My Childhood Friend And The Selfie

According to my childhood friend, “I love taking photos, but being in them? No thanks. Classic introvert stuff, I’d say.”

…or so she says.

And it’s true: whenever some stranger at a tourist spot or wherever lines up a shot, Ayu edges aside so she won’t wind up in the frame. When a teacher’s snapping pictures at a school event or the like, she’ll flat-out bolt, though in that case Hina or someone usually nabs her and she ends up photographed anyway.

Take that childhood friend of mine, Sakura Ayuri. Until not long ago she’d photograph the rest of us without a shred of hesitation (me especially, more or less without asking), and yet she couldn’t stand being in a shot herself. A rotten little habit if ever there was one. So how is she these days…

“…Man, Hina’s really a handful, huh.”
“You could just say no, couldn’t you?”
“There’s no real reason to turn her down… and normally I’m the one taking everyone’s pictures, so I figure it’s fine to be on the other end once in a while.”
“Hmm…”

We took a few group shots, then split off from Hina and the others, just the two of us again. This, at last, was the same old scene that had gone on since before the culture festival.

Still… photographing schoolmates she barely knows is just a passing fad, or so this girl claims. But in Hina’s case, would it really blow over like some passing thing? Color me skeptical.

“…Ayu, you’ve changed a little, huh.”
“Changed how? I’m just my usual self, I’ll have you know?”
“Before, when everyone was taking photos, you’d either volunteer to be the one behind the camera, or if you did get in a shot you’d wrap it up early — always so reluctant to be photographed.”
“Ahh… well, I guess part of it’s that I’ve gotten used to it. Say what you will, everyone keeps coming up to praise that song, and giving them the cold shoulder just felt wrong, so… you know.”
“Hmm.”

If that’s what she meant, then maybe Hina’s recent shift was inevitable too. That girl knows perfectly well how Ayu avoids being in photos, after all; what happened earlier was probably the backlash from all the holding back she’d been doing until now.

“Actually, if we’re going there, you’ve changed a bit too, Gin.”
“…Me?”

While I was mulling over Hina, Ayu fixed me with a look that said, ‘It’s unfair that I’m the only one getting called out here.’ Honestly, from where I stood, the changes around Ayu, and in Ayu herself, carried far more weight, so I had no clue what she was on about.

“How to put it… you’ve gotten a little closer with the class, kind of… got friendlier with everyone? That vibe?”
“…Well, we did all sorts of stuff together with everyone the other day, so yeah, of course I’d get a bit friendlier with them.”
“I heard from everyone you were a real lifesaver, y’know? …Nice one, Chief! My Gin, getting all this recognition — I’m so proud!”
“People still call me that sometimes, so seriously, cut it out.”

And what’s with the ‘my,’ anyway? I don’t recall becoming anyone’s property.

“…Anyway, point is, we made it through a huge event like the culture festival. Which means everyone grew up a little, one way or another, Gin.”
“Well, I guess so.”
“…And so! To commemorate all that growing up, how about you get a two-shot with everyone’s favorite, Miss Ayuri, too, Gin? Right now I’d even hug you the way I do with Hina…”
“…Sure, let’s take one.”

“Guh—?!”
“What’s with that face.”

Ayu froze, wearing a look that all but said, ‘But I was so sure that, being you, you’d get all embarrassed and turn me down…’ True, the old me would’ve gone bashful and refused, but not anymore. Ever since Ayu aimed a song like that straight at me, something on this level doesn’t faze me in the least. If anything, I might just flip it around and use it to tease her instead.

“Oh, there’s a park around here somewhere, right? Let’s take it there.”
“Eh, wai—”
“How many years has it been since a two-shot of just you and me? We’ve always done group photos, but the two of us together — hardly ever, huh.”

I pressed on toward the park, Ayu trailing after me, seeing as she was the one who’d brought it up in the first place. The park lay bathed in the evening sun and all but empty of people; even the kids had quit the playground equipment and started getting ready to head home.

“Brings me back… well, more than playing on these myself, I feel like I spent most of my time watching you and the others play, though.”
“…Yes’m.”
“…All right, let’s take it with this swing set as the backdrop. With the sunset and all, it’ll come out with a real wistful vibe, dontcha think?”
“…Yeah, s’pose so.”
“Okay then… here.”
“…Wha?”
“You’re gonna hug me, right?”
“…Eh.”

Heh heh heh. Look at her, frozen stiff. Frozen stiff.

I spread both arms wide to broadcast my willing welcome, while Ayu stayed rooted where she stood. Payback, this, for singing a song like that at the festival without a shred of embarrassment…

“Okay then, I’m going for it…”

…Huh.

Steeling herself, face set with resolve, Ayu stepped into the circle of my arms… came in with less hesitation than I’d braced for, but never mind. Just like that, I closed my arms around her back and settled her against me.

“…”

(This is…)

Oh… what even is this. In the newly chilly weather she was just the right kind of warm, soft in a way that felt nice, comfortable even. Calming, somehow; and I could’ve sworn she smelled faintly nice, too.

“Umm…”
“Hm? What?”
“If you hold me that tight, I kinda can’t take the selfie, though.”
“Ah, right.”

…Somehow, holding this any longer felt vaguely dangerous. From the outside, someone might take us for, well, that kind of couple.

Better to just get it over with. One-handed, I fished my phone from my pocket and stretched my arm out so both our faces would fit in the frame.

“Something like… this, maybe.”
“Ah, I see. So you shall be the one taking the photo, then, Gin.”
“(Why so formal all of a sudden?) I’m the taller one, so obviously it’s me.”
“Is that so…”
“Okay, here we go… all right, say cheese.”

With a ka-chak! from the phone’s shutter, I let Ayu go. And somehow, for reasons I couldn’t name and utterly without warning, my heart gave the faintest flutter. Barely, really. But it did.

