We live and we learn as w (1/2)

"I'd like you to go out this weekend."

Baekho started as the students were busily packing their materials at the end of class.

Some of the girls snickered to his statement and Baekho felt the tips of his ears burn.

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before facing towards his students once more.

"I'm not asking you to paint the town red..." he mumbled, just a little pleased with his choice of words.

"I want you to go to some place you like, a cafe, a dinner, a promenade...take your sketchbook and a pencil and start sketching people."

After the words left his mouth all eyes turned on him again and he could read various emotions in the students faces, fear and uncertainty two of the more unpleasant ones, emotions he did not want his students to face.

He sent a soft smile towards them and nodded to himself before telling them to not be afraid or worried about what people might think if they saw.

Art, like anything else, was bound to a constant learning progress after all and the core of the exercise was to sharpen the students eyes for compositional mass, to practice capturing a constantly moving object on paper.

The sketches were supposed to be done quickly, simply by finding an object or rather person they found interesting, determining the best position on the blank piece of paper and capturing the rough form in a couple dashes.

Baekho could almost read the relief in his students faces when the tasked minimized to sketches instead of fully detailed drawings.

One student after another slid out of his classroom then, most of them too engrossed in they chatter to even spare him a second to say their goodbyes for the day.

The door fell into lock as the last student passed through it.  The art room turned quiet and Baekho gazed at the clock above the door.  "You're here." He stated without even turning to the easel that Minki frequently occupied.

The boy looked away from the wall opposite of him to direct his eyes at Baekho.

"I am." He agreed and Baekho hummed in respond.

He started cleaning the art room like he always did, washing out the used brushes, removing the drapery, sorting the new sketches.

He was so used to Minki quietly sitting inside the art room after class that he cringed when the boy's voice suddenly rung in the air.

"Can't I just do the assignment right now?" Minki asked, pencil and sketchbook already held in hand.

Baekho looked at him for a moment, awkwardly rubbing his neck as Minki's eyes lingered on his form waiting for an answer.

He wasn't sure it was a good idea to let the boy sketch him, not that he'd never had anyone sketch him before but this was different.

"You're supposed to go out and capture people...you'll have a wider choice when there are more than one.""But you're a person too and you're moving around here anyway...I don't see the difference."

The boy did have a point and the only reason Baekho would have rather declined was the idea of Minki's eyes following his every move.

"Go ahead." He breathed anyway and turned his back to Minki as he started to remove the layers of fabric from one of the mannequins.  The sound of pencil scratching over paper lingered in the air for quiet a while as he engrossed in his daily tasks and it was soothing to Baekho.

The noises of someone being creative had always been something Baekho savored, it was the sound of something new, something beings shaped and modeled and given birth to and he liked it.