Archive of Our Own ^beta

Part I: Head Line

“You’re on the wrong string, I think.” Mark, a year Donghyuck’s senior and his best friend, points out.

Donghyuck cradles Mark’s guitar in his lap, stubby fingers spread awkwardly around its neck to strain for strings placed too far. It’s far too big for his smaller frame, clumsy in his grasp like a child dressed in adult’s clothes.

“What do you know?” Donghyuck huffs, a pout to his lips. He shoves the guitar away like a physical separation, plucking it out of his skin as if it’s merely a stubborn hair.

Mark just laughs. “You haven’t even tried, are you really giving up?”

His smile is pretty, Donghyuck decides, a slight gap in between his left canine and the tooth beside it. His smile is a perfect mimic of the boy’s eyes, wide, earnest, transparent. But Mark Lee is all of that and more, isn’t he? Wide open in his honesty, earnest in his words, and transparent in his actions.

“You show me, then.” Donghyuck says, voice like a challenge written futilely over naivety. Mark reads it for what it is, though, and laughs once again.

He takes the abandoned guitar from where it edges off Donghyuck’s lap, hands gripping it with solid warmth and familiarity. He brings it to himself with much more care than Donghyuck did, familiar like he’s greeting an old friend.

“Like this.” Mark murmurs, focus already fixated on the guitar and the placement of his hands. 

He holds it like a lover, and distantly, Donghyuck feels a dull ache somewhere in the beating confines of his chest. The sudden burrowing tendrils of need for Mark to look at him eats at him like a steadily dripping venom, acidic, poisonous. He ignores it, like he does everything else he doesn’t understand. The action of Mark placing confident fingers against the proper strings draws Donghyuck’s attention, watching as they press into the callouses embedded into the pads of each digit.

Mark’s hands are almost as pretty as his smile, strong, solid, lined with surety. Every movement they make is deliberate, always a meaning in every action he takes. Right now, they look a lot like a promise. The promise of something warm to break the cold, the promise of something comforting to shield against the hurt, the promise of consistency. Always there, just within hands reach.

His fingers cease their patterned movements across the strings, pausing but resting comfortably atop the neck still. Donghyuck’s gaze is locked on them.

“You got it?” Mark speaks over the cloud settled on Donghyuck’s unfocused mind.

Donghyuck stops and looks into his eyes, wide, sparkling, so honest. “Yeah, got it.”

After a half hour more of fruitlessly trying to teach Donghyuck the correct chord progression, Mark senses the losing battle. Even though Donghyuck had been the one who asked to learn, he won’t even attempt to focus now.

“Come on,” Mark says, settling his guitar down to come to a stand. “Let’s do something fun.”

“I’m having fun.” Donghyuck refutes, a determined edge to the furrow of his brow.

Mark smiles at him, offering out an upturned palm for Donghyuck to take. “Well, I wanna do something else.”

Attention successfully caught in between the lines of Mark’s palms, Donghyuck purses his lips and nods. The rough callouses of his fingers scratch at Donghyuck’s smooth, unblemished palm where their skin connects into one when he accepts the outstretched hand and is heaved up to a stand.

Mark’s house lives precariously close to the seashore, but the Lee family wouldn’t have it any other way. Their family has lived here for generations, the family home built through the steeping of years old hard work and love of the sea. They’re a family of fishermen first and foremost, hard workers and respectable people through and through. It’s no wonder, considering the earnest boy Mark is.

They travel the same winding path through the shrubbery that leads to the beach, Mark’s hand still gripping Donghyuck’s tightly. It’s unnecessary, as they’ve walked this exact trail together numerous times, but the racing of Donghyuck’s heartbeat leaves him too tongue tied and defenseless to say anything.

The beachside is a comfort, and their town's sterling pride. Its waves soothe like a lullaby, and sand shines like little gemstones. Mark and Donghyuck are here more often than not, especially on days like this, a clear sky and the watchful sun overhead.

Donghyuck allows Mark to tug him all the way towards their usual spot, the warmth of his calloused palm searing him through like a brand. He feels unsteady, the whip smart tendrils of his brain curled in to allow room for something dumb and dull witted. Mark’s touch doesn’t normally ever leave him so slow and mindless, but today the sun is shining through strands of Mark’s hair, and lighting up the brown of his eyes, and Donghyuck is stupid with it.

He ignores it like everything else he doesn’t understand, and attempts to get his bearings back when Mark stops them and comes to a sit on the pricking grain of the sand.

“What’re you doing?” Donghyuck asks, head tilted and hands on his hips.

“Sand castle. I thought it’d be fun!” And then gives him that fucking smile, all soft and scrunched up.

“We’re too old for this.” Donghyuck complains. Which is half a lie because they’re still very young. Donghyuck hasn’t even experienced his second growth spurt yet, not like Mark has.

Mark, who is only a year older, but stands just almost a head taller than him still, who holds an adult guitar that Donghyuck still fumbles with, talks with a gravelly voice where his is still shrill. His mom says he’s just a late bloomer, but Mark laughs at that and calls him a delicate flower.

“You’re just jealous you can’t make a killer sand castle like I can.” Mark’s smile brims with mirth as he looks at Donghyuck from under his brows.

The ‘sand castle’ turns out to be just a pile of sand pushed around and patted down some, but Mark looks none the wiser.

“More like a hill, really.” Donghyuck says petulantly, happy to shatter the illusion.

“Yeah, but then we’re gonna decorate it with seashells and it’ll look really nice.”

Donghyuck scrunches his nose, watching Mark haphazardly pat his sand hill for a few more moments. “I’d rather do that.”

“Mm?”

“I’d rather look for seashells.” Donghyuck repeats, only a little irritated from the glare of the sun in his vision.

“No one’s stopping you.” Mark quirks a brow at him, momentarily sparing him an amused look before he focuses back on his futile task of molding the sand into the proper shape.

Donghyuck sticks his tongue out defiantly, but Mark isn’t even looking, too distracted with his pile of wet sand.

The sun is harsher today, but he finds that to be part of the charm of the village. A bright sun that reflects blindingly onto clear waters, lighting up the glossiness of the seashells he seeks.

He glances back every so often, Mark just a short distance away, to watch the broad flat of Mark’s back. It stops him suddenly, squinting at the elder as if trying to clear the fog of a mirage. 

When did Mark grow up? When did he notice? When did he start to care?

Though, he supposes maybe he’s always cared a little too much, noticed a little too much. That stabbing ache like several pricks in his chest returns, filling his lungs with clear ocean blue and his mouth with salty grit. He ignores it, though, like everything else he doesn’t understand.

Setting his jaw, he continues to dig for shells, gathering more sand than anything. He’s mostly collecting whatever takes the form of a shell, fingernails caked with wet grain and digging into the skin of his fingers and thighs.

His persistent fingers finally come across the hardness of a larger shell than the shards and pieces he was previously picking at, coming to peel it out with a satisfied smile. It’s pristine white, unblemished aside for the specks of wet sand that cling to it.

