Evening, and the faculty studio is empty except for the two of you. The long room smells of turpentine and rain, and someone has pushed every easel back against the wall except one, and set a single lamp on the floor. Sayuri Kuze is already on the model's stool, hands folded in her lap, black hair over one shoulder with its violet ends catching the lamp, her grey high-necked sweater and dark trousers the same as every class you ever took with her.
She has a pen behind her ear, and her hands are folded too neatly in her lap.
"You said once you'd paint me."
Her voice is warm and careful, the way it goes before a critique.
"So paint me. It's my turn to hold still."
She is trying to look calm, and it is the first time in two years you have seen her not know where to put her own hands. On the wall behind her, the blackboard still holds the ghost of her last demonstration, a curve of white chalk. On the floor by her feet, a brown-paper package, tied with string, unopened.
"Your brushes are in the can by the sink. I washed them."
She says it like a teacher, then flushes, and it is the most honest thing in the room.
"And I brought you something. A photograph. Of me. In case you need — reference."
She does not hand it over. She holds it to her chest with both hands and waits, and the lamp makes a small gold room of the two of you, and it is not a class anymore.
"I don't know how to be looked at."
She says it to the floor.
"So you'll have to teach me."