Hanabi

Chapter 30: Gifts

As Rina walked slowly and still a bit sleepily, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. Thirst, that’s what alerted her after she woke up in the middle of a dream. She needed a glass of water, so she roamed the house dragging her feet around, not even bothering to look at what time it was. She supposed it was very early, and it was still raining though not as heavily as the day before.

It was a very weird dream, the one she just had. Rina actually giggled to herself a bit, remembering it. During that eccentric little piece of nonsense produced by her mind, there was a moment when she was adamant about having Haruna helping her with Akai while all the shorter girl cared about was running after Mami’s cat all over the place with a tengu mask similar to Sojobou’s covering her face. Kuro-kun had been all over the living room the previous day, which is why Rina figured she was dreaming about the animal. She probably fused Haruna and Tomomi in her dream, since Haruna acted like a cat freak in a sugar rush and kept calling the cat by all possible cute names, something that Tomomi would do. The tengu mask was out of her reach of understanding though, that one she’d have to just accept without thinking too hard on it.

Now, dreaming about Haruna was something new and a bit startling. In fact, Rina didn’t have dreams very often or she simply didn’t remember most of them. But she thought Haruna’s sudden and extremely weird apparition at her room in the middle of the night was to blame.

Her thoughts on it were interrupted when she reached that same open corridor where she saw Haruna practicing outside the day before, but this time it wasn’t the shorter girl who was there. This time she found Mami sitting in the middle of the corridor and facing the rain outside with her back against the wall, her knees up and her hands armed with sketchbook and pencil. She had her glasses on, so it was quite obvious she had been sketching things for a while.

The blonde quickly turned her face to look up at her as she walked closer.

- Morning.

Rina smiled with the greeting, noticing that Mami had sketched something over one entire page.

- Morning, Mami. - she replied and tried to spy on whatever it was that Mami was drawing - What you have there?

- Hm… It isn’t good…

- Come on, don’t give me that nonsense. - Rina said while crossing her arms - Show me.

Mami sighed in defeat. Rina was amused by the reaction, but the amusement was quickly replaced by astonishment when Mami finally raised the sketchbook and showed her the page. Right in front of her eyes was a near perfect, though still unfinished, sketch of Tomomi’s face. Rina would never really understand how people were capable of developing such a skill.

Mami lowered the sketchbook to her lap again and adjusted her glasses.

- It’s not perfect, Rina. It’s a bit off in some places…

- No, it’s not off. And are you really telling me you’re drawing this from memory?

Rina sat down by Mami’s side, noticing how the blonde tapped the pencil against her cheek the same way she would tap her brushes and spread paint all over her face.

- I did have a few chances to look at her face from very close these days, the details come to mind easily. - Mami said in just a bit more than a murmur, and Rina chuckled - But yes, it’s still a bit off. I have to work on it. And I have to hide this sketchbook somewhere safe.

- Why, you don’t want her to see it?

- Not when it doesn’t look perfect. - Rina rolled her eyes at that, and Mami sighed again - Weren’t you thirsty?