“These ing .”

Luhan lowers the camera from his face as Zitao mopes and moans, hands reaching down to pry his heels from the grip of the shoes as he massages them with slender fingers. “Already? You’ve barely worn them for ten minutes, they shouldn’t hurt yet.”

“Oh, they don’t hurt just yet,” he hisses as he stands back up straight, face scrunching in discomfort, “but I can tell they’ll start to hurt pretty soon here.”

“Well,” Luhan sighs as he shrugs and raises the camera once more, “let’s hope they’re even the right size.”

The shutter clicks before he’s even given enough time to process the statement, and it takes Zitao by surprise as he hadn’t had time to actually pose, and when his friend lowers the camera from his eye to glance down at the shot, the wheels in Zitao’s mind start turning again as he says, “What?”

His friend perks up, then, and a shifty smile spreads across his lips, “Nothing.”

“Wait, don’t save that!” Zitao whines and reaches for the camera, only to have it snatched from his meager grip as Luhan tightens his possessive hold on it. “My legs are out!” 

“Don’t worry, I won’t shoot your legs,” his friend says with a slight roll of his eyes. “Oh, how about we get one of you by the tree? Hopefully, your neighbors aren’t home to see this.”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Zitao struggles slightly when he walks down the porch, and it only intensifies when he’s met with the few meager stairs that lead from the wood down to the pavement, and he groans and lashes out hands to grab onto the sturdiness of his friend’s torso as his knees bend and his hamstrings tighten and scream out at him. “Careful, one at a time,” Luhan goads as Zitao places one foot down onto the flat ground, and Luhan gives him a little supporting push to help lift him back into position as Zitao comes to a full stand. 

“ me,” he groans tiredly, wheezing into his friend’s shared air bubble. “I won’t be able to walk at all tomorrow.”

“Okay, Drama Queen,” Luhan laughs and lets the boy support himself on his shoulder, taking confident steps with wary hands strapped to his friend’s bicep as if afraid to let go. After letting the buzzing pain on the soles of his feet subside, Zitao lets go and steps over to the tree in the lush grass just beyond the stone porch. The soft earth recedes beneath the weight of his arched feet, and he’s almost positive he’s probably too heavy for this kind of shoewear by the way his footprints depress the grass below him, but anything for his mother’s welfare, right? “Get against the tree and don’t worry about your legs, I promise.”

He positions himself in front of the tree, prettily curtained in the shade as his hair cascades down his chest, covering what would be and should be s, but aren’t - mere covers with additional padding to mimic the flesh of bosoms. Luhan had suggested them as a bit of a last-minute-decision to make him look more like a female rather than someone in drag, and Zitao has to admit, they’re not actually that uncomfortable. 

“Tilt your chin up a little bit,” Luhan instructs as he raises the heavy camera over his eye and twists the lens just slightly. “No, to the side, not up. There, like that. Facedown a little - little bit more - that’s it, perfect.”

The shutter clicks and experimentally, Zitao shifts to his other side, bouncing his weight onto the ball of his other foot and feeling the ache rocket up his calf from the tension of the shoes. He hisses slightly, but keeps his face stoic and positioned as Luhan takes another, then another, all projected straight and Zitao can tell from here, where they stand meters apart, that the lens is zoomed in to not include his legs - just as Luhan had promised. 

It must be a wondrous sight, he thinks - if someone were to walk down the street and see someone dressed so prettily and delicately and have legs so hairy, they’d keep them warm in the winter. He’s sure he’d gain quite the stares since most people around here aren’t used to that kind of thing.

“Okay,” Luhan says as he lowers the camera and lets it dangle from his neck as he places his hands on his hips, and his mouth twists in thought. “Let’s get one of you beside the tree, and put one hand on it like it’s your lover.”

Zitao frowns, face contorting in humored confusion. “My lover? You want me to act like I make love to this tree?”

“No, dummy, just act all lovelorn and .”

Zitao does as he’s told, and finds that he doesn’t feel very insecure or fake right now - it feels nice, somewhat natural, to be taking pictures like this, so gentle and bright and innocent. It’s entirely unlike the other pictures he takes of himself, dark and brooding in an unsaturated film. He tries to imagine himself emotionally torn from a break-up, maybe saddened by a disheartening text message, and manages to take one picture with his eyes cast to the ground, and another making direct contact with the lens.

“Good, I like that,” Luhan comments absentmindedly. “Really brings out your eye makeup.”

