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On his fourteenth birthday, Mark Lee was woken up to a stack of pancakes the same size as his rapidly-growing height, two beaming parents, and a headache the size of Asia.
“You’re not a kid anymore, Mark,” his Mom tutted over him, reaching forward to fix his skewed bedhead for the ‘surprise’ birthday photos, “you should know how to smile for these things!”
For his part, Mark just pulled the blanket up higher over his chest, reaching blindly around his bed for a shirt. Holding the wobbling plate right in front of the camera, his Dad was standing near the entrance of the room, looking intensely at his phone. Mark suspected he wasn’t completely sure how to use the camera.
A flash of light came from the phone, to both his and his Dad’s surprise.
“Now look grateful and surprised, but not like that,” his Mom called out, maneuvering the plate a little.
This posing-and-flashing seemed to be a theme throughout the day, continuing all the way into his birthday party. Unless his mother was consumed with furiously party-planning, spreading vases around the house in appropriate positions and fluffing the same pillows with vigor over and over again, he had a camera in his face.
It seemed like a lot of effort for a bunch of fourteen year olds, in Mark’s opinion. He would’ve been happy with just having Jaemin and Jeno, and maybe his younger neighbor Chenle over, to play his new video games, eat pizza, and play their mostly-tackling rendition of football.
Instead, he got a specialty cake and enough photos of him to fill 100 photo books and his Mother’s facebook feed until his next birthday.
Halfway through the party, he got sick of not even being able to see his friends through his family members fussing over him, making him smile uncomfortably in photos while they grabbed his shoulders and ruffled his hair like he was still a little boy.
Someone spilled a glass of soda in the kitchen, and Mark used that to make his escape, slipping out of the screened door and into the muggy August heat.
He was so preoccupied with taking a deep, bug-filled breath of air that when someone spoke, he nearly choked. “Not enjoying your party?”
“Ungh, uh, haha, huh?” Mark smoothly recovered from the choke-maneuver he’d just pulled, wondering about how novel it would be to die on your birthday.
“Well, unless you got lost, I assume you know the party is in there,” he pointed to the living room, where several just-barely teenagers were screaming, sounding far too eloquent for Mark’s muggy back porch, “though you never did seem too bright, so maybe you did get turned around?”
Silently, he cursed his Mom for making him invite his whole class to the party. Then, with a slight inward sigh, he realized this was the most interesting conversation he’d had all night, and sat down on the rocking porch swing.
The boy, Donghyuck if he remembered correctly, looked at him as if he’d suddenly grown horns. He felt like maybe that was a part of growing up. And maybe letting the way Donghyuck’s lips looked forming words influence the way he took them was too.
“If you think I’m so stupid, why’d you come?”
“Free cake.”
“Really? That’s it?”
He thought for a moment, and then said, very seriously, “I think the invitation said something about pizza, too.”
At that, Mark let out a full, deep-from-his-belly laugh. As if his joy were a camera magnet, his Mom popped her head out of the screen door, looking frantic (which for her was a slight raise of the eyebrows and a narrowing of her eyes, undetectable to the untrained human eye).
“I just looked like a fool in front of the other mothers when I couldn’t find you, Mark Lee,” she narrowed her eyes a little more at this, and then registered the boy next to him, who was staring at his scuffed shoes as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. “Oh hi, Donghyuck, how is your Mother? Did she ever make that bread recipe I sent her?”
Because of course his Mother knew him. Privately, deep inside, a place he never really let himself reach, he was angry that she tainted yet another thing that should’ve been just his. For a moment, he thought she might take a picture. Looked at her phone. The considering look on her face. The twitch of her finger.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Donghyuck said, sitting up straighter and glancing nervously at Mark, “she told me to thank you for the recipe, and check out the one for beef she sent you.”
She seemed to think better of the photo. “Time to cut the cake.”
Later, over the flash of the cameras, Mark could make out Donghyuck’s face in the darkness, huddled in a corner yet turned to the door as if he had been contemplating leaving when the singing began. Still, his lips moved. Near the end of the song, where Mark had been too busy focusing on Donghyuck to feel awkward about what he was supposed to be doing (seriously, was he supposed to sing along? To smile? it always felt manufactured), Donghyuck looked up at him.
