There wasn’t a beautiful female lead for their sitcom, not that Jongin cared too much. He was slightly nervous before the first cast meeting, but Sehun squeezed his hand under the table, and Jongin found comfort in that.

            They were, as Jongin had expected, the headliners for the sitcom, and the shoot consisted of mainly him and Sehun.

            Jongin liked the pictures. They were wearing uniforms, just like they had in high school. They weren’t wearing heavy, dark makeup that they had been for all their other shoots. They looked younger. More innocent.

            Jongin ran his finger over the prints that his manager had handed him and thought for a second that he missed those days.

            Memorizing the script wasn’t as big of a challenge as Jongin thought it would be. Most of what he had to learn was easy dialogue between him and Sehun, and it felt so natural Jongin could almost guess what the script was without looking at it.

            Baekhyun watched them practice every once in a while, when he wasn’t practicing for one of his many variety show appearances that he did between album promotions.

            “You guys aren’t bad,” Baekhyun said.

            Jongin raised an eyebrow. “Surprised?”

            Baekhyun laughed. “Was it that obvious?”

            “Just a little bit,” Sehun said, the corner of his lips quirking up. “So how are the variety shows going?”

            Baekhyun shrugged. “Pretty well. Chanyeol does better than me though.”
            “That’s because Chanyeol is shameless,” Jongin said. “He makes jokes out of everything.”

            “It’s a skill that I will never have,” Baekhyun deadpans, standing up. “Well, I have to go now, but you guys seem pretty well prepared. When’s your first filming day?”

            “In three days,” Sehun said, rubbing at his eyes.

            Baekhyun reached down and gently moved Sehun’s hand from his face. “You have dark circles,” he said, softly. “Get some sleep. Both of you.”

            Jongin nodded, and Baekhyun seemed pleased enough.

            They didn’t get any sleep. Jongin wasn’t surprised, because he and Sehun don’t get much sleep ever, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

            “So what do you think the plot of this sitcom will end up as?” Sehun asked, stretching on Kyungsoo’s bed. Kyungsoo’s at the library, as usual. Jongin feels a pang in his chest whenever he sees the older boy passed out, his head resting on his books.

            “No idea. But it’s a sitcom. They usually don’t anywhere.”

            “I heard Joonmyun hyung’s character gets married.”

            Jongin choked. “You can’t actually be serious.”

            Sehun laughed. “I think that most of the drama’s focus is when he’s a young-ish medical student, and he meets a fellow student who, of course, is a beautiful female fellow medical student. And then five years later or something they get married.”

            Jongin snorted. “That’s every drama ever.”

            “It’ll probably have higher view counts,” Sehun said. “Joonmyun hyung’s actually not a bad actor.”

            “Better than us,” Jongin agreed. “Hopefully we don’t mess this up.”

            Sehun laughed again. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

            “Remember the first drama we were in?” Sehun asked, as Jongin dug through his closet, looking for pajamas of some sort.
            “The one where it was all Sulli and Minho and not us?” he called.
            “Yeah, that.”

            “What about it?”

            “Remember how excited we were?”

            Jongin laughed. “Yeah. Excited for maybe two seconds of actual screen time. Most of the time we were just in the back walking around and stuff.”

            “Didn’t we watch each episode and time the parts we were on screen?”

            “I had the most time onscreen,” Jongin announced.

            Sehun rolled his eyes. “You were always too proud of that.”

            “You’re just sore because Yixing was on screen more than you were. And same with Luhan.”

            “I’m not sore.”

            Jongin found a shirt and changed into it, tossing the old shirt into the laundry bin. He stuck his head out the door. “Yes, you are.”

            Sehun snuggled under the covers. “Does Kyungsoo ever come home anymore?”

            “I find him sometimes. He’s usually passed out on his books, and whenever I try to move him to his bed, he wakes up and yells at me for not waking him up sooner. Then he studies more.”

            Sehun’s face poked out from under the blankets. Jongin stifled a laugh. “I worry about him sometimes,” Sehun said.

            “Why? He can take care of himself.”

            “Well yeah, but still,” Sehun said. “He’s doing so much stuff.”

            “It’s going to be us next year. Except not as bad because we’re going to take about three classes less than he did.”

            Sehun snorted. “Why did he sign up for all those classes anyway?”

            Jongin waved his hand around vaguely. “Something about wanting to keep his options open.” He flopped onto his bed, and Sehun untangled himself from Kyungsoo’s blankets to join him. He pushed Jongin over, and Jongin whined until Sehun shut him up with his lips. Jongin just smiled and let himself be kissed.

