Shinomiya seemed to be a bread person. Rubbing her sleepy eyes, she toasted bread in the toaster, placed two slices each on two plates—one for Hatano as well—and arranged them on the table alongside single-serving packs of jam and margarine. And so, a leisurely holiday morning with no lectures began.
By the time they finished breakfast with hot coffee, both were fully awake and began their morning preparations. There wasn’t any particular business to attend to, but staying at home didn’t feel right, and lingering at Shinomiya’s place wasn’t ideal either. If she invited him again like last night, he might succumb to temptation this time.
Hatano, who had dried his casual clothes in the bathroom dryer the night before, slipped into them and stepped out of the changing area. There, he came face-to-face with Shinomiya, who had also finished changing. He let out a soft “hmm” of surprise at her outfit, which was unusually modest for her, featuring more basic colors. A white shirt, a navy vest, and long, loose black pants. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail with a black band, giving her a boyish appearance. An admiring sigh, like one might utter before an exquisite painting, escaped him. Looking at her again, her features were indeed well-proportioned. Thinking such impolite thoughts, Hatano sat down beside her.
“That’s unusual for you, dressing like that. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen it.”
“This is how I dress on my days off. Showing more skin tends to be more popular with guys, but on days with no such plans, it’s usually like this. For better or worse, dressing to be looked at is tiring.”
Yawning slightly, she turned on the TV with the remote. The way she reached for her coffee while watching the news program was like a painting, annoyingly composed. Both she and Rokai had such distinctive personalities and mannerisms that left a strong impression, but their looks were also exceptionally good. Perhaps the Shinomiya family was just blessed with good looks; it was enviable.
Shinomiya shifted her gaze from the TV to Hatano, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“You don’t have any lectures today either, right, Senpai? What are you going to do after this?”
Hatano, who had just been pondering the same question, let out a faint groan.
“Hmm, I don’t have anything particular I want to do. I was thinking of going home and maybe writing some more of my novel.”
The deadline for the newcomer’s award was still a little ways off, and considering his progress, he had some leeway. In fact, he was in a position to even start a second work. But he thought it best to write while he could, to avoid the unthinkable situation of procrastinating and failing to finish in time.
However, Shinomiya immediately made a sullen, displeased face.
“…You’re going home?”
Ignoring Shinomiya, who was blatantly expressing her dissatisfaction, he grasped his mug. “Well, what can you do,” he thought, sipping the lukewarm coffee as he pondered.
He understood what she wanted to say. She wanted to go on a date. It wasn’t a particularly unwelcome request, and Hatano had no objection to accepting it. However, their current relationship wasn’t exactly that of lovers, and Hatano himself believed that progressing this relationship should wait a little longer.
He had vaguely sensed it since yesterday’s events, but the current Shinomiya was dependent on Hatano.
Running away from painting, seeking recognition from someone—what she had previously gained through her looks, whether lust or envy, was now being given unconditionally by Hatano. So surely, if Hatano disappeared, that peace would vanish, and she would return to how she was before.
Hatano had been lost, unable to understand what he should do or what he wanted. But at the very least, he was certain he understood that he shouldn’t continue down that path. If he were to spend this holiday with her, that time would have to involve touching the depths of her heart.
“What should I do…?”
Muttering vaguely, he crossed his legs and gazed at the morning news.
The program was featuring a special on art museums across the country. A beautiful announcer declared, “This winter, let’s experience paintings, sculptures, and artworks from around the world,” while a comedian, who had just days ago on a variety show scoffed, “Who cares about art?” was nodding in agreement.
Maybe if he bought up all of Rokai’s art books and presented them to her, her inferiority complex would overflow and she’d become a lump of self-esteem? Starting to overthink and lose his way, Hatano nearly risked completely breaking her heart, yet he continued to deliberate.
Wondering if there was any good opportunity, Hatano looked around Shinomiya’s apartment.
A simple, lonely room, unimaginable from her previous life of pandering to others. The furniture was minimal, not necessarily minimalist, but one couldn’t sense any intention to lead a rich life in this space.
The non-essential items he’d seen in this apartment were probably just the coffee maker and the art supplies.
Art supplies—the brushes and canvases he’d witnessed in the closet last night. She, who kept nothing unnecessary in her life, had continued to keep those at home. Surely, it was because her heart, while rejecting them, still held an attachment she couldn’t sever.
