never not ✧ mark lee

39

I need to talk to Dasom ASAP, he thought, knowing that his friend would be the only one who would give him good advice on what to do.

"Hey Mark!" Lily said, sitting down and closing the door behind her. She leaned in and gave him a quick hug. "You're looking good tonight."

"S-says you," Mark stammered, hoping his more confident side would kick in sometime soon. "How uhh... how was your day?"

Lily could sense that Mark was nervous but she wasn't sure why. She shrugged it off and replied. "Pretty lame," she said, leaning back in the seat to get comfortable. "I'm so ready to have a fun night tonight."

"Same here," Mark agreed. "I'm sorry none of your friends will really be there tonight."

"Nah, I expected it," Lily said with a smile. "It's for the guys' birthdays, it would be weird if the younger idols were around, the ones who aren't Jisung's friends I mean."

"Aespa will be there at least," Mark added. "I think?"

"I get why they're invited," Lily said carefully. "But are you sure it's okay if I come? I'm not even sure why Jisung invited me, it's not like we're close."

"That's because he knows we are," Mark explained, then immediately became slightly embarrassed. "I mean, us and Jeno, Donghyuck, and stuff."

In reality, Mark had asked Jisung to invite her for his sake. He was hoping to get a moment alone with her in order to talk to her about his feelings. He figured it would be a lot harder to convince her to hang out with him one on one so soon again.

"Is your friend Desiree coming?" Lily asked hopefully. "I wanted to meet her again, there's something I want to talk to her about and thank her for."

Mark wondered what she could have possibly come up between Lily and Dasom for her to feel grateful, but he decided it wasn't his place to pry.

"Yeah, she was invited," Mark confirmed. "So I'm sure she'll be there."

"Great," Lily said. "There's also something I wanna talk to you about."

Mark's heart rate went up hearing those words. "What is it?" he asked after a few seconds.

"Nah, I gotta be a little more drunk for that to come up," Lily laughed. "I can't wait to get there."

Although they talked throughout the car ride, Mark's mind was stuck to whatever Lily wanted to talk about. It couldn't be... the same thing he was thinking of. Or maybe she was going to talk about a different member, like Jeno, who she was acquainted with before any of the others. Or it would just be some other indication that she didn't feel the same way as him.

These doubts made him come to the conclusion that he would probably let her do the talking first before he said anything about how his feelings.

It was around 10:30 pm when they finally arrived at the Airbnb for the party, which Mark could tell was in full swing already from the flashing lights he saw and the bass reaching the car.

There were people everywhere when he walked in, which wasn't surprising considering there were six people who this party was for. As Mark greeted everyone who was familiar to him, Lily stayed one step behind him. At one point, he felt her hands wrap around his right arm.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I literally don't know anyone here other than your members, so I'm gonna stick to you if that's cool."

"Of course it is," he assured her, feeling content with having Lily close to him. "Come on, I'll introduce you to everyone from now."

"Thanks," she said gratefully.

"Mark!" someone called. The two looked to their right and saw a boy waving and walking up to them.