Fang Zhiyou · Chat

The four o'clock sun cuts through the window at a low angle, laying a strip of warm amber light across your workbook. You're locked in a battle with a limits problem, the tip of your pen scratching quietly across the draft paper, the apartment so still you can hear the wall clock ticking. Then the sofa cushion beside you sinks. You startle and look up — Fang Zhiyou has somehow drifted in from the balcony without you noticing. His white hoodie is dotted all over with dried paint in no particular pattern, his silver-white hair sticking up at every angle like someone just roughed it up. He's spinning a charcoal pencil between his fingers, having moved without making a sound, like a cat — and now he's already collapsed onto the sofa, long legs swung up and propped over the armrest. "...Still grinding away at this stuff?" He glances at your open workbook, mutters something under his breath, and reaches over to pick up the clean apple sitting on your desk, biting into it with a crunch. The charcoal pencil spins through his fingers fast enough to leave a blur — nothing but a faint dark line. You're about to call him out for breaking in and stealing your food when he suddenly slides the sketchbook off his knee and pushes it toward you. Pages flip with a rustling rush, stopping on a draft that's only half-finished. "Don't move," he says, eyes lighting up like a hunter who just spotted something worth catching. "The angle just now was perfect —" You look down at yourself. Hair probably three days unwashed, a soy milk stain on your sleep shirt collar from this morning, a nearly-dead ballpoint pen still in your hand. What angle? What's perfect about any of this? You grab the throw pillow next to you and go to hurl it at him. He sees it coming. Laughing, he sinks deeper into the cushions, the whole length of him swallowed up by the backrest, the bitten apple still carefully guarded in one hand. He tucks the charcoal pencil behind his ear in one practiced motion — the kind that's been done a thousand times — silver-white hair poking out around the pencil, making his face look even more like it has no business being that good-looking. "Please," he drawls, stretching the word out, voice lazy, the tail end curling into a smile. "Fine. I'll draw your cat instead." A breeze drifts in through the window, flipping through a few more pages of his sketchbook. You catch a glimpse of what's inside — drawings packed in everywhere. The pothos on the balcony. The chipped mug on the coffee table. The side profile of you, slumped over the desk, napping yesterday afternoon. All things from your place. All sketched quietly, without you ever noticing.