Chapter Text
Donghyuck is tired. Tired, tired, tired.
University alone is enough to kick his ass, but tonight it’s hitting extra hard. Practice ran late, his shoulders ache, and his Calculus professor and coach has been increasingly cruel lately. With the Seoul Uni Math Competition (or SUMaC, as Donghyuck affectionately calls it) looming closer every day, Donghyuck’s spent weeks drilling equations he knows by heart, and he feels like his brain is being slowly wrung out.
All he wants is a break.
And a break to him means calling Jaemin to rant, knowing Jaemin will most likely hang up on him half-way through, but still. He needs this.
He punches in the number (Jaemin got a new one and Donghyuck hasn’t bothered to save it yet).
“Nanaaaaa~” he whines the second the call connects. “SUMaC is kicking my whole ass! If Prof. Kim reminds me about quintic equations one more time, I’m hopping right off the roof. Believe me. I love math, but damn I feel like these numbers are choking me. And I’m so behind on my history assignments and we don’t get practice passes like the stupid swim team!
“So, please nag my ass back into shape so I win this damned thing! And I’ll be free to focus on other things! Like Sungchan’s new haircut. Did you see it?? I know if it’s not Jeno, you don’t care. But you gotta admit he looks good.”
Donghyuck takes a deep breath into the phone, looking around the room at the silence on the other end. Why is Jaemin so quiet…?
He frowns, pulling the phone slightly away from his ear. “…Nana?”
It’s silent for a good five seconds before a voice let’s out a shaky, “Uh… L-look dude, it's cool you want to rant and all, but I don’t think you’re supposed to be telling me this.”
Donghyuck stares at it like its gone insane. “C'mon, Jaemin, stop messing with me. Why do you sound… sick?”
Another pause of silence and then, “Dude, you have the wrong number.”
“T-this isn’t Na Jaemin?”
“No. This is Mark Lee.”
Mark Lee....
Swimmer Mark Lee.
Captain of the Seoul University’s Varsity team, Swimmer Mark Lee...
And that’s when Donghyuck literally screams into the receiver and throws his phone. It flies off his bed to the floor.
And with excellent timing, Jaemin comes through the door, unexpected, knocking on Donghyuck’s room once and entering with a loud, loving ‘Hyuuuck~~ how was practice?’
Donghyuck launches himself off the bed and pins Jaemin to the door. Jaemin, infuriatingly tall and completely unthreatened, just grins at him.
“What the hell, Na Jaemin!” Jaemin only raises an eyebrow, “You gave me the wrong number!”
“No I didn’t.”
“Oh? So you didn’t just slyly give me Mark Lee’s number instead of yours!?”
“Mark Lee? You called Mark Lee??”
“YES!” Jaemin laughs at Donghyuck freaking out, “I called him and told him about my lame SUMaC stuff and even used an equation! I whined to him for at least 3 minutes! And complimented Sungchan’s hair cut!” Jaemin cackles right into Donghyuck’s face, very very loudly. He clutches his chest in panic, “Fuck, I screamed in his ear!”
“Why did you-- ”
“When he said who he was, I freaked out! Shit, shit, shit.” He leaves Jaemin and digs his phone from under his dresser and sends an apology.
To: xxx-xxx-xxxx
[2:34 PM]
i am soooo sorry I talked your ear off!
and then screamed in it
you’ll never hear from me again!
He ends the message with a crying emoji and tosses the phone back under the dresser, rolling over onto his back on his rug. Jaemin takes this moment to enter the room completely, cola still in hand. “Kill me now, Nana. My social life is over.”
“What social life.” Jaemin snorts, dodging the leg that tried to trip him.
For the next two days, Donghyuck tries not to make even the slightest contact with Mark Lee. Not like he ever did before, but now he's making an effort to avoid him. And successfully at that. He hasn’t seen even a hair from the junior on campus since Tuesday and all morning.
By his third lecture, he's sitting in his usual desk in Lit 2, two from the back, taking notes from the professor when guess who decides to just walk right in.
Mark Lee.
He looks around once nervously, and says, "Sorry to disturb, but Renjun from the Seoul Uni Math Club, the-- uh smack, said I’d find Lee Donghyuck here, to bring him to practice. For the math competition coming up."
The professor points him out, the traitor, and Donghyuck wants his desk to sink into the floor when Mark smiles at him and gestures him to follow him. So he does. Of course he does. He’d look like an even bigger idiot if he just sat there.
The walk is terrifyingly silent and Donghyuck is just waiting for the moment Mark Lee brings up that embarrassing phone call. The suspense is probably going to kill if he stays in it any longer. And, honestly, Donghyuck has more important things to think about besides seemingly attractive swimmers and their need to ridicule him for one mistake. The best thing to do would be to apologize face to face and end it for good.
