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Resonance Part 2 had just gone underway, and Mark was glad to be back on stage. Don't get him wrong, he had enjoyed filming the track videos for Misfit and Deja Vu, but being on stage and actually performing was what he had missed the most.
And yet, there was something bothering him.
Right now, all of the members of the 90s Love unit were filming a "self-filmed' music video version of 90s love, complete with old cameras and the nostalgic film that most of the group hadn't truly experienced, what with most of them being born after the 90s.
Mark was just peacefully enjoying himself, talking and laughing with the members, but someone was not paying attention to him. Or rather, two people weren't paying attention to him,
Lee Donghyuck and Jung Sungchan...
Mark hadn't interacted much with the new member, if he was being honest. After Donghyuck had exposed him for at first being intimidated by Sungchan, Mark hadn't really made an effort to get closer to Sungchan, feeling embarrassed.
Plus, Mark thought bitterly, he's hanging all over Donghyuck...
Mark knew that Sungchan, like almost every member who had first been blinded by the fullsun that was Haechan, were being pulled towards him like helpless sunflowers. Mark figured that eventually, members like Yangyang and Sungchan would die down on their lowkey obsession and learn that Donghyuck was just like any other guy.
That's a lie, though, the cursed part of Mark's unconscious whispered, he'll never be just like any other guy.
As it was, though, Mark was slowly getting annoyed by the lack of attention Sungchan was paying to him. On some level, he was aware of the fact that Sungchan admired him and the other members.
So why was Sungchan so particularly clingy towards Donghyuck?
Of course, Mark figured, Donghyuck loved basking in other people's attention.
While it wasn't strange that Donghyuck was reciprocating and even encouraging Sungchan's actions, what was pissing Mark off was the way Donghyuck was reacting to all of the attention.
Why is he acting so shy? Mark was baffled at the way Sungchan could cause Donghyuck to blush and cover his face by calling him his role model. As if Donghyuck didn't get enough compliments from all of his hyungs and dongsaengs all the time, Doyoung constantly being one of the members amazed by Donghyuck's genuity.
So why did Sungchan, of all people, have such a strong effect on Donghyuck?
Mark felt his hands clenching after seeing Donghyuck blush and duck his head for the nth time that day.
Does Sungchan ever stop? Mark wondered, annoyed, then automatically felt guilty for thinking ill of their new member. The more rational part of Mark's brain chided him for thinking badly of his member, but anything that concerned Donghyuck always seemed to send him over the edge.
And to make matters worse, Mark didn't know why Donghyuck wasn't meeting his eyes nowadays.
Mark new he wasn't imagining it. Donghyuck was avoiding eye contact, and he had no clue as to why.
But for now, Mark was stuck watching Sungchan chase Donghyuck around the set, not even constituting as a chase because of Sungchan's long legs.
Mark hated to admit it, the squirming in his stomach intensifying, but they looked irritatingly good together, Sungchan all pale, tall legs, soft, boyish looks, and Donghyuck with his smaller yet proportional frame, rounder and curvier, soft yet dangerously cute with his styling.
Why is he so damn tall? Mark grumbled in his head. Why are you so annoyed? The other part of his brain teased.
Mark shouldn't have had any reason to be annoyed. This situation was just like Taeil with Donghyuck, Johnny with Donghyuck, Jaehyun with Donghyuck, Doyoung with Donghyuck, Renjun with Donghyuck, literally the same as with every single member Donghyuck had pulled in and trapped under his spell. Even Lucas became shy at the force of the full sun.
But something about Sungchan and Donghyuck, together, irked Mark to no end.
The rest of the behind the scenes shoot had gone with him feeling even more annoyed. As much as he had been watching Donghyuck and all the guys' crazy antics (it was a miracle that Donghyuck had the ability to make him bust a lung even when he was feeling so sour), Mark had been watching Sungchan.
Who, in fact, never seemed to take his damn eyes off of Donghyuck.
