Sketch your mind's comfort place. Add a twist.
"Alright, listen up!" Kuroo yelled loudly, causing Azumi's phone to slip from her hands. "I have gathered you here today, to help this short one here do an art project..."
Kuroo's hand reached out to his side to pat the head of the girl next to him, but his eyebrows furrowed when his hand hit the air instead. Azumi had crouched down to receive her phone, opting to stay on the ground when she realized Kuroo was directing the attention to her.
"You can't escape that easily, Tokiumi." Kuroo whispered as he crouched down next to the girl, making her shiver.
In front of her stood the Nekoma volleyball club. Or, in Azumi's head, too many cute boys.
"Hey there!" Yamamoto cheered excitedly, moving forward to say hi to the girl, but Kuroo simply held his hand out to repel him.
"No harassing her. We're here to be artists for a day, and then you'll never bother her again. Got it?" Kuroo spoke seriously, although he pulled it off as a joke. He patted Azumi's back lightly and turned back to his team, introducing her even though she stayed on the ground.
When she finally looked up at them, she was met with smiling faces from a few of them, while many of them simply looked to Kuroo in confusion. Haruka stood with her arms crossed, mouthing get up while keeping a deadly smile on her face.
"Um, thank you for coming out to help on a day off." Azumi said quietly, rising from the ground and standing in front of the team with newfound confidence.
They're all as confused at Kuroo's antics as I am, she thought to herself, making her smile and laugh lightly. The team quickly smiled back, and she found her nervousness being replaced with comfort.
"Tokiumi here got a whole bunch of modelling clay, and I told her the team would help out because it's something new." Kuroo continued explaining, holding his hands on his hips as he looked out at his team. "Consider this a team-building activity because some of you could really use it."
Azumi watched the team react to his words because she still stood next to him, and she blew a small breath out of her nose when she saw Kenma roll his eyes from his place beside Lev. Kuroo continued with his speech, beginning to rant about how important it was to be a cohesive unit on the court, and Azumi tuned it all out. She looked up at the sky and began tracing the outlines of the clouds with her eyes, probably making her look completely weird, but anything was better than listening to one of Kuroo's passion-moments.
"Azumi, stop zoning out, girl!" Haruka spoke with excitement, shaking the girl in front of her slightly until she shook her head and looked up at her friend.
"Oh, is Kuroo's speech over?" Azumi legitimately asked, but the complete boredom in her tone caused the remaining teammates around them to burst out with laughter.
"Consider yourself lucky that you don't have to listen to his we're like the blood in our veins speeches. I will never understand it." Lev laughed as he walked up to the girl to greet her.
"Hey, you can't lie. That does get us pretty pumped up." The boy Azumi remembered to be Inuoka chirped from Lev's side, making her smile.
"I might walk off the court the next time I hear it." Kenma replied curtly as he slowly walked up to join the others at Azumi's side.
She looked up to the new people around her and smiled shyly, lacing her hands in front of her. Lev grinned back widely and bent down to hug her tightly, making her yelp when he lifted her slightly. He did it every time, but she wasn't used to it yet.
"Azumi-san, I was hoping Kyo would come!"
"He's just at home playing games probably. He wouldn't come out on a day off."
Their short conversation was soon interrupted when Kuroo called for Azumi's attention, and she rejoined him at his side to pass out a sizable ball of clay to each person. When everyone had their own, they sat in a large circle, and many of the volleyball players looked to Azumi expectantly, not knowing where to start. She laughed nervously as she looked at them, because working with clay was fairly new to her too.
They're looking to me like I know everything...
"Oh, I'm new to clay just like you guys." Azumi smiled sweetly, talking to the group and watching as their faces showed confusion. "To start, you need to soften your clay by rubbing it with your thumbs or whatever.."
"That's what she said," Kuroo quickly added, laughing to himself afterward as his team stared at him.
"You're disgusting." Yaku spoke from beside Haruka, looking past her to shoot Kuroo a look.
Azumi let a few breaths of air pass her nose, turning her head downward to hide her amusement, but she kept quiet and continued to knead the ball of clay in her hands until it became softer and easier to work with. She looked up to the circle and watched as everyone did as they were told, and she smiled to herself proudly.
I have no idea what I'm doing, and if that's the case then my submission for the art contest will be a complete losing-case.
"What are you making?" Kenma's quiet voice coming from her side snapped her away from her thoughts, and she looked over to see him watching her intently.
"No idea. And you?" She asked back, and he looked down to the ball of clay in his hands before shaking his head no.
"How is this supposed to help you with your contest?"
"No idea." She repeated, laughing lightly before glancing to Kuroo, who looked deep in thought as he kneaded his own lump of clay. "But Kuroo seems to be enjoying it, so this is nice."
Kenma only sighed in response, and Azumi reverted her gaze to Haruka to see her laughing alongside her brother as they both didn't entirely know what to do with their own clay.
Yeah, this is nice. Everyone looks so peaceful.
