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The mandatory class begins. Drawing and Painting with professor Mikel Arteta, and Kai is, reasonably, deathly terrified. Swinging over from Germany into the foreign territory that is the United Kingdom was a hard feat to tackle. His parents moving over was a last minute decision to help cut costs of taxes and help with the costs of his tuition. He could’ve just settled with something in Germany, but his parents insisted on Royal College of Art over in London for Fine Art. They could’ve just sent him over to some apartment but they, as always, insisted on coming with, too. It works, though. His parents help out with transportation costs occasionally but he’s left to fend for himself while his mom still makes him lunches everyday. It’s only the first class into the life drawing course, and the model won’t stop staring.The man comes in, grinning and talking to Arteta like he’s one of his mates, showing something on his phone to him and talking to him like he’s one of his professors. Kai, being nosy and lowering the volume in his earbuds, strains to listen but can’t hear anything from the students pulling out and situating benches and drawing boards. Kai’s forgotten a clip to pin his newsprint pad up. Luckily, Martin’s more than happy to give him one. The model then slips into the back room. Arteta’s listing out the tasks and tips on ways to approach today's study, Kai’s eyes are back on the model, who is in a robe now, situating the small stage with the half-falling-apart props given by the drama department. Mikel states that they’ll be doing thirty sets of thirty-second gestures to start them off, Kai loathes the quick drawings. As soon as the timer beeps on, everyone is adjusting on their benches and the model slips off his robe. He’s average, has a pretty decent package, is structured in the right areas, built well. He’s definitely a gym rat, maybe more of a footballer, judging by the flex of well-built muscles at his calves and thighs. They’re flexing as it’s perched on the small box, outstretched arms and head facing the spotlight. Skin so pale he briefly thinks of ruling out the possibility of him being into sports, the sun never tanning skin, and Kai thinks he’s more than beautiful. Every model that passes through these classes is beautifully crafted, but this one’s different. His energy is different, his poses feel genuine and relaxed, yet always crackling in energy. He’s staring dumbly at him instead of drawing. He hates the thirty-second poses, anyway. He opts to prepping the conte stick instead, mind wandering.The model glares at Kai from across the room. He knows it isn’t intentional– it’s the natural centre of field in your vision, the natural picture-plane vocal point. He briefly runs his finger along his forearm, watching charcoal dust smudging in its wake into the skin and briefly thinks what it would be like to run that same charcoal along his skin like moulding clay. The stark contrast between pitch-black pigment and milky pale skin.He digs his charcoal into the newsprint when marking the thick curve of his perched up swell thigh on the box. Another sharp one to mark his hip and another soft downwards arch to mark his soft cock that lays lax between his legs. Another strike into the paper to capture the hair that fell loose from carefully gelled hair.30 seconds evolve into five minutes, then the timers up, and the model shifts his position, sitting up to sit crossed legged. His vision, again, falls on Kai. It’s hard not to stare back, he’s analysing and he can’t sit still and the heavy drawing board laid in his lap at an angle is digging into his flesh. Weirdly, a couple of minutes into the pose and looking into his soul, he winks at Kai. “Something funny, Declan?” Arteta asks, and Declan’s laughing with his head leaning back and apologising to everyone for moving.“Nothing, sir.” He’s still laughing to himself, more strained, and the timer erupts and he turns his back to lean his chest onto the chair. Thank god he’s moved, because Kai can’t stand his stare for longer than 30 seconds, and wishes he can go back to doing those quick shitty poses. Kai’s stuck on wondering what his relationship with the professor is. “He’s practically eye-fucking you.” Leandro would murmur during their break, Declan’s just sitting on the stage with a robe back on and scrolling mindlessly through his phone. Kai stammers at the comment, furrowing his eyebrows with a huff.“You’re fucking gross, Leo.” Martin groans, but can’t help a laugh.“Even Florian agrees.” Florian, the quiet boy that always sits across from Kai, always sparing glances his way. He wants to speak to him more, as he’s the only German speaker in any of his classes, but his stubborn ‘friend-crush’ prevents anything good from happening to him.“ God , Florian’s noticed?””Oh yeah, he’s noticed.” Kai tries not to think about the eye-fucking comment, but it’s hard to notice when the models sparing glances his way all-too-often to be on purpose. He’s practically robbing everyone of their tuitions, cause he refuses to turn his back on Kai. In favour of glancing at him, as if he’s the one drawing.It’s also obviously meaning something when Declan winks at him again once he’s leaving, and Kai honest to god almost knocks down his drawing board and everyone else’s in the process, tumbling like dominos. Martin catches it though, eyeing him wearily. Knowingly, like Declan’s stare. The next day during critiques, he’s flustered under the spotlights when presenting. Shaky hands pointing out line-weights and contour lines, half-assed explanations of his works.He can see Leandro and Martin smirking in the corner, shoulders glued together, eyeing Kai and his pieces. His pieces, that they’re eyeing, are all from the same model. It’s not his fault that the model just so happened to peak his interest and ended up creating drawings better than he’s done before. Even Florian’s in on the joke, biting back a grin into his high collared jacket.Mikel’s critique was simple and obvious; work on proportions, spend more time measuring the subject before drawing. Whatever. Mm-hm, Okay, Sure, Right, Thanks, hushed and murmured, eager to sit back down onto the drawing bench and plaster his back on the drawing board.
He dreams of Declan that night, pinned up against the drawing board, gripping the bottoms of the ply as Declan’s kneeling above him; gripping at his waist to give leverage as he thrusts into him. The drawing bench josels everytime, a wail against the studio floor from the splintered wood, the bare skin of Kai’s ass on the dirtied paint-charcoal mess, back plastered against canvas. The paint gets all over, whatever structure of Declan painted on the page now destroyed from the values and hues smudging over his skin as he’s pushed into the board, mouthing into the air as his head thunks back in ecstasy, pigment matted in the strands. Kai’s whining in pleasure and the disappointment of his work ruined, and Declan leans in with a smirk brushing against the shell of his ear, laughing breathless when only whispers; “Oops.” It’s safe to say that Kai’s thinking of the whole thing during the entirety of the lab after that critique as his eyes twitch up at Declan seated on stage.