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It’s a hot Friday night in the middle of Summer, the sort of night that makes the idea of cooler weather seem so foreign that Mark forgets it’ll come around eventually.
He feels nostalgic for the beginning of June, when he still had some money and less of a dull ache in his head, when the next few months seemed bright with possibilities and Donghyuck hadn’t started seeing Jaemin yet.
When Donghyuck started going to Jaemin’s parties, Mark had spent most of his late shifts at the burger place getting his phone out and checking it for texts. It wasn’t easy to sneak out his phone on shift. The sliding mechanism has jammed ever since he dropped it in the parking lot of the grocery store a few months back, so he’d been caught looking at it more than once by his shift leader. Then, he’d messed up an order for a regular customer, and after that he didn’t have a job on Friday and Saturday nights anymore.
This meant he could no longer afford to buy CDs or gig tickets, but no-one good was coming to play round here, anyway, so on his first Friday night of freedom, he’d allowed Donghyuck to drag him across town, to a party Mark wasn’t technically invited to, although Donghyuck said no one really got invited, they just ended up there because they were the same.
Mark hadn’t known what he meant then and still isn’t quite sure he knows now, but he’d gone with Donghyuck, and he’d drank and smoked, and fallen asleep in a chair with some random girl’s coat over him, and while his head was groggy the next day, Donghyuck had walked half the way home with him and had said, “It’s cool you can start hanging out with us now!”
Mark still remembers his smile when he’d said it, the way it had seemed brighter than the morning sun that framed him, and maybe that’s only because Mark had still been a little drunk, but whatever. Mark thinks of that smile at times like these, on a hot Friday night in the middle of Summer, when they’re in a car that doesn’t belong to either of them, feeling the giddy nerves that come with meeting a man in a quiet street to buy pot with someone else’s money.
Donghyuk drives, because he is the only one with a licence, and, objectively, Mark knows that smoking and driving is not a good mix, but it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t seem so stupid at midnight, as it might the next day. And it’s not just Donghyuck— Mark knows he’s stupid too. At least, that’s what his mom would say if she still spoke to him.
She’d also tell him to grow up and get a new job, and maybe to get a girlfriend, so it’s probably for the best that they don’t speak, Mark thinks. She’d not be happy with him right now.
Donghyuck pulls the lever at the side of his seat and lets it recline all the way back, so that he’s lying down. “Quick, do the same,” he tells Mark, who fumbles for the lever awkwardly before he gets a hold of it. He gets his seat reclined just as the cop car drives up beside them— he can tell they hover, that maybe they’re checking out the windows, from the way the flashing lights linger before they disappear, and his heart beats fast in his chest for a few seconds afterwards.
“I need to get better at that,” Mark says once they’re gone. “Acting quickly.”
Donghyuck’s snort tells Mark he agrees.
“I didn’t even see them coming,” Mark admits. He laughs, awkward, nervous. He was too busy watching Donghyuck blow smoke circles in the rear-view mirror. “I’m sorry. I usually have great reflexes.”
“When you’re not high, maybe.” Donghyuck holds out the joint for Mark to take.
Their fingers touch when he takes it and it feels like he’s just licked a battery or something, but maybe that’s just in his imagination. “Yeah.” He laughs. “Yeah, good point. I’m so high.”
“It’s my fault, anyway. I didn’t think they’d be round here at this time of night.” Donghyuck pulls a face. He isn’t a serial apologiser, that’s more Mark’s thing. It’s unusual. “I thought we were far enough outside the neighbourhood to park up”
“No, I think— they don’t usually patrol round here,” Mark says. “It’s not your fault.”
”Okay, I agree. It’s completely your fault.” Donghyuck pushes his tongue into his cheek and smiles. Mark might be high, but he thinks for a moment that maybe heaven lives in Lee Donghyuck’s eyes. “Come on, we better get back to the party.”
Mark wants to ask, do we have to? But he knows he doesn’t have a right to Donghyuck’s time, as limited as it feels sometimes. Instead, he just nods. They fix their seats, roll down the windows and get back on the road, making sure to take a left where they saw the cops turn right. In the distance, they hear sirens, but they’re far enough away not to care too much.
When they stop at a light, Donghyuck reaches across to the glove compartment and rummages around for a CD. They’re all loose, getting scratched against each other and it makes Mark’s jaw tense up to see the discs like that, songs being rubbed away, but they don’t belong to him, so he’s not entitled to say anything.
Donghyuck pushes the CD he's picked into the slot just under the radio dials and turns the volume up. “I made this mix last summer,” he says. “Burnt it onto two CDs. Do you remember? I gave one to you.”
“I remember,” Mark says. His copy is protected, neatly, in a case under his bed. “Why is one of them here? Is it yours?”
Donghyuck nods. “Special edition, one of only two ever made.” He grins.
Mark considers this. “Did you give it away to Jaemin?”
“Only to borrow,” Donghyuck says. He skips the first two songs, finds what he wants to hear. “Love this one,” he says, although Mark already knows.
He closes his eyes and rests his head against the cool window for the rest of the drive while Donghyuck sings along at the top of his lungs.
---
“Where’ve you two been?” Jaemin asks when they get back to the party, tapping his wrist where a watch would be if he wore one.
“None of your business,” Donghyuck says. He pushes past Jaemin at the door, presses against him purposefully and smiles.
“I think you’ll find it’s entirely my business since you took my car.” Jaemin sniffs the air. “And smoked in it.”
Donghyuck pulls a face. “Don’t be mad about it,” he says. “We didn’t smoke it all. There’s more to share!”
“That’s not…” Jaemin frowns. To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned, not mad, and Mark feels bad. “The cops are pulling loads of people over lately and if they run the plates…”
“We were careful,” Donghyuck interjects. “Promise.”
“Yeah. Okay, sure.” Jaemin smiles and Mark wonders if he can tell they almost got caught, but then how could he? Mark glances at Donghyuck, who pointedly ignores his stare. It’s their secret and Mark kind of likes that, in a silly, pathetic, jealous kind of way. He and Donghyuck don’t have a lot of secrets anymore– not like when they were kids, sneaking out of their parents' houses after an afternoon of babysitting their younger siblings and learning guitar in the back of Renjun’s garage, thinking they would start a band and rock the world.
Now they’re technically adults, whatever that means. Mark might be nineteen, but that doesn’t mean he knows what’s good for him, what’s right or wrong. Everything feels wrong, sometimes, and, sometimes, everything feels right. That’s usually the time he spends with Donghyuck. Go figure.
