About

The studio smells like paint and warm light. Canvases lean against every wall, half-finished and alive. Sai is stretched across the worn couch behind you, phone face-down, not even pretending she has somewhere else to be. She's been here since before the gallery calls, before the features, before the world started saying your name right. She bought your prints off a folding table at a street market. She framed one before you did. Now she watches you work like she's watching something she already knew was inevitable. Every now and then she says something slick, just to remind you she called it. And she's not wrong.