Work Text:
Rin Amamiya was a beautiful girl. There was no reason to beat around the bush when it came to that.
Her long, luscious black hair always seemed to sit right, even after a particularly long excursion in the Metaverse. When Yuri’s own hair stuck to her forehead with sweat and always managed to get into her eyes and mouth, Rin’s rested perfectly on her shoulders, even in the midst of battle.
Her Metaverse outfit was the most aesthetically pleasing of them all, at least to Yuri. She was decently fond of her own outfit, especially appreciating the more traditionally styled kitsune mask that she was given, but there was something about Rin’s that drew in her attention even despite its apparent simplicity. Similarly to her hair, her cape always seemed to flow expertly behind her even while in combat. It never seemed to bother her or get in her way, and if it did, she did an excellent job of hiding it. Her bright red gloves added excellent contrast to the simple black of the rest of her costume, and Yuri had to admit that she was just a bit jealous.
But only appreciating her beauty in the physical sense didn’t do her justice.
Above everything else, Rin was kind. She hid it behind a layer of sarcasm at times, which Yuri had trouble picking up at first, but once she’d learned to tell when she was being genuine and when she was being facetious, she wasn’t sure she knew anyone quite as kind as Rin was. She had continued to keep her by her side even despite how rudely Yuri had acted to her and her friends upon their first meeting, which was something she couldn’t thank her enough for. If she hadn’t done so, who knows where she would be right now. Not painting peacefully in the comfort of her own dorm room, that was for sure.
She would always agree to model for her whenever she needed it, too. She had learned over her years of asking people to model for her paintings that many didn’t have the patience for it. She didn’t blame them, honestly; though Yuri herself didn’t have trouble sitting in the same position for hours at a time so long as she had something to think about, that was apparently something most people thought of as incredibly boring and mind-numbing. Rin didn’t mind, though, even if Yuri could tell through the restless movement of her legs that she wasn’t exactly having the time of her life sitting in her modeling chair.
Yuri’s fist tightened around her brush. She had Rin over at her dorm last week to model in the hopes of getting over her art block, but she had hardly made the progress she’d been hoping. She had assumed that the outline she had sketched out would have been enough to continue off of even without her model present, but looking at the uneven strokes of her brush and the several poorly-erased sketch lines, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to continue this painting without Rin.
“Perhaps I should work on another project in the meantime,” she wondered aloud, flipping through the handful of semi-used canvases she kept in the corner of her dorm room. They were all abstract paintings of varying degrees of completeness, ranging from nearly finished to hardly even a sketch. She considered finishing up one of the paintings closer to completion, but for whatever reason, the idea didn’t strike her with inspiration. She knew she could finish them if she absolutely had to, but she didn’t want to. The only thing on her mind was Rin, and the idea of properly capturing her beauty in a painting. Perhaps she could even gift the painting to her once she was done, and if she liked it enough, maybe she would even hang it up in the attic. What an exciting idea! Hopefully she could make a painting worthy of such an honor.
“But would it be rude if I called her up again so soon?” Yuri placed a hand on her cheek as she thought. She knew Rin wouldn’t mind her asking, but still, she didn’t want to be overbearing. She knew that she would personally be annoyed if she were called in for the same favor two days in a row, and she didn’t want to put Rin through the same thing. Still, though, she figured it couldn’t hurt to call her up and ask. The worst thing she could say was no, and if that wound up being the case, she could reluctantly pick up one of her other projects. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
She picked up her phone and clicked on her contact, which was the most recently dialed number. It took a few moments for the call to go through due to her old glitchy cellphone that was hanging on by a thread, but once it did, Rin’s calming voice immediately rang through the other end.
“Hey, Yuri.” She didn’t sound annoyed at all, which made her feel a bit relieved. She hadn’t expected her to be, but whenever Rin was involved, a strange nervousness overtook her that she couldn’t quite place a reason behind. “What’s up?”
“My apologies for bothering you, however, I—” Yuri cut herself off as she picked up another voice through the speaker.
“Dude, are you serious?” The voice was unmistakably Futaba’s, which made her sigh quietly to herself. Futaba was… fine to be around, but she didn’t offer much in the way of artistic expression the same way that Rin did. She had a feeling that this conversation would take much longer than it needed to with her around. “We’re so close to beating this level! You can’t just abandon me for a stupid phone call!” Yuri then heard a rustling sound, a quick argument, and then Futaba’s voice obnoxiously close to the speaker. “Hey, whoever you are! Me and Rinrin are doing something very important right now, so if you could—” she cut herself off. Yuri clenched her hand around her phone. “Inari???”
