Chapter Text
"" - Dialogue
'' - Thoughts
“We paint. We sculpt. We craft." Said a tall young man with messy black hair, tired eyes and glasses in his regular school uniform; a blazer with his school's crest, a arrow over a brown apron with paint splatter on it, a red armband on his sleeve, and the pockets filled with paintbrushes, pencils, a chisel and a palette knife. His hands have some paint splashes. His voice is monotone and low while looking at the boy holding a camera at him.
"I am Eshi Geijutsuka, the president of the art club. Here, we express our creativity in painting, sculpting and crafting." The art club appears as a room that contains a variety of arts: paintings, sculptures, and random drawings hanged on bulletin board. There is a sink for washing away paints from hands, a kiln for sculptures and ceramics, and a box full of art materials.
The camera's POV turns to a young woman with blue dyed messy shoulder length hair in a school uniform who is making flowers out of colored paper on a table with a finished collage painting next to her.
"Hi, I am Rei Shimazaki, part of the art club! I make paper crafts and collage paintings. If you don't know what collage art is.. It's basically using a magazine, newspaper clippings and anything flat like paper!" Said the blue haired girl in a more enthusiastic tone.
"For example this painting I made a week ago." Rei then gets one of her paintings that she made.
Rei then gets one of her paintings that she made. It appears as a flower made of random magazines on a canvas.
"It looks pretty nice." Rei said with Eshi nodding in the background. The camera's POV turns to another student who has wavy brown hair with some bangs. He is currently making a clay sculpture of himself, he turns to the camera and introduces himself.
"Hello, the name's Nozomu Jibun. The sculptor and ceramicist of the art club, I make the most beautiful of sculptures, just like y-"
"Okay last one, Shin Saishiki." Eshi cuts off Nozomu's words with the camera panning to the last member of the art club, having short black tidy hair and red eyes.
"That is me, I draw that interests me like the world of the unconsciousness and death itself, the way that surrealism merges dream and reality itse-”
The camera footage turns off and the boy groans out of frustration. "Okay, cut! Dude, what the hell, Shin? We were almost done with this shit! Why did you go off script!, you'll drive away your future members y'know." He said to Shin.
"Didn't Eshi say the art club is for expressing your creativity, am I wrong or not?" Shin responded to the boy in a taunting tone. His eyes turned to Eshi who seemed to be just leaning on a walk.
“He isn't wrong, I did say that,” said the art club president.
"Fuck you, dude I'm going back to the Film Club." The boy said to Shin, getting his film equipment.
"Oh come on man, don't leave!" Nozomu said to the film club member but boy leaves anyway, he closed the door and left.
"Shin, why did you have to do that TWICE?!"
"Oh please, its not my fault."
Nozomu and Shin argue as Eshi gets a canvas and begins to paint a simple cherry blossom tree from outside the window, he first uses reddish brown to make the trunk and uses white to paint the lenticels. His brush strokes directional and rhythmic around the canvas. Next, he uses pink and some darkened pink paints for the cherry blossoms. He then paints the background being the field with green, blue, and pink paints until he got interrupted.
"Hey Eshi." Rei's voice whisper through his ear. Eshi almost messes up the painting with the blue almost messing up the cherry blossom.
"Rei, you know I don't like being interrupted while painting. " He said to her in his usual apathetic tone, he began to paint again, finishing the painting.
"Yeah sorry about that, Just wanna ask you something." Rei said to the art club president. Eshi finishes the painting after a couple more strokes. He holds up his painting and shows it to Rei.
"How do you like it?" Eshi shows her the painting of the cherry tree.
"It's moody as usual for you," Rei answered to Eshi's question
"Thanks," Eshi simply responded. Rei came close and whispered in Eshi's ear.
"Now it's time to answer my question: What does art mean to you?"
Eshi is very quiet for a moment, he seems to be thinking.
'What... does art mean to me? It's a way to express my inner emotions and visualize it for someone to see.'
"It is a way to express an emotion and visualize for the human eye." Eshi answers Rei's question in his usual tone again.
"Thanks Eshi, see ya laterr!" Rei leaves the art club room to go somewhere.
"You're welcome," Eshi said when she left. He then began to create another painting yet again like always. That is what he's always good at, creating art like paintings and sculptures. He usually sacrifices his health for his art, often sleeping late and always painting, drawing, or sculpting.
TIME CHANGE TO AFTER SCHOOL, 2AM
Eshi was waiting at the school courtyard, wearing headphones and listening to Vincent by Don McLean. He was humming to the song while leaning on the wall until he saw a black Lexus ES.
A woman who appeared to be in her late 40s with long tied black hair came out of the car, wearing a white polo shirt and black trousers. She walked to her son Eshi, “How’s school?”
“Okay,” He said simply with his mother leading him to the car, driving him home. The car drive was quiet and silent, no talk happened.
It stopped at the Geijutsuka household, it looked like a luxury estate. Having two floors yet a large interior. Eshi's mom typed the code on the door: “246” and opened it, she entered the house and went to her desk to work.
Eshi followed and waved to his dad who's talking to someone on his phone, likely a client. He entered his bedroom which looks like a messy art studio, wearing his casual wear: a plain white t-shirt and pajama pants.
Eshi sat on the couch, getting the tv remote and turning it on. He watched Artist of the Year, if you ask what's that?
It's a long running show which aims to find the best portrait and landscape artist every year. After binge watching Season 1, he had dinner with his mom and dad. The dinner was wagyu beef served by the chef in the house. After eating, he goes to his bedroom and wore his pajamas.
Eshi in his pajamas is continuously painting a portrait of himself, sitting on his stool and painting on his desk. Black for his messy hair, brown and gray for his eye bags and then he finished his masterpiece. A self portrait of himself, looking tired and weary. He had a smile and said "It's finally finished... I can finally go to.."
Suddenly, he feels lightheaded and tries to walk to his bed but falls to the floor.
'So.. this is how I die huh... Doing what I love.. making art... This is goodnight.' Eshi thought in his final moments
Eshi then wakes up, back in his regular school clothing and his brown apron always messy with paint around it. He was in a white room and saw a man in a fedora and leather jacket. Eshi couldn't see his face but he looked unemotional just like him. The man approached him and observed him for a while until...
"Next." The man kicked Eshi with his leg to a hole.
'What the hell, why is this happening too me?' Eshi thought before he could see the light coming below from the surface.
NEW WORLD
Eshi wakes up in a forest, he notices that he both has paints and a sketchbook. He also noticed on his apron that he still had his pencils, paintbrushes, his chisel and his palette knife.
'Where am I?'