Kpop: In Monochrome (Yixing/Kai, NC-17) [6/6]

[maayacolabackup]

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Yixing’s not sure how it ends up like this. Only he is, because it only makes sense, through the hazy fog of desire, to run his fingers along those mesmerizing contours; run his tongue along them too, for good measure.

Jongin is electric. He whimpers and writhes and gasps beneath Yixing’s desperate hands and mouth, and fists his hands in Yixing’s shirt he traps Yixing against the studio table, careful not to push him too hard lest some of Yixing’s pictures fall to the floor.

EXO had gotten in a few hours ago on a late flight. Jongin’d gone to his hotel and he’d called Yixing, and Yixing had mumbled something about developed photos, and then forty minutes later Jongin was at Yixing’s door.

“I had Chanyeol get me a cab,” Jongin said, quickly, like Yixing was going to question why he’d come. “I told him you wanted me to look at a few pictures.”

“I do,” Yixing had said in response, and Jongin’s cheeks were flushed pink and his hands were sliding in and out of his pocket like he wasn’t sure if he wanted them there or not. “Stop fidgeting.”

“I don’t fidget--” Jongin had started to say, and Yixing had shoved him against the doorframe of the studio entryway and kissed him.

Jongin had squeaked, and then his hands had come up and settled on Yixing’s hips, and he’d kissed him right back.

And now… Now, Yixing drags his mouth along the line of Jongin’s jaw, and Jongin hisses into his ear, slides his hands down Yixing’s sides, warm through Yixing’s shirt.

Yixing doesn’t like men, necessarily, but he likes Jongin. He doesn’t know how anyone couldn’t, when Jongin’s so full of life and color and movement and all those things that make people beautiful, all concentrated into their purest forms.

Jongin finds Yixing’s mouth again, and Yixing licks along his teeth and cheeks and the roof of Jongin’s mouth and tastes shadows and contrasts and love as true as ink and celluloid.

“I don’t have to keep waiting?” Jongin asks, and Yixing shakes his head, before he catches Jongin’s lower lip between his teeth.

“No,” Yixing says. “You don’t.”



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Yixing teasingly pushes him back, small hands exerting almost no pressure on Jongin’s chest, but Jongin falls like he’s been shoved. Yixing’s bed is soft; the sheets high-thread-count cotton and luxurious, and he only gives Jongin a moment to second-guess any of this before he kisses him.

Everything’s a blur as color drips down the back of Jongin’s back and Yixing tastes those shadows, licking and biting at the column of Jongin’s neck as Jongin gasps and tries to breathe beneath him. His hair, piceous liquid silk, brushes Yixing’s forehead as Yixing brings their mouths together again.

Yixing kisses him until Jongin is splayed out beneath him, breathing hard, lips swollen and blush and parted as he gasps for air. He reaches for his camera, and takes a photo as Jongin’s hands skate up his bare chest.

“You’re so weird,” Jongin says, and he laughs, and thrusts up, and Yixing’d forgotten that they’d lost their jeans a couple rooms back, and now all that separates their erections are the thin material of their briefs, but now he’s reminded, the friction making his hands shake on his camera.

Jongin moans, baring his throat, and Yixing takes another shot.

And then the camera finds itself abandoned on the side of the bed as Jongin flips them, kissing down Yixing’s chest and down, lower, mouthing Yixing through the material of his briefs, and Yixing’s hips cant off the bed, toward the warmth of Jongin’s mouth, and Jongin grins, cheekily.

When they’re both bare, sliding together, sweat and the need to touch overwhelming, Yixing thinks he might be coming apart.

“You’re so beautiful,” Yixing says, as Jongin slides a single digit inside him. It stings, and Yixing already feels like this is too much; like everything is too much and he might break. But then Jongin pulls out slowly and pushes back in, and Yixing hisses at the burn, but he doesn’t break. He stretches. “So beautiful.”

“How can you even see me in the dark?” Jongin’s voice is breathy, like maybe he feels as taut and on edge as Yixing does as he works that single finger in and out. “Relax,” Jongin whispers. “Let me make you feel good. Let me make this feel good.”

“Photographers see things other people don’t,” Yixing says, voice and thighs shaking at the ache, focusing on the friction inside of him, unclenching his muscles as the slide of Jongin’s finger becomes more familiar and a little more easy. “That’s why we become photographers in the first place.” Jongin curls his finger, and the press of the pad of his finger against the walls of his inside startles a gasp from him.

Even in the caliginous room, Yixing can see the shadows clinging to Jongin’s shoulders and neck. Jongin is Old Hollywood again, and Yixing is Slim Adams, and this is the Jongin he saw, the first day they met, but open and distilled and the story Yixing feels like he has always been looking, but better, because he’s real and here and moving.

“Don’t lose track of this, or wander off,” Jongin whispers, as he thrusts hard into Yixing for the first time. Yixing’s thighs tremble, and he feels like he’s splitting in half. It’s more pain than pleasure, but he has faith that that will change. His nails dig into the skin of Jongin’s back. “Don’t think about anything but me.” They aren’t perfectly coherent words, and Yixing’s unsure if he’s speaking in Mandarin or Korean, but he feels them, deep in his bones, like an anchor. Jongin’s skin shines in the thin streams of moonlight, and Yixing’s still as mesmerized as he was that first night on the terrace.

Yixing doesn’t think that Jongin understands that he can’t look anywhere else, because Jongin is the most perfect photograph Yixing’s never taken.

Pleasure arcs up the small of his back, tangled with the pain of the stretch and the exhilaration of the pressure against his insides, and Yixing finally feels like his skin might be as warm as Jongin’s.

