boys just wanna love | nct dream

HI, I'M JENO

ㄱ ㄱ ㄱ

"Mark, welcome home son."

That was odd. Mark's father was almost never home, so why was he casually sitting on the living room couch drinking some wine like it's no big deal?

"Hi...dad." Mark greeted back, quite awkwardly because he'd grown distant from the man by his prepubescent years. So that father and son bond had unfortunately faded quite a lot.

It just felt weird talking to his father again. Conversation between father and son were usually curt and straight to the point, but for some reason, he felt as if his father was going to talking to him quite a lot today.

"Just leave your luggage by the door and come take a seat will you?" Mark just simply obliged, not questioning the man's requests.

"As you know, I'll be retiring from my position soon, and you know what that means; I want you to lead the company after I retire. I want nobody else to do the job except my own son. It's quite the privilege if I do say so myself, so I expect you to be ready for training around next week after school. Got it?"

Mark felt like joining the 'yeet buddies' club. He knew this was coming, but he didn't know that it was coming so soon. It felt too real and he didn't want it to be real. Hell, he'd rather be thrown out onto the streets than take on his father's job.

He didn't want to be behind a desk all day, doing paperwork, attending meetings, creating business strategies, and all of that. He would much rather be drenched in sweat practicing choreography, or surviving off of caffeine in a studio where he could create music of his own.

"Mark, did you hear me?"

"Y-Yes sir."

"Good."

-🐢-

Mark plopped himself onto his bed and proceeded to scream into his pillow. After a good couple minutes of screaming and getting all of his frustrations out for the time being, he laid back onto his back again and stared blankly at his ceiling.

For what he would pay just to have Donghyuck right beside him right now. Just to wrap his arms around the younger and feel his plush skin underneath his fingertips again.

He reached out to his nightstand and grabbed ahold of his laptop. It was a good two weeks or so since he attended that audition, so maybe the company has emailed him during the time he was in Korea and China. There's only one way to find out, so here goes nothing.

-🐢-

"You're pretty freaking lucky you miss like the whole school year, but you still move up the grade."

"Lucky? Sure, but the fatigue is still there hyuck. I'll always crash after a long day and the thing is, it's only for a good four to five hours."

"Well thank you for honoring me with your time oh great Yerim." Donghyuck playfully bowed at the female, whilst she curtsied back.

"You're very welcome, sir Hyuck. Let's get going to that special hotteok place you told me about."

"On it." Donghyuck replies shortly, leading the female down the sidewalk.

The two had decided to hang out on the weekend, more specifically Saturday, so that Donghyuck could spill his inner emo boy thoughts to the female.

With the sun beaming down on them, the two had to squint their eyes a bit to shield their eyes.

"Gosh, I wished I had brought my sunglasses." Donghyuck muttered to himself, placing his hand over his eyes to create some kind of shade for his eyes.

"Well, at least we're almost to the place right?" Yerim optimized, shielding her eyes as well.

"Now that you reminded me, we're already here." The two stopped in front of a tiny quaint homey shop, seemingly from the early to late 1980s.

"Seems like a place that has some homemade secret recipe that makes the hotteok utterly delicious." The female commented while entering the shop with Donghyuck.

"You bet."

The smell of caramel filled their nostrils and all they could do was sigh dreamily at the sweet smell.

"Welcome back Donghyuck! I see you've brought a friend with you today." Mrs. Kang, the owner of the shop, greeted as she walked out from behind the counter to give Donghyuck a big hug.

A motherly kiss was placed on the boy's temple before she moved on the Yerim, "And you must be Yerim. My daughter's always talking about you and your group. If you don't mind, would you sign her album for her?"

With that warm smile of her's, Yerim found it hard to say no, "I would love to."

"Thank you honey. I'll just bring it down later, because I'm sure you two are here for our famous hotteok." Tightening the apron around her waist, she walked the two over to a table before going back behind the counter and into the open kitchen.

"She's literally so nice? Usually when people ask me for an autograph, they'd want me to sign first, goodies later."

"Yikes, sis."

"Anyways, how are you and your 'husband'?" Yerim questioned, making air quotations with her fingers.

Now that kind of struck a chord with the male, seeing as his mood got slightly down after Mark was mentioned.

"He went back to Canada." He answered curtly.

"What? Already? I thought he was going to stay here permanently though." She exclaimed, brows creased in confusion.

Donghyuck just shook his head glumly, "His dad wants him back in the business. Besides, he's supposed to take his dad's place in the family business once he retires for good."

"Wait. So you're telling me he's a rich bitch with a fulfilling life ahead of him and he opted to auditioning for SM Enterfuckment?" Yerim was now in full disbelief mode. How could someone with such a set life leave to be an idol?

"It's his dream Yerim. Music is his dream, and he wants to reach that dream. You have no idea how many times we'd be lying in bed and he's just musing on and one about creating music. Though it kind of gets annoying with the repetition, I can see how much he wants it."

Hearing her best friend rambling about Mark, kind of made her realize that even though you could have everything it the world, there are still some dreams that are left unreached or unanswered. Leaving an empty feeling within the person, and believe her, she's been there and done that. Wasn't pretty

She's seen the audition clip of Mark, and to say the least, the boy had talent. A talent that definitely shouldn't be wasted behind a desk.

-🐳-

oh look at that, another update after a good month, yIkEs. well, i kinda felt bad about leaving y'all on an updating drought while i work on 'nana', so here we have a very fucking long awaited chapter :)