Archive of Our Own ^beta

How did they get 21 people to live in two level apartments? Only six apartments but they seemed to claim the whole two floors as their own house. Much to the dismay of their neighbors beside them, they would cause a ruckus with nearly something or another happening. Usually that size is a classroom, but it’s nearly impossible to ignore each other when you had so many connections somehow.

First resident is Taeil Moon who just wanted a two bedroom apartment to save some money. He needed a roommate and he got that in the form of a guy named Ji Hansol who said he would have to wait for some time before his friends actually went to college. The two fit together for their second year of college and that was to it.

A simple life with Hansol bringing a boy named Yuta who happened to get along very nicely with Taeil. Before they knew it, Hansol had the opportunity to transfer to a better university. It was sad nonetheless, but Yuta fit like a twin clone for Taeil. The younger man had moved to SM with a promise of a good scholarship for majoring in Sports Medicine and playing soccer. Although they seemed not as chatty as Hansol and Taeil, they mutually understood each other.

The next chaos came in the form of Taeyong and Johnny, in which the two had been roommates freshman year and decided to go rent the recently vacated apartment on the same floor as Taeil and Yuta. One apartment still had a young couple, but overall it was safe to say it became noisy once the older 95’ liners came.

The four met one day when Yuta proclaimed that they needed to borrow some eggs for some bacon n eggs breakfast that they always have on Saturdays. The two had been so busy for several days that they forgot to buy eggs from the grocery store. Of course they could have just sent one of them to go to the store, but their neighbors happened to carry the smell of delicious eggs nearby. They have the bacon but if their neighbors had eggs, they could compromise a little bit.

In a game of rock, paper, scissors, Taeil won while sending Yuta with the explanation that they were in his year. That was true but Yuta didn’t talk to many people after Hansol and Taeil. He was a nervous freshman who moved from Japan during his senior year in high school. Although he lost contact with his friends, Jungwoo and Sicheng, he felt that he didn’t need to interact with other people. Hansol helped him a lot during his first year along with Taeil, but he was scared that he would mess up his Korean and then made fun of. However Taeil stated that if Yuta kept his silent act, then everyone would think he was an entitled bad player.

Yuta gulped before he took the fresh smelling bacon he got from Master Moon and knocked hesitantly onto the door. The familiar handsome face opened the door with a bright smile when he looked at Yuta. Neighbor Wise, only Taeil had briefly talked to them for small talk and Yuta barely contributed talking that one time when the two helped unpack the others’ boxes.

Anyways, Taeyong opened the door to expect one of their friends (namely Ten or Doyoung) to appear, but instead he got greeted with the aromatic smell of bacon with a pretty boy holding it. His mind supplied the guy’s name as Yuta, a sophomore who didn’t talk much but roomed with Taeil. He seemed to be a pretty sweet guy according to Taeil but has an insecurity of speaking in Korean. Taeyong wanted to attempt a conversation in Japanese with his neighbor but he only took the class for three years in high school. He nonetheless displayed his bright smile and hoped Yuta wouldn’t be intimidated by him.

Yuta on the other hand really could care less and wanted some eggs with his bacon. His mouth almost quivered in anxiety about what he should say. Taeil never made fun of him for his speech, but who knows what Taeyong or Johnny would say. Okay Yuta still didn’t know who was who but none of their classes overlapped so far.

“Want some bacon for some eggs?” His korean came out weird but he wanted to somehow convey the message. It wasn’t his fault that the national languages happened to be Korean and Chinese. English wouldn’t be that bad either, but Japanese is a language that only a few people take in this bizarre country.

“Sure, come inside! Johnny we have company, we all know you aren’t doing your homework!” Taeyong yelled the last statement before guiding Yuta to the breakfast bar as he opened the lid of the fresh steamed scrambled eggs. The other roommate who Yuta supplied with was Johnny so the other must be Taeyong. Johnny held his hand before Yuta shook his hand with a thought coming to Yuta that Johnny must have come from the West.