Donghyuck puts the small plastic bag down on the table for Jeno to start rolling up. Donghyuck pretends he can’t roll, always has, but he can. Does it with expert, if clumsy, fingers in the car. That’s another secret, Mark thinks. He counts them like lucky pennies, keeps them close to his chest.
Jaemin holds out a hand and says, “Keys?” and Donghyuck laughs, as though they’re an afterthought, as though he was going to keep them, and takes the car-keys from his pocket, pressing them into Jaemin’s palm carefully.
Mark watches his face as it goes through a range of emotions. Jaemin is interesting, in that slightly intimidating way that easily handsome guys are to Mark. He’s quiet but commanding, handsome and intense but kind of a wallflower all the same. An enigma, Donghyuck says.
Donghyuck likes that about people, which is a problem, because Mark is transparently himself— there’s nothing surprising in the way he holds himself and there’s not much he can do about that. He’s just a person. A person with hands and eyes and a mouth. He looks at his hands and they look back at him, fuzzy at the edges. He laughs. God, he really is high.
Donghyuck is giggling now, crowding up against Jaemin with pursed lips. Jaemin never backs down, and Donghyuck could flirt with a wall, but he prefers to flirt with pretty boys who flirt back. Jaemin flirts back, and he’s good at it, so there’s that. Jaemin isn’t just a person with hands. Jaemin is smiling, daring Donghyuck to push forward. He’s… What was that word again? Mark’s mind is blank. An enigma?
Mark continues to watch them for a while, the way they move around each other like they’re following steps. As though this is routine, played out through muscle memory alone. It’s cool, Mark thinks, it must be cool to feel so easy with your emotions. To want someone and then act on it just like that. As if it’s simple.
When they leave the room Mark accepts a drink from Jisung, whose measures are always so strong they burn the back of the throat. His boyfriend, Chenle, pulls a face as he tastes it. “Shit, this is… Actually it’s kinda good,” he decides. “Very… Alcoholic.”
“It’s made with lots of alcohol.” Jisung grins, joining in on the joke, and Mark laughs. They’re cute. He doesn’t know them so well, but he likes them.
The tall kid, Sungchan, is here, talking to Jeno, and there are two girls making out against the kitchen counter. He watches them for a while– not in a creepy way, at least he doesn’t mean it to seem that way. He’s just imagining what it would be like to be pushed up like that by Donghyuck. He looks around, then, but Jaemin and Donghyuck aren’t here anymore, and Mark realises he missed the part where they left the room. He tries not to think about which door they left through, but there aren’t unlimited doors to choose from, and it was probably the door to Jaemins bedroom.
Mark takes a drink from Jisung’s outstretched hand and sinks down into his jealousy.
---
Being in love with Donghyuck is so ingrained in Mark that he can’t imagine anything else, and yet he wishes every day that he didn’t feel anything at all. Being in love with Donghyuck is one of those things that feels completely right sometimes, and terribly wrong other times, but mostly, it just kind of hurts.
Donghyuck sometimes calls him his soulmate, but Mark isn’t sure what he means by it. He never calls Jaemin his soulmate, but he kisses him often, and Donghyuck has only ever kissed Mark once but he calls him soulmate all of the damn time.
Mark struggles to make sense of it, especially because Donghyuck has started disappearing into Jaemin’s room earlier and earlier in the night.
One Friday when they get to his place, Mark has barely had time to finish one drink before he loses track of them, and he contemplates making a move on a girl in the tightest skinny jeans he’s seen, but then she leaves to go to some other party across town.
Mark tells himself he’ll look for a new job the next day, but the PC room across from the place he shares with the acrophobic guy and the old man (who eats fruit in the bathroom and leaves the peels on the windowsill every night) shuts on the weekend so he can’t trawl the internet for job ads, and he can’t face walking further than that to check the noticeboard at the grocery store, so instead he lies in bed and listens to the mix Donghyuck made on his iPod mini until the battery runs out. When it does, he pulls his CD case out from under his bed and finds the original CD version, complete with Donghyuck’s scrawled Summer Mix 4 Mark Y2K5 written around it in marker pen, and tries to find the old walkman he used before he finally gave in and bought an iPod because everyone else seemed to have one, but he can’t find batteries for it anywhere in his room.
Donghyuck calls him in the afternoon. Says, “Are you coming tonight?”
Mark’s brain is fuzzy. “What?”
“I’m going to Jaemin’s about 9pm. If you’re coming, we can walk over together.”
“I might– I might have other plans.” Mark thinks about taking a shower, but he can hear one of his roommates in the bathroom. They might be in there for hours, Mark dreads to think. There was once a time that he and Donghyuck talked about living together once they moved out of their parent’s homes, but it's been a while since they talked about it. Mark couldn't afford a new deposit now, anyway. “Might be busy.”
“Oh.” Donghyuck sounds disappointed, although that might be Mark’s wishful thinking. “Okay, that’s— what are you doing?”
“Um, just…” Mark scrunches his eyes shut. He can’t think of a lie. “Actually that’s, uh, I’ve remembered that’s tomorrow. I am free tonight. I’ll come with you.”
“Yay,” Donghyuck says. He actually says yay and it’s so cute that Mark wants to shove his face into his pillow and scream. “I’ll see you about 8.30.”
---
There is someone new at Jaemin’s place that weekend: another stray, lost and then found in the taste of cheap vodka, just like the rest of them. “I’m Yangyang,” he smiles, pushing his hood down as he steps over Jisung’s legs to get to the kitchen.
“What brings you here?” Jeno pours him a drink. Yangyang doesn't even look inside the cup, just accepts whatever he's been given. It's very trusting, Mark thinks.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Yangyang says, as if that’s as good a reason as any other. Maybe it is.
Mark can’t sleep at night anymore. Sleeping in the day is more natural, Donghyuck said once. “We’re secretly nocturnal animals,” he said. And that whoever decided humans thrived in the day was lying.
Mark had said Donghyuck was talking shit and they’d laughed, but Mark wonders if maybe Donghyuck had actually had a point because now he barely sleeps at all. Maybe the nighttime is for living, so Mark might as well be here, alive, knees cramped up and pressing into the sharp edge of the coffee table in Jaemin’s living room, squashed up against Jeno on one side and Donghyuck on he other and their new friend Yangyang downing his second drink in the kitchen.
Jisung pours out shots while Jeno rolls a joint. Mark flexes his hands in and out of fists. “Hands are weird,” he says to no one in particular. He feels a nagging sense of deja vu.
