Chapter Text
Donghyuck is drenched in cold sweat, shivering and cursing all of the choices he’d made along his life that had led him to this precise moment by the time he hears a knock on his door.
Despite knowing who it is, he still checks through the peephole. There is only person Donghyuck knows never uses the doorbell, only one person Donghyuck is expecting so late at night. He opens the door.
When Mark steps in, he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he walks straight into Donghyuck’s space and presses his lips onto his neck.
Donghyuck doesn’t really know which of the two he would have preferred.
He sees himself, stupidly overdressed in his favorite black top (which is just cropped enough that it rides up and displays his flat stomach at the slightest movement), the shortest shorts he owns and a pair of knee high socks that he’d bought because he knew Mark would love it. It’s a stupid outfit that Donghyuck would never wear under any other circumstance, an outfit that only exists to give the illusion of casualness. It’s Donghyuck’s attempt at being effortlessly hot—which he just spent the last thirty minutes on.
Donghyuck sees himself in these dumb clothes that are way too cold for the weather, sees himself moaning into Mark’s hair, sees his hands gripping onto the boy’s broad shoulders. He sees himself barely standing up on nerves and empty stomach, dizzy from the force with which Mark is holding him.
He sees himself whether his eyes are wide open or shut close, whether Mark’s sucking on his neck or biting at his jaw, and he wonders when’s the last time he let himself feel Mark’s touch instead of seeing it. Or was hooking up always an out-of-body experience without him ever noticing?
“You alright?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck hadn’t even noticed his enthusiasm dying down, his movements slowing down, hadn’t caught on the missing lips from his skin. “I can just leave if you’re not in the mood anymore.”
“No!”
The desperation must so obvious in his words, he can feel Mark’s surprise, how the hands on his hips loosen their grip. He hates himself for it.
“I’m just tired, sorry. But I want to. Just,” he hesitates. Although Mark’s face isn’t buried in Donghyuck’s neck, he’s still here. His hands are still on him. Donghyuck attempts to dissimulate the shakiness of his breath by nuzzling his nose in Mark’s collarbone. “Is it okay if you do most of the work tonight?”
By now Donghyuck has mastered the art of saying don’t leave me without ever speaking the words. Mark, as always, doesn’t leave.
“Of course it is.” His hands on Donghyuck’s spine slide lower, brushing across his back until they land right under his ass, cupping it. "God, you’re so hot," Mark mutters, and Donghyuck feels his face flush at the words. One of the hands slip under the fabric of his shorts, and he feels Mark’s fingers press right over his hole, over his boxers. Donghyuck arches his back, to meet his touch, to feel more, to show how much he wants. He feels the vibrations of Mark’s words through his skin. "So good for me."
He feels the shiver all over his body, whimpering involuntarily. The words sting so much that his eyes tear up, and he desperately hopes Mark won’t look up, desperately grabs Mark’s face and leads it to his chest.
He hopes he can pass it off as arousal. Hopes that, at worst, Mark will pretend not to understand.
It wasn’t always like this.
Of course it wasn’t. That’s how every story goes. In the beginning, they were happy. Then, they were not.
The thing is, Donghyuck isn’t even sure if happy could even apply to his relationship with Mark in the first place.
The first time he meets Mark is, honestly, quite forgettable. So much so, in fact, that Donghyuck is half-convinced the few memories he has of that event are a trick of his brain, fake memories made up from his friends’—and Mark’s—recollection of it.
Donghyuck remembers learning Mark’s name, and that’s pretty much it. Of that particular night, he remembers much more getting drunk on homemade fancy cocktails—courtesy of Taeil’s new acquired skills as a part-time barman, making out with some handsome guy on a balcony, and walking home at 6AM, drunk enough still to enjoy the dirty looks he gets from by-passers on their way to work.
He remembers the Instagram notification that pops up on his phone right as he switches off his alarm to sleep peacefully, remembers feeling too tired to check who the fuck was that @mk_lee99 account that had just followed him.
The second time they meet, Mark presses Donghyuck against his flimsy apartment door and bites down on his neck hard enough that he bleeds.
Donghyuck doesn’t think much of it. He lets Mark bruise him, lets Mark rough him up and soothe him with his tongue and hands afterwards.
There’s a plane crossing the sky. It bleeds orange and yellow lights into the night.
Donghyuck follows it with his eyes, standing in front of the window, a cup of water in his hands. The beginning of June is always a bit chilly at this time of the day, and he feels goosebumps raising on his skin despite the sweatshirt he’s wearing.
