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It’s important for a man to have his values and stand by them, Donghyuck tells Jisung over the summer of his tenth grade and the younger’s ninth, with a half-dead flashlight held under his face in Jisung’s darkened bedroom. Even that, however, isn’t enough to block out the night’s humidity and the heat draped over them like an unwelcomed second skin.
Donghyuck is also making this up fully off the top of his head, but, hey, Jisung’s listening, his attention fully rapt.
It’s not bullshit, really. Donghyuck values kindness. Honesty. Their odd group of seven kids have no idea what they’re doing, but they’re scraping by pretty well, if you ask him.
Donghyuck doesn’t make it a habit to lie, but there’s an exception to each rule.
He looks Mark in the eye as they’re sitting side by side on the park bench on an autumn afternoon. Mark’s bundled up even though the temperature’s barely dropped, windbreaker wrapped tight and nose buried in his scarf. Mark’s not paying attention, smiling faintly as his gaze trails after a toddler screaming in the park nearby, before turning his attention back on the textbook in his hands.
Donghyuck shifts closer until the sides of their thighs are touching. The way the sun’s falling on Mark’s face, his eyes, and his throat isn’t fair. Mark shifts, his hair looking like burnished gold in the fading light, and Donghyuck’s hands itch to find their way.
Donghyuck sits on them.
And as though finally realizing that Donghyuck’s staring, Mark looks up in question at Donghyuck. “What? Is there something on my face?”
Donghyuck swallows. He’s got snarky responses waiting at the tip of his tongue. He’s got this lump sitting in his throat.
“No,” he says.
~
Something about Mark Lee makes Donghyuck a liar, maybe.
Sometimes there are things that live on beds of white lies and white smiles. Friendships shouldn’t rest on something so superficial and skeletal and fleshless, and this, Donghyuck agrees on. Donghyuck’s friends are ones he would die for – and he’s sure they’d do the same for him in a heartbeat, the way they are now. It’s just – feelings are a bit different.
Maybe Mark would still stay with him, if things came down to it. Maybe he wouldn’t. It’s the maybes that scare Donghyuck.
~
There are other universal truths in Donghyuck’s life: Donghyuck likes people, but Donghyuck doesn’t like parties. People are smart by themselves, and they say and do amazing things. People together can do even greater things – or even dumber things, and a lot of times, it’s the latter.
It’s a bit of both, too. Parties are both a little bit great, and a little bit dumb. Donghyuck doesn’t make it a habit to go, but sometimes—
~
How Donghyuck ends up holding two glasses of the most obnoxiously luminescent puke green drink in the history of green fucking drinks while getting chewed out by Doyoung is kind of lost on him. A bit. In Donghyuck’s honest defense, Jeno had chosen the abominations, so it speaks absolutely nothing about his own taste, or the death of all tastes known to human kind.
The basics go over like this: They’re here through proxy of Mark who knew Taeyong, who knew Johnny, who knew some dude who lent notes to the host of this party two years ago, or something like that. It’s a long, diluted tale of knowing a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy that Jaehyun had yelled the specifics about into Donghyuck’s ear when they’d passed each other in the halls as soon as Donghyuck had set foot past the doors. Half of it had gone straight into the booming bass rocking the house, to be eternally lost, and the other half over Donghyuck’s head.
It’s kind of tricky to pinpoint where exactly the downward slide to getting chewed out by Doyoung starts, but Donghyuck will bet his non-existent PS4 that the beginning of the end lies with Jeno, who, slumped upside down on Donghyuck’s bed two hours ago, makes an off handed reminder that Mark’s going to a party today.
“He sent an SOS message already,” Jeno says, snickering. He shoves the screen way too close to Donghyuck’s face, who goes cross-eyed just trying to track the device.
Donghyuck bats Jeno’s hand aside, making grabby hands for the device himself.
Mark Lee
(9:06pm) i can?T?? find it??
(9:12pm) Can’t find what lol
Mark Lee
(9:12pm) the.. house.. taeyong hyung said 57 but it only goes up to 53 wtf
i guess i’ll look around
should i it’s so weird
is it rude to wander around
jeno??
what if i look sketch
what if there’s sketch ppl
random ass korean-canadian kid kidnapped and murdered, age 18, survived only by his 2 cats and 6 asshole friends
jeno??????
