It was Thursday, one day before his photoshoot. Kyungsoo had slept exactly three hours and was currently standing in front of their big mirror in the vestibule, applying an alarming amount of concealer to his dark circles.
It's okay, one sleeping cycle is 1.5 hours long. Therefore I had two full ones.
No big deal.
This now made about 12 hours of sleep in three nights(he could hardly recall anything before that) and it made his stomach a little queasy.
"KYUNGSOO!"
He jumped and involuntarily attempted to conceal his eyebrows.
"Seriously, Chen? Seriously?" he murmured and tried to rub it off with the pads of his fingers(that were also full of concealer which made it a semi-intelligent thing to do).
"You got Lay into our apartment!"
"Yeah, and?" he mumbled in annoyance.
"You let him sleep on our couch. WHY did you let him sleep on our couch?!"
"Why are you being so loud?! And where else should he have slept?"
"In my BED?? Did you see how HOT he is?!" he replied, throwing his hands up in exasperation.
Kyungsoo blinked, exhausted by the others wasteful use of capslock.
"What? But you know Lay. How didn't you realize it sooner?"
"I saw him ONE time. In the ty lighting of our hallway. At four AM in the morning. When I was drunk-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it alright. You think he's hot?" Kyungsoo absently asked, already deeply concentrating on manually photoshopping his face.
Yeah, I totally need Real-Life Photoshop.
"YOU DON'T? I mean. That's right. You have Chanyeol. He's all mine!"
"Hmhm..." he replied in an 'whatever you say'-kind of way.
"Can you even communicate with him? I thought your Chinese ."
"Oh pleeease. It's not that bad."
"Is that Chinese Youtuber already talking to you again?" he conversationally asked.
Chen rolled his eyes as if Kyungsoo was focusing on the wrong details.
"Well, not exactly. No idea what her problem was."
"Maybe you shouldn't have called her a cute little ."
"It was a TYPO man, a tyyypo."
After a scrutinizing gaze into the mirror he tried to righten a few messy strands while Chen kept hopping around like a rubber ball.
"Aaaanyway. I'm gonna meet him soon to give him a few... 'Korean lessons'."
"Oh please. No need to accentuate this. As if you'd actually do anything beyond that. Lay doesn't seem to be the 'Netflix and Chill'-type."
"Psht, don't be such a killjoy."
"Still, how could you teach him with your lame- Chinese?"
"Xiumin's gonna teach me."
Kyungsoo shot him a very unimpressed look.
"So Xiumin is gonna teach you so you can teach Lay?"
"Yeah. So what?"
He only sighed.
"At least most involved parties are learning something. Especially Xiumin. He'll learn the hell of tutoring you."
"Oh, shut up you~"
"Not. A compliment."
"Nooot. Listening~" Chen singsonged right back at him.

[13:30]
From: PCYeol
Hey...
Sorry, can't make it today either! >_<
I'm assigned on outside duty and the appointments are pretty far away.
No idea when I'll be back. And this evening I'm at the karaoke bar...
Man, I'm so sorry...

Kyungsoo sighed.
So much for his only highlight on this glum day.
This was the second time Chanyeol had canceled their meeting due to his ridiculous working shifts. He seemed genuinely sorry. Not that Kyungsoo could ever even get mad at him.
Great, now I dressed up for nothing. Again.
Okay, so maybe he didn't exactly look 'dressed up'. But no one shall ever underestimate the effort you need to invest into looking 'completely normal' after sleeping repeatedly less than five hours.
Everything not making him look like an undead owl was to be appreciated.
And Kyungsoo indeed stood out like Smurfette. Just. The other way around.
Everyone looked like they couldn't care less about their appearance. No traces of make up, a bunch of lazy and messy buns instead of high ponytails, tiny clips instead of long, sparkly earrings.
It wasn't like his appearance(complete with a for Kyungsoo rather rare tight jeans and a nice oversized hoodie) was met with any admiration - rather than that he was blankly asked whether he wasn't working enough.

