Seoul was a good city compared to most major cities in the world. It had been your home for the past twenty-two years and you had no interest in leaving it.

Even if you had, though, you couldn’t. You barely made enough money as it was to cover living expenses. If you were still considered part of your family, you would have asked for help sometimes, but your parents had long since disowned you. You couldn’t really blame them, though, after what happened.

“Yah, Sunhi!”

You glanced up from where you were bent over a workbench. On it was a large hunk of clay that you were trying to turn into the first step of a makeup effects’ mask for a project you had been assigned to produce props for.

Your wrist pushed sweaty bangs out of your face as you looked over in the direction of the voice.

“Wae? You’re so loud, sunbae!” you shouted, pouting.

Chulmoo just rolled his eyes as he made his way through the cluttered props department’s sculpting room.

Reaching over to the dust-covered CD player, he slid his finger down on the touch-screen. The volume of the music dropped dramatically, making you huff.

“Yah, turn it back up! I was listening to that,” you complained.

He ignored you, moving over to stand at your side so he could look over your work so far. Chulmoo was another special effects artist, and one that had worked longer for the company than you had. He had more experience, and more clout; the bigger-named movies were what he worked on. You did throw-away props for music videos and high-class commercials, or dramas that aired on TV. You weren’t bitter about it, you were just annoyed that your pay-grade was significantly lower.

“You can turn it up after I leave,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “What exactly are you working on?”

You shrugged and pushed some of the wet clay with your thumb until it was in the place you wanted it to be. “Some music video for an idol group, I think. You know they don’t tell such lowly employees like yours truly those details.”

Chulmoo quirked a brow at your self-deprecating remark, but chose not to comment on it. “Do you know what the theme is?”

“Aniyo. If it was animal themed I’d at least guess it was SuJu,” you grumbled with a pout.

Chulmoo snorted softly. “It’s probably for the best. You’d just try to sneak onto their set if it was.”

“Would not!” you protested, huffing. “Maybe it’s for JYJ?”

The stupid smile on your face made Chulmoo roll his eyes in disgust and back away from you. After a moment of letting you space out and daydream, he lifted a hand to gently hit the back of your head.

You yelped. “Yah! What was that for?”

“For spacing out like some lovesick babo,” he teased. However, his expression returned to the normal serious one. “You should probably start packing up. You have that second job tonight, right?”

You hesitated, before nodding. It wasn’t really a job, but in able to avoid getting in trouble with your real job that’s what you’d passed it off as. At least its hours—if you could call them that—weren’t so demanding. You could start pretty much as soon as you got off work here.

“Ne, gomawo, sunbae,” you said with a little smile.

It was times like this that you were actually cute, and it threw Chulmoo off. He was used to your loud, tomboyish antics at work. No one had ever gotten the chance to see you when you weren’t at work, so they had no idea if it was some kind of act. However, when you got quiet and sweet like this, it was such a startling contract that it never failed to fluster him.

“Whatever, just don’t do anymore overtime, or we’ll both get in trouble,” he muttered, turning to leave.

“Aigoo, yes, sir!” you chirped, mock saluting. You didn’t even care that doing so left a smear of the clay across your forehead.

His nose wrinkled when he glanced back at you. “Yah, wash off, too. Aish, how do you expect to find a boyfriend if you’re always look like a muddy kid?”

You smiled at him. “Wae? I have you, Chulmoo-ah! I don’t need a boyfriend!”

You turned back to your work in time to miss the slight embarrassment on your friend’s face, and the blush as he hurried out of the room. Chulmoo was right about one thing, at least. You needed to get packed up.

Grabbing a spray bottle, you gave the clay a good dousing with water. Once you were sure it was completely moist all over, you gently tugged a plastic sheet over the top of it, and set the opening under the mold of a generic face that you used as a base for building the mask. This would keep the clay soft overnight so that it would dry out and get any cracks. You could just start where you left off the next day.

If it was Friday, you would take the extra time to clean out the sculpting tools so that they would be nice after the weekend. However, it was only Tuesday, so you left them as they were and headed to the big sink against the wall. The lukewarm water helped loosen the caked-on clay as you rubbed your hands over each other and your arms to get it off. Only at the last minute did you remember your forehead, and bent down to go ahead and scrub that clay off, too. Satisfied you were no longer a “muddy kid” like Chulmoo had called you, you dried off with an old towel that had seen better days. It was at least clean, though.

Your last stop was to grab your iPod out of the little stereo and turn it off to conserve power. With your right hand, you dug out the earphones out of your pocket. You were just glad that it didn’t deafen you when you pushed Play again.

With the music of EXO dancing in your head, you slipped out the room and headed for the exit of the building.

Maybe he would show up tonight.