Archive of Our Own

Young hearts beat wild and feverish, often without reason.

Under a high moon with sore skin and heavy lashes, Donghyuck has the audacity to overheat when Mark sends a text back that carries their conversation instead of abruptly dropping it with an unwelcome goodbye. And then he dares to roll over onto his stomach and muffle a grin into his pillow, a semicolon followed by a closing parenthesis enough to send his stomach into a frenzy.

Come morning they won’t talk about it, they never do. Mark looks good under the sun but he’s always been quick to burn, cheeks peeling off red and flaky to reveal vulnerable unseens underneath—and that’s okay, honestly. Donghyuck likes him better in silver than in gold, anyway. It’s safer.

Come morning they won’t talk about it, but in the dark enveloped by an unnatural glow too harsh for the hour, Donghyuck can kick all his feelings out into the open, legs bouncing against the mattress as he barely holds back from letting out a dumb-struck laugh.

Across him, Johnny turns under his blanket with a grunt, and Donghyuck has to slap a hand over his smile, pretending he doesn’t taste the sweat that’s collected in his palm creases.

Wild and feverish, his thumbs get ahead of themselves and he has to backspace three lines of indecipherable text before settling for a neutral sounding that’s a fat lie, who was actually ur first celebrity crush

Trivial playground talk, or before-the-bell locker talk, or summer sleepover talk—Donghyuck doesn’t know where the words they’ve been exchanging belong exactly, but he can’t really bring himself to care. All he knows is that here, right now, even with five storeys separating them, he’s never felt more like they’re on the same page.

On nights like these it’s easy to forget he’s more comfortable talking to a camera lens than the person holding it, that’s he’s performed in front of a crowd so big it’d brought once-in-a-lifetime tears to his dad’s eyes, that his life is a game of fill in the blanks for the rest of the world and he’s never allowed to play even if he’s got all the right answers.

All that flies away, and he’s just a boy helplessly, hopelessly crushed when another boy’s name lights up the screen of his phone.

Donghyuck chews the inside of his bottom lip in anticipation, watching the typing bubbles dance in the corner with half of his attention while the other half turns its nose up at him, appalled at the middle-school behaviour he’s regressed to.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It doesn’t stop Donghyuck from suffocating a lovesick noise with his pillow, cheeks aching so much he wonders if they’ve somehow been bruised from the impact of Mark’s dumb, sincere words. Gripping his phone with both hands in case one proves too weak, he deliriously wonders to himself if he’s the only one sweating bullets and stifling shaky, borderline crazy laughter so it doesn’t burst out of him and splatter the whole room in goopy reds. (Mark isn’t even that funny—no man can be—it’s really just the damn nerves.)

Donghyuck’s liked people before, but it was never like this, never so big. He’s been bottling up his feelings for far too many years, some unknown to him, even, and it’s like Mark’s finally picked him up to start shaking him around, waiting for the right moment to twist open the cap as the pressure builds, and builds (and builds).

He closes his eyes even though it’s already pitch black (for the drama of it all) and pictures Mark with that idiotic grin on his face, stomach swooping low when he thinks about the possibility of Mark’s glasses lying askew on the bridge of his nose because he’s chosen to curl up on his side and they’re pushing up, stuck between a rock (Mark’s horrid mattress) and a hard place (Mark’s thick skull).

God, does he take his ruined nails between his tiny teeth when Donghyuck takes too long to reply? Does he flush when Donghyuck finally does, embarrassment washing over him at having been so wound up over nothing?

Does he feel it, too?

All of it?

Even if ‘it’ is still a half-baked concept, all raw and gooey in the middle?

Dongyuck digs himself out of the pillow to reply, biting the inside of his cheeks.

Typing bubbles.

“Fuck,” Donghyuck whisper-whines into the dark, dignity thrown off to the side along with his phone.

A rush of something sickly and addicting webs over every part of him, and he rolls over onto his back, covering his face with his hands just in case the moon is relaying the details of his slippery state back to Mark. His cheeks are so warm he expects to see burnt fingertips at daybreak.

He bites his bottom lip, picturing a cyanide pill instead of plush pink for a quick second—imagine dying right now. God, wouldn’t that be something? A perfect end.

“Fuck, fuck, shit,” Donghyuck continues, stretched out and quiet. Trying to rub the giddiness off his face doesn’t work, lips twitching up of their own accord underneath his palms over and over no matter how hard he tries taming them.

I’m a mess.

Donghyuck’s phone vibrates on the bed. At fever pitch, his high-striker heart pounds hard enough to shoot up to his throat.

Such a fucking mess.

Young hearts beat wild and feverish—Donghyuck’s has exactly one reason.

The waiting is what slowly unseams the threads of his patience.

Like he said, they don’t really talk about it, so maybe he’s the one in the wrong to assume they will eventually, but it’s still annoying. Mark’s always been so annoying, a walking contradiction with his big sugar-drip eyes and hands that push away with a sour twist of the mouth when Donghyuck gets too close (he’s seen it uncoil into a small smile on the days he gets lucky right before Mark turns away, though).

Two weeks of late-night texting—flirting?—and Donghyuck still has no clue what flipped the switch, but he’s done more than enough talking to carry them all the way here, so he leaves the future in Mark’s touch-averse hands and doesn’t push back.

(The beginning went something like this—okay, that’s a lie, not ‘something like’, this is how it went. Donghyuck’s got it all memorized like a damned tramp stamp at the base of his brain:

A breath. A pause. A quick cursory look around in the darkness out of habit before flipping the blanket over his head and bringing his face closer to the phone as he types.

Typing bubbles—stop—typing bubbles—stop—typing bubbles—Donghyuck was going to chew his nail into powder—typing bubbles—maybe he read it wrong?—typing bubbles—what if he just retired early, it’s not like he didn’t have the chops to go solo—

A breathy laugh. Embarrassment? Surprise? Relief? Three, two, one: thumbs flying.)

Lee Mark is a wuss who burns too easily, ears set ablaze when Donghyuck fights back moon-bound memories and leans in for over-the-top kisses. He pulls away from Donghyuck, indignantly ducking his stripped face so no one can glimpse what lies beneath all the red.

And that’s fine. Donghyuck can deal with that. Whatever.

Besides, no matter what angle you look at him from Donghyuck is still only nineteen, and contrary to popular belief, being an idol doesn’t teach you much about liking someone and flirting with them and being together so much as it teaches you to deliver a performance from a distance only you’re supposed to know isn’t invisible. Donghyuck’s perfected the art of feigning closeness because it’s his job, but the real thing is still something of a rough sketch.

So for now, he ignores his shaken up insides and fights the fizz.

It’s okay if Mark never acts on it. Donghyuck decides that Mark just won’t, actually, because if he’s anything like Donghyuck, he can’t.

As it turns out, Donghyuck can be wrong about things from time to time.

Donghyuck rubs his face against the bolster pillow—affectionately nicknamed garaetteok-ssi by Johnny. Donghyuck’s still on the fence about whether that should qualify him as cool or lame in his books—and waits for what he knows is coming.

Donghyuck doesn’t know if he should take that as an insult or a compliment, but his quickly growing smile suggests an involuntarily formed decision on the latter. There’s always an undercurrent of surprise Donghyuck feels when Mark springs a line without really even being aware that he’s springing a line, it makes him want to curl in towards his core.

