I’m not sure why I was surprised when there was a knock on my door first thing in the morning. It should have just expected it. Luckily, I had in fact gone to bed early the night before, so I was awake and ready before the knock came. When I opened the door, there was no surprise at all when Ravi’s face greeted me.

“Good morning,” his greeting was actually uncharacteristically sad.

I opened the door a bit more, and was surprised to see Leo sulking against the back wall of the hallway, “Good morning,” I answered looking from Leo back to Ravi, “why the long face?”

He sighed, “Today is the day.”

When I didn’t immediately understand his meeting, Leo cast me an irritated look, “He has to cut his hair.”

“Oh,” I still was confused. Not about what they were doing, but why they were here. “Do you want me to come?” I asked hesitantly.

“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” Ravi spoke, “but I figured you might want to say goodbye to ol’ Blue,” he pointed up at his hair.

A felt a warm smile cross my face, “You’re right,” I said, standing on my tiptoes and running a hand through his hair.

He sighed, “We’ll miss you, friend.” I heard Leo scoff from behind Ravi. “Oh, right,” Ravi continued, “Leo’s tired of bleaching his roots, so he’s getting his hair dyed today, too.”

I raised my eyebrows and peered around Ravi to try and get a better look at Leo’s face, but he was pensively looking down the hallway. He clearly was not as attached to his hair as Ravi was. “Come on, Ravi, let’s go.”

“Hold up,” Ravi raised a hand, “I think Mira wants to say goodbye to your blondeness, too,” he gave me a little wink

“Of course!” I had a good few memories associated with that hair. Like when he first dyed it and angrily turned in his yellow armband, for example. Or when we were watching Taemin’s video and I might have mentioned how bleached hair with black clothing was rather attractive. I stepped out into the hallway, where Leo regarded me suspiciously.

“It’s just hair,” he mumbled.

Ravi laughed, “This isn’t about you, Leo hyung.”

“Yeah Taekwoon, I’m not talking to you,” I stood in front of him on my toes and reached up to touch his hair. He dodged me. “Leo,” I whined, “hold still.”

He finally looked me in the eyes, and I recognized the stubborn fire in his eyes as if we were about to have a repeat of our tiff in the studio room. But something in him relented, and he slouched, “Whatever,” he muttered, “this is silly.”

I ran a hand through his hair, which was significantly softer and less damaged than Ravi’s, though still dried out from the heavy use of bleach. I could see traces of black along his roots, and understood his plight. At some point Leo looked up at me through the hair I was playing with. I couldn’t quite read his expression, but at least it wasn’t angry. “Thank you,” I whispered with a smile, and I swore I saw a tiny hint of a smile on his face, too.

“Okay, okay,” Ravi interrupted, “enough of this silliness, let’s get going.”

“This was your idea!” Leo suddenly protested, but turned to leave anyway. As if he suddenly remembered I was there, he glanced over his shoulder and gave me a little awkward wave as he made his way down the hallway.

I turned to Ravi, “Guess you’d better go,” I laughed.

He shook his head sadly, “Yeah, I guess so.”

With one more ruffle of his hair, I let him get on his way. This had been such a strange encounter, but it was certainly the thought that counted on this occasion. Even Leo’s reluctant compliance was sweet in its own way. Since that was over, I went ahead and grabbed my things to head downstairs to begin my rounds of studio recordings. My guitar slung over my shoulder, I gave a lazy wave to the young woman who almost always sat in the building’s lobby.  She politely greeted me as I continued to the lower stairwell.

I got settled into one of the recording booths with my guitar and got to work. I had both my own handwritten sheet music and my lap with the digitized chords. Luckily the studio was pretty well stocked with mixing and mastering equipment, so the process went pretty smoothly. Sure it was only one instruments worth, but I felt pretty accomplished. As I was finishing up a segment, movement in the main studio caught my eye. I stood, careful to set my guitar somewhere secure before peering out to investigate. “Leo?” I said quietly to myself.

Carefully, I opened my door to get a better look, and as I had suspected, Leo’s tall, slender body was unmistakable. He had just finished dropping a rather large object onto the floor against the wall. “Leo?” I called out to him this time.

He turned, running his hand through his now very dark hair, damp with sweat, “Ah, I thought you might be here,” his breathing was a bit labored. “Damn, he’s heavy,” he mumbled to himself. At the comment, I took a better look at what Leo had dropped.

“Oh my god, it’s Ravi,” I spoke as I rushed over to them, “What the hell happened?” I knelt down next to Ravi, whose hair had been completely buzzed off with just a bit of dark fuzz left behind. His eyeliner was smeared and he looked unconscious.

Leo seemed unconcerned, and opted to just sigh heavily. “He was upset that they had to pretty much shave his head because his hair was so dead,” Leo explained as he, too, sat down against the studio wall. “It wasn’t so bad until I asked why he picked out this color for MY hair, and then he started to freak out.”

