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Everyone gradually began to bid their farewells as breakfast concluded. Smiles were exchanged as plastic cutlery clattered against the elongated table, as all the students were satisfied with what they had eaten. The maid stacked the dishes, carrying them to the kitchen with a polite grin as each person left the dining hall.
Tightening her scrunchies, Harukawa let out a sigh, as she pondered what she could do today. There were only a limited number of things to do in her room, but she didn't particularly fancy spending time with anyone else.
"Please give it back!" she heard a technological voice whine from behind her, causing her to turn her head to glance at whatever was occurring behind her.
"No way, Keyboard!" the plum-haired child giggled, clutching something to his chest. The robot clawed at him to no avail. It appeared the hair that was normally present on the top of his head was missing, and putting the pieces together lead to the conclusion that the ruler had taken it.
"Kokichiiii! Makiiiii!" a peppy voice called out, with quick footsteps following. The owner of the voice could only be her - she was the only one who would call either by first name.
The caregiver turned the rest of her body in order to meet eyes with the artist, giving her a confused stare. She couldn't fathom a singular reason as to why the other would call out to her, seeing as everyone had just spent breakfast with each other. If she wanted something, she could've asked earlier.
"Hmm? What is it, Yonaga-chan?" the ruler questioned, looking the other over curiously. It seemed the artist had bent over to catch her breath for a moment - physical excursion was definitely not her strong suit. She quickly perked up however, closing her teal irises and clasping her hands together.
"Angie would like to invite the two of you to a private art lesson!" she beamed joyfully.
"Private art lesson...?" the caretaker questioned, looking directly at her. If she was being honest, even the children could draw better than her. She possessed the hand-eye coordination, but not the talent.
"Sounds like fun!" Ouma giggled, feigning interest with a smile.
Maki closed her eyes as to not seem rude, before rolling them not once, but twice. She sighed audibly.
"I won't be going," she replied curtly.
"Kami-sama told Angie that Maki hasn't been getting enough social interaction! And Angie hasn't seen Kokichi hang out with a girl ever! So Kami-sama gave Angie this super cool idea!"
The robot scratched his chin. "I've never seen Ouma-kun interact with a female either..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ouma spat out defensively. "If anyone has gender issues, it's Chabashira-chan!"
"Mmm, Angie thinks you could both use some social skills. Angie already set everything up in her studio!"
"Like I said, I'm not going. Bye," the brown haired girl muttered. A smaller hand pulled her back, teary teal eyes staring into her red ones.
She knows that she's going to hell if she says no to that face.
From back at the table, the magician eats toast slowly. She blinks, trying to register the fact that she's awake and not in her bed. She glanced at the scene behind her, and massaged her temples for a moment. She then snapped her fingers.
Ki-bo's hair was back in place, whilst Yumeno was knocked out on the table from MP drainage. The robot patted her on the back.
"She sacrificed herself in my honor..."
Shirogane looked towards the magician, and quietly began to sing in memorial.
"Yume no tobira... zutto sagashi tsudzuketa..."
Taking this as a chance, the artist took Ouma's hand in her free one, and scurried out of the cafeteria before the other two could question her.
The three arrive in a large room. The walls are a cream color, and the floor is white. There are paint stains absolutely everywhere, particularly a large black smear right near the entrance. Along one wall is a set of cabinets on the ceiling, two sinks, and another set of cabinets under the sinks. There are four large, wooden tables, each with four stools of the same material. Six foot tall mahogany cabinets line another wall, and the other two have a chalkboard and white board respectively. There's a large easel that rests in front of the white board, a palette that's stained with paint resting on it. There's a sketch on the easel too, of some woman with horns and a single, long braid. She almost looked like Tenko.
The caregiver coughs, taking in a musty breath that's sure to have pencil shavings in it. Ouma looks around in awe.