As she looked around at the different reactions to the clay, she felt the familiar itching in her fingers begging for her to draw. She hadn't felt it in almost a week, and the fact that it suddenly appeared made her gasp lightly and quickly get up from her seat in the grass. She quickly rewrapped her ball of clay in the seran wrap it came in, before wiping her hands off sloppily and grabbing her sketchbook from under the box of clay she brought.
She quickly made her way back to the tight circle of the team, and when she sat down and set her sketchbook in her lap, Kenma glanced to his side to look at her. She opened to a blank page immediately and started to draw a rough sketch of all the people around her, completely cut off from the world around her as she drew. Kenma watched as the pen in her hand quickly brushed over the page in its familiar soft fashion, with seemingly no hesitation.
She spared finite glances up at the group, letting lazy smiles fall to her lips as she observed different pairs move closer in laughter, or to whisper small jokes to each other.
So, that is how it is to be on a team?
Before she could register what she was doing, she had filled the new sketchbook page with the view she was faced with, and she held it up horizontally to compare it to the scene in front of her. Sloppy, but scarily accurate, sketches of the boys around her as they joked around with their clay or held their creations up proudly.
"How..." Kenma trailed off, observing Azumi's sketch from over her shoulder as she compared it to her surroundings. She turned her head toward his voice quickly, a bright smile crossing her features as she clutched her sketchbook to her chest.
"I know what I want to do for the contest!" She said loudly, beaming brightly and attracting attention, but nothing was going to dampen the warmth she felt so she didn't mind.
"You've got an idea?" Kuroo asked just as loudly to get her attention, widening his eyes at her sheer excitement. She looked to him quickly and nodded her head at record speed, and Kuroo laughed along with her joy. "Let's hear it, Tokiumi! What is it?"
"It's a secret." She said quietly, giggling at herself afterwards, feeling unnaturally giddy as she thought of her new bamboo paintbrushes she would use.
It's perfect. They're all works of art, working together to make art.
Forget volleyball, these boys should model.
"You're excited." Kenma said quietly, giving her a small smile as he watched her from the corner of his eye. Azumi smiled back and nodded her head once more before returning her attention to her sketchbook.
It won't hurt to draw them some more... and label the colors.
• • •
It was truly ironic, that the girl who bought the modelling clay only touched it for a total of six minutes before she immediately returned to her sketchbook. But, as if Kuroo's job was to bring miracles, his plan still brought an idea for the contest to light.
Azumi continued to draw the people around her in her sketchbook, and she looked back to the original drawing multiple times to look at it in awe. For one of the first times, she felt proud of what she had put on the paper. Fully proud.
I caught them in such natural poses.
"Hey, Tokiumi! Look at this!" Kuroo spoke cheerfully from beside Yaku and Haruka, grabbing her attention and breaking it away from her sketchbook that she hadn't looked away from for almost ten minutes. "Check out what I made."
Azumi peered at the clay in his hands and furrowed her brows at the unfamiliar shape as he held it up beside his head with a smile.
"Erm, Kuroo... no offense, but what is it supposed to be?"
He gasped dramatically and put the back of his hand against his forehead to emphasize how hurt he was, but his facade melted away and was soon replaced with laughter. He told Azumi to hold her hand out, and he placed his creation in the palm of her hand shortly after. "Look at it."
Azumi stared down at the lump of clay that had been turned into something that looked like a bottle, but she was afraid to make any wrong guesses and offend Kuroo, so she simply smiled.
"C'mon, Tokiumi. You can't tell? Second years are usually in chemistry." Kuroo asked exasperatedly, and Azumi shrugged in response. "It's an Erlenmeyer flask! I figured it'd be cooler if I can get it to be hollow, but that didn't work out."
"Oh! That's very cool!" Azumi quickly responded so as to not hurt his feelings, offering him a sweet smile.
"You're just being nice, as usual." He smirked, and it was Azumi's turn to gasp. "Hey, look. Kenma's done."
Azumi turned her head to Kenma, who stood a few paces behind her and stared down at what he made with his clay. She walked up to him slowly, and when he heard her footsteps approaching he looked up to make eye contact with her for a moment. He quickly turned his eyes back down to his creation, before lifting it slightly for her to look at.
Azumi smiled at him shyly and looked down to what he held in his hands, widening her eyes at the sight.
This can't be his first time making something with modelling clay...
"Kenma, it's so good!" She whispered excitedly, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it with her finger.
"Here." He offered, holding it in one hand and extending it for her to take. "It's for you."
"For me? Thank you very much, Kenma.."
Azumi took it from the palm of his hand gingerly, looking down to it in awe and looking back up to send him a brief smile of gratitude, before hiding the growing blush on her cheeks by looking back down again. He widened his eyes slightly at her expression, feeling heat rise to his own cheeks as he allowed himself mental praise because of her compliment.
It's a Wii remote. A perfect, little Wii remote. It has the buttons and everything...