Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sometimes Mark wonders if he was adopted.

Or maybe it’s Taeyong who was adopted. Whichever works. They can’t be related by blood, they just can’t.

There are a tad too many differences between them. For one, Mark can’t even make a decent-looking fried egg without the risk of accidentally burning himself in the process. Mark is clumsy and at times inattentive, while Taeyong’s focus is always well-placed and steady. (He’s clumsy, too, but not as dangerously often as Mark is.) Taeyong is good with words; he has a way with them, and no matter how upset Mark gets, he can never not listen to what he says. Taeyong is patient; Mark is not. Taeyong is sharp-eyed; Mark misses the bottom step every now and then.

But the most evident difference between them is that Mark doesn’t see love the same way his brother does.

Maybe not love in itself, because Mark knows love, understands the concept of liking someone so much that you’re willing to give anything for them, but the importance of it – Mark just doesn’t see it. Yet. Maybe. Who knows.

For now, love is just there for him; there’s no eye-opening epiphany, no fear of heartbreaks, no fluttering of hearts whenever he reads about it, nothing. It’s a single word with too big of a meaning for him to comprehend, and Mark thinks it’s a pretty good state that he’s in right now: he doesn’t want to comprehend it just yet, anyway.

Taeyong once joked that maybe it’s not his time yet. You’re still too young for a good love, he’d said, and Mark replied with, “What does that mean? Are you belittling me?”

“No, kid, I’m just saying.”

“You so are.”

Love is a hassle. Mark knows this. Maybe not by heart, but love is still bothersome. He’s seen the way Taeyong hurries to fix his already neat hair whenever Jaehyun’s standing outside their door, the way Taeyong whines about not having a cute enough shirt to wear whenever Jaehyun’s coming over, and so on. Maybe it’s just Taeyong that makes his love a hassle, but damn, Mark can’t even begin to imagine himself doing the same one day.

Nowadays he kinda does, though.

Donghyuck’s a weird friend to have, but Mark is pretty weird himself, so they match well. Not that he doesn’t match well with Renjun, Jaemin, or Jeno. Not that he doesn’t match well with Jisung and Chenle, either. It’s just Donghyuck seems to understand him most, even though he doesn’t have Jaemin’s magic hands – which in itself is pretty fascinating, since this means Donghyuck understands him from pure observation and years of knowing him, and not because of some freaky enhanced senses (no hard feelings, Jaemin).

Mark and Donghyuck have a habit of hanging out on the roof of Donghyuck’s house almost every day after school hour. Mark himself has long forgotten when they first started doing this, but he remembers it’s because Donghyuck liked to ditch class even before he decided to drop out of high school completely, and the only place he could hide from both his mother and his siblings was the roof of their own house. Jaemin told Mark this in confidence, and out of curiosity, Mark showed up one day and saw Donghyuck taking a nap on the roof on an especially warm sunny day.

“The hell are you doing up there?” Mark yelled, and he had to repeat what he said a few more times because Donghyuck didn’t seem to hear him the first time. He only woke up after the second repeat, and Mark was already losing patience.

“Running away from life,” Donghyuck then replied in a wistful, tired tone. “You’re ruining my peace, Canada, why are you here?”

Why was he there indeed. Mark actually couldn’t quite answer that. Maybe he was just curious, maybe he just wanted to check out the validity of Jaemin’s info. Maybe he didn’t want to go home because he knew for sure Taeyong would be sucking face with Jaehyun at their front porch. Maybe it was something else entirely, which he didn’t know yet.

“I don’t know,” Mark answered frankly. Then, “Can I join you?”

Donghyuck considered this for a few seconds, eyes narrowing at Mark as if he just proposed the most outrageous idea ever, but then shrugged and beckoned him to come closer. “Why not,” Donghyuck said. “You’re surely not the worst company out there.”

Which was basically Donghyuck’s way of saying, yep, come on up, I was getting pretty bored and lonely, anyway.

It took Mark a full five minutes to figure out how to get there, with Donghyuck yelling unhelpful tips from where he was perched on the ridge (“How do I get up?” “Climb the goddamn tree, Mark Lee, how else?” “But… it’s so tall.” “It’s not that tall, you’re just a wuss.”) though in the end the younger boy had to jump down and help Mark anyway. They ended up carving a dent on the body of the tree with an old pocketknife Donghyuck found in his kitchen drawer.

Years from then, whenever he’s about to climb the tree, Mark will always stop for a second to remember the moment when Donghyuck almost stabbed him in the gut when the knife in his hold bounced while he was trying to carve on a particularly stout skin of wood.

“Bad day?” Donghyuck asks, when Mark shows up in front of the gate of his house, face all scrunched and mouth scowling. “No, wait, it ain’t that, is it? Taeyong’s using the porch as a date spot again.”

“You read my mind,” Mark dejectedly says, pushing the gate open and heading straight for the tree. Donghyuck’s laugh is loud and clear and familiar from the roof.

“Technically I didn’t,” he says. “That’s not my thing, mind you.”

“I know that very well, thank you,” Mark huffs. “Your thing is shoving weird images people neither want nor need inside of their heads.”

“Sounds about right.”

He begins climbing the tree and pushing himself up to the roof, where Donghyuck has scooted over from his previous spot to give Mark some space. Mark sighs, shrugging off his bag and putting it down to his feet. He’s got a lot of homework which Renjun has specifically told him to do right after he gets home, but since he isn’t, he decides that maybe it’s okay to forget that for a while.

Especially since Donghyuck’s here. His eyes are twinkling when Mark catches his gaze, bronzed skin glowing faintly underneath the failing daylight. There’s a bit of dirt on the sleeve of his white shirt, but then he says, “You’re staring too much, Mark Lee,” and Mark snaps out of it. He scowls.

“It’s my eyes,” Mark replies. “What’s your problem?”

“None,” Donghyuck says, and he grins at Mark. “Am I that amazing of a sight that you just can’t take your eyes off me?”

Maybe you are, Mark’s unhelpful brain suggests, but of course he doesn’t say it out loud. He just rolls his eyes and drops himself next to Donghyuck, brushing their arms together as he does. Mark always marvels over why Donghyuck’s skin is warm all year round. He’s like the sun, Jeno once said. He could walk around naked in winter and wouldn’t even shiver. That is one mental image Mark absolutely didn’t need, but alas, what Jeno has said is what Jeno has said.

“No, you just look weird as always,” Mark says instead. He hears Donghyuck’s disbelieving snort right next to him.

“Honesty is a virtue, Mark,” Donghyuck says. “And you need more of it.”

That’s easy for him to say, since Donghyuck basically grew up with no brain-to-mouth filter. Lying is so not his thing, he’d say, and Mark thinks many misadventures that their group of friends have encountered somehow stemmed from said lack of desire to lie.

(There was that one time when he got caught sneaking into the public pool in town with Jaemin and Jeno while they were twelve (Mark had been away at the time), and Donghyuck just straight up got them in a worse situation by contradicting Jaemin’s claim that they were all “simply kids getting lost”.

“But to be fair,” Donghyuck told Mark years later, a wide grin adorning his face, “Jaemin was such a bad liar it’s actually amazing. The janitor wouldn’t have believed him anyway.”

“Lay the hell off me, Donghyuck, at least I tried to save us,” Jaemin yelled from where he was splayed on Jeno’s couch, looking up from his phone to glare at Donghyuck. “I don’t remember your self-righteous ass doing shit to stop him from calling your mom.”)

Donghyuck’s roof is actually one of Mark’s favorite places. Others include his own bed, Taeyong’s kitchen (even if he has to sweep it everyday or else Taeyong will bust a vein), the English clubroom at school – but really, Donghyuck’s roof is on a whole another level. Maybe it’s because Donghyuck himself is always there with him, hence making the spot kind of theirs, but whatever. Mark doesn’t want to think about it. Not now, anyway.

