KAIROSCLEROSIS || lee mark

chapter 14

"alright, mark." ellie spoke up as soon as the others had left the room. "i don't want to make this longer than necessary, so you better pay attention."

not giving him a chance to respond, the girl turned her back to him and walked over to the big closet next to the whiteboard. she swung it open, scanning its content for what she was seemingy searching for.

a blue folder in hand, she approached him again.

"this is yours for now."

mark hesitantly took the folder, taking notice of the name tag in the left corner. the name had been crossed out with a black marker, making it unreadable.

"in there, you'll find all the sheet music to our songs. i recommend you to at least have a look at the first few, they are the most important ones."

she paused.

"if you feel like it, you can start practicing them."

mark nodded quietly. 

"not sure how much doyun already told you, but i'm on the bass. minjun sings, dahye plays the keys, and doyun is our drummer. it's as simple as that, although we do change the lineup sometimes, depending on the song. but that's all in the folder too."

ellie walked over to their set-up instruments on the other side of the room.

"as for instruments, we've got rules too. you don't touch anything that's not yours without permission. you can bring your own guitar if you want, or you can ask yejun if you can use his. amps and such are provided to us from the school."

again, the boy nodded, waiting for her to go on.

but she didn't.

"is that all...?" he awkwardly questioned.

as if she was snapping out of a daze, ellie blinked, averting her gaze back to him.

"uhh sure."

but she didn't move, so mark took that as a sign that he was expected to leave first.

"i'll be off then..."

she gave a small nod, not paying much attention to him anymore, as she was busy searching for the band-room-keys in her bag.

"...bye then."

he muttered on his way out, thought she clearly couldn't hear him.

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in the middle of his physics class, mark got an email from doyun.

he found it quite funny that he was contacting him by email of all ways he could have, but then again, he definitely looked like the type to do so.

with his rectangular glasses and expensive watch, the boy looked more like a middle-aged man attending a business meeting than the leader of a school band.

but he was nice enough, so who cared about that.

dear mark,

I hope everything went well with ellie's introduction. she can be a pain sometimes, so i apologise on her behalf.

'a pain' he says? mark almost hadn't noticed.

but i will have to ask you to put up with her for a bit longer. our first performance is coming up, so to make sure that you can catch up and rehearse with us, i'd like you to practice with ellie at least twice a week.

i would have someone else do it, but i will be busy with other extracurriculars, minjun isn't reliable, and dahye doesn't know how to play the guitar.

of course, you can adjust your practice times to your schedules, and i doubt that you'll take long to catch up. i'll have ellie contact you so you can figure out the dates.

kind regards,
cha doyun

mark bitterly grinned at how the band-leader had worded that last part. surely ellie would've been delighted to read that.

quite truthfully, he had his doubts that the girl was ever going to reach out to him about extra-practice, but that's where he was wrong.

just a few minutes after doyun's mail, another message came in.

without any formalities and greetings, the curly head was blunt and direct with her words.

doyun gave me your email address.
i sent you my schedule, so just tell me what works for you.

ellie

the earth shifter wasn't quite sure if he felt like crying or laughing at that moment.

why was he even so intrigued by the girl?

usually mark would lose interest in people quite fast if he felt there was no hope. but there he was, reading that dry message over and over again, just because it came from her.

just because it was something form her that was directly meant for him.

oh, what a pityful life he had, getting his joy off of things like that.

but mark liked to see the positive side of things. he now had her full school-schedule, which made it a lot easier to cross paths with her.
he really was starting to behave a bit like a stalker.

hi ellie!
thanks a lot for taking the time to help me with practice. tuesday evening and friday right after training would probably the best hours for me. but do tell me if those don't work for you.

see you on friday!

hope to hear from you,
mark

with a click on his keyboard he sent the message off and closed his laptop shut. the lesson was ending in two minutes anyway.

he sighed at his own stupidity towards the whole situation he found himself in.

the best part about it was that he didn't have even the slightest idea of ellie being in the band. words couldn't discribe the shock he had felt when she entered that band room.

when jeno's girlfriend had first told him that the school-band was in need of a substitute guitarist, he had been hesitant to agree.

mark was a busy guy, and playing in a band was not the same as playing for yourself, in your dorm, where no one can hear you. you also need to pay a lot more attention to what the others are doing and adapt to them.

but as busy as he way, he was also kind, and so he agreed.

'for fun' he told himself. maybe he'd make a new friend or two.

well, that probably would've been the case, if it wasn't for a specific member of the band. she surely wasn't going to make things easy for him there.

he thought back to the conversation with donghyuck he had had just a few days before.

'a crush', was what the boy had labled his feelings for the fire shifter.

but thinking about it, mark wasn't so certain if that was a good definition.

wasn't a crush supposed to be fun? where were the butterflies and the joy at the smallest of interactions?

at the moment, every single one of them had ended on a sour note, leaving mark hurt and confused.

but what could he change when he was already doing his best to be nice to her?

_________________________________

poor mark ://

ellie's a bit of an ass atm