Sketching Tomorrow: A Clannad Fanfiction.
Chapter 42: The peak of rivalry.
James arrived at Hikarizaka train station feeling depressed whilst struggling to carry his A3-Sketchpad, a plastic carrier bag packed with three canvases, acrylic paints, sketching pencils and a couple bottles of water. His arms felt heavy from all the weight and he began to feel dizzy from constantly turning his head glancing around looking for Sekai whilst trying to avoid the amount of people walking to and from the trains.
"Oi!" a voice called out to him "Over here flat-cap!" he turned his head to see Sekai waving at him nearer to the barriers where the train's resided. "The train will be here in a few minutes!"
Without a reply James walked over to Sekai who stood wearing a green vest with paint marks and yellow shorts tapping her sandals impatiently holding a blue carrier bag making the contents inside difficult to make out.
Gruntingly Sekai cleared her throat "What took you so-"
"Just shut up and tell me where we're gonna work!" James interrupted "I'm not in the mood for your usual crap!"
She took a slight step back completely astounded that he'd dared spoke to her like that "Um-um-w-we're going to take the train." she replied with a stutter.
Giving a faint gasp James dropped all his things creating a loud clanging sound as the equipment hit the floor "You should have told me that before!" he exclaimed clenching his teeth "I've got no money so we're gonna have to change our pla-"
"I'll buy you a ticket idiot!" She interrupted gesturing her hand to his face "Just calm down!"
As She began to walk back towards the ticket register she grumbled to herself "Typical guy!" she scoffed "Acting like a complete jerk!"
...
The two of them waited outside for their train to arrive and stood against the wall in silence for the past several minuets.
"So-" Sekai broke the silence as she took off her glasses to clean them "looking forward to this?"
James rolled his eye's giving a loud sigh "I'll more than likely enjoy the journey more than the actual event! I love trains and I've not been on one for years!"
"Oh?" Sekai smirked "You like trains huh?"
James nodded "Especially steam-trains!" he chuckled excitedly "It's probably cause I used to watch Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid and when I was about four we went to this event in yorkshire where all the trains had been customised to look like the characters it was just so cool!"
Sekai couldn't help but chuckle as she covered her mouth "You're such a kid!"
"I think back home at dad's I still have the photograph's somewhere too. It's such an amazing experience all that wonderful steam all the sounds and smells-"
"You know steam trains were pretty unsafe right?" Sekai interrupted "All the fumes and the smoke. Very bad for ya!"
"And I love the designs too!" He continued not having heard Sekai's words "The flying scotsman and all those other ones they looked so cool! Unlike today's trains which are so bland in design."
"But!-" Sekai interrupted again "Both diesel trains and the trains of today are a lot faster." she cleared her throat "Now which would you prefer? A nice looking stream-train or the modern train that'll get you to your intended location at a much faster pace?"
James frowned as he thought hard stroking his chin "Um-"
And within an instant the train arrived. The doors slid open and the people inside left. After a few minute's James and Sekai were able to get inside. Many people were hurriedly trying to find a seating area. The inside was cramped with several pedestrians standing up due to the lack of seats.
"Right let's sit over there." Sekai clicked her fingers impatiently at a couple chairs nearer to the back of the train and as quickly as they could sat down.
"So where exactly are we heading?" James asked running his hands down his face.
"It's a tourist attraction." Sekai replied tilting her head resting it on James's shoulder. "It's a giant field of sunflowers. Now that I think about it it's kinda like that one Van Gogh painting actually!"
"Yeah your right." James muttered to himself with a light shrug.
"Ok what the hell's the matter with you today?" Sekai asked removing her head from James's shoulder "All this time you've been acting pissed off!"
James gave a slight grumbled blushing a slight pink "It's private! I don't wanna talk about it."
"Oh I know-" Sekai smirked "It's something to do with Ichinose isn't is? Aww are you upset because your little girlfriend dumped you or something?" she said in a patronising tone of voice.
"Oh shut up!" he grumbled "It's nothing like that and we're not dating ok! Just mind your own damn business!"
Sekai glanced away from James covering her mouth chuckling under her breath.
...
After an roughly an hour and a half of traveling the train arrived at it's intended location and the two rival's hurriedly stepped off.
Sekai cleaned her glasses and glanced at James and instantly realised that he was staring at her body and hurridly wrapped her arms around her chest "A-are you staring at my tits?!" she stuttered blushing a dark red.
"Ack!" James choked as his face also turned red and glanced away from her "N-no! I-I was just surprised about the vest!"
"What about it?"
"W-well all the paint marks." James replied.
"I wear it for painting you idiot!" she took a deep breath placing her hand onto her chest. "I like to wear this so my other clothes don't get dirty."
She then proceeded to smack James in the face and grabbed him by the collar "Also NEVER talk about a girls clothes unless you plan to compliment her!" she then released James and turned on her heals.
"Now Get your ass in gear we've got a lotta walking to do!" Sekai commanded as James struggled to keep hold of his stuff.
"Yes your royal highness!" James grumbled sarcastically as the two started to walk.