Angie goes under one of the sink cabinets, lighting a pink candle. "Sorry, Angie's pretty messy," she interjected, taking out some cleaning materials. With a rag soaked in cleaning solution, she wiped down one of the wooden tables, along with the sinks.
She then shuffles through one of the kitchen cabinets, throwing random things around before pulling out... a hair dryer.
"Why do you have that...?" Harukawa questions as she plugs it into the wall, turning it to a medium setting.
"All true artists have hair driers!" she yells in response, drying off the wooden table with it. Ouma shrugs.
As soon as the table's dry, Angie instructs her guests to sit. They sit on opposite sides on the table, on opposite corners. Angie hands them each a large clear box, stuffed to the brim with materials.
"Woooooow!" Ouma marvels, and Harukawa can't tell if he's genuine or not. Harukawa opens the box in front of her - art materials. A spiral-bound sketchbook, a packet of pencils with a sharpener, a sponge, markers, colored pencils, paintbrushes, paints, charcoal... Angie's really put a lot of consideration into it, and she admires that.
"Write your name on it, because it's yours!" Angie instructs, smiling. Ouma opens his box, taking out a marker, going to write his name-
As if she teleported, the artist is behind him, holding his shoulders in an iron grip. The color has vanished from her face, eyes staring straight through him.
Ouma seems unaffected, as Angie snatches the marker out of his hand.
"Not. That. One."
Harukawa glances over at them, rather confused. Angie looks the most serious she's ever seen her, and it's quite frightening, if she's being honest. It was almost as if she had been possessed.
"Huuuuh? What's wrong with that marker, Yonaga-chan?" Ouma asks sweetly, looking up at the artist.
The artist twirled the marker around in her hand, before taking it in the thumb and index finger of both her hands. She gestured toward the ruler. "Kokichi, could you read this?"
"Co... pic?" Ouma muttered quietly, looking at the English label with a confused stare.
"Yup, yup! Kokichi's correct!" the artist beamed, clasping her hands together, the marker trapped inside. "Copics are very special alcohol-based markers. Kami-sama will be angry at you if you misuse them."
"What's so special about them?" the caretaker asked.
"Well... Um... They're the best markers, ever! People usually think of Crayola markers when they think of markers... But Copics are the ones the professionals use! They're about 800 yen a piece."
"Wooow, Yonaga-chan spent lots of money on these!" the ruler snickered, pressing his face against the few she had left in his box.
Angie protruded a sharpie from her pocket, handing it to the ruler. "You can use this to write your name on the box. Don’t ever use the Copics unless Angie instructs you to!" She then gave another sharpie to the caretaker, instructing her to do the same.
White sneakers clicked against the floor as the artist then approached her easel.
"Alright, class! Angie-san is ready to give her first lesson!"
Ouma clapped excitedly, while Harukawa closed her eyes and rolled them. Angie took a sketchbook from off the floor, (why it was there wasn't questioned) and opened to a blank page.
"Today, Angie-san is going to teach her students the basics of shading and shape drawing!"
As the last syllable of her words was uttered, a few knocks were rapped against the door. They were light and polite, so maybe it was Amami or Saihara? Angie skipped over to answer the door, and...
"Ryouma?" Angie asked, turning her head to the side as she looked the smaller boy in the eyes. He took whatever he had out of his mouth (it looked like it was Pocky) and sighed.
"Look, I hate to come in during..." the tennis player started, looking over at the scene, "...whatever the fuck this is, but I gotta take something from here.”
“What is it?” the artist mused, unsure of what the other meant.
“Rumor has it you’ve been makin’ statues of everybody. I’m taking mine,” he declares, entering the room and eyeing it for the statues.
“Ah, Angie hasn’t built Ryouma’s statue yet! She wanted to make sure she got your body type right, so she planned on doing you last.”
Hoshi looked confused, but only for a second. “Alright. Thanks. Bye,” he mumbled curtly as he went to leave, the shackle against his ankle clicking as he went.
