Chapter Text
19
In a way it’s cowardly, Jeno knows that. He feels it when he applies to another university than all his other friends. He knows he’s detaching himself from his friend group by doing that, but he has to. Because he knows that when he joins Mark and all his other friends it’ll just be high school all over again. He’ll get way too attached to Mark and be heart-broken when he starts dating other people. He just can’t deal with that.
During his first day at his new university he gets bombarded with texts.
[08:32] jaem
I literally can’t believe you’re late on your first day lmao
[08:35] jaem
lmaoo you loser
[08:42] jaem
jeno
[08:47] jaem
lee jeno
[08:54] jaem
you are gonna show up, right?
[09:33] hyuckie
jeno
[09:34] hyuckie
you lil bish
[09:39] hyuckie
are you gonna show up anytime soon??
[09:43] hyuckie
jaemin and mark are literally freaking out, they think you got into some tragic accident on the way here
[09:45] hyuckie
jeno?
[10:02] hyuckie
we’re all really worried
Upon reading that Jeno decides to finally send something back to the both of them. Just a short text to tell them he’s chosen a different uni after all.
Immediately Jaemin calls him. For some reason he can’t bring himself to ignore the call. He doesn't have his first lecture until later in the afternoon.
Before he can even utter a word Jaemin starts his tirade. “You went to a different uni, after all?! What the fuck, Jeno. That is not what we agreed upon!”
Someone on the other line tells Jaemin to stop yelling at him, Jeno immediately recognizes that voice. It’s Mark’s. Of course it is. It immediately makes him soften, despite having just been yelled at.
And that’s exactly why he left.
“Sorry, Jaemin. It was a last minute decision and I just didn’t get the chance to tell you yet.”
“Bull. Shit.”, Jaemin snaps and usually when Jaemin throws a hissy fit both Jeno and Donghyuck are laughing at him. For the first time in his life Jeno actually winces because of a mad Jaemin.
“Sorry”, he says quietly, sincerely.
“Yeah well, that’s not worth much, is it?”, Jaemin says and Jeno hears the hurt in his voice. Before he can say anything else Jaemin hangs up. Jeno looks at his phone for a while and feels worse than he ever has before.
Later that night he gets a text from Mark.
[17:20] mark
hey!! i just wanted to tell you that no matter what you decide i’ll always support you. so, just know that you can always reach out to me if you want. i really care abt you, jeno. i don’t like seeing this happen
Jeno ignores his text and thinks that it’s better this way. He tries to believe, anyway.
As the months pass he actually gets a good thing going for him. Him and his roommate Renjun get along well, he’s got some casual friends in class and his results are good. True, he misses his friends from high school, but it’s fine. He can deal. He’s the one who shut them out by not properly responding to their texts in the first place.
Jaemin and Donghyuck have long given up on trying to reach out to him. Donghyuck got over himself a couple of days after Jeno’s horrible betrayal (as he's sure Jaemin likes to call it) and tried to reach out to him again, but after Jeno kept giving him short answers or none at all eventually his texts stop as well. Jaemin sent him one more text to tell him that he left a hoodie at his house. Jeno sent his mother to go get it and Jaemin didn’t reach out to him after that.
Only Mark seemed and seems to still be hell bend on keeping in contact with Jeno, even though Jeno usually doesn’t answer his texts.
It’s often just to ask how he’s doing, to wish him good luck on his exams, to update him on how everyone else is doing and stuff like that.
Jeno appreciates it and hates it at the same time. Appreciates it, because he likes knowing how everyone’s doing. They had been friends for the entirety of middle and high school, after all. But then there’s also the downside, which is Mark’s often weekly texts keep reminding him of Mark’s existence. Keep him from fully getting over him, because he’s not stupid, he can feel that tingly feeling in his stomach whenever he gets a text, can feel the way his heart skips a beat.
The simple solution would be to block Mark and just cut him completely out of his life, but he can’t bring himself to do that. Not after knowing each other for long. Besides, the older boy doesn’t deserve it. He hasn’t done anything wrong but being his perfect self. It’s not his fault Jeno’s feelings decided that it was appropriate to fall for him.
“Come with me to a party tonight”, Renjun says, a day after their finals are done.
Jeno looks up from where’s he’s lounging on his bed, doing absolutely nothing. “I’m busy, you go.”
Renjun gives him a look and Jeno pouts and looks away. “Come on, Jeno. You promised you’d go with me once our finals were over.”
“Can’t you ask Yukhei? I’m sure he’d love to go”, Jeno tries.
“Um, the party is at Yukhei’s. So no”, Renjun says with an eye roll.
Jeno looks at him, he’s refused Renjun a handful of times already and he did promise to join him after finals. Jeno isn’t really one for parties. Never has been. But he can’t exactly refuse Renjun again.
He sighs and sits up. Hope starts forming on Renjun’s face.
“Fine. I’ll go”, he deadpans.
“Alright, I’ll show you how to party”, Renjun smiles (even though Jeno knows for a fact that he’s just going to all those parties just to impress Yukhei and not because he loves partying so much). He doesn't say that, though. He just rolls his eyes and rolls over.
Renjun ends up not showing him anything, seeing how he fucks off and leaves him alone ten minutes into it.
Him as in Jeno, the most awkward human being, in a house full of people he doesn’t know. Great idea.
As he navigates the house in search of the kitchen, carefully avoiding bumping into people, he curses Renjun and inwardly demotes him from friend to just roommate again. Why ask him to come if he wasn’t even gonna hang out with him? When he seems him again he’s gonna give him an earful about it. After about five minutes he eventually manages to find the kitchen. Not because he’s ridiculously bad at navigating, but because the house is huge. Yukhei’s parents must be rolling in cash. He’s sure there’s at least a hundred people at the house.
