...So. Yeah.

Close Enough's next chapter needs to be edited. The second part of To Solve a Paradox is almost done. So why am I spending time doing THIS instead?

Ah. Well.

The Jenruki pairing has always been rather interesting to me. It's not my favorite, per se (three guesses for which pairing IS) but I like it, and it works out nicely...

WARNING: both dub and Japanese names are used. Fictional events. T rating for some mature themes (for god's sake, it's about a disaster. Of course there're some mature themes) and a single dirty joke. That's right. Just one.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the plot.

Photodiary

2:00 PM, August 24th

Jenrya is flipping through the TV channels when the first reports of fire come in. It starts slowly, like an incubating egg, so he pays barely any attention to the mildly panicked reporter on the screen. For now, it seems enough to notice that the word "arsonist" is mispronounced – twice.

2:15 PM, August 24th

The fire is apparently spreading. Jenrya makes himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The bread has run out, so another line is added to the post-it note on his refrigerator. It's supposed to be a shopping list, but more often than not he writes down miscellaneous phone numbers instead. Squeezed between a Spain landline and a New York cell is the memo 'Whit Bread – Baird's.'

2:23 PM, August 24th

The TV is still going, but Jenrya's not listening anymore. Instead, he packs up a backpack with a Polaroid camera and a few comfortable sets of clothing. It's all done before the phone even has a chance to ring, calling him back to the office.

He picks up even though it's just a formality at this point. Five minutes later finds Jenrya in the office of a gray-skinned blond whose mouth is practically swallowing the end of the phone. Jenrya waits until the call is over, politely pointing to his wrist the entire time.

The secretary just stares at him, not even angrily, and mouths, "Can I help you?"

Jenrya says, "Howard Wallace," and receives a quick nod of confirmation before the other man starts ignoring him again. He scoffs, annoyed but understanding, and walks down the hallway with his backpack on. The editor tells him what he already knows, and then sends him flight information for San Francisco.

"Find me a hero," the thickly mustached man says, trying to be enthusiastic. "Find me a hero, find me a story."

Jenrya smiles and says, "Yes, sir."

"Good, good. I'll see you soon."

"Yes, sir."

6:00 AM, August 25th

The plane engine is so loud that Jenrya has to plug his ears to save his hearing. Nobody else notices.

6:30 AM, August 25th

He falls asleep out of necessity. There's still two hours to go. Not enough for a good nap, but too long to do anything else. Although Jenrya has a music player in his pack, he eventually decides that there will always be a better, more boring time to use it. Might as well save the battery. And then the flight attendant, a pretty brunette with light green eyes, comes up to him and gives him a glass of water. He doesn't need any, but takes it anyway. Just to be polite.

If he met that woman on the street, Jenrya would take his time talking to her. But it's early in the morning and they're flying in the middle of a vast sea of clouds, so he doesn't. Talk to her, that is.

In the meantime, he takes out his camera and cleans it carefully. The sides have been worn down, despite the painstaking care, and he knows better than anyone that it's a miracle to have kept it so long. Years of photographic journalism have treated his Polaroid camera well. At the turn of every New Year, his coworkers try to give him a new one, but when Jenrya just puts them in the back of his closet and reappears with his old camera day after day, most of them know better than to invest money into it. It wasn't like they were well off, the lot of them. But Jenrya smiles anyway. They're good people. All of them.

Outside the sun isn't shining. Jenrya watches the clouds go by. Then he sleeps, dreaming of sunrises in his hometown, when the mountains were still green and silent in the morning fog. By the time Jenrya wakes up, the scenery in his head has changed into a bustling pile of rocks, just like its real world counterpart.

He yawns. Better check the news.

5:00 AM, August 25th

Jenrya walks off of the plane and knows that returning is going to be impossible for a long, long time.

Half of the city has crumbled into a megastructure of melted glass and jagged concrete. Jenrya stares and stares and almost forgets to take pictures. Somehow, the enormity of the disaster completely escapes everything but first hand experience. He knows immediately that the memory is going to sear itself into his brain, never to be forgotten.

He also knows that he's going to tell his children about this someday.

His hands work the camera's buttons mechanically, letting the towers of death and destruction guide him into the pinpoints of lighting and shadow and value.

5:26 AM, August 25th

He's taken thirteen shots already, more than he's ever done in such a short amount of time. There are photographs of buildings, people dead or alive, lopsided trucks, a short track of highway that's lined with cars. And the sky is a molten gray color that reflects in his eyes.

