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Lee Donghyuck is defined by his pride. His dignity is everything to him. It definitely means more to him than some senior tutor who’s been assigned to raise his chemistry grades, which is why he stays resolutely silent even as Mark demands an answer to why the paper on the library table between them sports a bright, cheerful C.
“I just—” Mark sighs, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand. Donghyuck’s gaze wanders the length of Mark’s jaw, drinking in the day old stubble. It's attractive. Donghyuck is a fool. “Hyuck. Hyuck, are you even listeni—oh, jeez.”
“I’m listening!” Donghyuck insists, hating how defensive he sounds. That’s exactly what someone who wasn’t listening would say. “Look, having a conversation about how terrible I clearly am at chemistry isn’t my ideal evening. Is it that hard to believe?”
He squirms under Mark's opaque, swimming gaze from across the table. Donghyuck would rather be literally anywhere else right now.
Mark pushes his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, and beats Donghyuck to another comment. “That’s just it, Hyuck,” he says, quietly. “You’re not bad at Chem. I wouldn't be here if I thought a C was the best you could do. Believe me, you’re great at grasping concepts, and even better at bolstering your answer with all the examples they’re looking for. I’ve seen it.”
There’s a silence Donghyuck doesn’t quite know how to fill.
“Didn’t you care about your midterms? Help me out here,” Mark finishes defeatedly. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut. “You’re not,” he blurts, at a volume no one in a library can bring themselves to appreciate. He didn’t plan on placating Mark’s tutor skills, but apparently that’s what we're gonna do today, Ferb, he thinks, as he curses his faulty brain-to-mouth hotline.
Donghyuck is a little egotistical, yes, but he’s not an asshole—just the kind of person who dislikes when the fault really is his. Be that as it may, he's too proud to lie to his Chem tutor, so it's really Donghyuck stuck between a rock and a hard place—Mark's unyielding gaze, and his own ego.
“I just,” Donghyuck finally mumbles, subdued and apologetic, “don’t want you to think you’re wasting your time. You’re a good tutor, it’s all on me. I was—yeah.”
The conversation doesn't fizzle out with a defeated nod of acknowledgement from Mark, like Donghyuck thought it would.
To Donghyuck's alarm, Mark's gaze snaps up from the paper, and fixes itself on Donghyuck like a searchlight. He even leans forward on his palm. From this angle, the light reflecting off his glasses gives Donghyuck no easy guesses about what Mark is expecting from him. “You were—? You were what?”
Oh god, we’re really doing this, thinks Donghyuck, not loving where this was going to have to go. “I was, dist—just a sec—” Donghyuck pretends to sneeze, loud and explosive. That ought to do it. He resurfaces, wiping at his nose with his sleeve, ignoring the dirty look the librarian was levelling him with, not for the first time. “So, yeah.”
Mark’s eyes are unreadable, scrutinizing. “Bless you. But, uh, I didn’t catch that. You were what?”
Donghyuck’s gut swirls uncomfortably. “I was—um, I was a little distracted.”
Mark raises an eyebrow at him. His usually transparent face is strangely opaque, and Donghyuck doesn't know what to make of that.
“By what.” It’s not a question. Mark doesn’t sound pleased, or surprised, or much of anything.
Donghyuck really doesn’t know the thickness of the ice he’s treading on here. Mark Lee has friends, a life outside this library, a million things Donghyuck has no way of finding out. How dare he be undeniably attracted to this senior he meets for a maximum of four hours a week. Goddamn it, Hyuckster, he thinks.
He's going to have to let the ego take the fall on this one. This is probably going to be their last class together—since you know, he turned out stupid, and Mark probably has better things to do on Mondays and Thursdays at 4pm.
Here goes nothing, Donghyuck's internal monologue sighs, and it sounds exasperated.
“By, you know. By you,” Donghyuck manages, pointedly staring in every direction but Mark's.
He resorts to fixedly staring at the sleeve of his jumper. His long sleeves are a faded mustard, and fraying at the end—little pieces of unsightly yarn stick out at the seam of the wrist. Donghyuck wishes his heart would stop beating so loudly, it’s a library, goddamnit.
He has never been more aware of someone’s presence in his vicinity in his life. Each minute that ticks by is an eternity.
Donghyuck won’t look at Mark. He won’t do it.
