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Mark is in the middle of dance practice when his manager introduces their newest trainee to him. This is hardly surprising. Mark is always in the middle of dance practice.
It’s late afternoon and he’s been at it for hours by this point, his head reduced to a pleasant blur of disjointed sensations. The rhythmic slap of his bare feet against the cheap vinyl floor. The greedy way his T-shirt clings to his sweat-soaked back. The sluggish rattle of a lone oscillating fan, and the brief chill whenever the wind hits his nape. The blisters, the aches, the pains. He should stop and stretch himself out—he can feel a grimace etching itself onto his face, picture the disapproval in their choreographer’s eyes later—but he can’t stop. He can’t stop.
The fan has sputtered its last feeble breath and the mirrors are fogging up by the time the door to the practice room opens, startling Mark so badly that he trips over himself.
“Mark, do you have a moment?”
“Uh, yeah, hold on.”
It’s Tiffany, the trainee manager. She’s competent and kind, but she’s from the U.S and has a habit of speaking to Mark in English, asking him about his hometown and whether he misses it, and—well. Mark doesn’t want to think about those things.
Dimly aware that he’s trembling with exhaustion, Mark switches off the music, turns from the foggy mirror to the door, and promptly wants to die.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Donghyuck greets with a sunny smile, suitcase in hand. Tiffany is by his side, wearing a bubblegum pink tracksuit and looking calm and composed as if this is all supposed to be happening, which can’t be right because this can’t be happening.
“This is Donghyuck,” she says, and for a hysterical moment Mark wants to laugh because he already fucking knows that. “If everything works out, he’ll be debuting with you all. I know you’re practicing, but do you mind taking him back to the dorms? You can introduce him to the others, help him get all set up…”
“Of course,” Mark says, even though he feels like somebody’s sliced him in half and is currently scooping his insides out with a spoon like he’s a mango. “I was basically done anyway.”
(He was not basically done anyway. He’s never done.)
“Great, thanks!”
Tiffany leaves and Mark shoves his feet back into his sneakers, ears burning under the heat of Donghyuck’s gaze on him. For the first time in ages, he’s self-conscious of how sweaty and gross he is. He hasn’t seen Donghyuck since he left; he doesn’t even know how long ago—
“It’s been six years,” Donghyuck says. Jesus, it’s uncanny. Mark looks up from his shoes and drinks in the sight of him: the graceful curve of his neck, the way the baby fat has melted from his face and his legs have slimmed and lengthened, the constellation of face moles just where Mark left them all those years ago. He’s wearing skinny jeans and an oversized white T-shirt. The hair peeking out from under his bucket hat is peach colored. It suits him.
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s the first thing you have to say to me?” Donghyuck frowns. “I’m here to train, what else?”
“Did you transfer from another company?” Mark slings his backpack over his shoulder and heads outside, not pausing to see whether Donghyuck follows. He does, of course. Wheeling his suitcase behind him.
“Um, no. I was in a cover group with the guys—Jeno and Jaemin and Jisung, you remember them? I got scouted from there.”
Mark remembers. With a pang in his chest.
“I didn’t follow you here, if that’s what you’re asking,” Donghyuck continues. “The world doesn’t actually revolve around you.”
“I didn’t mean…” Mark winces. Yeah, he’s an asshole. No getting around this one. “Hell of a coincidence, though, don’t you think?”
“Maybe it’s destiny.”
Outside, the sun is unforgiving and the sidewalk seems determined to melt the rubber off their shoes. When they reach the bus stop on the corner, Mark pulls a mostly-empty water bottle from his backpack and dumps its contents down the back of his shirt. The water’s lukewarm, so any relief is temporary at best.
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure you were even still a trainee,” Donghyuck says. “Is it true that MD kicked you out?”
No tact at all. They have that in common.
“Sort of. They just said that I didn’t, like, fit the image of the group they were planning to debut or whatever—even though half of East fucking Asia is in that group, apparently—so…” Mark sighs. “Yeah, they kicked me.” He can’t suppress a flare of irritation at the wry amusement on Donghyuck’s face. “What?”
“You’ve changed, Mark Lee.”
“It would be hard not to.”
“And you got rid of the glasses.”
“I wear contacts now.”
The bus arrives. Mark pays both their fares. Donghyuck spends the ride plastered to the window.
“I can’t remember the last time I was in Seoul,” he says, awed. “I was born here, did you know? But I moved to Jeju when I was little.”
Mark remembers that too. Donghyuck mentioned it once, late at night under the harsh fluorescents of a convenience store after too many rounds of League, and Mark remembers everything Donghyuck has ever told him. Of course, he’d sooner pull his own teeth than admit that. He fiddles with the frayed Mickey Mouse luggage tag on Donghyuck’s suitcase and musters a reply.
“Really? I didn’t know.”
Mark’s family moved to Jeju from Vancouver when he was fourteen years old. He arrived gawky-limbed and bug-eyed, armed with a freshly breaking voice and the acute awareness that he possessed all the personality of a slab of cardboard. In Canada, it had never been a problem: he simply surrounded himself with similar slabs of cardboard who were utterly uninterested in everything but class rankings and college admissions. They had ample reason to be interested in Mark. He was always #1.
