Work Text:
“That it’s fair—it has to be—
how our hands hurt us, then give us
the world. How you can love the world
until there’s nothing left to love
but yourself.”
— Ocean Vuong
From the start, Mark did things humbly. He was born on August 2nd, too modest to be born on the 1st and claim the spotlight as August's darling. The middle child of five boys, each a little more different than the one before. The two oldest were Johnny and Jaehyun, both drowning in work outside of school to help pay for bills. The two youngest were Donghyuck and Jisung, polar opposites in personality where the former was rowdy and fearless and the latter was quiet and uncharacteristically mature for an elementary student. And Mark was stuck in the middle, not old enough for a job and not young enough to not carry any responsibilities, so most of the household chores and babysitting duties naturally fell to him.
The morning after his fourteenth birthday was the start of his never-ending, revolving door of responsibilities, from picking up a bickering Donghyuck and Jisung to cleaning the house before the rest of the family slumped in to eat dinner. Though it sucks at times, he always just shrugs it off because it’s for the family and that means more to him than anything else.
Every school day, Mark obediently goes home on the 3pm bus, wired earphones straightened against his wrinkly shirt and beat up shoes and tired fingers tapping against the concrete and metal bench to the beat of Fall Out Boy. When he arrives, he politely hollers his thanks to the old bus driver and waddles the rest of the way home with his hands tucked deeply into his pockets. Mark fishes his keys out, lips pursing as he hums along with Patrick Stump. He kicks off his shoes, pops open the fridge for a lukewarm bottle of water, and squeezes it all into his mouth in one go. The plastic crinkles and crumpets in his sweaty hands and he throws it into the overflowing recycling bin. Fuck, he’s gotta take that out later.
He shuffles around the small kitchen in circles, mind sticky and slow with the growing heat, and resolves to try and beat the air conditioner into working. It chokes out a small, inconsistent breeze after the fifth slap, and Mark cheers a little. He potters back to the kitchen, washing leftover dishes from breakfast and preparing small sandwiches for him, Donghyuck, and Jisung to split for their afternoon snack. When that’s done, he stuffs them into a Tupperware container and leaves them to sit in the fridge. Mark grabs the broom to clean up the crumbs and then the dust in the living room, his forehead starting to shine with sweat. His back aches and he’d kill to just melt into the couch instead of completing as many chores as he can before he has to go pick up the younger boys, but he finds it more fun to do them when the house is quiet and Donghyuck-less.
The clock slowly ticks towards 5pm, when Donghyuck has finished choir practice and Jisung is finally set free from his tutoring. Mark leaves the house a few minutes early, walking down the block towards the only elementary school his neighborhood has. The sun is beginning to set and he sits on the curb, admiring the sky. He’s moved onto Green Day now and he air drums the hard-hitting solos, before he soon gets interrupted by the last bell chime, signaling the end of extra curriculars. He gets up and joins the small crowd of parents and other older siblings, head craning to look for his two idiot brothers. Soon enough, the two tumble out of the gates, Donghyuck’s hand on Jisung’s ear and the youngest sticking his tongue out in retaliation.
“Yo! Over here,” hollers Mark, though he still begins to politely squeeze to the front to grab them. “What are you two doing again?”
“Mark hyung! Donghyuck hyung called me stupid,” Jisung whines, yanking himself out of Donghyuck’s hold and falling pitifully into Mark’s arms. He looks up at him with watery eyes that if Mark didn’t know any better, would look completely genuine.
“Yah! You hit my water bottle while I was drinking from it! You soaked me right in front of all of my friends,” Donghyuck fires back.
“Deserved.”
Donghyuck’s nostrils flare. “Oh, you little—”
Mark quietly steps in between the two, with his hands raised. He sighs, “Guys, let’s just go home. You can fight there when we’re not in public. I don’t want to subject anyone else to your stupidity.”
“Yeah…stupid,” Donghyuck bites, making an L over his forehead.
“Crybaby.” Jisung scrunches his nose, a smile teasing on his lips.
The trio begin their short trek home, with Mark in the middle, carefully wrapping his earbuds up into a neat circle, while Donghyuck whistles poorly to some pop song that Mark can’t remember and Jisung kicks at the same rock forward. Donghyuck cuts off with an inhale, “Oh, hyung, did you hear?”
“Hmm?”
“Lakewood’s started going around cities looking for new students.”
Mark scoffs, “They finally ran out of rich dirtbags to steal their kids from?”
“Nah, I think they’re doing that thing they only do every 10 years. Y’know…when they grab a kid like us,” Donghyuck responds, picking at his nose. Mark smacks his hand away.
Jisung and Mark share an ‘Ahh’ sound, nodding their heads. The ‘Decade Pro Bono Kid’ or the DPBK. Every ten years, Lakewood begins their infamous tour around the nearest cities looking for some poor kid to turn their green hand to and offer a guaranteed spot in their freshman class roster. The poorer the kid, the better that handshake and slap on the back in front of the cameras look. For some, it’s a dream come true, because it means a possibility of pulling you and your whole family out and really starting to live your biggest fantasies. You get to breathe in the air of the aristocrats, share rooms with peers with unlimited zeros behind their eyes, and hang out with friends who have houses that can fit 50 of your own. What a dream.
A dream Mark frankly doesn’t share, though at times, he wonders what it would be like to get to go to a place as prestigious and fancy as Lakewood. It’s surely better than the neighborhood high school one. Maybe the people are hotter there too, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it too much. They’re probably all plastic anyways.
Mark wasn’t old enough to remember (or know to be honest) who was the last DPBK, but two years ago, he heard they had gone on to be a founder of some big, artificial neural network company. Though he had heard that from Jungwoo, who was as reliable as a ruler in a snowstorm when it comes to gossip. The point is, Mark had no interest in even trying to get Lakewood’s attention nor would they even find him interesting enough to pick.
Whoever gets to be the DPBK, he hopes it’s someone he knows so they can at least tell him if the fields really were hand-pruned and weeded blade by blade.
It unfortunately turns out that he didn’t have to hope it was someone he knew because a week later, the two recruiters had made their arrival.