Thinking such thoughts as he looked around the room, Hatano’s eyes suddenly stopped on a small bookshelf filled with what seemed to be frequently used reference books and notebooks. At the edge of the bookshelf, pushed aside by the packed books, a sun-bleached piece of drawing paper was carelessly inserted.
“Huh.”
Involuntarily making a sound and rising slightly, Hatano walked over to the bookshelf next to the TV.
Then, pulling out the drawing paper that was wedged in the bookshelf along with a faint cloud of dust. With Shinomiya’s surprised “Ah!” behind him, he brushed off the dancing dust with his free hand and looked at the drawing paper.
And he couldn’t help but widen his eyes.
It was the watercolor painting of a pufferfish, drawn by a young Shinomiya, which he had seen as the wallpaper on Rokai’s smartphone. The edges of the paper were dusty, faded by the sun. Yet, his eyes were drawn to this piece with a beauty that remained undiminished, so realistic and vivid in its colors that it was hard to believe it was drawn by a young girl. Simultaneously, he became aware of the decisive difference from Rokai, whose heart he had felt profoundly shaken by at the art museum.
Recalling the evaluation of the painter Shinomiya that Rokai had shared with him the night they spoke, Hatano erased his surprise from his expression so Shinomiya wouldn’t notice.
Hatano, who had no connection to Rokai, shouldn’t recognize this painting.
“This is—”
Looking at Shinomiya with a feigned innocent expression, she contorted her face as if tasting bitterness, slightly biting her lower lip. She looked down, seeming to hold her breath, then immediately smiled on her well-proportioned face. A stiff smile, obvious even without close scrutiny.
“…It’s trash I forgot to throw away. I wonder why it’s in a place like this.”
She also smiled feignedly and took the drawing paper back from Hatano.
A memento she clearly couldn’t bring herself to discard, obvious to anyone’s eyes. She held it in her slightly trembling hands and gazed at it, then, as if steeling herself, closed her eyes and sighed.
And then, the next moment—she grabbed the top center of the paper with both hands, intending to tear it up and discard it in one go. The moment strength gathered in her hands, Hatano’s eyes widened and he reflexively grabbed her arm. Gripping her slender, soft arm, she also stopped her movement in surprise and looked at Hatano.
“It’s drawn so beautifully, it’s a waste to throw it away.”
When he admonished her like that, she contorted her face and lowered her eyes.
“Isn’t it my own business how I treat something I drew?”
“I know. But if you’re going to throw it away, I’d like to have it.”
This painting, for her, was like being at the edge of the ring. The very fact that this painting and the art supplies remained in her home was proof that she still couldn’t let go of painting, that she still harbored attachment. At the same time, the moment she let them go, she would surely abandon painting in the true sense.
Even if that weren’t the case, if she tore up and discarded her own painting, it would surely weigh down any brush she might hold someday in the future.
Seeing Hatano looking at her with a serious expression, not out of lecturing or sympathy, but following ideals and conviction, Shinomiya averted her face like a shadow trying to escape the light. When Hatano released her arm, she let her hand drop limply and pressed her free hand against her own forehead.
Her pained eyes stared at the single watercolor painting she had drawn in her childhood.
“…I confess. It’s not ‘trash I forgot to throw away,’ but ‘trash I couldn’t throw away.’ Many times—I tried to tear it up and discard it, but my attachment got in the way.”
As if vomiting out poison that had accumulated inside, she seemed to relax just a little, the tension leaving her shoulders. Smiling weakly, she gazed at the pufferfish in the drawing paper, biting her lip with sad eyes. In the photo Rokai took, she had been holding up the painting with a proud, joyful, beaming smile. Now, she could do nothing but call this trash and discard it.
“Back then… it was fun.”
Shinomiya’s words, squeezed out in a small voice, overlapped with Rokai’s in the depths of his mind.
She, who had turned her back on everything and run away, stared at this single painting that hadn’t lost its brilliance even amidst memories that weren’t all beautiful. Watching her pitifully, Hatano let out a small sigh, quiet enough not to reach her, and sat down on the arm of the sofa.
It looked painful to see her still clinging to her attachment to painting. But that was also hope at the same time. If she had become completely disillusioned, she surely would never have picked up a brush again. But if she couldn’t completely give up on painting, she might someday hold a brush again.
Thinking such thoughts, Hatano inadvertently opened his mouth.