Jisung laughs. Says, “Which part of hands are the weirdest?”
“The palms,” Jeno says.
“No. Thumbs,” Mark decides. “Thumbs are really weird.”
Donghyuck laughs, a sound that splinters through the ringing in Mark’s ears. “You're silly,” he says, but it sounds like he’s calling Mark his soulmate again. Mark doesn’t argue with him. He’s not even high, yet. Just a little tipsy from the shots, nicely buzzed– warm and at home. “Where’s Chenle?”
Jisung sips his drink. “He has work early tomorrow.”
“On a weekend?” Jeno looks up, licks his lips. “I thought Yeri opened up the shop on Sundays.”
Jisung shrugs. “Not at the moment,” he says. Mark doesn’t know who Yeri is or what they’re opening. He vaguely remembers someone talking about a corner store. “His mom’s medical bills are out of control, so he’s getting in more shifts.”
“I didn’t know Chenle’s mom was sick,” Mark says. He doesn’t know a lot about them, about what they do in the daylight. They don’t exist outside of this four-roomed apartment to Mark and maybe that’s a strange thought.
Maybe he should sleep at night.
Mark watches as Jaemin, who has appeared from nowhere and is draped half on Jeno’s lap, takes a drag from Jeno’s newly lit joint and pictures his lungs filling up, up, up with smoke.
Mark likes Jaemin, he does. Jaemin is cool, handsome, and has a car that Mark can’t drive. Has this place that they can come to when it’s dark out. Technically they’re his older brother’s— the car and the apartment—but he's not here; has been away for almost two years. Mark doesn’t ask where he is, but Jaemin makes calls to a correctional facility an hour away twice a week.
The thing is, Mark could ask about them all. He could ask Chenle about where he works, ask Yangyang about the bruises on his neck. Could ask Jaemin about his brother, but he doesn’t, because they don’t ask him about himself either. It’s an unspoken agreement, he thinks. They exist together like this, insomniacs with issues they don’t discuss at length, and they drink and smoke, and sometimes they fall asleep together. Sometimes they fuck.
Donghyuck sleeps in Jaemin’s bed again and Mark sleeps on the sofa, which is becoming a recurring theme in his life. It would hurt more if he could feel his limbs, but he'd tried to match his new friend Yangyang drink for drink earlier, so he doesn't feel so much of anything aside from a lingering anxious thought that he's going to be a mess in the morning.
The next morning, he awakens to quiet voices from the fire-escape, can see the backs of Jaemin and Jeno out there smoking as the sun rises. Donghyuck must still be asleep in Jaemin's bed, he thinks, and he wonders if Donghyuck knows Jaemin isn't there, if he cares. Mark wouldn't leave him in bed if he had the chance. He imagines it, his arms around Donghyuck, sharing body warmth and stroking his hair, and maybe sharing morning kisses...
Mark's never getting back to sleep after those thoughts, so, with a sigh, he sits up and rolls his shoulders, slips on his shoes and finds his sweater on the floor. He walks home alone.
---
Donghyuck kissed him just once, two years ago, after they’d listened to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge from first track to last for the first time in Donghuck’s bedroom. It was June and Summer was threatening to bloom, and it might have been the last time Mark felt wholly human.
He’s thought about it every day since, thought about doing it again, about what it meant. He's thought about it, overthought it and replayed it a thousand times. He brings it up the next time they’re alone.
Donghyuck looks at him, unreadable. “I thought you’d forgotten about that,” he admits.
“No.” Mark wishes he hadn’t brought it up, already. Twelve seconds into the conversation and he already wishes he’d kept his damn mouth shut.
Donghyuck hums. “Interesting,” he says. “We should get back before Jaemin gets mad about his car.”
Mark hides his sigh of relief that the topic has changed. “He’d never get mad about the car,” he says. “Not at you, anyway.”
“Probably not.” Donghyuck agrees. They’ve been fucking for about a month now, him and Jaemin. At least six times. Not that Mark is counting. “I can’t believe you still think about that night we kissed.” Donghyuck smiles, his face lit up by the oncoming traffic. “Feels like a million years ago.”
“I didn’t say— I said I remember it, that doesn’t mean I’ve been thinking about it.” Mark plucks at the loose threads on his jeans, pokes his finger into the skin above his knee where one of the frayed rips sits.
“Haven't you, though?” Donghyuck looks away from him just as Mark catches his eye, focusing on the reflection in the mirror as he reverses out of the parking space. “I mean, you brought it up, didn’t you?”
“Just.” Mark itches to have something else to do with his hands. He pulls at the frayed threads until they come away and then curls them up with his thumb and forefinger. He needs a drink. “Forget I said anything.”
Donghyuck changes gear. They’re not far from Jaemin’s now, and he’s driving slower, dragging out the conversation. Mark isn’t sure what that means. “You know, I can’t hear that album without thinking of you,” he says.
Mark shrugs. “We did play it a lot that summer. I played it a lot. It was around then that I really couldn’t sleep, I think. Or maybe that started before? I don’t know.”
“I told you, we’re nocturnal.” Donghyuck gives him a grin, and it reminds Mark of their childhood. Of being thirteen and truly happy. “And it’s a good fuckin’ album.”
“Don’t you think it’s overplayed now?” Mark asks him. It seems like the right thing to say. It’s what everyone’s saying, and Mark is just a person with hands, so he says things other people have been saying first sometimes. It’s not that he doesn’t have his own thoughts, it’s just… Sometimes it’s easier this way. “On the forums, people say they’re selling out.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Donghyuck shrugs.
“I think I prefer their first album,” Mark lies.
“Maybe we’ll prefer their next album,” Donghyuck counters. “They're almost done recording it, apparently."
"We might," Mark can't argue with that. Donghyuck's always full of oddly placed wisdom.
"Or the one after that." Donghyuck looks at him. "Maybe their best album won’t be for, like, ten years.”
Mark feels like they’re talking about people. About kisses. About them. Who is he, in this analogy? Which album in Donghyuck’s life would he play on, he wonders? Is he overplayed? Will Donghyuck prefer the next album?
Donghyuck parks up while Mark overthinks, and goes to meet the dealer, who’s standing in shadow as they play a magic trick, their hands barely touching as they swap cash for a bag. He opens the glove-compartment of Jaemin’s car and rifles through the other loose CDs. Most of them are burnt copies, but he does have some proper, legally bought albums and a few CD singles. Mark wonders where their plastic cases went.
“What did you find?” Donghyuck asks him when he gets back in the car.
