All The Colors Of You || Bang Chan

Chapter Two - Chan

"Did it work?" Changbin asks the second I stand across from him. "Did you ask her?"

He looks around my shoulder but I nudge him.

"Would you stop that? You're making it way too obvious," I hiss and he chuckles. "Yes, I talked to her. She gave me her Instagram handle, look."

I hold up the sketch and turn it over. Even her handwriting is nice.

"Yo, my man, good job!" Changbin laughs and smacks my shoulder as we turn to leave the mall. "So, what now?"

I shrug helplessly. I didn't think I'd get this far, hadn't expected myself to actually work up the bravery to talk to her.

Changbin and I had originally gone to this mall to look for clothes, but I got tired of it rather quickly. I was waiting outside a store when I saw her.

A girl, maybe my age, with gorgeous strawberry blonde hair that fell down her back and around her shoulders. You don't see that hair color around here all that often. It stands out. She was sitting with her legs crossed on a bench across the mall square, sipping on a boba tea. I watched her as she pulled out a sketchbook and a small bag for her pens and pencils.

She has a pretty face. Soft cheeks and bright eyes. Sometimes she would stick out the tip of her tongue a little bit and scrunch her eyebrows together, as if she had to concentrate very hard. I watched her for the better part of fifteen minutes and didn't even notice when Changbin came out of the store again.

He told me to go and talk to her. I told him, I could never do that. Our managers are here, and what would I even say to her? What if she recognizes me? What if she thinks I'm a total creep?

So Changbin came up with the plan: he'd create a diversion and I could sneak away. Then he'd pretend to look for me with the managers while I went and talked to that girl.

That she was sketching Changbin was just a lucky coincidence, and the perfect start to a conversation.

And now I have the sketch and her Instagram. And her name. Perrie Becket.

Perrie. What an interesting name.

Judging by that and her soft accent when she speaks, I think she didn't grow up here.

So what brought her here?

Changbin and I don't talk about her in the car and during the entire ride home. We're not forbidden from dating, but it's difficult. We are busy, we are famous. There's a lot getting in the way of a relationship...

When we finally get into the dorm we share with Jisung and Hyunjin, the silence breaks.

"Guys, you'll never believe what Channie did today!"

"Everyone is here!" Jisung yells back from somewhere in the dorm. "Did you bring snacks back for us?"

Changbin and I follow his voice to the living room. In here, we're greeted not only by Jisung and Hyunjin, but Felix, Minho, Seungmin, and Jeongin. The six of them are scattered throughout the room, piled on top of each other like puppies.

"How was the mall?" Felix looks up from the Switch in his hands. "Did you find what you wanted?"

"Oh, you will never believe what happened," Changbin falls down onto the couch and stretches both his arms over his head. "Channie-hyung talked to a girl today."

"No way!" Jisung sits up and his eyes widen. I roll my eyes.

"Come on, as if I never talk to girls," I put my stuff down by my room door and take out my phone. "I talk to the girls at the company all the time, I talk to my sister, and to our friends."

"That's so not the same, bro." Felix grins and pulls his legs up to his chest. Changbin tells them what happened at the mall, but I'm not really listening.

I open her Instagram account. It's a professional account. Most pictures are photographies of her work. She seems to be doing mostly portraits and abstracts in vibrant colors. She's showing her canvases and her studio. There are pictures of her covered in paint splatters, brushes and paint tubes, graphite sketches.

There are about two handful of pictures of her, standing next to canvases the size of a fully grown man, showing oil portraits of people I don't know or recognize. Judging by the caption, she sold those, which is impressive.

She's talented. Very skilled. I don't know much about painting, but I know talent when I see it. And Perrie has a very good eye for color schemes, composition, shadow and light. There are so many details in her paintings, so many layers to the pictures.

And though I like her work, I find myself paying more attention to the artist. How can someone be both, the art and the artist?

"Channie, have you been listening?"

I look up and blink. "Huh?"

Minho picks up a couch pillow and throws it at my head, Jeongin snickers. Minho says, "I was asking about the present for manager Nam-gil. Have you guys thought of something?"

"His birthday is in, like, two months," Hyunjin answers and waves his hands around, "Why are you stressing?"

"Because you guys always procrastinate and I don't want us to end up with nothing!"

Felix groans and pouts. "I have no idea what to get him. It has to be special, but what do you gift someone who already has everything?"

My eyes drift to my phone and then to the paper sitting on the tea table, the strong lines drastic against the white paper.

And then it dawns on me: the solution to our problem and a way to get in contact with Perrie.

So I say, "I think I have an idea."