He sat down in the seat with his fingers intertwining with one another. All the nerves that disappeared with Suho had returned with Kai. He looked at me and I looked away. He looked down and I stared at him until he caught my gaze and I looked away again. It went like this until I finally decided to turn to the vanity to prepare his makeup and hair product. I watched him chew his lip anxiously as I squeezed the hair mousse and emulsified it in my palms. With a quick deep breath, I ran my fingers through his hair, tousling it at the top, barely doing much work to alter its appearance. It looked good enough already.

“How long have you been working here?” I heard him ask with his fairly deep voice. I opened my mouth to speak but no words could leave. I tried again and could only reply with one word.

“Yesterday….”

“Since yesterday? And they just threw you out into the field huh?” he chuckled lightly as I turned to the vanity for makeup. I nodded with a silent giggle and a smile. I began to mix a beautiful custom bronze foundation for him before applying primer to his face. I began to paint him with brushes like he was a canvas and created a faint smoky eye with extremely light eyeliner. I leaned in close to fill in his eyebrows and he chewed on his lips again. I could feel my cheeks heat up but I ignored it and continued to do my job. Being around him was awkward but there was something that drew me to him. I couldn’t figure out what it was exactly but I knew I wanted to find out. Before I knew it, I was done. With a bit of contouring in the nose and cheekbone area, I sent him off to the set personally. “You did very well for your first day, noona.” He said with a smile. My eyes grew and I chuckled.

“Umm……I’m younger than you….But thank you, Kai Oppa….” I said with a bow. He seemed a bit stunned and as he was about to say something, the visual director rolled up behind him and placed a hand on Kai’s shoulder.

“Lookin’ good, Kai. Allysha, next time, when you do his makeup- I meant to tell you earlier- We want to keep the ideal image here, yeah? Pale is good. I’ll let it slide since it’s your first day. The editors will whitewash it anyway. I’ll be sending two more members your way shortly.” He smiled leaving the two of us. As I watched Kai’s face dull completely, I let my eyebrows knit together for a brief moment. Those three words rang in my head for at least five minutes.

‘Pale is good….’

But why? Why is it looked down upon to have dark skin? It was said that here if you were pale, you came from a good rich family and you were more desirable. Whereas if you were dark or tan, it was said that you came from a bad family and you poor… a mere peasant. I wanted to say something but Kai grabbed my wrist and shook his head. He gave me a faint smile as the photographer called his name.

“It’s ok… Really…” he said before heading to the set and trading places with Suho.

The day had ended and I was tired. I had made three pleasant acquaintances, one of which was shy and quiet and didn’t talk much at all. Suho would never shut up and then there was Lay. Lay was a very peaceful, pleasant man. He spoke softly and I could tell he had his head on straight. His morals were shown through actions the entire day. He was a sweetheart. Then there was Kai. Although we said nothing but maybe three sentences to each other the whole day, he treated me kindly and gave sweet gestures. It seemed like the more he saw me, the more comfortable he became with my presence. I thought about my day and what my next day would be like as I drove down the city streets. I arrived at my apartment ready for some time to unwind. However, with my roommates, that wasn’t going to ing happen. As soon as I opened the door, I heard music blaring and the dogs barking loudly. It was a ing zoo in my living space. There was a hamster (which belonged to my roommate Yoko) and two dogs (my pug Satoori and my roommate Nikala’s German Sheppard named Kazaki). The two dogs bombarded me upon my entrance, at my feet and showering me with barks.

“Kazaki! Satoori! Hush up with all that noise!” I heard Yoko snapped peeping around the corner from the kitchen. I could smell the ramyun being cooked and that made me smile a bit. I sighed with a smile, parking my suitcase by the door and kicking off my heels. “Allysha! Girl!” she smiled noticing me. I could hear Nikala’s feet pattering down the hallway.

“Unnie?! Oh my god!” She said grabbing my arm and pulling me to the couch as Yoko brought out the ramyun and three sets of chopsticks. Neither of us were big on germs so we just ate out of one big ol’ pot together. She brought out some wine that she bought earlier in the day and popped it open to pour. “So tell us all about it! How was your first day at work?!”

“I just wanna know if you saw Kris—”

“Yoko!” Nikala snapped and I chuckled.

“Girl, now you know Kris ain’t got no reason to be hangin’ around SM.” I said sipping my wine.

“I mean maybe he visited the boys or somethin’!” Yoko said as she broke her chopsticks and began to rub them together before dipping into the steaming hot pot.

“He did not visit the boys, Yoko.” I chuckled picking up a piece of shrimp and stuffing it into my mouth along with some noodles. She scoffed.

“Damn…”

I giggled. “How about you guys? How was your day? Nikala, how was your audition at BigHit?”

“I got in! I start dance training on Wednesday!” she giggled.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about girl!” I said with a mouth full of food, high fiving her then pushing Kazaki away from the table where we ate. “Kazaki! Go!” I snapped my fingers and she retreated into Nikala’s room. “Satoori, you better not think about it.” I said to my dog sternly as he began to circle on the couch and lay down. “Good boy. Yoko, how about you?”

“Well, I teach my first class on Monday. I get to teach English to B1A4.” She sighed.

“Ha ha! Good luck with that one!” I chuckled.

“Baro isn’t so bad.” Nikala said before eating an egg.

“No you’re right. He’s the best at English in the group. Sandeul is a bit behind him I think. As for the others…..I’ll have some vitamins and a bottle of vodka waiting for you when you come home.” I chuckled. Yoko burst into laughter. I remembered how worried I used to be when I decided I wanted to move to Korea after graduating. I was worried about being alone and not having friends. Then I met these two and we clicked right away and became friends. Yoko and I took Korean classes together while Nikala attended school for it and studied dance. We worked and saved and worked and saved until we were able to buy our way to the good ol’ S.K. The three of us as black women. Independent black women. All we had was each other out here and every trial and tribulation of life that got hard, we were able to overcome together. Thus making our friendship stronger and closer than ever. We couldn’t break now that we had finally gotten to where we wanted to be. And from here, we could only go up.