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"Sorry for the uh...for the wait," Jongin mumbles dumbly as he walks towards the studio and towards the camera. As usual, he walks straight up to the couple still standing by the door and extracts his hand. "I'm Jongin and I'll be your photographer." Next to him, Baekhyun is still giggling his chin off and he fights the urge to launch his assistant into the deepest, darkest parts of space.

The groom, who is slightly taller than Jongin himself, grabs Jongin's hand firmly and shakes it a couple of times. "Sehun, charmed," he says, his eyes forming into crescents as he smiles fondly at the shorter. His suit is not only dust free, but probably awfully expensive too, Jongin figures.

"Hi," the bride says cheerfully as she extracts her own hand, which is so frail Jongin worries he might snap her arm in half if he touches it. The first thing he notices is that she isn't wearing your typical wedding dress, at least not a white one. It's black and looks more like something you'd wear to a fancy dinner than a wedding, but he doesn't comment on it. "I'm Irene." Jongin tries not to tear his entire hand open on her many rings. 

"And I'm Baekhyun, Jongin's glamorous assistant," Baekhyun adds from his spot by one of the lights, which he's in the midst of adjusting the brightness to. "Don't mind him, he's always like that," he laughs after Jongin only sends him a look.

Trying to shove Baekhyun's existence out of his mind, Jongin clears his throat to pull himself together before taking a step back. "Here's where you'll be standing," he says as he gestures at the black stage in front of the backdrop. He proceeds to wait for the two to walk up to said stage, all whilst trying to ignore the way the girl (or, he supposes, Irene) keeps rambling on and on about the prettiness of the flowers behind them.

Sehun climbs the two steps to the stage and extracts his hand before helping Irene up, too, which takes a while (much to Jongin's annoyance) given the fact that her heels must be at least six inches. Sehun's posture is nearly perfect, a contrast to the rest of the grooms Jongin has seen enter and leave throughout the day, and the former is quick to make sure they've got enough room on the stage. Now, Jongin isn't sure if it's their matching hair colors, but he would be lying if he said they didn't look absolutely perfect standing beside each other (he's had his fair share of aesthetically pleasing couples during his career, but none quite like this one). It only makes him think of how good the photos will end up looking afterwards, so Jongin hurries to get behind the camera after realizing that Baekhyun has, surprisingly, done a decent job at dimming the lights according to Sehun and Irene's requests.

Looking through the viewfinder, and making sure not smash his nose into the screen, Jongin is about to give the couple a few instructions to help move things along easier and faster (and to make sure he meets up with Jongdae at their agreed time), only to realize that they've already started posing, quite well actually, so he mentally thanks them before looking up. "Uh, could I get the groom's left arm around the bride's shoulder?" he asks, expecting some form of protest. To his surprise, Sehun easily snakes his arm around Irene's shoulder, and he quickly snaps a photo after they both send him a smile.

Blinking a bit to rid her eyes of the flash, Irene smiles up at Sehun before reaching up and his hand. "Hey, I've got a suggestion," she says without any hint of arrogance in her voice. 

Jongin looks up. His breath nearly hitches in his throat upon laying his eyes on them, mainly because they both look so good together, and the bright pink flowers behind them only adds to the gorgeousness of it all. He quickly pulls himself together, though, to avoid looking like a gaping goldfish. "Yeah, uh, of course."

"Would it be okay if we did this? Hold on-" Turning around a little, Irene takes a step back (which nearly gives Jongin a heart attack since slipping off the edge would definitely cause her to break her ankle) and curls her hand into a fist. "Like this." After Sehun does the same, they engage in what Jongin can only describe as a fist bump, which is closely followed by them (including Baekhyun) exploding in a fit of laughter.

Blinking in surprise, since he definitely wasn't expecting that, Jongin stares at the two for what feels like forever. "Sure," he says after a minute, although it comes out sounding more like a drawled out question than anything. Honestly, he's never had any of his models do something like that but he figures a little change would be nice around here. "I like it, actually," he chuckles.

Apparently sensing Jongin's confusion (and slight hesitation), Sehun chuckles low in his throat. "We can do the same pose if you'd like," he says before wrapping his arm around Irene's shoulder again, their fists meeting by her hair. Even though they're both still giggling their chins off, Jongin can tell they're dead serious.

