Mark had always been good with words. Lyrics. Flow. Timing.
But not with her.
Not when it mattered.
The rain softened into a steady hush against the windows. Across the table, Lexie had just finished describing how Ethan sang in the mornings—loud, chaotic, full of life—and something about that image hit him square in the chest.
He stared at his half-empty coffee cup. The cardboard sleeve was damp where his thumb had been resting too long.
"I meant to say goodbye," he said, the words quiet but deliberate.
She didn't flinch. Didn't look surprised. Just stayed still, listening—like she always had.
He drew in a breath. "Back then. When I left Vancouver... I meant to. I just... didn't."
His voice faltered at the edges, but once the rhythm settled, the weight behind it came naturally—like something long overdue.
"I kept thinking I'd find the right moment. That I'd explain everything before I left. But every time I tried, it felt... impossible."
He looked up. Her expression hadn't shifted much, but the stillness in her said everything.
"And I know that sounds like an excuse. But I need you to know—it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you did."
That part—the truth of it—sat heavy in his chest.
"When SM reached out after I passed the audition Matthew and I went to—during that prep rally," he said, voice low. "A scout messaged Mom a few days later. At first, it was just emails. Then video calls. Nothing serious yet, just check-ins. They said they wanted to see more."
His thumb brushed the side of the cup again, a reflex. A grounding one.
"Then they invited me to Seoul. Just for a week. A trial. Nothing permanent."
He could still remember the whirlwind of that first trip. The overwhelming language. The fluorescent training rooms. The weight of something bigger than him pressing down at every turn.
"But after that week, they asked me to stay. Not permanently — just to train for a month. Then three. Then they started talking about contracts."
He leaned back against the chair, the soft tap of rain on glass behind him. "And I knew. If I said yes, everything would change. Not just for me—for everyone I loved."
His gaze found her again. Slower this time. More careful.
"For you."
She dropped her gaze, but her body didn't retreat. She was still here. Still listening.
"I kept telling myself I'd call. I'd write. I even drafted messages in my Notes app, like an idiot. But every time I sat down to say it—to tell you I was leaving, that I wouldn't be at school on Monday—it felt like I was cutting the last thread that made me feel human."
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn't even try to hide it.
"And I was scared. Not of training. Not of Korea. I was scared of what it would mean to say goodbye to the only person who really knew me before all of this."
He paused. Let the words settle.
"You were the only thing in my life that made sense without needing to be explained. And I didn't know how to say goodbye to that."
He reached for the cup again, holding it more than drinking from it. It felt like something to cling to—something solid.
"There was this night before I left," he continued. "Remember that bench near the park? The one we'd always bike past?"
She nodded. Slowly. Her eyes met his again, and it pulled something taut inside him.
"I sat there for hours. Hoping you'd walk by. That maybe if the universe wanted me to do the right thing, it would give me a sign. But you didn't come. And I didn't try harder."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. Not anymore. It was filled with all the things he could've done differently.
"When I got to Seoul," he said, softer now, "it was survival mode. Days ran together. Continuing high school in a different country with language barriers, training evaluations, vocal lessons, acting, dancing. I'd never worked that hard. Or felt that alone."
He let the confession hang there, raw and unguarded.
"And every time I thought of you... it made it harder to stay. So I buried it. You. Vancouver. All of it."
His thumb traced the rim of the cup. A quiet, repetitive motion.
"I told myself I'd fix it one day. That I'd go back. That when I had something to show for it—when I wasn't just a trainee getting scolded for missing a beat—I'd reach out."
He swallowed, feeling the tightness climb up his throat.
"But then time passed. And the longer I stayed away, the harder it got."
She didn't speak right away.
She didn't need to.
He could see it in the way her jaw clenched. In the way her eyes blinked—once, too long. But she didn't move. Didn't shut him out.
"I saw you once," she said finally, voice low.
Mark's brows pulled in. "What?"
"A year ago. At Incheon. I was flying in for a talk in SNU. You were just passing through Arrivals with your team. You didn't see me. It was chaotic. Too many fans."
His stomach dipped, the kind of drop that came with guilt sharp and sudden. "Lexie..."
"I didn't approach you either," she said, shaking her head. "I think... we both ran in different ways."
Her words struck him harder than anything she could've yelled.
"I wanted to reach out so many times," he said. "But I didn't know what version of me you remembered. I didn't know if that boy still existed for you."
Lexie's gaze turned toward the window. Rain streaked the glass in thin, crooked lines, a blur of sky and city in motion.
"That boy," she murmured, "was the only one who ever made me feel like I was easy to understand."
The words tightened something in his chest—grief, maybe. Or longing. Or something unnamed that had been living inside him since the day he left.
"I'm sorry," Mark said. No theatrics. No careful phrasing. Just the truth. "For disappearing. For not saying anything. For letting the silence grow so loud between us."
His eyes found her again.
And this time, she didn't look away.
"I wanted you to chase your dream," Lexie said. "I just didn't think I had to lose you to do it."
That broke something in him. A small, fragile thing he hadn't realized was still there.
He opened his mouth. But no words came.
So instead, he reached across the table—slowly, as if approaching a memory—and hug her tightly.
Their first touch in years.
And she didn't pull away.
Outside, the rain deepened. Steady and rhythmic. A quiet metronome marking the space between grief and grace.
They didn't speak again for a while.
But this time, the silence didn't push them apart.
This time, it made space.
For what had been.
And what might still come next.
~~ 끝 ~~