Lunch had just ended and Mark was about ready to become one with his desk throughout the rest of his classes, seeing that the summer heat was not letting up. He stumbles through the hallway with the rest of his classmates, Jungwoo and Yuta arguing over some stupid anime show they sneakily finished during maths earlier. He wipes at his forehead and groans when he feels the way his shirt is sticking to his body. This fucking sucks and he cannot wait to graduate from middle school. Johnny’s been bragging about the amazing air con in the library at the high school and what Mark wouldn’t give to be blasted air until he was a popsicle.
Marksicle.
His brain feels like it has melted into a puddle. Suddenly, the ratty PA system crackles to life and their principal clears their throat. “Hello students! Please report to the gym for an emergency assembly! I repeat, please report to the gym for an emergency assembly! Thank you!”
It clicks off and the thought that he now had to turn around and walk all the way across campus to get to the gym, while still trapped in a throng of hyperactive students, makes Mark feel like he should just lie on the floor and let people step over him at this point. Unfortunately, Yuta and Jungwoo grab him before he could act on his ingenious plan.
“C’mon stupids, I wanna know what emergency this is. I bet it’s them shutting down the bathrooms because that one janitor wont stop flashing us his stinky ass crack,” snickers Yuta, mean as ever. Mark tells him as much but he doesn’t have enough energy to whack him.
Jungwoo does it for him, reaching around Mark in the middle, to shove at Yuta. “Can you be nice, loser? And, I think it’s the Lakewood recruiters. I saw a really important car this morning.”
Mark lets his words drift into one ear and flow through the second. He just wants to go home. He hopes this’ll be fast, but knowing how much these Lakewood people love to talk, it’ll probably be for awhile. Maybe he can catch some sleep. The thought brings a small smile to his face which the other two boys misinterpret as excitement.
“You going to try for the spot,” Yuta asks.
“Hnuh,” Mark groggily sounds out.
Jungwoo nudges him and it helps clear up the fog in Mark’s head. “He asked if you’re going to try to be the DPBK.”
He stands up a little straighter, “Nah, I’m not interested in that stuff. I don’t deserve it either, I can handle my life and family by myself.”
Yuta cackles, “Of course! I don’t know why I bothered asking our cute Mr. Goody Two Shoes! Humble and kind as always, just like me huh?”
“As if you know the first thing about being nice,” scoffs Jungwoo, eliciting a wounded noise from the elder. They immediately jump back into their theatrics and Mark lets himself get tugged all the way to the gym, tuning in and out of reality.
The gym used to be nice and cool a year ago, but some idiots accidentally broke the air conditioner while playing volleyball and the school hasn’t had the money to fix it since. Mark tugs at his collar back and forth, generating a small wind that feels a little nicer on his sweaty face but does little to cool him down. Somehow he just feels stickier but at least it gets him moving a bit.
Despite how he feels, the two prim and proper recruiters look as put together as a rose growing through concrete. They politely wait for their principal to finish introductions before the woman steps forward to greet the masses.
“Hello, I am the lead recruiter from the Lakewood High Charter, and my partner and I are here to seek out one bright, ready pupil to join our upcoming freshman class! We will be accepting one student only and they must meet the following requirements: they must be a rising freshman in high school following this summer, they and their family must meet our set threshold in gross income, they must have a GPA of at least 3.5 and above or an athlete seeking to go into D1 league, and they must be an eager and enthusiastic learner! If you believe you meet all of these requirements and want to grab that chance of seeing a bigger, brighter future for you and your family, we strongly urge you to apply! However, please also heed that this year we are trying something new. Starting this year, we will not only be having official applications, we will also be with you all for a day and personally choose our candidates. Our choice will override any and all applications. Our day with you will begin tomorrow, and we will have an entire team of experienced eyes following you all and seeing the status of this…wondrous school. We hope to see you all on your best behavior tomorrow.”
As she finishes her sentence, her gaze seems to fall onto Mark, singling his unenthusiastic and tired self out of the crowd of buzzing and cheering students. He blinks slowly, eyelids sticking together in the heat and he exerts minimal effort to rip them apart. By the time he opens his eyes, the lady has turned and walked off stage.
Mark is fourteen when he gets thrust into a hurricane of flashing cameras and black microphones, standing on top of a red carpet with the two recruiters, the principal, his homeroom teacher, and his family flanked on either side. He awkwardly holds a certificate that boasts of his “hard-earned” and “fortunate” acceptance to Lakewood, and he feels so fucking uncomfortable, he might rip off his skin if another camera flashed in his face. But the camera flashes continue to come and his skin stays on; instead, he just closes his eyes and lets the letters ‘DPBK’ float in bold above his choppy bangs his mom cut for him using garden scissors and an upside-down bowl.
Mark spends the summer bouncing between his usual jobs, and then a few extra part-times. He goes around collecting hours, paychecks, and W2 documents, some from being a lifeguard at the community pool, some from babysitting, some from the convenience store down the street, and his personal favorite: some from the old record and movie store. Regardless if he was on shift or not, he’d always find himself strolling around in that store at the end of the day, thumbing through records and vinyls he’s counted and touched a hundred and one times. If he was on shift, he’d take the liberty of checking out one of them and let it spin around and around on the turntable. Depending on his mood, the music varies, but often, he just picks from the rock and punk sections. Nothing better than air guitaring in front of the security camera with the broom.
His hair also grows out and he’s relieved. He’s been haunted by nightmares of showing up to Lakewood on his first day with his fucked up bangs, and now he could finally rest easy. He begs his mother to just let his aunt neaten up his hair and she relents (despite how tight her grip was on the money she had to fork over to her grinning sister). All in all, things seemed to be fairly normal…if Mark disregards the fact that in less than a month’s time, he’s going to have to pack up his entire childhood into a suitcase and a backpack before moving cities away to attend a school for silver spoon babies and trust fund kids.
The phone rings, breaking Mark out of his thoughts, and he props the broom against the wall. He picks it up on the third ring, “Hello, thank you for calling Spin Me Music Store. My name is Mark and how can I help you?”
“Ooooh, look at our baby brother, sounding all official,” a deep voice crackles through the line. Mark’s shoulders sag in relief and he smiles, “Hey Johnny hyung.”
“And me,” comes another voice, “Don’t forget me now.”
“And Jaehyun hyung,” laughs Mark, “What are yall calling me for?”
“What? Can’t two brothers care and love for their little one?”
