You walked past the security desk in the middle of the lobby, scanning your key card on the way in, opening the access doors. The front of the lobby made the building seem as if t was a regular office building, but past the doors it was a whole other world. You lived for the excitement on the other side of those doors; lights flashing, stylist running around trying to make sure outfits looked spot on, hairstylists running up onto the photo-shoot area to make final adjustments to the stars, and then there was you, the makeup artist, entrusted with taking normal looking people and making them look almost inhumanly perfect.

You and Minah walked past the crew as they finished setting up, heading straight for the back dressing rooms. You could see the Minah peeking at the cute new assistant director, as you gave her a light shove in the right direction. Flirting could wait; you had a job to do.

 You heard Chen’s familiar laughter before you had even opened the dressing room door. Your stomach twisted, both from butterflies and nervousness. Chen was not the cause of the latter. You knew that if Chen was on the job that meant the others were too. You took a deep breath, before stepping inside, causing all heads to turn towards you. Of course Chen was already in your face.

“Surprise!” His smile stretched from ear to ear as he pulled you in for a hug. You melted into it, wrapping your arms around his waist. It had been a while since you last saw each other, and truthfully you missed him a lot more than you cared to admit.”

“Oh.My.God. Its EXO.” You faintly heard Minah whisper from behind you as she gripped onto your shirt for support. You pulled back from the hug; afraid she might just pass out behind you.

“Do you like your surprise?” Chen slipped his hand into yours and pulled you and Minah further into the room. Your insides flipped at the innocent contact. All seven of the other boys smiled and greeted you, some even coming up for a hug. It had been a while since you had seen some of them too. They politely greeted Minah as well, who just meekly bowed before running over to the makeup table to catch her breath. One boy was missing however, and it put you a little at ease that he wasn’t there.

“This isn’t really much of a surprise,” you teased, smiling up at Chen. “How did you know I was going to be working this job?”

“He didn’t tell you Y/N? He practically begged our manager to get you for this photo-shoot” Xiumin chirped, swinging an arm around Chen’s neck. 

“I wouldn’t call it begging Hyung, more like really good persuasion skills” he pouted, but broke out into his signature smile shortly afterwards.

You smiled at him and gave his hand a soft squeeze, reassuring him that you liked the surprise. Even if it was for work you stilled like seeing him…seeing them. For a long time after your break up with Kai, you had cut off contact with them, Kris and Chen being the exceptions. It had felt weird to be around them, the thought be being known as “the ex-girlfriend” bothered you. Now however, you knew that they didn’t think of you that way. You were just you, a good friend who had been with all of them for a very long time. 

Slipping out of Chen’s grasp you made your way over to the makeup tables and chatted for a bit with the boys, catching up quickly as you helped Minah set up the make-up tables. There was an elephant in the room, as you wondered where boy #9 was, but you refused to ask and likewise, the other boys also refused to bring it up out of fear that it might hurt you in some way.

“Y/N, you didn’t tell me you personally knew EXO!” Minah whispered to you without taking her eyes off of the mirror. She was blatantly staring as the boys puttered around in the background.

“I don’t think that’s something I want to be advertising, you know what some of their “fans” are like. You shuddered at th