17 Alone in a Boy's Room

Sunday has finally arrived and the last emotion Shujinkou was feeling was nervousness. Instead the current emotion that was present in him was annoyance.

"I just can't win with these medal pulls…" he sighed.

After failing to receive the advertised medal for the 3rd time in Kingdom Hearts Union X, the disappointed gamer closed the app just as he was approached by his mother. Sweeping her chestnut bangs away from her matching eyes, a soft smile appeared on Hiro's face as she analyzed her son's choice of wardrobe.

"You should cheer up, Shujinkou. A good host has to have an air of positivity," she advised.

"I know," Shujinkou faintly grinned.

"It's a shame I won't get to meet your friend," she added.

Shujinkou couldn't really find it in him to agree with that sentiment. While he loves his mom and considers her the coolest mom in existence, he can't see a scenario where any mother wouldn't react in a weird way to a girl visiting their son's home. Fortunately for him, he didn't give his mother enough information to discover the gender of his partner and she'll be gone all day so the two won't have a chance to meet.

Shujinkou followed to Hiro to the entrance of their home and watched her open the doorway to a bright and sunny day.

"By the way, Shujinkou…" Hiro raised her left index finger.

"Yeah?" Shujinkou answered.

"You might want to take off your Big Boss eyepatch before your partner gets here," she grinned, closing the door behind her.

Finally remembering that he was only using half of his vision for an hour, Shujinkou sheepishly removed the eyepatch from over his right eye and quickly stuffed it into his pocket.

"That was a close one," he chuckled. "Anyway…"

Shujinkou glanced down at his phone and checked the time.

"Natsuki should be here soon," he thought. "I wonder if I can complete a job on Sly 3 before she gets here."

The sudden vibration of his phone gave him the answer to that very question and he sorrowfully opened the front door.

"Sup?" Natsuki waved.

"Hey, Natsuki," Shujinkou greeted his project partner. It was a strange feeling. Ever since the two planned for this visit, Shujinkou expected to be a nervous wreck when Natsuki finally arrived, but instead he felt surprisingly calm.

"You gonna keep staring or are you going to let me in?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh right," Shujinkou stepped away from the entrance, allowing his partner to enter his home.

"Yeesh, if you're already spacing out then we're going to be in serious trouble," Natsuki said bluntly.

"You don't need to worry about that. I'm totally in to this assignment," Shujinkou assured her.

"You better!" Natsuki grinned.

From the corner of his eyes, Shujinkou noticed Natsuki's hands tightly wrapped around the handle of a small pink box.

"What's that?" he asked.

"This…" Natsuki averted her gaze as her cheeks changed colors to match her pink hair. "It's a surprise."

"What is it?" Shujinkou asked.

"Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if I told you," Natsuki answered in an annoyed tone.

Shujinkou couldn't understand why Natsuki quickly grew irritated two questions in, but decided to stop before any more negative emotions could rise. After all, they wouldn't be able to successfully work together if Natsuki was cranky all day.

"So where are we working?" she asked.

"Well, everything we need is in my room so…" Shujinkou nervously scratched his right cheek before leading Natsuki to his room. All he could think about with each step was the hope that she wouldn't judge it too harshly.

"Huh," those were the only words that came out of Natsuki's mouth as she inspected every inch of her partner's room.

It was quite the enlightening experience for her. She expected him to have a large collection of video games and manga, but she never expected a desk that held many different kinds of art supplies. She was also surprised that everything in the room was actually well organized.

"I didn't think it would look so… tidy," marveled Natsuki.

"You think?" Shujinkou asked.

"Well, I did expect it to be a total pigsty," she admitted.

"Well, I couldn't let my partner hang out in a pigsty all day," Shujinkou chuckled. "So… got any ideas for the poster?"

"First thing we need to know is what the place looks like," Natsuki pointed out.

"Got us covered there," Shujinkou grinned.

He enthusiastically walked to his desk and handed a stack of paper to his partner. To her complete surprise, each one was a drawing of various areas of the spa resort. Plus, the fact that he could draw so well in the first place was another surprise she didn't see coming.

"Why did you draw all of these?" she asked. "We could have just used the internet."

"True, but I was worried that if we ran into pre-existing posters, we may unconsciously plagiarize from them," Shujinkou explained.

"That's… That's actually pretty smart," Natsuki admitted at a barely audible level.

After analyzing all of the drawings, she carefully handed them back to Shujinkou with a confident grin on her face.

"I think I got an idea of what we should make," Natsuki said.

"What are you thinking?" Shujinkou asked.

"Well, everyone's most likely going to be making extravagant posters for the contest. So, to make ours stand out more it would be best to make our design simple, yet effective," Natsuki explained.

"So, no trying to squeeze everything the resort has into one poster?" Shujinkou asked.

"No, dummy. We can just write some of that stuff down. Since the main draw of a spa resort is the spa then that should be the main subject of the poster," Natsuki explained.

"I see…" Shujinkou closed his eyes and tried to imagine the result of Natsuki's idea. "What kind of art style should we use?"

