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Mark sighs, flopping onto his bed.
He won’t cry. This is ridiculous.
The scene plays in his mind again, Yuta’s crestfallen face probably permanently burned into his retinas.
Immediately, the tears well up in his eyes.
Well, so much for that.
He doesn’t know for how long he just lays there, unmoving, staring up at the ceiling, but at some point the door opens and Donghyuck slips in.
Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, just lays down right next to Mark and joins him in looking at the ceiling.
After a while, Mark clears his throat.
"I rejected him," he says.
Donghyuck just hums in understanding.
"I didn’t want to," he adds.
The words come out shaky, tears threatening to spill over again.
Donghyuck shifts on the bed, but he still doesn’t say anything. He just waits, patiently.
"Fuck I really didn’t want to, I wanna kiss him and, like, hold his hand so bad. But I just always have this looming feeling that there’s so much at stake, you know? Not just for me, or for me and him, but for all of us. 127, really all of NCT. That’s 23 people. Twenty-three."
He laughs bitterly. Now that he’s started talking, the words come easily, so he continues.
"I’m Mark Lee, you know. I’m expected to be perfect. I can’t go around dating group members and potentially fucking up the entire group dynamic if the relationship ends. You know how breakups are, everyone picks a side. I can’t go around dating at all, really. Imagine the headlines if someone found out. 'Famous Idol Mark Lee Dating Group Member Yuta Nakamoto'."
Donghyuck snorts. Then he speaks up for the first time since laying down next to Mark.
"So what exactly happened earlier?" he asks.
"He asked me on a date," Mark answers. "I almost said yes, too. But then I panicked. And I told him I couldn’t."
Yuta had found Mark in the kitchen, making himself a very sophisticated dinner of instant ramen.
"Will you go on a date with me, Mark?" he’d asked, without any warning, no beating around the bush, because he never does.
The question had surprised Mark so much, he’d almost dropped his spoon.
He’d opened his mouth and was halfway to saying yes, when his brain had caught up with him.
"I don’t think that’s a good idea," he’d told Yuta. "I’m sorry."
And then he’d bolted to escape to the safety of his room, but unfortunately not before seeing Yuta’s reaction. The look on his face had Mark’s heart breaking even more than it already was.
"Do you want me to give you my advice?" Donghyuck asks.
Mark shakes his head.
"Not really, I just wanna cry."
Donghyuck nods and curls into Mark’s side, cuddling up to him.
For all the crazy idol persona he puts on in public, he’s a great listener in private. Thoughtful and somehow he always knows what Mark needs.
Not for the first time, Mark is grateful to have Donghyuck as his friend.
They fall asleep like that, curled up on top of the blankets, tears drying on Mark’s cheeks.
When Mark wakes up, on what the clock on his phone tells him is already the next morning, his head hurts.
Next to him, Donghyuck stirs.
"You feel better?" he asks Mark, voice rough from sleep.
"I don’t know," Mark answers truthfully.
"Do you wanna get up?"
Mark shakes his head.
"I don’t wanna go out there. Just wanna stay in here and avoid everybody else."
Donghyuck laughs.
"You can’t avoid everyone forever, Mark."
"I know, but as long as we don’t have a schedule I can."
"Did you even have dinner last night?"
"No, I left it in the kitchen when I bolted."
"How about this: Let’s go have breakfast then."
Mark sighs.
Donghyuck has a point, he supposes.
"Alright," he agrees.
Of course, the first person Mark sees when he carefully pokes his head out of the room is Yuta.
For a second, he debates just going back and closing the door again, but it’s too late.
Yuta has already spotted him.
There’s no going back then.
Mark steps out into the hallway, Donghyuck right behind him.
Yuta freezes.
He looks them up and down.
"Oh, I see how it is," he says bitterly.
Then he turns around and is gone, before Mark can even start processing what just happened. The door slams behind him.
Too late, Mark realizes, what a picture him and Donghyuck must make. Sleepy, messy hair, yesterday’s clothes.
"Oh shit," Donghyuck says.
Mark just groans.
Great.
He really wanted this entire thing to be as uncomplicated as it could be and he’s completely managed to fuck that up.
Yuta doesn’t deserve that.
"I have to do something," Donghyuck suddenly says, breaking the silence. "Be right back."
Without offering any more explanation, he, too, disappears out the door.
Mechanically, Mark makes his way over to the couch and faceplants into the cushions.
Fuck.
Face buried in the couch cushions, that is exactly how Taeyong finds him some time later.
"What’s wrong?" he asks.
Groaning, Mark maneuvers himself into a sitting position to make room on the couch for Taeyong.
Taeyong sits down next to him and looks at him expectantly.
So Mark retells the entire story of what happened yesterday again, as well as what happened just earlier.
When he’s finished, Taeyong says nothing for a few seconds.
Then he opens his mouth.
Closes it again.
Shakes his head and sighs.
"Mark…" he says, finally, sounding absolutely bewildered.
"Don’t even say it," Mark answers, burying his face in his hands. "I know it makes no sense at all, my brain is just like that."
