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The night before Mark leaves for the airport, Haechan doesn’t sleep. He’s never been able to, really, not when he’s stressed; it manifests itself as this relentless insomnia that clutches him through the night in its cold grip and leaves him exhausted and tired.
It’s April. Somehow, he’s been excused from both Dream dance practice and a 127 recording session tomorrow, just so that he can go to the airport. Everyone else is sleeping, tired from today’s practice, and Haechan is tired too but he doesn’t sleep. He plays Overwatch for an hour or two with Johnny, and then goes to the kitchen and makes himself some midnight ramyeon, and then he sits on the couch in the living room and stares at the ceiling until Jaehyun comes out of his room and tells him it’s six in the morning.
He doesn’t eat anything; he feels too sick to. He drinks a lot of water instead. He’s taut, like a rubber hand about to snap.
Everyone else leaves for their recording session, saying tender final goodbyes to Mark — who is leaving them today, and never coming back, never — and then it is just the two of them alone in the dorm.
He finds Mark in his room, lying on his bed. He’s watching something on his phone in English, fast enough that Haechan can only make out every third word, and laughing along under his breath.
Haechan sits on the edge of his bed and extends a questioning knee out as if asking to sit next to him. Mark, as always, lets him. Donghyuck ghosts a trespassing hand over his scalp, scratching at the roots of Mark’s soft, wavy hair. Mark, as ever, bats his hand away.
He doesn’t ask what he’s watching. They sit there in silence for a while.
Eventually, Mark closes his phone. “Everything good?”
“What are you planning to do in Canada?” Donghyuck asks. He’s probably asked that question a thousand times by now.
Mark shrugs. “Rest, probably.”
(There’s this concept, this scientific thing that Donghyuck once learned about: the heat death of the universe. It’s a theory about the end of the world, and how the universe will end. All energy spreads out equally and there’s no longer any transfer of heat, and everything just evens out and that’s it, it’s over. There's nothing more happening. The universe is flat and lukewarm and uniform, balanced.
It terrifies him. Haechan is energy inside and out. Haechan doesn’t rest.)
“Is that all?” Donghyuck teases. “I thought you’d have bigger aspirations.”
Mark rolls his eyes, but indulges him with the same answer he’s given every other time Haechan’s asked this. He asks in cars after music shows and in. “I might make some music of my own and release it if it feels right to.”
“Would you send your music to me?”
“Sure, Donghyuck-ie,” Mark smiles, shifting over a little so that he can nudge him with his elbow. Donghyuck longs to loop his arm through Mark’s and tug him a little closer, to feel their skin against each other, just the warmth and the friction of it. He wants it like a chained up dog outside in the cold wants the warmth, like how a starving man wants his favourite food but can only stomach water and crackers. He wants it so immeasurably that it burns at his eyes like exhaustion.
Donghyuck lets the moment pass. He is so tired.
There’s a knock at the door, and their manager’s voice rings out through the dorm. “Mark, Haechan?”
“We’ll be out in a moment!” Haechan yells, and Mark flinches at the volume of it, and Haechan laughs even louder and with such brightness that it should be obvious how fake it is. No one is this sunny all the time, this energetic.
(Haechan is scared of the heat death of the universe, of his life, and of he and Mark; he is just photons beaming around, trying desperately to instill energy in every part of the world that he can reach. He is brilliance incarnate. Haechan can not stop for even a second.)
Donghyuck helps Mark carry his suitcase to the elevator. In the lobby, he tries to take it again but Mark’s bodyguard comes up beside him and lifts it, and Donghyuck trails along after him without purpose.
They get in the car, just the two of them in the backseat with the partition up. The manager drives, and makes conversation with the bodyguard in the front seat; it's a gentle, droning noise that stops the backseat from being entirely silent. Mark and Donghyuck make their best effort to sit in silence anyway. Donghyuck fiddles with his fingers in his lap.
“I’ll text you,” Mark promises. He’s been saying that a lot recently, to everyone but mainly to Haechan. Haechan is clingy and needs to be reassured of things like that; that people aren’t getting bored of him, or tired, that he’s not too annoying.
(“Go away!” yells Mark, fifteen years old, and he looks like a baby kitten; how their eyes are so big proportional to the rest of their faces that when they yell they have to close their eyes. Haechan, fourteen, ruffles his hair and laughs.)
It’s this familiar dance between them. Mark treks off towards new horizons, eyes bright with anticipation, and Donghyuck watches him go. This time, Mark’s not coming back.
“Will you visit?” he asks. Mark stares down at his phone for a second; maybe he’s checking the time, maybe he’s looking for an excuse. He doesn’t hear Donghyuck’s question, or if he does he pretends not to.
“I’ll text you,” he promises again.
When Haechan broke his leg, Mark saw him off at the airport just like this. Haechan promised to text him every day, and after the first few days — when he was a little too humiliated by his forced distance to consider broaching it — he made good on that.
