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Pounding music shakes the floor of his room, so loud that the words are indecipherable, but he refuses to go join the party. Last time he’d drank one of Jaemin’s jungle juice mixes, he’d blacked out for an entire day and nearly missed his exam. And that wasn’t even the worst part, not if you count the Underwear Incident. Which the entire student body of NCU did, so… He’s fine in his bed. Sober. Not embarrassing himself.
Then his door knob rattles, effectively breaking the peace. At least has the presence of mind to throw his blanket over his bare legs before the door flies open, revealing a horde of footsteps and several alarming screams.
You’d think that as someone that lives in a frat house he’d make a better habit of locking his door, but he feels rude making his roommate use his key. Plus, he grew up as the only child of strict parents, so before college he really wasn’t allowed to lock his door. It was that combination of politeness and habit that lead to a stranger standing in the doorway of his dorm, looking worse for wear and panting like he’s just run a mile.
“Um, haha, hi?” Mark looks cautiously at the boy, who steps inside and shuts the door in response.
What part of that seemed like an invitation to come inside? He was about to say as much (probably very politely and very awkwardly) when he noticed the boy’s lips. They were painted pink, and pouting, and before Mark’s Human Brain caught up with his Pretty Boy Brain he was patting the bed across from him in offering.
“Thanks, man. It’s pretty hectic out there,” Pretty Boy says, voice relieved and honey sweet. Suddenly, Mark is very, very aware that he isn’t wearing pants.
By the time he navigates Mark’s roommates maze of possessions, Mark has pretty much accepted his fate: death by blushing. Still, he feels as if he has a right to know, “So, do you usually barge into strangers rooms?”
“We’re not strangers,” he replies, folding his legs up underneath him. His light-wash jeans are so shredded they’re barely even pants, stained a mysterious pink and exposing miles of tan legs.
Mark blinks back in surprise. “We’re not?”
“Nope. My name is Lee Donghyuck,” he says, expectant, waiting for something to click in Mark’s brain. It doesn’t. Instead, he stares back dumbly, really, really wishing for a pair of pants. Donghyuck waits another second before saying, “December fourth, remember? The day you made NCU history?”
“The day I made NCU history,” Mark repeats flatly, face going white as bone.
December fourth, the day he spent entirely black out drunk. Pantsless for most of it, from what he’s been told. Much like he is now. Partly in the middle of the campus square, busking to the shrubbery and harrowed students by freestyle rapping.
Lee Donghyuck, his roommate Yukhei’s friend, had found him and led him back to his dorm. He still had the note the man had left framed on the wall of his room, a keepsake from the day he’d nearly died. In the back of his mind he’d always meant to reach out and thank him for the help, but he’d never been able to track him down while it was on his mind, so it never happened.
As Donghyuck smiles, bright pink lipstick making his teeth look even whiter, Mark laments not seeking him out sooner.
“So what, exactly, is happening down there?”
“Jaem spilled his drink on Renjun,” Hyuck makes a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “Then Renjun somehow found your water gun closet.”
Mark gasps, “Not the water gun closet!”
“Yes, the water gun closet,” Donghyuck nods sagely, “After he found it, he filled two with ice water and chased Jaemin around the house.”
“Is that why your pants are pink?” he tries very, very hard not to stare at the swath of thigh that still has a streak of shiny liquid clinging to it.
“Nope, we haven’t gotten to that part yet. My pants are pink because Renjun is so drunk that he mistook Chenle for Jaem, and got him right in the face with the water…”
Mark hasn’t been this invested in a story since he finished his latest K-drama, and he’s surprised it isn’t weird to be sitting on his bed with a kind-of-stranger. It may have almost been normal, if he’d had pants on. “Chenle couldn’t have taken that well.”
“Chenle found the silly string cabinet.”
“The silly string cabinet!” Mark winces, fearing for the state of his house. Last time they’d had a party this size, a group of guys had dipped their asses in paint and left butt prints on the living room wall. A month later, it was still the header of their frat twitter account.
“I got caught up in the chaos, and Yukhei tried to use me as a human shield,” he gestures to his pants, “Someone had cracked open a bunch of glow sticks and emptied them into a water gun.”
“That can’t be safe,” Mark frowns, “do you want new pants?”
Donghyuck laughs and stands up, “Trying to get me out of my pants this soon, huh?”
Mark flushes bright pink and fumbles over his words, but Donghyuck is too busy scanning the room to notice. He hums in approval at the pictures Mark has hung up: him during the frat car wash in a cheerleading uniform, him being crowd-surfed after a soccer game, him and some of his frat brothers dressed up as various sexy animals for Halloween.
