Soft gold danced through her hair as she held herself, tall and proud; Chloe held herself like a queen as if everyone is entitled to give her the upmost respect.
Her blond locks fell down around her shoulders, and she became ethereal under the golden glow of the soft lights above.
His breath left him in microscopic waves as he traced with the softest pencil strokes her hair on to the page, capturing what looked so soft as if he could simply melt into the page and run his fingers along it, feel the softest strands, much softer than a warm cocoon of a blanket, much softer than a pillow that cushions his head just right when he sleeps.
Nathanael had never considered himself to be easily won over by appearances that strike the heart angelically as he's always tried to see so much more than illusions; he's always seen her sneer from miles away and yet that does nothing to the image before him.
She'd made demands that if she was to stand here and be his muse than she'd need strawberry candles setting the tone and atmosphere; she needed to be relaxed by the best if she were to stand and look gorgeous for him and not be paid.
Chloe had also insisted that the room could be neither too hot nor too cold, and she had have regular breaks if her legs began to feel even a little tired or achey.
Nathanael paused, pencil held delicately in his hand, half feeling as if it will slip if he moves just so, and he pauses to admire her, trace this into his memory before he tries to capture the lazy shine in her eyes.
Chloe just looks so beautiful like this, she appears almost harmless, and Nathanael wishes that she'd always appear so gentle, so mild mannered, though he would like her spunk if it wasn't as rude as she often presents herself.
He carefully traces her eyes on to the page, capturing the soft glow of them, the lazy kindness within them as if she could be anywhere, as if she was relaxed enjoying an evening curled up by a fire wearing her most comfortable clothes, and with no intention to leave for at least hours on end.
She looked nice under the glow of the whole room and the natural glow that seemed to emit off of her, and he wanted to capture every last detail of a moment that wasn't as intimate as it surely felt.
They were in an old classroom that had barely been used in recent years, not her house, and they surely weren't in any way behaving or dressed as if they were alone.
Chloe was dressed as she always was though his mind could picture her easily in a bathrobe with how perfectly comfortable and at ease that she appeared: a blue one might match her eyes.
He doesn't draw it, and it isn't even as sexual as one might expect; there's just something private about her expression that cements an image that doesn't cross the border into naughty territory in his mind.
Nathanael sees it as easily as if he were looking at a sister or a wife or his mother; he doesn't see it in the way that he's sure that she'd assume if he spoke his thoughts out loud.
Once he finishes her eyes and has a rough outline of her figure, her body perched up on that desk, he tells her that she can take a break.
"You did catch my best side, right?" She hops down to join him at peering at his still incomplete drawing, "You've mostly just caught my eyes and my hair. Why?"
It's almost as if she can't respect the time and effort that went into catching that much.
"Chloe," He takes a deep breath, "It's not complete yet, but you can have your first break now."
She rolls her blue eyes and that level of almost intimacy is lost, "Why does it take so long?"
Chloe marches over to her abandoned bag to grab her water bottle and guzzle it, and may be there's something about how unladylike and just absolutely stubborn right now that almost has him laughing, that has an old flicker of something residing in his heart.
She takes the next fifteen minutes to text Sabrina, to drink more water, and to just sit, relaxed, as if she'd spent all day in front of him rather than thirty minutes being sketched carefully on to the page.
"You ready?" He finally asks, half dreading the glow that she shines under whenever she pauses, and let's a hint of something or other away from his control show.
Nathanael denies the attraction that perches itself in his heart, figures that it's only over the beauty of capturing a beautiful woman for the first time looking beautiful, because he understands finding a woman or man beautiful without having to have a crush on them.
He's an artist, it's in his nature, but a part of him knows when he hides something from himself when the one moment that he's sketching someone beautiful, and he feels a flicker of something beneath the surface.
It's unlike sketching Alya when she asked him curiously why he found inspiration within sketching her for a comic of his, but she'd been willing to pose in whatever way to make it easier for him, and yet it isn't quite like sketching Marinette, when his mind suddenly dives away, gets lost in thoughts, and before long, he has an image of her that leaves his heart aching and yet isn't quite enough.
Chloe is somehow in between, and Nathanael's scared to consider what all that means, because he doesn't want to know.
He carefully sketches out the rest of her body, filling in soft lines where they go, capturing sharper angles, the folds of her clothes, minute details, and details that change everything.
When he finishes and tells her that she can go, he ignores the sudden influx of her perfume as she gives him an uncharacteristic hug after seeing his artwork, "You did better than I thought you would."
She's gone almost as fast as she said it, and he stares down at his sketch, realizing that a part of him will be stuck in the few moments it took for her to react; she glows is all that he can bother thinking.
Chloe doesn't glow with a natural kindness, she doesn't just glow under the light of the room, but rather she glows in ways that he can't quite explain; it's stubbornly defiant and all her.
Nathanael can barely wipe his smile off of his face as he clears up the room, locking it behind him, and half thanking the teacher that let him use the room silently.