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Doyoung decided to turn in early; he didn't deal with alcohol well, and the beer had made him drowsy. He said he would take the guest bedroom and sleep on the futon. Johnny shrugged. "Sounds good," he said, smirking the way he always did, and bid Doyoung good night. Turning to Mark, he rose, and the change in height made him look even more like a giant. "I'm going back to mine to look through all the photos," he said. "Wanna come?"
It seemed like Johnny's mom had organised them a bit haphazardly--disorganised them, maybe. The ones of Johnny were displayed most prominently, and some of it wasn't even Johnny's stuff, just fan letters or messages of support that fans had sent after somehow managing to find his home address.
"Does it weird you out?" Mark said, holding one.
"What?"
"Cuz, like, your mom and the fans--I mean, I dunno." Mark stared at the letter he was holding. It didn't say anything threatening. It was a normal letter. But for it to be here, in Johnny's room...
"I don't know," Johnny said, shrugging one shoulder. Mark knew that wasn't true, because he'd seen the expression on Johnny's face when they'd gotten off the tour bus and all those fans were on the lawn with the signs. His blank face.
But Johnny seemed preoccupied with something else. He had opened a drawer in the desk and was going through some photo printouts. Some of them were real photographs, rectangular and glossy, but others seemed like they had come from a computer printer. They were just paper, a bit crumpled, very faded.
"What're those?"
"Huh?" Johnny jumped a bit. Mark walked over to where he was standing. They hadn't bothered to turn on the overhead light when they'd come in, just a standing lamp, and Johnny looked even more feline like this, barefaced in the golden glow. The curve of his top lip was strong and pronounced.
"What are those?" Mark said again.
"They're pictures from when I was high school," Johnny said. He was looking at one of him with his arms around two golden-haired white kids, a boy and a girl.
"Friends?"
"Yeah, sure." A corner of his mouth ticked up looking at the picture. "I mean, yeah."
"You still talk to them?" Johnny rarely mentioned friends from back home.
"Him, no. Her, yeah."
"Oh." Mark was quiet for a moment. He could feel the grains of the wood floor against his toes. For some reason he wanted to luxuriate in sensation tonight. Everything had been so normal. Going to Johnny's old elementary school, to the Target where he used to go with his high school friends. He could almost pretend they'd grown up together. "How come?"
"No reason," Johnny said. It was too casual to be a real answer, but sometimes he got weird like this. Mark left it.
"How're you feeling?" he said instead.
Johnny looked down at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Me? I'm fine."
"I mean, it must be weird, right, because we're like--we're--here. You know. And it's, like--um, it must bring back memories."
Instead of laughing at him the way he might have on a normal night, Johnny looked thoughtful. "Not really," he said. "It doesn't really feel like my house anymore, you know. Because my parents have changed everything a lot since I lived here. Even this room. Even though I'm all over it, I just feel like I'm visiting my parents' house."
Mark wondered if Johnny's parents felt like that--that he was visiting their house. "It's not your house too?"
"I think it would really hurt my mom's feelings if she knew I felt like that," Johnny said. He was looking at the picture again, his eyes fixed on the two golden-blonde heads on either side of his.
"But?" Mark prompted when it seemed like he wasn't ready to say any more.
"But it's still true." Finally Johnny put the photo down. He started looking through another stack instead, plucking out a few and putting them with the first one. All of them featured either the smiling golden-haired girl or her male counterpart, always with Johnny in the center.
"Why?"
Johnny made a face--maybe at him or at the question, Mark wasn't sure. He felt awkward standing like this and went over to the bed, pulling out his phone for something to fiddle with and so that he wouldn't have to make eye contact with Johnny. Maybe the beer had had more of an effect than he'd thought.
"Why?" Johnny repeated. He drew out the word--not as a mockery, but because he was in thought and maybe busy with the photos, which he had started sorting with even more deliberation than before. "Um... because it just isn't." He shrugged. "It stopped being my house when I moved to Korea."
"So is the dorm your house?" That struck Mark as a sad thought.
"No," Johnny said, as though it ought to be obvious. Maybe it was--the dorms were so impermanent.
