“Kalmin. The Kalmin. Of the hockey team. The Kalmin of the hockey team is holding three boxes of pizza in front of me.”

“The Golden Boy of the team. Buying pizza. For us.”

“Golden Boy, golden pizza.”

“You guys are fucking weird at two AM,” Deimos commented sourly.

Simon and Frank were drooling. Dede looked like she was going to cry. Mira was passed out in the corner where the drawing class had stolen couch cushions downstairs to use as an impromptu bed.

Kalmin laughed prettily and shrugged, placing the three boxes of greasy, cheesy goodness on a stool. Mira’s classmates looked like they died and went to heaven.

“You’re welcome,” he chirped. Deimos plopped plastic bags of soda and paper plates in front of the stool. Instantly Simon and Frank attacked it, grabbing stacks of the cheesy carb cocaine. Other students wandered over as well, not taking as much, still too aware of a hockey kid in their presence to be as ravenous. Kalmin merely urged them to get more like the doting mom he was.

“Are we hallucinating or is this actually happening?” Dede questioned as she dragged herself across the studio to the two of them. She was absolutely covered in charcoal from head to toe; she looked like a miner.

“It’s happening,” Deimos deadpanned, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Kalmin and I got bored waiting for Mira to come home.”

“Last time I checked she wasn’t planning to come home,” Dede joked. “She was holding a knife to sharpen her pencil like an animal- the whole scene was morbid.”

Kalmin winced and Deimos ignored the thought of Mira ever getting that suicidal.

“Do you know if she’s close to done?” Kalmin questioned, peering over her shoulder to his napping girlfriend.

Dede hummed and shrugged. “I mean, it looks done to me but you know her, always striving to push herself more.”

“What’s the final project about?”

Dede sighed and motioned them further into the studio space. Past the small desks and chairs near the front were drawing donkeys and easels that were strategically placed as walls and walkways to navigate the absolute mess. The place looked lived in with bags of fast food, pillows and blankets strewn about the place. Students’ work spaces were clearly defined by the concentration of mess. Along the walls were enormous pieces of art, spanning more than six feet in height and varying width depending on the student. This was Kalmin’s first time seeing the art studios at Finals, and the awed expression on his face was predictably cute.

Deimos could relate. From an outsider’s perspective, given permission to roam ten insanely talented artists’ makeshift studio spaces was always a privilege. It was intimate and personal, as they could see what really made the artist tick- be it a movie playing on a laptop or music blaring from headphones hanging on a chair. They were seeing the artists at their rawest self, when it’s just them and pen and paper and they’re creating, making art out of thin air, free of any societal conventions or preconceived notions. Their spaces weren’t about them anymore, it was fully devoted to the act of creating. They threw away any semblance of organization or sanity, taping reference photos and sticking sticky notes all over the place, as well as abandoning mountains of paint cups, dried up palettes and used paper towels all over the place. Obsession for the craft was on full display, and the artists didn’t care about themselves at this point.

And being able to see that brief moment was special, and something Deimos secretly cherished a lot. He didn’t want to admit it, but he loved these art studios. It was inspiring to see everyone work so hard. It made him…jealous.

“Requirements were to work big, really big,” Dede explained. They passed her work, the place absolutely covered in charcoal and dust, the floors and chairs smeared of it, and walls covered in black handprints. There was even a pile of used, black lysol wipes beside her chair, and yet the chair still was jet black. “Mediums was anything you wanted, you just had to express an emotion.”

Deimos blinked and Kalmin glanced at him bizarrely.

“That’s fucking pretentious as fuck,” Deimos spat out.

Dede laughed and rolled her eyes. “God, yes, we know. The class was split down the middle about if this project was a waste of time or not. Ultimately the prof explained that it’s based of Jackson Pollock and how all his works were emotional and when you work big you truly submerse your viewer into your painting and shit like that.”

“What’s your hot take?” Kalmin questioned.

Dede shrugged. “I mean, I’ve never worked this big before so it’s a cool learning experience. Simon and Frank want to kill themselves and Mira’s absolutely bonkers.”

“Bonkers as in yay or nay?”

“Both?” Dede winced. Mira’s work was right in the back, and Deimos half-expected her to have the biggest canvas out of everyone in the class because she was that kind of extra, but was surprised to see that she worked with roughly a six by eight foot canvas. What wasn’t surprising was the mess she had made. She basically occupied the back-end of the studio, spreading tarps all across the floors from one end of the room to the other, which were absolutely covered in paint. The way colours sprayed, splattered and pooled showed somewhat of an artistic process into what Mira was doing, from probably splashing paint haphazardly to pouring and tipping the canvas to get a desired effect. Empty spray cans and paint buckets were stacked up in a pile, as well as dozens of red solo cups with drying paint inside of them. (No booze for today.) Closer to the canvas were various planks of wood that probably acted as huge palettes and a small army of big brushes.

