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Mark’s life ends the summer between his junior and senior year of college. He doesn’t even get to enjoy the long break, because it all comes crashing down around his ears the first week of June. Alas, such was the tragedy of life as Mark Lee.
“Stop being a baby,” Donghyuck tells him, rolling his eyes from where he’s stretched out on Mark’s bed – wrong way around, dirty socks propped up on Mark’s fucking pillow, what the fuck, Donghyuck? “It’s not that big of a deal. So what, a couple million people saw you eat shit? Last month, a couple hundred people watched you choke on a grape in the dining hall while Jeno gave you the Heimlich.”
“That’s not making me feel better,” Mark groans from his hiding spot on the floor. His voice is muffled by the stray hoodie he’s buried his face into, trying to suffocate himself in the folds of fabric. “That’s making me feel worse, actually.”
“Get over it,” Donghyuck advises patronizingly, punctuated by a loud yawn. “Everyone will forget about this in two days, when the next thing goes viral. In two weeks, no one will remember the Next Level challenge ever existed in the first place.”
“Two weeks,” Mark whimpers, shoving his face further down into the floor. “Two weeks.”
“Suck it up, buttercup.”
Mark laments the choices he made two hours ago, when he discovered that his dumb little joke of a TikTok he’d only posted to have a little giggle over with his friends had, for some godforsaken reason, gone viral. He had dropped his phone in his panic, cracking the top left corner of the screen. Then he’d stared at his own video for about five minutes, watching in horror as his clumsiness played out on a loop and the number of likes kept ticking up, and up, and up. And then he had panic-deleted the app, as if that would do anything, and then he’d texted Donghyuck “SOS get over here ASAP STAT RN i need ur help!!!!!!!!”
Mark’s major error lay in texting Donghyuck. He should have texted Jeno. Rookie mistake.
“Why’d you even post it if you’re so embarrassed about it, anyways?”
A good question. “I wasn’t embarrassed about it when I thought like, two hundred people would see it,” Mark sighs, rolling onto his pack and using the hoodie as a pillow. He stares at a crack in the ceiling. He doesn’t have many followers on TikTok – just his friends, people from the dance team and competitors he’d met at showcases, random people from high school, acquaintances at college, a few bots. “They all know what I’m like, it was just funny. But now two million people think I’m a bad dancer. Me! Bad at dancing!” Mark wailed, throwing his forearm over his eyes. “There’s millions of people walking around thinking I’m just some guy who doesn’t know how to dance! It feels terrible for people to hold such a twisted perspective of you, you know?”
Donghyuck stares at him. “You know, sometimes I forget how arrogant you are.”
“Thanks?” Mark’s pretty sure that was a compliment.
“It wasn’t.”
…
Hanging out under a pavilion at Trout Lake park, shooting the shit with his friends and occasionally venturing out into the water to cool down, was one of the great joys of Mark’s summer breaks; one made all the more precious since they could only come here a few months of the year now, when college was out.
Figures that Donghyuck would taint it for Mark by forcing him to relive his lowest moment here.
“Why are you doing this?” He begs. Mark turns to Renjun for support, but he’s not looking his way, leaning into his boyfriends side and watching the video with curiosity.
“Shh, I’m trying to show you something. You’ll be thanking me in a minute.”
On screen, Mark is wearing a gray t-shirt tucked into acid wash jeans, dancing along to the beats of Next Level. He moves to take a step forward – and disaster strikes. His socked foot slips along the tiles of his parent’s kitchen and sends him careening forward, arms windmilling as his face contorts in panic. He goes down hard, the corner of the kitchen table catching his hip on the way and folding him in half. Mark knows how this ends; curled in the fetal position on the unforgiving tile, moaning in pain.
His face is burning, just watching this even now. 40 million impressions, 7 million views, 2.3 million likes, 300,000 shares. The absolutely mortifying statistics play on a loop in his head. Mark wishes he were a turtle. He tries his best to become one, retracting his neck and attempting to tuck his chin under his hoodie’s collar. Donghyuck notices immediately and shoots Mark an exasperated look, grabbing him by the top of his hair and yanking him up even as Mark whimpers in pain.
“You’re gonna miss it!”
“Miss what?” Mark bit back. “It’s my own video! I know what happens!”
