Shutter Steps
I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.
Marcel Duchamp
“Isn’t that the guy that put a urinal in a museum?” Natsume asks. She twiddles her pen between her fingers, which is a trademark move of hers.
“He’s one of the most prolific and revolutionary artists of the twentieth century, Natsu,” Naomi explains. She doesn’t look up from the magazine she’s perusing.
“But yeah, he’s the urinal guy,” I say, and Natsume nods gratefully.
“So, why should we write about some dead guy and his urinal?” she asks.
“Well, the competition prompt is: ‘What is art?’ Why not start with the man that prompted the question to begin with?”
I shrug, and Natsume laughs.
“I’m not convinced, and by the look of it, neither is Misaki.”
Naomi drops her magazine and stares me down.
“Et tu, Brute?”
I open my mouth to reply, but Natsume bursts out laughing before I even get the chance. Naomi pouts and crosses her arms across her chest.
“Don’t bully Misa,” Natsume elbows me gently in the side. “She’s delicate you know.”
From behind me, I hear Hanako shift uncomfortably. Probably at the mention of someone potentially more delicate than she is. I turn and flash her a smile.
Beside me, Lelouch writes something hurriedly down in his little journal, before lifting it up for us to see.
“Why don’t we ask some artists?” Natsume reads aloud for him. “Hey, good idea Lou!”
Lelouch looks satisfied with himself and smiles at us all. I return it with one of my own.
“I guess we could interview members of the art club, I’m sure Mr Nomiya could recommend some people to talk to,” I say.
“If he ever stops talking about himself, sure,” Natsume jibes. “But why interview the art club guys, what do they know that we don’t?” Hanako gives Natsu a short courtesy laugh.
From the desk at the front of the room, Mr Sakamato, our literature teacher, coughs into his closed fist. He doesn’t look up from his book, but the stern cough reminds everyone that there is indeed a teacher present, and that bad mouthing the other academic staff is probably a not a good idea. Natsume offers an apologetic shrug, and Mr Sakamato sighs, shaking his head in disappointment.
Mr Sakamato has a thin face. He reminds me vaguely of my homeroom teacher, Mr Mutou, because they both share this kind of sunk and sullen look. Like they’re perpetually on the verge of falling asleep, or like they’re always replaying a bad memory in the head.
It was Mr Sakamato’s idea that we enter this writing competition, and it was also his idea that I join the Newspaper club in the first place. I have to admit, I had my doubts at first, given the reputation of Natsu and Naomi as both massive gossips and massive bitches. The former is absolutely true, but they’re really not bad people. They’re loud, and they’re a bit spacey, but they’re not mean. The worst thing a person can be is mean.
The newspaper club room isn’t really a club room so much as an old office. Mr Sakamato was kind enough to lend the room out to us after school with the provision that he gets to oversee the activity of the club. He was a journalist before he was a teacher, and I think somewhere deep down his passion for journalism still shines, however dim.
“What does a good journalist do?” he asks without looking up from his book.
I offer Naomi a confused shrug, but she’s lost in thought.
Lelouch holds up his little journal.
“T-they investigate a-at the source,” Hanako says.
“Correct, Hanako,” Mr Sakamato replies.
“I-It was actually Le-lelouch, Sir.”
Mr Sakamato looks up from his book and nods at Lelouch, who looks quietly satisfied. “Ok, so you have two questions. The first is the titular question: ‘What is art?’ It’s a misdirect. There’s no answer, and the judges know that. What matters is the second question: ‘Who knows what art is?’ That’s your article. Lelouch is right.”
Lou and Hanako are other recent additions to the newspaper club. I think that was also one of Mr Sakamato’s ideas. Another one of his good ideas, that is. He tends to have good ideas. I think Hanako took more convincing than Lelouch did.
I smile at Lelouch, and he smiles back.
“Ok, so we need to open a dialogue with the art club, does anyone have any ins there?” Natsu asks, now nibbling on the end of her pen.
I grab my camera from my rucksack and switch it on.
“I took some photos at the art display last October,” I explain, scrolling through my photos. Naomi pulls up a chair beside me.
