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Johnny remembers the first time he ever met Yuta. He remembers the blue wallpaper with the clouds, and he remembers standing against the mirror, his back pressed into it when this scrawny boy was brought into the room, and he introduced himself as Nakamoto Yuta.
He remembers the stilted conversations as Yuta spent hours and hours in the practice room with them, hours and hours spent learning Korean and Johnny taking the time to talk him through it.
He’s known Yuta going on nine years now—almost a decade if he rounds it up. He knows what Yuta looks like when he’s angry, when he’s heartbroken and puffy from marathoning Rurouni Kenshin in its entirety for the third time around, when he’s in his element at dance practice.
And Johnny knows Mark, too. He watched Mark shoot up as he got older, the way his skin started losing all the baby fat to give way to sharp cheekbones and pointy elbows and strong thighs. He watched Mark grow up and change from the little puppy he was when he first moved to Seoul from Vancouver to the magnetic force, four-times debuted idol that he is now.
He knows them because Johnny likes to think that he pays attention to his members pretty well, and he likes to think that he knows himself pretty well.
So understandably, Johnny doesn’t expect to have to deal with a crisis in the middle of the busiest fucking year they’ve ever had—busier than the hell that was 2020–but that’s what he has on his hands when he sees Mark nuzzle his nose into Yuta’s hair in the practice room and a grenade is dropped in Johnny’s chest.
It’s insidious, too, how it happens, how it registers in his head. He’s seen Mark and Yuta be like this before, more times than he can count, but it’s the way Mark’s gaze lingers on Yuta’s lips that has him reeling, that has his hands clamming up where they’re gripping around his phone. He did notice them spending more and more time together, but it’s only now that it’s like the fates have decided to take Johnny by the jaw and force him to look.
When did that start? When did Yuta and Mark start getting this close? Normally Mark would be pulling away from Yuta’s open affection, even without the cameras rolling, so what the fuck is going on here? And why is it leaving Johnny so unsettled?
Yuta’s expression looks like he’s holding a secret and a promise before standing up and brushing his sweats with his hands. It’s knowing and heated and Johnny feels a stone come loose inside of him.
He needs to pull himself together. They’re learning the choreography for Elevate today and he’s leading the dance break with Taeyong and Mark flanking him, but as he’s called into position and runs through the steps, he ends up fixing his eyes on Mark’s reflection, at how Mark dances, his face focused and pinched in concentration, and marvels at how he’d never realized it until today, until right fucking now, just how handsome Mark actually is, especially when he’s in his element, and how Yuta responds to that, how the way Yuta moves is more fluid, more carefree, and more deliberate.
Practice grants Johnny more breathing room for the next couple of hours. He decisively ignores the way his face heats up when Mark’s shirt rides up and shows the trail of hair leading into his black shorts. He cannot explain why seeing Yuta leer at Mark has him frowning at their reflections.
-
Johnny is no stranger to crushes. He’s no stranger to being attracted to hot people, too. He’s friends with Matthew and Chanyeol, he’s literally a member of what’s arguably the most handsome boy group at present, and he’s a flaming bisexual. It really shouldn’t be so surprising to him that seemingly overnight, he cannot stop thinking about Yuta and Mark.
If he’s really honest with himself, seeing Yuta in a new light isn’t so much a matter of it being new, but more like he’s allowing himself to remember the old attractions he’d pushed down and locked away when all he allowed himself to focus on was debut, but now that they’re here, six years since then, it’s like the universe decided to give him a new set of eyes and all he can keep doing is looking and realizing that Yuta is gorgeously, painfully attractive, and so is Mark Lee.
Crushes are strange, especially crushes on friends that you’ve known essentially all your life. This is what Johnny’s thinking about, anyway, when he trails behind Taeyong and Yuta while Mark lags behind them, talking animatedly with Donghyuck about something that Johnny can’t exactly catch while they’re walking through Hongdae, taking advantage of the day off before they get back to grueling practices tomorrow.
It’s like suddenly he’s become hyper-aware of everything about them—the way Mark’s voice pitches up when he’s excited about something, the way it’s deeper when he talks to Johnny in English, the way Mark’s leg shakes when he’s nervous and seated. Johnny’s eyes linger over Yuta’s jawline, his nose, the curve of his left ear. He notices the way young Yuta looks when he’s dozing off in the van, the way Mark’s eyes are asymmetrical, and gorgeous when Mark turns his attention on Johnny.
He has no way to substantiate his theory that Yuta and Mark are fucking, or at least on the way to it, except by going with his gut instinct.
There is, of course, the option to actually fucking grow a spine and ask them outright, but Johnny’s too much of a coward to do that right now, especially when he’s still grappling with the fact that he’s seeing them in a different light, and it’s not only wreaking havoc on his emotions, but on his body, too.
Yuta stepped into the van this morning with his long black hair tied up in a half-ponytail and Mark followed right behind him in his ripped jeans and slow acid shirt and Johnny had to look away because his first unbidden, un-caffeinated, and fully insane thought of the day was “God I want to fuck you both.”
“Oppa, didn’t you say you wanted to check this store out?” Mark calls out, standing next to a store with a sign that just says “STREET” in big neon lettering, and Yuta turns around mid-step to glance back at Mark before tugging on Taeyong’s jacket sleeve to pull him into it. He schools his face into impassivity at Mark’s open use of the nickname. It doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t. He swears.
Johnny waits for the rest of them to enter the shop before following in, so he doesn’t expect to bump into Yuta’s back, or lose his footing, but Yuta’s quick to steady him, hands out to grip Johnny by the shoulders and get him upright again.
“You okay?” Yuta asks, eyebrow quirking up, and Johnny’s made momentarily breathless from the warmth, the sincere concern.
“Y-yeah,” Johnny says, clearing his throat.
It honestly happens like those shitty k-drama scenes, slowly and with purpose, his breath being carried away, before Yuta’s eyes are crinkling up in mirth and he’s patting Johnny gently on the shoulder with a, “Watch yourself, Johnny-ah,” and walking away.
Johnny tells himself that the way his heart is racing is more from the adrenaline of not falling, and not at all to with Yuta catching him in his arms.
-
Johnny does his best to think nothing of it. It’s all a fluke. Just a momentary lapse of emotion, he figures. He’s had probably fourteen proper hours of sleep over the last four days, and his quads are killing him from all the squatting their choreography has. He’s fine. Mark and Yuta quite possibly fucking does not bother him one bit. It’s normal to think they’re hot. It’s normal to maybe once in a while get off to thinking about his members going at it. Really.
God, his skin prickles at that last thought, at the shameful memory of his furiously jacking it this morning after waking up to a half-hazy dream of watching Yuta and Mark kissing.
He needs to pull himself together. His dick and his heart and his mind keep warring with each other and it’s starting to get really overwhelming. Johnny needs a breather, really.
But fuck, when Mark bounds over to sit next to him on the sofa after yet another long day of running through the choreography, Johnny feels himself kind of come alive.
“Dude, I’m so excited for this comeback,” Mark says, and he’s got way more energy than Johnny’s willing to expend at the moment, but Johnny’s missed having Mark next to him, missed having Mark’s attention.
Johnny stifles a yawn, and scratches at the line of hair that trails down into his sweats. “I am, too, but I also really just wanna sleep for like a week, you know?”
Mark nudges him in the arm before replying. “Yeah, well, Mr. Solo Photoshoot for Vogue Korea, that’s what the price of fame is.”
Johnny groans because he forgot that on top of their practices this week, he also does, in fact, have a solo shoot coming up.
