Sunlight on your face (Shuri x reader)

Epilogue

The next five months flew by.
I stayed in Wakanda for the rest of the school year to finish my graduation project and decide how I wanted to continue after.

Since the attack and my near-death experience, things had settled down, and Wakanda was even more vibrant than before.
Shuri and my relationship got stronger with every day. We spent as much time together as possible, and she always made sure to tell and show me how much she loved me.
We visited my family a few times and even stopped by in Florida to visit Sarah after she had left Wakanda in February.
Things were going well for us, Shuri had a major breakthrough in her research, and my project was chosen to be presented at the exhibition in New York. I was over the moon when I got the news, and I couldn't wait to see Shuri's face when she would spot the painting of her.
So overall, things couldn't be better.

****

It was the 18th of June, the day of the exhibition, and I was nervously running through my dorm, trying to find my keys.
Even though the exposition wouldn't start until the evening, I had to be there early in the morning to set up my paintings and organize the presentation.

Shuri was still peacefully sleeping, and I wish I could've woken her up, to let her calm me down but I wasn't that selfish.
After I finally found my damn keys, I sped out the door, praying that I hadn't forgotten anything.

The exposition was going to take place at the modern art gallery in SoHo. It was a beautiful modern building, and the thought of my paintings hanging in there, made me question if this was actually happening or if I was dreaming.

I pushed the heavy door open, taking in the huge lobby. It had high white ceilings, and a few abstract paintings were hung on the walls. I dragged my eyes away from the paintings hanging on the wall to my left and went up to the lady sitting at the reception.
She gave me all the instructions needed and called someone to come get me.

An older-looking gentleman appeared after a few minutes, introducing himself as Richard.
I followed him, as he gave me a quick tour of the gallery before showing me to my place.
We walked past other artists, who were busy setting up their projects.

When we arrived at my presentation space, Richard gave me some last instructions, telling me to look for him if any questions came up.

After he left, I took in the space I had available for my paintings. It was huge. A whole room, just for my work. It was an open room with three high windows on the wall and one up on the ceiling, flooding the place with natural sunlight.

My paintings were standing on a small rack in the middle of the room, waiting for me to hang them up. As soon as I entered the room, a vision of how I wanted it to look started building in my head. I was going to put the introduction on the wall facing the entrance so that it was the first thing people would see, and I wanted to distribute the paintings evenly on the four walls. Each of them would be presented next to the initial sketch. With that, I wanted to show the process behind my work and how every motive was something out of my daily life. I had chosen a title and a short description for each painting, which were printed on small metal plates.

Richard came back with a younger man who was assigned to help me set up my work.
We started by hanging up the sign with my introduction, struggling to get it in the right position. Then we went on to put up all my paintings. Luckily the walls were quite large, so I had enough space to hang them next to each other, without it looking too packed.

After a few hours we were finally done with everything, and I was content with how the room turned out. It looked professional and elegant.
I went over a few details of the evening with Richard before returning to my dorm to shower and change.