#this fic ended up twice as long as I intended it to be but ain't that always the way

[curseofdelos]

Solar Powered (1/1)

Relationships: Naomi & Apollo, Naomi & Will Word Count: 14k Summary: Apollo, god of music, was how he had introduced himself.  Naomi had assumed he was joking, and he didn't correct her. She had dated musicians and poets before. They all had an ego, and those same words would not have felt out of place from either of her exes. She merely downgraded Apollo from potential boyfriend to potential fling, and didn't think twice about it.  Now though…. Now her son could heal wounds with a single touch, and her world was tipping on its axis.

Read on Ao3 [LINK]

[jenojaemssss]

happier

synopsis: in which mark was happier with you.

pairing: mark x reader (i attempted to write the mc as gender neutral, so lmk if there are any tips on how to be more considerate! i wanna be able to write as inclusively as possible heh)

genre/category: angst, exes!au

word count: 2.4k

a/n: i have an assignment due in like 20 minutes (so i did not get a chance to proofread!!) but i got distracted thinking about mark while listening to my 2017 simp playlist :D so here's a mini-fic (that was supposed to be a drabble) based on this song!

I saw you walk inside a bar.

When Mark looked up from the almost-empty bottle sitting in front of him, he didn’t expect to be greeted by the sight of you. But what caught him even more off guard was that you were entering the bar hand in hand with someone new.

You, not yet noticing your past lover's hunched figure, walk towards a set of empty bar stools, another man's arms wrapped around your waist like possessive belt. Mark began to stare then. He stared at what used to be his reason. What used to be the one who'd wake him up in the morning, who used to be his reason for coming home when the days were too long, yet somehow eventually bled into nights. He continued to stare at what had been his true source of happiness.

In his eyes, you still were. You were his only radiating source of light that made him feel warm. You were his comfort, like a warm blanket during a rainy day, or an iced tea when the weather was too hot to do anything else but lounge around the house with all fans on full blast.

He said something to make you laugh.

Mark noticed how the one that accompanied you looked at you with a small spark in his eyes as you cover your mouth in attempts to shield your erupting laughter. That was a cute habit of yours when you laughed, and he used to stare at you the same way; he was staring at you almost identically as he's sat across the bar at that moment. The only difference now was that Mark stopped being the reason for your bright smiles and warm laughter.

I noticed how both your smiles were twice as wide as ours.

The first encounter between the two of you would forever be engraved in the mind of Mark Lee.

He was walking around a lake during a camping trip with a few of his friends, mindlessly swinging his arms around to cool off. Mid swing, though, he made contact with something he later found out was your face. He apologized so many times that you had almost busted a lung laughing at the poor boy's terrified features.

Soon, Mark joined you, laughing in harmony because apparently being smacked in the face by someone was the funniest thing to the both of you. Mark proceeded to awkwardly ask for your contact information, hoping to make up for the mishap, and you complied because the man was so darn cute.

One meet-up (he never specified it as a date) turned into two, which turned into three, and soon, you were seeing each other everyday in a small cafe hidden within the corners of your shared campus.

The two of you attended the same university, but due to being in different departments, there was never really a chance to come across one another while running to your next classes, but this cafe was the one spot you two had in common.

The cafe meetings soon turned into cafe dates (he clarified this time that they were in fact, dates), and soon enough, you were both head over heels in love, moving in together as you approached your final years of college.

Mark and your's relationship wasn't perfect, but it was always so much fun. Mark was always able to make you laugh because of how awkward he was, and one time you to left him behind on a trip to the grocery store because he was so embarrassing, making stupid puns at the poor worker just trying to stock the shelves of the cereal aisle. That day, you bought a watermelon the size of both your heads combined to make up for leaving him behind.

Mark bitterly smiled at his recollection. That was one of the last times he and you were able to smile together.

You looked happier.

The last time Mark saw you, it was on a sunny, Saturday afternoon. You were on your way back from a trip to your local convenience store, bags of chips, a tub of ice cream, and boxes of candy spilling out of the watermelon themed reusable bag he had left behind after moving out. You were still wearing his hoodie, then. He left that behind for you too.

It made him smile, knowing that you kept it.

Ain't nobody hurt you like I hurt you.

You felt as though you couldn't breathe. When you entered Mark and your shared apartment, you sensed that something was wrong; that something was missing from your normally warm environment. Mark and you have been arguing more frequently recently, and the night before, it was the worst it had been in years.

Mark had been going out later into the night, sleeping on couches of friend's houses more than in his own bed. Your shared bed. You more often than not woke up to nothing, the radiating warmth missing from your side.

You'd had enough of it, and confronted the man when he walked into the apartment at 2 am. Words spewed from either side, along the lines of "I'm sick of this" and "What is there to be sick of?" Mark ended up sleeping on the couch that night while you cried yourself to sleep, clutching Mark's pillow and attempting to hold onto what used to be the warm, delightful love of your life.

The next day when you woke up, he was gone. He texted you saying he had to leave early for work and that you should go ahead and start your day without him, and you did. You began planning ways to talk things out, to fix things with Mark over a nice dinner.

You set your plan to action and made your way to the local market. When you returned home and stepped foot into the kitchen, though, your eyes landed on a small note placed right in the center of the dining table. Written on that note in Mark's sloppy handwriting were the words, "I'm sorry, but I need to clear my head."

You dropped the note and ran into your bedroom, only to see that Mark had taken almost half of his belongings from the cramped space, along with one of the suitcases the two of you placed behind the closet when you first moved in. He was gone.

