Chapter Text
“Your designs are always so colorful.”
The brush traced a long curve in the canvas, lining in pastel colors the figure of a profile.
“Are you sure you don’t want any of them as your protagonist?”
The shadow must be done right, if he didn’t want it to look opaque. Light shades to enhance the curve of her cheeks and lips, curved in a cheerful smile.
“ I wish I had such amazing ideas.”
Should he add a bit of orange at the tips of the petals? Or maybe at the base of the flowers. But then the colour would mix with the blond of her hair and that just wouldn’t work.
The tips would be, then, but very slightly, only to give the effect of sunlight reflecting in her curls.
“My eyes hurt a bit while watching it but it is indeed beautiful.”
With one last brush, Kaminari left the utensil in the table beside him, eyes fixed in his last piece of work, his breath uneasy as he watched nervously the face in front of him, his eyes roaming over the canvas with an ache he had though he had got over many years ago.
His memory hadn’t failed him this time. All the details were perfect, as if she was there in front of him, real and reachable.
The idea of calling his sister crossed his mind as the feeling of keeping it only for his eyes thickened in his chest.
Later , he told himself. He would call later.
_______
Denki had grown in a colorful environment.
Most of it, he had made it himself. The first years of his life could be reduced to his parents running after him to stop him from painting the walls, at the time when ‘no’s didn’t mean anything to him. It was a family joke, saying that he had learnt how to hold up a crayon before he could even walk without stumbling, laughing at the memory of a blonde giggly toddler using every chance he got to masacre the house’s white walls.
His sister had done nothing but encourage him, her bedroom turning into an explosion of colour everytime Denki’s inspiration struck. Doodles of their garden, their family or just random shapes that made sense to the artistic vision of a four year old child covered every inch from the bottom of the wall to where his tiny hand could reach, a white canvas that needed to be filled in his eyes. Their parents gave up soon after he decorated their own bedroom too.
They had another artist in the family, there was nothing else they could do to stop it. And in all truth, they didn’t want to.
The walls in the house had been originally white but Denki brought them colour, just as he did with everything he touched and everyone he met. It had been happier and simpler times back then, painting as he listened to his father singing in the living room and the persistent smell of coffee filtering through the doors and filling every corner of the house.
Years later, his teachers would say that he had too much energy, that he was different. Some would tell his parents to find him activities to tire him up while others would state that he must learn to control himself, that everything could be solved with a little bit of discipline.
Seeking professional help had ended up being the best solution and his parents hadn’t hesitated in following the medical advice the best they could and found new ways of dealing with the complications along the way, encouraging their son and walking along him in every step he took, ready to catch him everytime he fell.
Denki learnt how to play the guitar from his father himself, and went to his first art class thanks to his mother. He learnt that drawing helped him with his ADHD and that repeating things out loud in a rhythmic tone was an easier way to memorize complicated information. He learnt the tricks to control his anxiety and how to make his hands movements less obvious in public, especially after being hours sitting in a classroom with his mind flying miles away from the teacher’s explanation. To shrug off the harsh words and stares, even when sometimes they hurt so much that he felt the need to hide in his mother’s arms to find understanding. Because his family never, ever, let him think there was anything in him that needed to be fixed.
“Things are inevitable in this world”, his mom would say, pressing her cheek against his and her curls would tickle Denki’s skin in a way he would find comforting.That close to her, he could smell her shampoo and the scent of coffee in her clothes, an smell different from his father’s or sister’s but just as comforting. “Things such as love and fate. And you, my dear, are one of those things.”
“ You are inevitable, Denki. Inevitable to love and impossible to forget and ignore .” She would kiss his temple then and would caress his blonde hair with her nose as she whispered, “You are our star.”
_______
Denki loved coffee even before tasting it for the first time.
He loved its lingering aroma in his house’s kitchen and how his father always looked so happy while drinking it. He loved the profundity of its colour, neither brown nor black, and sometimes with a hint of gold, that broke in circles when he added milk or cream.
He loved the processes of its making, the sound of boiling water sizzling as it made contact with the beans, the soft twirling move with a spoon that anyone did before pouring it into a mug.
And he loved its flavour, of course, the sweet and bitter taste against his tongue and the million ways it could be prepared and still taste so rich and contradictory.
He loved coffee and the way his mother would smile while preparing it, with the attentive stares of the three coffee addicts in the household on her, as they waited impatiently for it to be ready.
And he kept loving it, even after she wasn’t there to prepare it anymore.