They both fall asleep easily here. The place is cool because it’s shaded by the tree they use to climb up there. The wind always feels nice on his skin, too. Even the hard, scratchy material of the roof underneath Mark’s back has become sort of comforting over the years. It still absorbs the heat, though, so in the nastiest of summer days, they both migrate to the patio, fighting over who between them should go and buy the other iced tea. Most always Mark will lose the rock-paper-scissors and get the worse end of the stick. Donghyuck’s just weird and lucky like that.

This isn’t one of those days, and the temperature is only steadily going down as time passes by. Donghyuck is running his mouth about his day – the same thing as always: he was bored out of his wits, a bit lonely (which, Mark notices, was said in a very reluctant tone) with nothing to do except to reread books he’s read over a thousand of times before – as Mark plays with the loose button of his shirt.

“You know what, maybe I do need to buy some more books,” Donghyuck finishes. He shrugs and rolls to lie on his side, facing Mark now, his cheek only a few inches from Mark’s shoulder. Mark opens one of his eyes, and is greeted immediately with Donghyuck’s smile as he holds their interconnected gaze steadily. Mark’s throat is suddenly dry. “I feel like I’ve memorized all of the lines in my Paris Metro Tales already.”

Mark swallows, trying to get some moisture back in his esophagus. “No offense, Hyuck, but I don’t think you’re that brilliant,” he says.

Mark expects Donghyuck to respond with a scathing remark, but no. Instead, the younger boy just chortles and drops his chin against Mark’s bony shoulder, his forehead pressed lightly against Mark’s ear.

Oh my god, Mark’s mind screams almost immediately. What is this? What the hell is this?

“I am that brilliant, you dipshit,” Donghyuck answers in a whisper. His voice is soft and tranquil, something Donghyuck doesn’t really do unless he’s really, really sure there isn’t anyone else there but Mark. For better or worse. “Get that inside of your head.”

“Which reminds me,” Mark continues, trying not to react weirdly as Donghyuck curls his hand around Mark’s arm, nuzzling his face further into his neck, “You haven’t been inside of my head today. That’s a first.”

“Oh, you’re right, I haven’t,” Donghyuck says. He lets out an appreciative hum. “What do you want to see?”

“You take requests now?”

“I’m just feeling extremely generous today, Markie. Don’t question it.”

“Well then,” Mark says, using his free hand to brush up his hair from his eyes. “Since you were talking about Paris Metro Tales…”

Donghyuck smiles. “Gotcha. Close your eyes.”

Mark does what he’s told to immediately. He knows Donghyuck doesn’t have to, but the younger still snaps his fingers in front of Mark’s face (“For dramatic effect,” Donghyuck explains, and Mark just sighs) before the images start flooding in, filling the walls of his mind like a water fountain. Mark can never quite get his finger wrapped around the sensation of essentially letting Donghyuck paint over Mark’s thoughts with his own; it feels cold and salty like ocean water but also warm and sweet like Taeyong’s cup of coffee in the morning. It’s out of place and familiar at the same time, and Mark feels Donghyuck’s fingers tighten on his sleeves as images of the Paris sky ripples on the back of his eyelids.

Wow, Mark’s brain supplies, as Donghyuck takes him down from the purplish sky and down to the ground, right in the middle of a plaza. Just. Wow.

The images clear up and become even more definite from there on, with richer and stronger niceties. Donghyuck’s control of his power is simply amazing; he’s got everything down to the smallest and finest of details and it’s stupefying. Everything seems so real that Mark almost can’t believe Donghyuck has never stepped his foot out of this town.

Donghyuck probably has a good guess of what Mark is thinking about when he hears another one of Mark’s contented sighs, because he laughs again and says, “Maybe in my previous life I was living in Paris?”

“You believe in reincarnation?” Mark questions quietly.

“Maybe. It’s not as implausible as you think.”

“How so?”

“Dunno. I just think so. Does it matter?”

“Mm, maybe not so much.”

Donghyuck’s fingers loosen around his arm, gently and leisurely, and so do the images in Mark’s mind. The alluring boulevards, the lilac sky, the warm air – it all fades quietly and slowly, just like waking up from a good dream. In a way, it’s kind of the same thing anyway. When Mark opens his eyes, he can see the branches of the tree above them, the small leaves shaking slightly from the breezy wind.

“I feel like Paris is a beige kind of city,” Donghyuck comments. “The color. You know?”

“It’s purple to me,” Mark says, frowning, the color of Donghyuck’s Paris sky still very vibrant in his mind. “What color do you think Vancouver is?”

“Not sure. A shade of green, maybe? Or blue, since you mentioned that there’s like, a loooot of skies. Also grey or white, too, for winter season.”

“Not wrong,” Mark says slowly. “You’re not wrong.”

“Mm. So which color is it to you?”

Mark opens his mouth to answer, but then he closes it again, the words he wants to say retreating back into his stomach. Donghyuck’s head fits nicely on the crook of Mark’s neck, and he’s sidling up to him like a kitten, and now Mark isn’t sure if his heart is pounding so harshly in his chest because of it or because of the fading thrill Donghyuck’s visualizations.

If Mark’s going to be honest here, it’s definitely not the latter.

Despite all that jazz of Donghyuck’s ostensible incapability to keep his hands off him, Mark would like to state that he becomes a completely different person when they’re not alone together, and it’s gallingly impressive and remarkably annoying at the same time.

“We haven’t come to the lot lately,” Renjun says one day, out of the blue. Mark would’ve ignored the remark if Renjun hasn’t actually halted all of his movements and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes are doing that terrifyingly empty gaze again, staring at nowhere in particular as he freezes.

“Word?” Mark says. He stops walking too to turn slightly and take a good look at his friend, who slightly brings down the book he’s reading to stare back. “The lot?”

“Yeah, the lot. Do you want to go there?”

“Did you see us going there?” Mark questions curiously. “Just now?”

“Mmhmm.”

Mark considers this for a moment. “That sounds like a good idea actually. It’ll be a great way to destress from our hectic school schedule, if anything. Last Geo project…” Mark stops to shudder. “Dear god.”

Renjun sighs in solidarity. “My point exactly, Mark. Let’s go pick up the kids.”

Mark and Renjun arrive in Jisung’s house around the same time Chenle does. The younger boy’s eyes light up when he sees the both of them, and Mark feels like he’ll just suddenly pop and glow the next second should he start jumping excitedly, so he grabs Chenle by the sleeve and wrap his arm around his neck, trapping him in a friendly headlock.

“Hey,” Renjun greets, as Chenle struggles within Mark’s hold. “Good thing you’re already here, Lele, I was just about to text you to come over.”

“Oooh, are we going somewhere?” Chenle asks elatedly. “The lot, perhaps?”

“Why else would we be here, idiot,” Renjun continues. He jabs his thumb at the front door of Jisung’s house. “Come pick up your guy.”

“Sure thing, sure thing,” Chenle says, and he slips out of Mark’s reach before he knows it. Chenle takes off his shoes and leave them on the porch, throwing a wide, teethy grin at both Mark and Renjun before he vanishes inside.

“Such a great coincidence though,” Mark comments a few moments later, when they start hearing yells and loud banters from inside of the house. Chenle must’ve found Jisung and is now trying to get him out from his bedroom. “He came here to the right place at the right time.”

“Mark, he always hangs out with Jisung everyday anyway,” Renjun says. He makes a vague gesture with his hand toward the house. “It’s only a matter of luck to guess where they will hang out for the day, so it’s not that big of a pure chance. I didn’t even need to see if he was coming.”

“’S that so?”

“That is so.”

“Alright,” Mark says, and his eyes wander. He ends up looking straight at the house across the street, which is Jeno’s, he belatedly realizes, and then at the open window, from which two heads are sticking out of – two boys are staring right at him with varying degrees of surprise painted on their faces. Mark raises an eyebrow because those are some familiar faces.

