"Hi, my name is Chareeze! I've heard so much about you two!" She said, before we even gave our names, shaking our hands eagerly.
"What have you heard about us, exactly?" Yusei prompted, already turning a slight shade of cherry.
"Well, I've heard a lot about you two from a school paper I like to read, since my daughter attends that school…"
"You have a daughter?" Yusei repeated, his surprise flowing into me. Chareeze looked no more than twenty five.
"Yes, and she always brings home the school paper for me to read." She held up an issue of 'NDC Upper Elementary Gazette.' Yusei took it gingerly, and I looked over curiously.
"Yusei Fudo and Akiza Izinski, Possible Couple for Upcoming Valentine's Day. Published by your favorite authors Luna and Leo…"
"I am going to kill them when we get home." He said, crumpling the paper in his hands. Chareeze seemed a bit unnerved by his anger, and she put her hands up in surrender. ^-^*
"Okay, maybe we should just skip introductions and get to the point." She said, gesturing for us to sit down with an uneasy smile. So the two of us sat down and she asked us about our ideas and handed Yusei the laptop, already knowing he was the techie master.
"Well… I was imagining a violet background," Yusei began. "And a sort of ornate frame around the photo. My last thought would be some really heavy shadows and a gloomy lighting… I didn't think much about it before we left." Yusei gave me an apologetic look, and I gave him the "Don't worry, I have all the ideas thought out already," smile.
"And what are your ideas, Ms..." She looked back at the title of the crushed newspaper. "Izinski."
"Well I had sort of thought making some thorns on my side of the photo would be cool… And I was also thinking maybe the saturation of the photo should be high, lots of contrast too, and like Yusei was saying, really dark shadows." I nodded at him approvingly, and he smiled. "But I also think, to balance out all the shadows and keep some light on the colors, we need to set the brightness up pretty high also. You can't really see anything if there's too much darkness in a photo." Yusei thought about this, and nodded, but spoke up as well.
"Only problem I have, is when there's too much saturation, your skin starts to look a little sickly in the shaded areas."
"That can be fixed by turning down the saturation in the shaded areas, but the saturation will still be in the places where it counts; hair, face, smile, etc." He nodded once more, and put his index finger and thumb over his bottom lip like earlier.
"I think that's about it." He said, and I seconded his statement with a nod of my head.
"Okay then, you two." Chareeze said. "Find a pose you like on that wall over there." Yusei clicked violet for the wall palette, and we argued for a minute about what position we should take, until he had a fairly clever, heartwarming idea.
"Akiza, take my left hand in yours, and lean into me, please?" I did as instructed, surprised by the faint imploring I found in his voice. Then, very lightly as I took his gloved hand in my own, he slid his hand ever so gingerly to my lower back, and his fingers crept around the curve of my waist. I smiled a bit as he did this, stifling a giggle of satisfaction.
"Alright lovebirds," Chareeze cut in. "Get your best grin face for the camera." She set the lenses, altering them to proper angle and turned it on, then got us in focus.
"Get ready." She said, just as eager as us.
"Team 5d's!" We said in unison, smiling at the glass of the lens.
"One, two, three!" She then clicked the camera on its tripod, and a bright flash blinded me as it went off, but I didn't shut my eyes. Chareeze giggled as I freed my pose, and Yusei rubbed his eyes, causing me to do the same… To a limited amount with my make up on.
"I am never letting a flash camera take my photo again…" Yusei mumbled.
"Oh. Are you sure you don't want a couple more to take home and show the kids?" our photographer teased.
"The kids?" We asked together. "We're not-!" I get it now. -_- I thought. Chareeze doubled over in laughter, holding her waist as she wheezed for breath over her tittering fit.
"What's so funny?" Yusei burst out.
"I… you…Oh my God! Oh just ask her…" She continued her little fit, and I explained.
"She meant Luna and Leo. She wasn't implying that we were married." Yusei gave himself a facepalm for his absurd thought, and Chareeze seemed to recover from her mad laughter.
