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Mark had asked him if he was going to miss him once he went to college the same night he asked Jeno to be his boyfriend. Even now, years later, it seems like a very cruel joke.
People may not know it, but before Mark Lee belonged to San Francisco and Jeno, he belonged to him. Back in Illinois, younger and much more naive, he saw him for the first time. They couldn't have been more than 5 years old, and yet that moment is still imprinted with a very vivid light in his mind.
He remembers laughing at Mark's Canadian accent, even though his own English was terrible at the time. He became friends with the boy that same afternoon at the park. Nowadays, the park is no longer what it used to be; the ice cream shop that was right across the street closed about three years ago, the playground is now completely destroyed, and only the swings remain.
His entire childhood and adolescence had taken place in that park, alongside his only best friend (he was much more than that, but he cannot express it in words, it is still blurry, even in his mind). And looking back, as he has been doing in recent years, the park is a great analogy for their relationship. It is a relationship because it couldn't have been just a friendship, not after everything they went through.
The first time he kissed Mark was also in the park. It had been freezing that day, as is usual in the Midwest winter. He knows the exact date and also knows that it is a bit ridiculous to have it so strongly memorized, but it's not something he can help, not with him. It has always been that way. Ridiculous to and only to Mark.
January 5, 2014.
They had sat on the bench, the blue one. He was wearing a red scarf and blue gloves. Mark was wearing the green sweatshirt that belonged to him, the one with his name embroidered on it. 'Donghyuck' in lowercase maroon letters.
The wind was absolutely brutal, hitting them mercilessly.
"Are you aware that shirt looks ridiculous on you?" he had asked. He never wore that shirt because he hated it.
"Don't you think it looks good on me?" Well, everything looked good on Mark; he was that kind of person.
"It makes you look like an idiot." He lied, because it was easier than expressing all the tornado of emotions he felt inside him.
Mark laughed. "Stupid." He rolled his eyes and gave him a dirty look.
"Not that you don't look like an idiot all the time." It was incredibly unfair, the fact that Mark always seemed, if not perfect, better, better than anyone.
His cheeks were red, the cold seemed to run through his bones and make them ache, but all that stopped mattering as soon as he looked at the person in front of him.
It is good that day was cold, because he could hide the redness of his face simply by saying he was freezing. Or maybe it wasn't good because if Mark had noticed, if he had any idea of it all, he wouldn't have done what he did.
It is in winter when most couples are born, the almost need to be hugged, cuddled up to someone becomes the greatest desire. It was his greatest desire at that moment, for the moment to come when Mark would sit and look at him, truly look at him.
He remembers the way he smiled at him as soon as he touched his face. He doesn't know what he wiped off his face, but he does know the nervous laugh that came from his chest and left his mouth.
He is aware that he was the one who moved closer first, it wasn't Mark who sought his lips, but it was Mark who looked at his lips first and laughed when he separated his mouth from his.
"Have you never kissed anyone?" he asked while still wearing that stupid smile on his face.
He didn't know what to say; it was as if the ability to speak had vanished from his body. He made a sound that never came out, it stayed choked along with all those illusions that seemed already an indispensable part of him.
His head moved in denial. At that moment, Mark stopped looking at him and laughed again, maybe out of nerves, he can't be sure.
He was stunned, lost, and confused.
"You'll have an idea of what to do when someone you like kisses you," he said.
You'll have an idea of what to do when someone you like kisses you.
When someone you like kisses you.
When someone you like.
Kisses you.
Despite the years, it still tortures him; there are still nights he spends awake thinking about that exact moment.
After those words, he has no idea what else happened. He knows he stayed longer with Mark, and he knows they talked about other things and said goodbye and everything seemed normal, but he doesn't understand how.
How he managed to act "normal" around him after all.
How he went back home if he felt from the depths of his soul that he was dying inside.
How they never talked about it again.
How Mark dared to do that and continue with his life as if it were nothing, he, the moment, and everything.
Every January 5, he remembers what was and wasn't, what was his and at the same time alien to him.
Every January 5, he remembers what it is to love with everything you have inside of you, with every fiber that makes you.
It is sad to think that he doesn't believe he can ever love someone that way again.
He remembers that night crying like he had never done before, full of anguish, frustration, and love. It wasn't the last time he cried that way because life can also be cruel, hateful, and there is always a Mark who dictates your slightest feeling with just a different look, but he believes none of those tears hurt as much as the first ones he shed.
He believes he left a part of himself in that moment, in that park, and with that Mark.
Mark was going to college in San Francisco, it was something he always knew, because from the moment Mark was aware he could leave Illinois, he wanted to go to San Francisco, with its Golden Gate, its hills in the street, and its stupid California sun.
He always thought he would be there with him, forming part of his new life and still being his best friend (though he died to be much more).
By 2017, Mark already knew how to drive and was about to leave him, never to return, although he didn't know that at the time, and it's stupid because he didn't even leave in a physical way, but the Mark who returned was no longer his Mark, not completely.
He had a year left to catch up with Mark, maybe not just a year, but something that would allow him to hold on to him and never let go. Because even if he had gone at the same time as Mark, he knows he would never catch up with him. Mark was destined for something bigger and much better than Lee Donghyuck.
Mark drove an old gray Chevy, one of those without rear doors, and you had to enter from the front, moving the seat.
He kept it clean, inside and out. He always got angry when he put his feet on the car's dashboard and threatened not to invite him to drive with him again.
He believes it was in that Chevy where Mark took his 'almost-girlfriends' to make out with him. It's funny to think that he spent more time in that car than they did, him listening to Mark's breathing, him in the early morning in the passenger seat while Mark drove desperately over any nonsense his parents did.
