She wanted to become an illustrator when she grew older.

It wasn't a practical career choice, and her parents wasted no breath telling her, but Ayumi didn't care (much). It was her passion; one of the only things she was good at, and she loved it, no matter how fickle the skill was. Her sketchbooks, gifts from her encouraging elder sister Hinoe, were filled with shaded practice forms and cute cartoonish figures from a three-fourth angle, the occasional heart doodle, and sketches of random inanimate objects. Shinozaki was never a very abstract person; she liked facts and proof, as both a class representative and an enthusiast of the occult.

Ayumi stopped drawing after she returned from Heavenly Host.

Finding a way to bring back her friends and battling the horror she still felt consumed her; her passion died, suffocated under all the guilt caused by that paper charm she brought into class on that fateful day. She no longer had time to draw, even if she'd finished her homework early or had no chores to do; maybe it was because she simply had no more motivation.

But on a chilly Sunday afternoon, when she had the house to herself and no extra work to do, Ayumi found her eyes wandering over to her desk. Books were stacked; her laptop, plugged into its charger, sat open. Beside it was another book, several colored pencils and pens on top of its leather cover. Her most recent sketchbook, a birthday gift from Hinoe, was only halfway filled, if she remembered correctly.

Ayumi slowly stood from sitting on her bed, the mattress giving a slight creak as her weight was relieved from it. The carpet beneath her feet muffled her steps as she crossed the room. Ayumi approached her desk, glancing at the animated screensaver and the time - 17:32 p.m. - before she looked down at the book. Across the top in black permanent marker, was Hinoe's loopy handwriting: I love you!, and Ayumi smiled faintly, heart swelling for her caring big sister as she brushed her fingers across the words.

Ayumi set the pencils and pens to the side and picked up the book with a tiny sigh. She flipped it open, the page beneath the cover yielding dozens of anime-esque animals, cats, birds and rabbits in ink of every color in the rainbow. On the next page, a candle was sketched, only the flame lit at the end of the wick shaded; she recalled drawing this as a project for the art club she'd been in at school, and smiled again when the praise of her fellow artists - 'Wow, Shinozaki, not even I can do flames that good!' and 'You're already very skilled, Shinozaki!' - echoed in her head. For once, the pounding of running footsteps and shrieking screams of tortured souls were replaced with compliments.

Ayumi carried the sketchbook back to her bed, sitting on the edge of it as she turned to more pages. She flushed when an angled, unfinished profile of Satoshi, grinning and laughing, occupied one page near the quarter-mark of the book. Ayumi used to draw her friends all the time, whether depicting them as the big-eyed, round-headed chibis she saw in the manga she read or sketching their busts from the angle she saw from her seat in class.

Ayumi's heart gave a painful squeeze; her friends. Four of them were gone, never to be drawn again. With a sigh, the nostalgic cheer that had temporarily relaxed her fled and Ayumi set the sketchbook to the side.
Thoughts of her friends - both, the deceased and the living - always filled her head, always casting her deeper into the abyss of guilt. Mochida was always with Nakashima or his sister, pampering to Yuka and comforting Naomi when she teared up over the friend she hanged while possessed, barely giving himself a break or anyone else the time of day. Mayu was a tattered, transparent ghost, trapped in that wretched school with her 'Shig-bro'. Kishinuma was smoking and slacking off again, but thankfully he still put forth a little effort and attended classes. Ms. Yui would never teach again, even though it was her most passionate goal in life.

Ayumi paused in her thinking, furrowing her eyebrows in thought. Her memories of her friends and teacher hadn't faded yet - even though some days she had to stop and think about which side Mayu wore her ponytail on or what color Ms. Yui's eyes were - so maybe she could prevent them from fading.

Ayumi stood quickly, ignoring the rush of colors and sensation of dizziness that accompanied it, and strode across her bedroom again. She grabbed the pencils off of the desk, stopping to bend and pick one up when she dropped one, and returned to her bed. She crawled over the bed, sitting at the headboard with her pillows around her and the sketchbook in her lap. Neglecting the lethargy of weariness settle into her bones, Ayumi flipped to an open page and grabbed a simple wooden graphite pencil. She sketched out a circle, then three more, biting her lip and extending the generic egg-shape on them. With some strokes, she drew in the neck and the beginnings of shoulders, added guidelines for the features, and set about refining the general shape of the first circle.

