Chapter Text
The thing about Mark, Haechan considered, is that while he is heartbreakingly, painfully earnest, he’s not actually stupid. Naïve, maybe, in some regards though even that is more of the genuinely-optimistic variety than lack of awareness. He also was consistently, impressively professional and worked hard to take care of his dongsaengs and be completely at his hyungs’ disposal should they need help. He was pretty much universally liked not just despite but often because of his endearing cringe, which is what made this situation so tricky and confusing.
Haechan knew what it was to rub people the wrong way and get under their skin—he was an absolute pro at it, after all. Sometimes his playful cheekiness could garner genuine frustration and animosity aimed his way, he knew. But Mark wasn’t like that at all. How could this happen?
It was no secret that of the Dreamies Haechan was a) one of the more overt and knowledgeable fans of his SM seniors and b) more willing to interfere with Mark and his business. This made him uniquely qualified to sort this out as uncomfortable as the thought of actually doing so made him. With the rest of Dream staring at him with the heartbreaking mixture of concerned and hopeful—the way they usually looked at their oldest when asking him to fix something—he really had no choice.
“Of course I’ll help,” Haechan said with a level of confidence he certainly did not feel. “If our sunbaes are bullying Mark, we’ll take care of it.”
It had started with Chenle overhearing a conversation between the EXO boys. Mark is his perfect, wonderful son and thusly one of the few people Chenle can listen to praise about without feeling even the slightest urge to pointedly interrupt and/or roll his eyes, which is why he eagerly listened in as he assumed that would be the direction the conversation went when he heard Mark’s name mentioned between the two older boys while he was wandering around outside SM’s practice rooms waiting to meet up with Kun for practice on a duo cover.
So imagine his surprise when instead they seemed to be making fun of him rather relentlessly.
Kai was snickering as Baekyun recounted something from their SuperM trip to Suho.
“Mark was just… oh my god, he was so awkward. Like unbelievably, painfully awkward. He kept going on about how our puzzles matching up with our seating arrangement was fate and it was just so, so bad.”
Now this was not exactly a unique pastime—most of NCT made a sport out of this exact thing, but they also loved Mark. He was theirs to make fun of because every every taunt and remark was said with an undercurrent of genuine affection and respect. Chenle didn’t know his sunbaenims very well, but Baekhyun’s dry tone really, really made it sound like the joke was at Mark’s expense.
Wasn’t Mark maknae of SuperM? Where was the cooing as he said it, the delighted cries of ‘aigo!’ in response to such an adorable story of the cutest member of NCT? His heart sank as Sehun responded:
“That sounds about right for the kid. God. Remember what Xuimin told us about filming Life Bar? Nightmarish.”
“Taemin and I were just talking about Mark too, actually. How the other members from NCT can be so cool while he’s so… it’s just amazing.” Kai added, distinct voice deeply amused. “I mean, even when we say things like that directly to his face, he just laughs it off. You know he bought us coffee after we convinced the tour bus to leave him at that rest stop? I really thought he was gonna cry but he laughed it off. He’d laugh it off if we burned his guitar or broke his nose, I swear.”
“Great idea for out next hidden camera.” Baekhyun replied, sounding like he was actually considering it.
“You’re too hard on the poor kid,” Sehun playfully groused.
“Well, it’s nice to have a new maknae to push around. It’s not like you let us bully you--” Baekhyun’s reply was cut off as the group finally went back into the practice room and the door slammed shut behind them.
Was that how it was? Mark was so nice and—and so good that he was seen as an easy target? Ridiculed and taken advantage of by his seniors?
Chenle’s heart sank in his chest as he thought of Mark alone at some rest stop in a foreign country trying not to cry, buying his terrible new hyungs conciliatory coffee they obviously did not deserve. Where were Ten and Taeyong in all this?! Too scared to stand up to their seniors? Well… Ten didn’t strike him as afraid of anything, so maybe they did it when the others weren’t paying attention? Yeah, that would make more sense, Chenle rationalized to himself.
He wouldn’t stand for this. If his beloved son—the honest-to-god best person Chenle had ever had the pleasure of knowing—was being bullied, he would put a stop to it, regardless of who they were. By the time Kun arrived he had resolved to take action. Kun took one look at his face and shook his head, absolute dread coloring his tone as he muttered I don’t wanna know under his breath and quickly steered the conversation toward their duet.
