What the heck was I saying? I groaned at myself internally. I was creeping myself out, but it wasn’t like I could unsay what I’d said.
He cocked his head at me. “A photo of what?”
His eyes were staring right at me. I was awake but unconscious. Without being aware of what I was doing, I pointed straight at his face. I couldn’t get any more words out, though it must have been pretty obvious what I meant.
The other two exchanged a glance, paused, and then burst out laughing. “You want a photo of Kengo?”
“Just Kengo? What about us?”
Still looking at me, he straightened up slightly. He was blinking at the speed of light. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
“You want my photo?”
I nodded more firmly.
“Why?”
I kept nodding. “I want a…record of your hair color?” I replied without thinking, my voice gradually trailing off.
That’s right. I was a weird, weird teenage girl. The urge to cry was stronger than ever. I knew I wasn’t as innocent as I pretended. I was rapidly devolving into a creep. Who wouldn’t be scared of me? Who wouldn’t be freaked out? I would run from me. He should run from me. I wished he would. I stared at him, begging him to hear my silent pleas.
“Oh, okay.” He held up a peace sign. “How’s this?”
No way.
My mouth was still glued shut, and all I could do was think. He shouldn’t have said yes. After all, I was just some random girl who showed up and asked for his photo. He shouldn’t have been posing for me. He didn’t have any idea who I was. We were in the age of social media. His digital literacy must’ve been appalling.
I’d frozen again.
He was still looking at me. “What, you’re not gonna take it?” he asked and started to lower his hand. “Then we should probably get go—”
“C’mon, Kengo, stop moving. You’re making a super awkward face. You got yourself a fan this cute; you gotta smile for her. Pose properly!”
“Exactly! This is literally never gonna happen to you again.” Kengo’s friend suddenly turned to me, making me jump. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Ra-Rara…”
“Rarara-chan? Seriously? Is that your real name? What about your surname? What school’s that uniform from?”
“Rara… Two ‘ra’s. My surname, um… The kanji from…‘to view’ and ‘waves’…”
Kannami Rara. I was a first year at Jingu Girls’ High School. I was about to explain before I gave up and closed my mouth. This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was never going to meet him again. I was gonna change trains tomorrow out of sheer embarrassment. I’d decided that this was it. And that was why I couldn’t tell them anything else about myself.
I opened up my phone’s camera like my life depended on it. Nothing mattered since this was the last time I’d be seeing him. It didn’t matter what he thought of me. I pointed the lens at him without hesitation. He was still holding up that peace sign and waiting for me. My hands were trembling so badly that I was struggling to get the camera to focus. I was too excited. I wanted to get the best photo that I possibly could. I wanted it to be a full encapsulation of this moment, one that I could keep for the rest of my life. It would be my treasure, and I’d never stop staring at it. Holding back my tears, I forced myself to look at the screen. And then I noticed something.
His face was bright red. I looked up over my phone to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but it was true. He was blushing.
The next moment, I let out a quiet, “Huh? That’s so…human.”
The others must have heard me, because their grins evolved into an outpouring of laughter.
“Oh my god! This is incredible!”
“That’s actually hilarious!”
They spluttered in unison. They were clapping their hands, bent double, and gasping for breath.
He looked at them, his brows knitting together slightly, and muttered, “’Cause I am human,” while his face turned an even brighter shade of red. “I can’t help it.”
I watched the screen as he gave the tiniest of pouts. All without breaking his pose. I wished I could watch him make that face forever.
So I pressed the shutter. The photo was mine.
My heart was thudding so hard I thought my chest was gonna rip in half. Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I prepared myself to look up and face the real him.
“Wrong.”
“A—” My iPhone slipped out of my grip. He wasn’t standing in front of me anymore. Instead… “Alien!”
It was a glowing blue alien. He had a tank on his back, a mask over his face, and his eyes were fixed on me as I cried out.
“What are you doing, Rara? You’re missing the point.”
I didn’t understand what it was doing here. It was so out of left field that I couldn’t even scream. I couldn’t call for help. My legs turned to jelly, and I sank down onto the platform.
“You can’t just do the exact same thing you did last time. You have to make a different choice. You were supposed to say you couldn’t take a good photo, apologize, then run off. Then you wouldn’t have had to see him again. Why did you do the same… Are you listening to me? Rara?” The alien bent down to peer at me.
I couldn’t look away from him. And then it hit me: I was dreaming.
“Yeesh. Okay, wait for me in five years. I’m not giving up.”
It had to be a dream, because this wasn’t what actually happened. Instead…
My heart was thudding so hard I thought my chest was gonna rip in half. Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I prepared myself to look up and face the real him.
“You get a good shot?”
I nodded vigorously. I took a stealthy deep breath. And another and another, till my breathing finally started to settle and I was able to look up again.