---Cat's POV---

The next few days were full of excitement and nerves as Cat was brought to SM to sign some paperwork and meet the wardrobe department to discuss ideas. On top of that, she had learned her makeup design had been chosen as one of four winners of the competition in her class. So when Monday came, she gathered up her things for her class into her duffle and paused to look at herself in a mirror. Today she had decided on a pair of black leggings that were ripped up the front, a light blue tank top and matching studded flats, with rose earrings and her hair tied up in a topknot. Her makeup was simple, since she had no one to impress; a soft smudged eyeliner and mascara, and black nail polish.

Grabbing her train case of makeup, as well as her bag, she sighed and walked out of her house toward her classroom. Liz had been at SM since early morning, her new internship now counting for the vast majority of her class credits now. Humming absently to herself, she wandered into the art's building, smiling at her classmates as she sat at her station, anxiously waiting for her model to arrive. The rest of the students would be practicing different styles on each other, while the four finalists would compete on their models.

"Hello class, thank you for being here on time." Ms. Kim chirped in the front, bowing slightly. "If my competitors would please come to the front of the classroom, I'll let you meet your assigned models and we can move from there."

Pushing off her stool, she walked up, grinning at Ms. Kim. Ever since she had been 'recruited' by Sehun and SM, Ms. Kim has been helping her every chance she could get with additional supplies or training. "Good morning, Ms. Kim!" She bowed politely, smiling happily.

"Good morning, Cat-ah. Are you excited for today?"

"Very! But I'm also nervous..." She murmured, rubbing the back of her neck then smiled. "But it's all part of the process!"

"That's the spirit! But before we begin, I wanted you to meet one of your competitors. This is Nana-Marie Florence, a recent student like you." She then gestured to a young woman behind Cat, and she turned, seeing a smaller woman with bright blue ombre hair, wearing long black leggings, hot pink heels with a loose grey top. A black and white striped blazer was draped over her shoulder, and silver hoops hung from her lobes, glimmering in the shadows of her hair. Lens-less black frames were on the tip of her nose, and her fingers were adorned with various pink and gold jewelry.

"Actually, my name is Anna-Marie. People have a hard time with the proper pronunciation, so I just go with it." She grinned, holding her hand out. "I've seen your work, and I'm very impressed. When Ms. Kim told me that I was going against you, I nearly backed out... I'm not that good." She whimpered, lowering her gaze.

"No no no! Don't say that, please! We're all of equal talent here! Please don't put yourself down." She shook her hand excitedly, smiling pleasantly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Nana. I'm Catherine, but you can just call me Cat."

"Nice to meet you, Cat! I hope we get boys to be our models... I really at doing girl's makeup to be honest." Nana smiled nervously, turning to look at the door where their models would be coming from.

"I'm sure you'll do fine. Have faith!" Cat murmured, her own nerves starting to get the best of her. Ms. Kim walked toward the door in the front of the classroom, requesting the competitors to stand in front of a stool and await the models.

"Each model is going to pick their artist, so there will be no fighting amongst the contestants. Once your model sits, you have two hours to do your makeup design, and the winner will be chosen at the end of class. Enjoy!" She swung the door open, and to Cat's surprise, four of the boys from Exo-K streamed in, including Sehun and Chanyeol.

Unable to contain her laughter, she waved to them as they quickly approached her, fighting for her chair. "Hyung! No! We agreed!" Sehun grumbled, trying to pry the stool away from Chanyeol. Finally he sat down, smiling smugly at his elder before winking at Cat. "Hello Cat-ah."

"Well that's not fair. Who should I sit with!?" Chanyeol complained, folding his arms over his chest and looking at the other three competitors. The other two EXO boys slunk up behind him, murmuring to each other on where to sit.

"Why not Nana here? She's sure to be of talent, and that way you and Sehun-ah can compare your makeup at the end." Cat chirped, grinning at the boys as she began pushing back Sehun's hair with a clip, her hands shaking nervously. Truth be told, she had never been that close to him yet, and that made her nervous.

Nana blinked, looking at the boys then back to Cat with a confused expression. "You know these two?"

