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Purples, pinks and golds refract through the floor-to-ceiling windows as the sun sets to the west of Mark’s office, casting a warm glow upon the right length of his body as he sits in his swivel chair, ankles crossed on the desk. From this side of the automatic sliding doors, Mark can’t hear anything, but he can almost picture the cubicles on the other side and the offices that surround them emptying as everyone begins preparing to go home. With a tired sigh, Mark runs his fingers through his (previously styled, but currently messy) black hair as he checks his phone for any new messages.
Still nothing.
Disappointment and unease drops on Mark for what seems like the millionth time that week as he places the screen of his phone to face down on the desk once more. He bites his lower lip, sinking into his chair as his mind drifts off to relive the countless texts, calls and kisses he’s shared with the one, honey-skinned boy. Just the mere thought of him sends Mark’s heart racing, and the poor boy doesn’t know what to do about it.
The phone discarded on Mark’s desk rings violently, abruptly shocking him back to reality, and ultimately knocking him off of his chair.
“Jesus….” he groans, lifting himself up from the floor whilst rubbing his lower back. He flips his phone over so that the screen faces up, and sees the contact name ‘Injun’ glowing brightly at the top of the screen.
“Renjun?” A crackling sound comes from the other end when he picks up. Mark lowers himself back into the swivel chair once more, repeating, “Renjun? You there?” A hum of confirmation omes from across the line, followed by a rapid rustle of papers and zippers.
“I’m not gonna be able to make it to the meeting tonight.” Renjun sounds rushed, and Mark can just about make out the sound of his friend shouldering a bag.
“Oh?” Renjun is never one to miss out on project update meetings, and a wave of concern ripples through Mark. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I got a call from Jeno.”
Mark’s heart skips a beat at the words. Both Donghyuck and his best friend Jeno haven’t been picking up calls or replying to Mark and Renjun after suddenly disappearing over a week ago.
“Did he… did he say anything about Hyuck?” Mark’s voice is just over a whisper, brows knitted together in anticipation.
“Kind of.” Another zip whooshes in Mark’s ear as the air is knocked from his lungs.
“What did he say? Is something wrong?” The phone is tightly clutched in Mark’s hold, his knuckles turning white from the tension.
“I don’t know.” He mutters, replying to the first question. “But he said that you should go home.” To Mark’s surprise, Renjun’s voice is shaky, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think that Renjun is close to tears.
“Me?”
Suddenly the automatic sliding doors that lead to Mark’s office slide open revealing a terrified looking Renjun, who hangs up, frozen, as the doors slide shut behind him.
“Renjun?” Mark shoots from his seat, sending his chair spinning behind him as Renjun looks straight into his eyes, pain shining from them like a beam of light from a lighthouse.
“I need to go, and… and I think you should go too.” He stands there for a few seconds, a depth and mysterious feeling about his eyes making Mark’s heart twist with sympathy. Without another word, Renjun turns on his heel and rushes out of the office, leaving Mark with a storm of questions brewing in his head.
What’s happened to Renjun?
What happened with Jeno?
What does any of this have to do with Donghyuck?
After a few seconds of deliberating, the image of Renjun’s glassy and fearful eyes appears in Mark’s mind once more, and the unease from before ripples through him. He trusts Renjun with himself more than he trusts himself, so if Renjun says to go home, he should probably listen.
Mark begins grabbing at documents and forms that he is meant to sign and slides them into various folders before shoving them into his backpack. He shifts from behind his desk and moves to the door swiftly with his bag on his shoulder, yanking his blazer off of the coat stand as he slams the button that lets him leave his office.
On the way to the elevator, he almost crashes into Johnny, who had just exited the elevator and is on his way until he realizes who he had bumped into.
“Mark? Where are you going? Aren’t we having the meeting here?” Mark spins round to find Johnny peering towards the board room, brows furrowed in confusion.
He wants to explain, but the words aren’t forming in his mouth, so he bursts out a quick, “Emergency came up, meeting’s cancelled,” before turning to enter the elevator Johnny came in, only to see that it had left the floor a couple of seconds ago. “Shit.” He glances around to find the stairwell, and is about to push the door open to it when Johnny speaks up again.
