The first day of class was always useless, so Taemin was looking forward to the second day when things would really get started in his art class. After going through the schedule of projects, getting sketchbook assignments, and getting to know the others in the class there hadn't been enough time to start an assignment the previous day. Taemin walked into the art room drained from classes but with a positive attitude. He took his spot next to Kibum who was already seated and greeted him happily. 

The tables in the room had been moved to form a circle around another table in the center of the room. On top of said table was a wild array of fruits, bottles, and odd trinkets such as a ceramic chicken. Taemin laughed seeing the chicken and he turned to the boy seated on his right. 

"What is this?" he questioned, gesturing at the array. 
 

Kibum looked up from digging a pencil out of his backpack. "Still life." he answered simply, as if this was supposed to make perfect sense. 
 

Upon seeing Taemin's still confused face he explained, "It means it's still objects we have to recreate in our art, usually with a realistic style."
 

Sure enough as the teacher called the class to order she explained that their first assignment would be painting this still life. Since it was the first project they were told to do a rough sketch on paper first before moving to the paints later in the week. 

As Taemin got out his sketchbook and pencil he noticed Kibum squinting at the still life. He lifted his hands in front of his face, making a rectangle with his fingers, and soon after he lifted his pencil up in front of him, staring hard at the eraser. 
 

Taemin shrugged off Kibum's weird behavior and decided to focus on his own work. He had no idea where to begin. The teacher had said to draw a rough sketch so maybe that meant it didn't have to be really precise he decided. He started by drawing the table as a big rectangle with sticks for legs, then he added the things on the table; a circle with a stick coming out of it for the apple, a rectangle for the book, some squiggles for where fabric had been draped over things. He finished his sketch off with a cartoon chicken sitting on the end of the table. 
 

This masterpiece took him less than five minutes and he put down his pencil confidently, looking around to see he was done first. His confidence wavered as he spotted the person on his other side who hadn't even finished drawing the table yet. Their work was a lot more detailed and made Taemin feel like his looked like it belonged to an elementary school student. 
 

He braved a look over at Kibum's work, which was easier said than done, cause the other boy was hunched over his paper making it almost impossible to see. Taemin groaned inwardly, he didn't want to distract Kibum after annoying him so much the other day so he raised his hand to ask the teacher for help. 
 

As she walked over and began to explain more in depth to Taemin what he should be doing he saw Kibum turn to look at him, eyebrows raised. After the teacher left Taemin snuck another look at Kibum's work and almost regretted it. He'd seen enough of Kibum's doodling on the class schedule yesterday to merit the compliment he had given him, but he hadn't fully realized the level of natural talent his classmate possessed. 
 

Even though it was just a rough sketch Kibum had easily gotten the angles and proportions correct. He'd also added some casual shading to some of the objects which took his work to the next level. 
 

"Woah." Taemin gawked, and he turned his head to look back at his own work. So far, not so good. This was going to take more work than he had originally thought. 

He stared at the still life in front of him again, this time paying more attention to the size of the objects, and the angle of the table. His teacher had said that he didn't have to draw the whole thing and could just pick a portion, so he decided to draw the right half of the table to make sure he could include the chicken in his work. He turned the page in his sketchbook and looked down at the blanknes with determination.

Taemin spent the rest of the class time constantly looking from paper to still life and erasing a lot. He found all his surroundings melting away as he only concentrated on what was right in front of him. The longer he worked the more he got into the groove of things, and when his teacher called out to start packing away for the day he looked up, surprised. There was no way the class could be done already. 

When he looked back at his work he couldn't help but feeling a little accomplished. Sure, his sketch was nothing compared to Kibum's, which looked less like a rough sketch and more like something that should be hung in a museum, but it was definitely a step up from his first attempt. He smiled to himself as he packed away his things, and as he left the room he thought about starting one of his sketchbook assignments later that afternoon. 

"Taemin!" He heard someone calling his name and he turned around to see Kibum rushing towards him. He waited until Kibum caught up and they continued to walk down the hall together. 

