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Phainon was actually very easy to work with. He went along without complaining, was naturally cheerful and had learnt how to pose correctly quite quickly.
Not to mention that he could easily pull of the stunning gentleman just as well as the soft loner.
She was very proud of her - as of now – most successful model.
If there wasn’t one tiny problem: His horrible fashion sense and therefore clothing choices when he was off duty.
For all the elegance and charm he had when she dressed him nicely or asked him to attend press conferences, shows or photoshoots, the first time she saw him in an outfit of his own choice would forever stay burned into her memory. And it had only gotten worse from there…
It had been directly after their very first photoshoot. She had gotten a recommendation for the new model by Anaxa, one of her managers. And while they had a very… special kind of relationship, she knew he did his job well and Phainon did not disappoint, easily following her commands and instinctively knowing how to highlight the tuxedo she had put him in.
She was checking the pictures on the camera while Phainon changed into his normal cloths and was very much satisfied with the results. He did very well for his first time and she was confident with a little bit of training he would do even better. Anaxa had not disappointed her trust, the boy had potential to go places.
She looked up when footsteps entered the room. And blinked. Once, twice. It did not change anything.
The young man who mere minutes ago had sported a polished and refined look was now dressed in… green jeans and a dark purple sweater. Not only was the colour combination slightly sickening, it also made him look very pale and sick. She was at a bit of a loss for words.
Phainon on the other had flashed her the brightest smile as he thanked her for the opportunity and said his goodbyes. Aglaea was too stunned to even reply properly.
At first she wrote it off, he probably had been in a rush and just pulled whatever out of his closet.
But she very quickly realised how wrong that assumption was. Three years working together now and Aglaea thought she had seen it all. And yet, Phainon still managed to find colour combinations that were worse than anything he had worn before.
One would assume that this lack of fashion sense would impact his carrier. But, lo and behold, it did not. In fact, it was skyrocketing, by now most of Aglaea’s time was spent managing just him. She was fine with that, Phainon was still meeting all of her expectations, not only in front of the camera. She could trust everything would be fine, if she asked him to attend a gala diner, a premier or even a live show on TV.
He could handle it all – she just really had to make sure to pick his outfit and insist on him wearing it. By now when he was going by himself, she had made him swear to send her a selfie before he left the hotel room.
And she had also started teaching him colour theory. Little by little she was pushing in small sessions of them sitting together and her explaining slowly and in simple terms how it was supposed to work.
Phainon didn’t mind, he listened and seemed to understand, what she was saying. And still, he showed up in orange pants and an olive sweater today. Where the hell did he even buy these things?
Aglaea took a very, very deep breath.
“Phainon, do you remember what we spoke about last week?”
He tilted his head, then smiled at her. “Of course! I made sure to pick some colours in complementary contrast, just like you said.”
Aglaea did her best to retain posture and not sigh too obviously. “Complementary colours don’t… always go together. You remember, when I said, they should not be too bright?”
Not that she was against using bright colours in general, just not like this.
Phainon blinked, looking down and eyeing himself. “But… I like them?”
Maybe she should get him checked for colour blindness…
The results were in and he had no problems worth mentioning in identifying any colour. It seemed he truly and honestly thought the combinations were fine.
Aglaea put the papers down, her gaze quickly catching a headline about Phainon’s latest live performance and she decided that it was probably time to try a different approach at some point.
He came back from the changing room, wearing a white button-up and tight dark pants, that nicely showed of his body. Today was a big day, he was hired to take pictures for the cover of a rising rock band’s new album and the lead singer would show up shortly to supervise the procedure and make sure everything was on point.
Phainon seemed surprisingly calm about it given the fact that he made no secret of being a huge fan of said band.
“Are you ready?”
He grinned widely. “Yes, I’m very much looking forward to it. Not sure, what exactly I’m supposed to do, though, Mydei wouldn’t tell me. Do you know more?”
Aglaea stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean he wouldn’t tell you?” She had not been aware that they were in contact with each other.
Phainon suddenly crossed his arms and seemed to… pout. “He’s making a huge secret out of it. ‘Just wait and see’ he said and from the grin I can just tell, he’s planning to… I don’t know. Throw paintballs at me or drench me in water or something like that.”
That was actually very much correct, but the way he said did not at all sound like he was talking about his favourite musician and more about a close friend.
Before Aglaea had a chance to question any of it, though, the door opened and Mydeimos entered. He nodded in her direction, than cast Phainon a quick look, before walking over to them.
“Rare to see you in something decent,” was his strange way of greeting, to which Phainon just rolled his eyes and dramatically turned around to take his spot in front of the camera.
Mydeimos shook his head, then, crossing his arms, a tiny smile showed on his lips when he turned to her. “I really wish he would dress like that more often.”
Aglaea postponed any more very much unprofessional questions in favour of pinching her nose.
“Tell me about it…”
The album had blown up. And Phainon on the front cover had earned himself even more of a name, resulting in shared photosessions with the band and especially Mydeimos again.
By the third one Aglaea had learnt that both of them had been in their school’s respective volleyball teams and had had a healthy rivalry going on.
Neither played the sport anymore, but they had stayed friends and in contact.
By the fourth session she was also very aware of the fact that they still liked to compete and had a tendency to turn even a picture into a competition. See, who can hold an impossible pose for longer or who can balance lower.
While she could really not afford to lose her professionalism, Aglaea was in same parts amused and irritated by their behaviour. It was almost childlike and quite endearing, but it also meant every session was nearly twice as long. And more often than not she felt like she was watching things not meant for her eyes.