Yet despite the insanity around the piece, the art work itself was calm. It was different compared to Mira’s usual pieces. She usually did splatters and dots, exciting and moving works, always looking like explosions or star bursts, but this work was different. There was the usual splattering and dot technique dispersed here and there, but more of it was smoother like waves stretching across the scene. The palette was simple, an abundance of pinks, reds and yellows and the mix of both, as well as some purple and indigo to give it depth. Staring at it made Deimos feel weird. He was confused. He was intrigued. He felt like he shouldn’t look.

“Do you both know of Georgia O-Keeffe’s work?” Dede questioned.

The two boys’ stares were enough of an answer for Dede.

“Her most famous paintings are of close-ups of flowers,” she explained further. “Many critics point out the obvious imagery it evokes of a woman’s…womanhood.”

So Deimos wasn’t a pervert.

The abstract piece eerily reminded him of a…vagina.

“It was never her intention to draw a woman’s privates masqueraded as flower petals though,” Dede continued. “It was the viewer who decided to think that way. She merely hyper-focused on one aspect of a flower and let everyone else decide what they wanted to see. Sort of showing a mirror in front of humanity. Hidden desires and whatnot.”

“Was Mira’s emotion lust?” Kalmin blurted out.

Dede blinked and glanced at Deimos. For a moment he was confused why she was looking at him like…that and realized oh fuck I’m dating her, oh shit they know we bang.

“She’s trying to evoke something similar to O-Keeffe’s work in theme,” Dede only responded back.

But Deimos and Kalmin knew better.

“That’s really intense,” Kalmin muttered.

“Lust is intense,” Deimos commented quietly, glancing at him awkwardly. He was blushing, and he knew everyone knew he was blushing.

“You’re making those assumptions,” Dede pointed out, a sly smile on her face. “I never said it was lust.”

“Don’t pull this pretentious ‘There’s no meaning’ bullshit on us,” Deimos complained.

“I’m not, just pointing out some things.” Dede shrugged coyly.

“Well, what do you think this piece is about?” Kalmin challenged.

“Well, first of all, Mira’s not done it yet. She’s still painting in the most minuscule details like the try-hard she is, but I digress. I think it’s just…longing.”

Deimos narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t that just lust?”

“I mean, longing for another is a part of lust, but I feel the purple undertones adds another layer to this. It’s deeper than just longing for someone sexually, it’s something more intimate and you feel starved off that. It’s emotional and personal and something one absolutely needs. So, longing.”

“You guys are all so poetic,” Kalmin laughed, beaming bright. “So cool.”

Dede genuinely blushed and glanced awkwardly at her hands. “I mean, it’s almost three in the morning, we get loopy and poetic around this time.”

Deimos hummed. He kept staring at the piece, and the longer he stared, the more the colours seemed to dance and move across the canvas. It seemed like it was ebbing, pulsating slowly.

“Art is so cool,” Kalmin commented happily. “You guys are seriously wizards. There’s absolute magic in this room.”

Dede laughed and waved him off. “At this point we’re all wishing death instead of this magic you say we do.”

“Honestly, I get it, but the pay off after all of that must be so satisfying though. You can see all your hardships and joy in one piece,” Kalmin urged.

The girl winced. “I mean, do we? Half these paintings are just going to be chucked into the graveyard since they’re so damn big- they’re not gonna fit anywhere.”

“In a gallery!”

Dede sighed. “That’s the dream.”

“Stop being so pessimistic!” Kalmin urged. “You guys are amazing!”

Dede glanced at Deimos and arched an eyebrow. Deimos smirked back, confirming her suspicions. Yes, Kalmin was always like this: positive, encouraging and like the damn sun.

God, Deimos wanted to flaunt that. He wanted to yell out on the rooftops that his boyfriend was actually the embodiment of the sun. He wanted to tell people that he was lovely and amazing and his. He longed for it.

Deimos blinked at looked down at Mira’s art piece once again.

“Oh,” he said out loud.

Oh.

Longing.

Longing.

He fucking gets it.

Ebbing and pulsating like the art piece, his heart beat a little faster. Pink and red like the art piece, his face flushes. Spreading, stretching, folding, mixing and blooming like the art piece was his fucking heart.

His girlfriend was a damn good magician.