“Mark,” he starts. The ravenet pauses in his step, hand flat on the cool metal of the stairwell door. There’s genuine concern radiating from his friend’s eyes but he has no time for it. “Take care.”
Sighing, he nods, knowing that Johnny will take care of the others who were meant to take part in the meeting. Then, he shoves the stairwell open and stakes the fourteen flights of stairs down, two at a time.
By the time he bursts into the basement of the building, three minutes have passed since Renjun entered his room, and he’s growing impatient to find Donghyuck. Mark barely pauses for a second before dashing off into the direction of his car, which is (luckily) nearby. After throwing the door open, he tosses his backpack and blazer onto the passenger seat, not bothering to strap up before starting the engine.
His blood rushes through his ears, an uneasy feeling weighing his heart down. Mark can barely see the road in front of him, the wheel seemingly taking on its own path due to muscle memory. The sun sets a certain glow upon the cars in front of him, but Mark doesn’t slow down to appreciate the scenery, knowing he’s going to see his own sun soon.
But something seems very wrong.
Head pounding and heart racing, Mark parks his car in the basement of his apartment building, immediately rushing out with his stuff and disappearing into the single elevator that leads to his penthouse.
“Too long, this is taking too long.” Mark knows he wouldn’t have been able to run up all those flights of stairs, but he feels like the elevator is scheming against him, forcing him to stay patient in the cool box of gold and marble. He closes his eyes and scrunches up the blazer in his hand, impatient to get to the boy he’s missed and loved so much.
He barely allows the elevator doors to slide open before bursting right into the living room of his penthouse, jerking to a stop to breathe.
The silence is overwhelming.
He almost expects Donghyuck to walk out to him from the kitchen, or his bedroom, anywhere, smiling his trademark smile.
But nothing happens.
The penthouse seems so… lifeless.
And then Mark sees it.
A barely noticeable trail of blood drops, leading from the kitchen, most probably because there’s a back entrance there. Mark’s knees almost buckle as his eyes skip from drop to drop as it leads into the bedroom.
Mark gasps, dropping his items on the floor carelessly before rushing to his bedroom, almost tripping over his feet.
There.
Lee Donghyuck, sat on the floor, slumped over on the side of Mark’s bed.
In a puddle of blood.
“No,” Mark whispers, falling to his knees next to Donghyuck. He takes the younger’s shoulders and pulls him towards his chest, the weight causing him to fall into Mark’s lap instead.
“Donghyuck, wake up, baby, please.” Mark is breathless, tired, and heartbroken. His hands shake as he trails his fingers down to Donghyuck’s abdomen, to see his white t-shirt ripped at the hem, the white fabric soaked a dark crimson from the blood seeping from the wound.
“Fuck fuck fuck.” Mark gradually lowers Donghyuck’s body to the floor, and then leans down to press his ear against his chest.
“Please.”
At first, he hears nothing, and the world slows. A tear falls onto Donghyuck’s t-shirt, the fabric darkening.
Then, a pulse.
It’s weak, and barely there, but it’s still there, alive. Mark jerks away from Donghyuck’s body as if it’s on fire, and then stands abruptly, before running to his bathroom, knowing there’s a first-aid kit in there.
After countless self-defense classes, Mark was taught how to wrap almost any injury. He always hoped that he would never have to use it on himself, but now he only wishes now that it was him instead of Donghyuck.
A million times over. I will take this a million times over if it means keeping Donghyuck safe.
The next few minutes go by in a blur of antibiotics, tweezers, disinfectant and bandages. Every once in a while, Mark presses his ear to the younger’s chest to check for the heartbeat, and thankfully it’s always there, low, but ever-present. Once the job is done, he lifts Donghyuck off of the floor effortlessly and gently places him on the bed, making sure not to disturb the wound.
