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When Donghyuck finally arrives at the house he was starting to believe didn’t exist, down a sheltered road and half-perched on a slope in the woods, it’s something of a relief.
The house itself is a little shabby, clearly once intended to be a modern hanok, but one that hasn’t been well cared for in recent years. Still, there’s an inviting homey glow lighting it up from the inside. On stepping out of his car, he spots a man on a stepladder in front of the building, valiantly trying to pin up a string of multi-coloured Christmas lights to the roof.
Donghyuck puts his hands in hoodie pocket, standing in the driveway and watching the man painstakingly clip up the highest point of the lights before climbing back down.
“Do you need some help, there?” he asks, and the guy shouts in surprise, clutching his chest and turning around, still halfway down the ladder.
“Oh my God sorry, wow, I totally didn’t see you there!”
Donghyuck cocks his head. Something about his voice sounds incredibly familiar. “I figured. But it seems I came at the right time?”
“Right—I probably shouldn’t have been up this on my own.” The man climbs to the bottom, and as he does, his face comes into better view. In retrospect, Donghyuck should’ve recognised that ass.
“What the—Mark?”
Mark’s eye’s spark with recognition at the same time, gasping and pointing with a huge, beaming smile. “Donghyuck?”
Donghyuck laughs—he can’t help it. His first proper boyfriend, who he thought had been out of the country for years, now, is the last person he expected to find here. Mark pulls him in for a hug, and he goes willingly, the hold of Mark’s arms familiar even after all these years.
“Wow, what are you doing here?” Mark seems equally taken by surprise, but his eyes sparkle as he laughs in genuine delight. “How have you been, man?”
“Don’t call me man, you’ve been inside me. What the hell are you doing in Korea? I thought you moved back to Canada?”
Mark splutters a laugh. “Yeah, I thought I did too. Moved back here not long ago, to raise my daughter in Korea.”
“Woah, daughter?”
Mark’s whole face brightens. “Yeah, you wanna meet her?”
“Of course,” he says softly, looking towards the glowing home. “Though don’t you want to finish this first?” He points up at the lights lining the roof, and Mark scratches his head.
“Uh, right, yeah. Is that okay? Do you want to—could you hold the ladder for me…?”
“Of course. You shouldn’t be up here alone.” Donghyuck moves the ladder along and holds it firmly, gesturing for Mark to go up.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Mark scoots up the ladder, and clips the lights further along the roof.
“Are these going up for Christmas?” he asks as Mark comes down again, to move the ladder along one more time to fix up the last of the lights.
“Yeah, that’s right. No one celebrates it much around here, I know, but we spent last Christmas in Canada, and my daughter loved it so much. I loved it too, to be honest. We’ve been in Korea a few months now since my dad died, but she’s still finding it hard, so I thought it would be nice to get into the Christmas spirit for her.”
Donghyuck watches Mark come down and dust off his hands, admiring the lights overhead. “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
Mark shrugs, but doesn’t look Donghyuck’s way, shoulders tightening with it. “Thank you. I miss him, but we're getting by. Erm, do you want to come inside? Actually, wait—what are you here for, how did you find me…? Not in a weird way, I’m not like, accusing you…”
Donghyuck snorts. “Dumbass. I’m looking for a place to stay—the ahjumma at the town hall said you rent a room out? The hotel in town was full.”
“Oh, sure, yeah, you can totally stay. Are you just passing through?”
“Yeah, I just need somewhere to crash for the night. I’m running deliveries for my grandparents’ antique shop, but I got stuck in the traffic jam coming up. Too late to drive back now.”
Mark clasps his shoulder, satisfied. “Fate put you in that traffic jam, clearly.”
“Just for you,” Donghyuck says, blowing him a kiss and a wink. Mark laughs, easy to make blush, even now. He opens up the front door and steps aside to let Donghyuck in the house after him.
