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“I’ve slipped another bottle of those herbal supplements in your backpack,” Mark hears Donghyuck speak somewhere behind him. The gentle rustle of the sheets tells Mark he’s on his bed.
Mark’s sitting on the floor, back pressed against the side of the bed, and Donghyuck’s laptop perched on his lap. He hums and nods distractedly.
The town outside is already drenched in the resplendent gold color of the setting sun as it bids its goodbye for yet another day. The rays pour through the windows to Donghyuck’s room, bringing splotches of natural light on the otherwise unlit room.
Mark feels gross and he probably smells sour from the dried sweat clinging to his skin and shirt and hair from the baseball practice he had that afternoon after dismissal but that’s none of his worries right now.
Every day after classes, Mark makes sure to go home with Donghyuck and hang out in his room to spend alone time together, without the distractions of their chaotic group of friends, and not even baseball practice paired with lingering exhaustion can stop that routine.
There are some days that they absolutely don’t have any reason to hang out but Mark makes sure they have something to do, which is not a difficult task since they enjoy anything in each other’s company really, so as not to make Donghyuck feel bad. The latter always worried about Mark wasting his precious time when he can just spend it at home, having a quality time with his family.
Mark doesn’t need that. Truthfully, his relationship with his parents cannot get any better. As for his older brother, Johnny, Mark frets that if they spend any more time with each other than they already do, it might not end well. There are a lot of threats circulating between them as is.
Today though, is one of those days where they don’t have anything particular to do. Mark decided to finally finish the anime that Donghyuck has been nagging him for a whole month prior to when he didn’t cave in to him yet. So now Donghyuck’s bored on his bed, Mark’s attention glued to the screen.
If their friends find out about this, Mark is awfully certain that they would laugh at his face. They would tease him to no end and never live it down until his last breath how much of a whipped boy he is for Donghyuck to an extent that he’s deliberately willing to succumb to his wishes of having a weeb buddy. But they don’t have to know about this.
It’s not that Mark is embarrassed, hell, he and Donghyuck can become two little, happy weebs, but he doesn’t need another distress in his life.
“Have you been taking them? Mom says it’s good for your bones. She worries you might overwork yourself,” Donghyuck continues.
He slides a clothed foot on one of Mark’s shoulders and lets it rest there. Mark is not fazed, instead he grabs it and holds onto it. Even through the sock, Mark can still feel the coldness of Donghyuck’s foot. His feet are always cold.
Mark nods. “Yeah, I’ll talk to her later and thank her.”
Donghyuck taps his foot against Mark’s chest, pleased. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“Can’t. Johnny bought a new game and he wanted to show me tonight.”
“Oh okay. Then tell him I need my Switch back. He hasn’t returned it yet.”
“Yeah sure,” Mark says, absentmindedly rubbing on Donghyuck’s ankle. The latter stays still in his position and tunes in to the episode.
The screen is showing Edward Elric confessing his insurmountable love for his childhood best friend, Winry, when Donghyuck removes his foot. Mark automatically chases for it, for the absence of warmth, but Donghyuck is already rolling to the other side of the bed.
He waits for the episode to finish before he speaks, “So. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.”
Mark gulps. “And?”
From his angle on the floor, Donghyuck is partly looking down at him and Mark is temporarily reminded of the sculpted angels he used to see at the entrance of the church when he was seven, back when his father used to take him to weekly Sunday preaching.
But then Donghyuck smirks, a mischievous one that resembles the devils he never saw in the church. “How many love letters have you received so far this year, hot shot?”
Mark’s ears went warm at the thought where the younger is aiming at. He blushes even more upon remembering the letters he has been receiving this week. He really can’t grasp how he’s so popular. There’s nothing interesting about him really, he’s just a dork who happens to be really, really good in baseball. Nothing special about it.
“Shut up,” he says through gritted teeth, embarrassed.
But then Donghyuck sighs, pouts and buries his face with a pillow.
Alarmed, Mark puts aside the laptop and sits on the bed. He gently coaxes the pillow out of Donghyuck’s tight grip. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“It’s just… It’s weird. When I got to my desk this morning, there was a letter for me and balloons and a cake. Do you know how expensive that set up must’ve cost? And Renjun made fun of me the rest of the day.”
Mark blushes even more furiously as he remembers how he put those gifts on Donghyuck’s desk that morning. He had prepared for it for weeks; weeks of careful planning and seeking for advices from his hyungs just to produce this perfect plan. He even lose some sleep the night prior because of how anxious he was, and woke up extra early that morning so no one would catch him.
But seeing now that Donghyuck’s pretty embarrassed about it, it’s safe to say that his so-called perfect plan had flopped. Ouch.
