Archive of Our Own

"Timing is irrelevant when two people are meant for each other. It's what I once believed.

But we met during a time when I was such a mess, when I still had so much to figure out. How could I have known how crucial every word, every action was or how losing you would be something I would always regret?

If only you could have met me now, how different it would be. How much I have changed. How I have grown. I learned so much from all the mistakes I made with you. I just wish I made them with someone else."

― Lang Leav, Lullabies 

It’s funny, Mark thinks, that the embodiment of the sun would choose a cold winter’s day to be married.

Donghyuck had always enjoyed basking under the warmth of the sun for as long as Mark could remember; his skin glowing, luminous with every sundrop that washed over him during the spring and summer months, wildlife flitting about as life began anew.

They would spend hours out in his backyard, rolling in the grass after school had ended with ice pops dripping down their wrists and watching newly-metamorphosed butterflies emerge from their cocoons to dry off their wings every spring. Donghyuck would always tease Mark for the way he’d squirm whenever Donghyuck would hold a caterpillar in his hands, and Mark would always make sure Donghyuck thoroughly washed his hands with plenty of soap and water after a day outside. Whenever it was just the two of them, it was that simple—Donghyuck and Mark, Mark and Donghyuck, in their own little world, two souls connected at the heart.

Mark remembers the day they met, fallen leaves crunching under his feet as he sulked towards the sky, angry at his mother for ripping him from his beloved winter home to move to a foreign world where he had no friends, where the cool breeze that once carried warm scents of freshly-baked baguettes and cinnamon buns from the patisserie by his house now ferociously nipped at his nose until it became red and sore.

Mark dragged his feet in the snow, watching the white blanket beneath him crumble into nothing under his boots, wishing that he could somehow turn himself to ice and disappear along with it. It’d be easier, he’d thought, if he could somehow mirror the disinviting cold that clawed at him, that taunted him with every wisp of wind that would tangle itself through his hair before disappearing, as if to remind him of his finite existence.

A voice interrupted his thoughts, then, and when Mark refused to acknowledge the words that flowed from the lips of the boy blocking his path, a gloved hand landed firmly on his shoulder to jolt his head up. 

Mark remembers the anger that had bubbled in the pit of his stomach, the way his whole body transformed its shivers from the cold into those of spite, how ready he was to inflict pain in the same way that he’d been hurt.

But the voice had come from an owner named Lee Donghyuck, tightly wrapped in a bright yellow parka that consumed his entire frame with a tasseled beanie that almost covered his eyes. The instant Donghyuck had registered the dried tears on Mark’s frost-bitten cheeks and the way his eyes were hollow and empty, the younger silently pulled Mark into a tight hug, allowing Mark’s tears to flow freely into the wool threads of his red turtleneck sweater.

They never spoke of this again. And although Mark had built a fortress of brick and stone around his fragile beating heart, Donghyuck earnestly forced his way into Mark’s life by tearing down the wall with his bare hands, pebble by pebble, until it had turned to dust and his palms became calloused.

Mark remembers the sweet chocolates he would find zipped into the pockets of his jacket at the end of every school day, the way Donghyuck would tightly grab onto his hand and pull him towards the playground immediately after the bell would ring for recess, the crescents of his eyes that perfectly complemented the starry constellation speckled over his tanned cheeks. Donghyuck never pried, never probed despite the curiosity that Mark knew was eating him from the inside out. Donghyuck knew exactly what to say to distract Mark from the bitter cold of their winter town that he’d learned to despise, knew when to listen when Mark finally felt like sharing pieces of himself to fuel the growing fire of their bond, knew what to do when Mark’s tears wouldn’t stop falling.

They would spend long nights on the floor of Donghyuck’s bedroom, their sleeping bags unzipped and spread over the both of them so that they could tickle one another when they thought the other wasn’t paying attention. Donghyuck, Mark quickly learned, had an affinity for the starry sky that greeted them every evening, entranced by the way the celestial bodies above would sparkle at him from lightyears away, as if to say hello, to ask him about what earthly wonders he had to share with them that night. They would spend hours sitting underneath his blanket fort and wait for the sky to turn a dark, royal blue and for the white glow of the moon to stream through his overhead window, crouched over Donghyuck’s tattered book of constellations with flashlights in hand, quickly shut off the moment they would hear the sound of footsteps treading up the stairs to their bedroom.

“That one’s my favorite,” Donghyuck had pointed to the sky. “Ursa Major.” 

He then quickly stepped aside to usher Mark to look through the lens of the telescope his father had gifted him for Christmas, whispering into Mark’s ear to look for the brightest star in the sky, then to follow his finger down to find the cup of the Big Dipper.

“It’s really pretty,” Mark said, in awe at just how bright the universe above him was, the sky alive with millions of tiny flecks of light that seemed to curiously blink at him from where they hung. 

“The brightest star is called the North Star,” Donghyuck explained. “If you ever get lost, you can follow that star home.”

“Have you ever gotten lost before?”

“Only once,” Donghyuck grinned. “I just lost track of where I was going, but I made it home safely. See?” 

He’d spread his arms wide and spun, his smile luminous, almost as if he himself were a starchild plucked from the abyss above. “You’ll never get lost with me. I know this place like the back of my own hand.”

Mark remembers the sincerity that had shone in Donghyuck’s eyes, so full of wonder and joy whenever he would excitedly gush about a new constellation he’d discovered. He remembers noticing the way Donghyuck’s eyelashes would fan across his cheeks when he would slowly drift off to sleep, hugging his astronomy books close to his chest as the moon cast a blue glow upon them under their wool blankets, the way Donghyuck carried with him his own constellation, beautiful and delicate, forever etched onto his honeyed skin. 

The brightest star in his life, contrary to Donghyuck’s belief, didn’t reside in the sky. Mark remembers realizing that he’d never lose track of home again, not with Donghyuck by his side.

“I’m on my way now,” Mark says into the speaker of his cellphone clamped tightly against his cheek while his other arm struggles to hoist his multiple garment bags into the trunk of his car. He’d never understand why weddings were so unnecessarily extravagant—what was the purpose of having three different suits if they all fit the same and were only a hint of a shade different, anyway—but what Donghyuck wants, Donghyuck gets without question.

“How could you oversleep on the most important day of your life?”

It was quite easy, actually, how he’d managed to be able to ignore the five alarms he’d set for that morning, groggily reaching over from where he slept to slam his fingerprint onto his phone from where it sat on his nightstand. 

He’d called Jaemin during his lunch break yesterday to ask the latter if he needed any help with the floral arrangements that Donghyuck had commissioned from him. Being Jaemin, though, he’d already finished packaging everything into their respective bins and boxes, ready to be shipped to the hotel bright and early the next morning, hours ahead of schedule.

After high school, while Donghyuck and Mark had decided to go off to university, Jaemin stayed home, choosing to take care of the family business and watch over his younger brothers while their parents found better-paying jobs to support them. 

“There are flowers for every occasion,” Jaemin replied when the two had asked him why he wanted to keep his little flower shop running, “and there will always be people who’ll need flowers to convey exactly what their hearts want to say, even when they can’t say it aloud themselves.” 

He’d handed Donghyuck and Mark each a bouquet of baby pink carnations and snow white clover on the day they headed off to their dorms, reminding them to call him every once in a while to update him on how they were doing. Mark’s bouquet had an extra variant, a single carmine red carnation, at its center. He never questioned why it was there.

They’d gone out, after Mark had gotten off from work, to a quaint little bar they used to frequent back when they had more time to spend with one another, back when life was a bit more simple and they didn’t have to worry about important deadlines or meetings or clients to deal with. Jaemin had taken one look at Mark, the way his brows were permanently knitted together as he picked at the appetizers in front of him, the way his eyes were sunken in, how gaunt he seemed to look underneath the tungsten lanterns that hung above them in their secluded booth, and decided right then and there that he would take care of Mark that night, no questions asked.

So Mark drank. He downed more bottles of soju than he’d ever been able to consume back during his glory days in college, the fiery liquid burning his throat until he could no longer feel, until the world around him had blended together into a multicolored mess of neon signs and siren sounds, clouding his mind until all that was left of him was a shell of a person lost in a cloudy haze. 

