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After their talk came the aware, ever so awkward silence.
Jiro drummed her fingers on the table. Denki stared at the clock on the wall, blinking to the ticking rhythm, which was the only thing that broke the quiet.
Suddenly, Denki opened a drawer, took out a key and opened another drawer with the key. Jiro watched him pull out a small olive notebook.
“Wait, THAT’S what the key was for?” Jiro was stunned, because she once saw the drawer ajar and saw the key, which looked nothing like a key that would fit in the other drawers in this room.
She also didn’t expect him to have a functioning system like this, let’s be honest.
He pulled off the strap around the notebook, and grabbed a pencil someone must have left on the table. In fact, Jiro didn’t know anymore, that could have been planned.
Jiro watched Kaminari flip through the pages and land on a fresh one. He’d filled out about half of it with drawings and anatomy practices.
Jiro was surprised to say the least, because she finally knew what he was doing during Present Mic’s grammar lectures when she glanced back and saw him leaned back in his chair, with the now known sketchbook and a pencil in his hand.
The words came out before she could stop them. “Can I see your sketchbook?”
She did not just do that.
He handed the sketchbook over. She picked it up and flipped to the start of it. And then she choked on the damn air.
She’d heard Kaminari say that he was okay at drawing before, and never thought about it again until now, because she was taken aback by how skilled Kaminari was at drawing.
The drawings were dated, and the first one went back to three months ago. She went to the most recent one, which he’d just started a few seconds earlier before she asked to see them.
“I should have mentioned I have more of these,” he said with a sheepish grin, glancing at the open drawer with five more sketchbooks.
Jiro stared at the pages, flitting through them, wide eyed. “Denki, since when were you so good at this? You've never mentioned having a sketchbook before!”
He went red. “Oh. I forgot.” She felt slightly bothered that he’d never mentioned something like this to her. After all, wasn’t she his best friend? Was there a reason?
“I’ve been filling these out since middle school.” “Why did you never tell me?” She asked. “I wasn’t that good at it until we started going to U.A, and I started taking lessons,” he admitted.
It was quite petty to never show someone your hobby until you could definitely brag about it, he had to admit. He did feel a little mean for not telling her about the sketchbooks as well. She probably felt slightly betrayed.
“You took lessons too?!” However, the irritation faded away into surprise, and maybe a bit of admiration, but Jiro wouldn’t admit that to anyone but herself.
“I have more of them here,” he said, while gesturing to the open drawer. “I do feel a bit bad for not showing them to you earlier.”
Curiosity got the better of her. She glanced at the notebooks and her eyes caught a dark purple one slightly larger than the rest.
Jiro reached for the drawer with the rest of the sketchbooks and pulled out the purple one.
Denki finished talking, then his voice trailed off when he watched her grab the only one he wanted her not to look through. If she opened it up, she would know why of course. Why did he choose purple of all colors? It would be obvious.
Of course, she opened the notebook and her eyes went wide.
The entire sketchbook was filled with drawings of none other than herself.
She slowly turned her head toward him. “Denki, half of these drawings are of me.” She certainly was taken aback. In fact, she had a lot of times today when she was taken aback.
Denki put his hands up, clearly trying to defend himself. “Okay, I’m NOT a stalker, Jiro. Trust me. You are just very nice to draw!”
Wow. Great defense, Kaminari.
“Oh, how am I supposed to believe that? I’m literally holding a sketchbook filled with drawings of me…” Her voice trailed off slowly.
She really took a look at the drawings. He’d really detailed them, like he’d spent good time on these. It was like he knew her better than herself. She noticed details that even she might've not noticed.
She went to a few different pages. One was of a candid moment when she and Kaminari went to go get burgers.
Her hands and his were full of bags because their class was greedy and insisted they get some for the entire class.
Another was of her playing the bass during the festival. She was smiling wide in this one, and she was singing her heart out.
This made her think. Did he have a photographic memory too? It wouldn’t be unlikely.
It was hard to imagine him putting extra effort into these, but she had no right to judge. The last time she drew, it looked like an unholy creature of the night.
She almost caught herself blushing. The drawings made it hard not to call herself pretty. But she quickly got rid of any of her thoughts.
And why should she care in the first place? What did it matter that Kaminari had a sketchbook with drawings of her? Actually, it mattered a lot. But she tried to convince herself that it didn’t.
She had been telling that to herself a lot lately. At first it was just background noise. But now, the noise was getting louder. By the day.
The more Kaminari did, the more they hung out, the more time they spent, the more she got to know him.
The more they did, her pulse sped up more often, she laughed a lot more, she was happier. Soon it was going to be impossible to deny anything, it would be too pressing to ignore.
She would have to give in to herself. But she wasn’t ready, she wanted to embrace this phase before it ate her alive with its tension.
Kaminari had clearly flipped her world upside down like a coin these past years. Multiple times, in fact. Ever since that house party.
At first she had no idea what this was. And now? She knew that this clearly wasn’t one sided “suffering” anymore. Actually, this no longer felt like suffering.
It was refreshing now that she knew it may not be just her. Kaminari might like her back.
She felt embarrassed to think about it, like a middle school girl, knowing that they weren’t little kids anymore. They’d been through a brutal war. And that does a lot to someone.
The only thing that changed between then and now is she wasn’t afraid of her own feelings anymore.
She was willing to take a risk now. Especially tonight of all nights.
Because this one was different.