a few summers passed and mark found himself slowly learning to get over donghyuck's disappearance. eventually years passed and mark forgot about his best friend, their memories together being stored at the back of his mind.
"mark!"
mark whirled around towards the source of the high pitched voice and he immediately smiled when he saw his girlfriend running towards him. in his first year of high school, mark got a girlfriend to try to make his mom happier. thankfully, it worked and she spent less time drinking and more time with mark.
"hey, yeona." he intertwined their hands and they continued to walk together. "the usual?"
"the usual." she beamed up at him, making his heart race.
'the usual' was them going to mark's house and sitting under the trees in his backyard. they usually did homework and talked while laying in the soft grass. whenever they took naps, they usually laid on mark's bed because it was often cold outside.
the couple walked to mark's mom's car and they got in, both of them sitting in the back so they could continue to hold hands. yeona said a polite hello to mark's mom, who gave her a big smile. she really enjoyed having yeona around. she felt like yeona made her son behave better, made him seem normal.
as soon as they arrived at the familar house, mark and yeona took their backpacks and ran to the backyard. they set their stuff down and they laid back on the grass. mark pulled his girlfriend into a hug as they looked up at the wispy clouds in the sky.
"i heard there's a new kid coming to school tomorrow." yeona said lazily.
"really? that's weird, it's already half way into the school year." mark replied as he played with her long strands of hair.
"yeah, apparently he was homeschooled."
mark hummed in response, not really caring about the gossip coming from his girlfriend. she gossiped a lot, but so did everyone else in their school. it wasn't an uncommon thing and mark didn't really mind it since it was coming from yeona.
"i heard from jeno that he was taken out of his elementary school for some weird reason." she continued.
mark's eyes widened slightly as the mention of his past bully. they went to the same high school, but jeno stopped caring about mark. he found other weaker kids to pick on and he had other things to worry about. mark heard rumors saying that jeno drank and smoked, but it wasn't really a surprise to him. all the rumors he heard sounded exactly like jeno.
"jeno makes up a lot of stuff. i don't really trust him." mark mumbled, a small frown on his face.
"i don't know why you dislike him so much, mark. he's not that bad." yeona said as she stood up and brushed the grass from her skirt. "come on, let's go upstairs."
mark followed her into the house and they both ran upstairs and into his room. yeona laid down on his bed and smiled up at him.
"mark, can you play a song for me?" she asked as she looked at the guitar that sat in the corner of his room.
he nodded, picking up his guitar and strumming a few chords to warm up. yeona loved it whenever he sang or played for her. the two shared a love for music, which was one of the reasons they started dating.
after a few songs, mark noticed yeona slowly drifting to sleep. a small smile made its way onto his face as he watched her eyes flutter shut. it soon disappeared as an old memory popped up in his mind, a memory of him and his past best friend laying in that same bed.
btw mark and yeona are juniors. i forgot to put that in this chapter and i'm too lazy to go back and put in