Jenrya sits down and lays his head down. The airport itself is mostly intact, but it's so crowded. Most flights are completely booked and leave without even considering the huddled masses that line the gates. Jenrya has been in worse situations before, but he doesn't want to go there and stay with the rest of the refugees. This is his country. It could have been his city. And that makes everything so much worse.

7:13 AM, August 25th

The growling of his stomach and the dryness of his throat finally convince him to go back, if only to see what they might have to eat at the airport restaurants.

7:45 AM, August 25th

He would have to stand in line for three hours to find out.

7:50 AM, August 25th

There aren't any cabs running around anymore, and that somehow bothers Jenrya more than the broken, charred horizon line. While this section of San Francisco is safe enough – meaning that the damage is mostly structural, not human – Jenrya still doesn't want to walk around. He's never been in the city before. He doesn't ever want to come back, either.

But since there's nothing else to be done, he eventually decides to walk around and see what else he can find. There's a hotel to the north that's relatively unscathed, but he doesn't have much on him in terms of funds. The newspaper isn't doing so well anymore, which tells him in no uncertain terms that they wouldn't cover an extended hotel stay.

Jenrya wonders how they expect him to get on a flight when the airport is full of people waiting for that elusive empty seat. He fingers his return ticket and sighs quietly. Somehow, even though he's much luckier than the rest of them for having it, it doesn't make him feel better at all.

12:00 PM, August 25th

It's only when Jenrya reaches the worse parts of the east side that he realizes why no one's shown any pictures of this place. Parts of it resemble fertile farmland, the ashes and walls are so black. The roads are littered with piles of sharp glass and electrical wire. It's not destruction, not exactly. It's a little more organic than that. Like urban decay, he thinks. Hey, hey.

But Jenrya takes no pictures. All that he feels is a sharp pain in his stomach and throat.

3:00 PM, August 25th

When he sees a crowd of people this time, he's too tired and too relieved to be uncomfortable. They hang around the entrance of a rundown building. While the steel awning is still intact, one of the walls has completely collapsed in the wake of the fire, and what little is left of that side is completely rubble. Most of the people have wrapped arms and legs, hands and feet, face and body. And still more are streaming out.

Some of the people are going around comforting others. Those who aren't are either standing around being comforted or standing around staring blankly into space.

A hard, bony little hand touches his shoulder, and he jerks in surprise. For a minute, he sees the stewardess, because of the brown hair, but then the eyes are sharp and purple and he realizes that it's not.

"You're not injured," she says, half questioning and half stating. After getting his attention, her hand leaves his shoulder and rests on the curve of her left hip. She's a slender girl with a small waist and bust, but her stomach is toned rather than flat. A fighter, Jenrya thinks, not literally, but close enough.

He shakes his head and holds up the camera with tired hands. She snatches it out of his hands and Jenrya yelps. "Hey – "

She takes a good hard look at him and turns around. "I'm Ruki Makino," she says, and glares at him pointedly. "Makino to you."

Jenrya opens and closes his mouth. "Lee," he says finally, because if she's not going to let him call her by her first name, neither is he. After all, it's always best to start a relationship off on equal ground.

"Lee," she says, flatly. "You can start helping by getting that old man inside."

She goes back into the building before he has the chance to say anything else.

7:10 PM, August 25th

Jenrya's been helping the injured for hours and he hasn't stopped once. The backpack disappeared somewhere under Makino's boxes of supplies, but the camera hangs loose around his neck.

A few of the patrons to the makeshift clinic, or shelter, or whatever it is, stare at him curiously. Jenrya supposes that he must look strange to them, dressed in relatively clean and unburnt clothing, holding a camera of all things. After remembering to be professional about it, he asks to take pictures of some of them.

Unsure of what to do, they call Makino over. She stares at him, hard, and says, "There are no heroes in my clinic. Only survivors. Take your pictures somewhere else."

Too surprised to reply, he does just that.

At one point he's fixing a little girl's bandages. The young woman earlier reappears with water, and that's when he asks Makino why she runs a clinic in the middle of a disaster zone.

She gives him a look, the same expression that a mother might give a misbehaving child, and says, "Idiot."

Jenrya feels almost insulted, but years of experience help him stare at her with blank gray eyes and neutrality. "I think it's a good question. You're young." Too young, hangs in the air.

