Haoshua / Rule 63 @ the art gallery
Jan. 14th, 2022 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
notlettuce(G / 2089 words)
The apartment was quiet at this time of the morning. Summer spread in through the blinds and the air was still cool enough that Jisoo needed the blanket over her legs as she sat cross-legged in front of the full length mirror, curling her hair.
It added an extra hour to her morning routine every time she did this, but she liked it. It helped her wake up. The repetitive rhythm of combing her long hair into sections and wrapping them around the pink barrel was soothing.
She had a random DIY video playing on her laptop--something about making resin earrings. It was hypnotic to watch.
“Your hair’s gonna burn if you hold it any longer,” Seungcheol called quietly, closing the bedroom door behind her.
Jisoo released the clip with an embarrassed smile.
Seungcheol poured herself a cup of coffee, mixed in too much sugar and milk and came to sit next to Jisoo on the floor. “Looks nice,” she said. “Do you need help with the back?”
Jisoo raised an eyebrow at her in the mirror. “Do you know how to do it?”
Seungcheol’s hair had been cropped around her ears ever since Jisoo met her, five years ago. It was messy and cute and barely long enough to wrap around the curling iron.
Seungcheol shrugged, sheepish. “No, but I can try.”
“Alright,” Jisoo said, arranging the cord to stretch around her body. She was still on the bottom layer, so it wasn’t a big deal if it didn’t look perfect. Or… well, she could just touch it up afterwards.
Seungcheol didn’t do a terrible job, but she did give up after three sections because, “You keep frowning at me!”
“I’m not frowning!” Jisoo said, correcting her expression.
Seungcheol pouted, handing the curling iron back. She pressed a kiss to the crown of Jisoo’s head before walking back to the kitchen to put her mug in the sink.
She stretched her arms up and, in a clear attempt to sound off-hand, said, “So, I’m gonna take a shower, can you wake her up?”
“No,” Jisoo said flatly.
Seungcheol whined like a kid. “But she got mad at me last time!”
“Your girlfriend, your problem,” Jisoo said sweetly, unpinning the top half of her hair to let it fall down past her shoulders.
Seungcheol mumbled something grumpy and walked back to the bedroom. Soft voices drifted through the open door, and then there was a yelp of, “Ow! Jeonghan!” followed by a laugh, all low and creaky.
Jisoo grinned in the mirror as Seungcheol walked out with a frown.
“She bit me,” she said.
“Oh? Wonder where she learned that,” Jisoo said absently, fluffing her curls.
“I hate it here,” Seungcheol said, loud enough to be heard throughout the apartment. It was all for show, this silly morning routine between the three of them. Jisoo loved it.
---
Seungkwan met her outside the metro station and did a cute little dance when they made eye contact. She handed an iced coffee to Jisoo and stretched up on her toes to kiss her cheek.
“Good morning, unnie,” she said brightly. Her hair was strawberry blond these days, cut into a bob that moved when she spoke. She was already so expressive as it were, constantly using her hands like her point wouldn’t be made unless she mimed half of it. It suited her.
“Morning,” Jisoo said around her straw.
They linked arms and began the short walk to the block they both worked on--Jisoo at the gallery and Seungkwan at the office building two streets down.
Seungkwan frowned. “Your curls are a bit flat at the back.”
“Yeah, Seungcheol did them.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” Seungkwan said unconvincingly. Her eyes zeroed in on Jisoo’s blouse next. “Didn’t you wear this last week?”
Jisoo rolled her eyes with a smile. “They’re my work clothes, Seungkwan-ah. That’s kind of the point.”
“Doesn’t your job let you dress however you want?”
“I mean, kind of,” Jisoo said, “but I like these clothes.” She had a moment of panic. “Does it look bad?”
Seungkwan’s eyes went wide. “No, no, no, you look amazing!” she said effusively. “You always do. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe, like, change it up a little.”
“Oh,” Jisoo said, feeling oddly sensitive. She had never been great at trying new things with her style, always defaulting to popular trends or whatever she saw first on the rack that fit and didn’t cost too much.
Seungkwan was different in that regard--she had a talent for following trends while also carrying herself like she was the one who started the trend in the first place. Jisoo envied her for that; for her easy confidence and the space she took up in every room she entered.
She knew how hard Seungkwan had worked to earn it, how hard she worked to make everything she did look effortless and the toll it took, but Jisoo still couldn’t help but feel like she’d never catch up.
The first time they’d met, Seungkwan had fawned all over her like she was a celebrity, talking a million miles an hour. “You’re so tall! Is your nose real? Wait, no, don’t answer that. Do you like makeup? Come with me.” Without waiting for a response, she had dragged Jisoo away from Jeonghan and Seungcheol in the middle of the mall. Jisoo had just gone along with her, eyes wide, wrist caught in an iron grip, Jeonghan waving them off with a blissful smile.
She let Seungkwan cart her around to department stores and treat her like a barbie doll for over an hour before Seungcheol came to save her. It became an odd sort of constant in their friendship; Jisoo quietly loved being doted on and guided through things, and Seungkwan loved to tell people what to do, so it was a win-win.
The first time Seungkwan had mentioned her girlfriend, Hansol, Jisoo had frozen.
