Chapter Text
Donghyuck was bored. A bored Donghyuck was a dangerous one.
Ask poor Mark Seo about it any day and he wouldn’t hesitate to spew every wrong doing the smaller had ever done to him. All he did was be assigned to sit in front of the boy in their shared math class, and even since then Mark had been cursed with the everlasting misfortune of being Donghyuck Jung’s personal plaything.
It started off relatively normal. The classic paper throwing and kicking of the chair; things that any normal high school student would have to deal with. Normally Mark wouldn’t have any issues with getting through the day, however today was not his day.
He stayed up until the late hours trying to get his homework done after leaving it for the last minute, in true Mark fashion. After falling asleep in the worst position ever - folded over on his desk with only support being the notebook under his head - he barely managed to wake up 10 minutes before his first class began.
Fast forward to a very annoyed Mark with his undone hair, mismatched outfit, and very angry stomach, and he can’t seem to find where he asked Donghyuck his opinion on his socks in frequent notes he has been tossing over his shoulder. Deciding to ignore him and his harsh words on his socks-he happens to think his one watermelon sock and one chicken sock look great, thank you very much- Mark reaches into his backpack and pulls out a sandwich bag full of grapes that his dad so graciously packed for his son for lunch.
Mark never dared to eat in his first period math class, knowing full well that Miss Pike would have a field day embarrassing whoever did so, but his stomach was begging for sustenance. Mark carefully brought his bag onto his lap. To do this, he would have to strategize. Okay, sounds easy enough. The plan was that every time ole Miss Pike turned to the board to write down some irrelevant equation, Mark would take a couple of grapes and shove them in his mouth. The perfect plan.
The execution of the mission was going according to plan for the first few grapes that Mark was able to eat. There was, however, a variable that Mark completely disregarded.
The note that flew over his shoulder and onto his blank notebook.
Mark stared wide eyed at the menacing piece of paper. Donghyuck .
He snatched the piece of paper and quickly unfolded it.
“Hey, give me some grapes .”
The audacity. Mark blinked. Did his tourmentor really expect food from him? Well, one thing for sure was that Donghyuck would have to get used to hearing ‘no’ because there was no way in hell Mark was going to give that boy anything , much less his food!
With a roll of his eyes, Mark crumpled up the note and tossed it where he kept all of Donghyuck’s messages: in the trash.
Moving on from the slight delay in his mission Mark continued his golden grape eating plan. Though it only took two grapes for another note to float gracefully in front of him. It took everything in him not to groan aloud.
Mark ripped open the new note and read it, Dude, just let me have some grapes! Mark scoffed and turned around.
Donghyuck was leaning on his hand, pouting, while absent mindedly doodling in his notebook. When Mark moved, he casted his gaze upward. A beaming smile graced his features when he made eye contact with the boy in front of him. Mark eyed the hopeful look on the younger’s face before giving him a matching smile.
Mark held his smile and their eye contact while ripping the note in two and tossing it into his favorite trash bin.
Donghyuck’s face fell into disbelief, his mouth jarring open, as he watched the note fall into the bin with the rest of his encouraging remarks. Mark gave him a satisfied smirk before turning back around in his seat and continuing his grape mission with an extra pip in his movements.
He had four grapes in transport when he felt a harsh kick to his chair. The sudden jerk made him drop his precious grapes and his chair making a sickening screech throughout the otherwise quiet classroom.
Mark watched in despair as his grapes scattered in opposite directions, shit .
Three of the four rolled to harmless places; under the filing cabinet, next to the trash bin, and one even found itself right underneath Donghyuck himself. However it was where the last grape ended up that made Mark want to rethink all of his life choices. Like, being alive.
He watched with bated breath as the last grape rolled and rolled and rolled, until it was just below Miss Pike’s loafer. It was almost like time slowed down, like Mark could see the exact moment her shoe made contact. The squishing sound that seemed almost deafening.
