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Why don’t I have wings?
On a random night like any else, Mark finds himself in a Sector 7 bar slash club, in a mass of bodies swaying to a bittersweet song about forgetting and remembering, and the perfectly plucked bass strings reverberate in his ears like they’re trying to etch themselves into the back of his head.
He’s standing amidst the grime and sweat of the common folk, pressed chest-to-back to a complete stranger, and his eyes find the object of all his dreams personified up on stage, swaying to a song so painfully sweet as he croons the words into the mic.
Up there is Haechan, with his unruly hair and dark attire, with this ruffled look on him that makes Mark’s heart ache. He wants to tame his mane with shaky fingers, and wants to rub at the smudged kohl right beneath his eyes.
Their eyes meet, and with a twinkle of pleasant recognition in his eyes, Haechan shoots him a devastatingly handsome smile, and his previously tight grip on the microphone loosens as he leans backwards, letting the base and the drums take over for a while.
There’s sweat beading at his neck, smudging the makeup there, and his hair curls into his neck. Mark wants to run his hands through it and feel its softness. It’s familiarity, grounding him.
Haechan brings the microphone closer once again, and sings out his heart and feelings as Mark and dozens of others watch him, entranced. He loses himself in the melody, the pleading of his lyrics, as he ponders why he can’t grow the wings he so desperately wants, and fly like the wind, like the clouds, high up in the sky. The jewellery dangling from his ears catches the foggy light and Mark thinks they look like the stars you can see outside of Hayashi City. Like the constellations Haechan holds trapped in his eyes when Mark takes the time and looks at them, properly.
His chorus ends, and it’s back to the haunting melody of a keyboard and the chasing beat of the drums, and Haechan loses himself in erratic movements up on stage, clutching his heart as he stumbles this way and that, ecstatic in the way he winds his body and tugs at his hair, lost in the emotions the song carries so effortlessly.
The song is different from their usual spiteful anti-IPA paroles, much more bitter and hopeful at the same time, and much more personal in a way that haunts Mark’s dreams at night.
Mark gapes at Haechan up on the stage, because there’s no way he couldn’t, and gets elbowed in the ribs, lightly. He turns around, and finds some stranger grinning at him knowingly. “He’s amazing, isn’t he?”
It’s surprising Mark finds the energy to nod, because yeah, Donghyuck is amazing, but in so many more ways than that.
The song fizzles out after the last chorus Haechan belts out with so much emotion in his voice it’s haunting, and he drags his hand through his sweat-slicked hair and whips it backwards. He’s smiling happily, high on his performance and the screams of the crowd, but his eyes find Marks, further back, at the edge of the crowd, and they twinkle with a very different kind of happiness, one that’s a much softer warmth than the heat performing brings.
They continue staring at each other when Yuta darts on the stage hurriedly, and whispers something into Haechan’s ear. His smile fades for a second as he listens with concentration, then it’s back, giddy as he laughs far enough from the microphone that the crowd can’t hear. Mark still can, because that laugh has been ingrained into his memory with utmost care and precision.
Haechan raises the mic back to his mouth, letting his eyes run over the crowd once before settling on Mark with finality. “Yuta-hyung just told me to evacuate,” he drawls into the mic, and Mark finds his speaking voice just as enticing as the way he sings. “The cops are on their way.”
With a mirthful smile, he puts the mic back into its holder and ruffles his hair one last time, before Mark darts forward to meet him backstage just as Haechan disappears behind the curtain and leaves the crowd to scramble outside.
Backstage is stuffy and smells like smoke, but it’s a diluted form of the actual mainroom. With the outside shut away, Donghyuck’s presence fills the room in its entirety, despite his bandmates being around. He’s shrugging on his jacket when Mark barges in, and greets him with a sly, “Hi, Markie.”
“Hi guys, hi Hyuck,” Mark offers breathlessly, and it coaxes a giggle out of Donghyuck’s lips that’s much more youthful and, well, innocent than anything his performance might suggest.
Hyuck downs a glass of murky brown liquid, like Sector 7 moonshine, Marks brain helpfully supplies, before he grabs Mark’s wrist and drags him out of the backroom just in time with a loud bang and shouts coming from the entrance of the bar. “Great show!” Mark manages to throw over his shoulder, and catches Donghyuck’s bandmates looking at him fondly.
Donghyuck drags him up a flight of stairs, and breathes out directions despite Mark knowing the escape route like the back of his hand. In no time, they’re in the dingy and run-down hallway upstairs, and Donghyuck heaves open a dirty window for him to climb through.
