Mr. No || NCT || Completed

59 - Where it's time for dinner

Chaewon wasn't picking up his calls.

Renjun had tried to call her every now and then during the evening before switching to text messages until Haechan confiscated his phone the following morning while they were having breakfast.

"Stop bombarding her."

Renjun frowned and tried to take his phone back. "I'm not bombarding her." He could feel the curious gazes of all of his flatmates on him. Chenle was snickering into his bowl of chocolate cereal (Jaemin had slept in and Jeno didn't have the heart to stop Chenle and Jisung from having unhealthy breakfast). "I'm just..." Renjun trailed off, his eyes wandering around the room.

Everyone stared in silence. Jisung stopped munching on his cereal mid-bite, leaving his cheeks puffy.

The wolf wasn't pleased with the sudden flush of uncertainty crashing through Renjun. It was more acquainted with being in control and maintaining a rational perspective about everything.

Renjun cleared his throat. Everyone was still staring.

"You're just... concerned? Thoughtful? Worried?" Jeno tried to help him finish the sentence. While Renjun hadn't shared what had happened between him and Chaewon to anyone other than Haechan and Jaemin, it had been obvious to everyone else that something was up.

Chenle started humming the melody of 'So this is love' from Disney's Cinderella, earning a glare from Renjun.

"You could visit her and try to speak with her in person", Yujin suggested. "Maybe if you bring her food or something and tell her that you wanted to check up on her, she'll warm up to you."

Renjun wasn't convinced by Yujin's plan since she rarely had any good ideas.

Jaemin yawned loudly in the doorway - he had finally woken up. "It's possible that she needs some space considering everything you've gone through recently but stopping by and making sure that nothing is wrong might be a good idea." He sat down next to Jisung and stopped to stare at the younger guy's breakfast disapprovingly before continuing his advice. "After all, the people at the laboratory tried to hurt her. Even if she said that she was fine, she might've been startled."

Renjun considered his words for a while before nodding slowly. "I'll think about it." Then he looked at Haechan who was still holding onto his phone. "Can I have that back?"

As a response, Haechan took a selfie with the phone and changed its wallpaper to said selfie before proceeding to send a lengthy voice message to Doyoung, pretending to be Renjun who was stuck in the bathroom. Sometimes Renjun wondered how he came up with so much bullshit in such a short time. Perhaps he was the one who was stuck in bathroom - a mental one.

Meanwhile, Jaemin reprimanded Jisung and Chenle for not eating something more nutritious but was immediately disarmed when Jisung started looking sad.

The wolf was content, being surrounded by its pack and Renjun could sense the relief of the others as easily as his own. Even if he wasn't completely out of the gutter just yet, he had survived the worst and would figure out the rest soon enough. As a start, he would follow Jaemin's (and Yujin's) suggestion and stop by Chaewon's home before heading to work and he would talk everything through with her, or at least try to explain why he had been rude to her.

***

Chaewon's brother, Junwon, stared Renjun down. "She doesn't wanna talk with you." He was dressed in the uniform of the close by high school but based on the messiness of his hair, he wasn't heading out yet.

Renjun remembered that back when he met Chaewon's two brothers for the first time, Junwon hadn't seemed to like him much while the youngest of the family, Seungwon, had been friendlier. That made him hope that the youngest kid would have been the one to answer the door instead of the gloomy-looking high school student.