Assuming that Dumb and Dumber would've learned their lesson, it should've surprised Jaemin a lot more when he saw the both of them acting even WORSE than they did before yesterday. And yet, it seemed like they didn't. Now before anyone assumes that their behavior got worse in a sense of, they were acting more like assholes towards everyone who dares looking at Jaemin, let me tell you; apparently, there's something even worse.
For example them hating each other.
When Jaemin shouted at them and told them to stop this kindergarten thing, he wanted them to understand that they were a group of now 23 people who had to perform and live together. That it was pretty shitty to act like that because they thought they liked him in any way shouldn't be something you'd have to explain to them.
Everyone thought that their silence meant they were thinking about what they did. Turns out they just seemed to ignore each other, because - for whatever reason - they suddenly started to hate each other more than anyone else around them.
And let me tell you, Jeno and Renjun hating each other was way worse than the two of them just hating everyone else. They were basically having a war - and this time, it wasn't about Jaemin.
Or at least, so it seemed.
Jaemin admitted to himself that he probably had one cup of coffee too much that day because he had closed no eye at all the following night. So what did a sleep deprived Na Jaemin do when a fighting Dumb and Dumber were getting on everyone's nerves to somehow het through the day without murdering someone?
Correct; he drinks coffee.
It happened three days after the incident in the practice room and two nights of Jaemin not sleeping enough that Taeyong - with his unusual, rarely used authority - came up to him with a concerned look on his face and said, "You need to stop drinking coffee."
A nightmare for Na Jaemin.
It wasn't really like he purposefully tried acting like a difficult toddler. The situation changed and that was the problem. He didn't drink so much coffee because he simply enjoyed it - but because he literally couldn't get through his schedule without it.
But, alias, Taeyong instructed anyone to follow these two rules from now on:
- keep the coffee away from Jaemin, and;
- also keep Renjun and Jeno away from him to avoid any more possible ‚coffee-triggers'.
And yes, that's a thing now; coffee-trigger. Everyone tried to actively keep Jaemin's stress level as low as possible to avoid his craving for coffee.
They kept doing that for like a week and then decided that his sleep schedule was healthy enough to allow him one normal latte macchiato a day. Which didn't even count as a coffee in Jaemin's opinion but he wasn't going to complain, too afraid of Doyoung's glare when he noticed the Rapper's dissatisfied face.
Now what no one and not even Jaemin himself expected was what happened approximately twelve days later. Jeno and Renjun had stopped cursing and almost attacking each other and for now resigned to simple glares and mumbled profanities. For some reason, Jisung - who was on ‚Guarding-Jaemin-Duty', as they had called it - went to the toilet for only five minutes during their short break and came back to Jaemin, Jeno and Renjun awfully fighting over...a bottle of water.
Which turned out to be Donghyuck's in the end.
But that wasn't the point. The point was that Jaemin had only tried to message his manager that he'd need some money for a short trip to the store so he could buy himself a new pair of socks when Jeno and Renjun had suddenly started fighting again. And unfortunately, he got pulled into the fight by sighing and doing the dumbest mistake he had ever done; saying something.
"You could both stop talking, for once, instead of wanting the other to shut up", is what he had said.
And when they had both answered him with, "Shut up", it just escalated for no reason.