(9:13pm) j e no
j e n o l ee
(9:17pm) ok fuck u so much ofr moral support
im knocking on 53
(9:23pm) ok so... im so not digging this i dont know aNYONE
hyungs dont count they’ve left me for dead
can u like call me and rescue me,, maybe,,
“Maybe you should reply,” Donghyuck says, giggling himself as he hands the phone back. Jeno swipes it from his hand, or tries, at least, and fumbles it. It drops onto Jaemin who’s lying on the ground between them. There’s a startled squawk, and two minutes later after copious amounts of promises to be careful, the phone’s back in Jeno’s hands.
“Nah. It’s more fun to make him sweat over these things, you know?”
Donghyuck does know, from personal conversations with Mark himself, which, recently, haven’t been many. Speaking of which – “Why’s he texting you about the party, anyway?”
Jeno blinks. “Huh?”
“He didn’t say anything about the party to me.”
“I dunno, he knows you’re hanging with us. Probably assumed we’re passing you the info anyway, which we are, by the way,” Jeno says pointedly.
Jaemin’s looking at Donghyuck funny from where he is on the floor of the bedroom, like he knows something Donghyuck doesn’t. It’s unsettling, his way of almost looking through Donghyuck, who finally has enough and shoves Jeno off the bed too.
“Whatever, okay?” Donghyuck grouses. Is this what Donghyuck gets for being the gracious host of the get together? Getting harassed in his own house for an innocent question? He pushes himself off from the edge of the bed and makes his way over to the closet. “Let’s go out somewhere, it’s stuffy here.”
“Where?” Jaemin says, raising an eyebrow at him – the expression looks kind of funny on him because the other eyebrow lifts a bit too but no one’s had the heart to tell him yet. “Nothing fun within fifty miles, obviously.”
Jeno’s head whips up in alarm. “You don’t mean—”
Donghyuck takes Jeno’s phone from him breezily and types in Jaemin’s birthday (0813), scrolls through contacts, calls Mark and sets it on speaker, all the while ignoring Jeno’s little defeated sigh of “maybe you did mean that” behind him.
“Jeno?” Mark’s voice crackles through. There’s a song pumping through the background of his end, heady bass and something electronic, enough to make Donghyuck’s ears hurt just by imagining how loud it must be in person. “Jeno, can you like, take your parents’ car or something and just come pick me up please.”
Donghyuck takes this as his opportunity to introduce himself. “Hi, Mark-hyung!” he chirps brightly. There’s a pause. Donghyuck pushes on. “Just sit tight, I’ll get us there somehow. We can keep you company, just give us, like. I dunno. Half an hour? It’s a tough life having no friends huh?”
“Donghyuck?” Mark’s voice comes through, bleeding incredulity. “What are you—”
“Bye, see you in thirty!” Donghyuck hangs up in the middle of an answering startled call of his name. It’s okay. Mark would’ve gotten the message, he made it perfectly clear.
~
They get to the party an hour later, actually, since they had to resort to walking after it turns out Jeno doesn’t have the keys to his parents’ car. The details of teenage rebellion might’ve gone over his head, Donghyuck thinks, but lets it go. It’s not such a cold night that they’re freezing their asses off, but Jaemin’s still grumbling behind them and rubbing his hands together.
When they make it to the door, Donghyuck realizes he’s made the cardinal party sin of not making sure where Mark was within the party itself, since the building is looking more and more like an estate the closer they get. It’s not like it’s really Donghyuck’s fault though – he’s been to all of two parties, and both were small group get-togethers hosted by Johnny.
There’s an impressive set of black gates around the edge of the property, and the lawn looks well-tended to, which just speaks for how the owner must have rich-people-priorities, Donghyuck supposes.
He raps on the door and waits.
“Who’re you?” the guy who opens the door slurs, peering at Donghyuck blearily and somehow managing to leer at the spot above his head.
Donghyuck is regretting the impromptu decision to come here more by the second, but they’re in front of the doors already. He rears back a bit from the smell of drink the guy’s reeking. “Mark.”
“Mark?” Drunk Guy says slowly, snagging the syllables and somehow managing to draw them out for long enough that Donghyuck’s getting concerned. “Mark. Oh, Mark! I know him.”