He automatically grins. “Yo!” he yells in greeting, raising his hand to wave at them even though both Jaemin and Donghyuck’s attention have already been on him the whole time. “What’s up? Wait, is that really you, Hyuck? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Jaemin shouts back first, while Donghyuck just stares at him blankly. Weird. He’s usually snappy and quick to respond, what’s up with him today? “You said you have EC today.”

“I do,” Mark says, and he shrugs. “Well, I did. I’m ditching.”

Donghyuck suddenly vanishes back into the room, leaving Jaemin alone with his elbows on the sill. Mark’s eyebrows shoot up even higher, but he doesn’t mention it. He decides to just cross the street and talk to them from under the windows; it’s easier that way, anyway. He jumps over the fence between Jeno and Jaemin’s house easily, and when he looks up again, Jaemin’s staring at him with a small smile on his lips.

“What’s wrong, Mark?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Mark replies honestly. “Renjun saw us hanging at the industry lot, so why not make it happen?”

There’s a slight look of disbelief on Jaemin’s face, but it fades quickly as it appeared. “Really?” he says again, his voice dry. “That’s why you’re here? Because Renjun saw us doing something?”

“He’s right, though. We haven’t been there since last year,” Mark says, putting his hands inside of his pockets and hums noncommittally. Jaemin exhales loudly before he reaches his hand back and forces Donghyuck to show up again, and Mark can’t help but think he looks like a kitten, being seized by the neck like that. “Hi, Donghyuck.”

The younger boy makes a choked sort of a sound before he rasps out a, “Hey, loser.”

Jaemin turns to look at Donghyuck with disapproval in his eyes. He mutters something that Mark can’t quite catch, but it makes Donghyuck become defensive real quick and says, “What? This is how Mark and I address each other. Right, Mark?”

Mark just laughs and shrugs. “I guess.”

For a second there, he feels like he’s catching a tiny smile forming on Donghyuck’s lips, but then Jeno suddenly appears, squashing himself in between his two friends and pushing them away from each other. “Did I hear someone mention the industry lot just now?” he asks stridently, his eyes glittering with delight as he looks down at Mark.

“Yeah, that nerd downstairs just did,” Donghyuck supplies wryly, rolling his eyes as he nods his head at Mark.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Jeno exclaims enthusiastically, and he vanishes again inside, leaving Jaemin and Donghyuck to share a knowing look with each other. Mark watches them talk to each other for a bit, before Jaemin sticks his head out from the window again and yells, “Donghyuck’s going down to get you.”

Mark shoots up his thumb and nods. Soon enough, Donghyuck walks out from Jeno’s door, shouts a vague greeting to Renjun from across the street, and turns to walk Mark’s way. Mark raises another eyebrow when Donghyuck just shoves him with his hand.

“What?” Mark demands, when Donghyuck crosses his arms and scowls, staring him down with a glare (that is supposed to be scary, Mark guesses, but he’s just adorable).

“You told me before that you’d never skip EC, not even if the world ends,” Donghyuck says, and Mark doesn’t understand why he sounds so annoyed over some shit he’d said while he was fourteen, probably. That was years ago, when Mark still hadn’t known there were more fun things to do like jumping over the fence of the lot to hang with his friends. “I picked Jaemin and Jeno up from school today. If I’d known you were free anyway I would’ve grabbed you, too.”

“I—“ Mark says, but has to cut his sentence short because a laugh is making its way out of his throat. Donghyuck looks so disappointed, it’s unreal. “Oh god, Donghyuck. What?”

“Instead you walked home with Renjun—“

“Donghyuck, if I’d known you’d be there I would’ve escaped EC sooner,” Mark interrupts, flicking his fingers softly against Donghyuck’s cheek, and the younger hisses as he pulls away from Mark in faux disgust. Wow. Okay then. “We’re all here now, so things are good, yeah?”

“Maybe. For now,” Donghyuck says, and he tears his gaze away from Mark to look at Renjun again, who is still standing in front of Jisung’s gate. His glasses are sliding down his nose, eyes sharp as he watches them from the top of his book. It’s actually worrying Mark – just how long has Renjun stayed like that, quietly scrutinizing them with his unreadable eyes? Longer than expected, probably, because as soon as they noticed, he lifts up his book to cover his face and (very loudly) clears his throat.

“Bitch,” Donghyuck murmurs under his breath, though there’s no bite in his tone.

Mark now wonders why Donghyuck sounds as agitated as Mark is. They both have no reason to be agitated in the first place. This is normal.

This is normal, Mark tells himself again, when he sees Jaemin and Jeno coming out from the door together, their arms pressed so closely against the others’ as they walk that they’re basically holding hands, anyway. That is normal for the two of them, but this – the thing between him and Donghyuck – is normal, too.

Maybe.

It’s one of those evenings again when Mark goes downstairs to refill his bottle of water in the middle of doing his homework and catches the sound of laughter from their porch. Since Taeyong is nowhere to be seen nor heard, Mark just automatically guesses that he must be outside, and just to make sure, Mark takes a peek from the living room windows, his face half-hidden behind the pleated curtains.

Sure enough, his brother is standing near their front gate, his hands shucked into the pockets of his hoodie as he talks to someone – tall and handsome and black-haired with a dimpled smile, and Mark groans loudly, putting one hand over his face. For the love of god, will they never quit that shit where they just get close to each other and flirt yet nobody’s gutsy enough to make the first move to kiss the other? Is that something that neither Jaehyun nor Taeyong can do? Are they really too into the mutual crushing deal that they don’t want to change it? Is that even a thing?

Mark doesn’t want to, but he keeps on watching them until Jaehyun says his goodbye – Mark notices his hand lingers on Taeyong’s shoulder a little longer than what he deems as socially tolerable, and when Taeyong turns after Jaehyun vanishes down the street, his face is giddy and Mark quickly runs to the stairs so he can pretend that he hasn’t been spying on them for the last ten minutes.

“Bro,” Mark says, as soon as Taeyong closes the door behind him, a wide grin on his pretty face (another reason to doubt that they’re related – Taeyong is unbelievably good-looking, it’s unfair), “Jaehyun was totally checking your ass out.”

“Good, because I was also checking out his,” Taeyong replies immediately. He presses his back on the door and sighs dreamily, and Mark groans. Here we go. “He’s so cute, I can’t believe this? What the fuck? I want to take him out on a date. Maybe even bring him home and show him to Mom so I can marry him, what do you think?”

Mark scrunches his nose, turning his head around as he walks up the stairs to his bedroom. “Ew, too much information. Nobody’s stopping you, though.”

“He’s the one stopping me! He should ask me out first, I have pride,” Taeyong says. Then he sighs again. “You know, Markie, for someone who seems tired of listening to me rambling about my love life, you sure are pretty attentive.”

“I’m a good brother,” Mark says defensively. “I listen.”

“Yeah? Either that or you just want to know how to deal with your own love life.”

Mark blinks. “Excuse me?”

“How’s it going with Donghyuck?” Taeyong teases, and Mark can feel his face growing hot for no apparent reason.

“What do you mean?” he tries, uselessly, to play dumb.

“Oh, Mark,” Taeyong says. He then gives Mark a look of pity, and Mark flips him off.  “I’ve seen the way you look at him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, too. It’s a no-brainer.”

Mark completely whips his body around to let out a, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” over his shoulder before he runs up the stairs and slams the door close behind him. He vaguely hears Taeyong shout back a “Mark Lee is a coward!” which he grudgingly ignores.

Here’s a thing Mark mulls over at night: what is Donghyuck to him?

