[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Another Interrogation

"Where's Ruby?" Mark asked as soon as Taeyong came down to the basement with Yuta. YangYang had wanted to take his place at the register today, leaving him capable to play with Bella since Lucas had stopped at his house to get her after school.

"Home. Yuta made me come right after school."

"You don't have anything with the school?" Doyoung had been surprised to see him considering he was almost always involved in something. Even if he wasn't technically involved.

"It's probably my only free day." He took a seat next to Doyoung on a crate, his backpack on the ground as Yuta threw himself onto his bed.

"What do you do at the school?" Jeno asked before Mark could.

"I pop into whatever. Music club, anime club, dance club, the elementary art nights... Whatever seems interesting for the day."

"So you know lots of people."

"You could say that."

"Hendery! How long do you wear the eye patch for?"

"Forever." That shut down the other questions Mark was going to ask until Lucas gave Hendery a look and the two started laughing.

"He's joking."

"Once my eye stops being gross I can take it off. I probably won't. It looks cool."

"Anymore questions, detective Mark?" Yuta teased, and Haechan mumbled something about him always having questions.

"Yes. Haechan, how does your hair stay purple?"

"Dragon blood."

"His brother puts beet juice in his shampoo." Jeno exposed, remembering the day he first came out of the house like that.

"Cool. So do you two live together?" Mark looked to Lucas and Hendery.

"No, but we live really close." Lucas answered, though he had tried many times to get Hendery to live with him so his older brother couldn't traumatize him.

"Kun, why are you always so tired?"

"I have to take care of Granny, clean the house, and deal with you kids." Even just sitting there working on his homework he looked like he was ready to go to sleep. Chenle sitting on his lap was probably the only thing keeping him awake.

"Fair enough," he paused for a moment, "Sicheng, can we call you WinWin?"

"Sure."

"Taeyong, how'd you get the scar?" The older deftly reached up to brush his fingers over the small scar by his eye.

"Present from my mom's cigarette."

"You get one more question before I make you shut up." Haechan threatened, actually trying to do his homework after Johnny said he wouldn't be allowed any more treats and Kun scolded him. Again.

"I was done-"

"Even better."

"Why are you so grumpy?" Jaehyun teased, coming down the stairs with the others that had been working.

"None of this makes sense! It's stupid!" He waved his papers everywhere, refraining from ripping them up.

Doyoung got up from his crate and sat next to him on Mark's bed, taking the papers from him and looking them over. Jungwoo got up and gave him a hug to calm him down, Chenle throwing a juice box at him.

So the older kids stopped what they were doing and helped out any of the younger kids who didn't understand any of what they were learning, each of them taking turns to explain things to Haechan since he had a lot of work he had to turn in that he didn't do. When they finally got to working on their own homework, it was practically an impossible feat.

With the younger kids excited to be done with their work and running around playing, it was too hard to focus. But as soon as they weren't focusing, Jungwoo would walk over with his best teacher impression and point strictly back down to the paper. Until Yuta got frustrated and pinned him to the bed, laying on top of him to keep him from pointing at his paper for the twentieth time.

Chenle switched himself between everyone's laps as they worked, staying in Jaehyun's the longest. Bella was still running around the basement, though, keeping up with the kiddos until they all crashed.

Literally. They were all in a pile in the middle of the floor, but no one was going to take the effort to get up.