Mark fake gags, though his heart feels warm, “Don’t call me little one.”
“Okay, little Markie.” And Mark could hear the shit-eating grin Johnny has on while Jaehyun cackles in the back.
“No,” Mark whines. “Stop. I’m going to high school soon, I’m not little.”
“Sorry, sorry, forgot our buddy here is going to be 15, what a big number. We can’t baby him anymore, ain’t that right Jae?”
“Yup.”
“You’re both terrible brothers.”
“Do you think he’ll miss us,” Johnny asks.
“Probably not,” Jaehyun sniffles before leaning close to the receiver and goes, “I bet he won’t even remember us the second he steps onto their fancy lawn. Bet he already doesn’t know who we are.”
“I’m right here.”
“I can hear his voice right now,” sighs Johnny.
“I’m right here!”
“Do you hear that? The wind is so strong,” mutters Jaehyun.
“I’m right- I’m going to hang up if you two really don’t have stuff to tell me,” Mark snaps playfully.
His brothers yelp hurriedly, “No! We’re just kidding. Come back.”
Mark rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue, “What do you guys need? Make it fast, because I’m still at work remember? You two should be too.”
“We’re on our break, and I don’t know, we just thought to call you and ask,” Jaehyun trails off, “Y’know…just check in. How are you feeling? It’s a big move, Markie.”
Mark softens. “I know. I-” he pauses and stares at the slow fan chopping through the warm, sticky air, “I’m kinda scared. What if they look down on me, because I’m…not like them?”
There’s an understanding that passes through the phone as his brothers sit in his words on the other side of the line. Johnny speaks up then, “They won’t and they shouldn’t. It doesn't matter if you got to be there through the lottery, most got to be there because of their parents’ fat wallets. No one gets to invalidate your admission, especially not because we’re poor or lower than them. Fuck all of that. Mark Lee, listen to me. You’re going to Lakewood because it is your destiny to go. You’re going to get to experience so much more than what we can ever offer you in our little neighborhood and I want that for you. Jae wants that for you. Mom, dad, Hyuck, and Ji all want that for you. Because you deserve it, bud. You’ve been working so much for all of us that you’ve never had time to just enjoy something for yourself, and I think you’re going to shine so much brighter at Lakewood. And if there are any motherfuckers—I mean—assholes, you let me and Jae know ASAP and we’ll be there in the next hour to beat their faces in so much so plastic surgery won’t save them.”
“Hell yeah,” Jaehyun cheers.
Mark winces at the imagery. “Thank you hyungs. I really don’t know what I’d do without you two. Can I admit something?”
“Anything.”
“I,” the boy pauses and he stares out the storefront, past the empty parking lot, and towards the sunset, “I’m kind of excited. For the first time in a long time, I really want something for myself.”
He can hear their matching twin smiles through their answer, “Good. We love you always bud. When things get hard, we’re all a call away and if you can’t call, then look up at the skies and we’ll be there with you no matter where you are.”
Mark hangs up a little later after they say their goodbyes and he smiles down at his hands. He’s going to enjoy this opportunity and come out of it a better person. For his family and most of all, for himself. He clenches them into fists and walks over to the shelves to pick out a new record. He has some time for a little more air-guitaring.
Mark’s fifteenth year on the planet comes and goes in a flurry of teary hugs and goodbyes, multiple care packages and letters from home, and an average roommate who leaves Mark alone. His name was Hendery, a trust fund baby who showed up on the first day of move-in with an apparently small portion of his expensive PC setup under the arm of his pressed, white Thom Browne blazer. He had nodded his hello to Mark with a gentle, unjudging smile, clearly more focused on making sure his expensive equipment doesn’t get damaged. Mark tries hard not to stare at the smoothness of his legs under his matching pair of shorts and gray argyle socks. A few hours after dinner when Mark has finally finished wrestling with trying to fill up his side of the huge room with his minimal items, Hendery has also finished setting up just his desk (his closet and bed were all done by his butler who he introduces to Mark briefly as Kun, who very kindly lended Mark a hand when he was done with his tasks). He self-introduces himself to Mark and Mark does the same, albeit a lot more awkwardly, but things get a lot harder when the person you’re talking to and supposedly rooming with for the rest of the year is the poster boy of Colgate toothpaste. They shake hands and their interaction doesn’t get any further than that for the rest of their time together.
By the end of the year, they’ve shared approximately no more than a sentence each month, never straying into anything personal but definitely not harboring any malicious intent. It was nice, a little lonely but Mark makes do.
He always does. It’s just who he is. Do good, don’t complain, and fade into the shadows; so when Hendery announces to him that he’s dropping out next year because he doesn’t really feel like doing school at the moment, Mark just nods, feeling nothing, and offers to help him pack. As expected, Hendery declines, hesitant on letting anyone but him touch his PC.
Mark is sixteen when he first meets Jeno, standing there in all his uniformed glory—with the tight and tailored coat, spotless and pressed pants, and knee high riding boots—and stretching out a gloved hand while the other, holding his helmet, rests against his thigh. The boy’s cheeks are bursting red from exertion after an hour of galloping around professionally (and beautifully, but Mark doesn’t think he deserves such a compliment anymore), and his horse (his own purebred and not a borrowed one like Mark’s) shuffles a bit, and there it was. The afternoon sun glows like a burning halo around Jeno’s face, making him look even more ethereal than when Mark first saw him trot onto the meadows. Mark shakes himself out of his reverie and picks himself up off the ground, slapping the dirt off of his pants.
“I’m really sorry about that! Sometimes I get a little too excited when I get to ride with Sunshine! He’s been cooped up for so lon-”
Mark cuts him off with a piercing glare. Maybe it was because his tailbone still ached something awful after such a hard fall or maybe it was because Jeno’s waist looks unfairly enticing, but Mark feels something bitter and ugly rear its monstrous little head and he opens his mouth to let the acid spill through and stain his teeth. “Watch where you’re going next time, silver spoon. You don’t own these fucking fields, so don’t act like you deserve to be here.”
The boy stays silent but his eyes are narrowed and for a second, Mark feels afraid. He’s about to say something in response, but Mark doesn’t stay to hear it. He pushes himself up onto his own horse and with a quiet, stern command, he gallops off.