Donghyuck is a friend he shares most of his afternoons with. Donghyuck is a friend who will sometimes show up in his house unannounced and spends his whole weekend there without Taeyong batting an eyelash about it. Donghyuck is a friend who once nearly drowned Mark in Chenle’s pond and almost stabbed him with a pocketknife though he always swears “he does hate Mark, but not to death”. Donghyuck is a friend who will snap at him for the silliest of reasons, but also be the first one to have his back when he’s in trouble (it’s true because Donghyuck has essentially been providing a sanctuary for Mark to go to whenever Taeyong monopolizes their porch).

Lastly, Donghyuck is a friend that Mark will definitely tell first if he ever wants to stop trashtalking Taeyong and his stupid infatuated antics just so he can join in the fun of being in love, except that’s not going to work out all that well since Mark is pretty fucking sure he likes Donghyuck like that and telling him will just complicate things further.

(Wow. Mark can’t believe he just thought of it with his own brain. He likes Donghyuck like that. Maybe. Who knows. Definitely not him.)

He doesn’t even remember from when the feelings of platonically wrapping his arm around Donghyuck’s shoulders became an intense and inexplicable sort of longing to, uh, not so platonically hold his hand. He also doesn’t remember getting insanely jumpy inside when Donghyuck’s eyes drop low to his mouth when they talk, or when he gives Mark a not so lowkey once-over in any occasion when Mark’s not wearing the obligatory Monday school uniform.

(“What’s with the weird look?”

Mark had the guts to ask Donghyuck about it once, when the younger boy so very obviously stopped scrolling down the screen of his phone to give Mark his full attention after he’d just come out from the bathroom. Taeyong was going to take them both out for dinner somewhere out of town, and Mark had promptly decided to dress nice – at least in his taste. It’s just his favorite button-up shirt and black slacks.

“Do I look that ugly, Donghyuck?” Mark said again, when Donghyuck just kept on staring without any word. “So ugly that I rendered you speechless, even?”

“We are not going to church right now, Mark,” Donghyuck replied, as soon as Mark stalked closer to grab his phone from behind Donghyuck. He seemed to have found his voice back, and was for a second playing with the soft fabric of Mark’s sleeve. Then his hand left, and Mark felt a little bit disappointed, somewhat. “But no, answering your question… you don’t look ugly at all.”

“Uh, is that a compliment? Are you saying I look dashing, is that it?”

Donghyuck punches Mark lightly in the gut. “Keep dreaming.”)

Mark is reluctant to admit it, but sometimes one of the things keeping him up late at night is Donghyuck. Donghyuck and the things he says, Donghyuck and the things he does, Donghyuck and everything that he is. Mark rolls around in his bed and tries to dampen the overthinking by burying his face in his pillow, but that does little. If anything, the darkness just encourages his mind to work even harder than before, yelling Donghyuck this and Donghyuck that and a whole lot of what ifs.

It’s kind of weird that they never really clash seriously even though they’re “always going at each other’s throat”, in Jisung’s opinion. The closest thing to a fight that they’ve ever had has got to be the argument that blew up the day Donghyuck dropped out of high school.

Mark heard of the news from Renjun, who was told by Jaemin, who heard of it from Jisung, who apparently witnessed the whole episode of Donghyuck running away from his Spanish and jumping off the two-story classroom to escape Mr. Seo, who chased him all the way to the second floor. Mark’s head spun so hard he felt dizzy and had to sit down – there were just too many things to understand at once, and even with Jeno’s hand on his shoulder and his “are you alright”, Mark still couldn’t stifle the strings of why why why dancing around in his brain.

“Why would he do that,” Mark finally rasped out, and it seemed like Renjun couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to sigh, because he did both consecutively. “Why the fuck would he even do that, oh my god. What was he thinking?”

“He doesn’t use his brain when he’s pressed, Mark, you know that,” Renjun courteously said. “He runs fully on his survival instinct, especially when Mr. Seo is on his ass. Don’t worry too much. What’s done is done.”

Mark stood up again, Renjun’s hand slipping off his shoulder. “I’m gonna find him and kill him.”

“For why!” Renjun exclaimed, following Mark when the older stormed out of the lab, peeling off his coat as he did. “School stressed him out too much, I don’t think it’s that bad of an idea if he wants to stop going at all.”

“School stresses us out too but have we ever even considered dropping it? No!” Mark said. He made a sharp turn around the corner, almost crashing against a younger student and sending them both down the stairs. “That was irresponsible and dangerous of him and somebody needs to let him know.”

“Jaemin’s already on it,” Renjun said.

“One isn’t enough,” Mark shoots back. “I’m not sure what Jaemin would do to Hyuck, but whatever it is, I want in.”

“Wow,” Renjun commented. They both stopped in front of Mark’s locker, where he hastily shoved in his lab coat and bag and all of his books at once. “Wow, Mark, you look furious, but I’m pretty sure you’re just bitter that you won’t see Donghyuck again at school.”

Mark stopped moving for a moment. “Say what?”

“I know you heard me the first time.”

Mark did hear him the first time; he just didn’t want to believe it. He shook his head and closed his locker door. “That’s nonsense. I’m worried about him and his future. He needs school.”

“Maybe he does, but if he really, really doesn’t like it, who are we to force it to him?” Renjun said with a noncommittal shrug. Mark’s left eye twitched, and he turned around so Renjun wouldn’t see the sourness on his face. “Plus it’s not like his parents are going to make a big deal out of it. You know how things are.”

Mark did know how things are with Donghyuck’s family. Not bad, but not good, either.

“I’m still going to find him, though,” he decided. “This afternoon. Right after school ends, I’ll find him and—“

“Get in line.” Jaemin suddenly appears out of nowhere and leans himself on Mark’s locker. “I called dibs on killing Donghyuck first.”

Mark frowned. “Leave some of him for me later.”

“Sure. Give him a hard time,” Jaemin said, and he left as quickly as he’d come. Mark’s gaze followed him closely until he vanished from the corridor, and he swore there was steam rising from the top of Jaemin’s head almost too comically.

“See?” Renjun asked, when Mark just kept on frowning. “I told you Jaemin’s on it, there’s no need for you to join in, too.”

Mark considered Renjun’s honestly sensible remark, but even so, he still ended up in front of Donghyuck’s house later that evening. He was worried he would have to knock on the door and deal with Donghyuck’s mom to get to her son, but luckily enough, Donghyuck was sitting on the front lawn, cross-legged and grumpy. He wondered if Jaemin told him that he was coming, and if Donghyuck had been sitting there the whole time waiting for him. There was a faint bruise on his cheek when the light from the porch hit his face, and Mark winced.

“Did Jaemin do that?” was the first thing Mark said instead of “What in the world were you thinking?” like how he’d planned it earlier. Not weird, really, since Mark seemed to lose focus often whenever Donghyuck was involved.

“No, I did it to myself so he wouldn’t have to,” Donghyuck replied dryly. He didn’t sound like he was joking, though, which just worried Mark more.

“What the hell. You hit yourself?”

“I rammed my fucking face to the tree over there, Mark, so yes, essentially I did hit myself.”

“What is wrong with you,” Mark said, and he noticed that his own voice had softened to the point that it scared him. He couldn’t afford to be soft right now, not when he had things to settle. “Why?”

Mark didn’t even have to specify that he wasn’t really asking about the bruise, but more about why Donghyuck had suddenly decided to just throw things out of the window (including himself, quite literally, too) like that. Donghyuck knew anyway.

“I’m not gonna repeat what I said to Jaemin just a few hours before this,” he defiantly said. “All I’m gonna tell you is that I’m not sorry. I’m actually glad I did this.”

“Why,” Mark asked again. He still couldn’t bring himself to get closer because Donghyuck was wearing that don’t-even-think-about-it expression on his face, and so he let the distance between him standing at the gate and Donghyuck sitting on the lawn weigh down his shoulders. “Why, Donghyuck? Surely there are other ways.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Donghyuck said. “There are other ways, Mark, but maybe I just don’t want to do them. Let it go, okay? Not even my mom nags me this much.”

