Idyllic Lover || Markmin

Ah! Love

"You need to be more careful," Jaemin grumbles and holds Mark's hands in his. He peels open a plaster and wraps it around one of Marks's fingers. "I still don't get how you get so easily hurt."

"I was talking to my coworker and didn't notice one of the customers coming from my left," Mark explains, shyly looking away when Jaemin looks up and glares at him. "I got distracted and ended up dropping the plate and getting hurt."

"I'll say this again," Jaemin sighs and then throws the wrapper of the plaster away. "You need to be more careful. Like, look at your hands! If people saw them they'd probably assume you do some sort of dangerous jobs, when you're actually just working at a restaurant."

Mark stays silent as Jaemin continues to tend to his wounds. They were at Jaemin's house after school had finished. The second Jaemin had caught sight of Mark's hands he immediately dragged the older boy with him.

"You know," Mark starts off quietly, leaning in close almost as if he didn't want anyone else to hear what he was going to say. "Thank you for caring about me."

Jaemin pauses his work to stare at Mark. "You don't need to thank me for caring about you. When you're friends with people this kind of such is normal."

"It is?" The fact that Mark sounds genuinely surprised stings Jaemin a little. He can already guess the reason why Mark had made such an assumption about how friends work. "When I was younger — I told you this already right? I lived with my cousin's."

And then Mark talks to him about everything, and Jaemin listens to everything. For the first time in a while, they have a conversation about Mark. Normally it would be one-sided, with Jaemin going on about his life. But for once Mark finally spoke to him about things that happened to him in the past. And as weird as it sounded, Jaemin was happy to be one of the only people to have ever been told.

-

"A week before finals," Donghyuck says, staring at the ceiling with a poker face. "I have one week to break a bone and say I can't take the exams."

"How dramatic," Jaemin rolls his eyes and kicks Donghyuck's side. "And get lost, I'm trying to study. If you're not going to do anything then leave."

"I am doing something," Donghyuck tickles Jaemin's foot and dodges the next kick. "I'm being demoralising, I'm being a bother. It's a lot of work you know, takes a lot of energy."

"Go demoralise someone else please," Jaemin sniffles and takes his glasses off, rubbing his eyes as he feels exhaustion shiver through his body. Donghyuck raises his head at the sound and watches as Jaemin stretches.

"You know," Donghyuck stands up and hovers behind Jaemin, slowly bringing his hands to his shoulders. "Wanna take a rest? You've been at it for a while and you look like you haven't slept in ages."

Jaemin knows that Donghyuck only means well, but he can't help but snap at him and shrug his hands off. "I'm fine. I'll probably be even better if you left me alone."

Donghyuck doesn't look offended, he doesn't look hurt either. He knew how important the exams were for Jaemin, he knew how important Jaemin's health was in comparison, but he also knew how stubborn he was. With a sigh, Donghyuck reaches over for his bag and pat's Jaemin's head. "I'll leave you to get to it, but make sure to get up after a while. Cramming all your work like this won't help anything, it'll just make you fall sick."

The door closes behind Donghyuck and Jaemin's left alone in his room, silence filling the space that had been previously occupied. He can't concentrate and the stuff he's reading isn't going into his head, but the pressure and stress of the exams push him above his limit. He knows that he should probably set his work aside and do something else as a stress reliever, but then the idea of missing out on time to revise over all the content scares him.

Stretching once again, Jaemin cracks his neck and crouches over his desk again, skimming over the questions and answering them. He stays like that till night falls.

-

"Shit!" Jaemin jumps up in bed and holds his head as the world spins around him. Ignoring the stinging in his head and the roughness of his throat, Jaemin scrambles to find his phone from under his pillow. The time reads past 8. He's late. He's late on the day of his first exam. "Shit!"

He curses at himself and runs around the room, throwing on his uniform before hurrying out to the kitchen. His siblings had a day off today so Jaemin internally thanked their school and rushed around. He skips breakfast and quickly leaves the house, fear of missing the exam being far more than collapsing in public.

"Where are you?" Donghyuck asks the second Jaemin calls him.

"On my way to the train station," Jaemin answers, running down a flight of stairs. He hears Donghyuck yell at him for sleeping in and then calm down when the others around him tell him to.

"The exam starts in 15 minutes, the train takes 15 minutes to get here," Donghyuck sighs and Jaemin feels even worse. "How are you going to get here in time? Can't you just run it?"

"Run it?" Jaemin pants and leans on the wall of the train the second he gets on. There's a crowd of people and he can barely breathe. The headache was worsening and Jaemin wondered if all this running would cause him to fail his test. "Do you know how far our school is from my house?"

"Very, I know," Donghyuck pauses mid-sentence and Jaemin can hear the worry in his voice. "Jaemin, they're telling us to hand our phones in, I'm gonna have to go now but please, hurry as much as you can."

The call ends and Jaemin presses his head against the cold surface of the train door. There's a bag sticking right into his back and someone continuously pushing against him from his left. He's stuck in the corner by the door when everything comes crashing down. The doors open and Jaemin feels the strength in his legs give out, hearing a few people gasp as he fell.

Well shit, Jaemin thinks, how embarrassing. Today was just not his day. Everything was falling apart. He was late to wake up, his clothes were a mess, all the content he had spent hours learning was slipping out of his mind and now he was going to miss his exam. But instead of stressing over his lost exam and drop in rank, Jaemin realised he wasn't going to get to be with Mark. There's no way Mark would still accept him after he completely failed an entire test. Losing over 100 marks from one test was going to greatly affect his end result.

Accepting his fate, Jaemin braces himself for impact, but then a hand wraps around his arm and he's pulled up. His eyes burst open and he slowly looks up, his mind spinning from all the sudden movement.

"Jaemin?" Mark looks confused but isn't given enough time to think before the crowd of people in the train rush out, bumping into them. Mark holds Jaemin close and out of the way. Being so close to Mark after so long feels weird, it's also comforting. After a whole 10 minutes of frantic rushing and panic, it felt nice to press his head against Mark's chest and hear his erratic heartbeat. "What are you doing here? Don't you have a test today?"

"I do!" Jaemin exclaimed and the strength in his legs decreased. "I do and I woke up late, then the train was too packed, the tests about to start. I'm not going to make it and I'm going to fail!"

Mark looks from Jaemin to the train and then the exit. He then grabs Jaemin's hand and smiles at him. "Let's hurry, even if you get late you'll still be allowed to take it, just given less time."

Without allowing Jaemin to speak, Mark rushes past the crowd entering the train station and runs straight towards Xiaojun, who was leaning against a wall and talking to Yukhei.

"Mark?" They ask in surprise when they see him hurry over to them after just saying bye. "And Jaemin? What's up?"

"He needs to get to school, right now," Mark pants and then pushes Jaemin towards Xiaojun. "Can you take him?"

"Take me?" Jaemin turns to raise his eyebrow at Mark when Xiaojun suddenly agrees and drags him to a motorbike. "You have a license?"

"You're really asking the wrong questions at the wrong time," Xiaojun chuckles and then passes a helmet to Jaemin. "I got my license over the summer, now hop on before Mark shouts at us."