A/N: Written for the Crusades into the Celestial Realm Challenge, vs. Lancer (N). And celebrating the new sparkly category Dani (Ayumi Foxtail-Chan) has had added. :D
Shoko Wasn't Special
Shoko wasn't special. She wasn't good at anything: subject or club activity, and the only reason she was in the art club to begin with was because of a boy who probably didn't even notice her.
Not that anyone else noticed her, but he was a special boy. Not someone she had a crush on, but someone who gave her a little bit of courage. Just a little bit. Enough to keep on coming to school. Enough to keep on trying to do something.
Like trying to create art as deep and meaningful as his, even though hers always came out as failures. Horrible little stick figures that looked like they'd been drawn by a child of two or three, with their stubby paint coloured fingers. Clumsy lines she couldn't by any right call art – but she had to call it art, because that meant she could still be in that room, with the other art club members.
Then again, Hiroka was always in the art club, even if she wasn't a member. And Shoko didn't like Hiroka, because Hiroka was good at everything. Looking pretty. Not getting picked on. Talking so casually to everyone she wanted to – including Makoto. Whenever Shoko tried, it was like she got sand in her mouth before the first sentence was finished. The conversation turned too awkward – and Makoto gave off the impression of not liking her as well.
But that was new. And the way he was being so friendly to Hiroka was new as well.
Shoko wasn't special, but she'd looked at Makoto long enough to know the person sitting on that stool now was…different, somehow. But she wasn't good at saying how that was. She'd tried, a couple of times. The first one had been interrupted by Hiroka – but even before that, the words had tumbled over her tongue and made her feel awkward and clumsy inside.
The second was just the two of them, alone in his room, and something that had shaken her – both with shock and the stubborn voice in her head screaming about the falsity of it all.