Jaemin didn’t ask any questions—Mark didn’t have any answers. He just sat there, holding the hand of his best friend and gently carding his fingers through Mark’s hair as the older violently sobbed and trembled and wept with dry tears, begging to escape from the clutches of the hurt that had been clawing at him from within since the day he first laid eyes on the thin silver band that held everything that he’s ever wanted but could never have. All Jaemin could do was hold him close as the night faded away from them.

Donghyuck had only one request from Jaemin. He wanted their flowers to light up the entire banquet hall, as if spring had bloomed in the midst of winter, with vines traversing up the marble Corinthian columns of the chapel and petals sprinkled about the wine-tinted velvet flooring. Mark had accompanied him to Jaemin’s flower shop when he’d made his requests, the same dainty greenhouse with a hint of antiquity sitting on the corner a block away from their old high school, white paint chipping from its metal beams as the summer sun shone through its panels to wake the flora he so loved. Donghyuck had pranced about the shop, the brightest smile on his face as his fingers delicately caressed every flower petal and every budding sepal, and chose the most vibrant combination that perfectly suited his colourful personality: purple hyacinth, blue salvia, red carnations.

Jaemin had quickly jotted down each of Donghyuck’s many specifications and sent in the order on the day of. 

“Only the best for you,” he said, a warm grin on his face. Mark remembers noticing the way his grin didn’t quite seem to meet his eyes. 

“And wouldn’t it be cute if we had the blue and purple ones for the boutonnieres?” Donghyuck asked, jabbing Mark in the side with his elbow for a second opinion.

“Whatever you want,” Mark grinned in return, looking to Jaemin for confirmation.

“How about the blue and purple for the rest of the wedding party,” Jaemin suggested, “and a hint of red for the best man?”

“Oh, that’d be perfect,” Donghyuck gushed. When he turned to look at Mark, his eyes so full of hope and delight, Mark had mirrored his smile; and though he knew carnations were one of the rare flowers that carried no thorns, he remembers feeling as though his heart had been punctured, left to bleed out so that the red of his blood could color the petals that would adorn his chest on the winter’s day that inched closer with no reprieve.

“You know exactly how I ended up oversleeping, Jaemin,” Mark mutters, buckling his seatbelt and readjusting his rearview mirror before backing out of the parking lot. “You were there.”

“Would you have even woken up in time if I hadn’t called you?”

Mark doesn’t answer the question. “I’m on my way, just distract him until I get there.” 

Jaemin wordlessly hangs up with a beep.

Mark arrives twenty minutes late, taking two wrong exits and almost running a red light as he sped from his apartment to the gold-plated glass doors of the hotel Donghyuck had decided on months prior. Mark was there for that, too. He was there for everything—the flowers, the cake-tasting, the suits and ties.

He rushes out of his car with his suits draped over one arm while his other roughly slams his car door shut, throwing the keys towards the valet standing at the hotel entrance before barreling through the lobby to barely make it through a pair of closing elevator doors. He presses the button for the eighth floor and turns to face the steel doors caging him in, attempting to calm his breaths to a more reasonable pace. 

It seems like years pass before he finally hears a ding, and when the doors finally open, he rushes down the hall to the right and almost crashes into Jaemin, who’d been too busy texting on his phone to notice the figure rapidly accelerating towards him.

“Oh– fuck, Jaemin—” Mark blurts as he skids to a halt, barely missing Jaemin by the shoulder as he digs the soles of his shoes into the carpeted floor.

“There you are. I can’t believe you, you know what—”

“How is he?”

Jaemin stops mid-sentence with a surprised jolt. 

“How is who?”

“Donghyuck, idiot. Who else would I be talking about right now?”

Jaemin shoots him a pointed glare before muttering, “Other than the fact that he’s been freaking out over you not being here— you know he thinks he’s grown a new wrinkle on his forehead? Just from twenty minutes of you being late—he’s fine. He looks great. You should go see him before he pops a vein.”

Mark grimaces at the image before looking towards the door of their room, cracked open just enough for him to hear the muffled commotion inside.

“Go, Mark—”

“I don’t think I’m ready.”

It feels like there’s a weight lodged into the back of his throat that he can’t seem to swallow. He looks back at Jaemin to find his eyes filled with pity. 

His voice cracks. “I don’t know if I can—”

“Mark,” Jaemin whispers, a gentle hand on Mark’s arm, “he can’t do this without you. You know that.”

Don’t fly too close to the sun, Icarus was warned. 

What happens when you’ve already been scorched, all by your own willing hand? What happens when the purpose of your existence is to keep the sun burning bright, even though every breathing moment only fills your lungs with black smoke and tar to suffocate you?

The door opens. Mark watches Jisung make his way towards the elevator while chatting quietly with someone on the phone. 

He can see Donghyuck through the opening of the doorway, but Donghyuck can’t see him. The early rays of the sun are just beginning to glimmer through the translucent curtains pulled to cover the window behind him, tenderly kissing the outline of his silhouette. 

They used to rummage through Donghyuck’s parents’ closet back when they were in middle school. Donghyuck would don his one of his father’s suit jackets, much too oversized for his tiny frame, and tell Mark to do the same, laughing at the blush that would dust over Mark’s cheeks when he’d timidly asked if his father would yell at them for going through his clothes.

“He’s still at work, silly. We’ll put everything back before he gets home.”

They would pretend to be rich men who lived in gigantic castles that overlooked whole oceans, just the two of them ruling their own utopia of a kingdom that never saw a day of famine. 

Donghyuck’s already in his suit, Mark notices. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking his legs like he always does whenever he’s nervous. The suit fits him well, the same way it did on the day they went to their first fittings. It’s a light cream color, satin, similar to the one that Mark would borrow from his father’s closet. They’d parade around his childhood home and carefully replace the borrowed suit jackets on their hangers before his father would come back from work.

On Donghyuck’s left lapel is one of the boutonnieres Jaemin had specially prepared for him: two red carnations with a sprig of baby’s breath in the center. 

He looks ethereal, Mark thinks. Too beautiful to ever behold.

Donghyuck used to come to every single one of Mark’s high school basketball games, even if it meant he’d have less time to nap (his favorite pastime in the whole world) or to work on his homework assignments (his most loathed activity in the whole world, though he’d always somehow manage to get them done). “You’re my best friend,” he’d reason every time. “And best friends are always there for each other, no matter what.”

For their home games, Donghyuck would always wait for Mark outside of his last class, often occupied with the explosive graphics lighting up his phone from whatever video game was popular during that month. He seemed to have a sixth sense that would alert him of when Mark would finally exit through the doorway of his classroom, a brilliant smile decorating his lips as he’d shove his phone into his pocket and look up at the older with an excited glint in his eye. They’d both walk the short distance to the entrance of the gym together and update each other on how their last few classes of the day had gone, most often resulting in Donghyuck ranting about how annoying, overachieving, and absolutely pretentious  Huang Renjun was in the one class they’d always somehow end up sharing, as if the universe was playing a decade-long prank on him, with Mark’s lively expressions acting as fuel for Donghyuck to become even more riled up with every anecdote he was able to fit in the five minutes of time they’d get to spend together before Mark had to leave and prepare for his game that afternoon. 

Mark remembers finding granola bars and energy drinks stuffed into the outer pocket of his duffel bag, always surprised and incredibly curious as to how Donghyuck was so good at sneaking them into his belongings whenever Mark wasn’t paying him any attention. 

“It’d ruin the surprise if I told you,” Donghyuck would always tease, a light pinch to Mark’s forearm before they’d have to part ways, Mark leaving for the locker rooms to change into his jersey and Donghyuck leaning against the wall by the gym entrance, his designated spot as the first in line for every single home game. 

Donghyuck never needed a physical ticket for admittance, having paid for entire seasons’ worth of games at the start of every school year beginning from the day Mark had announced that he’d made the team. To make up for all the money he’d spent on all the snacks and tickets, Mark would sneak a few dollars into his pockets whenever the younger wasn’t looking.