He frantically roams his eyes around Donghyuck’s room, doesn’t find any balloon or cake or the letter. “W—What happened to the gifts?”
“I kept the letter, of course but Jisung and Chenle ate the whole cake. Jeno had ‘accidentally’ sat on one of the balloons so it popped off and Jaemin thought the other one would be lonely so he popped it off too.”
Damn Jaehyun. This is his fault. The letter, the balloons, the cake—these are all his suggestions.
“Mark, what can top a bold display of romantic declaration for the love of your life?” Jaehyun had told him that day with a boastful smirk. “That’s how I got Taeyong to go out with me. I showed up with a humongous teddy bear bigger than life itself in my arms and before I could even finish what I needed to say, he answered yes. Just like that.”
“Did I just hear someone say ‘top’?” Lucas had butted in.
Mark shakes his head. “The letter. Did you read it? Have you got any idea who is it from?”
Donghyuck frowns then shakes his head. “I did read it but it was so… ambiguous. I have no idea who’s it from. Hell, I didn’t even know I have some kind of an admirer.”
Mark nods vigorously. “Are you sure? Like, you have no idea, like, at all? Have you tried reading it again? There must be some kind of clues in it, right?”
Donghyuck stares at him for a long moment like he had grown another head before he shakes his head again. “Nope, I’m positive.”
“No? Nothing? No nothing?”
“No.”
Mark deflates.
Damn: part two. This is definitely Yuta’s fault. Yuta is another of Mark’s love consultation doctor and he’s also the dumbass who suggested he should make the letter impersonal, that he didn’t need to reveal his identity there, subtle clues are sufficient, so Donghyuck would have to figure it out himself.
Yuta had also reasoned to leave out the actual confession so Mark can confess to Donghyuck in personal, and Mark appreciates that part of the sentiment, but they failed to mind the fact that Donghyuck is not exactly the most fit person for this kind of tactic. Donghyuck is as clueless as a toddler nibbling dirt off the ground.
So Mark’s letter goes like this:
dear lee donghyuck,
i sincerely think you’re beautiful.
more beautiful than the town’s river under the footbridge, in fact.
i think you’re the sun personified,
the embodiment of the word bright,
the sunshine that burns my sight,
and i want nothing more than to be set aflame by you.
i want to wrap you up in my warmth
whenever your feet are cold
and i would gladly watch any show you want me to.
i really, really like you and i think this is forever
and then some.
Mark didn’t have to lose some of his scarce brain cells for Donghyuck to be this painfully oblivious that it’s almost offensive to him.
“It’s just that… These grand gestures—”
Mark bolts to his feet abruptly, surprising himself and Donghyuck. “I just remembered I, uh, need to feed dad’s chickens. See you tomorrow, Hyuckie!”
Mark grabs his backpack and shuffles to the door in record time. He hears Donghyuck shout a, “Don’t forget to take the vitamins!” as he bounded down the stairs.
Shit. This is bad. He really needs a change of strategy. Valentine’s Day is in two days, there’s not much time to waste.
♡♡
“I screwed up so bad, John,” Mark sighs as he plops down on his brother’s bed in fatigue. “I feel like an utter failure.”
Johnny frowns at him momentarily then he gets it. He shuts down his computer and spins his chair around to face Mark completely and show he’s all ears. “What’s wrong, little one?”
Mark grunts into the pillow before flailing his arms aggressively like a child throwing a tantrum. “The plan failed miserably and I think I’ve forever ruined the chance of dating my best friend.”
Johnny chuckles fondly, looks at Mark like he’s never truly seen half of the world yet. “Oh, Mark. What did you expect from listening to those bastards’ love advices? I knew the plan wouldn’t work from the beginning.”
Mark looks so betrayed that Johnny almost feels bad. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Johnny releases a pleasant sigh, leans his head against the chair’s headrest and stays silent for a few minutes, letting the anticipation build up. “I think you are the one who’s truly oblivious here, not Donghyuck.”
Mark doesn’t follow. “What? Why me?”
“You see, Mark, the person you’re confessing to is Donghyuck. Just Donghyuck. The same Donghyuck who has been your best friend ever since you gained consciousness of this world. The Donghyuck who’s willing to sit through your endless litany about how much you love baseball, the same person you took baths with when you were both just the size of a pea. The Donghyuck who races you on the footbridge, or the one who comforted you the whole ride to the dentist when you were about to get braces.”
Mark grins at the memories but he still doesn’t get it quite frankly. “So what are you saying, hyung?”
Johnny smiles at him, gentle and warm and comforting. “My point is, Donghyuck doesn’t need all these crap to get him to go out with you. Your sincerity about what you feel for him and just… you in general are what matters, you know what I mean?”