But ain't nobody love you like I do.

He'd been gone for about 10 days when you receive a call from Donghyuck. The brown-haired boy informed you that Mark has been sleeping on his couch for over a week and would be stopping by within the next few days to take up all of his friend's belongings he'd left behind.

You hummed, almost numbly, and before hanging up, you mustered up the courage to ask Donghyuck if Mark was currently there with him. He hummed in response, and you mumbled a good before dropping the line completely, falling to your knees and sobbing until you no longer had tears to let fall.

You were broken, and it was all because of Mark, yet a piece of you continuously hoped and prayed that he was safe. That he was living in a proper home with a place to sleep, and that he wasn't too cold because he often got cold very easily.

Mark, on the other end of the line, was silently holding in his cries as his best friend hung up the phone, disconnecting him from his one true love. Mark never intended to hurt you the way that he did, but in his mind, because he loved you so much, too much, he had to let you go.

He was noticing how much he was holding you back, from job opportunities to your social life, he believed he was the reason. He was the reason you declined the job offer in the neighboring city because that meant you'd have to either move out or drag Mark with you, and you chose on neither and stayed. He was the reason you never left the house on weekends because only then was he ever home. He was the reason you had bags under your eyes, he soon realized.

You'd been staying up night after night, waiting for him to come home. You'd been crying because he would come home with bags darker than yours. You'd been losing sleep because you spent too much of your time worrying about him.

He was holding you back by loving you.

So he decided to let you go.

Promise that I will not take it personal, baby.

A few months have passed and Mark's finally settled down in a new place in the town you had rejected the job offer from all those months ago. A part of him wished that moving away would offer you closure, knowing that Donghyuck explained his side of the story to you. Mark wanted so badly to be the one who spoke to you that day, but he was afraid of the confrontation. He was scared he'd break and hold you into his arms and promise to never let you go, bringing himself and you back into the endless loop.

So he left. He moved away and had Donghyuck clean up the mess he'd made. Mark owes him one.

The other part of him, though, hoped that you contacted the agency that offered you the job all those months ago. The selfish part of him prayed that the agency granted your request and offered you the job you passed up on in this new city. He hoped that you and him could start over in a different setting, and maybe a few years from now, run into each other again. You'd be in better places in your lives and the two of you could start over.

He knew he was hoping for too much, but oh a man can dream.

If you're moving on with someone new.

Mark was brought back to the present when he hears a loud shattering of glass. He averted his eyes towards the source of the ruckus and landed his eyes on you. He noticed how your eyes grew into large saucers when he displayed similar shocked features.

Shit.

He quickly and clumsily packed up his belongings as he waved down one of the waiters, asking for the tab. Noticing Mark's shaken composure accompanied by the glares being sent in his direction from the other side of the bar, the waiter sympathetically printed out the bill as fast as he could and didn't let out a peep when Mark underpaid about 10 bucks.

Mark rushed out of the bar, only to be caught by the sound of your voice calling out to him.

"Don't you dare run away." The voice was cold.

"Not again, Mark." It was almost shaking.

You caught up to the man. He turned around, slowly, wishing that this was all just a messed up dream, and the alcohol was only playing tricks with his mind.

Indeed, though, this was his reality. Mark remained silent, only staring at his feet as you approached him.

"Look at me," your voice was softer now, but he noticed the stern edge laced within your words. You were never one to raise your voice, not even when Mark would spew incredulous things at you during an argument. You were always calm.

Mark shifted his gaze from the ground towards your face and noticed you looked wiser. He noticed how your soft features were now more sharp. He noticed how you wore your hair differently. He noticed how you'd ditched your casual jeans and a shirt for something more business-casual. He noticed how your aura had changed into something more serious. He noticed every little change about you.

He also noticed how, beneath all the physical changes, you were still you. You still had the same stars in your eyes. You still had his favorite scent. You still had the same quip in your lip when you spoke. You still had the same smile.

You were smiling at him.

Mark finally managed to meet your eyes, and as you opened your mouth to speak, he cut you off before you could get a sound out.

"You look happier."

Your smile dropped a bit at his observation. He was right, you were happier than you were after the breakup. But you were happier when you were with him. Using other men to distract yourself from Mark worked for a while, but it was never the same.

It's been over a year, and you still missed him. You missed everything about Mark; his smile, his laugh, his posture when he was furiously typing away at his keyboard because he had an essay due in 10 minutes. You missed the way he'd sing to you at night when you woke up from a nightmare, and the way he'd pet down your hair when the two of you wake up in each other's arms after a nap.

And although you missed him, a part of you was still angry at him. Angry that he left without an explanation, and had Donghyuck be the bearer of bad news that he wanted you to be happier. That he wanted you to have a life not revolving around him and his actions.

A part of you hated how he was so selfish, and how he never looked to you for his decision. Yet the other, wiser, part of you was thankful. Thankful that he cared about you enough to let you go, cared about you enough to put your priorities above his own feelings for once. Most importantly, you were thankful that he was your first heartbreak.

Before he was the boy who broke your heart, he was a friend.

You tilt your head a bit sideways, plastered another smile and nodded in response.

"It's a process."

He smiled back, toothy grin warming your heart. "I'm glad you're doing okay."

Maybe it was the universe finally hearing Mark's wishes of starting over, or maybe it was just a mere coincidence that you ran into each other that day. But nonetheless, the encounter made him realize one thing.

"I was happier with you."