“Huh?”
“What other albums does he have in there?” Donghyuck looks at him. “We were talking about music, remember?”
Were we? Mark thinks. “They’re all scratched,” he says. “Let’s just put the radio back on.”
---
He gets a text from his old shift leader a few days later.
Need help on wknds. Mr K will have u back on lates if ur up 4 it?
Mark is hungover, lying in bed with the window open. It’s still too hot, even as Summer ends.
He needs the money. He needs a job, to do something, to feel useful, but that’s it isn’t it? He isn’t useful. He couldn’t hold the job down before so why would he be any good at it now?
He still can’t sleep, he still can’t bear the thought of not being there with Donghyuck, smoking in some other guy’s car and spilling vodka on an old sofa, pocketing the loose change Jaemin’s drunk neighbours drop down the back of it. He can’t bear the thought of Donghyuck being there alone— drinking warm beer with Jaemin, smoking with Jaemin, then sleeping with Jaemin.
At least, for now, Mark is still who he chooses for the first two activities.
He doesn’t text his old shift leader back.
---
Another night on Jaemin’s sofa comes, and it’s another night of interrupted sleep he barely tries to fight against. Mark has a cramp in his left leg and a hollow feeling in his stomach that doesn’t settle.
Donghyuck took Jaemin out in the car to meet their dealer tonight because Mark was in the bathroom when he called, and Mark has spent the last three hours moping about missing his time alone with Donghyuck, drinking Jisung’s triple measures and losing at every drinking game the party started playing and eventually lost track of. Donghyuck had joined the drinking games on his return, but it hadn’t been long before he and Jaemin had made themselves scarce behind the bedroom door.
It’s after 4am when Donghyuck’s voice wakes him.
“Hey, move up.” He sits down before Mark can even try to move, half on Mark’s non-cramping leg. Mark makes room for him as best he can, but it’s not the widest sofa, and the cushions are old and thin.
“What are you…” Mark flinches at the cold touch of Donghyuck’s skin. “You’re cold.”
“Been outside.” Donghyuck yawns behind his fist. Mark takes his hand after– that’s cold too.
“Why?”
“Couldn't sleep.” He wriggles against Mark’s side to make room for himself. “Went out for a smoke. I’ve not seen you all night.” He sounds sad. Mark almost says sorry, but what is he sorry for? He’s too tired to remember.
“Will you cuddle me?” Donghyuck sighs lying down in Mark’s arms. It’s not comfortable, but Mark is scared to move again in case Donghyuck decides to leave. “I feel like I haven’t slept in years.”
“Same.” Mark smiles. “But I must have, cos I’ve been asleep tonight. I think.”
“Silly.” Donghyuck smooths down Mark’s hair. Mark struggles not to preen against his touch. "Did you hear about Pluto?"
"About Pluto?"
"Been downgraded," Donghyuck mumbles. "It's not allowed to be a proper planet anymore, just a dwarf planet. Isn't that sad?"
Mark's sleep-addled brain isn't quite sure what Donghyuck means. "It's not allowed?"
"No." Donghyuck sighs against his cheek. He's so close. He smells of the air after the rain. "I'd let you be a planet, if you wanted to be."
Mark wonders how many of Jisung's triple measure vodkas his best friend consumed earlier in the night. "Thank you," he whispers. "That makes me happy," he admits. Next to him, Donghyuck giggles softly, and Mark's heart flips. "Now, go to sleep."
"Okay." Donghyuck snuggles into his side a little closer, not that he has much choice, the sofa kind of slants towards the back. Mark's lost his key to these cushions a few times, but he's always found it again. "Goodnight."
Mark resists the temptation to kiss Donghyuck on his forehead, and closes his eyes again, but it’s only a few minutes before the door to the living room opens again and Jaemin whispers. “Hyuck? Are you coming back in with me?”
Mark hopes that maybe Donghyuck is already asleep, that he can pretend they didn't hear and stay here, together, in their little sofa-solar-system, but then he's sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
“Okay,” he says, getting up. “I’m coming. See you in the morning Markie,” he adds, patting Mark’s arm gently. His hands are warmed up now, which is nice, but the warmth fades soon after.
Mark doesn’t cry himself to sleep but he might as well do, he feels pathetic enough.
---
Mark has sex with Jeno on a Saturday at the start of September in Jaemin’s spare room, which is barely even furnished— just a mattress and a lamp with a lead to the socket that Mark trips over as they stumble into the room, drunk on Jisung measures of vodka.
Mark isn’t sure how it happens, except for the fact that he’s stewing in jealousy constantly these days, and Donghyuck has been gone for hours. He’d left with Jaemin almost as soon as they’d arrived, and Mark knows it’s pathetic, but he thinks that maybe he has separation anxiety. Like a dog. Or maybe he’s just too drunk to process his stupid emotions, and his hands feel heavy in his lap, and Jeno is nice to him.
Jeno is nice and he’s handsome, too, and he laughs at something Mark says that Mark is sure wasn’t funny, and then they’re making out to a soundtrack of 80s pop-music that someone put on ironically and then didn’t turn off, as Jisung and Chenle playing Fifa 6 on the sticky, vodka and coke splashed PS2 on the floor in front of the sofa.
At some point, Jeno leans back and says, “Want to take this somewhere private?” and Mark nods, because he does, irrespective of how he feels about Donghyuck, or maybe because of it. So, he lets Jeno pull him into the spare bedroom, which Mark has only seen once when he and Donghyuck slept over, lying back to back after one of Jaemin’s first parties.
Jeno grabs his elbow when Mark almost trips, and he laughs and Mark blushes, but he kisses Jeno some more, and at some point Jeno takes off his shirt, and he looks nothing like Donghyuck does with his top off, which is a weird thought to have before sex, Mark knows, but he has it regardless.
Jeno sucks him off, grinning up at him with dark eyes, and then finishes them both off with his hand, and Mark lets the orgasm slip over him, all those lovely endorphins swimming in his veins until he falls asleep, even with a sticky, come-smeared stomach.
He wakes up the next morning, groggy and off kilter. Jeno is still asleep, sprawled out on the bed, warm bodied. Mark slips out of the bed and off the floor, his own underwear uncomfortably damp from the sweat of a night of alcohol and sex. It’s not a pretty feeling. Still, when Jeno rolls onto his back and blinks up at Mark with a lazy smile, Mark doesn’t feel regret so much as he feels guilt, kind of. Like he’s cheated on someone who he can’t cheat on because they’re not together, someone who isn’t even here.