On the bright side he was close to being ready for the shooting.
He was just using his laptop to shamelessly type a facebook message during their CAD-lessons to the infamous WuFan.
Well, technically he was done typing long ago. Currently he was re-reading it for the fifth time, too nervous to actually send it.
Okay, there's nothing missing, right?
There's the exact time, the place, a photo of the outfit. I told him to come with his hair unstyled and apply everyday make up, just the way he usually did(or didn't). And to bring his cosmetic supplies anyway, just in case.
Kyungsoo could of course do his make up and probably would do the finishing touches(though he was far from professional) but it would only make sense that his own make up worked better on him than the one of white-as-a-sheet Kyungsoo's.
I wrote that there are no shoes or socks required and the color of underwear doesn't matter.
And that there will be snacks and drinks.
ANYTHING else?
He absently looked at the fierce Chinese on the profile picture and almost whined, burying his face in his arms.
Oh my god, he's SO out of my league! I'm just a sloppy student and he's this gorgeous high-end model.
This can't go well.
I don't wanna do this anymore.
In the end, he had to send it. He was pretty late already.
A dramatic inner battle about sending it was interrupted when Chaerin nonchalantly pressed the enter key and went back to scrolling down her instagram as if nothing had happened.
An even more dramatic 'Noooooooooooo' was also interrupted when a message popped up on his screen. A message of his photographer.

[14:50]
Hello
I'm very sorry but I have to cancel the shooting tomorrow. Unfortunately-

"NOOOOOOOO...!"
"Kyungsoo. Will you stop disturbing the lesson or leave?"

"What am I going to do, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO, CHEN? I have lost my photographer and the location! I can't cancel my model because my model is WU FAN. ING WU FAN!!" he yelled into his phone, walking down the hallway during their break.
"Gee, calm down. Don't start to swear, you'll raise the PG-bar of our lives with this-"
"WU FAN."
"Yeah alright, I get it-"
"-And there's absolutely no time to postpone the shooting any further! I won't make it until the deadline! I won't make it, GODDAMNIT."
"We just have to find a solution." he carefully began bu was quickly cut off by a rambling Kyungsoo.
"The girls don't have any other connections since they all need their photographers to themselves. I can't take the photos on my own because I have no location and it's-"
"YEAH, I get it, it's Wu Fan! Jesus, Soo. So you need a photographer with a studio. I'll ask around, alright? Meanwhile you can ask the other students or something. I'll call you back as soon as I find something. Just don't... Do anything stupid. Like crying."
Even though his eyes were already burning a little, Kyungsoo snorted.
"I'm not crying!"
"Look, I know you haven't slept a lot lately so just take a nap or go get another coffee or something. Call you back later."
With this, he ended the call and Kyungsoo sighed. He was still ed but now that he vented a bit of his panic, he felt a little better. Chen was right. He needed a coffee.
And a huge bar of chocolate.

Turned out that really absolutely no one knew any photographers who could be considered in his case. It was already four o'clock and Kyungsoo had come to the decision that he would cancel the Chinese model if he couldn't find any replacement by six.
He was glad that Luhan wasn't around to witness his debacle. Getting such a nice recommendation from his senior only to ruin it further... Oh, the humiliation.
When he finally received a message at quarter past four, he was close to tears again, this time from relief though.

[16:16]
From: ChenChen
Got cha someone
Junmyeon knew a photographer
You're saaafe!