Miss Pike stopped her lecture on how even this quadratic formula was an everyday skill, and looked directly down to her foot that had just murdered a grape. She looked up again and gave the entire class a glare, “Who is eating in my classroom?”
Although she didn’t yell, her voice made the students squirm in their seats. Mark being one of them. Mark tried to hide his contraband when another hard kick to his chair sent it flying out of his hands and onto the floor.
This time the sound of his chair alerted Miss Pike and she turned to his direction. Just in time to see the bag of grapes fall to the ground next to him.
“Mark Seo!” Mark flinched at the woman’s voice, “I would have thought this to be anyone else, but from you?” she shook her head in disappointment, “Since this is your first warning, I’ll let you off. But I want you here at lunch and have this floor spotless, am I clear?”
No one dared to laugh at Mark’s misery even if they wanted to, and Mark only had one answer to give her if he didn’t want detention, “Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Pike nodded her head and took her disappointed gaze off of him and back to the whiteboard. Almost instantly Mark spun around in his seat to look at the boy behind him.
Donghyuck was paying him no attention, giving it all to the teacher in front of him, while taking notes and nodding along to whatever Miss Pike was preaching about now.
Damn, give this boy an Oscar. Mark glared into the side of the boy’s face, before giving up and going back to his blank notebook.
Looks like it’s another great start to another great day.
***
The next time the two teenagers had an encounter was, to Mark’s dismay, outside the classroom. The bell had rung minutes earlier releasing the students from their learning prisons. Mark had his favorite class next: music. There was something about the way you could make otherwise empty notes into something so beautiful by simply stringing them together in the proper way and adding a poem set in your emotional experiences. Something about that freedom drew Mark in.
Being the angsty teen he was, he loved finding his outlet to all his thoughts. Though his music teacher, Mr. Moon always told him that his pieces were amazing, Mark always felt he was lacking. There was also a looming part of him that was almost embarrassed . Embarrassed enough that he hasn’t told anyone he’s even been composing his own songs. Not even his dad who he told everything to.
No, music was for him and him only. Sometimes Mr. Moon was there to help him with his compositions and to give him the constructive criticism he needed to improve his craft, but other than that one exception, no one else is allowed to listen to this work. Mr. Moon always says that he sees something in the young boy. That he can see him doing great things with music. It always makes Mark a shy mess, but he can’t help but take those words to heart. The pit of anxiety that sits in his stomach whenever he thinks about performing in front of people is always a mix of excitement and finger numbing fear.
The fear always wins in the end.
Yeah, let's just stick to singing to his music teacher alone in the music room during his lunch hour.
Mark had finally reached his locker and retrieved his composition book and had just turned back to make his way to the music room when he ran right into a warm body, his belongings now spread out around them.
The two bodies fell backwards on the flooring with audible grunts of pain. Well, semi audible. Mark groaned and sat up trying to stretch out his tailbone only to make eye contact with an equally in pain honey-skinned boy right in front of him. Mark didn’t know what made him more annoyed, the fact that he was going to be late to his favorite class, or that the reason he was going to be late was his most infuriating thorn in his side.
“God! Can’t you look where you’re going?” Mark couldn’t stop the harsh words that flew out of his mouth, “Your eyes work just fine!”
Donghyuck being the usual nonchalant character he was, only responded with a dramatic eye roll. He brought his hands up in surrender as if saying ‘ You’re right it was my fault’ and began to pick up Mark’s fallen papers.
“Yeah, at least you know.” Mark glared once more before standing up and shaking himself off. In the process of whipping off his black jeans, he missed the curious eyes of the boy still on the ground.
Donghyuck was begrudgingly picking up Mark’s things. He admits that it was all his fault, he was running away from Renjun and wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. Sue him. It’s not like he’s paying attention to anything Mark Seo does in his free time anyway. There was something that caught his eye though. It was a book that was thicker than the rest of the notebooks on the ground. It was a beige color, almost like it was completely parchment paper, however he could tell the moment he picked it up that good use was to blame.
