![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bicheul30k, NC-17; kris/sehun - daddy!kink, crossdressing, slight master/pet, rough sex
This was written for the exok-ink fic exchange!
Note: not that it really matters much, but this will be my last Kris-involved fic for obvious reasons. I know I don't update very much if at all and I'm not even sure who even keeps tabs on me if anyone but for those who do I don't want there to be questions like "why did bicheul stop writing fics with Kris in it all of a sudden" sooo yeah~ Enjoy!
Part One
Kris
Kris’s lifelong aspiration was not photography. In fact, he wanted to be a basketball player until he dislocated his shoulder. He recovered from his injury but when he experienced debilitating pain upon returning to the court, his doctor gave him the bad news – he’d have to put his basketball dreams on the back burner. Bored stupid without basketball and seeking a new hobby, he picked up a camera and hadn’t put it down since.
He somehow made it into art school with his barebones portfolio – something about seeing his potential and that quality trumped quantity – and graduated with a fine arts degree four years later. It was harder to find work than he anticipated, though, and he spent a year and a half after graduation “doing freelance work” until he chanced upon an opening at a photography company in Shanghai.
At this point, he’d been with the company for a little over three months, and while the big move across China was worth it because he was finally making use of his degree, he had no real photography experience to speak of. Again, he was hired for his talent but upper management decided they hadn’t seen enough of his work to trust him to go out on those big, expensive jobs just yet. In essence, he was a glorified intern, except he got paid to do these endless menial tasks.
“What you need to do is beef up your portfolio,” Kibum, his supervisor and sometimes-advisor, told him. “If I’ve learned anything from my time here, it’s that you won’t be considered for jackshit unless you have an impressive portfolio.”
Kris frowned, thinking of what he thought was an impressive portfolio, filled with now over seven years of photography. He didn’t know what else he could possibly do. “What counts as ‘impressive’ here? No one can give me an answer for that,” he said.
Kibum shrugged. “It’s subjective, yet when it’s finally impressive everyone manages to agree. After that, you’ll move up the ranks pretty quickly.”
“That’s… still not helpful,” Kris said with a groan. He drooped down in his seat and tossed his head back in frustration.
“This is the problem with you,” Kibum started, talking around a baby carrot. “The problem with you is that your portfolio is too varied. You have nature photography, architectural photography, fashion photography – if anything, no one knows where to put you. Pick a focus for now and get your foot in the door.”
“I thought that being hired here was my foot in the door,” Kris mumbled.
“Ah, naivety. It happens to the best of us.”
“I’m a whole year older than you,” Kris countered.
“And I’ve worked here a whole two years longer than you,” Kibum said with a wrinkle of his nose. He twist-tied the baggie of baby carrots closed and put them back into his lunch box. “Break time’s over. I need you to make twenty copies of a ‘models wanted’ flier and then go hang them up around the shopping centers.”
Kibum walked through the opaque glass doors and Kris groaned into his hands. He wasn’t going to cry but he sure felt like it; he wanted to be the one auditioning models for his upcoming photoshoot, not doing the grunt work behind the scenes.
And that’s when it hit him.
Zitao, the real intern, blinked up at Kris from his desk. “That’s not my line of work.”
“I’m not asking you to model, I’m asking you to find me someone who will model for cheap,” Kris said slowly and sharply.
“Okay, and that’s not my line of work,” Zitao repeated. “I don’t do casting calls. The only calls I make are to clothing and cosmetics companies begging them to do business with us.”
Kris dragged his hands through his hair in frustration and Zitao sighed. “In my freshman year of college, my fashion design major friend needed models for her senior project, and I needed models to shoot. So she showed me this website where photographers can find models really simply and that’s what we used to get our projects done. If you want me to give you the website – “
“Of course I want you to give me the website,” Kris snapped, and with a roll of his eyes, Zitao scrawled a web address across a sticky note. Kris muttered a thank you as he turned to leave, planning to give the site a look when he had another free moment.
The site Zitao referred him to was almost the definition of paradise. He had an entire database of models seeking work at his fingertips, and for the first time in months he was feeling optimistic.
He initially intended on looking for girls in the Shanghai area; there was bound to be plenty and it would keep costs down, but the models seemed to get better and better with every mile outside of Shanghai. Much to his dismay, he had ended up looking as far as South Korea and spotted so much potential that he couldn’t force himself to dial back. He wanted the absolute best for his portfolio; while his own talent accounted for a lot, the beauty of his subject accounted for even more.
He paused his search to do some research on plane tickets, in the event that he had to fly a model to him or fly himself to her. He wondered if the company would cover travel costs because he definitely didn’t have it in his budget, and a quick call to Kibum confirmed that they would. (Not after Kibum questioned Kris’s motives and Kris managed to hassle him off of the phone, though.)
His scope was blown wide-open now that money wasn’t a factor – “as long as it’s within reason,” Kibum had said – and Kris delved deeper into his search. Before long, he found himself spending more time on one model’s page than he’d done the rest.
Sehun
His parents were far from enthralled when he told them that he was going to forego college for a career in modeling.
At the very root of it, it wasn’t like he had any choice. He failed his college entrance exams twice and, as luck would have it, he was only allowed to take it two times. With each failure, his desire to go to college dwindled. A week or so after his second suneung attempt, he was approached by a scouting agent while window-shopping, and that scout talked him up and down about how model-worthy he was and how he stood to be one of Korea’s next top models within a year if he signed with their agency.
