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Maybe it’s pathetic, but Donghyuck has spent at least half an hour everyday staring at the blood-red number on his collarbone since the minute he turned 16.
He sits on the floor in front of his full-length mirror bright and early in the mornings and takes, much to his mother’s dismay, fifteen minutes to do up his tie. Pulling the knot up only takes forever because his eyes refuse to stray from the number, unbelievable and offensive as it is.
A lot of the time, Donghyuck wishes it wasn’t just the cotton of his uniform shirt that covered up his skin. Something so unforgiving seems too lenient, at the very least, the number should be chafed against with something akin to sandpaper.
Never did Donghyuck think that his countdown, the thing he’d been eagerly waiting for since he first learned what it meant at 10-years-old, would ever be something he’d instantly come to hate, come to yearn to have rubbed raw until it peeled off his skin entirely.
He supposes that’s just what unrequited love does—twists hopes and dreams until they’re completely inverted.
The first fifteen minutes occur every morning, and the other fifteen, every afternoon after he’s come home from school and Mark Lee clings to his skin, his hair, his clothes. He unbuttons his shirt and, usually, sighs. A long breath out, and then some blank staring for as long as he can stand it.
It’s masochistic in nature. That’s what his brother tells him, anyway.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Hyuck,” Taeyong says with eyes too kind, black numbers on his own collarbone. “I’m sorry it’s not him, but there will be someone else. I promise.”
Except, he can’t. Because red means unrequited, but it also means un-mated. There is no soulmate for Donghyuck, there will only be other people who can’t love with all their hearts because a part of it will always belong to someone else. Donghyuck gets it, and he’s learned not to let it hurt as much, but today is hard, for whatever reason.
Today, he comes home and only gets to undoing his second button before his eyes land on the zero poking out of the top of his collar and he starts to cry. Quietly, because his parents worry enough, and his brother is always too kind, but it wracks through his whole body and leaves him feeling weak, boneless.
He sinks down to the floor and hugs his knees to his chest, feeling like all the air is being sucked out of his lungs. It won’t be like this forever. It won’t. It’s not the end of the world.
But Donghyuck’s been in love with Mark since he was 14, even if his parents have never believed that it’s love.
It’s love because Donghyuck doesn’t have to hesitate, doesn’t have to think about what it means or what it should feel like even though he’s so incredibly young. It’s love because it simply is, Donghyuck knows this like he knows it shouldn’t take fifteen minutes to do his tie up—and yet, it does (because it’s Mark, and because it isn’t Mark, not for Donghyuck).
It’s love and it’s heartbreak. When Donghyuck’s alone, it’s mostly heartbreak.
His phone beeps beside him. He sniffs, wiping his nose as he checks the notification. A text from Mark, i’m outside, we’re going downtown bc u looked like shit today and it messed with my vibes. you have five mins.
When Donghyuck’s with Mark, it’s mostly love. The heartbreak gets worse when he’s alone afterwards, but it’s worth it.
It’s worth it, he tells himself as he pats his face dry and tries not to look like he’s been crying.
It’s worth it, he tells himself as he finishes changing out of his clothes into something more casual.
It’s worth it, he tells himself as he takes in a deep breath and types out, you suck. coming now.
“A bookshop?” Donghyuck asks skeptically, shrugging off Mark’s arm around his shoulder as discretely as he can. Mark's shirt jostles open enough to reveal his number, bold and black: 377. “I thought this trip was for me, nerd.”
There’s someone on the platform across from them who looks something like an older version of Mark, but then Donghyuck squints to get a better look and realizes he looks nothing like the boy next to him at all.
“It is!” Mark insists, fingers finding Donghyuck’s despite his earlier rejection. He holds his hand like it’s nothing, and as much as Donghyuck knows he should pull away, he doesn’t. “You always get that weird look on your face when I read things to you.”
“Pretty things,” Donghyuck mutters, looking down the tunnel to see if he can spot a train to avoid looking at Mark. He hadn’t realized he’d been so obvious.
Mark squeezes his hand, “Yeah, pretty things. You look weird, but happy weird. Plus, this bookshop has this vending machine thing that apparently spits out random classic books for like, a dollar. You can’t tell me that’s not cool, Hyuck.”
“It’s not,” Donghyuck replies flatly. Mark whines beside him as the train pulls up, and Donghyuck pushes down all the things he wants to say about how wonderful he thinks Mark really is.
It’s worth it, spending time with Mark like this, but plunging a knife in is different from twisting it around, and Donghyuck may be in love, but he still has a pinch of self-preservation left in him.
It’s not much, but it’s enough.
Mark pulls out another book, flips to the last page, furrows his brows in distaste, and re-shelves it. His hand stays on the spine though, seemingly thinking before he speaks, looking at the books, “You’re really not going to tell me who it is?”
“Mark.”