           Sitcoms were different from dramas, Jongin thought, as he listened to the director’s last minute instructions. Dramas were more serious, and the actors had had to ignore all outside noises. Jongin remembered how nervous he had been before the filming of his only line in To the Beautiful You, and how excited he had been afterwards.

            Sitcoms weren’t like that.

            “Adlib if you can,” the director said. “Adlibs in sitcoms are the best way to pick up viewers.”

            Jongin and Sehun nodded, and when the take started, they made their way through their script, going off track sometimes due to adlibs, but they kept most of it straight, and the director seemed pleased as he yelled cut.

            They had to film it only three more times.

            “We’ll edit the best parts together,” the director told them. “Not bad for the first real acting attempt.”

            Jongin thanked him politely, like he was supposed to, before pulling the tie from his neck. He liked the uniforms, but not the ties. He didn’t like wearing tight things around his neck.

            Sehun did, though.

            Jongin had thought it was a little weird at first when Sehun kept his tie on even after they got home from school back when they were in middle school. He got used to it though, and he never really pressed Sehun about it.

            When they were in the car, about to go back to the dorm, Jongin reached over and touched the tie, lightly. Sehun flinched, and Jongin smiled.

            “You never took this off,” he said, softly. Sehun said nothing, and Jongin started to undo it.

            Sehun caught his hand. “No, don’t. I like it.”

            Jongin pulled his hand away. “Makes you look sharper,” he said, laughing a little.

            Sehun flushed. “It’s not that, I just…like it.”

            Sehun finally took the tie off right before he took a shower, tossing it reluctantly in his closet.

            Jongin started seeing Kyungsoo a lot more after his final exams were over.

            “Relieved?” he asked him.

            Kyungsoo collapsed on his bed. “I hate everything. I’m pretty sure I failed all of those test and God, this was such a bad idea.”

            Jongin snorted. “Relax, hyung. You did fine.”

            Kyungsoo rolled over. “When I get my scores and it’s confirmed that I failed, I’m going to smack you.”

            Jongin mocked offense. “Why me?”

            “Because,” Kyungsoo said, sleepily, before shutting his eyes.

            The scores came a few weeks later. Kyungsoo scored ‘Above Average’ on all of his exams.

            The sitcom only lasted a couple weeks, but Jongin enjoyed it. He liked how natural he felt in front of the cameras. It was so much better than photoshoots, because there, he felt fake.

Here, he felt real.

            He and Sehun worked well on screen, Jongin thought, as they watched the raw video of one of their scenes.

            “Right here,” the director said, “this part is very good. But I want to take it again, and this time I want Sehun to put an arm around Jongin right before he starts talking. Just act like best friends.”

            Sehun nodded, and they got into their places for another take.

            When Sehun slung and arm around Jongin’s shoulders, Jongin couldn’t help but smile.

            After their last filming day, there was a fanmeet scheduled, and most of the cast would be attending, Jongin and Sehun included.

            It was mostly their fans, they realized quickly, from the signs and screams that were present in the building. Jongin just smiled, a little awkwardly, and hesitated before making a heart at them. Sehun rolled his eyes and waved and made hearts and pouted and smiled and did everything he needed to do to please the fans.

            Jongin just watched, laughing.

            They were answering questions when a member of the staff brought out a cake. It wasn’t that big, but there was so much white frosting and whipped cream that Jongin stared. He stared a little more when someone in the crowd yelled, “Sehun! Throw it at Jongin!”

            Sehun laughed, and Jongin glared at him.

            “Don’t even think about it,” he hissed, but Sehun just smiled.

            Before Jongin could stop him, Sehun picked up the cake and pressed it into Jongin’s face. Jongin thought he was going deaf from all the screams when he felt Sehun’s tongue a stripe of the frosting off of his cheek.

            He really went deaf then.

            “So, senior year?” Sehun said, as they took the elevator down to the garage, where their car was.

            “Yeah,” Jongin said. “Senior year already.”

            “We aren’t going to release a new album soon, are we?”

            “We probably are.”

            Sehun rolled his eyes. “We’re going to fail school,” he announced.

            “It’s a miracle that we don’t already fail,” Jongin said, laughing.

            Sehun reached over and adjusted Jongin’s backpack strap. “It’s crooked,” he said, softly so Jongin had to strain to hear him.