Archive of Our Own

The day Donghyuck decided he was prepared to get rejected was the day the Pink Moon was to reveal itself.

It was summer. The sky spumed with clouds, but was smoothened by quiet sunlight. The sun had recoiled into a glowing white pearl in the sky. It was four in the afternoon. It was three hours before the moon would spill its blushing cheek, six before it would glow at its peak. Donghyuck and his childhood friends—Mark, Jeno, Jisung—were back in their hometown as they always did for every summer break. Jaemin was surfing somewhere at the other end of the country, in the northeast, and would show up sometime tomorrow. He was on a date. "I guess that's what happens when you confess your feelings," Jeno told Donghyuck with a smile and pats on the back.

Donghyuck wobbled his head for every word: "Yeah, and I'll be surfing alone." 

Jeno's eyebrows shot up then he squinted at Donghyuck, scratching the skin exposed by his low-cut muscle tee, as though too lazy to argue. Donghyuck leaned against the red-bricked wall of a mini convenience store.

They were in front of the store waiting for Mark and Jisung, facing a slightly curving road of more small family businesses: a stand with pastel-colored rice cakes in styrofoams; a seasoned crab restaurant with a stained tarpaulin ad; another restaurant with a beclouded seafood tank; a barber shop with wavering light pole. A stranger to their village wouldn't have thought their mini convenience store was a convenience store, or if it was even open, with its missing store sign, and hazy glass door and glass windows like murky waters. Since they were kids, they would play rock, paper, scissors before going into the store; the loser would buy them ice cream. Once, Donghyuck had bursted in, took five ice cream tubs, and told the auntie behind the counter to ask Mark for the payment. Mark, confused, paid for all five. As a punishment, Donghyuck had to buy Mark ice cream after school for a whole week.

They played rock, paper, scissors just a few seconds ago. Donghyuck and Mark were the remaining two but the game had dragged endlessly as they both kept throwing the same handsign. 

"Oh my god! I'm having goosebumps right now," Mark said, rubbing his arms. 

"How is that possible…" muttered Donghyuck, fist over his mouth.

When it was obvious that the game only had one possible outcome—a draw—Donghyuck suggested that the oldest should treat the younger ones instead. "Show of hands if you agree!" Donghyuck raised an arm in the air, followed by Jeno and Jisung. Mark stuttered in between chuckles, pointing a finger at Donghyuck, but in the end he acquiesced to the request. Jisung accompanied Mark inside. 

Donghyuck sighed at the subtle salty scent of the sea. Shedding the stale air from their one-hour flight from Seoul this morning, the sweet peach air freshener from the taxi. All five of them were attending universities in Seoul, although none of them go to the same school. They barely meet up, so they only had summers. This break, Mark would only be staying for a day, tomorrow noon he'd be gone for an internship interview back in Seoul. 

He heard Jeno's voice. "You're matching."

"What?" Donghyuck asked.

"You're matching. You and Mark hyung. Your clothes."

Mark was wearing a large white t-shirt and jersey shorts as black as his hair—like basalt—then a pair of white Nike running shoes. Donghyuck looked down at his dark grey tie dye shirt, hanging loosely over his shoulders, then at his white shorts and white socks and white Adidas. "We're not—" He groaned. "Stop."

"It kinda is if you look at it," Jeno said.

"Nope." Donghyuck violently shook his head.

"So…are you finally going to confess today?" 

Donghyuck whined and tossed his head backwards. He blinked at the overhead cables forming a V across the sky like clock hands, the minute hand catching up to the hour hand. If he were to try to confess today, it would be his fourth attempt. He had chickened out three times. Three times meant three summer breaks. Donghyuck faced forward and said, "Am I finally going to be rejected today?"

"Eh? Here you go again." Two summers ago, Jeno had accidentally found out about Donghyuck's feelings for Mark when a drunk Donghyuck spoke to the seagulls at the beach about his attempted confessions and envisioned rejection. 

Donghyuck lifted his weight from the wall and began shuffling his feet. "What?" he said. "It is one of the possibilities. That I'd get rejected."

"You don't know if you're going to be rejected or not," Jeno said. "The only reality we know is that you haven't confessed yet." Jeno playfully twisted a middle knuckle onto Donghyuck's temple, and Donghyuck theatrically winced. 

Then Donghyuck asked, "But do you think he's attracted to guys?" 

Jeno shrugged.

"Should I confess under the Pink Moon?"

"Oh! Good idea," said Jeno, patting him on the shoulder.

"Okay! I'm gonna start associating pink with rejection now!"

Jeno gaped at him. 

Donghyuck giggled. "I'm kidding." 

