Take My Breath (KShaw)

Chapter 11

"Nice alpaca, Ethan." Ethan glares at Tobi and covers his picture. "It's a dog," he hisses. "Asshole." Harry's pencil brushes over the page, shading more than creating rough, sharp edges. The class is, just as he'd wanted, fun. It's not exactly challenging for him, the way it is for, say, Ethan, but it's still enjoyable. And it's only for an hour and a half twice a week, which isn't fucking with his schedule as much as he'd worried it would. Plus, he gets to spend the whole time at a table with Ethan and Tobi, laughing at Ethan's failed attempts at drawing, encouraging Tobi's hesitant but fairly talented works. Trying to ignore the fact that JJ's sitting right beside him.

JJ is as hopeless as Ethan. He'd looked completely lost through the original instructions and the demo. He'd looked lost when the art student that was assigned to help them with this part of the class tried to help him. He's possibly worse than Ethan, actually, but where Ethan gets annoyed and snappish, JJ gets... pouty and frustrated. "This is so stupid," JJ mutters. Harry sneers at him. "Just because you're not good at it doesn't make it stupid." "Easy for you to say," JJ grumbles. "I can actually tell what yours is supposed to be. I'm helpless."

It's true. One hundred percent true. Even the instructor had attempted to help JJ before making a face and wandering off when she realized there was no helping him. Whatever he's drawing right now, it looks like a sort of lopsided blob with a nose. Or he thinks that's a nose. It could very well be a penis. "I agree with JJ," Ethan decides. He puts down his pencil. "Drawing is stupid. I can't wait until Monday when we start sculpting." "It's not completely stupid," Tobi argues. "I mean, not completely, right?" Ethan grabs Tobi's picture from him, holding it up to his face. "Okay, not completely," he relents. "But that's because you're talented. Really talented, Tobi. We're hanging this up in the room, in fact. Maybe we'll put it on the door next to the whiteboard, for everyone to appreciate." Tobi beams.

Harry looks at the picture, opens his mouth, and Ethan kicks him under the table before he can say anything. Not that Harry would say something bad. It's not a bad drawing at all. It's fairly good, for someone who walked in here with no knowledge of what they were doing. But it's not exactly good enough to warrant Ethan's reaction to it.

JJ makes an annoyed sound and scratches his pencil harshly across his paper, scribbling out the practise drawings they'd been instructed to work on. "Stop thinking so much," Harry finds himself saying to JJ. "You're trying so hard to be perfect at it, but that's not going to just happen." JJ looks up at him, lips parted. He shakes his head and the look disappears. "I'm terrible at it, and I'm sure you know and you're just waiting for the right time to laugh at me about it." Why does that make him feel bad? "You are terrible," Harry admits, and JJ's eyes narrow. "No worse than Ethan, though." "Rude," Ethan says from across the table. "Factual, but rude."

That doesn't seem to help JJ, who drops his pencil onto the table. "It's humiliating," he says. "I'm not just bad, it's-" Harry grabs a new piece of paper and shoves it at him. "So start over." JJ gingerly takes the paper from him. "Did you honestly think you could just, like, pick up a pencil and magically be perfect at it?" "Maybe," JJ admits. "If I'm not good at it the first time around, I probably won't ever be. I'm shit at learning things." Harry snorts before he can stop himself. "That's not surprising at all."

Harry is busy focusing on his drawing of a bird to see the look on JJ's face, but he doesn't miss JJ's low, annoyed, "Right. This is just another thing that makes you better than me." Finally Harry looks but JJ's got his eyes on his own paper now, focusing with his eyebrows drawn and his bottom lip sucked into his mouth. Harry isn't sure how to reply to that comment, so he doesn't. He goes back to drawing, JJ continues to work on his own, and Ethan keeps praising Tobi while making lame attempts at creating something on his own page.

Eventually the instructor comes back around. She smiles pleasantly at Tobi, wrinkles her forehead at Ethan's dog that honestly does look more like an alpaca than anything, and then compliments Harry's birds before moving on to JJ. JJ, who's had his picture covered for the last twenty minutes, arm blocking Harry from being able to see. Now, the instructor picks it up, and JJ's eyes stay on the table as she looks it over before flicking her gaze to Harry. "The shape of his face is fairly accurate," she says. "The stubble along his jaw is a little heavy, but that's very hard to do. With a bit more practise, this could be great." JJ's eyes go wide and he takes the picture back from her before stuffing it hastily into his pocket. When she walks off, he pushes away from the table and heads for the door, Harry staring after him.

"What did I miss?" Ethan asks, looking between Harry and the door. Tobi keeps drawing, but he says with a grin on his face, "JJ was secretly drawing Harry and he didn't want anyone to know, but our teacher called him out on it and now he's stomped off because he's embarrassed." His tongue sticks out between his teeth, eyes scanning his own paper. "Do you really think this is good?" "It's wonderful," Ethan says automatically, but his eyes are on Harry, the look on his face one Harry doesn't fully understand.

"That's not what he's upset about," Harry mumbles. "And he wasn't drawing me. He's just pissy because he has a game coming up. That's how he always gets." "Speaking of which," Ethan says. "You're coming to that game with us." "No, I'm not," Harry says. "You know that I don't-" "Look." Ethan splays his hands flat on the table and gives Harry this look, one that says not to argue. "He joined this stupid class for you, the least you could do is attend one of his games." Harry's mouth falls open. "He didn't join this class for me!" he protests.

"Please keep it down in the back," comes from the front of the room. Harry flushes red and lowers his voice, hissing, "He joined it to piss me off, that's all," while glaring at Ethan. "Same difference," Ethan says. "Go to his game to piss him off, then. But you're going." "I have homework," Harry argues. "I don't have time." "You can take a few hours out of your time at the library," Ethan says, an air of finality in his words that says that Harry will seriously regret arguing this. And that he'll drag Harry to the game anyway, even if he doesn't want to go. "Fine," Harry snaps. "But I'm bringing my book with me. I'll read while you guys watch. "Deal," Ethan says happily.

"Maybe I'll drop out of school and become a street artist," Tobi says, as if he hadn't heard a word of that argument. Ethan and Harry both snort at him.