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Donghyuck spends far too much time yearning for the mediocre bits of love before he gets together with Mark, so when he calls out for scented candles five minutes into his bubble bath, it’s more a ploy to get Mark close than it is relief for his sensitive nose.
“You’ve only got vanilla left,” Mark informs him sixty seconds later, searching the label as he enters without a second thought. “Where do you usually get—oh, nevermind, found it.”
Without Donghyuck even having to ask, Mark flicks a lighter to the candle and waits for the flame to catch before turning off the main lights, gently setting the candle at the edge of the tub. He’s so thoughtful it scares Donghyuck, sometimes, leaving him wondering whether or not Mark actually gets anything out of this. Out of them.
It’d be a disservice not to believe Mark when he says he does though, so Donghyuck trusts him just like he trusts him with everything else.
“Do you want to stay for a bit?” He asks lightly, like he wouldn’t tear up if Mark said no and left him brimming with all this unchanneled affection. Luckily, nothing of the sort happens.
“I thought you wanted alone time.” Mark drops down on the grimy floor beside Donghyuck instead of sitting on the toilet lid like a normal person, rolling up his sleeves before he rests his arms on the lip of the tub.
How could Donghyuck ever want alone time when this is what it feels like to be at the center of Mark’s attention? When Mark looks at him, he feels so real, like being seen is the only thing making him flesh and blood.
“Just want you,” he says, brave in the dim light. Mark tucks his hair behind his ear, quickly retreating with a laugh when Donghyuck makes to bite his fingers.
(When Mark touches him, it’s like his blood rushes to reach the exact location, pumping overtime so it can map out the reality Donghyuck still has a hard time believing in little pink islands.)
“Use your words before resorting to violence, damn,” Mark laughs again, resting his cheek in a palm. He hasn’t so much as tried to peek through the bubbles—Donghyuck doesn’t know if he should be endeared or offended. Endeared, he decides when Mark scrunches up his whole face to wink at him like a dork, cracking himself up in the process. Definitely endeared.
Donghyuck could pen hundreds of songs about that stupid face of his, probably.
Actually—
“I wrote you a letter once, you know,” he recalls softly, scooping up some bubbles to trail them along Mark’s forearm. Lined up, they look like a soapy mountain range with soft peaks, easily eroded with even the slightest hint of air.
Mark doesn’t move, letting him mess around.
“Yeah?” Is all he asks, eyes incredibly fond for someone who’s sitting on dirty bathroom tiles, pants probably unevenly damp in a way that can’t be anything but uncomfortable. None of that can be unearthed from his relaxed posture, though, as warm and steady as the light reflected in his eyes.
“Yeah,” Donghyuck confirms, pausing only to slowly blow at the bubbles. They wiggle a little, slightly sinking in some spots at the disturbance, but otherwise they’re surprisingly stable. Over the peaks, he finds Mark’s gaze, corner of his mouth turning up at the nearly-forgotten memory. “And then I burned it because Naver told me it would help.”
Help, as in stop the world from ending, magic the hopelessness away, make Mark the meanest, laziest, most arrogant person on the face of the planet. Help, as in perform the most useless form of alchemy, transforming his feelings for SM’s golden boy into leaden legs that couldn’t chase after him even if they tried.
He’d written until his hand had turned into an ugly claw, and he’d held the letter as it was eaten up by a flame, not letting go even when it nipped at his fingers and left them hot-red and raw. He should’ve known then that Naver was wrong and Mark wouldn’t be going anywhere except back in his head, all smoke and ash to muddy up his ability to think. The heart, he’d never so much as moved out of.
“Do you remember what you wrote?” Mark asks quietly, eyes locked on Donghyuck as if his answer is the key to the universe. At the same time though, there’s little to no weight to his words, like even the big bang couldn’t get him to look away from Donghyuck—like that’s all that matters.
“I remember the one thing I was too afraid to write,” Donghyuck admits with a soft smile, shaking the hair out of his eyes.
A strand sticks to his eyebrow and Mark reaches out on instinct, moving it to the side. He lets his knuckles run tenderly down Donghyuck’s cheek before pulling back. Skin-on-skin always feels like trying to pull an upside-down cup out of the water for them, there’s this hesitance to breaking apart that has them lingering, lingering, lingering, before they actually let go.
“But thinking back,” Donghyuck says, tracing the veins on the back of Mark’s hands, “it was so obvious.”
Does he remember what he wrote? Sure. He’d written something down like, hyung, I’ve dreamt of us making breakfast together in the morning more than once, and I’ve cleaned up your mess every time with a smile on my face. And he’d also said, I carry around band-aids now because you got hurt once and no one had any. And he’d also said something else like, hyung, I don’t think I would’ve been someone worthy of self-pride had I not met you, and sometimes I desperately wonder if any part of you feels that gratefully fated to having met me.
He'd written I like and I like and I like and I love, and then he’d crossed over the last one until he’d torn through the paper entirely, sixteen-year-old heart damn near pulsing through his chest at the frightening speed it was maturing at.
Every day he’d looked at mega-talented, mega-oblivious Mark Lee and thought, it’s okay if I only like him a little. It’s just a crush. It’s unproblematic. It’s mediocre.
Turning to Naver again had been a mistake because it told him mediocre meant something like the middle of a mountain, and without a second’s hesitation he’d thought, helplessly, if love is a mountain, I’ve hunkered down right at its core.
He’d deleted his search history. Then again. Then again. Then again.
It was a mediocre love. He was worse off for it. Wow, it’d hit him from time to time, what am I gonna do with love like this?
“I don’t think it matters,” he says, finally wiping Mark’s forearm clean. The skin is wet and slippery and warm.
“Why?” Mark stops him, entwining their fingers so he can kiss the back of Donghyuck’s hand. “I think it matters.”
Of course he does.
There are times when Donghyuck looks at Mark and thinks it’s nowhere near enough to have him like this—he wants to phase through him part-way through a hug until their atoms slot nicely together and they materialize back into a horrific mess of flesh and blood. They’d make the ugliest sight the world has ever seen and Donghyuck would love it because it would mean no one else would look at them.
It’s concerning, really. Donghyuck’s a smart guy, but he’s never lost all common sense like he does when Mark’s hands reach for him. He could be going to strangle Donghyuck and it wouldn’t matter as long as he was being held.
“I mean it doesn’t matter that I never actually wrote it out,” Donghyuck clarifies, attempting to smooth the slight wrinkle between Mark’s brows with their joined hands. Silly, silly boy, worrying about silly, silly things. In the candlelight, he looks like a movie. They feel like a happy ending. “Anything I might’ve written, all you would’ve read was I love you.”
He flicks a bit of water at Mark’s face, eyes curving in delight when he flinches—I love you—Mark grabs his other hand to gain control, arresting any further movements with practiced ease—I love you—Donghyuck leans in until his clumps of wet hair are squished between their foreheads, and Mark kisses him like he doesn’t have any other options, ribs probably pressed painfully against the tub, sleeves loose and wet, upper lip damp from the hot air—I love you.
“I breathe so much easier around you,” Mark whispers when they detach ever so slightly, quiet humour in his voice. “I might need to keep you around.”
Donghyuck thinks yes and please and keep me keep me keep me, and then he realizes he’s not sixteen and burning letters anymore, so he says back just as quietly, “Yes, please. Keep me.”
They sit in the humid dark holding each other’s wet hands watching the candle’s flame cast a flickering glow across the shower tiles. It’s boring and sticky and quiet and everything but extraordinary, and Donghyuck smiles to himself for all of it, wondering how on earth he ever got so lucky.