It’s been five days since Mark has been to Pepi’s Café. He was done with his final exams and was now starting his 2 week long break before jumping back into boring lectures and pulling all-nighters. Mark’s day so far involved Jackson and Bam bickering over a series they’re binging while Mark tried to read a book about ‘Organic Drinks and How They Benefit Us’, which was thrown at his head earlier by Jackson as he yelled “EDUCATE YOURSELF!”. 

A few hours later, 9 P.M;

Mark grabs his jacket and other belongings and makes his way out of the dormitory into the cold night. He unconsciously ends up in front of the café, so he walks in to grab a hot drink only to be greeted by Youngjae at the counter.

“Hey! Mark right?” Youngjae beams at him, “You haven’t been here in a while, I’m pretty sure Jinyoung mis-“ Youngjae continued until he got cut off by Jinyoung, who appeared out of nowhere and pushed Youngjae into the backroom, “I’ll be with you in a second, Mark!” Jinyoung spoke over his shoulder. Mark smiled and waited for a couple of minutes until Jinyoung made his way back, dusting his apron and fixing it. He flashed Mark his signature smile that always managed to take Mark’s breath away. “Sorry about that, he uh, rambles a lot.” Jinyoung chuckled, “What can I get you Mark?” He continued. “Go out with me.” The words slipped Mark’s lips before he could realize it and he could feel his cheeks burning as he examined Jinyoung’s face shift from a confused look to a smug one. “, I meant, go out with us.” Mark tried to correct himself. “Bambam, Jackson’s boyfriend is throwing a party this weekend, and it would be great if you tagged along? It’d be fun, and I just really don’t want to be alone there because I know for a fact that Jackson and Bam would ditch me.” Mark said rather quickly.

Jinyoung chuckles and fishes his phone out of his apron’s pocket and hands it over to Mark. “Give me your number, I’ll text you later and you can give me all the details. Guess now you have to introduce me to your friends at the party, since you’ve already met these two.” He points towards the back door and Mark assumes that he’s referring to both Youngjae and Jaebum. “Of course.” Mark replies with a small smile as he takes Jinyoung’s phone and types in his number, he leaves the name area blank for Jinyoung to fill as he pleases. “Feel free to bring them with you.” Jinyoung nods. Mark finally places his order and moves into his usual booth, hoping that maybe Jinyoung would join him like he did last time.

To Mark’s disappointment Jinyoung got busy with a few customers, so he decided to just finish his drink and get back to the dorm to catch up on much needed sleep. Just as he was getting up to leave, Yugyeom walks—more like runs—into the café and heads to where Mark is seated. “Sit. Please, I need to get something off my chest.” Yugyeom clasps both of his hands together and pouts at Mark until he gives in to Yugyeom and sits down. “This better be important, I could be sleeping instead. Also, how’d you know I’d be here?” Mark asks and crosses his arms and waits for Yugyeom to speak. “Pft, yeah right, you totally weren’t here to check out the attractive guy behind the counter.” Yugyeom points at Jinyoung who was carefully rearranging the items displayed on the counter, Mark immediately slaps Yugyeom’s hand down. “Is this how we raised you?” Mark hisses as Yugyeom fakes hurt and rubs at his hand. “Whatever. Jackson and Bam told me you’d probably be here.” Yugyeom groans, “Just let me tell you, and I swear to God if I sense any sort of judgement coming from you I’m going up to the attractive guy to tell him about your crush.” Mark rolls his eyes at that, “I don’t have a crush on him! I just…think he’s cute.”

“Listen to me!” Yugyeom whines. “So, Mark, here’s the thing. I think I may like two people at the same time.” “Mhmm, and?” Mark looks at Yugyeom trying to read him to see where this is going. “And these two people happen to be…dating each other.” Mark chokes on air as he hears that last bit. “Mark! I said no judgment.” At this point Yugyeom was a pouting mess, and Mark couldn’t stop coughing. Jinyoung walks up to their table with a glass of water and hands it over to Mark, whose coughing fit may or may not have gotten worse as he realized Jinyoung was standing right next to them. He grabs the water from Jinyoung and takes a sip.

