word count: 3, 193
warnings: nct is a chaotic mess; rundown of the circumstance where mark was shot but it's just a brief recap, nothing graphic.
pages (paging mode): 20
note: for anyone who has been with this book from the beginning in april of 2018, im happy to inform you that i'm finally able to incorporate wayv into the plot! this was originally ot18 when i started writing it, but ive finally found a way to bring in ot21 :) keep an eye out for that in this part and the next!
***
January 25th, 9:31 A.M
location: infirmary wing, NCT underground.
mae
I woke up with a start and fell from the side of Mark's bed when my watch beeped twice.
I was so on edge lately; but I only had myself to blame for that.
I was constantly afraid that Taeil or Ten would find out about the night before last. I didn't know what I would say to them if they knew, but even worse was that I didn't know what they'd think of me after they discovered what I'd done.
I brushed myself off and stood up, instantly checking Mark's drip. It was half full, so I figured the medicines weren't likely to wear off before the meeting was done.
Satisfied, I pressed a hurried kiss to his head and dashed out of the door, making my way from the infirmary wing to the planning room.
I skidded to a stop at the entrance and nearly plowed right in to Ten, who was precariously balancing a huge box of donuts in one arm. He hardly even stumbled and turned to me with a warm smile.
"Good morning, Mae," he greeted, "did you get any sleep last night? I know you were up late treating Mark, but I hope you were able to rest a bit."
I smiled back as he held the door open for me with the hand that wasn't holding donuts. "Thanks for asking, and yeah, I got a few hours in."
"I'm glad to hear that." He responded, following me inside. We took our seats around the table and Ten set the box down.
Within seconds, Haechan and Jaehyun had already cleared out all of the frosted ones with sprinkles, only giving one up to WinWin's pout. I sighed at their antics, wondering for the millionth time how these boys could possibly be considered deadly, seeing how goofy and sugar-crazed they always were.
They were lucky they weren't in the music industry- they'd never be able to eat any of the junk they feed themselves with here.
Taeyong was the last of us to stroll in.
He took up his place at the head of the table, and when the doors swung shut behind him, an odd sort of quiet settled over us as all eyes looked to Mark's empty chair.
You did well, Mae. I reminded myself in an effort to dispel my doubts. Mark is going to be perfectly fine. You'll see.
Clearing his throat, Taeyong wasted no time in addressing the elephant in the room. "So, it's pretty obvious that Mark won't be attending this meeting, or any others any time soon. But thanks to Mae's medical skills, we can be sure that he won't be gone long."
Haechan faked a frown while the rest wore smiles of relief. I felt a small surge of pride from the knowledge that I was able to bring them this relief; that I'd been able to take care of Mark. It was good to know I'd at least done that much.
"Anyways, I was able to type up a log from yesterday, which I've given to each of you although it's mostly for Mae. Go ahead and read it so we can discuss our next move."
Leaning back in his chair, Taeyong gestured to the copies in front of all of us from yesterday's mission log. I eagerly picked mine up and flipped through it, skimming all the details I'd missed while fixing up Mark.
My eagerness died out after reading the first few sentences- it had been far more dangerous of a mission than we ever anticipated.
Who would have guessed that the business sector of metropolitan Pyongston, the downtown area from our footage, was teeming with Yuseng's men?
We didn't know; but we'd certainly paid the price for our ignorance.
All chatter had vanished at this point, the silence filled with the noise of rustling papers as we read through the logs. I scanned over the recap quickly.
Johnny had been the first one to notice something was up halfway through the mission, though he could only warn Mark before they were all compromised. Johnny was able to cover the front while they raced to the rendezvous; but WinWin and Yuta were struggling to cover the flanks, not without giving away Haechan's position for the getaway.
I bit down hard on my lower lip at the next paragraph upon realizing exactly how Mark had gotten himself shot.
Since he knew they'd have to divert the rivals away from Haechan, Mark broke off from the unit and led the attack in a different direction, becoming a target to give the others enough time to reach the rendezvous.
He took out six of Yuseng's men, but the seventh had put up a hard fight, and the boys reached Mark just in time to push the gun down and away from where it was aimed, causing the bullet to tear through Mark's arm rather than his head.
The log ended there abruptly, with the words bust/ no bust? written with a big question mark at the bottom of the page, where we normally had a line or two to start brainstorming our next mission.
I set my copy down and breathed in deep, getting my thoughts together so I could contribute to the meeting.
"Taeil, Johnny and Jaehyun, you've all dealt with any media coverage of yesterday, right?" I asked the trio to my left once they'd looked up from their own logs.
If the news caught wind of gang activity in Pyongston, we'd be running the risk of being discovered by agents or law enforcement, and whatever happened beyond that wouldn't have a very happy ending. We needed to be as invisible as possible.
The three of them nodded in unison. "We took care of everything, but we had a little outside help from some of our civilian lookouts. The media doesn't suspect a thing." Jaehyun answered, ridding me from some of my tension.