“Do you really think I’m just making you watch your own video again, dummy?”
The real and honest answer to that question was a resounding yes, but before Mark could inform Donghyuck of that, the clip of Mark cuts off. He blinks in confusion as it changes to the video of the person who is apparently duetting him.
Which is… who is…
“You guys.” Yuta’s face is now filling the screen, huge eyes open wide and sparkling. His cherry-red hair is half-pulled into a bun, and the white tank top he’s wearing is hanging precariously from his shoulder. It makes it easy to see down the large dip in Yuta’s collar; a multitude of necklaces swing against Yuta’s chest, both outside the shirt and against his skin. “You GUYS!”
“Oh my God,” Mark croaks, staring desperately at the screen. His heart is simultaneously in his throat and dropped down to his ass. He feels light-headed. He might be sick. Nakamoto Yuta has seen Mark. Nakamoto Yuta has seen the worst video of Mark on the internet. He’s going to die.
“It’s not the worst video of you on the internet, don’t be dramatic,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, pausing the video momentarily. “You uploaded a cover of ‘That Should Be Me’ to Youtube when you were 11 and had been taking guitar lessons for a month.”
“That was deleted!” Mark squeaks, throwing his hands in the air. One of them smacks Renjun in the shoulder, which earns Mark a glower.
“The internet is forever,” Donghyuck intones ominously, and then he taps his phone to make the video start playing again.
Mark feels nauseous.
“Oh my God, guys, did you see that? Did you all see that? Did you see that guy?” Yuta sounds absolutely delighted. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, rubbing his hands together as his eyebrows move expressively. Mark is going to be sick. His favorite choreographer, who Mark has admired and followed for three years now, is about to roast Mark’s dancing.
He stands up from the table, trying to make a break for his car. Donghyuck catches him around the thigh before Mark has the chance to take a step. He goes down hard, knee cushioned in the grass, nearly taking Donghyuck down with him.
“Can you stop being dramatic for once?” Donghyuck asks, exasperated. He yanks Mark’s wrist, pulling him back to the picnic table. “I have to start it over now!”
“Why?” Mark whined, burying his head in his hands.
“Because you missed part, idiot!” Donghyuck smacks the back of his head. Mark barely lifts his head from his arms, giving Donghyuck his most wobbly eyes. His alleged best friend stares back without pity. “Watch yourself eat shit again, loser. And don’t fucking squirm this time.”
Mark resigns himself to his fate, watching the phone despondently as the video plays out, again. And then the jump cut, Yuta’s sudden appearance. Mark stares at his sharp collarbones, tiny on the phone screen, longingly. It sucks to be made fun of by your… well, not idol, but ‘role model’ sounds even more trite. Whatever. It sucks to be made fun of by a really talented guy you admire, but at least he was looking super sexy while he was doing it. Mark takes a little comfort in that. He’ll just tune out the words coming out of Yuta’s mouth, and he won’t cry in this public park, and everyone will eventually forget that the stupid video exists, and it will all be fine.
“You GUYS!” Yuta says again. He pushes a hand back through his hair, smoothing flyaways and patting his tiny bun absently, a habitual gesture. It lifts his jean jacket, which had been hanging loosely off his elbows - embroidered and covered in pins and so trendy Mark’s wardrobe sobs - and deposits it to rest back on one of his shoulders. “Oh my God, guys, did you see that? Did you all see that? Did you see that guy?” Mark whimpers. “He is so. Fucking. Cute!”
Mark blinks. He sits up, rubbing at his ears. What?
“He’s so cute, right? I think I’m going to die. He’s so adorable! I need to squish him!” Yuta’s voice has pitched up to a squeal. “His cute little nose? Oh my God. And his cheekbones, holy shit, and that jawline? Incredible. I was like, he can’t be real, you know? So then I go to his account, and guys. He is real. I can’t believe this. I cannot believe we are all so BLESSED!”
“This is a dream,” Mark whispers, eyes fixed and unblinking on Donghyuck’s phone. “Holy fuck.”
“Loser,” Renjun mutters under his breath, which is Mark’s signal that this is not, in fact, a dream. If it were a dream, Yuta would be next to Mark on this bench, not Donghyuck and Renjun, and Mark would be in his lap and he’d be kissing the hell out of him. And also touching Yuta’s nipple piercings, if it was a really good dream.
