First fan fiction of GALS! with Rei and Aya as main characters. Expect OOCness. AU. Try to enjoy though.

Excuse grammatical errors. Typos. I'm a lazy person. Very lazy to proofread.

I claim nothing over the creation of GALS! It belongs to Fujii Mihona.

o~O~o


Photograph of. . .

. . .the first glimpse

Of all the pictures he had taken that previous month, only one photo had caught his utmost interest and attention. He tried to reminisce everything about that photo -- why out of the blue it was just there. His perfectly lined brows creased as he narrowed his fine deep indigo eyes into slits. However, remembering was futile…

Spotting his best friend sitting at a table located in the far right corner of Palm Tree Café, the blonde and lean guy silently approached the occupied table. The place was not packed with people as they tend to go at bars or parties during Friday nights. The blonde tried to walk as silent as a feline -- trying not to make any sound of footsteps and trying to stay far away as possible from the targeted guy's peripheral view. As soon as he covered the desired distance, he readied himself and launched his body forward -- crashing his self to his friend. Literally.

"On that hobby of yours again?" Yuya said after nearly sending his best friend flying into the humongous glass window. He heard his friend groan in pain.

"Yeah." Rei responded. "What about it?"

On the table before them were a pile of sleek and glossy papers -- probably ranging from twenty-five to fifty pieces of photographs. Yuya frowned at what he was seeing.

Rei fancied photography since they were in kindergarten. Back then there was not a day people wouldn't see Rei without his camera hanging down from his tiny neck – to the point that you would have thought it was entirely an obsession and not a hobby. And at the end of the week, there'd be thousands of pictures in his memory stick. But as years go by, the days without his camera with him gradually increased in number until it outnumbered the camera-with-him days. And now that they were in their second year of high school, you barely see him with his camera, even Yuya, who was always with the dark-haired guy.

Yuya crossed his arms and watched his best friend with bored expression. He watched Rei's hand as he started picking up the pieces of photos one by one that was scattered around at the center of the round table. As a kid, Rei took pictures of almost everything and anything. But now, as Yuya watched him, the photos were anything but human beings.

His eyes planted on one photo to another. There was a photo of a lone tree standing on top of a hill. Boring. Then a photo of a jet creating a stream of cloud in a perfectly blue sky. Common. Next came a photo of a flower bud at the end of a curb. Dull. And then a photo of a big, perfectly round moon. Nothing interesting. Seriously. Anything but human beings.

After watching Rei's hand picked up some more of the photos that he found utterly uninteresting, Yuya suddenly uncrossed his arms and swiftly snatched away a certain glossy photo. Upon obtaining the photo that caught the slightest of his interest, he quickly turned his back on Rei.

While watching each and every photo being taken from the table, thru his half-closed eyes, he thought he saw a figure. A human figure. Before he knew it, his body acted on his own and snatched away the photo from Rei. And upon taking the photo to a closer view, his eyes really did not deceive him. It certainly was a photo of a person.

"What's this?" Yuya asked with a grin. "And here I thought the only person you'll take a picture of is your girlfriend. But here you are, secretly keeping a picture of a person other than Ran."

Rei thought about snatching the photo back but then again, it would be a waste of effort. After all, the guy HAS already seen the photo. And the photo did NOT mean anything. It was just a piece of glossy paper randomly taken. Not on purpose. Not within his interest.

A stray photo. Nothing special.

"Hey, she's wearing the same uniform as Ran's!" Yuya brought the photo closer to his face. His eyes narrowed into slits.

The image was a little blurry but you could still perfectly make out the image of a petite school girl. In the photo, she stood rigid and straight amongst the leaning trees. She was not tall, but she was not short either. Well, just probably an inch shorter than the average girl her age. Her hair freely flowed down to her waist. It was as dark as a moonless night sky. The shade of it greatly contrasted the falling petals of cherry blossoms hovering around her. She also seemed to be watching the petals fall. Her skin, which was exposed from her mid thigh to her lower knee, was as pale as a white rose. And her face…too bad the photo was taken at quite a distance. Her full body was taken but it did not show her face.

Rei stole a glance at his friend and saw the plastered grin before completely wiped off from his face. His lips curled into a smirk. Hearing the smirk, Yuya looked over his shoulder with a glare. He knew Rei was laughing at his disappointment.

Yuya turned his gaze back to the photo. "You'll never become a pro with this photo. Not to mention a photographer." He commented in a teasing way.

"I've never planned to become one in the first place." Rei shot back.

"Hey." A feminine voice called out. Both averted their gazes towards where the voice came from and saw Miyu.

A second grin surfaced on Yuya's face as he saw both his and Rei's childhood friend approach their table and take a seat across them. It was time to get even with Rei. "Hey, take a look at this." He said as he handed the slender girl the photo he was holding. Miyu was an expert at teasing.

Miyu accepted the photo with a frown and then squealed in shock and excitement the second after planting an eye on the photo. "Oh my god, Rei!" She exclaimed in a bellowed tone. "Who is this?"

"No one." Rei said coldly. "The blurry result should be enough to answer your question." Indeed. The blurry result should be ALL the answer she should need. Obviously. The way the image turned out to be, the photo was obviously unintentional and accidentally taken.

"Rei, you shy dog." Yuya started his tease, expecting Miyu to follow. "No need to hide it. You ARE going thru puberty and all. So it's perfectly normal to be interested in other females when you already have a girlfriend."

Miyu laughed.