“Mark, look!” Donghyuck bends back up and turns around, holding the glittering seashell tight in his hand. He startles though, to see the softness of Mark’s gaze already set on him.

Mark’s eyes only slide reluctantly for a moment to eye the shell appraisingly before back to Donghyuck. “Pretty.” He says, but he’s still looking at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck feels his fist loosen at the same rate his heart rate picks up, the hard lines of the seashell softening away from his skin as it drops to the sand with an inaudible thunk. “You’re weird.” He complains, turning away to hide the sudden redness of his face.

But Mark reads his words for what they are, and laughs.

By the time he returns, Mark has made zero progress on his sand hill. It’s kind of ugly and sad, so Donghyuck gets to work immediately on fastening all the shells he’s gathered to the sides, attempting to make some sort of pattern with them and salvage what he can. Mark joins in to help him, but it turns out he’s as good at that as he is at making sand castles.

Donghyuck looks upon their gnarly creation with disdain when they finish. “What’s the point?”

“The what?” Mark asks distractedly, favoring Donghyuck finally with a squinty eyed gaze.

“What’s the point? We’re too old for this.” Donghyuck, still not quite finished with puberty, claims.

Mark shrugs. “Just that I can, I guess. Don’t you like it?”

Donghyuck frowns. “The sand castle?”

“You don’t like it?” Mark asks, suddenly sounding very worried that Donghyuck might not like it.

And it’s only that tone of voice that has Donghyuck’s heart stuttering to have him admit: “I like it.”

Mark grins like Donghyuck just awarded him some kind of prize, grins like stars have been fashioned to the pupils of his eyes. “I knew it.”

Donghyuck suppresses a giddy smile. “What if I hated it?”

“I dunno. Make a better sand castle, I guess. I like this one, though, ‘cause we made it together.” He says, eyes curving up.

Donghyuck sort of wants to grab him by the face and squish until he explodes all over their sand castle. But he refrains, pushing the feeling down to the very depths of his softened gut.

“Me too, I guess.” He says instead, feeling all the more embarrassed when his tone relays just how much he wants to squeeze Mark.

But Mark reads it for what it is, and laughs. “I knew it.”

Part II: Life Line

Mark has been a constant since the very beginning.

The very beginning being, of course, when Donghyuck first stepped foot in the reclusive little seaside village. The people were all welcoming to his family, him, his mom, his 3 siblings, which meant a whole lot of nothing to Donghyuck at eleven years old. What did it matter that they welcomed everyone with open arms if there were barely any other kids his age around to hang out? The only other kids there were too old for him, too cool for him, barely gracing him with their attention.

Donghyuck was a city boy, social, outgoing and raised into bustle and busyness. This place, however, reveled in the stagnation, and it took time for Donghyuck to become accustomed with the concept of quiet solitude. Mark Lee would come to help him adjust, though.

Mark Lee, golden boy of the coastal village and just one year older than Donghyuck. Older, cooler, more experienced. He would reach a slender hand out for Donghyuck to take, and it would be the binding that tied them irrevocably together for years to come.

Eventually, he would learn that the village’s roots were grown in on music and the sea. So Mark didn’t have much, but he always had music. And precious boy that he was, he was always more than willing to share his love for it with Donghyuck. Together, they didn’t have much here, but they had music and the sea.

And, of course, each other.

“Careful, Hyuck!” Mark calls, his feet planted firmly on the ground where Donghyuck’s legs are hooked precariously around an upper tree branch.

The orchards belong to the Seo family, an elderly couple that owns a large chunk of land in the village to harvest apples to eventually sell off. They’d be considered the richest family here, old money and luck, but most people around don’t really care for such titles.

Mark and Donghyuck help out from time to time, plucking apples and other general maintenance, being two of the few young and able bodied men left in the town. The couple's oldest and only child had left the place some few years ago, a guy Mark had known as an acquaintance and who Donghyuck barely knew as a name.

They’re older now, only barely in the grand scheme of life, but old enough now that their gazes meet at eye level when they stand, their hands match up in a near perfect mimic when they touch, and their shoulders reach the same broad width. For Donghyuck, it’s nice to at last not feel so small compared to the older, so unknowing.

“Not stupid!” Donghyuck singsongs, throwing a shiny red apple down to the basket held close in Mark’s hands.

Mark shifts, antsy. “I know you’re not! Just-“

Donghyuck pokes his head out as much as he can to smirk down at Mark. “Why don’t you just come up here and join me?”

Mark only sends him an unimpressed glare. Mark isn’t afraid of heights, per se, but Donghyuck knows they make him just the barest bit uncomfortable. It’s why they’ve worked out this system, Donghyuck climbing the trees and Mark catching what he throws down. He just likes to tease the older from time to time, toeing the line and pushing him just so.

Donghyuck wrinkles his nose playfully at him with a mischievous smile, turning his attention momentarily back to the task at hand. He’s distracted, though, by peeking his head through the leaves to notice the view from where he sits. The back portion of the orchards sit on the cliffs that face the beachside, making them a perfect point to sit and watch the sunset or the sea.

A hand snaps him back into focus though, blinking to see Mark heave himself up onto the sturdy branch Donghyuck rests.

“Mark!” Donghyuck grins, stupidly, foolishly. “You came up!”

Mark places his hand against the coarseness of the tree bark, just next to Donghyuck’s, so close that the tips of their pinkies brush. “Have to make sure you don’t do something stupid, right?”

“Who’s gonna catch me if I fall, then?”

Mark blinks at him, seeming to consider it for a second, before immediately shifting to climb back down.

“I’m kidding!” Donghyuck laughs. “Look, you can see the coast from here. Pretty, right?” 

“Mm.”

Donghyuck turns to glare at his lackluster answer, squinting his eyes further when he catches the tail end of Mark whipping his head away to watch what Donghyuck was pointing out.

“You bored?” He questions with no small amount of suspicion.

Mark looks back to him quickly, blinking. “Huh? No.”

“You’re not even paying attention!”

“I am!”

Donghyuck raises his brows, unimpressed at the weak defense. “Hm, buy me ice cream to prove it.”

But Mark just laughs, already climbing back down. “You just want me to buy you ice cream.”

“And then can we watch TV at yours?”

Donghyuck’s family doesn’t have a television, but Mark’s does. Even though theirs is old and breaks every three weeks, it’s better than nothing.

“Remote is broken again, but a bunch of magazines I ordered finally came in yesterday if you wanna look at those.”

“Beats staring at your ceiling fan, let’s go, let’s go.”

They make their way to the corner store 3 streets away from Mark’s house, family owned like nearly everything else here, bickering the whole time. They bicker while walking in, and bicker as they pick out ice cream and snacks, and bicker as they make it to the counter, only quieting when the wife of the owner greets them with a smile.

“How’s your husband, ma’am?” Mark asks, the picture perfect boy next door. Donghyuck wants to hold his hand for it, and punches himself mentally in the head for the sudden thought.

“Home with the little ones, so it’s just me today. You boys okay in the heat?” She gives them another congenial smile as she checks them out.

“Yes, ma’am.” They chorus, Mark accepting the first bag of general snacks when she hands it to him.

