#mha 1b

Who the hell came up with the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Or hell, who altered it to have it to relate an action? Kuroiro didn't really seem to convince himself of it, no matter how hard he tried. It wasn't like he was indifferent to works of art- after all, he considered himself a sort of artistic guy... but when it came to a flash, a picture in his mind, a memory- usually it only took up about thirteen words in his mind. He considered himself a writer. Dare he say a poet. He kept piles upon piles of journals of his writing, and where people could not suffice, pen and paper were his greatest confidants. As much as he liked pencils, pens were just- ironically more artistic; even if he had to scribble at the paper if he misspelled a word or accidentally placed the lettering way too close.

He clenched a few papers between his hands, skimming over the writing as he stood in wait for what might be a pinnacle moment of his life. There were too many mistakes in his mind- so many scribbles it seemed like a quarter of each page was just a section or a word, blacked out in ink. He sighed, inwardly admitting that staying up until two am in the morning writing this was a terrible idea it's not like the author is doing the EXACT same thing down to the hour, but he could just not wait. Thoughts seemed to be always running through his head at light speed, from dawn to dusk and in between his dreams like a sickness of his. This is when he started to pace around with the pages in his hand, having to really mentally prepare himself for what he set up on what seemed to be the first impromptu thought of his entire life so far.

Kuroiro had somehow deluded himself so hard that he decided that he was going to profess his feelings for you within the next moment. Or at the very least, his fond admiration for your pieces, large or small that create the entire puzzle. He had slipped a piece of plain notebook paper under your door, even; that's how casual he tried to seem about it, as it could mean a lot of different things under different connotations if you ask someone to meet you. It wasn't a fancy sort of greeting or letter like he would have spent countless hours imagining he would, but it would make due. His pen and paper were becoming restless in it's own right, sick of hearing the same thought in a different variant over and over and over again. He had decided to meet you about fifteen minutes before the dormitory curfew, as to both make it less inconvenient for you and to make sure he had an escape route if anything went wrong. Yet again, his mind seems to be in a race with everything around it, dreaming up every possibility. Every triumph, every pitfall. The churns in his stomach grew more intense as he began to doubt himself,

It didn't take too long for you to meet him, with the casually dressed notebook paper folded in one of your hands. You pocketed it, then closed the gap of distance between you and Kuroiro, standing in front of him with a curious look to the papers in his hand- and how he looked like how he was going to vomit up a hairball. It raised some eyebrows, sure; but you seemed to understand his nature- his mannerisms, his idiosyncrasies: you seemed to accept them as they were, with no complaints otherwise about who he was. Human. A breath of fresh air for a guy like him, really. He didn't even greet you properly for a moment, already seeming to clam up, enamored by your beauty. It took a couple seconds for him to actually remember why he brought the two of you here- but when he did, he slowly looked to the writing in front of him, starting to read it out. Unfortunately for you, it was incredibly difficult to decipher what he was actually saying- he used so many elusive synonyms that the average person wouldn't be familiar with in terms of linguistics, and he would often go back to read a part if he messed it up, or pause for a moment to try and figure out what he was trying to say himself. The more and more he talked, the more Kuroiro realized this the sole brainless idea he had in a very long time- at least in his book, so out of some sort of shame, he started getting quieter as he read. His posture crumpled up more than it was before, and he was mumbling so badly, that it was even hard for him to hear the words that were spewing out of his mouth as he tried to read back He dropped the small stack of papers, much to your confusion; then, much to his incredible embarrassment, he felt his legs start to buckle despite himself as he kneeled to the floor, covering his face with his hands and starting to mumble a little louder about how incredibly awkward this situation was and that you should just forget it ever happened. He couldn't anymore, everything seemed to catch up to him in his incredulity...

You kneeled down to the floor with him, starting to pick up the papers for him. His hand reflexively moved to instantly snatch the papers from you- to hide away and confide yet again in the caverns of pen and paper- but he stops himself, opting to ball his hand into a fist to do so as he starts on an attempt to quell his mild panicked breathing. He felt so... soppy. Dare he say even- pathetic in a way. It took a moment, but he eventually found the strength to look you in the eye, and they lock, the watercolor to his monochrome. You pick up the rest of the pages, and even if it is incredibly messy and out of order, you remember how he reached to grab them from you, and although it confused you on why he would do that, you respected him too much to pry; in a state where he was cracking on all sides of a sphere, where he looked so oddly vulnerable. If you weren't too preoccupied with being concerned about the way he was acting, it would have felt good, about how he seemed to trust you being within this state

"Hey..." you interjected, slowly starting to offer both your held papers; and your free outstretched hand over to Kuroiro, "Take the time you need. You'll find a way to say what you need to say... and I'll flag you down with signals so it won't- get lost within the waters."