Chapter Text
Mark was only 13 when he made the big move from Vancouver to Seoul after his parents divorced and his mom decided the only solution was to move 5000 miles away. For Mark, this meant leaving behind his father, every friend, and every memory of his early childhood. No more playground meetups with the neighborhood kids, no more trips to the bakery every Sunday after church, and no more early morning breakfasts with his family-the whole family at least.
He felt no resentment towards his father, he may have been young but he understood that sometimes love doesn’t last forever. What he didn’t understand was why they had to pack up and leave everything behind without any consideration for him. Now however, after years of living in Korea and almost a year of crying himself to sleep, Mark finally comprehends why his mother wanted to run away. He’d do anything to get rid of the pain at this point.
Tonight, he’s back in bed trying and failing at falling asleep for what feels like the millionth time. No matter how many sheep he counted (once he got to 1000 he usually gave up) he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Donghyuck’s face. He sees images of his face as a child, only 12 years old when he met Mark at the park near their house and asked if he could push him on the swings. He sees his face as a teen, 16 years old when Mark finally grew some balls and they kissed for the very first time. He sees his face at 21, tears gushing out like a broken dam just after being proposed to. Every face serves as a reminder of the person he lost, and just how special he was.
Donghyuck had always been good at hiding his emotions. Everyone who met him knew him as the confident fireball who feared nothing. But not Mark. Yes, Mark was aware of the strong persona inside his partner, but he also got to know the Donghyuck who was sensitive, and thoughtful, and just wanted to be loved. He truly prided himself on being able to see through every wall Donghyuck put up. Mark likes to think his innate comprehension of Donghyuck’s mind only solidified the fact that they were truly soulmates, forever and always.
“Fuck this isn’t gonna work,” Mark thinks as he feels the first tear of the night threaten to spill. He sits up and leans on the headboard to take a deep breath.
“Seriously Donghyuck. Fuck you,” he speaks into the darkness and reaches blindly to his bedside table for the bottle of pills he mentally battled with every night. Mark never wanted to rely on drugs to get by, but eventually the sleeping pills stopped working and he had no other option. Jeno was the first to find out, after walking into his room one night and pointing at the bottle in question.
“Hey, those don’t look like the regular pills you take.”
Mark lies.
He smiles and turns around from his spot by the vanity where he was checking out his hair.
“Oh those. Don’t worry it’s just a different brand my doctor recommended. He said I was doing a lot better so I could switch to weaker ones.”
“Wait that's awesome Mark!” Jeno walks across the room and hugs the boy while patting his back excitedly with one hand, “You’re making progress!”
Mark laughs a little at the irony of it all.
“Yeah Jen, I feel like things are finally looking up,” he says while squished in between the crevice of his friend’s shoulder.
Jeno finally lets go and walks back to pick up the bottle, taking the time to read and smile at the label. Good thing Jeno has no knowledge about medicine, Mark thinks.
“One day you wont need this,” he pauses for a second, “and when that day comes, we’re all gonna be here to congratulate you. I know you can do it Mark. You can beat this.”
Mark wants to cry. He wishes he was still as optimistic as Jeno.
“Thank you. It means a lot.”
That should have been the end of the conversation over his choice of medicine, a topic he thought he handled perfectly well at the time. He was confident none of his friends would find out about his new coping mechanism, that is until a week later when he hears knocking on his door at midnight.
“Mark,” followed by more knocking, “Mark Lee open the FUCKING door.”
He scrambles up out of bed and walks towards the front door getting ready to ask Renjun why on Earth he was screaming outside at this hour. When he opens the door he’s immediately pushed to the side as Renjun starts stomping towards the hall leading to ̶D̶o̶n̶g̶h̶y̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ his room.
“Renjun what’s going on? Why are you here?” he says, closing the door and following the boy into his room.
He sees Renjun walk straight up to his vanity and start tossing things onto the floor and opening all the cabinets. Through the mirror reflection he finally notices Renjun’s face looks like he’d been crying before even arriving at Mark’s house. He wasn’t mad at Renjun for knocking things everywhere, it’s not like the whole house wasn’t already a mess he never had the energy to clean. Mark was just confused.
“Where is it? Where are they Mark?” Renjun screams while he continues his search.
“Renjun what are you talking about? What are you looking for and why do you think it’s in our room?”
That get’s Renjun’s attention as he finally stands up straight and turns around to give Mark the most pitiful look he’s seen since that day at the hospital. Mark hates that look.
“Our?” Renjun pushes his hands through his hair like he’s trying not to explode.
“Mark this is your room. He’s not here anymore. You know that right?”
He decides to ignore the disrespectful call out and instead calmly starts, “Of course I know he’s not here anymore. It was a mistake, a slip of the tongue, an-”
Mark feels like the next couple seconds happen in slow motion. While he was talking he watched Renjun’s eyes continue to scan his room and stop by his bedside table. Mark watches his eyes go dark with anger again and he follows his gaze to the small bottle of innocent pills on the table.
Oh.
He’s suddenly reminded of Renjun’s medical education and his new pharmacy job. He closes his eyes and prepares for the blow. The blow that never comes. He hears shuffling and opens his eyes to see Renjun had made it to the other side of the room and was trying to drop and step on all of the pills. Mark proceeds to silently lunge at him and take the bottle out of his hands to salvage any one pill that hadn’t been crushed. Renjun sinks down to the floor with him and attempts shaking some sense into Mark.
“Mark please stop it. Did you really think you could get away with taking these without me noticing? Jeno comes by telling me you’re looking better than ever with your new medicine and when he told me what it was I nearly punched a wall.”
Mark keeps a straight face and continues to pick up the pills, “These were expensive Renjun, it’d be a waste to throw them out.” His calm tone mimics that of average small talk about the weather.
