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le-amewzing · 1 year

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A Space for the Two of Us

Am I once again behind on the manga? Yep! But do I need more Ayakine? YEP! 8D

Fic: "A Space for the Two of Us" [FFN] [AO3]

Pairings/Characters: pre?Miki Kinemi/Aizawa Ayano

Rating: K

Words: ~2,120

Summary: A rare opportunity gives Kinemi and Ayano a moment to themselves on campus.

"Extra credit." It's a term teachers dangled in middle school and in high school, in front of overachievers as well as those who definitely needed it. It's also a term Kinemi didn't hear once in prep school, in her pre-Geidai days, and she hasn't heard it since the school year began, either.

Until now.

Technically, none of the professors have spoken the words aloud, and the same goes for the assistants. A bulletin was posted this week outside their section's classroom, and the objective of the extra assignment is as frustratingly vague as a lecture point uttered from one of their professors' mouths (Extra Credit: portray a favorite subject or concept using an unfamiliar or hated medium).

Is it really as on-the-nose as it seems? Express something they love…using a manner they dislike to express it? This makes Kinemi scratch her head and wonder, too, how many of her classmates will take the teachers up on this opportunity when it's a good chance to expose one's weak points. After all, extra credit is a maybe, not a given.

Not to mention they have so little free time in art school. Extra credit. The professors dole out difficult assignments and in the same breath remind them to pace themselves, to "take it easy!" (Just not too easy.) The timing and possible hidden meaning behind this seem like another enigmatic riddle from the mysterious minds of Nekoyashiki, Tsukinoki, or Rosei, for sure.

Still, all her misgivings aside, Kinemi mulls over her least favorite media (hmm, papier-mâché? …maybe…skilled 3D renders of any sort?) and gathers her materials from home and the school store alike. She has an idea in mind already, so that's the next item on her checklist ticked. But next—

Well, the leaning tower of supplies blocks her way heading out from her apartment. …yeah, this isn't a project to be done at home.

Summoning her volleyball-honed strength, Kinemi slings the trash bag-sized loads of supplies on either arm and leaves for Geidai. Her supplies smash her backpack between her shoulder blades, but it's necessary discomfort, since Geidai's her only hope…

…or so she thought. Despite not having class herself until late afternoon today, she can't find an empty room to spread out no matter where she turns! And the library's a no-go. It'd be one thing if her piece were something small she could work on quietly, but that's not the case.

But it doesn't matter where she turns. Stunningly, today every classroom in the oil painting building is in use, by lecturer or by club or by student. Kinemi peeks in the window of every door, mostly ignored, sometimes catching a tired instructor's annoyed gaze. The latter makes the blonde duck her head in apology every time, and it's not long before she's searched every room on every floor only to determine that there is, surprisingly, no room in this place for one of its very own students.

Kinemi exits the oil painting building with slumped shoulders. She very keenly feels the weight of her supplies now (and this isn't even for a graded project…), wondering if she got ahead of herself. The extra credit assignment is due by the end of the month, so she still has time, but Kinemi dislikes this ill omen of being thwarted from trying to start right away.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket then, scaring her, but Kinemi's so overloaded that she can't reach it at that second. But, in jolting, Kinemi's attention is torn from her shoes on the ground as she wanders campus—

—and she catches sight of a familiar pair of hair buns far in the distance, heading into the general studies building.

Reinvigorated by the sight of Ayano, Kinemi jogs after her friend. She doesn't catch up with her outside the front doors or right inside the lobby, but eventually the heavy footfall following her causes Ayano to glance over her shoulder as she descends a staircase. She slows to a stop and smiles when Kinemi joins her.

"Ayano-chan, hey!" Kinemi gasps.

"Ara, ara, that's quite a load you're carrying, Kinemi-chan," Ayano points out. She cocks her head to the side to peek behind the taller girl and surveys the art store Kinemi crammed into bags. Her lips curve downward. "Kinemi-chan…"

"I'm not overdoing it, I promise," she insists, because Ayano's used that tone of voice a handful of time since the mikoshi incident, so Ayano doesn't even need to add anything for Kinemi to understand. She inhales, exhales, gets her pulse under control, and nods to her fluffy-haired companion. "It's all for the extra credit. But what about you? Do I have your schedule wrong? I thought you don't have any classes right now, same as me."

