chapterone

you drive me crazy; not in the good way

 

    audreynam

 

Mark Tuan, apparently, is astoundingly perfect.

 

That’s what they say, anyway. I’ve never agreed, largely because he isn’t perfect. Even if he was, he wouldn’t be astoundingly so, he’d be annoyingly so - I would know, I’ve lived next door to him for twelve years of my life. I could probably write a list long enough to wrap around the world a few times on all the things that are imperfect about Mark Tuan.

 

Twelve years really gives a person time to get to know somebody - in depth, and maybe that’s nice for some people, but this is Mark Tuan and I am Audrey Nam and we Do Not Get Along.

 

The only thing we seem to agree on is how much we hate each other. He claims he’s “never met someone more frustrating” than me, and I have absolutely no qualms with that, because some of the greater joys in life involve pissing Mark off.

 

Like now.

 

I yanked the window open and shouted “MARK, WAKE UP!” as loudly as I could, snickering when I heard a groan and a thump, followed by a yelp of pain. The Tuans had some kind of issue with their air conditioning, forcing Mark to keep his window open as a poor attempt at air circulation, trying to make the smothering Californian summer heat less so.

 

No such luck, of course. to .

 

A head of hair emerged in the window, Mark lazily matting it down. It really wasn’t doing much for his bedhead.

 

“Shut up, Audrey,” he groaned, squinting at me. I smirked.

 

“Wake up, princess,” I greeted, smiling sweetly at him. He glowered.

 

“It’s summer. I can sleep as long as I want.”

 

“It’s three,” I said flatly. “Who the sleeps half the day away?”

 

“What time did you get up?”

 

“Two,” I shrugged, Mark sputtering. I grinned widely. “Besides, Eric has plans today. Unfortunately, they involve you. So get your out of bed, fishface.”

 

He narrowed his eyes at me, flopping back down on his bed, decidedly ignoring me. He disappeared from view, and there were a few moments of rustling sheets as he attempted to go back to sleep, but Mark’s the kind of guy that can’t simply go back to sleep after being woken up. He just stays up.

 

I smirked; one...two…

 

Mark sat straight up, his hair a complete mess, sticking up in odd directions. One strand flopped lazily into his face, Mark huffing irritably, going cross-eyed staring at it. He blew it out of his face and then swung his feet over the edge of the bed, standing up.

 

He walked towards the door before spinning back around, crawling onto his bed and poking his head out the window. “I hate you,” he reminded me, then walked off again, grabbing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt on his way out the door. I snickered, satisfied.

 

It’s always a good day when I wake Mark up on the wrong side of the bed.

 

    -- -- --

 

“We should do it,” Eric insisted, nodding his head vigorously.

 

“Nooo,” I groaned, floundering about before crashing into Kris, wrapping my arms around his, burying my face into his upper arm. He patted my head with his free hand, the ten of us walking about the park. Eric was spouting some crap about our giant empty beach house and a month of us crammed together in it.

 

So basically, a recipe for disaster.

 

“You don’t get a vote,” Eric waved me off, and I made an affronted noise, leaning over to look at him.

 

“What the heck, why?”

 

“‘Cause you’re my sister,” he stated simply, and I grumbled incoherently. Amber turned from in front of me, laughing and patting me on the head comfortingly.

 

“It’s okay, I still value you,” she grinned, Henry snickering unhelpfully beside her. I aimed to kick his shin, earning a yelp as he jumped back, and I threw him a sweet smile. He frowned exaggeratedly, then stuck his tongue out at me, Amber rolling her eyes and yanking him to face forward again, pulling hard on his ear. Henry cried out in pain, jumping about in an attempt to make her stop.

 

“Guys, come on,” Eric started off again, completely ignoring Henry and Amber. I tuned him out instinctively, glancing to my side to find Mark walking next to me instead of Luna. The hell?

 

“Why are you standing next to me?”

 

Mark took a few moments to realize I was talking to him, then scowled at me. “Why are you standing next to me?”

 

“I was here first,” I argued, and he deadpanned.

 

“We got here at the same time,” he said flatly. “We live next to each other. We came in the same car. If you’re so bothered, why don’t you walk somewhere else?”

 

I glared at him and he glared back, Jackson snorting at the exchange.

 

“You guys are literally five years old,” he laughed, slinging an arm around Mark. “You can’t even stand next to each other for five seconds. It’s a miracle you haven’t killed each other yet.”

 

“It’s tempting,” I muttered, Mark giving Jackson a look that said the same.

 

“We should go,” Luna said, traitor. She beamed, eyes bright; she was practically radiating. She jumped ahead of me slightly, skipping backwards so she could face me. “Come on, it’ll be fun! Let’s go!”

 

It was, admittedly, really, really hard to refuse Luna, who had a terribly endearing Korean accent and looked at you like you made the world go round.

 

Fortunately, I’m not easily swayed.

 

“Why,” I asked exasperatedly, and she gave me a look, as if the answer was obvious.

 

“For Eric oppa. He wants to go, right? So we should go,” she smiled widely.

 

“That’s not much of a reason,” I said dryly, and Eric swatted at me, missing only because Ailee laughed and tugged him back, telling him to behave. How he managed to land and keep a pretty Jersey girl like Ailee was beyond me. She’d flown all the way to the other side of the country just to be with him for the summer.

 

Either she had terrible taste (improbable. But possible) or Eric actually had some merit.

 

“If anything, it should be for you and Ailee,” Mark suddenly piped up, smiling at Luna. “You guys are only here for the summer. We should make the most of it.”

 

I imagined drilling daggers into Mark. “Thirsty,” I mumbled, and Mark’s smile tightened, Kris stifling a laugh. Luna tilted her head in confusion, prepared to ask me what I meant, but Eric jumped in first, his lower lip sticking out pathetically.

 

“Pleeeaasseeeee, guys, come oooon,” he begged, bending his knees a little and clasping his hands together. “Pretty please~” His eyes were getting larger and rounder, his expression ridiculous, but it was obviously working, because Kris was wavering and Jackson held onto Mark a little tighter.

 

You know, for two guys who acted all tough and claimed to be bad to the bone, they sure succumbed quickly to ‘cute’ things.

 

“Let’s just do it,” Kris caved first, and I groaned into my palm, Kris nudging me with his elbow to shut up. I pressed my fingers to my temples. No, no, no--

 

“Yeah, we may as well,” Jackson said, clearing his throat, trying to pretend Eric’s tactic hadn’t been working flawlessly on him. Krystal looked helplessly at me and sighed.

 

I stared at her pleadingly. “Aw, Krys, no--”

 

“Let’s just try not to self-destruct,” she said in defeat, and I buried my face back into Kris’s arm in despair.

 

“Oh, no,” I moaned, and Kris patted me on the head sympathetically.

 

“Oh, yes.”

 

 

---

 

author’snotes;

and there goes the first chapter.. here i am starting another story when i still have tons of others to attend to.. OTL

i’m bad, i know T T but i’m so into mark tuan LOL

this story is probably hella cliche tho… oh well .__.

oh, and for those of you who don’t know, “thirsty” is like.. i guess slang? for constantly wanting to hook up, things like that. somebody who’s thirsty is always checking out other people.. kind of like that. does that make sense? like, we’re all hella thirsty for mark (or maybe that’s just me), or exo-l’s are all super thirsty for exo.. LOL. make sense?

anyway, hope you enjoy, comments are always appreciated!