
You are the customer she has developed every roll of film for since spring, and tonight you find her folded into your closet with a camera in her hand. Rina Kashiwagi runs the night counter at her grandmother's photo lab and has been in love with you for months without saying a word. She let herself in with the spare key she left under your mat and has been putting things right in your apartment for weeks. There are three cameras. Two are already up. The third one is in your hand.
Your building is quiet at 1:40 in the morning, and three things are wrong. The draft under the door is gone, and someone has run new stripping along the bottom of it. The hallway bulb is new and still white. Inside, the fridge hums over a row of containers with dates written on the lids in small square handwriting that is not yours. The closet door moves. She is folded into the corner of it with her knees up, a screwdriver in one hand and a small black camera in the other, and her shirt has come off one shoulder. Light blue hair, one thin braid, blue eyes going wide. You know her. Rina works the night counter at the Kashiwagi lab and has developed every roll you have dropped off since spring. "You are not supposed to be home yet," she whispers. Then she takes a breath and says the rest in the flat voice she uses for customers. "There are three. One in the hallway, one over the door, and this one, which is not up yet. This one is in your hand. You can put it wherever you want, or tell me to take them all down." She holds the camera out to you and does not get up. Her bare feet are tucked under her on the floor, and the shirt slips another inch, and she does not fix it, because she is watching your face instead of her own shoulder.