[Net King] Take away my heart

Sunset is sometimes like the rising of the sun

Do you know what loyal love is like

You're crying, you're saying you've drained yourself

But have you ever wondered who is not

Also shrouded in smoke

——molanajalaluddinrumi

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The art department is my favorite place to go when I have free time.

Different from the tense and desperate training atmosphere of the tennis department, the art department is a quiet and comfortable place where people can relax and catch their breath.

Since I entered middle school, I seldom draw anymore because I am busy with tennis training, but this has not changed my strong interest in painting since I was a child.

I met Mochizuki, the head of the art department in the student union. As the vice president of the student union, she took good care of me from the beginning.The versatile Mochizuki not only has excellent grades, can speak fluent foreign languages, but also has high attainments in art. He is a recognized celebrity in the school and is admired and looked up by almost all the younger generations.

This kind of Mochizuki is a person who has no pretensions. She always treats each other with a smile. She not only guides me patiently in the student union, but also treats me as one of my own who is obviously not a member of the art department.

"Wouldn't it be troublesome for everyone in the art department if you're not an official member and still hang around there all the time?"

"That's not the case. Everyone welcomes Jingshi. You can come anytime you want."

As long as I come to the art department, Mochizuki will take the initiative to show me everyone's work, and share these paintings with me kindly.

Over time, other members of the art department besides Mochizuki became familiar with me, and people often suggested that I should join the art department.Because I am also a minister, I know that I can't be distracted and do other things. Painting can really make me feel happy, but I know that I have more important responsibilities on me, and my hobbies can only be used for the time being. As a hobby, it plays a role in relieving fatigue and enriching the heart after training.

I also occasionally bring my paintings to the art department.

Compared with the childish paintings painted with colorful crayons in my childhood, now I have completely transformed into only painting with watercolors.Landscape is still my favorite theme, and watercolor landscapes account for 90.00% of all my paintings.

"It would be a waste if Yukimura-kun didn't join the art club!" "If you and Mochizuki were in the art club, they would definitely be invincible." "It's really a genius that was snatched away by the tennis club." Every time the members read my Every time I paint, I will make such regrets again and again.

On the contrary, Mochizuki did not persuade me to join the art department, she said: "I know you care more about tennis, I just hope you don't make yourself too tired, just take the art department as a haven for your soul, when you are tired Come and stop for a while, I will wait for you here anytime."

The haven of the soul, right?

I think to a certain extent, Mochizuki is someone who can understand me.

Mochizuki is very friendly to everyone in the school. She is never arrogant, and she doesn't care much about the traditional distinction between seniors and juniors.She would call me Jingshi when she opened her mouth, and asked me not to add the word "Senior" after her name.

So, I call her Mochizuki, and she calls me Jingshi.Although there is a one-year age difference and a different gender, getting along with Mochizuki makes me feel calmer than before.

"Jingshi, do you only paint landscapes and never paint anything else?"

"No, I used to draw others... but now there are very few."

"I'd like to see your other paintings," she said. "Can I have them?"

I hesitated and agreed to her.

The next day I brought the painting to the art department, but there was no one else in the art department, so Mochizuki walked over by himself.

In a stack of colorful landscape paintings, there is only this gray and white portrait of a character sandwiched.I took it out of the drawing paper and put it on the easel. Mochizuki squinted and leaned over.

"No face yet."

"Ah."

"Why not draw a face? Because there is no specific object?"

"……Um."

"However, it can be seen that it is a girl."

Mochizuki put her hands behind her back and looked at my painting with great concentration.

The outline of a young girl is outlined in light watercolor. Compared with the colorful landscape painting, the painting in front of me is so monotonous that only one color is used from beginning to end.

With extremely light gray and dark tones and thin lines, this painting looks like an unfinished play no matter how you look at it, but Mochizuki's expression on it is very intriguing.

"Who could it be...? This girl."

Mochizuki murmured.Her fingers touched the edge of the picture lightly, as if she was trying to find out the true face of the person in the painting.

"You use a very light gray, like there's a layer of smoke... Her face is covered with smoke, you can't see her, and she can't see herself."

The fingers slowly wandered just a few feet away from the drawing paper.

"That's why she has no face."