Jongin scratches the back of his head. "Yeah, that's a little better, hold on-" He gestures at Baekhyun to turn up the brightness to the right, which the latter does, surprisingly enough. "Lemme just test this," he mumbles to himself, looking through the viewfinder and quickly snapping a photo. To his surprise, it comes out looking nearly perfect when he glances at the monitor screen subsequently. "It looks great, I say we keep it." He sends them a thumbs up.

"Wouldn't it look nicer if you were holding something?" Baekhyun chimes in suddenly as he smoothes out the creases in the backdrop. He puts his hands up in defense when Irene, Sehun and Jongin all look at him at once. "Just saying, it might look a little...awkward if you're just....you know what, nevermind," he mumbles before resuming his maintenance of the sheet.

Irene seems to ponder the suggestion for a second and Jongin is entirely sure she'll decline it until her eyes light up. "I like that idea a lot, actually," she says excitedly, her long brown hair bouncing as she turns to look at Sehun for approval. The latter nods, and she practically jumps up and down in excitement. Her face soon falls, though. "We've got nothing to hold onto, though, I think."

Jongin clears his throat as he looks around the studio, despite knowing he won't find anything of interest. "Yeah, well, this isn't exactly a prop studio, so...not really, I guess," he mumbles absentmindedly, figuring none of them would enjoy holding onto a used, empty lunch box or an empty box of Pocky. He looks back at them to tell them he's sorry, when he suddenly spots something. "How about your necklace?" He points to Irene; more precisely, at the gold chain hanging loosely around her neck.

Irene blinks before she smiles widely. "Yeah, that's a good idea!" she says before turning around and lifting her hair up. Almost on cue, Sehun proceeds to undo the chain before carefully handing it to her. She locks it into place again before going back to her previous pose. "How about this?" she asks whilst draping the necklace loosely across their fists. Jongin figures that if you were to try to explain this to anyone, they'd probably laugh right in your face.

"Hold on--" Jongin dips his head down and counts to three before snapping a photo. The entire studio is illuminated by bright whiteness a second later, and it's not until he turns his head and looks at the monitor that his jaw nearly hits the floor because it looks really good (he doesn't know if it's because the photo genuinely looks pretty or because it's such a difference compared to 99% of every other photo he's taken). "It looks perfect, wow, I liked that idea," he says with a bright smile and a thumbs up in Sehun and Irene's direction, nearly laughing out loud when they proceed to high five in triumph. "Would you...would you uh, like some other pictures? Y'know, more...well, traditional looking ones, I guess?" 

Putting her necklace back on, Irene shakes her head. "We're content with this one, we were planning on using it on our thank you cards later on," she says with a nod in Sehun's direction. "The rest will be taken tomorrow," she adds for clarification when Jongin blinks. "May we see them?" Her eyes seem to light up, and somehow they look brighter than the lights surrounding her.

A bit taken aback, Jongin finds himself nodding even though he has yet to process her words fully. "Uh, sure, yeah, right here," he mutters, gesturing at the monitor next to him. "Watch your step on your way down," he adds, shivering when he thinks back to the 911 call he had to make months ago after one of the brides tripped on a step and twisted her ankle (and probably had to cancel her wedding, which was even worse). He walks up to the monitor and clicks on the automatically created folder, and only three photos, including the test one, show up on the screen. Normally, he's used to seeing at least eighty rows of photos, of which at least 90% look identical, so he can't help but blink in awe.

Irene waits for Jongin to double click on one of the photos, the most recent one with the chain, and grabs Sehun's hand as soon as it shows up in full size before them. "We're definitely using this one!" she squeals happily, practically bouncing up and down as much as her heels will allow her to. "You can keep the others if you want to but this one's my favorite, what do you think?" She reaches up and pinches Sehun's cheeks.

Playfully swatting her hands away, Sehun nods in agreement. "I like it, too," he says simply, apparently inspecting every single pixel in front of him. 

"The background's really fitting, it was a great choice," Jongin says, chuckling a little when Irene nods her head up and down in agreement. "The flowers really bring out the color of your lips," he adds, gesturing at Irene. "If you want to, I can alter it slightly. You know, color correction and stu-"

"No thanks, it looks perfect as it is," Irene interrupts, clearly too excited to even think straight as she interlocks her and Sehun's fingers together. "We've got a cake sample to pick up so if it's alright with you we're gonna need to cut this a bit short," she adds with an apologetic look on her face. 