The problem posed by Korea was that Mark couldn’t be #1 anymore—not in an unfamiliar culture, in an unfamiliar language that left him stiff-tongued and fumbling for misplaced participles. Somehow his older brother never seemed to mind, quickly waltzing his way into a new friend group with broken Korean and a bashful smile.
Mark couldn’t do that. Mark stayed quiet.
His…fascination with Donghyuck began soon after the school year did. Donghyuck’s class ranking was mediocre at best, but he was the sun, and his classmates orbited him faithfully. Mark watched from the sidelines as Donghyuck enraptured the masses and let himself be pulled into his gravity.
“I haven't seen you around,” were Donghyuck's first words to Mark.
They were in the cafeteria, Mark in his usual spot at the very end of the bench. He normally ate in silence, gazing out the window at the courtyard and letting the other students’ chatter wash over him.
But not today. Today Lee Donghyuck was standing over him, looking expectant.
Mark took a moment to gather the words and arrange them in order. “Because I’m not in your class.”
“Then why are you always standing outside my classroom?”
So you have seen me. Mark couldn’t help the trill in his chest, the flush in his cheeks. He didn’t point out the contradiction either. “Because,” he said instead. “You’re…”
Captivating. Charming. Alluring.
“Loud.”
Even Mark, with the social skills and emotional intelligence of cardboard, knew it was a rude thing to say. The moment the words left his mouth, he was overwhelmed with the urge to flee the cafeteria and cry behind the trash cans in the courtyard. But Donghyuck—
Donghyuck laughed. Not the meanspirited laugh Mark had been on the receiving end of too many times to count, but surprised and genuine and mirthful.
“I like your nametag,” he said, then reached right out and jabbed it with his index finger. “M-A-R-K. I’ve never seen one in English before.”
“You can call me Minhyung. If it’s easier.”
Donghyuck raised an eyebrow. His finger was still in the same place. It felt like he was boring into Mark’s heart. “Well, do you prefer Mark, or do you prefer Minhyung?”
“Mark, I guess.”
“Then that’s what I’ll call you. Mark hyung. A couple friends and I are going to a PC cafe after school; you game?”
Mark was not, in fact, game. The last trending game he played was Flappy Bird, and he was unable to get past ten flaps.
“Sure,” he said.
And it began like that.
Settling in with Donghyuck and his crew was easier than expected. It helped that 99% of their interactions revolved around gaming, which Mark, under their long-suffering tutelage, eventually became halfway decent at.
His Korean improved, too, even if his grades didn’t. Something about slurping ramen and screaming through his headphones for his teammates to “hurry up and get the fuck out of the enemy’s AOE already” really stripped away his self-consciousness with the language. When the PC cafe kicked out all the minors at 10PM, they hit the streets—visiting the coin noraebang or the convenience store or just walking around. Sometimes they even went to the ocean. Donghyuck adored the ocean.
A year passed like that, and suddenly Mark was on the cusp of becoming a high schooler. “It feels like just yesterday when you were some painfully awkward kid who didn't know how to use in-game voice chats, and now look at you,” Donghyuck remarked one night as the victory screen flashed before them. “Gets me a little misty-eyed, honestly. My baby’s all grown up.”
“You’re a terrible influence,” Mark replied flatly, already on the loading screen for another skirmish. “Finals are next week, and I'm sitting here making pixels fight.”
“It's good to unwind. Stress makes you forget, you know, so even if you cram, you'll probably just forget anyways.”
“That’s why you study over a long period of time, Donghyuck.”
Not that Mark had been doing any better. Not that it mattered. They were just breezing through the same steps of the choreographed argument they’d had a million times. Sometimes it was nice to have a roadmap for social interactions.
“Hey, my methods have brought me this far.”
“Less stressing me out about my future failing grade and more supporting, please,” Jaemin interrupted, impatient.
That night, they crashed at Donghyuck’s house after their gaming session, their pocket money and energy reserves too drained by the year’s end to go anywhere else. As the others settled in for the night, piling spare pillows and blankets onto the living room floor, Mark situated himself at the kitchen table and cracked open his Korean history textbook.
He was driven more by habit than actual diligence. Mark never left the house without a book under his arm, even if lately he didn’t even end up looking at it half the time. It was nearly inconceivable that the mush sloshing between his ears was the same brain that had once carried him to the top of his school. Beneath the flickering light of Donghyuck’s narrow kitchen (the bulb had been badly in need of changing for as long as Mark had known him), the words peeled themselves from the page and floated lackadaisically through the air, forever evading his focus.
“Dude, you’ve been staring at that page for, like, five minutes straight.”
Mark jolted with surprise, and his pen—still capped—went skittering across the kitchen tile.
“It’s pretty freaky, honestly. You weren’t moving at all.” Donghyuck plopped himself into a seat beside Mark, crowding into his space as always. He was freshly pajama-clad but still smelled faintly of salt and stale air and boy. “What’s going on in that big head of yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Business as usual, then.”
Donghyuck was so clearly proud of this little quip that Mark made a concerted effort not to react in any way. His eyes still rolled against his own volition.