Mark is sixteen but with an ice pack against his ass now when he finds out Jeno was also his roommate for the rest of the year.
They don’t speak to each other after Jeno moves in, half because neither had forgotten their first meeting and also because Mark had glared hard when Jeno threw him a cautious smile. Jeno promptly shutted his mouth, greeting trapped in his throat, and never tried again.
It doesn’t bother Mark much. He’s used to not talking to anyone else. He never had a reason to fill the silence, seeing that he had to share his childhood room with Donghyuck and Jisung who created more noise than a room full of chainsaws and his previous roommate never said anything either. He doesn’t see Jeno much either, the boy was always somewhere (not that Mark was keeping tabs on him shut the fuck up). He was either at lacrosse practice (God, Mark hates him and his horribly strong and gorgeous arms), at some high-society event (Mark will never admit to staring at Jeno’s small waist in his wide array of tight clothes), or at some fancy place with his equally wide array of friends (Mark hates all of them).
So it honestly just feels like Mark’s living alone, because even when Hendery was his roommate, he at least was constantly present, seemingly never having classes or extracurriculars to partake in. From the time Mark goes to sleep till when he wakes up, Hendery’s computer runs in the background like PubG white noise. But with Jeno, Mark goes to sleep alone in the silent room and wakes up to an occupied bed on the other side, somehow even more silent. Does Jeno even breathe when he sleeps?
Things seem to be going fine for the first few months. They each mind their own business and Mark finds himself quite busy anyways, after overloading his schedule with an extra math class. He also had applied to TA for the introductory biology course and soared in ranks to vice captain for the Ocean Bowl club. But, despite him having his fair share of running around, he’s still at the dorm whenever he has any down time.
It’s on a slower day when Mark finds out.
He had just finished meeting with the club, pouring over questions to prep for an upcoming scrimmage with another elite high school. His back hurt from bending over the table for so long, but they’ve managed to figure out a game plan over plates of cucumber finger sandwiches. God, Mark loves when Renjun makes those.
He pushes into his room after fiddling with the electric door lock, shoving his ID card into the slot and punching in his pin (it’s his birthday which was highly advised against but he owns nothing worthy of being stolen and Jeno doesn’t even remember half of the things he owns). When the door swings open, he’s shocked to find it pitch dark, the lights were off and the blackout curtains were drawn, keeping the evening dusk light from seeping in. Mark scratches his head, remembering that he had purposefully pulled the curtains open before leaving for his morning classes, but shrugs it off. Sometimes he’s forgetful. He smacks a hand against the light switch sensor and they flicker on immediately.
Somebody yowls, like a hurt cat, and yells, “Turn it off!”
Obedience kicks in before his brain even registers that it’s Jeno who’s curled up on the floor next to his bed. He immediately shuts them off with another wave of his hand, drowning them both into darkness again. He clears his throat, “Jeno?”
“What,” the boy croaks out from across the room. His voice was raspy like he’s been crying nonstop for hours.
“Can I turn on the low lights at least? I can’t see in here.”
“No,” the boy huffs.
Mark blindly reaches for the knob and still dials it up until the lights turn back on just barely. Jeno hisses and hides deeper into his blankets. Mark rolls his eyes and walks across the room towards his desk to dump his backpack and uniform blazer. He stares at Jeno’s shivering figure over his bed, noting how the boy was almost curling into a ball with his back pressed against the middle dresser. It boasts another 5% of Jeno’s vast closet of expensive clothes and Mark’s little collection of plants on the surface.
Mark tugs at his tie with one hand, lips pressed into a thin line. A part of him is curious, really curious, why he’s crying. The other part slaps the former and argues it’s all just crocodile tears. What on Earth does perfect Prince Jeno (can you believe he’s living with a fucking prince of all people) have to cry about? His ruined manicure?
Mark scoffs to himself, yanking the tie off completely. He drops it over his desk and turns forward to unbutton his top. His eyes trail down to look at the little mirror on his desk pointed just perfectly enough he can still see Jeno through the reflection. The boy had lifted his head a little from his arms and stared thoughtfully at Mark.
“Stop staring at me,” Mark mutters, eyes never leaving the reflection.
Jeno stammers and waves his hands wildly, “I-I’m not!” His voice cracks a little and Mark feels a little mean.
He turns around, yanking the last button open and shoves his hands into his slacks. “You weren’t?”
A small part of him preens and purrs as Jeno’s eyes immediately fall to the hard lines of his stomach. Jeno lies through his teeth, seemingly exerting more force than necessary to meet Mark’s gaze. “No. Leave me alone.”
“Why were you crying?”
“Mind your own business,” came the short and expected response.
Mark shrugs and slips out of his shirt. “Sure.”
He’s about to walk into their shared walk-in closet when Jeno hurries to his feet, blankets dropping to pool around his feet. “Wait!”
The older boy stops and turns to look at Jeno over his shoulder. He makes a noise of acknowledgement, signaling to Jeno to speak now or forever hold his peace.
Jeno shuffles on his feet and Mark realizes he’s wearing just his pajama shirt. He rips his eyes away from the tips of the shirt before he gets hooked onto a place where he can’t let himself get lost in. The younger one starts, fingers fiddling, “Can you...do you…”
“Yes?”
“Will you be here tonight,” the boy blurts out, face growing pink from what Mark could make out under the dim lights.
Mark cocks an eyebrow. He’s here every night. Jeno would know if he stays around. Mark tells him as much and Jeno fidgets harder.
“I just,” he pauses and takes a deep breath. Clearly, speaking about his feelings isn’t something Jeno does everyday, and that thought makes Mark soften a little on him, suddenly reminded of how Jisung acts when he has something he needs to get off his chest. And with a reassuring small tilt of Mark’s lips, the floodgates open and Jeno starts speaking rapidly like if he spoke any slower Mark would lose interest completely.