He’s wrong about that, though, because Donghyuck is here, alright. He’s in the kitchen when Mark stumbles out of the spare room, buckling his jeans as he goes. Mark’s wondering where his socks and sneakers might be when he sees him: a halo of brown hair, his figure soft in the morning light. The dark circles under his eyes make him look no less beautiful than usual. He eyes Mark with genuine surprise.
“Oh. Hey.”
Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “Hey,” he says. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I’m— yeah. I’m still here.” He blinks. He feels sick and it’s not because he’s hungover. Or maybe it is, but there’s something else underneath that. “I think I am, anyway.”
Jaemin laughs, like Mark’s making a joke and Mark tries to laugh too, but Dongyuck is looking past him, and he doesn’t feel like laughing.
“Anyone coming outside for a smoke?” Jeno has wandered out of the room after him. When Mark turns around, Jeno is still topless, but at least he’s pulled on his jeans. There’s a reddy-purple mark on his chest that Mark wonders if he put there.
Donghyuck and Jaemin shake their heads. “No thanks, not in this weather,” Donghyuck says. He’s still looking behind Mark, even after Jeno heads outside.
Jisung grunts from the sofa and peels himself off of Chenle’s side, shuffling into Mark’s discarded sneakers which he wears to follow Jeno out.
Mark watches as his shoes leave on Jisung’s feet and then looks down at the floor dumbly.
“The shower is free if you wanna use it,” Jaemin tells him. He looks tired, too. They must all look tired. For a second, Mark wonders why the fuck they don’t all just sleep more, as if it’s that easy.
“Yeah, or I… I might just head home,” Mark says, even though he can’t leave without shoes. Why would someone just put on his shoes?
“Get a shower, Markie” Donghyuck’s voice is soft, sounds younger. Mark remembers the mornings after they’d stayed over at each other’s parent’s homes when they still lived with them. Remembers taking turns to shower and teasing each other over who took the longest. Remembers a time before he could really understand how he felt about his best friend. “You look like you need one.”
“Yeah, there’s enough hot water,” Jaemin assures him, like that’s what he’s worried about. “And then you can tell us when you started screwing Lee Jeno.”
“It's not like— it was just last night. We just.” Mark ruffles the back of his hair. His neck feels hot, prickly. He can’t look Donghyuck in the eye. “Can I borrow a towel?”
“Yeah. Cabinet in the bathroom,” Jaemin nods in the direction of the bathroom. Mark knows where it is. “You’ll find them. I’m making breakfast, we’ll save you some,” he says.
Mark feels bad for kind of hating him. His mouth is so dry he drinks cupped handfuls of water from the tap before he turns on the shower, and then he stands under it for longer than is probably necessary.
When Mark gets out of the shower, Donghyuck has left and the remains of breakfast left out for him– plasticky fried egg, stale toast– is cold. Mark eats it anyway, lets his wet hair drip onto the plate and ignores Chenle snoring on the sofa.
When Jisung comes back inside from the rain, he toes off Mark’s converse, the laces still undone. When Mark takes them back and puts them back on, the laces are wet and dirty.
“Sorry,” Jisung mumbles.
“It’s cool, don’t worry,” Mark lies. He leaves as soon as he can after that and walks home in the rain, pretending to be the star of his own depressing music video.
---
The next weekend, Mark almost doesn’t go round to Jaemin’s. He gets into bed instead, lies there looking at his ceiling.
Donghyuck calls him when he’s outside Mark’s apartment. “I thought we were meeting on the corner,” he says. He sounds put-out and Mark feels bad. Had assumed that if he wasn’t there, Donghyuck might just go on without him. “It’s going to rain, hurry up please?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I… I’m coming.” Mark gets out of bed. “I’m just— I need a minute. Come up if you want.”
“I’ve just lit a cigarette,” Donghyuck exhales loudly, obnoxiously. “I’ll just wait, it’s okay.”
“Sorry,” Mark repeats. He isn’t sure what he’s apologising for, really.
“For what? I’m always late for shit.” Donghyuck says. “I’m not mad.” He doesn’t sound it, to be fair. Which… Does Mark want him to be mad? And what does he want him to be mad about?
He feels a little sick. “Oh. Good. See you down there in a few minutes.”
Mark brings two bottles of beer down with him, already opened in the kitchen before he left. He offers one to Donghyuck as a peace offering, and Donghyuck takes it with a smile. He stubs his cigarette out underneath the toe of his high-tops and takes a swig as they slip into step next to each other.
“So, Jeno, huh?” Donghyuck looks at him curiously. “You like him?”
“Oh, uh.” Mark almost chokes. “I don’t— I don’t even talk to him apart from at Jaemin’s. I don’t… I don’t know much about him, really.” He feels so awkward it physically hurts.
Donghyuck nudges him, oblivious to his squirming, or maybe enjoying it. Donghyuck can be like that. “Do you want me to ask Jaemin about him for you?”
“What? Oh. No, not really. I mean— he blew me, that’s all…” Mark tries to sound casual. “I’m not interested in him.”
“Why?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “Was he bad?”
“No. No, he’s… It was fine. Uh. Good, yeah. I don’t know.” He’s grasping at straws, just saying things. The words feel slippery. “I’m— you know I haven’t really done much since Jaehyun.” Who broke up with me because I was clearly pining over you, Mark doesn’t add.
“Is he the reason, then? Why you’re… Why you aren’t interested in Jen?”
“No, he’s not the reason.” Mark sighs. “Does there have to be a reason? We just messed around once.“
Donghyuck considers this, and he’s about to argue - Mark can tell from the way he purses his lips - but instead he yells and puts a hand out across Mark’s chest. “Wait,” he hisses
Mark stops walking. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s cops up ahead.” Donghyuck’s arm doesn’t move. Mark wants to cry because the weight of his arm is actually kind of nice. “Should we walk the long way?”
“I suppose we do have open bottles.” Mark looks down at his beer. ”I guess it might be wise.”
They turn the next corner and then fall back into a normal walking pace, away from the sight of the cops. Donghyuck isn’t touching him anymore. “You’d think they’d have more important shit to do than watch out for fuckin’ kids with uncovered booze,” he says.
Mark laughs. “We’re not kids anymore,” he replies, but he only says it because he feels like he should. He can’t believe this is adulthood, he can’t grasp the concept. How should it feel, being grown? It shouldn’t feel like this, surely.
“Adulthood is a relative term,” Donghyuck argues, so he must agree. “Do you feel like an adult? Do you want to be one?”