"So where...?" Mark let the question trail off. Johnny didn't answer; he had gone back to taring at the photos in his hands. "Who're they?" Mark asked when the silence had lasted too long for him
"Them? They're--we were friends in high school. I'm pretty sure I just told you this... Keep up, Mark."
"I knew that! Like... who are they though?" He couldn't quite read the expression Johnny shot him, but finally Johnny turned to sit next to him on the bed.
"They're just two of my friends from high school. I told you, I still talk to her but not really to him." He was shuffling through the pictures to show Mark and didn't quite manage to hide one where he was holding hands with the girl. Mark, sensing a chance, snatched it out of his hands and shot off the bed before Johnny had the chance to tackle him.
"Your parents and Doyoung are sleeping," he warned. "If you do anything I'll scream and wake them up."
Johnny eyed him with hostility. "Fine," he said after a second. "Just get back here. I want all the pictures together." As soon as he clambered back, Johnny tazed him, which Mark guessed he should have expected. While he was clutching his side and bending over in pain, Johnny got the picture back and put it with the others, making sure the edges of the little pile were neat and straight.
"So who is she for real?" Mark pressed when the pain in his side had subsided. That would leave a bruise.
Johnny's mouth twisted. Why was he being so reluctant? "We dated for a while," he admitted. "So I guess you could say she's my ex."
Mark could feel his eyebrows threatening to leave his forehead with how high they'd climbed. "For real?" he said. Maybe he should have expected it from the picture, but he'd not expected Johnny to say it like that.
Johnny didn't make eye contact. "It wasn't really that serious," he muttered. "We didn't really, like--we just messed around a lot. In here, actually."
"Like--" Mark twisted around to look where they were sitting. "Wait, are you for real? Are you serious right now?"
"Don't make a big fucking deal out of it," Johnny said. He rubbed a hand over his face. "I really feel like it's not any of your business."
"Is this why you're so weird about these pictures and you didn't want the cameras to film them? You're afraid people will know you had a girlfriend?"
"I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, Mark," Johnny said. "I seriously don't get why you're so obsessed with this. You've been so weird this entire trip. It's just a house. It's just a Target. It's a normal school, and you took all of that shit and you were so--" He cut himself off when he saw Mark's facial expression. Mark himself didn't know what his face was doing, only that he could feel it twisting. Johnny was being uncharacteristically cruel, but Mark thought maybe it was just the exhaustion. The overload of the day. It was confirmed when he said, low, "Sorry. That was shitty."
"It's fine, man," Mark said. He clapped Johnny on the arm and could feel, even through the thick fabric, the solid outline of his muscles. His hand lingered for a moment before he snatched it away, confused by his own actions. "We're all tired, right?"
"Yeah," Johnny said. He rubbed a hand over his face. "Maybe we should go to bed. I'm kinda worn out."
"Totally," Mark said. "Totally. Okay, like. Where are... Where..."
"There's a room downstairs, if you want it," Johnny said. "Doyoung's in the room across from here, but the futon isn't that big. I think I might sleep here."
Mark stared at him for a moment. "Really?"
"Anything wrong with that?" He wasn't really asking for Mark's opinion; he was daring Mark to have one in opposition to him.
"I mean, no. Isn't it--too small?"
"No," Johnny said. He ran a hand along the comforter cover. "It's a full, but it's big enough for me."
"Okay." Mark hesitated. "I don't really." He didn't know how to phrase it. "I don't want to sleep downstairs," he said finally.
Johnny's face creased in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know," Mark muttered. "I mean, you know how I get about new places--" scared--"and I don't really think. I mean. I guess if there's a room we could share..."
"I could get the sleeping bag, but I'm actually not sure where it is," Johnny said. He sounded like he wanted to laugh. "Are you still scared of the dark?"
Mark shoved at him; it was like hitting a cement slab. "Shut up!"
"Let's get ready for bed," Johnny said. He was still laughing, the same low laugh he had for the cameras. Normally it didn't bother Mark but for some reason, right now, it made him upset.
"Let's just go," he said.
In the bathroom they brushed their teeth side by side. Johnny was taller, and in the way he had, he bothered Mark subtly as they stood, jostling him out of the way or stepping on his toes and pretending it was an accident.