The cover was blank save for the chicken scratch that Donghyuck assumes is Mark’s handwriting. The bold, MARK SEO , verifying the books’ owner starred at Donghyuck tauntingly. Well, who was he to say no to the book’s siren song.
Glancing up at the owner and seeing him well occupied with dusting off his pants, Donghyuck quietly leafed open the first page. He furrowed his brows curiously when he saw a music sheet with almost a full score written. He writes songs? Donghyuck’s snooping was cut short by a ferocious set of hands that tore the book right out of the poor boy’s hands. He winced when the action scratched his own hand and promptly pulled away.
Mark was absolutely seething.
Donghyuck, only slightly deterred, scrambled up from his spot on the floor and pointed to the journal in question. The action only seemed to make Mark even more angry. Before the older could say anything too defaming, the final bell rang letting everyone know that they only had one more minute before class began.
Mark stood directly in front of the Donghyuck and looked dead into his eyes, “You do not touch this,” he waved his compositions in front of the other’s face, “ Ever . Do you understand?”
Donghyuck was not scared in the slightest, in fact he was more curious and plainly thought that with how serious Mark was was the funniest thing he had experienced all week. However with the looming threat of detention for being late, Donghyuck only had one option. He glanced at the book once more before sighing and making eye contact with Mark again. He nodded, lifting his pinky. Mark scoffed and slapped the boy's hand before turning and going towards the music hall.
With his fingers crossed tightly behind his back, Donghyuck watched Mark’s retreating back grow smaller and smaller before it disappeared behind a corner. His features contour into a mischievous smirk.
Mark Seo, you just got a whole lot interesting.
***
‘Angry’ didn’t even begin to describe how Mark was feeling at this moment.
He was utterly furious.
Three days, Mark sighed as he felt another paper ball bounce off the back of his head, Three whole days.
It had been only three days since the encounter in the hallway. In those three days, Mark had been subjected to continuous disturbances in his early morning math class. The culprit being none other than Donghyuck Jung, the menace sitting behind him.
This day was different from the others. The only real difference was the more frequent notes falling onto his desk. On any normal day, Mark would deal with maybe one or two notes. Ranging from the classics, ‘Dude, what was the homework?’ to more injuring comments like, ‘Did you wake up this morning and choose to wear that or is it laundry day?’. Mark was immune to these notes and the occasional pelting of paper balls, but today was different.
From the moment the class began, Mark started feeling the familiar pressure on the back of his head. It took only two paper balls for him to turn in his seat and glare at the young boy behind him. The second he was facing him, the boy feigned innocence by running his eyes around the room, lips pursed in a silent whistled tune. Mark shook his head and turned his attention back to the front of the room.
After a few minutes of a false sense of security and note taking, Mark let out an audible sigh and closed his eyes in frustration when a crudely folded note landed directly atop his hand. He gave himself a moment to calm his nerves before opening his eyes and unfolding the note.
“So, you write songs?”
Things we aren’t doing today: that.
Talk about his life passions and biggest insecurities with Donghyuck Jung? Mark could think of hundreds of things he would rather do. Dying for instance. Within the time it took Mark to even comprehend the first note, another note floated down directed in front of him. Against his better judgment, Mark opened that one as well.
“Are you any good?”
Mark rolled his eyes and took both notes in his hand, effectively crumpling them both, Why do I do this to myself? Mark reached over his desk to throw the notes away, It’s not like he gets it anyway .
As soon as he looked down to his notes again, there was yet another note sitting on his notebook. Mark blinked in disbelief, Okay, he has to write these in advance.
Previously, all of Donghyuck’s comments have been rather harmless. He may be annoying but for Mark he has never actually crossed any lines. This note, though. This note was pushing every line Mark had ever drawn. In fact, it even made him want to smack Donghyuck right upside the head.
“Must not be then..”
With no more inhibitions left, only anger, Mark took the note and ripped it in half. Then again. Again. He ripped the small paper until there was nothing left to grasp and his desk was littered with debris. Once that was finished he turned back around to see Donghyuck’s stupid face giving him that stupid innocent smile. Mark opened his mouth to say something not nice, but caught himself, knowing that Miss Pike would not have mercy on him this time.
