Jeongguk realizes sometimes that he might try a little too hard when it comes to work but that doesn't mean he considers it a bad thing. He does several plans, retouches them if he messes up an angle, he designs buildings that are modern but that are also unique in their own way, he puts too much work into shading his drawings, and the list keeps going. That's what got him a job in the best architecture firm from Seoul after all.
He's not the best, he likes to believe that thinking you're the best means you're just overconfident in your own skills, but he's hardworking and passionate so he thinks those are his most important traits. He's not the best because, in such a large world, no matter how good you are, there will always be someone better than you. You just have to keep working until you're content with yourself so Jeongguk does just that, he works even harder because of his mentality.
His first years of college were pretty basic.
He wasn't special and he wasn't even known by his professors but he was passionate enough to work for months on his final exam. He still has it framed on his office wall since that's the project that caught the eyes of famous, senior, architects. He was hired right after finishing college, but only after 2 years he started getting projects on his own, finally being able to start his own small firm. What made him even more known was his project for a shopping center in Gangnam-gu. He designed the place with an interior garden so he wouldn't have to cut down the trees and mess up nature for their entertainment. Guess people saw that as good potential and more clients reached out to him, telling him that they enjoyed his ideas of merging nature and modern times together.
Jeongguk was actually trying to lessen the destruction of nature, not create a new architectural concept, but he embraced the attention anyway.
Of course, with success came hard times as well. He got a lot of good projects that he couldn't deny so everything became overwhelming in the end, forcing him to stay days and nights awake in order to finish them all. Hard work pays off but Jeongguk still believes that having money and a good career is slightly overrated since a lot of people tend to think that life is just about that. Money and a good political status.
He thinks life is about much more but he was never able to voice out his thoughts or break from the stereotypes because, as soon as someone becomes different and shows other people that they have a different point of view, they get isolated and judged. This is just the world they live in, a place in which people judge each other based on their careers, political status, income and appearances. Deep inside him, Jeongguk hates everything about it, he hates those stereotypes and he despises the attention he gets due to the fact that he's young, talented and, most important to some people, very attractive. He's also openly gay so his female clients mostly leave his firm with frowns on their faces and sad eyes.
However, he cannot say that he's not enjoying it, the life he's living. He has just enough money to provide for himself and invest even further, he's well known in his domain and many people look up to him and he also enjoys passing buildings that were designed by him. So, besides the grudge that is nestled inside his soul for the cruelty of this world, Jeongguk finds the good parts as well.
Just like the concept of yin and yang, he wants to believe that there is good in every bad thing but there is also evil in every good thing. It's called balance and he somehow understands it, just not as much as Namjoon does, the older being a whole encyclopedia about such concepts.
"We'll start this next week since we have to get the materials needed for this. I'm glad you made a list of what we had to buy, not a lot of people do that. You're really young, kiddo, and I thought you were going to give us a hard time, but I actually like you. We could work together in the future."
Being dragged back to reality by the voice, Jeongguk smiles towards the elder man in front of him before bowing slightly, not even considering making a collaboration since he's used to working alone or with someone he actually knows.
"I'll consider that, Mister Han." He smiles, putting on the mask of his architect persona. "Good luck with your project and make sure to call me if you need anything."
"Sure thing."
He watches as the man turns around to leave, projects held in his arms as he goes towards his team. Jeongguk lets out a breath he wasn't even aware he was holding, making a leave for his car since he was already quite late to the theatre play he was supposed to watch in order to relax his mind, as Namjoon keeps telling him.
"Art is always a good way to relax, Gguk. You can gaze at a painting and think it's bullshit but, in the end, it's still making you stare at it. That's when you know it's good art, when you can't stop staring at it."
"Is that why you always stare at my ass?" Yoongi asked, cigarette perched between his lips as he smirked at his fiancé.
Namjoon had made sure to roll his eyes before turning towards Jeongguk, who was mostly asleep at that time.
"Yoongi's ass might not be the "Mona Lisa" of art but it surely is the "Dante and Virgil" of asses."