“His name is Mark, and he is the cutest boy alive,” Yuta is sighing, hands folded over his chest. He swoons backwards dramatically, falling to land gracefully in his spinning chair - the one he does his home radio show from, which Mark knows, because he watches the Youtube videos of it Yuta uploads every week. “I’m going to marry him.” Yuta blinks up at his ceiling languidly, stars glistening in his eyes. Mark’s lungs feel constricted. He realizes he’s been holding his breath for nearly thirty seconds now, and gulps in a noisy inhale.
Yuta sits up suddenly, leaning forward and shooting the camera a suspicious, narrow-eyed glare. He has sparkling black eyeliner smudged along his lashline, and some of it has creased a bit under his eyes, but it just makes him look even hotter. Like Yuta got all sweaty and couldn’t be bothered to fix his makeup. Which was probably true, actually, but Mark couldn’t let himself think any more about that in public.
“None of you better fucking steal him from me,” Yuta warns his viewers sternly, eyes narrowing further. He pokes an accusatory finger at his camera. “Mark is mine. You hear that? Mark is my future husband. Back the fuck off.”
Mark swallows noisily. He hears Renjun groan under his breath, even as Donghyuck cackles loudly.
The TikTok ends there, looping back around to five seconds before Mark’s disastrous tumble –
He smacks Donghyuck’s phone out of his hands, frantically swiping at the screen to get it to scroll to a different TikTok. It works, even though Donghyuck squawks indignantly and snatches his phone up protectively, cradling it to his chest and giving Mark a dirty look. He locks it though, so the overly-processed TikTok audio of ‘Wildest Dreams’ cuts off, leaving them with just the sounds of birds chirping and children playing pickup soccer in the distance.
“Well?” Donghyuck’s brows arch imperiously as he smirks at Mark. “Was I right, or was I right?”
“Holy shit.”
“You can say ‘thank you, Donghyuck, you’re the bestest friend ever’ now.”
“Holy shit.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound like thank you–”
“Shut up,” Mark says absently, not even noticing the twin looks of indignation from his best friends. “Nakamoto Yuta wants to marry me?”
“Chill out, Mark,” Renjun’s voice cuts in, even and dry. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“He does think you’re a certified cutie-pie though,” Donghyuck coos, leaning forward to pinch Mark’s cheek. Mark swats it away, scowling at his best friend. “Hey, I just did you a huge fucking favor, bitch. Some gratitude?”
Mark deflates, immediately feeling overcome with guilt. “You’re right, sorry. I’m just so… so… Yuta noticed me?”
“Yep.”
“And he doesn’t think I’m the biggest idiot in the world?”
“Seems like it,” Renjun conceded sardonically.
“My life is made.”
Mark rests his palms just behind him on the bench, leaning back slightly and tipping his face up. He lets the warmth of the sun bask over it, sighing happily. For the first time in four days, he feels at peace.
And then Donghyuck’s phone trills, signaling a push notification.
“Oh.” Donghyuck’s voice is actually surprised, small in shock. Mark’s eyes fly open.
“What is it?” He asks carefully, stomach already curdling at the possible responses. Did someone make another embarrassing TikTok of Mark’s go viral? Shit, had somebody found the Justin Bieber cover?
Donghyuck shakes his head, blinking and raising his eyebrows slightly, expression clearing back to normal. “Yuta posted another video,” he explains.
“Play it,” Renjun orders. Mark chews his lower lips between his teeth. Renjun sighs, pinching Mark’s lip and yanking it free in a practiced motion. “Stop that! It chaps your lips so badly!”
Yuta is dressed simply, for him. Oversized acid-washed Ramones t-shirt, light wash Louis Vuitton logo jeans, hair down, fake glasses with gold frames perched on his nose. He’s lounging in his spinning chair.