But the enforced quiet time, as he waited outside the bathroom for Johnny to do whatever it was that he needed, gave him time to think about what he'd seen. About the way Johnny's mother fawned over him. The stories she'd told them at dinner as Johnny cringed away. His awkward conversations with his father, about things like his health or the doctor's visit his father had made last month. Stuff that Mark would have discussed with his own parents over the phone.
Johnny's parents doted on him. And Johnny, in return, had only been uncomfortable and nervous. Between that and his blowup at Mark earlier, he was different, Mark was sure of it, but he didn't know what it meant.
And the pictures. The rearranged room. Johnny not knowing where his own stuff was. Some of this was normal displacement, or at least as normal as things could get for them, but other parts: Mark wasn't sure what to make of it. He was staring at his phone, not really playing with it, when Johnny came out. Even though they'd taken off all their makeup earlier in the night, when they'd changed into the clothes they got from Target, he'd washed his face again, and there were little drops of water at his hairline and sliding along his collarbone, into the neckline of his hoodie.
"'Kay, I'm done," he said. As he walked into his room, Mark rose to follow him, and Johnny stared at him in confusion. "Wait--you're coming?"
Mark, thinking it was maybe one of Johnny's games, felt himself flush a violent red. "Dude, we already talked about this, come on. You already made fun of me for--"
"No, I'm being serious." Johnny stared at him for a moment. "Mark... are you for real, dude? That bed is big enough for me, but just for me. It's not big enough to fit you too."
"I'm not that big!" Mark whined. He could hear it in his own voice and wanted to cringe at it, but at the same time the idea of having to sleep by himself in a strange house in the dark was scary enough that he would play this card with Johnny if he had to.
Johnny stared at him for a second longer, and Mark shifted his weight from one foot to another, wondering if he had to do a little more. "Are you for real," Johnny said under his breath, but it didn't sound like a question, more like acquiescence. Mark followed him into the room.
Inside, it was dark. The moon was strong, and its light filtered into the bed, illuminating it until Johnny drew the curtains. He picked up the pictures that were left on the bed and put them on his desk, taking the ones he'd set aside and putting them into a lower drawer.
They settled themselves on the bed. It wasn't the first time they had shared, though Johnny hated sharing a bed and typically would claim seniority to kick out anyone he could. Mark only had a few memories of this from trainee days, and back then it was because he needed comfort, never something permanent. Johnny had been different then too. He wondered what changed.
As they lay back to front, Mark said, "You awake?" He was as quiet about it as he could be, but it still felt like his voice echoed off the walls.
"Trying not to be," Johnny said. He shifted himself in a way that could have been accidental but almost knocked Mark off the bed.
"Sorry," Mark said. "I just can't stop thinking."
"Is there something I'm supposed to do about that?"
"Not really... I just can't sleep."
He could feel breath stir the back of his neck as Johnny sighed. "Okay, Mark." He sounded put-upon. "What's on your mind." He said it with such flat affect that it couldn't have been a question.
"You're gonna think this is stupid."
"Probably," Johnny said. "But I'm awake now, so you might as well just say it."
They weren't lying flush against each other, but Johnny's knees were pressed into the back of his legs. Somehow that point of contact was making him dizzy. "I can't believe you had a girlfriend," he said finally.
"She wasn't my girlfriend."
"You said you guys had--I mean, you, like, messed around. Right here, even." The thought simultaneously thrilled and disgusted him.
"You can do that and not date someone, Mark. I really hope you don't think that's a prerequisite for that kind of thing." How Johnny could lie in bed at 1 AM and use the word prerequisite Mark would never know. At least he sounded amused instead of pissed. Then he laughed, and Mark could feel the vibrations of it through the bed. "Actually, I know you don't, because of when I caught you with--"
"Okay!" Mark said, cutting him off before he could say anything else. He'd tried hard to forget that incident. "It only happened once!"
"Really?" Johnny said, sounding interested for the first time all day. "Just once?"
"Yeah, having you walk in on us us really killed... it," Mark finished weakly. He had been about to say that it killed his boner, but making that kind of joke around Johnny was dangerous. He brought everything back up when it was least expected. And that hadn't been the only reason. It was hard to keep things up with girls. He hadn't even tried after that.
