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youtube is a very strange place.
mark spends more time on it than their managers advise. he’s heard it all: there are too many negative comments, fans make incomprehensible memes, it’s distracting and he’ll end up fixating on things he never focused before, and of course...the shipping videos.
mark doesn't watch them. never. they’re always sitting there in his recommendations tab, trying to lure him in with their titles and heavily edited thumbnails, and even though watching his top 50 cutest moments with donghyuck is tempting sometimes, he knows better than to watch.
well, until he’s a little tipsy after a company dinner and can’t get himself to fall asleep at two in the morning, even though he has to wake up early for a schedule. it wouldn’t hurt to click just one, right? he just wants to know what the hell their fans are on all the time. gain a little perspective.
the video he chooses is aptly titled EVERYDAY WITH YOU ♡ MARKHYUCK EDIT ♡
he resists the urge to roll his eyes when the iu song begins to play alongside slowed down clips drenched in a dreamy filter, changing the entire context to make them look like they’re secretly in love, unable to contain it even in the presence of cameras and their fans, rather than just them fooling around for no reason in particular. god, mark doesn’t even remember half of these.
it’s just how they are, two best friends who are comfortable around each other. everyone (and he includes some members in that everyone) is reading way too much into it.
he scrolls down to the comments, hoping that some of their fans are sane and find all of this to be incredibly silly, but instead he’s met with a sea of this is exactly why i love markhyuck! and nomin who? jaeyong who? luwoo who? i only know markhyuck, and find someone who looks at you the way mark looks at donghyuck. ugh.
mark stops scrolling when a particular comment gets his attention.
oh my god, the video in 3:75 reminds me so much of sunny showers! i need to go reread it right now!
sunny showers, is that a book? mark hits the replies button to find out, and he’s met with raving comments, all referencing the plot to this masterpiece that he’s never heard of in his life. something about fate and true love and steamy scenes between characters that share his and donghyuck’s name.
finally, a confused fan asks for a link and they're directed to markdongluv00’s profile page.
it’s three in the morning and mark is all alone, but he looks around his room anyway, worried that his personal belongings would judge him for the bad choices he’s about to make. he’d always known these things exist, but he never sought them out and most of their fans kept them stashed away so that he can’t find them unless he was really looking.
his fingers hover over the link, excuses piling in his brain as he tries to justify it to himself. he’s just curious! he’ll show it to donghyuck tomorrow so they could have a laugh over it together! he’s bored and there’s nothing else to watch on this stupid app!
sometimes when he and donghyuck are alone he gets this funny feeling in his che–
it’s definitely not because of that.
the page opens to a korean fanfiction archive with a vaguely familiar name that he’s seen mentioned around twitter, usually accompanied by purposely misspelled versions of his and the other members’ names. the first thing that catches his eyes is the view count, it’s in the hundreds of thousands despite the fact that the story is marked as incomplete.
now translated to five languages! the author’s note at the top pleasantly informs him. please scroll down for more information and links to enjoy the story in your preferred language.
a pop-up asks if he’s above the age of nineteen, almost like a final chance to back away and pretend he never stepped into this dark corner of the internet. mark, irritated that it’s covering the synopsis he was in the middle of reading, clicks yes without giving it a second thought.
hundreds of years ago, donghyuck lost mark forever.
now incarnated into the present as members of nct, donghyuck must win him back, armed with nothing but his memories of their past lives.
mark lets out a tiny snort. it sounds just like the dramas donghyuck makes him sit through. he thinks markdongluv00 would be very pleased if they knew just how much the real donghyuck would enjoy this type of overdramatic nonsense.
okay, curiosity satisfied, right? he should just close out of the tab and go to sleep, maybe tell donghyuck about this in the morning, because admitting to it and turning it into a joke would clear his conscience and make it feel less weird. you and i, reincarnated lovers. sooooo funny, right?
he ignores the voice in the back of his brain whispering that the two of them ending up in sm at the same time is nothing short of destiny.
mark scrolls down anyway.
chapter one.
he only notices that three hours had passed when sunlight begins seeping through his curtains. mark’s eyes are bloodshot not out of lack of sleep, but because he’d been crying through the past three chapters.
it was addictive, the barely contained sexual tension heightening with every chapter. he was holding his breath at every almost kiss and unspoken confession. markdongluv00 got him wrapped around their pinky finger and he wasn’t laughing anymore.
sunny showers was a lot more dangerous than he had expected.
it was actually good.