Mark remembers the huge neon posters Donghyuck would make for him, a new one for each game, every variant with a different phrase of encouragement (but mainly sexual innuendos like Mark Lee No. 1 Ball Handler) or silly photo of him blown up in black and white, cut from a private screenshot he’d sent to Donghyuck a few days prior. He was always able to pick out Donghyuck’s voice amidst resounding cheers and the stomping of sneakers against the floor of the gym’s bleachers with ease, almost as if his ears had been attuned to hear the frequency of his best friend’s voice alone. They would celebrate after every game regardless of the outcome—a win with a large pizza split between the two of them, a loss with hours in front of Mark’s television, brawling out their frustrations by wearing out the joysticks of Mark’s game controllers. Mark would always let Donghyuck win, and Donghyuck would gloat about it every time while Mark just laughed with him.

Mark remembers the way they would fall asleep next to each other on the couch, exhausted after a long day of adrenaline rushes and sugar highs, Donghyuck’s head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, and the way his shampoo, scented watermelon and strawberry, would waft from his damp caramel hair, as saccharine as its owner. He remembers the warmth of Donghyuck in his arms, his fingers curled around the hem of Mark’s shirt, his light, patterned snores that would lull Mark to sleep with him as he’d brush his fingers against the short hairs on the nape of his neck.

Donghyuck meets Jeno during one of Mark’s away games, a transfer student and apparent athletic prodigy who’d been invited to come watch the game before being officially inducted into their team. Donghyuck had noticed Jeno from where he always sat at the sidelines of the court, so close to the action that the scent of the sweat dripping down the foreheads of the players and the high-pitched squeaks of sneakers against the waxed floor clouded his mind and left his eardrums ringing for hours after games ended.

It was hard to miss him, really. Jeno Lee, his brass-plated name tag read, had come to the game in an ironed white polo and crisp, starched khakis that ended right at his ankle, only a sliver of skin visible at its hem, a wine red blazer slung over his right shoulder and his hands tucked into his pockets. His hair was an icy white, almost silvery in tone, a neatly-styled undercut with wisps of hair that kissed his dark eyebrows. 

“Private school kid,” Lucas had whispered into Mark’s ear when he’d noticed him staring from where he sat on the bench. “I saw him talking to Jaehyun earlier.”

Mark remembers the way Jeno’s eyes had creased into half-moons when their coach had introduced him to the rest of the team, when they’d reconvened at their home campus after a long, tiring drive back from another win. 

“One of the best point guards I’ve ever seen,” their coach had said, his hand firm on Jeno’s shoulder. “Paired with Mark,” he’d added, “our journey to nationals will be the easiest one yet.” 

“Better watch your back,” Lucas teased him before driving off in his beat-up 1998 Toyota, “looks like you finally have some competition, captain.”

Contrary to preconceived notions, there was no rivalry. 

Mark Lee, point guard, number 2. Jeno Lee, shooting guard, number 23. They grew to become quite close, thanks to the long afterschool practices and team bonding activities their coach would force them to participate in to their chagrin. Jeno was one of the nicest people Mark had ever met, easily fitting into the team and into their town as if he was the last piece of the puzzle weaving their lives together and comfortably joining in on year-long inside jokes and partaking in hushed conversations in the secret of their locker room. 

Donghyuck had taken the longest time to warm up to him, funnily enough. He’d thought that Jeno had something to hide, that there was no way someone could be so absolutely perfect in everything he did, that there had to be a flaw somewhere in the cracks that he just hadn’t found yet. After a while, though, Donghyuck realized that the pale, smooth porcelain of his skin didn’t lie—Jeno was as pure as the white snow that would blanket their town every December, his heart worn on his sleeve despite the treachery of the world around him, trusting and kind.

Donghyuck first invites Jeno over to his house after one of their many practices had ended, when the sky had faded from cotton candy pink and lavender to a dark ocean of indigo, littered in white and gold droplets that appeared, one by one, like Christmas lights strung on the rain gutters and window sills of the homes in their neighborhood.

Mark had driven. They’d ordered a large pepperoni pizza to share, half-empty liter bottles of Coca-Cola and plastic red cups adorning the carpeted floor of Donghyuck’s bedroom as they ate and laughed and sang together, voices in dissonant harmony in front of Donghyuck’s tiny projector with hairbrushes and tubes of lotion to act as makeshift microphones. Donghyuck’s parents adored Jeno from the moment he’d stepped foot into their home, his mother cooing over how pretty his eyes were while his father complimented his hair color, then a steel blue that faded to a pale lavender at the tips.

Mark remembers falling asleep with Donghyuck sandwiched between the two of them, after they’d demolished their box of pizza and had tired themselves out from rounds on rounds of video games and card games and telling each other silly jokes that made no sense but sent them into long fits of raucous laughter, once the night had died down and the chorus of crickets and croaking frogs softly meandered through blades of grass and tree branches with yellowed leaves.

Mark remembers how Donghyuck had pointed out the crescents of Jeno’s eyes, an absentminded observation made after a brief moment of silence. 

“They really look like half-moons, Jen. You think there’s some kind of spiritual connection there?”

Jeno had laughed, his eyes crinkling once more to perfectly match Donghyuck’s description. 

“I could say the same thing about you,” he’d said, pointing at the moles on Donghyuck’s left cheek. “You have a whole constellation on your face.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Donghyuck jokingly replied, an eyebrow cocked with a smirk on his lips.

It is, Mark had thought.

“It is,” Jeno had whispered.

Mark remembers the way Donghyuck’s cheeks flushed.

“I was thinking that maybe we could let them in at eleven, that way—”

“There you are!”

Mark and Jaemin turn to find Jisung walking their way with Jeno in tow, the latter with a wide smile that spreads to his cheeks, lifting his eyes into crescents. 

“I was starting to think that you’d bail today,” Jeno chuckles, an arm coming around Mark’s shoulder to pull him into a hug. 

“No way, man,” Mark replies with a half-hearted laugh as he returns the hug, “Best friends are always there for each other, no matter what.”

Jeno grins. “Has he seen you yet?”

“Dressed like this?” Jaemin suddenly butts in, sounding out his obvious distaste as he gives Mark a once-over. “Donghyuck would freak out even more than he already has.”

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to rush out of his house in his pajamas, but Mark was already running late. Hotel restrooms exist, anyway. 

“I’ll, uh,” Mark starts, readjusting the suits hung over his arm, “I’ll go change down in the lobby.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jaemin says, latching onto Mark’s arm to drag him towards the elevator.

“Hurry back soon!” Jisung yells after them. “We’re heading out in ten minutes!”

They make it back upstairs in seven minutes, Mark lightly panting from the jog up the stairs while Jaemin whines, “Why couldn’t we have taken the elevator?” 

“It was taking too long,” Mark replies, his tone matching Jaemin’s high-pitched groan.

“They would’ve come down anyway, Mark,” Jaemin deadpans. “We’re all taking a limo there, remember?”

“Oh.”

Jeno’s voice echoes from down the hall. “You clean up nice.” 

Jeno’s the only one waiting in the hallway now, looking up from his phone to take in Mark’s appearance. Jaemin was the one who’d styled his hair—Mark was never particularly gifted in working well under pressure, and Jaemin had dabbled in a few years of hair styling anyway—and made sure that his shirt was properly tucked in before giving him his seal of approval and running after him after Mark had suddenly dashed towards the stairs, yelling behind him as Jaemin’s groans echoed throughout the staircase, “Thanks, Jaemin! I owe you one!”

Jaemin nudges him in the side with a sharp elbow as they head towards where Jeno was sitting, muttering under his breath, “You owe me a lot.”

Mark is outfitted in his first suit of the day, slate grey, narrow cut. Jeno’s is a tone darker, Jaemin’s is a tint lighter.

“Here,” Jeno says, turning to his right to grab a clear plastic box lined with white tissue paper, on top of it a boutonniere to be adorned on Mark’s chest. One red carnation in the center, purple hyacinth on the right, blue salvia on the left.

Mark removes the boutonniere from its encasement and turns to Jaemin, who wordlessly takes it with a nod before smoothing a hand down the left lapel of Mark’s suit and sliding the thin needle into the fabric, looping it up to catch the stems of the flowers in his hand and tucking it safely under the fold once more. 

“There,” Jaemin murmurs, his eyes trained on the red carnation above Mark’s heart before flitting up to meet Mark’s gaze, “now you’re ready.”

I’m not, Mark wants to cry.

I’ll never be ready, he wants to scream. He wants to sink to his knees and stop time from moving so fast, from slipping from his fragile grasp. 

“You’re ready, Mark,” Jaemin whispers again, mirroring the anguish he sees in Mark’s eyes. 