Jongin nearly jumps for joy upon hearing the news, mainly (to be exact, solely) because this means he'll have time to meet up with Jongdae later, but he puts on his best poker face and nods a little. "That's fine," he says, trying not to scream in happiness over the fact that he won't have to stay back for four hours on Photoshop later. He waits for Sehun and Irene to say their final goodbyes, only to nearly jump out of his own skin when he notices something in his peripheral. He tears his eyes off the monitor. "What the-"

"Sorry," Sehun chuckles when he sees the freaked out look on Jongin's face. "It's just...well, not to be intrusive, but--" He reaches out and gently runs his hand through a lock of Jongin's hair. "You've-"

"You've got food in your hair, I think," Irene says, squinting her eyes to see better. When she realizes that that is, indeed, food in Jongin's hair, she jogs over to the door, picks up her purse and retreives a pack of wet wipes. "Catch!" she hollers at Sehun, who effortlessly catches it in his hands after she throws it.

Jongin blinks in confusion, and it's not until he hears the familiar sound of Baekhyun trying to stifle a snicker that realization hits him, and to say that spending the next thirty seconds trying to hang his head in utter shame as Sehun carefully wipes the sauce stain off his hair is extremely difficult, would be an understatement. In fact, he's so caught up with trying to hide his blush that it takes him a while to notice how well fitting Sehun's tuxedo is, as well as how clean it is, just like Jongin noticed earlier. The taller smells like the majority of the males in Jongin's class, which the latter finds surprisingly pleasant, but he doesn't get to think about it for very long since Sehun takes a step back a minute later.

"There ya go," Sehun says with a smile before stuffing the now used tissue in his pocket and patting Jongin on the shoulder in a form of thanks. "We've gotta run now, but you've got both our email adresses, so let us know if something happens." With that, he jogs over to the door and stands next to Irene. They both say their final goodbyes before opening the door and bouncing out, hand in hand.

The sound of the door closing echoes inside Jongin's head for minutes on end, and it's not until one of the lights flicker that he seems to return to reality. He instinctively walks over to the lights and turns them off one by one before proceeding to remove the backdrop. After placing it aside, he jogs up to the monitor, and he once again mentally cheers over not having to stay behind for hours after work to retouch and or select the best looking photos to use, since it saves him at least four hours. With a sigh, Jongin is about to walk over to the pile of backdrops laying by his feet when he suddenly hears Baekhyun's voice behind him, which nearly causes Jongin to kick the tripod over in surprise.

"Those people who were supposed to come in after Irene and I-forgot-his-name just called and informed me that they've chosen another place to get their photos taken," Baekhyun says as he peeks his head out from the back room, completely oblivious to the fact that he just scared his boss out of his wits. He puts his phone away and walks up to the monitor, his eyes nearly bulging out subsequently. "Only three?!"

Jongin nods. "Yup," he mumbles, careful to shoo Baekhyun away from the computer, because he definitely does not want a repeat of the time when the latter somehow and accidentally managed to delete every single file on the hard drive two weeks ago. "Wait, so they were the last ones?" he asks, his eyes widening in both surprise and glee.

It's Baekhyun's turn to nod. "Yeppers," he sing-songs as he quickly unplugs and puts away the lights. "I liked them, they were cool," he adds absentmindedly whilst rolling up the carpet by the door after dusting it off. "I wish my sister was like Irene. Hey, did you notice she wasn't wearing a normal dress? Weird, huh?" With a groan, he lifts up the carpet and practically tosses it onto one of the chairs lining the wall.

Jongin nods absentmindedly as he stretches out his spine. He doesn't think he's ever gone home from work without the entire studio being pitch black due to the darkness outside (which sort of really doesn't help lighten his fear of ghosts and monsters), so he's sort of really looking forward to leaving with the sun seeping into the room. After turning off the camera, removing it from the tripod and putting it on charge, he adjusts his hoodie before pulling out his phone. A quick text to Jongdae informing the latter that he's coming early is all it takes for Jongin's mood to skyrocket and he makes sure everything inside the studio is turned off and or on charge before entering the back room.