Mark rolls the cricks out from his neck, and finally sees Donghyuck’s chest begin to rise and fall, a sign that he’s going to be okay. His eyes flutter shut, a single tear slipping down his cheek as he steps away from Donghyuck’s body, knowing it’ll be too painful to watch him lie there as if he’s sleeping, when he’s really at death’s door.
He spends time distracting himself from the questions that threaten to crowd his head, knowing that it isn’t a good time to overwhelm himself when he’s constantly on the verge of tears, no matter what he does. Instead, he spends his time showering, doing paperwork at his bedroom desk and cleaning the blood stains. By the time he’s done scrubbing away the last of the blood by the bed, the thoughts in his head almost force themselves to be heard, and Mark’s limbs begin to feel weak.
He can’t help it when he drops from his crouched position to the floor, unable to withstand the confusion, worry and, ultimately, fear, that pounds through his head. Mark rips the gloves off of his hands and presses his palms against the cool floor, squeezing his eyes shut as he forces himself not to think of anything.
He focuses on his heart rate slowing down and the way the floor beneath his hands gradually turns warmer from his body heat.
And he’s okay.
He’s okay.
He stands gradually, the cold from the air-conditioner sending goosebumps rippling across his skin. His loose t-shirt is no match for this cold, but he doesn’t want to change into a hoodie, knowing the first one in his closet is the one Donghyuck gave him on the rainy night they first met.
Instead, Mark deals with the chill, and heads to the other side of the bed. He takes a seat there and crosses his legs, facing Donghyuck. He shuts his eyes, trying to picture Donghyuck’s golden skin and pink lips in front of him, the strength in his limbs, the energy in his eyes.
He doesn’t want to see Donghyuck weak. It hurts him.
Mark smiles to himself as the picture glows on the back of his eyelids, thinking of all the mornings he could have like this, if only Donghyuck would let him. There have been way too many mornings where he’d wake up to Donghyuck gone, days where he wouldn’t see the boy until late at night, with questionable bruises painted everywhere.
And they didn’t look like they were hickies.
“Mark?” A hoarse whisper is heard from the bed, and Mark’s moment of calm is ripped away from him. He squeezes his eyes shut harder begging for the painting in his mind to stay. He also wants to say something, he has to say something, but he can’t.
The words are trapped in his throat, so he forces himself to look at Donghyuck, and inhales sharply.
Donghyuck looks pale, and sickly, unlike he has ever looked before. His lips are dry, and the circles under his eyes make him seem so… tired.
And yet, he smiles.
Despite having a hole in his abdomen, he is smiling.
“Mark?” Donghyuck lifts himself from the bed, the muscles feeling rigid and heavy after lying in the same spot for so long. He groans slightly, but manages to push himself to a half-proper sitting position. There’s a painful throbbing at his side, however, and he has to lean against the backboard of the bed.
“You…”
“I’m sorry you had to find me like this,” Donghyuck lets out a humorless chuckle, before lifting his torn shirt to see fresh bandages. “Did you do this?”
“I… yeah. I did.” Mark is frozen. Donghyuck is looking at him as if nothing in the world is wrong, but his eyes are dull and his smile is weak.
Everything is wrong.
“How…?” Donghyuck seems mystified at how well his wound has been bandaged, wondering if Mark kept a secret like his own.
My secret.
The boy flinches at the thought, guilt immediately rushing through him. His heart aches when he realizes that Mark might never want to see him again after he explains what happened.
Why it happened.
“I was taught.” When Donghyuck looks up at Mark, there is clear pain in his eyes, and Mark knows it’s not physical but emotional. The gaze is so strong that the ache in Mark’s heart almost threatens to pull him apart because of it.
So he shuffles off of the bed, biting his lip, as he stutters out, “do you want some water?” He keeps his eyes away from Donghyuck, afraid of what he might see and feel next.
“Yes please.”
Mark leaves the room, and heads to the kitchen. As he pulls a glass from the cabinet and presses it against his automatic water dispenser, he tries to organize the questions in his head into something less confusing. The cool water from the glass presses against his palm, and he breathes deeply, before heading back to the room.