♡♡♡
“hyuck, are you up?” mark’s voice whispered. donghyuck considered ignoring him and pretending to be asleep, but he heard a hint of nervousness and desperation that made his stomach twist.
he turned around against his better judgment, lids still half closed.
mark’s black hair was a mess, probably from tossing and turning around in his bed all night. his eyes were hazy with exhaustion, the soft features of his face illuminated by the taipei city lights.
“nn, what’s up?” donghyuck asked in a raspy voice.
a long quiet minute passed by with mark simply blinking at donghyuck, who considered burying his head in mark’s shoulder and going back to sleep. finally, he licked his bottom lip and drew a shaky breath.
“i want you to tell me….about your old memories.” the words came out slow, deliberate, like they’ve been weighing on mark for a long time.
it took donghyuck a second to process what he was really asking. he hesitantly reached out for mark’s hand under the covers, and his heart almost stopped when mark’s squeezed his as soon as they made contact. that was new.
♡♡♡
“you’re acting funny,” donghyuck pouts, poking at his cheek in the inkigayo waiting room. he took a break from making fun of jaehyun’s mc costume to bother mark. doyoung, already familiar with how donghyuck gets when he’s bored, narrowly escaped by excusing himself to go to the bathroom.
mark is barely keeping himself awake, the line between reality and the rosy universe of sunny showers is blurring. when donghyuck is this close to his face, it’s hard to remember if it’s his best friend or reincarnated soulmate.
has donghyuck always been this pretty? markdongluv00 described his soft brown curls and doe-like eyes in great detail, and the constellation of moles running across his face and neck are a lot more pronounced. like the sunny showers mark, he wishes he could trace them with his hand, feel donghyuck’s celestial beauty for himself.
he’s twelve chapters deep now, and the more invested he gets the less shame he feels about what he’s doing. it’s not like anybody knows, okay? and mark is not doing it because he enjoys reading the fans’ fantasies of him and donghyuck kissing, although he wishes they fucking would already, there’s only so many situations where ‘their lips almost graze against each other’ that markdongluv00 can come up with. besides, he’s not one to turn his nose up at what is clearly a well written and thought out story. yeah, mark is simply a consumer of fine literature.
it’s not weird.
“i’m looking at my phone.” he buries his head down and tries to avoid eye contact, donghyuck knows him a little too well and can read his thoughts with a single glance. “nothing unusual about that.”
“hyung,” all the humor from donghyuck’s voice evaporates. “are you okay?”
that’s a difficult question, because aside from the sleep deprivation donghyuck’s proximity to him makes his body feel like a million degrees, too close to the human embodiment of the sun, as markdongluv00 would describe it.
“as well as one can be, donghyuck,” he answers, unconsciously picking up the unnecessarily dramatic writing style of sunny showers. he smirks, actually, honest to god smirks with the confidence of a smug overconfident male lead from a makjang drama. “worried about me much?”
donghyuck backs away from him like he just spit in his face. “gross, why is your face twisted like that?”
mark’s expression falls and his ears start to feel warm. “i wasn’t doing anything with my face!”
“hyung! i think mark hyung hit his head too hard against the van ceiling this morning,” donghyuck has already run off, eager to tell the nearest person about how stupid mark just looked. “he’s talking all weird too, i think we should let him sit this one out.”
“i’m perfectly fine!” mark yells after him, even as johnny shoots him a concerned look from across the room. he believes that there’s something wrong with mark a little too eagerly. “can you all stop staring at me like that?”
if he was going to continue reading the story, he needs to learn how to exist around donghyuck all over again.
