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His shoulders look off.
Donghyuck squints at his reflection, turns at a 45 degree angle, and squints again. The shoulders still look off—no matter how he turns, it looks wrong.
The lock to his hotel room beeps open and Dongeun swans in, her hanbok rustling obnoxiously as she sets down something on the bed.
“Why are you staring at yourself like that? The facialists worked their magic as best as they could—it’s not going to get any better.”
“Fuck off,” Donghyuck says automatically, turning to look at her. He pauses for a beat, taking her in. “Wow. Look at you.”
“Ugh,” Dongeun says, but she looks pleased as she smooths a hand down her pink skirt, the silk shimmering under the movement. “Eomma insisted for tonight. Big brother’s reception dinner and everything. But tomorrow,” she strikes a pose, nose thrust into the air. “The legs will out.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Donghyuck asks dryly. Dongeun is infamous amongst their extended family for favouring… Revealing dresses, to put it nicely. Donghyuck hardly cares, he’s seen worse in his lifetime but it always gives their gaggle of great aunts a shock whenever Dongeun arrives at any family function. Donghyuck turns to look at himself again, and frowns at his reflection. It frowns back.
“Fuck off,” Dongeun returns cheerfully. “Why do you keep looking at yourself like that?”
“The shoulders.”
“What about the shoulders?”
Donghyuck huffs. “They’re wrong.”
Dongeun sighs forcefully through her nose and comes up behind Donghyuck. She tips her head and peers around him to look at his reflection. “I don’t see anything off.”
Donghyuck shrugs his shoulders, rolling them out under the stiff fabric of the suit. It’s not tailor made—that’s the tux for tomorrow, but it felt fine last week, when he tried it on for the last time. Now, though…
“It just—” he wiggles a little, feeling progressively squirmier under Dongeun’s assessing gaze. “It feels wrong.”
“Oppa.” Dongeun’s eyes meet his in the mirror, the same, familiar shade of brown, warm and steady. “It’s just nerves. It’s okay to be nervous about tomorrow. It’s your wedding day.”
“I’m not nervous about getting married to Mark,” Donghyuck says, perhaps a little more snappier than he meant to. Dongeun pauses. Looks at him. There’s an extended moment of silence. Fuck.
“I didn’t say you were,” she says, carefully and Donghyuck bites back a wince. Fuck. “I’m just saying, some jitters are expected. Your suit looks fine and there’s nothing wrong with your shoulders.”
Donghyuck nods, and smooths a hand down his front, feeling the buttons slide by one by one under his palm. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
“Oppa.”
Donghyuck turns away from the mirror and heads for the door. “I’m going to go find eomma, I need her advice on the cufflinks.”
“Oppa.”
Donghyuck pauses, his hand on the doorknob. Turns to look over his shoulder. Dongeun is still standing by the mirror, staring at him. That same, assessing look Donghyuck’s been on the other end of countless times. Those eyes that mirror his. That can strip him apart with ease, peel him into discrete, distinct parts.
“We should talk about it,” she says. “Whatever it is. You should talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Donghyuck opens the door. “I’m fine.”
Dongeun is still watching him when the door clicks shut behind him.
He escapes to the roof.
It had been the first place he’d scouted out when they arrived at the hotel three days ago under a burning Jeju sunset. Gritty eyed and exhausted from a whole day of packing and travelling and dealing with family members, he’d found access to the roof and leaned against the barrier, taking in deep breaths of ocean air, until the sun dipped below the horizon.
Now, the island spreads out below him, the sea less than half a mile away, waves lapping gently at the dappled rocks, seagulls perched on the tips, squawking discordantly against the cloudy afternoon.
Donghyuck presses his hands to his face, glad he hasn’t gone to get his makeup done yet and pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes until afterimages spark behind his closed lids, a distant pain growing as the colours bleed yellow and then red.
“I always know to find you up here.”
