Renjun’s Playlist for Expect the Unexpected

Sunsets for Somebody Else-Jack Johnson

“Sometimes, things don’t always go as plan. That’s life. That’s how it works.”

********************

Mark waited a lifetime to go to Scarwood Palace. A lifetime of dreaming, wondering, fascination and what could be considered near obsession. He was so anxious to start driving that he almost drove off without his friends.

“Will you calm down? Why are you acting like a bride on her wedding night?”

“Because I am so excited! I can’t believe we are almost there. My childhood dream palace.”

“Don’t get your hopes too high Mark. We don’t know what to expect from that place.” Jeno had warned.

They arrived at the town where Scarwood Palace was located. Jeno had a bad feeling the minute they drove into town, and he noticed that there were no signage regarding Scarwood Palace, or any other kind of palace to be specific.

“Turn right here Jeno.”

“This is weird.” Jeno told Renjun, who was navigating for him. “Where are all the signs?”

“Maybe they took it down for repairs.”

“I don’t know Junnie…” Jeno shook his head. “I don’t like this at all.”

They drove a couple more kilometres and the nauseous pit of doom in Jeno’s stomach grew worse. “Mark? There’s something iffy about this.”

“Why? Are we lost?”

“I think so,” he said. “There is no sign Mark. Are you sure the Palace exists?”

“Of course it does, why else do you think we’re going there?”

“But…”

“LOOK!!” Renjun pointed at a wooden sign a few feet away. The sign was washed out and it’s paint was almost unnoticeable, the letters ‘SCARWOOD PALACE’ were in capital.

“We’re here!!” Mark slapped the back of the chair excitedly. “We’re here!!!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!!! Look look look!!!”

“Uhm…Mark?” Donghyuck peered out the window. “I…I really don’t think you are going to like this.”

Behold, the grand Scarwood Palace. The place that used to host kings, queens, statesmen and celebrities, was covered in moss and vines. The windows had no glass in them, and overgrown vines wrapped the walls like it was the palace’s veins. The steps leading to the castle were broken, tiles crumbling and paint peeling off like a second skin.

“Oh my god.” The four teenagers stepped out of the van, walking towards the abandoned palace.

“This place is a dump.”

“No, it can’t be.” Mark shook his head. “What happened to this place?”

“I’ll tell you what happened.” Renjun pointed to a For Sale sign in a corner. Mark’s heart stopped in his chest as his eyes drifted towards the object of his childhood wonder and fantasies, now broken and unwanted.

It…really is a dump.

The sound of another car pulling up behind them startled the four boys. A man got out of a Ford Fiesta, dressed in jeans with multiple piercings in his ear. “Sorry boys but this palace has been sold.”

“We’re not here to buy a palace.” Jeno said. “We’re here to see it.”

“Well it’s not much to see isn’t it?” the man sighed, kicking away some rocks as he walked to where the sign was. He pulled it out of the ground. “This place has been sold to Aprico Properties.”

“What are they going to do with it?” Donghyuck asked.

“Turn it into a resort, bulldoze it down, make a highway, I don’t know.” The man shrugged. “All I know is, this palace has been in my generation for years, and grandpa is going to be very upset about it.”

“Your grandfather owns this castle?”

“Yeah. I’m Ten.” Ten offered his hand out to shake theirs.

“I’m Renjun. This is Jeno, Donghyuck and Mark.” Renjun gestured to Mark, who was staring at the castle, standing a few feet away from the group. “Mark is uhm…a huge fan of this palace.”

“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you all.” Ten rubbed the back of his head. “But this palace, has got to go.”

********************

“Grandpa, I have guests.”

“Guests are like mice. You open one door and they all come in.”

“Don’t mind my grandfather.” Ten chuckled nervously, opening the door to his house as the four teenagers stepped in, putting their shoes away. Ten’s grandfather lived near the property where Scarwood Palace was still sitting on. It was a small house but very well taken care of. Pictures of Scarwood Palace from decades ago decorated the walls, along with family photos featuring babies, wives, old people and even dogs. One of the babies had a very big smile on his face, who Jeno could only presume to be Ten himself, judging from the way he shone his pearly whites at his grandfather.

“Make yourself at home, can I get you anything to drink?”

