"...I'm here." "You certainly are."

There was the Azure. The color she had craved and dreamed of forever spread infinitely beyond the white sands, to the edge of the horizon.

"How is it, your first time at the sea?"

The creature born from a painting did not expect an answer. Mother... Junna simply takes it all in at times like this. Her mouth is not as eloquent as the brush she holds in her hand. However, as her child, he understood the value of this silence all too well.

His mother was deeply moved, a smile playing on her lips. For Deloria, that was the most important thing. He stared intently at a hermit crab passing between his front legs. It stared back. Suddenly, the thought occurred to him that even this hermit crab has parents. Whether a blessing or a curse, even for a creature as distorted as Deloria himself. To the white-furred beast, that felt like an infinite salvation.

"...I have to thank Guest."

Junna's eyes were fixed on the gap, thin as a sheet of paper, between the sea and the sky.

"If I had stayed shut in my room in despair, I probably would have gone my whole life without seeing such a vivid blue."

The pinnacle she had reached as a painter. The massive painting called "Azure." Before heading to the sea, Junna had painted over it and erased it.

"—Hey, Guest. By the way, about the school leave request..."

There was no answer. Guest was asleep. Having frolicked for half a day after arriving at the sea and being dragged around by Junna and Deloria must have taken its toll. The hermit crab ruthlessly crawled over the body lying face down on the white fur.

"Hehe. Let's let them sleep."

Beside Junna, who shook with quiet laughter, Deloria raised his head slightly. A mysterious existence, he thought. Deloria himself was mysterious enough, but to him, Guest was an even more inexplicable being than an artificial lifeform kneaded from paint and magic.

"You love them, don't you?" "...I suppose so."

Junna paused for a brief moment. She couldn't lie to her own heart. That few-second gap was as if to say it was her final resistance.

"They dragged me out of the darkness and made me walk again."

That's why I love them. She continued, then stroked Deloria's fur.

"So when Guest ends up in a hopeless situation, this time I'll—"