Chapter Text
December 2017. 1:04AM.
Most people would start the story the night Jaemin came back.
It was nighttime when he arrived at the dorm, roller suitcase in one hand and a still-warm container of his mother’s cooking in the other. Everyone else seemed to be asleep - the sun had set hours ago, and even the streets of inner-city Seoul were empty.
Jaemin toed off his sneakers and pushed them into the mess already in the entryway. The floor was cold through his socks.
Very suddenly, he realized there were no longer house slippers that fit him here.
This filled him with a hollow, sick feeling somewhere underneath his stomach. An unease. Maybe he shouldn’t have come back, maybe he should have just taken the chance to go and ran with it .
But he was still here in the doorway. He was supposed to put his tupperware in the fridge and be ready for bed by the time the manager was done parking the car.
He didn’t have much longer.
He knew he had to follow the orders he’d been given, knew it in a way he probably wasn’t supposed to at seventeen - everyone knew the rules were part and parcel of signing under SM, but -
He could not find it in him to move.
So he stood there, eyes adjusting to the darkness, tupperware cooling in one hand and luggage-handle growing sweaty in the other. It felt like he could have waited there forever, listening to the dorm breathe.
But then - the room creaked in a way it hadn’t before. And again, and again, until there was someone standing in front of him, blurry in the dark.
“They told me you were coming back tonight.” Mark’s voice, sleep-heavy and familiar but not quite right. “Oh, sweet, your mom packed food?”
Jaemin nodded, not sure of his ability to speak. Even in the shadows he could tell something was different about Mark - the way his skin stretched across his face, maybe, or the way he stressed every syllable so perfectly. Finally, Jaemin managed a whisper: “Fried rice. And there’s more in my suitcase.”
“Niiice,” Mark drawled again, his hands coming up to meet Jaemin’s around the container. Their fingers brushed, for a moment, and Mark’s hand was so warm - but he continued as if it never happened, so Jaemin did too.
“I’ll put this in the fridge, you can go to bed - your room this time around is the one down the hall from the bathroom, Jisung’s already asleep though, so,” Mark let out a yawn, betraying his own exhaustion, “Be quiet, yeah?”
At that Mark turned around to put Jaemin’s fried rice in the fridge, leaving Jaemin to head to his new room like he was supposed to. His suitcase stuttered over the ridge of the threshold with a cl-click . Jaemin walked slowly, socked feet feeling out this floor he knew but could no longer predict. He saw the fridge open, Mark’s tired face outlined in cold white light, his squinting eyes - and then it was darkness again.
When Jaemin reached the hallway, he ran his hand along the wall to find the door. It was already cracked open, slightly, and a small lamp filled the room with dim light.
Jisung was sitting up in the bed to the far left. “‘Re back?” He croaked out, eyes shut tight. It was obvious he’d just woken up. “I am,” Jaemin replied, laying his suitcase down by the foot of the bed laying parallel to Jisung’s.
Jisung nodded drowsily, slowly dropping back against his pillow. “Good. Miss’d ya.” He slurred before nuzzling into his pillow and promptly falling back asleep. His large feet stuck out under the fleecy blanket he was using. It took Jaemin a moment, but then he realized - this was the same gray blanket Jisung’s had since coming to SM. No wonder it was too small. The thought put a little smile on his face as he prepared to go to sleep himself.
At least some things never changed.
November 2017. 10:57PM.
Most people would start the story when Jaemin came back to the dorms. Others - maybe more discerning others, like Zhong Chenle, for example - would start the story when Renjun and Donghyuck started sleeping together. It could be argued, Chenle acknowledged, that the story started when NCT Dream’s member lineup was finalized, or even all the way back when the original members of the ‘Mini Rookies’ first met each other in 2013 or so, but Chenle thought he’d found a fairly distinct turning point.
There were only a few things you had to take into account before deciding to begin the story there. A few axioms, if you would.
One: Donghyuck had been crushing on Mark for at least a year.
Two: Jeno, for all he could whiz through math problems and history textbooks, knew absolutely nothing about his own emotions.
Three: Mark spent too much time internalizing Johnny’s stories of American childhood.
And, lastly, the fourth rule: Renjun was chaotic and knew it.
Chenle remembers the night he’s certain this mess all started well. It was a month or two after their promotions for We Young had ended, that perfect lull in time when they had nothing in particular to be working on. Kun had been back in China for a family occasion, leaving Ten the only real adult in the dorm with them.
This didn’t happen often, and for good reason.
“You boys know you live in Korea, right? And you’re nearly adults now?” Ten had sat all six of them down on the floor in the living room, but didn’t give them time to respond. “So I hope you know that the minute, the second you’re old enough, people are going to be jumping on you to drink.”
Jisung snorted, “The second?”, but quieted down after Ten shot him a look.
“I don’t want you doing anything stupid or hurting yourself, and it’s important to know your limits.” Ten swung his backpack around from behind him, and started to pull out bottles that clicked and clacked against each other, the hangul on their front not words Chenle was familiar with. “So if you want a safe space to learn about it, I’m letting you do that tonight. I’ll stop you before you do anything crazy - I just don’t want you to go into this blind.”
“Ten-hyung, I really don’t think we should-“ Jeno started, always the good citizen. He looked at the alcohol like it was going to bite him.