Forcing himself to lean back, he lets tteok-ssi breathe, taking it out of his death grip to let it rest on his chest, one end jammed securely between the criss-cross of his legs. He pulls the zipper of his sweater (not Mark’s) between his teeth so his smile doesn’t look all that suspicious, fingers tapping away.

“What has he done to you?” Johnny says reproachfully when Donghyuck fails to hold in a small giggle. When Donghyuck glances at him he’s looking back with equal parts fascination and suspicion, sheets rumpled up around his waist. “The last time I tried teaching Mark how to flirt he bailed on me in less than a minute because he couldn’t ‘handle the cringe’, so why do you look like you’re three texts away from dropping down on one knee.”

“I’m not,” Donghyuck shoots back immediately, zipper falling out of his mouth as he absentmindedly types back a response. “And it’s not—that. We’re just talking like normal. Pals.”

“Pals,” Johnny repeats drily. “You honestly expect me to believe that? Who do you think I am? Taeil?”

Donghyuck quickly presses send and turns a frown onto Johnny, who’s moved his laptop off his lap and onto the side table. Typical. Why is he always so up in everyone’s business, anyway?

“That’s the love of my life you’re talking about, don’t call him aloof.”

“I never called him aloof. Who even says aloof? How old are you?”

“Not as old as you.”

Johnny’s eyes slowly narrow into a squint. “I’m going to give you five seconds to take that back—”

Donghyuck holds up a hand, primly turning back to his phone when he feels it vibrates. “I’m busy, John. Let’s save this discussion for a later time.”

A dark laugh trickles out of Johnny’s mouth. “Did you just say John—”

The rest of whatever he had to say falls on deaf ears because Donghyuck is too busy staring at the text he wasn’t even really paying attention to typing out before he sent it. It’s been on read for a whole minute, no sign of a reply.

Well, so much for leaving things up to Mark.

Donghyuck wraps an arm around tteok-ssi for comfort, watching in anticipation as the bubbles finally appear in the corner, hopping up and down for all of five seconds before they just… stop. Donghyuck snorts. Great. All those years of ‘hating’ Donghyuck and blaming him for ‘bringing hell to earth’ and tolerating when his parents lectured him about his spending habits because Donghyuck would ‘swipe his card to pay for his more expensive purchases so that his parents wouldn’t see’, and this is what’s finally scared Mark off.

Donghyuck sags against the wall, throwing his phone down and hugging tteok-ssi close. When they inevitably start back up again tomorrow night, he’ll just have to pretend he never said anything and it should all be fine. Whatever.

Johnny seems to have finally caught on that Donghyuck isn’t listening and sighs (like an old man) before Donghyuck hears the rough slide of the laptop being lifted off the side table. He considers watching a movie himself, but knowing that he’s not going to be busy talking to Mark until the dead hours already has his system slowing down, relaxing into a steady, soothing rhythm. It’s a near geriatric time to fall asleep, only around nine or so, but Donghyuck’s only built young on the outside.

Promotional periods take him out of his body. He floats around tethered to the corporeal parts of himself like a pet ghost on a leash and watches life pass by, every blink fast-forwarding him another three hours into the day before he can even begin to recall what he did in the past three.

If he stays still for longer than sixty seconds at times like these, he’ll start dozing off. In fact, he can feel it slipping over him now, a bucket of warm steam poured over his head curling lower… and lower… and lower…

Donghyuck jumps when the door makes a sound, eyes snapping open.

Even in the midst of this fugue state, he recognizes that the knocks on the door are Mark’s because of the way he does it: a clean rap with his whole fist to draw attention, a three second break to allow for action, and a final one-knuckle knock just in case the desired person is sleepy/busy/not there (because he's obnoxiously considerate like that).

It's brief, but Donghyuck immediately slips back into his body, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and throwing his hood up over unkempt hair as he nearly gets a foot tangled up in the blanket in his hurry to go open the door.

“I don’t have your sweater,” Donghyuck says when he comes face to face with a bare-faced Mark, aiming for casual even when all he can think about is Mark calling him cute through text like, ten minutes ago.

“That’s what you guys were talking about?” Johnny chimes in from behind him, tone suspiciously innocent. “I would’ve never guessed by the way Donghyuck was—”

“Hyung doesn’t have it either,” Donghyuck interrupts with a tight smile. Johnny is never going to hear the end of it the next time he makes the mistake of complaining about his back pain, Donghyuck is going to make sure of it.

“Yeah,” Mark says slowly, ripping his confused gaze away from Johnny to focus back on Donghyuck. “Yeah, no, don’t worry about that. I found it like, under my bed? Must’ve accidentally kicked it under or something while I was changing.”

Donghyuck holds back from snorting. Of course. Mark may be a good dancer but that’s only because of the single-minded determination he had to sweat all the clumsiness out before they debuted, hell-bent on spending 99% of his hours in the practice room as a trainee.

When they’d first started getting lessons, Mark’s out of control limbs ended up knocking over and breaking three of Jisung’s water bottles by accident. Jisung had confessed to Donghyuck years later that he’d secretly been afraid Mark harboured some sort of grudge against him. Donghyuck had just laughed. Mark’s never had a mean bone in his uncoordinated body.

Donghyuck grins. “Remember when we were little and—”

“Don’t remind me.” Mark grimaces, evidently already having boarded the same train of thought as Donghyuck. “Jisung still only buys plastic water bottles.”

Donghyuck laughs, suddenly wanting very much to tell Mark what Jisung had told him ‘in confidence’ because he didn’t want Mark to feel guilty over something so trivial, but then he pauses, head tilting involuntarily. “Wait, what do you want if you’re not here for the sweater?”

“Oh, well.” Mark’s smile slips at the corners minutely before he’s pulled it up again into a suggestion of a half-smile, nudging his glasses up with a knuckle. “You know, just, like—”

He sticks his hands into his basketball shorts, where they stay for two seconds before he’s folding his arms across his chest instead, fingers tapping the inside of his bicep like a silent song is playing and he can’t resist mirroring the beat. Donghyuck’s heart squeezes strangely, sensing the sudden change of atmosphere.

Mark clears his throat, that strange half-smile wobbling a bit before it goes still again. “I was just wondering if you were free. Now.”

“Uh, yeah?” Donghyuck replies tentatively, fingers tightening around the doorknob. He stands up straighter involuntarily, more than aware of Johnny probably hanging on to every word of their exchange while pretending to be engrossed in something on his phone or something. “Why?”

“Well.” Mark licks his lips, eyes zig-zagging down, unsure, before zipping back up again. “I thought maybe—would you wanna go out tonight?”

Donghyuck freezes, insides heating up at an inhumanly rapid pace.

Attempting to keep his cool, sure Mark doesn’t mean it that way, he replies cautiously. “Sure? It’s a little late, but who else would be coming?”

“Oh, haha.” Mark scratches behind his left ear, neck painfully red. “I kinda just meant like, the two of us? That cool?”

A deafening alarm bell rings loud and clear in Donghyuck’s mind.

On the outside, he nods, hopefully straight-faced. Is it weird that he doesn’t seem to be in control of his body anymore? It’s definitely weird.

He tries sticking a casual hand into the pocket of his sweater and misses completely, feeling the heat immediately flood up to his face but unwilling to acknowledge the way Mark’s sucked his lips in and dropped his eyes to the hardwood under their feet to hold back from laughing.

“Cool,” he confirms in a totally cool way, nodding again because he’s just so fucking cool with everything and certainly not because he thinks his voice might crack if he tries to speak again.

