Song: Beautiful Soul (Jesse McCartney)
"So let me recap, we will submit a professional self-photo and anticipate upcoming meetings with the film committee?" asked Jane, one of Kimi's fellow editors from the student press. She's walking with Kimi in the school hallway, just coming out of a recently concluded press meeting.
"Yeah, at least that's what I remember," Kimi answered.
"I'm probably going to the studio at the mall to get mine," Jane said, heading in a direction different from Kimi. "Text me if there's anything that needs to be done, okay? See you around!" she smiled, waving goodbye to Kimi.
Kimi nodded and waved back. Someone from the gang immediately popped up in her head after getting reminded of the photo requirement. Tommy is good at taking photos and surely has a complete set of equipment for it. She'll probably ask him about that when they see each other.
Since there was nothing to yet do at school, Kimi decided to head home. She's planning to review some lessons there and hopefully read them in advance.
She first went to the kitchen to greet her mother, intending to let her know that she was home. The delicious smell of fried pork wafted through her nose upon entering the room. There she saw her mother, frying a Tonkatsu they'll eat for dinner.
Kimi peeked at the pan from her mother's back and spoke, "Smells delish!"
Kira suddenly jolted upon hearing Kimi's voice. She paused from cooking and turned around to see her daughter's smiling face.
"Goodness!" Kira panted. "I thought it was some stranger."
Kimi responded by giggling and gave her mom a quick peck on the cheek. Kira smiled and resumed her cooking as Kimi walked to the table and laid down her backpack there.
"How's school today Kimi-chan?" Kira asked, not directly looking at her daughter.
"It's nothing extraordinary, we just have some requirements to pass for the press. It's not much of a challenge," Kimi responded, sitting in one of the chairs. "Is Chuckie already here?"
"No, he texted earlier and said he has to go to the library with Susie after school," Kira answered, flipping the pork on the pan.
"Oh okay, I just find it weird that I got here first before he did," Kimi giggled.
"Before I forget, your father cleaned up the storeroom earlier and found some stuff you might want to check out. It's in your bed," Kira informed, remembering that Chas organized some vintage items today.
Kimi immediately stood up from the chair and grabbed her bag, preparing to leave the kitchen.
"Okay, mom. I'm gonna go to my room now," she said, giving her mom another peck on the cheek before walking through their swinging door to go to her bedroom.
Upon opening her bedroom door, she saw a neat-looking box lying on her bed.
She put down her bag on the floor before putting the box on her lap. She carefully opened the lid and saw a stack of pictures and notebooks laying inside.
She first lifted the stack of pictures. The first one was a picture from their parents' wedding day and has all the gang as babies and their parents. She does not remember a lot of things from that wedding but the sight of them as babies is adorable.
She kept smiling as she continued to flip through the photographs, stopping on a picture that shows the gang and their mothers with a giant onion behind them. She instantly remembered that it was when they took a trip to New York City with an ugly RV. It was initially a borefest but ended up as one of their most memorable trips. All the memories of visiting some of the silliest places in the country made her giggle and feel nostalgic.
She was about to the photos back into the box when a photo booth strip lying inside the box caught her attention.
It was a photo booth strip of her and Tommy.
"Great party Pickles, didn't know you could throw a good one," Angelica remarked, sipping an iced tea.
"I don't want to agree with Miss Meanie, but she does have a point. When did you start throwing a party like this?" Phil added as he looked around the party, amazed by all the booths and goodies.
Tommy smiled. "Mom and dad sorted this out for me, they said this is the best time to throw a party like this since I'm officially a teenager."
"Is that a Spa booth?" Angelica blurted, seeing the said booth from afar.
"Yeah, mom thought it would be a good idea to put some booths for the girls so everyone can enjoy," Tommy explained.
"Finally, a booth for me. Catch you little teens later, I'm about to make my time at this party worthwhile," she said, stretching her hands. She headed to the spa booth, leaving the other teens.
The photo booth in the corner caught Tommy's attention and thought it would be a great idea to bring the gang there.
"Guys, there's a photo booth there, let's take some photos," Tommy gushed, pointing his index finger at the photo booth standing at the corner.
Lil's eyes landed on the Basketball Arcade booth, thinking of challenging someone. "Later Tommy, I'm just going to try to kick Phil's ass in that booth!" Lil stared at his brother competitively.
"Game on!" Phil instantly accepted the challenge, running to that booth.
Tommy looked at his best friend. "How about you Chuckie?"
"No thanks, my eyes are not really friendly with those camera flashes." He replied, fixing his glasses. "I'm probably gonna run off to that magic booth while you do that."