And oh, Mark does now.
♡♡
The sky takes the color of a deep purple by the time they finished their baseball practice. The rest of their teammates had retired immediately to their homes as soon as the coach dismissed them while Yuta and Jaehyun stayed behind to keep Mark in company as he waits for Donghyuck to finish choir rehearsals.
“Well, at least now you have a back-up plan, yeah, Mark?” Jaehyun says softly from the bleachers, sounding very much sorry for having contributing a huge failure to Mark’s plan.
“Were you even in your right mind when you had suggested it?” Yuta retorts from his splay on the grass. “Of course Donghyuck won’t be lured with those things. He’s not Taeyong. Speaking of which, Taeyong is a hidden furry, by the way.”
“You talk like your plan was so brilliant.”
“Hey, it was!” Yuta defends, throwing a balled-up, crawling with sweat and bacteria, shirt to Jaehyun’s direction. He misses. This is why he’s not a pitcher. “The plan was genius, okay, just that the execution fell through.”
“There’s really no need to argue about this,” Mark levels them both, very comfortable on his spot on the grass like a giant cat napping under the sun on a patch of green, except there’s no sun.
“Wait a damn minute!” Yuta dramatically screeches as he bolts in an upright position. “Didn’t you mention something about watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Have you finished it?” Yuta’s voice is veering to something overly enthusiastic that it begins to terrify the other two.
“I did.”
Yuta claps loudly and squeals in excitement. “There you have it, Mark! The ultimate plan for success with zero chances of failure. That I guarantee you with my soul.”
“Uh, what does it have to do with Mark’s confession to Donghyuck?” Jaehyun is just as lost. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna make Mark try some alchemy to seduce Donghyuck or something.”
“That’s not it, dumbass!” Yuta says. “If you actually watched it, you’ll get where I’m going at. So confession, at the train stop, childhood best friends. Does it ring a bell, Mark?”
Mark shakes his head sheepishly. He shouldn’t have half-assed that show, now it’s only a matter of time before Yuta accuses him of committing such a heinous, blasphemous crime in the name of all the anime out there.
Then, in an alarmingly zealous effort, Yuta summons his best anime-voice impression. “It’s a matter of equivalent exchange! I’ll give you half of my life so you give me half of yours!”
“Wait, wait, wait. Doesn’t that sound like a proposal, though? Mark’s asking for a date, not Donghyuck’s freaking hand in marriage! They’re still minors!”
“Oh my god. Oh god! I get it. Yuta, that’s brilliant, I mean it!”
Mark’s heart sings with joy and excitement, at the thought of confessing to his best friend this way. Maybe this is better. Maybe Donghyuck would much better prefer this one since it’s his favorite show. That’s it.
“But since we don’t have any train stop around here, make it somewhere else,” Yuta continues, complacent.
“I think I know a place,” Mark smiles.
“Uh, hello? I’m not quite following,” Jaehyun interjects.
Yuta ignores him. “See, Mark? I think me and Donghyuck can be great buddies! We can endlessly nerd out about anime.”
“I don’t think Donghyuck likes you,” Mark laughs out, spotting the subject approaching the field. He rolls over, rises to his feet, and picks up his belongings. “There he is. I gotta go guys, thanks for today.”
“All the best, Markie,” Jaehyun beams at him, showcasing his killer dimples.
“I don’t want to see you heartbroken again tomorrow, Mark,” Yuta says seriously, patting the younger on the ankle since it’s all he can reach from his position. “You deserve to have a date on Valentine’s Day, and preferably a boyfriend too.”
Mark gives them one last dazzling smile and a salute before he jogs to Donghyuck to meet him halfway.
The early February night was still cold from the lingering winter that had passed and Mark would’ve been bothered by the prickly bite of the temperature on his skin if it wasn’t for the practice that had transpired awhile ago. Donghyuck though, he’s bundled up in warm clothing that gives him these adorable sweater paws and he looks so cute.
And it’s like Mark is falling in love again with his best friend.
“Hi,” Donghyuck beams.
“Hey,” Mark greets back. “How was the rehearsal?”
They start walking towards the gates.
Donghyuck shrugs, a fond smile on his lips, an indication of how much he adores this club. “Same as usual. Though, Taeil-hyung brought us some delicious home-cooked meals. It was his very own recipe.”
“That sounds nice,” Mark comments and he recalls how much of a great person Taeil is. He’s handling the choir club and he treats every kid in there like his own biological offspring. Mark is under his Math lectures, and he’s one of those god-given, rare Math teachers who make the subject a lot easier and fun to learn.