The inside is as cosy and warmly lit as it looked from the outside, and covered in even more Christmas decorations. Tinsel around doorways, lights along walls, and when they turn the corner into the main room, a girl no older than six is piling baubles and decorations onto an already busy Christmas tree.
Mark reaches out to switch on and off the main light a couple times. Donghyuck watches, trying to figure out what he’s doing, as the little girl looks around at them.
“Hi,” Donghyuck says, and watches as Mark raises his hands, making signs with them as he speaks.
“Amy, this is Donghyuck, he’s… an old friend.” He spends time signing his name, presumably to spell it out. “He’s going to stay in the spare room tonight, okay?”
Amy signs something back rapidly, and Mark smiles.
“The lights are up outside. You can go and look.”
Amy jumps up from beside the tree, huge smile on her face as she dashes between them towards the front door.
“…and Donghyuck, that’s my daughter, Amy,” Mark says, finishing a little sheepishly. “She takes some warming up with new people…”
“That’s okay. She’s got very important work to do, setting up the decorations.”
“Yeah, haha. Okay, let me show you this room.”
They carry on past the main room to the back of the house, where the first door is covered with stickers and a plaque that says ‘Amy’s Room’. They pass another door next to it before they reach what is, presumably, the room for rent.
Mark pushes open the door, showing him a decent sized room, well kept, bed made up already.
“Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, I grabbed some food in town.”
“Amy and I put some cookies in to bake, earlier. If you’re not too full, I’m sure we could use a taste-tester. Do you want to put your stuff in here and come have some with us?”
“How could I say no to such an offer?”
Donghyuck passes Amy again to go out to his car and pick up his bag. She’s standing staring up at the house in wonder, Christmas lights shining in her eyes. She has the same wide-eyed look of wonder that Mark often gets, looking at beautiful things.
Donghyuck comes to stand next to her, arms crossed, admiring Mark’s work. He’s never celebrated Christmas much, if you don’t count the few Christmas-time dates he’s been on. One of those was with Mark, and it included visiting church with him on Christmas Eve. God, he was down bad, then.
He catches Amy looking at him in his peripheral, and Donghyuck looks down, pulling on his best impressed face as he points at the lights. He doesn’t know a single word of Korean Sign Language, or American, whichever one they’re using—but Amy’s smile grows as he nods his approval. Then she dashes off back inside, and Donghyuck smiles to himself, following after her.
Mark is pulling the cookies out of the oven as he passes through to put his bag away, and Amy is standing on a chair to be able to see them on the kitchen counter.
“Can Donghyuck decorate with us?” Mark asks her, and Amy looks at her cookies, considering, before signing back.
“Am I permitted?”
“She says you get two cookies, and you can have more if you impress her,” Mark says, somewhat apologetically.
Donghyuck actually laughs out loud. “Hey, are you sure she’s not my kid? I didn’t get you pregnant before you ran off to Canada, right?”
Mark laughs at that too, and punches his arm as he comes around with the icing kit to place on the dining table, cookies following. “Shut up. She’s usually better at sharing than this, I think you’re a bad influence.”
“No, no, I completely accept this challenge. I will impress her beyond her wildest imagination, just you see.”
He sets to work creating a masterpiece. Santa’s sleigh on one cookie, a reindeer pulling it on the second cookie, with stars and clouds surrounding them. When put together, a vision of modern art.
“Amy,” he says, sliding his cookies across the table into her vision. Beside him, Mark has accomplished a few wonky gifts and twigs of holly on his. “How is it?”
Amy raises her head to inspect the cookies. She’s got a bow clipped into her hair that’s as wonky as Mark’s icing skills. She takes a long look at Donghyuck, then signs something, offhand, before going back to her own cookies.
“She said to give you more,” Mark says, passing the rest of the rack over to Donghyuck. “Woah, she gave me like, mafia boss vibes just then. I swear, she’s usually sweet!”
“A gemini knows another gemini. She’s a gemini, right?”
“Uh, what month is that…?”
“When is her birthday?”
“She’s five and a half, her birthday isn’t far from yours. So, yeah, I guess that would make her a gemini.”