“It’s just—I don’t know.” He sighed and bent to retrieve his pen, trying to gather some of the mislaid words along with it. “What you said earlier, at the PC cafe. Do you really think I’ve changed so much? Because…I still feel the same. With you guys I can get by, but it’s just because we’re talking about games the entire time. With anyone else, I’m still—well. Me.” The previous week, a girl in his grade had introduced herself and Mark was so stunned that he simply stared wide-eyed at her until she left.
“Oh, hyung…” Donghyuck chuckled indulgently and Mark, even with his gaze fixed on the pen between his fingers, could perfectly picture the accompanying self-satisfied smirk. “What on earth would you do without me?”
It was the question Mark had been asking himself for months, for which he only had one answer. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly,” Donghyuck preened. “Other people just don't get you like I do, y’know? As a Mark connoisseur, I can assure you that you have changed. For the better. Anyway—” In a single fluid motion, he snatched the pen from Mark’s hand and flipped the textbook shut. “What are you doing studying when you could be playing Mario Kart on my Wii? Have your exams finally taken priority over me?”
“They always have.”
“Pssh. Liar.”
Finally, Mark lifted his head and peered into Donghyuck’s eyes. They were unwavering. It was a terrible thing, being known—so completely and with such casual confidence. It was only a matter of time before Donghyuck took notice of the fragile thing struggling to take root in Mark’s chest.
The book remained closed. They played Mario Kart.
“I admired you, you know. When we first met.”
The words came when Mark was sixteen, a confession burning a hole in his tongue and a business card burning a hole in his pocket. It was nearly 2 AM and he was on the swing set outside his apartment building with Donghyuck, the night air crisp and biting with the last vestiges of winter.
Another year had passed, and Mark still didn’t feel different in any way that counted. High school in Korea was aggressive, and he’d gotten better at pretending to care about his studies, to the extent that he didn’t have much time to kill at the PC cafe anymore. They’d all grown apart somewhat. But his feelings for Donghyuck still simmered intensely enough that he couldn’t leave without at least letting out a puff of steam.
He hadn’t even told anyone besides his family that he was going—hadn’t mentioned the audition, or the blank-faced casting agent who pressed a business card from the biggest entertainment company in the country into his hand, or the way he’d jabbed a fingertip against its freshly printed corners and seen the opportunity to be #1 again.
Blissfully ignorant, Donghyuck quirked an eyebrow. “Why’s it past tense?”
“Because I found out you’re annoying.”
“Rude.” Donghyuck squinted suspiciously. “You’re being weird tonight, Mark Lee. Why’d you even call me out here?”
Because I like you.
“I dunno,” Mark shrugged. “We haven’t been hanging out as much, have we?”
“True,” Donghyuck agreed, though he was clearly unconvinced. “But we’ll be in the same school again soon. Then we can fix that.”
“Right.”
The lie felt awful—like flames were licking their way up the lining of Mark’s coat, like the clothes would burn right off him and he’d die the same nonsensical death as the hypothermia victims he’d read of, the ones who stripped themselves naked in their delirium. Frankly, he was surprised that his cardboard heart was even capable of such feeling.
“It’s late,” he managed to say. “We should call it a night.”
I like you, I like you, I like you.
The next day, he was gone.
To his credit, Mark tried to keep in contact. Donghyuck’s righteous fury with him for not saying anything fizzled and faded within two weeks, and when the silent treatment was over they exchanged a tentative rally of texts. They talked about Seoul and trainee life, Jeju and school life. After a while, however, it felt like Mark was shouting over a wall, trying to explain what things looked like on his side. He just didn’t have the voice for it.
It was an anticlimactic end—not the clean break of rejection, but the languishing awkwardness of a dusty chat log. Mark supposed that it suited him. He would always like Donghyuck at least a little, but it was a manageable ache.
Six years with a stitch in his side. Seventy-five monthly evaluations, one company downsize, and a thousand quietly shattered dreams before Donghyuck stepped back into his life, easy as anything.
The other trainees love Donghyuck immediately. Of course they do.
All the beds in their one-bedroom apartment are already occupied—Shotaro and Sungchan sharing one bunk bed, Mark and Eunseok sharing another, and Seunghan, their youngest, on the sofa bed in the living room—which would typically relegate Donghyuck to the floor, but Seunghan insists on sharing the sofa bed.
(“I mean, if you don’t mind,” he said when he offered, bashful and starry-eyed. He’d once been elated to have the living room to himself, but now he hardly spared it a second thought. “Maybe you’d prefer having your own space.”
“I don’t mind,” Donghyuck shrugged, and Seunghan practically swooned.
So now Mark wakes up every day and walks into the kitchen to be greeted by the sight of them curled beneath the same thin blanket, scarcely a hand’s breadth apart. Whatever.)
Predictably, Donghyuck is a hit at practice, too. He jokes around, pretends to yawn and snore while Mark is talking, and sends the entire room (sans Mark) into fits of giggles. Sometimes he sneaks extra songs into their practice playlists, just for the brief freeze-frame of confusion when “Baby Shark” suddenly blares over the speakers. During breaks, he sits centimeters away from Mark—a delicate, sweaty balancing act of touching-not-touching—and stares and stares until finally Mark caves and demands, “What, Donghyuck?” just to receive a satisfied grin and a coy, “Never mind, hyung.”