Mark goes first, then holds open the window for Donghyuck to crawl through. Up on the neighbouring house’s roof, they allow themselves a moment to catch their breaths. Cautiously, Mark takes a peek over the ledge, and finds a whole troop of policemen downstairs, wrestling with a bunch of clubbers that didn’t escape fast enough. He doesn’t recognise anyone as Johnny, Jaehyun, Ten or Taeyong, and lets out a relieved sigh.
He turns around, and just as he wants to tell Donghyuck their friends are all fine, the man has his hands on either side of Mark’s face and holds his head in place as his lips come crashing down.
It’s heated, and hurried, but also strangely sweet, judging by the circles Donghyuck draws onto Mark’s cheekbones. Mark gets it, and wraps his arms around Donghyuck’s waist just as eagerly. They haven’t seen each other in a week or two, and that’s too long a time for the both of them.
He tastes the moonshine on Donghyuck’s lips, and it’s probably not the drink.
They pull apart, chests heaving erratically from both running and kissing as the vile Sector 7 air pulls at their hair and ruffles Mark’s shirt. Donghyuck grins at him, and Mark can’t say much other than, “You were great tonight,” and “I missed you.”
Donghyuck smiles, dazzlingly, and pulls away from him, interlinking their fingers instead. “Come,” he says over the wind and the sirens, “let’s go home.”
Standing out
Keiter-9 is like any other planet of the Imperial Planetary Alliance, a shithole hiding beneath a false façade of glamour and royalty. Hayashi City is the perfect testimony, a reflection of the whole planet on a smaller scale, in the form of its biggest city.
You look at Sector 1 or 2 and you see innovation, new technologies and inventions and wealth and gluttony wherever you look, but once you’re past that and drift into the outskirts, it’s shit, and poor, and dirty, and something Mark has come to love.
He may work in some fancy IPA tech company in Sector 1, but his salary is nowhere near enough to pay for living space in that part of the city, so he settled for Sector 7, because it’s close enough not to be a hassle and cheap enough for him to afford. He’s peeking beneath the curtains of Hayashi City every goddamn day.
Mark has been living here for the better part of a month or two, and it’s gruff compared to his hometown, especially because he doesn’t look like he belongs, even though he does. Or, at least, he tries.
Night markets are common in Sector 7, and they work well enough with his job to drop by once a week or so, and stuff his face with fried food or stock up on meat and vegetables, because those are actually incredibly fresh and probably taste better than any of the pre-packaged fancy shit you can get in Sector 1 for double the money.
But he wears modest, bright clothes that aren’t dirtied by manual labour and his nails are clean and his fingers soft, so he stands out of the mass like a sore thumb and he really can’t help it. He looks like he has more money than he does, but in the end, he’s only being exploited as well.
“Three hundred for all,” the lady with the fresh veggies says, and last week it was three hundred fifty, so Mark figures it’s a good deal. He nods, and almost gives his verbal approval, when a hand clutches his shoulder and nudges him to the side a little bit.
“Auntie, you can’t be serious,” the boy, man? Whatever, says, with his lips pouting and his eyes blown wide. “You sold me much more for one hundred yesterday!”
And Mark, well, can’t help but stare. He’s tan, which is nothing unusual, and his hair is an unruly brown mop on his head, sticking up in some places and curling in others, and there’s grease smudged on his neck and on the hand that’s not hidden behind a leather glove, too, Mark realises upon further inspection. Dressed all in black, and a little dusty, with dangling silver earrings and a thin chain around his neck. He looks tough, like a proper street rat, and Mark stares at him dumbly, barely noticing the veggie lady waving his hand at the boy.
“If I had known he’s a friend of yours, I woulda given him a discount,” she says, looking almost apologetic.
Stiffly, Mark hands over the money, and the lady smiles at him much more warmly. “You should get some different clothes,” she adds, giving Mark the produce with a little wink in the other boy’s direction.
Mark mumbles something that could be a thanks, or a sorry, or something in between, when he grabs the bag and scratches his head, preparing for a confrontation with his, well, saviour?
The boy looks at him, really looks at him, eyes moving down, up, fingers roughing up his hair and ruffling up his clothes, before he shoots Mark a satisfied smile. To Mark, the touch is soothingly warm and lingers on his skin.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, “I’m Donghyuck.”
Donghyuck is the first person he properly meets in Hayashi City, and from thereon out, the city changes for him.