“Sweet, I guess I’ll just…” Mark sticks a thumb down the hall and shuffles back awkwardly before nodding to himself. “I’ll see you in twenty?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, a lot weaker than he intended to. “See you.”

He watches the distance grow between them, eyes trained on Mark’s back, then narrowing at the way he pauses briefly and waves goodbye to Taeyong’s fish tank across the room, ears barely picking up on the happy bye, little guys! he throws out. (Donghyuck wants to punch him. Maybe with his mouth.)  

As soon as he’s out of sight, he slams the door shut and flattens his back against it, mind racing and still not fully convinced he didn’t just run through the events of a particularly cruel dream-sequence all while still awake.

“Did you hear that?” He hisses at Johnny, who immediately drops his ruse of looking busy and slams the laptop shut, smile startlingly Grinch-like in the way it takes over his face. Donghyuck swears his eyes flash yellow.

“Oh, did I.” Donghyuck’s eyes are assaulted with a bright flash out of nowhere, and he has to blink the spottiness out of his vision before giving Johnny a classic what the actual fuck look. Johnny lowers his phone, still grinning. “It’s commemorative! Baby’s first date—”

Donghyuck slaps two hands over his ears. “Don’t say the word, oh my god, you’re gonna jinx it.”

“That’s not how it works,” Johnny’s canned voice makes it through anyway, and Donghyuck lets his hands fall away uselessly, unsure of how to feel.

Was it a… that?

“Hey.” Garaetteok-ssi lands at his feet, and Donghyuck snaps out of it, looking at Johnny, lost. Johnny is very clearly filming him and enjoying every second of it. “He said twenty, my guy, better start looking for something to wear!”

Oh, shit.

Donghyuck hands itch to check his phone.

He slips them behind his lower back and leans against the wall to immobilize them, only allowing enough room for his pinky to tap tap tap the drywall, restless. The mirror hanging next to the coat hooks keeps catching his attention, but he forces his eyes away every time. Mark is going to be here any second now, he really shouldn’t be trying for last minute touch-ups.

When he glances at the mirror again, he sees a smudge of something dark on his right cheek that probably shouldn’t be there.

Screw it.

Hurrying over the mirror, he licks the tip of his index finger and leans forward enough to carry out a precise erasure of the offending mark, rubbing at it gently so his skin doesn’t get unnaturally red in just one spot. He isn’t even wearing that much makeup, mostly because he doesn’t know how to really put it on.

Thankfully, Taeyong had both the resources and the experience. He’d been merciful, only raising an amused eyebrow at Donghyuck’s request before sitting him down and artfully lining the ends of his eyes in black. He’d found some shimmery eyeshadow that Donghyuck had heavily protested before Taeyong had thrown out a sly Are you sure? Mark was telling me he thought it looked nice just the other day, though?

So, now he has some sparkly shit subtly coating his eyelids.

It’s enough that it shimmers in the light but hopefully isn’t too too obvious otherwise. In hindsight, he should’ve been less obvious about his thing for Mark all this time, it’s given the hyungs a ridiculous amount of power over him. On the other hand, though, he’s not quite sure he ever had a choice. No point in bottling up your feelings when the bottle’s made of glass.

“Are you kidding—” Donghyuck stares in horror at the eyeliner that’s come away on his finger, and then back up at the slightly less defined wing on his right eye before swallowing back a scream and shaking his head clear. “Okay, just…”

He wipes off the colour on his clothes, grateful he’d chosen to wear his leather jacket today, and attempts to clean up the wing with a careful nail. But right as he’s about to finish up, the door swings open and he jumps, heart pounding as he quickly shoves his hands into his pockets and turns to look at a curious-eyed Mark.

“Yo,” he says in greeting. Then, hesitantly making a limp gesture towards the mirror while staring intensely at Donghyuck’s general eye area, he adds, “Are you wearing makeup?”

“No,” Donghyuck lies instinctively, painfully embarrassed for literally no reason. sure as shit the back of his neck is colouring red.

“Oh.” Mark’s eyebrows scrunch a little tighter together in confusion. “I just thought… ‘cuz your eyes are kinda…”

Donghyuck tilts his chin up, on the defense. “Kinda what? Crazy pretty?”

A laugh shakes itself nervously out of Mark, and he looks down with two fingers pinching his left earlobe. He’s not wearing his glasses anymore, and he’s swapped out the raggedy day off clothes with a thick black-and-white flannel layered over a white jumper. His black jeans have got a rip at the knee, and Donghyuck’s gaze lingers on the bruises that peek through, practically tattoo-like in the way they clash against his milky skin. Donghyuck’s got those same bruises. He can feel them ache if he thinks about them for too long.

Snapping his head up, he stares at Mark’s surprisingly tame and steady hair for a moment before asking, “Did you use hairspray?”

Mark coughs, eyes flighty as he unconsciously reaches up to his head with a hand. “Uh, no.” Then, a sheepish smile spills onto his lips seemingly against his will, and he looks at Donghyuck through his lashes like he’s shuttling a secret between them. “I don’t know why I said that. I did. Does it look weird?”

Donghyuck clamps his mouth shut, the need to tease Mark without reason pushing up his throat with a worrying amount of force. None of that tonight. He needs this—whatever this is—to go as smoothly as possible, otherwise he may never be able to look at Mark again without wanting to die. He’s the one that makes the first move, usually, he can’t have Mark seeing through the smoke and mirrors of his bravado, that would be so embarrassing.

“No weirder than usual.”

God. Dumb, dumb, mouth.

Mark ahs, eyes still smiling even as mild horror paints Donghyuck’s neck red. There’s a small, awkward pause where conversation disappears and they’re left without any obscuring words. When Mark looks at him with those sugar-drip eyes, Donghyuck tastes the sweetness tenfold. It makes him jittery, robs him of things to say, which is quite the feat considering Donghyuck always knows what to say. His chest viscerally hurts.

But then the moment snaps, Donghyuck’s eyes flying to the door hinge as it creaks, Mark’s arm swinging it further open like a question, and the right words don’t so much naturally float up to Donghyuck more than they are thrown to him like a life-preserver from a really cute bystander.

“We should go before one of the hyungs show up,” he says, silently hoping Mark starts walking first so that he can take a final look at himself in the mirror, but Mark just pales a little, probably thinking about the kind of life-long damage a joint interrogation from Taeyong, Doyoung, and Johnny of all people could inflict on them both, and steps back a little to give Donghyuck the space to walk through.

Curse Mark Lee and his splendid manners.

Donghyuck resists a final look, unwilling to let Mark know he’s actually put an effort into looking decent, and walks right through the door while definitely not thinking about how he briefly caught a whiff of that pricier cologne Mark had bought in Toronto in 2019 after Donghyuck insisted it smelled really good.

It was downtown in some sort of big mall that Mark had said was a pretty popular place to visit. Donghyuck doesn’t even remember the name because all he’d really been focused on was how excited Mark seemed to show him around, how they’d stood around a fountain for ten minutes which was apparently known for shooting water 30 metres up into the air while Donghyuck kept threatening to leave just to feel Mark’s hand wrap around his elbow again and keep him in place, promising it would be worth it.

(It was.)

“So, I just thought we could go watch a movie or something?” Mark’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Donghyuck watches him press the button of the elevator and feels like a stranger in his own body when Mark’s refusal to meet his eyes gets him all jittery again. He looks forward at the elevator doors, mimicking Mark. “And, uh. You know, dinner afterwards.”