“Right! And we wrote a piece for the paper.” She gets quite animated, flicking through her notepad. “So, there’s Tezuka, she’s the abstract artist.”
I pull up the photo of Tezuka, standing gormlessly beside a painting with a screaming face disappearing into the void.
“She paints creepy stuff, and she’s impossible to interview,” Natsu laughs. “You can have that one Lou.”
Lelouch rolls his eyes but writes TEZUKA in massive letters on his notebook.
“Then there’s Takashi, from our class. Takashi Maeda. He’s an expressionist I think.”
I flick through to the photo of Takashi standing next to his display piece. It’s a sad sort of piece, with loads of faceless people, all in a row, lined up like a firing squad. They’re stood against a wall, and in graffitiesque letters is the word: ‘LIABILITY’. Takashi is beaming a cocky sort of grin.
“And then there’s Saki Enomoto,” Natsume remembers, rubbing her chin in thought. “What does she do again?”
I find the photo of Saki. She stands soberly beside a painting of a woman holding a watch and looking down on the water.
“R-r-realism,” Hanako answers.
“Right, realism.”
“Well, Takashi and I have a history,” Naomi explains. “Not one I’d like to dredge up or invoke in the name of this contest, I’m afraid.”
That’s an interesting wrinkle, and I make a mental note to ask her about that later. You know, like a good journalist.
“I can talk to Takashi then,” I say, and write his name down on a piece of paper with the word ‘expressionism’ beside it.
“That leaves Enomoto to me,” Naomi laughs. “And Mr Nomiya to you, Natsu.”
“Great,” Natsume says sarcastically, and we all laugh.
Mr Sakamato coughs again, and we all look to him.
“It’s getting late,” he points to the clock on the wall. But it’s stopped.
“Sir, that clock says three A.M.” I say.
He looks up at the clock and lets out a short chuckle. “Much later than I thought then.”
We gather up our things and switch off the laptop that Mr Sakamoto kindly brought in for us to use. I pick it up and offer it back to him. He reaches for it but hesitates.
“Why don’t you hand that to Hanako, since she’s the resident scribe. You never know when inspiration will strike.”
I slide the laptop over to her, and she picks it up carefully. Natsume places a hand on her shoulder and she visibly cringes. “The chosen one!” Natsume laughs.
Mr Sakamoto laughs gently. “I believe that you five can win this competition if you play to your strengths and listen to one another. You’re talented writers, and a talented photographer. Remember, you only have until winter break.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Naomi jokes, as Mr Sakamoto ushers us out into the hallway and Hanako slides the laptop into her rucksack.
The golden light of the evening has already spilled out into the hallway, and the scent of food carries along the hallways from the cafeteria. Natsu’s nose twitches like a greedy house cat waiting for its dinner to be served. Lelouch’s stomach growls loudly.
“Cafeteria it is,” Naomi says, and the four of us start in the direction of promised food. Hanako’s rucksack must be a little heavy with the laptop in. Lou sees her struggling and offers to take it for her.
“Thanks, Lou,” she timidly replies.
He nods back at her.
“So, you and Takashi?” I ask Naomi, and her cheeks go a little red. “Is there anything that might trip me up in the interview?”
“Well, Takashi is a dick,” Natsu answers.
“Nat!”
“What, it’s the truth!” she defends herself.
“Semi-useful,” I reply, and Naomi shrugs.
“He’s not a dick, but he’s a bit self-centred. Takashi thinks his art is incredible, and it is, but there’s something a bit obnoxious about people who know they’re talented. He thinks he’s going to be famous, and maybe he will, which makes him even more annoying.”
I nod and make a mental note. “And you and him? How did that happen?”
“Do you want to know how it happened or how it ended?” she asks, a slight smirk on her lips. Natsume’s eyes twinkle. There are two stories here.
“Do I only get one?”
“For now.”
“Then tell me how it ended.”
We arrive at the cafeteria just ahead of the usual dinner time rush, and Lou lets out a sigh of relief. He doesn’t like crowds, I’ve learned. That makes two of us. Three of us I think, glancing at Hanako as she emerges from behind Lou, her new human shield.
