The college café was loud, filled with the clatter of trays and the low roar of hundreds of conversations.
Yuri and Haru sat at a small, secluded table near the back.
Yuri was methodically eating his lunch—a simple sandwich—while recounting the previous evening.
"I finished the prints of the cat at 2:00 AM," Yuri said, speaking softly. "The shadows around the eyes were difficult to maintain without losing detail in the fur. I had to adjust the contrast four times."
"..."
Haru, however, wasn't eating.
He was leaning on his elbow, his chin propped on his hand, silently staring across the table at Yuri.
Yuri continued, unfazed by the lack of response.
"Then I had to calibrate the color profile for the professor's assignment. The reds were bleeding slightly on the matte paper."
"..."
Still no verbal response from Haru, only the unwavering, thoughtful gaze fixed on Yuri's face, specifically on the way his hair fell over his eyes.
"I managed to get a final draft of the proposal written," Yuri went on. "It concerns the use of static portraiture to imply motion. I cited Eisenstein."
"..."
Haru blinked slowly, but his expression didn't change.
"It's a technically sound argument," Yuri insisted, growing faintly uncomfortable. He took a sip of water. "I just need to find a subject who can properly convey a sense of 'narrative stillness.'"
"..."
Haru remained silent, his scrutiny focused.
Yuri finally paused, his chopsticks suspended over his plate.
The unwavering silence and the direct stare began to feel heavy, breaking through his usual concentration. He set his chopsticks down with a quiet tap.
"Is something wrong?" Yuri asked, his voice tighter than before. "Why are you looking at me like that? It's bothering me."
Haru finally broke the intense gaze, leaning back in his chair with a slow sigh.
"Yuri," Haru began, his voice surprisingly gentle and serious, "do you want to get a haircut?"
Yuri froze.
He stared at Haru, the noise of the busy café suddenly seeming distant and dull.
The question had absolutely nothing to do with static portraiture or bleeding red tones.
It was a direct, unexpected challenge to his carefully constructed shield.
He felt the weight of his own dark hair against his forehead and the shadow it cast over his eyes.
He remained silent, his usual quick, logical reply completely lost.
"..."
Haru watched him for a beat, then leaned forward again, his tone shifting from teasing to a focused earnestness.
"Look, Yuri, I'm serious," Haru began, his voice dropping slightly to cut through the café noise. "It's the hair, and it's the hood, and it's everything you do to disappear. It's too much."
Haru started to count on his fingers.
"How many campus showcases have you refused to submit to in the last two years? Four. Four major showcases where your work would have been seen by actual industry people. Four lost chances to get noticed, all because you didn't want to stand next to your own prints."
"That's–"
He didn't wait for Yuri to argue.
"Remember that big studio internship Professor Sato was pushing for? The one he specifically told me you were the most technically qualified for? You found a way to be busy in the darkroom during the interview window. That's a lost professional connection that most students would kill for."
Haru pointed a chopstick at Yuri's covered eye area.
"You're walking around campus with a potential client list in your pocket—I've seen the quality of your portraits—but you won't even make eye contact with the people who could hire you. That's a lost source of income, a huge one, because you treat every conversation like it's a plague."
He finished with a sigh, the quiet rumble of his frustration clear.
"It's not that you're shy; it's that you're hiding. You are one of the best technical photographers in the entire department, but you're constantly taking pictures of stray cats and empty buildings because living, breathing, complicated people make you run. You're wasting so much potential, Yuri, keeping your head down and your aperture closed."
Yuri stared at the grain of the wooden table, the list of failures hitting him with uncomfortable clarity.
Haru hadn't missed anything.
Every loss was a choice Yuri had made to stay safe, to stay controlled, to stay excluded.
And now, the true cost of that control was being laid out in the loud, unforgiving light of the café.
Haru watched the silence settle over Yuri, then pressed on, his voice softening slightly but losing none of its firm conviction.
"The past is done, Yuri. It's been three years," Haru insisted, leaning back again.
"I get it. I know what happened, and I know why you decided to put walls around yourself right after the breakup. That guy was an absolute mess, and he hurt you. You decided that if you just blended into the shadows, nobody could ever get close enough to do that again."
Haru shook his head slowly.
"But that was him. You've been hiding from the entire world because of one mistake you made with one person. You don't need to forget that the breakup happened, but you need to forget him. He's not here, and he hasn't been here for a long time."
He paused, letting the weight of the statement settle before pivoting to the next point of contention.
"And while we're on the subject of hiding," Haru sighed, gesturing toward Yuri's black hoodie and dark clothes.
"I understand the functionality of the photographer uniform, but you dress like you're attending your own funeral, Yuri. It's so gloomy. Black on black, all the time. It's practical, sure, but the entire aesthetic is just an advertisement that says, 'Do not approach the shy, talented boy in the corner.' It's time to retire the uniform and show the world that you're not perpetually in mourning."
Haru finished his lecture, his expression one of frustrated affection.
"We can start small. A haircut. Maybe a gray shirt. Just something that says you're still alive and not currently developing film in a coffin."
Yuri let out a long, quiet sigh, the tension finally easing from his shoulders.
His lips curled into a faint, rare smile, and a short, low chuckle escaped him. The sound was dry but genuine.
"You're right, Haru," Yuri admitted, his gaze lifting from the table. "You usually are. I know I'm… I know I'm still operating with the emergency brakes on."
He fidgeted with the edge of his paper napkin.
"And it's been three years. I should have moved on from Ken already."
He took a slow, deliberate breath, preparing his counterpoint. "But the problem is—"
Before Yuri could complete the thought, Haru's attention, which had been momentarily satisfied by the admission, snapped back into focus.