“Yangyang is having a party tonight and Jaemin wants me to go, but I’m so tired from this week. I had a horrible midterm today that I barely got to study for because I had to attend a dinner event the night before with my parents. And all they did was just tell everyone we knew about how useless of a son I was compared to my older brother. It’s always “Jeno, sit up straighter!”, “Jeno, you need to practice on your speaking points. Nobody is interested in talking to boring people.”, “Jeno, why are your grades so dismal? We expected more from you. How will you ever expect to reach the level of success we have worked so hard to set up for you?”, and…and,” Jeno’s voice quivers, a whimper slipping past his lips, “I’m just so fucking tired. I just want to sleep. I haven’t gotten to sleep a full eight hours in so long, I think I’m going crazy. Doyoung isn’t even here to comfort me. He’s busy being our parents’ pride and joy, while I’m standing here, in just my top because I lost my fucking bottoms and I spent two hours trying to find them, crying like a baby to you, my roommate who hates me even though I said I’m sorry. Oh, my life is such a mess and I feel so alone. My friends won’t listen to me and I’m too ashamed to tell them the real reason why I can’t go, and I don’t want to go home because I’d just feel even worse and more alone. So I just wanted to know if you’re going to be here tonight. You don’t even have to talk to me or acknowledge me! Just…if it’s not too much to ask…can you keep me company?”
He cuts himself off with a hiccup and the room falls silent, Mark still in shock from the hurricane of words and the fact that Jeno actually does have human emotions. Perhaps he stayed quiet a little too long because Jeno takes it as a rejection and shrinks impossibly smaller. He crumples onto the ground and pulls the blankets over his head, “Nevermind. Just ignore me. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
Mark curses under his breath and throws his crumpled shirt behind him onto the closet floor, uncaring of where it lands. He walks towards Jeno and crouches down. “Jeno,” he says.
The younger slowly pulls down the blanket until his red eyes peer curiously back at him. Mark bites his lip, remembering how weak he was to people crying (a trait that Donghyuck often takes advantage of), and he very slowly and cautiously reaches a hand out, Jeno’s eyes immediately tracking it. He wipes a stray tear from under Jeno’s eye, thumb brushing across the mole. They breathe in unison, a moment suspended in time. The turning point of their story. The shift in the nauseating galaxy.
“I’ll be here and…you can talk to me if you need me. I’m sorry for being so terrible to you. You don’t deserve that. You can tell your friends that I need your help with something and just get some rest. And,” Mark scratches his head, pulling his hand back from Jeno’s face who instinctively leans towards it as if magnetized by physical touch, “I know what it feels like to be lonely but if you want, you can be lonely with me.”
Jeno gives him a watery but grateful smile. “I’d like that.”
Something very visible changes between them and it feels surprisingly good. Like an invisible anvil has been lifted off of Mark’s shoulder, one that he wasn’t even aware of in the first place. They don’t have many more intimate moments anymore and even less excuses to start them, but Mark finds himself smiling and looking forward to going back to the dorm more. Sometimes the room is empty when he comes back but regardless of where Jeno is, he makes sure to come back before curfew now, just so he could change into his pajamas (Mark let Jeno drag him into shopping for matching sets), sit with Mark on their respective beds, and politely catch up. Sometimes Mark will come back and Jeno’s already in the room, usually playing a game on his phone or doing something random.
Mark won’t admit it to Jeno’s face lest he get a big ego but Mark always loved these days a little more. Having someone to come home to, hanging off of your every word with glittering pools of obsidian for eyes and pretty Cupid’s bow lips stretched into Ooh’s and Aah’s. It’s nice to have a listener, something Mark wasn’t really used to too. His parents and older brothers were rarely home and when they were, they were too tired to really listen to his blabber about his day. Donghyuck was the ultimate talker in their family and Mark likes listening to him more than he does talking, and Jisung has an attention span too short to hold onto a proper conversation.
But perhaps Mark has gotten a little fanatic about being the speaker, when he realizes that he barely knows anything about Jeno aside from the most basic facts. He’s Lee Jeno, a “hardworking emperor” in Chinese characters, and the second son of the influential Lee family. He’s 16, likes archery (despite being in lacrosse) and cats, and his friends haven’t seen much of him in days. That’s all he knows, and the thought makes Mark’s shoulder slump.
But whenever he tries to get deeper than superficial questions, Jeno gives him a tight smile and switches the topic back to Mark. And Mark always sighs and lets it happen, never one to pry if the other isn’t comfortable. The elder just hopes Jeno will someday be able to confide in him the way Mark has so easily opened up.
He wakes up in the middle of one night because he heard a sniffle that doesn’t sound like Jeno’s usual allergies kicking in. He pushes his cover off his face and looks over. Mark asks, voice husky and rumbling, “Are you okay?”
Under the thin beam of moonlight, Jeno whirls around on the other bed to look frightenedly at Mark. And Mark feels his heart hurt a little. The boy’s usually bright face was crumpling into itself like a paper crane that got crushed under a winter boot. His bottom lip was sucked into his mouth, trapped under his perfect pearly whites, and his eyes and cheek were wet with tears. Mark’s gaze trails down and notices the blanket wrapped around Jeno’s head and covering his body was slightly quivering. Was he shaking underneath it?
“Mark,” Jeno squeezes out. His voice was trembling and soft—too soft and that’s when Mark got up. “I had a nightmare.”
He crosses over the space between their beds and reaches out to hug the boy as he usually does for Jisung when he has a bad dream, but he hesitates, unsure if Jeno was comfortable with physical touch with him. He ends up trapping his arms against his side. Jeno catches onto his action, and sensing it as a rejection, he hides deeper into his blankets and whimpers.
Fuck. Mark curses at himself internally before stepping closer to the hidden boy. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The little blanket lump shakes “No”. Mark sighs and runs his hands over his face, blinking rapidly to clear up some sleep from his eyes and maybe get them to stop hurting so much. “Can I sit,” he asks gently.
Jeno peeks at him from inside his blanket burrito. He looks at where Mark’s pointing and nods shyly. Cute, Mark thinks, before snapping out of it with a random cough. He sits down gingerly and clasps his hands between his legs. “So,” he starts and trails off.
The room goes silent save for Jeno’s little sniffles and hiccups.
“Tell me something about you,” Mark decides, taking a shot in the dark.
Jeno makes a small noise. He shifts awkwardly for a bit, shuffling until he is facing Mark, still hidden deeply inside his blankets. “Uhm…what do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Anything. Dreams, hobbies, favorite shows, sports, crushes, and whatnot,” Mark waves a hand vaguely. He doesn’t take notice of the way Jeno blushes at the word ‘crushes’.
