Luhan was late for art class again ,to be honest it was his least favorite class sitting around idly drawing bricks or vases it wasn’t his element, also he wasn’t very good at it so it was even more dreadful, but last weekend their drawing coach, Wu Yifan, whom everyone just called Kris said that since they were done with the preliminary course and are all pretty okay with still life drawing, they'll move to live sketching and portraits, maybe that would explain why Kris was standing next to a very fragile thin figure wrapped in a white cloth, in front of the class

Luhan took his seat next to lay and asked who the guy was ,"apparently he's the new model “he replied. "oh.."luhan said nonchalantly, took out his pencils and started sharpening them.

“ok so since it’s your first day let’s just do a simple portrait, afterwards when you’re a little more familiar with the environment we'll try something different, so for the portrait you just need to sit on the desk or the chair whichever seems more suitable, since you have to keep the same pose for at least thirty minutes, till everyone gets the basic outline, alright can you do that?" luhan heard Kris ask the model ,he probably nodded his head or spoke in a really low voice since he wasn’t able to hear the reply. He must have said yes, since the very next minute, "ok guys meet our new model xiumin-shi, it’s his first time modeling so were doing a simple portrait ,just focus on his silhouette, make sure you get the face and shoulders right ,alright, everyone ready?,xiumin shi are you ready" he nodded again, "great let’s start"

Everyone took a position ,they were sitting in an arc around the center table on which xiumin sat and posed ,back straight, face stoic, legs crossed ,he took off the white cloth he was in ,so now he was only in his boxer shorts, presenting a fine sight to the artists, everyone was at a certain angle to xiumin, most of them got his side profile only one person, a certain Chinese deer got the full view, who was sitting at a complete 180 degree, with the full view presented to him ,luhan was mesmerized for a second because xiumin seemed like the most flawless, visually perfect individual he had ever laid his eyes on.

He took his pencil and started with a few rough , trying to get the round face down, he finally made two circles where his cheeks should be, he smiled to himself thinking he is a complete baozi, when he again looked at xiumin with a slightly amused took, he thought he saw him tense, he must've been nervous, but he didn’t show keeping that poker face till the end, after getting the outline to his face and his silky smoothly hair that fell so perfectly on his forehead he moved to his eyes.

Xiumin had beautiful eyes, they were mono lidded and in a feline shape, luhan tried his best to capture them as perfectly on paper as the existed in real life but he was no Picasso, even though he got the same shape of both the eyes, the size varied also the distance wasn’t right ,he got frustrated and when he looked at xiumin again he could make out an expression of discomfort on his face, which he changed immediately, he must be getting tired, he’s been sitting like that for the past fifteen minutes.

Xiumin had a few dark circles around his eyes showing his fatigue he must have been sick or restless, he didn’t look healthy, but strangely he looked beautiful.

Luhan moved to draw his nose and lips, at this point he was only interested in getting his drawing done quickly so xiumin could get a break, unknowingly he had a protective feeling towards him. Xiumin’s lips as he noticed were so delicate yet so full, he was in awe of how beautiful he was, for the nth time probably.

Xiumin’s shoulders were bony, despite his slightly chubby face his body was not fat, it was bony and sharp. As luhan shifted his gaze from his neck to his shoulders to his collar bones and finally to his chest,it was beautiful milky white in color, flat and very youthful. He had a narrow frame, his shoulders and chest which narrowed down to an even slimmer waist. He was small but complete, everything on his body seemed perfect and refined and toned and sitting there for a good 28 minutes, he looked extremely cute with his cheeks puffed out in exhaustion.

“Alright guys better hurry up and finish the sketch, thirty minutes are almost up and xiumin looks like he could use a break,” Kris said, winking at Xiumin with his slightly hunched back and puffed cheeks, which he immediately caught onto and the very next minute he had his back straight and eyebrows quirked up in annoyance, a feisty one he was.

Thirty minutes were over and everyone reviewed their sketches, luhan who was really into it came out with a very average sketch even though most of his shapes were on point the distance and proportions were way out of line Baekhyun who was the most talented student in the class had the best sketch it was the closed to xiumins actual structure, everyone praised him.

Luhan had never cared for it before but this time he actually felt bad that he didn’t have the best sketch, he was the one who noticed all the fine details in xiumin’s face, he was the one with best angle, he was even more pissed when he saw Baekhyun make his way towards a very tired xiumin on a chair, again wrapped in his white cloth and leaning against his chair, he saw his sketch and immediately made a very surprised yet pleased face, baekhyun said something which made xiumin laugh, revealing his extremely cute teeth and gums, eyes forming crescents, luhan was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling ,blood rushing to his head making him stand up and make his way towards baekhyun , he saw the model  shift his gaze from baekhyun to luhan who was just walking towards them , but before he could reach them he was stopped by lay who started talking about something trivial when he finally got free he could see that both baekhyun and xiumin were  gone.  

Luhan asked kris where they went and he just told him that xiumin was only available for one hour and now he’s left. baekhyun carried his stuff and helped him out.

That day when luhan went back to his dorm room he had his mind filled with xiumin, there was so much mystery attached to him, who was he? if it was his first time modeling why did he need to do,specially when he wasn’t very comfortable with it? How old was he? Was he sick, why was he so easily tired?  So many questions clouded his mind, but when he laid in his bed and closed his eyes the only thing he could see were those beautiful feline eye staring back at him why was he so infatuated by him?

