–——————————— 1 –———————————

Ena’s tempted to just spill some black paint over the canvas and start fresh at this point. The colors have started getting muddy and she wanted the piece to look dark and moody, but at this point no one would be able to tell one object from another. She leans back with a groan, brushing her bangs out of her face–and smudging paint all over herself if the wet feeling is anything to go by. Whatever, she’ll just have to shower later.

She’s painted over everything at least three times in the last couple of hours. But nothing has felt quite right. She pauses her music, since listening to the song demo wasn’t helping her figure this out anyway. The lack of background noise lets her hear Mizuki’s chatter once again. She’d gone on a shopping trip earlier and picked up a new parasol, which she couldn’t seem to stop talking about.

“...I just can’t wait to take it out! It’ll be perfect for a trip to the gardens with the cherry blossom petal design in the lace.”

Ena hums softly as Kanade says something about wanting to see it in person. She lets them fade into background noise as she grabs her latest sketchbook. Maybe if she can just take her mind off the current piece, she can figure out what to do with it. She grabs a pencil and starts sketching at random, not putting any conscious thought into what she wants to create. It can be complete nonsense for all she cares, so long as it lets her mind wander. Each line has the tension drain from her shoulders more as the figure takes shape.

“The store had a lot of colors available! Maybe we could get you one, Kanade. They’re really lightweight, so it shouldn’t be too hard to carry. And keeping the sun away might prevent you from getting sick so quickly when you’re out on errands.”

“Oh, you make a good point. Maybe we could go sometime this weekend? If it's not too much trouble, of course.”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t have offered it if it wasn’t! I’m free all weekend, so you can just let me know when you’re feeling up to heading to the mall with me. I’ll even bring mine along so you can see how you like it before we buy you one.”

Ena smiles softly at how thoughtful Mizuki is. For all their joking and prodding, they care deeply about all of their friends. She’s always looking out for Kanade, especially during heatwaves when she’s more prone to fatigue. They all do their best to lend a hand wherever they can, but Mizuki tends to have the most new ideas on things to try to ease her struggles. Not too long ago, she found a few alternative brands of instant noodles for Kanade to try that are much healthier than her usual brand. Ena hadn’t understood at first, thinking it would be better for her to just eat more home-cooked meals. But then Mizuki said it was important to have quick and easy meals available for when Kanade simply wasn’t capable of cooking, it clicked. It made Ena wonder what other details Mizuki keeps in mind when planning things for their friends.

“Say, you’ve been awfully quiet, Enanan~ Something on your mind?”

“Hm? Oh, just taking a bit of a break. Something about this painting isn’t working, I just need to figure out what it is…”

“Oh, I see. Anything I can do to help?”

“No, no, I’ll figure it out, I just need a bit longer.”

“That’s alright, I’ve still got a lot to do to turn this demo into a full song,” Kanade says.

“Right, thanks.”

“Oh, Ena, are you free this weekend as well?”

“Hm, why?”

“In case you wanted to join Kanade and I, of course!”

“Oh, maybe. Let me know when you guys are going and I’ll see if I can make it.”

“Yes!!” Mizuki cheers.

The conversation fades out at that and Ena lets her mind wander again. It might be nice to go out with Kanade and Mizuki for an afternoon. Maybe she can convince them to join her at a nice cafe she’s seen people posting about. The interior seems like a nice spot for photos, if all the selfies are anything to go by. The blue lights give everything an interesting effect.

Suddenly, it hits Ena–she needs a different lighting color so the details stop getting so lost. It seems so simple in hindsight, but at least she figured it out before scrapping the piece entirely. She sets her pencil back in its cup, hyping herself up to get back to painting. As she goes to put her sketchbook away, she actually looks at what she’d been drawing for the first time. It’s Mizuki, walking and looking over their shoulder, holding their beloved new parasol delicately over their shoulder. Listening to her ramble about it for so long must have influenced her drawing. 