“He fell in love with someone else,” Naomi says, but she doesn’t sound hurt. Like she’s said it over and over again, and now it’s just become a fact. I turn back to gauge everyone else's reaction, but only Hanako reacts. She looks dejected.
“His own reflection,” Natsume mutters under her breath.
“Natsu!” I exclaim, and Naomi chuckles a little bitterly.
“She’s sort of right. He fell in love with someone more like him and less like me, but they didn’t stay together.”
I offer a sympathetic smile, but Naomi just looks through me. She looks briefly as if she might cry, but not at the mention of Takashi. At the mention of his reflection.
“I’m over it. Him,” she corrects.
Clearly.
We join the relatively small queue for food and grab trays. It’s Nikujaga tonight, and some vegetarian thing that I won’t be considering. The food here is okay, but it lacks any real excitement and is sort of haphazardly placed on the plate.
With food in hand, we find a free table and sit down, with Lelouch and Hanako beside me and Natsu and Naomi opposite. Behind them, the golden evening light stretches along the floors, like a curtain that’s been ripped from the window. It’s getting really cold outside now, but what did I expect from late November?
Lelouch writes something down in his notepad with his right hand whilst he stabs blindly at his plate with his left.
I take the notepad from him once he’s finished scrawling.
“Any idea how to interview Tezuka? Isn’t she a bit elusive. Like trying to interview a ghost,” I read aloud.
Natsu chortles, and a bit of her dinner falls out of her mouth. Gross. “It’s like conducting an interview in a different language, and someone punches you in the stomach every forty seconds for good measure,” she laughs.
“How will she punch him; she hasn’t got any arms,” I say.
“Figuratively, Misa. Figuratively.”
I shrug.
“One of us should probably come with you for it,” Naomi adds. “In case things get lost in translation.”
“Shotgun not,” Natsu says, and everyone chuckles.
“Hanako, why don’t you go with Lelouch for that?” I ask, carefully, like tiptoeing around a landmine.
She freezes up, but takes a deep breath. “I - I can do that.”
I push my food around the plate, thinking about this interview with Takashi. I hate talking to new people, especially people I only vaguely know; that’s even more awkward.
“Talk of the devil,” Naomi whispers across the table.
I turn around and watch as Saki Enomoto, the third of our targets, lowers herself onto a bench with her cane beside her. There’s another girl with her who has long white hair, Rika Katayama.
I do not like Rika Katayama. I shake my head.
Saki has one of the degenerative diseases and is a part of the terminal club here. The students who might die soon, and who don’t shut up about it. I knew one of those. Know. Knew.
In fairness, I would probably be the same if I had Huntington’s instead of scoliosis, it must be really awful knowing your situation is actually hopeless. What else can you do but complain about it?
Naomi’s face sours a little as she watches the girls. I sense another story there, but I fear I may have drawn too much blood from this stone already, so I don’t press it.
Yamaku is a beehive, or a hornet’s nest. All around, the semi-docile bees linger, individual people pollinating a communal story, a living thing that weaves between us all. Or maybe it’s like a still lake, even a single stone across the water’s surface can bring all of it, everyone, up to the surface in a frenzy.
That’s what good journalists do. They kick the hornets’ nest. Sometimes to their own danger. I think that’s why Naomi and Natsu have developed such a reputation. I also think that’s exciting, and a bit intoxicating. Here, in the canteen, with the buzz of other students around, you can almost feel the stories waiting to be written.
But life is easier on the periphery. It’s easier to watch life go by from the sidelines, through the lens. I’ve always preferred other stories to my own.
Just as we’re finishing up our food, and the conversation between us dwindles to just idle gossip, I hear the dull chime of my mobile phone. I reach into my bag and yank it out. Naomi eyes me curiously.
[Hey! I’m waiting for you in the usual spot. Are you coming today?]
I bite my bottom lip and thumb back another reply.
[Shortly. Just finishing dinner with the newspaper club.]
“So tomorrow morning I’m going to talk with Nomiya and see if I can get permission to conduct these interviews. Everyone be ready to arrange their meetings.”
