Taking Your Picture
It takes a lot to be always on form...
"It is going to be a clear and cloudless evening. The temperature will drop by about ten degrees tonight, so please make sure to dress warmly," informed the weatherman as he stood at the foreground of a simulated night sky. He was generously encased in thirty-two inches of silicone and plastic, thousands of microscopic LED lights projecting his form as he recited the night's forecast to a furnished, but empty living room.
The television was mounted directly to the wall; a shelf filled with home theater equipment stood below it. A pair of self-standing speakers flanked the shelf, projecting sound quite nicely to whoever would be sitting at the austere black couch across them. Only a glass coffee table stood in the way. The other half of the room remained empty, and the walls remained unadorned; a plain off-white color. Perhaps as an attempt to give the sterile quarters some life, a potted ficus stood at the corner next to the large sliding glass doors that separated the room from a sizable balcony. It was plastic.
"For tomorrow..."
The sound of a door opening disrupted the silence in a dim and narrow hallway, flooding it with the sterile white light from the bathroom within. Moments later, the sound of a hairdryer whirred on, drowning out the rest of the weatherman's forecast. Steam drifted out the gap, creeping along the floorboards before disappearing altogether.
The weather forecast was long over before the hairdryer turned off, and a pair of feet padded silently from the bathroom to one of the other rooms branching from the hallway. Another door was opened, and the sound of a light switch being flicked on sounded out like a crack despite the newscaster talking in the living room.
"There has been a spate of home robberies in the Kuchimakase neighborhood of the University district. As of now, there have been five reported break-ins with mentions of stolen and defaced property. Because of the thorough yet swift break-ins, authorities suspect this to be the work of more than one person. These people seem to target single-person dwellings such as one-rooms for easy entry and exit. Everyone is advised to take extra caution. If you see anyone suspicious, please report them immediately."
Socked feet moved silently out of the open door, and the light within it was switched off. The whisper of fabric was the only indication of movement down the short hallway and into the living room, pausing at the newscaster's closing lines before moving on, past a fully furnished and immaculate kitchen, to the foyer.
A minute later, the front door was opened, closed, and locked.
The television, realizing that nobody was anymore present to listen to it or watch it, flicked itself off. A moment later, the living room light winked out as well.
—
The University district, aptly named for housing the top three colleges within its boundaries, is a mishmash of apartments, coffee shops, bookstores, and various entertainment businesses catering to the everyday university student. The closer one is to either three colleges, the more upscale the businesses become. This is the way of things in this small city-within-a-city with a 5:1 student-adult ratio.
The district is divided into three areas with one college in the middle of each. Area One is for the highest-ranking college, Koui University; Area Two is for the second highest, Jii International College; Area Three is for the third highest, Igosan University. The Areas themselves are again divided into three neighborhoods.
The farthest from the colleges, the fringes of the district, is the neighborhood Kuchimakase. It is purely a housing neighborhood, with convenience stores as its only available business. Following that is the Kyojitsukonkou neighborhood. KKon, as it is fondly called by its inhabitants, is a mixed neighborhood of locally-owned businesses and expensive housing. The district police station is here, close to Areas One and Two, while the fire department is close to Area Three. Lastly, the center surrounded by the colleges themselves, is the Ensou neighborhood. The classier enterprises are housed within it, namely the theater, museum, various art galleries and ritzy restaurants. It is also where the train station is located. Civilizations have been built around deltas, great cities have been borne from places of power. This district, this knowledge base, is certainly a place of power.
The district is famous for its picturesque appearance, crafted and maintained by Koui University's architecture and engineering departments, and is often used as a setting for a lot of television dramas and movies; majority of which are produced right out of the famous Jii International, lauded for its progressive cinematography department. Not to be outdone, the talents produced by Igosan University's performance arts department are usually recruited for these films. It is a harmonious—no, symbiotic relationship cultivated by the students.
This is only part of what makes the University district so unique, in that it is powered by the very people living in it. No outsider has ever had a hand in shaping its territory without having lived within its proverbial walls. The district is a powerhouse. It is something to take pride in.