Blushing, he tried to tear his eyes away, already lamenting the way he would look in the pictures. Then Donghyuck pulled a face, something fleeting and terrible with his tongue stuck out and his eyes half-shut, and Mark genuinely smiled for the first time since he’d left his back porch.
Blowing out the candles, all he could think about was whether Donghyuck would stay to actually eat the cake.
-
On his fifteenth birthday, Mark Lee had a pool party.
For the better half of the morning, his mother arranged pudding and cookie crumbs in miniscule beach buckets and blew up decorative floaties for the pool, while his father ran to the store to get more hamburger buns.
That precious time alone, where he received many loud, startling calls of his friends shouting HAPPY BIRTHDAY and hanging up, was the most peace he’d get that day, he was sure of it. And when guests started showing up in their neon bathing suits, holding poorly-wrapped gifts and banged-up bags, he knew he was in for quite a night.
When the sun started setting, the sky that glowstick-blue that it went when it knew it should be dark but the moon was scared to shine in fear of the heat, specific to summer, he looked around desperately for Donghyuck.
They hadn’t become incredibly close in the time since his last birthday, but they spoke in class, sometimes at lunch; they ran in almost completely different circles, yet still always had something interesting to argue about when they talked. So, as nonchalantly as possible, Mark had made a point of inviting him.
Plenty of other people had come. Jaemin was trying to dunk him under as he surveyed the outskirts of the party, the benches under trees and corners that Donghyuck seemed to favor, away from the action.
People cared about him. Yukhei was waving frantically at him from the snack table, shoving cheese into his mouth and then running-running-jumping into the pool, causing a tidal wave. Jeno was sliding the screen door open, carrying a tray of fruit his mother had meticulously arranged, at least fifty percent out of care for him, with a smile on his face. Chenle dove in front of a water gun blast to shield him.
People wanted to see him, to celebrate him. But not Donghyuck, and so despite the vast amount of people he knew, and people his mother knew, and animal-shaped floaties, occupying his backyard... it felt empty.
He tried his hardest to forget about him, played chicken and wrestled numerous water weapons away from Chenle who shouldn’t have even been allowed anywhere near a pool in the first place, but the thought lingered like the smell of chlorine in the back of his mind.
And then he heard a couple of excited yells from the gate to the yard, and there he was. Donghyuck, in all of his unprepared glory. Wearing basketball shorts, not swim trunks, and a black shirt with a flaming skull and some band name across the front, hands empty, usual unimpressed look on his face. Still somehow the most beautiful person there.
Jeno flipped him off of the float he was balancing on, and by the time he wiped the water out of his eyes, Donghyuck was gone.
He didn’t find him again until he got out to dry off, not interested in the deadly pool volleyball game that was currently happening. A black eye was not exactly his preferred birthday gift, thank you very much, and his skin had pruned so much he was scared it would fall off.
Towel over his shoulders, he’d maneuvered through the groups of people to get inside and change into something dry. Sitting in a cluster of people, telling some story to everyone’s great amusement, was Donghyuck, still perfectly dry save for a large wet streak down the front of his shirt, as if someone had whipped him with a towel, and a patch of his hair that had gone curly over his eyes.
He tried very desperately not to stare, but then Donghyuck called his name, and he knew he’d been found out.
“Hey, birthday boy, I’ve been looking for you,” Donghyuck managed to still sound disinterested, leaning back in his chair like it was his party, his backyard, his friends celebrating him.
“Not very hard,” Mark blurted before he could stop himself, and became very acutely aware of all of the places he was dripping water over. He drew his towel closer to himself and wished to melt into the concrete. He’d have to file that away for later when he hunched over his tiered, fondant-covered cake and frantically searched his empty mind for something to think about while blowing out his candles.
To his surprise, Donghyuck let out a short laugh, and the few people that hadn’t continued their conversation did too. “Let's talk inside, huh?”
“Um, okay,” he said, because what else could he say? Thank you for coming to my party that I invited you to, but I’d really rather never be alone with you ever, because I think about you enough as it is? That was a little wordy for his taste.