“Do you have no intention of painting anymore?”
At the quiet question, Shinomiya widened her eyes and stared back at Hatano.
Then, with a slightly sorrowful expression, she gazed at the pufferfish. Next, as if searching for her past self, she glanced briefly at the endless blue sky outside the window. “—I wonder,” she whispered softly, in a tone as if asking herself.
Shinomiya, wearing an old denim apron, prepared her art supplies silently, as if recalling and cherishing each motion one by one.
She spread a worn sheet in the living room, set up an easel with an intense expression, and placed a rather old, poorly preserved canvas that had been opened long ago and left as is, clamping it on. Sitting on a small, collapsible wooden chair, Shinomiya took out several tubes from a box with white numbers on a red background. She was about to squeeze paint onto a palette placed on a wheeled shelf, but stopped.
The small compartments of the palette already had dried paint caked on them. The remaining amounts were sparse, but each color was probably enough to use. Confirming this, Shinomiya put the tubes back.
“It’s dried and crusty, but you don’t need to wash it?”
“Transparent watercolors are like this. You dissolve them with water anyway—you let the squeezed-out paint dry to save trouble. If you let it dry, it lasts longer.”
In elementary school, if you didn’t wash your paint palette, the art teacher would scold you, but oh, so that’s how it is. Hatano, still sitting on the arm of the sofa, watched her work as she continued speaking, as if remembering while proceeding with her preparations.
“It’s five years old, so the quality is probably poor, as expected.”
“That’s vintage. Or retro.”
“I hope it gains some scarcity value.”
Shinomiya smiled faintly, then grasped a brush resting on a bucket.
Instantly, her expression stiffened severely. She remained motionless and silent for a while, then took a small deep breath and seemed to hold it. After carefully observing the early winter blue sky spreading outside the window, she bit her lip, dipped the brush in the bucket, wiped off the water with a rag, and used that brush to dissolve some sky-blue paint.
As she spread it in the mixing area, she blinked frequently along with her work, regulating her breath. From the side, he could see a faint sweat breaking out on her forehead. She was clearly forcing herself—should he stop her? Feeling responsible since he had encouraged her, he started to rise, but he stopped, seeing Shinomiya’s eyes, which seemed to shut out the outside world, absorbed in the canvas and subject.
Shinomiya, having adjusted the color, gently lifted the brush and brought it close to the canvas.
However, at that moment, just before she could apply the color, she froze completely.
In the silence-filled room, only her trembling breath echoed faintly. The tip of the brush quivered slightly, and her expression seeped with impatience, irritation, anxiety, conflict, regret, and pain. Emotions, like the paints on the palette, mixed, seeped, and colored the canvas of her expression with anguish.
To avoid interfering with Shinomiya’s attempt to confront herself, Hatano remained silent.
Like staring at a parent’s enemy, like a carnivorous beast before its prey. As if to imbue the brush with a passion that would blind if seen, rupture eardrums if heard, she continued to gaze at the canvas.
The silence that lasted about five minutes was broken by the sound of the brush she was holding falling into the bucket. Shinomiya, whose fingertips were splashed with droplets, paid it no mind, grabbing her bangs with a frustrated expression as if she were about to cry.
“…!”
Shinomiya contorted her face painfully, cursing her own pathetic, miserable self. She bit her lip so hard he worried it might bleed, and looked down.
He thought about saying something nice like, “You don’t have to force yourself,” or “Good work,” but it was clear she wasn’t just feeling down or waiting for someone’s words, so he kept quiet. Right now, she was continuing to face herself. He didn’t want to interfere clumsily.
After looking down for a while, she eventually looked at Hatano with a weak smile.
“…I’m scared, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Will you call me a coward?”
Hatano swallowed and ruminated on Shinomiya’s words, uttered wearily.
She was still the same as before, unable to move forward, afraid of painting. The hand holding the brush was heavy, the heart that records art was timid. But, still. Even if she couldn’t advance today, the intention to try to move forward shouldn’t be dismissed as mere cowardice.
Hatano thought for a moment and smiled faintly.
“Maybe you couldn’t move forward because you were afraid, but being scared means you’re properly facing ‘it.’ It’s okay if your feet are still frozen. For today, just looking forward is enough, right?”
When Hatano, unusually, praised Shinomiya straightforwardly, she looked at him with a bewildered expression. However, after a while, as if something tense had loosened, she relaxed her shoulders and softened her expression. Smiling faintly, she looked at the canvas.