...
They soon reached the middle of a large sunflower field that shined brightly upon the boiling sun.
"Sekai this location-" he placed his bag onto the floor and gasped her shoulder making her blush "It's beautiful."
"I knew you'd like it!" Sekai smiled "I come here often. Nice and quiet."
"That's the best way to work!" James smiled with a wink "I just cant concentrate with lot's of noise. So do you wanna get started or shall I?"
Sekai placed her hand onto her chin glaring at James's bag "Let me have a look at your supplies first ok?"
"Sure?" James raised an eyebrow passing the bag to Sekai who proceeded to look through the contents.
"You've already prepared the canvases!" she smirked "Smart man! These paint's I'm not familiar with the brand."
"Well they're from england so they're not your usual brand." James replied.
"Mmmhhh" Sekai nodded "It'll be interesting to see if there will be much of a difference between our paints. Would you be interested in going shopping for supplies sometime?"
"Hmm I guess-" James murmured "I mean it'll be good to have some when these run out eventually. Is there an arts and crafts store in town?"
Sekai nodded "Yep. I'll show you next week if you're not too busy."
She then examined his sketching and colouring pencils before passing them back to James.
"Right-" Sekai poked James in the chest with her finger as she cleared her throat "First we're going to each sketch this sunflower field."
"Ok!" James smiled "May the best artist win!"
"I plan to!" Sekai smirked giving a faint chuckle.
...
The two were sat upon the grass patiently working on their respective drawings. As carefully as he could James had already outlined the field of sunflowers occasionally rubbing out mistakes here and there and had begun to ink the page with a metallic ink pen.
Sekai meanwhile had also carefully drawn the outline of the sunflower field and was now as carefully as possible colouring her sketch.
James bit his tongue gently as he ever so carefully tried to ink the outlines without going off line. His hand smeared some of the lines leaving blotches of ink here and there around the page.
After the inking was complete James then sharpened his sketching pencil.
"I'm done!" Sekai smiled as she turned to James and glanced at his work. "Still at work eh?"
"You cant rush art!" James replied as he finished sharpening his pencil and started to go over the drawing.
"Why are you making it all grey?" She asked raising an eyebrow.
"Watch, listen and learn my young friend!" James muttered.
"Yeah we're around the same age." Sekai mumbled under her breath as she watched James with genuine interest.
James's sketching was now completely coloured in grey. He then searched through his bag and brought out a greyish looking white rubber that had seen better days and proceeded to carefully rub out the grey colouring making it lighter but still visible.
"What's he doing?" Sekai pondered.
James then brought out a pack of colouring pencils which like the rubber had seen better days with some of the pencils being extremely small in size from having been sharpened many times. He picked up a green yellow and blue pencil and began to colour the respective areas.
"He's got so much patience!" Sekai said to herself gasping silently "I've never seen anyone take this much time with a drawing!"
After all the colouring was complete he very faintly went over the drawing again very lightly in grey before dropping his pencil and passing the sketch-book over to Sekai.
"What do you think?" He asked nervously.
Sekai straightened her glasses as she examined the piece. The colours were a mixture of bright and murky due to the mixture of grey, certain flowers were slightly too small in size and there was a noticeable lack of shading but even so Sekai was impressed.
"It's good." Sekai replied "Needs improvement but it's good."
"Well I honestly suck at shading." he chuckled nervously "Glad you liked what I did with the sketching pencil though. I find going over the whole thing before and after adding colour helps create this dark gritty murky quality to the picture."
"Yeah it's a good technique!" Sekai replied "I might try it sometime. So what do you think of my piece?" Sekai passed her drawing to James and examined it.
"Well I think your colours are a little too bright but you're great with the shading." James said as he passed back the drawing.
"Thanks." Sekai blushed faintly "By the way don't you just hate it when you work really hard on something like a drawing and when you show it to people all they can say is it's good?"
"Yeah!" James instantly nodded "Sure it sounds selfish but I'd prefer better compliments other than just it's good."
"I agree." Sekai replied.
"So what next?" James asked "Are we going to see who's the better painter?"
"Let's take a break for a little while ok?" Sekai sighed wiping her forehead "I'm feeling exhausted."
"Yeah sure." James replied as he fell back onto the ground and folded his arms behind his head "I hate working when I'm tired. The art will just look sloppy and rushed."
Sekai moved a few inches closer to James and fell back resting next to him.
"I don't know if you heard-" Sekai whispered into James's ear "But there were some people on the train mumbling that they thought we were a couple."
James instantly blushed and turned his head in the opposite direction "W-well we're not!" James stuttered "People should learn not to assume things like that!"
Sekai chuckled "This is just hypothetical but-" she began to straighten herself up again moved further towards James and rested her upper body on top of him "Do you think you and I-" her face instantly became a dark red "Would work well as a couple?"
James felt his heart race as his chest tightened instantly at the mere thought of it.
"I-I don't-" he struggled to find the right words as he stuttered not wanting to offend her. He felt Sekai grab his face and turned it to her direction. Instantly James's face blushed even more as twi looked at each other face to face their eye's widening. Her long pink hair shined brightly in the sunlight and he couldn't help but think that she was absolutely beautiful.