♡♡♡
it was strange how mark looked so different in every lifetime, but his eyes always remained the same, so beautiful and full of life. it was as if god had left them in to help donghyuck find him every time. he always wondered if there were other pairs of soulmates out there, with one distinguishable feature surviving through the centuries.
and there they were, peering at him curiously, shyly, from across the practice room of their company.
the first time was always hard. what is the correct way to react when you see your reincarnated lover anyways? nobody had ever taught donghyuck, and he’d fumbled his way through every encounter. just like he was about to in the next five minutes. he made his way to the boy, heart racing, his whole body felt like it was pulled by a greater force, guiding him towards mark.
♡♡♡
jeno folds his arms. “okay, no one is willing to say it, so i will.”
xiaojun sighs. “please don’t.”
“mark being here is weird!”
everyone in the room groans, and jeno glares at all of them like they just stabbed him in the back. “you all said as much on the group chat yesterday! we can’t pretend this isn’t awkward.”
“there’s a group chat?” mark gulps. jaemin scared the living hell out of him when he sneaked up behind him at group practice while he caught up on the latest sunny showers chapter. he mistakenly thought that no one in his group, largely made up of blockheads, would be remotely interested in the mysterious blocks of text on his phone.
so his heart almost dropped when jaemin hummed nonchalantly and proclaimed that markdongluv00 is starting to lose their touch.
just trust me, he said as he led him to the dream dorm the next day. after seven years and many unfortunate incidents, one of which left him dangling off the roof of the company building, mark found these instructions incredibly difficult to follow. jaemin is never short of terrible ideas and evil masterplans.
but what he thought would be a (well deserved) intervention turns out to be something else entirely.
“we can’t always meet up when a new chapter drops, you know,” yangyang tells him, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “and jeno, i never said anything. i actually think mark’s insight is going to be very valuable.”
“it would be if sunny showers was real, but it’s not and mark has to listen to us dissect an imaginary relationship between him and donghyuck,” jeno’s face twists in horror at his own words, fully realizing the extent of how weird this entire arrangement is. “i don’t think i can do it.”
“m–me neither!” jaemin raises his hand.
“please, you’re just mad markdongluv00 perfectly captured the evilness you harbor.”
“no they didn't! i’m extremely out of character and that stupid writer keeps deleting every long comment i’ve written in my defense. sunny showers is a front to spread anti-nana propaganda and i won't stand for it!”
“hey, i don’t care if the book club is dissolved, i’m just reading it to practice my korean,” xiaojun lies poorly, and the surprised chortle that escapes yangyang’s mouth further gives him away.
“you are all so weak!” ten says, and they fall silent. mark suspects that he’s the leader, or perhaps founder, of the group. “we are united by our shared interest and morbid fascination with sunny showers, and mark being here shouldn’t change that. the only reason we even have this club in the first place is because we just had to talk about it with someone. now can we please discuss jaemin’s fuckup in the latest chapter?”
mark thinks he’s seen enough, and the funny way xiaojun stares at him, like he’s meeting his favorite celebrity for the first time, is making him slightly uncomfortable.
“i, uhm, don’t think i should be here anymore.”
♡♡♡
mark’s breath was cool and minty. his eyes disappeared as he smiled and went back in to plant one, two, three kisses on donghyuck’s lips.
“what’s this?” donghyuck asked, he was smiling now too.
“making up for all the times i wanted to kiss you in the past, hmmm,” he scrunched his nose as he pretended to think hard. his thumbs were rubbing slow circles along donghyuck’s collarbones. “forty eight hours?”
“only three?” donghyuck teased and was promptly attacked by four, five, six more coming in rapidly and sometimes even missing his mouth. not that he cared, mark’s lips were welcome on any part of his face.
the thin layer of tension that was between them finally broke and they turned into a mess of giggles and misplaced kisses and wandering hands.
“how long have you wanted to kiss me?” donghyuck asked, voice dipping low.
♡♡♡
no other fanfiction comes even close.
the fandom is never short of interesting plots and settings to throw him and the rest of the members into, but nobody managed to capture their personalities the way markdongluv00 does.
morbid fascination, ten called it, and mark understands why. but he’d be lying if he said that’s all it was for him.