He accepted, went on a few casting calls, and was repeatedly beat out by other, more experienced male models. The casting agents told him to keep trying but his agency wasn’t having any of that; they said that his failures only made their company look bad so it would be better to let him go than to have the fashion world catch wind of the fact that one of their hand-picked models wasn’t getting any work.
Sehun quickly did away with what his former employer told him and kept trying, albeit on a smaller scale. He had made friends with some lower-end, “freelance” models who told him to make an account on a website where he could connect with photographers looking for models to shoot. Some of the girls joked that while he would get work for being good-looking, he might get more work if he became a girl. He laughed with the rest of them, but it somehow sounded like a good idea.
And so began Sehun’s double life as a struggling male model and a flourishing “female” model. He experimented with makeup techniques and wigs and angles until he got it right, and to his shock he got emails left and right from photographers wanting to work with him. He wasn’t the prettiest girl but that’s what drew photographers to him; he was “unconventionally beautiful” in that way what works in fashion, or at least that’s what he was told. As far as he knew, no one figured out that he was dressed in drag, and if they did they didn’t care.
Most of the work he got was from photographers in and around Seoul. Sometimes he’d get flown down to Busan or Jeju for shoots, but that was the extent of his traveling. That was why he was surprised when he received an email from someone all the way from China.
From: 吴亦凡 (Kris Wu)
Hello from Shanghai! My name is Wu Yi Fan but I also go by Kris Wu and I am a photographer located in Shanghai, China. I came across your profile while looking for models to shoot for my portfolio and I wanted to know if you were interested in coming to Shanghai for a couple of weeks to do some shoots for me. You will be fully compensated and flight and accommodations are included. Again, you don’t have to spend any money to fly to Shanghai and you will be paid upon the completion of our sessions together! I hope to hear back from you soon. Also, please excuse my Korean, it’s not very good since I haven’t had much of an opportunity to use it for a long while. Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Kris Wu
To: 吴亦凡 (Kris Wu)
Hello Mr. Wu,
I would love to take you up on your offer but of course I need to make sure that I’m working within my limits, compensation-wise. As you see on my profile, I request that I be paid a minimum of ₩700,000 (~¥3973), travel costs not included, per two-hour session. Please let me know if this is reasonable for you so that we can set up travel arrangements!
Thank you for the offer,
Sehun
From: 吴亦凡 (Kris Wu)
Hello again Sehun,
I’m willing to pay you ₩3,000,000 (¥85,134) total for all of the sessions we do together, travel and accommodations not included in this figure. Of course, my offer to fly you out and house you still stands! This number can change depending on how long our shoots run but we’ll use ₩3,000,000 as a base for the time being.
If this works for you, reply back with your availability so that we can go about setting up your flight.
Thanks again for your time,
Kris Wu
(And, please, call me Kris.)
With that, the planning began. Sehun was going to fly to China the following week and remain there for thirteen days, at least seven of which he’d spend in front of a camera. Kris promised him plenty of time to go sightseeing, especially because Sehun had never been to Shanghai before.
Once they set up the travel dates, Sehun requested that Kris wait outside of the airport for him rather than inside. He expected Kris to ask why but he was surprisingly understanding and agreed to wait outside with the transportation to Sehun’s hotel. Sehun couldn’t be more thankful if he tried.
There was a lot that went into his ‘transforming’ into a girl. Hair and makeup aside, he had to bind his waist to give it that feminine curve and fashion realistic breasts from padded and stuffed bras. He had to shave his body clean, keep those areas of his face that grew hair waxed and spotless, employ a painful tucking technique, and, in the long-term, keep his body lean because just a little bit of muscle would give him away. With Kris waiting for him inside of the airport, surrounded by noise and hubbub for longer than he needed to because Sehun had to make himself into a girl, would force him to rush which would definitely lead to him making a major mistake and ruining this job from minute one. So he was glad that Kris was willing to wait outside, even if Kris had no idea why he had to.
The day came for Sehun to fly to China and begin his job. He told his friends the truth – he was going to China for a series of photoshoots – but not the whole truth. He intended to keep it that way.
Upon landing in Shanghai and going through customs (he explained away the multitude of wigs and makeup and women’s clothing by saying he was a wardrobe designer for a stage show and those were his supplies), he went off in search for someplace to turn into the female form that Kris was expecting to see. Amongst a cluster of gendered bathrooms was a one-person, “family” bathroom, allowing him all of the privacy he needed. Being in the middle of an airport, with people coming and going constantly, he wasn’t worried about the reaction when he went into the bathroom as a man and came out as a woman.
Kris
Kris checked his watch. Sehun’s flight was supposed to have landed at least a half hour ago. Was she tied up in customs? He knew that her flight wasn’t late, since he had a clear view of the LED signage blaring the flight numbers and their statuses. Maybe she got nervous and was trying to negotiate her way into a ticket back home, and once she was there she would tell him that she missed the flight and they could try again some other time.
Kris was, in essence, worried that his ticket to joining the ranks at work was about to flake on him. For a week now he’d been fantasizing about these photoshoots and all of the ways he would make Sehun pose, about how stunned his superiors would be when they reviewed his portfolio and saw all of these photos of the striking Korean girl Kris imported for these shoots alone. He couldn’t imagine anyone else in her place. He needed her to emerge from the airport and become a reality as soon as humanly possible.