The expression on Ten’s face was even more annoyed than it had been at Jisung’s unnecessary snark, but at the same time softer, somehow. “ You , more than anyone else, know what I’m talking about. I remember things, Jeno.”
The silence that fell after that was heavy, and no one moved. Based on their expressions, it seemed like everyone knew what Ten was referencing, except Chenle. He’d have to find that one out, at some point.
The bottles watched them all impassively, until -
Renjun reached an arm out, grabbing one of the bottles. “Yeah, what the hell,” he muttered, looking down at its glimmering wrapper. “What is this, though?” Renjun’s eyes flicked up to meet Ten’s, his voice wry. “I’m afraid the translations for different types of alcohol wasn’t a part of SM’s training.”
Jeno leans over, reads the label, then looks up at Ten, scandalized. “You’re “starting us off” with vodka?! ”
November 2017. 3:34AM.
Renjun was definitely drunk. Jeno could see it on his face, the pink flush of his skin. He was in a better state than Mark, though, who’d pinned Ten down by laying across his lap and was now babbling something in English, or Jisung, who had fallen asleep somewhere around two am curled up on his side.
After Renjun had decided to go along with Ten’s plan of introducing them to alcohol - illegally! his mind added unhelpfully - the rest had given in. Except for Jeno himself.
(He had his reasons for that, but he wasn’t particularly in the mood to think about it right now. And besides, he had bigger problems on his hands.)
Like Renjun, who looked exceptionally pretty with that flush across his cheeks. He was chatting in the corner with Donghyuck about something - probably astrology or tarot, knowing the two of them.
Jeno watched them from across the room, where he’s sitting on the couch beside Ten, who is, as promised, sober as well. He felt - a little awkward, tonight. He’d been the only one to abstain, and though he knew they all understood, he couldn’t help but feel like he was being a little dramatic, maybe. So he’d spent most of the night chatting with Ten instead, who he’d discovered had been surprisingly genuine in his intentions.
(“God, yeah, I don’t know if you remember, but the first time Taeyong ever drank was at a company dinner, and of course then he was the youngest then and those things just keep on going and going - it’s a miracle he didn’t go to the hospital that night, honestly. And still, he was puking his guts up half the morning, anyway.”)
Suddenly, Jeno sees Renjun move. His grasp around Donghyuck’s wrist has tightened, and he leans in to whisper something, that mischievous smile on his face. Donghyuck - Donghyuk nods, it seems like, which only makes Renjun’s smile grow wider. Then Renjun is pulling Donghyuck up and into a different part of the dorm, nearer the bedrooms and away from the living area. Something secretive?
Ten is distracted by Mark, who has added jerking hand gestures to his English mumbling, and looks up at Ten with a joy in his eyes Jeno can only describe as childlike.
He waits a few long minutes to see if Renjun and Donghyuck will come back, if they just needed to use the bathroom, or something.
But they don’t.
“Uh, Ten? I’m gonna go check on Renjun and Hyuck real quick,” He mutters, maybe too silently - Ten acknowledges him, but only barely.
Jeno pulls himself off the couch and starts towards the back of the dorm himself - Jisung’s bedroom is the nearest, and Donghyuck and Mark’s, usually empty when 127 is promoting, is the smallest and at the end.
They’re not in Jisung’s room, or Renjun and Chenle’s. Chenle is, though, his laptop propped up on his knees. “Have you seen Renjun or Donghyuck?” Jeno asks, leaning through the doorway.
“Nah,” Chenle shrugs. He’d only had a little to drink - it really didn’t taste the way you’d expect it to - and decided to spend the night gaming instead. “But I haven’t really been paying attention to anything.”
Jeno nods, and returns to the hallway, deducing that there’s only one place left that they could be. A few more steps, and -
The door is slightly open, and Jeno feels like his breath is caught in his throat.
November 2017. 3:42AM.
Chenle doesn’t put his headphones back on after Jeno leaves. Last he saw, Jisung was sleeping, Mark was giggling with Ten, and Renjun and Donghyuck were still drinking.
Oh, wait. Renjun and Donghyuck, drunk? That was only asking for trouble. Quietly, he set his laptop down on the bed, and tiptoed into the hallway, careful not to let any of the floorboards creak. Jeno was standing there, blankly, mouth slightly open as he looked into Mark and Donghyuck’s room.
Chenle made his way behind him, peeking over Jeno’s shoulder through the space in the door.
Renjun’s skinny back was bent over on the bed, honey-colored hands coming out from under him to grab at his waist, cradle his neck. It was obvious that at the very least they were kissing, shirtless. Quite aggressively.
Thankfully, the duvet was piled up at the end of the bed, blocking anything else from Chenle’s line of sight.
He dared a glance at Jeno. He looked like he was about to cry. That was - interesting, bad, not unexpected?
Chenle didn’t know how it made him feel, exactly, and he sure as hell didn’t know what Jeno was feeling, but the both of them probably shouldn’t be watching whatever this was.
He stuck a hand out from behind Jeno and waved it in his line of sight, which did break Jeno out of his silent reverie. He pulled Jeno from the doorway to Donghyuck’s room to Jeno’s own with a firm hand on his shoulder, and left with a tight smile that Jeno didn’t return.
Yeah, looking back on it, that was definitely when it all started.