Then and Now (JinJi)

Part 3

Once again, the AC is blasting in the room, yet Jinyoung can't help but feel stuffed and hot. He looks enviously over at Doyoung, who is sitting on an upholstered chair looking comfortable and fresh in a Pyeongchang Olympics t-shirt and a beret that a coordinator gave him to wear. Jisoo is sitting on the couch opposite the one Jinyoung has occupied. She's wearing a Pyeongchang t-shirt, too. It is tucked into a denim skirt and her purple hair is straight and loose.

She hasn't taken her eyes off her script since they walked into the room. She hasn't said a word, either. Not since last week, at least not to him.

Doyoung looks up from his bundle of papers and is about to suggest that they begin running through their parts when he notices both hyung and noona staring intensely down at their scripts. Strange, he thinks. They seem rather quiet today. Maybe it's not so unusual for Jinyoung, as he is the quieter one in their trio, but something about his aura seems off. As for Jisoo, normally, by now, she would have started two or three conversations about a recent environmental disaster or about someone she met in the hallway. But up to now, she has been silent.

Doyoung suddenly tunes himself into the atmosphere and senses tension. Something has shifted between these two in the last week or so, and it is making them awkward.

He isn't an idiot. Of course Doyoung has noticed that his two co-MC's have gotten closer over the months they've spent working together. Carefree Jisoo noona is the type to lavish the object of her affection with her smiles and cleverness, but in such a way that blurs the line between friendship and flirtation. Jinyoung hyung is more careful; one has to be paying close attention to notice the subtle ways that his attitude toward Jisoo is different from the way he is with everyone else.

If this were like any other week, by now, Doyoung would be knee-deep in their secret glances and shy smiles and small talk. Today, however, there is just silence.

He stands up. "I'm going to use the toilet," Doyoung said in an unnaturally upbeat way. He steps away from the seating area before either of them can protest and quickly runs out the door.

Alone at last, Jinyoung looks over at Jisoo and inwardly panics. Without another thought, he too excuses himself to the toilet. Jinyoung clenches his fist as her heads out the door, but to his surprise he is intercepted by Doyoung. The NCT member is, interestingly, not in the toilets at all, but is leaning against the wall in the hallway, scrolling through his phone.

"Doyoung?" Jinyoung says.

The younger MC looks up with eyes as wide as a doe's and twice as panicked.

"What are you doing?" Doyoung whispers, walking toward him.

"I thought you were going to the bathroom?" Jinyoung said.

Doyoung just stares at him for a minute and then clicks his tongue. He takes Jinyoung by the arm and leads him back to the waiting room door.

"What are you doing?" Jinyoung asks.

"Why are you two being so awkward?" Doyoung asks with a whisper. The color drains from Jinyoung's face. Doyoung gives him a knowing look.

"Yes, hyung," Doyoung says. "You really are that transparent. Something happened between you two, and it's making things awkward. So I suggest you go back in there and fix things with noona before we go on camera."

Doyoung gives Jinyoung one last look before waltzing off to find a restroom or a friend to run into in the hallway, leaving Jinyoung to once again ask himself what just happened. When he turns the knob and goes back into the room, Jisoo doesn't turn around to greet him. He quietly takes his place on the sofa opposite Jisoo.