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It’s when Venti is handed his final assignment of his graduating year that he learns his worst mistake in life was enrolling in the hell that is an arts school.
He stares blankly at the paper that’s handed to him with no context, unlike every other assignment that’s thoroughly explained before anything is distributed to the class. Looking up at the old man who’s teaching this class, the way his crumb-infested moustache moves whenever he scrunches his nose, and the utter lack of hair on his head which speaks for the fact that he’s a couple years overdue, he understands that he’d much rather be taught nothing at all than hear this ancient creature talk about nude modelling.
Venti’s grip tightens around the god awful piece of paper as he stares at it like it has betrayed him, then steals a peek at the rest of the class, most of whom seem to have accepted their unkind fate. He averts his gaze back to the assignment once more, checking it for a typo, or anything that might say he has mistakenly walked into the wrong class (not that that would be an anomaly) yet, unfortunately, this is one thing he can’t get himself out of with a made-up excuse or a handy bottle of beer.
Hearing the unceremonious screech of chalk against a black board, he raises his head with his undereye twitching in annoyance. His teacher, who looks much older than the wine he likes to drink, has written the words “nude modelling” in uncomfortably large, and uncomfortably cursive letters.
Venti considers walking right out of the class before he crumbles into the dust on the floor.
In a moment of hopelessness, he slumps in his chair, shoulders sulked forward and an inevitable pout perched on his lips. He tilts his head slightly to the side to look out of the tinted windows of the art studio, through the slits in the way that the panes are tilted up to reveal the silhouettes walking back and forth in the corridor. The clock has just struck half-past one, which means anyone walking into the building right now has to be from the digital media because nobody from that course wakes up before noon.
There was a time when Venti used to think that the digital media students had no lives, and that they led miserable lives being hunched in front of their computer screens for hours at a time. But looking at the way that they’re able to casually walk past while all hell has broken loose within the studio, he thinks they might be the lucky ones in the bunch.
He’s about to turn his head back to the black board when, beyond the tinted glass, he catches sight of an undeniably iridescent shade of teal—the only kind that looks like stained glass when it’s under the gentle glow of the sun, the only kind that looks like the raging ocean and a rain-struck field all at the same time, and the only kind that Venti will be able to recognise from the bottom of his heart in a crowd of hundred. He sits up against his stool, curling his fingers around the seat in order to support himself.
He follows the silhouette as it passes by the classroom, notably slower than usual, then as a pair of amber eyes turn to look back at him too. Venti’s eyes widen when he notices he has thrust himself into the precarious position of being caught staring. His cheeks flush red as he looks away promptly, refusing to look back to see whether he’s still standing there on the other side of the window.
“Anything wrong, young man?” a gruff, old voice calls out to him from the front of the class.
Venti shakes his head sheepishly, pulling his beret over his face. He lifts his paper to the height of his knee, glances at it shyly and indulges himself in a fantasy that will remain as that.
───────
It’s after an entire night of losing his mind over an assignment which, by right, isn’t the end of the world that he accepts that he has no option but to give in and get the entire thing over with so he can graduate. He’s not about to stick around another year to find out how much worse they can get with these assessments.
Having printed a stack of badly-photoshopped greek models slapped on an obnoxious pink background, rivalled only by the awful green that they use for highlighters, he’s already a step too far into the process for him to consider backing out right now. He drops the stack of posters onto an empty chair at a table of four, then slides into the only available seat left. He doesn’t do so much as acknowledge his friends seated in front of him before he plants his face against the table, and the two watching him wallow in his misery exchange a knowing look.
“For you,” Zhongli slides a mocha latte his way. “With extra whipped cream, and an apple drizzle.”
Venti lifts his head, some part of his consciousness returning to him upon hearing his order done correctly. It’s not like anything done by either of his friends would be wrong, but between the two of them, Ei’s more likely to sabotage his order when he’s already having a bad day. She must be feeling particularly merciful today.