You have to be ready, his eyes seem to say.

Mark tears himself from his reflection in Jaemin’s dark irises and sees Jeno looking past the doorway from where he sat by the ledge against the hallway window.

He follows Jeno’s gaze to see that Donghyuck has gotten up from where he was sitting on the bed, his hair meticulously styled into waves that perfectly framed the softness in his face. He watches Donghyuck walk towards the mirror in front of him, dabbing his finger into the small compact in his hand to paint a light wash of color over his eyelids, golden specks to catch the light dancing prettily around his eyes to complement the constellation imprinted onto his cheeks.

“He looks so beautiful,” he hears Jeno say.

He does, Mark thinks. To say it out loud would have charred his tongue.

The first time Mark drinks is with Donghyuck.

Donghyuck had spent at least two hours fretting over what to wear, chiding Mark for choosing to leave for the party in plain black jeans and a loose white tee. 

“You look like Jaehyun, Mark,” he’d tsked, rolling his eyes before turning back around to look at himself in the mirror, mascara wand in one hand and an eyelash curler in the other. 

Donghyuck, Mark remembers, decided to blow out his eyes that night, a dark, smudged kohl outlining his piercing eyes and a pale pink gloss on his lips, tiny specks of glitter littered on his cheekbones to catch the light with every turn of his head. He’d worn a sleek black button-up with the first three buttons undone, a pair of black skinny jeans that hugged at every dip and curve of his legs and hips, and black platform boots with steel hardware that trailed up the side seams. 

Mark remembers the way Donghyuck had teased him for being speechless when he’d taken in his appearance, his jaw slack with widened eyes to make him look like a deer in headlights standing at the doorway of Donghyuck’s dorm. 

“What?” Donghyuck smirked, a brow cocked as his confident grin grew wider, “Never seen anyone this hot before?”

They’d stolen a half-empty bottle of tequila from Johnny, one of the seniors from the dance club they’d joined that year, smuggling it back to Donghyuck’s dorm after taking it from his liquor cabinet (the plastic storage box underneath his kitchen sink) when he wasn’t paying attention during one of the few hangouts they’d have with club members on the weekends. Donghyuck had proposed they save it for a special occasion, seeing that there was only a few shots’ worth of liquor left in the bottle, and Mark had silently agreed with his heart pounding against his ribcage because he thought that Johnny would notice and chide them for drinking underage (though, as it turned out, he never noticed). 

He even invited them to that night’s party, a wink thrown Mark’s way when he’d asked if freshmen were even allowed to go to upperclassmen parties.

“It’s just a small party with us, dude. It’s chill,” Johnny had laughed, ruffling Mark’s hair as the younger flushed bright red. 

The night of their first college party, apparently, was good enough of an occasion for them to break their drinking virginity. 

“It’s called pre-gaming , Mark. The party before the party. Only losers show up sober,” Donghyuck had declared.

Since they didn’t have shot glasses, Donghyuck opted to chug the bottle directly, saving the last half for Mark. 

“Here,” he’d said, after a long coughing fit and complaining about how much his throat had burned from the dark poison, “your turn.”

Mark remembers pinching his nose as he grimaced at the bottle, looking to Donghyuck for final reassurance before taking the plunge and kissing the lip of the glass to let the warmth of the firewater flow through him, down his throat, into his chest. He remembers how the liquid seemed to come alive, like flames licking at him from within, until all that was left were burning embers that rested right underneath his sternum.

“Alright,” Donghyuck had said, taking the bottle out of Mark’s hands as he choked on the residual heat, “let’s fuck some shit up.”

The party was held at Taeyong’s place, a quaint two-story house off the corner of Fifth and McArthur, the nearest bus stop a good two blocks away. They were told that it would just be a small get-together, not unlike the usual Sunday hangouts they’d have every month, but Mark and Donghyuck had pulled up to a scene of fifty or so drunk students cramped into the space of Taeyong’s living room downstairs—a white piece of paper with No guests allowed upstairs! written in big red capital letters was taped at the foot of the staircase, stoners littered along the steps to block the way up as they passed their blunts back and forth and filled the hallway with puffs of smoke—some playing beer pong in Taeyong’s kitchen while others played another drinking game (a stranger had called it “flip cup” when Mark had politely asked) by the couch covered in saran wrap with a sign taped to it that said You vomit, you pay. 

Head slightly buzzing from the light dose alcohol coursing through his veins, Mark flushed a bright red when they walked up the steps to greet Johnny, who’d pulled them both into a huge hug before holding an arm at their chests as they made their way toward the door and reminding them, “Entrance fee, please.”

“Entrance fee?” Donghyuck had flippantly asked with an eyebrow cocked. “Just because we’re freshmen?”

Johnny laughed, reaching out to ruffle Donghyuck’s hair to his annoyance before explaining, “It’s for the alcohol. We’re just as broke as you, you know.”

Mark paid for the both of them, five dollars each—Donghyuck had claimed that carrying around a wallet in his back pocket would’ve ruined his look—and then Johnny opened the door to let them in, bright disco lights bouncing off the dark purple walls as the clamoring of drunken students and the rhythmic booming of the bass from the huge loudspeakers in Taeyong’s living room barraged their eardrums.

“Woah,” Mark gasped, eyes wide as he took in the foreign sight. They’d shed themselves of their shoes by the door, an ocean of mismatched high heels and sneakers growing steadily with the addition of each guest—a problem for later, drunken them to deal with—and then Donghyuck grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him over to the makeshift bar (the granite countertop blocking off Taeyong’s fridge and sink from the rest of the kitchen) to order them two shots each, a shared cup of fruit punch as chaser.

“Cheers,” Donghyuck said with a wide smile, his teeth glowing blue under the black lights hanging above them, and then they clanged their red shot glasses together and swallowed the coconut-flavored liquor in quick succession, faces scrunched up in distaste once the burn began to spread to their faces. One huge gulp of chaser later, they broke into huge grins and laughed, exhilaration flowing through them as the effects of the alcohol began to spread throughout their bodies.

“You look kind of red,” Donghyuck teased, a gentle nudge to Mark’s side with his elbow after they’d gotten sufficiently drunk and were swaying to the music blaring into their ears, Mark’s hands tightly wrapped around Donghyuck’s arms lest he fall over from his tequila-induced lack of balance.

“Am I?” Mark asked, repeatedly slapping his hands against the warmth of his cheeks with his brows furrowed in deep thought. “I don’t feel very hot, though.”

“You’re really red,” Donghyuck giggled, Mark soon joining in with his own chorus of laughter, too drunk to care about how loud they were being or how silly he must’ve looked when he’d slapped his puffed-out cheeks a moment ago. 

“You’re really red,” Mark slurred in return, their laughter growing louder to match the shouting from the other room. 

“Am not,” Donghyuck retorted.

“Am too!” 

“Go check yourself in the mirror! You’re more red than me!”

Donghyuck pushed Mark towards the hallway bathroom, yelling at him from behind the door shut behind him out of habit, “See? What did I tell you?”

Mark remembers the way his face was painted with red and pink splotches that spread down to his neck, down to his chest, even down to his stomach, his angry flesh staring back at him through the mirror once he’d tentatively lifted up the hem of his sweat-slick shirt and traced a hand from his sternum down to his navel. The bathroom counter seemed antique, its persian blue tiles arranged in a strange puzzle with rogue smears of white spackle along some of the seams that continued up the walls, trapping Mark in an ocean with no water as he swayed from one foot to the other, hands grasped firmly onto the edge of the sink to keep himself afloat. The music had faded to a string of muffled beats and harmonies that pulsated against his eardrums, his head spinning, his vision blurry. 

Perhaps it would’ve been a good idea to have brought his glasses with him that evening, but Mark hadn’t thought that far ahead, hadn’t known that in his drunken stupor, he’d be even more blind than he usually is without his round frames sitting atop the bridge of his nose. He found himself leaning so close to the mirror to look at his appearance that his breath fogged up the glass, and as he wiped away the condensation to stare at the sweat along his forehead and the way the pupils of his eyes were slightly dilated, he suddenly remembered that he was still at a party, and that Donghyuck had probably been waiting for him outside the entire time.