He leaned forward again, eyes bright with sudden inspiration.
"No 'buts,' Yuri! We're doing this! I'm taking you right now!" Haru announced, slamming his hand lightly on the table. "Today. You're not going to spend another weekend hiding with your darkroom supplies. You need a subject. A project that forces you out of the shadows. One that you can't run away from."
Haru's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, his eyes sparkling with a mix of excitement and mischief.
"If you won't step into the light, I'll find someone who will drag you into it. Someone impossible to ignore. Someone loud."
"Stop!"
Yuri hissed, the sound unusually loud and sharp in the relatively quiet corner of the café.
Several patrons nearest their table instinctively looked up, their eyes flicking over to the source of the sudden noise.
Yuri's face instantly burned crimson, the heat rushing up his neck and cheeks.
He glared intensely at Haru, mortified by the unwanted attention.
Haru, however, simply beamed.
His grin widened, a look of utter satisfaction spreading across his features at the successful, public breach of Yuri's carefully constructed composure.
Before Yuri could channel his embarrassment into a coherent expression of anger, Haru moved.
He grabbed Yuri's wrist in a firm grip and yanked him up out of his chair.
"No time for glares!" Haru declared, already pulling Yuri through the crowded tables toward the exit. "You need to trust me! We are starting the overhaul right now."
As he dragged a protesting Yuri out of the café and into the afternoon sunlight, Haru began to blab excitedly, his voice a steady, rapid stream of plans.
"First, the hair! It's going. We are going for something that doesn't scream 'I live under a rock and hate daylight.' Then, we're updating the wardrobe. No more variations of charcoal gray and void black. We need earth tones! Maybe a light blue shirt! Something that reflects light, not absorbs it!"
Yuri stumbled along, his feet struggling to keep pace with Haru's sudden, manic energy.
He tried to pull his arm back, but Haru's grip was surprisingly strong.
"I can pay for my own clothes, Haru, stop pulling me—"
"Nonsense!" Haru cut him off. "This is an intervention. I pay! Consider it an investment in your future visibility! All you have to do is brace yourself and accept the fact that your era of hiding is officially over!"
Haru didn't slow down until he reached a nearby stylish salon, its glass front reflecting the street.
He pushed the door open, practically shoving Yuri through the threshold.
"Hair first!" he announced, his voice triumphant. "The symbol of your self-imposed exile is about to be retired."
The salon smelled faintly of chemicals and expensive styling products, a scent that immediately made Yuri want to retreat.
The hairstylist, a woman with stylishly short, vivid blue hair and a sharp, discerning gaze, took one look at Haru's electric energy and Yuri's horrified, hooded reluctance and instantly understood the situation.
Her smile was quick and professional, but her eyes held a spark of knowing mischief.
"Well, hello!" she greeted Haru warmly, already moving efficiently toward them.
"You look like a man with a vision, and he," she paused, gesturing toward Yuri, "looks like a man who is about to have a dramatic reveal."
"He needs to emerge from his shell, ma'am!"
Haru declared, giving Yuri's arm a final, enthusiastic shove forward.
"He needs to stop hiding this handsome face from the world. We're going with something that says 'talented art student,' not 'gothic philosopher.'"
The stylist laughed, a warm, clear sound.
She laid a proprietary hand on Yuri's back, her touch firm but non-threatening, steering him toward an empty chair.
"Consider it done, then. We specialize in revelations here. Come on in, sweetie, let's get you in the light."
Yuri felt completely overwhelmed, trapped between Haru's unstoppable force and the stylist's efficient, cheerful enthusiasm.
He sank into the plush leather chair with a defeated sigh, the movement of the stylist quickly draping a protective cape around him sealing his fate.
He glared at Haru's reflection in the massive mirror, but Haru only offered a bright, unapologetic thumbs-up.
The process had begun, and Yuri, for the first time in years, was completely and utterly the subject of someone else's lens.
Yuri sat rigid in the chair, the heavy styling cape a weight around his shoulders.
He stared blankly at his own reflection in the expansive mirror, his dark eyes barely visible beneath the curtain of his hair.
On either side, the stylist and Haru conversed with the feverish intensity of creative partners, treating Yuri as if he were an inanimate sculpture awaiting modification.
"No, no, we need to lift it off the forehead," Haru insisted, enthusiastically gesticulating near Yuri's head. "Something with volume! He spends too much time looking through a viewfinder to have his vision restricted."
"I see the vision," the stylist agreed, tilting her head while examining Yuri's profile. "But his face shape is very clean, very sharp. If we go too short on the sides, it might look too severe. I suggest something that still offers a little structure, maybe just skimming the eyebrow line, but styled to sweep to the side."
"As long as those eyes are visible," Haru stated firmly. "They're half his personality, and nobody can see them."
Yuri listened to the technical discussion about his own face and hair, his expression remaining perfectly vacant.
'My opinion is not required,' he thought, the resignation a deep, familiar well. 'I am simply the object being calibrated. The technician is setting the focus on the subject.'
He felt the cold, precise pressure of the scissors against his neck as the stylist stepped in close.
He watched the first long, dark strands of his protective curtain fall silently to the floor, a tangible severing of his self-imposed barrier.
"Don't worry, sweetie," the stylist murmured, her voice warm but addressed to his reflection more than to him. "It's just hair. And it's definitely time for a change."
Yuri closed his eyes. The feeling of being completely exposed, utterly passive, was overwhelming, yet he didn't pull away.
He was submitting to Haru's judgment, allowing himself to be forcibly pushed out from behind his own lens.