Donghyuck doesn’t startle. He’d heard the footsteps on the stairs long before the words had been uttered. Instead, he takes a deep, steadying breath and then turns to look. Despite the overcast weather, Mark looks like he’s bathed in a spotlight of gold, a warm grin stretched out over his face, hair still messy and loose over his head. He’s still dressed in his sweatpants. Only his makeup is done, his eyelids faintly shimmering, all blemishes tucked away under a smooth veneer of glowing skin.
When Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, Mark’s eyes travel down his body, teeth tucking his lower lip into his mouth, immediately ruining the tinted balm applied there. “Wow, Haechan-ah… You look…”
“Like my shoulders are off?”
Mark’s eyes snap to his shoulders half a second before he starts laughing, exactly as Donghyuck predicted he would. “What?” He asks, giggling. “What’s wrong with your shoulders?”
Donghyuck wiggles his shoulders and, despite the weird mix of anxiety and dread coagulating in his gut, feels a smile rise to his lips when Mark doubles down harder, clapping his hands together in delight. “You don’t think they look bad?”
“No,” Mark replies, drawing close to clap his hands on Donghyuck’s shoulders. He squeezes and then cocks his head. “Maybe it’s obvious you’re wearing shoulder pads, a little?” He blinks, put-on innocence that breaks the second Donghyuck smacks him.
“There’s no padding,” he whines, and Mark laughs harder. “Hyung!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Mark says, pulling Donghyuck in and smacking a kiss to his cheek. He draws back and looks at Donghyuck again, eyes tracing over his features. Donghyuck shivers a little, under that unwavering gaze. “You look lovely, there’s nothing wrong with your suit.”
Donghyuck sighs, slumps into Mark’s hold, wrapping his arms around Mark’s waist and pulling him close. “If you say so,” he mumbles, unconvinced. He still feels odd, a little shaky, like his blood sugar is low.
Mark rests his cheek against Donghyuck’s temple and Donghyuck can feel every word as he speaks. “Is that why you came up here? You were worried about your suit?”
Donghyuck shrugs, making an indistinct grumble that could mean yes or no or God, no, hyung, I’m freaking out, I’m freaking out so bad because you don’t know and I don’t know how to tell you and it might be too late to stop this but—
“How did you know I needed you?” He asks instead of opening his mouth and ruining everything they’ve built. Instead of walking away from the surest thing in his life for something less sure, something more ruinous.
Mark huffs in amusement. “Dongeun found me. Said you might need me.”
“Lies,” Donghyuck mumbles, face now fully pressed into Mark’s shirt. He smells like the hotel body wash—clean cotton and lavender. “I’ve never once needed you in my life.”
“Sure, Hyuck-ah,” Mark allows. He presses a kiss to Donghyuck’s hair and Donghyuck closes his eyes. Mark’s been more physical than ever these past few weeks, open with his affection where he usually prefers to keep it hidden, pressing kisses to Donghyuck’s face, shoulder, hand, whatever part of him is closest, whenever he can.
When Donghyuck had asked about it once, after picking up Chenle from the airport and dropping him off at Jeno’s where he was staying until the wedding, Mark had shrugged and gone faintly red. “I keep remembering you’re going to be mine forever,” he said simply. “It makes me happy.”
They stand there, wrapped up in each other for the longest time, just breathing in each other and the salty air before Mark hums and draws back. “Feeling better?” He asks, brushing Donghyuck’s hair off his face, knuckles gently dragging along his cheek. Donghyuck turns his face into Mark’s hand and sighs when Mark kisses his temple. “Did I help?”
“Does it help? Knowing you can always run away?”
Donghyuck nods and closes the scant centimeters between them to kiss Mark softly on the mouth. His lip balm tastes like artificial strawberries. “All ready to face the wolves.”
Mark smiles. “You know they’d just consider that a compliment.”
They meaning the five interlopers sitting in Mark’s room when they make their way back down, already half tipsy and arguing about something or the other across three different languages while the television blares in the background.