A group of kids and the slapping of their slippers scampered past them. "Watch where you're going!" yelled the auntie perched on a plastic stool next to the rice cake stand. When she noticed Donghyuck and Jeno watching, she explained, "They knocked over a fruit stand before because their eyes were somewhere else." The auntie looked away and fanned herself with what looked like a brochure.

Just then, the convenience store door tinkled open and out stepped Mark and Jisung with one strawberry ice cream cone in each hand. "Because the moon's going to be pink today…" Jisung said as he handed one cone to Jeno. 

Mark gave Donghyuck an ice cream, to which Donghyuck immediately responded with a chirpy voice. "Thank you, hyung! You're the best!"

Mark huffed and shook his head.

They walked towards the stairway.

🌊

Their village throned on a hill facing the port, and with a little head turn to the left, the beach and the lighthouse. Most of the small bussineses bustled on the foot of the hill. But above was where most residents lived, and the stairway led towards it. 

The stairway was wide like the horizon, could fit a row of seven people at most. At the bottom, it was framed by the mini convenience store to its right, and another crab restaurant to its left where, during high school, Donghyuck would break crabs with his hands for Mark, pick the meat and drop them on Mark's plate. Overhead cables slanted above the stairway like sun rays, and rising alongside the stairs were lush crowns of trees. At the top of the stairs, the village opened with a mini park with few street food stalls canopied by trees, then the village gradually stretched into limbs of slightly sloping roads and winding alleys. Houses after houses. Closer to the sky. 

They climbed the stairs. Mark and Jeno were ahead of Donghyuck and Jisung, and Jisung repeatedly expressed his excitement for the Pink Moon on their way. 

"I'm really really excited to see the moon tonight," Jisung said after one lick on his ice cream. "Where's the best place to see it? At the top of the stairs or at a rooftop…"

Donghyuck only hummed, distracted by Mark a few steps in front of him, at Mark's arm swaying on his side like a boat bobbing into the horizon, at Mark's feet plopping down on each step, going higher and farther away from Donghyuck.

The stairway had sixty steps. The sixty steps were divided into twenty steps then a landing, twenty steps, landing, twenty then the top. Along this stairway the five of them used to hold two kinds of races: the morning race and the random race. The morning one was racing from the top to the bottom, and was only done on days they were getting late for school. First period, and they would already be swimming in their own sweat. The random one was always decided on a whim, racing from the bottom to the top. Usually, the winner was either Mark or Jeno, depending on who was the day's most competitive. Donghyuck and Jisung would battle for third place. Jaemin never participated in the latter and was always spared from an auntie's scolding.

Donghyuck had tripped once. As he was lagging behind Mark, he looked up and was suddenly fastened on Mark and the soles of his shoes, his calves, his swinging arms, and was then had felt the desire to catch up to him, or perhaps catch him, not even to defeat him and win the race. Like uselessly casting a fishing rod into the water at night, to snatch a flitting moonlight, or to seize the whole moon. Then he tripped. He could not recall if he had yelped and Mark heard, or Mark just coincidently decided to glance over his shoulder, but Mark saw him either way.

"Oh shit," Mark muttered, rushing down towards him. "Dude, you okay?" Mark held his arm. "You fucking scared me." But Donghyuck yanked his arm away and started sprinting up the stairs.

"Wait, what the fuck!" 

"I bet a lot of people are gonna gather here at the stairs tonight," Jisung was saying. "To see the moon go pink." Donghyuck heard the crack of an ice cream cone. Jisung added, "But the moon has always been here…Why don't people pay attention to it? I think the moon was like, maybe if I go bolder one night people might notice—Oh my, oh my. Hyung, hyung, your ice cream."

"Fuck." The ice cream was melting everywhere. Donghyuck caught every sticky drip before it could touch his skin, rotating and rotating the cone. The ice cream flowed like lava.

Jisung clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "Time is ticking, hyung," he said. 

Donghyuck snapped his head towards Jisung. "What do you mean?" 

"Huh? I mean, time is ticking, which means the ice cream's gonna melt," Jisung replied. He nodded and took a large bite from the cone. 

Donghyuck ate the ice cream as fast as he could until only the cone remained, with the rest of the melted ice cream a viscous pink lake inside of it. He peered heavenward, suddenly wondering about surging so high until the crest of his waves poke the sky open, reavealing something, anything. Jeno turned his head and glanced at him. 

Donghyuck glared. "You wanna fight?" he shouted.

Jeno paused, spun, and took a step downwards, pointing a finger at Donghyuck. Donghyuck dipped his head forward in a bow. "Sorry!" he yelled. He knew what Jeno meant. 

