Collaboration between @Chezka and @MivuliEarly mornings in Ghost Roasters meant streams of people going in and out with their coffee and only one or two ordering food and needing serving. Basically: a busy hour for the baristas, but a pretty light one for her. Juliette offered time and again to help prepare coffee, but she was absolutely
not allowed to touch the expensive espresso machine until she completed her training. It was a ridiculously intense process, but hey, she might get a fifty cent raise afterward! Although, she was pretty sure she already made better coffee than the currently slack-jawed barista staring at something in the back of the café.
Juliette followed his line of sight and realized he was staring at a some
one instead, a blonde someone wearing sunglasses, looking like she'd just come out of a photoshoot. Which, considering the typical student enrolled in the university, wasn't at all unlikely. She snapped her fingers a couple of times to get the barista's attention, but it was almost as though he had been utterly bewitched.
"Gawking at the customers probably won't help you not get fired, Bills," Juliette nudged the barista, her elbow connecting sharply with his side. She must have hit harder than she meant because she could have sworn he almost doubled over. Oh no, wait, he was just a wimp.
Billy made an exaggerated disgruntled noise in response, somewhere between a croaky groan and a screeching mewl. "Damnit, Jet, do you
not know who that is? That golden haired, statuesque goddess with legs for days and dazzling eyes and--"
"Easy there, boy. You're starting to drool," Juliette cut in, certain he wouldn't have stopped otherwise. But he was right, she didn't actually know who she was. Maybe an actress? She wouldn't know her unless she was in one of the shows or movies available on Netflix. Jet thought she looked more like a model, though.
"Try not to be too obvious with your stalkery picture, 'kay?""Shut up."
While Billy tried and failed at being surreptitious with his selfie—she snorted when she heard him trying to quietly shoo away the bearded fellow that had walked up to the (probably) model—Juliette took over the front lines, relieving a coworker who needed some relieving of his own in the bathroom. The morning rush had wound down, and only a handful of people remained, some just chatting, others typing away on their laptops. Juliette plastered a winning, high tip-inducing smile on her face and hopped up to the register, reciting her practiced greeting as affably as she could.
"Hey there, what can I get'cha?"--
Camera lens cradled in hand, Kina had been walking aimlessly around the campus, looking for a moment waiting to be captured. All around him were reunions after summers apart - but they were dry-eyed affairs, with kisses left lingering in the air, and laughters so high and loud they seemed to be noises made for the benefit of those in earshot. And the smiles. Were they all so plastic in Hollywood? Countless times Kina had raised his camera to his eyes, only to peer closer, before fiddling with the zoom function, and unravel a shallow acquaintance masquerading as friendship that would be a sorrow to document. He had put his camera away enough times to be left disappointed - a rare occurrence when the sound of the shutter was only a finger's brush away.
A shadow passed over him, and he glanced up briefly to find himself in the shade of the awning of a coffee shop.
Ghost Roasters read the front window decal. There could be no harm in late morning caffeine, and Kina nudged the door open to the faint tinkle of a bell. Joining the milling queue, Kina lowered his head to his camera. With a few taps of the playback button he was looking back at his reap of photos for the day. He scrolled through what he had, hastily brushing away at the
delete button when he came across photos that were smeared - blurred - too bright - too dark. Kina was in quiet despair, until he hit at last upon something salvagable.
A squirrel, small body extended in jump. Kina had crossed it, bounding up a branch to pause and sniff at the edge. Staring at the motionless snapshot of the animal, Kina could see it clear as day teetering at a precipice, hesitant but unafraid, for what was there to fear in following its own nature? Even when deliberating its choice, the squirrel hadn't remained still; whiskers still twitched, a tiny heart still beat with the ferocity of a lion's roar beneath thin skin.
And then it had jumped. Leapt, limbs in the air, body arched beneath an unseen hand. A click, and a quiet exhale from Kina, and the squirrel was already skimmying its way down the neighbouring tree, sheepish to have been caught on camera. But within the 4:3 frame of the LCD screen, the squirrel was immortalised.
Looking over it, Kina for the briefest of split seconds could not remember if the squirrel was plummeting to the ground after a fatal misstep, or simply in most glorious flight, basking in avian envy.