“Anything, we don’t mind at all.” Donghyuck said.

“I’ll make some tea. Grandpa, where did you put the teabags?”

“Bags are placed in the corner sir.”

“Grandpa, I told you to stop rearranging things in the kitchen.” Ten sighed, opening all the doors to find the damned teabags. “One day you won’t be able to find anything.”

“Aren’t we all continuously searching for things in life my friend?” the old man said, sitting in his rocking chair, looking out the window at a view of trees and hills.

“My grandfather gets bored easily.” Ten laughed. Donghyuck had stood up to help him make his tea. “When he needs to find something to do, he’ll just rearrange the things in the cupboards, move things outside…once he even threw his clothes outside.”

“Is he…”

“He’s just getting old.” Ten tried to smile. “My family and I have been trying to get him to move into the city with us.”

“You don’t live here?”

“Oh no, I just come back here every once in a while, to take care of him. I help him manage the property since he can’t do it anymore. No one else in the family wants to touch that castle. They think it’s too much work.”

Ten and Donghyuck bought their tea over. Renjun helped to serve while Ten gave one to his grandfather. Grandpa Lee was in his late 80s at best, his hair was white like snow, his beard was so long and his skin reminded Mark of a wrinkled old prune. He was just gazing outside wistfully, perhaps so preoccupied in his thoughts he didn’t even acknowledge Ten putting a cup in his hand.

“So…your family owns this palace?”

“That’s right.” Ten nodded. “Started with my great, great, times a hundred grandfather. He was Braden Scarwood’s caretaker. He inherited the place after Mr. Scarwood died and has been looking after it ever since.”

Ten told them about how back in the days, the palace was a major tourist attraction, and Hollywood-style parties and powerful statesmen stayed there. Movies were shot there, celebrities held their weddings, and the Palace has even seen their fair share of deaths. Despite the palace’s colourful history, the palace soon fell into disrepair, and the expenditures needed to keep it in tip-top condition became too high.

“My grandfather was the last real caretaker.” Ten said. “He used to take me into the palace, helping him clean and scrub floors. It was hard work, but I loved it. Grandpa always told me about the people who came to stay in Scarwood Palace. The stories he heard as a child, he passed it on to me.”

“What happened?”

“The economy, that’s what happened.” Ten sighed. “It was just getting harder and harder to maintain it. My dad said grandpa lived his whole life around that castle, and that he was silly for not selling it earlier to help pay for grandma’s medical bills.”

“Your grandmother was sick?”

“Very. Though in my grandpa’s defense, it was grandma who told him not to sell. Grandma loved this place.”

“You could try collecting pieces of it’s history and preserve it as a historical landmark.” Renjun said.

“We tried, believe me.” Ten shook his head. “But it was just too expensive to maintain. We sold all the furniture inside. All the Renaissance paintings, one of a kind antique armchairs and vases, to try and keep our heads above the water, but the local council didn’t do anything. Aprico made a bid for the land and said they wanted to use it to build a new shopping mall.”

“A shopping mall? But we have plenty of that.” Donghyuck pouted.

“Yes, but shopping malls bring in businesses and customers. Malls bring in sources of income to the local towns and the people in them.” Ten poured everyone some more tea. “The only thing this castle has bought in in recent years is a headache.”

“I suppose we’re lucky that we are here to see it before it goes, right Mark?” Donghyuck turned to his left, but Mark was no longer there.

“Mark?” he called.

“Where did he go?” Jeno looked around, noticing the front door was open, and Mark’s shoes had disappeared.

“He must have gone outside.”

“I hope he didn’t go far,” Ten said. “The forest is pretty dense, and by the looks of it, the weather will not be good.”

Thunder rumbled in a distance. Donghyuck put down his cup and stood up. “We gotta go find him.”

All three teenagers stood up and ran out before the thunder could close in.

********************

“Mark!!”

“Mark!!!”

“Maaark!!”

“Mark Lee where are you?!!!” Jeno, Donghyuck and Renjun called as they circled the house, yelling into the sky, hoping Mark could hear them. When there was no response, it was Donghyuck who suggested they should spilt up.

