Chapter Text
The room smells like turpentine and oil paint. The air is thick, heavy with the scent of dried pigments and chemicals that stick to the back of his throat. The faint, dry crackling of the paint as it settles onto the canvas is the only sound. It makes him feel like the world outside has faded, leaving only the room, the walls, the unfinished work stretching out before him, like a distant, unreachable thing.
Shidou doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. The brush is in his hand, steady but not sure. His fingers, wrapped around it, are stiff. Every stroke feels unnatural, forced, like the brush itself might snap at any moment. He dips it into the dark blue paint, swirling the bristles around in the wetness, eyes never leaving the blank canvas that’s started to fill with a shape that shouldn’t be here. Not like this. Not like this at all.
The face is incomplete. It’s getting harder to remember.
He pauses, staring at the outline, and feels something in his chest tighten. A dull ache. His fingers curl around the handle of the brush harder, the bones in his hand feeling like they might crack from the pressure. The weight of the brush is heavy, yet somehow weightless. It’s a paradox, just like the grief that’s settled in the pit of his stomach.
A memory flits through his mind, like a whisper from a distant room, but it’s fleeting—just the edge of a smile. The way Sae used to look at him when he thought he wasn’t looking. It used to be so clear, so sharp. But now, it’s slipping, fading in and out like an old photograph being washed out in the rain.
“Shidou.”
The voice isn’t there anymore. Not in the room, barely in his head. He’s alone, and the silence presses down on him harder than the paint, harder than the weight of everything he’s lost. The ache in his chest blooms with every passing second, a sorrow that never fades.
He closes his eyes and tries again.
Not with the brush. Not yet. Just the memory.
He tries to remember the way Sae looked when he wasn’t posing. Not in a moment captured by light or paint. Not the version he polished with brushstrokes and colors. Just him. The weight of his gaze when he was tired. The way his fingers lingered at the edge of a coffee cup. The silence that used to fill the space between them like something alive. Something that meant comfort.
He can’t remember what Sae sounded like when he laughed. Not really. His mind supplies echoes, distorted and wrong, stitched together from a dozen other voices that don’t belong to him. He pushes harder, digs through the haze, but all that comes is stillness. A stillness that stretches so far it begins to swallow him whole.
The brush slips from his hand and lands without sound.
He doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t move. Just sits there with his head bowed, palms resting on his knees, heart slow in his chest. He forgets, for a moment, that he’s still breathing. The room feels distant, like he’s watching it through thick glass, everything flattened.
He opens his eyes again and the canvas is still there. Still incomplete. Still wrong.
Outside, the sky bruises into night. No stars. Just cloud cover and the faint glow of city lights bleeding into the dark. The kind of night that never becomes full black, just a dull grey stretched thin across the skyline. He watches the windows of the buildings across the street flicker on and off, lives unfolding behind curtains. Someone’s setting the table. Someone’s feeding a cat. Someone’s leaning over a sink with their eyes closed, trying to stop shaking.
The city goes on without him.
He used to be part of it. Used to carry a sketchbook everywhere, filling it with crooked doorways, strangers’ faces on the train, the way shadows bent along sidewalks in late afternoon. Now he only paints one face. Over and over, as if it’ll bring something back. As if it ever could.
His stomach turns, not from hunger but from the hollow that’s settled too deep to reach. It doesn’t clench anymore. It just sits there, waiting.
He stands slowly. The muscles in his legs protest. His knees crack. He walks to the window and leans his forehead against the cold glass. For a moment, he stays there, eyes tracing raindrops that crawl down in uneven paths. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. The view doesn’t offer anything, just movement without meaning.
He turns away from the window and moves back to the table. The canvas is where he left it, waiting. The face hasn’t changed. Neither has he.
He picks up the brush again, not to finish, just to keep his hands from forgetting how.
The bristles feel wrong against his skin, but he moves anyway, dragging a line through the dried paint on the palette, staining the tip in something close to flesh, but not quite. The color doesn't match.
Then came a change in the air. His thoughts drift, pulling him back.
