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It’s all strangely comforting, Mark thinks. The quiet rumble of the machines. The distant thunder of tumbling clothes. The pale yellow glow of the fluorescent lights. He’s able to sit through an entire wash cycle without being tempted by so much as a twiddling thumb, lulled into a sense of creativity he struggles to embrace in the light of day.
Tonight is one of those strangely peaceful nights, trapping Mark in a liminal bubble that holds nothing but himself, his notebook, and a flurry of ideas that beg to be immortalised in ink. The skin of his right hand is smudged with blue-black stains, dragging his thoughts half-way across the page before they’ve had the chance to dry. He doesn’t mind, though. He never has. In fact, he quite likes the mess. It’s proof of his hard work and creativity, like the bruises left behind after a night of lust-inspired passion. Not that Mark is an expert regarding that sort of thing. It has been a long time since he last shared any part of himself with someone else.
His roommate, on the other hand, has recently become intimately acquainted with… well, intimacy .
It’s not entirely Jeno’s fault that his boyfriend is hot and also perpetually horny, but he’s not exactly innocent either. How difficult is it to convince Jaemin’s roommate to spend an evening elsewhere if only to save Mark from the very same inconvenience? Perhaps that makes Mark somewhat complicit too, unable to refuse Jeno anything when faced with a crescent-eyed smile and promises that the favour will be returned when Mark gets into a relationship of his own. It would be a pretty sweet deal if Mark wasn’t so chronically single.
As a consequence of the recent spike in sexiling, Mark has had to find new ways to occupy his nights.
If the library deigned to stay open past nine, it would be an easy fix. A done deal, even. He could camp out in one of the study rooms for a few hours until Jeno sends him a text to inform him that the coast is clear and he’s free to come home. The only issue is that their campus seems to cater more towards the population of early risers than night owls, and Mark – being the latter – always ends up pulling the short straw.
Sure, there are places open much later in the centre of the city, but getting there costs enough money to convince Mark that he’d be better off sitting on the wall outside his dorm, vulnerable to whatever weather the sky chooses to unleash on him.
It takes several days, some trial and error, and a strange encounter with one of the janitors in the student lounge before Mark eventually lands in his dorm’s laundry room. It’s tucked away in the basement, lit only by a strip fluorescent lights on the ceiling, and it permanently smells like damp socks, yet somehow Mark has actively chosen to spend his nights sitting atop the out of order washing machine.
The late hour allows Mark to stay in the laundry room, undisturbed, for most of the night. He occasionally encounters other students who’ve let their washing pile up until they’ve run out of underwear, stuffing their clothes into machines in a manic rush before disappearing again. Some of them offer Mark a polite smile, while others act as though he isn’t even there, but there is only one who Mark is actually intrigued by.
The stranger is a regular visitor, which wouldn’t be unusual if the place he regularly visited was literally anywhere else. A coffee shop would make sense. A gym would be acceptable. Hell, even a strip club would be understandable, but a laundry room?
For three weeks straight, Mark has crossed paths with this laundry fiend every time he’s been kicked out of his dorm.
The first time, he thought nothing of it, assuming the guy was just another student in dire need of clean underwear.
The second, Mark assumed it was merely a coincidence.
After the third, however, Mark found himself focusing less on the scribbles in his notebook and more on the gentle slopes of the stranger’s profile as he unloaded his washing from the dryer, or the crease that formed between his brows when a stray sock turned his white towels blue, or the slight twitch of his lips when he glanced back at Mark as he left the room.
Now, Mark has accidentally made it a habit to wait for the other boy to show up. He sits around for far longer than he’ll ever admit, clicking the end of his pen impatiently while his heels knock against the base of the machine, all culminating in a chaotic cacophony that does little to drown out the timid voice of doubt whispering in his ear.
Mark’s palms sweat every time the boy makes an appearance, readying himself to finally just say something rather than watch from afar, but his mouth always dries up and the words get tangled around his tongue. Before Mark knows it, the stranger is collecting his laundry and leaving the room without a single word being exchanged between them.
Due to their history of silence, Mark expects tonight to be no different. The stranger saunters into the room not long after Mark arrives, dragging an unusually heavy bag of laundry behind him. He offers Mark a cursory smile when they catch one another’s eye, but he looks away almost immediately after, dropping his bag of laundry on the floor with a muted thud.
