Catch Me (Purinz/Chaewon x Yunjin)

October: Part Two

There was something about the art classroom that fueled Chaewon's creativity.

Maybe it was just the fumes from the paint, but either way, it was, without a doubt, Chaewon's favorite time of day.

Park Chaeyoung was an excellent teacher, and she doted on her students, and was a firm believer of painting from the soul, because art was a window to one's deepest, most personal thoughts. For that reason, she'd tasked them with painting an animal that they felt represented themselves.

Chaewon's canvas was a myriad of warm yellows and browns, each stroke precise and thoughtful. A cheetah stared back at her, not yet finished, but hazel eyes glinted from behind the curtain of tall grass. Chaewon wanted it to look as real as possible, so she was taking her sweet time, carefully using increasingly smaller brushes to capture individual hairs of fur.

Ryujin was painting from a position on the floor, peering up through the skylight to try and capture the different hues of blue, the exact underlying purple in the clouds, face scrunched up in concentration as she carefully outlined her eagle, hands steady.

Across the room, Chaewon could see Minju dancing absentmindedly as she mixed hues on her palette, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The girl always seemed to be doing something other than painting when Chaewon looked, but the brunette had to admit that Minju's swan was coming along well, though Chaewon would have personally chosen to paint the pond under the cover of moonlight, with dark purples and blues in the water as opposed to the different shades of lighter blue, but Minju had decided to make the scene sunny, much like her personality, as Chaeyoung would say gleefully.

While the majority of the class seemed to be striving for realism, Jimin, of course, had to swim against the current.

"Fuck realism," she'd declared once Chaeyoung had announced the project, earning her a stern look which she ignored completely, and then made a beeline for the watercolors. It suited her, though, the bright splashes of blacks and grays complementing the overall aesthetic of the cat.

She was touching up the eyes, as they needed more of a shine, more definition to their amber depths, when she felt someone approach her from behind.

"Whoa, Kim, this is really good."

Chaewon blinked owlishly a few times before turning, a confused smile on her face.

Was Kim Minju complimenting her?

That was certainly a first.

For as long as Chaewon could remember, she and Minju had always been the most competitive when it came to art, but Chaewon never stirred up trouble, fulfilled by the knowledge that she was the better of the two, in that way a child grins secretively, content in the knowledge that they are the favorite. They'd been in the same art classes since the dark ages of City of Light Nursery School, and Minju had never, not once, gone out of her way to compliment Chaewon's art.

So, naturally, Chaewon was suspicious as all hell.

"Thanks, Kim," she said with a half-shrug, "it's nowhere near done yet, but it's coming along nicely." She nodded in the direction of Minju's swan. "Yours is looking good, too." Minju flashed her a toothy grin, eyes tracing the expanse of Chaewon's work in great detail, even crouching down so that she was eye-level with the rabbit, and she let out a long whistle.

"I almost feel like I'm being hunted," she commented, and Chaewon couldn't help the internal victory dance knowing that it had the desired effect, even though it was Minju who was complimenting her.

"Thanks, that's what I was aiming for," Chaewon continued, somewhat awkwardly, as Minju's eyes continued to wander, not necessarily on her painting, but around the art room itself. Chaeyoung would hang up old pieces from the previous years on the walls, liking to keep the place lively and bright, and Chaewon couldn't help but notice the slight... wistfulness? in Minju's eyes. It seemed as though the cheerleader was trying to commit the image of the room to memory, which made no sense, but nothing about Minju ever did, so Chaewon took it with a grain of salt as always.