A/N: Random high school AU.

xX~100 Eternal Moments~Xx

Set 5 – Unbreakable Chains

79 – Pencil

He couldn't figure it out. Days turned into weeks turned into months of him watching her pencil kiss the paper, watching beautiful pictures flow out like magic. Math class after math class after math class. Other students learned how to factor polynomials. She built a clocktower from grey graphite lines. Other students learned rational functions. She breathed life into a paper flower. Other students learned sine, cosine, and tangent. She sketched three figures in darkly-shaded coats that were so realistic, he swore he could hear their laughter.

Vanitas dreaded the day his teacher – what was his name? – would rearrange the seating chart and move him away from Naminé. Or the day she decided to actually pay attention in class. Or the day she noticed him watching her… but he needed her to notice him. He needed to ask her something.

It wasn't until one day when she was absently tapping her pencil's eraser against the desk that he got his chance. The pencil bounced wrong and flew off the side of her desk, rolling under Vanitas's chair. As the teacher graded papers behind his desk and Naminé searched quietly for the wayward pencil, he picked it up and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped so badly her knee hit the underside of her desk.

"Didn't think I was that scary," Vanitas remarked, offering her back her pencil and hiding his dismay.

"Oh. Um, thank you…?"

"Vanitas." She probably didn't even know he existed, much less his name.

"I'm Naminé," she whispered back with a small, probably forced smile.

"I know," he replied, then mentally kicked himself. That's not how you should answer when someone introduced herself, right? It wasn't like many people ever talked to him… "How do you do it?" He asked his question to change the subject. If he was going to do it it might as well be now, anyway, while Ven's snoring covered their conversation.

"Do what?" Naminé asked.

"Draw things that look so real." He pointed to the corner of her worksheet, where waves washed over a seashell.

She blushed so brightly, Vanitas would've thought it was painted on if he didn't know any better. "…You notice?"

It was probably weird, but he was oblivious as usual. When she saw the coast was clear, she replied, "I don't know… it's just something I do. I feel like I always have…"

Vanitas looked from her hands, pale, thin fingers absently twirling a pencil – artist's hands – to his own hands that had never created anything, unless he counted that purple bruise on Terra's jaw last year. He'd thought… he wasn't sure what he thought. That she would teach him? That something beautiful could come from his anger-ruled hands?

He clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms. Don't get mad at her. It's not her fault you're a failure. It's not her fault all you can think about is hurting people, except not now because I'm thinking about her…

"Draw me," he said suddenly.

"What?" She asked.

"You heard me. I want you to draw me."

"Um… okay," she agreed nervously.

It took three days, at the end of which Vanitas's patience was even more nonexistent than before. The whole time she wouldn't let him look at her sketchbook, but she kept stealing glances at him between elegant strokes of her pencil.

"I think it's done," Naminé whispered. Finally.

"Show me."

She slid the sketchbook onto his desk. He didn't know what to think.

It was him, but it wasn't. The real him didn't smile. The real him had never been to the beach. And the real him didn't have any friends. But through the window of her greyscale drawing, he saw himself smiling as he relaxed in the tide with Naminé.

"It might not be exactly what you pictured… I'm sorry…"

"Shut up. It's perfect."

It was difficult to move his eyes from the artwork, but the artist was just as beautiful. And then, with less difficulty than he expected, he smiled.