Mark was about to have a total meltdown. Mark never lost his chill, goddammit, not even the time he lost his external hard drive for a week and then had to pull two all-nighters in order to complete a final project on time. Mark could be screaming internally for all eternity, but he was a master at never letting it show on his face. But right now, sitting in the corner of the silent library, he was that close to have a complete and utter breakdown.

Okay yes, it probably had something to do with the fact that he’d only gotten 4 hours of sleep the past 48 hours, and was only running on a dangerous combination of energy drinks and caffeine. Yes, it probably had something to do with how everyone around him was also super high strung, what with it being finals week and all. But none of this was new, all of this Mark could handle. It was his senior year after all, even if it was only first term. He was a veteran at all this.

So why was Mark about to completely lose it? Because despite all these things, usually, by this in point in time all the last minute cramming would have started to show some results. From past experience at least, nearly 48 hours of non-stop cramming would have led to a pretty decent amount of information coming back to him from earlier in the term, and some relief could be found in the realization that he hadn’t forgotten everything.

However, right now, Mark would daresay that he was only marginally better off than the start of this ridiculous cramming session. Nothing he’d read in the meantime was sticking in his brain, going straight in and back out of his head. He’d been marginally more efficient at the start, but with the current distraction, he couldn’t concentrate at all. Any previous progress had been effectively undone, even, and being that close to D-Day, if Mark didn’t pull his together, he was ed.

And the reason behind this his total concentration?

Crunch.

Crack.

CRUNCH.

Mark had to physically hold back his groan, biting his lip as he grabbed a handful of his own hair. Since three hours ago, the same dude, Jongbum or Jaebin or something, had been eating nonstop. Mark wasn’t sure exactly how he knew the guy’s name, or why he looked so familiar because he was pretty sure they’d never shared a class before. Trust him, he would’ve definitely taken note of anyone in his class with that kind of a side-profile, because hot damn.

But that was besides the point.

And no, Jaebae or whatever his name was couldn’t have chosen bananas, or yogurt, or even cake or something to eat. Somehow, the bastard had managed to choose only the noisiest foods possible. He’d started with chips, crinkling the bag every few seconds. He’d soon moved onto crackers, then celery, then more chips, and now ing carrots. To be honest, in any other setting, Mark would’ve been impressed by the guy’s appetite, but right now, he was that close to telling him to just shove it all up his .

Mark didn’t know if the world was out to get him, or what. Because it just so happened that they were on the floor of the library that allowed food, and even quiet chatter, so he couldn’t even tell the guy off  for eating.

So, why hadn’t Mark just moved to one of the quiet floors?

Because it was finals week and every single last bit of available space on the quiet floors had been taken up already. No joke, Mark had checked. Multiple times. The Student Projects Committee was apparently working on getting more desks and chairs for the library, and had been for a while supposedly, but they also hadn’t made much progress due to the pathetically low number of students who’d volunteered to help out on said committee.

Mark silently promised he’d volunteer if he could just pass all his finals, his abhorrence for participation in student government be damned.

But at the moment, it didn’t look like that would be his reality.

Suddenly, the crunching stopped. Mark froze, waiting for it to resume. But when all that was audible was the quiet tap-tap of laptop keys around him, Mark began to hope.

He exhaled slowly, not daring to look in the direction of Jinbum (Jaebo?) for fear of somehow jinxing the sudden silence. He turned his attention back to his notes, picking up his pencil, and—

CRUNCH

Mark held back a scream, instead letting his head drop heavily onto the wooden table in front of him with a resounding thunk.

“…Mark-hyung? Are you okay?” a familiar voice whispered from Mark’s left.

“Mark-hyung?”

Mark gritted his teeth, willing himself to not lash out at his two idiot dongsaengs seated on either side of him. Yugyeom and Bambam, to be specific. To this day, Mark still had no idea how he’d ended up taking these two hooligans up under his wing, agreeing to semi-tutor them in English. Sure, they could be flattering sometimes and cute occasionally, but more often than not, Mark found himself wanting to throttle the two annoying children.

Like now.

“Hyunggggggg~”

Mark inhaled slowly, then exhaled. He could do this. He was Mark ing Tuan, who always stayed calm and kept his composure.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale—

“Are you getting distracted by Jaebum-hyung?”

