I know I'm late but I just read chapter 34 and I couldn't help but think of potential makibashi parallels as soon as they dated.
Like niibashi would be easily reminded of how agonizing it is to tip toeing your relationship with someone.
Their main issue will just be how they could separate their professional admiration vs actual romantic feelings, because also in my head Makimura is a little dense thinking she only likes him because he's her perfect muse but actually in fact she's already at the point of no return.
Kagiura never really knows what to do with himself at gallery openings. He's the tallest person in the room, a given when he's anywhere other than the court, but he's also the least stylish in his off-the-rack black slacks and Oxford shirt. A woman walks past him in a dress hemmed with feathers, gushing too loudly about the brilliant talent on exhibit here, the finesse and skill shown off in the paintings. She's tugging a man along behind her, his sequined coat lapels sparkling in the very fancy lighting. He makes bewildered eye contact with Kagiura for a brief moment, but Kagiura meets the implicit judgement with a smile. That woman is right, after all; Niibashi is brilliant.
When Niibashi is done playing at humility while basking in the light of this woman's praises, Kagiura goes to his side and presses a new flute of champagne into his hands. Niibashi accepts the glass warily.
"Where's mine from earlier? I'd already had a sip."
"I finished it," Kagiura murmurs back, using his now free hand to tuck a loose tress behind Niibashi's ear. He likes that even when Niibashi spends hours pinning it into place, it's always unraveling by the end of the night.
Niibashi swats his hand away. "How many have you had?" he asks, dropping his voice down to a hiss.
"Two," he answers, only to tack on, "and a half," when Niibashi's brow goes up skeptically. Kagiura giggles. "I'm not drunk, I promise."
"You'd better not be. I didn't invite you here to embarrass me."
"Technically, you didn't invite me at all. You just mentioned it in passing once."
Niibashi rolls his eyes, but Kagiura knows him well enough to know it's mostly affected. "So you acknowledge that you're here of your own will."
He has to lean in to be able to press his nose to Niibashi's temple. "Yes, because you would've been sad if I didn't come."
"I would not."
Kagiura giggles again. "You're such a bad liar," he observes, pleased that Niibashi is allowing himself to be pulled in against his chest. "And anyways, I like coming to these."
"Now who's the bad liar," Niibashi scoffs. "I know you're miserable here."
Kagiura spins Niibashi in his arms so that he can look at his face properly. He could explain how wonderful it is to watch Niibashi receive admiration for the work he agonized over. How beautiful he looks now, sparkling under these fancy lights and adulation. But Kagiura's tongue is light with champagne bubbles and he can't quite put any of it into words.
He moves slowly, giving Niibashi plenty of time to pull away if this is too public for him, too close to disrupting his art world, his career. But Kagiura's lips find Niibashi's all the same, and the kiss is sweet and warm and wonderful.
It was a december night in the mid 18th century, Drunken ramblings filled the streets as the annual festival for the winter soltice has already concluded. By then the young painter wondered if these musings held any capacity of hidden knowlege to begin with, if some drunk nobleman would wonder the streets mumblings about an upcoming war or even revolution, or how much the death of the youngest son of the lord is actually a murder in disguise, none of these are true by any means but nonetheless she was quickly thrown back into her work. She was merely looking out of the window for an inspiration.
she looked back at her muse, a man with pointed ears and sharp fangs. The sight always has her in a trance akin to a sailor meeting a siren, he leans back, his oversized collar showing his neckline and half of his collarbones. Makimura wondered if she could create constellations within each mole exposed, it was already a superstition that you'll die young based on how many moles you have in your body although what enticed her more is the idea of what could kill Niibashi, a being who is blessed with immortality.
Although another superstition came into mind, a belief that moles are the most loved part of your body...
...
Makimura started sketching, the light graphite pencil moved towards the canvas, starting with the fundamentals till the smaller details, the small more underneath his left eye, and one underneath his mouth, both are too small to be seen in first glance, or even the second or third, there's also one just underneath his jawline, something Makimura knew by accident by the amount of times she couldn't help but stare, oh there's also two over his collarbone, looking like two ends of a small bump.
Makimura didn't realize that she was holding her breath until now. Truly, Niibashi is just... breathtakingly beautiful.
Niibashi must've been so loved in his past life to have such markings, she thought
"is there a problem?" It sounded more curious than concerned.
Makimura's hands stiffen, she readjust her hold to the pencil. It now has an uncontrollable metaphorical itch whenever she hesitates.
"I'm..." She now looks at his usual silky clothing, Makimura is still trying to perfect the ruffles on each sleeve. "Just wondering."
Much like other days, he didn't ask, and much like other days Makimura has to restrain herself while focusing on other matters.
Maid au miyano pretty much goes the same with canon Miyano where he is very much not comfortable with the idea of crossdressing yet. Although the baker from next street is very much curious to what he may look like. He's not saying anything but you can tell.
I saw someone on TikTok explain how they see their fav ship and as the self proclaimed CEO of makibashi I kinda want to do it as well, if anyone also wants to share feel free to do so!!
Makimura likes pretty things and has been trying to make miyano his model due to his very androgynous look when they were younger. She has been utterly passionate about her art as well as she took inspiration in almost everything and could easily see the beauty and understand the abstract. She has pretty good comprehension with people's feelings and is pretty intuitive, albeit a bit impulsive at times and a little blunt here and there, Makimura is still a nice person.
So imagine her meeting someone like Niibashi, who yes is still open and probably also has good comprehension towards people and art is a bit more reserved. Whether he likes it or not he's caring towards the people he likes and the people he respects. He usually scolds someone if they're doing something impulsive and would probably be pissed at them if they do something without much thinking.
I guess that's a good start then. Imagine them meeting at their shared interest in art that makes them respect one another, Makimura will bluntly say honest things out of nowhere and Niibashi will scold her from time to time. There's also the difference in how they control things, Makimura is honest and would look at the core of something as if she's inspecting the overall message of an art while Niibashi would face a problem by looking towards a solution as if he's looking at the most practical brush strokes of a canvas.
Then imagine them slowly forming feelings for the other and both of them being a mess with it. Makimura already adores Niibashi although she doesn't really understand how far that adoration goes or if it is still adoration at all. Niibashi on the other hand would rather actually try to pursue her but fails miserably every time or the whole feelings would just be a passing thought until it actually affects him regularly. Both of them never realized that they became the muse of the other. Makimura would look at paint to find the exact color as Niibashi's hair and Niibashi will see trinkets that Makimura would definitely use for inspiration.
A small au that I pretty much have in the back of my mind, I have talked about it a bit in discord (hrkgtwt server) and I will post more info and comics about it hopefully
[CHARACTER INFO]
I will further mention other characters too, thank you for coming to my Ted talk
Oomf on twt talking about if niibashi may or may not have a dog and my IMMEDIATE thought was that the reason niibashi has such a soft spot for kagi is that he looks like his dog 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Hear me out though: adult au Hirakagi where rather than a pilot Hirano became a nurse and then meets Kagi at the hospital, with suspicious documents in hand.
janainaart
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