But when he opened the door, Donghyuck was nowhere to be found, and a puff of smoke blew Mark’s way just as he inhaled to send him into a coughing fit as he struggled to find his balance, his hands tightly clutching the doorframe as he bent over to gasp for air.

“Hey, are you alright?”

Mark looked up to find Jungwoo standing above him, a comforting hand on his back as he leaned down to look at the other with concern. “Do you need water or anything?”

Jungwoo was another one of their team’s members, a sophomore majoring in something related to engineering—Mark couldn’t remember, he just knew that Jungwoo was scarily smart and known to be funny as often as he could put on a serious face, his puppy-like eyes morphing into something darker once the music boomed in their dance studio, his jaw set into a hard line as he hit every beat as if he was made to dance. They hadn’t interacted too much, only a few words of greeting once they’d pass each other on campus or a quick joke here and there during rehearsals, but a glass of water sounded delightful then, and Mark was glad that Jungwoo was there to hold him up to prevent him from falling flat on his face.

“Y-yeah,” Mark managed, the residual burn in his lungs slowly waning, “Water sounds nice.”

Jungwoo took a hold of Mark’s arm and slung it over his shoulder, half-dragging the boy over to the fridge on the other side of the walkway before reaching into one of the overhead cabinets to pull out a clean glass and fill it with ice-cold water, which Mark happily gulped down to calm the heat coiled in his chest.

“Do you know where Donghyuck is?” Mark asked after his second glass, carefully setting it into the sink. He’d worry about cleaning it later, he supposed.

“Donghyuck?” Jungwoo clarifies, his voice barely loud enough to hear over the booming music.

“Yeah, Donghyuck,” Mark repeats, leaning over to practically yell into Jungwoo’s ear, the older wincing at his choice of volume. 

“I think I last saw him by the couch, over in the living room,” Jungwoo shouts. “If he’s not there, he could also be upstairs. Think I saw him go up there too, but I’m not really sure.” 

Jungwoo offered Mark a shrug and a lopsided grin when the latter had quirked a brow. “I’m just as drunk as you are!”

“Thanks,” Mark replied, squeezing Jungwoo’s arm appreciatively before he made his way towards the living room, shouldering past couples grinding onto one another along the cramped walls of the hallway and past the dwindling crowd of smokers nearing the ends of their blunts to find himself in the midst of a heated game of beer pong, his eardrums attacked by loud shouts and screams once someone—maybe Yuta—had scored a goal into the last cup on the other side of the table. 

He maneuvered past the crowd surrounding the table, which had shifted about three feet to the left since they’d arrived, and recognizes Donghyuck through the purple haze in front of him, the younger with sweat glazed over his collarbones, his cheekbones glimmering under the multicolored lights that ricocheted off the disco ball overhead. 

Donghyuck was sitting on the plastic-wrapped couch. His legs were crossed, thighs prettily accentuated by the stretch of black denim that wrapped around them. He had a red cup in his hand, presumably full of some of the jungle juice Mark had watched Taeyong make earlier. 

And someone else was sitting next to him. Someone else with a short mullet and a silver chain around his neck, Mark was able to make out, was laughing at something Donghyuck had said, his right hand, steel rings stacked on his fingers, resting on Donghyuck’s thigh.  

Mark remembers it being a blur—the way he’d angrily stumbled towards the stranger and shoved him to the side, rough hand against his chest to send him to the floor with a loud thud, the way Donghyuck had screamed in shock and spilled his drink on the couch, the way Mark had grabbed Donghyuck’s wrist without thinking and barreled past the crowd of people staring at them to rush up the stairs, the only place his brain could think of that would’ve been remotely empty, offer them some privacy, offer Mark some privacy, because he didn’t know what else he would’ve done if he’d stayed downstairs, pitiful stranger staring back up at him in shock as he struggled to tamp down the crimson rage brewing in the pit of his stomach.

He remembers the way Donghyuck had twisted his arm and pulled him into an empty room, flicking on the lights with an angry slap against the switch before slamming the door shut behind them, yelling, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I–I don’t know what got into me—”

“You don’t know? You just pushed someone to the ground, Mark!”

“I don’t— He was—”

“Care to explain yourself? Couldn’t even handle a few shots?”

“What do you mean? You’re just as drunk as I am!”

“Except I’m not shoving people around because I suddenly feel like it—”

“I didn’t shove him for no reason—”

“Then what? What exactly was the problem for you to get so fucking angry that you’d—”

“His hand was on your thigh, Donghyuck! He was touching you!” 

The pounding of the music continued downstairs, the walls boxing them in shaking with every shout, every yell, every cheer as the game of beer pong resumed beneath them. Mark remembers the way his gut had twisted into a knot, a snake chasing its own tail as he’d struggled to control his breathing, to hold back the tears welling in his eyes as Donghyuck stared back at him without a word. He remembers the contortion in Donghyuck's face from shock, to anger, to confusion, to sadness, to a mixture of the four, until he'd broken his gaze from the desperation in Mark's eyes to stare at the ceiling, the floor, the window through which the cool breeze was fluttering to gently nip at their skin. He remembers the way he’d bitten at his own lip until the skin broke, until blood had coated his tongue and stained it with a thick, dark red, the aftertaste of iron lingering in his mouth even after he’d tried to flush it down with water, with another shot, with spearmint mouthwash. 

Perhaps Mark should've said something, anything, to let him know about how his heart would bleed out in his chest whenever Donghyuck would spend the night out with a new group of friends rather than with him, like they usually did on Saturday evenings, blankets draped over their legs as they'd share a bucket of popcorn in front of Mark’s laptop screen. It would've been selfish of him, he'd reasoned, to tell Donghyuck about how much he'd miss his familiar presence, the warmth that seeped from where he embraced Mark, arms wrapped around the latter's waist with his head tucked against his chest, their breaths evening out as they'd fall asleep to the dim glow of the screen in front of them.

Perhaps Mark should've told Donghyuck about how much he would worry about him and how he would stay up all night waiting for the younger whenever he'd forget to text Mark about when he'd be back, tucked safely under his covers after a long night out. Mark would lie, every single time, about the dark circles under his eyes the next morning when they would meet up for breakfast in the dining commons, blaming them on a late night of studying for a quiz that didn't exist and laughing wearily when Donghyuck would raise a questioning brow. 

“Since when did you become such a good student?” Donghyuck would ask. 

“Since last night,” Mark would reply, and this would repeat itself every few weeks until Donghyuck eventually stopped asking altogether, sliding over a warm mug of medium-roast coffee with oat milk, just the way Mark liked it, whenever he noticed that the circles under Mark’s eyes looked darker than usual.

Perhaps Mark should’ve yelled and screamed and cried about how much his heart would ache because he didn’t know if he was allowed to cross over the carefully marked line that separated them from friendship and something more, whenever Donghyuck would fall asleep next to him on the nights they’d stay up late to study for their exams, his hand curled around the hem of Mark’s shirt and head tucked into the crook of his shoulder. Mark would keep his voice to a low murmur, afraid of waking him up, afraid of ruining the delicate bond that Donghyuck had so meticulously nurtured, with a whisper of I love you that would never reach his ears, disappearing into the darkness of the room that blanketed them to never make its existence known.

Instead, he’d fallen to his knees in front of the boy he loved, tears flowing freely to stain the carpeted floor beneath him, short, staccato breaths as he struggled to control the way his shoulders heaved with every pull of air into his lungs. 

“I’m so sorry,” he’d sobbed, the walls of his chest too weak to hold the swelling of his heart, threatening to shatter under his own weight, “I’m sorry, Donghyuck. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay.” He’d felt a pair of strong arms wrap around him, guiding his head to rest on the crook of Donghyuck’s shoulder, his tears mottling the black satin pressed tightly against his cheek. They sat there until Mark’s breathing calmed, his eyes red and sore. Mark remembers the way Donghyuck smoothed his hand down Mark’s back, his other hand with fingers gently combing through his hair as he whispered, over and over, “It’s okay, Mark. I forgive you. It’s okay.” 

He remembers the way Donghyuck’s scent washed over him, peppery notes of cinnamon and brown sugar from the bodywash Mark found a familiar comfort in, calling him back to Donghyuck, reminding him that Donghyuck was here, that Donghyuck didn’t hate him, that they were still okay. That everything was going to be okay.

They don’t talk about it. 

