Author's note: I don't own Digimon. Bear with me and my French spellings; I think they're right.
-Five Lessons in Modeling-
(Je t'aime.)
Sex is power. First lesson in modeling, Takeru thought.
When you looked haughtily at the camera from beneath hooded eyes, sex dripped down your torso. When you cocked one shoulder back and tilted your chin up slightly, girls would fall at your feet.
Erotic photos were easy. But love? Love photos were difficult.
Takeru scratched his faux-hawk wryly. He was always posing with useless nitwits that looked at him with love-saturated eyes, and he was forced to look back with something resembling passion.
How do you show devotion outside of pictures? It was a damn baffling puzzle.
(Un peu…)
Beauty sells. Second lesson in modeling, Takeru thought.
When you had abs as sculpted as his, people would clamor to photograph them. When you had blue eyes from your French mother in a world where brown eyes dominated, people wanted to see them smirking out from underneath hooded eyes.
Being gorgeous was second nature. But there was beauty, and then there was Something More.
"Chin up! Arm forward, eyes down!" bellowed the photographer. Photographers were comforting; they directed him mostly and he didn't have to choose anything (for once in his life). It wasn't like when he went home and had to deal with him, with Daisuke.
Sometimes it's hard to love people. Takeru rubbed his left eyebrow with his pinky and huffed a quiet sigh.
(beaucoup…)
Pearly whites are essential. Third lesson in modeling, Takeru thought.
When you arrive at a go-see, you had to flash that smile and that personality, show off some pizzazz. When you had vampiric canines, occult photographers liked to see them glint in otherworldly photo shoots.
White teeth didn't matter much when they were clacking against Daisuke's own. He hated it (loved it) when his sharp teeth dug hungrily into his lover's. Why was it always about animalistic sex with them? It was never soft touches, loving caresses.
Love worked in mysterious way, didn't it? Patiently letting his head be tugged by the hairdresser's brush, Takeru smirked wistfully.
(passionement…)
Talk big. Fourth lesson in modeling, Takeru thought.
At go-sees, no one wants to hear about how you started modeling when you were 17 and climbed arduously to the top (finally) at age 24, so you say you're a natural and smile convincingly. At photo shoots, no one wants to hear that you're terrified of pythons and bare breasts, so you suck up your fears and fondle with the best of them.
But talking big never worked with Daisuke. Takeru was so used to talking a certain way on the street that he couldn't come home and speak like Daisuke, like someone that wasn't the face of Tokyo Abercrombie and Fitch. "You're nothing great," Daisuke would whisper up close in his face, lips catching on his own with every word.
Passion was necessary for ninety percent of relationships, his mother had told him once, when he was very young. But whose side must the passion be on? He truthfully didn't know if it was him; passion didn't truly come to him even when Daisuke was sweating atop him. Holding absently onto a rung in the subway, Takeru popped his left hand's knuckles against his thigh.
(pas du tout.)
Cameras are always watching. Fifth lesson in modeling, Takeru thought.
Paparazzi constantly hounded him and other models/celebrities, and he couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. Cameras followed him in his job, on his way from designer stores, on his way from the farmer's market a week after his first major photo shoot.
But cameras didn't mean a lot to Daisuke. He wouldn't hold with Takeru's professional photos anywhere in the house, only homemade snapshots. The only picture that had both of them in it was taken on Takeru's twenty-first birthday, at the Motomiya sushi bar. The picture was too dark, Takeru still had on too much eyeliner from a shoot earlier in the day, and Daisuke hadn't washed in a few days. But they were happy, their grinning faces mashed together with cheeks squishing upward. Daisuke's arm was raised up with camera, taking this awkward, unprofessional picture.
Sometimes love was hard to keep. Slowly pushing the picture face down, Takeru shut the door on that relationship.