som·nam·bu·lism
/sämˈnambyəˌlizəm/
noun
sleepwalking.
✦
nct mark lee high school au
✦
in which a korean-canadian boy falls for a half-thai, half-chinese girl in the most unprecedented way, in south korea
✦
slow updates because school 💩
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
One time, it was, "Xia, do you want to get some bubble tea after school? I heard a new place opened not too long ago."
"Oh, Jae's taking me there. Do you want to come with us?"
Another time, "Xia! There's this ice skating rink Xuxi told me about! Wanna go?"
"Jae's taking me there on Saturday, actually. Sorry, Mark, maybe another time?"
It had only been a month into Jaehyun and Xia's new relationship, and Mark already felt a gap in his friendship with the girl. He knew she didn't mean it, but it still hurt nonetheless, especially knowing the boyfriend didn't particularly like him for whatever reason.
He decided to stop trying altogether after she cancelled their last tutoring session of that month. She told him she was sorry but that Jaehyun wanted to take her out to dinner for their one month anniversary, and he had smiled and told her it was okay.
But who was he kidding, of course it wasn't okay. For him, at least. Mark was just happy she was happy, and he didn't want to be the one to sabotage her smile, so he tried to move on.
In that one month, two more anonymous letters had appeared on his doorstep. A sentence was written on each of them, disturbing observations of what he ate for dinner and the color of his pajama shorts.
He was almost sure it was the man the police were currently after, but he didn't have proof. This was why he decided to keep the knowledge to himself. This problem was his burden to bear, not anyone else's.
It was his father, after all.
Nothing was going right in Mark's life, of that he was sure. All he wanted to do was sleep until life was good again, but the boy put on a facade in front of his friends. No one noticed.
No one but Xia.
The girl wasn't insensitive; she could feel Mark and herself drifting apart. She also wasn't dense; she had an inkling it might be caused by her relationship with Jaehyun.
So it was one day after classes ended that Xia decided she should talk to her neighbor. She realized she had cancelled on him an awful lot of times, feeling the need to apologize knowing their friendship might be hanging by a thin thread.
"Mark!" she called out, jogging over to where he stopped walking near the school gates. "Look, I just wanted to apologize again for not being able to hang out and stuff lately. You're a great friend and I don't want to lose you."
The boy only nodded.
"I just thought you should know that," she mumbled. "We're okay, right?" She looked up at him, hope evident in her eyes.
"Yeah, we're okay." Mark gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes before turning to walk away.
And Xia felt the wind blow a little colder that afternoon.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
