Drawn to You

5. A little trip to the museum

Hua Cheng kept looking at one ukiyo-e print after another, on that long black walled gallery, taking pictures at times with his phone. He kept thinking how he unknowingly incorporated the style in his own work: block colours, contrasts of bold hues and pastels, gradients. He was a digital artist, but he even blended colours manually just to get the same effect.

Yes yes yes, he ended up going to the Tokyo National Museum.

Well, he did go to his studio, a place in a small commercial building not far from his flat, around 15-10 minute walk, but because it was on a backstreet, it felt like an entirely different place. Only by the rattle of the passing trains on the elevated railway tracks he felt it was still Okachimachi.

"Hua Cheng, long time no see", a man known as Butcher Zhu, even though he was a skilled hairdresser owning a business on the ground floor greeted him.

Lan Chang, manager of a café next door, also seemed happy to see him, and teased, "Hmm in my experience, when someone disappears it's because they found a special someone – "

Hua Cheng pursed his lips mockingly, and Lan Chang knew it well enough: she had a few customers who set their eyes on Hua Cheng, just to get utterly disappointed when he showed zero interest.

His studio was on the second floor, a bare concrete unit with a whole wall covered by aluminium framed windows: the main reason Hua Cheng rented this place was for its abundant light. He had a wide table with a powerful computer, drawing tablets, pens, and other digital art equipment.

Then there was a shelf with books and mangas, more for leisure than reference, and a battered sofa where Hua Cheng took naps after lunch sometimes.

He came in, even bringing fresh coffee to make it a productive day, intending to do some character designs and backgrounds, but after doing this and that (and nothing really important) and wasting the whole morning, he just got bored and realised he was going nowhere.

"It's still too early for design stuff, hmm, what's wrong with some field research?", he said to himself out loud (he knew well enough he was giving himself excuses there).

So, Tokyo National Museum: after buying a ticket, he just walked into Honkan, the Japanese Gallery, a beautiful building with a pond at the front, strolling around aimlessly among ceramics, samurai armours, katanas, tachis, scrolls, paintings (sometimes these two, combined), sculptures...

On the glass displays, he kept catching glimpses of himself, wearing an oversized dark grey coat, a checked red-and-black shirt with a white tee underneath, straight black jeans with cuffed hems, and boots. He looked cool as ever, maybe even more so: a winter coat does upgrade any looks.

It wasn't as if he counted on seeing Xie Lian there though. The museum wasn't that big, he might bump into him of course (in case he also went to the Japanese Gallery), but he would be with his class: just sticking to Xie Lian would be awkward.

From that ukiyo-e gallery he walked into an education space, and between two samurai armours, one red and one black, he saw a group that, by the looks, could only be art students. Trying too hard, he thought with a smile, looking at the weird hairstyles, ripped off jeans or dirty trainers. And, with that group, none other than Xie Lian himself.

The students were excitedly clustering around the stamps that showed visitors how an ukiyo-e print was produced: putting a pre-cut paper in each slot and stamping on different colours. It was very basic, meant for kids, but that didn't stop them.

For a moment Hua Cheng wondered if he should at least say hi, when Xie Lian suddenly turned and nodded at him from a distance. He had an off-white coat and an old-fashioned checked scarf, light jeans and white trainers. Gege always wears white, or beige, but he never looks washed out or boring. It just, er, suited him: he looked good.