One Minus One Plus One
Pairing: college student!Mark x college student!reader
Description: In all of the years you’ve known Jungwoo, you should have figured out to not take his words at face value because, though you haven’t even met, Mark Lee seems to hate your guts.
Word Count: 9.9k
Genre: kind-of-enemies to lovers! fluff? angst? humor? I honestly don’t know how to categorize this
Warnings: vaguely suggestive ending, some minor swearing
A/N: This is my (late) holiday gift for a friend and to you all, I suppose. It’s an enemies-to-lovers but not really, as they’re not really enemies and it’s more passive-aggressive!Mark and very confused!Y/N. To the intended - I love and appreciate you so much; thank you for always supporting me and listening to me ramble about even the most ridiculous ideas <3 If you ever need anything, I hope you know that you can always shoot me a text or DM! Please enjoy c:
Mark Lee is always sweet. It’s the kind of sweetness that’s warm and fulfilling, leaving a pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, like a steaming up of hot chocolate rather than a strikingly sweet popsicle. His nature isn’t something he particularly prides himself on, as it’s partially unintentional, driven by awkwardness and politeness at times, or by the compulsion to simply make people happy. Jungwoo has told him that he’s allowed to be a little more selfish once in a while, he’s allowed to say no and take breaks sometimes. Except, he’s ever the people pleaser, ever the hard worker, ever the yes-man. Mark Lee is always sweet.
Except when he isn’t.
You’re fairly certain that Mark Lee has hated you since before you even met him. When you decide to transfer to the same university that your high school best friend Jungwoo attends, he talks your ear off about all of his great friends and all of the places he is going to take you and all of the fun you’ll have. He’s always been the descriptive type, telling you far too much about his good pals Mark, Donghyuck, Johnny, Taeil, Jaehyun, Kun, Lucas… and countless others, whose names you sometimes have a hard time keeping track of. Jungwoo has a lot of friends, something which has remained true since high school. Whenever you catch up with him, he speaks particularly fondly about Mark, who is one of his roommates and someone he considers to be one of his closest friends.
“You’ll love him,” he says, “but not too much, I hope. That would be super weird, you and Mark.” He wrinkles his nose at that and doesn’t make any more abnormal comments. You don’t think much of it.
In short, you let Jungwoo decide your opinion on Mark Lee before you ever met him. With everything else about moving to a completely different university occupying the majority of your thoughts, it’s easy enough to accept that Mark will be awkward and painfully sweet and that you will become fast friends. That’s your first mistake.
Before you even finish moving in, Jungwoo drags you over to his place to meet some of his friends, who he insists will become your own. It’s just past noon and he claims that everyone will be awake and ready to greet you once you get there. He’s half right, in the sense that only half of the apartment is awake. The early-risers, who Jungwoo didn’t even have to shake before he came over to get you, are at the table in their common area, sipping on various caffeinated beverages. These consist of Mark and Jaehyun. Donghyuck is presumably still curled up in his bed, asleep after a late night of playing games, and Johnny, who had stayed overnight and doesn’t actually live with them, is passed out on their couch, an arm slung over his face to block the light. Your friend has shown you enough pictures for you to recognize them.
Jungwoo practically deflates as soon as he walks in to see only two members of the current household conscious. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” he grumbles before striding over to Johnny and yanking off the blanket covering his long torso.
The elder groans, clearly having only been dozing and not deeply asleep, and moves his arm so he can glare at Jungwoo. “Your disrespect for my sleep schedule is why we can’t have nice things.”
“You don’t have a sleep schedule,” Jungwoo says back, glaring at his friend with the blanket in his hand. “Plus, Y/N’s here.”
Johnny lazily looks over and sees you in the entranceway, to which his response is to roll slightly so that he’s propped up against the back of the couch with one leg crossed over the other rather than just lying down. “Sup. Name’s Johnny.”
“Ew, don’t use your flirting voice!” Jungwoo whines at his friend, kicking him in the shin. In all honesty, you’re both amused and slightly flattered that Johnny is attempting to flirt with you when he’s just woken up. The messy hair is kind of a look. “Y/N’s a friend.”
“Yeah, we’ll be good friends, alright,” Johnny says, looking directly at you and wiggling his eyebrows in the most ridiculous way. That gets a giggle out of you while Jungwoo gawks, kicking Johnny again for good measure, slightly harder this time.
Jungwoo looks like he’s about to start arguing again when Jaehyun kindly interrupts, shifting the conversation. He gives you a small smile, perfectly polite and handsome, his hair straight and soft over his forehead. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Jaehyun.”
You lower your head to acknowledge him. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You look towards the other boy at the table, who you now realize hasn’t glanced up at you once. Jaehyun had been at least half watching the mock fight between Jungwoo and Johnny, but Mark had just been staring at his cup from behind circular glasses, not even drinking it. His own hair is slightly damp, curling at the ends, making him appear somewhat young. “You’re Mark, right?”
Finally, he looks at you, but looks away quickly. “Yeah.”
That’s… that’s not right.
You try again, smiling as brightly as you can, even though he won’t glance in your direction again. His side profile is full of both soft shapes and hard angles, afternoon sunlight coming in through the window falls as highlights on his cheeks and nose and chin. He appears exactly as your friend had described him to you, but his attitude proves him to be a walking contradiction. You shift on your feet, grasping for the right words to say. “Jungwoo has told me a lot about you.”
“Uh… yeah. He’s told me about you, too.”
You almost outright frown at that. Isn’t he supposed to be super nice and friendly? Instead, it sounds like Jungwoo has been spreading all sorts of nasty stories about you. Hypothetical stories that, apparently, only Mark has been listening to. Neither Jaehyun nor Johnny are acting strangely towards you at all.
