Archive of Our Own ^beta

“To me, Mark-hyung is… a real older brother?

Actually, at home, I’m the oldest son. I used to talk about how much I envied my friends who have an older brother. That’s why if I was given the chance to choose my older brother in my next life, I think I would choose Mark-hyung.

We have different personalities and because of that, by having Mark-hyung next to me, we can tell each other about the things that we should do.

So, he’s like the older member that is like an older brother. An older brother that is like my navigation.”

Sometimes, Donghyuck remembers things without much significance a little bit too well. For instance, that one day in the summer when he met Mark for the first time. He would say, in his defence, that it was only vivid for the fact he just spent the first full two months of his trainee life working harder than everyone else. That diligence did not come out of nothing—it was likely to be the result of getting told about a certain trainee from Canada who came only in the summer breaks. They talked about this trainee as if he put the light in the downbeat SM basement himself, and Donghyuck was almost annoyed by it. 

“Oh, he’s amazing,” Yuta had said, all twinkling eyes and the Japanese accent still thick in his Korean. 

“Mark? He’s very, very talented,” Taeyong told him as he walked Donghyuck to the minimart in the middle of a practice break. 

“You should see him,” Johnny said, between ragged breaths, both their bodies sprawled on the floor post-practice, “he’s only a year older than you.” 

“Oh, everybody loves him,” said a member of the staff. The staff!

Naturally, Donghyuck worked harder than everyone else. The competitiveness burning inside him like eternal fire. He always wanted to win, even back then. 

That was why, when Donghyuck found that trainee stumbling on his feet and with glasses as thick as Jeno’s, the first thing that came up to his mind was whether it was okay to laugh at the clumsiness of someone he barely knew.

He remembers it frame-by-frame: all the trainees were gathered, waiting for some instructions when they heard the door open, and all eyes were drawn to it. A boy peeked inside, and it barely took a second for everyone to react. 

“Maaaark!” They all called, while Donghyuck only looked at the boy dumbly.

So that’s Mark, he simply thought, curious feet naturally tiptoed to get a glimpse as the boy was drowned by the older trainees. After a moment, the crowd dispersed and he was in view again—thick-framed, square glasses and cheeks resembling those of a squirrel. All expectations shattered, but Donghyuck wasn’t disappointed. In fact, he was intrigued. The boy soon managed to step on one end of his untied shoelaces and the room was filled with coos of be careful, Mark!. Then, with the laughter stuck in Donghyuck’s lungs, he watched as Mark walked with hopping feet to Johnny.

Cute, he thought.

And it’s funny because eight years later, he sees that same person (not a trainee anymore, but a superstar—Donghyuck will never sell this guy short) and he will still call him that.

“You’re so cute,” Donghyuck says, as he takes his hand back to the spoon he had abandoned in his bowl. Mark only continues eating, indifference plastered all over his face. Donghyuck is used to that. 

Here is the thing: people believe too much into the banal notion that you can read a person you’ve known for a long time, purely by the flat expression they put on. Donghyuck believes otherwise—an indifferent expression tells nothing more than disinterest. Instead, he picks up on the staggering decrease of casual I love yous, the brushing of fingers on the most sensitive spots, the clever and strategised evasion to not be within a metre distance of each other, and the nervousness Mark seems to heave whenever he’s stripped out of his professionalism. When business stops being in the way, it’s like all that he sees in Donghyuck is the human beneath and that wrecks him inside. It’s weird—but Donghyuck is always the sadist who enjoys seeing Mark crumble because of him.

“Shut up,” Mark finally says.

“But you really are cute.” 

“Ah,” he whines. “Just eat, please.”

“Okay, okay."

Donghyuck watches him, crestfallen eyes and a tongue swiping at his bottom lip, probably regretting the unsaid words stuck on his throat—whatever it was that he wanted to say. 

It’s long overdue, but Donghyuck thinks Mark had fallen too. Call it over-confidence—he is used to it anyway—but he is sure Mark did. If not right at this moment, then maybe a month ago. If not then, then surely, the month before that? Because, unlike Mark, Donghyuck is almost inhumanly quick at catching hints. And, also unlike Mark, Donghyuck has fallen a long, long time ago. So long that the feeling no longer ruined him as it used to.

And he cannot exactly pinpoint the moment, but Donghyuck did have three in mind.

Three days after the last day of Punch, Donghyuck came to visit the tenth floor.

The weather was the humid, sweltering kind of hot that had been going on for days. Even with the thigh-short shorts he was wearing and the shower he just took, Donghyuck still struggled with the stickiness already gathering on his skin again. For someone who had been nicknamed the endless variations of the sun and summer, Donghyuck was never actually a big fan of hot weather. 

He tiptoed into Mark’s bedroom with as little noise as possible, then slipped under the thin blanket. Meanwhile, Mark stirred and craned his neck, and when he opened one of his eyes, his vision fell right in the intruder’s direction.

“Ah,” he groaned but turned his body anyway, now recumbent on his back instead of his side, giving Donghyuck better access of himself. “It’s hot, Donghyuck-ah.”

Donghyuck smiled at the real name slipping out of Mark. The older had made this mental note to always call him Haechan when the cameras are on, a habit formed after four years and early slip-ups. It had bled out to their daily life, turning Haechan into a name that felt more like his birth name than a mere stage name. But in moments such as this one, it probably felt more natural to Mark to use the first name he had learned.

“I know.” Donghyuck put one leg over Mark’s, his baby-smooth legs against the other’s stubby, freshly grown hairs. The other only grunted, too sleepy to voice out his complaint. “But your room is always cooler than mine and Johnny-hyung’s.”

Donghyuck hummed in restrained excitement, hands holding on Mark’s left arm as though it was a lifesaving float instead of skin-covered flesh. 

“Why are you awake so early?” Mark asked, voice roughened with sleep.

“I’m going to grab lunch with Jungwoo-hyung today.” Slowly, he released his left hand from Mark’s arm and patted his chest instead. The older hummed, then his hand went for the same spot as Donghyuck’s. He had thought Mark was going to remove his hand from his chest, but he only kept it there. “So, I came up here to fetch him.”

Mark’s hand shifted and now held the edge of Donghyuck’s palm, thumb rubbing the spot just under the knuckle of his little finger. Three strokes, then he said, “You came into the wrong room.”

Donghyuck scoffed and shoved his head deeper into the crook of Mark’s neck. He showered and everything, but he was still clad in clothes much too comfortable, so comfortable that he considered going back to sleep. 

But instead, he called, “Hyung.”

“Hm?”

Donghyuck blinked at the ceiling, much slower than he had planned. “What do you want for your birthday?”

“Nothing,” Mark answered without a beat, only a thumb that got back on rubbing Donghyuck’s hand.

Donghyuck huffed and closed his eyes. He felt a stroke and another stroke until Mark stopped again, and Donghyuck finally remembered to protest, “You didn’t even think about it.” 

They fell into silence, and Donghyuck wasn't sure if the other was thinking or sleeping again, so he waited, until the hold of Mark’s hand loosened. Soon later, the hold he had on Mark's sleeve loosened as well. 

Lunch could wait, he sleepily thought. Jungwoo would understand if Donghyuck was to sleep for another hour, anyway.

(Later on, Donghyuck found himself sprawled alone, the blanket kicked to the end of the bed, while the owner watched him sleepily from the manager’s bed.

His glasses shook as he rubbed his eyes. 

“I told you it was hot,” Mark said with a frown. 

Donghyuck only grinned.)

Two days later, he woke up with the olfactory memory of samgyeopsal lingering inside his head. Most of it, he blamed it on the dream he just had—of sizzling meats and a good portion of doenjang jjigae at the side. The rest would be the half-hearted dinner he had last night—the leftover gukbap Doyoung ordered for lunch. Either way, he managed to make up a plan for his Saturday, all between the thoughts of samgyeopsal and the movement his hand made to reach for his phone. 

          hyung
awake?

yep

          ok
lunch?

no sorry
got a meeting today

          ok
birthday gift?

nope.

Donghyuck let out a soft groan, then locked his phone and put it somewhere near his pillow. With hunger diminished in his stomach and the promise of samgyeopsal gone from his brain, he tried to bring himself back to sleep.

“Why are you groaning first thing after you woke up?” That was Johnny, from the other side of the room.

“Mark,” Donghyuck grumbled in response, half-asleep.

Johnny probably made an expression, but Donghyuck was too sleepy to care.

