It was his day. It was Dong Hae’s long awaited Saturday. Actually, the anticipation was kind of staved off by the looming blind date that oh dear Sung Min had arranged for him. But that came later. It was the first time he was about to meet and be mentored by Mario Aguerre!

It was not even 7am when he skipped down the stairs, cheerfully calling out to his mum to give his breakfast.

His mum had this O.o face that made him smile even wider.

“I cooked for your dad today so it’s rice for breakfast. No usual bacon and eggs. You’ll have to make do with cereal if you don’t want rice.”

Usually, usually, it would have made Dong Hae sulk. But not that day, not even when he found out his extra chocolaty milo cereal was gone and had to settle for all bran. The plain, almost bitter all bran was like honey in his mouth.

After he was done, he even helped his mum to do the dishes.

“LOVE YOU, MUM!” He exclaimed and hugged his mother from behind while she was putting soup in a bowl for his dad. “Love you too. But isn’t it a little early for you to be getting ready? You’re not due until 1.”

“Heh, better early than late mum! I’ll tag along on the way to your studio. I won’t have to take the bus.”

There were repeated calls from both Hyuk and Sung Min throughout the morning. Dong Hae ignored both of them, of course. Hyuk, just for wanting to punish him a little longer and Sung Min, because what he was going to say was obvious. He would have wanted to know what Dong Hae was going to wear, whether Dong Hae memorized where the meeting was supposed to be, whether Dong Hae was blah blah blah. SIGH.

----

“Bye, mum! Draw good today!” Dong Hae waved as his mother drove off. She was an artist too but what she did was different from him of course. She was a portrait artist. And a very successful one at that. She worked on appointments only and very high profile clients come to get their portraits drawn. She sometimes did the hand drawn version of family photos.

His father was always complaining that between the artists in the family, he stood out like a nail being a boring office worker. It did not help that Dong Hae’s mom brought in more money to the family in certain festive months. But their family functioned well and they loved each other.

Dong Hae looked up at the building he was in front of. Yes. He was going to do it. 19^th floor, photography studio. Dong Hae breathed deeply, readied himself with a nod and walked towards the entrance of the building. It was a building donated by one of the rich government officials trying to make a good impression in the name of art.

“I’m here for the mentorship programme by Mr. Aguerre?” He sounded dumb, phrasing the statement as a questions and the front desk secretary smiled at him as she noticed his nervousness. “Go right up. You know where you’re supposed to go?”

Dong Hae nodded and thanked the pretty secretary. Shame he was bent the other way. The girl was one fine specimen of a female. Dong Hae made sure to check the girl’s name. Sandara. Hmm. An English name in Korea and it was not a hotel.

Dong Hae’s nerves could barely be contained when he arrived at the door of the studio. He quietly opened the metal double doors and walked in. There were not many people there. He remembered a guy he met at a competition just at the start of the year, sitting in the middle region of the few rows of seats. There were two girls at the very first row, looking back and waving at him. Dong Hae smiled and waved back.

A group of sporty looking guys were sitting at the back of the studio-classroom. Dong Hae wondered whether they were really there for the program. They looked like the type of people who would look down on geeks rather then BE geeks. Well, they were not geeks. They were obviously very popular guys, whichever school they came from.

He decided to go sit with the guy the vaguely knew. “Hey” The guy looked up at him as he sat down beside. “Hey.” Dong Hae replied with a smile. “We’ve met before. Now sure if you remember but at the start of the year…”

“Haha, of course I remember! Your the guy who beat me and won first place!”

Dong Hae liked the boy already. He looked easy going and not the over competitive type, looking at the way he .

“I was sure you’re gonna be here. If Mario didn’t take you in, all the rest have no chance.” The guy continued. “I’m Jay. Jay Park. Nice to meet you, officially.” Jay held out his hand.

Jay Park. Hmmm. Dong Hae was sure he had heard that name before. But where?

“Hello? I’m holding out my hand a little awkwardly here. It’d be great if you kindly reciprocated even you wanted to be evil and ignore me ya know?” Jay motioned toward his outstretched hand.

“Oh. Oh! Um. Haha. I’m Dong Hae. An English name, huh?” Dong Hae took Jay’s hand.

“Yeah, I just moved here this year.”

“Hmm.”

There was a companionable silence as they both did their own things. Jay looking at pictures in his DSLR and Dong Hae getting ready his laptop. Dong Hae kind of, may be, yes, studied Jay.

The boy was good looking, wearing a yellow beanie and geeky glasses that suited him. He was so white. His skin was probably even whiter than Hyuk Jae’s, Dong Hae thought. And that was saying a lot because Hyuk prided himself on his milky skin. And damn, those muscles on his arms. Dong Hae could not help but agree with Sung Min that he really needed to broaden his horizons on the boy issue front. Of course, he would never admit it to the pink devil.