Outside, the noises of the party cloaked the awkwardness. The pop playlist his Mother had chosen, the shouts and laughter of his friends, the buzz of the emerging bugs, the pool filter working overtime. Cut off by the sliding screen door, silence fell quickly and abruptly. It felt a lot more intimate to speak to him here, alone.
“My room is up here,” Mark hoped Donghyuck would get the hint and follow him.
“Usually people buy me dinner first.”
“You got a burger, didn’t you?” Mark countered, thankful for the part of his brain that apparently only ever activated once Donghyuck had shut the other parts down. Then he registered the joke, and wished very thoroughly that he’d never been born at all.
Next year he’d have no party, just himself locked in his room, with an entire cake.
Donghyuck had been very quiet since Mark ordered him to turn around, throwing his towel on the ground to protect the carpet from his dripping and uncomfortably tugging a shirt onto his still-wet body.
“So, I have a problem,” Donghyuck started. “I mean, usually I don’t go to birthday parties. Not really my thing.”
“Uh, okay.” Mark tripped while trying to take off his swim trunks and did a little jump-dance thing to save himself from falling.
“And I’d like to say I’m having a great time, and you’ve proven me wrong… but there’s one glaring issue.”
“Which is?” Mark tried to play it off as if he didn’t really care, but inside he was ready to throw out all of the decorations or buy a new cake or fill his pool with Jello to make Donghyuck enjoy himself more. “You can turn around now.”
“The music is just… awful. Is that garbage really what you listen to?” he wrinkled his nose.
“My Mom picked it,” Mark said, “I guess I didn’t really think about it.”
He didn’t really think about most things in regards to what he wanted, mostly just placating his Mother. Maybe he’d care more if he had the option to, but his opinion had never really been considered, so…
“Okay, I have a two part plan to fix that.”
“Which is?” Mark said, again, because Donghyuck didn’t really give him much room to think of anything better.
“First we’re going to find the aux and play something you actually like.”
“Sounds good,”
“And then we’re going to find icing and draw a dick on your cake.”
“Yeah, okay… wait,” he realized what Donghyuck said, too busy marveling at how he looked against the backdrop of the room where Mark had slept nearly every day for years to fully comprehend words, “we are not drawing a dick on my cake.”
“You sure?”
“Why would I do that? Seriously.”
“Give an inch, I’ll take a mile,” Donghyuck smiled, eyes far away as he scanned the inside of Mark’s room, taking in every stray sock, outdated photo, and old cup like it was a crucial part of understanding him. He wished he’d hidden his stuffed animals, the ones his Mother still insisted on buying him. Another thing to file away for blowing out candles.
While searching for the aux, they hatched a new, slightly better plan: Donghyuck would plug his phone in and play what he called ‘real music’ right after everyone finished singing happy birthday. Then, still in his dry clothes, he’d rush the pool and jump in, hopefully with other people following suit.
Mark’s Mother, who was aiming for less of a soaking wet, screaming mess and more of a politely smiling while opening gifts situation, would definitely hate it. Privately, Mark thought it was the best gift he’d gotten all day.
True to form, as soon as he blew out the candles Donghyuck pressed play on something with very heavy guitar, and launched into action, blowing past Mark’s stunned Mother and directly into the pool.
A throng of people followed: Chenle, barely missing a beat, and Jeno, who was mostly chasing Chenle for shoving cake into his face. Then Yukhei, then one of his Mom’s friend’s kids, and then waves of people until you could hardly jump in without bumping into someone else. Finally, looking at the sea of people that loved him, a new friend that saw the real him in a party made for his Mother in the center of it all, he ran forward and cannonballed in.
For once, his Mom didn’t take a picture.
-
On his sixteenth birthday, Mark Lee was knee-deep in a cold.
Somehow in the middle of the summer, his body had decided to betray him. So his present was a new box of tissues every hour, complete with garbage service, a rotation of new trash bags every hour on the hour. Glamorous.
His Mother, who had been planning his Sweet Sixteen party for months and spent a small fortune on printed invitations, balloons that spelled out his name, and a ‘secret performer’ (a clown, no doubt, because his younger cousin had had one the year prior and she’d felt shown up since then), was crushed by the illness, and Mark’s insistence that the party be cancelled.
