring at him imploringly.
"How do you know my name?" Jin-kyu snapped, "who are you?"
"Y-you told me," the boy replied, his face scrunching into a frown. "Y-you said you were Jin-kyu and I was S-Sammy."
"Fuck," Jin-kyu announced loudly to the room, then, "No." and "Fuck." again as he shook his head vociferously. "This is some kind of practical joke. Sun-hee's going burst out any moment wielding a camera," Jin-kyu muttered to himself as he began to pace the room.
Jin-kyu was momentarily distracted by a clacking sound and turned around to see that 'Sammy's' porcelain white teeth had now started chattering together loudly. Jin-kyu swore again, it must be about forty-five degrees in the studio and the kid was still butt-naked.
Jin-kyu quickly went to grab a pair of overalls that were hanging on the back of the door.
"Here - put these on for now," he instructed, chucking them at Sammy.
"You are not my artwork come to life," Jin-kyu announced a minute later with more conviction than he felt.
"I'm Sammy," Sammy replied proudly as he lifted up his arms to gesture to himself. The overalls were far too big for him, swamping his narrow frame in a sea of blue, paint splattered fabric.
"Helena," Jin-kyu said suddenly.
Sammy's forehead creased again, "I thought you were Jin-kyu?"
"No," Jin-kyu snapped, fishing in his pocket, "I need to call Helena - she must have given me the wrong pills, that's why I'm hallucinating."
Jin-kyu reached his therapist's voicemail, informing him that she was currently in session and to please leave a message. Jin-kyu opened his mouth after the beep but promptly closed it again when he realised how a voicemail attempting to explain the situation was going to sound.
Jin-kyu sighed deeply as he felt the pressure of a stress migraine coming on. He dug his thumbs into his temples, flinching as he looked up again.
Sammy had drawn much closer and was now standing directly in front of Jin-kyu, staring at him with large, searching eyes in two vibrantly different colours.
His face was so shockingly pale, like the glazed white of ceramic, his hair was sticking up at the stupid angle that Jin-kyu just couldn't seem to correct, no matter how much he had reshaped the clay.
"Holy fuck," Jin-kyu breathed out slowly, "you...you're actually him. You're Sammy."
A huge beaming smile spread across Sammy's face, "I know!" he grinned, reaching out a long bony finger to prod Jin-kyu surprisingly hard in the chest. "And you're Jin-kyu," Sammy nodded his head knowingly before hopping between his feet and making a sharp intake of breath.
Jin-kyu glanced down and realised that Sammy was still barefoot on the freezing concrete floor.
Comments (1)
See all