"S-sekai I-"
"Shhh! Don't say anymore" She whispered as their lips drifted closer and closer together. James closed his eye's awaiting the impact when he suddenly felt his head hit the ground and Sekai's weight removed from his upper half. He opened his eye's and slouched back up as Sekai burst out laughing.
"You totally fell for that!" she giggled "You actually though I was gonna kiss you!"
James sighed with relief as he wiped his forehead "That's not funny!" he gasped before thumping his chest and clearing his throat.
"In all seriousness-" he stated as he grasped Sekai's shoulder "I don't think we'd work out well as a couple."
Sekai turned her direction away from James as she blushed from embarrassment.
"We barely know each other so we've no way of knowing how we'd turn out."
Sekai removed her glasses placed her hand onto her chest taking a few deep breaths and placed her glasses back onto her face and she started to giggle again.
"I'm just messing with you!" she patted James on the back "I know we wouldn't work out and besides-" she looked back at James "You're already dating Ichinose."
James felt his heart skip a beat as he tried to remain calm "W-we're not-"
"Oh shut up!" Sekai chuckled "It's obvious that you're a couple. The fact that you spend so much time together the way you act and whenever I've come into the art room you're both blushing like I've caught you in the act!"
James's face instantly blushed a very dark red which he tried to cover up with his hands "Fine!" James exclaimed in a muffled voice "I admit it Kotomi and myself are a couple!"
"Although-" James said to himself in his head "After today I'm really not so sure."
"I knew it!" Sekai smiled as she slowly started to get back onto her feet "You guy's make a cute couple honestly. Now let's get this painting done."
"Sure." James sighed still blushing deep in red and he slowly stood up next to Sekai.
"How about we work together?" James suggested.
Sekai turned her head looking at him curiously as she raised an eyebrow. "huh?"
"W-well I just thought-" James stuttered as he cleared his throat "Maybe for the painting side of things it'd be better if we worked together and got to know each other's skills in a more interesting way."
"Hmm" Sekai placed her hand on her chin in thought "Sure." her face instantly turned into a grin "I'd like that."
...
It was a long and hard process. They each drew parts of the outline blackened them up adding the correct shading and just the right textures with the greens and yellows for the sunflowers and the bright blue sky which now slowly began to fade into an orangy colour.
The two looked at their finished piece in awe as they gasped heavily from exhaustion.
"You know-" Sekai sighed "You're the first person to really challenge me!"
"Oh?" James smiled embarrassed and slightly proud.
"All those other so called artists they just couldn't compare to me-" she started to explain "Their talents were far below mine and it was just so frustrating!"
"I can kinda relate to that." He murmured
"But with you I feel like I'm actually gonna have to keep up with making my artwork even better than before in order for you not to surpass me."
"So what you're actually considering me to be an artist now?"
"Well amature artist-" Sekai replied "But yeah you've earned my respect."
"Thanks-" James chuckled "But cant we just be friends?"
"We can never be friends!" Sekai scoffed poking at his chest "But we can be rivals."
And the two instantly burst out laughing.
...
They arrived back at the train station struggling to carry the canvas out of the train as well as their other supplies.
"So-" James groaned "Which one of us is taking this home?"
"I'll take it-" Sekai groaned "Are you ok with taking my supplies back home with you?
"Sure thing-" James huffed removing his hands from the canvas and stretched out his arms "It's the least I can do."
He then proceeded to pick up all of Sekai's bags moving them into his own.
"We should do this again sometime." James said as he helped Sekai grab hold of the canvas.
"I agree-" Sekai replied "I enjoyed it. Oh and don't worry I won't tell anyone about you and Ichinose. It's obvious you want your relationship kept secret!"
"Thanks Sekai!" James blushed "You're a good fri-"he quickly cleared his throat "You're a good rival!"
"It's not a problem." Sekai smiled from behind the canvas "I just hope your both happy."
"Thanks!" James chuckled "By the way-" he cleared his throat nervously "When you asked if we'd work well as a couple were you really just being hypothetical?"
Sekai remained silent for a few moments and cleared her throat "Of course I was."
...
James had arrived back at the flat completely tired and exhausted. Both his mother and Kappei had already gone off to bed leaving him alone in his bedroom as he lay on his bed staring at the ceiling in thought over the day's events.
"JUST GET OUT!" Kotomi's words echoed through his mind and he moved around uncomfortably at the thought.
"I think for the time being-" James muttered under his breath "I'll keep my distance from Kotomi and the others too.
To be continued.
Authors note:
I apologize for the lack of new content from this story. I've not been in the correct mood to write and now with college starting up again I'm going to have even less time to write so I have no idea when I will begin work on the next chapter since I'll be too tired to write, edit and post the chapters.
I also want to apologize for some repetitive wording in this chapter like I said I've not written for a while now so my skill's are a little rusty.
I hope you were able to enjoy this chapter even though I personally feel that it wasn't one of the best.