The week before Mark’s birthday, they finally managed to have lunch together. By the time Mark’s birthday come around, he would already be somewhat busy with SuperM’s comeback preparations, so Donghyuck was relieved to have some little time together. It was a tradition at that point, to spend time together after promotions to talk and maybe drink—mostly talk, though, since no matter how much they see each other during the promotions, there is barely any time to stop and chat.

So, life became this: walking through Seoul next to Mark in between two hectic lives, waiting to be confronted again. He couldn’t even find it in him to hate that life, no matter how sore his body post-promotion was.

They were walking through the street of Yeongdong, and he had his phone in his hand, his drink in the other. After checking the message from their manager, he began by saying, “By the way, hyung—”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“You were gonna ask me about the birthday gift.”

Donghyuck blamed the phone—the iPhone in the colour red that Mark had given him as a gift the previous month. 

“Ah,” he groaned. “Why?”

“I don’t need anything new.” He took a sip of the drink in his hand, which happened to be the smoothie that Donghyuck had ordered. It was too sour for him, something he would never drink in the first place, and Mark even dared to tease him for ordering it. What he failed to notice was Donghyuck only ordered it because Mark’s stupid ass ordered iced americano in a juice shop and he didn’t even like coffee. He could laugh all he wanted, but Donghyuck knew the drink switch was going to happen. “I promise you, if I had something that I need, I would’ve told you.”

“It doesn’t have to be something you need. What about what you want?”

“Oh, man. I don’t have that either,” he said nonchalantly, not a moment spent actually pondering about it. “Besides, you don't have to buy me anything as a birthday gift, remember?”

“But that promise was supposed to go both ways, hyung. You still bought me a gift anyway.”

“I just wanted to,” Mark said with a shrug. “Also, I know how much you hated your Galaxy. Why are you even using a phone you don’t know how to operate?”

“I do know how to operate a Korean phone, thank you very much.”

An amused huff from Mark, then they both went silent as a puppy passed by, jingling bells on its neck, and a warm-eyed smile when it gazed up at them.

In truth, it was easy to just say it. Donghyuck could have just run his mouth then and there about his reason of wanting them to use the same type of phone, and Mark was probably tired of hearing it, too.

(“Let’s match our phones,” he said to him on many occasions, the tone always verging on pestering even when he only wanted to persuade. “Jaemin and Jeno have matching everything. One of them would buy anything in a pair before asking the other person. We should at least match our phones.”

Mark laughed. “But they have similar tastes.”

“You do know they don’t, hyung. One is just always following the other, vice versa.”

“Maybe we’re just too different? Why do you want to be like them anyway?”

And Donghyuck had thought of an answer, he really had. But he didn’t tell him that.)

“Ugh. That’s it,” Donghyuck finally said when the dog was gone from his sight. “I’m writing you a letter for real.”

A brief silence, almost as if the other was stunned by the words, until he laughed so much that the smoothie shook in his hand.

“Okay. Please try.”

It was when Donghyuck set foot on the tenth floor two weeks later, standing before Mark’s room that he felt downright ridiculous. In the pocket of his shorts, was an envelope with a handwritten letter inside. Sure, he could’ve written it down on the notes in his phone and screenshot it or even gone straight on the chatroom, but if it was something about Mark, then it would surely be his ability to hold onto the physical things of the past far into the future. That letter, among other mementoes, would be kept safely by him. In five years, the letter would still look the same, too—just like the bags with barely any thread coming off them, or the three-year-old shoes that seemed like they were just bought yesterday. 

Mark keeps his things with as much love as he keeps his people, and something about it had made Donghyuck even more inclined to hand-write the letter. Pride be damned.

“Yup!” Mark’s voice was heard through the door as soon as Donghyuck knocked on it. “Come in.”

An impulsive change of mind had Donghyuck’s feet scrambling away to leave, but he was barely far enough when the door behind him clicked and opened.

“Hey!” Donghyuck stopped on his track, then turned around. “Where are you going?”

“Taeil-hyung’s room.”

“Then why did you knock on my door? Did you need something?”

“‘No.” They stared dumbly at each other, until Donghyuck went again, “Okay, actually—”

He grabbed Mark’s wrist and brought him inside the bedroom. He closed the door, then reached for the envelope, careful not to get it crumpled, and brought it up to Mark’s hand.

“I wrote the letter.” He giggled, just as a rush of absurdity slivered in his mind. “I don’t know— I did.”

Mark took the letter and smiled. “Whoa. You really did.” He observed the letter, and Donghyuck felt so silly once again. “You hand-wrote this?”

He did, but Donghyuck only shrugged instead. “Open it to find out,” he said, and Mark was about to peel the tongue side of the envelope, when Donghyuck stopped him, fingers wrapped around his wrist. “No! Open it after I leave, stupid!”

“Ah.” Mark looked back at him and Donghyuck couldn’t read his expression even if he tried. “Okay.”

In lightning speed, Donghyuck left the room. Right after he closed the door, though, he put a palm on his chest and study the way it behaved. 

The rapid beatings of it got him feeling stupid again.

He heard the knocks when he was planted on his own bed, his phone settled nicely next to him, its ringer unusually on. He picked the phone up so he would appear more natural, so maybe it wouldn’t be too obvious how rigid his body is, waiting for text messages he didn’t even know were coming or not.

“Hyung? Just get in, I’m not doing anything weird,” he yelled at the door, purposely poking fun at the fact that Johnny, even after years of sharing a room, still would never barge into the room to give him privacy. He made fun of it, but Donghyuck was actually grateful for that little policy he made.

The door opened but instead of Johnny, Mark came in view with the swing of the door, a stupid grin on his face. He charged inside and launched himself at the bed—at Donghyuck, more like—and buried him in a hug. Donghyuck’s head slightly knocked the headboard and Mark laughed a panic laugh, uttering some I’m sorry, I’m sorry while rubbing the inflicted part with his palm.

He released his clutch, then lay down next to him. 

“Did you know it was me?”

“No. I thought you were Johnny-hyung.”

“Is he out?”

“Yeah. He’s been out since the afternoon.” Donghyuck glanced over at his hand and saw a familiar brown envelope. “Ah. Why did you bring the letter?”

“I wanna read it with you.”

“You haven’t read it?”

“I have, I have. It’s just—” Mark paused to take a determined breath. “Anyway.”

He settled better on the bed, letting Donghyuck peered at his side. Carefully, he took out the sheet of paper Donghyuck had taken out from Johnny’s notebook. When he opened it, Donghyuck cringed at his own handwriting—the spaces between the words grew near the end.

“Happy birthday, Makkuri,” Mark began with the first part of the letter and Donghyuck immediately buried his face on Mark’s shoulder, embarrassed. “Why do you love that nickname so much?”

“It’s cute. Just read it quickly.”

Mark hummed and fell into a brief silence before he asked, “Is it really the eighth year I celebrated my birthday with you?”

“Yes. I’m good at math.”

“But if it was 2013, then—”

“Your birthday’s in August. We met in July. So, eight. Next.”

“And why do you feel like it’s different this time?” Donghyuck wasn’t looking at the letter, but he remembered everything far too well—Mark was on the part where he said I’ve written letters for you before but somehow this time it feels different. Donghyuck didn’t even know why he wrote that.

“‘Cause we’re older? I don’t know— don’t mind it if you don’t feel the same.”

Mark hummed, then he asked, “Isn’t red your favourite colour?” Donghyuck knew Mark was reading the part where he thanked him for the iPhone. “I swear you said it one time—”

“I mean, yeah. It’s one of them. I’m just not always sure.”

“Should I have bought you the black one?”

“No, Mark. I like red.”

“Okay, thank God.” Mark took another moment and it almost killed Donghyuck this time, since he knew what part was coming next. “You know, thank you for taking care of me too.”

“Ah. Don’t read that part.”

“Why?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

There was a disgruntled noise from Mark before he continued, “You said here, you have your ways of taking care of me that don’t make me feel like I’m weak or incapable to do it myself. Well, you are not weak or incapable, to begin with.”

“But you get my point.”

“But my point is that I don’t make you feel that way because you are not—”

“Alright, alright. Shit. This is killing me, hyung. Just get this over with, please.”

The grip Mark’s right hand had on the letter was released for a moment to give Donghyuck two pats on the head. “Bear with me. You wrote a lot.”

He shuffled the hair while Donghyuck groaned. “I did.”

Donghyuck inhaled the familiar scent of citrus and flowers on his neck, and he knew he could pinpoint exactly which cologne Mark had used prior to coming there. 

He closed his eyes and stayed silent after that.