“Always so sweet, you two. Here,” she holds out the second bag, Donghyuck intercepting Mark to grab it first. “Ice cream is on me.”

Mark’s eyes widen, rushing to deny the offer. “You don’t have to-“

She holds up her hand with a smile. “Say hello to your mothers for me.”

“We will! Thank you!” Donghyuck grins politely at her, tugging Mark out by the wrist. “Have a good day, ma’am!”

Mark throws her a delayed word of gratitude, brushing off Donghyuck’s hand when they make it outside. Donghyuck just shrugs and walks faster, not bothering to check if Mark is following him. He always is, anyways.

As soon as he catches up with Donghyuck, though, his free hand immediately comes to attempt to take the bag of ice cream from him. “Here, Hyuck, let me get that.”

“No!” Donghyuck laughs, attempting to shoo him away. “You never let me carry anything.”

“Just- please.” Mark gives him the eyes. That one lethal look that gets him anything he wants, all soft and round and pretty.

And Donghyuck is so fucking weak to him, the space within his chest that belongs to Mark- a quarter of his lungs, half of his heart, two of his ribs- gives into Mark’s demands. God, he’s embarrassing.

“Ugh, fine,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, an abrasive attempt to make sure Mark doesn’t notice the blush that burns at his cheeks. “If you’re gonna make a big deal about it.”

Mark does nothing but eagerly accept the bag from Donghyuck, but Donghyuck can see the self satisfied smile that edges onto his lips. Smug fuck, thinking he won. Donghyuck huffs, but his heart melts a little more still.

Donghyuck lets him have it, though, swinging his hands freely between them as Mark dives into another topic- he’s thinking of picking up drumming, but his dad is against him saving up money for it, thinks it’s a waste of time, doesn’t want him distracted from the family business. As if fishing is some lucrative job to hold sacred, Donghyuck can’t help but sigh.

As Mark continues, Donghyuck feels his eyes drawn to the bright heat of the sidewalk pavement, his stare tracing the dark shadows of their form as they walk. They come to perfectly mimic each other in stature, their shadows almost reflections of the two boys, right down the width of their hands that brush minutely as they walk.

With a fluttering, almost guilty feeling, Donghyuck moves his hand just so to lead the shadow of it to a position that has it looking like the two of them are holding hands, their shadows embracing as they walk.

Donghyuck bites his lip, feels his skin burn.

They’ve had each other’s hands in the other’s grasp before, but they’ve never held hands. There’s always a reason, or a motive, and Donghyuck finds himself feeling a little insane for wishing there wasn’t, just once. He wishes it was just insanity that had him feeling this way. Right now, he just resigns himself to the sun cast specter of their hands tied together for no reason at all.

“Looks like we’re holding hands.” Mark says, his voice a pleased murmur and startling Donghyuck into focus.

His hand reflexively yanks back to his side, dragging its shadow along with it and away from Mark’s. Did he know what Donghyuck was doing? Does he know?

“You walk too slow.” He complains, voice high with embarrassment he hopes Mark doesn’t catch as he picks up his pace. But Mark reads it for what it is anyways, and laughs.

Bounding forward to match Donghyuck’s pace, Mark slips his palm against his. “You’re cute sometimes, Hyuck.”

It’s not the first time Mark’s carelessly grabbed his hand, mostly saving such rare physical displays to lead Donghyuck somewhere or drag him from place to place. It is, however, the first time he’s grabbed Donghyuck to carefully tangle their hands together just because.

The warmth of his palm feels a little sweaty, sending Donghyuck a secretive smile that’s just edging on shy as he swings their hands aimlessly between them. Donghyuck thinks the tips of his ears might be flushed red, too.

But it’s very hot outside, so Donghyuck is probably making it all up.

Part III: Sun Line

His hand is entwined with Mark’s from where it lays across his stomach, seeping warmth into Donghyuck’s skin with each upward exhale.

The older is sleeping soundly atop Donghyuck’s bed, entering without a word some half hour ago and plopping himself right then and there to close his eyes, as if he owned the place. Which, by now, he did just a little bit, but still.

And, like some hormonal little freak, Donghyuck took advantage of his sleeping vulnerability to clasp their hands together as quietly as he possibly could. He likes them best like this, no contact aside from the heat of their palms. Separate yet intertwined.

He’s very pretty, Donghyuck thinks. He’s prettiest when he’s animated, laughing and hands gesturing and eyes shining. He’s pretty like this, too, though, the full length of his lashes brushing the soft of his cheeks, features completely lax, mouth a sweet pout. There’s a bright red pimple on the middle of his chin, and the rawness of it makes him prettier still.

Donghyuck looks at him, and squeezes his palm tight around the thoughts that cross his brain then.

I feel so full.

I want this forever.

I don’t know what this is, but I want it.

What he feels for Mark goes beyond craving, something deep seated and seared into the skin of his heart. He knows what it could be, what it dangerously edges into, but he also knows that he’s not craving to self destruct something so integral to his being that he would collapse and die without it.

So, he squeezes his palm tight around the thoughts as if he could burst them like blood vessels, only lessening when Mark begins to stir the barest bit.

Donghyuck’s eyes rarely miss anything, especially when it comes to Mark. So it’s frankly a little insulting Mark thinks he’s being subtle in the least. Granted, he’s been subtle for as much subtlety as Mark can manage, Donghyuck will give him that.

He starts doing stupid lame things, like turning a fake yawn into an arm slung around Donghyuck’s shoulders when they sit and watch the sun set over the sea from the cliffs. Or like finding extra excuses to knit his fingers between Donghyuck’s to usher him somewhere, far more often than he used to. As obvious and telling as he is, what really gives him away is the flush that colors him like a bad sunburn each time he attempts something stupid lame. Mark Lee has never blushed before, Donghyuck would have noticed, which makes him suspicious.

Stupidity does not come naturally to Donghyuck, his brain almost constantly observing and assessing. The only thing he can never quite figure out is Mark. Which is why he finds himself embarrassingly stumped as to what Mark is trying to do. It would be almost too easy to state the obvious of the matter, and Donghyuck is a little too scared to state the obvious, even if it’s something he’s been daydreaming distantly about since almost the day they met. It’s something he just can’t quite put a name to yet.

He has enough when they’re off driving to a movie theater just out of town. Their humble little seaside town doesn’t have much in the way of modern entertainment, so frequently they take it upon themselves to travel outside. He’s reached the end of his albeit hesitant patience because Mark tries something stupid lame again, but not just tries, he also attempts to drag Donghyuck into his stupid lame shenanigans.

There, between the console of Mark’s dad’s shoddy truck, lies Mark’s open upward facing palm, fingers stretched out as if screaming to be noticed. Which Donghyuck does not give into.

Not until Mark clears his throat unconvincingly.

“What?”

Mark only clears his throat once more, avoiding eye contact.

Donghyuck raises a brow at it. “You want me to hold your hand?”

Immediately Mark’s palm shuts closed and jumps back to its place on the peeling wheel. “Um. Forget about it. Sorry. Um.”

