[Completed] Underrated and Human (NCT Member)

The Least You Could Do

"We need him back in Boston. He has to take over the business branches of Yun enterprise."

Once upon a time, he wrote that maybe they never knew one another. He'd paint pictures inside the castle that had space for more because a child had been erased. Because maybe, he can rewrite his tale by the way they made him feel.

How he was in their pictures but never on their schedule. As long as he was not coloring beyond the lines of the box, with barely any space, he would not hear from them. Yet he never did want to hear from them because they always came with curses. They came with vows, with unwanted baggage, that he could not do anything but accept. Because he was their child, that was the rule.

Eventually, on the pages of his life, he knew that he could rewrite it. This was his tale. So the first thing he wrote was who he really was, and how he had to get out of their perfect fairytale. Because he was not their child unless the definition of one was just someone they birthed. But if it was beyond that, then he was certain that he was not.

So he drew himself an airplane and a plane ticket to wherever there was space, and that was Korea. After, he just continued writing, continued not "taking or stealing" but instead making moments. He didn't stop, nowhere to find a pause in his story, and that brought him where he was.

So how dare they make a page? How dare they write themselves in so suddenly. Yet they did not write with no pencil to erase, nor a pen with a smooth tip. They took over and wrote with a pen with a point so thin, yet so painful and on point to where they wished to travel on.

"Excuse me, who are you?" Taeil was the first to take a glance at three new faces in their mirror. They held the same gaze, and uncanny resemblance to someone he had seen before. But he did not know who they were.

Ash himself was not familiar with the weight added to the room. His eyes were not on the mirror but on his shoes, which magnified every move he practiced with the members. So he did not know who the newcomers were.

"We need to speak with Asher." His ears were not attuned with the voice either. It played a melody so distant, behind all the tracks of voices of those important to him. But he knew who they were because of the tone. How many times his ears were forced to hear the noise of theirs, that truly caused pain to him.

"What are you doing here?" His eyes did not wish to train so fast against theirs. So his movements were slow to face them because this was not a battle he is brave enough to face just yet. He was only able to let his hands cross with theirs in the past because of Blake. But he was not here. There were only three people, people he once considered his everything but not anymore because he was never someone to them.

"Ash, are they safe? Are they stalkers or your saesangs?" The leader did not know who the three people were. But hearing they were familiar to 127's maknae had unsettled him even more. Because he heard the earthquake underneath his voice, so mighty and warning against his voice that was still and sat there so soft. He also didn't miss the sudden closeness of Jaehyun to the younger. Not too near, but a distance that stood between the three and their member.

"Of course we're not! We're his family." Jaehyun instantly felt the sudden stop and halt to them all. With no fear, but only a need to protect his boyfriend, he stood directly in front of Ash. Trying to take all the blows, and even he felt the heat. The younger girl was the one to state it and she stood with her back not too straight, yet with a slouch of superiority. And he wanted to fire so many bullets at their faces, not hurt them but scare them with his words. Yet the pull of Ash's hand to his waist had told him to wait. Told him that maybe they wouldn't need to do that.

Yet Ash still had no voice to pull out of himself to address them.

"His family? What are you even doing here?" He who towered all of them had used to his advantage. He knew the boy like the back of his hand by now. He was not there at the beginning but he was the one who made Ash's new start with a good journey possible. And he would not allow the sudden bloodline to break all the hard work crafted just for happiness.