Mark read the rest of the letter with remarkable stillness, unlike Donghyuck who folded smaller into himself at every word whenever Mark said it out loud. The hug Donghyuck had around Mark’s torso became slightly tighter when Mark took an emotional pause as soon as he reached, I’m so happy you came back with Dream, hyung. He knew Mark wasn’t just silently reading the next part because the silence was loud—perhaps that silence spoke more words than his letter. And Mark wasn’t lying when he said Donghyuck wrote a lot.

“Whoa,” he uttered as soon as he finished reading all of it, while Donghyuck only buried his head further into the corner of Mark’s collarbone. Mark cleared his throat, then said, “Okay, I love you,” but the higher tone at the end made it sound more like a question than a statement.

“Ah, hyung. You really should’ve just read it by yourself.”

“Hey, hey, but I said I love you, didn’t I?” Mark asked and Donghyuck swore he had heard that exact string of words coming from his mother, with the exact same tone too.

“Yes, yes. I love myself too,” Donghyuck joked, and Mark nudged him. “I’m just kidding, I love you too.”

The volumes of their words might differ in weight and Donghyuck knew that his feeling wouldn’t be a hundred per cent reciprocated. The extent of Mark’s words was always I love you, thank you for being my friend who stayed with me through the years. And that was fine. He was just happy Mark understood his sincerity.

“I love you, Haechan-ah,” Mark said again, this time a bit surer. “Thank you.”

Donghyuck smiled. Saying I love you was so easy between them.

“Happy birthday, Makkuri!

This is the eighth birthday of yours that we spent together. I’ve written letters to you before but somehow this time it feels different. Or is it just me? Anyway, you gave me an iPhone even though we promised not to give each other presents anymore. Can’t hate you for that, though. To be honest, I really like your gift this time hehe. I’m not always sure what colour I like, but I think I like red.

Other than the present, I obviously want to thank you for so many other things. Thank you for your hard work this year and your relentless support for me. Thank you for worrying about me without making it annoying. You have your ways of taking care of me that don’t make me feel like I’m weak or incapable to do it myself. But in the end, I know I needed that—you taking care of me. I may not show it, but I do. You know that, right??

Of course, I want to take care of you too, to do the same for you. I don’t know if I’m doing a really good job at that. I feel like you are very independent and capable to do things yourself until you have to do the very basic things. Very basic things! It’s driving me crazy. I wonder if it drives you crazy too. So, okay! I’ll be here. Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll be next to you for years to come to help you with things you’re having troubles with. Let’s just do that for each other.

This is obvious, but I’m so happy you came back with Dream, hyung. Everyone is happy too, they probably told you already, but seriously. Welcome back. The remaining year and possibly next year too, are gonna be super busy for us, I think. Let’s stay healthy for that and achieve the very best that we can. Don’t get sick, don’t be stupid and get injured (like I did).

This is already so long. You must be getting annoyed because my handwriting is getting worse haha. So, I’m gonna end it now. If you want more from me, just wait another year.

Oh, and good luck with the SuperM comeback, hyung.

From your one and only, Donghyuck”

“Was it okay?”

“What?”

“The song.” Mark peeled the guitar off his lap and put it away carefully on Johnny's bed.

“They’re gonna email the company and tell them to release it now.”

“Exactly.” Mark seemed guilty, cautious eyes stayed on Donghyuck’s, an uneasy smile spread on his face. “Are you mad at me?”

“No! Why would I?”

“I sang it,” he dragged his upper teeth through his bottom lip. “Our song.” 

Our song. Donghyuck wanted to punch the heat until it was gone off his face. “I did, too.”

“You’re okay with them knowing the song?”

“I think I wanted them to know.”

“Yeah? It doesn’t bother you?” 

Donghyuck rolled his eyes so hard that he almost got dizzy with it. “Yes, Mark,” he said, sounding like he ran out of patience (he didn’t. He never could), and the smile splayed across Mark’s face was so bright that the room looked as though its light bulb just got overcharged tenfold. If it broke from the intensity, and shards of glasses killed Donghyuck on the spot, at least he could reason that he didn’t die simply because of a song.

Composing a hopeful song when you and your friend were fifteen and sixteen was supposed to be a fun little, motivational thing for the two of you. But when you were twenty-one and he was twenty-two, and the whole world was watching how smitten was not just a word in a dictionary, but also the way you looked at each other as you sang the lyrics—you started to realise that maybe, the song was much more than hopeful. 

Maybe the song was a love song, and every word written was meant for each other. 

Maybe, maybe.

“Come on.” Donghyuck stood up, unable to bear the light any longer. “Doyoung-hyung is waiting.”

“What does that mean?” Donghyuck asked, mindlessly picking the dry bits of his bottom lip. Mark automatically grabbed his wrist and pulled it away. “Tomorrow is… tomorrow… so—” 

“It means I can try tomorrow,” Mark answered in Korean, “and the next lyrics are if I do it with you, so it’s like we’re saying that we can try whatever it is tomorrow, as long as we’re with the other person.”

“Why not today?”

Mark laughed. “Because they’re too tired today? It has this sentiment of whatever is coming tomorrow, they can tackle it as long as they’re together. It could also be like, they can try together.”

“Oh, I like that. Trying together. I get what you mean,” Donghyuck said in between biting down the dry skin with his teeth. “Then, how do I say, can I see you tomorrow? in English?”

Mark played the same chords automatically, then sang the lyrics into the melody. The sound tugged a smile on his face. “Ohhh, that’s nice! You want that to be the next lyrics?”

Donghyuck grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Try playing it again,” he requested, and Mark complied. Donghyuck started singing it again, trying out lyrics as he went, “Can I see you tomorrow? I can keep seeing you— ah, I don’t know.”

“No, no! That was nice! It was nice. Don’t we have a pen and paper around here?”

Donghyuck got up and skipped to find some papers and a pen in the practice room. He recalled seeing Jaemin and some of the girls playing a game of sadaritagi to decide whose turn it was to clean the practice room, so he went to Jaemin’s locker.

“Donghyuck-ah!” Mark called. “Take the lip balm from my locker too!”

“Okay!” Donghyuck giddily reached Mark’s locker with a mischievous grin. “But I’m taking it for me.”

“Take it,” Mark said dully in between the light strums of his fingers. “I have too many.”

The day ended with them leaving the training studio with a hastily scribbled paper, a lip balm, and the same eight verses repeatedly sung throughout the entire walk back to the trainees’ dorm.

Maybe— maybe Donghyuck fell that day too.

The first of his epiphanies was not exactly the first-ever, but it simply was the first time Donghyuck felt completely cracked open. Both broken and revealed.

This epiphany, he’d say, ended within the short silence in the middle of a phone call to America. Donghyuck, in front of his monitor and two cans of Red Bulls, sacrificing sleep; Mark, some hotel room in Washington DC, voice cracking with sleep.

“Who else cried?” Mark asked about the Dream Show he had yesterday, and Donghyuck’s heart almost skipped a beat.

“Hm? Was it Jaemin? Nah, I think he just teared up a bit,” Donghyuck lied, even though he had the feeling that Mark knew.

“Is there anyone else?”

“Hmmmmmmmmmm,” Donghyuck pretended to think, intentionally humming the consonant for so long that maybe Mark would relent. He tried, he really did—but all he could hear was the breathy laugh from the other end of the line. He sighed, giving up on whatever shred of dignity he still had. “I thought you swore off social media?”

“Wasn’t me. Johnny-hyung.”

“Ah, snitch.” Donghyuck tuts his tongue. He should’ve known one of the members who were active on social media must have seen the clips—he could only hope Johnny only told him and Mark didn’t see the actual video. God, Donghyuck was a mess, and he knew because he saw the clips. “He’s sleeping behind me right now. Should I attack him now while he has his guard down?”

“Don’t be mean. You love him.”

The synapses of Donghyuck’s brain worked ever-so-efficiently that he almost said, “Not as much as I love you,” but Donghyuck never said it out loud.

In those fleeting seconds of silence, Donghyuck stopped himself and took another moment to wonder about the hesitance. There was nothing wrong about confessing his feelings, of course, especially when I love you was unsparingly said by him. 

But it was different, then. 

Donghyuck was twenty, no longer a child. In less than two months, he would be turning twenty-one along with everyone who was born in the same year as him. And thanks to his job, he sang more love songs in the last six years than he did the previous thirteen years. He had sung about love, in all kinds of form it may exist, and Donghyuck understood it far beyond the surface level, then. Maybe not everything about it, but deep enough to get the gist of it.

Love. It made more sense than it was baffling him—and that was the weirdest part.

So, as Donghyuck dismissed the pain of longing that was building in his chest, he only went, “Of course.”

