vendetta

twenty six

Scaramouche curses when Kaeya happily leads us to where his work is displayed. He tries to get away twice but I won't let go of his hand.

"These three are yours right?" Kaeya asks Scaramouche.

There are three pieces of art displayed together, right in front of a sakura tree too.

"Yeah." Scara grumbles.

The first piece is drawn, it's similar to the sakura tree I saw back then in his notebook. Except it looks much better now, detailed and with shadows.

The group is somewhat in awe at the talent he has, complimenting him.

The second piece is painted, it looks like a storm in the sky. Vibrant colours showing the lightning behind dark clouds. It's pretty realistic too.

"Wait isn't that-" Yoimiya gets cut off by Scara.

"No it's not."

"It's not what?" I step closer to the final work.

"Look, doesn't it kind of look like-" Yoimiya attempts again.

"No it doesn't." Scaramouche's voice is stern.

The third piece is both drawn and painted, it looks like a windowsill with a person sitting in it. The skies you can see from the window look as if they've been set on fire.

The details everywhere are crazy, it looks eerily familiar...

"Wait..." I step even closer.

No he wouldn't have, would he?

"This is why I didn't want to show you." Scaramouche sighs.

"That's not me right?" I stammer.

"Except it is." His face flushes a shade of red.

"I told ya!" Yoimiya jumps in.

"Shut up!" Scaramoche turns around, hiding his face from me.

He actually did draw me... It's beautiful.

"Let's keep going." Scaramouche walks off to the next pieces.

Scaramouche avoids any commentary about his art the rest of the evening.

We're now gathered at the small makeshift stage that was prepared for the announcement of the winners of the contest.

It looks like Scaramouche was as aware as I was about this being a contest apart from being an exhibition.

The judges are three people from different nations, from Liyue being Xingqui, he might be a freshman here but he's more culturally educated than 90% of all people here.

From Sumeru there's a redhead girl, Nilou? I believe her name is. She's pretty famous there apparently.

Then for Mondstadt there's Diluc. I never expected him to even be here tonight, looks like no one knew it either.

"Thank you everyone for coming tonight! Let's dive right in, these three students will be the judges for tonight. Each from a different region, each voted on by their teachers." The principal's voice sounds loudly over the speakers.

"Good evening, my name is Xinqui. I shall be announcing the winner of third place." The blue haired boy sounds very... elegant?

"We have been discussing this all evening but third place goes to Kaveh! His beautiful painting of the palace of Alcazarzaray was incredibly well made and it showed great detail." Xingqui happily announces.

"Alright, congratulations Kaveh. Let us move on to second place." Diluc now speaks.

"Second place goes to Yun Jin with her work called 'night at the opera'. Congratulations."