Work Text:
desire to stay in the sun; love of sunlight
There are about fifty-seven days since the last time he kissed Donghyuck. Mark knows, because that was the last time Donghyuck had pulled him into some bathroom in their company building, hands pressed against his chest and eyes sparkling but voice quiet; had told him I believe in you, I always do and said it with such conviction that Mark had been temporarily alleviated of all his worries; had leaned up and pressed their mouths together, kissing him so softly like he was afraid Mark might crumble in his hold and disappear forever.
At the time, Mark had kissed him back, then kissed him once more, twice more - or maybe a dozen times more, he can’t quite remember, and told him he would come back. He still remembers the softness of Donghyuck’s cheek under his fingers, the stained pink of Donghyuck’s lips, the soft roundness of his eyes, the messy waves of his hair, and the way how Donghyuck’s mouth had curled softly around the I love you .
He remembers. He remembers all of that. He remembers it because Donghyuck is his sun and he is nothing more than a sunflower.
The space beside him where he would stand in a lineup of ten - no, nine, they’ve changed, remember? - and Donghyuck was smaller, warm figure pressed against the side of his body, elbows jabbing into his waist and high pitched laughter sounding in his ear. And now, it’s seven of them, all of them people he loves to death and admires so much, and really, he is happy.
But there are different kinds of happiness with different people, Mark supposes. Happiness with his new group is exhilarating, the kind that is him rapping on stage in front of the whole world, the kind that is adrenaline in his veins and sweat staining the lining of his shirt. Everything is new and exciting and now now now and he’s always running to keep pace with it, always making sure he’s ahead and he’s not lagging behind.
The kind of happiness with NCT is all of that, but a little mellowed, a little more family-like. It’s adrenaline in his veins but it’s also messing around with them whenever, in the practice room, on the stage, during interviews. It’s still sweat staining the lining of his shirt except the younger ones scuff around and claim he “stinks, hyung!”. Everything is exciting but familiar at the same time and this is his everything and no one can possibly take away the brothers he has found in them, on the same path and the same pace as them.
And Donghyuck. Donghyuck is happiness . He is the happiness that is the softest kind, the kind that makes Mark’s heart break a little from how much he loves Donghyuck; the kind that sometimes overwhelms him at times and makes him a little scared in how much love he has; the kind that is still loud and rushing and nerves but is also the kind that is two in the morning, whispered confessions and warmth bleeding into each other under the blankets.
It is the kind of happiness that makes the first thought Mark has after seeing Donghyuck after fifty-seven days is that Donghyuck is my forever .
They have always been together even before NCT was even a thing; before they knew they would grow into the idols they were now; before they could even imagine a future like this. Him and Donghyuck. Donghyuck and him. They were a past, they are the present, and they will be a future; they are forever, and this, Mark knows more than anything else, is sure of more than anything else.
It’s almost midnight, and Mark is standing in the entrance of the practice rooms the Dreamies use, still holding onto his travel backpack and looking blearily through his glasses. They don’t notice him at first, too used to people going in and out of the practice room, and it’s Chenle, who’s closest to the door that sees him first.
“Mark-hyung!” Chenle shrieks, as loud as ever and Mark could never be happier to hear him more than now, at midnight with all of the Dreamies there with him. “Hyung you’re back!”
Almost immediately, they crowd around him, chattering excitedly and asking him about the flight, throwing in questions from the showcase and lives they watched. It’s really so typical of them to have such incredible energy even so late at night, and just being in their presence is invigorating enough for Mark. He fields their questions and teasing - they keep imitating his rap verses in the title track in mockingly baritone voices and while it’s funny he isn’t going to let them know he thinks they’re funny - and scolds them a little, telling them they should be heading back to the dorms already.
“Actually,” Renjun pipes up, some light in his eyes that Mark knows means trouble, “We were going to go back at like 10, but someone wanted to stay back because someone knew you were coming back today.” He says all of this in a sing-song voice, and conveniently ducks out of Donghyuck’s arm-swiping vicinity, and a small chase ensues between them around the cluster they’re standing in.
Jeno smiles angelically and lets Renjun hide behind him, all the while Mark splutters a little, even though Renjun never said who it was.
“Ah, this hyung is too obvious,” Jaemin says dismissively, “besides, everyone already knows you guys are like, married or something.” He starts walking away to pick his already packed bag up, and Donghyuck relents his chasing of Renjun.
“Stop hiding behind your boyfriends!” Donghyuck complains.
“Stop dragging us in your schemes to meet your boyfriend!” Renjun shoots back, and really, it’s just another day with the Dreamies, all in all.
Without a word, without anything exchanged between them, Donghyuck comes to his side as they walk to the car to go home. Without a word, Jeno, Renjun, and Jaemin take the back seats, Jisung and Chenle squeeze together in the middle, and Donghyuck and Mark take the front, as they always do. Without a word, Donghyuck’s hand - warm and palms callused from a day of choreography - slips into his, cold and fingertips chafed from guitar.