The three of them are let in with that, and it feels a bit like stepping into a sauna with lots of music and alcohol littering the place.
“Where’s Mark?” Jeno asks.
That’s a good question. As much as Mark might stick to his mother’s no drinking and no fooling around rules like they’re his commandments, Donghyuck also remembers the time he came home to Mark wasted because the hyungs kept sneaking him more drinks. As much as Mark Lee might be the golden child at home and at school, he’s kind of shit with peer pressure.
Any trip down memory lane sort of confirms it. Sixth grade, Mark panicked and agreed to take home the class’ pet lizard during winter holidays when he knew he was going on vacation. Eighth grade, said yes to a girl asking him out to the school dance because they had an audience of like, roughly, the whole school.
“In a corner sobbing or in the bathroom wasted,” Donghyuck says casually. He reconsiders; Mark needs somewhere to send the SOS messages from. “Or maybe texting in the kitchen?”
~
They end up find Mark nursing a cup of water in the kitchen, texting and looking like he wants to cry, so Donghyuck considers himself right on all counts.
Donghyuck has scientific proof from Jaehyun that water and soju are one and the same once you’ve had too many shots.
~
Donghyuck’s making his way across the floor when his eyes get caught on a mop of blonde hair in the corner, huddled with two other familiar figures.
It looks like Jisung, but it can’t possibly be, because it’s Wednesday night and Jisung should be at home sleeping, like kids his age do. “Jaemin,” Donghyuck says, tugging Jaemin forward in front of Jeno so that he can see what Donghyuck’s seeing. “Am I seeing things?”
“Things?” Jaemin asks. “Depends on what thi— wait. Is that Jisung?”
The blond kid looks over, sees them, and looks supremely unimpressed.
That’s definitely Jisung.
Jisung’s a grade lower than them in school, but he’s two years younger since he skipped a grade and his parents enrolled him in school a year earlier.
“Sorry for getting you into this mess,” Jaemin likes to tell Jisung on a regular basis; this mess, being their friend group of course, and Donghyuck is always quick to remind Jisung that he should be grateful for this mess looking after and wiping his ass, since this mess brought him up.
No one knows how he got there; Renjun and Chenle only followed him to the party, or so Chenle says. Renjun looks kind of guilty, if you ask Donghyuck, but no one’s asking, so Donghyuck’s not snitching on a friend. So. No one knows how Jisung knew. The next logical question, of course, is why Jisung’s there.
“I just wanted to check it out,” Jisung says. “You guys always talk about going to parties.”
“It was twice!” Jeno protests. And, Donghyuck wants to add, they always talk about going to parties, but no one aside from Mark actually goes. Mark only goes because Taeyong drags him to them.
“But. How did you even get in?” Jaemin asks, glaring down at Jisung who he’s managed to get into a chokehold. “You look.” Jaemin squints. “Like, nine. Or ten.”
“I dunno,” Jisung says. “I was wandering around the house and then this guy asked me who I knew here, so I said Mark. So he pushed me in the house.” Ah, Donghyuck thinks. The wonders of talking to Drunk Guy. Or maybe it wasn’t Drunk Guy specifically but they’re all drunk anyway so what’s the difference?
Jaemin pulls Jisung in closer to him. “We’re not going to risk losing him, okay?” he says when Donghyuck looks at them weird too long.
~
The thing about bad ideas, is that, at the core, it doesn’t come from one person. If you were to ask Donghyuck about it, the truth would be that he has no idea where it originated exactly – only knows that Jeno was in agreement and then Jaemin hopped on board because Jeno said yes, and then Chenle and Renjun didn’t say no so everyone took that as yes, apparently.
This is how it starts: There is alcohol. Someone decides underage drinking would be a cool thing to do, because “what are rules for anyway?” and yeah, Jeno’s shipped off to grab some for drinking games. Mark’s looking on, sort of worried, and Jisung’s asking what beer pong is.
“Why Jeno?” Jaemin’s asking.
“The only one of us who doesn’t look twelve,” Donghyuck says, satisfied how literally no one tries to stop Jeno, but like he’s said, most people look too drunk to even try differentiating faces, let alone ages. He nods at Jisung thoughtfully. “Or ten, I guess, for that one.”
