The weight was still there — but it felt lighter now. Redistributed.
Maybe that was the strangest part. That nothing on the outside had really changed — her days were still packed from dawn until midnight, deadlines still loomed, and Ethan still called her four times a day just to ask where his toy sword was — but she didn't feel like she was bracing anymore.
Not the way she used to.
Lexie hadn't realized just how much of her life had been spent preparing to flinch. For judgment. For disappointment. For someone she cared about to walk away the second they saw the full picture.
But Mark stayed.
And that mattered. More than she knew how to admit — even to herself.
Her phone buzzed just as she stepped out of the practice room, sweat still clinging to her neck from warm-up drills with the new vocal trainees. They were promising but undisciplined — the kind of kids who didn't yet know what real exhaustion tasted like. The kind who still smiled too much.
She wiped her forehead with a towel, then checked her phone.
Mark Michael Lee🌙🌙:
Don't forget to eat today. And breathe. That's also important.
L:EXIE:
Noted.
Are you stalking my Google calendar again?
Mark Michael Lee🌙🌙:Just lightly monitoring.
A breath hitched in her throat — not dramatically, just enough. Her lips pulled into a smile before she could stop them.
Later that afternoon, she found him already in her studio — slouched on the couch with his cap pulled low, scrolling through samples on his phone like he hadn't just rearranged her entire Friday so she could catch one extra hour of sleep.
"You really moved my meeting with Kyuhyun-sunbaenim?" she asked, stepping inside with two iced Americanos in hand — one she handed to him without needing to ask.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied, grinning behind the straw.
She raised an eyebrow. "I told you I can handle my schedule."
"And I'm helping you not prove your point by fainting in the editing bay again."
Lexie scowled — mostly because he was right. She had blacked out for ten full minutes last week after skipping meals for two days straight. That had been humiliating. And sobering.
Still, it was strange — this rhythm between them. Quiet. Respectful. Unrushed. Like they were circling back toward something neither of them needed to name yet. And maybe they didn't have to.
Maybe this was enough.
She didn't find herself triple-checking every word before saying it anymore. And that's a change she knew now.
Mark didn't hover. But he was always there. Subtly.
She started noticing it more — the second water bottle already waiting on her desk before meetings. The quiet texts just before she walked into an evaluation room. The way he somehow always had to "drop something off" on the trainee floor and ended up walking her there.
It wasn't romantic. Not in the conventional sense. But it was... something. Something she hadn't let herself believe she could have again — not with him.
That night, they worked in Studio C. No tension, no awkwardness. Just the quiet hum of something real.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, red pen in hand, scribbling notes on the winter unit mix while Mark tuned his guitar behind her.
"Ethan still into Paw Patrol?" he asked suddenly, like it was a weather update.
Lexie snorted. "You mean the Paw Patrol Extended Universe? We're deep in it. I have opinions about Mayor Humdinger now."
His laugh filled the room — loud, warm, bright. The kind that used to knock the breath out of her when they were younger. It still did, if she was honest.
"I could learn the theme song," he said. "Add it to the next NCT album."
"Don't you dare."
Silence stretched between them again — long, comfortable. Not heavy. Not needing to be filled.
And then he said it, voice soft, almost hesitant.
"You're really doing it, Lex."
She blinked, looking up.
"Raising him. Doing all this. Surviving in this hellfire industry. You're still here."
There was no awe in his voice. No sympathy either. Just a kind of steady truth. Like it had finally occurred to him — what it all meant. What it had taken.
Lexie felt the knot rise in her throat before she could stop it. But she held his gaze and offered a small, tired smile.
"So are you."
Mark didn't look away.
"I think I finally know why."
That was the thing about love, she thought. It didn't always arrive in thunderclaps. Not in declarations or grand gestures. Sometimes it came like this.
In the quiet.
In how he shifted over on the piano bench so she could sit beside him.
In the way their shoulders touched and neither of them moved away.
In how he never asked for more than she could give — but made room anyway.
She used to think love meant protecting everything alone.
Now, maybe she was starting to believe that it also meant being allowed to rest.
~~ 끝 ~~