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Thomas looked at the brunette girl besides him, absorbed in a painting representing a bunch of apples and oranges on top of a white sheet on a table. He himself had a hard time trying to understand people’s enthusiasm for such artwork, especially when they were able to stand in front of freaking fruits for several minutes without blinking when Thomas would kill to have anything other than dull paintings to distract his mind.
Teresa was his best friend, and she had been an art nerd since before he could remember how to walk. Later on, she enrolled in an ‘Art & Design’ program at University, with the goal in mind to become an art restorer. Thomas was twenty-two as well, he chose to study mechanical engineering because he wasn’t too bad at physics and maths, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with his life, although he could guess he was probably on his way to become an engineer.
Teresa had even managed to find herself a boyfriend in the two years they had been on their own at College, a muscular Asian that ended up being Thomas’ second-best friend; and yet she chose to still drag Thomas along when she wanted to go to the museum to practice her drawing techniques. Anyone would think that after fifteen years of accompanying her every Saturday, he would have been used to it, but really the sight of his best friend bent over a sheet of paper completely silent for hours was not worth hypothetical sleeping-in and rare lazy times in his dorm room.
“Tom, if you keep complaining I’m dragging you to a contemporary art museum.” Teresa suddenly warned him, eyes still fixed on the red apples.
“I haven’t said anything!” he tried to defend himself, to no avail.
“I can hear your negative thoughts, and your feet tapping on the floor are seriously distracting.”
Distracting from what, really, oranges? He almost shot back but kept it to himself at the last second. He knew he was being childish, but somehow, he couldn’t stop being grumpy. He was aware that he could just leave right there, he was an adult, but he knew Teresa, and he knew that she dragged him with him because large crowds were making her anxious, and he wasn’t that bad of a friend that he would leave her alone to face such consequences. He just wished she’d chosen something a bit more entertaining to study. Couldn’t she just have been a huge movie nerd?
The brunette sighed on his side. “You can go ahead of me if you want, there isn’t too many people anyway, I should be fine.” This time, she looked at him in the eyes, telling him that she could handle herself, and he believed her. He nodded. “Just don’t get too far either.” She gave him a small smile and returned her attention to the painting, getting a small sketchpad out of her bag at the same time.
Thomas spent the next half hour wandering around the room, which was big enough that he could get remotely distracted. He sat down for a while, his feet hurting; then got back up again to count how many apples were there in the whole room (eighty-three), then he did the same with the oranges (seventy-nine), wondered for a bit what was wrong with oranges that painters seemed to like apples more; and when he ran out of stuff to do, he focused back on Teresa. She was now sat on the floor in front of the painting from earlier, and by the looks of it had almost finished her copy of it. Knowing her, she would spend another ten minutes complaining about it even though Thomas could not find a single flaw, then draw a couple more, usually up to five, before she decided Thomas’ torture could finally come to an end. He might be whining right now, but he knew those complains usually vanished as he saw his best friend’s huge smile when she described her day to Minho, jumping around in excitement in front of the lovestruck runner.
Thomas’ gaze wandered from Teresa to the other persons in the room. The girl had been right earlier when she’d said that there weren’t so many people in the room, Thomas had known this museum with at least twice the visitors there currently were. Probably people had taken advantage of the sunny day to do an outdoor activity. Thomas tried to not be too bitter about it as he scanned their faces. There were a few other students copying the artwork along with Teresa, their material spread before them as they drew perfect lines on their sketchbooks, their student card in display next to them so that the staff would know they were allowed to make copies.
An old couple was also there. The woman had trouble walking, but her husband kept waiting for her, as she went from one composition to the next. He was continuously reassuring her that he didn’t mind, and she could take her time because that only gave him more time to admire the artwork. Sure, they were talking a bit loud in the small-ceiling room, but Thomas actually thought they were cute, so he smiled reassuringly in their direction when the man shushed his wife.
There were also a group of teenagers, apparently attending a class trip. The students weren’t paying too much attention to what their guide was saying. Most of them played on their phones or took selfies, some others made fun of the woman’s outfit while Thomas spotted a group of boys and a girl laughing while they messed with the frequency on their audio guide’s station. He smiled, thinking back of when he was in middle school and had to go through those trips as well. Once, he’d gotten a few hours of detention because he had gone unsupervised to the donjon of a middle-ages castle they were visiting. It had been worth it.
Thomas turned around to observe the rest of the visitors, when his movement stopped short at the figure he spotted. It was a boy, probably around his age, even though his face looked younger, all dressed in black, which came in contrast with his shining blond hair, that fell all over his face, no matter how many times he tried to put them away. He was stood three-quarters to him, so Thomas could easily admire his face as well as his whole posture, while the boy still hadn’t seen him. He was looking out onto the street, apparently not paying attention to the paintings yet, but Thomas was sure he had just entered the room, so he would soon start looking around. Why else would people enter an art museum anyway?