“I won’t,” Yixing whispers, and his voice comes out cracked and hoarse, and Jongin shivers at it. “I can’t.”

“Good,” Jongin says, and he pulls out, slow and steady, and pushes back in harder; hard enough to shake Yixing’s thin body as the bed shakes with him, and Yixing makes a garbled noise that would be embarrassing if he didn’t want to pull Jongin closer and feel whatever that feeling is again.

It’s like panning; Jongin is the sole distinguishable object in a sea of blur, and Yixing follows him with eyes and shoulders and hips as he presses in again and again.
“I can’t,” Yixing says again, and nothing has ever been more true.



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Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. –Aaron Siskind



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Jongin is impossible to capture, after all. Yixing runs hand down the smooth muscle of Jongin's arms and memorizes the strength he can feel beneath his fingertips. He memorizes the years of sadness he can taste in Jongin's sweat and wonders if he were to cut Jongin open whether all he'd find inside was more of that sadness- that echoing emptiness that isn't black or white or any shade in between. He memorizes the shuddering breaths Jongin takes that sound a lot like the quick release shutter on his favorite long-lens camera, and the way Jongin looks, in those moments, blurry to Yixing's carefully watching eyes as he tries to freeze-frame the perfect moment.

Yixing used to think there was no beauty he couldn't catch with a fast enough shudder speed and an eye for the lighting, but Jongin is everything Yixing has never tried to catch. Yixing lives his life in grayscale and exact pinpoint moments, but Jongin is color in motion, defying the click of the camera and defying Yixing's ability to understand him.

Yixing realizes, as he presses a kiss to the corner of Jongin’s sleeping mouth, that he might be willing to spend the rest of his life trying.

Jongin shift and his palm falls open and flat across Yixing’s heart, and it’s enough.



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Good things, Yixing knows, aren’t meant to last.

It’s balance—just like in a photograph, there has to be an even distribution of visual elements, and of light and dark. Yixing thinks life is kind of like that, and maybe what he has with Jongin is too much happiness and so there has to be misery now, to even out the score.

That’s why when he sees the cover of the tabloid, he knows something bad is about to happen.

“I’m coming over,” Jongin says, and his voice is grim. “For the last time.”

Yixing feels like the next two hours happen through a polarizer filter, a grainy black and white video that’s not his real life at all.

But it is his real life, and maybe it’s that fact that makes it so hard to see.

“I can’t see you anymore,” Jongin says, and Yixing’s been expecting since he first saw the tabloid but it still hurts to hear.

“Because someone took a picture of us?” Yixing asks, looking up at Jongin with a face that’s carefully blank. “There are a million ways to explain-“

“Because there’s too much at stake,” Jongin says, and this is how it feels, Yixing thinks, to stand at the gate and watch someone leave. “And it’s not worth it.”

That hurts the worst of all, until Yixing squints and really looks at Jongin.

Jongin doesn’t believe that. Yixing has been memorizing every nuance of Jongin’s face for months and months, and Jongin’s always been shit at lying.

Jongin’s always tried to protect him. To keep his face out of the news, and Yixing’s always been grateful, before. But now Jongin is looking at him and saying he can’t see Yixing anymore, because there are too many people watching. Because the paparazzi are getting too close and Jongin’s got his career and Yixing’s got his and that’s the way it has to be.

“No it doesn’t,” Yixing says, and Jongin closes his eyes.

“I want it to be, then.” Jongin steps back as Yixing steps forward, and Yixing pretends not to notice that it hurts. “This is goodbye.”

He chooses the word on purpose. Yixing knows he does.

Yixing hates goodbyes. And yet here he is staring at another one.

The world’s in grayscale.



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“You haven’t complained about the food even once,” Jongdae says. “What’s wrong?”

Yixing hasn’t taken any pictures in three weeks and he keeps trying but the only story he can find is his own heartbreak. He finds it in sidewalk cracks and in helpless earthworms drowning in the early spring rains. He finds it in his studio, where he’s still got hundreds of pictures of Jongin in piles on his desk that he can’t bear to look through.

He finds it in Jongin’s parted lips and they way Jongin had looked at him before he walked out the door, and every time he lifts his camera up to snap a photo, he sees Jongin through the viewfinder; Jongin in New York, laughing at the surprise snow. Jongin in Tokyo, green soybean powder decorating his face. Jongin on Yixing’s bed, stretched out like a cat in the sun as he plays games on his mobile phone, one hand on his stomach and the other on Yixing’s calf as Yixing takes pictures of Jongin’s fingers and Jongin’s toes because the abstract can sometimes tell the story of a moment.

“I’m fine,” Yixing says, and he takes a bite of Jongdae’s latest concoction and grimaces. “This is truly horrible, though, you’re right.”

“You ate half already, Yixing.” Jongdae sounds half seriously concerned and half amazed. “Is your grandmother okay?”

“She’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“If everything were fine, you wouldn’t look so glum.” Jongdae pushes the traditional pot of reheated dumplings toward him. “Here, have a dumpling.”

“Wow, I must look really pathetic.”

“Just a lot,” Jongdae says. “What are you thinking so hard about?”

“Goodbyes,” Yixing says.

“Well that’s why you look so sad,” Jongdae says. “Wouldn’t you rather think about ‘hello’s?”

There are no hellos left with Jongin. Yixing’s phone hasn’t rung. Yixing’s spare key remains undisturbed beneath the mat in front of his door.

“Sometimes there aren’t any hellos left,” Yixing says, and Jongdae sets down his chopsticks.