“Here,” he speaks softly, taking his seat on the bed once more. He watches Donghyuck taking slow sips from the cup, before placing the half empty glass on the bedside table. Then, the younger peers back at Mark, as if preparing for the questions that he’ll have to answer.
Inhale.
Exhale.
“What… happened?”
Donghyuck sighs, biting his lip and placing his cool palm on top of the bandages on his torso.
“It’s a long story…” He turns away from Mark, afraid of what he’ll see if he peers into those big eyes he loves so much.
“Then start from the beginning.”
“Mark….” Donghyuck knows that it’s probably best that way, but he’s unsure of whether or not Mark will listen after the first few seconds. He’ll be confused, hurt, angry… all sorts of things.
And most importantly, he’ll be in danger.
Donghyuck knew the risks he was taking as he dragged his bleeding body up to Mark’s place, but he was also half dead, and wanted to see the face of the love of his life one more time, in case he really did die.
And now that he’s not dead, the complications that followed him coming here have been amplified.
“Just… tell me everything. I can handle it.” Mark swallows carefully and peers at his hands in his lap, before curling them into two fists.
Donghyuck knows Mark won’t be able to handle it.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was shot on accident, would you?” Donghyuck risks a light laugh and Mark almost feels like crying.
“No…” his heart aches, and he’s scared, he’s so so scared, because he’s not sure what Donghyuck might say.
Maybe he’s an undercover cop. Maybe he’s a secret agent, hired to protect me. Maybe he works with the government.
“I… am not who you think I am,” Donghyuck starts. Mark keeps the more positive scenarios in his head, repeating them like a mantra in hopes that they’ll be true.
An undercover cop.
“My set-up was being your intern, to get closer to your team… and ultimately, you.”
A secret agent, hired to protect me.
“I was meant to get closer to you, to complete my mission.”
He works with the government.
“Because in the end… I was meant to kill you.”
…
Mark has read multiple books and watched many movies, most of them way too cliché for his taste. He’d always roll his eyes when the main character has life-changing news broken to them, and it seems as if the whole world stops. How everything pauses for a moment, and all the air is ripped out of the scene. How the actor just seems to freeze.
It always seemed so… unrealistic.
But now, sitting on the bed barely a foot away from an assassin whose job is to kill him, the world truly does stop.
And the air is sucked from him, when he realizes how he’d fallen in love with that same assassin.
“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck whispers. Chaos breaks in Mark’s chest, his heart rate speeding up from confusion. He hurts for Donghyuck, seeing him so apologetic and guilty. But he is also angry, and in pain himself, alongside this overbearing feeling of fear.
“Me?” The only word that comes from Mark makes everything so real, and he almost falls off the bed before he realizes how far he’s moved away from Donghyuck.
“I can explain.” Donghyuck forces himself to sit up, unable to stop the groan that escapes his lips when the bandages scrape uncomfortable against his bullet wound. “Please let me explain.”
Mark only manages a nod.
“But I won’t tell you everything today, okay?” Mark’s lips part as if he wants to say something, but he doesn’t think anything he would say would make sense. Instead, he sighs, accepting that the questions won’t all be answered at one go, knowing that it’ll be better for him that way. Knowing that Donghyuck wants it that way.
Because Donghyuck loves him.
Doesn’t he?
“Firstly, I am sorry. I am. I didn’t mean to lie to you for so long, but I wanted to keep it away from you for as long as possible, because, well, it’s not easy falling in love with your target.”
Target.
“I was conflicted, but I know I should’ve told you earlier. I’m sorry that you have to find out only after saving me on what should’ve been a normal day.”
Saving.
“How long?” Mark manages to say.
“How long have I been doing this for?” Mark nods. “It’s been… four years.”
Four?
“Yes, I started when I was sixteen.”
Mark feels like throwing up.
“But… I didn’t start by choice.” Mark is almost surprised to hear the tears behind Donghyuck’s voice. “I didn’t want to. I had to.”
Mark only nods, knowing that’s a story for another day.
