His name is Mark.

Lucas still remember the day Kun told him that Mark is quite a senior trainee in this agency. The fact that Lucas just ignored him like that haunted him to sleep at night. Too many what ifs, with the one standing inside his head “What if he’ll make my life living hell during my trainee days here”.

Soon as Lucas thought of beats and punches, he wanted to directly book a flight away to my home country.

That day, Lucas was wearing a pair of sweatpants and navy blue shirt. He sat in the edge of the long chair, the place where bunch of new trainees and losers watched the people who will debut soon performed and trained. Lucas was one of the losers, of course. His fingers fidgeted with much anticipation of someone coming to me speaking Cantonese or at least, Chinese—making him feels like home. However, the least expected one was sitting on the losers chair as well and greeted him with the eye smile first.

“Yo. New kid.”

Mark was there.

Either he wanted to beat or kick him, Lucas could not predict. He might look soft and young and shorter than me, but he might be older—because who knows? Lucas was even getting disciplined by somebody named Lee Taeyong on the first day he arrived here because he was considered rude towards the seniors by greeting them with casual “Hi”. Looking at the boy’s flowery appearance, Lucas thought Taeyong would be younger than him. Turned out, he was four years older.

In the end, Lucas chose to be quiet and not too get too friendly even if Mark offered him a casual conversation. Because again, who knows?

“I thought we could be friends, but maybe you are not interested.”

This time, Mark spoke in Korean. Lucas cursed him to death mentally, because let alone speaking Korean, he could not even speak English in a proper way possible. Lucas raised one of his eye brows, asking for an explanation.

“Oh, sorry. Forgot what I said.” he spoke in English and suddenly laughed by himself—making Lucas thought that it was a common thing Mark did because he laughed a lot at himself when they first met in the intersection.

Silence falls once again. Nothing that both could say with one being too cold and one being too carefree. There was a high chance Lucas would just sit himself and drop another round of silence, but a cracked voice of his mother speaking Thai knocked his head.

He had to make friends. He has to survive.

“Do you like coffee?”

Lucas thought Mark was not a cool person at all as he was not able to hide the wide smile from his face.

“Yes!”

“Alright. Coffee shop in Gwanghwamun square after practice?”

“Sure.”

Lucas remembers that day. The day his friendship with Mark sparked.