A young man showed up at the little wooden pier at the beach. He was wearing a straw hat and shorts, that emphasized his long skinny legs. But that wasn't was caught Mino's attention. The boy had a whole of three different cameras hanging around his neck. They were rather small, definitely not as huge as the DSLRs that were popular these days.

Mino watched as the camera guy walked slowly looking around, then stopped and took a photo of the sea. He then seemed to check the image and adjust the settings to take another photo of the same scene. Then he took one of the old cafe next to the pier. After that he changed to his second camera, that looked older and slightly bigger. He crouched down, taking a photo of a seagull up in the blue sky.

Then he stood up again to take a photo of the pier with the sea.

Then of the beach.

One more of the beach in landscape format.

Then suddenly the boy turned to him, sitting on the beach.

Mino kept on staring directly at him without looking away. He was like in a trance. The boy lifted his camera. Click

Wait what? Mino suddenly woke up from his trance. Did the guy just take a photo of him?

As if nothing had happened the camera boy turned around again and took another photo of something.

Mino jumped up.

"Hey!" he shouted towards the pier while walking towards it.

"Hey you!" He called again when he reached the pier.

The young man with the straw hat turned around, looking at him with slight surprise or confusion in his eyes. 

"Did you just take a picture of me?" Mino asked in a demanding tone. The boy didn't seem flustered however. 

"Indeed I did," he answered calmly, slightly tilting his head to the side. "Was that wrong? Did I offend you with that?"

"I... more than offended I just think it's weird?! Don't you think it's weird or creepy to take photos of a random stranger?"

"Hm, I don't know, it depends on the situation. But I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I would offer you to delete the photo but this is an analogue film camera so it's not possible..."

He showed Mino the back of the camera with which he had taken the last photos and it didn't have any display on the back. 

„Why did you take my photo in the first place?” Mino questioned, now more curious and confused than angry.

“Hm, I don’t know. You were part of this nice scenery, almost as if you belonged here. You looked so relaxed and peaceful. You just looked very beautiful.” The stranger just smiled at him.

Suddenly Mino’s face felt very hot. ‘Did he really just call me beautiful?’ He knew his face was turning red so he quickly tried to say something as a diversion.

“I…. thank you? I guess?” He was so flustered that the words came out in a jumble and not at all in the cool way he had hoped for.

The camera boy just laughed at his loss of words and sudden change in attitude. His voice wasn’t high but his laugh was bright, the kind of laugh that made you laugh with them.

Mino noticed how his brown fox-like eyes formed into crescent moons when he laughed. He also had thick, plumb lips that looked very pink against his otherwise pale skin. He was very pretty.

Mino almost blurted out ‘You’re beautiful too’ but he stopped himself the very last moment and instead asked another question.

“Should I take a picture of you too? Looks like you’re traveling alone?”

The other just shook his head but continued to smile.

“I travel alone but no, it’s fine. I know what I look like.”

He winked and something Mino’s chest did a little jump.

“I usually don’t take photos of myself during travels. I can see myself anytime I want but this scenery I can only see now. And I like to capture the moments just as I found them, in a natural way and without poses or special positioning.”

“Are you a professional photographer?” Mino asked with curiosity but the boy just laughed.

“Oh no, I’m far from professional. It’s just a hobby.”

“You carry quite a lot of cameras around with you for a hobby.”

The boy suddenly looked a tiny bit embarrassed and fumbled around with the cameras around his neck.

“It became a weird obsession you could say, whenever I found an old rare model or a new good one I get too tempted to buy them. It’s like a collection maybe. And many of them have different purposes so I carry around three. One digital, one analogue one and one for polaroids,” he explained. “Plus two more lenses for the analogue camera.”

“Hm…” Mino just hummed.

Looking at the pretty boy with his many cameras he suddenly had an idea.

“Wait here for a second,” he told him quickly before he ran back to his backpack on the beach.

When he came back he found the boy still in the same place looking at him with big round eyes and confusion in them. Mino was holding his own small digital camera in his hands. He knew he couldn’t compete with the fancy models the other one was using but it didn’t matter.

“Let me take a picture of you taking a picture!” He grinned.

“I already told you it’s fine. I don’t need one.”

“Uh uh,” Mino shook his head and his index finger. “Not for you. For me. With my own camera.”

“For you??”

He looked so confused it was kind of cute actually.

“It’s only fair isn’t it? You took a photo of me too,” Mino answered with a smug smile on his face.

"But that's different, I didn't take your photo on purpose, it was just something I saw. I take photos of many different people."