“Some of you seem to think I wasn’t serious about putting a ring on it. You’re fools. I am so, so serious about Mark. That’s TikTok user onyourmark, go look but remember no touching because he’s mine thanks. Anyways, speaking of putting a ring on it, I’m thinking a sapphire. Oval cut, offset by two smaller diamonds, platinum band. A bit unique, but still very classic. And deep blue really suits Mark. Now, for our venue.” Yuta spreads his arms wide, inviting them all into his vision. “Okay, so I’m picturing… destination wedding. Like, on a beach, sunset happening behind us. I’d definitely wear a white tux – white suits me.” Here, he shoots a wink at the camera, flashing a little finger heart. “I’m picturing Mark in a black tux for the contrast, but if he really wanted the white I would compromise. We’d look great matching too, actually. On second thought, maybe double white tuxes would fuck. Let me know in the comments, guys!”
A cut. Yuta is standing in front of a green screen, gauzy, half-unbuttoned shirt falling off his shoulders as he grinned manically down the lens. He clapped his hands together, heavy jewelry catching in the ring light, “So! I found some examples to really show what I’m talking about. Here’s the ring inspo.” He goes through several slide of ring pictures, varying wildly in their quality, ooh-ing and aah-ing over each. “And here’s what I was originally thinking for venue. But then I found these.” Professionally taken wedding photos of couples doing their vows inside an aquarium fill the screen. The strange blue light dances over their skin and the white dresses in an otherworldly, entrancing way. “Aren’t they beautiful? And I love the idea of our wedding being witnessed by sharks. Or maybe jellyfish. Wedding planning is so fun. I just have so many ideas!” Yuta grins, clearly delighted by his wealth of ideas. “Anyways, if you had a really cool wedding, or if you went to a really awesome one, drop some details in the comments below. I’m not settled on anything yet. And of course, Mark’s opinion is really valuable to me, so if he has a preference I’ll be leaning towards that. I’ll keep you guys updated on how it goes! Much love, bye~!”
“Holy shit,” Mark breathes, hands clutched so tightly together his knuckles have gone white. At some point during the video he began rocking on the picnic bench, completely unawares. “Ho-ly shit.”
“I don’t think he meant it as a figure of speech, Junnie.” Donghyuck’s voice trills with giddy smugness.
“Damn.” Renjun looks at Donghyuck’s phone with his eyebrows quirked, lip curled judgmentally. “I thought you guys said he was really cool?”
“He is!” Mark yelps, turning to level Renjun with a glare. His best friend’s eyes widen, and he leans back a couple inches. Mark has to defend Yuta’s honor though. “He is cool! He’s like… he’s like, I don’t even know. He’s so chill.” Mark cuts Renjun with narrowed eyes when Renjun snorts at that. “Yuta really is chill, dude. I don’t mean that he’s super relaxed, or monotone, he’s exciting! He’s animated! He’s engaging! That’s why he has so many follo – you know what, I’m getting sidetracked. He seems like a chill guy who like, goes with the flow, makes the best of every day, is super spontaneous, ya feel? And he’s just the best dancer, Renjun. He’s… he’s incredible. Here, Donghyuck, can you pull up –” Donghyuck is already scrolling through Yuta’s feed, tongue poking out between his lips. Mark gives him a grateful nudge with his knee. “Thanks, man. And he dresses so nice, Renjun. I have no idea what his style is but he looks amazing in everything. And he’s had, like, a dozen different hair colors, and he looks so good with all of them, and sometimes he wears it down and it gets all wavy and it just – yeah.”
“I mean, he’s hot,” Renjun says, sounding neutral. “I’m not denying it. He just seemed… uh, obsessive? Kind of? And like…”
“Planning your future wedding to a TikToker you’ve never met is cringe?” Donghyuck interject helpfully. Mark shoots him a glare.
“I thought you were on my side. And shut up, I’m not a TikToker, Jesus!”
Donghyuck shrugs. “He’s a fucking awesome dancer, and his choreo pops off. But it was pretty cringe watching him talk about how much he wants to marry you.”
“You guys just hate to see me happy,” Mark announces, extricating himself from the picnic table at last. “You suck. You’re the worst best friends ever.”
“Bye!” Donghyuck’s voice trills after Mark as he strides off to the parking lot, digging his keys from the pocket of his cargo shorts. “Oh, shit, this is a good one. Here, Renjun, just watch his isolations–”
Well, at least Renjun was going to experience the genius that was Yuta’s work.