"Hey, you were pretty great today." Kibum complimented, slightly out of breath. "Sorry, I kind of judged you at first and thought you were only in the class for an easy A, but you were really into it!"

Taemin decided to not reveal that his classmate had actually judged him correctly and responded with "Yea, Jonghyun took the class last year and said it was good. But I've never really done art before so..."

"Sometimes on weekends Jinki and I work on sketching together, so if you ever wanted to you could bring your sketchbook and we could work on one of the assignments. Sometimes it's good to hear other's advice and stuff."

Kibum wasn't sure why he was inviting an almost stranger to his house, but he didn't have a problem getting Taemin more interested in art. Plus, he felt kind of bad about judging him and wanted to make it up in some way. Another, much smaller portion of himself had enjoyed watching Taemin concentrate on his work out of the corner of his eye as his classmate cocked his head at the still life and erased continuously with unyielding determination. He liked getting to know people that were more than they seemed. 

Taemin looked surprised. "I usually have dance practice on the weekends, but that doesn't take up all my time so yeah, that sounds fun. I might bother you with all my questions though."

He hadn't expected Kibum to be so open to him so early on. He also hadn't been expecting to take this art class so seriously, but it could be fun to get advice from people with talent like Kibum and he was guessing Jinki too. Also...maybe he liked the attention from Kibum. He seemed to be a person that didn't invite just anyone into his life and that made Taemin feel kind of important. 

Kibum smiled. "That's ok. It's just, I'm really blunt so don't take anything I say too personally. I don't like to sugar coat things, it feels fake to me. "

As they reached the end of the hall Taemin held the door open to let Kibum exit first. "I don't mind, I like criticism. It's the only way you get better. At least that's how I feel from dance. "

Kibum nodded in thanks, "I hadn't thought of that, yea, it makes sense. " He spotted his friend walking towards him and waving, a smile on his face. "Well, I gotta go, there's Jinki. See you tomorrow!"

"Bye." Taemin waved Kibum off and walked in the opposite direction to head towards the dance studio.

The dance team had their first meeting of the year that afternoon, and they were going to discuss organizing their auditions. 

Taemin arrived first, and he dropped his school things on the side of the room before walking across the dance floor and settling in front of the mirror to stretch. They wouldn't be dancing that day, but stretching was something automatic for Taemin whenever he sat on the ground. Plus, his back was sore from being hunched over a desk all day. He sighed and relaxed as he felt his lower back crack, and he sat up straight and began to massage his own shoulder. 

Even though his high school's dance studio wasn't the place where he'd grown up taking dance lessons he still felt the same type of comfort from being in a the space. Dance studios were his second home. He had grown up in them, made mistakes, cried, nailed complicated combinations, let his emotions go, sweat, and never given up. 

Minutes later other members of the team arrived and joined Taemin on the floor. They chatted excitedly, catching up with one another about what classes everyone was taking and how their summers had been. 

Last but not least Minho and Jonghyun arrived, each bopping Taemin playfully on the head before sitting down on either side of him. Taemin began and led the meeting with both of his friends interjecting every now and then. They planned the auditions and started to throw around ideas for their new repertoire. Everyone left the meeting excited for the upcoming year. 

Minho gave Taemin a ride home and afterwards he spaced out for a while, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. Eventually he forced himself out of bed to work on his homework. 

As he sat at his desk and stared at one of his textbooks Taemin noticed himself observing the objects on his desk in a different way than usual. He noticed the different shadows and hilights on things caused by his desk lamp. His eyes followed the curves of his tape dispenser and the hard angles of his other textbooks. He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate back on the paragraph he was supposed to be reading. All the time he'd spent staring at that still life had gotten to his head.

He rubbed his eyes and let his head fall down on top of his book, letting out an exasperated sigh. He definitely had not missed homework. 

Author's Note: Thanks for reading everyone. <3 I hope you're having a nice day. I tried to be more descriptive in this chapter cause someone said the last one felt rushed. I hope this one was better. Let me know if you have a preference on more frequent updates or longer chapters. I'm always open to comments.^^