「ずっと一緒にいよう」

so i'm actually in the middle of working on a dark piece that's taking a long time to complete but then my day sucked so bad i needed to quickly doodle a happy mayu after work at 10 pm instead because i need mayu to be happy #letmayubehappy #protectmayu | twitter

happy (belated) bday, satoshi 7/4/2026, ilysm!! 💙💕🎉

a few weeks ago my laptop died completely after struggling to stay alive for the past 3-4 years and just as i meant to draw my babies again. so they appeared on paper instead. i suck at drawing traditionally but i won't be silenced !! i miss them so bad.. | twitter

lately, i'm seeing all the lily of the valleys start to bloom where i live, and it makes me think of mayu, thanks to morishige's line in LW ("スズランのように可憐で穢れなき彼女 ..." ), but also because the suzu in suzumoto 鈴本 shares the same kanji (bell) as lily of the valley (suzuran 鈴蘭). then of course, sparrow for suzume, mayu's nickname, and kind of coincidentally, the freckles i draw her with in japanese sobakasu 雀斑 also share a kanji with suzume / sparrow 雀) perhaps due to the speckled nature of sparrow eggs..

survival au, 2012. mayu & morishige are 20 and yui just turned 27!! mayu and morishige (who've been together since high school) go to university in tokyo, but still not only keep in touch with but are FRIENDS with yui. they love her so so much💕 | twitter

he's having an awesome day with his gf!! ps. mayu is usually very thoughtful about pda in front of other people since that flusters morishige so much, but she just couldn't resist now 💕😭 ((cuz they are totally dating in this)) | twitter

there are so many things that i could've made the mayushige one about and it was so so incredibly difficult for me to decide on a topic.. but, despite the possibility that this might get misinterpreted as "shallow", i really wanted to touch on mayu's insecurities when it comes to morishige specifically. as we know, morishige is the one person mayu truly feels actually knows the Real Her, flaws and all.. but she seems to harbor some real insecurity when it comes to their relationship dynamic; her feelings for him, and how he in turn perceives her. they've both settled for this facade of their relationship being "sibling-like", despite both of them secretly harboring more than platonic feelings. morishige (in my opinion anyway) thinks his feelings for her are forbidden, that it's weird and wrong for him to be in love with her and attracted to her. she wants him to be like a safe "older brother" type figure after all, right? WRONG!!! it's so ironic how many times we get alluded that mayu on the other hand *wants* him to be attracted to her. wants him to see her as a love interest, not as a "little sister", even if there's some solace to be found in a dynamic that is so comfortable and safe that you could call it nearly familial, deep down there's more to it than that, and some obvious dissatisfaction over their dynamic being “stuck” like that. in BD she confesses her love and says she was always "too embarrassed" to say it. in bos mayu says things like how she wishes she was taller so she and morishige could "look more natural together"... whatever that means... she also laments how she must seem childlike and helpless to him. and in her death scene she finally does just blatantly say "i want him to think i'm pretty" -- and so i used that sentiment here. just in a less morbid setting. morishige's response could be interpreted as him trying to avoid emphasizing her attractiveness due to him feeling like that kind of sentiment from him is forbidden.. even if mayu is basically begging for him to say yes lol😭 of course, he does legitimately mean what he is saying too, though. her outer beauty, though obviously very present, was never the ultimate reason he fell in love with her. but he is truly oblivious as to why she is asking all this (despite her obvious flirting..lol.. kiss proof… sorry but i've noticed that mayu likes trying to drop hints but to no avail😭😭) ... and so he's confused.. "does she really think she would be less valuable to me if she weren't conventionally attractive? not true." and we know this too. after all, we've seen that he would love her even if she was just globs of gore in a bag.... anyway despite him acknowledging her beauty here, i don't think this would make her insecurities and her “i want him to think i'm pretty” obsolete. he said it in a way that still felt quite “objective”.. but she still yearns for him in particular to find her attractive. for him to be *attracted* to her, as a girl. not Just as a “beautiful soul”, even if she was incredibly moved by that. also i wanted to include at the end the implication that morishige just pampers her and buys her things sometimes lol since they kind of implied it on the drama cd with him taking her shopping to buy those iconic striped knee high socks 

this is totally meant to look like it was drawn by someone in love and, perhaps ironically, emphasizing the life in her... smiling softly (even a little sheepishly), twinkle in her eyes, and somewhat flushed cheeks. i think, as much as we see morishige obsessed with death/corpses in HH, when it came to mayu, he was extremely drawn to how full of life she was❤️ it's like she could make flowers grow with her light and presence alone.