Tommy watched three of his best friends go off to enjoy other booths at the party. Kimi was the only one left, whom he assumed will also run off to another booth.
"Let me guess, you're going to the spa booth too, are you?" Tommy asked in defeat, waiting to hear her response.
"No, I'm okay to try that photo booth with you if you like?" she replied.
"Really? Are you sure you don't have other booths you are interested in?"
"Um yeah? Plus, I wanted to have a piece of memory from this party," she smiled softly.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" he exclaimed, grabbing her hand to pull her to the photo booth.
The two teens entered the booth and sat. Kimi saw that it requires a quarter to operate and asked him if he has one. He presented a coin, letting her know that he has.
"Let's go with four images," Tommy said, now focused on pushing the buttons.
"What four poses should we do?"
Tommy was caught off guard by the question but immediately thought of something in response.
"I guess we'll just go with whatever crosses our minds."
She giggled, getting him to stare at her. "Okay! let's do it!" she composed herself to pose for the camera.
They comfortably sat beside each other and grinned, getting ready for the camera to start. Tommy inserted the quarter into the coin slot which triggered the timer to start, capturing the first image.
He subconsciously wrapped his arm around her shoulders to prepare for the second pose. She glanced at the arms on her shoulders and was shocked, but then smiled shortly after. They then made funny faces to show off their wacky poses for the next camera capture.
Only one capture remains. She wrapped her arms around his body and pressed her cheek to his. He was surprised by the gesture, but then immediately got back on track and smiled as the camera flashed for the last time.
"Happy Birthday!" she said while staying in their last pose.
Her fingers gently caressed the picture, then touched the pendant of the necklace he received from him.
She always feels something about him that she cannot figure out. He's always been the person she's looking forward to seeing every time their gang hangs out. She loves getting involved in his adventures and is happy to experience and discover the world with him.
"Chuckie, look!" Susie held up a book, showing it to Chuckie.
Chuckie grabbed the book and read its title. "It's 'Bygone Visions of Outer Space' by Lehm Mino, seems like a good one!"
"It is. I'm very curious about what opinions and views changed over time as our technology advanced." Susie wondered as she excitedly opened the book, skimming through its pages.
Chuckie spotted a line from a page and read it out loud, pointing his finger to that line. "It says here that people before the 50s believed that there are civilizations on Venus and Mars, even concluding that there are canals in there," Chuckie said. They both widened their eyes and looked at each other with surprised looks on their face.
"I mean you can't blame them. All the technologies back then were very limited, and stuff can be easily misunderstood," Susie explained, defending why people in the past believed in that.
Susie gently closed the book. "I'm going to borrow this one," she said, adding it to the stack of books she carried with her arms.
Chuckie saw how she struggled to hold those books and tried to offer help.
"Let me help you with that."
"It's fine. I can hold this," she assured, tightly holding the stack of books in her arms.
They were about to go to the counter when a bunch of books suddenly fell from a shelf nearby. Chuckie's adrenaline drove him to push Susie away from getting hit and together they fell on the ground, facing each other.
Susie tightly closed her eyes, expecting to get hit, not knowing that Chuckie was lying on top of her. They were both shocked and stayed in their position for a while. Their faces are so close to each other, they could hear each other's pants from the missed impact.
Their gazes were locked on each other. He could not believe it, he was so close to a girl's face, not to mention one of the smartest women he knew.
She felt weak and nervous seeing the guy she admired getting close to her face. Their bodies froze in that position until some library staff came and helped them stand up.
Chuckie collected all the books they held earlier from the floor as the library staff started to pick up all the books that fell from the shelf. Susie felt the need to help, thus grabbing some books from the ground to put back on the shelf herself. It took several minutes before all the books got fully organized, then a staff member apologized to them and thanked Susie for her help.
Their student cards were scanned, finally allowing them to head home with the books they chose to borrow. They both entered her car, and she quickly started the engine to head home, still completely shocked by what happened in the library.
It was silent for a while as Susie drove along the streets of their suburbs. She was also the one who decided to break that silence and spoke.
"You didn't have to do what you did earlier, I could've saved myself," Susie claimed as she drove along the streets of their suburbs
"Are you kidding? the books would be hitting your head if I didn't push you immediately." Chuckie argued, not regretting what he did earlier.
"I know, but I could easily move to avoid the impact!"
"You didn't even know books were falling, how would you know that for sure?"
