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“Like this?”
“No, no, no. You're tapping on it all wrong!”
“Eh? I am?”
Airi takes one deep inhale before taking the flip phone in her hand. To anyone else, it might look like she's snatching it from Shizuku forcefully with her face all twisted up in annoyance. A lot of people often make Airi out to be a bad-tempered girl.
Shizuku knows her though.
She bears witness to Airi’s gentle kindness in the way that she makes sure the phone doesn't slip from both their hands. Once she'd dived to the ground to protect Shizuku’s phone, skinning her own elbows in the process just because both of them had miscalculated when the other let go. Shizuku is among the few chosen people who have been touched by Airi’s care and concern. It makes her feel special, in some way. Even if it's a bit ridiculous.
Shizuku gazes fondly upon Airi’s side profile, watching her brows furrow and nose scrunch up as she taps away at certain buttons. It's a nice feeling; walking beside Airi, existing along with her.
The situation is like thisー both of them were returning home from school, heading to the same station together when Shizuku remembered that she needed Airi’s help with something. So she clasped Airi’s hands with her own, as if in prayer, asking if she would be so kind as to teach Shizuku how to take pictures properly. All the ones she'd tried taking turned into a blur of colours that resembled a colourful phantom more than an actual human being. She wanted to be able to take at least one good picture!
Airi had flinched momentarily from the sudden hand grab before her shoulders eased.
And now…
“Why do you want to be able to take photos so badly?” She asks, “Is it not okay if I help you every time you want to take pictures?”
And Shizuku could kiss Airi for being such a kind and helpful friend, but she was a girl on a mission! It wasn't sustainable for Airi to be helping her out forever. And even then…
“Taking pictures means capturing a memory. We've gone through a lot this year and we'll go through a lot the next as well. I was thinking… It'd be amazing if I could keep all those memories somewhere so that I can never forget.”
Shizuku wanted to smile looking at her collection of photos. Their social media was carefully curated because of their image as idols and most of the time only the best of best photos made their way there. Shizuku wanted something authentic. Something only her own and no one else's.
“And, Airi is very kind to me. But I want to be able to do this on my own.”
Shizuku did have pictures of her friends and her sister in her galleryー selfies led mostly by them, group photos. Premeditated.
Airi looks at her phone screen before looking at Shizuku, her face speaking of great uncertainty before it steels into determination.
“Well, if you want to take photos so badly then I have an idea.”
Click.
Click.
Click.
Cl-
“Stop taking pictures of me!” The cutest girl in the whole world and Shizuku’s one and only beloved little sister snaps, annoyed.
Shizuku stops pressing on the disposable camera’s button, pouting. “But Shii-chan! You looked super cute just now. I had to take a picture!”
“I'm not even doing anything special, jeez!”
That's a lie. Shiho is eating the bento that Shizuku made for her with love and she has a speck of rice stuck on beside her lip that she still hasn't noticed. It's the cutest thing ever; how is Shizuku supposed to go on with her day without gushing over her adorable little sister at least once?! Shizuku is grateful that Airi gave her the idea of buying disposable cameras since they don't need all the adjustment that a phone camera does. It's a simple look and click thing that even Shizuku can't mess up! And the photos come out nicely when she asks the photo lab to get it out of the camera.
Obviously the first person Shizuku would want to forever remember would be her younger sister. Filling up multiple disposable cameras with just her doing mundane stuff isn't nearly enough, but Shizuku can't stop.
Shiho is camera shy so she's always posing a little awkwardly in the photos Leo/Need post on their SNS. Not that Shizuku minds but Shiho’s cuteness is most obvious when she isn't aware that she's being photographed. Candid photosー that's what they called it right?
Once Shizuku has had her fill and Shiho kicks her out of her personal bubble, she heads to her next target which is…
“Uwah! Shizuku?!”
Shizuku almost bumps into Minori, whom she can only see through the viewer of the camera where she's still looking through, while walking by a corner in the hallway. She opens both her eyes again, taking the camera off her face to properly meet Minori.
“What are you doing with that camera?” She asks, still looking a little puzzled. It's a silly question but Shizuku is equally silly so it evens it out.
“I'm taking pictures to add to my album!” Shizuku explains, and then proceeds to show all the pictures of Shiho she took to Minori. Somehow even with the pride she feels as a big sister, there's a gentle yet strong feeling of being seen that resonates through her while she shows the photos she took. Like showing someone important to herー see, this is how I view my world.
Minori coos over the pictures of Shiho with her cheeks puffed up, giggling when they reach the part where Shiho realises she's being photographed and watching her ears and face turn more and more red.
“Minori, I'd like to take pictures of you too.” Shizuku says out loud.
You're a part of my world too. She doesn't say.
Minori’s eyes flick over at the number on top of the camera, still a lot left, and her eyes crinkle up. “Sure!”
Shizuku teaches her to pose the way professional photographers used to direct her, back in her modelling days, and snaps a good number of pictures. As Minori waves at Shizuku once the bell rings, she feels a tug in her chest again as she takes one last picture of Minori; this time with her back turned, hair flying behind and skirt bouncing slightly as she rushes her way to her class.
The little things.
Shizuku's life is made of a lot of little things.