“I forgot to get a bowl, I will come back-” Yuta could barely finish his sentence before another knock interrupted him. To his dismay, Taeil came knocking in without the bowl and his horrible suggestion to share breakfast together. It was the first tradition, NCT had ever made, but Yuta could barely acknowledge that eating together for breakfast was the tradition. In fact, he would say that was the first time the egg and bacon tradition was dissolved when other people complained about eating the same time every Saturday.

The four ate together while conversing about what happened in their majors and found out about how they each met their roommate. They felt an attachment growing upon them, and Taeyong decided to take the lead whenever he spots any of them. They all began spending more time in each other’s apartments and began some sort of cliched movie night tradition or an anime/k-drama binge session after a long test.

Soon, it became time for the next door couple to move out because they wanted to host their parents and their upcoming child. The four of them wished the young couple good luck before they anxiously waited for their new neighbors.

Taeyong immediately decided to invite two foreigners to explore the unoccupied apartment. One of them happened to be friends with Johnny and Taeyong while the other was Taeyong’s only relatable friend according to him. Yuta eyed him suspiciously until he realized the meaning when he got sick.

Ten and Kun were the exact opposites and it made Yuta how they even managed not to kill each other. Since the two were foreigners, they were roommates by default to stay in the international dorm. They somehow met Johnny when he flexed on his Chinese skills that he learned from living in SMTown. Taeyong happened to be there too and ended up getting translations from Johnny the whole night until they told they can keep the conversation in Korean.

Yuta thought it was nice to share some of their new traditions with the new neighbors but the day when another guy came to their floor with his suitcase, something felt very off.

Taeyong introduced him as Doyoung or Dongyoung who happened to be moving in with Taeyong and Johnny since his roommate didn’t want to room with him later on. Taeil made quick friends with their latest new neighbor for their common interest in singing. Yuta seemed to be the latest antagonist for Doyoung as they would keep bickering between following the rules or some other small things.

Kun, Ten, and Doyoung knew each other from class, but putting the three together makes each other want to claw each other’s eyes out. It was chaos but the three fell under their new family perfectly with a new rivalry forming between Taeyong and Doyoung. Johnny said he was half-convinced that they were a couple or that they were enemies.

It was a good life, with the seven of them hanging out every breakfast eating Yuta’s favorite dish on Saturdays before watching a movie. Soon it became a plus two when Jaehyun and Sicheng arrived at their collective dinner. Yuta invited Sicheng who somehow found the university that Yuta was attending and Johnny invited Jaehyun who was the co-host at the Neo City Night Night Radio. It was an interesting job for the two of them and the others liked co hosting on days they were busy.

The two 97’ liners wanted to move into their home or aka their floor, so when they became second years, Sicheng stayed with Kun and Ten while Jaehyun moved in with Yuta and Taeil.

Taeil, who happened to graduate, decided that he wanted to stay for awhile in Neo City instead moving to SMTown. He decided to stick around to the local musicals in the Theatre. The other eight decided to always attend his musicals which made him feel great about his decision to stay with his new family.

However they all decided that if they have more people, it would be harder to split the rooms with them always switching roommates if there was an argument.

That went down the moment Sicheng and Yuta introduced Jungwoo who was sad that he was the only person his age, but he loved his friends so that made that thought go away. He had a hard time making friends after Sicheng left their high school for Neo Tech, because nobody would understand his personality.

He seemed to blend in with the other nine men and he somehow pleaded with Yuta, Taeil, and Jaehyun to almost practically live there all the time. His bright personality seemed to fit in well with the others and then he properly moved in with Jaehyun in what used to be Taeil’s apartment. The older two decided to stay in one room while the other two would stay in the other. It worked well with a lack of rules that made Taeyong almost come every single day to check on them.

