A/N: Written for:

The Chain Reaction Challenge, Open Sky - Fashion Disaster
Advent Calendar 2015, Day 25 - Roll up to five dice (that means you only have to roll one or two if you want). That number is how many chapters your fic will have. Rolls: (2)5+1=6
Diversity Writing Challenge, h21 - write a fic that is K rated
Chapter Set Boot Camp, #022 - 6 chapters
Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Chrome Mine task
The Endurance Challenge, week 21-23

Stormy Inspiration
Chapter 1 – Open Sky

.

He likes to sketch the clouds.

They seem like such a boring thing to others, but he likes them. They look so subtly different every time and catching them in his sketchbook is an art in itself, and an art he aims for.

They are different characters, those clouds, and he'll never catch them all. But he'll try.

And in his sketchbook will be portrait pictures of each and every one.

.

It's Sunday morning and it's sunny. Takato takes his book outside because that's the best view. A school roof would be nice but those aren't allowed. Not at his school anyway. Too many chances for accidents and maybe high school will be the same once he gets there, or maybe he'll make it into that art college and they'll be more accommodating to the artistic muses they house and there'll be some high vantage point from where he can see the clouds even more closely than before.

But that was only a dream at this point when he is still in elementary school, so Sundays at the park it is. This time, it's tiptoeing off with the dawn because for once he's on top of his homework and his parents are happy for him to spend a little extra time out of the house when he is (and more time at his desk when he's not). And because of that, he has so few dawn clouds that he'll take any opportunity he can get for another one.

And besides that, the air smells lovely with a hint of the pre-dawn chill in it. Of course, he's got a jacket on but no mittens – because how is he supposed to draw with mittens? And his parents will be up soon too because the bakery opens at seven regardless of the day and there'll be the smell of fresh bake and cocoa adrift when he returns.

The thought of cocoa and cream buns for breakfast is making his toes curl with warmth already. And he laughs, even though there's no-one to hear.

And then he thinks he better get sketching before the dawn's gone, and he opens his sketchbook on his lap and does exactly that. But of course the dawn is a fleeting, teasing, thing and he has to fill the rest of it in from memory and that takes a bit of doing, and quite a bit of concentration, and it still doesn't look exactly right at the end –

'Ooh, that's beautiful.'

He fumbles and manages to catch the sketchbook, but the pencils roll. Something green flashes before him and he blinks, and there's one of the girls from school handing him his pencils back.

And he was pretty absorbed in his cloud portrait before that. No wonder he didn't hear her coming.

'Thanks,' he says gratefully, accepting the pencils. 'And sorry. I was –'

'Concentrating,' Juri supplies. 'This doesn't look like the morning sky. There isn't that much…shade?'

'Well, colour.' He shrugs. 'I was just using a lead pencil though so shades works.'

'Like the black and white picture that snaps a scene originally in colour?' she asks, before giggling. 'Or the school photo-copier.'

The school photocopier, or the student one anyway, is notorious for leaving a black streak in the middle of each page it copied. It really is a blemish but no-one's gotten around to fixing it yet and it's not like the pages they copy aren't readable. They're just not…aesthetic, and sometimes Takato wonders if it ever bothers anyone aside from him.

But then someone complains and he knows it does bother them too otherwise they wouldn't mention it.

He grins at her too. 'Hope that doesn't mean my drawings have a streak of something in the middle.'

'Does it really? Does it really?' He blinks as Juri's voice suddenly changes, but then realises a sock puppet is examining every inch of his sketch. It's actually rather…endearing. 'Nope, I can't see any.'

And no, he does not suddenly want to sketch that girl and her sketch puppet…especially since the news will probably be all around school by tomorrow if he asks.

'Is it weird?' Juri asks softly, following his eyes but not the train of thought behind them. 'I mean, my little brother loves it, but – ' She stumbles suddenly. 'Not that I'm comparing you to my little brother, but…' She shrugs helplessly. 'I'm digging myself further into a hole, aren't I?'

'A little bit,' Takato admits. 'But we all do that. And it's not weird at all. To be honest, I was thinking how cool it'd be to sketch you and your sock-puppet, but…'

'You want to?' She considers a moment, then grins. 'Hey, if you can give a cloud that much life without even using colour pencils, I'm game.'

'You are?' Whoops, and he hadn't even planned to ask. 'That's great.' Now what? 'But…umm…could you keep it a secret? Hirokazu and Kenta are great and all, but they don't really get art.'

'Everyone has things special to them,' says Juri, and for some reason, she looks a little sad, before she grins. 'Secret commission, got it. But does this mean I can show my little brother?'

'Sure thing.' Because how could he deny showing a little kid an art piece with their big sister as the centrepiece? And now that he thinks about it, Juri's always cheerful. A grey pencil just isn't going to do that justice. It can handle the clouds in all their moods because clouds are never around on a clear day where only the sun shines because that's what they call a cloudless sky and it's painfully hard to draw the sun. It usually winds up being the white in the centre of the page, with the sky as the shades of grey all around. 'Maybe I'll paint a colour version for him.'

'Sounds like a deal.' They shake on it. 'Are you heading back now? I'll walk you if you are.'

Takato wonders why he doesn't talk to Juri more often. What sort of textbook girl offers to walk the guy back home?

'I'm getting cream buns for breakfast,' she explains.

'And cocoa,' he adds. At her confused look, he explains: 'our breakfast.'

'Ooh,' she says. 'Cocoa sure sounds yum, but since 'tou-san runs a bar, it'll probably be orange juice for us.'

'You could…eat with us,' he suggests, before realising he's just invited a girl for breakfast, and a classmate at that.

But since it's the same cream buns they're talking about…

'Okay,' she agrees. 'And I'll buy some buns for morning tea then.'

So they do wind up walking back after all, because Takato is sufficiently distracted and the dawn sky is long gone. Now it's the open morning: bright with the sun leaving the sky as a single shade of blue save the clouds of grey and white that are its subjects.

'By the way,' Juri asks, 'aren't you supposed to get all flustered when someone peaks at your sketch book, not offer to draw them instead?'

Takato shrugs. 'Maybe,' he agrees. He sees enough people do that…including Kenta if someone reads one of his little vignettes before he's ready to share. 'But these are my cloud portraits, and if you can compliment them instead of laugh at them, what have I got to hide?'

And she seems surprised at the answer. 'How could I laugh? I never thought a cloud had so much detail to it!'

Which is his point exactly, but most people don't seem to see it. So he can't help but walk on clouds under the open sky until the shade of the Matsuda's bakery was above them.