Aquarelle [h.s]

nineteen

After a while we decided to go to the small city that was just a few minutes away from the beach, none of us being particularly hungry even though lunchtime had by then rolled around, but definitely not turning down the possibility of getting something hot to drink. On that day the sun was present only visually, the warmth it brought being too slight to survive the random breaths of wind that came around every once in a while.

We decided to walk there, since it couldn't have been farther away than twenty minutes by foot, deciding to enjoy the sun in the slightly  chilling air.

I put the camera back into its bag and slung it over my shoulder, wanting to keep my hands free for a while as there wasn't anything interesting to photograph in that place, and closed my coat again as some clouds covered the sky, keeping the sunlight from reaching us.

I eyed the sky suspiciously, wondering if it would've ended up raining on us, but I shook the thought away, not wanting to ruin my time with worrying about the weather. Harry's mood, differently from mine, seemed to be completely unaltered by the change in warmth of the air around us, his hair still incredibly messy even though he'd passed his fingers through it multiple times after the wind tangled his curls up each time, his eyes of a very light green because of the bright white light everywhere around us, his lips chapped, but slightly curved up.

It was almost weird to see him there, away from the sharp lights of my studio, just stand there and go on about his day. There was something of so curiously interesting in him, that brought me to wonder what he usually did and what he enjoyed. It was as if he made even the most common things fascinating, simply by doing them. He made me curious, and I didn't know if it was a good thing at all. I couldn't tell if it was just him, or the fact that I'd known him before, but I knew that type of curiousness would've led nowhere good.

I wasn't supposed to be interested in him in that way. I was supposed not to care about anything that wasn't him modelling, but I still did, because he was interesting. He'd always been, and for some reason him being a bit less mysterious made him a thousand times more interesting. I wished I could've found a way to make sense of it.

It didn't take long for us to find a cafe, and we got inside quickly, the warm air inside hitting me in the second we entered.

"I'll go order" Harry said, his cheeks a bit pinkish because of the sudden change in temperature around us, making me realise that he actually already knew what I wanted to order. It seemed a bit weird for my model to know my coffee preference, and I didn't know if I liked it. It seemed a little inappropriate.

"I'll take a tea this time instead" I said before I could stop myself, and he sent me a surprised glance, clearly not having expected me to change my usual order.

I couldn't tell why I'd decided to do that. It wasn't that I was feeling a tea more of a coffee that day, and I knew that. I just hoped he didn't. It wasn't even that I wanted to prove to him that I could too make surprising decisions, because I didn't really care about that. Just, the feeling that had struck me for a second, the one that told me he didn't have me all figured out and hadn't been able to pick the right one for me - even though he'd definitely done it - made it worthwhile.

He didn't seem to be particularly surprised by my rash decision, differently from me. "What kind of tea?" He resorted to asking instead, and for a second I wondered if I'd quietly overthought the whole thing. It wouldn't have been the first time, after all.

"I can pay" I stated, already opening my bag to take out what I needed, not exactly feeling comfortable with making him pay.

He hummed. "I know you can" he replied, "but following your rule it's my turn, so I'll do it myself."