By the time the shoot ended, Mark was even more frustrated then ever before, and to make matters worse, Donghyuck and Sungchan were being all cuddled up and buddy-buddy as they left the set.
Before Mark even knew what he was doing, he subtly (not really) moved to stand in front of the giggling duo.
"Haechan," Mark spoke. Donghyuck flickered his eyes to him, acknowledging Mark's presence, yet continued to laugh with Sungchan, and steered them around Mark. Mark was now infinitely pissed.
"Lee Donghyuck!" Mark shouted. He immediately regretted it. All of the staff members and the unit members froze in their places, looking towards Mark with wide eyes. They all knew Mark to be the polite rambler, yet a soft-spoken guy, so they were extremely baffled with his sudden outburst.
Sungchan, whose wrist was in the grip of Donghyuck's hand, looked back at Mark with fear and wariness in his eyes, and Mark suddenly felt terrible for scaring the new guy like that.
Great, Mark though. As if we weren't already not close enough.
However, the only person who still wasn't looking at him, the only person he wanted to be looking at him, was Donghyuck.
Donghyuck, Donghyuck, Donghyuck, Donghyuck, the person who had his mind running wild and who took up real estate in there without even paying. The person who could turn his life upside down with just a few words. The person who always seemed like the main character in the story that was Mark's life, yet in this moment he still wasn't looking at Mark.
"Why can't you look at me?" Mark whispered. It was as if no one else was there. Whenever Mark looked at Donghyuck, everyone else seemed to fade into the background, ultimately unimportant.
"Lee Donghyuck, look at me," Mark tried to keep his voice calm, but it still broke near the end of his sentence.
"Hyung, what's wrong?" Donghyuck asked with a deceptively cheery voice, which did nothing to hide the steel under it. Mark knew just how damn good his best friend was at masking his moods. Mark just had to add that to another list of things Donghyuck was unfairly talented at.
In his periphery, Mark saw Sungchan cowering, doing his best to gently pull himself out of Donghyuck's iron steel grip without ripping his arm away entirely.
"Hyuck, let go of him," Mark softened his tone, feeling pitiful towards Sungchan.
"Why, hyung? Him and I were having a nice conversation until you ruined it," Donghyuck taunted, doing the opposite of what Mark asked and holding on even harder, causing Sungchan to wince.
Always the opposite, Mark thought. He always does the opposite of what I ask him. I ask him to leave me alone, he comes near. I ask him to wear a coat, and he'd rather show off his ripped jeans with numerous holes, because "It's fashion, hyung," I ask him to take a rest, and he plays games all night, I ask him to eat properly and he decides he's eaten enough-
"Why are we like this?" Mark pleaded. Finally, it seemed that Donghyuck didn't want Sungchan listening to what was about to be thrown down, and let go of his wrist. Sungchan looked at Donghyuck with a worried and concerned gaze (Who gave you the right to look at him like that? Thought a twisted part of Mark's brain. Shut up, replied the rational part of Mark's brain), to which Donghyuck sent the sunniest smile Mark knew he reserved for interviewers who ever asked him the most privacy invading questions, and calmly sent Sungchan on his way, not before Sungchan looked back and sent an unreadable glance to Mark. Irked by the look (Sungchan also seemed to have potential to be an actor), Mark raised an eyebrow and gained a sick sense of satisfaction when Sungchan ran away.
"Aw, that's no fun, you chased him away," Donghyuck clucked his tongue, still not dropping his fake smile or his disgustingly cheery voice. Notably, Donghyuck was facing Mark but still wasn't looking at him.
Reaching the end of his patience meter (which was no small feat; of course, Donghyuck was just the kind of person to press all of his buttons), Mark stuck out a hand, and holding Donghyuck's chin, leveled their gazes.
"I'm right here in front of you, so where are you looking?" Mark questioned, his soft voice at odds with his sour mood.
After what felt like an eternity of silence, Donghyuck brought his eyes to look into Mark's, and Mark felt himself feeling taken aback by how long it had been since he'd gotten the chance to see how beautiful Donghyuck's eyes were.
