Jongdae met Yixing on his fourth day of classes, an hour into ART 126, when he was trying desperately to find green paint so that he could finish his goddamn tree and leave. It wasn’t like the grad student overseeing their studio time hadn’t pulled out every other color of paint under the sun anyway so Jongdae couldn’t understand why there wasn’t green.

Until he saw the empty green bottle. Then he knew. And promptly swore, garnering the attention of the other Asian in his class, a guy with dimples and messy hair who looked like he had just rolled out of bed (never mind that ART 126 was at two in the afternoon) and stumbled into class in the jeans he had forgotten to change out of the night before.

“Is something wrong?”

Jongdae grimaced, eyes landing on the dark green paint on the guy’s pallete as bitterness began to claw its way through his chest. Seriously, he just needed a passing grade to satisfy his general ed. Why did he have to deal with this? And to add insult to injury, not only did Dimple take the rest of the green paint but his painting was clearly better. When the grad student Kris had told them they needed to paint something peaceful (just as an easy starter and to get a handle on the different levels of the class, seeing as it was an intro to painting class so there wasn’t much to be expected) Jongdae had painted nature, because what was more peaceful than nature? But not Dimple. Oh no, not Dimple. Where everyone else was painting trees, Dimple had gone in a complete opposite direction, instead painting the colorful cacophony of what appeared to be the downtown of a Chinese metropolis. The figures in his painting blurred just slightly, as if they had been caught in motion, with the exception of two: an old man sitting in a wheelchair with a young woman on a bench next to him. Those two were completely still, an unnervingly realistic expression of love and quiet across their faces, as if they inhabited their own world despite the bustle around them. It made Jongdae’s own painting of a big tree by a river look shoddy. And it frustrated Jongdae even more.

“There’s no green paint.”

Dimple stared back at Jongdae with an expression of subtle amusement in his eyes. “So?”

Jongdae pouted a little before making his face angry again, reminding himself that he was talking to the that had used up the last of the paint in the first place. “I need some so I can finish my tree and there isn’t any left.” He sent a meaningful look towards Dimple’s pallete.

Then Dimple really laughed.

“Do you—” he stopped talking to gasp a little, trying to swallow his mirth, “Do you really think I used the rest of it?”

Jongdae nodded. It seemed like a reasonable assumption to him, given that there was green paint on Dimple’s pallete and the empty bottle sat in the trash can closest to him.

“Oh gosh,” Dimple laughed a bit more before clearing his throat, sitting up a little straighter as he informed Jongdae, “The green ran out before I got to it. I had to make my own.” He sniffed a bit, his tone adopting a slightly snobbish lilt. “That’s why my green actually looks nice, instead of those god-awful generic kindergarten colors they give us.”

Jongdae raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, before realizing what Dimple had actually said.

“Wait a minute,” Jongdae began, “you made your green?”

Dimple nodded, not sure what Jongdae was getting at. It was, quite frankly a fairly simple process.

“How?” Jongdae whined. Seriously, he just wanted some green paint. Was that too much to ask? Jongdae was only minutes away from rage quitting for the day when Dimples cracked another grin, patting the stool beside him in a motion for Jongdae to sit.

“It’s simple,” Dimple began, drawing out a diagram on a blank page in his sketchbook. “There are three primary colors, yellow, red and blue. If you have those three colors, you can make almost any other color. For example, blue and red make purple. Red and yellow make orange. And yellow and blue make green. Purple, orange and green are the secondary colors.” He shot a glance at J