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Just one more click. Impatient Mark clicked on the ‘Check out’ button. The circle kept rotating. As if it was mocking him.
As if the fact that he was about to spend 200$ wasn’t tantalizing enough, this website also had the nerve to not even let him complete his check-out.
His fingers were just about numb from hammering onto his touchpad. Maybe a new mouse would have been a better investment.
Well, he could decide on that tomorrow.
He was forced to look up from his staring match with the rotating circle as his parasol was moved aside, the sun mercilessly obstructing his view.
“Fuck!” he cursed, tapping on his touch-pad again. “Why is it not working?”
“Maybe because the WiFi frequency is too low,” Johnny, his brother and parasol-mover hummed. “Donghyuck is probably overloading the severs again.”
“He’s home?”
“Of course. His parents don’t want him to waste away in some dorm during this crisis.”
Mark groaned. This was the last thing he needed. Not only was he forced to live at home again after just finally establishing his own life, but now he also to deal with seeing their neighbors’ kid every day. Well, Kid was maybe too nice for the 19-year old uni freshman that made each of Mark’s vacation at home hell.
“I want to go back to 2018,” he whined, “no WiFi disturbances, no Donghyuck and no pandemic.”
“You do know that Donghyuck is not at fault for the current crisis, right?” Johnny raised his eyebrow.
“I’m sure he is somehow,” Mark replied flatly.
“I don’t even know what your problem with him is. He’s always nice to me.”
Mark shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
The truth of the matter was that Donghyuck’s evils could be neatly categorized into 3 points.
1. The before-mentioned WiFi disturbances – it was all fun and games until it was 3am and Mark couldn’t sleep because no asmr videos to drown out his thoughts would load.
2. He was pretty and distracting – last summer Mark’s work on his paper had been severely disrupted by the pretty boy on the balcony next door.
3. He was evil – it seemed as if his hidden agenda was to make everyone but Mark love him. It was always ‘Donghyuck did so well in the competition, when will you start taking things seriously? and did you hear what Ms. Lee told me Donghyuck did I wish you would have as much interest-’ it was infuriating.
Mark clasped his laptop shut. “Guess I’m getting nowhere with this.”
“Maybe it’s for the better. Dad will freak if he sees you spend any more money.” Johnny remarked.
“But it’s my money,” Mark rolled his eyes, “What the hell am I supposed to be doing with my scholarship money instead? It’s not like I have to pay rent here. And,” he gestured towards their apartment, “I already paid my part of the groceries.”
“How about saving,” Johnny replied flatly.
“Saving for what? Next year when we can finally go outside again?”, Mark snorted. “No, thank you, I’ll take my serotonin right now.”
Johnny threw his hands up. “It’s your financial ruin. Anyways, I’m going for a run, if Dad comes home tell him there are leftovers he can reheat.”
Mark hummed noncommittally while pulling out his phone.
Let’s see if he couldn’t best the website after all.
Without thinking about it Donghyuck wiped his hands against his cardigan. His hands which were smeared with egg-whites and whole grain flour.
Cursing, once the realization hit, he hurried towards the sink, trying desperately to salvage what was left of his favorite cardigan.
He had grown a little paranoid about using the washing machine at home since his mother had mistakenly picked one of his shirts from the laundry hamper and let it shrunk.
After a few minutes of rubbing soap into stain and seeing no visual improvements he had to admit defeat. He would just have to make sure that the one handling the laundry would be him.
Resolute to do that right away he stepped towards the basement entrance, as he caught sight of the oven.
“Oh fuck,” he hissed seeing his hours of hard work burned. “Fuck why does everything always have to go wrong at the same time?!”
Dropping his cardigan onto the floor, he hurriedly pulled the oven cloth out of the drawer to take the baking tray out.
Just as he had expected, his meringues looked rather.. dark if not to say burnt. Letting out a muffled scream, he threw the oven cloths in the corner.
All that work for nothing. Waiting for his parents to finally leave the apartment – for nothing. He missed his one chance of enjoying some food.
Satisfied, Mark closed the tab. Finally, at last, he had managed to buy the pair of shoes. And with 10% off!
As long as he didn’t look at his account balance for the next month everything would be fine.
Fortunately, he was very good at ignoring his online banking app. Almost as good as he was at not checking his academic email.
With an annoyed flick he erased the notification that told him that there were new messages on kakaotalk. His uni friends had been messaging non-stop in the gc and while he would feel bad for muting them, he could not bring himself to participate in the conversation.
It just kind of stung that everyone was either handling the isolation situation so much better than him or they actually had reasons to be upset. He just felt like an annoying child with his complaints so he didn't voice them in the first place.
Movement on the balcony right across their garden caught his eye and he burrowed further into the shadow. He didn’t need to see another person who was handling all of this well. Especially if that person was Donghyuck.
After Donghyuck had thrown away the meringues and cleaned up the kitchen so far that his parents wouldn’t notice his presence, he finally allowed his emotions to exist.
The tears that had been threatening to spillover since his first look at the baking tray, finally pooled down his cheeks.
Trying to steady his breathing, he put his hand on his stomach to feel himself breath in and out. It’s so stupid, he thought hysterically laughing on the inside. It was so stupid to get so upset over such insignificant things. Hell, when he was living at the dorms he had sometimes wished for his parent’s harsh words- at least that had made him stay in control.
With shaking fingers he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened his notes app. You deserve to be happy, breathe in, your worth does not depend on what you eat, breathe out, other people’s perceptions mean nothing, breathe in, you want to be more than this, breathe out.
