❝ʏᴏᴜ ᴀsᴋ ᴍᴇ ǫᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴs
ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴋɪᴅs,
ᴀɴᴅ ɪ'ʟʟ ᴀɴsᴡᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ  ❞

Mark sighed as he stared at the ceiling above him, a strange grey colour covered the corners, and he could tell that the room wasn't looked after that well. His mind kept wandering off to his parents, and he of course kept bursting into tears at the thought that they no longer knew him, but he wanted to forget. After begging Jaemin for an hour to get rid of his own memories about his parents, Jaemin refused, and gave a stupid excuse of how Mark should use every memory related to his parents as a lesson. Not that it was ever going to help him.

Mark shuffled on his bed until he finally reached the end, and quickly jumped off it, trying to get rid of the comfort he had, and wanting to convert his sadness into curiosity and explore the house. From the outside, it looked pretty small, but as soon as he entered, the hallways never seemed to end. Mark threw the blanket over his body and stuffed his feet into the slippers Renjun provided him. He limped over to the door, opening it slowly, because he didn't want to cause any noise and inform the others that he was leaving his room, and then started his journey.

He would always see big houses in animes, all fancy, with a butler and the people would be wearing suits. Yet in this house, there was no butler with a random towel thrown over his arm, and the kids didn't really wear suits but instead they wore jeans and oversized hoodies. Mark chewed on the corner of the blanket and he made his way down the hallways grimacing as his slippers made a loud squeaky noise now and then. He didn't want to make the others aware of his movement, since he didn't want to see any of them at the moment.

Mark stopped when he saw a door with the label 'library' on it. He tilted his head in confusion, as normal houses don't really have libraries, but then again no one in this house was normal, and then reached out to open the door. He swiftly got through, closing the door behind himself, and then took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of books. People thought Mark wouldn't be a fan of books, which is strange since he's basically addicted to comics and mangas, but he was in fact in love with books. Whenever his parents would leave him at home, he would follow in Matilda's footsteps, not literally, and search for books in his house. After managing to somehow finish reading Withering Heights, Mark started his weird obsession with books.

"Let's see." Mark whispered to himself, letting go of the blanket, so that it was hanging by his shoulders, and then brushed his fingertips across the spines of the book. All of them he had already read, so Mark sighed and continued walking down the aisle, surprised that there were so many.

"What're you looking for specifically?" A voice asked from the end of the aisle. Mark snapped his head to the left and relaxed as he saw Donghyuck leaning against the wooden shelf. "Hey."

"Hi, and uh...I don't know, anything really." Mark replied, slowly walking over to Donghyuck, feeling a bit awkward since he had just randomly walked into someone's library without asking.

"You don't have to feel awkward by the way." Donghyuck said once Mark reached his side. The two began to walk over to the sofas positioned nears the center of the room, and Mark randomly picked up a book he saw on the table, internally sighing as he realised that it was one he had already read. Donghyuck dropped onto one of the sofas and then pat the seat next to him for Mark, who followed him and sat down. "I heard from Jeno what happened, I'm really sorry about that."

"It's...okay I guess." Mark replied, opening the book to a random page, and reading one of the lines. He scanned the page, groaning as he realised that it was the part when the boy in the story comes across his dead parents and falls to the ground in sadness. Mark quickly skipped the part and bit onto his bottom lip.

"How about we do this." Donghyuck cleared his throat, noticing the way Mark's mood dropped as he read the book. He shuffled in his seat, so that he was now facing Mark and smiled softly when he saw Mark do the same. "You ask me questions about the other kids, and I'll answer them for you, so that you can know them better."

"Um, okay." Mark nodded, placing the book on the side, and then turning to Donghyuck. He looked up and couldn't help but to return the smile he was getting. The light from the window behind Mark was really helping Donghyuck's skin to glow, and Mark wasn't able to stop thinking about how he looked so good. "I wanted to ask about...uh..Chenle?"

"Ah. Chenle." Donghyuck closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then leaned against the arm of the sofa, bringing his knees up to his chest and intervining his fingers. "Let me tell you everything about Chenle, it's really long so, you might want to get comfortable."

Mark listened to Donghyuck and took his slippers off, copying the way Donghyuck was sat and put his chin on his knees, edging forwards to show that he was interested. He had never spoken to Chenle ever, and to be honest, Chenle didn't seem that keen on speaking to him either, instead, he wanted to stay by Jisung's side the whole time.

"Chenle's power is actually pretty horrible." Donghyuck started, thinking back to how he met Chenle, and the way he reacted. "It's time related, and although you may say that's amazing, since he could, you know, fix mistakes and stop traumatic events from taking place, but he can't actually do that." Donghyuck's eyes travelled down the sofa and onto his fingers, which were now fiddling with each other. "He was ten when he first used his power. His dad was going to go to another country for the first time without the whole family, and Chenle was too scared to let go. So he accidentally froze time."

six years ago

Chenle clutched onto his dad's hand, letting out loud cries and shaking his head as his parents tried to quiet him down. Making a scene at the airport was not his thing, and he definitely didn't like upsetting his parents, but he couldn't help his tears from falling down his cheeks and the choked sobs from escaping his mouth. His dad wasn't going for long, only a month, but that was the first time he had ever thought of doing such a thing. Chenle's mum brushed a hand through his hair, smiling awkwardly at the people walking past them and shooting looks and then cooed at Chenle, trying to calm him down. But nothing was working.

"Chenle sweetie please let go of daddy." His mum practically begged, wrapping her hands around Chenle's fingers in attempt to peel him away from his dad. Chenle only shook his head more furiously, and tightened his grip on his dad, his legs shaking from the amount of fear that was in his body. "Please, he's going to be back in a month, you still have mommy."