this one was incredibly difficult to fit into this format due to the heavy emotions of the subject and length of the conversation (on twitter i have to try and fit the entire "comic" into 3 pics), so i do apologize if the pacing isn't the best and there's a lot of text crammed in, but hopefully the basic idea comes through regardless. i wanted to highlight just how difficult moving away was for mayu. it had happened to her before in the past, but this time around she truly had gotten so attached to everyone, she found a person so important to her she's practically dependent on him (morishige), and even their new homeroom assistant teacher yui was like the best teacher she ever had before 😭 it truly always felt like everyone in the group absolutely adored yui and mayu was no exception. i frequently think about how mayu expressed in yui's extra end flashback how she wanted to stay in touch with her for years to come even after she moves away… even into her adulthood. yui was a teacher who also felt like a friend. someone even mayu, who nearly always insists on keeping a positive facade up around everyone, could be a little vulnerable around and confide in. kinda like ayumi expresses in canon, i always felt like mayu also felt like yui felt very "big sisterly" at times. in this particular scene i imagined this took place like a day or two after mayu herself learned the news that she would be moving away in just a matter of some months (probably around 3 or less) hence why was having a very hard time pretending she was okay. mayu was acting spaced out (almost a bit dissociative) and quieter than usual all day, something both morishige and yui picked up on and grew concerned over, though morishige not knowing the reason yet while yui being able to guess as she had just heard the news too. so yui gently approaches mayu to ensure she didn't feel alone with such shocking and sad news… i always thought there should have been an extra chapter like this in bloodcovered. it's such a crime mayu never got a single one!! also oh yeah, i guess here also includes my hc of where she was transferring to, which is chiba! i guess i'll talk about that a little more some other time... huge thanks to my bff kenzie (shishidoyui on here) for going over this scene with me during one of our conversations, yui's dialogue here is based on what we wrote together💕

so, ayumi and mayu are supposed to be really close, right? ayumi is maybe the second closest friend to mayu after morishige... i cannot be the only one who wished they showed their friendship more in the games. you do get a sense that they really love and care each other but they definitely could have shown us more. hopefully i am here to fix that. fortune telling! their shared hobby. the idea of this series is to put mayu in vulnerable situations with her friends so she can feel how much they all care her even when she doesn't have her perfect idol facade on. after all, in the bos fanbook it is stated that in ch 2 of bos, although mayu obviously preferred yoshiki's and ayumi's (and nana's) company to being alone, she was never truly satisfied even with them around (instead of morishige), as it meant that she still had to keep her facade up. she does that with everyone to some extent except with him.. now, huge shoutout to my dear tarot-savvy friend (@ callofchaos on twitter) for helping me understand the process of tarot "divination" and for giving me ideas for which cards to pick. i wanted something unsettling and distressing, a seemingly "bad" spread, something that resonates with her but maybe not in the best way. she nearly panics but ayumi comforts her.. her past card represents the sorrow and heartache she has experienced via her many moves and transfers in the past, her parents fighting, etc. her tumultuous, hidden feelings.. her present card represents how she may feel powerless in the face of this great scary change she is facing with her transfer (i think mayu in general is pretty afraid of change..) but also the dishonest (with their true feelings) "sibling-like" dynamic she has "trapped" herself in with morishige and my hc that she had contemplated confessing to him before she moved away, so changing that. etc. and the final, tower card, of course, is supposed to foreshadow heavenly host 😀 but also my AU where she actually survives, and well, afterwards there will be great changes in her life and they're definitely not all bad despite the trauma ❤️‍🩹 as a side note, this was unintentional, but after i drew this i realized that my art for morishige's bday week last year kind of fits as a scenario following this one, in chronological sense. ayumi notices here that mayu is really pushing it to stay cheerful.. and then approaches morishige. (link to that here) ... yay for continuity!

these were drawn months apart from each other, hence why they're rendered a bit differently from each other...