He shook his head as if to clear the lingering dark thoughts away and stalked towards the balcony door. Maybe a little fresh air could help ground him.
“What… exactly are you doing?” Mark called out once he noticed his neighbor’s strange position.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”, Donghyuck dead-panned. “I’m social distancing.”
“It looks like you’re trying to be a lightning conductor.”
Donghyuck scoffed. Of course Mark Lee had to be outside right now, and of course he had to comment on Donghyuck’s life choices. So what if he was currently balancing a cup on his head while sitting on the table next to the balcony railing, his legs dangling in the air.
“Are you...okay?” Mark called out again, squinting to make out Donghyuck’s facial expression.
“I was perfectly relaxed until you started talking to me.” Donghyuck snapped. To hell if he let Mark Lee of all people worry about him.
Mark threw his hands up, “Man, my bad for asking. Next time I won’t fucking bother.”
Donghyuck clicked his tongue. He had gotten what he wanted, so why did he feel bad all of a sudden? He sighed audibly. Maybe it wasn’t fair to take his sadness out on his neighbor who – for once – hadn’t actually done anything wrong.
“Listen I’m sorry, I’m not in a good mood.”
Mark snorted. “Yeah, I could tell.”
And just as Donghyuck thought the interaction might end peacefully Mark just had to add, “Didn’t think you got those too, sunshine boy. Starting to become mortal like the rest of us?”
If the fucking nickname wasn’t already enough, the insinuation was just a bit too much like his mother.
“I don’t want to deal with this right now, please leave me alone,” he replied coldly, curling his fists.
“Fine.” Mark turned around, picking up his laptop, “I have better stuff to do anyway.”
Better stuff turned out to be sitting in his childhood bedroom and staring at the walls for the better part of an hour. He snapped the hair tie around his wrist. Maybe he felt slightly bad for teasing Donghyuck when he clearly wasn’t doing well. Maybe he himself still hadn’t adapted to being home and projected his frustration a little. Maybe.
Huffing, he got up from his crouched position on his beg and walked over to his water bottle. While taking a sip he let his gaze wander out of his window. Frowning, he recognized a human-shaped shadow on the balcony across from his window.
Since his room was on the same height and much closer to the balcony he could actually make out Donghyuck much clearer this time. He seemed to have given up on the weird meditation practice he was doing earlier, cup abandoned on the table next to him, and was just staring up into the sky that had started to turn dark with the hour.
He kind of looked… defeated.
Propping his window open, Mark softly called out, “Hey. I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier.”
Donghyuck whipped around, caught off-guard by Mark’s appearance.
“It’s fine”, he shrugged his shoulders, “I think everyone has a short fuse right now.”
“Well, maybe,” Mark scrunched his face up, “it’s not like I work in the medical field..”
“Don’t do that. If you’re having a hard time, you’re having a hard time – no purpose in measuring it against someone else,” Donghyuck said sternly, then laughed humorlessly, “the reason why medical workers are suffering because the government underfunded and cut their resources for years, not because you admit that you’re not dealing well with self-isolating.”
“Are you gonna tell me to sign a petition next?”, Mark laughed quietly, “because I already did. I just don’t understand how can you be so-” he gestured vaguely in the air, “nice after I basically made fun of you for having feelings earlier.”
“I wasn’t nice to you either,” Donghyuck shook his head, “haven’t been particularly nice to you ever since we became neighbors.”
“Yeah,” Mark admitted, “I always wondered why.”
Donghyuck huffed. “Why? Isn’t it obvious- I mean you’re way too cool for me and from the way you looked at me I knew you didn’t want anything to do with me. So I rejected you before you could reject me. Easy maths.”
“Me too cool for you?”, Mark gaped at him, “you’re basically all my father ever wanted me to be. I mean, you have so many interests and you excel at all of them. You’re, and I quote ‘A joy to be around and so lively, Mark why can’t you be less gloomy for once’.”
The small smile that had formed on Donghyuck’s lips vanished, “It’s not like I’m happy all the time. And I’m not just good at things out of nowhere, I work hard,” his gaze caught Mark’s, “I may never have as many academic accomplishments as you do but I have art, piano, and dance. Things that are just me, you know?”
“Yeah,” Mark hummed, “I do understand. I guess it was unfair of me to put you on a pedestal as if I don’t know how shitty that can be.”
“Well, touché,” Donghyuck laughed, “so how are you coping?”
“Honestly?”, Mark blew out a breath, “not very well. I’m not really fine with staying at home again, my brother’s great but my dad… he can be a lot at times. And I miss daily distractions from my mind.” Taken aback by his own blunt admission, he nervously scratched his neck.
“Fuck, me too,” Donghyuck let out a deep sigh, “living at home again is really hard. It feels like all the progress I made just went down the drain.”
“That’s not true,” Mark said quietly, “I don’t know what you’ve gone through but progress doesn’t just vanish. True, there may be setbacks, but nothing will ever be able to erase what you accomplished.”
“That’s really sweet. Who knew you had it in you.”
Mark mockingly gasped, “Did you not think I could compliment you?”
“Could? Yeah. But want to? I did have my doubts.”
“Why ever would I not want to compliment the pretty boy next door that I’ve been envying for 2 years?”
“The what now?” Donghyuck asked, cheeks slightly heating up.
“You’re terribly distracting, Lee Donghyuck, it’s about time someone told you that.”
Donghyuck grinned, “You don’t want to be flirting with me during a pandemic of all times. Not when I can’t even kiss you.”
With pleasure, he noted how Mark’s ears turned red.