Chapter Text
It started with a joke.
"Yusuke, imagine a visual novel where the love interest is a sentient paintbrush.”
Futaba had been half-buried under a weighted blanket, legs tangled in cables, eyes flickering between three monitors. Her room glowed in neon hues—half cyberpunk hacker lair, half gamer gremlin nest.
Yusuke had blinked slowly from the floor, where he sat cross-legged with a sketchpad balanced delicately on one knee. “...A sentient paintbrush?”
She grinned, a flash of orange hair spilling over her glasses. “Yeah! You choose your art style — realism, surrealism, dadaism — and the brush has a different personality for each route. It’s like... dating the spirit of art itself.”
Yusuke paused. “That… is either genius or utterly deranged.”
“Can’t it be both?”
They’d laughed.
“Soooo… you in?”
“hm… ill try”
But two days later, Yusuke showed up at Café Leblanc holding a rough character sheet and said, "I may have begun preliminary designs. The surrealism brush is... rather opinionated."
What started as a joke spiraled into something real, Code & Canvas, their indie project.
Yusuke handled character art, backgrounds, and the visual tone. Futaba built the engine, wrote the code, and occasionally the weird dialogue trees that led to multiple endings (most of which were terrible puns or fourth-wall breaks).
They worked from her room most days — mainly because Yusuke’s dorm had spotty Wi-Fi and a single electrical outlet that buzzed when it rained.
"Hey,inari," Futaba muttered one night, fingers flying over her keyboard. "You ever consider tone-mapping your shadows instead of blending them raw?"
Yusuke didn’t look up from his paper. “That would defeat the purpose of emotional contrast. I want the shadows to feel raw.”
“Well, mission accomplished. That background slapped me across the face.”
“Good.”
She snorted. “You’re lucky I like pain.”
“I’m flattered… I think?”
she straightened her back. “ouch! my back—“
“are you okay?” yusuke put down his paper sheet and walk to futaba’s gigantic gaming chair
she tried to fix her posture by bending her back backwards “im fine just give it a little— Auch!”
“careful,” he immediately put his palms to her shoulder “do you want me to massage you?”
“n-no no im fine dont worry !”
“you sure?”
“y-yea its not like im in pain right now!! hah!”
suddenly he move his fingers slowly to massage her
she began to relaxed
“is this what theycalled a tsundere?”
“no its not so shut up inari.”
she laugh a little as she began to relax in her “friend” touch
The weeks blurred into quiet, caffeine-fueled companionship.
Yusuke brought sketchbooks, instant ramen, and an annoying habit of spacing out mid-conversation. Futaba provided snacks, sarcasm, and nightly rants about code-breaking bugs like:
“INARI. The menu broke again. I blinked and the 'Quit' button turned into an eldritch horror.”
“Perfect,” he’d replied. “That aligns with the surrealist route.”
“NO IT DOESN’T, YOU DORK.”
Sometimes, when it got late, they forgot to speak at all.
He’d draw in silence, Futaba’s mechanical keyboard clacking softly beside him, both of them cocooned in their weird little world — not needing to talk, just existing comfortably in each other’s orbit.
It was during one of those quiet nights that it happened.
She was debugging a dialogue script when she noticed him staring — not at her, but past her, to the corkboard behind her desk. It was covered in post-it notes and meme printouts and snack wrappers, but dead center was something new:
A doodle. Of her.
Messy ink lines, but unmistakably her — mid-laugh, hand curled over her mouth, glasses slightly tilted. The caption underneath read:
"Wild Inspiration Appears."
"...You drew me?"
He blinked like he hadn’t realized she'd noticed. "Ah. Yes. I often sketch those who... inspire mood.”
Futaba tilted her head. “And what mood is this? Mild chaos? Eternal goblin energy?”
Yusuke flushed. “I meant... an emotion of liveliness. Your presence is...” He struggled. “...invigorating.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then she grinned, wide and toothy. “You’re such a dork.”
“I am aware.”
She tapped her pen against her chin. “Wanna see my doodle of you?”
He blinked. “You drew me?”
“Nope.” She clicked a few keys. A tiny sprite popped up on her screen: a chibi Yusuke with overdramatic blinking eyes, holding a palette and dramatically falling over whenever the player chose the wrong dialogue option.
"...You made me a game mechanic."
“Yep. Your special move is ‘Suffering For The Aesthetic.’”
Yusuke made a sound that was either a sigh or a stifled laugh. “...I can’t decide if I’m honored or mortified.”
Futaba smirked. “Both is a valid route.”
Later that night, they didn’t say goodnight right away.
The game build was running. A placeholder soundtrack looped softly. Their screens glowed with pixelated stars.
Yusuke leaned back on his hands. "This is… enjoyable."
She glanced sideways. “Game dev?”
“No. This.”
She blinked.
"You and I," he clarified, voice softer now. “Creating something strange and meaningful together. It’s... harmonious. Like oil and water, refusing to mix yet becoming art.”
Futaba stared at him, mouth open. Then groaned.
“Dude. That was… weirdly poetic. Stop making me feel feelings.”
He smiled gently. “Apologies.”
“…Don't be. I kinda like it.”
He turned to her, eyes a little wide.
She scratched her cheek. “Sooo… wanna do more weird projects together?”
A pause. Then..
“I would like that very much.”