Jeno comes wading back through the crowds holding a handle of beer under his arms. He sets them down, then goes again, and comes back with some really funny ass green drinks. Donghyuck doubts, honestly, whether it’ll last through even the first thirty minutes since there’s not much substance there, but whatever, they’ll just send Jeno on a run again. He’s having a go at the packaging and he can feel Jisung hovering over his shoulder when the chill runs down his spine.
Jisung picks up a can of beer. “This is it?” he says, like he’s expecting some kind of fireworks going off for having touched it. Maybe that would have been better, Donghyuck thinks, watching pale-faced as Doyoung looms like a ghost behind Jisung.
“That indeed, is it,” Doyoung says. Jisung’s eyes are screaming ‘help,’ but he does an admirably good job of looking nonchalant when he turns around to face Doyoung.
Mark laughs awkwardly. “Oh. Hi, Doyoung! We were just,” he says awkwardly, choosing that moment to try to lean against the wall awkwardly, “looking at the cans.” Donghyuck stares at him, silently urging him to go on because that’s a weak ass sentence. Mark looks back with increasing panic. “Because.”
“Taeyong-hyung told you to grab him some,” Donghyuck mouths at him from behind Doyoung’s back.
“Taeyong-hyung told you to grab him some,” Mark says. Donghyuck is going to kill him in his sleep if Doyoung doesn’t get there first. Mark’s eyes get wide. “Told me to grab you some, I mean. Told me to grab him some. Shit.”
Doyoung looks increasingly less impressed. “Yeah, I can deliver this to Taeyong. The coke’s that way,” he says, jerking a thumb in the direction of where the soft drinks are. Jeno slinks off to make the run again, and with that, Doyoung’s off with the drinks, leaving carnage in his wake.
“Doyoung-hyung’s going to kill me,” Mark says, looking like all the life’s left him. “I don’t think you’re gonna see any of my ass past tonight. If you see my grave on Thursday, I’m just giving you the head’s up today.”
“I was literally feeding it to you and you still messed up,” Donghyuck says. He can’t really help Mark from there, other than saying it for him.
Mark huffs. “Why don’t you say it next time?”
What, is Donghyuck his mother? God. Donghyuck loves him, but there’s a line, and that line is not getting in the way when Doyoung’s out looking to draw blood.
~
They end up playing with coke. Jisung’s disappointed, or was, up until Mark tells him beer tastes like bird piss.
“What drinking games are there, anyway?” Jisung asks. “What do old people even do?”
Mark, having barely recovered after the run in with Doyoung, apparently has enough energy to take offence. “Old? Wait two years and you’ll be practically ancient too at this rate. And as for the game, I dunno. Truth or dare? You pass you take a shot?”
“Isn’t that really basic?” Renjun says.
“Do you have a better idea?”
No one says anything.
As the person who grabbed the drinks, Jeno has the honour of starting everything off after the squabble dies down.
“Hyuck,” Jeno says. Donghyuck bites down a sigh – how nice, to have action, at least he won’t be sitting there for half a day waiting his turn. Thinks about it for a second – having Jeno ask isn’t that bad, in the grand scheme of things. Renjun and Jaemin are the nasty ones, and Mark would be awkward if it got to touchy topics. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” Donghyuck says easily.
“Already?” Jisung says, but he doesn’t sound disappointed at all.
“You know,” Donghyuck says. “If I don't like it, I can just keep chugging coke anyway? It’s not like it’s a big deal.”
With that, the rules are amended to the last place in the game having to do whatever the winner says for a day. Donghyuck smiles, and there’s quickly the added clause of nothing murderous or permanently disabling – Donghyuck’s kind of insulted his friends are this lame or this wary of him, but oh well. It is what it is.
Donghyuck continues – for the next little bit, the questions are pretty harmless.
"When was the last time you skipped class?" Jisung asks, nursing his glass of coke and generally looking melancholic.
“Uh,” Chenle says, looking around for help. There is none. “Today?”
Jisung looks utterly betrayed – Donghyuck knows from trying to contact him today that Jisung was in class all day today listening to the teacher drone over the Nitrogen cycle and Macbeth. “I thought you had an appointment or something!”
