They were not so grudgy now between each other, though that didn’t mean they still tolerated each other’s presence. Chanyeol kept to his side of their dormitory room, and Baekhyun kept to his. Simple as.

It wasn’t exactly surprising. People who got to the college via scholarship usually had some sort of problem with the rich kids who actually paid the tuition, and vice versa. It was a matter of classism. The scholar kids think the others are nancy swots, and they think the scholar kids are uneducated rats the government waste money on. It was fair enough—the rich kids were usually rude, while the scholar kids thrashed the building.

Though it was one of the quiet free days in their schedules. Chanyeol was hunched on his desk, reviewing his written essay that was due in the next week, and Baekhyun was sitting down on his bed—Chanyeol’s unsure what he was doing, but Baekhyun had a pencil and a sketchbook in his hand.

The only sound that filled the room was the rain outside and the scratching of Baekhyun’s pencil on his book. Chanyeol wasn’t entirely sure why his roommate always drew on his bed when he had a desk of his own—and a large one too, since Baekhyun needed all necessary space as an art student (apparently). He always drew sitting down on his bed; portraits, sketches, paintings, sculptures, all sorts of fine art. As the consequence of that, when Chanyeol did his turn of the laundry, he would encounter charcoal smudges and dried spilled acrylic on the sheets (and it was a draining task to clean off, but Chanyeol soon stopped bothering because Baekhyun didn’t seem to mind to sleep in them).

Chanyeol sighed and stood up, scratching the back of his nape. He catches Baekhyun staring at him—Chanyeol didn’t know if it was a condition, but Baekhyun had the sort of eyes that squinted and glared whenever he looked at something. Taken slightly aback, Chanyeol puts his hands up defensively.

“What? I haven’t done anything,” Chanyeol defends himself. Baekhyun pointed at Chanyeol’s chair with his pencil.

“Sit down.”

“’s sake—“

“Just sit down,” Baekhyun growls. Chanyeol pressed his lips thin and sat back down, frowning, wondering what on earth their tension would be about now.

“Now, look at your essay. Read it again,” Baekhyun instructs him. Chanyeol was too confused to argue against him, so he did as he was told, looking at his own curled handwriting, wondering what on earth Baekhyun was doing. Then, with some sort of satisfaction, the sound of pencil scratching paper begins again.

Baekhyun was drawing him!

Chanyeol’s frown deepens, but Baekhyun’s grumble makes him reduce his frown so that his face was back to neutral. He looks at his essay, staying in the same pose he had before he stood up, and Baekhyun seemed to say no further complaint as Chanyeol sat still. When Baekhyun looked away to sketch on his paper, Chanyeol took his chance to look at his roommate.

He hadn’t noticed it—Chanyeol usually doesn’t pore over to look at him—but Baekhyun had re-dyed his hair and it was now a shade of soft baby blue. The dye must’ve clashed a little with the previous pink since Chanyeol could see a few strands of lilac here and there. The strands fell about his face when his head nods down, shaking a little from the slightest of movements. He had a slightly loose jumper on him, and mismatched socks—typical lower-class kid clothing, Chanyeol thought, but now that he took his time to look, Chanyeol spotted something endearing about him that he had not found during their first encounter.

“You’re supposed to look at your desk,” Baekhyun mumbles, looking up. Chanyeol spots a golden hoop pierced at the left of his bottom lip and he looks back at his essay once more, his eyes darting to Baekhyun’s figure from time to time, catching glimpses of things he hasn’t previously noted before—like the mole on his top lip, or the small bracelet on his wrist, or the slight bit of make-up around his eyes; so subtle that you really had to look to spot it.

Chanyeol sighed, but he didn’t really know why he was sighing.

“Can I move now? I need to piss,” Chanyeol voices his complaint. Baekhyun flicked hishair away and mumbled a “whatever”. Chanyeol huffed before he crosses over to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

So was that Baekhyun’s attempt to ease their relationship a little, or what? Chanyeol, despite being one of the smartest people in campus, couldn’t figure it out himself.

__

 Junmyeon is Chanyeol’s distant cousin, though he bore a different crest from Chanyeol’s family uniform. He was a serious man—almost a little too serious, with his side parting so neat you wouldn’t see a strand out of place even if he ran around the place. Most people in campus usually wore jumpers with their family colours and crest, but Junmyeon usually attends his class fully suited-up in his blue uniform, complete with polished shoes and his ring of heirloom. Chanyeol usually sighed a lot whenever his cousin was around, because the latter was so suffocating and stuffy to be with.

“I heard that the campus will be holding an exhibition, exclusively via invites,” Junmyeon said at lunch, primly picking up a lettuce from his salad, “I thought you’d like to come along.”

“Art is nonsensical. Wishy-washy. Always contemporary and moves with time,” Chanyeol snorted and shook his head, “Money and business, however, has stayed the same, and that’s why capitalism resists and art is dying.”

“Don’t be so stuck-up, you’ve barely learnt the trades of your father’s corporations,” Junmyeon quirked his lips to the side, “And besides, I’ve already informed your father that you’ll be attending. I went out of my way to place your name down as a guest—it’s common courtesy to simply be present for gratitude’s sake.”

“Nobody asked you,” Chanyeol groaned, but he found himself donning his full uniform: a suit of mahogany, his hair gelled to the side, everything neat and in place.