“Told you. Hey, you remembered my birthday?”
When Mark looks up from his cookie, Donghyuck blows another kiss and shoots a wink at him. Mark still gets flustered like they’re seventeen, not twenty-six and twenty-seven respectively.
Donghyuck continues to work hard, next impressing Amy with a Santa-decorated cookie. Then he starts to freestyle with a bear and a fox and a cat, which she’s less impressed with, because what has that got to do with Christmas?
Nonetheless, he is graciously invited to watch The Grinch with them, Amy cuddled into Mark’s side, the three of them sitting under a blanket big enough to stretch across all their laps on the sofa.
“It’s kind of awesome to see you again, you know,” Mark says after a while, mindlessly stroking Amy’s arm as he looks over at Donghyuck. He’s speaking softly, even though Amy is using subtitles for the movie anyway.
“I’d hope it’s more than kind of awesome to be blessed with my presence,” he responds, finishing the cookie in his hand. They really are delicious, and he’d made sure to give his compliments to the chef (Amy) on his first bite.
Mark laughs. It’s still just as easy to make him laugh now as when they were kids. “No, I mean like—I don’t know, I guess I’ve been doubting myself since uprooting our life and moving us here. We needed a new start, and I wanted to be near my mom since she’s on her own now—and that’s been good, we’ve seen her lots, I can tell it’s helped.
“But Amy’s been really struggling to adapt, to make friends when she’s already used to a different culture. And I’ve been struggling too, honestly. It’s been a long time since I lived here, I forgot what it was all like, you know? So seeing you again, like… I don’t know. It feels like a reminder of what I liked about Korea before. Feels like a sign that things are going good, if you believe in that kind of thing.”
“I know you do,” Donghyuck responds, but he can’t help the smile on his face. That’s romantic. “So you’re saying I’m the best thing in South Korea, right?”
“I don’t think you changed at all when I left, did you?”
“I just got more handsome. Are you falling for me all over again?”
“You wish,” Mark says, behind a huge smile. “You’re not with anyone right now?”
“Nah, men come and go. The only thing that stays the same is my crippling lack of ambition.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. Lack of ambition?”
“Okay, no, I have ambition, but no one makes it as a singer at twenty-six. I should’ve become an idol at fourteen like that kid we knew in high school.”
“Jaemin? Where is he now?”
“He’s an idol, obviously. He was on KBS with his group just last night.”
“Jeez, that’s crazy. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t make it.”
“Hey, don’t even bother. I’ve set my sights lower, I’m teaching kids to sing in after school classes now. It just doesn’t pay much, so I do work for my grandparents’ shop as well. Hence, here I am, on your couch.”
“Wanting to teach kids to sing is amazing ambition, Donghyuck. You’re gonna raise the next generation of idols.”
He waves his hand. “You flatter me. I’ll be lucky if I’m raising the next school talent show finalist. What about you? Did you go into writing?”
“Yeah, but not novels. I just do copywriting, you know, whatever people need writing.”
“Still wanna do the book thing one day?”
“Yeah. I’ve been working on a novel for a couple years, slowly. All my wildest dreams just had to go on hold for a while when Amy came along.”
“I bet. I’m guessing she was, uh, not planned?”
Mark laughs softly. “No, you can bet not. I barely knew her mom. She wanted to keep her at first, and I was down to co-parent… but the pregnancy had a lot of complications, and by the time Amy came out, she’d changed her mind. I got sole custody, worked my ass off to try raise her right those first few years. It’s a little bit easier now, especially since we got this house from my dad’s inheritance. No more small apartment for us, but a proper place to call home. Except, you know. All that stuff I said about struggling to fit in here.”
“But you still have each other.”
“Yeah,” Mark says fondly. “Now I don’t know what my life would be without her.”
“She’s a great kid. You’ve got a nice house, good job. You guys are gonna be okay. Just give it time.”
“Thanks, Hyuck.”
