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People look at Donghyuck and pity him, he knows. Even his hyungs get concerned sometimes.
Taeyong putters around behind him as Hyuck finishes up the dishes. “How are you feeling today, Haechannie?” He asks softly, affecting a casual tone. Donghyuck mentally rolls his eyes, imagining Jaemin making those mocking bunny faces. He shouldn’t laugh.
“Good, hyung,” he replies brightly.
“Really?” And of course Taeyong catches him when he can’t escape, up to the elbows in suds. “Please don’t feel too bad, I’m sure Mark was just a little grumpy today,” he finishes, peering anxiously at their maknae.
Hyuck sighs. And now they’ve reached the crux of the matter. To be honest, it’s been a long time since he’s been genuinely hurt when Mark rejects his skinship, his kisses, an arm around the older’s shoulder. They’re not as fragile as the fans, the management, hell even the other members seem to think. That’s just Mark, as riled up as a wet cat if Hyuck does anything too obvious.
He’d be lying if he weren’t a bit… smug about it all, to be honest. Donghyuck’s observant. He knows Mark’s trying to fight his own feelings for him. Really, he could have told himself it was an inevitable struggle. Donghyuck always wins, he should know this by now. It was a little more difficult to parse when they were younger, when Donghyuck felt personally offended when the other boy ran hot and cold, whacking Hyuck in the arm in public so hard it accidentally bruised, then subtly wedging himself between Hyuck and Jeno in the backseat of the van even though they had clearly been sharing earbuds.
Mark’s just like that sometimes, clumsy in loving him, clumsier in trying to express it in ways that aren’t music. He should be glad Hyuck can read him so well.
But Donghyuck likes to think he’s a grown man now, he has wisdom. And Mark’s dumb if he hasn’t realized he’s fighting a losing battle.
“I feel fine, Taeyong-hyung,” he replies with all the adolescent sass he can muster. “Mark’s just grumpy again because he didn’t sleep well.” At least, not until he wheedled Hyuck into whisper-singing for him through the phone. It’s stupid because they were like, two rooms apart, and even stupider how easily Donghyuck gave in.
Honestly, the only reason Donghyuck’s lasted this long waiting for Mark to just accept it already dammit is how sure he is that his feelings are returned. Every cheek Mark pushes away in front of the camera is three more absentminded kisses in his hair at home, every complaint in an interview about Hyuck irritating him is a moment Mark takes the blame when Doyoung nags at him for not folding the laundry, for leaving his shoes out, for causing a mess in the dorm. Mark is shy at the most inopportune moments, but Donghyuck has long since accepted it. He wouldn’t change Mark for the world.
Renjun asks him once, if he’s ever going to confess in as many words. Hyuck gives him a look, before turning to stare pointedly at Mark, who’s holding their album upside down in an effort to pretend he hasn’t been staring jealously at Hyuck in Renjun’s lap. “He hasn’t stopped writing songs about me since we met,” Hyuck informs the Chinese boy. “You think I need to confess?”
And really, Donghyuck’s made himself obvious enough. He’s patient. He knows Mark is his, the same way he knows he’ll never be anyone’s but Mark’s. Theirs is a relationship, platonic, romantic, whatever, that’s been written in the stars for a while now. And who is Mark to resist his destiny?