"Anyway, are you sure you don't want to take a few more? I haven't gotten business besides you two within a week, and I really need the money!" She wiped the sweat from her brow with a hankie, and I turned to Yusei.
"She has a kid. She's twenty five. Clearly working to live without the father." He said in his matter of fact voice.
"Look, I understand your sympathies, but really I'd rather not go home to another issue of you and me on the paper!" I whispered fervently.
"Who cares?" He replied. "It's not as though we've gone public." I heard Chareeze's phone ring in her pocket and she answered it with a cheerful tone.
"Chareeze Fayvaran, how may I help you?" There was a scramble of words and voices, and I couldn't make it out, but I sensed her mood go from happy to nervous.
"You want me to what?! But… But they're just friends! You can't expect me to…! No, don't hang up! Damn it!" Putting her phone back in her pocket, she sighed.
"What happened?" I asked, already feeling sorry for her.
"You know how there's been news about you two ever since the Tournament match between you and Yusei?" She began, looking a little uneasy.
"Yes…" Yusei answered, seeming a bit on edge.
"Well, when Luna and Leo heard about how you beat her, they included a photo of you and her dueling, and people sort of shipped you…"
"They what?" He looked clueless, and Chareeze rubbed her temples irritably.
"Shipping is when you put two people's names together, whether they're officially a couple, or a figment romance of someone's overactive imagination. They're even calling it 'Yukizei.'" This was news to me, and Yusei looked just as dumbfounded by the matter as I felt.
"And on the phone…?" He ventured, clearly about to snap.
"I work for an imaginative writers company also, and my photography helps give me some leverage on living single and alone. The people on the phone were the fans. They want a picture of you two kissing." Looking like he was about to faint, I held Yusei up, petting his head to try to get him to calm down.
"Well I hate to tell you this, but they are not getting a kiss picture of us." Yusei said, causing Chareeze's face to grow even more upset. "But I am gonna let you snap a few more photos, since I feel like you might need some of that extra money like you said." She smiled, her pretty face lighting up with excitement.
"Alright. You two discuss plans for the photos, and I'll edit the previous photo with the ideas you gave me, and you can tell me when you're ready. Okay?"
"Sure. Just don't edit it too much." Yusei replied, narrowing his gaze impishly.
"Don't worry. You guys are in my white flag zone. No tricks, I promise."
"Okay." He said laughingly, and began talking with me about if we should take singles, what poses would look good, and whether or not to change the color of the background. I argued that if we changed the background to something to light, it would kill the vibe our clothing gave, and he surrendered on that one. He pinned me on the poses though, saying that sassy poses would make me look like a succubus if we took a single of me. I dared to prove him wrong, but when he held a mirror up to me I saw he was right. ~_~ I argued with the fact that if we took all the photos together, people would say that we really were a couple instead of just shipping us. He agreed but then came back with us taking them alone, which would mean the opposite: We'd be trying to make it look like we were in love, and then had a flash break up.
Sighing, I pondered all the conclusions and came to an end by saying we could take the next one by him leaning over me, "tears" (eye drops) down my face, and a very calm, unemotional look in his eyes. In short, the photo pretty much said "Akiza, get a hold of yourself, he just broke up with you." Plus the fact Yusei didn't really smile in the other one made it a bit more convincing. So as Chareeze was muttering something about "People demand too much of me," while working on the photo of me and Yusei, we approached her.
"Hey, Chareeze." Yusei began, and she looked up. "We're done talking."
"Oh, that's good. I just finished the photo of you and Akiza."
"Can we see?" she turned the computer monitor towards us, and I was awed.
Yusei looked just as amazed as I did, but his smirk concealed some of his astonishment.
"Told you I knew how to smile."
"Oh barely! That's just a simper of arrogance!" I said, refusing to admit I was wrong.
"Because I rarely ever smile!" He argued back.
"So you admit you don't smile enough to learn how to do it properly?" I said, cornering him with my words.
"No!" Chareeze giggled at our childish argument and put a wedge between us.
