It must've been around 4am when Cas got home, but he was too tired make sure. During the date, he had been bright and energetic, with the feeling he could take on the world, but after he left Mei at her place and started to get on the way back home, all this energy progressively left his body leaving him drained by the time he arrived. When Cas entered the appartement, the only thing he could thing about was going to the softness and comfort of his bed.

As the fluffiness of the blankets embraced him, the memories of the just-experienced date fluttered and twirled inside Cas's stomach. Those damn cute butterflies flooded his mind as the last pinches of consciousness left his mind and he fell asleep.

...

The thing that made Cassey wake up again the next morning was an annoying little ray of sun shining directly on his eye, warming their face, interrupting the werewolf's wishes of staying asleep. They turned around on the bed, but how that his consciousness was up, there was no way of going back to sleep. After rolling up and down around the mattress, Cas finally stood up and declared a state of awakeness.

Being an early bird, after the first few minutes of numbness, Cassey's mind was completely awake. With a quick look of the flat, he verified that Haze wasn't around. Cas wanted to talk to zir, so, obviously, they picked up his phone and did just that.

"You're lucky I don't have any customers here at the moment Cas," Haze's voice said after a few seconds of waiting, "I already told you to text me before calling when I'm at work."

"I just woke up and I gotta tell you about the date because it was amazing!" Cas exclaimed, completely ignoring Haze's complaints.

"Pfft. Alright, tell me, how amazing?"

"It went so well! Mei came for me just after work, and we went have pizza, and we talked, and bonded, and she's ace, and we went to the cinema, and watched the film, and I walked her home, and I think she may not be human and she's so cool and sweet and I think we are going out again soon!"

"Slow down, you cute lil puppy!" Haze laughed, "You gotta tell me everything when I get back home. Or when you come over, I don't know your plans for the day."

"Oki! I will!"

"Hey, wait. It's about 10am. And you came home very, very late. How much have you slept?"

"Uh-" Cassey closed her eyes and did the math, counting with their spare fingers, "6 hours...?"

"Cas, darling, there's a full moon in 2 nights. You gotta start saving the energy and sleep more."

"Oi, just because you got some mystical dryad magic that allows you to sleep all night doesn't mean we can all do that!"

"It's called a consistent sleeping schedule darling. You should try it."

"Not my fault they changed my shifts!"

"Fair point," The sound of bells appeared on the background, "Crap, a customer. Bbl Cas, gotta go,"

"'Later!" Cassey exclaimed, before Haze hang up.

What a night. And what a day that awaited ahead of them! The best way to burn out the extra excitement was to get some freshly brewed orange juice and go for a morning run! Better do it now that they were fully awake than do it later, when the tiredness from the night before would settle in. This'll be a good way to get the exercise of the day done just so Cassey was prepared for the full moon in two days and to find a way to get sleepy again to win back a few hours of sleep during the afternoon before work.

...

When she got home after the date, the last thing Mei had on her mind was going to sleep. It was still early night; sleeping was out of the question for the next few hours. There was one thing she was going to do: art. All these emotions, feeling, butterflies... so much material that mustn't go wasted.

Cas, Cassey... what where they? Cassey was the only ray of sunlight Mei could allow herself to feel; warm, bright, comforting, nothing like what the actual sun would feel like for her currently. Cassey was a light breeze of air after a warm summer's night. Cassey was a twirly mix of gold, rose, deep purple, sunshine blue, a splash of green and light magenta. Cassey was the shinning stars brightening up a dark night.

Mei knew what she wanted to paint.

This was going to be hard to make. Almost as hard as the dark alley she had painted a month ago and showed to Cas that night. But this time, the feeling of the drawing would be taken in a completely different direction.

First stage: random doodling and getting lost with references on Pinterest.

Crumbled paper flew around the room. Frustration tensed Mei's fingers as her lines grew too thick or too harsh or too deep or too weak, causing the sketch to be abandoned. There's where Pinterest came in: scrolling through tons of reference helped to clear her mind, add new ideas and relax her fingers, so when she picked up the pencil again, the lines would be softer and easier to fix.

After what it seemed ages, the good final sketch was finished. It was finally time for putting it up on the canvas. There was only 1 inconvenience... Mei had to buy more canvasses, she had waisted them up with the last painting and the stores would most certainly be closed at 5:30 am. What a waste of creativity.

At least... at least she had the finished sketch. The idea had changed a lot after wasting so many papers, adding or erasing elements from the project. Currently, the sketch showed a porcelain plate with a matching cup, painted with simple yet elegant details that will be purple or magenta and gold. Alongside the cup, the plate also held a little teaspoon, also golden. The most important part of the drawing was the cup: it was filled with a liquid, probably either water or tea. The actual inside of the cup wasn't what mattered, it was the reflection that it showed. On it you could see a stary night, with bright stars glowing across the milky way and a full moon.

The color scheme was already stablished, drawn at the side of the sketch with Mei's special markers, the 200-color set. Her parents had given it to her years ago, back when she was more into pencil coloring than acrylics. She still kept the pack with her, both because of emotional attachment and because it helped her visualize the colors of pieces by re-creating a doodled version with only the tones so that, that way, she didn't confuse herself when painting. The finalized version laid there, with little left to debate: unlike others, this drawing would have more bright, saturated, and exaggerated tones, in contrast to her latest, darker pieces.

Alright, Mei had to admit her concept had trailed off from Cassey, but their influence was still there. The cup was there because Cas worked at a café, the golden teaspoon because of their golden necklace, the purple shades because that's the color Mei associated with them, the night reflected on the tea because they could only meet at night, the full moon because they were a werewolf, the bright colors because of the way their smile seemed able to bright up a room...

Mei hid her head between her arms and squealed. Oh gods, she was too gay for her own good.