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mark doesn’t let himself get pushed around by donghyuck, is the thing.
mark’s nice, so he’ll learn how to play the songs on guitar that donghyuck wants to sing, and he’ll give him the last of the homemade rice cakes that his mom sent him, and he’ll let him have the window seat on the plane when mark gets it.
but a difficult trainee period taught him when he shouldn’t let donghyuck get away with too much. so when he acts like this—
tugging on mark’s shirt sleeve, trying to drag him away from his bed to join them in the main room, whining:
“hyung, hyung, we’re watching a movie in a minute, you have to come cuddle with me!”
—mark knows how to say no; after years of being donghyuck’s usual go-to target, he’s learned by now that giving him an inch is a good way to have a mile taken. even when donghyuck pouts at him and whines and clings to him and embarrasses him and begs for his attention in every way he knows how, mark can say no. they were trainees together for two years before they debuted. mark's adjusted.
and now he shrugs off donghyuck’s arm on his shoulder and dodges his attempts at cheek kisses during broadcasts. he only indulges donghyuck when he wants to, and that’s how their relationship always seems to work, how the fans see it, how the members see it, even how mark tricks himself into seeing it sometimes.
donghyuck says he saw it coming all along but that’s definitely bullshit, because not even mark had any idea.
his mom used to make comments sometimes, pointed little remarks about how good of a leader he was and how strong he was growing, but he never believed it. ever since they had that class in school about it he always thought he’d just end up as a beta.
reality somehow disregards both mark’s expectations and his mother’s.
on the other hand, though, mark isn’t really surprised by donghyuck either, even though he can tell everyone else is.
since they were twelve and thirteen, donghyuck’s had the strongest personality mark has ever met, loud and energetic and taking control of a room without effort.
they’re in the practice room the day he presents, when mark looks up at a sudden flood of warm honey scent to see donghyuck standing with his hand still halfway to his mouth, as the open water bottle at his feet soaks his sneakers.
as soon as the shock passes everyone is gathering around him, patting his shoulders and congratulating him, and the smile on donghyuck’s face is shaky but genuine.
his eyes meet mark’s across the room, and mark thinks that just because he expected it doesn’t make it any easier.
sometimes mark’s not sure if the whole alpha thing really is right, though, when he hears donghyuck’s voice crooning so soft and sweet in the recording booth, or when he falls asleep on the couch curled up in a ball against mark’s side, taking up a fraction of the space that everyone else always seems to.
he has a lazy way of carrying himself, of getting comfortable in the space he’s in no matter where they are that always makes him look smaller than he really is. taeil makes a comment one time, something about how it’s odd that donghyuck is shorter than mark, and he doesn’t believe them when they tell him they’re the same height, not until they’ve stood up together back-to-back to prove it to him.
but adolescence can be misleading, and everyone was generally less surprised by donghyuck than they were by mark.
it took a while, both for the other members and for mark himself, to adjust to the fact of him being an omega. he wasn’t the only omega in their group, but the unexpectedness of it being him seemed to make him into an unknown variable for the others. they tiptoed around him for a month, acting almost as careful as they had when he first came to the company, stuttering through korean and stumbling through dance practices.
once they figured out that mark really wasn’t any different, things went back to normal. but it was torture at first, because as hard as he had always tried to make himself fit everyone’s expectations of him, he felt like he had to try even harder after presenting. like he was trying to compensate for something he couldn’t quite explain.
donghyuck was the only one who never treated him any differently.
the moment he found out he only shrugged and said, i won’t act weird if you won’t, when it’s my turn.
he’s a few months past sixteen when he gets his first heat.
he’s told that it won’t be so bad the first couple of years but he despises it anyway, how the air feels like hot soup burning all over his skin and his stomach twisting like he has the worst possible food poisoning in the world, and he can’t get comfortable no matter how hard he tries.
on the second day of it his door cracks open early in the morning, and he peeks out from his miserable bundle of blankets to see a bare-legged donghyuck outlined by the hallway light.
mark winces at the sudden brightness but it’s gone in a second, the door closed again. he barely registers that donghyuck is still in the room until he’s hovering right by the bed, staring down with big eyes that mark can only just make out in the room’s semi-darkness.