He felt his heart skip a beat as he saw a vaguely familiar silhouette approaching the glassy exit doors. Tall, long hair tied up and off of her face and shoulders, slender yet hippy, the girl Kris had seen over and over again on his computer screen. When the automatic door swung open and she walked out, Kris was validated.
“Wow, you’re even prettier in person,” Kris blurted out as Sehun approached, and a smile crossed her face. “Not that you aren’t pretty in your photos, because you definitely are but – I’m Kris, the photographer.”
“And I’m Sehun,” she replied in a smooth voice, deeper than he’d expect from a girl. If it were anyone else, it would be a bit strange, but the voice seemed to match her face. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you also,” Kris said. “Here, I’ll put your bags in the trunk and you can get settled in the car.” Sehun nodded and opened the door and ducked her head as she stepped in. Kris flew the trunk, stowing away her luggage before he, too, took a seat in the car and left the airport with Sehun at his side.
“I was thinking that we could do some catalog-type work first and work our way up,” Kris said over coffees in the hotel café. “This is mostly due to the fact that I have to clear some temporary contracts with some of the bigger names you’ll be modeling for, which shouldn’t take too long, but right now you’re only cleared to do some lower-end stuff. I hope that’s alright.”
Sehun nodded. “I don’t mind that. It’s more work than I’ve gotten recently.” She took a sip from her cup, a look of dejection in her eyes.
“Well, maybe with the work you do with me over the next couple of weeks, you’ll book a lot more work. I’ve only ever seen you in action through your photos but I can say with confidence that your unique look and my skill for photography can increase the offers maybe tenfold.”
Sehun chuckled. “You don’t have to sell yourself to me. I’m already here.”
“N-no, that’s not what I mean,” Kris stammered, but Sehun only waved him off with a grin.
“I’m only joking. By the way, your Korean isn’t half bad,” Sehun said.
“Oh, thank you,” Kris replied. There was silence for a few beats, and then Kris cleared his throat. “So, yeah, I was thinking we could do a shoot at one of the parks in the city. You’d primarily be wearing things like shorts and tank tops and stuff like that… I know it’s still a bit chilly but…”
“But that’s a part of modeling, dressing in next to nothing when it’s cold out,” Sehun said with a laugh. “That’s fine. I can use the thought of getting paid to warm me up.”
Kris chuckled then. “That’s true. Later on, we can do some headshots – one of my pending temp contracts is with a local makeup company. They’re a start-up with a sizeable fanbase but they’re looking for models, so I can submit the results of that photoshoot to them. If they pick you, you would be called back to Shanghai for more photoshoots – probably not with me, though – and you’ll get paid for being a spokesmodel. Sounds good, right?”
An indecipherable smile crossed Sehun’s face and she nodded.
“You’re very quiet,” Kris mused. “It always surprises me when girls that make their living in front of a camera are actually very shy. Or is it just because you find it weird that you’re spending time with someone who’s basically your employer?”
“I’m not really shy,” Sehun said, tucking some loose strands of hair behind her ear. “It just takes me a while to warm up. By tomorrow, you’ll want me to stop talking.”
Kris smirked. “Impossible.”
Sehun chuckled nervously and sipped her coffee again, and Kris mentally kicked himself. There he was, spouting off at the mouth and speaking without thinking like he always did when he was face to face with a pretty girl. He fully intended to keep everything as business as possible, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he was attracted to her.
Maybe he wasn’t, he thought. Maybe this was his way of admiring her beauty, especially since she was going to be his model and it was kind of his job to find her attractive. He wouldn’t have selected her otherwise.
They finished their coffee and Kris suggested doing some test shots so that he could better study her angles and plan out poses for their upcoming shoots.
“I know you aren’t wearing much makeup but for the sake of it, it would be nice if you could remove some of it, just so the lighting is more accurate,” Kris suggested as he set up his camera and tripod.
“Oh, um… can I just take off the false lashes I’m wearing?” Sehun asked. “It’s just that my makeup remover is in my stuff upstairs and if I try to get it off with water it’ll be all streaky so…”
Kris shrugged. “That works for me. I just want optimal conditions in the most natural of settings,” he said. Sehun nodded and removed her false lashes, setting them down carefully on a sheet of tissue paper. He posed her against the plain white wall in a foyer branching off of the lobby and instructed her to look right into the lens. He snapped a few photos then had her turn her head to the side so that he could get her profile.
She had such severe features, but it would work, Kris thought to himself. Everyone was taking photos of girls with soft, almost doll-like features, so he would stand out among the rest with Sehun’s angular jaw and stately nose and full lips. When he looked at her, he could see nothing but success in his future.
Yixing was maybe the only person at work that Kris could call a friend. At first, Kris hung onto him because he had done some legendary editing on some of the photos in his portfolio, but stuck around for the stress-relieving chats they’d share at least once a week over beers at the bar down the street from the office.
Kris gave Yixing a jump-drive with Sehun’s test shots in it. “It’s in the folder named Shixun,” Kris told Yixing as he turned his back to get a cup of water from the water cooler. “Her real name is Sehun but I figured if she plans on marketing here, she should have a Chinese name.”