"Oh, why did I ever procrastinate on this over break?" Gumi lamented as she leaned away from the small coffee table on which her laptop was perched. She leaned back on one hand, blearily rubbing her left eye with the other as she yawned, and then abandoned the process to stretch her back and arms. Summer green hair fell back from her forehead as she tilted her head back. She felt yawning should always be accompanied by stretching; it was very relaxing. After a long sigh, she loomed over her laptop again, surveying what she had written so far.
It was supposed to be an essay about photography within the University district. Instead it read like a biography. She scowled at the screen as if it was at fault for the screwup. The girl didn't have time for this; the essay was due in an hour and a half.
"Bullshit," the girl mumbled, her fingers dancing away on the laptop's keyboard as her mind supplied her with ideas she could use to dress her essay prettily. "Must bullshit."
But who is responsible for letting the world know about this treasure hidden in this grand city already housing great empires such as Ginza? Who can spread the word as swiftly as the written word can? Words can slow people down; especially since it is rumored that illiterate people actually exist, but a picture...
Isn't a picture worth more than a thousand words? So we paint, and with the evolution of technology, all we have to do now is raise a camera and press down on a button to capture a scene. It is a photographer's duty to document the world around her with her camera. It is the photographer who shares the beauty of the University district to those who can't visit it. Photographers are the marketers of this unified product.
"That'll have to do," the girl groaned as she swiftly saved her document into a thumb drive shaped like a frog. After shutting down her computer, she stood up from the floor and pocketed the peripheral device. She just knew she was going to be late.
She flitted about her single-room apartment, putting together her things. Her messenger bag was on her unmade bed, which she picked up and slung over her shoulder. Her keys were on the nightstand, which she hooked with a finger. After shutting off the single overhead light. she then slipped into a pair of kitten heel sandals and skipped out the door, quickly locking it before running for the bus stop like the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.
The bus was ten minutes late; and throughout the ride, she fidgeted in her skirt and leggings like a druggie on withdrawal. The problem with the University district's layout was that when one was running late, one would most definitely be late; especially when one lived in the residential area. She looked out the window she sat next to, her eyes seeing the scenery but not truly seeing anything. She was two years into college; and although she normally would still be marveling at how the streets slowly became nicer and row after row of apartment buildings slowly melted into bustling shopfronts and office buildings, she worried about making the deadline for her essay—she had to print it first—and her photo submission—she had to remember to get the prints from the photo development room—and her date with her boyfriend.
Oh, no. Her boyfriend. This date was supposed to be their first for the semester, having not seen each other over the summer due to his having to visit his family.
Her boyfriend, who was in the same department as she, wasn't exactly the type to forgive tardiness easily. Oh, he was pleasant and funny and polite when he needed to be, but he was also a bit of a perfectionist both with his photography and his life. And hers.
His meddling in her life was a common thread of contention between the two of them: he thought she was too lax; she thought he had a very large stick up his butt. Gumi didn't mind; she thought it was healthy for their relationship. She would have been worried if they got along without any problems.
Thankfully, he left his opinion out of her photography. He was smart to do so; her last boyfriend had been a jerk about her work, which stemmed from the fact that her shots were better than his. There was a line to be drawn at healthy oppositions. This was one of them. One would have thought to avoid dating within the photography department at all; but with school and her work at the Tête-à-Tête café, Gumi didn't have that much time nor interest to attend interdepartmental mixers.
To the minor crisis at hand, she had to let her boyfriend know that she was going to be late for their date. (See? She was responsible and considerate of his feelings.) To do that, she had to find her cellphone first; only said phone didn't seem to be on her person, nor in her bag. She had left it at home. There went her attempt at responsibility. Gumi groaned, touching the heel of her hand to the area between her eyebrows. This would be another healthy fight between them later on.
"Jii International College," the automated voice of the bus informed her, and she clattered towards the doors after pressing the 'getting off' button. After thanking the driver, as she was wont to do, she once again ran for it, greeting acquaintances along the way as she breezed by them without stopping.
"What's the hurry?" one of them hollered after her.
