Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was a clouded afternoon when Eiji sat in photography class praying that his teacher wouldn't show up. 

Why? Because he knew what assignment was going to be next and he also knew he wasn't ready for it yet. It wouldn't be as easy as the previous photography assignments they'd had, because Ibe was working towards making these young men and women into real artists. 

This was what Eiji had been waiting for, but now that the task of choosing his own model and make a phenomenal picture was almost there, he felt sick to his stomach.

One more minute, he told himself while glaring at the clock from across the room. If Ibe wouldn't show up within the next sixty seconds, he'd be late for their class, and Eiji would make a run for it. 

The seconds ticked away, but not fast enough; Ibe calmly walked into the classroom three seconds before Eiji could get up. 

"Hello, class," he mumbled before taking a sip from his fresh coffee. Eiji's favourite teacher clearly was still half asleep, but Eiji also knew that, after sipping from a caffeinated drink meant he'll get more excited about explaining the assignment.

With clammy and heavily shaky hands Eiji reached for his backpack, somehow wishing for his camera to still be at home or notebook with ideas to be lost; both were lying in his backpack like he knew they would, though. He got them out and put them on his table, getting ready to write down the specifics of the assignment that Ibe was going to give them.

 "I have something special for you today," Ibe said. "You're going to go out on the streets and pick out your own model."

Eiji's breath jolted; he was way too nervous to even take a decent picture. 

"You'll have to get their permission before taking them to the place where you'll take the picture," Ibe explained, making sure to let every word reach the class before speaking the next. 

Eiji's hands were literally strangling his poor camera when Ibe-san's eyes lit up while he explained the assignment in more depth. It was almost like he got some sort of high out of explaining these young students how to capture the perfect picture, but at the same time leaving them completely in the dark about anything important. 

"That's all," Ibe said, after talking for almost twenty minutes straight. "You can head out, unless you have any questions you need to ask before you leave. I'll also be available via Whatsapp, so you can always ask questions."

Eiji got up from his chair and forced his legs to walk. He needed to make sure not to flop this assignment, it might ruin his chance at becoming a photographer if he did. 

Once out on the street, all students had gone their own way and Eiji was all alone. 

Eiji looked around, searching for the perfect model close to the supermarket. He chose the right place, because there are many people, but only a part of them would agree on being photographed by a nineteen-year-old.

He saw a pregnant woman, who'd be perfect for a shoot if she hadn't been pushing around a baby carrier and four bags of greens. She would never have time to follow Eiji around for his assignment. 

He let another great people pass him like that; A man with a mysterious hat who was clearly in a hurry, a blonde woman who was way too pretty and too normal for Eiji's taste, a gay couple who were way too busy kissing and hugging and a bald young girl with a lollipop that made Eiji feel like an old dirty man if he would ask her to come with him to some secret place to take a picture. 

He stood there with his camera, unsure of what to do when he still hadn't found anyone by the end of his class.

Just when he's considering going to another place where he will find different people than he'd seen at this mall, he halted in the middle of turning away. He saw the perfect person, the guy that would make his picture stand apart from all the big-breasted women and the young Japanese guys that my classmates would photograph.

This guy, with the slender figure and swaying hips, would be perfect, Eiji thought to himself; not only was this person a blond foreigner, he had his own way of being beautiful. 

Unlike most people Eiji had seen today, this guy had a sharp edged face and he was at least half a head taller than most of the men walking down the street. That wasn't all, because what had caught Eiji's eye wasn't the "pretty" and symmetrical side of this guy; it were the scars that ran along the entire left side of this person's face, neck and arm that peeked Eiji's interest. 

He had something mysterious about him, something odd but beautiful. 

It was when Eiji saw a group of younger teenagers walking up to Eiji's chosen man, that he realized that not everybody agreed with him. The twelve-year-old girls and boys blocked the poor guy's way. They laughed at him, even tackled him and punched him for being different. 

Eiji was shocked by how aggressive these kids were acting towards this guy, just because he was different than them. 

With that, Eiji's legs started moving on their own, running towards the man to help him get away from the hatred of the young teenagers. Nobody deserved to be hit or laughed at, but certainly not someone who seemed to have gone through so much already. 

The kids saw Eiji coming, heard him yelling in anger, and fled immediately leaving the poor guy laying on the dirty pavement with scrapes on his knees and cuts on his hands. 

"Are you alright?" Eiji asked, reaching out to the young man. "That was so rude of those kids!" 

The guy's green eyes were the softest and shiniest Eiji had ever seen and they looked like gems when the light hit them. 

Taking Eiji's hand the young man got on his feet, and quickly took his hand through the long half of his hair. The other half, as Eiji hadn't noticed earlier, wasn't shaved to be this short instead only few tufts of blond hair grew in between the ragged scars.

After hand-combing the dirt out of his long hair, the guy opened his mouth, awkwardly glancing away before saying, "Uhm, thank you." In terrible Japanese.

