SLAVA KPSS|| KPSS SLAVA|| GLORY CPSU

continued in the protocol

The air in the studio, usually scented with turpentine and linseed oil, was electric today. Slava stood at the easel, clutching his brush so tightly his knuckles were white. She sat in the chair opposite him, her legs crossed, lazily scrolling through her phone feed.

"Slava, how much longer can this go on? My back is sore ," she said, without raising her head.

He didn't answer. He rarely responded with words. Instead, he stepped closer, unceremoniously took her chin in his hand, and turned her head toward the light. The touch was icy, despite the stuffiness.

“Don’t move ,” he breathed out. “That glint in your eyes... I’ll lose it…”

She jerked her head free. What others took for passion or the eccentricity of a genius infuriated her. She was used to adoration. Men carried her in their arms, showered her with gifts, wrote poems. But Slava... he didn't carry her, he studied her. As if she weren't a woman of flesh, but some complex formula or deity demanding sacrifice. It was unsettling.

"I'm going to go have a smoke ," she snapped, rising from her chair. The fabric of her dress rustled, and Slava noticed his own Adam's apple twitch as he stared at her with his gray, fanatically burning eyes.

• You'll break the pose!

“I didn’t remember her ,” she muttered and ran out the door.

She stepped out onto the balcony, inhaling greedily. There, in the room, on the canvas was herself, but somehow wrong, turned inside out. He wasn't just copying her features; he was painting her soul, which she so carefully hid behind a mask of cynicism and indifference. It was frightening.

When she returned, Slava was standing close to the easel. A crumpled sheet of his poems, which he had never read to her but which she had secretly photographed, lay on the floor. In these lines, she was either the morning star or the poisonous Lilith.

“I can’t work today ,” she said, grabbing her purse . “You’re giving me a headache. It’s like you’re messing with my head.”

He blocked the way. Close, too close.

“It’s not about me ,” he said quietly, almost in a whisper . “It’s about you being afraid. You’re used to being worshipped for your pretty face and figure. But I see what’s inside. And it infuriates you, because there’s emptiness there that you’re trying to mask with all this.”

He nodded at the expensive clutch, at her perfect hairdo. Her insides sank, but she merely forced on her coldest smile. She knew it was a low blow. It wasn't true. Vulnerability.

"Paint your pictures, Van Gogh ," she hissed, pushing him away with her hand . "Just without the ear, please. You'll need it later to listen when you're sent away."

She slammed the door, leaving him alone. Her heart was pounding somewhere in her throat. She hated him for this obsession, because it wasn't blind. He saw the real her, and it was this, not his love, that made working together feel like a slow, sophisticated undressing. The worst part was that she knew: tomorrow she would come again. Because no one had ever looked at her like this—as if she were the center of the universe, with a black hole lurking within.

THC: STOPPED CRAP LINK TO THC: https://t.me/ykurenayashval