Chapter Text
Beep. Beep. Beep. Mark groaned as his alarm went off and fumbled around for it with one hand. He was all tangled up in his blankets and had his face pushed into his pillow. Beep. Beep. Beep. He groaned again, more frustrated this time as he wrestled with his sheets to release him from his constricting blanket prison,
“Fuck. Shut up.” He whined and reached for his phone again, knocking it off onto the floor. Beep. Beep. Beep. Mark rolled out of bed and finally opened his eyes to turn off his phone’s annoying alarm. Beep. Beep. Silence. Mark sat on the floor and rubbed his eyes. It was overly bright in his room. Not the normal, wake up at 7:00 am and see the morning light flooding through the cracks of the shades. He checked the time,
“Shit shit! Fuck!” He yelled, scrambling to get up as fast as he could but ultimately tripping over the sheets and blankets that were still wrapped around his poor legs. He was late for what he would call his “stupid morning class”. Again. Mark rarely partied, rarely. But every time he did, he would wake up feeling like there was a jackhammer drilling at his skull. His head felt like it was going to explode and then that would be the end of Mark Lee. He finally, finally stood up on trembling legs, his hangover already taking a horrible toll on his body and made his way over to his dresser. He pulled on a shirt, —yeah that’s right, Mark Lee slept shirtless— and changed his pants before pulling on some socks. He ran into the bathroom, as fast as his aching body would let him, and brushed his teeth with toothpaste that was far too minty for his morning tastebuds. He fixed his hair a little so he didn’t look crazy and nope, no time for contacts, glasses it was. Great, that saves him about six precious dollars today. His roommate made his way out of his room, probably from all the commotion the clumsy boy was making,
“Hey, are you good?” Jaehyun asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes,
“Yeah yeah.” Mark rushed into his room again to grab his backpack,
“Babe, come back to bed…it’s cold.” And that voice would belong to Taeyong, Jaehyun’s boyfriend. Mark caught a glimpse inside the room, a fuzzy feeling filling his chest as he saw Taeyong making grabby hands at his boyfriend, still half asleep. He always thought the couple was pretty cute together. Taeyong was always a bit grumpy and extremely studious while Jaehyun was a bit more loving and exciting. They fit together pretty perfectly, the skinnier boy always seemed to melt into Mark’s roommate’s arms and relax but he could still help propel Jaehyun forward in his study endeavors,
“Hold on, I’m coming baby.” Jaehyun nodded at Mark before smiling and turning around to jump back into bed with his so-called “baby”.
Mark closed the door for them and ran out the front door, shutting it tightly behind him. Luckily his shared apartment wasn’t terribly far from the college campus, but he was late so the twenty-minute walk turned into what felt like two hours. And so there he was running through the hallway trying to make it to a class he was already fifteen minutes late to and oh fuck, his glasses weren’t on his face. Mark wanted to scream but he had already walked into his class. This was truly just fucking amazing. He was really going to sit through this entire lecture without being able to see anything, which meant no notes. Mark sat down in the front and squinted, he could just barely see the board, but there was no way he would be able to take notes. And to make matters worse, there was no one he could ask for notes in the class. Mark Lee could go to class easily but his social anxiety had him backed into a corner. He could never ask anyone for notes and especially not for a favor. This is why he never attended any parties. He couldn’t suck up his anxiety for one night unless he got piss ass drunk.
So that’s how the class went. Mark squinting trying to make out anything he could on the board and then hope to god he could remember it so he could write it down when he retrieved his glasses. And an intense pounding in his head that made him feel like he was about to be violently sick at any second. He tapped his pencil on the desk for nearly two hours listening to his professor drone on and on about international literature. He zoned out for a little while here and there, so much for “remembering, for his notes”. And then finally, the professor gave his usual “that’s all I have for today, you’re free to go.” spiel and Mark let out a sigh of relief as he picked up his backpack.
He sighed again, gently, as he walked through the hallway, staring down at his phone to try and make out a text from his roommate. Then he was on his butt, his phone sliding across the tightly cemented tile and a loud clattering next to him,
“No!” he heard a deep voice above him as he looked up curiously, squinting his eyes to see the face above him. Was he really that blind? Jesus, “My fucking camera!”
