The next day, Vivian was battling with herself as she worked on Kyrie's hair. She didn't want to ask Kyrie to draw them, but at the same time she'd promised Renard that she would and a part of her did actually want to see whatever drawings Kyrie would make of them. Were the evenings as great for both of them as she always thought they were? Was there anything unexpected to be observed? None of that is even touching on the fact that Kyrie was an excellent sketcher which meant that regardless of the emotions behind them the drawings themselves would be nice to look at. As Vivian struggled to gather the will to bring it up, she really wasn't talking very much and Kyrie was fairly quick to pick up on this.
"Vivian? Is something wrong?"
Snapping out of herself for the moment, Vivian looked down at Kyrie to find that her friend was looking up at her with a slightly furrowed brow.
"W-What? Why would you think that something's wrong?"
Kyrie's eyes trailed over towards Vivian's hands now, which had grabbed hold of Kyrie's hair but had remained completely unmoving for at least a minute. Wincing a little when she realized she had so obviously given herself away, Vivian resumed her attempt to turn Kyrie's hair into a lovely cascading waterfall, as if that motion would cancel out Kyrie's observation. That wasn't the only indicator that Kyrie had for something being wrong though.
"You haven't really been saying much..."
The younger girl's voice was soft, and she looked back down to her open notebook now that Vivian had resumed her motions. Honestly, Kyrie quite enjoyed these near nightly sessions where Vivian would do up her hair. It wasn't so much the styling that Kyrie liked so much as it was just spending time with Vivian. During the day they were both usually too busy in separate areas of the house to be able to hang out much but in the evenings, now that Vivian was exploring hobbies, she didn't immediately go to Renard. This meant that Kyrie got to see her more often, and for Kyrie it was always a treat to listen to the other woman's chatter.
At least, it usually was. Today Vivian had been much more subdued; Kyrie had actually had to be the one starting conversations and she just wasn't very good at it. Especially not when Vivian was feeling more taciturn herself. Each topic that Kyrie could think to bring up was met with maybe a sentence or two from Vivian before it died. Now that Vivian had been called out for being particularly poor company though, she let out a sigh.
"It's not really that something's wrong, it's just that there's been... Something on my mind."
"Something?"
It was a gentle inquiry on Kyrie's part, but despite that Vivian still felt a little like she was being attacked or trapped. Even though she'd agreed to approach Kyrie about drawing the two of them, she still couldn't bring herself to like it. Vivian's brow furrowed in irritation at Kyrie's slight questioning and Kyrie immediately felt bad for asking.
"S-Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
Vivian let out a bit of a groan as she removed one hand from Kyrie's hair to brush through her own.
"No, no, I'm not upset at you."
Here she paused again, wondering just exactly how she should approach the topic. In the end, she decided to just go pretty straight in to it.
"Look, this might be a bit of a weird question, but have you ever drawn pictures of you and Isaac having sex?"
Immediately Kyrie's features went from a little concerned over her friend to brightly blushing, and she opened her mouth in surprise. The question came completely out of nowhere for her, and she wasn't entirely sure how to answer it. Every time Vivian talked about her own intimate experiences with Renard, Kyrie always felt a little awkward and out of place because she was never sure that she wanted to share her own things. It just felt too intimate for her to want to share? But at the same time, the desire to share was actually there deep in her mind because it was nice to share wonderful things that had happened recently. Here Vivian was though, forcibly trying to get Kyrie to divulge some of this information and she wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to respond.
"W-What? I--"
Kyrie was relieved when Vivian just continued on instead of waiting for an answer.
"I guess that question doesn't really matter, the real question is do you have any interest in drawing intimate acts like that?"
The blush on Kyrie's face wasn't getting any better from this slight change of topic, and she settled her eyes down on her book as her mind swam with a bit of panic. Should she admit that yes, she had an immense interest in drawing such scenes? Or should she rely heavily on her shyness to try and weasel her way out of giving a straight answer? After all, how flustered she was could easily be because she'd never thought of drawing such a thing just as well as it could be her being embarrassed to have already thought of them.
"I-I don't--"
Once again, before Kyrie could fully get out a sentence, Vivian was stepping in, already imagining what Kyrie's response would be. From the way she was reacting, Vivian assumed it to be that Kyrie hadn't really thought about it, and was rather uncomfortable with where this was going; while that was partly true, it certainly wasn't entirely so. Still, Kyrie wasn't about to correct whatever misconceptions Vivian had about all of this.
"I know... I know this is really weird, but Renard and I... Well, we've been thinking that it might be nice to have... a drawing of us."
The shock was just too great for Kyrie. Looking at Vivian with a dumbfounded expression, Vivian frowned a little at Kyrie before looking pointedly away from her. It was pretty clear that she was embarrassed by this conversation as well, and yet she was continuing on with it, undeterred by the incredulousness of Kyrie's expression.
"Keep your head straight, Kyrie."