Donghyuck and Jisung had already finished their ice cream cones when they reached the top. They were greeted by the smoky smell of grilled eel from one of the food stalls, and by Mark and Jeno waiting for them, who were both looking straight ahead over the concrete guardrail that stood just above their waists. Jisung stopped beside Jeno and obviously marveled at the view of the sea, the port, the grey image of a distant mountain and low-rise buildings. Jisung said, "Ah…imagine the moon's reflection on the ocean when it turned pink. They're going to look the same." He laid his hands on both cheeks then added, "Flushed." 

Under the four p.m. sky, the ocean glistened in grey, white, and pale blue, and Donghyuck thought it resembled a mackerel. He'd love to see the ocean with rosy cheeks. Donghyuck poked Jeno on the nape. Jeno looked over his shoulder. Donghyuck raised his eyebrows and darted his eyes from Jisung to Jeno, Jisung to Jeno, then pointed a thumb at the mini park behind him.

Jeno's mouth widened then he said, "I think I want some grilled eel." He grabbed Jisung by the elbow. "Jisung, I think they have carp bread over there."

"Carp bread in the summer?" Jisung's eyes brightened.

Jeno gave a shrug. "Why not." 

Mark turned around and watched Jeno dragged Jisung away. "They're selling carp bread today?" he wondered aloud. Crown of trees peeked behind the guardrail, and Mark's bangs wavered with their leaves in the subtle breeze. 

"Hyung," Donghyuck said

"Yeah?" Mark looked at him.

"Hyung," Donghyuck repeated.

"What's up?"

"Hyung."

Mark laughed. "What!"

Behind Mark the world shrank: fishing vessels at the port and vehicles on the road could be picked up in between the index finger and the thumb, the ocean and the faraway mountain held on the palm. Donghyuck was as small. He managed to say, "Let's meet here before sunset." His eyes roamed around even though everything was just the vastness of the sky. "Maybe…around seven?" He shrugged, to fling the nerves out of him. 

"Oh. Are we gonna watch the Pink Moon here?" Mark asked. 

Donghyuck shook his head, and then nodded. "Yeah? I guess. But it's just the two of us." 

"Why, why, why?" Mark squinted. "Dude, are you gonna prank me?"

"No!"

"I swear to god if you prank me—"

"I just said no!" Donghyuck interrupted. "I'm not gonna prank you."

They stared at each other for a quiet moment. Donghyuck could imagine his eyes as the ocean capturing everything overhead onto its mirror and overhead was just the exposed universe and the exposed universe was just Mark. 

"You look so serious right now," Mark said. "You're actually kinda scaring me. But okay. Alright. 7 p.m. Here."

"Thank you."

"But oh my god dude, if you end up pranking me—"

🌊

The combined length of every coastline there was in the Earth, that was how long Donghyuck had had feelings for Mark, and half of it (or more than half of it) was all of the time he had wasted escaping a confession, like he was swimming and swimming away from the shore. 

Donghyuck was in middle school when he had grown a habit of waiting in front of Mark's house whenever he wanted to hang out, or just to see him. He would peer over the front wall on tiptoes. He would act as a salesman selling ridiculous products he would come up with on the spot because Mark found them funny. He would recite dialogues and voice overs from the commercials he could hear from inside, while bending down to examine the flowering shrubs by the front wall that Mark was proud of. He had memorized the shapes of the rust on the tall iron gate. When the gate would squeak open, Mark would be greeted by Donghyuck's high-pitched "Hyung!" Then Donghyuck would tease Mark about his underwear drying along the clothesline. And Mark would chase him. Donghyuck waited for Mark until he did not need to go on tiptoes.

In high school, Donghyuck had started wondering if he was ever obvious. Whenever they weren't together, Donghyuck would text Mark to say: you remind me of the guy on that mural on that alley; of the black and white cat I saw at the stairs; of the flower at the mini park; of the moonbeam . He would willingly trade any food or drink with Mark if Mark ended up disliking what he had bought. He would drop anything to teach Mark anything: how to prepare raw squid soup, how to swim backstroke, how to talk to the seagulls so Mark's eyebrows could find their family and be reunited with them (Mark had laughed way too hard that day that his skin was glittered with sand). 

After school, they would often stop by in front of Jaemin's house because the alley was quieter and closer to the sky, and their only neighbor was a wall that was tall, thick, and tilted. Jaemin would bring out the smallest trash bin and they'd line up a few feet away from it, drink Yakult and throw its empty bottle into the bin. First to make three successful shots could stop drinking, squat on the sloping ground, and just watch and laugh. 

