DEAR nct

My diary, knows everything about me, knows all my deepest darkest secrets and all my feelings. But still once in a while I find myself censoring your name, like even my diary cant know about my feelings for you.

My feelings that run so deep down in me that they even scare me sometimes. In my eyes you’re everything perfect in this world. You’re the feeling of my home, and that thought is terrifying, mostly because I know that nothing stays perfect, and one day I will face that truth. But for now, can we focus on the good times, Jaemin?

I would catch myself looking at you sometimes. Mostly in the mornings when the sun beamed through the curtains casting the perfect glow on your face. You’d look back at me sometimes, crack your eyes open and give me a soft smile. Sometimes you’d tell me to go back to sleep, other times we would just lay there staring at each other until one of us dared to get up and start the day.

I keep thinking back to our first date lately, how nervous we both were. God, Jaemin, do you remember that day? You picked me up at home, opened the car door for me like a real gentleman. I remember watching how you nervously gripped the steering wheel and glanced my way every now and then. It was truly adorable. You prepared a picnic in the park, super cliché but so perfect. We stayed out on that blanket until all the other couples left and the stars and moon started rising. We didn’t say too much to each other, but you made me feel at ease.

You always had this peaceful energy to you. Whenever I was stressed or something was on my mind, I knew I could come to you, and you always stood there with your arms wide open for me. Your presence would always make me feel better.

I remember this one time, you were having a hard day, too many deadlines, too many expectations that you thought you couldn’t reach. It killed me to see you like that. I remember you crumbled up like a wilted flower on the couch, unreachable, unreadable. You slept on the couch that night, and I stayed awake on the chair, watching over you.

We have so many good memories together Jaemin. I think my favorite one of ours was when we had both finished our exams. Several weeks spent in stress, day and night we were locked onto our computers and books. But then it was over, exam season had passed by and we opted for a night in, just the two of us in our shared space. I could clearly see the bags under your eyes, and I’m sure I had matching ones, but the smiles we shared that night lacked any fatigue, only filled with joy and love. That night was when I first truly knew how deeply in love I was with you. When I watched you all through that night, whenever I heard your gentle laugh or your stupid jokes, I knew you were my home. And it was perfect.

Genre: friends to lovers!au | fluff | angst

Member: Mark x Reader

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 2 600

Part 1

The day had gone by exactly how Mark wanted it. Being able to spend the day by your side wasn’t anything new, but it was something the birthday boy treasured. However, you wouldn’t let him spend the entire day glued to your side. Once the sun went down, you dragged him along to the apartment complex of your friend Jaemin. At the rooftop of his apartment, you and 6 other guys had planned a surprising night full of laughter and cake. Even though Mark wanted to spend the night by your side, he couldn’t say he was disappointed about having all of his closest friends at one place. Reaching the rooftop, you both went your separate ways to greet the people there. You stayed by Yeri's and Joy's side, knowing Mark was doing fine by the giggles emitted from his tight-knit group of friends.  

“So mark, are you gonna tell her soon?” Jeno asked, nudging Marks arm to gain his attention. It also gained the attention of the rest of the group, who also wanted an answer to Jeno’s question. “tell who what?” Mark played dumb, having obviously understood what the boy meant. This received an eye roll from Renjun “dude, don’t act like you don’t know. Y/n, are you gonna tell her how you feel soon?” Mark was clearly feeling uncomfortable at the sudden interrogation, and the boys knew that when he tried changing the subject, however, to no avail. “if you’re not going to own up to your feelings, you should stop looking at her like a sad puppy every other second” Mark gave the boys a confused look “I don’t?? Oh, shit I do” The birthday boy gave them all a wide-eyed panicked look, only gaining chuckles in return.  

Genre: friends to lovers!au | fluff 

Member: Mark x Reader

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 1 300

Part 1 | Part 2

“Mark, it’s time to wake up now” you yell while jumping on his bed. The bed was big enough to fit both you and your best friend comfortably. However, that fact didn’t stop you from falling straight on him, making the poor boy let out a groan into his pillow. Laughing you get off and lay down beside him, giving him enough space to turn around on his back. You face each other and stay silent for a moment just taking in the presence of one another. You can see that Mark still hasn’t fully woken up yet, given the fact that his eyes pull him in and out of consciousness every other second. You smile at that, having your heart beating with love for your childhood neighbour as well as best friend. Lately it has been beating with a newfound love for the boy, but it is a path you have yet to indulge in. Pushing your thoughts away you whisper a small “happy birthday Mark” making him fully open his eyes to look at you, giving you a tired smile.

