Unfiltered

Annoying.

That was what they often called Chami.

Loud.

Nosy.

Annoying.

The peers that she would often be surrounded by, whenever her owner Paola signed her up for the art classes that she used to look forward to throughout her youth, were two-faced and kind in face value. Behind her back, whenever her head would turn away, she could hear the sharp snippets of their words, the hushed murmurs of their real colors shining through.

Loud.

Nosy.

Annoying.

Those three words seemed to be the main highlight of their problem with her.

She just never shut up.

She never stopped asking or talking or humming and she was just too much.

Or at least, that was what they’d say.

Behind her back.

Whenever her head would turn away.

Even though a surge of curiosity about the world would still fill her to the brim with every day that passed, practically bursting from her like a volcano ready to erupt, Chami learned that it was better to keep her lips sealed than to ask any more questions. It was better to clamp her mouth down and bite on her tongue, in hopes of saving herself from the pain of an all too familiar sense of humiliation.

Ever since she had quit attending those art classes, for reasons she was too ashamed to reveal to Paola, Chami would find her hands shake with this buzz of energy, always wanting to be occupied with doing something, hence why she often carried with her a thick sketchbook that she could invest in.

The smudges of an overused eraser were evident on a good portion of these papers, accompanied by wild stray pencil marks depicting a plethora of anatomy references. Fingers, hands, arms, shoulders — practically every muscle in the humanoid body, all mapped out across pages waiting to be filled.

Copics, ink, charcoal, watercolor.

Even a few butchered attempts at oil painting, one of the most challenging forms of art ever.

A colorful blend of trial and error, of experimenting with shading and palettes, could also be seen. It helped add this nostalgic touch to her sketchbook, bringing life to her illustrations.

This was what Chami loved about art.

It was an inanimate concept that could never judge her, not like the other students from the classes she used to enroll in. Instead, she would judge it, putting her creative eye to the test and molding it to be whatever helped steady her soul.

Art was life.

But then, one day, something else also came into the picture.

Or, more specially, someone.

~*~*~

Yui.

That was her name, the librarian from across the street. She was another Bubblecorn, another person of her own species.

That, in of itself, was already a rarity. It wasn’t too common to find another Bubblecorn like her in the area.

Chami only knew because she tried to check out a book on drawing techniques one day and she just so happened to catch sight of her nameplate.

Yui.

Two syllables, two notes. It rolled off the tongue, smooth like the first few beats to a drum.

Shortly after returning her book back, as she watched Yui’s slender fingers file through a stack of papers at her desk, Chami could feel the weight of a question already on the tip of her tongue, and before she could stop herself, she couldn’t help but ask.

“What’s it mean?”

Chami just stared at Yui after that had slipped from her, her eyes , like she was more surprise by the query than the one who was supposed to answer it.

Yui froze, stopping what she was doing.

She turned to Chami, her golden eyes flickering over to her flushed face. Then, after a slow blink, she said, “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Her voice . . .

It was spoken in this monotone.

A flat and consistent pulse of noise, but not boring though. Instead, it was actually soft around the edges, with this soothing quality to it.

Chami liked her voice.

Like, a lot.

“Your name.” If Yui was answering, then it’d be rude not to elaborate. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s Japanese.” Yui’s expression didn’t change in the slightest, her eyes still half-lidded and glazed over with this look that matched her her voice. “It has a couple of different meanings, but the most common one is elegant clothes.”

A giggle hiccuped from Chami just then, the plain soap bubbles from her blue bear ears increasing in mass and floating all around her.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had genuinely found something to be funny.

“Sorry,” she sputtered, in between breaths, in a poor attempt at trying to tone down her amusement. “That was just so random.”

“It is.” Yui blinked. Then, while tilting her head in consideration, she added, “Feel free to let me know if you have any more questions about anything.”

At that, Chami couldn’t help but perk her shoulders up.

“Anything?”

Chami almost regretted her quick and instinctive response to that. It held a bit of a playful touch to it too. Perhaps she should cool it down, pull back—

“Anything,” Yui confirmed, without so much as an ounce of hesitation. Any doubts that Chami might have possessed in that moment were snuffed out. “Everything. Or at least, as much of everything that I know of. If you have anymore questions, feel free to access the computers here.”

Chami decided, in that moment, that she might as well give it a try, since she was practically encouraged to at this point.

“Why is the sky blue?”

A pause of silence stretched out as Yui creased her brow in thought. Then, with the same unwavering and impassive expression on her face, she opened her mouth, her next set of words delivered in that same calming voice that Chami felt like she could never get tired of listening to.

“The sky is blue because of light waves from the sun hitting our atmosphere,” Yui explained, in a factual and matter-of-fact manner. “As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange, and yellow light is affected by the air. However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.”

“Ohhh.”

Chami was pleasantly surprised by that impressive mini-lecture. She hadn’t expected Yui to just open up like a full-blown encyclopedia.

She even said so out loud, without thinking too much about her comment.

“I do read a lot of encyclopedias,” Yui confirmed, which helped fuel Chami’s surprise even more. “There’s one about light waves that you can borrow if you’d like.”

That wasn’t what Chami meant, but it was okay. She appreciated it anyway.

Yui was weird.

But not in a bad way.

Chami couldn’t help but smile, with that observation in mind, as she continued to converse with Yui.

No matter how much they spoke after that, Yui never shied away, always willing to answer to the best of her ability. It wasn’t just her being a good librarian at this point that helped with that. No other librarian would ever go to answering all of Chami’s questions, no matter how helpful they wanted to be.

No, it seemed like this was just Yui being Yui.

It seemed like, for once, Chami finally found someone who really listened, no matter how much she might go on about anything that came to mind. Even after digesting all of her lengthy tangents and helping satisfy her inquisitive nature, Yui was still there, never reluctant or fazed or bothered by what Chami would throw at her.

And maybe that reason might grow to become one of the many reasons for why Chami began to fall for Yui.

Even if Yui didn’t exactly scream girlfriend material, even if she was literally one of the worst options one could pick for a romantic candidate, Chami was still determined to want her. Because no matter how emotionally constipated or out of touch Yui could sometimes be with her feelings, as Chami would later learn, she would never lie.

It just wasn’t in her nature to lie, like most people Chami had ever known would.

And Yui’s honesty, her imperfect and raw inability to complicate the truth, was all that she could ever want in a person.