The photographer stood behind his tripod which held the camera he had brought to the Advanced Nutering High School. He stared at the students who were grouped together for the picture he was about to take. He had heard a lot about this particular class from the teacher by his side.
"So," he murmured under his breath, "this is the infamous Class-D?"
"That's right." Sae Chabashira nodded. "These are the underperforming students I told you I have the displeasure of teaching. You're wasting your photography talents trying to get a picture of this lot. No matter how good you take it, it will be a picture of losers either away."
The photographer turned from the class to their teacher, a little baffled by the way she was speaking of them. She seemed to be taking a lot of pleasure in talking about her students in a condensing and ridiculing manner. He honestly didn't care if the group of teenagers before him were scoring poor grades in tests and were wasteful with their school currency points. He was still willing to shoot a picture of them all - as long as the school paid him.
"Well I think I should just get on with it," he whispered. "So kindly let me do my job, ma'am."
"Be my guest," Chabashira answered as she walked away with a sneer.
Glad to see the back of the patronising teacher, the photographer turned his attention back to the class. He peered into it the view finder of his camera, making sure each and every one of the students were visible through.
"Okay, guys!" he called. "Best photo faces please!"
All of Class-D focused their attention towards the photographer's camera, a variety of different expressions mixed across their faces.
"Say cheese!"
There was a click as the camera flashed.
"Well, guys, there it is!" Yōsuke Hirata said cheerfully to his classmates. "Our class picture!"
All of Class-D were gathered to observe the picture of them which had just been pinned to the wall. Each student were observing how the camera had managed to capture them. None of them were questioning how the picture had been developed just two days after the photographer's visit. Compared to the more unusual things that went on at the Advanced Neutering High School, this was barely that strange.
"Well what do you know?!" A smug sneer crossed Rokusuke Kouenji's face which mirrored the one he wore in the picture. "That photographer managed to get me in all my awesome glory. How nice."
"Oh yeah!" Ken Sudō struck the very pose he had pulled the moment the camera had flashed. "Check me out! There I am, the pride of the athletics in the whole school!"
Honami Ichinose had joined the group to see how her friends from Class-D looked in the picture. The benevolent girl from Class-B noticed a patch of red hair ducking out of view, trying to hide from the camera. Knowing instantly who it was, she turned towards the student who had clearly not wanted to be in the photograph.
"You're barely in the picture!" the blonde exclaimed. "Why were you hiding there?"
"I really didn't feel like being in the picture," Airi Sakura answered quietly. The shy girl felt far more comfortable taking images of herself with her own camera than being forced to gather with all of her classmates while a complete stranger visiting the school shot a photo at them all.
"Hey!" Kikyō Kushida noticed among the crowd in the picture was a familiar scowling face. She turned with astonishment to the person she knew at once who it belonged to. "Why didn't you smile, Horikita?"
"Why should I have smiled?" Suzane Horikita answered with the same frown she had put on for the camera. "Class pictures are a complete waste of time. I was not going to pointlessly join everyone here for a picture I didn't even wanna be in - and pretend to be happy about it."
Kei Karuizawa rolled her eyes at how moody as ever the grumpy raven-haired girl was being - before chuckling in amusement as she pointed to someone else who was right in the middle of the picture.
"Looks like the photographer managed to capture your best photo face, huh?"
Kiyotaka Ayanokōji said nothing. He just stared towards where he was visible in the middle of the picture, surrounded by all of his classmates. The camera had caught him wearing the same blank gaze he always had on. While his classmates all had a mixed variety of emotions across their faces for the photo, his had absolutely none - leaving no hints what could have been going through his mysterious mind at the time.
The way I see it, this isn't so much a picture of me and my classmates, Ayanokōji thought darkly. This is more like a picture of me - and my tools.
