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Donghyuck swims to consciousness slowly.
He unsticks his cheek from the skin, the arm underneath jostling him enough to force a deep breath through his nose.
“Hey.”
“Mm,” Donghyuck complains at the rhythmical tapping on one of his cheekbones and tries to move his head away but the finger follows.
“You’ve been sleeping on my arm. I’ve lost all feeling in it.”
Donghyuck squints against the bright light coming in from the window. It takes a while for his cotton brain to catch up, figuring out his surroundings. He tries his limbs, heavy and sweaty and in much too close of a proximity with another hot and sweaty body.
“Could've just yanked it out from under me,” he mumbles and Mark's face comes into focus—sleepy eyes and puffy lips, the mess of hair that looks like he's had a fight with the pillow and the pillow won, marks on his cheeks and all.
“You would've woken up.”
The view is frankly insane. Jaemin made fun of him for running off to the Canadian wilderness but actually being here, watching blistering beams make their way through the canopy of the trees he sees right from the bed, feels like a fever dream. It's a spot primed just enough for a bear or some other wild animal to pass through. Donghyuck's still not convinced he isn't dreaming—except his dream Mark would've probably pulled him closer instead of shoving him away.
“No, I wouldn't.”
“Yes, you would. You used to complain about hearing the air move two rooms over.”
Donghyuck curls up on his side of the bed, tries to come up with a retort and just ends up huffing. Mark stretches out in the space, letting out a relieved sigh and his sleep shirt rides up, revealing the juts of his hipbones. Donghyuck focuses there almost subconsciously, eyes moving without permission, flickering across skin and the dark hair that leads to his loose chequered bottoms. There's a mole in one of the twin triangles muscles and bones form on each side of his hips.
Vengeful, Donghyuck reaches out and pokes.
Mark yelps. It makes him grin and hide the grin in the bunched up duvet.
“C'mon,” Mark says with a slap to Donghyuck's shoulder. “Breakfast.”
“What's for breakfast?”
Mark ignores him. He shuffles across the open plan layout of the cabin, a space that's way too large for there to only end up being one bed. Mark had been apologetic last night, wanting to get out of the big city to show Donghyuck the other charms the country offers and this being one of the last minute places available. Instead of letting the confusing mess of elated emotions come up to the surface, Donghyuck just teased him about wanting to sleep next to him. It's not the first bed they've shared.
Somehow, here on the other side of the world, it does feel weirdly intimate. It's been weird for days, ever since they got on the plane. Something humming underneath Donghyuck's skin, the way a house gets loud after a bout of no electricity—it's a miracle nothing is projected outward, at least he thinks. Hopes. That Mark's too occupied to notice.
“Mark.”
“Toast,” Mark says without mercy as he shuts himself in the bathroom. Donghyuck closes his eyes, just for the time it takes Mark to get out.
When he opens them again, it's to the sounds of running water and kitchen cabinets being opened and closed. He drags himself out of bed, knowing that he'd be forced out of it sooner or later and he'd rather do it on his own terms.
The panelled floors are wonderfully warm. The whole cabin is, doubled by the effort of the late autumn sun streaming in through the large windows on top of the heating system. Green and gold accents, a cabin straight out of a magazine cover. It's strange and unfamiliar and Donghyuck is kinda into it, the whole vibe. Mark showing him something different. Filling him with calm energy and something-just-above calm energy when he finally gets to the kitchen.
Donghyuck knows there's coffee in the fridge but he bypasses it and faceplants right into the middle of Mark's back, too tempting not to. Mark smells good. Something about mornings just makes him soft all over. Donghyuck lets himself inhale the clean scent of him.
He realises that he'd only expected a reaction when he doesn't get one, a gesture that would've probably earned him a shake and a shove in any other setting and it makes him wonder. About the lines blurred across the planet, about how frequently they've touched each other without giving it any thought. Flowing into one another, nerves shot and frayed at the edges so they no longer register the touch input, maybe.
“Mark,” Donghyuck tries again, “what's for breakfast?”
