Watercolors

[seems_fishy]

Flayn received a shock in art class that day.

Kudou-sensei was a bit unconventional (she thought; she hadn't spent much time in classrooms, including his), but he spent most of the two weeks she'd been there giving vague assignments and letting them do what they would, only commenting on technique or seemingly random details that caught his attention.

Today, he looked around and said thoughtfully, "It's been a while since we had a class period set aside for your end-of-trimester group projects. Work on that today. I spilled coffee on my lesson plan."

Someone behind Flayn contemplated that it wasn't coffee, necessarily, and while Flayn was rather impressed by their clairvoyance, her hand shot up because she was more concerned by end-of-trimesters and not knowing what the project was, necessarily.

Kudou-sensei's eyebrows raised, and he didn't even bother calling on her.

"That's right, Von Aegir-san, you weren't here when I assigned projects... though you should've been, I assigned projects in pairs because my class list was an even number, and it only has been since you arrived..."

He glanced around the room; nobody had moved yet and he stuck the paintbrush he'd been gesturing with earlier into his mouth while he flipped through a notebook.

"Luckily we had that one group of three..." He scanned down the list. "Noguchi-san, Yukimura-kun, aaaand Konishi-san."

He stuck the paintbrush behind his ear, and smiled. "Yukimura-kun, besides being one of the best high school tennis players in the country, you count among your talents both painting and passing your classes despite being prevented from coming to class. What do you think we should do?"

Comments

[seems_fishy]

Oh, how lovely to be so immersed in something like this... enough to know names, and categories, and such things. How much work it must be! Just a little bit of his interest seems to glow all about him, but not ostentatiously.

"I can see what you mean about not trusting things to memory," she said. "There is so much here! I didn't think boys liked flowers very much, but you are so careful over each one, I am a bit awed."

[senseskill]

There were indeed several items in the painting, so it's interesting that Flayn's focus settled on the flowers. Yukimura's ears catch an opportunity in her reply to turn the conversation to a subject where they might have more common ground.

"You like flowers?" He asks. Most girls did, of course.

[seems_fishy]

"Well, yes, to look at," she said. "Sometimes I would get them as gifts, and they brighten everything up! Hospitals are so dreary, and I felt starved for life and color."

Again, she only talks in statements of fact, without feeling sorry for herself. It is, after all, in the past now.

[senseskill]

Yukimura's smile fades somewhat as he listens. His stomach twists from his own memories of that dreadful extended stay during his junior high years. It saddens him to think someone as kind and sweet-natured as Flayn had been similarly trapped there.

"...You really do," he says, though he isn't quite able to keep the pain of the memory from his voice like she seems to manage. "It starts to feel more like a prison than a place for healing, doesn't it."

It's a dangerous line of thought. Yukimura doesn't want to be the reason this conversation becomes heavy. He also doesn't want to shut her down. What would someone like Marui say in this kind of situation?

He smiles weakly. "Sorry. I killed the mood a little."

Probably not that. (About those 'things he is not good at'...)

"They really could do with more flowers in those rooms. But maybe the staff have enough on their plates taking care of the people in them. They probably aren't eager for one more thing that needs attention."

[seems_fishy]

She blinks in utter confusion.

"No, I'm sorry! I am the one who brought it up!"

Flayn wants dearly to take the weight off what had always seemed to her an easy smile. But things never are so easy as they seem, are they? She senses he still has a shadow within him.

Very gently, she lays her hand over his nearest one, and gives it a brief squeeze.

"Maybe they are not, and I suppose that's understandable, but I admire how now you can just bring yourself everything that blooms right in your sketchbook! You will never have that problem again, not ever."

[senseskill]

Now see what you've done, Seiichi? She thinks she's the one that needs to apologize.

He has barely a moment to berate himself, however, before her hand covers his and the room fills with whispers. For that one singular moment, the sudden intimacy of their contact is deeply uncomfortable, and he can barely take in what she's saying for all the blood rushing through his ears.

But her hand is warm and soon his cheeks are too, and he's not sure if he's more shocked or impressed by her boldness, even in the innocent context she intends it in. But it's sort of amazing she had the confidence and comfort with herself to just... do it. And for him, after he was so self-centered as to get wrapped up in his own bad memories when it was her story.

What is this strange, tingly feeling in his chest all of the sudden?

