Archive of Our Own ^beta

2013.

Jaehyun hears – “Hey, some new kid got in last Saturday!” – and has to go see for himself.

He knows what the Saturday auditions are like – how nigh-impossible it is to get noticed amongst the sea of auditionees all singing the same worn TVXQ song, how hard it is to gain approval from the producers even once you’ve differentiated yourself from the rest. Different doesn’t always equal good, after all, and good doesn’t equal remarkable, and the producers are looking for someone who’s all those things and more.

Taeyong and Johnny have pulled up the kid’s file – “New meat,” Johnny says, earning a slap on the shoulder from Taeyong – and wave Jaehyun over when they notice him watching. “Come take a look, I know you’re just dying of curiosity,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes.

Lee Donghyuck. He looks tiny and endlessly soft in the picture, prompting Jaehyun’s eyes to immediately go up to his birthdate. “2000, huh…” he murmurs. Really, at this point, he should be more worried about how Taeyong or Johnny got access to these papers, but curiosity wins out and he doesn’t question them.

“He’s practically a baby,” Taeyong says, eyes already filling up with maternal instinct. Jaehyun wants to roll his eyes – Taeyong is so similar in this regard to Joohyun, who latched onto Yerim the minute she walked through SM’s doors and started acting like she’d birthed the girl herself.

“He’s just a year younger than Mark, what are you talking about?” Johnny laughs.

“No way was Mark this small when we first met him,” Taeyong retorts. He turns to Jaehyun. “What do you think? It says here that the producers chose him for his vocals. I wonder what he sang that he impressed them this much?”

Jaehyun’s eyes travel down the page to where Taeyong is pointing, the comments from one of the producers encircled in red ink. Unique, pure voice, they had written. Airy, but strong. Polishing required.

“I think he did something amazing,” Jaehyun says, non-committal. “The producers must’ve singled him out for a reason.”

-

2013.

Lee Donghyuck arrives alongside Lee Jeno, Na Jaemin, and Park Jisung, and it’s like Taeyong’s become a mother hen overnight, suddenly occupied with taking care of the new kids that have popped up in the company and have proceeded to wreak havoc the way only prepubescent boys knew how.

Donghyuck is just as tiny and soft as he looked in the picture, except now volume comes along with his appearance, and Donghyuck uses his voice like he’s a megaphone. Jaehyun doesn’t know how he preserves his voice enough to sing well during evaluations, but Donghyuck must have a second set of vocal cords reserved just for singing tucked away somewhere, judging by how unaffected his singing voice is by the amount of screaming and laughing he does.

Funnily enough, he latches on immediately to Mark, making it his own personal agenda to annoy the other boy as much as he can, and Jaehyun watches as Mark, sweet, unassuming Mark Lee, learns what it means to be irritated, to be angry, and to even full on hate someone. Jaehyun thinks Mark is being comically dramatic with his reactions, but then again no one has ever riled him up like this, antagonized him to the point of anger simply to get a reaction out of him.

It doesn’t last long, anyway – as much as Mark threatens every day that today is the day, that he’s really going to do it, he’s really going to leave SM, he never does it. He learns that there’s no genuine malice behind any of Donghyuck’s actions, that it’s infinitely more satisfying to get a rise out of the younger boy by pretending to ignore him. Their relationship becomes push and pull until both forces gradually balance each other out, and eventually they settle into a mutual understanding, strengthened by their shared experiences and the chemistry they naturally seem to share.

Jaehyun is quietly jealous, the way he is of Jeno and Jaemin’s equally strong bond, or the way Taeyong and Johnny just always seem to seek each other out, no matter the situation. He supposes that with Donghyuck and Mark, as well as Jeno and Jaemin, it’s easier to form close, lasting bond when you’re younger – he sees them come in through the company door, laughing and pushing each other as they race to the practice room, and smiles fondly at them, happy they have someone to share their struggles with.

Donghyuck, bereft of a target for his teasing and naturally touchy besides, decides to spread his attention across all the other trainees. He demands piggyback rides from Johnny and yells in delight whenever Taeyong cooks for them, and he even manages to sneak into a vocal training session for older trainees to watch quietly from the corner, only to be discovered later and smothered in pinches and tickles by a fond Seungwan. He latches on tightly to Taeil, probably the most talented vocalist Jaehyun’s encountered amongst the current trainees, and declares him his own personal older brother. Taeil, who Jaehyun knows only has a younger sister and no brothers, takes this title to heart and spoils the younger boy probably more than he ought to.

With Jaehyun, Donghyuck is – much the same, actually. There’s a starry-eyed quality to the way Donghyuck watches Jaehyun, admiring the way he speaks English – “I speak English too, come on,” Mark whines, earning a shush, hyung is different from Donghyuck – the way he dances, the way he does anything. At some point, Jaehyun fixes his hair in the practice room mirror before going off to the bathroom, only to realize that he’d forgotten his spare shirt. He comes back to find Donghyuck standing where he’d stood, obviously trying to copy the way he’d fixed his hair, and his heart swells, endlessly fond. He’d stayed there, hidden behind the practice door, listening to a young Donghyuck say swag to himself in the mirror, and decided he could wait to change clothes until he got home.

Jaehyun watches fondly from the corner as Mark and Donghyuck enter the room, whispering harshly to each other as they trade pinches with equal strength. “What happened?” he asks them, already smiling.

“Donghyuck – ” “Mark-hyung – ”

“No, you don’t get to do this, it was your fault,” Mark cuts him off, planting his palm firmly against Donghyuck’s mouth. Donghyuck makes an indignant sound of protest, muffled by Mark’s hand. “Hyung, Donghyuck pushed me in the hallway, so I accidentally bumped into Baekhyun-hyung and Kyungsoo-hyung while they were passing by! Can you believe it?”

Jaehyun laughs out loud, earning a wounded look from Mark. Their EXO hyungs are far from people who could get offended by something like that, and Jaehyun knows for a fact that Baekhyun encourages the younger trainees’ shenanigans, often joining in when they play around. “Calm down, I’m sure they aren’t mad at you,” he says placatingly.

“Tha – mmf! – that’s what I said!” Donghyuck says, successfully ripping Mark’s hand away. “But Mark-hyung wouldn’t believe me and he kept making me bow and bow and bow and scolding me – ”

“Because we were disrespectful - !”

“Ten bows were enough, you didn’t have to make me bow like fifty times – ”

Jaehyun watches them bicker, a small smile on his face, watching the way Mark comes alive and lights up the way he only does when he’s around Donghyuck, fighting with him, dancing with him, being with him.

He wonders if he’s watching the start of something more.

-

2016.

They debut with the 7th Sense, and Donghyuck’s backing vocals are nowhere to be heard.

Jaehyun had heard the demo version, heard Donghyuck’s voice plain as day, bleeding through the instrumental. He wondered if maybe the younger boy would be a last-minute addition to the group, but as their debut stage draws nearer and nearer with no indication of Donghyuck being added into the performance, that idea fades away.

When Mark hears the final track, devoid of Donghyuck’s voice, his face cycles through confusion, then realization, then finally a silent kind of fury that Jaehyun has never seen on his face before. He understands the sentiment – Donghyuck had been so happy when he came to them the day after he finished recording, telling them that he’d been added as background vocals even if he wasn’t in the group with them. “So, it’s like a mini-debut,” he’d concluded happily, nestled in Taeyong’s arms. “It’s such a small part that no one will really know except us, but it’s out there, you know? People are going to hear my voice!”

Donghyuck doesn’t find out until after the MV drops, and Jaehyun knows that Mark had sought him out, because the boy had been absent when they’d finally sat down to watch the video themselves. Taeil had worried his lip, considering whether to go after him or not, but the older members all silently decided among themselves that it was best left between Mark and Donghyuck.

The younger boy shows up later, with Mark trailing after him, and he immediately launches himself into Taeil’s arms. “Congratulations on your debut,” he says, and when he pulls back, there’s nothing but genuine happiness in his eyes. “You guys deserve it so, so, so much. You guys did so well.”

“Donghyuck-ah,” Jaehyun begins, but he’s cut off. “Don’t make this about me, hyung,” Donghyuck insists, and it sounds like something he must have told Mark just before he came here. “So what if they cut my vocals out of the song? They do that kind of stuff all the time. What matters is the song is really good and you guys – you guys were so good! The music video was so cool!”

Ten pulls him over and gets him to sit on his lap, even though by now, Donghyuck is taller than him. “It sounded better with you in it, though,” he tells him, grudgingly honest, and Jaehyun knows that Ten is going out of his way to comfort Donghyuck.

“Oh, for sure,” Donghyuck jokes, earning a pinch on the side from Ten. “But that’s okay, you know? Because I’ll debut, too. I’ll debut in my own group with Jeno and Jaemin and the others and have my own parts and it’ll be awesome.”

He reaches behind him blindly, groping around until he manages to find Mark’s hand, as if he knew the other boy would naturally move to stand behind him. “So cheer up, hyung! It’s time for you guys to celebrate, not to look down like this. It’s your debut! You finally made it!”

“He’s right,” Taeyong says, clapping his hands together and managing a smile. “He’s absolutely right – we have promotions ahead of us, so we have to make use of tonight. We should celebrate.”

“Is it okay to come in yet?” Someone calls from outside, and they all look around, confused. Except for Donghyuck, who whips around and says “Yeah, come in!”

Johnny pokes his head inside, carrying a cake, and he enters, followed shortly by a bunch of other trainees. Jaemin in particular walks in with a huge smile on his face, carrying several balloons with the trainees – with the members’ names on them. “I was just gonna barge in with this well-earned celebratory cake, but Donghyuck told me you all were being sulky,” Johnny jokes, and Jaehyun’s heart aches, wondering what it must be like for Johnny to watch them debut before him, after years of training and watching the people he trained with debut ahead of him.