“Absolutely riveting,” Yixing deadpanned, scrolling through Kris’s folders until he found the correct one. Kris watched over Yixing’s shoulder as he put the photos into preview mode so that he could see them clearer. “She’s, uh… she’s interesting. Looking. Interesting-looking.”
“She’s not ugly,” Kris said. “She’s pretty in that haute couture way.”
“Right. Thanks for giving me a solid ten years of work to do.” Kris smacked him over the head and Yixing let out a quiet aiya.
“I don’t need you to edit anything. These are test shots, I just want you to check the lighting and adjust it a little –“
“Really? ‘A little’? At this rate I’d be better off cranking up the white balance until I can’t see her face anymore.” After saying that, Yixing peered up at Kris and cowered, hoping he wouldn’t hit him again.
“I’ll kill you,” Kris said through gritted teeth instead. “She’s a lot prettier in person. Trust me, I wouldn’t have chosen her over so many other gorgeous girls if she was ugly.”
“Deep down, you know she’s ugly. You know it but you also know that ugly plus photography equals a first-class ticket to getting a contract with a fashion magazine so you’re just rolling with it,” Yixing said, clicking here and there and making fine adjustments. He glanced at Kris again then laughed. “I’m kidding. She’s not bad-looking.”
“Sure,” Kris mumbled.
Sehun
It wasn’t until Sehun had washed off all of his makeup and reverted back into his normal self that he realized he had a huge problem on his hands.
In the past, his photoshoots (while dressed and acting as a woman) were one-day occasions – he’d show up in full makeup, mostly because the photographers were either freelance or couldn’t afford staff, with his wig on and dressed comfortably enough that no one could tell that he was still male from the neck down. After that, he would leave and likely never see the photographer again, and therefore he didn’t have to worry about the glaringly obvious fact that he would constantly need to be in full makeup to keep suspicions to a minimum.
But, in this case, he was going to be around Kris for two weeks – and Kris would definitely notice that Sehun kept himself fully made-up from sunrise to sunset. He glanced at himself in the mirror; without the contouring and shading he looked very much like a man, so he couldn’t just go barefaced. He had been ready to go to bed but now he couldn’t sleep until he figured out a way to do his makeup so naturally that it would be enough to keep Kris in the dark but also secure the fact that none of his masculine features were showing.
In the end, Sehun went with foundation, a bit of concealer, a thin line of eyeliner, a coat of mascara and a dab of clear lip gloss. He was validated when the hotel staff greeted him with “Good morning, ma’am” and his nerves quelled by the time he made his way to Kris outside.
“I hope you slept well,” Kris said cordially.
Sehun smiled and nodded, but in truth, he hadn’t. He had been up all night fighting the urge to break out the makeup again and try something else.
Kris drove the two of them to a sprawling park just adjacent to the city center. The park buzzed with excitement; tourists walked around with cameras, taking photos of the skyline and the shrubbery, locals played board games or jogged by or held conversations with each other or peddled food and other goods to passersby. A man with an acoustic guitar busked from his seat on a bench nearest to the park’s main entrance, guitar case open wide to accept any tips.
“There’s a women’s bathroom in that building over there,” Kris said, pointing to a structure in the center of the park. “You can go there when I give you outfits to change into.” He set down the large tote bag he was carrying and unzipped it, pulling out a flowing blouse and shorts with the hems frayed. “Again, I’m sorry to make you pose like this when it’s so cold out.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sehun said as he examined the clothes, more worried about how he was going to hide his waist bindings and tuck enough to fit into those shorts. He took note of Kris’s apologetic expression and gave him a broad smile. “No, really, it’s fine! Don’t worry about it. I can deal with a little cold.”
“If anything, I have a jacket in the car, one of those really long, puffy ones. I’ll get it while you’re getting dressed,” Kris said.
Sehun nodded in agreement and took the clothes with him to the bathroom, taking advantage of the surplus time he’d have with Kris walking all the way back to the car and back. After all, it would be easier after this first outfit; he would make fine adjustments where needed but they wouldn’t be noticeable enough for Kris to start wondering.
The shoot went on without a hitch. When Kris stopped to reset his equipment he encouraged Sehun to bundle up in the coat he bought for him and gave him money to buy warm food and drinks. Sehun couldn’t help but think it was cute and sweet the way Kris was doting on him; of course, it was probably because Kris saw Sehun as a girl who needed to be taken care of constantly, but it was endearing nonetheless. Even when a cold, persistent breeze picked up and made Sehun’s eyes prickle with tears, he found himself able to smile and warm himself from the inside out just by thinking of Kris’s kindness.
He would be lying if he said it didn’t have something to do with the fact that Kris was good-looking, so much so that Sehun thought it strange he opted to be behind the camera rather than in front of it. But, as Sehun had dealt with many times in the past, there was no use in starting up a crush on someone who was almost completely convinced he was a girl. It would be too complicated to explain later and would likely end everything before it had a chance to begin, anyway.
Still, Sehun asked Kris – in as friendly a manner as he could muster – if he’d like to join him for dinner after they’d wrapped for the day.
“Ah, I’d love to, but…” He gestured at the camera in his hand. “I need to upload and edit these photos, print them out, blow them up… maybe on a night when we haven’t shot anything and therefore I won’t have any work to do?”
“Of course,” Sehun said. “Just as a thank you for this opportunity.”
