I never liked having my picture taken.
I disliked the camera's ability to capture an image of me so realistically from my dark circles to my sickeningly pale skin. I hated how in every picture I frowned, and in every picture, you could tell that I absolutely despised it.
I wasn't always so against photos. Back in grade school, when I didn't have my dark circles, I enjoyed having my photo taken. Every time my mother or father pointed a camera at me to make memories, I would smile as bright as I could, showing my shiny white row of teeth. I still had that huge album of my old pictures and I would stare at it with rancor but could never bring myself to get rid of it.
It wasn't until High School that I truly hated having my picture taken. It was then did I get the hideous dark blemishes around my eyes which made my already pale skin appear paler. It was then that I got made fun of for my height and was constantly bullied by the other kids. It was then that I told myself to never take any photos during my High School years because they were the worst moments of my life.
Old habits die hard, you could say. My animosity for my photos never deteriorated.
However, one fated night on my way home from work, I literally bumped into the best mistake ever. I was in my mid-twenties at the time, graduated college not too long ago and was a newly hired business man going home from his first week of work. I was in a hurry to get home so I wasn't exactly paying attention to where I was going.
I collided with a student who didn't look much older than twenty, and to my rotten luck he was holding a camera. And it was one of those expensive ones too, so you knew this kid had to be serious about photography. The camera wasn't one of those disposable ones that only took a few pictures or so. This one cost real guap. Not that I would know for sure, I wasn't a camera-maniac.
I was reluctant to help him up, but I did so anyway because he looked so dejected. The kid looked like he was about to cry and he was unstable on his feet.
I remembered wondering just what the hell was I doing, and why I was even considering to walk the kid home.
It's raining, I had reasoned. And you got paid, I recalled thinking. So I was in a good enough mood to let the whole camera thing slide, and to help out a crestfallen student who didn't deserve to face the wrath of a sour businessman who had no reason to hold a grudge over him.
He looked so grateful, and his inexplicably colored eyes lit up like the city lights. He introduced himself as Eren, and I told him that I was Levi. I allowed him to stand under my umbrella as I walked this stranger home.
I had hoped to not start a conversation with him, but the kid was already running his mouth, making me doubt his previous despondence. I let it slide, just listening without replying much, just the occasional "yes"s and "mm"s.
It wasn't until he brought up photography that I actually responded. And when I did, it wasn't the nicest of replies.
"I hate photography." Were my exact words. I hadn't bothered sugar-coating them and I didn't bother looking apologetic either. I said it without taking it back or feeling an ounce of guilt.
Strangely this only made him laugh and with that, our first meeting came to an end. He thanked me then disappeared into his house.
After that, we kept clashing. Cafes, stores, you name it. We met so often that the both of us accused the other of stalking. It was preposterous for two people to meet so often without it being planned. Coincidences did not happen that regularly. I wasn't particularly against seeing the kid so often, but it was kind of obscure for me.
At some point, we decided to just accept it. It wasn't a spoken agreement or a solid decision, but one day, Eren just sat down on the seat across from mine at a table and we chatted over our cups of tea and coffee.
We found out that we had almost nothing in common. Whereas he liked the winter, I favored the summer. If Eren liked dogs, I preferred cats. We were complete opposites of each other.
And there was that saying opposites attract, and attract we did. It wasn't long until Eren and I became romantically involved. We didn't do much of that push and pull thing. When something happened, it happened and the both of us accepted it so casually one would think we went straight from strangers to lovers.
The one hindrance in our relationship per contra, was our different opinions of photography.
Eren, despite my aversion to pictures, continued to take pictures of me every opportunity he got. He was an amazing photographer I learned, and he never ceased to amaze me with his talent to take the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen in my life. Even the simplest of things came alive through his work. He was passionate when it came to the camera, and his hard work showed through his outcomes. He was a genius.
His long, slender fingers would work the camera magically to the point I wondered whether he was making magic or not. I loved his hands. I loved every niche, and for him, I knew I definitely had a hand fetish. Just for his damned hands that I loved to hold every opportunity I'd get. It was with those magical hands he produced those beautiful photos. It was with those magical hands that I was touched intimately.
And those brilliant eyes of his would sparkle with so much excitement, I felt secondhand excitement for him even with my hatred for his greatest passion.
Thus, because he was a photographer and my boyfriend, it was a given that one of the most frequently targeted subject was me.
His first love, was my first enemy.
At times it was annoying to think that I had to share the first place in my boyfriend's heart with the one thing I could not stand. We got into fights often because of it too, but now that I think back to it, I felt so stupid.
Even with our constant bickering, the brat would always tell me how beautiful I was every time he could, no matter how sappy it sounded. And I'd believe him, because with him everything felt so real. We'd make love shortly after that.
Eren's photos of me hadn't gone unappreciated. One day he came to my house holding a huge red scrapbook, and when I opened it I saw his pictures of me on them. Most of the scrapbook was empty, but the first two pages were filled with me.
I remembered yelling at him for it. For wasting his time with worthless shit when he knew I disliked my photos. He had always told me, "That's not true Levi, you never know when these photos would become useful. You'll cherish them one day and thank me for taking them."
At the time I didn't understand the meaning. I would only continue to yell at him to the point the poor kid would cry, making me feel guilty and ending in a series of apologies that would last the whole night long. The brat always forgave me.
He was always so freaking fabulous to me. So good to me.
Sitting there on my black couch, I flipped through the red scrapbook. It was bigger than my lap and heavier than my cat Charles William the IV (don't ask why it's the fourth. Eren and I had a lot of difficulties) , which was saying something because the fucker weighed nearly twenty pounds. Eren had done a good job packing the scrapbook with a lot of pictures.
I paused at each and every photo, taking it in and trying to ignore my face as often as possible. Or at least, that was how I started.
The first photo ever of me in our relationship and the first photo in the scrapbook, was taken by Eren's new camera, different from the one I had seen when I first met him. He had refrained from taking pictures of me in our earlier days of dating, but after he got his new camera he became bold.
