Sorry, I Love You.

2.21

"The entire fifth floor is the studio?" Teddy asked as him and Zoe stepped out of the elevator and took a look around.

"Looks like it.." Zoe shrugged as she fearlessly charged forward.

There was a small section of this floor dedicated to a lobby that was just an empty space between the elevator and the bathrooms. Beyond the lobby, behind the glass, was a long room with a few different stations that caught Teddy's attention.

Against the far left wall, a white background was mounted against the red brick and cascaded down to the floor until it stopped at the bright lights pointed at it. Against the other wall was a few empty desks facing each other, where a few people had set up their laptops and cameras. In between those two areas was a lot of empty space and two loveseats sat opposite of each other with a coffee table in the middle. None of it was very eccentric, but Teddy had a feeling that people wouldn't be here very often anyways.

"Zoe!" A short woman exclaimed with excitement as she jumped up from the desk and rushed towards Zoe.

"Hinata! You're here too?" Zoe happily greeted the woman with a hug and a friendly smile.

The woman began speaking very quickly in Japanese and Zoe followed right in her path. Teddy was always caught off guard when Zoe spoke Japanese. She could switch between English and Japanese so quickly and easily, it was impressive. Teddy couldn't help but notice the way her voice changed a bit when she switched between languages. Her voice was a only a tad bit lower when she was speaking English. Something like that captured Teddy's attention even more. It was fun to study her like that.

"Oh! Hinata, this is my close friend and classmate, Teddy Morgan. Teddy, Hinata." Zoe introduced as she stepped aside and gestured between the woman and Teddy. "She's one of my stylist. Usually, we do bigger events together but, she's close with the family so, she's around for things like this a lot too."

Teddy nodded in understanding and broke his tense posture to politely greet the woman in front of him. He, of course, felt very uncomfortable and out of place, but he knew he would be finding a way to slip out of here pretty soon. Teddy hadn't decided if he was going to train in the basement like Rin demanded or if he was going to sneak off. Being on her leash terrified him and this would officially be his first day so, Teddy was panicking. It was hard for him to even hide that fact.

While Teddy was trapped in that debate and denial, he sat on one of the couches and let Zoe chat with her stylist, the photographer, and an assistant to the photographer. The sun wasn't up yet so the photographer wasn't in a rush to start and Teddy internally used that as his excuse to continue sitting and staring at the floor. The quicker that time went by, the more anxious Teddy got. His heart was racing and his leg was bouncing and he was spiraling. He really, really didn't want this to be his reality.

"We can do a little warm up for now. Keep exactly what you're wearing, you've already got a little bit of make up, we'll just find a few poses that work nicely for you and find where your comfort zone is." The photographer suggested as she walked Zoe across the room, from the desks to the photo station, with her big camera in hand.

Teddy watched Zoe walk across the room as he fidgeted with his own fingers. Part of him wished he would just tell Zoe what was going on so he could confide in someone, but there was no way she wouldn't worry. She might even panic more than Teddy was panicking. Which was totally understandable. He just didn't want to be the one to do that to her.

Zoe wasn't worried about anything at all as she sat on the floor, in front of the white wall, and began posing for pictures. Teddy silently watched, observing this practice that he had never seen before. The photographer was up close and personal at first, taking shots of Zoe's face as she sweetly tilted her head, rested her chin on her hand, and ran her fingers through her hair. She hadn't smiled yet. This seemed to be more of the calm, subtle, and sweet portion of the photo session.