A New Start || Seventeen

Chapter 35

Daena and Jeonghan finally made it to the correct practice room with about 5 minutes to spare.

Daena only managed to drag Jeonghan there by mentioning how annoyed the other members would be if he was late. Jeonghan had sighed at this and allowed Daena to take his hand and pull him from the room.

Once they were outside the door Daena paused and turned to look up at Jeonghan.

"What's wrong" Jeonghan asked.

Daena realised her face was showing the anxiety she felt about finally seeing the members again now she was officially Jeonghan's girlfriend.

Jeonghan could seemingly read all of this in her face. He leaned forward and placed a light kiss on the top of her head.

"It will be fine" he assured.

Daena didn't quite believe him. Especially as she had rarely even spoken to Joshua for nearly 2 months now.

She let go of Jeonghan's hand feeling that the physical contact between the two of them may draw unwanted attention and reached for the door handle.

As she did so she felt Jeonghan take her free hand again. He clearly had no intention of not walking into the room hand in hand.

Daena took a deep breath and opened the door. Stepping inside she watched as the members in the room stopped what they were doing and turned slowly to look at her.

Jeonghan merely stood silently beside her. He squeezed her hand lightly in what she assumed to be an attempt at reassurance.

After a moment the sounds of the room picked back up again, conversations started back up and a few members waved in the direction of the pair.

Daena breathed a sigh of relief. This was pretty normal. She didn't know what she expected but in the past when she had come to practice to visit Joshua this was the welcome she had received. It relaxed her to know that she wasn't suddenly going to get treated different.

Daena looked for Joshua and found him in a small group with Mingyu and Seungkwan deep in conversation.

After a moment he looked up and signalled for her to come join him.

She felt Jeonghan release her hand enabling her to go where she pleased.

Daena crossed the room and joined Joshua and his group.

"Hi" she said quietly to the 3 of them.

Seungkwan smiled at her in response.

Mingyu however reached over and threw an arm over her shoulder.

"Noona, its been forever I thought you were avoiding us" he declared.

Daena shot a quick glance in the direction of Jeonghan but found him with his back to her clearly deep in conversation with S Coups.

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to" Daena responded.

"We will leave you to catch up" Seungkwan announced grabbing Mingyu by the collar and dragging him away.

"How are you?" Joshua asked.

Daena could feel the difference in the atmosphere between them, as much as she had wanted to believe him when he had said nothing would change she hadn't be naive enough to actually think that.

"I'm okay, how have you been? I haven't heard from you for a few days" She replied shifting uncomfortably on the spot.

"I'm okay, busy, comeback prep" Joshua replied simply.

The pair fell into an awkward silence.

Daena wanted desperately to break the tension, she hated feeling distant from Joshua. It felt like all the progress they had made getting their friendship back since she had moved to Korea was starting to unravel.