Johnny meets his gaze and seems to guess what he’s thinking, because he rolls his eyes and sets the cake down on the table in front of them. “You’re definitely being sulky idiots, alright,” he sighs, patting around his pockets for something. He lets out a triumphant sound when he pulls out a lighter, and proceeds to poke candles through the icing on top.

“Tonight is about you guys – you guys have worked your asses off to debut, and it finally paid off,” he says, arranging the candles in a circular pattern.

“Johnny – ” Taeyong starts, but he’s cut off by a firm look. “None of that,” Johnny says, almost sounding like he’s scolding him. “If you guys don’t put smiles on all your faces within the next ten seconds, then I’m going to grab some of this cake and smush it all over your faces.”

There’s a beat of silence before Donghyuck scrambles out of Ten’s lap, presenting his face to Johnny. “I volunteer,” he says, before making the most pronounced pout he can. He lets out a surprised yelp when Johnny dips a finger in the icing and actually smears it across his nose, laughing all the while. “You see that? I meant it!” Johnny says warningly, watching as Donghyuck splutters as he licks the icing off his lips. It takes him only a second to chase Mark down and hug him, pressing his messy cheek against the elder’s face and getting icing all over their cheeks.

“Happy debut, Mark-hyung,” he says, making exaggerated kissy faces towards Mark, and if the older boy fights back less than he usually does, Jaehyun makes no mention of it.

-

2016.

Donghyuck finally debuts.

Then he debuts again.

So does Mark, if you’re counting, but Mark is a freakish anomaly with three successful debuts in less than a year under his belt and does not really bear consideration. Donghyuck’s first debut has him in dark, smudged eyeliner, with his hair styled away from his smoky gaze – then barely a month later, he’s dancing on a hoverboard, singing about chewing gum.

Jaehyun teases him whenever he returns to the dorms – “Who are you today, 127 or Dream’s Haechannie?” – and he always earns a laugh and a pinch from the boy, who looks at him fondly while calling him a weird hyung. He would do the same shtick to Mark, but the other boy is too earnest, always replying seriously depending which unit’s activities he came from. Not that U is very active, of course, but still.

Jaehyun watches as Donghyuck finally gets the chance to shine on stage, to sing his own group’s song and not just a dance cover of their seniors. He’s a way different person on stage, they’ve all come to realize – maybe the demarcation between Haechan and Donghyuck is more pronounced than they thought.

“I’m tired,” Donghyuck says, collapsing all over Jaehyun’s lap where he’s seated on the couch. Jaehyun groans, knowing that, for today at least, there’ll be no getting rid of Donghyuck. He gets like this, after performances – clingy, needy, requiring skinship with another person regardless of how sweaty they both happen to be. Nevertheless, Donghyuck rarely picks Jaehyun to cling to, so he supposes he can bear it today.

“Hyungie,” Donghyuck whispers, looking up at Jaehyun through kohl-lined eyes. The orange shirt he’s wearing today for the performance contrasts strikingly with his golden skin, and Jaehyun thinks it’s pretty. “Do you have some water? Did manager-hyung bring any?”

“There’s water here, Haechan-ah,” Taeyong calls from somewhere across the waiting room, unfailingly attuned to the needs of the members. He walks over to them before Donghyuck can even get up, handing a bottle of cold water to the younger boy. “Good job out there today, yeah? Drink up, get some food from the table later.”

“Thank you, hyung,” Donghyuck says, taking the offered drink gratefully. He unscrews the cap and downs more than half of the water in one go, his throat bobbing intensely with the force of his swallows.

“Slow down,” Jaehyun murmurs, patting him on the shoulder to get him to stop. Donghyuck pulls the bottle away and coughs, inhaling deeply. “See? You’ll just choke on it if you drink too fast.”

“Got it,” Donghyuck says weakly, putting the bottle down on the coffee table and leaning back to rest his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder. They’re quiet together for all of one minute before Donghyuck whispers, “Hyung, I made so many mistakes today.” Jaehyun delicately turns his head to the side and sees Donghyuck fiddling with the rings on his fingers, avoiding his gaze. “I tried to hide them – I think they were really noticeable, though.”

Jaehyun knows that superficial comfort won’t soothe Donghyuck – the boy is far too wise, far too ahead of his years to be appeased with simple words of It’s okay, I’m sure you did fine. “Were the cameras near you when you messed up?” he asks quietly instead.

Donghyuck purses his lips, thinking. “I don’t think so? I remember messing up during Taeil-hyung’s part, right after mine, in the verses. Then later, when Winwin-hyung was doing his part. And once each during both choruses.”

“You weren’t the center for those parts. You’re fine,” Jaehyun says, and he knows it works a little bit, judging from Donghyuck’s exhale. “It’s fine, Hyuck. I’m sure the cameras didn’t catch your mistakes. I messed up a lot, too, you know?”

“Did you, really?”

Probably not as much as Donghyuck feels he had messed up, but Jaehyun definitely made mistakes on all takes, careful to hide his missteps from the constantly roving cameras. “Yeah, and I made sure the cameras didn’t see any of it,” he says, bumping his knuckle against Donghyuck’s nose to make him laugh. “You’re fine, Haechan-ah. You did well.”

“I’ll do better,” Donghyuck promises, to no one in particular, and Jaehyun supposes that’s really the only thing that’s certain, at this point. Donghyuck will grow and grow and grow because he’s Donghyuck, the one who made it past the Saturday auditions, the youngest member of 127, the trainee that Lee Sooman had singled out and gifted with his very own stage name. Haechan.

He bumps his knuckle against Donghyuck’s nose again, just to make him giggle again. It’s not often that Donghyuck comes to him for comfort, so Jaehyun wants to make sure that he can take care of him well, their precious maknae.

-

2017.

Jaehyun wakes up at one in the morning to a flurry of knocking on the door of his and Doyoung’s shared room. His roommate groans and complains, but he’s the first to get out of his bed, mumbling, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

He pulls the door open, and the harsh light from the hallway falls directly across Jaehyun’s eyes, forcing him to throw his hand up to block it. Vision temporarily blocked, his hearing gets sharper, and he hears the sound of quiet crying outside the room.

“Can one of you switch with him? For tonight?” Jaehyun recognizes Taeyong, speaking in an uncharacteristically urgent tone. “They’re fighting, and – they both have schedules with Dream tomorrow, they need to rest, even a little bit, and I don’t know – ”

“Shh, calm down, the two of you,” Doyoung says, sounding mildly alarmed. Jaehyun wakes up enough to push himself out of bed and walk to the door to see what all the commotion is about.

Taeyong is standing outside their room, arms tightly wrapped around a shaking Donghyuck, who’s got his face in his hands. “What’s wrong?” Jaehyun asks immediately, concern spiking. “What happened? What’s wrong with Hyuckie?”

“They – fought. I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. But they need to sleep separately, at least for tonight,” Taeyong says firmly.

“He can take my bed tonight, I don’t mind,” Doyoung says immediately. “I’ll room with Mark.”

Jaehyun’s sleep-addled brain suddenly catches up, turning over Doyoung’s words in his head. “Wait, hyung, shouldn’t you stay here with Donghyuck?” he asks. When Doyoung looks at him, he shrinks under his questioning gaze. “I mean… he looks like he needs you to comfort him.”

“If Donghyuck’s crying like this, that means Mark’s at fault,” Doyoung says, and immediately Donghyuck looks up, pawing at Doyoung’s chest. “No, hyung – it’s not his fault, it’s not Mark-hyung’s fault, it’s me, I said bad things to him and he – he – ”

“It doesn’t matter who’s at fault – I need to talk to Mark,” Doyoung says firmly. “I’ve never seen you like this, Hyuck-ah. You’re shaking. At this point, it doesn’t matter who started it – Mark’s older, and he should know better than to upset you like this.”

Donghyuck sobs at that, and Jaehyun’s heart practically rips in half at the sound, never wanting to hear such a pained sound from the boy again. “Come inside, come on, let them take care of it,” he finds himself saying, gently pulling Donghyuck out of Taeyong’s hold and into the still-dark room. “It’s okay, hyung is here.”

“It’s okay, I’ll handle it,” Doyoung says to Taeyong, who’s worriedly wringing his hands. “You should go back to sleep – manager-hyung said you had something to do early tomorrow, right? You need rest. It’s okay, I’ll talk to Mark.”

They turn back to Jaehyun, who’s sitting Donghyuck down on Doyoung’s empty bed, rubbing his shoulders comfortingly. “Stay with him for tonight, okay?” Taeyong says quietly, still conscious of the other sleeping members in the dorm. “Make sure he calms down. I’ll see if they can skip out on schedules tomorrow – ”

“No,” Donghyuck says, swiveling around to the door. “I don’t want the Dream members to know. Mark-hyung – Mark-hyung wouldn’t skip out, either. We’ll just – it’ll suck, but we have to go.”

“Donghyuck, you don’t – ”

“I’m going tomorrow,” Donghyuck says firmly, staring down both Taeyong and Doyoung. They look back at him for all of five seconds before sighing. “Fine,” Taeyong says, still looking worried. “Just… try to get some rest, okay? Get some sleep. You’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Donghyuck nods. “Jaehyun-hyung is here.”

Jaehyun’s chest abruptly warms at that sentiment, and he wordlessly pulls Donghyuck back into his arms. Doyoung and Taeyong cast one last look at the two of them before leaving and closing the door, plunging the room into darkness.

Still holding Donghyuck, Jaehyun carefully maneuvers the two of them until they’re both lying down on Doyoung’s bed. He supposes that if Donghyuck has to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, then it’s only fair that Jaehyun doesn’t sleep in his own bed either.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers, stroking Donghyuck’s red hair.

The younger boy hiccups, face still obviously wet with tears. “I feel like shit,” he says honestly, and since Jaehyun isn’t Taeyong, he doesn’t scold him for swearing. “I fucked up, hyung. I think – I think Mark-hyung hates me now.”

