Chapter Text
Emilia had joined the photography club on a whim during her first year but after spending time learning the ropes, she found that she actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was fun to be able to take a beautiful moment or person and freeze the sight in time to preserve it for others to see.
She grew to become really proud of her work and even her friends and family had praised her for how beautiful her photos were. However, during her third year, she ran into a dilemma.
“I’m having a reaaally hard time deciding what I want to do for my photography club project,” Emilia leaned on her hand and pouted. “Everyone in the club has already chosen a topic except me.”
“Why not choose the same topic from last year?” Her classmate Ram suggested. “Your photos of the frozen lake were very beautiful.”
“I would love to take photos like that again, but sadly, we can’t do repeats of the same topics,” the silver haired girl sighed. “And besides I want to do something new!” After all, she wanted to show off for her third and final year of high school. “Hmmm…”
As Emilia was wracking her brain for any ideas, a familiar voice entered the conversation.
“Good morning, Emilia-tan!” The cheery voice of student council member, Natsuki Subaru, called from across the classroom. The overly-enthusiastic boy ran over to their desks, “Ah, seeing Emilia-tan’s cute face in the morning is a perfect way to start my day!”
“Good morning, Subaru,” she greeted him with a soft smile, not acknowledging his attempts to flirt.
“Seeing your nasty face worsened my morning, Barusu,” Ram insulted him with a blunt tone that disguised the playfulness in her words. “It’s disgusting how energetic you get in the morning.”
“You hurt my feelings, nee-sama,” the boy slumped his shoulder defeatedly. But he quickly sprung back up to his normal self and laughed.
It was always nice to see Subaru, though his attempts at playful flirting never really landed with Emilia as well as he would’ve liked. She smiled as she watched Ram and Subaru bicker amongst themselves, but her face slowly dropped as she once again tried to come up with a topic for her project.
“Is something up, Emilia? Your face looks really serious all of a sudden?” Subaru asked, noticing her change in expression.
“Oh, yes, I’m just trying to come up with a topic for my photography project,” she confessed. “We have to build a portfolio around a topic, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I should do.”
Subaru smirked confidently before pointing at his chest and declaring, “Leave it to me, Emilia-tan! I can come up with a ton of ideas for you!”
Ram rolled her eyes, “Are you trying to sabotage her, Barusu?”
“Hey! Don’t accuse me of something heinous like that, I would never do anything to sabotage Emilia-tan!” He argued defensively. “Let’s see,” he crossed his arms and held his chin in thought. “You did winter last year, right?”
“Yes, but we can’t do the same topic as last time, and I reaaally want to try to photograph something I haven’t photographed before!”
Suddenly, as if a light bulb turned on in his head, Subaru snapped his fingers. “I got it!” he said. “There’s a cosplay convention happening this weekend! You can ask some of the people there if you can get a photo!”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Subaru!” she beamed excitedly. Emilia mostly took pictures of the environment, she hadn't had the chance to photograph people before, so his suggestion was perfect. “That sounds reaally fun!”
“Hehe,” Subaru grinned, looking extremely proud of himself. “I can text you the details later!”
“And how, pray tell, does Barusu know about this event?” the pink haired girl chimed in. “Were you perhaps planning to attend and ogle at the cosplayers?”
“Stop insinuating that I’m some kind of pervert,” he bemoaned. “I just- W-Well,” Subaru seemed a bit flustered as he stuttered on his words and scratched the back of his head nervously. “M-My little sister, Beatrice, likes to look at the pretty costumes! So I sometimes take her to these events. I like to keep an eye out for them whenever they happen.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Emilia nodded. Subaru was such a good older brother.
Ram didn’t seem to believe him though, but thankfully for Subaru, he was spared from further questioning when Otto had called him over. “Sorry, gotta run! I’ll let you know more about the event later, Emilia!”
“Okay! Thank you for the help, Subaru.” He gave her a thumbs up and a wink before running off. “Subaru is always so helpful, right Ram?”
