Boundaries

4. Caliber

"Of course!" Minseok cries, his hands spread wide with adamance. He sits up on his elbow, speaking excitedly. "Tomorrow night will be perfect. We can go bowling and grab some dessert from that place downtown. Sound good?"

"Minseok, thank you." You embrace his sturdy form eagerly, and the force knocks him back to the bed. You snuggle yourself against his broad, bare chest. "You're the best!"

He laughs into your hair, the high sound ringing through the bedroom. His hands trace the contours of your shoulder blades. "Anything for you, my love." You thrill to his voice as he reaches up to tuck your messy hair behind your ears with warm hands. Your heart begins skipping in blissful rhythm. You sit up, knees on either side of Minseok's body, his thewy stomach supporting your weight. "Besides," he continues, "I've just got to meet this guy. I can't believe you've known Chen for 20 years!"

"Ahh, neither can I," you sigh, flopping back onto the sheets beside him. The heat of his body threatens to pull you back into slumber, but you've already hit snooze too many times.

"You need to get up, don't you?" Minseok reads your thoughts.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" you groan into his shoulder.

"Never!" he exclaims. He looks at you with huge, round eyes. "I just don't want you to get fired." You laugh, pulling the covers up to your neck before throwing them off with an extravagant flourish. Minseok gently rolls you out of bed. "Now, go make money!"

At the studio, after everything is set up for Jongdae's arrival, you have some empty time on your hands. You are startled by the sound of your name echoing through the space.

"Kalani!" your boss calls, motioning impatiently for you to come over. You trot across the room to stand before her.

"Yes?"

"Hand me your camera," Nari commands absently. Her attention is focused on some other set designer as he waves pieces of paper frantically in her face, but she holds a hand out to take your Canon. You relinquish your lens, watching as she decisively points to one of the sheets and plucks the pen from the depths of the blonde ripples corralled behind her ear. With a fluid hand she drapes the camera around her neck, secures the paper against the panicked producer's chest, and paints a signature. "There," she says simply, letting the paper fall and leaving the worker scrambling to shuffle his stack of documents into something that resembles order. Sometimes Nari's dispassionate efficiency was scarier than her passionate frustration with inefficiency.

Nari turns back to you. She looks down at the camera, scrolling through it's playback mode. Her expression is unreadable as she examines your shots from the past two days. She doesn't linger on any particular photo. Her finger just moves at a nerve-rackingly steady pace as she thumbs through the images. Finally, she disentangles herself from the rough strap and hands your baby back.

"You've done good work over these past few days," she declares at last. You realize you've been holding your breath. "Good use of lighting and focal point alteration. Start thinking more outside the box with your compositions, and start thinking inside the box with your angles. His female fans don't want to see a diagonal shoulder shot, all right?"

You nod, encouraged by the meaningful, if nonchalant, praise; Nari isn't one to hand out empty compliments. "Th-thank you so much! I'll work very hard today to improve."

"Well," she muses, something like entertainment twinkling in her eyes, "if you give me enough good material from this final shoot..." Her focus seems to shift again as she loses herself in a world of contemplation. Gradually, she fades back into the present. "Perhaps I could use some of your images."