It was then that I noticed that Leo’s hair wasn’t just dark, it was a very deep red, “You let Ravi pick the color?”

He shrugged, “I was just going to go with normal black, but he insisted this would look better. Once it was over, I asked him why, and he just started to panic.” Leo looked over at his passed out friend, a mixture of concern and amusement crossing his face.

“I told him I wanted that color for the video,” I explained as I sat on my backside, crossing my legs under me.

“Then he must have realized that his hair will be like this for the video,” Leo conjectured. He was probably right. Suddenly, Leo covered his mouth as he fought back laughter. “What a fool,” he choked out.

It was in bad taste, but I couldn’t help but smile, too, “Well lucky for him, it’ll probably be a month or so until we start filming, so there just might be enough there for him to dye it.”

“He’ll be relieved,” Leo said with a constrained smile. He clearly was fighting his urge to laugh.

I looked at Ravi again, and sighed. It was cute and funny, but at the same time I did feel bad. The guy was certainly attached to his hair, and was rather vain to begin with. “So why bring him down here?” it seemed strange for Leo to seek me out for something like this.

Leo hesistated, “I figured if I brought him home right now, Ken and Hakyeon would just make it worse,” he spoke quietly.

My smile couldn’t be held back much longer, “That’s actually really nice of you, Taekwoon.”

His eyes widened a little at my sudden change of tone, but he relaxed quickly, looking away from me to inspect Ravi again, “As much as he can be a pain, he is my friend,” Leo paused to ruffle his own hair again, “he’d do the same for me.”

“You know,” I remembered something, “back when you left me down here, he came to find me.” I flopped back, laying down on the short grain carpet, “He looked like he was going to beat me up for upsetting you.” I let my head roll to the side so I could see his face.

To my surprise, Leo actually smiled at this, “But then he took one look at you, turned around, and threatened to beat ME up instead.”

We laughed together this time, then fell into a comfortable silence for a while. “Your hair does look nice,” I threw out offhandedly as I sat back up, “As much as I liked the blonde, dark hair suits you better.”

“Thank you,” he responded awkwardly. It wasn’t quite to the point where he was getting overly embarrassed, but even little compliments got him flustered. I bit my lip to remind myself not to take advantage. Such a simple thing to get embarrassed about. It wasn’t even that much of a compliment. He recovered quickly, thankfully, and looked to my still open studio door, “Were you working?”

“Yeah,” I twisted my torso to follow his gaze, “I have most of the guitar finished.”

His narrow eyes twitched as he thought, “I thought you would do the piano part first.”

“Normally I would,” I admitted, “but I promised Hongbin I’d give him my guitar once I was done, so I figured I should be nice and make that as soon as possible.”

“You’re giving it to him?” Leo snapped his head to look at me.

I nodded, “Yeah, thanks for that tip, by the way. It took a bit for him to warm up to me.”

“But it’s your guitar.”

“Hm,” I sighed, looking over my shoulder again at the open door that contained the item in question, “it’s treated me well for a few years now.”

“Won’t it be hard to let it go?” he seemed to be more sad than, me, and it caused me to raise an eyebrow at him.

“A little?” I said as more of a question, “I mean, it has a lot of sentimental value, but it’s not like I lost or broke it.” I stopped talking for a moment as I scrambled to my feet. I brushed my hands off on my jeans and scampered over to the studio to fetch the instrument in question. “See,” I started again as I moved to sit against the wall between Ravi’s body and Leo, “every scratch and mark on this thing is like a story of its own.”

Leo trained his eyes on me as I moved, and when I sat with my guitar, his eyes moved to inspect it. “I can’t imagine getting rid of it,” he murmured.

“That’s the thing,” I laughed, “I’m not getting rid of it, I’m giving it to Hongbin,” I paused, “unless he has a history of breaking things,” I unconsciously gripped my guitar a little tighter.

Our eyes met, and a small smile crept onto his face, “No, I think he would take good care of it.”

I broke our gaze to study the various assets of the instrument in my hands, “That’s why I told him he could have it. Maybe he’ll try just a little harder to learn knowing he has this,” I was speculating, but I shrugged, “Plus, he’s a talented kid, and if I can help him expand on that, I’d be happy.” I carefully placed my guitar on a nearby chair before settling back on the floor.

“It’s so strange,” I glanced up at him as he began to speak again, “Sometimes you’re so,” he paused, his eyes narrowing for a brief moment, “so silly and light-hearted.” I wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at, but I never dreamed Leo would be speaking quite so honestly with me, so I remained still and silent, hoping he would continue. Luck was on my side as he obliged, “But sometimes you’re so adult and mature,” he met my eyes again with one of his tiny smiles.

“Take it from old Mira,” I replied with a little smirk, “you shouldn’t try to be responsible ALL of the time, or you’ll find yourself too old too soon.” When he seemed unable to find a response to that, I filled in the silence myself, “Luckily the six of you seem to have a good mix of maturity levels to keep everyone balanced.”

He nodded shallowly, “I guess you’re right.”