In short, he makes Mark’s life miserable.
After Donghyuck’s arrival, time trickles syrupy-slow—every second an eternity, every interaction a cataclysm. If he were to waver just once, if he gave any indication that it bothers him too, that he cares even half as much as Mark does…
Well, Mark would fall to pieces. Whatever weird game they’re playing is probably for the best.
Three months have limped by in this fashion when Donghyuck declares, sprawled over the practice room floor belly-up like a starfish, “I’m tired.”
“No shit,” Mark replies, and practically feels the other trainees pricking up their ears.
“So let’s go home.”
“Donghyuck.”
“Let’s go to a PC cafe!”
For a single, traitorous second, Mark considers it—recalls the air balmy with wheezing consoles and steaming ramen, the pristine textbook abandoned beneath his feet, the honey-soft sound of Donghyuck singing under his breath when he focused. It’s been years since Mark even touched a computer.
“Hyung, come on,” Donghyuck whines, pouncing on the moment of hesitation. “You’re tired too.”
“We’re all tired. It’s part of the deal.”
“Yeah, but you’re exhausted; just look at you. Have you even eaten anything today? If you keep pushing yourself like this, you’ll—”
“Just because you think it’s clever not to give a shit about anything,” Mark snaps, steamrolling the part of him that panics (does he really look that bad?), “doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way.”
“Yeah, well, just because you have a stick up your ass doesn’t mean everyone else does too!”
Silence.
Donghyuck is sitting up now, glaring. Mark peers into his face—whether it’s flushed with exertion or agitation or both is impossible to say—and tries to discern whether he’s actually angry. Mark is terrible at reading people, and it doesn’t help that he lacks a frame of reference; he’s never actually seen Donghyuck angry before.
Then, ever so faintly, Shotaro pipes up: “A stick…?”
“Up his ass,” Sungchan finishes. “Basically, Donghyuck hyung is saying that Mark hyung—”
“Don’t explain it to him!” Mark interrupts, exasperated. The two of them look sufficiently chastised that he regrets it a moment later, and concedes, with a sigh of resignation, “Go on, tell him,” and is subsequently subjected to Sungchan describing the stick up his ass in a stilted mix of Korean and Japanese for Shotaro’s benefit.
When that’s over—and Shotaro’s eyes are wide with shocked comprehension—Mark grits out, “Nobody even think of leaving until we’ve run this at least ten more times,” and marches over to the speaker to start the music again.
Fucking “Baby Shark” starts playing.
Mark is about to keel over with anxiety.
He may have slacked off through his first couple years in Korea, but he never did anything from which he was expressly forbidden. The first, last, and only time he broke a rule was in grade six, when he momentarily doubted himself during an exam and was unable to resist peeking out the corner of his eye to see how Vivian Tang (second in their class) had composed her geometric proof. He felt so guilty afterward that he had to excuse himself to vomit in the bathroom.
Now, as he paces the aisles of a convenience store—without having notified a manager!—he finds his stomach coiled in knots and his palms slick with sweat. The entire exchange at the register feels ridiculously tense, as if the bored college student counting his change will recognize him and rush to sound the alarm.
Somehow, however, he makes it back to the dorm with his loot safely in tow, plastic bag crinkling incriminatingly as it swings over his arm. He’s overhasty to cross the threshold, practically slamming the door behind him, which immediately grabs the attention of the trainees assembled in the living room.
A quick headcount affirms that they’re all there. This is fairly typical. The bedroom is so cramped that they don’t really use it as anything but a place to rest their heads at night.
“Hey, Melt,” Donghyuck says after a moment. It’s his new thing: never referring to Mark by name, but something close to it.
“Um, hey.” Mark kicks off his sneakers and clears his throat awkwardly. “I, uh, got you guys something. It’s not much, so don’t get super excited or anything, but I wanted to…apologize. For my behavior at practice the other day. I was rude.” It kept him up all night, in fact, staring at the ceiling (uncomfortably close to his face, since he uses the top bunk) and contemplating a gesture of apology he wouldn’t have dreamed of before Donghyuck’s return.
After another protracted silence wherein the trainees make it clear they don’t intend to do anything but stare at him in blank astonishment, he tacks on a pitiful, “Um, come and get it?”
At that, the five of them rise stiffly to their feet and approach with trepidation, as if Mark is wielding a giant snake—except for Donghyuck, who barges straight forward and snatches the bag from his arm. With some further awkward shuffling, the goods are distributed: pre-made kimchi jjigae for Donghyuck, roll cakes for Shotaro and Sungchan (chocolate and strawberry, respectively), tuna kimbap for Eunseok, and corn ice cream for Seunghan. Their favorites.
“Hyung, you remembered!” Seunghan’s eyes look like they’re in danger of bursting from their sockets.
Mark shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. “It’s not hard to remember things like this.” And thank goodness for that. He relied on instinct to guide him through the store while his body thrummed with terror.
Over the sounds of plastic wrappers being eagerly torn open, the others chime in:
“No way…”
“I’m so touched…”
“Hyung is so thoughtful…”
It makes Mark feel mortified and borderline tyrannical, honestly, to see such surprised gratitude over such a simple gesture. He’s almost relieved when Donghyuck presses himself against his side, presumably to tease.
