Aziel could not wait. Seven days had become an eternity for him. Despite the family warmth, his soul was pulling toward Sojin. Without warning, with a fluttering heart, he went to the studio.

​When he opened the door, the scene reigning inside struck him like lightning. In the center of the studio, under bright lights, stood a foreign female model. She was astonishingly beautiful, with perfect, distinct feminine hips and breasts, almost completely naked. She had assumed an erotic and open position, while Sojin, standing before the canvas, was absorbedly studying every single line of her body.

​Sojin turned around, and surprise appeared in his eyes.

— Aziel?... — he barely uttered.

​Aziel's world collapsed. Seeing Sojin's gaze on someone else's body, he felt a sharp pain that was suffocating him. He turned around and ran toward the outside.

— Wait, — Sojin addressed the model, — calm down until I come back.

​He ran after Aziel and caught his arm right on the street.

— Let go of me! — Aziel shouted, turning around. His eyes were full of tears. — You are heartless, Sojin. I have given you my whole soul, my heart, and you... you just shatter it every time.

​At first, Sojin was trying to be calm.

— Aziel, settle down, it is simply my work, — he said in a low voice.

​Aziel had lost his self-control. His hands were trembling as he was delivering weak strikes to Sojin's unyielding chest, as if trying to pierce that icy wall with which the painter had surrounded himself.

— Do you even have a heart? — Aziel was shouting while sobbing. — Every day I tear myself to pieces to be a little close to you. I try to learn your world, I take up a weapon, I study painting just to understand you... and you? You just look at that woman with the same gaze with which you look at me. Am I really just another "body" for your canvas to you?

​Sojin was silent, his jaw was compressed, and his gaze was fixed in the distance. That was making Aziel even more furious.

— Give an answer! Say that she is nothing to you. Say that you will no longer paint them. I cannot endure this, Sojin. I have given you my whole soul, I am yours...

​Suddenly, Sojin caught Aziel's wrists, squeezing them powerfully, and his voice thundered on the street:

— SHUT UP! Enough.

​Aziel froze. A cold sweat covered him when he saw the fury of Sojin's eyes.

— First of all, I never asked you to give your "soul and heart" to me, — Sojin uttered coldly. — That was your choice, Aziel. You yourself decided to sacrifice yourself, so now don't try to make me feel guilty for it. I don't have any obligation before you. I am a free man and a free artist. I paint bodies because it is my art, and no one, do you hear, no one can dictate to me whom to look at or whom to paint. Whether it will be a naked woman or a man, that is my decision.

​He relaxed the piercing gaze for a moment, but the voice remained just as cruel:

— You say love... But do you even know what that is? I like the scent of your skin, I like our sex, I miss you when you are not here, but that is not love yet. I am entangled inside your emotions. I am not ready to answer you in the same way.

​Aziel was crying silently, his shoulders had contracted.

— Sojin... — his voice was trembling, — will a day come when you will renounce all of this... this criminal world, this nakedness... for the sake of someone you will love?

​Sojin gave a bitter smirk, which was more like a sigh.

— And you, Aziel? Are you ready? Are you ready to stop dancing half-naked in front of strangers? Are you ready to renounce your family if they are against your choice and never accept the man standing next to you?

​Aziel looked at him in confusion. That was where Sojin delivered the last strike:

— Minho is my old friend. I know everything about you. So, before demanding sacrifices from me, look at your own life.

​Sojin turned around and left, leaving Aziel alone with his shattered hopes and the merciless truth.

Aziel's return home was like a slow nightmare. He was walking along the streets of the city, noticing neither the lights nor the people. Sojin's words were still spinning inside his head like poisonous arrows.

​Aziel opened the door cautiously. The house was smelling of the aroma of freshly cooked koshary and mint tea. A lively bustle was reigning in the living room.

— Aziel, ya ibni, you finally came, — Karim called out. He was sitting on the sofa and slowly spinning his wooden rosary—the tasbih. He did not raise his gaze, but a fatherly sternness was felt inside his voice. — Where were you this late? Your mother has already warmed up the dinner three times.

​Aziel stood, but did not turn around. His hands were trembling, and a large lump was standing inside his throat.

— I was taking a walk, father. I needed air... — his voice was hollow and lifeless.

— Go, rest, but remember—tomorrow we have business. I have come here to see your life, not your back when you run to your room.

​Aziel replied nothing. He just entered his room and closed the door, leaving his father with his suspicions and the monotonous sound of the rosary.

​A little later, the door opened quietly. It was Fatima. She did not turn on the light; she sat on the edge of the bed and placed her hand onto Aziel's trembling shoulder.

— My heart feels how you are burning, ya fuadi (my soul), — she whispered.

​Aziel turned and looked at his mother. In the darkness, Fatima's dark blue eyes were shining with motherly worry. He could no longer stay silent.

— Mom... I have been so mistaken, — he began while sobbing. — I have fallen in love with a person for whom I am nothing. I have given everything— my time, my hopes, my heart... but today he just shattered all of that. He said that I am not an obligation for him. That my love is one-sided.

​He placed his head onto his mother's knees. Fatima began to gently stroke his head, just like she used to do years ago in Cairo.

— Listen to me, — she said with a calming voice. — Love is sometimes given to us as an ordeal. If that person does not see your purity, then he is blind. You must not lose yourself only for the reason that someone doesn't know how to keep a precious stone. This pain will pass. You will still find the one who will appreciate your every breath. Don't let this fight break you. You are our pride.

— But I cannot be next to him again, mom. Everything is finished. There is no chance.

— Then it was meant to be that way, — Fatima said decisively. — If the door has closed, it means that it wasn't your home. Give time to yourself. God will open a new door. Now rest. I am next to you.

​Aziel was crying silently until the tiredness and the warmth of his mother's hand took him into sleep. But in his dreams, there were still black and white canvases and Sojin's fixed gaze.

​The sunlight was penetrating with difficulty from between the thick curtains of the new apartment. Aziel woke up with a heavy headache. He took his phone. The blog page had been empty for a long time already. He updated the status: "I have returned. The personal pause has ended, but the pause of my soul is not coming yet."

​Aziel placed the phone near the window. He was silent for a long time, just looking at the camera. In the background, it was visible how the mother, Fatima, was styling Zayd's clothes, and the sisters, Leyla and Amira, were adjusting their sheilas before the mirror.

​Aziel began to speak in Korean, with a very calm and low voice:

— "I am here again. Sometimes the greatest pain is hidden behind the warmest smiles. Right now, behind my back are people who love me, but they don't know that yesterday a part of me died. I loved someone who considered me his next canvas... who asked me whether my family will accept the man standing next to me..."

— Aziel, ya ibni, whom are you talking with? — Karim asked, entering the room.

​Aziel instantly changed his facial expression, smiled, and replied in Arabic:

— Father, I am just showing my followers how we are preparing to go to the city. They had missed me very much.

​Karim approached, looked at the camera, and waved his hand.

— Hello, Aziel's friends, — he said in his broken English. — My boy is a good person, love him very much.

​Aziel felt how his throat was squeezing. He turned off the recording.

​Aziel placed the phone on the table. The movement of his father's hand before the camera still remained before his eyes. Karim went out of the room with a satisfied smile, as if he had done a great kind deed for his son. He did not know that at that moment, Aziel had confessed the greatest and most forbidden pain of his life in the recording.

​Aziel began to post videos more often. That was his only shelter. At home, he was an obedient Arab son, and before the screen, a soul speaking in Korean, who was telling about his love, about being rejected, and about his identity. He knew Karim and Fatima would never understand what he was talking about.