Life is about the small betrayals, Donghyuck muses. It’s more amusing than nothing.
~
As the night starts dragging on and the hours slide into one another, the questions get a bit bolder. It’s Jaemin’s turn next – he turns his attention on Jeno who’s lowkey trying to sink into the couch but doing such a bad job at lowkeying it that Donghyuck can’t help snickering. Jaemin spares Donghyuck a glare before asking Jeno if there’s anyone he’s got his eyes on.
Jeno flushes – Donghyuck doesn’t think he’s seen someone scream ‘crush’ as loud as Jeno does without saying a word or physically waving a sign – but again, everyone’s pretty hot with all the dancing and the people inside. Maybe Jeno’s just feeling a bit warm, and Donghyuck, ultimately, is a good friend who gives his friends the benefit of the doubt.
“Uh.” Jeno gulps. “Yeah?” Like it’s a question that he’s been making heart eyes at Jaemin since forever – there’s a wave of ‘oooh’s around the circle, and at this point Jungwoo, Sicheng, and Yukhei have all migrated to the lounges around the truth or dare game.
(“Tired,” Jungwoo says, by way of explanation when he plops down on the couch.
“I’m just looking!” Sicheng says with a smile.
“YOOOOOO, WHAT’S UP MY DUDES—“)
As if the floodgates that have held everyone back before has been released at the crush question, it just gets messier and more questionable from there.
Donghyuck, to this day, isn’t sure who said it first – maybe it’s a culmination of everyone piggybacking on a segment of someone else’s idea, but the disaster of the night might just go to, “Jisung, I dare you to go lick that tile over there.”
Jisung stands up, pointing in the direction of the bathroom door. “That one?” He squints, like he’s gouging how dirty it is. “I’ll do it for ten.”
Renjun’s digging around in his pockets. (Donghyuck, once again, is a good friend who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s ripping apart all the tens he can find in his jacket.)
Jungwoo deftly spins Jisung around. “Jisungie, do you want to grab six more cans of coke for us? We’re running low, sweetie,” he says. Jisung gives the ten that Renjun’s waving under the table a mournful glance, but does as told and trots off eagerly.
Chenle doesn’t fare much better – and no one comes to his rescue since it’s not deemed a health hazard, Donghyuck supposes. Or maybe the one year age difference really makes or breaks your ability to get babied.
“Ask someone out! You’ve never asked anyone out right?”
“I don’t,” Chenle says at last, “like anyone though.”
“The hyungs say you don’t have to like someone to ask them out,” Jisung chimes in.
Donghyuck wonders, not for the first time, what kinda people Jisung’s been hanging out with.
“So. That’s my dare? I just ask someone out? Like, walk up to them?” Chenle says, confused. “Be like, hey do you wanna go out with me?”
“Oh, no no.” Mark’s grinning, and it’s kind of terrifying because Donghyuck hasn’t seen the shark-meet-blood-in-water expression ever since Mark’s magically reformed himself into golden child as per the will of his parents. “You’re going to need a pick-up line.”
Chenle ends up getting the classic, “Hey, I seem to have lost my phone number, could I get yours?” and looks like he wants to melt into the floor. He’s not allowed to explain it’s a dare, and it must be done clearly and seriously. Chenle is the single shittiest actor Donghyuck’s seen, who can’t hold a poker face if it’s for the lives of their whole friend group, never mind himself, so Donghyuck’s looking forward to this.
Chenle’s still moaning about betrayal as Jeno's asking Jaemin a truth about Jaemin’s own crush, and honestly, the two of them would be doing themselves and everyone else a favour if they just got a room and made out already. That would solve, approximately, well like, all of their problems of the near future.
Jeno whips around and gives Donghyuck a glare that would make lesser men tremble. Oh. And maybe Donghyuck said that aloud, but everyone else is just snickering and it’s not like it’s not true. Donghyuck smirks, leaning back, and feels a bit blindsided when Renjun suddenly sits up straighter and gestures for Jaemin to pick him – none of Renjun’s ideas are ever good in the conventional sense and Donghyuck has no idea what’s going on in the enable-Jisung’s-tile-licking brain of his.
It's a quick round and then Renjun's picking Donghyuck.
