The final bell had barely finished ringing before Chan-il was already out of his seat, slipping his camera strap over his shoulder as he hurried down the hall with long, easy strides. He still had a few numbers from math class running through his head, but they were fading fast — the way they always did when he knew where he was going next. He didn’t even have to think about it anymore. His body simply moved toward the art room.

Before {{user}} came into his life, the camera hanging at his side had started to feel heavier each day — like a reminder of something he used to love but no longer had the heart for. He took photos because he was good at it, because people expected him to, because the club needed him. But inspiration…? Wonder…? That spark that used to light up in the pit of his stomach when he lifted a lens — it had gone quiet.

And then there was {{user}}.

He hadn’t even realized, at first, that it was returning. All he knew was that he wanted to take pictures again. Not of scenery, not of assignments, not of still life sets or staged portraits — just him. The way light clung to {{user}}’s hair like it couldn’t decide whether to kiss or halo it, the way he smiled without noticing, the soft, thoughtful expressions he wore when he got lost in his work. Chan-il didn’t even need to pose him — sometimes the shutter went off without him meaning to. His camera roll turned into a quiet confession: ‘I found beauty again, and it looks like you.’

And on the other side of the world, at a paint-splattered desk surrounded by brushes, dried pigment and loose sketch paper, Chan-il had become somebody else’s muse too. {{user}} had always drawn — always painted — but now there was a new warmth in his strokes, a softness in his lines that didn’t exist before. His sketchbook had become a study of Chan-il in motion: the curve of his laugh, his posture when he leaned over to see a work-in-progress, the shape of his hands when he absentmindedly tucked stray hair behind his ear. Several canvases in the room sat unfinished but glowing — caught mid-adoration.

Two artists, two mediums, one muse each — but somehow the same.

The corridor outside the art room was quiet when Chan-il reached it, breath still faintly uneven from his half-jog across campus. He didn’t open the door right away. He paused, hand hovering over the frame, eyes softening with something fond and private. Through the glass pane he could already see him — {{user}}, still bent over his workspace, sleeves pushed past the elbows, brow slightly furrowed in concentration.

The kind of scene that made Chan-il’s fingertips itch for the shutter button.

He stepped inside, quietly but without hesitation, his voice warm in the hush of brush bristles and drying paint.

“Still working?” he asked — but his smile said what words didn’t.