we the cursed, nct dream ✔

part eight

Hopefully, these two aren't snitches.

"Look what I found," she decides to say, ushering them in with a wave of her hand. They pause for only a little bit before crossing the threshold, and she swings the bathroom door open. "It was hurt, and I couldn't just leave it there."

The second Jeno's eyes lock on the tiny kitten, a delighted gasp leaves his lips and he rushes forward to scoop it into his arms. The cat, obviously loving the attention, bumps his nose with its tiny pink one as Jeno coos at it. Juno watches them interact, smiling amusedly.

She can't decide which is cuter.

"Where in the hell did you find a cat?" Jaemin asks, but even he can't hide his smile when Jeno passes it over to him to hold.

"In a bush outside." Juno answers simply.

"But no animals are allowed in the school," Jeno says, brows furrowing. "And as far as I know, no one's ever discovered any around before."

"I know," Juno says. "So the cat must've gotten in some other way."

"She's a girl," Jeno informs her. "What are you going to name her, by the way?"

"Hmm." Juno stares at the kitten, who stares back at her with its pretty blue eyes. "Shawty."

Everyone blinks at her, including the cat.

At their weirded out glances, Juno chuckles. "My boyfriend back home and I promised that if we ever got a pet, we'd name it Shawty. We thought it would be cute." The memory flashes vividly in her mind as the word "ex" lodges in her throat. Even now, the weirdness of the breakup is still very much present.

Jaemin and Jeno just stare at her, and she clears her throat. "Come, Shawty!" The kitten mewls softly, evidently in approval of her new name, and extricates herself from Jaemin's hold to clamber into Juno's arms. The girl grins. She's never had any pets before, but this little kitten is already growing on her.

"Anyway," Jaemin starts, still shaking his head slightly, "you said she must've come from somewhere else if there aren't any animals on school grounds. What did you mean?"

Juno thinks back to when she went outside yesterday. The school grounds are massive, but she was able to walk to where they ended. Tall barbed-wire walls that stand at least twenty feet high ensure that the only way to come in and out really is by plane. There are no gates. Nothing enters the school that it doesn't know about.

But Juno thinks this little kitten just might have.

"I'm insinuating that perhaps this place isn't as inaccessible as we're led to believe."

"If there was a secret exit, someone would've found it and the school would probably have already had it closed," Jaemin rebuts.

"Maybe," Juno says. "Or maybe the school doesn't know that someone found it."

"Nobody has ever managed to escape."

"Well, that's what we're told."

The two stare each other down for a moment. Shawty, evidently uncomfortable with the sudden silence in the room, meows loudly to break it. Jeno clears his throat.

"Maybe there's an opening underground or something, but just large enough for a cat to pass through. We could be overthinking," he tells the two.

"That is a possibility," Juno allows. "Or perhaps there is a way out of this creepy school." She pauses. "I can't be the only one who's suspicious of this place. There's something really off here, in spite of all the nice things they try to distract us with."

"Of course it's weird," Jaemin snorts. "It's a correctional institution. There's really nothing that screams rainbows and unicorns about that, is there?"

Juno levels a gaze at him. "To correct what? Our freakishness? Our grades? These weird powers that suddenly seem to exist in all of us?" She cocks a brow. "There's something bigger going on here. You might not see it, but that's the truth."

"Let's say there is." Jaemin cocks his head to the side, voice icy. "What are you going to do? Dissolve the entire administration? It's your first and last year here. If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your head down and just finish so you can hurry and graduate. You'll mind your business if you're smart."

She takes a few slow steps over to where he is, so close that their arms are almost brushing. Shawty's head is tilted up, looking between the two. A small smirk creeps onto Juno's lips, and Jaemin doesn't notice that he's started holding his breath. "Here's the thing," she begins. "It's a problem, really. I have never been particularly good at minding my own business."

Shawty meows to get attention, but it goes unnoticed.

Juno isn't finished. "And this is my business. If we're going to finish school here, we have a right to know exactly what the hell is going on. Now, if you, like everyone else, apparently, don't care to know or find out, I couldn't give less of a damn. But I am not going to ignore what's taking place around me, and if you are smart, you won't either."

Jaemin would never, ever admit it... but he's a little intimidated.

Jeno nervously glances between the two. "You two really need to chill out. Damn."

Juno steps away, turning to Jeno instead. "But I've been wondering about something. Where other schools would normally separate boys' dorms from the girls, that doesn't happen here. And usually I'd get busted for this-" She points to her lip ring- "Or even just having dyed hair, but everyone here seems to have it. Why doesn't the school care about this stuff?"

"Because it's irrelevant," Jeno shrugs. "Remember the two main things that are focused on here? Separating dorms rooms and getting at students for what they wear doesn't really affect those things, and if they do, the "distractions" are taken away immediately." He pauses. "And none of us can really control the dyed hair thing anyway."

Juno nods thoughtfully.

Jeno sighs. "Look, it isn't like none of us haven't noticed how sketchy this place is. But we realize that it'd just be easier to finish and leave, you know? Ignorance is bliss for a reason." His next words sound unreasonably foreboding to her. "Sometimes, people willfully choose not to go digging for answers because they know they won't like what they find."

The silence following his statement is deafening.

"Come on, let's head upstairs. And give... Shawty to me so I can smuggle her in my hoodie. The boys will wanna see her." Juno hands her to Jeno, and she follows reluctantly as they head off. Juno makes a mental note not to mention the school's sketchiness ever again.

It seems to be a sore subject.

Author's Note

aight so i admit this was supposed to be a jaemin fanfic but i'm indecisive so now it's just a general dream story and whatever happens will happen :)

also i have up to like chap 20 prewritten so if you see anything that doesn't add up let me know bc i have no memory lmao