“Didn’t get anything for yourself, Milk?”
Not exactly teasing. That’s unexpected. “Uh, no. I wanted it to be something I did just for you guys, I guess.”
“That’s how you rationalized it to yourself, huh?” Donghyuck smirks. It’s an off day, so he’s still in his pajamas, even at four in the afternoon. His socks are printed with little teddy bears. “The rule-breaking. Balanced it out with some good old-fashioned Christian asceticism.”
And how the hell does Donghyuck keep knowing him like that? Mark feels so lopsided, like his skin is stretched thin to the point of translucence, beating heart and bird-light bones all on display, while Donghyuck is rock-solid and opaque. “Something like that.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think it’s sweet,” Donghyuck says, stepping over to the stove and grabbing a pot to heat up his jjigae. “You finally got the stick out of your ass.”
“Something like that,” Mark repeats faintly. “I’m sorry I said you don’t—care. I know that’s not true.”
“Mm. I’m sorry about what I said too, even though it was true.” Donghyuck grabs a pair of bowls from the cupboard. “Share with me?”
All in all, it’s a decent afternoon.
When Mark was still at MD Entertainment, he had exactly one friend. This was through no achievement of his own; Johnny was friends with everybody. He was from Chicago, older than Mark, tall, gregarious, and one of the most veteran trainees. He knew everyone, including numerous already-debuted idols, with whom he’d once trained.
The longer Mark spent at the company, the more difficult it was to comprehend exactly how Johnny had sustained himself for so long, how his ever-present smile hadn’t been chipped away by the constant slew of criticisms and disappointments. It was awe-inspiring, frankly. Within the first year, a goal planted itself in Mark’s mind: be like Johnny.
In Mark’s fourth year as a trainee, Johnny left.
“I just can’t wait around anymore,” he shrugged, leaning against the bunk bed ladder with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His smile still clung to his face, though it was twisted and rueful. They’d all heard the fraught late-night phone calls to his mother (which Mark alone was burdened with understanding), all seen the tears on his pillowcase. “I have to grow up eventually, you know? Go to college. Go on a date. Whatever.”
“Sure, I get it,” Mark nodded. “Good luck, man.”
He had never felt so alone.
He had never felt so alone.
He had never felt so alone.
Quietly, against his will, a new goal planted itself in Mark’s mind: don’t be like Johnny. He knew he was on a timer, that this wasn’t sustainable, that even someone as self-assured as Johnny could only give so much before he had nothing left. He knew it. All Mark had to do was debut before his timer ran out.
So he kept his head down and trained. When MD kicked him to the curb, he assessed the damage, licked his wounds, and determined that he had just a little fight left in him. His new company was significantly smaller, but they assured him that with his experience and talent, his debut was practically guaranteed. They were just assembling the final members for a group they planned to debut within the year.
It’s been a year since then. Donghyuck, of course, is the final puzzle piece, perfectly primed to be their main vocalist. Mark knows this, but he still finds himself slack-jawed and stunned when Tiffany smiles serenely at him and says, “They’ve set your debut date.”
“What?”
They’re hiking up Ansan, an activity Tiffany insisted upon for some “one-on-one bonding time” with Mark, which apparently entails dropping the bombshell he’s been waiting to hear for six years. Mark wheezes a little as he rushes up an incline to Tiffany’s side, gravel crunching beneath his ill-fitting shoes.
“You heard me,” Tiffany beams. “Just over three months from now, in January. It’s auspicious. A new group for the new year. You’ll get the demos for your debut album soon. They’re still in progress, of course; you’re free to contribute your own raps.”
“But—” Mark braces himself against a tree to catch his breath. Dancing and hiking apparently involve entirely separate sets of lungs; his feel like they’re currently on the brink of collapse. The shock doesn’t improve matters. “Why are you telling me this now? What about the others?”
Tiffany turns back, and the sight of Mark must be truly pathetic, because she pauses in her stride instead of leaving him scrambling to catch up. “They’ll announce it to everyone soon. I just thought I’d give you a little extra heads-up, because they’re planning to make you the leader.”
Mark stares.
A furrow appears between Tiffany’s impeccably shaped brows. “Don’t pretend you didn’t see this coming.”
“I…but…” Mark throws himself against the tree in the vain hope that the bark pricking his back through his thin T-shirt will jolt him back to his senses. He hates how small his next words come out. “The trainees don’t even like me.”
“Mark, you can’t honestly believe that.”
“I mean, it’s not like they hate me. But they don’t like me, either.” He’s long accepted that the others have a rich social life which he isn’t privy to. He’s seen the furtive way their gazes dart away when he walks into the living room in the midst of their movie nights, on his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, and he doesn’t fault them for it in the slightest. His overbearing work ethic and single-track determination to debut have never left much room for warm and fuzzy feelings.
“Well, who would you propose as leader, then?”
“Shotaro.” The answer comes easily; he’s already thought about it. “He’s not completely comfortable with the language yet, but he never lets that get in his way. He shows incredible initiative during dance practice. And the guys all adore him.”
Tiffany tilts her head thoughtfully. Her ponytail swings and bounces behind her. “That’s true.”
