Chapter Text
By the time Ryul finished explaining the April cover concept to his team, the room already had that restless, half-awake energy that came before a shoot.
“This one has to feel warm,” he said, one hand braced on the edge of the table while the other tapped the printed mood board. “Not soft in a boring way. Warm, cool like spring just hit the city and everything looks alive all at once.”
Seowon (Ryul's Best friend), who was sitting sideways in his chair with a pen tucked behind his ear, leaned back and squinted at the board. “So basically,” he said, “you want vibrant spring shades, pop orange, balanced tones, and that glowy, luminous skin thing everyone pretends is effortless.”
Ryul pointed at him. “Yes. That. Exactly.”
A few people laughed. One of the juniors flipped through the sample shots, then looked up. “We still need a model.”
Ryul already knew that. He had been pretending he did not know that for the last ten minutes.
The department had asked for something clean but lively for the studio showcase issue, something that looked like movement even when it was still. The concept was easy to say and much harder to actually find a face for. Not just a pretty face, either. Someone who could hold a frame, shift weight naturally, and not look awkward when the camera asked for grace.
Seowon lifted his chin. “Dance department.”
Ryul blinked. “What?”
“Dance department,” Seowon repeated, like he was saying something obvious to a child. “If you want the poses to look alive, get someone who already knows how to move. You need lines. You need control. You need someone who understands the body.”
Ryul looked down at the concept board again. Vibrant spring shades. Pop orange. Luminous skin. Movement.
His mind, annoyingly, gave him one image.
A boy in an orange tee, dancing under the practice room lights like he had been born with music in his bones.
He had seen him only once before, through a glass door, while passing the dance studio on his way to the editing room. Ryul had not even known his name then. He only remembered thinking, for no good reason, that some people looked like they belonged to the season itself.
So he grabbed his camera bag and went to the dance studio.
The room was full of bodies and sound when he stepped in. Music thumped through the floor, warm-ups and counts mixed together, a few students gathered by the mirrors. Ryul paused just inside the doorway and let his eyes scan the room.
Then he saw him.
Ohyul was at the center of the studio, wearing an orange tee that caught the light every time he moved. His hair was slightly damp from practice, and his arms cut through the air with a kind of softness that still looked strong. The dance was contemporary, all reach and fall and recovery, and somehow it made him look even more unreal. Beautiful in a way that did not ask to be noticed. Beautiful in a way that made Ryul notice anyway.
Ryul forgot, for a second, why he had even come.
Ohyul turned mid-step, hands lifting, body folding and opening like he was breathing in rhythm with the song. Ryul stared longer than he should have.
Then the music ended.
Someone nearby called out a count. Ohyul lowered his arms and bent forward, catching his breath. Ryul took that as his chance, walked in, and stopped just a little too close.
Ohyul looked up.
And that was the first problem.
Because seeing him from the doorway was one thing. Standing in front of him was another. Up close, Ryul could see the small sheen of sweat at his temple, the gentle flush in his cheeks, the way his eyes held the afterglow of movement like he had not fully come back to stillness yet.
Ryul spoke before his brain could interfere.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice came out calmer than he felt. “I have to photograph someone for class. Will you be my model?”
Ohyul stared.
For one horrible second, Ryul thought he had misunderstood the question and asked a stranger for a kidney.
Then Ohyul said, very quickly, “Yes.”
And then, like his soul had stepped out of his body and come back in confused, he blinked hard and asked, “For what?”
Ryul had to fight the urge to smile. “For our April concept. Video production department. We’re doing a studio show cover and a spring theme shoot. I need new photographs, maybe a few dance poses too. Something with movement.”
Ohyul nodded too fast. “Oh. Okay. Yes. Sure.”
Ryul studied him. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Ohyul said, then seemed to realize how immediate that sounded and added, a little quieter, “I mean, if that helps. I can do that.”
It was such a simple answer, but Ryul felt it land strangely in his chest anyway.
“Great,” he said. “Then I’ll send you the details.”
Ohyul’s mouth parted like he wanted to say something else, but the only thing that came out was, “Okay.”
Ryul gave a small nod and turned back toward the door, fully intending to leave like a normal person. He made it two steps before he heard it.
“Wait.”
He looked back.
Ohyul was standing there, still half in dance mode, still holding himself like he was embarrassed to take up space. “You said photograph,” he said carefully. “Do you mean like… serious photos? Or like those fake smiling ones where everyone looks dead inside?”
One of the dancers behind him snorted.
Ryul’s lips twitched. “Serious photos.”
