Mark had a big habit of staring at people. He was relatively quiet, and his eyes would naturally drift over his surroundings and land on random people around him, taking their movements in. Soojung was incredibly creeped out about this – though she did the same thing herself, but if anyone brought it up, she would pass it off with a “Shut up, I’m people watching” – when she first met Mark.

It was back when she attended school back in the States with Namjoon and Yookyung; Mark was in the grade above them and had offered to show Namjoon how to do some basic flips after school ended. (Anyone who knew Namjoon knew he was terrible at anything to do with dance or acrobatics other than swaying from side-to-side.) Namjoon had made Soojung go to the meet-up area next to the track to deliver a message that he would be a little delayed. When she got there, she barely looked up at Mark’s face and instead stared at his shoes (“Look for a guy with really beat-up black Chucks and an Abercrombie jacket,” Namjoon had advised – ah yes, the time when the heavily perfumed clothing was the in thing to wear), stuffing her hands into the pockets of her own (Abercrombie) jacket as she told him she was there to not him leave because Namjoon’s a dumb , sorry.

Plopping herself down on the circular table’s attached bench with her side pressed against the edge, she hadn’t said anything more and instead looked straight ahead at the football team making their laps around the field. She never did exceptionally well with new people, which was her excuse of staying so quiet in that moment; and with her face expressionless and the only noise around coming from the coach’s whistle, Soojung just hoped that Namjoon would hurry the up already.

Mark had been silent during the entire seven minutes since Soojung had arrived without even so much as an “okay.” He took a seat across from hers when she sat down, his arms resting atop the rubber fence-like texture of the table. His eyes scanned down the slope of her profile, still rather amused and intrigued over her (somewhat unexpected) boisterous personality. Staring directly at her eyes, he had started taking in how her eyelashes curled upwards just slightly when Soojung had turned her head to watch the football coach disappear into the guys’ locker room. Mark was sort of in the way of her line of vision, momentarily steering her train of thought away from the varsity meet-up coming up next season; startled a little from the abrupt turn of her head, Mark found himself staring directly into Soojung’s eyes, completely dumbfounded at the gradations of brown in her irises.

Those three seconds felt like three years, too much for Soojung’s liking (though she had to admit he was a lot more attractive than she had anticipated), and her eyes had narrowed almost immediately before checking to see if anything was behind her. Before she even had a chance to hiss out a “What,” Mark shook himself out of his fixated trance and introduced himself with a grin, “Hey I’m Mark.” And Soojung was a goner.

…Okay, it didn’t happen that quickly, or at least Soojung can’t admit it did. But when Namjoon finally appeared from the top of the stairs and gave her a little side-hug as thanks, she had stayed the entire time – she insisted that she promised Yookyung she would stay to make sure Namjoon didn’t hurt himself too badly despite her saying she would leave pronto earlier – all the while feeling kind of giddy every time her eyes would meet with Mark’s. It later turned out that Mark was going to start his second year on the varsity track team, and with it being Soojung’s first year on the four-by-four relay, he ended up being assigned as her “running buddy.” He got yelled at a lot that season by the coach to “stop making googly eyes” at Soojung and hurry up and finish your goddamn laps, Tuan.

So it was no surprise he was staring at Soojung’s profile again. It was their third date at Disneyland, and Soojung had insisted they go check out Cars Land over at California Adventures together because she went with Yookyung last month, and it was ing awesome, okay, Yien. Mark was never really into amusement parks, but he didn’t not have fun when he went to them, and if it meant an entire day with Jung Soojung for himself, then damn everything, he was going to take that offer. Fourth ride of the day, and Mark now found himself being pulled on top of this tire thing (“Luigi’s, Luigi’s!”) and buckled in to the seat alongside Soojung’s petite frame. The blast of air coming from the hundreds of vents underneath them felt good under the late January sun, and Soojung’s hair was flowing up at the tips from the force of the wind.

The key point of Luigi’s Flying Tires was to lean together to one side if they wanted their tire to “fly” in a certain direction, but hearing Soojung yell over the blast of air and seeing her try to maneuver their tire to the side by herself was so cute that Mark just sat there, watching in awe – damn that clichéd word – of how her hair swung over her shoulders when she tried to move, how the sun made her hair seem like it was speckled with gold, and how she made no attempt to cover her laughing face like she normally did.

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reposting onto asianfanfics from here because i really want people to love this ship i made