All three of the other boys do seem to notice the change in behavior for Mark, though. There are a few moments of tense silence before Johnny elbows Jungwoo. The latter speaks up. “Hey, Mark, can you go resurrect Donghyuck? I think he might be dead.”
The switch is instant and very startling to you. His face loses all of its tension as he looks at Jungwoo, nodding. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, I’m the one who’s dead.” He pushes himself up out of his chair and exits the common area.
After he’s gone, you look at Jungwoo. He stares back. You make a motion with your head towards the front door, where you retreat to and he follows. You stand somewhat stiffly, hands linked behind your back. “Did you say something to him? About me?”
Jungwoo puts his hands up defensively. “Nothing bad, I swear!” He looks back towards the common area. “He must just be having a bad day or something…”
That doesn’t explain the sudden warmth when someone else spoke to him, though. You frown. “Okay… I guess I’ll just have to try harder to get him to like me.”
Your friend seems to perk up at that. “That’s the spirit!” He proceeds to grab you by the shoulders and steer you back to the common area.
You have an amiable enough time chatting with the boys who had remained there. Eventually, Donghyuck emerges from his room, looking even more ruffled than Johnny had, and Mark shuffles out with him. Once again, he doesn’t even spare you a glance. Every so often, as you’re talking to the others or just listening to their strange, all-over-the-place conversations, your eyes flicker over to him. He contributes to the chatter, but it’s like he’s purposefully avoiding you, even though you’re literally in the room with him. It kind of hurts.
Still, you try not to let it bother you too much. An hour passes, which you realize with a start, and you remember that you’re not even nearly done unpacking. As you’re rising from your seat on the edge of the couch, Jungwoo throws a comment out to you. “You’re welcome to bust in here any time!”
He’s met with a chorus of agreement from the others, except one.
The next day, Jungwoo makes a point to introduce you to the rest of his circle. Not long after, you’re added to a group chat with a whole phonebook of unfamiliar numbers. Most of them, minus several who your friend had told you in the past do a poor job of checking their messages, send their names pretty quickly. Jungwoo tells you who the others are. With a pang of disappointment, you realize one of the missing numbers was Mark.
On your first day of classes, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that you share an economics lecture with Donghyuck, who acts both very tired and also full of energy, chatting your ear off before and after class, but looking as if he’s about to pass out when the professor gives her introduction and starts to go over course material. That day, you also learn that you have an ethics class with Jungwoo’s friend Doyoung, stoic and serious and exactly the opposite of Donghyuck, but still smiling at your lame jokes and carefully making sure you get the homework down.
The second day starts out much more slowly. You settle down for your third class, a curriculum development course, and it takes you about a solid minute to realize that Mark Lee is sitting in the room with you. He had come in while you were busily typing out a text to a friend from your previous university. The classroom is not particularly large and you had taken a seat near the middle, so there aren’t many places for him to hide. When he walks in, he takes a seat by the wall closest to the windows. You consider greeting him, walking to his desk to try and talk to see if he had a change of attitude from the last time you saw him, but then your professor enters the scene. As he passes by the far side of the room, Mark looks up from his own phone and smiles, mouth instantly opening to greet him. You stay in your seat and try to look busy as you listen to them chat amiably. Mark laughs in disbelief at something your professor says about his vacation.
At the end of the lecture, you pack up your things quickly and make the effort to take a few small, light steps to catch up to Mark, who’s already leaving. “Hi, Mark! I didn’t realize we had a class together.”
He gives you a sort of half-shrug, keeping his head pointed straight ahead. Almost imperceptibly, his pace increases. “I guess we do.”
He opens a door to a stairwell, not making any particular effort to hold the door for you. Reflexively, you grab the door and slip through after him. You try again as the two of you head down. “Are you going to be home tonight? Jungwoo invited me to have dinner with you guys.”
“No,” he says, voice edged with irritation. He reaches into his pocket, fishing out his phone and a pair of earbuds. “I’ll be out.”
“Oh.” You slow down slightly. “Well, we should hang out sometime. My next class is this way, so… see you.” By the time you’re done talking, he’s slipped both earbuds into his ears and is pushing the doors at the bottom of the stairs open. You hold back a heavy sigh and shrug your backpack higher onto your shoulders.
As he told you, he’s not in his apartment that evening. Though Jungwoo had invited you to help cook dinner, he shirks his responsibilities, slipping away to play games with Donghyuck and leaving you and Jaehyun to cook, with relatively unhelpful commentary from Johnny, who was once again on the couch when you arrived. At some point, their friend Yuta slips in, steals some noodles, and leaves.
After the cooking is done, you and Jaehyun celebrate with a firm high-five, and Jungwoo and Donghyuck un-disappear, coming out of the younger boy’s dark bedroom. The lot of you are halfway through eating when Donghyuck perks up. “Wait, where’s Mark? He said he would do calc homework with me.”
You bite the inside of your cheek and hold back from saying that he told you he wouldn’t be home.
Thankfully, most of Jungwoo’s friends are nice to you and it’s easy enough for you to make friends of your own. You ease yourself into a routine of classes, homework, and hanging out with your new social circles. Mark doesn’t hide that he tries to avoid you about half of the time. At the same time, you try to split yourself between friend groups, as to not force him either to be around you or to not hang out with his own friends. There are the occasional large scale events that both of you are invited to, but there are enough people that you usually aren’t forced to interact. After a month of classes, you stop trying to start conversations, but you still greet him. He greets you back with the indifference of an overworked, tired stranger. During your class, he firmly ignores you. He does more than ignore you - he speaks to virtually every other person in your class except you. All of your friends carefully avoid the topic of his blatant dislike for you, though you know they all think it’s odd.
