toxic | nct dream

45. spark of interest

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"Jisung, she's engaged! You can't just... sweep her off her feet or some bullshit." Mark was pacing the floor frantically, ready to rip his hair out due to his friend's stupidity.

The younger only nodded a bit in response. He was slouched down on the beat-up couch of their practice room / hang out (aka Mark's loft apartment) with his 10th bottle of beer in hand.

The other bottles were piling up on the ground next to him.

"Like hell he can," Jaemin cut in, "she isn't married yet, and if she's showing interest like he says, then it's more of a her and her dumb fiancé's problem. Now will you get back here. It's your turn to deal."

Jaemin was sat at the small foldout table, shuffling a deck of cards.

His plea for the other man to return to the table fell on deaf ears.

"Jae, that 'dumb fiancé' is his boss's son. He's going to get himself fired," Mark clarified.

"Big fucking deal, he gets fired," Donghyuck said while the game on the screen loaded the next level. "I told you working at that stupid fancy dance studio was a bad idea."

Mark felt his pulse increase. "Then what is he supposed to do, huh? Work a bunch of dead-end low-paying jobs for the rest of his life like the rest of us?"

A bunch of quiet disgruntled murmurs overtook the room. No one too pleased by the man's words.

"He's making something of himself. Better than what any one of us is doing. Maybe someday it will amount to some good. But that won't matter if he throws it all away for some girl who's already taken with someone else."

Jisung's shoulders slumped more as the older talked. He definitely had a point there.

Although, he found it hard to think of Xia as just 'some girl'. She was more than that.

"Jeno, help me out here, please," Mark pleaded to the man sat on the opposite side of the couch as Jisung.

He didn't hear anything though. Far more interested in the girl sitting on his lap, kissing Chae as if nothing else in the world mattered.

"Jeno? Jeno!"

Mark finally gave up, letting out a long exasperated sigh and made his way to the fridge in search for a beer of his own.

Donghyuck — who sat next to the couple with no discomfort, after all, this was a common occurrence for the very PDA-friendly pair — whacked Jeno hard on the shoulder without looking away from his game.

The man reluctantly pulled apart from his girlfriend and glared at his friend.

"What?" He asked. Not bothering to hide his annoyance.

Donghyuck shrugged it off easily.

"Opinions on Jisung fucking around with that Xia chick from the dance studio," he caught the couple up to speed with the conversation.

Jeno gave it some thought, which was proven to be more difficult due to his girlfriend's inability to keep her lips to herself, lining his neck with lingering kisses.

"How serious is this other guy? The fiancé I mean. I know that if some guy knew about me and still tried to get at Chae I would have to beat him to a pulp."

"Aw, babe," Chae kissed his cheek and his hardened expression dissipated into a sweet eye smile, affectionately rubbing the girl's arm.

Mark let out an amused chuckle. "More like he'd pay someone to beat him up. This is Zhong Chenle we're talking about," he joked darkly while sitting down across from Jaemin.

"Zhong Chenle?" Chae suddenly sat up straight, surprised to hear that name. "Like the Zhong Chenle?"

"Don't tell me you know him," Jeno said to the girl in a half-joking manner.

"No, but his family's wealth is insane! They own one of the largest media conglomerates in the world right now."

There was a spark of interest in the air. Even those that were 'not paying attention' to the conversation began to listen closely.

"Yeah, that's the one," Mark said, unimpressed.

"But he just got engaged to..." Chae gasped loudly, startling a few of the boys. "You're telling me that Jisung hooked up with Liang Xia?!?"

An uncontrollable smile came to her face out of pure excitement.

Jeno's eyebrows furrowed together. "I'm sorry, can we go back for a second? How do you know so much about this man?"

The girl just laughed and held her boyfriend's face as if he had just asked the silliest thing ever.

"Babe, these people are like Neo City royalty. The Liangs own, like, half of the city's real estate!"

"That... doesn't answer my question."

"Who cares about all that? Money doesn't make a good relationship," Donghyuck pointed out.

"Agreed," Jaemin replied. "Chenle might be engaged to her but that doesn't necessarily imply that they're in love. There are plenty of people who get married without love."

"Or he could be really devoted to Xia, and genuinely wants to spend the rest of his life with her," Mark counters.

"You seem to know a lot about Chenle," Chae questioned with narrowed eyes and a raised brow.

"I don't."

"Well, you seem like you do."

"I'm just trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. You never know anyone's situation truly," he said defensively.

"That and Mark once spent a summer with him back when he was in Canada," Donghyuck added that piece of information like he was announcing what they would be having for dinner.

A chorus of shocked 'what's were spread across the room by everyone else. Even Jisung who had been wallowing in his own little corner of the couch sat up a bit in response.

They knew that Mark's family were fairly well-off when they were in Canada, then something happened and Mark ended up in Neo City scrounging for rent money.

He didn't talk much about his past.

"It wasn't a whole summer, just a week or so. He was doing an exchange program at my university. We met at the basketball court and our friend groups hung out for a couple days..."

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