Light meets Darkness PV Hikari F.

Japanese -English - Thoughts

Hikari set his book down on the ground, shifting around the tree he had settled around so he could avoid the ray of hot sunlight that had fallen over his head and arms.

It wasn't unbearable really. After all, winter had barely started to loosen its grip, and spring hadn't even begun to set in. The warmth was mild, almost gentle, like a hug.

That lingered way longer than he would have liked it to.

It was rather intrusive — too bright for him. Too deliberate. He much preferred the shade. He did not mind the light existing around him, spilling across pathways, catching in leaves— but did not want to feel it burning into his skin.

The bark felt cool and rough against his back as he resettled. Grounding. Comforting. The grass shifted under his legs, clinging to his robes and he brushed the blades aside absently before pulling the sketchbook back to himself.

A half-finished sketch stared up at him. The page had been divided into two parts; on the right, lingered the remnants of winter, bare trees, branches reaching out to the clear blue skies. Tsubaki flowers dotted the landscape, the natural pink bleeding into the monochrome of his page. If he'd had his paints then, he would have been able to capture the flowers completely, color and all. Perhaps another day.

He cast his eyes to the other part of the garden, the part which would soon occupy the rest of his page.

The other side held a stark contrast, marking the changing seasons. Plants bloomed in various shades of green, small and full of life. Hikari now noticed someone tending to them, blue robes similar to his own glinting in the light. The person moved with a quiet precision, and Hikari noted the familiarity in the posture, in the hands brushing and touching the petals. They were likely older. There was a quiet reassurance in the way they moved, like they'd done this a thousand times before.

Hikari watched for a while with quiet curiosity, before lowering his gaze to the page.

He started out with the outline— a simple silhouette at first. Then came the details, the lift of the shoulders, tilt of the arms. He skipped over the face. That would come later. Probably.

Instead he drew the plants around the student. The petals layered carefully, the stems soft and green, the person leaning over them, darkening the area where thrir shadow fell over the leaves.

He wondered, faintly, if the plants might prefer the shade too.

Roleplaying as Ginyami Midorimori from Mahoutokoro
"English | Japanese"

Feeling a set of eyes upon him, Ginyami turned to see a young student he wasn’t familiar with. His expression was impassive and he looked deeply entrenched in what he was doing – which, upon further examination, appeared to be sketching. This surprised Ginyami because the young man’s robes appeared to be navy like his own. However, what self-respecting Asian student would allow themselves to be caught dead doing something as useless and time-wasting as drawing?

Could it have been for academic purposes, perhaps? The seventh year knew that Garden Club members often sketched plants in order to present them in their reports and findings. Sometimes, students even sketched them in order to learn how to identify different flora from one another such as in Herbology class. But surely this boy couldn’t have merely been drawing for fun, could he have…?

"Good afternoon," Ginyami greeted brightly, allowing the watering can to pour itself for a little bit as he turned his attention to his unfamiliar underclassman. "I’m Ginyami Midorimori; but please, call me Yami. And who might you be?"

His voice was warm and welcoming as spring sunshine; his tone as cheerful as a wind chime dancing in a light breeze. "Is there something I can help you with?”"

@Hikari Fujimoto

Japanese -English - Thoughts

Not again.

Hikari looked up at the man who had appeared in front of him out of nowhere, wondering, for what was perhaps the seventeenth time since coming to Mahoutokoro last year, what it was about him that seemed to draw people in rather than push them away.

It wasn't like he tried to look approachable. I'm was always quite the opposite.

Hikari had only been sitting there sketching. Minding his own buisness, not bothering this boy or anyone else, and not even looking particularly approachable. He hadn't even looked up that many times. He'd barely spared the student two glanced.

Yet somehow this stranger had decided to come over and ask if he needed help with something. Why would he do that? Did people normally do that?

Or perhaps he'd misunderstood. Hikari had been looking his way after all. Perhaps the boy had taken that as some kind of invitation.

That was a possibility. Although Hikari couldn't quite imagine doing the same himself.

Catching someone looking his way would not have been enough of a reason to engage with them in conversation. In fact, Hikari would've probably thought the opposite, that they'd want to be left alone. But not everyone thought the way he did.