Once the movie is over, with no reaction from Amy, they realise she’s been asleep for some time. Mark rouses her and they head off to do their night-time routine, and so Donghyuck excuses himself to his room.
He hadn’t planned for an overnight trip today—more like a long day trip. He’d picked up a toothbrush and spare set of underwear from the convenience store, which will have to do for tonight. The bed looks comfy enough, at least…
…until he sits on it, and it gives under his weight.
He screams a little, and his bag topples off as he jumps back up. The front foot of the bed looks to have broken off, and the whole thing slants to one side.
“Donghyuck?” Mark asks, appearing in the doorway in a flash, looking for the fire.
“Sorry, it’s fine—it’s just your bed—”
“Oh, man,” Mark clicks his teeth with his tongue. “I tried to fix that, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job of it. Damn—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I can just sleep on your sofa?”
“What? No! It’s fine, you can sleep in my bed.”
“Ooh, are we gonna get cosy, Mark Lee?”
Mark stammers, mouth open. “Um, I thought I could sleep on the sofa…”
“Don’t be silly, we’ve shared a bed before. What’s one more for old times’ sake?”
Mark shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “You know just how to get your way with stuff, huh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghyuck says, feeling playful. “If we’re doing that, can I borrow some of your clothes to sleep in? I was going to sleep naked, so unless you want me like that…”
“Go and take what you want, I swear to God. I’m gonna make sure Amy gets to bed, then I’ll be back, okay?”
“Love you!”
He explores Mark’s drawers to find a soft t-shirt perfect for sleeping in, and digs around further for some sweatpants. Mark reappears after a while, when Donghyuck is sat up in his bed, scrolling on his phone. He only registers Mark standing in the doorway and watching him after a minute or two.
“What?” he asks, knees hiked up in front of him, Mark’s bedside lamp turned on.
“Nothing,” Mark says softly, nudging his drawer shut on his way to the bed. “Still kinda can’t believe you’re here.”
“What can I say? It’s a Christmas miracle.”
Mark laughs again, climbing into the bed next to him. He picks up a book, but doesn’t open it, shooting another look at Donghyuck.
“What is it, really?” he asks again.
Donghyuck can see him relent even before he speaks. “Do you think, if I hadn’t moved out to Canada, that we would’ve made it? You and me?”
Donghyuck surveys his expression. He’d thought about this a lot, after Mark first left, and the time difference made it near impossible to keep in touch in any meaningful way. He’d thought about it, too, after his second and third and fourth boyfriend, trying to figure out where he was going wrong with men that Mark was his only non-disastrous ending to a relationship.
“I like to think so,” he admits. “I thought about you a lot after you moved. Missed you a lot.”
Mark’s eyes are wide, nostalgic. “I missed you too. We were young at the time, just dumb kids really. But it was still really good. I felt a lot with you, and you taught me a lot of things. I feel like ever since then, I’ve kind of just been looking for people like you, but they never were quite you.”
Donghyuck’s breath catches, to his surprise. What a thing to admit—they were each other’s first loves, and it never quite left either of them.
“Who knows what might’ve happened between us, if you’d stayed. Maybe we’d hate each other by now. Maybe we were always meant to reconnect this way. You know I’m going to be knocking on your door every other week now I know you’re here, right?”
Mark laughs softly as he moves to lie down. “You’d be welcome to. Oh, I was gonna to ask—what time do you need to leave tomorrow?”
Donghyuck puts his phone away and comes to lie down too. “Hadn’t thought about it. Do you have plans?”
“No plans, just spending the day with Amy. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, you know.”
“Really? Like, all day?”
“Yeah, for sure. It would be nice.”
“Okay. I’ll stay a little while tomorrow, then.”
“Awesome,” Mark says, a sleepy smile in his voice as he leans over Donghyuck to turn out the lamp, body heat pressed close for half a second.
-
Donghyuck wakes up the next morning in a cosy bed, body running warm, room quiet. He sighs, and snuggles up to… a person?
