“Hey, Tiffany.”

She looked up to see her team leader leaning over her cubicle. He nodded at her computer.

“I’ve just uploaded the pictures from the Kim Taeyeon shoot into the shared folder. Can you look through them and pick ten to show the team later?”

Tiffany nodded. “Any particular requirements?”

“I’ll trust you to make the calls. Pick ten that you think will look good in the main spread and we can decide which ones we want to use later.”

“Got it. I’ll put them in a sub-folder.”

“Thank you! I’ll leave you to it then, let me know if you have any questions.”

With a few clicks, Tiffany found the folder labeled “KIM TAEYEON 2016”. “Two hundred pictures? I’m supposed to pick ten out of two hundred?” Tiffany groaned and leaned back, uncapping her water bottle. “God help me,” she muttered before taking a quick sip.

A head poked out from the cubicle next to hers. “What is it this time?”

“Nothing special.” Tiffany set the water bottle aside to shrug at Yoona. “Just picking pictures for the main spread.”

“The Kim Taeyeon feature? You’re so lucky.”

“What did they assign you?”

Yoona rolled her eyes. “Apparently this director guy has an extensive toilet paper collection. At this point, they all look exactly the same to me.”

“They’re running an article on toilet paper?”

“Beats me. Anyway, good luck. Gotta get back to work.”

Tiffany turned back to her own computer. Taking one last drink of water, she capped the bottle, clicked on the first picture, and promptly sprayed water all over her screen.

From behind the divider, Yoona’s voice asked calmly, “You alright over there?”

“Just choked,” gasped Tiffany, grabbing a tissue to wipe the monitor. “I’m…okay!”

She sat back to catch her breath, but her eyes were focused on the image in front of her. Tiffany had never really been one to follow celebrities. She knew the more famous ones and therefore had a rather hazy idea of what Kim Taeyeon, Nation’s Goddess, looked like, but the woman staring back at her on the screen was definitely a thousand times hotter than the one in her memory.

Tiffany coughed again to clear the last of the water from as she scrutinized the picture. It was a really good one; Kim Taeyeon sitting on a beige sofa, with rose petals scattered all around her. After a moment’s thought, Tiffany jotted down the filename in her notepad and moved onto the next picture.

The next one showed Kim Taeyeon in a white trenchcoat, standing in front of a grey wall with her head tilted upwards. Tiffany stared. This was another striking shot, worthy of the front cover. “That’s two down,” said Tiffany to herself as she scribbled in her notepad. Something itched in her nose so she sniffed slightly and clicked the third picture.

“Holy shi—” She looked around guiltily, but no one seemed to have heard her exclamation. Tiffany squinted. Kim Taeyeon was sitting on a step, putting on her shoes, but the white crop top and mini-skirt — who the hell thought it was legal to let her wear that while her hair was all messy like that? Tiffany sighed and wrote the filename down.

Fourth picture. Kim Taeyeon with dark makeup, a choker, blonde hair in a ponytail and her black jacket hanging off her shoulders. Fifth picture. Kim Taeyeon in a sheer, opal colored dress with her hair in a bun, squatting in ridiculously nice white heels. Sixth picture—

“.”

“What?”

Tiffany ran a hand through her hair. “This is impossible,” she said, frowning at her notepad. “They’re going to need to give me better directions because there is no way I can pick ten pictures.”

“Are they bad? I thought Kim Taeyeon was really pretty.”

“She is. They’re all so suitable that I’m basically unable to choose anything.” Tiffany looked at Yoona beseechingly. “Can you hel—”

“Tiffany, your nose!”

“Huh?”

Yoona stuffed some tissue paper into Tiffany’s hands, her eyes wide and worried. “Your nose is bleeding. Hold your nose! Hurry!”

“Really?” Tiffany dabbed cautiously at her nose. “Oh my god. I’m bleeding!”

“Hold your nose! Tilt your head back!”

Tiffany hurriedly obeyed. “Wad da hell? Why amb I gedding a dosebleed?”

“You probably didn’t drink enough water. Here, I’ll get you some more. Keep your head tilted back.”

When Yoona returned with a mug of warm water, Tiffany took it gratefully in one hand, the other hand still firmly latched onto her nose. “Dankyu,” she said thickly.

“Has it stopped?” Yoona peered at her anxiously. “That was so sudden.”

“I dink so. Yeah, it has,” said Tiffany, sniffing experimentally.

“Man, you scared me. Keep drinking water, okay?”

“I will. Thanks for the tissues.”

Returning to her screen, Tiffany realized she still hadn’t solved the issue at hand. She scrolled through, this time really scrutinizing every single picture, looking at every single inch of Kim Taeyeon’s hair, face, arms, legs, abs — she made sure she was paying really, really close attention to everything. Tiffany was so focused that she didn’t notice until the second drop of blood fell onto her hand. “,” she whispered, mopping at her nose again. “What the hell?”

Five minutes and 26 pictures later, her nose began to bleed again. This time Tiffany rolled up two tissues and stuck them up her nose. “I have no time for this,” she muttered as she tried to keep the tissue in place. With a bit of struggle, she finally figured out how to plug her nose to stop the blood, which was now dripping in a steady stream, from distracting her from her work.

“Hey, Tiffany! How’s the— why is there tissue…in…your nose?”

“Oh!” Tiffany bent over and hurriedly removed the tissues from her nostrils. “Sorry,” she said, turning back to her team leader, “sudden nosebleed.”

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Do you need me for something?”

“Ah. I wanted to see how the progress is going. Will you be done in another thirty minutes?”

Tiffany winced. “It’s actually taking a lot longer than I expected. Would you happen to have any preference for what kinds of photos I choose? It’s actually quite the diverse set and it’s really hard to pick.”

“Hmm. Do you have a list of pictures so far?”

She showed him the notepad.

“Okay, so that’s…thirty? Let’s go with these thirty. Can you narrow it down again to ten, max fifteen?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Tiffany. “Are you sure you don’t want me to look over the rest first?”

“Thing is, Kim Taeyeon’s reps are coming tomorrow to discuss the spread, so we really need to get a concrete plan set out before the meeting. So if— Tiffany, your nose is bleeding again.”

“Sorry.” She held her nose and motioned for him to continue.

“…So if you could pick just ten or so pictures so we can discuss them in thirty minutes, that would be great. It doesn’t really matter what they are, as long as you think they’re good, then that’s fine.”

“I’ll have them ready in thirty.”

“Good.” He hesitated. “Are you okay? Do you need medicine or something? Or does this happen often?”

“No, this hasn’t ever happened. But I’ll be fine,” she said, giving him a thumbs-up with her free hand. “See you in thirty minutes.”