"Johnny-"
"…and Ten are dating, I know," Mark finishes. "And it’s not a problem at all. For anyone. I’m really happy for them too. Still, I can’t help it."
Taeyong takes a few seconds to think again.
"Let me just ask you one thing," he says.
Mark nods.
"Why does everyone deserve to be happy, but you?"
Mark looks up to find Taeyong staring at him with those big eyes of his, so intensely he must almost be able to look right into Mark’s brain.
"I, uhhh-" Mark says.
Really, he’s never thought about it this way.
"You deserve to be selfish once in a while, Mark Lee."
That’s the thing though, he really can’t do that. Because in the grand scheme of things, his feelings matter very little, and he’s not about to fuck up absolutely everything for something so unimportant.
He doesn’t even say it out loud, but Taeyong reads his facial expressions perfectly anyways.
"Your feelings absolutely matter. A lot. Besides, the weight of the world is not resting on your shoulders alone."
"But-"
Taeyong is right, of course. The rational part of his brain knows that.
Maybe he should talk to Yuta again.
Oh, fuck.
"I should really talk to Yuta," he says.
Taeyong smiles.
"I think you should, yeah."
What must Yuta think of him?
Fuck, he probably hates Mark by now.
He needs to straighten this out.
"I’m gonna go," he says, already moving off the couch.
In his hurry he doesn’t look down and almost trips over the edge of a rug.
"Good luck," Taeyong tells him.
"Thank you," Mark throws back over his shoulder before he rushes out the door.
He makes it down the hallway, before he runs face-first into someone.
"Shit, sorry," Mark apologizes. "I wasn’t looking, I was in a hurry to find…"
"Mark?"
"…Yuta," Mark finishes. "Oh, hi."
"Hi there," Yuta says.
"I was looking for you."
"Yeah you said that."
"I was looking for you too. Donghyuck chased me down and told me you wanted to talk to me."
"I-" Mark starts, before he breaks off, confused.
Wait, Donghyuck did what?
Well, that doesn’t really matter right now, because he did, in fact, want to talk to Yuta.
"Yeah, I did," he says.
Yuta looks at him expectantly.
"So what is it?"
Oh shit, okay. They’re doing this, right here and now in the hallway.
"I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about rejecting you and I…" he trails off, looking for the right words.
He didn’t really think this through all the way when he bolted out the door.
Before he can get out another sentence, Yuta beats him to it.
"It’s okay. You can’t help that you don’t feel the same way. I just wish you’d told me you were dating someone else straight up."
"I’m not," Mark blurts out. "Dating someone else, I mean."
Yuta sighs.
"Please don’t lie to make me feel better, Mark," he says.
"I’m telling the truth," Mark insists. "Donghyuck and I are not dating."
Yuta raises his eyebrows at him.
"Okay then, thank you for setting the record straight."
With that, he squeezes past Mark and starts walking towards their front door.
Mark turns to look after him, perplexed. This is not at all how he thought this conversation would go.
"Yuta, wait!" he says.
Yuta turns around again.
"What, Mark?" he says. "It’s all cleared up now, could we please proceed to forget about this? Don’t make this harder for me than it has to be."
"I won’t, if you just let me finish! Listen to everything I have to say, please."
Yuta sighs again.
"Go ahead."
"Yuta, I do have feelings for you. In fact, I’ve had a crush on you since forever. Such a huge crush, it’s almost embarrassing. I just thought it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to date."
"What are you talking about?" Yuta asks, flabbergasted.
"Well, I was thinking about the group, what if we broke up, what if someone found out?"
"Mark…"
"I cried the entire evening. That’s why Donghyuck was in my room, and why he was still there this morning. He was comforting me and we just fell asleep."
"So what does this mean?"
"I talked to Taeyong just now and he made me realize that I should stop caring about other people so much. What matters is the two of us. And I’m really sorry I put you in this situation, you never deserved that. You deserve so much better than that. You deserve the truth. My true feelings. So is it too late to say yes to that date now?"
Mark takes a deep breath. That’s all he needed to say, now it’s up to Yuta.
He looks at the other. Yuta’s expression is completely unreadable, one that he has trained to perfection.
(Mark can do that too, they are idols after all.)
Finally, Yuta’s face breaks out into a smile.
"Okay," he says.
It feels like a weight has been lifted off Mark’s shoulders.
"Really?"
"Yes. On one condition: We go right now. I’m not taking any chances. In the end you’ll change your mind again and chicken out."
Mark giggles.
"That seems fair. Let’s do it."
"Okay, come on."
Yuta grabs Mark’s hand and tugs him towards the elevator.
"Wait, in my pajamas?" Mark exclaims.
Yuta laughs.
"Yeah, why not. I have the perfect idea for our date too."
Mark laughs too, giddy with happiness. He can’t believe this is happening.
"Just one more thing," he says.
"Yeah?"
Right as the elevator bell dings, Mark pulls Yuta in for a quick kiss.
"Okay, let’s go now."
Yuta smiles at him.
Mark smiles back.