Do You Really Like It?

"Hey Mio, this… do you like it?" Kenta held out a folded piece of paper with both hands. His eyes sparkled. His cheeks were bright red. Mio hadn't looked yet. Mio was the best in the class at drawing. So everyone asked her. "Is this good?"

Mio loved to draw. Morning and noon, she was always drawing. Her buddy, the rabbit Mocha, often posed as her model. And Mio never lied about pictures. "This part's off." "This part's lovely." She always told the truth. That was Mio's pride.

Kenta had always said it. "Me, I just can't draw." But lately, in secret, he'd been making something. Whenever Mio looked over, he hid it quick. All the way until today. A thing he could say "I did it!" about — Kenta had never had even one, until now.

Mio gently unfolded the paper. — What was drawn there was Mio, and Mocha. But the eyes were all crooked. Mocha's ears were lopsided. The colors spilled out past the lines. You couldn't call it good. But Kenta's eyes sparkled, waiting. "…Do you like it?"

Mio never lied about pictures. Because that was the self she liked. "Off" she had always called "off." — But. She remembered the day someone first told her, "What a lovely drawing." That feeling, when the whole world went bright. Two feelings collided inside her chest.

Mocha leaned, gently, against Mio's leg. Kenta was still waiting. His cheeks bright red. The words had come right up to her throat. Tell the truth? Say "I like it"? Just a little more. Just a tiny bit more, and —.

Kenta asked, one more time. "If you say you like it, Mio, I… I feel like I could come to love drawing." Mio drew in a breath. Hold true to the truth? Or protect him with a kind lie? …What will Mio do?