bathroom stall.

douze

-          yerin panicked. "don't, min, it's not worth it and no one wants to see--"

"i want to see!" jeongguk said eagerly, as jimin pulled his phone from his back pocket. yerin shrieked and wrestled with jimin for his phone before finally scrunching up in her seat, defeated.

"here we go..." she heard jimin say from above her. "that's of me, when we were studying together."

yerin covered her face with her hands. she knew the one. jimin was a pleasing picture, lips pursed and glasses falling down his nose as he re-read the book. he couldn't sit still, of course, being jimin, but the pencil sketch expressed that fleeting moment of calm.

then jeongguk spoke. "that's...wow. where did you learn to draw like that?"

it took yerin a minute to realize he was talking to her.

"she didn't learn," jimin answered for her. "she's just been drawing for awhile."

"can we see your stuff?" yerin interrupted, looking up at jeongguk for the first time. he was still looking at the picture on jimin's phone.

"maybe sometime," he said hesitantly, almost drowned out by the noisy bus.

"why not now?" jimin whined, but jeongguk refused with a shy shake of his head.

yerin pressed her forehead to the bus window and looked out at the road and trees that passed by in a grey-green blur. the colors blended like fingerpaint.

they sat side-by-side, a big white paper on the table in front of them. plastic pots of paint rested on the edges of the paper: red, blue, purple, yellow, green.

jeongguk reached over and grasped the blue tub with a grubby hand. "i choose the blue one!"

yerin grabbed the one closest to her. "green for meee!"

"why did you choose green?" jeongguk asked.

yerin thought for a moment, tugging on one pigtail. "i chose it because...it's your second favorite color after blue!"

jeongguk giggled. "why didn't you choose yellow, since that's your favorite?"

"i wanted to draw a picture for you," yerin beamed, and dipped one finger into the cold green paint.

suddenly, someone near the front of the bus called out. "you guys, we're here!"