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Youngjae sniffled as he parked his car in the parking lot of the radio station. He grabbed the travel pack of tissues he keeps in his glove box and quickly plucked a tissue from the pack so he could blow his nose. His allergies weren’t particularly bad, but with just the right mix of pollen and fine dust his nose winds up quite itchy for a while. Today was one of those days.
His nose had been incredibly itchy throughout the day and he found himself sniffling periodically. He hasn’t sneezed at all and he was quite grateful for that. Seeing as it was already past seven in the evening and he had yet to sneeze, likely meant that he would be able to get through the rest of his day without his nose getting in the way.
Youngjae was fairly excited about the guest he was interviewing today. Ateez was appearing on his show again. In light of their explosive KCON performance, Youngjae had wanted to interview the group on how viral their performance was. He had asked the people in charge of his show to reach out to KQ to see if something could be scheduled, and apparently Ateez were quite eager to promote themselves without it inherently being a schedule for an album promotion, so the group readily agreed.
Youngjae put a mask on his face before exiting his car and entered the radio station. Youngjae greeted all of the staff as they passed them before going to the specific studio he was going to be in for his segment with Ateez. He got everything set up and to err on the side of caution decided to ask one of the staff to bring him a tissue box. When the box arrived he quickly blew his nose again before sitting in the chair and letting the staff move around him getting everything set up.
Soon it was time for the show to start. The members of Ateez were already sitting around the table and all eight of them were excitedly chatting with Youngjae until the signal was given to start the show.
“Welcome back to Got7 Youngjae’s Close Friend. I’m your host Youngjae. Today’s guest had a comeback a few weeks ago and recently became an internet sensation with their performance at KCON. I’d like to give a very warm welcome to Ateez.”
The room then broke out into some excited chatter. The group spent a good five minutes talking about random things. Yunho brought up the fact that he had been watching So Not Worth It, the drama Youngjae was in. This of course led to a discussion on Seonghwa, Yunho, San, and Jongho being on the show Imitation. The conversation continued for a few minutes before staff signaled the group to move on. This caused the talking to quickly die down. Unfortunately for Youngjae, just as there was a brief moment of silence in the room, his nose decided at that moment for an intense tickle to form. Youngjae tried to subtly rub his nose, but it did nothing.
Youngjae did his best to turn away from the mic with his hand over his mouth and nose. “HEH-STIEGHHHH, HIH-STIEGHAHHH!” Youngjae sniffled and hoped that those would be the only sneezes he would have. However he also knew otherwise.
“Are you okay sunbaenim?” Hongjoong asked. Youngjae nodded his head. “It’s just allergies. No worries. Now I heard that during your KCON performance someone danced so hard their mic broke?” Youngjae quickly changed the topic and while San began emphatically talking about his mic and eventually his hair dye dripping down his face Youngjae grabbed a tissue from the box next to his computer and dabbed at his nose.
The Ateez members were all complimenting San on his KCON look and how the hair dye actually helped with the overall vibe. Youngjae was doing his best to mentally stay as present as possible while also trying to keep himself from sneezing. He was doing an okay job seeing as he was able to continue asking his scripted questions. However things started to majorly go downhill when it came time for Ateez to sing one of their songs.
Since the group wasn’t technically promoting anything, they had decided to sing Star 1117. Unfortunately the quieter and slower song had apparently been a bad choice. The song had just barely started when there was an interruption.
“HEH-STIEGHHH, HEH-STIEGHHH! Sorry, let’s start the track over.” Youngjae apologized as he somewhat aggressively rubbed at his nose. He heard a couple of the Ateez members bless him as the track was restarted. Youngjae grabbed a couple of tissues from the box and tried to rid himself of the tickle without actually blowing his nose.
The eight members of Ateez sang their song without further interruption, but they were all able to see that Youngjae was clearly trying his hardest not to interrupt again. Right before the track finished and the show cut to commercial, Youngjae stopped trying to hold back the sneezes that had been plaguing him for the past three minutes.
“HEH-STIEGHHH, HIH-STIEGHHHAHH, HEH-HEH-STIEGHHH!” After only three sneezes, the eight Ateez members watched as Youngjae stood up and walked out of the studio. The show cut for commercial and they all walked back to their seats and began to talk amongst themselves.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Wooyoung asked as he looked towards the door in which Youngjae exited.
“He said it was allergies earlier. Whatever he’s allergic to must have thrown him into an allergy attack.” responded Seonghwa. There was idle chit-chat between the members for another minute or so until some of the staff could be heard audibly whispering to each other. Apparently they were due to go back on air in less than two minutes and Youngjae wasn’t back yet. The Ateez members looked amongst themselves a bit worriedly as they’d never found themselves in the situation of having an absent DJ or MC.