Mark laughed an easy laugh, and Donghyuck let himself be pampered by the sound, before he went, “Do you know Jeno confessed his love to Jisung during practice?”

“He is always confessing his love to people,” he said, but Donghyuck continued the story anyway. Because no matter how much he felt like he carried Mark with him, he knew Mark wasn’t really there. 

And it was sort of anticlimactic, the way it did, because being confronted with a feeling you weren’t that clueless about was never going to be astronomical. Instead, Donghyuck only laughed and laughed, and the echoing laughter from the other end of the line was almost a remedy to his sickness.

He wondered, then, if Mark would ever know the true depth of his feelings.

The beginning of it came earlier than that. The one day that kicked off the entire week in which he spent his days taking care of the painful throbbing in his heart, had been when he stood on stage four thousand kilometres away from home. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen Mark—he had seen him back at their hotel, that little window of time between Mark and Taeyong arriving and all of them having to get ready for the performance.

But it was then, on the stage in Singapore, where everything came together. 

After all, Mark looks his absolute best whenever he is on stage. He looks his most majestic when he is illuminated by thousands of lights, when the people scream nothing else other than his name, when he sees far beyond what his eyes can reach and smiles at the view. 

And Donghyuck saw him that day, and it was probably makeup hiding his dark circles, pristine outfit making him glow, but his heart fluttered at the sight of Mark. No words needed to explain the feeling because he had said absolutely everything to Mark, up to that point—about gratitude and friendship, and about reaching the dreams no matter how far away they seemed to be. He didn’t know, then, that his feeling was much more complex than that. At that moment, all he knew was to save the visions of Mark under that spotlight and keep them safe until the day they were going to see each other again.

Then, a week later—the point of no return. The climax of a ten-days-length movie he had the privilege—or misfortune—to call real life.

Donghyuck understood it best, that complications were made to be simplified. Problems had solutions, and troubles, an end to them. If he was tired, he would sleep. He would eat when he was hungry. Simple.

However, when he was on stage with his dearest friends, gazing out at the people with the intense emotion in his heart that the fruit of their hard work was laid out vast before them, their arms hugging each other in an effort to keep themselves from crumbling down—longing sounded like a word with no end to it. The feeling of extreme loss was almost palpable on his skin because everyone was there except Mark—the Mark he trained with, the Mark who helped shape his dreams, his navigation, his true north, his Mark.

And Donghyuck had always been brilliant, but not even him could’ve solved the matters of the heart.

On the third day after Mark and Taeyong came back, Yuta took the group for a dinner together. He booked a place in the seafood restaurant he had always wanted to try, courtesy to Doyoung talking about it almost every week, and everyone came along except Johnny and Jaehyun who were too tired after practice, and Jungwoo who was still in hiatus.

Between the sashimi and the seafood stew, they talked about the practice that day and the performance the next day, and Donghyuck marvelled the way Mark sounded excited about performing again. From the moment he arrived from New York, he barely had any rest thanks to the Superhuman practice, and they had to miss celebrating Chenle’s birthday with the rest of the Dream members because of it too. 

But Mark is Mark, and it would be weirder to hear him complain about his job.

With stomachs filled with food and body worn from dancing, the members spent the ride back to the dorm in silence. On the backseat, Donghyuck watched quietly as Mark slept next to him, mouth opened and head falling repeatedly. It was bemusing, the way Mark climbed up to the same car as he did since the car with only Yuta and Taeyong should have been his first choice, obviously. 

No one seemed to question him, though.

Donghyuck’s body was still damp from showering when he stepped outside his bedroom. He found Mark on the sofa, busy watching his own fingers move on the fret. Donghyuck could understand his arrival to the fifth-floor yesterday, sitting on that very same spot, as he guessed his body might still have suffered from the jet lag. But it no longer made sense since Mark slept the entire ride home today. He must be tired.

And usually, Donghyuck would just sing along to whatever song was strummed, an impromptu living-room music performance for the entire dorm to hear. But instead, he slipped gingerly between the armrest and Mark’s side.

“Why are you always here?” He asked, watching Mark’s side profile, the sideburns and stubs of his beard that were starting to grow.

Mark stopped playing, then turned to face him. The head of his guitar knocked Donghyuck’s arm and Mark automatically rubbed it to soothe. “I missed you,” he said, then shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing.

It was set in his mind that he would keep a straight face, but he only managed to do it for one second before he broke into a chuckle. Mark’s face was out of view as Donghyuck shook his head, but he guessed Mark was smiling that smile he wore every time he managed to fluster the younger.

“Is that so?"

“Mhm.” Mark slid himself farther back so that he could face Donghyuck properly while still having his guitar propped on his lap. “How could I not?”

Donghyuck wanted to say a lot of things—to tease, to fluster him back, to have the upper hand—but he could not. Mark’s fingers are back dancing slowly on the strings, but his eyes are set on Donghyuck’s. Focused, unwavering, only moving down once to his chin.

“I missed you, Donghyuck-ah.” Mark finally lowered his gaze to his guitar, while Donghyuck rested his back on the armrest, watching him. “I missed you a lot.”

He remembered the screaming fans, the spot missing a person, the name rolling off his mouth like a boulder that was blocking his throat. Relieving—because some truths felt like a relief, and it was one of them.

“I hope you don’t remember me as this person all the time,” he said, tone relenting. “But I’ve missed you a lot, too.”

It was the understatement of the century, but Donghyuck couldn’t have possibly put it all into words. No matter how good he was with them.

As a true disruptor of Dream dorm’s peace that he is, Donghyuck visits it just as soon as Favorite promotion ends. He has given up on waking Jeno up (Jisung had explained, “you’re not getting him awake soon, he literally slept at 5 AM today”) and settles on bothering Renjun in the dining room as the alternative.

“Oh, Injun,” he says as soon as he sees his friend settling down on a chair with food on the table. “I really don’t see you in here often.”

“Because I’m always at the WayV dorm,” he says with a breathy laugh. “I even got this from them.”

Renjun points his chopsticks at the steamed dumplings in front of him.

“Ah, Jjinppang-mandu,” Donghyuck says mindlessly, as he takes the chair next to him.

“Tsk. Xiaolongbao,” Renjun corrects him, tone nearly close to getting mad. Renjun and his easily blown fuse—Donghyuck never fails to find it cute.

Renjun pushes the plate to him, offering the food, and Donghyuck immediately stands up to grab chopsticks in the nearby container. 

“Don’t you miss home?” Donghyuck suddenly asks, but Renjun is so familiar with Donghyuck’s mind that he doesn’t seem perplexed by it.

“Home is wherever my feet take me,” he answers, almost singsongy.

“Ah, of course, I forgot you’re such an adventurer.”

“It’s not about liking adventure or being an adventurer.” Renjun rolls his eyes. "It’s about being comfortable wherever I go.”

“Even a place you’ve never been previously? Let’s say, somewhere so unfamiliar and scary?”

“As long as I’m with you guys?”

“Awww, what the hell. You’re so sweet.” Donghyuck juts out his bottom lip and tries to pinch Renjun’s cheek but the other swiftly moves to avoid him, too used to Donghyuck’s grabby fingers and pestering coos. 

“Do you really think a home is a place, though?” Renjun turns his head, eyebrows taut in curiosity. “Or is it a person?”

“It’s— what do you mean a person?”

“Well, call me lame, but I see you people as one. Of course, I feel the same with my parents, but I lived here long enough to feel at home just being with you guys, you know?”

“That’s really sweet,” Donghyuck responds dully, as his mind travels on its own. Home. A person. God, Donghyuck hates going there again.

“Say, if you were to be moved to— I don’t know, America with just Mark-hyung, would you really feel out of place?”

Fuck this dude and his imagination. “Why Mark—”

“Well, for you— of course, him? Sure, you’d probably miss your family, probably miss us too, but as long as you go home and see him there? I think you’d be alright.”

Renjun, Donghyuck knows, tends to run his mouth and say the absolute most earth-shattering news with a straight face. Well, this time it’s not exactly news, but Donghyuck finds himself getting astounded all the same.

“You’re right. I see what you mean.” Donghyuck says, calming his mind before reaching for another xiaolongbao since he finished the first one just as Renjun went on about home and Mark. About Mark being his home. Whatever. The other only let out a small hum. “But seriously, I can’t imagine being you, or Mark-hyung, and going to live in another country from such a young age.”

“Ah, Mark-hyung is different, though.” Jisung’s voice is heard as he walks closer to the dining table and joins them. “Like, totally different than you, hyung. Or Chenle.” Jisung takes the chair opposite Renjun. “Remember when he used to cry all the time?”