“I don’t know how you did it,” Johnny says, remembering the way he and Taeyong were put through the wringer last year, schedules fitted in between 127, SuperM, and NCT 2020 preparations.
“You helped,” Mark says simply, shrugging and scrolling aimlessly at his phone. “You always made sure people left me alone enough so I could sleep, remember?”
And Johnny’s caught off-guard at the reminder because he forgot that, too. He forgot how he made a conscious effort last year to be present for Mark, how hell-bent he was on making sure that Mark wasn’t jostled too much while he napped in between schedules, and making sure he was getting enough to eat.
“Yuta too,” Mark adds, and Johnny’s mood sours almost instantly, but he bites down on his tongue and chooses his response carefully.
“Yeah, well,” Johnny says. “We had to take care of ninety-five line, you know?” He adds, throwing in that old joke about Mark having joined their ranks.
Mark lights up, and laughs, even if it isn’t funny. “Yo, for real, I love that!”
Johnny takes what he can get. He has Mark’s attention for now. He holds on to it as long as he can.
-
Johnny is lying spread-eagled on Ten’s bed, Leon napping on his chest, when he decides to bring it up, but he doesn’t quite know how to phrase his hypothesis that he thinks Mark and Yuta are fucking.
“I think Mark and Yuta are fucking,” Johnny says smartly, the rumble of his voice making Leon open one bleary eye until he decides that Johnny isn’t worth listening to, and goes back to sleep.
Ten looks up from his iPad, his pen poised over the screen. “Excuse me?”
Johnny looks away shiftily. “You ever notice how close Mark and Yuta are?”
“Bro, anyone with eyes has noticed.”
“You think there’s something there?”
Ten’s always been perceptive, much more than people give him credit for. Besides Johnny and Yuta, Ten’s probably the only other member that knows all the group’s secrets.
“I think there’s been something there for a while, though I think it’s only recently that they’ve like, acted on it, you know?” Ten replies. He narrows his eyes, sets his tablet aside, and climbs into bed with Johnny, movements fluid, so much like his two pets. Louis hops onto Ten’s lap almost immediately, looking at Johnny like he too has some sage advice to offer. “What’s going on? Why are you asking?”
Johnny sighs, and closes his eyes.
The last couple of days have been frustrating. Jealousy is not an unfamiliar emotion to him. He’s felt it over and over in varying degrees depending on the situation, but he’s never felt jealousy like this: the kind that has his gut in knots whenever he sees Mark send Yuta a smile, or hold on to him while he’s laughing. It’s embarrassing to feel so strongly, to want that turned to him instead, and he feels like a stupid fucking teenager constantly on the cusp of lashing out.
“I—“
Johnny hesitates because he can’t even phrase it properly to himself. He watches Yuta and Mark’s affection and thinks about how much he wants in on that. It sounds insane. It sounds selfish.
Ten’s eyebrow is still raised, and he’s got that single-minded determination in his eye that tells Johnny he’s fucked and cornered and he’s going to have to fess up right the fuck now if he wants to get Ten off his case.
It certainly doesn’t help one bit that Ten and Mark are so close, though Johnny knows that his friendship with Ten is iron-clad. None of this leaves the room.
“I’m asking because I feel like… I don’t know, Ten. It’s like I’m looking inside a mall window with my face pressed against the glass,” Johnny replies, staring up at the muted yellow lighting on the ceiling, absolutely refusing to look Ten in the eye.
Ten, of course, cuts through his bullshit and leans over Johnny, comical in how his features are upside down.
“What are you really trying to say?”
Johnny sighs.
“I—I’ve noticed that I think I might be jealous.”
“Of whom? Of Yuta? Or of Mark?”
Of them both, he wants to say.
“I don’t know,” Johnny says quietly. He closes his eyes. He can’t have this conversation with Ten’s laser focus on him like this, and it’s bad enough that he’s saying this out loud at all. “I look at them and it’s like… I think I want what they have. And like, you know, liking Yuta, I can get. Yuta and I have been tight ever since. My same-aged friend and all that. But Mark—it doesn’t make sense.”
“Mark’s grown so much,” Ten says, instead of the ribbing Johnny expected. “I don’t think anyone can blame you for feeling this way.” His voice sounds closer, and then Johnny feels fingers running through his hair gently. Ten’s always known how to talk him down, how to calm him. It’s a little embarrassing that it’s taken him this long to come to Ten with his problem when Ten always extends that courtesy to him when he’s got something on his mind.
“It’s Mark though,” Johnny sighs. “It’s… I’m his—his hyung. His big bro. Like, that’s who I am to him.”
“It’s what you were expected to be to him,” Ten replies, and Johnny opens his eyes at this. “It’s what you expected yourself to be for him, and you fit that role really well, bro, but that doesn’t mean these roles are like, iron-clad, you know? Mark’s changed so much from the kid he used to be. He grew up. We all have.” Ten presses his thumb over Johnny’s furrowed brow. “What do you want to happen with them?”
“Nothing,” Johnny responds, flopping himself back against Ten’s headboard, stretching his legs out over the grey comforter. “I don’t want anything to happen with them, especially if they're already involved with each other.”
“So what’s your plan then?” Ten asks, his voice skeptical.
“My plan is to keep on being professional, to keep being their friend, and pretending like there is absolutely nothing wrong and if there really is something between them and they tell me, then I will—”
“Bite the inside of your cheek and be a martyr, got it,” Ten says, rolling his eyes, nudging Johnny to make more space so he can lean against the headboard, too.
“What am I supposed to do?” Johnny asks, his gut churning helplessly. “I’m not gonna try and come between them.”
“I know baby,” Ten says, taking his hand and playing with his fingers. “I know.”
-
Johnny forgot what it was like to feel attraction that was all-consuming. He thought that he already knew how to get through it, get around it in this industry, but all at once, at the wonderful, ripe old age of twenty-six, Johnny realizes that there is no way to prepare for it when it hits, and it’s worse when the attraction feels like something more than just base want, something more than secret lustful longing.
He didn’t realize how much time he actually used to spend with both Yuta and Mark until he started feeling their absence, and it frustrates him beyond belief that the only way he can describe to himself what he’s been feeling for the last two and a half weeks is this sort of childish sulky petulance at being left out, left to look at Yuta and Mark from the outside in. It isn’t even that much of a marked change, but now that Johnny’s seen them, he can no longer unsee them.
Mark walks around the practice room with his knobby knees out, his shorts riding up whenever he squats down on the floor, and Johnny tracks how Yuta’s eyes trace over them, and then promptly has to close his eyes against the want.
Johnny doesn’t exactly deal with it very well, which pisses him off, and makes his mood sour even more. It’s a vicious, pathetic cycle of him seeing Mark and Yuta together, having Mark message him some inane meme or telling a dumb joke that Johnny has less and less of a mood for, and then Johnny pulling away instead because he cannot get his head out of his fucking ass.
He cuts small talk off by taking to having his over-ear headphones on all the time now when they’re being shuttled from one venue to the next, making excuses like he’s too tired or has a headache or something to avoid spending too much time with Mark and Yuta. He figures, if they’re going to be spending time away from him together, there isn’t much reason to make himself available.
He pretends to not see the way Mark’s smile diminishes a little bit every time he has to shoot him down, but it really is for the best.
Johnny has concluded that his emotions depend on how much time he spends around them, how much time he spends seeing Mark and Yuta together, and he figures that the best solution, clearly the only one and most practical, is to simply… not spend time with them.
