nebula :: [malik]

[ xlvii :: nebula ]

(Climb on board)

We'll go slow and high-tempo

Light and dark

Hold me hard and mellow...

I'm seeing the pain (seeing the pleasure)

Nobody but you, 'body but me, 'body but us

Bodies together.

"PILLOWTALK" || ZAYN

___

We're inside ;)

Zayn smiles, pocketing his phone and his hands into his jacket before jogging up the steps to the Grey Art Gallery.

He's meeting Anais and her sister, and while he was initially confused about why Ana chose his collection of all places and sights on campus to meet Cat, he's not opposed to the idea.

First of all, Anais was weird, anyway. 

(He laughs at that). 

So, he's hoping there's a reason she's chosen the gallery. 

He's sure there is. 

Secondly, it's been awhile since he's seen 'Nebula.'

And so Zayn pulls cold hands from his pockets at the doors and enters the cool building.

It's nice inside. Not too warm, not too cold. There are only a few people milling about, save for the high schoolers following their tour guide through the building, and there's only the sound of his boots, echoing across the bare floors and over the NYU welcome guide as he explains in hushed tones the importance of the arts and student involvement in extracurriculars. 

With a nod towards the guide, Zayn moves on, walking between the space. Walking between the art. 

It's almost weird, being in here again. 

It's a bit bittersweet. 

He's back in this gallery, that, just a month ago, had opened to his peers and his friends and the congratulations and the accolades that came with finishing a collection worth its own space. That  night he had been dressed up and watched his friends react to his work -- the work that he'd spent so long completing and the work that he'd gone to such great lengths to keep Anais from discovering before it was time. 

And Zayn makes his way to the east wing of the building and stands before the doors that would take him inside and reads the words he had graffitied across wall and the glass double doors. He pauses, because this will be the first real time he's come to his own gallery and seen his own collection like this -- like, alone -- like a bystander. 

Like everyone else. 

This will be the first time he's walked through the art and admired the pieces for himself. 

And he reads the words he'd written and looks at the cartoonish characters he'd drawn in the hues of purples and blues and yellows and looks at how these words have stained the clean grey walls and have clouded the view of the collection inside, staining those clean double-glass doors. 

This will always make him feel, he decides, as he stands just outside of the collection. 

This body of work, this being his, these pieces and this project in its entirety, will always be a mark of pride. This will always be a marker of those late nights on her couch or those nights on the roof...His youth and his manhood and his ascent into adulthood; into a real relationship; into real first love and heartbreak...these memories and these emotions were all wrapped up in the graffiti and the paint and the charcoal and the pencil used and worn down into the dust accumulating on his fingers.