I wanted to delve into this conversation more, maybe ask Leo about some of the subtleties of the group dynamics, but a Ravi let out a snore that caused both of us to jump in surprise. We quickly looked at each other with surprised faces before relaxing into laughter.

“Oi, Ravi,” Leo called from the other side of me.

Ravi stirred, rolling over, landing his head squarely in my lap. I stifled a giggle as he nuzzled into me, clearly trying to get comfortable, “Wonsik,” I called gently, giving his shoulder a little shake.

“Tsk,” I heard Leo’s noise of disapproval, “first he passes out, then falls asleep,” he was clearly muttering to himself, so I ignored him.

Ravi finally stirred, and I saw his eyes blink open. He looked up at me dreamily, the fog of sleep almost visible in his eyes, “Mira?” he asked quietly.

“Hi,” I said simply with a smile.

I saw his comfortable smile start to spread on his face, but then he must have caught sight of Leo out of the corner of his eye, as his dreamy eyes and smile vanished in an instant, “Taekwoon hyung?” he asked as he sat up abruptly. Too abruptly, as he grabbed his head in what I could only imagine was the woozy feeling of righting himself too fast. And then his face fell.

“Here we go again,” Leo sighed as he slumped back into the wall.

“My hair,” Ravi’s voice was pitiful, and I had to try hard not to smile.

“It’s not so bad,” I offered, but the horrified look Ravi shot me shut me up.

“It’s gone,” he lamented.

“It’ll grow back,” Leo snapped.

I heard Ravi sniffle, “But I look,” he paused to take a long break, “so OLD.”

He was right about that, now that I could see him properly. Ravi already looked rather mature for his age, but with a buzz cut like that, it was even worse. Suddenly a piece of black fabric landed in Ravi’s lap. “Get yourself together before we have to go upstairs,” Leo still wouldn’t look at either of us, but the gesture was not lost on us.

“Leo hyung got me a hat?” Ravi’s mood turned around quickly as he put on the black beanie. “But,” he started again, looking around the room, “are we in the basement?”

I looked to Leo incredulously, “How far did you carry him?”

When Leo simply shrugged, Ravi jumped to his feet, “You carried me down here?”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you had been able to keep yourself together.”

It was so interesting to me to see Leo’s complete change of countenance once Ravi had woken up. Just like the big brother figure he was, he couldn’t help but pick on younger Ravi. I watched them bicker for several minutes, trying hard not to grin.

“Why did you bring me down here anyway?” Ravi finally asked.

Leo shrugged, still sitting on the floor against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. He rubbed his thighs absentmindedly, “Would you rather I brought you back home where N and Ken would have access to your unconscious body?”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Ravi waved the answer away like it were an insect, “but why down here?”

“I figured Mira would be down here to help with your emotional meltdown.”

I couldn’t hold it anymore, and I laughed rather loudly. They both looked at me as if they had forgotten I was watching them the whole time, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I waved at them to continue, “but I am here.”

Ravi seemed satisfied, “Recording?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded to my guitar.

“She’s giving it to Hongbin,” Leo spoke up.

“What?” Ravi looked at me, “Are you sure?”

I rolled my eyes, “Yes I’m sure! I’m starting to get the idea that you guys are just jealous.”

“Not jealous,” Leo mumbled.

Ravi smiled a little, “It’s really nice of you, but he doesn’t know how to play yet.”

“That’s how I’m going to get him to visit me in my room. He’s the only one who doesn’t.”

“You make him nervous,” Leo spoke as he stood up.

“Yeah, he did admit that,” I said with a little chuckle, “but if he comes by, I’ll give him some beginner lessons.” I shook my head, “But that’s not the point. I got the guitar parts all recorded, and I’ll have the piano part ready to go. Tomorrow I meet with your management to arrange the other studio musicians.”

“When do we start the vocals then?” It was Leo who spoke up.

I huffed, thinking, “Well, I’ll probably give you guys your parts soon so you can start learning them before I have group rehearsals.”

“So complicated,” Ravi lamented.

I gave him a little shove, “Or I could just hurry it up and leave as soon as possible.”

Ravi’s face flicked in panic as he looked around the room quickly. He spotted my usual stack of papers on one of the tables nearby. He not-so-sneakily edged toward them and hid them behind his back, “I’m so sorry, Mira noona, it appears as though we’ve lost all of your work and you’ll have to start over.”

I grinned. “Cute, Ravi,” I snatched the papers from him, “there’s so much more I have to do, there might be some hair on your head by the time we film the video.”

Leo doubled over, clearly trying to hold back laughter, but Ravi seemed less than amused, “Well that’s great to hear,” he said sarcastically. “You know what, maybe N and Ken would be better than you two.”

Finally, Leo and I both laughed as he stalked out of the studio, “Ravi, wait up!” I called as I grabbed my guitar and papers, chasing after him, “Come on, Leo,” I called behind me, watching him scramble to his feet, "we can't just let him go up there alone."