4

chapter 5

(A week later)

"Hyung, come on! I'm hungryyy~"

Mark grumbled under his breath and glared at Johnny who was currently trying to annoy the life out of him. Mark was currently laying on the living room couch in front of the TV, while Johnny sat next to him reading a book. They hadn't had dinner yet and they both wanted to eat dinner early tonight so that they can start getting ready for the dance competition tomorrow. However, since it was late already, Mark and Johnny decided to eat dinner early instead of continuing to work on their homework.

It had been a week since Mark met Jaehyun and Taeyong in Mark's house. After they left, he and Jaehyun were left to themselves once more. Both of the boys were still adjusting to everything they knew about one another; it wasn't easy for Mark to open up to people, especially since most of the people he spoke to were strangers. But he trusted Jaehyun with all his heart, and he knew that Jaehyun would never hurt him.

However, Mark could not deny that he was curious about how Jaehyun ended up in his house in the middle of the night. Since they moved into the house a week ago, Mark had been keeping a close eye on Jaehyun and he had managed to catch him doing some pretty weird stuff throughout the past few days. For example, yesterday morning when Mark and Jaehyun were walking down to the library after breakfast, Mark noticed that Jaehyun was carrying two bags. The bags were clearly filled with books, but they looked to Mark like they were covered in dust. When Jaehyun caught Mark staring, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said that he brought the books home to read, which Mark didn't believe in the slightest.

But today, after Mark had told him that he wouldn't make him pay rent if he broke anything of theirs (he wasn't going to, he didn't care about Jaehyun's belongings), Jaehyun insisted on helping Mark clean the house. Now, Jaehyun was busy putting the dirty dishes into the sink, but whenever he tried to wash them, he started shaking and complaining about how hot the water was, so Mark just let him do it. Mark was starting to get annoyed with the younger boy, but decided not to say anything about it, since it wasn't his business anyway.

So far, Mark had noticed that Jaehyun often took out random objects from one of the bags, and Mark didn't know where those objects might have come from, but whatever it was, he hoped that Jaehyun would keep it secret from him. It was definitely something that he wanted to keep hidden from others, because if Mark knew where the item came from, that meant it was possible for others to steal it from him, so he refused to let anyone else touch the objects.

"Are we done?" Jaehyun finally asked.

"Almost!" Mark answered and then added: "Wait until I get my laptop! That will take awhile."

A few seconds later, Mark placed the laptop on the coffee table and got up from the couch, saying that he was going to use the bathroom and ask his mom if he could go upstairs for a moment. When he arrived at the staircase, he stopped and looked down it. Although he could hear voices from below him, he could only see his mother standing behind the kitchen counter talking to another person, which he figured must be Jaehyun's mother.

"I'm really sorry to interrupt your cooking, Mrs. Lee, but is it alright if I borrow Jaehyun for a moment? I need to talk to him about something important."

"Of course," Mrs. Lee said with a bright smile. "Just give me a minute. I'll be right up."

Mark nodded his head silently. As he started to climb up the stairs, he heard Jaehyun call after him: "Mark! What's happening?!"

"Don' worry, I'll be right back!"

As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, he walked down the hallway towards his room. Once he stepped inside his room, he closed the door carefully and then sat down on his bed. After he had calmed himself down, he opened the laptop and started browsing through the news website in search for information about the upcoming competition. Mark found the page quickly and clicked on it as he waited patiently for Jaehyun. The first thing he noticed when he scanned the screen was a video clip from the competition that was being broadcasted live. As the video progressed, Mark noticed how many people were participating and he was surprised to see that there were a lot of people who actually wanted to enter this competition. Even though there were quite a few people participating, the list of names displayed in the bottom corner of the screen showed that many of them weren't interested in entering the competition. Most of the contestants were only interested in making some money for the competition, so Mark couldn't help but frown as he watched the video.

After watching the video for a little longer, Mark decided to continue checking the internet for any interesting news reports about the upcoming competition. As he was searching, he noticed that several websites he normally wouldn't check popped up on the search bar. One of the websites that were popping up was an article titled 'The Dance Competition' and the title of the article gave him an idea: 'THE TRIPLE DANCE CHALLENGE', it read. He clicked on it and began to read the content within the article.

After finishing the paragraph that explained what the contest entailed, Mark read on to the part where the competition participants would be presented before the judge. The name of each participant was listed underneath it, along with the dates. Some participants were listed on the same date as Mark, so he guessed that Jaehyun must've gotten invited to compete too. After scrolling through the name list for a few minutes, Mark noticed another name that caught his attention: 'ROBERT JOHNSON'. His father was one of the contestants for the competition.

Mark felt a sudden sense of excitement inside of him; he was excited to see how his dad performed in the competition. His father used to perform professionally in a group called the Golden Globes, which made him famous across Europe. And although he had only met Robert once, he was certain that he had grown even more handsome than before. In fact, he had even grown taller than Mark himself!