He’s so very red, Donghyuck thinks with a delight that takes him off guard. All of this is so new and so odd, but he likes this. He likes Mark’s hands and he likes Mark’s flush and he likes Mark so shy he can’t even look at Donghyuck.

“Mark.”

Mark clears his throat once again, voice higher for it. “The sky is crazy pretty right now, right?”

“Mark.”

“I mean, those clouds. Wow. Like, that’s some killer cumulonimbus action going on.” His voice gets progressively higher and faster the more he talks.

“Mark Lee,” Donghyuck can barely get past the smile brimming on his lips. “Stop being such a loser and give me your hand.”

If possible, Mark goes even redder, fingers tightening to white at the wheel. “Well- um-“

“Just give me your hand.”

Mark’s jaw tightens, but he reluctantly releases a nervous hand for Donghyuck to take. And he does, clasping their hands together confidently, as if it doesn’t make his fingers tremble and his heart quake.

“I’m not a loser.” Mark mutters after a charged minute.

It releases some of the tension from Donghyuck’s shoulders, melting right into teasing. “You do a good job of playing the part, though.”

“Sorry,” Mark frowns at him with fake confusion, skin still a delightful shade of pink. “Who’s the one who asked to hold my hand?”

Donghyuck bursts out into giggles at the ridiculousness of it. “God, Mark. Next you’re gonna say I bamboozled you into a date tonight.”

Mark says nothing, only a guilty quirk to his lips.

Donghyuck just huffs to distract from the temporary brain lag that overcomes him, feeling a little bit of that cumulonimbus cloud action going on in his own head. “Just drive.”

Donghyuck shouldn’t be surprised that Mark evidently has enough, too, one week later.

They sit on Donghyuck’s wooden back porch, creaky and rotted through on the bottom step. It’s not really easy to directly spot the sunset from here, not like they can at the cliffs, but the way beams of citrus orange bounce off what sparse trees gather here is worth it all the same. 

“I’m really glad I met you, Donghyuck.” Mark breathes into the silence, the wind rustling the leaves echoing his sentiment.

Donghyuck blinks slowly, dumbly. “Yeah, me too.”

Mark says nothing more, content to let the breeze wash over them for a moment longer. His shoulders seem to hike up minutely, though, and Donghyuck eyes the tense line of his back with curiosity.

Their hands sit side by side, the skin of them just a kiss away. When another strong breeze belts through the wilderness and sweeps over him, Mark gently picks up Donghyuck’s hand, as if handling a wounded animal. Always so kind, always so careful.

Donghyuck lets him do it. Even watches him with barely concealed interest, his own shoulders suddenly just as rigid. 

Is this it?

He maneuvers Donghyuck’s hand by the fingers, folding down his middle and ring finger down but leaving his pointer, pinky, and thumb stretched outwards, before he moves his own hand tentatively to rest at Donghyuck’s wrist.

Donghyuck blinks at the shape of his hand. “Mm? What’s that?”

“It- it means I love you. In sign language.”

He sees the way Mark’s hands shake at his wrist, tremors traveling down to the tip of each finger, and thinks, oh.

Of course.

Donghyuck tangles their hands fully together, taking advantage of the wide eyed attentive look it brings to place his free hand at the defined bone of Mark’s cheek and the nervous ticking of his jaw. Mark is red, and his hands are shaking, and he can feel clamminess seeping into his own skin from Mark’s like a contagion, and the wind is ruffling his hair like some kind of dream boy right out of Donghyuck’s very own romance film.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Pretty boy.

With one upward twitch of a smile, Donghyuck leans forward and presses his lips to Mark’s. And then, all at once, Mark exhales a sigh of relief against Donghyuck’s mouth, and kisses him back twice as hard.

Part IV: Heart Line

Mark treats the beginning of a new chapter between them like a finish line he was waiting patiently to cross. That is to say, years of physical affection boil over the moment Donghyuck places his love between the crevices of Mark’s palms and in the space between his lips. It’s like all at once the older can’t bear to keep his hands away from Donghyuck for more than a second.

Donghyuck wonders if it’s just a symptom of fresh honey sweet feelings, temporary and fragile, or if this was just how it was meant to be all along.

But the beauty of it is that nothing has truly changed, aside from the meaning of soft glances and warm touches being clarified like wiping down a fogged window. He doesn’t feel like they’ve wasted years of their life walking in circles, it only feels as if they’ve finally been able to define what path they’ve always been walking down. The security of it tides the ache that’s been pressed into his organs like a dull knife for years now.

They are bound, utterly and fully, by the blood that thrums beneath the skin of their hands. Connected by their hands, speaking with their hands, loving with their hands. Physical in a way that is metaphysical.

Every stupid lame trick Mark had tried before finally making his move does not cease, though, only replacing the uneasiness that existed prior with confidence. He doesn’t come up with sly tricks to hold Donghyuck’s hand, or hang off his shoulders, now immediately just linking their fingers or grabbing his thigh.

Not that Donghyuck really cares if he does or not, only so elated with the progression of their relationship that every waking hour feels like walking through clouds. What Donghyuck feels for Mark is so intense, something violent that ruptures his blood vessels and fractures the thrumming bits of his heart. He want, want, needs so much.

“Sometimes I want to stitch you to the side of my lung.” Donghyuck confesses to Mark with a frown one night on the beach, soul laid barren on the blanket they lay on beneath the judgment of the stars, sand in the rough of his foot’s heel.

Mark is quiet, and for just a millisecond Donghyuck fears that he’s freaked him out.

“But then how would I eat? Or breathe?” His tone genuine, as if truly trying to figure out how they’ll make that work.

Donghyuck smiles, relaxing back into the blanket. “We can share.”

“What about when I have to shit? You know I have stomach problems.” Mark says, laughing when Donghyuck sits up to glare at him.

“You’re about to have a real problem through your stomach, I’ll tell you that much.” Donghyuck holds his fist up threateningly.

Mark giggles harder, then rolls his weight fully atop of Donghyuck’s, his giggles only subsiding when he holds himself right above him, face to face, heart to heart. “Sometimes I feel for you so desperately that I don’t think I can ever show you the true depth of my devotion. I’d catch all the stars in the sky if it meant you would smile at me just once.”

The older is hardly romantic most of the time, at least not outwardly, because Mark says nothing with his voice, and everything with his hands. So a confession of this magnitude, reciprocal to the one slipped from Donghyuck, has that sick feeling of need trapped in his chest expanding uncontrollably.

Donghyuck bites his lip, overcome, then delivers a weak punch to Mark’s arm. “You’re making me feel like a depraved lunatic, so fuckin’ romantic.”

“I’m just saying,” Mark smiles at him, soft and slow, rubbing the tips of their noses together. “That I’ll fish out every star from all the galaxies so that you have something of me to hold after you’re done stitching me to your lung.”

He wonders if Mark can feel the way his heart races futilely at the words, as if running a losing race out of his chest to meet Mark. He wonders if Mark knows, and it’s egging him on to say these things.