Donghyuck fingers curl involuntarily in his pockets as he attempts to remain straight-faced and ask, “Somewhere nice?”

“Somewhere really nice,” Mark says softer like it’s a confession.

Donghyuck’s gut goes wild. He fights back the urge to hide his face, eyes flicking to the side to look at Mark with a barely bitten back smile. “Cool.”

Mark finally looks back, eyes shining and smile shy. “Cool.”

It’s weird.

Oh, god, it’s so weird.

Donghyuck honestly thought they’d be fine once they’d made it over the five-minute mark, but here they are closing in on twenty minutes, very much not fine. Apparently there isn’t one singular awkward hill to conquer, they’re travelling a very, very hilly region, every smooth plateau lasting for all of ten seconds before they’re hit with another insurmountable mountain of weird.

“Sorry,” Mark apologizes with a sheepish smile when the subway jerks and he accidentally stumbles back on Donghyuck’s foot. Like he doesn’t normally threaten to beat Donghyuck up for getting within five feet of him. Like he hasn’t said all the things he’s said through little letters on a screen late at night. Like they’re not best friends, just two strangers who had the unfortunate luck of catching a packed subway and are now pressed almost chest to back.

“’S fine,” Donghyuck replies even though he knows he wouldn’t say that normally. But he has a feeling he’ll be repeating it a lot for the duration of their stay on the subway, tracks built like a small rollercoaster and hands too stubborn to hold onto Mark for support. He’s just relying on the sardine-effect to keep him stable at this point.

The subway comes to a slow stop and the door opens, the amount of people pouring in vastly outnumbering the amount of people pouring out. Mark seems to take notice, because his head turns towards the nearest traffic channel, and his shoulders seem to square with finality.

“Okay, you know what—”

Before Donghyuck can even register what’s happening, he’s being pulled around Mark, twisted in a string of apologies and mini-bows Mark presents to the people he ends up accidentally hitting with Donghyuck as he swings him around. In a matter of a few seconds, Donghyuck’s got his back pressed into the pole Mark was holding—is still holding, fingers pressed somewhere against Donghyuck’s lower back.

Mark’s masked face betrays nothing, but his eyes are amused.

“There. Isn’t that better?”

“You’re being so weird,” Donghyuck blurts out.

“Dude, you’re being so weird.”

“Yeah, but like, you should be less weird because you’re the one who—who asked—”

The subway shakes aggressively without warning as it comes alive again, and Donghyuck instinctively clutches Mark’s shoulder and forearm for support. He peels his fingers off Mark’s shoulder once they’ve started moving smoothly but keeps his other hand in place. He’s stubborn, not stupid—very few laps deserve to be graced with Donghyuck’s ass, none of which are present on this subway today.

(Well—no, Donghyuck’s still right on a technicality, the existence of a lap implies being seated. So.)

“Your leg’s not bothering you, is it?” Mark asks, leaning in a little so Donghyuck can hear him over the clunky rumble of the train’s movement and overlapping chatter of its passengers. “We can switch cars at the next stop and see if there are any seats.”

Donghyuck will never get used to the way worries falsely amplify and linger in the back of Mark’s mind for much longer than they should. When they were younger he never seemed like the type to fret over anything long-term, too driven and focus too narrow to see anything but what lay ahead of him. Turns out he’s just as attached to the past as he is to the future. It’s been years, but he’s still the first to go up to Jaemin after a particularly rough dance practice and press a cold water bottle to the spots on his back where he knows it hurts most—Jaemin must’ve told him one time, maybe, but he hasn’t forgotten since.

He does the same thing with Donghyuck but tries to be less overbearing about it, recognizing the way Donghyuck brushes things off like they’re a joke and changes the topic as a sign of dismissal and adapting, toning it down. Donghyuck doesn’t like being reminded of his frustrations, too used to dealing with the during, in-between, and aftermath all by himself.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, Mark’s never been one to leave people behind.

“My leg is fine, hyung,” Donghyuck replies, eyes rolling out of habit. “Worry about yourself, your hair looks like it’s on life support. What’s it so fried for?”

The usual slap to the side doesn’t come, Mark’s eyebrows just pinching inwards playfully. “You already called me out on the hairspray, man, don’t be a bully.”

“It’s not bullying, it’s enlightenment.” Donghyuck considers leaving it at that for a second before having a reluctant change of heart. He leans more heavily on the pole, giving himself space from Mark’s overwhelmingly round eyes and dropping his gaze down to Mark’s shoulder instead as he admits, “But if it makes you feel any better, I am wearing makeup. Taeyong hyung forced me to though, said he wanted to try it on someone else before committing it to his face. I didn’t have time to wipe it off.”

Mark looks at him for a second, and then his eyes curve, corners all crinkled. Donghyuck could bet anything that his little teeth were on display under his mask right now. “Right, of course. I mean, it’s kinda obvious that you are, but thanks for letting me in on your non-secret.”

Donghyuck smacks him on the arm in retaliation. “You’re supposed to say oh, I had no clue, Donghyuck-ah, I thought your eyelids always sparkled like some ethereal garden fairy’s.”

Mark laughs, shoulders popping up and eyes turning into a fluffy line, and Donghyuck gives himself exactly five seconds to watch, somewhat triumphant, before dropping his covered-up smile to the floor so he doesn’t have to think about all the people who are probably throwing them strange looks right now. It’s funny how he doesn’t feel like throwing up broken cocoons anymore, funny how it took a phasing back into the dynamics of their friendship to make it so.

His shoes are perfectly interwoven with Mark’s, both of his boxing Mark’s right shoe in, and both of Mark’s doing the same to his. The toe of Mark’s shoe nudges Donghyuck’s gently before rising slowly to hold itself like a sword over the shined and spotless vamp. He slides his foot away right in the nick of time as Mark’s sole makes a resounding thud against the grimy subway floor.

Donghyuck looks up, fighting back a smile even though Mark can’t see it. “Assault after I bared my deepest secret to you? Not cool.”

“Fairies don’t get upset,” Mark counters, eyes dancing with mirth as they drop to the floor again.

Donghyuck follows suit and tries not to run out of breath as they try stepping on each other’s shoes, giggling obnoxiously as quietly as they can and only stopping for brief apologies made out to passengers they end up accidentally maiming in the middle of their battle.

Little Donghyuck never thought he’d get along with little Mark because of how uptight he seemed all the time, never loosening up even when it was just the trainees and there were none of the staff’s praises around to preen at. Mark was perfect in every way, wouldn’t act “improper” to the point where Donghyuck started wondering if his joints required an oiling every so often. But after debut, it became clear that the silliness just needed to be eased out of him, that it had always been there, biding its time until it didn’t have to worry about interfering with something bigger.

Little Donghyuck had hated Mark in the morning and wanted to be him at night, rolling around in bed with two feelings in his gut that refused to shake hands. After debut, only one hand stayed, and a few years later the lines of its palm were spelling out something different, rearranged after seeing all the different sides of Mark he hadn’t been privy to for ages.

A fate shaped like a groan: really? Him?

“Ah—” Mark’s playful sigh lilts up into a small laugh as he stares at the dusty footprint on the top of his shoe. “Okay, you win.”