Doyoung looked up from his log and asked Ten, "Speaking of our lookouts, are we still staking out in the shells like we were planning on doing tonight?"
I perked up at this. I'd never been in the shells, which was what we called the empty residences that were built above the base; but I knew that every now and then they'd spend the night in the shells to keep up appearances for any watching eyes. They hadn't done a stakeout since my arrival.
Ten grinned widely, "Yes, I've been in contact with WayV, and we're definitely still on."
WayV? I wondered. Isn't that the group of lookouts they had that were still integrated with society?
Yuta and Doyoung fist bumped like little kids at this. "Thank God, I haven't seen those guys in ages!" Yuta said loudly, "I wonder if Hendery remembered what I told him to bring for our snacks-"
Johnny whacked the top of his head with his rolled-up packet. "Dude, seriously? We're in the middle of a planning meeting right now. Save the sleepover shit for later."
"Right, right, sorry." Doyoung mumbled. Taeyong shot Johnny a tired smile and cleared his throat again, getting our attention.
"As I was saying before we went through the logs," our leader started back up with his authoritative voice, "there's no way of knowing how we were compromised, which is why we won't bother discussing it now. More importantly, I want to talk about the two leads we got out of all this."
"The first lead is that we uncovered the official name of the gang. As suggested by the emblem we found on the boxes, Doyoung and I overheard the rivals referring to themselves as songbirds, or Yuseng's Songbirds. I'm not sure what the meaning behind the name is yet, but it must be significant."
"So all this time, we've been calling the rival gang by the name of their leader?" Yuta interrupted with a whine.
"Yes, Yuta, please keep up." Taeyong shut down his complaints with a sigh as Yuta shoved an entire glazed donut into his mouth in one bite, exactly the way he had done with the muffins at our last meeting.
"Anyways, the goods they exchanged two nights ago must have been extremely fragile, based on the extreme care they used to handle and transport them. This means they could be one of two things: drugs, or explosives." Taeyong continued.
He gave a pointed look to Haechan, who was the reigning king of Cherry Bomb Squad, before saying, "Rather than testing the bomb theory first, I was thinking of sending our undercover unit to one of the prime narcotic rings and fishing for contacts. If we can confirm a drug deal to one of the POI's, we could have the chance to trail them to their base, giving us the lead of a lifetime."
Ten took over as Taeyong swatted his feet off of the table, rolling himself over in front of the room in his wheeled office chair.
"Of course, this mission will need to be played to perfection in order for us to find any further info. If there is a single suspicion from anyone, we can kiss our chances of tracking out of their narcotics rings goodbye, so we'll need you, the planning crew, to step up and create a foolproof plan. The sooner the better, obviously, but we'll take as much time as we need to get it right."
I took in all of this new information readily as I swallowed a bite of my donut, turning it over and over in my head. It wasn't going to be easy, but I had no doubts about NCT's abilities.
"I think we should send out the Dreamies for the narcotic bust/no bust mission, since they've been highly successful going undercover in similar situations." I spoke up.
Doyoung added his agreement, "I'm with Mae. The Dreamies definitely have all the skill and stealth a mission like this is going to require, so I'd have full faith in them."
There were nods all around before Taeyong finally said, "Alright, let's take a vote. Put your hand up for the Dreamies, do a thumbs-down if you have a different idea. If we get a majority one way, we'll stop our meeting here and reconvene later to work out the details; if not, we'll block out tomorrow morning's schedule for another meeting."
"Three, two, one, vote."
Every hand was in the air: a unanimous decision.
"Sounds good to me," he concluded, rising from his chair, "it's a go. I'll com you all when we get some more mission factors into place."
The rest of us began to stand up and stretch, clearing out the last of the donuts once the meeting came to a close.
"Haechan, round up the Dreamies and bring them here in an hour. There are poptarts in the cabinets if any of them didn't get breakfast yet." Taeyong instructed before opening the door for us to leave.
Haechan soluted jokingly, "Aye aye, captain!"
I wasn't the only one rolling my eyes at that.
**
11:27 AM
location: infirmary wing, underground.
"Have you been getting your beauty rest in?" Ten teased, earning himself a weak glare from the boy with a hole in his arm.
All of 127, plus Ten, had come straight to the infirmary wing once the meeting was over. I made them swear to be quiet and not bother him, to let him sleep as long as he wanted, and I wouldn't allow them into his room until they'd pinky-promised not to be any trouble.
Haechan had rounded up the Dreamies as instructed. But Taeyong, ever the mother hen, refused to let them visit Mark until the first unit left, knowing all too well how loud the younger boys could get when put in a two-yard radius of each other.
So, with mouths full of poptarts and eyes full of reproach- the latter mainly coming from a pouty Jaemin- the crew avoided the infirmary wing and went back up to Taeyong's office for their mission outlining. They'd get their turn to bug the Ace around lunchtime.