He’s readjusted into more positions as they go along, back against the tree as he glances over at the camera, back to the camera with a lingering hand on the bark, obviously going for a secretive, al feel. He doesn’t mind it because it’s better than being near-fully exposed and spreading himself across the hood of a car, or something. Besides, this is only temporary. He hasn’t even applied for the job yet - and truthfully, he’s not even sure if he’s going to follow through with it.

The last one they do with the tree involves Zitao sitting down - thank , he thinks, as he outstretches his legs and sighs as the tension in his heels practically evaporates and he can give his tendons a rest - and Luhan kneels down at his side, blanketing his skirt over his legs as best he can and as elegantly as he can without mummifying his lower half, and places the boy’s hands in his lap for him, fiddling with his hair to straighten it, and adjusting him as he sees fit. “Don’t slouch too much. Chin out, we don’t want any double chin. There you go, and tilt your head down and close your eyes like you’re asleep. Nice, nice. Give me a small smile, like you’re dreaming. That’s it, perfect!”

The shutter clicks multiple times, and he assumes that Luhan is taking multiple-angles and he makes sure to take slow, even breaths. 

“You’re quite good at this,” Luhan comments with a little laugh as his voice thins, and Zitao assumes he’s pulled the camera away from his face and he takes the opportunity to open his eyes and glance up. His friend has knelt in front of him with the camera lax along his chest and a crooked smile on his face. “Modeling, I mean. You’re really a natural.”

“You act like it’s the first photoshoot I’ve ever been in,” Zitao snorts and lends his hands to his friend to help him stand, and Luhan’s arm muscles flex as the boy finds his footing. “Did you just forget the last few years of our friendship?”

“I didn’t mean folding your arms and leaning depressedly against a back-alley wall, you know,” his friend tells him and runs a hand through his hair. “When given a theme you’re not used to, you’re very good at adjusting to the newness.”

Zitao shrugs, because he is used to having his photo taken, and it really just comes down to getting into character and doing exactly what his given photographer tells him. He glances down at himself, brushes his hands on his clothes, and says, “Thank you, I guess.”

When he looks back up, Luhan is clicking through the photo roll in the camera, and Zitao takes it as an opportunity to call this whole shoot quits and he very quickly shucks his shoes off and sighs, practically moans, when the stressed skin of his bare feet meets the dewy, cool of the grass. He bends to pick the shoes up with a hand and steps over to glance at his camera in his best friend’s palms. “How’d they come out?”

“You’re gonna love ‘em,” Luhan smiles and tilts the screen towards Zitao’s line of sight, and presses a few buttons. “Check it out.”

His friend lets him flicker through the photo roll and Zitao’s heart leaps in his chest. The sunlight and the soft, latticed shading of the leaves have given him an ethereal appearance, bathing his silhouette in gentle light and glazing over his skin, softening his appearance as the coral tones in his rouge flushes his features. “Holy - that’s me?”

“That’s you,” Luhan confirms with him with a little laugh. “What’d I tell ya? I know my angles.”

“How come you never went into photography, then?” Zitao asks them as they return to the apartment porch and head back into Zitao’s house, twisting the key in the lock and letting Luhan go in first. “You’re so good at it.”

“Eh,” the blonde says with a shrug. “Not really my forte. I mean, of course, I enjoy shooting you because you’re my best friend, but I went all out this time because you let me do your makeup and you trusted me to make you look good. The full-time devotion isn’t really my thing.”

Once they’re inside, Zitao locks the door behind them and hangs his keys back up on the door hook, and drops the shoes carelessly beside the welcome mat as he trudges over to the living room couch to flop down on it next to his best friend.

“Are you sure? You could make a lot of money off of it, probably more than me, ‘cause I’m really bad at shooting people but you seem to be really good at it.”

“Nah, no thanks. I’m not gonna steal your artistic thunder.”

“No, don’t give up just ‘cause it’s my thing! You can do it, too.”

“Tao, I’m good, really,” he laughs and slings the strap off of his body from around his neck to place the camera in his lap. “I’ll stick with makeup, don’t worry. We can be a makeup-and-photography duo and book appointments together. Partners-in-crime.”

Zitao rolls his eyes and watches tiredly as his friend pulls the SD card from the underside of the camera. “So, what now?” He asks, legs thrown carelessly one over another with his skirt ruched up, more than likely presenting his underwear on display but in his house, he’ll be in his underwear if he wants to be. 

