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There's a picture stuck to their fridge. Mommy, daddy, kitty, her, all in terribly bright colors and shapeless bulging forms; heads too big, bodies too small, no hands, no feet. Nothing to stand with and nothing to reach with; solid ground two meters below their feet. The grass is yellow and the sky red because blue and green used to be her favorite colors and she already used them up.
She thinks it's funny, how she can relate more to those deformed stick figures than she ever could to her peers.
Toddler drawing, been there since she was little and will probably stay long until after she's moved out.
(Look, professor: This is where it started. What showed me it was meant to be.
Except she's no prodigy, except she was never one of those kids—didn't draw all day, every day, ever since she could hold a pen a crayon a marker. Drew like any other kid then quickly lost interest, oooh a new book, aaah a new game, eeeh a pretty butterfly.
Holds up a mirror and repeats: Look, professor.)
She's fourteen and supposed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Fresh out of middle school, finally a high school girl, almost all grown up. The world at her feet, the possibilities endless. She can do what she wants, she only has to take the initiative. (That's where her problem starts.)
She's not bored. She's not lonely. She has a loving family, hobbies, great friends. Only a few, but she holds them dear.
What she doesn't have: motivation, inspiration, aspiration. No burning anticipation or wish-I-may goals, not for the future and not for the rest of her school life. Grades mediocre at best, downright shameful at worst; her parents don't nag, and they don't expect anything grand. They only ever expect what they know (know what they think that they do and think that they know what) she can do.
But there's a teacher. Weird, crazy, a bit on the mad scientist side, with the glasses and hair, probably plays it up for reactions (he likes to chuckle, doesn't he) and he starts expecting the moment she picks up the pencil.
(She's not sure, but maybe it's what she's always needed.)
One of thirty in this classroom packed with beautiful minds, and she knows she can't compare. Kousuke has the raw talent, Hana the drive, Teru is goal-oriented and has his seven year plan while Kira's just in it for the money, but the results hold up.
In contrast, Nao's sketches and water color paintings are nothing next to those masterpieces in the making, but when he leans over her shoulder, his hand warm on her arm, words meant to encourage and better herself and not critizice, she feels like maybe it's worth something.
The year passes. They all participate in a prefectural contest; Kousuke wins, to no one's surprise, and Kira misses second place by a hair, beaten by some third year from their sister school. She complains about third place not being worth anything in the real word while Nao keeps staring at her own painting, doesn't mention that she isn't even in the top thirty.
A course over summer vacation. Not hosted by the school but by himself, at his house. He has a home-studio (she doesn't know why she's surprised, but eats the tidbit of personal information up like a woman starved).
She readily accepts, heart in her throat. Wonders if he has a garden, pets, if his house would be big enough for one more person.
A second year and she thought she would be over her silly crush by now. But she sees him every day of the week, in school, at his house on the weekends, housing her and some of the other students for extra lessons.
He's too old, she tells herself, too old, too weird, it was just infatuation, she was just confused because someone suddenly paid attention to her—instead she paints him, over and over again.
She never gets it right.
Nicked a finger with the pencil she just sharpened. Of course, clumsy little Nao, stabs herself with her own stupid pen. What else could you expect.
It's not the pain that drives her to blink tears away, but the inevitability of the whole thing.
Fingers perfectly framing hers, palm pressed against the back of her hand, his thumb running down the line of hers, the green bandaid wrapped around the tip. She tries not to read too much into it. (But oh, she's only a girl, and she wants, and sometimes it feels like he'd be willing to give.)
"Back to it, then?" he says eventually, and she tells herself her only regret is that he didn't hold her hand for a little longer.
She doesn't believe in red strings, but maybe green ones aren't too far-fetched a thing to hope for.
Chalk turns her fingertips white and she lifts it up to the blackboard. Quick strokes, heart-formed, self-assured, only thing she was ever certain of. Uses latin letters because it's easier (to write, to wipe off, to bear, hey, those americans, those europeans, isn't it common over there, teachers getting caught with their students?)
Pitter-patter steps getting closer, not his, too dainty, no playful skip every third step, yet she still panics, uses the sleeve of her balzer to wipe the whole thing off.
Hana raises her eyebrows at her, gaze flickering from her dirty sleeve to the smudged blackboard. Nao hopes her embarrassed smile is enough to deter her from asking, and it is. (Or maybe it's just not interesting enough a question to voice in the first place; the worth of an answer is, after all, the thing that animates to inquire.)
Ka-zu-mi. Whispers it in the dark of night, clock hands stuck between one and two, safe haven of can-never-be's. Hush-hush-words soaked up in the soft of her eiderdown stuffing, the blanket the most expensive thing she owns. Her parents, bless them, wanted to splurge on her for once. It's sweet, albeit unnecessary, since she doesn't see much sense in spending money on something she never wanted.
It's always about the things you do want and how you can never have them, though, isn't it.
Her love for oil paintings awakens in her third year.
It's his favorite style, and she finally understands why.
The pleasant smoothness of the colors, the sharp smell of turpentine, all things she associates with home (a little studio in a house too big for just one person, just the two of them once everyone else has left and she stays a little longer. I have to catch up to the others, professor, she says, the excuse cotton candy on her tongue).
Picture her heart like this: A garden, overgrown, left to spread as it pleases. He doesn't hack away at the roots but instead caresses the buds too shy to bloom on their own, hidden deep inside the maze made of blades and weeds.
She graduates. Gets a job at a painting supply store. Her birthday passes by. He gives her a painting: a family of four. A father, two daughters, a dog. The father looks tired and the girls almost too innocent, tiny chihuahua lying at their feet. She follows the shadows of the pine trees in the background with her fingers and marvels at the futility of it all.
She hoped, she thought, maybe, maybe. No longer his student, finally an adult. He might, he might.
He doesn't.
He never turns her away, either, always welcomes her in his home, warm and painted in colors she can only dream of seeing one day.
They paint together, apart, next to each other, in silence and noise, with music and the TV and their voices and heartbeats as constant companions, elbows touching as they reach for the same tube, hands brushing, just for a moment, (as if) on accident, his gaze, lingering.
(One day, she muses, he will.)