It’s peaceful, a big city at night. It feels intimate, to be able to see so well into your neighbor’s window, to know nothing about the guy who lives in the building across your own except for the fact that, just like you, he’s awake when he should be asleep.
He thinks about the people in the plane, he wonders where they’re headed and what language they speak. Whether they’re going on a vacation on the other side of the world, or if they’re headed home, tired to the bone. He wonders if the thought of going home makes their heart ache like his.
Distantly, behind him, he hears a door creaking. Footsteps. A yawn.
Mark’s arms circle his waist.
“What are you doing, all dressed up?” Mark whispers, voice so fond, always. He sounds like he genuinely has no idea why Donghyuck could ever want to get dressed in the middle of the night, could want to gather his clothes, his phone, his wallet, and stand there in the dark. He sounds like he cares.
And Donghyuck, there’s nothing that makes him want to rip his heart out more than Mark’s sincerity. Mark’s very naive in that way, always taking things at face value, always taking people in for what they are. It’s so unfair, he thinks. It’s so lonely in Mark’s arms when he’s like this, talking all soft and sweet.
“I was going to take the bus.” I was going home. God, his own voice sounds so tight. “But—I don’t know anymore. I think I might have to walk. It’s so late.”
“Stay?”
The most painful of it all is how unaware Mark is of the patterns of Donghyuck’s heart, despite the hand pressed against his wrist, despite the mouth resting under his jaw, right above his pulse point.
Donghyuck should leave, really. He should go and cry on the way to his apartment and force himself to fall asleep in an empty bed. In his own bed.
Mark’s skin is so warm, it feels like a trap.
By now, the plane is gone. The window that was lit yellow just a few minutes before is now hidden by blinds. But Donghyuck is here, and he feels so weak. He’s never dealt well with goodbyes and loneliness.
He slips out of Mark’s embrace. Sets his cup of water on the nearest surface. Mark can clean it up later.
He stays.
Only, when they get back to bed, he settles as far from Mark as the bed allows him to.
In the morning, when he wakes up, their feet are entangled. Somehow it's nowhere near as comforting as it sounds
When the first drop of rain crashes against the bus window, right in front of his eyes, Donghyuck wonders if he’s finally reached the point where bursting into tears in public during rush hour won’t bring him any more shame than he already feels.
He has a phone call awaiting him at home, his mother ready to coax confessions out of him and his father ready to be disappointed.
Donghyuck’s never been a good son, fighting back against adult authority and bringing bad grades home out of laziness, sneaking out to drink and smoke and kiss boys as soon as he gets into high school. Donghyuck wasn’t a good son but how else could he deal with the crushing pressure of being his parents’ child?
No, Donghyuck’s not a good son, and he finds that even living across the country, as far as he was able to manage, doesn’t help him breathe easier, doesn’t alleviate the anger and the bitterness and the loneliness that suffocate him when his mom calls and demands updates on his life, on his grades, on his love life—on his girlfriends.
His phone buzzes in his hands, and he thinks it’s his mom again, making sure for the twelfth time that Donghyuck knows she’s calling him at 8pm and knows he is expected to answer his phone when the time comes, but instead it’s Mark’s name that comes up on the screen.
Heyyyyy are you free tonight? :))
Donghyuck takes his time to think about it. He doesn’t think he’ll be up for anything, not after getting off the phone with his parents, not with how cold and tired he feels these days. At the same time, he can’t think of anything worse than hanging up on his parents and being left all on his own, stuck in the four walls of his apartment, so, so lonely.
It’s Mark’s next text, exactly ten minutes after the first, that snatches the decision out of Donghyuck’s hands.
I want to see you hehe
He types back his answer relying more on muscle memory than sight, vision all blurry from the treacherous tears that finally, finally manage to escape, vision all blurry from blinking hard to get them all out as fast as he can.
meet you at your place at 10?
Donghyuck’s downfall, he’s come to learn, is not one bad decision away. If it was, it’d be long behind him.
It isn’t Mark’s fault.
Donghyuck spends quite some time making it clear to everyone who knows about his embarrassing one-sided love for Mark that Donghyuck did this to himself and Mark has nothing to do with all of this. Donghyuck doesn’t ask for Mark to love him, doesn’t ask for anything. He does his best to kiss and suck and fuck and when Mark’s gone, when he’s out of reach, he allows himself to be miserable.
“My brother’s visiting me tonight, you can stay if you want,” Mark tells him, one afternoon. He’s lazily stretching on his bed, Donghyuck’s cum still drying up on his thighs. For all of his coyness, Mark’s the one who likes it messy and indecent, always reluctant to clean up. “We can, like, hang out.”
