Immortalizing Moments- purpled

Pairing: Aoshi/Soujirou

Summary: "I don't understand! You're paying five hundred thousand yen to get our souls sucked out?!" (humor! Tee-hee!)Set after "Breaking the Habit"

Shinomori Aoshi saw the sign posted on a lamppost, being ignored by the Japanese populace. Seta Soujirou had gone maybe ten steps forward when he noticed that the tall Oniwaban had stopped completely in his tracks. So the former assassin had cheerfully skipped back and eyed the sign for himself. It was in English, but Aoshi seemed to read it without any difficulty. It was a completely different matter for Soujirou.

"Ne, Aoshi, what does it say?" The boy said, squinting at the curlicue Western-style script as if doing so would make it become more understandable. The taller man assessed the sign for a few more moments before turning amused eyes to the boy.

"Photographs. ¥500,000. Interested parties may go to the British Consulate." Soujirou's curious eyes followed Aoshi's pointing finger.

"Pho-to-graph?" Soujirou's brow furrowed in concentration as his mind sought to understand the strange foreign word. One of his last conversations with Kamatari and Chou came to mind.

"Photograph? Shishio must be crazy." Katanagari Chou snorted.

"He is not! You're just jealous." Kamatari stuck out his tongue. Soujirou followed the exchange with curious eyes.

"Jealous? Maybe you are, since he's getting photographed with Yumi." Chou winked at Soujirou, as Kamatari turned an interesting shade of puce.

"I don't understand, Kamatari-san, Chou-san... what's a photograph?" Soujirou scratched his head in confusion.

"It's a new foreign practice. You stand in front of a weird contraption and get your soul sucked out." Chou said, in his usual crass manner. Kamatari again stuck his tongue out. Then he turned to Soujirou, smiling fondly.

"Well, One-eye's partly correct. It IS from Europe, and it IS weird. There's this machine, and when you press a button, it goes up in smoke and when you take the plate out and dip it into some liquid, it comes out in an image of the people which it was pointed to." Kamatari shrugged. "But I kinda think that it does suck out your soul." The cross-dresser shuddered.

As his mind came to that conclusion, Soujirou's heart leaped into his throat. He realized with a jolt that they were already in front of the British Consulate. He tugged at Aoshi's sleeve, and the ninja paused, his other hand poised to knock on the door. "Aoshi... what are we doing here?"

"I want a memento for the both of us, so in a few years we can look back at this and remember today." Aoshi's voice was soft, yet serious, and as his eyes locked into Soujirou's, the latter knew that he could put up no resistance.

"Okay." Soujirou's voice was tenuous and high, and he clutched a bit tighter to Aoshi's sleeve as the taller man knocked on the door. A girl around Soujirou's age opened the door and smiled sweetly at them both, especially at Soujirou, as if she could sense his fear. She ushered them inside.

Soujirou didn't realize the gravity of his situation until they were in the studio itself and the freaky machine was in front of them both. Suddenly his smooth smiling façade melted away and he panicked. His hands shook and he felt the strange urge to projectile vomit at Aoshi's feet. As the photographer prepared the camera, Soujirou bolted.

Being Tenken no Soujirou, it was no easy feat for Aoshi to chase him down, even if his legs were longer than Soujirou's. The boy had reached the veranda before Aoshi caught him. "Soujirou... what's wrong?" He wrapped his arms around Soujirou, who was shaking and turning a strange shade of red.

"I just don't understand! You're paying 500,000 yen to have our souls sucked out!" Soujirou was THIS close to tears. Aoshi just blinked at him. And then he laughed. Honest-to-goodness laughed. Shinomori Aoshi, former Oniwabanshuu Okashira and living Sex God (IMO) was practically guffawing his head off. Soujirou huffed and pulled away from Aoshi, pouting. "What's so funny?" he asked frustratedly, but Aoshi gave no response. When Aoshi's manly giggling had ceased, he took Soujirou's face inside his hands and met the boy's scared blue eyes.

"I promise you. It will not suck your soul out, okay?"

Soujirou closed his eyes and exhaled. Aoshi never broke promises. "Okay." He said, in the same small voice that he had used before.

He let Aoshi lead him back to the British Consulate, posed in front of the camera, smiling. He waited patiently with Aoshi until the print was developed. And as he looked down at the print, at the two of them smiling, he decided that it was a pretty good way to immortalize moments.

But he still thought that cameras sucked the souls out.

Immortalizing Moments concluded.

A/N: What the heck happened?? wails I am useless at humor fics. Really, I am. Oh well, read and review please!