“So you know Kris is the one with all the deep philosophical advice, right?” Jongdae sighs. “That said, I think there are always hellos left. And after… after she died you took a really long time to say hello to a lot of things.”

“I know,” Yixing says. “I know.”

“So don’t let go of that! That thing that made you say ‘hello’ again. Don’t… let go of that.”

Yixing looks at Jongdae, and Jongdae smiles and shoves a dumpling in his mouth. “Thanks,” Yixing says, and Jongdae chokes.

“I should’ve left the pep talks to duizhang,” he says around a mouthful, and Yixing exhales.

“I think you did all right,” Yixing says, and takes another terrible bite of his lunch.



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Yixing sorts the photos on his studio table into piles for filing. He does his best not to let his eyes linger on some of them as he organizes, and he’s mostly successful, willing himself to treat them as if they’re the dregs of any other finished project.

It’s hard, but he does it.

But then he comes across the picture… the one Jongin took, in his car, in front of Yixing’s hotel when Yixing had still been teetering on the brink of admitting to himself that it was all okay; that the things he was feeling for Jongin weren’t going to disappear just because Yixing was afraid.

‘Patiently waiting for the right moment.’ He’s so in love. In the photo, and in real life, and everywhere in between.

He swallows, and it hurts. His throat feels stopped up, like his heart is stuck there and refusing to let anything else through.

He closes his eyes for a moment, and sets the photo to the side.

Beneath it, though, is another photo.

Yixing took that one, in the dressing room. ‘Wanting.’

Jongin is looking straight at the camera, and Yixing will never forget that moment. It’s still, Yixing thinks, one of the best photos of Jongin he’s ever taken. And Jongin is looking at the camera; at Yixing behind it, like he’s everything, and Yixing wants…

Yixing wants to see Jongin look at him like that again. Yixing wants to run his fingers along Jongin’s neck where his hair has grown a little too long and for Jongin to run his fingers up Yixing’s forearm slow and steady, and Yixing wants to take photographs of Jongin’s lips and then kiss every place his lens has captured.

“Love is selfish,” Yixing had told Jongin once, and he’d meant it.

And Yixing knows Jongin is trying to protect Yixing, and protect himself too. He knows that, but it doesn’t make it easier to live with.

Yixing lift his camera, his grandfather’s camera, and looks through the viewfinder, and points it toward the empty doorway of his studio. He remembers when Jongin had stood there, hands in his pockets. He remembers pressing Jongin against it and kissing him.

He takes a photo of the empty doorway.

The photo comes out eerie, almost like there’s a ghost in the doorway that only Yixing can see.

He titles it ‘Miss You, Miss You’, even if he only calls it that in his head, and he locks it in the top drawer of his desk.

Yixing still hasn’t taken… He still hasn’t taken the photo of Jongin he’s always wanted to take. The one he’s promised to take. He’s taken photos that look like Jongin, but Jongin is so much more than those. Jongin is the challenge Yixing wants to keep attempting, over and over again,, for as long as he can.

Yixing doesn’t think he can give Jongin up.


TIP 09



Sometimes photographers think too much.

Yixing often gets so caught up in figuring out all the threads of what he’s trying to represent—what he wants the viewer to take away, and what he wants to be sure to catch, that he forgets to really look.

Because in the end, photography is really about seeing. It’s about taking a deep breath and observing. It’s about looking at the world around him and noticing the little things, or the big things, that other people don’t notice.

And when he gets caught up in all the thoughts; thoughts about that strange shape in the corner or that little fraction of Jongin’s face that’s slightly too much in shadow, or all the consequences of being completely and totally infatuated with the way Jongin looks when his eyes open in the morning, lips dry and cracked and breath stale and eyes so deep he might drown in them, he forgets the important things.

Like that he’s so crazy in love with Jongin that every exhale hurts just a little, because his heart has swelled so big it pushes into his lungs and the pressure aches.

And maybe now is the time not to think. Maybe now is the time to just see.



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Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay. – Sam Abell



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It’s the same road. She’s waiting at the end of it, again, and Yixing walks toward her, again.

This time, she gets closer. When he reaches her, he lifts his camera up to take a picture, and she smiles.

But then she puts her hands on his shoulders, and spins him around, and behind him is Jongin.

Jongin is standing there on Yixing’s gray road with it’s gray pebbles and light charcoal colored grass, and he’s wearing blue-jeans and a white sweater with navy and red stripes. Everything else is in black and white, but Jongin is shifting his weight from foot to foot in full color.

He holds out a hand, and Yixing swallows. He can feel her fingernails digging into his shoulders, and then she pushes, and Yixing stumbles forward.

Yixing lifts his camera, and Jongin smiles, straight at him, with no pretence or worry or hesitance, and Yixing finally catches him. He finally takes a photo that feels like Jongin.

When he wakes, sheets sticking to his legs and stomach, Yixing finds it hard to breathe.

”The limitations of your photography are yourself,” Ernest Haas had once said.

Yixing scrambles for his phone. It’s eight-thirty in the morning. It’s late enough to call a travel agent.




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His badge still works. He flashes it to the guard and smiles lopsidedly, and the guard seems to vaguely remember him, waving him up. He leaves his bag behind the desk.

He follows incessant bass beats to the right rehearsal room.

The first person to notice him standing in the doorway is Zitao, who smiles a tiny little grin before offering a soft wave. Yixing waves back, and the action catches Sehun’s eyes. Sehun’s mouth opens into a tiny ‘o’ of surprise, and he quickly glances over to Zitao. They share a loaded glance; one that would offer a hundred interpretations in a gallery show, critics standing side by side with flutes of champagne and plenty of opinions.

