50 Ways to Express Love and Affection Without Having Sex
#10 Make a small or big photo album
There's a definite feminine charm about scrapbooking. Something about it just appeals to women, and eventually having to make a hobby out of it. Hikaru couldn't understand what was so great about it. So much unnecessary materials where "needed" and generally unused, the whole process of planning everything out by themes such as occasions or seasons—which wasn't really all that bad to the Hitachiin—and of course, sorting though picture after picture that would actually be used. That was probably the hardest and most important thing out of everything. Who knew?
Hikaru had urged his younger brother to take a shower first this time, planning on at least looking for some photos he liked. That was all he was going to do that night. And by how it was going, it seemed he wouldn't even do that. All the photos he looked though, were mostly of him and Kaoru; a few others were of either the rest of the family and staff, or the Host Club. Hikaru had just grabbed a bunch of pictures from here and there and threw them all in a pile. So far, none of them were good enough. None of them satisfied what he was specifically looking for.
Was it really that hard to find a good picture of Kaoru? One where he knew he wasn't forcing a smile for the camera? It seemed it was. Hikaru was even thinking about using the picture of when the two first "cried" in public. It was soon discarded, though, just like so many other photos before it. He was ready to give up. Right then and there. There was just no picture that was good enough. Why couldn't they take a good photo?
But something caught his eye. Just before he was about to toss whatever photos were left in his hands behind him—where a large pile was slowing forming of other discarded photos—he had to double take on this one. Normally, he would have thrown this one out too, but there was something about it. It was mostly the Host Club—meaning Tamaki—the day they had gone out with Haruhi to the festival her neighborhood was holding. Near by at one of the stands, they were selling disposable cameras, and Tamaki decided it was the most amazing thing in the entire world—in a way, Hikaru had to agree; who would throw away a perfectly good camera? Tamaki had spent most of the festival running around and taking photos of anything and everything. Even after the roll had run out. No one bothered to tell him.
This photo, though, Hikaru was glad Tamaki took. The subjects were, of course, him and Haruhi. Tamaki had held out the camera, a goofy and stupid grin on his face as he hugged Haruhi; she didn't seem too amused. Just behind them was Kyouya, probably thinking that Tamaki was being an idiot, but happy he was enjoying himself. To the far left was Hani and Mori both running off to the side. Hikaru figured his smaller sempai had found a stand selling cakes. That was probably a safe guess. Up in the right hand corner, however, was the thing that had caught the boy's attention in the first place. It was himself and his brother, barely caught in the photo. They were both looking over a stand, holding each other's hands, but what made Hikaru smile so fondly was that they both were genuinely smiling, and Kaoru was laughing. Hikaru remembered that night, and that was probably the only moment he was glad Tamaki wouldn't put down that camera.
Quickly looking up toward the clock on the bed stand, Hikaru figured he had just shy of five minutes before Kaoru would come back. Plenty of time. He just shoved all the other photos under the bed, out of sight—planning of cleaning that out later—and quickly went to the desk. A new, unoccupied photo album was thrown on top from one of the drawers, and the photo that managed to survive the harsh judgment was placed somewhere in the middle of the book, the other pages blank. He wrote on the cover of the book "READ ME", and plopped it on the bed, where Kaoru would surely see it. Hikaru soon left to wait for his turn for the shower.