They stroll over the night market, and the neon lights do little to dim the golden tone of Donghyuck’s skin, Mark comes to find out that night. The twin moons of Keiter-9 are hidden behind the thick layer of smog and light pollution that settles over the city, but Mark realises he doesn’t miss them when he finds a sparkle in Donghyuck’s eyes that’s enough to put the Milky Way at shame.
“So,” Donghyuck says between a mouthful of fried synthetic chicken, “You’re obviously not from here.”
“Here as in Sector 7, or here as in Hayashi City?” Mark pushes to clarify.
Donghyuck waits a moment before he shrugs. “Both, I guess.”
Mark hums. “I moved here for work. I’m from the Earth, originally.”
Impressed, Donghyuck whistles. “From Earth, huh? That’s quite the flight.”
It is, and Mark tells him as much. “It’s the deep sleep that really wears you down,” he adds. “The hibernation.”
The way Donghyuck smiles at him makes Mark believe he knows all too well.
“What about you?” he finds himself asking when Donghyuck steals his last piece of chicken.
“I’m not from here, either,” he says, “but I’ve been here for so long it feels like I am.”
That night, Mark learns that Donghyuck is a space baby, born and raised on a station in the depth of the dark, black nothing that follows miles and miles after you’ve left the last solar system behind.
Mark doesn’t ask what brought Donghyuck to Keiter-9 in the end, and Donghyuck doesn’t tell.
“You want to grab a drink?” Donghyuck asks when they’ve completed their third round over the market, and Mark says yes, because he doesn’t have work the next day anyways, and something about Donghyuck pulls him in.
Like the stars, like the moon
Mark’s apartment is in a relatively shabby building that has wallpaper peeling off of its walls, and windows that fog up when it’s cold, and more cold water than warm. You can hear the public transport whirring by screeching and rattling every five minutes or so, and the plaster falls from the ceiling like snow whenever his neighbours from upstairs fight and stomp around.
He can hear every conversation from passersby on the street that’s a little louder, and most days it’s annoying, because he’s a light sleeper and hyper-focuses on every single noise he hears when he’s lying in bed at night.
It’s good, today, because he wouldn’t have picked up the strange whirring sound of a hoverbike and a familiar voice shouting his name if his house were any more insulated or soundproof than it is right now.
Because when Mark pulls himself up from his ratty beige couch and pops open a window to look down at the street, he sees Donghyuck standing there, in his usual attire, waving his whole arm excitedly once he spots Mark’s face.
Mark wants to yell at him, wants to ask what he’s doing outside his window with a hoverbike that’s clearly stolen, but when Donghyuck grins, childishly happy, and beckons for him to meet him downstairs, the nagging dies in his throat before it comes out and makes way for a warm feeling instead.
He shrugs on one of Donghyuck’s old jackets he left here last time, and rushes out of his apartment so quickly he almost forgets to bring his keys.
“What are you doing?” he still finds himself asking, and Donghyuck has the decency to look at least a little apologetic when the wind carries over the faint sound of police sirens.
“Felt like a good idea at the time,” is all Donghyuck says to explain, fiddling with the hair at the back of his head with his gloved hand. He goes back to looking mischievous so quickly it gives Mark whiplash.
“Hop on, pretty boy,” Donghyuck says, “I’m kidnapping you.”
Mark just rolls his eyes, but gets on anyways, because despite his nagging, he can’t ever seem to say no.
With his arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s midsection, tightly holding on with how erratic the boy’s driving, Mark feels safe and free and light, like the wind could pick him up any second and carry him up to the sky.
Sector 7 soon lies behind them, because the hoverbike is nothing if not fast, and the closer they get to the outskirts of the city, despite Donghyuck getting lost a couple of times, the more the smog seems to lift up, making way to the darkness of the night sky.
“It’s the new moon. Kinda,” Donghyuck yells over the wind, as if that explains anything.
It takes a while for Mark to understand, but once civilisation makes way for a more rural setting, he gets it. He throws his head into his neck, and stares, stares at the sky dusted with freckles of stars and foreign constellations he couldn’t possibly know, and Donghyuck must hear him gasp and must notice his hands clenching on his chest in awe, because he feels him laugh, softly, before they’re coming to a stop somewhere along the road, and Donghyuck kills the engine until it fizzles out with a metallic purr.
Mark’s legs feel like jelly when he gets up, and he’s frozen to the spot, looking at the night sky with childlike adoration. Donghyuck, ever the comforting presence, rests his hands on Mark’s shoulders and kneads them softly.
They lie down on their (Donghyuck’s) jackets, and count comets passing by, when Donghyuck speaks up.
