LOCKET - martin edwards park
genre: friends to lovers | idol!martin x fem!trainee!reader , dual pov , jealousy
╰┈➤ slow burn!, angsty fluff , long written + smau, face claim: @marquiseaura
synopsis: pt.1 —> check out pt.2 / pt.3
You and CORTIS train at the same company, therefore you’ve come across them quite often. One out of the five explicitly has a soft spot for you, but you try your best to brush aside these feelings, because ultimately you can‘t find yourself caught in this mess when your main goal is to make it to your debut.
y/ns pov:
You’ve just finished dancing to illit‘s jellyous as your warm up, while you’re trying to catch your breath, you’re looking at the wall full of mirrors infront of you. You notice someone walking into to your practice room.
Martins freshly dyed hair peeks through the door, he hasn’t seen you yet but you are thoroughly watching his every move through the mirror.
He has now fully stepped foot into the room, in which you’ve spent the last years of your life trying to perfect your dancing.
"Oh, sorry"
His raspy voice still catches you off guard, even though you quite literally saw him say those words out loud through his reflection in the mirror. You turn to face him.
"Eh- I didn’t think anyone would be in here, I was just looking for Keonhos beanie. He told me he left it here." He states quickly without taking a break almost as if he was giving a presentation which he has been practicing for nonstop due to extreme anxiety.
This has always been confusing to you, the fact that everyone claimed Martin to be the extroverted one, but anytime you had a conversation with him, it seems like his effortless ability to be conversational left his body.
"Oh yeah, I put it on the bench. I was just gonna hand it over to Juhoon." you reply, still not quite recovered from your previous training session.
"Oh? Okay, thank you.“
As he walks over to grab Keonhos beanie, you feel the room filling up with awkward silence, the question whether the conversation ends here or if you should try and keep it going solely so you can keep talking to him.
Magnetic by Illit starts playing through your speaker. You start blushing, embarrassed that he’s witnessing you listening to a song he helped produce.
As he walks back to the door, putting his hand on the doorknob, he turns around to look you up and down. “Great song choice, btw.” he adds.
And just like that he’s gone. You start regretting not keeping the conversation going. Since his scratchy voice somehow always made you feel at ease.
Martins Pov:
Cortis are currently livestreaming on Weverse in their practice room.
*reading out a comment*: “Are any of you crushing on anyone at the moment” I read out loud, trying to keep in my laughter.
*Seonghyeon & Juhoon*: start giggling
*Keonho*: immediately turns to look at me with a huge grin on his face
*James*: okayyy let’s switch topics
The boys put me in time out, because apparently I only read out the weird comments (as if Keonho were any better). So I was forced to sit down on the couch behind us.
The guys started arguing about a comment, I unfortunately had no idea what they were referring to, so my mind just started wandering.
I was looking around the room trying to find anything that could entertain me.
That’s when I locked eyes with her.
I noticed y/n walking past our practice room, since we had our door wide open for whatever reason. But after our brief eye contact she immediately resumed back to looking down to her phone.
Talking to her would definitely be more entertaining than being on time out.
“I‘ll be right back” I quickly say to the boys and the viewers before walking out the door.
I’m trying my best to catch up to her, but somehow she was already halfway across the hall.
When I finally caught up to her, I lightly tapped her shoulder.
I might’ve startled her, because she turned around with a slight hint of fear on her face. Although her expression softened as soon as her eyes met mine. “Oh, hi Martin,” she says while taking one side of her wired earphones out.
Somehow that sentence coming out of her mouth alone was enough to make me fold completely. My mind went entirely blank for a second. You could tell she didn’t know how to handle my silence and awkwardness. I couldn’t even greet her back. I was just starring at her.
“I thought you guys were doing a Weverse live.” She added, so the awkward silence I created wouldn’t consume this whole interaction.
“Get it together.” I repeated over and over again in my head. I need to be able to talk to her without coming across like someone who lost every single one of their senses.
“Oh yeah, we still are, I just saw you walking alone and wanted to say hello, i don’t know why sorry if that’s weird or something, I just —”, I kept desperately trying to explain myself before she cut me off, she was probably sick of my stupidity.
“— you’re good don’t worry, I actually heard you guys from across the hall and honestly wanted to see what you guys are up to” She said, while her cheeks were turning fully pink, like as if she was embarrassed to be admitting it.
My face lit up at the thought of her caring enough about us (and therefore me), to walk all the way over here, considering the trainee practice room is two floors down.