The 95’ liners decided to also stay in the apartment complex even when the others saw the other potential jobs they could have had if they moved out. Yuta seemed hesitant to answer his mom about his decision because he wanted to move back home back when he was younger. This was his new home with Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Kun, Doyoung, Ten, Jaehyun, Sicheng, and especially Jungwoo. Besides it was the right size, 10 was more than enough and too much already with the every Saturday breakfast gathering. He felt needed in Neo City, and especially needed in the NCTzen Apartments.

Everything seemed fine for the next year, well until their new neighbors began moving in upstairs. Their landlord said that they were second years who happened to be friends renting one apartment. Well to be fair, there were more complaints when one of them started randomly playing a guitar duet in the middle of the night to let everyone know. Another was that they had a random party without warning any of the residents. Although some of the residents on this floor were extroverts, they never hosted a party or did something too much to gain the complaints of their neighbors.

Taeyong planned an intervention with all the flatmates to get the four to stop disturbing their sleep because four of them had normal jobs while the other six didn’t disturb them as much.

Kun and Taeyong prepared a lecture before turning soft when they saw young boys who happened to put on their angel faces (well Xiaojun and Mark really didn’t have to).

Johnny almost facepalmed when he looked at two of the boys while Kun, Ten, and Sicheng were just glad that they had new Chinese friends who happened to shrug to say that they were more fluent in Cantonese.

“I’m Lucas, and by month order, Mark, Xiaojun, and Hendery! Although you can call us Yukhei, Minhyung, Dejun, and Kunhang.” Mark happened to be Johnny’s cousin from Canada and didn’t happen to let his older cousin know where he moved. Lucas happened to be Mark’s best friend so Johnny happened to already meet the messy duo.

The four explained that Mark happened to be roommates with Xiaojun while the “crackheads” were roommates. They used to have their quirks in the dorm and decided to continue their traditions in the apartment. However they may have gone overboard, but promised not to disturb anyone’s sleep anytime soon.

Within a couple of days, they became frequent visitors of the 1st floor. That’s when things became messier according to Yuta because even though the 99 liners came as a package, Taeyong would nearly faint at the quint package of the most troublesome youth: 00 liners.

It all started when Doyoung and Mark introduced Jeno and Donghyuck to the nearby vacant apartment across from the 99’ packed apartment. The two thought that Jeno and Donghyuck were going to room together with nobody else. When the family came to help welcome the two into their new apartment, they were shocked to see three new residents.

Donghyuck stated that Jaemin and Renjun were supposed to take the other remaining apartment, but being the ultimate goal people they are, they decided to split the rent with Jeno and Donghyuck. Of course they didn’t want to leave Yangyang alone, so he joined them on the ride. Or that was their cover story before revealing that the five of them started dating and they weren’t going to split that easily. They were almost mistaken that the 99s’ were dating because of their closeness, but they immediately refused.

Taeyong thought reasoning with the 00’ liners was fine the first time since it worked well with the 99’. Yet now, he was pretty sure that the 96’ liners were ready to move out.

Somehow they all made up and had a messier scene in Johnny’s and Taeyong’s original apartment. Their old bond began new again and they had mixed in so many traditions it was hard to keep track of them. They all agreed that 19 was enough.

Chenle and Jisung made them change their minds and they said 21 was enough with their cuteness as they moved into the remaining apartment on the eighth floor.

The 21 of them interchanged between apartments everyday and began sharing their wardrobe almost to the point where if you looked for your favorite shirt, you might have to look through 12 rooms. Even if they didn’t get along pretty well, they became a family and were content in the Nctzen Apartments in Neo City.

“And that’s why you are seeing more than 2 people in our apartment!” Yuta threw in some sarcastic jazz hands that Johnny, Jaehyun, and Mark seemed to use whenever they talked about the US or Canada.

Taeil arrived with take out as he had widened his expression when he saw Hansol who apparently didn’t know that there were going to be 19 more people in their lives. He finished his PhD awhile ago and happened to be taking care of six other roommates in J-Flo after studying in UNIT.

“Well 21 isn’t a big number!”