House Of Cards || NCT Mafia

Chapter sixty-three : Little Red Riding Hood

Renjun was finishing treating Iseul's wounds when Doyoung came in, not surprised to see the two in the room.

He stood behind the boy without a word for a few minutes, observing his movements, and Renjun didn't seem to mind.

"Good job," Doyoung said, congratulating Renjun on his work. He didn't answer, but his proud smirk spoke for him.

"Oh, and Iseul," the older man added, "Taeyong changed his mind, he doesn't want to see you at the moment, so Renjun will escort you to your room where you'll be staying until further notice, understood?" he raised an explicit eyebrow at her. 

A part of her wanted to contest, but she knew she didn't have a choice. And besides, the last thing she wanted right now was to face the intimidating leader. She got up from the bed, Renjun quickly following behind her after cleaning up the mess they had made.

"Thank you," she spoke when they reached her door.

He shot her a confusing look, "What for?"

"Treating my wounds," she replied. "I knew you weren't all bad," she smirked, and he scoffed.

"Are you kidding? I'm a nightmare," he sneered. "And besides, I just obeyed a direct order from my leader. If it was up to me, I would have let you bleed out."

"Sure thing," Iseul replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  "Good night."

In Taeyong's office, Jaemin was looking down at his feet.

"You're lucky the alarm did its job and warned me about the situation right away," the leader began, "or else I wouldn't have given much for your chances against them."

He didn't let Jaemin speak and went on, "I mean, did you even think about what you were doing?" he growled. "Of what could have happened if we never showed up?"

"It's not like I meant for it to happen..." Jaemin mumbled, but Taeyong heard him.

"No, you're right," he said, "instead, you were just ready to let Iseul escape!" he yelled.

"For the last time, she wasn't trying to escape," Jaemin raised his voice as well before regretting it when he saw the glimpse of rage in Taeyong's eyes.
"She said it herself," he lowered his tone, "why would she try to run away when she's the one who agreed to stay here? She just wanted to go out for a bit because it's getting oppressive in this house. She doesn't even know for how long she'll be staying here because you're not working with her to take down Kang, which is the precise reason of her presence here."

"Are you accusing me of something, Jaemin?"

"N-No," the boy stuttered. "It's just, if you could tell her how things are progressing on the matter, maybe she'd feel better. Or maybe if people in this house were respectful, she wouldn't want to get out."

"She could have changed her mind, you know," Taeyong replied, looking straight through Jaemin's eyes. "Maybe she doesn't want to help us anymore and wants to go back, but knows we won't let her. She could have really been trying to escape- "

"Se was picking flowers," Jaemin cut him off. "That's it. She got in trouble with those men because she was foolish enough to walk away from me so she could get her stupid flowers. I was too busy arguing with Renjun and I didn't see her walk away."

"She what?" Taeyong asked, dumfounded, his brows furrowed. "All of this... because she was picking flowers..." he couldn't believe someone would be that imprudent just to get flowers. Did she think she was Little Red Riding Hood or something?

"She just happened to meet those men when she was on her own, but that's it. I mean she's the one they attacked in the first place. Besides, she got in trouble because she didn't want to give away any information about us."

"What do you mean?" Taeyong grew even more confused.

Jaemin sighed, "I heard them. They told her they wouldn't hurt her if she gave them everything she had on us, but she didn't. Because she's not a snake like her father, and because we can trust her. Instead, she started to beat their asses, which was really impressive, by the way, but things got bad when they called for backup, and that's how I ended up asking Renjun and the others to come," he explained.

Taeyong had listened to his explanation carefully and nodded.

"I see... Well then I guess that will be all," he said. "You'll be on weapon's duty, then. I want you to polish every single weapon we own until you can see your reflection in it, understood?" Taeyong commanded.

"But why? We didn't do anything wrong, it's not our fault we were attacked," Jaemin whined, really not wanting to spend his night in the cold armory.

"You mean besides the fact that you disobeyed a direct order?" Taeyong asked, giving him an inquisitive look. "I specifically told all of you to make sure Iseul would stay inside, and by your fault, you both could have gotten severely hurt. So I don't want to hear any 'buts' and you'll be doing as I say, clear? I think you've already questioned my authority enough as it is," he snapped.

Jaemin gulped and nodded, not wanting to make him angrier. And now that he thought of it, the punishment wasn't that bad, it could have been worse, like when Donghyuck had to wash all the walls in the house because he thought it'd be funny to play paintball inside when Taeyong wasn't home. He had spent an entire week on it to make sure not a single drop of paint was still on the walls.

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Alright I forgot to talk about it before but like...NCT DREAM, DREAM COMEBACK, MARK COMEBACK, NO MORE GRADUATIONS??
Our prayers have been heard NCTzens!!