So Thomas figured he had about thirty seconds to think of something to engage conversation with him before he would start walking away, which would not happen under his supervision. He had always been quite impulsive, but that was because he always knew what he wanted, and right about now he wanted to get to know the blond better.
“Hey!” he lamely introduced himself to the man, with a weak wave.
The blond turned to look at him, causing Thomas to stop dead in his tracks. That was something to admire his shining hair and flawless posture, it was something else to be able to look straight into those chestnut eyes and desperately try to come up with something smart to say.
The man was still looking at him expectantly, and since Thomas didn’t look like he was about to start talking soon, he continued on his own. “You’re here for the exhibitions?” he smiled softly.
If Thomas thought his own introduction was stupid, that man was no better, because, really, why else would he spend the day at a museum if not to see the paintings? But he shrugged that snarky remark off and nodded.
The blond seemingly had lost interest in the conversation, looking back out at the large window, as if seeing cars and passer-by’s hurrying on the sidewalk was a hundred times more captivating than all the masterpieces displayed in the museum. Thomas agreed, of course, but the guy seemed to have come here on his own, so surely that was because he was interested in what the place had to offer, right?
“You don’t want to look at the artwork?” the brunet asked after another awkward thirty seconds of staring silently. The man seemed startled by the question, his frowned deep as he thought of an answer. “No! It’s not that, I… I’m just waiting for-”
“Someone to show you around?” Looking back, Thomas really could’ve come up with many clever answers rather than offering himself to show the man around when he had no clue what half of those paintings were. But his reckless, spontaneous brain had been searching for a way to stay around the guy for more than a few minutes and apparently presenting himself as an expert in art was the smartest thing it could come up with. Not that it turned out too badly in the end.
The blond seemed to find the proposition somewhat funny, as Thomas swore he saw something glint in the back of his pupil. He gave a small chuckle before answering. “Sure, let’s see what you can do.” Really, the smirk that found the way to his face and hardly left afterwards should have been a good enough warning for Thomas, but the brunet had been oblivious as usual as he bluntly took the other’s hand and dragged him to a random composition at the front of the room.
The painter had decided to show a clearing in a forest, near what seemed to be a pound, and he apparently had thought it was very accurate to represent a naked lady in the middle of it when two men, entirely dressed, sat around her. Painters were definitely sick-minded, there was no other words for it. He shook his head, desperately trying to focus. In the little time that took to walk to that first painting, they had exchanged names and small talk, so now Thomas knew that the blond was called Newton but insisted Thomas would call him Newt because he really didn’t agree with his parent’s choice to name him after a scientist, that he was twenty-three and studied English literature at the same University Thomas and Teresa were going to.
“So,” he started, his mind working a thousand miles an hour, trying to come up with something smart to say. “That one is called Lunch On The Grass, and depicts, well, some people having lunch, uh, on some, uh, grass. Like the title says, you know. Green grass.” He’d never felt more stupid in his life, and clearly Newt thought so too as he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“I can see that. Who painted it?” he asked, so Thomas had to make what he hoped was a subtle glance to the information tab hanged next to it, and, judging by Newt’s widening smirk, he miserably failed.
“That’s a certain mister ‘Le Bain’.” He answered with confidence. Newt burst in laughter. Was his French accent so bad? He took a quick glance again, and felt his cheeks turn crimson.
He forced a laugh to join the blond. “Funny huh?” he racked his throat. “I meant, of course, that the painter was called Edouard Manet. Of course. ‘Le Bain’ is actually the other name of the painting in its original language. Everyone knows that. Manet is very famous for his, huh, pieces of artwork. Very beautiful by the way.” He had to stop talking now, or he would die in embarrassment.
“Alright, Tommy, so what can you tell me about Manet then?” Thomas tried not to show his reaction at the nickname, not that he could have turned any redder anyway. He swallowed hard at the question. All he knew about Manet was that it was an infrastructure-less network in computer science, which was everything but helpful right now.
“You know what?” he decided to change the subject. “that guy is so overrated anyway, who gets naked for a picnic these days?” He dragged a very amused Newt to the other side of the room; in front of the painting Teresa had tried to copy earlier. She was finished now and had moved on to a landscape. Thomas figured he had about another hour before she wanted to go home. An hour to talk and try to impress Newt.
The painting was still representing those oranges and apples and the white sheet, and Thomas still found it useless, but surely that should be easier to describe. Plus, Teresa had explained a few things to him earlier and he had heard the guide from before, so he was able to remember at least the name of the painter without having to look at the plaque.
