Broken Silence

Anima sat at a table in the silent and otherwise unoccupied library. It was a Sunday morning, so a lot of students were probably still asleep, and even fewer would choose to go straight to the library as soon as they were up for the day. However, Anima was fond of the solitude and silence.

She sat at the table with her notebook open in front of her and her blue ink pen in her hand. She was drawing herself on the paper from the shoulders up. It was clear that she had just begun due to the lack of detail thus far. Unlike the seemingly nude or at least topless drawing, Anima wore a pale grey skirt as well as an equally soft grey sweatshift zipped up halfway, a plain white t-shirt worn beneath it.

Click.

There was the shutter of a camera phone.

A young girl with her dirty blonde hair done up in a ponytail appeared over Anima's shoulder out of thin air. She leaned forward, a mischievous grin stretched across her face. "Huh? Who's that supposed to be?" she asked, her voice shattering the silence of the library. "Self-portrait?"

Anima jumped up at hearing the shutter sound, looking turning her head to see the young girl. Blushing upon seeing her, she quickly faced towards her notebook again and turned the page; hiding the drawing and having blank space to write were both reasons. Hastily yet neatly, Anima started to write on the page before showing the girl. Yes... I wish you wouldn't sneak up on me like that, please. She also wished the girl didn't take notice of the drawings toplessness, but Anima was well aware pointing that out was nothing but stupid.

A giggle escaped her lips as Anima fumbled to flip to another page. That was a strange kind of thing to do, wasn't it? And wasn't that a bit of a suspicious drawing? "What's wrong? Are you scared to talk to me out loud?" Blip. Addison vanished from behind her and reappeared laying on the table in front of her, lying on her stomach with her chin resting on her hands and kicking her legs playfully in the air. "Are you in a rush to hide it? C'mon, show me."

Anima jumped as the young girl seemed to almost teleport in front of her, before starting to write another response on the page. I don't talk out loud because I can't. I'm mute. And I don't know if I want to show you what I was drawing. It's sort of lewd. When she was done writing Anima once again showed the page to Addison, making sure to keep a firm grip on the notebook and its pages, lest Addison try to turn them.

Mute? Ha, that was pretty interesting, but that wasn't what caught her attention. "Lewd?" Addison tilted her head, a wide smile across her face. "C'mon! Now you have to show me! Pleasepleaseplease!" A phone appeared in her hand, with a photo of Anima's half-finished drawing on the screen. "I already took a picture, y'know."

In the blink of an eye, she was gone, and she reappeared behind Anima with her arm draped over her shoulders. She leaned in forward to whisper in her ear. "So why don't you just show me? I just wanna peek."

Anima jumped up slightly yet again and her face only grew redder. Well... I can't show you, because it isn't done yet! I still have more work to do on it before it'll be complete. While this was technically true, Anima was more concerned with trying to get Addison to back off so that she wouldn't need to show her the drawing. It didn't help that Addison could also grow curious about any other drawings that may be in the notebook, some of which were complete and were much more showy than what Anima had been working on.

"Humph!" Addison was on the other side of her now, pursing her lips. "C'mon! Don't be a spoilsport!"

In a blink of an eye, Addison was on the other side of the table, with the sketchbook in her hands. She had a triumphant smirk on her face. "It's rude to hide stuff, y'know. And didn't I say I already had pictures?" Time seemed to skip forward in frames, moving like someone flipping through a notepad. CLICKCLICKCLICK. More flashes from a phone camera, and Addison's giggling grew louder and louder as she flicked through it.

The notebook was full of pictures. Some of it was innocent. Scenery, leftovers from older conversations, battle scenes, yaddayaddayadda. But the other stuff... Well, that was much more interesting. Self-portraits, naked or half-clothed, and in a graphic amount of detail.

"You must be pretty full of yourself, huh?" She gave an impish grin and turned the notebook around for Anima to see. "All these drawings are of you."

Anima's face was as red as it was going to get as she watched Addison flip through the notebook, before finally stopping on a page and showing it to Anima. Tears welled up in Anima's eyes as she stared back at herself in the form of a drawing, refusing to look at the 2D, clothes-lacking version of herself for more than a moment. Anima stood up from her chair and stumbled backward clumsily to get away from the notebook, falling on her rear as tears began to stream down her face. She looked at Addison as the tears flowed, crying silently whilst hoping this would come to a swift end.

Addison seemed to teleport forward, sitting on the edge of the table in front of Anima as she scrambled away from her. "Are you that embarrassed?" she asked with a breathy giggle, glancing over it again. "Don't be so shy." She crossed her legs, leering down at her. "Chin up. Look, you're the one who drew them."

She held out her phone again, thumbing through all the pictures of the notebook. Even if she managed to snatch the sketchbook back, it was too late. Addison flicked past one picture too far, landing onto an earlier photo. Halloween. It was a picture of Anima sprinting down the hall in nothing but a tiny apron around her waist and her undergarments bunched up in her arms. "Oops." She cocked her head, shooting her a sweet, playful smile. "I didn't mean to show that one. What would people think if that got leaked onto Esper? I have so many pictures..."

Anima looked at the screen, scrambling on her hands and knees back towards Addison, tears still flowing down her red face. She shook her head and shook her head whilst waving her hands side to side to try and communicate "no" before clasping her hands together and starting to beg silently. Anima was lucky as all hell so few people had seen her fleeing down the hall essentially naked. However, that luck wouldn't mean much if the picture wound up on Esper. Anima gave a pleading look to Addison as the tears continued to stream, doing as much to try and communicate begging as she possibly could while being incapable of vocalizing.

"No?" she repeated. This game of charades was way too entertaining. She was like a mime. A slutty, plain-dressed mime with a goldmine of secrets. "But why not? You're such a good artist... Don't tell me you drew yourself naked for yourself, right?" She giggled. "C'mon, I think the guys would like it. Don't you wanna know what they think? Look, I've already got Esper up." CLICK. There was another flash, and now Addison was sitting crisscross in the center of the table. She flashed Anima her phone screen again. A picture of her begging on her knees with tears streaming down her face. It suited her. "Anima Bella Yoxall, right? That's a pretty memorable name. Why shouldn't I leak these?"

Well, she did draw what she drew for herself and admittedly, she would care what they think to some degree, but not nearly enough for her to be okay with the school's entire student population seeing what she drew. Hearing Addison say that she already had Esper up and could very easily stick all the pictures she took on Esper threw Anima into a bit of a panic. Frantically, Anima pointed at her notebook with one finger and at Addison with the other. She'd be willing to draw Addison as much as she wanted if that got her off her back. A moment after, due to not wanting to take the risk of her not liking the idea, Anima pointed to herself and tried to mouth the word "anything" the best she could. Throughout all of this, Anima continued to blush and cry silently.

"Anything?" Addison repeated. Well, 'repeated.' Watching her flail around without her notebook hadn't stopped being entertaining. An impish smile appeared on her face. "Okay. Give me your Esper password first. Do everything I say, and," she waved the notebook, "You might just get this back, and your pictures might not be posted for everyone to see."

Time skipped, and a strip of blank ripped paper appeared in Anima's hands.

Anima nodded in understanding, although her crying didn't let up in the slightest. Quickly she wrote down her password on the paper, a tear falling on it and staining it in the process. Anima wasn't exactly keen on the idea of handing over her Esper password, but then again, Addison would still be able to upload the pictures of Anima's drawings with or without Anima's own password. She was also concerned by the look on Addison's face. It was clear Addison was planning on taking advantage of Anima saying "anything" as much as she possibly could.