"Jaehwannie, fighting!" Hakyeon grinned brightly at the rookie, earning a thumbs up in response. He folded his arms, rocking slightly on his heels as he wondered how it was possible that Jaehwan, with his loud and silly personality, could get into the mindset of his serious character with such ease. "Rookies these days are on a different level..."

He tilted his head as he watched the younger act before noticing Minyoung out of the corner of his eye. "Oh--!" his face lit up and he wandered towards her with a smile. "Hey, before I forget, I just want to make sure you don't misunderstand. When I laughed earlier about your face--"

"It's fine," she replied flatly.

"No, please don't be mad," he pleaded. "I really didn't mean anything bad. To tell you the truth, the reaso--"

"I said it's fine!" she snapped, glaring up at him.

His brows furrowed and he took a small step back, startled at her sudden change of attitude. I must really have offended her... He knew that if he apologised, she'd only get angrier. She already said she was fine. What was he supposed to do? He sighed gently, shaking his head in effort to dismiss the frustrated thoughts from his mind. Perhaps he'd have to apologise through actions instead of words. There was a saying about that - 'actions speak louder than words'. He didn't want his actions to just 'speak loudly', though. He wanted them to yell through a loudspeaker. He wanted them to be completely and utterly unavoidable, even if she closed her eyes or blocked her ears.

He wanted to be friends.

* * *

"Hyung, hyung!"

Hakyeon glanced over as someone sat beside him on the sofa. "Oh, Jaehwan-ah! Hey."

"You look sad," the other noted, jutting his bottom lip. "Want me to show you an impression?"

"An... impression? You know what, yes. Yes. Show me all your impressions, Lee Jaehwan-ssi." he grinned, sitting up and crossing his legs professionally as he waited.

Jaehwan held up a finger and cleared his throat in preparation. "Puppy," he explained before giving a quiet whine. "Dog," he continued, barking loudly - startling Hakyeon in the process.

"L-Loud--" Hakyeon managed in between his fit of laughter, trying to raise a hand to shush the younger.

"Country dog!" he continued before giving a number of loud woofs, causing his hyung to burst back into laughter.

In the room beside, another actor was about to take off her blonde wig when she heard the succession of barks. "MY PEOPLE ARE CALLING ME--" she declared, running towards the source of the sound to find the person who was making animal impressions.

Hakyeon was busy praising the younger man to notice her peering through the doorway. "Yah, it sounds exactly the same! How did you get so good?"

"It--" he began before noticing the female standing by the doorway. "Hi, Joohee-ssi!" he bowed his head politely, wondering what was the cause of her strange expression.

Clutching to the doorframe, Joohee wondered quietly whether she'd found the right room. "Meow...?" she imitated cautiously.

Jaehwan stood, his lips tugging as his eyes widened. He barked quickly, after which she walked forwards with a louder meow, scrunching her nose as she feigned anger. He followed the gesture, barking angrily as the two pretended to fight in their odd animal languages. Hakyeon merely watched on, his mouth slightly agape as he tried to figure out whether to laugh or ask for help.

He did neither. He went to the fridge and took out the box of Krispy Kremes he'd been saving since the morning, because while he was watching the pair play around, he saw a familiar face peek through the door to see what all the commotion was about - and as soon as she'd locked eyes with him, she'd turned and walked away.

So he took out the box and he took out a notepad. Scrawling on a short message, he cursed himself silently for his messy handwriting and left the box on Minyoung's dressing room table.

These are a new flavour of donuts I found. They're called 'sorry for being a jerk'.
I really do hope you like them.
- Hakyeon