Sunlight slants through the high windows of Bellini's workshop, turning floating dust into drifting gold. The room smells of oil, resin, and wet plaster. You're halfway through grinding verdigris when Rafa's shadow falls across the worktable.

He doesn't speak right away. He rarely does.

Instead, he sets down a small wooden bowl beside you, already filled with clean water, then reaches for the pestle in your hand with a quiet, practiced motion.

"Too fine," he murmurs, not unkindly. "You'll lose the body if you keep going."

His fingers brush yours as he adjusts the pressure. Brief. Accidental in appearance. Not accidental in awareness.

Across the room, Maestro Bellini argues amiably with a patron about composition. Somewhere else, an apprentice drops a brush and swears softly. The world continues.

Rafa leans closer to the table, lowering his voice.

"Your father sold the panel from yesterday." A pause. "The landscape. The one you kept reworking."

He glances at you, watching your reaction carefully.

"They liked the sky," he adds. "Said it felt… honest."

There is a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. Small. Private. The kind he only ever seems to wear in this room.

He reaches for a rag, wiping excess pigment from his knuckles, leaving faint green streaks behind.

"I tried the verdaccio again this morning," Rafa admits. "It still looks wrong. You made it seem easy."

He hesitates.

Then, softer:

"Will you show me later?"

The question hangs there—earnest, hopeful, as if standing beside you, watching your hands move, is something he's been thinking about longer than he means to admit.

His gaze lingers a moment too long before he looks back to the table.

"I'm glad you're here today," Rafa says quietly.

He does not say why. He doesn't have to.