With Passion: A Blogsary Short

i.

Lysette’s always known that she had a certain knack for art. 

She couldn’t explain it, nor could she explain how the love for it started—it’s just always been there. From a young age, she had artworks taped to the walls, markers and pencils and whatnot strewn all over her study table. There was always a fresh batch of sketchbooks at her disposal; paints of different kinds ready to be opened and played with. 

As she got older, she started dabbling more in other mediums. When the redhead discovered digital art in her late teens, she was captured. Digital layout was introduced to her in her early college years, and as quickly she had embraced traditional art did she embrace digital. 

It came to a point wherein she took additional classes. Free electives were filled with classes where she could enhance her skill as much as she could, and in her spare time, worked for the university publication as part of the graphic design and layout staff. 

It was something she found herself enjoying; it was like Aether with her books and her piano back when they were still at the orphanage. It was a delicious passion, something she didn’t find herself growing tired of. 

Lysette enjoyed art of all types and kinds, never restricting herself to just one type. She persisted, learned. Eventually her portfolio was stuffed, filled to the brim with impressive works of different platforms. There would be intricate watercolour on one page, and on the next, minimalist layout with the fonts fitting in just right. 

And she was proud of it. 

She was studying for finals with Eugene Ramsay—a boy with wavy brown hair and kind eyes—when he turned to her, watched her sketch out the figure of a female for a moment, and brought up something that caught her attention. “We should intern for META together over the summer.” 

“META?” Lysette repeated. She dropped her pencil and it landed on the floor, but she found herself not caring at the moment. She narrowed her eyes and stared at Eugene, who had just taken out a thick notebook from his maroon backpack. “Are you kidding me? It’s tough to get into META, didn’t you hear what the rest of the staffers were saying a few weeks ago?” 

“I did,” he repeated gently. “Which is why I think we should give it a shot.”

“You’re crazy.” She moved under the table for a moment to retrieve her pencil, “You’re nuts. There’s no way we could end up there.” he shrugged her negativity off. 

“You never know.” 

ii. 

Eugene was right. 

META had accepted the two of them as summer interns; Lysette as part of the graphic design and layout team, while Eugene was oriented more towards writing. He wasn’t bothered—he couldn’t understand how Lysette had such a large grasp of the fine arts when he couldn’t even draw a straight line without the help of a ruler. 

Unlike Lysette, Eugene had discovered his talent for writing in high school. He considered his origin story as nothing particularly impressive or special; he had merely took a writing elective when there was nothing else to join. At the end of the semester, Eugene found that the words just came to him naturally. 

It baffled him initially. He was never the type to speak up a lot, therefore words wouldn’t be his strong point. But there he was, somehow staying up even later at night with his laptop at bay, typing thousands of miles per hour and pouring out content quicker than he could write a report about some kind of revolution or something. 

He honed his skill; his parents were confused at first but then relented after seeing how happy it made him. Eugene invested into piles of notebooks (grid, lined, and plain), frequented the bullpen section at the bookstore, and eventually ended up with a mass of stationery that he claimed helped him be productive. 

(It was true half of the time.) 

Writing became a release to him, and he found himself accepting it into his life. 

“So you can write any genre?” Lysette asked him. A different occasion; they had just met each other in one of their classes and were getting to know each other. The two of them were made partners for this one mini-project. 

Eugene gave a nervous laugh. “You can say that. I do both fiction and non-fiction, but I like sticking to fiction more.”

“Does reality suck that much?” 

“Heh. You can say that.” she shot him a grin and sipped from her cup of coffee, scribbling something on her notebook before flipping to the next page. “But I can do both just fine. I’d just rather stay in the world I created, thanks.” 

She hummed. “That makes you sound like some kind of weird god.” 

It made sense to him. He nodded. “I am like some kind of weird god, if you think of it. The whole creating art kind of thing.” Lysette then nudged him, laughing. 

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

iii. 

They met Aaron Steele on one of their assignments. 

He was their senior by one, two years but his skills in photography and video outranked their own. There were whispers initially that he was the photography department’s Golden Boy, and they initially refused to believe it until they saw it with their own eyes. Lysette was flabbergasted and Eugene refused to believe that Aaron was an Actual Human Being. 

Aaron was the kind who actively blogged about his photography pursuits—they later found out that he was recruited by META after they found about his credentials. 

“I’ve been doing it since high school,” he explained to them. “It’s always been a hobby. I taught myself since my older sister was into it, too. Then she gave me her camera and I saved up for a new one. And it kind of just went on as I got older,” he said. 

Lysette regarded him curiously. “And you said that you have a photography blog?” 

“I do—it’s nothing much, but before META I got called as a photographer for some events.” Aaron shrugged, “Started out with family gatherings and events of close friends. Then when my sister suggested I put myself out there, that’s when I started getting offers from other people.”

“Do you just stick to your professional camera?” 

Aaron laughed. “Hell no. I like using my phone, too. Phones can take good photos as long as you know how to use them in the right way.” he dropped his voice, “And take it from me: most of the ‘good’ photos you see nowadays are just over edited.” 

They found themselves liking him immediately. 

Beyond the surface, Aaron was a genuinely good person. He just rolled with the entire talk of him being a Golden Boy, but he eventually admitted to them that he wasn’t the Golden Boy everyone else perceived him to be. “It’s a little tiring at times. And I’d rather not keep the image, I have a girlfriend.” 

(Lysette cursed the heavens [internally] when he admitted that.)

They pounded him with questions to the point of being worried that Aaron would rather be partnered with another team instead. At the end of their assignment, however, he turned to them with a lazy grin and asked when the next team-up would be.