“No, thank you,” Kris said. “Up until a week or so ago I was feeling pretty hopeless. Thanks to you, the future doesn’t seem so bleak.” Sehun smiled, understanding him, but Kris still stammered. “I mean, the future of my career, you know? It seemed stagnant for a while but it feels like things are picking up.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Sehun said. “You’re the first photographer, I think, that I’ve worked with who comes from a kind of big time company with industry connections, so I feel like things might pick up for me as well.”
“Let’s cross our fingers,” Kris said, slinging his bag over his shoulder once again. They walked back to the car, making small talk the entire way, then remaining silent for the drive, but only because Sehun dozed off while basking in the warmth of the air flowing from the car’s vents.
The days flew by without incident. When Sehun wasn’t shooting with Kris, he was out taking in the sights – though he found it hard to focus when he was looking out for any sign of Kris, lest he be caught on the streets of Shanghai looking very much like a man. He couldn’t fathom that there would be any way to explain his way out of a situation like that, but he didn’t have to.
They took the headshots for the cosmetics company endorsement and at the end of that shoot, Kris checked his email and found out that several of the contracts he needed approved for the remainder of their shoots had gone through. After that, Kris shot Sehun in a series of formal gowns and designer jeans and a few for an athletic shoe company and Sehun was thrilled at how easily everything was going along. The promise of more money from these companies on top of the payment Kris was going to give him at the end of their time together had him thinking about a future of traveling and living lavishly, something he hadn’t thought about seriously ever in his life.
But Sehun’s heart sank when Kris approached him with the concept of the next photoshoot. “Swimwear. I know very well that you can pull off a swimsuit since you’ve done some similar work before so I’m confident you’ll do well with this one, too,” Kris said, showing him sample photos of the looks he was going to wear. Sehun calmed himself by noticing that this company dealt not only in bikinis but one-piece suits and sarongs and tops with more coverage so he had a chance at getting through this shoot without any issues.
“I’m all for that,” Sehun said, toying nervously with the strands of his wig.
Yixing
Yixing had never met this Sehun or Shixun or whatever Kris was calling her but he’d seen so much of her while working that he felt like he knew her. He literally knew every inch of her body after zooming in deeply to correct blemishes or to sharpen her eyes and bring them out more. But he also noticed other things that he hadn’t seen in the hundreds of other girls’ photos that he’d edited in his time.
On more than on occasion, Yixing had to edit out what looked like some kind of corset outlining itself against the fabric of whatever Sehun was wearing. Kris had warned him in the past not to, but Yixing couldn’t help but narrow Sehun’s shoulders just slightly; they were so off-kilter in comparison to her tiny waist and slender hips, almost linebacker in nature. Above all of that, Yixing could see very clearly the contouring work Sehun did with her makeup – most noticeably along her nose and cheekbones but even more so on her chest – and he just knew something wasn’t right.
“She seems kind of… off,” Yixing suggested to Kris after coming up on this revelation. In response, he got an irritated look.
“You’ve never even met her. She’s as normal as they come,” Kris said. Kris rolled his eyes and Yixing sighed; he wasn’t planning on elaborating but now he was even more discouraged. Maybe Yixing was wrong, maybe Sehun was a girl who was self-conscious about her looks and took steps to improve the way she appeared on camera. The consideration of that made Yixing feel awful for the mean things he was thinking and he vowed to himself then to stop even if he wasn’t saying it to the girl’s face. There was a reason he chose to be an editor and not a photographer, and it was that he interacted better with mouse clicks and his own thoughts than he trusted his mouth with people face-to-face.
Kris
He was looking forward to the swimsuit shoot a bit more than he should have. Since he closed the deal on the swimwear contract, he’d been imagining Sehun in the tiny bikinis with mere strings holding them closed. He justified that by telling himself that he had to do that; how else would he know how he wanted Sehun to pose when the time came? But deep down he knew that the frequency and intensity of these thoughts were way beyond being work-related.
If he were interrogated at that very moment about whether or not he was attracted to Sehun, and even the slightest hint of a lie would put him in jail, he would already be in handcuffs. There was just something about her – maybe it was her quiet countenance, or her confidence in front of the camera, or that shy way she smiled when Kris told her she was doing a great job, he couldn’t place it. But he found himself looking forward to shoot days not just because photography was what he loved and filling his portfolio with good photos gave him a thrill, but because he wanted an excuse to be around Sehun for a few hours.
The swimwear company sent over their summer line with a courier the night before the shoot. Kris opened the box and rifled through it; there were about eleven different swimsuits, all of them bikinis of varying colors and designs. He went to the wardrobe department at his office and picked out a few pairs of strappy high heels in Sehun’s size to match the bikinis, all the while imagining Sehun wearing them.
This is part of the creative process, Kris thought to himself. I don’t have a wardrobe person to do this for me, so I have to picture her in these bikinis and shoes so I’m not running around in circles tomorrow. There’s nothing wrong with this.
Liar, another part of Kris’s mind said.
As luck would have it, the weather the next day was warm and sunny. It wasn’t warm enough to go to the beach, but comfortable enough for Sehun to spend a few hours in a bikini by the pool.
Kris arrived at the venue before Sehun did, a luxury resort about an hour from the city. He had to pull a few strings to get them to close the pool from hotel guests for the afternoon, but eventually won them over when he mentioned that this was a chance for some free publicity. Sehun had called him earlier, telling him she’d be a little late, so he decided to take this time to set up his camera and lighting and lay out the bikinis in the order he wanted to shoot them.