Ohyul nodded again. “Okay. Good.”
Ryul hesitated. “You look better when you are not trying to smile dead inside.”
That made Ohyul freeze.
Ryul realized, too late, how that sounded. “I mean— for the concept. Because movement. Not dead inside. Obviously.”
The studio erupted in laughter.
Ohyul covered his mouth with his hand, eyes shining in a way that made Ryul’s stomach do something very unhelpful. “I understood,” he said, though his ears had gone pink.
Ryul left before he could make himself worse.
He told himself the strange tightness in his chest was just because the shoot had finally found its model.
It was not because Ohyul had looked at him like that.
It was not because Ryul had walked into a dance studio and found, sitting in the middle of spring itself, the boy he had somehow never noticed before.
--------
The shoot happened three days later.
By then, Ryul had convinced himself he was fine. Professional. Focused. Completely normal.
That lasted about twelve seconds after Ohyul walked into the studio assigned for the cover issue.
The styling team kept him in a tight fitted tee, the kind that followed every line of his body without trying too hard. One of the season’s leading themes was “fashion as feeling”—and somehow, it wasn’t just in the clothes. It was in him. In the way he stood, the way his breath still carried the rhythm of movement, the way his presence filled the space without asking for it. The fabric moved because he moved, and for a second, it felt like the concept had shaped itself around him instead of the other way around.
Ryul stopped.
Not just paused—stopped, like something in him had quietly gone still.
Seowon, standing beside him with the camera settings, leaned in and muttered, “Try not to die.”
“I am not dying,” Ryul said.
“You look like you are considering it.”
Ryul ignored him and took the camera.
Ohyul noticed him and gave a small, uncertain wave.
That should not have looked so good. It should not have made Ryul feel like the air had shifted.
“Hi,” Ohyul said.
Ryul cleared his throat. “Hi.”
“Oh,” Ohyul said, and his smile was shy but bright. “You’re the one directing this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He nodded, then added after a beat, “That sounds very serious.”
“It is serious.”
Ohyul looked around at the lights, the props, the team moving behind him. “I can tell.”
Ryul almost smiled. “Good. Stand there for me.”
He began with the easy shots first, directing Ohyul toward the light, shifting his chin, adjusting the tilt of his shoulders. The studio staff moved around them with practiced speed. Someone fixed the background set. Someone else adjusted a reflector. Seowon called out exposure notes. Ryul, camera in hand, kept his voice steady while his thoughts were absolutely not steady at all.
“Turn a little more to your left.”
Ohyul followed.
“No, not like that. Relax your mouth.”
“I am relaxed,” Ohyul muttered.
“You look like you are about to apologize to the camera.”
That got a laugh out of him, which made the next frame better immediately.
Ryul paused. “Do that again.”
“Laugh?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Ohyul laughed again, softer this time, and the light caught his face in a way that made Ryul’s fingers tighten around the camera.
There it was. The shot.
The one where his eyes curved naturally, where the orange tones in the set and the warmth of the lighting turned him almost luminous. Spring, exactly as the concept had promised. Not forced.
Ryul clicked the shutter several times, his mind already seeing the cover.
“Beautiful,” he said before he could stop himself.
Ohyul blinked at him, then looked away so fast it almost looked like he had been caught doing something illegal. “Oh.”
“Don’t freeze,” Ryul said, though his own ears were starting to feel warm now too. “That was just for the frame.”
“Right,” Ohyul murmured.
But his face had gone faintly pink, and Ryul pretended very hard not to notice.
The dance poses were another problem.
Ohyul could move beautifully, that much was obvious. But translating that movement into still images was difficult. Some angles felt too sharp. Contemporary dance did not naturally follow a camera just because you asked it to. Ryul tried a few positions, then frowned at the monitor.
Seowon glanced over. “The line is good, but the energy is collapsing.”
Ryul nodded. “He needs a transition pose. Something that bridges motion and stillness.”
From across the room, one of the students called, “Ask Woonhak!”
Ryul looked up. “Woonhak?”
“Dance department,” Seowon said. “His friend. Good at contemporary. He can help set the poses.”
Two minutes later, Woonhak arrived in a burst of noise and energy, looked at the setup, then at Ohyul, and immediately said, “Oh, this is the pretty one.”
Ohyul choked.
Ryul glanced between them. “You know each other?”
“We suffer under the same department,” Woonhak said. Then he pointed at Ohyul. “Come here. I’ll show you the angle.”