“Sang-ah, you’re the one with the most hosting experience. Take over until Youngjae sunbaenim gets back.” San said as he nudged the slightly older man. Yeosang stared at San for a moment.before responding.
“Are you sure that’s a good Idea. I know they use a script here too, but that feels like stepping on toes.” Yeosang did have a point, but the clock was ticking and the DJ had yet to return from wherever he went.
“I think you should do it Yeosang. Worst case scenario is he comes back right after we’re back on air and we apologize.” Yunho said, trying to be encouraging. The others were also trying their best to encourage Yeosang, who ultimately decided to take over. The staff were looking more and more frantic at Youngjae’s absence as the seconds ticked down, so he moved to Youngjae’s seat and quickly skimmed over the script until they were back on air.
With thirty seconds left before the group was due to go back on air Jongho stood up and walked over to where Yeosang was now sitting. He grabbed the tissue box of the desk. “I’m going to see if I can find Youngjae sunbaenim.” The maknae announced to the room. His hyungs all nodded in understanding as exited the room. Meanwhile the staff looked a little less frantic with Yeosang holding the script and nodding at them to signal that they could go back on air.
“Welcome back to Younjae’s close friend. As you can probably tell, I’m not Youngjae sunbaenim. He had to suddenly step out for a few minutes and I, Yeosang of Ateez, am filling in until he returns.” Yeosang then did his best to follow the script that was in front of him.
Meanwhile, Jongho was walking briskly down the hallway holding the box of tissues. The second he spotted a staff member, he would politely bow and ask if they had seen Youngjae sunbaenim. He was eventually pointed in the direction of the staff lounge.
As Jongho got closer to the staff room he could hear occasional sneezing. He knocked on the door before opening it and stepping into the room. Youngjae barely paid Jongho any mind as the younger walked into the room.
“HEH-STIEGHHH, HIH-STIEGHHSSSHHH!” Jongho cringed a little at how wet the last sneeze sounded. He looked around the room for a second, and when he noticed that there weren’t any tissues or paper towels to be seen, he was glad that he had decided to bring the tissue box with him. He removed a few tissues from the box and placed them in an unsuspecting Youngjae’s hand as the older was clearly gearing up for another sneeze.
Unfortunately Jongho wasn’t quite fast enough in removing his hand and he got sprayed a little bit. He just grabbed another tissue and wiped his hand off. Youngjae sneezed three times into the tissues that Jongho had given him. He then blew his nose into the tissues rather productively.
“Are you doing okay sunbaenim?” Jongho asked, unintentionally startling Youngjae.
“I’m more frustrated than anything. My nose decided to have me start sneezing while on air. I was seriously hoping I wasn’t going to sneeze during the show since I hadn’t sneezed all day. Now look at me.” Youngjae glanced at the clock and his eyes widened.
“Shit, commercials were supposed to end like fi-ive minutes a-ago HEH-STIEGHHHH.” Youngjae grabbed some more tissues to blow his nose as he frantically stood up.
“Sunbaenim relax. Yeosang hyung is currently filling in for you. If you think you’re ready to go back on air feel free, otherwise I’d say just take your time.” Youngjae seemingly deflated in relief that the show was still going.
“I think it’s mostly out of my system. Thanks for the tissues by the way.” Youngjae grabbed the box of tissues and started walking out of the room. Jongho followed. It didn’t take long for the duo to get back to the studio. Fortunately for the duo, the ‘on air’ sign was currently turned off. Youngjae quickly grabbed another tissue and blew his nose again before entering the room with Jongho.
When the duo walked in, Yeosang immediately stood up from his chair and bowed in apology for taking over the show. “It’s fine Yeosang, you saved the show by taking over. Thank you” Youngjae said. Yeosang bowed again then went back to his original chair. It wasn’t much longer before the group was back on air.
“And now we’re all back. Sorry for my few minutes of absence, but allergies decided to take over and I had to leave so I wouldn’t be sneezing every couple of seconds while on air.” Youngjae chuckled a little. “Anyway a big thanks to Yeosang who took over while I w-was briefly indi-indispo-HIH-STIEGHHH, HIH-STIEGHH, indisposed. Sorry, I’m still going to be a bit sneezy for the rest of the show.” Youngjae sniffled as he grabbed another tissue to wipe his nose with. “I’d also like to thank Jongho who helped me out a bit by bringing me a box of tissues.”
Youngjae looked down at the script while Yeosang and Jongho were talking about how what they did wasn’t that big of a deal. “So Yeosang, where did you leave off?”
“Well Youngjae-ssi we left off talking about how we have a tour coming up in a couple of months.” Youngjae nodded. “Okay, so tell me about what you guys are looking forward to on this next tour.” Youngjae sniffled again. “By the way, after today, I think you guys can call me hyung.”