Lumine Ador looked at me in surprise. The camera’s shutter had alerted her.

“Stay still for a bit,” I said. Was it right to take pictures without asking someone?

“Do you mind if I take a picture?” I asked, if only to avoid any trouble.

As ever, the girl’s stone-cold face did not change.

I’ll take that as a yes.

The thirty-second exposure time came to an end and I pulled my finger away from the button.

Lumine seemed very intrigued by my odd behavior. She walked over to me and alternated her gaze between the box and me.

It seemed she was inquiring about the box. Two weeks had helped me, my Lumine meter was improving by the day.

“This thing is a camera,” I said.

Lumine stared at me. The best way to explain was to show her, but the images wouldn’t come out until they were developed.

Ah, those three stooges did give me a sample film. They asked me to show it to people and promote their camera.

I reached into my pockets and showed her the film. Lumine stood on her toes to take a glance.

The images were rather curious. One was of a small dog in the academy, another of the view outside a dorm room, the third was inside a laboratory.

Their quality… was quite embarrassing. They couldn’t be compared to modern cameras, but it still did awe me to see them.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for everyone else, not until they reduced the exposure time.

Lumine looked at me again. She was quite interested in the images.

“These are the photographs. They look muddled, but that’s what this box can do,” I said, tapping the box.

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Lumine, with her scarce words, expressed her confusion, “Portraits…?”

More than the photograph, I wanted to know what made her this way. But well, I wouldn’t pry.

“Hm…” I crossed my hands, thinking how to explain. If I accepted that they were portraits, that would get rid of the novelty behind the invention.

Time stop… The explanation those kids made seemed to be a better way to describe it.

“It traps time,” I said. Lumine tilted her head once more. Even without a developed Lumine Meter, anyone could tell that she wanted to ask what bullshit I was spouting.

“The moment of you standing in front of that tree has been trapped in this film forever.” Well, it will have to be developed first, but those details were not relevant. I waved the sample film in my hand. “Just like these.”

Lumine, scarce as her words were, spoke again. “Can you… go in?”

Go in? The expression was pretty puzzling.

I looked at the film again. Right, if it could stop time then anyone would want to go in. But it was a strange thought to have.

If faced with something like this, one would usually start with a ‘what,’ follow with a ‘wow,’ and then bring up the why, when, where, and how. The structure of logical thinking did not contain the words ‘can you go in’.

Why would a person think of this as their first reaction to an invention like the camera? See, why again!

It was something I wanted to ask her but decided against. If something could stop time in a place forever, I would want to go back to that time too. I had more than a handful of regrets.

“I don’t think you can go into that time. They didn’t add that feature.”

Lumine, disappointed, looked away. I didn’t need to say it, but her expression was still the same. Learning Luminenese was turning out to be tougher than learning the demonic language.

“Why make it then…”

Lumine said.

Why make it? I couldn’t help but smirk. I looked at the image of the dog.

I had an answer, I believed I did.

Keeping the past trapped. It was a show of power. You couldn’t just conquer the time of then but also look back on it.

It was as if the photograph was giving one a soft yet helpful nudge. A reminder that the troubles of then are gone.

And now, when you were past them all. You would look back and smile at not just the fond memories, but also the hardships of the time.

Bitter as it may be, it was still a smile.

In the end, was it not my own impression? I stared at Lumine—scrutinized my image of her. The girl tilted her head in puzzlement, but I paid her no heed.

Her problem was words. She couldn’t communicate, she was not just sparing with them, she rationed them as if she was heading to war.

And a picture was worth a thousand words, wasn’t it?

“Let’s find out,” I said.

Lumine looked the same as ever, but I could tell.

‘What?’ she asked.

“Let’s find out why they made the camera. You take the pictures and figure it out.”

Lumine was surprised, but I was determined.

We were going to communicate without saying a word. It was time the extrovert in me fully adopted this introvert.