Work Text:
“Once, oh marvelous once, there was a rabbit who found his way home.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Mark Lee, twenty-eight-year old office worker at DREAM Co, a small mobile gaming company, starts receiving gifts around three months ago, a couple years after working there; To be more specific, Mark starts receiving homemade chocolates wrapped in small red plastic bags every Friday morning without fail.
Each Friday morning, near his work desktop, lies a small bag of caramel filled chocolates.
Sometimes the chocolates are in the shape of hearts. Sometimes they are in the shape of stars. One week his secret admirer manages to make a chocolate in the shape of a small lion. But each Friday morning guarantees Mark will leave DREAM Co. with a bag of chocolates buried underneath his laptop and hoodie when he packs his things to go home.
The first time he receives one of his secret admirer’s gifts, he assumes that everyone in the office received one.
That week, they successfully manage to secure a sponsorship deal with Zhong Chenle, a rising pro-gamer, and they held an office party that evening at a local bar. He still remembers the drunken confession his best friend Wong Yukhei gave Huang Renjun, one of their other co-workers.
Renjun flushes a bright pink and quietly mutters, “Please say you like me when you’re sober next time.”
The next day, Yukhei gives Renjun a Moomin mug and properly confesses his feelings. Renjun accepts and they become the next it couple at Dream Co.
Mark notices he’s the only one who received a bag of chocolates as he looks around the office. Everyone else had their usual mug of black coffee and Yukhei is too distracted making heart eyes at his new boyfriend, who is also too distracted by the task he has been given by Mr. Seo that week.
Renjun was assigned to help the marketing department land another sponsorship deal with a popular gamer named Sakura Miyawaki. DREAM Co wanted to tap and expand into more international markets to increase their net profits this year. Sakura Miyawaki was adorable and a talented gamer in her own right — she just happened to be loved by everyone. As Renjun would call it, she just had that “it factor”.
Out of curiosity, Mark gently removes the white ribbon from the red bag covered in a small silver heart print. Inside were around twelve heart-shaped truffles.
Some of the truffles were matcha favored, some were white chocolate, and the others were dark chocolate. Each was carefully covered in a white powder and sprinkled with white drizzle.
He didn’t eat any of the chocolates, thinking it was another one of Yukhei’s office pranks. The second day Mark worked at Dream Co, Yukhei glued his mug to the desk (he regretted it though because the new paint job came out of his paycheck).
But when the second and third bag came, Mark realizes that it wasn’t a prank after all. Whoever had been sending these gifts, had a small crush on Mark Lee, the most boring worker in all of DREAM Co.
Everyday Mark arrived to work at exactly 9:00AM and returned home at 6:00PM and took the subway station home to his apartment.
He always ate lunch at exactly 12:15PM and always chose to eat the same fried chicken sandwich and melon soda. He wore a white shirt and black pants every day. Sometimes he would change up the trainers he wore, but they were all black as well. Mark Lee without a doubt was plain and boring.
Mark takes a bite out of one of the chocolates, savoring the caramel filling melting on his tongue.
It’s delicious, the office worker thinks to himself.
♡
“Minhyung?”
The ten-year old hums in response, still playing with his Nintendo DS. Mario Kart was commanding his undivided attention this winter break.
“Where’s your green jacket?” Jaehyun continues as he grabs dirty laundry from Minhyung’s hamper. According to the rainbow-colored chore wheel in their living room, Jaehyun was in charge of laundry duty this week. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere, but I can’t find it.”
Minhyung briefly removes his gaze from his game and offers a sheepish smile that fails to show his teeth. “I kind of lost it when I was taking the bus back home the last week of school.”
Jaehyun groans in response. It wasn’t the first time his younger brother claimed he lost his clothing this past week.
At first, Jaehyun thought that Minhyung was being bullied in school. It wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary; While it was a rather cruel and pessimistic perspective, Jaehyun knew how mean children could be. Especially when they manifest their parents’ rumors and gossip about the Lee household.