With a shrug, she closes the sketchbook and sets it aside so she can finally get some real progress done for their next music video.

–——————————— 2 –———————————

Their latest song is finally finished. The video turned out much better than she’d hoped, especially with how much trouble the illustrations had given her. Mizuki did a great job at editing, as always. They always find a way to make her drawing pop-bringing out the small details and matching them perfectly with the song. To celebrate, they’re spending the afternoon at their usual cafe. Ena grabbed her sketchbook on the way out, figuring she should get some practice in while she can. People watching is a fun hobby, especially when she gets to sketch them. She ends up being the last to arrive, having gotten caught up in a crowd around a street performer on her way there.

“Finally decided to grace us with your presence, Enanan?~” Mizuki teases.

Ena just rolls her eyes with a scoff, sliding into the booth to lean against the corner. Mafuyu takes the spot next to her, with Mizuki on the inside of the opposite booth and Kanade on the end. She’s a bit tired from all the time spent perfecting the art. The others seem to notice as well, carrying out their conversation without pushing her to add anything when she stays silent. She appreciates it, taking the time to sit back and relax after giving the waitress her order. She tries to follow their conversation, really, but most of it drifts by like white noise.

She pulls her knees up to her chest to prop her sketchbook up and starts drawing when she realizes it's pointless to try and talk like this. There’s no one at the tables in their immediate vicinity, so she settles for drawing her friends instead. She starts with Mafuyu since she tends to sit very still and isn’t as expressive as the others. It makes it much easier to accurately sketch her expression when she’s drawing slowly. Mafuyu glances over at her once, but leaves her be even as their eyes lock, instead turning to take a sip of her drink once the waitress sets it in front of her.

She picks Kanade next, eager to catch the subtle confusion in her furrowed brow as Mizuki launches into an enthusiastic rant about something. And it only makes sense to include Mizuki as well, since her gestures are so fluid and her wide grin completes the scene. Kanade is always fun to sketch when she wants to practice with hair. Hers may not have any fancy styling or texture, but there's so much of it that she spends quite a bit of time perfecting the shading on all of it each time.

Once that sketch is finished up, she slides her sketchbook into her lap to start eating her cheesecake. It's delicious as always, though she has to ignore Mizuki’s teasing coos whenever she savors a particularly good bite. She hazards a glance up to find them staring at her, chin propped up on their hand. Ena does her best to force down the heat rising to her face, but she’s certain she’s blushing because Mizuki’s grin widens.

“What’s wrong, Ena, you’re looking a bit hot under the collar over there~” Mizuki teases.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Of course not! I’d never try to embarrass you.”

“Right, I definitely believe you.”

At times like these, Ena wonders what it is that goes on in Mizuki’s head. She teases so casually, like it’s nothing. It never fails to get Ena to blush, and she’s not even sure why . They don’t tease Kanade and Mafuyu the same way. It makes her wonder how she acts with the rest of her friends. One of the only things to make her regret taking night classes–never being able to see how Mizuki is with her classmates and school friends.

Mizuki’s telling a story about her friend Rui, now. Something about… robots around their school? Ena’s not entirely sure what she’s talking about, but it’s gotten her to smile even wider and wave her hands as she speaks. She’s so expressive, Ena can’t help trying to capture each face she makes on the next page of her sketchbook. They’re all gesture drawings more than anything since she’s moving too quickly to get much detail in. She doesn’t pay much attention to how many times she has to switch pages, nor does she try to make sense of some of the things Mizuki’s describing. They’re certainly embellishing the story. At least, Ena hopes they’re embellishing the story, otherwise this Rui guy is a bit terrifying.

The story carries them through to the end of their meal. Ena’s a bit disappointed when they start getting ready to pay the bill and leave. Her hand has cramped up a bit from the strain of trying to draw so quickly, but she was enjoying seeing how excited Mizuki was. If she only had a little longer, maybe she could capture that look just right . Another time, maybe. She’ll have to keep bringing her sketchbook along to the cafe. At the very least, it was a good exercise. Her teacher would be proud.