His mind catches up with him, and he cracks open an eye. Right, he’s in Mark Lee’s bedroom, of all places. They’re cuddling right up close, too, as Donghyuck tends to when sharing a bed, latching onto the nearest body like a koala.
It takes him back to the few times they shared a bed, way back when. They only slept with each other a handful of times, whenever they could get away with it at each other’s homes, but Donghyuck loved waking up afterwards, basking in the afterglow, feeling desired and loved.
This isn’t quite the same thing—Mark has done him a favour letting him stay, and the two of them haven’t been in the same room in nearly ten years. But lying here, face in the crook of Mark’s neck, it’s like no time passed at all.
If he’s honest with himself, he never really fell out of love with Mark Lee. He just thought they weren’t meant to be.
But now…
Mark stirs, and Donghyuck squeezes him with a sleepy noise.
“Good morning.”
“I forgot you sleep like this,” Mark mumbles, and Donghyuck snorts.
“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”
He tilts his head up to see Mark looking down at him, eyes lidded with early morning drowsiness, a lazy smile on his face. “Not everyone is a genius mastermind like you.”
“I’m not feeling like you hate the cuddling.”
“Did I say that?”
The doorknob to Mark’s room clicks, and Donghyuck detaches himself from Mark in a flash, rolling to the other side of the bed as Mark sits up.
Amy comes running into the room in a set of thick yellow pyjamas, her hands in the air and a huge smile on her face.
“Amy, it’s early…” Mark says, signing to her, but Donghyuck isn’t convinced she’s looking.
She’s far too busy climbing up onto the bed, Mark helping her up to stand over him. She’s switching between pointing at the window behind them, and making the same sign over and over again, all while bouncing up and down on the bed over Mark. She doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that Donghyuck is in bed with her dad.
The sign she’s making is pretty self-explanatory, though. Mark leans over the bed to pull back the blind, and sure enough, the ground outside is covered in white.
“Woah,” Donghyuck says, rubbing his eyes as he sits up too. It’s still lightly snowing, the sky as white as the snow. It must’ve been coming down all night.
“Is this the first snow this year?” Mark says, and the two of them look at each other, sharing secretive smiles.
“I think so,” he says softly, as Amy takes a hold of Mark’s shoulders to bring his attention back to her, signing to him again.
“Yeah, baby, we can go out. Go and get dressed, okay?”
Amy immediately scrambles from the bed and dashes out of the room.
Mark sighs, lying back down with a groan.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” Donghyuck asks, looking down at him with a grin. “Princess Amy has been promised playing in the snow, no?”
“You bet. I don’t even know what time it is.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t matter. Her highness needs her snow army ready,” Donghyuck says, patting Mark’s chest. God, he looks kissable at this angle.
Mark laughs, and rolls over to kick his legs out of the bed. “You’re right, you’re right. We better get out there before she builds an ice kingdom.”
Mark saying we makes something funny happen in Donghyuck’s chest. Something he hasn’t felt for a really long time. “If snowballs are thrown, just know you’re getting annihilated, okay?”
“Yeah, you wish!”
Amy makes it outside before either of them, which can’t be helped because Mark stops to dig out a spare pair of boots for Donghyuck that will withstand the snow, along with a pair of gloves and a hat. Amy is practically skipping about in the snow when they get out there, throwing it up with her hands, and Mark has to wrestle her into buttoning up her coat, as well as donning a pair of gloves, a scarf, and hat.
After that, Amy directs them in making a magnificent snowman and his snow-child. The two of them dutifully set to work balling up some snow-bodies, patting them securely into place, complete with carrot noses and everything.
“I would ask if we can make a snow Donghyuck next, but I don’t know if my back can take it,” he says, straightening up and dusting off his gloves. “Snow angels?”
Mark opens his mouth, but he’s looking behind Donghyuck, a bright look on his face like he’s anticipating something amazing.
Donghyuck turns back right as Amy’s snowball hits him in the chest.
