The managers want certain members to get more screentime, so I end up spending a lot of the filming complaining with Luhan about how cold it is. I’m beginning to wonder if I blew ‘the airplane thing’ out of proportion, because he acts the same as usual--quietly nervous when it’s about to be his turn to film but otherwise very bright and happy.

“Maybe we could get one of those heat fans, a really big one, and put it on the roof,” he suggests. “That ought to do it.”

“Where will you plug it in?” I ask.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “We’ll get a huge extension cord and use it to trip trespassers if they get too close!”

“Trespassers or fangirls?”

“Hyosoon-ssi! I love my fans!”

I smile. “Why do you still call me Hyosoon-ssi? Most of the others call me noona by now.”

He looks down suddenly, not making eye contact, and I know that I wasn’t blowing anything out of proportion. “It’s not that you’re not as close as a noona. It’s just that it’s weird calling you that to your face. I don’t know.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “Whatever’s fine with you.”

I also don’t make eye contact, and there’s an awkward silence for a few moments.

“After this concert I’m not going to see you every day,” he says finally.

“No,” I say. “I’ll see you at the company building all the time.”

“Yeah, but only for a few seconds.”

“I’ll text you.”

“It’s not really the same.”

I feel bad now. “Oh, cheer up. It’ll be okay.”

Then he laughs. “Whatever. Let’s go see if Kris and Tao finished filming.”

…

The writers are really good and they soon have Luhan relaxed and cracking jokes as he looks through Kris’s stuff with Xiumin.

“I’m not sure what this is,” Xiumin explains, holding up what I know to be a hand strengthener. “But he’s always squeezing it around the house.”

Luhan says something in Chinese that makes a writer stifle her giggles. I figure that I should learn Chinese, and soon.

Lay enters the scene and there’s a lot of Chinese that I can’t understand so I go outside and find Chen sitting on the front steps.

“The cameras really love Luhan hyung, don’t they?” he says when I sit down.

“Doesn’t everyone?” I reply, smoothing my skirt over my legs.

“Do you?”

“Of course I do. I love all of you guys.”

He squints at me as if he’s trying to size me up. “He really likes you.”

I flush and look down. “I’ve noticed.”

He laughs. “For someone so popular with the fans, he’s really something else once you get to know him, right?”

“That’s a good thing though,” I defend.

“I never said it wasn’t,” he says. “He’s a good hyung but he gets really nervous when it comes to two things: things that are important to him, and people that are older than him.”

He quirks an eyebrow at me meaningfully. I have nothing to say.

“I’ve only known you guys for a year or so,” I say, slowly, “but I guess I know enough to say that I really like him too.”

More silence. Then Chen says:

“I don’t think I’ll tell him about this conversation.”

“I’d rather you didn’t actually,” I reply.

He shrugs and stands up. “I’ll see you around, noona.”

…

When the first day of filming finishes, I head back to the hotel, exhausted. The other girls went out somewhere, so I have the room three of us share to myself. After I take a shower and curl up in bed, leaving the TV on, my phone vibrates from across the room. Groaning, I climb out of bed and shiver as the cold air hits my bare legs--I sleep in shorts even in winter.

What are you doing?

I smile and climb back into bed, plugging the charger into an outlet on the nightstand.

Getting ready for bed.

Me too. The others arent really making it that easy. XP 

Haha.

Youre coming tomorrow right?

Dont worry ill be there. Ill try not to bore you too much.

You dont bore me!!

Youre too kind to me. :)

Lol just as much as you deserve. :)

I hear voices outside as the rest of the girls arrive back.

I have to go. See you tomorrow!

I quickly plug my phone in and turn to face the window, pretending to be asleep. I am not noticed and I fall asleep soon after the others finish filing inside.

…

Breakfast is a rushed affair. I hold Minji’s hair while she vomits and cries about her hangover for half an hour before I can shove a bagel down my throat and inhale some milk from a green packet.

When I get to EXO-M’s dorm it’s already swarming with writers and cameras, none of whom appear to know me. I awkwardly approach a woman who looks like she has some authority but it turns out she’s just as lost as I am.

When I finally find my charges it turns out they were instructed to do their own makeup as well as they could. I apologize profusely to the supervisor and survey the damage, wincing. It takes longer to fix it than it would to apply it in the first place, but we are presented with a lack of running water and a tight schedule.

“We need to start now!” someone calls from behind me. “We have six hours until EXO-M needs to leave for the concert!”

I quickly spill some water from a nearby Fuji bottle onto a towel in my hand and dab the corners of eyes and mouths as the boys are whisked away, then realize I got concealer on my jeans.

They’re supposed to be artfully messy, anyway.

…

I end up not having anyone to talk to and not being able to understand a lot of the dialogue, so I laze around the food tables and try to chit-chat with the scriptwriters.

“I don’t know how we’re going to fill up the third broadcast,” one of the Korean writers says. “We got really behind schedule yesterday and then the concert got pushed forward.”

“Just hope we get good footage today and fill up the rest of the time with selcas, I guess,” someone else replies, popping a grape into .

“SM never gives us any breathing room for deadlines,” the first one points out. “I guess we never should’ve picked something so ambitious.”

“Can I ask what the concept is?” I ask hesitantly, rolling a sugar pea in my fingers.

“We’re supposed to follow their outer space concept. It’s all very scripted,” a new speaker says. “And they didn’t have much memorization time so it takes forever to film.”

“You mean you’re not using the footage I saw you shooting yesterday with Luhan and Xiumin?” I ask, surprised. “It looked really funny.”

The second writer laughs. “No, no. We’re not allowed to stray too far from the concept. That should never have been filmed but we thought we would have more time than we actually do.”

I am speechless. “That’s no fun,” I offer weakly.

“It’s not,” all three agree.

…

Filming ends with the boys being handed a camera for selcas before the concert, and I end up having to drive the van because the managers are otherwise occupied.

“Did you guys have fun filming?” I ask as I pull onto the highway.

“I didn’t get enough screentime,” Tao says.

“They didn’t even broadcast it yet,” Chen points out.

“They barely filmed me though!” Tao retorts. “Half of it was Kris narrating our landing on Earth.”

“Don’t worry,” Lay says. “They’ll probably find a way to get you in there.”

He supplements this statement with a helpful movement, a sharp movement of the wrist combined with a of the hips. I catch it in the rearview mirror and try to avoid making eye contact with the not-amused Kris while Xiumin ahems loudly and Luhan laughs like a crazy person.

“I really wonder why they don’t just let you guys loose to do whatever you want on the variety show,” I say after a while, shaking my head.

"We do what they tell us to do," Kris says. "It's the easiest way to succeed."