House Of Cards || NCT Mafia

Chapter eighteen : Orders are orders

"I still can't believe it," Chenle whispered while opening the front door with one hand and holding his apple in the other.

"What do you mean?" Jisung asked.

The Dreamies were slowly walking towards Yuta's car, who was driving them to school.

"How did you manage to sneak out and disappear for three hours without any of the hyungs noticing?" Chenle whined, looking at Jaemin.

The latter laughed. "Hey, keep your voice down, buddy," he warned as they were approaching Yuta.

"Why do you care so much about that job, anyway? If I could sneak out like you did, it certainly wouldn't be to go to work" Chenle said while rolling his eyes. "I mean, going to school is already enough of a pain in the-..." he was cut short by Renjun's hand.

"Language," he snapped.

"Sorry," the younger mumbled, while Jisung quietly laughed.

"What I meant was," Chenle corrected, "I don't understand why you would trouble yourself with a job when you're already busy with school and NCT."

"Actually," started the youngest of the group, "I don't get why you guys keep going to school at all when you don't need to."

Jeno, Jaemin, Haechan and Renjun looked at each other and shrugged.

"Yeah," Chenle added, agreeing with Jisung, "we are forced to go because Taeyong-hyung wants all of us to at least graduate from high school, but you guys don't have to go anymore. You should do like Mark-hyung. He's the only one who stopped after graduation."

Jisung nodded at the comment.

"That's because Mark-hyung is way busier. You know the role he plays in the team; he can't possibly consider having any extra activity besides his job here," Haechan explained to the younger boys.

"To be honest, he once told me he would have liked to go to university like us, to study music. But he didn't get the chance to," Jeno admitted, sad for the Canadian boy.

Chenle and Jisung nodded, but couldn't help finding weird that some people would voluntarily go to school when it wasn't mandatory. Yuta first dropped those two to their high school before driving off to the older boys' university.

"Thanks for dropping us off, hyung!" the boys yelled while already walking away, off to their different classes.

"Jaemin, hold up a second!" Yuta said, rolling down his car's window.

The boy stopped in his tracks, walking back to the car.

"Taeyong told me to warn you: you must keep your distance with Kang's daughter. Ten is watching her, and he was ordered to keep him updated on who she talks and spends time with, especially if it's one of you guys. So whatever relationship you had with her, whether it was some kind of friendship or not, it's over."

Jaemin's face went pale.

"Sorry, buddy," Yuta said when he noticed the sad face on his younger brother. "But orders are orders."

And with that, he rolled up the window and drove off to God knows where, leaving a lost and livid Jaemin on the college's parking lot.

"Oh, hi Jaemin!"

The boy knew that voice too well. He didn't even have to turn around to know that Iseul was behind him, smiling kindly like she always does. He had just entered the main building that he heard her greeting him happily as she does every day. But this time, Jaemin wouldn't greet her back like he used to. He couldn't. "Orders are orders."

He knew the rules. And as much as he appreciated the girl, his family came first. If Taeyong had given him an order, he had to follow.

And so he kept walking, ignoring her gentle voice, already picturing in his mind her confused face and furrowed eyebrows when she'd see him walking away from her, without even a glance in her direction.

Iseul was confused, but shrugged it off thinking he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. After all, even the lover boy of the school could have his day off. She then entered the class soon after him, seating at her usual spot next to Chaewon who was already sleeping on her desk, when the day hadn't even started yet.

The girl greeted her friend and opened her bag to take out her books. As she did, something fell off her bag and hit the floor, making a small sound that alerted the girl of its presence.

She picked the object up, curious. It was a bracelet, but it wasn't hers, she was sure of it. It was very pretty, with small blue pearls, and a white symbol on the center. She turned her head in Chaewon's direction.

"Hey, Chaewon," she nudged her friend to wake her up. The girl groaned, annoyed that someone interrupted her morning nap.

"What?" she mumbled, looking at Iseul.

"Is it yours?" she asked, showing her the bracelet. Her friend shook her head "No," she said. "But it's really pretty, where did you find it?"

"It fell from my bag," Iseul answered. "I don't know how it got there."

Chaewon smirked, "Maybe you have a secret admirer?"

Iseul scoffed, not believing a word of it, "Really funny," she said.

Her friend pouted, "Well I think you should keep it anyways, it's really cute and if it's somebody else's they can just ask you to give it back to them when they see it on your wrist."

Iseul thought about it for a second before agreeing. It's not stealing, she thought, and it won't hurt anybody. If anyone notices and tells me it's theirs, I'll just give it back.

She put the bracelet on her wrist, admiring the detailed material on her skin. Chaewon was right, it was pretty.

A few moments later, the professor came in and started his class.

"Alright, now we will be testing this theory with an actual experience, put on a lab coat, you'll find the material in the back of the room. You'll be doing this in pairs," the teacher's voice was soon covered by students talking amongst themselves.

Somebody raised their hands, "Can we choose our own partners?"

The teacher sighed "No, you'll find your lab partner on the list here," he pointed at the wall, where a sheet of paper was pinned up to a cork board.

The classroom soon turned into a mess as all the students ran to the list to find out who they were partnered with, some high fiving each other, some others sighing. Iseul slowly made her way into the mass, using her finger to find her name. When she finally did, she traced an invisible line to meet her partner's name.

Na Jaemin

She smiled, happy to be paired up with her friend, and spun around to try to find him. Turns out he was next to her, also reading her name. As she smiled up to him, he simply looked past her and raised his hand and asked with a cold voice:

"Sir, can we change partners?"