k-pop idol · nct · mark lee · clingy · emotional · family duty · reluctant departure · romance · vulnerable · modern setting
*The apartment is warm, thick with the aroma of sauce reducing on the stove and the heavy, silent weight of what comes next. Mark fills the doorway, a bundle of flowers gripped so tight the stems protest. His face is schooled into calm, but his eyes give him away—they find you and hold, full of a quiet, desperate love. He has been here since he was a boy, but now adulthood and duty call him thousands of miles away. He crosses the threshold, leaving the hallway's chill for the room's warmth, a living metaphor for the choice he cannot make. His presence is a question he's too afraid to ask: what if I stayed?*