Sehun arrived about half an hour later, apologizing profusely for being late. “I woke up late and I didn’t eat dinner last night because I fell asleep so I really needed to eat something –“
“No, it’s fine,” Kris said, waving her off. “If you showed up when I did, you would have been waiting around anyway. If you want to take a look at what you’ll be wearing today, it’s right over there.” He pointed at a table a few feet away and Sehun walked over, almost cautiously.
“Oh,” he heard Sehun say softly. “Um, do you have any sarongs or anything? Maybe a one-piece?”
Kris shook his head. “That’s all the company sent over. Is something wrong?”
Sehun shrugged her shoulders and laughed a bit. “I’m… just having a fat day, I guess, and I wanted to be a bit more covered-up but this is fine. I’ll make it work. Do you want me to get changed now?”
“Go ahead, I’m almost done setting up,” Kris said. “Start with the suit farthest to the left.”
Sehun picked up the first swimsuit, a stringy, bright orange bikini with thin, white pinstripes. “Alright, I’ll be right back,” Sehun said.
Sehun
Sehun couldn’t remember the last time he had a panic attack while at a job, but there he was in the women’s bathroom, hyperventilating with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Get it together,” he said to himself. “He’ll notice you’ve been crying if you don’t stop. You don’t want him to ask questions. You can do this.”
He had been on the edge of an attack the moment he saw bikinis and nothing else, but he fell over the precipice when he undid the binding around his waist. Without it, his waist was still narrow but not in the way it was when it was bound, and it was noticeable to boot. If Sehun’s tear-stained, makeup-streaked cheeks didn’t give everything away, the sudden expansion of his waist would.
And then came the issue of the bit of bulge in his bikini bottoms. In the past, he managed to talk photographers into giving him a sarong to cover up what he could and just posed in ways that kept what he couldn’t hide disguised, but now he didn’t have that luxury.
He could opt out of the shoot altogether, claiming he went into the bathroom and just realized “she” got “her” period and doesn’t have anything on her, but that would mean leaving Kris high and dry, and he didn’t want to do that. Plus, leaving before the shoot had a chance to start would cut out a huge chunk of his paycheck, and he didn’t want that either.
“One time,” Sehun remembered one of his female model friends saying, “I hadn’t had a job in, like, months. I was so depressed that I ate like shit and drank every other night and literally gained something like fifteen pounds. I was working out, though, but not as much as I did before. Out of nowhere, my agent calls and says, ‘You know, you haven’t worked in a long time, let’s update your test shots. Come in tomorrow morning and make sure you’re wearing a bra and panties because you’ll have to strip down so we can do some full body shots.’ Now I’m like fuck because I’m huge and my agent is clearly expecting that in this plateau I’ve been going to the gym religiously and maybe even lost a bit of weight… so I go in the next day, right? Strip down… my agent looks at me like, ‘You’re joking, right?’ and I just sucked in my stomach, kept my hands on my waist, and posed with my legs crossed the whole time. Worked like a charm.”
I’ll just do that, Sehun thought, and he felt his heart rate start to slow. I’ve got this.
Kris
“This isn’t working,” Kris muttered to himself. He had never imagined he’d be using those words in reference to Sehun, who had been the dream model up until now. He stepped back from the camera and, when Sehun saw that, Sehun broke her pose and nervously scratched her head.
“Is something wrong?"
“No, why?” Sehun asked.
“You seem really withdrawn today, and it’s showing in your posing. Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?”
Sehun nodded. “I’m fine. I’m sorry that I’m doing badly.”
Kris was ready to accept that and move on, but he knew she was lying. He walked away from the camera and towards her, taking her hands in his and holding them tightly. “I know you said earlier that you’re feeling a bit self-conscious about your body today, but you have no reason to be. Trust me, you look incredible.” Sehun took a deep breath and looked down. “I want you to loosen up, okay? Have fun with this. Pretend you’re on vacation. All right?”
“Kris –“
“All right? You’re an amazing model, so I need you to show me that today. You can do this. I believe in you.”
“Kris, I have to tell you something.”
Kris felt his stomach knot itself up. “What is it?”
Sehun looked away and said nothing. The lull had to have lasted mere seconds but it felt like an eternity. “I’m… I’m not exactly who I’ve been showing you I am,” Sehun said, her voice shaking. “There’s actually a lot I need to tell you and I need to do it now because it’s why I’m having a hard time today and I have to just get it out there… if you’re mad, I understand completely…”
“What’s wrong?” Kris pressed.
Sehun shook away one of Kris’s hands so that she had a free hand to wipe a tear from her eye. “God, I don’t know any other way to say it except… I’m…” She sighed, her breath trembling. “I’m not a girl.”
Kris’s nerves turned into sheer confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m… not a girl. I’m a guy. I can’t keep doing this.” Kris wanted to disbelieve but Sehun’s voice dropped several octaves and he knew it was true. “If you want to send me home for basically scamming you, by all means, do it. I’m sorry…”
Kris wanted to loosen his grip on her – no, his – hands, but he didn’t want Sehun to get the wrong idea. He wasn’t even angry as much as he was confused and bewildered; he didn’t know how he couldn’t tell beforehand.