How the only reason Minhyung was in Connecticut was because his mother died and because his grandfather could not care for him.
Jaehyun was afraid that Minhyung would lack the love he was deserving of here. The ten-year old child received so much love in Canada. Connecticut was not home to Minhyung. There was no parental love here to give or be given to Minhyung.
Their father was never the most affectionate person. While he was a good father in the sense that there was a roof over their head and they were fed and clothed properly, he did not share the same love language as his children or his ex-wives.
But Minhyung somehow found love here in this lonely winter wonderland.
His brother may have fooled their father, but he couldn’t fool Jaehyun. He hears the giggles in the early pink morning and late purple evening and the blooming indigo blue night. He hears the laughs that were only supposed to be heard by two, instead of an intruder.
Jaehyun feels like a spectator seeing a Vermeer painting in his own home. There’s a brass doorknob that guards Minhyung and his important person from the rest of the world. A little wonderland space in this dysfunctional home. The brass doorknob that opened the intimate haven that Minhyung built in such a short time was something that Jaehyun refused to touch unless it was mid-day.
Mornings and nights were reserved for Minhyung.
He lets the topic drop and picks up the rest of the dirty clothing and walks towards the laundry room.
♡
When Lee Minhyung is ten-years old, he moves to Connecticut.
His mother died after a long two-year fight with breast cancer, and his maternal grandfather was too old to take care of him properly. They decide it’s best to have Minhyung move from Vancouver to Connecticut to live with his dad and older half-brother, Jaehyun, whom he only has vague memories of; He thinks they met once when he was in pre-school, but no one remembers pre-school that well. His friend Mina from the Caterpillar room reassures him that.
His father and older half-brother waited for him at the airport. He arrives with two small black suitcases with all the things a ten-year old considered to be important. Jeans, warm winter jackets, gloves, scarves, boots, caps, and his favorite video games to play when he’s bored.
It’s awkward hugging his dad and older half-brother. Minhyung doesn’t know how to feel. He doesn’t think it’s a happy feeling blossoming in his heart. The hug is too short for it to be happiness. If it were happiness, he would want to bask in their warmth as long as he could.
Being extremely self-consciousness of his body, Minhyung pulls away from the hug, not noticing that Jaehyun’s face falls from his rejection.
♡
“Have you heard about the new intern?” Mark overhears one of his co-workers gossip during their lunch break in DREAM Co’s cafeteria.
“Do you mean Mr. Seo’s son? I hear that Mr. Seo gave his son the internship to have him learn about running the company.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I heard. The new intern is only eighteen-years old and has barely started his computer science degree. There’s no way he would have been given the internship position without his father’s influence. I doubt his resume even reaches half a —”
Mark slams his lunch tray on the table before the gossips could finish insulting the new intern.
He doesn’t send them a glare or spares them a glance in their direction, but the gossips get his message loud and clear. He was well aware that computer science was becoming a more and more competitive major to be accepted in, especially a university like Yonsei. It was clear that Mr. Seo’s son received high marks and was capable of completing the internship he was given.
He leaves the cafeteria and decides to continue working on the new project he was given. He’s assigned to collect data from the new game they released two weeks ago. Customer and player feedback is always a priority for the company.
Mark was never one to judge people without getting to know them properly — well he was when he was younger.
He admits he wasn’t fond of Jaehyun when he was ten, but over the years, he grew fond of his older brother. Jaehyun always meant well and it had taken so long for Mark to realize that Jaehyun loved him.
♡
“Is he gone?” Small brown antlers peak out of the side of Minhyung’s vision which means that Haechan is here. He’s wearing the “missing” green puffer jacket Jaehyun was looking for.
The ten-year old opens the window and lets Haechan in. The deer spirit smiles and jumps down dusting the grey wooden floor with white snow and brown dirt.
Minhyung doesn’t know why but Haechan looks very pretty today and wants to kiss him.
