Kurayami frowned at her journal, but the expression was mostly meant for herself. Just because she'd never visited the dojo...well, her mind wasn't much on cartography at the moment.
Glancing at the canvas in front of her, she sighed. She'd finished the main pencilwork for her portrait of the woman from the memory crystal, and contrary to her fears, she'd managed to remember that kindly face well enough to create a likeness that didn't jar her to look at it.
Still. Next would be the hard part.
Standing, she dusted off her skirt and lifted the canvas off the easel, standing it in a corner of the workshop to free up the easel. On second thought, she fetched a spare cloth and draped it over the canvas. She didn't feel like answering awkward questions tonight.
[Smoke headed over to the area and found it fairly easily. He's dressed in his favorite battle attire and slinging his weapon over his shoulder.]
YO~ KURAYAMI-CHAN~
[He's grinning exceptionally - very different from when she last met him. He's not being childish... that much. Not running around like Blood- Yachiru at any rate. He had just sorely missed his flat chest and his special weapon.]
So? Now you can see me with the red hair - whatcha' think~♥ [That would be a wink in her general direction. He fully expected some kind... of less than enthusiastic response, but he couldn't help it. He was in high spirits that night, never mind the time."
The shout brought Kurayami to the door of the workshop, wiping dust off her hands with a cloth.
She raised an eyebrow at her 'model', then tossed the rag at him, judiciously aiming a little too high for an easy catch, and turned back inside. It was a good enough way to hide the hint of a smile, at least.
"Well, you're a lot easier to spot in the dark," she said wryly over her shoulder. "So, do you want the mostly uncomfortable chair or the chair that completely puts your ass to sleep?"
The rag to the face was unwelcomed, but Smoke kept grinning like an idiot. An idiot who was no longer in the body of a hermaphrodite after a week like that. He dumped in on the ground and sauntered after her, enjoying the weight that was lifted off his upper body.
"I think I'll go with the one that puts your ass to sleep. You get pretty good at sitting for a long time when you're on Guard duty."
"I owe you one, then," she said, pulling said chair out of the corner and adjusting it into a decent place opposite her own. "Usually my models take the nicer one."
Well, she hadn't let Apple pick. The kid got the nice chair, plus the pillow from her bed brought down for him. That was just...how it was.
Anyhow. Sitting down, she pulled one of Qi's colorful sketchbooks into her lap and checked her pencils for sharpness. "I don't have the lighting to paint you right now," she admitted--one of her dreams was to get decent electric light in here, but for now it was a big deal just to hope for an armchair for her models or something. "I thought I'd take a few sketches, though. That all right?"
Smoke looked around for a reason as to why she'd 'owe him one' and quickly noted that those two chairs were the only ones in the area. "Oh - not at all!" He smiled again, sitting down in a casual pose for now.
"Sketches are good - you said you got my nose wrong before, right? And my chin?" He shifted his head this way and that. "Now it should be fine~" He was tempted to say something like 'Now you get to stare at my beautiful face for a few hours' but that just seemed way too cheesy for this situation. You use lines like that on girls in the bar you don't care about and are just looking for a good lay one night.
Not on girls like Kurayami.
He held up his weapon a little. "Didn't know if you'd want this in there or not. It's definitely unique - but I dunno how hard it is to draw?"
Kurayami looked it over briefly. "I could give it a shot, if you want it in there," she said, with a shrug. "It's interesting enough."
She made a few test dots and lines in one corner of the paper, getting her pencil to her liking. "I'm more worried about getting your face right, this time," she admitted, absently. "Practice helps. Mind lifting your chin a little?"
"Sure thing - just one last question." He tilted his chin up and held his weapon leisurely against his body. "Do you need me to stay absolutely quiet - no talking? Cuz I dunno, that might be a little harder than sitting here for a few hours." He winked again.
Either way he got to stare at her while she worked, so all in all it was a fair trade in his mind.
She considered the question seriously. "Well, if you're going to chat all night, give me a second to get the shape of your face and I'll just tell you when I need to do your mouth and chin."
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "If it works for sketching a fidgety fledgling, it should work for you."
"Hai~ hai~ I got it!" He waved it off. "I'll be quiet for awhile."
He reclined as best he could, relaxing his left hand against his shakujou. With his right he pulled out his box of cigarettes and just held onto it. He knew he couldn't possibly smoke it while she was drawing, but he stuck an unlit one in his mouth anyway, then just held the box itself in his hand.
Yeah, that'll do it.
Then he gave her a winning smile and cocked his head so she could see the high ponytail he always wore when he knew he'd be going to fight. And then he just watched her work.
