A lil photographer!shuji fluff for the dash. V short and unedited bc I need to clean my drafts up p badly so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It started as a joke.
"Take a picture Shuji, it'll last longer." You'd said as you handed him his first camera. It was your uncle's old Polaroid camera. Still loaded with some forgotten color 600 film.
You'd meant to tease him for the unrelenting feeling of his eyes on you. You'd meant for it to be playful and sassy, to suit the banter you two enjoyed daily.
What you got instead was Shuji carrying the damned thing like a bespoke albatross around his neck. You were met with bright eyes and a huge hand around your wrist, insistent that you take an adventure right then to take his new treasure for a spin.
Months after the initial gift, you were routinely cutting your senior classes to accompany Shuji on trips or getting wrapped into his hijinx to acquire more precious film. You found yourself squatting in alleyways flapping developing film around as if it'd make the image appear faster, laughing with your best friend.
You gifted him the camera not knowing what it'd do to his life. Not realizing it'd give him a purpose and an outlet. You gave it to him as a joke of a gift never expecting anything to come of it and certainly expecting nothing in return.
A year to the day, however, your best friend handed you a little bundle of photos tied together with a length of twine. Unravelling his scant wrapping, you were met with white plastic lined square photos of your likeness...
Your head rested on your folded forearms and all that was visible of your face was a slight pout and your closed eye. Sunlight washed over your napping form and bathed you in a romantic glow.
A photo of your face scrunched up with Shuji's hand imprinted with punishment pinching your cheek like a proud father, smoke curling all around you after your bestie had blown it in your face.
Your back, arms spread wide and chest puffed to the sky with accomplishment as you stood a top a cliff.
A hazy photo, half blocked by two of your fingers though traces of doubles of the image further obscure your face. Your nose is scrunched in annoyance, eyes narrowed as you try and snatch Shuji's camera. You swear you can hear his laugh.
At the bottom of the last photo in the collection of candids, in Shuji's signature scrawl you read: still doesn't last long enough.
You couldn't help the way warmth creeped from your cheeks to your ears. This was a surprise. It shouldn't have been, you supposed, not with how Shuji's eyes were always glued to you, or given how inseparable you lot were. You knew the pair of you were close, even had an inkling that you loved each other but neither of you would say it in so many words. You'd never crossed that line.
Shuji shifted his weight to his other foot. He opened his mouth, but his apologies for being weird died on his tongue when you cut him off, speaking through a cheeky smile. "When did you get so cheesy Shuji?" Without waiting for an answer, you threw your arms around his shoulders to draw him in for a long, long overdue kiss.
Baji would be so excited to make you try to ride his bike… and forget youre too short for your feet to even touch the ground so you fall with the bike #ripbaji
Baji just picks you up and plops you on rather unceremoniously. He jostles the kickstand in the process and as he's stepping back your feets wiggle searching for the ground and the world shifts a little and you start grabbing frantically for him to not let you go. Then he's scrambling to pull you up away from the falling bike and y'all fall together and the bike falls and you're both a little shell shocked because it happened so fast. But then y'all start laughing because you start making fun of each other. You tease him for the panic sounds he made and he teases you for being too short and wiggly and then ya look down and realize your leg is bleeding a good bit through your now torn jeans from getting snagged on the bike in the fall and Baji scoops you up and brings you to his mom to get patched up. 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Just, being best friends with Baji and his mom loving and accepting you too.
I feel like he'll judge your taste in men even more if you're a toman admin like him. Bonus, him and Kisaki slandering the guy you have a crush on and him talking to Kisaki about your extremely blah taste in men. And he's not even trying to be nice.
You can say you want someone safe all you want, but they're gonna look at you like you're an idiot. You don't end up in this life for this long because you want stability. Kisaki's gonna remind you of that over and over. You're fetishizing white bread ass men when you can be getting caviar. Literally what the FUCK are you doing? Let me set you up on one date for fucks sake. You cannot be trusted to get someone respectable on your own.
Shuji though, shuji just thinks these guys are boring. Oh boy! Another 6/10 nine-to-five wage slave in a button down? Tell me is he in accounting or sales? He's gonna perch his chin in his hand and look at you with the most intensely mischievous eyes, lips finding the straw of his cocktail, Tell me, you think this one can at least get ya off? I didn't think so. You need someone more fun. Let us set you up.
Giggles bubble up from Sanzu's belly like effervescence. He feels like he'll float away from the weightlessness of his laughter any second if he's not held down. He leans his head against the seat of the couch and looks out the skylight above him at the stars. Sanzu imagines being weightless among them. A peaceful smile breaks out across his face as he closes his eyes.
A second round of contagious giggles erupts, this time from you, as you step to stand over your acquaintance before sitting between the 'v' of his spread legs on the floor. "Zuzu? Scored some more, pretty boy." You leaned forward on your knees and took a long breath of smoke, trying not to smile sheepishly at Sanzu's eyes on your lips around a well rolled joint. He looked at you like you were every star in the sky as you tapped below his chin with your finger to encourage his lips to meet yours. You exhaled into a smokey kiss. Your lips encouraged his to open, to explore and taste you.
Sanzu breathed the smoke with a passionate and uncharacteristically soft expression. He traced his tongue delicately along yours as the smoke slowly stopped coming. When his eyes opened and looked into yours, a vulnerable boy stared back. He made no move as he searched your eyes carefully, uncertain of what to make of the kiss.
He'd never received such tenderness. Drugs were usually something he provided to people who abandoned him once they hit. Sanzu, the serial party goer, who was lonelier than anyone could imagine, could never have anticipated this behavior from anyone.
You licked your bottom lip quickly and smiled before diving back in for another. You led, he followed, and Sanzu thinks he might be able to get used to that.