He does, and tints Haechan’s cheeks in maroon red. Minhyung expects to be pushed away for suddenly placing a kiss on the other’s heart-shaped lips, but Haechan smiles into another chaste kiss.
Minhyung thinks he got a boyfriend before Jaehyun did (he definitely did; Jaehyun starts dating a year later).
♡
Mark’s interview makes him a nervous wreck. He loses his T-MONEY card in the Family Mart where he bought his chocolate croissant at and returned back for it (he just recharged the card the night before). He also misses the train and has to wait ten minutes and hopes that he won’t be late for the interview.
He gets on the train and watches as the bridge passes by greyish brown apartment complexes that for some weird reason feel more isolated than the home he grew up in Connecticut.
He hears his stop and gets off, moving towards the exit. Luckily Dream Co. was near the subway exit, and he treads on the concrete steps and makes a left. Before him is his chance to retain his work visa.
Dream Co. was a lavish company of nine stories, each one covered in tinted glass. He walks in the revolving door and is meet by a secretary named Kim Hyunjin. She’s a young girl with long black hair and a bright yellow outfit and purple bow. For a moment Mark thinks he’s in the wrong place considering the dark black suit he sported that day, but Hyunjin greets him with a bright smile and gives him an access key to the ninth floor.
On the elevator, he makes chat with a pink haired person around his age.
He thinks the pink haired person is in love with a puppy by how much he talks about a co-worker named Lee Jeno from the IT department. The pink haired man gushes about Jeno’s eye smile making their day and makes his leave on the sixth floor, wishing Mark good luck.
Mark makes it to the ninth floor and finally meets Mr. Seo. He’s much younger than Mark expect; Late thirties and tall (Mark thinks he’s over 180cm at least).
“You’re hired!” Mr. Seo tells the young twenty three-year old.
Mark almost spits out the glass of water Mr. Seo offered him a few minutes ago. “WHAT!”
“You’re hired,” The CEO repeats with a bright smile that ignores the new worker’s outburst.
“But what about the interview!” He blurts out.
Mr. Seo smiles. “Based on your resume and cover letter, I can tell you love video games and that’s all Dream Co. is about.”
He motions Mark to come closer and whispers in his ear. “Don’t tell anyone, but my son helps me choose the new interns and workers. He’s only in middle school, but he has a knack for recognizing new talent and he hasn’t failed me yet; He was the one behind hiring Kim Jisoo for our new mobile gaming campaign and our stocks have never looked better.
“By the way, he really liked your application and suggested I give you a full-time job instead of a terminal internship. I hope you too will be a great asset to my company.”
Mark leaves the interview dazed and makes a mental note not to cross Mr. Seo’s son so as long as he’s an employee at Dream Co.
♡
“Minhyung!” Haechan whines. “Feed me.”
The small deer spirit made it a habit to visit Minhyung in the early mornings and late evenings; The ten-year old already started associating the deer spirit with soft pinks, light blues, and vibrant purple.
Haechan is pretty in under the rising run and moonlight. His curly brown hair and golden skin were kissed like sunflower reaching for the sun. His small little antlers peeped out of his hair and his eyes would twinkle all shades of warmth.
But Minhyung thinks morning is when Haechan looks the prettiest.
Under the fresh yellow sunlight, Haechan somehow manages to bloom in the middle of winter.
His bright brown eyes begin to twinkle, and his bronzed cheeks begin to blush pink, causing his skin tone to become a rosy gold.
Minhyung likes it when Haechan wears his green puffer jacket, but he doesn’t know why. He thinks he should ask Jaehyun or his dad one day when he’s brave enough why he feels that within his stomach, a secret garden blooms.
He imagines a garden full of yellow sunflowers, white daises and blue wildflowers blooming and making the frost melt and allow butterflies to flutter.
He thinks that it’s a garden that won’t succumb to the changing seasons. A garden that doesn’t retreat under the temperamental summer. A garden doesn’t attempt to accompany the romantic autumn or succumb to the cruel winter.