Jongin is facing away from the door, stretching his arms above his head, bouncing on the balls of his feet to the beat of the music to keep his muscles from tightening up.

Yixing can see the shift of his shoulder blades through his sweaty shirt, and he remembers what they feel like beneath his desperate hands and Jongin presses kisses to his jaw.

He clears his throat, and Jongin spins around. His eyes widen, and his mouth parts, and he’s always picture-perfect but Yixing thinks this is one moment, one image of Jongin, that he’ll never be able to forget.

He has a speech planned in his head, that he’d rehearsed to himself on the plane ride and in the taxi ride here, and he’d almost gone to the hotel first but he’d been afraid he’d chicken out if he did.

But now, standing in front of Jongin, the man who’d brought the life back into his pictures and maybe back into his heart, the words disappear.

Jongin moves closer. Yixing’s stomach drops.

“What are you doing here, Zhang Yixing?” He’s guarded, and his arms are wrapped around his ribs like he’s hugging himself. There’s also disbelief in the set of his mouth, like he can’t believe Yixing is here. “I thought I made it pretty clear that things were over between us.”

He can’t even pretend to be detached, Yixing thinks distantly. Not to Yixing, who has seen so much of him.

“I said I’d never…” Jongin is flushed, hair sticking to his face with sweat, and Yixing can see Zitao and Sehun watching them from the doorway. Sehun has a smirk crawling up his face and Zitao looks enthralled. “Come.”

He grabs Jongin’s forearm and tugs, and Jongin spills out into the hallway, sneakers squeaking as Yixing drags him down until they reach the vending machines. “How’d you even get in here-“

“I still have a clearance badge,” Yixing says. “As your official photographer.”

“Are you here for something relating to the photo book?” Jongin asks. “Because I have a manager for that, as obnoxious as he is.”

“No,” Yixing says, and he wants to make his face impassive but that’s not fair. Right now, more than anything, he wants to hold up his camera and hide behind it. “I am here on personal business.”

“Personal business?” Jongin laughs, dryly, and Yixing winces. “We can’t… I’m too famous, and there’s too much... I’m a client, and you’re a photographer, and between us it the camera, and that’s--“

“Do you remember?” Yixing interrupts, and Jongin pauses, sweat-slick skin shining under fluorescent lights and this is terrible lighting but Jongin is still beautiful. “The first time you saw my oversized print of ‘Tears Airport’.”

“At your studio.” Jongin narrows his eyes. “Of course I do. I wanted to tell you, then, that I… It doesn’t matter, I guess.”

“Do you remember what I said, about that photo?”

“You were in love with her.” Jongin is terse, and short. His adam’s apple bobs as he exhales, and his nails are digging into his palms. “Yes, of course I remember. How could I forget?”

“What else did I say?” Yixing knows he sounds desperate, and he lets the feeling show on his face, too. He lets Jongin see it all. He’s stripped Jongin bare in front of his lenses and all he can do now is repay the favor.

“You said… she let you go.” Jongin’s eyes flicker up then, confused. There’s a strange light in his eyes now, and he takes a step closer. He smells like sweat and like his favorite cinnamon coffee and like floor cleaner, and Yixing doesn’t care because he probably smells like airport and like developer and like a halfway broken heart. “You said she let you go.”

“And then I said,” Yixing searches for the words, the exact words, because precision is important when you want to capture an entire scene, “I would never let the one I love walk out of my life like I walked out of hers.”

“I remember that, too,” Jongin says, and it’s soft and crackling. His tongue peeks out to lick his lips. “But-“

“I’m not going to let you walk out of my life,” Yixing says lowly, and he reaches up and fists his hand into Jongin’s damp tank shirt and looks at him steadily, even though he knows he’s shaking. Yixing tries to find words that are enough. “I look at the world and as soon as you’re there, I can’t see anything else.” He takes a shuddering breath. “In my dreams, everything but you is in grayscale. But you… you’re in color.”

“I thought color was distracting,” Jongin says.

“It is,” Yixing replies. “But just this once, it made things a little clearer.”

There are video cameras, and Yixing’s very aware of that. Jongin is too, but he still sets one hand on Yixing’s hip, and Yixing thinks Jongin wants to kiss him. Jongin’s eyes are soft amber and molten bronze and sparkling cinnamon, same as they were when Yixing had met him for the first time and been unable to look away.

Jongin laughs, and it’s sort of like a sob. “You’re… you’re so confusing.”

“I’m sorry.” Yixing curls his fingers tighter into the sweaty fabric. His knuckles dig into Jongin’s sternum. “But I love you.”

“You do?” And Yixing wonders if Jongin had only tried to leave because he thought Yixing hadn’t already given Jongin his whole heart.

“Yes,” Yixing says, and Jongin exhales.

“That… changes things. I thought you-“ Jongin shakes his head, and tendrils of his hair cling to his cheeks. “I thought it was some weird, artist-muse thing, and you’d just gotten caught up in it and you’d find it easy to get over me, if I left you-“

“No,” Yixing says. “I want to take pictures of you because I can’t look away. And it’s not your face. It’s all the little bits of you hidden away that I can only seem to see if I keep looking.”

“Then,” and Jongin closes his eyes for a moment, before he opens them again. “I guess maybe it might be worth it, after all, as long as you let me see the hidden bits of you, too, sometimes.”

“We have a deal,” Yixing says solemnly, and Jongin is so bright he burns.