If it were left up to her, he thought, she’d just have the party without him.
After a long day of drifting in and out of weird, sickness-tinged dreams, his bedroom door opened.
“I don’t want any more oranges, Mom,” he said, because she’s been forcing them on him all day, and the smell of the peels on his fingers was starting to make him nauseous.
“Too bad, you good for nothing brat,” a bad impression of his Mom came from near the door, which Hyuck let slam shut with his usual carelessness, “now budge over.”
“I’m going to get you sick,” Mark said, sliding over, aiming a cough in Hyuck’s direction for good measure.
Donghyuck said, very seriously, “I’m already sick, baby.” with a weird little pose that was supposed to look cool but instead was actually very comical because of the way he was situated on the bed, knees folded up in front of him, and when Mark tried to laugh he launched into another coughing fit.
To his credit, Donghyuck didn’t even move away. If Mark’s brain hadn’t currently been submerged in 10 pounds of phlegm, he supposed he’d be a little more shaken by Donghyuck calling him baby, even in a joking sense. He really did look pretty, even in the dim television light Mark had allowed to illuminate his room.
“For your birthday, I’ve decided to give you two gifts.”
“I don’t think I want them,” Mark looked at him suspiciously. “Seriously, you can’t be mean to me, man. I’m sick and it’s my birthday.”
Ignoring him, Donghyuck continued, “The first is my presence, risking life and limb to sit in your contaminated bedroom.”
Mark coughed at him. Again.
“The second,” he pulled a bag onto the bed, producing two lumpy items wrapped in brown paper, “is this.”
“Brown lumps?” Mark gasped, “you shouldn’t have!”
Nevertheless, he opened them, the bottom one first like Hyuck told him to. It was a container of soup, still warm to the touch, with chunks of carrot, slivers of chicken, and star-shaped noodles floating around inside. Mark tried his very hardest not to cry, hoping his watery eyes would be chalked up to sickness.
“Thank you,” he said, in much the same way he would if presented with a brand new car.
Donghyuck nudged him with his shoulder, “It’s just canned.”
“Thank you, really,” Mark looked deep into Hyuck’s eyes, which caught the purplish light of his tv beautifully, and then tacked on a, “bro.”
The other package was a half-burnt vanilla candle, which he stared at in confusion. “Are you saying I smell bad?”
“You really are stupid, huh?” Donghyuck rolled his eyes and produced a lighter from the depths of his bag, opening the candle and setting it on top of the container of soup. With a flick of his thumb, the lighter sparked to life, quickly catching the wick on fire.
Mark, still confused, began to wonder if this whole thing was a fever dream.
Then, Donghyuck began to sing happy birthday, loudly and off key. Approaching the big finale, he launched himself off of the bed, the candle rocking dangerously.
“Happy birthday dear Markie-poo,” he did a fleurish with his hands, “happy birthday… to… you!”
Mark was laughing so hard he launched into a coughing fit, and between sobs that racked his body, a mix of sickness and love and light filling his chest, he blew out the candle.
“I wish I would’ve filmed that,” Mark said, and it wasn’t true, because he liked this Donghyuck being just for him, loud and exuberant and taking up so much space without feeling intrusive at all.
Donghyuck laid down on the bed, head on the same pillow Mark was using, and affectionately said, “then I’d have to kill you.”
He thought, very privately, that the fever had probably killed him, and he got some kind of consolation-Heaven right away for dying on his birthday. Out loud, he said, “You could never hurt a hair on my head.”
Donghyuck just hummed and poked a bony knee into his side.
-
On his seventeenth birthday, Mark Lee’s mother booked a karaoke room for him.
Her stipulations were two hours with his family, and then it could just be him and his friends until 11, when the place closed down. At first, the headache was just from the copious ‘smile big! hug her tighter!’’s being yelled at him, coupled with the cloying smell of his older family member’s perfumes and colognes and the camera flashes, way too bright in the dimly lit room.
And once his parents left and Yukhei came in with a backpack full of vodka, the headache was more from nine shots and Chenle screeching along to Mariah Carey. Hyuck dragged him into every duet known by man, golden glitter under his eyes and button-up shirt nearly all the way buttoned-down. He’d stolen Mark’s birthday boy sash and crown almost immediately upon entry.