"They made a cute couple," Baekhyun says as he follows after Jongin and opens his own locker. He's got nothing in there except a bunch of crumpled textbooks and a backpack stained with God knows what. "I'd actually be willing to attend their wedding, if I'm gonna be honest," he adds before slamming his locker shut and stuffing the key in his pocket. "What're you doing tonight, by the way?"

Stuffing his lunch box in his backpack, Jongin runs a (clean) hand through his hair, ignoring the way his cheeks flush again when he automatically thinks back to his own -up less than ten minutes ago. "Uh, meeting up with Jongdae," he replies whilst ing his blouse. He already misses the feeling of wearing his own clothing. "You? Chanyeol, I suppose? And stop staring, you !"

Baekhyun rolls his eyes in exasperation. "We're both gay, lunkhead, what's the issue?" he says before leaning against the lockers and pulling out his phone. "And yup, how'd you know," he hums absentmindedly as he proceeds to type away at an unnatural speed.

Jongin doesn't reply. Not to the first part, at least, and all he can think of is how unfair it is that Baekhyun isn't obligated to wear some fancy black blouse while he's working, which he bets the latter loves. Anyways, he turns around so his back is facing Baekhyun before removing the garment and spraying it with sanitizer before hanging it up on the wall. "It's not like you spend every waking second of your lives together," he mumbles sarcastically before retreiving his orange and black hoodie from his locker and putting it on. 

"Shaddap, I'm forced to spend a minimun of four hours with your , so watch your words," Baekhyun retorts before laughing loudly. "Should've made me the main photographer, you know I'm better at it than you are," he adds to rile Jongin up. Which works, because Jongin smacks him on the arm a milisecond later.

"Yeah, you in' wish," Jongin mutters before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and closing and locking his locker. 

Baekhyun shrugs but he doesn't look all that sorry. "Last one out turns off the lights," he calls over his shoulder after saluting Jongin and leaving the room. "See ya tomorrow, if you don't oversleep, that is."

"I'm always the last one out, ," Jongin mutters under his breath with a shake of his head. He's just glad Baekhyun didn't enter his usual ramble mode during which he'll spend minutes and sometimes even hours going on and on about his boyfriend, Chanyeol. Speaking of which, Jongin sure is thankful Baekhyun didn't pull an idiot move today and FaceTime Chanyeol in the middle of a shoot, whilst on duty. It annoys Jongin to no end and he really doesn't understand why and how Baekhyun can devote so much time to talking to Chanyeol, despite Jongin's constant reminders for him to prioritize his work over relationships. Be that as it may, Jongin doesn't see it changing anytime soon so he opts to ignore it, instead choosing to bask in the glory that is the feeling of ending work six hours than usual. The fact that it's Friday and that he'll be able to spend it with none other than Jongdae all weekend is enough to make him forgive Baekhyun for being such a pain, and Jongin bounces out of the room a second later.

After scanning the studio and making sure everything is shut off, Jongin makes his way towards the main entrance. Except he barely makes it past the front carpet when his phone suddenly rings in his pocket. Figuring it's Jongdae, he fishes it out a fraction of a second later. "Hello?" At first, he hears a loud sound that reminds him of wind blowing, but he isn't sure. "Hello?? Jongda-"

"Thanks for replying," a voice that Jongin soon recognizes to be that of Irene's, says a moment later. He can barely hear her voice over the sound of the wind blowing and from the sounds of it, he figures she's in a hurry. "Listen."

"What's the matter?" Jongin asks, inwardly screaming whilst hoping they didn't change their minds about wanting their photo retouched. He takes a seat on the nearest chair and crosses his legs.

"Right, listen," Irene continues, clearly in a hurry, or distressed, at least, "one of our photographers who was supposed to be at the wedding tomorrow just called in sick with the flu, we've called and called but nobody's able to make it on such short notice." The sound of her heels slapping against the ground is awfully distracting, Jongin thinks.

Jongin blinks before scratching the back of his head. "That's...a real shame," he says after a while, eyebrows furrowing. "Why are you calling and telling me this, though?" he asks, tapping his foot impatiently.

Irene is silent for a moment, presumably to get to a place that's less windy. When Jongin can no longer hear the wind blowing and everything is completely silent, she speaks. "Jongin, we need you to be our photographer at the wedding tomorrow!"

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