"Alright you lovebirds, break it up and we can take the next photo." We nodded, and took the pose for the next photo, Yusei grabbing both my wrists, and then holding my hand with that placating look on his face while I put eye drops in to make it look like I was crying with fear. The background we selected was white, and all Chareeze had to do was edit in some thorns, soaked with blood. And yes it looks extremely different from the last photo, but it's only because I have my hair down.
So while Yusei gave me the "Everything is going to be okay," look, I saw the camera flash from the corner of my eye. I didn't have to rub it as much, and Yusei seemed happier about receiving only half the flash as well. Chareeze then told us to pose for the next one if the other was going to be a fairly simple edit as well. So we thought for about five minutes, Chareeze announced she was done, and then came the photoshoot.
It was a very emotional moment for me, being held in Yusei's arms so tightly, and his breath warm on my neck. I felt his heartbeat on mine, and our synchronized breathing. As the camera flashed, he caressed his fingers down my neck, making me shiver. We parted as the photoshoot finished, and Chareeze only needed a minute to edit it. After letting us see the last photo, she clicked a few keys and made a collage of all the photos we had taken, so we could see them from every angles.
"Wow…"Yusei said. "Those are pretty good…"
"Good?" I burst out. "Yusei these look amazing!" Chareeze blushed, clearly not used to having her work complimented.
"How soon do we get the prints?" I asked, eager for the photos to be in my hands.
"Just wait till tomorrow, because I've got a bit of business coming in from the Creative Minds Industry." She let a sweat drop fall from her brow and wiped it up.
"Couldn't you just print them out now?" I asked, wondering what she was so nervous about.
"The Creative Minds Industry shipped you and Yusei." She said flatly.
"How do you think they'll react if they see you in here after the next thirty minutes I need to print out your photos and prepare for them?" Chareeze hurried me and Yusei out the door, telling us to put a mask on if we see people with a CMI badge on their chest. We stood outside the door a moment, completely clueless as to how the whole Yukizei thing came around. "I don't understand," Yusei said. "I just don't."
"Well… we were definitely enemies at first." I began. "And then when you beat me in that tournament I just sort of cried out for your help. And after that I started seeing you around more often… And then Jack and Crow began infinitely teasing you about me…"
"And things just snowballed from there, right?" Yusei finished.
"Yes, that sounds about right." I replied. He took my hand, leading me down the hall and sloping into the stairs till we reached the lobby again. From there we checked out, telling the woman at the desk we had our prints due tomorrow by Chareeze's instruction. She nodded, and as we signed the checkout paper, she gave me an icy glare like one I'd seen on a cashier while buying supplies for the Arcadia Movement. That is, back when I lived with that sick bastard Sayer…
"Akiza?" Yusei's gentle voice broke my thoughts.
"Hm?" I said, looking up at his navy ocean eyes. We were outside, on a park bench in front of the city fountain.
"You've been quiet the past fifteen minutes we've been walking."
"Talk about getting lost in thought." I joked. "I didn't even realize we were walking."
"And what took your interest away from me so much?" He teased, tucking a rebel strand of hair behind my ear.
"The way that woman looked at me… It was really hateful." I replied, frowning slightly.
"She's just jealous," Yusei said, leaning back on the park bench. "She doesn't have the kind of power that you do, and she hates it."
"She's jealous?" I laughed, shaking my head in disagreement. "Yusei, I nearly killed you up at the Tournament."
"Yeah, but you've done a lot of good things with your power too."
"Like what?" I scoffed. Yusei went into his deep thoughts pose, thinking before speaking.
"Well, remember that burning building incident from a month ago?" I nodded. "You saved the people there with your Rose Tentacle, especially the children."
"That was just me feeling sorry for them." I denied it, looking into the gap between my thighs.
"Yeah, but would the old Akiza feel sorry for them?" He said knowingly.
"No." He smiled, lifting my downcast face by the chin.
"Hey… smile. You're even more beautiful when you do." I blushed, taking his words to heart. What's his deal? I thought. He's been complimenting me all day with that word… Yusei then took my hand once more, pulling me up from the park bench.