“Well, I probably care about you more anyway,” Mark said heatedly, and the moment the words left his mouth, he instantly regretted it. The flame died down as soon as he saw Donghyuck’s face dimming, and he refused to catch Mark’s eyes again after that. Mark wanted to punch himself in the face. “Shit. I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.”

“Nah, you weren’t wrong,” Donghyuck said. He tried to sound dismissive, but Mark knew he’d gotten him upset, and the worst thing about an upset Donghyuck was that he wouldn’t yell, he would just get uncharacteristically quiet. A Donghyuck who doesn’t snap at Mark is a Donghyuck out of his element. “You care more about me than everyone else does. Kinda annoying in its own way, really.”

“That’s not true,” Mark said, his mouth suddenly dry and his mind empty again. There was just a hefty pang in his chest, a feeling he couldn’t quite explain. Was he really that obvious? Was he annoying Donghyuck?

“That is true,” Donghyuck insisted. “At least in my opinion.”

“Not in mine.”

“Then that’s your own problem, dammit,” Donghyuck said. He got up, the sleeves of his sweater falling down his arms gracelessly as he did, and Mark didn’t know why he suddenly started noticing the small things that didn’t matter much to him before, like how thin Donghyuck’s wrists were or how soft he looked in all of his jackets. Maybe if Mark put his own jacket on Donghyuck, he would drown in it.

Donghyuck said something but Mark was too busy handling his own thoughts to care, and the next thing he knew Donghyuck was already in front of him. Mark’s eyes tracked down to the bruise on his cheek, now more prominent because he was closer, and he swallowed.

“What?” he asked. “Did you say something?”

“I said go home, it’s late,” Donghyuck said. “I don’t want to deal with you and your niggling now. Let me live my life in peace.”

“I’m not—“ Mark said, but he cut himself off. He wasn’t what, exactly? He wasn’t nagging Donghyuck? He kinda was. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Donghyuck, I’m just—“

“—trying to tell me what to do, yeah,” Donghyuck finished it for him, and Mark spluttered a vague complaint in frustration. Then he raised his hand, and Mark knew he wasn’t going to hit him – because even if Donghyuck did have a dagger for a tongue, hitting another person was never his style – but he flinched anyway. Donghyuck’s hand stopped on Mark’s shoulder, warm and gentle, thumb pressing lightly on the base of Mark’s neck. “Listen.”

He kept quiet after that, eyes full of meaning. Then Mark realized he was waiting for a response, a confirmation from Mark.

“Oh,” he said dumbly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m listening.”

“I’m gonna be okay,” Donghyuck said again. His thumb pressed a little harder, but not too hard that it hurt. Maybe he meant it as some sort of reassurance. “You’re gonna be okay, too, Mark. Besides, you can still see me everyday after school. It’s not that big of a change to adapt to.”

Mark blinked. “What does that mean?”

“Isn’t that the main reason why you’re so frustrated?” Donghyuck asked. “Not because you’re worried for my future – not that much, anyway – but because you’re pissed you won’t be able to see me there again?”

“Did Renjun tell you that?”

Donghyuck raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so it is true?”

“No! That’s so insane,” Mark complained. He curled his hand over Donghyuck’s wrist and pulled his hand off his shoulder, and held it within his instead. Donghyuck’s already-raised brows shoot up even higher, but Mark tried to ignore it. Key word: tried. His heart started beating faster than he’d ever anticipated. “Alright. I’m still not okay with this, but as long as you said you’ll be fine…”

“I’ll be fine,” Donghyuck dismissively said. “It’s just school, not the end of the world, Canada. You worry too much.”

“But did you really have to jump off the second story classroom? That was flashy as heck, I can’t believe you,” Mark quipped after a long silence, and Donghyuck hissed in exasperation as he pulled his hand away from Mark. Faux annoyance, Mark knew, because when Donghyuck grinned a second later, it was a pretty damn proud grin.

“I’m a legend. I live and breathe to be flashy,” Donghyuck said. “Take it or leave it.”

Mark didn’t reply, but he would very much take it, please and thank you.

Apparently getting caught once during his early teenage years isn’t stopping Donghyuck from trying to sneak into the pool again, this time with Mark.

“What?” he says, when Mark just stares at him for a long period of time, speechless and soundly amazed that Donghyuck is this crazy. They’re sharing a spot in the corner store they frequent after school hours (Mark’s school hours, Donghyuck reminds him nicely), the younger boy’s ankle brushing against Mark’s calves every now and then under the table. “It’s the middle of summer hell. Let’s cool down a bit. You’re game, right?”

“That doesn’t really justify everything you just said to me, Donghyuck,” Mark tries to reason, but Donghyuck just snorts.

“It’s better at night anyway,” he continues, as if Mark has never said anything. “Less people. No people at all, actually, so the pool will be all ours.”

“What if you get caught again?”

“If we get caught,” Donghyuck says slyly, “Then we get caught, big deal.”

“It is a big deal!”

“Don’t bitch too much, just pack your swimming trunks and meet me here at nine,” Donghyuck says, his tone final, effectively closing the conversation. Mark sighs in defeat. One thing that is so painfully Donghyuck is that whenever he’s dead set on doing something (which sadly often involves Mark and is just a disaster waiting to happen), he never gives Mark much choice to refuse. Either you’re in or you’re in, Donghyuck always says, and Mark guesses he should kind of feel honored that Donghyuck’s this stubborn just to hang out with him. It’s troublesome, and probably chancy, too, but an honor nevertheless.

It’s all going good and well until Mark shows up in front of the corner store, expecting to see Jaemin and Jeno and maybe Renjun (Jaemin would never let the kids out after eight), but instead he’s only seeing Donghyuck leaning against the streetlamp with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Where’re the others?” Mark hesitantly asks, though he already has a feeling he knows what Donghyuck’s answer is going to be.

“What others?” Donghyuck inquires back, confirming Mark’s suspicion. “Who said anything about bringing along the others?”

Mark splutters, “Oh, so is this, uh, a date?”

“You can think of it that way if you wanna,” Donghyuck casually replies after a slight pause, and Mark feels as if he’s just been punched in the chest. Donghyuck’s grinning, and it’s not the usual kind of nifty grin, either – it’s a sincere one, where he genuinely looks happy and excited and ready to jump into any kind of trouble. Which, Mark later thinks, isn’t really something good per se, but at the moment he’s too distracted to function.

“Oh, but,” Donghyuck adds, when Mark is still thunderstruck where he stands, “If you call us hanging out and doing things – just the both of us, mind you – going on a date, then we’ve practically been dating since, like, eighth grade.”

Mark regains his sanity back all of the sudden. “Donghyuck, that’s not how it works,” he whines, the heat spreading across his face way too quickly for him to ignore.

“No?” Donghyuck sounds disappointed. “Whatever, Mark Lee. Let’s go.”

Halfway through their walk to the pool, Mark has decided that trying to persuade Donghyuck to reconsider his idea is useless, so he stops talking all at once. Donghyuck’s quiet, too, especially when he asks Mark to unlock the gate of the building, which Mark does reluctantly. At least Donghyuck has enough common sense to not ask Mark to break the lock completely, or else Mark will really have to fight him then and there.

Donghyuck whistles when Mark makes a sharp, whittling movement with his hand, and the deadbolt unlocks itself with a soft clink. “I am never not impressed,” he comments, when he pushes the door open and walks in, Mark following behind him with a sigh, “Whenever you use your power. Seriously, it’s the coolest thing ever.”

“Thanks, I guess, but I’d appreciate it more if you would stop asking me to help you break rules with it,” Mark says, trying not to sound too pleased with Donghyuck’s compliment.

The boy just laughs guiltlessly. “You go along with it anyway,” he retorts, and Mark silently agrees.