“you smell good,” donghyuck whispers, and climbs into bed.
mark is confused by what’s happening at first but donghyuck’s hand quickly finds his stomach as he curls up against his back, his fingers slipping under mark’s t-shirt to press into his abdomen and all thoughts of protest in mark’s mind evaporate.
donghyuck’s palm is warm and comforting against his stomach, where the ache goes the deepest, and he can’t help curling into the touch. the pain isn’t necessarily reduced, but it feels more bearable with donghyuck there, like just his presence somehow clouds it out. he doesn’t ask how donghyuck knew to come to him.
after that, they find a routine. donghyuck crawls into his bed the first night of mark’s heats, and mark uses his warm scent and wide hands to calm the worst of the dizziness and aching.
he wants to feel embarrassed by the co-dependence and how shaky and uncomfortable and not-mark his heats make him, but donghyuck never says anything so mark doesn’t either, willing to take whatever he’s given.
the first time he has to brave a heat by himself, he’s nearly eighteen and last-minute schedules leave him separated from donghyuck right before his cycle starts, and it’s the most miserable four days of his life. donghyuck comes home right near the end of it, when it’s always at its worst, and ends up imprisoned in mark’s bed for two days. jaehyun and doyoung have to bring their meals to the bedroom. they don’t talk about it afterwards.
renjun and jeno get into an argument one night at the tail end of promotions for the new mini album. it’s a stupid, pointless fight caused by too many hours without sleep and too long spent in each other’s space.
mark steps up, tries to act like the leader as best he can but he’s just as tired as they are, and petty fights are the last thing he feels like dealing with.
it’s renjun who snaps back at him, tells him to stay out of it, and he’s so shocked for a moment that he forgets how to respond.
a second later, he senses donghyuck rising from the couch behind him, where he’d been playing games on his phone and ignoring the steadily climbing voices around him, and all at once his presence seems to fill the room.
he marches right up to them, taller than renjun but shorter than jeno, and glares so hard as he tells them to knock it the fuck off that even mark feels a shudder go through him as he watches.
jeno and renjun look like they’ve been doused with a bucket of cold water. they exchange slightly guilty looks with one another, before mumbling apologies and disappearing into the next room.
mark stares as donghyuck collapses back onto the couch, already reabsorbed in his phone. he feels strange, like he’s just entered the dorm only to find that all of the furniture has been shifted over a few inches. everything looks the same, but it’s off slightly. not as familiar as it should be.
donghyuck looks up after a minute, finally realizing he’s being watched, and he puffs his cheeks out at mark.
“take a picture, hyung.” he tilts his head. “did you realize your zipper’s been down all day?”
mark sighs. he shouldn’t be surprised anymore.
one night in october, he goes out drinking with some of the hyungs as an early celebration for yuta and sicheng’s birthdays. when they get back to the dorm after, he stumbles in feeling warm and heavy and ready to curl up under his blankets and sleep for the next four years.
his feet carry him without much input from his brain, moving on autopilot, and he’s only slightly surprised when the bed they deliver him into already has an occupant.
he accepts the development very easily, and wiggles his way under the blankets and up against donghyuck’s back, grabbing at his sides to pull him closer so he can leech away as much of his warmth as possible. just as he’s trying to bury his face in his shoulder, donghyuck turns over to face him.
“hyung?” he murmurs, sounding tired. “what're you doing here?”
mark whines in a way that he never, ever would sober, but his heat source just moved away from him, and he has to shuffle even closer again to burrow back against donghyuck’s chest. he finds that this position works much better, and it’s easy to throw his leg over donghyuck’s hip and tuck his face under his chin, nosing along his neck where his scent is strongest.
“mark,” donghyuck whispers, and mark barely hears it as he breathes in the familiar smell of honey, warm and sweet like most alphas aren't.
his intoxicated mind reasons that if he smells so nice, he probably tastes good too, and that thought is all it takes for him to open his lips, and drag his tongue along donghyuck’s throat.
he hears a hitched gasp above him, and he catalogues it somewhere in the back of his thoughts but in the forefront, all he can think is how comfortable donghyuck feels and how much he would like to be asleep right now. so he tucks his forehead back down against donghyuck’s collarbone and forfeits himself to sleep.
in the morning he wakes up first, goes to use the bathroom and stare at the dark circles beneath his eyes for a minute before he goes back to his own bed. there’s a bad taste at the back of his throat and his sheets are cold but he falls asleep again anyway.
“hyung?”
taeyong looks up from where he’d been reading, sat in the square of yellow light at the kitchen table.
“mark? it’s late, what’s up?”
mark shuffles for a moment, shifting his weight from side to side as he fidgets with the notebook clutched in his hands.
