Thank-yous: to aloof-kokiri, SorenDevin, and Riilustra - Your Sweetest SIN for reviewing.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

Enjoy the read.

XXXV. Photo
496 / 500

This particular afternoon was scorching hot.

Just like many other people, the Skylers brothers were on the beach park enjoying the weather. They were playing frisbee, although without Sora; said boy was walking around, taking photographs with a polaroid camera Ven had passed down to him.

After photographing several objects and people, he lay down on a nearby bench nearby. As the sea breeze gently caressed his face, the charms of sleep steadily enticed him; he finally yielded and consciousness fled his being.

He woke up with a start. He didn't know how long he had been offline, but seeing that Ven and Roxas were still engaged in the game, it looked like not much time had passed.

Once again, he closed his eyes, stretched his limbs, and yawned, letting the wonderful sensation course through his body. Just before the pleasure turned into pain due to strain, he slowly opened his eyes.

"Whoa!"

The sight of a certain red-haired little girl standing before him surprised him. She giggled, causing Sora to snap right out of his alarmed state and loosen up a bit.

"Gimme a break, Kairi," he said as he sat up, gesturing to said girl to be seated next to him.

"Sora, you sleepyhead. You're letting the good weather go to waste," Kairi teased, her tone of voice playful as usual. "You should exercise more, like Ven and Roxas. They even asked if I wanted to join them."

Sora smiled sheepishly. "I've been taking these for half an hour," he said while taking the results of his photo-hunting session out of his waistpack and passed them to her. "It wasn't exactly easy…"

Kairi had to admit, the photographs were not bad and some were even amazing, even if just a coincidence. It looked like Sora had it in him to be a photographer, so she believed.

"I love the pictures," she said with a smile. "But there's one thing that I don't like."

Hearing those words, Sora's smile faded. "Oh… okay. What's that?"

"There's no picture of you! Let's take a picture together, Sora!"

Kairi punctuated her sentence by storming off toward Ven and Roxas. After a brief conversation during which she passed the camera back to Ven, she returned with him in tow, Roxas following closely behind.

When they returned, Ven told them to get ready to be photographed. Kairi immediately stood beside Sora, held his palm in hers, and rested her head on his shoulder; the brunet jumped in surprise, his face reddening as he assumed an awkward expression. He wanted to protest, but…

Snap.

Too late.

Ven had pressed the shutter button—intentionally—at that very moment, immortalising Sora's priceless reaction at Kairi's affectionate actions. He let the photograph develop for a while, and when it finally did, he directed a mawkish "aww" toward Sora who was still blushing madly.

"We can blackmail Sora with this," he said to Roxas with a mischievous smile, gaining a nod of approval from the younger boy.