Renjun cries out and slumps across the side of the bed like he’s given up. He thinks yelling at Mark was definitely not the way to handle things and decides it’d be better to just match his mood.
“You’re smarter than this. The only thing you’d be wasting by taking these is your life. This isn’t what he wanted Mark, and I just know he’s looking at you right now thinking ‘man this guys an idiot.’ We’re supposed to make him proud, you can’t keep letting it control you.”
Mark and Renjun have never been the closest in the bunch, if anything they only got close because of their strong attachment to Donghyuck. Despite that, Renjun was also the second most spiritual in their group after Mark, and though they believed in different things, it helped them form a bond that transcended regular friendship. It kept them alive after Donghyuck left.
Nowadays however, even Mark knew he was distancing himself from everyone. He didn’t mean to, he just couldn’t bear to see them most of the time. Their company just makes him feel more guilt. All the therapy in the world couldn’t convince him that Donghyuck’s death hadn’t ultimately been his fault.
If only he’d paid the wedding planner on time like he was supposed to, Donghyuck wouldn’t have had to get into the car on the stormiest day of the year. He wouldn’t have slid, and he wouldn’t have crashed.
He’s brought back to the present when he hears a soft, “Hey...are you listening?”
Mark responds in a whisper that almost hurts to get out, “I know you’re right,”and lets out a shaky exhale,”It just hurts Renjun. It hurts so bad.”
He fiddles around with the bottle to fill the awkward silence while he waits for Renjun’s response. He doesn’t even try to make eye contact with him. He doesn’t wanna know what’s waiting for him. More pity? Anger? Empathy? All things he isn’t sure he wants.
Instead, Renjun scoots closer and wraps his arms around Mark as best as he can from their spot on the floor. Uncomfortable, but it’s better than nothing.
“It may hurt right now, but time is the only remedy we have Mark. I may not know exactly how you feel but believe me when I say I’ve also had days where I don’t see a point in getting up anymore if I’m not gonna see him,” he moves a hand up to Mark’s hair and starts petting him like Donghyuck once said Mark was a sucker for. He feels him instantly let his guard down further. It was almost like he was letting out a breath he had been holding in for hours.
He continues, “But Mark, this medicine you’re taking? All it’s gonna do is leave you emptier than you started. You’d be waiting an awfully long time to feel okay bud.”
“What am I supposed to do then? I don’t want to be like this, I just have no other choice.”
“You fight Mark, you fight. You seem to be forgetting you’re also not alone,” he says and finally gains the courage to move Mark’s face towards him to give him a genuine smile. All he wants is for Mark to feel the sincerity behind his words, to trust him.
“You have me, and you have 4 other brats who would readily come keep you company at any hour of any day.”
Mark laughs, really laughs, for the first time in a while.
“You’re right about the brats part.”
“But you love us, and we love you. All I ask is that you let us know when you’re feeling like taking these,” and grabs the bottle to stuff into the pocket of his hoodie, “and someone will come keep you company. We can talk or just sit in silence, anything you want. I won’t ask where you got them or how much you paid, just don’t shut us out.”
Mark starts feeling tired after all this emotional talking, and gets up to climb on top of his bed. He gets under the covers and looks down at Renjun for a second, then turns towards his side of the bed. No one’s laid there since Donghyuck. Mark doesn’t even know why he continued to gate keep it like a sacred area not meant to be disturbed. It’s not like it smelled like him anymore anyway. After his passing, Mark laid on his side of the bed for what felt like weeks without moving, taking in the scent until there was nothing left. He thanks the boys for coming over one day and finally getting him up. They got him to shower, eat, even change the bedsheets. He doesn’t think he would’ve gotten up on his own if they hadn’t shown up.
Part of him thinks it might be time to finally let people in, admit that he can’t do it anymore, at least not alone. Another part of him thinks it would be selfish to try to move on, to forget, because after all, he was the reason their apartment now only housed one. But tonight he feels weaker than ever. Tonight he thinks it’s okay to be selfish.
“God I hope Donghyuck can’t see me right now,” he thinks to himself, ”Baby, I’m sorry,” he emphasizes in his head like it’ll somehow get the message across to his lover on the other side.
Mark pats the spot next to him and breaks the silence, “Will you- will you sleep with me tonight?”
Renjun tilts his head at Mark like a curious puppy with puffy red eyes, moves his neck up to look over at the empty spot in question, and back to Mark. He wipes his face with his sleeves and smiles. This is the Mark they all knew and loved. This is the Mark they’ve been missing.
“Of course,” he says while he gets up and walks to Donghyuck’s spot. He looks down at the bed and leans forward a bit to run his fingers across the sheets before lifting them and making himself comfortable.
“Turn around,” he tells Mark.
It confuses Mark for a second before he has a moment of realization and hums while he complies with the order. Renjun scoots closer slowly, almost afraid that the Mark he got through to tonight would run away. He hovers an arm over him in contemplation.
It seems to be taking too long because Mark loses his patience and pushes Renjun’s arm down on top of him, “Stop worrying so much. Let’s sleep.”
Whatever uncertainty Renjun was feeling gets washed away with the action so he settles down and cuddles up close to his friend.
“Goodnight Mark.”
“Goodnight Jun.”
That night Mark falls asleep fast for the first time in months. He dreams of his golden boy making him breakfast at home like old times. Only wearing one of Mark’s ancient t-shirts, red with the word “Vancouver,” and a maple leaf in white across it. That shirt was Donghyuck’s favorite for some reason. He said it was Mark’s home and therefore his as well. He turns around from looking at the stove and hands him a plate of pancakes, a Donghyuck specialty, while telling him all his worries will soon pass and that he shouldn’t be so hung up on things of the past.
The clarity of the dream makes the dry tears he wakes up to seem like a secondary issue.