Mark barely visits the place anyway because it’s always packed during summertime, but he soon finds that Donghyuck is right. At night, when the water in the pool is calm and empty and a nice shade of dark blue, with only fluorescent tubes shining dim white lights from above them, it is a much better place. The quietness could be eerie, maybe, if he was here alone, but because he’s with Donghyuck, it’s just a whole new sense of comforting for him.

When he turns to look at Donghyuck, the younger is already looking at him. He’s probably been scanning Mark’s expression for a while now, and he looks satisfied with himself now that Mark is visibly thrilled, too.

“I told you so,” Donghyuck says before Mark can even say anything. And then, without a warning, he snatches Mark’s bag from his arm and pushes him straight into the pool, still with his clothes and glasses and all.

Mark doesn’t even have enough time to scream or anything, because the next thing he knows, he’s already sinking into cold water. His glasses float a little from his face while he’s under, and he quickly grabs the frame to secure it from going anywhere. When his toes hit the bottom, he pushes himself up to the surface again, gasping for breath, wet strands of hair prickling his face.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” is the only thing he manages to rasp out. Donghyuck is standing safely at the edge, laughing his ass off with his hands on his stomach. “Donghyuck, seriously! My fucking glasses.”

Donghyuck’s giggling slowly fades away. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

“That was not funny,” Mark says, as he swims to Donghyuck, holding his glasses up in one hand and using the other to help him move. “Now how the hell am I supposed to go home if you get my clothes all wet, you idiot?”

Donghyuck straight up ignores him. Instead, he stoops down and reaches out his hand, asking for Mark’s glasses, probably so he can tuck it safely in Mark’s bag. The smile is still persistent on his face, and just for a moment there, Mark has a slightly better idea than to just get out of the water and chew Donghyuck out. When he’s close enough, trying his best to keep his expression neutral, Mark gives his glasses to Donghyuck – except that he also grabs his wrist with his other hand, and yanks the boy in with one strong pull.

At least Donghyuck manages to yell out a curse, unlike Mark, though his voice becomes muffled when he goes under with a loud splash. He resurfaces pretty quickly, grabs both of Mark’s arms strongly as if his life depended on it, and then spits water at Mark’s face.

Mark cringes. “Ew, Donghyuck.”

“Bitch!” he begins, but Mark cuts him off, “You started it!”

Donghyuck chews on his bottom lip, trying to find some sort of witty reply, Mark is sure, but then he just lets go of Mark’s shoulders with another curse under his breath. His wet hair is glued to his forehead, too, just like Mark, and trickles of water are dripping down his face.

He still looks really lovable, though.

“If both of us are here then what’s gonna happen to your glasses, dimwit,” Donghyuck finally says again, pointing at Mark’s glasses, which is still held safely in his hand.

“At least it’s not my phone,” Mark says with a shrug. Donghyuck chokes out a laugh, and Mark ends up laughing with him, too. Long gone is the annoyance and worry of having to walk home drenched – all that matters now is that Donghyuck is there so close to him, and quite possibly also didn’t bring another set of dry clothes.

Mark doesn’t know what’s gotten into him – probably his brain froze up from the sudden change of temperature while he was underwater or something – but all he knows now is he’s sliding his hand up Donghyuck’s cheek, pressing his thumb on the spot where he’s sure is the same place where the bruise he saw years ago had been. Donghyuck blinks, reasonably confused, and Mark leans his face in to press their foreheads together.

Mark’s mind is still working, actually, to some extent, because he realizes what he’s doing is weird and uncalled for and totally not Mark, and he’s screaming at himself to stop and pull away. But Donghyuck doesn’t push him off him like Mark expects him to, and somehow it’s a good enough signal for his body to not take a step back. Fuck what his mind has to say, if Mark’s body wants to be this close to Donghyuck’s, then so be it.

“Hey, Mark,” Donghyuck says, and his voice is softer than Mark ever remembered Donghyuck’s voice could ever be, “Just saying that if you’re gonna kiss me, I’m probably gonna kiss you back, but then I’ll hit you so hard you’re gonna pass out.”

“Why?” Mark asks, but evidently he’s just too impatient to care, because he just moves his other hand to cup Donghyuck’s cheeks, lifts his face up a little more, and bends down to actually, thoughtlessly press his mouth against Donghyuck’s.

Donghyuck sticks true to his words – he does kiss Mark back, equally as keen as Mark is, but only for the first few seconds because soon he pushes Mark away from him and glares. “Fuck off,” he says, “Why did you do this here?”

Mark is completely thunderstruck, the sweetness of Donghyuck’s mouth still lingering on his tongue. “Say what?”

“We could’ve—“ Donghyuck says, but then he stops himself and lets out a frustrated whine. “No, nevermind. I hate you and your dumb ass.”

“Donghyuck,” Mark calls out, as Donghyuck scrambles away from him to get out from the pool, and when Donghyuck doesn’t respond, he tries again, louder this time. “Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck hisses as he climbs up from the water. “Don’t yell! You’ll get us in trouble.”

“Oh, now you’re worried about getting in trouble?” Mark quips, as he follows Donghyuck’s. The younger is shaking the water out of his hair, just like a wet dog. Cute, Mark thinks, but then he remembers that Donghyuck just told him to fuck off, and his smile dims. “Donghyuck, what’s wrong?”

“You,” Donghyuck replies without missing a beat.

“Why?”

“Because—“ Donghyuck stops himself again, and Mark sighs loudly this time, because why can’t he just finish what he wants to say? “Because you’re dumb and unbelievably unromantic.”

Mark chokes on particularly nothing. “Why?”

Donghyuck doesn’t respond again. He just snatches his bag from where he’s put it on the bench and storms out of the pool, not even glancing back at him as he goes. Mark just stands there, still frozen to the toes, his towel hanging uselessly from his arms.

Donghyuck doesn’t text or call him for days after the pool incident.

Which stresses Mark out beyond all words, because not only can’t he see Donghyuck at school anymore, he’s also nowhere to be seen when Mark passes by his house every noon. He’s spent sleepless nights thinking about where he went wrong, and is always met with a dead end. Donghyuck definitely kissed him back, so it couldn’t have been that he secretly hates Mark and wants him dead or something. Mark tries to retrace Donghyuck’s words – because you’re dumb and unbelievably unromantic – to see if they could help him, but no.

“Hey,” he asks during lunch, when Jisung and Chenle are away to get some milk, “Do you think kissing someone in a pool is not romantic?”

Jaemin’s fork nearly drops to the floor, but Jeno catches it for him, and Jaemin murmurs a soft thanks under his breath before he turns to look at Mark, eyes wide. “What did you do to Donghyuck?”

“Nothing?” Mark immediately turns defensive, pulling away from Jaemin when his hand moves dangerously closer to Mark’s arm. He doesn’t need to be read right now, especially not by Jaemin, of all people.

Jeno whistles. “So you kissed Donghyuck in the pool?”

“No, who told you that?”

“You,” Jaemin and Jeno say at the same time; Jaemin with a disappointed sort of a tone, Jeno with an ecstatic one. “Just now,” Jaemin adds. “Dummy.”

Mark sighs, reaching his hand up to massage his forehead. “Fine, maybe I kinda did. But answer the question.”

“I mean,” Jaemin says, pointing his plastic fork at Mark’s nose, “I wouldn’t mind if someone would kiss me in a pool, not really.” It doesn’t go unnoticed by Mark how Jaemin’s eyes flicker to meet Jeno’s as he emphasizes on the word someone, and even worse is how Jeno just smiles quietly, almost knowingly, at that. Mark groans and looks away because what the hell, was that necessary?

“So it’s not that unromantic, right?” he continues.

“No. Donghyuck’s just weird.”

“Or,” Renjun finally says, after staying quiet during most of their conversation, “Or, Donghyuck could’ve just had his own agenda, but you kissing him impulsively ruined everything he’d planned.”

All three of them simultaneously look at Renjun, who stays still in his seat, flipping a page of his book nonchalantly. “Is that something Donghyuck personally told you or are you just being terrifyingly well-informed again?” Mark asks.

Renjun shrugs. “Maybe a little bit of both.”

When Taeyong opens the door to Mark’s bedroom that night, he doesn’t scold Mark for ignoring his dinner calls earlier, like Mark has expected. Instead, he just stares at Mark lying quietly on his bed with his hands on his hips, face unreadable. Mark stares right back at him. He doesn’t know but he probably looks really miserable right then and there, because Taeyong sighs and walks in.

“Minhyung,” Taeyong calls out, and Mark knows things are Serious when Taeyong uses his Korean name, and that he shouldn’t play around. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothi—“

“I never raised you to be a liar,” Taeyong interrupts, as he climbs up to Mark’s bed and effectively squeezing the younger against the wall. Then he smiles. “Boys problem?”

“No!” Mark says immediately, frowning. Then he scowls. “Maybe…”

Taeyong drapes an arm over Mark’s shoulder and pulls him closer to his chest. Mark wants to complain that he’s no longer a child that needs to be physically comforted whenever he’s sad, but he lets Taeyong hold him nevertheless. Though Mark has grown way taller than Taeyong now, and though Taeyong’s bony shoulders are a bit painful to press his cheek against, he’s still warm and soft to the touch, and when he begins stroking Mark’s back gently just like how he used to do it to make Mark stop crying years ago, Mark closes his eyes.

“What did you do to Donghyuck this time?” Taeyong asks gently, a little playfully, and Mark snorts.

“Why does everyone always assume it’s me who’s at fault whenever I’m fighting Donghyuck?” he demands. “You, Jaemin. I’m the mild one.”

Taeyong ignores his last remark. “Oh? So you are fighting Donghyuck.”

Shit. Mark completely missed Taeyong’s intention to find out what the hell has gotten him so mopey today.

He finally nods. “Yeah, well. We’re always fighting, but now’s different. It wasn’t really a fight, too. Just… something weird.”

“How so?”

“Everything’s so complicated right now. Not like how it used to. Hyung, I don’t know how to deal with this. Love sucks ass.”

Taeyong tuts softly. “It’s been a while since you actually called me hyung, Mark, I was actually wondering if you would ever do that again. Also, love doesn’t suck ass. It’s just you.”

“You say that because you’re doing okay with your boyfriend,” Mark says. “Jaehyun’s been crushing on you from day one. You had it easy, y’know?”

“Mm, maybe that’s true, but,” Taeyong says, and he presses a finger on Mark’s lips, “Donghyuck’s been crushing on you from day one, too, Minhyung.”

Mark pauses. “That can’t be. He literally told me to fuck off right after I kissed him.”

Taeyong snorts. “That’s what happened? You kissed him and he told you to fuck off? Ouch, you’re bold… but Hyuckie’s so harsh. I’m proud of him.”

“Don’t be proud, he hurt my feelings,” Mark says, almost whining. He doesn’t like to whine, but there’s only Taeyong there, and if he can’t whine to his own brother, who else can he turn to? “I can’t handle him.”

“You’ve been handling him just fine all these years, what changed?” Taeyong asks. Then he smiles again. “Actually, don’t answer that, I already know. Your feelings. Your feelings have changed.”

“Is that bad?”

“Markie, you can never be bad,” Taeyong says. “And it’s not possible that Donghyuck doesn’t reciprocate. Have you seen the way he looked at you whenever he thinks you’re not looking?”

“Hyung, please. If I’m not looking at him when he does that, then I haven’t.”

“Good point, sorry. But believe me when I say this, kid. Donghyuck doesn’t hate you. I don’t know why he did what he did, or why he said what he said, but he doesn’t hate you. He likes you just as much as you like him.”

“A lot, then?”

“A lot,” Taeyong agrees. “If he doesn’t, then you can come to me and bawl your eyes out. You need your first heartbreak anyway.”

“Literally how the hell are we related, you’re a fucking monster.”

“Maybe I am, but,” Taeyong says with a laugh, tightening his hold around Mark’s thin frame, “That makes you my baby monster, Minhyung.”

Mark shoves Taeyong off the bed immediately. “Alright, I know you love me, but I need to draw the line here.”

Taeyong doesn’t get mad; instead, he just laughs it off and gets back up, hand ruffling Mark’s hair one more time before he leaves with a soft “good night” murmured under his breath.

Mark texts Donghyuck when it’s a little past after midnight, asking him if there was some other place where he’d wanted Mark to kiss him. Donghyuck replies not even a minute later, just like Mark’s expected, because he has a feeling Donghyuck hasn’t been sleeping well like him, either.

Yes, he says. You’re dumb if you don’t know where I wanted our first kiss to happen.

I am dumb, but, Mark types, it’s probably the roof, no?

The fact that Donghyuck doesn’t reply anymore pretty much confirms it, and Mark stays still on his bed for a few moments, hands on his stomach, looking blankly at the dark ceiling. Then as if driven by an enigmatic strange power, he gets up to his feet, grabs his jacket, puts on his shoes, and walks out of his room.

The hallway is dark, and Mark nearly misses the bottom step of the stairs just like he always does, but he manages to save himself by landing quietly with the padded heel of his feet. He looks around anxiously, and after he’s sure Taeyong is knocked out cold in his own room, he unlocks the front door and runs out from the house. He walks down the dimly lit street, going past familiar street signs and trees and bushes until he arrives in Donghyuck’s block.

He only calls him after he’s standing right outside of his gate, and he knows Donghyuck hesitate to pick up because there’s a full minute before his voice finally greets Mark back. He sounds pissed, but Mark knows it’s not real. It’s almost been a week. Donghyuck can never stay pissed for more than two days at most. He knows because he’s personally confirmed this countless of times before.

“Whaddaya want,” Donghyuck demands immediately.

Mark doesn’t waste his time. “You.”

Donghyuck doesn’t get flustered usually – that’s Mark’s job – but Mark definitely hears him choke a bit before he says again, his voice way, way softer, “It’s almost one, Canada, don’t play around.”

“You never sleep before three anyway,” Mark says. “How about you get out right now and we can reenact what should’ve happened?”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer for some more while, and then he hangs up on him. Mark frowns, looking at his screen in disbelief, but soon he hears the sound of a key being jammed into the lock, and the front door of Donghyuck’s house swings open. Mark squints his eyes to see Donghyuck’s blurry figure standing there, quiet, wrapped in his striped pajamas, and then he closes the door behind him and walks up to Mark, crushing the wet grass underneath his bare feet. He stops right on the other side of the gate, looking straight into Mark’s eyes.

Mark offers him a small, unsure smile. “Hey.”

“You’re crazy,” Donghyuck says, but that’s the only thing Mark hears before the younger reaches out his hands and grabs Mark by the face, pulling him in and crashing their lips together once more. Mark nearly chokes again, the cold steel bars of Donghyuck’s gate pressing against his ribs, but then Donghyuck’s hand slide down his cheek to his neck, his fingers hooking on the collar of his shirt, and there goes Mark Lee’s rationality.

Mark has to be the one who pulls away this time, and his breath is ragged as he says, “But you said—the roof—“

“Never mind that,” Donghyuck interrupts, pulling Mark closer again. “I mean, we can do that shit later. For now let’s just be like this.”

(They do get up to the roof that night, but only after they kissed until Mark complained his chest was hurting from being pressed against Donghyuck’s gate for too long.)

“Mark,” Jaemin says from the door. Mark looks up from his plastic gloves, exasperated. “No funny business while I’m gone.”

Five minutes after Jaemin disappears, Donghyuck walks in.

“Mark,” he calls out, and Mark only hums in response, not daring to look away from the eggs he’s whisking. He doesn’t want to be bothered to mop the floor today. This is Taeyong’s kitchen, not Renjun’s, and he doesn’t feel like taking any risk.

Donghyuck calls Mark’s name again, louder, and Mark snaps this time, “What?”

He finally, finally puts down the whisk and turns to look. It surprises him a little more than he should because Donghyuck is closer than he thought; he’s standing only a few inches from Mark, his hands inside of his pullover pockets, eyes on Mark.

“What’re you doing?” Donghyuck asks, in a softer voice now, and Mark suddenly has a little trouble breathing when Donghyuck moves even closer, placing one hand on the edge of the kitchen counter next to Mark’s waist. What’s that for, Mark wants to ask, but doesn’t. Then Donghyuck looks over the older’s shoulder and sees the packets of flour and sugar, and he snorts. “Huh. Cooking? You?”

Mark scowls. “This was all Jaemin’s idea.”

“I didn’t ask whose idea it was, dummy, I asked you what you were doing,” Donghyuck says, and he gives Mark a lopsided smile. Then he frowns, as if lost in thought. “Wait, I know the right phrase for this one. Let me think.”

“Donghyuck, no.”

Donghyuck snaps his fingers together. “I remember now. ’What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”

Mark groans loudly, but that groan soon turns into a choked laughter, and Donghyuck laughs with him, too. His hand slides from the counter slyly to the top of Mark’s own hand, and their fingers just habitually attach themselves to each other. Donghyuck’s skin is always so warm, and it’s a hot day, but Mark doesn’t find it that uncomfortable to hold his hand.

“That was,” Mark says, when Donghyuck pulls him down a little by his collar, just so Mark’s lips are nearly aligned with his, “The cringiest thing I’ve ever heard, and I live with Taeyong, who is cheesy incarnate, so that’s a big deal.”

“Sorry not sorry,” Donghyuck whispers back. His face is so close now, it’s a wonder Mark hasn’t hyperventilated to death yet. Maybe he will soon. Mark doesn’t really care. “Can I kiss you?”

“Oh, you’re being polite now?”

“I am polite,” Donghyuck says with a little pout. “And answer the question, Canada, my time isn’t cheap.”

“Even if I say no—“

“You won’t ever dare,” Donghyuck cuts him off, and he grins before he kisses Mark, curvaceous lips damp and full and all of the sudden, Mark’s ability to think just ceases to exist. He kisses Donghyuck back almost instinctively, and even if Donghyuck’s teeth knock against his a few times when he opens his mouth, he’s still not willing to pull away first.

Donghyuck’s other hand slides down Mark’s collar to bury his nails on the sleeve of his shirt, and even if he’s slightly hurting Mark (Jeno’s pained cry when Donghyuck had accidentally scratched him during their last Monopoly catastrophe suddenly resounds again inside of Mark’s mind), Mark lets it be. Who is he to go against Donghyuck, anyway? The younger is kissing him and not dissing him for once, and Mark shouldn’t let such minor details distract him from that Big Fact.

Donghyuck is, for lack of better words, eager. And maybe a little bit impatient, because his kisses are compellingly pressing and persistent. Mark really feels like dying. He tightens his fingers around Donghyuck’s and just prays to all the gods he know the existence of to let him kiss him back just as keen.

He does, though. He is keen. Mark is actually so grateful that Donghyuck can’t read his thoughts, because damn, he would’ve laughed his ass off and they would’ve stopped right there after the first few seconds maybe. That’s the last thing Mark wants right now – to stop tasting the inside of Donghyuck’s mouth, to stop feeling his hand curling on the crook of his neck nicely like it belongs there, the same way Donghyuck belongs in his heart.

At this point, Mark’s jittery free hand would’ve tried to cup Donghyuck’s face, or maybe place itself on his waist or the back of his neck, or maybe something else that his mind can’t really specify right now, but Mark is also pretty nervous by nature. He’s nervous, distracted, and so stupidly in love, so much that he accidentally lets Donghyuck push him back against the counter and places his hand behind him for balance. So in love that he actually lets Donghyuck gnaw gently on his lower lip, nibbling teeth and tightening fingers. Mark is so in love.

Except that he’s also really unlucky, and he grabs hold of the bread knife instead. Right on the blade, too.

“Oh, shit!” Mark yells out loud when it pricks on his palm, and he abruptly pulls away from Donghyuck. The knife falls down to the floor with a loud clink, and Donghyuck’s eyes go wide. Mark begins shaking his bleeding hand, still cursing with every breath taken.

“Mark!” Donghyuck exclaims, and Mark gets a glimpse of his flushed face – he was really into that kiss, huh? – before he looks back down to the floor, where blood has splattered everywhere (because Mark has so smartly started shaking his hand, he’s a dumbass). “Mark, oh my god, is that blood?”

“No, it’s strawberry jam. What the hell, Donghyuck!”

“Shut up.” Donghyuck then grabs hold of Mark’s wrist and breaks his movement, stopping him from needlessly getting more blood all over the kitchen. “Stop moving, you dimwit,” he says, and Mark has this growing suspicion that Donghyuck isn’t worried at all, he’s just holding back a laugh. “You’re gonna make it worse.”

“I am never kissing you in the kitchen again,” Mark tells him. “I am never letting you sway me into kissing you in the kitchen ever again.”

“Don’t you dare blame me for this,” Donghyuck says, as he looks around for something to stop Mark’s bleeding. “You were into it as much as I was. It’s your everlasting bad luck, man.”

“I thought we had agreed you have the worst luck out of us all?”

“Maybe, but evidently Fortuna doesn’t like you that much either,” Donghyuck says. “Damn it, doesn’t Taeyong ever keep anything in the kitchen? Hand towels? Paper towels? A mop? Anything to stop the bleeding?”

“There’s clean towel in the cupboard near the sink,” Mark says, but Donghyuck doesn’t look like he’s going to let go of Mark’s hand soon. “Ugh, more laundry for me, I guess.”

“You should wash this first,” Donghyuck says, and he looks down at Mark’s hand, which has stopped bleeding by now, but the gash is still open and sore. “Uhhh shit, this actually looks pretty bad. I can’t believe you just had to ruin our moment like this.”

“Oh, now you’re blaming me,” Mark says with a snort. “Funny because you were the one who came here first with no apparent reason other than to haunt me and my nonexistent cooking progress.“

At that time, Jaemin’s voice echoes from the hallway of Mark’s house, “Maaark, I got it now,” and a moment later, the boy himself shows up at the door with a bag of baking goods under his arm. His smile immediately wanes when he sees Donghyuck holding Mark’s hand, which has basically been painted red with his own blood. They’re both frozen, staring motionlessly at Jaemin, who is looking back at them, aghast.

“What the hell happened?” he cries, and he flings the bag to the table before making his way toward Mark, shoving Donghyuck aside as he does. He takes Mark’s hand within his and winces when he looks at the wound. “Oh my god. Did you—did you cut yourself?”

“No, I did it to him because I’m into bloodplay and I felt like it,” Donghyuck deadpans. Mark groans. “No shit, Jaemin. Of course he’d cut himself, why are you even surprised? This guy’s clumsy as hell.”

“Because I’d specifically told him not to do anything funny while I was gone!” Jaemin snaps, and he looks up at Mark, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Which you totally disregarded, by the way. Does Donghyuck really kiss that good?”

“What did you just say?” Donghyuck cries.

“Oh, shut up,” Mark says, and he pulls his hand away from Jaemin’s hold, feeling the oh-so-familiar heat creep up his face. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing when your tongue was in my mouth, Mark!”

“I said shut up!”

Jaemin ends up taking over the baking course all by himself, while Mark sits on the couch with one of Donghyuck’s leg over his knee as the younger tends to his palm. Mark pretends that he isn’t so close to dying when Donghyuck brings his hand closer to his mouth and kisses the bandaged wound.