CHAPTER 7: DO NOT DRAW ME LIKE YOUR FRENCH GIRLS. I'M NOT EVEN FRENCH
toby fox: I am delighted to have good news to tell all of you.
ufo: should we be concerned
toby fox: During one of my wandering moments in the many streets of Shibuya, I happened upon a bright, brilliant muse.
for real: maybe
toby fox: It was a flash of inspiration! It was as though the world had shifted!
roar: why do I feel like this was worse than when it happened to me
fluffy: What happened with this muse…?
toby fox: I gave him my number, of course! I told him to call me when he was ready for a portrait session.
toby fox: Surely, with his god-given golden hair and striking golden eyes, this would be a piece that would shake the heavens, even despite his rather short stature.
akira: ….
ufo: oh my fucking god
contact: painting dude do NOT PICK UP
yusuke: Hello,
yusuke: Hello, dear stranger, if you happen to be free this afternoon, I can do a session.
yusuke: Hello again, if you happen to be free today, I can do a session.
yusuke: Hello, I am free today if you would like to do a session.
beef boy: if you take up the artist's offer for a session i will treat u to a big bang burger challenge
ed: ?
ed: Why do you know about that guy
ed: I've been ignoring all his texts and I can't figure out how to stop him from texting
beef: he's a good guy trust me
beef: also he's been lamenting to me about your complete lack of response and feared your wellbeing
ed: Oh my fucking truth is he that Yusuke guy I have yet to meet
ed: Is that why you know about this.
ed: For fucks sake tokyo is too small. too fucking small
ed: Fucking ART STUDENT I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING
ed: I NEVER GET A FUCKING BREAK
akira: oh also just make sure to tell him you're not stripping nude
ed: WHAT THE FUCK
Edward Elric, Yusuke thinks, is such a fascinating person.
The blonde fidgets and squirms in his seat, eyes darting around the small art studio that Yusuke had rented from the school for the hour. The alert, almost paranoid manner of his golden eyes darting around the room reminds Yusuke of Morgana a little, scouting out new places as their navigator.
Yusuke looks between his sketch of Elric and the young man in front of him, a picture of tense muscles, clenched jaws, forcefully tightening and relaxing fists. How can one be so cagey yet expressive? "You are rather nervous," he states, if only to break the stiff silence that settles over the room.
Elric startles, then makes a visible effort of taking a deep breath, and exhaling. "Sorry," he mumbles after a stretch of silence, worrying his lips between his teeth. "I've just… I've never done this before."
Yusuke hums. Ann, too, had been quite nervous during that first session, though for wildly different reasons that he had initially thought. "Is there anything I can do to help you relax?" He thinks back to when he first spotted Elric on the streets, of his faraway, wistful expression as he looked at some kittens up for adoption outside a pet store. There was a sense of melancholy hidden in his eyes that drew Yusuke to the other boy — he wanted to capture it with his brush. He thinks of Morgana. "Should I bring in a kitten to help you relax?"
"Huh? Why would —" Elric's face is a storm of emotions: confusion, realisation, sadness, longing, resignation. "Oh. The pet store. You saw that."
"Yes," Yusuke says, another stroke of his pencil marking out his sketch. "If it helps, you can speak about it, and I will listen." At Elric's clear hesitation, he adds, "I won't tell Akira and the others." And he means it too — today is a day for furthering his art, and keeping a few secrets isn't much of a difficulty.
Another long stretch of silence falls between the two, filled with the scritch scratch of Yusuke sketching, capturing the stiff lines of Elric's ramrod straight posture, the curves of his cheeks, the sharp angles of his knuckles. Then, the blonde sighs, and his posture crumbles into a slacked curve. "My brother loves cats."
The pencil nearly fumbles out of Yusuke's loose grip. He holds it again, a bit too tight, then hums in acknowledgement, encouraging Elric to continue. For just a moment of curiosity, his eyes flicker to Elric, whose face is churning through a myriad of expressions, unreadable at its speed.
Elric takes another visible breath, eyes fixed on Yusuke's easel yet being far, far away. "Alphonse — Al — he is always such a softie with animals. He loves cats, loves the way they purr and bat for his attention. He loved — he loves their soft fur. Honestly, he loves those furballs too much. We can't keep any pets with us because we travel a lot together, but he always ends up picking up one or two or five strays and brings them back to our apartment. 'Look at the little guy, can we keep him, Brother?' He would ask that all the time, a tiny cat huddled in his arms, with the cat mewing so pathetically that I feel like they're all conspiring against me. Sometimes I catch him before we get back, sometimes I catch him in the act of putting the cat in his ar—bag. 'It's not fair to the cat,' I tell him every time, and every time, he gives me puppy eyes and I have no idea how he does that. Seriously, I don't know how people think that he's the older brother when he acts like that. He's only got a bit of a height advantage over me, yet he always gets mistaken as the older brother! Needing to clarify that I'm the older brother gets exhausting after a while." A pause. "But, um. He has always been better than me. Kinder. He has a lot of hope in him, so much more than me." Then, quieter, in a volume that Yusuke almost doesn't catch: "I miss him very dearly."
The flip of a page, the crinkling of paper under his touch, the image in his mind forming underneath his brush in gentle strokes. The older Elric is beautifully expressive in his words, hands gesturing through his story, smile soft and dipped in nostalgia. Slowly but surely, the Elric brothers form on his canvas, eyes twinkling in mischief and kindness, mouths open in silent laughter.
Elric is quiet for a long time when Yusuke shows him the finished sketch. Then, voice soft and unsteady, he says, "Thank you." He says it with such devastating sincerity that Yusuke can't help but wonder what happened between these two brothers, that separated them so.
Elric shakes his head as if to rid himself of some underlying sadness, then meets Yusuke's eyes: bright, almost glimmering, an endless pool of gold. "I don't know how, but you really captured him even though you've never even met him," he says, a corner of his lips twitching into a smile. "You've even got the short hair right —" He cuts himself off, shakes his head again, then smiles, this time even brighter. "Let me know when you finished the painting, yeah?"
Yusuke returns the smile. "Of course. Thank you for telling me about your brother, and I'm glad you like the sketch so."
This time, Elric laughs. It rings across the small studio, chiming like a bell. "Kitagawa-san, I should be thanking you. Truly."
Then, without any more words, Elric turns to leave the room. He murmurs to himself in a mirthful tone, barely audible under the shuffle of Yusuke packing up his art supplies: "Interdimensional traveller with a mission from God. Fuck, maybe he's psychic." Then he disappears down the corner, the bright red of his hoodie leaving with him.
Yusuke almost replies that he's not psychic, then rewinds back to the previous line. Oh yes, that was his bet, wasn't it? Hmm. Maybe he could look forward to those free meals at Leblanc.