Eiji had to try hard not to giggle, because this odd man didn't have some beautiful French or Spanish accent, instead he spoke a strange mix of American English and broken Japanese.

Eiji gave him a small nod, just a polite one to show him that he had understood the stammered thanks.

While the young man brushed the dirt off his ripped jeans, Eiji tried not to strangle himself with the cord of his camera. 

It was now or never, he knew that he had to ask this mysterious person to be his model for today's assignment otherwise he'd end up with some regular lady just like all the other guys in his photography class.

He needed to capture this guy's beauty in a way that everyone, even the kids who'd just beat him up, could see how perfect this person was.

Eiji turned his eyes to the ground before whispering, "Sir, would you please be my model."

His cheeks turned a deep shade of red almost right away. It felt like he was asking this guy to go on a date with him. 

The guy's green eyes immediately shot up to meet Eiji's, disbelief could be read from every inch of his pale face. His eyes seemed to lit up before he asked, "Wha-" completely forgetting that he was in Japan and shouldn't be speaking English like he probably would have at home. 

Eiji caught himself giggling before he explained the younger man about his assignment and how he needed a model for his picture. 

The guy was just staring at him like Eiji had just asked him to lick the pavement or something like that. He left a long silence before blinking twice, he asked Eiji if he was kidding about this. 

Eiji shook his head and put his all in convincing this guy, he'd just met, that he wasn't joking at all. It took him almost ten minutes of begging until the guy cracked a slight smile and told Eiji that he'd actually love that. 

Filled with excitement, Eiji started walking towards the place he knew was perfect for shooting this picture and he was on the foot followed by the model he'd just plucked off the streets. 

On the way there Eiji noticed the guy becoming more talkative, while at first he seemed really introverted he was now beaming with excitement. 

"I haven't modelled in such a long time," he said, after he had introduced himself to Eiji as Ash.

Eiji looked up at Ash, he was walking left from him and it was obvious that this guy had some gorgeous features. He had pretty green eyes and a strong jaw line, together with the long blond hair and his flawless skin was the left side of this guy amazing-looking. Eiji could understand why this guy had modelled before, but he said it more like it was a nostalgic feeling; like he'd done it many times before today. 

Eiji opened his mouth to ask about it, but just when he had gathered the courage to ask it, they reached the spot Eiji had decided was perfect. 

It was an old abandoned building that looked more like a shed in a wood-like area than something that had been an actual family housing. The roof had partially collapsed over time, the windows were mostly shattered and the brick walls were covered with an uncontrolled layer of plants and weeds on both the in- and outside. 

Eiji saw Ash on the streets and immediately knew that this was the place he wanted to take him here. Not only because the rumour about this place was that it was left unfixable because the family that used to live there had been involved with illegal business and to erase their existence of the planet, they burned down everything that was inside of their house; furniture, paintings, pictures, closets and clothes, nothing had been left after the intended fire. 

It was also because of the great amount of green plants and the rough, but vulnerable, look of the building that caught Eiji's eye; both could see all of those things in Ash.

"There it is," Eiji said, beaming with pride as he gestured at the old building. "I'd like to hold the shoot inside of there."

He glanced at Ash, who glared at the abandoned house with his mouth gaping just a little.

"Wow," he whispered. "But how are we going to get inside?"

Ash was right, there were fences build all around the building because they don't want kids playing inside of it since it could collapse, but Eiji had never let a fence or high wall stop him from reaching his destination before. So before Ash could tell him otherwise, Eiji covered the camera with his sweatshirt and started climbing the iron fence. 

When he landed on top of the uneven ground on the other side of the fence, it took Eiji a moment to regain his balance; maybe being somewhat agile did work in his favour sometimes.

"Are you coming?" Eiji asked while waving his hand at Ash, who was left on the other side of the fence. 

It took Ash a moment, but he also reached the other side unharmed and the photoshoot could actually start now. 

They wandered inside, both impressed by how the inside of old building looked even more stunning than the outside. The sun shone through parts of the broken roof and only a couple of beams had been able to make their way into the building. 

The remaining parts of a burned up chair and broken pieces of windows and ceiling were all covered by ashes and ivy. 

Eiji knew he had chosen the perfect place when he turned around and saw Ash standing in one of the few beams of sunlight. A thousand little shadows, made by tiny specs of dust, looked like shiny glitter when they moved across where Ash was standing, making him look like he was standing in the spotlights at a festival. 

Ash looked at Eiji, who needed a moment to get his act together again as he was blushing like an idiot; how could someone be that gorgeous?

"Uhm, yeah," Eiji mumbled, holding up his camera before gesturing at another spot where a couple beams of light lit up an ash-black wall. "Why don't you just stand right there?"

Eiji looked at Ash through his camera, trying to focus on fitting his settings to the lighting of this room so he could capture Ash's beauty in the best way possible. When he'd finally played around with the settings enough, and the picture didn't look too dark or grainy anymore, Eiji told Ash that they could start. "Just turn your left shoulder a little away and try to tilt your head towards me."

