Private Finished The Art of Improvement

Carmin just stood up and watched as Sumi retrieved the pencil. The animal actions with the kid body looked kinda silly, but it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd seen.

When Sumi brought the pencil back to him, Carmin refused to take it. "Look, dog kid yokai thing, I don't want to play and I can't learn to draw, it just doesn't work."

"At first?" Carmin raised his voice a little. "I used to be able to draw, not great but you could at least tell what I was drawing. Now-" He didn't want to tell people that he used to be human so he caught himself before he headed down that lane. He wiped a hand down his face and lowered his voice again.

He sighed "I've been trying to draw a tree for a week, it just doesn't turn out, I can't feel and I can't get muscle memory without any muscles to speak of." He still never took the pencil back.

There was no way it was just trees. He hadn't tried drawing much else, but he was confident in his lack of artistic skills when it came to all objects that weren't trees. It was one of the very few things he had any confidence in at all anymore.

As Sumi began drawing on the air itself, Carmin sat himself down again and just watched. “It’s not that...” He was mostly just out of excuses now but still not giving in. Carmin was also more confused than ever about what Sumi actually was. He got that he was a yokai, but the whole sentient ink blob thing was new.

“Sometimes you just don’t have it in you. That’s when you gotta cut your losses and move on...”

Carmin wanted to just leave and go home now. Or at least, that's what he thought he wanted. For some reason he was still there, sitting on the grass next to this person who he couldn't understand. In all honesty he wasn't sure what he wanted. Part of him wanted to get away from everyone and yet another part was sick and tired of being alone.

When Sumi straight up destroyed his work right after completing it, Carmin stared at him with disbelief. "What? Why'd you break it so quick?"

After the abominations Carmin had been creating all week, a poorly outlined set of mountains was practically invisible. He just squinted his eyes trying to think of what that meant and failed to actually do so before Sumi introduced himself.

"Uh, okay. I'm Carmin. And just to get this straight, I'm not a kid, I'm eighteen." He lifted up his arm to show off his MSD bracelet.