"Oh my god, I can't take it anymore!" Mark would often exclaim, flailing his arms, stomping his feet. And Donghyuck would always take the Yakult from his hand, ready to gulp down limitless bottles for him.

The day Mark was to leave for college before the four of them, on top of the stairs Donghyuck had said, "Hyung, give me your hand." They held hands and stepped sideways away from each other. The distance between them: the length of their stretched arms. They carefully descended the stairs, not letting go. Mark giggled. "Dude, I don't know what we're doing but—"

Donghyuck's feelings for Mark was almost as old as their friendship. It was as though it would not be washed away any time soon—it was neither the tracings on the sand nor a sandcastle, but the sand itself, always there, could never be grasped nor splashed away. Donghyuck had to look back at the shore and the length of its line, and to surf on his own waves that would take him higher, higher, higher. 

🌊

Now the world was sprinkled in golden sand and the sun was a bucket of sand spilling its contents and Donghyuck had been hiding behind the side of the house at the corner. It was seven in the evening. It was a few minutes before the rush of pink on the skin of the moon, three hours before its full bloom. Mark was already by the stairs. Once more, Donghyuck peeked over the unpainted wall, eyes traveling along the endless length of the road and the concrete guardrail until they landed on Mark's restless Nike shoes. 

People had gathered around the mini park and the guardrail. Donghyuck recognized the kids he and Jeno had seen this afternoon, eating ice cream on a carp bread. They were facing the park, not the sky, as though they were there just for the carp bread, not the Pink Moon like most of those who were there. Mark began shuffling his feet. Then he rubbed his chest. Donghyuck looked away, leaned against the wall, and placed a hand over his own chest. He breathed in, breathed out. An earthquake inside of him.

Donghyuck's eyes roamed about. At the falling, curving road ahead of him; at the house across enclosed with mossed wall; at the power lines and roofs; at the inviting, open sky; at the road to his right, sloping upwards. Donghyuck could call Mark minutes later and tell him it was a prank. That he should leave the stairs and come over Jisung's house where they'd see a better view of the Pink Moon at the rooftop. It was a prank. That he fell for it. Prank. Donghyuck groaned. He turned to his right and trudged up the road. 

A TV murmured from one of the houses. The houses, the road, the poles, the walls, the white car parked in front of a house were all sallow under the spilling sun. Like a dried yellow corvina. Covering his eyes, Donghyuck hung his head backwards, dragging his feet as if the road was steep when it never was. He would be rejected. Then it would be awkward between them. Then their friendship would crash into pieces, the debris left in every corner of this village. Donghyuck shook his head and held his breath, wanting to squeal. Head still bent backwards, Donghyuck dropped his hand and opened his eyes. He stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked once, twice, thrice. "The fuck?"

The sky was the color of purple rice. 

Suddenly a streak of gold sped across the sky. Then another one. And another. And another. A meteor shower. Donghyuck spun, hesitated, then walked with wider steps, "What the fuck, what the fuck," under his breath. He turned around the corner then jogged towards the stairs—purple, yellow, pink in his peripheral, a pink globe overfilling the space at the corner of his eye. Donghyuck refused to look yet. He slowed down when he couldn't find Mark, when he noticed the kids lining up by the grilled eel stand under a tree, ice cream on a carp bread still in their hands, as though nothing had changed around them. 

It seemed like it was supposed to be nighttime but it wasn't as dark—everything was doused in glowing pink and flickering gold. Donghyuck paused right at the top of the stairs. He looked down at the foot of the hill. People were coming home to their village, passing through the arched entrance, walking casually along the cobblestone path leading to the stairway. There were those who were going in and out of the crab restaurant; climbing the stairs holding ice cream cones from the mini convenience store, rice cakes from the auntie's stand. None of them had their heads heavenward to see what was going on with the sky. On the wide open road, private cars and village buses and semi-trailer trucks smoothly rushed by. Nobody had stepped on the brakes, rolled down their windows, and gaped at the sky. Donghyuck took a deep breath. Then finally allowed himself to get a good look. 

Donghyuck gasped. Goosebumps creeped all over him. He hugged himself. The moon was massive. Heavy against the sky, nudging the horizon. One poke by the masts of fishing boats at the port and the moon would burst and drown the world in bright sea star pink. There were no stars. Only blaze of meteors. The moon illuminated everything underneath. The purple sea blushed in pink. 

"Donghyuck?"

Donghyuck whipped his head to the right.

Mark. He recognized that voice at an instant, but he could not recognize who was in front of him for the first few seconds. Mark was still in his white tee, black jersey shorts, white Nikes. Same seagull eyebrows raised. Expectant gaze. But his hair—it was as pink as the moon. Its color not caused by the moonlight. It was pink on its own. 