The pencil hovered above the page for a few seconds before he set it down. It was incomplete, but was close enough that he knew where the remaining lines would have to go. The rest could wait. For a while.

Up close, Hikari could take a proper look at the stranger. He did not look particularly threatening. Just someone who had decided, for reasons Hikari could not quite understand, that approaching a quiet person who was obviously preoccupied was a reasonable decision.

It was a strange habit people seemed to have.

He flipped the sketchbook shut and stood up. "Hikari Fujimoto," he said after a brief pause. "I'm uh... fine."

Not for the first time, Hikari wondered if he had an invisible sign above his head which encouraged strangers to approach him.

Roleplaying as Ginyami Midorimori from Mahoutokoro
"English | Japanese"

The upperclassman noted as the younger student – Hikari Fujimoto – shut his sketchbook and stood up. His smile broadened. Oh no, he thought to himself. You aren’t getting away that easily..

Moving to subtly block his way, Ginyami chuckled softly. "’Hikari’, huh? How amusing – you go by ‘Light’ and I go by ‘Darkness’. And yet, between the two of us, I seem to be the more sociable, introducing myself first while you sit by yourself and watch people quietly from the shadows. Why do you suppose that is?" Still smiling, he tilted his head. "Do you think, perhaps, that we were given the wrong names?"

He knew, of course, that when it came to himself, at least, this wasn’t the case. ‘Yami’ wasn’t his full name; he simply went by it because Hiro had started calling him that first and it stuck. But also, he thought it fit his true, more secret nature better than his superficial one. When he asked people to call him that, it was more like a reminder to himself of what he truly was. This ‘Hikari’, however, didn’t seem like a Hikari to Ginyami. But that was all the more reason he thought it would be fun to toy with him.

"What might you have been doing, Hikari-kun?" he asked his kohai (underclassman) in a cheerful voice, clasping his hand behind his back. "I could have sworn I felt your eyes on me. Is it possible that I may have been mistaken?"

@Hikari Fujimoto

Japanese -English - Thoughts

The older student stepped up to block his path, and Hikari shirked back before he could think better, his body moving on its own accord to put space between them, as though distance alone could undo the encounter. It wasn't much, barely a single step, but it was there. Automatic.

He stilled after that, shoulders pulled tight, suddenly hyper-aware.

The stranger's voice was soft, friendly in a way that made Hikari internally groan and begin to search his brain for excuses to leave.

Anything would do really. Anything that wouldn't make this drag on longer than it had to.

His gaze flicked past the boy’s shoulder, as if something down the corridor might suddenly become urgent enough to justify slipping away. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. Nothing ever did when he needed it to.

The boy, on the other hand, had rambled on, words clear and certain and despite himself, Hikari found himself temporarily distracted by his words.

The meanings of their names.

Hikari wasn't quite sure what exactly was interesting about it. Or why, for that matter, people where interested in names; what they meant, whether they fit, whether they didn't.

How could one even be given a wrong name? Names were names. They couldn't be wrong.

He really wanted to be left alone with his sketch.

Why was it that the first thing that a stranger he'd met less than ten seconds ago said to him was about his name?

Yami. The name lingered in his mind for a moment, before he dismissed it. It didn't suit the boy.

But again, that wasn't his full name. Which basically meant it was a badly chosen nickname. Ginyami. Silver darkness? It was pretty, the idea. But it didn't quite suit the person.

He was spared from having to express his opinions about his name by the second question the boy posed before him, and Hikari, figuring that the other would probably not let him go until he'd spoken at least a few words, replied to the question as shortly and quickly as he could, "I was sketching the area you were working in."

Roleplaying as Ginyami Midorimori from Mahoutokoro
"English | Japanese"

As someone quite adept at reading body language, Hikari's did not escape Ginyami's notice. If anything, it only served to amuse him more; this being evident only in the way the older student's smile broadened slightly. He noted the obvious tension in every line of his underclassman's body and wondered if he acted this way around everyone or just him. As observant as the young man seemed to be, Ginyami doubted he couldn't guess at the type of person Ginyami himself was. Perhaps that was at least part of why he suddenly seemed so much more uneasy than he had a moment ago.