Mark wondered if he did it because he knew how uncomfortable Mark had felt wearing them. On him, it felt childish, like a birthday clown that he’d narrowly escaped, like twelve unflattering pictures of him, eyes half-blinking, hunched over a cake, splattered across Facebook walls. On Hyuck, it looked almost editorial, straight out of an edgy fashion shoot.
By 11, they’d gotten three noise complaints and two of them had thrown up in the bathroom. At exactly 11:01, they were kicked out, onto the streets of Seoul.
Chenle, Jaemin, Jeno, and Yukhei all stuck around to get dinner. They’d had cake, but that was two hours ago, and despite the roiling nausea in their stomachs, they all agreed upon needing food, or they’d die a painful, starvation-induced death.
Most of the others were being picked up by their parents, but Hyuck had a cousin that had a tiny, unused apartment in the city, left vacant while he visited family up in the countryside. Somehow, he’d talked his way into getting a key, and with some finagaling, they made up believable lies as to where they’d be. After getting food, they’d go back there, and pass out, probably at least one of them on the bathroom floor.
Drunkenly, quietly, Hyuck assured Mark they’d both get to sleep in a real bed. And that Yukhei would probably wind up climbing in at some point of the night.
“Should we sing happy birthday again?” Jaemin looked around at everyone, a very serious look on his face, surveying their reactions.
The response was a vehement no, save for from Hyuck, who slung a bare arm around Mark’s neck and began to whisper a very pitchy rendition into his ear. Heat combined with dancing in the sauna of a karaoke room made his skin slightly sticky, and the familiar burning-wood scent of his body wash surrounded Mark, even on the city street where it mostly smelled like garbage and piss.
“Do you think there will be any hot pot places open?” Yukhei asked, completely oblivious to the near-meltdown Mark was having, right behind him.
Still leaning against Mark, breath hot against his neck, swaying them both dangerously, Hyuck murmured, “In the whole city of Seoul? I don’t think so, actually.”
Yukhei took that as good naturedly as always, and their banter turned playful. Mark would join in, but his whole world had pinpointed on how Donghyuck’s impossibly heavy arm had slid down from around his shoulders and settled around his waist, a hand on his hipbone, almost possessive.
He’d seemed to find his balance, the breeze from passing cars sobering him up, so he couldn’t blame it on the wooziness. Hyuck had just truly stricken him as stupid as he’d always joked about him being.
It was like that for the rest of the night. Hyuck’s thigh against his in the hotpot booth, ladling broth onto his dish for him and battling the boys for the best cut of rib, all for Mark. Making sure he drank water, pressing a concerned hand to his head because he ‘looks feverish’. Slightly tipsy Hyuck had a thing for affection, but this was a new level.
The others chose to take a cab back to the apartment, but Mark wasn’t ready to be done with the night. When he said he wanted to walk, Hyuck was the only one to volunteer to come with him, claiming that someone as delicate as Mark needed to be protected at all times.
For a while, the backs of their hands brushed, filling the companionable silence with a weirdly electric charge, one that made Mark wish for the stability of a cab ride. Sitting down. Where at least if the world spun, he would be a fixed point.
“Did you have a good birthday?” Hyuck asked, voice almost vulnerable, and looked steadily ahead at the abandoned street, skating over neon signs and traffic lights distractedly. Nervously. It wasn’t a familiar look on his face.
Mark sighed, long-sufferingly, and said, “Could’ve been better.”
“Yeah?” Donghyuck was trying embarrassingly hard to be aloof, and counteracting his progress by just-barely-feather-light running his pinkie finger over the back of Mark’s hand while they walked.
“Yeah, this really annoying kid named Donghyuck came and ate all of my cake, so…”
Donghyuck rolled his eyes and said, “I’ll let that slide because honestly, I’ve gotten us super lost, and I think we’ve passed at least four people that wanted to mug us, and I feel kind of bad. Maybe we should catch a cab?”
So, with practiced ease, Hyuck hailed them a cab and got in first, looking sternly at the cab driver through the partition, as if making sure he wasn’t a murderer with his eyes alone. After they piled in, the easy banter settled again as Mark relaxed into the seat.