Oh, he looks mad, Mark's head supplied helpfully.
Indeed, Donghyuck was fuming in a way he never dared show when there were cameras on. Maybe Mark was a masochist to think that he still looked adorable and cute. But then Mark got annoyed, because what right did Donghyuck get to be mad at Mark, when Donghyuck was the one avoiding him?
"What's your problem?" Mark spat, locking eyes with Donghyuck, that familiar fire in the younger's eyes whenever they fought extremely addicting and intensifying Mark's own fire in his gut.
"What's your problem, hyung?" Donghyuck threw back, enraging Mark even more. "Don't know who gave you the right to start yelling my name around everywhere, but keep it out of your nasty mouth." Mark shouldn't have been as taken aback as he was. Donghyuck had a whole arsenal of words ready to hurt Mark, but wanting to not associate himself with Mark in anyway hurt Mark more than he thought it would.
"Why, it's a wonderful name. Lee Donghyuck. Why can't I say it? It's the name of my best friend," Mark taunted. What most people didn't know was that Mark definitely could hold his own ground when fighting Donghyuck, and he wasn't willing to step aside and let Donghyuck win this time.
"Oh, so now I'm your best friend again?" Donghyuck said, masking his hostile tone in a calm under-current.
"What?" now Mark was genuinely confused and hurt. "We are best friends, cut the crap and tell me why you're avoiding me." As they were engrossed in their conversation, most of the staff members had cleaned up the set and left the boys alone, warned by other management that they could be intense sometimes. They figured they could just leave the set, since they were in SM's building anyway and the boys could find their way back, this being their last schedule for the day. As it was, most of the lights were being turned off, save for the dim lights that were basking Donghyuck and Mark in a warm yellow glow, Donghyuck looking to Mark like a fallen angel from grace.
"Wouldn't you like to know..." Donghyuck murmured.
"I can't read your mind, stop being obtuse and tell me, Donghyuck, I'm your best friend, you can tell me things," Mark pinched the top of his nose bridge, trying so hard to dispel his annoyance but his best friend was always the best at making him blow his carefully lidded top.
"Hyung, what if I don't want to be your best friend anymore?" Donghyuck declared, his whispered voice soft but his words sending a dagger straight into Mark's heart.
"What?" Mark's voice trembled, he himself involuntarily staggering back, as if Donghyuck really were stabbing him.
"You heard me," Donghyuck continued in that strange, beautifully soft voice that Mark loved, which only seemed to damage him beyond repair.
"That's not true," Mark countered. There's no way he'd throw out seven years of friendship with me, just like that, Mark thought. "What are you hiding?" Why are you always with Sungchan? Are you trying to replace me? Because in the moment that Donghyuck said he didn't want to be best friends anymore, Mark noticed that Donghyuck hadn't met his eyes, and he instantly knew there was more that the younger boy wasn't letting on.
"Hyung, I'm not hiding anything, it's exactly as I said," Donghyuck whispered, in his fake confident voice, but Mark could see him visibly trembling now. With no words, Mark surged forward and wrapped his arms around Donghyuck's waist, bringing him close. Pressed chest to chest, Mark could feel how quickly Donghyuck's heart was beating. Donghyuck suddenly spoke so softly that Mark couldn't catch what he said.
"You can tell me anything," Mark whispered assuredly in Donghyuck's ear, seemingly setting another round of violent trembling coursing through Donghyuck's body that Mark felt. "I'll never judge you for anything, you know that, right?" Donghyuck stayed silent again, before slightly raising his head to finally meet Mark's gaze. Mark was shocked to see how glassy Donghyuck's eyes were.
Is, is he about to cry? Mark's own eyes unconsciously widened. Donghyuck never cried, not even on the worst days of practice as trainees, when everyone, including Mark, needed to take a time out and shed a couple of tears before getting back up. Donghyuck didn't cry when he got sent home after he injured his leg badly. Mark had only seen Donghyuck cry twice, and those times had included Mark's Dream graduation and when Mark hadn't been able to attend the Dream concert, and Mark had been shocked both times to see his best friend choking on tears.
