we could be drunk on that love 'til we pass out • lumark

♡

All it took was Mark barely catching a glimpse of his ex-boyfriend in the crowd of people at the party he was at before chugging a can of beer like his life depended on it and walking up to the first unoccupied and least intimidating-looking guy he saw despite his better judgement and saying, "hey."

"Hi?" the guy said, seemingly surprised by Mark's sudden appearance. Which was completely reasonable -- one, because the guy had been staring at his phone for a while and probably didn't even notice Mark walk up to him, and two, because people didn't usually go up to other people at parties unless they knew them, or unless they were going to try and shoot their shot. Mark definitely didn't know this guy, nor did he plan on shooting his shot. Well, okay, on second thought, after actually getting a good look at him, maybe-- no, no. He wasn't here for that.

"Okay," Mark started off, "this is going to sound really weird, but I just saw my ex and I know he wants to get back together with me, but I don't want to so I've been avoiding him at all costs for like three weeks, which I know is an absolutely horrible thing to do like in general? But especially in this case since his friends are also my friends, but I'm bad with confrontation and very stressed about it, so I know I'll cave if I see him and probably say yes even though I absolutely do not want to because I have a hard time saying no to him. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I just saw him so, um, could you? Possibly pretend that you're someone I'm interested in, who is also interested in me but we're still unsure if we wanna date yet because I broke up with my ex not that long ago so it would feel too much like a rebound if I did?"

It was only after he had finished speaking that Mark realized maybe he should've spent more than thirty seconds it took to walk over actually working on his plan because truthfully, it was a very bad, poorly thought out one. Especially after hearing it leave his own mouth -- it sounded worse. There's no way any sane person would agree to what he'd just asked for.

He took a step backwards, "actually you know what, nevermind. I'll just--"

"Dude," the guy said, putting his hand on Mark's shoulder to stop him from walking away. "Are you okay? That was incredibly specific and a lot to unpack. How'd you even get that all out in one breath?"

Mark winced. "Sorry. I can just--"

"No, no," the guy said quickly, sensing Mark was about to try and make a run for it again, "you're all good. It's fine, it's chill. Just took me a moment to process it all, but yeah, I'm down."

Mark blinked. Did he hear him right? "What?"

"I'll do it. I'll be your," he flailed his hand, as if he was trying to think of a proper way to phrase it, "romantically ambiguous person of interest."

"Seriously?" He was in disbelief. "For real?"

"Seriously, for real," the guy repeated, nodding.

"Just like that?" Mark asked, suddenly skeptical. "You don't like, know me or anything, and you're not even going to get anything out of this. At least, I don't think you will. I don't know."

The guy shrugged. "You seem really stressed about it, and I want to help. College is stressful enough, you don't need this on top of that too. Also, I'm pretty sure my friends ditched me to go make out with each other since they're not responding to my texts, so. Really got nothing better to do tonight besides stand here and drink some really bad punch." He held out his hand, "I'm Yukhei, by the way."

"Mark," he said, reaching out to grab Yukhei's hand and shake it, only to have the other twist his hand and thread their fingers together instead. Mark stared at their intertwined hands for a moment in surprise, only looking back up when Yukhei spoke again.