“Mark?! Mark?!?!?!?” Donghyuck called and called, stepping into the forest, crossing through branches and weaving his way through leaves. The sky was darkening above them, and pretty soon it would be impossible to find anybody in there. Donghyuck nearly squealed when he heard someone snap a tree branch in the distance.

“Maybe that’s Mark…MARK!!!!”

Donghyuck paved his way, running through the forests, crackling leaves under his feet as he tried to outrace the weather. Mother nature always win, and soon raindrops started trickling down.

“ .” Donghyuck called. “MARK LEE!!! This isn’t funny anymore!!!! WHERE THE ARE YOU?!?!?!!”

It had begun to pour and this time Donghyuck went from anxious to pure panic. What If Mark had gotten lost, or injured? What if he fell down somewhere and couldn’t get up? What if he was caught by wolves or attacked by wild animals?

No amount of Bears Club experience he had could possible prepare him for the horror that is imagining your best friend dead in the woods. The rain was pouring on them like a waterfall by now, visibility in the forest had gone down sharply. Donghyuck couldn’t hear anything aside from the thunder and beat of the raindrops on the forest floor like drums.

“MARK LEE!!!!”

By this time, Donghyuck was panting and crying. You couldn’t see the tears on his face because it was masqueraded by the rain, but he was petrified and worried. What if he really did lose his best friend?

“Mark!!!!!!!” Donghyuck found a figure, squatting down by a small stream a few feet away from a tiny waterfall. Mark had his head buried in his arms, shivering from the wind.

“Mark Lee Minhyung I could just kill you!!!!” Donghyuck screamed, grabbing his arm. “Let’s go!!”. Mark stayed like a rock, refusing to get up.

“Mark it’s raining!!” he yelled, in case Mark didn’t realize their current weather conditions due to his snail-like behaviour. “You’re going to be sick let’s go!!”

“Leave me alone!”

“Have you fallen of your rocker and landed on your head?!” Donghyuck stared at him in utter bewilderment. Mark’s eyes were red, his nose runny (not that you could tell) and his hair stuck to his forehead like seaweed. He had been crying.

“If this about that stupid palace…”

“That palace was not stupid!” Mark snapped back in anger. Donghyuck could feel the frustration, anger, and most importantly, hurt, emanating from him.

“That palace was my ing childhood!” Mark sobbed. “It was the last thing I wanted to do before I grew up. It was the soul of this trip. The goodbye gift before I go to college and now look at it! It’s a dump!”

“Mark you…”

“Don’t you see? I failed. This trip is a failure.” Mark sobbed harder and harder. “We travelled all this way for nothing. Nothing, you hear me?!”

Mark fell to his knees again, crying in the wind. Donghyuck didn’t know what to do, except to cry alongside him. He fell down to his knees as well, wrapped his arms around Mark, and they cried together in the pouring rain, rocking side by side.

Just then, the rain seemed to stop beating on their faces. Donghyuck looked up, and it was Renjun and Jeno, holding umbrellas in their hands. “You grab Donghyuck, I’ll get Mark.” With Renjun’s arm on Donghyuck’s and Jeno pulling Mark up, they made their way out of the forest, the fog covering Scarwood Palace in the distance.

********************

The four of them were invited to stay with Ten and his grandfather for the night. Ten made them all warm baths and hot soups as they had been caught in a terrible rain. Mark’s lips were almost blue from the cold, and he shivered and shook like a vibrating cell phone as he waited his turn for the bath. When he dipped his feet in the copper bathtub filled with warm water, he could feel his body succumb to its warmth, like a protective blanket covering a child. He rubbed the hot water all over his face, ears, and even his hair.

“I hope you are proud of yourself.” Jeno came into the bathroom, placing a towel next to him. He had already freshened up, his hair still damp, and his handsome face was now scowling at him.

“You are such a god damn idiot. How could you just run out like that without telling anyone? You could have gotten lost, or eaten by wolves or fallen off a ing cliff and we wouldn’t know. Do you know how scared we all were? Huh? Donghyuck was screaming off the top of his lungs and he is still shaking right now. You scared all of us to death, we thought you were hurt!”

Mark just sat there in the tub, hands on his knees as he curled them to his chest. He couldn’t explain his attitude, and even if he could, he knew it would not be enough.