“So, we heard the news,” Ei adds, looking at him while sipping on her black coffee. There’s a hint of bitter amusement in the way she speaks to him, preceding her intention to slip in an ‘I told you so’. He sneers at her, narrowing his eyes at the taunting curl of her lips. “You shouldn’t have taken sculpture. I warned you against it.”
“As if ballet is any better,” he mocks. “Nobody in your academy likes you.”
“Because I’m better than them, and they can’t handle it,” she hums nonchalantly, showing little care towards any perception the rest of the world might have of her.
“Or maybe you’re just an asshole,” he corrects, about to take a swig out of his coffee when Zhongli slaps his hand in scolding. He recoils, furrowing his eyebrows in a manner that suggests he’s completely unaware of what he must’ve done wrong. “Why would you do that?” he whines, massaging the area where he’d been struck.
“Venti,” Zhongli enunciates in a manner that suggests he’s not playing around.
“I’m relieved I don’t go to the same college as the both of you,” Ei remarks snidely, amused by the chaos unfolding in front of her. Their interactions are always some variation of this—a conversation that seems like it couldn’t possibly go wrong, one of them slipping in an arrogant comment about themselves (usually, Ei) then the other getting ticked off by it (usually, Venti) and the peacemaker who has to stop the entire table from being flipped over in rage (always Zhongli).
“You know what, I have worse problems to deal with,” Venti groans in defeat, slumping back into his chair after being shot a death glare across the table. He doesn’t want to risk getting on Zhongli’s nerves, since he’d much prefer not having his shirt stretched out by being dragged by the collar. Ei glances at him, who warns her with a stone-cold stare to hold her tongue, then lifts her hands in an insincere surrender. She sips quietly on her coffee, paying no mind to either of them as Venti loses his mind over having to find a nude model. “It’s going to be so awkward, you know? It’s not even about drawing someone naked, it’s the fact that I have to hang these stupid posters around campus then have to discuss payment with someone so they can sit naked on a pedestal.”
“It’s not so bad,” replies Zhongli, whose entire career is dedicated to sculpting bare-bodied models. “Besides, this is a good opportunity for you to get closer to—”Venti’s eyes widen when it dawns on him what he’s about to say. In a moment of bashfulness, he rises from his chair, pushing it back so far it knocks into the wall behind him. At the same time, the door of the café is pushed open by an entering customer, interrupting the once tranquil environment of the place. His entire body tenses up as he looks at the many heads turned in his direction, then at the customer at the door.
Xiao.
Their eyes meet across the café that feels like it couldn’t possibly be vaster. The cacophony of the city beyond the closed walls of their comfortable space spills in, bringing with it the dust and smoke from outside. Xiao eventually releases his grip on the door and steps inside, pulling his gaze away to scan the menu. Soon after that, as the sounds from the outside are muffled by the thick glass windows, the customers return to their own leisurely conversations.
“I can’t let people know I’m associated with you,” Ei sighs exasperatedly, burying her face in her hands.
Venti practically throws his hands up in the air. He leans up to her, whisper-screaming, “It’s a valid reaction—do you know what he’s implying?”
“That you should ask Xiao to nude model for you?” she raises an eyebrow, looking to her side. Zhongli nods to confirm her assumption, then she looks back at the panicking artist with an unbothered stare. She stirs the coffee in her cup, lips pursed in a manner that suggests she wants nothing to do with this anymore. “I don’t understand why you think it’s so bizarre. Don’t you want to see him naked?”
“Now you’re making it sound weird,” Venti sighs, throwing his head back in frustration.
“Could we please not talk about my tutee like this?”
“I’m trying to help you out here,” Ei shrugs, sitting back in her chair.
Venti lets out a huff in defeat, then proceeds to swipe his entire stack of hideous posters off the chair. Pressing them against his chest, he nudges his satchel strap into a more comfortable position on his shoulder and squeezes out of his seat. “I’m leaving,” he announces, and instead of greeting him back, Zhongli stacks his unfinished drink on top of his posters for him to carry with him.
“You will not be missed,” Ei snips.