To be honest, she wasn't doing as much with Kyrie's hair as she probably should to warrant such a statement, but it was a good excuse to get Kyrie to not look at her. She was already having doubts about this herself, having Kyrie look at her with inquiring eyes wasn't going to help at all with her own resolve. Kyrie was slow to turn back towards the mirror, instead managing to stammer out a response.
"B-but... That would be so invasive!"
Yes, yes it would, and the protest that Kyrie voiced was one that Vivian fundamentally agreed with. Still, she had promised Renard that she would seriously try to get Kyrie to do this, so if she gave up now it felt like she wouldn't even be trying to fulfill that promise. Swallowing her own discomfort, Vivian moved to combat Kyrie's protest.
"I mean, you'd certainly be somewhere that you wouldn't usually be... But you have permission both from Renard and myself! And you make such beautiful pictures Kyrie... even if you've never done a drawing like this with your ability I'm sure it'd be lovely nonetheless. It'd just mean a lot to us if we could each have one of our own, especially for when we happen to be apart from each other. I know you've probably never been asked for art before but... I'd just really like to have something showing our love for each other."
It wasn't wholly untrue on Vivian's part either. She did quite want the pictures that Kyrie would inevitably draw, it's just that she didn't want to have to go through the process of getting them. She didn't want Kyrie in the room, she didn't want Kyrie to see Renard naked, and she just didn't want Kyrie anywhere near an even remotely intimate Renard. The cons outweighed the positives for Vivian personally, but Renard really wanted this (along with a deep part of herself), and she just couldn't say no to him, especially not for something as ultimately harmless as this! This was Kyrie, after all! She knew how much Renard meant to Vivian, she wouldn't even dream of getting between the two of them. Plus she was too head over heels with Isaac to bother giving Renard the time of day. There really wasn't much risk at all even if it was a bit uncomfortable.
Kyrie's own heart was pounding hard in her chest as she listened to Vivian, from a mixture of both excitement and nervousness. The idea of drawing these sorts of things was of course exciting to her—she had quite enjoyed drawing her and Isaac after their session with the mirror, and he had thoroughly loved the pictures when she showed them to him in their finished form; so much so that they'd had more encounters with mirrors since then—but at the same time, Kyrie would be sitting in the room while Vivian and Renard had sex and she knew that deep down Vivian wouldn't like it.
A realization soon clicked in her mind: Vivian probably hadn't thought of this, it had likely been Renard who came up with this idea. As she thought this, the memory of that time Renard had off-handedly mentioned getting her to watch came rushing back to her. … She should've taken that comment more seriously... At the same time though, what could she have possibly done if she had? And it had been such an impossibility to begin with knowing how possessive Vivian was of Renard!
Yet here they were, with Vivian requesting that she draw them.
Kyrie felt a bit torn by the request of her friend: should she indulge her own wants and only take Vivian at face value, or should she refuse knowing that's what Vivian would prefer? And yet... Renard had managed to get Vivian to agree to so much and she'd made such a convincing rebuttal to Kyrie's protest... Did that mean that Vivian actually wanted this to happen? Would she truly not mind if Kyrie was in the room with her while she had sex with Renard?
Defying Vivian's request for her to continue facing forward for the moment, Kyrie looked back at her friend, softly biting her bottom lip in concern.
"Are you sure you want me to draw the two of you together...? I know you don't... Well..."
Kyrie kind of trailed off a little at that, but both of them knew exactly what she was trying to say. Despite Vivian's discomfort with the whole idea, the fact that Kyrie was so concerned about it actually helped Vivian feel a little better. Kyrie was her friend, and that meant that what Vivian actually wanted mattered a lot to Kyrie: she would never take this opportunity to encroach on Renard. Unable to help herself, Vivian moved in to give Kyrie a tight hug. It was short, but the wealth of positive feelings that Vivian had for Kyrie seeped through.
"Thanks Kyrie, but I'm sure. If it's you I know there's nothing to be worried about."
It had been a while since Kyrie had felt guilty over the decisions she'd made with her relationships, but at those words that familiar pang coursed through her. Vivian trusted her so much, and yet...
Forcibly pushing down the guilt by once again telling herself that Vivian would never have to know what happened behind closed doors, Kyrie returned her friend's hug.
She would draw the two of them, and she would do her best to make it something that Vivian would treasure for the rest of her days. That way Kyrie wouldn't feel quite as bad for doing something so awful to her, even if it had been done in secret.
"Alright, Vivian. Just tell me when you want me and I'll do my best to draw you some pictures."
Vivian actually felt better about this than she thought she would, in fact she was a little excited about it: now that the hurdle of approaching Kyrie was completed, she could start looking forward to the actual drawings.
As Vivian's mind began churning about the best way to get Kyrie to watch without her getting in the way, she let go of the hug and gave Kyrie a fond smile before turning back to her hair. This time though, her hands weren't nearly so idle and she was back to her chatty old self as well.