Scratch whatever Donghyuck’s ever said about Mark’s smile not looking pleasant – the Terrifying Smile of the year award goes straight to Renjun and the way he’s looking at Donghyuck just about now. "Since you suggested it so kindly back there,” Renjun says, leaning forward, and Donghyuck gulps and flattens himself more against the couch. “I dare you to make out with Mark.”
Donghyuck nearly drops his drink – Chenle yelps and dives forward to stop it from killing the carpet.
Make out with—with Mark?
Did what Donghyuck thinks just came out of Renjun’s mouth actually come out of that little shit’s mouth, because if so. There are problems.
Renjun’s smiling brightly, but it seems like it’s a million miles to Donghyuck – the world's spinning to a stop right there and then and he stops to check Mark's expression. God – he hopes Mark’s not creeped out by this. It’ll be okay, all Donghyuck has to do is laugh this off, because he's liked Mark for a long time but Mark's never given an indication that he likes him back. It’s just something that's never come up, and this can easily be spun into a joke.
Mark doesn’t know. Mark doesn’t have to know. Donghyuck swallows thickly.
Mark's pointedly not looking at anyone so it's up to Donghyuck to save this awkward as fuck situation – Huang Renjun can go fuck himself. Donghyuck has some choice Words for him tomorrow – but first, all awkward situations call for bravado even when you're not feeling it.
Slowly, Donghyuck stands up. Shrugs like it’s no big deal. It’s okay. It’ll be alright. He's so cold on the inside—holy shit, he could really be messing this whole friendship up; he knows Mark probably knows he's gay at this point and Mark has never cared, but the what if’s come back to hound. (Mark will leave him, everyone else will leave him, shit, even Renjun the backstabber will and then Donghyuck will be alone—)
He points at Mark, who's reluctantly letting his gaze flit over Donghyuck’s torso now – a millisecond’s worth of eye contact and then it’s gone again. "So, what? Are we on?" Donghyuck asks, in a voice that’s way too steady to belong to him.
Mark looks at him helplessly, and then at the circle like it’d offer some kind of miraculous solution and not just stare at them. Donghyuck sighs. "Mark Lee. You getting off your goddamn ass or not?”
Mark Lee looks like he’s waiting for his goddamn ass to take roots. He’s pulling off the deer in headlights look better than an actual to god deer right now. Donghyuck leans in.
“There is. No way in hell I’m slaving for Renjun for a whole day. If you're not moving, you can do all that work for me. If you like an audience, then sure, feel free to stay right there."
Only then does Mark stumble to his feet, dazed.
He’s not supposed to look this scared, Donghyuck thinks bitterly. Is the thought of kissing a guy really that distressful for Mark? Or maybe it’s just because it’s Donghyuck and Mark wants to let him down easy?
"Can I like..." Mark finally says, opening his mouth, and before closing it without saying anything. He’s blinking slowly. "Maybe... not? Do this at all?"
The circle, Donghyuck included, stare at him like he’s grown a second head.
Maybe there’s no other choice. Donghyuck sets his jaw. Alright – he’s taking one for the team. Donghyuck takes Mark's hand, pulling him along. He's got nowhere particular in mind but he has a mind to reassure Mark that it won't be a big deal, they’ll probably just need to kiss on the cheek or something. There friends will accept that.
“It’s five seconds, fully on the lips?” Jaemin yells from the back.
“Since when?” Donghyuck yells back, willing Jaemin to combust just from his gaze. He wants the ability to cause ocular combustion right about now. Thanks.
Jaemin looks at him like he’s dumb. “Bitch, since a few days ago with the definition you gave me.”
There's an added reminder that there's gotta be pics or it never happened from somewhere else in the group - maybe it’s a spectator, but Donghyuck doesn't turn around to check.
~
Donghyuck pulls Mark to the nearest private space he can find - the bathroom on the far side of that floor - and locks the door behind them.
"You know we don't have to do it, right?" Donghyuck says, first thing. He wants to check in with Mark - if you'd asked Donghyuck any time before this, he would've sold his kidneys. Both of them. For just the slightest chance to be able to kiss Mark, but with all that said and done, this Mark is looking super uncertain and confused and frankly quite uncomfortable. If Mark really wants nothing to do with him, even with the pretense of a joke – well, Donghyuck knows how rejections go.