Without a word, just by holding his hand, Donghyuck makes up for all the time they didn’t spend together. Everything is aligned a bit more perfectly again, everything feels right again, everything that he is becomes centred on Donghyuck. Just like how the sunflowers follow the trajectory of the sun, Mark’s eyes follows the line of Donghyuck’s profile, from the slope of his nose to the pout of his lips, and without even looking up, Donghyuck just squeezes his hand, their fingers tangling together, and slips down a little in his seat to nestle his head in the crook of Mark’s shoulder.
The roads of Seoul seems more bumpy than Mark remembers, and he tries to keep his shoulder straight so he doesn’t jostle Donghyuck. The car is quiet, but it isn’t at the same time. The silence of their exhaustion veils them from outside sounds, but it parts and lets the small shuffles, the sniffings, the adjusting of heads on shoulders and arms around shoulders, to be filtered through.
The sounds of home, of family, of everything and forever, and Mark knows that if he steps through the 127 dorm tomorrow, there will be the smell of kimchi, the smell of soup and side dishes cooking away in the kitchen. If he closes his eyes, he can smell the detergent they use for laundry, he can feel the warmth of hugs from everyone he hasn’t seen in weeks and months, he can feel hands rustling his hair and the sting of his palm after a hard high-five. He had needed to close his eyes to remember all of this in the months that he was away but now -
Now he doesn’t need to close his eyes. He’s tired, but he won’t close his eyes now, not with his forever pressed closed against him.
Donghyuck is always warm, Mark reflects as they walk through the few metres of biting cold night air before they reach the safety of their dorms. No matter where they are, if they’re on set filming for another music video, if they’re up early for recording of some reality show, if they’re staying late to go over new songs, if they’re holding hands in the twilight when they’re sure no one is looking.
Even now, when their sides are pressed against each other and they keep bumping into each other as they try to get ready for bed, too little energy and too much fatigue in their muscles that they become clumsy with movements. Even now, Donghyuck is warm, in his big shirt and loose pants, and somewhere through all the layers of his fatigue, Mark feels the same bubbling affection rising high and fast in his chest.
“Come to bed, silly,” Donghyuck says, eyes almost shut as he falls into bed, tugging at the sheets until he’s under the blanket. “Stop standing there and staring at me.”
“I haven’t seen you for more than 2 months,” Mark says, and it’s completely irrelevant to Donghyuck’s previous statements but that isn’t unusual either.
“And when you do see me after not seeing me for more than 2 months is stare at me,” Donghyuck says, amusement in his voice, “when you could come here and cuddle me. Think, Mark Lee, of all the possibilities you’re missing out on.”
“I’ll reply to you in the morning when I’m awake,” Mark says, yawning and setting his glasses down on the bedside table as he slides under the blanket, where the heat combined with Donghyuck’s warmth makes him so much drowsier almost immediately.
“I’ll be here,” Donghyuck says, from somewhere a little far away, and yes, he will be. He always has been. Even when Mark was away for all these months, even when they weren’t them yet, even when they had been scared and unsure and nervous.
“And I’ll always look for you,” Mark murmurs, perhaps more to himself than Donghyuck, but they’re pressed so tightly against each other that he thinks Donghyuck can hear him, at any rate.
If Donghyuck is warmth, then he is the sun. He is the sun in all of its brightest glory, shining on stage and enthralling everyone with his performance, his voice; he is the sun in the prettiest shade of golden, just starting to rise beyond the horizon and promising a new today in which tomorrow will always come; he is the sun, always there, and forever so.
So if Donghyuck is the sun, then he, Mark, he is the sunflower.
He is Donghyuck’s forever companion, he will always look for Donghyuck, will always search and reach out for Donghyuck, regardless of time or space or lives, because this is what they are in the end.
They are a forever, they don’t have a time limit, they are more than one universe together. It is in the synchronisation of their heartbeats, it is in the perfect fit of their hands together, it is in the way their eyes closed but they see all the colours of the world anyway. The world begins and ends with them and they are each others world.
In those fifty-seven days, they had called maybe half a dozen times, messages maybe every day or two. In those fifty-seven days, Donghyuck had told him I’m waiting for you to come back twelve times. In those fifty-seven days, Mark had said I love you because he didn’t really know when he was coming back.
And now, fifty-seven days later, they’re tangled together, cold banished and only warmth between them, in one of their beds, exhaustion braided into their muscles, and Mark couldn’t ask for anything else. The air around him is honey-sweet, he’s surrounded by warmth, and he knows that when he wakes up it will be to sunlight on his skin and the sun in his arms.
This is his happiness.