“Aye aye captain,” Naomi salutes. I laugh and give one as well.
Lelouch writes in his journal.
“Meeting finished for the night then?” I read aloud for him.
Natsu laughs, loud enough to draw the eye of the other cafeteria visitors.
“Meeting adjourned. Go and do whatever it is you people do after dark.”
Lelouch shoots me a smile, and Naomi rises first from the table. Hanako bows and darts off immediately. Like she was waiting to go the whole time. She probably was.
We each head off in separate directions. Lelouch joins a group of guys from our class sitting nearby, Taro and Akio, who are loveable misfits. Naomi darts out of the cafeteria, and Natsume starts talking to someone on her phone. I hear her mention the name Ikuno, who is another girl from Class 3-3.
With a general wave to the cafeteria, I head back into the corridor and catch the last of the evening sun as it settles beyond the frosty windows.
I meander down the hallways, some idle gossip piquing my interest as a few groups of other students pass me, but nothing that makes me stop and listen in too intently.
Finally, out the door and down the pathways, I take the path less travelled to the benches by the sports fields. The cold stings me.
Ahead of me, I see a figure sitting on a bench, his pale skin looking nearly translucent in the back-lighting of the setting sun.
He waves at me, and I smile.
Instinctively, I grab my camera. Sometimes I wonder if the only way I can see the world is through the lens of a camera, so that every moment can last forever.
On a bench under the light, sitting almost completely still, is Kazuki. He’s one of the few guys that wears the school jumper, and he has a near permanently serious expression, almost like Mr Mutou or Mr Sakamato. That, or he wears a confident smirk. Kazuki Fukunaga, or Kaz ‘Fuck you’ Fukunaga has developed a bit of a reputation at Yamaku for his curt attitude, for his brutal honesty, and for being a bit of a womanizer. Other than me, I’m not sure if he has any friends.
I press the shutter button and capture him, the very last flickers of sunlight breaking through the trees behind him as he sits still on the bench. He notices me, and stays still for the shot.
A perfect picture.
I lower my camera and wave to him as I approach.
Kazuki returns a short wave. I reach into my bag, produce two cans of coke, and offer one to him. He cracks open the tab and takes a sip.
“Yo, Misa, long day with the private eyes?”
I laugh. “We’re writing an article on art, and it was our first meeting,” I explain. “It ran a bit over.”
“No shit,” he says blankly. “Got your interviews all lined up?”
“Yeah, I drew the short straw apparently – Takashi.”
Kazuki laughs without a smile. “Yeah, he’s an asshole. Good luck with that.”
“So, everyone tells me, but I’ve never spoken to him, not even in class.”
I sigh and take a swig from my coke. A couple of first year girls pass us, and they shoot me a concerned look, but continue on. Probably because associating with Kazuki is a one-way ticket to getting your feelings hurt.
“You’re not missing out,” he shrugs. “What’s the assignment anyway? What are the art douchebags of Yamaku up to?”
I snicker. “Something like that. It’s ‘what is art?’ Naomi said it was a nasty one, but it was her idea so…”
“Nasty is right, that’s a bullshit question if I ever heard one.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it. It’s interesting.”
Kaz scoffs, finishing off his can of coke in a decisive swig. “Art is just this thing we do when our words aren’t good enough,” he says cynically. “Any other interpretation of it is just an attempt to sound clever.”
That’s Kazuki ‘Fuck You’ Fukunaga for you. He doesn’t waste time when it comes to telling you his thoughts. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him.
“Well, I’ll be sure to take your statement for the article.”
Kaz laughs and puts one of his legs up on the bench.
“Hear that Yamaku? I’m the new art snob now. Call me a prodigy! Kiss my golden ass!”
I laugh. He offers me his hand as he steps properly onto the bench to survey his imaginary kingdom.
“And this here is the best damn journalist, queen of Yamaku, Misaki Kawana!”
I take his hand and step up onto the bench beside him.
“A speech for your fans, my queen?”
I look over the imaginary crowds below us. They cheer and clap below us. Thousands upon thousands of adoring fans, looking up at the regal couple, in all our golden glory.
