[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

New Friends

The three boys walked down the street, Mark between the older two after having been used to ask if they could go to the park. It was quickly being noticed that Johnny's Mom had a major soft spot for Mark, and there was no way they weren't going to use that to their advantage. Occasionally and only when absolutely needed, of course.

Johnny had a baseball in his hand and Jaehyun had a basketball. Either one was fine playing on their own so long as they got out, but Mark wasn't able to decide quite yet. He was just happy he had cousins to play with.

"Mr. Johnny-"

"Just Johnny."

"Yeah. Will the park be busy? Do lots of kids come from your school?"

"There's a couple kids there all the time, but I'm not sure about my school since there's so many." Johnny shrugged, tossing the ball in the air and catching it. "Why?"

"I was hoping to meet some kids before school started."

"You might want to switch to Korean then." Jaehyun nudged him playfully, and he pouted. The Canadian had been conversing in English only, even responding to Korean in English. The most Korean they had heard him use was at the register so far.

Jaehyun smiled brightly when he saw the basketball court from the street, running ahead of the others into the park and dribbling up the court for a layup. Mark ran after him and decided he was going to play with him, so Johnny stood off to the side and watched them, throwing the baseball up in the air and catching it.

A few couples were walking around together and a couple families were out, but not many kids were out on their own like they were. He just assumed they were gathered somewhere else until he heard some shouting not too far from them.

"Do you even know who we are? We're the powerful three from all three schools! If you mess with us," the kid hissed. "you'll have a lot more to deal with later."

"You think we're gonna be scared by three elementary kids? That one's holding a kitten!"

"Do we just let that happen?" Jaehyun asked, looking on worriedly.

"Dad said not to get involved. Worst comes to worst an adult can call the police and split them up."

"You might want to tell Mark that." Jaehyun pointed to the eight year old running up to the three kids, telling them to stop in English.

A curse word ran through Johnny's mind before he ran after him, Jaehyun right on his heels. Three elementary kids were standing in front of two older guys that Johnny had seen on the wrestling team. Each of the kids had different hair colors, purple, brown and black. The one with black hair had glasses and the kitten in his arms, and the one with purple hair appeared to be the one talking back.

"Stop picking on these kids!" Mark stood in front of the three kids with his hands on his hips.

"Korean, Mark." Jaehyun said with a sigh, and Mark repeated himself in Korean. The guys snickered and Johnny could instantly tell this wasn't going to end good.

"Sorry about my cousin. We'll be going now. Mark." Johnny reached out to grab his hand, but he shrugged him off.

"Hold on, I'm making Spider Man proud."

"Yeah, stop trying to take away my Mark!" The kid with purple hair exclaimed, stepping forward to put his arm around him.

"You want a fight? We'll give you a fight." The guys cracked their knuckles and necks, and Jaehyun looked to Johnny with wide eyes.

"Think we can take 'em?"

"Heck no. We're gonna run. You take Mark and Tinky Winky, I'll get the other two." Johnny whispered, counting down quietly.

"It was nice meeting you, but we gotta go." At the last word Jaehyun and Johnny rushed forward and grabbed the kids, running straight out of the park where they knew it would be harder for the guys to chase them on the streets.

Johnny led them past the cafe just in case, stopping and hiding in an alleyway. He shushed Tinky Winky from saying anything when he tried, only allowing them to head back to the cafe when he determined it was safe.

"Mom said I'm not supposed to go home with strangers." The kid with glasses said, and Johnny sighed.

"My name's Johnny. This is Jaehyun and Mark. There, we're not strangers."

"Cool! I'm YangYang. This is Jeno and Haechan." The quieter one said cheerfully, and Haechan glared at him.

"You weren't supposed to give them our names."

"But they gave us theirs. It'd be rude not to."

"Where are you taking us?" Haechan asked, his arm still around Mark.

"To our house, I need to know you guys aren't going to get in more trouble. You look like you need someone to protect you." The kids went silent, his words having struck some sort of chord with them.

"Is that your cat?" Jaehyun asked just to get the tension out of the air, and Jeno shrugged.

"He's a stray." The cat then jumped out of his arms, going back to the alley they had been in a minute ago. "Oh well."

They stopped in front of the cafe, and Johnny took a deep breath before pushing open the door.

Luckily his parents were upstairs in their home portion of the cafe, and the six of them were able to head straight to the basement. Haechan's eyes widened when he saw the open space, and Jeno had to nudge him off the last few steps of the stairs.

"Do any of you guys need a place to stay for the night? I can ask my parents."

"I should be fine tonight."

"Yeah, my Mom will want me home." Jeno and YangYang answered, but Haechan hesitated.

"Can I hang out here for a bit? I won't spend the night, though."

"Of course. I was hoping you'd hang out with us for a bit."

"Wait! You gotta put your birthday on the board!" Mark exclaimed, running over and tossing Haechan the marker. Jeno and YangYang then wrote theirs when he was done, even if they didn't understand why. The year they all wrote made them seven.

"There. Now we can be friends."