Work Text:
“Paint me.”
The words linger in the air between them, suspended in the air of Ena’s bedroom just like the dust particles glowing gold in the morning light.
Ena turns to look at her and finds herself exhaling deeply—all the air in her lungs automatically drains out of her. Just looking at Mizuki (smiling softly and openly at her, trusting and vulnerable, her hair spread over their shared pillow and her eyes still retaining that crumpled quality of someone who has just woken up) makes her chest hurt gently. Her fingers twitch, as though itching to grab a pencil and grant Mizuki’s request all on their own.
She nods without even saying anything; her voice is failing her.
Ten minutes later Ena has managed to find a small canvas that had already been primed and has set up her easel in front of her bed, where Mizuki is sitting up straight, her hands in her lap. She looks slightly nervous, charmingly blushing under Ena’s intent gaze as she sketches her figure on the canvas. The familiar motions feel… Intimate, more than with anyone else Ena has ever drawn. Maybe it’s because she knows Mizuki at a visceral level—she knows all her quirks and idiosyncrasies, her flaws and the many, many qualities that make her who she is.
Her hand is trembling, and the lines look shakier than usual. She takes a deep breath.
Mizuki is beautiful. Even with a couple of pimples on her soft skin and dark eyebags, she is still the most beautiful girl Ena has ever seen. Her lovely eyes almost seem to sparkle, reflecting the morning light shining bright from behind her. She is not wearing any make up, her hair looks fluffier than usual, messy and a bit tangled. Every time Ena looks away from the canvas, the corners of Mizuki’s mouth tighten slightly with self-consciousness and bashfulness under her watchful gaze. Ena’s heart is beating fast and loud against her ribcage, its faint sound echoing throughout her body. On this quiet morning, she is certain Mizuki can probably hear it too.
Ena takes a deep breath and drops her arm; her hand is shaking too much to continue. She needs to focus. Drawing Mizuki shouldn’t be any different than drawing the statues and live models in her art classes. Ena has drawn her friends before—she’s drawn Airi, Rin, and all of Niigo on multiple occasions. Yes, she’s even drawn Mizuki too.
But that was before.
Before the festival, before the alley, before they became what the are now.
Before Ena was brave enough to confess to Mizuki a secret of her own, finally letting those feelings she had been dutifully repressing fly out of her mouth—like opening the door to a cage to let the birds inside taste freedom for the very first time.
There is a before, and there is a now.
And in the now, Ena can openly love Mizuki the way she has wanted to for so long, and be loved by her in return.
Ena’s art is not like her father’s. Where he is technical and precise, masterfully and brilliantly applying rules to express those feelings he cannot even voice nor show on his stern, deadpan face of his, Ena is messy, visceral, intuitive. Her perspective sometimes looks off, her lines unsteady, her composition chaotic. Her father’s feelings are carefully laid out on canvas through deliberate symbolism and meticulous, deft technique. His art is introspective, almost solitary—looking at his paintings is like looking at his heart. Ena’s art is much different, though not different at all. Her art also is a reflection of her heart, but less lonesome—all of Ena’s love for the people in her life and all that she has learned from them are plain to see in all she paints.
And now she’s drawing Mizuki, for the first since before.
All things considered, this might be her most personal piece yet.
She takes a second deep inhale and nods to nothing, steadying herself.
When she opens her eyes again, she meets Mizuki’s gentle gaze, a bit confused by Ena’s sudden stillness. Ena smiles back reassuringly before squaring her shoulders.
She focuses on the sweet pain in her chest, the way her ribcage feels slightly tight. She closes her eyes and concentrates on the butterflies in her stomach, the goosebumps slowly appearing on her arms, and the love burning bright and colorful at the core of her very being.
She opens her eyes, lifts her arm, and draws.
“Watcha doing?” Mizuki finally asks, after observing Ena tinkering at her desk for what feels like ages.
When Mizuki had asked Ena to paint her, she expected her to grab her tablet or sketchbook; she truly didn’t think Ena would instead cover the her bedroom floor in old newspaper and drag her easel out of her closet. In all honesty, Mizuki is feeling quite flustered. In a good way. That was why she could barely say a word as Ena sketched her figure onto the canvas. But now Ena has been sitting at her desk muttering under her breath as she reads the labels of five different containers and Mizuki is curious.
Ena answers without turning to look at her. “Well, I’d like to paint you alla prima, so I was wondering how to mix my mediums.”
“In normal people’s terms?”
“I mean I want to get this done in one session instead of multiple ones,” Ena mutters, picking up a new plastic container that reads ‘stand oil’.
“And all those liquids matter because…?”
Ena groans.
“It’s my mediums—oils and thinners and such. I like mixing my own blends instead of buying premade stuff so I’m calculating- urgh. Basically you need more thinner and less oil for the first layers and you build on those with thicker and thicker paint—that means with more and more oil and less and less thinner. Fat over lean and all. But I want to work wet on wet so I am going to start already a bit thick to preserve my strokes, that way I’ll also need less layers which will speed up the process. So I’m trying to figure out in which ratios to mix my mediums and which ones to use because I think alkyd would work better in this case but I’m not sure and you made me lose my train of thought!”
