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Mark woke up with Chaewon sleeping peacefully in his arms. All he could think is damn a real girl slept right next to me. But then he remembered that he paid for this service, so in the end, he just left really stupid.
He closed his eyes again, hoping she would think that she'd wake up first, and he ended up being right.
"Mr. Idol," she called out quietly, tapping his chest. "I'm hungry."
Slowly, Mark opened one eye and grunted facing the other direction away from her. The way she said that was just so cute, but then he would remember all this morning Skype calls with his internet ex, Aiko.
"Good morning, Minhyung," Aiko would say softly over the phone, then she would proceed to say good morning in all these different languages she knew.
Mark loved the fact that even though she was a different ethnicity, they could communicate well in both English and Korean. She was a linguistics major after all and was taking 5 different language classes to master in order for her to become a translator.
"Top of the morning to ya, baby," he would reply, and they both would giggle at their own morning routine. It would be around 4 am, and Aiko would have an alarm set specially to wake up when Mark had to go to work just to say good morning to him.
Reminiscing the past, he knew he'll no longer hear the soft voice of his Japanese ex-girlfriend ever again. So, Mark started to tear up.
And, he started sniffing loud enough for Chaewon to hear.
"Dude, are you crying?" Chaewon was startled by Mark's sudden weeping.
"No," Mark whimpered, then Chaewon placed her body over Mark's so she can see his face.
"Dude! You're totally crying!" she snorted, and her laughter just made Mark feel even worse. For some reason, every time Mark cried, he'd notice that everyone would laugh at him. His hyungs, his sunbaes, heck, even Jisung. He knew that he was the only one who felt pain in this relationship.
"Uh, don't cry, superstar," she attempted to comfort him by rubbing his shoulder.
"Why doesn't anyone understand me?" he whined into his pillow. "Do people think my relationship was a joke?"
"Well, I don't know man. What even happened? So I can understand? So I can like, I don't know, comfort you better?"
"We met through a group chat on Kakaotalk, basically. I used my real name but you know, there's a lot of Lee Minhyungs here in Korea, so she wouldn't know it's me," he rambled, and Chaewon listened intently. "We hit it off, I never showed her my face or told her my identity. I guess she got tired! I don't know Chaewon! She just randomly broke things off and blocked me on everything."
"Oh? So you had like an internet relationship, and she probably felt uncomfortable because she didn't know who you really were. Uh, Mark. She probably thinks you're some 60-year-old creep!"
"No! She told me she loved me!"
"You can say you love anything. I love food, I love ice cream, but it's different when you feel love, I guess."
"We dated for 3 months!" Mark complained. He's had enough of Chaewon's so-called "comfort" and she was just humiliating him like everyone else.
"3 months?! Mark! I don't think that's enough to establish you love someone, especially because I don't know? She's never seen you in real life?" she argued back. At this point, Chaewon wanted to facepalm herself hard because of Mark's childishness. She sighed, knowing Mark just kept crying at her comment, "What's her name? I'm going to search this girl up."
"Sato Aiko," he mumbled. "Her Instagram is satiko."
Chaewon grabbed her phone from the bedside table and decided to look this girl up. The Instagram user didn't exist, but something else was fishy.
"It doesn't exist, you dingus. What does she look like?"
He threw her his phone so she can see his lock screen that was a picture of his ex-girlfriend. Chaewon's eyes widened as soon as she saw the picture of her.
"Oh my god, Mark, I know her!" she yelled, consecutively hitting his arm.
"Ow, what the? You know her?"
"Yeah, she was in my English class last year. Her name is Sato Aiko, you idiot! No wonder why she ended things with you! And she has a real boyfriend! Last time I checked they're still dating!"
Mark felt incredibly stupid. After dating that girl for 3 months, he didn't even know what her first name was. His heart sunk even more knowing that she had a boyfriend. He felt deceived. So why? Sato Aiko, Aiko Sato or whatever? Why did you mess with my feelings?
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kpop Star. I'll cook you some breakfast," Chaewon sighed, leaving Mark's room for him to sulk. He laid on his bed staring at the ceiling for about 5 minutes, then walked to the kitchen to eat breakfast.
There, he saw Chaewon focused on her cooking and he admired her. She noticed that he was staring, and she immediately smirked.
"Like what you see, Idol?" she cocked up her eyebrows, teasing Mark. He walked towards the table, and she placed a plate of perfectly cooked sunny side up eggs and bacon in front of him.
"American style breakfast! Viola!" she chanted, kissing the tip of her fingers.
Mark took a bite of the food, and he was shocked that her cooking tasted good. And it was just breakfast. He looked up at the smug look on her face as he blurted out, "Chaewon, you're not a girlfriend. You should be in a rental wife service!"
And she burst into laughter.
"Why can't I have one day where I don't embarrass myself?" Mark thought.
At least tasting a woman's cooking made Mark feel one step closer into feeling like he had a real girlfriend. And every moment spent with her, he felt his heart ache less.