Well, he was a natural poser. She had to give him that. Kurayami looked over the tableau he made and decided it was good enough for a sketch without lighting to worry about. Not half bad, in fact.
Turning her attention to her sketchbook, she started work, roughing in the shape of his face and the slope of his posture with a few quick strokes of the pencil and gradually working her way down to the details.
As she drew, her brows came together just slightly in a tiny frown of concentration. She paused now and then to glance up and check her work, or absently push strands of dark hair out of her face, but mostly the only sound in the room was the scratching of lead on paper.
Smoke actually preferred this brand of silence to while he was on Guard duty. When the Sphere wasn't in one of its active hatching periods, there wasn't much to do but just watch and make rounds. Then all you got was the echoing sound of people walking through the halls - some in soft shoes, some in hard soles, but generally not a whole lot of anything if you were sitting still.
Here, at least, he could hear her working. It wasn't wasted waiting - there was a purpose. And so he could enjoy the pencil scratchings as much as the sound of her pushing the strands out of her face.
There was also a... calmness to her when she was working. Her concentration wasn't agonizing to watch; it was clear she enjoyed this as much as, say, he had enjoyed all of the sparring he'd just accomplished.
When he felt she'd been working for awhile and - hopefully - wasn't working on his face, he broke the silence - but retained his pose perfectly. "Has anyone ever told you you get even prettier when you're working so hard like that?"
Kurayami's pencil paused, for a split second, before. She couldn't help it--it was a question entirely out of left field, and it took her a moment to even process it. As she did, a faint, sardonic smile touched her mouth, and she quietly continued drawing.
"No," she said, flatly, then glanced up and held out her pencil at arms' length, trying to get the proportions of his eyebrows right.
Smoke grinned - he couldn't help it. That face was hilarious and cute all at the same time. Not to mentioned the way her halo dipped to match.
"Well it's true - it's easy to see how passionate you are about this thing. Don't know any other artists so dedicated to their craft, you know?" The grin broadened and he went quiet again, letting her get back to work.
"There are plenty of artists in the Sphere," Kurayami pointed out, mildly. "You should see Qi's drawings." She was becoming well aware of the fact that he was trying to butter her up, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Would thinking it was funny be too...
Too what? Too lenient? She paused, staring at the half-finished drawing. Lea and Rabbit could be jokers, too, but being told she was pretty or passionate felt so utterly distant from her own reality that it might as well have been in another language.
Maybe she should have asked Rabbit to model for her...
No, she reminded herself, this was a present for Kagerou. And it wasn't as if she didn't like being around Smoke. He was just...odd. Very odd. Men didn't express interest in Kurayami, not like that. She didn't know why or how she knew that was true, but it was, in the same way that the pencil marks on her paper were gray and Smoke's hair was red.
Giving a weary little sigh, she shifted in her chair and got back to work.
I did say 'so dedicated' -- also, Qi is creepy. Smoke was still under the assumption that Qi was a reincarnation of Cancer? and thus all of her babbling that made no sense, but that was neither here nor there.
He simply gave a weak shrug in response to her comment, and just kept staring. Between the dark hair and the aversion to his advances, there was something nostalgic about this kind of a... challenge. Whether from back then or just lost in his blanked Edensphere memories, he knew he'd never know, but it felt good all the same.
And so long as she wasn't kicking him out the door, he'd continue to admire her from a distance. For now.
... Didn't mean he had to stay quiet about it, though.
"Really, no one's ever said something like that to you? Surprises me, to be honest--"
Glancing at the canvas in front of her, she sighed. She'd finished the main pencilwork for her portrait of the woman from the memory crystal, and contrary to her fears, she'd managed to remember that kindly face well enough to create a likeness that didn't jar her to look at it.
Still. Next would be the hard part.
Standing, she dusted off her skirt and lifted the canvas off the easel, standing it in a corner of the workshop to free up the easel. On second thought, she fetched a spare cloth and draped it over the canvas. She didn't feel like answering awkward questions tonight.
Now, where had she put that spare canvas?
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YO~ KURAYAMI-CHAN~
[He's grinning exceptionally - very different from when she last met him. He's not being childish... that much. Not running around like Blood- Yachiru at any rate. He had just sorely missed his flat chest and his special weapon.]
So? Now you can see me with the red hair - whatcha' think~♥ [That would be a wink in her general direction. He fully expected some kind... of less than enthusiastic response, but he couldn't help it. He was in high spirits that night, never mind the time."
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She raised an eyebrow at her 'model', then tossed the rag at him, judiciously aiming a little too high for an easy catch, and turned back inside. It was a good enough way to hide the hint of a smile, at least.
