hit the pause button
prompt: day 2 - "memories"
Gogo has never paid thought to the notion of making a memory -
She simply creates and lives in the moment.
More often or not, she doesn't have the time for nostalgia or sentimentality; chasing things down but never making the effort to preserve it, has never needed to. She believes only in the adrenaline rush, the roaring in her ears and the pounding of her blood as it all catches up to her - and if the thrill of it immortalizes the event or whatever in her brain, then so be it.
She has never wanted things to slow down and it was not so much that right now.
They were hanging out together one day, just the two of them on a park bench and generally fooling about.
Something that she had come to notice and be familiar with (and made her stomach feel a bit funny about) was the fact that when Tadashi laughed, he had this habit of raising his hand to cover it. But there was always gaps between his fingers, they would spread out and she could see the evenness of his teeth and the dimples in his cheeks -
and before she knew it, she had lifted up her phone.
The tiny clicking shutter noise startled him, and he opened his eyes and blinked at her - and she shifted a bit, gaping a bit at herself too (what when why?)
And then he grinned, and he threw an arm around her and drew her closer:
"You should be in the shot too!"
She opened her mouth to say something anything, but then his face was alarmingly close to hers: they were cheek-to-cheek, an enormous smile spread across his face and a great deal of her shoulder, forearm and back was now pressing up against his broad chest. He had quickly taken a few as she recovered from the sudden stutter in her breath.
The warmth she felt disappeared as he too withdrew to then flip over her phone and contemplate those images.
The next few shots featured her alone: pinched eyebrows, a slight frown and arms outstretched in half-hearted attempts to reclaim the object. And then it was - "bunny ears!" - him at the edge of the shot, leaning towards her with a certain gesture, and her incredulous face and a hand smooshing his face to push it back. And then it was the camera angling upwards: over his drooping arm, hunched shoulders and a slight pout, and her fingers pinching his cheek as she stuck out her tongue towards the lens in retaliation.
They dissolved into making the most hideous expressions that they could make just for the sake of it: pushing back and fourth and moving around each other, and the camera constantly switching between their hands.
The last photo captured -
a truly ridiculous face, she told him as she turned her head towards him. He practically went cross-eyed as he then pushed his grimacing face right up to hers and she choked, clapping a hand over her chin and her eyes shining bright.. The camera dipped for a moment. And then they were both laughing, leaves from the trees above them falling about their shoulders and afternoon sunbeams slanting over their heads.
A week later, a copy of it was carefully tucked into her wallet.