As for 127, we all gathered around Mark's stretcher bed and waited for him to wake up at some point in the next hour. I pinched anyone who spoke louder than a whisper once we started talking.
The topic of conversation had drifted a few different directions before settling onto the upcoming stakeout. I was excited to meet the lookouts tonight, having never met them before.
I learned that the name was actually an acronym: WayV meant "We Are Your Vision", a phrase that was as literal as it was metaphorical. The three lookouts joining us in the shells were the "eyes" of NCT, as they lived their lives outside of the base.
They were perfectly integrated with society, but they were our gateway into the normal world, the guys who saw everything. They also occasionally swooped in to take care of any media or civilian exposure to the gang; but their main purpose was, truly, to be our vision.
I'd reset the drip shortly after the discussion about tonight's plans. Mark had woken up during the reset to Johnny making a silly face from above him, at which he'd groaned tiredly, while Yuta shook him as much as he could without hurting him in order to convey his excitement at the Ace being alive.
Mark's wound was already making great progress; it was beginning to heal cleanly, with no scabbing or infections as of yet. If it kept up at this rate, he'd be back in action in two week's time- which was, in his opinion, still way too long. He'd just have to suck it up until then.
He now sat propped up against the multiple pillows WinWin had grabbed, downing his second bottle of water since waking up and sounding much more alert than he'd been. He rolled his eyes at Ten's comment, scrunching his nose cutely.
"Hyung, please. I think we all know the last thing I need is beauty sleep." Mark was saying in answer to Ten's question, sporting a pout, "I mean, have you seen this face?"
Johnny scoffed in response. "Oh, don't flatter yourself Mark, you need all the beauty sleep you can get. Don't you remember how we met?"
I looked between Mark, Johnny, and Taeil- the oldest seemed to have this habit of bursting into laughter at any given moment.
Actually, now that I thought about it, they all laughed like that.
"As if you ever let me forget." Mark huffed tiredly, "I already told you the lady who gave me that ramen hair was a self-proclaimed beauty school dropout, but I was on too tight of a budget and a schedule to be picky."
I couldn't help but cackle at that; the story of their friendship couldn't have had a more strange beginning.
An eighteen-year-old Mark, fresh out of the sketchy salon where said dropout had given him ramen noodles for a hairstyle, just so happened to be walking past a similarly shady alleyway where Johnny was robbing someone at knifepoint.
Upon confrontation, it turned out that Johnny had just been getting back the things that the man had robbed from his mother. He'd followed the guy into the alley where he cornered him, pulling a weapon out when he was done asking nicely- right as Mark was strolling by.
Obviously, Mark had no idea what was really going on, and the robber dropped the stuff and bolted when Mark threatened to call 119 on Johnny.
What an incredible and unusual way to meet a future best friend, right?
"Guys, guys, we're getting off topic." Jaehyun reeled them back in, drawing the focus back to the reason why we were all here. He peered down with concern at Mark, patting his uninjured shoulder.
"How are you holding up, man?"
Mark shrugged and immediately winced at the movement in his left arm. "Oh, you know, I've just been slipping in and out of consciousness for two hours since getting shot; and I feel like I just got run over by a semi truck. Other than that, I'm doing alright." He deadpanned.
I noticed his discomfort at elevating his arm and shooed Jaehyun from Mark's side, grabbing yet another pillow and sliding it under him. He shot me a grateful smile and my heart fluttered, making me feel like a schoolgirl with a silly crush.
But Mark was much more than a crush. I could see it in his gaze; in the way his hand found mine and squeezed, his smile genuine and endearingly crooked. The chaos around us was dimmed when he wove his fingers with mine and kissed the back of my hand.
"You always know how to take care of me." He murmured sweetly. I could barely swallow, let alone reply; had his eyes always been this big, this bright? How could he see past the stars that shone in them?
My other hand, the one he wasn't holding, messed with his hair, brushing it back gently. It was getting long- he'd need to get it cut soon. Come to think of it, maybe we all needed a trim, seeing as we were a little worse for wear after a string of back-to-back missions this past month.
I felt a blush creeping up my face when I registered the curious glances being thrown our way. "Maybe I wouldn't have to take care of you if you wouldn't get yourself shot, huh?" I eventually said back.
He laughed lightheartedly, and then the moment was broken.
Nobody questioned it as I busied myself again with meds and bandages, stepping out of my way and letting conversation flow freely while I did my thing and cursed my cheeks for staying red. Even Haechan stayed silent on the intimate moment, giving us a knowing once-over before being drawn back into the group.
I wondered how long it would be until Taeyong brought up Mark and I's level of closeness again.
My gut said it likely would happen by the end of the day; especially considering the stakeout happening in the next eleven hours.
**
A/N:
hey all! sorry for the delay,, there has been so much happening in my life at the moment that updates were shoved to the back of my mind. i hope it was worth the wait, and see you guys soon for the next installment! it's super fun... peep wayv :)
xoxo!
-ari