Mizuki presses her lips together not to laugh at Ena, currently shaking a bottle of god-knows-what in her face.
“Whatever that means.”
Ena narrows her eyes at her for a second, but still ends up curling her lips in an affectionate little smile.
“Just give me a second. And don’t move too much or you’ll mess up your pose.”
“Yes ma’am.” Mizuki salutes, and Ena shakes her head fondly at her before going back to read the label of one of the bottles.
Soon, Ena has mixed some stand oil and turpentine in different ratios in three small glass jars, which she has carefully labeled with masking tape.
Once she has her palette in one hand and is back behind the canvas, she simply stares at Mizuki for a couple of minutes, completely silent. The weight of her gaze has an almost-physical quality to it, and Mizuki’s skin tingles and pulls wherever Ena’s focused eyes land.
Mizuki has never really seen Ena paint. She has seen her draw on her tablet (in person or when Ena streams her drawing process on Nightcord so Mizuki can brainstorm out loud what would work best in the music video they’re working on). She has seen Ena sketch in SEKAI, or at a cafe. She has seen her with pencils, charcoal, and sometimes acrylics. They have made birthday cards for their friends together, and used colorful pencils, glitter, and cheap paints. Mizuki thought that seeing Ena paint the way she does in her art class wouldn’t feel that different than watching her carefully create a portrait or a landscape on her sketchbook.
She was wrong.
Ena always looks different when she paints: her love for her craft shines on her face and makes her eyes sparkle even as she frowns and bites the inside of her cheek. And right now, Ena is shining brighter than ever. She is so immersed in her task, Mizuki knows that not even a detonation would distract her. Mizuki becomes enthralled by the sight of Ena’s brush as it mixes simple colors on her palette, swirling them together to create novel, beautiful shades before adding some of the medium she blended earlier and applying it to the canvas with confident stroke.
“Look up,” Ena commands, stern and focused.
Mizuki does as told, redirecting her gaze once more towards Ena’s left shoulder. Mizuki lets the quiet noises around her completely envelop her: the rough sound of the brush as it moves across the canvas, the soft clinging of the glass jars as Ena picks one of them up to dab a dollop of liquid on her palette, Ena’s deep inhales, the tapping of her foot against the newspaper underneath the easel.
Mizuki’s back is starting to ache and her neck feels stiff, but she finds herself unable to move and relieve some of the pressure in her spine. She keeps shivering slightly, her skin is prickling and she has tears in her eyes, for some reason. She isn’t going to cry, she knows that, but the dampness is still there, and she feels choked up. Even though Ena sometimes looks slightly possessed when she leans to the side to look at her (her eyes so wide Mizuki almost laughs in her face a couple of times), Mizuki can still read all of Ena’s love for her on her focused expression. It’s a gut feeling she cannot put into words, yet instinctively knows she’s right: Ena is trying to paint her channeling all of her feelings for Mizuki in her paintbrush.
It’s overwhelming, and Mizuki’s vision blurs.
Painting wet on wet with fast drying oils is not something Ena usually does, and she really hopes she has blended her mediums carefully enough to not lead to cracking along the line. After all, she wants to keep this painting of Mizuki for years to come.
She is finally on the last layer, and the sun is higher in the sky than when they started. Mizuki seems to be struggling to sit still, though Ena can tell she is trying her best. However, she hasn’t stopped tapping her finger for a single moment.
By now, Ena has reached something akin flow state: the more she paints, the less aware of her surroundings she becomes. All that matters, all that is ever going to matter, is Mizuki.
Ena has always had a hard time putting her feelings into words. After all, feelings are messy, complicated, and she often ends up getting angry and crying in frustration when trying to convey her emotions. Art is different. When painting, Ena can express concepts that have no verbal equivalent, ineffable truths that she wishes she could voice.
With every stroke, Ena channels all that she cannot humanly express. Mizuki knows by now, how much Ena loves her. She knows that Ena would run till she falls to her knees, unable to get up, for her sake. That she’ll put her impatience aside, and wait. That she’ll scream herself hoarse and cry in public, and that she’ll always look out of her. Mizuki knows, now, that Ena is in love with her. Yet, Ena still thinks there is a lot Mizuki does not know, feelings that Ena herself cannot fully comprehend.
Her hand starts painting flowers all around Mizuki before her brain even catches up—like Mizuki herself is the reason why they’re blooming on the canvas. Ena is well-versed in hanakotoba, and has no difficulty shaping the different petals surrounding Mizuki’s silhouette: sunflowers (respect, passionate love, radiance), lavender (faithfulness), red poppies (fun-loving), pink roses (trust, happiness, confidence), white daisies (purity, innocence, hope, faith), alstroemerias (such strong connection that language is limited when trying to explain it), forget-me-nots (true love), agapanthuses (arrival of love, unconditional and selfless love, love letter), and, of course, cherry blossoms (fleeting beauty, the transience of life, renewal).
“You can stop posing now, I’ll add the final touches,” Ena murmurs absent-mindedly, tilting her head at the canvas.