“That might be true.”
Perhaps she had accepted herself a little. With a soft expression, Shinomiya nodded like that.
A brief silence enveloped the room, but this time, it was slightly comfortable. Sitting on the chair, gazing vaguely at the canvas, Shinomiya muttered a reminiscence, as if speaking to no one in particular.
“It’s just realistic, that’s all. My paintings.”
Drawn in by her words, Hatano glanced at the pufferfish painting placed on the living room table. It was a skillful painting, hard to believe an elementary school student drew it. If a relative’s child showed him such a painting, he might consider funding art school.
But she called it ‘just realistic.’
Shinomiya seemed to see something in the depths of the slightly yellowed canvas.
“What do you think ‘art’ is?”
“…Hmm. Something that shakes people’s hearts?”
As someone engaged with literature, I looked down at myself with complex emotions for being unable to answer immediately. Just as I was making excuses, thinking it couldn’t be helped since I was an entertainment writer, Shinomiya stared at her brush and spoke.
“While what people and publishers say varies somewhat, when you get down to it, it’s all either an activity pursuing beauty or an act that fulfills the spirit. In short, art is something whose essence exists somewhere detached from reality. I came to recognize art as ‘taking something that does not exist on the continuum of reality’ and ’embedding it into reality.'”
With eyes tinged faintly with shadow, Shinomiya glanced at the blue sky.
“Cubism is the prime example. The monstrous egg laid by the fathers of modern painting was hatched by Picasso, another monster and continues to have its name etched in textbooks to this day. Fauvism is similar too. Decomposing and reconstructing to perceive multiple perspectives through a single viewpoint, or viewing the world through the bias of the heart. Precisely because they don’t depict things as they appear, but instead impose their hearts or their world upon them, that’s where the art of painting lies.”
The world of art she described with a pained expression, unimaginable from her usual self. Even if you lump them together as art, literature, painting, sculpture, music, dance—they’ve each walked entirely different histories and cannot be measured by the same standards.
Yet, even Hatano, in his own field, vaguely understood what she meant. Just as he sensed the conclusion in his heart, she hugged her knees while still seated in her chair and murmured:
“—If a painting is merely realistic, wouldn’t a photograph suffice?”
Hatano looked at the pufferfish painting once more. It was highly realistic, skillfully rendered.
But even with technique, it wasn’t art.
Hatano recalled the evaluation of Shinomiya’s painting that Rokai had given him that evening.
‘She has technique. She’s studied methods well and paints realistic, meticulous pictures. Her delicate use of color would likely be highly praised compared to others her age. But—’
—There’s no heart dwelling within it.
Remembering the words quietly spoken by the genius painter ‘Rokai’ on that early winter evening, Hatano looked at her pained expression.
‘The heart that could dwell in her paintings, that kind of sensibility hasn’t been honed due to a repressive environment. Or perhaps the experience of never being recognized by anyone has made her afraid of it. Either way, her paintings fatally lack substance.’
Unlike the words Rokai had used to test Hatano when they first met, this was her candid opinion as a painter. She described Shinomiya’s paintings as akin to those of a robot equipped with advanced AI. Devoid of substance. And because Shinomiya herself understood this deeply, she was afraid to paint.
Surely, she could grow as a painter by honing that sensibility. But whether she truly desired that was unclear, and moreover, her heart had already rejected painting. She was on the brink of complete separation.
Gazing absently at Shinomiya, who sat hugging her knees lost in thought, Hatano grew restless and moved.
Thump! He slapped both knees, stood up from the sofa armrest, and pulled his smartphone from his pocket. The sudden sound made Shinomiya jump in surprise, her eyes widening as she stared at Hatano.
“S-senpai?”
Worrying about things is important. But staring fixedly ahead only leads to advancing along the same perspective, the same path. If you’re overcoming obstacles, that’s fine, but for walls you can’t surmount, it’s okay to detour. To do that, you sometimes need to explore different approaches, like taking a walk under the guise of a break. Literature and painting may be different arenas, but as a creator, Hatano was still her senior.
After fiddling with his smartphone for a while, browsing various websites, Hatano found what he was looking for in under a minute. He carefully checked the information on the page, nodded with satisfaction, then returned his gaze to Shinomiya, who was staring at him suspiciously.
“Shinomiya. Come with me for a bit.”