"Hey there, what can I get'cha?"Startling, Kina's head jerked up. A girl with hair that wavered between gold and brown - changing with every shift of her head - was waiting to take an order. His order. The line before him had simply...melted with his thoughts, leaving him standing alone at the counter. Blue eyes stared back at him as he scrambled to pluck himself from his own mind.
"Oh, hi," he weakly managed while stalling the best he could, eyes scanning frantically the menu.
"A vanilla Frappuccino please." Quietly, he felt his insides wilt in a way that was none too foreign to him.
"Vanilla Frap? Yum. That'll be three forty, please."In a desperate attempt to distract himself he glanced around the cafe properly. There were students getting an early start to their studies, intently pecking away at their keyboards or scratching away with pencils gnawed at one end with marks of nervousness and heavy contemplation. Behind the counter, the waitress was moving around, with a grace that seemed familiar. Kina had photographed dancers before, and always loved that their every step was poetry, a choreographed routine as good as a rousing orchestra. His eyes - sharpened keenly by the viewfinder - knew what silent music was, even if his ears and mind did not.
In fact, he had a picture from high school that he had never gotten around to clearing from his SD card. Bringing his camera to chest level, he began to scroll through his album, fingers fumbling to find it buried deep in digital memory. But one scramble sent him from playback to photo-mode, and in an instant of confusion, Kina pressed the shutter and there was a blinding flash.
He looked up in horror, at the waitress he'd inadvertently taken a picture of. His mouth rounded in shock, and then in apology.
"I am so sorry!" he sputtered out, aghast at himself.
"I - it wasn't meant to do that! I mean - that is - I didn't mean to take a picture of you. I was looking for another photo. Not to say you wouldn't look good in a photograph but - " He stifled a groan. He was damaging the situation beyond repair, but he reined in his mouth only when the worst possible had already been done. He glanced baffled from his camera to the girl.
"I'm sorry," he repeated meekly, ducking his head to hastily remove the photo.
The flash had startled Juliette, but the initial confusion that passed over her visage was fleeting. So accidents like this actually happened to some people. She would have stopped him after the first apology if she'd had the foresight to see the downward spiral he set himself upon, but she was sort of glad she didn't. Juliette bit her lip to keep the smile from breaking onto her face and the laughter in its wake spilling from her lips, lest her customer think she was making fun of him. Her eyes twinkled with unrestrained amusement, however, and there was nothing she could do about that.
"It's okay, it's okay," she said as soon as he finished apologizing, voice cracking ever so slightly despite her attempts to appear sympathetic. In hopes of making him feel less uneasy, she brushed off his mishap and offered a cheesy joke in return.
"Cameras just love me."Strangely, the nervous energy dissipated at those words. Kina offered a grimace of a smile, before a tilt took his head to the right, and then the left, as he surveyed the picture.
"Although," he said haltingly, quietly,
"it isn't too bad." There was something fulfilling about the photo - a story behind it, that this time Kina hadn't meant to shoot. And it was intriguing; before, every tale he'd recorded had been known to him, a memory triggered by sight. But this one - it was unsaid, unseen by Kina. It felt intangible, for he had not known the story behind the picture before seeing the photo itself, but it was most certainly
there, even if he hadn't meant it to be.
It was like being an author, and reading a novel from a bookshelf written by another hand after an arduous project. The odd displacement of realising not all craft was yours, and the relief of tension that it was not so. He gazed over the photo, and then glanced up at the waitress, strangely becalmed when immersed in what he was most familiar with.
"Would you like to see?" he offered, uncertainly facing the LCD screen to her over the counter.
Juliette nodded, blue eyes alight with unfettered curiosity as she leaned in to take a look. She hadn't considered the photo turning up as anything but a blur.
"Guess the camera really does love… me…" She faltered for a fraction of a second, gaze drawn to the sad eyes staring back at her. Her hair had come undone from its loose bun, splaying messily behind her, and her lips were parted, as though she was about to speak only to find the words wouldn't come, kept at bay. Absurdly, a dull pang shot through her heart, but she quickly brushed it away.