"So you haven't since then?"
"Do you really need to know this?"
"You're the one who kept me awake," Johnny pointed out. "Because you couldn't stop thinking about the girl I was messing around with, which is weird, by the way."
"Fine," Mark said. He was aware that he sounded sulky. Hearing Johnny put it that way had put him in a bad mood, and he couldn't figure out why. "Never mind then."
"Finally, some beauty sleep for me," Johnny said. He sounded like he was smiling; Mark ignored it.
But it was true: he couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd known Johnny back then, though admittedly in short periods of time until Johnny had graduated and come to Korea full-time. They couldn't go anywhere without being bombarded with the pictures and videos from back then, and he knew Johnny was just as awkward and gangly as the rest of them. But it didn't matter. He couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Johnny," he said, one more time, and he could hear the tremour in his own voice. "What was it like?"
This time, for whatever reason, Johnny didn't humiliate him by asking what he meant. Maybe the scene--the darkness, the location, their positions in the bed--gave him a sense of what Mark was asking--or rather, what Mark was asking, and what Mark was really asking.
"She liked to come over and study," Johnny's low voice began. Mark could feel the rumble where his back was pressed against Johnny's chest, a sensation that he tensed against so as not to tremble. "And sometimes we'd just end up, like, making out. Because we were trying to study, I guess, but it was also an excuse, because we wanted to make out... My mom never asked." He paused. As he took a breath in, his chest expanded against Mark's back, and then the exhalation stirred the hair on the back of Mark's neck. This time, he couldn't stop himself from squirming.
Johnny continued, "And sometimes when we made out it was just, like, on the floor or whatever, but one time, she came up on the bed to ask me a question and then we ended up kissing..." His hand, which had been draped over Mark's hip, skimmed over the gap between Mark's sleep shirt and his bottoms, skin that pebbled under his touch. He wasn't a cuddler, and so Mark felt it as a shock. "I can't remember a lot..." He almost sounded apologetic about it, and Mark in his daze couldn't understand why.
"Then what," Mark whispered. He wanted Johnny to keep touching him; he was parched with desire for it. What he'd been missing all night.
Johnny's hand, which had stilled in its movements, began again, but this time he moved it so that his fingertips were on Mark's abdomen, his--the place where his muscles jumped under a touch, anyone's touch, which they did now. What if Johnny thought--
"I got her under me," Johnny said then, and Mark couldn't think about anything except what his voice sounded like. "She was pretty small compared to me, and she was holding on to my shoulders, and, then, like..." His voice trailed off. "We kept making out." His lips brushed over the shell of Mark's ear. "And she pushed my hands up her shirt," he said finally, and at the same time his hand slid up under the hoodie. His fingers left a trail of shivers in their wake, and Mark thought that if he hadn't been holding himself tense against it, he might have squirmed right out of the bed against how big Johnny's hand was in comparison to his own torso, how much ground Johnny could cover on Mark's body with no effort at all.
"She pushed her hands up my shirt," Johnny whispered again, his voice low in Mark's ear, making the hair rise up on the back of his neck. "And then she put my hands on her tits." And then his own hand, his big hand, slid up to rub against Mark's nipple.
Mark heard himself make a noise. And it was that disembodied: he realised for the first time that he could experience pleasure the same way he experienced pain, that without understanding it, his own body could react to this unknown stimulus without his explicit permission or command, that the bitten off moans coming from the bed were his own. That the sounds coming from his mouth were attached to the way the pads of Johnny's fingers were rubbing over his nipple, and that all of this was detached from whatever part of his mind had decided to escape from himself to document this.
And then out of his mouth, again: "And then what?" It was almost a miracle that it came out coherent. Sweat sprang up at his temples, on his sides.
Johnny said, "She let me feel her up," and Mark's dick fattened up so fast it was almost painful. He understood that Johnny's narrative mirrored what was happening with them in the bed right now: that he was the girl, he was being felt up, he was moaning, he was underneath Johnny and panting for more, hot for some big hands and a deep voice. It sent a flush of humiliation down his body, his blood thrumming and hot.
