#meaow

In the middle of the night, dim light kissing both his skin and the sketchbook he's pouring his soul into. Hua Cheng draws and the world is quiet around him, still, wrapped in a blanket of slumber. The promise of the first snow of the season is suspended in the air outside the window and it traps the city in a bubble of expectation and white, cold silence.

Hua Cheng draws. The only sounds are the scraping of pencil against paper and his even breaths interrupted by quiet huffs every time he has to put down the pencil and fix a line with a well-used eraser.

Hua Cheng draws, and the subject of his art sleeps peacefully mere meters from him.

Xie Lian looks like a prince wrapped in the red sheets of Hua Cheng's bed. His face is soft, mouth slightly open and eyebrows relaxed, consciousness so deep into the world of dreams he doesn't even stir when Hua Cheng stretches and the chair moves.

There's an unfinished sketch in front of Hua Cheng, but he likes it that way. Xie Lian's face is clearly recognisable in the few, expert strokes Hua Cheng traced: the line of his jaw, the bow of his lips, the way his eyelashes curve at the outer corner of his eyes as if to extend their shape. The hair is barely sketched and the smudge of the graphite reaches the edge of the paper, hinting at long, liquid strands of golden brown caressing his bare skin and making Hua Cheng's heart ache.