sepia tone [1/1]
she captures him through the camera lens. [saki/masaomi]
durarara!!; drama/romance; pg; 450 words
He’s posing in front of Fukuoka Castle, hair swept across his eyes so no one will see how his smile doesn’t quite reach them.
She knows this. Her own smiles are much the same - strained by worries that shouldn’t exist, not anymore.
But she snaps the photo anyway and watches as it develops, washed-out colors blossoming across the smooth surface (like petals pressed between the pages of a book). It’s a Polaroid camera, older than she is, bought from a pawn shop in Nagano. So much better than a digital camera, or the grainy pictures on a cell phone. She hates the impermanence of the information age - if memories can simply be transferred into data, erased on a whim, then what’s the point of living?
“Oh, Saki-chan,” Masaomi says, getting down on one knee and clasping her hands to his heart. “You have an old soul, truly you do. It is the most beautiful soul I have ever seen.”
She likes to think she can see his soul through the camera lens, and is not sure she likes what she finds.
In the end, she loves him more because of it.
It’s midnight on the train to Nara, and his head is resting on her shoulder. He can no longer sleep without her next to him, or touching him, and she finds it a little sad (but she will never leave his side, so what does it matter?). His cell phone is held loosely in his hand, nearly slipping from his grasp, and as she watches the screen light up - hears it hum quietly in the silence.
They call him every day, and he always stares at the name a second too long before pressing “Ignore”.
“Oh, Saki-chan,” he murmurs, breath ghosting against her neck. “Aren’t you so much happier now, being nameless and free?”
“Yes,” she says. Holds him close.
Does not ask: But what about you, Masaomi? Are you happy?
She thinks that he is a person trapped somewhere in between.
Outside the Shitenno-ji Temple she takes a quick snapshot of him - candid this time, a profile shot. And when it develops (beginner’s mistake) he looks blurred around the edges, beautiful and indistinct. A ghost hidden beneath fanciful gestures and proclamations of eternal love.
Later, she places it in her photo album and beneath it writes: Masaomi, truly.
His head is cradled in her lap, and he is frowning, as if a nightmare is flickering along the edges of his subconscious. She brushes the hair from his eyes with gentle hands; sets her photo album aside and gazes out the window at the pitch-black countryside rolling by.
(Knows that they will wander forever, seeking something that never was.)
durarara!!; drama/romance; pg; 450 words
He’s posing in front of Fukuoka Castle, hair swept across his eyes so no one will see how his smile doesn’t quite reach them.
She knows this. Her own smiles are much the same - strained by worries that shouldn’t exist, not anymore.
But she snaps the photo anyway and watches as it develops, washed-out colors blossoming across the smooth surface (like petals pressed between the pages of a book). It’s a Polaroid camera, older than she is, bought from a pawn shop in Nagano. So much better than a digital camera, or the grainy pictures on a cell phone. She hates the impermanence of the information age - if memories can simply be transferred into data, erased on a whim, then what’s the point of living?
“Oh, Saki-chan,” Masaomi says, getting down on one knee and clasping her hands to his heart. “You have an old soul, truly you do. It is the most beautiful soul I have ever seen.”
She likes to think she can see his soul through the camera lens, and is not sure she likes what she finds.
In the end, she loves him more because of it.
It’s midnight on the train to Nara, and his head is resting on her shoulder. He can no longer sleep without her next to him, or touching him, and she finds it a little sad (but she will never leave his side, so what does it matter?). His cell phone is held loosely in his hand, nearly slipping from his grasp, and as she watches the screen light up - hears it hum quietly in the silence.
They call him every day, and he always stares at the name a second too long before pressing “Ignore”.
“Oh, Saki-chan,” he murmurs, breath ghosting against her neck. “Aren’t you so much happier now, being nameless and free?”
“Yes,” she says. Holds him close.
Does not ask: But what about you, Masaomi? Are you happy?
She thinks that he is a person trapped somewhere in between.
Outside the Shitenno-ji Temple she takes a quick snapshot of him - candid this time, a profile shot. And when it develops (beginner’s mistake) he looks blurred around the edges, beautiful and indistinct. A ghost hidden beneath fanciful gestures and proclamations of eternal love.
Later, she places it in her photo album and beneath it writes: Masaomi, truly.
His head is cradled in her lap, and he is frowning, as if a nightmare is flickering along the edges of his subconscious. She brushes the hair from his eyes with gentle hands; sets her photo album aside and gazes out the window at the pitch-black countryside rolling by.
(Knows that they will wander forever, seeking something that never was.)