“Toast,” Mark says pointedly.
Three minutes later, no rice manifested itself in front of Donghyuck. Instead, there's just toast and butter and a plateful of messy eggs with tomatoes, Donghyuck taking no part in it, except a constant stream of complaints executed into the back of Mark's hoodie.
“This is torture. This is a drawn-out, psychological torture you're inflicting on my unsuspecting self and I won't stand for it anymore. See you in court,” Donghyuck says and bumps his elbow into Mark from where he's sitting next to him at the breakfast bar.
“You said you could do it. Remember?”
Donghyuck remembers all too well.
There'd been bets made, way too many jokes and hitting too close to home for Donghyuck and he'd thought it would remain that way. Somewhere in the realm of unattainable reality, somewhere he and Mark get enough time off to rest and spend time with their families and only then maybe a chance to take a flight halfway across the world. Just the two of them.
Be careful what you wish for or something.
Donghyuck crunches at the bread with his front teeth pointedly. “Muh.”
“For me?”
Mark has turned to the side. His eyes are bugged out, lips pouting and his hair is swept back from his adorable forehead, the loveliest forehead Donghyuck's ever seen—he's playing it up and it's not gonna work, it absolutely, definitely isn't gonna—
Donghyuck melts like the butter in the middle of the table. Or perhaps he's the butterknife, blunted at the edges, softened and ready to give as good as he gets except. Except Mark is ridiculous. He's ridiculously hot, ridiculously everything. Ridiculously not-Donghyuck's. Not in this universe.
“One more day. And then I'm driving to the nearest Korean market and I don't care if you're with me or not.”
When Mark grins, it takes the tops of his cheeks with it.
⍋⍋⍋
Donghyuck is still trying to figure it out.
This: how to give it to Mark in the exact way that he needs, the friendship and the something disguised as. Detachment, nothing to burden him with so that they can exist without Donghyuck overthinking the unknown and Mark overthinking what Donghyuck needs back in return.
Because trying to pretend he doesn't need anything when his whole body is wired to be too much, too loud or too silent, always on edge, out of control, is slowly getting harder. The inability to be satisfied.
This: being two solitudes that border each other, lines never really overlapping but god, does Donghyuck want them to. To cross, no longer parallel wires but making circuitry that is much too bright and loud and them, for everyone to know. Maybe in another universe, they could.
For now, Donghyuck has to settle for this:
Weather that's almost too perfect to be real, with chilly undercurrents so that they don't really get sweaty as they move. The quiet of the woods, intersecting paths with just a few other tourists. Perhaps it's the day of the week or the hour or just everything aligning so that Donghyuck can witness this. Mark silhouetted on the hiking trail in front of him, silent as well because that's what they do get in this universe.
The quietness and the looks that Donghyuck can catch and pretend they mean more. Shadows stretching across the ground and getting so tangled Donghyuck doesn't know which parts belong to him.
If the first lake they passed only a few minutes of walking was gorgeous, Donghyuck doesn't have an adjective to describe the second one.
It's endlessly blue, the way Donghyuck's only seen on screens, way beyond imagination. Making him feel small, just another life form under the thick canopy, somewhere on the edge where it gives way to the vast skies fragmented with the occasional cloud or two and the ridges of the snow-capped mountains that seem way too far stretched out in front.
“Have you been here before?” Donghyuck asks, coming in closer until their jackets are rustling together.
Mark slowly rotates in place, face upturned to the sky. “Mm, I might have. I think I was too young to really remember. A lot of the places are too similar for me, start to blur into one. But I'm glad we're here now.”
Donghyuck breathes out. He catches Mark around the waist mid-spin, snuggling in close. Mark doesn't push him off. Donghyuck looks over his shoulder at the sun reflecting off the blue waters, making the lake almost electric. He's glad, too.
“Take a photo of me,” Donghyuck says. So he always remembers.
“Where's your phone?”
“Pocket,” Donghyuck says.
He doesn't actually expect Mark's hands to reach out, patting down the front of his body.