So he ups his time spent at the gym, and he throws himself into focusing only on the comeback. He walks in through the doors of the recording studio and the practice rooms and the gym and leaves his emotions there. They wait, of course, like a spectre, rushing back in when he steps out and they’re driven back to the dorms, but it’s a system that works for him, and it’s a system he decides to stick to, because he’ll take that over the bitter regret of not coming to terms with himself and his feelings for them sooner.
Because the real kicker is that it’s been there all along.
Mark has always been his favorite, even if Johnny wasn’t fully aware of it. Mark has always been the one Johnny would call in to do an episode of JCC with, because he and Mark get along so well, even if most of it is Johnny teasing him, and Mark laughing fully-bellied and unabashed.
Mark was the one he reached out to when the company told Johnny he could put together a DJ set, to give the fans something to enjoy on a summer afternoon. When he told Mark about it, Mark was the one whose eyes sparkled and who was the giddiest over it, throwing in song suggestions and spending hours in Johnny and Haechan’s room, sprawled over Johnny’s bed while Johnny nervously tried to put together a setlist he hoped the fans would enjoy.
Yuta is the person Johnny feels calmest with, content to share the tranquil comfort of each other’s company but close enough, time-tested enough to be able to rib each other just short of crossing the line when they’d joke about inane things. Yuta always used to just be one call away, but now Johnny feels like he isn’t allowed to overstep, not when he sees Yuta and Mark dozing off curled into each other in the van heading home, or glued to each other when they’re in the studio.
But Johnny is doing his best. He really is. He just wants their comeback date to arrive so that he’ll be completely unable to think of anything but the muscle strain and the schedules and the interviews and the variety shows. He wants to be able to throw himself into laughing for the cameras and not worry so much about how his eyes linger on Mark’s lips or Yuta’s left ear or the way Mark’s smile softens when Yuta bounds over to him to wrap him in a back hug.
Yuta still jokes around with him sometimes, and Johnny still responds accordingly, laughing along enough that it at least doesn’t feel so out of character for him, even if Johnny knows just how much he’s withdrawn emotionally from one of his closest friends lately.
And the thing is it seems to go swimmingly well until one evening, six days away from their comeback, there’s a knock on his door while Johnny’s hunched over at the desk, backing his phone up and trying to make sure that he doesn’t lose any of the thousands of photos and videos he’s accumulated in his gallery.
“Come in,” he says. He has the room to himself right now because Haechan’s spending the night at Chenle’s place, but he wasn’t expecting anyone.
And he certainly wasn’t expecting Yuta to come in.
“Yo,” Yuta says from the door when Johnny spins his chair around to face him, and Johnny’s gut clenches, his stomach dropping out from under him. Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Hey,” Johnny says, trying for nonchalant. He hopes his face looks neutral, hopes it doesn’t give away how nervous he feels all of a sudden, which fucking sucks, because he and Yuta have always been cool with each other.
He always cared about Yuta deeply, always enjoyed his quiet company, enjoyed how their friendship was more slowed down and easygoing than his relationships with everyone else. Johnny finds that he’s missed Yuta more than he realized, and hates himself even more for it.
“Am I catching you at a bad time? Like, are you busy right now?” Yuta says, gesturing to the screen behind Johnny. His head is haloed by the light behind his newly shorn-down, neon green hair. He looks a little like their light stick. It suits him, to no one’s surprise.
“No—no, it’s okay, come in,” Johnny says, willing his voice to remain steady. “What’s up?”
Yuta’s dressed in black shorts and a red shirt. It’s only when he comes closer and takes a seat at the foot of Johnny’s bed that Johnny realizes it’s Mark’s Vancouver one. Johnny swallows down the ache of how good he looks dressed down like this.
“Actually, I’m here to ask you that,” Yuta says, almost like he’s talking about the weather. “You’ve been avoiding me. And—well, you’ve been avoiding Mark, mostly, which is honestly the bigger reason for me being here, asking you this. What’s going on?”
Johnny stays stock still in his seat, his hands clammy and his heart racing. He does his best to keep his face impassive, tries to school it the way he does for the cameras when they’re being followed around by prying fans. He hates himself for defaulting to this, too, in front of Yuta, no less. Yuta, who has always been honest with him. Yuta, who has always been willing to wear his heart on his sleeve for Johnny to see.
“I—I don’t—”
“You’re gonna sit there and lie to me, Youngho?” Yuta asks softly, and there’s a hard look in Yuta’s eyes that Johnny doesn’t expect. There’s a hurt that registers there, and it’s plain to see on Yuta’s handsome face. Johnny takes a breath.
“What’s going on with you and Mark?” Johnny asks instead, looking down at his lap, at his fingers that he’s wrung together in his nervousness.
“We’re… something,” Yuta replies. “We’re not sure what it is yet, but it’s something and it’s something that makes us happy. I love him deeply. Why are you avoiding my question?”
Johnny looks up at this, and he sees the annoyance there now. Yuta is being direct with him and Johnny is hedging.
“So you—you’re together. You and Mark are—you love him,” Johnny says, by way of an answer. The gulp he takes is audible. “That’s good.”
“That’s good?” Yuta frowns. “Johnny-ah, do you have a problem with us being together?”
There’s a hint of defensiveness and a hint of something more accusatory in Yuta’s voice, and Johnny hates it because the short answer is yes, but not for the reasons that Yuta thinks. “I–No, no, I don’t! I’m happy for you.”
Yuta tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowed, mouth turned down at the corners. “You’re bisexual, too, so I know this isn’t about us being both men.” He blinks twice, and then asks, “Do you like Mark?”
Yes, and you, too, Johnny wants to say. “Yes,” is all he says instead.
Johnny isn’t sure what terrifies him the most: the lack of surprise on Yuta’s face when he says it, or the silence that follows.
“So we’re both in love with him,” is what Yuta says, finally, after a few moments of letting Johnny’s words hang suspended in the air before falling to the ground between them.
“I—in love seems pretty—I like him, yes,” Johnny replies, but something—a claw, a vice grip—pulls him up sharply, looking directly into Yuta’s eyes, making him raise his hands like he’s placating a startled animal, though he isn’t sure whether that’s himself or Yuta, here.“But—but I don’t want to come between you two! I don’t. Please—please don’t tell him. I know this is a lot to carry and—just. Please don’t tell him. I don’t want to fuck anything up between you guys and I’ll be alright, Yuta. I will be. I’m happy for you. I swear.”
Yuta still has a small frown between his eyebrows, and Johnny wishes that he could read Yuta better, the way he used to be able to. It just goes to show how far up his own ass he’s been lately that he can’t guess, and worse, that he’s afraid of what’s going through Yuta’s head. Yuta remains stock still, his elbows on his knees while he studies the floor.
“Yuta?” Johnny hazards, his heart hammering in his chest. Johnny will take anything over his silence.
“You’ve been avoiding the both of us, Johnny-ah,” Yuta says quietly. “He’s been beating himself up over it, trying to figure out what he did wrong, and I kept telling him to ask because it was bothering him so much, and I—I’ve been making excuses for you, too, to buy you some time. But I can’t keep doing that anymore.”
Johnny’s filled with a surge of love and affection that he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in a while because he’s been so caught up in his own bullshit and his stupid jealousy to realize—to remember—why Yuta is so important to him.
Johnny once said to Yuta, “When you hurt, I hurt,” when they had to film that heavy ‘To You’ series last year. He didn’t realize that it went both ways.
“Thank you,” Johnny rasps out, his voice hoarse from the emotion that’s taken a hold of his throat, his lungs. “You didn’t have to. I… I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Yuta laughs. It’s small and nothing is funny, but it’s enough to make Johnny look up at him. “For being a giant dick and ignoring us for the last month? For being in love with the same man?”
