KAIROSCLEROSIS || lee mark

chapter 11

there's a german proverb that says that you always meet someone twice in a lifetime.

'Man sieht sich immer zweimal im Leben'

ellie didn't like how that applied to her and mark at all.

pouting, she turned her head away from where the boy was sitting, in the second row by the window, in her very first lesson of the year.

the second she spotted him there, ellie had wanted to walk straight back out of that classroom.

and for once, it was not because of the annoying korean-history teacher.

but dahye — annoying as she was — had dragged her straight to the desks next to mark.

at least she had enough respect to not make ellie sit right next to him, putting herself in between the two warring teenagers.

also, now that ellie properly thought about it, the proverb didn't really apply to them much anymore.

they met that night at the camp by the beach. some might have thought ellie didn't notice how the boy kept looking at her on the bus on the way back, after she had caused a scene by not wanting to play spin the bottle.

then they met just a few weeks ago, for the summer-classes.

so meeting now in history class was their third time.

though at the end of the day, it depends on whether you count the first one or not, because technically, they didn't even share a single word back then.

so can you really call that meeting someone?

aa you might have noticed, ellie was overthinking again.

but could you blame her? there wasn't much to entertain her during the lesson except her own — and sometimes even very comical — thoughts.

those thoughts came to an end with her dear friend dahye pinching her arm to get her attention.

"psst, ellie!" she whisper yelled. "i told you i'm not letting you see any of my notes in the first month, so hurry up and copy what's on the board."

a small groan left ellie's mouth.

she had almost forgotten about the agreement they had made to get her to focus more in class.

so just like that, mark lee was pushed to the very trenches of her mind — where he did not crawl back from for what was left of the history lesson.

_________________________________

"congratulations! you managed to live through the first three days of school without sharing as much as a single word with mark!"

dahye excitedly clapped her hands in a way that ellie almost would've thought she was genuinely happy if she didn't know how sarcastic her friend actually meant it.

the pair was currently resting in the place that had become ellie's safe-space (more like hiding-space) over the week: their dorm.

it was the only place on campus where she could let her guard down and be free without having to think of whether lee was somewhere in sight.

"yup. very proud of myself for that."

she beamed back at her friend — just to spite her.

"you're terrible."

but ellie just hummed and rested her head on the headboard of her bed.

as she had never been one to like silence, dahye kept talking.