“Wait! Angie thinks you should join her class!” the artist persisted as the tennis player put his hand on the doorknob. He looked back at her, but didn’t say anything.
“Angie’s teaching Kokichi and Maki some art basics! Angie thinks Ryouma would make a great addition to the class!”
“Not like I’ve got anything better to do,” Hoshi says under his breath, opting to sit next to Maki.
“Aww! Hoshi-chan won’t sit next to me!”
“Nobody wants to sit next to you.”
Ouma pouts, clearly offended. He knows that’s true though, so he doesn’t bother replying.
“As Angie was saying, today she will teach you about shading!” she exclaims, skipping back to the easel. She then widens her eyes as if getting a sudden burst of inspiration, skipping towards the cabinets underneath the sink. Forging through them, she finds a silver ball, and places it on the table where her classmates sat.
“...It’s a cannonball,” Harukawa observed, unimpressed.
“Maki’s right!” Angie replies. She goes into her pocket getting… A sticker? She places it on Maki’s forehead.
“...You gonna take it off?” Hoshi asks, slightly alarmed.
“The kids draw on me all the time. I’m used to it.”
As she says that, the lights in the room begin to dim. Angie goes to one of the cabinets, retrieving a desk lamp. (Nobody has yet to question where she’s getting all of this stuff, and nobody probably will.) She sets it on the desk, pointing it towards the cannonball.
“Neat,” Hoshi mutters, holding his head in one hand as he slumped against the desk.
“Angie wants everybody to pay attention to how the light affects the cannonball,” the artist instructed. “As you can see here, where the light is being shone on to, the ball is bright in color! Buuuut,” she starts to hover her finger along the ball’s side, “as the material gets farther from the source, the light gradiates into a darker color!”
Ouma giggles, switching the light off so that the room is entirely enveloped in darkness, minus the candle Angie had lit earlier. Harukawa switches it back on, giving the ruler a glare.
Angie, presumably unaffected, holds the lamp by the stand. She hovers it in various places around the ball.
“See how when Angie moves the light, the shading changes? Angie thinks that’s real neat!”
After hovering the light some more, the artist goes to the classroom’s rear, switching all the lights on. Hoshi flicks the lamp off.
“Everybody, take a piece of paper from your sketchbooks, and the pack of pencils Angie gave you!”
With a few riiiiips, all is done as instructed. Hoshi borrows a sheet from Maki’s sketchbook, and she sets the packet of pencils between the two of them.
“Use one of the pencils with the ‘H’ on it!” Angie says, smiling as always.
“B? H? Why’s there morse code on pencils?” Ouma grunts, picking up a pencil marked 2B.
“That is the question,” Hoshi snickers, looking at the pencil in the other’s hand. Harukawa giggles, but Ouma just looks at him with a confused stare.
“The codes tell you the weight of the pencil!” Angie clarifies. “Angie doesn’t know what the B and H actually stand for, but B’s are darker than H’s! H is light, B is dark. The higher the number, the lighter or darker the pencil is. H’s are used for sketching, since they’re light and easy to erase.”
Her ‘students’ nod in approval. Harukawa picks a 4H, Ryouma a 2H, and Ouma a 6H. Angie hits her easel with the back of her pencil to get the attention of the others.
“Please draw a circle on your paper!” Angie commands, as she begins to sketch a circle on her own. Her students have varying degrees of success.
Angie skips over. Hoshi just drew one, thick line. Harukawa tried to imitate what Angie had done, lines sketchy like hers, but she had ended up with an oval. Ouma’s is also an oval, but it’s a weird combination of sketchy lines, followed by one continuous line, as if he gave up halfway through.
“Mmmm,” Angie groans. She flips Hoshi’s paper over, and takes it in front of her.
