"well, thank you two for joining me in an interview today. let's give them one big round of applause!" the host stood up, clapping. mark and donghyuck too stood up, bowing politely to the crowd and host. 

   when the clapping died down, donghyuck spoke up, "it was a pleasure speaking with you today as well as mark. please invite us again," he smiled, leaning into mark's side. as mark snaked an arm around donghyuck's waist, the crowd cooed, snapping pictures and recording videos excitedly. 

   mark shook the host's hand, thanking them before they turned back towards the audience. "ladies and gentleman, that was haechan and mark!" once again, the room errupted into applause while donghyuck and mark made their way off stage. 

   since donghyuck had a rather busy schedule, he was quickly seperated from mark and led to the dressing room, briefly changing clothes before being brought to a car outside. paparazzi and press followed him to the car and he answered a few of their questions until he couldn't any longer. as the car slowly drove off, he rolled down the window, waving to his fans who cheered happily. "you did well on today's interview," his manager, doyoung said, as he rolled the window back up when there was quite the distance between them and the fans.

   donghyuck scoffed, "you didn't tell me mark would be there." "it was a last minute thing, i couldn't have told you even if i wanted to," he answered apologetically. although donghyuck hadn't forgiven him, he sighed, "forget it, it's probably better off that you didn't tell me. i don't think i would've gone on stage if you had."  he closed his eyes, hoping to catch some sleep before he arrived at his destination.

   doyoung clearly had other plans as he continued speaking, "you two used to be so close. why don't you put whatever happened behind you so you can at least look genuine when you talk about mark in front of cameras?" donghyuck sat up, turning to doyoung who sat next to him. "no, i have too much pride for that and the scripted relationship that we have now is working. can we just leave it at that?"

   before doyoung could answer, donghyuck turned to his side and faced the window. seeing how tired donghyuck was, doyoung decided to drop the conversation and continue it some time later.

---

   "why was hyuck there?" mark growled through the phone. he couldn't even hide the irritation in his voice as his nails dug into the palm of his hand. "calm down, you know how people like to see your interactions," johnny replied on the other side of the line. "still," mark sighed, running a hand through his hair, "i would've appreciated a heads up. is it that hard to tell me that he would be there?" 

   mark could hear shuffling as well as quiet murmurs while he waited impatiently for the older male to answer. "hello?" he asked after a minute or two. johnny cleared his throat before he spoke again, "why don't you just get ready for your next schedule while i send the car to pick you up?" mark rolled his eyes knowing that johnny wouldn't be able to see it.

   "fine, but we'll talk later," he said. "yeah, yeah," johnny hung up, not wanting to deal with mark's attitude. the moody male stuffed his phone in his back pocket in annoyance, spinning on his heel as he headed towards the dressing room. 

   "stupid lee haechan and his stupid pretty face."

-----

word count: 589

it has officially begun...

✎ ---- dreaminghyuck⤾