She added the slight chubbiness to Mayu's cheerful face; gave the drawing her beaming smile, her large eyes and thin brows, her tiny ears, her button nose, the part of her hair and the ponytail she always wore. Going back to detailing the features, she added eyelashes and pupils to the eyes, fullness to the lips, dimples to the cheeks, a hopeful slant to the eyebrows, the barettes in her hair, the shadows cast by her nose, brows and hair. Holding the sketchbook out at arm's length, Ayumi swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked away tears as the face of Mayu Suzumoto smiled innocently back at her. "Suzume.." she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. The sadness gripping her was hard to shake off, but Ayumi scolded herself to grit her teeth and finish what she'd begun.

Jotting 'Mayu Suzumoto' beneath the bust she'd drawn, Ayumi moved on to the circle beside Mayu, she sketched the angular lines of Sakutaro Morishige's cheeks and jawline. Ayumi paused, the tip of her pencil hovering after just finishing the guidelines.

Sakutaro was - was - best friends with Mayu. He had always looked so solemn compared to her bubbliness. Drawing a small sloping line for his characteristic frown, Ayumi smiled fondly at their memories, what she'd seen of their relationship from afar: they'd been in drama club together, always seated beside each other in class and at lunch, always always together. She might have once seen Mayu blush when Morishige called her pretty, but she couldn't recall if her memory or suspicions were correct or not.

Ayumi was touching up his almond-shaped eyes, narrowed like they were thinking, when a loud buzz made her jump. Her pencil skipped across the paper. She let out a thankful whoosh of air when she spotted and erased the streak just above Morishige's head, then looked up at her vibrating cell phone. Placing her book and pencils down, she reached for it and flipped it open, opening her inbox and skimming the text message.

It was from Naomi: 'hey class rep. whatcha doin ?' Ayumi suddenly felt her grip on the phone tighten; not in anger, toward the her rival of love, but determination. Shooting Naomi a quick, 'practicing my drawing', Ayumi placed her phone back down, picked up her book and promised to go back and finish the details of Sakutaro's hair and glasses later.

Beginning on the third circle, in the bottom left corner, Ayumi drew a rounded face and hair swooped into two parts.

Naomi's response didn't startle her this time. 'whatcha drawin? can i see? it's ok if u don't want to.'

'i'm drawing a friend..'

Ayumi furiously worked, detailing in the eyelashes, pupils, color and crinkles around the corners of the eyes when Naomi texted back again.

'who?'

'i'll show you.' Ayumi snapped a quick photo and hit send with a sad smile. A slight pang hit her stomach when she hoped for a second that Satoshi would be there to calm Naomi down, because once she received the message..

Despite her past bitterness, Ayumi found herself concerned when Naomi didn't reply for thirty five minutes. 'shinozaki you drew seiko?!' her message read. Ayumi glanced at her in-progress drawings; Naomi's best friend, Seiko Shinohara, a coquettish smile drawn across her oval-shaped face, beamed back at her. The sparkle in her eye was there, even in death and in graphite on a sketchbook pages. Ayumi nodded, momentarily forgetting that Nakashima couldn't see it. 'yes,' she texted, sniffling. She was tearing up. 'sorry it's not that good nakashima. i just wanted to remember their faces somehow. this is wat i thought of.'

'shinozaki don't be ridiculous! its amazing!'

'no it isn't'

'i can't believe you drew seiko.. and her face stayed, not blacked out like in my pictures … is there any way you could draw her for me ? i'll pay you if yuo want.'

Ayumi smiled, placing down her pencil, covering up apart of Ms. Yui's partially shaded face. 'of course,' she typed. 'but i'll do it for free. you're my friend after all, right?'

'of course we are!' Naomi's reply read. 'i just never knew if we were bc you always acted kinda cold to me.. thank you shinozaki, i can't possibly thank you enough for doing this.'

'no problem nakashima.'

'please call me naomi!'

Ayumi smiled, closing her phone and placing it back in its original place on her bedside table.

Ayumi held her sketchbook out at arm's length again. The smiling (or frowning, in Morishige's case) faces of her deceased friends and teacher made her eyes water. Now, hopefully, she'd never forget them now, even if the rest of the world had.

notes: Ayumi's profile on the Corpse Party Wiki states that she has ambitions to become an illustrator, in case you were wondering where I got that detail from.

Inspired by attempting to draw busts in class :)