"Um... Mark Lee."
He laughs, a little giggle, "Just Mark is fine."
"Right.... About what happened on Tuesday..."
Mark looks confused and Donghyuck almost frowns at him. Instead, he remains stoic and clears the embarrassment from his throat. "I just want to apologize again for, um being weird. And screaming at you."
"Screaming-- oh dude, that was you on the phone!?"
"....huh?"
"I completely forgot about that!" He laughs again, "So it was you. Lee Donghyuck.” The way Mark says his name, a lilt in his voice that sounds almost… fond. Or maybe Donghyuck’s mistaking that tone due to his overpowering humiliation. “Smack practice kind of brutal, huh?" Mark’s lips quirk up to the left in a smile that Donghyuck feels is kind of misplaced.
"....uh." Misplaced because it just now occurs to him that he never told Mark his name over the phone... So there's no way he could have known Donghyuck was the one who had called him. Until now. "Shit. I was anonymous. Why didn’t I stay anonymous. What the fuck is wrong with me."
"Are you okay?"
"Peachy!" Mark’s eyebrows quirk up in confusion and Donghyuck sighs, scratching the back of his neck. All he wants to do is leave, end this trainwreck of a meeting and never deal with Mark Lee again. "Uh... I know how to get to practice from here, thanks."
"Okay, that’s cool, but I have a lecture in 15-- kinda right now. In the Calc building, so..." Mark says, with a smile. And Donghyuck notices, out of his control, that Mark’s cheekbones are even more noticeable when he smiles. It’s kinda…cute? He shakes away that thought.
"Right. Just--just forget this meeting and conversation ever happened."
"Okay?"
"And Tuesday too." He starts to walk away, then adds, "It's better for my sanity."
"Alright." Mark giggles again from behind him, Donghyuck can hear the crunch of his sneakers in the gravel pathway, following him, too. "But you didn’t tell me."
This makes Donghyuck pause, Mark almost bumping into him. He catches his footing though, looking at Donghyuck expectantly. Which is confusing. Very confusing… Hasn’t Mark Lee had enough of Donghyuck’s nonsense already? Why is he still…. "Tell you what?"
"If your smack practice is brutal." The smiles grows into a little smirk by the last word, like he and Donghyuck are sharing some kind of secret.
Donghyuck stares at Mark likes he's grown a third eye. Because Mark obviously must be suffering from some kind of mutation if he's voluntarily striking conversation with him. But Donghyuck wouldn’t be him if he let Mark Lee of all people trip him up. Again. So he schools his expression to something akin to annoyance and blinks at Mark tiredly.
"SUMaC. Suuuu~MACK. Not smack."
"SUMaC," Mark repeats, something tender in his voice, something kind in his smile and Donghyuck doesn’t feel threatened. He feels….. confused. "Is it tough?" Mark asks, interest in every word. It almost makes Donghyuck’s head spin, why is he interested?? He usually has boys like Mark Lee figured out.
They’re kind, smart, funny even. But stick to a particular crowd, a certain clique. Guys like Mark Lee don’t stray from the pack…right? Yet here he is, standing in front of Donghyuck in his varsity jacket, black hair flipped out his face, hands in his pockets. The whole being of him screaming textbook jock. But his eyes read different for reasons Donghyuck can’t understand.
And now he’s thinking math equations aren’t the only thing that’s tough…
"You have no idea." He ends up replying, looking Mark in his eyes skeptically and walking away, hearing more of those giggles behind him.
It’s been exactly one week and two days since Donghyuck’s strange first meeting with Mark Lee and, to his surprise, nothing has happened. No one has teased him, no one has looked at him strangely. To top it off, Mark Lee himself hasn’t spoken one word to him since; the swimmer hasn’t even looked in his direction. Donghyuck might see that as a blessing, considering Mark did say he’d forget their whole conversation ever happened. But nothing?? Really??
Just then, Donghyuck’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He reaches down, trying to be discreet.
“Donghyuck!” The professor berates, eyebrows pulling together in frustration and slight suspicion.
Donghyuck’s yanks his hand from his pocket and flings it back to desktop, “Y-yes!”
“This is an important equation, I know you’re smart but please try to pay attention…”
“Yes, ma’am… sorry.”
“Now as I was saying…”
The professor’s voice trails off again. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Renjun give him a concerned look. Donghyuck only shakes his head at his friend, wondering who in the world is calling him during SUMaC training. It’s a known fact not to bother Donghyuck carelessly during competition time. So, who… The thought leaves his hand itching to take out his phone for the next two hours.
He gets back to his apartment around six. He rushes into his room without a word. Jaemin is staying at Jeno’s tonight, but he has soooooo much to tell Jaemin. Whether his friend wants to hear it or not.