“The dinner is tonight,” Donghyuck says, severely, snatching the champagne bottle from Jeno who sulks at him, perking up when Mark laughs at him, rounding Donghyuck to ruffle a hand over Jeno’s hair. “If you show up drunk to our reception dinner, I’m going to throw you all in the ocean.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Haechan?” Chenle sneers just as Renjun mumbles.
“I’d like to see you try.”
“You’re the easiest one to carry.” Donghyuck points at him. Renjun sticks his tongue out at him childishly. Donghyuck narrows his eyes at Jisung who quails immediately, instantly handing over his glass. Fifteen years under all of them and still so malleable. Donghyuck fights the fondness that wells up in him and goes to set the glasses and bottles down on the desk, that is less occupied with administrative things and more scattered with all manner of wedding prep—different bottles and palettes of makeup, cufflink options, different ties for the reception dinner, and all of Mark’s perfume bottles. He turns around and leans against the desk just in time to watch Jisung smack Mark’s hand away from his hair, protesting loudly, his cheeks the colour of ripe berries.
The afternoon passes like that, Mark slowly getting ready under the chatter, complaining as Renjun and Chenle verbally rip apart every single of his ties with delighted malice. Donghyuck offers up his own opinions alongside theirs, laughs with Jeno as he slides off the bed in a tipsy daze, and hugs Jisung the second he gets close enough, tightening his arms around Jisung the more Jisung squirms. He deliberately does not look at the corner of the room where the final intruder sits. He doesn’t think anyone notices, and even if they do, they don’t mention it.
He and Jaemin have always been contentious, after all.
Only when the sun starts to traverse the curve of the sky does Donghyuck get pulled away to his own room to finish getting ready. He gets his makeup done and then listens to Dongeun and his mother spend a frankly obscene amount of time comparing Donghyuck’s shoes to his cufflinks before he banishes them from his room to finish putting on the rest of his outfit and have a precious thirty minutes of silence and solace to himself before he has to go out and face everyone. The successful first son with his successful fiancé. Perfect in every way that matters to the family.
He’s leaning against the balcony railing, patio doors thrown wide open to invite the fresh ocean air in when the lock to his room chimes, the sound almost buried under the crash of the waves—louder now that the tide is coming closer—and the door opens.
“I know, Dongeun-ah,” Donghyuck says without looking away from the ocean. “Seven PM sharp, I’ll be downstairs. I have an alarm set and everything.”
“You can see where she’d have trouble trusting you,” says a voice that is most certainly not Donghyuck’s sister. Donghyuck spins, heart in his throat, nearly jumping out of his mouth with the force of the whiplash. Jaemin shuts the door behind him and locks it, the sound startlingly crisp in the sudden silence—as if the very world has gone mute around them with Jaemin’s entrance. Even the waves behind Donghyuck sound quiet. “I mean, you were late to Johnny’s wedding, remember?”
“What are you doing here?” The words come out hoarse, startled and Donghyuck hates himself for it, in that moment, and all the moments before that led him to this. He’s always been on the back foot against Jaemin, always taken by surprise, always left defenseless.
Jaemin tips his head. “You invited me,” he says, simply. He comes into the center of the room, still a good ten feet away from Donghyuck, but it’s enough to have him on edge, his hands clenching around the railing pressing into his back.
“You and Mark, actually,” Jaemin continues, looking around the hotel room with obvious curiosity. “Cream and spring green. It was a nice touch—I guess pearl neo champagne is a tough colour to get for wedding invitations.”
“What are you doing here, Jaemin?” Donghyuck snaps. “I have to be downstairs in—”
“Thirty minutes,” Jaemin says, finally looking back at him. His teeth glimmer in the setting sun. “Seven PM sharp.”
