all the stars | nct dream

t w o

—present day. 

Mark woke up to the smell of freshly cooked pancakes. Still half asleep, he walked down from his room.

"Hey, honey! Are you excited? It's your first day of summer break!" His mom exclaimed happily.

Mark rubbed his eyes and ruffled his messy hair. If it was summer break why did he wake up so early? Oh right, the pancakes.

Mark sat down at the table as his mom placed down a plate of chocolate chip pancakes in front of him. He mumbled a quiet thank you and had to fight to keep his eyes open. 

His mom sat in front of him, watching as the boy's eyes lit up immediately after tasting the pancakes. All thoughts of crawling back into bed after breakfast had disappeared.

His mom laughed. "they're good aren't they?" she said.

Mark nodded in agreement. "yeah. Can I eat these for lunch too?" Mark asked jokingly.

"hm, I'll think about it," his mom answered, smiling before getting up from the table. "Don't forget, we're going to that party tonight. It's for my work, but a lot of other kids will be there, I promise."

Mark nodded. The party. His mom mentioned it every year, but this was the first year they were allowing kids to go too. It was supposed to be a pretty formal party, judging by the suit that his mom had bought him a couple of days ago.

He finished up the last of his pancakes and got up from the table, taking out his phone to check the time. He still had a few hours before the party started.

Mark went back up to his room and flopped back onto his bed. 

It had been ten years since he last saw the dreamies. Mark had stopped visiting the orphanage around a year after he was adopted. Not because he didn't want to, but because he had been informed by Taeyong that the rest of the dreamies had all been adopted too. They left one by one, and by the end of the year, the seven of them had all been split up.

Soon enough, they had all lost touch, but that didn't mean that Mark had forgotten about them. They were the greatest friends he had ever had.

The first time Mark went back to visit the orphanage, the other six dreamies had given him a scrapbook, filled with photos of the seven of them. Group photos, pair photos, silly photos, they were all in there. And it was one of Mark's most prized possessions.

Mark got up from where he was sitting and went to the closet, taking the suit from where it was hanging and putting it on. 

Mark didn't exactly want to go to this party, but after everything that his foster parents had done for him, going to this work party with his mom was the least he could do to thank them.

Yet sometimes he still wondered what it would have been like if the dreamies were still his family.

—☆—

The building that the party was being held at seemed fairly big. Mark couldn't really tell what it was usually used for. It did look extremely prestigious though, which was probably why everyone there was wearing formal wear.

"are you ready?" Mark's mom asked. 

Mark nodded and walked into the building. He spent the first half-hour or so being introduced to some of his mom's colleagues.

Later on in the evening, his mom sent him to go and socialize with other kids. Mark looked around. There were a few other kids who looked around his age. He hesitantly got up and walked over to a table in the far corner of the room.

The boy sitting there was drawing and seemed to have not noticed that Mark was there.

"Can I sit here?" Mark asked.

The boy looked up.

"Renjun!?"

It was definitely Renjun. No doubt. Mark would've recognized the small boy anywhere. And ever since Renjun was young, he had always had a knack for drawing and anything related to art. The rest of the dreamies would always say that he had a 'golden hand'.

Mark's smile faded a little when the Chinese boy only responded with a quiet, "h-hi."

"It's me, Mark. You remember me don't you?" He asked, sitting down across from the boy.

Renjun only nodded in response, smiling but then quickly going back to his drawing.

This definitely wasn't the Renjun I knew ten years ago, Mark thought to himself. 

Where did that fun-loving, bubbly personality go? He looked at Renjun. The boy was so focused on his drawing that Mark wasn't even sure if he knew he was there. 

What happened?

---

I'm so excited for reload, I'm literally counting down the days. 

reload is gonna be a superior era i can feel it :)