“That is me, yes.” She rolled her eyes as if Futaba could somehow see her annoyance through the screen. “I understand that you are doing something you perceive as important, but I really need to—”
“Yeah, yeah, fine,” she whined in defeat. Then, holding the phone a bit further, mumbled, “Of course you’d bail on me for her. Abandoning me for your stupid girlf—”
“So!” Rin cut Futaba off, clearly having stolen the phone back from her if the sound of aggressive fabric rustling sounds were anything to go by. “How are you?” Yuri let out a relieved breath. Rin’s voice was full of energy as she spoke, even noticeable through the softness of her tone. She found herself smiling at the screen, holding her phone closer to her ear as if that would somehow bring Rin physically nearer to her.
“I’m alright,” she answered. She didn’t want to ask her request right away—that would have been rude and disrespectful to her time. It’s not like she minded smalltalk with Rin, anyway. It was usually something that Yuri dreaded and thought of as unnecessary, but with Rin, she had strangely never minded. She could be talking about anything from mission briefings to what she ate for breakfast this morning, and Yuri would listen intently like it was the most important thing in the world. “How are you?”
“That’s good.” Yuri could clearly picture her smile on the other end of the line. She felt her heart skip a single beat in her chest. Rin always had such a beautiful smile. “I’m doing fine. Just playing this old platformer with Futaba.” She heard a distant mumble of annoyance come through the phone. “Why’d you call?” She asked, and before Yuri could answer, she read her mind. “Do you want me to come model again? I know you didn’t get super far last time.” Yuri’s eyes widened with a mix of surprise and delight. How did she know? Was it something in her tone? Or…did Rin perhaps enjoy modeling for her? Whatever it was, Yuri smiled brightly at the sentiment.
“If it’s not too much of a bother. You certainly seem… busy.” Another frustrated grumble came from Futaba. Yuri was genuinely starting to feel bad for her, so she quickly added, “It’s not urgent.”
“Nah, that's okay.” Really? She truly didn’t mind doing this for the second day in a row? She was so kind. “I can be there in about… an hour, maybe? I just gotta finish up this level before Futaba kills us both.” Yuri continued smiling. She was so thoughtful, making time for all of her friends like that. Yuri wished she could find a way to thank her properly, but whenever she tried to put her appreciation for Rin into words, it was like she’d mixed every color on her palette together into a muddy brown. She hoped that she would one day be able to properly express her gratitude for everything Rin had done, but for now, a simple, “Thank you,” would have to suffice.
“It’s no problem.” Rin answered back, still without a drop of annoyance in her voice. “I’ll see you around six, then.”
“Wonderful.” Yuri’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment. She pictured Rin sitting back down in her modeling chair, her expression neutral yet her eyes shimmering with a slight hint of happiness and excitement. She felt her heart thrum in her chest. “Thank you again, Rin.”
“Any time.” Yuri could once again picture her smile through the screen, and her grip around her phone tightened just a bit. “Seeya soon.”
“See you.”
Click.
She then spent the next hour pacing around her dorm room, thinking of different conversations to start up while she was gathering her supplies and mixing her colors. As one does.
———
Rin Amamiya was a beautiful girl. And she was starting to infiltrate Yuri’s dreams.
One time was normal. She had fallen asleep after a particularly long day in Mementos, so it was natural that she would dream about her team leader.
“Joker!” She had called out, warning her of an incoming attack. But dream-Joker didn’t even need her warning, as she mowed down the enemy Shadows effortlessly with her gun. She then turned to Yuri, with a confident smirk on her face. That image still popped into her head from time to time.
Two times was a coincidence. She hadn’t even seen Rin that day, so it was strange that she would have a dream about her.
“It’s just going to be us today, okay?” She had told her at the start of their palace outing, and, in the dream state she was in, Yuri hadn’t questioned it. She didn’t remember much else from the dream other than that, though she did recall being much slower and less efficient in combat than she normally was, as she had been oddly distracted. Must have just been an effect of the dream.