“it’s been a year since the last one already, huh” he mumbled more to himself than you, while draping his arm over your waist pulling you into his chest. You fell into place right away, your head tucked under his with your legs tangled together. Cuddling wasn’t anything new to either one of you, having found comfort in each other’s embrace since a young age, it came to be a frequent occurrence. You let out a hum against his chest, confirming his question. “that’s why you have to get up and get ready, because I made you a breakfast cake”. you could feel his chest shake with silent laughter, making you smile.

“really y/n, breakfast cake?” his amused tone made you look up at him and laugh. “yes of course a breakfast cake, it is your birthday after all” you replied matter-of-factly. He just gave you a shake of his head “no, I don’t want to get up, I’m way too comfortable right now, cake can wait”. This made you get out from your embrace, opting more for the hover position, to look more intimidating. You pushed Marks shoulder into the pillow with the palm of your hand, looking down on him you gave him the best glare you could muster “Mark Lee, you better get you ass up right now and eat the cake I spent all night preparing”. Even though you tried to look as intimidating as possible Mark just found you all around adorable. Giving you a soft smile, he reached out to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, making your cheeks heat up. “Okay, I’ll get up and eat the cake” he breathed out. Smiling you got up to leave the room, yelling out a “don’t take too long” on your way out.

Walking into the kitchen, you see his mom already seated there. “did you manage to wake him up?” she asks with a curious smile. Laughing, you tell her your struggles but that he should be down any given moment now. As if on cue, Mark slides into the kitchen. You’re all seated around the kitchen island just talking a bit until his mother walks out saying she wants to give you guys some “privacy” making both you and Mark laugh.

“so anyways, what do you want to do today? The day is yours” you say while locating the cake, cutting him a piece. “I only want to be with you” he answers nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders in the process. The fact that he’s so nonchalant about it while you almost choked on air is just straight up unfair. You try to mask your surprised half choke up with a laugh making the boy raise an eyebrow at your antics. Clearing your throat, you answer with a simple “but we’re together every day” this time you raise your eyebrows at him, resulting in him giving you a small smile. “yeah, so let’s be together today too”. Knowing this conversation will lead you nowhere you roll your eyes and mutter out a small whatever, while handing him a plate full of cake.

You eat in a comfortable silence, only being interrupted by him telling you how good the cake is, followed by a smug reply from you. You’ve both finished eating by now, but no one’s willing to break the silence that has draped itself like a blanket of serenity over both of you. Nevertheless, he’s the one who breaks the silence once again “come give me a hug” he says with his arms stretched out for you. Not giving you much time to react he pulls you down from where you were seated to in between his legs. Given the extra height from the bar stool, you again found you head tucked away under his, but he pushed your head away a bit, before pushing up the paddle under his seat for it to fall down a notch. Giving you the perfect opportunity to place your head in the crook of his neck, he mirrors your actions. You’re so close to each other that you can feel his breath dancing across your neck, and you’re sure he can feel your heart hammering its way out of your chest and into his. He lifts his head, and this time you mirror him.

“sorry I just wanted to be close to you” he whispered out but given your position and the way he looks at you with those doe eyes you’ve learned to love over the years, his voice hit you more like a tsunami almost drowning you in the process. Trying to stay afloat you give him a tiny smile, pulling him closer to you, hiding away in the crook of his neck once again. “I’ll always be close to you, Mark” you whisper against his neck, making goose bumps rise intact with your breath. The room gets draped over by the blanket again, and in the midst of the silence his mother comes walking in again, making you break away from each other. There’s a faint red colour blossoming its way onto both of your cheeks. His mom gives you both a knowing look. “your mother is asking for you y/n” she says breaking the silence. You let out a breath of relief, having an excuse to leave the awkward atmosphere that has occurred. You tell Mark you’ll be back soon while hurrying out the door.

Having left Mark alone with his mom, he let his head fall against the island counter emitting a bang. Making her chuckle. “fuck, mom” he drags out both his words making his mom laugh. “what” she answers. He looks up and there’s already a pink shadow developing on his forehead. He gives his mom a pained, but nevertheless a hopeful look “I’m in love with her” he says, resulting in a nod from his mother. “Are you going to tell her?” she asks, smiling at him. There’s a moment of silence after the question was asked. And Mark thinks, he thinks harder than he would during a math test. And if anyone were to walk in on them in the kitchen, one might think he was thinking about the answer to a question with no answer. But mark knew there was one, and when he heard the front door open and your steps approaching, he knew the answer. Looking at his mother there was a newfound beating in his heart, and he let out a confident I will, right when you entered the kitchen. And there you stood, with the power to end him without even knowing it.

