Beautiful Deception

T H R E E

I only nodded, and he scooted up next to me, wrapping the other half of the material around him. My heart pounded loudly in my chest, and I caught myself wondering if he could hear it.

Using his hands to keep the blanket tightly in place, he slid even closer to me, so that now our shoulders pressed up against each other. I struggled to remember how to breathe once he flashed another grin my way.

I'd be stupid to deny the fact that Mark Lee was outrageously attractive; the shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes gave him a rogueish look, and his equally dark eyes were haunting in their beauty. I wanted to know how many other girls had fallen for that captivating gaze.

We were quiet for a few minutes, and I switched my attention back to the night sky. I studied the stars so intently, I nearly forgot Mark was there.

"You like stars, too?" He asked, causing me to stare at him.

"Of course, I'd be crazy not to." I answered.

"I mean, just look at them. It's gorgeous." I added, tilting my head back and letting the faint moonlight wash over my face while I admired them.

Mark agreed, "I've always been fond of stars, but sometimes I get so busy I don't have time to come out here and look. I'm glad I did tonight though."
I merely hummed in response.

After a pause, he spoke up again, voice still soft.
"Actually, the real reason I came out here was to talk to you about earlier." He breathed in deeply, readying himself to explain something. I focused in on him again, listening.

"First, I'd like to apologize for how sudden all of this is. You went from a normal life to this twisted madness in a split second, and that's hard for anyone to go through. I'm impressed with how strong you've been about it." I ducked my head, smiling a bit.

"Also, I want to tell you that although we won't pressure you to make an immediate decision, I think you should know that each hour you spend thinking about it is another hour Hansol could be planning ways to ambush you. If you decide that you'd prefer to try to live outside the gang, you'd have our eyes and ears, but we can't always promise safety."

Even though I already knew this, it made me sad to hear it said out loud.

He caught his breath and then continued,
"However, if you do join NCT, I want you to understand that it's not all missions and guns. We actually have a lot of fun with each other. It might seem silly, but something we do a lot is hide-and-go-seek in the dark. It's especially fun with the Dreamies, and on weekends Jaehyun's girlfriend brings us ice cream."

Dreamies. What a cute name for such a deadly group.

"And on our birthdays, we force 127 to bake a cake, even though most of them are terrible cooks so it ends up burnt. But we make the frosting in all kinds of colors, and on Taeyong's birthday we did a fire truck on it. That's actually the only one this year that turned out okay."

He kept on rambling about life outside of the missions, and for whatever reason, I found his love of the members incredibly endearing.
I giggled as he scratched his head before he started again.

"And okay, you're probably going to think this is stupid, but every Tuesday night we all get together and watch a Disney movie or two, and on Wednesdays we watch a superhero movie. I'm always stuck with popcorn duty, and Johnny always puts way too much butter on it. But it still tastes good."

These guys must really look out for each other if they do things like this, I thought to myself.

What would it be like if I were to make those memories with them?