"Why are we doing this again?"

"Because you told me that you never got to do this as a kid."

"Regardless, just because I said it, it didn't necessarily mean that it was something that I wanted to do."

Rory laughed at the aghast look on Kyoya's face as he observed what she had set up in Music Room 3. A large white paper was stretched out on the floor and in front of it lay containers of paint in every hue imaginable. It was a Saturday afternoon and Rory had gotten special permission to use the room for a particularly special reason, namely, allowing Kyoya to participate in a childhood activity he had never experienced.

"Come on, Kyoya," she said as she walked over to a chair and grabbed an apron off "You can't say that you've never been at least a little curious about it."

Kyoya looked at her with askance before hesitantly joining her and replying, "I might have been when I was younger and more foolish but the idea lost its appeal once I got older. It's much too messy, after all."

Tossing him the other apron, she answered airily, "That's why I told you to wear old, ratty clothes. And the apron will help too."

With that, she got down on her hands and knees and began to dip her fingers in one of the pigment containers. Kyoya watched her before slowly slipping his own apron on and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. Getting to his knees, he eyed Rory dubiously as she intently ran her paint-covered fingers over the paper presumably in the shape of a flower. Or was it a tree? It didn't really matter to him, all he knew was that this was going to be a dirty, unpleasant business and he was going to try his hardest to enjoy his misery.

Looking over the containers, he finally decided on a bright shade of blue and delicately slipped his fingers in, making a face as he felt the slimy texture. Lifting his hand, he glared for a moment at the back of Rory's head before pressing his fingers on the paper and rubbing the liquid on it. Despite his displeasure at the whole situation, he couldn't help but admire the gradient shades of blue that were spread from his motions.

Giving a triumphant little smirk at his efforts, he glanced at Rory and commented, "Well, considering that I'm a first-timer, I think I'm doing quite well, wouldn't you think Ro..."

He trailed off as he closely inspected her own finger painting. Rory looked up at him from the corner of her eye and gave him her own snide little smile. For while Kyoya had nothing to show for his efforts but a wide streak of blue paint, Rory had created several flowers in various colors, all looking very lifelike, even by Kyoya's rigid standards. Narrowing his eyes, he determinedly dipped both hands in different containers and started to paint his own masterpiece.

Unfortunately, creating realistic looking paintings using only your fingers is easy in theory while much more difficult in practice and he found himself struggling to keep from reducing his carefully rendered likenesses to messy blotches across the paper. He shot Rory many dirty looks which she blissfully chose to ignore, pretending to be completely immersed in her own painted creations but somehow knowing that his were vastly inferior and giving very self-satisfied smiles of her own.

Still, the Shadow King was quite determined to best the host club's resident painter at what he regarded as an immature pastime and he threw himself into the task with vigor for half an hour more before once again sourly observing his companion's paintings. Rory seemed to sense his eyes on her because her lips curled up in an amazingly annoying smirk as she gracefully swept her fingers across the makeshift canvas. Kyoya could only take so much taunting, he was only human, after all, and a wicked thought crossed his mind. Deciding to act on it, he dipped at least half of his hand in the container of bright red paint and smeared it across the landscape that Rory had started. Her reaction was instantaneous.

Rory's mouth dropped open and she snapped, "What did you do that for?!"

Kyoya raised his eyebrows in mock surprise and replied, "Do what, Aurora? It was an accident."

Glaring at him for a moment, Rory replied tartly, "If that was an accident, so was this!"

With that, she sloppily slapped her hand in a jar of paint and began to smear some of it on Kyoya's paintings. Most of her vandalism wasn't as total as his, but the humorous add-ons that she was able to paint on his creations succeeded in annoying him to a higher degree.

"You little brat!" he growled before snatching up a jar of paint and attempting to pour it in his hands to further desecrate her paintings.

Rory dove under him and grabbed at his arms to stop him but this only caused some of it to spill on her head. Kyoya gave a small chuckle at her predicament only to be rewarded with a handful of red paint smearing across his cheek. Rory, immediately realizing the error of his actions, quickly rolled away, disregarding the fact that she was now on the paper and getting paint all over her.

Kyoya recovered from his shock quickly and yelled, "AURORA KOGA!"

Revenge clouding his normally logical thoughts, he grabbed hold of as many jars of paint as he could hold in his arms before scrambling to his target. Rory had stopped rolling for a moment to see what her pursuer was doing but regretted it when she saw that he was rapidly making his way to her. She tried to crawl away as quickly as she could but Kyoya had closed the distance between them during her moment of respite. And now she felt her ankle being grabbed and her body being propelled backwards. She gave a little yelp before finding herself facing Kyoya. Getting a devilish smirk on his face, he dropped all the containers of paint and dipped his hands into as many as he could.

"I'm really quite sorry," he murmured before mashing his paint-covered hands on her face.

Rory squealed before grabbing his arms and rolling him under her. Now that she was effectively sitting on him, she began to pour some of the paint directly on his body and streak it across his shirt, his neck and his face. Kyoya shifted the balance and pinned her down long enough to run some of the paint through her long, curly hair. Rory responded by rubbing paint in the lenses of his glasses and he tossed them away before grabbing her ankles again to prevent her planned escape. The two continued to smear paint on each other and wrestle on the paper, getting messier and messier until Rory started to laugh.

It started out as a quiet sort of giggle but it gradually grew until she was wiping tears out of her eyes from laughing so hard. Unable to properly fight her opponent, she just pushed away his paint-addled hands and collapsed on the canvas amidst chortles. Kyoya stared at her incredulously for a bit before he began to chortle lightly. Soon, they were both sprawled out on the paper, covered in paint, and doubling over with roars of laughter.

When they finally calmed down, Kyoya grabbed his glasses and wiped them off before saying lightly, "Tell me, was finger painting always this riotous?"

Sitting up so she could lean on his back, she replied, "Nah, my dad would've killed me if I got this dirty."

Smiling, Kyoya brushed an errant strand of hair away from her eyes and commented, "Thank you, Rory, for trying to share this with me. I do appreciate it despite what happened."

Warmly returning his smile, she answered, "Hey, it's not my fault you're such a butt-head."

Pushing her head down, he said, "Just as it's not my fault I chose to make friends with such a brat."

Meeting her green eyes with his own slate ones, he added quietly, "But I suppose I'd rather be friends with a brat than anyone else."