To this day, Jeongguk still doesn't understand Namjoon's metaphor, but he doesn't particularly need to. His brother's fiancé studied philosophy after all so his mind is pretty fucked up sometimes. Yoongi manages to understand him pretty well, which scares Jeongguk even more, because his brother is a fucking mathematician. In what world did philosophers and mathematicians get along? Not in theirs, that's for sure, because they didn't get along that well. Their mindsets were different but, somehow, they still loved each other.
Getting into his car, Jeongguk makes sure to dial Namjoon because he never, ever, calls Yoongi, then leaves for the said theatre, not even caring that he probably wasn't dressed properly for such a fancy thing. After a few rings, his friend answers, Jeongguk sighing once he realizes that Namjoon is probably still in the theatre, making a ruckus out of his call.
"Romeo?" He dramatically asks, faking a cry at the end of his question.
"No, Montague. Is it too late to say I'm not in the mood to come anymore?"
"Yes, you can't leave me twice, Romeo. Hurry up."
Jeongguk ends the call and sighs once again. He could easily go home and rest but he's not that mean of a friend so he just keeps driving, listening to his playlist as he tries to hurry through the busy streets of Seoul. He manages to get there in 20 minutes — which is quite good — getting inside and dialing Namjoon's number furiously. The other had his ticket so he couldn't actually get inside without it but Namjoon found the perfect time to avoid answering his phone. The guy literally lives inside it.
"Excuse me, are you waiting to go inside?"
He dials Namjoon's phone one more time before he decides to risk it all and just presses on Yoongi's number. He taps his foot on the floor as he waits for the other to answer before he feels something touching his shoulder. Jeongguk turns around, noticing a man staring at him curiously.
"Oh, sorry. Were you talking to me? I'm really sorry, I'm waiting for a friend to come give me my ticket. You can go in first."
The man merely smiles before nodding slowly, walking past Jeongguk with small steps. He stares after him for a while before he disappears behind the doors, silence falling upon him until he hears a grunt at the end of the line.
Ten seconds later, Yoongi is waiting for him by the door, already having presented his ticket to the worker.
The play sucks.
Jeongguk is indeed a fan of art and he enjoys spending money on overpriced things sometimes — overpriced beauty that is too deep for the human eye to see — but the play they're watching sucks and he's done with it. The actors seem like they're newbies, which they probably aren't, but they have no emotion whatsoever as they act. He knows he shouldn't this judgy but he's used to being straight forward and the actors of this play didn't really catch his eyes.
They look bored and Jeongguk gets bored of them too so, in the middle of it, he just gets up and ignores Yoongi's questioning glare as he walks away. He enters the large hallway, wondering if he should just leave or wait for it to end. He decides to wait for Namjoon and Yoongi, walking around and staring at the paintings exposed on the walls. They're probably made by art students or small artists but they're beautiful, reaching a variety of domains and mediums. He sees landscapes, portraits, abstract, even dark art, stopping in front of them all to admire each detail his untrained mind can notice.
As he keeps walking, he sees the same man from earlier sitting in front of a large piece, something that looks like a storm, but isn't. Jeongguk isn't sure what that particular painting is portraying, because it looks like waves crashing against each other, but it also looks calming, with soft red hues instead of dark blues. He steps up to it, sensing the other turn to gaze at him for a few seconds before continuing to stare at the painting again.
It's strange, sitting in front of a wall next to someone you don't even know. He probably looks like a creep but Jeongguk doesn't care much about what others think. They sit like that for at least five minutes, each one of them understanding different parts of the artwork, their views probably different, but still similar. The silence around them is sickening but it's also calming in a way Jeongguk wouldn't have thought something like this would ever be.
The stranger's voice breaks it, Jeongguk realizing now that it sounds deeper than he'd expected since the first time he wasn't even paying attention.
"It's art of art, you know?" He inquires, addressing no one in particular so Jeongguk doesn't answer. Instead, he looks at him from the spot he's in, noticing that the stranger's eyes are still focused on the paining. "It represents something you know, something everyone's seen at least once, but if you think about it, it's more than that. It's not a storm but it is a storm at the same time, only you don't know what kind of storm it is you're seeing until you feel it. Everyone sees storms in their own ways. A bad one, a good one, destruction, birth. Art is like that. You can see these waves as they are, waves, but you can also see them as something more, as emotions, as desperation, as loneliness. Art is something you find yourself staring at even if you don't like it, even if you don't enjoy it. Everyone stares at the sky when it's raining because you cannot just miss the beauty of storms and the emotions that envelop you. Art is the same and, you know what they say, if it makes you stare, it's a good piece."
