Quoted By:
“Hey, Sophie?”
“Hmm?” The brown-haired girl looks back at her with a smile.
“…Are you really going to join the art club?”
“Yeah! I think so?”
Alice kicks a pebble along the road. “What’s so cool about art anyway? Isn’t it just a bunch of random paint splashes? You can just take pictures of stuff nowadays, anyway.”
Sophie’s eyes sparkle as she whirls around to grab her hands excitedly. “That’s the thing! It can seem like random colors and lines, but there’s so many layers to it! Sure, some abstract art is meaningless garbage, but other pieces can have so much artistry in each brushstroke! And that’s just abstract art! Portraits and realistic pieces might seem like they’re just trying to mimic the real world, but there’s so much nuance in how they frame the subject, the lighting, and-!”
The words all start to blur together in her mind as her friend goes on a passionate speech, but she was happy for her. She was supposed to be happy for her. Sophie had found something she cared this much about. It was good news, great news. She just had the unsettling feeling that this was the beginning of the end for something precious.
“-right???”
“Huh?” Alice blinked, then let out a nervous laugh. “Haha yeah…”
“Anyway, the first meeting is going to be next Monday, and I’m pretty excited. I wonder if there are other people who see it like I do?” Sophie lets go of her hands, and they resume walking back toward their neighborhood, the art-lover humming all the way.
“…Hey Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“Does the art club have meetings every day after school?”
“I think so! Sometimes there are weekend trips to the museum too!”
“Ah.” Alice looks down at her feet for a moment, before putting on a jokey grin and throwing an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Hey, who am I gonna walk home with, then? You’d really leave your best friend all alone?”
“Hmm, you bring up a good point…” Sophie puts a hand to her chin. “Why don’t you just join the art club too, then? We can walk home together after the meetings like usual!”
Alice blinks. She didn’t really care about art, but that was a possibility. If she were to join, they could keep up their same routine?
>Join the art club.
>Don’t.