However, right before Mark turned back around, Donghyuck held up a piece of paper with his neat handwriting that he had grown so accustomed to.
“Can you play something for me, Markie?”
Something in him finally snapped.
“Can’t you just shut the fuck up?!”
The silence that took over the classroom was loud. Mark was brought out of his headspace by the clearing of a throat. Mark blinked and looked around the room. The whole class was staring at him. Even Donghyuck was looking at him wide-eyed in shock, like he wasn’t expecting him to shout either. Mark swallowed in fear and slowly turned around to see Miss Pike standing frozen in surprise at the front of the classroom, “Mark Seo!”
Mark flinched at the shriek she let out, slowly sinking into his seat, “What did you just say? And to Mr. Jung?” Miss Pike stomped over to her desk and didn’t hesitate to rip out a slip from her drawer. She wrote on it for a moment before heading over to Mark’s desk and slapping on top, “I’m disappointed in you, Mark. Go to the counselor.”
Mark looked at his referral slip the back up to the teacher, “But-”
“No buts! Go to the office so you don’t distract Mr. Jung any longer.” Miss Pike turned her back, giving her last words and leaving no room for any more dispute.
With no other options, Mark gave a silent scoff and began to pack up his desk. He left the room with one last look at Donghyuck who had the good grace to look guilty. He shook away any of his own guilty thoughts for the boy and left the room before Miss Pike could yell at him again.
As he was making his way down the empty corridor he was thinking about his hot headed reaction. He groaned in embarrassment and threw himself against the closest lockers. What is wrong with him? He had his fair share of people trying to get under his skin. He was always known as the calm, kind and level headed person. His dad raised him like that. But there was something about Donghyuck that just made him go insane. He couldn’t pinpoint it to a certain aspect. It could be the infuriating way he gets underneath Mark’s thick skin and wedges himself happily as his permanent thorn in his side.
Mark sighed and continued his way to the office, his anger slowly deflating into something else he couldn’t quite name.
***
The talk with his counselor was long and horribly boring. Honestly, Mark zoned out for most of it. The only good thing coming out of it being that Mark didn’t have to attend the rest of math class.
Sure he had to deal with the pressing disappointment from Mr. Lowe but that was a small price to pay. Oh, not to mention the classic high school counselor questionnaire; ‘Is your home life okay?’, ‘Is there anyone giving you a hard time?’, ‘You know you can trust us adults, right?’. Really the whole ordeal was almost laughable. Mark had the wonderful opportunity to have never had to have one of these painful sessions before since he only was ever meeting his counselor to sort out his class schedule every start of term and every end of term. He never thought he would feel sorry for the students who had to go through this every day.
Mark was subtly checking the clock behind Mr. Lowe and internally screaming at the way the minute hand had only moved a sorry five paces, when Mr. Lowe pulled out a sheet of paper from a folder on his desk and waved it in front of him, “Your math grades are lower than before as well.” Mark couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Gee, I wonder why. Mr. Lowe sighed, “Mark, this is serious. You used to be top of your class. What happened?”
Mark hesitated. What could he say? That the silent kid that sits behind him annoys him to hell and back? He wasn’t stupid, he knew the minute Miss Pike didn’t even try to ask why he had his outburst and placed all the blame onto him. Despite Donghyuck’s reputation of being a troublemaker, it was never anything too serious, maybe a disciplinary action here and there and the pleasure of being considered friends with the principal, it seemed that everyone felt the need to take more than half the blame off of the speechless boy all together. In fact, Mark couldn’t think of a single time he hadn’t seen Donghyuck around despite being in the principal’s office several times. He knew that he was here because everyone thought he was the bad guy and that Donghyuck was just troubled . Don’t get him wrong, what the younger boy goes through is probably worse than what Mark could imagine, but he was raised to know that no one’s situations, no matter how severe, are any excuse to be an asshole.