“Exactly, so—”
“But Mark,” she interrupts, half exasperated and half amused, “you’re so attentive with them. Even with what you just said. Do you even realize that you’re doing it?”
Mark frowns down at the dirt trail. He can’t bring himself to meet Tiffany’s eyes. “It’s not hard to notice things like that,” he mumbles, an empty echo of yesterday, with the convenience store snacks.
“You’re the oldest, you’ve been a trainee the longest—”
“The most experienced person isn’t necessarily the most qualified.”
“Sure. But he is in this case.” Tiffany claps a hand over Mark’s shoulder, then immediately winces at how sweaty he is. “Just think about it, okay? We can talk it over with the guys if you’re really having doubts. But I think you’d be surprised.”
“Okay,” Mark acquiesces, even as his head spins. He feels simultaneously buoyed by balloons and weighed down by lead, a war of conflicting emotions battling for dominance in a flimsy cardboard vessel. But—he did it. He beat the timer. That’s good, right?
Dizzy, he recommences his hike.
Mark is spectacularly drunk.
He’s never actually tasted alcohol before—he’s always been prohibited, first as a minor and then as a trainee, and he’s a goody two-shoes to the bitter end. (With notable exceptions.) But they’re celebrating the debut confirmation with a company party, for which the CEO reserved an entire little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and all the trainees and staff are there and Mark’s palms are clammy with the thought of the smiles slipping from their faces when they realize what an incompetent leader he is and somehow one shot turned into five then ten and now he’s drunk.
Seunghan is still underage, so he’s drinking Pepsi. This doesn’t stop him from doing a love shot with Donghyuck, giggling and fluttering his eyelashes all the while. Mark frowns and clambers over, tossing himself into the seat at Donghyuck’s side. Nevermind that it’s already occupied by Seunghan.
“Excuse me,” Mark tells the startled, blurry shape he’s currently sitting on, his voice raised to be heard over the blaring music. “I need to speak with him.”
“Uh, sure, let me just—” There’s a lot of wriggling and faint squeaking, and then Seunghan is gone and Mark is safely seated in the chair he just vacated. Donghyuck laughs. It’s a lovely sound.
“You’re so wasted,” he notes. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Me neither.” Mark hiccups, then gestures vaguely at Seunghan’s retreating back. “You know he’s—” Hiccup. “—in love with you, right?”
Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot up. Of course he doesn’t know. He can be so infuriatingly ignorant of his own charms sometimes. “Really?”
“Yup. Huuuge crush on you. Since day one.”
“But he’s a baby.”
“Exactly!” Mark throws his hands into the air. “So you need to stop—” Hiccup. “—encouraging him. Cuddling him and shit.”
“I didn’t realize I was being so…encouraging.” Donghyuck snorts and knocks back a shot of soju. His peach hair has faded to a pale rosy blond, and his roots are showing. He’s so handsome, what the fuck. “But he’s young. He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mark mutters glumly. “In my experience, you’re pretty hard to get over.”
Wait.
Was he supposed to say that?
“Oh? Is that so, Mart?”
“Yeah. I—” It’s dim in the restaurant and Mark’s vision is swimming, but he squints stubbornly at Donghyuck until his features come back into focus. He looks so solemn, oddly intense all of a sudden, but Mark kind of likes it. “I adored you, back then. When we were kids. Like, doodling-hearts-in-my-notebook level obsessed. I thought flowers bloomed everywhere you stepped.”
“Why’s it past tense?”
“Huh?”
“You adored me. You admired me. Why’s it past tense?”
“Because!” Mark whines. It’s such a chore, articulating his emotions. Donghyuck should just be able to read him like he always does, but he’s making him suffer instead. “I can’t—it’s like—I have all these different Marks, okay? Like, there’s Canadian Mark and Korean Mark, and student Mark and trainee Mark, and there’s the way I feel—felt—about you, and it’s all supposed to be separate but then you came back and mixed everything up!”
That’s a lot of words at once; Mark is woozy with the effort of it. He wraps his arms tightly around his middle, as if to keep his different selves from escaping.
Donghyuck just hums pensively. He has some nerve, staying so composed. When did he get so good at holding his liquor? Who has he been drinking with? “Is that why you were so pissed to see me?”
“Wasn’t…pissed…” Mark protests. It’s hard to keep track of the conversation when the room is spinning. Donghyuck hands him a water bottle and he drains the entire thing in a single breath. His stomach gurgles disagreeably. Suddenly, something occurs to him. “Have you told the others? That we knew each other already?”
“It didn’t seem like you wanted them to know.”
“No, no, you should…You should tell them. Tell them that you remember me from before I had the stick up my ass. They have no idea. They only know ass-stick Mark.”
“You’re really not that bad now, hyung.”
“I am, though. You don’t know how…” Sigh. Burp. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Donghyuck quirks an eyebrow. Probably. Mark is too far gone to see him doing it, but he can imagine. “I’m lucky?”
“Yeah. Your timer will never run out. You’ve only been here for a few months and you’re already debuting and you’re—you’re a real person. You know who you are, really, not just class rankings and monthly evaluations and—and—my head is so heavy. Is there a scale somewhere? I bet my head is, like, fifty kilos right now.”