“You might never take a photograph like that again, with those emotions, but there are other emotions. There’s still a lot left to discover, for you,” Jongin had said, and Yixing, as he lets his hand fall back to his side, wonders if this is one of those other emotions; an unbearable obsession that eats him up inside and makes him wonder if it’s possible to take enough pictures to capture all the different ways Jongin looks when he’s in love. In love with Yixing. He thinks it might not be possible, but he’s willing to try.

“So can I take you out on a date?” Jongin’s words are playful, but there’s uncertainty lingering in the audible question mark. “A secret one, of course, because obviously I’m an idol, and I’ve already filled my scandal quota for the year—“

”We can go on a hundred dates, if you want,” Yixing wants to say, but he thinks Jongin already knows that, deep down.

“I think that would be nice,” Yixing says, instead, and this: Jongin’s smile stretching from ear to ear in a boyish smile as his hair sticks to his face and his eyes light up… This is a flashbulb memory.




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A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.—Ansel Adams




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“So are you coming to my show?” Yixing asks, and Kris raises an eyebrow.

“I figured I’d be driving you,” Kris says with a laugh, and Yixing scratches the back of his neck.

“Jongin probably will, actually.”

“Isn’t that out of his way?” Minseok asks. He’s quickly correcting the size on the files Yixing had sent him—a series of photos on footprints, which is Yixing’s current obsession. Yixing’s making a website to collect other people’s photos and put up his own, but Minseok is the on who knows how big they need to be and how to upload them and all that.

“No.” Yixing doesn’t say it’s because Jongin will probably spend the day with him, as Yixing takes photographs of the way Jongin’s hipbones jut out when Yixing drags a fingers across the skin there, or the way his fingers and Jongin’s look laced together, Yixing’s hand thin and small looking wrapped in Jongin’s.

Lu Han’s always been good at reading between the lines with Yixing though, and he peers more closely at Yixing when Yixing doesn’t offer more information. “Are you… dating him?”

It sounds funny. Yixing doesn’t think of what he has with Jongin—an obsession with the lines around his mouth and the shadows that linger along the dips in his torso and the way he whispers Yixing’s name when he thinks Yixing is asleep or the way he’s never, ever still, as dating.

It feels a little different from that.

“Yes.”

Jongdae whistles inappropriately as Kris looks up from his phone with interest, and Yixing realizes, belatedly, that he’s sort of dropped more than one bomb at once on his friends, and he braces himself for impact.

“So let me get this straight-“ Lu Han has his hands resting on the table behind him, and his fingers tap a rhythmless pattern into the wood.

“Gay,” Jongdae says. “I think you mean get this gay.” Kris smacks him upside the back of the head.

“Grow up,” Kris hisses, but Yixing just laughs and adjusts the settings on his camera.

“It’s fine,” Yixing says. “Yes, Jongdae. Gay.” It’s not that simple, but Yixing doesn’t expect other people to understand when he doesn’t get it himself.

All Yixing knows is that Jongin is… Jongin is the person who dragged Yixing kicking and screaming out of his own reservations and fear, and Jongin is the person who makes it all worth it, in the end. Jongin is better than any Lucie award or any gallery show, because Jongin is an endless world of photographs Yixing has yet to take.

“It’s not fun if you’re not even the least bit defensive,” Jongdae says. “Also Lu Han owes me 300 yuan.”

“I never agreed to that,” Lu Han says. “I knew he’d figure out he liked Kai way before you did, you vulture.” He turns to Minseok with puppy dog eyes. “Didn’t I?”

“You sure did,” Minseok says consolingly, not looking up from the computer.

Yixing should be upset that his friends have been taking bets behind his back, but Kris looks dismayed enough for the both of them, so he settles for laughing, an effusing warmth spreading from his belly all the way up through his chest.

“I want to take a photo.”

“What’s stopping you?” Lu Han says, but Yixing shakes his head.

“Of you guys,” he clarifies, and Minseok spins around in his spinning chair as Kris blinks in surprise.

Somehow they all stand and assemble, and Yixing unpacks his camera from his backpack. It’s a new roll, so he takes a picture of the surge bar in the corner before he looks through the viewfinder.

“Smile, you guys,” he says, and as they bicker and clamor to fit together in front of Minseok’s desk, Jongdae bending forward in front and Lu Han making bunny ears behind him. Minseok is laughing as Kris stoically stands with his hand on the computer monitor and the other resting on Lu Han’s shoulder.

Yixing takes the picture before they’re ready. Minseok’s mouth is wide open in a laugh and Jongdae is looking up at Kris and Lu Han’s eyes are wild. Kris looks a bit constipated.

“Yixing, that was cold, man,” Jongdae says, and Yixing laughs.

“We can take another,” Yixing says, and he lifts the camera back up to his eye and squints through the viewfinder. “I’ve got plenty of film.”



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Jongin holds the camera up, so neither of them can see through the viewfinder, lens pointed toward their mashed together faces.

“What’s the story?” Yixing laughs as he says it.

“An artist and his muse,” Jongin says, tone pretentious, and Yixing laughs even harder as Jongin presses the shutter.



#



Yixing is not a snake that can shed its old skin and start over anew, gleaming as it slithers free of it’s old shell into the grass.

But he feels sort of like that as Jongin’s hands slide down his arms and take Yixing’s long cultivated detachment with them layer by layer as he pushes in slow and gentle and fucks Yixing until Yixing claws at his back for release.

Yixing feels like he was a roll of film still in the can, and Jongin has carefully taken the negative of Yixing’s heart and exposed it; printing him perfect beneath stubborn lips and fluttering eyelashes.