Sehun was the one to draw his hands away, though, hugging himself despite the warmth as if he were suddenly self-conscious of the way he appeared before Kris. He looked so vulnerable like that, Kris mused, and understandably so. Kris, too, felt vulnerable, a bit let-down, but more shocked that he hadn’t suspected a thing. It was there in Sehun’s voice, which had a feminine lilt to it but a dusky bass. It was there in his bone structure, which Kris had just attributed to a unique combination of genes and nothing more sinister.
But Sehun wasn’t sinister, not in the slightest, and Kris knew that. There had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this, but he wasn’t going to press Sehun for it now. If, in time, Sehun wanted to Kris know why he did what he did, Kris would be open for it. If it never happened, Kris would be happy to let it go, too.
Kris pulled one of Sehun’s hands back into his own. Sehun wouldn’t look at him, and Kris didn’t even know what he would say if he had. He opened his mouth to speak then closed it again, doing this a few times until the words that materialized in his head had captured his feelings perfectly.
“I…I don’t care what you are, okay? You’re great at what you do, female or not. If you’ll let me, I’d love to continue photographing you… I mean, you had me fooled this whole time, so you can fool everyone else,” Kris said with a laugh, trying to make Sehun feel better.
“Seriously? You don’t have to say that just because I’m asking for forgiveness. I fucked you over, so you have every right to be angry with me,” Sehun said with a sniffle.
“Well, I’m not angry, and I’m not just saying that. This can be our secret, all right? No one has to know and no one will know. You’ve got my word.” Kris was silent for a few moments, trying to figure out how he’d manage to keep this secret with Yixing doing the editing for his photos. Now that Kris knew, it was only sort of apparent that Sehun was a man through and through, and he was worried that Yixing with his keen eye would see that. “I’ll edit these photos on my own. It’s not my specialty, but I can do my best. I just want you to be comfortable, and if any of this pictures show that you aren’t female, I’ll fix it. If I can’t, well, I just won’t include those photos in my portfolio, and that’s fine. I’m on your side.”
He gave Sehun’s hand a reassuring squeeze and then let it go before he made his way back to the camera. He watched Sehun take a few deep breaths and put himself back into the zone, then gave Sehun a smile.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?”
The gravity of Sehun’s confession only registered in Kris’s mind later that day as he uploaded and edited the photos he shot of him. For one, Kris had already sent off numerous pictures to various companies and given Sehun a chance to land some major modeling work, but these companies were all under the impression that Sehun was female. If, by some chance, they called Sehun and offered him work, it would be inevitable that they find out his secret and everything he’d worked so hard for would go down the drain.
On the other hand, Kris had to think long and hard about what Sehun’s confession meant in terms of the attraction he’d been feeling for him all along. If he had to be completely honest, his attraction didn’t dissipate the moment Sehun admitted he was a guy. Kris still found him painfully attractive in every way possible, but it was all muddled by the fact that up until that morning, Kris was 100 percent convinced Sehun was female. Kris buried his head in his hands; his mind was swirling in confusion. This is why it’s a better idea to keep business relationships as just that – business, he thought.
But that proved to be harder than he anticipated, what with him seeing Sehun almost every day in his female form and, now, in his male form. The bashful way in which Sehun carried himself when he was dressed normally in front of Kris made his heart race, regardless of how hard he tried to keep it from doing so. It even seemed that Sehun was better-looking without the makeup and wigs, his skin natural and unguarded and his hair, cut short and bleached blond, unkempt like he’d just rolled out of bed.
Above all else, Kris admired Sehun’s patience. He tried to imagine living day to day in a strange country, spending what had to be hours in front of a mirror trying to make himself look feminine. He couldn’t fathom it, but Sehun lived it, by choice, and even did it when it was less than convenient.
Kris could feel himself spiraling. Part of him wanted the day that Sehun was due to leave to come faster, so that these feelings could die sooner, but another part of him didn’t want that last week to end.
Sehun
Sehun and Kris didn’t get around to that dinner he suggested until his last night in Shanghai. They went right after their final shoot together, Sehun wearing his makeup and wig along with a dress Kris let him borrow from a shoot and his own pair of kitten-heel pumps.
The waiter mistook them for a couple and took them to one of just a handful of curtained booths on the opposite side of the restaurant. He took their orders and left, and the two of them sat in silence.
Sehun drummed his fingers against the table. “I’m actually kind of glad they stuck us over here,” Sehun said. “Now I don’t have to worry if people are staring at me.”
“That’s true,” Kris said with a hint of a chuckle. They fell silent again. “I just want to thank you again for everything. My supervisor’s been looking over my portfolio for a few days now and he says he’s really impressed. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Sehun shook his head. “I’m sure you could have done it without me. But, you’re welcome… and thank you for… everything.” He took a deep breath. “For giving me work, for getting me out of Korea for the first time in a really, really long time… and for being understanding of my… you know, my situation. It means a lot.”
Kris smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s nothing, really.”
They fell silent once more, and remained that way even as Kris reached across the table to put his hand over Sehun’s. Sehun looked from their hands to Kris’s eyes but still, neither of them said a word.
Sehun treated the two of them to drinks throughout their meal and for a time afterward, and then they caught a taxi back to Sehun’s hotel. He invited Kris upstairs, a benign offer to its core, and Kris accepted.
Once in Sehun’s room, they were once again people of few words, albeit more loosened up from the alcohol in their systems. Sehun contemplated excusing himself to change into something more comfortable, but he couldn’t will his body to move from where he sat on the bed.