"Where have you been?" Mark asked.

Donghyuck's mouth opened. Then closed. Opened. Closed. Like that of a fish. 

Mark spoke again. "Were you running away from me?"

"What." Donghyuck managed to croak out. 

"I don't know, man, but I feel like…I feel like you've been running away from me." Mark wandered his fingers across his pink hair. Donghyuck watched as though it was in slow motion, wanting to rove his own fingers through it to discover something, anything. 

Donghyuck awkwardly, forcibly chuckled. He was about to say, "The hell are you saying?" or perhaps a joke if he could immediately come up with one, but then he saw an object so large and dark darting from afar, emerging from the corner. He peered over Mark's shoulder to properly see, and then instantly stiffened when he found, a monstrous rock rolling down the road, scraping the concrete guardrail, quickly coming after them. Donghyuck slapped Mark on the arm and pointed behind him. 

"What?" Mark turned. "Holy shit—" 

Suppressing a squeak, Donghyuck swiftly grabbed Mark's wrist, and together they hurried down the stairs, grunting a series of what the fuck s and oh my god s, their feet drumming on the steps in sync. Donghyuck checked over his shoulder. The glossy boulder—a debris, a meteorite?—was already at the top of the stairs, about to topple over. Donghyuck finally let out a squeal. He snapped his head forward, and all of a sudden everything was bright and blowy and instead of Mark's wrist, he was gripping a handlebar in both hands and he was pedaling a bicycle hard. "The fuck!" His feet faltered, and he wobbled and wobbled, until he resumed his pedaling right away, finding his balance. 

Mark cycled beside him. His bright pink hair fidgeted in the salty wind. Before them, the sky expanded into a pale, greyish purple firmament with a glowing white sun and a giant pink moon. On Mark's side: the port and its flashing waters, fishing vessels and their towering masts; faraway hills with layered houses. On Donghyuck's side, a row of restaurants with similar-looking giant crabs perched above each restaurant's signboard, then tanks of crabs by the entrance. There was supposed to be a wide two-way road and a park between the restaurants and the port, at least in Donghyuck's and black haired Mark's world, but somehow, it made sense that they were this close.

Donghyuck threw a quick glance behind him. The meteorite—Donghyuck would like to call it a meteorite—was hurtling towards them. 

"Mom!" Donghyuck yelled. He pedaled harder. 

"Donghyuck!" Mark called and caught up to him. "Donghyuck. Honestly, honestly, I've been running away!"

"What!"

"Remember, remember last summer? When Jaemin was supposed to go with you to the seafood market but I volunteered to go with you instead?"

Mark wasn't looking straight ahead. But it did not matter because the road was never ending. His eyes were fixed on Donghyuck. Pink hair a mess. Donghyuck recalled the way Mark had fiddled with his shorts as he followed Donghyuck along the market, the way he kept giving his chest gentle slaps, the way he got even smaller whenever he had to bend down to study raw fish on styrofoams as Donghyuck explained how to know if a fish was freshly caught. "The fish won't think you're a bait and trap you in their mouth like you're a hook," Donghyuck said. "Relax! What are you even nervous about?" 

"Remember?" Mark was saying. 

Donghyuck nodded, flicking his bangs away from his eyes. "I remember! You said you wanted to learn how to carefully choose the best fish, squids, crabs, whatever, to buy. But you were so…I don't know. I even taught you how to respectfully haggle! But it's like you didn't learn a shit." 

"Actually! I wanted to be alone with you," Mark said. "But I couldn't say it. I really really couldn't say it. It's scary, you know?" 

"The fuck are you saying!"

"Risks! Rejection! Confessing!" 

Donghyuck squeezed the brakes. Dipped sideways, one foot on the ground. A colony of gulls rose towards the sky, and then Mark stopped ahead of him. This Mark. This was still the same Mark. As expressive as the weather. No brain to mouth filter most of the time. But the difference was in the unfiltered words that had been flowing out of his mouth right now. Mark turned his head and their eyes met and trapped the hooks of each other's gazes. 

Donghyuck asked softly, "What do you mean?" 

Mark's hair melted onto his skin: ears and cheeks stained pink. He avoided Donghyuck's eyes. "You know what I mean." 

Donghyuck's whole body was burning up. A bubble of magma inside of him. He felt the corners of his lips lifting, and so he lowered his head and sucked his lips into his mouth and covered his mouth with a fist. He knew the pink on Mark's hair and skin was reflecting onto him. 