Three times was a pattern. Though she hadn’t seen Rin today either, she had been thinking about her periodically throughout the day.
“I bought these for you,” she’d said with one of her signature infectious smiles, holding up a bouquet of violets. Yuri’s heart did backflips in her chest, knowing the significance of choosing those flowers in particular. “I thought you might like them.”
That dream was significantly shorter than the rest, for the sole reason that Yuri’s eyes shot open as soon as Rin handed her the flowers.
Her first reaction upon waking up was to clutch her chest and lament that it had ended so soon. Her second reaction was to turn her head to face the ceiling, and allow her mind to drift.
Why had she been dreaming of Rin so frequently? She’d had maybe a single dream involving each of her other friends over the course of the time she’d known them—never three in a single week.
“It’s just because she’s important to me,” she justified to the dark void of her room, her voice still thick with sleep.
But was it, really?
Yuri yawned. It was pointless to think about this in the tired state she was in; her thoughts would hardly be coherent.
So she fell back asleep, trying to ignore the part of her brain that was imagining her pillow as her dear friend’s shoulder.
———
Yuri could not remember how, why, or when Futaba got inside her dorm room. But she was here, and she was being exceptionally nosy.
“C’mon, Inari!!” She whined, gently running her finger over the top of a back-turned canvas. “You’ve had Rin over, like, every day this week.” It had only been four out of seven days. So, no, it hadn’t been every day. Unfortunately. “You have to let me see what the painting looks like!” Futaba was staring at her with the puppy-dog eyes she so often used when she was trying to convince someone of something. Yuri took a deep breath and tried her best not to let it affect her.
“It’s not finished yet.” Yuri hated people seeing her unfinished artwork. It was letting someone read her metaphorical diary, seeing her thought processes and erased pencil lines. Not only that, but it opened the door for unnecessary criticism that would have been completely voided if they would have just let her finish the project first. The amount of times Madarame had stood over her shoulder and criticized her linework or color mixing when she was in the process of fixing it as he spoke had gotten her in the habit of not letting anyone see her projects until she was finished. “You can see it when I’m done.”
“Why do I have to wait that long?” Yuri sighed. She knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “You’ve been working on it for over a week now! It’s not like it’s going to look bad.” She appreciated the compliment, but she still shook her head.
“I should have it finished within one or two more sessions. You can see it then.” Futaba exaggeratedly rolled her eyes, then pleadingly batted her eyelashes.
“Pleaseee?” It was getting increasingly difficult to say no to her, much to Yuri’s dismay. Still, she shook her head once again. No matter how much she begged, she wasn’t going to let her see the painting until it was finished. She didn’t need her nitpicking her unfinished work, and especially didn’t need her going off and telling Rin about how it looked. This was supposed to be a surprise, and if her first impression of the painting she worked so hard on was Futaba telling her it was a messy and unshaded work-in-progress, she would tear her hair out. “…If you show me I’ll buy you lunch at the new fancy sushi place down the road.” Yuri bit her lip. That was… an intriguing offer. But was she really ready to throw away her values for something so material?
She stared into the open mini-fridge in the corner of her dorm room. It contained 5 packs of instant ramen, a half-eaten bag of carrots, and three cans of generic brand of soda that tasted worse than she imagined her
acrylic paints did.
…She trusted Futaba. She could get on her nerves at times, but she knew that she wouldn’t say anything to Rin if she asked her not to. So, she wouldn’t really be losing anything by showing her the painting just a few days early.
And besides. Sushi sounded really good right now.
“…Fine,” she agreed before she could change her mind. “As long as you promise not to mention it to Rin. I don’t wish for her to know anything about the project until it’s done.”
“Dang, so even she hasn’t seen it?” Futaba continued to trace her finger along the top of the canvas, her touch noticeably gentle so as not to damage it. “I dunno how she hasn’t gone crazy by now. If I had to sit here and model eight days a week without being allowed to see the painting I’d go insane.”
“Well thankfully Rin isn’t as impatient.” That comment earned her a glare, as expected. “But if you promise not to say anything to her, I’ll allow you to see it.” Futaba’s glare immediately shifted to a look of excitement so great that Yuri could almost see the stars in her eyes.
“Yayy!!” She smiled brightly enough that Yuri had almost forgotten why she’d been so hesitant in the first place.
