uneven ground || lee mark

chapter 9

"you don't have to be in need of new friends to make them. sometimes you just have to let things happen and see where they lead you."

ellie kept quiet.

'what does he know?'

she didn't believe that mark was in a position to tell her how to make friends.

he was rich, handsome, and had a good personality — anyone would want to be friends with him, and (not really) knowing him, he'd probably want to be friends with everyone as well.

that was something she just couldn't relate to.

sure, ellie didn't completely consider herself ugly, she was just... average, and concerning money, her family was doing just right.

the issue was in her character.

everytime someone would try to befriend her —not that it happened very often— there were two possible outcomes to the situation.

a) the other person annoyed her, so ellie would act mean to scare them away.

2) the person didn't annoy her, so ellie would not know how to handle it and also act mean and scare them away.

but somehow, with mark she couldn't quite tell which of the situations she currently found herself in. it was as if they had gotten mixed up.

she didn't know whether the problem was mark or herself, so ellie figured it was them both.

"you don't get to talk about that when you're as privileged as privileged gets."

his eyes flashed with hurt for a moment, but as fast as that expression come, it was already gone. though ellie was sure it hadn't just been her imagination.

and really, she almost felt bad. the girl hadn't intended to hurt him, nor did she think that he would get easily offended by something as small as that comment.

"i don't actually have that many friends. there's just a lot of people who want to talk to me, befriend me. i usually choose to just stay acquaintanced."

"so you're saying that i'm supposed to feel honoured by you actually wanting to talk to me?"

ellie furrowed her eyebrows in irritations, creases becoming visible on her forehead.

she knew well enough that he was too kind hearted to think that way, but it was starting to get fun messing with him.

mean, but the girl didn't care.

"you know that isn't how i meant it. i just genuinely want to get to know you and would have appreciated some effort from your side as well."

and that was ellie's last straw.

she had been kind enough to let mark sit at her table, and to even let him talk to her — something she did mostly out of pity.

in hopes that he would shut up eventually, ellie had thought it to be best if she just answered some of his questions so he would be satisfied and stop bothering her.

but now he was definitely going too far.

had she really not made it clear enough that she wanted nothing to do with him?

without another word, she pulled a move all too familiar to mark.

indeed, he'd had to witness her walk away from him more than once in the past two weeks; every time he tried to talk to her, actually.

and that experience also taught him that it was best not to run after her as she stormed off, ignoring his calls that mark couldn't help, despite knowing well enough she wouldn't listen.

'you still have a whole week here, mark. wouldn't want to piss her off even more now, would you?' he told himself, not sure if he could even do much to make it worse.

so he stayed seated, slightly disappointed in himself for failing to build a friendship with the girl.

'whatever, it's probably better this way.'

mark's interest for her was something he would surely get over pretty fast, he shouldn't worry too much.

_________________________________

turned out worrying about pissing her off too much when there was still a whole week of school was pointless. because frankly, he did not see her face even once after meeting her at the café.

mark had no idea where she had gone, and how she managed to avoid him, but before he knew it a whole week had passed and the summer-classes-group was gathered in front of the school, about to get into the bus that would take them to the nearby train station.

usually, mark's parents would have sent a private chauffeur to pick him up, but he had asked them not to.

looking around, he quickly spotted ellie's shorter friend, dahye. as expected, she was standing right next to ko haeun, but the girl mark was actually searching for was nowhere to be seen.

'how come she's not here?'

she had not attended classes in the last week either — at least not those she used to take.

mark's first thought had been that she might have left a bit earlier, but just two days ago he was sure that he had heard her voice in the hallway. 

ellie wasn't there once he turned around, but he was still convinced that it had been her.

"dahye!" next to mark, hendery was waving at the maroon haired girl, calling her over.

"hey!"

from his peripheral vision he could see her hugging his friend, making him wonder what other interactions the two might have had without him being present.

they seemed to act like good friends now.

mark also decided to greet the girl, sending an awkward nod in her direction, as well as a small ‚hi'.

considering how distant dahye's best friend had acted towards him, mark wouldn't have expected her to flash a smile at him, let alone talk to him.

"hi mark! how was your last week here?"

but he didn't really have an answer to that.

"uhmm... it was just classes, i guess. pretty normal."

"mhhh. yeah, must've been pretty uninteresting without ellie here to bother."

'what?'

mark's eyebrows rose.

"...sure?" his questioning tone must've made it pretty obvious that he was more than confused at her way of describing the situation. "so she really wasn't here this week, was she?"

dahye nodded, surpressing a laugh. she was absolutely convinced that mark's intentions with her friend went beyond something platonic, but ellie wouldn't want to listen to her whenever she tried to explain her theory.

mark didn't seem like he would ever reveal much to her either.

"yeah, she had to go home on monday because of a family emergency."

if only he knew that that was far from the truth.

instead, he tried not to put much thought into it, humming in an understanding way.

'alright then.' he muttered to himself as he watched the bus arrive in front of him.

'see you next year, kang ellie.'

_________________________________

lmao it's been what? a month now? 😭