“We upload them to your computer,” Luhan says, already halfway into Zitao’s laptop being the only other person to walk the earth that knows Zitao’s password and has full permission for whenever-he-wants access. Their trust for each other has run so deep that they’ve even given each other access to their own individual credit cards. “And I say we post some of them on your blog and show your followers. Sound good?”

“Uh,” Zitao mutters, unconvinced. “I don’t think that will work. I mean, all of my followers are used to the melancholy undertones in all of my photos. All of the landscapes. I don’t want to make this a modeling blog.”

Luhan shrugs, then, and Zitao wonders if he’s got an idea. “Just say it’s your sister and say it was a test shoot. Bull a story. Say she’s - I don’t know, really shy, and you being a photographer, you offered her a shoot to make her feel more attractive. That way you’re baiting, but you’re baiting in a way that actually shows off your talents.”

“Okay, but that means they’re probably gonna want more pictures of my so-called sister,” Zitao explains dryly. 

“Yeah,” Luhan nods. “I know. What do you think this whole job is for?”

His mother, really, but perhaps Luhan has a point. If he gets more traffic and therefore more money for pictures of himself in disguise as his sister, then it’ll give him an idea of how many people would potentially pay money just to see his face again, and therefore, will give him an idea of how successful he might have a chance to be if he decides to take the risk and jump the course. “Fine,” he decides. “How many should we upload?”

“Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide.”

The laptop is turned his way and Zitao hoists himself back into a sitting position, nearly having fallen asleep in his comfortably lazed spot on the sofa, and scrolls through the folder of the uploaded pictures. Some of them uploaded sideways, but Zitao is used to having to adjust photos once they’re on his computer, and especially having to retouch photos and apply additional filters to them as necessary. 

Zitao settles on uploading just two pictures to be discreet and not too obvious - one of him resting a hand and his forehead thoughtfully against the tree, and one of him sitting against it with the sun shrouding him from behind. Seeing such lively pictures in such healthy lighting actually makes him feel as though they don’t need any additional retouching and filtering, and he uploads them as is. 

With a following as minuscule as his, feedback is simply not going to be immediate, so he’s got hours worth of time in his palms to kill. With a sigh as he watches the post turn live, he settles back in his spot, looks over at his best friend, and asks, “So what should we do now?”

“You bore easily,” Luhan laughs and rests his cheek against his fist, propped up on the sofa’s bound arm. “Hm, well it’s almost noon. Wanna hang out today? Go out for lunch, hang out somewhere, maybe swing by the hospital later to see your mother.” 

“I’m not really hungry yet, though,” Zitao pouts. “We could just go out and have a snack and then go out for dinner, then spend the evening at the hospital.”

“What time does your mother usually sleep?”

“Hm, usually she falls asleep around ten or eleven, then wakes up in the middle of the night and sleeps until late morning. I’ve spent the night there many times. She watches movies at four in the morning, sometimes.”

“Insomnia?”

“Hm, a little bit. Most of it’s the pain. The morphine’s wore off halfway through the night, so she gets a dose every six hours now. Once at nine, then again at three, and repeat.”

“Ah. I’m sorry she’s suffering.”

Sighing, Zitao lays back against his friend’s shoulder, “It’s fine, it’s not your fault.”

Comfortingly, and much to Zitao’s pleasure, his friend lifts a hand and gently pats him on the head, smoothing the dark hairs out of the boy’s face and smiling when he hums childishly in satisfaction. One might think of it as romantic but inside their friendship bubble, they’ve established long ago that neither of them would ever develop feelings for the other, giving them the safety of a perfectly platonic intimate friendship. “So, out on the town, yes?” He asks, and the boy groans immaturely. Luhan laughs as he gently nudges him off and stands, stretching his limbs out and rolling his neck. “I suppose I’ll go get changed.”

The boy lets out a sigh as he sits up in his spot, “I’ll go change, too.” 

“Oh, no,” Luhan stops him with a raised hand, and Zitao’s face stills in bated surprise, “no-no. I’m not gonna go through all the hassle of making you look nice only to have you take it all off. If we’re going out, you’re staying like that.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you’re going to live like a girl, you have to get used to acting like a girl, too. That includes getting used to wearing high heels.”

Zitao’s lips curve, then, as if about to whine, “But won’t people, like… check me out? I don’t want to be stared at.”