Clearly uncomfortable with showing his burned side in the full light, Ash slowly but surely starts to turn his head away again. 

Eiji notices it, not only that Ash was turning his right side more towards the shadow, but also that Ash looked a little sad as he did so. So Eiji lowered his camera and made eye contact with Ash. 

He hesitated a little before saying what he should've said before they started this shoot. 

"You know you don't have to be embarrassed, right?" Eiji told Ash, whose eyes got slightly bigger in surprise. "To show your scars, I mean."

Ash blinked, he clearly didn't see this coming, before lowering his head. Now that a shadow was casted over all of Ash's face, Eiji could see the broken parts more than he had noticed when they were standing in the light. Because it wasn't Ash's outside that had been left unrepaired, it was what's on the inside that had scattered more than anything. 

Ash didn't reply to Eiji, but Eiji could see exactly what Ash was thinking; Ash thought his scars defined him, made him less than what he actually was. 

"I think you look stunning," Eiji blurted, immediately feeling awkward afterwards. 

Ash chuckled, but there was a dark and sad tone in his voice when he told Eiji that many people used to think that. 

"Girl and boys would walk up to me to say how pretty I was." Ash touched the rubbery skin on his face lightly while talking. "It got to the point that after middle school I was made into a famous model in America."

Eiji listened to Ash tell him about how he loved modelling, he enjoyed being recognized on the streets and in the hallways in high school. 

Ash's expression saddened and his voice got darker when he said, "But that all changed about a year ago, when a fire broke out on set. I was foolish, thinking I could put it out." Ash paused, taking his time to calm his quick breathing down, it was clear that he was reliving the moment in his mind. "But I forgot that I was wearing a polyester sweatshirt and before I knew it my entire right side was burning."

Eiji looked down at his feet, at the ashes that had been laying on this broken floor for years now. This house had been burned for ages, but Ash's wounds were still fresh.

Ash continued talking though, as if this was the first time he'd been able to vent to someone about this. He told Eiji that he woke up in the hospital where doctors kept him in the dark about how he looked, because Ash's parents had demanded they'd show him only after they'd fixed it. 

"After three months they finally showed me how I looked," Ash told Eiji, his voice breaking as his nails dug in the ragged scars. "And when they did, they also said they couldn't help me anymore."

After saying that, Ash explained how he moved to Japan to escape from the press and from everything that reminded him of before the fire. 

Eiji glared at Ash, shocked by how this guy that was younger than him had already felt so much pain. Eiji didn't notice that he was crying until he felt something wet creeping over his cheek. 

Ash was crying too. Unlike Eiji, who had a whimpering cry and puffy eyes, Ash cried like a real model; glistening tears that made his cheeks and nose look slightly pink. 

"Now I'm just-" Ash's voice got softer and much more vulnerable all of a sudden. "Ugly."

Eiji's heart seemed to stop, not at Ash saying that he was ugly, but it just paused for a second when Eiji immediately shot back, "You're gorgeous, Ash!"

Ash's green eyes stared back at Eiji in disbelieve and Eiji caught himself blushing. Something inside of him told him to take it back, but he genuinely thought that Ash was stunning. 

Instead of taking the compliment, Ash just laughed. 

"Really!" Eiji defended himself with a squeaking voice, but his head held high. "I think that, no matter how others or yourself might think about it, that you are beautiful. You shouldn't have to hide your scars, you should show them with pride."

Ash stopped laughing, his expression changing as he realized what Eiji had just told him. Eiji could see his words got to Ash. 

Ash nodded once and whispered, "M-maybe you're right."

Eiji watched the young guy's sad eyes grow stronger, yet at the same time softer, slowly but surely.

Ash stepped into the light again and looked up. A ghost of a smile shot across his face when he gestured at the camera and told Eiji that he was ready to model again, to embrace his scars instead of try to hide them away.

Without hesitation, Eiji looked at Ash through the camera. 

Ash didn't need to pose or put on a fake smile or act to be broken yet ready to be mended, because Eiji saw it all and made sure to capture it all as it was; no better nor worse than Ash was doing as he stood there.

Light lit up Ash's green eyes, strong and vulnerable fighting against the tears that were stinging from behind them. 

Golden hair on one side, barely being touched by the light, while the burned and broken strains showed the entire world all that he had gone through.

His pink, jagged flesh exposed to the cruel wilderness of live and his beauty hidden behind the shadow of doubt that everyone that passed him on the streets saw when they looked at him. 

In the shadow, only barely showing anymore, his left side; the remarkable flawlessness, beauty and the part that he wanted back so badly that it tortured him.

In bright glistening sunlight, Ash's right side; his scars, his pain, fear and embarrassment that he yet had to turn into his pride.

A breathtaking sight of a young person, gazing up at the sunlight with both vulnerability and pride as the world around him was in ashes; he was left in ashes.