As he walks out of the door, a gust of wind blows one of his posters off the top of his stack, and at the feet of the person who’s been watching him closely for a while.
───────
It’s within the next day that nearly the entire college campus is covered in posters for nude models. The harsh green of his posters is impossible to ignore against the warm colour of the eggshell walls, or the darker browns of the cork boards. Any other notice has since been covered up by these same posters as they hang off the foam boards and lockers, catching the eyes of students as they walk warily past them along the corridors.
Venti returns to the art studio with the expectation of being graced by yet another empty room, having accepted over the past week of not receiving any contacts that most students his age wouldn’t be interested in sitting naked for a few hours in exchange for a hundred dollars. Scrolling through his phone for another internet reference he pulled off Pinterest, he walks absent-mindedly into the studio while bracing himself for another hour of inhaling turpentine and expensive oil paint.
He massages the nape of his neck as he walks inside, trying to dull the ache that’s been killing him ever since he started spending hours at a time in front of his easel, slouching through his time. Venti doesn’t notice the other presence in the room until he hears an impatient sigh, which reminds him all too much of one person. He looks up in surprise, thinking his mind must be playing tricks on him, but his eyes are immediately caught by another pair, shining gold under the orange hues of the evening sunlight—oh.
Oh.
Venti’s beret nearly slips off his head as he stares at the man in front of him, standing with such lack of sureness, it gives the impression that he’s entirely out of place in this room. For a moment, he thinks it must be a mistake that Xiao, of all people, is standing in this art studio when his own classes are across the campus, but the entire thought gets him thinking so hard, he’s forced to mutter—
“Xiao,” it spills out with his next breath. “What are you doing here?”
Xiao doesn’t respond immediately, and continues to fidget on the spot as though he’s lost. He avoids eye contact, the tips of his ears flushing a gentle, barely noticeable shade of red. There’s a crumpled piece of paper in his hands which he’s trying to hide behind his back, though any attempt he’s making at hiding it is futile against the curious artist in front of him. “I,” he begins in a clipped tone, cutting himself off before he can complete his sentence. “I saw these posters.”
And despite Venti spending the past five minutes convincing himself that Xiao had come for every reason but the one he’d desperately like to be true, all that self-persuasion is promptly undone as he spots the piece of paper in his hands. Even then, he doesn’t want to assume. The worst thing he could possibly do is assume that the only man he’s interested in in this entire universe has come to volunteer himself as a nude model—for him.
Xiao opens the poster between his fingers, and starts, “It said you were, uh… looking for models. Is that it?”
Venti’s beret almost slides right off his head as he flinches in surprise. He presses his hand down against it, trying to centre it back on his head as he gawks at the man in front of him. He searches for any sign on his face that might suggest that he’s only joking, but the punctuated silence between them couldn’t mean anything else. Venti narrows his eyes in the shock of it all, because who would’ve thought digital media major, Xiao, who might easily be the most indifferent creature to walk this earth would offer himself up as a model for some art assignment.
“You’re serious?” he has to clarify, because he’s, more likely than not, misunderstanding everything.
Xiao nods his head in confirmation, showing him the poster.
This might be the answer to all his prayers. Venti accepts the poster as though it’s not one he designed himself, quickly pocketing the crushed up piece of paper as he pulls himself together within the second. Moreover the fact that he’s granted the opportunity to spend hours in the same room as the same man he’s been admiring for the past two years, Xiao has a body made for an artist’s gaze.
It doesn’t take much to know that he has a figure that looks like it’d been hand-sculpted by the gods, in the way that his chiselled jawline frames his face, and his sharp collar bones structure his lean body. His hips dip, seemingly, at an artistically perfect angle, and this level of perfection might only be challenged by the body of the lord himself. His pale, snow-white skin is sometimes reminiscent of the snow that melts during April, and shines like a sheet of canvas beneath the sun. He’s beautiful in a way that his beauty doesn’t know a name—in the way that Venti has yearned for too long to gaze at him and do so forever.