While Mark continued to look forward to seeing his father perform during the competition, he suddenly remembered something else that had happened yesterday. While he was eating dinner with Jaehyun, Johnny had mentioned something about the upcoming competitions. During dinner, Johnny told them about a competition that would happen the following Wednesday between three different countries. Apparently the competition involved two judges who would decide the final winner from among the four participants who entered the competition. According to the article that he saw on the Internet, the winning team would receive the highest prize of all and they would also win an award.

Johnny told them that they would be performing in the competition in Japan.

When Mark and Jaehyun returned from dinner, they immediately went straight to their bedroom where Jaehyun placed the two bags that he had carried upstairs in Mark's room. Mark sat down on his desk chair and pulled out the bag containing his old clothes that he had bought in Japan a few weeks earlier.

"You have a problem with these? You don't look very happy right now," Jaehyun said after observing his expression.

Mark shook his head and smiled at Jaehyun as he replied: "No, these are okay. Just tell me what I should wear to the competition."

Jaehyun picked up one of the dresses in Mark's closet and looked at him questioningly.

"Why do you want to put that dress on anyways?" Jaehyun asked. "You don't need to impress anyone."

"Yeah, but my dad is going to be here, so I need to look nice," Mark explained. "If I look bad, my dad can't afford to buy me new clothes."

"Your dad is rich?" Jaehyun seemed surprised by this piece of information. "What does he do again?"

"He owns a company that makes cars," Mark responded.

"Really?" Jaehyun asked with wide eyes. "That's so cool!"

"Isn't it?" Mark agreed. "Anyway, can you hand me a blue dress shirt please? There's also black pants in that bag over there, so that's gonna have to do for now," Mark stated.

"Sure thing." Jaehyun nodded his head and then walked over to Mark's closet and grabbed the clothes that Mark had requested. Once he handed them to Mark, he then turned around and headed over to his own bedroom. He disappeared behind his door for a couple of seconds before coming back out carrying two pairs of shoes and two shirts. With a satisfied smile, Jaehyun walked over to Mark and placed both items down onto Mark's desk.

"I think these should be fine enough," Jaehyun mumbled to himself as he stared at the items that Mark had given him.

Mark frowned slightly upon hearing Jaehyun's words. While he liked his brother, he didn't like being criticized while dressed in fancy clothes, especially if he hadn't been able to choose which outfit he wanted to wear.

"Those aren't my best clothes," Mark complained. "I only brought these out today because I planned to wear them tomorrow morning to school."

"Sorry... I forgot..." Jaehyun apologized. "These things were too much, so I thought I'd pick the easiest ones I had."

"Well, thanks for trying to find them. But, why do you think I'm gonna wear these in the competition? They're way too expensive."

"I didn't think about that... Maybe you can still change your mind, though," Jaehyun suggested hopefully. "But if you don't want to try these on or anything, then-"

"I'm wearing those." Mark interrupted his brother and pointed at the clothes that Jaehyun had already put on the desk.

"Fine..."

Mark grabbed the clothes off the desk and walked over to the bathroom, where he quickly changed into the blue dress shirt and the gray pants that Jaehyun had handed to him. After taking a quick shower, he went back into his room and picked up the bag holding the shoes that Jaehyun had brought. He walked downstairs and handed the shoes to his sister, who looked up at him curiously and asked:

"Are those really yours?"

"Yes, they are," Mark answered.

"I thought that you might not want to wear the red sneakers since you're wearing brown shoes instead," Jaehyun said. "So I just took a pair of brown shoes and gave them to you to wear for tonight."

"Okay, thanks," Mark said. "They're not the most comfortable shoes, but they should work, I guess."

Mark and Jaehyun left Mark's house together and walked to Jaehyun's house, where he let Mark walk inside by himself. When Jaehyun had gotten into his car, he drove to his own house first, which was located close to Mark's house. Once he parked his car, he followed Mark into the house and closed the door behind him. As soon as he did that, Mark ran into the living room and sat down on the sofa next to Jaehyun.

"Can we watch TV? It looks like it's showing something exciting," Mark said excitedly.

"Sure. Let me grab the remote first." Jaehyun walked into the kitchen and came back with the remote. Mark grabbed the remote from Jaehyun and switched on the TV. A few seconds later, the TV turned itself on and showed a commercial break. Once the commercials ended, the television immediately started to play a short documentary that contained clips of various dance performances, performances from the previous winners of the previous contest and other competitions throughout the past years that were recorded digitally. By the time the documentary was finished, Jaehyun had already set up the DVD player and connected the cable to the TV.

"It'll start playing once the movie starts," Jaehyun told Mark as he placed the disc into the DVD player.

As soon as the television screen turned on, the opening credits for the film began to appear, causing Mark to get excited. Jaehyun laughed softly as he noticed his younger brother's reaction and commented: "It seems like you haven't seen a movie before. How about we watch a couple of movies tonight? We could watch Tangled, Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast."

"Oh yeah! That sounds awesome!" Mark exclaimed enthusiastically. "Where did you say we could go to catch a movie?"

"We could just watch movies wherever we want to see them."

"How about the park?"

"Okay." Jaehyun nodded his head in response. "Do you want to eat first or watch a movie after we finish our meal?"

Mark looked at the clock that hung above the fireplace.