This one's a shorty, but I still felt it necessary to include the snippet of the past.
Part of it will be relevant later on, too.

"Don't go over there, Ventus."

"Yeah, that kid's so weird."

The kid named Ventus just smiled silently and ignored his friends' words. They'd been playing on the swings together, helping each other because their feet couldn't reach the ground yet. But suddenly, he had spotted a boy he kept seeing here. He was probably a bit older than them, and was always to be seen working on something, sitting on the same bench every single time. Ventus had never seen him come here, and never seen him leave. If he didn't know better, he'd say the boy was here all day.

He didn't know why today, he really felt like talking to him. Maybe he was curious, or wanted to be nice. He didn't exactly have many friends himself, and seeing someone be all alone just made him sad, he figured.

"Hey, uh…," he started sheepishly, backing away when the boy looked up. His eyes weren't anything Ventus had ever seen before. A shimmering shade of golden that looked too unreal to be true, and yet...it was.

"What do you want?"

He didn't sound happy to be disrupted in whatever he was doing, and not very interested in talking. But Ventus wouldn't give up that fast, and instead pointed to what the other boy was holding in his hands.

"What are you doing there?"

"Why would you care?"

"You looked lonely over here."

After he'd said the words, Ventus realized they didn't sound nice. That wasn't what you were supposed to say out loud, right? Even if it was true.

Without being asked to, he sat down on the bench as well and patiently waited for an answer. The look he was given wasn't really assuring, but nothing bad had happened so far, so he felt safe enough.

"Aren't your friends scared of you sitting next to a monster?"

"A...monster?"

"I'm not deaf. I know what your friends call me."

Ventus's eyes widened in shock. Maybe his friends really had said that before, he wasn't sure. But either way, it was a terrible thing to say, and entirely uncalled for.

"I think you're just a regular kid, you know."

They both dropped silent, and Ventus watched the other work on the big grayish box. It looked old, almost ancient, but he didn't dare what it was yet again.

"It's a camera, stupid. I've been collecting bits and pieces of old, broken ones."

"A camera? We don't have anything like that!"

Now he was definitely hooked. He'd seen one or the other camera before, but never had one himself – and he doubted that his parents did, either. If they did, it was definitely smaller than this huge box.

"Ventus, come on! We want to go home!"

He looked up and over to his friends, who hadn't dared to get any closer to them. They were right. Even though their homes weren't far from the playground, they shouldn't stay outside until it got dark, or all their parents would be worried. Getting up, he made a decision.

"Hey. If you manage to actually make it work, I want to see the first picture you take!"

"Sure."

The boy sounded a lot less reluctant to talk now, even though he still focused on what he was working at. That was good enough for now.

"I'm Ventus, by the way. But you can call me Ven!"

This time, he finally did look up, and a smirk formed at the corners of his lips before he spoke.

"Vanitas."

With a wide grin, Ventus nodded, finally turning around to run back to his friends, who were getting a bit impatient by now.

He wouldn't have been able to say why, but somehow, he felt like this was going to be something very special.