Donghyuck went back to Jeju then. He broke down in his mother’s arms when he got there, devastated and relieved in equal measure to be away from the life he’d made in Seoul. Jeju was different, a little slower paced. He saw his family there for the first time in a while.
The rest did him good, eventually, even if restlessness broiled under his skin the whole time. He walked on the beach and the fluffy little grains of sand got into his cast and itched. He ate tangerines on the porch and watched 127’s tour performances from Japan, doing the hand movements along with them, and his leg ached.
Every few days, Mark would call him at some random time he’d carved out between schedules, and Donghyuck would pick up on the first ring every single time.
(“I love you,” he says across the call, hoping that he can imbue in his voice enough sincerity that it’s audible all the way across the ocean, “And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for getting hurt,” Mark replies, surprised.
That’s not why Donghyuck is sorry, really. He’s sorry for the last five years of their lives, and for whatever years they’ll have left together. He’s sorry that they’re both in two groups and yet Haechan is the only one who struggles with it, and he must weigh on Mark, what with how needy he is. Look at him, sitting in his mother’s kitchen, crying. He’s weak.
He doesn’t say anything back.)
He wondered back then whether Mark really resented him for leaving, and he sometimes wonders now if Mark resents him for the way they were when they were younger.
When he came back from hiatus, skin a warmer tan from the Jeju sun and leg not quite what it used to be, Mark was in the car that was waiting for him. As they pulled away from the pick-up zone, Haechan had launched into Mark’s arms and Donghyuck had cried. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but then again it didn’t have to be; it was a reunion, as sappy as that was.
Donghyuck had curled into Mark’s side, content. He fit there perfectly; after all, he’d had years of practice moulding himself into the perfect puzzle piece, breaking his own bones and bending his own flesh into the shape that would slot best into Mark’s side. Mark had looked down at him, stupid sentimental wet-cat eyes in full force, and caressed his face with all the love possible to imbue in that gesture. Donghyuck had smiled. Mark had trailed his fingers over Haechan’s moles and read them like braille, like a blind man, like he knew exactly what they meant and he understood. Haechan had fallen asleep there.
He can’t fall asleep now, too sick with some mixture of expectation and upset, like a dog who has learned to anticipate the kick. Donghyuck leans against Mark’s side and the worst thing is that it isn’t even uncomfortable; it’s as warm and peaceful as it ever has been. Maybe it would be better if it hurt.
“Oh, hyung!” he says, remembering something all of a sudden, and he roots around to find it. Mark raises an eyebrow.
From his pocket, Donghyuck offers out a single, perfect tangerine. It’s yellow and orange, like a sunset. His fingernails scrape lightly against the skin of it, enough that he knows that traces of the scent will remain on his hands for days. He extends it out to Mark.
(“Do you want some, oppa?” his sister asks. Haechan smiles and takes the tangerine from her, giggling at her offended squeal as he shoves the whole thing in his mouth. It is an explosion of juice in his mouth, sweet and tart. He chews, and the seeds grind at his teeth, trapped in the mushy pulp.
His mother says that if he swallows the seeds, he’ll grow a tangerine tree in his stomach. Donghyuck hopes that he can grow a whole orchard.)
“A snack,” he volunteers.
“No thanks,” Mark shrugs, adjusting the strap of his bag across his shoulder. “I’m not hungry. And I couldn’t bring it through security anyway.”
Offer, rejection. Pull, push. That’s all they’ve ever had.
Haechan wants to hit himself. Of course Mark wouldn’t be able to bring fresh fruit through an airport; what was he thinking? His exhaustion is making him stupid, his stress even more so. His hand tightens slightly around the tangerine, then loosens. He puts it back into his pocket.
“Oops,” Donghyuck laughs, “Forgot about that.”
Mark looks at him, really looks, and his brow creases slightly. Donghyuck yearns to reach up and smooth at it with his fingers, mold it into something calmer, force Mark into the tranquility that he needs so much he’s leaving Donghyuck to get it.
(“I’m just tired,” Mark says, staring down at his hands.
Donghyuck doesn’t yell at him, or cry, or shut down. Instead, he plasters on Haechan, the one who knows how to smile gently and console.
“It’s your life,” he replies, “I can’t get mad at you for leaving if being here was killing you.”)
As suddenly as it crept across Mark’s face the worry ebbs away, and Donghyuck curses it and thanks it in equal measure. He wants Mark to be worried enough to stay; he wants Mark to never worry again. He doesn’t know what he wants.
As they pull up in the drop-off zone, Mark begins to unbuckle his seatbelt. As if possessed by something other than himself — something more Donghyuck than Haechan, more tender and vulnerable and quiet and scared — Donghyuck reaches across to touch him as he does so. His fingers trace the tendons on the back of Mark’s hand.
Mark twists, moving his hand just enough that he can grasp Haechan’s fingers in his own. He gives them a short squeeze.