Jay looked up and smiled at him and went back to looking at his pictures. Dong Hae definitely liked the guy. He did not make the situation awkward although he obviously knew Dong Hae had been staring at him. His social awkwardness would have made everything a disaster if he froze up.

More people trickled in until there were about fifteen people in the studio, and finally, Mario was here. Dong Hae’s expectations were met as the handsome man walked towards the front of the studio from the door. The man looked “photographer” from his clothes and hair to the way he carried himself.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Now, I’m sure all of you here are decent people and that’s why I chose you. Notice the decent “people” and not “photographers”. Being in the profession is not just “work” like others put it. You have to be a decent human being to capture images that fly past you as you live your own lives in this world.”

Taking a marker from the desk drawer, he started writing on the board.

“Someone tell me what I wrote here.”

A scoff came from the back of the room, followed by “An A.” It was probably one of the sporty looking guys. Dong Hae knew it was bad to stereotype but still.

“Yes, Shin Dong. An A. And I’m sure everyone here knows it too but…”

“It will be different based on each individual.” Dong Hae did not even notice his own mouth moving and blurting out whatever ridiculous thoughts he had.

“Whatthewhatthe.” He mumbled to himself and slapped his mouth repeated as Mario looked at him and the whole turned their attention to him. Jay chuckled beside as Dong Hae glared back.

“Ah. Dong Hae. If you can continue?” Mario addressed him, smiling knowingly.

“Um. Um. So you wrote an A. Ah. So it depends on who is looking at it. Just like he said, Shin Dong-shi saw your A as just that, an A. But it can be an alphabet. It can be pronounced as a phonic. And to those who do not know English, it can just be a triangular shaped thing drawn in red.” Dong Hae wanted to clamp his mouth shut. He was sure he was not making any sense talking in heavily accented English but Mario nodded. Oh. Haha. I must be making some sense.

“Yes. Now, if someone can tell me why I wanted that answer?” He said as he looked through the register. “Hmm. Jay, perhaps?”

“I guess. You were trying to say that this is just like photography. Or rather, any form of art.” Jay said in his perfect English. Dong Hae was surprised. It was the first time he was meeting someone that spoke English so fluently for real. It seemed so effortless. Seeing his amazed look, Jay smirked at him and Dong Hae scowled. Jay continued after a soft chuckle. “Many people look at your photos and form their own opinions from them. They will not think of your photos just like you did when you first saw them yourself.”

“I think these sessions are going to be interesting yeah? Such a vibrant group of people we have here!” Mario approved. “Yes, close. Thank you Jay. But I was referring, more specifically to a certain theme in Photography. As you all know, there is a structure here. You choose what you want to take pictures of based on a theme, gather them and then put them under smaller sub-headings. It’s a very systematic approach we have here.”

“But if it’s like that, won’t it become boring? The creative process would be interfered by all this system.” The girls at the front piped up.

“Exactly. But that’s why, this A! Even within a theme or a topic there are many different ways to let loose your creativity. That’s why, during our mentorship, we will be looking at ONE theme and work from there.”

Mario turned back again and wrote another work beneath the A.

“BEAUTY. Our theme will be beauty. And before next week’s session, I want all of you to list down all the possible sub-headings or descriptions of what YOu define as beauty. It’s not an assignment. It can be point form, typed or recorded or whatever technology has come up with that I don’t know. Clear?”

There were nods throughout the room and Mario dismissed the mentees.

“Interesting man, yeah?” Jay said as they walked out of the building together. “The first time I was so engaged in a lecture.”

As they both said good-byes and went their own ways, Dong Hae checked the time. It was just past 3 and he had plenty of time before he was met with doom. So, thinking that before the dreaded social awkwardness and weird stuff spewing from his own mouth was at least a few hours away, Dong Hae cheerfully headed home.

----

“Hello, Mrs Lee. May I come in?” Sung Min bounced on the front step of Dong Hae’s house.

“Of course. But Dong Hae’s not home yet. You can go wait in his room.”

Dong Hae had no idea what awaited him at home of course. There was a demented pink puffball going through his wardrobe and picking out many different types of clothing as the said Dong Hae arrived at his own front step.

An update after a long long time! I developed the back story a little more heh. And sorry if this update was a little boring. Think of it as a filler before hilarity ensues next chapter XD Did you guys like Jay and Mario? And also, sorry for the absence of Hyukkie in this update. He'll probably be sparse in the next one. Teaching a lesson to Hyuk for taking Hae grantedXD