And maybe that’s the reason or perhaps its because this has no answer like a math question does, but mark looks back at his mother before letting out a small

«someday"

[5:47pm] "We forgot to bring an umbrella didn't we" you ask with a frown spreading across your face. What seemed to be a bright summers day had developed into a rainstorm right in front of your eyes. You can hear your bestfriend!mark sigh at your side and utter out a small yes at your question. He faces you directly, a little too close for your comfort. Ever since you started developing a crush on the boy thats always by your side, you had been acting more awkward around him than usual. You could only hope he hadn't noticed the tiny little changes in your demeanour lately. Like how your cheeks get painted in a red hue much more often, or how you seemed to stutter out a response when he was close to you.

Most people would call him oblivious for not noticing your crush, but you knew it was because of the friend zone you had been placed in all the way back in middle school. Sighing you look out at the roads that are now covered in the rain that splashes down from above. You can feel his gaze on the side of your face, making your attempt at avoiding eye contact a bit more difficult than you'd like.

Clearing your throat you try to tone down your awkward behaviour before he notices. "I'll race you to the car then" you say with a tiny smile playing on your face. The warmth is already on its way back to the surface of your cheeks, and you can only hope that he will blame it on the slight breeze that's been hitting your face these past few minutes.

Mark lets out a chuckle "you're the slowest runner I know though." Scoffing you stare at him with determination "am not, I'm super fast and I'll prove it to you when I win this race"

With that being said you start running, you can hear Mark shouting something about you cheating in the distance, his voice getting muffled by the rain making you laugh.

The cold rain hits your skin and soaks through your clothes making you shiver. Only a bit more running until you're by the car and you can hear marks footsteps already right behind you. Still thanks to your head start you're sure you're gonna win, that is until you feel a force on your arm yanking you backwards.

You collided right into mark, making you look at him with your eyes wide open in shock. "Mark,,what are you doing, I was winning" you whine while hitting your fist against his chest, but not hard enough to actually hurt him. He's extremely close, so close that you're sure he can hear the way your heart is beating erratically in your chest. Mark gives you a smile "You always mentioned how you wanted to have a kiss in the rain, right?" His statement came out more like question, and you could see the tiny blush that has creeped it's way onto his cheeks and that mark, in fact seemed nervous.

"Mark, wha- is this some twisted way for you to distract me so that you can take off running and win because if it is it's really mean thing to do-"

Mark cuts you off in the middle of your rant by placing his lips softly against yours in a chaste kiss. He places his forehead against yours and sighs "you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that"

Still in shock you can barely register what just happened but your mind works faster than you think and suddenly you're telling him to "do it again then"

[3:01am]

"Come stargazing with me" best friend!Renjun says while grabbing your hand in his. "There are these constellations that I read up on, and I want to see if I can find them" he started pulling you out off the bed you guys had spent the last couple of hours on. ‘’whyy, we were just getting to the good part of the movie?’’ you whined even though you knew you could never win against Renjun. He was the most stubborn person when he wanted something. So before you knew any better you were out of bed and seated in the car. Renjun was driving while humming along to whatever was playing on the radio. You always found his soft voice calming, and having that added to the fact that you were still awake in the middle of the night, you started to doze off.

When you arrived at your destination, Renjun realised that you had completely fallen asleep by his side; chuckling a bit to himself, he carefully woke you up. Resulting in you whining, but giving in easily you follow the boy out the car.

Renjun had taken you to a big open field far away from the lights of the city. The sky was clear and the stars shone brightly down on where you stood, that being the only source of light in addition to the moon.

The moment you had started walking on the grass, Renjun started his search. “They’re supposed to be out now“ he says while looking up. “I just have to find them real quick” he looks at you for a brief moment, smiling. You can the twinkle in his eyes as brightly as you can see the stars. Your heart skips a beat with adoration for the boy.

Laughing, you reach out for his arm, pulling him down to sit beside you on the grass. “Well, you can find them while sitting. You’re going to end up falling on your face if you keep on walking while looking up" he gives you a sheepish look, and rubs his neck. "I just really want to find them” he says, making you smile at the way he looks up at the sky again.