"Something eye-popping and cute!" Natsuki enthusiastically suggested.

"Kawaii, then," Shujinkou concluded.

The young artist slowly moved his desk to the middle of his room and lowered it to down to where it could only reach their ankles. He then moved his supplies off the desk and neatly spread a 24 x 36 inch paper on top.

"How long do you think this will take?" Natsuki asked.

"Well, there are several phases," Shujinkou replied. "I'm not going to lie; this will probably take all day."

"Does it really take that long?" she asked, perplexed.

"It's a real time flies by hobby," Shujinkou chuckled. "If you want, you can read whatever's in my literature collection."

Taking Shujinkou up on his offer, the curious Natsuki approached one of his bookshelves and examined its contents.

"Naruto… Bleach… One Piece… Not surprised he likes The Big 3," Natsuki thought. "Dragon Ball… Crash Bandicoot… Hikaru no Go?"

Natsuki reached out and grabbed the 1st volume of Hikaru no Go.

"What's this one about?" Natsuki inquired.

"It's about a boy who comes across an old Go board that gets him attached to an old sprit who is a master at the game," Shujinkou shortly summarized.

Natsuki took another glance at the book before making her way towards its owner. She then sat down next to Shujinkou as he got to work.

The task at hand was to sketch a background image that would catch the viewer's attention. With that idea in mind, Shujinkou started to jolt down small light lines across the paper to serve as a guide. Once done, he guided his pencil to the bottommost guide line and started to sketch out the image in his head.

"Heh, I already like this Hikaru guy!" Natsuki laughed.

Wondering what could elicit such a reaction from her, Shujinkou glanced towards the book and realized she was at the moment when Hikaru dropped a cup filled with stones on a bully's head. He could understand why that scene would endear Hikaru to her. She would probably do the same if she could in a similar situation.

30 minutes quickly passed by and Natsuki promptly stood up to get the next volume of Hikaru no Go. 30 more minutes pass until a satisfied Shujinkou was able to finish his sketch.

"Done," he said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Let's see!" Natsuki eagerly replied.

From the corner of her eyes, Natsuki noticed her partner was staring at her with a surprised expression on her face.

"Don't make this weird! I just need to make sure you didn't mess anything up," Natsuki averted her gaze. "It's not like I'm that eager to see to if it's as good as I was expec-"

Natsuki quickly caught her words and backtracked to the beginning.

"Point is, I need to make sure it's good enough to send in!" Natsuki defensively announced.

"Okay, I get it," Shujinkou weakly chuckled. "Sorry for making a big deal."

"Forget about it," she sighed.

Shujinkou watched her look over the finished sketch and noticed her face light up in surprise.

"Not bad," Natsuki said, trying her hardest to hide her impressed expression. "Now we can add the wording."

She reached for one of Shujinkou's pencils and started jolting down some of the activities that anyone could do at the resort.

"Whoa, I never expected Natsuki's handwriting to be so… cute. Plus it fits with the art style," Shujinkou thought.

After finishing with the activities list, Natsuki moved to the top of the page and designed her own version of the spa resort's logo.

"Done," the satisfied girl announced. "Not bad for a beginner right?"

"It looks great," Shujinkou complimented. "Very kawaii. Now we can move on to the next phase."

"Which is?" Natsuki inquired.

Shujinkou reached for two thin black permanent markers and handed one to Natsuki.

"The inking phase," he grinned. "In this phase of the drawing process, we outline all the pencil lines we want to keep before erasing everything. With the two of us working together, it should make the process go by faster."

Natsuki removed the cap from her marker and started to trace what she wrote, but Shujinkou had a problem with his marker.

"I think my cap is stuck…" Shujinkou said as he struggled to remove the cap.

"Don't tell me you can't open a simple marker," Natsuki teased.

Shujinkou smirked at Natsuki's light teasing and continued to try to open the marker. After 5 minutes of nonstop struggle, he was finally able to separate the marker from its cap… while accidently drawing a horizontal line on Natsuki's left cheek.

"You did not just…" Natsuki gently touched her left cheek before a devious smirk spread across her face.

"I-It was an accident," Shujinkou stammered, slowly inching himself from his partner. He had seen enough fiction to recognize the look that was in her eye.

Natsuki lunged towards the nervous Shujinkou, forcing him to grab both her arms to keep her from getting her vengeance.

"Come on, Natsuki, it really was an accident," he laughed.

"Yeah and that mustache on your face was an accident too," she snickered.

Despite trying his best to keep her back, Natsuki was easily able to overpower him and draw a small mustache on his face. If having his face violated wasn't bad enough, Shujinkou suddenly lost the ability to sit up and fell on his back, with his attacker following suit.

All day, Shujinkou has tried his best to remain calm in order to be a good host, but no amount of mental preparation could have prepared him for having a girl literally on top of him. Shivers jolted through his entire body as he felt hot breaths coming from her parted lips make contact with his skin. In such a situation, all he could do was stare at his attacker as the pink hue of her cheeks intensified.