“Not there,” Donghyuck huffs mindlessly.
Mark's hands sweep over to his back. Donghyuck holds his breath. Mark isn't actually gonna touch his ass, is he?
But the fingers slip into the rough material of Donghyuck's jeans. Sinking a little lower, bringing warmth—Donghyuck wholly preoccupied with it and the wild jack-rabbiting of his heart, he doesn't even notice Mark's arms tense up. The whole world holding its breath.
“Donghyuck-ah,” Mark says, a threatening edge to his voice that almost makes Donghyuck burst out into hysteric giggles. Mark is still holding his ass. He's effectively let himself be felt up by his best friend and his best friend followed through. “It's not here, either.”
“Of course not,” Donghyuck says, tilting his head back to look at Mark's face. Eyebrows pulled into a frown, clouded over but still making no move to back away from Donghyuck. “It's in my jacket pocket.”
Mark closes his eyes for a moment, defeated, seems to breathe through it. His fingers twitch against Donghyuck's ass. The laugh finally makes its way out of Donghyuck's throat. Mark's eyes open, eyebrows lifting.
“Donghyuck-ah.” The hands move away, taking their delicious warmth with it.
“Hmm?”
“Run.”
⍋⍋⍋
They manage to take the pics. The gorgeous scenery, his phone camera not really doing it justice. A few instagram shots, ready to be posted months away from now, if ever. Donghyuck doesn't really wanna share, not this moment.
Most of his photos are of Mark, though. Mark, face upturned to the sky. Mark walking down the trail and pointing out something. Excitedly blabbering about the two beavers they just saw. Mark smiling. Mark laughing. Mark smiling. Mark smiling.
Donghyuck takes it all in. The birdsong. The cold air ruffling their hair, blowing through the folds of his jacket. The trees, leaning into one another like there’s no other place to go. Like they’re exactly right where they’re supposed to be. The world was made for lovers.
⍋⍋⍋
Donghyuck is never certain about anything anymore.
Late lunch is at one of the lodges, a charming little place doing an all-day brunch and Donghyuck resigns himself to let Mark order—the dishes here are never bad but they're just missing something vital, something that Donghyuck seeks out immediately after leaving his home country.
He stares at Mark across the outdoor table—he’s clutching at his tea, eyes turned up in mirth as he jokes about Donghyuck enduring it all again. But it's not about the food, Donghyuck thinks, not really. Donghyuck can do it all as long as he gets this, as long as Mark keeps looking at him and touching their legs together and being playful and relaxed like he hasn't been in weeks. Months. He'd trade all the kimchi jiggaes in the world for it. Probably.
“Have you recently thought about what we'd do?” Donghyuck asks, takes a sip of his coke and lets his gaze unfocus into the distance. The patio heater is perfectly warm at his side. The sunlight is blinding, reflecting off the water surface. Everything is right as it should be. “What we'd do if we weren't here?”
Mark stuffs a handful of fries into his mouth and Donghyuck watches him chew before he's coming up with an answer. “Mmm. Probably passed out in my bed. Watching the telly with my parents.”
“No, I didn't mean—now,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, exasperated and kicks Mark's ankle under the table.
Mark looks contemplative. “I don't know. I don't really let myself think about that anymore. I used to, a lot. But it made me feel guilty and a lot of ugly emotions I don't wanna deal with anymore and so I just. I am here now. That's that, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Donghyuck used to feel guilty, too, about wishing for an ordinary life. Now he thinks about the trade-off more, what he'd have given up if he never made the choices he did back then. “I would never have come to Canada. We'd probably never meet.”
“But I would've come to Korea,” Mark says, kicks Donghyuck's ankle right back. He keeps smiling, like the thought is such a good one he can't help but smile at it and Donghyuck feels a terrible pang. He likes him so much.
“You sound so sure.”
Mark shrugs. “I mean. That's what I think no matter what. We would've met somehow. And we could've been whoever we wanted. Here. Anywhere.”