Donghyuck swallows. The wrought iron vines twining the railing columns are digging into his palms. His blood thunders loudly in his ears. He can’t even hear the ocean anymore. “You should go,” he says, but it sounds far too quiet, too careful. Too desperate. “Jaemin, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not?” A step forward. Jaemin’s fancy Oxfords tapping almost soundlessly against the plush carpet. Donghyuck’s breath catches in his throat. “Shouldn’t I congratulate you?” Another step. “You’re one of my oldest friends.” Donghyuck leans back but there’s nowhere to go. “And you’re getting married.”
“Is that what we are?” Donghyuck manages through a tight throat and it feels like a victory, however small, that the words come out normal, almost in the same cadence he always uses with Jaemin; snappish and biting. Like he has control even though that’s a complete farce.
“What else would you call us?” Jaemin’s shoes click against the tile. He’s reached the balcony. He’s only three feet away.
“We haven’t spoken in a year,” Donghyuck reminds him.
Jaemin’s smile shines. The sun turns his brown hair into burning gold and its so cruel, that it sends a knife through Donghyuck’s ribs, slipped up neatly between the gaps, just like Jaemin’s sweet words always used to; that even here, at the edge of a world that Donghyuck used to consider his, Jaemin looks like he’s coming alive, a bonfire burning anew.
“Does that mean we’re not friends?” Jaemin asks.
A step.
He leans close and Donghyuck wants to—shove him away, walk away, open his mouth and say the most unforgivable, cruel words he knows he’s capable of because he’s always capable of being his worst around Jaemin—he wants to—he—
Jaemin leans in, the edge of his coiffed hair brushing against Donghyuck’s. “Or would you say we’re not lovers anymore?” He asks, so gently, so softly, in any other circumstance he could have been asking about the time, or the weather.
Donghyuck inhales sharply and his hand comes up to push at Jaemin’s chest, but he’s barely brushed Jaemin before Jaemin catches his wrist and yanks him in, using the leverage to unbalance Donghyuck and catch him around the waist.
“Let me go,” Donghyuck snaps. Jaemin obeys, releasing his wrist but he uses that free hand to cup Donghyuck’s cheek and pull him into a hard kiss. Donghyuck freezes, his mouth parted on an aborted gasp, hand still in the air, half curled into a fist and Jaemin presses his advantage like he always does with him, pushing closer, biting, kissing until Donghyuck is bowled over, lashes fluttering shut and sinking into the kiss, into Jaemin, mouth opening under Jaemin’s, his hand clenching in Jaemin’s lovely suit jacket, wrinkling the material—
“Stop,” Donghyuck gasps, shoving Jaemin away. He barely manages to move him—Jaemin’s still got him by the waist, still has his face cupped. “Jaemin, stop it.”
“Why should I?”
“Why should you?” Donghyuck repeats, and in a moment of stunned incredulity, laughs right into Jaemin’s face. “It’s my wedding.”
“And you called me.” Jaemin’s expression twists, warps until it has Donghyuck shuddering, until that coagulated blob of dread and anxiety drops lower in his gut. “Or is that another thing you’re conveniently forgetting this weekend, Donghyuck? When you get up to say your vows tomorrow and promise to be forever faithful.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghyuck whispers.
The fitting room of the tux shop.
Donghyuck alone, sitting on the small bench affixed to the wall, his head between his knees, fighting an oncoming panic attack, one finger between his teeth, the nail ragged from being chewed on.
The ringing of an outgoing call thunderous against his ear, vibrating into his skull, making him grit his teeth. The click of the phone being picked up makes him jerk, rip off the hangnail.
“Donghyuck?”
He says nothing. Jaemin’s voice is clear. So close. A breath of fresh air after eleven months of suffocating. He inhales all at once, lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, and knows his ragged breathing is echoing down the line.
