Over the past few days, Acheron had fallen into a comfortable little routine. Instead of going directly home after class, he would cross the university grounds and make his way to the sculpture studio. Mira was usually already there, her hands covered in clay and her attention completely consumed by whatever strange creation had captured her imagination that day.
One sculpted and the other drew. Somehow, they had fallen into a rhythm without either of them consciously deciding to do so.
They didn't speak much while they worked. Sometimes an entire hour passed without either one saying more than a few words, yet the silence never felt awkward. Acheron had begun to appreciate that. He didn't need to think of anything to say, and he didn't have to worry about whether he was being strange.
He could simply sit nearby, listen to the quiet music drifting through the room, and draw.
The classical music wasn't Mira's choice. She shared the relatively small studio with three other students, and whoever arrived first usually got to decide what played through the speakers. Today, some soft piano piece filled the room, occasionally disappearing beneath the scrape of sculpting tools against clay.
Mira was only a second-year student, which meant she still had another two years before she could claim a private studio space of her own. Until then, the room belonged to all four students, along with the constant clutter of half-finished projects, abandoned sketches, buckets of tools and the occasional piece of clay that seemed to have mysteriously migrated several metres from where it had originally been placed.
It was rarely quiet.
Students came and went throughout the afternoon, conversations overlapping as people searched for brushes, borrowed tools or complained about assignments. Someone was always dragging a stool across the floor. Someone else was invariably looking for something they had misplaced.
Yet Acheron had somehow found peace in the middle of it. The soft scratch of his pencil against paper became another part of the room's background noise.
Apparently, he wasn't the only one who had decided the studio was a pleasant place to spend an afternoon. When Aviv's brother didn't have classes, he had taken to sneaking onto campus and joining them. Aviv would settle into a chair nearby, usually with a drink in one hand while he and Barrett quietly talked about whatever had crossed their minds that day. Their conversations were rarely serious. Sometimes Acheron caught fragments about music, university gossip or some ridiculous thing one of their professors had said.
When Barrett wasn't there, however, Aviv became considerably quieter.
He would simply watch. Or, if inspiration struck, he would pull out his notebook and compose whatever fleeting melody happened to wander through his head.
It had become a strange little arrangement.
Mira sculpted.
Acheron drew.
Aviv occasionally composed.
Acheron found himself in that familiar little corner again today. He placed his bag beside his chair and pulled out his new sketchbook.
New, technically. It had only been a few days since he had bought it, but already, nearly every page had been filled. Acheron turned it over in his hands for a moment before opening it to a fresh page.
He then reached down and dragged his small temporary table closer to Mira's. Looking at the distance between the two tables, he moved it closer another few centimetres. Over the past few days, his table had somehow migrated steadily closer to Mira's workspace. Completely unable to hide his curiosity.
He wanted to see what she was doing.
Mira's sculptures were still a mystery to him. Every time he thought he had begun to understand what she was creating, she would add another piece of clay somewhere completely unexpected and turn the entire thing into something else.
It was fascinating.
Acheron rested his chin briefly against his hand, staring at the empty page.
Steady footsteps could be heard approaching from outside; a moment later, Mira appeared in the doorway. Large headphones covered her ears, the music leaking faintly from them despite the classical piece already playing through the studio speakers. Her red hair had been freshly braided into two long plaits that rested over her shoulders. A pair of butterfly earrings peeked out from beneath her hair whenever she moved.
She was blowing an enormous bubble.
Acheron's eyes followed it automatically.
The pink bubble expanded until, with one swift motion, Mira popped it.
The sticky gum snapped against her lips; she grinned.
"Afternoon, shrimp," she said, dropping into the chair behind her desk.
"Very original," Acheron scoffed. "Good afternoon."
He had barely finished speaking before Mira reached beneath her desk and pulled out the sculpture. Acheron immediately leaned forward. The wet rags wrapped around it were carefully peeled away, revealing the clay beneath. Mira lifted the sculpture onto her worktable and slowly turned it from one side to the other, inspecting it from every angle.
She tilted her head, looking at it from top to bottom. Apparently satisfied, she gave a small nod and began unpacking her tools.
Acheron barely noticed; his attention remained fixated on the sculpture. It had changed considerably since the last time he'd seen it. Much larger now, more elaborate, with dozens of branches twisting and reaching in different directions. Some of the forms resembled fingers. Others...
Acheron narrowed his eyes.
Were those fingers?
Or were they...
He quickly decided he didn't want to know. Whatever they were, he still had absolutely no idea what Mira was making.
"Any idea what you're creating now?" he finally asked.
Mira glanced at him.
"Still no idea." She said it so casually that Acheron stared at her.
"But..." Mira paused, cutting a small piece from a block of wet clay. "I have more of a distinct feeling now."
Acheron's face scrunched up, and a frown formed between his eyebrows. He continued staring at her.
Mira looked up. "You don't have to look so confused."
"I'm not that confused."
Mira smiled and returned her attention to the clay in her hands.
"With me, it always starts with a feeling rather than a concrete idea or image. I don't usually know what I'm going to make when I begin. I just start." She folded the piece of clay between her fingers, turning it over several times before pressing it between her palms. "The sculpture becomes whatever it needs to become."
Acheron watched her carefully.
She worked without hesitation, with no sketches besides her own or any reference photos. She simply moulded the clay, turning it this way and that until something seemed to satisfy whatever instinct guided her. Then she pressed the new piece into the sculpture.
Acheron's eyes followed her hands.
"But how do you know when it's finished?"
"I don't." Mira shrugged. "I'll know when I know."