“I think I was born to meet you.” One last confession, ripped from the very pits of Donghyuck’s heart, silly but real.

And beautiful, kind, lovely Mark just leans down to kiss the words out of him, breathing in every last syllable that Donghyuck doesn’t have the will to pronounce just yet.

All good things come to an end, and Mark is the best there ever was.

One day, Mark sits Donghyuck down in his childhood bedroom and tells him he wants to leave their seaside village to pursue music. He says he had always wanted to leave, that he had never truly felt connected to the coast or its people, but that the arrival of Donghyuck had stalled those cravings for something different, had made him stop running long enough to briefly consider the potential of being at home in the sea.

It’s hard not to hear it like he’s not enough anymore.

Distantly, somewhere static and foreign, Donghyuck sees his still beating heart cradled in the palms of Mark’s hands. He sees the fine veins traced onto the sinew of the organ throbbing in time with the pulsing sickness in his stomach. And for just one moment, he sees Mark squeeze it ruthlessly in a red mess of carnage that drips to and stains the ground they walk on.

The worst part is, Donghyuck sees himself let it all happen.

“I don’t know what to say.” Donghyuck says, his voice only a lost echo.

Mark, blurry in his vision, presses his hands to Donghyuck’s cheeks. “Please, don’t hate me. Please.”

“I think,” he starts, stops, attempts to gulp in a lungful of air like a fish out of water, then starts again. “I think I need a walk.”

“Donghyuck, wait.”

“Please don’t follow me.”

“Donghyuck, please, listen-“ A familiar hand comes to curl around Donghyuck’s wrist, tugging him back for a moment.

Mark’s touch has always been welcome, but right now all Donghyuck can feel is the stark chafing of bone against bone and it hurts.

He rips his wrist away from Mark’s hand as if burnt through the muscle, and pretends the heartbreak in Mark’s sweet, lovely eyes doesn’t whittle him down to the skeleton.

“I just need a walk.” He chokes out, not another word or glance to Mark. It’s like he doesn’t recognize him anymore, or where he is, or who he is. He needs to be drowned in his senses right now, he needs a walk.

As he makes his way out of the house and anywhere away from it, his first thought is to fix. It’s a fallible instinct of his, always observing and watching and thinking of new ideas to slot into new situations for any given moment. What if he went with Mark? What if he dropped his own life and his own progress and merged it fully into Mark’s?

But he stops himself, and he thinks. He can’t afford to do that, he doesn’t have the resources to. His family is not poor, but they aren’t as well off as a few of the other families who have lived in this town for generations- like Mark’s family, or the Seo family. Because the people of this village came here for a reason, and never leave for the same reason- wealth, mobility, status. The world here is not so different from the city Donghyuck was first born to.

Mark would want Donghyuck to come with him, he knows this much already. He had probably wanted to ask just that before Donghyuck freaked out and ran off on him. His family has the resources and the means and the support, Mark has that backing to follow his dream. But it’s an offer Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to accept, not just on the grounds of guilt and debt, but that his family needs him here. His mother for their shop, his siblings to have an older figure to look up to.

Sand digs into the soles of his feet suddenly, and he startles to find that in his daze he had led himself to the beach. It collapses him to a sit, not caring for what grit cuts into the skin of his thighs and burrows into the fabric of his shorts. He sees Mark beside him in his imagination, their beach, their place, and it collapses him even more. Even the stirring waves before him, gentle like a steady lullaby, seem to taunt him.

But Donghyuck is hardly surprised at the situation of it all, as much as his heart bleeds drops of red to sizzle in his stomach acid.

Music is Mark’s first love, Donghyuck knew that the exact moment they met. On the street corner, a stupid trendy cap balanced precariously on the elder’s head and his guitar in his arms. He knew this since day one, yet he was foolish enough to assume he could worm his way into that space in Mark’s heart like a parasite he’d never be able to get rid of.

He knows they view their relationship in different lights, traveling the same vein yet diverging in opposite directions. For Mark, they are soft and lovely and warm. For Donghyuck, they are raw and bloody and real. They need each other in differing, opposing ways, ways that they have made work until now.

Because what is enough for Donghyuck may not be enough for Mark.

Once upon a time he liked to believe they were twin souls, the same being separated clean down the middle. But now he knows what makes them soulmates is their complete and utter opposition. They fit together through what rounds them out, through what the other offers that makes them whole.

And love alone is not enough, it never will be. 

They need compromise and understanding, that give and that take. Mark has given every day since Donghyuck met him, shaping his hands to fit Donghyuck every time, cupping them around his form to make room for every quirk and idiosyncrasy. Donghyuck would be selfish to never do the same, to never offer Mark the chance to just take, just once. What would he be if he continued to cut Mark off at the wrists and bled him out of everything he has? Who was that fair to?

Donghyuck has always wanted so much, but where did that ever leave Mark?

It’s that thought process that has him turning back to walk home, no distance or comfort to be found in a place that only holds memories of them. He does not return to Mark, a scornful part of him hissing that if Mark wants to talk he has to come to him.

Not that the thought even matters, because as soon as he walks through the doorway of his own home, his mother stops him with a look of worry in her eyes. He knows what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth.

She says that Mark is waiting in his room, and Donghyuck tells her okay like anything is okay at all. But the thought of worrying her for any reason exacerbates his already barely breathing heart.

When he opens his door, Mark is there sitting on the very edge of his bed, head cupped between his hands. It’s like looking at a stranger in his home, his brain still caught between waves of disbelief and the foolish hope that this is all some sick dream.

Mark’s head darts up the moment he hears movement, and Donghyuck wants to gut himself open at the way his face crumples at the sight of Donghyuck. He does not move, though, staying perfectly still on Donghyuck’s bed despite his hands tensing for action.

“I’m kind of upset at you.” Donghyuck whispers, shutting his door quietly. The tone of his voice shocks even him, a quiet rage simmering below the surface of flimsy control.

“That’s okay.” Mark whispers back, quietly, desperately. 

Donghyuck sucks in an even measured breath. “I’m really upset at you. I kind of want to hit you in the face right now.”

Part of Donghyuck just wants to argue. He wants to push and push until Mark breaks and is just as angry as he is. He wants there to be a reason this is happening. It’s not enough that Mark only wants to pursue a dream, he wants Mark to hate him and wish he was dead to top it all off.

But Mark is lovely, lovely, lovely, nodding at Donghyuck like the threat was anywhere near reasonable. “You can hit me, that’s okay.”

The fight abruptly leaves Donghyuck, no dark satisfaction to be found in a willing victim. “I’m not- God, I’m not gonna hit you.”

He steps forward, collapsing to lay down on his bed next to where Mark sits still and patient. He does not want to see or be near Mark, but those are unrealistic wants because no matter what he will always crave Mark’s presence, his touch, him. Right now, he needs the comfort.

“I kind of wish you would, honestly.” Mark chances a guilty look at Donghyuck, glancing away again when he just stares back.

“Is this what you want to do?”

Leave? Is that what you want to do? Is that what will make you happy?

