I’d just walked out from having my makeup and hair touched up for the next set of shots, since I always sweat under lights and the makeup began running down my face and my hair was becoming damp.  Not the most attractive look.  They usually smoothed those things over with a computer program of some sort and I was always relieved to see I looked somewhat composed when photo’d for magazines and album covers.  They helped offset the thousands of fan taken pics from concerts where I looked run down and overheated. 

            As soon as I neared the refreshment table, Ryeowook headed my way to check me over.  He had a general dislike of what the makeup artists did to him for photo shoots and would fix whatever they messed up between the time they finished with him and when the photographer called us over to pose.  He was usually more pleased with what they’d done to me, but still looked me over and fussed over me until they were ready for us.  I was so used to it at this point, I hardly even noticed it. 

            Ryeowook stopped in front of me and stood up on his tiptoes, reaching up and moving around strands of my hair while I stole the water bottle from his hand and drank the rest of it.  “How was your small group shoot with Minnie and Hyukjae?”

            Ryeowook looked straight into my eyes, clearly not pleased.  “Long.”

            I smiled in amusement, thankful that I’d been teamed up with Donghae and Siwon.  The other group consisted of Shindong, Kangin, and Heechul and you could not pay me enough money to be in an individual shoot with Heechul at that moment.  Since his return, everything had to be perfect, which was exceptionally worse than it used to be before he left for the military.  Shindong looked ready to rip the arms off someone by the time they returned from their outdoor pictures and I stayed the hell away from the whole lot of them, since their shoot had run a half hour longer than the others and they needed to change immediately anyway.  Ryeowook didn’t have it as rough as them and liked hanging out with our old roommates, so he probably had the best group, but these things tried his patience if they went on too long.

            “Why?” I asked, lightly touching his waist as he tilted to the side to check on the hair by my ear, tugging on more strands. 

            “My cheeks actually hurt from smiling!” he complained.  “And I’m getting a headache.”

            “Did you take something for it?”

            “I just did,” he said, finally planting his heels back on the floor.  “Hopefully it will kick in soon and this last part will go fast.  I’m getting cranky.”

            We’d had individual shots before the small group ones, so it had actually been a few hours since I’d had the chance to talk to him, which was part of the problem.  I’m good at calming him down.  Ryeowook can get very wound up when there’s a lot to do and I usually pull him to the side and make him take a few deep breaths when I feel like he’s getting stressed and it always helps to center him again.  A whole morning of being rushed from one set to another without any reprieve was enough to get to him, especially when they were trying to stick to a schedule. 

            I looked over his newest outfit.  He was wearing dark rinse jeans, a black t-shirt, and a navy suit jacket.  He always looks good in navy, which is why he wears it so often, but the dress coordinators don’t always think of things like that when they pick out our clothes.  They did good this time.  I pulled him closer—closer than I should have around strangers—and bent my head down to whisper in his ear.  “You look hot as hell, babe.”

            Ryeowook smiled immediately, bowing his head down so no one could see his reaction.  “Stop that!  You’re going to make me blush,” he said, although I knew he didn’t mind.

            “You already are,” I told him, reaching up and poking his cheek before releasing him, although I didn’t move away from him.  I could stand not touching him in public if I had to, but I still liked to be physically close.

            Ryeowook pressed his lips together in an effort not to be caught smiling like an idiot and nodded.  “They picked you out decent clothes too, I see,” he said, eyeing my stripped sweater.

            “That only partially makes up for the ridiculous outfit they had me in for my individual shots.  I hate it when they try to be artsy and put me in weird that no one ever wears in real life.”

            Ryeowook squeezed my arm briefly and laughed.  “You probably still looked fine in it.”

            I raised my brows, questioning his assumption.  He hadn’t seen me in those cloths, after all, and it was probably a good thing or he might have thrown a fit for my sake.  I glanced around at the group and everyone appeared to be ready except Heechul and Siwon, who were likely due back any minute. 

            “Do we have plans later?” I asked.

            “Not until later in the evening.  We’re going to meet up with Minho and Onew, remember?”

            “Do we have to?”

            “You don’t want to see them?  You’ve been complaining about not having time to see Minho for months.”

            “I know, but I’m tired,” I complained.

            “We’re just going to their apartment, so you guys can play games together.”

            “Oh,” I said, suddenly far more excited about going.  “That’s fine than.  Why didn’t you just tell me that’s what we were doing?”

            Ryeowook smacked me on the chest playfully and I grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer to me, which was just a natural reaction of mine whenever he was flirty with me, but Kangin cleared his throat loudly and I glanced over at him.  He looked me right in the eye and angled his head towards the photographer and his assistants.  They were probably looking over at us right then, so I didn’t turn to face them, but I immediately released Ryeowook and nodded to my hyung, grateful for his subtle reminder.

            “If you’re tired, you can rest for a while this afternoon.  We’re not going over there until about seven,” he informed me.

             I nodded, wanting to say more than I should around people that didn’t know us, so I stopped myself.  I’d wait to talk to him until after we were done and headed home, since I’d driven us there anyway.  

            “Hey!” Sungmin called out, walking over to us with his cell phone out and showed us the screen.  He’d taken a picture of us while we’d been talking and wanted to show it to us.  It was of Ryeowook playing with my hair and I smiled at seeing it. 

            “Oh!” cooed Ryeowook, grasping Sungmin’s hand and angling it towards him more.  “Can you send this to me?”

            Sungmin nodded, hitting some buttons on his phone.

            “We don’t have any new pictures of us lately.”

            It was true, asi