What Mark doesn’t expect is for all his silent longing to reach its peak tonight, ink smudged beneath his fingernails and a sour lollipop propped between his teeth.
“Do you have bowel issues or something?”
Mark almost thinks the stranger is talking to someone else until he looks up to find honeyed eyes boring into his from across the room.
“What?” he croaks around the stick of his lollipop. The wrapper claimed that the candy was orange flavoured, but all Mark can taste is a faint note of citrus, as though the aforementioned orange is in another room. He should really start bringing more substantial snacks with him on his laundromat excursions to save himself from the disappointment of poorly flavoured sweets.
The stranger cocks an eyebrow, his mouth curling up at the corner in a crooked smirk. “You’re here almost every night. Are you constantly shitting your pants, or what?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Mark retorts, impressed that he’s actually managed to speak a fully-formed sentence in the presence of his campus crush. “You’re here just as often as I am.”
The stranger is silent for a moment, his eyes glimmering with something akin to pride. “Touché.”
He then turns around and begins stuffing his clothes into the nearest empty machine, scattering mismatched socks, a singular glove, and what Mark thinks might be a pair of lacy panties across the floor. Saliva pools in his mouth, gathering around the lollipop as it goes unsucked, his thoughts spiralling with images of those long legs peeking out beneath a hem of lace, smooth skin begging to be touched, to be kissed, to be—
It’s not until Mark is in danger of dribbling down his chin that he finally returns to his senses, by which point the stranger has collected all of the stray underwear (lacy or otherwise) and stuffed it into the machine alongside the rest of his clothes. Mark’s mouth makes an embarrassingly loud slurping noise when he sucks the lollipop against the inside of his cheek, re-alerting the stranger to his presence.
“What’s the flavour?” he asks, inclining his head towards Mark, who is now sporting a rather unsubtle blush.
There’s a dangerously knowing look in the stranger’s eyes, glinting tauntingly under the harsh fluorescent lights. It’s unfair that he still looks angelic in this dingy little room, all golden hair and tanned skin and pretty pink lips, while Mark is fairly certain that he looks more like a gargoyle, hunched over his notebook with dark shadows smudged beneath his eyes.
“Orange,” he garbles, his answer obstructed by the slowly diminishing lollipop resting on his tongue.
The stranger’s smirk grows into a smile that lures Mark in like a trap. “And your name?”
“Mark.”
“Cool. I’m Donghyuck.” The stranger – Donghyuck – eyes Mark coquettishly, his gaze trailing the sharp edges of Mark’s face before landing on his lips. “Can I have a taste?”
Mark inhales so quickly he almost chokes on his own saliva. “Huh?” he croaks, thinking he’s misheard.
“Your lollipop,” Donghyuck explains. “Can I have a taste?”
What. The. Fuck.
Mark suddenly feels like he’s been dropped slap bang in the middle of one of his own dreams. This shit doesn’t happen in real life, and it most certainly doesn’t happen to Mark, not unless he’s sleeping and his brain has subconsciously conjured up this sort of situation for Dream Mark’s enjoyment.
But this is real . At least, Mark’s pretty sure it is. He’s almost tempted to pinch himself, just to make sure. He doesn’t, of course, because Donghyuck is watching him carefully, his eyes everywhere all at once. The blush on Mark’s face spreads down to his neck, and he’s helpless to do anything but let the fiery flush rage across his skin, his entire body growing hot with an emotion he recognises but refuses to name.
As unfortunate as it is, he thinks he might understand Jeno a little better now, because the thought of refusing Donghyuck his wish makes Mark want to separate his soul from his body just so he can punch himself in the face.
“Uh, sure,” Mark agrees slowly, tugging the lollipop from his mouth. The amber candy glints in the yellowish light, no bigger than the size of a pea. “Kind of tastes like shit though.”
Donghyuck shrugs. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
He practically prowls across the room, closing in on Mark until mere inches reside between them. From this close, Mark can see the smattering of details that were invisible to him from a distance, like the acne scar on Donghyuck’s cheek and the hint of stubble across his chin. The scent of Donghyuck’s deodorant would be generic were it not attached to his skin, and Mark is unable to stop himself from leaning in a little closer. He raises the hand holding the lollipop, stretching it towards Donghyuck expectantly.
Donghyuck gives the proffered lollipop a disapproving look and shakes his head. “No, not like this.”