“It’s best if you sketch in quick, thin strokes.” With this, she draws a circle again, occasionally taking out an eraser to get rid of the excess lines. “Like Angie said earlier, H pencils are easy to erase! Ryouma can use Angie’s example, but she wants Kokichi and Maki to try again!”
The two do as told, with better results. Angie has to guide Ouma’s hand for a bit, but he seems to get it after a while. Harukawa’s is nearly a perfect circle.
“Good job! Next, you’re going to need your 8B pencil, since we’ll be putting in the darkest shades.”
Angie wheels her easel over so that the others can see her easier. They all give her an expectant stare.
“When you’re drawing, you need a light source!” the artist declares, taking her own 8B pencil. In the corner of her paper, she draws an arrow. “Angie will pretend a spotlight is shining on her circle from this direction. You can put an arrow down if it helps!”
All three do, and then look back at her.
“Now, with the 8B, put a dark crescent shape in the corner of the sphere,” she says, showing them as she speaks. She presses hard with the pencil, hoping they do the same. They all try to, again with varying degrees of success.
“Now, get a pencil that’s a little bit lighter, and start fading out the top of the crescent! When you’re done, you should just have a little sliver below the crescent, and you shouldn’t be able to tell where you outlined the crescent. Remember to lighten your pressure as you get towards the spot where the light hits!”
The three students went to work, doing their best to shade their spheres per the artist’s instructions. Hoshi seemed to have a bit of trouble pressing lighter without loosening his grip, Ouma would go over spots so much that they became dark, and Harukawa was patchy in places. But it looked like they were trying their hardest, so Angie smiled proudly.
“Now fuzz out the bottom edge of the crescent! One, two! One, two!”
With determined eyes and pencils in hand, all three again went to work, a little bit better than last time. Each finished by releasing their pencil against the table, listening to the faint clatter as the pencil bounced against it.
Angie peered at their drawings, dancing between them.
“Nyahahaha! Divine work, guys! Angie’s gonna teach you all one last thing before ending class!”
Skipping back to the easel, the artist pulled out a tiny stub of wrapped paper, dirtied from lots of use. On the side, “TORTILLION” was written.
“You guys should have a few of these in your box! They’re tortileenies!”
“It says tortillion,” Hoshi scoffed, examining one in his hands.
“Mmm, whatever! They’re used for blending!”
“I’ll call it a blending stump, then,” the caretaker muttered, taking one in her hands.
Angie pouted. “Booooring.”
She was able to pick her face back up quickly.
“Anyway, like Angie said, tortileenies are used for shading! You use them on their side, and never on the tip, because that’ll ruin them!”
She showed her students the proper technique with her own drawing.
“You can go over any harsh parts with it to make it more fuzzy. Good luck!”
Scratchey scratch scratch.
All three diligently and wordlessly worked on their spheres. It seemed all of them were concentrating quite hard, doing their best to imitate the artist.
After a long period of this, Ouma let out an exhausted sigh, falling against the table. A few pencils rolled off and fell to the floor.
“I’m all arted out,” Ouma huffed, looking up at Angie. Harukawa politely began cleaning up, while Hoshi stared at his drawing, looking for some sort of way to make it better. He smudged it a bit more with his tortillion, before placing it down and closing his eyes. He put another stick of Pocky in his mouth.
“Well? Is that it, everyone?”
Harukawa nodded.
“Be sure to sign your name and date in the corner! Angie’s keeping these~”
Despite expecting complaints, none were given. Each signed the corner of their paper and dated it. Ouma left, hands behind his head. “Bye, Yonaga-chan!~” Hoshi left not long after, without a word. Harukawa did the same, but gave the artist a backhanded wave before exiting.
Angie took the three pieces in her hands before hugging them against her chest. They smudged a little, but compared to the graphite on her right palm, this was nothing.
The artist merrily skipped to the whiteboard, putting all three drawings next to each other. Hands on her hips, she gazed at them with pride.
Pushing in their stools, Angie smiled.
“Angie loves her classmates!”