"Essay!" she yelled back, and grinned as she received good-lucks and go-for-its. Cheers always boosted her confidence in herself. She sent them a backwards wave.
Jii International's campus was a collection of buildings separated by its available majors. Photography and cinematography went together into one of the larger buildings in the central area. Gumi, however, ran straight for the computer sciences lab; a vast, single-floor building at the eastern side of the campus. She needed to have her essay printed.
The stations were arranged in a recessed floorspace. A short set of stairs led down to it. The rest of the room was a hallway of benches and study tables for those with laptops. It was at that time of the day when all the workstations were occupied, which was disheartening. Gumi wandered around, trying to spot a familiar face from whom she could wheedle a bit of time to print her paper.
A flash of yellow caught her eye and, turning, she spotted Len at one of the stations. He was watching a video. The girl sighed in relief and called out, "Len-kun!"
The young man turned and raised an eyebrow as she approached. "Gumi," he greeted neutrally, removing his headphones. "What's up?" He was answered instead with a frog-shaped thumb drive thrust in his face.
"I need to have a paper printed," she explained as Len accepted the frog and beheaded it to expose the USB plug. "It's due in"—Gumi glanced at the time on the computer screen and started shifting from foot to foot—"oh, no. It's due in twenty minutes. And I still need to pick up the prints from the darkroom. And then"—
"Which file?" Len interrupted, already clicking through the drive's folders. He was familiar with the girl's tendency to do things at the last minute after having met her by way of his sister the semester before. They also worked at the same café over the summer; though now they only worked part-time.
"gumiwontmakeitintime," she deadpanned, and watched as the man snorted in amusement and clicked her file to one of the six printers busily churning out papers at the end of the row of consoles. She made her way to it and waited. After an anxious (and disturbing) minute of sorting through lengthy sheets on how to castrate—not neuter—a penguin, her paper finally emerged from printer four. Snatching it and running by the waiting blond, she patted him on the shoulder and took back the frog-shaped thumb drive he held out, "Thanks, Len-kun! I owe you!"
"Good luck," he said to her retreating back.
"Thanks!" she called back, running out of the building.
The sprint to the film and photography building took nearly half of her precious twenty-minute countdown. By the time she reached the window counter of the film development room, she was bent double and could only wheeze out her name and student ID number to the indifferent attendant, whose only response was a snooty sniff through the hole cut in the glass divider before sorting through the stacks of manila envelopes at a leisurely pace.
Gumi once again shifted from foot to foot when she regained her breath, watching impatiently as the matronly attendant slowly flipped through each envelope before removing one and sliding it through the gap under the window. The girl immediately grabbed it as soon as it left the old lady's hands, running off after a hurried thank you. Her next destination was the classroom. It was very fortunate that the photography department occupied the first three floors of the building; even more so when her intended classroom to visit was on the first floor.
After turning down a corridor, Gumi burst into a classroom and slapped down both envelope and essay on the instructor's table with two minutes to spare.
"Cutting it close, Nakajima," her instructor commented, smoothing out a bent corner of the paper and inspecting the contents of the envelope.
Gumi's only response was a sheepish smile. "Still safe, though, right?" she asked, watching anxiously as the woman examined her nighttime shot of the Unity Fountain at Ensou. She had stayed in a single spot all evening, waiting for the perfect break in the crowd to take her shot.
"You have people in the foreground yet your focus is on the fountain," her instructor said finally. "Why?"
"The people are only the visitors," the green-haired girl explained, "they're fleeting images. The fountain is a permanent fixture. I wanted to define that. When people look at the fountain, maybe the fountain is looking right back at them."
Her instructor huffed out a snort of laughter. "Shame," she said, sliding the print back in the envelope and attaching it to the essay with a paperclip. "You're safe, Nakajima, but I still think you'd do better taking pictures of human subjects."
Gumi didn't have as much patience for people as she had for natural light when it came to photography. People were...well...people. People worried too much about whether or not they would look good that it showed in their expression. Just at the sight of a camera, a person would start to become self-conscious and suddenly the body language would change. It would be subtle, but it would be there all the same. Natural didn't exist when it came to people. Gumi summed up her thoughts with a simple, "People are too weird."