“No. My brain hurts.” Mark laughs again. “I can’t even believe it's 2006. The millennium was yesterday, man. Yesterday, I swear it.”
Donghyuck chugs the last of his beer. “You were scared of the millennium, I remember. You thought the computers would all turn off or something.”
“The millennium bug could’ve happened.” He won’t let Donghyuck make it sound dumb. “Scientists and, like, computer engineers were worried too. It was in the news!”
Donghyuck hums. “Silly,” he says, but to Mark it just kind of sounds like he’s calling him his soulmate again, or his planet- a real one.
---
Mark bumps into Renjun by accident, getting off a bus downtown on Sunday afternoon on his way to meet Donghyuck to watch the new MCR music video together and not think about that time they kissed to a soundtrack of songs about death. Renjun has paper bags of groceries and a nice haircut, and Mark has half a blunt that Jeno rolled last night and some small change in his pocket, and he's hungover to fuck.
“Mark? I thought it was you!” Renjun smiles at him. It’s been at least two years since they properly spoke, and Mark feels suddenly terrible. He trips over his feet as he steps onto the sidewalk.
“Wow, Renjun.” He lets Renjun pat his shoulder in an awkward one-armed hug. “Wow.”
Renjun laughs and ushers Mark out of the way of the other people getting off the bus. “How are you?”
Mark shrugs. “I’m— I’m good. You?”
Renjun nods. He looks good, he looks happy. Mark wants to know how. Wants to know if there’s a secret to it– to being nineteen and okay.
“Do you still see Donghyuck from the next street?” Renjun asks him. “We used to hang out all the time.”
Mark nods. “We were talking about you the other week, actually. About when we used to come round to your dad's place and play his guitars in the garage.”
Renjun smiles fondly. “I miss those days.”
“I bet your parent’s neighbours don’t. They probably hated us.” Mark cringes. He misses those days, too, but he can’t say so because then he will cry.
“Aww, no. We were only kids.” He changes the arm he’s resting his grocery bag in, shifting the weight. “You should meet my partner, maybe come round and have dinner with us sometime.”
“Partner, huh?” Of course he has a partner. Not a boyfriend, a partner. That’s adult speak. That’s proper, established relationship shit. “Congrats.”
“We’ve been together almost a year now,” Renjun says proudly.
“I always knew you’d be the first to settle down.” Mark smiles.
“Me? I spent years playing third wheel to you and Donghyuck.” Renjun laughs, like Mark is in on the joke too. “Did you two ever…”
Mark shakes his head, tries to pass off the awkwardness as something easier and cooler. “Us? No, dude, we never… We’re just friends.” Mark wishes he’d caught the earlier bus.
“Look, I should head home before my cold groceries go off but don’t be a stranger,” Renjun looks like he means it, which is nice. He smiles, almost wobbly. “You have a phone, right? Take my number and text me to arrange a night you can come over for dinner. It would be nice to hang out again.”
“It would. I will,” Mark promises, taking out his phone and sliding it open to take Renjun’s number. It jams the first time, but he gets it open. Maybe he should look about trading it in for something new. He saves Renjun’s number under RJ and promises to call, and then watches Renjun walk away in a daze.
---
Mark doesn’t call Renjun. He’s got no credit on his plan the next week, which is a good enough excuse, but then Mark doesn’t call him the following week, or the one after that either.
He doesn’t call because what would he say? How could he go to dinner with Renjun when he’s managed to evolve in a way Mark feels like he never could? When he thinks of kids as something he used to be and not something he’s scared to let go of being, when he’s happy and he knows who he is and has a partner? Mark can’t trail his emotional baggage, lack of responsibilities, and inability to even tell his best friend he’s in love with him, despite it apparently being completely obvious since they were children, over to Renjun’s nice, new, home. There’s no place for him there.
It’s easier just to go to Jaemin’s place and sink into the grimiest depths of his sadness, so that’s what he does, just like clockwork. Predictability at it’s finest.
Just after 11pm, Jaemin throws Donghyuck his keys, picks up the PS2 controller and waves them a quick goodbye, and Mark and Donghyuck head out to pick up the pot, again.
“Why is it always you two who go pick up the stuff?” Dejun asks as they get to the front door to leave. He only started coming round to Jaemin’s recently, and all they know is that he went to school with Yangyang. Mark wonders if he’s wearing eyeliner or if his eyes just look like that.
“I know the dealer, that’s why,” Donghyuck takes a jacket that isn’t his off the makeshift coat rack near the door and shrugs it on. It suits him. “And Mark is a good lookout.”
“Uh.” Mark feels like he’s missed a beat. “I am?”
Donghyuck just smiles. "Yeah. And really quick to hide when the cops come, too, aren’t you?”
Mark opens his mouth, and then closes it again and nods.
“I’m not a good lookout,” Mark says when they’re halfway across town, the radio blasting pop-music neither of them will admit they like.
Donghyuck looks at him, and then back at the road. “You’re okay. Why, don’t you like coming? You don’t have to, you know. You can stay back with Jeno next time.”
There’s a sting to his words and Mark doesn't understand why. “I didn’t say I don’t like it.” He crosses his arms.
“Then stop talking and sing along with me. I know you know the words to this.” He laughs. He knows Mark better than Mark knows himself.
“I don’t know the words,” Mark lies, uselessly.
“Yes, you do. I know you do.” Donghyuck turns the volume up as high as it goes, and Mark laughs too, because of course he knows the words, and they’re driving a little faster than they should be, and all he’s really wanted for a long time is to be alone with Donghyuck, and here and now is the only time he gets to be, in Jaemin’s car, on the way to meet a guy who goes by a stupid fake name to be ripped off buying slightly under weight baggies when it’s dark, and why would he sleep if he could be doing this?
It’s a little after midnight when they get back to the apartment, and there’s music coming from inside— they can hear it from the street, from the open windows. When they get into the kitchen, there are more people than were there when they left to pick up. “Jisung’s friends,” Jeno explains, mouth close to Mark’s ear. “They got kicked out of some warehouse rave thing, so they’re already wasted.”
Jaemin is dancing with Jisung and another guy whose drink is spilling over the cup and running down his hand and onto the floor. It will be sticky tomorrow, Mark thinks. Donghyuck waves the bag they just picked up at Jaemin, motions to say they’re going to smoke, and pushes Jeno towards the door. “We’ll be out the fire escape,” he says to Mark. “You gonna join us?”