Donghyuck wants to jump into the lake. He's hot underneath all the clothes, suddenly. Heart pounding. An urge crawling out of him, to stop the world or maybe just break it so that they can be like this forever. Shut the doming ceiling of a tacky snow globe souvenir over their heads. Shake it and let fake snow fill the silence for them.
“This is good, too,” he says, eventually.
Mark flicks out a hand, touches it warmly to the back of Donghyuck's wrist. Gone the next second, as if it never even happened. “Yeah. Exactly the way it's supposed to be.”
Donghyuck is never certain about anything anymore. About the silences and the looks and the things he is or isn't making up in his head, the tentative shuffle of two bodies trying to figure out their way around each other. To each other.
Mark makes him want to be.
⍋⍋⍋
They wake up to rain.
Mossy shadows, tree outlines and water dumped down the eaves. Making waterfalls, a rumble against the shingles, sliding down and flowing into the creek that passes the cabin where it swells and froths—an endless stream.
Wild animals walking by unnoticed, too dark now to see anything out of the window. Thunder echoes in the valley and Donghyuck feels it in his chest, blinking slowly into the darkness. His body too sweaty again, pressed up against Mark's, too everything.
He winces at the taste in his mouth, the tingling in his arm that's been stretched over his head for the duration of their nap. They'd been doing a lot of that. Sleeping. In separate rooms and then separate beds and now, one bed, a stretch of a mattress that seems to dip in the middle so that they always end up fitting together. Inevitable.
This time it's Donghyuck who's up first, watching Mark's relaxed face, the line between his eyebrows Donghyuck always wants to smooth over nonexistent now.
Nothing feels real anymore.
Mark twitches as if he senses Donghyuck's gaze and then his breathing pattern changes, Donghyuck attuned enough to notice, just like the storm still rattling outside and shaking the rocky mountain.
This is their world now, suspended in nothingness.
Since it is, Donghyuck feels no remorse in reaching out, gentling over the slope of Mark's cheekbone first, the thin skin just under the pout of his bottom lip. Sliding down his jaw, following the bone, the shadow of a stubble bristling underneath his fingertips. That sends tingles echoing down Donghyuck's spine. Mark's breath hitches every so often. Donghyuck stills, every muscle tense, both aware of one another.
An eye opened, blown out pupil aimed right at Donghyuck—the barrel of a gun.
Bang.
“I wanna…” Donghyuck starts, doesn't really know how to proceed, how to articulate exactly just what he wants. He knows it all, Mark's skin. He knows the crooks of his elbows, the way his veins protrude after it gets too hot, after strenuous practice, the sweat glinting at the backs of his knees. The span of his chest, and the curve of his upper lip.
He can't help wanting to know more.
“Hmm?” Mark hums, eyelids heavy.
His toes are cold when he shoves them under Donghyuck's duvet and then Donghyuck shoves back and then they're both shoving at each other and kinda laughing in the dark, before Donghyuck shoves extra hard and ends up halfway on top of Mark.
“What if we just. Stayed here forever,” he says into the dark space after the prolonged silence, adapting into this new reality where he's holding Mark (holy shit) and being held right back (holy shit), intimate and close and nothing like they've ever done anymore. At least it feels like that.
Mark smells like almonds. His skin is warm.
“Why do you sound like you just unlocked the secret to the universe? We could.”
“Have I not? Let me in now,” Donghyuck pretends to knock at Mark's chest, then leaves his hand there. If he focused on it enough, he might be able to feel Mark's heart beating against his palm. And isn’t that the key. The lock. The everything at once.
“What’s the password?”
“Lee Haechan is handsome.”
“I am triple locking it.”
“No! No, sorry, the password is this,” he leans closer and steels himself, eyesight blurry but it doesn't matter because it's too dark anyway. It doesn't matter because of the late hour or the weird undercurrent of time suspended, world unmoving if only just for this moment.
“What. The password is wh—”
Donghyuck cuts him off in the middle of the sentence. And people think it’s romantic but it’s actually—at least in the case of Mark Lee still trying to force the words out—kind of difficult.