Jaehyun lets out a small noise of surprise. “Mark could never hate you,” he says instantly, and he says it without thinking because it’s true. Mark and Donghyuck have always been Mark and Donghyuck – completely in their own little world, with the deep and mutual kind of understanding that only comes with time and trust.

Donghyuck laughs, weak and watery. “Of course he could, hyung,” Donghyuck says, tucking his face further into Jaehyun’s chest. “He’s only human. He’s not some all-loving saint – God knows how much he used to hate me when we were trainees.”

“You were kids,” Jaehyun argues. “And he grew out of that pretty quick, didn’t he? You guys have been best friends since then. It’d take more than one fight for him to hate you, or even dislike you.”

“Best friends,” Donghyuck repeats, and his voice is full of scorn. Jaehyun isn’t used to hearing such bite in his tone, and he squeezes Donghyuck, startled. “I’m – sorry. I just… I don’t know, hyung. Tonight, we – we both said some things I’m sure we regret saying. I don’t mind apologizing – I want to apologize to him, to make up with him, but… I don’t know if we can go back to normal, now that we’ve said these things to each other.”

“What things?” Jaehyun asks, quickly adding, “only if you want to tell me, though. If you want, we can just go to sleep.”

Donghyuck is silent for a few minutes, as if considering whether to tell Jaehyun or not. In fact, he’s quiet for so long that Jaehyun thinks he’s fallen asleep. He hasn’t though, and he gently pushes Jaehyun away, hands on his chest, so he can look at him properly.

“Mark-hyung confessed to me,” Donghyuck whispers, and Jaehyun sucks in a breath. “And I turned him down.”

A confusing mix of emotions blooms in Jaehyun’s chest, constricting his lungs and wrapping around his heart. He doesn’t know what he feels – warmth, a sudden chill, apprehension, but hearing Donghyuck’s statement makes his heartrate speed up irrationally. “You…turned him down?” Jaehyun repeats.

“I turned him down,” Donghyuck repeats, now avoiding Jaehyun’s gaze. “He… we were talking, and he tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away because I was surprised. And then he confessed. And then I… I turned him down, and we started fighting, and now I’m here,” he ends with a weak chuckle, devoid of absolutely any amusement.

Jaehyun pulls him in closer, sensing his rising distress. “Okay,” he says, because he doesn’t know what to tell him. What could he say, anyway? “Okay. That’s okay, Hyuck. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I said some really harsh things to him,” Donghyuck says, voice barely above a whisper.

“You didn’t mean them.”

“I meant most of them. Well, some of them. Maybe most of them.”

“Then you’ll apologize,” Jaehyun says firmly, pulling back to trap Donghyuck’s face between his hands. They’ve been lying in the darkness long enough that their eyes have adjusted, and Jaehyun can practically trace every detail on Donghyuck’s tear-stained face. His face has narrowed, he’s realized, cupping his cheeks and missing the feeling of flesh giving way to pressure. Donghyuck is eighteen now, nearing adulthood, and yet this is his first time dealing with matters of the heart. Matters of the heart that have gone awry. “You’ll apologize, he’ll apologize, and you’ll forgive each other. If you really care about each other, then you guys can get past this. I know you can.”

Donghyuck scoffs, making a face. “You make it sound like it’s so simple, hyung,” he complains.

“It is. You think it isn’t?” Jaehyun teases lightly, heartened by the return of some strength to Donghyuck’s voice. “You think I don’t know?”

“I get it, hyung, you’ve probably been confessed to a million times just last week,” Donghyuck says, rolling his eyes, and Jaehyun pinches him in retaliation, overjoyed to hear a small giggle accompanying his yelp of protest. “But you’ve never had one of your best friends in the whole world confess to you, right?”

Jaehyun wishes that Mark, whatever state he may be in right now, could hear the way Donghyuck talks about him, the way fondness creeps into his voice despite the fact that they’ve just argued. “As a matter of fact, I have,” Jaehyun says, causing Donghyuck’s eyes to go wide. “When I lived in America, one of my good friends, a girl in my class, told me that she had a crush on me.”

“That totally doesn’t count,” Donghyuck says, but he’s listening with rapt attention, eager to know what happens next.

“You’re right, it doesn’t count,” Jaehyun sighs dramatically, earning a whine from Donghyuck. “I’ll tell you in the morning. But right now, you should get some sleep. We should both go to sleep.”

“It’s already morning,” Donghyuck grumbles, but he sags against Jaehyun’s chest, exhausted from crying and from fighting. “Good night, hyung. I’m sorry I disturbed your rest.”

“Don’t be silly, Donghyuck,” Jaehyun mumbles sleepily into his hair, getting drowsy the minute he closes his eyes for real. “You didn’t disturb me at all.”

There’s a moment or two of silence, wherein Jaehyun almost dozes off completely, but he doesn’t miss Donghyuck’s small voice when he asks, “You’re not gonna ask? Why I – why I turned Mark-hyung down?”

Jaehyun shifts lazily in the bed, wrapping Donghyuck more securely in his arms. “It doesn’t matter, right?” he murmurs, nosing along the top of Donghyuck’s head. “What’s done is done. What matters is what happens next.”

Several hours later, when Jaehyun wakes up, Donghyuck is gone, presumably off to participate in Dream’s schedules. He’s back in the room when he comes back later tonight, though, and he sleeps there again. This happens for the next night, and the next, and the days congeal into weeks that congeal into months and each morning that Jaehyun wakes up it’s still Donghyuck’s face that greets him from the other bed, warm and golden and so innocent it hurts.

-

2017.

The fans notice the tension between Mark and Donghyuck, trend it under #markhyucksummerfight, and generally make a huge fuss about it until the situation gets bad enough that management steps in.

Jaehyun doesn’t know what the managers say to the two of them, but after weeks of cold indifference and awkward silences, it looks like there’s progress. At the very least, Dream has returned to their original choreography and formation for We Young, and everyone around them breathes a collective sigh of relief the day Mark approaches Donghyuck after practice with a water bottle, a quiet olive branch.

Doyoung won’t tell anyone what he and Mark had talked about, the night that Taeyong had brought Donghyuck to their once-shared room. And in turn, Jaehyun doesn’t tell anyone about his and Donghyuck’s exchange, unwilling to expose the precious bubble they had shared that night. He doesn’t think that anyone beyond those involved that night know what Mark and Donghyuck had fought about – it’s possible that some of the Dream members would know, especially Renjun, Jeno, or Jaemin, but Donghyuck had told him that he and Mark had promised not to talk about it with anyone else.

All Jaehyun knows is that, for better or for worse, Donghyuck is his roommate now. A warm, constant, and wild new presence in the space that he considers his own, a space too small to hinder intimacy.

True to form, it takes Donghyuck very little time to worm himself into every nook and cranny of Jaehyun’s routine, inserting himself at every turn until it’s stranger for Jaehyun not to see him around. They brush their teeth after everyone else each night, content to wait their turn and let the other members race to the sink like kids. When Donghyuck manages to wheedle snacks from Taeyong, or when they find it in themselves to open the fridge and actually prepare a meal, they take the food back to their room immediately, laughing as they hide it from Sicheng’s curious (hungry) gaze. And on the rare nights that Donghyuck sleeps at the Dream dorm, unwilling to part from the younger members after their schedules together, Jaehyun finds himself sleeping alone in a room that’s suddenly too big, too empty, aching to be filled by laughter and a honey-sweet voice.

“I don’t think you were ever this cheerful when I was your roommate,” Doyoung comments at one point, leaning against the doorframe as he watches Jaehyun hum while fixing up his bedsheets. “You definitely didn’t clean this much.”

“I’m clean,” Jaehyun protests, smoothing out his bed. Donghyuck’s bed is perfectly made up – he’d been surprised to observe it, when this arrangement was still new, how tidy the younger boy actually was. When he thinks back, though, he’s always been this way. He’s the only member Taeyong has never nagged about doing their share in maintaining the dorm, always doing his part and more when it came to chores.

“Yeah, but you never hummed while you were making your bed,” Doyoung says, sounding amused. “Whatever – I’m just glad you guys seem to be happy with this set-up, at least.”

“What about you? How’s Mark as a roommate?”

Doyoung sighs, a long-suffering sound. “I’m sure sometimes he forgets that he isn’t rooming with Donghyuck anymore – sometimes, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to him hunched over his lyric notebook, and he’ll turn to my bed in a hurry before catching himself. I guess he used to show Donghyuck his drafts whenever he wrote – I don’t know how to tell him that I don’t mind seeing his work, that I’d want to see it.”

“Give it time,” Jaehyun advises. It’s the same advice he’d given Donghyuck, and it’s what he’s telling Doyoung now. So far, there hasn’t been a single instance when it hadn’t worked. Time truly had a way of simply smoothing things over. “He still hasn’t fully warmed up to you. He’s not like Donghyuck – that kid adapts to anything and anyone in the blink of an eye. Mark’ll open up to you eventually.”

“I hope so,” Doyoung says, and Jaehyun turns to find him worrying his lip. “I just hope I’m not making him uncomfortable, or anything.”

“I’m sure you aren’t,” Jaehyun says, eyes fixed on the wall clock just somewhere to the right and up of Doyoung’s head. It’s nearly five – Donghyuck will be back soon from Dream practice, and it’ll be time for them to raid Yuta’s stash of snacks. Doyoung catches him then, lost in thought as he figures out the logistics of how exactly they’ll be taking and hiding Yuta’s seaweed chips, and sighs fondly, knowing he’s effectively lost Jaehyun at this point.

-

2018.

NCT – NCT 2018 – releases Empathy and it’s like a flip has been switched.

