Aquarelle [h.s]

five

I could hear the ticking of the clock at the back of the room and the single drop of water that intermittently left the tap in the bathroom to crash on the cold ceramic of the sink. I could hear the humming of the cars speeding down the street, the drivers eager to get back home and start their weekend. I could hear my heart in my chest, each beat so loud that I feared it would've broken through my ribs.

I wondered if he could hear it.

Sitting in front of me, stiller than a marble statue, a pair of familiar green irises incessantly burning into mine whenever I dared to look up from the canvas.

His presence dominated the room in the way only he could do. In the moment he'd stepped inside it was as if I'd come to a silent agreement with the walls and surrendered the ownership of my studio to him. For as long as he was in there, it was his room. It was clear in the way he looked at me, way more shamelessly than any other of my models had ever dared to.

But he wasn't like any other of my models, and he knew it just as much as I did. I wondered if he knew, though, that he was way better than them. On a totally professional level, he was the best I'd ever had.

I'd only realised how much I'd missed him in that way in the second he'd walked into the room with his usual daintiness in his step and slid off his black coat with way more ease than he should've been allowed to, hanging it right next to mine before looking at me expectantly. As he'd walked into the studio before me, his white dress shirt hugging his shoulders to perfection to the point that I wondered if he'd had it personally fitted, I knew that things wouldn't have been nearly as easy as I thought they would've been.

Because with Harry, nothing was just what it was. Talking wasn't just talking, modelling wasn't just modelling. Everything he did seemed to hold a much bigger meaning, just because he was the one doing it.

Even in that moment, sitting in front of me, Harry wasn't just modelling. He was observing, studying even, me and every single movement of the pencil on the paper, even the ones he couldn't see. He was analysing the change in my expression every time I glanced up, meeting his gaze.

Harry had always been an observer, that I knew. But right then, I found it way more unsettling than ever before because I knew he couldn't see right through me, and the thing was - he wasn't allowed to anymore. He wasn't allowed to anymore, but he was doing it all the same, because it was just who he was.

He was an observer. He was the kind of person that seemed not to care about anything and anyone, but in reality kept an eye on everything around him. I knew that I couldn't have made a single move that he wouldn't have noticed, and it made me incredibly nervous. I didn't like to be nervous, and I especially didn't want to be nervous in front of him, because I knew that he would've inevitably noticed it, and that was a little win I wasn't willing to give him.

"How are you?" I found myself asking after some more interminable minutes. If I'd known the temperature in the room would've dropped so quickly in the second he'd walked inside, I would've considered putting some music on. But I hadn't, so now I was left with an Harry that was painfully - to me - aware of his surroundings and a deep silence to match. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought I'd gone back of five years.

"I'm fine" he replied, no particular emotion held in his deep voice, the words coming out just barely louder than a whisper. He didn't need to speak louder though, because the silence of the room was so strong that I was almost sure I could've heard the beating of his heart if he'd taken off his white shirt. "And you?" The question came some seconds after, way more hesitant than his previous reply.

I glanced up quickly from the pale graphite lines on the blank canvas, meeting Harry's green eyes, that were staring at me as he waited for a reply, a hint of something in them I couldn't recognise. "Uh?" I couldn't help but ask.