Mark slams the door to his car open, scrunching his face in displeasure as a solid wall of heat slaps him in the face. Ugh, gross. He sticks the key in the ignition and cranks up the AC, waiting for his oven of a car to cool down enough for him to close the door and start driving. Mark slides his phone out of his pocket, spinning it between his fingers. He probably shouldn’t… but why not?
Watch it again, a voice in the back of his head tells him, one that sounds like the devil on his shoulder. Watch it again, what’s the harm?
‘What’s the harm’, indeed.
Mark looks furtively from side to side, as if someone is waiting in the footwells of his car to catch him out for watching a fucking TikTok. He scoffs at his own actions, biting his lip and swiping open his phone. He has to wait a minute for the app to re-download, and then another minute to sign back in, but then – boom. Top of his fucking For You page. Dang, the algorithm is good.
Mark hits the volume button on his phone up a few times, and doesn’t bother trying to suppress the secret smile stealing over his face now as he watches Yuta plan out their hypothetical wedding; chuckling at every enthusiastic gesture, animated lift of his brows, slideshow of photos ripped straight off Pinterest.
Yes, this video is certainly For Mark. For a singular, selfish moment, he wishes it was only For Mark.
But then the TikTok ends, and the next one begins playing, a gym dudebro influencer Mark follows popping into place on the screen. It’s nice to watch Johnny do squats, for sure, but not nearly as nice as watching Yuta talk about Mark with joy sparkling in his eyes. With a sigh, Mark closes out the app and locks his phone, dropping it in the cupholder. He yanks the car door shut and clicks his seatbelt into place, glancing over his shoulder to check it’s clear behind him.
Mark is never going to get Yuta all to himself, and it is foolish to entertain the hope. Better to be happy with the 60-second slices he’s been granted, and not set himself up for disappointment.
…
The thing is, that isn’t the last video. Mark had turned Yuta’s notifications on the night before, some foolish hope and cheesy fantasies lingering in his chest. He didn’t expect them to go off the next afternoon, an hour after he comes home from work and hoses a bag of Goldfish. This time, Mark is one of the first viewers.
“Okay, I checked, and Mark already follows me.” Yuta’s eyes widen as he informs his phone camera of this great development, clapping his hands together in excitement. “So we’re halfway there already. Now, to address some concerns.”
A comment pops up on the screen, presumably left on the last TikTok. ‘This is a little weird. What if he already has a s/o?? Imagine how they’d feel’
“First of all, stop bringing your rancid vibes into my comment section,” Yuta began, smirk dripping with superiority, clearly not giving a shit about negative comments. “Second of all, so what if Mark does have a significant other? Look, I’m not saying I’m a home-wrecker, but…” Yuta trails off, glancing shadily to the side of the camera and shrugging expressively, eyebrows arching. He even has cool eyebrows. The slit shaved through his left one is devastating to Mark, personally. “I mean…for him. I could be. Not that there is even a home to wreck, because Mark is SINGLE! And I will continue to manifest that!” Yuta claps his hands together, as if in prayer. The gauzy sleeves of his shirt billow with the motion. “But if he… if he does have a ‘significant other’,” here, Yuta’s lip curls exaggeratedly, a playful sneer that shouldn’t make Mark’s cheeks so hot, “Peace and love to them, honestly. But they’ll have a mutual breakup soon, I’m sure. They wouldn’t want to stand in the way of true love. Now can you guys stop killing my vibe? I’m busy planning my wedding to TikTok user onyourmark, I don’t need naysaying in my comments. Positivity only!”
Yuta tilts his head, giving the viewer a sharp look. In an instant, his entire face changes, brightening to the widest smile Mark has ever seen, displaying two gleaming rows of teeth. “Alright, byee~!”
It would be stupid to get his hopes up. It would be foolish. Mark is thrilled that he managed to maintain the light of Yuta’s attention for another day, and that should be enough. But it isn’t.
When he sleeps that night, it’s the playful curl of Yuta’s smile that appears in every one of his dreams.
…
Mark isn’t addicted to TikTok like that. Truly, he is not. After all, he stayed off it for days earlier this week!