“Yes.” Mark admits in one guilty breath, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

The caverns of Donghyuck’s chest crumble even further, a rib through his lung, his heart bubbling to nothing in the acid of his stomach.

“I’d never forgive myself if I kept you here instead.” Donghyuck murmurs, feeling strung sticky thin with sadness.

Despite himself, despite everything, Donghyuck need Mark to be happy above all else.

“Can you come with me?” Mark lays down beside him, hesitant in his motions. “I wanted to- that’s- that’s what I wanted to ask.”

Donghyuck smiles bittersweet at the hopeful persistence layered between the syllables. “I have my own responsibilities, I can’t just drop everything and leave.”

Because his mom needs him, and his siblings need him, and this is his life. It might not have ever belonged to Mark, living a life he had been born into, but it was the life Donghyuck had chosen. This is his home, even though it isn’t Mark’s.

And Mark knows that. He must.

“You could.”

“Mark.”

“You could.” Mark insists, that stubborn knit between his brows.

Donghyuck exhales, attempting to release whatever acrid anger clung to the air in his lungs. “We- we both know I can’t, okay? Just- can you just hold me right now?”

It’s a white flag, an attempt at a surrender. The battle is best left unsaid, than something deliberately fought out. Mark knows this, though Donghyuck can see the tense form of his figure itching to keep it going. That’s where they match, he supposes, headstrong and stubborn in the same ways. But he gives in as well, melting almost literally to the mattress beside Donghyuck and twisting his form to match his: arms around his waist, head buried in the space between neck and shoulder.

Mark only speaks after a few silent moments, indulging in the sounds of the wind and birds outside his window. “I’m not being fair at all right now, am I?”

“No winners and losers in this situation, Mark, it is what it is.” Donghyuck murmurs back, quiet and drained. He pats through the older’s hair, another point of comforting contact.

“I wish you’d stop being so mature about it,” Mark mutters stubbornly, an almost childish pout laced into his words. “I wish you’d kick and scream and hit me, I know I deserve it.”

Donghyuck laughs, even though nothing is particularly funny. “If I wasn’t being so mature I’d probably do something crazy instead like tie you up in my attic and never let you leave.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe you should shut up and just let us both be miserable together.” 

“Sorry.” Mark mumbles, soft and small. Soft, soft, soft.

Donghyuck smiles despite himself, despite his anger, despite his heartbreak. “Mark Lee, silly, silly boy.”

Mark whines against his neck, sucking at the thin skin of it in retaliation.

“Fucking baby.” Donghyuck laughs, carding his fingers through his hair.

Tonight, he will pretend that none of this makes him want to die. Tonight, they will stay together.

They have a month left together.

It’s not enough time, it never would be. Nothing short of an eternity would cut it.

But they do what they always do, go about their days with one hand clasped right with the other. Donghyuck thinks maybe he’d prefer if they acted as if every day was their last, but he knows such fanfare would only make Mark’s departure more real. And right now, it’s easier to pretend nothing is happening.

So he pretends and he pretends, and Mark plays the part right alongside him. Every day tastes so much like a lie, but it’s sweet and addictive and Donghyuck need, need, needs it. For now Mark still belongs to him, and he to Mark, and that’s all that matters.

Though everything comes to an end, even what withstands the test of time. Donghyuck can only hope time stays on their side for whatever is to come.

That thought stays stuck to his brain up until some of the last few nights they have together. Like clockwork, Mark takes him to watch the sunset, as if everything is still perfectly normal, only to retire to Donghyuck’s room after. They’ve been avoiding Mark’s family home, because the whole leaving thing is an issue with Mark’s parents, because of course it is. He’s the golden boy of their town, the pride of his family. But Mark has never let him intervene, or involve himself, or even tell him anything of what they’re saying at all. He only grips Donghyuck a little tighter when they’re together, and spends his days helping Donghyuck’s mom at their store or hanging out with his younger siblings, then his nights curled up close in Donghyuck’s little bed.

But one of those last few nights, Mark changes his mind for a split second.

He stands up, declares that he doesn’t care about what may lay beyond the bounds of an oceanside village anymore, and even starts to pack his guitar up as if to drive home his point.

Donghyuck just watches him sadly in silence, wilting even further when Mark’s frenzied movements begin to slow to a hesitant stop. They make eye contact, and suddenly, inexplicably, Mark begins to cry.

With no tears left to cry, Donghyuck only cradles Mark’s head in his lap and comforts him through the sobs, holding him closer as if he’s the one getting his heart broken, and not the one doing the heart breaking.

“Could you please come with me?” Mark whispers later when they’ve both calmed down, sleepy soft and vulnerable at the hours of four in the morning.

“If I’m not making you stay,” Donghyuck whispers, his eyes barely drifting open. “Then you’re not making me leave. Let’s be fair to each other, Mark.”

He needs Mark to respect that decision before his recklessness decides on something rash instead, like forcing Mark to stay here with him, or abandoning everything that ties him here to follow the older like a fool.

“I’m sorry.” Mark sniffs, because that’s all he has left to say.

Donghyuck knocks his fist against Mark’s head admonishingly. “You haven’t done a thing wrong.”

Because he hasn’t. It isn’t wrong to want more for yourself, it isn’t wrong to be selfish, Donghyuck just wishes it was fair to be selfish about Mark. Mark wants a future, Donghyuck wants Mark. It’s stupid and unrealistic.

“It’s not the end, is it?” Mark asks after a few moments of sleepy silence.

If Donghyuck wasn’t so tired, he would be sitting up in a panic. Instead, his eyes just flit to Mark’s. “Do you want it to be?”

“No. No.” Mark insists, his voice suddenly very awake.

“Then we’ll make it work.” Donghyuck says simply, with a lot more confidence than he truly has.

Mark sniffs again, cupping his hands against his face. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

“You go off and do what you love, I’m not gonna hold you back.”

Mark pulls his hands back, and Donghyuck aches at the sheen of red in his eyes. “You’re what I love.”

And because every word that leaves Mark’s lips sounds as if he’s trying to change his own mind, Donghyuck teases lowly, “Is now the time to be making dirty jokes, Mark Lee?”

He feels Mark’s smile, sharp at the cheeks and soft at the lips, lovely, and lovely, and his.

And then the night before Mark has to leave, he just keeps saying sorry, over and over and over. It does not help even a little bit, the guilt laden regret dripping thick over his words only serving to stab Donghyuck more painfully, more precisely. But he pets Donghyuck's head like he’s a helpless baby, wrapped up so tight in each other’s arms that there’s barely room to breathe, so Donghyuck just shuts his eyes and pretends it’s not happening.

When morning comes and Mark is gone, Donghyuck pretends he never woke up at all.

Part V: Fate Line

They make it work, because they are threaded together against all odds. But it still eats away at the hard bone bindings and soft fleshy bits of his chest everyday despite it.

