The Artist | #3✓

Chapter 20

"Close your eyes. No peeking, I'm serious," Toby said with a laugh as I did as he asked me to. I wondered what on earth he wanted to show me. I felt a bit excited, and also a bit nervous as he led me about his apartment. He was holding one of my hands as I covered my eyes with the other. It was hard not to steal a glance or two, but whenever he turned to check if I was looking I'd close all gaps between my fingers and we'd both laugh at me being caught.

After a while, Toby asked me to open my eyes. I had to step away a bit since I was in shock. I was face to face with a painting of myself. I stared at it before turning to Toby who now had a small smile on his face. I wasn't sure what to say, so I just walked over to him before giving him a hug. We stayed like that in silence for a while, just hugging each other in the art studio.

"When did you paint this?" I asked, wondering when he'd gotten the time to do it. I'd been with him after school hours for the most part during the past week, and whenever we stayed in his art room he was always worked on something else.

"I did it while you were at your mum's friend's place for dinner," he explained. I hummed at his answer, letting myself pull away from him so that I could look at the painting again. I wasn't sure how to explain how it made me feel—emotional? It was done in oil paint, and it seemed to be about four layers of detail thick. I wondered how he'd managed to start and finish it in a couple of hours. The painting would have been a week-long, or even as much as a month-long project for an average person.

I looked away from it again to turn my gaze to Toby, and we just looked at each other with smiles on our faces as the clock ticked in the background.

"Thank you. It's beautiful..." I muttered, watching as Toby made to take it off the stand before heading to rest the painting against the wall at the corner. It was evening, and the sun was beginning to disappear behind the clouds. I only had a few more hours to spend with him before I started heading back home. 

"There's really nothing to thank me for. I simply missed you, so I did the painting," he said before turning to me. "Besides, I have the painting you did for me in my bedroom's wardrobe. I might hang it up in the living room later."

Oh. I thought. His words answered the unasked question I'd had in my mind for a while. I had been wondering where the painting I had done of him had gone since it wasn't in the school's art room, and I hadn't seen it about whenever I came to his apartment. 

We left his art room together and headed for the living room downstairs. Duke was running about the room, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw us walk into the living room area. He sat still, pretending like he had not been tossing a pillow around just a few seconds ago. I laughed when Toby picked up the throw pillow with slobber from the carpet before waving the object over Duke's now guilty looking face. After Toby scolded Duke a bit, we headed to the kitchen area and made some rice before settling at the small dining table to eat and talk.

I loved spending time with Toby, and although we'd started doing more things together — like going to the mall or watching movies at the nearby cinema — I still loved coming to spend time with him in his apartment. I wasn't sure how to explain why it was my favorite place to be in with Toby, but in a sense, it felt like his home was an embodiment of him, and it always felt like I was sort of wrapped in Toby's essence whenever I was at his place, if that makes sense.

"So how did dinner go?" Toby asked, referring to the one I had gone to in my mother's friend's place. I shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it. Toby didn't ask me about anything else, so we just ate in silence.

After a while I paused, frowning a bit before speaking up, "Oh, I told my parents about us," I said, looking up to find Toby staring at me with wide surprised looking eyes.