“Should I leave?” Xiao clears his throat, raising an eyebrow.
Venti contemplates his options and is left with only one to choose. He shakes his head quickly before his model walks out the same way he came, leading him to the pedestal for him to sit on. “You can change behind those curtains over there, then sit on the pedestal. There’s a cloth on the table over there that you can use to cover your pelvis area, but you can’t cover anything beyond that. Are you okay with that?” he asks, closing the door to the studio to make sure nobody else comes inside. "Okay," he then heaves to himself.
Xiao nods his head, still somewhat confused as to what he signed himself up for. As he totters behind the curtains to change, he doesn’t make any mention of the compensation, which rightfully, is what Venti expected him to have come here for. In the time that his model takes to change out of his clothes, he starts preparing the supplies he’ll need to make some progress on the painting.
Xiao walks out a few minutes later and props himself up on the pedestal, based on the printed reference that’s laid out on the table in front of him. Venti steals a peek on him as he squirms around in position, ogling the way his muscles flex when he clenches his hands around the curve of the pedestal. Considering how unwilling he seemed a few minutes ago, he’s more obedient than Venti would’ve imagined from someone like him—to the point, he can’t help but entertain the idea that Xiao might be here for him.
Of course, he waves off all inappropriate thoughts by the time Xiao looks at him again, waiting for another instruction. “It’ll take me a few hours to sketch, roughly three or four, but I’ll try to be speedier than that. I’ll pay you after every session, so you don’t have to worry about me flaking,” he grins, trying to hide the stutter in his voice as he stares at the figure in front of him. He doesn’t let his gaze linger for too long before he adds, “Thank you for agreeing to this. I was about to run out of hope.”
“Yeah,” Xiao replies absent-mindedly, trying to hold his pose. “It’s okay.”
Venti’s heart aches at the sound of his voice. He crosses his legs against the stool and forces himself to focus before time slips right by him and he’s left with nothing on his canvas but the sight of Xiao’s body burned into his mind. He draws the tip of his pencil against the canvas swiftly once he regains half a mind to focus on his artwork, sketching the silhouette of his model. His entire body is throbbing with his palpitating heart, and beneath his skin, he can feel the rush of his blood coursing through his veins.
Venti’s focused, he’s focused, but he’s still thinking about how he’d like to be ruined by the man who has so graciously placed himself on a pedestal for him to watch. There’s an intimacy in knowing that they trust each other in this space—to learn and to study, and to let learn and to be studied—that he’s determined on making a masterpiece out of this moment.
Venti wants to know every part of Xiao like he knows breathing—the shape of his tattoos and the angle at which the dragon curls like a wisp of cloud in the sky, the precise space between his eyes and nose, the length of his fingers and the feel of his entire body in the way it exists.
There’s so much beauty in this moment, Venti wishes he could capture it in a bottle and make it his drug. He looks, and and looks, and he looks, and his hand never once stutters during the sketch. Every precarious glance that leads him lower down his figure lights an invisible match against his skin, leaving behind it a trail of heat but never a fire. He thinks, as he’s sketching, that there’s something worth obsessing over Xiao in this pin-drop silence interrupted only by the phantom sound of breaths.
As the sun splits into a marshalling of colours, it’s as though Xiao’s sitting in the centre of a glass prism. Venti swallows softly as his eyes flicker back to his model’s face, to look at nothing but his eyes, and it dawns on him that it’s those same gorgeous, gorgeous eyes that hold nothing but him. For the first time, his hand pauses and the ash of graphite collects around the tip of the pencil that’s pressed too hard against the canvas.
“You’re staring.” Xiao makes the mistake of shifting an inch.
Venti mutters, “You’re beautiful.” A little louder than that, he says. “You moved.”
“Sorry,” the latter replies curtly, inching back into position. He doesn’t say anything after that, though now that they’ve both been made aware of the other’s staring, it has become obvious that neither of them have been doing anything but that for the past hour. His lips are pursed, and he looks around like he has something he wants to say, but Venti doesn’t think he can go another two hours as they are right now.
