Picture Perfect.
This is my first fanfic. : I don't usually write fanfics, but I just thought of this idea recently and decided to make one. Enjoy. :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.
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Snap.
Roxas took yet another photograph. The pictures seemed to become duller and duller every time he put one up.
"They don't say anything…" Roxas thought. "They don't have any significance." He sighed, staring at the many photographs taped onto the wall.
There were three of them he looked at with absolute disgust.
One was a picture in the forest, looking up to trees as tiny rays of sunlight shined through the leaves.
Next to it was a photograph of him in the clock tower of Twilight Town. He was standing next to a boy with brown hair with spikes that seemed to stick out in every direction.
Beside that was a picture of the famous paopu fruits Destiny Islands hanging from a tree. The star-shaped fruits were part of a belief that if one shares the fruit with another person, their destinies would be intertwined forever. Roxas recalled that he submitted these pictures in his senior year of high school for his photography class. His teacher said it lacked life.
Which was true about all of his pictures.
Although people often told him that he was a good photographer, his pictures were only something pretty to look at for a short amount of time. But he was sure that all his photographs lacked the most important quality of pictures: Life.
There was nothing in his pictures that really struck his heart.
…Of course, to change that was nearly impossible for Roxas.
It was a beautiful July afternoon, and normally Roxas would be up on the clock tower with his friends, but this time he had his own plans.
"Why am I even doing this…?" Roxas mumbled to himself. "It's not like today's anything special." He had his camera set up by a wooden bench as he sat down next to it. Though he wouldn't admit it, he was eager to take a good photograph. He wanted to actually be proud of something he did for once.
And right there, something caught his eye. It was a girl. She didn't look like anything special, but he could tell that there was something good about her. She had blonde hair and a plain white dress. She carried an easel with her and a blank canvas board and she had a light blue backpack strapped around her shoulders. All she did was sit at her bench and wait. She was on the other side of the park, but it seemed as if Roxas could see her perfectly.
He wondered what she was waiting for. It was almost 9:00, and people were already leaving the park to watch the sunset at the top of the clock tower.
Twilight Town was famous for its sunsets; they always seemed to look better there than anywhere else. July was always the best month for sunsets.
And before Roxas knew it, as the sky had just begun to turn pink, the girl took out her canvas board and set it on her easel. In her bag, she took out a palette and paints…
And she started to paint the sunset.
Roxas looked at her painting, amazed at how the canvas became more beautiful and realistic with each stroke of her brush.
The colors of the painting matched perfectly with the sky. Every single pink, yellow, orange, and red blended together to be more beautiful than anything Roxas had ever seen. It might have even been prettier than the sunset itself.
And just as her brush struck the paper once again…
…Snap.
"This might actually…" Roxas thought. "Be a good picture." He smiled, thinking about both his and her picture.
"Roxas?"
Roxas turned around from the park bench to see a familiar girl behind him; she wore an orange top with flowers on it and yellow capris. Her deep green eyes looked straight at Roxas' face.
"Oh, hi, Olette." He said with a small grin.
"Why haven't you been up in the clock tower with us recently? Hayner and Pence were wondering where you've been all this time. I heard from a few people where you were hanging out these days, but I didn't believe it. Turns out..." She smiled. "You've been in the one place you've hated all your life."
His smile disappeared. "That's not true!"
"Yeah, it is! Remember in ninth grade, when you didn't want to go to the park for Hayner's baseball game and you said that you'd rather be pushed into the fountain… And he pushed you in right there!" She laughed. "And you wet your DS and went all crazy, saying you were going to sue him!"
"That reminds me, I still have to do that." Roxas said, annoyed.
"Oh, come on, Roxas. Why haven't you hung out with us for the past two weeks?"
"It's actually been twelve days."
Olette pouted. "Roxas!"
"I just felt like going to the park."
"No, but what have you really been doing though?"
"I just told you."
"Fine," Olette said. "Then what about..." She took something out of her pocket. "This?"