Not bothering to reply he excused himself from the lesson to call him.
"Really? I mean like, really? Don't gimme false hopes now, you're gonna crush me."
"Dude, don't you have lessons or anythin'?" Chen replied in a surprised manner.
"Nevermind my lessons for god's sake. Since when does Junmyeon know fashion photographers?"
"Welll... It's not exactly a fashion photographer-"
"Gimme the summary. Please, Jongdae."
Kyungsoo could imagine him rolling his eyes at the sound of his actual name.
"Okay, look. Jun knows a photographer due to his business. The guy has a huge- studio and usually takes photos of cars, machines and whatnot. But since they're good buddies and all he'd be willing to do a small fashion shooting on tfp-base. He has no time though since he's in Tokyo this week-"
"WHAT?" he interrupted in a more high-pitched voice that promised a heavy object flying at Chen's face the moment he'd encounter him.
"-which is why his trainee's gonna do the shooting. He's almost done with his training and supposedly good!", Chen added hurriedly.
"You'll even get the studio, now come on! It's the best you can hope for!"
At this, Kyungsoo calmed down sufficiently even though he still didn't dare to relax.
"So... We can really use the studio? And it's for free? Can I actually count on this? Like, is it 100% certain?"
"Yes, yes, yes to everything besides the last point. You just have to send a quick message to the photographer to seal the deal. Just to determine the exact time and all. I'll link you to his profile."
"Okay... Okay..." he mumbled more to himself than anything.
"If this all works out - and I'm saying IF-... I'll make you and Suho the biggest dinner you have ever seen."
"Can I choose the country?" he piped up hopefully.
"Yeah, sure. Seriously Chen, you're my savior."
"At your service! Now if you excuse me, I have virtual sheep to kill. And Chinese vocabularies to learn. Try to come home before ten today."
"Yes mom. Have fun."
Kyungsoo sighed, let the phone sink and leaned against the hallway in exhaustion, pausing for just a moment.
Alright. Maybe this is not gonna be that much of a catastrophe.
 

Ohmygod I'm nervous.
It was currently half past two and Kyungsoo was trying not to bite his nails out of nervousness.
He was sitting on a bus with one big clothing bag and a heavy plastic bag, stuffed with various things. He had never been to this part of the city before though it didn't look all that bad. Maybe a little industrial with all the gray factories but oh well.
He stumbled out of the bus with the heavy luggage and made his way to the photographic studio, having the way memorized beforehand in a moment of wisdom. Fumbling with his phone map was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
As if his phone had sensed the very thought, it vibrated. He groaned.
Unfortunately he couldn't ignore it. It could be the photographer or Wu Fan.
Turned out it was the only person on the planet beside those two whom he wouldn't slap later for going through the trouble of putting down the bags.

[14:42]
From: PCYeol
Hey Kyungsoo!
Today's your shooting, right?
Good luck~! \(>v<)/
Actually I'm free until 10PM today, so if you want to, we could meet up for coffee later?
If you're not too tired.

Kyungsoo grinned happily, all the worries vanishing for a second.

[14:44]
To: PCYeol
Thank you...! I'm actually nervous as hell but I'll give my best.
Coffee sounds good.
Not that I drink coffee... But you get what I mean! :o
I'll text you when I'm done, no idea how long it's gonna take though.
Don't wait for me >_<

He stashed his phone away and walked up to the studio which was surprisingly easy to find.
The entrance area looked pretty dark and for a few moments he shifted from one foot to the other, gathering the courage.
Then he rang the bell.

Not even two hours later he found himself in a coffee shop, across a smiling Chanyeol.
"So, how did it go?"
Kyungsoo thought about it, while thrumming his fingers on the table.
"Wellll..."

Hello~
Short AND contains a Cliffhanger? Don't wooorry, I've already added the follow-up to this.
I just couldn't fit those into one chap, style-wise. You'll see.

P.S.: What, I ruined the combo of song title-chapter names? But haven't you ever heard "Undead" by Hollywood Undead? Hah. Still going strooong~ x3
(Okay, slight cheating, the song wasn't mentioned. Oh well.)

Love you all c:

P.S.: This story recently hit 80 subscribers! I'm so happyyy~! Thanks for being so patient with my slow- pacing, I'll be sure to nudge Chansoo together a bit more very soon~