“Not all the time,” Donghyuck corrects, mouth busy munching on his second xiaolongbao.

“I still can’t believe the Mark-hyung used to cry as a trainee,” Renjun adds.

“Yeah, he did,” Jisung says before his head moves to regard Donghyuck. “And yet this hyung kept annoying him anyway.”

“I wasn’t the only one.”

“No one was as bad as you, hyung.”

“Wasn’t that what made him stay, though?” Renjun says, which makes the other two turn their heads at him.

“What did?” Jisung asks.

“Haechan.” Renjun gives a noncommittal shrug. “Just a guess.”

At this point, Donghyuck wonders if Renjun is on a solo agenda to make Donghyuck sleep late tonight. Like, really late. Like I-have-to-burden-myself-again-with-the-weight-of-falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend kind of late.

“Of course, it’s me.” Donghyuck also shrugs, although it is more of a gesture of pride, not uncertainty.

“To be honest”—Jisung’s fingers reach for a dumpling while Renjun shoots death glares at him—“I think so too.”

“You are the worst.”

Mark blinked a few times and Donghyuck noticed the redness on his eyes that wasn’t previously there. A huff, then he turned his feet and walked towards the door—farther and away from Donghyuck until he reached the door, then left with a slam of it. The room turned a degree colder, while the other boys’ silence hung like Donghyuck’s personal punishment. 

“Don’t you feel bad?” Jaemin’s voice is heard from behind and when Donghyuck turned around to see him, he was immediately heeded by two pairs of eyes, both accusing. The other belonged to Jeno, his lips downturned in a frown.

“Why?” Donghyuck asked, like an idiot. “I was just joking.”

“Still,” Jeno said, eyebrows furrowed.

The two only stared at him, filling the air with intense awkwardness, and the itch to shrug it all off was covering Donghyuck’s entire body like goosebumps. It felt worse than sweat after hours of practice, and after-practice sweat was the worst.

Damn these boys and their love for Mark-hyung.

He let out a long sigh. “Alright, alright!”

Donghyuck turned around and went for the door. Confrontations would be one of the few things he hates most in this world, but more than them, he hated those looks that Jaemin and Jeno gave him. With heavy steps, he left the practice room and went to find Mark.

He was nowhere to be seen already, but it wasn’t that Donghyuck was expecting him to be lingering in front of the door. Confidently, he walked over to the nearest bathroom and got inside.

His hunch was right, as he found Mark facing the mirror, rubbing his own face. There was some excess of water dripping from his hands and the only sound in the room was the sound of running water from the tap before him. He flinched and turned his head when he heard the door open, probably not expecting Donghyuck’s arrival. As soon as their eyes found each other, Mark turned towards the mirror again.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck began, watching the other from the reflection. 

He turned off the water tap with an angry flick, and Donghyuck briefly thought, if Mark had realised the obvious hint of crying from his own eyes, he must’ve not cared. 

“You remind me of my younger brother,” Donghyuck continued.

“I’m older than you.” 

“But you do. I like to tease him until he cries.”

“That’s mean.”

“I guess,” he casually responded, leaning half his body weight on the ceramic tabletop. “Remember when I went home last week? He was out playing with his friends, and I couldn’t meet him. I hope I can see him next time. I haven’t made him cry in a while.” He didn’t know why he was rambling but decided that he was too far gone from going back. “Doesn’t he realise how much I miss him? I hope the youngest wouldn’t grow up too busy for me as he did.”

Mark finally turned his head at him, a hint of reverence on his features. It amazed Donghyuck that Mark might actually be listening to him rambling about his little brother. 

“Oh, and I hope you’ll meet your family soon too, hyung.”

Mark looked as though he was about to cry again but he held it in, like the champion he was.

If Donghyuck was to roughly estimate, it had been five months since Mark moved to Seoul. He had come back to Canada before the summer break ended since he wanted to prepare himself to move. Like actually move—at the age of fifteen and alone. Even worse than that, because in Mark’s head, he probably still felt thirteen.

“Hyung,” Donghyuck tried again, straightening his posture to maybe show his earnest intention better, “I was just joking. You’re cute when you get mad.”

“You’re insufferable, Donghyuck.”

“Get used to it.” Donghyuck almost laughed, but even he knew that wasn’t really the best situation for it. “What if we debut together?”

“Then I’ll die.”

It was hilarious how serious Mark seemed, so Donghyuck tried even harder to hold back on laughing that he almost cried. Mark was so cute.

"You're so dramatic, hyung.”

“Why should I get used to it when you could be the one who starts being nicer?”

Donghyuck tightened his lips, feigning contemplation. “I’m nice, hyung.”

“Only sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, okay?”

Mark lost his tension, eyes softened to the kind he wore for the other boys. The other boys because Mark always treated Donghyuck differently. How could he not? Jeno was an angel, Jaemin clung to Mark like an obedient little brother, and Jisung was there only to dance and be in his absolute best (and cutest) behaviour. Meanwhile, Donghyuck once swore he existed to be the very bane of Mark’s existence, no less.

Mark let out a resolute sigh. “And I’m sorry I said you were the worst." 

Donghyuck smiled so big his cheeks started to hurt because of it.

“Let’s go back.” Donghyuck tilted his head in the door’s direction. “Also, you can’t get mad at me anymore.”

“I can’t promise that,” Mark grumbled but followed Donghyuck out of the bathroom nonetheless.

As soon as they reached the practice room, Donghyuck purposely opened the door with more strength than necessary. Inside, Jeno and Jaemin turned their necks in alarming speed and watched the other two from where they sat cross-legged on the ground.

“Here’s your Mark-hyung.” Donghyuck walked away from the door, so the others could see Mark walk in. “I apologised, alright?”

The two boys stood up and gazed at Mark, studious expressions on their faces as if they were trying to find something on his face. Donghyuck rolled his eyes without even realising.

“Relax!” He groaned. “We made up. I swear! Right, hyung?”

“Sure.” Mark walked past him and towards the centre of the room, before suddenly turning around again. The older looked at him, less hatred than the one he sported before he left the practice room. “But you really were,” he paused for a split second, contemplating, “bad.”

Like the little shit he was, Donghyuck smiled. “I thought I was the worst.”

It was Mark who rolled his eyes now, while Donghyuck laughed. 

God, they were just boys.

There were many beginnings, actually. There were too many beginnings.

Because Donghyuck fell over and over and over and yet he still finds himself falling again at the age of twenty-two just as he did when he was fifteen. 

For Donghyuck, falling wasn’t even an option. He knew he fell even before Mark was sure that this idol life would be something he’d be doing for the rest of his life. Donghyuck has always been sure in his steps—in working, in living, and above all, in loving. Call it childlike admiration, innocent adoration—whatever it was, it was inevitable that it would only grow as time passed.

He remembers seeing Mark at the door of his classroom, seemingly undisturbed despite the stares of the other passing students. When their eyes found one another, Mark tried to coolly nod at him at first, but the peeking smile grew into a grin and Donghyuck simply dismissed the tickling feeling in his stomach as amusement.

He remembers when Dallas sunlight streamed to the top of Mark’s blond-dyed hair—Mark reading out the name labels of flowers in English, Donghyuck watching him as if he was singing. He had to squint sometimes, and he wondered if Mark was just naturally bright like that.

He remembers feeling close to fainting when Mark fell into his arms right after Donghyuck told him that he could be coming back to promote with Dream. He also remembers wanting to stay like that forever.

The most recent, he remembers falling in love on a yacht when he, along with Chenle and Renjun, was singing Be There for You with the instrument file played from his phone. They were trying to show Jungwoo the unreleased song, yet Donghyuck was looking at Mark the entire time. 

(“As time goes on, this thing of us getting comfortable,” he sang, closing his eyes in absolute focus, “might have upset you sometimes.”

He opened his eyes and saw Mark scrunching his nose and grinning from ear to ear. He sang some more, the lyrics got even truer with every verse, and Mark’s smile did not once fade even until the song ended. He knows, he knows.)

Unlike Mark, trainee Donghyuck was not a crier. 

Sometimes, the choreography they had been learning could be too strenuous, or they simply had been in and out of the training studio more times than they see their schoolmates, or training to be an idol and trying to learn something from school and working on a TV show all at the same time were simply too much for him—but Donghyuck did not cry. Rather, he would be lying down on the floor of the practice room in the middle of the self-training period, limbs spread out. He would shake his legs, stomp on the ground, and would say something like, more choreographies should involve lying down!, or, there’s always agony before glory, my friends! and everyone who still had the energy to laugh would laugh. 