She immediately remembered as Futaba nearly dropped the canvas on the floor as she began to turn it around.
“Careful,” she warned. Futaba rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” She evidently did not know, in fact, but Yuri bit her tongue. Dropping canvases on her dorm floor didn’t damage them anyway—she unfortunately knew from experience after deciding to paint without sufficient sleep. Futaba finished turning the canvas to face her, and her jaw dropped as she stared at it.
“It’s not finished yet,” Yuri repeated, feeling her heart sink the slightest bit at Futaba’s reaction. She knew it wasn’t necessarily the epitome of art in its current state, but to see Futaba of all people react the way she did was disconcerting. “That’s why I didn’t want to show it to you yet.”
“No, dude, I—” she cut herself off, standing further back as her eyes moved from detail to detail. Yuri squeezed her eyes shut; if Futaba started to critique her unfinished project she was going to rip her hair out. “This is amazing, Yuri.” Her eyes shot open immediately. She blinked slowly, trying to let Futaba’s comment set in. It was rare enough for her to use her real name in conversation that she knew she was being genuine, but she couldn’t quite understand her reaction. The painting was decent, sure, but it was far from what she wanted it to to be. Her linework wasn’t perfect, she still had a few adjustments to do to the color scheme, and, most importantly, it didn’t properly capture Rin’s beauty the way she wanted it to. It wasn’t an ode so much as it was a photograph. The girl in the painting wasn’t wordlessly beautiful like Rin was; she was a model sitting idly for the sake of doing a favor for a friend. That wasn’t Rin’s fault in the slightest—she managed to sit still for hours with a smile on her face, which was so, so much more than Yuri could have asked for—it was Yuri’s fault for not being able to properly translate her thoughts to the brush in the way she was so often able to do flawlessly. She supposed it shouldn’t be too surprising that Futaba reacted the way that she did, given that she didn’t care as much for aesthetics as Yuri herself did, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was disingenuous.
“It’s…fine.” She walked over to where Futaba was standing, and the stars in her eyes only grew. She appreciated her reaction immensely, but she could only wish that it was the final product that she was admiring so much. “It’s good as a recreation of an image. But it doesn’t communicate what I want it to.” Futaba turned to face her, tilting her head in confusion.
“Whatcha mean?” She seemed genuinely interested, which made Yuri smile slightly as she tried to think of a way to explain this without rambling on.
“Well, it doesn’t properly express her beauty the way I intended,” she decided on. It made her sound a bit more superficial than she wanted to, but that was the truth. She didn’t want to give Rin a product that was just a reflection of her physical appearance. She wanted to be able to hand her a painting that showed her everything Yuri loved about her, even without using words. She wanted it to portray her bravery, her confidence, her kindness, and yes, her physical beauty as well. Right now, it only reflected the latter, and that wasn’t something Yuri could gift in good faith.
“It doesn’t… huh?” Futaba’s face scrunched up, shifting her gaze back over to Yuri. She gave her a look of confusion.
“It doesn’t properly express her beauty,” she repeated. Futaba didn’t seem to get any less confused nor surprised. “Right now it’s a very superficial painting. I only managed to convey a sense of physical attractiveness, which wasn’t my intention. I need to find a way to further convey the beauty of her personality and actions before I can be confident in giving it to her.” Futaba’s confusion turned to surprise for some reason that was beyond her. What about her statement could possibly be that shocking? She was just explaining her thought process.
“Ohhhh, so it’s a gay painting,” she said nonchalantly, as if that was somehow in any way related to what Yuri had said. Yuri wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or shocked, so she instead just glared at her.
“No. It is not a ‘gay painting.’” She sighed. Of course she couldn’t expect Futaba to understand the complexity of such a work. Though, her words made Yuri feel a bit anxious. Was that really what this was coming across as? That wasn’t her intention in the slightest. Was she really not allowed to show her appreciation for her friends without it being confused for something more?
She shook her head. Of course she could—Futaba was just trying to get her riled up.
…But that still didn’t explain the painful, conflicted feeling crashing through her chest like a tidal wave.
She knew that Futaba was wrong. She knew that Futaba most likely didn’t even believe what she was saying, and was only saying it to mess with her. She knew that this was a platonic action done to show Rin just how much Yuri cared about her and how beautiful she was inside and out.