Finally, one of those large events comes to pass via the boy known as Zhong Chenle. He doesn’t go to your school, but is still somehow acquainted with all of Jungwoo’s friends, so he became acquainted with you as well. He’s eccentric and sarcastic and sometimes you see him playing basketball with Mark and Jaehyun in the school recreation center. So, when he rents out the local ice skating rink and invites you, you’re excited to go. It’s not often that you get onto the ice - it’s always a thrill after you re-learn how to skate, and you enjoy the feeling of the smooth gliding and wide, curving turns on the blades. You imagine that you’re painting with your feet.
Things go down smoothly, like you envisioned. After just twenty minutes, you’ve confidently found your ice legs and you’re racing around the rink with Donghyuck, playfully tipping each other off-balance with carefully or sometimes not-so-carefully timed pushes. A few minutes later, a new player enters the arena. Maybe if this new person weren’t Mark Lee, you wouldn’t have noticed their entrance, but your eyes are instinctively drawn to him.
The boy in question is clinging to one Lee Jeno, another friend of Jungwoo and Donghyuck and all the rest of them, as they both try to find their balance. Jeno seems to be having somewhat of an easier time with the skates on his feet, making slow pushes so that he glides short distances with Mark holding onto him. Mark is adorably flushed, in a way you haven’t seen before, his cheeks aflame with cold and embarrassment. His body is swallowed by an overly large hoodie, completing the cozy and cute look.
Your racing buddy has also slowed down to watch with you, staring at the scene. He suddenly nudges you with an elbow. “You should help him.”
“Jeno? I think he’s gotten the hang of it. Plus, I don’t know him that well.” It’s now a game of who can dodge implications rather than who can dodge physical pushes.
Donghyuck rolls his eyes, skating lazily alongside you. “You know I’m talking about Mark. This would be a great opportunity to get on his good side.”
“Why don’t you help him? He’s your boyfriend, after all.” If you weren’t focusing on turning your skates and keeping your balance because you’ve reached the short end of the rink, you would cross your arms and huff at him more dramatically.
He clicks his tongue sharply, something you know by now that he does when he’s irritated. “Mark isn’t my boyfriend. Doyoung and Taeyong are boyfriends. Mark and I are soulmates. And he’s still painfully single.”
“So are you!” As you protest, you realize that Mark and Jeno are getting closer. Donghyuck fires something back indignantly, but you’re just thinking about what he said before. The offer to help lies in front of you as a real possibility, but how would you feel if someone you hated came up and asked if you wanted help skating? If you really hated them that much, you would just think they were being condescending. The last thing you want to do is give Mark a reason to think you’re acting that way towards him. So, as you skate closer, you pick up your pace and speed on by, not even glancing at the two boys with their arms interlinked. Luckily for you, Jungwoo is just ahead, so you hook arms with him and jerk him forward with your momentum, making him yell out in surprise.
As you’re gliding along, laughing at your friend’s reaction and attempts to push you, Mark stares at you from behind with a small frown on his face.
“Mark?” Jeno’s voice snaps him out of it and he looks towards the younger boy. “Do you need me to slow down?”
“No,” he says rather grimly, “let’s go faster.”
You don’t speak to each other at all for the entire night.
The next month and a half passes unremarkably. Then, suddenly, midterms are rolling up and you find yourself swamped with work, especially in the class you share with Mark and your new friend Yuqi. At the current moment, you’re at your place with your head buried in your arms, groaning dramatically. “I can’t do this.”
Yuqi nods, looking somewhat dead inside. “Professor Lim hates us.”
“I don’t know what chapters we even covered half of the material in. Did he just make it up?” You lift your hand to paw through the textbook in front of you lazily, so much of it seeming foreign. “It doesn’t help that the Instructional Systems Design Model is such a big part of the project.”
“Maybe that’s in Chapter 1?”
You flip through her suggestion before slamming your book shut. “Nope.”
“I know!” You perk up at your friend’s revelation, looking at her from across the table. “We can just ask Mark! He’s good at this class, he probably knows.”
You stiffen at her suggestion. There was only one time you dared to ask him for help, in which he just brushed you off and said he was busy. Since then, you’ve resigned yourself to only asking Yuqi for help, no matter how clueless she is in this class sometimes. A brief moment of panic sends your heart racing as she whips out her cellphone. “Don’t mention me.”
She turns to look at you, finger poised to press call over her phone. “What?”
You put your head back down, muffling your words. “Don’t say my name when you talk to him.” She gives you a weird look, but shrugs, pressing the call button. “Wait! And put it on speaker so I can hear the answer. Please.”
Wordlessly, she rolls her eyes, but pulls the phone away from her face, setting it on the table in front of her. The call connects after two rings and you hear Mark’s voice with the staticky phone call filter over it. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mark! It’s Yuqi.”
“Oh, hi, what’s up?” He seems to brighten up, showing a pleasantness that you rarely hear from him these days.
“I just had a question about our curriculum development class. Do you know what chapter goes over the Instructional Systems Design Model? I can’t find it.”
“Oh, sure. Hold on, let me grab my notes.” From the other end, you can hear the distorted shuffling of clothes and paper for a moment. “It’s Chapter 4, I think. We didn’t really go over that chapter in class, but Prof. Lim told me when I went to his office hours.”
“Oh my god, thank you so much, Mark! You’re a literal life saver,” Yuqi gushes, about to practically kiss the phone in joy.
You press your hands together in front of you in a silent thank you. Mark laughs lightly into the phone. “No problem! If you ever need anything, let me know. I’m always happy to help.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! Bye, Mark!” After receiving a goodbye from him, Yuqi presses the hang up button. She claps her hands twice in excitement. “That makes things so much easier!”
You’re stuck thinking about what Mark said before hanging up. It’s exactly in line with how Jungwoo used to talk about him - polite, helpful, friendly. An ugly part of you has to wonder what you did wrong once again. What part of you is undeserving of his kindness? An even uglier part feels the green flash of envy. “How do you have Mark’s number?”