“You having a dinner party or something?” a curt voice said behind him. Chanyeol looks at his roommate, the smaller male practically covered in denim, “ YOU” written in white acrylic all over his jacket—truly an art student. Chanyeol hid his disgust and looks away, tightening his tie around his collar.

“And you?” Chanyeol shot back.

“Maybe, maybe not. The nancy bastards will love my outfit,” Baekhyun says offhandedly—that was his usual tone. Offhand and airy, like it was such a chore to speak. Chanyeol was already staring at his outfit incredulously—all-so offensive and attracting attention, but he guessed that’s what the working class did. Follow the trend, do what catches the eye.

Baekhyun doesn’t specifically answer where he was going, but he left before Chanyeol did, closing the dorm door behind him with his lilac hair flying behind him. Chanyeol muttered about how his roommate should shut the door a little more gently before he sighed, fixing a few adjustments to his shirt before he went outside the student complexes into the campus buildings.

Chanyeol never really bothered to take a trip to the gallery—it was far away from his own department building, and Chanyeol thought art was just too unskilled and unpracticed. It was a few meaningless drawings here, a bit of paint there and somehow people find some depthful meaning in it while Chanyeol could only see bland colours against cotton canvas.

Junmyeon met him at the entrance, going through a few scans before they actually got into the building. Granted, if Chanyeol’s opinions weren’t counted, the art displayed were mostly from campus students who were already big hits with selling their art, with a few site-external artists that collaborated alongside the campus. Junmyeon has a complex appreciation towards art, whilst Chanyeol just thought it was dumb and boring—plus, it was where the scholarship kids all pooled in.

“I’m looking to purchase a few things to my collection. Hopefully, I’ll also find someone to commission for a few portraits—I’m growing old with the one in the living room, it was of me when I was twelve,” Junmyeon tragically shook his head at his last statement. Chanyeol simply rolled his eyes and, when he got the chance, steered away from Junmyeon, because he knew that the latter would probably stop at each and every single piece and emotionally analyze it as if it was worth the world.

Chanyeol doesn’t want to seem impolite, but he does make an effort to try to look at some. He dragged himself around with a glass of wine (offered by the nearby waiter). The pieces were meaningless in his opinion—too bland, too bright, too messy, too-whatever word he came up with. He spots a few of his colleagues and made small talk, but the subject was about how this-this was that-that and it’s all very beautiful and grand, so Chanyeol promptly excuses himself to get out of the conversation.

He passes by Junmyeon half an hour later, the latter bumbling about all the pieces he saw. Chanyeol was about to walk away, but Junmyeon grabs him by the elbow and tutted.

“I’ve met your colleague. I didn’t know you had such a lovely friend, he’s very talented,” Junmyeon smiles. Chanyeol thought for a second, before the image of Baekhyun comes to his head and he scoffed.

“Right.”

“Have you seen his display? He has a whole wall dedicated to his exhibition. I think you’ll like it,” Junmyeon said, before patting Chanyeol and going off somewhere else.

Chanyeol did not care about his roommate, but he sparked a slight interest in his art, since he never saw any of his pieces. Chanyeol grumbled and proceeds to walk around, trying to spot this exhibition. Chanyeol spots a crowd of spectators nearby and tries to walk through it, dodging people a little.

When he came to the front, he spots a piece of sketch displayed on the wall, quick dashes of lines and curves to form details and shapes—before Chanyeol realised that the drawing was of himself: sitting on a desk, poring over a paper.

But that wasn’t it. In fact, the whole wall was simply full of Chanyeol. Portraits of him looking straight, sketches of his face in different lights and angles, acrylic paintings of him in uniform, oil paintings of him bare-chested with only a towel around his neck, drawings of him playing chess, crayoned scribbles of his hairstyles, pastel chalks, colour studies, mosaic arrangements…

Chanyeol opened his mouth, shutting it again for it to fall back open. He has never before felt both so bewildered, confused, angered and in awe at the same time, and he stands rooted to the spot to process it through his brain. Then, spotting blue-and-lilac hair in his peripheral vision, he turns to the side to see Baekhyun standing next to him, his arms crossed, looking at the exhibition.

He’d shed his jacket (probably because it was too offensive), leaving him in a black tank top that hung on his frame. It was loosely tucked it into his skinny jeans and Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol, scraping his lip piercing with his top teeth, his eyes sparkling with something Chanyeol couldn’t read.

“Do you like it?” Baekhyun says softly, looping his right thumb onto his jean pockets, “It’s called ‘The Study of Park Chanyeol’. It’s going to get me my Master’s degree.”

Baekhyun had a wine glass on the other hand, swirling the olive inside the wine around the glass. Chanyeol was still dumbstruck, unable to form any sort of word in his mouth.

“I don’t know why you posh people think it’s acceptable to put disgusting edibles in a drink. They’re abominable and I hate them,” Baekhyun sighed, feigning ignorance of Chanyeol’s inability to speak. Baekhyun took the olive with his dainty fingers and popped it in his mouth, chewing it for a little while, before he disappointedly shook his head and spat it back to the drink with no consideration to manners whatsoever.

“Anyways, this whole exhibition is dumb, don’t you think? Some of the drawings are naff. It’s so cumbersome to explain my art to rich people, what’s so difficult about seeing it for yourself?” Baekhyun murmurs, shaking his head, before he punches Chanyeol’s shoulder.

“I’m going home, I’ve had enough of nancies gathered together in one ro