“I was surprised when you agreed to this—” Venti asks, to ease the tense silence. “—No, don’t relax your back, we’re not done yet.”
Xiao stifles a groan as he lifts his core again. He withholds an answer.
“We can take a break, if you want,” the artist supplies, sensing discomfort.
Xiao shakes his head, forgetting that even the slightest movement in his body would affect his posture. The thin sheet of cloth that had already been doing a poor job at maintaining his modesty slips inwards into his thigh, revealing a bit more skin—just a tiny bit more, and enough to catch him stumbling for a moment too long. It’s in that moment where he thinks about giving up on it all—this modesty, and decency, when there’s nothing friendly in the way that they’ve been looking at each other.
Venti isn’t convinced this is reciprocation—no, not when two years of pining have run between his fingers like crumbs of dried paint washing away with a stream of water. But it’s something, and he has fought too long for this something to ignore it. He knows that there are lines he must not cross, and the foundation of all art lies in the fundamental value of not spilling beyond, but as he’s teetering along this edge, he has already started to wonder how badly it would hurt to crumble.
Part of him thinks he wouldn’t mind.
“Do you like painting?” Xiao inquires, and it might be the first time he has spoken properly. This isn’t the first time that Venti has heard him talk, but it might as well be, considering every other time was having overheard conversations, or brief interactions over an assignment. He glances up at Xiao, not far enough to meet his eyes, but enough to let his eyes wander in search for an answer.
“Most times,” he answers. “I did until I had to paint a nude model.” He snickers at his own joke.
The corner of Xiao’s lips pull up as a show of amusement. “I hate painting.”
“Do you know anything about it?” he muses, still attempting to reserve most of his focus for his sketch. It has gotten infinitely harder to do so, since the point it dawned on him he’d do anything to push the easel aside and indulge in the mess instead of trying to capture it on a page. Every gaze lingering too long shoves him one step closer to making a deeply miscalculated mistake, but Venti is anything but predictable.
“I don’t need to know about something to hate it,” he snips back, trying hard not to move again. “But I do know about it—we all need to take a painting course before we choose our specialisation.”
“Right,” Venti notes, pursing his lips. “Sometimes I forget you’re an artist.”
“Really,” the latter responds with a hollow sound. “I thought I was more of an artist than other things.”
“Most of us are defined by our majors,” he replies, trying to maintain the accuracy of his sketch despite the changes in position here and there. There are certain intricate details that are no longer as clean as he would’ve liked them to be, because the certainty he had when he started has long been muddled by his lack of attention, and desire to do anything but stand in front of a naked Xiao. “I don’t think you are, though. You’re lots of things. Sometimes, everything,” Venti comments.
“Poetic,” Xiao notes.
“I love literature,” Venti grins, still holding some part of his attention to focus on the sketch. He picks up a blending stump and uses its tapered edge to blend the graphite and mark the shadows. “I love everything about the arts, but I think you might’ve guessed by now,” he chuckles, glancing at Xiao with the slight, impractical hope of seeing something but a frown on his face.
Unbeknownst to his worst of expectations, he catches Xiao’s eyes twinkling with amusement, and there he goes again—every bit of composure coming undone as he lets his eyes linger for a moment too long. The traitorous heat in his stomach returns once more, despite being doused with water time and time again, and he’s just about to drop everything before the heat against his skin reaches a point that can’t be ignored.
“Now you’re staring,” Venti frowns, cheeks flushed. “And your fingers moved.”
“You’re beautiful.”
A definitive silence hangs between them as Venti looks at him from behind the cover of the easel, nearly dropping his blending stump. There’s never been a moment greater than this where he has desired to be taken apart by the threads holding him together, or to be coloured till he’s breathless and incapable of feeling anything but love. He swallows his pride, and in shock, he chokes out, “You heard me?”
“Yeah,” Xiao hums. “I did.”
