Doctor In The House (Dr. STONE Fanfiction)

A Moment to Capture

"Hey!" Minami's voice interfered strongly through the speaker. "Who do you think deserves the most credit for the delicious bread?"

"François!" was the immediate answer from Gen, Senku, Chrome and Kohaku; all stuffing their mouths with loaves of freshly baked, decent, modern human bread.

"WRONG!" cried the reporter. "Well, not entirely wrong. François deserves some credit too. But this was all possible because of my revival fluid. You promised to make something for me in return. I haven't forgotten about that." Her frustration soon ceased, and so did her tone now replaced by a subtle longing. "Making bread is great and all... But the thing I want the most is..."

Gen blinked owlishly, clearly perplexed by what he heard. "You're making a what now?" For sure, he heard her right. It's just that it doesn't hurt to confirm his sanity, right?

"A camera," was the girl's nonchalant reply, as she rummaged through the recycling box for aluminium waste. "It's the pinhole type, though."

The middle-schooler chuckled nervously. "Whatever do you need a DIY camera for, Ri-chan?"

While fishing out an empty aluminium coffee tin and putting it into her basket with the other materials for her project, Rikona shrugged, "For fun. My friend's art club created their own pinhole cameras to experiment with solargraphy, which is a type of photography that involves capturing the movement of the sun over some time."

"So... it's basically to a camera that uses light movement, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Gen felt a sweat drop forming on his temple. "Y'know, you could've summarised it like that," he mumbled.

Rikona chuckled sheepishly as she stood back up. "My bad, Kitsune~ I forgot that tricking people and performing magic tricks are already beyond your limited mental abilities."

"So mean!" The boy screamed, tears comically cascading down his cheeks as he watched her slip out of the kitchen, laughing.

"On a serious note," she called from outside, her fading footsteps hinting at her heading towards somewhere. "Wanna join me? You can do your homework while I work on this."

"Since you offered~" drawled the boy, happily skipping out with his randoseru slung over his right shoulder.

Gen was no stranger to such an invitation offered regularly. Although she joked about it, he knew that she was aware of just how much her friend could understand her in her journey to achieving her goal; and she didn't mind it one bit. Having him around was a support in itself. So there they were, like all those evenings after school activities and university classes, she'd be at the main workbench busying herself with projects while Gen silently worked on - or rather, tried to stay fully focused on - his social science homework.

Completely oblivious to the boy's grumblings over the chronological lists of emperors which he needed to memorise for his upcoming test, Rikona started by cleaning the inside of the coffee tin. She then fished out a box of Fujifilm photographic paper, its cover proudly stamped with Tokyo Metropolitan Shinjuku High School. Tearing open the seal, she carefully removed the contents, a plastic bag containing the photographic papers which she placed the coffee tin horizontally against the edge, measuring. Then, placing the photographic papers back on the workbench, she picked up the vernier callipers, twisting the locking screw to extend the external jaws which she could fit in the coffee tin, measuring its height. At its halfway point, she took the scalpel and roughly marked it. Rikona then put everything back on the workbench, leaving her hands free to pick the 0.8mm needle from the sewing kit which she then gently hammered directly onto the mark she'd made. After some filing of the slight dimple with polishing sandpaper, it was finally ready to be painted, not before covering the tin with masking tape on the top and side, then cut open the hole with the scalpel, as well as the inner sides of the lid where she cut little tabs out of the tape, making it easier for her to fold and cover the outer areas.