It was just that monochrome filter. Black and white photographs always had that effect.
Eager to tear her eyes away from the photo, Juliette sneaked a glance at the photographer instead. The clumsy boy was an interesting sort, not at all the typical patron from Hollywood University. Fresh-faced and wide-eyed, a gentle lilt in his voice hinting at his foreignness, and most distinctive of all, no apparent readiness to socialize, nor any skill at it. Refreshing, that's what it was. Juliette has worked at Ghost Roasters for all of a week, but already she grew tired of overly friendly guys who have never heard of personal space, or the concept of shutting up.
"What did you say about gawking at customers?" Beside her, Billy was smirking as he handed her the freshly blended Frappuccino for some helping of whipped cream, seemingly proud to have thrown her words back at her. He managed to disperse the strange air that clung to her after she had seen the oddly affecting candid, and for that she was thankful.
Billy didn't need to know about it, though. Or about how he was right once again (what a frightening trend this was becoming). It was supposed to be a distraction, but her eyes might as well have been boring holes into the boy. But it wasn't gawking, was it? More like, intensely staring. A stray thought had been nagging at her during Mr. Photographer's awkward dance with words, and it was only now that it became clear. It was those eyes of his, and his tense bearing. Almost like… ah! Like a deer caught in headlights. And not just any deer, either.
"Here's your Frap, Bambi." The thought slipped out before she caught herself, which she effortlessly amended with a casual shrug of her shoulder and a look caught between sheepish and mischievous. He stumbled over his words like Bambi on ice, and she had to bite on her lip to keep from grinning too widely again.
Kina's brows raised slightly at the pseudonym, but he said nothing. He had no protest against it, and returned an equally tentative look, a flush building in his cheeks and warmth spreading up his neck from his heart.
"That was a pretty nice accidental shot, but I think that's mostly thanks to me," Juliette joked in parting.
"Makes me wonder what photographs you actually meant to take look like."The heat spread further.
"They are all right," he managed to mutter, and when he tried for another smile, it came more easily, unfurled with less effort and care.
"Thank you," he added, and took his drink from the counter, before a thought struck him.
"There is a party, I heard." And he recounted the details he had been told and could remember.
"Good bye." And he left hastily before his camera could flash one more time.
~~~~~
To say Kina was awestruck when he arrived at the hotel building would have been mild. It was another level of luxury that Kina had not forayed into in the week he had been in this place, and stepping into it dressed in the same plaid shirt and jeans as in the day felt odd. Owed to how he did not blend seamlessly into the support pillars of a wide lobby, with walls and floors and ceilings which gleamed. He was careful to tread across to the elevator without squeaking his sneakers, worn as they were.
As the elevator doors slid slowly open to the frenzied buzz of countless conversations and music thudding from speakers all over, Kina's fingers tightened nervously over the strap of his satchel. He had taken the wrong bus and been delayed long enough that a crowd pulsed as one before him, and penetrating it was no easy task. As he tried to maneuverer his way through the thick of it, he felt elbows in his ribs and shoulders against his upper arms. A pained gasp escaped his mouth, but he bit down on his lip when that turned a sharp head, and pushed on through, murmuring soft apologies lost in the music.
The area around the stage was less crowded, and Kina felt himself breathe again. A boy with dark curls and beard was on the platform, beside what looked like a sound mixer. And in front of the makeshift stage was a girl, fiery locks bouncing behind her as she moved in time with the music.
Kina studied her. Her steps were steady if not the most graceful, and she was light on her feet. Sober, she danced with a carelessness that drew Kina to raise his camera - he was never without it, it would seem - and curl his shoulders into a familiar slouch. He waited, until it seemed to be the right moment, and clicked the shutter button in a twitch of his finger.
He looked down at his camera, breath bated. He had caught the picture just as the girl had moved between a lit lantern and his lens, so that the picture that sprang up on his screen was one of a blacked-out silhouette twisted in dance lined in a yellow glow that shone brightly through the craggly pockets in her frizzy red hair, against the backdrop of the darkening sky. There was no story this time, but the quiet energy of a girl who had been dancing by herself, to music that Kina now could not hear.
