Phoenixes {NCT}

4 - BONDING TIME

...happy reading..?

I felt the courage to ask him what happened as I still wasn't recalling everything, or was just too tired to do so,

"what happened exactly?" he sighed again this time loudly, and said "it was one of the street people who are always like that and He loses his mind at anything so silly..."

"not so unlike you" I mumbled but saw the look Mark gave me like 'are you serious' and I shut up at that. "Well, how did you know he was hitting someone" " I- it isn't impossible to notice a boy screaming for his life and shouting out his lungs you know" he said as he chuckled "and what did you do to him?" I said softly but more concerned as Mark looked at me once again and said "I shooed him off and threatened him" he did what?! "WHAT! he fell for it?!"

"don't freak out, but people do fall for things.'' He was no-one and he was an alcoholic! And my god how many calls you get in just one hour from the boy who you saved as 'cutie' on your phone is that Yeonjun?" he said as he laughed at that

"Yes he is and he's my best friend." He only laughed more at that. Well, he looked cute while laughing as he scrunched his nose. I would like to see that more often. I was so into him laughing with his scrunched nose in my mind that he had to snap to get me back to reality. "Donghyuck?" he said and only replied with "yes?"

"Did you just have a break-up or something? Geez, it's hard to get a beating by someone random after a break-up—"

"God Mark, what are you talking about? I didn't have a break-up, and anyways why do you ask? Do I look that bad right now?" I asked with concerned eyes while touching my no longer soft cheeks but filled with cuts of the cement floor. "Well that too, but you got a call from a number that you saved as 'sorceress' and I picked it up and said hello and the screaming all told me as to why you would name her that. Who the hell is that anyway?"

"That's my mother..." I said as I lowered my head. "W-what?! I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to—" "it's okay. It's the truth anyway, right?!" I said suppressing a small laugh as tears started prickling at the back of my eyes. And I started to sob softly and looked at Mark "I'm sorry. But I'm not a freak." Mark's eyes were still confused as he later got the situation. He only came closer to me and hugged me. I didn't care whose arms I was in but I just needed someone to take care of me as Yeonjun does, and...here Mark does too... but he was a bully, wasn't he? I think not. Not anymore. I started crying at the thought of being cared for so much by someone I barely knew. "Thank you, Mark." He smiled the best he could and it was wonderful to see him smiling with all his heart at me.

I missed it.

"No worries," he said very softly but I heard it anyway. I hugged him tightly which kind of surprised him but he hugged me back anyway. "Mark?"

"Hm?" he said, which got my heart to beat 100 times per second. "you're not as bad as I thought you were, you know?" I paused to take a breath of "thankyou." My sobs were slowly fading away as I looked up to only see Mark's curious eyes looking at me. "I'm glad Donghyuck..."

"Mark, I have something to tell you..." I finally decided. "Firstly, Donghyuck, my name is Lee MinHyung, and my members call me Mark for short for MinHyung and so... yeah just thought you should know—" I tensed up. I could feel him curious as I tensed up against him, as I heard that name. Why did he have to say that? It brought back my memories. I couldn't hold back. "M-minHyung?"

"Yes why" he chuckled still looking at me

"My MinHyung" I whispered to myself as everything made sense now. I started crying more and more into his chest as he was still confused but stroking my back to calm me down. I couldn't understand. He was... lost... I was in the same phoenix squad... but my name back then, they used to call me Hyuck or Haechan... minHyungie was my very best friend when he got lost during a fight against the other Seventeen squad, but they had already escaped from our hands, in the forest and MinHyung, was... no longer to be seen anywhere, so we all assumed he was... I locked myself up in the room and then decided to leave the squad and never return and live a normal life. I then went back home to my parents. But then found out that they were already divorced which made me more sad and I was depressed.