They leave the party separately, Mark hastily shuffling through the jumbled mess of shoes by the front door to find his tattered pair of black Converse—not the best pair of shoes to wear to a party if you’re going to take them off, he learns, because everyone seemed to have a pair of black Converse—while keeping his face low, feeling the heat of everyone’s curious gaze on him before he finally found his shoes and escaped the claustrophobic room that was beginning to swallow him whole. He took an Uber home, thanks to Johnny’s insistence that Mark’s safety was his priority, and after a long, scalding shower in the communal bathrooms down the hall by his dorm room, tucked himself into bed, wet hair on top of a towel wrapped over his pillow, phone ringer on to wait for the notification that Donghyuck had made it back safely.

Donghyuck texted him that night. Sleep well, hyung, it’d read, tiny black font in a sea of blinding white from Mark’s phone screen, 3:04 AM.

They don’t meet in the dining hall for breakfast the next morning. Donghyuck had brought him a bottle of Gatorade and warm chicken soup instead, secretly spooned into his thermos while the janitors weren’t looking his way and tucked into his backpack to bring back to Mark’s room.

“Here,” Donghyuck whispered, gently blowing on the soup before ladling the spoonful through Mark’s parted lips. “How are you feeling?”

“Could be better,” Mark sighed with a small grin, headache waning once he’d pulled himself to sit up and take another sip of the Gatorade Donghyuck had brought for him.

“You remember anything from last night?”

Mark’s eyes flickered over to Donghyuck’s face to find it uncharacteristically blank.

Donghyuck would usually find every opportunity to tease Mark for his silly jokes, his latency in understanding simple innuendos, his forgetfulness when it came to upcoming assignments and due dates. There usually weren’t any wrong answers, not with Donghyuck. 

But this time, when Mark looked into his eyes, hardened and unreadable, something in the back of his mind told him that what next left his mouth would dictate whether or not their relationship would come to an abrupt end—for the better or worse, Mark was too afraid to find out.

“We went to the party,” Mark began. Something flickered in Donghyuck’s eyes, but Mark wasn’t sure if he saw it correctly or if he was just playing mind games with himself. 

“And if I remember correctly, you turned really red.”

“No I didn’t.” Donghyuck’s reaction was immediate, his brows raised and nose scrunched in haughty disbelief. “You were the one who turned red.”

“Fine, maybe we were both red,” Mark conceded, a laugh before Donghyuck giggled and spooned another bite into his mouth. 

It was quiet after he swallowed it down. Donghyuck looked like he was expecting Mark to say something more. 

But to mention what happened—why he’d reacted the way he did when he saw the boy’s hand on Donghyuck’s thigh, why he’d sobbed in front of Donghyuck as the younger held him in silence, why he’d begged for the forgiveness of a sin that he never meant to commit—that would require for Mark to reckon with the way he felt around Donghyuck, the way he wanted him all to himself. And to admit the emotions that had taken root inside of him, like an old, unshaken sequoia that grew new rings every spring, would have meant that Mark admitted to wanting to be selfish, wanting Donghyuck to stay by his side no matter what.

But Donghyuck wasn’t a creature to be owned—Mark knew that he deserved more than what he could offer him, deserved to explore the wonders of the world around him without Mark dragging him down like an anchor to shore, deserved to be with someone who could love him fully and cherish him in the way that Mark couldn’t, too afraid to stain the perfect canvas that stood in front of him, ethereal and alive. A soul as broken as Mark’s, patched and sewn up by Donghyuck’s very hands, couldn’t possibly ask its mender to keep it whole. That was Mark’s responsibility, a burden Donghyuck had carried for far too long on his shoulders.

“I don’t really remember what happened after that,” Mark had mumbled, eyes transfixed on the ruffled blanket in his lap.

“Ah,” Donghyuck murmured, a faint, sad smile on his lips that Mark never looked up to see.

“Well,” Donghyuck said after a moment, tapping on Mark’s lap before offering him another bite, “nothing really exciting happened after that. Let’s get you cleaned up, hm?”

The clock strikes ten when people begin to funnel out of the hotel room. Jisung leaves first, a friendly wave towards Mark and Jaemin before he makes his way to the elevator, Chenle and Sungchan in tow.

Jeno gets up and makes his way towards where Mark is standing, lightly squeezing his shoulder with a grin before saying, “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Jaemin follows him towards the elevator after sparing Mark one last glance, murmuring into his ear as he brushes past him, “Take as long as you need.”

To take as long as he needed would have meant for time to stop completely. 

“Mark?”

Mark looks up from where he’s staring at a speck of dust on the carpet to find Donghyuck walking his direction, nervous smile painted on his lips.

“Donghyuck, I’m sorry—”

Donghyuck cuts him off by running towards him and pulling him into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around Mark’s waist and tucking his head against his chest. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Donghyuck mumbles, his voice muffled by the fabric pressed against his lips. “You’re here now, that’s all that matters.”

No, Mark thinks as he smoothes a hand down Donghyuck’s back, I’m sorry for being selfish.

I’m sorry for loving something that was never meant to be mine.

“Are you ready?” Mark manages to croak out once Donghyuck releases him from his warm embrace.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he grins, his smile as bright as it’s always been. “Are you?”

I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, Donghyuck.

“I think so,” Mark chuckles, brushing his hand against the nape of his neck once Donghyuck flashes him another smile. 

Genuine happiness, Mark thinks. Donghyuck is the embodiment of pure, true happiness.

“Well, if you’re ready,” Donghyuck clasps their hands together and pulls Mark towards the elevator, “let’s go do the damn thing.”

Donghyuck sits in between Mark and Jeno on the limo ride there, a short twenty minutes to the chapel he and Mark had visited months prior. 

They pop open a bottle of champagne and clink their glasses, smiles plastered on their faces as conversation resumes, Jisung, Chenle, and Sungchan chatting about something relating to the reception later that evening—perhaps a prank, if there was one thing Mark could count on them for, even on a day as important as this one—while Jaemin turns to Mark and squeezes his hand lightly.

“How are you feeling?”

Mark catches the way Donghyuck’s cheeks flush pink when Jeno whispers something into his ear, both of them breaking into quiet giggles in perfect harmony. He notices the way their pinkies are linked, their hands resting on Donghyuck’s right thigh. He looks up to find Jeno smiling at him, Donghyuck resting his head on his shoulder. Mark beams in return.

How am I supposed to feel? Mark wonders. His heart is hammering loudly inside of his ribcage, threatening to break free from its confines of blood and bone and flesh. His breaths are calm, but he knows Jaemin can feel the way his pulse has quickened in his veins, every beat thrumming against the pads of his fingers on Mark’s wrist. He feels numb. 

He remembers Jeno talking about something similar to this once before, back when the fire alarm in their apartment just wouldn’t turn off one day, the sharp, insistent beats ringing in their ears for hours on end. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll get used to it,” Jeno said after Donghyuck had begun to bang his head on the wall out of frustration. “It’s called sensory adaptation. I learned about it way back in college.”

“What’s that?” Mark yelled from the couch, two cushions flattened against his ears in an attempt to muffle the sound.

“It’s when you become less sensitive to something after being exposed to it for a long time,” Jeno shouted over the loud beeping.

When you’ve willingly hurt yourself, over and over, at what point does the pain stop?

“Nervous,” Mark replies, his fingers curving upwards to take Jaemin’s hand into his palm. 

Jaemin looked like he was expecting Mark to say something more. 

“Well,” Jaemin says after a beat, a wide grin sent Donghyuck’s way once he notices him looking over at them, “let’s hope those pesky butterflies stop bothering you once we get there.”

After graduating from college, Donghyuck went off to secure himself a position at NASA as a Flight Software Engineer, Mark pursuing a Ph.D. in Linguistics and becoming a lecturer at the nearby university, spending his off days tutoring high school students struggling with their college application essays for an extra few hundred dollars in his bank balance every fall. They'd moved in together as they'd found it more convenient to split the rent on a higher-end apartment and didn't mind living with each other anyway, having spent the last two years of college in the off-campus house that Taeyong owned with three other students named Jisung, Chenle, and Sungchan, who'd joined the dance team a year after them.