Mochizuki's words made me fall into silence.There was a long silence.

From the day I made the appointment, I stopped drawing characters with crayons.Those old crayons and drawing paper became my farewell gifts to my childhood and hospital.

The dreamy colors and shades of watercolor are mesmerizing, and using it makes for a better representation of the landscapes I aspire to - however, not only when it comes to people.

When I was a child, I drew countless portraits of Jiayin with crayons.At that time, I didn't know what she looked like, and I was so eager to see her, so all my expectations and imaginations were transformed into clear and powerful strokes. good news.

Looking back, when I was holding watercolor brushes instead of crayons, I could no longer have that energy and hope, because everything has changed.

She came to me, she stood in front of my eyes, and she even stayed with me day and night.

The distance disappeared, but she seemed more blurred and distant.

My heart is also covered in smoke.

No one knew who I was painting. What people saw was a girl without a face, or just an unfinished painting.Yet this painting is a reflection of my heart, more real and more cruel than beautiful scenery and soft watercolors.

At one point, I thought I would never draw anyone again.But when the paintbrush in my hand couldn't help outlining the memory buried deep in my heart, I knew that what I painted was no longer her, but a secret——

A sad, unspeakable secret forever shrouded in smoke.

"The mournful cry of autumn... like the cry of a violin... the long and unbearable gloom hurt my heart... dull and dull... misty..."

In the evening after club activities ended, Mochizuki and I sat in the stands by the deserted tennis court and narrated Verlaine's poems to the empty lawn.

"The bell is ringing...the past is like smoke...reappearing in front of my eyes...my tears are falling like rain...I'm leaving..."

I gently turned the book to the next page and continued reading.

"The evil wind blows me—"

"Can I ask you a question?" Mochizuki interrupted me suddenly, "Why does Jingshi like Verlaine?"

She tilted her head slightly, with a hint of doubt in her eyes, but she seemed to be still immersed in the artistic conception of poetry, and she seemed a little hazy.

"Because..." I closed the book and cast my eyes into the distance, looking at the scenery I see almost every day, "Because I have people who want to love but can't love just like him."

Mochizuki's eyes widened for a moment, then widened.

"Could it be that you are...the one?"

I smiled at her: "Which one?"

"I hate it, don't play tricks on me." Mochizuki complained and thumped me, "It almost scared me to death, you know what I'm talking about."

Verlaine is a gay poet who, despite having a wife, is at the same time entangled with the fellow poet Rimbaud.I know all this.

"Does Mochizuki mind this?"

"It's not that I mind...it's just that it's weird. After all, it's difficult for ordinary people to understand this kind of mood." Mochizuki said after thinking, "There is definitely controversy, but I don't think it's a bad thing. Love itself There is nothing wrong, as long as it does not hurt others, then no matter what you love, there is nothing wrong."

"Love and hurt are equated most of the time."

Verlaine once shot and wounded Rimbaud, which led to his imprisonment and eventually parted ways with Rimbaud.

"I believe that people who were born in peaceful times, or people who have not experienced such a special experience, can hardly become like them. The era and environment they were born in, the feelings and sorrows they experienced, determine their becoming what a poet..."

"Just like your paintings." Mochizuki looked at me sincerely.

"Don't be sad, okay? Although I don't know why you always resonate with these sad things, but I hope you know that even if you think that people in the world don't understand you, you are willing to stand by your side There is always a person...that person is me."

She deftly took the book from my lap.

"Which page is it from? Ah, it's here... the bad wind blows me... drifting here and there... floating, floating, like the dead leaves falling..."

Turning the pages of the book, Mochizuki read the rest of my poems little by little. I closed my eyes and felt the afterglow of the setting sun covering my body and mind quietly.

……where is she.

At this moment, is she, like me, sitting with someone, looking for comfort and peace that seems to be deceiving herself.

That person will be Marui, will it be Yanagi, or anyone else I never know.

I opened my eyes slightly, withdrew my thoughts, and then quietly observed Mochizuki's side face beside me.It was indeed a very beautiful, gentle face.Can I love a face that everyone should love?I asked myself silently in my heart, Yukimura Seichi, can you?

Verlaine may have asked himself the same question countless times.

But it never has an answer.