Her Eyes

One

*Click*

The camera shutter went off, snapping a photo of the still pond. Nikolaos Mutas lowered the camera from his eyes, peering down at the small screen, and flipped to the latest picture he took, checking its quality. A small smile rose on his face, expressing his satisfaction with the image. It captured the scenery perfectly, and he would soon add it to the other pictures saved on the large USB on his computer at home.

He was kneeling in the middle of a forest opening, a small pond available for feeding animals to drink from. The summer sun beat down on his pale skin, but the cool breeze accompanying the perfect weather made the heat bearable. He brought the Canon camera back to his eyes when a few birds flew overhead, perching on the tree branches, and snapped numerous more images before he was done for the day.

He stood from his kneeling position and carefully placed his camera back in its bag after turning it off and unscrewing the lens. It was too expensive to handle carelessly. After checking to see that everything was perfectly in place, he headed off to his Mercedes-Benz G Class. As he walked, a twig snapped under his foot and he looked down, his brows narrowing slightly at a leaf trapped under the twig.

The leaf was like any other in the forest: green and delicate. If it was ruffled even a little, it would rip and tear. There was nothing special about the leaf, but Nikolaos was pulled toward it like no other. He carefully picked up the leaf from the ground, brushed off any dirt with the tip of his finger, and carried it in his camera bag within a minuscule pocket.

With that, he drove home, humming a tune of one of Stromae's many songs.

「⸙͎」

He reached home quicker than he expected, taking off his shoes at the door and carrying his camera bag into his room. The cottage where he lived was far from the city, secluded near the border of nature, where he would venture during the early mornings, studying textbooks for his classes. He was taking a gap year from college.

His home was small, but it was enough for one person, maybe two if he moved a few things around, but Nikolaos rarely had guests unless it was his parents coming to nag him about his future or his lovely girlfriend of five years who stayed some nights.

His bedroom was colorful, completely different from the dull, neutral clothes he wore most of the time. His photographs were pinned to the walls and a few paintings hung on his walls. Painting was a hobby of his in high school but he abandoned it for photography. Something about holding a camera felt so familiar to him.

With a sigh, he plopped onto the comforting chair by his desk in the office area of his room that rested past a thin archway connecting the two rooms. He took out the camera, adding the pictures he took during the day to his computer.

Nikolaos was a meticulous person. He didn't like having his pictures sitting on his camera for even a night, afraid that he would forget them the next day and somehow break the SD card where all of them were saved. He heard too many stories from seasoned photographers and their nightmares, paranoia getting to the best of him.

Once he was done, he stretched back, releasing a loud sigh that resonated through the empty rooms of his home. Even though Nikolaos liked the peace and quiet, some days were too silent to bear. He wished his girlfriend would live with him, but their preferences clashed whenever the subject was brought up. Rather, they clashed many times, deciding to drop conversations completely to avoid arguing further.

Nikolaos looked inside his camera bag, remembering the small leaf he kept inside, and pulled it out carefully, its fragility forcing him to be as slow as possible. He had no idea why it piqued his interest so much, but there was something about the leaf that drove him to bring it home with him. He continued staring at it, thinking that it would somehow reveal the answer to his thoughts, but it never did.

He rose from his chair, going back to his bedroom, and standing near a shelf in his room where several picture portraits in pretty frames stood. Some had pictures of him and his parents from when they were younger, bright smiles adorning their faces, and others were group pictures he took with friends from long ago. There was a separate part of his shelf dedicated to pictures of him and his girlfriend.

He stared at a picture of him and his parents for a while. It was a picture taken years ago when he graduated from high school. He took after his mother's looks; his strong facial features mirrored hers and his dark brown hair that looked black unless the sun shone on it was slightly wavy. His nose was strong like his father's and his lips were full like his mother's. Still, many claimed he and his mother looked the most similar. He struggled to grow facial hair unlike his father, who was a burly man with plenty of facial hair.

He sighed sadly at the picture, wishing his parents were as kind and loving as they once were when he was younger. Once he was accepted into college, his parents assumed he would give up on his "little" photography hobby and follow the path they dreamed of. They wanted him to become an accountant, and absolute fear and horror took over their faces when he chose to pursue photography as a serious career instead.

Despite their initial distaste, they allowed him to do whatever he wanted for the first year in college, hoping that he would see for himself how photography wasn't as promising as accounting was. Nikolaos never gave up on his passion and continued it despite the strong opposition coming from his parents.

He wanted to make them proud, but he didn't want to bend at their every will. He was his own person after all.

With a heavy heart, he pulled out the graduation picture from the frame, threw it on the bedside table, and placed the leaf inside. He looked at his craft once he finished, smiling to himself. It gleamed and he stepped back, staring at it for a second longer before heading to his bathroom to wash up for the night.