"One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

Proverbs 18:24

April hadn't seen the text until she had gotten out of her trigonometry class. She had dug her T-Phone out of her messenger bag while heading towards her next class, geology, and saw an unread text pop up on the screen. The redhead tapped on it, immediately seeing that it was from Raph.

'Hey April, do you have any waterproof lipstick?'

April blinked at the words, then rubbed her eyes to make sure she was reading it right. The words were still there.

She made it to her geology class and sat down in her assigned seat, and her thumbs pressed against the screen as she and the others waited for class to start.

'My aunt might have some. Why?'

She sent the text, and not a minute later, got a reply from the red-banded turtle.

'Art'

Ah, that made sense. April usually saw Raph either working out or taking his frustrations out on the practice dummy during his spare time. But she would see him with a sketchbook or canvas once in a blue moon, making either an elaborate drawing or beautiful painting. April had been in awe of his skills the first time she peeked over his shoulder. He seemed to be the only turtle who lived up to his namesake (she hadn't seen what the others could do yet), and if he were human, April would've immediately suggested he go to art school.

A small smile graced the redhead's lips, and she texted back.

'I'll bring some over after school'

She hit send, then another thought immediately entered her head, and she sent another text.

'Any particular shade?'

She got a reply right before the teacher walked in and she had to put her T-Phone away.

'Anything red or pink'

OoOoOoO

Hours later, April found herself walking through the turnstiles, drawing the attention of Leo, Raph and Mikey, who were all in the pit watching TV. Donnie was nowhere to be seen; most likely holed up in his lab again, she figured.

"Hey, April!" Mikey greeted, his usually sunny grin on his face.

April returned the grin, then turned to Raph as she started digging through her messenger bag. But before her fingers could even graze one of the tubes of lipstick she had brought, a green three-fingered hand placed itself on her arm. She paused and looked up, her blue eyes meeting Raph's emerald ones.

He looked hesitant for a second, then looked over at where all the turtles' rooms were before returning his eyes to her. April immediately got the message, and followed the Sai-wielder while Leo and Mikey continued their binge watching.

Raph had her stop outside of his room, while he went inside to find something. He emerged a minute later with a pad of watercolor paper in hand.

"This gonna sound really weird," Raph started to say, purposely avoiding her gaze. "But…can you…put on lipstick and kiss the paper."

April blinked in surprise. Well, she hadn't expected that. But nevertheless, she smiled and took the pad of paper from his hands. The action made him look back up at her, and she smiled at him, which he returned.

And that was how April O'Neil found herself in the Hamato family's bathroom, staring into the mirror as she applied reddish-pink lipstick (after running the color by Raph). Once she was satisfied, she grabbed the paper and pressed a kiss against it, leaving a mark in the middle of the page.

And she couldn't help but smile at the ecstatic look that appeared on Raph's face the moment she handed it back to him.

OoOoOoO

April didn't see the results until a couple of days later. Just like before, she passed through the turnstiles after school, and joined all four of her terrapin friends in the pit. Raph left once whatever they were watching went to commercial. April didn't think anything of it, until he sat on one side of her (since Donnie was currently occupying the other side), with the closed pad of watercolor paper in hand.

April looked over, seeing the small grin on Raph's face, and extracted it from his hands. She opened it up…and couldn't help but gasp at what she saw.

Raph had painted around the kiss mark in watercolor. Shades of peach and soft pink gave the girl in the portrait a delicate appearance, with freckles of light brown dotting her cheeks. Long, wavy ginger hair flowed out around her, with parted bangs covering her forehead, and bright blue eyes stared right back at her. The painting only showed the girl from the shoulders up, displaying the yellow top and the single diamond necklace she wore. All with a light blue background.

It was beautiful. No other words to describe it. April's eyes traced the painstakingly detailed lighting and shadows, the individually painted strands of hair, the almost realistic eyes, the creases on the top that just seemed to make it come to life, the glint of the diamond…

A warm feeling bloomed in her chest, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't wipe the giddy grin on her face as she looked back up at Raph, who had an expression of joy on his face.

OoOoOoO

The memory of that joyful expression surfaced in April's mind as she lay on her bed, eyes locking with the watercolor portrait. She had decided to frame it and place it on her bedroom wall.

April would be lying if she said that it still wasn't a beautiful piece, or that it wasn't one of the best gifts she had ever received.

Mixed emotions roared within the redhead. Guilt made itself known, but the boiling anger threatened to drown it out. The turtle that had given her that painting, was one of the turtles that was responsible for the mutation of her father.

April let out a frustrated groan and turned over in her bed, trying to push that memory out of her mind. Trying to ignore the battle between guilt and fury that waged within her.

I got the idea to write this after watching a YouTube video about art school homework.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! God bless you and have a wonderful day/night/whenever you read this!