ily-like-a-banana:

Captured ft. Minghao

Warning: may contain sensitive themes.

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Your feet tread on in a haste, worn out boots you’ve had for five years too long move across the tiled floor of the campus building with speed.

“Hey, wait!”

Most days, you wouldn’t have looked back. It’s been engraved in your head - the identity that you’ve accepted for yourself: a mere ghost.

You see, you only get your share of attention when the night creeps in and lonely souls search for something to fill the void. You find it ironic, really, when they take hold of your face and smash their lips on yours, red lipstick smearing messily as it marks both of your skins.

It’s ironic how they choose you to fill their void - because how can something so dead and empty do that?

But for some unknown reason, you do look back. You’re unsure why. Maybe it’s the sound of his voice - gentle albeit him calling out for you from a distance. Your stance is stiff, your hands shoved deep down your coat, shoulders rolled defensively and your arms tight to your body in an attempt to hide the dirt you feel inside for spending another night in some stranger’s bed.

Your gaze meets a tall figure trying to catch up to you amidst the cramped crowd by the building hallway. His face doesn’t register to you as familiar so for a moment, you contemplate on continuing to move along. But just as you start to turn your body away from him, he brings his arm up and waves it frantically.

“Hey, wait!” He calls out again, stretching his neck amongst the wave of people to keep you in his line of sight.

You stop in your tracks. When he finally catches up to you, your head has to tilt up a little to look at him in the eye. He’s tall - really tall - with dark hair and a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He opens his mouth to speak and you notice the smile lines that appear as the corner of his lips tug upwards.

“Um, hi.” He breathes out awkwardly. His chest is still rising and falling from trying to get to you and your head starts to come up with explanations why.

Maybe he knows you from a friend. Maybe he’s seen you from a club or a party. Maybe he’s about to ask if you’d be available for tonight.

And although the taste of cheap alcohol still lingers in your mouth, you’ve already decided to say yes if he ever asks.

“So, um. My name is Xu Minghao. I’m a visual arts student here,” he starts. You’re taken aback for a moment before you nod.

“I started out this little project of mine and… I was wondering if I could take a photo of you.”

You look at him wordlessly and blink. It is only then you realize that he is, in fact, holding a camera in his hands. The whole situation hasn’t really registered in your brain but again, you nod slowly anyway.

He flashes you a smile, a warm one, a smile that didn’t mean he wants your body, asking you to spend the night. A smile so normal and humane yet, you forget the last time you’re in the receiving end of one.

The whole time you haven’t uttered a single word. Students pass by you in the same haste that you were in just minutes ago but you find yourself in your own bubble with this stranger in front of you as you nod in response.

Minghao brings the camera to his face, aligning his eyes to the viewfinder as you stand by the lockers, tensed.

“So about the project…” He trails off.

You just look at him expectantly to keep going.

“I take pictures of things I find beautiful.”

Your eyes widen in surprise. “Sorry?”

You know that your hair is disheveled, that remnants of eyeliner still ring around your lids from last night, and that your lips are pale and chapped. You know this because you took a look in some stranger’s mirror in their bathroom this morning as they continue to sleep. And you know this because you tried to wash off the tears that were welling in your eyes from the shame and you’re struggling because the thing that makes you feel so shameful has been what’s keeping you alive so you drown out all these thoughts as you silently slip off from the stranger’s room like you always do as you leave another piece of you in someone else’s bed and yet here you are, standing in the middle of the hallway looking like your absolute worst but someone has it in them to see beauty in an empty, dying thing. It takes a moment for you to let it sink in.

He just called you beautiful - without having to be tangled under the same sheets, without the alcohol swimming in his system, without the look of lust in his eyes.

“I - I’m sorry. I don’t know how to-”

He shakes his head, “ah, don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles, the warmth in them reaches you as it sinks into your skin. “Just yourself is more than enough.”

And so you let Minghao capture the sadness in your eyes slowly dissipate, how the emptiness in your gaze progressively brighten with life, and how your lips - though with a little hesitation - lift upwards ever so slightly to a genuine smile.