A garden that remains whimsical and takes pleasure in not having to lose its childish splendor and innocence.
The ten-year old gives Haechan a heart shaped chocolate, unaware that the deer spirt thinks Minhyung’s the prettiest in the morning too.
Blue flowers bloom and stop blooming as the snow falls.
♡
Valentine’s Day was Mark’s least favorite holiday.
One year at Dream Co, he used one of his sick days to avoid seeing the red and pink heart-shaped decorations at the office. He only acknowledges its existence because his brother is a Valentine’s Day baby. And even then, all the gifts and cakes he buys for Jaehyun are ordered at least two weeks in advance to avoid getting his brother a last-minute Valentine’s Day themed cake.
No one knows why Mark hates Valentine’s Day.
Even the resident love doctor Na Jaemin isn’t able to assuage Mark into coming to their Valentine’s Day celebrations.
One year, Jaemin left a cute little pink sloth on everyone’s desk. Most of the workers expressed their love for the little stuffed animal and proudly displayed it on their desks. Renjun placed a sticky note with Moomin’s face drawn on it on the sloth, but Jaemin wasn’t offended — it was quite obvious Renjun appreciated the gift.
Everyone loves the gift.
Except Mark, who placed the tiny pink sloth behind his mug. He didn’t throw it out, but he didn’t display the stuffed animal either.
Another year, office workers try to convince Mark to exchange chocolates with them. Mark shows up extremely late that day and misses the candy exchange (he arrived after lunch, citing that he had a doctor’s appointment — everyone knew the excuse was bullshit because the officer worker never got sick).
No one knows what will happen this Valentine’s Day.
One of the workers at Dream Co had a crush on the person who hates Valentine’s Day the most in the entire world — and a crush on the boring person in the entire company.
Mark Lee wasn’t unattractive by any means. He was rather handsome, short ebony hair and bright brown eyes and was well-dressed too. But no one knew what the secret admirer saw in Mark. He wasn’t very expressive or friendly. He only talked to Jaehyun and Yukhei and by association, Renjun.
The secret admirer must have only seen Mark’s face or also be a boring person or a prankster.
But if they were any of the things mentioned above, they wouldn’t have gone to so much effort to giving chocolates every Friday without fail.
Whoever this person was, was sincerely and deeply in love.
♡
Today marked the day Jaehyun would take Minhyung hunting for the first time. The Lee household adopted the tradition when they moved to Connecticut. Mr. Lee brought Jaehyun to his first hunt and now it was Jaehyun’s turn to bring Minhyung.
The two prepared for the hunt the past half week, waiting for Minhyung to finally get out of school for winter break — it came sooner than both expected because the heavy snow made it difficult for the school buses to tread the roads.
Jaehyun drives the rusty brick-orange pickup truck he inherited from their father as Minhyung observes the snow falling off the dark cedar and green pine trees. The snow quietly slips off, hoping that no one notices its clumsiness.
Jaehyun makes a stop and beckons Minhyung to come out and follow his lead, rifle in hand. A half hour in, Minhyung decides to go off on his own; He wants to create his own stories and left them permanently imprinted in the lush green forest they were exploring and marking as theirs.
Sliding down the white slopes, Mark’s trying to press gravity on the earth beneath him to keep him from falling and rolling down. Brown and blue birds fly out of the trees as the boy tries getting to the end of the small hill. He eventually makes at the end, huffing and his cheeks becoming tinted from the cold air.
The boy finds a large bush and decides that it would be a good spot to rest and observe the woods Jaehyun began sharing with the animals that have inhabited the land for years and years.
From the bush he hides in, Minhyung sees something out of the corner of his eye. It’s not the first time he’s come across a deer, but it’s the first time he’s seen one so small.
This little deer is the tiniest little creature he’s ever seen. A small brown body covered in white speckles and big chocolate brown eyes. Its ears move ever so slightly back and forth trying to predict impending death.