TIP 10



One of the most important things about photography-- capturing the perfect photo of Jongin, stretched out across the sheets with one hand curled up and mashed into his cheek, lines from Yixing’s pillowcase across the other side of his face, and long legs almost golden against white cotton, is that one has to believe in luck.

No matter how great the photographer, one cannot take that ideal photo if there’s nothing to take it of.

Sometimes it’s luck that a photograph appears in front of Yixing’s eyes; like now, as Jongin’s chest rises and falls with steady, even breaths to an inaudible beat.

Yixing picks up his camera, sitting up carefully so he doesn’t disturb his sleeping love.

Yixing holds the camera up, squinting through the viewfinder until everything is a pale wash of whites and beiges and yellows, and the shadows of Jongin’s dark hair a vivid contrast against it all. Even in sleep, there’s still something restless about Jongin—Yixing thinks Jongin’s skin is dancing to make up for the stillness of his limbs.

He clicks the shutter, and there’s the whirr of sliding film in the belly of the camera; a simple 35mm roll.

Yixing smiles.

It’s color film.

When Yixing dreams, it’s alight with every tint of the rainbow, and Jongin’s eyes shine gold.

This is luck.






END

Comments

[natsudive]

sOBBING ALL OVER THIS FIC OKAY IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL

i thought this would take me, like, a week to finish but i guess it just drew me in. and i think i learned some things about photography along the way, lol. i like how you used the song titles for the for the titles of his photographs, and really all the little pieces of canon (lu han being obsessed with xiumin, lay's spaciness, etc). i think that's probably my favorite thing about your writing in general, that you're able to incorporate all that so well.

just yeah idk /throws my heart at your face

i hope that hurt. it's made of ice.

[reebeegee.livejournal.com]

It really is.... Ugh I feel like I'm too nostalgic for my age. 19 is too young to be missing my childhood/high school years so much (even though I have plenty of reasons to never want to go back to high school)

I'm glad you were able to survive :) It'd a be a horrible tragedy if this never was completed. Lol I'm pretty sure it's easier to survive as the reader, in my opinion at least. The longest fic I've ever written has only been 11 something thousand and I nearly wanted to rip my fingers off by the end of it. I'm too afraid with longer fics that I will never complete them.

You're welcome :D

[murrc4.livejournal.com]

I wanted to post earlier, but I had to read again because I was seriously dumbfounded at the beauty. Dumbfounded. I know you know...you have to know.

Yixing doesn’t photograph people; not just because photographing people might steal a piece of their soul, but because it steals a piece of Yixing’s soul, too, and crystallizes moments that Yixing sometimes wishes he could forget. That just burns in such a painfully beautiful way.

There are so many lines and lines and lines that are stuck behind my eyes – I thought about this fic before sleep last night and woke up thinking about is this morning.

You are love.

[kaisoo.livejournal.com]

Hi, My comments suck..like they really do but Im gonna try to make a coherent comment.
Okay, so I read this last night.. it took me about 2 hours? and oh my gosh..I shouldve read it slower... because it was soooo good.
I .. I dont even know what to say, really. I been thinking about to write here all day..
but this was amazing and I felt like I was there..watching everything happen.
every scene was completely beautiful and I wish to read this all over again..all my feels are like all over the place.
I loved the way Yixing interacted with people..and how you showed us his darkest secrets..and his past..and everything that was holding him down from taking pictures of people again..and I dont know but I felt like I just became an expert on photography and now I kinda want to try it and its all your fault. so I blame you.
but seriously, this was awesome. I cant even..I think I have to come back when Im calm enough to really write something worth reading.
but thank you for sharing, and this made me very happy.
and Now Im shipping this otp. -blames you again- but im not complaning

[kaisoo.livejournal.com]

and by the way, you are one of my favorite authors. your fic allego..changed my life in a way?

[onyu.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'll be able to find words to express how wonderful this fic is. The characterization was just so spot-on, and I love how you suddenly add a pop of color in the end. You've really done the art of photography justice, and I say this as a photographer.

This was amazing. Please keep writing. :)

[livesmiling.livejournal.com]

this was beautiful
memming

[zitaos.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry for whatever comment i leave you. it will probably be flagged for spam.

this story had photography which i know diddly squat about so this is exciting to me. and you are a genius for being able to write about 40k worth of fic (with a subject i know nada about btw) and make it flow so naturally that i don't even feel like i'm reading 40k. you're really, really, really good at that and your pacing is perfect, too. you know just how much to give the audience so that we're engaged but still inquisitive and begging for more so we keep going until we reach the end and then sob about the fact that it's over. at least that's what i do. and i'm going to go ahead and say this is my favorite fic from you that i've read so far. it was just such a nice read and i loved everything about it from the small little photography tidbits (i know nothing about it, so it was refreshing to read those helpful tips you threw in; i like learning about stuff like that and it didn't bore me or go over my head in the slightest) to all of your descriptive imagery (i especially liked how you described how yixing views the world in black and white and then in color whenever jongin crashes back into it) and how you keep all of the little mannerisms and characteristics from all of the band members in this 'verse. like how yixing always has his bag open and he stores pretzels inside because he's a snack-a-holic and how he kind of mentally lags behind a little, like there's a two second delay before he answers questions because he's processing all of it the information a little, kinda like how he aims his camera to line up the perfect shot because he's patient enough to wait until the right words come out.