“We had a class together like a year ago and he’s a pretty cool guy. Also useful to have around.” The image of them studying together, chatting like close friends, heads bent closely over shared notes, makes the parasite of jealousy dig deeper in your belly. The logical side of your brain knows you shouldn’t be feeling like this, but the two sides of Mark Lee make you want to throw an uncharacteristic fit. She tosses her phone to the side before flipping open her textbook to Chapter 4. “Why?”
“Were you guys ever… like…” You bite the inside of your cheek, not wanting to say it out loud.
“Me? Mark? No, we just worked on a project together. I have no idea what gave you that idea.” She wrinkles her nose at you.
“You just talk to each other so casually,” you huff, trying to expel the negativity from your system, “I don’t know.”
“He’s like that with everyone,” she says easily, leaning back in her chair. “Except you, I guess.”
“Except me. I guess.” You parrot, not feeling any better about the situation. When you proceed to ask her if you did anything weird on your first day of class that would have put him off, she denies it, telling you that you were completely normal. Resigned to forget the mystery for the night, you open up your textbook.
Midterms pass with relative success. At least, with more success than you had at your old university. You’re excited for a break, a reprieve from the pain of studying. Johnny arranges a potluck and movie night at his place, assigning everyone a dish and putting you on dessert.
In your class with Doyoung, who is often assigned as the chef of the group, you pressure him for everyone’s favorites. “Something fruity? Chocolatey?”
“We’re split there. There’s not much you can do that would appease everyone, honestly. Some of them are the pickiest guys I’ve ever met.” He continues to scribble notes as you grill him for info, not even looking up.
“What if I did something different? Like matcha cookies?” You tap your chin in thought and Doyoung lifts a hand to point at you after the suggestion leaves your mouth.
“Yes, do that one. Basically everyone likes green tea.”
“Basically everyone?”
“Not Mark.” Doyoung shakes his head disapprovingly. “He’s not arriving until after we eat, though, so I’m sure it’s fine.”
You’re not sure what to say to that. That night, you work hard making your matcha cookies, setting aside a bit of time for a side project. When you arrive at Johnny’s apartment with two dishes, one quite a bit smaller than the others and labeled with Mark’s name, safely hidden in the pantry until everyone has stepped out of the kitchen area and you can put it somewhere you hope he’ll see it. You can only hope that he at least appreciates your effort. When he arrives a bit later into the night, non-gifting you his usual non-existent glance, you can’t help but impatiently squirm a bit. Before you leave, you make a pass by the kitchen and, disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the container is in the same place as you left it, your note still affixed to the top.
The mystery continues, however, when you approach Johnny a few days later to ask about retrieving your containers.
“There was more than one? I only have that big rectangular one that you brought the matcha cookies in. They were really good, by the way - I can only wish the cookies I make turned out like that…” He scratches his head and you feel like the gesture perfectly represents how you’re feeling as well. If he doesn't have the box… who does?
A small part of you holds onto the hope that the intended person retrieved them after you weren’t looking.
The class you share with Mark is not nearly the most interesting one you have, nor is it one that is particularly memorable most of the time. There’s something so terribly tedious about it that makes you suffer a disproportionate amount whenever you do a chapter of the reading, though you think that you’re usually quite good about your work. Still, though you’re not exactly the most studious of your classmates, you can’t stand resounding silences in the classroom. So, when your professor asks a question and no one volunteers, you try to at least say something somewhat intelligent. Today is one of those days. Except, as you speak, you realize with dawning dread that your words aren’t making any sense of all, are barely related to the question, and are progressively spiraling into completely different subject matter. Still, you find it hard to stop, eventually coming to a stuttering stop with your answer. Even Professor Lim can’t hold back something of a put-off expression. You sink lower into your seat and, as your professor says something along the lines of your comments being “not quite relevant,” your cheeks burn.
You spare a glance to the side, looking for some sort of pity or reassurance from Yuqi, but you end up looking past her at Mark. You half expect him to smirking at your failure, like a villain in a high school drama, but, instead, his eyes meet yours. He offers you the barest twitch of an encouraging smile before looking away, his face neutral again. You’re almost unsure about how to interpret the look - it’s the closest thing to a positive emotion he’s ever shown you. Confused, you fix your eyes on your open notebook and keep them there, scratching random notes and doodles into the margins for the remainder of the lecture.
When you think about Mark Lee, you feel like you’re going insane. It would honestly be pretty easy for you to make one of those crazy conspiracy theorist maps with the red strings and thumbtacks attempting to connect a bunch of pictures with all the strange, fragmented experiences you’ve had with the boy. At one position, you could put all the information you supposedly knew about him before even meeting him, all of the things Jungwoo told you, all the smiling pictures from before you arrived. Somewhere else, you could put all of the times Mark has brushed you off or outright refused to acknowledge your existence. In a third location, you could put all the things you’ve actively seen or heard him do that align with the person you thought he was. Finally, you could put the most recent developments of him subtly starting to not ignore you together. The whole diagram would be circled with giant question marks all over it and one question written in capital letters: WHY?
You’re trying to do your damn curriculum development homework and all you can think about is Mark Lee and the first smile he ever gave you. And, from the way your heart is beating, pushing heat into your face and ears, making you wistful and longing to see his smile again, you think you know the direction your feelings have headed.
The next few times you head over to Jungwoo’s place, it’s hit or miss as to whether Mark appears to be actively avoiding you. Finally, one day, you’re pressed shoulder to shoulder with Jungwoo, your eyes fixed on the small screen of your phone as you show him a funny video you found. You don’t notice Mark until he opens his bedroom door loudly enough that you look up and you meet his cold gaze. He’s in casual clothes, a hoodie and jeans, with earbuds hanging from his ears, his hair slightly tousled from the wind outside. The eye contact lasts for only a moment before his door acts as a barrier to your vision. You blink hard.