Donghyuck almost thinks there’s hopefulness in Mark’s voice, almost, until he catches himself and remembers who they are. What they are. He’s not stupid enough to think Mark wants to introduce him to his family, like he means something to him. He’s not so desperate as to cling onto that thought.
“Sorry, I have to meet up with Jaemin tonight,” he lies, faking his best, most confident smile. He feels a little mean, all of a sudden. He wants it to hurt, or at least attempt to do so. He knows Mark is a bit wary of Jaemin— for a reason that completely flies over his head. A part of him hopes it has to do with the way Jaemin and he communicate—flirty, teasing. Mark doesn’t know Jaemin has been in love with Jeno for the better part of his life, because he doesn’t know him and the rest of Donghyuck’s friends. And Donghyuck, well, he doesn’t think his friends’ love life could be of any interest to Mark. His little plan works, thankfully, sadly. As expected, the name takes a toll on Mark’s joyful expression, even if it’s obvious he tries not to let it show.
“Oh, too bad. I was actually excited for you to meet my brother,” he confesses, brushing through his hair with his right hand. Donghyuck tries not to notice how that’s a gesture Mark does when he’s feeling nervous. He fails.
“Next time, maybe?” Donghyuck offers, hoping from the bottom of his heart that there is never going to be a next time.
“Sure.”
“So, I’m just gonna—” he gestures to the front door, sending an awkward smile to Mark. God, he has to get out of here before his shaking becomes noticeable. He doesn’t mean not to wait for Mark’s response, but that’s what happens anyway. The truth is, Donghyuck is a coward. A weak, hurting coward. He doesn’t have the strength to stay and play pretend and be Mark’s friend when all he wants is lose himself to Mark, to glue himself to his neck and disappear inside the palm of his hands.
He thinks he hears a faint have fun as he exits the apartment, but then again, he might have imagined it. He wouldn’t want Mark to still be sweet, not when Donghyuck himself is being rude and not so subtly running away.
It’s slightly easier to breathe when he reaches outside, although everything feels too bright and it hurts his eyes. He doesn’t have to think twice about the way to his place by now, letting his body lead him from street to street, bus to bus, station to station.
He gets home right as the night sets, right in time to allow the darkness to conceal his sorrow. It’s not a conscious decision to skip dinner—though it sure is a wise decision for the state of his bank account—but the mere idea of food makes his stomach churns. He throws himself on his bed, not bothering to undress, and tries not to wonder what Mark’s brother looks like, if they share the same friendliness, if their voices sound alike.
Ultimately, he knows, there has got to be a way out of—out of this. Whatever this is. It’s not important to know when or how, what is important is to know that there is an end to everything, and it’s only a matter of time.
So he waits.
He bears with his friends’ worry, he bears with the nameless, countless days, bears with the heartaches all because there’s an end, down the line. There has to be.
Beside him, Mark shifts a little, curling up on his side. Donhyuck’s mattress is too small for them to fit comfortably together on it, but it didn’t matter earlier, not when Mark came back from his shower still naked, not when he got under the covers like there was nowhere else he could be, not when the weight on Donghyuck’s chest alleviated, just a little. It doesn’t matter now. It’s just enough to be able to breathe for a while—for the night, at least.
His phone buzzes. A message from Renjun.
me & the lovebirds are heading to that karaoke bar near your place, u up?
The blue light hurts his eyes. He could pretend to be asleep, he could pretend he didn’t read the message, he could turn off his phone and throw it on the pile of dirty clothes across his room. Instead, he texts back.
sorry, can’t :( im with mark rn
The weight pressing down his chest has come back with full force, and it’s settled all over his body, too, on his throat, right above his temples. For a few minutes, there’s no response, and eventually, his screen turns back to black. He thinks Renjunj’s going to leave it at that, and he lets himself feel the humiliation of what he’s sure his friends must think of him, the humiliation of yet another night bailing on them because of Mark, because of his own unability to go out and pretend, because he doesn’t want to face himself seen through his friends’ caring eyes. Renjun knows he could come if he wanted to, knows that Donghyuck is incapable of distancing himself from Mark, and he feels so ashamed of his own dependency—
Blue light fills up to room again.
i hope you can come next time, jen and jaem cant sing for shit
and its not as fun without you
ily
hope you know that
A thing Donghyuck has mastered over the years, long before he even met Mark, is invisible crying. It’s the art of letting go of the tears, no shoulders shaking, no heavy breathing, no sniffles, nothing. The trick is in holding your breath when you feel on the edge of sobbing, the trick is in holding in all the tension.