“Oh, of course,” Luhan nods and crosses his arms over his chest, “but don’t worry, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend for a day. I won’t let anybody do anything to you. Let me go get changed, yeah? And then when I come back we can head out.”

When Luhan takes his leave, the pout comes in full swing as the weight of what’s going on finally sinks down onto Zitao’s shoulders. He’s going to have to go out into the entire viewing world like this, dolled up and exposed and unable to run and hide. People are going to know he’s a fraud, they’re bound to know - people aren’t stupid. And yeah, sure, Luhan has a skillful hand and a great time paying attention to detail, but with each minute that passes, he feels less like a female and more like a man in makeup. It’s not every day that he wants to burrow his head back into his bed and actually not see the public eye, or even swing by the hospital, but right now he feels more vulnerable than he’s ever felt in his whole life. “My legs are still hairy,” he says aloud, slouching slightly as he glances down at the stark contrast between the innocent satin touch of the skirt and the coarse, dark hair peppered sparingly all down his thighs. Although not an overly hairy man, Zitao certainly is aware that his body hair isn’t invisible.

Then, a response comes from deep in Zitao’s back bedroom, as Luhan shouts out, “I’ll bring you a pair of pants, sheesh!”

On his own, he’s dressed in dark colors, a graphite button-down tucked into seamless black pants that give off a sheen almost as if coated. What Zitao finds slightly humorous is considering how smartly the guy is dressed, he’s still walking around in dingy old white socks. 

“Here,” the blonde hands him the denim in his hands, and Zitao stands as he takes them. “They should fit, I used your measurements.”

The denim feels cold in his hands, but the comment begins to sink in and Zitao frowns, slightly confused, “How’d you get my measurements?”

Luhan had taken a half-hearted trip to the dining room table, back to the boy and as Zitao speaks, the blonde’s head turns over his shoulder, “I’ve had your measurements forever. Okay, well, I took them two years ago. This means if you’ve gained any weight in the past two years, we’re ed.”

Zitao watches as Luhan begins to fiddle with his makeup table and Zitao begins to think that the guy is already packing his stuff up - but then he realizes that Luhan is applying some on himself. He takes the opportunity to the skirt from his waist and let it fall to his ankles, and he begins to pull the jeans up his legs and onto his hips. Although a little snug, they do fit and they have some nice stretch in them, maybe more cotton-blend than wholly denim. 

The legs of the pants are tight all the way down to his ankles, and Zitao can’t remember the last time he wore super-skinny jeans. Middle school, maybe. Nevertheless, they do feel nice, and Zitao gets the aching feeling they’re women’s jeans because why would Luhan let him wear his familiar loose-leg men’s jeans? “What should I do now?” He asks, and his best friend turns to look at him with the makeup sponge pressed to his cheek. His face is blank, at first, but it falls as he begins to laugh to himself and stands from his seat.

“You’re so hopeless,” he says as he sets the makeup sponge down, and Zitao realizes he’s covered his entire face in that foundation stuff, his skin now a smooth, even shade of warm porcelain. “Move your arms out of the way.”

Zitao raises his elbows, keeping his arms above his waist, as his friend grabs onto his hips and begins to pull the waistband of the jeans away from his skin, and Zitao has half a mind to tell him to cut it out and that it’s making him uncomfortable - until his friend begins to tuck the loose ends of his blouse underneath the fabric, and Zitao realizes how frumpy he must’ve looked. 

“Don’t ever wear a blouse over high-waisted jeans,” Luhan comments idly. “It looks messy and makes you look uncoordinated. I’d recommend a cropped shirt with regular hip-huggers.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Zitao asks humorously. “You act like I own and regularly use feminine clothing.”

“They’re things you’re gonna have to know, dude. What if you’re not on the clock and one of your coworker girls asks you to go to a pub with her? What are you gonna wear? A hoodie that smells like men’s cologne and your ratty old jeans from tenth grade? Very convincing.”

Glancing down, Zitao takes in the sight of himself in the jeans. They’re a nice saturated dark blue with a soft cotton swath to them and accentuated tan threading. They don’t taper at the leg, rather staying pressed to his skin all the way down, and although not uncomfortable, Zitao worries about the spandex-like stretch in them. “Wait,” Zitao says suddenly, and his friend begins to wonder if maybe he’s hurt him by tugging on his clothes. Maybe he hadn’t put enough thought into how to handle Zitao in them, or if the jeans even hurt him at all. Then, the boy takes a shuddery breath in, and says, “What about… what about my ?”