It moves quietly, leaving small footprints in the snow.
Minhyung realizes that he can’t. He’s immobilized by the thought of firing the rifle in his hand and witnessing how the bullet spirals and completes its trajectory.
Minhyung doesn’t want to see the him that is the agent and efficient cause of the small brown deer’s death.
The ten-year old lets the rifle his older brother bought him fall onto the layers of frost beneath the beat-up hiking boots he inherited from his father. The drop cracks the transparent fragile frost, exposing the warm brown earth beneath it.
The little brown deer slowly twitches its ears in response and Minhyung can see its brown eyes darken in fear.
Their eyes make contact and it’s as if the small brown deer can read Minhyung’s mind — it runs. It runs far away from the white shrubs Minhyung is hiding in.
“Minhyung you almost had it,” Jaehyun runs over with a wide smile.
His bright orange hat almost falls off, but he makes sure to push it back on as he reaches his younger brother.
Behind him is a trail of deep imprints in the snow, exposing soft green grass ready to greet the incoming spring. “Not bad for your first time. I remember it took me a couple tries to complete my first successful hunt. By the time winter ends, you’ll be a natural.”
Minhyung springs out of the shrubs accepting his older brother’s compliment with a little smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He doesn’t say much and all he says is that he got too nervous.
He doesn’t tell Jaehyun he purposely let the deer escape.
♡
Minhyung sobs into Jaehyun’s chest one night.
Jaehyun doesn’t need Minhyung to tell him anything. He knows what happened and can’t help but to feel his heart breaking for his younger brother. He knows no words can console Minhyung.
He simply looks out the window that used to bring his brother so much happiness and wishes that happiness would return someday. Jaehyun thinks he sees a bright white shooting star responding to his wish, but he knows better.
Their family doesn’t get their wishes granted.
♡
Mark Lee officially relocates to South Korea when he is twenty-three years old and lands a job at a mobile game startup of the name CTNU. During his undergraduate years, he decided to study abroad in the country to reconnect with his paternal grandmother, whom he hadn’t seen in years.
The year spent in Seoul made Mark realize that he could pursue his gaming passions anywhere in the world and decides that Seoul is the place where his dreams could occur. Jaehyun also decided to take the plunge, citing that he outgrew the small town they lived in and favored living in the bustling city of Seoul.
Unfortunately, the mobile game startup company fails to make enough profit its first two years and runs an enormous deficit, causing Mark to get laid off and he risks losing his work visa if he doesn’t find another job soon. Jaehyun recommends applying to another upcoming company with him: DREAM Co.
Dream Co. was a subsidiary of a larger conglomerate named SM and it would be its first venture in the mobile gaming industry.
The company was in need workers in all fields, but the application process emphasized they wanted to hire people young and passionate about gaming. Its CEO held the philosophy that good work is produced by those who love their job and are given the tools and means of producing it, instead of forcing itself to make a game that attempts to pander to current trends.
Mark sends his resume and cover letter, hoping that he gets at least an email back.
♡
Minhyung’s morning nap is interrupted by a light knock on his window.
His room, unlike his dad’s and Jaehyun’s, was located on the first floor instead of the second floor. Originally, Minhyung was supposed to take the room next to Jaehyun’s, but it was still being repurposed into a proper living space as it was previously used as storage space.
The sudden death of Minhyung’s mother had given them no time to prepare for the child’s arrival. They barely had time to arrange for Minhyung’s transfer to a local elementary school in the middle of the fall trimester and arrange the funeral arrangements. Minhyung didn’t mind his current living arrangements, he actually liked it. His room was next to the kitchen, so he was able to indulge in late night snacks.
The tapping continued and Minhyung decides to take a peak. He was ten and still very unafraid of the world around him; He was intrigued by the gentle taps.
Originally he thought it was the large pine tree being bullied by the strong Connecticut winds that was the source of the light noise marking his room window. Instead of a pine tree branch, he’s met with the presence of a familiar animal with hopeful brown eyes.
