We don’t talk anymore (Part 1)
It had been 2 years since you had last seen him in person. You missed seeing his face, his contagious smile, hearing his voice and being in his presence.
A/N: *not based on real events*, 2k words
Series contains: Fluff, lots of teasing, cringeworthy moments, friends to lovers, slow burn, angst, nostalgia.
You and Martin now lived in two completely different worlds.
You remained in Canada, with a couple of months left for you to graduate high school whilst he was all the way in South Korea on a trajectory to becoming a Kpop idol and a global star.
Over the last two years, you had little to no contact, it was sadly nothing but a "Hey Martin, how are you?" "Everything going well?" It was mostly you attempting to maintain your contact, sometimes you would get reply and other times you didn’t.
When he didn't reply it honestly weighed on you a lot more that it should've- but he was busy, you wasn't a priority- so you eventually stopped messaging him in attempt to detach yourself from what you once had and move on just like he did.
Except, you couldn’t fully detach yourself from him because you kept on returning to your old messages to each other, from back when he had time for you.
You found each other through music club in 10th grade as your mother forced you to join because apparently reading 6 hours a day isn’t good enough and you needed a “real” skill to pick up.
When you walked in for the first time you weren't expecting anything or anyone to exceed your expectations, after all music club was for the “creatives” a term that was used in your high school to describe those who had special or nerdy interests. You already knew Martin was someone who attended the club. In fact he led the club- but he wasn’t exactly someone who drew a lot attention throughout high school yet he was impossible to ignore as you walked in.
The singular ray of sunlight that snuck into the the classroom chose Martin as it’s centre and you watched closely at the way he attended a student in front of him, demonstrating a piano sequence from behind with his arms towering over their shoulders. His blonde spiky hair appeared golden and his nails were covered in a chipped black nail polish.
Although you and Martin never shared a word to each other throughout the entirety of highschool, you remember a part of you at that moment wanted to speak to him, no matter how small the interaction was .
You forced yourself to look indifferent as you headed towards the scattered circle of chairs in the centre of the classroom.
The club was filled with more people than you expected and everyone was scattered around the room in duos and trios speaking loudly and messing about with each other, some groups arguing and having loud disagreements with each other over what lyrics suited their song best or who got to lead their group session that day.
Slightly overwhelmed by the chaos of the room, you paced forward and was about to sit down when a voice abruptly called for your attention from the other side of the room.
"Don't sit on that one! It's broken! " Martin chuckled, slightly smirking whilst doing so.
Slowly tilting your head down, you noticed the giant crack running through the seat. Your cheeks warmed and you quickly shied away from the direction he was in whilst sitting down on a stable chair this time and internally kicking yourself for your lack of attentiveness.
Before you knew it, you had subconsciously whipped out your phone from your jacket pocket and stared at your lock screen for a few seconds which appeared to have "no older notifications".
"You’ve got no friends huh?" You heard from a now familiar voice that was standing right in front of you. Martin towerered over you, also staring at your phone for a second with a loud grin on his face that slowly faded as your eyes met.
"Shouldn't you be helping out the others?" You defensively shot back, after realising he's probably gathered that the only people in my contact lists are my mum and dad.
"My role here also includes helping out any newbies who appear to be lost, and you unfortunately appear to be in that category ". He said whilst he swung forward with his hands buried in his trouser pockets.
"I'm not lost actually." You replied said in an even more defensive tone than you had before.
"Alright y/n" he whispered unconvincingly bending down so you was the only one to hear him.
In a louder voice he added,
"Well, you can either choose to involve yourself or stay here doing nothing for the rest of the session". He slightly raised his eyebrows, signalling that some part of him wanted me to join in with the others, but really and truly you had no interest in creating music- after all you didn't intentionally choose to come to this club.
After your choice was made, he walked away clearly unbothered and dragged the broken chair you nearly sat on to a corner of the classroom whilst dapping up his friend Keonho who was leaving the session early.
You never intended on returning back to music club after that painfully embarrassing first session. Instead, you planned to spend your Tuesday after school evenings in an spare classroom re-reading “A Good Girls Guide to Murder”.
So that’s exactly what you did that following Tuesday. You chose a classroom that was beside the 3rd floor terrace and as you entered you noticed a pulled out chair on the back row of tables and chose that as your designated seat.
Roughly 20 minutes of intense reading went by, when you felt a sudden but gentle tap on my shoulder. You looked down at their shoes and correctly guessed in your head whose worn out black high top converses they belonged to.
“Listening to music whilst reading?” Martin questioned confused as he smoothly grabbed the book out my hands and stared at the cover.
“I’m not actually listening to anything, wearing it just helps me focus on the book”, you muttered, slightly self-conscious whilst removing your wired headphones from your ears.
