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Join the Server“You guys, listen to this.
Park Seo-hu was insane today!”
As Kwak Jun-sung let out an exhausted voice, as if making a complaint, upon seeing us enter the café, Chae Han-ul also nodded eagerly, looking sympathetic.
Park Seo-hu, who would normally have been the first to collapse in those two’s position, was nowhere to be seen.
“So where did Seo-hu go?”
“There’s a place selling manga in the building next door, he said he’d stop by, so we ran away first.”
At Han-ul’s answer, Yoon Ji-heon, who shared a room with Seo-hu, nodded with a similar expression, as if understanding.
Come to think of it, I remembered seeing a bunch of book-like things in Ji-heon and Seo-hu’s room the few times I’d been in there.
Those must have all been Seo-hu’s manga.
“We’re here!”
Soon after, the team of Seo Jun-jae, Lee Chan-seo, and Lee Woo-rim arrived, and a little later, Park Seo-hu entered the café just barely before the meeting time.
Both his hands were full of large shopping bags.
“Wow, hyung, what did you buy so much of?”
“Oh, just this and that I wanted?
I got gifts for you guys too!”
At Woo-rim’s surprised question, Seo-hu began excitedly chattering about this and that.
Then he pulled out a bunch of character plushies with keychains and started handing them out to us.
After everyone received a small plushie along with a brief explanation, the group shoot began.
The shoot, which started with us sharing fancy desserts that looked like they came straight out of a manga, soon moved from sharing what each team had seen to talking about tomorrow’s performance.
“We have a stage tomorrow that we’ll be showing for the first time.
How does everyone feel?”
Since ‘Music Up & Down Special Stage in Japan’, which would be filmed tomorrow, was scheduled to air in two weeks, we had decided to first show the stage for our pre-release song ‘White Night’ before that.
The moment Yoon Ji-heon mentioned ‘White Night’, Park Seo-hu’s shoulders, which had been more excited than I had ever seen him in the months we’d spent together, sank immediately.
“This is our first stage performing a NUAVE song, right?
I’m excited, worried, and nervous.
It’s a really complicated feeling.”
“But since we’re showing a song that will be on our debut album, it really feels like we’re debuting, so I’m super excited!”
Listening to the members chatter naturally within the framework of the pre-set script, I nodded occasionally.
After a while, Yoon Ji-heon wrapped up the long conversation about the ‘White Night’ stage.
“We’ve prepared hard, so let’s believe in ourselves and show our fans a cool side!”
At Yoon Ji-heon’s words, we all raised our hands together and shouted, “NUAVE fighting!”
With that, today’s shoot ended.
The remaining footage could be shot before and after tomorrow’s performance.
After greeting the staff who had worked hard moving around with us today, we returned to the hotel.
As I entered the room, again designated for two people per night, Yeo Hyun-tae, who followed me in, suddenly asked if I was okay.
…Whether it was due to game settings or just coincidence, out of the four nights of our overseas schedule, I ended up spending two nights each with Seo Jun-jae and Yeo Hyun-tae.
“You seemed to keep paying attention to your neck and shoulders.”
“Ah, I slept weird yesterday, so they’re a bit stiff.”
I answered while thumping my neck and shoulders, which had felt heavy all day, with my fist.
Hyun-tae immediately came closer, firmly grasped the area I had been thumping, and began slowly kneading it.
“Oh, it’s fine, but…”
Even as I refused verbally, I couldn’t bring myself to pull away and obediently accepted his massage.
Then I unconsciously muttered, “A little lower,” and immediately opened my eyes, which had somehow closed comfortably, with an ‘oops’ expression.
“Here?”
This time I tried to refuse for real, but his hands, moving down from my neck to below my shoulders, perfectly found the spot I wanted and began kneading it refreshingly.
In the end, I stood there helplessly, leaving my shoulders to him again.
Then I belatedly came to my senses and barely managed to pull away.
“Sorry, aren’t your hands sore?”
I apologized, worried about his hands that had been kneading my shoulders nonstop for several minutes.
But he quickly shook his head and said it was fine.
No, rather, he kept repeating his worry for me.
“Are your neck and shoulders feeling a bit better?”