She knew all of these things. Yet there was something bubbling up inside her that didn’t quite agree with them.
“Uh huh,” Futaba said sarcastically. “And Achilles and Patroclus were just really good friends.” Yuri’s slight annoyance was beginning to boil over into genuine frustration. Now she was using her love of history against her to describe a relationship that didn’t exist. Wonderful.
“That’s different,” she argued, though she didn’t really have the words to explain how. She just had to hope that Futaba would drop it, which was about as likely as the painting magically finishing itself before her eyes.
“How?” She asked, because of course she did, and Yuri had to scramble to find an excuse to hold her over until she could shift the topic of conversation.
“Because,” she enunciated. “I am explicitly telling you that this is a purely platonic act.”
“Mhm.” She still sounded sarcastic, much to Yuri’s dismay. “And I don’t believe you.” She physically felt her eye twitch.
“What?” Yuri glared. She was getting genuinely upset now, as much as she didn’t want to be. She knew that Futaba wasn’t trying to get this much of a reaction from her, but that didn’t stop her from feeling as though her insides were being carved out like a piece of clay. “Why would I lie about something like this?” She was only feeding the flame, but the question left her mouth before she could realize it.
“I dunno.” Futaba walked over to Yuri’s bed and sat down with a shrug. “But the whole gay painting thing explains why Rin’s agreed to model here so often.” She raised an eyebrow; what was that supposed to mean?
“Hm?” She asked, and Futaba’s eyes widened.
“I’ve said too much.”
“No, I don’t think you’ve said enough.”
Futaba began to tug at the ends of her hair—a trait that she only exhibited when anxious. To be fair that was her default state, but Yuri still felt her heart pang in concern. Before she could say anything, though, Futaba looked at her with more seriousness than she’d had all day.
“You can’t tell Rin I told you,” she started in the most concerning possible way she could have. “But…” she trailed off, gently drumming her fingers against her jeans. “She wants you sooooo bad.” Yuri ran through about a thousand different possible interpretations of whatever that was supposed to mean, and none of them sounded particularly appealing to her. Had she meant it in a romantic sense? A platonic one? A literal one? She wasn’t sure, and worst of all, she wasn’t sure which one she was hoping for. It was that same nauseating feeling from earlier, only amplified. Yuri took a deep breath to settle her nerves, then another to brace herself.
“What exactly does that mean?” She asked, and Futaba giggled quietly.
“Oh, right. Forgot you’re old.” For once, Yuri didn’t have the energy to respond to her teasings. “She’s, like, in love with you, dude.” Yuri choked on her own spit, her hand clasping over her chest as if she was about to have a heart attack.
‘She’s most likely messing with me,’ she managed to reason through her shock, trying to anchor herself back to the reality that she was talking to Futaba, who rarely took herself seriously. Though, she doubted even she would lie about something like this, especially when her tone seemed so serious.
“…What?” Yuri asked, her voice lowering to something uncharacteristically quiet and meek. She hated the way it made her sound, and knew she was most likely just feeding into whatever Futaba was trying to do, but she couldn’t help it. Her words made the unidentifiable feeling in her chest so much worse, her face going hot and her legs wobbling beneath her.
Rin, in love with her? The most beautiful woman in the world, having feelings for her? It wasn’t exactly impossible, but there was a part of her that couldn’t believe it. Her hands shook with nervousness, looking up at Futaba with wide eyes.
…Love? Was that what she had been experiencing this entire time?
“…I’ll, uh, leave you to think about that for a bit.” Futaba brushed a strand of hair out of her face and walked over to the door, shooting a quick glance at Yuri before her hand turned the knob. She hadn’t expected her to leave so soon, and somehow, that was making this all the worse. Futaba continued to look at her, almost as if checking in to make sure she was okay before leaving. Though a part of her really wanted her to stay, Yuri knew this was something she could only solve herself. So she offered a slight nod, and forced a small smile. “See ya, Yuri.” She winced a bit, as if feeling guilty.
“Thank you, Futaba.” She didn’t specify what exactly she was thanking her for. That was intentional. “…Are you free tomorrow? I do recall you offering me sushi.” Futaba rolled her eyes with a bright grin.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you then.” She opened the door, offering one final glance at Yuri before closing it behind her.