“It reminds me of my mother,” he says. Mark squeezes his hand where it rests on his tummy. “Space was all around us. Whenever I looked at her, I saw this, too.”
Mark clutches his hand infinitely tighter and hopes it says I get it, because he does.
Donghyuck just offers him a watery smile.
“My mother loved space, my father always told me,” he mumbles, “She was a space child, too, you know. Tried settling down when she met my dad and had me, but she couldn’t. I don’t blame her for it.”
A beat of silence, and Mark feels Donghyuck’s eyes on him, brighter than any star could ever be.
“It’s freedom,” he adds in a whisper before he dares to meet Donghyuck’s eyes to witness the swell of emotion in them.
He’s beautiful, something in Mark’s head says, and his heart agrees the moment Donghyuck’s lips find his and something falls into place.
Now, we’re together
Mark’s apartment smells burnt, and it’s incredibly embarrassing, because just outside his door stands the most beautiful boy Mark knows, and the one day he wants to cook dinner for them, he ends up burning it in the pan.
“Markie,” Donghyuck says with a sweet but teasing smile on his face. “You tried to cook?”
He sighs, feeling his ears heat up, and when Donghyuck makes a move to squish his cheeks, Mark swats his hands away and feels even more embarrassed than before. Donghyuck just cackles as he lets himself in and toes off his boots and suddenly he’s a little smaller than Mark again, which has him reeling.
He steps into Mark’s kitchen, throwing a cautious look at the oven, where the window is painted jet-black with soot.
“Careful!” Mark says when Donghyuck reaches to touch it, startling the younger. “I nearly burned my hand touching it with the mittens,” he admits sheepishly, but Donghyuck only giggles.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, reaching out with his gloved hand, before hesitating for a second. “Don’t freak out,” he mumbles as he pulls off the glove, and well, Mark freaks out just a little.
It’s a cybernetic prosthetic. He can recognise it well, because the company he works at helped develop it for IPA veterans. He blinks at Donghyuck as the man touches the oven without even flinching, and pulls out the tray of burnt chicken with a skeptical look in Mark’s direction.
“I fell asleep,” Mark only offers as an answer, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes so hard Mark worries it must hurt. He looks cute, Mark thinks, all exasperated and done with Mark’s shit. It’s a familiar look on him.
“The pain sensors are calibrated to the heat it requires for the metal to be compromised,” Donghyuck says when he catches Mark staring at his hand, in the end.
“I know,” he says, helplessly, and Donghyuck raises a questioning eyebrow at him. “I help working on the newer models.”
Donghyuck looks at him a little blankly, before he catches onto something and stands up straight again, that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes and his other hand resting on his hip. “Mark Lee,” he says with a smirk. “Are you calling me outdated?”
He whines, like a kid, when Donghyuck cackles at his misery.
They end up settling for takeout from a nearby ramyun shop and there’s an actual person delivering their food, not a barely humanoid droid like in Sector 1.
It’s still steaming hot when they put it in actual bowls and end up sitting hunched over Mark’s coffee table, slurping down the noodles with the hunger of a whole day weighing them down.
When they’re full and sated and there’s barely and broth left in their bowls, Donghyuck ends up with his head in Mark’s lap as the latter pulls his fingers through his locks and tames the unruly strands with all the care in the world.
Donghyuck has his eyes closed as his breathing relaxes and it takes another while for him to speak up. “My parents were both part of the IPA,” he starts, and Mark almost stops his ministrations on the boy’s hair. “My dad was a bioengineer, and one day he gave up his research position on the ship for a better paying job on Keiter-9, developing prosthetics, kind of like you. My mum continued working on the Kepler, so I spent time here and there. It was okay, I think, looking back.”
Mark hums, selfishly wanting to hear more about Donghyuck’s past, even though he knows what he’ll hear will break his heart. After all, everybody knows what happened to the Kepler.
“I was with my mum when it went down,” Donghyuck continues, and the way his voice turns soft speaks volumes about the pain he still feels. “It was my dad who got me the arm.”
“I’m sorry,” Mark says, even though he knows it’s not enough. He knows what it feels to lose a parent, but Donghyuck’s story feels different. Like years of unnecessary agony, that could’ve all been prevented.
“I blamed her for a long time before I started blaming the system,” Donghyuck confesses and his voice sounds strained. “It’s all our fault, you know,” he says, finally opening his eyes as Mark’s fingers still.
There’s pain swimming among those sparkling constellations, now watery with unshed regret.