That makes her scoff, and in hindsight Jenrya understands why. He doesn't look any older than she does, after all. But they work together in silence for the rest of the night, except when Jenrya asks for a glass of water.

8:30 AM, August 27th

He really should feel guiltier about using stolen goods, but the hospital where the supplies come from is already a teetering steel skeleton. It makes sense to use whatever they can find to patch up whoever they can help.

With that thought in mind, Jenrya opens one of the boxes in the back, hoping to find more bandages. He is disappointed to discover just another pile of syringes and pills. Most of the names written on them are long and indecipherable, especially in the dark, but Jenrya figures that Makino might know. She seems to have enough medical knowledge to run the clinic by herself, after all.

The entire 'staff' is made up of volunteers or would-be volunteers, like Jenrya. Some of them know first aid. Most of them do not, so they just listen to Makino's orders.

Speak of the devil.

"What're you doing?"

He uses the backlight on his cellphone to read off the first name to her: amoxycillin.

She nods and frowns. "An antibiotic. But we don't have any water or food."

"Do we need food?" Jenrya asks, tired.

"Unless you want people to dry heave," she snaps back.

Jenrya doesn't even react to the barb and simply says, "Dry heave or die. Not a very hard choice to make, is it?" Makino turns away but it's to hide the look of approval on her face. In the back of his mind, he's already calling her a hero.

10:27 AM, August 30th

Jenrya is a familiar enough fixture at the clinic that the people tell him their life stories. It begins with a strong-eyed, malnourished woman whose arm was dislocated. She says, "I'm waiting for my husband."

Makino leaves when she hears but the woman keeps talking. Jenrya interrupts as politely as he can to ask her for her name.

The woman smiles, brown eyes crinkling up. "I'm Hikari Takaishi."

She's also brunette, but doesn't remind Jenrya of the stewardess. And now, the stewardess reminds him of Makino, instead of the other way around. He wonders why that is, but interrupts his own train of thought to tell the woman, "I'm Jenrya Lee."

12:15 AM, September 1st

Mrs. Takaishi is the first to confide in him. A very cheerful red head is the second, and the third is a thin old man whose hair is a mix of black and gray. Jenrya spends most of his time with them, changing out their dressings if they need it and keeping them company. At night he hauls a pile of blankets into the room and sleeps against the wall, comforted by the presence of relatively familiar people.

Makino comes around every hour or so to check on them. He tries to talk to her but it's awkward when they know little to nothing about each other.

Not for lack of trying, though.

Today the topic of choice is Makino herself. He asks, "Why do you stay?" and waits.

Makino is surprisingly quick to answer, "Because I can."

"You don't want to leave?"

"This is my home," she says, as if that explains everything. It probably does. Jenrya either doesn't have anything to say to that or can't find the courage to say it. He himself doesn't know which of the two it is. Then, a little boy in the room begins to cry, and the poor excuse for a conversation withers away.

5:00 PM, September 3rd

Jenrya takes his meal with the rest of the staff. It's only today that Makino tells him when and where they usually eat, and he feels strangely accomplished. It's as if she's making it perfectly clear to everyone that she approves of him.

He knows, logically, that he's probably reading too much into it. He also knows, illogically, that he doesn't care.

5:23 PM, September 3rd

Dinner is a subdued, tired affair. One of the other volunteers introduces himself as "Ryo" and Jenrya asks why so many of the people at the clinic are Japanese. Not counting Makino herself, there are three. A brunette woman with a miniature ponytail on the side of her head finally tells him, "We grew up together, and we live close by. It's good to stick with friends, you know."

"Especially when there's a fire?" Some of the people in the room actually grin; Jenrya feels a little disoriented. Who knew that he would end up laughing about disasters over a thin meal of beef jerky in a ratty clinic on the edges of San Francisco? It certainly wasn't where Jenrya expected to be when he accepted that assignment a week ago. Not that it's a bad thing, being surprised. His role is small, but he accepts it wholeheartedly.

Speaking of which, he still has to shoot a few more pictures before the departure date. Part of Jenrya quietly refuses to do it. If he finishes, he can go home. If he finishes, he has to go.

6:30 PM, September 3rd

"Lee," Makino says, over the ruckus outside, "A building just collapsed on another clinic."

Jenrya frowns. That doesn't sound like good news, but he hasn't heard anything good for a week, so it's no surprise to him anymore. "The patients?"

"Outside," she says, unnecessarily.

