It was an average day for the Phantom Thieves. Of course, what exactly 'average' entailed had recently gone through a rather notable change as a result of the revelation that Ren and Ann had started dating some time ago. Morgana and Haru had learned about the affair first, followed by the rest, who had all missed the initial drama. Now that the two could be completely open about their relationship, they were.
The constant shows of affection could make the others downright uncomfortable at times, but the happy couple barely seemed to care - partly due to Ann's much more openness with her emotions from spending her formative years living abroad, and Ren from his general disdain for society dictating how he must live his life. They were in love and they would not accept anyone telling them they weren't allowed to show it.
The group of eight were sat outside a café Haru had invited them all to as research for her own café plans. The table saw them sat with Ren, Futaba, Ryuji and Makoto on one side and Ann, Haru (with Morgana on her lap), and Yusuke on the other. Ren and Ann were having a wonderful time feeding each other biscuits from across the table. Ryuji and Futaba were keeping themselves distracted from the embarrassing display by talking about a new game they'd been playing together online. Haru was trying to keep Morgana calm over what he occasionally deemed to be the two flaunting their happiness to taunt him. Makoto was studying some university pamphlets her sister had picked up for her. And then, there was Yusuke.
Yusuke had been struggling of late with his art. As was often the case, the subject he was attempting to evoke in his art was 'love'. There had always been something about this particular theme that had drawn him towards it, especially since the other Phantom Thieves had entered his life. Perhaps it was the subconscious feeling that he had never truly experienced feelings of love, in either the romantic or familial sense, given that he had been raised by a man that had let his mother die and taken him in purely to cultivate his artistic talents for his own monetary gain. Of course, learning that the Sayuri had been the final work of is mother, inspired by her own motherly feelings towards her son, as well as the later realisation that Madarame actually had cared about Yusuke to some extent, had proven this assessment incorrect. However, both revelations had come far too late. As it stood, Yusuke had truly felt only the platonic love of his friends and that was it.
His reaction to Ren and Ann dating had been the most understated of the group. While Makoto had been shocked into silence, Ryuji had quickly congratulated the two with an arm around each's shoulder, Futaba had known from bugging Ren's phone, and Morgana and Haru had had some prior knowledge of the matter, Yusuke had had very little to say. This was initially misconstrued as some form of jealousy - not an unreasonable assessment, in light of the circumstances of his first meeting with Ann and the others - but that was quickly cleared up. The truth was that Yusuke still didn't feel that he truly understood what love of any kind even was, leading to an underwhelming response. He assumed it was along the same lines as his desire to protect his friends and help the innocent, only amplified many times over. He had attempted to capture this in his art, but had thus far failed to adequately do so.
Even now, he stared at his blank sketchpad as he tried to envision an image of what love was in his mind's eye, but nothing was coming to him. He sighed and moved to put the pad away. As he did so, his eyes panned across his friends on the other side of the table: Makoto, Ryuji, Futaba, Ren. Ann had once commented that she thought Ryuji could make a cute couple with any of the other girls in the group, and Yusuke supposed he could see that. Ryuji did have a certain rapport with Haru, his interests most aligned with Futaba's, and Makoto provided a certain 'opposites attract' kind of feel, but either Ann was reading too much into things or Yusuke was simply not equipped to properly detect such things.
His eyes passed over Ren and Ann now, whose foreheads were practically touching as they gazed into each other's eyes, smiling broadly, bringing a fork up to each other's lips - Ren's carrying a piece of strawberry and Ann's a piece of the same shortcake from which said strawberry had been taken. The now setting sun cast bright orange light over the two as it peeked through the space between them, casting the two in partial silhouette, while simultaneously making them glow with an almost ethereal light.
"AH!" Yusuke exclaimed suddenly.
To most of the group, this exclamation was simply a startling moment, but Ren knew better - this was a sign that Yusuke had been struck with inspiration. As soon as he and Ann had turned their heads to look in his direction, they found Yusuke's slender, almost bony fingers gripping their heads and turning them back to face each other.
"Please! Do not move from this exact position. I am suddenly overcome with a bursting desire to immortalise this image and I implore you not to taint it by adding further poses into my head."
"Read the room, Inari," Futaba grumbled.
"It's fine," Ren assured her, his hot breath catching on Ann's lips and causing her to blush.
"Yes! Thank you, Ren! That added flush to Ann's cheeks makes this image all the more tantalising!"
"Uh... Dude, what?" Ryuji asked, confused.
"He's saying that Ann-chan's blush makes the image more striking and appealing to look at," Haru giggled.
"Wha-" Ann's face grew almost as red as her favourite tights.
"Please refrain from blushing any deeper, Ann," Yusuke chided the blonde. "This amount of red masks your natural complexion too much and spoils the image."
"W-Well excuse me!"
The sound of a phone camera going off could be heard, leading the group to look at Haru, whose phone was aimed squarely at the happy couple, a great big smile on her own face.
"Sorry, I couldn't resist. You two just look so precious together. I'll send you the picture as well, Yusuke-kun, in case you need a colour reference."
"Thank you, Haru. I appreciate your eye for aesthetics."
Quickly, the rest of the group took out their own phones and started snapping pictures, covering every conceivable angle and making the two subjects turn as red as the setting sun. By the time Yusuke was done with his 'rough sketch' (which was far beyond what any of the others could compose even as a finished piece), his inbox was practically bursting with dozens and dozens of shots - enough so that they could probably be inserted into a computer to make a fairly accurate 3D model of the scene. Yusuke let out a deep sigh of satisfaction and placed his sketchpad down on the table for all to see.
"Duuuuude, this's awesome!" Ryuji said in what, to Yusuke, felt like rare appreciation of the arts from the blond.
"Very impressive, Yusuke," Makoto said in surprise.
"I gotta pay Inari to draw my OCs," Futaba said in awe.
"And I'll have him make some art to decorate my café," Haru added joyfully.
"You captured Ann's beauty and Joker's coolness perfectly, Yusuke," Morgana praised.
"Thank you all for your kind words. And thank you two as well for allowing me the opportunity to immortalise this moment in my art."
"No problem, Yusuke. This is great. Right, Ren?"
"Definitely. I'd say you've perfectly captured the idea of 'love' with this piece."
"And to think," Yusuke mused, "I had once thought that having Ann pose nude would be the key to capturing her beauty... I see now just how truly wrong my way of thinking was back then."
"And how far you've come since May," Ren added.
"And it is all thanks to you, Ren. Both your support over the last year and your love for Ann allowing me to finally understand what true beauty is."
Ann once more blushed a deep crimson.
Futaba grinned and pointed at Ann's face. "Inari said that's the wrong shade."
Ann grabbed Ren's fork and shovelled the strawberry and her own piece of cake into her mouth, poutily. Ren kissed her lips, catching her off-guard and leaving her with a wide-eyed red face. Ryuji cheered for Ren's smoothness. Futaba mock gagged. And Yusuke was already hurriedly working on immortalising this moment as well.
Years later, Yusuke's art would find its way into a number of notable places, from art galleries nationwide, to Haru's successful café, to Futaba's hard drive for use as references for other commissions, to Ren and Ann's home, where the final form of this very picture would continue to brighten their living room, and their lives.
I wrote this for Yusuke Week 2021's Day 3 prompt: ship/muse/AU. "Muse" is obviously what I went for, but in the context of this series, it does technically qualify for all three.