Leadership of the team fell onto Mark and Donghyuck after Johnny and Taeyong had graduated, Donghyuck in charge of choreographies that involved more fluidity and Mark overseeing the numbers that required more precision, the two bouncing ideas off of one another long after rehearsals ended in the quiet of the empty dance studio, sweat-stained shirts stuck to their backs as they'd laugh over the takeout they'd ordered, too exhausted to go home to cook for themselves. They'd stay in the studio for as long as they could, the memory of the rhythm ingrained in their muscles with every movement to the continuous beat, until the mirrors began to fog and they'd run out of water.

Mark would drive them home—Donghyuck never liked driving, and Mark preferred to keep his car fully functional and unscathed—and they'd crash on the couch after taking their showers, always Donghyuck first, Mark second. The conversation would float from tidbits about their classes that morning to what they'd notice in the new recruits who held potential—Jisung, Mark remembers, had both the fiery passion and unmatched skill that mirrored Taeyong's—and then the two would go off to their separate rooms to prepare for the next morning, the cycle repeating itself for two whole years before they'd finally graduated and moved onto bigger and better things.

Some things had changed since then. Mark and Donghyuck no longer met with one another in the dining halls every morning to eat their daily breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with coffee, no longer spent their lunches in each other's dorm room sneaking in another game of League of Legends before their next class later that afternoon, no longer met with one another an hour before rehearsals started to go over their game plan for their upcoming performances. But what replaced these memories fit better into their new lifestyles—Donghyuck would cook eggs in the morning and Mark would brew them both medium-roast coffee before they'd head off to their respective offices, Mark would come visit Donghyuck during his lunch on Fridays to eat at the wooden tables in the outdoor terrace on the east side of NASA's IESB, and Donghyuck would often come home late to a plate of food waiting for him on the kitchen counter, Mark sitting on the couch with his laptop on his thighs and his students' papers strewn about the floor waiting to be graded, a wide smile on his face when he’d hear the jingling of keys in the lock of their front door.

They still spent their Saturday evenings together, cooped up in their living room with warm blankets taken from their beds to drape over their laps, a bucket of popcorn or a bag of chips in between them as they'd sip on cheap dessert wine and stream their favorite shows off Netflix or Disney (Mark preferred old Disney romantic comedies and musicals while Donghyuck enjoyed long Korean dramas to cry to. They usually ended up going with Donghyuck's choice).

Some things had changed, but Saturday movie nights were still their thing. They’d usually end up falling asleep next to each other, Mark being the one who’d turn off the television if he still had the energy to reach for the remote on their coffee table, Donghyuck tightly wrapped in the same fluffy blanket he’d used in college, his head tucked into Mark’s shoulder as he lightly snored the night away.

Sometimes, when Donghyuck would twitch as he drifted off to sleep, his fingers would tighten their grasp on the fabric of Mark’s shirt bunched up in his palm, and Mark would tenderly smooth his thumb along the back of his hand until his breathing had calmed, until he’d let out the small hiccup that’d been lodged in the back of his throat.

Sometimes, when Mark was certain that Donghyuck was dead asleep, he’d gently card his fingers through his hair and peek down to stare at the way his long eyelashes would flutter with every one of his exhales, their wispy shadows dancing along with the moles speckled along his cheek. 

Sometimes, Mark would tease the way I love you felt against his tongue as he looked down at the other, his own eyelids fluttering closed as he’d squeeze Donghyuck’s hand once, as if he wished that Donghyuck would join him in his dreams. Sometimes, Mark would whisper it aloud, just to imagine what it would’ve felt like if he’d heard it leave Donghyuck’s lips instead of his own.

Donghyuck meets Jeno again when they turn twenty-five.

It'd been when he'd gone out one morning to buy groceries—it was his week to deal with chores, and Mark couldn't tell radishes from turnips, anyway.

Donghyuck came back with four plastic bags filled to the brim with seasonal vegetables and various meats, Mark coming to his aid down by the parking lot to bring up the last box of croutons and dried mango slices and setting everything down by the center island in their kitchen, newly renovated by the complex they'd been renting since the previous spring. They'd silently packed the groceries away, vegetables in the bottom drawer of the fridge, Mark's favorite watermelon cubes tucked on the top shelf for easy access and Donghyuck's favorite brand of green tea ice cream stacked on top of their bottles of chilled soju and boxes of ready-made pizzas in the freezer, the chicken left on the counter for Donghyuck to prep for dinner and the plethora of snacks thrown into their pantry for their movie night come Saturday.

“Remember Jeno? From high school?”

“I haven’t really kept in touch with him since high school, but yeah, I think I remember him. What’s up?”

“He just moved here.”

“Really? What for?”

“Apparently, he just finished interviewing for Genentech. He starts next Monday, if I remember correctly. I ran into him over in the snacks aisle, funnily enough. He’s still obsessed with gummy bears.”

They’d both chuckled at that. After a beat, Donghyuck continued, “He asked me to get drinks with him and a couple friends tomorrow night. You mind if I take a rain check for tomorrow?”

Mark wasn’t looking up to catch the worried crease between Donghyuck’s eyebrows when he’d asked the question. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Mark had replied, his back turned to Donghyuck as he rearranged the items in their freezer to fit the rest of their boxes of Hot Pockets, “We can always catch up next week.”

There was another beat before Donghyuck finally responded. 

“Okay,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”

“It was fucking hilarious, Mark, I wish you could’ve been there,” Donghyuck giggled from across their dinner table, chicken potsticker carefully dipped into the dish of soy sauce in front of him before he plopped it into his mouth, “He had to pay, like, a hundred dollars to get it fixed. And it wasn’t even his fault!”

“Damn, that must’ve sucked,” Mark chuckled along before taking another bite from the bowl of udon in front of him, “Guess they won’t be seeing you there again.”

“Oh, never,” Donghyuck had gushed, his lips pulled into a wide smile. “We’re planning on going to the new club that just opened downtown. You want to come with?”

“Maybe next time? I have a shit ton to grade this weekend.” Three hundred students’ worth of midterm essays, to be exact.

“No problem,” Donghyuck grinned before chomping down on another potsticker. “I’ll let him know you said you miss him.”

“I did not—” 

“I’m kidding, Mark,” Donghyuck giggled, laughing harder when he caught the annoyed look plastered across Mark’s face, “I’ll tell Jeno you said hello.”

Donghyuck begins to spend less time at their apartment on the weekends, opting to join Jeno for a cup of coffee on some nights and exploring the city with him on others. Mark and Donghyuck’s Saturday movie night gradually evolved into Mark’s Saturday night in bed, stacks of papers waiting to be graded on his nightstand while the light in Donghyuck’s bedroom remained off until the late evening, the jingling of keys in the lock while Mark was half asleep and the silent click of the bathroom door to let him know that Donghyuck had made it home safely. Some nights, Donghyuck wouldn’t come home at all.

“Do you mind if he comes over tonight? To join us?”

Mark almost dropped his knife onto the cutting board. When he turned around, Donghyuck was still rummaging through the last bag of groceries, pulling out bags of gummy worms and sour candies to place onto their countertop as he silently waited for Mark to reply.

“Jeno wants to watch The Good Place with us?”

“He said he’s all caught up, so I was thinking we could start the third season together. I mean, that’s if you’re down. If you’re not, that’s also totally fine with me—”

“Sure, yeah. I don’t see why not. I mean, we’re all friends, right?”

Friends. Jeno and Mark were friends. Jeno and Donghyuck were friends. 

Mark and Donghyuck were friends.

Is it wrong to want to be more than friends?

“Of course we’re friends,” Donghyuck replied with an amused grin, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his phone. “I’ll let him know right now.”

Jeno arrived about an hour later, an expensive bottle of wine in one hand and a bag of gummy bears in the other as he greeted Mark at the door.

“Look,” he said at Mark’s questioning stare, “the wine is a gift to say hello, and the gummy bears are for me. Don’t judge.”

“I’m not,” Mark laughed as he returned Jeno’s warm hug, taking the bottle from Jeno to place onto the coffee table behind them. “I’m glad to see you, man.”

“Happy to see you too,” Jeno replied with a wide grin, his eyes crinkling into the same crescents Mark had grown to love back in high school. “Donghyuck told me you’re teaching now.”

“And he told me you’re a mad scientist now,” Mark teased, a shocked expression painting Jeno’s face as Donghyuck spoke up from the kitchen to defend himself, “I did not say that!”

