Happy Endings ⁘ Chenle

31 ⁘ Softie

⁘ 31 ⁘

Jisung grabbed the script that was lying in the middle of the coffee table. The cover page was slightly crinkled from having been closed and opened and bent back so many times. Sticky notes peaked past the edges of the pages, identifying any parts that belonged to Chenle. 

The youngest rushed to flip through it, eyes getting stuck on the yellow highlighted lines all over the pages. 

"Oho~" Jisung smirked mockingly. "Your character's a tough guy, huh?" 

Chenle rolled his eyes jokingly. "I am a tough guy in real life too." 

Jaemin, throwing an arm around the younger one, shook his head. He looked at him with an adoring smile. 

"You're a softie~" 

"Ah here we go..." Renjun muttered as he let himself fall down onto the sofa. 

Chenle, unwilling to admit that, shook his head. "I can be tough." 

"You could be," Jaemin corrected, then reached up to pinch his cheek. "But you aren't." 

"Wow." 

"Jaem," Jeno said as he put his hand on his friend's back. "Let the kid be." 

"I'm not a-" Chenle was about to argue but got cut off when Mark entered the room. He had excused himself after they arrived at Chenle's place and had rushed to the bathroom. 

"Yo kiddo, I used up the toilet paper," Mark informed the younger one, not aware of the conversation that was still lingering in the air as he entered. "Want me to buy a new one?"

Defeated, Chenle closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could hear Jeno snicker as he pulled Jaemin over to the sofa with him. He could imagine Jaemin's happy smile and Renjun's mocking smirk, while Mark and Jisung were probably both oblivious as to what had been said. 

"It's alright, I still have some."

Mark gave that a thumbs up and walked over to Renjun where he sat down, not minding the other one's obvious amusement. 

"Ah Mark," Jaemin called him. "How is it going with Ji-an? Everything okay?" 

He had been quite concerned lately, seeing how Mark's co-star was pretty pushy, leaving him with little to no space to breathe. Meanwhile, Mark was more frustrated than anything. 

"I really want the scenes to turn out well," he said. "But she is making me kinda uncomfortable so it's hard to act as if I'm in love." 

"Try thinking of Min-jung," Renjun attempted to help but Mark merely frowned. 

"I'm unable to think of Min-jung when my ears and head hurt from having to listen to Ji-an's voice for hours straight." 

The comment caused Renjun to push out a laugh as he didn't expect such harsh words from Mark. He usually remained fairly civil and attempted his best to be and sound nice. 

Not this time. 

Not now. 

"The shoot's almost over," he reminded himself. "I'll put up with her somehow."

"Did you talk to the director?" Jaemin wondered. 

"Yeah. He was pretty understanding and apologized on her behalf. He also offered his help, so I asked if he could prepone the scenes we have together and he agreed to that, so I should be done with her earlier than intended." 

Jeno raised a loose fist just enough for Mark to see. "You can do it." 

"Thanks," he said with weak conviction. "Ah, but Jaemin, did Suk-ho talk to you yet?" Mark asked, curious about the outcome of the evaluation. Jaemin, however, shook his head.