Chapter 237 – Advice for a Friend (1)

"It's late, what are you doing here, Maki-kun? Are you still waiting for Umi?"

Amami-san ran over to me with a smile on her face.

There were blue and white paints in her right hand and a brush in her left. It seemed like she was still working at this late hour.

"Mhm. It seems like she's going to take a little longer… Wait, she just texted me."

When I checked my phone, Umi texted me.

[Umi: It'll be done soon.]

[Umi: Wait for a bit, okay?]

[Maki: Okay, good luck.]

[Umi: Thank you. Give me lots of love later, okay?]

[Maki: When we get home, yes, sure.]

[Umi: Hehe, I'll look forward to it.]

I promised to meet her in front of the stairs, then I put my phone back into my pocket.

"…Hehe, are you done talking with Umi?"

"Ah, yes. Sorry for cutting our conversation like that."

"It's fine, it's fine. I don't mind watching you with Umi. You are always smiling so happily."

"Eh, really? I was being careful…"

"Your mouth is twitching a lot, so I could tell~ Ninacchi also knew about it. It's actually obvious that you are trying to hold back from smiling~ Pfft…"

Maybe she remembered something that happened in the past, she suddenly broke into laughter.

Even though we were in different classes, I still texted Umi regularly. To hide my expression, I always tried to put on a poker face or hide my mouth. The gesture was enough to fool the teachers and my other classmates, but it didn't work when it came to Amami-san and Nitta-san…

"A-Anyway, Amami-san… You're doing this on your own? Where's the rest of your team?"

"Ah, yeah. Well, we've finished our work for today, so everyone went home a little earlier, but there's still something that's bothering me, that's why I'm here."

"…Can I see it?"

"Sure. I'm still not done yet though."

The backboard was basically a big wooden plank that everyone painted something on.

From the unfinished work, it seemed like they were trying to paint a big blue dragon on it.

"This is the rough sketch. The others showed me a number of powerful creatures like demons or Raijin, so I used those as reference for this piece…" (T/N: Raijin is the thunder god of in shinto's belief. There are a lot of depictions of him in statues or paintings. He is usually depicted together with Fujin or the wind god, in those pictures, he is the one carrying drums behind him. Fun fact if you're a pokemon player, Thundurus' incarnate form is based on him.)

"…Woah."

I involuntarily let out that cry when I saw the sketch.

If I were to describe it, it was a picture of a giant waterfall being split in half by a blue dragon. The blue dragon was facing upwards and roared toward the sky. Despite the picture being only painted on a piece of paper, I could already feel its oppressive atmosphere.

Because she was the one in charge of sketching for our previous festival's exhibit, some people knew about her artistic sense. And now, she was showing it in full force once again.

Sometimes, they'd recruit some people from the art club for the backboard team, so there were cases in the past where one stood out compared to the rest. Seeing Amami-san's work though, made me think that those works felt inferior.

…But this was only a rough sketch.

"And so, we decided to work on the finer details first. Currently, we're working on the face of the dragon and the parts surrounding it, but when we were working on it, it deviates from the sketch somehow… Can you step back a little, Maki-kun? Ten steps from here will do. Compare our work to the sketch."

"Uh… Here?"

As instructed, I moved away from the board. From where I stood, I compared the painting she was working on with the sketch.

"What do you think?"

"Hm… I don't think there's any problem with it…"

I noticed that there was something off with it, but it was only a small part of it, not enough to make a fuss about.

It would be difficult to maintain a high quality work while working in the middle of the summer heat, but as long as they could finish it properly, the outcome should be good enough.

"Huh? You don't think there's any problem with it? …Hng… But…"

But, it seemed like Amami-san had a different opinion than mine.

"I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like it doesn't look as good as the sketch. That's why I'm thinking of adjusting it myself like this…"

She then changed the shade of blue they were using for the dragon. Because of that, the dragon had a different impression than before.

Since painting on a big wooden plank and a piece of paper was different, it wasn't wrong that there was a need to give some adjustment for the work from time to time. In fact, Umi and I did the same thing last year.

But…

"Amami-san."

"What do you think, Maki-kun? Don't you think it will look better this way? You understand what I'm trying to do, right?"

"Sorry, Amami-san, but I don't think you should do something like this…"

"…Huh?"

Her expression hardened when she heard my answer. Probably because she didn't expect that kind of answer.