He got up early that morning. Earlier than he usually did. Dressed himself in a pair of baggy blue jeans and a white t-shirt. His red sneakers on his feet. His sketch pad was stuffed into his backpack and out the door he headed. He'd been careful to not make too much noise before leaving the house. He didn't want to wake his foster mom. Surely she'd know where he went when she woke.

He headed right for the gallery. A brief nod was sent in the direction of the man behind the counter as he headed right for the back room. He planned on painting two of his newest sketches instead of doing them in color pencil. One sketch is of the moon glistening over the ocean and the other is a picture of a dog running through a field.

Over to one of the work tables he went and set his backpack down on the ground next to it. He pulled his sketch pad out and set it on the work table. Flipping through it, he finally got to the ocean scene. He tore it out of the sketch pad and fastened it into place. Then he set about getting together the stuff he needed to paint it. He sat there for a few minutes just looking at the sketch before he finally began working on it.

He'd been working on his picture for about an hour before he suddenly got frustrated with how it was turning out. He didn't like it. "Damn it," he muttered. He was still trying to get the hang of painting his pictures instead of coloring them with coloring pencils. It wasn't as easy as one might think. "Piece of crap!" he growled at it and tore it off the table. He began crumpling up the picture out of frustration.

Suddenly, there was a loud crashing sound from somewhere else in the back of the room. "Oh shit..." he muttered and went to go find the source of the noise.

A woman was in the back of the room in a corner behind shelves, looking at a few paintings that was either being worked on or being restored. Alia was a current student, taking a few art lessons to hopefully improve some on drawing and painting. So she had permission to be back in the work room. Today she was looking at a few paintings thought that were being done by other students.

Surprisingly she was dressed in more casual clothing today. A yellow t-shirt was covered by jean overalls that had holes cut out on each knee. Blonde hair, recently streaked with brighter and darker highlights, was tied back into a ponytail so no lose strands would fall onto paintings. Emerald eyes were intrigued with one particular painting of a landscape with several trees and a meadow with a distant mountain range in the background. It was very well done in her opinion.

Stepping back to look at another painting, heel hit three paint buckets that were stacked on top of each other, causing quite a ruckus as the top ones fell to the floor. Luckily the lids were tight so no paint was spilled onto the floor. She started to stack them back up on top of one another.

The boy hadn’t heard anything about anyone else being allowed in the work rooms and so was obviously not a happy camper upon discovering someone back here. Especially not someone being klutzy and knocking crap over and such.

“Excuse me,” he said in an irritated tone. “Just what do you think you’re doing back here?”

She looked up to see a boy not far from where she was putting paint cans back on top of each other. Face flushed rather embarrassed for being so clumsy. She usually wasn’t.

”I’m sorry, I was looking at the paintings and accidentally stumbled over these. I’m an art student here.” She stood up all the way now.

”What are you doing back here? Are you an art student as well?” Looking him over she had never seen him before in her class, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a student here.

His frown deepened. It was so not a good look for the young boy.

“My foster mom owns this gallery,” he stated point blankly. “I’m allowed back here to work on my own paintings. Work that you interrupted.”

He really isn’t always rude like this. He’s just cranky.

”Oh. I’m so sorry. My apologies.” She really was sorry for interrupting him. The woman didn’t know that anyone else had been back here.

”I’ll just be on my way then. I was done looking anyways. Good day.” Silently she walked passed him and towards the door.

He sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly and then paused for a moment.

“You didn’t interrupt me. I screwed up my own drawing before the crashing sound came.”

She stopped walking and turned around to face the boy when he apologized.

”No need to apologize. I understand when you get frustrated with a drawing.” She’d done it plenty of times. Alia was never really good at drawing or painting. That’s why she’s taking the class.

”Can I see it?”

“I already crumpled it up and threw it in the trash,” he muttered. “I’m learning how to use paints on my drawings and it got all messed up. Wasn’t turning out how I wanted it to so I got mad at it.”

”Oh. I know that feeling. Try horrible drawings with horrible painting.” She said laughing slightly at herself.

He shrugged slightly. “I’ve not done a horrible drawing in a long time,” he tells her.

”Well I guess no modesty from you then. Can I see some of your drawings if you’re that good?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

He was just about to answer when he heard the phone ringing up front and then his name being called.

"Sorry," he says to the girl. "I gotta go. Must be my foster mom or somethin' callin' for me."

With that, the boy turned and headed out towards the front of the gallery to go find out who was on the phone for him.

”Alright. Good day.” She followed him out of the work room, passed where Blade took the call and left the gallery.