context: i know in canon we are basically made to believe mayu having a whole ass fanclub is generally only a positive thing and rainbows and sunshine and that everyone respects her when she turns them down.. but i think, realistically, it probably wouldn't always be that simple. the intention here isn't to make mayu look like some kind of pushover either. but i wanted to highlight the issues that would come with her people pleasing and "always pleasant" image she has to hold up and her being overly empathetic. i think generally mayu is able to use her own charisma and amazing social skills (and wit!!) to turn most people who try to court her down without much issue.. but if there were someone particularly stubborn, who simply wouldn't accept mayu's polite and friendly rejection and tried to still insist getting his way where mayu feels like she's basically talking to a wall, i believe she'd have a harder time. this is where satoshi comes in, another popular kid who kinda knows what she's going through, and is able to ""rescue"" her from this uncomfortable situation, using his influence, and social skills, and well-- the fact that he's a guy since there really are just guys who will only listen to another guy after all... like i mention in the comic, i feel that occasionally morishige has told pestering "fans" to back off when he feels mayu is being "too nice" yet clearly uncomfortable, but since he does it very bluntly, not everyone takes it so well😅 and mayu ends up feeling guilty since he already struggles to get along with people. i still don't think this happens super often because mayu is very clever and creative and would use that to her advantage too if nothing else worked but! the whole point of this series is that i wanted to put mayu in situations where she's “forced” to be a bit vulnerable with her friends who love her. huge thank you to my bff shishidoyui for coming up with the idea of satoshi helping mayu get rid of a pushy guy (and how he would do it) when we were brainstorming interactions together and in general giving me perspective on satoshi so i could characterize him as well as possible <3 side note: i think mayu is only able to so easily talk about her popularity because it's with satoshi who is also popular lol otherwise she'd probably feel like she sounds like she's bragging, and wouldn't...

i've always really adored mayu's dynamic with yoshiki, them teasing each other seems to come so naturally, yet i can tell they also really care and like each other. obviously, it's made pretty clear in canon that mayu knows very well how big of a crush yoshiki has on ayumi, her bestie, and she's always shown to really support it. i always found it hilarious how loud she is with her support for ayushiki despite knowing ayumi likes satoshi... likewise, yoshiki alongside seiko is someone who seems to always call out mayu and morishige on their feelings for each other so it was only fair to include it. he also seems to be very aware of himself and morishige both yearning for these girls, ayumi and mayu respectively. and morishige seems aware of yoshiki's feelings for ayumi too (this was especially clear in 2U and that one BC light novel). either way it's this awareness that is why yoshiki approaches this question from a "ok so what does that lovesick fool morishige get you that makes him have such game with you, suzumoto?" lol 😭😭 /j, but... i mean... i love that moment in 2U where he just stares at mayu's and morishige's lovey dovey conversation all flabbergasted and azusa and ran imply he's jealous of what they have lol. anyway, truly, mayu and yoshiki have a dynamic that seems more "sibling like" to me, than the one mayu claims to have with morishige😅 (which we know--and yoshiki knows--isn't true anyway) side note: this isn't meant to be "hehe morishige is secretly trying to court her". he's not trying to pursue her. moreover, he isnt someone who would think "this is a ROMO gift to give to a girl" when he's just genuinely tryna give her things she'd like... yet yoshiki is still right of course. lol. (also huge shoutout to emma (shinozaki-ayumi here on tumblr) for giving me insight on ayumi and allowing me to have the knowledge of her that mayu has of her🥹)

not sure where my naomi liking classical music headcanon came from besides her canonically playing the piano, maybe from the way she complimented morishige's Go (strategy board game) hobby with the words "refined / cultured" in that one extra, but i wanted to show mayu's love for opera here... besides that, the theme of these arts is largely mayu being vulnerable with her friends to some extent (yet still being loved). here i show her being somewhat insecure about her tiny, high pitched voice because it's naturally a little on the weaker side, while she absolutely admires these opera singers and their powerful voices🥹 naomi is surprised because in her eyes mayu is basically perfect in every way and she's perceived her to be confident in herself... (ah how good at masking she is) furthermore, i wanted to depict her voice being incredibly lovely (like i think it is), considering over the years i've seen way too many people call it annoying or grating. not true!! also, since she is so into opera, i could imagine her learning a little bit of esp italian since so many operas are in italian / from italy (like her fave, rossini).