He staggers back a bit, looking at Amy in shock, who is grinning cheekily at Donghyuck.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” he says, and ducks down to scoop up his own ball of snow.
There’s a shriek of laughter so loud it surprises him, and he realises it’s Amy’s voice as she turns to run behind the snowmen. He throws the snowball after her with a huge grin on his face.
“Alright, this is war!” Mark announces, and he feels another snowball hit him in the back.
“You can’t gang up on me!” he exclaims, scooping up a larger handful of snow just for Mark. “I’m your guest!”
His snowball lands right in Mark’s face, who splutters, and Amy comes running in.
“Save me, Amy!”
New snowball in hand, Amy makes another valiant throw at Donghyuck, and he pretends to topple over from it, crawling behind the snowmen for cover and comically putting his hands up in surrender.
“Spare me, Princess Amy!”
“My hero!” Mark exclaims, and Donghyuck peeks out from behind the snowmen to see Amy embracing her dad in a warm hug.
They work up enough of an appetite running around in the snow that he and Amy are reduced to clutching their spoons around the table as they wait for Mark to heat up some porridge for them all.
Amy signs at him a few times, and Donghyuck watches her patiently, trying to make a guess at what she’s communicating.
“She’s asking if you’re staying tonight too,” Mark says when he comes over to dish out their porridge.
“Ah, no, I’m headed out this afternoon. I’ll need to go after lunch, if I’m going to make it home for tonight.”
Amy wastes no time signing to Mark as soon as Donghyuck is shaking his head. Mark, for the first time, signs back to her without speaking out loud, and Amy signs something back, sitting back in her chair with her arms crossed.
“What is it?” he asks, and Mark eyes him as he passes over his bowl.
“She asked me if you could stay tonight, and I said that you have to get home. She said she wants to show you The Snowman. Like, the movie. I said we can put it on this morning, if she wants, but seems like she wants you to stay another day.”
“Told you she needs a snow army. Someone’s gotta build it.”
Mark shakes his head with a smile. “You won her over quick, for someone who speaks no ASL. She likes you.”
“It’s part of my natural charm,” he says, but there’s a somewhat more sober feeling in the room now, at Amy’s mood and the knowledge their time is coming to an end soon.
They move back to the comfortable living room after porridge nonetheless, and Amy climbs up to sit between Donghyuck and Mark this time, taking one of Donghyuck’s fingers in her small hand as she gets comfortable. Donghyuck’s heart squeezes at that, and he resolutely does not look up at where he can feel Mark watching them both.
Mark translates for Amy a few times, as she points things out or looks to Donghyuck for his approval of her favourite parts. Her movie-watching experience is much more active than the night before, Mark affectionately stroking Amy’s hair as she looks at them both the gauge their interest.
Mark leaves back to the kitchen to fix them both up some lunch before Donghyuck has to go, leaving Amy with some paper and pens to keep her entertained, and Donghyuck stays with her for a little while. It’s peaceful, and he finds himself folding a few pieces of paper into some origami shapes he’s learned from his own mom, showing Amy how when she watches him raptly. She picks up on the frog quickly, and is giggly when he hands her the origami rose he quietly fashioned with some card.
He colours a couple other pieces of paper red and green respectively, and makes a second rose before going to find Mark.
“Hey,” he says, when he spots Donghyuck entering the kitchen. “Good timing, food is nearly ready. Not much, just some ram-don, but…”
“Sounds delicious, Markie. Let me know what I owe you for staying over, too.”
Mark shakes his head. “I’m not charging you, Hyuck. Considering you didn’t get a room at all because the bed was broken, I don’t think you I could even reasonably charge a stranger for this stay.”
Donghyuck smiles, sidling up to Mark’s side of the table, where he’s setting out the side plates. He tucks the paper rose into the top pocket of Mark’s shirt, who looks down at it fondly.
“Hey, I think you got better at these.”
“How would you know? Did I give one to you way back when?”
“Yeah,” Mark says softly. “I’ve still got it, somewhere. Pressed inside a book, I think.”