Ram clicked her tongue, “His perversions know no bounds.”
Thanks to Subaru, Emilia now had the perfect topic for her portfolio. On the weekend of the Cosplay event, Emilia had packed her camera equipment into her bag and set off.
“I’m off!” She said as she put on her shoes.
“Have a good day, Emilia,” her mother called back as she left through the front door. “Make sure to show me your photos when you get home!”
“Okay!”
After a short walk to the train station, she had boarded the train and took a seat before looking at her phone to check which stops she had to get off at. It was quite a ways away from where she lived but it wouldn’t take too long to get there.
Emilia couldn’t stop the smile forming on her face. She was so excited. She had looked up events from the previous year on social media to prepare and she was amazed at how beautiful all of the people and their costumes were. The level of craftsmanship and dedication to their hobby truly inspired her to pursue her own hobby even further.
After changing to a different line, she was now heading straight for the location of the event. There were still a few more stops till she was there, but it shouldn’t take too long now.
As she watched the train doors open at the next stop over, she saw something amazing. She took a sharp inhale of breath. There, walking through the door was a woman, dressed beautifully in an intricately designed black dress, with frills and ribbons. She was tall, her hair long, black and tied up in an orange ribbon, her bangs covering half of her face. And her make up was done so wonderfully, it was like she had walked straight out of a painting.
“Woah…” Emilia breathed. That girl must be going to the same convention that she was, Emilia realized. No wonder she was so beautiful. “Pretty…”
The black haired girl spared a glance towards her and her eyes widened. She suddenly grew flustered and looked away shyly, before quickly finding a seat on the other side of the train cart.
“How strange…” Why did she seem so flustered, Emilia wondered. Maybe she was shy?
She couldn’t keep her curious eyes off of her the entire train ride. Oh, she wanted to take a picture of her so badly. Would it be rude to ask so suddenly? But she would hate it if the opportunity to take a photo of someone so beautiful slipped past her.
The sound of the announcer snapped her out of her thoughts. This was her stop. She stood up from her seat and glanced back at the beautifully dressed girl who was also readying herself to get off at this spot, confirming Emilia’s suspicion.
As soon as she stepped out of the train, Emilia followed after her, moving quickly so she wouldn’t lose her in the crowd. “Um! Excuse me!” She called out, stopping her in her place. “Are you going to the cosplay convention?”
The girl slowly turned around and met her gaze. Wow, she was just as beautiful up close, Emilia thought. “Um… Y-Yes, I am,” the black haired girl replied shyly, her voice was a bit deeper than most girls their age but still soft and pleasant to the ears. “I-Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, no! I just wanted to ask if I could take a few photos of you!” She clapped her hands together and smiled, “I’m doing a project for my school’s photography club and when I saw you, I thought you were reeaally pretty!”
The girl’s face turned red at her compliment, “Um- I’m n-not that pretty,” she shook her head and held up her hands defensively. “Th-There’s plenty of other cosplayers way prettier than me...”
“Hmm…” she hummed. “Even if that were true, I still want to take a photo of you, if that’s alright?” Realizing she was being a bit too forward, she quickly added, “But it’s okay if you don’t want to!” Emilia felt her face grow warm as she fidgeted with her fingers nervously, “You’re just reeally beautiful and I like to photograph beautiful things.”
The girl was silent and Emilia braced herself for rejection but when she looked up, she saw that the girl’s face had turned completely red, even reaching to her ears. “I-I- Y-You-” she stuttered and Emilia swore she could see steam coming out of her ears. She looked down to the ground and muttered in a small voice, “Y-You can photograph me… If you want…”
Emilia lit up, a wide smile growing on her face. “Thank you so much!” she thanked her, hardly being able to contain her excitement. “Oh, before we do that, can I get your name?”
The girl looked up, her eyes locking onto Emilia’s for a moment before looking away. “N-Natsumi…” she said. “You can just call me Natsumi.”
“Nice to meet you, Natsumi-san! I’m Emilia!”