"We can just go back and say it’s done," Mark says.
Donghyuck is certain without a picture they'd never take anything, and even with one, it'd be eternal blackmail material. Either way, there’s literally no way to live it down. “The picture though,” he bemoans.
“We can say... that we lost it?”
Donghyuck wants to hit Mark at times like this. “You’re going to. Conveniently lose your phone between now and when we get back, and expect them to buy it?”
Mark looks at Donghyuck sadly. “Do you have any ideas?”
Donghyuck is silent. Well, now that Mark’s asking, all of Donghyuck’s Idea had really just consisted of apologizing to Mark and telling Renjun that Donghyuck is indeed indebted to him for all of twenty-four hours and no more and never again, and that Renjun will have to buy the ice cream for Donghyuck tomorrow when he’s crying because the damage done was by Renjun’s hand. But. Mark doesn’t need to know this.
"It’s dumb, this is dumb. I shouldn't have suggested playing this game in the first place," Mark is saying, looking genuinely so apologetic and sorry and sincere for getting Donghyuck in this situation, and Donghyuck just wants him to stop talking; stop being so nice but misunderstanding. "I’ll go back and tell them to knock it off."
And. It’s so tempting, for a second. Donghyuck can picture it – going back and calling the game off and no one would be worse for wear and—and everyone wouldn’t be feeling it for the rest of the night and there might be tension and worse of all it’s a copout.
It’s not exactly as simple as that, Donghyuck wants to say. He feels like he’s shaking, like he’s coming apart and his heart is one big fault line, because no one said feelings were supposed to exist this frustrating. The thing is, Donghyuck isn't opposed to the idea on the fundamental level at all. Donghyuck doesn’t know how to tell this to Mark at all either.
He takes a deep breath, prays to all the gods out there spectating this train wreck for a drop of courage, and covers Mark's mouth with one hand.
"Stop talking for a second," Donghyuck says. The breaths hitting his hand slow. Mark’s looking at him so wide-eyed and confused and Donghyuck feels so emboldened and overcome with a feeling of wanting to disappear at once. "Can I kiss you?"
Donghyuck leans in, ever so slowly - if Mark doesn't want to, he can dismiss this as a joke because of the dare. He can give Mark time to push him away, as much as the thought hurts. Just, hopes that it’s not too much to dream that Mark might feel the same thing that Donghyuck has been holding close to his heart for the past years because – bottom line – Mark being happy means so much to him.
And, if that might be too much to wish for, maybe it’d just be nice if Mark had just, only once, laid awake at two in the morning wondering what exactly friendship feels like and what being in love with someone is, like Donghyuck has. He doesn’t – he hopes he’s not asking for too much. Just the same butterflies in his stomach when he sees Donghyuck laughing or—maybe that's just wishful thinking.
"Woah, woah." Mark looms a bit closer, brows knit in concern.
So Donghyuck looks up, alarmed, and Mark's leaning in a bit too. It’s strange; Donghyuck doesn’t understand why Mark is looking this worried or why his face is that close. It’s distracting. "Hyuck?”
Donghyuck sniffs.
“Why are you crying?"
Oh, shit. Donghyuck wipes his eyes hastily, angrily. He’s not trying to cry. Fuck. Maybe he was tearing up a little, but Mark can shut the fuck up, because emotional vulnerability does that to you, alright? And Donghyuck likes to pride himself on being a sensitive soul at heart, but it just makes it worse – why is he crying now of all times when he doesn’t need Mark to see him like this –
Donghyuck’s breath hitches when Mark ever so hesitantly sets a hand on his shoulder, which he then ever. So. Awkwardly. Trails up to the nape of Donghyuck’s neck, and Donghyuck can’t decide whether he wants to curl closer to the electric feeling or shy away.
"Shut up," Donghyuck says. "Something just got in my eye."
Mark still hasn’t backed away. It doesn’t feel like there’s enough air between them. Says, lowly, teasingly, "Yeah? Feelings, you mean?"
"Shut. Up,” Donghyuck whispers back heatedly. “You're killing the mood." He counts two, three, in his head and closes the distance.