As she closes up her sketchbook, she feels a presence over her shoulder. She closes it quickly and hugs it to her chest as she turns, spotting Mizuki leaning over the booth in a vain attempt to peer over her shoulder. She raises an eyebrow and they lift their hands in mock surrender with a laugh. As Mizuki skips away, Ena takes a look at the page herself and realizes the entire spread is filled with sketches of her. At least she didn’t see, Ena wouldn’t be able to take the amount of teasing that would earn her.

–——————————— 3 –———————————

Ena is doing her best to ignore her homework when a notification on her phone catches her attention. Eagerly, she grabs it to check, hoping it's something that’ll take a while and justify her avoidance. It's not a terribly hard assignment, but she knows it’ll be tedious and she’s not looking forward to it. It turns out to be a message from Mizuki on their N25 server. They’d mentioned the other day that their sister had sent a package. Apparently it finally arrived, so she sent a selfie of her proudly wearing the new ribbon she’d sent. It’s a lovely caramel color, with a wavy white border. Mizuki seems to be having a day out–Ena can’t immediately identify the background, but she’s outside somewhere. The sun is shining brightly in her face, making her eyes sparkle and giving the ribbon an almost glossy sheen. She has the parasol as well, tilting it to shade her back while her face remains in the light.

Something about the picture makes Ena’s hands itch to grab a paintbrush, so she rolls out of bed and sets up a fresh canvas on her easel. She’s on autopilot as she puts paints on her palette, quickly going through a mental list of all the colors she’ll need. They’re mostly pinks and reds due to Mizuki’s affinity for the colors. The ribbon adds a nice pop of orange and brown to the mix. She picks a wide, flat brush, deciding to go for a style with blocky colors and visible brushstrokes to emphasize the contrast in the lighting.

As she goes between carefully studying the photo and working on the painting, she considers Mizuki’s looks. She’s beautiful, certainly. Her eyes are a lovely shade of pink, always seeming to light up with whatever emotion she’s experiencing. Her hair is beautiful as well, nicely curled and carefully maintained. Not to mention her sense of style–a careful balance of unusual accessories and carefully tailored clothes. It all suits her very well, Ena thinks.

That’s one of her favorite things about Mizuki–their style. She always ends up with the most interesting things when they go shopping together, thanks to Mizuki’s knack for finding niche items at every store they end up at. All of her favorite accessories are from Mizuki’s picks, if she really thinks about it. The little hat they picked out for her is just so charming, plus it gives her room to style her hair and have it visible. She’s got quite a few bows and hair clips from them as well. There’s something for any outfit imaginable in her collection now.

Maybe Mizuki shares her fashion sense with her sister? It would make sense, considering how she tends to send accessories in her packages. Did she try on her clothes when they were younger? Oh, maybe she helped out when Mizuki first started altering clothes to suit her more. Ena would like to meet her one day. She’s a bit jealous, really. She and Akito just… aren’t that close. Not that they don’t get along at all–they try cafes together relatively frequently. But the way Mizuki talks about her sister is just different. She should talk to Akito later…

Ena takes a deep breath as she gets to work painting Mizuki’s face. She saved it for last since it’s the most delicate part of the painting. It would be a shame to get the face just right and accidentally ruin it while working on the hair. She pays special attention to her eyes. There’s something about them that just screams giddy excitement. Ena’s not entirely sure how to capture it properly. She starts out by carefully following the photo. It’s not quite right, so she gives them a bit of sparkle. That seems to do it. She has to take a deep breath before painting her eyelashes, as her hands have started to shake slightly. Once they’re done (and beautifully, if she says so herself) she lets herself breathe again.