But there’s another question, one that Mark truly fears the answer Donghyuck has to it.
“How… many?”
Donghyuck’s heart drops, not wanting to think of all the people he’s killed. He knows that it’s been for a good cause, for the better of the city and the country as a whole, because that’s what they do. They’ve been able to save so many people and stop so many bad things from happening.
But it’s still murder, and right now, Donghyuck doesn’t want that kind of image of him in Mark’s head.
“Enough,” is all he replies with.
And Mark nods once more.
“I’ll explain on another day.”
Mark nods again.
“Why me?” Is the final question Mark thinks he can handle.
Donghyuck sighs, preparing himself for any possible reactions.
“Because… of your dad.”
The emotion-storm that’s been swirling in his stomach slows.
“Oh.” Mark knows the kinds of things his dad has done to make the company big. Hell, it’s been five years since his dad resigned, but sketchy things still happened behind Mark’s back when he first started. At first, the company was given to Johnny, but only until Mark was old enough to take over, which was two years ago.
Over the course of those five years, Johnny and Mark have worked side-by-side along a couple of their friends to stop the illegal processes his dad began and continued, but to this day, there are just some things that they still haven’t gotten past.
“Was it his people who shot you?” Mark finds strength to speak again, but he doesn’t shift from the edge of the bed.
“Yeah.”
Silence. The sky behind Mark is pitch black, littered with just a few stars here and there, flickering weakly. Donghyuck can’t seem to smile when he remembers the memory of Mark kissing the black-eye he got from training under that same sky on the balcony, knowing that he lied about it, and Mark pushed aside his suspicions for trust and love.
“Okay,” Mark takes a deep breath. “That’s enough, yeah? You should rest.” He manages a smile, and Donghyuck’s heart hurts. “I still have more questions, but we’ll leave them for tonight.”
“Would you rather I not stay here?” Donghyuck asks, almost drowning in his guilt.
“Will you kill me?”
The question shocks the younger, making him flinch, but he responds with a sharp, “of course not.”
“Are you safe out there?”
“I….”
Mark hums, knowing the answer. Donghyuck leans back against the back of the bed once more, placing a hand on his wound again. His eyes flutter shut, trying to keep his head above the sea of guilt within him. He only blinks his eyes open once he hears a sniffle.
“Mark?” At the sight of the glistening tears on Mark’s cheeks, Donghyuck heart clenches, almost making him gasp in pain, “Mark, please don’t cry, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” Mark manages a soft smile; the storm within him forces the tears out. “I’m just tired.”
Donghyuck can feel the familiar burn of tears behind his eyes as well, but he doesn’t let them flow, knowing he doesn’t have the right to cry.
To his surprise, Mark moves to his knees before crawling over to Donghyuck. The younger stops breathing when Mark sits beside his torso, brushing the hair out of Donghyuck’s eyes.
“I’m sad, I’m angry, and I’m confused.” His hand is cold as he strokes Donghyuck’s cheek with his thumb, tears still flowing. “Above all, I’m scared. I’m scared of what all of this means for me, for you, and for us.”
Mark brings his arms beside Donghyuck’s shoulders, before leaning down. His eyes flutter shut and Donghyuck watches as Mark’s face gets closer and closer. A tear falls from Mark’s eye to his cheek, the drop cool on his skin. Eventually, he shuts his eyes, in time with Mark’s cool lips pressing against his, all the emotions melting into a simple kiss. It’s moisture and warmth against cold and dry, and Donghyuck thinks of how different their lives are going to be from now on.
Slowly, Mark pulls away and sits up properly.
“I still love you. I don’t choose to, I just do. So I will use all my power to keep you safe.” With those final words, Mark presses a final kiss to Donghyuck’s forehead, before standing and leaving the room.
Donghyuck can only stare after him until he sees Mark’s back disappear beyond the doors. Then, he takes a single finger and wipes the tear on his cheek with it. He stares at the small droplet for a couple of seconds, wondering how many more of these he’ll see, knowing how much shit they’re going to go through because Donghyuck decided to come to the penthouse.