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He stood staring, smiling at him.
Zenitsu knew what came next.
Once again, the boy turned and walked away from him.
He jolted up, sweat dripping from his temple as his heart beat wildly in his chest. Once his senses completed coming back to him, he hissed in pain. Around him were shards of shattered clay, which… he appeared to have fallen asleep on top of. His back ached like never before after having slept on the concrete floor of his studio in a pile of dead sculpts like a madman might do.
It had been a week–maybe two, since the boy had come to him. It was strange. He was the most beautiful thing Zenitsu had ever laid his two eyes upon, and yet, he could never properly remember his face. Around him was a mighty display of his attempts:
Paper scribbled over in ink, charcoal, graphite, really whatever he could find, all screwed up and strewn around the open room; canvases covered in various paints, some ripped, many stabbed with the back end of a brush; and countless blobs of wet clay, blocks of half-carved plaster, and the remains of busts he had either fired or let dry, either because he’d given up or because he wanted to break it afterwards. This all culminated into the mess around his studio.
He groaned, standing with all the strength he had. Looking around the space, he dragged a hand over his face and sighed. Why couldn’t he just remember? If he could remember, he would probably knock off about half of his life’s problems right now.
He maneuvered his way around the chaos on his floor and headed towards the bathroom. Perhaps a nice bath would help him relax, gather his thoughts, remember.
He crawled inside the tub before turning on the water, not having bothered to even strip yet, so he was simply soaking his clothing in freezing water as he gazed up at the ceiling. Wondering about the boy. He had wild red hair thrown up in a short ponytail, and he wore a blue scarf with a checkered haori. He had an odd scar on his forehead and was always in the snow. Smiling at him, fondly–or perhaps mockingly. He could never really tell. His face, the details he could never keep straight after waking up. It was frustrating.
The bath kept filling, and Zenitsu kept staring upwards, painting a picture on the ceiling of their typical scene; snow, woods, the boy and himself, 6 shaku apart at most. It was a gorgeously sad scene, and it made for some good inspiration, but it never satisfied him enough whenever he put it to paper or clay or whatever other medium he thought might finally capture the boy.
If only he could dream forever. The cold water nipped at his skin as the snow in the woods did in his dreams. He simply kept wondering, and the bath kept filling, and he didn’t care for it.