Chapter Text
It's the same old city but he's a whole different person. One year away from home, spending his gap year in England, coming to terms with his past. He's ready to move forward now, to face the future and not look back any more. So it takes him about a month being back home before he makes his decision.
His dad and Ann are worried, of course, but it's the one thing he's adamant about. He wants to move out. Pedro got to do it, but then again that's a given considering the fact that he moved halfway around the world to be with his boyfriend in Brighton. Balthazar's got a band there and Pedro doesn't really care where he is or what he's doing as long as it's with Balth.
In the end it's Ann who gives in first and convinces his dad as well. Wellington is only six hours from home but it's distance enough. He moves into a small one-room-flat and on his first night he sits on the floor, back against his new bed, trying not to cry. After a while he picks up his notepad and just begins to draw. It's what distracts him, what keeps him calm and grounded. It's the reason he's here.
His first week at Massey University is lonely. He's no good at making friends. He keeps to himself in courses, being quiet and watching people. All the other students are so outgoing and happy to be here. He is too, but he also feels lost, like he doesn't belong. His love for the fine arts is not manifested in years of practice, it's newly found and fresh. It's a way of dealing with things now. And maybe he still isn't as confident as everyone else about sharing it.
He's supposed to come back to Auckland for the weekend but he decides otherwise. There's a free art lab on Saturday and it's basically just a chance to work in a proper art studio on anything you like. He might not like sharing or socialising, but he likes art and that's a start.
During his gap year he has tried a lot of different styles but his favourite still has to be charcoal. He still hasn't let go of black being his favourite colour and the texture and softness of charcoal sticks, they way it covers his fingers in black dust, is a preference to any kind of pencil. He draws in long connected lines, smudging details and biting his lips while he works.
He's so absorbed in his drawing he doesn't realise there's someone standing next to him. Or he does, he just doesn't acknowledge the person, not yet.
“That's Pedro, right?”, she finally asks. He just nods, too preoccupied with getting his half-brother's hair right. It takes him about thirty seconds until he realises that something isn't right.
“How do you know-?”, he starts and looks at the person standing next to him. Hero.
“Hi John”, she says with a soft smile. Her hair is still the same length as it was the last time he saw her, on their graduation day, over a year ago. It's up in a ponytail and she's wearing an old sweater that already has some paint on it.
“Hi”, he replies, still in shock. He puts down his charcoal sticks and wipes his black fingers on a cloth he has lying around for this exact purpose.
“What are you doing here?”, he asks because it's the logical question to ask.
“I study here”, she replies. “Design, second year. I haven't done art lab in forever though, so I thought, why not give it a try?”
He smiles, for the first time this week, and shakes his head. “What are the chances, right? Meeting you here...” He trails off, folding the cloth back together.
“How are you doing?”, Hero asks.
“Good”, he replies. She knows he spent all of his last year in high school doing weekly therapy sessions. “Everything's still new here, but I'm okay.” She nods, that everlasting smile on her lips but he can see she's not quite satisfied with his answer. “How are you?”, he asks in return.
“Oh, you know, second year here”, she says, shrugging her shoulders. “It starts to feel like home and everything. And I really like most of my courses, so... I'm good. Yeah.” She scratches a bit of paint off of her nails.
“What are you working on?”, he asks. She smiles up at him.
“Wanna see it?”, she replies. “Come on.”
At least he has one friend in Wellington now, he thinks as he closes his apartment door behind himself, dropping his shoulder bag on the second-hand sofa.
The truth is, Hero and him never really were friends. He was too busy with his own problems to even truly notice her in high school. Up until her sixteenth birthday she was nobody to him. And then he hurt her, unintentionally, and even though he apologised to her and everyone else, he still didn't feel like they were anything but acquaintances. She's a miracle to him, how she forgave him back then, how she always had a smile to offer when they were sitting two rows apart in class and bored as heck. On their graduation day she came over to him and pulled him down into a hug, something nobody, especially not him, was expecting.
And now they're both here, in Wellington, studying at the same university. Maybe it's a sign, a second try, a clean slate. He doesn't know what to do with it yet, but it feels good. It feels right.