“All of it,” Johnny replies quickly. “I don’t know what to do, Yuta, but I’ll fix this. I’ll talk to him, I just—please don’t tell him. About me. About what I said.”
Yuta looks concerned, but nods, and squeezes his shoulder once more before he rises to his feet and makes his exit.
“I don’t know what to do, either. Mark means more to me than I ever thought he would.” Yuta says, his hand on the door frame, turning to Johnny. “But so do you. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do in this situation.”
“We’ll figure it out, Yuta,” Johnny says, and Yuta nods quietly, the frown finally leaving him.
“Good night, Johnny-ah,” Yuta says, and closes the door behind him.
Johnny falls back in his seat, paralyzed, completely lost at sea.
-
Johnny has no idea what Yuta said to Mark, but he doubts that Mark even knows that Yuta came to him. This, however, does nothing to quell his paranoia.
At practice, he sees Mark casting more furtive glances at him in the mirror, and it scares Johnny as much as it pisses him off. His emotions have been a mess even if he’s been mostly keeping it together outwardly. He still jokes around with Haechan and he still ribs Doyoung at practice where Doyoung runs lines for his next drama in between dancing.
Johnny just wants the space to get over this. It’s all he needs. If he focuses on the things that piss him off about Mark and Yuta, the easier it will be. He’ll take the annoyance over the fluttery longing, and the ugly resentment whenever he sees the two of them laughing together in the corner of the room.
But clearly Johnny’s been going about it wrong because when practice finishes up for the day and he makes the mistake of lagging behind to pack his gym bag up since he’s meant to be dropped off at the gym while everyone else heads home, he doesn’t realize that it’s just him and Mark left in the practice room until it’s too late and he sees Mark leaning against the closed door, hands shoved the pockets of his grey sweats, frown on his face.
Johnny feels his throat close up, commiserating the fact that he has, once again, allowed himself to be caught unawares and backed into a corner.
Johnny has no idea what Yuta said to Mark. He wishes he did.
“Uh, hey?” Johnny tries, hoisting the bag onto his shoulder.
“Hey,” Mark says, defaulting to English like he always does when it’s just the two of them.
“What’s uh—you need something?” Johnny says, clearing his throat like it will dislodge the fear that’s stuck itself to his vocal cords like a bad infection.
Mark frowns, and then looks down at his feet. “Dude, like, did I do something wrong? Are you pissed at me and Yuta? Or like,” he fidgets. Mark has always been the braver one between them. Johnny’s chest feels like it’s being wrung from the inside. “Like from—it’s been a while, man. I told Yuta about it and he just kept telling me that like, you’ve just been busy but the vibes are off, man. What’s going on? You’ve been so distant lately.”
So Yuta didn’t say anything. Johnny lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
He can’t tell Mark. He can’t tell Mark and fuck things up between them, and between him and Yuta, and he can’t think of an explanation that will suffice, either. His mind races, as does his heart, and he can feel the sense of panic rise inside of him, feels it crawl up sticky and sinister up his spine before his fucking mouth is opening, and he’s saying, “Oh? I didn’t notice.”
Johnny watches Mark’s expression crack in increments, the pain evident there before it crumples. “Bullshit, dude.”
And God, that shouldn’t make him angry, and it also shouldn’t come as a relief, but Johnny sees his out, and digs his heels in. He needs Mark off his trail. He needs to not screw things up between him and Yuta. It's bad enough that Yuta knows a portion of the truth. He needs to get over this thing, and if Mark hates him, then it’ll be easier. He won’t have to deal with Mark’s laughter and Mark’s head on his shoulder and Mark’s fingers tracing over his tattoos, so Johnny steels himself and uses the smile he uses on everyone else when he’s being cordial for the cameras.
“Mark, I don’t know what to tell you, dude,” he says with a shrug, and keeps talking even if he feels horrible, horrible, horrible. “I didn’t think I was being distant, and you didn’t do anything wrong. We’re all swamped with this comeback.”
Mark’s entire body is a line of tension, hardened and taut with an anger Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever seen directed at himself, and he feels the shame crawl all over his skin.
“This is low, even for you,” Mark says quietly. “It’s one thing to avoid me and shit, but for you to lie and make it sound like it’s all in my head is low even for you. Fuck you, Johnny.”
The resounding slam of the door rings in Johnny’s ears for hours after Mark walks out.
-
The comeback is a wild success, which floors them consistently after nine consecutive music show wins and a triple-million seller news article. The three and a half weeks of promotions are filled with variety show filming, practice, makeup, back to back to back schedules that give them barely any time to sleep, and gives Johnny barely any time to dwell on the fact that he has all but fucked shit up with Mark, who has decided to stop talking to him altogether.
Johnny hoped that it would work, that it would allow him to see Mark in a way that was more manageable, but it backfires so spectacularly that in the few moments he’s allowed to have for himself, he has nothing else to do but curl in on himself and wallow in misery. He thought that if he could at least work on getting over one of them, it would be easier, but nothing about this makes sense to him. The days blur by punctuated with regret.
It’s worse because he sees the looks Yuta shoots at him, and they’re laced with concern and pity, and Johnny wishes he could lash out at Yuta, too, but this isn’t Yuta’s fault. Johnny wishes that he could be cool, that he could just be fucking chill about all of this and be genuinely happy for his two closest friends finding happiness with each other, but the more time he spends away from the both of them, the more time he has to take note of everything it is that he loves—present tense—about them.
Johnny has never felt this unmoored and unhinged in his life, and even if outwardly they’re enjoying success together as a subunit, he feels himself crumbling, and his inner turmoil is starting to erode at him from the inside.
So of course that’s when they’re made to do another Glamour friendship test.
And of course, he gets paired up with Mark.
The match-ups are sorted at random, and picked from a hat with the cameras rolling. Johnny watches Mark’s face change in the smallest increments, and Johnny knows that it’s his name Mark has picked even before he says it.
“Johnny-hyung,” Mark says, and the smile he plasters on his face looks painful even by Johnny’s standards. He feels his insides turn to fucking ash, but the cameras are still recording, and Johnny needs to keep it together. He laughs, bright and fake, and hopes they can get through this with minimal collateral damage.
Yuta and Jaehyun, Taeyong and Taeil, Jungwoo, Doyoung and Haechan are all matched up after them, and then they cut. They’re given their individual questions to think about. What is it like being Mark’s friend? And How do you see your friendship with Mark in ten years?
Johnny has never really liked these sorts of interviews. It feels too much like he’s baring his soul, like it leaves no barrier between Johnny the idol and Johnny the individual, but it feels especially raw to have to do this for Mark, right now, because how is he supposed to be honest without giving too much away? How is he supposed to tell the world how he sees him and Mark in ten years when he’s fucked up his friendship with Mark to the point where Mark hasn’t spoken directly to him outside of mandatory schedules for nearly a month now?
He needs to get out of here. He needs a breather. He tells the manager and Taeyong as much, and Taeyong just nods, understanding in his eyes even if Johnny’s been too chicken shit to talk to Taeyong about all of this. He grabs his Juul and the folder with questions, and makes his way to the rooftop deck of the building.
It’s a fine day, the sun beaming down and bathing the deck in a golden haze while a cool breeze carries off Johnny’s cherry-flavored smoke. He’s doing his best to keep his mind clear so that his heart can rest despite the nicotine coursing through him, but he hears the loud clang of the metal door sound behind him, and he knows he isn’t alone.
“You okay?”
Yuta’s voice cutting through the silence is not surprising, but the hand on the curve of Johnny’s hunched over back is.