Before Minhyung could process what was occurring, a small boy stands in front of him, instead of the little brown deer he saw the other day he had been hunting with Jaehyun. The boy looks around Minhyung’s age, maybe just a year shy of his own. He’s wearing tattered rags that are a poor excuse for proper winter attire. On the top of his head are small brown antlers.
The deer boy seems embarrassed and immediately covers his face with his trembling hands, still trying to avoid Minhyung’s gaze.
Minhyung doesn’t know why, but for some reason he feels protective of the deer boy in front of him. He grabs one of the old puffer jackets that Jaehyun gave him the day he arrived and covered the trembling boy in it.
Minhyung also got one of his orange beanies and carefully placed in on the deer boy’s head only to be met with failure; He didn’t consider the little antlers sticking out of the other’s head and the deer boy only grows more self-conscious of his new body.
Not wanting to give up, Minhyung scrambles to find a pair of scissors in his desk drawer. He knocks down some of his old basketball trophies his dad placed on his desk, but he doesn’t care too much about them.
After a couple of fumbles, Minhyung finally finds a pair of old red safety scissors he used for a craft project the first week of school and pokes two holes into the orange beanie. This time he successfully places the beanie on the deer boy. The deer boy’s cheeks are still flushed from the cold winter and Minhyung decides to give him a scarf and gloves as well.
Minhyung’s clothing is too big for the deer boy’s small frame, but he think it’s enough to keep him warm.
The deer boy thinks so too because he offers a shy smile that can carry the weight of the world and holds the jacket close to his body.
“Thank you for taking care of me. My name is Haechan. Nice to meet you.”
♡
“Your secret admirer must really like you,” Yukhei teases as he looks over the small plastic grey wall that separates his workplace and Mark’s with a wide 100-watt grin. He grabs the transparent red bag of chocolates from Mark’s hands and notes, “These must have taken hours to make. No one makes handmade chocolates these days. Or at least not like the ones you see in shoujo manga. And especially not every week for the past three months.”
Mark groans in response and slams his head on his desk.
“You don’t look very happy about this.”
“I’m not,” the office worker deadpans. “I’d rather return back to the days I was a wallflower and do my work without having bags of heart-shaped chocolate cover my desk. Everyone here keeps asking me if I got my chocolates this week.
Even Doyoung, the Kim Doyoung asked me if I got chocolates today; He’s too married to his marketing position to notice any dating rumors. He hasn’t even noticed that my brother has been flirting with him nonstop this past year. And you and I both know Jaehyun isn’t the most subtle person out there.”
Jaehyun brought the marketing department head flowers every day, only for them to simply be dismissed as a normal co-worker gift. One day, Jaehyun gifted Doyoung a giant bouquet of red roses and even then, Doyoung simply said “thanks” and continued working on an ad campaign.
Yukhei hums in acknowledgement, but Mark’s response didn’t seem to quench his curiosity.
This was the love biggest affair in DREAM Co. since Kim Hyunjin and Lee Heejin got together after months of sexual tension; Rumor was that that they had a complicated love-hate friends with benefits relationship until the latter finally confessed her feelings after the same office party Yukhei confessed to Renjun — there was a lot of booze that night.
“You aren’t the least bit curious who your secret admirer is?”
“No.” Mark returns to his task and ignores Yukhei’s pouting face that only worked on his boyfriend, Renjun. Yukhei may think that Mark didn’t care about the chocolates he received each Friday morning, but he was wrong. Mark rather mindful of each gift he was given and never threw them out.
He just didn’t know what to do with the blatant declaration of love that came every Friday morning.
Yukhei and the rest of the office didn’t notice that this bag of chocolates was a darker shade of red that the previous weeks’ and that previous week’s bag as darker than the week prior to it.