Ayano can't hold her frown long. It melts into a pout first before she caves and returns to her usual smile. She shakes her head. "I don't. Come on," Ayano says simply. No explanation. She faces forward and beckons Kinemi with one well-manicured hand curling fingers over her shoulder.

Kinemi follows Ayano along the tiled hallway. They hook a right at the end and continue for three doors before Ayano stops and tries the handle of one. When the door opens into darkness, Ayano reaches in and flips on the light.

She holds her left arm aloft, motioning Kinemi in first. "Head on in."

Kinemi enters…and gapes. The room is a hair larger than their normal classroom, but this one has two rows of eight black-topped tables in the center. At one end of the room, there's a counter separating two sinks; at the other end, it's wide open space draped with tarps and a thin layer of dust. At least, Kinemi hopes it's dust. She glances at Ayano for details.

Ayano places her oversized purse on the table nearest the door and fishes out a hair tie to gather up the rest of her tresses. "It's an old lab. I heard they were planning on…either converting it or demoing it or remodeling. Something like that. Anyway. No one's been using this space all year."

"And it's just—been unlocked?!"

"If it had any chemicals, those are long gone." She walks to the sink closer to the windows and twists a handle; water gushes from the faucet. "On the bright side, they haven't shut the water off yet. So this is a great place to spread out."

Kinemi's supply bags slide from her shoulders, hitting the floor with twin thuds that make Ayano's eyes widen in concern. Yet Kinemi heaves a sigh of relief (and, ah, do her eyes feel wet? no, that must be the dust in this abandoned room getting in her eyes and making them itchy). "Ayano-chan…! Thank you so much for sharing your secret studio space with me…!"

The apples of Ayano's cheeks pink. Once more, she shakes her head. "There's plenty of space for both of us. Of course I'd share it with you, Kinemi-chan." She clears her throat. "Don't worry about the tarps in the back. It's a little dusty, but it's mostly just some dried concrete. You're good to lay out your own tarp and work back there, if you need to."

Kinemi nods. Once she returns her attention to her own belongings, Ayano returns to the table by the door, and the girls mostly operate in the same room but in separate spheres. Kinemi lays her own cloth down and stages her supplies in the back of the room, and Ayano…well, Ayano quietly works on whatever it is she brought with her.

Kinemi gets down to business, tearing strips of decorative papers and sorting them into piles. She's also got a wireframe to create, adjust, tear apart and redo, and adjust again, as many times as it takes until she feels satisfied with it. Then she begins stirring the bucket with her adhesive mixture and, when it's ready, she builds. One strip at a time.

The hardest part of finding time to work on a project like this and actually working on it is the instant she becomes entranced, Kinemi knows. That's why she's got to set a timer on her phone in her pocket and set it to vibrate so it'll bring her head down from being in the creative clouds. So when it buzzes, an hour and a half into her project, Kinemi snaps out of her trance, is reminded of her buzzing phone causing her to notice Ayano earlier (thank you, junk text!), and turns to see what Ayano's up to.

Ayano's back is to her, but the fluffy-haired artist has something laid out on the table and has a paintbrush in hand. How unusual.

Kinemi's curiosity sparks, but the strangeness of their morning overall strikes her now, too. Kinemi's used to sharing studio space with others, classmates or not. She's also used to being alone while creating.

But this, Kinemi realizes, is the first time she and Ayano have shared the same studio space, just the two of them. And yet, for all that quiet, Kinemi not once has felt alone in this room.

That thought brings a small, warm smile to Kinemi's face (she knows it's warm—she can feel it in her chest), and she hopes Ayano doesn't mind as she sidles up to the other girl. Kinemi leans on the edge of the table and takes a peek at Ayano's work. "Extra credit, Ayano-chan?" she asks.

Ayano's hand stills, and her cheeks take on an amazing amount of red as she pulls a face, but she unfurls from the tiny canvas she's been painting. "…yeah."

"Are those mini canvases? So cute!"