Donghyuck stares. Mark still carries a piece of paper Donghyuck folded for him ten years ago, has taken it around the world and back again.
Amy comes running in, climbing up onto a chair as Mark serves up some bowls of ram-don, looking down bashfully.
They drag it out, eating lunch together. Reminisce on the people they used to know, on the jobs they’ve worked at over the years, on how Donghyuck’s parents are doing, on how his siblings are growing up. But when the food is long since cold and Amy has abandoned them to go back to her drawing, it’s clear their time is up.
Donghyuck doesn’t even have much to gather up. It takes longer to figure out what he’s wearing that belongs to Mark, and change into yesterday’s clothes to drive back in, than to pack his bag. Still, Mark insists he keep the t-shirt he’s wearing so he doesn’t drive back all smelly.
“You can give it back when you next come and visit,” he says, which makes Donghyuck feel, so intensely feel.
Realistically… he’d stumbled across Mark for a reason. Because the drive home from here is long. While he’d like to visit them a lot in future, it’s hard to know how possible that will be between his two jobs. The last day—not even a day, truly— with Mark and Amy has been an unexpected blessing, a circumstance of perfect timing, perfect place.
Unlike the crushing moment of saying goodbye to Mark before he left for Canada, however—leaving doesn’t feel as hopeless now. It certainly doesn’t feel like forever.
“Got everything?” Mark asks at the door, looking Donghyuck up and down. He must look exactly the same as when he’d arrived at Mark’s doorstep yesterday.
“Didn’t bring much,” he says, turning back on the steps to face Mark. “Seriously, thank you for putting me up…”
“Don’t thank me, for real. It’s been so good seeing you, I wish we could’ve had longer. It’s really… I meant what I said, about it feeling like a blessing. A sign. I hope we’ll see you again soon. Ah, let me get Amy, actually, to say goodbye…”
“Mark,” he says, reaching out to catch his sleeve before he can turn back into the house. Mark flashes his wide, endless eyes at him, and Donghyuck feels his confidence waver.
“Yeah?”
He straightens up, brushing the hair from his eyes. “Just… you’ve always been a really special person to me. I really loved you, back then, even if I couldn’t say it right.”
Mark laughs softly. “You said it all the time.”
“Yeah, so much you thought it didn’t mean anything. But it did, it always did. And that feeling never really left me, I don’t think.”
Mark’s eyes flick from Donghyuck’s eyes to his mouth, and back again. “I know I was the one that left you, back then. But, you know, I don’t think you ever really left me. I’ve thought about you a lot, over the years. You were special to me too, even if I definitely didn’t say it then, and I’m still not great at saying it now.”
Donghyuck’s smile grows, and Mark’s eyes flick down again. “I know. I’m pretty unforgettable.”
Mark laughs, and shakes his head, rolling his eyes. “You know, that’s probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever said, and you just took it like it was nothing.”
“Not nothing,” he says, voice low, lips quirked. “I’m hoping to get a kiss out of it, so I know you mean it.”
“Oh really?”
“Absolutely,” he says, before they meet in the middle, kissing right in the doorway of Mark Lee’s house, heads tilted to meet perfectly in the middle.
It’s just like old times, but so much better. It’s now—it’s real—it’s Mark holding onto his waist, and Donghyuck pushing up into him, chasing Mark’s warmth, his desire for Donghyuck. It’s the plush feel of their lips slotting together, of butterflies dancing in his chest like he’s seventeen again.
They part softly, Mark looking over Donghyuck’s face with wide eyes. Then he licks his lips, and says,
“You know, you could stay with us for a few days if you wanted.”
“I could?” he says, smile growing so wide he has to bite down on it. “Oh, you’re gonna regret offering me that, Mark Lee.”
“Yeah?” Mark smiles in return, eyes shining. “Nothing to get back to?”
“Nothing better than this,” he says, and pushes forwards to kiss Mark again, walking him into the house and shutting the door behind them.