When they were not competing, though, Mydeimos turned out to be more relaxed than the imagine he portrayed during his performances.
And he told her lengthy stories about Phainon’s favourite outfits in school and how he had managed to convince his whole team to change their signature colours to yellow and purple.
She could have certainly lived without that knowledge.
“On the bright side,” Anaxa said very matter-of-factly. “We don’t have to worry about security measures. He’s completely unrecognisable in private.”
Aglaea sighed as she stared at the magazine in her hands stating that a “perfect doppelganger of famous model Khaslana” had been spotted. The picture beneath the red headline was no doubt Phainon himself, but the brown cargo pants really paired horribly with the pink shirt and orange vest.
At least he had listened when she had tried to convince him to wear a hat, but there certainly would have been more favourable choices than this bucket hat. At least it was grey and not further clashing with everything else.
The door opened just in that moment and Phainon and Mydeimos entered together obviously deep into some kind of debate about… the perfect duration of a bath?
It almost distracted her from the purple pants and yellow sweater Phainon had picked today. At least he had ditched the bucket hat in favour of a more normal looking black cap. Oh, wait, was that the band’s logo? That surely had to have been a present from Mydeimos?
“Phainon, I already prepared your outfit over there, if you would be so kind?”
Phainon blinked, clearly startled out of it. He seemed to quickly remember where he was and nodded. “My apologies, Aglaea, I’ll change at once!”
And off he was. Aglaea could not suppress the sigh this time. Mydeimos cast her a glance. “Did we have an appointment today?”
She was rather certain they did not, but she would and could not afford to risk loosing one of her best clients.
He shook his head. “No, sorry, I just tagged along. It’s still nice seeing him in cloths that actually look good. Do you want me to leave?”
She waved it off. “No, it’s fine. I’ve been trying for years to get him to understand colours, but the problem is, he does. He just doesn’t care and when I ask him about it, he tells me he likes them. What am I supposed to do with that?”
To her surprise, Mydeimos sighed as well. “I understand. I had hoped this job would teach him, but as always he’s too stubborn for that.”
There was an almost fond smile on his lips as he crossed his arms that Aglaea chose not to think about too much.
“Hey, there’s a doppelganger of me?” Phainon suddenly shouted, having found the article still on the desk. “Wait a minute…”
Aglaea learnt of the change in their relationship almost exactly two weeks before they decided to tell the public.
Not that she was surprised, really. One really did not need to be a specialist in romance to realise that the two of them had both been trying to show and failing to notice the other’s reciprocation for at the very least months, if not much longer.
Aglaea was, in fact, slightly curious what had finally convinced them to try, but she refrained from asking. For the most part nothing even changed, apart from Mydeimos accompanying Phainon to shoots a little more often and the two of them stealing glances when they thought no-one was watching.
They were very much not subtle and in just a few days the whole studio knew. Even before the pictures they specifically took of a tender kiss to post online and let everybody know.
Aglaea was still debating how she felt about that way of telling everyone, but she could hardly complain as surprisingly enough the only thing that happened was a lot of positive feedback and a slight rise in popularity.
And a lot of comments of “I knew it” and “not surprised”. She certainly had not been the only one to see it.
The other small change was that Phainon very rarely came over in a white shirt (usually paired with colourful pants, but, hey, she’d take that over everything before!). Probably Mydei trying to make him wear nicer things.
And then, all of a sudden came the first day that Phainon showed up dressed nicely. As in, actually nice. No weird colour combinations, cloths fitting him well and looking good.
Aglaea could not believe her eyes and instantly sent him to the camera without changing his cloths.
This very rare occasion needed to be used to full capacity!
Just… it was not a rare occasion. The next few times it stayed the same, as if miraculously his fashion sense had done a 180 spin.
Which meant instead of criticizing his choice of outfit she now had to tell him to wear a mask and sunglasses in public whenever possible and maybe add a cap outside for his own safety.
When she tried to carefully address his change in style, though, he just grinned at her. “I’m glad you like it, too, because I love it very much!”
But try as she might, the only thing she was able to find out was that the change occurred roughly three weeks after the two had moved in together. So, something Mydeimos did seemed to bear fruits.
The next time he visited, she could not help, but ask. He chuckled, making sure with a quick glance that Phainon was not listening, he whispered: “I tried to buy him things and he liked that, but still paired them with his horrendous… stuff. One morning I caught him shuffling through my side of the closet. And learnt that Castorice – a friend of ours – had told him about ‘boyfriend looks’. I saw the chance and took it, telling him I don’t mind and that he should help himself.”
Aglaea nodded, but raised her eyebrows. “Those are not your cloths, are they?” That was not at all the style Mydeimos usually showed up in. While it was true that she had never met him outside of the studio, it felt like his choice always tended to blacks, reds and leather accents. Definitely not the clean and deceptively simple look Phainon was sporting right now.
Mydeimos grinned. “They are.” He said vaguely gesturing as if drawing quotation marks into the air. “Technically. I bought them.”
Aglaea blinked, then held back a laugh, quickly placing a hand in front of her mouth.
“He also loves being domestic,” Mydeimos proceeded. “I lay out cloths for him in the evening, if I’m home. If not, I’ll make sure to place fitting pieces on the lefthand side. He always takes the first ones there.”
He smirked and winked at her. She smiled back and nodded. “Thank you. I promise, I’ll make sure he’ll look perfect in those pictures every single time.”