Donghyuck forgets about the upcoming climb and focuses on how easy it is to breathe on flat ground, how little time it’d taken for him to forget they were in the middle of a packed subway, how so much of him has solidified into Mark, and so much of Mark has solidified into him (Donghyuck never used to be a thinker, or at least not a worrying one).

His heart picks up speed again when he remembers this is something more, that Mark had been the one to ask for something more first, and he shakes his head at the sheer ridiculousness of that, lips quirked up.

He looks at Mark right as the telltale ding of a stop rings out overhead.

“When do I not?”

Donghyuck starts sweating up a hill the moment they’re off the subway. Without so many people around to fill the quiet gaps between pieces of conversation, it becomes stifling, a blanket in the middle of summer kind of deal.

The playful air about them had been so warming on the subway, but it cracks once they’ve resurfaced from the underground station, exposed to cooler air in a sudden rush. Donghyuck spends an entire fifteen minutes walking an awkwardly incremented distance from Mark down the street, not saying anything that isn’t a one-worded response to an observation or a question before finally spotting his saving grace.

“Oh,” he says with relief, glad his hands finally have something to do with themselves instead of just hanging weirdly between them as he points to a small crowd across the street. Music diffuses from the centre, pleasant even from afar. “Someone’s busking, we should go watch for a bit.”

Listening to someone sing doesn’t require any sort of conversation, awkward or not. It’s a good idea, a great idea even—Donghyuck could pat himself on the back for it, really. A maniacal giggle nearly spills out of him, and he has to mentally check in with himself for a moment. Okay, it’s fine. He’s good. Mark is a nerd and should not hold this much power over him.

(Well, he’s a nerd that, admittedly, Donghyuck’s spent looking up to for much of Haechan’s life. And he is kind of charming in a too-loud, too-sincere kind of way. And, well, Donghyuck has eyes—Mark isn’t exactly repulsive. Far from it, really. Which is all to say that even if Donghyuck was feeling a little bit crazy because of Mark—which he’s not, obviously—it would be fair. That’s all.)

Because he’s learned to give in around Donghyuck, Mark agrees without much fuss, and they cross the street to reach a small square where twenty to thirty people are gathered around a girl with a purple buzzcut, a guitar, and an amp nearly half as big as she is. A tentless canopy covers the entire space, string lights wound up and over the poles for ambient lighting.

Mark nearly steps into the crowd, but Donghyuck stops him, fingers pinching the back of his flannel to pull him close.

“Probably not a great idea,” he reminds Mark, already feeling an awkward itch climbing up his spine at what he’s implying. “You know, since we’re—"

Okay, maybe not.

“—hanging out,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh. Right.”

God, it’s so awkward. Is it supposed to be this awkward? It’s definitely not supposed to be this awkward. They hadn’t been awkward twenty minutes ago!

Mark steps back next to him, attention focused on the busker. It’s a rhythm that Donghyuck thinks he recognizes, and Mark’s humming in that buzzy way of his that makes Donghyuck’s knees go a little weak, but all that falls to the back burner as he stares at the girl’s bubble-gum pink Doc Martens and lets his worries get the best of him.

As much as he hates to admit it, it’s almost paralyzing to think that they’re making a mistake, that maybe they just work best together as friends, that Mark will end tonight with a reverse confession, taking back everything that hasn’t been said because he feels it’s ruined the ease of their relationship prior.

Donghyuck wants this to work out so badly, but if they’re encountering this many bumps in the road, maybe they’ve gone down the wrong path after all.

“Hyuck?”

Donghyuck rips his deep-set gaze away from the Doc Martens to look at Mark, wondering what he missed.

“I said we should cover this song sometime,” Mark says before Donghyuck can even ask. His hand accidentally brushes against Donghyuck’s, and Donghyuck has to force himself to keep still. A phantom taste of normal passes through him for a quick second when Mark bumps his shoulder against Donghyuck’s, what he always does when he’s doling out a compliment but trying to make it causal. “You’d kill something like this.”

With a mask on, Donghyuck can’t really tell how he’s feeling based on his expression alone, but his eyebrow is raised just slightly, eyes round and sincere, and it melts Donghyuck to the bone anyway. Tongue gone soft, he doesn’t even have to fight saying something teasing—nothing comes to mind.

“You should teach me the chords instead, give my vocal cords a break,” Donghyuck says, well aware that he’s only able to say all this while looking into Mark’s eyes because of their masks. Their hands brush again, and this time, Donghyuck’s not sure it’s an accident. The lights glimmer like little stars in the darks of Mark’s eyes.  “You’re surprisingly above average at singing.”

“Thanks?” It’s so much easier when they can just talk like this, like all they are is friends. The only downside is the way it feels, like seeing the world upside down. “I’d be down for that, though. Maybe next time.”

Next time.

Donghyuck’s heart thuds, and in the same second Mark’s fingers discretely brush their way around his hand to meet his palm and—

Mark looks down in surprise. Donghyuck follows his lead and finds his hand curled into a tight fist, shielded from Mark’s advances. When had he done that? The space suddenly becomes overwhelmingly empty between them. The crowd cheers in response to a particularly powerful note, and Mark clears his throat and looks back at the busker, a red tinge to his ears that almost makes Donghyuck outwardly cringe.

It’s never going to happen if he doesn’t let it. He just needs to push through, keeping hoping, keep trying.

It takes an enormous amount of effort to uncurl his fingers, every joint seemingly protesting against the movement. He lets his gaze wander cautiously over the crowd before deciding no one’s recognized them so far and steps closer to Mark. Arms pressed together, he reaches out hesitantly, only slightly upset that they can’t fully hold hands.

His pinky brushes against the soft flannel before colliding with something warm, and he feels his way to the thinnest finger before hooking his around it. Mark lets out an audible breath but doesn’t look at him. When Donghyuck chances a quick glance, his ears are burning up.

Feeling far too hot for the obvious chill in the air, Donghyuck inconspicuously brings their hands behind his back and only smiles when he feels Mark’s pinky curl tighter.

“What is she singing anyway?” Donghyuck asks so they don’t have to talk about what just happened, voice surprisingly stable even when he feels a little bit like he’s going to disassemble into a thousand little butterflies. The song’s in English, he realizes now that he’s tuned back in. He thinks he remembers hearing a different version of it, something with more of a soft rock vibe. An electric guitar, maybe.

Mark listens for a few seconds and then leans in, voice falling right into Donghyuck’s ear as he quietly translates, “I think we could do it if we tried, if only to say you’re mine.”

Donghyuck’s heart eases into an acoustic-slow rhythm, and he wraps his pinky as tight as he can around Mark’s without turning into an accessory. Mark continues murmuring lyrics into his ear, oblivious as ever.

It’s the way it’s always been between them, honestly. Donghyuck relaxes a little into the familiarity.

Fortunately, they get to the movie on time.

Not a lot of people are fans of this movie, apparently, because the theatre is practically empty. Still, the two of them make their way to the very back, the way they always do when they go out to watch a movie. They’d been talking about it just a couple nights ago, actually. Mark had brought up how he’d never have thought as a kid that so many everyday things would become so hard for him to do, and then he’d said—

—he’d said that.

Right.

Donghyuck had barely been able to handle it over text, how is he supposed to deal with it now? He shifts in his seat, suddenly hyperaware of their arms pressing together (Mark had lifted the armrest before they’d even sat down).