your yixing is what makes this fic my favorite. i love your jongin too, i love all of your jongins tbh because they're all different but similar at the same time like it's a continuation of his story, but your yixing is what made me love this fic so much and will probably make me re-read it all the time because it seems very personal and like there's lots of litte bits and pieces of yourself in him and i think that's something very special and gutsy to do. from the very beginning of the fic to the end, you develop him so nicely and it felt like i knew him so well. he was the right amount of spacey without being obnoxiously so. and yixing's pain throughout most of the story until he learns to let go through jongin is keysmash worthy so i will keysmash awelrkjlekjaa. i also love how frank he can be sometimes and just so honest and then very random that everyone, especially jongin, thinks of him as confusing. that's so yixing to me. he's such a well developed, deep character here and has so many layers and i just love it and i could cry and keysmash some more but my keysmash is really bad and stuff.

and omg when you introduced Tears Airport i almost died because how you incorporated that into this photography verse is just so cool and wow, how does your brain work. you're a genius. like seriously. along with all the other little shout-outs like all of jongin tbh he seems so real and exactly like the jongin in exo-k that we have, not kai (which we can see when he's on stage performing and yixing sees it for the first time). like all the shy smiles and i don't know how to say it, but he seems very much like the boyish jongin we see at airports who's sleepy sometimes or when he's playful backstage and goofing off. idek what i'm saying.

also EXO being maknae line. do you want to kill me?! i could've shed tears at that okay. actual tears down my cheeks. tears airport down my face.

idek what this comment is anymore. it was probably supposed to be nice and wonderful and well-thought out and shit but then it just progressed into me crying so....yeah...

tl;dr: i love you, you are wonderful, etc etc, xoxo

[xiuminswaifu.livejournal.com]

Oh.my.god. That was so freaking beautiful in every single way I can't even start to describe it omg shnstcjydvbxucfhh
;-----;
Thank soooo much for writing this beautiful story! /hugs you

[nara1214.livejournal.com]

This was so good ! I loved the description. Also how I could feel and understand everyone's emotions.

[yixingz.livejournal.com]

how to breathe. how to comment. how to live. omfg, what is life anyways :o
this was absolutely beautiful and sobbing. i was so scared to finish it because ;~; kaixing is rare and such a beautiful fic breaks my heart T-T

but omg, so many lines i loveeeee. (spam of quotes, sorry because not coherent enough to legit comment. fic too good.)

“The ground?” Yixing had said, and she had laughed. “Why?” “Because… it’s there?” --- CRYING BECAUSE TOO FUNNY
He looks like an alien. --- PMSL
Yixing doesn’t photograph people; not just because photographing people might steal a piece of their soul, but because it steals a piece of Yixing’s soul, too, and crystallizes moments that Yixing sometimes wishes he could forget. --- ;~;
"I like him," Sehun says, jerking a thumb at Yixing. "He understands your abject failure at not being weird." --- i like you, sehun. you're amazing ♥
"No," Zitao says with a smirk. "I just thought we at least pretended like I wasn't the most attractive member-" --- omg, tao. <3333
“I take it you weren’t actually listening to my rant about Lu Han and his inappropriate butt-grabbing in the office,” --- DIED LAUGHING
“We’re all scared, right?” Kris smirks. “Well, not me, but most people.” Yixing gives him a raised eyebrow. duizhang, no. just. no.
Yixing doesn’t like men, necessarily, but he likes Jongin. --- GOOD ENOUGH ^^b
He reaches for his camera, and takes a photo as Jongin’s hands skate up his bare chest. “You’re so weird,” Jongin says, --- you are omg. who does taht :o
“Don’t think about anything but me.” --- sobbed so hard tbh
“Gay,” Jongdae says. “I think you mean get this gay.” --- laughed too hard.

♥

[snowy-yuki.livejournal.com]

this is so beautiful /sobs

[♛鹿晗 (from livejournal.com)]

Just fucking sobbing ♥

[starrymoons.livejournal.com]

maia i am going to DIE
first off i found 2 typos that i can think of right now!

“I thought color was distracting,” Jongin says.

“It is,” Jongin replied. “But just this once, it made things a little clearer.”
i believe that is supposed to be Yixing!

as Yixing takes photographs of the way Jongin’s hipbones just out when Yixing drags a fingers across the skin there
and i think you meant jut?

NOW THE STORY
i am really really bad at expressing my feelings in words especially online but this was just really beautiful above all else. some people think writing this much is overkill but with you, it never is. to me, there is always something in every scene that makes it worth all the words.

i like how their relationship developed naturally and not rushed the way they tend to be written sometimes, it just felt like over the course of the fic the love just fell together instead of popping out of nowhere.

i really loved all the mentions of his grandmother and the scenes with his grandmother because they showed a little bit of yixing that no one else knew, since it felt like his grandmother really knew him more than anyone else.

there are 10239481024 other things i could say but i just really loved this and i think that's the best i can say ;w;

[enen-chan.livejournal.com]

EFFING BEAUTIFUL. ;~;

[loudestoflove.livejournal.com]

THIS IS THE MOST BELATED COMMENT I'M SORRY

MAIA MAIA THIS IS SO PERFECT. i loved the way that you structured it, with the dreams and how they evolved, as well as the quotes and rules for photography. i really loved how well you incorporated the photography in general? i am no pro but i took a couple classes in hs and my dad is an amateur photographer and i have always really loved it. the way that you brought in your knowledge of things gave it a very realistic tone without being overwhelming? like it rang true without also being a lesson in photography. you made me miss my days in darkrooms.