By the time the man is done, Jeongguk is still staring at his side profile with open lips, words on the end of his tongue, but no voice to let them roll out. The stranger seems to be in a daze, not even looking at him, just staring at the painting on the wall like he understands much more about it than Jeongguk himself does. He turns around, staring at the piece again, remembering the same words Namjoon and this stranger had told him, that if it makes you stare, it's good art.
He sees it then and it feels like his eyes are suddenly working better — like his mind can now perceive the truth behind that painting.
He sees the art behind the image, the hidden message as he likes to view it and he thinks about it.
It somehow represents the way he's feeling, like he can do so much more, but he doesn't want to, like he can be more, but he just isn't.
Jeongguk isn't the storm represented in the painting, he's the sea, the calmness of the waves that need a little push from something else, in order to flow, to create movement, to clash. He's been like that since forever, not even once doing something because he wanted to, just following what others pushed into his mind. He doesn't even know if choosing to be an architect was his choice or not after all.
It's like he's been stuck in the same place for ages, seeing the road ahead of him but still not being able to walk on it because he wants to, but because he has to, because others want him to. He's not standing still on the road — because Jeongguk doesn't like staying still, being left behind — but he's walking out of force, not out of his own pleasure or will.
He takes a deep breath, then turns towards the man only to realize that he isn't there anymore. He hopes his mind wasn't playing with him due to the lack of sleep and that the stranger was real — he really hopes so as he stays there and keeps staring.
He keeps staring until he pockets his phone from his coat and calls the gallery that sells those pieces.
When Namjoon and Yoongi come out, Jeongguk is already outside, puffing a cloud of smoke past his lips as the other two walk towards him.
"Gguk, you missed the best part!" Namjoon whines, his glasses falling on his nose comically as Yoongi just shakes his head and sighs. He reaches his hand out, asking for a cigarette, and Jeongguk sighs, taking one out and giving it to him.
"He means," Yoongi mumbles as he lights up the cigarette on Jeongguk's, "you missed the part when one of them died and Namjoon lost his mind over the metaphor of him dying in the arms of his loved one without knowing that he was killed by her own recklessness. It was complete shit."
"Agreed." Jeongguk mumbles, watching as Namjoon stares at them both with wide eyes.
"Wow, you have no advanced perception of metaphors at all whatsoever. You're like two rocks, you can't even see the messages behind things."
Jeongguk just shrugs because, after all, he doesn't. He's an architect, he's used to measuring stuff and designing buildings, he's not an artist or a writer or some philosopher like Namjoon. He doesn't see past the main image because he doesn't want to. There's a thing called realism and for him seeing the real part of the world is better than forcing yourself to dream about pointless things. He can't let himself be attracted to the other side since it would ruin his perception of realism, his way of viewing things and his own mindset.
He likes the way his mind works for now.
The painting of the storm comes into his mind and Jeongguk sighs — dreaming for a little while doesn't sound that bad sometimes.
"We should leave." He mumbles as he exhales the last smoke, throwing the cigarette in the bin before putting his gloves back on.
It's November but the air is cold and Jeongguk relays on his hands too much to have them freeze to death.
"Have you eaten, Gguk?" Yoongi asks, his cigarette not even half done when he throws it away.
What a waste.
Jeongguk looks up, nodding, then he turns around to leave, hearing Namjoon sigh behind him.
He's hungry and they all know that but Jeongguk hasn't eaten with just them in months, probably a year because, everytime he does, his heart clenches and he starts feeling helpless, lonely. He's glad for Yoongi, he's his brother, but he still can't be around them without feeling his own loneliness eating at his heart.
So he drives home, gets into his apartment and cooks a fast dinner for himself, eating it while a playlist of slow music echoes around him, an attempt at making himself feel less lonely but doing the exact opposite.