“Just when I thought we were getting somewhere…” You sulk, speaking lowly as to not be overheard by him.
“You and Mark?” Jungwoo asks, not even looking up. The video ends and your friend puts down your phone, folds his hands in front of him, and turns to look at you. “Did you ever figure it out?”
“Did I? How could I figure it out when he won’t even talk to me? Did you?” You lean away from him, crossing your arms. “Should we even be having this conversation over here? He’s just in his room.”
Jungwoo shrugs. “He has his headphones in, he can’t hear anything. To answer your question,” he pauses, leaning in closer to whisper like he’s telling you a secret, “I have no idea.”
“You must have some ideas at least?”
“I have many ideas, many theories, and quite a few formulas. Most of which don’t particularly apply to this situation.” You grumble something under your breath about engineering majors as he continues. “For Mark? He might be letting all the negativity he’s ever felt out on you, honestly. Maybe because you’re the same major?”
You sit up slightly straighter. “We’re the same major?”
“Yeah?” Jungwoo replies, giving you a look. “He’s trying to be music education instead of history education, though.”
“I never knew the specifics,” you mumble, letting your posture fall back into a slouch. In reality, it’s more than just not knowing the specifics - there’s very little you’ve managed to learn about Mark that you haven’t actively had to pry out of your shared friends. You know about some of the foods he likes, some of his hobbies, and a bit of general information. It’s awfully hard to get to know someone when they refuse to acknowledge you.
That notion makes your developing crush feel even stupider.
You attempt to turn the subject back to where it began. “Why me, though? Why not literally anyone else?”
“You’re a pretty cool person and you’re good at a lot of things. Mark’s developing an inferiority complex?” Jungwoo taps his chin as though he’s pretending to be some great thinker.
“I’m not going to lower myself to help some man’s ego,” you huff, your nails digging into your palms as you make tight fists. “Plus, there’s nothing I’m particularly good at that he’s not also good at, if not better.”
“It’s not really about ego, I think…” Jungwoo says, trailing off. “I dunno. He’s not like that with anyone but you.”
“No one but me, huh.” Honestly, you’re kind of getting sick of that expression. This isn’t the kind of exceptional you want to be to him. Not at all. You’re honestly not sure when it stopped being a simple need to be on pleasant terms with Jungwoo’s friends and started to get romantic. Your lips press into a thin line for a moment before you exhale sharply from your nose. “Everything is a big ‘I don’t know’ and I hate it. If it’s not an ‘I don’t know,’ it’s still stuck in the ‘why?’ stage.” You lay your head down and you have to resist the urge to scream into your arms. “I’m going to lose my mind.”
“You really make no sense at all.”
“It really makes no sense that I-” You bite your tongue to stop yourself to stop yourself from admitting out loud to the feelings you’ve just recently realized. Jungwoo just gives you a sly, knowing smile that you don’t like the look of one bit.
Before you know it, finals are around the corner and, with it, one of the last organized events you’ll have with your friends until testing is over. This time, it’s a group dinner where people can come and go as they please, and a few of you have taken it upon yourselves to do all the cooking. Namely, you, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Kun, and, surprisingly, Donghyuck. Suffice to say, the kitchen is not enough space for all of you. Still, you manage to pull it off, completing a hearty Korean-style dinner that slowly disappears from their dishes as all of the others eat. By the end, you’re worn out from the sweltering heat of the stove, the occasional bickering with the other chefs (‘Donghyuck, stop eating all the radish!’), and chatting with nearly every single one of your friends. Names and faces scroll through your head and you’re honestly not sure who you’ve seen and not seen by the end of it. Except for one person.
Mark Lee is, once again, nowhere to be found.
You make sure to smack away hands going for seconds in order to wrap up a moderately sized portion of food for him anyways. When all of the food, save for what you’ve set aside for Mark, is gone, Taeyong offers himself and some of the others up to clean, which you and the rest of the cooking boys eagerly accept. Most of them have headed out by now, but the few remaining begrudgingly agree to the job at Taeyong’s call.
You lean against the wall idly, watching the work being done and listening to the rhythmic sound of the water running and the sponge scraping against metal. Finally, Jungwoo happens upon the wrapped plate you had prepared for your missing guest.
“Who’s this for?” He asks to the room, almost salivating at the sight of the food. Damn, that boy can eat.
“It’s for Mark. You can give it to him when he gets back.” Your words are half informative, half threatening. Jungwoo takes the hint and carefully replaces the foil covering the food.
It takes another minute for him to look back over at you, seeing you looking bleary-eyed, close to swaying onto the floor from fatigue. He steps over, patting you on the head. “Y/N, you can go rest on the couch if you want. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I might just do that,” you respond, not clarifying which part of his sentence you’re talking about. At his behest, you shuffle over to the couch. It only takes a moment for your eyes to flutter closed. The music of washing dishes lulls you quickly to sleep.
You’re not sure how long has passed by the time you stir to the sound of the front door closing. You recognize that water is no longer running and that there are only two voices left in the kitchen area. Lying there for a moment, unsure of if you should make your presence known yet, you determine that the voices belong to Jungwoo and Mark.
“Oh, Y/N made sure to grab this for you,” you hear Jungwoo say, followed by the faint crinkling of the foil covering the plate.
“She did?” Mark’s voice is surprisingly soft, warm, everything you’re not used to from him.
The voices drift closer towards you, accompanying the slip of socks against the wood floor. “Don’t act surprised. Also, she’s on the couch sleeping right now. I’ll probably wake her up in a minute so she can go home.”
“Oh.” You’re listening as hard as you can, trying to determine whatever Mark is feeling just by his tone. “Is she okay?”
Your heart beats faster and you want to squirm, ask questions, anything. You remain still.
“Just tired.” A beat of silence. “Why are you looking at her like that?”
