"Why?!" Perhaps because she couldn't accept it, Rita looked somewhat flustered.
"Why what?" Seeing this, Sogo Doma reined in his malice a little, lest she went from flustered to irrational. "Wasn't I asking what you thought of my humble work? Compared to Mashiro..."
Before he could finish, the deeply shaken Rita spoke up again. "Why do people like you always waste your talent? Just because you're geniuses? Does being a genius make you so great?"
"Waste my talent?" Sogo Doma smiled again at that. "It seemed Rita had already acknowledged that my talent wasn't inferior to Mashiro's."
"..."
After falling silent for a while, Rita finally raised her head. "There's no denying it. To be able to paint something so breathtaking at this age... even Mashiro's talent is far inferior to yours..."
"Mm..." Hearing that, Mashiro couldn't help speaking up from the side. "I told you Sogo is amazing..."
"Is that so?" Sogo Doma smiled again at her words. "Hey, Mashiro, let me ask you something. If you were learning to paint alongside me, would you give up painting?"
"Why would you ask that?" Mashiro asked in confusion as soon as he finished speaking. "Why would I give up painting just because I was learning with Sogo?"
"Because no matter how hard you tried, I'd stand in front of you like a mountain and make you despair..."
"Sogo wouldn't do that. Besides, painting is clearly something fun. Why would I feel despair?"
"Actually, I don't know why either..." Faced with Mashiro's confusion, Sogo Doma merely shrugged. "It's just that Rita thinks so. In her eyes, no matter how hard she worked, she could never paint better than you."
"That's not..." Before Rita could say anything, Mashiro couldn't help saying, "Rita paints really well..."
But before she could finish, Rita shouted,