Ayano puts her brush down and runs a tired hand through her fringe with a sigh. "Are they? They're all different shapes, though, so they don't exactly go together. But a mini canvas means I don't have to paint as much…"

Kinemi's heart twinges. Her, doing papier-mâché. Ayano, painting. They're both trying to conquer their enemy media. But whereas Kinemi's will take layers and layers and layers, and she might finish in the nick of time… Her eyes rove over the canvases Ayano has out.

There are six total. Square, rectangle, circle, hexagon, triangle, and star. The rectangular canvas is complete and the square's in-progress, but Ayano's got an underpainting or a sketch on the rest. And Kinemi glimpses the story in them.

The first piece has two tiny silhouettes in front of her and Ayano's prep school.

The second piece…Kinemi can't make out all of it but is sure she glimpses a volleyball and her old uniform.

She reddens when she notes a leg cast on the circular canvas (because not everyone wants their injuries memorialized).

But her heart skips a beat when she grasps little tick marks indicating cherry blossoms…oh, the star is their high school graduation.

In the triangle, Kinemi sees the banner from the Geidai opening ceremony. And on the hexagon…it's only a faint sketch. Is it them in the happi from the cultural festival? Or is it them wearing housecoats while under the kotatsu at Ayano's apartment at New Year's?

Ayano reaches for that one. "Th-That's not fully developed," she mumbles as she tries to set it aside.

"No, Ayano-chan—" Without thinking, Kinemi reaches out, hoping to keep the canvas in place, where it belongs, with the rest of its family, telling the rest of her and Ayano's story.

Their hands brush. It's not as though they've never touched before, and Ayano tucks her arm into Kinemi's half the time when they walk. But this morning, and after this reveal, it's not quite the same, and both girls jolt.

Kinemi's face warms. She watches Ayano re-sort her canvases and hide away the hexagon. Kinemi glances, too, to her own project in the back of the room.

(To the torso. To this papier-mâché model that's from neck to waist and doesn't have arms yet but will. It will capture the elegance of the curves—neck, arms, waist, breasts—that press against her so casually, so regularly, that Kinemi knows them well. That's why she chose decorative paper—only the finest things to drape over such elegance.)

Kinemi clears her throat and clasps her hands behind her back, gently backing off. "Well, whenever you're ready to show yours, Ayano-chan, I'm ready to show mine."

And Ayano nods, cheeks still ruddy, but she's calmer now, and they resume working in silence.

Except now, Kinemi notes, it's a kind of charged silence…because they'll see each other's completed work sooner or later, with this assignment due at the end of the month. And extra credit? Extra credit is a maybe, not a given.

But owning up to each other about what they're feeling? Well, that's….

Done for the 5, 10, 20, 50, 70, 100 Fandoms Challenge as well as the If You Dare Challenge (for prompt #975: head in the clouds) in the HPFC forum on FFN, in addition to minifemslashfeb 2023 (scenario 2: accidentally touched your hand) and Year of the OTP (February prompt: different) on tumblr. :3c So, funnily enough, it's been almost a yr since I last wrote for BP (I've done a little art since then). And my last fic, "soft & cute things," also had an extra credit premise, *lol*. But I liked going this route here, bc I feel extra credit in school could legit sometimes be embarrassing and not straightforward… Also, legit I totes described my old lab room, just shoddy. X'D I do love Ayakine's friendship and tension/vibe that is just like…be married already. I left off on ch50 of the manga, so I have some reading to do, but I also have waaay more art ideas rn than fic (altho another Ayakine occurred to me recently), so pls check out my art tag for mostly Ayakine and Yatoyota things~ This yr I also wanna doodle everyone (more Yuka, more Hashida, compelled to draw Murai finally), so. Hopefully we'll see a bit more than ship art on my blog. XD

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave an anon/unsigned review via the FFN link or comment via the AO3 link at the top of the post, especially if you enjoyed this! Check out my other fics if you liked this, too!

~mew

#blue period #ブルーピリオド #ayakine #miki kinemi #aizawa ayano #fanfic #mew writes too much #femslash february #minifemslashfeb2023 #yearoftheotp #i'm back with the girllssss

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