Mabel

9

I'm currently sprawled out contently in bed, artwork more than a little neglected as of the past twenty-four hours.

I've been in the same spot, surrounded by crumbs of snacks and two very large bottles of pink lemonade, watching documentary after documentary on Netflix about marine life.

I'm admittedly way too into this one that's questioning the cruelty of having fish perform for audiences in captivity when my text tone goes off with the call of a beluga whale, startling me as I yell two octaves above my normal voice and thank Poseidon and Neptune that no one else is home right now, with Talia at dance practice and Luca rehearsing for his next musical (something called Les Terribles I think).

Talia💅🏼
fyi Kai coming over to study w me

Mabel🐟
👁👄👁

Talia💅🏼
bro u have an hour to look cute bro <3

Mabel🐟
bro,, u do be the best bro <3

Talia💅🏼
a bro's gotta help a bro out luv <3

Talia💅🏼
oop nvm u have 15 mins.

I spring out of bed, spraying crumbs everywhere like gross confetti and stumble across the small room, tripping over my badly-tangled laptop wire and falling hard to the floor.

Accepting my fate, I shimmie out of my red, generic-fish print pajamas then and there, and crawl my way to the closet so my feet don't betray me again.

Once I'm dressed in semi-acceptable clothes (four changes that ended up as light blue jeans that dig into my stomach when I sit and a flimsy white, off the shoulder shirt–definitely casual home clothes...) and have fixed my appearance in the mirror in the form of combing my fingers through my bordering-on-peach-coloured-because-i-fucked-up-the-pink-dye hair, I grab my laptop and launch myself onto the sofa, resuming my documentary like I'd totally been doing this for a reasonable amount of time.

The door opens a short while later and I make a point of not yelling this time as Talia and Kai step in, the former of which gives me two thumbs up when she sees me (Talia's brutally honest with these things. It's a good sign).

Kai looks at me for a moment, eyebrows raised which... sort of makes sense because any time we've met I've either been in my 'I'm an artist I've no time to shower' or my 'I'm an artist that slept in, I've no time to get dressed' states–neither of which are particularly good looks. 

"Hey Adkins. What a weird surprise to see you, dude... I definitely wasn't expecting that."

Talia's satisfaction with me visibly evaporates and she screws her face up in a weird smile when Kai looks over to her.

"Uh, yeah. I don't like studying at my place. My roommate's too loud and, you know, student houses never sleep," he says. "So, it's either here or the library."

I pause. So, the library is a regular hangout for him. Which means, I can sketch him here and there.

"Feel free to drop by any time!" not to sound creepy but please do "Luca and Talia are always practicing so I'm almost always the only one here."

Just... don't come by when I'm in my fish pyjamas.

Kai nods, seeming less hesitant than he had been a second ago, and says, "I'll remember that."

Hook, line, and sinker.

<・)))><<

Curled up in the little beige sofa in the library, I'm currently reading one of the many books from the shelf that Kai had pointed out to me on portraiture and, now that I'm not distracted by wanting to sketch or just by his general good looks, I'm surprised to find that it's actually interesting.

Who am I becoming?

"You come to the library a lot lately," Kai comments, and I frown at the page, trying to remember if and why I do.

"Do I?"

"Yeah," he says, and I look up to find the boy already looking at me and not his physics(?) work, though his hand is still writing.

Impressive considering I struggle to walk and talk sometimes.

"It's the third time this week I've seen you."

It suddenly hits me that I hadn't actually sat with Kai any of those times and that I came to sketch him which makes me look like a) a bad person who doesn't sit with their friend (friend?) and b) suspicious. He's gonna think I'm selling drugs behind the bookshelves, isn't he?

"...There's good books here," I mutter stupidly because of course there are, dummy. It's a library.

I duck my head back down, pretending to be interested in the heavy book placed in my lap but now that I've seen stupid Kai's face again it's kind of incomparable.

Kai laughs and it's pretty, pretty, pretty, when he agrees, "Yes there are, surprisingly."

I take a glance at him when I hear him shift his chair closer to the table, move some of his pages about and fuck it feels like I've been hit in the stomach with the other's MacBook when I do.

He's got a soft, concentrated smile on his face, light hitting him beautifully at such an angle that the shade being cast by how he's leaning on his hand brings out the contrast of the warm, saturated color in his hair.

I can't help but feel an excitable rush pulse through me, one I've come to know lately as my desperation-to-draw feeling.

I take out my pencils.