Johnny straightens himself, glancing at the profile of his best friend. Yuta is so, so handsome, he’s almost painful to look at.
“Not really, no,” Johnny says. His chest aches so much, and Yuta’s kindness only makes him hurt more. He doesn’t deserve the tenderness Yuta keeps displaying to him.
“This is messy, huh,” Yuta says, huffing a mirthless laugh. “I don’t like this.”
Johnny doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he says nothing.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Johnny-ah,” Yuta says. “But it will make things messier, I feel. And I don’t think now is the right time, but I don’t think we’re gonna get through today without me getting this off my chest either, because I know you, and you’ll be anxious about it the entire time we film.”
Yuta takes Johnny’s Juul from him without asking, just like old times. He takes a long drag from it, the smoke leaving through his nostrils.
“It was you before it was Markie,” Yuta says, and Johnny’s entire soul leaves his body.
“What?”
Yuta raises a beautifully-filled eyebrow, and lifts the corner of his mouth up in a half-smile. “You heard me.”
Johnny feels a little like the cement beneath his feet has started to loosen up a little, and he holds on to the railings better. Yuta takes another drag, and hands him back his Juul.
“I never said anything because—well, you never noticed, for one,” Yuta says. “I know this isn’t information that makes anything clearer or helps anything, but I figured, you told me about Mark. I might as well be honest with you, too.” He lifts a shoulder up and down in a shrug.
Honest. Yuta thinks he was being honest. Johnny takes a cleansing breath, because a half-truth isn’t a full one, and Johnny owes Yuta that, too.
“It’s you, too,” Johnny says, the confession coming out as a whisper, his heart thundering in his chest.
“Wh–what? What did you say?” Yuta asks, straightening up, turning his entire body to face Johnny’s, shock evident on his face.
“You asked me if I liked Mark, and I said yes, but that’s only half of it. I like you, too,” Johnny says. “This wasn’t just about Mark. All of this–” he gestures in the air between them. “It was about what you have together. It’s about how I wish I could be a part of that, too.”
Yuta stands there, transfixed and stunned, his beautiful mouth open in a small ‘o’ before he finally closes it, glossy lips pressing together. “Oh, Johnny.”
Nothing follows except for the wind, and Johnny’s anxiety makes him take another pull from his Juul. It feels like they’re in a stalemate, or a Tetris game gone horribly wrong.
“Yuta… “ Johnny trails off. He really didn’t know, but now all he has are questions. How long? Why? “Does Mark know?”
Yuta nods. “Yeah, I told him when we first started messing around.” Yuta’s eyes half-moon with his smile, soft, like the memory is fond. Johnny doesn’t doubt that it is. “God, we confess to each other and your first instinct after that is to ask about Mark.” Yuta’s eyeroll is impossibly fond. “I haven’t told him anything about you, but I think you should talk to him. Anything is better than this.”
Johnny nearly chokes on the vapor.
“Wait, hold on, this is too much to process at once after you tell me you—Jesus, you’re telling me to tell your—to tell Mark—that I’m in love with him? How is that a good plan?” Johnny asks incredulously. Yuta’s always been one for outlandish solutions to things, but more than anything, Yuta’s M.O. really always has been to cut the bullshit, and tell the truth. It’s why Johnny loves him so much. “Yuta, I feel like that’s rocking the boat too much.”
Yuta shrugs again. “I don’t know how he feels about you right now, Johnny. That’s not information I know. He doesn’t even talk to me about how he’s been icing you out. And even if I did know, that wouldn’t be my conversation to have, would it?” Yuta glances at his watch, and Johnny knows that they both need to get back downstairs to the studio. “Just talk to him. Whatever happens between me and Mark, we’ll handle it. But you need to talk to him. You think it would be awful to screw up what he and I have going? Do you think I feel great knowing that you and he aren’t on speaking terms because we’re dating? Do you think I enjoy you avoiding me whenever we have to be alone in the same room? This fucking sucks, Johnny.”
Johnny looks at Yuta, really looks at him, for the first time since their stilted conversation in Johnny’s room, and something in him breaks. He tugs Yuta by the wrist until Yuta is stepping in closer, and wrapping his arms around Johnny’s waist. Johnny holds him so tight he can feel the air escape from Yuta’s deflating lungs, but he doesn’t care. Yuta was right—this wasn’t the right time. They still need to get through the next couple of hours. But then again, he wonders if there ever is a right time for these things. Maybe the exact moment things do happen is the right time.
“Come on,” Yuta says, stepping back. “Put away your electric cancer stick and figure out what the fuck you’re gonna say for the cameras.”
-
As if the universe has decided just how important it is to fuck with Johnny’s emotions for the day, he’s told that he’s to film before Mark films his parts. He barely has anything written down on his answer sheet because he can’t seem to phrase the words right on paper, so despite the way his heart drums against his ribs, he pushes his shoulders back, rolls his neck, and smiles for the camera.
Off-screen, the person they got for the narrator asks the question out loud: “What is it like being Mark’s friend?”
The lights in the studio are too bright, the white background behind him making everything glow brighter. In front of him, Mark stands with his arms folded over his chest, expression blank the way he gets when he’s angry. Johnny swallows, and starts speaking.
“Mark and I go way, way back. Twenty-twelve. He was like… up to here, maybe,” Johnny says, holding his hand a few inches above his hip. “It was so nice to be with a trainee who spoke like, you know, like me. His voice was so tiny then. But Mark’s so grown now.”
Johnny takes a breath. “He’s always thoughtful. We text each other the most,” he says, using the present tense, refusing to give the fans an inch of doubt that they’re not as tight as they ever were. “Mark is the type to send you stuff that reminds him of you. He’s always the first one to greet us on our birthdays, without fail.”
Johnny shifts his eyes to look at Mark momentarily. Mark’s face looks less hardened.
“I’m really lucky,” Johnny says. “We’re all really lucky to be able to call Mark our friend.” He swallows. “It’s really wonderful, being loved by him. He always pays attention. He always wants to fix things when stuff gets bad.”
He can’t help but fidget, forcing his hands into his trouser pockets, rocking back on his heels while he tries to calm himself. “He always makes me wanna be a better person.”
That barely scratches the surface of what Mark Lee means to him now. It hardly encompasses the emotion of seeing Mark work himself to the bone since he was a kid, the confusion of watching him turn into a man and feeling himself change in response to Mark’s undeniable presence. Mark is electric, Johnny wants to say. Mark is energy like you wouldn’t believe.
Johnny manages this in one take, the director happy with his responses. The narrator asks the second question, and Johnny closes his eyes for a second, telling himself to calm down. His heart’s a mess, between Yuta’s confession and Mark’s coldness, but it’s not like he’s a stranger to compartmentalizing emotion when it’s necessary.
Where does he see his friendship with Mark in ten years?
He doesn’t even know where he’ll be in ten years. He doesn’t know if NCT will still be around, if he’ll still be in the industry, if he’ll still be in Korea. But he knows this for sure—he wants Mark in his life for the rest of it.
He finds Mark in the darkness, watches the way that Mark’s body language has shifted somewhat, his shoulders more relaxed, less… angry. His face is softer. Johnny hopes he’s listening.
“I think that Mark is for keeps,” Johnny says, looking directly at Mark. “There are times when we don’t always get along but—but we always work things out, because that’s what friends do.” Johnny scuffs his sneaker on the pristine white flooring. “It’s what people who love each other do.” In the background, the other boys whoop really loudly, and the director calls cut.