So to have his fullsun in front of him, one tear away from bawling his eyes out, set every single mechanism in Mark's mind to red alert status.
"Hey, hey, whatever it is, it probably isn't something to cry about," Mark hurriedly panicked, moving his hands to cup Donghyuck's face and willing the tears not to fall. "Hyung's sorry, okay? You can tell me what's wrong," but Donghyuck was too far gone to be listening, small tears leaving his eyes and making him look like the most beautiful angel Mark had ever seen, haunting his dreams since the first time he'd met him.
"I can't be your bestfriend anymore, hyung," Donghyuck squeezed out, crying some more and leaving Mark to feel like Donghyuck had just twisted the dagger in his heart.
"I don't want to be your best friend anymore. The things I want from you aren't what best friends want from their best friends," Donghyuck was sobbing now, and Mark felt a little bit ridiculous about the whole situation. His (ex?) best friend was here, crying his eyes out in a small studio, and Mark had absolutely no idea what to do while his own heart was breaking, and he felt even more stupid for thinking about how utterly beautiful Donghyuck looked in this moment.
"Mark hyung, tell me, is it normal to want to hug your best friend all the time? To want him to kiss you all the time? Is it normal that I want to sleep in your arms and wake up together, next to you, in bed? Is it normal that I want you to do immoral things to me? Is it normal that I can't look away from you? Is it normal that I'm always thinking about you? Tell, me, hyung, tell me that's normal and then we can continue being the bestest friends ever, but if it's not, then we can't be anything," Donghyuck spoke, his bossy tone still creeping into his voice as he demanded these things from Mark and flipped his world upside down, all in the same breath.
"No," Mark whispered, "it's not normal," and he watched as Donghyuck put back on his iron suit and madly wiped his tears away from his eyes with his sleeves, turning away to flee.
But Mark didn't let him get away. Mark grabbed his wrist, Donghyuck looking back at him with barely concealed hurt and resignation.
"Tell me, Donghyuck, is it normal that I want to hug you but I can't, is it normal that I want you to kiss me all the time, is it normal that I want you in my bed, is it normal that sometimes I jerk off to dreams of you? Is it normal that I want to do things to someone who's supposed to be my best friend and brother? Is it normal that I want to punch everyone who comes near you, and be the only one next to you? Is it normal that you're always in my head, basically a part of my thought process?" Mark questioned back, breathing hard, just as demanding, terribly rambling off all the things he had kept so close to his heart, his thoughts he'd always locked away with a key, now seeming to spill out of him like a waterfall.
"Is it normal that I love you more than a best friend should?"
That seemed to launch the final blow, Donghyuck's legs giving out and Mark watched as the younger boy sank to the ground, covering his face with both of his hands.
"Hey, hey, are you okay?" Mark crouched down, trying to move Donghyuck's hands away from covering his face.
"What the fuck, hyung," Donghyuck moaned, that slightly whiney tone that Mark would never admit always set him on edge, "You, you can't fucking say shit like that, you bastard, do you even know how fucking long I pined over your scrawny, Canadian ass since we've been kids? How dare you, I'm so embarrassed right now, how dare you say all of those things while I'm here crying like a baby, how is this supposed to be romantic, this is the worst k-drama confession I've ever seen, and I've watched so many shitty k-dramas too, you'd be the most terrible k-drama lead in the world," Donghyuck was somehow crying while trying to hold back his smile by continuously failing to turn it into a frown, and Mark wanted to cluck his tongue at his best friend's language, because damn, if Donghyuck didn't swear like a sailor (to be fair, the boy was from Jeju island, so maybe he should've seen that coming), but all Mark could feel was relief and intense amusement.
"Hey, Donghyuck," Mark whispered. Donghyuck had cut his own ranting short, lifting his head, seemingly crying his last tears, and Mark sent him the smile, the one he knew always made the hyungs speculate more about his relationship with Donghyuck. Maybe everyone realized before him, that he was irrevocably, utterly in love with his best friend.
