My God. 

Elias’ face, when he focused and listened … Ryan found himself gulping more than not, and drinking all the water he’d been given before they’d even received their food. 

His features had turned so soft, so gentle. Those dark eyes of his lightened up for just a shade, and when he concentrated on solving the examples to see whether he’d fully understood, it was a completely different kind of beauty. 

Ryan found himself wondering what Elias would look like when he painted, or sketched, or worked on any of his art projects. How focused would his face be, how light his eyes?

Would he be even more ethereal than he was now?

So exquisite, Elias was, in the way he held his pencil, in the way it floated over the page as he wrote down numbers upon numbers, even those looking like pieces of art. 

Even his knuckles are majestic, even his fingernails, Ryan thought, so confusingly intrigued by it all, he stared a little too much, and too long, making Elias snap as if he’d felt Ryan’s gaze on him this entire time. 

“What are you gawking at?” 

Ryan flinched, choking on the water he’d drank, and quickly turned his head away, staring at the pictures of food items on the wall, instead. “Hungry! I guess, I’m hungry! Math makes me so hungry, you know … And studying, I always get hungry cramming like this, and the food here smells so good, and looks so good, and—” 

A loud sigh out of Elias’ mouth silenced Ryan almost immediately, and he gulped, instead, watching Elias rub his fingers against his temples. “You are so annoying.”

“… Huh?” 

“You talk so loud, and way too much. Why do you have so much energy?” 

“Uh—“ Ryan’s eyes stuttered about, and his lips turned to a pout. “I’ll be more quiet, then …” 

When they double-checked Elias’ math examples, though, and his answers turned out to be fully correct, it did seem to lift his mood ever so slightly. “I guess you’re not as stupid as I thought, Riley.” 

You’re doing this on purpose! Ryan puffed out his cheek, eyes all gloomy. “It’s Ryan,” he mumbled, but he was sure Elias didn’t even listen to it. 

“And what’s that even supposed to mean?” he then asked a little louder, when Elias was still reading over the cheat sheet once again. 

His dark eyes did flicker over for a tad, jumping up and down Ryan’s face before retreating back to the cheat sheet. “Well, you look like a jock, so I wasn’t expecting much.”

“A—A jock?” I’ve never heard that before, never, never! Is that a compliment, or an insult?! Given that it was Elias who had said it, Ryan was going to go out on a whim here and guess that it was rather an insult than anything else, and it made him sulk and slouch lower in his chair. 

“Now that I get a good look, there’s no way you’d be a jock,” Elias suddenly scoffed. “You are just a geek, after all. Guess you just happen to be tall.” 

“Hey, you’re really—“ Ryan grumbled playfully, lower lip protruding. “You’re really mean.” 

Finally, the food arrived, and Elias didn’t say another word, eating the stew he’d received in a sizzling stone pot. Ryan stuffed his face with the delicious spicy stir-fried pork, reaching for all the side dishes to try them one by one.

“It’s so good! Hm! I like this one, this one’s so refreshing.” With a full mouth, still chewing onto crunchy cucumbers, he tapped his metal chopsticks against one of the small plates of sides. 

Elias stared, but said nothing, continued on sipping on his soup spoon by spoon, big pieces of tofu slipping into his mouth more often than not. 

“And this? What’s this? That’s so flavorful, too.” 

“…” Elias grumbled. 

“The radish is so good, too. It’s pickled, right?” 

With his metal spoon falling into his stone pot, Elias finally snapped. “Will you shut up?” Those words made Ryan flinch in surprised, and lower his chopsticks down towards his pork, piercing it with it.

“… What?”

“Just stop talking, and let me eat in the peace, got it? I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth unless it’s about calculus.” 

Ryan slowed his chewing, worried about making even the slightest peep, but the longer he held his mouth shut, the more unbearable it became. “But—“

“Sh!” 

He flinched once more when Elias shushed him, and from that moment on, he didn’t dare say another thing. But his existence, as quiet as he tried to be, still bothered Elias. 

“Tch. Can’t you hold your chopsticks properly? What are you doing?” And Elias paused his own meal, reaching over for Ryan’s chopsticks, only to place them into Ryan’s hands the proper way, practically teaching him all over again even though Ryan long knew how to do it. 

