For a class I'm taking on Writing Fiction, I reworked this story a bit. The overall plot is the exact same, but certain awkward sentences and scenes were rewritten or added to to make the flow better. The ending has also changed from what it originally was. I hope this gets more love than the original because, in my opinion, this is a better version of the original story. Enjoy!

I set up the camera with great care, always adjusting it to find the perfect picture. But there’s no such thing is there? The perfect picture is impossible.

My thoughts wandered to your smile and your pink, pinch-able cheeks. I wondered if having you in the picture would make a difference to me. I pulled away from the viewfinder and looked at the valley before me. Open fields as far as the eye could see. The snowcapped mountain tips to the left; almost hidden behind the wide growth of trees. The sunset was just beginning in the background, clouds numbing the colors from the light’s deep reds into light pinks and pleasant oranges. Nature was at its finest here, and all I could think of was you. 

If I could have seen beyond everything, I thought that somehow I would have achieved that perfect picture I long to capture. My strive for perfection was what got me where I was. My dream to find perfection is what drove me onward. You knew that all too well. I always felt bad for driving you away like that, but you never seemed to hold it against me. You just smiled at me and stepped away, but I’m sure you were hiding your tears in, right?

I looked through the camera once again after adjusting the white balance once more. But with barely a glance, I pulled away with a disappointed sigh. I wasn’t going to be getting anything I was happy with this time either. How could something as simple as pressing a button be so hard? 

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I opened my window and let the breeze off the ocean flow through my hair and into my stuffy apartment. Closing my eyes, I stood there and let the salty wind caress my skin until I became slightly chilled. The promise of the fast approaching winter engulfed me as the wind picked up for a long moment, beating my face with its harsh bite as if trying to punish me. When it died away to the gentle breeze once more, I was no longer relaxed. 

I opened my eyes and looked out into the distance. The city lay before me, and the calming brackish air gave way to the smell of cigarette smoke. My lips immediately turned downward in a displeased frown when the city seemed to become dirty and dark as my eyes observed. I suddenly dismissed the flowers of my neighbor’s hanging garden in favor or the graffiti all over the alleyways. The beautiful church and its stained glass windows on Gale Street were forgotten and the smog of the waterside factories was brought to the front of my mind.

It wasn’t a bad apartment on the inside, but the location wasn’t the greatest. I suppose it really was my fault that I chose to live there. I was never the kind of person to flaunt my money and buy an expensive and well placed apartment. It seemed like taunting in a way. “Look at me up on this hill with my mansion and the beautiful view. Don’t think of treading on my perfectly trimmed lawn unless you want to be my gardener for the next week.”

Okay, so maybe I didn’t have quite that much money, but I did have more than I needed. Why would I need to show that to those less fortunate? There was no point in having a big house anyway when I no longer shared my current apartment with anyone.

My hands curl into frustrated fists at the thought. It was far too late for me to change any of my decisions now. You chose your path, and I chose mine. That was everything we needed to know, and that was how we left each other.

I turned away from the window and looked at my room. The walls are covered in too many pictures to count. They were all sizes and many were still not framed. Polaroids hung from clothespins on string and pictures of nature overlapped each other all over the place. I wondered just how much I had unintentionally buried since getting this apartment. I looked down and there were stacks upon towers of photos waiting to be placed. I had long ago given up on organizing all my prints to fit them on the limited space.

Back when I started the wall, photography still came naturally to me, and it was easy to be satisfied. It turned out to be a good thing when I realized that if any part of my wall was empty, I felt it needed to be filled up with some kind of dash of color. Even the tiniest pinpoint of space could prompt me to go out for a photo session. I would come back with a million things to put in that tiny space.

Then my work started to become known. People suddenly started to expect things of me, and I grew as an artist and forgot what being satisfied felt like. It amused me greatly when others would call my art brilliant and marvel at the colors and the details while I hated every inch of those pictures that didn’t shine as brightly as your smile did back when we were eighteen and just a little in love.

