Cooked // NCT Groupchat

-68-

It was 1:00 am and Kun was driving. Everyone else seemed to be asleep. Everyone except Rosa. The girl was wide awake as she looked up at the street lights that they would pass by.

"N-no give me back the matches Hyuk" Rosa quietly chuckled as she looked down to see Mark's sleeping figure. She ran her fingers through his hair and wondered what he could possibly be dreaming about.

She thought about how close the group was to one another. Although, they were all split between the various sub units, at the end of the day, they all came together to form some sort of a chaotic family.

Family.

It was something that always eluded Rosa. Her father was the reason they were all in this mess, and now her step mother was getting a divorce. Ten and his mother were some of the only people that treated her as though she truly belong, but now, they were leaving too.

They were only step siblings after all. They were not related by blood, only by their parents matrimony and that was soon coming to a close. She wondered,
after her father's divorce, who would Rosa be to Ten?

Just another person?

Someone from the past?

Eventually, a stranger?

Tears started to prick her eyes at the thought. She didn't want that, but it seemed to be the inevitable truth. Rosa was going to loose Ten in the next few days and along with him, the rest of them.

The girl bit her lip in hopes of fighting of a sob. However, when she turned away from the window to see Mark's sleeping figure leaning on her shoulder, the tears started to silently roll down her checks.

She was going to loose all of them and that meant Mark too.

Rosa started to use one of her hands to wipe away the tears while the other brought the boy closer to her. She couldn't tell him now, it would only hurt him more. She didn't belong with them, that was obvious... it was now.

"Don't go there" He murmured in his sleep. Could he hear her thoughts? Feel that she was in pain? No that was impossible. He was probably dreaming of Haechan setting the dorm on fire or something along those lines. A small laugh played on her lips at that thought. It was the type of chaos she would miss.

She wondered what she could possibly do. Everything was up in the air and nothing felt solid to her anymore. She had the restaurant, her father's arranged marriage, and this wild road trip running through her thoughts.

What was she going to do?

-

"Alright" Taeyong spoke with a yawn as he and Jaehyun returned with sets of keys. "They don't have enough rooms for each one of us so we are all going to have to pair up." He placed 12 keys on the tables before Jaehyun added. "Since this all last minute, they barley had enough room for all of us. This means that some of the rooms have two queens and others have one king bed."

Taeyong nodded before saying "Whoever wants a room with a king bed can take one and from there will choose at random. However, first everyone needs to pair up."

It was about 2 am when they made it to a 24 hour motel. It was not as bad as Rosa would have thought. The lobby was lavished and seemed rather nice. If it weren't for the "motel" sign up front, she would have assumed it to be a small hotel.

After taking one more glance around, she started to walk up to Ten. "Hey Chetto, do you want to be my partner?" She was hoping to get a few more happy memories with him before everything went down. Rosa hoped she could have time to come to terms with what she was going to do.

He smiled at her and replied "Sorry Rosa, you see..." He replied as his gaze turned towards to Johnny who was next to him. The girl connected the dots pretty quickly and gave him a small smile "I got it. You don't have to elaborate." She replied before taking a looking around "I'll go ask Lucas then."

Her best friend was the next best option. Rosa did not want to be around Mark at the moment. It hurt to much to see him and she was trying to distance herself in hopes of softening the blow. However, at her words, Ten's eyes grew wide "No!"

See, after figuring out who was "in love with Rosa" in the separate group chat, Johnny had filled Ten in. Sure it shocked him at first, but he figure it made enough sense. However, as the protective brother he was, Ten was not about to let his younger sister stay the night with a guy that was into her.

In reality, he knew for a fact that his friend would never do something against Rosa's wishes, however, he knew that a one night stand was nothing new to the girl either. Overall, Ten wanted to protect the small semblance of innocence she had left in his eyes.

Rosa looked at her brother with a quirked brow. "Huh?" She asked a bit curious to her brothers reaction. "What he means is that Lucas is already paired with Jungwoo." Johnny replied swooping in just in time.

The girl turned to see that Jungwoo and Lucas were trying to pick a key card from the pile on the lobby coffee table. She immediately shrugged off her prior curiosity and started to wonder who she would ask next.

"Rosa, wanna share a room?" Mark asked walking up to the three of them. He had a sleepy smiled plastered on his face and his hands where placed in the pockets of his sweats.

The girl was about to politely decline, however, she realized that it would come off as weird to Johnny and Ten if she did. After all, up until now, Mark and Rosa were practically inseparable throughout the entire trip.

The girl took in a deep breath before she nodded her head "Yeah that sounds good." The boy's smile widened as he gently took the sleeve of her sweater. He walked towards the coffee table of key cards with her in tow.

"Are you alright with that?" Johnny skeptically asked as he turned towards Ten. He eyed the pair before responding "Yeah, I doubt anything is going on with those two." Johnny looked at him once more "Sure." he fished in his pocket for the key card Jaehyun had given him. "Anyways, we should probably start heading up." Ten nodded and started to follow him.

Meanwhile, Rosa and Mark had picked their key card and started walking towards their room. "Are you sure about that?" Rosa asked with a smile on her lips. Mark chuckled in return "oh come on, eny miny mow always works." He was confident in his method of key selection.

The two kept walking for a bit before they made it to their room door. Mark swiped the card and opened the door for the girl. She walked in and looked at what they were working with.

She looked at the room.

Then, she looked at Mark.

"Eny miny mow always works, huh?" She rhetorically asked before looking back at the singular king bed that occupied most of their room space.

"Uhhhhh"