"Coming from a people person, that's weird."
—
Gumi was very, very late for her date. She was already expecting the sarcasm that he would usually employ to mock her. Did she lack a watch? Did she need him to call her every minute of every day to tell her the time? Did she need him to look after her? She was dreading it. After managing to make herself presentable in the restroom, she briskly walked towards the central courtyard of the campus where she was supposed to meet her boyfriend a half an hour ago.
The courtyard was a sizable square filled with statues sculpted by the college's former art students. They were mounted on thick column bases and, depending on their position, were either surrounded by stone benches or flanked by them. Trees and shrubbery bordered the courtyard, giving the illusion of privacy from the administrative buildings and the student lounge that surrounded it. Overhead, the unusually clear sky was fading from pink to a deep purple, showing the first glimpse of the brightest shining stars.
People were still loitering around, since the college offered night classes. Gumi hurried to a particular statue, one of an alarmingly life-like orange tree, if orange trees were bone-white in color and practically petrified up to the leaves. It was her favorite among the displays around her. There at the foot of it, sitting on a bench, was a man. A backpack laid at his feet. He was fiddling with a camera, digital by the glow emitting from the back of it, which he was looking at intently. His hair fell over half his face, the failing light highlighting it a light brown. She slowed down her steps.
He was Fukumiya Sui. A year ahead of her. If he stood, he would tower over her; although that wasn't such a surprise. She was shorter than the national average. He was a cranky thing; or maybe she just saw him that way because she was always, as he put it, too happy. He was honest. She rather liked him for it even though it made her want to hit him at times. It was serious. Gumi never wanted to hit anybody as much as she did before she met him.
As if sensing her presence, he looked up and watched her as she approached him, his expression dour with irritation at apparently having been made to wait. She smiled sheepishly as she sat next to him, arranging her bag on her lap. "I'm sorry, senpai," she said to him. "I had to rush my essay, and things dragged down from there. The bus was late, and then I realized I left my phone at home so I couldn't send you a message, and the computer lab was full, and you know how that old lady at the pickup center takes forever to find things."
"I know," Sui said bitingly. "And I'm sure, since this is your second year, you'd know that too and make the appropriate adjustments to your habits so you wouldn't be late."
Gumi sighed, but smiled all the same, refusing to be daunted. "Lighten up, will you? Didn't we agree to have dinner at your place, senpai?"
"I told you to stop calling me 'senpai' when we're alone."
"All right, Sui-sama," she started, but was stopped at the glare he sent her way. A corner of her mouth twitched, and before she knew it, she was hugging her bag to her chest and giggling.
"Why must every conversation with you be difficult?" he spat in disgust, standing up after carefully packing away his camera.
"I've always wanted to say that!" Gumi said, standing up and laying the strap of her messenger bag across her shoulder. "You're so..."
"...much more proper than you," he finished for her as he shouldered his backpack and took her hand. "Much more refined than you. Much more everything else," he said as he led her out of the courtyard. As they walked off campus, she watched him. His profile was always something she was fascinated by. His nose was long and thin, as were his lips. The outer corners of his eyes were tilted slightly upwards, and his eyebrows were almost always drawn close over the bridge of his nose, making him look severe. He was bony in appearance, though not frighteningly skinny. He just didn't gain weight.
"If that's the case, why ask me out in the first place?" she asked out of the blue.
"Why'd you agree?"
"I was curious," she sassed.
"So was I," he said dryly.
"Ahh," Gumi grinned mischievously as she made a move to step away from him. "So now that we know we're completely not made for each other, it'll be okay if we broke up?"
"Coming through!"
She was roughly yanked back against his side just as a large man barreled down the path on which she previously walked. Had she not been moved, she would have been introduced to a first-hand experience in how it felt like to be roadkill.
"Stop daydreaming," he snapped, leading her down the street. The side of his face she could see was red, even the tip of his ear and the back of his neck. "It makes me wonder how you're still alive today, with the way you go about as if nothing can hurt you. Idiot!"