"Oh…the giant rock's gone," Mark said. "I didn't notice."

Donghyuck raised his head and did not bother to confirm that the meteorite had disappeared, when he saw a narrow passageway between the restaurants. He got off the bike. The restaurants were empty, except for the giant crabs above the signboards, and the real, living crabs clustered together inside the tanks. The tanks here were clearer than that of a certain restaurant in their village. 

"Um, shall we…" Mark mumbled, pointing at the passageway with a thumb, eyes darting everywhere but Donghyuck. He dismounted from the bike. 

Donghyuck shrugged and started walking the bicycle. 

They entered the passageway. 

🌊

The passageway was seaweed thin that they had to go through it in a single file: Mark and his bike first, then Donghyuck. They passed with bowed heads and narrowed eyes. It was bursting in blinding light, impossible to make out what was at the other end. In Donghyuck's world where the moon was not a supersize pink, there would be no passageway, and if there was, at the other end, Donghyuck would expect an alley facing the back of each restaurant. 

But when they reached the end, the bicycle poofed into thin air, and Donghyuck blinked and blinked to adjust his eyes. The sky swelled in the same faded purple, with sun like golden jellyfish next to a formidable pink moon, and all of their colors combined and coated everything underneath in a peach complexion. But Mark's hair was still glossed in hot pink. And he still could not look at Donghyuck in the eyes. 

To their right were patches of roofs after roofs and crowns of trees. Going down and down and down. Overhead cables paralleled the road Donghyuck and Mark were standing onto. They were in their village. On Mark's street. To their left was Mark's house. The rusty black iron gate and the concrete front wall. The shrubs with flowers that matched the blue of the tin roof. The gates swung open. And then out stepped another Mark. Black haired, much younger Mark. In his red snapback. 

"Holy fuck…" Donghyuck muttered. 

Younger Mark stayed in front of the house. He kept craning his neck, until a younger Donghyuck came skipping from a corner, calling, "Hyung!" 

"Have you been waiting for me?" younger Donghyuck asked. 

"No."

"Aww, you waited for me. Hyung must have really liked hanging out with me, huh!" 

Younger Mark scoffed. "Let's just go…"

Donghyuck and pink haired Mark followed them closely. 

Younger Donghyuck started dancing on their way down the road, and younger Mark, trailing behind, watched him with a small smile, which he hastily turned into a scowl the moment Donghyuck briefly turned around to ask him to dance along. Eventually, younger Donghyuck began walking next to younger Mark, poking and poking Mark on the shoulder a few times before joking, "It's not me! I wasn't the one who poked you!" Younger Mark shrugged and grimaced, but when he faced the other way, he smiled so wide, as wide as the sky and the ocean combined.

Donghyuck remembered that day: just Mark letting Donghyuck do and get whatever he wanted. Mouth some lyrics and Mark would guess the song. Prank Jeno, Jaemin, Jisung by texting them they were in front of their house when they weren't. Play I spy with my little eye. Play at the now-closed arcade on the foot of the hill, Mark getting swatted on the back of his hand for losing most of the time. Play with Mark's hands. Behind Donghyuck, pink haired Mark had his head hung low, rubbing the back of his neck. 

"You're so cute…" Donghyuck mumbled. Out of habit, he stroked Mark's pink hair, and then immediately removed his hands, fingers curling into a fist, digging into his palm, feeling how real everything was that he could strum the strands of Mark's hair and it could whisper music and secrets like seashells. 

Their younger selves disappeared around a corner. They went after them. 

Now Donghyuck was not as surprised as before. In his world with a coin-sized moon, Donghyuck had always seen these places far from each other, but right here they intertwined like pining fingers, as if they could not take the distance anymore. It would typically take them around five minutes and five alleys to reach this place from Mark's house, but this time they only needed to turn around a corner. At the corner stood a mural, the whole wall painted in sky blue, a guy with seagull eyebrows swimming. The wall ended with a short flight of stairs, around seven steps, leading to more houses, one of them was where Donghyuck lived. 

"What the hell," muttered Donghyuck.

Mark, Jeno, Jaemin, and Jisung were perched on the stairs in their high school uniforms, the summer one, white short-sleeved shirt, wrinkled and whipping in the wind. Houses and trees and overhead cables rose above them with the huge pink moon as if the pink moon had belonged there ever since. Everything was now soaked in the color of coral. 

High school Mark spoke, "Donghyuck is so good in cooking. Like really really good." He bumped his knee against Jeno's. "Dude, his lunch awhile ago? Wow."

"Are you bragging about Donghyuck again while Donghyuck is gone," Jeno said with a smile. 

