“Crap,” she muttered under her scarf that was covering half of her face. She shook her left arm up, her sleeve falling down as she looked at her childish looking wristwatch.

1:45PM it read.

“Crap, crap, crap!” she yelled as she started running towards one of South Korea’s largest entertainment companies, not caring at the people’s disapproving stares that she got along the way.

She was running late, she didn’t have time to care for something like that.

Relief spread through her entire body once she finally reached the entrance doors. Because of being in such a hurry, she forgot that the doors don’t automatically open, causing her to bump into it and her drink spilling on her outfit.

‘Of course I had to spill it on my white shirt,’ she rolled her eyes to herself for being such klutz. If she wasn’t late for an important meeting, she would spend a minute or two to curse herself. Maybe she’d do it later.

The security inside heard the bump and approached the glass doors only to be surprised that the glass doors that are kept clean and scratch free to be covered in what it seems to look like green tea frappe.

He was about to go on a rampage since it would be his fault if someone from the higher ups sees the mess but when he saw a girl, crouched down on the other side of the door frantically rummaging through her bag, he had an idea to who it might be and all he could do was sigh at her.

She hissed in annoyance and scratched her already messy hair when her phone decided to play hide-and-seek in her bag. “Where on earth is it? Did I leave it somewhere?” she asked no one. “That’s where unnie sent me the passcode for the doors..” she sighed in defeat.

The girl took the ends of her canvas bag and shook it annoyance as well.

“I see that you’re back and you’re still clumsy as ever.”

She looked up in surprise, recognizing the voice. She pulled her bag to her side as well as her Frappuccino—whatever what was left of it anyway.

“Ahujussi?”

“What are you doing here, spilling your drink on the glass door? Do you know how much trouble I’d get in to if someone sees this?”

“I’m sorry about that, but I ended up bumping into it because I’m really in a hurry and I forgot that this door requires a passcode,” she tells him in one breath but her face showed no emotion.

The guard raised an eyebrow at her and sighed afterwards. “This is the last time I’ll let you get away with this,” he told her as he stepped aside, making space for her so that she could finally enter the building.

Her eyes lit up and she practically dashed towards the elevator. “Thanks a million ahjussi! I’ll make it up to you next time!” she stopped on her tracks and waved at him then ran off again.

“Aish, that kid…” he said, shaking his head with a kind smile on his face.

Once the elevator doors closed, she was finally able to release a sigh of relief.

Or so she thought.

“What floor was it again?”

☆*:.｡.make you smile.｡.:*☆

“And now we proceed to NCT’s head stylist, Kang Hyein-ssi.”

A round of applause was done for the rookie group’s beloved stylist as she stood up and took the floor.

“You didn’t have to do that guys,” she said, raising her brows at the boys who were clapping their hands for her. “I don’t know if you’re just teasing me or not.”

“Ah, but noona, we totally love your fashion sense!” Mark said.

“Yeah,” Taeyong agreed with the younger boy. “We totally looked cool from our last concept. I wonder how you’ll style us this time,” he said with a cool attitude.

Hyein smiled at them. Hearing those genuine words from them is exactly why she enjoyed her job. But realizing that someone was late made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

“Since when did you guys become cheesy?” she asked jokingly. “Anyway, I’m glad that you all feel that way about my styling. I worked hard for that, you know.” It wasn’t really a question but everyone still agreed with her.

“Now, we all know that from the previous concept, you guys wore very modern and contemporary outfits. You mostly wore primary colors,” she pointed at the screen that showed the concept from 7th Sense and everyone were nodding along with her.

Hyein watched their reactions as she showed them the different types of clothing they wore previously and she was glad that she out many pictures because she didn’t know that a certain someone would end up late for this very important meeting for the next concept of S.M. Entertainment’s rookie boy group, NCT 127.

As her slides were decreasing, her heartbeat started to increase in speed. Whenever someone would comment on how someone looked, she’d purposely stop the slide and let them finish talking. It was the least she could do for the person she was waiting for. This certain someone was supposed to explain to the boys and the staff their plans and idea for styling for this promotion era. But she was nowhere to be nowhere to be found.

Hyein even tried texting her and calling her discreetly while in the meeting but all her calls lead straight to voicemail.

As much as Hyein wanted to buy more time, she couldn’t because she finally reached the last slide. She inhaled inwardly and before she could open , she heard the door click and she immediately looked at that direction causing everyone to do the same.

☆*:.｡.make you smile.｡.:*☆

‘Oh my God, they’re all staring at me,’ she thought, completely frozen. She immediately regained composure and bowed. “Sorry for disturbing you,” she apologized timidly. “Please continue,” she said. She brushed off the nervous feeling she felt from everybody’s stares and approached Hyein who was still shocked to see her.

Being a professional, Hyein cleared to get everyone’s attention. “Ah, everyone, I want you to meet my apprentice,” she said proudly, gesturing to the girl who was now beside her.

Hearing the word apprentice caught everyone’s attention. Some wore surprised faces but most wore confused ones. “As you can see, I’m about to give birth soon,” the 32 year old woman said with a soft smile as she caressed her big belly. “I mean I couldn’t style you guys and give birth to the little one at the same time, right? So I decided to ask for this girl’s help so that when there are times that I’m too tired to go to work, have a doctor’s appointment, or finally give birth, she, along with my assistant would be the ones to style you guys,” she explained to everyone and their expressions after hearing that showed that they fully understood her.

