Burgeon | NCT Dream

21

"Where did you come from? Where are you going? You who kindly came out here to meet me. Even at the steep and uphill cliff, don't worry, there's nothing to be afraid of" -Don't Go by EXO

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"Hey! Where are the two of you going?"

Misun and Nari turned around at the sound of Jeno's voice. They were still in disbelief that they had, in fact, befriended the Dreamies, the talk of the school, the popular kids. As it turned out, the rest of the school couldn't believe it, either, as they had sat with the Dreamies at lunch and received many stares from the other students.

"Don't we have chip disabling today?" Jaemin asked from Jeno's side, tilting his head in confusion.

"Oh," Misun responded. "We're in the Literature club, which doesn't meet today, so we're going to get our chips disabled tomorrow."

Jeno's eyes curved into his eye smile, then explained, "Us Dreamies are all in Music,, so we're going to get it done today."

Nari nodded. "I'm going to accompany Misun back to her house today. She's a little afraid to face her brother and mother after forgetting to tell them about where she was going yesterday, so I'm gonna go along for emotional support."

"Wow, that's really nice of you. Anyways, we should get going before we're late," Jaemin suggested. The four bid one another goodbye, then walked off in their separate directions.

They entered the gym to see that many of the students who had extracurriculars that day had already arrived. They were milling around and conversing with one another, waiting for instructions from the staff who would be removing their chips.

"I'm glad we get these chips removed first."
"I know, right? They're kinda creepy."
"To think that whenever we were wearing student badges, this chip was recognizing keywords and names the whole time? Scary."
"It's kind of a violation of privacy, you know?"
"This whole time we thought it was run by a person..."
"Ha, the rest of the school has to keep them for longer than us."
"Wow, we're totally so special."

"Hey, Jaem! Hi, Jeno!" Chenle greeted the two, waving them over to the bleachers, where he and the rest of the Dreamies were seated.

"You know, this whole system makes sense now," Renjun said, face holding an expression of thought.

"Yeah, like how whenever somebody tried spreading rumors about a popular person, they would only rise in rankings."

"It's creepy."

Even though lldracaena was gone, it had helped many students gain popularity and attention, something that was much harder to gain without a ranking system. Everybody was sure that the high rankers would stay popular regardless of whether or not the system was removed.

A loud pounding sound echoed through the gym from the black speakers that hung from the corners of the room, causing more or less everybody to flinch, silence downing on them.

"Sorry, I thought the mic wasn't on," The Principal laughed at himself before continuing, "The staff will begin disabling your chips, please line up at the stands over there! Have fun!"

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Jisung held his badge out, waiting for the staff member to scan it and do whatever they were doing behind the black computer screens.

From what he had seen, it involved some sort of scanning that resembled the scanner that cashiers used, a few clicks and some waiting. It seemed to be boring, boring enough for him to catch one of the staff members to be playing Tetris while he was waiting for the blue loading bar to fill up, waiting for the number to become 100%.