Mark lets out a puff of air. Donghyuck chances a glance at him, to find that Mark seems to be laughing at him through a facepalm. One eye, crinkled into a crescent of amusement, looks back at him through Mark’s fingers.
Donghyuck's heart stutters to a stop, picks itself up, and races.
“By me,” repeats Mark, sounding faintly amused.
“You heard me,” says Donghyuck, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t know if he's allowed to be annoyed.
The chair scrapes the floor when Mark stands up, approaching Donghyuck with his hands folded over his chest. Socks, high tops, a faded navy hoodie and wire rimmed glasses—Mark doesn't cut a very intimidating figure. Therefore, it logically follows that Donghyuck’s throat must’ve gone dry for some other reason.
“Hyuck,” Mark says, softly.
Donghyuck stands up like he's a marionette, controlled by strings in place of free will. He couldn't have stopped himself if he'd tried. Mark leans one hand on the table, head inches from the swinging yellow light, less than two feet in front of Donghyuck. “I think I deserve a little more explanation, Hyuck.”
“Don’t patronize me,” warns Donghyuck, in his traitorous bitch of a wavering voice. It just prompts Mark to shuffle slightly closer. “You’ve come close enough,” Donghyuck says, earning a laugh out of Mark.
Donghyuck really doesn’t need this, doesn’t need a close up of Mark’s face, which is in no way helping his imagination—doesn't need to see the moles on his face, and the bags under his eyes and his stubble and the smirk dancing on his lips.
“My eyes are up here,” Mark smiles, and he has no right to sound this delighted.
Donghyuck narrows his eyes at Mark, swallowing past the lump of unknown origin in his throat. “I just accused you of distracting me. You should take responsibility or something, you know.”
Mark simply will not stop moving toward him, eyes cast downward so Donghyuck can't guess what he’s thinking, and just like that, Mark has him against the table.
But Lee Donghyuck is defined by his pride, and so he's not about to make this easy for Mark. He doesn't back down, just gets comfortable on the table, making to swing his legs like he doesn't have a care in the world—except Mark is already there, and has made his way between Donghyuck's knees.
“Hi,” Mark says, from up close, and because Donghyuck refuses to lean backwards to accommodate a looming Mark, their faces being way closer than Donghyuck was ready for.
This isn’t the Mark that Donghyuck was anticipating, no awkwardness or evasive eye contact or sharp, embarrassed laugh in sight. Donghyuck swallows hard, not one to be bested. He taps the underside of Mark’s chin, raising his face, calling his attention.
“So?” he says, a lot more bravely than he feels. “Make it up to me, Mark Lee.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you, you know?” says Mark, shaking his head with a disbelieving, quiet laugh. “I’ll buy you coffee, how about that?” He pauses. “Scratch that. Donghyuck, spend the evening with me.”
Donghyuck smiles, small and pleased, ignoring how his stomach flips at the sound of his name in Mark's mouth, especially when Mark says it like that, decisive and fond.
“You’re a dork," Donghyuck asserts, just to soothe the bruises to his ego. "I hate you. It’s a date.” He looks up at Mark, bracketed by Mark's arms on the tabletop, and suddenly he feels a very large weight melt off his shoulders.
Carefully, Donghyuck plucks Mark's glasses off his nose, folds them, and slides them into the front pocket of Mark's hoodie. His head falls forward onto Mark's shoulders, neck limp, two arms short of a hug. There's finality to it.
One of Mark’s palms makes its way down Hyuck’s hand, their fingers interlocking. Mark smells like apples and coffee. There are also traces of some musty cologne there, and Donghyuck gets so lost in trying to work out what it smells like that he doesn’t realise Mark has rolled up his C paper and simply whacked him on the head with it. "Does this mean you'll try harder in Chem now, Hyuckie?"
Reflexes as fast as ever, Donghyuck gasps, affronted—and grabs the neck of Mark’s hoodie, quick as lightning. “Call me Hyuckie one more time, and I'll—mmf—” because suddenly a pair of soft, chapped lips are on his.
“We’re in public,” hisses Donghyuck when they finally break apart, after the better half of a minute. Maybe more.
He tries very hard not to think about how his cheeks are probably the colour of a fire hydrant now. He also ignores how Mark pulled away first, and he chased after Mark's lips with lidded eyes and a whine, pulling him close again.
Mark smiles against his lips. “Time to get out of here, then.”
It’s not a question.