Yuri bit her lip. Futaba hadn’t turned the painting back around before she’d left, so it was still staring at her, Rin’s lovely gaze piercing through her heart and mind.
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
———
Rin Amamiya was a beautiful girl. And as Yuri added the finishing touches onto the bouquet of violets in her hand, she finally understood why.
“Oh, Morgana got into a fight with a street cat the other day,” Rin said nonchalantly, standing up and stretching her arms. Yuri had told her she didn’t need to model anymore, with her finishing touches involving an item that wasn’t even here with them, and Rin had taken that offer with open arms after sitting still for almost three hours.
“Really?” Yuri’s voice was so quiet that she worried it wouldn’t have been picked up, but not because she was disinterested; she was just intently focused on perfecting her last-minute addition to the painting.
‘She owed this all to Futaba,’ was a sentence that Yuri never thought she would say, especially not about something so important, but she knew deep in her heart that she wouldn’t be doing what she was right now if it wasn’t for her help.
“Not an expert, but I don’t think straight girls usually have dreams about their straight friends giving them the lesbian flowers,” Futaba had said with a mouthful of shrimp tempura. “Not to mention the whole gay painting situation.”
That conversation had gone on for nearly an hour, and the only reason it had lasted that long was because of Yuri’s own denial. It wasn’t love, it was admiration. It wasn’t love, it was friendship. It wasn’t love, it was appreciation. So on and so on, ad nauseum. She had nearly gone through the entire thesaurus trying to frame this as something it wasn’t, and by the time Futaba had slowly blinked at her saying, “Dude,” she knew she couldn’t run anymore.
And now, the purpose of her gift had changed. She knew there was a strong possibility of her chickening out if she were to hand the painting to Rin normally, so she decided to add the bouquet of violets that had haunted her dreams so beautifully. She wasn’t sure if Rin knew the significance of those flowers, but Futaba did, and if Rin went home with that painting and no knowledge of Yuri’s feelings, she knew she would wake up to an angry orange-haired girl banging on her door.
Yuri dabbed her paintbrush back in the lavender color she’d mixed, still wanting to stall for time. The painting was perfect to her now, her feelings of inadequacy having completely dissipated, but she was afraid of doing what she knew she had to. Maybe the bouquet needed another flower. Maybe the background needed another cloud. Maybe Rin’s hair needed another curl.
After a few minutes, she set her brush down with a sigh. If she kept adding things, she knew she would only ruin the fruit of her labor.
“—I dunno how he got rocked so badly by what looked like a kitten,” Rin continued, though Yuri was only about half-listening to her story. Not that she didn’t care, of course, but the nervousness flooding through her was too overwhelming for her to focus her energy on holding a conversation.
“…It’s finished,” she blurted out, her hands gripping the sides of her canvas as if her life depended on it. And right now, it truly felt like it did.
“Oh, already?” Rin shot up from Yuri’s bed that she’d apparently sat down on at some point, and walked over to where she was standing. “Can I see?” Yuri swallowed. If she weren’t gripping onto her painting with all of her might, she would have tugged on her hair to calm herself.
“Yes.” Her voice was so shaky that even Rin seemed to notice, raising a worried eyebrow. “But before that, there is…something I would like to tell you.” Yuri’s vision grew blurry as she spit those words out, distantly wondering if she would even be able to walk without stumbling over her feet. “May we sit down?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Rin seemed more concerned than she did confused, which as much as Yuri appreciated, only served to make her more nervous. “Is something wrong?” She shook her head.
“No, quite the opposite.” She took a seat on her bed, making sure not to show the painting to Rin quite set as she did so. She held the painting a few inches from her knees, wanting to make sure the small amount of fresh paint wouldn’t rub off on her leggings. Her entire body was shaking with a type of anxiety she couldn’t recall ever feeling before. Was this really how it felt to be in love? Was this something a person had to experience every time they fell for someone? Yuri was suddenly immensely grateful that she had never felt this way about anyone else—she wasn’t sure she could handle going through this more than once. She took a deep breath in and out, though it didn’t seem to help much. “I…” she trailed off, unable to force the other two words out of her mouth. That wasn’t even the confession she wanted in the first place, but she had assumed that the verbose one she had planned would have left too much of a strain on her heart. And apparently, the same was true for any sort of confession she could muster up. Wonderful. “Rin, I…” she tried again, but the words died in her throat the exact same way.
