"Why didn't you come get me when the mail came?" Kyungsoo came flying around the corner and the poor manager had nowhere to go. It wasn't her fault; Kyungsoo ususally only got fan mail that could be read whenever and replied to if he had time, on the plane or in the car. The whole room was staring at him, open mouthed—no one had ever seen him really mad before. 

Kyungsoo stopped and took a deep breath, clutching the letter in his hand, loathe to turn it over now. "Well, whatever, I got it, and I need you to send this out immediatley. Who's handling my scedule?" he whirled, looking for the mousey thirty-something who usually followed him with his tablet open in his hands for anyone to steal and grab.

He finally found the man already waiting in the car. He was sure that, by now, he'd managed to frustrate just about everyone trying to manage him. To some extent, he understood; he was usually a perfect show pony and everyone got a gracious smile, whether they deserved it or not. But Kyungsoo was trying to hold onto this one thing in his mind and not forget.

He shouldn't have worried; there was no way that date was going to unstick anyway. 

He had to move a show and take two extra flights to make it, but Kyungsoo made it up by having a fansign for everyone after the show where one hadn't been planned before. He felt Soojung eyeing him suspiciously as he made the plans. She knew what it looked like when he was overextending himself and she clearly disapproved.

But Kai was having another exhibition, and this time he'd been specifically invited, not just as a plus one. He could probably take a plus one if he wanted to—not that he had anyone to take.

It wasn't where it had been before, and Baekhyun refused to come with him, saying he had an important recording date with Taemin, which Kyungsoo could respect but not approve of. 

It was bigger, and people noticed him, but he noticed them less; he noticed everything less; and less and less as he made his way closer to it. The rustle of chatter, skinny wives with skinny champagne flutes, young men with fortunes to blow and scandals in their pockets, old women of another generation with their fortunes already made, wondering what to do with their retirement—all of them congregated and more: a whole audience Kyungsoo had never even gotten close to, except perhaps the young men for a private concert or two. More accurately, he'd sung for their sisters, the heiresses, faces caked in make up and hair more fake than real.

So he wasn't too bothered as he made his way around the room, unsurpised that most of the pieces were the same; after all, it had only been a week. He stayed away from the neon and yellow this time. 

People clearly had the same taste he did and were crowded in front of—Kyungsoo couldn't remember the name Kai had given the painting—he just thought of it as You're My Best Friend. He was forced to look longer at the other pieces, and then he came to the one that was different.

Some self-centered part of him—perhaps that pampered part that emerges in everyone who's known by more than a million people—thought that maybe the whole thing was being thrown for him, so he'd come and see this painting.

He'd sung plenty that Friday night, for about an hour there in the middle, while Kai closed his eyes and looked like he was sleeping, his still face carved in relaxation. This one had been the very last. Just like the last painting, the song popped right into his head.

He wondered why Kai associated paintings with songs, and why he did, too.

That was unusual—even if a song sounded one way to one person, it was sure to sound slightly different to someone else.

It's not like they shared souls or anything.

He placed a call to his dad, who still handled his finances—not because Kyungsoo couldn't, but because it was the only way he felt helpful, and he knew Kyungsoo would send him all the money he made anyways. His dad was more excited than Kyungsoo had expected him to be when he was asking for very large sums of money, but he supposed his father thought it mean something interesting was happening in his life. Also ironic, because as the father of a singer, he should probably be worried about that very thing happening.

Again, Kyungsoo marvelled at how different this crowd was from the first exhibition, how different, how less warm. Perhaps he hadn't given Chanyeol and Baekhyun enough credit where credit was due for making that one exhibition inviting for Kai. 

The host, a sleazy-looking skinny guy with hair so slicked back it may as well have been cemented to his head, almost choked on his watered-down champagne when Kyungsoo walked up to him and point-blank asked to buy the painting. But, when presented with a check and Kyungsoo's perfect credit rating, there was little he could do but sputter and place the little card next to the painting that said sold—now that Kyungsoo was a proud owner, he noticed the little signs littered the room and few paintings remained unsold.