It's awkward for about two seconds, Donghyuck's lips just kinda pressed somewhere over the corner of Mark's mouth, the flicker of Mark's breath over his cheek. At least until Mark reaches up and grabs Donghyuck's face, his shoulders, the front of his shirt.
He rolls them over, entire body bracketing him tight and kissing Donghyuck deep and warm and soft and everything he's been dreaming of. Mark huffs a breath through his nose and that’s when Donghyuck realises he probably forgot to even breathe at all. Mark's lips are insistent, pressing against him, trying to merge their bodies together—there’s two of them and suddenly there’s one.
And suddenly, it’s a knee-shaking, heart-stopping kinda kiss. It’s the godlike joy that makes him feel like he could do anything at all. Everything that caught the heart off guard and blew it open like the wind earlier today.
Donghyuck is thinking about flicking the nightstand lamp on but he's afraid of what the light would do to them, to this entire magic of a moment. He's thinking about pulling his t-shirt off and tugging the knit of Mark's hoodie over his head, messing up his hair and letting Mark pull his sweatpants down right back. He's scraping his fingernails down the dip of Mark's spine. He's palming that hot, smooth skin. He's taking Mark's tongue into his mouth, everything wet and slick and too good.
Mark's breath is also awfully, impossibly hot when it brushes over the skin adjacent to his ear, kissing the shell wetly and the shivers tumble down Donghyuck's vertebra like they've been spilled at the top.
“You're so soft. Warm,” Mark whispers against his ear. “I didn't want you to wake up, sleeping so sweetly. Like you belong right here. Baby bear.”
Donghyuck probably makes a sound, something that he’d be terribly embarrassed about later but right now it just adds up to all the sounds around them. The wind whipping past the shutters, rain bouncing off the windows. The creaking of the mattress.
Donghyuck leans in again, whispers: “Please, hyung.” against Mark's lips.
And he obliges, he wraps him in his arms even tighter and kisses him harder, because there isn’t a universe where Mark doesn’t care about his every whim, about everything that Donghyuck thinks of—before he even says it, there it is, waiting for him.
All of their interactions lately are laced with so much left unsaid. Once upon a time, Donghyuck thought that was their charm, that words didn’t mean much to them. Now it just feels stupid and fantasy-childish. He wants to hear everything. He wants to be touched but also talked to sleep. Talked to waking up. Talked to middle-of-the-afternoon mindless moment as they pass each other by during schedules.
Mark’s hand grazes down his body, a repeat of earlier today but too close to the hardness of Donghyuck’s cock to be an accident—a gesture no more soothing than hot, mercury rising more than intended.
“I’m—” Mark starts and Donghyuck grabs his hand and just holds it. Close.
“Don’t be awkward,” he says. “Coy doesn’t suit you.”
“Okay.”
It’s such a nebulous moment. Donghyuck’s heart pounds as he guides Mark’s hand down, full of intention.
“Call me that again,” Donghyuck murmurs, voice airy, veering off to a gasp as Mark’s palm fits in snug against his hard cock over the fabric of his sweatpants.
Mark leans down to his ear again. “What? Baby?” he says and Donghyuck feels himself harden, hand falling from Mark’s face to his shoulders, nails digging in. “Bear?”
Donghyuck’s mouth falls open on a silent moan. He wants Mark everywhere. Thinks his heart might give out if his mouth doesn’t first.
“Even if…” Mark is whispering again and kissing down Donghyuck’s neck and lifting his shirt up, up, finally, until his mouth is pressed into Donghyuck’s chest and his hand is moments away from sliding into Donghyuck’s sweatpants. “Even if we don’t get to have this again. I just need you to know—”
Mark’s cut himself off and Donghyuck tugs insistently on his hoodie until Mark is sitting up enough just to take it off. The buttery-warm night lamp clicks on. That’s when they’re careless. Real enough. It’s terrifying.