His words were harsh. By all means, he was angry. But the big and bony hand holding hers was warm and gentle. He handled her like she was glass, and always looked out for her; that endeared him to her. She smiled and squeezed his hand. "I love you, too, senpai."
"Don't say it so easily!"
Gumi laughed at his blushing face. "Why?" she asked. "It's how I feel." She tugged on his hand, "Senpai, senpai, I love y"—She was pushed into a shadowy alley, and she could only look up before he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.
As far as kisses went, it wasn't the most romantic. They were at the mouth of a dirty alley with the early evening crowd passing them by on the sidewalk beyond, oblivious to what they were doing. The air was pretty bad; they stood next to a full dumpster that advertised a lot of rotten food. His lips were a little dry, but his mouth was warm, and feeling that moving warmth on her lips made her insides tingle. Her eyes drifted shut, and she kissed him back, her own lips caressing his.
She was quiet when he pulled away slightly. She could feel his breath on her now damp lips. "Don't say it so easily or I'll not let you go home tonight," he finally said, prompting her to open her eyes. Gumi understood the implications of his words. Sui was a man, after all. They had been going out for half a year now, and though she wasn't a virgin anymore, neither she nor he had seemed inclined to get past kissing. This was a first.
Looking up at his dark, dark eyes, she smiled bravely at the face half hidden in shadows above her, her bottle green eyes bright and teasing. "Why, senpai, is this a proposition?" she asked, and laughed as he cursed under his breath and walked away from her.
"Senpai...Sui-san, wait!" she called as she hurried after him, giggles still bubbling out of her. She linked her arm in his, hugging it to her side. "I was just joking. Your face was so serious that I couldn't resist."
"That's just it." He snatched his arm back, angrily turning to face her. "You're always making light of things that should be taken seriously. You don't even take me seriously!"
Her carefree smile wilted at his frustrated glare. "That's not true," she said, reaching out to touch his arm; but he stepped away, avoiding her hand, and started walking again. She hurried to catch up. "Sui-san," she tried, taking two steps for each one of his. The man had long legs.
He strode along and she raced to keep up until the next intersection, where he was forced to stop and wait for the crosswalk sign to change. She stood next to him, anxiously looking up at his stony face. Sui wasn't so keen on arguing in public, as he would demonstrate again and again over the past few months of their relationship, but she still wanted to let him know what she thought anyway. He was important to her; she wouldn't be bothering to spend time with him if he wasn't.
"I do take you seriously, Sui-san," she said simply, unmindful of the crowd of people waiting with them.
"Let's just eat out tonight," he told her, and to him that was the end of the matter altogether; it wasn't so much for Gumi.
The dinner was silent and awkward (for Gumi). The food she placed in her mouth was tasteless; she wasn't even sure what she was eating. Many times she tried to engage her sullen boyfriend in conversation, but her efforts were only met single-word answers or worse, the cold shoulder. After six months of similar ill treatment after an argument, she would have thought to get used to this by now, but it still hurt all the same. It felt just like the first time he had ever ignored her, coincidentally when she was late for their date. It hurt. For someone like Gumi, who was at her best when being around people, it was the worst kind of punishment.
The evening had turned sour for the both of them, and there was little either could do to salvage it despite Gumi being repentant. She always was after realizing she had crossed the line between playfulness and mockery. The greatest obstacle was Sui's stubbornness, or rather, his ego. Once his ego took a blow, he always clammed up behind a great wall of silence. She once thought it was adorable for the first two months of their relationship, but now she only saw it as hindrance to any possibilities of reconciliation. In short, the man stewed over his wounded pride. A lot. If he stewed any more he'd be edible.
The strained atmosphere followed them all the way to the bus stop, where he left her with a terse goodnight. He didn't bother waiting for her response. The bus had already arrived. She greeted the bus driver as she got on, sliding her pass along the scanner before moving on to seat herself by the window. The bus started moving. Usually in times like this, she would have sent Sui a message from her phone.
Thank you for dinner.
I wasn't thinking about your feelings.
I'm sorry.
