a montage of love / mark lee
genre: college!au, acquaintances to lovers!au, slow burn, fluff, a lot more angst than anticipated
pairing: mark lee/female reader
word count: 26.5k jesus christ
warning: alcohol and drug abuse, explicit language, suggestiveness, a bit of heart-wrenching angst
summary: High school was a time in your life you didn’t like to think about, especially when the present days were the best ones you had ever lived. But when Mark Lee shows up in the form of blast from the past, you’re left with emotions you never planned on experiencing.
author’s note: i’ve been working on this for almost a year. amid the mess that is my life, i poured my heart and soul into this project, which is the first official piece of writing i do for the kpop community. it has taken longer than i expected, and i apologise to everyone who had been waiting for this to be published since i posted the preview quite some time ago. however, it is here! i’ll never be the person who can put out a short story because my need to go into fully specific details about every single thing is stronger than anything else. pleathe be mindful of the fact that this is fiction and i dont think any character in this work resembles their real life counterpart besides their physical appearance. also, i’m aware that i mix british terms with american ones, mind you that i’m neither so bear with me for a sec lol
High school was a time you weren’t particularly fond of.
It was just a clustered mess of stillness-infused events happening one after the other, never having anything really good coming out of it. It was either neutral or downright disastrous and embarrassing, so sometimes you pretended it either didn’t exist or it was a foggy, distant memory in the back of your mind.
Everything had been just plain, normal, detached, never good enough to think of it fondly.
You supposed being the new kid was probably one of the causes that made your attempts at fitting in with the others fail miserably. The people you hung out with were the type of people you knew your friendship wouldn’t stretch further than the last day of high school: you relied on each other for convenience. That didn’t hurt you at all because it was something you did too. And it wasn’t like you were the best version of yourself back then.
The best came when you entered college.
The college you was the person you had always dreamed to be. Liked by people who genuinely cared for you and your wellbeing, with whom you shared good and bad moments. Carefree in the sense that you were no longer afraid of sharing your opinions and being yourself yet carrying all the same struggles every other college student did. This was your peak. You were at the top of your game in every aspect possible. And even if you were still flawed, like you would always be, the life you lead was still worth it.
However, not everyone shared the same path as you. Some people just had it all since the beginning: they were consistent in the way they presented themselves to other people throughout the years, and consequently that in itself appeased the masses no matter the environment they inserted themselves into. It didn’t help at all if they were truly nice people, which was the case.
You weren’t sure why the fact that Mark Lee was as loved — if not even more — in college as he was in high school surprised you, but the truth was, it did.
Going through a blast from the past was something you were expecting, seeing people from your old school navigating through the halls of a place you really liked became second nature. You saw Sicheng every once in a while, the Chinese guy you had to become acquainted because both of you had transferred to your high school closely after each other. You saw Dahyun who was from your Math class though you never really made an effort to be friends, neither did she. You saw a variety of faces with whom you had shared tiny speckles of basic interaction.
But Mark Lee wasn’t just any person.
Mark Lee was the cool guy who looked like he had everything without even trying or working hard for it. He had reliable friends, good looks, good grades, recognition and respect from pretty much everyone surrounding him. You were sure there wasn’t a soul capable of hating or so much as even having hard or negative feelings towards him. And rightfully so, for while Mark looked like someone who breezed through life without a scratch, he was severely passionate and strived hard for good results on whatever he put his mind in to. To top it off, he had luck on his side.
You couldn’t hate the guy, you’d give him that. He was too much of a good person.
It was nearly the end of the first semester of your second year of college when you saw him for the first time after you had ended your senior year of high school. With Mark being younger than you by one year, you had been swept away out of that hellhole before him. But as luck would have it, you were back to sharing an education facility. Not that it bothered you that much, except you had to be shocked not only by his presence, yet also by the happenstance he was talking to one of your best friends with whom you were supposed to meet up fifteen minutes ago.
You were the one who was late, of course. So many years had gone by and you still weren’t able to be on time whatever the circumstance was. And when you tried to be responsible and leave your dorm early, the universe seemed to be against you. It remained a mystery why public transportation would fail you on only those specific times.
At that moment, being late was the least of your worries, because there, in front of you, stood two people who represented completely different times of your life colliding with one another, while you watched in the sidelines and wondered why something like this was even happening to you.
It truly felt weird to you seeing the out-of-reach Mark interacting with completely-approachable Jungwoo.
Pursuing a friendship with one of the school’s most popular people did not charm you in any way back then. You thought about it sometimes, what would happen if you were to befriend Mark, or his best friends Donghyuck and Yeri, but reality brought you back before your imagination pulled you in too deeply. Besides that, you were never interested enough in that kind of people, the ones who seemed like they were known by everyone and their mothers. The difference between you and them was ghastly, bound to never work out.
“___!” A voice shook you out of your memory lane themed thoughts, your eyes blinking into focus to the image of the two boys now looking at you, one with sheer happiness to see you and the other surprised. For what reason you couldn’t decipher why. He had always been like that. Not that you had paid Mark Lee too much attention in high school. It was just inevitable once in a while to look over to where he was sitting and analyse his behaviour for a tiny bit. You had that habit.
“Hey, Zeus,” You smiled softly, “Sorry for making you wait. Traffic sucked balls.”
Jungwoo rolls his eyes, clearly sensing your politeness had a reason. You had stopped apologising for being late after the first ten times. “Don’t even bother, you talk like I’m not used to it. Oh!” He seems to remember something by the way his eyes jump a little, and then he looks to his left where Mark Lee is, for a fraction of a second before looking back at you again, “That’s right. How rude of me. Remember that guy I told you about named Lucas? The one who is Kun’s cousin?”
“Tall, loud boy?”
“That’s the one.” He grinned, “This is his friend, Mark. We’re heading together to Lucas’s. They invited me over for a game night! How cool is that, uh?”
“Very.” You deadpanned, completely averting the fact Jungwoo was introducing Mark to you. He would have a field day if he knew you knew who Mark was. Because there was no way in hell Mark would know who you were. Moreover, you couldn’t believe he asked you to meet up just because of a measly textbook which you could have handed to him another time. You were still going to meet up with other friends, but the fact you had to take a last-minute detour when you were already late to your original plans stung just a bit. “Here’s the book, by the way.”
“Thanks, you’re a gem.” The sad thing about your best friend was that he knew you couldn’t resist how cute he acted. It worked every single time, including this one. “Why don’t you come over too? If Mark doesn’t mind, that is.”