Jisung squinted at the crown of Mark's head. "Last time, Mark hyung praised Donghyuck hyung's dancing," he said. "Then his gaming skills that I think is not even worth bragging about." 

"I was shocked when he suddenly said out of nowhere that Donghyuck has pretty legs." Jeno leaned closer to Mark and stared with a thin smile, resembling a stingray.

Jaemin, who was behind Jeno, moved closer as well, breaking into a song right into Mark's ear, " Falalalalalalala… " 

"Okay!" Mark yelled. He rubbed his ears, a glowing pink peeking through. "But seriously! Seriously! Seriously, though," he said. "I feel like his cooking is my fave. I mean, like, doesn't everybody know how good he is?" 

"Yeah. But I think I prefer Doyoung hyung's cooking," replied Jisung.

Jaemin gasped. "How about mine? I always cook for you?"

Jisung leaned away and made a face.

"Didn't you know. About all the love I pour out. Every time I cook for you. Has all my love been put to waste?" complained Jaemin. 

Jisung waved a hand. "Hyung, stop exaggerating."

"How much love does Donghyuck give every time he cooks for Mark hyung…" Jeno teased.

Mark cringed with his whole body. "Oh my god…" 

Then Jaemin muttered, "That's a different love." 

"What." Mark gaped at Jaemin. "What, what, what, dude, what the hell—"

"Can everybody stop exaggerating." Jisung scowled.

"I'm actually just saying things," mumbled Jaemin.

Just then, high school Donghyuck finally showed up above them, in a black tee under his open uniform, and then shouted, "Let's go!" He jogged down the stairs, but paused at the third step, bended forward, then swung his arms. 

Mark stood up. "Wait, wait, hold on—" 

Donghyuck jumped over four steps.

"Oh my fucking—" Mark grunted. "What if you twist your ankle like you almost did before?"

In response, Donghyuck winked and threw finger guns at Mark, who had his mouth open and hand over his heart. As the others were standing up, brushing the buttocks of their trousers, Donghyuck wandered near the wall and pointed at the swimming guy on the mural. "Mark hyung, you know how to swim?" he joked. "Where are you heading to?" 

In reality, Donghyuck had only heard Jeno's joke that he could not recall at the present, and so his high school self puffed out his chest and pretended to challenge Jeno in a fight. But right now Donghyuck caught loud and clear, high school Mark mumbling, "To you." Back then he was too focused on making the others laugh, lifting his chin up, slamming his fists onto his chest, that he had failed to notice Mark's silent "Cute," Mark caressing the back of his head, Mark's fond gaze. 

Pink haired Mark at the moment was hiding his face in his palms. And Donghyuck could not even tease him. In front of them, the Pink Moon was so immense that it almost boosted itself into a sky, blazing its presence to the world, as though begging the world to look at it. Donghyuck and pink haired Mark stayed rooted in place. Their high school versions walked past them. 

Then a drip, drip, drip echoed. Before Donghyuck could locate where it was, the drip turned into a sudden splash. Then he saw. The blue on the mural spilled from the wall and streamed into real water, sneaking towards Donghyuck's feet. As soon as the water reached the outsole of his Adidas, Donghyuck raised a leg, blinked, and then it was dark. 

🌊

At first, Donghyuck heard the slap of waves. Then he felt the stroke of wind. Then a beam of light stretched with motes of dusts like stars, but there were still no stars in the sky. Something red towered over him. The lighthouse. He was on a breakwater. The sky was vast and breathless. No stars, not even a meteor shower. No pink moon. 

Donghyuck spun around. The breakwater was horizonless, the light could not touch its end. Narrow and unknown like the ocean trenches. He called, "Mark hyung!" 

Waves smacked and Donghyuck flinched. "Mark hyung!" he called again. He felt the pockets of his shorts but it only flattened against his skin. No cellphone. He did not even know if he ever had a cellphone with him. 

Donghyuck ran away from the lighthouse and towards the possible end of the breakwater. He continued crying out Mark's name under his breath, the waves roaring with him. He ran and ran and looked up at the sky, wishing the stars would come back. He longed for the moon. He did not need the light from the lighthouse—he yearned for a moonbeam. 

Something pink bobbed up against the dark. Donghyuck quickened his pace with an unwavering gaze, eventually making out a figure. White tee. White shoes. Mark. Pink haired Mark running. 

"Mark hyung!" Donghyuck yelled but Mark kept going.