“Dude, I just…” Mark has some sort of lightness to his voice that you’ve never heard. “Nothing.”
“Do you think I can’t tell? Come on, I’ve known you long enough.” Jungwoo would normally be teasing saying something like that, but right now you just hear a kind of weariness that you’re entirely familiar with.
“Not as long you’ve known her.” The sentence comes out bitter, the first negativity you’ve heard from Mark all night, and Jungwoo sighs in response.
“Do what you need to do and then I’ll wake her up.”
They walk farther away. The telltale sound of the microwave opening and shutting after the foil crinkles again, followed by the beeping of the buttons and the hum of the machine, tells you that someone is heating up the food. Under the microwave ambiance, you hear what you think is plastic against plastic. The machine is stopped before it can beep shrilly. The smell of warm, reheated food fills the air briefly. There’s shuffling as Mark presumably walks.
“Night.” Jungwoo echoes Mark’s sentiment and you hear more shuffling towards you. A touch on your shoulder. You keep your eyes closed, trying to control your breathing for a moment longer. Your friend shakes you slightly. “Y/N, wake up.”
You try your best to play up your awakening act, like you hadn’t been listening to the entirety of the last conversation. Rubbing your eyes and blinking, you look up at Jungwoo. “What time is it?”
“Almost midnight. Everyone went home to sleep and study.” You get up slowly, rolling your shoulders once you’ve sat up. “I can walk you back, if you want.”
“That’s okay, it’s not a long walk.” You get to your feet, padding to the kitchen area. There, on the table, is the plastic container you’d brought Mark’s cookies in weeks ago. “Oh, that’s my container. Did Johnny find it?”
Jungwoo reaches up to ruffle his hair, looking between you and the container. “Mark did, actually.” “Huh.” Shrugging, you pick it up and make your way to the door. “Tell him thanks for me.”
“You could tell him yourself?” Jungwoo offers, looking vaguely hopeful.
You smile, but cringe at the same time. “Yeah… you know.”
He shakes his head, seeming disappointed once more. “Fine. Text me when you get back?”
“Will do.”
As you walk home, your container clutched in your arms, you think about how more pieces are being unveiled, but nothing is really making that much more sense at all.
Finals pass as they always do. You study with Yuqi for your curriculum development class. The situation from midterms repeats itself almost exactly at one point, with her calling Mark for help and you staying quiet as he talks, and the test is no harder than any of the others you had previously in the semester. You force yourself to keep your eyes on your exam and to not glance over at Mark except when you’re walking out of the classroom at the end. All you can see of him is the back of his head, his hair slightly disheveled. Idly, you wonder if you’ll get over your baseless crush if you aren’t able to look at him and mull over the problem during class anymore. You think that’s the last you’ll see of him before you run into him at an event next semester.
On the last day of finals, your group chat receives two messages from Jungwoo.
JW: END OF THE SEMESTER PARTY TOMORROW NIGHT TO CELEBRATE FINALS BEING DONE BEFORE EVERYONE LEAVES. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.
JW: I don’t care if you planned a “date” with your “girlfriend,” I expect to see all of you there :))
A minute later, your phone buzzes again with an individual message from the same boy.
JW: Y/N, my lovely best friend, you’re part of the planning committee and you’re going to help me set up. Be there an hour early xoxo
You know there’s no use fighting it so, the next day, you show up to his place as expected. Jungwoo, Lucas, Yuta, and Johnny are all milling about, trying to seem busy but, honestly, there doesn’t look like there’s much to do. Some of the furniture has been moved to the side, there’s a giant mysterious tub that is partly filled with a reddish liquid that Lucas and Yuta are leaning over, and Johnny is affixing colorful lights to a wall. As soon as your shoes are off, Jungwoo is steering you to the common area.
“Y/N, you’re late!”
“I’m like ten minutes early-” You start.
“No, no, no excuses. I have an important job for you!” It takes you a moment to realize that he’s not leading you to the kitchen, but towards someone’s bedroom. “You like crafts, right?”
“I mean, I guess? I-”
“Great!” He pushes open the bedroom door, Mark’s bedroom door, and pushes you not-so-gently inside. Mark is sitting at his desk, bent over something with a look of surprise on his face. He looks cozy, dressed in a simple red t-shirt and gray sweats with circle glasses perched on his nose. “I want to hang about one hundred paper cranes around the apartment to add a little flare to the party. You can’t leave until you’re done, Mark has the paper, bye!”
He shuts the door behind him.
You and Mark stare at each other in bewilderment as you process whatever just happened. You’re in Mark’s bedroom for the first time. You’re also being actively forced to interact with him one on one for the first time. None of your friends had ever forced you to try and work out your issues until now and you’re certain that Jungwoo’s implication was that you’re not allowed to leave until you’ve talked it through. Some part of you knew he would eventually snap and force you to interact, but you always ignored that possibility. Until now.
“Um,” you start, twisting your fingers together in front of you, “he said you have the paper?”
“Yeah…” he looks back at his desk, grabbing some of the myriad of square sheets and holding them out to you. “Here.”
“Thanks.” You carefully make sure to prevent your fingers from brushing against his as you take them from him. Stepping back, you settle cross-legged on an empty spot on his floor. After you sit, you take a moment to look around. His walls have the occasional band poster plastered on them, there’s a hoodie on the floor across the room, and some of his drawers are partly open, illustrating a pretty typical college boy’s room. A couple of books are pushed to the side on his desk as he works on folding the cranes. Remembering that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you get to work, making careful creases. Your first crane comes to life on yellow paper slightly lopsided. Good enough, you figure.
