The glooming fluorescent light of the small art gallery cut through the air and gave the plain white walls and vinyl floors an even colder appearance than they already had.
He'd been holding the champagne glass for quite a while now - ever since it was shoved into his hand upon entering the exhibition around an hour ago - and by now the bubbles had left and the glass felt like his only acquaintance here. He managed to feel surprisingly lonely in a room full of people.

A few meters away his friends stood in a group with some other artists, laughed wholeheartedly and downed their champagne in between. It was Mitch, Titus and Sukie who regularly managed to drag him to events like these and as much as he deeply loved and cared for them, as he stood in the middle of the fluorescent room and looked around, he found it quite hard to recall the love and care that got him here in the first place.
The plain walls were sporadically covered with bright coloured canvases that appeared to have no pattern - at least not to him. After all he wasn't much of an expert when it came to the art of paintings, as his passion laid within the music he created to express himself and his soul. That's when he felt comfortable. Not within a psychedelic art gallery in East London. But his friends vaguely convincing arguments and the fact that he had nothing else to do on this cold Friday night were what brought him here. Which is a sad turn of events in itself, he admitted to himself.
He stood still to watch them for a while, as their eyes glowed happily under the bright lights and the sound of their laughter rang through the loud techno music playing in the background. Right in that moment they depicted an image of pure euphoria and ease. A happiness he desperately wished to take part in. But instead he stood 8 meters away and observed, like they were the artwork exhibited.

But just as he was about to drown in this excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness and down the stale champagne in his hand, his wandering glance stopped on her. She stood across the room and smirked her way out of a conversation before  taking a sip of her champagne, leaving a cherry red stain of lipstick on the glass.
As much as he passionately did his best to defy all cliches of any kind on a daily basis, right in that moment, he couldn't help but find himself in a condition an unknown third party might best describe as love at first sight. But she looked like golden, warm sunshine to the contrasting cold lights of gallery and if he'd been taught anything by the romantic comedies of Hugh Grant, then it was to act on such sentiments.