She takes a couple of steps back to properly assess the canvas. When no glaring mistakes stand out to her, she nods with a proud smile. Some of her best work, if she says so herself. She snatches her phone from where it’s perched on the edge of the easel, quickly snapping a photo and opening up Nightcord. As her fingers hover over the keyboard, poised to type, she pauses. She didn’t exactly ask if Mizuki would be okay with her painting them. And she wouldn’t want to give them the wrong idea about why she decided to paint the picture, either. She bites her lip as she stares at her phone screen. Is it… weird? To paint a portrait of your friend entirely unprompted over the course of an hour after being sent a selfie? Well… when she puts it that way, maybe it is. She sighs, putting her phone on her desk and setting the canvas aside to dry. What’s done is done, it's not like Mizuki has to know about the painting or anything. At least it was good practice.

–——————————— 4 –———————————

Ena is itching to pick up a pencil by the time she gets home. Futaba went to see an aerial silks show over the weekend and spent all their time together going on about how beautiful everything was. She had plenty of pictures and videos to show for it, as well. It didn’t take long for Ena to become enamored as well and before they parted ways she demanded all of the pictures so she could look through them in her own time as well. Futaba was kind enough to send her the videos too, even though she forgot to ask. She rushes through the door, nearly tripping as she takes her shoes off and stumbling slightly in her haste to get up the stairs and into her room. She thinks she heard Akito say something-probably asking what she was in such a hurry for-but she doesn’t want to stand around talking when she could be drawing.

She takes a seat at her desk, tossing her sketchbook open to any blank page and goes through the photos for the perfect reference. The performers’ skills are impressive, but something about the way they seemingly float while wrapped in fabric is captivating in the photos. The mid-motion shots are her favorite, where she can see the fabric billowing as the performer twists and unravels themself. Her favorite photo has the performer upside down with her back arched, one arm outstretched mid-throw of one of the silks, which billows out from it like a cloud.

Once her phone is propped up for easy viewing, she grabs a charcoal and gets to work. The lines are smooth and flowy, almost like water. As she studies the fabric, she wonders if Mizuki likes Aerial silks. They love fashion and they can talk at length about their favorite fabrics to wear and sew with. Perhaps that passion would extend to this? Mizuki would probably be able to tell her a lot about what the silks are made of and anything else they’re used for.

They’re not an acrobat, but Mizuki would probably look great dancing with the silks, too. They’d probably match their ribbon to the silks if they did. They always love color coordination. And they’d look ethereal hanging in the air, carefully spinning along with the silks.

Abruptly, Ena stops shading. The drawing looks fine-great, even. She captured the flow of the fabric well. And the way the acrobat’s body flows so gracefully. But the face is…

Mizuki. It’s Mizuki’s face with closed eyes and a peaceful smile. She gave the ribbon tails to flow along with the silks.

The first few times, it’s just a coincidence. But she’s gotten far past coincidence. This is deep in “pattern” territory-maybe even obsession. She should probably try drawing some other people for a while, now that she’s hopefully gotten all of this out of her system.

–——————————— 5 –———————————

It's late. So late in fact, that Ena can acknowledge it’s late, which is quite the feat. Someone who regularly stays up until 3am does not consider much to be “late”. And yet here she is laying in bed well after 5am and unable to sleep. The sun will be rising soon, she knows, but despite her best efforts sleep evades her. At this point, she knows the effort is futile and pushes herself out of bed with a huff. If she can’t sleep, she may as well do something productive, at least. She grabs her sketchbook and takes a seat at her desk. Surveying the supplies available to her, she decides some pastels would be fun to use tonight. Something with a limited color palette could be a fun exercise–and prevent her from accidentally taking longer than she means to while trying to get every color just right . Not particularly caring what color she ends up with, she grabs one at random without looking, ending up with a nice reddish-pink color.

She spins the pastel as she considers the paper. Initially, she draws a blank–somehow completely devoid of ideas despite the restlessness in her mind. A minute or two of frustrated pondering tells her to start with some flowers, which she decides is as good as anything. She draws the shapes of the petals at random, not trying for any particular kind of flower, so long as it looks like a flower. After the first one, she decides to make a bouquet. This, of course, leads to someone holding the bouquet–and maybe they have one of the flowers in their hair? And maybe that flower is attached to a ponytail, so she sketches the shape of it draping over their shoulder.