They’d all laughed together. Donghyuck quickly joined them in the living room with the new wine glasses he bought for the occasion (Mark accidentally broke their only two when he was doing the dishes last week) and Mark turned the television on to flip through the same set of Netflix shows he’d been watching alone for the past few weeks, whenever he had the time.

“I heard New Girl was pretty good. How’re you liking it?” Jeno asked from where he sat on the other side of Donghyuck.

“It’s pretty funny,” Mark replied, “I actually really like the writing.”

“One of my coworkers keeps gushing over it but I haven’t really looked into it. Maybe I’ll check it out some time.”

“You should! I think you’d like it.”

The first of many movie nights, Donghyuck sandwiched between Mark and Jeno, started with a full bottle of wine and ended with sugar highs fueled by candies made for, likely, younger adults with better metabolism. At some point during the third episode of their marathon, Donghyuck had the brilliant idea to see how many gummy worms he could fit in his mouth, which prompted Jeno to try and fit all his gummy bears into his mouth, which prompted Mark to try and fit all the sour candy strips into his mouth, all in one go. Jeno said his goodbyes at way past their usual bedtimes, and after Mark and Donghyuck had shoved all the candy wrappers into the trash can and carefully placed all their wine glasses into the sink to be washed the next day, they crashed onto the couch and knocked out immediately, too tired to even turn off the ceiling lights.

“We should really invest in some smart lights. You know, the ones where you clap and they turn off,” Mark had murmured.

“Dude, you clap whenever you get excited. That would not end well.”

“Fair.”

The last time they spend Saturday nights at Mark and Donghyuck’s place, all three of them, starts with a rewatch of first season of Parks and Recreation and ends with Donghyuck whispering, his head resting on Mark’s shoulder after Jeno had left, “I think I really like him, Mark.”

“You look fine, Donghyuck,” Mark sighed from where he sat at the edge of Donghyuck’s bed, the younger throwing his head back with a groan for maybe the tenth time that evening as he looked at himself in the mirror, shirt half-buttoned and hair disheveled.

“Dude, I want to get fucked tonight. I cannot meet him looking like this,” Donghyuck whines as he turns to face Mark.

“Dude,” Mark copies him with a mocking tone, standing up to grab Donghyuck’s face between his two palms, “You look great. Honestly. Any guy would want to fuck you looking like this.”

“I’m not trying to get any guy to fuck me, Mark Lee. We’re talking about—”

“Jeno has seen you in worse and he still hasn’t run away. I’m pretty sure he’d fuck you even if you were wearing one of our old college tee-shirts, Hyuck. The one with a huge spaghetti stain down the front, even. Heck, maybe he’d—”

“Okay,” Donghyuck said, firmly grasping onto Mark’s wrists by his face as he finally gave in, “I get it. I’m overreacting.”

Mark let out a tired sigh, scrunching his nose in feigned annoyance as he lightly shook Donghyuck’s face between his hands, “Only took you a whole hour to get that into your head.”

“Thank you.”

Donghyuck had suddenly wrapped his arms around Mark’s waist as the older stood still, shocked, tucking his head against Mark’s chest as he murmured, “Thank you for being here.”

It took Mark a moment to register that he was wrapped in Donghyuck’s embrace, then another beat for him to stutter as he timidly smoothed his hands up the back of Donghyuck’s shirt to return the hug, “N-no problem. I’ll always be here.”

Donghyuck left at seven on the dot to meet Jeno at the new Yakitori place that’d recently opened downtown. 

“Don’t wait up, okay? I’ll probably be back sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

“Have fun,” Mark had sent him off with a wink and a small grin.

Perhaps he should’ve grasped onto Donghyuck’s arm and stopped him before he’d left that night.

Perhaps he should’ve told Donghyuck that he wished it was him, not Jeno, that Donghyuck would be meeting for the evening.

Perhaps he should’ve ruined his date by kissing Donghyuck fully on the lips back when they were still in his room, when Donghyuck had his arms tightly wrapped around his waist.

Mark would always be there for Donghyuck, wishing that he could be somewhere else.

Jaemin whisks Mark into the chapel the moment they get there, the rest of their party making their way into the back room while Jisung scurries off to find the wedding planner.

“Where are we going—”

“It’s killing you to be near him.”

Jaemin’s grip on his arm is tight, and Mark wrings it free as he avoids eye contact, opting to look at the multicolored rays of light streaming through the stained glass windows hanging above them.

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I could handle it, Jaemin.”

“Correction: you wouldn’t have come if I didn’t wake you up. Stop lying to yourself.”

“What do you want from me?” 

Mark looks back at Jaemin, his bottom lip between his teeth, the reddened skin threatening to break. He tightens his jaw, then both of his fists.

“What do you want from me, Jaemin?” he repeats.

“I—” Jaemin starts. He swallows, then sighs. “I guess there’s no point in saying that I want you to be happy, is there?”

“Life goes on,” Mark says, his voice unwavering. 

He and Donghyuck used to talk about the difference between existing and living.

“I think, to be truly alive, you have to feel something, you know? You have to be living for something. It has to be driving you to wake up every day, to get out of bed every day. That’s life,” Donghyuck used to say.

“What’s the difference between that and existence, then? It sounds the same to me.”

“If you’re not happy, Mark,” Donghyuck had turned to him, “is that a life worth living?”

Mark didn’t have anything to say to that.

“If you’re waking up every day with a hole in your chest, waking up every day feeling like life isn’t worth it, then are you really alive? Or are you merely existing, going along with whatever is thrown at you until your very last breath?”

Life goes on, whether or not you’re truly alive. 

“Life goes on,” Jaemin repeats after him. Mark catches his brow twitch, but he doesn’t move to say anything else.

Jaemin clears his throat, then lets out a deep breath. 

“Well, I’ll head back in there. See you on the other side.”

The pews are filled with old friends, family members, and acquaintances from work, quiet chatter and small talk reverberating against the old chapel walls until the bells ring and the doors open, sunlight illuminating the path leading to the altar covered in white cloth.

Mark stands and makes his way towards the right of the altar, taking his seat on the black cushioned bench with polished legs, his fingers gently resting on the smooth ivory keys of the grand piano in front of him, hands arched into perfect half-moons. He adjusts his right foot over the brass damper below and leans forward to brush his lips against the microphone in front of him, and ceremony begins.

Four notes, three in harmony. Mark’s eyes wander to the lid propped up in front of him, the black ink of the wood lustrous underneath the light streaming in through the windows above, and then, he sings.

The look you gave me at first, was it only my delusion?

Your pure smile had made me a fool.

The day you left me, rose-colored memories in my heart faded to blue.

He makes the mistake of opening his eyes right as Donghyuck enters the chapel, the cream of his suit illuminated by the light caressing the waves in his hair, his honeyed skin. He has an arm hooked around Jaemin’s, and they slowly make their way to the altar before they part ways, Jaemin placing a gentle kiss onto the mole underneath Donghyuck’s eye.

Yesterday, I hated myself for being unable to forget you,

but now I realize I exist for you only.

To you,

I will give my everything.

Donghyuck catches Mark looking over at him before he takes his place next to his groom and sends him a smile.

We will, forevermore, stay the same together.

Because I love you,

and only you.

Mark smiles back. He feels a teardrop land on the back of his hand, but he makes no effort to wipe it off. 

It’ll ruin the keys if it stains the wood, Mark thinks.

The melody of the piano fades to silence, and Donghyuck turns to face Jeno, his back facing Mark.

Mark stands and takes his place next to Jaemin, who takes his hand and lightly squeezes it before letting go.

“Dearly beloved,” Mark hears. “We are gathered together today to join Lee Donghyuck and Lee Jeno in the union of marriage.”

The second tear comes, then the third, then the rest, each silently running down his cheeks before falling to the floor. 

Perhaps he should’ve grasped onto Donghyuck’s arm and stopped him before he’d taken the elevator down to the lobby.

Perhaps he should’ve told Donghyuck that he wished it was him, not Jeno, that Donghyuck was marrying.

Perhaps he should’ve ruined his wedding day by saying something, anything, when the priest had commanded, Speak now or forever hold your peace.

The tears keep falling, and Mark is thankful that Donghyuck isn’t turned to face him. 

They’re not meant for him.