Checkmate ⚢

Chapter 35 Favor

The next few minutes are pure chaos. Children fighting and Althea returning after quite a while and showed her the photo she settled on. Althea was still staring at the camera frame, and Hana almost saw the colors of the photo reflected in her eyes.

Hana gulped before getting the guts to look at Althea's photograph.

It was a green frog submerging from the water. There was no movement and it was so clear. The greenish monochromatic theme of the whole subject, foreground grasses, and background rippled green reflected waters fitted each other so well.

The photograph was quirky and nearly impossible to have taken in just a short time. Althea Lancaster was lucky or merely naturally gifted at art. Hana's lips curved upwards, almost forgetting that they were here to compete against each other and learn from the kids.

When Hana was made aware of that fact again, she clenched her fingers to her camera and focused on seeing the world around her. Hana immediately ran to the eastern part of the forest park. She remembered when she was spying on her future girlfriend and her friend was a most interesting area. Confined by an alcove embellished with abundant ivy strands and some little purple flowers whose name Hana was not familiar with. She walked through the bower of vines, carefully stepping with her feet on the asphalt, and headed forward guided by the melodious sound of water splashing onto rocks.

She gaped as she noticed somewhere farther from where she stayed, a beautiful fountain, cast in marble stone and adorned with some tasteful figurines portraying little angels that poured water from their sparkling vessels.

It was still beautiful.

Nevertheless, Hana was plagued with the question of beautifying mundane photos, Hana then adjusted her shutter speed. She was annoyed at the smudge effect. All she wanted was to capture the fountain's water in a blur motion. She began clicking and experimenting to get her desired effect.

Hana set her was just about done when time ran out and Amani ordered everyone with a microphone to stop. The photo in front of her was more formless and messy than anything she had ever made. This was done with a slow shutter combined with camera movement and she was glad she was wearing the sling, if not she would say goodbye to her camera. She returned to sit at Althea's side.

Amani had managed to get everyone to calm down. She and two of her fellow organizers served to be the judges too. They evaluated everyone's photos one by one by walking over to where they were stationed.

They arrived at where the lovers were sitting and before Amani even asked for Hana's name, she grinned with eyes lighting up in recognition. "Althea Lancaster?"

"Wow okay, everyone recognizes you." Hana pouted.

"Yes, I am," Althea said, in her most formal voice.

"What are you doing here? I can't believe you, out of all the people in this small event—"

"I just wanted to check out the competition, that is all." She shrugged.

"Okay..." Amani said, and after she took one last look at Althea's photo, she moved and checked Hana's.

Amani and her companions scribbled on their papers and turned to the next competitor, a scrawny kid who squealed when he showed them his phone.

"What's wrong?" Althea whispered to Hana, leaning close to her when the judges were a good distance away.

Hana tensed up. "It's inevitable. I will lose, not because my photo is not good, but because next to you, I am no one."