Boss is released first, and Jaehyun has to deal with Donghyuck dancing around their room, singing the chorus out loud in an annoying, gravelly tone. He gets Mark to teach him the choreography even if Jaehyun could easily have taught him himself, and he’s proud of Donghyuck for trying his best every single day to mend his relationship with Mark. The other boy is still awkward around him sometimes, a little stiff, a little more averse to skinship, but Jaehyun hadn’t been wrong when he’d said that Mark could never hate Donghyuck. The rejection must’ve stung badly, but Mark’s trying his best, too, and that’s more than enough.

Ten and Taeyong get mobbed by the other members when their duet drops, and Jaehyun doesn’t know what’s more distracting, Donghyuck constantly screeching the lyrics of Boss, or him trying to learn Ten’s parts in Baby Don’t Stop when he thinks that Jaehyun isn’t around. He walks in on the younger boy in their room several times, watching himself carefully in the mirror as he tries to copy the way Ten dances in the chorus, and it’s so reminiscent of the time that Jaehyun had caught him in their old practice room that he has to turn away, hiding his smile.

Donghyuck catches him watching, once, and he chases him out of their room with a burning face, whining loudly as he smacks him on the shoulder. It’s so pure and innocent, his complete embarrassment at being caught, that Jaehyun forgets just how much Donghyuck can change when he slips into Haechan.

The Go MV drops, and even though Jaehyun’s heard snippets of it before, nothing could’ve prepared him for the opening line, Donghyuck’s usually honeyed tone low and gritty. It isn’t that Donghyuck hasn’t done similar concepts before, what with 127’s whole image and all. It’s just that – having just finished shooting for Touch, Jaehyun had been treated to a soft, almost angelic image of Donghyuck, hanging gently off of him as they shoot their part in the bridge.

Donghyuck in Go is a whole other ballpark.

Now, objectively Jaehyun knows that there isn’t a single person in the entire group that acts in real life exactly how they are onscreen – every single one of them, to some degree, possesses a natural duality.

No single member embodies that word the way Donghyuck does, in Jaehyun’s opinion. Haechan, onstage, fiery and bright, fiercely talented and mesmerizingly charismatic – Donghyuck, in their shared room, back turned to Jaehyun as he watches the last episode of some generic drama, trying to hide his tears over the sappy ending. Donghyuck, arguing with Mark almost to the point of actual resentment, only to be by his best friend’s side minutes later, quietly urging him to sit down and drink some water before he passes out from exhaustion. Donghyuck, so bright and friendly and open and full of love, but sensitive, taking everything to heart even if he doesn’t show it, quietly observant and considerate.

Dizzying though it is, at times, Jaehyun likes Donghyuck’s duality.

He likes Donghyuck, period.

It’s not new, this state of liking. Of affection beyond what friends should feel for each other. It didn’t feel sudden, either – one day, Jaehyun wakes up in his bed, overly warm, only to find a whole bundle of Donghyuck tucked under his blankets and pressed against his chest. The younger boy had woken up, yawned quietly, and blinked at Jaehyun with a sweet good morning, and Jaehyun knew that he was in deep, that he was in the middle before he even knew that he’d begun.

Quietly overcome, Jaehyun had pulled Donghyuck into his chest, murmuring something about sleeping for five more minutes, endeared at the way that the younger boy kicked and whined about being late for their schedule.

(Donghyuck’s the one who falls asleep, anyway, and Jaehyun has to shake him awake ten minutes later when Taeyong comes knocking on their door, sounding annoyed. Jaehyun has to resist the urge to kiss the pout right off of Donghyuck’s lips, forcing himself to pull away and disentangle from their embrace.)

Jaehyun wonders, sometimes, how he hadn’t caught himself falling. He’s so used to guarding his emotions and partitioning himself off that he knows he would’ve noticed Donghyuck starting to take up more and more of his thoughts. He wonders and wonder, until he realizes – it’s because it’s easy, to love Donghyuck, and to be loved by him in return. Loving Donghyuck requires no effort because the boy makes it so simple, so uncomplicated, what with the way he’s so open to receiving and giving affection in turn.

Jaehyun should’ve noticed, but he didn’t – from day one, Donghyuck had been working himself into every corner of his heart and mind, sweetly offering himself up to be loved and to love in return.

“Hyung, Boss is almost at thirty million views!” Donghyuck says excitedly, bouncing onto Jaehyun’s bed with a pillow and his phone in tow. “Lucas-hyung sent me the screenshot, and he said that Jungwoo-hyung’s about to cry, he’s so happy. Isn’t that nice?”

“Oh yeah?” Jaehyun says, easily extending an arm to make space for Donghyuck to snuggle in. Donghyuck happily cuddles up to him, the action second-nature at this point. Jaehyun would think that it’s stranger for Donghyuck not to sneak into his bed at some point during the night, no matter what the weather is like. “That’s great.”

“That’s great,” Donghyuck mimics, voice turning down to copy Jaehyun’s tone. “Hyung, Boss is, like, the most popular MV NCT’s ever dropped! Be a bit more excited about it!”

“I am excited,” Jaehyun says lazily. His eyes are closed, trying not to look at the head of carrot-orange hair resting on his chest. If he does, he knows he’ll be struck with the urge to press a kiss right on the crown, already drawn in by the sweet scent of Donghyuck’s shampoo. “I told you, I think it’s great.”

“You’re no fun,” Donghyuck grumbles, pressing play on his screen. The starting notes of Boss start playing, sounding tinny from the phone speakers. “You look cool in the MV, hyung,” Donghyuck says admiringly, and Jaehyun inhales sharply. “Really?” he says.

“Really, really,” Donghyuck affirms, smiling softly as he looks at the screen, and then – something shifts, in Jaehyun. Donghyuck’s eyes look beautiful, specks of light from the screen reflected in his irises, and when he moves to make himself comfortable, he ends up pushing his hair up into Jaehyun’s nose. And then – fuck it, Jaehyun decides, and he closes the miniscule gap between them and presses a soft kiss right in the middle of Donghyuck’s head.

His heart starts beating faster when he feels Donghyuck stiffen, but the younger boy is quickly looking up at him, a slight blush visible on his cheeks. “Hyung?” he asks, and it makes Jaehyun want to go further, want to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his – “What was that for?”

“Felt like it,” Jaehyun says casually, sounding way more calm than he actually feels.

Donghyuck looks at him, confusion and something akin to wonder on his face, and the longer he looks at Jaehyun the deeper the flush on his face becomes. “O-okay,” he says eventually, averting his gaze to look back at his phone, but Jaehyun can feel the warmth of his face through the thin material of his shirt. “If you say so.”

Jaehyun marvels at this – this embarrassed, abashed Donghyuck. He’s never seen the other boy be reduced to speechlessness by anyone, for anything, always ready with a witty comeback. He’d been expecting to be teased for his rare display of affection, for Donghyuck to come up with some quip about being irresistible, but this… Jaehyun hadn’t been expecting to see Donghyuck’s shyness.

He likes it.

He likes it very, very much.

(He wants to see it more.)

-

2018.

Of all the people to confront him on his feelings for Donghyuck, it’s Mark Lee who does it.

“Hey, hyung…” Mark says from his bed, just as Jaehyun emerges from the shower. They’re rooming together for this leg of their stay in America, promoting Regular and attending various shows and interviews besides. Donghyuck’s off in his room with Taeil, probably bothering the older member for a never-ending stream of hugs and cuddles. Jaehyun’s glad that, since Donghyuck isn’t rooming with him, he’s at least rooming with someone who indulges his demands for affection.

Jaehyun finishes pulling his shirt over his head, tiredly shaking his head to get rid of excess water on the strands. “Sorry, I took a long time in the shower. I nearly fell asleep,” he says, laughing slightly. “What is it?”

“Do you like Donghyuck?” Mark asks bluntly, leveling Jaehyun with a neutral gaze. Jaehyun’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Sure I do,” he says evenly, certain that he knows what Mark is talking about, but refusing to acknowledge it. If he can get out of this conversation by playing dumb, then he will. “He’s my roommate, isn’t he?”

To Jaehyun’s intense amusement and abject mortification, Mark rolls his eyes. “We both know that’s not what I’m talking about, hyung,” he says, settling back against his pillows. “It’s okay, you know. I’m pretty much over it.”

Jaehyun grabs his towel and wraps it around his shoulders, going to his own bed and jumping underneath the covers. If he’d been rooming with Donghyuck, the other boy would have been beside him in a heartbeat, snuggling up against him and hogging most of the blankets. “Are you, really?” Jaehyun asks carefully.

Mark lets out a long exhale, sounding incredibly tired and worn. “I think I am. I hope I am. Maybe not – maybe not ever,” he says honestly, looking at his hands and not at Jaehyun’s wondering face. “It doesn’t matter, though – the window’s kind of closed on that one. I blew my chance.”

“You don’t know that,” Jaehyun says automatically, because if there’s one thing in the world that he believes in, that he believes would outlast everything else on this planet, it’s the bond between Mark and Donghyuck. Whatever it is, as long as both of them wanted it, nothing would have an expiry date for the two of them. If the two of them wanted to be together, it would never be too late. “You don’t know that, Mark.”

“I kind of do know that, though,” Mark says, a strange little smile on his face whose meaning Jaehyun can’t quite parse through. It doesn’t look like he’s going to explain, though, because he closes his eyes and leans against his headboard as he continues to talk. “So, even you weren’t immune, huh? Donghyuck got you too?”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Jaehyun says, grateful that Mark at least seems able to joke about this.

“I like to call it the Roommate Effect,” Mark says seriously. “Anyone who shares a room with Donghyuck for long enough, if they manage to survive how annoying he is, will end up having a gross crush on him at some point or another.”

Jaehyun laughs in surprise, realizing that it’s true. “Pretty early to draw a conclusion, isn’t it? When we’re the only two subjects available?”

“Oh, it isn’t just us,” Mark says, chuckling. “Jeno roomed with Donghyuck for a whole week once while we were staying at a hotel, and by the end of it he was trailing after Donghyuck like a lovesick puppy. The Roommate Effect has a strong case going for it.”