When they arrived before the canvas, Thomas thought of leaving Newt’s side to stand before the work like an actual guide but reconsidered it as he felt the blond intertwine their fingers. He felt a big smile crawl up to his face as he let the other admire the art for a minute. Apparently, Newt didn’t mind the fiasco from earlier, or he has somehow still learned something from it, because for some reason they were on the same page now. His hand felt warm, his fingers soft on his rough skin, and just the right size. It took everything from him not to hold on to that hand and squeeze it to make sure he would never let go. He really needed to get himself back together.
“So?” Newt interrupted, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “What do you have to say on this one?”
Thomas stayed close to him as he answered, he definitely preferred it that way. “It’s called a still-life painting and Mr. Paul Cézanne painted it.” He smiled proudly.
“You know I can read, Tommy? It’s written right there.”
Thomas sighed deeply. Here could go all his hope to make give out an impressive information he actually knew about.
“What does it represent, then?” Newt called again.
“Huh… Fruits?”
“Indeed.” That stupid adorable and annoying grin was back on the blond’s lips. Thomas was left speechless. He’d always been better at improvising anyway.
“Well, he painted fruits because he, huh, couldn’t bother to go outside and paint a landscape and he didn’t want to paint huh, a moving thing like a person because that’s… more difficult?” it sounded more like a question than an actual analysis of a painting, but all he could see in Newt’s eyes was reassurance.
“So why do you reckon he used oranges, not another fruit?” Newt seemed amused, but he still cocked his head to the side as he asked his question, as if he were genuinely interested in what Thomas had to say about it.
In the corner of his eyes, the brunet could see Teresa staring at him curiously from where she was copying another painting, a few meters away. As soon as she caught his eyes, she shook her head, chuckling silently.
“Because he had no other fruits at home with him?” Newt started laughing loudly: wrong answer. “I mean, because the colours go well with the white sheet and the green and red apples?” He wanted to bet his face was as red as the apples on the oh, so white sheet. “Also, huh, oranges smell good, like Christmas and apples smell like autumn so like, the point was to symbolize winter. Because, huh, winter is coming?”
Newt rolled his eyes with a smile Thomas could not interpret. Was it fond? Falsely annoyed? Actually annoyed? “Let’s move on, shall we?” the brunet agreed quickly, happy to change the subject as he was dragged to a different room altogether.
“So” He started again, unconsciously clutching the fingers inside his own. “Would you mind, maybe, giving me your number?” he extended his phone with a shaking hand. That was blunt, surely, but all he did so far with the blond was and he seemed to appreciate it. “Then I could, you know, keep entertaining you with my endless art knowledge?”
Apparently, it worked again, because Newt took the phone and typed something in it, which Thomas really hoped was the right number, at the same time laughing like Thomas had just said the funniest joke ever. “Endless art knowledge? Oh my.”
They arrived in a bigger room, where each work took at least half a wall. There were fewer people in it as well, which meant less people to witness Thomas’ embarrassing improvised speeches about oranges. Right in front of them was a canvas about three meters tall, with five giant blue indescribable forms that vaguely reminded him of a human posture, but with too large shoulders and thin waistline.
“Are you actually going to try and talk about Yves Klein now?” Newt asked. Thomas took the comment as a challenge somehow, and he might have been ready to choose another painting, but now he wanted to show Newt that he could find something to say about that giant nonsense of a painting, he wasn’t that stupid. Why would Newt know the paintings so much better than him, anyway? He was just a visitor like himself, nothing more.
“Yes, actually. We’ll talk about…” he still had to look at the plaque to get the title right. “Anthropometry in blue” Seriously? What kind of title was that? Not helpful in the slightest! “because it happens to be my favourite painting in this museum.”
“Is it, though?” Newt crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well, yeah, duh.” Thomas really had no idea where he got such confidence from, but he couldn’t back down now. “Have you seen the way the colours match so perfectly with each other? You’ve got that, huh, pure blue, and then the white that’s not really white but not blue either and it goes just really well with each other okay? It’s like, huh, like it represents the way not everything is black and white in life and you need nuances to get stuff to mix in together.”
He had absolutely no idea what was going out of his mouth, but Newt was still listening attentively, standing a few feet away, arms still crossed over his chest, and hair falling on his nose that Thomas would kill to move back to where they belonged. His smirk had not left him, of course not, but it didn’t bother the brunet as it looked a little gentler now, so he continued anyway.
“And the shapes, man, the shapes! It’s like, is it supposed to represent something or not? Why does the top looks like Mickey Mouse, but the rest reminds me of a crab’s single claw? It’s definitely one of the biggest mysteries there is in the art world. But I think Klein left it unknown on purpose, just so we could all stand there and wonder.” He finished, a little bit out of breath, and his heart beating slightly faster than usual.