“put that down,” he says with a little smile. donghyuck is tinkering with his guitar while their staff prepared the set around them in a frenzy. they’re filming the first episode of their youtube series, mark and haechan’s campfire tunes.
“no hyung, listen, i’ve been practicing lately,” donghyuck holds the guitar closer to his chest. the tent they’ve set in the middle of the studio, right in front of a fake campfire is cozy but doesn’t leave much space between them.
he must still be under the spell of sunny showers, because his best friend is suddenly so much cuter. his lips form a tiny o as he fumbles around the strings, trying to remember the chords to a song. mark realizes likes it a lot when he calls him hyung.
when he looks at donghyuck, he always thinks of time, from the days thirteen-year-old donghyuck would chase him around the company calling him markly! markly! because he liked the way his name rolled off his tongue, to the nervous eighteen-year-old taking his hand and asking if they’re going to be okay right before they take the stage at their very first concert.
bound together from the day they met, with a force so powerful mark is convinced it’s mystical and ancient.
donghyuck hums when he finally finds his footing, bobbing his head in a habit he must have picked up from years of watching mark play for him. it takes a few seconds, mostly because donghyuck misses a few notes, but something in his chest twists when he recognizes the song.
it’s hate everything, the song donghyuck sings to mark when he confesses to him after a huge fight in sunny showers. it’s been looping in mark’s head ever since.
we both promised forever
but forever don’t last too long
funny coincidence.
“where did you hear that?” mark asks, praying to markdongluv00 that he gives the wrong answer.
donghyuck looks offended. he turns up his nose and scoffs. “what is it hyung, did you think my music taste wasn’t interesting enough?”
“t–that’s not why!” he slaps his arm, and donghyuck laughs, pleased to get a reaction out of him. he grows quiet. “it’s a pretty song, i think you did really well.”
“see, i still have a few surprises left up my sleeve,” donghyuck grins. he soaks up the praise like a sponge, and it only makes mark want to compliment him more. you’re cute, you always make me laugh, you’re better at playing the guitar than you let on, in fact you’re good at everything you set out to do. “hyuuung, you’re being all weird again!”
“i’m not weird!” his ears are bright red again. they’ve attracted the amused stares of their staff. donghyuck’s really close now, looping his arms around his neck, trying to get a closer look and find out exactly what it is that’s wrong with mark. “your breath just stinks.”
“oh, does it?” donghyuck says, and mark’s heart drops as he leans his face closer and closer, lips almost grazing against each other. goddammit! this is not the time to think about that of all things, although it pains him to admit that markdongluv00 might have been on to something there.
just when he thinks he’s going to pass out and die a peaceful death in donghyuck’s arms, his best friend opens his mouth to release a puff of intense coffee breath right into his face.
“donghyuck!” he yells, pushing him away despite the giggles bubbling up in his throat.
they’re entangled in each other’s arms, laughing and forgetting that they’re in the presence of an entire filming crew, until the director yells cut! and announces that this will make the perfect thumbnail for the video.
once he puts those rose colored glasses on, they just won’t fucking come off.
“you might as well be drooling,” yuta snarks as they sit and watch donghyuck practice his solo performance for an upcoming concert. his lines are fluid and pretty, and donghyuck makes it look so effortless. even through his baggy, worn out clothes, mark fixates on the exposed expanses of flesh, flushed and glistening and making his mouth water a little bit.
there is this scene in sunny showers, where they’re assigned a couple dance performance that requires a lot physical contact, and mark has a hard time because he wants to kiss donghyuck so badly but can’t because they’re not together yet, and donghyuck keeps looking at him in this specific way that makes his heart race. like he’s thinking the exact same thing.
it feels a lot like that right now, except he’s more pathetic because donghyuck is dancing alone across the room.
“shut up,” he mumbles. a long pause. “is it really that obvious?”