A unique form of hate begins to fester in his heart, black and rotted and oily thick. He wants to be with Mark, and he despises anything that’s made itself its enemy to that goal. He hate, hate, hates the distance, and sometimes convinces himself he hate, hate, hates Mark. But that’s only on the lonely nights he can hear the sea tides lap noisily at the shore, ear pressed to his pillow and the other towards the stars. But then his brain will paint a picture of the sturdy feel of Mark’s hand around his waist, and it’s like a spot of sunlight breaking through the fog at last.

He finds it to be rather sad.

That feeling is temporarily smudged away, though, when he finds himself pressed against the glass of his bedroom window, the warmed surface of his phone pressed hard to his ear. He likes to pretend he could sponge the lull of Mark’s voice directly into his cartilage and tissue, if only he tries hard enough.

He imagines the way Mark must look now, phone pressed to his ear by the weight of his hand, body curled up around it like it’s the single most important object in his immediate vicinity.

He wonders what Mark’s hands are doing now, what activities keep them busy from where the two of them sit separated between worlds. No longer is he the fisherman’s son, with those deft hands occupied by the handling of rope and bait. Now, he is a boy born from the sea foam climbing into the earth with legs like a newborn foal, and Donghyuck wonders how those hands meant for building up and breaking down will help him find his purchase now.

Partly, he wishes he could give Mark his own hands instead, but he knows they wouldn’t be near as capable enough.

“I wish I could hold you,” Mark whispers, fragile and so very honest from over the phone. “I wish I could hold your hand, at least.”

Donghyuck wants to say something bitter, something cruel, maybe remind Mark that he’s the one who left in the first place. He’s the one that won’t let go, keeping Donghyuck knotted up by the promise of hands and skin and flesh and touch.

Instead, he shoves his cheek into the heel of his free palm. “You’re making this harder for me.”

Mark sniffs, the sound echoing over the crackle of poor phone connection. “Sorry.”

Always so painfully honest.

Donghyuck sighs into the absence of sound, neither of them finding much to say over the noise of piecing their hearts back together. They’re so miserable, and he knows that a Mark and Donghyuck that spent their days together knee deep in salty wet waves would find the pessimism hilarious. But this is a Mark and Donghyuck being forced to make do with distance and shoddy phone reception, and they’re miserable. 

“I miss… I miss your eyes, too.” Mark admits, interrupting Donghyuck’s thoughts.

“My eyes?”

“I know, it’s weird, just- like, um. I miss the way you look at me.” Mark whispers, suddenly bashful.

Donghyuck is greedy, though, and it peaks a smile from him immediately. “How do I look at you?”

Mark seems to inhale in a steady even measured breath before speaking, soft and shy. “Like you see everything in the world, but I’m the only thing worth looking at.”

Donghyuck sucks in a sharp breath, only a little flustered, his smile widening still. “‘Cause you are.”

Mark huffs out an amused laugh, like he can see Donghyuck’s blush from over the phone. “Romantic now, huh?”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck groans, rubbing a hand over his face as if to staunch the flow of heated red. “Maybe I’ll go back to telling you about how sometimes I want you to drink my blood a little.”

He doesn’t actually want Mark to drink his blood, more of a confession of gory, visceral love that he needs to scream out to the world before it drowns him than anything else. He probably wouldn’t say no if Mark offered, though.

“Yeah,” Mark hums. “You’re definitely the weirder between us.”

“Oh, so I’m the weird one for wanting to be together always?”

Mark gives himself a moment to laugh, high and unrestrained, pausing only to hum sweetly into the phone’s microphone. “Well, the stars are still yours, remember? Hold them when you want to feel me.”

It’s a sudden callback to some of the last words he said to Donghyuck before he left, and it hits Donghyuck in the stomach with the weight of a freight train. Like he could go tumbling over at any moment, heart beating bloody on the floor.

“Dummy,” Donghyuck mutters, voice hoarse. “I can’t reach that far.”

“Then build a ladder.” Mark says simply.

“You’re stupid.”

“I think you are,” His voice is a lovely drawl, and Donghyuck knows whatever he says next will be his undoing. “Because I already have the sun right between my hands whenever I miss you a little too much. What’s your excuse?”

Donghyuck wants to throw up. He wants to throw up his heart and his lungs and his stomach and everything that belongs to Mark, that exists for Mark, that does it’s job to hear Mark say stupid things like that.

Donghyuck clears his throat. “My excuse is I want you between my hands.”

“Dirty, dirty, dirty, when I'm trying to be romantic.” Mark giggles, boyishly, innocent in that way he manages so well.

“That’s not- I want to hold your hand,” Donghyuck concedes with a huffed laugh. “That’s all.”

“I wanna hold your hand.” Mark starts up, his voice a soft, trilling song.

“What is that? Is that a new song? Did you make it?”

Sometimes Mark likes to play songs he’s written and recorded for Donghyuck, just the skeletons of something, and Donghyuck thinks it’s so cool. That he has a place he can record things now. It makes all this heartache just the barest bit worth it.

“No.” Is all Mark says.

“Then, what is that?”

“I wanna hold your hand.” Mark answers, simple, factual.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. Mark really knows how to be insufferable when he wants to be. “Who’s it by?”

“You never heard of The Beatles?” Mark’s voice is incredulous. “Wait, did you never go through my vinyls after I left?”

Donghyuck blinks, heart stuttering. He had admittedly considered doing just that many times prior, but stopped himself at the thought of taking something so private from Mark. Though, it isn’t wholly surprising that Mark already suspected that thought process from him.

“They’re yours, aren’t they?”

Mark laughs. “Oh, so now you’re considerate to my things, huh? We don’t do the what’s mine is yours rule anymore?”

He whines. “You’re being mean when I miss you.”

“Baby.” Mark sing songs, the tone of it soaked with something mischievous, but something loving still. It makes Donghyuck feel like the first time they kissed.

Mark continues, his voice lower, warmer. “I left them for you, Hyuck. All of them.”

“What? All of them? Why?”

“What’s mine is yours.” He answers simply, lovely.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

All Donghyuck can do is grit his teeth over the love that threatens to spill past his lips, and swallow it back down. “I wish I could bite you.”

Mark hums, nonplussed and amused. “Unfortunately, that is not a song in my collection. Maybe I’ll write it for you, though.”

“No,” Donghyuck whines. “That’s a private thought.”

“I bet you look beautiful right now.”

“Wh- huh?” Donghyuck stutters, caught off guard by the suddenness of the compliment.

“That’s my private thought. Sharing, aren’t we?” Mark says, smug like he knows what he’s doing to Donghyuck.

Mark brings out what feels like the worst in Donghyuck, something feral and unrestrained. He wants to bite down on something until it breaks to cope with the need that rackets through his lungs.

“You’re bolder over the phone.” Is all he can say in return, unwilling to give in.

And Mark, also unwilling to give in, says: “Well, I don’t have you looking at me like I’m the only thing worth looking at, do I?”

Donghyuck feels properly socked through the gut, but he can’t let it show. “Mark, we’d be having the craziest sex right now if you didn’t hate me so much and left me.”

And like a thread strung tight with tension finally snapping, Mark gives in with an unrestrained cackle. “God, Hyuck! We can never be romantic!”

