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Mark shrugged off the final praises of the staff as he made his way back towards the dressing room in the back of the studio, having bowed more times tonight than he had in the last year, probably. Personally, he wanted nothing more than to just turn around and go home, but the stylists might actually kill him before he actually got a chance to debut, again, if he walked off the set wearing this jacket, so he dutifully closed the door to the dressing room behind him and undressed, slipping back into the joggers and sweatshirt he’d came in.
Working on his own solo was quite literally a dream come true, but he finally understood what Taemin said when he called it lonely. It was lonely, and it was nerve-wracking. With the rest of the guys gassing him up, usually photoshoots were a riot. But with just him, all of the time and the energy of everyone in the room focused solely on him, he felt nervous in a way he hadn’t in years. And yes, they were all terminally sleep deprived, but it was hard to feel tired with everyone on set. With just him, he was keeping himself awake with the power of pure anxious adrenaline and the promise of crawling into bed next to Donghyuck when he was done.
Love was cool, Mark thought. It was like, if he ever needed motivation or energy or a reminder of what it was all for, all he had to do was think about Donghyuck, and there it was, a reason for anything. A reason for everything.
Dang, he should put that in a song.
He was debating leaving without taking off his makeup when a sudden rustling sound from behind him nearly stopped his heart. As it turned out, the lump on the couch in the back of the dressing room that Mark had thought was just a blanket had shifted to reveal Donghyuck, clearly having just woken up. Donghyuck had showed up on set a few hours ago with a coffee for him and for the few astute staff members who’d figured he’d come and sent him their order, but Mark hadn’t seen him since then. That had been around 4pm; it was now well past 10.
“Donghyuck? Did you really stay here this whole time? It’s almost 11.”
Donghyuck rubbed at his eyes, sitting mostly upright. He was so cute when he was sleeping, and he was even cuter when he was waking up. “Is it?” he asked in a rugged, sleep-addled voice, “That’s more sleep than I’ve gotten in the last two nights combined, probably.”
Mark frowned. As much as he knew that already, as much as he himself was probably living on even less sleep, this was Donghyuck, and he had to tamp down the part of him that shifted immediately into an overprotective monster. He was Donghyuck’s boyfriend; he wasn’t his mother. And, if he’d learned nothing else after all these years, he’d at least learned that Donghyuck did not respond well to Mark acting like his mother, no matter how much Mark might have thought that he needed it.
“You didn’t have any schedules this afternoon?” He said instead of demanding a log of Donghyuck’s sleeping hours for the last month, instead of tucking him back into the couch in the dressing room in the studio on the fifth floor of the new company building and letting him sleep until morning.
“Well, can’t do 127 without you, can’t do Universe without you, and Dream is doing a schedule with just the five of them since you’re here. All your overtime is my time off.”
Well—
Huh.
Earlier this year, Donghyuck had said that it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with Mark. Mark had laughed, but he had to admit that it was kind of true. It had been probably six months or so since he’d said that, but even still, Mark struggled to think of the last time he’d gone a day without seeing Donghyuck. It’d have to be months, at least.
But still, he missed him. Before they’d started dating, before the time Donghyuck cornered Mark in his room and told him to stop being such a fucking coward, before Donghyuck pressed himself into Mark’s space and kissed him, making Mark feel like he was actually the one of the two of them who’d never kissed anyone before, Mark missed Donghyuck all the time. He still does. An hour, a day, it’s all the same. If Donghyuck wasn’t there, Mark was missing him.
Mark saw Donghyuck almost 5 hours ago, and before that, they had practice together, and before that, Mark woke up in his own bed, as he often does, with Donghyuck curled towards him, fast asleep.
But Mark hadn’t seen Donghyuck in 5 hours, and he missed him.
He swallowed the desire to tell Donghyuck just that, already sensing the teasing he’d have to endure if he let his thoughts slip through the cracks in his skull, and instead said, “Are there still more Dream schedules with just the five of them?”
Donghyuck shrugged lazily, slowly listing back down towards a horizontal position. “When all the hyungs have to go into the military, and we’re finally rid of them, then we can do stuff with Dream, I guess.”
Mark snorted. It was very possible that Donghyuck had never told a worse lie. The last time Taeyong’s upcoming enlistment had been mentioned in regards to 127 activities, Donghyuck had actually started crying in the middle of a meeting in front of several staff members, including Lee Sooman.
“You’re so full of shit.”
Donghyuck deftly ignored Mark and instead lifted his arms up. “Carry me?”
Mark cocked his head to the side, fighting a smile at Donghyuck’s antics. Laughing usually just encouraged him, but Mark could never help it. He loved laughing with Donghyuck too much to be able to help it. “I was the one who did overtime today. You should be the one carrying me.”
Donghyuck pouted, quite impressively, and made even more impressive by the hair on the back of his head standing straight up from his time spent napping, undeterred by Donghyuck’s several attempts at flattening it. The fluorescent light in the dressing room bathed them in a sickly white light, painting Donghyuck’s skin a blanched, sort of gray imitation of his usual color, and Mark, predictably, lost the battle against his smile.
He looked gorgeous. Who was Mark to deny him?
“Okay, okay,” Mark said, leaning over to plant a kiss on his irresistible forehead. He crouched down in front of the couch so Donghyuck could get on his back. “Hop on.”
What followed was several rather uncoordinated and extremely unsuccessful attempts by Donghyuck to climb on top of Mark, culminating in Donghyuck and Mark laying in a pile on the floor, giggling. Mark gave him one more try, which Donghyuck faithfully accepted and only kicked Mark a little bit on his way up.
“You didn’t have to stay,” Mark said as he hitched Donghyuck up further on his back. Donghyuck wrapped his arms around Mark’s neck, and the universe tilted itself back into place just the slightest bit.
“You looked good, or whatever,” Donghyuck muttered sleepily into the side of Mark’s neck as Mark kicked the door to the dressing room open. Mark couldn’t help but grin. Conversations with a half-asleep Donghyuck often went like this: Mark said something, then Donghyuck responded with something completely unrelated, his exhausted brain upturning Mark’s words and discarding them in favor of the conversation it wanted to have instead.
“You saying I don’t still look good?”
“You look good, or whatever,” Donghyuck clarified.
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
There was this small feeling that Mark got when Donghyuck said he loved him. It happened the first time, and it's happened every time since then. It was like his lungs were on fire. It was like he lost all the sensation in his legs. It was like the hair on the back of his neck all stood up at once. It was like all the energy in his body focused itself in the tips of his fingers. It was awesome. He was so in love with Donghyuck.
“I missed you today,” Mark said in spite of himself.
“Mmm? But I was here the whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“Missed you, too, you big baby.”
“Okay, can you please get down? My shoulder—ow, fuck.”