“What about your practice?” Donghyuck asks, his hand instinctively grabbing Mark’s out of habit. He always does this for some reason, caressing it with a feather-like touch as they walk as if it can magically shoo away the fatigue brought by hours of practice. And it does, actually.
“’Twas great,” Mark murmurs, unable to help the grin spreading on his cheeks as he feels giddy all over inside. “Coach says we’ve improved a lot compared to last year. I guess it’s all thanks to Jaehyun’s leadership.”
Donghyuck nods and attempts to wrap Mark’s hand in his sleeve. “It’s cold.”
The little shops they pass by are already closed for the day but they’re still thriving with various decorations of love anyway, the windows brimming with cut-outs of hearts and other advertisements for the special day, a pleasant reminder for the celebration to come.
It’s still early into the night but the streets are almost deserted, and it’s just him and Donghyuck.
Mark is distracted. He really should just say it now. It’s a perfect chance, as Donghyuck had mentioned he didn’t want an audience. That’s right, he should. There’s this dramatic inner voice that keeps on saying ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ in his mind and goddamnit, Jaehyun was right. It’s not like he’s asking Donghyuck to be his husband forever, it’s just a simple confession, really. Although the former didn’t sound so bad.
It’s just Donghyuck, as what Johnny had said. So why is it so hard?
Mark feels coldness in his hand which takes him back to reality. Donghyuck had retracted his hand and he’s grinning now.
“Race you to the bridge!” Donghyuck announces then he takes off, leaving a dumbfounded Mark behind.
And it’s only then that he realized they’re approaching the footbridge, the same bridge who watched the both of them grow up and carried them from the river below. They’d been racing on it ever since they were younger, when Mark used to sulk childishly each time Donghyuck beats him to the other side, and that habit didn’t die even now.
Nothing in this town ever changes, Mark thinks, and it’s the same with him and Donghyuck.
And then it clicks.
He needs not to copy those words from the show for him to be able to declare his love for the younger. Hell, he didn’t need to adhere to the advices his hyungs had generously given him, he shouldn’t even have asked in the first place. Because it’s just Donghyuck, his Donghyuck.
He didn’t need a carefully put out plan or those grand gestures for this moment because it just comes naturally, just like how life brought them together.
“Wait, Hyuck!” Mark calls after him as he begins to run.
Donghyuck stops just right under a streetlamp, confused, the artificial light bringing a pseudo-halo to Donghyuck’s crown of brown curls.
“I need to tell you something. Can I hold your hands first?” Mark asks. He’s nervous but he’s trying his best to look Donghyuck in the eye. He deserves that.
“You know you don’t need to ask, right?” Donghyuck tries to laugh it off but he sounds just as nervous. “Of course.”
Mark carefully takes their hands together and takes a deep, shuddering breath. He looks up, right into his best friend’s eyes and for a second he got sidetracked. “Donghyuck, I… The gifts, I was the one who put them on your desk.”
Donghyuck’s eyes widen in shock and Mark swears he stopped breathing for a few seconds. “Why did you do that? Was it a prank? Then it’s not funny, Mark.”
The older gapes, surprised at what he just heard. “Hyuck, I can’t believe you just accused me of something so awful. I wouldn’t do that to you! I just wanted to ask you out on a date, okay? Besides, isn’t the letter enough of a proof to show how sincere I am with my feelings for you?”
“You like me, for real? Like, not just as your best friend?”
Mark holds their hands tighter. “I do, Hyuck, damnit, I really do. You don’t even know, god, I’m so screwed for the rest of my life. And I’m offended you didn’t catch at least one of my clues in that letter!”
“How would I know? It was printed on some fancy ass calligraphy font, have you personally written it with your chicken scrawl I would’ve guessed it was you right off the bat!”
“You’re missing the point here. I mean, who else knows about your perpetually cold feet or would willingly watch those stupid anime that you care about so much other than me?”
Donghyuck’s cheeks light up with a fierce shade of pink from embarrassment and Mark finds it so cute that he actually feels his heart compress like a lemon in a squeezer.
Then Donghyuck removes his hands in favor of wrapping them around Mark’s nape. He tiptoes ever so slightly and lands a smooch on the tip of Mark’s nose before pecking him on the lips. It’s their first time and it happened so quickly but Mark already misses it dearly like they’ve been doing it for long.
“So do you still want that date or not?” Donghyuck asks playfully, his cheeks dusted with an even brighter shade than before.
Mark’s answering grin reaches his ears and he swears in that moment that this is just the beginning of the innumerable first and last times they will share in the future to come.
He wraps Donghyuck in his arms and leans down to seal their lips in a proper first kiss.