"Her tits weren't that big, and I didn't take her bra off," Johnny said, and Mark's traitorous cock throbbed, pulsing for a touch. He'd known Johnny could talk like this, but hearing about it--being on the receiving end of it--felt illicit, dangerous. It wasn't okay to talk about girls this way, but when he closed his eyes against the cool air of the room and let Johnny's hands explore his body he could almost pretend Johnny was talking about him instead. Like he was the object of Johnny's desire, making his dick hard even though he was just a bad replacement, a cheap copy of the real thing. Whatever Johnny was using to get himself through this momentary weirdness, this period of blank disidentification. "But her nipples were really hard, and she moaned a lot."
Johnny was beginning to pant a little bit, and he used the same hand with which he was touching Mark to push their bodies flush together. Mark realised, with a jolt, that he could feel Johnny's cock against the small of his back, thick and hot through the thin fabric of his basketball shorts. The shorts, which were the same ones Johnny was wearing, because they'd gotten the same ones at Target as Johnny made copious jokes about couple's clothing. His mouth watered involuntarily.
"And then what," Mark said. It wasn't even a question. A prompt, maybe. Facing away from the window as he was, he couldn't see anything except the door to Johnny's bedroom, dark and shadowed.
"And then," Johnny said, and stopped. His fingers, which had been playing with Mark's nipples, dragged down the planes of Mark's stomach, making the muscles jump, and with his other hand he threaded his fingers through Mark's hair and pulled. It felt good: a thousand tiny pinpricks adding to his hyperawareness. He was panting embarrassingly loud, he knew, with a moan trapped in the back of his throat, and shoved a knuckle in his mouth to silence himself. "And then," Johnny said, "she pushed my hand down to her pussy." His own hand had reached the waistband of Mark's shorts. There was no way he didn't know how hard Mark was anyway, but for some reason a spike of panic made Mark's breath come faster. If Johnny knew--but he was already here like this. Like a girl Johnny felt up in his bed, letting Johnny play with his tits while thinking about some American girl he'd fingered seven years ago when Mark was still figuring out what puberty was. The humiliation flushed his cheeks and made him gasp for air.
"She wasn't wearing any underwear," Johnny continued. His voice was very low, almost no sound to it. Was he thinking about his parents downstairs? Doyoung, in the other room, snoring away on the futon? There was a creak somewhere, farther down, in the house and Mark's entire body tensed up even as Johnny's hand didn't stop; he said, "She was already wet, and she showed me how to touch her," while circling his big, dry hand around Mark's cock. The friction felt so good that Mark couldn't stop himself from making a sound aloud, groaning with the touch.
Johnny said, "She kept squirming and moving around and making these little noises." He drew another moan from Mark as he said it. "And I had to--cover her mouth with my hand because I was afraid my mom would come up to check on us." His own hand stayed, tight, in Mark's hair, pulling his head back.
There was a smile in Johnny's voice, a smirk, and the embarrassment combined with the hot flush of fear at someone coming up to find Mark like this, pinned to Johnny's chest and squirming as Johnny gave him a handjob, made his dick even harder. Precome spurted out of the tip of his cock and Johnny made an approving noise. He barely had to move his hand; big as it was, it almost covered Mark's dick. But his rhythm was steady, and Mark was helpless against Johnny's wicked hands, his rough touch, his back arching as his hips pushed out.
"She liked it when I went slow," Johnny said, "but she wasn't very loud after that. I couldn't stop thinking about--" His voice went tight, and then with slow movements he started grinding his cock against Mark, his cock a thick hard line against Mark's back even through the slippery fabric of the basketball shorts, seeking the same friction that Mark was searching for as his hips jerked under Johnny's touch. Though he kept talking, his voice faltered in places. "My dick was so hard, but I couldn't touch myself because I was holding myself up with--with one hand and touching her with the other."