“I’ll help you carry it.” Donghyuck cups a hand gently around Mark’s nape, propping him up. His fingers are cool and damp with condensation from the soju. It’s refreshing. “Mark—”
“Hey, that’s my real name.”
“I won’t pretend to understand what it was like for you, for six years. But you hardly have a monopoly on not knowing who you are.”
Mark rolls his head to the side so that his cheek pillows against Donghyuck’s arm. He rests there for a moment as he arranges Donghyuck’s words in careful sequence, wringing out their meanings one by one. But he must trip up somewhere along the way, because the completed picture is incoherent. “Huh?”
“Hyung, come on,” Donghyuck scoffs. “I’m twenty-one and I just became a trainee. Why do you think I’m here? How do you think my college career is going?”
Oh.
Oh God.
Everything is unbearably loud suddenly. Elsewhere in the restaurant, they’ve started up the karaoke, and one of the A&R team members is belting her lungs out to “Tears” by So Chan-whee. Her intonation is remarkable considering that she’s too drunk to stand up straight, but every shrieking high note feels like it’s drilling directly into Mark’s skull.
“Donghyuck, you…” Mark swallows. His mouth is so dry. He struggles to think back, to wade through the waist-high sludge that’s become of his mind. “I’m sorry. You must’ve had such a hard time.”
When I left. When I didn’t come back. When you started high school. When you graduated. When…
“Yeah, genius. But I have plenty of time to figure it out, and so do you. Even if the industry is trying to convince you that you’ve got a foot in the grave.”
With herculean effort, Mark lifts his throbbing head and says plainly, “There’s two of you right now.”
This seems to legitimately catch Donghyuck off guard. That’s nice. Mark likes when he’s able to do that. “What, like—what you were talking about earlier?”
“Nuh-uh. There’s literally two of you.” Impatient, Mark flaps a hand around to indicate the numerous other things his vision has doubled, eyes crossing. “There’s two of this bottle, and two of this shot glass, and two of this fork…”
“Okay, hyung,” Donghyuck laughs. A lovely, lovely sound. How could Mark have ever tried to separate anything? He loved him then, and he loves him now. “Let’s get you home.”
The next morning, Mark wakes to discover that somebody’s pressed all the liquid out of him, as one does a block of tofu, and left him a shriveled husk. Apparently not content to cease the torment there, they’ve also stuffed his mouth with sand, bashed his head in with a sledgehammer, lassoed the sun to his eyelids, and trapped him in bed beneath a ten-ton blanket.
Either that, or he’s hungover.
There’s some faint scuffling from the other side of the room, and Mark turns blearily to see that Sungchan is in bed too, open-mouthed and snoring softly. The other trainees are out of sight, but he can make out the sound of the TV and the low murmur of voices coming from the next room. (Relatively low, anyway. Right now, every noise is thunderous to his ears.) He doesn’t remember how he got home, exactly, but—
All at once, Mark’s stomach swoops.
His eyes widen, and he remembers—
—remembers Donghyuck’s hand at the small of his back, shepherding him gently out of the restaurant like a lost little lamb—how they passed Sungchan on the way out, as a matter of fact, and Mark grabbed him and said, “Sungchan, you’re such a good kid. You take such wonderful care of Shotaro”—how bewildered Sungchan looked, how Donghyuck laughed and called Mark sweet just like he did on the day with the kimchi jjigae—and how it made Mark feel like he’d swallowed a star, even as everything else he’d swallowed that night warred its way back up his esophagus.
He remembers, in vague patches that make him groan and bury his face in his hands, the taxi ride back, during which he almost certainly rolled down the window to vomit at least once. There’s a big blank after that, but he thinks—if it isn’t all wishful thinking—that Donghyuck took his shoes off for him. Tucked him into bed, poured him water. He must’ve shimmied Mark out of his pants too, leaving him to sleep comfortably in just his boxers, but the heat that coils in Mark’s stomach at the notion is insufferable, so he tries not to think about it.
As he lies paralyzed, more and more memories of last night’s interactions descend from the ceiling like fat snowflakes, steadily burying him beneath a frozen sheet of muted horror. His pulse grows simultaneously sluggish and fervent, dully rattling his veins in an attempt to escape.
Given the circumstances, remaining in bed for all eternity seems overwhelmingly the most desirable course of action, but eventually the rumble in his stomach and the pinch in his bladder are enough to push Mark reluctantly to his feet. The reflection that blinks back at him from the bathroom mirror while he brushes his teeth is haggard. God, he feels like shit. If he lives through this, he’s never drinking again.
When at last he pads gingerly out to the kitchen, every nerve alight, he’s both relieved and disappointed to find Donghyuck absent. Shotaro, Eunseok, and Seunghan peer owlishly over at him from the living room.
“Good morning,” Mark murmurs. His voice is hoarse; it claws and scratches its way out his throat.
Shotaro smiles at the greeting, his eyes curving into pleased crescents, and Mark’s heart swells up with unwieldy fondness for his members, far too sincere for such a strange morning. “Good morning, hyung,” Shotaro says brightly. “I’m glad you feel better.”
Which means he saw what a mess Mark was last night. The humiliation knows no bounds.
