Butterflies

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With shaking hands, Mika wrote her name as a signature on the bottom right corner of her painting successfully. She decided to paint how she felt. And on her canvas was an illustration of herself laughing with three blurry silhouettes in front of her, the backs of two tall boys and a shorter girl. Mika painted herself laughing with tears flowing from her eyes, because she was very happy to have met the three idiots that came into her life but there are still wounds that are needed to be stitched up.

It was their free time and they were still in the classroom instead of wondering outside finding something to make them busy till their next class. She was one of the few people to use it to finish her painting. Her painting was the best she could do but it definately can't beat JiJi's. The small girl was the only one who managed to pass her painting by the end of the class. It was showcased to the rest of the students leaving all of them awestruck from the artwork.

The corners of the canvas was still black from the paint spilled on it. The center was a huge grey oval and it looked like it was wiped by a paper giving it a scraped look. There was a sketch of a girl's face on the center. Her right half had a tear rolling down her cheek and the left was mostly covered by her hair but her eye still managed to peek through. The painting was so detailed, with many shades of grey thrown across the canvas, charcoal was used for shadowing giving the painting such a dark color but there are only two clean and bright colors on the canvas that provided the attraction of the painting and that were the eyes. A bright shade if green, full of life and yet sadness. And then the tear, a clean and white tear.

Mrs. Li's eyes were as wide as saucers. And she asked the artist what made her felt that way to paint such a masterpiece, asked her whatever was wrong to portray such a strong emotion. JiJi just laughed and said that the black paint ruined her plan, so she went to another direction to at least pass something. Mika backed up from her painting, finally finished signing her painting. She let out a sigh of relief and thanked God that nothing went wrong.

"Wow." Someone whispered that made Mika jumped and spun around with her paint brush swinging along with her, ending up painting a red streak on Ryan's white shirt.

"Oh no!" Mika gasped and covered her mouth with both of her hands as Ryan laughed. "I am so sorry."

"It's fine." Ryan smiled at her. "I love your painting."

"Oh, uh.. yeah.. thanks." Mika shyly looked down and kept her materials away before she makes anymore chaos. "What did you work on?"

"Oh, I painted the ocean." Ryan replied showing Mika his painting. "I just have to finish the sky, sign it and then I'm done."

"I love the colors you're using." Mika commented, eyes twinkling as she admire the shades of blues and greens. "Gives off a turquoise color. I like it."

"Yeah, I was inspired by someone's eyes for that." Ryan smiling fondly at her. Mika looked at him before shyly bowing down her head.

"I should pass this." She muttered as she timidly pick up her painting and shuffled away.

Ryan laughed softly. "I have to finish this up anyways."

Mika walked up to the front to place her painting down beside JiJi's, John's was on her other side. He painted a forest. Beautiful shades of nature was spread across the canvas, it was very breath taking. Ryan came up beside her and placed his own painting beside hers. He smiled at her before walking out to change. Mika looked at his painting and saw something written in a beautiful font across the sky in black paint.

'You appeared just like a dream to me.'

Mika's stomach made a fluttery feeling making her uneasy. Ryan. The first person to ever care about her pressence on the first day of school. He was there when she thought that she have to crawl to the bathroom to fix herself up. He was there when she thought that she was alone. He was there to ask what's going on in her head. He was guy who showed that he cared so much to not let anyone hurt her.

Without even realizing, Mika was smiling with just the thought of Ryan in her head. She shook her head in denial. She also realized that she have smiled more ever since he, and along with John and JiJi, came into her life. She was never this happy before ever since she was young.

She looked at her own painting. She sniffled with just by looking at it and thinking about the reason she painted that. She found the light in her darkness. And they have illuminated her life so bright that it showed her a path that lead to people who love her and care for her. She was thankful. She was so, damn, thankful. Mika wiped away the small tears that managed to escape from her eyes.

Krrriiiinnnngg!!

The bell rang out just just as Ryan to came back in and notified the students in the classroom to clean up their stuff, place aside their paintings, some finished and some unfinished, and leave.

"Last subject of the daAAYY!!" JiJi yawned out as she stretched. "Music. Let's do this."

"We should do something tomorrow." John said.

"We can go to the park." Ryan stated.

"Naah, that'll be so boriiiiing." JiJi whined.

"I know a place that is abandoned but it's a great spot to hang out. It has a very lovely view too." Mika quietly suggested. "It's not too far from my house."

"Yeah, we can go with that." Ryan smiled at her. Mika blushed and mentally beat herself up for it. The fluttery feeling in her stomach came back and she tried so hard not to do something stupid. Like yell out what the hell she is feeling.

She felt someone grabbed her hand. It was Ryan. He chuckled as he tugged her along. "Come on, we'll be late."

'This fluttery feeling.

This can't be

Oh God...'