Suddenly, the figure was next to him, picking up what Mark guessed was his “fucking camera”. Mark moved to push himself off of his butt and back into a standing position,
“Yo, sorry man…Didn’t see you.” He offered, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as the man in front of him mourned the loss of his precious camera. It must have fallen from a pretty far height because it was in two pieces and from what Mark could see —which he could barely—, the lens was cracked. Fuck he thought, as if this day could get any worse. He picked up his phone, luckily he was able to identify it with its bright red case and sighed, it was cracked too. Apparently, he thought he would be able to get away without putting a screen protector on it. Clearly, that was not good judgement on his part and he would be sure to invest in a nice glass one next time,
“Fuck.” he heard again. Another sigh left his lips as he rubbed his face. The other man finally turned to look at him. He was tall, but Mark also considered himself short. His hair was short and black, his shoulders and chest were very broad and covered by a thin black t-shirt. And although everything was a bit blurred together, Mark would have been lying if he claimed he wasn’t attractive. He must’ve been staring because the guy just looked at him and made a gesture that said “well?” with his broken camera in either hand,
“Oh oh…Uh…Sorry.” Mark said again, he looked around, chewing his lip subconsciously. He decided his word of the day was fuck because that seemed like a common theme. He was fucked,
“That’s all you have to say?” The tall man’s voice snapped at Mark’s ears, he thought he might even flinch. He wondered how much damage he just caused to the camera, which probably cost a million dollars. He sighed yet again, probably for the one-hundredth time that day, and said something he was surely going to regret,
“I can pay for it.” Yeah, he was definitely going to regret those words. From what he could see, the other guy looked surprised, his eyebrows raising beyond his nicely styled hair,
“It’s sixteen hundred dollars.”
And Mark nearly fainted right then and there.
***
“And then I offered to pay for it like a complete idiot!” Mark groaned, hugging one of the couch cushions and resting his chin on it,
“How much was it?” Jaehyun asked, typing away on his computer and occasionally looking at his phone,
“Almost two thousand fucking dollars dude.” Mark played with his damp, light brown hair, his circle glasses sitting low on his nose. He watched as Jaehyun’s face was illuminated by his phone and his eyes light up at what Mark assumed was a message from his boyfriend,
“Is it okay if Tae comes over?” Jaehyun looked at Mark, his dimples on full display and his honey blonde hair falling into his eyes. He needed a hair cut Mark thought. He thought back to that morning, both of them together and he nodded slowly,
“Yeah sure.” He rubbed the pillow before he laid down on the couch and rubbed his eyes under his big circular glasses,
“Cool thanks.” He gave him an appreciative smile before he went back to texting his now confirmed boyfriend,
“What are you guys going to do?” Mark bit his lip, he was lonely, he had to admit. He pretty much lived vicariously through Jaehyun’s relationship and basically knew every nitty-gritty detail of them. Which maybe was a bit much, but Jaehyun happened to be very comfortable with his sexuality and didn’t mind sharing with Mark,
“He wants to watch a show, maybe a little chilling could happen. You know, the usual.” And what Jaehyun meant by “the usual” was that they would have loud sex until like, one in the morning and Mark would sit there alone with his music blasting in his earbuds. It was one of the only reasons he didn’t exactly enjoy it when Taeyong came over. But, he also didn’t like it when Jaehyun left to go to Taeyong’s dorm room. It felt so eerily empty in the apartment. When Jaehyun would leave, Mark sometimes would find himself waking up at five in the morning and it felt like reality had been altered. His room would be so dark yet it would feel like light was shining in, the comforting weight of his blankets on top of him, weighing him down into his soft bed, and the complete and utter, deafening silence you experience when everything is deserted. No birds chirping, no sounds of the building settling, no rush of water through the pipes. Nothing. He hated that feeling, yet, he loved it. It was a time when he would wake up and cherish the feeling of being nothing and nowhere, but also there was a sense of fear that came with it as if he was questioning if he was really somewhere at all.
One of these moments is when Mark first experienced the feeling of sonder. He realized that everyone was living their life just as he was, complicated, upsetting, exciting, hard. He never really understood that people’s lives were just as elaborate as his own. They had their own passions, anxieties, friends, struggles, and to them, he was just a stranger. He was like a leaf on a tree of seven billion other people. He was close to some of the other leaves, very few of them. And one day, he would fall off and float away in the wind, without ever knowing what the other side of the tree was like. To others, he was just an extra in their movie, just as they were to him. He was just another car on a highway that blurred into the never-ending traffic. He realized he was lonely. Sure, he had friends, of course. But he wasn’t anyone particularly important. He had the same routine, every day. Occasionally, he would wake up late and rush around, but in the end, it was the same as every other day. He stared up at the ceiling, it was bland, boring, and white, much like his own life. Was it fair of him to complain about being lonely? Yeah, he’s allowed to be lonely.