Mark invited me to eat at Burger King's but I ended ordering salad and juice… Yeah, I know, I should had just followed my instincts and gotten a big borger, but I really want to lose weight, eating high calory food is bad for me. I already cook a lot of stuff at home that increases my weight… going to the gym twice a week is not enough either.
However, the food was still tasty and I enjoyed a peaceful break with Mark. However, we began talking more and more, and I ended talking too much about myself, so I really didn't wanted to make Mark more concerned.
"Well… Everyone commits mistakes. Come on, don't get down now, this was supposed to cheer you up, you were quite gloomy this morning." He said.
"O-Oh, was I? Sorry about that, sometimes I get to think about stuff and... get all down..." I sighed.
"Hmm... Well, let's cheer you up with some food then. Do you want some dessert while we are at it?" He wondered."Ohh... M-Maybe!" I said.
I found myself eating soft serve ice cream at the end... I totally broke my diet now.
"Well, still… I don't want you to trouble yourself for someone insignificant like me." I sighed. I honestly felt rather depressed most of the time, I didn't wanted to Mark to end up stuck with that feeling.
"…Insignificant? You're not insignificant, Elayne…" He said with a concerned look. "Why… do you think like that?"
"I… Well, I don't think highly of myself." I sighed.
"But you're a great person. I don't think you should think so low about yourself. You've been doing so much for your daughter all these years… And you're always cheerful. So… cheer up. It is alright to value yourself a bit more." He said.
"Ah… Mark, thank you…" I said, feeling slightly cheerful. I couldn't help but smile a bit.Hearing his nice words made me feel slightly at ease. Coming here with him might had been a more relaxing trip than I had imagined. Maybe I should join him for lunch more often, he's surprisingly talkative and well mannered.
"Anyways, let's go back to work, it's getting late!" Said Mark, quickly shifting the embarrassing conversation.
"Oh, you're right…!" I said, both of us quickly walked back to work and spent most of the day talking about little things, as Mark was trying to move away from the personal topics we were talking at lunch.
I never thought he would be so emotional and sensitive with me… He was also amazingly empathic, it's… something I had not seen so much from him. Well, I've known him for years, but it always feels like the more I talk with him, the more new things I discover about Mark. He's a nice man.
"Mark, if you ever find a girl you like, you better find someone that respects you and treats you well, alright? You're way too nice, I can already see some girls abusing your goodwill." I sighed.
"Eh?! What's with that topic out of nowhere?" He wondered.
"Ahah… I was just thinking about what you told me before… Sorry. I just… you're a nice man." I said.
"Ah, well, I'm glad you think that… And well… Uh, my family kind of wants me to marry a girl that's my childhood friend from the countryside where I used to live before moving here." Said Mark.
"Huh? Really?" I wondered.
"Yes… It is a whole different problem I've had to deal with, I've been mostly ignoring it now. I really… I don't want to marry her." He said.
"She's… isn't she your friend?" I wondered.
"Yeah but arranged marriages are not I'm into. I like her as my friend, but it has been so long since I last saw her… I also am… I have someone else in my heart now, I don't want to force myself to marry someone I don't love nor I know as well as that… person." He said.
"Ohh… Who is it?" I asked.
"Erm… It is a secret, you don't… know her." He said.
"Aw… Oh well, I hope she's nice and treats you well, Mark." I said.
"Yeah, she hasn't noticed my feelings yet… She's a bit clumsy at times, but good hearted." He said.
"O-Oh… Erm, what's her name?" I wondered, as Mark suddenly felt quite nervous out of the sudden and changed the topic.
"Anyways! I think it should be about time… You can go back home, Elayne."
"Really? But there's still an hour and a half-"
"Don't worry, I want you to rest well today."
"Oh, okay… Thanks a lot Mark!" I ran to his side and kissed his cheek alongiside giving him a tight hug. He was my good friend so it's the last I could do. "Take care and see you tomorrow."
"Ah, yeah, see you tomorrow." He said. Without being able to contain myself, I gave him a head pat and then drove off back home.
As Elayne moved back home, Mark was left alone in the mini market, sighing while cleaning the shelfs. He seemed a bit tired and also quite happy at the same time, smiling rather hopelessly.
"She really has very low self-esteem…"
Mark sighed hopelessly, as he thought about Elayne. She was a friend who he had in his job for years now, someone that brought a lot of happiness to his gloomy everyday job, someone important to him. Seeing how she had such low self-esteem even made him slightly depressed.
Without the experience to deal with girls due to having been mostly silent and closed through all of his days at school and high school, he lacked any sort of knowledge to deal with what Elayne was going through.
"Maybe… she blames herself way too much. I want to help her… I'll do everything I can so she can slowly open up more and think of herself highly… Perhaps praising her and spoiling her every day could do it." Mark smiled for a bit, as he continued working hard.
His mission from now on was trying to make her happy and to make her appreciate herself better. It seemed quite arduous, but as a friend which she recognized today, he felt it was his duty.
Mark seemed to not like how Elayne saw herself as. He was someone that had experienced first-hand how hard worker she was, and perhaps one of the few people that appreciated all her efforts.
As a friend, he wanted to help her cheer up. Of course, he didn't knew that he had already meet her inside the game, and that he had already helped her and made her happy in there and might do so in the near future. Not only as just coworkers, but also as companions in adventures and more.
At this point he really wasn't thinking about confessing his feelings or anything of the sort. He had grown to be a person that seemed to just be happy as he was. If it was possible for him to make Elayne's life slightly better, he didn't really mind helping her or giving her some company when she looked lonely and depressed.
However, because he was sometimes an extremely empathic person, he often didn't thought as much about his own personal problems, and his whole family drama quickly made him slightly sad as he mopped the floor of the mini market.
"Sigh… I want to play BNLO…" He sighed, thinking about his second life as a powerful Ent named Titan.