“Then you should name your kid after one of us, noona!” Donghyuck said mischievously.

Hyein smiled at the youngest member fondly. “I’ll think about it, Haechan-ah.”

Donghyuck nodded happily but it only caused the other members to disagree.

“But you should name your son after me, noona!”

“Eh? Why would I name him after food?” she asked. “I’m kidding, Jaehyun-ah,” she waved a hand, seeing that he was a bit embarrassed by this. “I’ll talk to my husband if he’d like to name our kid with one of your names.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun replied with a bright smile.

Sensing that the girl beside her shift awkwardly, she finally remembered why she brought her there in the first place. “Anyway, back to the meeting,” she said with an authoritative but still kind, voice. “Let me introduce to you my apprentice,” she said, smiling at the girl beside her.

The said girl was snapped out of her trance when she felt Hyein rub her shoulder.

“A-ah,” she stuttered. “Hello, my name is–“

“Why don’t you remove your scarf first so we could hear you properly,” Hyein said encouragingly.

“O-oh, yeah,” she nodded in embarrassment when she heard the hushed giggles from some of them but she didn’t let that get to her. She stepped towards near the table and placed her bag and drink down. Then she awkwardly tried to remove her scarf that was tangled around her neck. She didn’t even know that something ridiculous like that can happen to her. ‘Today’s just not my lucky day.’

It took her a while to remove her scarf and she felt more embarrassed by the fact that everyone’s watching her and was probably laughing at her too.

“Ah~ kawaii.”

She froze for a second when she heard a familiar language. ‘I wonder who said that?’

Accepting the fact that struggling to remove her scarf, she grabbed her scarf and pulled it down so she could expose the rest of her face.

“There we go,” she heard another one of them say and she locked eyes with the boy named Jaehhyun and saw that he was giving her a thumbs up which she wasn’t sure how to react to.

“Ah, she’s pretty.”

“She looks young, I wonder how old she is?”

“What’s that on her shirt? Is it a design?”

She heard different murmurs from different people but she didn’t mind them.

“Okay, let’s give that another go,” Hyein laughed and nodded at her again.

“Hello, my name is Jeon Yujin and I’ll be working together with Hyein unnie and everyone for this promotion period’s styling,” she said, bowing at the end. “I hope we could get along and have fun. Thank you,” she said and bowed again.

Everyone was quiet after her introduction. Yujin also didn’t say anything more after introducing herself. Everyone blinked, stared, and some even had their mouths slightly open.

Simply put, there was a heavy air of awkwardness that was in the room.

They all have one question in mind though: How could she introduce herself with such a monotonous voice so naturally?

Sensing the awkward tension in the room, Hyein clapped her hands and put on a smile on her face and that made everything, well mostly everything, return to the previous light atmosphere they had.

“Yes, that’s right,” she nodded. “Yujin here will be my right hand person when it comes to styling the boys. I value her opinion well because she and I have similar fashion sense but what’s incredible about her is that she can improve my styling better,” she explained to everyone and they gave positive responses.

Yujin was looking at the ground, fumbling with her fingers as she was in her own world.

“You see, even though she’s young, she’s already starting to make a fine reputation in the fashion industry,” Hyein continued, doing the honors of introducing Yujin as she knows the girl of speaking only few words. “Yujin here is currently studyiong fashion design, but even though she’s only a student, she’s already running her own fashion blog and that’s earned her quite a number of fans and followers. And, the achievement that I'm proud of is that she was able to participate in styling f(x) for their first concert earlier this month.”

And with that, most of the people in the room were astonished with Hyein’s new apprentice. They were impressed with her achievements and felt a sense of relief knowing that the styling for this promotion will be another success.

Little did they know, that someone inside the room rolled her eyes in annoyance when Yujin was introduced.

Hyein looked to the girl beside her and chuckled when she saw that Yujin was already dazing out. Yujin’s scarf was back up, but was the only covered part of her face now unlike a few minutes go when half of her face was covered.

Hyein put an arm around Yujin and squeezed her shoulder to get her attention.

Yujin blinked and looked at Hyein who was smiling warmly at her. She bit her lower lip, knowing what Hyein’s action meant. She took a deep breath and nodded at the older woman.

“Now I’ll have Yujin here explain the rest of the concept to you because I’m feeling a bit tired,” she chuckled and moved back to where her seat was. “You can now start, Yujin.”

Yujin nodded and faced the monitor. She used one hand to hold her scarf down and the other to hold the remote so she could turn to the other slides.

“So I’m sure Hyein unnie already explained everything about the previous concept,” she started and everyone nodded. “I looked at what you guys wore for 7th Sense and Without You. The clothes you guys wore were definitely eye catching. It was definitely a Hyein unnie trademark,” she said, although monotonous, she was able to make an “OK” sign with her fingers and that earned a laugh from Hyein.

“Because NCT is just a rookie group who debuted only a few months ago, the concept that I thought of won’t go far from the previous concept. I don’t think a drastic change would be the best move right now,” she said and everyone realized that she had a point.

“But that doesn’t mean we’ll stick to the previous concept all the way. If you wore bright colors back then,