When Dylan Wang first saw Shen Yue, he thought she was rather plain. She was this thin sulky girl on the corner of the room. She looked like she didn’t want to be there and she poked and pressed on her phone like it was nobody’s business. It was so awkward, because Dylan was supposed to work with this girl for four straight months at least.

“Hey, hey. Look at Shen Yue.” Xize called for their attention. They were all inside a waiting area, passing time before they had to be called for script reading prior to shooting.

There were a few people in the room. All their road managers were around the table, talking about something. The four of them, Chen Kuan Hong or Darren Chen, Liang Jing Kang or Connor Leong, Wu Xize or Caesar Wu, and him Wang He Di or Dylan Wang, were settled on the sofas near the door.

But Shen Yue was all alone in a leather armchair near the window. 

When they all got here, she was already on the chair, typing away on her phone. She nodded at them when they entered the room, but after that they were ignored.

“What’s up with her? Is she a snob or something?” Dylan couldn’t help but ask. He arched his eyebrows towards Shen Yue’s direction. If he’s going to have to work with this girl and she keeps this up, he assumed they will have problems.

“I guess she’s tired.” Kuan Hong said, looking her way. “Oh look!” He pointed silently.

They all turned to look at her. She was silently dozing off, her right hand propping her head up.

“She’s pretty cute, isn’t it?” Liang Jing Kang commented.

All three of them looked at him, puzzled.

“You like her?” Xize exclaimed, bewildered.

“What? No. I was just observing her.” Liang Jing Kang deadpanned. “Don’t you think she’s cute? She’s so little.”

“Yeah, she’s so small.” Kuan Hong laughed. “She’d look like a kid next to us, especially to you, man.” He pointed at Dylan.

“Yeah. You’d be doing lots of scenes with her.” Xize said to Dylan.

“I don’t know if that would or not.” Dylan sighed.

The four of them dropped the topic of Shen Yue at the same time. They talked about the most random things: basketball, Liang Jing Kang’s shoes, their road managers, and the script.

But Dylan’s eyes would occasionally dart from Shen Yue’s location to the other three. She really had to be tired, seeing as she was already knocked out on the chair. This time, she wasn’t pretending to be awake by propping her head up. Now, she was lying across the armchair, with her head on one arm rest and both her legs on the other, fast asleep.

Her arms were folded on top of her chest, and Dylan could see that she was slightly shivering. He hadn’t noticed before, but her face was also kind of pale.

Dylan was about to say something when Shen Yue’s road manager got up from the table, pulled a blanket from one of the bags, then wrapped Shen Yue in it. She was awaken by that motion from her road manager, but her road manager just whispered something to her then she fell back asleep.

Soon, all the road managers went to their place on the sofas.

“Hey guys, do you want to grab something to eat? They said script reading won’t start until two hours later.” Kuan Hong’s road manager said.

All at once, the other three started to speak, mentioning restaurants around the place and food they should order. But Dylan’s eyes immediately searched for Shen Yue. And true to his hunch, the noise was bugging her sleep. Her brows were scrunched, and she was clutching her blanket closer.

“Hey, hey guys. Could you speak more silently? Yueyue’s asleep.” It was Shen Yue’s manager who spoke.

“Is she sick?” Dylan couldn’t help but ask.

“She’s a little feverish. She hasn’t had enough sleep for three days and she’s eating little so…” The woman trailed off.

They all went silent for a while, most of them looking at Shen Yue who was now facing the backrest of the armchair.

“Are we gonna leave her here? I don’t think that will be a good idea.” Kuan Hong said.

“Should we just order takeaway?” asked Dylan. Then he ventured slightly. “She’s sick. She has to eat. Maybe we should order something she’d like so she’ll definitely eat?”

---

Shen Yue was awakened by her road manager when the ramen arrived.

They all crowded the table, but there wasn’t enough space so Dylan, Kuan Hong and Xize had to eat on the low coffee table by the couch. The three of them sat cross legged, blowing the steam to each other’s faces. They were all laughing when a Shen Yue wrapped in a blanket placed her bowl on the table, waddled a little then plonked beside Dylan. She smiled at them like she was getting a treat, then proceeded to eat.

This left the boys to stare at her. Kuan Hong was one of the braver kinds to initiate conversation.

“You’re gonna choke on that.” Kuan Hong commented, quite amused. Shen Yue was wolfing down noodles at a very fast rate.

“Nah.” She looked at him, waving her chopsticks.

“I’m pretty sure you’re gonna.” Xize said, watching her warily as he ate his ramen.

And just like what they thought, the girl started coughing after a few minutes. Dylan was very quick to give her water.

“Slow down, missy. No one’s taking that.” Dylan said as he helped her to some table napkins. Shen Yue managed to smile at them before taking a big breath.

“Thanks.” She smiled, biting on one of her fish cakes. “I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Shen Yue by the way.” She extended her hand for them to shake.

After doing so, all of them fell silent, enjoying the meal. Xize would occasionally strike up a conversation, but all of them would go back to eating or scrolling on their phones.

Dylan took this as an opportunity to look at Shen Yue closely. She was sitting adjacent to him, eating away on her katsu. She would take occasional glances around the room and outside the window, but only when she was not so busy chewing her food. He took this as a good time to talk to her.

“You’re not sick anymore?” Dylan asked.

She looked at her with wide eyes, at first with shock, then with a look that said she was mulling over her answer. Then she shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m feeling a little dizzy though.” She pushed her plate of katsu away. “How did you know I was sick?”

“Your road manager told us.” he said, earning a nod from her. Then he promptly added. “You’re Chen Xiaoxi right?”