Jenrya is somewhat – slightly – glad to see that she relaxes a little more around him. It's almost friendly between them now. Nodding once to the woman, who promptly turns around and leaves, Jenrya turns back around to lean against the wall.

He turns on his cell phone and calls the editor's office. The machine answers twice, so Jenrya finally gives up. He looks at the time. 6:45 PM. Then the screen blacks out and cell phone utters a long, mournful beep.

Frustrated, he tosses it into his bag. So much for technology.

Morning, September 4th

Jenrya wakes up to someone shaking him hard. He mumbles faintly, still sleep ridden, but the cool brisk voice finally breaks through. Someone that he doesn't recognize is crouching on the ground and making impatient gestures.

The newcomer looks like he might be Japanese too, and Jenrya almost laughs. He stops himself, barely. "Yeah?"

"I need you to move," the other person says. He has blue eyes and looks young, eighteen at the most. His voice sounds a little hoarse and every breath ends with a shuddery sound. Probably dehydration.

Jenrya nods and asks, "Not enough room?"

Eventually, the teenager replies, "That's a given, isn't it." And the conversation stops there.

Almost noon, September 4th

He finds out later that the boy's name is Minamoto. Makino herself makes an appearance to explain that he was a worker at the other shelter and good enough at what he did to keep the job. Jenrya doesn't really care, as long as it means less work for everyone else. There's bound to be enough to do either way. More importantly, he has a decision to make. The plane ticket burns silently in his pocket. It's difficult to go through his daily routine with the prospect of leaving always at the back of his mind.

The helicopters wake up most of the patients; if not by sound, then by smell. Food is always a good thing.

Hikari Takaishi's arm is almost normal now and she tries to help out. It's hard work for someone who was recently a patient herself, but there's really no choice in the matter. Soon enough, the entire shelter grows used to her cheerful singing and cooking.

And at night she whispers "Takeru," over and over, but everyone pretends not to hear.

The thin old man catches an infection and spends most of the day in a fever-induced delirium. His antics scare the children, so they move him a little ways outside.

Afternoon, September 5th

It's raining.

Morning, September 7th

Still raining. The old man dies quietly, and they take him to a nearby "funeral home."

Afternoon, September 7th

Makino has shadows under and in her eyes. Jenrya sits down and watches her for a while, neither of them speaking. When he finally does open his mouth, it's to ask, "Can I take your picture?"

She glares at him and the camera flashes quickly, too quickly for her to react.

When Jenrya explains why he wanted it, Makino stands up and leaves. Their shoulders brush and they both hesitate for a split second. By the time Jenrya realizes what is happening, she's already gone, leaving the imprint of her soft, taut shoulder tingling in his arm.

The picture is beautiful and Jenrya tucks it into his shirt pocket.

Lunch, September 7th

Jenrya walks around the clinic, looking for Hikari. The wide-eyed, vibrant woman vanished this morning, apparently to run errands. But she's not at the shelter, and no one else has realized that she isn't. On the way, Jenrya runs into Makino, who looks at him from the corner of her eye but with all of her attention. He knows, because he's doing the same exact thing.

There's a long pause before either of them says anything.

Makino speaks first, "Hikari's not here."

Jenrya replies, "I know."

She looks up at him with pale purple eyes and quiet strength, and Jenrya thinks that he's never seen anything more captivating – but he really needs to go. His stomach is calling for lovely Hikari's cooking.

As if she knows exactly what he's thinking, Makino gives him a half smile.

Afternoon, September 7th

Hikari is still missing. Someone else cooked that day, but everyone realized it because the flavor was just off somehow. So, by the time soft dusty clouds cover the sky in the afternoon, her disappearance is already old news.

The designated chef from that day forward is a blond girl with green eyes and a lively disposition. Her name is apparently Zoë, but Minamoto soon takes to calling her kukku – which, as the other Japanese speakers laughingly explain to Jenrya, means cook. The girl doesn't seem to understand him, though, because she gets angry every time the nickname is used. No one bothers to correct her misconception.

Jenrya quickly realizes that his first impression of Minamoto was wrong.

Morning, September 8th

He looks around one day and realizes that the crowd is much, much thinner than usual.

As a photographer, he probably should have noticed quite some time ago, but apparently the government finally intervened and erected a few temporary crossings for cars to drive over. The evacuation is picking up speed, and most of the people who do not have transportation are taken aboard buses.

