The gymnasium didn't feel like a gym anymore. Its bleachers were folded back, basketball hoops suspended above a sea of partitioned booths, each sectioned with folding screens, fabric backdrops, light rigs, or cardboard cutouts. Voices overlapped in a lively mess -- clatters, groans, laughter, arguments over symmetry and spotlight angles. The annual Arts Exhibition was less than twenty-four hours away, and the room pulsed with tension and ambition.
Booth Seven stood quietly near the far window, away from the noisier clusters closer to the gym doors. There wasn't any music playing from it. No flashy decorations or spinning QR codes like some of the others. Just a calm, deliberate energy as Maya and Damien worked in synchrony.
It was their booth -- jointly registered under both names. But the art, the raw center of it all, came from Damien.
He stood near the middle panel, adding the last stroke to a wide grayscale painting. The canvas was broad -- horizontal -- and abstract at first glance, until the details began to sink in: the two hands reaching for each other across a dim, dissolving background. They were separated not by distance, but something unseen -- like smoke, or silence. It didn't scream for attention. It ached quietly. Like memory.
Maya didn't paint.
But she'd helped plan every layout. Every angle, every tag, every placement had passed through her eye first. She was the one who ordered the wooden easels and spray-mounted the printed backing cloths that now draped like velvet around the booth's interior. She had written each placard in steady, sharp handwriting -- Acrylic on Canvas. Untitled Series. 2025.
Now, she was on tiptoe, adjusting a soft overhead spotlight to fall just slightly left of center on the canvas. She didn't ask for Damien's opinion -- she already knew what he'd want.
He said very little. Always had.
But when Maya stepped back beside him, he murmured, "That's better."
She smiled, but kept her focus forward. "You're still including the window sketch, right?"
He gave a short nod. "It's important."
She turned to one of the protective folders laid out on their table and drew the sheet out with care. It was a haunting pencil piece -- a cracked windowpane letting in pale, watery light, nothing else in frame. No context. Just emptiness, and the way it was drawn made the emptiness feel… personal.
Maya hung it to the left of the main painting, smoothing the paper against the tack points. Then she adjusted the small gallery lamp behind it, and stepped back again.
Their booth was beginning to take shape.
Three full paintings. Five sketches. One centerpiece canvas anchoring it all. The rest whispered rather than shouted, but together, the energy was undeniable.
Across the gym, another group yelled for a missing cable. Someone knocked over a roll of paint buckets, sending brushes clattering to the floor. A booth two rows over had hung bright fluorescent ribbons and LED frames around their wall collages. Another had brought a speaker, blaring indie pop.
But booth seven stayed calm. No music. No glitter. Just art that made you look twice -- and then stare longer without knowing why.
Maya crouched and began arranging the small zine booklets they had printed earlier that week. Inside were Damien's sketches, a few of her curatorial notes, and a simple line at the front:
Booth 7 --- Maya & Damien
Mixed Mediums / Stillness & Motion
She looked over at him. "Want to add a quote or artist's note at the back?"
Damien, still facing the main painting, shook his head once. "They'll either feel it or they won't."
That was him. Always concise. Always clear.
A familiar voice broke the rhythm of the moment.
"Wait...is this it?" Brielle's voice rang out nearby, dripping with confusion and a dash of judgment.
Maya stiffened but didn't turn.
Brielle and Logan strolled down the aisle of booths like tourists in an art museum they didn't want to be in. They weren't dressed for setup -- Logan's hair was styled, shoes pristine. Brielle wore a cropped blouse and heels that clicked too loud against the gym floor.
"I thought it was some club thing," she muttered, half to Logan, half to herself. "Didn't know we had actual try-hards."
Logan glanced at booth seven but said nothing. His eyes skimmed the artwork, unreadable.
Brielle paused slightly in front of Maya and Damien's booth. "You did all these?" she asked, voice lifted like she wasn't sure who she was addressing.
Damien didn't even turn around.
Maya answered instead. "Yeah. We did."
Brielle raised a brow. "Huh. Looks… dark."
Then she walked off.
No thanks. No nod. No real curiosity. Just the usual casual dismissal.
Logan lingered a second longer. His gaze settled on the cracked window sketch. Something in his eyes flickered -- but it passed too quickly to name. He caught up to Brielle without a word.
Maya exhaled. "They're not even in the showcase. What are they doing here?"
"Performing," Damien said flatly.
She smiled faintly at that.
The sun had dropped a little lower through the high gym windows, and golden light now slanted over the booth's corner, warming the edges of Damien's main canvas. Maya moved to unplug the spotlight -- they wouldn't need it anymore. She began repacking the unused supplies into the tote bin.
Damien stared at the painting again, silent.
"What do you see?" she asked after a moment.
He tilted his head, studying it. "Something I didn't know how to say… until now."
That was all he offered.
But it was enough.
Together, they stayed a little longer, adjusting the finer details. They rearranged the sketch angles. Folded down the flaps of the entry zines. Stepped back. Studied it all again. And when it finally looked the way it had in their minds -- that quiet balance of weight and breath -- they began to pack up.
By the time they left the gym, most of the other booths had emptied out. The heavy doors shut behind them with a long, hollow echo. Outside, the air was warm and a little sticky, but the sky was beginning to fade into evening.
They didn't speak much on the walk out. They didn't need to.
Tomorrow, strangers would walk through the exhibition.
Some would pause. Some wouldn't.
But booth seven was ready. It didn't beg to be noticed. It just waited to be felt.