Track #13: Ho Hey
The Lumineers
Lelouch holds on to his brush as if it's a sword.
The sun ray outside directly hits his blank canvass like a spotlight focusing on a blank space, wondering where its star has gone. This is a wrong idea, he is realizing now. A tremendously, huge wrong idea. What was he thinking of when he agreed to this? That he can act normally as if he just didn't bare his heart out when they last met? Which was, so pitiful of him, two years ago. Ah, he really is a pathetic man.
"I see that you got some renovations done in the studio. Is that what being a famous artist can do now?"
Her golden eyes, the only part of her body that she can move right now, wander around the perfectly white walls and impossibly high ceiling of their, no, of his studio.
He shrugs then tries to paint the soft curve of her small face. "It's long overdue anyway. The cracks that the earthquake had done were growing and one day, I'd be finding myself buried here when it finally collapse if I didn't fix it." It's his turn to nod at her wrist. "That's a rather eye-catching bracelet you have there. Is that what being a professional model can do now?"
"Suzaku gave it to me."
"So you're still with him."
She just bestows him a tight smile.
Lelouch dips the brush into the pool of green and starts a graceful dance over the canvass. The silence that settles between them is like a thick blanket that engulfs them to the point of suffocating. Or perhaps, it is only like that for Lelouch. He doesn't know about her anymore.
"How's Nunnally?"
He looks up and finds genuine concern in her eyes. "Nunnally is doing fine. The therapy had been a great help to get her back up to her feet."
"That's amazing to hear." After another moment of silence, she says, "I never gave you an answer."
His wrist immediately stops moving at her sudden proclamation just like how he had stopped breathing after confessing to her two years ago. That day, he had waited for her answer but it never came. Just a silent dip of her head, her eyes finding seclusion behind her fringe, a tinge of sadness on her lips. She didn't tell him vocally but her body spoke what she couldn't return to him. Her body spoke just like how it did whenever she posed for him. Back when he was just beginning his art and she was just a model who scoured every corner of New York to book a gig despite not getting paid. Back when they were both young lost souls in the busy city, looking for a place to belong to. Back when they only belonged to each other, feeding off from each one's artistry. He was a painter and she was his model.
Gripping the brush tighter, Lelouch continues the rhythm his wrist had started and resumes painting her ever emerald hair. "You don't have to. It's all in the past."
"But – "
"C.C…." He peeks over the canvass and gives her a tired smile. He had just started and he is already feeling tired. Is the stress from the previous years of hardwork finally catching up on him? Or is this due to her presence here in the place they once shared? "Don't move too much or we won't be able to finish this today."
"Sorry. Hey, do you still remember that time when you found me sleeping outside your porch?" She tucks a stray hair strand behind her ear revealing a simpler and plain white earring. Now, that is more her style.
"You only have one duffle bag that you used as your pillow. I thought there was a cat looking for a shelter outside. Turned out it was a witch instead."
She smirks. "I'm too big to be a cat."
"But you're just as sneaky and sly as them."
Lelouch pauses when C.C. moves to fix her bangs. He watches as her slender fingers run through them creating a ripple of green waves. "I always wonder if we would still meet if I chose a different porch to stay at that night. I always think that that night was the catalyst for everything."
"Catalyst? That is such a flamboyant word to use for one cold winter evening." He loves painting her skin ever since he found the right shade for it. Her skin that is fair as the snow but rosy at where it should be, smooth and soft under his fingertips, cold but alive just like how she is.
C.C. rubs her legs together as they get numb from staying in the same position for half an hour. "But you still took me in anyway. Why, Lelouch? I never got to ask you. I could have been a criminal pretending to be a homeless person, just waiting for the right time to steal something from you."
But you did steal something important to me and never brought it back, he wants to say, but instead he tells her, "I could always throw you out if you attempted something like that. Plus, you seemed desperate enough that you wouldn't risk losing the only shelter available for you."
C.C. chuckles. "So blunt, huh?"
"You know me. I just say the truth."
This time, the woman lets out a belly laugh, completely lying on the bed, the sheet that covers her naked body gets tangled between her legs. At this point, Lelouch gives up painting her and puts his brush down, all the while staring at her like she is the moonlight in the night sky.