i always love your yixing, always. i think he can be a bit complicated, but i love how nuanced your yixing is, how everything he does sets him up a little bit more, gives the reader a little bit more. stuff like when he accidentally puts the phone on speaker with his chin and offers the old woman a hand, it's all such a lovely set up. it's also lovely to see the way that yixing evolves and changes after meeting jongin, the way his focus shifts and his world turns outward again

it was really interesting to see kai through yixing's eyes, through first the photographer's filter and then when that filter slips a little and kai worms his way into yixing's life. i liked the running theme of kai being all colour and movement, because that is just so accurate. the fact that yixing sees past kai's image rings so true to me, because yixing is deceptively perceptive and that's something i've always liked about him. your kai is such a delight to me, you always nail his combination of maturity and still being a complete teenager.

i loved them together oh so much omg swoons. i loved how yixing held back until he was absolutely certain, while kai, all awkwardness and inexperience and nerves inched toward him. the way that yixing kind of just let it happen until baekhyun pointed out oh btw what are you doing after this is over?? and yixing had a definite oh shit moment, ugh i just loved it. the slow build and the way they kind of slid into things, the way that yixing saw jongin, not kai, ♥____♥ basically

I LOVED YOUR INCLUSION OF CHINALINE OT3, their nice comfortable relationships, layhan brotp of mischief and the way that kris is all resigned to their teasing (also: Yixing always thinks Kris has the same lines as a New York City skyscraper, lean and strong and a little intimidating. that line made me want to lay down on my face and never write again, it was so perfect and such perfect characterization, for both). i loved his kind of gentle concern and the way that he prodded yixing to do what he wanted bc of course duizhang knows best. and luhan too, esp his obsession with minseok, bc lol. the maknaes were perfect too, with their squabbling and teasing, i really enjoyed their little cameos.

i'm throwing around the l word all over this comment but i genuinely adore the way you write, i always have. i love the way you build a world and how all of the side characters are just as well-drawn as the main characters. basically every time you write fic i devour it and then end up happy crying at the end and wanting to roll around in it.

[needsm0retime.livejournal.com]

A;SLDKFJ;LKJF;ALS i think i've found my favorite exo fic??? /o\

just...ughh. everything about this was beautiful ;;. words can't describe how much i love this and this pairing and omg all my FEEEEELLLLSSS ;;. ilu ♥

[swabluu.livejournal.com]

Wow.
I don’t know what to say.
Just.
Wow.
This is beautiful. Gorgeous. Amazing. The imagery is so perfect and the entire color and monochrome and grayscale and the ending is so…mindblowing. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Just.
Wow.

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

no it was just me :P i try to log out but sometimes i forget.

sorry to have abandoned this entry for a little while, haha, but WOW they're unedited??? that's... what's the lens on that camera again????

(i've never been there, the casemates i mean, but omg now i want to go so much *_______*)

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

still in love with this comment. ;_____;

i'm such a huge fan of denial, because it's such a huge part of the dynamic that makes romance interesting to me-- i don't even know why, haha, but people telling themselves no makes it so much more meaningful, then, when there is finally no choice but to say yes.

did you think i would make them kiss, in part 5???? that was my cocktease moment of the day <3 <3 <3

and... thank you so much. i just really love to write, and i know that the way i write isn't to everyone's taste, but i'm glad that some people like it-- that it's the sort of fic that some people can connect with, because i really want to make people connect with me, and with the EXO boys as I write them. And I'm glad you loved this fic-- this one and UL are the most personal fics i've written for exo fandom and i... ;; <3 well, i'm just really glad. and i'm glad you want to be friends with me ^^ i love making friends so much <3 <3 <3

just, thank you, thank you ;________;

<3,
maia

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

<3 <3 <3

i think so too! I grew up around photography-- my dad used to turn our kitchen into a dark room twice a week and my brother and i would try to stumble between the wires to get out to go to school. some of my favorite memories are of my father teaching me how to hold the camera... and i wanted to share that, because /yeah/, everyone has a special memory preserved in a photograph, and that's something we can all connect to :)

;_______; i write because i can't speak. well, i can, but not well-- i stutter and stumble over words and i'm not always good at saying what i mean. but with writing i can say anything i want, and all the things i can't say with words, and it makes me happy. and that's enough.

I LOVE WRITING AU'S THAT HAVE LOTS OF CANON. for me, the whole challenge of an AU is making some aspects of it feel like canon. and uh... I'm glad you liked the kaixing ;; <3

thank you so much for reading, and leaving me this lovely comment!!! ;; <3

--maia

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

<3 <3 thank you very much!!!

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

I'LL GO CHECK FOR IT :D :D

[mi-iseul.livejournal.com]

Hehehe No worries. <3

I brought the camera down yesterday so it's right here. The lens is a Nikon DX VR AF-S NIKKOR 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G (if that helps any) tho I could have gone for the 18-105mm. It was slightly more expensive and I could only just afford this one, so... :( *was gutted tho* It has HD video capability tho! I just have to work out how to do it. LOL (the instructions are useless >.< will have to find the online manual and go with that instead.) I also have 2 filters on it, a HOYA UV filter and a HOYA circular polarising filter. I also have a linear filter but it kept falling off >.< so I put it away so I wouldn't lose it. (damned thing) Those things are NOT CHEAP, so if I'd lost it, I would have been very not happy.

(you'll have to come visit me sometime when we're there, or when we finally move there for good. we're sort of honourary friends anyway, yes? since I've know Mec for a long time already hehehe ^.~ <3 I'll show you around Luxembourg and our little patch of Germany and France =) Photo holidays ftw)

[maayacola.livejournal.com]

digital cameras have their moments but film has some kind of MAGIC *___*