Jisoo opened the door to the joint waiting room of the Inkigayo MCs, the place where they read the script together to prepare for the live show. Jinyoung was already there, sitting on his usual spot on the couch, silently flipping through his script. She entered and took her usual spot next to Jinyoung after greeting him, and while she settled down and placed her Minnie Mouse blanket on her lap, Jinyoung reached for Jisoo’s script on the table and handed it to her.

“Thanks~” Jisoo took the script from him with both hands before placing it on her lap.

“Sure,” he nodded in reply, only looking at Jisoo for a fraction of a second before going back to silently going through his copy of the script.

Jisoo watched him, wondering if the script this week was all that interesting for him to be acting so absorbed in it.

Then she noticed other things about him that she had forgotten about from not having seen him for so long, like how his long lashes sometimes brushed his cheeks whenever he blinked, or the very subtle changes in expression he did as he went through the different points of the script.

“What is it?” Jinyoung suddenly spoke after a while, his eyes still fixed on the script.

“Huh?” Jisoo blinked innocently, surprised at the sudden break in the silence bringing her out of her daze.

“You’re staring at me. More so than usual.”

“Heol, you wish!” In response to his claim, Jisoo straightened in her seat and looked straight ahead, crossing her arms.

Jinyoung peeked at Jisoo briefly from the corner of his eye, unable to stop the corner of his lips from momentarily twitching into a small smile at her reaction. “Seriously Jisoo, what is it?”

“It’s nothing important. I was just amused.”

“Amused?” Jinyoung raised an eyebrow.

She turned back to him and gestured towards him. “I mean, looking at you, it’s like you were never gone. You’re straight to work, all serious, just like that.” She snapped her fingers to emphasize her point. “Daebak.”

“Huh. So I was right, then.”

“Right about what?”

Jinyoung looked up and smirked at Jisoo. “You were staring at me.”

“You have no proof! You didn’t even look up from your script until now!”

“You just said that you were looking at me–”

“Aish, just go back to reading the script quietly if you’re gonna be like this.” Jisoo sighed and turned away from Jinyoung, but Jinyoung could catch a glimmer of a smile on her heart-shaped lips.

Jinyoung let out a low chuckle in response. After the awkward interaction they had this morning, Jinyoung was glad that they could slowly get back to the comfortable relationship they had even after not seeing each other for so long. “You know, Doyoung told me something similar last week. How exactly was it without me around? I’m suddenly curious.”

“Honestly, without you Doyoung and I took a looooooong while to settle down and actually talk about the script. We usually focused on making the special MC comfortable and talking to them, getting to know them, making jokes with them. And then we’d seriously panic upon realizing we only have 10 minutes or something left to prepare for the live show!” Jisoo explained while laughing, her