The last few slots left are all used up during archery club.
She naturally asks Asahina for permission before taking pictures, but as expected Asahina is unfazed by any sort of eyes on her. She would make an exceptional model. After all, she has a beautiful face and a wonderful silhouette. The first time she smiled at Shizuku, it was so disarming that Shizuku felt as though she could always rely on this one person if no one else.
There are a few selfies and photos taken by other club members of them together where Asahina is smiling her ever so gentle smile. But Shizuku thinks that the picture she makes as she aims with deadly precisionー her face as calm and cold as the stillness of an untouched and unbothered lakeー is the most authentic and true form of Asahina that Shizuku will ever be allowed to see. This was something worth remembering.
So Shizuku returns back home that day with a camera full of pictures and a heart brimming with the fulfilment of a wish. Overflowing and spilling out like a pot waiting long due.
It's a little ridiculous. How happy a little camera can make her feel.
What a person sees becomes their world.
The idea of seeing is much deeper than what people may initially think. How one person perceives something is completely different to the way another person does. Can seeing even be called believing at that point?
Shizuku knows this like no one else does. This is something she truly and firmly believes that she's learned from life as someone who used to have a wavering self image.
An idol is a person who can shape themselves up to be whatever their audience desires; Shizuku held onto this, battered and bruised in the unrelenting storm that was the idol industry, as her one and only anchor. What she was as a person was simply not enough. What she needed to do was make people see what they wanted. As long as she had the will to deliver her fans with hope and joy and as long as she could match their expectations, Shizuku thought she could keep doing what she always did.
Minori’s awkward but sincere energy was charming. Shizuku didn't want to see all that charm be sensationalised and made into something more palatable for frequent viewers. That was a thought she couldn't stand.
Could what Shizuku did before even be called living with how much she hid everything from everyone?
How was Shizuku supposed to watch another hopeful girl jump into the same pyre she did and not feel her own sense of self either away?
What a person sees becomes their world.
What was Shizuku’s world?
What did Shizuku believe in?
The person speaking flawlessly while smiling beatifically, glowing like no other, on screen could not be her. Shizuku doesn't remember her world like a girl who knows when to smile, how to angle her face and when to throw a clever quip. The girl on the TV might have looked like her but it wasn't.
Shizuku remembers that part of her past vividly. People shuffling in and out when the camera was cut to touch up her makeup, the director lecturing her hours on end on how to appeal to the fans while other members of her group muttered mean things about her under their breath. Shizuku remembers trying her best to smile naturally, pretending not to notice what the others said about her, the way her eyes prickled despite everything and swallowing down her pain to laugh the redness of her eyes off as the product of the spotlight’s glare.
Being at the centre of attention yet not being able to tell her own story, her own world, as it was. A different person to each viewer who watched her shows.
It was extremely painful.
If it's for the sake of all of you, Shizuku thought day after day, keeping even the oldest of fan letters in her room like a prized possession. It's painful but if it's for everyone's sake then I'll keep doing it.
Ah. What an idiot she'd been all along.
“Pictures? Of me?” Haruka repeats, blinking in surprise. “If you wanted them I'm sure Minori can send you some on LINE-”
“I want to take them myself!” Shizuku blurts out.
Haruka looks at her, full of curiosity. Somehow Shizuku has always felt as though she could never hide anything from her. Haruka is as sharp as she is kind. She's a nice, hardworking girl who must understand Shizuku’s feelings as an idol managed by her respective agency. The one closest to truly understanding what Shizuku used to feel back then.
(You understand it, don't you? The pain of not having anything of your own because in our world, idols were untouchable, unreachable and inhuman existence with no earthly desires nor attachment.)
In front of you, I'm not an idol. I'm just a girl who wishes to have. Shizuku thinks, clasping her camera and fiddling with it. Imperfect and human.
She must see something because Haruka’s eyes soften as she nods. “How would you like me to pose?”
“Just like that is fine.”
“Just like what?” Haruka chuckles, a hand coming up to her mouth. Her eyes squint with amusement, body naturally tilting to the side. “I'm not doing anything right now, Shizuku.”
A beautiful picture.
A click rings out.
It's not the best pictures Shizuku has ever seen when they're developed. Rather, Airi warned her not to get her hopes too high since it's a cheaper alternative to regularly buying phones or even buying a good quality camera. The photos come out looking like something Shizuku would see in older movies. The slight fade in all of them makes it seem as though time had swept these fond memories along with it. It's steadier than when Shizuku tried taking photos on her phone and the faces of people are recognizable.
She lays the spread of photos over the white sheet of her bed, a smile spread uncontrollably on her face as she picks them one by one to put them all in her empty album.
A physical proof of her affection. A physical proof of the world Shizuku sees.
It's cathartic in a way she never imagined photography could be.
A photo of Airi scowling at her with a bright red blush for clicking her in what she called an ‘unflattering’ angle.
Such a thing doesn't exist but Airi is insistent. If only she could see what Shizuku did when she looked at her.
All her dear memories. All her dear emotions. And all of her dearest friends.
Hers, all hers.
Hers to love, hers to care for, hers to tend to; devotion instead of possession.
With the last photo all set and done, the book closes shut with a soft ‘thump’ sound.