Kohsaka Mayuri/Extra Episode

I’ve never once felt the urge to use somebody as a model for a painting – so thought Kousaka Mayuri. To think that the day would come she would feel such a desire to put someone – a special someone – on the canvas made her face go red. Even years after first picking up her brush, this feeling had appeared only now for the first time. With such a wish inside of her as she lay on the middle of the triple bed, Kousaka Mayuri reached her hand out towards Suoh, laying on the top.

‘Oh no… now I want to watch her face as she sleeps…’

She let out a whisper, too quiet to be heard. When she heard the sound of the bed squeaking from her turning in her sleep, she thought for a moment, she was for a second shocked; she thought her wicked thoughts had been discovered. In the end Mayuri couldn’t resist the urge to see Suoh – her lover’s – face as she slept, and placed her hands on the steps. She carefully, so as not to reveal herself, looked upon Suoh.

Looking at Suoh, who was quietly breathing regularly, Mayuri thought to herself that Suoh really was like a fairy. Her long lashes, like a crescent moon, were as beautiful as the red, small lips like a sakura bud. Thinking such things to herself, she continued to gaze at Suoh, when –

‘Mayuri…?’

And staring at her were Suoh’s sleepy eyes. After a moment she fully awoke, and realizing that she was being stared at, she pulled her futon up to her mouth, and hiding her bright-red face, asked Mayuri,

‘H, have you been looking at me for very long…?’

‘I’m sorry… I was thinking of you, and I just had to see your face’

Without hesitation she replied with the truth. After a pause, Suoh’s white fingertips gently reached out, and touched Mayuri’s lips. This was a sort of signal between the two of them, a sign of their inflamed feelings. Careful not to wake Rikka sleeping in the bottom bed, they left the room.

Their spot was always the sakura tree outside the dormitory. Their interlocking shadows were cast by the light of the moon, in a perfectly clear starry night sky. Their felt each other’s body heat with their lips before looking up at the sky together.

‘Tonight’s is a particularly beautiful night sky’

‘It really is. I wish I could reach out to it’

Facing Suoh from the side, watching her reach out to the sky with her arms while narrowing her eyes as if it was too bright, Mayuri whispered to her that she’d like to have Suoh as a model. For a moment, Suoh stood rock-still, with a troubled, or perhaps a surprised expression. Then she gesticulated wildly with her hands while hurriedly saying,

‘There’s no way I could be a model! I haven’t ever done something like that!’

‘That’s alright. I just want to depict you the beautiful way you are naturally’

When she continued, saying that Suoh had become even more dear to her the more she’d thought about the idea, for some reason Suoh became even more red and said that it was simply too embarrassing for her. And then she continued:

‘After all I have, n-no experience, so there’s absolutely no way I could be a nude model!’

‘Huh―?’

After a moment of thought, Mayuri reached a conclusion. I see, that’s right, she thought as she recalled a year prior. When they’d gone with Rikka around the clubs, and she’d asked Suoh to the art club, saying ‘if I get to see a beauty like Shirahane-san in the nude, then that along makes the club fees worth it’. She couldn’t help herself from letting out a laugh.

‘Eh―Was I mistaken!?’

‘Ah yes, so you were. But maybe it would be even better if I could ask you to be my nude model… how about it?’

Mayuri replied with a laugh, then re-used the words she’d just remembered. Of course Suoh responded completely seriously to those words and seemed very concerned. I guess Suoh never changed that much, she thought with another laugh.

‘Well whatever! I’ve had just about enough of you, Mayuri!’

‘Sorry, sorry Suoh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just had no idea you’d have such a misunderstanding. After all, I really did want to paint you. I was just consumed with my feelings for the girl I love, and wanted to paint her’

She whispered it into her ear. As she felt Suoh’s warmth, hugging her, Mayuri was happy just imagining the face Suoh was making―

**Translated by Undene Sich Winden**