Donghyuck was the jokester, never the crier.

Even if he was on his limit, teetering on one edge of having to be the mood maker of the group but still having bad days of his own, he still wouldn’t cry. Instead, he would be mad. He’d be angry with as much anger as his sixteen-year-old body could store. He would groan, body sprawled on the ground, whispering curse words until he was saying them, and then they were loud enough to get one of the other trainees to come and cover his mouth.

“Fuck!” He yelled one time, but nobody bothered to get him anymore, too tired to worry about Donghyuck’s mood swings. So, he only sighed, closing his eyes so darkness might substitute the many lightbulbs that kept the practice room too bright. He cursed and cursed, as the weird splotches of lights imprinted on the back of his eyelids faded to near-darkness.

“Hey.”

He thought he heard Mark’s voice, but he didn’t bother opening his eyes. He could sleep like this—t-shirt stuck to his sweaty skin, coldness of the practice room’s floor flat on his back, socks uncomfortably damp inside his shoes. He really could. 

“Donghyuck-ah.” 

He finally opened his eyes. There were halos of light around the numerous lightbulbs, and then a black shadow on the right side of his vision. A head—Mark’s head. Based on the blurriness, Donghyuck guessed he had fallen asleep for a few seconds. God, he was so tired.

“Get up, please.”

“One minute.”

“We only have two days until the shooting, Donghyuck-ah.”

“And I got every move memorised already.”

Mark was silent for a moment. The older probably knew there was no need to argue because Donghyuck did have all of them memorised perfectly.

“Come on,” he tried again, and Donghyuck blinked a few times at him. 

Mark took a better shape now. His face seemed more mature than two years ago, with cheeks that had grown more comfortable onto his bones. To what extent would Donghyuck be able to see Mark’s face change? Until he turned into an old man? Or until the end of the year when Donghyuck was cut off from the debut lineup?

Don’t get him wrong, Donghyuck was always confident with his talents and work discipline—but that kind of fear was an inevitable part of the training life. It was an extra limb to slap your face every time you were too confident about debuting. Even at the age that young, Donghyuck understood that the heartbreak of that kind of failure would crush him, so he kept those humble thoughts—even though humble thoughts never exactly aligned with his bursting confidence.

He halted all trains of thought when he noticed Mark had pulled a hand out for him.

“Come on,” the older said again, only with a different language—the language he knew better than Korean. Donghyuck took the hand and unhelpfully let his entire body be pulled by Mark that the other almost stumbled doing it. When they were steady on his feet, he found himself staring at Mark curiously at how he didn’t let their hands go, and instead was holding it tighter. Then, he shook their hands together as though they were making a deal. 

“Let’s debut together, Donghyuck-ah.”

Mark smiled so widely while Donghyuck laughed, but the words, he kept them inside him like a promise.

Sometimes, when he is wide awake at night, body too tired to be anywhere else other than bed but mind too frantic to be sleeping—Donghyuck puts pieces of his memories together like a puzzle.

He solves the parts between meeting Chenle and debuting with Dream and realised how the short period of time had strengthened their bond harder than the previous three years.

He solves the parts between working without Jungwoo and not working at all and finds that an injury doesn’t only hurt the injured.

He solves the parts between my first million albums sold to my fifteenth million albums sold and smiles at the relief that it all works out in the end—and that titles, no matter how shallow he’d sound, are parts of the reason all of this is worth doing.

He solves his own life, putting together the chaos he bears in his mind. When the complete picture lies ahead of him, he admires every corner, notices everything that sticks out like sore thumbs—and he finds the repeated pattern in it.

In the puzzle of his life, he always finds Mark, and Mark, and Mark. 

“We really should’ve watched the movie you wanted…,” Donghyuck begins as he stares at the empty plates and bowls in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Mark said, finishing the last bits of rice in his bowl. “It wasn’t even bad.”

“I mean—” Donghyuck picks the last piece of meat and tries to put it into Mark’s bowl. Mark shakes his head, protesting and shooing Donghyuck’s chopsticks away, but the younger persists until he gets the meat inside his now-empty bowl. Donghyuck smiles in success. “It was kind of boring.”

“Eh.” Mark takes the meat with his chopsticks and it hangs in the air as he speaks, “I liked it.”

Donghyuck had probably seen Mark this year more than he had seen his own reflection in the mirror. They’ve been working together nonstop ever since the preparation for Hot Sauce began, but Donghyuck can’t help but feel that everything only makes sense this way—as if everything that was off-balance is finally put in its appropriate position again. 

It feels natural working with Mark.

And it also feels natural spending time with him, no matter how many times they’ve seen each other, which is why they’re currently spending their break together. Favorite had ended, and they are going to make the absolute best of their time before NCT 2021 begins. Going to the cinema was Donghyuck’s idea, but Mark had accepted it with no protest. After that, getting dinner together was kind of given, and so were the alcoholic drinks that come with it.

“But when are you going to find time to watch Eternals, then?”

Mark smiles while pushing the bowl and utensils away from him. “I’ll just watch it later.”

“Funny you say that. Because based on our schedule”—Donghyuck picks his phone up and pretends to read something on its screen—“you are going to see the movie in about… 2025.”

As if on cue, they both laugh at that. Busy schedules are no longer something that should be feared nowadays. It has its awful moments, downright terrible—but it’s still work. They know that.

Okay. Donghyuck did cry on that day right before the promotion for Favorite began, but he had erased that in memory. (Or tried to. He hasn’t exactly succeeded.) It was a moment of weakness, he would insist. Or, perhaps, a moment of understanding that vulnerability is not always the worst answer. Vulnerability is not a look he likes to put on to be seen by anyone else, but at the end of the day, Mark Lee is not just anyone else.

But he would still mind Mark, that it never happened.

“You’re exaggerating.” Mark rolls his eyes, but the smile does tell another story. “We can watch it before the tour starts.”

We can, Donghyuck repeats in his head, and smiles at the unspoken nature of them watching movies together.

He sees the empty glass next to Mark’s bowl and makes grabby fingers at it. “Here, let me make you another.”

Mark gives the glass, trusting Donghyuck to take full control when it comes to making somaek. They have similar tolerance when it comes to alcohol anyway, so whatever is safe for Donghyuck should be safe for him too.

They both know that it’s never a good sight for an idol to stumble home inebriated, especially when they are eating in a restaurant near the dorm such as this one. Donghyuck purposely chose the restaurant so they can walk home without having to call their manager to pick them up, and thankfully, Donghyuck is experienced enough to know how much alcohol Mark can take for nights like this.

Sometimes, though, Donghyuck does feel like adding more soju than beer on Mark’s glass—just to see the other get cutely drunk again.

One night, when they had yet to know the correct number of bottles to get the talk still soberly going, Mark drunkenly fluttered his eyelashes at Donghyuck. The younger laughed and considered to mock-belch. He didn’t.

Then, Mark looked at him, thin-eyed, and said, “Hyung.”

Donghyuck balked, and then a moment passed between them as he waited for Mark to correct himself. But the other only smiled, eyes gone.

Realising that it wasn’t a mistake, Donghyuck, head feeling light as cotton, laughed and shoved that head on Mark’s shoulder. He would love to tease Mark for the rest of his life for this, but he also wanted to keep it to himself for some reason. “Why are you calling me—”

“Hyung.”

Donghyuck paused, taking it all in. He took all, and everything—the genuine reverence on the older’s face, the lips turning into a smirk, the star-loaded eyes staring back at him—before he responded, “Yes, Mark dongsaeng?”

“No, listen up”—Donghyuck noticed his Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped—“no matter how long I’ve been living here, I still think it’s unfair if I should be called a twenty-two when I don’t even feel twenty-one.” 

Donghyuck watched, uncharacteristically silent, although his focus should always be familiar to the other. 

“To me, I’m only going to be twenty-one in three months.” Mark kept three fingers up at him, looking serious. “But you— you’ve turned twenty-one months ago—”

“—because of Korean age,” Donghyuck said, finishing the sentence for him.

“Yeah. And ‘cause you turn older in the new year instead of your birthday.”

“Sort of.”

“So, you’re older than me.” Mark took a rushed swig off his somaek, while Donghyuck cringed at the sight. “You’re a hyung, no?”

A silent smile unfurled on Donghyuck’s lips. “You just dug up your own grave, Mark, you know that, right?”

Mark’s eyes lit up with realisation, looking slightly wider than before. “Oh, you’re never gonna let me live this down. I am never, ever going to live this down. Man, I hate alcohol.”

