Chapter Forty Four: Sarcasm, Script And Severe Misunderstandings

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[ ᴛʜɪʀᴅ ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴ ᴘᴏᴠ ]

By the time the Bremen Music Club shoot wrapped, Nayoung had cycled through all five stages of grief, twice, while maintaining a professionally blank expression.

She stood toward the back of the set, clutching her trusty notebook like a lifeline, watching the senior writer Mirae do her cheerful 'Behind the Scenes!' story for the company's social media. The camera danced across the set like an over-caffeinated butterfly, capturing staff packing up, Hyunjin fake-crying into a tambourine, and Felix giving finger hearts to no one in particular.

It was charming. It was wholesome.And then it became a public execution.

Han, otherwise known as Jisung when not impersonating small woodland creatures, had been goofing around during break, pretending to be a writer. "Look at me," he said in a fake serious tone, waving a blank clipboard. "I write emotions. I write arcs. Channie hyung, what is arc?"

Seungmin, seated next to him with the posture of a Victorian cat judging peasants, rolled his eyes. "Some interns stand around pretending to write," he quipped, deadpan, throwing Jisung a glance that practically screamed "get a grip."

The camera, as fate would have it, turned right then, panning past Nayoung-- who, completely unaware of the snark unfolding, was scribbling feverishly in her notebook with a frown of concentration.

Just in time for Seungmin's words to align perfectly with her image.

The timing was Oscar-worthy.The implication? Devastating.

Some staff members stifled giggles. Mirae gave a slightly startled "oh," before quickly swinging the camera elsewhere, but the damage was done. Nayoung stood there, notebook halfway to her chest, heart plummeting past her stomach like an unpaid intern thrown down the social ladder.

She blinked once. Twice. Her ears burned. 'He meant me. He was mocking me. On camera.'

Of course, Seungmin hadn't even seen her. His insult was intended for Jisung, the human chaos squirrel beside him, not for the hardworking mute intern scribbling emotional arcs that would never see daylight.

But Nayoung didn't know that.She just knew that Seungmin-- a man she already had labeled as 'caffeine-stained menace' after the coffee incident-- had now publicly called her useless.

Twice.

By the time they were packing up for the day, she was spiraling. She kept her distance, retreating to the writers' corner like a ghost in a hoodie. She needed to breathe. She needed therapy. She needed to scream into a pillow.

Instead, she lost her script.

Her annotated script. The one with personal observations, emotional notes, and enough sarcastic commentary to start a Twitter account. She searched everywhere, quietly panicking. Her throat hurt, her eyes burned, and her day had already been sponsored by the goddess of humiliation.

Elsewhere, Seungmin was heading to his changing room when he tripped over what appeared to be...a tragic little spiral-bound journal squashed under a stack of fake violins. Curious (and, okay, nosy), he opened it.

It was full of underlined scene notes, careful edits, and scribbled margins.

One entry read:

> "Seungmin really shines when he's just being sarcastic. No notes. Let him be a menace."

He blinked. Huh.

His lips twitched.

Then he read another:

> "That joke he made in scene four? Absolute nonsense. He thinks he's funny. He's wrong."

He raised a brow.

Was... was someone hate-watching him in real time?

He kept flipping. Whoever wrote this clearly found him fascinating in the way one might be fascinated by a very specific type of puppy-- aloof, dramatic, and 30% evil.

Was it affection? Disdain? Some wild combination of both?

He closed the script and returned it anonymously to the writers' room, too intrigued to toss it, too embarrassed to keep it.

Meanwhile, Nayoung returned to her seat to find the notebook back in place, no note, no explanation. Nothing except a soul-splitting fear that someone, possibly Seungmin himself, had read her unfiltered commentary and was laughing with the other members about it right now.

She spent the rest of the evening pretending to be an unpaid mannequin.

By the time she got home to her shared apartment-- a Pinterest dream of cozy rugs, tall mirrors, and two sisters with too many opinions-- she stomped past them without a word.

"Nayoung--"

"Don't," she croaked, voice still shredded from allergy meds. "Not. Today."

She dropped her tote bag with the dramatic flair of a period drama heroine, collapsed face-first onto her bed, and mumbled into the mattress: "Worst. Day. Ever."

She could feel her sisters glancing at each other in the doorway. Probably planning a group intervention. Or at least a skincare mask. She waved a limp hand to dismiss them.

In her room, lit softly by string lights and disappointment, Nayoung clutched her resurrected script and sighed. Loudly. Dramatically. Stupidly.

Out there, somewhere, Seungmin probably thought she was lazy and mute.

And Seungmin? He just thought some intern was obsessed with hating him in long-form commentary.

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Some of you might be aware that I like rage-baiting my readers 😈

Last chapter's answerChan

Quote of the day:Come on, baby.

Anyways hi, how are you?

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Thanks for readingCya🖤