"These four, actually. They're from the group my sister Liz is training. This is Sehun, this is Chanyeol, and the two hiding behind are Baekhyun and Suho. Come on guys, sit! They won't bite, I swear." She gestured impatiently to them all, rolling her eyes as they nervously sat down in the chairs. "How did you guys get roped into this anyway?"

"It was my idea." Chanyeol grinned, shaking Nana's hand and sitting down on her stool. "I thought it might take the nerves off if you knew it was us."

"Aishhh... Now I'm more nervous." Nana muttered, causing Cat to frown.

"Nana-ah! Don't let that get to you! These guys are push-overs. Especially this big lug. Tell him to sit down and shut up, or else." Wagging her makeup brush at him threatening, she turned back to Sehun, a flush immediately racing to her face as he stared at her calmly.

Straightening her small 5'2 frame, Nana narrowed her eyes at Chanyeol, tilting her head to the side. "Now listen to me. Just because you're friends with Cat-ah here, doesn't mean you can throw the competition. I deserve just as much of a chance to win so behave!" A grin slid onto her face despite herself, seeing Chanyeol sit there wide-eyed and nodding. "Good. Now please take that hat off. I need to push your hair back."

For the next two hours the four competitors worked as fast as they could, perfecting their looks on the four boys. They all had different animals, and while the other three were interpretations of real animals, Cat's was the only one that was humanized. Sehun's face looked feral in it's intensity, being helped with the golden contacts he now wore as well, causing Cat's heart to race. Nodding, she stepped back from him, looking to Ms. Kim to tell her she was done.

"Very nice, very nice. Nice use of colors and blending... I really like how you made his hair to appear as if it was the fur appearing, as well as keeping him human. Wonderful job, Cat-ah." She rested her hand on her shoulder, walking down the row to look at Nana's work.

Nana, who had done a peacock had painted Chanyeol's face in an intense blend of colors, stretching down his neck and onto his ears. "Wonderful colors, Nana-ah! You managed to turn his face into the angled spectacle of the bird itself. And you also seemed to draw inspiration from Picasso, am I right?"

"Yes! He's my idol... I actually have been called Picasso by my friends ever since I can remember." She grinned, almost hopping in her excitement about the praise she was receiving. Clasping her makeup stained hands together in front of her, she bit back a squeal of excitement, then burst into laughter as Chanyeol jumped up onto his bench, and began to squawk like a bird, flapping his arms like wings.

Despite her laughter having her doubled over, Cat grabbed his shirt, trying to tug him down. "Get down from there before you hurt yourself, you idiot!"

Sehun laughed, his head thrown back as he wrapped his hands around his abdomen. "Hyung! Get down!" Standing up from his stool, he grabbed his arm and tugged at it, forcing him off his own chair and to the ground, both guys laughing so hard they were almost crying.

"Yah! Don't you dare cry and ruin our hard work!!!" Nana snapped, wagging her finger at Chanyeol, obviously wanting to attack the slightly smudged makeup. "I swear, if your smudging the makeup makes me lose even more I'm going to kill you."

Chanyeol chuckled but nodded, holding his hands up in front of his face protectively. "I shall not smudge!!!"

Cat laughed, rolling her eyes but walked over and stood next to Sehun, resisting the urge to grab his hand again. They hadn't seen each other since they were at the movies on Friday, having been busy with either rehearsals in Sehun's case or, in Cat's case, getting all the documents in place for doing makeup design work for EXO.

Ms. Kim sat back at her desk, flipping through some documents on her desk with pursed lips. Finally she straightened and nodded, walking toward the competitors, who now stood next to their models. Suho was painted up as a lizard, Baekhyun as a parrot, both of them surly as they saw the maknae being the vicious one for once. Sehun grinned, clearly enjoying the seniority he was experiencing, and puffed his chest out subtly.

"Well, it appears we have a winner! It was a very close race, but it came down to two. I would like to congratulate Ms. Cat as the winner of this competition!!" She grinned, clapping and bowing toward Cat, who was hugging Sehun happily. "But!! There was an interesting situation that I had to take into account. The prize of this competition would be to shadow the makeup designer for the new group SM Entertainment is training, learning tricks of the trade and even attending some music video filming. However... I'm pleased to announce that Ms. Cat was actually recruited as said designer, so that means she couldn't possibly accept this award. Therefor I am thrilled to announce that Ms. Nana will now be shadowing Cat-ah at SM Entertainment! Both girls will come to classes when their schedules allow it, so this may be the last time we see them in a while!"

