The automatic doors of the Seoul Museum of Modern Art slid open with a soft hiss as a cool breeze washed over the crowd filtering inside. Saturday afternoons were fairly busy, but not overwhelmingly so. Families wandered with children who were holding bubbles in their mouths, couples quietly debated paintings they didn’t understand, and university students pretended they were in deep thought for the Instagram photos.
Among the bustling crowd were Lily Jin Morrow of NMIXX and world-famous author Y/n. They weren’t really trying to hide. There wasn’t much of a point anymore.
Their relationship was public for almost a year now and while cameras and fans found them together from time to time, today neither seemed particularly interested in them.
Lily wore a cream knit sweater tucked into light blue jeans with white sneakers, her blonde hair tied into a loose ponytail that bounced. Beside her, Y/n wore dark slacks, clean white sneakers, a beige overshirt layered over a fitted black T-shirt, and a silver watch that caught the afternoon light whenever he moved.
They looked like a Pinterest couple that somehow always appeared impossibly coordinated. Lily looked over at him and then at her own outfit and then back at him.
“…You planned this didn’t you?'“
“Huh?”
“This. You. Me. You absolutely planned it didn’t you.”
“Nope. Just a coincidence that I picked a beige outfit and you picked a cream outfit.”
“Uh huh?”
“Ok fine I may have looked at your closet.”
“Wait, you looked at my closet? That means you also looked at my underwear! My boyfriend’s a pervert!!”
Y/n immediately took her hand and ran to the nearest exhibit with the least amount of people.
“Babe! You can’t just shout that in front of an entire public crowd.”
She giggled and then instantly remembered she needed to look intimidating. “Hmmm. I dunno. My boyfriend being a pervert seems pretty important to me.”
Y/n sighed with the resignation of someone who’s already been through this. He held her hand and hugged her into his arms. “Lily. Baby. Love of my life. I am not a pervert. I just thought it’d be cute if we matched.”
“Uh huh Mister Boyfriend. Very likely story.” She squinted suspiciously. She stared at him with the suspicious girlfriend glare. The one that burns holes into peoples’ skulls. Y/n just found it cute. Eventually she relented, slipped her hand into his and pulled him towards the first exhibit.
“Fine. Maybe we’re just disgustingly compatible. But-”
“Of course there’s a but.”
“-I still think you cheated.” she said before pulling him towards the first exhibit.
Their first exhibit featured a nineteenth century landscape painting. Lily stared at a massive oil painting depicting mountains during winter. The scene was a contrast to the hot summer outside. Jagged mountains boasted legions of clouds. The snow covered the mountains like a cloak. But there was one thing in the painting most people didn’t notice.
Lily tilted her head. “It’s pretty. It’s like the mountain is a living being. Maybe an evil one but still living nonetheless. Perhaps some…personification?”
Y/n just hummed happily. “Excellent analysis my dear Lily.”
“Oh am I Dr Watson now?”
“Yes.”
“Oh wow Mr Sherlock Holmes. What is your take on this painting?”
“Well…for starters, the description of the painting and something a lot of people miss out on is the red flower on the top of the mountains. It’s hard to observe due to the lighting conditions but if you look hard enough, there’s a bunch of red flowers at the top. They look like flame azalea but the main point is that they’re flowers. Now, I do find your analysis very insightful. Perhaps the painting could be talking about how even the toughest or scariest individuals have something they’re fighting for. There’s also some wolves painted here and the direction of their vision is towards the top. They’re looking at the flowers. Perhaps this could be a personified example of people willing to go to great lengths to defend what they love. Be as immovable as a mountain. The wolves could personify the obstacles in life and how they try to hurt your progress or loved ones, personified by the flame azalea. But that’s just my take on it.”
Lily blinked. “You had that entire yap yes because of one bunch of flowers?”
“Well…it’s just my take on it.”
“What if that bunch is actually paint the painter spilled and now you’re analyzing a mistake.”
“Well it is what it is.” he said as he shrugged. “If that’s the case then I guess my analysis is wrong.”
“I guess even Mr Sherlock Holmes is wrong sometimes huh?” she said as she nudged him.
“Yup.” he answered back.
They moved onto a different painting. This time, it was a small pond with a bridge and underneath was a koi pond.
“So” she said as she turned toward Y/n. “What does our great author think about this? Does he have another in depth analysis?”
Y/n carefully observed the painting. Taking in the colors, the technique, and the description. He thought for about five minutes until he said-
“I think it’s a nice landscape painting.”
Lily’s jaw was on the ground. “WHAT? You prepped an entire analysis from one flower from the last one but you look at this and just say it’s a nice landscape painting?”
“Well…sometimes, it’s better to take things face-value than thinking too deeply.”
“I thought art museums were where smart people came to pretend they understood symbolism.”
“Not necessarily, but some people think so I guess. But I liked to think of museums as a place where everyone comes to look at things and decide whether they like them.”
“…Sure. But can you still give me some analysis?”
“Of course. Now this painting showcases a simple landscape of a bridge over a koi pond. Now, I don’t know exactly if there’s any meaning in here, but we can learned about artist perhaps. The koi fish could be their attachment to fish. But this seems like a painting of European origin so I assume they got it from Asia. Perhaps they were of status. After all, a lot of painters were either rich or supported very well by the wealthy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the artist was rich as some also struggled financially. Perhaps they were a painter hired by a family to paint their estate.”
“So…what you’re saying is…that you don’t know.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you supposed to know?”
“Art is a subjective art my dear Lily Jin Morrow.”
“Good to know Mr Y/n Holmes.”
“Now let’s go to another exhibit shall we?”
About thirty minutes later, they meandered through another exhibit. This one had lots of sculptures. Some of them were designed as humans and some were just objects. Lily looked at Y/n observing a sculpture of a pair of hands holding up a model of the earth.
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