Work Text:
Mark writes a song about Donghyuck.
His mattress dips under the weight of a knee. The heat is as though the sun poured itself beneath Mark’s sheets.
A mouth presses against skin, practically suctioned around the bruised knob of Mark’s elbow. There’s a murmur: “Sorry.” The English makes Mark blink. Donghyuck shuffles forward. “Closer, please.”
And Mark writes.
Donghyuck learns a few things in English class: he knows how to swear. How to order food. How to describe himself. How to compliment a person. How to rile Mark up until he -
This is how it starts: it’s 2015 and the future is the four walls of a Disney set and Donghyuck’s tongue is the texture of a kitten’s when he demands, “Do it cutely! C-U-T-E!” His nose scrunches up with a kind of mischief you thought you’d only read about in folk tales, and Mark wants to pinch it right off.
This is how it really starts:
They’re in Incheon Airport, waiting to board a flight to LA, when Donghyuck says it. He’s helping Mark pick out a selca to post on Twitter, a task that consists entirely of making backhanded compliments like, “Your eyes are so big, I’m surprised you can’t see into space,” and “Your skin’s so pale you’d probably bruise if I tapped you.” Mark lands on one with Jisung and Chenle, dark hair styled in soft waves, throat thick and bared and framed in a white tee.
Donghyuck knocks his shoulder against Mark’s. The way his breath hitches is the quietest noise Mark’s ever heard him make, and as if to defend his honour, Donghyuck goes on to say, “Daddy,” loudly, and in English. Mark’s gaze cuts sharply to him, and Donghyuck’s face is full of mirth, if mirth could be pink, and he slowly repeats, “D-A-D-D-Y.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
“You’re like a father to them,” Donghyuck says, gesturing at the picture, again in English but more careful this time. His fingers curl timidly around the loose fabric of Mark’s pants, before stroking up and down in what he might believe is comfort but leaves nothing but a phantom grip around Mark - around his - “Our daddy,” he whispers, and turns his attention back to Mark’s camera roll.
“Right,” Mark says, feeling something dark and terrible lick through him.
“We work with very famous and trendy choreographers,” Donghyuck is saying, slowly so his voice doesn’t shake. Mark had cupped his hand around Donghyuck’s knee, just like he had last night in their hotel room when Donghyuck rehearsed this answer over and over again, and he keeps it there. It’s comfort, maybe.
There’s something about Donghyuck during interviews, in front of strangers. It’s the 15th century and Donghyuck is the Crown Prince, locked away in Gyeongbokgung, not even the moon kissing his skin or filling his throat. His voice is delicate as a Korean rose as he tilts his head in Mark’s direction and says, “Mark. Mark hyung.”
“Sorry,” Mark blinks. “What?”
“I was asked how I learn English best,” Donghyuck says, and Mark almost doesn’t recognise the Korean at first. His grin is suddenly sharp like it is at home. “Through teasing you.”
Mark opens his mouth to respond.
Johnny jumps in with a hand clasped around Mark’s shoulder. “Yes, these two have always been the Tom and Jerry of our group. They’re very cute.”
And the interviewer moves on, leaving Mark deep in thought: if being teased was like standing on the edge of a cliff, how hard would Donghyuck have to push before Mark fell?
Donghyuck quickly gets it. How could he not, the way Mark flushes red and excuses himself from whatever room they’re in every time Donghyuck greets him with WASSUP, MARK DADDY!
It’s that, and a quiet talking to from Johnny.
“I’ll kill you,” Mark hisses at Johnny when Donghyuck skips out of the kitchen after sidling up to Mark and purring that fucking word right into the shell of his ear. He can feel it ping-ponging off the walls of his skull, leaving fire in its wake.
Johnny glances around and points at himself, looking perplexed, and underneath the counter Mark flexes a fist. He needs to - “I only told him to be considerate! We don’t want him blurting it out on some livestream, do we?”
“Would you seriously underestimate Donghyuck like that?”
Johnny grins. “Nope. Have fun, Mark.”
That night Donghyuck crawls into Mark’s bed as he’s oft to do. Mark doesn’t stir, but Donghyuck always knows when he’s awake. “I didn’t know it meant that, hyung,” he whispers against Mark’s nape.
Mark’s lungs fill with strong, heady smoke, an ember for every point that his body is touching Donghyuck’s. “Are you going to keep saying it?” he murmurs, voice tense. He shouldn’t -
“Yes,” Donghyuck says, in English, and then he presses a smacking wet kiss on the side of Mark’s neck and Mark screeches, shoving him onto the floor. He cracks open a guilty eye after a moment, looking over the edge of the bed. Donghyuck’s stroking his jaw as he pouts up at Mark. “That wasn’t very nice, daddy,” he whines, and Mark screams again.