Susie sighed in defeat, accepting the fact that he has a point. Chuckie is right, there is no way she could have seen those books coming down. Her head would've been severely hit if he failed to push her earlier.
"Thank you for saving my life," she said while briefly smiling at him.
He felt his cheek turn red from her expression of gratitude. He tried to hide it by looking outside of the car window, purposely avoiding her gaze.
"Don't worry about it, it's no big deal," he comforted, genuinely letting her know he was not bothered by what happened earlier.
Susie pulled the car near the entrance of his house. Chuckie thanked her for giving him a lift before getting out of the vehicle. She smiled at him as they waved each other goodbye before parting ways.
She started the engine again and drove away. He kept staring at her car for minutes as it moved farther from his place. He was so focused on looking at her vehicle, he didn't notice a sneaky poke that nearly gave him a heart attack.
"Aaah!" Chuckie shouted in shock and fell to the ground. "You got to stop doing that Kimi, I might die on the spot here!" he complained while panting hard.
"Sorry, but you got to stop staring at someone for too long too you know!" Kimi teased, seeing her brother getting completely whipped for Susie. She crossed her arms, displaying the 'I know what you did look on her face.
"I'm not looking at her. I just spaced out for a while, that's all!" he defended, even when it's the truth.
Kimi shrugged and offered a hand to help him stand up. He took her hand, getting immediately pulled up from the ground. Kimi waited for her brother to fully stand up before finally going back inside their house. Chuckie brushed off the dirt in his pants before following his sister to finally head home.
Tommy is currently sitting on one of the chairs in the schoolyard, fixing his video camera. He's getting it ready for the film he'll be submitting for the contest. He's also deleting unnecessary files as it might prevent the recorder from functioning well.
While working on his camera, he saw a figure from the corner of his eye. He did not bother to see who it was as he was too focused on his device. It wasn't until that person spoke that he finally recognized her.
"Tommy, what are you doing here? Where are your friends?" Rachel wondered, sitting in the chair in front of him.
He lifted his head and saw it was Rachel, he smiled at her briefly before immediately turning back his attention to his recorder. She mentally swooned at that gesture and blushed lightly.
"They're busy doing other school activities, so I thought it's a good time to set my camera up while they're not here."
She watched his little facial movements and stared in awe. Her eyes caught him gently licking his lips in concentration. He's still so good-looking until now, she thought.
She shook her head and broke out of that thought, thinking that he might notice. "Do you finally have a concept for your entry?" she spoke, trying to set up a conversation.
"Not yet. I'm thinking of getting inspiration from the films I look up to." Tommy answered honestly. "But wait, should I be telling you that? You are part of the film committee after all," he realized, stopping himself from spilling too much information.
"Don't worry, I'm just part of the committee, not the judging panel," Rachel clarified and giggled.
"But still, you're close to the people who are organizing that event, so it makes sense for me to think that," he argued.
"I guess you're right, but whatever that film will be I'm sure it's going to be great." She said, thinking that his entry will definitely be a contender, but she will not tell him that thought, knowing how that will inflate his ego. She knows him too well.
"You know, we haven't properly caught up yet. I mean we had fun during Savannah's party but there are too many people there to start a proper conversation," she brought up, dreading to say the rest of what she was thinking. "I'm thinking of the two of us, catching up in that Chinese restaurant we used to hold our dates back then?"
He was unsure about what to answer at first but then decided to just say the response she likely wants to hear. "Um, alright!"
Rachel's face lit up. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and presented it to him. "Save your number here so I can contact you," she instructed, opening her flip phone to give it to him.
Tommy hesitated at first and looked at her. He decided that there was no harm in it, so he politely grabbed the phone and typed his number there.
Out of nowhere, a group of teens approached their table. It was Savannah and her group of popular kids. They all looked at the two teens back and forth with Brianna crossing her arms.
"So, you're just here all along?" Savannah gasped, looking at the other teens beside her.
"You said you were just going to the restroom. We were not informed that Tommy is now the restroom," Brianna joked which made the other popular kids laugh hard.
Rachel looked at Brianna with wide eyes, mentally screaming at them to shut up. The group ignored her reaction as they continued to laugh like there was no tomorrow.
Rachel stood up and glared at Savannah and her group, getting them to stop laughing. She took a deep breath and turned her head to look at Tommy one last time.
"We'll probably get going Tommy. I'll text you the details about that restaurant catch-up. See you then?" she asked and smiled, waiting for his response.
"Sure, I'll be there," he answered.
"Great. See you around!" she said, smiling ear to ear at his response.
Rachel blended with the other girls, intending to go to the place where they were heading. Another girl from that group looked back at Tommy seductively.
