Work Text:
What’s your secret? Do I know that secret?
The breeze of the afternoon swept some papers away from the outdoor table, as the short strawberry blonde hair who wore a long dress scrambled away to gather her print sketch, tidy them up before she put the paper back on the table and placed a book on top of it.
She sighed and said, “It’s a good thing it didn’t fly that far…”
She began to look around as the maple leaves flew on top of her. She was sitting on a table at some kind of outdoor park, surrounded by old brick buildings and at the center of it is a tree that stands as tall as the four floor building beside it.
The university park was crowded with a few students who studied, hung out with other friends, or even just had a solitary moment, racing through to finish their assignments. Just like Yoimiya who opened her laptop, and began skimming her paper full of rough sketches, hand-drawn sketches of box packaging accompanied by lots of illustrations with it.
When she was about to review her work on her laptop, wind picked up again, but not by much. She was visibly stunned, with her frowned eyes and annoyed face, she fixed her hair and…
“That’s some drawing you have”, a calm but collected voice appeared before her ears. Even as Yoimiya was browsing on her laptop, she already knew who he was.
“It’s no wonder you don’t have any girlfriend yet, if that’s your style of approaching someone.” said Yoimiya with a grating voice, smirking while doing so.
Yoimiya looked in front of her to see a young man with choppy platinum blonde hair with a single orange-red streak. His gentle expression made Yoimiya’s iris grow wide.
Both of them went silent after she talked. And then all of the sudden, both of them burst to laugh, gleefully and some people in the park glanced at them for a bit.
Both of them take a breath after laughing continuously for a while, “Does it annoy you, Kazuha?” asked Yoimiya with her high-pitched voice.
Kazuha smiled, and said, “How’s your assignments Yoimiya?”
“I just finished my tenth sketch”, said Yoimiya as she skimmed through her sketches again.
“Just ten? Yesterday you just finished your eighth…” Kazuha’s tone grew a bit high.
Yoimiya still found one sketch and put it on top of her laptop, not looking at Kazuha. “It’s still for next week.”
“Well yesterday, the teacher was already annoyed at you for missing the deadline…” while Kazuha speaks, Yoimiya picks up her pencil and about to sketch for another logo in her paper. Then she was interrupted by Kazuha’s hand that holds her hand before she can even begin to draw “... again!” Kazuha emphasized his words through a heavy voice, unlike the calm collected voice that Yoimiya was accustomed to.
Yoimiya glared at Kazuha, with her eyebrows lowered and pulled closer together. “I know…” she said.
“So what holds you back?” as Kazuha lifted his hand from Yoimiya.
Yoimiya stopped. She took a deep breath, and then she pulled up one of her sketches and showed it to Kazuha. And then she said, “Tell me Kazuha. What do you see here?”
Kazuha looks closely, to see a sketch of a logo accompanied by sketches of boxes. The sketches were filled with cakes and some vanilla flowers. “It’s a… sketch.” he said and smirked at the same time.
“What do you think of this? With a stranger's eyes, not a graphic designer’s eye.”
She pushed the paper more towards Kazuha, with Kazuha picking up the paper to see it by himself.
Kazuha furrowed his brow and said, “Well… this is great. What’s this? A box for food? I mean… I already feel hungry just by seeing-”.
Yoimiya snapped her finger and pointed it towards Kazuha, “See! You can tell! That means my design works. It’s a shame that the teacher didn’t see that.”
Kazuha became confused, he fixed his gaze to Yoimiya, “But it depends on your teacher. And I’m not the one who scores your tasks.”
“Yeah… But his opinion is so one-sided! Why does he only want to give a score if it suits his wants? Why does he only care if the design is not on a box, but something else? Why is he so obsessed with how she… she…”
Yoimiya stumbled on her own words. She went silent. Although Kazuha knew what she wanted to say.
“Ganyu’s design?” asked Kazuha with his calm voice. Yoimiya knew and let out a breath of relief yet it was so hard to say, “Yes…” she let out her word.
Yoimiya then looked down towards her sketches. Kazuha fixed his eyes towards Yoimiya. He then picked up the sketch and gave it back to Yoimiya, whilst saying, “Please don’t let this college assignment become a rivalry. That’s not the point of this, you know?”