"Well, you're a lot easier to spot in the dark," she said wryly over her shoulder. "So, do you want the mostly uncomfortable chair or the chair that completely puts your ass to sleep?"
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"I think I'll go with the one that puts your ass to sleep. You get pretty good at sitting for a long time when you're on Guard duty."
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Well, she hadn't let Apple pick. The kid got the nice chair, plus the pillow from her bed brought down for him. That was just...how it was.
Anyhow. Sitting down, she pulled one of Qi's colorful sketchbooks into her lap and checked her pencils for sharpness. "I don't have the lighting to paint you right now," she admitted--one of her dreams was to get decent electric light in here, but for now it was a big deal just to hope for an armchair for her models or something. "I thought I'd take a few sketches, though. That all right?"
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"Sketches are good - you said you got my nose wrong before, right? And my chin?" He shifted his head this way and that. "Now it should be fine~" He was tempted to say something like 'Now you get to stare at my beautiful face for a few hours' but that just seemed way too cheesy for this situation. You use lines like that on girls in the bar you don't care about and are just looking for a good lay one night.
Not on girls like Kurayami.
He held up his weapon a little. "Didn't know if you'd want this in there or not. It's definitely unique - but I dunno how hard it is to draw?"
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She made a few test dots and lines in one corner of the paper, getting her pencil to her liking. "I'm more worried about getting your face right, this time," she admitted, absently. "Practice helps. Mind lifting your chin a little?"
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"Sure thing - just one last question." He tilted his chin up and held his weapon leisurely against his body. "Do you need me to stay absolutely quiet - no talking? Cuz I dunno, that might be a little harder than sitting here for a few hours." He winked again.
Either way he got to stare at her while she worked, so all in all it was a fair trade in his mind.
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She quirked an eyebrow at him. "If it works for sketching a fidgety fledgling, it should work for you."
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He reclined as best he could, relaxing his left hand against his shakujou. With his right he pulled out his box of cigarettes and just held onto it. He knew he couldn't possibly smoke it while she was drawing, but he stuck an unlit one in his mouth anyway, then just held the box itself in his hand.
Yeah, that'll do it.
Then he gave her a winning smile and cocked his head so she could see the high ponytail he always wore when he knew he'd be going to fight. And then he just watched her work.
Reply
Turning her attention to her sketchbook, she started work, roughing in the shape of his face and the slope of his posture with a few quick strokes of the pencil and gradually working her way down to the details.
As she drew, her brows came together just slightly in a tiny frown of concentration. She paused now and then to glance up and check her work, or absently push strands of dark hair out of her face, but mostly the only sound in the room was the scratching of lead on paper.
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Here, at least, he could hear her working. It wasn't wasted waiting - there was a purpose. And so he could enjoy the pencil scratchings as much as the sound of her pushing the strands out of her face.
There was also a... calmness to her when she was working. Her concentration wasn't agonizing to watch; it was clear she enjoyed this as much as, say, he had enjoyed all of the sparring he'd just accomplished.
When he felt she'd been working for awhile and - hopefully - wasn't working on his face, he broke the silence - but retained his pose perfectly. "Has anyone ever told you you get even prettier when you're working so hard like that?"
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"No," she said, flatly, then glanced up and held out her pencil at arms' length, trying to get the proportions of his eyebrows right.
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"Well it's true - it's easy to see how passionate you are about this thing. Don't know any other artists so dedicated to their craft, you know?" The grin broadened and he went quiet again, letting her get back to work.
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Too what? Too lenient? She paused, staring at the half-finished drawing. Lea and Rabbit could be jokers, too, but being told she was pretty or passionate felt so utterly distant from her own reality that it might as well have been in another language.
Maybe she should have asked Rabbit to model for her...
No, she reminded herself, this was a present for Kagerou. And it wasn't as if she didn't like being around Smoke. He was just...odd. Very odd. Men didn't express interest in Kurayami, not like that. She didn't know why or how she knew that was true, but it was, in the same way that the pencil marks on her paper were gray and Smoke's hair was red.
Giving a weary little sigh, she shifted in her chair and got back to work.
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He simply gave a weak shrug in response to her comment, and just kept staring. Between the dark hair and the aversion to his advances, there was something nostalgic about this kind of a... challenge. Whether from back then or just lost in his blanked Edensphere memories, he knew he'd never know, but it felt good all the same.
And so long as she wasn't kicking him out the door, he'd continue to admire her from a distance. For now.
... Didn't mean he had to stay quiet about it, though.
"Really, no one's ever said something like that to you? Surprises me, to be honest--"
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