I want to apologize in advance for how crappy this chapter is haha :') but the next one hold a lot and I mean a lot of drama~~ See you soon and Happy belated Christmas (Happy Holidays) and Happy almost New Year. 

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The next two days seemed like a blur for Mark.

After he and Yugyeum returned home from their outing, they were bombarded by Jaebum to start tidying up the dorm till 1 am. The next day they had to wake up early since their choreographer wanted to meet with them to change formations for the dance and that practice took 9 hours then they had to meet their vocal coordinator so that they can rerecord lyrics for some of their songs. The next day it was the same schedule of endless dance and recording but at the end of this day Mark knew Jinyoung would come home and that caused him to mess up even more than usual during practice which made the entire team stay back longer.

But it wasn’t just Mark alone that kept messing up. All the members seemed to be endlessly jittery throughout the dance practice and yet it was only 5 hours in. They had 4 hours till Jinyoung came from the hospital at 3pm but still knew they couldn’t see him till 5pm when their schedule ended.

Their dance teacher got fed up with their antics and dismissed them an hour early so they got a small break but it was too early. It was just 1pm and song recordings were supposed to start at 2pm, meaning they took the short break for water and small amounts of food. But the 5pm recording ending time didn’t apply for all of them. For Mark, Jackson, and Bambam they all had Korean lessons afterwards which means they wouldn’t get back to the dorm to see Jinyoung till 8pm that night, 5 hours after he came home.

To say Mark was depressed was an understatement. He wanted to be the first one to welcome Jinyoung back home yet instead he can just picture him running into the arms of Jaebum and his eyebrow twitched in annoyance. He was relaxing in the studio looking over his lyrics with the demo playing in his ear again with the others as Youngjae’s voice boomed into the studio. But all the words were blurring together and he was sure he would not remember them when his turn came. All he kept doing was glancing at the clock whose time showed 2:58pm.

It wasn’t helping that Jackson was being too vocal about all of his complaints about being too busy, and not getting back on time and wanting to see “his” Jinyoung. At that Mark scoffed. If Jinyoung belonged to anyone it was him.

3:01pm. Mark stared at the clock as time continued to tick by. Youngjae was still rerecording his lines and he was the first one to go too. If it took him over an hour, what will that mean for the rest of them Mark questioned himself with a sigh.

Their manager took pity on them by sending them sad stares but nothing more than that. He knew better than to let them out of something as important as recording the songs for the album.

Mark glanced around at the other members wondering if they were as concerned as him but Jaebum was focused on Youngjae and Bambam, Jackson and Yugyeum were all goofing off in the corner of the room by switching their lines around and that left him alone from staring at the recording booth, to the lyrics, to the door, being the only one that was super anxious.

Youngjae finished at around 3:20pm and then in went Jaebum. Jaebum usually was more of a perfectionist so he knew his recording would take longer. Mark sighed and tried to focus again on his lyrics. They were only recording two more songs today since they recorded 4 yesterday by staying over time till 10 pm. Mark was only hoping that they would finish today’s recording on time.

He was reading through his lyrics trying out some of the stranger lyrics out loud until he heard the alert that he had set just for Jinyoung go off from his manager’s bag. His head immediately snapped towards his manager with pleading eyes.

His manager in turn just shook his head and then apologized to the producers and then placed Mark’s phone and all other members phones on silent as well.

Mark almost felt tears from frustration come out of his eyes. He was stuck here doing nothing while Jinyoung was probably not being welcomed back by anyone. Well that’s a lie. Apparently Jinyoung knew the rest of the trainees too, so maybe he wasn’t lonely at all. Maybe he was just fine with not seeing Mark.

But then Mark shook off those negative thoughts. If Jinyoung texted him then he must be wondering where he was. Mark sighed about not thinking ahead to tell Jinyoung of their schedule for the day before he came back.

Zoning out staring at his sheet of paper with lyrics, another 30 minutes went by until the producer interrupted his blankness.

“So, when is Jinyoung coming in to record his parts?” he casually asked while adjusting a part Jaebum just sung on the track.

Mark and the others looked shocked at all that they never even thought about Jinyoung coming in to record today at all.

“He said he would be coming in later after he settled down.” Their manager replied while guiltily smiling at the other members who looked like they wanted to kill him.

“Good, good” the producer said again and then went back to Jaebum telling him to sing the next part. Jaebum who was oblivious to the words said out of the booth because the mic wasn’t on, was curious as to why everyone looked so flabbergasted but continued on with recording.

Jackson on the other hand yanked their manager down and made a small circle whispering as to not bother the producers.

“Yah, hyung! Why didn’t you tell us Jinyoung was coming in today? We’ve been so antsy all day it would have been useful to tell us.” Jackson berated their manager regardless of age.

“Where is your respect?” he tried chastising but got none of it.

“Hyung, you could have told us earlier. We felt like really bad teammates because of this.” Yugyeum tried rephrasing.

“I couldn’t have told you guys earlier because Jinyoung made the decision himself about an hour before he arrived here.”

“That was still almost 2 hours ago hyung!” Bambam said out loud causing a glare from the producers who he smiled sheepishly at.

“So when is he going to come then hyung?” Mark quietly asked because his patience was finally wearing thin.

“Soon.”

“When is soon?” Youngjae whined not noticing that Jaebum’s voice abrubtly stopped flooding the booth.

“Why are you guys all huddled in a corner whispering like you’re plotting against me?” a familiar voice whispered beside Mark and Yugyeum’s ears.

They both jumped back and Jackson screamed from shock causing another shush and glare from the producers again. But they could care less because before them stood Jinyoung covering his mouth trying to hold in his laughter.

“Why did you stop? Again Jaebum.” The producers commanded JB who was standing in quiet shock at Jinyoung who just gave him a small wave and smile.

“Hyung!” Bambam was the first to recover and throw himself at Jinyoung who caught the smaller figure easily. Yugyeum also then got up and hugged Jinyoung and then followed Jackson and Youngjae.

The producers gave up and just stated “5 minute break”.

Jaebum immediately rushed out and hugged Jinyoung as well.

Mark was frozen at his place on the floor just watching the reunion.

It felt like forever si