They do a couple more takes after that, trying to get a few laughs in. Mark is professional whenever they’re out in public, and contrary to popular belief, he’s actually much better at acting than people give him credit for. He groans at Johnny’s answer when the host teases him for it, but Johnny knows that not only is a conversation with Mark after this inevitable, it’s also imperative. Johnny’s put it off for much too long.
When Mark’s turn comes up, Johnny braces himself for it. He has no idea where he stands with Mark right now, especially since he’s been a fucking asshole for going on two months at this point—the longest they’ve ever gone, now that Johnny’s thinking about it.
Haechan stands next to Johnny when Mark takes his position in front of the camera.
“Johnny-hyung used to like, be my hero,” Mark says, his voice dropping a little because he’s speaking in English. His arm is bent at the elbow and his hand rubbing under his chin like he’s thinking hard about his answer. “Like, I was so scared when I first moved here and then I met him and it was like we were instant bros. Like, he’s the best big bro I could ever have asked for—”
“I’m telling your real brother you said that!” Doyoung says from behind the camera, and the crew laughs. Johnny laughs along, even if part of him is crumbling. Big bro. This is also why he could never say anything. Mark laughs, bright and too loud. Johnny’s heart stutters in his chest. He loves Mark so much.
“Yeah. Johnny-hyung’s cool, like even when he’s trying hard to be cool, he’s still cool, you know? And we collab a lot. He’s really like, one of the closest ones to me, yeah,” Mark continues, and then crosses his arms over his chest and nods, like he’s done with his answer. When Mark finishes the interview, the director nods his approval. The answers are safe, and honest, and nothing ground-breaking. Johnny feels like he’s damned himself with his own responses, but he doesn’t regret it. Not even if the fans will take his answers and pick them apart. He needed Mark to hear the words more than anything. That’s all he cares about right now.
His head’s swimming with everything he needs to process and work through. Yuta’s confession is still ringing in his ears because what does that mean for them? Yuta knows how he feels now about the both of them, and Johnny feels like an intruder for even putting it out there at all. Mark and Yuta are together. It’s selfish to want that for himself.
But at the very least, telling Mark means that everything is laid out in front of them. No more secrets. Maybe then, Johnny will be able to get the space he needs from them without anyone misunderstanding why.
It’s the best outcome he can hope for.
-
[me 09:09 pm]
> Do you think now would be a good time to talk to mark
[Yuta 09:09 pm]
> Yeah. he’s in his room
[Yuta 09:10 pm]
> Good luck!
[me 09:10 pm]
> Let me fix things with him. Then maybe we can fix things with us?
[Yuta 09:10 pm]
> I’ll be right here Youngho
-
“Yeah?” comes Mark’s voice when Johnny knocks on his door twice. “Come in!”
Johnny steels himself and pushes the door open to see Mark cradling his guitar in his hands, quick fingers plucking a tune that doesn’t seem familiar to Johnny. They stop abruptly when Mark finally does look up and sees Johnny close the door behind him.
“Oh,” Mark says. “Hi.”
“Hi. Is this—are you busy? Can we talk?” Johnny asks, still standing at the door, his hands in the pockets of his grey sweats.
Mark looks so young again all of a sudden. Johnny forgot what it was like to have Mark look at him without the hardened expression he’d been sporting this entire month when the cameras weren’t around. “Yeah, come on, don’t just stand there.”
Mark scoots over, making room at the foot of his bed for Johnny to sit. He puts his guitar away, resting it gently on top of his pillows. Mark’s got his legs crossed beneath him, and he hunches over, elbows resting on his thighs while he watches Johnny make his way to the bed.
“Uh, hey,” Johnny says, not looking at Mark. It’s awful that he feels like crying. He barely understands what’s going on with him anymore. “Long time.”
Mark stays silent, like Johnny expected.
“There’s—there’s a lot that I need to get off my chest, and uh—fuck. I think it’s gonna fuck things up no matter how I try to like, deal with it, so I guess I’m better off letting you in on it instead of keeping you in the dark,” Johnny says, looking at his hands. Mark’s fiddling with his own fingers, and Johnny itches to take them, like holding them will calm them both better, but Johnny can’t and Johnny won’t, because Mark is with Yuta now, and Mark sees him as a brother, and he just needs to get this over with so that he can move on with his life.
“I think I’m in love with you,” Johnny says to the floor, to the space between his knees, unwilling to look at Mark for this. “I figured it out when I figured out that something was going on with you and Yuta, and I just—I’ve been trying to find a way to handle it and get over you and I thought that I was doing it right, but I wasn’t. Nothing is working.”
Johnny sighs, and covers his face in his hands. God, why does saying all of this aloud hurt so fucking much? He pushes his fingers through his hair in frustration, and hunches over again. He’s still not looking at Mark.
“Yuta came to talk to me, and I told him, and begged him to not tell you, and I’m a fucking coward, man,” Johnny says. “I’m a coward, and an asshole, and a fucking jerk and I didn’t know what to do except pull away because—”
He isn’t supposed to cry. He told himself over and over that he wasn’t going to cry.
“Dude, I don’t know what to do, but I’m hoping that I can get over you already because I’m tired of feeling this way. I just wanna be happy for you guys. I just wanna get there already.” Johnny turns to Mark, sees mild panic in his eyes. “I’m not here telling you this because I want to steal you away or anything. I’m not here to like, fight for your love or whatever. I just needed to get this off my chest already.”
Johnny told himself to leave all expectations at the door; there's absolutely no way he can guess what’s coming. There’s no precedent for this.
“What the fuck, dude?” Mark asks, and his voice is so small, and so hurt, and Johnny did that. He did that. “You—you didn’t even treat me like a person, man, you didn’t treat me like a friend. I tried to talk to you and you treated me like it was all in my head and you—like that was your plan?”
Mark’s raised his voice a little, and Johnny doesn’t have the time to think his response through before he’s firing back with “What the fuck was I supposed to do, Mark?”
“I don’t know, Johnny, but maybe not act like a fucking toddler about it?” Mark says. His eyes are narrowed, heated, hurt. “You could have talked to me sooner, maybe? Talked to the both of us? I’ve spent the last couple of months trying to work it out in my head, beating myself up for whatever the fuck I could have done, and this… Jesus Christ.”
Mark stands up abruptly, taking a few steps away from the bed, his entire body tense. He holds himself the way he did at the studio, arms crossed over his chest. Johnny’s afraid to move, like if he doesn’t he’ll spook Mark from his own room.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to do, Mark,” Johnny whispers. “But Yuta told me I needed to tell you the truth so that’s what I’m doing.”
Mark still has his back turned to Johnny, shoulders hunched forward. Johnny reacquaints himself with the view of the floor. “Do you want me to go?”
At this, Mark turns sharply and says, “No. You’ve avoided me long enough, I think.”
“Okay,” is all Johnny can say back.
Mark settles back on the bed next to him, the both of them with their feet planted on the wooden panels. Mark’s feet are bare, and Johnny’s annoyed with himself for even daring to think about how pretty they are while they’re here looking at the pieces of their friendship trying to see what’s salvageable. Johnny doesn’t expect Mark to rest his temple on his shoulder, but that’s what he does next, the way he used to when they were younger. “I’m so fucking pissed at you, dude.”
Johnny feels his breath catch in his throat, and the subsequent exhale comes out in a shudder. “I know. I’m so sorry, Markie.”
Mark loops his arm around Johnny’s, and sighs. “I like you too, you know.” He thumbs against Johnny’s pulse on his wrist, and Johnny’s hands freeze over. “I need you to know that. I’ve always liked you. You’re the reason I realized I liked guys in the first place.”
