He took a deep breath and said, “What do you want to know?”

Jiyong stepped closer to Vick and said, “Let’s talk about your parents’ divorce, is that ok?”

Vick looked up at him and then looked at the watch on his wrist saying, “I don’t really have a choice do I, since we only have an hour left.”

“Just be honest with you emotions and the time will pass quickly, I promise.” Jiyong said as he motioned Vick to sit at the table. He changed the lighting really fast and walked over to meet Vick.

“How did you parents first tell you they were getting a divorce?” He brought the camera up ready to start shooting.

Vick closed his eyes and thought back to when he was a little boy. He remembered how his father was always making him and his mother move from city to city because of his job. His parents were always fighting and screaming at each other whenever he came home from school. Except for one day in middle school when he walked in to an eerily quiet house.

“I had just finished school that day. My parents were always at each other’s throats whenever I came home. But that day, I found them in the living room together, not saying a word to each other. My mom was sitting on the couch with tearfull eyes looking at ground and my dad was standing behind the couch with his back turned to mom. As I walked into the room, I ran right for mom.” He heard the clicking of the shutter as he continued,  “I sat next to her asking her what was the matter, but before she could respond, my dad turned around and said, ‘Son, we need to talk.’ It was then that they told me how things weren’t working out between them and they were separating.”

Jiyong listened to Vick as he described his memories and asked, “Can you remember how you felt? What was going through you head?”

“At first I felt numb. Like this wasn’t really happening, like a dream. No a nightmare.”

“Ok, go on.” Jiyong was starting to take more pictures as Vick became lost in his memories.

“I remember how that week had started out really bad for some reason. And by the end of the week, this happened. I just couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it. How could my parents do this to me? They just couldn’t. It wasn’t right.”

Jiyong internally gave a sigh of relief and asked, “Now, what’s that feeling you are talking of? How you didn’t want to believe this was happening. Think about why I’m asking you this during this particular photo shoot.”

Vick closed his eyes contemplating everything that had happened today and what they talked about. He thought about what he was telling Jiyong and about the concept of the shoot.

Then it clicked.

His eyes shot opened and found Jiyongs’ as he whispered, “Denial.”

From that moment on Vick understood everything.

They restated the main part of the photo shoot and continued going through every stage of grieving; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance using Vicks’ past emotions.

Vick told most of his story up until his last year in high school. He explained to Jiyong how after his parents told him, he became an angry child. He shutdown and would not talk to anyone even at school. After the divorce was finalized his father moved out, leaving him and his mother to fend for themselves. Then about a year later, his mother had found someone and they moved in with him. But he soon realized that his mother was too preoccupied with her new romance to give him any attention. When he couldn’t stand living in the house with his mother any longer, he told her he was going to live with his father. She tried to convince him otherwise but he said it he just wanted to get away.

He would never forget the last thing his mother said to him on the day he left for his fathers. As he was walking away, she said to him, “You’re just like him you know. Never telling me how you feel, never wanting to be around me. So of course I found someone new, he at least’s love me.  You obviously don’t, because just like him, you’re leaving me. Abandoning me.”

He wanted to tell her how he was the one who felt abandoned. How he felt like she didn’t want to be around him. But she had already walked back into the house.

He lived with his father who had remarried someone by the time he entered high school. He didn’t tell his dad the real reason for leaving his mom. He told him that he thought it would be for the best if he lived in the city during high school so he could be used to it by college. His father didn’t care what Vick did as long as he didn’t make trouble, he was free to live his own life.    

Throughout middle school and high school he was always on the heavyset side, but after going through the divorce, battling depression, and having hormones finally kick in, he lost a lot of his weight. He started to fuel his anger into something healthy and took up exercising. By his last year in high school he became fit, well defined and essentially better looking.

And that’s the year a modeling scout contacted him taking him away from the family who forgot about him. 

They progressed through the photo shoot without a problem. Vick let himself breakdown emotionally and Jiyong was there to capture every moment. When he took the last picture he looked at Vicks tearstained face. Jiyong had always be very susceptible whenever he saw other people's pained expressions, and Vicks was no exception.

He walked over to Vick who was sitting on the couch. He set down his camera on the coffee table and kneeled down on one knee in front of the distraught man. Vick had brought his head down, his face in his hands, trying to cover himself from Jiyong. Jiyong placed one hand on Vicks' knee and said in a soft whisper, “We’re done now.”

All Vick could do was nod in response because he didn’t trust his voice enough to speak.

Jiyong squeezed the man’s knee and said, “Thank you for trusting me. Really, I understand how hard this must be. So thank you.” He pushed himself up off the floor and started to walk away when a hand reached out and grabbed his.

He looked down and saw that the man’s face was still facing the ground. He barely heard him mumble, “Thank you.” And then Vick dropped his hand, got up, and started walking towards the changing rooms saying, “I’m going to get out of this costume. Don’t go anywhere, ok?”

Jiyong chuckled to himself and yelled back saying, “Where else would I go?”

About 10 minutes later Jiyongs phone started ringing. He looked at the caller ID and then proceeded to answer it.

“Hey its been over an hour and a half, should we start heading back to the studio,” asked Seungri.

“Yeah, sure thing. We just finished actually. See you in a bit.”

He was packing up some of his equipment when Vick walked back out into the studio. He looked up and saw that the man acted like nothing had happened in the past hour, except for the look in his eyes. Vick walked over to where Jiyong was standing and tried to start talking to him, “Umm… I… I don’t… I don’t normally do this but for some reason I feel like we’ve grown closer in this short amount of time. And I don’t really have that many people who I can talk to, so I was wondering if-“

Just then the door opened with the crew walking into the studio returning from their outing.

Before anyone could notice them, Vick leaned down and whispered into Jiyongs ear, “Can I call you sometime. Like when I get back from Japan?”

Jiyongs stomach did a third flip that day as he looked up at Vick. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his business card, handing it to Vick. Vick took it and stuffed it into his pants pocket as Daesung came up to both of them and asked, “So, how did it go?”