The trainees are absorbed in some variety show and Mark is plodding through something that could charitably be considered a meal when the door opens and Donghyuck enters, a plastic shopping bag swinging over his arm.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he says—his face inscrutable, his voice betraying nothing. He looks unfairly put together as he steps out of his boots, sheds his sweater, and rustles through the bag for a small white bottle that he sets on the kitchen table. “I bought you aspirin. And don’t worry; it was all approved and I had a manager take me. Unlike a certain somebody.”
“Oh.” Mark can’t quite bring himself to meet Donghyuck’s eyes, but he can’t really bring himself to look away either, which means that his gaze is currently flitting frenetically back and forth between the hardwood pattern of the floor and the scooped collar of Donghyuck’s yellow T-shirt. It must be well-worn, the fabric distended over time. A thin slice of collarbone peeks out from either side. “Thank you.”
“No problem. What—” Donghyuck frowns, staring down at Mark’s bowl as if it’s personally offended him. “What the hell are you eating?”
“Breakfast.”
“Is this the leftover galbijjim from the other night?”
“Um, I think so? But there wasn’t any actual meat, so I’m just eating the stock with rice…”
“Unbelievable,” Donghyuck huffs, and snatches the bowl straight from the table, apparently confiscating it. “Can’t even feed yourself properly. Mark Lee, what on earth would you do without me?”
Same question, same answer.
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
Still grumbling, Donghyuck prepares an actual breakfast—one that involves vegetables and a cutting board and the stove—and they share it, Mark popping an aspirin along with his portion. At some point Sungchan emerges from the bedroom and helps himself to some food as well, and even through the haze of his sleepiness there’s something uncomfortably significant in the way he looks at the two of them. There’s so much to say, but—not here. Not now.
The meal concluded, Mark rinses his bowl in the sink and retreats to the bedroom. He doesn’t need to look to know that Donghyuck follows him. Revitalized by the food, his pulse redoubles its escape efforts, slamming against his ribcage over and over.
He clicks the door shut behind him and sits cross-legged on the bedroom floor. Donghyuck follows suit. Their knees brush, one bare and one denim-clad.
“So,” Mark says to their knees.
“So,” Donghyuck echoes agreeably. “Just so you know, hyung, if you say something like My behavior last night was inappropriate or I didn’t mean any of it, I will literally go apeshit on you.”
Despite himself, Mark laughs. “Well, there goes that plan.”
“Yup.”
“I…” On impulse, Mark reaches out and rests a hand on Donghyuck’s thigh. It’s grounding. “...am still very hungover right now.”
“You can go back to sleep if you want. We can talk about it later.”
“No, it’s okay.” Mark forces himself to lift his head and focus. It’s the least he can do. Donghyuck is just so comfortable, so patient—so perfectly content to crinkle back the water-logged pages of their lives and thumb through them with practiced ease, discarding the bookmark of their separation as if it had never been placed there at all. For years, he’s slowed himself to match the glacial pace of a cardboard heart that’s just now stirring to life. “But I already said too much, didn’t I?”
“I don’t think so. If anything, you said too little.”
“Yeah? So what should I say next?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out.”
There’s something deeply satisfying about the inevitability of it all, like the moment something that’s been teetering on the edge finally tips over. The release of tension, the relief in collapse. Carefully, Mark gathers the pieces of himself—from Vancouver and Jeju and Seoul, from the practice room and the classroom, from the PC cafe and the noraebang and a teenage love’s bedroom—and bundles them together like a bouquet of flowers to present to the boy sitting beside him. “You’re annoying,” he says first, because he knows it with the greatest certainty. “But I have immeasurable affection for you. I feel just the same as I did back then. And I always will.”
Donghyuck smiles like the sunrise. “There. Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll forgive you, then, for taking so long. But my feelings have changed. I like you much more than I did before. You got way hotter.”
“Annoying.” Mark crinkles his nose disdainfully. “We’re going to debut together, you know.”
“I know.”
“The company is making me the leader.”
“I know.”
“I’m worried about the other guys. I haven’t been as good to them as I should have.”
“I know,” Donghyuck says for the third time, because he always has to know everything—because he always does, and Mark is kind of obsessed with it, honestly, wants to follow him around night and day and hear everything he has to say about everything. “But they like you. And they’ll love you soon, now that you finally fucking unclenched. Trust me; I speak from experience.”
“You—” A laugh that Mark has never heard bursts from his mouth, unrestrained and joyful. “You said you love me.”
“I did not!”
“You basically did.”
“Basically doesn’t count,” Donghyuck insists, and he looks terribly, endearingly flustered, drawing his knees to his chest so that they’re not touching Mark’s anymore. His neck is red. “You have to tell me first. I’m tired of doing all the legwork in this relationship.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Mark resolves, because that sounds fair enough. “I’ll tell you I love you tomorrow.” And the next day, and the next and the next. What a joy to know what’s coming.
“Good. I’ll look forward to it then.”
Mark and Donghyuck marry a year after their debut. It’s an intimate affair, midnight on the playground outside the dorms, with candy rings and nobody but the winter wind to officiate. The vows are given under the arch of the slide. The reception takes place on the swing set. It’s such a perfect ceremony that they find it a shame to have just one, so they get married again the next week, and the next and the next, in a thousand private I love yous.