He sighs and takes out a beer. He doesn’t usually drink, but if he’s gonna survive the night he’ll have to be at least some type of drunk.
In the end he thankfully does find people to stand with, namely Doyoung and his group of friends. Doyoung’s an older dude that had taken a liking on him back in high school. And still does, apparently, seeing how he keeps drunkenly squeezing Jeno’s cheek and calling him cute, which seems to greatly amuse his friends Jaehyun and Taeyong and Jeno himself if he’s honest. There are worse things than being called cute and adorable over and over again, especially if he’s tipsy himself.
Then, as he’s considering leaving an hour or two later, he looks around for the front door and spots Renjun standing at the other side of the room. He says goodbye to Doyoung and his friends and stands up to give Renjun the scolding he deserves.
As he’s getting closer he starts recognizing the people he’s with. There’s Yukhei, Chenle (Jeno wonders if he’s even allowed to be there) and some guys he can’t see properly. A weird feeling of dread starts forming in his stomach, he wonders if he did drink a bit too much. Just as he’s about to call out for Renjun one of the guys turns around. As soon as Jeno realizes it’s Jaemin he unceremoniously ducks behind the couch, startling the people sitting on it.
As he squats there, heart beating in his throat, multiple questions go through his mind.
First of all, why the fuck is Jaemin here? Of all places? Probably because Yukhei was absurdly popular and knew about every student in Seoul, that was why, his mind supplied helpfully.
Second, if Jaemin’s here, then Donghyuck must be close. He sneaks a look and sure enough, the dude next to him has turned around to laugh at Jaemin and it’s Donghyuck.
Then third, if Jaemin and Donghyuck were here, then what about-.
“Jeno?”
Jeno freezes at that familiar voice and looks up to find Mark Lee staring down at him. Jeno realizes with a start that Mark was one of the unfortunate people he’d startled when hiding behind the couch like a madman. A slight miscalculation on his part. While hiding from the people he didn’t want to be seen by, he’d figuratively thrown himself in the lap of the one he certainly didn’t want to see him.
“Mark”, he says breathlessly, taking him in. Even in the dim lights he can see that Mark has changed. It’s been a long while since they’ve last seen each other, longer than Jaemin and Donghyuck. His face has become sharper, more masculine and Jeno can’t help but realize that he looks even more handsome than he did before. When Jeno quickly stands up and Mark follows he sees that his shoulders have broadened as well, that’s he’s not the skinny and scrawny boy he used to be two years ago.
“Hi. I uh-Sorry, I was just…y’know”, he mumbles eloquently and with that he leaves Mark gaping at him as he walks to the front door, with all intention to just leave and take the first bus back to campus.
“Wait!”
Just as he’s out of the door Mark is there, grabbing him by the arm. There’s a desperate expression on his face as he turns Jeno around. Jeno’s not sure what expression’s on his face, but Mark’s own softens. For a second they just stare at each other and unwanted memories enter Jeno’s mind.
14
“Be honest with me, hyung. You like me the most, don’t you?”, Jeno asks the fifteen years old-Mark as he attempts to pull the blanket Mark is holding over his face away.
“I never said that”, Mark protests.
“Um, I think you inviting me over to a sleepover and not the other is quite telling“, Jeno says with the bravado only a fourteen year old can possess.
“Oh my God”, Mark says as he finally lets Jeno pull the blanket away so he can look at Mark in all his sheepish glory. “You’re so annoying. Had I known you were gonna be like this I’d have asked Jaemin.”
Upon seeing the look Jeno sends his way Mark frowns with a small nod. “I see your point. He’d have probably been worse.”
Jeno giggles and pulls the blanket over himself, feeling utterly content after having just found out that he was Mark’s favorite of their little friend group.
“You’re cute”, Mark says then and something about the way Mark smiles at him so fondly makes Jeno’s stomach lurch and his heart skip a beat.
“Not cute enough to have had my first kiss yet, though”, he pouts instead, because that has been bothering him lately. Mainly because Jaemin has been bragging about kissing Yerim behind the school for a week now and though Jeno’s been telling him to shut the fuck up about it already, he can’t help but envy him a bit.
Instead of the eye roll he expects from Mark, or the pitying smile along with the small shoulder squeeze he gets a Mark who swallows almost nervously while his eyes travel to his lips.
Jeno stiffens a bit, caught off guard.
“Would you like to have one?”, Mark asks, intently staring into his eyes. A part of Jeno knows he’s not ready yet and that this is not a good idea, because Mark is just a friend. One of his best friends that probably doesn’t have much more experience than him, at that. But then that part gets overshadowed by his competitive self-centered pubescent self that just wants to get his first kiss. So he nods and Mark leans forward without another warning, planting his lips against Jeno’s as one of his hands lands on Jeno’s waist.
Looking back on it later, Jeno realizes that the kiss wasn’t all that, but in that moment it’s like his world explodes. His very limited-experience world, but his world nonetheless. Mark’s lips are warm against his and Jeno is suddenly hyper-aware of his hand resting on his waist.
When Mark’s lips start moving Jeno is too dazed to do anything for a while, then he carefully starts moving too. Somewhere during the kiss his own hand comes to rest on Mark’s shoulder. Then, as the older boy’s tongue darts against his lips Jeno’s rationality finally makes an appearance, screaming at him that he isn’t ready for a fucking French kiss, and he uses his grip on his shoulder to gently push Mark away.
He opens his eyes an finds Mark already staring back at him with big eyes, pupils blown. Jeno doesn’t know what to say and they both awkwardly remove the limbs resting on each other. Mark opens his mouth, closes it, only to immediately open it again.
“Donghyuck’s the cutest, though”, he says and that’s the first time Mark Lee breaks Jeno’s heart.