𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐍𝐨𝐰 || 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐧𝐨

Chapter 15 : Overwhelmed

The volleyball season goes on and Mark is glad he made it on time to join the game during the beginning of the playoffs. He missed the practice matches with other universities while a long ass cast restrained him from playing.

Excitement fills his system whenever a game approach, but Mark also notices how Jeno's anxious demeanor increases. They took their affection touches to a minimum whenever the team was around, but if Jeno looked too frustrated, Mark didn’t even doubt running up to him and try to calm him down.

Their dates also had to be left in a corner because the important matches arrived and there was no room for free nor romantic time, everything evolved around practice and studies. So whenever the team is too engaged listening to their coach, Mark usually sneaks around and stays next to Jeno, intertwining their fingers together and hiding them behind his back, keeping it away from their noisy teammates. Jeno calls him a fool more often than not, but still a smile always splits into his lips so Mark sees it as a good sign to keep doing so.

When it’s time for the last matches of the playoff, Jeno looks specially balked. His sets are not working out as well as he would like to — his hands get paralyzed when there is too much pressure — so he’s mostly mad at himself.

The night before one of the games, Mark walks up to his own bedroom and starts picking up his official outfit and everything he’s going to need for the match and tosses them into his sport bag. With that ready, Mark eyes his corkboard and picks a few post-its reminding him about his neglected assignments and throws them into the paper-bin next to his desk. Satisfied with the clear spot on the center of the corkboard, Mark reaches for his sport bag and outs his room.

Jaemin eyes him suspiciously while Mark makes his way to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Jeno's,” Mark absently replies.

“Don’t you have a match tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s why.”

Jaemin doesn’t even question it further because he knows even if he actually doesn’t know. So he observes his best friend zipping up his coat and embracing himself for the slap of cold air he’s about to get when he opens the door.

Don’t blame Mark for plagiarizing tomatoes’ color when Jeno doesn’t let him sleep on the couch how he has planned to, but instead pulling him into his room and trying to fit in a single bed that’s clearly not made for two grown up university students. Mark’s heartbeat lulls him to a much needed sleep — which is not a very nice discovery because Jeno takes that as an invitation to make Mark sleep over every night they have a game the next day. It inverses though, Mark is now the one with neglected sleep because his attention is more into a redhead sprawled all over his chest.

They don’t think low of their graduated teammates, actually they come often to cheer them up, but the team looks more balanced now, not because their skills exceed the laters, but because they’re well known hardworkers. Mark and Jeno's synchronization is cutting a few points from their rival teams so they’re more than pleased — and so does their coach, that quite often hums in approval.

Without realization, they end up making it to the finals and Jeno might have squealed a bit when the scoreboard went up, showing the end of the match. After a more than deserved shower, he nibbled in a decent sugarcoated chocolate bar as a reward after having to quit his more than loved heart-attack-inducing food. Mark just chuckled and let him enjoy it, even working as his coverage whenever needed. Always gaining points as a good boyfriend-to-be.

The day of their last game doesn’t start as desired, missing their alarm and getting late to the bus — which ended up with their teammates teasing them because those disheveled hairstyles suggested a very interesting story — which unfortunately, they didn’t.