He wavered between staying and going with his painting, but some freak kind of excitement inside him compelled him to stay. It wasn't the feeling he got when he went on stage, and that was the best feeling he could think of off the top of his head.

His phone buzzed and Kyungsoo took it out automatically with a twitch. His manager had sceduled a private concert that evening and there was a car waiting outside for Kyungsoo 'whenever he was ready'. 

Overcome with a childish obstinance, Kyungsoo huffed and pouted, looking around for the host, who had wandered away while Kyungsoo stood in front of a painting that looked vaguely like a piano. He finally found him talking to some pretty young thing who looked positively terrified, and after Kyungsoo had snatched the host away, she followed his movements as if she'd just met her knight in shining armor. 

"Do you know an address for Kai? Or some way to contact him, or—or his people? Of course, you wouldn't know how to contact him, sorry."

"Why? Is there a problem with the painting?" The host looked worried.

"No!" Kyungsoo's voice was a little too loud, and there was a brief sussurrus as the room quieted in curiosity before returning to its previous hum. "No, I—it's a buisness thing."

The host looked like he wanted to ask something else but visibly restrained himself, his bulbus adams apple bobbing up and down one, then again. "I can put you in contact with Zhang Yixing, if you really want. But he's a very important person, you understand. He's the only person who publically knows Kai and his identity. This can't be some little wish to say thank you or something."

"What's your name?" Kyungsoo asked, looking the mousey man up and down one more time.

"Kim Hanjin, sir."

"Kim Hanjin. Well, I'll make sure to mention you for how helpful you were. What did you say Mr. Zhang's number was again?"

The host was clearly unsettled, blinking a few times before reaching into his coat and pulling out a light yellow buisness card. It didn't have a phone number on it, just an address. "I am only given one of these per exhibition, you understand," The host said, his voice now quiet and cautious. "But you're a famous singer, and you've been in the buisness awhile, and you're a buyer on top of that." He seemed to be trying to convince himself that giving the card to Kyungsoo was okay. When Kyungsoo took it, the man held onto it for a few tense seconds before finally letting go and then watching, doumbfounded, as Kyungsoo made an immediate exit.

"Oh my dear lord in heaven jesus ing christ our savior holy mothering—" Kai turned around to stare at Yixing standing in the entranceway. 

"I don't think I've ever heard you swear so much in the whole time I've known you," he muttered to Yixing's wide-eyed stare, and turned back to the television.

It took Yixing a few more moments to gather himself and make his way cautiously over to the couch, approaching Kai like a shy deer. "And I know I've never seen you turn on that television on in your life. Kai, look at me."

Kai slid his eyes towards Yixing for a moment, but it did little since the yellow vaper of his speech was already obstructing his view of the TV. He sighed and paused the movie. 

"Kai, I've heard—you railed against me installing a TV in the first place! Trust me, I've—I've regretted it..." His voice escaped into the air with little puffs of yellow indignation. Then he saw what Kai was watching and fell back onto the couch, his thinking face on. "Isn't Kyungsoo the singer you met at that exhibition you went to? Baekhyun told me you dissappeared for most of the time."

"Yeah, there was this full-length concert online, I figured I'd watch it." Kai shrugged. By this time, the air was totally absent of that diluted purple that had been coming from the speakers and he was mourning it a little bit.

"Wow, Sehun has some serious competition. Or whatever. He bought that painting you just did, you know." Kai's eyes snapped up to Yixing and Yixing laughed nervously, put off by the intensity of Kai's gaze. "That wasn't all. He got my card. I know I'm not a very scary person, but I pay those hosts hansomely not to give those cards out to just anyone, because they have the address of our building on them." Yixing lived in the apartment next to Kai's: Kai's was the big suite on the corner, but Kai honestly loved visiting Yixing's apartment, which was smaller but felt very lived in. He supposed it was the presence of warm colors and wood, which he liked—but only for a time.