Makino says, "We're only here to tell the people where to go." Left unsaid is the fact that many will go and never come back.

Jenrya asks, "Are you sad about your city?"

"Sad?" She turns around…and around. "Maybe. But it doesn't matter. Some people will stay. I know my friends will. I know I will."

Jenrya wants to say the he will, too. But he doesn't, and when Makino touches his shoulder, it's clear that she understands perfectly.

Sunset, September 8th

Jenrya sits at the table, drumming his fingers gently onto the wood. The shelter is almost empty, and the shipments of food do not drop very often anymore. Red Cross nurses come and take away the patients who cannot leave by themselves, and offer a ride to the rest of the staff.

Most of them decide to stay.

The offer still stands, of course.

Dinner, September 8th

Zoë is cooking something with the canned beans. There might have been a bit of tomato in there, too, so Jenrya has a pretty good idea of what dinner will be. He still asks, out of politeness.

The blond teenager smiles and opens her mouth to tell him – but then stops halfway. One look over Jenrya's shoulder brings a blush and a glare to her face.

"Kukku," says Minamoto, who suddenly appears to her right. Jenrya jumps. And Zoë keeps blushing and glaring.

Hastily, Jenrya moves between them to prevent a fight from breaking out. "So?"

Zoë turns away from Minamoto to stare at the older man confusedly. He clarifies, "Dinner."

She frowns and points to her pot. "It's that." A heavy dose of sarcasm lines her voice. Jenrya is surprised; he didn't realize that the relationship between the two youngest staff members was so antagonistic. Perhaps he should try to mediate between them more.

Minamoto seems more amused than anything else. "Yes. I have eyes. I can see. Do you need help understanding anything else?"

It's more than Jenrya's ever heard him say in one sitting. Not the case for Zoë, obviously, because she just retorts back, "Yes. Why are you still here?"

"Because I want to know, obviously."

"And you already do."

"Not the finished product."

"It doesn't have a name and I don't have any for you to sample. Sorry." She doesn't sound apologetic at all.

"That doesn't really answer my question."

"Pity."

"So what are you making for dinner?"

"Food."

They argue for a while longer, before Minamoto sighs and asks, in very exact terms, "What are you getting ready to cook to a boiling temperature, toss around in a pan, lay out in a plate, and serve to us?"

This time, the reply is prompt. "Cazzo. Yours, of course."

Both males stare at her blankly.

She just smiles.

Then shoves them out of the kitchen. Jenrya, being closer to the girl, is pushed out first. The door slams shut after him, and a heated argument starts behind it. Jenrya feels a little worried, but then realizes that he isn't in any position to pull them apart. Still, he lingers outside, telling himself that if the fight gets violent, he'll be able to help.

The raised voices fall silent.

There is a brief delay before Minamoto is rudely ejected from the doorway with a smirk on his face. Blushing up to the roots of her hair, the pretty blond girl reappears in a flash and positively screams at the other teenager.

Who turns around and walks off. Whistling.

Jenrya decides not to ask.

Midnight, September 9th

It's cold. Jenrya takes a picture of the dark, crumbling clinic. When he shines a flashlight onto the glossy surface, it shows barely anything – except for the outlines of the staff. The flash wakes up a few of them, but most go back to sleep right after.

Makino doesn't. Instead, she slides up against him until their elbows just barely touch.

They stay like that until sunrise.

12:16 PM, September 9th

Jenrya waits in the still busy airport, wondering how his life suddenly became so complicated. Makino is not there with him, but Ruki is. She stands to Jenrya's right, pressed close because of the crowd.

He wonders if Hikari Takaishi ever found her husband.

It's a strange thought to have, but he doesn't let go of it until they start boarding the plane.

Then he turns around and looks at Ruki, who is still staring at some faraway point in the distance.

So softly that Jenrya has to strain to hear her, she says, "I'll see you later."

He kisses her on the cheek.

"Yeah."

She kisses him on the mouth. "Idiot."

"My hero," Jenrya says, smiling so brightly that people around him murmur in wonder.

"There are no heroes in my clinic," she reminds him. "Only friends."

"Only friends?"

She smiles a peculiar, honest little smile. "Mostly."

END?

Notes:

Kukku - The pun should be obvious.

Cazzo - Er, well. If you want to figure out what she's saying, feel free. It's Italian. I think that this is the only reason that I'm posting the story under a T rating, actually.

End? - What, you want more? Okay. They lived happily ever after. And died. XD