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The impulse came to him out of nowhere, one day. Mika had always found himself sketching random things in the margins of his notes. Flowers he'd seen on his walk to class, the eggs he'd had that morning for breakfast, and the sight of his boyfriend, hair mussed and face still sleepy since he'd just woken up.
The blonde smiled at the memory, tuning out his professor in favor of remembering their morning routine.
"You've got creases on your cheek," Mika laughed at him when he walked into the kitchen. "Were you that tired?"
"What?" Freminet cracks open his eyes with a frown. He sits down and promptly falls asleep again, perfectly upright.
A fond smile makes its way onto the blonde's features. He leans down to drop a kiss onto his boyfriend's head and continues making breakfast. Only when the food has been plated does he gently shake his beloved awake.
Freminet wakes slowly, the second time around, and smiles at Mika before he thinks to do anything else. The gesture is so incredibly adorable that Mika can't contain the kisses he leaves on Freminet's face and loves the giggles he receives in return. They eat their breakfast in sleepy silence, save for Freminet's yawns and Mika's puffs of laughter. When he leaves for class, Freminet's waving him off; leaning his weight onto their front door, the bottom of his shirt caught on the doorknob. It lifts up, letting a sliver of skin peak through and it's enough for Mika to avert his eyes, lest he gets distracted.
Before he knows it, his entire notebook page is filled with sketchy renditions of his beloved, and while they're all filled with memories of him, Mika wishes they could be him. He resolves to just sit down and draw his boyfriend, once and for all.
Freminet isn't all for the idea when he brings it up.
"You're telling me I've gotta sit still for hours while you draw me?" He drawls as he pops open a can of soda on the couch. Mika is seated on the floor below him, trying to figure out which angle would suit his beloved best. All the angles suit him, he thinks, but he's got to be rational about this. For all he knows, this is his only chance to draw him front and center. That's it-
"Mika," Freminet says, because he hadn't answered his earlier question, and it had been a minute. The blonde snaps out of his stupor and looks up to his boyfriend, passing him an apologetic smile. "Can't you just, I dunno, use a picture of me instead?"
"No! Pictures are too... stagnant." I want to draw you as you are, not as you were. And it's nice to be in your presence.
Freminet sighs defeatedly, and nods. "Alright, fine. But you're gonna let me move every now and then. And you've gotta pay me back for this." He brings his legs up to the couch to cross them and rest his hands over his ankles.
"Alright," Mika agrees to the terms instantaneously. "Whatever you want, I'll give it to you."
A chuckle falls from his boyfriend, and the blonde beams at the sound of it. "You always say that."
"And I always mean it!" Mika stands up, grabs a chair, and sits opposite of Freminet on the couch.
"Do you... want me to do anything? Hold anything?"
"You're fine as you are," He replies smoothly, turning to a fresh new page and breaking out his pencils. He quickly gets down a base sketch and goes about filling in Freminet's features, taking the time to really soak in his appearance every time he looks at him.
Freminet continues drinking his soda, bringing the can to his lips every few minutes in an action so swift, Mika barely catches it sometimes. He supposes that he's trying to not obscure his face any more than it already is, and Mika's face softens at the thought. The blonde watches, the next time Freminet takes a swig, looks at the tilt of his head as he drinks, pays attention to the bob of his throat as he swallows, and doesn't miss the shine on his lips when he pulls the can away.
Mika wishes he could kiss it. Wishes he could lean in, lick the soda right off Freminet's mouth. Wonders if it tastes sweet or sour. A quick look to the can tells him that it's grapefruit flavored, and he knows from then that it'll be tart coming from Freminet. Still, he wants the taste. Wants to take it for himself, feel it on his own tongue.
It's these types of thoughts that distract him, that throw him off and make his drawing become erratic and unfocused. He can't remember which part he was working on last and resolves to do the whole thing again. Before he does, however, he takes a step back. Refocuses his mind and sees the drawing for a bit more than it is.
On the paper, he's depicted Freminet taking a drink from his soda. A pretty commonplace thing, if he had any say in it. But then he notices the amount of detail he'd put into Freminet's eyes, into his hands, the curve of his jaw, and the can itself. He even drew the water droplets on the side. Of course, the soda would be ice cold, he thinks to himself with a chuckle. He's always favored cold drinks to hot ones.
He ends up flipping to a new page anyways, and Freminet stays blissfully unaware. The time ticks on as his pencil glides against the paper, stroke after stroke working together to depict the picture in front of him.
He looks up again to see Freminet staring back at him, a small, fond smile on his face. His eyes are creased, like they always are when he's amused, and his eyebrows are tilted upwards a bit at the ends. His entire demeanor shifts to something softer, and he seems more relaxed. He's shifted positions too, Mika notes belatedly. He's no longer leaning forward, instead resting all his weight on the back of the couch, one leg pulled up to his chest and his arm wrapped loosely around it. At the end of that arm rests the hand holding the now empty soda can, and Mika regrets not asking for a sip. His other arm sits on his still flat knee, but his fingers have taken to fiddling with the hem of his sweatpants.