“I lowkey wish you could join us but—”
I was being cut off due to my phone ringing excessively. I accepted the call, it was James asking me where I vanished off to. Apparently they’ve already ended the live and are planning on heading home.
I think y/n overheard James over the phone, because right after I hung up on him. She said:
“Oh you have to go?, I guess I’ll see you around then.” She said briefly while waving, before quietly turning around.
This cant be it. If I were to tell the guys about this interaction they’d clown me for fumbling once again and not taking initiative.
I softly grapped her wrist to stop her.
“Wait actually— Are you busy right now?”
“Ehm no, not really, I just finished practice. Why?”
“Would you want to come over?”
“To your place?”
“Yeah, we were just gonna hang out, play a game or something. If that’s fine with you”
“Yeah sure, I’d love to. Juhoon just texted me about it.”
Juhoon? Why would Juhoon text her without telling me beforehand? Especially if he was asking her about coming over to our place? I didn’t even know he had her number? How did he get her number?
Y/n‘s Pov:
At CORTIS‘ LA Home
The boys demanded on playing billiards, which made me regret agreeing to play with them. Because amongst all the things that I’m not good at, billiards would be one of them.
That’s why Martin insisted on having me play with him as a team, so my performance wouldn’t be that much of an embarrassment.
I was awkwardly leaning against the kitchen aisle waiting for our next turn, when Martin walked up to me to stand beside me, leaning against it as well. I didn’t even try to look up at him, knowing all I would see is his neck. He put his elbows down on the table as support instead of his hands, so that we would be eye to eye. That’s when I felt his eyes looking down on me. I did feel a strong urge to lock eyes with him, but I knew as soon as his brown eyes met mine, I wouldn’t be able to contain myself. Whatever that would imply.
“Your turn Y/n” Juhoon exclaimed.
I looked over to Juhoon, whom I always found comfort in. “Why are you making me do this?” I mouthed playfully.
I tried handing the cue stick to Martin, assuming that he would take this turn for me, like he has all the previous times.
“You try it.” Martin says gently, knowing I was refusing to do so to save me from humiliation.
As I was walking up to the pool table, I gave Martin a small frown. But he returned a reassuring smile. A comforting smile that said, 'it‘ll be fine'.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice James giving him an encouraging smile and nod. I was confused on what that expression was implying. But before I could think about it, Martin was already walking up to where I was standing.
“Let me help you.”
He starts towering over me, while putting his hands on the cue stick, over mine.
His body warmth melting into me.
Martins Pov:
It was getting late, and y/n‘s roommate was getting worried about her.
Y/n grabbed her purse and we all started walking towards the door.
We gathered infront of the door, waiting for her to finish saying goodbye to all of us.
She started waving goodbye to Seonghyeon and James, moving onto Keonho.
But instead her and Keonho started talking about where she got her bag from.
“Keonho, she’ll tell you about it some other time, she’s running late.” James explained
“My bad” Keonho said before waving her goodbye.
After moving her gaze from Keonho to Juhoon, she gives him a bright smile.
I didn’t think too much of it, she tends to be very cheerful when she’s around people she’s comfortable with and I assume they’re at ease with each other.
— She went in for a hug?
I didn’t think they were that close.
Okay, to be fair, it was just a side hug, not a full blown-arm-around his neck-hug, but still?
I was too busy wracking my head around their relationship. I didn’t even notice y/n waving goodbye to me.
As I came back to my senses, done with overthinking about whatever is going on between them—
I realized that y/n‘s mood had changed. You could tell she seemed upset. I didn’t know if it was because I hadn’t realized her wanting to say goodbye to me and unwillingly ignoring her.
I was debating whether or not I should ask her , if she wanted me to accompany her on her way home.
“Juhoon, could you walk me home?”
Oh.
He was kind of caught off guard by y/n’s request, he gave me a quick glance, and an expression that read as 'are you okay with it?'.
I just shrugged. Deep down I wasn’t okay with it, the thought of him being able to spend time with her alone, but not me, unsettled me.
“Ehm— sure”
Why Juhoon and not me?
Comment if you want to be in the taglist for pt.2!
Authors note: Hii guys, this is the first story I’ve ever written so please bare with me !! My friend @someonesmember helped me come up with a few ideas and proof read it for me ;). We lowkey have a lot of ideas in store for the next few chapters .. we don’t know when we‘ll post them though because schools taking us out and I’ll be out of the country for a while.