He accepted it, though, his heart racing a little too fast when Eli’s gentle fingers touched his own. 

And Elias? Right after, he ate his stew as fast as he could, dropped cash onto the table, and snatched his stuff of the table to run out of the store and disappear, without even saying goodbye.

Ryan was left too bamboozled to react, staring at the empty seat diagonally across from him, and sighed.

Only then did he notice, and gasped as he reached for the black sketchbook left behind on the table. 

“Elias, you forgot your—“ But running out of the store in hopes to catch him was futile, with Elias having long fled the scene. 

“Damn. Why’s he in such a hurry, anyway?” Ryan said to himself, running his fingers along the black binding of Elias’ thick sketchbook. Some of the papers within were wavy and wrinkly, as if he’d spilled water on them. But the more Ryan thought about it, it must have been water colors Elias had used inside this sketchbook, sparking Ryan’s curiosity all the more. 

In a gulp, he sat inside his car, sketchbook on his lap — debating. 

I should text him. Ryan thought he should have let Elias know he had the sketchbook, and that he’d safe-keep it for him. But what if Elias asked him to simply drop it off somewhere?

It better be the last time — that was exactly what Elias had said; he had no intention of seeing Ryan ever again if he did well on the calculus exam. In his eyes, there was no need to. After all, they weren’t friends, they weren’t even acquaintances. 

The only reason they’d hung out was because they’d crossed paths for a split-second in their lives, and Ryan hadn’t wanted to let go of it. For whatever reason it was, Ryan clung to this one, fateful meeting of finding Elias in the professor’s office, and he didn’t want this to be the end. 

Ryan decided to bring the sketchbook to Elias another day, all so he’d have just one more excuse to see him again. Maybe it was his luck, the fact that Elias had forgotten it. 

“Why do you make me so curious?” Ryan sighed, and glared at the sketchbook.

He tried, he really tried his very hardest not to open it.

But in the end, he couldn’t stop his own fingers flipping it open.

“It’s not like it’s a diary, or something,” he grumbled. “It’s just a sketchbook. It’s nothing special.” 

Nothing special, Ryan had told himself — but that wasn’t the case at all.

As soon as he opened the sketchbook to a random page in the midst of it, he was completely mesmerized, and taken aback by Elias’ talent alone. 

“Damn. He must be on a scholarship, or something. How is he this good?” Ryan flipped through the pages, and though these were only repeated sketches of the same things over and over again, all cramped onto the pages as much as they could fit, they were immaculate.

Hands drawn to perfection.

Sketches of various body types, to perfection. 

Faces of random students he must have observed, or customers in a coffee shop, or wherever he spent his days.

“You’re rude, but you draw everyone with so much attention to detail, huh?” 

Some pages were sketches of a single drawing, as if they were preparation for bigger canvases. And they were beautiful human bodies, sometimes sensual, sometimes like the Greek statues, and sometimes abstract, faceless, confusing. 

And some pages … were completely ruined. 

Flawless sketches, drawn over in aggression with endless circles of a pencil, trying their very hardest to make the drawings beneath disappear. So aggressive, even, the pencil had ripped through some of these pages, making Ryan wonder what had happened.

“But that sketch … isn’t it so good? Why did you ruin it?” And at that moment, with more and more faceless sketches, hands atop pianos, and drawings ruined by Elias himself, Ryan felt as if he went too far, as if he’d allowed himself a peek into something he shouldn’t have. 

As if he’d done something forbidden, and now knew something he was never supposed to know. 

And before he shut it, the most recent page Elias had worked on screamed at Ryan, boggling his mind and confusing him from head to toe. 

Your face is what bothers me. That’s what Elias had said barely an hour ago.

And yet, this unfinished, rough and quick sketch, drawn from memory and never finished. Another sketch, Elias had wanted to ruin with his pencil, too scared of erasing it fully, too heartless to leave it untouched. 

A shudder for a breath escaped Ryan. 

“But … isn’t that me?” 

The collar of a checkered flannel. Thick eyebrows Ryan was insecure about. His fluffy hair he could never control. Even his protruding Adam’s apple, Elias had drawn. All these details, Elias had noticed, when it felt like he was never truly looking. 

That ruined sketch Elias had circled over endlessly, and even crossed out a bunch of times — it was most definitely Ryan.