Donghyuck hums, pleased and happy beyond belief. “You always complain, but I know you love it.”

“Just let me write love letters about you.” Mark complains.

“Do what you want, I’ll suck your dick while you do it.”

Mark is silent, and it warms the embers of Donghyuck’s belly, knowing to the letter what that reaction must mean.

“Want me to get you off?”

“If it’s not- um, not too inappropriate for the moment.” Mark says, all high and earnest.

Nerd.

“Shut up and take your pants off.”

Donghyuck tires of it very quickly.

Somehow living in a place with constant reminders of Mark brought no peace to him, only serving to deepen that seated ache in his heart even further. He sees him in the orchards, in the trails they used to walk, in the trees they used to climb, he sees him at the foot of his Donghyuck’s bed trying to get as much cool air from the fan as he can, strumming his guitar in the corner of Donghyuck’s room. Most of all, he sees Mark in the sea.

So after a year of gritting his teeth and bearing it, he decides that he’s had enough. He’s tired of giving and he wants to take now, he wants Mark again now. His soul, his essence, his being, his hands. Patience is no longer enough for him anymore, and was never his finest virtue from the beginning.

But he’s not so much of a petty loser that he’d call Mark back to the village, even though a dark part of him reminds him how easy it would be. He doesn’t give in, because this is important to Mark, this matters to Mark. And that matters to Donghyuck.

The only way he can make this work is an obvious compromise: visiting Mark in the far off city he was offered an opportunity in. It’s not exactly an easy feat, but Donghyuck already knew nothing was going to be easy again from the day they had to sacrifice things to make this work. From the day they had to grow up.

His mom thinks it’s very cute, which is embarrassing but also sort of makes him feel better about the situation. He’s picked up two jobs now to save up for the trip, doing anything around the town to help earn a little extra cash, and his mom thinks it’s adorable. And that in itself helps to make it all feel less real, more normal, less like he’s an obsessive freak who need, need, needs so much he can hardly stand it.

It’s going to be a surprise, and he’s meticulously planned everything down to the very last detail. Which shows how important this is to him, because Donghyuck rarely plans much in excruciating detail, preferring to know the basics and then winging it.

Four more exhaustingly lonely months go by like this, saving up, working hard, planning the trip as best as he can. It’s hard keeping it a secret from Mark, who laments almost every night about how badly he wants to see him and how much he’d love to see all the things Mark sees. Which makes it even harder, because now Donghyuck just wishes he could scoop out Mark’s eyes and replace them with his own.

None of it really matters, though, when he finally finds himself at the address of the place he was able to subtly extract from Mark. Not much of an extraction, actually, because all he had to do was ask Mark point blank what his current address was and Mark never questioned a thing.

He would say Mark is stupid, but he knows it’s just because of Mark’s unfailing loyalty to Donghyuck. His first instinct has never been to question the younger.

And all of it is worth it for ten minutes later, when he hears the door unlock, and Mark’s voice. His real, palpable in the flesh voice. Not over the crackle and static of the phone, not from over miles upon miles of distance, but here. And, then, even better, Mark himself, solid and physical and tangible and real to the touch.

Mark looks at him like he’s a dream come true, like he’s something incorporeal, like someone’s playing a cruel joke on him. All it takes is Donghyuck’s excited laugh for him to surge forward and tangle their fingers together carelessly, and it feels like a part of Donghyuck is being returned to him at last.

For every day that Donghyuck is here, Mark looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, and holds him like he’s something precious. It’s not like Donghyuck can blame him, though, hardly able to stop touching Mark, an arm almost always wrapped around the older’s waist like an extra limb, like he’s trying to burrow into the skin and make home in his organs.

It doesn’t feel like the heaven his brain had grandly drafted it out to be in the time they had apart, it feels more like a homecoming. Natural, normal, like putting together the pieces in a difficult puzzle. Donghyuck aches for it even more, so full he feels like he could start drowning at any moment.

But things become strained halfway through his visit, as time crawls closer and closer to Donghyuck’s departure back home.

Arguments have never been anything new to them. Because here’s the thing: Donghyuck and Mark are both stubborn, both wanting, and both unyielding. Mark wants him to stay. Donghyuck can’t afford that. Mark dreams of a grand future for them. Donghyuck has to stay realistic. Mark understands, and wishes he didn’t. Donghyuck doesn’t understand, and pretends that he does.

All of it is for the best, it has to be.

The back and forth makes them hot and then cold, angry and then sad. It’s as if a flashlight has been shone down on the depths of dark insecurities and loneliness, blinding and staggering. Sometimes Donghyuck wishes he never came here at all, because listening to Mark lament about how everything was a mistake and he should just go home can’t be anything but a lapse in judgment.

They aren’t broken, but they aren’t necessarily whole either. What they are is a work in progress, bound to the reassurance of touch. It makes the distance that much more of a condemnation, of something terrifying and unknown. Sometimes Donghyuck wonders if they really are going to make it through.

But then Mark sits him down, lays his head on his lap, and they work it out like they’ve worked out all other kinks and bumps. As if this is no different than any other hard fought battle they’ve endured. Mark says, in words that are as flowery and shiny as his eyes, that he is sorry, sorry, sorry. That he just want, want, wants. And he holds him, and it feels so much like the solid surety of the sea that Donghyuck melts.

And how could Donghyuck stay upset, when he is the same? Donghyuck understands Mark in an acute way that only he could, and it makes the forgiveness easy. They are a kindred soul, opposing but heart achingly similar, and only they could ever really understand each other.

They’re a work in progress, but Donghyuck knows that if they allow it, they will become something grand, something better than even themselves. All they need is to finally allow selflessness and understanding. It’s a hard lesson learned, one he has to press and cram into the sponge of his brain, because he wants Mark so badly, and it would be so easy to just give into that toxicity. But he can’t, because more than he wants Mark, he loves Mark.

Mark is the very same. He knows this for the night after they make up and talk out what they can, Mark’s lips spill out something more raw and honest, gutted and stripped open, than anything he’s ever said before.

He says it when he thinks Donghyuck is asleep, voice below a whisper.

“You are it for me. My beginning, my ending, every little thing in between. You are the ocean that calls me home, and the sun that lights my way. I know it’s clingy and weird and stupid, but- but I just hope I never have to see you go.”

Mark goes to sleep soon after, hand clasped loosely with Donghyuck’s as if he could somehow reach him in his dreams. Donghyuck can’t close his eyes.

And, really, all of it comes down to the little moments.

Like the sun casting rays against the warmth of Mark’s skin, the way his eyes seem to watch Donghyuck like he’s the only thing he’s ever seen, the way his hands touch Donghyuck like they can’t bear to be away. It comes down to every motion, every look, every detail, feeling infinite and finite all in one. Something to be cherished, something that will stay embedded in every little crevice of their soul.

It’s the little moments.

Mark looks over at him, together silent in the cramped twin bed of his room, and holds up his hand in the shape of an I Love You. It’s the way he still blushes ruby bright, glitteringly obvious even in the dark, even after years of knowing each other like this. 

It makes Donghyuck never want to leave.