“are you busy? i was wondering if you could maybe read over some lyrics i was working on.”
taeyong blinks, and sets his book facedown on the table in front of him.
“sure. let’s see them.”
mark sits down across from him as he hands over his worn-out old notebook, covered in stickers that jeno had bought and donghyuck had stuck on. he busies himself with wiping at the specks on his glasses, so he doesn’t keep glancing up every few seconds to check taeyong’s expression. he’s not usually very nervous about sharing his lyrics.
after a few minutes, taeyong sets the notebook back on the table and pushes it toward him. mark presses his fingertips against the soft leather cover, biting an indent into his bottom lip.
“these are good. really good, mark,” taeyong says. he tilts his head curiously. “they felt a little different from the kind of stuff you usually write. did something specific inspire them?”
“oh, you know,” mark murmurs, fiddling with a smiling pink cat sticker that’s peeling off. taeyong stares at him. “um, no, not really.”
“o-kay. well, there was something with this one line here—no, here, the i know your traces bit...”
it started because jaemin is making kimchi jjigae for them. that’s what they told mark, anyway.
he’s wearing a little apron and an exasperated expression and everything, and jeno and chenle are arguing about whether renjun would be above mark in their ranking of who in the group would make the best husband.
there’s some disagreement over whether jeno or jaemin deserves the number one spot, but they at least all seem to agree that mark belongs near the bottom. they tell him that it’s because he’s not very affectionate, and of all the reasons, he hadn’t expected that one.
“i am affectionate, though?” he objects, and jisung scoffs, even though he’d been trying to drown them all out and focus on his math homework.
“no, mark’s right, he deserves to be above renjun, at least,” donghyuck says. jaemin waves his chopsticks at him, shaking his head.
“you think he’s more affectionate than injunnie? you, who’s constantly being rejected by him?” jaemin laughs. “mark hyung is cute, but at least renjun is cute and sweet sometimes.”
“ouch,” mark snorts, and jaemin just rolls his eyes at him, leaning over to blow pretend kisses at an unimpressed renjun.
mark doesn’t notice until later when they sit down to eat that donghyuck never responded, and he’s quieter than usual for the rest of the night. mark finds himself watching him, and he wonders what he’s thinking about.
during one of their first concerts in america, mark has a moment in the middle of it when he looks up and feels it all crash into him.
his clothes are already sweaty despite the fact that they just changed, and he’s still trying to slow down his breathing from the cherry bomb choreography, and there’s an entire ocean of bright green spread out before him. one of his in-ears fell out and he can feel the screams echoing around in his chest at the same furious rhythm as his heart.
all of it seems to catch up to him in an instant, the reality of where they are and what they’ve created. staring up at the crowd is the most exhilarated he’s ever felt, but the experience of it feels almost too big, and he wonders what he possibly could have done to deserve such a thing.
every part of his body is overheated and he’s in a stadium with nearly twenty thousand people, but he feels cold, and he feels lonely, and he doesn’t understand why.
“hey,” yuta says one day, from the other end of the couch in an mnet waiting room. there’s the kind of intention in his voice that means he’s bored and wants someone to pay attention to him. a balled-up napkin hits mark in the shoulder. he glances up. “aren’t omegas supposed to be the needy ones? i feel like donghyuck always acts a lot needier than you do.”
he gives them a very pointed look, observing the way donghyuck is half-crushing mark against the arm of the couch, leaning over his shoulder as he watches mark play candy crush.
and mark knows that he’s only teasing, but he can’t help the way the jab makes something in his chest twist. he shoots yuta a glare as he pulls himself out from under donghyuck to go take his spot in the makeup chair.
“it’s not the eighteenth century anymore, hyung.”
the thing is that yuta isn’t necessarily wrong—
he just doesn’t see all of mark.
mark doesn’t let himself get pushed around by donghyuck. more than anything, it's donghyuck who gets pushed around by him.
mark isn't loud about it, not in the way that donghyuck is, but he asks for just as much from him. every time that he steals donghyuck's water bottle because he forgot his own, or crawls into his bed when he gets a stomach ache. every month when he drowns his senses with the smell of donghyuck’s skin, pushing closer until it’s all he can feel and donghyuck is squirming for space to breathe.
he keeps waiting for it all to overflow, for donghyuck to turn his back on him one of these days in rejection. mark's not his, and they both know that mark sees the lingering looks, that he knows donghyuck wishes he was. in his head it plays out like that one day in the dream dorm, when donghyuck snapped at renjun and jeno. in his head donghyuck tells him to stop playing games with him, to stop asking for things that he’s not willing to give in return.