Mark frowns. “Then how…”
He trails off when he notices the change in the way Donghyuck is looking at him, his eyes suddenly growing dark and heavy lidded. Despite the fact Mark is still sitting atop the dryer, it seems like Donghyuck is the one looking down on him.
“Like this,” Donghyuck whispers, and then he’s leaning in close enough for his breath to ghost across Mark’s lips.
He doesn’t mash their mouths together like Mark wants him too. Not yet, at least. It’s clear that he’s waiting for Mark to make the next move, his body taut with restraint, holding himself back from diving in at the deep end.
The oxygen rushes out of Mark’s lungs in an audible albeit shaky whoosh , his notebook, pen and lollipop clatter to the floor, and then he’s closing the space between them, pressing his mouth to Donghyuck’s in a hesitant kiss.
It’s soft at first, a tentative connection between two strangers who know nothing but each other’s name. Mark’s heart trembles in his chest and his palms are tacky with sweat, but he ignores it all, too focused on the pressure of his lips as they press against Donghyuck’s.
All it takes is Mark’s touch growing a little bolder for the pace to change. His hands come to rest on the dip of Donghyuck’s waist, using it as leverage to tug the other boy closer. The jut of Mark’s kneecaps dig into Donghyuck’s abdomen, but he doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, the proximity appears to spur Donghyuck on, the movement of his lips growing increasingly hurried the more confident he becomes.
Mark quickly comes to discover that Donghyuck kisses like most boys do: hurried, tongue-first, desperate. His lips are a little chapped, his grip on Mark’s shoulders is borderline painful, and everything tastes like artificial orange, but it’s the sort of kiss Mark didn’t know he was craving until it was his. Their teeth clack together when Donghyuck surges forward, caging Mark against the washing machine until it digs painfully into the backs of his knees, but neither boy cares, relishing in the pain instead of condemning it.
Donghyuck’s kisses are bruising, nipping at the sensitive flesh of Mark’s lower lip with his teeth before soothing the same spot with a swipe of his tongue. It makes Mark dizzy, clutching Donghyuck tighter to keep himself from toppling to the floor. His legs come to wrap around Donghyuck’s waist, dragging him forward so that their heartbeats meet, thundering against one another through a barrier of muscle, skin, and the fabric of their shirts. If they weren’t currently making out in the least sexy location on campus, Mark would be tempted to tear off Donghyuck’s shirt, just so he can finally touch the smooth skin he knows lies underneath.
Then, quite suddenly, Donghyuck departs from Mark’s mouth. His lips are red and slick with spit, shining like he’s slathered them in lip gloss, and a pretty blush rests high on his cheekbones. God , Mark wants to kiss him all over again, but the rumbling of the dryers has stopped, and instead, a shrill beeping rings through the air.
“Hi,” an unfamiliar voice says, shattering the fragility of the moment into a million pieces.
Mark is physically unable to do anything but sit in shocked silence as Donghyuck retrieves his hands from their perch on Mark’s shoulders, turning around to face the girl with his left eyebrow arched.
“Do you mind?” she huffs, gesturing to the dryer on Mark’s left.
“Not at all,” Donghyuck smirks, but he moves over, allowing the girl to slip past them and unload her laundry.
Mark at least has the dignity to look somewhat sheepish when she shoots both of them an ugly glare. While he can’t exactly blame her for her attitude, Mark can’t deny that he isn’t slightly miffed about his first kiss with Donghyuck being cut short.
Once the girl is gone, laundry basket cradled against her hip and a scowl tattooed across her face, Donghyuck finally looks at Mark for the first time since their kiss. There’s a wariness about him that wasn’t there before, evident in his refusal to re-enter Mark’s personal space or properly meet his eyes. Mark waits with bated breath, unwilling to open his mouth and speak, because he’ll definitely say something stupid and end up scaring Donghyuck off for good.
In the end, Mark doesn’t pluck up the courage to just speak, regardless of the consequences.
“I have to disagree,” Donghyuck says, disturbingly blasé considering the fact they’ve just been caught making out on top of a dryer. “That lollipop tasted pretty great to me.”
He doesn’t wait around for a response, and sends Mark one of those stupidly beautiful goodbye smiles before leaving the room. His abandoned laundry continues to rumble in the machine, and Mark falls back against the wall, his legs feeling like jelly and his lips tasting like his new favourite lollipop.