“I wonder why that is?” Jaehyun muses.

Mark’s silent for a bit, eyes still closed, as if wondering how best to phrase his answer. “I guess it’s because Donghyuck’s an affectionate person?” he posits, sounding thoughtful. “Really, really affectionate, and caring, too. And he has this way of treating everyone and making them feel special, like he really cares about them specifically. And I think… I think having that attention focused on you, for extended hours at a time, in such an intimate space… it does things to you, you know?”

Jaehyun does. He does know. He knows because he feels the way his heart beats faster when he sees Donghyuck in their room, warm and vulnerable and affectionate. He feels it when he sees Donghyuck arranging stuff in their shared wardrobe, or when he’s fixing Jaehyun’s bed when the older boy forgets to do it himself. He feels it when Donghyuck sits on his bed at night, after he’s taken his shower, and takes the towel from his hands to dry his hair for him while he hums him a song.

It’s the way Donghyuck acts in the privacy of their room, so sweet and so caring, that makes Jaehyun’s heart ache and his mind come up with dozens of daydreams to compensate for the fact that Jaehyun can’t have what he wants.

“It makes you want him,” Jaehyun whispers, and he hears Mark shift in his bed. “Even though you know you can’t.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, equally quiet. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Jaehyun turns onto his side, looking at the other boy. “Mark,” he begins, “that night, why – why did Donghyuck turn you down?”

It’s something that’s been eating at Jaehyun, ever since he came to terms with the fact that he liked Donghyuck. Why would Donghyuck turn Mark down? Mark, his best friend, his soulmate, the person he’s gone through the most with. If Donghyuck rejected Mark, then who else could possibly have a chance?

Mark inhales, and for a moment, Jaehyun’s afraid he’s gone too far, that he’s touched on something painful for Mark, but a bittersweet smile crosses the other boy’s face. “That night, I – I confessed to him, because I couldn’t take it anymore, you know? I – we were talking, and I thought that, you know, the timing was right. We were talking about our future, as idols, and even beyond that, and I thought that was his way of telling me he wanted me there. That he wanted to share our future together.”

It is with utter doubt and disbelief that Jaehyun asks, “Did he not want to?”

Mark barks out a laugh. “Oh, no, he definitely does,” he says, and a note of fondness creeps into his voice. “Donghyuck’s made it clear then, before that, and even until now that we’re stuck together for the rest of our lives.”

He laces his hands together, fingers knotted tightly. “No, what happened was… Donghyuck told me that we shouldn’t date, not while it was just barely a year after we’d debuted. Basically he said that, besides all the rules we would be breaking, he didn’t want either of us to become distractions for the other, not after all the work we’ve put into becoming idols.”

That isn’t the reason Jaehyun had been expecting at all. “Donghyuck said that?” he says, disbelievingly, causing Mark to laugh.

“Yeah, Donghyuck was the one who said that. Looking back, he was absolutely right. Even back then, he really was better at seeing the bigger picture,” Mark says, sounding almost admiring. “He said – well, we fought, and we both said some really nasty things, but – he told me he didn’t want to be with me, if I was going to be an impulsive idiot and throw away all my hard work just because I had a dirty crush on him.”

Jaehyun inhales sharply, and then – he can’t help it, he bursts into laughter. “Did he really say that?” he asks, shaking with mirth.

“Verbatim,” Mark says, grinning. “He was already crying at that point, but he still found it in him to sneak some insults in.”

“Oh, that’s priceless,” Jaehyun says, chuckling. He can absolutely see a distraught Donghyuck yelling at Mark, firing petty insults as an involuntary defense mechanism. “I can see why you’d lose your temper.”

“I did lose my temper that night,” Mark admits, and his voice sounds small. “And I’m lucky Doyoung-hyung talked me down after. If he didn’t – if he’d let me stew in my own thoughts, alone – I don’t know if I could ever have forgiven Donghyuck. Or if I could have ever realized that it wasn’t his fault in the first place – that I was in the wrong, that he was only turning me down because he cared for me.”

“Mark…” Jaehyun begins, unsure of what to say.

“That would’ve really sucked,” Mark says, a look of displeasure crossing his face as if imagining what could have happened. “If I let something like that come between me and Donghyuck.”

Jaehyun nods, even knowing that the other boy can’t see him. “Yeah, it really would’ve.”

They’re quiet for a bit, and Jaehyun wonders if the conversation is over. It isn’t, though, because a few minutes later Mark speaks up again. “I guess what I’m saying is,” he says, finally opening his eyes, turning on his side to look at Jaehyun. “What I want to say, hyung, is that it’s okay for you to like Donghyuck. To have these feelings for him. You shouldn’t feel bad for liking him on anyone’s account, especially not mine.”

“I don’t feel bad for liking him – ” Quite the contrary – even though it’s inconvenient at times, Jaehyun’s never felt lighter in his life, having come to terms with the fact that he likes Donghyuck.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Mark snorts, barely minding the interruption. “God knows a trainee falls in love with him every other month just because he helps them out or cheers them up when he notices they’re feeling down. It’s way too easy to fall for someone like him.”

“He really is like that with everyone, isn’t he?” Jaehyun remarks, smiling a little sadly. And that’s exactly it – Donghyuck would go above and beyond for Jaehyun, and he loves him for it, but Donghyuck would go above and beyond for so many other people. He can’t resent him for it – he likes him the better for it, in fact – but it makes Jaehyun wonder, how much of Donghyuck’s care is because he’s doing it for Jaehyun, and how much falls to the fact that he’s Donghyuck, sweet and kind and unfailingly considerate.

“Maybe he is,” Mark agrees. “But there are certain things he reserves for the people he cares about. And you’re one of them, hyung – you’re special to him.”

Jaehyun knows it well, but it eases his mind for some reason to hear it from Mark, probably the one person in the world who knows Donghyuck best. “Thanks, Mark,” he says sincerely, leaning up on his elbow to look at him. “But, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you bring this up?”

“Oh,” Mark says, moving to turn off the lamp. “Doyoung-hyung saw that your homescreen wallpaper was Donghyuck and asked me to talk to you before you accidentally exposed yourself.”

-

2018.

It happens, all the time. They run through a choreo they’ve done millions of times, muscle memory taking over, and yet they still stumble, trip over their feet, bump into each other while they change formation. It happens all the time and there’s nothing to do but laugh and brush it off, hurrying to catch up with the music.

On their sixth run through of Black on Black, Donghyuck stumbles and doesn’t get up.

He doesn’t swear, the way he normally does when he falls or pulls a muscle – instead, he lets out a small, pained sound, weak from exhaustion, and somehow still manages to be heard over the sound of music and seventeen pairs of feet stomping on the practice floor.

Lucas, nearest to him just then, notices first and shouts out in a panic – “Haechan fell!” immediately rushing to the smaller boy’s side. Most of the members stop dancing, confused, while those furthest away are slower to catch on, only ceasing when one of their managers notices and turns the music off.

Jaehyun stops dancing, chest heaving and breath coming short, only to turn around and spot Lucas on the floor, cradling Donghyuck’s torso while the younger boy curls up defensively into his chest. “Hurts,” Donghyuck gasps, clawing at Lucas’s sweat-stained shirt as he tenses up from the pain. “Hyung, it hurts.”

In a flash, Taeyong runs from the other end of the room and kneels beside them, hands holding Donghyuck comfortingly. Mark and Doyoung are next to rush to their sides, and Jaehyun – he stands frozen in shock, unsure of what to do for all of one second before he hears Donghyuck whimper from pain, and suddenly he’s sprinting to their sides too.

Taeyong is doing a check of Donghyuck’s limbs, while the younger boy clings to Lucas, who looks panicked and stressed but does his best to comfort Donghyuck any way he can. Mark is holding Donghyuck’s free hand, saying nothing as his hand is crushed in a painful grip, whispering soothing phrases into his ear. Jaehyun hovers around him, torn between kneeling to comfort him and standing back with the rest of the members, but the minute that his Donghyuck’s gazes lock, one tearful, the other scared beyond belief, he’s compelled to approach and be close to him.

“It’s his leg,” Taeyong declares grimly, gingerly running his hand over Donghyuck’s right leg. Even his gentle touch proves to be too much for Donghyuck, who flinches away from the contact. “I don’t know how bad it is – it looks like it could be a fracture, but I’m not sure.”

“I’m going to call for a car,” their manager says, already pulling out his phone as he walks out of  the room. Johnny and Yuta turn to follow him, ready to assist. “We’re taking him to the hospital.”

Jaehyun doesn’t even hear him, too focused on the expression of pain on Donghyuck’s face. “Donghyuck-ah, can you move?” Taeyong asks soothingly, stroking his hair. Mark squeezes Donghyuck’s hand, looking close to tears. “We need to move you to the lobby so we can transfer you to the car. We’re going to get your leg checked, okay? You’ll be okay.”

Donghyuck bites his lip, pulling his hand away from Mark’s grip so he can use both hands to try and push himself off of Lucas. The minute he jostles his leg, though, he cries out loudly, barely managing to avoid slumping down and hurting himself even further. “Sorry,” he gasps, fresh tears spilling from his eyes. “Sorry, I can’t – not on my own.”

“I can carry him,” Lucas offers, at the exact same second that that Jaehyun blurts out, “I’ll carry him.”

There’s only a split second of potentially awkward silence before Donghyuck speaks: “Jaehyun-hyung. Jaehyun-hyung can carry me.”

Lucas, thankfully, displays immense relief. He must have been nervous at the thought of carrying an injured Donghyuck, especially considering how averse he is to being moved at the moment. Jaehyun, as his roommate, is more than used to the younger’s demands to be carried around wherever they go. This is no different – he’s just going to have to be about a million times more careful.

Mark, Doyoung, and Taeyong shuffle aside to allow a clear path between Jaehyun and Donghyuck. Mark catches his gaze with a meaningful look – mouths, Be careful, hyung – and rubs Donghyuck’s shoulder comfortingly as Jaehyun snakes his hands around him.