As with most things, Chenle brought it to Jisung first. Jisung suggested that maybe he was misreading their tone; Korean was Chenle’s second language after all. This resulted in Chenle tackling him and sitting on his back until the younger boy admitted that Chenle was much, much better at Korean than he was and he would never doubt Chenle’s abilities ever again. While fun, it was not the most productive of conversations, so Chenle decided to move on.
Next to talk to was Jeno, which had the added bonus/detriment of almost certainly ending up being Jeno-and-Jaemin as they were rarely very far from each other’s side. Sure enough he found Jeno hanging off of Jaemin in their dorm’s kitchen as the younger made tteokboki on the stove.
“Gross.” Chenle automatically remarked at the PDA and Jeno, surprised by his unexpected presence, jerked away from Jaemin, who in turn serenely continued to stir.
Chenle snorted. “Don’t bother. I’ve already seen it all.”
Jeno stuck his tongue out at Chenle as he resumed his place behind Jaemin, hand slotting back onto the younger’s waist.
“Sweet baby, do you want some lunch?” Jaemin asked Chenle, ignoring Jeno as his face drooped and he grumbled about having to share with the maknaes too damn much.
“I’m here on very serious business.” Chenle announced grandly. It was Jeno’s turn to snort as Jaemin raised an eyebrow at him. “… but yes, I would like some.”
Lunch ended up taking way longer than expected and Chenle was sharply reminded why he never wanted to spend time with just Jaemin and Jeno—they were too wrapped up in each other and it was frankly disgusting to watch.
Still, this was for Mark, so he bravely suffered through as he cleaned off his plate.
Deciding there was no real way to ease into this, Chenle decided to rip off the bandaid and just come out and say it.
“I think SuperM is mistreating Mark!” he loudly announced. Jeno started choking on his drink and Jaemin absently rubbed at his back.
“What? Because he works so much? I completely agree, he needs to take about 50 vacations.” Jaemin responded. His habit of telling Mark to stop working was no secret, and he always the first to try and make Mark cut himself some slack.
“No—” Chenle said, “Like, I think the members are bullying him.”
“Taeyong-hyung?!” Jeno asked incredulously, voice still scratchy from his bout of choking.
“The non-NCT members.” Chenle amended.
“No way!” Jeno instantly refuted.
“Yes way!” Chenle argued back, as he was pathologically incapable of responding to this tone of Jeno’s in any other way.
The conversation continued much the same way until Haechan wandered in, apparently serenading an exasperated-looking Renjun.
“Why are you here?” Chenle wondered aloud as he started at Haechan.
“One!” Haechan began sassily, “I could ask you the same. Two! ‘Hi, Haechan-hyung, my favorite! It’s so nice to see you, you make every day better! Thanks for gracing me with your presence!’” Haechan said in a high-pitched facsimile of Chenle’s voice.
Chenle couldn’t help but smile fondly even as he grumbled out “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
When Chenle explained his dark theory to the newly arrived boys, this time it was Haechan who chimed in incredulously: “Taeyong-hyung? Bullying Mark?”
“What if…” Renjun cut in frowning and looking preemptively guilty, “I mean, what if…. You know how Taeyong was always treated harsher than the other trainees? What if he thinks it’s just normal?”
At this, everyone frowned in a mixture of discomfort and heartache.
“That is… depressingly believable.” Jaemin allowed as he absentmindedly patted Jeno, who clutched his thigh, and Jisung, who clutched his sleeve.
“And Ten? Ten also loves Mark.” Jeno asked, though his voice was continually losing strength as the argument continued.
“Wouldn’t he… you know, wouldn’t go with what Taeyong-hyung says?” Renjun asked equally softly.
“We have to do something about this!” Chenle burst out, looking on the verge of tears. As with most things that required confrontation (since Mark was unavailable for obvious reasons), he turned to Haechan, lib wobbling. “Won’t you help my son?”
So, yes. Haechan had always had a soft spot for Chenle and when faced with him looking genuinely distressed he had indeed promised to confront his incredibly famous company seniors that he hardly knew and also was a giant fan of. This would require some planning.