(They had this thing, the Ancient Romans, where they would place snails in dishes of salted milk. The snails would drink the milk, but the salt would make them thirstier, and so they would keep drinking and drinking until they were fat enough to eat. Haechan thinks he’s kind of like that with Mark, sometimes; he drinks up every glancing touch between the two of them, but the desire within himself for just a bit more drives him to touch and touch until eventually Mark pushes him away.)
Mark’s door opens. His bodyguard stands there, arms crossed, eyes sweeping across the crowd of fans that have amassed only a short distance away. They scream Mark’s name in shrill voices, waving their phones as if to capture every moment of Mark leaving Haechan in blurry video.
“I’m sorry,” Mark murmurs, “And I love you.”
“I love you too,” Donghyuck says, Haechan says, and he hears in his own voice a thousand other times he’s said those words to Mark, ten years of adoration and wanting. It’s always been the two of them, for better or worse.
Mark smiles.
“I’ll text you,” he promises, instead of a goodbye. They can’t say goodbye to each other, not really; they’ve never had to. It’s always been Haechan and Mark, next to each other at every concert and schedule, and when they aren’t with each other they want to be.
(“You’re so obvious,” Jaehyun says, and Haechan flushes pink and embarrassed.)
It’s always been ‘see you later’ with them, because there’s always been a later. Haechan could always count on Mark being there with him in one facet or another. Now, he can’t. It’s funny how everything just changes, like flipping a lightswitch instead of watching a sunset. One day Mark will always be in Haechan’s life and the next there’s a timer on Donghyuck’s phone ticking down every second until his flight departs from Korea.
“You better,” Haechan says softly, and Mark gives him one final smile, eyes crinkled like a baby kitten, and gets out of the car. There’s a loud thump as his suitcases are dragged out of the back, then the boot closes with another thump. Mark closes the door behind him. Haechan is sealed into the car in a vacuum of sound, the screams of the fans around them muffled, and he is alone.
Mark doesn’t look back as he walks away, and Donghyuck sighs. He’s so tired.
On the ride home, he can feel his eyes slip shut, but he never actually dozes off. He thinks his exhaustion is so intertwined with his very being that he’d miss it if he went to sleep. It’s his oldest and fondest enemy, this insomnia, but it is his nonetheless and that is what matters. No one can take it from him.
(“Go to sleep,” his mother says, smoothing a hand across his forehead to brush away the strands of hair falling into his eyes.
“Okay,” Donghyuck mumbles, and he lies awake until the morning.)
Four months later, it’s August. NCT Dream’s 10th Anniversary is celebrated with a trip to Jeju Island, a getaway for the members who have given their best years to the hungry eyes and mouths of the internet. The airport is packed with fans as they leave; Haechan tries to wave to every single one. He sleeps on the plane ride there. Renjun wakes him up with a sharp shake on the shoulder, eyebrows furrowed in a silent question, and Haechan smiles brightly enough to dispel any worries the other man might have.
On the one day that they’re not filming, Haechan takes his five closest friends in the whole world to visit his mother’s house. They have a meal together, a huge sprawling thing where Jeno charms Donghyuck’s sister and Jisung turns into a flustered mess when his two little brothers call him hyung, and there aren’t quite enough chairs so Chenle has to sit on Donghyuck’s swivelling gaming chair. He thinks it’s great fun, of course; Jaemin pushes him around the kitchen and they both cackle with laughter. The rolling wheels sound like thunder on the wooden floors, like applause, like the screams of fans at the airport. Haechan smiles and turns away.
Mark isn’t there. It doesn’t hurt when he doesn’t think about it, but it’s a bruise he just can’t stop pressing. The fact of the matter is that Haechan is fine, Donghyuck is getting by, and Mark is gone.
Restlessness is the feeling of ants crawling along his skin. The August sun hangs heavy in the sky, warm and mellow like lips against his. The beach is far off in the distance, but if he tries very hard he can hear the waves lapping against the sand and the rocks, a repetitive and gentle sound that stops it from being truly silent out here.
They haven’t texted in a little while, maybe a week. Mark’s been busy, and so has he, as always.
(Haechan didn’t text for a few days when he first came to Jeju, and then he texted every day. Mark texted every day when he left for Canada, and then he didn’t. They’re opposites, always, pull and push. There’s something between them that neither of them can explain and neither can bear to lose, or at least that’s what Donghyuck hopes. He can’t bear to lose Mark. He hopes he hasn’t done so already.)
Donghyuck takes a selfie out on the porch, angled so that he captures the sunset behind him. He’s illuminated, almost haloed by the light; it makes his eyes look big and dark and his skin look a rich, vivid tan colour that his makeup usually washes out of him. He doesn’t look quite like himself, or like Haechan; he looks like something entirely different. Grown-up, maybe. Tired, certainly, with the dark bruises under his eyes that he hasn’t bothered to conceal. He doesn’t look bad though, just different. He could use something a little different.
Donghyuck hesitates, thumb hovering over the send button. It is bright, courageous Haechan who presses it.
Mark sees it within seconds.
‘Pretty!’ he responds. Donghyuck huffs a laugh and turns off his phone.