He's wearing my sweatpants, Mika realizes. They look good on Freminet. Better than they do on him. Mika wishes he could see Freminet in his clothes more, but his boyfriend was taller than him, and most of his clothes didn't fit quite right on Freminet as they did on Mika.
He sighs and goes back to his drawing.
Growing impatient once more, Mika flips to a new page yet again. It's the third time he's done this, and by now, he's sure Freminet is tired of him. He looks up to tell his boyfriend that he can get up to take a break when all he finds is Freminet peacefully dozing on the couch. By some miracle, his head hasn't tilted back to an uncomfortable angle, instead choosing to tilt slightly to the side. Sighing to himself, Mika retrieves a pillow from their couch and puts it on Freminet's shoulder.
He should at least be comfortable, he thinks. The blonde settles back into his chair and continues drawing, trying to get the lighting right this time around. He's already got his boyfriend's proportions right, and he wants to try to covey something other than academically rigid portraits. He wants to express the life he sees in Freminet, the life he feels when he so much as looks at the other. Wants to convey the joy, the comfort, and the coziness of the moment. Wants to convey how softly Freminet breathes when he naps, how nicely he smiles when he dreams about something good, how beautifully his eyelashes fall on his cheeks when they're unburdened by the task of staying awake. He wants to convey the serene moment, how Freminet's hair cradles his face perfectly, falls and frames his features better than a picture ever could.
He looks to the window, sees the sun getting ready to set in the distance, and then he looks back to his boyfriend, washed in a blanket of warm oranges and blues, sees the brown of his freckles dotting his cheekbones and dancing over his nose bridge. Sees the ashy blondeness of his hair become less abrasive in the warm light, sees the darkness of his eyelashes start to glow with the sun. He spies the crooked curve of the corner of Freminet's mouth, and decides to place his own over it, to leave featherlight kisses all over his beloved's face, aiding him in having a peaceful sleep.
This, he smiles to himself as he picks Freminet up and brings him to their shared bedroom. This is so much better than a picture, so much more alive than a portrait.
This is the man he loves, the living, breathing object of his affections, and the one he cannot stand to be without. This is the one he holds dear, the one he will remember for the rest of his life, and the one who has wormed his way into his heart and made a place for himself there. This is the one who Mika will think about every chance he gets, the one he sees when he closes his eyes, the one who's image is burned into the back of his eyelids.
Mika lays a kiss to Freminet's forehead, wishes him a good sleep, and tucks into bed with him. Sketchbook and pencils discarded in the living room; the blonde is content to soak in the moment as it is. To breathe it in in all its honesty, and to store it in his lungs for evermore.
And later on, when Freminet wakes, he goes to the living room and picks up the sketchbook, thumbs through the pages to gaze upon the devotion Mika has poured onto the paper. He feels overcome with emotion, seeing how his boyfriend had depicted him so lovingly, so tenderly and dearly that he doesn't know what else to do, other than to kiss the life out of him.
Mika finds it revitalizing, and kisses back with just as much fervor. He winds his hands into Freminet's hair and pulls, pulls him down along with him onto the bed. From there, they flow into each other, close enough that neither knows where one ends and the other begins. They're pressed impossibly close, and they breathe each other in like dying men, as if being apart for even a second would kill them.
Mika's skin is set ablaze as Freminet's hands find their way under his shirt. They explore the expanse of skin, and his lips join in the expedition as they trail down his jaw to his neck. He gasps at the sensation, colors bursting behind his eyelids as Freminet showers him with attention, with devotion, and he doesn't know what he can do to repay him. He lays there, absorbing all the affection his boyfriend gives, tries to give some of his own, and smiles all the while.
He ends up tasting bits of the soda from earlier; the taste had long already faded from Freminet's tongue, but he found a way to scour its remains. Freminet had chuckled into his mouth, a sound sweeter than any candy he'd eaten before, and tilted his head, gave him more access to anything he could have ever wanted.
And take, he did. He took everything that Freminet gave him, took it and savored each bit of it. It wasn't until they parted, rolled away from each other to catch their breath, that Mika finally understood what Freminet was doing. This was his payment, for earlier, and the blonde thought that if he was going to have to give this every time he wanted that, he didn't mind. He loved it, even, almost as much as he loved the man lying next to him.
He turned on his side to gaze at Freminet, all kiss-bitten lips and rosy cheeks. Dopey smiles and labored breaths. His hand reached out before he even realized, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. His boyfriend's face flushed at that, a pretty little red that complimented his complexion. Mika marveled at the sight of it.
One day, he resolved. I'll draw every expression of yours. And I'll have a miniature version of you, living between the pages of my sketchbook.
The End.