Jeno seems to be fidgeting with his hands, grip still fairly tight around the blanket. He opens his mouth and then shuts it just as quickly, getting uncharacteristically shy. But Mark is anything if not patient, so he crosses his legs and holds onto the edge of the bed, staring at the dust floating around on the ground. They really need to vacuum soon, but that’s going to be tomorrow Mark’s problem. Tonight’s Mark is really just hoping to get some shut-eye soon, preferably after his sad, moping roommate finally smiles again.
Right as his eyes are about to close and drop him back into dreamland, Jeno speaks softly. “I think I like boys.”
Mark startles awake, head whipping over with wide eyes. His heart is pounding so fucking loudly in his chest and he feels like he’s forcing his chest to breathe right now. “What did you say?”
Jeno peeks at him through the hole and even in the dim light, Mark can tell he was blushing a violent, furious red. “I had a dream. A nightmare? No, a dream. I don’t know. I just…I had something and there was a boy and I was touching him. And-and he was touching me, and I liked it. I liked it, Mark.”
“You-,” stammers Mark. His palms are sweating and it takes every muscle in his body to not wipe them desperately on his basketball shorts. He tries to push aside the big question cycling his monkey brain, ‘Who was the boy? Who did you dream of? Who touched you?’
Jeno suddenly pokes his head out and he yells, “You can’t tell anyone!”
Mark blinks. “Why- what- who- why would I tell anyone? Why would you think that of me?”
“I- I don’t know,” whimpers Jeno, shrinking into himself again, “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m just scared you’ll think I’m weird and different, but I trust you. I know I don’t show it, but I trust you. God, is that weird? We don’t even know each other for a full year and here I am, coming out to you in the middle of spring break.”
Mark stays quiet, letting Jeno ramble, not trusting his own thumping heart right now. This was his chance. His opportunity to tell Jeno he’s the same, that they really aren’t that different from each other. Two sides of the same coin. A palindrome.
But when he lifts his head to say something, Jeno is already looking at him and Mark squeaks, all confidence vanishing. He clears his throat and looks away quickly. “It’s okay. You- I-,” Mark trails off. Holy shit, why is he so fucking nervous right now? Suddenly the room feels too small and yet, Jeno is still sitting so fucking far away and Mark wants to feel his warmth next to him. Pressed against his side as Mark whispers his own confession of love into the quiet, restless room.
“Do you hate me,” comes Jeno’s voice, impossibly smaller than before and hurt beyond comparison. “It’s okay if you do. I mean, I wasn’t expecting it but I,” Jeno takes a shuddering breath and whispers out his next words like his chest was filled with burning liquid poison, “I understand if you don’t want to room with me anymore. I don’t want to make you… uncomfortable.”
“No!” Mark acts before he even thinks, whirling around to grab onto either side of Jeno’s blanket. Jeno’s eyes were shiny with tears and Mark feels awful, so fucking terrible that he had let this conversation go this way. “I don’t hate you. I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just… fuck- I’m just as scared.”
Jeno’s eyes narrow, “Of me?”
Mark shakes his head. His eyes flutter all over the younger’s face, analyzing every detail, every centimeter of unblemished, Estee Lauder-treated skin. It’s now or never. He whispers, “Why would I be afraid of someone just like me?”
It takes Jeno a few slow seconds to fully register his words, and when he does, Mark only wishes he said something sooner if it meant he could see Jeno smile as brightly. Jeno surges out of his cocoon, knocking his head against Mark’s chest making the older wheeze. He tackles him down against the end of his bed, hugging him tightly. Mark slowly wraps his arms around Jeno’s back and awkwardly pats him. He tries not to marvel at how warm and broad it was.
“Hyung.” Jeno’s whisper seeps through the U in “GO CUBS!” on Mark’s thin shirt, right above his quivering heart. It wraps its tendrils around the organ, a phantom hug of sorts, and it squeezes tight, so fucking tight. Mark hopes Jeno can’t hear the way his heart races. But alas, God has turned His watchful eye away from them to tend to those waking up on the other side of the world, and Jeno giggles, breathless and boundlessly happy. “Your heart is beating so fast.”
“No it’s not,” Mark denies weakly.
“Yes it is. I can even count it. Look, dun-dun-dun-dundundun-dun-dun- ” the boy prattles on, ear pressed against Mark’s left pec. He counts until Mark’s heart slows down as he gets used to the comforting and overwhelming warm weight crushing down on him. He counts until his own eyes start to droop, his lips shine a little, and his words slur a little. He counts until he falls asleep, lulling himself into a well-deserved slumber.
Mark is seventeen when he realized he was in love with Jeno, a type of love that he doesn’t think he could ever pull himself out of. The head over heels, stomach turning into a butterfly cage, mind blank but filled with thoughts, type.
Nothing much occurs after Mark’s stunning realization. Well, he does spend a few days stewing over how he fell in love with the formerly insufferable boy. Then, he decides it really wasn’t worth losing that much sleep over and accepts he was undoubtedly head over heels for Lee Jeno. From there, the rest of the days and weeks and months sweep over his head, except more often than not he catches himself daydreaming about the younger. He sees him behind his eyelids, sun spots caught in the darkness shaped like an eye mole here and a brilliant smile there. He dreams of him even as the real boy tosses and turns in a bed a few feet away. And sometimes, Mark thinks of him in ways he’s too ashamed to share so he keeps it secluded to four wooden walls in the bathroom stall on his floor, where the only witnesses of his guilt and pleasure were Sharpie scribbles of phone numbers and pieces of sports gossip.
But that’s as far as things go really.
Mark tucks his crush deep inside where he stores all of his other emotions past the usual “excitement” (whenever he gets to call home) and “frustration” (whenever Donghyuck fights to get on the line). Him and Jeno never talk about their shared secret or anything deep again, opting to fall back into typical bickering and normal-roommate-catch up. The only instance of them ever having such a bond is when Jeno begins to soften his quips with lingering gazes on Mark’s face, cheeks dusted pink and lips wetted with small swipes of an even pinker tongue. Mark feels like he’s going crazy.