“You’re… gay?” she said, eyes wide.
Seungkwan paused her rifling through a rack of skirts and looked at Jisoo like she was weird. “You think Jeonghan and I are friends because we have other things in common?”
She laughed, and Jisoo laughed because Seungkwan was laughing, but she was kind of having a crisis. Seungkwan looked… normal. She dressed like every other girl Jisoo knew. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but in the moment it felt that way, and Jisoo didn’t realise she had been staring vacantly until Seungkwan touched her shoulder and asked if she was okay.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” Jisoo made herself smile. “Show me a photo of your girlfriend.”
Seungkwan didn’t have to be asked twice.
They walked beside the road in awkward silence for a second or two before Seungkwan jumped back in with a bright voice. “Don’t worry, unnie,” she said, “we’ll go shopping soon.”
“Sure,” Jisoo said, just to humour her. “How was your weekend?”
“Oh, boring,” Seungkwan said, then proceeded to detail a weekend so full of activity that it made Jisoo exhausted just to consider.
---
Jisoo was the first to arrive at the gallery, as usual.
She left her bag behind the front desk, turned the computer on, and walked through the building to switch on the lights and straighten anything that was left out of place the night before. Her heels echoed on the tiles as she walked around, pausing once or twice before a painting to squint at them and pretend like she understood their exorbitant price tag.
She didn’t get this job because she knew anything about art. She got the job because she was bilingual, sounded incredible over the phone and was organised to the point where she had to put up a chart on the front desk to explain the colour scheme of her notes to anyone who needed to look at the diary.
She had been in the position for a few months now, and it wasn’t the most stimulating job--some days were so quiet that Jisoo watched people through the window and made up stories about them--but she was good at it, and she never really dreaded going to work in the mornings, so that had to count for something.
“That one came in last night.”
Jisoo turned to find herself face to face with the other reason she didn’t mind her job so much.
Minghao was beautiful in the mornings. She was beautiful all the time, but there was something about the way she moved in quiet spaces that suited her. They were often the only ones in the gallery before nine o’clock. If Jisoo purposefully arrived fifteen minutes earlier than she needed to, well. Maybe she was just an overachiever.
Today, Minghao was wearing plaid pants with a brick-coloured blazer draped over her shoulders. Clear-framed glasses sat high on her nose. She never seemed to repeat an outfit; Seungkwan would adore her.
“It’s nice,” Jisoo said, her mind suddenly miles away from the artwork.
Minghao hummed. “It’s a reflection on death. The artist’s statement talks about the warring ideas of peace and fear that lead up to our final moments.” She gestured to the black lines piercing the abstract shapes, “How it’s all a matter of perspective.” She never said these things like she found Jisoo stupid for not knowing what she was talking about, just like she was happy to share it. It made Jisoo warm under the attention.
“That’s interesting,” Jisoo said genuinely. She liked it when people explained things to her, liked to watch their eyes light up when they were talking about something they loved.
Minghao turned to her with a smile.
“Yeah, it is.” Her eyes dipped to Jisoo’s torso for a fraction of a second before coming back to her eyes. “I like your shirt.”
“Oh, this. I wore it last week,” Jisoo said, flustered.
Minghao hummed, “I know.”
Jisoo turned to look at her, pleased, but she was looking at the painting again. Her earrings caught the light like windchimes; Jisoo admired the pointed shape of her ears from where they stuck out from her hair, short at the front and long at the back. What a mosaic of a person. Jisoo could stare at her for hours.
Instead, she said, “You have a phone meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“I do.” Minghao gave the painting another few seconds of her attention, then she started walking to her office. She paused in the doorway, turned with a hand caught on the frame. “Could you forward me the contact information of that woman who came in yesterday? Middle-aged, bossy, wearing too much perfume. Wanted a discount.”
“You just described half our clients,” Jisoo said. Minghao’s smile broadened. “But yes, I know the one. I left it on a note on your desk.”
“Of course you did,” Minghao said, still grinning. Jisoo bowed like she had just performed a magic trick. She was rewarded with laughter. “Thank you.”
“Good luck with your calls!”
Jisoo got back to her desk and put her head in her hands. “Good luck with your calls?” she hissed to herself. “Ugh.” She opened the appointment book with a dull thud and started clicking around to open everything she needed for the day.
The rest of the team began to trickle in over the next half-hour and the phone started ringing with small tasks that added up to a healthy list of things to do. Jisoo settled into her work and tried not to think about the way Minghao always held eye contact when she spoke, or the lingering smell of her perfume when she walked past the front desk to buy herself a drink from the cafe next door.
Having a crush on her coworker was either the best or worst thing that could happen to Jisoo’s productivity, because she was constantly stuck between wanting to do so well that Minghao would notice, and getting distracted every time Minghao took a client in a tour around the gallery space, talking about the art with gesturing hands and a lilting cadence that drifted over to Jisoo like music.
They made eye contact across the room while the client was leaning in to inspect the artwork.
Jisoo smiled first. Minghao looked caught off-guard, but she smiled back. In some wild burst of confidence, Jisoo held her eyes until Minghao was the first one to break. It made Jisoo feel giddy. Ridiculous. She focused on her emails.