The next day was again filled with thoughts of xiumin, they annoyed him so much that he had to draw ,he imagined those glorious thirty minutes he spent in front of the beauty and copied them to his drawing sheet, he drew and drew like a maniac  he could hardly wait till Wednesday, that’s when his next class was, so eager he arrived twenty minutes early,  showered and presentable , pencils sharped and sheets ready he was back on his seat right in front of the desk. Kris arrived after ten minutes , surprised to see luhan so early there, he went on with his routine, checking his course map and and other files, time passed and soon the whole class was there everything was back to the way it was except there was no model today, they were back to drawing bricks ,annoyed luhan asked why xiumin wasn’t coming today to which kris replied ,

“..yea about that ,he’s not going to be back”

“Ah why??”  luhan asked a little too invested

“He’s got a fever the last time he was here, so he just said he didn’t want to do it any more.. something like that”

“And you didn’t convince him to comeback, that he should do it,he needs to!!”

“What’s the big deal luhan, he was just a model, an amateur at that, I’ll find someone better and we’ll continue the portraits and live drawing but for the mean time..”  

“ find someone better how can you even say that” luhan interrupted, “he was perfect,he was beautiful how you change people just like that! “he was clearly angry and it showed through his voice

“Listen,I think you’re getting way too emotional over this he was just here..”

Luhan stormed out before kris could finish his sentence , he was heartbroken now and all he craved at this point was the smiling face of his baozi but even in his memory that smile wasn’t directed towards him, angry, frustrated, jealous,  and very sad he went back to his room, laid on his bed and went back to his residual thoughts, of his precious baozi, he must be his muse because he was capable of doing things to him that no one before him could do.

 He slept, woke up and drew, so desperate to get another chance to look at that beautiful figure he imagined his face and tried to create it on paper  it turned out horribly , so he tried again and again and again until he thought the drawing did justice to his sweet ,he imagined that fair face, captivating eyes round face and inviting lips. He stayed in his room for days eventually he went back to his normal life he realized his out burst was uncalled for, the world didn’t know how he felt for xiumin so they cpuldnt be hwld responsible for hurting his feelings , kris apologized to him and said he shouldn’t have been narrow minded and immature like he too apologized for his rudeness and they hugged it out, lay helped him cheer up , he was grateful for his friends but this whole incident had left him with a void that couldn’t really be fulfilled, so he just painted and sketched his trouble away, keeping his mind busy and not filled with thoughts of him , he tried finding xiumin though he really did, Kris told him he found him at a café he was a waiter there, he   offered him the modeling gig and he took it,they didn’t exchange contact numbers and he didn’t know where he lived he just knew his name, kim minseok, which he wanted to remain hidden so they came up with xiumin

 luhan had accepted his cruel fate of never being able to see him ever again until he got a phone call one day, almost six months  after that incident.

“um hello..”

“Hello,who’s this?”

“Um this is kim minseok,is this luhan shi”

“..yes ,do I know you”

“Um yes you do actually, you see I modeled for this art class one time, it was just for one day and you happened to be there, ..um I don’t know if you remember me ,they gave me a weird name that I can’t remember ,eheh it was min something.. sorry”

If there were phone calls could bring people back to life , this one would be it, he was so ecstatic so extremely happy he thought he might explode  

“Yes, yes I do remember you xiumin shi “

“Ah XiUU min .. right!t hankyou”

god he’s  so cute!!

“Anyway im glad you remember me,Yi fan shi gave me your number and really insisted I call you, you see I work for this art gallery and they need artists with Chinese background, someone who could bring a foreign feel, I’m sorry if that’s insensitive ,their words not mine haha anyway Yifan shi and  Yixing shi are  already  a part of this but they still wanted  another artist..so what do you think?”

“Yea.. sure I can manage that”

“Great I’ll text you the details ,thank you so much luhan shi “

“No problem, mus- I mean xiumin shi”

 He hung up the phone , feeling on top of the world never has he seen a brighter, sunnier day in his life it was all colors and beauty and buns for him at that moment.

They met for coffee afterwards where  Xiumin told him , at that time he was already working at three different places which got tiring so he took up the model offer since he thought it would be easy but that tired him immensely as well and his parents were against him working as a model so he wanted his name to remain hidden he seemed happy that he was able to find a stable job at the art gallery, he was majoring in art history.

~Four months later

Luhan attended the art festival with his Chinese companions , they all contributed their own pieces to the gallery ,Luhan’s paintings caught special attention since everyone who saw them seemed like they knew who it was in the paintings, until a little girl pointed out that minseok was the guy in the paintings and that’s probably when everyone finally realized , they were all different ,some were abstract like one painting had large footballs and behind them were feline eyes, another one had two coffee cups and a steamed bun present between them luhan called them,”watching over you” and “always with you” respectively ,while most of them were portraits of minseok ,mostly showing his beautiful smile, this time luhan was content that the smile was directed towards him

The art festival came to an end , people came praised and left, in the end there were two figures standing infront of luhan’s paintings , minseok looking at the paintings and luhan looking at minseok,

“if u keep getting inspiration from me, shouldn't you ,at least pay me”

Xiumin looked at luhan for a reply with a playful look on his face , but luhan just looked at him lovingly, until xiumin blushed and went back to looking at the paintings.

~