“So what’s your assignment about?” you asked, looking up from the book you’d had your nose buried in for the past two hours. Sometimes you wished you would’ve gone for photography like Simon, at least you wouldn’t be having back problems in your early 20s.

“Nothing…uhm…nothing special.” Simon replied, fixing his glasses as he looked away from his laptop to meet your eyes. “A collection of portraits,” he explained. “But I’m supposed to capture people in the way I see them, so that it would elicit in people the emotions I felt when taking the picture, rather than the emotions of the subject.”

You hummed, genuinely interested in what he was saying; perhaps Simon should’ve been the one to go for the psychology major instead of you. “And how do you see me?” You asked, a grin pulling at your lips as heat immediately flooded his cheeks. You always found it so endearing, how your best friend would still get flustered around you, after all these years.

“You…you want to be in the portraits?” He asked tentatively. “Why not? You study photography yet you never asked me to be in any of the pictures you take. You’re more comfortable around me, I’d be the perfect model, right?”

And so, you had scheduled a session with Simon for the next day. You chose his dorm room because it was his safe place, and the both of you would’ve worked better in a private setting rather than in public. When you stepped into the room, you saw him cleaning his camera lenses. “So, how am I supposed to do this?” You asked, plopping down onto his bed. “It’s like…taking candid pictures?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Simon mumbled as he assembled his camera, trying his hardest not to think about the fact that you were on his bed. “So…like this?” He perked up when he heard your voice, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly as he saw you lying on your side, your hand propped up to support your head, and that beautiful, hypnotising smile on your lips.

“Y-Yeah,” Simon whispered breathlessly, fixing his glasses before he picked up his camera. “Just like that.”