But the first thing Mark does when he wakes up, before he even wipes the crust out of his eyes, is open the app. And it’s then he realizes, with a mix of dread and elation and stale morning breath still on his tongue, that user nayu_95z is now following him. Following him. Following Mark. Plain, boring Mark Lee has somehow managed to con Nakamoto Yuta into following him without even trying. What the fuck is his life?
The second thing Mark realizes is that he has about 23 DM notifs (thank God he set it to mutuals only, to ward off bots) – but the one at the top. The one at the top of his inbox is from user nayu_95z. Yuta messaged him. Privately. Mark nearly drops his phone again in his haste to open it.
nayu_95z: heyy so is the owner of this account mark?? xx
onyourm_ark: haha
onyourm_ark: um yeah, im the owner of this account
onyourm_ark: as in, i am the mark in all the videos on this account. that is who is messaging you currently
nayu_95z: I thought so!!!! 😻 ✨✨
nayu_95z: just wanted to make sure xx 💖
nayu_95z: I just wanted to reach out because my duet of your vid is going super viral rn which I didnt really expect
nayu_95z: I hope the video didn’t make you uncomfortable or anything I’ll take it down if you want it’s just you’re SOOOOO CUUUUUUTE
nayu_95z: sorry got too excited again 😖😖
onyourm_ark: haha nahh it’s okay you’re chill 👍
onyourm_ark: u don’t have to delete it 💯💯
Mark clamps his pillow between his teeth and screams into it, squeezing his eyes shut to stop his thumbs from tapping out: ‘please don’t ever delete it i need to watch it 15 times a day or i will die’
nayu_95z: omg cool
nayu_95z: I’m glad 😘 💖💖
nayu_95z: sooo what are you up to??
onyourm_ark: nothing much haha
onyourm_ark: just working n stuff. Not really interesting lol
onyourm_ark: hbu???
nayu_95z: same old
nayu_95z: talking to you is by far the most interesting thing that’s happened today darling
Mark goes to Yuta’s profile, clicks on his second most recent video. He watches Yuta threaten his hypothetical significant other again with a bemused smile, still somewhat not believing that this was reality. He pulls up the comments. The top ones seemed to be agreeing to help Yuta ‘get rid of’ any threats to Mark’s hand, all of which Yuta had dropped little hearts on. Mark snorts. He hesitates for a moment, fingers tapping the side of his phone. After a minute, he decides: fuck it. He clicks into the text box to compose a comment of his own.
onyourm_ark don’t even worry about it bae. im single :) for now 😉😘
Replies immediately began flooding in, a lot of “omg OMG🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨”, “yooooooo”, “shoot your shot my guy!!”, “MARK!”, “holy shit holy shit he’s wATCHING THESE DUDE YOU’RE WATCHING THESE OMG PLS MAKE A RESPONSE VIDEO!!! WE’RE WAITING!!! PLSSSS”
But there was only one reply Mark bothers to like.
onyourm_ark don’t even worry about it. im single :)
nayu_95z im in love with you.
nayu_95z hand in marriage?? 😻💍💍🙏🙏🙏
onyourm_ark lmk your ring size
He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until Yuta drops a like on his last comment. Immediately, he melts in relief, crazy grin taking over his face. A few seconds later, he gets a new notification in his messages. From Yuta, again. The adrenaline of a risk paid off floods his veins, making him giddy.
Mark falls back on his pillows, cradling his phone to his chest and giggling like a teenager. And to think four days ago he thought his life was over.
This is the best summer ever.
…
“Now that Mark has publicly accepted my hand, it’s full steam ahead,” Yuta explains, tying a ribbon around a bunch of flowers and carefully placing them in a vase. “I’m getting started on the centerpieces. I want to DIY them, but I heard it takes forever, so I’m starting early. It’s important to save where you can, though! Especially because we’re having a large wedding.” Yuta’s hands busy with picking out a new bunch of flowers, eyeing them critically with his tongue poking out his cheek. “Hold on. Something’s missing.” Carefully, he selects a stem of baby’s breath, inserting it painstakingly to the side of the bunch. He stares down at it in satisfaction, teeth gleaming as he holds it up to show off. “There! Much better, right? I think my true calling is flower arrangement. You know, my father is a florist. He owns his own shop, I loved hanging out there as a kid.” Mark, who’s heard about at least five different professions Yuta’s father purportedly has held, raises his eyebrows and bites his cheek to fight back a ridiculous smile.