Kazuki does look regal, with the final rays of the setting sun above casting its beams down on him, bathing him in light as the trees sway dutifully behind him. I take in his expression. His signature cocky smile and his deep brown eyes. His scarf flutters in the heavy wind.
“I love you,” I tell him.
He wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into a hug.
“And I love you, Misa.”
I bury my head in his chest.
I take a deep breath and knock on the door to the art room.
No answer.
I knock again, a little louder this time. A grunt comes from the other side of the door.
“Enter!” comes a loud and pompous reply. That’s Maeda’s voice; I recognise it from the times he answers in class.
Natsu texted in the morning as promised. Her message was a little cryptic, but I gather that Takashi already knows I’m interviewing him. I look down to my phone again.
[You’re up. You have a meeting with Takashi at 6pm. Bring a SLEDGEHAMMER or you won’t get through.]
I slide open the door and I’m immediately greeted by the warm light of the art club room. It’s brighter than any other classroom thanks to several spotlights scattered around the room. Standing in the dead centre of this golden room with his back to me is Takashi, one hand stroking his chin and another twirling a paintbrush in his fingers. I lift my camera instinctively, and position Takashi within the frame, his golden shadow draped limply across the floor. He has a bandage over his right ear, the only visible thing to connect him to Yamaku.
“That would be a rude thing to do, Misaki Kawana,” Takashi says without turning around to see me.
I lower the camera slowly and enter the classroom fully. I feel like a foreign body, invading an alien space.
“Sorry, I just thought your pose and the light would make for a good photo,” I explain myself as Takashi makes another confident streak with his paintbrush on the canvas.
Takashi finally turns to face me. There’s a streak of red paint on his jacket sleeve, and he pops his cuffs with a flourish.
“I can’t argue with that. I am a fascinating and beautiful subject.”
What an ass.
“Right, well, I’m here to interview you about art,” I explain weakly.
Takashi nods in affirmation and gestures for me to sit at one of the high tables next to him. I oblige and pull out a small notepad from my backpack. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s looking past me, or like he doesn’t really register my presence.
“So, what exactly is it you want to know?” he asks.
This sort of annoys me. It’s my interview, let me ask the questions.
I take a look over at his current project. It’s hard to tell exactly what it is, but the colours are pretty.
“So, the journalism club is doing a competition. We have to write an article based on the question ‘what is art?’ and we thought maybe, being an artist, you’d have something to say about it.”
Takashi strokes his chin in thought, and smiles widely, “Yes, you came to the right person then. First, let me ask, what do you think art is exactly?”
I remember what Natsu texted. The word ‘SLEDGEHAMMER’ stands out. Natsume may speak in code, but I have a fairly good idea of what she might be suggesting. Push his buttons, I think, make him want to tell me.
So Takashi has a superior attitude. Make him explain it to me like I’m stupid. Be stupid.
“I think art is, like, pretty things, you know? It doesn’t really mean anything, and it’s expensive” I say, dragging the word ‘like’ out for effect.
Takashi sighs and drags his hand down his face, before bursting into laughter.
“You don’t suit the bumbling idiot, Misaki.”
I guess he saw right through that. I shrug. “Alright, well I haven’t decided what I think art is yet. Kazuki says art is what we use when words are no good.”
Takashi smiles and strokes his chin, readjusting to sit comfortably on the stool behind him.
“Kazuki huh?”
“Yeah, we’re close.” I reply, accidentally mirroring his readjustment with one of my own. “He’s the reason I joined the journalism club. One reason, anyway.”
“Oh?” Takashi half-asks. A sudden glum expression comes over him.
It’s not hard to imagine why. Two strong personalities, they’ve probably had some confrontations in the past. I’m team Kazuki all the way. “Yeah.” There’s a moment of awkward silence. “So, what do you think art is?”
Takashi props his head on his hands and looks off to the side for a moment. There are paintings in various states of completion on easels all across the room. He nods in the direction of a particularly cryptic painting; it’s clearly a Tezuka special.
“See that painting there?”
I nod.
“What does it say to you?”
