Chapter 14:

The latter looked just as shocked to see him as Mark was. Mark’s mouth began to feel dry as he observed who it was. His father. No, he didn’t deserve to be called that, he was simply Jason. Even thinking of his name caused Mark to shudder.

“You!” Mark repeated. He didn’t understand why Jason decided to come to this specific hotel bar. The mere sight of him repulsed him which caused Mark to shudder even more. It was as though fate decided to slap him in the face once again as he observed the person who had completely rejected him.

“Hey kid, I’ve been looking everywhere for you everywhere!” he said sounding sincere yet Mark didn’t want to believe it. He refused to be rejected once more.

“Leave me alone!” he slurred and attempted to storm out of the bar. It was extremely difficult since his intoxicated body had other plans for him. He tripped on the stool he had been sitting on and landed face first on the hard ground.

Jason appeared shocked and ran over to help however Mark shrugged him away. Nothing repulsed him more than Jason Chen pretending to care for him. He had made it extremely clear that he wanted nothing to do with Mark.

“Hey kid please! Let me help you! I didn’t mean to be all defensive the other day, you just caught me…. off guard.” He continued to say whilst attempted to lift a resisting Mark from the ground. Finally, Mark was upright and continued to look dumbfounded at what Jason had just said.

“Defensive? You think rejecting me like that was just you being defensive? I don’t need you anyway, my dad was a better man than you’ll ever be!” He screamed at him causing a few heads to turn. Jason pondered on the use of the word ‘was’. 

“Was?” he asked simply as he feared the reasons why Mark spoke about his dad in the past tense.

“Yes, he’s dead!” he stated boldly as he shrugged past him to walk out of the bar and up to his room but Jason grabbed his arm.

“Please Mark, give me another chance. I know it’s too late now but-” he started to say but Mark cut him off.

“It wasn’t too late when I came up to you at the bakery, but it’s too late now!” he said with a negative tone as he shrugged Jason’s arm away and exited the bar. Not wanting to run into Jason again, he hid behind a large plant near the elevator until the coast was clear. When it was safe to do so, Mark quickly went up to his room and slept off his hangover.

The sun shone brightly into his room the next morning almost blinding Mark. He suddenly remembered the encounter he had with that man the night before. He didn’t understand what made the guy change his mind since he was pretty darn adamant that he wasn’t his father. He sighed and began to rummage around for his phone as he had planned to see Suzy that day. Suddenly he say a number of missed calls from Jinyoung and text messages too which alarmed him. Not wanting to wait any longer, he eagerly read each message. It seemed as though he was rather emotional the night before as he had sent a number of ambiguous text messages to Jinyoung along the lines of ‘I need you, I feel lonely’ to ‘I love you, please don’t worry about me’. He made a mental note to call Jinyoung when he was done with Suzy.

He heard a knock on the door once he had finished getting dressed. ‘Right on cue’ he thought as he exited the room. He opened the door to find Suzy standing at the do