Mark takes a few seconds to collect himself, “Thank you.” He smiles at Jinyoung hoping that he wouldn’t ask him about what had just happened. “Are you okay?” Jinyoung asked with a concerned gaze. “Yeah I’m fine, thanks again,” Mark replied after clearing his throat.

“This is Yugyeom, one of my friends.” Mark pointed at the sophmore sitting across from him, “Best friend, actually.” Yugyeom remarked with a smug smile. Mark rolled his eyes at that. “Nice to meet you, I’m Jinyoung.” He threw Yugyeom one of his dazzling smiles. “Nice to meet you, too, Jinyoung.” Yugyeom accentuated Jinyoung’s name while smirking at Mark. Bastard.

Mark zoned out a little after that introduction as Yugyeom and Jinyoung chatted away. Turns out Yugyeom and Youngjae are both music majors in their sophmore year, so they did see each other often on campus. Mark then glances over to see Jinyoung laugh at something Yugyeom had said, but didn’t really catch what it was. He sighed as he looked over to his phone that was lying on the table, he grabbed it, 10:34 P.M, the time read. He gathered his possessions and turned to Jinyoung, “Text me later, okay? So I’d be able to send you the details for the party.” Jinyoung nods enthusiastically and waves him goodbye as he makes his way out of the café.

He enters his dorm to find Bambam lying on the couch, shoving pretzels into his mouth. “Mark! You’re back.” Bambam tries to say with a mouthful. Mark cringes at that and nods as he plops down on the couch next to Bam. “You live in a luxurious apartment that’s like 2 minutes away from the dorms, yet you want to stay in this hole?” Mark questions.

“Well, to be fair I only stay here because I love you.” Mark narrows his eyes at that answer. “Okay, fine, I stay here because you’re kind of the responsible adult here and you actually go grocery shopping, so your fridge is always stocked.” Mark didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or chuckle, so he did a mixture of both.

“Uh, speaking of your luxurious apartment,” Mark starts. “No Mark, I’m not letting you move out of the dorms and into my apartment, so stop asking.” Mark pouts but he continues, “It’s not that, but we will continue that conversation later. I may have invited…someone to a party that’s supposed to take place at your house, but I kind of made up that part. So will you please throw one just so I wouldn’t embarrass myself?” Mark bats his eyelashes and hopes that Bambam will fall into his trap. Bambam groans but eventually gives in. “Fine, but Jackson has to handle all the planning and inviting people, that’s his thing, not mine.” Mark squeals and lifts himself up to give Bambam a peck on the cheek, then proceeds to get off of the couch and into his room. Right as he’s closing the door he hears a faint ‘Ewww’ from Bambam. Mark giggles to himself as he lies down on his bed and closes his eyes. He lets out a sigh, recalling today’s events. He’ll get to see Jinyoung out of that café soon, and he’s hell-bent on not embarrassing himself at that supposed party.

Just as Mark’s about to doze off, he hears the buzz coming from his phone nearby. He picks it up to be greeted with a text from an unknown number. Mark smiled (and maybe squealed a little) as he read the text.

12:22: ‘Hey Mark! It’s Jinyoung from the café :) Sorry for texting at a late hour, but I’m guessing you aren’t really asleep.’

Mark doesn’t open the text right away, he just stares at it from his notifications. Once he musters up a reply that doesn’t sound too cheesy or annoying, he hits send.

12:26: ‘Hey Jinyoung. Haha, yeah I’m still up, I was about to sleep actually! I’ll let you know about the party details tomorrow since Bambam is a little uhh, busy at the moment. (pls save me from them)’

Mark places his device on the bedside table, and falls into a dreamless sleep. The last thing he hears is the vibration of his phone that contained one last text from Jinyoung.

12:37: ‘I’d invite you over to the café, but you should get some sleep! Goodnight Mark:)’