The sketches weren't a hobby; Blake would never dare to call herself an artist. And besides, a hobby was intentional. But her sketches, well, they just sort of… happened, finding their way onto the pages of her notes, homework, even the backs of tests whenever her mind had wandered somewhere else. Hobbies were done intentionally and frequently, as a way of passing the time and having a fun outlet to turn to. And Blake's sketches, well, they did pass the time, but they were done unconsciously, so it wasn't exactly like they were providing any fun.
In fact, some were painful.
They never meant anything, but they always featured whatever was drifting through the back of her mind, and more often than not they were memories of her time in the White Fang. Looking down to find that she'd been sketching Adam again was always the worst. It was a reminder she never needed, of things she should never have done and of people who cared about her that she'd… well, she tried not to think she'd abandoned them.
But even the reminders of her distasteful past didn't mean anything, they didn't mean that she wanted to go back or regretted leaving; the meaningless sketches were just whoever was on her mind when the pencil was in her hands. Until she glanced down to find Sun in the bottom corner of her notebook.
Her brow furrowing, Blake sat back in her seat and blinked at the sketch, bemused. Her sketches weren't nice things, they weren't things that made her happy—or, at least, they never had been before—and Blake found herself overwhelmed at the sudden realization that for the first time in a long time, she had people on her mind that she wanted to think about, and not just Sun.
Yang, only half-paying attention to Professor Port's lecture, seemed to catch Blake's confusion and started to lean over to catch a glimpse at what was so baffling about her own notebook, and Blake flipped it shut immediately. Pointedly not looking at Yang, Blake could feel her cheeks burning slightly, and it took her a moment to grasp why she was so quick to hide the sketch: she knew exactly what Yang would do.
If Yang caught sight of Blake sketching Sun, the very first thing she would do would be to tease Blake about having a crush. Which Blake absolutely didn't—although she could feel even more heat rising to her cheeks at the notion, and she was exceedingly grateful that Yang, after giving her an odd look, had already turned her attention elsewhere.
She did like Sun, she liked him a lot, but that didn't mean she had feelings for him. The last person she'd liked in that way had seen her as little more than a child, he couldn't take her seriously, and Blake was far from eager to go through that experience all over again. But as she began to flip through her notebook once more, trying to find where she'd left off, she started to notice other, older sketches.
A soft, involuntary smile graced her lips at an outstretched hand holding out an apple on one of the pages. She glanced over a sketch that hadn't seemed to be much at the time, although now she realized it looked like a tail. She ran her fingers across a penciled-in, half-peeled banana, and it was with the necktie she found on one page that she finally realized she'd been drawing things that made her happy, that reminded her of Sun, ever since she'd met him.
Oh. Oh. Maybe she did have feelings for Sun. And maybe, well, maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing.