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It's been a long day.
It's to be expected, with a competition right around the corner and all of them working on nothing but energy drinks, snacks, and the sheer primal need to crush every other team with their impeccable dancing and sharp choreography. They motivate each other by talking about how they would win by such an impressive landslide, everyone else would leave the premises crying, and Mark finds it a bit mean but it gets the job done. They end their practices late at night and then go somewhere to have dinner together if they aren't too dead by the end of the day.
Today is one of those days where Mark has to refuse his friend's offer.
While he would love to have some actual food in his system right now, he literally feels like death. Limbs heavy, head fuzzy and refusing to let him think anything other than bedbedbedbed, and with legs that he knows will give out the moment he stops walking.
He only considers the possibility that he might have pushed himself too far this time when he reaches his apartment block, but the thought is quickly thrown away. He's Mark Lee, and Mark Lee is a goddamn hard worker. This is nothing but usual. He'll be fine after a warm shower and a bite of Taeil's leftover cake that his friend got him and Johnny as a gift a couple of days ago, and that might be poisoned considering Taeil would never cook something unless held at gunpoint, but who really cares.
Ah, Johnny. Yeah, Johnny will be there too, possibly sleeping on their bed already, or maybe laying on the couch as he waits for Mark to get home like he does most of the time. One time Mark even found him sitting on the floor of the foyer, slumped against the wall and clearly sleepy, lazily scrolling through his phone and only perking up when Mark announced he'd come home, but that day Mark had stayed way longer than usual after starting practice late. He was right on time today, even going to arrive a little earlier because he was not climbing up the stairs on jelly legs, and so he momentarily got rid of his fear of elevators, too tired to worry about it malfunctioning and ending in a freak accidental death as he went up to their floor.
The code to the keypad is his anniversary with Johnny and soon he finds himself inside the tiny apartment, shoes off and making a beeline to the couch, where sure enough Johnny is sprawled over.
“Hey,” Johnny lets out after Mark throws himself over him with an oof, his hand immediately going to caress Mark's sweaty, dirty hair. “Long day?”
“Mmm.” He needs a shower, but God is Johnny's chest even comfier than their queen sized bed. He burrows his head on his boyfriend’s soft hoodie, enjoying the petting and how Johnny's other hand found himself running up and down his back in a comforting touch. “Long day. We did the uh, double speed challenge, at Ten's request, and wouldn't move on until we got through it at least once with no mistakes.”
His words are muffled by the fabric and they barely make sense to his own ears, but Johnny looks way more awake than him and seems to catch all of it. “It sounds like you guys did it a few times. I thought you had the choreo down?”
He whines at that, because they thought they did have it down. But when they tried to do it at double the speed people kept tripping, or panicking and forgetting moves, and during one run Jaemin had completely blanked out which wasn't good. Not at all. It just proved worse when Donghyuck proposed to do the rollercoaster challenge instead and they couldn't even go through it once in the whole two hours they tried.
While normally they would end up gasping on the floor, drenched in sweat and still laying on top of each other after Taeyong clapped twice and deemed practice over, this time the atmosphere felt way heavier. No one was making jokes or even making a sound that wasn't that of labored breathing or the familiar sound of bottles uncapped and long gulps. Though words weren't necessary (they all knew they fucked up, got too cocky, didn't practice as much as they should've done) Taeyong still gave a speech, and Yuta still proposed to extend practice two more hours starting tomorrow, and they all unanimously agreed.
Just thinking about it put a scowl on Mark's face, because he agreed. Yeah, they definitely needed to practice more seriously to win the competition. But practicing two more hours meant getting home two hours later than usual, which meant Johnny would be in bed by the time he came home and he wouldn't be able to do after-practice cuddling like right now.
Sensing his impending bad mood, Johnny's touch turns a tad bit softer and he's soon saying, “But you guys made it in the end, right? Otherwise Ten wouldn't have let you leave the studio.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Those are some talented dancers your crew has, so I'm sure you'll be able to master it in no time.”
He mumbles a reply that isn't even intelligible to his own ears and sighs, forcing his muscles to relax and melting against Johnny's chest. He focuses on Johnny's hand, the one that was running up and down his back and now settled on rubbing circles on his lower back. This is nice, he thinks. He's gonna miss this.
Some time passes and he's on the verge of zoning out when Johnny speaks again, this time stopping the hand playing with his hair to gain his attention. “Should I go watch you guys practice, then?”
“Huh?” His head jolts up, blinking at his boyfriend for a few seconds, sure that he heard wrong. “Come again?”
It's the first time he looked properly at Johnny since he came home and Mark almost gets distracted by how stupidly handsome the older is. Johnny's black hair is floppy against his forehead, clearly pushed back countless times but without any hair product to keep it in place, and his lips crafted by God herself are pulled into a smile that's nothing short of blinding. Mark feels more energized just looking at it, feeling again like he did at the start of practice, like he was invincible and at the peak of his life because, wow, that smile was directed at him.
“Yeah,” Johnny says, shrugging his shoulders as if spending over seven (now nine) hours sitting next to a charger and doing nothing but watch several men dance to the same song over and over again wasn't a big deal. “I’ll act like a cheerleader and shout encouraging words whenever you guys feel tired. I can even find a skirt and some pom-poms to complete the look if you really want Cheerleader Johnny to happen.”
It's clearly a joke, but Mark is tired, and tired Mark ignores the joke completely and focuses solely on the fact that Johnny would really waste nine hours of his life just to cheer him on. His eyes are watery when he says, voice small, “You'd really do that?”
“Of course, baby. Anything for you.”
The way Johnny doesn't even hesitate before saying that is enough to bring Mark to tears. It's a goddamn miracle he doesn't shed some right there and there, but he's biting his lip hard to stop himself from doing it (he really doesn't need a sob-induced headache right now) and Johnny uses his thumb to gently stop him from doing so. He keeps his hand there, cupping Mark's face and barely brushing a finger against his bottom lip, looking at him like Mark is his entire world.
“I really wanna kiss you,” Mark whines after a few more beats of staring. “But I'd have to like, move to do that.”
Johnny chuckles, warm and familiar and it makes Mark bounce a little. “Really? There's like, 5cm between our faces.”
“You move then.”
“Sure.” And Johnny, that bastard, instead of using that long neck of his to chase Mark's lips like Mark expected, decided that it would be a better idea to lift him up into the air, hands secured under Mark's ass and already stepping off the couch, walking in direction to their bedroom. “I’m not kissing you on the couch,” he explained rather nonchalantly after Mark secured his arms around Johnny’s neck for dear life and yelled in his ear because what the fuck, Johnny, put me down!
“Huh?!”
“You're tired,” he continued. “And you fall asleep as soon as we start making out whenever you're tired so I'd rather kiss you on our bed than on the couch, trapped under your tiny smelly body.”
He doesn't even get to get offended at being called smelly, even if it was true and Jesus, he really should shower before going to bed, because soon Johnny is throwing him on the bed, rumpled sheets from the morning still where they left them. It's funny how Johnny's body immediately feels like a perfect fit against Mark's when he settles besides him, dumb smile adorning his lips and a glint to his eyes that Mark has been admiring ever since they met all those years ago.
The Mark from back then would have never guessed that he'd be one day laying on the same bed as that one member from the broadcast club who would always make it a point to play old music after school was over, the same one who wouldn't stop hyping up the small school dance team after it won a dance battle against a rival school who'd riled them up. Mark still remembers how Johnny had taken the time to praise every single member, even stressing how Mark contributed to the win even though they all knew Jisung was the true ace of the team.
That Mark would probably not believe you if you told him he'd be staring at that guy under heavy lids with a fond smile on his face, but then again, that Mark hadn't seen Johnny's very corny, very public confession coming even if it was incredibly obvious in retrospect.
“What are you thinking about?” Johnny asks, and before Mark can even formulate an answer in his head, he's already grinning like an idiot and saying, “Is it how handsome I am? Why, you flatter me Mark, but you said you'd kiss me. You should focus on that instead.”
It makes Mark laugh, once again breathing out a what the hell, and he begins to mutter a witty (or as witty as he can be, with or without the bone-deep exhaustion) reply that gets swallowed by Johnny's lips.
Ah, here it is. Always, no matter how tired Mark is, Johnny's impossibly soft lips always manage to make everything better, taking away any kind of weariness and leaving nothing but the feeling of warmth filling Mark's chest. Mark melts against them, easily moving closer when Johnny ushers him with a hand on his waist, and he straight up whines when Johnny parts their lips over and over again, leaving peck after peck and enjoying Mark's subsequent pout.
“Johnny, c'mon,” he says after a while, and the please that is left unsaid seems to do the trick.
There's really no way to describe what kissing Johnny feels like. It's still Mark's favorite thing to do besides dancing with the older, and it's so good he can even put up with the less than romantic comments Johnny would make in-between kisses, like you taste like sweat or are you really sure you don't wanna take a quick shower, I can hold you up if your legs won't work. Mark just hits his shoulder or bites his lips, and soon Johnny is back licking into his mouth, tangling their legs together and holding Mark as close as possible.
They stay like that for some time, until Mark starts getting drowsy and the kiss turns more sloppy. They only stop when they’re interrupted by Mark yawning, and Johnny takes it as his cue to let out a chuckle and leave a kiss at the tip of Mark's nose. “Told you.”
“Shut up,” Mark mumbles, and because keeping his eyes open doesn't seem worth it right now (even if his usual self would kill to see how disheveled his boyfriend surely looked) he buries his face on the crook of Johnny's neck, being immediately met by a pair of arms secured around him. It's warm, almost borderline uncomfortably so, and he's still all gross from practice, but he feels safe. Johnny makes him feel safe. He wouldn't change anything.
He's starting to doze off when Johnny's voice catches his attention: “I'll wake you up early so we can go buy my cheerleader outfit, okay?”
God, he almost forgot about that. “You're such an idiot.”
“Yeah, but I'm your idiot, right?”
“You are,” he agrees easily. It's the truth, after all. Before he can let himself fall asleep, he adds, snuggling closer against his boyfriend, “I love you.”
(He doesn't get to hear the answer for he's beaten by his fatigue, and Johnny watches over his boyfriend, the love of his life, with tender eyes. “I love you too,” he whispers against Mark's hair, the familiar scent of sweat and Mark's shampoo mixed with the younger’s soft snores lulling him to sleep. “I love you so much.”)