The face comes naturally after that, a mischievous smile with soft eyes and long lashes. As she carefully adds particularly long lashes to the outer corners of the eyes it hits her—it’s Mizuki. Again. This is starting to get ridiculous, really. There’s so many people she could be drawing that she sees regularly. Kanade, Mafuyu, Airi, Futaba, hell, even Akito . What is it about Mizuki that makes her thoughts all converge back to them? It’s almost as if she’s in love or something—

Ah. Suddenly Ena feels exhausted. She gets up and crawls back into bed, not bothering to put her sketchbook or pastels away. She falls asleep as the sun rises, mind still racing.

–——————————— +1 –———————————

Ena wakes up in the early afternoon one weekend to an incoming call from Mizuki. She squints at the phone in confusion for a few seconds before answering with a soft ‘hello?’

“Enanan! Just the person I’m looking for!~”

“I’d hope so, you’re the one who called me .”

“Of course! Anyway, do you have any plans for today?”

“Do I… No, why?”

“Then you should get up and get ready to join me in shopping for a new outfit.”

“What’s the occasion?” Ena asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and slowly starting to sit up.

“Oh, nothing special, just thought it’d be fun to try something new, y’know?”

“I guess…”

“So, what do you say?”

“Fine, just give me an hour or two to wake up and get ready.”

“Yes! See you soon!” Mizuki cheers, hanging up immediately.

Ena just sighs, uncertain why she expected any different. Nothing she can do now but start getting ready for the day. She takes one more minute to yawn and stretch, then sets about getting an outfit together so she can shower and get dressed.

————————————————————————

It takes just about an hour for Ena to get ready and grab something to eat. Regardless, Mizuki teases her incessantly about being late when they meet up at the mall. They back down with a laugh when Ena retorts about being woken up with a phone call for last-minute plans. They end up heading to a boutique Ena has passed by a few times but never actually gone into. She’s not sure why, they have a few nice clothing lines. Maybe she got used to the stores she normally goes to. Like Mizuki said, it would be nice to try something new…

Immediately, Mizuki pulls Ena to the back of the store.

“I saw these corsets the other day and I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I’ve been really wanting to try one on, but I didn’t have anyone to give a second opinion until now!”

They pick out a pink underbust corset with white embroidered flowers and panel edges. Even on the hanger, Ena is certain Mizuki will look great in it. They grab a darker pink knee-length skirt next, but seem to hesitate when looking through the blouses. Ena spots a pink off-shoulder one with white ruffles that she’s sure will pair well with the corset and hands it over before ushering them to the changing room.

“You do know how to put on a corset by yourself, right?”

“Yep! You don’t need to worry about me, Enanan~”

Ena wants to look around the store for some clothes of her own, but she’s eager to see how Mizuki looks. Enough that she stands patiently outside of the changing room, not wanting to miss the big reveal. It’s worth it when they open the door and step out. Everything suits them perfectly. She takes it in slowly, finding new details in the clothes as she admires them. The skirt has a subtle ornamental pattern along the hem, which shines when the light hits it right. Each sway of the skirt reveals a new detail of the patterns as the light catches it at a different angle.

Suddenly, Mizuki is in her face, hardly a step away. She’s got a brow raised and is looking amused-maybe a bit nervous.

“Eh? Cat got your tongue?”

Oh, Ena’s been staring. Well that certainly isn’t mortifying.

“You should get it.”

“Huh?”

“The whole thing, go buy it. In fact, just wear it out, we’re heading back to mine.” Ena declares snatching Mizuki’s clothes from the changing room then tugging them along to the checkout.

“Wait-what about you? I thought you were getting stuff too?”

“We’ll come back another day.”