It takes his friend too long to process just what he meant and just how he meant it. When it finally sinks in, however, he can’t help but let out an obnoxious laugh as if uncontrollable and pats his friend on the back. “Oh dear, do I really have to teach you how to tuck, too? Alright, let’s go. Come on. Class time with Luhan.”

They head into Zitao’s bathroom with the aforementioned woman in tow, and Zitao’s throat has run dry a long while ago. Is Luhan going to strip him down and handle him by himself? Zitao knows their friendship knows nearly no qualms but touching each other like that is where he draws the line. However, in the midst of his internal conflict, he watches as Luhan simply bends to reach underneath the sink - where Zitao keeps his soap and his cleaning products - and pulls out a pack of… something. Something that Zitao feels like he should recognize, definitely does recognize, and would rather not be known as the guy that uses them. “They’re women’s menstrual liners,” Luhan explains. “Obviously you don’t need them for menstruating, but a lot of girls wear them in their underwear if they’re going to wear thin pants, like leggings or yoga wear. They’re good for getting rid of s.”

“I’m not wearing a pad,” he deadpans. “I appreciate you doing all of this for me, Han, but this is really where I draw the line.”

“Can you just trust me for once?” His friend sighs, eyes rolling slightly as he gives him a narrowed look. “They’re very thin, you’ll barely even feel it’s there. They’ll help you tuck by hiding the shape of the tuck. Come on, try it. You have no idea if you’ll even like it until you try it.”

“Uh, I know for a fact I’m not gonna like wearing a menstrual pad, but okay. Whatever you say.”

“Put it on,” Luhan warns him with a playful scowl and takes a step out of the doorway to give Zitao some privacy. Honestly, when Zitao had woken up today, he can’t say he exactly expected to have to put on a menstrual pad in order to hide the parts of him that shouldn’t be exposed. 

Really, what has his life even become at this point? Whose idea was it for him to have to wear a ing pad in order to keep his mother alive? This had to be the most bizarre trade-off he’d ever heard of in his life. “How are you even supposed to tuck it, anyway?” He asks aloud and hears Luhan’s body rustle against the wall. “Do you like - tie it down or some ?”

“Oh my God, no, no tying anything. You tuck it back towards your .”

“...You do what now?”

“Just try it, Tao.”

Sighing, he does as told and unwraps the liner - small, he notes, and extremely thin - and lays it in the gusset of his underwear. Then, with a deft hand, he tucks himself down and back. It’s weird and slightly uncomfortable, and when he pulls his underwear back up, he feels as though if he were to squeeze his legs together too tightly he might accidentally hurt himself. 

When he’s done, he pulls his pants back up and looks at himself in the sink-top mirror. He definitely looks a little bit more flat-fronted, and call him crazy, but the apex where the crotch seam beelines against him appears smoother, almost like he doesn’t have hanging around outside of his body. Impressed, he opens the door and steps out.

Luhan is prostrate against the wall in a casual stance, arms folded over his chest and one leg crossed over the other as he leans his weight entirely against the wall, still looking just as dashing and just as clean-cut as he had before. “So?” He asks with a shifty grin when the boy faces him and they make eye contact, Zitao just as nervous as ever. “How did it go?”

He gulps slightly, unsure if he should be honest or lie just to spite this whole process and make it so he never has to use the stupid liners ever again. However, this is his best friend, and Luhan isn’t the type to do something to make Zitao look stupid. He really is the most helpful person that actively exists in his life right now, both with his mental state and also with his mother, so maybe it will just take some getting used to - just like a new tattoo or a new pair of shoes. He decides to be honest by saying, “...It’s tucked,” and could roll his eyes at the surge of pride that washes over his best friend’s face.

“See, what’d I tell you? God, you’ll be a natural at this job.”

“Han, I haven’t even applied yet. We don’t know if I’ll even get the job.”

“It’s not too early to start preparing, though,” his best friend taps him on the rear cheekily before returning to his spot at the table. “I’ve got an idea, yeah? We’ll spend the day out, have some dinner, then come back so you can change and we’ll head over to the hospital to see your mother so you can have some time to think about the job, alright? Then after that, we can talk about our next plan of action to decide just what to do next, and if you decide to apply, I’ll help you as best I can. Okay?”

Zitao sighs, forlorn, and glances over to his forgotten champagne-gold shoes lain by the door. It’s going to be a long day.