Minho felt more than heard the insult being spoken across the room, even above the muted yellowish-green noise of the party. His immediate thought was Jonghyun and in an instant he was off the lonely couch and pushing through the bodies, searching for his roommate. Jonghyun’s height was enough to keep him from being seen easily, though the composer wasn’t exactly known for disappearing in a crowd. Minho felt panic grip his lungs as he heard the gay slur being flung spitefully again. He strained on his toes to see where the word came from, but the voice disappeared even as the party began its slow descent into abandonment.

He caught sight of brunet hair and dashed after it, pulling his older friend to a stop. “Jinki-hyung, where’s Jonghyun?” His hyung blinked slowly and then said, “Ah, he left a while ago with Kibum.” Just like him to leave his own party and make me clean up, Minho thought bitterly as he mumbled his thanks and wandered back to the couch. Despite his chagrin at being left to pick up the pieces of others’ fun, relief loosened the tightness around his lungs and uncoiled some of the anxiety from his stomach. It had been a few years since the incident at high school, which Jonghyun merely shook off as the ignorance of his classmates, but Minho couldn’t help but be alerted when he heard negative connotations toward gay people.

The party dwindled over the next half hour. Minho stubbornly remained on the couch, watching people leave in buzzed groups of two or three. Jinki was the last to go, and while he kindly offered to help with the cleaning, Minho told him it was fine, that he should go get some sleep and that he’d see him in the morning. He saw Jinki out, yawning when he did, and immediately went back to that comfortable couch.

Red cups littered the apartment, confetti covered the floor of the kitchen, and Minho was almost entirely sure that the foot-long stain in the carpet hadn’t been there the previous day. He sat, and stared at the mess. He wanted to paint the picture before him – the chaos and the puke-green feeling of the room – but his body and mind were exhausted. He eventually lay down on the couch, and stared some more, until his eyes closed of their own accord and he slept.

The room had lightened to a lemon-yellow in the morning, with only faint traces of the disgusting green it had been coated in. Minho cracked open his eyes and sat up on the couch, stretching his lethargic limbs. His desire to paint the scene hadn’t left with the colors of the night before. He dragged his body to his bedroom – which he had locked before the party due to foresight he’d had as soon as Jonghyun had casually mentioned the event – and picked out his well-used watercolor supplies. On his way back to the living room, he filled two cups of water and drank one of them immediately, before he had the chance to mix the two cups up.

His first thought was what should be the main focus and his second was the couch. The entire night spent on it had formed a sort of emotional bond between him and the dingy piece of furniture, and its pathetic appearance would translate well onto paper. He pulled a cushion out of the kitchen and after inspecting it thoroughly, sat down opposite the couch with his paper balanced on his lap and paints spread before him. He had just dipped a wet brush in his lightest shade of blue when he heard something move behind the couch.

The brush froze. Minho remembered after a moment to breathe and blink, but both actions were forced and the dry swallow he pushed down his throat hurt. “Hello?” he choked out. Why was he scared? He was the tallest out of his friends, he worked out every day, he could hold his own in a fight. There was no reason for him to be afraid. Maybe it was the idea that someone had been right behind him as he slept.

His hand clenched around the paintbrush, as though that could offer any protection. He got to his feet slowly, quietly, and placed his hands on the couch, moving is carefully, easily. A wooden leg scraped harshly across the floor but caused no reaction other than the pause Minho gave briefly before pulling it out further and raising a cautious fist.

He stopped, however, his hand dropping at the complete lack of anything threatening. A person – a girl? A boy? Yes, a boy, now that Minho looked closely enough – was curled up tightly in the space between the couch and the wall, one hand clutching his black tee and the other entangled in his long, dyed-brown hair. His long lashes rested on his cheeks and his plump lips parted in slumber. He looked too young to have been at the alcohol-infused party the previous night. Maybe he was a freshman. Minho reached down to shake him awake but gave pause as the saturated colors that washed over the boy finally soaked into his eyes.

Everything was blue and purple and red and pink, made richer by the black of his shirt and the bland white of the wall and carpet. A Van Gogh on a layer of snow. Minho backed away, eyes wide, and sat again, this time in a position to see the sleeping boy and capture him with watercolors and paper. Red first, then black, and pink, brown, blue, purple – the colors melted together and bent willingly under Minho’s soft touch. His hands became stained with the pigments of oblivious sleep and sudden inspiration.

The boy didn’t wake; he only relaxed his grip on his shirt and hair, inhaling deeply and sighing. He frowned in his sleep, and Minho wanted to smooth out the wrinkles in his forehead and make his resting face a peaceful one. As if Minho had verbally asked him to do so and the boy had heard him, his forehead eased.

Their respective breathing, the sounds of the water being dipped into, and the blissful unawareness of their surroundings created a peaceful atmosphere. Minho forgot the aches in his muscles from sleeping on the couch, the fatigue from a restless sleep, the chaos of the apartment. In this moment, there was only the boy and his colors.

He was trying to portray the closed eyes when they blinked open, languidly and calmly. The brush hovered over the dusty rose paint as the boy stared at the ceiling. His eyes caught the light filtering through the blinds and shone as a golden-brown. Minho almost regretted painting him asleep when there had been a chance to depict those sweet, beautiful eyes.

The boy glanced around, unmoving, for a few moments until he seemed to gather where he was. He scrambled to his feet, shifting out the light. His colors dulled to mimic his fear. Minho stood slowly, laying his brush and the painting down. The boy bowed low. Whispered apologies poured out of his mouth.

“It’s all right,” Minho reassured him awkwardly. “I understand. The party last night was confusing.”

Bowing deeply again, the boy said softly, “I’m sorry, I’ll go now.” He straightened and touched the lavender and indigo littered on his skin, flinching. He turned and looked ready to run to the door.

“What’s your name?” Minho asked.

A pause, a sigh, and a hesitant, “Taemin,” and the boy threw the door open and sprinted out into the rain. Minho dashed to the doorway and watched the boy’s colors leech out and be replaced by muted blue-black and iron-gray.

He waited until the boy’s silhouette had vanished and then closed the door, turning back to face the room. It was the same as it had been before he discovered the boy behind the couch, filthy and tiring to look at, but the need to paint it had disappeared. He had found something better to paint – someone more picturesque.

He knelt on the carpet and retrieved his paintbrush, swirling just the tip of it in the black paint, and carefully wrote on the right upper corner in tiny letters, Taemin.