Mizuki looks baffled, but follows along, buying her finds and having the cashier remove the tags so she can wear them out of the store. She gets a bag for her other clothes as well, then follows along as Ena marches them home.

————————————————————————

The house is empty when they arrive, which is great because Ena is absolutely not in the mood for any small talk. She leads Mizuki up to her room, immediately pulling out a chair to the center of the room.

“Sit here, I’m gonna get my sketchbook and some pencils.”

Mizuki hums an agreement and takes a seat, watching Ena curiously as she rummages through her supplies and sets up an easel for herself. Once she’s ready to draw, Mizuki strikes a pose, crossing their legs neatly off to the side and folding their hands on their knees so that they don’t block the corset. They tilt their head slightly and let their eyes fall half-shut as they look at Ena with a slight smile.

She has to take a deep breath to collect herself and hopefully keep her blush from becoming too obvious. It’s hard to tell if she’s actually successful or if Mizuki is just trying to maintain the pose for her. She starts off with a loose gesture, then slowly works in the details of Mizuki’s face and hair. She figures the details of the clothes are mostly doable even if Mizuki moves, so she saves them for later. Their eyes seem to give her the most trouble. It takes a few tries to get them just right , but eventually she finds the right angle.

She’s about halfway through when she realizes that in her rush to get home and start drawing, she made them skip lunch. She stands up and stretches out her arms, feeling her shoulders pop as she does. She takes Mizuki down to heat up some leftovers for a quick meal, which she eats quickly in silence. Mizuki seems to be matching whatever she’s doing, as they don’t try to make idle conversation like they normally do during shared meals.

“I’m going to use the bathroom really quick, you can keep walking around while I do,” Ena says.

She does her best to be fast, not wanting to lose precious time that could be spent on her art. When she enters her room again, Mizuki is facing away, hunched over something. When Ena steps up to her side to see, she realizes it’s her sketchbook-one of many pages of sketches of her . Immediately, Ena feels her face burn. She’s half-tempted to just leave the room and pray Mizuki doesn’t say a word. Unfortunately, Mizuki takes this moment to glance wide-eyed over her shoulder.

“So…” they say, looking between Ena and the drawings.

Ena’s… not sure what to do. She draws all of her friends, of course, but no one quite as much as Mizuki. Or with as much detail. Or in so many mediums. And really, she must look crazed when a good third of her sketchbook is filled with their face. She should apologize probably, but that sounds hard and this would all be so much easier if Mizuki would just not snoop .

“Do you really have to look through every page ?” She groans as Mizuki flicks through even more sketches of herself.

“I mean…” they mutter, not really paying her words much mind, because they suck.

Ena sighs in relief when they finally step away.

Until they go straight to the corner that the painting has been sitting in ever since it dried and Ena didn’t know what to do with it. There are a few other paintings over there so maybe another one caught their eye? But no, Ena can’t be that lucky, they immediately pick up their own portrait, holding it in the light where they can see all of it. They’re blushing too now, serves them right. Ena’s crossing the room to stand in front of them before she can think better of it. They hold the painting down, looking at her like they want to say something and–

And Ena really, really doesn’t want to hear it. So she does the only logical thing and kisses Mizuki. When she pulls back, Mizuki is frozen in place staring at her with wide, round eyes. Ena can’t tell if she’s horrified or not, but each moment of silence makes it seem more likely.

“...Cat got your tongue?” Ena jokes weakly. Anything to ease the tension.

Mizuki lets out a startled laugh, which is… good? Probably. At least she’s not angry. And then she sets the painting on the floor and kisses Ena and oh—that’s kind of nice, actually.

“You know, you could’ve just asked me out on a date,” Mizuki says.

She’s got a warm smile on her face now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, how about we go on a date tomorrow?”

“I think I’d like that. You gonna finish that drawing? In a minute, I want to kiss you again first.”

Mizuki’s face goes red, but they smile nonetheless and let Ena kiss them to her heart’s content.