“Hmm, a bit peformative of you, but I don’t judge.” He said with a hollow grin on his face whilst trying to hide the smile in his voice.
“Give me back my book now- and also you just judged me.” You sternly replied whilst aimlessly attempting to grab your book that was now hidden behind his 6’3 self.
You suddenly became aware that you looked like a bit of a pick-me at that moment and this made your frustration at him who was amused at your attempts to get your book back intensify even further.
“Only if you promise not to murder to me”, He said with his face paused holding a half- serious but half- playful demeanour.
“Yeah, I’m not promising anything.”
You then your packed bag quickly and headed out of the classroom to escape his nonsense.
“Wait- where are you going y/n?, you forgot something?”
He points to my newly bought wired headphones that were left scrunched in the corner of the table I was sat on.
“Are you gonna make me do the walk of shame back to collect them or-?”
He abruptly flings the headphones to you in a free-throw motion and you catch it with ease.
“Nice catch, your not as hopeless as I thought you were”
“Thanks I guess, but nothing about me gives hopeless.”
“Your welcome” He says proudly, following me out of the terrace classroom and shutting the door on his way out.
“So what are you even doing up here anyways?” You asked, genuinely curious because last time you checked he was the ring leader of music club.
“Well I’ve been banned from music club.”
“Oh?” you say scanning his face that looks suprisingly unbothered.
“Yeah, I got pulled out temporarily because my grades were slipping”
“Oh, that’s a shame” you reply back, attempting to perform empathy whist holding back laughter.
“Is this the part where you ask me to be your tutor?” you boldy replied because you were used to people soft-launching their need for academic help from you.
“Haha you’ve got it all wrong” He says whilst looking into the far distance of the terrace, grinning with his hands deep into his trouser pockets.
“Oh really? Enlighten me then.”
Martin then shook his hair back into place after a gust of wind moved it. Everything about him was dramatic even the pause and the clearing of his throat he took before he announced,
“You see, my grade average across all subjects slipped from a C- to a D+ so I’m actually in a good place right now, I just need to study a bit more”
“A good place? Your optimism is concerning, but I shouldn’t judge I guess”
“So what are we calling this?” He adds on, swiftly turning his head your way with a look of charm in his eyes.
You stopped in your tracks and nearly choked on your gum.
“Your unbelievable” you huffed whilst overtly side-eyeing him.
“What?”
“Martin this is the first time we’ve properly spoke- I know you’ve scared off girls with that line before”
“Your one of the the highest scorers in our year, no?”
“Sounds like me”
“Sooo… could you be my tutor?”
You quickly shaked off the feeling of embarrassment after realising what he meant by his question but you also couldn’t help but notice how calculated it also was so you decided played into his mind games.
“Do you always act like this?” You asked.
“Like what?”
“Like this….”
“Like what? Charming? Not on purpose.”
“The subject is self-aware” You sarcastically narrated back to him; the second you saw Martin in music club for the first time you could already tell he had main character syndrome from the way the light shone on him and him only.
He cackled of laughter whilst leaning his head back allowing you a second to really look at him without the pressure of his slightly intense but mischievous eyes.
“No, you wish, I would describe you as more cocky and off-putting to be honest, but I enjoy playing into people’s delusions ”
“Okay ounch, who hurt you y/n?”
“Nobody. But someone decided to disrupt my reading today”
“But you was sitting in my seat??”
“That’s not the point you could’ve sat anywhere else.”
“I could say the same thing to you”
“Hm I guess that’s true”
“Wow, y/n agreed with me.”
“Wow, your easy to please.”
“Anyways, you didn’t answer my question.”
“If your asking about my tutoring services it’s only available to people I find bearable.”
Martin’s face dropped and you somewhat felt glad that he knew he didn’t fit into that criteria.
“….but, since I have nothing better to do than to re-read AGGGTM I guess I can spare sometime after school on a Tuesday”
He then non-chalantly pulled a small card of paper from the back of his trouser pockets that appeared to be a have a line of digits,
“Great, here’s my number”. He handed over the card but you didn’t grab it straight away and instead left him hanging so maybe his audacity would sink in for him.
You were indeed right, he was calculating.
“Okay now I take that back- and also why do you have a business card?!”
“My pops once told me a winning effort begins with preparation”
“Your phone would’ve been much easier to use btw”
“I forgot to charge it before school today so I left it at home”
You then proceeded to take a biro pen out of your pocket and turned over the back of his hand to write your number on it.
Martin appeared to be slightly flustered by your sudden reach for his hand and got ticklish when your started writing on it.
You laughed together at his silliness and shortly after it was time to go your seperate ways.
“See you next Tuesday!” Martin shouted from the other end of the corridor whilst waving before he turned a corner and disappeared to go check on how music club was doing downstairs.