"He got your card. And?" Kai really just wanted to get back to watching Kyungsoo's concert. He lived his life mostly moment-to-moment, so he had no expectations or even opinions about Kyungsoo at the moment: only the purple imprint that still lingered in the corners of his mind from that night and the color of Kyungsoo's voice when it was coming out of the television. He could remember Jinah's voice in judgemental, dirty yellow even now: "Your mind—it's like—it's worse than a child's! You don't think ahead of yourself, you don't remember the past, and you act purely on instinct—no—not a child—a dog—"

"And he invited you to a private concert tomorrow night. Not like, just you watching, but apparently it's pretty small, the venue is outside and not too big. Your wife's crowd, though. But don't worry, I can help you deflect."

Jongin tried to remember the kind of friends Jinah had invited to their wedding, or who she'd brought over to their apartment before it all began to unravel very quickly. Not a single color came to mind.

He almost said no out of force of habit—in fact, before Yixing's words had evaporated into the air the word no was pushing it's royal blue way out of his mouth and he had to clench his jaw to stop it, looking from Yixing to the television frozen on Kyungsoo's face, eyes closed, to Yixing again.

"I'm not talking to Jinah's crowd," he said firmly, his voice escaping in a sure sunset blue stream, but Yixing, ever happy, ever bubbly, was already embracing him and ruffling his hair fondly.

"I have Chinese in my apartment if you want some later," said Yixing, getting up.

"You just got here! It's not like I'm painting yet—" Kai had actually been looking forward to a quiet game of cards with Yixing, but Yixing clearly changed his plans on a dime.

"No, no—I was just checking in to make sure you could come to the concert," Yixing lied—Kai could always tell when Yixing was lying, and he suspected everyone else could, too, even if they couldn't see the drops of darker yellow that littered Yixing's really big lies. "Go ahead, unpause. I'll get my noisy self out of the way."

Kai threw a pillow at him and unpaused the TV.

Kyungsoo spent the whole next day with his eyes wide open, nervous for the concert in a way he'd never been nervous for a concert since his debut. He must have apologized to the managers and producers a thousand times, trying not to laugh at their indingnant expressions when Kyungsoo micromanaged this thing or that. He knew there were plenty of artists a thousand times worse than himself. 

Kyungsoo even had a nickname: The Show Pony. Not among his fans—to them he was the penguin, or simply oppa, but in the producing world. Handae, his old manager for two years, had even dressed up as the show pony one halloween and looked the fans straight in the eyes while wearing a rediculous horse costume. The story had lingered in the news until Christmas: Kyungsoo's Horse Best Friend. Handae hadn't heard the last of it until he was pulled to another rookie to manage. Kyungsoo even saw him every once and a while when he did songs with Chen, which wasn't an infrequent occurance.

But he was jittery, and he put them through rehersal so many times that one of the dancers had to physically pass out before a manager dragged him offstage and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some food into him. It was too important. He drank water, and plenty of it, going to the bathroom way too much for it to be normal, but his voice had to be ready for the real thing.

The crowd was small and judgemental; just the kind of crowd Kyungsoo hated, the kind whose eyes followed each movement he made searching for a mistake out of habit, because, perhaps, that was how they lived their lives. The quiet sounds of the band setting up slowly morphed into the low murmur of anticipation.

He came out with a run, walking onto the stage as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it was; for him, the stage was home, no matter how nervous he felt. But that wasn't all; the naturalness wasn't all. He was searching, the moment he walked on, from the first note he sang, for melanin-blessed skin and sculpted cheekbones and honey-intense eyes.

First pass of the stage: nothing.

Second pass of the stage: nothing.

Third time up the stage: nothing.