This is… this is not at all what he expected Mark to say, and it’s somehow the best day, and worst, of his life. Yuta dropping that bombshell of a confession earlier and Mark telling him this now has Johnny reeling, and he’s not exactly sure where he’s supposed to put his footing at the moment. Right now, the best he can do is keep his mind on the present, because he doesn’t have answers for what comes next.
“Mark, what—” Johnny’s shock is so stark and terrifying that he barely registers Mark moving, doesn’t even catch on that Mark’s chin is resting on his shoulder, that Mark is looking at him now, that there is a hand on his jaw and his entire body burns up like coals set alight. Mark is so close to kissing him, and Johnny—Johnny moans out a broken sound and imagines in a split-second what it would be like to kiss him back. He feels the dam inside of him break and shatter, and Johnny wants so much, it consumes him, but just as Mark takes a breath, the reality of the situation comes crashing down on him and he’s the one who yanks himself away, chest heaving, Mark’s face flushed, his eyes wide and damning in their evidence.
“Fuck—fuck, Mark, I’m sorry, fuck—Yuta—” Johnny stands up abruptly, his hands shaking, and Mark looks stricken, looks lost and overwhelmed and Johnny doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do. Guilt rises like acid in his throat as he steps away and takes several cleansing breaths, torn between his need to run to Yuta and apologize and his wild desperation to get his mouth on Mark. “I—I gotta go.”
“Johnny, wait—”
But Johnny is out the door, praying desperately to a God he doesn’t speak to anymore that he doesn’t bump into Yuta or anyone, because he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do right now, but he knows if he stays, he’s just going to fuck everything up even more.
He makes it to the front door when he hears it, the “Youngho,” in Yuta’s light voice stopping him in his tracks. Johnny’s never felt fear like this before, has never felt this backed into a corner, this ashamed over his recklessness, this confused over his emotions. He takes a shuddering breath, presses his forehead to the steel door once, and then turns around to face Yuta.
Mark is in the hallway, a few paces behind Yuta, looking at Johnny with pleading in his eyes.
“Youngho, please stay,” Yuta says softly, holding his hand out like Johnny is a child that needs coaxing, and Johnny is lost, lost, lost. There’s nothing else for him to do but follow.
Johnny’s mind is filled with a thousand different thoughts as he follows the two into Mark’s room, and he wonders if this is where they break, if this is the irreparable rift that spells the end of his stay not only in these dorms but in the company as well, but Yuta is gentle when he pushes Johnny to sit back down at the foot of Mark’s bed.
Mark stands next to him, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched over. “I almost kissed him, Yuta. I’m sorry.”
Johnny feels like he’s holding sand between his fingertips, watching the dissolution of a good thing happen because he couldn’t keep his shit to himself. He was desperate to not fuck things up for them, but here he is, sitting on Mark’s bed with his head in his hands, the three of them locked in a tangle that he can’t undo.
“Did you want to, baby?” Yuta asks Mark, and the tenderness with which he says ‘baby’ makes Johnny want to curl in on himself. There isn’t a single trace of anger in Yuta’s voice. When Johnny lifts his head to look up, Yuta’s bringing Mark’s knuckles to his lips. A look passes between them, one that Johnny can’t decipher.
“Yeah, yeah, I did,” Mark says quietly. His words punch Johnny in the gut, torn between elation and shame. Johnny wishes he could understand how Mark can afford to look sheepish right now.
Yuta’s eyes slide over to him as his hand, tangled in Mark’s, falls to his side. “Did you want him to, Youngho?”
He’s already fucked things up. He can’t go any lower than this. There’s no point in lying when they’re here now.
“So badly,” Johnny replies, frowning more to himself than to the pair of them.
“Messy,” Yuta mutters under his breath before Johnny feels his fingers hook under his chin and makes Johnny look up at him. “Would you kiss me, Johnny-ah?”
Time stops in that moment, a slow crawl, viscous as Johnny’s breath pauses in its entry down his trachea. “Yes, I would.”
Nothing–not this conversation, not this situation–makes any fucking sense to him, all of it beyond his wildest dreams, beyond any iteration of how he thought tonight would go. He never allowed himself to hope for any of this, but Yuta is tender, so tender, when he kneels in front of Johnny and says, “You know now that we both like you, Youngho. What are you gonna do about it?”
Like the final turn on a Rubik's cube, like the final step in unlocking the puzzle box Yuta brought home for him all those years ago, things click into place.
Johnny reaches out with unsure hands to cradle Yuta’s face in them, and Yuta leans in, nuzzles like a cat, and smiles before he opens his eyes, brilliant and stunning.
“Can I–” Johnny starts, but he can’t finish, not when Yuta surges forward and presses his lips to Johnny’s, cold and soft and maddening in their slide against his. It doesn’t last very long, it’s there and gone, because Yuta pulls away for a breath, and stands up again.
Johnny’s lips are still numb, the ringing in his ears not leaving as Yuta tugs on his hand to make him get to his feet and bring him closer to an equally stunned-looking Mark, blush high on his cheeks.
“Do you both trust me?” Yuta asks while he stands behind Mark, his chest to Mark’s back, and Johnny watches the hold, the way Yuta has his arm across Mark’s chest like he’s cradling him, like he’s precious.
“You know I do,” Mark says, his voice hoarse from disuse.
“Yes,” is all Johnny can say because Mark’s tongue peeks out from between his lips to lick at them, and Johnny is helpless, tracking the movement with a hunger he can’t name.
“Good,” Yuta says. “Kiss him.”
Johnny doesn’t know who Yuta’s talking to, but for the first time tonight, he lets himself look at Mark properly, allows himself to take in Mark’s galaxy eyes and his shy little smile and he’s gone, gone, gone. He lowers his lips to meet Mark’s, and his stomach clenches from the first press of lips on lips. Kissing Mark feels like joy distilled, and the sweep of Mark’s tongue against his has Johnny’s knees buckling. He holds on to Mark’s waist to steady himself, and feels Mark press up against his front, pressed closer still because hands–he isn’t sure if Yuta’s or Mark’s, honestly–draw him in and keep him there.
The time that slowed when Yuta asked him if he would kiss him begins to speed up, and Johnny gives himself over to feeling. The kiss turns sloppy until Mark is pulling away for a breath, his head tipping back to rest on Yuta’s shoulder. “Holy shit–” he gasps, before laughter bubbles from his mouth. “Holy shit, I can’t believe this is happening.”
Before Johnny can ask, Yuta brushes back Johnny’s hair from his eyes. “You don’t know how long we’ve wanted this, Youngho,” Yuta says, and then he’s stepping away from Mark, and taking Johnny by the wrist to guide him to the bed. “Do you think you could stop thinking for a second and just… enjoy this moment?”
Johnny can’t begin to grasp exactly what’s happening at the moment, but what he does know is that he has always implicitly trusted his members, especially Mark and Yuta, and if they’re here, right now, pressing down on his traps to get him to sit on Mark’s bed, to get him to lie down while Mark—Jesus Christ in heaven—pulls his shirt off to reveal his beautiful skin and tiny waist, to relax while Yuta starts undoing the buttons to his shirt, Johnny is going to follow them. He tries to stop thinking, and allows himself to enjoy this moment.
“Hyung,” Mark says, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand tracing over the vast expanse of Johnny’s chest. Mark only ever pulls the hyung when he’s talking about Johnny to other people or when they’re in front of the cameras. Rarely does he refer to Johnny with anything but his name when they’re alone together, but somehow, Mark calling him this now, as Johnny struggles to gasp for air while Mark’s hand travels down lower and lower to skirt along the edge of his sweats, makes Johnny ache differently, his cock starting to harden in his pants. “Are you ok?”
