𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, ph.

⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀𝐢𝐯. can i take a picture of you?

"The set of the words for today," the teacher continued, ignoring all the whining that came her way. "Something easy so you won't get discouraged early on... Hm, let it be sunshine, water, friends, and fun. Pretty simple, right? Then stop complaining and go capture something pretty!" she clapped her hands, dismissing them all.

Rome snorted quietly. "Capture something pretty... What if the model doesn't meet your standards?" he sighed.

"Then you should raise yours, buttercup. Come on, take your standards out of the gutter, I think it's time," Pick answered, pretending to be concerned and only laughing when Rome tried to push him but ended up sneezing again instead.

"Oh, P'Pick, I keep telling him that," Emma shook her head solemnly, making Rome gasp at the obvious betrayal. She wasn't supposed to side with Pick, what was that?

"Where's P'Porsche? He's the only person that's nice to me," Rome complained, swiftly turning around. This made him almost bump into Din who was just a step away from Rome with a small smile on his face. "Oh, sorry, didn't see you there."

"It's alright. I just wanted to see how are you?" Din said, fingers clutching the camera he was holding.

Rome smiled and shrugged lightly. "I'm fine, really. Once more, thank you for helping me out yesterday. You didn't catch a cold, right?" he asked. He tried to ignore Emma's words that kept echoing in his head; Din didn't like him. God, Rome hoped he was right because he didn't want to hurt Din and he just knew he wouldn't be able to reciprocate even if what Emma had said was true.

Din quickly shook his head, seemingly nervous. "No, don't worry, I'm glad I could help. Um... I noticed that you had your camera with you so... It's probably broken?"

"Oh... yes, I've managed to more or less save the lenses but... Well, things happen," the boy answered, blindly kicking back at Pick when the senior snorted. Okay, so maybe Rome did sound finer with it than he was considering that he kept asking Pick throughout the whole morning if his camera really is broken, but why dwell on it? It's not like he could do much about it now anyway.

"I'm sorry about that," Din said, looking down with a faint blush. "I... I wanted to ask if you'd like to borrow mine? For the project, I mean. Or at least while we're here? I have two," he rushed out to explain once Rome opened his mouth to protest. "So it's not a problem since I don't use this one anyway," he pointed to the camera he was holding. When Rome briefly looked at it, it seemed to be one of the better models. "The one you helped me with the last time is my favorite and I just thought I'd offer," he ended, shrugging awkwardly.

Shit. Rome should turn him down, he knew it. Nothing good would come out of being nice now if all he could do was hurt Din later, but Rome didn't have it in him to send Din away when the boy had been so kind. He saved Rome's life, after all, Rome could do at least that much for him.

He took a deep breath and smiled, reaching for the camera in Din's hands. "Thank you so much, Din. I don't know what I would do without your help. Please, let me know if there's any way I can make it up to you," Rome said, watching how Din's face gets even redder. Oh boy.

"Oh, no! It's fine, it's... I mean... you don't have to... I'm happy to help, I should go now," Din quickly put his hands in a wai when he turned towards Pick and then he almost ran away, making Rome sigh loudly.

Rome looked back to see both Emma and Pick raising their eyebrows at him with crossed arms. Like they were some sort of allies now, set on annoying the hell out of Rome.

"Jesus, fine. Even I am not that dense," he muttered, moving his gaze down to the camera.

Well... it didn't feel so bad to be liked by someone.