Mizuki stretches like a cat and falls back on the mattress with a loud sigh. Ena stays focused on her task—she isn’t done.
Mizuki is starving. They skipped breakfast because of the portrait, and now it’s almost lunch time. Still, Mizuki does not dare disturb Ena as she groans at the canvas. She watches as Ena stands up and takes several steps back, glaring at the painting and muttering under her breath. She heavily sits back down on her chair and sighs.
“Am I that pretty you’re struggling to capture my breathtaking beauty?” Mizuki asks teasingly.
“Yes,” Ena replies matter-of-factly, without even needing to think about it. Luckily, she’s so focused on her work she doesn’t see how flustered Mizuki gets, or how she hides her red face in Ena’s yellow cat plushie.
Mizuki stays like that, face buried in the soft material as she tries to get a hold of her racing heart, until Ena finally whispers, “It’s done.”
Mizuki is up in a split second. “Can I see? Can I see?”
“Wait!”
Ena lifts a hand and Mizuki dutifully stops in her steps, excitedly bouncing on her feet. Ena stares at the painting for a few more seconds, before nodding.
“Okay, fine, you can see it, but know I have never really made an oil painting in only one session and the lighting kept changing and I had just woken up and-”
Mizuki ignores all of Ena’s excuses and strides forward and goes to stand right behind Ena, placing her hands on her shoulders. She looks at the canvas, and the room around her disappears.
“S-so? What do you think?” Ena asks nervously, shifting in her chair. Mizuki squeezes her shoulders a bit tighter, at a loss for words.
The Mizuki on the canvas seems ethereal—even with a couple of zits on her face and a bashful smile, she is glowing and beautiful in a way Mizuki simply does not think she embodies, right now: without any makeup on, dark eyebags and unbrushed hair.
“Do you really see me like that?” She whispers, rapt, without even realizing.
“Like what?”
Ena gently grabs one of Mizuki’s wrists and looks up to meet her gaze. Mizuki gapes at her.
“So…”
Beautiful.
She can’t say it.
Ena smiles kindly, tightening her grip on Mizuki’s wrist.
“Even more so than I can capture,” she breathes.
Unable to look at her or the painting any longer, Mizuki averts her gaze, awkwardly clearing her throat.
“What do all those flower mean, by the way?”
Ena stutters something in reply, and when Mizuki looks down again, she sees that Ena is hiding her face in her hands.
“Oh? That romantic, huh?” Mizuki teases with a fond smile, playfully squeezing her shoulders as Ena groans in her hands.
“Shut up…” She mumbles helplessly, shaking her head.
Mizuki can’t resist. With her chest throbbing and her throat aching with the impulse to cry, she kneels on the floor at Ena’s side and wraps her arms around her waist, holding on tight. The newspaper rustles loudly under her knees as she shifts her weight a bit, trying to find a way to press Ena to her as close as humanly possible. Ena gets the hint, and turns around in Mizuki’s arms so that they can hug properly.
They stay like that for a while, breathing each other in. Mizuki can tell Ena is smiling without even needing to look at her—she just knows.
The silence is finally broken by Mizuki’s stomach, rumbling loud and demanding.
Ena chuckles in her arms.
“Breakfast?”
“More like lunch, at this hour,” Mizuki corrects her with a sigh, ruefully letting Ena go.
Ena playfully taps the pad of her finger on the tip of Mizuki’s nose. “Are you complaining?”
“Not at all.”
Mizuki stands up and stretches her back before holding her hands out to Ena to help her out of her chair. Once Ena is standing, Mizuki pulls her close, pressing their faces together.
“I have a proposition,” She whispers against Ena’s cheek.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Last to reach the kitchen cooks. Go!”
Mizuki has but a split second to savor Ena’s shocked expression as she stomps her foot in indignation. She runs out of the bedroom, Ena in her stead.
Mizuki slows down imperceptibly to allow Ena (a slow-runner) to catch up with her. They elbow each other running through the corridor and down her stairs, both of them laughing until they’re breathless.
“You’re so stupid,” Ena chokes out once they’re in the kitchen, bracing herself on her knees, “And don’t think I don’t know you… Let me… Win…”
Ena falls to the floor, resting her back against the kitchen counter.
“Now chop chop then, make us food, dummy.”
Mizuki grins down at Ena, who is breathing heavy on the kitchen floor and glaring at her with a small smile playing at her lips. Mizuki might not know the first thing about painting, but she thinks that if she were to paint Ena as she looks right now (a bit sweaty from the brief run, her messy hair, covered in paint from head to toe and not wearing any makeup), she would probably also end up portraying her as beautiful as the Mizuki in the portrait upstairs—ethereal, almost otherworldly.
“Does your Highness have any request as to her luncheon menu?”
Ena lightly kicks Mizuki in the shin as she frowns.
“Just make lunch! I’m starving!” She howls, crossing her arms on her chest.
Mizuki chuckles at her and heads for the fridge.
She may not know how to paint, but she makes a mean omurice—Ena has praised her profusely each and every time she’s made one. And maybe she can even draw something silly on it with ketchup that will make Ena pout adorably and maybe even kick her under the table.
Perfect.