I look a little closer. It has a few swirling red colours. There’s an angry looking storm in the centre.
“I really don’t know.”
Takashi smirks. “Exactly.”
I tilt my head quizzically.
“Art should say something. Tezuka is a really talented artist, but her art is vacant where it matters. It doesn’t say anything. Now look beside it.”
A little to the right of the painting is another easel, this time a much more realistic looking painting. It depicts a man behind bars, he wears a sad expression, and there’s some religious iconography on his forehead.
“That’s by Akemi,” Takashi explains. “His grandfather was a prisoner of war.”
“So it’s about political imprisonment?” I ask, scribbling down a note of the name and Takashi’s words.
“Maybe. The point is that it says something.” Takashi looks back to me now. “Art isn’t just a substitute for when words are no good, it’s about saying something you couldn’t say with words.”
I jot that down.
“So art is about political commentary?” I ask.
“Good art,” Takashi replies. “Good art does and says something, at least it tries. Sometimes that’s political, sometimes it’s sardonic. But it always comments.”
I look behind Takashi’s shoulder at his cubby. It’s filled with pieces in various states of completion.
“And what does your art say, Takashi?”
With a confident smirk Takashi jumps to his feet and swaggers over to his collection. He rifles through them, muttering to himself, before plucking out a canvas that’s filled with vivid colours. It looks a bit like a face, and a smaller figure in the corner. It makes me feel a bit peculiar, and has a sort of paranoid vibe.
He takes his previous work down from the canvas and swaps in the new piece. Or rather the piece he wants to talk about.
“What does my art say, Misaki?” he asks.
I look closer. It’s beautiful, but somehow a bit daunting. There is a single white dot near the centre, like an eye looking down.
“It’s about being watched,” I answer him.
Takashi’s face lights up.
“Exactly!” he exclaims, “You have the eyes of an artist, Misaki!”
I can’t explain it, but it feels good to get complimented by Takashi. I know he’s a bit of a snob, but I can barely keep my smile from my face.
“So what exactly are you commenting on? Society?” I ask.
Takashi stands back from his painting and strokes his chin again. A solemn look comes over him.
“That’s a bit broad. It’s about Yamaku, and a bit about all of us.”
He laughs, and fakes a deadpan expression.
“There is a boy in the art club. He is blind.” He says in a monotone voice.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s something Tezuka says constantly. I don’t really understand her obsession, but everyone describes him as a prodigy. Same with Tezuka too. Same with me.”
With the sun starting to set behind him, Takashi’s sudden seriousness makes him look a little inspirational.
“I suppose people are inspired by you all,” I offer.
“Maybe, but we’re really nothing special. There are a million artists, what makes one a prodigy and another just an artist?”
“Rising past their limitations?” I ask tentatively.
“Ah,” Takashi nods. “Are you limited, Misaki?”
I, uh. “What do you mean?”
“Your limitations, what are they?” he asks, taking a step closer to me.
With him standing closer I catch the faint smell of his aftershave. He looks down into my eyes deeply, and I swallow hard.
I think I know what he’s asking me.
“Scoliosis.”
“Is that a limitation?” he asks me again.
“Well, that's the reason I’m here,” I offer.
“But does it limit you?”
“It affects me,” I reply firmly, and he backs away from me. I didn’t realise quite how close our faces had gotten until then.
“Do you see this bandage?” he asks, gesturing to his head.
I nod at him. “You have tinnitus, right?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I have the bandage.”
An interesting crinkle, and not one I was aware of.
“I see it.”
“I have a tumour,” he explains. The smile on his face vanishes. “On the brain. I’ve had surgery after surgery.”
The eye contact returns, and within a moment, his cocky smile is back. “It’s terminal, I’m afraid,” he continues. “Apparently that’s what makes me a prodigy. It’s easy to follow someone’s artistic career if it only lasts for a few years.”
I try to process that information. I consider making a note of it, but think better and close my notepad. Takashi nods at me in approval.
“I find it hard to talk to people,” I finally say. “Sometimes I think I can only see the world through the lens of a camera. Sometimes I wish I was dead, so I could watch the world as a ghost.”