There had been a time when Sae had just shown up. Shidou hadn't invited him, hadn't even really expected him to show up. He'd been in the middle of a piece, sketching some new ideas, when the door had creaked open behind him. A soft step, barely a sound, but it changed the whole room.
Sae didn't say anything at first, just stood there, watching him work. There wasn't any pressure in it, no expectation. Shidou didn't stop painting. He didn't have to. But there was something about the way Sae stood there, quiet, watching. That made Shidou feel like the room had filled, like it mattered that he was here.
After a while, Shidou finally glanced over his shoulder. "You came to watch?"
Sae raised an eyebrow but didn't speak. His eyes were calm, taking in the colors on the canvas, the way the brush moved in Shidou's hands. Then, Sae finally spoke, his voice steady but almost too soft, like he was thinking about each word. "I don't mind watching."
Shidou wasn't sure what he expected. It wasn't like Sae to show up just for the hell of it, but Sae didn't seem out of place, even though this studio was far from the high-society spaces Shidou was used to seeing him in. It was a little messy, a little rough, but it was still quiet enough for someone like Sae to be at ease.
For a while, they both just stayed in silence. Shidou kept painting, the brush moving against the canvas, while Sae leaned against the doorframe. His arms crossed loosely, his gaze following the movements of Shidou's hand, and the quiet stretched between them like an unspoken understanding.
Eventually, Shidou set the brush down. He didn't turn to face Sae right away, just stood there.
"Wanna see?"
Sae just stepped closer. He didn't seem like he was pretending to be interested; it was like he was genuinely just curious. Shidou picked up a few of his older paintings and set them down on the nearby table, the ones that had been gathering dust and weren't finished.
He studied them, turquoise eyes moving over the details. He paused on a few, lingering longer before finally nodding once. "You should finish them."
Shidou just shrugged, his eyes avoiding Sae's. He didn't need the advice. He didn't want to hear it, but it was different hearing it from him. There was no judgment, no expectation. Just a quiet suggestion, and that was enough.
The memory folds in on itself, gone as quickly as it surfaced. Shidou's hand is moving again, dragging the brush in small, mechanical lines. The canvas doesn't flinch, doesn't react. It just absorbs the paint without question.
There's a smudge of dried crimson on his forearm. He doesn't remember when it got there.
The overhead light hums faintly, the kind of noise you only notice when everything else is too quiet. It flickers once, doesn't go out.
At some point, the palette ran dry. He mixes without thinking, brown that skews too warm, ochre dulled with grey, something muted that he tells himself is close enough.
Behind him, the apartment is still untouched. The plants by the window haven't been watered in days. The couch still has Sae's jacket slung over the armrest, half-folded like he'd only stepped out for air. There's a takeout container on the counter that's starting to curl at the edges. Neither of them liked that place much, but it had been open late.
His phone buzzes somewhere in the distance. A text, maybe. He doesn't check. It's never who he wants it to be.
When the tool slips again, he doesn't bother picking it up this time. Instead, he wipes his hand on the rag draped over the back of the stool and pulls another canvas from beneath the stack by the wall. Blank. Still smelling of wood and potential. He stares at it too long before setting it upright.
He doesn't sketch anymore, just dives in like hesitation might split him open.
The first stroke is too dark. The second disappears into it like it was never there.
On the windowsill, there's a cracked ceramic mug. Sae's. Some of the glaze chipped off near the rim. He used to run his thumb along the crack while thinking, said it helped him focus. Shidou's tried it. It doesn't do anything.
The playlist on his laptop is still paused where they left it. He can't bring himself to delete it.
He keeps painting.
Sometimes he talks out loud without realising it. Just small things. Color combinations, notes about lighting, questions no one answers. Once, he caught himself saying Sae's name. Just once. Quiet. Like it slipped through.
The hallway outside echoes with footsteps that never stop at his door. He listens anyway. Hope is a cruel trick like that.
The piece isn't good. It won't be. But it exists, and right now, that's enough.
He doesn't sign it. Just props it against the others, unfinished portraits that almost look right.