let me || mark tuan

Four

"Y/N, you're going to be late if you don't wake up now"

After a long series of struggles, I finally got up and made it to the bathroom. Sigh. It would be another long day in school.

timeslip
"Listen up class. We have a new student here with us today." The teacher signalled for the new student to come into the classroom. "Hello everyone, I'm the new student, Mark Tuan Yi En. Please look out for me and I hope we will all get along. I look forward to spending the rest of the year with you. Thank you."

Wait. Wasn't that the voice of Mark? As in the Mark whom I met at the park yesterday? I immediately looked up. Oh my gosh, it really was him. He smiled at me.

"You can sit at the empty desk beside Y/N"

Before what happened, Megan was actually sitting beside me. However, ever since that incident, Megan didn't want to sit beside me anymore and she moved desks to sit beside Victoria. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to sit beside Megan as well. I would rather sit alone. But now, since Mark was sitting beside me now, I would at least have someone to talk to.

"Hey!" "Hello. You should have told me that you were enrolling here yesterday. I was kinda shocked to hear your voice just now haha" He scratched the back of his neck and said "I didn't know you were studying here. Anyways, as you already know, I'm Mark and I'm your new table partner. Let's have fun working together." He stuck his hand out and I gladly shook it.

I realised that Mark was really smart. We had a math test that day and he scored full marks. I could see that the teacher was very pleased with him and he was the new teacher's pet.

"Y/N, what did you get?" "Oh, erm it's a little embarrassing. I almost failed" I gave him a sheepish smile. I didn't get how he could do all the sums in such a short time and get them all correct. "It's okay, you'll improve over time and I could help you as well. We can study together after school" "Sure, thanks so much, you're saving my grades right now." He started laughing. His laugh was really contagious. It was kinda cute.

After Math, it was break. I walked towards the cafeteria. On the way to the cafeteria, as I walked round the corner of our classroom, a leg stuck out of the corner, causing me to trip and fall. I looked up and of course, it was Megan and Victoria. What great luck. "Wow, look who's here." Victoria said as she kicked me. "Ouch! Don't you know that it hurts?" "Serve you right, who asked you to raise your voice at us?" By this time, a crowd had formed around us. Being busybodies, everyone wanted to see what the commotion was. The crowd was getting bigger by the minute. People pointed at us and I heard people whispering and gossiping about us.

Megan pulled me up by the collar and raised her fist. I shut my eyes tight, awaiting the impact of her punch. I prepared myself for the pain and I could already foresee that I would be bleeding after that punch. However, it never came. I opened my eyes a little and saw that Mark had grabbed her wrist and prevented her from punching me. I opened my eyes fully. "I don't think that's a nice thing to do. Let go of her before anything worse happens." I immediately felt the tension in my neck loosen. Mark grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the crowd. As we walked, I could hear more gossiping. "How does he know her?" "Why did he help her?" "Are they dating?" "I don't get why a handsome and cute guy would fall for such an ugly girl."

Mark dragged me to the school nurse and the school nurse put plasters on my scratches. Mark thanked the school nurse before leaving. When we left, Mark turned to me worriedly. "Hey,  you okay? Does it hurt? Did you get any bruises?" Then, he grabbed the right side of my face with his hand and started examining my face. He looked directly in my eye and I felt my stomach knot up. I turned away in embarrassment. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Thank you for helping me back there but you shouldn't have. Now, people are gonna gossip about you too." "Does it look like I care? You're alright and that's all that matters." He gave me a reassuring smile. I felt the sides of my mouth move up into a smile as well. "Let's get back to class"

I felt that I could trust Mark after what happened. He was probably the only one I could trust in school. He didn't care about the consequences and stopped Megan from punching me. I thought these scenarios only happened in dramas but I guess there were people like that in real life as well, and I was extremely lucky that Mark had prevented Megan from punching me. If not, I would probably have a bruise on my face, which would make me look really ugly. Yeah, I'm quite vain.