“You smell like straight-up vodka, still, dude,” he wrinkled his nose, leaning away from Hyuck as he chased him with the pressure of his body.
Donghyuck elbowed him in the side, as hard as the small space would allow, and Mark kicked his shin in a move that hurt himself more than anything. This back-and-forth continued, poking fingers at ribs and pinching at the soft skin of exposed necks, until they reached the apartment and overpaid the cab driver for putting up with their fighting.
By the time they made it back to the apartment, everyone was asleep: Jaemin and Jeno curled up on the couch, Yukhei under the kitchen table, and Chenle with a pillow and blanket in the tub. They woke Yukhei up and dragged his nearly-inanimate form to the living room, laughing so hard at the way he collapsed onto the air mattress that Jaemin woke up and threw a pillow at them. Chenle, though, looked so peaceful that they couldn’t wake him.
Everything felt a little different, tinged with change, when they laid down together that night. They’d shared a bed before, but never alone. Mark wondered how they went from strangers to this. Whatever this is.
“I still have to give you your gift.”
Mark rolled over to face him, and came almost nose-to-nose with him. He’d already been staring. Holding back a blush to the best of his capabilities, he propped himself up on an elbow and stared down at Hyuck, the way the lights from the city outside played over his features.
“Well, haha,” he said, because for a second he was so overcome with… something, that he couldn’t speak. “What is it?”
Hyuck looked at him for a moment, intensely, too close and too far all at once, their legs pressed against each other under the comforter. Then he rolled off the bed, leaving it freezing cold in moments, bare legs gangly in his boxers. Now it was Mark’s turn to look, watching the curve of his spine as he bent to dig in his bag, the line of his hips down into his thighs, back up to the hair falling in front of his face, framing his side profile as he turned to catch Mark’s eye over his shoulder.
“Hurry up,” Mark whined, deep down hurt that he didn’t kiss him, that he didn’t see what Mark saw in the moment, in the small space of the bed, of the world they’d made for themselves, just for themselves.
Victorious, Hyuck stood up straight, a package wrapped neatly in newspaper clutched between his hands. The mere feet between him and the bed took hours to clear, Mark’s eyes laser-focused on the package. A secret part of his heart hoped it would be something meaningful. A large part of his brain thought it might be spiders, or a candy thong, or something equally as terrifying.
“Sit up,” Hyuck ordered, sitting criss-cross under the blanket. Their knees fit together when Mark sat, facing each other head on, lit only by a string of fairy lights and the bedside lamp shaped like a rooster Hyuck had found on the side of the road and gifted to his cousin when he’d first moved in.
After a minute of staring like they’d both forgotten how to exchange gifts, Hyuck handed over the package with little ceremony. Mark was surprised by the weight in his hands. They must be pretty big spiders, then.
Carefully, he peeled off the tape keeping the newspaper intact, revealing a moleskin journal underneath. Maybe something to write songs in? Or a book Hyuck had thought he’d like? Either way, it felt thoughtful, and Mark beamed when he looked up at his best friend, the man he’d come to love so much.
To think he could’ve ever hated birthdays.
“Open it,” Hyuck ordered, eyes firmly fixed on the notebook in his hands.
Slowly, just to fuck with Hyuck, he peeled away the remaining newspaper. The pages bulged as if there were things wedged inside, some gaps between pages larger than others. Mark opened the cover to a page scrawled with Hyuck’s own messy handwriting.
TO MY BEST FRIEND, THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME A REASON TO LIKE BIRTHDAY PARTIES. Then, smaller, shakier, underneath, and to like everything else.
Holding back tears already, because age had only made him more sentimental, feeling impossibly old and full of love, he thumbed to the second page. It was a picture of him and Hyuck on the porch, him laughing with his mouth open, fourteen and so ignorant of what was standing right in front of him.
A picture of the back of Mark’s head, and Hyuck making a stupid face to make him smile. Next, one his Mother had gotten of him smiling, blowing out his candles. Not much more between then and his next birthday, a few group shots from when Hyuck had hung around his friends, chronicling their friendship, how they grew.