Mark almost fell out of his chair from the sheer force with which he shot upright, eyes wide as he looked at Bambam. Yugyeom was shooting him a reproachful look, as if he’d spoiled something fun, but Mark didn’t notice.

“His name is Jaebum? And how did you know?”

Bambam rolled his eyes at both questions.

“Yes his name is Jaebum, how can you not know that already? And it’s kinda obvious when you keep looking at him every few seconds...”

Bambam’s words made sense, at least. Mark sighed, wiping a hand over his face.

“Yeah, whatever. But god he’s so distracting. I can’t concentrate at all because of him.”

“Really?” Bambam’s voice went up as he leaned in closer to Mark. “How so?”

 “What do you mean how so?” Mark gestured vaguely in Jaebum’s direction, clearly frustrated. “The better question would be how is everyone here not distracted by him?!”

At this, Yugyeom perked up as well, also leaning in with a conspiratory smile on his face.

“So you’re that affected by him, huh?”

Something about Yugyeom’s choice of words seemed a bit off, but Mark was too done with the whole situation to really care at this point. Even now, the guy was still crunching away happily on his carrots.

“I can’t concentrate at all. God dammit, I think I’m just going to go back to my room, it’s not like I’m gonna get any work done here anyways.”

Mark heaved a resigned sigh, bending over to his backpack and start packing up his stuff. However, he was immediately stopped by two pairs of hands, each grabbing an arm.

“No, don’t go!” Bambam said quickly, his voice just a bit too loud in the quiet library. Catching himself, his next words were spoken more quietly. “You said you can never concentrate in your room either, right?”

Mark raised an eyebrow, finally starting to become suspicious about his friends’ behavior. Since when they did ever care about his grades or study habits?

“Well, it’s not like I’m getting any work done here, so I might as well go for a change of scenery.”

“That’s just avoiding the problem!” Yugyeom joined in, yanking Mark’s backpack out of his grip. “You need to face it, not run away!”

Mark looked them skeptically, but was only met by two pairs of shining eyes and earnest nods.

Well, the kids kinda did have a point. Why should he have to leave? It was the other guy, Jaebong, no, Jaebum, who was causing a disruption. If anything, he should be the one to leave!

“Face the problem, huh?” Mark mused, and Yugyeom and Bambam shared a look of victory. “Fine.”

Mark stood, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. He then proceeded to march straight over to the table Jaebum was sitting at, who still munching away, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Yes?” Jaebum turned to look up at Mark, mid-chew and mouth half full with food. He looked expectant, somehow, but Mark was too busy trying to string words together properly to notice.

Because damn, if the guy’s side profile was nice, seeing his face up close, with direct eye contact, was causing his mind to short-circuit. Even if he currently had food in his mouth, god how did a jawline like that even exist? And those cheekbones, that eyebrow raise, those eyes and that stare--

“Uh, sorry to interrupt your studying, or whatever, but can you please stop eating? Or at least go somewhere else to eat? I can’t concentrate with all your loud chewing and crunching and I’d really appreciate it if you stopped, because I have a final in like 24 hours that I would really like to pass, but at this rate I’m going to completely flunk, so yeah. Um, much appreciated, if you could do that, yeah, um…thanks…”

Mark didn’t know exactly what had gotten a hold of him at that point, the rambly words seemingly tumbling out of his mouth with no filter at all the second the other male had turned his eyes on him with his head cocked inquisitively. As Mark had continued to speak, however, Jaebum’s expression had slowly turned into one of shock.

Mark eventually trailed off, an inexplicable embarrassment suddenly flooding him.

Silence.

Jaebum opened his mouth, jaw first moving a couple of times wordlessly as if he’d been stunned into speechlessness by Mark’s demands.

Deciding this had been absolutely terrible idea after all and that now would be a great time to call mission abort, Mark quickly muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, hopefully apologetic sounding, swiftly spun on his heel, and attempted to flee back to his table before Jaebum could find his words again.

But alas, he was too slow.

Someone grabbed hold of his shoulder, pulling him back and spinning him around again.

Expecting it to be an angry Jaebum, Mark braced himself, but instead found himself face to face with different boy altogether. He’d apparently been sitting next to Jaebum the entire time, Mark realized, but he hadn’t noticed him until now. Oops.

And even though it wasn’t Jaebum, this boy definitely looked angry enough.

