Still, Akira had to admit—Aizono Momo's face was really nice to touch.
Maybe because her face was so round, her cheeks were plush and full. When he pressed them lightly between his fingers, they felt soft and mochi-like.
And if you pinched her even a little, she'd puff her lips out, her pink mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. It was weirdly entertaining.
Akira gave her cheeks a few more squeezes before letting go. A faint blush lingered where his fingers had been.
Momo raised both hands to rub her face. The feeling still seemed to cling to her cheeks.
She remembered how, when Shiroi got mad, she'd pinch Momo's cheeks and even tug them sideways—but Shiroi's grip was so weak it never really hurt.
This time, Akira hadn't even pinched—he'd just held her cheeks from both sides—and she could already feel a mild sting.
Kuroba-kun's grip is so strong… Is this just… how much strength boys have…?
All of a sudden, she recalled a scene from a shoujo manga: the assertive male lead kabedon'd the timid heroine into a corner; the heroine, thinking she was about to be kissed, shut her eyes in panic—only to get her cheek pinched instead… When she opened her eyes, the male lead wore that mischievous, wicked grin, and the heroine flushed in embarrassment.
Right now, Akira had exactly that kind of roguish smirk on his face.
At the thought, Momo grew a little shy. Even after the marks from his fingers faded, her cheeks stayed rosy—then the blush slowly spread, leaving her with an unmistakable air of embarrassment and unease.
To cover it, she pressed her hands to her face and hurriedly explained.
"Um… I know that telling you I'm color-weak all of a sudden, Kuroba-kun… it probably sounds like I'm making excuses for my terrible coloring…"
"That's not an excuse. That's just the truth. It does affect your coloring."
"Ugh…"
Momo had nothing to say. Instinctively, she tried to lower her head again—only for Akira to stop her with a single finger planted against her forehead.
"Don't go getting disappointed all by yourself. Whether I keep you or not is my call. And you saying you don't want to draw anymore? Too late."
"But my coloring really is bad… I don't want to say discouraging things, but… even if I try my best, I might still not meet your standards, Kuroba-kun…"
"My standards? I haven't even told you what my standards are."
"Ugh…"
Akira shook the orange soda in his hand.
"Just now, Class Rep and Shiori were there, so I kept it polite. Now that they're not, let's talk about what's actually wrong with your coloring."
"O-okay! Kuroba-kun, please tell me whatever you want! I'll listen seriously and take it to heart!"
Just like Shiroi had said—sharp criticism, if anything, made Aizono Momo perk up.
For people who genuinely loved creating, praise mattered less than useful critique. Critique gave them direction. It gave them fuel.
So Akira didn't hold back.
"Technically, I can't say much professional stuff. I can tell your color placement is meticulous. But from a layman's perspective, the biggest issue is the tones don't harmonize—it throws off the whole illustration. Compared to a pro illustrator, that gap is huge."
"So it really is because I'm choosing the wrong colors…"
"Yeah. Color weakness has a big impact—but aren't there corrective glasses for it? Why not get a pair? Is it because you don't look good in glasses?"
"No… My family did get me glasses, but… even with them, it doesn't solve the coloring problem. Because it's not that I can't tell colors apart. It's that I don't know whether the colors I see are the same colors everyone else sees…"
"Oh. I get it. The problem isn't identification. You're afraid the colors you use are 'wrong.'"
"Yes…"
A lot of people thought drawing only required a vivid imagination, but it didn't work that way.
Art was a remarkably rigorous craft.
Why did beginners draw ugly figures? A huge part of it was that the "human body" was simply wrong.
People, as living creatures, pursued beauty—and beauty often meant symmetry… more specifically, a craving for pattern.
Being free-spirited wasn't the same as being sloppy. Only after you built a correct understanding of reality could you create something that ultimately surpassed it.
"Then when you color, you're not coloring according to the colors you actually see?"
"Mm… I know my judgment of color isn't accurate, so I pick the 'correct colors' to color with…"
"'Correct colors'? How do you decide what's correct?"
"Well… paints have numbers… and there are charts and descriptions for what those numbers are. Like, the sky is number whatever… I memorized the numbers and descriptions for all the common colors…"
"I see. But why not match what you actually see—use that as your reference and draw from your imagination?"
"I can't draw according to what I see. The colors would get completely messed up… When I was little, I colored based on what I saw, and my teachers and my parents all said my colors were wrong…"
So it was childhood denial—adults shutting her down—that made her stop trusting her own eyes and lose confidence in coloring.
But "wrong" didn't automatically mean "ugly."
"You really don't have any confidence, Momo-chan."
"Huh?"
In the end—so what if she was color-weak?
In his previous life, Akira had seen plenty of insane artists who used color boldly enough to make your eyes light up.
Like that seemingly immortal manga artist who drew JoJo's Bizarre Adventure—his coloring could only be described as bewitching.
And yet it was precisely that striking, distinctive style—those vivid, unconventional colors—that made him a god-tier mangaka, the kind who could hold a solo exhibition at the Louvre.
And even setting aside his old world, this world had plenty of artists with unusual coloring styles, too. Were their colors "wrong" as well?
Of course not.
Drawing was like writing: there was no true right or wrong—only whether someone could appreciate it.
"So I'm asking you one question, Momo-chan. Do you still want to do the coloring yourself?"
"I want to… but I also know my coloring right now isn't something I can fix just by trying harder…"
Momo bit down on her lower lip. Her fingers twisted together so tightly her knuckles went white, as if sheer force could keep the last scraps of safety from slipping away.
In the end, she made up her mind. In the loudest voice she'd managed so far, she finally said what she really meant.
"I really don't want to drag your work down, Kuroba-kun!"
She didn't want to be treated like a burden.
She was afraid of being left behind by her friends.
She hated being the last one.
That was why Aizono Momo was so timid…
She'd rather do nothing than risk doing it wrong.
And with that, Akira was sure.
It wasn't laziness—she was terrified of making a mistake.
---
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