Waiting in his inbox is a new message.
nayu_95z: can i get your number?? Tiktok dm’s aren’t really cutting it for planning a wedding
onyourm_ark: haha i feel u on that dude
onyourm_ark: here!!
…
Texting with Yuta feels like a fever dream, one that isn’t ending no matter how many times Mark pinches himself. He wakes up in the morning and thinks it must be a vivid dream, one he’s tricked himself into believing for those few minutes after waking where reality is so hazy – then he checks his phone and sees a ‘good morning sunshine!!’ text from Yuta lighting up his lock screen. Mark finally understands why his friends were all so excited about ‘talking’ to someone, nose buried in their phone as they texted them non-stop. Mark, fool that he is, used to make fun of them, secretly rolling his eyes and baffled by the intensity of feeling for some person that existed only in their phone.
His superiority was coming back to bite him in the ass. Now it’s Mark who’s tripping on cracks in the sidewalk as he frantically taps out a reply – no, it can’t wait until he’s back in his car – Mark whose mind is so consumed by the pace of his conversation with Yuta that he doesn’t notice the line at Jamba Juice has cleared ahead of him and the cashier is waiting impatiently for his order, Mark who has his nose buried in his phone as he goes out to a bar with his friends, giggling over a joke nobody else there got.
yuta: i love your style!! 💖 you carry yourself so confidently
yuta: you have such interesting isolations
mark: haha thanks
mark: that means a lot coming from u
mark: i learned a lot from my dance team cap at school
mark: he’s really fucking cool lol
mark: i love your style too obviously it’s been a big influence
yuta: school?
mark: yeah! i go to nyu :D
yuta: oh!!
yuta: wow mark!! that’s incredible
yuta: my studio isn’t far from nyu 👀💖🐙 <3
mark: no wayyy haha
mark: lit
yuta: you should come by once youre back at school!!!
mark: yo really?? 😳
mark: wow that’s so nice of you dang haha
yuta: yes, i’d love to dance with you in person~✨✨
mark: for real this is like a dream come true for me lol 😁😁
mark: yeah of course i’ll come by!!!! just lemme know when ⏰⏰
Mark cranes his neck, looking over the heads of people to eye the building doors. It’s move-in weekend for half a dozen colleges in Manhattan and nice weather to boot, and the sidewalks were positively overrun. Mark swerves around a family with a toddler walking very slowly down the center of the sidewalk, speed-walks past gawking tourists, and narrowly avoids collisions with several people conducting phone calls via bluetooth. Finally, once he’s nearly gotten to Nolita, he finds the Soho address Yuta texted him.
Mark tucks his phone in his pocket, fingers drumming at the case as he looks around anxiously. He hugs the granite foundation of the building, trying to avoid the crush of the sidewalk. Yuta said he’d be waiting outside. Maybe he’s running late? Maybe the correct address is actually the next set of glass doors, or possibly the ones Mark just passed.
Before his doubts can settle in, Mark catches sight of a shaggy head of red hair. The man is holding an iced coffee in one hand, the other fiddling with the many bracelets hanging from his wrists. His eyes dart around the passing crowd, examining each face intently. Mark sighs in relief, trotting up the steps to meet him at the lobby doors.
Mark can tell the exact moment Yuta catches sight of him. His face breaks into an ear-splitting grin, teeth gleaming as he waves enthusiastically. “Mark!”
“Hey, Yuta.” Mark’s cheeks ache from smiling too wide. Yuta reaches out and clasps his wrist, pulling it close to his body. His hand is cold from the iced coffee, slightly damp. Mark wants to hold it so badly.
“What took you so long?” Yuta asks, mock indignant. “I was beginning to think I was getting left at the altar.”
“I’d never do that to you.”
They stand there for long moments, smiling at each other, until opening doors startle them out of their daze. Three people walk out, chattering cheerfully, clearly about to go for their lunch. Mark flinches, tips of his ears turning red.
Yuta looks wondrously at him. “Cute,” he breathes. Mark tilts his head, eyebrows lifted in question. Yuta just shakes his head, smile softening slightly, and pulls him through the doors. “You know what, Mark Lee? I think this is gonna work out just fine.”