They never brought that up again, but Donghyuck sometimes remembers it and smiles.

Donghyuck is now stacking up two shot glasses, then pouring a bottle of soju until it hits the line the shot glasses create. He pours one into his empty glass and goes to make another for Mark. Meanwhile, the other is busy on his phone, lips downturned in a perpetual frown.

“Practice starts again tomorrow,” Mark says without looking up.

“No work talk,” Donghyuck harshly dismisses him, as he pours beer into the two glasses in front of him. The liquid bubbles as it fills up, mixing with the soju.

“Yeah. You’re right.” 

There is a moment of silence until Donghyuck groans, and Mark finally looks at him with a newly born smile. Donghyuck abandons the glasses for the time being and dramatically brings his two hands on his head, then runs his fingers through the hair. “Shit. We don’t even know what to talk about other than work.”

Mark laughs, then imitates Donghyuck by running his hands on the backside of his head. He leans far back onto the chair and grimaces, the phone on his hand entangles with the dark green strands of his hair.

Donghyuck shakes his head and goes back to the somaek he was making, bringing a pair of chopsticks into one glass, and hitting them with a spoon. The drink foams almost to the top.

“Let’s just get away after this is all over,” he continues. “Go on a vacation for a month. End of NCT 2021”—Donghyuck makes a slicing gesture across his neck—“I’m gone. I’m taking you with me.”

“After the tour?”

“No, no, not after the tour. Before the tour.”

“It’ll kill you, though.” Mark’s face is almost too serious. “You wouldn’t even last a day.”

Donghyuck imitates the look, silently challenging them both with how much they can keep a straight face. “Come on. I can maybe last two days.”

“One and a half,” Mark corrects and Donghyuck is the first to laugh, a proper chuckle that shows off his teeth and shakes his shoulders. 

It used to kind of annoy Donghyuck every time Mark made him laugh on purpose because Mark wasn’t supposed to be the jokester. He made people laugh by simply showing the world his purity. But now he’s making a joke, and Donghyuck almost gets teary-eyed from being proud, if he isn’t teary-eyed already from the laughter. 

Meanwhile, Mark is holding himself back from his own. 

“You literally got injured and the first thing you said was fuck! I won’t be able to dance. The concert! The— yeah,” Mark gives up on explaining, finally showing a hint of amusement.

When Donghyuck calms down from the laughter, he shrugs, then purses his lips smugly. To lose his art is to lose himself—he will do this even if this kills him.

“You get it, though.” He offers Mark his glass, and the other receives it with a smile.

“I do.”

And of course, he does.

If Donghyuck will let himself be killed because of his passion, then Mark will do absolutely anything to keep himself alive only because his insane dedication to his craft won’t even let sickness get in the way. If Donghyuck worships this line of work, then Mark is the godly symbol he prays unto. A hard worker, an artist, an idol in its very definition—while Donghyuck is his fan, through and through.

He might have loved the idea of being an idol since he watched his future seniors for the first time, but he had Mark to thank for the love he has even for the grit and grime of this job.

“You’re amazing, Mark,” Donghyuck says, not out of the blue, but it may sound that way to Mark’s ears.

“What?” Mark flies his gaze straight at him, a bemused expression all over him. “You too—”

“No, no. You are really amazing.”

Mark pauses, a smile halfway made is stuck on his lips. “Thanks.”

“You’re awesome, hyung.”

“Okay. I can say that to you too. You’re—”

“This is not about me.” Donghyuck shakes his head, and he knows Mark has stopped trying to cut him off again by the acquiescent sigh he heaves. “You, from the very first time I ate a meal with you, had never—never!—missed a single time to pause before you take your first bite. Not on the airplane, not on a tour bus, not on a fucking— I don’t know, your third hotel room of the week. You’re devoted down to the core. You text your parents after every concert. You take care of your health so well that you barely get sick. You’re so amazing, hyung. I’m scared I’ll never tell you because I always tease you.”

Donghyuck hasn’t even started his second glass of somaek and he’s already rambling like a drunk person. He doesn’t know what has gotten into him.

“I think you’re the best.” That results in a burst of genuine laughter from Mark. Donghyuck, on the other hand, only looks at him quizzically. “Who said I was joking?”

“Nah.” Mark shakes his head. “Save it for someone else. Or maybe for me, but in, like, ten years from now.” In a split second, he seems to have already changed his mind. “Is it too long? Okay, maybe five—”

“No, no. Mark Lee of 2021,” Donghyuck cuts him off yet again, “Mark Lee that is in the now, he is the best. I think.”

“Dude, thanks. But seriously?”

“Whyyy?” Donghyuck elongates his vowel to better express his protest, and Mark automatically smiles hearing it. 

“Because I wanna be better, of course. If I’m already the best now, what about tomorrow? Am I gonna be lacking?” 

“You’re only gonna be better and even better.”

“How are you supposed to become better than best?”

“I don’t know.” Donghyuck shrugs. “You’ll do it. I’ve seen you do it.”

Mark smiles, his features shimmering under the warm hue of the restaurant’s light. He looks like a boy like this: the soft swell of his eyes, the absence of makeup, the roundish frame of his glasses. It amazes him how Mark always manages to look starkly different from the first version of himself that Donghyuck saw, yet also the very same.

And Donghyuck knows that sometimes Mark sees the past eight years between them whenever he looks at Donghyuck—Mark told him that numerous times, just with slightly different words—but Donghyuck is so used to seeing Mark in the little frame of the present. 

He sees Mark for who he is at the time being, not the past or the future.

Right now, he’s tipsy Mark who makes jokes. Last week, he was NCT 127 Mark singing Favorite with a trophy in his hand. In the practice room with Hello Future playing in the background, he was NCT Dream Mark. In the little frame of his phone screen, he was SuperM Mark. In a bright yellow suit, he was senior Mark who waited for Donghyuck outside of his class.

And in square glasses, he was the summer trainee. Summer trainee Mark Lee.

“By the way,” Donghyuck starts again. “When we sang Billionaire, why did you say 2013 and not 2012? You started training then.”

“Well, I didn’t move to Seoul until 2013, right?” Donghyuck doesn’t even say anything, only nodding—which, to be fair, is supposed to show agreement. But Mark reads Donghyuck like a book. “Alright. Do you want the real answer?”

“I know the answer, but I wanna hear it.”

“You were so competitive. It was like everything that I did was futile because you’d be better. How is my life not going to be twice faster when all I did was trying to outdo this, little annoying kid who at the end of the day still out-sang, out-danced, and out-rapped me?”

Donghyuck avoids his gaze and laughs. Compliments come in various forms, and no one else in this world would be quicker to catch them than Donghyuck is—always so needy to be commended for every single great feat he has done. Mark knows that too well, because he is giving him a soft-eyed smile, and it reads like a you did well, you did well in between the lines.

“Oh my god, I singlehandedly created Mark Lee of NCT.” Donghyuck nods slow and low, showing pride and teasing Mark at the same time. “Of SuperM!”

“I hate how you’re not even half-wrong.”

They laugh again and Donghyuck can’t help but think how easy this is—it’s easy when he is with Mark. Perhaps, their weighted youths were the price for something golden and pure. Be it stardom, or the simpler moments such as this one: feeling the false weightlessness that the alcohol makes them feel.

“Damn, we’ve known each other for a very long time,” Mark says, his face showing the kind of amazement he wears for everything, even very mundane things.

“No, not really.”

“Are you kidding me?” The offence in his face will make people think Donghyuck just said some horrible thing. “Eight years.”

“What is eight years in a life expectancy of a person?”

“Still—”

“It’s short, hyung. It’s only eight years. We can do so much better than that.”

“It’s still a long time.”

“You only feel that way because we see each other a lot. But timewise? It’s short.”

A desperate smile, and Mark relents. “We do see each other a lot.”

They know—even if those eight years were discounted by the number of times they were separated, they still see each other a lot. Because the number would still pale in comparison to the times they are together.

The impact Mark’s absence had on Donghyuck, though, remains huge. 

He still remembers them: when the world felt as if it was halved, cut into two and he had to accept one half of it as though it was whole. What use is the world in his hands if it’s half the size of what it’s intended to be? Because Donghyuck dreamed of all kinds of future, but he happened to dream it all with a certain somebody next to him. Somebody that he knew would be standing on another stage, facing different crowds. A different life, a different world—different parts of the world. And that distance birthed loss, made worse by the way he could feel the stretch of the ocean simply by hearing a good night from someone who was just starting his day. 