You’re in the middle of your second crane when Mark’s chair screeches quietly against the floor and he stands up, gathering his paper. To your great surprise, he sits down a few away from you and mirrors your pose. When you meet eyes with him briefly, you look away as fast as you can, returning to your crane before you can even try and read what he’s feeling. The next three cranes pass quickly with your eyes locked firmly on your work. When you dare to look up again, you find that Mark is intently watching your hands. He startles when you see him. Realizing he’s been caught, he speaks of softly. “Do you… know how to do it?”
Even when he’s the one talking quietly, looking embarrassed, you feel so small. You look down at his own paper pile, which has a few crumpled sheets surrounding it. “I can show you.” He nods and you cautiously scoot closer so that you’re side by side. As gently as you can, you explain each fold and he copies your movements. Soon, you have a relatively even green crane and he has a somewhat lopsided pink crane, very similar to your first.
“Thanks,” he says, staring at his creation, “all of the tutorials I googled weren’t making any sense, but I think I got it now.”
“No problem.” You nod, moving back to your spot across from him. Not wanting the experience to end quite yet, you think about what Jungwoo said last weekend. “Thanks for returning my container.”
He instantly knows what you’re talking about. “Thanks for-”
Before he can say any more, he stops and his expression hardens. He proceeds to look back down at his hands, making slow, purposeful folds in the paper in front of him. You frown, but do the same. A few cranes later, you can’t stop it anymore. After months, months, of him treating you like this, you can’t go one more crane without finding the truth. You throw a half-completed crane to the floor and, though the noise isn’t loud, he looks up. “Mark, what did I do?”
He seems entirely too surprised by the question, which sparks a kind of anger that you didn’t even realize you were holding in. “What?”
“What did I do! What made you act like this to me? Did I do something? Do you just hate my face? What did I do wrong?” You squeeze your knees brutally, trying to resist doing something like tearing up the few pieces of origami you had completed.
“Nothing.” His simple, one word answer only serves to make you more upset. Though he appears initially dismissive, he sees that you’re about to start shouting and quickly continues. “You really didn’t do anything!”
“Then, why? Mark, you’re making me lose my mind!” Now, you feel like you’re on the verge of crying out of frustration. So far, you’ve managed to not cry at all about this stupid boy who has largely chosen to ignore your existence, but you can feel the telltale warming of your cheeks and the pout in your lips.
“It’s not something you did! Not really.” He takes a shaky breath, appearing almost as upset as you, though there are no tears in his eyes. “It’s about Jungwoo. Please, don’t cry.”
The initial confusion helps you swallow your building tears. “If you’re upset at him, why do you have to take it out on me? I really wanted to be friends with you, Mark. I really did.”
“I wanted to be different.” Now, he’s quiet, refusing to look at you for the months of shame he’s feeling rise to the surface.
“From Jungwoo?” You’re not quite following still. You just know that, even though he’s subtly broken your heart and led you in circles over and over for the past few months, you want to know why he’s hurting and you want to stop it. Even if he hasn’t been full of kindness to you, he has been to everyone else. And you know almost for a fact that this isn’t something he’s told anyone else.
“From you.”
Pushing aside papers, crumpled partial cranes, complete cranes, you move closer to him. You’re not sure if you’re overstepping your boundaries and you still kind of feel like one wrong move will make you cry, but the yelling has left your system and your instincts say proximity will help you understand. “Will you explain it to me?”
“There was a you-shaped hole in Jungwoo’s heart ever since he had to go to college and stop spending so much time with you.” Mark’s resignation is quiet, soft-spoken, like the boy you’d heard so much about but only now had gotten to truly meet. “Whenever he came back from breaks, he would talk about you so much and about how similar you and I are and it just made me feel… it made me feel… like… I don’t know. Like I’m just replacing you while you’re not here.”
“Mark…” You’re not sure quite what to say that he hasn’t logically figured out for himself already. Maybe it would help to say the obvious anyways? “You’re not a replacement. You’re you and I’m me and he has different places for both of us.”
He lets out a puff of air. “I know that. It’s just the type of feeling that you can’t really get to go away, even when you try really hard to believe the opposite.”
“I get the feeling.” And you do. It’s like the nagging feeling that you’ve had that you did something unforgivable to upset Mark even though you were almost certain you didn’t.
“I was mean to you because at least that would make me different enough to not be replaced, I guess. It worked because you never stooped to my level to be mean back.” Though he hasn’t quite apologized, he sounds genuinely sorry.
“It worked because you couldn’t have been replaced in the first place,” you say back. You look over and he has a small smile on his face.
“That too. Also-” He stops himself, seeming conflicted. “No, it’s a bad time. A really bad time.”
That piques your curiosity. “Huh?” He’s not smiling anymore, instead looking awkwardly to his side, away from you, and drumming his fingers on the bed. “Mark, you might as well say it. Whatever it is.”
“Okay, after a few months, I realized that you weren’t going to replace me and things were fine. But, you know that thing that kids do?” You’re confused and he’s growing red, practically steaming at the ears in embarrassment, which you can see even in the dim light of the room. “So, I kept being mean because then you kept looking at me even though whenever I thought about what I said to you later, I always felt really bad-” “Mark, you’re rambling. What are you talking about?” You ungracefully interrupt him, touching his arm to get his full attention. He seems to grow even redder at your touch and suddenly exclaims his next words.
“You’re really cute!”
Slowly, his words make more sense. You try to piece them together out loud to make sure you’re understanding him correctly. “So… the thing kids do… where they’re mean to the person they like?”
He moves his head up and down in a tiny nod. Now, your face is heating up, too. Even more than it was when you were on the verge of crying. After a moment, he groans and presses his face into his hands. “Damn, I’m such an idiot. I know this is, like, what middle schoolers do, but since the beginning of the semester I’ve just been so confused, except you’ve probably been way, way more confused than me, and I didn’t even think about it, but all of our friends are probably confused, too, and-” As he jabbers, when your thoughts and feelings had been processing slowly previously, you now feel like your whole reality is crumbling. You spent the last while beating down your feelings when he’s become a pile of mush in front of you about the same problem? At this rate, he’s never going to stop rambling either. Not that you particularly want him to. It’s the most he’s directly said to you ever. And it’s adorable. What else would be adorable? You wonder, teasing him a bit before you tell him the truth. For how long he kept you hanging, you deserve to create at least some tension of your own, you figure. Just for a moment.
