All The Colors Of You || Bang Chan

Chapter Three - Perrie

What in the world did I get myself into?
I should have said no.
But it's not every day that I get an email from Bang Chan of Straykids.

___________________
Dear Perrie Becket,

my name is Christopher Bahng. I am writing on behalf of my band colleagues and myself, as we would like to inquire about your work.
We are looking for a personalized birthday present for one of our managers and have come across your website. We are interested in acquiring a portrait of us, but have yet to decide on a concept or size.
If you're interested in working with us, we would like to meet with you to discuss everything in person.
Hope to hear from you soon.

Best wishes,
Bang Chan
Leader of Straykids, JYP Entertainment
___________________

Of course I immediately ran to the internet, trying to figure out if the email address is his actual email address. But no luck. Which makes sense, a famous person can't have their personal email address floating around the world wide web.
Worth a shot, though.

As I was browsing the internet for everything I could find about Bang Chan, it finally dawned on me.
That guy at the mall two two days ago. He had asked me for the drawing of his friend. I knew I had recognized him from somewhere.
It was Bang Chan.
Those eyes...

So I emailed him back, in hopes I was talking to the actual leader of Straykids, and not some creepy pervert or a scammer.
I invited him and his bandmates to my workshop this afternoon, and he'd promptly sent the confirmation through.

The atelier is a small open space right over a fried chicken place.
The street below is bustling with noise and people daily between the hours of noon and dinner.
The whole place smells like chicken nuggets whenever I open the front windows during the day, but it's bright and warm.
There's a small balcony that goes out towards the back of the building, and when the sun shines, that place is as close to heaven as I'll ever get.

The inside of my workshop is messy.
Three different easels, one dozen tubs and three dozen tubes of paint, half a hundred brushes all across the room. A drying rack by the wall, two big shelves for storage next to the entrance door.
A desk next to the balcony door with a wooden chair right before it. Lights on the ceiling and the floor, a sink in the corner.
A toilet in a small extra room just beside it.

The floor is splattered in tiny specks of paint, as are the walls.
Paintings in all sizes and every stage of completion. My favorite ones - the ones I kept, haven't sold, couldn't get rid off - are piled or stacked up against the wall.
And then there are my sketches.

They are everywhere. Pinned on the wall with thumbtacks, hung from laundry lines all across the room, scattered on the desk and beneath it.
Every sketchbook page a different idea, a different step in a progress, a different approach, a different study.

I feel at home here. Even more so than in my apartment.
This workshop is a manifestation of my mind, of the way I work.
It's messy and chaotic, but it's mine.
Wonderful things happen here, I create masterpieces here.

However, I don't usually invite my clients to meet me here.
Granted, most of my clients don't meet with me at all until the painting is finished. They send me pictures of who they want painted and I do it.
Even an artist with a talent like mine needs to make money somehow.
And if no gallery is going to exhibit my work and if no one wants to buy my original paintings, this will have to do until further notice.

I tried cleaning the room up, but somewhere along the way I simply stopped after realizing that it's no use. I'll just mess it up again when I work on the next painting, so what's the use in cleaning it?
I know where every tube of 'rusted orange' is, and exactly where I've left the half-inch rounded bristle brush with the blue handle. I can tell anyone asking where the tub of turpentine is and just where exactly I put the bottle of linseed oil.

Still, sometimes I wish I had an extra room up here where I could welcome clients and maybe offer a nice refreshment or snack.
That would probably make me seem a lot more professional and established, but what can you do?

I check my phone again. It's almost time.
I push the easels to the wall and place my best and favorite paintings on them.
It does look like I'm trying too hard to convince everyone of my talent, but I also really do need them to hire me.
It could put me on the map, could be the one gig I need to finally break through in the industry.

When I pull a tarp over a stack of five unfinished canvases, the buzzer sounds.
I rush to the door to answer it.
I pull the door open in one big motion and take a deep breath.
"Hi!" My voice is way too loud in that one syllable. I clear my voice before I say, "Welcome! Come in, please."

Four people step through the door.
Bang Chan first, a wide smile on his face and a tint of pink on his cheeks.
After him, Minho follows in a baseball cap, trailing after him Hyunjin and Changbin.
"Thank you so much for meeting with us on such short notice," Chan says. "We really appreciate it."
"Of course," I answer and step further into the room, "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to introduce my work to you."

For a moment, we stand around awkwardly.
I catch Chan's eyes. He's looking at me, like he's expecting me to say something, but I don't quite know what, so we simply look at each other.
His hair is curling at the ends today, and there are a few freckles beside his right eyebrow.
My fingers twitch, itching to grab a pencil and some paper just to get his features down in ink.
Changbin nudges Chan's side.

"Right," Chan clears his throat and looks away from me, "As I said in the email, we're looking for a birthday present for our senior manager."
I nod.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Hyunjin slowly step closer to the canvases I placed on the easels. He's careful not to step on any paint tubes or brushes I have lying around.

"Since it's his fiftieth birthday, we want it to be something very special," Chan continues. "He's sort of like our superior and he's done a lot for us in the past years. We owe a lot of our success to him, so we'd like to show our gratitude. He's made us into superstars, you know?"
"That's very sweet of you," I answer, "I think that's a great idea."

Chan bites his lip and holds my stare, nodding slightly.
The light catches on his lashes and turns them
golden.
There's something spectacular about a beautiful man in light as glorious as this.

"How did you do that?" Hyunjin's curious voice breaks through the silence. He points at one of my paintings.
It's a portrait of a girl. Her body is turned away, but she's facing the audience over her left shoulder. The entire picture is dipped in tones of lilac and rose, as if the light of a setting sun was hitting her straight ahead.
Hyunjin's fingertips gently trace the shadows in her face, the only hue of dusted blue in the whole painting.

"How did you do this texture right here?"
He turns to look at me and I walk over to him.
"Oh that? It's called dry brushing."
I swallow thickly and look around for the brush I used to make the shadows. I find it on the shelves.

"Dry brushing is when you dip the bristles into  paint without wetting the brush first. All you do is grazing the brush, holding it horizontally, and tickle the bottom surface while dragging it in different directions." I hold the brush to demonstrate the technique. "That allows wood to look weathered, and it can also make small leaves, and make water foam look bubbly and add weeds to grass, and all that. It's great for extra texture, it just gives the certain-... pow pow."

I hole up the brush and Hyunjin takes it from me, driving his fingers over the bristles.
I turn to the other boys that have been watching us.
I sigh. Everything feels very stiff right now - mostly because I don't have any place for us to sit.
We're all just standing around like chickens in a coop.
Which gives me an idea...
"How do you guys feel about fried chicken?"