“Taryn Lau! What are you doing with New East?!”

I whipped my head around in surprise, angling my gaze towards the shrill voice. Not surprised, I saw a short figure heading towards me through the dim lighting and crowded atmosphere, knocking over a few stylists and elbowing her way past multiple dolled-up people. “Taryn!” Uki hollered again, and I cast a helpless glance at the New East boys before she finally reached us.

“What the heck, Taryn! You’re supposed to be in the photoshoot room! Why aren’t you there? How do you know New East? They’ve barely been debuted for a month! Why are you guys here, anyway? This shoot is only for the biggest names! It’s the Asian Expansion cover!” She abruptly switched from scolding me to harping on Aron and his friends, who raised their arms in surrender, looking a bit confused.

“Um,” Aron said slowly for the rest of the guys, “who are you, exactly?”

Uki’s eyes blazed, and she pressed a finger against Aron’s chest, pushing him a step back. Why the heck was she so angry all of a sudden? “For your information, Mister I-Wanna-Know-Everything, I am Uki Seohae Choi, and I will not forgive you easily for stealing away poor Taryn here! Now, answer me straight. Why are you even here? I repeat, this is the shoot for the netizen cover!”

All of the eyes of the New East boys widened at her name. “You’re the Uki Seohae Choi? Like, the Uki who debuted both Super Junior and Big Bang?” Aron asked in English before descending into Korean for the rest of the boys. I zoned out a bit, seeing how rapidly they all were speaking and how I couldn’t understand a single thing they were saying.

Suddenly, I felt, well, really awkward. After all, I was standing in an immense cement block occupied by tons of Korean stylists and Korean idols (I’m assuming) and Korean words, and I stuck out like a sore Canadian thumb. Running a finger down the string lanyard of my pass, I quickly tapped Uki, who was deep in a somewhat quieter conversation, on the shoulder and said, “Uki, I’m going back to the photoshoot room, okay? I dropped the book Siwon gave me in there.”

She halfheartedly waved me away, raising her voice again at the New East boys, and I bowed a bit before backing out of that stinky cement room. I closed the thick double doors, and immediately my ears sighed in relief. It was similar to the feeling of after a teacher had been talking way too loudly for far too long, and then he gives you a packet to work on in class and shuts up. Sweet bliss.

Blinking my eyes against the brightness, I made my way back through the doors to the photoshoot room. Strangely, no one was in there now. All the photographers were gone, but I could hear more voices out in the lobby on the other side of the doors I had just come through. I started making my way back to my comfy chair, where I could see my book lying abandoned, when I felt my phone buzz a bit.

From: Mary

 The four cameras near the windows in the corner. Five minutes.

A chill went up my spine. Crap. As I made my way over to the four cameras, my mind was only on one thing. How the heck am I not going to be blamed for this one?

Approaching the cameras sitting on tripods, all standing about two meters from each other, I examined them carefully. I was assuming Mary was keeping the photographers busy so I’d have time to sabotage these cameras. I spied the battery cartridge. No, the man wouldn’t be satisfied with that. I could unplug the cables, but they could easily plug them back in. Memory cards? Possibly, unless they have more in the back. Flash bulbs? If I knew where the extras were, maybe. I groaned and rubbed my eye a bit, careful not to smudge my eye makeup. I hated when he sent me on missions like this!

My mental timer dinged a warning at me. I only had a couple of minutes left. Quickly, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was sneaking up on me, I popped the memory cards out of each of the cameras, then knelt next to one of the open windows and tossed them out, making sure that they landed where they couldn’t be seen. Then I reached into my backpack and took out a water bottle, now unable to feel nervous or pity for these photographers. I poured a bit of water on the batteries of each of the cameras and closed the compartments.

Capping my bottle, I sprinted to the wide double doors, peering out and feeling relief to see a pair of restrooms right across the empty lobby. Quietly, I tiptoed into the girl’s bathroom, a bit surprised to see it empty. Perfect! I can say I just went to the bathroom before I entered the photoshoot room. Nobody saw me, and my book is still in there, so it’s perfect. I just wonder how the photographers and the idols using those cameras are going to react…

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Hey guys! Here's just a quick update for y'all. It's a bit short, and sorry if it , but I've had to do a lot of writing in the past few days :( Anyway, since I'm technically on summer break now, seeing as I don't have finals tomorrow, I'll probably be throwing you guys a few more updates before I leave at the end of the month! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please subscribe and comment! I love seeing your comments! Thank you all for sticking with me! <3

Edit 11/4/12: I changed the shoot from a netizen cover to an Asian Expansion cover. AKA, all the groups who have expanded from Korea to other parts of Asia (or the world) are there.