His hand in Mark's hair tightened until Mark could feel little pinpricks of pain in his scalp; Johnny was dragging his head back, leaving his neck bared. It was a vulnerable position even with the blankets covering most of him. There wasn't anywhere to hide, and the cool air in the rest of the room felt good on his overheated face. He gasped for air; Johnny took it as permission to keep talking. "She was so wet, and all I could think about was what it would feel like to fuck her until she was fucking screaming, what it'd feel like to fucking--bust on her face, come all over her, I wanted to fuck her so bad, all I could think about was fucking your mouth, fuck, Mark." He hadn't gotten loud but his hand on Mark's cock had gotten progressively faster, until Mark's balls tightened up and he came, body strung tight, toes curled, to the sound of Johnny groaning his name in his ear, spurting come all over Johnny's already wet hand. At the same time, Johnny thrust hard against Mark's back until he too stilled, gasping.
Then the only sound in the room was their breath: Mark gulping for air, dizzy with the rush of orgasm and the confusion of what had just happened to him, and Johnny behind him, inhaling and exhaling harshly through his mouth. Mark could feel the hair on the back of his neck stir every time Johnny breathed out and even after coming it made him shiver.
What was left after this? There could be no coming back from it. That thought lingered in his mind as he felt sleep wash over him, like a cool wave. His eyelids drooped, and without being able to help it, he only faintly registered the bed dipping and rocking as Johnny clambered out, as he fell into darkness.
The sunlight that crept into the room was not as bright as Mark was used to; Johnny's blinds filtered most of it out and the curtains did the rest of the job. Nonetheless, he was awake, and Doyoung was hovering over him, already dressed and ready to go.
"You were asleep for a while," he said, "and Johnny-hyung said to let you sleep, but we really have to go soon."
Sitting up, Mark nodded. "I need..." His voice creaked, and he took a moment to swallow. "I need to shower." And think.
"Hyung put your stuff over there so that you could just take it." Doyoung pointed to the end of the bed, where a pile of clothes was sitting.
In the shower he took his time despite knowing that Johnny and Doyoung were waiting on him. It wasn't the worst thing to give Johnny more time with his parents, he reasoned, even though he couldn't stop thinking about how weird Johnny had been with them yesterday. The same way he was with everyone else. Was there a time when he'd changed? Did his parents think it was off, or was it really how Johnny was--how he'd been this entire time?
Thinking about this let him take his mind off the physical task at hand, which was cleaning himself up. Every time he let his mind wander too far, Johnny's voice sounded in his ear telling him he wanted to fuck Mark's face, and it made him shudder. His boxers were probably beyond saving, but there was nothing he could do about it now, just fold everything up and take it down and let the manager pretend he didn't see anything.
When he came downstairs, clean of everything, hair wet, he saw Johnny and his mom talking close and quiet in the kitchen. Instinctively he hung back to give them space, but even from a distance their words were clear.
Johnny's mother said, "Will it be this long until you're back again?"
Johnny, with that ever-present smile on his face: "I told you, I don't know." And he said it in English, not Korean. Not that it had to mean anything--he and Mark switched between both often--but last night, when the cameras were on, he'd stuck to the latter.
"I just want to see my son more," she said, and the plaintive note in her voice made Mark's heart twinge. "Since you're here anyway, can't you--"
"I can't take time off like that, Mom. You know that." Still in English.
"If you're in the country?" Johnny's mom's was comfortable enough in English, Mark knew, but she was sticking to Korean. Not for the first time, he wished he knew more about how other people, people like him and Johnny, spoke to their families. Johnny had said once he didn't know that much Korean when he started training, which must have meant he spoke to his parents in English, but it didn't mean they spoke to him the same way.
"We're gearing up for more promo, but it doesn't mean--" Johnny cut himself off. When he spoke again, his voice was more composed. "It's just not possible right now, I think."
"You're 24 now and I don't get to spend time with you, I don't get to see you--"
"So you knew that would happen when I started training--" Johnny said over her.
"But even before that. I'm your mother. Do you think I can't tell when something else is happening? For a long time now, you've been so different, and it's nothing I can bring up in front of a computer screen, but you're my son. I know when something is wrong, Youngho."
There was a silence. Then Johnny said, in a low voice, "No, you don't."
"So you're saying I'm wrong?"
"I'm not saying that." He'd never heard this kind of frustration in Johnny's voice. "I'm telling you to let it go. Leave it alone. Don't you remember how this argument went last time?"