It’s not what he expected for a first actual kiss - not counting that one time when he and Mark bumped into each other and knocked their teeth into each other when they were thirteen years old at the skate park. It’s soft and uncertain, and Mark can't find a place to put his hand because it's flitted against Donghyuck's back two or three times already but it’s Mark Lee, Donghyuck's crush of maybe his whole life. Mark is kissing him back so really, who's the winner here?
Donghyuck tilts his head, feels Mark moving against him, or maybe it’s with him? The thrill of Mark reciprocating feels like flying: with the warmth and liquid sunlight that's taken over his veins and his heart. Mark makes a sound, stills, and then slides a hand under Donghyuck’s hoodie to trace patterns on his back.
Everywhere Mark touches feels raw in his wake – something precious and searing, a brand to be remembered. Like shared laughter over escaping curfew at night, huddled around a stolen lighter. Donghyuck wishes it would last forever. Mark slows, stills, and takes the warmth away with him as he draws away and Donghyuck's so lost.
He'd closed his eyes at some point, as he finds when he opens them again. "What's wrong?" he asks, finding his voice, letting his head fall into the crook of Mark's neck, grateful that Mark’s giving him this moment to get himself collected. Donghyuck lets the substitute warmth soak in. It’s nice. He'll take it for as long as he's allowed to – maybe until Mark suddenly changes his mind, has figured out he doesn't like Donghyuck after all, that he's disgusted—
Mark laughs. Donghyuck feels the movement and the breath ghosting across his ear, and he shivers, hating the movement, because it feels like they’re on the verge of a tipping point. One of Mark’s arms snakes around Donghyuck’s waist, snagging him there. "Oh. I just couldn't breathe, sorry."
If he was any more collected, Donghyuck would have snorted. Instead, he tightens the hand that’s grabbed a fistful of Mark’s jacket. He tilts his head, finds Mark's ear, and just rests there for a second, enjoys the comfortable silence. Then he smirks. Says, "What? Did I take your breath away?"
The moment's broken. Mark shoves him so hard he nearly ends up on his ass, and he's laughing so hard there's legitimately tears in his eyes. Mark's shaking his head, and there's so many things that could go wrong. There’s so many ‘what if’s to their situations that make Donghyuck want to curl up in his bed and never come out, but. That’s reserved for those moments.
In this moment it doesn't sound like Mark's saying no, so Donghyuck takes the hand that’s offered to him and lets himself be pulled in close.
~
If you were to ask Donghyuck what makes a person, the answer would still be “his values” these days.
Donghyuck still isn’t doing the best in school, but he’s trying. His life isn’t put together, but then, neither is anyone else’s completely.
Feelings are still alien and terrifying and they make Donghyuck want to shy away, but Mark—
~
morkdork
(2:23pm) be here in five! ;w;
(2:31pm) are you coming down
(2:39pm) hycuk
HYUCK im here ur mom
(2:40pm) keeps on staring at me funny outta the corner of her eyes
(2:42pm) she wont stop.. talking
im getting a backstory on ur life even tho i was there for ur dumbass thru all of it
(2:43pm) is she interrogating me
fck Is she VETTING ME
(2:45pm) r u just leaving me to look like a fool in front of ur mom he lp
Donghyuck can’t help the smile that’s spreading across his face. He gives his outfit a last up and down – not too fancy, but not too casual either. It’s a bit more than the typical t-shirt and sweats that the two of them tend to hang out with but Mark had said “It’s a date!” and Donghyuck just. Wanted to do something a bit different. Hopes it’s not too much; would Mark think it’s tacky?
It should be fine. Should. Be.
He bites his lip, sends out a quick:
(2:46pm) can’t help u there u r a fool
coming tho!!!!!
~
Mark looks up the stairs as Donghyuck rounds the bottom, and Mark’s dressed up in a button-down shirt too. He stands up from his chair so fast that there’s this awful screeching sound and he’s apologizing to Donghyuck’s mother over and over again, but when he meets Donghyuck’s eyes again the grin he gives is the brightest. Donghyuck can’t help feeling out of breath even though he’s on the track team at school and it’s just a flight of goddamn stairs.
It’s not a bad feeling either – maybe he should thank Renjun for the party.
Mark Lee makes Donghyuck a bit more honest these days.