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Taerae found himself seated in front of the producer’s monitor. He’d waited for everyone to fall asleep before entering the room, praying he wouldn’t get caught.
Of course, Taerae felt guilty for going forward with his plan, but it had to be done. Otherwise, how would he get screentime?
He turned on the monitor, grimacing as it made a loud noise. Fortunately, the screen lit up soon enough. Taerae clicked on the ‘files’ icon, scrolling through a series of videos until he found what he needed.
A video of him and Ricky.
With just a few cut-outs, zoom-ins, and dramatic background noises, Taerae knew he could turn everything around.
He’d give himself more screentime and lessen Ricky’s popularity. His plan was foolproof!
At last, Taerae completed his edits. His efforts were so close to coming into fruition.
Perfect, if he could just-
“Hey, what’s going on in here? I swear I heard something” Hanbin questioned innocently.
“Hyung, it’s probably nothing. We should go back to sleep,” Matthew replied with a yawn.
Shit, Mattbin were in the room.
Taerae was ready to bolt and abandon his original plan, but his thoughts were interrupted.
“Taerae?”
The man in question turned his head, only to meet eyes with Matthew. Seconds later, Hanbin joined the two with a gasp.
“What are you doing? Why is Ricky on your screen? Wait… are those the production team’s files??”
Taerae was too stunned to speak. He tried thinking of ways to defend himself, but no words came out of his mouth.
“Don’t be dramatic, Hanbin hyung,” Matthew spoke. “Taerae would never try to sabotage Ricky.”
“You stupid fuck, yes he would! It’s literally right on the screen!”
“What did you just call me? This is why Hao hyung left your room…”
“Take that back RIGHT now!”
“I’m not taking back shit!”
With all the bickering between Matthew and Hanbin, Taerae took the opportunity to sneak out of the room. He didn’t think his attempt to evil-edit Ricky would cause a rift in Mattbin’s relationship, but he figured anything could happen.
As he tried to discreetly return to his own room, he bumped into the last person he wanted to see. Nonetheless, he plastered a smile on his face.
“Ricky, my man! What brings you here?”
Ricky rolled his eyes. “Save it. I know you were trying to evil-edit me.”
Oh shit.
Ricky continued. “Well, are you happy now? Matthew just called me crying, wondering if Hanbin would ever forgive him for his words.”
Taerae hated being scolded by Ricky. But he figured that more footage of the younger yelling at him would be great for his future evil edits.
“Are you serious? You’re still thinking about evil-editing me?”
Great, he was thinking out loud.
“Pfft, of course not, Ricky. Look, I’ll go back and delete the video right now.”
Minutes later, Taerae found himself back in the production room with Ricky. He spotted Matthew, curled up into a little ball in the corner of the room.
Taerae felt the slightest bit of guilt, making his way over to the teary-eyed man.
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” Matthew choked out. “Hanbin hyung hates me.”
“I mean… you kinda did that to yourself with the Hao hyung comment,” Taerae offered dumbly.
“Dude, shut the hell up,” Ricky all but scoffed.
“Okay fine,” Taerae sighed. “Matthew, I’m sorry for what my actions did to your relationship with Hanbin. And Ricky, I’m sorry for attempting to evil-edit you to make up for my lack of screentime.”
Taerae went over to the monitor, dragging his file into the ‘trash’ icon as if to prove a point.
“I appreciate it” Ricky smirked. “Except, you just deleted the entire folder. With all our videos in it”
Taerae groaned, falling to the floor. Well, at least everyone would be on the same boat as him with no screentime…