"Too truthful, I would say," C.C. manages to utter in between laughs. Her chest heaves as she takes in deep breaths. "I miss hearing truths. In the industry that I am in, you don't know who is telling the truth and who is just saying the words you wanted to hear to get your trust. Praises and compliments are everywhere but which of them are sincere? Which of them are clinging to the tips of insecurities?" The sadness and longing are evident in her eyes and Lelouch wonders what could have happened if he didn't show her the brochure that day and she didn't get the chance to attend the go-see where she got in and started her career as a professional model. Would she still be staying with him until now? Would she be modelling for him until now? Perhaps, there would be another go-see that would have accepted her and gave her the same fate. Perhaps, there would be another talent manager that would see her beauty and potential and make her big. Or maybe, there wouldn't be another chance and he just stole her sole opportunity to achieve her dream. Maybe, she would still be posing for his paintings that are now the centerpieces of exhibits.
Maybe, he could have made her big with his own hands.
She is his muse after all. And every painting, every portrait, every sketch that has her face and body in it had become best sellers and were critically acclaimed. He managed to capture the very essence of a woman, the critics had reviewed. They could clearly feel the emotions and messages of his painting just by looking at her amber eyes, the audience said.
She is beautiful.
Who is she?
How are you connected to her?
Is she a friend? A lover? Your wife?
Perhaps, if he didn't confess to her, nothing would have changed between them.
But he did.
And now they are here.
"But that's part of the work," comments Lelouch. "It's a matter of how you handle and analyze their words – of how you'll carry yourself without losing your identity. After all, you're the only one who you can fully trust in this world."
She shifts on his bed turning to him, the thin sheet slightly slides down her curves. "Is that how you survive your fame?"
"'Fame' is such an exaggeration. I am not famous in the sense of being famous. But I try not to get these praises and compliments too much in my head. If I do and set myself in such high regards, the fall would be more violent and painful."
Standing up, he carries his forgotten canvass and places it beside the other unfinished paintings of her that he had attempted to recreate since they parted ways. He stands on her side, hands in his pockets, looking down at her enigmatic figure. He would commit this look in his memory – the way the white sheet gracefully cascades down her body creating elegant ripples that are abundant to renaissance paintings. The way the sun rays hit her skin producing shadows that accentuate her collar bones and the bridge of her small nose. Her emerald long hair pooling around her like an ancient river of mysteries and fantasies. Those golden eyes that had always look at him with both curiosity and non-commitment.
Lelouch can clearly visualize it now, how he will stay up all night trying to recreate this image before him. He could take a picture of C.C., but that would be another permanent piece of his heart being brought to the real world.
"What is it?" she asks. He must be staring at her for a while now. Lelouch shudders at how he must have looked like a pervert. Looking away, he tries to find another object to fix his eyes on.
"Nothing. Is Suzaku not looking for you?"
He hears her scoff. "He doesn't care where I go. He wouldn't even notice if I'm gone."
"Then why stay with him? Do you really like him that much? You deserve a man better than him, C.C."
"Like who, Lelouch?"
He hears the challenge in her voice. "Someone who isn't going to treat you like an ornament that he would show off whenever he wants to. Someone who truly supports your efforts and dreams. Someone who will be there for you no matter what."
"It seems impossible to find a man like that."
He smirks at her. "Maybe you are looking at the wrong way."
The laugh that she releases is a welcomed sound in the midst of his dull studio. "God, I miss this. I miss this place. I miss the scraping sound your brush makes whenever you paint. I miss staying still for hours just so you can get the angle correct. The kaleidoscope of colors, the silence of your concentration, the safety of your studio." A sigh. "This is the only place where I felt that I truly belong to."
"You're free to visit anytime."
"I might do that. But for now, I need to leave. I forgot that I have an appointment with the agency today." Holding the sheet against her chest, she stands up infront of him, her head barely reaching his chin. He can feel her heat against his skin causing him to step back. She looks up with such mischievousness that Lelouch is certain that she is thinking of something ridiculous. "How is your progress with that?" she inquires nodding at the canvass.
"Slow since you've been moving non-stop."
"Then I'll just stop by tomorrow again. And the next day and the next…"
"No need to bother yourself. Once I got the outline done, you don't have to pose anymore."
"… and the next until you let me tell you my answer."
Her answer. She still insists on that, huh. He isn't even certain if he still wants to know what she will say after two years. But one thing's for sure, it would greatly affect his sense of artistry which is at a critical situation as of the moment for he has been lacking inspiration these past months. Her answer can literally make or break him.
It is not until he is alone in the studio that Lelouch realizes that she had left. She must have worn her clothes in the bath room while he was in deep contemplation about having another heartbreak. Sitting down, he can still smell her faint perfume on the sheet. Citrus. She always likes her perfumes citrusy.
She left so quietly just like how she did all those years ago.
Gazing out at the discarded canvasses in the corner, he wonders if this time he is going to paint her right, capture all of her features, emotions and thoughts with a waltz of his brush, or if this is going to be the final chance he can get to be with his muse again.