Ironically, it's the peacefulness on Mark's face, when he glances at him through his tears, that does it, at last.
He gets up, grabs whatever clothes is closest to his bed—which ends up being a pair of dirty sweatpants and the biggest hoodie he owns—and gets dressed as silently as possible.
There’s a single sentence replaying over and over in his head—he knows the passcode anyway.
There’s a bit of hesitation in the way he grabs the doorknob, a bit of guilt already settling down at the pit of his stomach. It’s unusual for Mark to sleep over, even more unusual of Donghyuck to just—leave. Mark ‘s probably going to be disappointed in him. Maybe hurt, too. He’s definetly going to think that Donghyuck is an asshole. At least for a while.
Deep down, Donghyuck hopes that’ll be enough to put him off. Then, it’ll finally be over.
He closes the door.
The nights are getting warmer and, at last, it’s the feeling of his own sweat trickling down his armpits that pulls Donghyuck out of his trance. When was the last time he’d taken a shower? He can’t remember. He tries not to think about how he let Mark see him in this state. He feels disgusting.
It takes less than five seconds for him to dial up Renjun’s number, and five more seconds for Renjun to pick up.
“Hello? Hyuck? Are you alright?”
He sounds a bit alarmed, and the guilt inside Donghyuck is a monster growing bigger and bigger.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I can be there in ten, meet you in front of the place?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. With the softest voice—and Donghyuck hates that that’s the voice his friends use on him, hates that he’s stooped so low that his friends are this obvious in their fear to hurt him—Renjun asks:
“What about Mark?”
“He’s sleeping. He—” He stops to clear his voice, afraid that otherwise it will break. It’s hard to get the words out. “He knows the passcode anyway.”
As if that answers Renjun’s question. His friend, kind enough, lets it go.
As soon as he arrives, Renjun hugs him tight enough that he struggles to breathe. When he eventually lets go, his friend’s smile is so big it must hurt and his eyes look a bit glassy. It could be the alcohol, at least that’s what Donghyuck thinks it is, until Renjun pulls him back in again, this time with much less force, and whispers against his hair, breathtakingly tender.
“I’m so proud of you. I’m so happy you’re here.”
It’s been a while since he’s felt arms around him that weren’t Mark’s, and of course it feels different, but the warmth is the same.
It should be easy, letting go of Mark. Of the little they share together, stolen hours in the dark.
After all, they don’t owe anything to one another. Whatever their relationship is, it never got to the point where they talked. It never got further than fucking and sharing a bed, as crude as it is, and Donghyuck cannot remember a single time he saw Mark and didn’t end up with cum on his hands, lips, stomach, ass—his own or Mark’s.
All these nights and they wouldn’t do a single thing, not even talk, they would just share body heat until one of them got horny, one of them got sleepy, one off them had to go.
It should be easy, yet Donghyuck asks Renjun to reset all of his social media passwords right before he deletes the apps.
It should be so fucking easy, yet every time Mark rings him up, asks to see him, unaware of Donghyuck’s resolution, he bites the edges of his nails so hard it bleeds everywhere and the scabs never heal, swollen and painful like Donghyuck needs them to be. To ground him down.
Eventually, after weeks of elusive answers and flimsy excuses, Mark stops trying. Just like Donghyuck doesn't tell why, Mark doesn’t ask.
Just like that, they’re done.
The first week that goes by without a single text from Mark, when the seven-day mark is reached, Donghyuck watches four movies back-to-back in one night. Out of the four of them, he doesn’t remember a single one. He has vague recollection of scenes where buildings caught fire, where children had to be saved, where murderers were arrested. He thinks he might have skipped all the romantic scenes, if the movie had any.
That same night, there’s a big storm outside, and the atmosphere of his apartment is suffocating. One second, he’s drenched in sweat from the heat, and the next he’s shivering head to toe, contemplating taking out his winter blanket again.
When he falls asleep, he dreams that he chases Mark down all around the city, only to realize, once they reach Mark’s apartment, that he’s completely naked. Mark locks him out.
It feels like a burnout.
There’s so much going on in Donghyuck’s life, so many problems he doesn’t want to think about, so many expectations to meet and so many people to please, yet his mind keeps going back to Mark, Mark sleeping next to him, Mark picking him up and spinning him around, Mark fucking into him, Mark laughing into his skin, Mark coming and Mark leaving and his voice and his smell and the roughness of his hands.