Upon reaching the end of the light, Donghyuck squeezed his eyes shut and sprinted straight ahead in complete darkness. Gradually, murmurs rose, along with other sounds he was too tired to guess. He opened his eyes and stopped dead in his tracks when he found himself back in their village, at the foot of the hill. People buzzed along the road. Lampposts and store lights illuminated the way in yellow. Peering heavenward, Donghyuck saw overhead cables paralleled to the road, instead of forming a V. The sky was a dark purple, with faint flitting meteors. 

Donghyuck walked briskly along the road. He grazed people, dodged people. He walked past the barber shop, that now had a light pole that worked: bright red, blue, white, swirling smoothly. He walked past the restaurant with a seafood tank outside, now transparent, the fish were visible, floating in their iridescence. Then the crab restaurant with a newly printed tarpaulin ad, its words glowed. Then the rice cake stand with race cakes as colorful as underwater corals, rice cakes that shone in their fluffiness. The mini convenience store, now with a proper signboard, its glass doors and glass windows cloudless. Inside Donghyuck could see the shelves and customers holding strawberry ice cream cones. He was still in this strange, different world  but everything was clear now. Everything was clear. 

Donghyuck headed towards the stairway. Immediately, he rushed upstairs, skipped a few steps. He wasn't racing with his friends, but he was racing against time. It did not take him long to finish all sixty steps. When he reached the top, he searched at the park for a pink, but the only pink he stumbled upon were the strawberry ice creams. "Mark hyung…" he mumbled desperately, roaming his eyes around the trees shrouding the park.  

The grilled eel stall was still open. "We'll close at exactly 10 p.m.," the uncle behind the stall told a customer. The customer checked her wrist watch. "A few seconds from now?"

Three hours had passed?

Donghyuck turned around. 

The sky was a dark blue, almost black. Artificial lights sparked and sank themselves into the waters, the sea accepting them all on its surface. From afar, spots of lights from low-rise buildings. There were stars. Twinkling in white, scattered. And then there was the moon. Moon brushed with pink. Clouds dancing around it. But its size. Donghyuck could fit it around his pinky, and he could curl his pinky around it like a promise. He was back.

"Donghyuck?"

Donghyuck almost jumped.

There by the top of the stairs, was Mark. Black haired Mark. Donghyuck was as frozen as sea ice. He was both fastened on the ground and also floating away. He could crack and liquefy in front of Mark right here, sink and camouflage in the water. But he did not want to hide anymore. His tide was being pulled. And so he took a step forward, and forward, and then another until he reached Mark, and then he blurted out, "I have something to tell you."

"Me too..." Mark said. He pointed at the stairs. "Um. Let's take a seat?" 

They sat on the first step, on one side of the stairway. The distance between them: their palms next to each other.

"You go first. You're the oldest," said Donghyuck, looking straight ahead.

"Dude, you first."

"No. You."

"Come on."

"Okay. How about rock, paper, scissors?" 

"Alright, alright."

And so they did play.

First throw, they both did scissors.

Second, they both did rock.

Third, they both did scissors again.

"What the fuck..." Mark mumbled. 

"Why is this sort of scaring me..." Donghyuck said. "Let's just say it at the same time?"

"I feel like we're not gonna understand each other but okay. Alright."

They counted together.

One.

Two.

Three.

"I'm in love with you."

"I'm in love with you."

Donghyuck held his breath. Mark whispered, "Oh my god, oh my god, what the fuck." And then silence lingered louder between them, louder than the chatters of the people, the camera shutters, feet on the steps. 

Mark tapped and tapped his foot on the steps, and then finally, spoke first, "Um. You know, you know. Every time we're not together, which is like, almost every day since we started college." Mark chuckled. "Um. Anywhere I go, I'd always catch myself thinking something like, what if Donghyuck's here with me right now. What would he do, what would he say. I bet he'd do this, he'd say that. Blah, blah. I wish he's here. And it's one of those times where I finally admitted to myself that, holy shit, I'm in love with my best friend." Mark turned to Donghyuck, who instantly closed his wide eyes and faked a yawn.

Mark laughed and pushed Donghyuck, who exaggerated a wince. But then Mark slid closer, and linked their pinkies together. And Donghyuck was melting, melting until he could flood this whole town. He knew they were both pinker than the moon right now. Cheeks hurt from fighting a smile. Cheeks blushing.

"The moon looks nice," Mark awkwardly said. And Donghyuck giggled. "Pink," Mark added.

They both giggled.

"I know you've dyed your hair brown before," said Mark. "But have you ever thought of pink? Purple? Purplish pink? I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I think I've imagined it. Like. Just awhile ago. Felt real, though."

Donghyuck whipped his head. "What."

"What?" Mark asked.

"Hyung."

"What?"

"Hyung."

"What?" 

"Hyung..."