Acheron looked genuinely troubled by this answer.
"But what if you ruin it?"
"I might."
"And you're okay with that?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because..." He stopped.
Because that wasn't how it was supposed to work.
At least, that was how Acheron had always approached his paintings.
Mira tilted her head. "You might be struggling because you're trying too hard to know what the painting is before you've even painted it."
The pencil between Acheron's fingers went still; something in her words caught. For a moment, the studio seemed to fade around him.
His mind drifted back to the unfinished painting waiting for him at home. Still sitting on an easel in his bedroom, two colours curled around one another across the canvas, twisting and overlapping in sweeping, almost weightless strokes. To this day, he still didn't know what the painting was supposed to become.
He hadn't known when he'd started it.
He hadn't even known why he'd chosen those colours.
He had simply... painted.
He remembered the sensation far more clearly than the image itself. The tingling in his fingers and the strange warmth spreading through his chest. The exhilaration that had made him forget to look at the clock.
For those few hours, he hadn't worried about whether the painting was good or what anyone else might think. He hadn't tried to make it mean something. He had simply moved the brush.
Until the colours seemed to move beneath his hands. There had been no rules or any expectation.
Just unbridled freedom.
Acheron's fingers tightened around his pencil.
Perhaps that was what had been missing.
While Acheron was lost in the memory, the studio door opened again. Aviv walked in first, Barrett following closely behind him.
Barrett had finally been given an afternoon without classes, and apparently, that meant the twins had decided to make themselves comfortable at the studio. They crossed the room and pulled two large bean bags from where they had been stacked against the wall, dragging them across the floor until they were close enough to join Mira and Acheron without disturbing their work.
"Afternoon, everyone!" Aviv greeted cheerfully.
"Hey," Acheron beamed. Mira gave a small wave without looking up from her sculpture, while Barrett nodded in greeting. Aviv dropped heavily into one of the bean bags, stretching his legs out in front of him.
"How was class today?"
"Long and boring!" Aviv announced.
Acheron nodded sympathetically before turning toward Barrett.
"And yours?"
Barrett settled into the other bean bag. "It was interesting. We covered some new information about the importance of pheromones during bonding."
His expression brightened as he spoke, and within seconds, he had launched into an enthusiastic explanation of something Acheron only half understood.
Aviv stared at his twin. "Don't understand where your brain came from. Definitely not from our parents."
Barrett paused.
Acheron glanced between them.
"You're smart too."
"Not doctor smart," Aviv snorted. There was something almost proud about the way he said it.
Barrett shook his head but wisely chose not to argue.
Acheron couldn't help smiling; he had always loved watching the twins together. They had a strange way of expressing affection. They rarely said anything particularly sentimental to one another, yet the care between them was obvious in every little interaction. A teasing remark. A shared look. A drink quietly passed from one hand to another without either needing to ask.
It was comforting.
Acheron turned back toward his sketchbook. Mira, meanwhile, had apparently decided that her sculpture required something else. Without asking, she reached across the table and picked up one of Acheron's pencils.
Acheron's eyes followed her hand.
"Mira..."
She ignored him.
She turned the pencil between her fingers before pressing its tip against the wet clay. Leaving a mark, then another, she swirled the pencil through the clay, studying the impression it left behind before making one final mark.
Apparently satisfied, she returned the pencil to the exact spot from which she'd taken it.
Acheron stared at it. The pencil had been immaculate when she'd taken it. Sharp, clean and in perfect condition. Now it was coated in wet clay. Acheron's expression slowly changed, first from disbelief, then quickly followed up by horror.
Aviv noticed his expression first; he tried to keep it in, but that only lasted approximately two seconds before bursting out into laughter.
The sudden sound echoed through the studio, causing several students to turn in their seats. Aviv tried to stop himself but failed miserably. Acheron slowly looked at him.
Aviv covered his mouth.
"I'm sorry." He wasn't. His shoulders shook from the effort of keeping the laughter in.
Acheron looked back at the offending pencil. With a solemn expression, he picked up a scrap of cloth and began wiping it clean. One careful stroke, after another. His bright emerald eyes narrowed as he inspected the remaining smudge of clay.
Aviv was still snickering.
"You know," he managed between laughs, "it's just a pencil."
Acheron looked at him with profound offence.
"It was clean."
Mira glanced over. "It still works."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
Acheron looked down at the pencil; the last tiny trace of clay was stubbornly clinging to the wood. He once again started rubbing it away.
"The point," he said very seriously, "is that it was clean."
Aviv buried his face in his hands, softly coughing a few giggles out. Hearing this, Barrett's lips twitched, but he was able to keep the sound in. The twins were doing a far better job, as Mira burst into laughter.
Acheron huffed, but the corners of his mouth betrayed his true feelings.
Around them, a few of the other students had begun watching. One of them smiled at the scene before apparently remembering who was sitting in the middle of it; the smile disappeared.
Another student whispered something to the person beside them; the two exchanged a glance before quickly turning back to their work.
Acheron didn't notice; he was far too busy examining his pencil one last time. Satisfied that it had been restored to an acceptable condition, he placed it carefully beside his sketchbook.
Over the music, the noise of a large group of students passing the studio windows slowly began to seep into the room. Mira paused with her hands hovering over the sculpture, waiting patiently for the voices and laughter to fade, but they didn't. Instead, the noise stopped directly outside the studio.
Mira glanced towards the windows. The group had gathered beside one of the large panes of glass, several of them peering inside. At first, she assumed they were simply curious about the students working in the studio, but she then noticed where their actual attention was fixed.
On Acheron.