"That was years ago--things have changed. For me and your father. That's what I'm saying." What were they talking about? Mark's mind was whirling.
"But things haven't changed for me. Or if they did then they just got worse. Bringing it up now...." He heard Johnny take a step, as if he were about to pace. Then, in Korean: "Eomma! Just leave it alone. Seriously. Now that I'm where I am... just leave it alone."
He didn't hear anything else except, then, the sound of a door opening. Doyoung came out of the bathroom and Johnny cleared his throat loudly as if to signal that the conversation was over.
The bus didn't come to pick them up; maybe the managers had decided, after all of the fans showing up yesterday, that it would be too much. Mark wondered for a moment why Johnny's mom didn't drop them, but remembering the conversation he overheard, he decided to keep it to himself.
In the car ride, as Doyoung chattered on to the manager in the front, Mark watched Johnny's profile as he looked out the window. The summer sun was bright and sharp, and though Chicago was humid, the A/C was cranked on high. It was making Johnny's hair flutter, though he didn't seem too bothered by it.
"Hey," he said, low so as not to attract Doyoung's attention. When Johnny didn't answer, Mark poked him. Johnny didn't say anything when he looked over, just quirked an eyebrow. The question died in Mark's throat. "Never mind," he said instead.
"No, go on," Johnny said, agreeable. The frustration Mark had heard earlier was all gone; he had the same mildness he always did, the easygoing demeanour he had around all of them until something he wanted to pick at caught his attention.
"It's nothing," Mark said. For some reason his face was getting hot. This was the first time he'd had Johnny's full attention since the night before, and it was making him nervous. Even though neither of them had said or done anything to indicate that they remembered, Mark knew he couldn't keep it off his face. He wasn't subtle; he'd never been good at hiding things. Looking at Johnny was difficult now, and looking away made it worse when his gaze caught on the same hands that had been in his hair and on his--touching him last night.
As if Johnny knew what he was thinking about, he smirked. He was maybe the only one of them in the group able to pull it off; he had the right look for it. Just condescending enough to make anyone feel unsure of themselves. "Having trouble focusing?" he asked. "Come on, Mark. Get it together, man."
"I'm fine!" Mark protested. "I thought we were cool now after last night, why can't you go after Doyoung-hyung instead?" He let Johnny tease him all the way to the hotel and forgot all about what he was about to say.
In the hotel room later that night, after rehearsals, as they prepared for bed, Johnny was more quiet than usual. Maybe quiet wasn't the right word--he was subdued. He moved around the room with fewer words to spare than usual, his figure outlined in gold by the lamp next to his bed.
"Everything okay?" Mark said.
"Fine." Johnny didn't look around from where he was changing. Mark, who'd been oblivious to that point, stared for a moment at the powerful muscles flexing in Johnny's back and arms. He remembered, again, for a brief moment, the thrilling heat of being held captive in those arms, helpless and at Johnny's mercy.
"Hey," he said abruptly. "Can I ask you--something--kinda weird, maybe?"
Johnny, who'd changed into a loose, threadbare tee and some sweats, raised an eyebrow at him. "Sure," he said, sitting on the edge of his bed. "What's up?" He was so casual about everything. Had he thought about last night at all? Or was it just Mark who couldn't stop going over it in his head?
"I heard--" Mark had to stop to swallow. "Okay, tell me if this is too weird or if I'm crossing the line or something. But I heard--you and your mom today. Like, this morning."
Johnny's face stayed blank. He had that intimidating resting expression, the one that made others afraid to approach him. When he was getting added to the group, Mark remembered that the creative director had said they'd have to do something to "fix" that. Whatever that means, Mark remembered thinking at the time. What it meant in practice were plushies, big sweaters, and a lot of smiling. None of that was necessarily alien to Johnny, but it had changed the way Mark saw him. And the way he was seeing him now, too.
"Okay, and...?"
"I mean." Mark swallowed again. His mouth felt very dry. "If there's anything, like. You know you can tell me, right? Or like--any of us. You should definitely tell us. Because, like. Keeping stuff bottled up isn't healthy. Or whatever."