Mark once had a wet dream about Donghyuck, years ago. If he hadn’t already been certain Donghyuck was a demon sent from hell to taunt him personally, he was after dreaming of Donghyuck - like that. He shoved his face into his pillow, screaming at God to help him. God did not help him. He had the same dream for a week straight and by the end of it, he’d already practiced what he would say when he told SM he was quitting.
When Mark arrived at the company building on Friday morning, Donghyuck was in the elevator. He wordlessly handed Mark a carton of strawberry milk. “You know, I’d really miss you if you were gone,” he said after two floors.
“Why - why are you saying that?”
Donghyuck shrugged. “Just felt like it,” he’d answered, and Mark had no choice but to put it down to his demonic senses. “Well,” Donghyuck said, “This is my floor.” Mark stared at him for a moment, eyeing the lit-up 10 where the CEO’s office was, and then squeezed through the doors after Donghyuck.
It was only a matter of time before it happened again.
Mark tosses and turns in bed, sleeping through Donghyuck kissing him, Donghyuck taking his shirt off, Donghyuck palming over Mark’s boxers, Donghyuck dropping onto his knees, but wakes with a loud gasp when Donghyuck takes Mark into his mouth. “Fuck,” Mark groans, and the way his arousal licks over his skin is sharp as wind as he finally free falls over the edge of the cliff. “I’m such a bad person,” is the last thing he mutters before he turns over onto his back and shoves his hand down his sweats.
When he’s met with hellfire at the bottom, he finds he no longer feels pain anyway. His hand feels like he’s dipped it in a jar of honey and all he can think is wow, Donghyuck would definitely love to lick it clean. And if Doyoung didn’t hear all of that, he definitely hears Mark laugh, a loud sliver of light in the dark of their room.
In December, Donghyuck breaks a leg. “I just single-handedly blessed this tour with all the luck in the universe,” is what he has to say about it, “No thanks necessary, kids!”
Mark had been standing behind Jungwoo, trying to hide the fact that his eyes are helplessly wet. He’s rubbing at them with his sleeve when Jungwoo suddenly steps aside and Donghyuck’s arm is stretched out, pointing at him. “Except for you,” Donghyuck calls out. “You’re coming with me, Mark.”
“What do you want?” Mark grits out when Donghyuck hobbles them over to one of the empty studio boxes.
Donghyuck hops up on the nearest surface, cast knocking against the table leg. He whistles low between his teeth. “That’s no way to talk to me. Can’t you see I’m crippled now?”
“Sorry,” Mark mumbles in that efficient way he only uses on Donghyuck.
“Come here,” Donghyuck demands, legs spreading a fraction. Mark takes the bait, moving to stand between them, and when he isn’t close enough Donghyuck’s left shoe digs into his ass to give him that extra push.
“What do you want?” Mark repeats, softer this time. His thumb strokes the skin along the edge of Donghyuck’s cast.
“I’m leaving today,” Donghyuck murmurs. His hand cups Mark’s jaw, startling him into looking up finally. Donghyuck’s lips part, like the petals of a pink rose and then he leans forward to place them on Mark’s.
“Why?” Mark breathes, once Donghyuck leans back.
“A parting gift,” Donghyuck says, “I heard that in a song.”
Mark had played a demo for them earlier that week, the usual English phrase sprinkled here and there. Donghyuck heard it in a song. He heard it in a song and he knew. Mark opens and closes his mouth, and finally decides that the best use of it is to shove it against Donghyuck’s again and for much longer this time.
If Mark had to write an autobiography, it’d be called The Lee Donghyuck Playbook:
- When Donghyuck wants you to baby him, you better do it or hell will be raised in your bedroom that night.
- If you have to answer any question about your group members, the correct response is always Donghyuck.
- When Donghyuck tries to kiss you on camera, do NOT let him.
- When Donghyuck tries to kiss you in private, kiss him back and take pride in the way his cheeks turn pink. You did that.
- The best way to teach Donghyuck English is to take him to your room, bend him over your mattress and instruct him that, no matter what, he is not allowed to speak in Korean. He’ll protest, he’ll whine, but God, if that final daddy! as you finish inside him doesn’t sound so sweet.
- Alright, so maybe you don’t have a knack for writing autobiographies. But you can always write a song about it.