All The Colors Of You || Bang Chan

Chapter Four - Perrie

Thirteen minutes later, I sit on the floor with Chan, Minho, Changbin, and Hyunjin next to me.
In our middle, six plastic containers of fried chicken and five cans of Coke Zero.

I have a pen and notepad in my lap.

"Okay, so what exactly were you thinking?"

I look at Chan, who shrugs and looks at his friends. Changbin takes a piece of chicken and says, before taking a big bite, "What if we put him on a big throne? And then all of us kneel in front of him."

"Kneeling? I don't know. Doesn't that seem a bit pretentious?" Minho sips his coke. I weigh my head from side to side.

"Perhaps, but I like the royalty concept. Maybe instead of kneeling to him, we can have you stand around him, or beside him." I start taking notes. "What size were you thinking? When do you need it ready?"

"We need it by the end of October," Chan says, "And I think life-sized would be really cool."

"Life-sized?" I blink. "I'm sorry, that's impossible. Any artist will tell you that. You are eight people, plus your manager, that's nine people in one frame. I don't even know where I'd get a canvas big enough to fit all of you in one picture. Plus, two months is really not enough time for a project of that size."

Chan sighs and pouts. "Okay, what size could you manage in that time?"

I take a sip from my drink and put a piece of chicken between my teeth. I chew for a moment and think.

"I could probably do two meters by one and a half," I say then, "But even that is going to be pricey. I'll need to get a few more paints, and some more primer and turpentine and linseed oil."

"That's fine." Changbin nods and takes a piece from Hyunjin's chicken container with his chopsticks. "So, how is this going to go? Like what do you do?"

"Usually I get pictures of whoever I'm supposed to paint, and I just paint off of that," I vaguely point towards my finished paintings. "But if you're open to it and you want to, I'd rather paint off of you in real life. I'll definitely take some individual pictures of each of you for the composition and the lighting, but I work better when I paint off of a live model. Are you free, do you have the capacity? Being a model could mean spending around four hours in one position."

"Yeah, we can make time for that," Changbin looks at his friends who nod in agreement, "Our schedule is pretty light this summer anyways."

"Great! I'll draw up some concept sketches tonight and send them to you by tomorrow morning. If you're happy with them, we can set up a few dates and then we'll get to work."

Minho nods towards the canvases leaning against my wall. He says, "How long have you been painting?"

"All my life, basically," I answer, "But I've only been doing it professionally for three or four years. I sold my first painting at nineteen and that kind of gave me a direction."

"You have a really interesting accent," Changbin mumbles behind his right hand that he holds to cover his full mouth, "Are you not from here?"

"Oh," I can feel myself blush and chuckle slightly embarrassed, "No, I moved here three years ago. I'm from Oregon, originally."

"You moved here all by yourself?" Hyunjin scrunches his eyebrows together and scrunches his nose.

"Yeah," I glance away, "It wasn't my original plan to come to Seoul, but now that I'm here, I'm really glad I chose this. It's such a beautiful city and I met a lot of great people here."

"Don't you miss your parents?" Hyunjin asks, earning him a slap on the back of his head from Minho.

"Sorry," Chan says with a slight smile, "We're away from our parents so much, we barely get to see them. We miss them all the time."