They stare at each other, Donghyuck squinting until his vision adjusts. Mark’s hair is a repeat of this morning, this time messy from Donghyuck’s eager fingers. He can see the scratches left on Mark’s shoulders. There’s most likely more on the skin of his back. Donghyuck tugs him back down by the arm and Mark goes. Easily, as if he didn’t have to expend any effort at all.
“I know. Mark.” Donghyuck kisses his chin, anywhere he can reach. “I know. Want you.”
“We’ve got all night,” Mark says and finally encloses his hand in a snug fit around Donghyuck’s leaking cock, skin on skin.
“I know. Want you always,” Donghyuck laughs, breathless, just shy of hysterical. Can’t help the way his throat tightens when he thinks about home. Seoul. His apartment. How it only smells like him. How there’s nothing to wake up to. How to articulate to Mark that he wants this. Every day.
Donghyuck stares down at the crown of Mark’s head and no longer pretends that this isn’t real. He can feel the whole boy, the man, his sturdy body pressing Donghyuck into the mattress. Mark grinds into his leg. Donghyuck hugs Mark’s head with both his arms and lets him tug pleasure from somewhere deep within—his strokes long and drawn-out and then short and deliberate. A hot surge of love-lust sprinting through his veins, the force of it making his mouth water.
Mark looks up at him.
His smile feels jagged and a little wild, overwhelmed at how, yeah, they’re actually doing this. Then, he’s sucking one of Donghyuck’s nipples into his mouth. Fuck words, actually.
Donghyuck doesn’t need to talk. He only needs this. He smooths a thumb across the ridge of Mark’s hairline and feels the tugs on his cock and he holds his breath. But instead of this being frantic and rushed, the whole thing is just on the edge of desperate-enough so that Donghyuck has all the time in the world not to think but just to feel.
“Ah, hyung,” he moans pointedly. “Ah.”
Mark lets out a rush of air against the side of Donghyuck’s throat, sounding like he’s just left the whole contents of his lungs there. It’s an agonised sound and the hand around Donghyuck’s cock pauses in its pursuit to drive Donghyuck to madness.
“I never know with you. I didn’t know, taking you here,” Mark mumbles, shifting so their bodies fall together at every natural nook and crevice. Arms like tree trunks bracketing Donghyuck’s head.
“Mark. Mark.” Donghyuck says, kisses the slope of the biceps closest to him and cups his palms over Mark’s ears.
They stare at each other, Mark’s eyes big and a little wet and Donghyuck hopes the message conveys, even though right now communication is no longer a turn-off.
“But you do know. You know me and—”
“Not like this.”
“Not like this,” Donghyuck agrees. “But now I’m letting you to.”
“I’m just—”
“Mark, for fuck’s sake I agreed to do this wild and improbable trip with you and why? Just so I could sit here in my agony over how you’re letting me touch you but I’m a greedy asshole who always wants more but absolutely can’t let you know?”
Mark smiles. Donghyuck still hears the swish of blood in his ears but it's gentling now, easing into something more natural. Something he's used to, around Mark. “Sounds like you.”
“See. You know everything. What am I thinking about right now?”
“Hmm,” Mark stretches the word out, while a hand worms its way between their bodies again and starts pulling the waistband of Donghyuck’s sweatpants down. “Hot pot?”
Donghyuck squeezes Mark’s cheeks together with his palms.
“Asshole. If you do not—”
Mark drags Donghyuck’s bottoms down as far as they go, trapped around the tops of his thighs. Then his own follow and if this teasing goes on for much longer, Donghyuck is really going to do something terrible—
“If I do not what?”
He rolls his hips down. Donghyuck throws his head back and lets Mark do the teasing work, sliding their cocks together, hips fluid, working with the bounce of the mattress underneath them.
Donghyuck grips at his neck, sweaty fingers sliding across more sweat, Mark a strikingly boyish figure underneath his greedy hands. The muscles of his traps are firm and there’s the stubble on his cheeks and the smell of him, Donghyuck getting dizzy, or maybe that’s just the lack of air, he doesn’t know.