"I really do love you," and Mark thought he'd never see Donghyuck as pretty as he was in this moment, with his cute blushing face and sunny smile that broke across his face, glowing like the sun, and maybe Mark was selfish because he didn't want Sungchan, or Lucas, or Johnny, or Jeno, or Renjun, or anyone ever to see this beautiful smile from the most beautiful boy Mark had ever laid his eyes on.
"I love you too, hyung, even though you're the most unromantic person on this planet. What? You want to be the only one beside me? Who do you think you are, some kdrama male lead?" and Mark could only be amazed, because even after the confession that had ripped them apart and put them back together better than before, Donghyuck still had it in him to make fun of Mark, the younger boy snickering and wheezing at his oh-so-clever joke.
"Oh, shut up," Mark argued, flustered, "what, 'I want you to do immoral things to me'? Someone has been watching more than k-dramas, it seems," Mark had remembered that part of Donghyuck's speech, and felt himself heating up just thinking about it, but it brought him great satisfaction to see Donghyuck's face going a fierce shade of red.
"Fuck off, hyung, you said you wanted to do immoral things to me too! Even worse, you said you jerked off to dreams of me!" Donghyuck screeched, slapping Mark as the older boy snickered, delighted at the tomato-red that made Donghyuck look like he was set on fire.
"Bet, I'll do them right now," Mark said, riling up Donghyuck some more as he kicked Mark and slapped him. "I'm joking, jeez, you can never take a good roast, huh? Only know how to throw them around," Mark teased, and he was so happy, because a fuming, embarassed Donghyuck was adorable, and he briefly wondered if that made him a sadist.
After both of them finally calmed down, Donghyuck spoke again.
"Hyung, what are we now?" He asked earnestly, looking up at Mark with the most sincere eyes he'd ever seen, that gentle nervousness reminding him of Donghyuck's anxiety before Firetruck, Mark's second debut and Donghyuck's first. And just as before, Mark reached out a hand and threaded it with Donghyuck's fingers, swearing to himself to protect Donghyuck as much as he could.
"Well," Mark cleared his throat, "You can be my boyfriend? If you want? Or you can just stay as my best friend, or maybe both? Whatever, it's all up to you," Mark suddenly felt nervous.
Donghyuck snorted. Then, he blew whatever was left of Mark's sane mind to bits by leaning over and kissing him full on the mouth, before pulling away.
"Does that answer your question?" Donghyuck was doing his sun thing again, glowing beautifully, the mischievious smile on his face relaxing into something so incredibly fond that filled Mark with warmth.
"Uh, I don't know, do it again," Mark cleared his throat, causing Donghyuck to giggle and roll his eyes, but he leaned forward again to recapture Mark's lips.
Needless to say, they stayed in the room for quite a while "confirming" their relationship before getting up and going back to their dorms.
<3
As they relocated to Donghyuck's bed ("Hyung, Johnny's with Ten and the tenth floor is nasty, there's no way I'm sleeping up there, you guys could have roaches for all we know"), Donghyuck the menace was back and teasing Mark.
"Look at my Markiepoo, so jealous because of Sungchan," he cooed, Mark exasperatedly annoyed and embarrassed.
"Shut up, okay? He's all over you and you just let him be, you even encourage him," Mark grumbled,
"My Markiepoo is so stupid and jealous because he thinks I would ever love anyone else," Donghyuck cackled, leaning over to pinch Mark's cheeks, proceeding in Mark working to throw Donghyuck off the bed.
"You'll have to apologize to him eventually, Mark Lee, for acting like an asshole!" Donghyuck yelled, delighted even as Mark jumped off the bed, groaning at the awkward apology that would inevitably occur, and proceeded to wack Donghyuck with a pillow while the younger male screamed war on his bedroom floor.
Some things never change, Mark thought. But looking at his beautiful and happy boyfriend and best friend, Mark wouldn't change their relationship for the world.