“- you’re probably thinking about how dumb this is and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me-”
You sit up straight and cross your arms over your chest. “Mark.”
He stops talking and looks at you, more panic seeming to rise in his face at the serious expression you wear. “Oh shit, I never let you talk. Y/N-”
“Mark.” He finally stops, staring at you. “I don’t forgive you.” The panic turns into sheer terror. He clearly hadn’t expected you to put it so forwardly. However, before he can say anything truly depressing, you continue. “I don’t forgive you because you haven’t actually apologized yet.”
His eyes are like tiny suns, round and bright and holding all the feeling in the universe. “I- I thought…” He looks to the side, thinking about everything he had said, and realizes that you’re right. “You’re right. Y/N…” He presses his hands together in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s probably the most succinct and straightforward he’s ever been with you, but you don’t have much time to think about that before he’s leaning forward in a full bow, pressing his forehead to the ground.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”
“Mark, stop!” As soon as you realize what he’s doing, you shuffle forward, putting both hands on his shoulders so you can attempt to yank him back upright. “I was joking, please stop!” He remains upraised, once again looking confused. Slowly, you move backwards about two feet to put some breathing room between you. “You don’t need to do that. I like you, too.”
One slow heartbeat passes. Then a second. You’re not sure how long the thick silence hangs between you, but the tension is so heavy that you don’t even hear any outside noise from the other boys who are supposedly getting ready for a party.
“You… what… wait, no, really?” Mark’s baffled face as he stutters back to you paired with the anxiety of the entire situation makes a laugh bubble out of your chest. He seems to be entirely at a loss. He continues to just stare at you wide-eyed, like he’s witnessing some incredible event instead of just ogling you in the dim light of his bedroom.
“Don’t look at me like that…” You can’t help but reflect some of his flustered behavior, eye contact becoming almost painful. He’s never met your eyes with such enormous positivity and cuteness before and it makes you want to run laps around the building or something. “Mark, I’m serious!”
“How could you like me back? When I was so mean to you? For months?” He begins to twist in place, trying to lean over and look at your head from multiple directions. “Did you fall down the stairs on the way over here and hit your head or something?”
“Mark!” You uncross your legs and shuffle closer on your knees, reaching out to still his movement by grasping his shoulders once again. “Please stop.” When you touch him, he freezes, still moon-eyed. After he stops moving, your hands slide down so that you can hold his. His hands are warm and stiff, just like the rest of his body.
He finally breaks eye contact, looking at where your hands are connected. “I just really don’t get it. There’s no way you like me.”
“You almost sound like you’re upset about it.” You tilt your head, smiling at him softly.
“I am!” He’s insistant, his hands holding onto yours firmly now. Though his grip is tighter, he visibly deflates, his shoulders sinking. “It’s so unfair to you. I was such an ass.”
“But you’re not. One ass-like behavior does not an ass make.” You almost confuse yourself saying it, but you continue. “It’s not about the times you were weird to me. It’s about the times you were nice to everyone else. Like when you helped Yuqi with our class. Or when you helped Donghyuck with his calc even though you aren’t even taking it with him. It sounds kind of dumb, but because of that, I knew you weren’t a bad person. Even if you were trying to be one to me sometimes.” Your thumbs run over his idly, making soothing strokes over his skin as you speak. “Still, you weren’t really all that mean to me, per se. More cold, if anything. Then, when you stopped doing so much of that, it got really confusing. I do have a question, though.”
“I’ll try to answer it, I guess.”
“Did Jungwoo really say we were that similar?”
He blinks. “Maybe once or twice? It just really stuck out to me, for some reason.”
“You’re cute.” He blushes furiously at that. Carefully, you untangle one of your hands from his and bring it up to his cheek, cupping his blazing face. “Do you want to try this? The being together thing?”
“I want to, but-” He presses his lips together, making his cheeks puff out slightly as he thinks. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve a chance with you.”
Silence sits between you for a moment. Your hand moves back down so you’re holding both of his again. “I know what you can do to make it up to me.”
His eager eyes on your face prompts you to continue. Slowly, a grin threatens to split your face in half.
“I guess you’ll have to kiss me at least once for every time you were mean to me. Maybe more than once.” Your brilliant smile changes form in the air between you and reappears as the stars in his eyes.
“Practice round? Just to make sure I get it right.” The subtle flirtatiousness of the idea that leaves his mouth absolutely appeals to you and you agree. You move as close as you possibly can, your knees pressed together, your breath on his lips and his on yours, his soft bangs grazing your forehead. The touch of his lips against yours is awkward at first, but transforms into something sweeter with a little time. Once you both pull away, it seems you have the same idea when you both go back in for a few quick pecks afterwards. Finally, when you’re content for the moment, he leans forward quickly to press a kiss to your cheek.
You figure that a return to the work of folding cranes will help calm down your rapid heart rate, but every time you steal a glance at Mark, the butterflies return. You know for a fact that he keeps looking at you, too. By the time the noise level outside of the room increases and music is being blasted through the apartment, you’re nowhere near being done with all one hundred cranes, but both of you are sure your mutual friend doesn’t actually care about that. Together, you emerge from his room. You don’t answer any prodding questions from your friends for most of the time you’re mingling, though you’re pretty sure that a good number of them see him sneaking kisses at least once or twice.
Some of them definitely see when you sneak off to his room again before the clock has even turned to midnight. At the same time, you could be damned if you really care.
