oneshots • nctdream x aespa

a new start 🐯⭐️

The air is sticky in the summer; it clings to Mark's ankles like a toddler who's smeared ice cream all over their skin.

Mark had vaguely remembered this. It's a fact he's aware of but has lost all experience of, all memory. As soon as Mark steps out of the plane, he is attacked with tooth and claw, and heat snarls down his throat, forcing him to take a step back in shock.

The drive back to his old town is much the same. The taxi driver puts the air con on and tries to make small talk, but that doesn't change the fact that Mark feels like his heart is about to sink out of his chest. His lips are dry instantly, the sun peppering kisses on them till they chap and scorch.

Mark leaves the car with a mild headache and a mental note to buy some chapstick. He returns to his old house with a couple of bags on top, but he ends up just as empty handed as when he left.

The house he grew up in is empty. His parents are away, off visiting Mark's aunt on the other side of the country. They'd promised to return to see him, and they'd left him a key, buried in the same angelica plant as before. The irony of his mother's being so obvious about putting it in a plant that gives protection is not lost on Mark.

He cannot decide if it's more or less eerie to enter the house where he grew up on his own. The walls are painted the same sage green, but the floors have been retiled in grey and lavender. His mother's penchant for cat statues has not changed; they still decorate the windowsill, but there are far more than there used to be. The curtains are different as well. Mark feels like an intruder, and he's certain he looks like one too.

His old bedroom does look like he left it. The shelves are pretty much bare and there are boxes under his bed, but the blankets are the same, the blue dresser, the crack in the corner of his mirror.

An intruder, a pot of African violets growing next to his bedstand. It's vindictive and childish, but he moves the pot to the top of the bookcase. just to get a tiny sense of control.

If Mark had had real control, he would have stayed in America. Nostalgia is bitter in his throat; this is not his home anymore. The more he moves around the building, the more he sees photos of people he doesn't recognise; a new oven; a cat watching him from the back of the sofa.

He thinks, honestly, he just misses his mum. But she's miles away and won't be back for weeks, if even that, and Mark left all his friends in America and most of his life as well.

He changes, swaps his shirt for another, cuffs the bottom of his jeans. Chapstick is at the top of his list. He has fresh ingredients to cook with, an adapter for his charger because he's not sure where his dad would keep one in the house, and he has no clue where to start looking.

The grocery store is where it's always been, but several shops Mark remembered on the way there are not anymore. He takes a basket and fills it with produce as his heart fills with loneliness. A sore thumb, that's what he sticks out like. He's more aware as the cashier rings him up, studying his face questioningly. Mark smiles once, tightly, and is quick to make his escape.

His plans of going back to the house and not coming out until his parents return are thwarted when he bumps into a girl on the street.

A girl. Or should he say a woman instead? Time does weird things to people, and things grow, and memories are so easy to warp, but there's no way Mark could ever forget Kim Minjeong's face.

Minjeong freezes, knuckles white around her bag. "Mark?"

"Minjeong," Mark chokes out. He doesn't know what else he could say.

Minjeong's face breaks into a smile, and she speaks to Mark. That's something flipped right over. It was always Mark who was the confident one, leading Minjeong through everything. But Minjeong was different. "It's been so long. Your mum told me you were coming back for the summer, but I didn't know when that was—God. How are you?"

The girl who used to trail after Mark, who was too shy and scared to speak for herself, has grown up. Minjeong's words are measured and polite but friendly and earnest; there's an inner confidence that shines through.

Mark wants to embrace her. He wants to cry.

They've facetimed a few times and messaged each other more, but contact between them had to be slight. Minjeong has grown taller than before, her features look more mature, and her figure looks like she is carved from marble. Her words are confident; she looks happy. The back of Mark's throat is bleeding.

"I had forgotten how hot it is."

Minjeong laughs loud and appreciatively, her eyes creasing beautifully and showing a row of perfect gleaming teeth. Child of the night, that's how Mark had always remembered her—but now she looks so at peace in the sun.

"It is hot, it gets so muggy. I always forget how different it is for people from not around here."

From not around here. Mark grew up in this town, spent eighteen years of his life here, and yet — he's not part of it anymore. Minjeong hesitates, obviously realising her own words, and she hurries to make an apology, explaining that's not quite what she meant.

But the words were true. Mark's not from here, and he's lost all claim he once had to Minjeong.

They are different people. There is a two-year age gap between them, so Minjeong must be twenty-one now. She's an adult, more grown up than Mark could have ever imagined.

He halts Minjeong's apology. "It's okay," he retorts. "I'm really not from around here anymore. I feel so out of place. Nothing is the same as I remembered it."

"But you remembered me," Minjeong says, and Mark's a fool but not foolish enough to miss the way she looks at Mark over.

"Because how could I forget the kid who used to follow me around, bringing me rocks she found or forcing me to do her English homework?"

She grins. "My parents still think I enjoyed English." "That it was your tutoring that got me through, not that you would just do my work for me."

Mark allows himself to smile.

"But," Minjeong continues, "I'd like to point out that this is a different me to the one you remember. And you're different too."

"You are," He nods slowly. He watch Minjeong's lips carefully for the warmth that seems to expel from her. There is a little longing tugging at his heart.

"We can get to know each other again, if you like," Minjeong offers, and for the first time, she looks uncertain, eyes flickering over Mark's.

"I'd like that." Mark smiles, lets his teeth show because he didn't get all that dental work for nothing. "I'd like that, Minjeong-ah."

Maybe it's not too late for them to start over.