Mark hesitates. He doesn’t want to be alone but he also doesn’t want to be alone with Jeno and Donghyuk. Still, he doesn’t feel like drinking and he needs something to do with his hands. “Sure,” he says, following three steps behind them.
Outside on the fire exit stairs, Jeno rolls-up in what feels like less than a second and takes a deep inhale before passing him the joint. “This is stronger stuff than normal,” he comments. “S’good.”
Mark can’t tell the difference between this and what they smoked last week, but he doesn’t say so, and the three of them pass it round. Jeno and Donghyuck chat about some upcoming festival, but Mark barely listens. He can’t shake off the awkwardness even though he put it there, in his own mind. He wants to know whether Donghyuck is jealous that Jaemin is dancing with those guys inside, but he doesn’t know how to ask, or how he could play it off as a casual question, so he doesn’t.
Donghyuck is dragged inside by Chenle after a while, who sticks his head out of the fire-exit door and says, “I knew you would’ve taken my jacket! My fucking phone’s in there. Gimme!”
Donghyuck goes, laughing, and Mark waits until the fire exit door slams behind them to breathe in relief.
“So, are you going to tell him?” Jeno asks.
“Huh?” Mark is shaken from his weird, breathless, reverie. “Tell him what?”
“Are you going to tell Hyuck how you feel?” Jeno doesn’t offer the blunt to Mark anymore, just continues smoking it himself, watching Mark go through every possible range of emotion, starting with panic and ending back at the melancholy acceptance he usually lives in.
“How do I feel?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know.
Jeno smiles. The air between them is foggy with smoke. “You’re in love with him.”
Mark just stands there. “No, I’m not.”
Jeno shrugs. “Okay. I thought…”
“We’re best friends,” Mark says. “And, anyway, even if I was— even if I was, he’s sleeping with Jaemin.”
“Maybe.” Jeno considers this. He looks at Mark for a moment and smiles. “But you slept with me.”
Mark feels the heat in his cheeks, then. “Well, yeah. Sorry about, uh, if I was rude afterwards not really saying anything. I just…”
“I get it. It’s cool.” Jeno looks amused. “You should tell him how you feel.”
Mark sighs. “I might. I don’t know. I mean… Man, that stuff is strong.”
Jeno laughs. “You’re funny,” he says. He’s so handsome, but Mark tries to feel something about it and can’t. “Stop feeling awkward around me. You have a nice dick, I had fun. It doesn’t go any deeper than that, no offence.”
“Right. Cool.” Mark nods. “Really? Okay, yeah...” He shuts his mouth to stop the words from falling out. His head is spinning.
“And I don’t think it’s that deep between Donghyuck and Jaemin, either.” Jeno places a hand on Mark’s shoulder and turns back to the door. “Trust me.”
Mark waits outside until his head isn't almost falling off, by which time his hands and the end of his nose are cold. It's the start of October, no longer Summer at all, and the weather has turned, but nothing has changed. Maybe nothing ever will, he thinks. At least, it won't unless he does something about it.
---
Mark spends the next week deliberating multiple things:
- Whether to tell Donghyuck he’s been in love with him since they were thirteen.
- How to tell Donghyuck he’s been in love with him since they were thirteen.
- Whether to trade in his iPod Mini for an iPod Nano (Jaemin says it’s better but has never elaborated on why)
- When to tell Donghyuck he’s been in love with him since they were thirteen.
By Friday, he remains undecided on all of them except for the first. Jeno is right— Mark needs to make his feelings known because if he doesn’t he might just lie in bed and listen to the same 11 song mix forever and then he definitely won’t move out of his shitty apartment or ever be able to see MCR live on tour or become an adult, proper.
Donghyuck texts him that evening to say he has barely any credit left so he can’t text again, but he’ll be round to pick Mark up at 10pm, and Mark has no credit at all so he doesn’t reply, but he’s there, in front of his building in time to see Donghyuck make his way along the street towards him.
They fall into step together as soon as Donghyuck gets close enough. Mark shoves his hands into his pockets, it’s getting cooler out now Summer is on the brink of ending. “Who’s gonna be at Jaemin’s tonight?”
“Dunno.” Donghyuck’s hair falls over his eyes; he’s going for that sweeping bangs vibe. He could join a band, Mark thinks. Maybe they should have both learnt to play guitar properly. “That’s not where we’re going.”
“Oh.” Mark’s brain catches up. “Wait, what?”
“Well, we can drop by there later if you want to?” Donghyuck looks at him. “But that’s not— I thought we could do something different tonight.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Just— hang out.” Donghyuck stops, spins in front of him on the sidewalk and grins. “I want to go on the swings at the park!”
“Like kids?” Mark frowns.
“Yeah, like kids.” Donghyuck is back by his side now, taking his arm. “Come on.”
The park is closed at dusk, but they jump the gate and head to the playground anyway. Mark feels silly, his jeans too tight to climb properly. “We used to bring your baby sister here,” Mark comments.
“You remember that?” Donghyuck laughs. The lights overhead bathe him in a weirdly holy looking light.
Mark nods. “Your sister and Renjunie’s brother.” They were cute, back then. They’re teenagers now. “We always said they’d get married.”
“Maybe they still will.” Donghyuck hums. “He’s in her top 8 on MySpace.”
“Tom’s still my top friend.” Mark laughs. It seemed weird to remove him. “But you’re second.”
Donghyuck snorts. “Thanks. I’m so special.” He pokes out his tongue. “Do you ever wonder what Renjun’s upto? He never– did he have an account? He never updated it.”
Mark swallows. “I bumped into him a couple of weeks ago,” he admits. He feels stupid for not telling Donghyuck sooner. They were all best friends back then. Renjun just… Adapted to growing up easier, it seems.
Donghyuck sits down on a swing and kicks his legs. “Oh, really? You didn’t say.”
“It… Felt weird. He seems to have it all together.” Mark chuckles awkwardly. “More than I do, anyway. He lives with his boyfriend. He buys groceries.”
“He buys groceries…” Donghyuck repeats and laughs. “You mean, there are people out there who don’t eat packet noodles and Mcdonalds every day?”
Mark sits down on the swing next to him. “I should call him, really,” he says “When I have credit on my phone. He asked me to.”
“We’ll do it together, if you want.” Donghyuck smiles.
“Yeah. Okay. That might be nice.” They swing next to each other for a while, the silence permeated by the sound of police cars from the road.
“Did you know they’re exes?” Donghyuck asks, mid-swing.
“Who?”