“Hyuck.” Jaemin’s voice is softer. Careful. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong. Jaemin doesn’t sound like that around him, not like this—not sweet, not unless its venomous. Not gentle, not unless he’s got Donghyuck’s legs thrown over his shoulders, and his cock buried inside him. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t. Otherwise he wouldn’t have—
“I—” The word catches, stutters, snatched out of thin air by the last vestiges of self preservation Donghyuck holds in his ragged, torn nails.
“Baby,” Jaemin says and Donghyuck presses his hand against his mouth to stop the sob. “What’s wro—”
Donghyuck hangs up and drops his phone on the bench. Shoves his head back between his knees and gasps in frayed, too-short bursts. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his phone light up again, an incoming call from a number he deleted eleven months ago. A number he’s had memorised for years.
Donghyuck shuts his eyes, forces the tears back, forces them out and swipes a rough hand over his face until its dry. Stays hunched over until his breathing stabilises. Only then does he open his eyes again. There’s drops of blood on his sock.
“You ended it,” Donghyuck says because its true. It didn’t matter if anything else was happening at the time, it didn’t matter if Mark had proposed and Donghyuck had said yes because they were Mark and Donghyuck, Mark and Haechan, and Donghyuck would always say yes if Mark asked. It didn’t matter, because Jaemin had ended it.
Jaemin laughs but all the careful, noxious charm has dissipated and now he just sounds angry. It’s good. Donghyuck can deal with anger—especially from Jaemin. Anger is how he knows how to deal with Jaemin best.
“Of course I ended it,” he spits back. He’s still holding Donghyuck but his hand drops from Donghyuck’s face, leaving his cheek blistering against the sudden sensation of strong wind. “You got engaged. You said yes.”
“You never would have asked,” Donghyuck snarls. “Don’t put this on me, Jaemin. You never would have done it.”
“I guess we’ll never know, huh?” Jaemin asks, mirthlessly.
“No, I know,” Donghyuck says, cruel and cutthroat and everything he’s capable of being because Jaemin was the one who helped him get there. “You would always have been the one to walk away, Jaemin. It’s just who you are. You never would have fought for m—us.”
Jaemin’s face mutates into something—something Donghyuck can’t name. Fury, despair, bitter hurt, all of it flashes by and coalesces into a wild expression of smooth savagery. “You know nothing about me.”
“Oh, you’d love to think that,” Donghyuck says. He’s got the advantage now, however little and he pushes it. Pushes Jaemin, the only thing he’s always known how to do, just like his music, true and inborn. “I know you think you’re this mysterious, unknowable man who moves through life without ever letting an emotion slip, but we’ve been fucking for a very long time, baby. I know you. And I know you’re only doing this because you always want what you can’t have.”
Jaemin stares at him and Donghyuck glares back. He’s breathing hard. The ocean is wild behind them. The sun has almost vanished under the sea. Their time is almost up.
“You do too,” Jaemin says and it’s quiet. Certain. “We’re the same person, sweetheart, underneath it all. You want me.” Donghyuck shakes his head but Jaemin is undeterred. “That’s why when I do this,” he steps back and lets go of Donghyuck’s waist. Takes his hand instead, and gently tugs. “You’re going to come with me. Because you want what you can’t have, too.”
Jaemin’s hand is warm and he looks devastatingly, horrifically perfect in the midst of it all; the shimmer of the setting sun, the salt air misting through his hair, at the epicenter of Donghyuck’s wedding.
Donghyuck goes.
Mark is smiling at him. His hands are warm in Donghyuck’s grasp. Their rings glint in perfect unison.
The whole hall is looking at them and the right side of Donghyuck’s face burns with the force of a thousand eyes upon them.
“Hey,” Mark whispers, squeezing his hands a little. “It’s okay. Take it slow.”
Donghyuck smiles. He takes a deep breath.
Jaemin kisses him before he sinks to his knees and Donghyuck whispers it as he comes, legs locked around Jaemin’s waist, hands fisted in his now imperfect hair, impossibly full and aching and burning with the press of Jaemin’s cock inside him.
“I lo—”
“—ve you.”