You were all over that wall. Somewhere along the line, I had covered you up with all my other photos. That’s when we started to drift apart, I think. But there was still a box full of pictures of us together sitting around somewhere. It waited for me to open it up curiously – because I might have forgotten which box they were in – after uncovering it from a pile of junk. I might smile unhappily down at the memories when I open it up.

My thoughts were disrupted when I heard a soft humming coming from outside my window. I turned around without a second thought. I knew it was you, you often walked past my apartment complex sometime in the afternoon; probably on your way to your favorite pastry shop just a block from my apartment. If I were being really honest with myself, that was probably the reason I had stayed there in this apartment. I was still hoping to get one glimpse of you every now and again when you passed.

I stuck my head out the window and search the sidewalks below to see if I could spot you this time. I almost managed a smile when my eyes found you skipping cheerfully down the street. Your humming can only just be heard by me up here, but I think that’s because of all the years listening to you sing. I almost wanted to sing back to you, but the second sounds tried to come up, a knot developed in my throat so fierce that I felt like I was choking on lyrics. What right did I have to croon our song in your ear?

Your loose pink shirt bounced around your figure as your skipping continued, reminding me of how thin you always were, despite your love of sweets. And you never could get yourself to stop bouncing around like that. You even hopped around at my side when we held hands and I asked you to stop (but secretly wish you wouldn’t). For all those reasons, I lovingly called you my Chubby Bunny and you never got mad at me for it, never took offense, and never forgot to smile up at me like I had given you some kind of gift.

The memory turned sour when I watched you skip by without a single glance up at my window. I wondered if you did it on purpose because you knew I was here. Maybe you hated me after all. At the very thought of that, I had to stop myself from slamming my window closed with a loud bang. If you had lost all feeling for me, I would force myself to get rid of my feelings for you.

(That night, I found that box of pictures and smiled down at them sadly like I knew I would. But instead of burning them like I told myself I was going to, I framed you and titled you, “The One That Got Away”.)

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One foggy morning, I felt like it would be a great opportunity to get some pictures in. The environment was always more interesting when the low clouds were slowly devouring the foliage and small animals seemed to disappear into the very air like ghostly visitors. There was never a single picture that looked alike.

Something brought me to the fields only a mile from my house. I didn’t know why I was there. The area was usually quite dull most days and I never found much to capture with my lens. But today was different. Something was calling to me, begging me to freeze it in time, asking to be remembered forever within the four walls of a colored, glossy piece of paper.

So I set to work on setting up the camera and trying different angles of the twisted tree that stood in the middle of that otherwise empty field. Most photographers would have loved the eerie feel it gave when the fog wound its thin tentacles around the grey branches, but I wasn’t seeing the shot I wanted. I was starting to think I would have another wasted trip when I caught movement just to the left of the tree from where I was standing.

A figure was moving around behind the tree. They were only just visible through the thick mists, but I would recognize the shape of you anywhere, even when I couldn’t see more than your outline. I don’t think you saw me, but I saw you, and I wanted to know what you were up to. I slowly made my way closer and closer, but you had vanished by the time I got there.

When a branch creaked above my head, I shifted my eyes to the sky. That was when I saw you again, now a bright splash of color among the grey clouds, making your way up the tree. You climbed as high as you could, trying to find the light like a Sunflower that turns its blossom to the sun.

When you realized it was futile, you sat yourself down on the highest, strongest branch you could find and just stay there. My hands automatically brought my camera to my eye. I found you within the frame and pressed the small black button without thinking.

The small click the camera made resounded like thunder in the silence and in my ears as I was brought back to reality. I almost ran. I didn’t want you to find me. I couldn’t let you see how hopeless I was without you. But you never looked down at me. You never moved. You just stared out into the grey horizon; lost in your own world like always.

Then the clouds swallowed you whole and I no longer saw your beautiful face.

