Work Text:
It annoyed her that she wasn't allowed to draw during class, but she dreaded the thought of having her parents summoned at school again over her alleged misdeeds. She would have to settle with writing outlines and taking notes, trying to keep hold of the flashes of inspiration that hit her here and there. Doing so at least seemed to keep her out of trouble and the teachers praised her attentiveness in class more.
Onibi flipped the page of her notebook over in frustration.
She needed to start over, this plot outline was no good. Maybe if she started the story with the lovers placed far apart she could give her comic an angsty and triumphic 'love conquers all' kind of atmosphere? She grimaced and twirled the pencil on her fingertips, she was running out muses and her evident lack of inspiration was starting to wear her down, she dreaded the thought but if she didn't find a solution soon she'd be dealing with an artist's block.
Her latest OTP, of only three months, was likely the cause of her problems.
As cute as they were, one could only go so far musing the love that would sprout between two tatami mats after their edges touched by accident. Too chaste, too vanilla, she concluded. She considered momentarily branching out into tatami polyamory but soon decided that would be the intellectual equivalent of beating a dead horse with nun-chucks instead of a stick.
She needed something fresh, something exciting, something that would annihilate her lack of confidence in her own work and single-handedly kickstar a new saga of a thrilling romance where the semes growled possessively and the ukes wailed in ecstasy.
The school bell would soon interrupt her trail off and she sluggishly packed her books and began to head out the classroom. Due to her pace she was the last to leave and, without other distractions in the way, she realized the existence of a fire extinguisher by the door for the first time.
She didn't recall ever musing anything about a fire extinguisher before, a small spark ignited in her heart. Her palm slammed the wall by its side and she loomed over the helpless emergency equipment, readjusting the glasses back on her nose menacingly.
"You look awfully lonely here by yourself..."
Indeed, he was.
A valiant bishie of his caliber, robust and heroic yet left to wait patiently in his post catching dust all by himself, never having experienced the thrill of being set off before...
"Who should I ship you with then?"
She turned to the rest of the class and began scanning the room for a potential suitor. She had no real clue of what she was looking for but she would settle for nothing but the best for her new friend.
One of the desks perhaps?
Pah, at best those could be raving fangirls in the background, highly unsuitable for the shipping material she was after.
Maybe the lithe stature of the chalkboard would do... hrm... but he's so uptight and strict they'd have no chemistry...
The TV? Hrm.... he's already married to the cupboard and she wasn't fond of NTR.
The air con...? He's a pretty cool guy, surely they would get along well, they're both the shy types so it would take them a while to hold han - nope, nononono no that's enough vanilla for the rest of forever!
Perhaps the, uhm... The clock? Surely he's... Ughgh NO!
Her hands clutched her head as she released a plethora of disgruntled sounds through gritted teeth. She was pointlessly grasping at straws out of desperation. None of these ships were viable options.
She sighed and left the classroom.
The fire extinguisher would have to sit on the wall by himself for another day.
---
The club president entered the club visibly dejected, given the concern that greeted her in the face of her club members, or at least the ones that bothered, since the youngest of the team refused to break focus from her handiwork, only mumbling incoherently and acknowledging her presence.
"Lord Onibi, is everything alright?"
Mask spoke up for both herself and Honoka next to her, Onibi huffed, her downtrodden mood already vanishing in the comfortable sanctuary that was the Yaoi Club. She mentally reprimanded herself, she shouldn't have displayed her weakness out in the open, a team leader is supposed to be better than that.
A team leader is supposed to be an example. Supposed to inspire.
"Of course, classes just didn't seem to end today! Have you brought the new volume of Okane Ga Nai ?"
The masked fujoshi's eyes gleamed in confirmation and she reached for her hand bag that was laying next to the pile of manga volumes she had arranged to her left, leaving them accessible to Honoka who was already switching the book she was holding with a new one and gave Onibi a sly smile as she was seated.
"How're the tatamis coming along?"
Her inquiry made the bespectacled girl flinch as it hit perhaps more nerves than it should have.
Truth be told Honoka didn't really understand Onibi's particular brand of yaoi, but it was still yaoi, if one ignored the anthropomorphism gimmick it was fairly readable she had concluded, besides in this cruel and unforgiving world, comrades in glomps like themselves ought to stick together.
"I'm ending it next chapter" she declared, "it had a good run but all great stories have to end sometime"
Mask was the only one in the group visibly shaken by the news, so much that she put down her copy of 'Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi' and she had just gotten to a good part. She was quite fond of the ship but she stopped herself from voicing any disappointment, unwilling to appear disrespectful of her friend's decision.
She bowed her head, still seated.
"Your work has been of utmost immaculacy, Lord Onibi, I can not wait for the finale"
Onibi smiled, she shimmered in her comrade's words for a moment before bowing as well, she almost felt bad to end the story so abruptly but Mask's supportiveness always erased such sentiments.
"Thank you Lord Mask, I will surely-"
"Y'all really out there getting emotional over tatami mats??" Squeaked the fujolet, sharpening her pencil angrily.
She was no stranger to weird ships herself but something about the banality of this one in particular really crossed the line for her.
"There's nothing interesting about the floor frick-fracking itself for crying out loud!!"
Mask leaned towards Honoka only half discreetly in response to this outburst.
"Lord Midoriri appears to be in a bad mood today"
Honoka smirked and brought the back of her hand close to her face in order to gossip more effectively.
"She tried to pet a stray cat earlier this morning and it scratched her hand, she got so upset she started crying hehehe"
"Blacksider, snitch Honoka! You PROMISED you wouldn't tell anyone about that! I swear were it not for the laws of this land I'd be chasing you with a flamethrower as we speak!!"
Honoka cackled and continued teasing the gremlin across the table while Mask snickered softly at their back and forths.
Onibi was frozen in her seat.
The cogs that inhabited her mind and she'd be trying to get into motion this whole time but failed to had began to stir, then accelerate and send a cold wave of artistic frenzy through the entirety of her being.
"A flamethrower" she whispered.
That was the last day Onibi was haunted by tatami mats.