“I’m just saying, Hyuck,” Mark sighs as he drops his hand and leans a shoulder against the shelf, facing Donghyuck who’s got his hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie (it's a safety precaution, he always gets the urge to reach out and touch when Mark’s like this, all focused and excited, reading the things he thinks Donghyuck will like aloud in a whisper the way someone would talk about hidden worlds and ancient treasures).
“I’m just saying, you’ve been off ever since your birthday and I’m worried, alright? If you’d just talk to me about it, maybe it would help.”
I do know, Donghyuck had answered in a moment of weakness after he’d finished crying upon seeing the red zero sprout on his collarbone. Mark had asked him gently, while rubbing his back, if he knew who it was, his unrequited soulmate. He'd kept his own mark hidden for the better part of a year just so they could reveal the numbers together. That had been the real sucker punch, the false hope coming crumbling down in one swift blow. I know, but I can’t tell you. I can’t, I’m sorry.
Now he wishes he’d been able to think more clearly, tell Mark that he didn’t know, actually, because then maybe he wouldn’t worry so much.
“I’m fine.” Donghyuck scans the shelves and points to a random book in hopes of moving on. “That one.”
Mark doesn’t even look, keeping his eyes on Donghyuck, firm and steady. “You’re not fine. I’m your best friend, I—I love you and I just wanna be there for you, you know?”
Suddenly, Donghyuck has to stop himself from tearing up. He’s been on the edge all day and Mark fucking Lee really had to go and say that. It’s not even his fault, which is the worst part. Maybe if he were doing it on purpose, maybe if Donghyuck could just muster up the courage to tell him, it would be easier.
Mark is too good and too caring, it’s one of the reasons Donghyuck’s so head over heels for him to begin with, but it’s also going to tear him apart, because he wants Mark’s care, Mark’s goodness, but he wants it in a way he knows he’ll never have.
He stares at his shoes stubbornly, not trusting himself to reply without choking up, when Mark’s hand appears in his field of vision, pinching his sweater softly. He pulls, hesitant, and Donghyuck goes easily, melting the moment Mark brings his arms around his shoulders. He tucks his head further into Mark’s neck and lets out a shaky breath.
“Sorry,” Mark mumbles softly into his hair, “you don’t have to tell me. I just—doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
“Mark,” Donghyuck says quietly after a beat.
“Hm?”
“Read to me?”
Mark’s arms tighten around him in understanding, “Okay.”
They spend most of their time sitting at one of the tables in the back, closed in by enough bookshelves to feel like they’ve escaped to another world entirely.
It sure feels like it to Donghyuck, who rests his chin on his folded arms on the table while watching Mark skim books he’s read before, eyes lighting up when he finds the pages he was looking for. He lowers his voice so that it comes out sounding like something precious meant for Donghyuck’s ears only.
“’There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there?’” Mark reads sitting across from him, cadence lovely in a way that Donghyuck can’t even begin to describe. It comes across so full of adoration, awe, so completely passionate about books and writing and words in a way that Donghyuck only knows to be about Mark. “’I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still?’”
Mark pauses, eyes flicking up to look at Donghyuck with an expectant smile. Donghyuck rolls his eyes—I love you I love you I love you—and smiles back, nodding at him to continue. It’s not just the words that entice Donghyuck, or the way Mark says them, cherishes them, but it’s the way Donghyuck can look and love all he wants while Mark is reading.
“’Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.’” Mark lets the words hang in the air before looking at Donghyuck again. “Verdict?”
Verdict? Donghyuck wishes his heart was a bone instead of an organ so that every time it broke it could heal to be stronger than before.
But he can’t say that, so he replies, “Pretty.”
“There’s more! Prettier!” Mark starts flipping through the pages and stops abruptly, tracing over the words with his fingers. “’Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out?’ God, the writing in this book makes me want to scream.”
It definitely makes Donghyuck want to scream as well, hitting a little too close to home, but he can’t stop the small smile from spreading on his face at the near reverent look Mark is giving the book. He’s caught in the act when Mark drops the book abruptly, locking eyes with Donghyuck as he quickly dons his best poker face.
Mark grins, “You’re making that happy weird face again.”
“Am not.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
“Pick up the next book, Lee,” Donghyuck grumbles as he straightens up and crosses his arms across his chest, cheeks heating up against his will.
Mark snorts but does as he’s told, only to stop as soon as he’s opened the cover. He stares for a second before reciting gently, “’All this love, gathering dust in my house.’”
He looks up with softened eyes, “Someone wrote that on the back of the cover. Wish they hadn’t vandalized, but it sounds super… tender, doesn’t it? I wonder how they came up with that.”
Donghyuck pictures the part of his heart that will always belong to Mark Lee sitting in a corner untouched for the rest of his life, and he thinks that he understands how someone could say something like that, so unabashedly lonely and loving all at once.
For now, he has Mark sitting in front of him, and Donghyuck can love freshly, cleanly, ever-presently. The heartbreak can wait.
So, he smiles, shrugging before propping an elbow up on the table to hold his cheek in his palm, “I don’t know, but I think it’s really pretty, Mark.”