“We want to conquer the whole fucking universe and don’t know when to stop.”
Overflowed with love
When Mark shows up at the bar one late afternoon, it’s nowhere near opening time. He pushes in anyways, because usually, he’ll meet Hyuck hunched over one of the bar stools, fiddling with a glass of low-proof alcohol, chatting to Yuta, who gets ready to man the bar like every night.
Now, though, there’s Ten, and Johnny, too, who are talking to Yuta, and Donghyuck is nowhere to be seen. Yuta spots the door opening, and shoots him a happy smile.
They all greet each other, because by now, Donghyuck and Mark have become somewhat of a package deal, and with that, Mark has become part of their motley crew.
“You’re looking for Hyuck, aren’t you?” Ten says, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
Mark finds himself sheepishly tugging at his – Donghyuck’s – jacket, when he answers with an affirmative, albeit hesitant, nod.
Ten’s grin widens and he exchanges a loaded look with Yuta, who says, “The boy’s still at work down in Sector 2.”
Mark nods, slowly. “I didn’t know he worked so late today?”
“It happens.” Yuta shrugs. “Maybe Johnny can take you.”
He’d appreciate the help. He knows where Donghyuck works (at a hangar in Sector 2) and what he does (he’s a mechanic, and a damn good one at that), but he’s never actually been there.
Johnny pulls himself up, downs his drink, and throws his arm over Mark’s shoulders to pull him outside. They don’t say goodbye, because they’ll all see each other again soon anyways, so Johnny just nudges him out on the street and keeps his arm draped over him in a way that’s entirely too comforting for Mark to handle.
“Wanna take the train?” Johnny says when they reach the staircase leading up to the platform. A train whirrs past them over their heads, and pulls at their hair.
“Sure,” Mark says, and takes the stairs two steps at a time.
It’s weirdly warm and stuffy, and smells faintly of piss, and Mark feels like he needs a thousand showers to rid himself of the grime alone, not to mention all the germs. The train screeches whenever the tracks bend, because this far out, the infrastructure of Hayashi City leaves much to be desired.
Johnny sits next to him as the train rattles on and they chat about minor, superficial things, but it’s comfortable in the way every conversation with Johnny is.
They need to switch trains once in Sector 4, because there’s no direct connection between Sector 7 and 2, just like there is no direct connection when Mark goes to work in Sector 1.
Sector 2 is a lot more clean and tidy, but still very much a product of the working class. With the Hayashi City Space Port, close to where Donghyuck works, a lot of foreign travellers find themselves in this part of the city. The City Council tries to keep this part of the city as clean and proper as possible, but they can only push it so far.
The hangar Donghyuck works at is right next to the Space Port, and a primary place for ships to be maintained and repaired. It’s easy to get in, because Johnny knows people, and introduces them to Mark, so Mark comes to meet Donghyuck’s colleagues that day.
There’s Renjun, who plays the glorified security guard, and Jaemin and Jeno, who are getting ready to leave work just as they arrive. Mark gets why Donghyuck must like them.
“So you’re Mark, huh?” Jaemin says.
“I thought you’d be taller,” Renjun points out.
Jeno laughs, and pulls Mark with him by his arm, to where a figure is welding the outer hull of a ship as sparks fly around with worrying aggression.
“Hyuck!” Jeno yells, and the figure, that’s apparently Donghyuck, stops his work for a beat.
“Yeah, yeah, save it, I’ll just finish this before Jisung and Chenle show up,” he barks and goes right back.
Jeno cackles, happily, before he calls out for Donghyuck once again.
“What?” the boy whines, pulling the face shield up to reveal a pout that freezes on his face the second he spots Mark now clutched in a tight embrace.
A deadpan look replaces the pout as he hoists himself up and discards his gear to step over to where Jeno has wrapped his arms around Mark as he stands behind his back and nuzzles Mark’s shoulder teasingly.
“Lee Jeno!” Donghyuck yells, darting forward just as Jeno makes a run for it as the other boys laugh in delight.
Mark, too, finds a smile on his face when it’s Jeno who wrestles Donghyuck down on the ground in the end and starts tickling his sides. Donghyuck whines and kicks his legs like a kid, and Mark feels a warm fondness growing in his chest that threatens to suffocate him.
It’s okay, Mark decides, as long as Donghyuck kisses him breathless in the cargo bay later on, beneath cradles and boxes, when it’s just the two of them and Donghyuck’s eyes, filled to the brim with love and adoration, shine brighter than the stars. It’s okay.