“I think I know what you’re going to say,” Rin said after a few moments, her own voice softer than it normally was. It was a miracle that Yuri didn’t drop the painting on the floor with how surprised she was.
“I doubt you do.” ‘Doubt’ was a less severe way of putting it. Though Futaba had alluded to Rin feeling the same way about her at their first meeting at her dorm, she hadn’t said a word about it during their dinner, leading her to believe that she had either lied or exaggerated it in some way. That didn’t really matter, though. Yuri wasn’t doing this in the hope that Rin felt the same way—she was doing this to get it off of her chest. She knew that Rin wasn’t the type of person to mock her for such feelings, so she knew she was safe to admit them to her. But even despite that, she couldn’t shake her anxiety away. That was an effect Rin always had on her—making her feel things she knew weren’t logical.
“Why do you seem so sure?” Rin laughed quietly, placing a hand on Yuri’s lap. As if she wasn’t having trouble speaking already, that essentially ripped her vocal cords out. It was a small gesture, and one that she wouldn’t have thought twice about a month or two ago, but right now, it made her feel warmer than any fire spell ever could. Yuri took a deep breath to steady herself, but noticed Rin retracting her hand out of the corner of her eye, and placed her own hand atop of it. She gently rubbed her thumb against Rin’s, trying to communicate her feelings despite her current predicament.
Don’t let go. Whatever you do, please don’t let go. At least not yet.
“…There’s a reason I always come over when you ask, you know,” Rin spoke up after a few moments of silence, looking up at her expectantly. Yuri’s eyes widened.
“R-Really?” Yes, because she is your friend. That’s obviously what she’s alluding to here. Yet, Yuri still held a hope in her heart that this was something more than what she assumed it was. There was something about the tone in Rin’s voice that made her heart feel as though it was going to beat out of her chest. She sounded… shy, Yuri realized after replaying her words in her head. Rin didn’t get shy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever heard her sound like that, or if she ever had at all. She was always so confident and unafraid that the sudden shift stuck out like a smudge on a canvas, and Yuri held her breath as she tried not to let her wishful thinking get the best of her.
She’d never find out the truth unless she asked, would she?
“What…is that reason, if I may ask?” Yuri’s hands continued to shake, though she still kept her tight grip on the painting. It would be embarrassing if the way she finally revealed it to Rin was by accident, after all. She waited a moment for her to answer, looking expectly into her deep black eyes. The deep black eyes that, strangely enough, reflected the same nervousness that Yuri heard in her voice. Her chest tightened.
“I…” she trailed off in the same way that Yuri did, taking a quick breath in and out as she glanced away momentarily. Her eyes were back on Yuri’s in an instant, though, and squeezed her hand gently as she began once more. “I like you.”
Yuri’s face burned with the heat of a thousand suns, her lungs entirely ceasing to function.
None of her thoughts were coherent enough to put into words. She couldn’t even breathe, let alone formulate a sentence to express how she felt.
Rin liked her, she finally managed to repeat in her head after a time period she didn’t have the awareness to recognize. Rin liked her, and judging by her wording and body language, it had to have been as more than a friend. Futaba hadn’t been lying to her the first time, and had probably refrained from mentioning it any further to make Yuri come to terms with her own feelings first. She was too shocked and overjoyed to be annoyed with her right now.
After a few seconds or minutes or years, Yuri finally managed to come back down to earth. Her hands were still shaking wildly, her face burning so brightly that it hurt, and her breaths short and frantic.
“You…?” She somehow managed to speak, though even that had evidently been too much for her. Her grip on the canvas loosened, and it fell to the floor with an unsatisfying crash, landing face-up and directly in Rin’s line of sight.
Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
Not that Yuri was in any state of mind to care at the moment, but she still scrambled to pick it up. Though she currently didn’t perceive anything in the world other than the girl sitting next to her, she knew her future self would be infuriated at her for letting such a stupid mistake ruin weeks of labor, so she tried to hide it from Rin’s gaze before she could see it. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough, and she noticed her eyes widen out of the corner of her eye.