The first bag was a pinkish color, not quite pink but not quite red either. The second bag was a slightly darker tone and the third an even darker one than its predecessor. Each one gradually becoming closer and closer to the color maroon.
Whoever his secret admirer was, was committed to expressing their growing feelings towards Mark with color.
Sometimes one of the chocolates was slightly burnt, which he assumed was because their workload increased, but they were always made with the sweet infatuation and innocence of first love.
The type of love that made you giggle when you accidently made eye contact with the person who was the apple of your eye. The type of love that made you giggle at their unfunny jokes when no one else laughed.
The type of love that the first was. Full of childhood innocence and radiance.
And with the ignorance that Mark hated the color red in all its forms.
♡
Laying on his side in his own sea of crimson is his beloved Haechan.
The night before Haechan asked Minhyung to come play with him one last time before Minhyung began to attend elementary school once again. It’s not that they couldn’t hang out anymore, but Minhyung would leave Haechan waiting for hours until the bus reached his home and dropped him off.
“Please play with me.” The deer spirit whines as he makes his eyelashes flutter in the hopes that Minhyung couldn’t resist his request.
Minhyung is a sucker for Haechan’s pretty milk chocolate brown eyes and says “yes”, but only after he eats breakfast with his family; His dad and brother were suspicious of where Minhyung was disappearing off to each morning and night, but he doesn’t want them to find out about Haechan.
Minhyung knows its selfish, but he wants to keep Haechan to himself and he doesn’t want to share.
Minhyung knows he shouldn’t have been this selfish.
Because of his request, Haechan was all alone in the forest waiting for him. Haechan was left vulnerable to the hunting season.
Minhyung can’t help but to sob.
Haechan was dying right in front of him and he can’t do anything for him. The closest place near here was Minhyung’s home and it was at least three miles away; There was no way for him to carry Haechan in time to tend to his wounds. And even if he could, Minhyung doesn’t know how to help Haechan.
More blood was pouring out of the gunshot wound from Haechan’s side. The hunter who shot Haechan hit one of the deer spirit’s vital organs. Minhyung couldn’t tell which one because he was too overwhelmed that his first love and best friend was dying and there was no way he could save Haechan.
“Please don’t leave me,” He cries out.
He feels his once warm liquid tears become frost as his sobs become desperate. “Please don’t leave me. I promise I won’t keep you waiting for me anymore. I’ll make sure to always keep my window and door open for you. Haechan, please don’t go. Please don’t leave me alone.”
Haechan’s brown eyes darken and Minhyung’s heart breaks.
His first love ended and tainted the white piling snow in red.
Snowflakes kept on falling and piling up ignoring the heartbreak that was occurring.
The world did not stay still for Minhyung’s dead first love.
It continued to move without Haechan.
♡
Mark decides it’s finally time to confront his secret admirer and properly reject them. While he’s flattered that the person found him attractive, Mark doesn’t feel like he will ever be reciprocate their feelings.
Accepting the chocolates and not letting the secret admirer know the uncomfortableness that arises from them was unfair in Mark’s eyes.
Even after eighteen lonely winters, no one made as many butterflies flutter in his stomach as Haechan did. There was no crevice in his heart left untouched by the deer spirit he met that winter he spent with his father and brother.
The pain of unrequited love was comparable to that of puppy love. You still have a glimmer of hope that one day your feelings would be able to reach the other person’s heart and that it would be enough to make them feel the same way.
But at the same time, you are aware and have the understanding that the other person is obligated to feel the same way as you. You see them happier with someone else and you can’t help but to wish you were that person who brought sunshine in their lives; Yet you still wish happiness for them because you love them.
The biggest pain that unrequited love brings is indifference.
To not even be in their peripheral of the person you love’s vision is undeniably painful. Hate and kindness at least signal that they cared for you at some point. But indifference means they feel nothing for you. It is the most pitiful result of unrequited love.
Mark doesn’t want that to be the feeling his secret admirer feels. They deserve better. They deserve someone who loves them back and as equally as they love them.