Next came him in the pool at his fifteenth birthday party, him jumping in to the sea of his friends, him shooting Chenle with a water gun and trying to climb on Yukhei’s shoulders, Jeno with his face covered in cake and Mark laughing next to him as he blew out his candles. Pictures of weekends spent living in Hyuck’s guest room, 3D glasses on at movie theaters, him laughing and crying and yelling and sleeping next to his friends. Ticket stubs and pressed flowers and hot pot receipts, mini playlists, dated from times they’d hung out.
Him sick and passed out on his sixteenth birthday, him holding the soup Hyuck had given him, a stupid blurry one of the tissue box next to his bed, where Hyuck had folded all of them into soft origami shapes. The makeshift dinner they’d had later that week when he’d recovered, a party without his Mother supervising everything, tucked into a diner booth, a candle in a slice of apple pie that Hyuck had wound up stealing most of. Page upon page of pictures, with little notes next to them, which Hyuck insisted he shouldn’t read yet. He’d never noticed how many pictures people had taken of him when he wasn’t looking.
Having someone capture those assumedly unseen moments, discreetly, not to share but just to chronicle, felt so intimate that he had to close his eyes for a moment before he spilled tears all over a picture of him and Hyuck wearing one big shirt the Halloween they’d last minute gone as conjoined twins.
And then a section titled SEVENTEEN, waiting for pictures to be developed.
“I left the rest blank, because I actually have a two step plan to fill it.”
Mark, at a loss for words he was so choked up, could only reply, “Which is?”
“First, I kiss you so stupid that you forget how old you are. Then, you agree that you want to spend a lot more birthdays together. After that, you fall asleep, and I draw a dick on your face.”
“That’s more than two steps.”
Hyuck, looking equal parts embarrassed and annoyed, leaned in just slightly and said, “so you don’t like my plan?”
In the soft orange lighting, his bleached hair shone orange-gold, his pupils dilated and retracted, his lips shone from nervously biting them, his jaw set so resolutely it cast a shadow over his neck. He looked more beautiful than any photo could ever do justice. Mark leaned forward with a braveness that Hyuck had given him, and kissed those full lips as if making sure what was happening was real.
After an all-consuming minute that stretched to his eighteenth, maybe even nineteenth, birthday, they pulled back as if in agreement. Rested their foreheads together. Kept their eyes closed. And just… breathed.
“You made me like birthdays, too,” Mark said against Hyuck’s lips, quiet as he could be when what he was saying was so loud, “and everything else.”
“Really? Everything else?”
Mark kissed him again, quick and rapid, one, two, three pecks to affirm that it was real. “Everything. Myself. Pictures. You made me realize it was okay to like my own things. You made me realize I liked myself.”
For once, Mark was the one finding all of the words. Speechless, stunned, Hyuck blinked and shoved his head into Mark’s neck, moving the book out of the way and sprawling over him so they could touch in as many places as possible.
“I’m going to need to buy you like, a castle or something to one up this gift, Hyuck, for real.”
Hyuck leaned up, looked deep into his eyes, and said, “Just kiss me instead, stupid.”
So Mark did, pressing his lips to Hyuck’s lips, tasting the soda he’d drank with dinner, the cake he’d snuck back to their room, the mint chapstick he favored. Years spent wondering what he’d taste like, what it would be like to kiss him, and it all led to this.
He woke up the next morning tangled in Hyuck’s arms, to the sound of Jeno screaming as he went into the bathroom to pee, disturbing Chenle into consciousness in the process. Yukhei was, predictably, back to back with Mark. They both had dicks drawn on their heads in long-lasting lipstick. No doubt there was a picture of that waiting for the book.
-
On his eighteenth birthday, Mark Lee woke up in his boyfriend’s bedroom, late as he pleased, to the quiet sound of the show they’d fallen asleep to the night before, late in the night, well past midnight. When the clock struck 12, Hyuck was immediately on him with a polaroid camera, straddling his lap and fussing with his hair so it fell perfectly. He smiled so that all of his teeth showed, blue-purple-orange in Hyuck’s bedroom light.
When he blew out his candles later that night, he wished that he’d have to buy another moleskin notebook, and then another, for the rest of his life. And that he’d never run out of film.