“Is that the note I left you?” he says in disbelief, walking closer to the wall. The frame was from the dollar store, plastic and adorned with primary-colored balloons, reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY in large font. It went nicely with the note, scribbled in highlighter on a takeout menu.
Donghyuck smiles sheepishly, “Yeah, I always meant to find you to thank you but…”
“I’m surprised we didn’t run into each other sooner,” Donghyuck resumes his slow perusal of the room, “but I guess frat boys and theatre majors don’t really run in the same circles.”
“We have Yukhei,” Mark says like a peace offering, because something underneath Donghyuck’s light tone has begun to sour and he really doesn’t want him to leave.
“We do have Yukhei.”
“Why did you help me?” Mark blurts, because he thinks maybe, possibly, a tiny part of him hadn’t tried very hard to find Donghyuck due to the mortifying embarrassment of a stranger rescuing you and then tucking you in to bed. Having an explanation would help ease that, maybe.
Hyuck flushes and turns back to the wall. “I thought you were cute.”
“Haha, um,” Mark stutters, “haha.”
“You were kind of like a baby deer out there, and everyone else was in class, so I figured if I didn’t do it…”
Mark leans back until his head hits the wall, trying to think of an appropriate response but failing to think of anything but being in his boxers in the courtyard, helpless like a baby deer. Mortifying.
“Plus, I knew where you lived because of Yukhei, so. Yeah,” he finishes lamely, and Mark feels like an ass for making him embarrassed about helping him.
“Well, thank you for saving my ass there,” he sits up again. “I’d probably still be out there if it wasn’t for you.”
Donghyuck flushes, and in lieu of responding spots whatever it was he was looking for and begins to walk towards it.
He reaches the light switch and flips it off, and by the time Mark’s eyes adjust to the sudden darkness Donghyuck is standing right in front of him.
“What?” is all Mark can say, because this close up he can see how soft Hyuck’s oversized pink sweater looks, and smell the vanilla of his cologne, and… how his pants are glowing. Glowing.
“I wanted to see if I’d glow in the dark,” he laughs, and the sound is like tinkling bells. “Looks like I do!”
Suddenly, Mark wants to kiss him. On its own accord his hand reaches out to grab the too-long sleeve of his sweater, but Donghyuck has moved just out of reach. Wide-eyed, he stares out of the window.
“Come here,” he beckons, still staring outside. Weak moonlight filters over his face, and Mark admires his side profile, the gentle slope of his nose, the moles on his neck, and of course, his pink-stained lips. He’s so caught up in the beauty that he shifts the blanket and goes to stand, forgetting about his current situation.
Donghyuck chooses that exact moment to look over at him, in all of his cartoon-dog boxer glory. A smile quickly envelops his face, and then he’s bent over in laughter, a hand on Mark’s desk to steady himself. Mark throws the blanket over himself, but the damage is done.
“This is just like the first time we met,” Hyuck says between laughs. Something in his tone pops the bubble stuck in Mark’s chest, and he starts to laugh too, first quietly and then as loudly as Donghyuck, their laughter growing to match each other in volume until it drowns out the music entirely.
When he calms down, he says, “Can you grab me pants from the dresser over there, please? From the second drawer.”
Donghyuck walks over, and just as he opens the drawer something explodes outside, a crack so loud it rivals the music, which is still going strong.
“So that’s what they were doing,” Hyuck shakes his head in disbelief, handing a pair of joggers to Mark. “Fireworks.”
“Last time they did this, someone called the cops on us.”
“Oh shit!”
“Yeah, and Jaem was so drunk he thought they were strippers, so…”
He jumps up and shoves the pants on, ignoring the way Donghyuck’s gaze seems to linger on his thighs before snapping back up to the window. They jostle for space, both trying to get the best view outside. Eventually, Mark hip-checks Donghyuck out of the way completely, leaving him to stand behind him.
A new firework goes off, showering the sky with pink and golden sparkles, just as Donghyuck presses his body up against Mark’s.
“Haha, what,” Mark says on impulse, hands gripping the window sill for dear life.
“I couldn’t see,” Donghyuck says, voice innocent, and Mark hasn’t known him for long but somehow he knows that if he turned around, his eyes would be wide and his lips would be pouting.
He stands on his tip-toes and rests his chin against Mark’s shoulder, the soft skin of his face touching Mark’s neck. Hopefully he couldn’t feel his pulse, because it felt like his heart was exploding in time with the fireworks, leaving trails of glittering heat through his chest.
