Authors note!
First thing I want to say is thank you for clicking on this and I hope it's worth your while! This was one of my favorite book to write and I cannot wait to expand on the Smirnov Family and universe with other books! Be prepared for this as it's a whirlwind. It's a love story, so no angst this time. Or smut, hihi! Please enjoy~
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The lines of skin, the blood pulsing under. The redness that comes from emotion. The small veins that glow blue in the proper light. The curves of the body. The muscles tensed their architecture. A shadow under each dip. A tender light letting you in on the reality of stillness. An unharmed wrist bent. It reaches for thou though it cannot move. Crafted with soils and stones, an ache unheard. The dirt amongst the skin popped against the pale-colored palette freshly. Delicate propositioning leaves your heart spent. A lone arm, missing its other half, grips the flesh of the imitated stomach. Tugging it apart as though the art piece feels that specific hate. That feeling of nausea. The wave of it when it touches your chest.
The sensation fell on this piece too. The artist, locked in a low-lit box with four walls and mountains of yellow plywood against them, Andrei Smirnov has never felt any feeling stronger. The urge to rip your stomach out from the inside. The need to ruin your entire body. A shifting, plaster barstool underneath him falters because of his twitchy behavior.
The blonde ties made from the silk sea strain at being pulled back, away from his high cheek bones and thick, golden brows. Pulled in a half-up, half-down style. A lip drained between his teeth, a foot tapped retroactively. The single chime of each clack grounded him in what he likes to call Star.
The small, two-story building bridged between towers and skyscrapers. With grey walls and hard wooden floors, it's grown more and more soothing to the young artist. Even as the sun drifted away through the floor-to-ceiling window, his eyebrows stayed un-creased. The light flickered just enough for him to eye the fix. The eyes are his drug. The time it took to sculpt them. Each bulb had to be perfect. When they're finished and glossy, Andrei can't help being addicted to them. Beauty lied beneath them like sand in the sea.
A sound escaped him, similar to a scoff. The pupils were too small. A mistake is not a mistake unless it hurts.
He patted the small sphere with sparkly paint. Making those mud eyes alive. Another hush of annoyance left him furiously. "Why can't I get it right?" Another glance at the window. The second story building let you see the world for how it was. Andrei couldn't help himself. Free art. Free life. It's all real, here.
The graffiti on a candy shop. The mixture of people walking around. The potholes and angry drivers. The stupid sidewalks coated in snow. Nothing in this world can eye a girl taking a selfie better than this window here.
Andrei chewed on his lip. There-there. Amongst all of the random people experiencing their day....There he is.
Small, poised. Jeeringly nice.
Around five feet in a cardigan and strolling like he's never seen hell. Andrei has seen him perform in parks, and plazas. The type of performance that was tiny and lithe, like his movements in a ballroom. The ones where he puts on a show to an audience he doesn't know was there. The boy can't be over twenty-one. His hair is liquid; a vibrant bubblegum pink that sways when he walks. Step-step-step-step. A common hip-to-hip pattern with a small flinch at every extension. He struts. Andrei hummed.
The man locked in the studio he created jerked. His eyes closed in on the one boy. The sweater goes down the boy's thighs over black, ripped skinny jeans. It's a light blue color that suits him better than white. Black is definitely his color.
Andrei turned away. Staring too hard is nothing if not embarrassing. His fingers carved into the molded clay as though to ground him at this moment. "Damn it," he groaned. He wanted to repeat it, but it wouldn't do anything. He wished, every time he stepped into this godforsaken mortuary, that maybe one day, he'd be able to talk to him To say hi. Or meet him in one of those glass rooms where everything is simple and delicate. It'd be fun to let the small boy know what an inspiration he has been. That Andrei wanted to smile as much as he did. But the boy always seemed busy.
Clenched between Andrei's fingers, the sculpture slowly derails from its perfected position as a symbol of love for Valentine's Day. A heart. The big man exhaled something hefty and sharp.
His soul sights snapped shut. Tattooed palms slowly retracted away from his ruined work, he sniffled. "Okay. Okay. Done for today." He reminded himself. The studio was his. There is nothing to fight when the workplace becomes a suffocating box willing to murder you with imperfections. The grasp of completing a project was more terrifying than death to Andrei.
The young man had and tried everything. At twenty-three and having moved to America eight years ago, Andrei Smirnov never held back. Today should have been one of those days. It wasn't. Holding back is what keeps you from flowing. From becoming the beautiful vessel on the arm of the universe. You can do it; you can change the world.
Those words were written on his chest in Russian ink. The mindset made him choose art. And that he didn't want to spend ten years becoming a psychologist. The clay melted between his hands during his first time with it. It should, obviously. In his eyes, though, it was the stars aligning. The galaxy bends to tuck him in it. He recalls excitement pulsing through his veins. That was destiny.
He knows how to work a clay bulb. But, why weren't the eyes as shiny? Why didn't they glow up at everything? Why? The dull clay stared back at him. Now smushed under his fingernails and covered his cuticles in watery sludge. His lip burned white. The grip of his fingers too rough for the fragile material to hold on. "I should try again," he whispered. Walking over the way his eyes glimpsed at the lump beside the one in his palms.
Pink.
Vibrant pink clay, almost iridescent.
The color only matters when it comes to him these days. That boy's face. It popped up in Andrei's studio too close to comfort; even for the artist himself. He has a single counter dedicated to him. The beauty the man possesses was something Andrei enjoyed more than still-life's and cultural sculptures about raids and stereotypes. Andrei had never been able to make faces. Not well enough, anyway. Until one fateful night.
The first, drunken time Andrei spotted the boy? The stars were sparkling and Andrei was moments away from passing out. His friends were having sex or doing something stupid. And Andrei wanted fresh air. With a cigarette. Instead? He saw...a pint-sized man playing with a kid late at night. They were almost the same night. But everyone knew her. The kid who roams Manhattan with three others and does things she shouldn't at her age. Andrei tilted his head at the image, his jaw locking its way to the floor. He watched as the man played with her like the kid was a toddler again. Tag, monkey bars, slide. Andrei was drunk enough to fuel a brewery that night. But even as his head lollied, he couldn't fight the urge.
Intrigued was the last of it. Only then had Andrei realized they lived a single wall away.
Right now, the blonde man sat at a stool, a lip in his mouth. His fingers forced deep enough in his clay to drown them. His pores cried for help and the pain of another resided somewhere else. Even with his golden hair and muscly body, skin corroded with stiff and practiced abs, he knows that was good. More than 'good.'
A diminutive boy had taken his toll and snatched the majority of Andrei's inspiration. He thought about the kid and the way the pink-haired looked when happy. When making someone else smile. Besides flowers and gnomes and bows, a microscopic boy Andrei has only seen in elevators, windows, and in the great wilderness.
Only three statues are of the boy, though. It'd be hard to call it a muse. It'd be worse to call it a smile on your face. Andrei sniffled. He'd started to notice the boy more often. When Andrei would pick up things for his studio or friends, that boy was always in the Aurelian Cave Tree library. Andrei would try to buy old, porcelain things to crack and turn into crafts. There that pink head would be again. And he shops from goodwill too much.
Andrei saw him more and more throughout his days. The sight was different from other people in the great big city. Especially when Andrei would open his box, pull one out, and light it. Only to see him.
God, Andrei's shoulders slumped. The weight of the ball and the scent of earth, dirt, and acrylic echoed a sigh from him. One more for the night. Even though it hurts.