never not ✧ mark lee

07

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

On an early Wednesday morning, Mark woke up to the sound of his alarm and met Taeyong outside the dorm building again so they could go to practice together.

"Mark, you're fine right?" The leader of NCT looked at his younger friend with concern filling his eyes. At least Taeyong had gotten a break after Make A Wish, but Mark was immediately jumping from 90s Love promotions to juggling the filming Resonance release and preparation for SuperM's first album for which they were filming three music videos.

"I'm good," the younger assured Taeyong, and when they entered the practice room, they found Ten, Lucas, Baekhyun, Kai, and Taemin all already inside, so they immediately started off with practicing the choreography for One (Monster & Infinity). After an intense few hours of perfecting the details of the equally intense choreography, Mark and the others got to take a break for lunch.

"Mark Lee you're coming with me," Ten said, grabbing the boy and dragging him away from the rest of the group. Knowing exactly what Ten was going to start asking him about, Mark tried wriggling out of his grasp. He may not look like it, but he was one of the stronger NCT members so it was easy to escape Ten.

"We're talking about it later!" Ten called as Mark ran away as fast as he could. To his dismay, as he ran, he knocked straight into Johnny, who was just exiting one of the other practice rooms.

Johnny laughed and pushed Mark away, brushed off his shoulder where Mark had crashed. "Dude what are you doing?" he asked as Mark rubbed his forehead.

"Running away from Ten," Mark answered. "He was gonna ask--"

Mark caught himself before he could finish his sentence, but it was too late. Johnny had understood and a smirk grew on his face. He threw an arm around Mark and started walking, and Mark didn't even bother fighting this time knowing he was no match for the bigger guy.

"Ten, you said?" Johnny took his phone out. "Lemme call him and ask him to join us in the cafeteria."

"Come on dude..."

When the three friends were seated at a table with their food trays, instead of letting Johnny or Ten bring it up, Mark decided to take control of the conversation.

"Yo okay so like... why did y'all even do that in the first place?" Mark asked, picking at his rice with his fork. "You guys planned it, didn't you?"

To his surprise, his friends had a much nicer response than he had expected; one that he could barely even find the will to find a way to comeback to.

"We thought it would be good for you," Johnny began. "To find a new friend."

"You guys aren't my mom and dad though," Mark protested.