in real life, donghyuck only whines for a minute or so when mark won’t hold his hand, and when mark sneaks into his room at night he doesn’t even ask before lifting the blanket up.
they’re at an airport, somewhere in europe. it’s one of the rare occasions that they’re given a private waiting room and mark is relieved, because he has a splitting headache and can tell it’s only a matter of a few days before his heat starts. the staff came armored with a mean supply of temporary suppressants to get him through the concerts, but the medication just makes him feel twice as bad once it wears off and mark’s not looking forward to it.
he’s supposed to get as much rest as possible before then but it’s hard, when his head feels like it’s trying to split open and the confusing mix of smells in the airport is making him queasy.
donghyuck is on one of the couches, mouth hidden behind a mask and eyes trained down at his phone. mark drops himself on the seat next to him, immediately sinking his hands into the pockets of donghyuck’s hoodie as buries his face in his neck. donghyuck barely reacts, just shifting over a little to make room, and mark takes in deep breaths of his comforting scent, willing his body to calm the fuck down. he can only really pick up the faint scent of honey because he has his face literally smashed right in the juncture of donghyuck's neck and shoulder, but after a few minutes he feels his limbs start to relax. donghyuck’s fingers work their way into his hair, scratching lightly at the back of his head, and he has to swallow a whine.
he senses more than sees the redirection of attention toward the two of them.
yukhei is laughing, and saying, “wow, i don’t think i’ve ever seen mark let haechan get that close to him. the fans’ll go crazy.”
“it’s a private room, hyung,” donghyuck says above him, and mark closes his eyes as donghyuck's sternum rumbles against his cheek.
he doesn’t pay attention to what yukhei says next, nor jaehyun after him, just shifts closer in and trusts donghyuck to handle it.
the other members understand now, at least a little bit, knowing that donghyuck has always played caretaker during mark’s heats. but to someone who doesn’t live with them, mark curling up so warmly against the boy he's often careful to dodge must look strange. he doesn’t normally do this in front of others. he’s not sure if he ever has.
but mark is tired. there’s a phantom ache echoing through his body, and donghyuck is warm and feels like home.
they get a break, finally, towards the end of the year. it feels like they’ve been going on for months with schedules back-to-back, hardly getting a day to themselves in between, but in november they have over a week of no activities. several of the members go home for a few days, and the others seek their rest in the quieter corners of seoul.
mark enjoys the down time. he plays basketball in the evenings with jaehyun, on some of the courts by the han, and he learns about a dozen new songs on guitar. he gets through three seasons of the anime he’s been meaning to watch since forever, and doyoung takes him to the new restaurant that opened a few blocks down from their building.
by the end of the break he can feel himself starting to go a little stir-crazy, and thinks that he must be insane for already wanting to work again.
recording and practices for their next comeback will start again in a few days, and they all receive roughly-drawn schedules from their manager covering the next couple of weeks. the time to rest was good for mark’s body, but the short vacation had given him too much time to think, and he’s quietly relieved to see how busy they’ll be.
donghyuck was one of the few who went home, and he returns seven days later looking better than mark has seen him in a long while. his skin has a healthier glow to it, and he seems far more alert than when he left.
mark greets him with a hand on his shoulder, pulling him in until their chests press together and he feels donghyuck’s hair brushing his cheek. when he steps back, donghyuck is blinking at him with wide eyes, staring at mark with an unreadable expression until johnny steps forward to take one of his bags and ruffle his hair in greeting.
mark moves back as the others crowd in, and settles his hands into his pockets.
promotions have been going on for a couple of weeks now, and mark is pissed. very pissed. he doesn’t understand why the company bothered asking him about the timing of his cycle, if they were just going to ignore it and schedule mark and donghyuck to be in different cities for the entire week anyway.
as soon as he gets back to the dorms, he storms into donghyuck’s room to update him on what their manager told him, and donghyuck just sits on his bed and looks like he has no idea what he’s supposed to say. it’s not often that mark is genuinely angry.
“why the hell do they have to send you to america, on the one week i asked them to keep us together for?” mark seethes, pacing back and forth across the length of the room.
“i can give you my clothes like the last time we were apart. i mean, i know that was only a few days, but—“ he glances up at mark, fidgeting on his mattress, “it’s better than nothing, right?”