Olette knew much better than to get Roxas angry at the least bit. Roxas' patience always ran low if something bothered him. However, Olette had always seemed to go too far when teasing Roxas.
Roxas' mouth dropped. It was a picture of the girl that was painting at the park. "Where did you get that?!" He was angry and surprised at the same time.
"There are tons of them in your room."
"You broke into my house, and my room?!"
"I wouldn't really say broke in…" Olette grinned. "The door was open and I wanted to see what you've been up to all this time."
"Olette!"
"Pence and Hayner did it with me, if that makes you happier."
"You're not helping." Roxas was extremely angry by now.
"Gosh. This girl's really making you crazy, isn't she?"
"I don't even know her!"
"So now you're a stalker?"
"That's not funny." Roxas chased her around the park, trying to grab the picture as she ran, keeping it away from him. "Give it back already!"
"Fine! If it really means so much to you…" She threw the photograph to him. Even though Olette was mad at him, Roxas knew that she was using that to cover up the fact that she was upset."But Roxas..." she looked at him with sad eyes. "Please come to the tower soon, okay? It's not the same without you…" Olette definitely wasn't one to get emotional at all. She was more the happy, smiling type.
"…All right." Roxas mumbled, still annoyed. Quietly, he added, "And Olette? …Sorry."
Olette hesitated to let Roxas know that she heard him say sorry, but she didn't say anything and walked away.
Just as Olette left, Roxas saw the girl at the same bench, setting up her easel. He picked up the picture from the ground and set up his camera.
Ever since the first day he saw her, she was there every single day, painting the same picture of the sunset. "She's probably not from here," Roxas said to himself. "I haven't seen her anywhere around here."
Her brush touched the paper again, and transformed it from a flat, two-dimensional object to the actual thing.
Snap.
He took the picture again, this one being the twelfth day that she was working on it. "Twelve days, twelve pictures." Roxas said to himself.
That girl seemed like the only thing that interested Roxas these days. She was the only one of his pictures that could really tell a story, one of a young girl that was an artist who brought her pictures to life. If he could tell Olette what he really thought, he would say that they were getting boring and he would rather watch some girl he doesn't even know bring a picture to life instead of being with them.
But no one would understand.
Roxas sighed. "Sorry," he said, talking to the sky, as if his friends could hear him at that moment.
Roxas put up the twelfth picture. The painting was almost done, and the twelve pictures were lined up in consecutive order, from the first day to the twelfth. Now he only needed the thirteenth one. With each picture, the painting grew. The color of the sky looked exactly as it did in her painting. In the last one he did, her painting of the sunset was complete, but she had white spots in the bottom. "Maybe she's going to put grass there or something," Roxas said.
As he stared at the pictures again, he thought aloud, "Where is she from? …She's probably visiting someone. Maybe it's her summer vacation. I think Sora said that he has vacation too, last time I called him. Oh yeah! Sora!"
Roxas looked at his cell phone that he never answered. The display read, "3 missed calls." They were all from Sora.
Roxas dialed Sora's number and Sora picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Sora."
"Oh, hey, Roxas."
"Why'd you call me so many times?" Roxas asked.
"Oh! About that… You know how I'm coming over tomorrow? Well, I was wondering--"
"What? You're coming over tomorrow?" Roxas interrupted.
"Uh… Yeah. July thirteenth, right? The train's leaving pretty soon, actually."
"What time?"
"I'm going to do some stuff there first, though. So I'll be at your house around six o' clock at night or something."
"…Oh. Uh, I have plans tomorrow. I'll just leave the door unlocked and you can come in."
"Okay. But I wanted to ask you… Is it okay if one of my friends comes over, since she's in Twilight Town right now?"
"Yeah, sure."
"It's a girl!"
"…Obviously. You said 'she.' Um, her name's Kairi, right?"
"No, someone else," Sora said in a sly tone.
"But you have a girlfriend already."
"She's my friend, I told you! She hooked me up with Kairi."
"Okay… So why did you need to tell me this?"
"Because I think you might like her. She's pretty cool. Oh, there's my train. See you tomorrow!" Sora hung up the phone.