And it ached. 

It ached and it ached in his heart until Mark came back and his existence became a balm to the wound. Too late to heal, but healed, nonetheless.

Oh, God. Donghyuck is still so in love with him.

“Hyung.” Donghyuck stops himself before his mind scampers too wild. “I’m drunk.”

“No, you’re not.” Mark licks his bottom lip then drags his upper teeth on it—wet, pink, plump—God Mark uses so much lip balm today. “Wait. Are you, really?”

“I don’t know. But I feel weird.”

“You wanna go back?”

“Yes.” He nods once and a sharp, o-shaped mouth stays behind before he immediately shakes his head and goes, “No.”

“Yeah, you’re weird. Let’s get back before someone snaps a picture of you stumbling home.”

“Asshole,” Donghyuck swears with no actual bite in it. “No, wait. I think I’m not drunk.”

Mark tuts. “Donghyuck-ah.” 

Donghyuck giggles and even he is surprised by the sound of it. He stares deep into Mark’s eyes. Is he seriously this drunk from two glasses of somaek, or does Mark just look even more good-looking today? 

He is almost shaking his head when he says, “You called me Donghyuck.”

There is a pause, an eerie stillness despite the chattering crowd around them. The air strains, creating tension tight around their throats, and Donghyuck imagines if every part of Mark’s body was helping him just to say, “That’s your name.”

And there it is again, the weird tension they tried to put away throughout the promotion. The kind which if they tried to mind it, it would only grow and bring them to a standstill. Not knowing whether to go left or right, a dangerous split road with no signs above them.

A feverish burn sneaks upon Donghyuck’s face and gets him worried for a second, so he brings a palm to prop his chin up, fingers grazing on his cheek to subtly check his own temperature. He’s fine. 

An eternity might have passed already but Donghyuck still elongates it with a blink—slow, almost preening. “Don’t ever stop calling me that.”

Mark is quiet, watching him with an inexplicable expression on his face. He licks his bottom lip again, and then says, achingly softly, “Donghyuck-ah—”

There’s a jerk impulse coming from them, and someone’s hand knocks down an empty bottle of soju.

“Sorry,” Mark says, loud enough for the customers in their vicinity to hear. He picks up the bottle and avoids Donghyuck’s gaze.

“Hyung.” The word comes out silvery. And since Donghyuck is not a coward, he follows it with: “I like you.”

There’s another scrambling of hands, and the legs of Mark’s chair screeched when they got pulled back along with his body.

Donghyuck’s heart feels loose. Why is it that some truths spill out of your mouth so easily, but some won’t come out even when you empty your stomach for it? Falling in love with Mark is the easiest thing in Donghyuck’s life. And he does many things with ease.

“Come on.” In another swift motion, Mark stands up. “I’m paying.”

Donghyuck eyes his glass of somaek that still has about three gulps left, but immediately decides that he has enough alcohol for today.

“Of course.” Donghyuck follows him, watching the clumsiness of the older with careless admiration. “You’re the one in SuperM.”

“Why are you walking so far away?” Donghyuck asks Mark, who is walking an arm’s length away from his side.

Mark doesn’t answer, and instead calls him, “Haechan-ah.”

“Yes?” Donghyuck answers, but jondaemal is slipping out in place of the usual banmal.

“Why are you speaking formally?”

“I mean, yup, Mark?” Mark sighs, and Donghyuck immediately says, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“Calling you Mark.”

“As if I wasn’t used to it.”

Then, they fall into silence again, and Donghyuck hasn’t even gotten over that terrible tension back in the restaurant. 

If Mark had misunderstood his words, he’d say something like, I like you as a dongsaeng too, or, of course, you do. It’s not like Donghyuck never tried. But Mark panicked earlier. Something shifted between them, and Donghyuck’s skin breaks out in goosebumps as he thinks of all the possible reasons.

The thoughts are brewing to insanity, and he can almost feel them going down to his chest, turning in the pit of his stomach and bubbling in there, making him waver in his steps. The length between their shoulders is so cold and foreign. The stretch of ocean that divided their days comes up in his mind and he wonders if he was to plunge straight into that very same ocean, then sits on the bottom of it; the dark, cold waters consuming him—he’d probably still find more peace there than here, walking a metre apart from Mark without a word to say to each other. 

It’s a little bit too much—too overwhelming that Donghyuck dashes forward with a half-restrained shriek, only turning around when he reaches a good distance from Mark.

The other laughs, then stops on his track.

“Donghyuck-ah!” He called.

“Stupid Mark!”

“Donghyuck!”

“Stupid.” He barely makes out the smile on the other’s face.

“Donghyuck-ah…,” Mark says again, this time close to pleading.

Mark is still unmoved, somehow, only burying his hands deeper in the pockets of his coats. Finally, Donghyuck relents, then takes the steps despite the direction being opposite from where they should be going. His feet, always, take him towards Mark. Because Donghyuck could call him all the names in the world and his body will still find itself right next to him. 

He turns around to fit himself on the left side of the older—closer this time.

It’s warm, and they walk together again.

Mark, silent, leans his head on Donghyuck’s shoulder, then takes a deep breath. “Me too.”

Ah.

Donghyuck smiles so big, and he thinks of smiling until they reach the dorm, maybe until he reaches his floor, maybe even when he lies in his bed later. The smile hurts his cheeks, but Donghyuck can’t even begin to care.

The feelings have been burning with ease, after all.

Well, most of the time. He can’t lie that sometimes the flame burned him too bright and too hot that he lashed at Mark for it—only sometimes. The rest of it, Mark comes at him in the same manner as light rain, bringing the fire down to its appropriate flicker. Not enough to kill it, though—no, no, it will never be killed that easily.

The smile stays as he is reminded how his feeling is merely the projection of what Mark feels. And above all, it’s nice to hear it coming from his own mouth, despite the lack of words used.

Me too, he repeats in his head, and the words snug themselves into the corners of his brain. Me too.

“Just to be clear: you like me too?” Mark punches the spot above Donghyuck’s elbow, his head shakes along with it. “Or do you like yourself too?”

Mark clicks his tongue, but even without seeing his face, Donghyuck is sure he is also smiling. 

“Donghyuck-ah,” he whines, and Donghyuck’s cheeks hurt so much because Mark is just too unbelievably cute. He never stops thinking it even after all these years.

The road is different than the one eight years ago, the coats wrapping their bodies are way bigger, and instead of the lingering aftertaste of Melona on his tongue, he can still taste the smooth taste of beer and feel the tipsiness from the soju. But it’s still them. Still Mark and Donghyuck. Hundreds of stages later and the titles of million-seller adorning their names in articles, littering every corner of social media—but they walk side by side with the feelings burning brightly in Donghyuck’s chest, even now.

“We’re so stupid, hyung.”

“We’re the worst.”

“I love you.”

“Shut up.”

“I love you, hyung.”

They detach themselves from each other only when they get closer to the dorm. 

One of the people from the company had forcibly removed the ‘fans’ waiting out front, threatening to sue them for invasion of privacy. It never actually worked because, technically, they are not invading the dorm, which is the loophole that the sasaengs always use for reasoning. Worst case scenario for them would just be paying some fine, too—and God knows those people got money money. But at least for now, they are nowhere to be seen. It’s still natural for the two of them to keep their distance, though, since they know how subtle in hiding those stalkers could be. 

In comfortable silence, they remain an arm’s length from each other, all the way until they arrive on Donghyuck’s floor. Donghyuck steps out of the elevator, and his finger automatically goes to the button to keep the door from closing. He doesn’t know what comes after this, but it’s okay because Donghyuck loves him. God, he is crazy for Mark. 

“Night, hyung,” he says with a smile, then releases his finger. The doors don’t immediately close, and he notices Mark is holding them from his side.

“By the way,” Mark says, cheeks and ears flushing pink from alcohol. And then he clears his throat. “I feel the same.”

Donghyuck laughs. “Please say the words next time.”

“Tomorrow. I’ll try tomorrow when I’m more sober.”

“If that’s so, then.” He smiles at Mark—maybe a grin, or another laugh? Donghyuck doesn’t know anymore. He is looking at him and he feels happy about it—that’s all he knows. “See you tomorrow. I love you.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Mark says as he repeatedly presses the other button so the doors will close.

“I love you, hyung!” Donghyuck whispers through the space between the two doors, just before Mark is gone behind them.

That night, Donghyuck sleeps with the wonderful knowledge that the greatest gift of the universe is to be able to fall in love over and over again and still feel the same impact you had as the very first time. Love is beautiful that way.