After ten seconds of silence between them, Newt couldn’t control it anymore, and his laughter filled the room, drawing everyone’s gaze towards him. Thomas felt self-conscious but at the same time he didn’t mind, it was a weird feeling, but Newt’s laugh sounded wonderful and he wouldn’t mind repeating everything he’d said all over again, since it could apparently such an angelic sound out if him.
“God,” the blond finally said, moving closer to Thomas, “That was absolutely terrible, but you’ve got a bloody great imagination there, Tommy!”
“At least I tried?” he scratched the back of his neck, a bad habit he had picked up when he was nervous. The blond reached out to his arm and moved it away.
Newt chuckled more, but just as he was about to answer, they were interrupted by Teresa. “Tom, there you are! Why did you-” She cut herself short as she noticed the other man with him. “Hey, Newt! How is it going?”
“Good, actually. I’ve been offered a free tour by Tommy.” He smirked. Thomas wanted to hide deep under the surface of the earth, as he watched Teresa look at him incredulously, then join Newt in his undying laughter.
“I don’t think I can even imagine that. I demand to see it.”
“Did you know that Manet’s Lunch On The Grass was “seriously overrated”? Also apparently Cézanne couldn’t bother to go outside, which is why he produced still-life paintings. Oh, and you’re also standing in front of six giant representations of Mickey Mouse’s ears, isn’t that wonderful?” Newt gestured to the painting Thomas commented earlier.
Thomas didn’t think he ever saw Teresa laugh so hard, not even when both were drunk enough to think it was smart to play cards with humanity with Minho and Tes’ half-deaf grandmother. A truly glorious night.
“Come on!” he tried to defend himself, to no avail. “So all you did was make fun of everything I’ve said for the past hour?”
“Like I’ve said, you’ve got great imagination Tommy, it was quite entertaining.” The smile Newt sent towards him made Thomas’ knees go weak.
The blond then glanced at his watch, “Ok, I have to leave you two, it was fun meeting you, though.”
“Where are you going?” Teresa interrupted.
Newt still turned to Thomas as he spoke. “I actually work here during the weekends. Usually, I’m the one giving the tours. And I have one right now. I’ll be sure to use your tips, though, Tommy.” He winked. He actually winked.
Thomas looked mortified. This was the moment his brain chose to register that there was a badge attached to his chest with his name on it. He couldn’t have been more oblivious. Newt had been working there the whole time and he had let Thomas embarrass himself to the core telling all this nonsense about pieces he probably knew by heart? Thomas had never felt more stupid all his life.
Suddenly, he felt his hand being squeezed. He looked up to be met by two mesmerizing chestnut eyes, looking at him with a glint of … hope? “Hey, don’t look so embarrassed.” Newt spoke softly. “I haven’t been able to have fun in this job in weeks. Call me, okay?” He walked away leaving a small kiss on the brunet’s cheek and his sweet perfume in the air.
He and Teresa watched him walk away, turn one last time to send a last wink in the boy’s direction before disappearing in the next room.
The brunette was the first to break the silence. “That boy takes a minor in History of Art, he’s one of the best students in the faculty, he could write a book about the paintings here, every art student would dream to be able to talk to him, and yet he chose to spend over an hour listening to your crap. I swear if you don’t call him you’re the biggest slinthead there ever was.”
Thomas just laughed incredulously.
Six months later, Newt was again watching people walk pass by the window, wearing the same uniform and badge, waiting for his next visit to begin.
He was interrupted in his thoughts by Thomas, calling him from behind before planting a warm kiss on his lips.
“I was passing by, and I just thought I’d give you company.”
“You’re sure you’re not here to dissert about the pertinence of naked figures in twentieth century paintings?”
“Oh, shut up, or I’m leaving you.” Thomas’ cheeks had turned pink.
“You wouldn’t dare. Not after I brought you the best gift ever for our six-month anniversary.” The blond detached himself from his boyfriend to dig in his bag.
“I’m pretty sure I heard you say you thought it was stupid to count?”
“Yeah, but I saw it in the gift shop this morning and I couldn’t stop myself.” It was a poster of Yves Klein’s Anthropometry in Blue. The one Thomas had so thoroughly analysed when they first met. The poor boy went red. “I would have brought all three to hang above my bed, but they didn’t have Cézanne’s. Maybe you should tell them how the colours recall winter, and express the smell of oranges at Christmas?”
Thomas buried his face in the blond’s neck in embarrassment. “When will you ever let this go?” he whined. “I hate you.”
Newt kissed his forehead, squeezing the brunet into a tight hug. “I love you too.”