“Yeah, thanks to you.
Thank you.”
I lightly rolled my neck and shoulders as if to show they were more comfortable thanks to the massage.
Only then did Hyun-tae give a small smile, relieved, but then his face filled with worry again as he looked at my neck.
“Did I knead too hard?
It looks red…”
As if checking the redness caused by his hands, he touched my neck, then grabbed the collar of my t-shirt and lifted it, starting to look inside all the way to my shoulder.
As the loose t-shirt lifted, it felt like not just my shoulder but other parts would be exposed too, which embarrassed me for no reason.
What’s the big deal if guys see each other’s bodies?
We’ve already seen everything there is to see.
Even as I tried to compose myself, I felt heat starting from my reddened shoulder travel up my neck to my forehead.
“It, it gets red even when I knead it myself, so don’t worry too much!”
Feeling overly conscious of his worried gaze peering into my t-shirt, I eventually waved my hands exaggeratedly.
Hyun-tae answered that it was a relief if that was the case, but still wore a worried expression as he gently pulled the shoulder of my t-shirt back into place.
“Then I should unpack.”
Muttering a comment that anyone would find awkward, I turned around and immediately regretted it.
Even if he hadn’t noticed until just a moment ago when he was distracted by worry, there was no way he missed that.
Of course I had no such intention, but from Hyun-tae’s perspective, he might have felt like he was suddenly treated like a pervert.
God-talk-
The messenger notification sound, breaking the unnatural silence between me and Hyun-tae that had filled the room, was timely.
I picked up my phone and checked it – a message from the manager that we would go out for dinner soon.
Apparently having also read the message, Hyun-tae suddenly asked what was for dinner.
We started a simple conversation from that question, and thankfully the awkward atmosphere that had filled the room gradually lifted.
We finished unpacking in the now comfortable atmosphere and headed down to the hotel lobby at the appointed time.
The managers, video team staff, and some members were already there waiting.
“Hyun-tae hyung, just stand there for a sec!”
Lee Woo-rim, who had been taking photos while waiting for the members who hadn’t come down yet, suddenly made a fuss, stopped Hyun-tae, and started taking pictures of him.
“Insane!
These came out amazing!”
The photos on the phone screen he showed off as if bragging about his skills were indeed so good they could be used anywhere – an album, a pictorial – just as they were.
“Those really came out well.”
“Right?
I’ll take your photo too, hyung!
Go stand over there!”
Even my somewhat dry compliment made Woo-rim excitedly puff up his shoulders.
Then he said he would take a great photo of me too and pointed to the wall behind Hyun-tae.
Having my photo taken suddenly felt a bit annoying, but how many times had I been told during the past month of debut preparation to take good photos?
Remembering my still terrible selfie skills, I was just grateful to Woo-rim for offering to take a nice photo, so I obediently went to the spot he indicated.
“Hyung, tilt your head just a little to the left.”
“Instead of looking at me, could you look at that flowerpot behind the sofa?”
After a series of directions as if on a real shoot, Woo-rim seemed satisfied with the photo and turned his phone to show me.
The photo on the screen was indeed good, but…
“Aren’t my legs taken unnaturally long?”
Except in the ‘July Snow’ team and my current team, I had never been called short in my life, and even without measuring, I didn’t think my legs were short.
Nevertheless, they were definitely not as long as in this photo.
“Oh come on, everyone takes photos like this nowadays!
Right, Hyun-tae hyung?”
When Woo-rim asked Hyun-tae, who had been looking at the phone screen with him, Hyun-tae nodded without a moment’s hesitation.
Woo-rim, shrugging his shoulders as if to say ‘see?’, suddenly raised his arm.
I turned to where he was looking and saw Seo Jun-jae and Chae Han-ul approaching the lobby together.
The moment the two got close, Woo-rim immediately shoved his phone at them and fired off questions in succession.
“Jun-jae hyung, Han-ul!
Look at this!
It’s a photo of Jae-seo hyung, it came out amazing, right?
Nothing weird about it?”
At the same time, the two turned their eyes to the phone and, as always, poured out compliments: “Cute”, “So cool!”
At their reactions, Woo-rim once again shrugged his shoulders with a smug expression.
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