Johnny stared at him. His hair, freshly washed and with no product, flopped over one eye. Then he said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." It was delivered with a hint of a smile. The same one Johnny gave to fans, the mild, condescending one he directed at the girls who asked about their wedding date during fanmeets or who called him their American boyfriend. It was, Mark recognised now, the smile he had for the cameras, and to have it directed like this at him was both disorienting and clarifying.
"There isn't anyone around," he said quietly. "You could tell me, you know."
Johnny stared at him for a beat longer, and in the silence between them Mark could hear a horn honking outside, even as high up as they were. "You shouldn't be asking me that kind of stuff," he said, just as quiet. "Let it go, Mark. Do what you need to do." He put a stress on you, and Mark couldn't tell what it meant. What Mark needed to do was make sure Johnny was okay, but what Johnny needed was--the opposite of that, apparently. "Let me deal with my family."
He said it with finality, so Mark let it go, but that night, alone in the big bed, he lay awake thinking about what it meant. Let Johnny deal with his family? It was strange to hear that coming from him. For so long they'd all called each other brothers. They'd trained together. Lived together, cried together, made it through the gauntlet of trainee life together. It was the first time he wondered if he was naive to think of them as family for that. Clearly Johnny didn't think of them that way if he wanted Mark to leave him to deal with his own family. It was a separation, a clear delineation of boundaries.
It was just that out of all of them, he'd expected this from Johnny the least. He was the most brotherly to all of them. And yet there was so much, even on this trip, that Mark hadn't known about him. Especially what had happened last night: a shiver ran up his spine just thinking about it. The ex-girlfriend he'd told none of them about, the--Mark's mind skated right over it, but his body remembered, again, the tug of Johnny's hand in his hair.
He wanted to forget about it except for how he didn't. He wanted to forget about it except for how it was the first time anyone had ever touched him like that and now he couldn't stop looking at Johnny, thinking about him in a different way, wanting Johnny to touch him again, wanting to touch Johnny back. Just wanting. Things that weren't allowed from him.
Maybe that was what Johnny meant: that Mark should do what he needed to do. That he needed to compartmentalise this away, that he needed to start keeping himself more separate. He was never as naive as he pretended to be for the camera but he'd let it seep into himself too much somehow; now it needed to change.
At the concert, Johnny cried; so did his mother. Mark felt detached from it in a way he couldn't explain; it was like in one place existed his body, which was dancing or laughing or hugging Donghyuck or crying along with Johnny and his mom, and in another place was his mind, floating above him, watching everything with a cool eye, asking inconvenient questions to which Mark had no answer.
It was only backstage, when Jungwoo slapped him on the ass and said, in his clumsy English, "Great job!" that Mark came back into himself. This morning he'd watched a stagehand snap a tab into place for the Baby Don't Like It stage; that was what it felt like. A quick, crisp feeling. Forceful.
"Thanks," he said. Johnny's parents were there, hugging him; he was crying, still, into their arms, but he was so much taller than both of them that it was almost comical to see him bent in half. Mark's detached mind wanted to laugh at it; his grounded body wanted to cry with them. He settled for turning away and wiping his face. Tomorrow they were going to San Francisco, and his mind had no room for this. There was no space for him in this dynamic; he was an awkward interloper, breaking into beds that had no place for him.
He looked up to see Taeil staring at him. "Okay?" he asked in Korean, and Mark replied in English,
"Okay." He held a thumbs up to get the point across. Taeil looked at him for a moment longer, and then looked over at Johnny.
"Whatever happened," he said, in the tone of mild interest he took to everything, "I think you'll be fine. Just to let you know."
"What do you mean?"
Taeil shrugged. He was distracted by Jungwoo, who draped long limbs over him and tried to give him a couple of wet kisses as congratulations. Like every concert, backstage was a mess, and it was only Mark standing here, lost in his own reverie, worried about what the future would look like. After all, it wasn't as if it mattered. He didn't have enough control over it to have any say. Maybe that was what Johnny had meant all along. They all needed to do what they needed to do, and what Johnny needed was to protect himself. From moments like this, right now, where his eyes were puffy and he was sobbing into his mother's shoulder, his arms clutching at hers where she'd looped them around his neck.
Mark thought: Everyone is watching. Then he turned away. He didn't need to be a part of it too.