How does Hina pull this off in front of people every single time? Or am I just being oversensitive?

“Giiin, how’d it come out?”
“…”
“I think I might’ve had my eyes shut. And now that I really think about it, Gin, you don’t seem used to selfies… you sure it didn’t come out all blurry from camera shake?”
“…”

I worked the phone and pulled up the photo from a moment ago. There was a bit of shake, but within tolerable limits, I’d say; neither Ayu nor I had a mouth or eye caught half-open, so by any outside standard it had come out perfectly fine. Or so I’d have thought, but…

“Nah… it’s no good. Came out all blurry.”
“Aww, knew it. Lemme see.”
“Nope. A botch job like this is an embarrassment just by existing. So I already trashed it.”
“Isn’t that awfully quick to decide?”

That photo from before. True, Ayu’s eyes had been shut… but she really had grown used to shooting at this kind of range; she looked a touch embarrassed, sure, yet not a trace of that earlier panic showed in the shot. Me, though… my face was flushed bright red, my mouth twisted into some shape I couldn’t put a name to, and even the hand I’d draped around her back had come out looking timid and skittish.

In other words, to any outside eye, the photo looked, no matter how you sliced it, like I’d forced the whole thing through.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just be a good sport and leave this to you, Ayu.”
“You got it! Leave it to me, the pro!”
“You’re a beginner any way you look at it… here.”
“Again?!”
“You’re gonna hug me, right? C’mon, c’mon.”
“Gnghh…”

The whole point was that Ayu would be the one doing this in the first place, so why was I the one hugging her a minute ago? That’s the real question here.

“…Okay then, here I go?”
“Yep.”

After a brief, thoughtful pause, Ayu stepped back within range of my arms and, hesitantly, wrapped hers around my back.

Personally, if I’m honest, it’d be more fun if she got a lot more flustered. Or rather, that’s exactly what I’m going for.

But when I thought about it calmly: if having that song dedicated to me had toughened up this kind of embarrassment threshold, then didn’t it stand to reason that Ayu, who’d actually sung it in front of everyone, had been toughened up even more? In short, this whole outcome was really just the natural consequence… Honestly, teasing Ayu like this is a lost cause, isn’t it?… or so I found myself thinking, far too late in the game.

“Umm, phone, phone…”
“You’re kinda like a koala.”
“Oh, hush, Gin. What? You want me to do it the way you would with a lover?”
“As if. On the surface this is just two girls taking a selfie.”
“I mean, people do sometimes take them going for a playing-pretend vibe, don’t they? Not that I’d know.”
“Oi, self-proclaimed pro.”
“If I were an expert on other girls’ selfies, that’d be its own kind of problem, so…”
“Well… I guess… that’s true?”

Even with the girl friends around her, us included, Ayu’s forever trotting out her ‘since I used to be a guy, this makes me feel guilty~’ routine; and apparently it’s the same even with girls who aren’t her friends at all. Personally, I’d have thought a selfie angled to look cute was well within bounds, but I suppose that’s the gap in how a former-guy reincarnator takes these things.

“Okay, here we go, taking it now~.”
“Righto.”

And so my bid to needle Ayu’s mysterious so-called guilt into a reaction ended in a total whiff.

Well… some things changed after the culture festival, and some things didn’t. This, I suppose, is a story about the latter.

◆◆◆

“…”

Nighttime, just before bed. Homework done, bath done, everything squared away, I lay in bed messing with my phone. My photos had piled up quite a bit these past few days, so I was idly scrolling through them, tidying as I went.

(Today especially racked up a lot of them…)

Up until recently, most of the photos on my phone had piled up the usual way, with Ayu snapping shots at some event or other and then forwarding them my way. But lately, with Hina taking and sharing photos of the most utterly unremarkable everyday moments practically every single day, the count had been climbing at an explosive rate.

And now today had added the selfie of just Ayu and me on top of all that. Storage wasn’t a problem, but it was probably about time I cleared out the useless screenshots and the like.

(…Ah.)

As I swiped along with that in mind, one photo snagged my eye. The very first shot from Ayu’s and my selfie, the one I’d branded a failure out loud. Back then, I’d told Ayu I’d ‘already deleted it,’ but the truth was, for whatever reason, I’d never actually erased it; and even now, I still can’t bring myself to.

(…What an awful face.)

No matter how many times I look, it’s awful. Ayu’s face is a little flushed, embarrassment she couldn’t quite hide, and on top of that her eyes are shut. But I’m the worse of the two. My face is redder than Ayu’s by an incomparable margin, and my mouth… looking at it now, it’s practically smirking; from the faint blur in the shot itself, you can even tell the hand holding the phone had been trembling.

Ugh, so lame. Way too uncool.

I’d agreed to the two-shot with the aim of teasing her, and yet she took it in stride while I came out a flustered wreck. Who’d have thought.

(…)

There’s no point in hanging on to a monument to my own lameness like this… no point at all, and yet… even so, it is technically my first selfie, and my first two-shot in ages… so in its own way it’s a keepsake, kind of… or at least it makes decent material for self-reflection, kind of….

(Hmm…)

Maybe I should just ask Hina how to edit photos and all that. But knowing Hina, she’s well aware I don’t take selfies like this, never mind that I’m the last person alive who’d ever edit one. She’d see right through me. Under that airy exterior Hina’s surprisingly sharp, so she’d grill me down to the roots, and worst case, she’d catch on to the very existence of this photo.

But deleting it feels like a waste, kind of… or something.

(…Guess I’ll just make some hidden folder or whatever and stash it there.)

If I tuck it into a separate folder for now, then it won’t pop up whenever I show someone my old photos.

As for whatever becomes of this photo… well, I can always delete it whenever the mood strikes.