Donghyuck is tired. It’s the kind of bone tired caused by love, and Donghyuck knows that’s not how it’s supposed to be but he doesn’t know what to do because it’s not like he can just stop loving. It came to the point where it hurt just as much to look at Mark as not to look at him, and it used to be enough, settling for an embrace, shutting his eyes closed and focusing on the warmth emitting from Mark’s skin, focusing on the smell of vulnerability and intimacy. It used to be enough, trying to stop thinking about how it should be different.
Maybe different is overrated. Donghyuck cries himself to sleep most nights, but he bears with it if it means remembering Mark’s hands and smell, if it means keeping their story close to his heart.
It takes two years and a few failed—but mostly sweet—relationships for Donghyuck to stop being scared of running into Mark every time he sees their mutual friends, every time he happens to be near his apartment, every time he steps foot outside on a busy, sunny day.
In those two years he realizes he knows close to nothing about where Mark usually hangs out, what places he likes, the movie theater he favors, which sushi place he’s most likely to order from. It’s a heartbreaking realization to have, only overshadowed by his feeling of being constantly on guard, afraid of catching sight Mark at every street corner.
Because Donghyuck’s life is far from being a perfect fairy tale, because Donghyuck’s guardian angel must love making slacking off his job, Donghyuck sees Mark twice in those two years anyway. Both times, he flees, and doesn’t let himself think about whether or not Mark saw him. Both times, he ends up crying so hard he falls asleep with a headache.
Down the years, when the tears have stopped and Mark’s name has become as harmless as it can be, Jaemin asks him.
“Why did you even like Mark anyway?”
The question is unexpected, and comes in the middle of Donghyuck recounting his latest bad dates and lamenting about being unlucky in his taste of men—which leads him to list every single guy he’s ever had a thing with and finding flaws about every one of them. It’s unexpected, because even though Donghyuck has stopped avoiding saying Mark’s name at all cost, even though it’s been years since Mark, his friends have never asked.
The question leaves him speechless, at first, and an awkward silence falls on their table.
Jaemin must sense he’s done something wrong—Renjun and Jeno aren’t exactly subtle with the stern looks they send his way—because he adds, defensively, “After your break up you always said you didn’t even know him.”
Donghyuck takes advantage of the chaos Jaemin’s question ensues, laughing at the way Renjun and Jeno come flying to defend his honor and chastise the poor man for asking such insensitive questions oh my god Jaem how can you be so dense to think about it privately.
He isn’t sure to know the answer himself.
It was love, of that he is sure. He’s been with men before and after Mark and he’s been in relationship where he was in love with his boyfriend and relationship where he wasn’t and yet nothing can compare to what he felt when he was with Mark.
What made him fall in love with a man he knew so little of?
Partly, he blames the environment in which his feelings for Mark bloomed. During the time they slept together, Donghyuck was at the lowest point of his college life, unsure of the future he wanted to pursue and torn between wanting to please his family and wanting to chose his own path. He was also very insecure, and ready to crawl down on his knees to get the slightest of affection. Retrospectively, his love for Mark seems to have emerged as a necessity for Donghyuck, a need to form a connection to someone and hold on to it, to believe that love was possible and even tangible. A need to escape his own life through someone else.
It is not a coincidence that Donghyuck only found the strength to put an end to his relationship with Mark at the same time he found the courage to go against his parents’ will and switch majors.
That being said, alhough Donghyuck’s feelings found a favorable environment to develop and thrive, it would be a bad-faithed lie to reduce them to a simple causal relationship.
It was love, Donghyuck knows that, is so sure of it, and were it to happen now, meeting Mark and spending time with him and sleeping with him, he knows he would fall just as hard. Despite the emotional maturity that came with the added years of experience. Despite the much better self-esteem he’s acquired over the years. Despite his degree and his job and his stable life and stable friend group and good relationship with his parents.
The truth is, Donghyuck doesn’t trust himself not to fall for Mark. Not ever, not in this lifetime.
And at last he’s found a way to be fine with letting that love go to waste.
It would be a lie to say that Donghyuck doesn’t think about Mark anymore. It’s what he tells his friends anyway, easy smiles and a plethora of jokes to prove that he’s over it.
Because he is over it. But he doesn’t think Renjun would agree with that statement if he knew that Donghyuck still thinks of Mark every time he eats a pepperoni pizza—Mark’s favorite, every time he hears about Canada on the news, the list goes on. To be fair, those are quite regular occurrences. That’s precisely why he keeps these thoughts to himself.
It’s a familiar feeling, to keep Mark in his thoughts as a secret. Donghyuck considers himself lucky that, with time, the feeling has tuned from bitter to—mostly—sweet.