She looked bashful. Shen Yue gave a silent ‘yeah’ before returning to her food.

“Some of my friends watched it, they loved you there.” Xize commented from the other end of the table.

“Chen Xiaoxi? Is that a character for what drama?” Kuan Hong asked.

“A Love So Beautiful. She played the lead there, Chen Xiaoxi who was so in love with Jiang Chen.” Xize explained to Kuan.

Kuan nodded, then he turned to Shen Yue. “Can I watch it?”

“Oh you better not!” Shen Yue said. Then she added shyly. “It wasn’t my best, and it’d be really awkward.”

Kuan smiled. “It would not. I’m sure it was good.”

Shen Yue waved her chopsticks again, shaking her head with it. “No. Please don’t. It was bad enough I was in it.”

They all laughed after that. The other three went on to ask each other about previous shows they starred in. Kuan and Shen Yue even recalled their brief meeting in Taiwan months back. Shen Yue was laughing about Kuan’s hair, and Kuan was trying to find things he could tease Shen Yue about, but to no avail.

Dylan sat and laughed with them, looking back and forth to his co-workers. They all looked like doe-eyed people in naturally high spirits. Eventually, Liang Jing Kang joined them and they killed time by chattering about the most nonsensical things. They laughed at the littlest details of stories they would tell.

It was five minutes to three in the afternoon when someone from the production team of Meteor Garden knocked on the door to inform them that the script reading would be in five minutes. All of them stood up and started stretching, except for Shen Yue who was still wrapped in a blanket and waddling back to her leather armchair.

“You look like a burrito.” Dylan commented as Shen Yue started to untangle herself from the blanket. She arched an eyebrow at him before smiling.

“Do I?”

“Yeah.”

---

Shortly after the script reading, Angie Chai invited all of them to dinner. They went to a hotpot place with almost all of the main cast and the whole team.

They almost occupied the whole restaurant. Dylan, Kuan Hong, Wu Xize, Liang Jing Kang, Shen Yue, Li Jia Qi, Sun Yi Han and other cast members sat on a separate table. It seemed to Dylan that they all clicked immediately. Everyone was talking merrily to each other like they had been friends for a long time, and they were starting to have inside jokes.

After eating, they even went to a KTV bar to have some “good time before hell starts” according to Angie Chai. They occupied a large room and soon enough, everybody was hooting and singing.

Dylan was having a good time himself. He had a few drinks and was singing along happily to Liang Jing Kang when someone from the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was Shen Yue, and she was sitting at a corner again with her legs folded up to her chest. She appeared to be embracing herself and shivery, but she would sometimes sing along to whatever song is up.

Shen Yue caught his eye, and she winked at him before looking at the screen again. Within a heartbeat, Dylan was sitting beside her.

“Hey, you coming down with that fever again?” He asked, bowing down a little to see her face. She was pale, and her eyes were puffy and teary. “You look sick.”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll have two days off starting tomorrow, it’s gonna be fine.” she smiled, patting his arm. “How about you? Enjoying this?” she gestured in front of her.

Dylan looked at one of the associate producers belting a Chinese ballad. He sounds really awful, but they were all laughing and cheering for him. Then the guy tried to reach a high note.

“I’m having ear cancer.”

“Yeah me too. He shouldn’t be allowed to sing.”

They both sniggered. They continued to secretly badmouth a few of their co-workers including Kuan Hong when Dylan realized that Shen Yue was slowly dozing off again. She was trying to keep her eyes open, but her head was falling back to the couch’s backrest.

“Missy, I think you should go home.” Dylan slightly nudged her slightly, which made her bolt upright.

After Dylan was done laughing, Shen Yue replied, “Ugh, I’m so sleepy but I don’t want to leave yet. If I leave early, they’ll end the night early too.”

“How about you sleep for a while? Fifteen minutes is good for a powernap, and I’ll go cover you?” Dylan offered.

She seemed to be pondering over her choices, but after a minute or so, she raised her thumb at him then slightly leaned on the backrest. Dylan looked around, seeing if anyone can see her sleeping at this angle. It was pretty exposed, so Dylan had to sit closer to Shen Yue in order to hide her completely from view.

In the end, Shen Yue ended up sleeping for a whole thirty minutes, with her head leaning on his back. It was kind of painful for Dylan, for he had to lean forward in an awkward position to support her head and still hide her from view.

It was past midnight when they all decided to go home. It was also Dylan’s cue to wake Shen Yue up.

“Shen Yue…” he called gently, tapping her knees. “It’s time to wake up.”

After several taps, she finally took a sharp breath on Dylan’s back before stretching her limbs. Dylan straightened his back and listened as his bones snapped.

“That’s more than fifteen minutes, Wang He Di.” she said, rubbing her eyes with her clenched fists.

“You slept for thirty minutes. Am I not the best? Nobody saw you.” He jabbed his thumb towards the crowd.

This smug remark earned a ‘tch’ from her. The both of them stood up and stretched as their road managers called for them.

When they reached the parking lot, all of them said their ‘goodbyes’ and ‘see you soons’.

“Ya, thanks for the nap a while ago.” Shen Yue said, smiling up at him. She was really little.

“You should drink some medicine, missy.” He raised his hand for a wave good-bye. “Bye.”

“Bye Dao Ming Si.”

“Bye Shan Cai.”

They both smiled and winked at each other.

On the drive home, Dylan Wang could not stop thinking about the day and his co-workers. He thought he would be good friends with the rest of the new F4, plus Shen Yue was pretty nice.

And… alright, she was pretty cute too.