He couldn’t tell if Jeno was doing this shit on purpose because he, somehow in the two months since that night, has caught onto the way Mark’s visual field has completely narrowed down to just the shape of Jeno’s body. But Mark was anything if not an immovable force of Leo-isms and humility beaten into every joint and bend, so he always shakes off any fantasy of Jeno reciprocating feelings.
(At least he tries to. Sometimes in his weakest and loneliest moments, he hides in his bed after his early morning classes and pretends that the corner of his blanket was a hand, smooth and familiar. He flips onto his other side and peeks under his covers to look at Jeno’s messy bed, wondering if there’s still an impression of his body there even if Jeno hasn’t been back for hours. Occasionally, he falls asleep like this, thinking of Jeno like an unstoppable train on fire. Other times, he turns onto his back and promptly shuts off his imagination before it completely steps over the line he draws in the sand in his mind.
But on a rare occasion, the line disappears with waves of Jeno-centered thoughts with or without Mark’s conscious doing, and he lets the tide pull him in until he submerges fully. If he’s going to drown in Jeno, he hopes he doesn’t ever float back to the surface.)
With every mini breakdown, Jeno opens up a little more to Mark, and soon their daily chit-chats become full-blown conversations that touch on nearly every topic in the universe. Jeno whispers his insecurities, a consistent product of his parents’ relentless berating, into the space in between their beds and Mark, in turn, shares his care package meals with Jeno. He doesn’t have much to give to a boy who has it all, but Mark soon realizes that even a small piece of his home seems to be more than enough for Jeno. He grows more and more familiar with Mark’s family as his name begins to show up in Mark’s letters back.
Mark shakes himself out of his daze. The coach blows his whistle, an ear piercing start of a brief, fifteen minute break, and all of the lacrosse players groan in relief. Mark’s fingers tap against the cold metal fence, searching for Jeno as the boys scatter off into all directions of the field after doing a team chant. Jeno ends up spotting him faster than Mark does, and the hopeless romantic, Jeno-centered part of him wishes it was because Jeno has always been looking for Mark, long before he had even arrived. He swallows the thought back down his throat as Jeno waves enthusiastically at him, says something to his teammate, and quickly bounds over, metaphorical puppy tail wagging behind him.
“Hi hyung,” he smiles and God, it’s too fucking early for Mark to get distracted by his pretty, straight teeth. “Thank you for bringing me my jacket.”
“Yeah no problem,” he passes the thick hoodie over. “How’s practice?”
Jeno takes it but makes no move to put it on. He shrugs and looks back at the field, “Same old.”
“How do you feel about it?”
Jeno grimaces, “Same old.”
Mark leans on the fence, chin resting against the tops of his arms, “I don’t get it. You hate lacrosse. Why don’t you just switch to archery like you want to?”
The younger throws him a look and leans against the metal fence too, mimicking Mark’s pose to the side. Mark shifts his head to the left to look at Jeno, eyes squinting a little from the force of the sun slowly setting behind him. Jeno blows his bangs out of his eyes, “Y’know why. My fucking parents. They don’t want me doing anything I like.”
“Your parents are kinda stupid. No offense,” offers Mark.
“Full offense,” Jeno scoffs, eyebrows furrowing as he thought about them, “They’d probably skin me if they found out I want to do art instead of fucking economics in college.”
Mark hums and gently bumps his elbow to Jeno’s. Jeno looks at him again and hides his smile into the bend of his arm. “They’ll have to get through me first if they want to hurt you,” he jokes.
Jeno’s eyes twinkle, “As if you’ll be able to do anything to my parents with those skinny arms.”
“Hey,” squawks Mark, affronted. He leans closer to Jeno who imitates him, lips curled into a Cheshire grin. “I’m much stronger than you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I can totally take you on.”
Jeno goes quiet, cheeks slowly coloring a little. He stares at Mark, bottom lip trapped under his canine, whispering, “I bet you could.”
But before Mark could react properly, Jeno pushes off and smiles brightly, as if the last five seconds didn’t leave either of them grappling at the edge of the cliff overlooking a raging river of homoerotic tension. He waves the bundled up fabric in his hand and starts to run backwards towards the field where the coach has begun calling players back. “Thanks again hyung!”
The sun blinds Mark for a bit and he rubs at his eyes with one hand, waving goodbye with the other. He tries to blink the small stars out of his eyes, but as he watches Jeno run off to his teammates (the image of how close he was to Jeno’s lips plaguing his every thought), he finds that it’s a lot harder to erase polaris when it’s already been burned into his retinas.
“You’re so stupid if you can’t tell he likes you back,” crunches Donghyuck, through the phone. Mark can hear Jisung wail off to the side about Donghyuck eating all of the chips.
“Why am I even telling you this?”
“Because I’m your brother and I’m nosy,” he deadpans, “Let go Jisung! These are mine! I bought them!”
Mark tsks as Donghyuck’s pixel image comes back into view, crumbs galore over his shirt. “Share Hyuck.”
Donghyuck groans but passes off the giant, family size bag of Doritos to Jisung. “You’re so fucking lucky. Just wait until Mark hyung ends the call and see what I’ll fucking do to you.”
“Stop cursing.” Mark twirls his pencil and stares blankly out the window. His open notebook sits idly on his table, on the same exact page and line of notes as two hours ago when Mark opens the FaceTime, feeling a little homesick. He doesn’t comment on how Jeno’s absence today is affecting him, especially knowing that he’s busy being the perfect imperfect son at some charity gala right now.
“I’ll say what I fucking want,” Donghyuck beams, at that age where he’s developed a repertoire bad words and is clearly testing the waters between using them too often with people his age and never using them with people that hold authority over him.
Mark stares at him coldly and Donghyuck pouts. “Fine, I’ll stop.”
“Mhm.”
“Anyways, why don’t you just confess, hyung?”
“To who? To Jeno? The person I like?”
“Yeah,” Donghyuck answers, dragging out the syllables and looking at Mark worriedly. “Who else would you be confessing to?”
“I don’t know. But why would I confess to him?”
“Because you like him? Jisung, can you fucki- freaking save me some? Jesus, what are you? The Dorito Cool Ranch Terminator?”
Mark opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water, stammering, “Wh-why the fuck would I confess to the boy I like?”
“Are you hearing yourself?! You like him so why wouldn’t you, stupid?”
“But I can’t do that!”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes, “Why?”