But her phone was in her apartment; she would have to wait until she got home to express her gratitude, her regrets. Sometimes she could believe all the things Sui said about her were true. She did have an irresponsible streak. She was impulsive. She preferred to laugh than to be serious. But she had to. To live this dream, pursuing the major she wanted, she broke away from the typical business career her parents wanted her to succeed in. Without their support, she lived in the cheapest part of Kuchimakase, in the cheapest room she could afford. It wasn't that she was poor, but she wasn't living comfortably either. She had to be frugal with her resources. Living the kind of life she was, she had to keep looking on the bright side. Anything could happen.
The streets in the residential area were dark and usually deserted, and as she got off the bus, this presumption was perpetuated for the past couple of streets she walked to get to her apartment building. But that was where things started stepping out of the norm. She was surprised when she saw a crowd around her apartment building. Worse was the sight of patrol cars, their lights flashing silently, yet ominously over everything. This wasn't the kind of silent homecoming the girl was expecting.
Gumi looked around, hoping to spot any familiar faces; neighbors, her landlord, anyone. She drifted around the edge of the crowd and, finding no one she recognized, decided to ask a group of girls chattering with each other.
"Excuse me," she said as she broke into their conversation. "What's going on?"
"Oh, didn't you hear?" one of them asked. She had long brown hair. "There's been another break-in."
"In that apartment over there?" Gumi asked, dread turning her legs into lead.
"Yeah, another one-room," Long Brown said.
"On the first floor," her friend added. Her hair was in spikes.
"You know with all the noise, someone ought to have reported it," yet another friend commented. She wore a bob.
"I have to go there," Gumi mumbled distractedly.
"They've taped off the place," Spikes warned, but Gumi was already pushing her way through the crowd.
Her heart was pounding in her ears. In fact, her heartbeat was all she could hear as she swam through the sea of people.
"Hey!"; "Be careful!"; "Watch it!"
Their complaints meant little to her. More than once, her bag got snagged by extra limbs that she had to pick it up and hug it to her chest to keep moving without much interruption. Whatever was happening, whatever the patrol cars were here for, it just couldn't be related to her. It just couldn't be her room.
Gumi emerged at the other end of the crowd before a thin slice of police tape separating her from the building standing ten feet away. Impatiently she wiped the green stands of hair from her eyes, her gaze automatically locking on the unit closest to the edge of the property.
Her room.
People were crowding around her room.
They were walking in and out of her room, with zip bags, paper bags, kits.
What were they doing? Wasn't this just a break-in?
"Nakajima-san?"
Gumi looked up at the man who stopped in front of her. He was standing at the other side of the tape. He was wearing a police uniform. A radio hung off his belt, churning out static and the occasional garble of sound that only people in his profession seemed to understand. He had a gun hanging off the other side of that belt. He had tired eyes. "You're Nakajima-san, right?" he asked.
"What's wrong with my room?" she asked, and a look of pity seemed to cross his weary features. Was that pity for her?
"You may want to come with me," he said slowly, in that same tone one might affect when speaking to a troubled person. "The detective handling this case can answer any questions you may have." He raised the tape for her, and she crossed the barrier, prompting the people behind her to start whispering speculatively. She ignored them.
The officer led her to the huddle by her door. There stood her landlord, a former carpenter with a beer belly; her next-door neighbor, a homosexual make-up artist with an affinity for hair extensions; and a grizzled man in a rumpled suit who smelled like stale cigarettes.
Hiroshi, her next-door neighbor, immediately apologized upon seeing her. "I'm sorry, Gumi-tan," he said, wringing his hands in front of him. "I came home and your door was open and I thought you had forgotten to close it. But when I knocked and I saw inside..." he trailed off awkwardly. "I had to call the police."
"We thought you were taken against your will," the man in the suit said. His voice sounded as gravelly as he looked. "Nakajima-san, I am District Detective Tsujimoto." He offered her his card, which she took with numb fingers. She stared at it sightlessly as the detective went on to explain how her room was thoroughly turned upside down. Her things were smashed. Her windows and lights were broken. Her clothes were torn and carelessly thrown. Her bed was slashed and urinated on. They found half-dried semen on three of her panties. It was that discovery that made them think she had been kidnapped.