“It’s beautiful,” she said without hesitation, as if that was something she had been preparing to say since she’d arrived here. Yuri knew that was something she would have said regardless of the quality of the painting, but the tone in her voice and the sparkle in her eyes was enough for her to know that her reaction was genuine. She turned the painting back around to face Rin, a shy smile creeping up on her face. Her eyes scanned it meticulously, as if analyzing a poem or a piece of prose, and once her gaze met Yuri’s again, it was as if her entire world had been changed. “Are those violets?” Her voice was knowing and teasing, and Yuri swallowed. Looked like she didn’t even need to confess after all.
“Indeed they are.” Her smile didn’t waver, though her leg still bounced with slight nervousness. Rin only giggled, scooting closer to her and brushed a strand of hair off of Yuri’s smock. “They were the result of a dream,” she explained, figuring it would be easier to explain everything this way rather than being completely direct. “And a… conversation between me and Futaba.”
“Ah,” Rin said, as if something was clicking all of a sudden. “That’s why she came home from that sushi place all smiley.” Yuri’s own smile grew a bit; she hadn’t expected Futaba herself to be so happy to help her figure out her feelings.
“I owe a lot of this to her,” she admitted, trying her very hardest to maintain eye contact. “Without her, I would still be questioning the nature of my feelings for you.” Though it had been implied through her previous words and actions, actually admitting her love out loud was quite nerve-wracking. She now knew that her feelings were requited, but it was still difficult to be so vulnerable with someone. Though, if there was anyone who she felt comfortable being so open with, it would be Rin.
“So I’m assuming this means…” Rin trailed off, placing her spare hand on Yuri’s cheek. She let out a sputtering, incoherent noise in response, but managed to force a nod. Rin’s smile grew about ten sizes as she did so, and without warning, she leaned in to place a soft kiss against her forehead. Yuri was certain her heartbeat had never been louder in her life, the sound echoing in her ears like a beating drum. She was certain she looked a mess right now—burning face, giddy smile, her mouth agape with shock—but she didn’t care. Rin was the only thing in the world to her right now: both the real one, and the painting she seemed to admire so much.
“Y-Yeah,” Yuri managed after a few moments, wanting to give her a more definitive response. “I like you as well. As more than a leader, and more than a muse.” Rin hummed appreciatively, rubbing her thumb against the back of Yuri’s hand.
“I’m glad.” Her smile somehow grew even brighter, and it reminded Yuri of the face she would make when afflicted by a charm spell in the Metaverse. Only this time, it was real, and it was entirely because of her. “You know,” she asked, her tone changing slightly as she glanced back down at the painting. “I did want to ask you how you made this look so…” she trailed off, seemingly trying to find a different word to describe her appreciation for the work, before deciding on, “Beautiful,” once again. “It looks pretty different from your other paintings,” she explained, and Yuri’s heart skipped a beat at the fact that she had remembered such a detail. Rin was right about that; most of her other works tended to be surrealist or left to interpretation. She rarely painted something exactly as she saw it, as she felt a photo could have had the same impact. However, she felt that with Rin, she had to capture her exactly as she saw her. Strong, confident, and of course, beautiful. The surrealist works she normally did wouldn’t properly capture the emotion invoked in her upon spending time with Rin, nor would a simple photo, so she had to make a sort of compromise in her artstyle that she had never done before. That wasn’t something Yuri had expected her to notice, but, then again, Rin had always shown exceptional care for her hobbies.
“I can walk you through my process, if you would like,” she offered shyly, not wanting to impose anything onto her. Though, with the way Rin excitedly stood up and walked over to her easel, Yuri knew that she wasn’t doing anything of the sort.
“I’d love that.” Those words melted straight through Yuri’s heart. She was used to people saying those words in a mocking way, used to being forced to analyze the undertone of people’s words to determine whether or not they were being serious, but with Rin, she never had to do that. Rin was always genuine in her interest, always sincere in her appreciation. And that was part of the reason she’d fallen for her, Yuri realized as she stared at the girl in front of her. She was so full of kindness that it made her head spin, and not a single ounce of it was disingenuous.
“Thank you.” She didn’t specify what exactly she was thanking her for, but it didn’t matter. She picked up the painting and walked over to Rin, placing the canvas back on her easel and gently grabbing hold of her hand.
“Any time.” She leaned in to kiss her once again, her lips landing on Yuri’s cheek this time, and if it didn’t all feel so realistic, she would have wondered if she found herself in an idealistic dream once again.
Rin Amamiya was a beautiful girl. And now, she was all hers.