“well, donghyuck probably doesn’t see it, but you’ve been acting like a giggling schoolgirl around him for the past month.”
mark pulls his legs together and buries his face between his knees. “oh god.”
if he’s being perfectly honest, sunny showers only helped him be honest about feelings he’d already had, buried so deep under a protective layer of denial.
“hyung, are you up?” donghyuck lets himself into mark’s room anyway. it’s eight in the morning on an off day and all mark can say in response is a half asleep grunt. “i’ll take that as a yes.”
he peels mark’s covers off and slips in next to him. oh no. is this another one of those dreams where his brain plays a cinematic version of a sunny showers scene?
mark is suddenly alert and wide awake. he tries to keep his cool and not alert donghyuck with his behavior again, despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to either pull him into his arms or run out of the room. both with equal ferocity. “what’s up?”
donghyuck is quiet and coy. never a good sign. “it’s been a long time since you let me into your bed.”
mark is tempted to push him off. “can you please not say it like that?”
“kidding, hyung. you’re just so easy!” he’s smiling, although it doesn’t reach his eyes. “i feel like you’ve been kinda distant lately. it’s weird.”
“but i’m always here,” mark feigns ignorance. the invisible wall he built between them was a protective measure, he was terrified of donghyuck learning what was really going on in his mind. “we still talk every day.”
“it’s not that,” donghyuck’s eyebrows knot in frustration, and mark feels guilty for lying. “i feel like you’re never mentally there. even when we talk, your eyes glaze over and you refuse to look at me. you’re always on your phone too, more than usual. hyung, are we good?”
“of course we are,” mark reaches for donghyuck’s hand under the blanket, forgetting for a second where he learned to do that from. “we’re not kids anymore, i wouldn’t get all passive aggressive and ignore you if i was mad.”
“then,” donghyuck bites his lips. “you wouldn’t mind showing me what it is that you’re always looking at on your phone then?”
he holds his free hand up between them, having picked up mark’s phone when he wasn’t looking. fuck. the last thing mark had open before going to sleep was his favorite chapter of sunny showers, right in the heart of a particularly steamy makeout scene. donghyuck knowing that he’s reading a fanfic wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t explain all his dodgy behavior.
“n–no–”
they wrestle for it, and donghyuck has a clear advantage as the most awake of the two, keeping his hands in the air while mark fumbles around, unable to remember how his limbs worked. he’s not sure how it happens, but their struggle ends with him pinned underneath donghyuck, both of them wide eyed and out of breath.
lips almost grazing.
the phone is forgotten on the floor, and mark hopes against every logical cell in his body that donghyuck would kiss him. he can hear the marching beat of his heart, the look in his eyes mirroring mark’s.
but this is real life, not a fanfic.
donghyuck slips off him, looking distraught. “i–i– should probably leave.”
♡♡♡
“did you know,” he starts, smiling fondly. his fingers dancing along mark’s hand, tracing the lines on them. “the lines on your hands form the constellation that you and i belonged to?”
♡♡♡
faint music, scented candles, door locked so the members don’t bother him with stupid problems like settling arguments about anime characters– mark was all set. he had saved the latest chapter for this moment, when he’s alone in his room and it’s late and he can properly savour every word. this is what markdongluv00 had turned him into.
plus, he needed a distraction from whatever the hell happened between him and donghyuck the other day.
the chapter was a standard sunny showers affair, mark and donghyuck finally making up after a fight that lasted three chapters and was dragging a little too long for mark’s liking. he eagerly laps up all the fluff, even as it pains him that he can’t ever kiss donghyuck like that, can’t hold him and tell him just how much he’d been holding back, missing him even when he’s right there.
then he gets to the scene.
donghyuck is holding mark’s phone in the air, challenging him to take it back, and mark smirks and welcomes the excuse to get entangled in donghyuck’s arms, sitting up on his lap to try and get it back, with a lot more physical contact than necessary.
but suddenly he’s pinned on top of him, and he can’t see anything around them anymore. there’s nothing but mark mark mark, his round eyes and pretty lips and hands telling their story, reaching up to cup donghyuck’s cheeks.