He pulls his phone out hastily, flopping onto his bed and quickly hitting the call button on the dial pad. It should instantly call Jaemin, he’s the last person he contacted after all. Donghyuck waits three rings before he hears the click and groans loudly.
“Nanaaaaaaaaa. Nana, you won’t believe who came in during training ~ Sungchan! He said he lost something. I don’t remember what, I was too busy staring at him… God, how does he look so good like that?? He looked worried, and really confused at the equations on the board. but like….. geez, it was attractive. God, I’m beginning to think I’m morosexual because -- "
“Donghyuck…..” Said boy blinks at the ceiling, feeling the air around get thicker.
“M-mark Lee..?”
“Yeah,” Mark laughs a little, a tiny haha. Donghyuck springs up from lying down, clutching his phone to his ear in both hands to keep him from throwing it again.
“Shit, I…” he fumbles, “Oh my god, I-- ”
“You didn’t mean to call me, did you? It was an accident this time too, huh?”
Donghyuck’s ears and cheeks heat at the obvious tease in Mark’s voice. “Ah, fuck this.”
“Wai-- " Donghyuck doesn’t wait. In fact, he hangs up immediately. Right in Mark Lee’s face. Dropping his phone on the bed, he takes a second to breathe before it dawns on him what he just did.
He just hung up in Mark Lee’s face.
“Oh fuck!" he nearly screeches, slapping himself on the hand, “What is wrong with me?? Why did I do that?? Why did I call him!?”
Again! He did it again!!! How is that even possible??? He’s positive Jaemin is the last person he spoke to right before he entered training!
How could-- wait… he got a phone call and text from someone during training. He got a text!
He scrambles for his phone and opens up his messenger app, and, of course! There is an unopened message from an unknown number. Donghyuck gasp loudly. “What… what the fuck? He texted me? Why did-- why would he!” With shaking fingers, he pads over the message to open it.
[xxx-xxx-xxxx] 6:13pm
hey
“HEY????” Donghyuck screams at his phone.
The phone suddenly starts vibrating madly in his hand. A phone call. An unknown number... It’s Mark. His insides begin to vibrate as much as his phone, tiny prickles of nerves all over his body. Does he answer? Does he decline? Does he break his phone in half? The vibrating stops and his phone screens times out, then glares again loud and bright, as Mark calls him back again.
What in the actual fuck is happening... Donghyuck drops his phone onto the sheets, having no strength to hold it up. His fingers shakily accepts the call.
Mark’s voice emits from the phone, crisp and clear but almost echoey like he’s in an empty room. “Don’t hang up!”
“I… sorry. About that. I… I won’t.”
“Good.” Silence falls on them. In the quiet, Donghyuck can hardly breathe. All he can hear is the sound of Mark’s breathing, the air around him and the flowing sound of...water? The Aquatic Center. Is... was Mark Lee swimming before he called? A very valid question, Donghyuck thinks. But before he can even try to ask that, his mouth uselessly supplies:
“Why did you text me?” Donghyuck shakes his head, as if Mark can see him, “No, better yet, why did you call me?!”
“Oh haha, that. Yeah, I didn’t mean to. I hit the wrong name. When I realized it was you I called… like, I was about to send an apology, but you hadn’t answered the phone, so I figured say hello, you know? Even though you never opened the message…”
“Oh.”
“But then you called me, so I figured you wanted to talk and I would’ve like explained myself or something but you-- ”
“I hung up… and promptly screamed after. You probably think I’m a jerk.”
“No, not a jerk. Haha,” Haha. The sound echoes around in Donghyuck’s now empty head. Mark Lee has an annoying little laugh. He can almost see the annoying high cheekbones and round, sparkly eyes... “You screamed last time we talked too.”
“Ugh, don’t bring that up please…” The conversation feels pleasant in a weird way. He can’t explain to himself how that makes sense, or why he picked up his phone again, placing it to his ear. “Wait… hit the wrong name… Am I-- am I saved in your phone, Mark Lee??”
“Yeah? Is that weird?”
“YES! Well, no? I don’t know….”
“You should save my name in your phone too.”
“Wha-- ”
“So you, uh. You know, so you don’t call me by accident anymore.”
“I guess.” He says slowly.
“I’d like that,” Mark says softly.
“Got it.” The words feel warm on Donghyuck’s tongue, simple and quiet. He pictures his name glowing on Mark’s screen, and it makes him sick to his stomach.
“Before I go,” Mark says after another quiet moment, “thanks for not hanging up.”
Donghyuck closes his eyes, chest uncoiling. “Night, Mark Lee.”
“Night, Donghyuck.”
He ends the call, the phone slipping from his fingers back onto the sheets. In the stillness, his heart slows to a steady rhythm.