Roxas decided to go with his friends on the clock tower the next day. He felt bad for not spending enough time with them, especially after Olette talked to him.The sky was clear, and it would have been a perfect day for seeing the sunset. If he wasn't thinking about the girl he saw at the park, he would be in a good mood. But he was still upset for missing the thirteenth picture, since it was probably the last one; his pictures wouldn't be complete. He sighed.
"What's wrong?" Olette looked at him.
"What do you mean? I'm perfectly fine," Roxas said.
"It's that girl, isn't it?"
"…No, it's okay."
"If you want, you can go. But you have to make me a promise…" Olette grinned. "You have to buy Hayner, Pence, and me sea-salt ice cream after."
Roxas laughed. "Deal."
Roxas ran to the park, but the girl wasn't there. …Or at least, she wasn't there at that time.
The door creaked slightly as Sora opened Roxas' door. His house was small, since he lived alone most of the time, and the only people who came there were his friends. All the rooms in his house were messy and small, except for his room. He hardly ever let anyone even set foot there, even though it was the biggest room in his house. Even Sora wasn't allowed in his room. Sora followed his rules and didn't go into his room; besides, it was almost always locked. Sora went to the kitchen to grab some potato chips and went to the living room to watch television.
Right before the clock struck eight, he heard the doorbell ring.
Sora opened the door slowly and smiled.
Roxas came back to the clock tower with four sea-salt ice creams. He tried not to show sadness because he didn't want to be a reason for everyone else to be upset. It was already dark by the time Roxas got back, and his friends stared at the stars. After they finished, Roxas walked home.
He looked down at his feet as he opened his door, and when he looked up, Sora was there, and a girl came running in. She had blonde hair, deep azure eyes, and was wearing a white dress. Sora introduced them to each other. "Roxas, this is Namine. She's my friend from school. Namine, this is Roxas. He's my cousin."
As Sora talked, Roxas and Namine just stared at each other, not listening to anything his cousin was saying. After Sora was finished speaking, Roxas said, "…You're that girl from the park!"
"You're that guy…" Namine whispered to herself, stopping herself from saying anything more.
She tightened her grasp around the canvas board and looked down, hoping he wouldn't turn it over. Namine never liked it when people saw her drawings, especially if they said something about it.
"Um, can you come with me, just for now?" Roxas asked.
Namine looked up for a brief second, then looked back down to hide the fact that she was blushing. She nodded slowly, still keeping a tight grip around the canvas board, and Roxas brought her into his room.
Roxas' room was blue, but no one could see the color. His room was covered by photographs, as if his whole room were a collage. Namine looked around at first, speechless. The first thing she saw was a cluster of pictures, and they had her in it.
Hesitating, Namine slowly turned around the canvas board, revealing the finished painting. This time, Roxas was the one who was shocked.
"That's… me?" Roxas asked, even though he was sure it was definitely him.
"…Yes. I've seen you in so many dreams," she said in a soft voice. "I needed to draw someone who looked like they had a story behind them, something… Something that a person would stop to look at and just stare, knowing that that person was important to the artist. That's you, Roxas."
Namine opened the curtain to look out one of her many windows: Her windows of inspiration. Each one of them had a different picture in it, as if her windows all showed clips from different movies that wouldn't make sense together. The particular one she looked at showed a boy. He was far-off in a grassy plain and his back was turned to face the sunset, so it was hard to see him. His head hung low, and it looked as if he was just about to lose all hope.
Namine grabbed her paintbrush and right as it stroke the window, a bright glint shone from the place that touched it that spread all across the window. When it faded, the boy lifted his head up and he took out his camera. It made a small flash as it clicked, and Namine closed the curtain, looking satisfied.
Namine would never forget that dream. It was her inspiration, and now her dream had just come to life.
Roxas told Namine about how he found her in the park, and everything. It seemed so easy for him to just speak to her. Roxas and Namine talked more, and everything felt so perfect.
Roxas smiled, and the blood rushed to his face as their lips met.
It was picture perfect.
…Snap.