Jaehyun doesn’t think he’s ever handled anything or anyone so gently in his life. Donghyuck barely makes a sound as he allows himself to be transferred to Jaehyun’s arms, wrapping his arms around his neck the minute he’s secure. “Okay?” Jaehyun asks quietly, and Donghyuck only nods, His face is still screwed up in pain, but he manages to give a weak smile when Jaehyun looks at him again. “I’m fine, hyung,” he murmurs. “You’ve got me.”

Johnny returns to the room, the other members parting to make way for him. “The car is outside,” he announces. “Can you bring him down?”

“I’ve got him,” Jaehyun says, and the he slowly walks out of the room, careful not to move Donghyuck’s leg too much. Mark and Taeyong flank him closely, followed by the other members of Dream who hadn’t been able to stick by Donghyuck’s side when he fell. Renjun in particular walks up to silently offer his hand to the injured boy, and Donghyuck takes it, sinking into Jaehyun’s chest when he feels Renjun running his thumb soothingly across his knuckles.

They somehow make it to the car without much of the staff seeing or noticing – it’s nearly midnight, after all, and not many people are left in the building. Jaehyun carefully transfers Donghyuck to the car, and after only a second’s hesitation, gets in after him.

Mark, Taeyong, Johnny and Doyoung naturally climb in after them as well, but they say no when the Dream members insist on coming. “Why, hyung?” Jisung asks, and his eyes shine with unshed tears. Chenle stands right beside him, worriedly craning his neck to look past Taeyong where Donghyuck is sitting. “We want to go with him!”

“It’s late,” Taeyong says placatingly, sitting near the door of the car to talk to them. Jaemin, Jeno and Renjun look positively thunderous, and Jaehyun’s afraid that they’ll just storm the car anyway and force the manager to allow them to come. “It’s late, and it’s going to be a hassle if too many of us are away from the dorms at this hour. I swear to you guys, we’ll take care of Donghyuck – and I promise, tomorrow, once he’s settled in, we’ll come back and pick you up so you can visit him. Okay?”

Jaemin steps forward and opens his mouth, ready to argue, but Renjun holds him back. “Nana, it’s okay,” he says soothingly. “We’ll only delay them if we argue.” He turns and fixes Taeyong with a firm stare. “Just take care of Donghyuck, okay? Please.”

Jaehyun feels Donghyuck stir beside him, bracing a hand on his shoulder so he can look at the rest of Dream. “I’ll be fine, guys,” he says, and Jaehyun doesn’t miss the way his hand buckles when he accidentally puts too much weight on his bad leg. “Listen to Taeyongie-hyung, okay? They’ll take care of me. You’ll see me tomorrow.”

“Of course we will,” Jeno and Jaemin say together, and with one last look from Donghyuck, they step back and pull Jisung and Chenle back along with them. “Mark-hyung, look after him, please,” Renjun says, and the concern in his voice tugs painfully on Jaehyun’s heartstrings.

Loved. Donghyuck is so loved.

They stand there even after the car door is shut on their faces, and they walk slowly with the car as it drives off, stopping only once it’s sped up to the point that they can’t follow. Taeyong cranes his neck back at them to ensure that they go back inside the building, sighing in relief when he sees some of the older members shepherding Dream back inside.

Donghyuck remains curled up against Jaehyun for the entire ride, and Jaehyun holds him tightly, protectively. Even when they arrive at the hospital and Donghyuck’s transferred onto a stretcher for ease of transport – the younger boy’s eyes widen in fear at the sight of the medics, as if his condition has just sunk in – he holds onto Donghyuck; if not the boy, then his arm, if not his arm, then just his hand.

Johnny and Taeyong end up going with their manager to handle the paperwork, while Doyoung, Mark, and Jaehyun sit outside Donghyuck’s room, which they’d been instructed not to enter until the doctors had figured out what was wrong. Jaehyun had held onto his hand until the very last second, and afterwards his hand had hung uselessly, unsure of what to do.

It’s hard to tell how long they stay outside – Jaehyun dozes off with Mark snoring on his shoulder, and at some point, he vaguely registers someone pressing something soft into his hand. When he opens his eyes a little later, he finds a meat bun wrapped in plastic in his hand, a similar one resting on Mark’s lap. Johnny and Taeyong are in the seats across from them, leaning against each other as they nap. Their manager is nowhere to be found.

He hears the door opening and sees one of the doctors approaching Doyoung, who appears to be the only one awake. He’s quickly ushered inside, and Jaehyun slowly straightens up, gently adjusting Mark who wakes up anyway. “What’s happening?” Mark mumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

“Doyoung-hyung got called inside,” Jaehyun explains, and Johnny and Taeyong start stirring as well. “I think they’ll call us in any minute, too.”

Their manager returns with bottles of water for them, just in time for the doctor to emerge again with Doyoung. “Oh, you’re awake,” he says. Beside him, Doyoung’s face mouth is set in a grim line, expression dark.

They’re debriefed by the doctor – it’s a fracture, just as Taeyong had feared. Not particularly bad, but it was a sudden break in the middle of intense exertion, which is likely why Donghyuck had been overwhelmed with pain. The doctor estimated a three-month recovery time, two under exceptional conditions, but it doesn’t matter – Jaehyun watches Mark’s face fall, devastated, when he realizes that this means Donghyuck will have to sit out all of NCT’s activities for the rest of the year.

Jaehyun thinks his face does the same, and he looks down to avoid anyone seeing.

They’re finally allowed to see Donghyuck, who’s propped up in a bed, white bed covers thrown over his leg. The first hints of sunrise are peeking through the tiny window on one side of the room, indicating how long they’ve been in the hospital.

Donghyuck’s eyes are rimmed red when he looks at them, but he still smiles brightly as he watches them walk inside the room. “They put me in a hospital gown as soon as they could,” he complains, a pout creeping on his face. “You’d think they’d wait until I was feeling better to get me naked, but no, they stripped me right away – ”

Mark lets out a choked sound, and Donghyuck immediately shuts up, face softening as he sees the tears on Mark’s face. “Mark Lee, Mark Lee,” he says chidingly. “What did we say about stealing my thunder?”

“Shut up,” Mark says, furiously wiping at his eyes, and that at least gets Donghyuck to laugh. “Come here, you big baby, I can already tell you’re going to cry over this more than I will.”

It’s just like the 7^th Sense all over again – Donghyuck is unfairly deprived of opportunities he’s worked so hard for, positions he’s so proud to hold and happy to perform, and still he’s the one who tries to remain cheerful and bright for the sake of others.

It takes a while for Donghyuck to let up on the teasing – only stopping once Mark finally retaliates and pinches him to make him stop – but when he does, his eyes land on Jaehyun. “Thanks for coming with me,” he says quietly, and maybe he’s saying it to all of them, but his gaze is fixed on Jaehyun and that makes all the difference.

“Roommate duties,” Jaehyun says dumbly, but he’s rewarded by a smile from the younger boy.

Roommate duties is the excuse he uses, when he leaves in the morning to scour the hospital for somewhat tolerable food to bring Donghyuck. It’s what he repeats in his head when he comes back past noon to shoo away the members of Dream who had arrived, pointing out that the manager was already waiting impatiently for them in the parking lot. It’s the reason he gives for staying with Donghyuck every night that he’s confined in the hospital, entertaining him and signing his cast with something new each night.

(He doesn’t tell anyone that sleeping alone in their room, after all this time, would ache like a phantom wound. Though, judging from Mark and Doyoung’s knowing looks every time they visit, he’s not exactly being subtle.)

-

2019.

Three months, the doctor had said.

In one month, Donghyuck sends them videos from his home of him limping around his house, his younger siblings either running in the background or clinging to him.

Barely any time after, Donghyuck returns to Seoul to record his lines for their new Japanese album, and suddenly Jaehyun has a roommate again. (He just barely misses Jaehyun’s birthday, but he makes up for it with the haul of presents he brings back from Jeju. It doesn’t matter – Jaehyun wouldn’t have cared if he came with nothing but himself, because that’s what’s important.)

Just a few weeks later, he’s there on-set with the rest of 127, participating in every aspect of filming except for the parts showcasing the intense choreography. (It makes little difference – he masters the choreography as soon as he heals, learning most of it within two hours after spending countless more watching intently as the others practiced).

And then – they’re on tour in Japan, and Donghyuck manages to make it for the last leg of the tour, dancing as well as he can on the little stool they’ve provided for him, no less captivating. The fans rejoice at his return, cheering wildly whenever the members surround him during his parts, but their joy is in no way commensurate to that of the members, who’ve all felt his absence like a gaping wound.

“You must be some kind of savant, aren’t you?” Jaehyun asks Donghyuck one night, back in the comfort of their shared room. They’ve just finished preparations for their We Are Superhuman comeback, and Donghyuck’s voice practically suffused the entire track, having more lines and doing much of the background vocals and adlibs. That’s to say nothing of his new look – the first time Jaehyun had seen his silver hair, he physically felt the breath get knocked out of his lungs, the otherworldly color complementing Donghyuck’s skin tone and making him look ethereal.

Donghyuck looks up from where he’s seated on the floor, busily folding their laundry. Jaehyun used to insist that the younger boy didn’t need to clean up after him like that, only to resign himself to it when Donghyuck cheekily answers that it makes it easier for him to borrow clothes from Jaehyun if he just mixes their stuff together. “Hm?”

Jaehyun closes the door behind him and walks over, pressing a cold bottle of strawberry milk against Donghyuck’s forehead. “Here you go,” he says.

“Is this from Jungwoo-hyung’s stash?” Donghyuck asks, eyes brightening when he sees the brand.

“Before you say anything, I asked him for it,” Jaehyun is quick to explain, jumping on his bed.

