A/N: It's time for spring allergies and more fluffy reading to make it easier to handle.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
For a long while, she left him to sketch in blessed peace. Scrapped designs and reconfigurations littered the page of his sketchbook, none of the attempts sufficient to resolve the problem plaguing the troubled artwork kept in the underground vault. To the untrained eye, he seemed only to draw over and over again a small statue of a horse bearing a flower on its head, different angles and sizes of the same image, but he did not risk letting Niwa catch sight of it.
Harada-san did not present any problem until she leaned over the space between them on the bench and wheedled, "Will you draw me?"
"No."
She recoiled, offended by the abrupt answer, then huffed. "Why not?"
"I am busy with a project for work. I do not have time for a portrait," he replied levelly, swinging his pencil around and striking off a few lines from the page.
"Well, after you're finished with that, then," she suggested.
"No."
Again his immediate answer made her huff, but she accepted the rejection and settled back on her side of the bench, her arms crossed.
He set the pencil to the page once more, but it stayed still. From the corner of his eye, he stole a glance at her profile, sulky yet, but pretty, girlish. A cherry blossom petal had landed on her head, the natural pale pink contrasted with the frilly pink bow she wore to hold back her soft brown hair.
He lowered his gaze to the paper again and resumed his sketch. He had often taken note of the distinct shapes and hues of the girl: the curl of a lash, the crescent moons of her smiling eyes, the crisscrossing blue of veins underneath her pale skin.
He always tried to recreate her, in his way. She was the world untapped and beautiful — untouchable, untainted, and impossible to capture. The existence of his family and himself had taught him harshly and finally to allow creation to rest in safer hands than those of mere humans, where the grandeur of life overwhelmed the skill to reproduce.