"What's going on?" Shujinkou thought, trying his best to wrap his head around the entire situation.

Seconds later, Natsuki slowly sat up and moved away from Shujinkou. Without saying a word, Natsuki grabbed her marker and started tracing the line again.

"What just happened?" Shujinkou mumbled.

After spending a few moments staring blankly at the ceiling, he cautiously sat up and checked the poster. To his amazement, the tracing was all done.

"What do we do after this again?" Natsuki asked, unable to take her eyes off the paper.

"Now we got to erase all the pencil lines," Shujinkou nervously answered. "Since you did all the tracing, I'll handle this part."

He reached for a white eraser and started erasing all the lines he drew. In the middle of his erasing, he glanced to his right and noticed Natsuki was eerily silent. At that point, all he could think about was how he could disperse the awkward atmosphere that they were in the middle of.

As he continued to erase the pencil lines, a very risky idea made itself known in his head. Once he was done erasing, he grabbed his marker and quickly drew two horizontal lines below the one on her left cheek and three more on her right cheek.

"What was that for?!" she exclaimed.

"Payback," Shujinkou replied. "What happened in the beginning was an accident, but since you decided to give me a villainous mustache, I gave you cat whiskers."

Shujinkou didn't care if Natsuki got mad at him and started complaining about what he just did; all he cared about was trying to diffuse the awkward situation between them. As he braced himself for the inevitable, Natsuki simply raised her phone and used its front camera to examine her face.

"At least I look cool with the whiskers," she laughed. "That mustache just makes you look dumb."

"Wait, what?!" Shujinkou exclaimed. "You're not supposed to enjoy my payback."

"Well that just means you suck at getting payback," Natsuki teased.

"Ugh…" While on the outside Shujinkou seemed disappointed, on the inside he was just glad that he was able to complete his mission.

"So, now we can finally color this thing right?" Natsuki asked.

"Yep," Shujinkou answered, placing a set of colored pencils between them. "Now it's time to bring the poster to life.

The two grabbed a few pencil and started coloring the poster. As they did so, Shujinkou offered Natsuki advice on lighting, how much weight you press against the paper and other things he figured she should know. Surprisingly, she didn't make any snarky comments in response to his advice. They also discussed the literary tropes they noticed in the different genres of manga and engaged in a discussion about anime adaptations of their favorite series. It took a while but Natsuki was finally able to allow herself to feel relaxed in her current environment.

After hours of hard work, the two were finally able to finish their poster entry.

"Looks good," Shujinkou said, satisfied with the finished product.

"Looks good? It looks great!" Natsuki beamed.

Shujinkou stretched his aching arms and noticed the surprise Natsuki brought with her hanging off his door handle.

"By the way, what's in that thing you brought over?" he asked.

"That?" Natsuki's entire body tensed up as she remembered what she bought over. "It's nothing."

"What? But you said it was a surprise," Shujinkou reminded her.

"Just forget about!" she said, slightly raising her voice. "You'd probably think it's stupid anyway…"

"I wouldn't think that," Shujinkou replied. He could tell that his partner wasn't convinced and pointed to the marker lines on his face. "Whatever it is, it can't be more stupid than how my face looks right now."

"Well, that's true," Natsuki chuckled.

"I promise you I won't think it's stupid," Shujinkou assured her.

Without saying a word, Natsuki slowly walked to the door and carried the package with her on the walk back. She then opened it, revealing the contents inside to her partner.

"That's…" Shujinkou could kick his 6th sense for not alerting him to what lied inside the package.

There were two cupcakes inside; each one decorated with a chibi version of their faces on them.

"My sweets radar must be off today," Shujinkou thought.

"Well?" Natsuki stared at Shujinkou as if she was waiting for his response.

"Huh? Oh, thanks Natsuki," he smiled, reaching for the cupcake with his face on it.

He eagerly took a bite and a delighted expression grew on his face. For some reason, Natsuki's cupcakes tasted even sweeter. He then noticed from the corner of his eyes that Natsuki was trying her best to hide a faint smile until a sad expression replaced it.

"Oh crap! It's getting late," she said.

Shujinkou looked towards his window and noticed that the sun was starting to set.

"Guess that means that you got to leave now, huh?" he asked.

"Well, duh, dummy," she replied.

Without saying another word, Natsuki closed the package and followed her partner to the front door.

"Well… I guess I'll be going now," Natsuki said.

"Do you want me to walk you home?" Shujinkou offered.

"Yeah right. My dad would kill me if I came home with a boy," she pouted.

"Well, I wouldn't want that to happen," Shujinkou nervously scratched his right cheek. "I'll be sure to turn the poster in tomorrow."

"You better not forget," Natsuki replied.

"I won't," Shujinkou assured her. "So…"

The two awkawardly stared at each other.

"See you at school tomorrow," Shujinkou waved goodbye.

"Right," Natsuki waved back, before taking her leave.

Shujinkou slowly closed the front door and headed back up to his room to spend the rest of the night playing Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves… after he remembered to wash the ink mustache off of his face.