“I’m glad I’m not drinking the product of a crime, then,” Donghyuck laughs, unscrewing the bottle. “You were saying something? Earlier, while you came in?”

“Oh – I called you a savant.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Already half-finished with the milk, he returns to folding their clothes. He holds up a large black hoodie that’s gotten almost feather-soft from repeated use; he pauses to pull it over his head, and Jaehyun feels a thrill run through him when he realizes that hoodie is his. Well, was his, anyway; Donghyuck’s basically commandeered his entire wardrobe at this point.

“The doctor said it would take you three months to fully heal, and yet here you are,” Jaehyun says. Donghyuck finishes folding the last of the clothes and stands up, pleased with himself. The cast is already off his leg – he’d taken a video of it, panning across every inch of the doodle-colored plaster before he allowed the doctors to take it off. “I don’t know how you managed to heal so fast.”

“Fractures are nothing,” Donghyuck jokes, picking up a whole pile of folded shirts to bring to their closet. He puts them inside and shoots Jaehyun a dirty look, wordlessly scolding him for not helping. Jaehyun hastily gets out of bed to assist him. “No, really – you don’t know how many stupid injuries I’ve gotten growing up. It’s like I’ve got a superfast healing power – pretty cool, don’t you think?”

I like you, is what Jaehyun thinks, handing over a stack of pants for Donghyuck to put away. I like you, I like you, I like you.

He’s not used to it, he thinks – not used to being the one who’s being pulled along, the one hopelessly compelled by someone else. It’s vain of him to think so, but Jaehyun had always assumed that whoever he ended up with, that other person would like him first – although with his status as an idol, it’s a realistic assumption to make.

He never thought he could experience this – the feeling of having someone take up so much space in his thoughts, amplified by that fact that they’re nearly always together. Mark’s right – the Roommate Effect is truly something potent.

Donghyuck puts away the last of the clothes and shuts the wardrobe, a pleased smile on his face. “There! That’s done.” He turns around, swallowed up in Jaehyun’s hoodie, and he’s oblivious to the other’s gaze as he marches over to their beds. “Now, we just have to make our beds – then we can go and raid Doyoung-hyung’s fridge, or do you want to just order some real food so we can share and – ”

“Donghyuck,” Jaehyun says, and his heart pounds, screaming tell him, tell him, tell him! He swallows heavily, pushing the urge down. “We’re not raiding Doyoung-hyung’s fridge again, not after last time.”

“Real food it is then,” Donghyuck says cheerfully, none too bothered. He skips past Jaehyun and makes straight for the older boy’s bed, jumping onto it much like Jaehyun had done before. Jaehyun winces, wanting to tell him to be more careful with his leg, but Donghyuck shows no sign of pain, so he lets it go. “What do you want, hyung?”

“Whatever you want is fine.”

“I want dumplings,” Donghyuck decides, pulling his phone out to scroll through various options. He shuffles to the side and pats the space beside him, obviously indicating for Jaehyun to sit beside him. Jaehyun pauses for a moment – after almost two months of sleeping alone in the room, having the full force of Donghyuck’s affection directed at him again is overwhelming, dizzying. He pads over to the bed and crawls in beside the boy, who immediately tugs on his arm so he can use it as a pillow.

“I’m going to get dumplings, and jajangmyeon,” Donghyuck decides, tapping on the screen. He smiles and hums as he places his order, excited at the prospect of food. “What about you, hyung?”

Maybe it’s the way Donghyuck rests his head on his arm, practically lying on his chest, his silver hair tickling Jaehyun’s cheek – maybe it’s the way Donghyuck goes out of his way to wrap around Jaehyun’s middle, even if it means he has to hold his phone at an awkward angle – maybe it’s just because it’s Donghyuck, back in his arms after nearly two months like it’s nothing, like he’s always had a space there and always will.

It could be any of those reasons, but Jaehyun cannot for the life of him explain what finally moves him to shift on top of Donghyuck, carefully avoiding his leg as he looks down at him and cages him securely between his forearms.

Donghyuck’s voice dies in his throat, eyes widening as he looks up at Jaehyun, trapped between the bed and his body. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, as if he wants to say something but can’t, and the longer the silence stretches out, the redder his face becomes.

Not that Jaehyun’s faring any better, judging from the heat that’s rapidly gathering in his ears.

“Hyung – ” Donghyuck shakily sets his phone down, practically dropping it, and reaches up to clutch at Jaehyun’s shoulders. He makes no move to push him away, though, and relief floods Jaehyun when he simply rests his hands there. “Hyung, what are you doing?”

His voice is small, nervous, so, so shy. Jaehyun lets one of his hands travel to the side of Donghyuck’s face, cupping his cheek softly, brushing against his soft hair and the hoodie he’d stolen from him so long ago.

“Hyung,” Donghyuck says again, and Jaehyun thinks he might just be projecting, but his eyes flicker ever so subtly to his lips, parted in apprehension. “Jaehyun-hyung.”

Say it, the voice screams in his head, tell him, tell him, tell him!

“I – ” Jaehyun starts, voice raspy. Donghyuck’s still grasping his shoulders, but he hasn’t done anything to push him away. It’s a good sign, a hopeful sign, but it isn’t that easy. Jaehyun’s been carrying this torch for him for so long, has been with him for so long and through so much, and each day that he falls further for Donghyuck, his insecurity grows proportionally.

He closes his eyes and inhales, pressing his forehead against Donghyuck’s. I like you, rests on the tip of his tongue, as does I want to be with you. He doesn’t say any of that.

“If I told you that I liked you,” he whispers instead, unable to look at the other boy, “would you break my heart like you did with Mark?”

As soon as he says it, he knows he’s fucked up.

The silence that follows is ice cold. Jaehyun keeps his eyes shut for a different reason, mind racing into overdrive as he panics over what he’s said. Donghyuck’s hand have stiffened, where they rest on Jaehyun’s shoulders, and it takes longer than it should for Jaehyun to finally lean back and open his eyes.

His heart stills.

Donghyuck looks up at him, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes, lips pressed together as if trying not to cry. He grips Jaehyun’s shoulders tightly and starts to push him off, expression growing more and more upset by the minute.

“Donghyuck,” Jaehyun says, uselessly, shocked by the tears in his eyes.

“Up,” Donghyuck says, demands. “Off.”

“Donghyuck, that’s not what I – ”

“No,” Donghyuck cuts him off, and he pushes again, this time succeeding in moving Jaehyun away from him. “No, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Donghyuck-ah, please, just let me – ”

“Please just go,” Donghyuck whispers, voice tight with frustration. He swipes furiously at his eyes, turning away to hide his face from Jaehyun. “Just go. Go before we both say something we regret.”

Jaehyun reaches out instinctively, placing a comforting hand on Donghyuck’s back, but the younger boy flinches away from his touch as if he’d been burned. “Hyung,” Donghyuck says warningly, still not facing him.

It tears Jaehyun apart inside to leave him like this, but he knows when his presence is unwanted. “I’ll go,” he says, withdrawing his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, just waves him away and wipes his other hand across his eyes. Jaehyun waits, thinking he might still say something, but there’s nothing except a tense, thick silence. With a heavy sigh and one last look behind him, Jaehyun walks out of their room and closes the door.

-

Donghyuck doesn’t come out of the room for the rest of the afternoon, although Taeil goes inside at some point, only to exit an hour later with a thoughtful, almost pensive expression on his face. He’s still making the same expression when he goes to find Jaehyun, who’s wallowing in his misery as he camps out in an empty practice room.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun says, surprised to see their oldest member walk through the door. Today is an off day – there’s no reason for any of them to be here. Unless –

“You need to apologize to Haechannie,” Taeil says, without any preamble. Jaehyun blinks at him, confused. Taeil’s expression is neutral, but his tone is firm. “You need to go back there before he stews in his own thoughts any longer. I don’t care if you have to psych yourself up to do it, but you have to go back there and talk to him.”

“Wait,” Jaehyun says, holding up a hand. “Why do you know what’s happened?”

“Because, Jaehyun-ah, everyone’s just been waiting for you to make a move this whole time,” Taeil says, and Jaehyun freezes, apprehension renewed. “And then you messed up and now Haechan-ah is crying.”

“Everyone? Who is everyone?”

“Everyone who matters,” Taeil says dismissively, not elaborating. “That doesn’t really matter, anyway. I just came from Haechan’s room - your room. And – just please, talk to him, okay? None of us want this to turn into another summer fight situation.”

Despite everything, Jaehyun has to laugh – the words summer fight are just so ridiculous, so juvenile, that he’s reminded of how much more important Donghyuck is than his pride or his apprehension at talking to him. Taeil’s right – he needs to talk to him, no matter what.

He pushes himself off the floor, walking past Taeil and out the room. “You’re going to talk to him?” Taeil calls after him, hopeful.

“In a bit,” Jaehyun answers. “I need to get something first.”

-

In hindsight, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

Jaehyun stands in front of the closed door of his and Donghyuck’s shared room, clutching a raggedy bouquet of flowers he’d picked up from the area surrounding the dorm. In his defense, the flowers were much prettier-looking yesterday, the last time he’d stopped to notice them. The rain shower last night must have done a number on them, causing them to sag and look wilted when he’d gone out to pick them, faced covered up with a cap and a black face mask. He looks at the sad bunch of flowers in his hands, a petal detaching itself from a daisy and drifting lazily to the floor.

Before he can lose his nerve, the door opens, and he encounters not Donghyuck, but Mark. The younger boy walks straight into Jaehyun, further jostling the poor flowers.

“Oh, oops, sorry I didn’t see – hyung?” Mark looks up, eyes wide as if he’s just registering his presence. His eyes flicker down to the flowers in Jaehyun’s hands, and his mouth forms a perfect O, realization dawning on his face.

“Hi,” Jaehyun says awkwardly. “Donghyuck’s in there?”