“Jeno and Jaemin.” They’re still swinging. Mark had forgotten what it’s like– how freeing it feels to fly through the air, like this. When he was a kid it seemed so high-up, like touching the sky.
“Are they?”
Donghyuck’s hair whips up off his forehead in the wind. “Hmm. Apparently they do this— go with other people because they miss each other.”
“Oh.” Mark wonders what he’s meant to be saying, what’s the right thing to say? Is Donghyuck sad? Is he prying for information? “That’s a shame– if they’re missing each other.”
“Right? I keep telling Jaemin just to suck up his pride and get back with him.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes.
“You do?”
Donghyuck laughs. “When I haven’t got his dick in my mouth, yeah.”
Mark squirms. He knows they’re sleeping together, obviously he knows that. But it’s one thing to know and another to hear it said aloud. “TMI, Hyuck.”
“I’m joking. I’ve not— well, not recently, anyway.” Donghyuck stops swinging his legs and the swinging starts to get slower. “Do you hate me, Mark?”
“What? Why would I hate you?” Mark tries to slow himself down, too. Worries that Donghyuck is about to jump off and leave. “I don’t hate you.”
“Oh, good.” Donghyuck scuffs his feet against the ground to come to a stop. “I just worry sometimes."
"About me?" Mark pulls a face. "You don't need to worry about me, Hyuck."
“But I do. Because… I’m scared.” Donghyuck continues looking down at his feet and scuffing the heels of his converse against the sandy floor. “I was scared when you got that weekend job and couldn’t hang out for a while. I was scared when you got with Jeno. I’m… I don’t want you to grow away from me. I don’t want to lose you, and now it's only a couple of months until the year ends and— I can't imagine you not being there."
"I'm here."
"Mark..." Donghyuck's eyes look so sad, so lost. "You don't-"
“And I love you,” Mark says, just says it out loud, for real.
“I know, but–”
“No. I love you,” he says again, insistent with it. His mouth is dry. He might fall off the swing, but he’s doing it. Jeno might be proud if he knew. “Like, you know, love-love.”
Donghyuck giggles, then, and it almost shocks Mark into falling off the swing. “Mark Lee, are you confessing to me in a playground?” He teases.
“I never claimed to be a grown-up. Not yet.” Mark blushes. “So, yeah, I am.”
Donghyuck’s smile is beautiful. “Can we go to yours?” He asks, getting up. “There’s a mix CD there that tells you how I feel.”
“That… It’s about me? All the songs?” Mark blinks. He can’t move his legs, he’s glued to the swing seat. What is Donghyuck saying? “You made that a year ago.”
“Yeah,” Donghyuck shrugs. “Come on, silly.” He holds out his hand and Mark takes it. His skin is warm.
Mark remembers something as they walk back to his apartment. “He asked me about you.” He says, and then starts again, properly. “Renjun, when I saw him, he asked if we had ever got together.”
Donghyuck’s smile suggests he isn’t surprised. “Did you say “Not yet, but kissed me last year and I’ve thought about it every day since?” or did you lie?”
“Fuck off.” Mark covers his face with his free hand. “Fine, you’re right, I do think about it every day. I told Renjun we were just friends.”
“We really should get back in touch with him.” Donghyuck’s hand is warm in his. It fits nicely.
“Yeah,” Mark agrees. “That would be nice.”
When they get to his place, Mark feels all kinds of nervousness. “It’s a bit of a mess,” he says, as they toe their shoes off by his bedroom door.
Donghyuck laughs. “I know, it usually is. So what?”
“I just— it feels like I’m bringing a date back or something,” Mark mumbles. He feels jittery, weird. It’s not a bad feeling, though. It feels like the sun appearing over the horizon.
“Is our first date going to be making out in your bedroom?” Donghyuck wonders, sitting down on Mark’s bed.
“Uh.” Mark pushes a plushie he spots just in time off the bed behind Donghyuck’s back. The jitters increase. “Yeah. I mean, if you want it to be…”
“Do you want it to be?” Donghyuck counters, and for a moment Mark thinks that maybe Donghyuck is just as nervous as him.
“Yeah.” He nods, wets his bottom lip. “I want that,” he says, and he leans in when Donghyuck’s eyes close. Their noses brush and Mark forgets how to breathe, but it’s— if not perfect, something close to it at least.
They sit on Mark’s unmade bed and kiss until their jaws hurt, and then they lie next to each other with Mark’s iPod resting on his chest and one earphone each, and listen to Donghyuck’s Mix 4 Mark Y2K5 which Mark uploaded to his iTunes before his laptop conked out in April.
It’s genuinely kind of romantic, and afterwards Donghyuck rolls onto his side and pokes at Mark’s cheek with his index finger. “You’re real cute, Mark Lee,” he says, so, naturally, Mark kisses him again.
---
They go to Jaemin’s the following weekend.
Jeno catches his eye and gives him a thumbs up, and Mark feels so awkward it hurts. How could he be an adult, he wonders? How can anyone be an adult without a manual, a guide to get through it?
Mark gives Jeno a smile and a nod. Jisung looks between them, amused. He gives a thumbs up too, though he clearly has no idea why they’re doing it. It’s cute. Mark likes him, likes them all.
Jaemin offers him a drink. Says, “We missed you both last weekend,” and he really seems to mean it. Mark vows to get to know him better. It must suck to have to call a prison to speak to your sibling. Mark feels bad for never really considering that, for smoking in his car. “What did you do?”
“Climbed the fence to a playground and then made-out.” Donghyuck smiles. “Just normal stuff.”
Jisung makes an ah sound, like he’s realised why Jeno had given Mark a thumbs up on arrival. Chenle nudges him, and says, “Stop being so cute or I’ll kiss you,” and everyone whoops when he does. Mark is just glad it’s moved the attention away from him, since he’s red in the face and the tips of his ears.
“How’s your mom, Chenle?” Mark asks, after their first drink, when he’s a little more relaxed, and Chenle looks genuinely moved that he’s asking.
“She’s a lot better.” He smiles. “Thanks, man. That’s– yeah, she’s doing good.”
“Glad to hear it.” Mark smiles back. Something on the coffee table next to him catches his eye. “Hey, Jaemin, can I look at your iPod Nano?” he asks.
“Are you getting one?” Jaemin asks, handing it over.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m thinking about it. I probably need a new job first.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for work,” Chenle leans into the conversation. “There’s shifts going where I work. I’ll put in a word for you, if you’d like?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, that would be cool.” Mark nods. This is nice, he thinks. And he can feel his hands.
Across the room, Donghyuck is watching him with a smile.