BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 3: learning through practice

<OST: eight PROD. & ft. SUGA>

"Where are we going today, sunbae-nim?" Jieun asked from the backseat of the company van. "Are you sure I got permission to come along? You just yanked me out of my seat and pushed me into the car, so I barely even had any time to react- Come to think of it, I actually have quite a lot of things to complete by the end of today, if bujang-nim finds out-"

In the front row, Hoseok sat in the driver's seat, while Chungha sat next to him, giving him directions.

"Don't worry about it at all, Jieun-ssi," Hoseok said with a smile as he glanced at Jieun through the rear view mirror. "We already got permission from Namj- I mean, Kim bujang. Told him you'd be tagging along today so you can get a nice feel of what it's like to attend a press conference. He too felt that it'd be a good idea to let you have your first field experience."

"More like... you threatened him," Chungha corrected Hoseok, as she touched up her makeup using the pull down mirror. "You've been rather bold with him these days, haven't you? You keep calling him by his name nowadays-

"You must have heard wrongly-" Hoseok shrugged. "Also, I never threatened him, I just said that there wouldn't be a point if he didn't let Jieun-ssi come along because if that's what he does, there would be no one would take over me in the future if I ever quit... and of course, the decision of whether I should quit or not is loosely based on how satisfied I am with the company-"

"I really appreciate you doing this for me, sunbae-nim," Jieun said with a nervous laugh. "But that does sound kinda threatening."

Chungha punched Hoseok in the arm. "You see? Emotional blackmail."

"Tsk-" Hoseok brushed Chungha off and gestured at her. "It ain't emotional blackmail if I was just stating the facts. I didn't say I was quitting or anything, bujang-nim just seemed to have come to that conclusion on his own. Anyway, enough of that - Chungha-ya, shouldn't you be concentrating on directing me to our destination, I don't wanna get lost again this time. I remember that time we ended up taking one whole hour to get to our destination which turned out only to be ten minutes away from our office, simply because you weren't focusing on the road- Maybe you were too busy checking me out-"

Chungha finally exploded. "Ah, so noisy!"

Hoseok grinned cheekily as he glanced at Chungha. "Hurry up, tell me where to go."

"I told you it's straight all the way from here." Chungha glanced down at her phone briefly. "You still have a few kilometres to go, I'll let you know when to turn left."

"What about the questions?" Hoseok was becoming more serious as he spoke about work, something Jieun really admired. He was jovial and fun normally, but didn't mess around when it came to his job. "Have you sorted those out yet?"

"Ah, of course." Chungha turned around and smiled at Jieun, pointing at the bag lying on the seat next to her. "Jieun-ssi, the questions are in my bag next to you in the backseat. Would you like to look through them before the press conference? It would be useful to take note of the questions beforehand so that during the actual thing, you can focus on how Hoseok-oppa gets the emcee's attention and asks the questions and things like that... he's actually pretty amazing at that."

Hoseok smirked at the sudden compliment.

"Oh, okay!" Jieun hummed as she pulled out the paper of questions from Chungha's bag and began to skim through the questions briefly.

"I'm the one asking the questions today?" Hoseok turned to Chungha with a small frown at the front seat after realising so. "Wasn't it supposed to be your turn this time?"