Mark’s thinks the fireworks currently going off above Frat Row are probably beautiful, but his vision has gone white, so he can’t be entirely sure. Donghyuck, for his part, gives little ooh’s and ah’s occasionally, the rumble of his chest clear against Mark’s back.
Fuck.
When Mark enters back into their reality, Jaemin is walking away from where he was setting off the fireworks, a large clump of pink silly string still clinging to his back. Serves him right. Fireworks are extremely bad for the environment, and going out in the morning to search for the empty canisters would be a pain in the ass.
“Any plans on, um, moving?” Mark asks, trying to sound teasing but instead sounding pre-pubescent, voice higher than it had been since he’d turned twelve.
Hyuck hums, pretending to be in thought, and then wraps his arms around Mark’s waist, “Nope.”
Then the door swings open, and Hyuck leaps back, leaving Mark’s back disappointingly cold and his heart pounding harder than when he’d brewed his coffee with Monster that one time during exams week. He really, really needs to start locking it.
Yukhei, Jaemin, Jeno, and Johnny all stream into the room, which is much too small for all of them to be in at once. It smells like the inside of a bottle of vodka. Mark realizes belatedly that they’d never turned the lights back on, but the four were drunk enough that it didn’t trip any warning bells.
Plus, the alarming amount of glow sticks they had strewn about their bodies were practically bright enough to light the whole room.
“So this is where you disappeared to, Hyuckie!” Yukhei exclaims, holding an Alexa in one massive palm like it was the Holy Grail.
Clumsily clearing a pile of hoodies out of the way, he plugs it in.
Jaemin, clearly drunk, stumbles over to Yukhei’s bed and jumps up on it, calling out, “Alexa, play BLACKPINK!”
“Emergency dance party,” Jeno says, very seriously, because for some reason he turns stoic when he drinks. Then he joins Jaemin on the bed and begins grinding against him to the beat. Just friends, Mark’s ass. He makes a mental note to interrogate them about it the next day, preferably while they were still suffering from a hangover.
Payback for barging into his room and interrupting his moment with Donghyuck. Whatever that moment was. Whatever.
Johnny and Yukhei are moshing, which has about the same effect of an earthquake, or maybe a jet taking off. The wild swinging of their arms leave Mark and Hyuck relatively little room to exist, and for the second time that night he finds himself pressed against the wall of his dorm.
This time Donghyuck is facing him, barely taller, lips just slightly below his eye level. Mark takes in a shuddering breath. Despite the pounding music enveloping him on all sides, the room feels eerily quiet, and all he can focus on is the heat of Hyuck’s chest against his own.
“May I have this dance?” Donghyuck whisper-shouts into his ear, just loud enough for him to hear.
Mark grabs both of Hyuck’s hands and begins to sway, laughing out, “Yes.”
They alternate between coming up with dance moves and falling onto each other in laughter for the remainder of the song.
In the brief gap of silence between the music, someone downstairs shouts BEER PONG! and the boys yell as they scramble out of the room, Johnny’s shirt getting caught on the doorknob as he rushes out. The door closes with a resolute slam, and suddenly they’re alone again. It seems much more dark without the glow sticks, but just as cramped without the extra bodies.
A slow, sweet melody starts to play, and instead of their proximity being humorous it becomes electrifying.
Donghyuck grabs him by the waist and leads him to the center of the room, smiling at Mark like he is the cutest thing in the entire world. Gently, he sways them back and forth to the rhythm.
Hyuck leans forward until Mark can feel his breath, and he thinks this is it, he’s going to kiss me, and then I’m going to die. Instead, Donghyuck whispers, “This would be a lot more awkward if you didn’t have pants on.”
When Mark looks up and meets his eyes, his laughter halts midway, his breath catching in his throat. This close, Mark can see every fleck of golden glitter surrounding Donghyuck’s eyes, the slight smudge of lipstick on the corner of his mouth, and something possesses him to reach up and rub at it with his thumb.
Logically, the next step is to lean forward and follow his thumb with his lips. Their mouths touch with ease, as if they’d spent a hundred years kissing until it became routine. Once again, Mark was surprised at how easy things were with Donghyuck.
They kiss softly for a few more moments, Mark marveling at the slight strawberry taste of Donghyuck’s lipstick, the feather-light touch of his fingers through his hair, the hint of teeth against his bottom lip. When it begins to heat up, he pulls back, and they rest their foreheads against each other with tender care.
“Thank god for the water gun cabinet, huh?” he breathes, slightly out of breath.
Donghyuck laughs and backs them up until they fall onto Mark’s bed.