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You're drunk.
Enjolras took the half-empty can from her hand.
Grantaire didn't protest, only smiled docilely. Yes, I am. She reached out toward Enjolras, then slowly withdrew her hand. The object of her reach wasn't the beer can. The object of her gesture seemed very distant.
Enjolras watched her. Grantaire never called her Enjy like her other friends did, but instead gave her the nickname Artemis, shortened to Arty—two playful trills and rolls of the tongue. Grantaire herself had a boyish name, and whether out of fatalism or sheer amusement, she'd designed her signature as a single capital letter R, often left alone in the bottom right corner of her mini watercolor paintings. Enjolras had only ever seen Grantaire's mini watercolors; she'd heard that Grantaire once won a rather sensational award for a large-scale portrait, but she had no idea what that painting depicted. Grantaire refused to show her that large watercolor either—in fact, Grantaire hardly ever finished any work completely. She'd start a pencil sketch and tear it up one after another, driving the Art Club president out of rage; Grantaire would still huddle in the corner of the club room day after day, doodling grimy little sketches. When asked why she never painted finished colored pieces, she'd brush them off with nonsense like I can't mix that golden-bright red, I can't match that blazing-red gold, How could mortal pigments depict moonlight?
Once, Enjolras found Grantaire in the studio and happened to catch her standing before an easel, palette in hand, her gray shirt splattered with paint here and there, turning sideways to chat with a classmate. Before Enjolras was even close to the door, she saw Grantaire drop her palette, frantically roll down her shirt sleeves, press the cuffs tightly against her wrists, and turn around to call out loudly with a forced smile, Arty, you're here! Her voice trembled unnaturally at the end, her gaze more evasive than usual.
Enjolras didn't think much of it. she just assumed Grantaire had been discussing something she didn't want others to hear, or that wearing hoodies with sleeves past her fingertips and always wrapping her arms in black sun-protection sleeves was just Grantaire's daily habit. She didn't know that Grantaire would paint freely in loose gray T-shirts in front of anyone but her, unashamed of the winding, crisscrossing knife scars on her arms, just as she didn't care about the paint stains on her clothes. Nor did she know that every day, after sitting down behind her, Grantaire would stare blankly at her golden ponytail for half a class, until Éponine tapped her forehead with a pencil, stop drooling over her. Enjolras didn't know any of this, just as she didn't know why Grantaire kept calling her Artemis.
And now Grantaire was drunk, sitting next to her at Courfeyrac's birthday party. This wasn't the first time Enjolras had seen Grantaire drunk. Grantaire claimed she'd started drinking at fourteen ("Well, Éponine was already smoking at twelve!") and always had enough cleverness to stash more than one beer in the classroom. Enjolras never consumed alcohol. Grantaire would tease her for being such a good girl, and Enjolras would reply seriously that it was a choice based on her own beliefs, not due to the constraints and definitions of social values. Then Grantaire would sigh, looking at her with gentle helplessness, and say, Arty, oh Arty. You're the only one I've ever seen who truly believes in living. What am I supposed to do about that? Then she'd fall silent, pulling open the next beer as Enjolras turned back to continue reading Student Council documents.
At this moment, Grantaire was also silent—in fact, she'd been eerily quiet all evening. She simply leaned against the sofa, clutching her loose sleeve cuffs, looking up at Enjolras. Alcohol swirled and rippled in her eyes, dark green liquid brimming, almost ready to spill, burning absinthe... Enjolras had never welcomed reckless indulgence in revelry; she disliked all extreme things, unless they are related to progression. But now, she almost understood why Grantaire couldn't go three sentences without mentioning the myths of Olympus. Grantaire's black hair hung messily over her eyes and face. Enjolras ventured to think: she looks like a Nymph by the water. A spirit of Echo.
Grantaire reached out to her again, then pulled her hand back.
"Your hair is down," she said abruptly.
Enjolras reached behind—it was true. Her hair tie must have slipped off sometime. The room was too loud; she hadn't noticed.
"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked Grantaire, who had her eyes half-closed on the sofa.
"No... no. It's fine. Fine." Grantaire replied vaguely, her dark nail polished fingertips wandered, before finally aiming at the golden strands of Enjolras's hair, then timidly withdrawing. "...It's just that I've never seen you with your hair down."
"You're drunk," Enjolras repeated, searching for Grantaire's eyes. "Fresh air would do you good."
"Right, it's too hot in here." Grantaire smiled drowsily. Are you taking me to the garden? She tossed out the question in a careful, joking tone, while repeating in her head: Arty, Artemis, Enjolras—the name I've carved countless times on my arms, the sacred of my devotion that I dare approach only under the guise of blasphemy, my moon whose brilliance rivals the daylight...
She knew Enjolras would refuse her suggestion to go out together, and she would listen to Enjolras. She'd wander the garden alone, breathe fresh air alone, walk home alone after the party. The next morning, she'd drag herself into class with a hangover, sit down behind Enjolras, push her homework over for Éponine to copy, and Enjolras would never know that Grantaire had once again managed to survive another day by staring at her.
At least there'll be moonlight on my way home, Grantaire thought, the sour alcohol churning and burning in her stomach. Ah, maybe I really shouldn't have drunk that much. Her gaze traced Enjolras's slender wrist—what a wrist it was, more delicate than Aphrodite holding the golden apple, yet stronger than Themis wielding the silver scales, deserving to be adorned with gossamer, mist, and butterfly wings, stitched together with musical notes and strung with raindrops and foam. But what a wrist it was—pure, candid, inviolable, where the slightest ornamentation would be superfluous! Enjolras didn't even wear a watch. Before Grantaire had ever seen Enjolras, she already yearned for her; at the first glance, that yearning crystallized into a specific desire: to hold her hand, by whatever means. Yet now, she could only wrap her gaze longingly around that wrist from afar, pitifully foreseeing that she would remain this coward for the rest of her life.
Then she saw Enjolras stand up, and extend her hand.
Grantaire was nearly shocked sober.
“Come on.” That pale, slender hand reached out to her, a sliver of moonlight resting upon it. Let's go to the garden.
Grantaire simply looked up at her, revealing a pair of captivating, dazed eyes. Enjolras watched her and thought, How can someone's eyes be so wildly green and yet so gentle?
end.