he smiles and knows exactly what to do, leaning down until their mouths connect.
mark’s heart is throbbing in his skull. he reads the words over and over again, tries to rationalize them to no avail. there’s not other explanation. there can’t be.
he’s out of his room and into donghyuck’s before he thinks about what he’s going to say. he slams the door open, and is thankful that donghyuck’s the only one there, even that late into the night.
donghyuck is sitting on his bed, smiling at something on his laptop, but closes the window as soon as he notices mark there, only raising his suspicions further. “hyung? what’s wrong?”
words won’t work right now, how could they? where would mark begin?
so he drops down next to him, hands shakily holding donghyuck’s face. he’s soft and warm, just like he’d imagined.
how did donghyuck describe their kisses? that must be how he wanted mark to kiss him all along.
he licks his lips and closes the distance between them. mark starts slow, and then pushes deeper, sliding his tongue in and drinking up the little hums that spill from donghyuck’s mouth. they make out for what feels like hours, and donghyuck pulls him back in every time he grasps for breath, like he can never have enough.
“you did write sunny showers,” mark whispers eventually. donghyuck nods gingerly.
if anything, he should have known when jaemin was getting slandered every other chapter.
“i can’t believe you read it,” donghyuck says, looking genuinely embarrassed for the first time since mark met him. his face is flushed and he keeps glancing at his laptop like it’s about to spill all his secrets somehow. “i mean, i really believed you would never come across it, and if you did, that you would tell me.”
“i just– i really don’t get it,” mark replies. he really should have thought this confrontation through. right now he’s just shocked donghyuck is that good at writing, that he’s his markdongluv00. those years of religiously watching dramas actually paid off. “was it all a joke? why would you write something like that?”
donghyuck is so vulnerable right now, and the discomfort in his face as he’s being cornered is clear. mark holds his hand again.
“i don’t know, i just thought about us kissing a lot, and when thinking wasn’t enough i–i– might have gone on the internet and searched for fanfics of us kissing, but they were all so painfully out of character!” he says like it’s the worst crime their fans could commit. “so i took matters into my own hands. it was mostly a joke at first, just something to pass the time during long car rides or backstage or whatever, but then people really started to like it and it got out of my hands pretty fast. but you know what the worst part is?”
“what?”
“writing only made me want to kiss you more.”
mark can’t stand the longing look in his eyes, and he wonders how many times he’d missed donghyuck looking at him like that. sunny showers was first published a year ago. it took him way too long to get up to speed.
“i just had this funny feeling when i was reading it, it was all too eerily accurate, so vivid, and it stirred up a lot of feelings in me. it took me around twenty chapters to realize i wasn’t just reading it for the story, but because i wanted to kiss you just as much.”
“oh,” donghyuck has a realization. “so that’s why you’ve been acting funny this entire time?”
he nods before kissing donghyuck again, softer this time, and he’s washed with relief when donghyuck smiles against his lips.
“wait! i just remembered something, t–that username, markdongluv00,” mark pulls away again. he doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to say this. “i read up on it and saw some fans explain that– that it means–”
“i want you to top me, yeah,” donghyuck answers frankly.
he feels like someone just lit his entire body on fire. “oh! um. cool. ”
donghyuck laughs. “you’ve still got a lot to learn about the fandom,” he digs his nails into mark’s shoulders and puts their foreheads together. “and about what i like.”
it makes a lot of sense, because no one understands the two of them like donghyuck does, and no one can stir mark with his words the same way. donghyuck had written him the world’s best love confession, in hundreds of thousands of words and counting.
“i’m just so glad it was you.”
♡♡♡
author’s note:
hello loyal readers! thank you so much for keeping up with sunny showers all this time and patiently waiting for new updates. i had an incredible time writing this story and i truly never thought it would blow up the way it did. nevertheless, i would regretfully like to announce that due to unforeseen events in my personal life, the fic has now been discontinued. just make up your own ending or something lol.
(and nanafan08, get a life and stop with the fucking essays. nobody cares. jaemin probably hates you.)