"See you, Tommy," Paris said, flirtatiously waving her one hand for him.
He stared at Rachel while she walked away with the group. Honestly, out of all the people she would befriend in this school, he did not expect it'll be Savannah's group of friends. He thought they are too popular for her liking, but guess people tend to change over time.
He wasn't too sure about going on a date-like catching up with her. He didn't want to give her false hope that he wants to get back together, because that is absolutely not his intention. He is just trying to be nice and at least win a friendship with her, considering the way their relationship ended almost four years ago. He'll just probably see what will happen and stay honest with her as much as possible.
It was a quiet late afternoon. Kimi was too occupied working on a lot of papers required by the press. She's doing all that work in the living room with the television turned on, making it her background noise.
The doorbell suddenly rang, signifying a guest. She exhaustedly stood up from the couch, feeling annoyed by her work interruption.
Kimi opened the door in irritation and was surprised by the person she saw. It was Tommy standing there, seemingly looking for someone.
"Hey Kimi, is Chuckie here? I was hoping to get his help with this Math lesson," he explained while holding a book.
"Sorry, he's still in the school library. He'll probably be here in an hour, are you willing to wait for him?" she asked, opening the door more widely in case he wants to come in.
"Oh-um, sure!"
Tommy followed her to the living room and sat on one of the couches. There he saw papers scattered around the coffee table, thinking it was all the stuff she's been working on.
"So um, what do you want? Coffee or Tea?" she offered.
"Coffee."
She nodded and headed to the kitchen to prepare their caffeine. Only the television's noise and the faint sound of the coffee brewer were heard across the room. He thought her parents were probably not here. He looked around the living room, seeing all the beautiful new family photos hanging on the wall. He didn't have much time to stare at them recently, but he appreciated the happiness and warmth it all portrayed.
He was so focused on looking at those photos he didn't notice Kimi was already in the living room, holding two cups in her hands.
"So, coffee?" she offered, placing the cups on the small table.
"Thanks," he replied, grabbing a cup to sip. He turned his attention to all the papers laying around and spoke.
"So, what are these?"
"It's just some paper required by the student press," she answered.
A long silence dominated the room for a while as Kimi moved around to organize a bunch of papers by different categories. He sipped his coffee again while watching her stack all the paper scattered on the table. She's wearing a fitted sleeveless shirt and baggy track pants that show a little bit of her midriff, a very cute and sexy casual outfit at home. Her hair is in a messy ponytail from all the work but despite that state, he still finds her beautiful without even trying.
While organizing her papers, she suddenly remembered something upon seeing his face.
"That reminds me, I want to request something from you."
He swallowed his coffee one last time before putting the empty cup back on the table. 'What is it?" he asked, curious about what it might be.
"Can you take my professional photo? the press is requiring us to do so, and I know you're complete with photographic devices," she asked with a pleading tone.
He thought that taking a photo wouldn't be that much work, so he could easily say yes. But he decided to bring some spice and make things a little bit harder.
He smirked and responded, "On one condition."
Kimi's smile fell immediately, knowing that this request will not be granted that easily.
"What is it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You're going to help me with my film dialogues and I'm going to take your photo. Sounds good?" he offered.
"Why me?" she asked, standing up to bring the empty coffee cups to the kitchen.
Tommy followed her to the kitchen and started to explain, "Because you're so good with dialogue. I just need you to give me some advice or correct lines that could be constructed better."
She paused for a minute to think about her response and when she did, she turned around and looked into his eyes.
"Okay, sounds good to me," she responded, starting to think that helping him with his script won't be that bad. "When will you be available?" she asked.
"This Saturday. Let's do it at my place," he suggested.
Kimi was just about to respond when they suddenly jolted from someone else's presence behind them. They immediately turned around and saw it was Chuckie.
"Hey Kimi!" he said, greeting his sister first before turning his attention to his best friend, "and Tommy, what are you doing here?" Chuckie asked, looking at them back and forth.
"I was waiting for you Chuckie. I need help with my Math assignment," he answered truthfully.
"Alright, just follow me to my room. Let's talk about that there," Chuckie said as he grabbed a snack from the refrigerator. He pointed a finger to his room, gesturing to his best friend to follow him before going there on his own.
When Chuckie got out of the picture, she called Tommy who was just about to follow her brother to his room.
"I'll see you on Saturday!" she said and smiled at him.
I apologize as this update took longer than usual. I got so busy making my logos last week. Hope you enjoy this chapter because the next one is incredibly special to me.