Life became easier and harder after they lost the shelter; they had more of a support network through work, and there was a constant rotation of people who'd let them stay in their apartments for a few days. Even just a couch, or a tatami mat for a sleeping bag, was a luxury for them compared to sleeping outdoors, especially when there was a bathroom with a shower available.
On the other hand, they could never stay in one place very long, and any real intimacy between the two of them was out of the question - their friends knew they were sisters, but Yukino and Kanade had gone out of their way not to show any real physical affection between themselves. They addressed all these issues by staying at cheap hotels when nothing else was available, but it was hard to find a hotel that allowed dogs, and it cut into their savings.
They stopped by their old home later that next day, but the police had thoroughly swept the area, leaving nothing behind. They'd discussed starting over again, buying the needed supplies and setting up camp somewhere else, but Yukino confessed she didn't feel safe outdoors anymore, and Kanade agreed with her.
Still, they'd become used to spending a lot of their time outdoors, and as spring advanced to summer, they found themselves in parks often: exercising Yu, cloud-gazing, and, for Kanade, sketching.
"What are you drawing?"
Kanade startled, and hid the tablet in embarrassment before realizing it was just a girl asking her a question; she relaxed and uncovered her drawing. "Nothing, just... silliness, I'm drawing my sister and our dog playing..."
"Hmm... but your sister has dog ears herself, in the drawing." the girl said, peering closer.
"Yes, well..."
"I like it, it's very cute. Will you draw me next?"
"I... we're not really planning on staying that much longer..." she said, trying to ignore the giggling from Yukino that indicated they'd be staying at least an hour longer, playing with the dog.
"What if I paid you five hundred yen?" The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin.
Kanade paused, pretending to chew her stylus for a moment. "A thousand," she said, eventually, hating herself a little for bargaining with a ten year old. But, she reminded herself, she was homeless, disowned, an international laughing stock, etc. The universe owed her... and besides, the girl had approached her first.
"Ok," the girl said, not even pausing before reaching for another coin. "But you have to draw me with kitty ears."
Kanade nodded, opened a new canvas, and got started.
That evening they were crashing at a friend's apartment while she was out of town. Kanade was tearing through all the manga collections she hadn't read over the past few years, while Yukino was playing with their tablet. Yu slept at their feet, dreaming and drooling.
"Kana-chan..." Yukino said idly. "This drawing of the girl..."
"I told you, she offered me money, I didn't make her pay..." Kanade started defensively.
"No, no, it's not that, it's just that you did two different versions."
"Oh, right. Well, she didn't like the first one, she wanted to have her eyes closed in the drawing. So I just made a copy and edited it on the fly. I thought I erased the original..."
"No, it's fine, look... if you switch back and forth between them, it looks like she's blinking!" She giggled.
"Congratulations, you've just discovered basic animation, Yuki-chan." She rose and kissed her sister's forehead. "I'm going to bed, you coming?"
"In a minute," Yukino said, still giggling and flicking the pictures back and forth. Kanade shrugged and almost dove into the covers.
The next morning she woke with Yukino snoring loudly next to her. After bathroom and coffee, she picked up her tablet to see the picture of the girl from yesterday.
The girl blinked at her once, and then again. She kept blinking every few seconds, but randomly, as far as Kanade could tell. She looked at the file information, and saw it was a single animated GIF, but altered in some way she couldn't quite figure out.
Kanade started to tab through some of the other open pictures, and saw other old drawing of hers altered to combine different versions, animating the difference. The result was... hypnotic, even though the effect should have been trivial. It was like her drawings had come alive in some small way.
"Do you like it?" Kanade startled as Yukino walked up behind her, sipping coffee. "I was up late last night playing with some things, and I ended up making a bunch of those from your old drawings. I actually even ended up making a little program to animate the difference between two of them and produce a single file..."
"Yuki, this is... kind of amazing," Kanade said, continuing to flip between the different images. "I didn't know you knew how to do this kind of thing."
Yukino smiled. "I didn't, just figured it out. I mean, I was always good with math, and they had me playing with programming at Kamiyama. That was fun, but it never went anywhere. But last night, I just got in the zone and..." she shrugged. "I really am glad you like it, Kana. Do you want rice for breakfast?"
Kanade grunted and nodded, as she opened up her email account and added a reply to the girl's address, this time attaching the animated image. "One more version," she typed, "Thought you might be interested. Let me know what you think."
By the time they'd finished breakfast, the girl had replied back. "My friends all want one just like this. When will you be doing commissions next?"
By noon they were at the park again, and by sunset they'd sold twelve more animations, at two thousand yen apiece.