Why had he bought the garlic popcorn? Why had Mark let him? Does he even want to kiss Mark? Okay, stupid question, obviously the answer is yes—but does he really think he can? If he doesn’t count that one time Jaemin caught him on the corner of his mouth just to shut him up (and Donghyuck doesn’t—Jaemin is more concept than person), then Donghyuck’s never kissed anyone before. He looks at Mark surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye.

Has he kissed anyone?

No, they spend literally all their time together, Donghyuck would know if he had.

Unless.

No way, Mark’s a dweeb.

Then again, Donghyuck still wants to kiss him, so who’s to say someone else hasn’t fallen into the same trap?

Okay, it doesn’t matter.

But it kind of does—

Mark’s hand slides naturally onto his thigh, the slightest pressure pushing it down, and Donghyuck’s leg stops bouncing. He hadn’t even noticed when it had started. Mark doesn’t seem to be fazed at all, engrossed in the previews as he leans over a little to whisper, “Isn’t that the same actor from that horror movie you made me watch on Halloween?”

Donghyuck can’t even bring himself to try remembering what movie Mark is talking about, brain stuck on the way the screen flashes its light across the planes of Mark’s face, then wandering back to the hand on his thigh, how easily it’d taken up residence there.

“No, it… was someone else,” Donghyuck finally says, words fitting themselves together into a half-assed response while his eyes stayed glued on Mark’s hand.

Mark must hear something off in the way he says it, because he looks at Donghyuck and follows his gaze down before his hand is springing off warily. The sudden lack of warmth pulls Donghyuck out of his head, and he looks at Mark, who seems properly out of his depth.

“Uh, sorry? Sorry, you just got all—” He gestures strangely with one hand to Donghyuck’s leg as if that clarifies anything, clearing his throat right after. “And I usually just—it’s my bad.”

You’d think they’d never touched each other before.

Donghyuck folds into himself, trying for light and breezy when he tells Mark it’s whatever even as something shuts off inside of him.

It just doesn’t work like this, not when they can’t be themselves. It’s too choppy, too foreign. Like this, Mark isn’t the Mark Donghyuck knows like the back of his gut-hand, and Donghyuck’s like a practical stranger to himself as well.

Maybe everything he’d sensed through the phone screen was meant to just stay there, an archive of what could’ve been.

Right as the previews end, a hush falls over the room and Mark turns to him with a small smile, offering the tub of popcorn. Donghyuck smiles back, hoping it isn’t doused in bittersweetness, and grabs a handful to shut himself up so he doesn’t do anything rash like lie about never having liked Mark at all to salvage their relationship.

The popcorn really is the hero at the end of the day, because halfway through the movie Donghyuck’s really fucking glad he nearly choked himself with it about an hour ago.

He’s properly absorbed in the movie, not really tuned in to anything when he reaches down to grab a fistful of popcorn (Mark had told him to keep it in his lap without making eye contact after a few awkward fumbles where Donghyuck had swiped Mark’s thigh instead of the snack), but then his hand bumps into another, and his attention is immediately redirected.

“Sorry,” he murmurs awkwardly, neck heating up like it has the hundred godawful times they’ve ended up in a position like this tonight—it’s downright ridiculous, honestly. Before all this, Donghyuck would fight tooth and nail to get the popcorn first when they were watching a movie, full of that useless competitive spirit that always seemed to possess him whenever it came to anything concerning Mark.

He lets his hand hover pointedly, Mark’s similarly stuck at the edge of the tub. Donghyuck looks at him from the corner of his eyes and finds a strange expression on his face that’s twisted halfway between frustration and determination, and he’s just about to ask him what’s up when he feels greasy fingers slip up his wrist.

Donghyuck’s eyes snap down, and he tries very, very hard to hide just how many wings are beating around in his stomach when Mark’s fingers slot between his, grip a little sweaty and far too buttery for Donghyuck’s liking—but then again, his hands probably feel he same way, and he’s not about to complain when they’re holding hands (HOLDING HANDS!!!). (Arguably a much better substitute for making out.)

They’ve held hands before but god if it doesn’t send a foreign thrill up his spine when Mark quietly clears his throat, cheeks distinctly coloured even in the dark of the theatre, and whispers, “I’m not.”

And then, for good measure because he’s an idiot, his eyes flit to Donghyuck’s and back to the screen before he goes, “Sorry, I mean. I’m not sorry.”

Yeah, I got that, Donghyuck doesn’t bother shooting back, too focused on holding back a grin that would definitely break some rules about bright objects in dark theatres. There’s something incredibly embarrassing about the whole thing—the stiffness, the gross, greasy grip, the way Mark still refuses to look at him, evidently as nervous as he is brave. But Donghyuck finds it doesn’t override the giddiness, for once.

It gets uncomfortable about five minutes in when the sweat builds up and Mark keeps having to reach over with his other arm to have the popcorn, but neither of them loosen their grip. And neither of them pull away.

Once the credits start rolling, Mark starts to move but only gets half-way out of his seat before Donghyuck’s tugging him back down by the hand with a practiced pout.

“You know this isn’t a Marvel movie, right?” Mark asks as he settles back in, confused eyes briefly flicking down to Donghyuck’s pout and already melting. Honestly, Donghyuck should do a Masterclass on weaponizing aegyo.

Obviously, he knows it isn’t a Marvel movie, but he also knows that once the lights turn back on, Mark’s going to let go of his hand. Sue him for wanting to draw it out for as long as he can.

“I’m tired, can’t we just sit for a little longer?”

Donghyuck knows the answer is going to be yes before Mark can even say it, and he also anticipates the next thing Mark’s going to say when his mouth parts again. “No, it’s not my leg. Just tired, I promise.”

So they sit in the dark and watch the credits, fingers relaxed and more comfortably interlocked now, and Donghyuck finally acknowledges the inflated feeling in his chest as contentment. As far as he can tell, they won’t have to worry about any more bumps.

“Hey,” Mark says softly, hand squeezing Donghyuck’s. Donghyuck turns his head, corners of his lips naturally turned up. “Let’s just think of this as a normal hang-out for the rest of the night, okay?”

Donghyuck’s thoughts skid to a stop.

His smile nearly unseams itself before he remembers to tighten it just seconds before Mark looks at him, eyebrows raised with an anticipatory smile on his face. “Sounds easier, right?”

So maybe Donghyuck had been alone in thinking things finally felt right. That’s fine.

He widens his smile for a fraction of a second in agreement, not sure what other choice he has left but to nod.

“Yeah, definitely.”

Dinner does happen somewhere really nice, but Donghyuck pointedly doesn’t comment on it and keeps his eyes strictly on Mark’s expressive face while they’re talking so he doesn’t have to think about all the other couples in the room.

As much as Donghyuck hates to admit it, it’s the smoothest part of their night. No awkward pauses, no apologized-for touches, no excessive embarrassment flooding into their faces. It’s about as normal as things can be between them, about as easy, and all because Mark suggested they should slip back into more platonic skins.

At the end of the day, they really do work best as best friends. The realization hits him halfway through dinner and dampens his laughter at some ridiculous story Mark was telling him about Baekhyun when they were touring as SuperM. He isn’t able to finish his food and suggests they split the bill, throwing down all the aegyo armour he usually dons to get Mark to pay.

“Are you—we’re okay, right?” Mark asks a little hesitantly as Donghyuck pulls out his wallet. “You seem a little… I don’t know.”

“Just tired, remember?” Donghyuck replies, rifling through his wallet for longer than necessary so he doesn’t have to look at Mark. “We’re always okay, hyung.”