"It's not different at all. You said you only take photos of natural situations without posing right? Just what you see? Well, I'm going to take a photo of what I saw. You on this pier taking photos with that old camera around your neck."

Mino had no intention of giving in. He could swear he saw a tint of pink on the cheeks of the other boy who had dropped his eyes and rubbed his neck nervously.

"Ok fine," he finally said. "I guess that would make us even then. But only one."

"What, you don't like being in front of the camera?" Mino laughed. 

"Yeah. I prefer being behind the scenes. I'm not a model, I can't pose. It looks weird."

He said that while pouting his lips like a little kid and Mino thought it was the cutest thing he'd ever seen. 

"Well, your legs are long enough for you to be a model," Mino replied and to his delight the boy’s cheeks turned even pinker. This flirty teasing was very rewarding.

The boy quickly cleared his throat and asked, "Ok, where should I go?" 

"Just go back to where you took those pictures and pretend to do the same again. I will go back to my original spot as well."

Mino jumped off the small pier and went back to his bag, while the other boy returned to the position from which he had taken Mino's picture. Mino lifted his camera and watched him through the small screen.

"Ok go!" He shouted to signal him to start retaking his photos.

The boy took the old camera in his hands and lifted it up all the way to his eye, pretending to look through the lens into Mino's direction. Mino pressed his finger on the shutter button.

One. 

The boy turned around to take pictures of the sea again. Mino pressed his finger again.

Two. Three. Four. 

The boy looked up to the blue sky with his camera. There were no sea gulls here anymore just some faint white clouds.

Five. Six. 

'That should be enough', Mino thought. Too bad the camera was always covering the boy's face though. 

Just then he put down the camera and looked at Mino with questioning eyes, as if to ask if he had successfully taken his pictures.

Mino's hand was still holding his own small camera up.

Seven. Eight. 

"Done?" The boy shouted from the pier.

"Yeah," Mino shouted back.

Nine. 

He lowered his camera to quickly check the shots. But among nine photos there would be something. Not that he would tell his model the number of photos since he had promised to take only one. 

He walked back to the pier. 

„Thank you, that was perfect. Can I ask your name?“

„Seungyoon. My name’s Kang Seungyoon”, the boy with the name Seungyoon answered with a smile that seemed as bright as the sunny shimmers on the sea.

“Nice to meet you Seungyoon. I’m Song Mino.” Mino smiled back.

“So uhm”, his heart rate suddenly seemed to increase and he didn’t know why he was so nervous when he tried to ask, “Do you maybe wanna grab a coffee together?” gesturing to the cafe next to them.

Seungyoon looked at the cafe and back at Mino.

“Uhm, actually I should be going. I have to catch my bus back to Seoul.”

“Oh,” Mino could hardly hide the disappointment in his voice. “So soon?”

“Yeah, I was just passing through here.”

“I see.”

‘Can I see you again?’ a voice in his head screamed but he shut it up. They didn’t know each other and if Seungyoon wasn’t interested he didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

Seungyoon kept his eyes on Mino. The disappointment must have been very obvious on his face.

“But hey, if you like, why don’t you give me your email address?” Seungyoon suddenly said. “Then I can email you the photo once it’s developed.”

“Oh... sure!” Mino’s face lit up. Maybe there was still a chance. “Wait a sec”

He sprinted back to his backpack, got out one of his notebooks that he was always carrying around and a pen. He wrote down his email address in the corner of a page, ripped the part out and ran back to the other boy.

“Here you go”, he offered the crumbled paper slightly panting even after the very short distance.

“Thanks”, Seungyoon took the paper with a chuckle and put it in his wallet.

“Actually, I live in Seoul too! I’m just here on a little vacation,” came quickly out of Mino’s mouth.

“Oh is that so?” The tone in Seungyoon’s voice sounded amused. “Then maybe I’ll see you around Mr. Song Mino. I’m sure you won’t forget my face.”

Mino raised a brow. “Seems like you’re very confident in your face after all, Mr. model?”

“Not so much actually. But I know how many photos you took of me back there.”

He winked at Mino, who suddenly felt very hot and embarrassed, and started walking away.

“See you! I’ll email you!” Seungyoon shouted back and waved, before he finally turned around and left the pier and the beach.

Mino was left standing there like a statue, only able to stare after the slim figure with the straw hat until he disappeared from sight. The salty breeze and the loud cry of a seagull brought Mino back to reality.

Suddenly, even with the beach, sun and beautiful sea right here, he couldn’t wait to get back to Seoul.