...What did she just say? He's pretty sure he just missed it. This is mortifying.

He smiles and takes a wild stab with a reply that seems safe, and there's pleasure across his face even as his insides feel like they're full of bees.

"Thank you, Von Aegir-san. Let's get back to our sketches, okay?"

[seems_fishy]

Quickly, she withdraws her hand, needing it now.

Briefly, her eyes flick around the room, sensing the disturbance, and feeling the weight of self-consciousness start to close in, without being exactly sure why... But she swallows a little nervously, resolving to let it go, or at least think about it later, possibly with help.

Looking over the pencil strokes she's managed so far, however, isn't really satisfying or intriguing anymore, and, impulsively, she flips to the next blank page.

"A-actually, can I try a new one? The flowers from your photograph?"

[senseskill]

Yukimura notices that movement of her eyes around the room, taking in the attention she's drawn to them. The questions of intent would have arisen regardless of who it was, but he can't help suspecting it wouldn't normally be stirring up this kind of whispering.

It's not her fault. None of it is. She's just trying to be a supportive friend. It makes him... just a little bit angry on her behalf, that now she's left thinking she's somehow made a mistake. He picks at the tape securing the photo to his sketchbook until it's loose enough to remove without tearing the page, then holds it out in offering.

"Don't pay any mind to it," he reassures quietly. "Everyone loves something to talk about."

[seems_fishy]

"Oh, of course," Flayn murmurs, deliberately softer than before so as not to disturb their audience. She lays the picture down at the top of her sketchbook, before slowly, gently, nudging her chair back a ways. She'd only moved to see the bookcase, after all. There's no need to stay there, and invite more disruption.

She's almost afraid to do more than concentrate on her own work.

[senseskill]

Gone is the bright, happy girl full of enthusiasm for his company. He can't blame her. By all measures, going quiet, scooting away, and focusing on work was the smart thing to do. Even so, he can't deny just a tiny bit of heartache and frustration watching her restore the distance that had been between them, and interpreting it as much psychologically as he does physically.

That was it, then, huh? It was over depressingly fast. Just when he was thinking maybe...

He turns his own sketchbook to a new page, abandoning the portrait he'd started in favor of a still life of the cabinet by the window. Light filters in from outside, reminding everyone of the warm, sunny day they're missing while trapped inside doing schoolwork.

The minutes pass by. And as he sits there, having withdrawn back into his own artwork and solitude, he glances at Flayn out of the corner of his eye, and it occurs to him that he's being disgustingly self-absorbed again. Here he is, so tangled up in being sad over her withdrawal because of what it meant for him that he's given barely any consideration to what she must be experiencing right now as the new person. She hadn't been at all prepared for that gesture to draw the attention that it did, had she? Is she afraid for her prospects at other friendships now?

For a moment, he's reminded of Jackal, and of the experiences he's shared of being a foreigner trying to live and integrate into such an insular society. Rikkaidai was thankfully more inclusive than most places, but that didn't necessarily make it easy, only easier. And he's reminded of Nami's assessment of Flayn as reported to her father that day he told them about the mixed doubles opportunity.

"She's a pure-hearted fighter that wants friends and common interests to share with them... Most likely, Marui-kun was only kind enough to see her loneliness..."

What is he doing...?

His anger turns towards himself, and he tears a blank page from his pad, scribbling a note down at the bottom and spending the remainder of the class drawing on it.

When the bell rings, he folds the paper in half twice, creases it against the table, and discreetly slides it halfway under Flayn's sketch pad as he stands. He smiles politely.

"I'll see you later, Von Aegir-san."

On unfolding the note, Flayn will find an intricate drawing of a rose that he's added some yellow coloring to in the shaded areas. The note at the bottom reads:

Come to the rooftop of the south wing for lunch tomorrow. There's something I want to show you.

[seems_fishy]

Flayn says what she thinks is a very polite good-bye, but she spots the note as soon as she starts packing her book bag.

And she doesn't have the patience to wait. It must be from Yukimura, and he was so sneaky! The surprise and anticipation neatly obliterates her earlier melancholy, and she almost rips the note unfolding it as quickly as she does.

The picture of the rose makes her gasp, and Konishi looks up, giving Noguchi a nudge.

"Someone sure is full of herself," she said, as they walked past a confused Flayn.

No matter. She re-folded the picture with a smile, already looking forward to tomorrow.