Not the Mark who hasn’t or probably will not get over his first love.
Not the Mark who changed his name because he wants to preserve the Minhyung who was happy and in love with Haechan.
He marches over to where his secret admirer is — his workplace. A tuft of curly chestnut brown hair peaks out of Mark’s small grey cubicle. His secret admirer arrived late today.
Mark never ran into his secret admirer these past few months; Even though his work shift was one of the earliest ones amongst his co-workers, the intern always managed to come earlier than him and leave a small bag of homemade chocolates on his desk every Friday without fail.
Wait…chestnut hair?
While, Mr. Seo wasn’t strict in enforcing a dress code, many of the workers opted to sport their natural hair color (many of them had already fried their hair during college). The only people with dyed hair were Yukhei and Na Jaemin from the IT department, and they both possessed blonde and pink hair respectively.
He remembers Yukhei telling him that the new intern who happened to their boss’ son from his first marriage was said to be mixed. Mr. Seo married a girl during his time abroad before he moved back to South Korea and had Seo Donghyuck.
Seo Donghyuck was the only person who could possess such a light shade of hair in DREAM Co.
His boss’ son was his secret admirer of three months.
Mr. Seo was definitely going to fire him for breaking his son’s heart and Mr. Seo was still going to fire him if he half-heartedly accepts Donghyuck’s confession.
He was fucked. So fucked.
“I’m sorry for—” He doesn’t hear the eighteen-year old intern’s rambling; He’s too shocked by the younger’s resemblance to Haechan to hear the younger’s confession.
His Haechan.
No, he wasn’t the same Haechan he met eighteen years ago, that was not possible. He saw Haechan die in his arms, his blood becoming a crimson sea in a quiet wonderland with snow piling and piling up.
This Haechan was eighteen and his heart still very much beating.
He was just an inch shorter than Mark, but his long legs made him look taller. His skin was still as bronzed and a beautiful radiant contrast against the plain grey sterileness of the DREAM office complex.
He wasn’t wearing the forest green puffer jacket that Mark gave him all those years ago, but that was a given. There was no way it would still fit, but Mark still wanted the nostalgia that came with that green puffer jacket he gave Haechan the first time they met.
There were no horns on the top of his head, but it didn’t make the boy any less lovely.
Donghyuck was lovely. Undeniably lovely and just as pretty as Mark remembers him.
Mark does the only thing he could think of. He gently cups Donghyuck’s face and presses a soft chaste kiss on the younger’s lips, causing the whole floor to gasp.
Even Renjun, the most collected worker in DREAM Co., drops his favorite green Moomin coffee mug in shock that the person who hated Valentine’s Day the most in the entire world was accepting the new intern’s confession and even kissed him for everyone on the entire floor to see.
Mark even thinks he hears one of the secretaries trying to console and prevent Mr. Seo from crying that his baby was all grown up and beating up Mark for taking him away.
The intern blushes a bright red when Mark pulls away from the sudden first kiss. He notices that he left the younger’s lips slightly swollen, but Donghyuck’s eyes are still the bright brown flecked with green he remembered loving as a child; He thinks he’s falling in love all over again – no, he’s definitely in love.
Very much in love with the Seo Donghyuck he just kissed.
“I um...I —"
“This time I was the one waiting for you,” Mark interrupts the second half of Donghyuck’s confession as he pulls the young and confused intern into a strong embrace. “You don’t need to wait for me anymore; I will always wait for you to come back to me.”
Donghyuck lets himself rest into the nape of Mark’s neck and smiles. The hug expressed to him many things, but there one he keeps closest to his now erratic and rapidly beating heart:
You are the first love that makes all other loves irrelevant.
♡
“Minhyung!” A familiar deer spirit wearing a familiar green puffer jacket calls out. His little button nose is red and runny, and his small antlers laced in white from waiting in the cold so long. “Can you please open your window for me to come in? I’m always tired of waiting for you.”