Was he also an almost-girlfriend? He doesn't think so; he lacked being a girl to be one.
May 21, 2017.
It was Sunday, and the sidewalk was filled with children running or on their bikes. He was shouting while Mark kept pushing him on the bike, the touch of his hands presented a gigantic difficulty to concentrate, and the sun beating down on his face only increased the difficulty of that task.
He didn't know how to ride a bike, and Mark had always believed that was an immense atrocity. He remembers May 21 as the day he realized he would always love Mark, he was irrevocably in love with him.
The whole street smelled like chocolate; that's where Mark's grandmother's house was. He felt the smell stuck to his clothes every time they were there, the smell of chocolate still overwhelming him and reminding him of Mark.
"This would be much easier if you were capable of opening your eyes and seeing where you're going," he said while his hands were on his lower back, gently pushing him.
Mark had, and he supposes still has, a magical way of doing things; being there was like being in the middle of the forest, with rain accompanying him, a drizzle that made you feel like you had never lived anything better. Maybe he liked the rain too much.
He put his feet down to stop the bike; it was a silly move because the abrupt change caused Mark to push him and fall with him. The bike handlebar hit his ribs, and with Mark's weight on him, it became impossible to breathe; he felt the air being knocked out of his lungs. Mark had to move him; he remembers the way his brow furrowed, full of concern, and how it seemed like tears were about to form in his eyes.
There came a point where he had to close his eyes and squeeze Mark's hand tightly while recovering his breath. He thinks Mark started talking, trying to ask if he was okay or something, but he silenced him with his left hand, his breathing becoming stronger every second.
He vividly remembers, as if he were still there in flesh and blood, the way Mark was looking at him when he raised his face. Maybe he hated Mark more for that look than for anything else, that look that completely destroyed him and didn't let him think clearly.
He would have given anything for Mark to kiss him at that moment, on that hot, chocolate-scented afternoon. But Mark didn't kiss him.
"You're not going to teach me how to ride a bike again." His voice still hadn't fully recovered from the lack of breath.
Mark sighed in relief upon hearing him speak and stopped looking at him. He thinks that was the first time it hurt him that Mark stopped looking at him to look at someone else.
Lee Jeno was on the other side of the street, with his black hair falling over his face and with a smile so sweet that it should have been funny, but it wasn't. Nothing related to Mark not looking at him was funny.
That was the beginning. Mark stopped seeing him completely from that day on. Why would he see him when Lee Jeno was by his side?
He doesn't know how long they stayed like that. He was still lying on the sidewalk, but he couldn't move, not when the person he loved the most was falling in love with someone else.
It didn't take long for Mark and Jeno to become boyfriends. It was funny; it never hurt him to see Mark with girls as much as it hurt to see him with Jeno.
The last summer they spent together, they didn't truly spend it together. Nothing was just the two of them again.
Jeno probably hated him, and he didn't blame him. It's not like they had really talked before all of this. He was in his physics class and had tutored him in the subject for a while, but they had never coincided in anything else. And now, there he was, sharing the most important person in his life, and it seemed like Jeno was winning.
July 26, 2017.
The day Mark asked Jeno to be his boyfriend, just days before leaving for college, Mark kissed him—he kissed him, Lee Donghyuck.
They had gone to the park, the heat was unbearable, and Mark was wearing a white shirt along with black shorts, accompanied by a stupid Chicago Bulls cap.
He didn't think about Jeno the whole afternoon. He didn't think about Mark holding his hand and taking him to his parents' house to eat. He didn't think about them probably kissing in Mark's car, like he longed to do.
The park was theirs. It belonged to the two of them, and he thought until that moment that no one could ruin that, at least he had that.
By then, the ice cream shop had already closed, replaced by a dentist's office, ironically.
They were sitting on the same damn blue bench where he had kissed him for the first time more than three years ago.
"I think I'm in love with Jeno," he said.
And he lost his voice again, just like before. And it was unfair, it was impossible, because he had given everything, he had done everything, and still, Mark wasn't in love with him.
He didn't realize when the hot, anger-filled tears started to roll down his cheek. Mark's face only made him angrier. He had to know; everyone knew. Why didn't he know that he had been in love with him for what seemed like his whole life?
He turned his face away. The frustration didn't let him think straight, and he couldn't allow Mark to see him that way, more vulnerable than ever.
"Really?" His voice broke halfway to stifle a sob.
He was turned, looking at the swings, the same ones where Mark fell once when they were six, and Donghyuck had to console him, because Mark didn't really have anyone else at that moment, because Donghyuck had been his family since he could remember.
He felt a hand on his face, just like that damned January 5th.
He doesn't know how he looked at Mark at that moment, whether with pain, love, or hatred. Maybe a mix of all three.
"You have no idea, do you?" he said, his voice breaking more and more.
It was almost impossible to stifle the sobs at that point.
And then Mark leaned in, Mark leaned in and kissed him.
The kiss tasted salty, of tears, not just his but Mark's too.
"I can't allow myself this, you know I can't." And he didn't know that he couldn't. He didn't understand why Mark couldn't.
And his head shook in denial, over and over. Just like that first kiss.
"I really love him," he said.
And the tears poured down.
"With him, I can take the risk of loving him like this, but with you, I can't, never with you, because I can't lose you." And years later, it remains ironic, because he lost him anyway.
Mark asked Jeno to marry him on July 26, 2022. Mark didn't tell him; he found out from his mother, of all people. He supposes Mark found in Jeno what he had in Donghyuck and more, that Jeno had everything he had and more, but it never stopped hurting.
There's not a moment in his life when he doesn't love Mark.