Renjun keeps muttering bitterly under his breath about how he keeps finding the wrong constellations, making you laugh. “You’re like a little kid oh my god” you bump your shoulder against his, making him look down from where his eyes were plastered on the sky, to look at you with a fond smile.

“Well, there’s this story about that constellation that I just really want to tell you” He confesses with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders.

After some time passes you can hear him loudly exclaim “hell yeah, there they are” while fist bumping the air in celebration. You let out a laugh at his excitement, adoring the way he shares his love for the stars with you. He points them out, and you have to admit finding them was not easy.

You look up at the stars for a bit before you face him “there was a story right? Are you gonna tell it to me now?” You question the boy. Renjun almost loses his breath from how the stars seem to have fallen from the sky, and into the glint in your eyes. Snapping out of his trance, he clears his throat, his cheeks already tinted red. “uhm yeahh, so it’s the story about Orion and the Pleiades”

He pauses to look at your reaction, you smile at him and urge him to go on with a nod of your head. “well, Orion is a hunter and the Pleiades are seven sisters, they’re also the companions of Artemis” you place your head on his shoulder and let out a hum to tell him you were listening. He takes a deep breath and keeps on going.

“Orion, he falls in love with them and chases after them for about seven years, ruining the sisters every hunt to the point Artemis had enough, and goes to Zeus for help” Renjun lets out a chuckle at that part, obviously finding it amusing. You didn’t really know what was funny, but you don’t question it. “Zeus ended up turning the sisters into doves so that they could escape Orion, and then later on turned all of them into stars. Orion will keep chasing the sisters for all eternity, without ever being able to catch up.”

Renjun shakes his shoulder a bit, signalling to you that the story was over. You raise your head and face him. Renjun laughs when he sees the frown on your face, knowing it wasn’t the ending you were hoping for. You were about to say something when he interrupts you.

“I would say I have loved you for seven years now y/n” he says with a tiny smile, but it’s a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. In his eyes, all the emotions that he has tried so hard to hide, comes reaching towards the surface. The atmosphere completely changed, making you give him a quizzical look.

“Well, I do hope so, we have been friends for 10 years now” you laugh awkwardly, trying to lighten the mood. Instead of getting a laugh from the boy as you had hoped, Renjun looks at you with almost tired eyes. “okay fine y/n” he looks down at the grass chuckling a bit to himself.

“I’ve loved you for a whole 10 years now, but for the past seven months, I’ve started to fall in love with you” he looks at you for a brief moment before sighing and looking up at the sky. He lets out a tiny chuckle, but there’s no happiness in it. “renju-“

“Fuck I know it’s stupid y/n, falling in love with your best friend, but god you make it so difficult not to” he interrupts you, and you want to speak up, but you can tell it’s not the time yet. “I know I haven’t chased you these past seven months, like how Orion chased the sisters. Which I don’t know, is probably a good thing” at this he lets out a laugh again, but you can’t find it in yourself to follow his league. “I’m not as strong, or I guess confident as Orion. But I am confident in my love for you” he takes a deep breath. “I’ve tried to suppress my feelings, but I can’t take it anymore. Because every time I look in your eyes, see your smile, hear your laugh, or fuck even when your snot is all over my shirt when we watch big hero 6. I end up falling even more in love with you, and I don’t know how much more of that I can take. But y/n, I am willing to chase after you, or even fucking follow you to the end of the world if you want me too. I know that sounds cheesy as fuck, but it’s true. You don’t have to feel the same way now, but,,but please-” You can hear his voice crack as he looks at you, eyes glossy, filled with unshed tears. You move closer to him and reach out to caress his cheek, as if telling him it’s okay. He closes his eyes for a moment, while taking in a deep breath.

“Please tell me I’ll be able to catch up to you someday”

His voice barely comes out as a whisper, but you hear every word clearly. While smiling you nod your head. Your own eyes now brimming with tears. Not trusting your voice, or even knowing what to say after his speech, you just pull him closer to you, until your lips meet. The kiss was sweet and soft, mixed with a faint taste of salt. If it’s from the popcorn you shared during your movie marathon, or the tears you now share during your stargazing adventure, you don’t know. But what you do know is how much you love the boy in front of you, and the billion stars above that guided you together.

When you pull apart, you look him in the eyes, and whisper a sentence only for him, the moon and the stars above to hear.

"Huang Renjun, you caught up to me a long time ago"