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It was time for my show. I dressed nicely and showed up to the gallery a couple hours early to make sure all the necessary preparations were completed. They only needed me to pick a few more of my pictures to display when they found out they had some extra room.

But I had none left.

Out of nowhere, my friend suggested that I put up a few of you. I didn’t want to, but somehow he talked me into it, a knowing smile on his face. One that I chose was just a pictures of you smiling brightly as you ran towards me, your short light brown hair ruffling cutely in the wind.

Another photo held you singing for a small crowd with your mouth opened wide and your eyes alight with a passionate fire. Ever since I met you when we were sixteen, I knew that you loved to sing. You wrote songs and poetry and played the guitar and it was all beautiful. You tried to share it all with me, but I was too busy with my photography to keep up with the music. You didn’t seem to mind back then. You smiled whenever you heard music and danced even when you had no room. Looking at this picture of you made me wish I had joined you back then. Maybe I would still have you now if I did.

My thoughts wandered to the final picture of you I had chosen. In the photograph, it was night, but you were lit up by some kind of spotlight behind you as you stood on tiptoe with your hand waving madly in the air in farewell. You did that whenever we happened to walk by the airport when a plane was taking off. That time, I happened to have my camera with me. The caption below the picture read, “Lights and Farewells”.

That night, as all the strangers, fellow photographers, and my friends came to view my work, I only looked for one face. I hoped beyond all reason that you would appear behind a pillar and tell me you were proud of my work or that you were embarrassed that I put up pictures of you. But you never came, and I was left alone with the show lights and images that were no longer beautiful; even in my own eyes.

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So here I am, packing my camera in its protective case for the long flight to Germany. I got an offer for a job there. I had accepted quickly without caring about the full details. If it got me out of this country – away from here, away from you – I would do anything.

I pack my clothes into my suitcase with a slight numb feeling working its way into my heart. I haven’t cried about you in so long and I think I’m starting to fall away from those old feelings. That will make leaving easier. I smile bitterly to myself as I shut the case tight, throw a sports bag over my shoulder, and grab my camera. The flight ticket is in my pocket. I don’t need anything else.

I throw the door to the apartment open with a bang as I struggle to get out with my luggage. Once I’m free of that stuffy apartment, I drop my bag and suitcase in favor of closing up. But when I close the door, I freeze.

You had been here sometime in the night. There were pictures taped all over my door of us. Pictures I didn’t recognize. They most certainly weren’t mine. I wouldn’t have taken anything like this. They must all have been from your dinky little digital camera. That little dinosaur was still kicking after all these years and you had some of our best moments stuck to my front door.

Looking over the snippets of our time together, one caught my eye in particular. A photo of my back. I was wearing the very outfit I had worn to my showing last night. You had been there after all. How had I missed you? And right next to this very picture was a note.

Kyu,

A little bird told me you were leaving today.

I’ll wave goodbye to you if that is what you want.

I don’t know which plane you’ll be on, though.

-Min

When I finish reading, I pull out my phone and look through my contacts desperately for your number. I get about halfway down before I remember I deleted it. Cursing, I try to recall the digits in my head. At one point, I had it memorized, but I had spent so much time trying to forget you that I had almost forgotten it as well.

The numbers came back slowly, one digit at a time. I typed them in hesitantly hoping this was the right number. I read it over four times before I’m sure I got it right. I hit the green call button and throw the phone to my ear. I must look like a nut, standing on my own doorstep with my luggage while staring at a hastily thrown together collage taped to my door.

I make a promise to myself. If you don’t pick up, I’ll leave without looking back.

But what happens if you pick up?

It rings once and I hold my breath. My heart is beating wildly in my chest.

It rings twice and I close my eyes to calm myself.

It rings thrice and I faintly smell sugar from the sweets shop mixing with the salt off the sea.

“Kyu?”

I start running; my feet automatically taking me back to you.

I hope this ending has satisfied you more than the original. I really don't know how to write a "sequal" for this, so this will have to do.