Kris leaned against the wall, stealing glances at Sehun without knowing that Sehun was catching him every time. Part of him wanted to beckon Kris over to him and make something of his last night in Shanghai, but he tended to shy away from feeling too ambitious when he was buzzed.
“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” Sehun raised his eyebrows as Kris spoke, and then a smile broke across his face.
“I know you’re drunk, so I’ll remind you that you’re with a guy dressed as a girl right now,” Sehun replied.
“I know that,” Kris said, using his weight to push away from the wall and moving to where Sehun sat. “It doesn’t make what I said any less true.”
“Maybe, but I’m caked in makeup right now so you’ll change your mind once I wipe this all off.” Sehun flinched as Kris sat on the bed beside him, close enough for their elbows to touch.
“I’ve seen you without your makeup before. Still thought you were gorgeous then.” Kris turned his head and looked at Sehun, his eyes flickering down to Sehun’s lips. Instinctively, Sehun licked his lips, then regretted it – he was giving Kris the wrong idea. Or maybe it’s the right idea, Sehun thought.
Kris leaned toward him and Sehun pressed a hand into his chest, pushing him away gently. “Kris… I’m speaking from experience here. Don’t do things you’ll only regret in the morning when you’re drunk,” Sehun said, but he hardly meant it. The smell of liquor on Kris’s breath was intoxicating him even more and he wanted to taste it on his own tongue.
“Do you really think I’m doing this because I drank a little bit?” Kris asked with mock disbelief, and Sehun couldn’t help but snort because neither of them had drank ‘a little bit’. “The only thing that alcohol is doing for me tonight is giving me the balls to just act for once.”
Kris tried to move in again and Sehun let him, his hand trailing weakly down Kris’s chest. Their lips and Sehun felt as if the air had been knocked out of him; his chest tightened and his head spun and that’s how he knew everything was right. He could taste beer on Kris’s tongue as if he were drinking it straight from the stein.
Sehun gasped as Kris slowly ran a hand up and down the expanse of hairless skin on his exposed thigh, and Kris broke the kiss momentarily to ask, “Can I?”
Sehun nodded and pulled Kris back to him by the collar of his shirt, mashing their lips together as Sehun laid back and Kris adjusted himself to make it so that his chest was flush with Sehun’s.
He closed his eyes as Kris drifted down to suck kisses onto his collarbone, dragging his blunt fingernails across Sehun’s inner thigh. He couldn’t deal with the tease any longer; he reached down and wrapped his fingers around Kris’s wrist and moved his hand to where he wanted it.
A sound akin to a hiss came to Sehun’s ears as Kris breathed heavy on his neck, fingertips tracing the lacy patterns on Sehun’s panties.
Kris’s lips found Sehun’s again, capturing breathy puffs with his kiss. Sehun found leverage and rolled Kris onto his back, breaking the kiss to sit up on his knees. Kris kept his hand under Sehun’s dress until he lifted it up to give Kris a better look.
“Really hot,” Kris whispered, and Sehun gently pushed his hand away. He straddled one of Kris’s thighs and leaned forward to lie on top of him, running his hands through Kris’s hair before he kissed him deeply.
Sehun rolled his hips down against Kris’s thigh, and Kris snaked an arm around Sehun’s waist and the other hand to the curve of his ass. Kris dug his fingernails into the plush flesh as Sehun ground his hips again and again, slowly and in staccato. Sehun arched his neck and Kris drew a wet line up his Adam’s apple with his tongue, then sucked and bit at the pinkened skin beside it. Sehun bit his lip, overwhelmed by the sensory overload, the feeling of his hard cock rubbing against lace rubbing against denim. His hand cupped Kris’s crotch, massaging the hardness that lay there as well.
Before long, Sehun’s hips were snapping back and forth and he stifled his moans in the crook of Kris’s shoulder. He quivered as he came, warm and sticky in the confines of his panties.
Sehun didn’t waste a minute, staring into Kris’s eyes as he undid his belt and button and zipper in record time. He slithered down between Kris’s legs and took him into his mouth without hesitation, one hand working the shaft and his mouth paying the most attention to the head. Sehun peered up at him through his false lashes and Kris groaned, tossing his head back in pleasure; he groaned again when Sehun got bold and tried to take him in as far as he could manage. In no time, Kris was cussing and moaning Sehun’s name and filling his mouth with cum. Sehun let his head bob a bit until Kris was finished and then removed his mouth with a wet pop, his lips glistening and beet-red.
Sehun raised a finger to say he’d be back and he disappeared into the bathroom. He spit out what was in his mouth into the sink and washed it down the drain, then removed the soiled panties and placed them in the hamper; he’d handwash them in the morning before he went to the airport, he resolved.
When Sehun returned – face washed, wig removed – Kris was laying with his head on the pillows, looking very much like he intended to stay the night. Sehun didn’t protest. Instead, he climbed into bed beside him, turned out the lights, and fell asleep with Kris massaging slow circles onto his bare ass.
When Sehun woke the next morning, he was alone. He glanced at the clock, only to find it partially covered by a sticky note. Sehun peeled it off, checked the time, and then read the note.
I woke up sober, as expected. Didn’t regret a thing.
Have a safe flight home. Let’s keep in touch. I mean it.
-Kris