“You can’t just go! I don’t even have a final to study for, I didn’t sit here for three hours straight so you’d just mphhhhhhhhh”

Mark’s embarrassment was now replaced by confusion as Jaebum suddenly shot up from his seat and muffled the other boy’s mouth, shooting him a half-apologetic, half-panicked smile.

“So sorry about that, don’t listen to him, just my dongsaeng, Youngjae, he’s been…uh…helping me edit my composition and he’s been getting a bit annoyed, sorry about that, and sorry about my eating too, I’ll stop and—“

“Hyung!” Jaebum was cut off by two more indignant voices from behind Mark, and now Mark honestly had no idea what the hell was going on anymore.

“Seriously Mark-hyung? Jaebum-hyung’s been trying to get your attention for weeks, and when you finally talk to him all you say is please stop eating?” Bambam griped as he sidled up next to Mark. Yugyeom proceeded to pry Jaebum’s hand off of Youngjae’s mouth, who shot Jaebum a reproachful look once freed.

“What do you mean he’s been trying to get my attention for weeks? What the hell is going on?!”

“Are you serious? Have you seriously not noticed?” Yugyeom finally Mark himself, looking at him incredulously.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“The coffee shop three weeks ago? Outside your Linear Algebra class like every single day two weeks ago? In the dining hall this week? Didn’t you say Jaebum-hyung looked familiar, have you seriously not recognized him yet?”

“I…yeah, I said he looked familiar, but I…”

Now that Mark thought about it, like really thought about it, he did seem to remember seeing Jaebum at those various locations in the recent weeks. But he hadn’t really put the pieces together until now, because why would Jaebum’s presence have been anything but a coincidence anyways? How was he supposed to have known to look for a pattern? It wasn’t like Jaebum—

Oh.

Ohhhhhh.

Seeing the comprehension finally beginning to dawn on Mark’s face, Youngjae finally smiled for the first time.

“Finally! Do you know how much time we’ve had to spend trying to coordinate it so hyung would be at the right spot at the right time? Every single time?” Youngjae complained, but the grin on his face took the edge off his words. “You two owe us big time, I demand all details of the first date after this.”

“Wait what?!” Mark spluttered. “But we haven’t even, but, do you mean you guys were like stalking me?”

Mark’s feeble protests fell on deaf years, however, as Bambam, Yugyeom, and Youngjae only winked at the two of them before retreating from the premises entirely, leaving the two seniors alone in awkwardness.

“….So. Coffee sometime?” Jaebum finally spoke, looking at Mark sheepishly but somehow without any embarrassment.  Not really typical behavior, to say the least, of someone who’d basically just been revealed to have maybe been low-key stalking their potential crush for three weeks.

“I….” Mark was still trying to wrap his mind around everything. Like, Jaebum was pretty attractive, Mark had to admit after all, and despite his round-about way of doing things, that could be considered creepy in a different context, it probably wasn’t really creepy if he had Mark’s friends’ approval and help, right? And it wasn’t like he’d actually been stalking him, he had just been showing up in various locations that Mark happened to frequent…

“We can go to that same coffee shop from three weeks ago, start from the beginning and do it right?” Jaebum suggested, raising an eyebrow as he prompted Mark for a response.

Okay, correction. Jaebum currently looked downright proud of himself, no embarrassment to speak of or even a trace sheepishness in sight anymore.

Well, dammit, Mark wasn’t that easy.

“Maybe…” Mark drew out the word, appraising Jaebum with an eyebrow raise of his own.

“Maybe?” Jaebum looked a little less confident now, and Mark allowed himself to look a little smug.

“Maybe, if I actually pass my final.”

~~

Unfortunately, the two of them had been kicked out of the library almost immediately following that conversation for causing “undue disruption in the library by being unnecessarily loud.” Mark had been absolutely seething about the public embarrassment, and had proceeded to stalk off to his dorm to study before Jaebum had a chance to say a single word of apology.  

Fortunately, Mark did end up passing all his finals.

And for better or for worse, there were three very determined underclassmen who were decidedly invested on getting their two idiotic hyungs together. With only a bit of “persuasion,” they managed to get the two seniors to finally reconcile their past over a long-overdue coffee date.

That is, after Jaebum swore to give up carrots for the entirety of the foreseeable future.