RED

The First Chapter

Rain splattered against the glass window of the ornate, dimly lit hall. People chattered and laughed in the background. Faint sounds of heels clapping against the floor, glasses clinking and jewels tinkering came his way. It was all so... pale blue. There was nothing really interesting about it, yet, for some unknown reason, it was saddening.

"Oh, Chanyeol!" A familiar, but not necessarily welcomed, voice exclaimed. Chanyeol turned away from the windows, where he had been admiring the curve of the water drops that stuck to the glass pane, and instead faced the sturdy man in front of him.

"Baekbeom," He smiled, bowing a little to show respect to the CFO of the Byun Stars - a rival of his father's own company, Park Ambience, where his elder sister Yoora was headed for the CFO position. She was a very business-driven person, unlike Chanyeol.

"Been a long time since I last saw you," He grinned, "How's uni?"

Chanyeol shrugged, "Studio Arts is quite laid-back honestly. I don't have that much to do. It's chill."

Baekbeom smiled nicely, "I've seen your artworks. They are anything but 'chill', if you ask me."

Chanyeol blushed at that. His artworks were really...passionate, one could say. Most of them depicted angsty hard metal songs, hence why they had a lot of red splattered around, lined by big black strokes thrown in between.

"Yeah, I guess..." He said awkwardly, before changing the subject, "What about you? How are things going?"

He smiled; worriedly, "Ah, well, it's all pretty normal, you know. Work, meetings, home – repeat. Very monochromatic."

"Spectrum by Florence and the Machine," Chanyeol whispered.

Baekbeom blinked, "What?"

Chanyeol waved a hand, "Oh no, nothing. How's family?" He changed the subject.

Baekbeom smiled tightly and Chanyeol realized it was a dangerous issue. He wanted to say something like 'you don't have to answer' but that would just make things worse, so all he could do was wait.

"Well, you know, just... good."

Chanyeol gave a fake smile and nodded, and then Yoora called out their names, striding towards them in an elegant black dress. Baekbeom nodded at Chanyeol, excusing himself as he moved to talk to her and Chanyeol breathed out in relief.

He shouldn't have mentioned that when he knew about the numerous rumors surrounding the Byuns. Countless rumors, and all of them tied around one person, who was absent from this dull ambience. Chanyeol's rival, and the person he genuinely disliked – Byun Baekhyun, the renowned archer and the youngest son of the Byuns.

Baekhyun was always there, in all these family events, until he wasn't. Starting from last year, it seemed like he had just disappeared. He was never there at his family's mansion and the Byuns refused to answer any questions about him. Nobody could get a hold of Baekhyun. It was obvious that the family had had a fall-out, and a serious one at that. A fall-out big enough for the Byuns to dismiss their precious baby, their renowned, popular and perfect son - it must have been huge.

But, well, he might not have been that perfect after all.

But as Chanyeol looked at the ambience of the boring and muted meeting, in the palest shade of blue, he realised that he missed the little guy, because of whom these meetings had always been red.

Chanyeol walked out of the basement of his apartment complex. The knotted tie around his neck felt tight and restricting so he put his deft fingers to work and loosened it slightly. He sighed as fresh night air went down his chapped lungs. The smell of damp trees, soil and mud was enough to make him forget about the clink and clatter of heels, glasses of wine and newly bought dresses. They were two entirely different worlds. One had the raw purity that people needed and the other had the artificial ambience that they required. One made them feel small, surrounding them with things bigger than them, bigger than life, and the other made them feel big, providing them with luxuries and status, fooling them into believing they were bigger than the world. One was realistic and the other was ideal; and that was why people preferred the second.