Nana's mouth dropped open, and she covered with her hands, wide eyed and pale. Without warning she screamed happily, clapping her hands and hugging Chanyeol tightly, causing the tall man to blink and look down at her. "Uh...Cat? I'm confused."

Cat laughed, then squeaked in surprise as Nana dove over, hugging her too. Grinning, she wrapped her arms around her and allowed her to dance around with her for a minute. "Congratulations Nana! You deserve it!"

Nana grinned, wiping tears of joy from her face. "So... when do we get started?"

"We actually can the boys back to the building today. I'm sure my sister would love to see how Channie here is all done up." Cat grinned maliciously, looking at his now shocked expression. "Oh yea, that's right. Liz is going to see you."

"Aiiiish.... Cat-ah! Please! No!" He whined, throwing his head back. He could only imagine what Liz would have to say, seeing him all dolled up like a flamboyant bird... and in front of the rest of the guys!!

"Oh, yes. Yes we will. Sehun, please him back to the van. Once we clean up here we'll meet you out back!" Cat chirped, looking at Sehun with a dazzling grin. "And boys, please make sure he doesn't wipe off his face!"

As the boys walked out back, Nana and Cat walked their tools to the sink, quickly washing them down and drying them under the heated vent. "Are you ready to meet everyone?" She grinned, sliding her brushes back into her tool kit and closing her train case. "We'll ride with the boys back to the offices, so you can meet up with my sister and the rest of the guys."

Nana paused, then looked at Cat with an incredulous expression. "...The rest...? How many are there!?!"

"Twelve, actually. You only met 1/3rd of the boys today. Thankfully you met, in my opinion, the most rambunctious boy of the lot; Chanyeol." Grinning, she picked up her bag and train case, then tilted her head. "Ready?"

"Oh... Yea. Let's do this!" Nana grabbed her jacket and her own train case, then swallowed hard, following Cat as she walked out of the same door the boys came out of. The door lead outside, and a large black van was waiting, laughter coming from inside. "Wow... And this is only four of them?"

Cat giggled, nodding and re-shouldering her bag. "Yea... Just you wait until we get to SM... It'll get so much louder." Cat crawled into the van, taking her seat next to Sehun while Nana crawled into the back seat between Chanyeol and Baekhyun; Suho was in the front seat.

"Cat-ah, did you enjoy your shopping trip?" Suho smiled, turning around and looking at the girl.

"Oh, yes I did! Actually everything I'm wearing right now we got on Friday, thanks to you. Thank you so much!" She bowed in her seat, her eyes crinkling as she smiled happily at him.

Grinning with pleasure, Suho nodded and turned back into his seat, leaving the four to their own devices. They chatted quietly amongst themselves throughout the drive, Cat being half turned around to talk to everyone, one hand slid between her and the couch cushion to weave her fingers around Sehun's in a tight grasp.

When they arrived at SM, the boys slunk out nervously, their hoods pulled up over their head to try to cover their makeup. Nana followed Cat nervously as she retrieved her ID from the front desk and shuffled into the elevator. "Okay Nana, just remember. We're friends here, okay? Even though the boys can be brash they're great guys." She grinned, looking at her worried expression. "So just breathe."

Nana nodded, swallowing hard and following the group into the hallway and toward the dance studio. Cat opened the door, interrupting the music inside, calling in for her sister. "Liz! We're back!! Chanyeol, get inside."

Grumbling he did as he was told, flanked by the other three, and immediately laughter and teasing resonated from the room. Liz stuck her head out the door, tears streaming down her face as she laughed. "Oh dear god Cat that face! Wait... who's this?"

"This is Nana! My...shadow." She grinned, introducing the two. "But come on in, Nana! Let's introduce you to the boys."

Nana paused, dropping her stuff by the door and kicking off her shoes, swallowing hard.  "I-I'm ready!  Let's do this!"

-----------------

Hey guys! Sorry if this post isn't up to my usual standards; I'm not feeling too hot but HAD to post. I really hope you liked the image of Chanyeol in peacock makeup as I did. ;] Please stay tuned for some interesting developments. ;]