Donghyuck can make it work. It’s fine. He got his taste, he’ll just have to commit it to memory now.

At the fifth-floor door, Mark says, “We should do this again sometime,” and Donghyuck, a little pissy, says, “Yeah, or not.”

Which, obviously, doesn’t go down well.

“Wait, what?” Mark frowns, vulnerability bleeding into his voice. “I sort of thought we had a pretty good time. Do you really not… you don’t want to, um, be together?”

Donghyuck shrugs, helpless. “I do, but you don’t.”

And that gets an even worse reaction. Mark starts about twenty different sentences before he gives up, scowling as he pushes the door open and forces Donghyuck to sit down right in the foyer before following suit across from him, backs against the walls. He crosses his arms across his chest, and Donghyuck can’t really tell if he’s mad or just frustrated.

“Explain,” is all he says. So Donghyuck does.

He details every last one of his feelings, downplaying the hurt he’d felt when Mark asked to treat the rest of the night as casual but not doing a very good job, if the way Mark’s expression softens in concern is any indication. He spills about all his stupid Mark-inherited worries, how he can’t stop overthinking that this wasn’t meant to be, that it was too awkward for it to be right, that the only time it felt right was when he de-labelled the night as a date and went about it as if they were just doing what they usually do. He goes on for much longer than he usually would about his feelings, and Mark listens patiently even though he looks like he has something to say every time Donghyuck brings a new problem up.

When he finally finishes, he swallows, throat dry, and waits.

“Donghyuck,” Mark asks first, seemingly in disbelief, “are you for real right now?”

Donghyuck frowns, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “Yeah, and what if I am? Of course I’m being serious, were you even listening to me?”

Mark rolls his eyes, leaning over to tug his arms out of their criss-cross, finally just as rough as he always is with Donghyuck.

“Don’t get mean on me just because I made you talk about your terrible, horrible feelings,” he patronizes, eyes sparkling with enough amusement that it almost has Donghyuck’s lips twitching up. Spite is the only thing sustaining his poker-face.

Mark’s smile melts into something genuine, and he leans back against the wall, throwing his hands into the pockets of his flannel. They look at each other for a few beats, Mark’s thoughtful gaze only made less daunting by the quirk of his lips, until the pressure gets to be too much and Donghyuck cracks.

“What?” He says, but it comes out weaker than he’d planned for it to.

Sucking in his lips to hold back a dumb laugh, presumably, Mark looks down briefly before resurfacing with a gentler expression.

“You know you’re my best friend,” he starts, and Donghyuck’s brain immediately knows to react, already anticipating the sappiness of whatever he’s going to say next, his fingers attempt to bunch up his jeans at the thighs. Mark’s eyes flick down to the movement, and he raises his brows, eyes going a little wide with sincerity. “No, seriously, Hyuck, just hear me out. You’re my best friend, and I know what makes you tick. I only asked for us to treat it like a normal hangout because I could tell you were nervous. I didn’t suddenly decide I didn’t want to date you because your palm was a little sweaty or something stupid like that.”

“Kinda felt like it,” Donghyuck mutters.

“I didn’t. Me asking you out wasn’t a spontaneous decision, stupid, I’ve been thinking about it since forever. But then you sent that text and I was like, oh, does he really think this is all fun and games for me? I want to be with you. You’re my best friend, but you’re also just like, my favourite person. How many times have I texted you about random, silly shit that could go to literally anyone else? Or, how many times have I come to you with a serious problem that I only think is unsolvable because you haven’t taken a look at it yet?”

“A lot,” Donghyuck admits quietly, denim-blue sticking under his fingernails. “You should pay me for my time.”

“I like to think my company is compensation enough,” Mark says, smile in his voice. “But the point is, I like you like that. Enough that I want to come to you first no matter what it’s for even if sometimes I get scared I’m being annoying. Enough that I literally spend all of my hours in a day looking at your face and still, the moment we’re apart, I want to see it again.” A pause. “That was really embarrassing, actually, backtrack a little and forget I said that last bit.”

Donghyuck laughs despite himself. “I’m committing it to memory extra hard just because you said that.”

Mark’s fingers slip over his own, and Donghyuck finally looks up, catching the fond exasperation on his face as he shakes their hands a little and says, huffing out a laugh, “The point is, this isn’t supposed to be easy. Neither of us know shit, and to be honest I’m disappointed I’ve had to give this talk because you’re the one who has a degree in romance—”

“Film is manufactured.”

“—but it’s fine. We’ll figure things out together. Take it slow. Being your best friend is great, and I think we work really, really well as just that, but I think we’d work best as something more. Do you really want me to list all the reasons I think this is a good idea? Because it’ll kill me but I’ll do it if it helps. Okay, so we’re always together anyway, and I know how much you like being pragmatic, so we just make sense, really, and—"

Donghyuck’s laugh is punctuated by a snort, and he shakes his head, wondering how they’ve ended up like this in the span of a few hours. How so many years have culminated in this one strange moment that should be awkward but isn’t, not really. He catches Mark’s eye with a smile on his face, and Mark’s face seems to wipe clear of anything complex.

He lets out a shy little laugh, glancing down at their tangled-up hands before finding his way up to Donghyuck’s face again, eyes sparkling.

“You make me laugh,” he ends up saying like that’s all it really boils down to, one cheek tentatively dimpled. “I’ve lived in three countries, four cities, and I still haven’t met anyone who can make me laugh like you do, Hyuck. I just feel like that’s… pretty decent for now. Yeah.”  

Mark says it so simply that Donghyuck finds it hard not to believe him.

Honestly, laughter’s probably had a heavy hand in leading them to this point. As trainees, Mark only stopped avoiding Donghyuck and his too-sharp tongue after he’d taken sandpaper to its edges and told an awfully rudimentary joke that hurt how much pride he took in being witty. But it was worth it because it made Mark, with his simple, limited grasp on Korean, laugh all high-pitched and squeaky, palm over his braces because he still hadn’t absorbed Donghyuck’s loud, all-over-the-place way just yet.

Through gruelling post-debut schedules as the only threads weaving the two distinct cloths of NCT together, and through late-night recording sessions, and three-hour long draining variety shoots, and the backstage rush and rumble of concerts—through everything, they had the laughter, the tireless pick-me-up that might not always work on some of the other members, but always worked between them. Mutually. It was always a mutual thing.

“You make me laugh, too,” Donghyuck confesses, trying not to cringe at how cheesy it sounds when he says it. “You’ve got me beat by two countries and two cities, but yeah. Same. I like you silly-seriously, too.”

It isn’t too much for Mark, because when Donghyuck looks at him the worry is melting off his face to reveal an accomplished beam.

“Okay, good! Glad we could get through this without you running away.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “I don’t run away—”

“Kimchi jjigae incident?”

“You can’t hold that over me forever, you know,” Donghyuck warns, eyebrows narrowing.

Mark’s eyes are aglow, cute little teeth out. “You think I’m gonna be around forever?”

God, curse Mark and his ability to turn everything into an unconscious How Cute Can I Be contest. Donghyuck keeps all his squishy feelings to himself and takes his hands back from Mark’s grip.

“No comment,” he says as he starts prying his shoes off. “I think I really should run away now, though. You and I both need some well-deserved rest, and it always takes you like, two hours to actually fall asleep. It’s already—” He glances at his watch. “—one-ish. Your body’s weird allergy to sleeping in means the earlier you get in bed, the better.”

