Supernerd! MARK

02 | just Mark

"Have you decided?" Chaerin asks me as she mindlessly scrolls through her phone, presumably checking out the list of electives offered.

I hum in response. I'm still on the fence on what I want to choose, with it not being my first priority, though it probably should be considering the deadline is today.

The university had come up with a new learning outline for us third-year students to take to expand our skillset outside what we are already learning, and to earn extra credit while we're at it.

The only catch is that we aren't allowed to take courses offered in our respective schools, meaning us business students aren't allowed to take business modules— so on and so forth.

"Hm. Design school. That's where all the well-dressed boys go to, right?" Chaerin quips.

"I don't think that should be the criteria in helping you decide," I mumble, the two of us finally stopping by the notice board at the entrance of our school where the sign-up sheets are.

I notice that most of the forms are already filled, probably because of how last-minute we are. I even see Jaemin's name already under the Applied Science sector, him opting to go for some module related to medicine.

"I'm kinda stuck between Psychology and Fashion. What do you think?" I wonder aloud.

Chaerin lets out a wheeze. "Babe, I love you, but you don't have a single creative bone in your body."

I suppress a sigh, lifting the pen in my hand up to sign my name under Human Sciences. "I guess you're right."

"I'm always right," Chaerin smacks her lips as she follows suit, her hand waving around in circles on the board before landing on a random sheet on the bottom left, scribbling her name down messily.

"Seriously?" I stare at her.

"Design Essentials. Huh. Can't be too bad, right?"

I ignore her, knowing that whatever she's saying is probably right. Ko Chaerin is annoyingly smart and equally creative, and I know she barely even needs to try in order to pass a module with flying colours.

"We should go. Sera's wait-"

Chaerin's words are cut short when her body collides with another person just as we turn around.

I see her phone fall from her grasp at the impact, and before I could even react, I see a hand wrap around the device just in the nick of time before it could hit the ground, the stranger's other hand wrapping around my friend's arm in an attempt to steady her.

"Oh sh- oh dude, I'm sorry," the stranger stammers in English, and I look up to see that it is none other than Mark Lee.

His bespectacled eyes are wide, as though in shock as he inspects the phone, letting out a sigh of relief before he hands it back to my friend.

"Sorry," he says again, this time in our mother tongue. "You alright? Should I-"

"Dude, ow," Chaerin groans as she rubs her shoulder. "Are you made out of stone or something? That hurts!"

"Chae, c'mon, he barely hit you," I mumble, already feeling the rising tension.

Mark Lee spares me a glance, though I'm not sure what his eyes are trying to say. At this, I look away, feeling awkward for some reason.

He clears his throat before looking back at my friend. "I'm really sorry. I just- I forgot about this whole sign-up thingy so I rushed here, I was waiting for you to finish but I didn't expect for you to... you know... bump-"

"So it's my fault now?"

"Chaerin," I groan. If there's one thing about Ko Chaerin, it's that she won't ever go down without a fight. Embarrassingly so.