Yoimiya still looked down, and then placed her hand on her chin, “Her design is so good though. Like the color and everything…”
Kazuha went silent for a bit, then he stood up and walked beside Yoimiya. He kneeled, looked up to Yoimiya when she looked down and said, “Stuff we do, design and art stuff. There’s a lot of objectivity to it. Maybe your teacher doesn't like your design, but maybe you need to tone it down for this just for your teacher. When you design the art for yourself, outside of college, then you can go wild.”
Yoimiya looked at Kazuha, her eyes were a bit teary, her cheeks were flushed in red.
Kazuha smiled, and then said, “How about this? If you can go through submitting your design tomorrow. I’ll let you know one of my secrets.”
Yoimiya began to cheer up. She looked towards Kazuha so fast that even Kazuha was a bit shocked by her sudden reaction, “Really?!” she said with her gleeful voice.
“Yes. If Ms. Ei approved your design, we shall talk again tomorrow”.
Yoimiya frowned her eyes again, “But what secrets do you want to tell me? I mean I don’t even know you have another secret you haven’t told me…”
Kazuha chuckled, and said, “Why Yoimiya, you already knew so much about me. Just one last thing, and I’m sure it would all be worth it”.
The wind breezes past through them again, yet the sketch paper doesn’t move like earlier. As the day went through.
Elevator doors opened to reveal Yoimiya as she brought a laptop and some papers on both of her hands. Yoimiya arrived on a big corridor with a big window overlooking the park that they were visiting yesterday. The day was beginning to dark as the sun set and lamps started to light up the corridor.
The wind breezing on the corridor, along with maple leaves accompanied the wind. Even though Yoimiya somehow knew that all the window in this corridor was sealed, as it was cooled by air conditioners.
Standing at the end of the corridor was Kazuha, wearing a white t-shirt covered on a red jacket, with black jeans. “Same as yesterday…” thought Yoimiya.
Kazuha noticed the footsteps of Yoimiya, as he asked, “So… Does she approve of your design?”
Yoimiya's face was gloomy, and Kazuha knew straight away. As Yoimiya opened her mouth and finally said with a low voice, “I missed the class by 5 minutes…”
Kazuha grew concerned, as Yoimiya walked towards him even more close.
Yoimiya just stood there, frozen in place. “And Ganyu got a higher score than anyone else in the class, so…”
Kazuha took a deep breath, and then he smiled, “Well, it’s not the end of the world, isn’t it? You learned something right?”
Yoimiya looked away towards the window, and said, “I don’t know if I learned anything today…”
Kazuha walked towards Yoimiya, as he lifted her hands with his. “You know that rivalry is not the way here in college”. Yoimiya still looked down, unable to look Kazuha in the eye.
“And your lack of sleep contributes to nothing but tiredness and an empty stomach”.
When Kazuha said that, Yoimiya burst into laughter and she let out tears in her eyes. Kazuha quickly hugged her and she couldn’t breathe correctly as she calmed herself down.
Kazuha moved his body away from Yoimiya, as she wiped her tears from her face. He then placed his hands on top of her hands again, and said “Too bad you’ll have to wait until you know my secret-”.
“I knew”, as she snorted her nose, she tried to compose herself with her trembling voice, “I knew your secret”.
Kazuha then looked to Yoimiya, “Oh?”
“How can I not know your secret? You… The one that I want… Who I really want, in real life. How can you keep another secret from me, when you’re living inside my head?” as Yoimiya looked up to Kazuha, the wind picked up and went through them again, with the chilly scent and maple leaves breeze past through them.
Kazuha smiled. His gleeful expression gleamed with hope as Yoimiya wiped her tears yet again. She looked towards the window when the lights from the park lit up, and when she reflected on the window, only Yoimiya’s appearance was reflected by it. As Yoimiya’s hand floated in the air, she looked back towards Kazuha who still held her hand.
“You said you want someone to keep you in check?” said Kazuha, smiled while doing so.
“I did… But I don’t think it’s working.”
Kazuha took a deep breath, as Yoimiya looked at him full of hope. “Now Yoimiya, as your imaginary friend, what should I do to help you? Are you letting me go, or not?”
Yoimiya started to shake. As she looked back and forth towards his hands that still held her and his eyes.
“This is my last secret: I still want to help you. But my existence depends on you.”
As Kazuha locked his gaze on Yoimiya, and she still held his hand so tight, she couldn’t make up her mind, as the wind breeze passed through them, and the sun now disappeared from their sight.