“Look, I get that you are disappointed that this stupid palace is up for sale, and it didn’t turn out the way you want to, but that doesn’t mean you get to throw a ing childish tantrum and scream like a…”

“You don’t know anything!” Mark finally snapped. “You don’t know what that place means to me! I waited a lifetime to visit this place, you hear me? An entire lifetime! My childhood dreams and longings are in that place, how would you feel like if you were me, and you just learned that everything you once knew was about to be ing destroyed!”

“Will you stop making this trip all about you for god’s sake!” Jeno yelled back. “We planned this trip because of you. Going to Scarwood was your idea, okay? I told you not to go, but you ing insisted on it. When the van got held up, we had to cancel all of MY PLANS, just so we could go to yours. Since when is this Mark’s Last Trip? This is OUR last trip, okay? OURS.”

“If you were so unhappy all this time why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you were either whining about Donghyuck being with Woojin or ing complaining about me leaving, which brings me to one thing, you and Donghyuck. Will you stop lying to him, and yourself, and just tell him you like him?”

“I don’t…”

“Don’t you even try you liar.” Jeno pointed a finger at him. “I have known you for years and I can see through your fake act.”

Mark dipped his head down. An icy silence passed through them as Jeno rubbed his temples in frustration.

“He likes you, you like him. A blind man in Alaska can see it. Even Yeri, ing Yeri can see it. And she knew you for less than a week.” Jeno’s bitter tone sent shivers down Mark’s back. “I don’t know what the is wrong with you. Either man up and do something, or all you’re doing is hurting Donghyuck. You don’t see it because you ate too ing oblivious.”

“I’m…hurting him?”

“ you really are an idiot.” Jeno huffed. “You really don’t know?”

Mark had zero idea what Jeno was talking about and just stared at him in confusion.

“Mark, you are leading him on, okay? You tell him he’s important, and that he’s your best friend, and that you care for him deeply, but then you don’t do anything else, right? You don’t say ‘no, I don’t want to be your boyfriend,’ you don’t hold his hand, you don’t kiss him, you don’t do anything and that is hurting him okay?”

“How do you know that?”

“He and Renjun have gotten very close.” Jeno explained. “Do you know why he let Woojin kiss him, let Woojin come close to him? Because he is sick and tired of your bull and trying to be the good guy by not doing anything and you know what, I have to agree, okay? You can’t just sit there, expect everything to happen on its own and not take responsibility for you actions and when it does go wrong, run outside in the rain and throw a tantrum like a ing child. You are not a child anymore, you get me? YOU. ARE. NOT. A. CHILD.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know that we have to grow up and live our separate lives?!” Mark splashed water everywhere as he flailed his hands about. “My best friend is ing leaving me, I’m moving out in a couple of months to become a ‘grown up’ which I don’t know how to be and you standing there, trying to yell at me is not helping this!!!”

“Quit trying to play the pity game I am ing sick of it!” Jeno growled back at him. “So what if life doesn’t work out your way? What are you going to do about it? Sit here and whine and cry and hope that your daddy comes and fixes it for you? What about ten years down the road? You’re still going to be sitting on your whiny crying whenever something doesn’t go per plan? Grow the up Mark. We’re not children anymore. Whether you like it or not, time is ticking. I am moving. I will be moving, and one day, so will Donghyuck. One day, he’s going to be married, with children of his own, having a happy little family, and you are going to be stuck in a tiny house, looking out the window and asking yourself what might have been.”

Jeno ruffled his hair, turning his back towards Mark. “You think you’re the only one who is scared? I’m moving to a ing foreign country and I can’t speak a word of English. You think I’m not shaking in my boots. I’m ting myself right now and you don’t see it.”

“Jeno…”

“The world does not revolve around you. You think you got problems, wait till you see the people around you.” Jeno scoffed. “It’s time to grow up, child. Because if you don’t, everyone else will, and you will be left all alone. I swear it.” With that, Jeno slammed the bathroom door, leaving Mark alone in his tub.

Mark sank back, bringing his hands to his face. His chest tightened, and he cried again.

A/N: Today is NCT Dream's comeback and I am so excited!!!! Our boys are getting ready to slaaaaay!!