His gaze briefly followed Hikari's over his shoulder before returning to his person and the taller student uttered another soft chuckle. "The area I was working in? And why might you have been doing that, if I may ask? Some academic purpose?" He raised a single brow, his smile never wavering; as steady and constant as a mask. "Surely you couldn't have been sketching for fun, could you have...?"

Ginyami began to circle the young man, his eyes wandering down to the other's sketchbook to see if he could get a glimpse of his sketch if he managed to view it from the right angle. If he thought he would have been able to, he would have reached out to snatch the sketchbook from its owner once he was close enough, eager to see the drawing close-up if he could.

@Hikari Fujimoto

Japanese -English - Thoughts

Hikari swallowed as the boy prowled closer, unease prickling at the back of his neck.

The other boy’s smile didn’t move. It sat there, fixed—more like something worn than felt.

Was it purposeful, he wondered, or was it not? It was hard to say.

Then the boy shifted, and Hikari's focus shifted with him.

The older student has started circling him.

In that split second, Hikari decided he did not want to lose track of where the other was, especially if he was behind him. So he turned, slightly at first, then a little more, just enough to keep the other within his line of sight.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on it before he noticed the shift in the other’s gaze. It had fixed on his sketchbook, lingering, almost hungry.

Something in that look told Hikari the older was three seconds away from swiping his book out of his hands.

He pressed the book closer to his chest, this time raising his other hand to the edge too, protective. He hoped that even if it didn't discourage the other from reaching for it, it would put the book out of easy reach at the very least.

His voice was rather sharp as he answered the question posed before him, "No, it's uh.. not academic."

Roleplaying as Ginyami Midorimori from Mahoutokoro
"English | Japanese"

Though his attempt to snatch the sketchbook from its owner's grasp had been in vain, the seventh year neatly folded his hands behind his back as if that had been what he had meant to do instead all along. He didn't seem put off or deterred from interacting with Hikari despite the fact that his intended action had been thwarted. If anything, he seemed more interested than ever, though perhaps that had less to do with actions and more to do with what Hikari himself had uttered in regard to his reason for sketching.

"Not academic?" he repeated, feigning shock and, perhaps, a touch of concern. "Oh my. What would your parents think? Your peers, your teachers, your senpais (upperclassmen) and senseis (mentors)?"

Shaking his head in disapproval, Ginyami continued his slow walk around Hikari until he had completed his full circuit around the younger student. "Anyone with sense knows that drawing and sketching are wastes of time if not done for academic purposes. Why on Earth would you possibly even be caught dead sketching, especially out in the open like this, as if you are none the wiser? Surely you understand how severely such pasttimes are looked down upon at this school, don't you?"

Ginyami sighed. "If not, then as your senpai (upperclassman), I must take it upon myself to thoroughly educate you on the matter. I would be considered negligent otherwise and I certainly can't have that. Especially when I only have your best interests at heart."

@Hikari Fujimoto

Japanese -English - Thoughts

Hikari blinked.

For a second, he wasn't sure whether or not he was meant to take those words seriously. He'd had people react to his work in a multitude of different ways— some curious, some dismissive, some u. But none of them had tried to educate him on what he should or should not be doing in his free time.

Not to mention he'd tried to peek into his book two seconds ago.

His fingers shifted slightly against the cover, a sudden protectiveness rising in him at the thought. He did not wish to let this senior, Ginyami, come anywhere near his sketchbook.

It was literally just drawing. Hikari didn't quite understand how it was anyone else's business what he was doing in his time. His grades were perfectly fine. He kept up his work, did what was expected of him, and he liked to think he did it well more often than not.

That was all that mattered, wasn't it?

Besides, he'd never been told otherwise. Back at home, even his father had been supportive of his hobby, with the sole condition that he be very good at what he did. Which, coming from his father, was a rarity in itself. If there had been something wrong with it, surely someone would have said something earlier. A teacher, perhaps. Or anyone, really.

He looked at the older student again, expression faintly thoughtful. He was yet to figure out what exactly the problem was. The student's previous questions remained unanswered as Hikari mused out loud, posing a question of his own, "So is your problem with hobbies in general... or just this one?"