Mark kisses him and picks up the pace and then he’s murmuring into his mouth. “You close?”
“Close, yeah, fuck,” Donghyuck breathes back, chases that with a moan when Mark spits into his hand and slicks them both up. It’s insane.
It’s even more insane when Mark stops kissing him, taking the sensation of being on the edge of suffocation by the mutual efforts of their tongues not staying in their own mouths with it. And then starts talking again.
“Wanna mess you up perfectly, wanna see you come hard for me.” He kisses Donghyuck’s ear again, leaves his teeth there before stubble scratching their cheeks together, breathes hot and wet while Donghyuck’s mouth falls open on the too-loud moans he can’t really suppress.
“Yeah. Yeah, please, please.”
Mark’s hand is a burning coal, fist enclosing around the head of Donghyuck’s cock, circling, coming back down and then up and then circling again, a wonderful, brain-whitening pattern.
And he’s right there, he’s close, so close but he needs. Wants. Everything that Mark can give him. “Mark,” he babbles. “Come, come here, I—” Mark kisses him, licking so deep, dizzy desire. That’s when Donghyuck finally goes rigid, toes curling with it—steaming and ruined and overwhelmed.
“So good,” Mark whispers, voice strained and the sound of Donghyuck’s come slicking up and down his cock is so filthy, Donghyuck’s brain still swimming pleasantly but he registers the sounds and sensations.
Mark’s breathing quickening, getting ragged. The occasional brush of his knuckles over Donghyuck’s sensitive cock as he strokes himself. And Donghyuck encourages him by sliding his leg over and over up the back of Mark’s, scratching his fingers through the short-cropped hair at Mark’s nape.
Bodies pressed together, sweat and slick and skin, Mark comes without a word. Eyes squeezed shut. Donghyuck feels the come spill out between them and he wants to look down but he can't stop staring at Mark's wonderfully slack face, the scrunch of his nose and the sweat lines trailing down his temple, curving a path next to his ear and sliding down the angles of his face.
“Fuck,” Mark breathes and collapses, mess everywhere. Donghyuck wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else.
“Hand me the tissues?”
Donghyuck groans. “Why should I, you’re the one who—” but he’s reaching for the box on the nightstand—taking out one and using it to blow his nose.” Air’s too clean here. ‘M not used to it.”
“Donghyuck-ah,” Mark says and his fingers splay out across the mess on Donghyuck’s lower stomach, dip into his bellybutton.
Donghyuck shrieks and whacks the soft tissue box against Mark's shoulder. “Okay, alright. Here, damn.”
Mark wipes them off before doubling up and blowing his nose like a fucking elephant, twice as hard as Donghyuck did.
“Hyung!”
“What?” Mark says and executes a perfect basketball throw into the rounded bin. He lies back down. “Air is too clean here.”
“Ugh.”
Donghyuck wants to complain about how heavy Mark is but it feels actually kinda really good, being squished like this. Being this close. Chests rising in tandem. Something taking shape, the outline of foundations—right there inside Donghyuck’s chest, in a space designed right for it.
“Hot pot tomorrow? Barbecue?”
“Yeah. Whatever you want.”
In the liminal aftermath of mutual orgasms, Mark is mellow and agreeable. It makes Donghyuck hide a self-satisfied grin in his hair, holding him close.
He doesn’t need his Seoul apartment. He’s gonna let one rise up right here, one bedroom perfect enough for one person. So that it’s always with him.
“This.”
Mark strokes Donghyuck’s sweaty bangs off his forehead. They spend an awful long time staring at each other, Donghyuck taking it all in. Mark’s bright eyes, lips stretched into a perfect little smile. Looking at Donghyuck like he’s something beautiful. Like he means something vital. Donghyuck’s chest filling up with molten gold.
“Okay,” Mark agrees, closes his eyes. Leans in to kiss Donghyuck carelessly while Donghyuck tries to compress a solar’s flare worth of feeling into the kiss. “This.”