Venti has never felt a stronger urge to disintegrate before this moment. Now helplessly aware of the dizzying throbbing of his heart, he calmly places his tools on the supply storage of the easel, and says, “I’m tired. I’m going to take a break for ten minutes.” As soon as he gets the words out of his mouth, he scrambles out of the classroom with his empty water bottle, fleeing to the end of the corridor before his model can spare a reply.
Standing at the end of the corridor, Venti looks over his shoulder at the only studio with an open door, and wonders what he has gotten himself into.
───────
By the time he returns, he finds Xiao perched on the tool in front of his canvas, eyeing it with an indecipherable expression. He seems completely engrossed in the action of looking, that by the time Venti is a couple steps in front of him, he still hasn’t looked away. “Like the way you look?” he breaks the silence, albeit awkwardly, and stands a comfortable distance away.
Venti scrutinises his own painting, searching for any mistakes or discrepancies in the drawing. His face settles in an uncharacteristically stern expression as he notes the precise areas that he could define further, at least before he starts painting. He still hasn’t done the shadows on the lower part of the body, and he hasn’t completed the face, and he’s starting to hope he paid more attention.
Beside him, Xiao mentions, “I didn’t know you could make a face like that.”
Venti turns to him, taken aback by the curiosity riddled in his expression. “You have a lot to learn,” he smiles, nudging him to the side so he can work on refining some of the facial details. He tilts his head to the side during his process of cleaning, ensuring there’s not a single intricacy that he misses. Xiao remains poised by his side, hands in the pockets of his trousers, engrossed like he’s watching the craft of a master.
“You never told me why you hated painting,” Venti reminds, still focused on his canvas.
“I don’t need a reason,” Xiao replies shortly, leaning the small of his back against an equipment rack.
“But you have one,” he interjects. “With artists, there’s always a reason.”
Xiao looks down at his feet, deliberating an answer even though there’s one he knows he wants to say. “It’s scary,” he confesses, when he musters the courage. “The way a painting captures so much life, like the artist has met the subject’s soul before its body.”
Venti does all but look his way for fear of seeing something in his eyes that he can’t bear. “Poetic,” he mimes, managing a laugh. “So, why’d you agree to model for a painting, if you think they’re so scary?”
“No reason.” For the second time today, he turns his face away.
“Ouch,” Venti winces, like he’d been struck. “You didn’t do it for me? That hurts.”
Xiao doesn’t correct him. He doesn’t so much as stop him from pushing the line.
For a while, all that’s heard is the scratching sound of a pencil’s tip against a canvas board, then the dimmer sound of a blender as its flat edge is utilised skillfully to craft a story out of blank space. Venti doesn’t think during this time, because thinking will make him yearn and he must not bleed over the line when two years of hiding, and pining, and praying is on it.
“I did… come for you.”
Don’t say that to me with that look in your eyes. The tip of his pencil snaps, leaving the carcass of an incomplete line neglected on the canvas.
When he looks, really looks for who he is, he catches Xiao observing him again—and, oh, there’s that warmth in his eyes again that makes him want to tear him apart. His own eyes soften at the look of something he so desperately wants to deny and he begs, no, please don’t do this to me when we’ve come so far, but they’ve tread far enough to know they are the other’s worst, most beautiful mistake.
“For me?”
“Yeah,” Xiao coughs out, embarrassed now. “Sorry.”
“Why?”
“For saying that,” he mumbles.
“Is it so bad?” Venti spins his pencil between his fingers. “Coming here for me.”
“I don’t know,” Xiao’s voice quietens. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t want it to be a bad thing,” Venti says, as gentle as a whisper, but he has never craved anything more—nothing as badly as wanting to be loved by the man in front of him, to be consumed whole by his heart and to be adored in the way that the leaves will always blow in the direction of the wind, the sunflowers will never stop growing towards the sun, and rain will always belong to the sky. He craves it so dearly, and so much, he can’t feel anything in his body but that. “It doesn’t have to be, right?”
And as he’s being devoured wholly by Xiao’s gaze, he truly can’t imagine how he has gone so long without that love.