The next Monday, you showed up at school with your new camera bag, proudly showing the world that you now had something good to take photos with, and especially knowing that the best camera was the one you always had with you. You caught Eli’s smile when he noticed you had it with you, but he didn’t say anything and concentrated on work.

One month passed, and you were getting frustrated. Not because your material wasn’t enough for you – believe me, it was plenty enough for now -, but because you didn’t feel like you had anything to shoot. You liked portrait a lot, but you had nobody to do a photoshoot with. You liked macro photography of flowers, insects and such quite a lot, but it wasn’t like you had flowers anywhere near where you lived. You also liked landscape photography, but wherever you went, there were tall buildings hiding the horizon…

“What are you thinking about?” Eli asked you in a soft voice on a boring Friday, during a break.

“Hmm?”

“What are you thinking about? You seem thoughtful. And annoyed. Did I do anything wrong?”

You shook you head softly. You didn’t hate Eli anymore. Not after he had been such a gentleman with you for the past month. You still tried not to let him know, or else he’d probably stop being such a sweetheart with you… right?

“Nah…”

“What are you thinking about then?”

“Stuff,” you sighed, grabbing your camera and a microfiber cloth to clean the screen of your camera.

“Do you think it’d be cool to have a photoshoot together? I mean, you behind the camera, and me in front of it.”

You blinked a few times.

“Eh?”

“Photoshooooot ~ You taking photos of meeee ~ Hellooooo ~ Are you sleeping with your eyes open? Or maybe you’re just deaf?”

“I’m neither of these, idiot,” you sighed. “I just don’t understand what makes you think I’d actually like having photos of you on my laptop.”

Actually you had plenty photos of him on your laptop. Eli in Neverland, Eli in Dora Dora ( he was hot like this), Eli in Tick Tack, Eli in Man Man Ha Ni, Eli in Forbidden Love, Eli in Stop Girl, Eli in Should’ve Treated You Better, Eli in 0330, Eli in Inside of Me (oh gawd, you were glad there was this ‘in’ between the name and the title), Eli in - anyway. You just couldn’t believe that he was actually offering to let you take photos of him. Like, YOU, taking PHOTOS of an IDOL. And a y one, at that. Taking photos of an idol, as many as you wanted, and then processing them on- . You didn’t even want to think about the massive nosebleed you’d have. If you died of a blood loss, it was his fault. You’d write a letter in your own blood to say he was the one who had killed you.

“Well… I don’t know. You can sell them if you want. On eBay or something. ‘U-KISS Eli, exclusive photoshoot! Real-size poster!’ That’d probably sell for quite a lot if you let people bid. Imagine, you make them print with the high-quality printer of the printing center here at school for almost nothing, in huge size, and you just sell them on eBay ~”

“T’es donc ben crosseur…” you mumbled in French, basically just telling him he was such a hustler.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Like you’d sell exclu-ing-sive photos. . Of course you’d keep them for yourself and you’d make wallpapers so you’d only publish them as small photos. Tsk. No way you’d let people have that.

“I’m not going to sell them. I’m not THAT much in need of money.”

“Keep them for a moment when you’ll be, then.”

“Is money all you think about?”

“Nope, but if you want to buy yourself more lenses…”

“I have plenty to do with the lenses you bought me for now.”

“Anyway, that is NOT the point there. Want to have a photoshoot?”

You sighed. Well, farewell, cruel world. You mentally prepared to die in front of your laptop when you’d start processing that bunch of hotness. Cause, well. Just. life, basically.

“All right…”

“When? Tomorrow?”

“Why not.”

“Where?”

“If it doesn’t bother you, we’ll start on the side of the school. There’s plenty of room there and it would probably look pretty cool with the brick wall. And then… then, I don’t know…”

“What about Old Montreal? With the river and the old buildings…”

Eli near the river, smiling softly, with the long jacket he had started wearing recently floating in the wind. Or Eli sitting on the fence preventing people from falling in the water, hands in his pockets, looking at the horizon, smiling. Or Eli under a streetlight at night, looking like he’s waiting for someone, looking badass with his mother fudging jacket, his pure black hair grabbing reflects of warm light here and there.

Because, well, life, eh. You were mentally ready to die anyway.

“Yep. Old Montreal would be a good place. If you don’t mind going there around the time the sun goes down, and a bit after it does.”

“I don’t mind. Would it make you happy?”

“The light would be so pretty ~”

“Then I’ll go and grab you a tripod on the way?”

“Dude, I have to go to Beaubien too, to go to Old Montreal.”

“But you don’t have a monthly metro pass. I have one, so I can move around as much as I want and it doesn’t cost me more.”

You sighed. “All right, fine then.”

“Cool! Then, when do you want to start it?”

You mentally smirked. He was basically asking you when he’d have to get up. You were planning on getting the most out of this model as you could. You didn’t like getting up early, but you wouldn’t let this occasion go to waste.

“Early in the morning.”

“How early?”

“Sunrise.”

“Oh. Thaaaat’s… pretty early.”

“Told ya.”

“But sure. I’ll be up. I suppose I should be over here before sunrise though so we can get prepared, so…”

“Yeah. We’ll both have to get up pretty early.”

“All right.”

You decided of the time he’d come over, and you mentally prepared yourself to go to bed early that night. Or else you’d be in a bad mood the day after and you didn’t want that to happen, because you loved photography, you loved portrait, you loved Old Montreal, and you didn’t hate Eli anymore. But he didn’t need to know that. You thought it was pretty obvious, but hey, he had his retarded moments at times, and it seemed like he hadn’t understood that you didn’t hate him anymore yet. Which was fine with you. It just made you live in the presence of a beautiful gentleman.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice pulling you out of your thoughts.

“What?”

“It’s okay with you, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The photoshoot… I mean, you don’t feel forced to do this, do you?”

“Why would I feel forced to do it?”

“Well, because you haven’t forgiven me yet… so, I mean, it might not be pleasant for you to imagine spending an entire day with me…”

You rolled your eyes. That… idiot. That stupid idiot.

“It’s okay. I don’t feel forced to.”

He smiled softly. “Good. I wouldn’t want you to hate me even more.”

You rolled your eyes again, sighing. Yep, he had retarded moments, and this was definitely one of them.