Ohyul looked at Ryul first, almost as if asking permission, and Ryul had no business feeling pleased that he did.
“Go ahead,” Ryul said.
Woonhak adjusted Ohyul’s shoulder, then his wrist, then stepped back. “Like this. Don’t fight the fall. Let the movement look like it’s happening even while you’re still.”
Ryul lifted the camera.
Ohyul took the pose.
And there it was again: the strange, unbearable beauty of him. glowing and entirely too easy to lose his attention in. The outfits worked against the set in the best way. They tried different outfits on him. The rougher textures against the clean spring backdrop. It made him look like he belonged to both noise and sunlight.
Ryul took a breath and realized he had stopped breathing properly.
“Again,” he said, voice low.
Ohyul shifted.
“Better,” Ryul said. “Hold that.”
The shutter clicked.
Then Ryul glanced up from the camera and caught Ohyul already looking at him, expression unreadable for half a second before he lowered his eyes.
That should not have made Ryul’s heart misbehave.
After the last set of photographs, the video team moved on to filming clips for the theme reel. Ryul ended up directing Ohyul through small motions, half dance, half performance, while the staff adjusted angles and light.
“Walk toward me,” Ryul said.
Ohyul did.
“Slower.”
He slowed.
“Look past the camera, not into it.”
Ohyul’s eyes shifted, and suddenly he looked like something caught between a memory and a promise.
Ryul swallowed.
“Again.”
This time, Ohyul did it with a tiny smile, and Ryul hated how much he wanted to keep that smile on his face forever.
By the time they wrapped, the team was already talking excitedly about the final edit. The cover looked gorgeous. Everyone knew it. Even before the retouching, even before the color correction, it already had the warmth they had wanted.
Seowon clapped Ryul on the shoulder. “You got it.”
Ryul stared at the monitor for a moment, then glanced over at Ohyul.
Ohyul had changed out of the bold outfit and was standing off to the side while one of the makeup artists touched up the last bit of shine. His cheeks were still faintly pink beneath the makeup, and he looked a little overwhelmed, like he had not expected the day to go this far.
Ryul walked over.
“You did well,” he said.
Ohyul’s eyes widened. “That’s it? Just well?”
Ryul tilted his head. “You want more?”
Ohyul looked down, then back up. “No. I mean. Yes. Maybe. Sorry.”
Ryul almost laughed. “You do that a lot.”
“Do what?”
“Apologize when you do not need to.”
Ohyul went quiet.
Ryul should have left it there. Instead he said, “The shots look good because you were good.”
That made Ohyul stare at him like he had just handed him something fragile.
“Thank you,” Ohyul said, very softly.
Ryul’s chest did something strange again, and he had to look away first.
He told himself that was all.
Just a successful shoot. A good model. A nice collaboration.
Nothing else.
---------
Except he started noticing Ohyul everywhere after that.
Not because Ohyul was doing anything obvious. He was not. In fact, Ryul had barely spoken to him before this week, and now every time their paths crossed, Ryul felt the same slight jolt in his ribs, like his body had decided the situation was important before his brain could catch up.
Which was exactly why, when Ryul’s ex showed up at his department building on Thursday afternoon, he made the worst decision of his life in under five seconds.
Ga-eun, his ex, had not been around in months. They had ended things badly enough that both of them had done the mature thing and avoided each other until time turned the edges into something more tolerable. Then, apparently, Ga-eun decided, ignorance was no longer enough and began showing up near Ryul’s classes under the excuse of “talking.”
Ryul was tired. He was busy. He did not want to do this again.
Ga-eun leaned against the hallway wall outside the editing room and said, “We should talk.”
Ryul’s jaw tightened. “Not here.”
“You never have time for me anymore.”
“We broke up six months ago.”
Ga-eun rolled her eyes. “And yet you keep acting like I am some kind of disaster.”
Ryul exhaled through his nose and looked toward the stairwell like the building might open up and swallow him whole. Then, in the most irrational flash of his life, he remembered Ohyul standing under the studio lights, all soft orange warmth and careful movement.
He turned and left.
Ten minutes later, he found Ohyul near the practice hall, sitting on the bench outside the dance studio with a water bottle in his hand. Ryul walked up, and Ohyul looked surprised to see him.
“Hi,” Ohyul said.
Ryul stopped in front of him. “Hey.”
Ohyul tilted his head. “Did something happen?”
Ryul should have said no.
Instead he heard himself ask, “Will you pretend to be my date for a week?”
Ohyul blinked. Not believing what Ryul just said.......... ?