Chenle blinked, letting the last of his tears fall and then sniffled, retreating his hands away from his dad, who let out a sigh of relief and picked his bags up. His dad then bent down to kiss Chenle's head, and then gave a loving hug to his wife, before making his way to the lounge to catch his plane. Chenle's mum slide her hand into Chenle's and led him through the airport, finally out to the parking lot. She helped him climb into the car and put his seat belt on. As she walked around the car to the driver seat, Chenle looked up at the sky and wiped the tears on his cheeks.

"I wish I could stop time..." Chenle said, licking his lips and pouting. He continued to stare at the sky, and frowned when he realised his mum was not entering the car. Chenle turned to his right and gasped when he saw his mum, hand of the cars door, lips partly open, and hair frozen in place. "M..mum?"

Chenle quickly unlocked his seatbelt, scrambling over to the door and pushed it open. He jumped off the car and then rushed to his mum's side. Her cheeks still had the blush over it and her eyes open, slightly red since she also shed a few tears. Chenle's breathing quickly turned unstable as he placed a hand over her cheeks and checked to see if she was breathing. Nothing. There was no heart beat, no air flowing through her mouth, and no movement. Chenle stumbled back as he stared at his mum was shock. He stood up almost immediately and ran out of his area, searching for someone.

"Help!" He yelled, sniffling as more tears fell down his cheeks and blood rushed to his head making him feel dizzy and sick. "My mum..she's not moving!"

Chenle ran into the airport, eyes widening as he saw more people stuck in their place. He reached out to tap them, and pulled away as they didnt move. Their skin got pressed in and Chenle's jaw dropped further as he took deep breaths. He cried out loudly before running back towards his mum. He pat his mum's arm, pleading for her to move and speak to him, but remained still. A wave on panic and fear washed over him and he looked around once again, hoping to find someone that was able to move like him. When he saw none, he fell to the ground, ignoring the pain coursing through his body, and clutched his head.

"Help..someone...please." He cried, sobs decreasing in sound and breathing becoming more stable as sleep ran over him. He leaned to the side and hit the ground. The rocks on the floor pierced into his delicate skin, poking hole for blood to flow through, yet he slept, unable to stay conscious any longer.

present time

"Then what happened?" Mark asked, not realising that his cheeks felt damp and that his throat was now dry. "Did time continue?"

"Time did continue." Donghyuck replied, lowering his head. "But it continued a whole five years later. Chenle lived alone for five years. Strangely enough, his power stopped time for everyone but him, so he aged in those five years. Now his body is of a sixteen year old, yet his mind is still of a ten year old boy."

"Oh." Mark said, frowning as he thought about what Chenle must've had to go through. "Why is he always with Jisung?"

"You see." Donghyuck cleared his throat, sitting up in his seat. "When time continued, Chenle was still hanging near the airport, since he needed food to eat and there were a lot of food shops there, also because he didn't want to leave his mum. When Chenle had given up on trying to resume time, it finally started up again, but his mum looked down at her child, who was supposed to be ten but was now a fifteen year old boy, and shrieked. She didn't know what else to do, because one second she was going to go into the car to drive home and sulk about her husband, and then the next she's staring down at her child who's suddenly skipped 5 years of life, in her point of view at least.

"So then she panicked and kind of drove away." Donghyuck continued, scratching his cheek, which Mark noticed was his way to show that he was nervous. "Chenle was really upset, because he still thought like a 10 year old boy, and ended up running after the car. He obviously didn't manage to catch up with her, and got himself hurt. Chenle stayed on the streets for a while before he met Jisung, who just happened to be on the streets as well. When Chenle passed by Jisung, who had no control over his power at the moment, his thoughts were said out loud, and that made Jisung scared, since all of his thoughts were negative."

"Oh." Mark said, feeling the need to show a reaction, as he stayed quiet the whole time.

"Yeah...then Jisung decided to take Chenle in." Donghyuck stretched a little, feeling his back become numb, and then spoke again. "But his mum was not happy about it, so she tried her best to find ways to get rid of Chenle. That's when Renjun and I met them. You see, Renjun and I were friends since we were at the orphanage, and we knew we had these powers since we were kid."

"How did you find out you have powers?" Mark interrupted. "Did you accidentally freeze someone? Or like wherever you went cold followed?"

"Uh..no." Donghyuck laughed, closing his eyes as he did. "I found out about my powers when I felt something tingly in my hands, and then ice just spat out haha. Anyways! When we got separated as we went to our own houses, I managed to keep contact with Renjun, and we then moved into this house, which is under the name of Renjun's brother. That's when the three of us made the organisation, Neo Capability Tutelage."

"That's what NCT stands for?" Mark asked, a little disappointed that it didn't flow well, and the fact that he had no idea what the last word meant. "But that doesn't matter, how did you guys find Jisung and Chenle?"

"Oh, yeah, they were kids that were rumoured to be living on the street, and everyone knew they were not normal." Donghyuck explained. "So Renjun and I set out to find the two, and managed to do it pretty quickly when the two walked past us and our thoughts were said out loud. Once we got them to move in with us here we then met Jaemin and Jeno at school, and got them to join as well."

"Ah..." Mark nodded in understanding. "But wait, what happened to your parents, and the others'?"

"I think those are enough questions for today." Donghyuck said, covering his mouth with his hand as a yawn came over him. He stood up and pat Mark's shoulder, before making his way over to the exit. Mark watched as he opened the door and wobbled out sleepily. He then face palmed as he came to a realisation.

"I forgot to ask why he was missing yesterday."