Kyungsoo's singing began to become more desparate. Being on stage isn't a rational thing, however controlled he ever wanted it to be. He'd learned the hard way that everything had to be practiced to the point that he didn't have to think about it, because when the time came, chances were he wouldn't think about anything. But now he was thinking a million things at once, and somehow it all got twisted into a maic belief that if he sang better, louder, more beautifully, Kai would appear.

Kai didn't appear.

Kyungsoo did two encores, and then, when he tried to go out again, he found a hand restraining him and the lightbulbs focused on the stage glowing with the heat leftover from when they'd been . He felt dizzy. He was frustrated. He wanted to hit something—he'd never wanted to do that after a concert before. Concerts were supposed to be theraputic.

He didn't see the faces that floated before him, repeating 'bathroom' wherever he went and eventually winding up in one. The door shut with a slam that hurt his ears, and then everything fell silent and a faint buzzing began just inside his ear, tiny fairy-drills trying to drive him crazy.

Just like anyone else, Kyungsoo looked in the mirror. You always look in the mirror when you're in a bathroom. His face looked too pale, but what unsettled him the most was the hysterical expression he couldn't seem to wipe from his face. He stared at himself for what felt like a century, only snapping out of it when he noticed something written on the mirror.

It was in nail polish, and even through the fog of sleep-deprivation, lack of food, exhaustion, and desperation, Kyungsoo wondered why someone wouldn't just use lipstick: nail polish would be a to clean off.

Then it slowly came into focus and Kyungsoo felt himself calm down a fraction; his chest collapsed a bit and he let out a short puff of air, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. sorry, was all it said. But below it was a hasty outline of what was unmistakably Kyungsoo and unmistakably drawn by Kai.

He had to find him. Logic had gone out the door and Kyungsoo had prepared for this concert more than any other concert in his life, except maybe for debut and the showcase for his second album. He ran a hand through his hair again, absently reaching for the cloth he kept sometimes in his jacket, but instead meeting a small, rough piece of paper.

The yellow card ce, slowly, between Kyungsoo's thin fingers.

When he peeked his head out the bathroom, making sure the quiet clink of dishes in some far away kitchen called no cooks hurrying through the halls, and that his managers weren't quite as dedicated as a helicopter parent—that they didn't wait for him while he peed. He glanced once more at himself in the mirror, then decided that was enough. Looking at himself in the mirror just made him more hysterical, which only made him loook more hysterical... well, needless to say, it was a cycle.

It had been a few years since he'd taken the bus anywhere, but all he had were a few coins in his pockets—flight risk of having managers to pay for everything around him most of the time. A memory bubbled up from some unknown well within his mind, crystal clear, of the bus pulling up when he was thirteen years old, on his way to his first show: the first time he had ever sung in front of anyone. That theatre was gone now, replaced by a massive apartment building.

He hoped it was the right address.

He knew it probably wouldn't be—what kind of luck, that he could think clearly enough to get there, right now? He hadn't eaten since yesterday. No, that wasn't true—he'd had a few skittles this morning.

The bus driver barely spared him a second glance and Kyungsoo didn't even care, just slid into the first seat he could find, which he knew was for the handicapped. He felt really guilty for a second but then his knees buckled and he mentally shrugged. The carpet on the seat was rough like sandpaper and the window he leaned his head against was freezing cold from air conditioning.

The building that stretched above him as he stumbled off the last, soot-stained step of the bus was sparkly glass, reflecting all the night lights of the city. Of course it's the most beautiful place in the city, Kyungsoo thought. An artist lives here. Because, he reasoned, artists make the world around them art, too. They couldn't help it.

He didn't necesarily include himself in the class of artists that affected the world like that.

The door was heavy. Kyungsoo leaned against it, hard, and finally put some pressure through his legs to force the damn slab of glass open. His vision was getting blurry; he couldn't feel his tongue anymore. 

He thought he probably pressed the button for the right apartment before he finally succumbed to the blackness that had been stalking him, sinking to the shining, just-mopped floor with a sigh.

Author's Note: sorry for the heavy concentration of heavy... but fluff coming up!