House Of Cards || NCT Mafia

Chapter seventy-four : Skilled student

Jeno was so close to her that Iseul could feel the pressure of his legs on hers, strong enough to keep her in place but not too much so he wasn't hurting her, and she could feel his breath softly blowing on her face. She didn't know if it was the fact that Jeno was so close to her or the fact that she was already feeling drained from the fight that made her breathing difficult, but Iseul felt her heartrate accelerate all of a sudden.

Jeno wasn't moving, his eyes fixed on hers, and his breath hitched as he gulped. Iseul's mind snapped back to reality when she heard someone huff and she took advantage of Jeno's lack of focus to kick him off of her. The boy didn't see that coming and he was now the one pinned to the ground, with Iseul's foot on his throat to prevent him from moving, exactly like she had done the very first time they had fought together.

"You really need to stop doing that," he groaned and she chuckled while helping him back up.

"Alright," Sicheng spoke and Jaemin and Mark just stood there with their mouth agape. "That was... impressive," he said.

Even Donghyuck didn't find a salty remark to make as he tried to hide his surprise the best he could behind a stone cold face.

Iseul smiled and bowed, happy with the compliment and Jeno gave her a thumb up to congratulate her. Jaemin just rolled his eyes at the scene in front of him and Mark playfully nudged him with his elbow.

Then it was Mark's turn, and this time, Iseul didn't expect him to be that good. It's true she had heard lots of great things about how Mark was the Ace, and a gifted fighter, but actually witnessing it was something else. She had her butt kicked in less than five minutes. And no matter how hard she tried; Mark always seemed to be able to predict her next move somehow. Every single time.

Watching Mark fight was always really impressive, and the others were still amazed whenever they saw how sharp and fast his movements were. After the umpteenth time of being hit or put to the ground, Iseul's body was starting to hurt, and Sicheng seemed to notice it.

"Alright, that's enough for now," he said and Mark extended his hand to help her back up.

"Sorry," he smiled sheepishly while scratching the back of his head as he noticed the girl rubbing her arm where he had punched her.

"It's fine," she smiled. It was a fight, it's not like they were supposed to be considerate towards their opponent.

"How about we take a break and eat lunch?" Sicheng offered and everyone nodded.

As the others hurried, Iseul stayed behind with Jaemin and Jeno. "You did great Iseul," Jaemin smiled. "I have to admit I'm still shocked whenever I see you fight, but you're skilled."

"Thank you," she replied. "But I did pretty bad against Mark, though... I'm surprised Haechan didn't bark a sarcastic comment at me."

"It's because he knows you're good," Jeno spoke, putting a hand on her shoulder. "He might act like an ass but he's not stupid and he can recognize talent when he sees it. And besides," he added, "you've done way better than him against Mark-hyung. We all know how to fight, so we can defend ourselves, but some of us are better than others... that's why we have specific roles. Whenever someone fights against Mark-hyung, they only last for three minutes or so, but you were able to keep going for at least six minutes."

Iseul frowned. Six minutes? Everything went so fast she had felt like it was seconds.

"In other words," Jaemin said as he took Jeno's hand off her shoulder, "you did better than a lot of us."

Iseul smiled, proud of herself.

As everyone was starting to take a seat at the table, Sicheng joined everyone and looked around, looking for someone.

"Has anyone seen Taeyong-hyung?" he asked and everyone stopped talking.

A few shook their heads no, and Johnny spoke up, "No, I haven't. I went to see him this morning, but he wasn't in his office," he shrugged.

Winwin frowned. "That's weird," he mumbled. Taeyong never left the room he worked in, and the members usually joked about how useless his room was since he basically lived in the office.

Truth was, Taeyong woke up early. He had a terrible headache, probably caused by the amount of alcohol he had been drinking the night before. As his mind slowly began to function again, he almost had a stroke. All the memories from last night came back to him, making Taeyong want to throw up. He really must have drunk a lot to have talked about his past to Iseul.

The last thing he wanted was to face the girl, so he left for the morning. He didn't know where he was going, but his feet unconsciously dragged him to that place. His old house. Well, where his old house used to be, at least. Now, it was just a waste ground.

He let himself drown in the sea of memories, walking around like a lost child. Once he was ready to go back, it was with a new determination that he whispered, "I promise I'll make them pay."

As soon as he put a foot in the house, Kun almost jumped on him, "Where were you?" he asked.

"Hello to you too," he replied. "Where is Iseul?"

"She's training with Winwin, Mark and Jeno like you asked."

"Good. How is she doing?"

"Pretty great from what I've been told. She lasted six minutes against Mark and beat Jeno's butt again."

Taeyong nodded and got in his office, where Kun followed him.

"Seriously, where have you been? It's been a while since you've last disappeared like that."

A couple of years back, Taeyong used to literally disappear from time to time, sometimes for an hour, and sometimes for a few days. No one knew where he went, and no one dared to ask. Well, except for Doyoung, who leaned against the door.

"You went back there again, didn't you?"

Taeyong frowned but nodded, not really fond of the fact that Doyoung could read him so easily.

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