“I’m not sure this is real,” Johnny says, because that’s the best he can do right now, because it’s distracting to have Mark shirtless, talking to him and touching him while Yuta slowly undresses next to him.
“But do you want this?” Yuta whispers, his brow furrowed in concern.
“I don’t know what this is, Yuta,” Johnny says, and even to himself, he sounds scared. Johnny feels like he’s standing on the edge of something, and if he takes a step further, all that’s left for him is to hurtle into the abyss.
“Yuta,” Mark says, reaching out across Johnny’s torso to take Yuta by the shoulder, and Johnny feels himself spin out of orbit when he sees their lips meet in a soft, chaste kiss that has Mark moaning into Yuta’s mouth. “You love him, too, right?”
It’s surreal to watch Yuta nod, to watch the open adoration on his face play out, directed first at Mark, then at himself.
“You told me earlier that you wanted to be a part of this. To be with us,” Yuta says, his hand resting over Johnny’s heart. “Do you still want that?”
There’s no hesitation in Johnny’s “Yes, I do.” That should terrify him, but it doesn’t.
“Fuck,” Mark mutters under his breath, and takes Johnny by the jaw to kiss him, rough and desperate, and Johnny breaks loose, his left hand coming up to cradle the back of Mark’s skull, scratching at the shirt hair at Mark’s nape because kissing Mark is a dream, sweet like cherry cola. Mark kisses like he was just standing at attention for the “So be with us, Johnny,” Mark mutters against his lips. “We’ll figure everything else out along the way, but be with us.”
“Okay,” Johnny says simply, because it is that simple.
Mark’s bed is much too small to handle three people, but it barely matters when they dissolve into lips and tongue and teeth in minutes. His sweats come off, as do Mark’s and Yuta’s, and very quickly he finds himself pressed up against Mark’s pillows completely naked, with Yuta between his legs and Mark’s leg slung over his left thigh, Mark’s teeth lightly raking against his left nipple, making him gasp out.
Yuta is a vision with his long black hair curling behind his ear, but it’s when he takes Johnny’s semi into his mouth and sucks him down to the base to get him to full hardness that Johnny sees fucking stars. He immerses himself in the emotion, the feeling, giving his body over willingly while Mark and Yuta tag-team to make him dissolve into the mattress.
Mark’s body is all lean muscle and sharp angles, gorgeous planes and hard cock rutting against Johnny’s hip while he whispers filth under his breath. Johnny feels them everywhere, loses himself in Yuta’s hot mouth and Mark’s sinful confessions murmured into his neck. His hips buck up before he can stop himself and Yuta pulls off suddenly with a choke and a cough, and Johnny’s about to begin apologizing profusely when Yuta laughs, wiping tears from his eyes, and says, “If you wanted to fuck my mouth, you should have just said so, baby,” before he takes Johnny by the base of his dick and licks up from the underside to Johnny’s slit.
“Don’t wanna hurt you,” Johnny manages to rasp out, but just barely, because he can’t even remember the last time he got his dick sucked, and coherency isn’t at the top of his list at the moment, especially not when Mark moans, his eyes transfixed on Yuta’s mouth.
“Like what you see, Markie?” Johnny asks, unable to resist fishing for something, anything that Mark will give him.
“You have no idea,” Mark replies before he scrunches his eyes shut and says, “Fuck, I’m so hard, Johnny.”
“Let me taste you,” is all Johnny can respond with before Mark is groaning “Jesus Christ,” into his skin, and then scrambling to rearrange himself, nearly tripping in his haste and even if Yuta’’s sucking his soul out of his cock right now, Johnny finds himself choking out a laugh, too, and it’s nice to get out of his head, to be able to laugh during sex and have Yuta tease Mark about being so eager. It’s nice to be able to slide down the bed a little with the pillows beneath his neck and Mark’s thick thighs splayed on either side of his torso and have Mark stroking himself while looking at Johnny with awe in his eyes.
“Anytime now, Markie,” Johnny says, and Mark rolls his eyes before slipping the tip of his cock into Johnny’s mouth.
It’s so overwhelming, having his mouth full while Mark slowly, gently rocks his hips back and forth, his hands gripping hard on the shelf that serves as their headboard, while Yuta swallows him down and genuinely starts to choke himself on Johnny’s cock. His body is a furnace, every nerve tensing his muscles, his thighs beginning to strain from how he’s desperately trying not to crush Yuta between his legs. There’s no way for Johnny to give Yuta a warning except to thrust up and frantically grasp at Yuta’s hair to try to tug him off, but Yuta stays, presses down on Johnny’s hips with what feels like his forearm, and Johnny can’t hold himself back, not when Mark’s mouth is running, telling him how good he feels, how fucking pretty his mouth is around his cock, how he can’t wait to ride Johnny’s fat cock–
Johnny feels his nerves come alive and explode, his orgasm ripping out of him while Yuta fucking swallows every drop.
“Holy shit, holy shit, hyung did you just come?” Mark asks breathlessly, his hips stuttering. All Johnny can see from this angle is Mark’s abdomen, his wrecked expression, and he’s preparing to swallow Mark down too, but Mark pulls out, frantically strokes his cock so fast his hand blurs over it. That won’t do, so Johnny looks him in the eye, opens his mouth, and sticks his tongue out.
The sweet-salty taste of him hits Johnny’s chin first, then mouth second. Strings of white paint over Johnny’s face–his cheeks, his right eyebrow–and Johnny collapses back against the pillows, waiting for his body to relax from the afterglow. Mark shifts positions, moving from where he was straddling Johnny's chest back to where he was curled into his side, with Yuta crawling over his body so he can sit squarely on Johnny’s sensitive, slowly softening dick and wipe at Johnny’s face with what he assumes is Yuta’s own shirt.
Belatedly it registers that Yuta’s soft, too, but before Johnny can begin to wonder why, Yuta wipes himself between his legs using the same shirt, and then tossing it to the side. Jesus Christ. Yuta got himself off just blowing Johnny.
His heart’s still getting the memo that it needs to slow down, but Johnny can’t help how fucking boneless he feels, how warm everything is despite the AC being on. Yuta sits on him and looks like the cat that got the canary. The cream? What the fuck was the metaphor again? Johnny can’t be bothered.
“You spent two months brooding when we could have had two months doing this,” Yuta says, leaning in close and tapping him on his nose. “You should have said something.”
“I am clearly not the only one who could have said something,” Johnny says, deadpan, amusement and lightness now beginning to take over his tired heart. For the first time in months, the ache in his chest is gone.
“Obviously we need to work on our communication skills,” Mark fires back.
Yuta readjusts himself and changes positions, and Johnny finds himself with both arms full of boy. They trade lazy kisses even if it’s cramped. Yuta and Mark manage to contort themselves into a position where they’re both half on his body, half on the mattress.
“I didn’t think I was allowed to have this,” Johnny whispers later, when sleep starts to take hold of them.
“Dude, we make our own destiny, you know?” Mark says, sounding half drunk and so much like himself that Johnny can barely wrap his head around the position he’s in right now.
“Exactly, Johnny-ah,” Yuta whispers back. “What Mark said.”
And it’s ridiculous how sometimes Yuta and Mark are two sides of the same coin. Of course, they’d wind down a threesome with talk of destiny. Of course, Johnny would end up falling for them both. Of course, he took the step into the abyss. Of course, he found it was a featherbed.
There’s so much to figure out, but right now, Johnny doesn’t fixate on the rules, or who says what he can have or feel or touch or what. They’ll figure this out along the way. Destiny, you know?