Takashi’s eyebrows narrow, and he makes an ‘oh’ noise.
“My Scoliosis. It’s noticeable. I know it is. When I was younger I had to wear this back brace. Actually it was a back correction bracket, so I looked a bit like a robot with it on,” I explain. The memories of being teased come rushing back to me. “It was easier to be in the background, to create degrees of separation. The ghost is the ultimate separation, just enough to watch.”
Outside, somewhere in the far distance, somewhere in a memory, I see Kazuki grabbing a bully by the collar and throwing them to the floor. The thought makes me a little sad.
“So, you are limited,” Takashi states. He straddles a line between judgement and understanding, and the corners of his smile falter just a little.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” I answer. “No more than anyone else really. Everyone has body confidence issues. I’m nothing special. It isn’t even the reason I’m at Yamaku. Not really.”
Takashi closes the distance between us again. His eyes are really piercing. “Of course you’re special, Misaki. Maybe for reasons you don’t even realise.”
I step back and take a deep breath. “Art is about sending a message,” I say.
Takashi nods. My heart pounds against my chest. I take another deep breath and steady myself. Outside, the golden light has retreated into darkness. “Can I get a photo of you with your latest piece for the article?”
Takashi shifts uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t really take photos of art; it takes something away from the original and you only ever see a pale reflection.”
I can’t help but feel a little offended by that. “Photography can be art.”
Takashi shakes his head. “Of course photography can be art, Misaki! Photography can be some of the most beautiful art in the world, and the most powerful. But that isn’t the same as taking photos of art, is it?” His rhetorical question catches me a bit off guard, especially considering I was expecting him to be more dismissive. “But is your photography art?”
“Well, it’s for the article,” I offer weakly.
Takashi strokes his chin, and shrugs.
“Very well. You may photograph me and my piece.”
I grab my camera again and wave my hand for Takashi to get into position beside his canvas. He tries out a few poses, some arrogant, some wistful. Eventually he settles into a position, and I click to capture him.
“May I?” Takashi asks, gesturing for me to show him the photo.
I take the strap from around my neck and pass the camera to him.
“No, not this photo. Your art.”
I tense up again.
“I don’t really take artsy photos, just photos for the club.”
“Well, I still want to see,” he explains, moving closer to me again so that we can both look at the screen. I reach up for the camera and operate the buttons to scroll through my photos. With his hand on the top of the camera and mine on the bottom, I become painfully aware of our proximity yet again.
What is this game of cat and mouse he’s playing?
We cycle through my photos. A photo of the view from Yamaku way down into town. A photo of a flower I thought was pretty. A photo of the bus into the city, that one was for Naomi. A photo of an empty park bench, suspended in evening sunlight. A handful of still places.
“The world according to Misaki Kawana,” Takashi mutters low, the warmth of his breath sending a tingle down my spine as his words gently brush my ear. “I see the eyes of an artist in you.”
“I don’t really…”
“Take artistic photos?” He interrupts. “I beg to differ.”
“Art is in the eye of the beholder,” I say. A quote from somewhere. Maybe from Kazuki. Maybe from class. Maybe I made it up.
“And you have very pretty eyes,” Takashi whispers, a playful smirk on his lips.
I can’t decide whether I want to smack him or kiss him. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
“Give me my camera back,” I finally say, as the silence and tension between us starts to thicken into a soup.
Takashi nods, and releases the camera, nearly dropping it into my hands. “You have talent.”
I feel a knot tie and untie itself over and over in my stomach as I back up towards the door.
I bow, and turn around, but before I can escape, Takashi calls out to me.
“Today everything exists to end in a photograph. Maybe we can meet, and you can show me the world through the camera lens.”
I cross the threshold into the hallway and keep going until I’m outside the building in the cold winter again. I slump against the wall, and take several deep steadying breaths. I feel as though I might vomit. I feel dirty.
My phone vibrates in my coat pocket. A text from Naomi.
[How did the interview go Misa?]
I close my eyes and let the cold sink into me. Eventually, after too long, the rising bile in my stomach settles.