“it’s not the same, donghyuck. i don’t know if i can make it a whole week. an alpha’s scent is not the same as having you physically there.”
he stops moving and sighs, feeling the anger leave him all at once.
“maybe, um. maybe jaehyun hyung will stay with you during it if you ask him to?”
“donghyuck,” mark says slowly. “i don’t want to be like that with anyone but you.”
“oh.”
mark had always hated needing others to take care of him, hated being a burden, hated asking for things. but he’s never felt like a burden with donghyuck.
“i don’t… stay with you during my heats just because you’re an alpha. i do it because it’s you. there’s no one else i’d trust with that.”
“really?” donghyuck asks, and there is such genuine uncertainty in his voice that mark pulls up short.
because he thought donghyuck knew—this whole time, he thought donghyuck understood all the things he could never bring himself to say, because they’d never needed words. no matter how many times he shrugged away from donghyuck’s embrace, at the end of the day he was still the one that mark would confide in above anyone else.
every glance, every night he spent curled up in donghyuck’s sheets was an i like you , and it never occurred to him that it was getting lost in translation. no one knows mark like donghyuck does, but he can’t read him perfectly. it was selfish of mark to assume that he could.
“i want you to bite me,” he says, and he wasn’t really planning to say it but the moment the words are out he knows down to his bones that they’re right.
“w-what?”
“let’s be mates.”
donghyuck gulps, and for the first time in his life mark sees what he looks like speechless.
the silence goes on long enough for the panic to start to set in, mark wondering if he completely crossed the line and fucked everything up, but then donghyuck is standing up and stepping closer to him.
his hand reaches out, a movement cut short halfway through, then resumed when he catches mark’s eye. his fingertips brush against his cheekbone, and mark feels shivers run down his spine.
“are you serious?”
donghyuck looks at him closely and mark doesn’t even bother with a response, just presses his face closer until donghyuck’s palm is flat and warm against his cheek.
“okay,” donghyuck whispers. “okay. can i... can i kiss you?”
mark nods dumbly, and then there’s a pair of lips on his, moving clumsily against him.
they get it right after a few tries, their mouths slotting together again and again and mark barely notices when they fall to sit on the bed together, his hands clutching at donghyuck’s shirt. donghyuck is cupping mark’s face, holding him so carefully like he’s something precious, and mark feels filled up.
donghyuck’s kisses fall all over his face, pressed against his chin and his cheekbones and the arch of his eyebrows, and mark’s breath leaves him shakily.
“if we’re finally talking about it,” donghyuck murmurs.
“what?”
“i love you, hyung.”
“oh.” now mark finds himself without words. “um—why didn’t you ever say anything?”
donghyuck pinches his wrist and mark yelps in surprise, pulling his arm back.
“because i thought you didn’t like me like that, dumbass. i’ve been practically throwing myself at you since we were fifteen and you rejected me basically every time.”
“hyuck,” mark chokes. “you’ve been the only person i can ever be around when i’m at my most vulnerable since i first presented. i promise, i wasn’t rejecting you.”
it’s only because they’re still sitting so close that mark can see the way donghyuck’s cheeks color immediately at his words, and he reaches out to link their fingers together. donghyuck squeezes his hand, too hard, and mark whines.
“well, you—should have said something then, you idiot,” donghyuck says, pouting down at their hands.
“i literally just did,” mark scoffs, and it quickly dissolves into stupid squabbling the way most of their conversations do, and the familiar banter finally allows his heart rate to slow down again. he rests his head on donghyuck’s shoulder.
“i am sorry, hyuck. i shouldn’t have ignored you like that all the time. i was just scared, i guess. it’s hard when everyone expects you to be so many different things all the time.”
“you shouldn’t care so much what everyone else thinks about you,” donghyuck says, and mark thinks, you’re right, and i only care what you think, but on the outside just smiles and nods because he’s already said plenty of embarrassing things tonight.
“by the way, you know that i’m not actually going to bite you right now, right?”
“yes,” mark laughs. “i figured.”
“is a promise good enough? that i’ll do it later, i mean. if you still want it.”
some of the uncertainty has crept back into donghyuck’s voice, and mark sits up to look at him again.
“i will,” he says. “i’ll want it, hyuck. i promise, too.”
donghyuck’s eyes are bright, and he leans forward again until their lips brush lightly. mark feels something slot into place, right in the center of his chest, and he knows that they’re going to be alright.