“Because then he’d know I like him,” points out Mark, flabbergasted that Donghyuck wasn’t understanding this very basic and factual point.
“Pardon my French, but what the fuck hyung?! You can’t be serious.”
Mark feels like crying. “‘M dead serious.”
Donghyuck stops wrestling with Jisung, clearly having given up on any possibility of getting any more Doritos. He turns his full attention to Mark, “Look, hyung. I know it’s scary, but what is the worst that can happen? If he rejects you because you’re not from high society or whatever, then good. Dodge that bullet. If he rejects you because he doesn’t like you back, then that’s okay. I mean it’s not okay that he rejected you but it’s okay if he does, because you’re our hyung. Strong. Capable. A little annoying, especially when you side with Dorito terminator here but that’s neither here nor there. You’ll live through the pain because that’s just what we do. We hurt, we cry, and we move on. And y’know you’ll always have us. You deserve to find a love that’s good and unconditional. You deserve a love that’s…hmm…” Donghyuck trails off in thought before snapping his fingers, “Worth its weight in gold! That’s what you deserve, and if you can’t find it in this Jeno dude, then who cares? He’s just one boy. But what if he does like you back hyung? What if he can give you that sort of priceless love? Don’t you want that? You’ve done so much for all of us, and this is the only time you’re ever going to hear this from me, so listen to me: You deserve to feel and be a little selfish sometimes. You deserve to want to love and be loved by someone. You deserve it all, so why not try? Maybe he’s the one.”
“What if he’s not,” Mark whispers.
Donghyuck smiles at him, one of those rare boyish smiles that can lighten anyone’s mood and make them feel comfortable. “So find out.”
Find the love you deserve in this isolating world.
For as much as Mark psyches himself up for his confession, Jeno actually beats him to it. It happens so naturally that Mark doesn’t feel the shock hit him until hours later. They had gotten to the point of roommateship slash friendship where Jeno would sometimes crawl out of his bed and stand awkwardly at the edge of Mark’s until the older lifts his covers for him to slip under. They don’t really cuddle, just kind of lie side by side until sleep takes them both, but by morning, they’d find themselves somehow connected. A leg shoved in between Mark’s thigh. An arm thrown over Jeno’s waist. It was one of those nights (Mark finds it interesting how much of their developments occur under the watchful gaze of the moon), except when Jeno siddles next to Mark, he presses his entire side against Mark.
Mark looks at him, eyes trying to adjust from having woken up. He finds Jeno already watching him. Mark blinks lazily at him, heart slowly ramping up in pace. Suddenly, Jeno shifts even closer until his face is mere inches away. “Hyung,” he breathes, “I can’t hide it anymore. I like you. I like you so much.”
In the depths of his sleep-riddled brain, Mark sort of registers his words. He rasps out, “You like me like the way you like your cats or you like like me?”
“Like like,” Jeno giggles.
“Oh,” Mark licks his dry lips. His heart is so loud again and he thinks back to Jeno falling asleep to his heartbeat so many weeks ago. He wonders if Jeno can hear it now. “I like like you too.”
“Oh,” parrots Jeno. “Can I hug you?”
Mark doesn’t respond, just drags Jeno into an embrace as best as he could. Jeno’s cheeks are warm against his throat. The boy rumbles a happy sigh and Mark falls asleep.
Turns out, he didn’t even have to try to get the love he deserves. Some things are just given to those who wait. Mark presses his thanks to two people into the crown of Jeno’s hair: God and the person who acts second to His Almighty, Lee Donghyuck.
It feels like flying. The type of exhilaration one can only get when you run off the edge of the highest cliff, overlooking bundles of cotton-candy clouds, and every cell in you is thrumming with an addictive energy. You throw yourself off and free-fall until the wind picks you up on its back. And then you’re soaring. That’s what being in love feels like.
No, that’s what being in love with Jeno feels like.
There’s a lot of things Jeno feels like to Mark. He feels like long bike rides along the river that leaves you feeling sore but still more than happy to sit on the grass and make each other flower rings. He feels like slowly scooting closer and closer together until they could hold hands discreetly under the cafeteria table. He feels like stolen balcony kisses when Jeno goes home sick with the flu and Mark sneaks out to bring him home-made soup. He feels like being dragged into a dingy bathroom in a vibrating club and making out in a crammed stall, the rhythmic bass pounding in time with their hearts. He feels like giggling against each other’s necks at the aquarium when Mark makes another really bad marine biology joke, at the expense of yet another school of fish. He feels like math tutoring sessions in the library where Jeno would pout and pout until Mark gives up and kisses him against the spines of classic literature. He feels like all of this but most of the time, loving Jeno feels like flying.
Mark is just a human. The middle child from a big family. The 8th DPBK boy at Lakewood. The boy who loves math and wears shirts about the ocean. Down-to-earth. Humble. Tied down.
But when he kisses Jeno, he swears he could taste the skies. There’s the blanket of clouds that taste strawberry sweet whenever Jeno puts on Chapstick. His canines poke against Mark’s tongue and it feels like the edges of the sun and moon. And Mark finds the stars when he closes his eyes and Jeno kisses him under his covers. With Jeno, Mark lets himself be a little more selfish. He wants the younger one completely, skin rattling with goosebumps whenever Jeno gives him his full attention or even part of it to be honest. He wants to love him and be loved by him until time takes both of their physical bodies. Mark wants it all, and he knows Jeno does too.
He knows Jeno loves him in the way he tucks his giggles and smiles into Mark’s neck as Mark twirls and dances them around their room, pretending to be a fancy suitor fitting for his Highness. Jeno leaves soft kisses against each of Mark’s knuckles, plush bottom lip leaving a faint coral pink tint against Mark’s skin. His love is evident, so fucking evident, when he enters a room and immediately begins to search for Mark, hands itching at his side to poke and hold onto the elder; and when his friends try to get his attention back, he just shakes them off and beelines for Mark with twinkling eyes. So many days find the two entangled in a mess of limbs, Jeno starting somewhere and Mark ending somewhere else, like wired earbuds that someone had just given up on untangling.
This is Mark’s happiness. This beautiful, sweet boy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a heart made of gold, and two hands overflowing with his returned love.
A love worth the universe.
A love so priceless,
A love that belongs to Mark.