He asked her a few questions next; where she was, what she had been doing at such and such time, who was with her at the time. She must have answered those questions correctly, even though she had no recollection of ever opening her mouth.
"If you could compose a list of the things you kept in your room, we might be able to figure out what you lost," Detective Tsujimoto finished.
"Camera."
"What?"
"I need to get my camera," she said, panic finally surfacing in her voice. The only material thing more important than her check book was her camera. Her summer spent smiling for customers with a maid fetish was all for that SLR and the specialty fish-eye lens. That camera was the reason she endured the blisters on her feet with a cheerful smile and a happy giggle. That camera meant everything to her.
"Hey!"
"What is she talking about?"
"You can't go in there!"
The only thing she was aware of was her bed. The mattress had been thrown aside at some point, exposing the simple box-shaped bed frame that supported it. She slipped her fingers under the outer corner and heaved, pulling the frame from where it was aligned against the wall and the corner of her room.
"Hey, Miss, you have to stop"—
Gumi scrambled over the empty bed frame and sat at the edge of it, making sure she had a secure grip on the bed frame on either side of her hips. Planting her feet against the corner where two of the walls met, she pushed hard, exposing the floor that was normally under the bed. She sank down among the dust, her fingers scrabbling for purchase against the notch she knew was in the third board from the wall. Finding it, she pulled.
There, in the dank space she discovered when she first moved into the single-room apartment, rested her camera bag. She lifted it out, visibly shaking with relief when she felt the familiar weight of her camera and other paraphernalia inside it. The girl set the bag on her lap and unzipped it with shaking fingers, folding back the flap.
It was there. Her camera. Her lenses. Her checkbook. It was all in the dusty bag on her lap; the remains of whatever new life she had managed to build for the past two years. She released the breath she didn't know she was holding. Her lungs burned. Her chest felt heavy.
It was at that moment that she allowed herself to take note of her surroundings. Someone had set up some emergency floodlights, casting her room into an eerily sterile light. The officers were all looking at her, as were her landlord and her next-door neighbor. She looked away from their various expressions of pity and worry, her gaze tracking along whatever destruction she could see from the floor and beyond the crowd watching her like she was a dangerous animal. Her wall of photos, her only decoration, was torn down. The space at the head of her bed looked as empty as it did since she first moved in. Shreds remained of what had once been a simple documentary of her daily life. Her bedside table looked like it had been kicked one too many times. Her dresser was completely destroyed. Whatever clothes she had left smelled like it had been doused in gasoline.
Her gaze went back to the bag on her lap. She didn't want to look anymore at the destruction a seemingly random act of violence had caused. She wrapped her arms around the thickly padded canvas.
Anything could happen. So she had to stay happy.
—
End Chapter 1: Have You Got It In You?
Herro! This is the second Tête-à-Tête Universe story for Vocaloid featuring my second favorite pairing: Gumi and Gakupo...eventually! This is kind of upping the ante from Letters isn't it? Please ignore the names of the real fake city district. I just wanted to make something to contain the real fake café. (Ginza is an actual place, though. It's the shopping district in Tokyo.) If you haven't read Letters to Nobody, that's fine. This story can stand alone without it. For length, I think this will go for at least fifteen chapters. (I'm scared.)
I really hate that some Vocaloids don't have last names. I decided to give Gumi her voice contributor's last name. (Nakajima Megumi-sama~~) On another note, Gumi's kitten heels are pretty damn durable to withstand that much running.
Thank you for taking a chance on this story and reading it! It seems not many people share an affinity for this pairing (when I looked in the GumixGakupo section, there's only one page! filter sorting is so useful~). I hope you'll follow me once more to the end!
I'd also like to thank bonbonchocolate, whose brilliant mind has supplied me with a title for this story. Thank you for saving me when I wanted to bash my brains in out of frustration.
Also, if you find any typos or other mistakes, feel free to point them out. I'll fix them when I'm feeling more alive.
Disclaimer: Gumi [c] Internet Co. Ltd. Len [c] Crypton Future Media. Have You Got It In You? [c] Imogen Heap.
(081011)