[All good!] I reply. Thankfully texts are naturally devoid of emotion. I scroll down my phone. A text from Naomi. A text from my brother. A text from Dad. A bounce back from the cell provider.
Suddenly, I feel lonely.
Despite the chill of the cold wind against my fingers I start flicking through the photos on my camera. The photo of Takashi, the photos of landscape after landscape, empty space after empty space.
I sigh, and head off in the direction of the dorms.
I barely pass anyone, as most people have already settled inside to avoid the cold, but I do catch a glimpse of that Rika girl sitting with Saki Enomoto. They eye me warily as I pass them, but don’t say anything. They’ve got something in their hands but I’m past them before I can really check it out. Fine, I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation anyway. I still feel as though I might throw up.
Back inside and up the stairs I can’t help but let out a sigh of relief, the sight of my room a welcome safe haven.
I unlock and open the door. Immediately, I’m greeted by the sight of Kazuki, with his feet up on my desk and a book over his face.
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” I tease, and close the door behind me. “Does a locked door mean nothing to you?”
“Not yours, no,” he laughs. “How was the interview with Takashi?”
I sigh and fall backwards onto my bed. “It was heavy,” I confess. “I expected him to be more of a dick.”
“Give him time,” Kazuki laughs.
“He was pretentious, sure, but he didn’t really strike me as a bad person.”
Kazuki shrugs, and nearly falls backwards off the chair.
“I know what you mean, Misa. He can be quite charming, can’t he?”
“Yeah.”
I look up at my ceiling. There are maybe thirty photos pinned there, looking down at me. Photos I’ve taken over the course of several years at Yamaku. Photos that tell me who I am. Photos of my family. A few photos from first year, when I was friends with Ikuno, and when I was friends with Akio. Photos of the past.
In the dead centre, a photo of Kazuki and me. His arm around my shoulder, a dumb grin plastered over his face.
“Do you ever miss the past, Kaz?” He raises an eyebrow, so I continue. “Sometimes I go there, in my head. Is that crazy?”
He looks down at me sympathetically both from the chair and from the ceiling. “There’s nothing crazy about thinking about the past, but you can’t live there.” With a shake of his head he seems to cast off some bad thought. “The past is a pretty place, but when you look back at the past you see what you want, not what was real.”
I let out another sigh, and Kazuki reaches over from the desk and squeezes my hand in reassurance.
“Goodbye seems so short. Forgetting seems so long,” I misquote some poetry I heard in class, and Kaz chuckles.
“I know you’ve butchered that.”
We laugh. It’s stupid really, this is all so stupid. I look back up to the photos of us.
“Everything exists to end in a photograph,” I repeat.
“Not everything,” Kazuki replies. “Some things never end.”
“Everything ends eventually,” I reply.
Kazuki doesn’t say anything, but gestures to the shelf over my desk.
“What about that? What about our permanent winter?” he asks.
A small snow globe, a gift from two winters ago from our trip into the city. Except all the snowy stuff on the inside has gotten stuck to the edges, and no matter how hard I shake it, they won’t come unstuck. Leaving the small town within it trapped in a perpetual stillness.
I look back up to the ceiling, to a photo of Kazuki staring out of the window on our bus ride back from that same city trip. Out of the window behind him, the still and silent snow.
Sometimes I can’t help but see that silent stillness everywhere in the world.
I pat the space on the bed beside me, and Kazuki joins me. His arms wrap around my back and my waist. His lips find my neck, and then my hands descend beneath my blouse and beneath my skirt.
My hips, my breasts, my throat.
My hands.
“I love you, Misa,” he whispers into the crook of my neck.
But it isn’t real.
And it never was.
We lock lips in our eternal winter.
, so here's a few rapid-fire points. The looming tension in Lilly and Hisao's relationship with regards to the possibility of Hisao's own mortality coming into play is a nice touch, along with the fact that they don't let it stop them from living in the now, and just living. Rika not being able to handle the loss of Kazuki and blaming Misaki is harsh, but it's her own version of grieving. Ultimately I think this story is about the past and grief, or something along those lines. Her reaction reminds me of Naoka Ueno's from "A Silent Voice" after 
