fate, destiny, & love

16 | en pressant

16

en pressant [fr.] — going forward

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it had been a week since quqi and kageyama last met, let alone texted. the summer quarter rolled into the autumn quarter, marking the start of a brand new semester.

it was presently a wednesday and it was the first day of the figure drawing elective class. she hoped that he had managed to wake up early and apply for the same class.

she had arrived to class with five minutes to spare and looked around the classroom. a few people had already arrived and were seated and most of the vacant spots were up front.

"good morning, huan-san."

she turned around upon hearing the voice, immediately locking eyes with kageyama. he was wearing a white hoodie, grey drawstring sweatpants, and black running shoes. he offered a warm gaze as he greeted her, and she smiled back in response.

"good morning, kageyama," she greeted, then pointed to two vacant seats near the front, "shall we sit in front?"

he hummed in agreement and followed behind her as she walked towards the seats. they sat down and retrieved their materials: their pencil cases and their a4-sized sketchbooks. not long after, the teacher, a middle-aged man with greying hair, walked in. he smiled and introduced himself as machida-sensei, then let the students have a round of simple self-introductions.

when it was their turn, kageyama stood up first and turned around to face the other students, bowing and introducing himself in a clear voice, "nice to meet you, i'm kageyama tobio, a second year kinesiology major. i play volleyball."

once again, the girls in the class gave him wider smiles and even soft giggles could be heard from some of them, but he paid no mind to them.

next, it was quqi's turn. she stood up and did the same as kageyama, bowing and introducing herself, "nice to meet you, i'm huang quqi, a second year music major. i play the harp."

the reaction from the same girls did a complete turn as their smiles turned into frowns and the whispering began. she remained indifferent and sat back down, ignoring the talk about her being a rising athlete's soulmate.

class began promptly after the self-introductions were done, with machida-sensei first going through the syllabus briefly, before showing how to draw a basic naked male figure using a sketch. he then got the small class started on sketching a male figure which was to be completed in fifteen minutes, and also went around to offer helpful suggestions on their sketches.

kageyama had spent the past ten minutes painstakingly drawing line after line and was not making much progress at all. he frowned at the screen up front, his lips curling downwards as he tried his best to draw. suddenly, he felt a looming presence next to him, and he turned his head to see machida-sensei leaning over to look at his sketch. kageyama never felt so intimidated before; he knew his sketch was nowhere as good as the others in class (who were all illustration majors, except for quqi) and even felt painful to look at.

"it's not a bad try at all, kageyama!" machida-sensei smiled, "but maybe you shouldn't be looking at the figure too literally. instead, you should see it in shapes."

kageyama's confusion only heightened. shapes?

"see, take the thigh for instance," machida-sensei went to the front of the classroom and used a long metal pointer to point at the figure's left thigh, "you can see that it's a somewhat rectangular shape. a diamond, even." he used the pointer to outline the thigh, drawing a rough rectangle that was too lopsided and 'free' for kageyama to even see it as a rectangle.