"Yeah! And you know what?" Yuya's grin was widening in width. "He was staring at that photo with intent gaze." He said although he didn't exactly know what photo Rei was staring at before – before crashing into his best friend. He couldn't see which photo Rei was holding from where he stood earlier. And then he laughed as well. Rei ignored Yuya's teasing and remained silent, continuing on what he was doing. He left the guy laugh to his heart's content.

What Yuya didn't know was that the one he thought would be his accomplice at teasing Rei was completely immersed at the photograph. Her giggle before melted off the atmosphere and replaced by a serious frown without the blonde guy noticing.

"I know this person." Miyu said after a couple of minutes. "It's Aya."

Yuya ceased from laughing. Miyu switched her gaze from the photo to the two guys before her and saw their doubtful expressions.

"I KNOW it's her because she wears the same uniform, has the silky black hair that runs down to her waist, and the complexion as white as a white lily. She's the only one in Hounan with that appearance so I KNOW." She explained. "In fact, it's her given nickname, "white lily"."

""White lily?"" Yuya asked. His doubtful look replaced by a puzzled one.

Miyu sighed. "Like I said, complexion as white as a white lily. Sometimes she's called "Aya-hime". The guys at school invented those nicknames obviously."

Yuya nodded his head vehemently, as if in understanding and agreement. "I like what I'm hearing." He said as he continually nodded his head. His eyes were closed, picturing in his mind the image of this Aya girl. With Miyu's description and the little detail the blurry photo showed him, he concluded that this Aya girl must be very pretty to be called "white lily" and "hime". "Miyu, I'd like to meet her." He said after nodding a few more times.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Miyu remarked. "She's been out of school since May."

"She hasn't been coming to school? How come?"

"Aya is in a coma." Miyu said, a sympathetic expression on her face. "Well, that's what I heard."

. . . . .

A week later Yuya dropped by at Rei's house and asked him to accompany him to the hospital. Rei wondered what business he had with the hospital. Yuya told him he's going for a check-up due to constant stomach pains. Rei doubted him at first. Yuya rarely gets sick after all and most likely impossible to get that sick that he needed to go to the hospital. But then again, there was still the slight possibility of being sick either. In the end, he decided he would come with him. And that Saturday afternoon they went to Shibuya General Hospital.

"You're not here for a check-up, are you?" Rei was sitting at the lounge area where he waited for Yuya while he went to talk to the registrar at the right corner. "You're looking for the girl."

"Yeah." Yuya admitted. "But the lady wouldn't tell me what room she's in."

Rei sighed. "Of course she won't. The name "Aya" is pretty common, you know. There could be at least a dozen of "Aya" here in this building. They wouldn't let you go and see ALL Ayas. You should've thought about asking Miyu for her last name first before talking to the registrar." He said in a calm and composed tone.

At the corner of his eyes, he could see Yuya reach into his pocket. Rei figured he must be reaching for his mobile phone to call Miyu. Seriously? This blonde dude who goes to the prestigious Meisho Private High hasn't thought about asking Miyu Aya's last name first?

Yuya flipped his mobile open and skimmed through his contact list. Miyu's name finally showed up and he pressed the call button. After a few rings, the other line picked up. Unfortunately, Miyu did not know Aya's last name either. She told him they were in different classes, told him that Aya was new at Hounan, and that she only attended classes for three weeks and then the accident happened. She also told him that Aya was a quiet girl, one that stayed aloof from the rest. So nobody really knew Aya. She was a mysterious beauty.

"Give it up, Yuya. Just wait for her to wake up."

After hearing Rei say those words, Yuya felt some uneasiness. Waiting meant forever. Nothing is done by just waiting. He wanted to meet her sooner rather than later. "Don't you want to meet her?"

"Not really." Rei replied bluntly. "Why would I? I don't even know the person."

"Exactly!" Yuya exclaimed. "That's why we need to meet her so we can get to know her."

"Not interested. Can we go now? I still have to go to my part-time job." Rei said as he uncrossed his arms and stood on his feet. He frowned at Yuya when he didn't make a move – he was still sitting – his brows creased as though he was in a deep thought. Still giving no sign to move, Rei began to lift a foot and start pacing his way out of the hospital.

"Wait!" Yuya approached him in a jog. "If I have to wait...then give me that photo."

. . . . .

After coming out from his usual evening shower, Rei went straight to his little drawer located near his headboard instead of his study table. He sat on the edge of the bed and slowly pulled the drawer open. Through the halfway opened drawer, glancing down, he could perfectly see the glossy photo – the outline of the blurry figure.

He did not remove the photo from the drawer. Instead, he just watched it with wary eyes as it lay inside the dim and confined drawer.

When Yuya asked him to give him the photo earlier, he curtly said no with a louder than the usual voice. He wanted to say yes but before his mind could even process, his answer was already conveyed out into words. And when Yuya asked why he can't give him the photo, he told him that he threw the photo away since it was ugly – being blurry and all.

He did thought about throwing the photo away. But no matter how much his mind tells him to get rid of the photo, his body wouldn't budge. Instead, he'll always end up looking down at the photo in his hand right in front of his round disposal can.

Letting out a big, heavy sigh, he closed the drawer back and lay on his back on the bed, rested his forearm on his forehead and stared at the ceiling. He realized he just lied to his best friend for the first time – all for the sake of one mere dull and blurry photo of a person he didn't even know.

o~O~o


Chapter 2: Photograph of…the Carved Initials

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Rei meets and "hangs out" with Aya.

Reviews are loved!