“I’m so not the weird one out of the two of us,” Mark says defensively, “sleeping for over 12 hours isn’t normal, you’ve got issues, man.”

“My issues are better than your issues, though.”

“I mean, it’s not a competition, but—wait, you’re going already?” Donghyuck blinks down at the hand wrapped around his, stopping him from fully standing up, and he slowly lowers himself out of his half-squat after Mark tugs gently.

“Yeah? I told you. Sleepy time. Night-night. Consciousness go bye-bye.” When Mark just keeps looking at him, clearly sending some sort of message that Donghyuck isn’t getting, he tilts his head to the side, confused. “What?”

“Just—” Mark licks his lips, palm slowly unwrapping itself around Donghyuck’s hand. “You know, like, when you go on a date it usually ends with something more… conclusive.”

Mark widens his eyes as if asking Donghyuck if he gets it yet, and when Donghyuck slowly shakes his head no, he turns sheepish, looking down at his fiddling hands. “We don’t have to but, um, I sort of thought we’d. Kiss? Oh my god, this is so—” His face falls into his hands briefly before they run upwards through his hair, leaving it all porcupine-y because of the hairspray, and he manages to look at Donghyuck again. “Actually, forget it. I’ll just—”

“No,” Donghyuck gets out when Mark makes to get up. He swallows, Mark’s awful hair not even enough to shake off the sudden rush of nerves. “No, I—we should. I want to. I’ve been wanting to.”

Mark’s smile is shy and terribly small. “Oh? Okay. Alright. How do you want to… you know.”

“Uh. Close your eyes?” Donghyuck definitely should not have said yes. He’s quickly starting to realize he has no idea how to kiss someone, and he’s still not sure whether or not Mark has enough experience to be able to tell. But Mark closes his eyes without showing any sign that it’s a particularly weird request, and Donghyuck takes that as a neutral sign. Not horrible, not great, just. Okay. Which is enough for his lost ass, to be honest.

Okay, here I come, is what Donghyuck doesn’t say because it sounds a bit too much like he’s about to airplane-feed a child (Okay! Here comes the plane! Whooo!). Instead, he just twists his fingers in the rips of his jeans and slowly leans closer, only now noticing the hint of concealer on Mark’s jaw that probably hides the aftermath of some acne. It helps him relax for some reason, and he’s nearly there, the plush hum of body heat lingering between them like static, eyes starting to fall shut, when Mark’s hand comes flying up over his mouth and his eyes pop open, startling a little at their proximity.

“Sorry, um. I just remembered, the garlic popcorn,” Mark whispers behind his hand like it’s a secret. “It might not be such a good idea to kiss me right now.”

Jesus, what is Donghyuck going to do with Lee Mark?

He chews the inside of an embarrassingly endeared smile and lets his eyes fall shut anyway, murmuring a concise shut up, hyung before nudging Mark’s hand down with a few fingers and pressing their lips together in a chaste kiss. Donghyuck finds that it’s not too hard to figure out once he’s already there, their mouths seem to be one step ahead of them, already syncing up their movements without allowing for much discord.

It’s gingerly slow and lasts all of ten seconds, but Donghyuck’s entire body feels warm and dizzy when he finally pulls away, and by the dazed expression on Mark’s face, he’s not too far behind the feeling either.

Donghyuck crinkles his nose playfully, cheeks warm. “Gross.”

The glaze drips off Mark’s face, genuine mortification overtaking it. “Oh god, for real? I told you it wasn’t a good—”

“I’m kidding, loser,” Donghyuck giggles, enjoying having the upper hand again. He reaches out to flatten Mark’s hair, bringing it as close as possible to its natural shape again.

Relief softens Mark’s expression, and he turns his sugar-drip eyes onto Donghyuck before confessing, “That was a tiny bit awkward for me, I’m not gonna lie.”

Mark really doesn’t know how to be anything but painfully honest, Donghyuck’s not even sure why he finds it so endlessly attractive. A small weight lifts off his chest at Mark finally acknowledging it so openly, it’s relieving to hear that the shift is going to take time for the both of them, not just Donghyuck.

“You know it’s funny, someone recently gave me the advice to take things slow.” Donghyuck smiles when Mark’s eyes involuntarily crinkle at that. “We can try again, don’t worry, we’ve got time.”

“Now?” Mark asks, gaze lowering to his mouth, and, well, Donghyuck was thinking more in a few days. Next week, even. But what is he really expected to do when Mark’s looking at him like this?

So, he leans in again, a little less tense this time, and finds that it’s easier the second their mouths touch. He still has no idea where to put his hands, but everything is a little less uncertain now, a little more insistent.

Their teeth keep striking each other, but it doesn’t seem to matter much to either of them, each click the spark of something brighter, like flint and stone. The sixth time it happens, Donghyuck’s smiling so hard Mark has to laugh into his mouth and put a hand on his cheek to bring them back together, shushing him half-heartedly when a laugh ends up sputtering out of him, too, too loud for the time and the quiet.

Mark’s other hand lands on his knee, and Donghyuck uses that one as an anchor, wrapping his fingers around Mark’s wrist to keep himself grounded while Mark’s teeth graze his bottom lip, feather-light. There’s a pre-teen sitting somewhere inside of him shitting his pants at finally getting to kiss Lee Minhyung, the kid who’d kickstarted Donghyuck’s sexuality crisis when he’d fit a pencil between his teeth to improve his diction and Donghyuck had realized he didn’t just keep staring because he thought it looked stupid. (Mark’s lips went very, very dry afterwards, he’d be licking them unconsciously for far too long afterwards—but that was another crisis in and of itself).

His chest starts tightening up right as he starts wondering, faintly, how people breathe while kissing, but he doesn’t move away until Mark does, a tiny smack sounding when their lips finally detach.

Before either of them can wipe the smiles off their faces and say anything, though, a bright flash overtakes the room, and Donghyuck whips his head over to see Doyoung standing there, phone in hand.

He smiles, wry, waving his phone a little before pocketing it. “For Johnny hyung’s scrapbook.”

“You have got to be shitting me,” Mark complains under his breath, hand falling away from Donghyuck’s face despondently. “I’m gonna get roasted alive.”

Donghyuck doesn’t really know how to make him feel better on that account. He’s kind of right.

“You kinda kiss like you’re eating ramen,” Doyoung tacks on while looking at Donghyuck, face perfectly impassive.

Well, at least Mark’s not the only one who’ll suffer.

After Doyoung forcibly kicks Mark out, whining about “waking me up with all your strange giggling”, Donghyuck is left thoroughly exhausted, and he crawls into bed without bothering to change or take his makeup off. He isn’t expecting Mark to text him—they’ve sort of stopped that little dance now, anyway—but then his phone vibrates, and when he looks at the name on the screen, he smiles.

Donghyuck stares for a few seconds before carefully typing out a response.

It’s so hard not to like Mark, Donghyuck never really did have a choice. He’s been gone since day one, weak in the knees at the sight of blue braces and thick, black glasses and a vigor so intense it outshone every other person in any given room. Mark was Donghyuck’s celebrity crush before they even debuted.

He locks his phone and curls up under the covers, wondering if his smile will be permanently stuck to his face when he wakes up in the morning.

(Young hearts beat best safe and acoustic-slow—Donghyuck’s learning it just takes time, and the right person.)