“He is,” Mark confirms, clapping a hand on Jaehyun’s shoulder. His face takes on a weird expression of awkward sympathy. “He’s all yours.”

Jaehyun doesn’t even want to know what Mark and Donghyuck could have talked about, while he was gone. “Thanks,” he says instead, stepping aside to let Mark pass.

“Good luck, hyung,” Mark says, walking past him. “By the way, that was really a dick move for you to pull on Donghyuck.”

Jaehyun winces. “Yeah, I got that,” he says sheepishly, hearing Mark’s answering chuckle from afar.

The door is unlocked and slightly open, and Jaehyun pushes it open, tired of hesitating. When he enters, Donghyuck is propped up against the headboard of his bed, scrolling on his phone.

He looks up when Jaehyun enters, and his eyes immediately drop to the flowers in Jaehyun’s hands. As if to spit him, a whole bud decides to fall off its stalk, plummeting to the floor.

Neither of them say anything for a bit. Then, silently, Jaehyun moves to Donghyuck’s bed, sitting on the edge right beside the boy.

Donghyuck looks at him evenly, not offering anything. He’s waiting, Jaehyun realizes, for him to say something, and he realizes he has nothing to say. He has no words, in front of Donghyuck, and for all that he’s trained to hold himself in front of cameras, carry himself in front of strangers, he’s reduced to the socially awkward twenty-three year old that he actually is.

When the silence drags on with neither of them saying anything, Donghyuck’s expression falls, disappointed. Something about that – the sadness in his eyes, the way his shoulders slump in defeat – spurs Jaehyun to action, and he does the only thing he can think to do.

Wordlessly, he starts picking off the flowers from their stems and threading them through the strands of Donghyuck’s hair. He inserts daisies and tufts of dandelions through the silky silver locks, creating a makeshift crown of blossoms on the top of Donghyuck’s head. He does this until all he’s left with is a bunch of flowerless stalks, some of the leaves having detached and fallen on the bed.

When he’s finished, Donghyuck blinks at him, obviously confused, but no longer sad looking. He looks beautiful – flowers dotted haphazardly across his hair, a familiar blush dusting his cheeks.

Jaehyun doesn’t know what to do next. “Ta-da?” he says weakly, waving his free hand half-heartedly.

Donghyuck lifts his phone and opens the front camera to look at Jaehyun’s handiwork, his expression unreadable. He carefully touches some of the flowers, plucking a daisy off the strands and looking at it.

Jaehyun waits with bated breath, and when Donghyuck looks up at him, his breath hitches. After a second, Donghyuck just sighs, before tucking the sole daisy he’d gotten behind Jaehyun’s very, very red ear.

“What do I do with you?” Donghyuck muses, hand lingering next to Jaehyun’s cheek. His words are so, so strange, coming from him of all people, and it just makes Jaehyun feel even more out of depth. “You’re still such a weird hyung, like always.”

“Donghyuck, I – ”

“What you said was really insensitive,” Donghyuck cuts him off, a pout creeping onto his lips. With the flowers in his hair, it turns him into the very picture of innocent reproach, something Jaehyun is no match for. “Yeah,” Jaehyun agrees immediately.

“You shouldn’t have said it.”

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t have picked flowers from outside, either. You don’t have permission to do that.”

“…Yeah.”

Donghyuck purses his lips at him, considering. “There are better ways to confess to someone, you know?” he says, and Jaehyun’s heart leaps to his throat. “I didn’t even get to order the dumplings I wanted, I was so upset.”

Jaehyun suspects he’s being made fun of by now, but he still treads carefully, lest Donghyuck still be upset. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “We can still order the food you want. I’ll pay for it all.”

It’s that sentence that finally breaks through Donghyuck’s cold front, and a small smile peeks through. “That’s not the point, but I’m holding you to that. You know what – you should probably buy everyone food at this point. Everyone came in to talk to me after you left.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun says, chuckling nervously. “Am I in trouble?”

“You will be if you don’t get over here right now,” Donghyuck says, extending his arms, and Jaehyun surges forward to pull him into a tight embrace, heart pounding.

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun gasps, tucking his face into the crook of Donghyuck’s neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say what I said.”

“You didn’t mean it when you said you liked me?” Donghyuck says softly, a teasing tone in his voice.

“No!” Jaehyun pulls back, only to see the growing smile on the younger boy’s face. “No, I – Donghyuck, don’t tease me like that.”

“I think I deserve to have a go at you, though,” Donghyuck laughs.

Jaehyun pouts, sulking. “Okay, you do,” he admits. Donghyuck’s hands move up to cup his cheeks, looking at him tenderly. “Did you really mean it?”

Jaehyun reaches up to place his hands over Donghyuck’s. “I meant it, you know,” he says quietly. “I like you, Donghyuck. I really, really, like you.”

The blush on Donghyuck’s face deepens, the pleased little smile on his face transforming it into something magical. “Well, that’s going to be a problem,” he says, tilting his head and furrowing his eyebrow. “See, we’re both idols right now, and we’re going to have a comeback really soon, and I don’t think it’ll be good for us to – ”

“Donghyuck,” Jaehyun says pleadingly, gripping his wrists even as he fights the smile that’s growing on his face. Donghyuck probably knows that he knows what he and Mark had talked about that fateful night that they became roommates. “Don’t do this to me.”

“I don’t know, Jaehyun-hyung,” Donghyuck says, still looking thoughtful. “I mean, we’re going back to America soon, and it’s gonna be way busier than when we went last year, so – ”

Jaehyun tugs him forward, pressing their foreheads together. The movement causes some of the flowers in Donghyuck’s hair to fall off, fluttering to the bed. “Donghyuck,” he says, a note of desperation finally creeping into his voice. “I’ve kind of been wanting to do this since at least two years ago, so you’re going to have to tell me right now if you want this or not.”

“What, hyung?” Donghyuck asks, still teasing even with their proximity. It’s dizzying, how the all control and composure in this situation is shifted solidly onto Donghyuck. “What do you want?”

“Can I kiss you?” Jaehyun asks, eyes searching Donghyuck’s expression.

Thankfully, Donghyuck’s gotten tired of teasing. “Yes,” he breathes out, “yes, kiss me.”

The first press of their lips is soft, tentative, but Jaehyun’s been waiting for this moment for the better part of two years and he’s not inclined to be patient anymore. He snakes his hand around Donghyuck’s waist to pull him close, pouring everything he feels for the other boy into every kiss, every nip, every drag of their lips against each other.

Donghyuck is the first to pull back, unable to keep up, but Jaehyun doesn’t let him escape for too long. The first time they break apart, Jaehyun pulls him back in – the second time, he presses kisses to the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth insistently until their lips meet again – the third time, Jaehyun lets him pull back, only to leave light kisses along his cheekbones and brow.

By the time he lets Donghyuck go, his lips are red and kiss-swollen – the flowers in his hair are all but scattered across the bed and the floor, only stray petals and tufts from the dandelions still clinging onto his hair. “Okay,” he says, breath coming short, and it’s stupidly adorable. “Okay, I believe that you meant it.”

“You sure?” Jaehyun asks, finally gaining his ground. “I can convince you more.”

“He gets one kiss, and suddenly he thinks he’s so great,” Donghyuck murmurs, rolling his eyes.

“I’ve liked you for two years,” Jaehyun whines, not above trying to act cute if it means that Donghyuck would let him kiss him again in the very near future. “Let me have this.”

Donghyuck laughs, and the sound clogs up Jaehyun’s throat and makes it hard to breathe. “I have it worse, hyung,” he says fondly, rubbing his thumb across Jaehyun’s cheekbone. “I’ve liked you since you had that tragic haircut in Limitless.”

-

2021.

“Five minutes!” Jaehyun calls. When he receives no reply, he huffs in resignation and walks to Donghyuck and Johnny’s room, pushing the door open. The older member is nowhere to be found, probably out with Taeyong and Yuta, but Donghyuck is sprawled out on his bed, covered in blankets and mostly asleep.

“Donghyuck!” Jaehyun jumps on the bed, the resulting bounce waking Donghyuck up. The boy shoots up wildly, sleep still etched onto his features. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

“Your solo MV is dropping, idiot,” Jaehyun says fondly, eyes glued to the screen where he keeps refreshing the SM YouTube face even though he knows it won’t be uploaded for a few minutes yet. “You can’t be asleep when it drops!”

“I’ve already seen it, though,” Donghyuck says grumpily, picking up a pillow to cover his face and block out all light and sound. “Go ahead and stream it, I’ll post something on Twitter later when I’m properly awake.”

Jaehyun pinches his side and tickles him, kissing his cheeks until Donghyuck relents and looks at him, a displeased expression on his face. “Watch it with me?” Jaehyun says, and his boyfriend sighs, pushing the covers back and sitting beside him as the notification for the video finally pops up on screen.

The MV is a work of art, not that it could be anything else – Donghyuck’s first solo song, a real song, not a solo, is of course a complex piece. Strings, trap beats, even piano – and most of all, Donghyuck’s beautiful honey-like voice fills the entire song, airy and pure and strong, and Jaehyun feels that he’s finally gotten the song and opportunity he’s earned so long ago.

They don’t speak at all while they watch the video, but once it’s done, Jaehyun pulls Donghyuck into a tight embrace, swaying him from side to side from their position on the bed. “I know I’ve already heard it, and I’ve told you a thousand times,” Jaehyun begins, whispering in Donghyuck’s ear. “But that song is perfect. It’s magical. It’s just like you.”

Donghyuck giggles, pushing off of Jaehyun’s chest to look at him. “So weird, Jaehyun-ah,” he says fondly, eyes filled with love.

“Always,” Jaehyun says, leaning in to press their foreheads together. “I – that was so good. I’m so proud of you.”

“I love you,” Donghyuck says breathlessly, and the way he says it is a promise.

“I love you,” Jaehyun replies, and he pulls him down, content to hold the world in his arms.