Though instead of stating his thesis on personality and why Donghyucks’ is trash, Mark went with the typical teenage excuse, “I’ve just been under a bit of stress lately, that’s all.” Followed by Mark’s award winning smile.
That seemed to do the trick as Mr. Lowe gave him his signature stare before slipping the grade sheet back into its manila home, “You know, Miss Pike isn’t the only teacher that has spoken to me about you these past few days.”
“Only good things, I hope.” Mark tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but judging from the look on the counselors face, it was a failure.
Mr. Lowe crossed his arms in front of him and leaned back into his chair, “No, Mark, not all good things,” No shit, “A couple of your teachers have asked me to talk to you about your behavior in your classes. You have been spacing out and apparently Donghyuck isn’t the first student you’ve snapped at this week.”
Okay, let’s get this straight. Maybe Mark has been dozing off in classes sometimes, but that's because Donghyuck has been consistently bothering him in his very first class of the day! By the time the hour-long class is over, Mark is exhausted by the bothersome behavior while also trying to keep his grade up in his worst class. That strategy obviously is not working. Sure, he also possibly snapped at his desk neighbor one time in English for stealing his pencil when any other day he would have not minded in the slightest. But that was only because he had caught Donghyuck snooping around his backpack that same morning and he was a bit sensitive.
And maybe none of this would be happening if Donghyuck just minded his own business and left Mark the fuck alone.
Was Mark going to say any of this? Not a chance.
Mark was thinking of some kind puberty excuse when the bell rang signaling the end of the class period. Saved by the bell, Mark’s thoughts were full of relief, finally being done with his tortuous meeting.
Mr. Lowe glanced up at the clock as if to verify that that was indeed the bell, before standing and gesturing the student to follow, “I hope you think through your words before you say them and I really hope the next time I see you in my office is for your class changes.”
Mark stood and grabbed his heavy bag from next to him, giving the man in front of him a relieved smile, “I sure hope so too, Mr. Lowe.” Mark left the room quickly, without even a glance behind him. Once he rounded the corner into the busy hallway he let out his breath, feeling like he could finally breathe properly.
As he made his way to his next class, Mark’s brain was still racking with thoughts of the boy. It was almost like it only took a few weeks of interacting for the soft looking, sun-kissed boy to engrave himself into Mark’s mind. Every time Mark read a note in his neat and bold font, a handwriting that matched the boy’s neat and put together image and his outrageous personality. Every time he threw Mark a smirk that looked foreign on his normally soft features. It was all so infuriating for Mark but at the same time he had to ask himself, why didn't he just ignore him.
It was more than easy to just toss every note into the bin when he received them, yet he reads them every time. It’s only a simple task to make Donghyuck stop, yet Mark continues to subject himself to the torture. Not to mention the whole ‘Hallway Incident’ as he likes to call it. Mark wondered if he would have reacted differently if it was someone else, or the same. He likes to think he would do the same no matter who it was that found his book. But there was a pull inside of his conscience that said otherwise. However that information felt like something that needed to be unpacked in the safety of his bedroom and preferably not in the middle of a high school hallway in between classes.
With that resolve, Mark took a deep breath and expertly moved around the groups of people to his next class. He will think about all of this later, right now, he has a history class to get to.
***
Donghyuck did feel a bit guilty. He didn’t mean to get Mark in trouble but he was also surprised he snapped like that. He always pegged him as the calm and collected type, someone that would be fun to mess around with. Turns out he did have a bit of a temper. His sadistic self, however, couldn’t help but find it a little bit funny.
Renjun didn’t share his opinions though, “I can’t believe you made him swear in front of the whole class,” The two were enjoying their lunch outside on their self proclaimed stairs, catching each other up on their day since this was their first time the best friends were seeing each other since this morning, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mark Seo get angry at anyone! He’s disgustingly nice to everyone!”
Donghyuck rolled his eyes, lightly tossing his tray next to him, He’s not nice to me!
Renjun scoffed, “Yeah, like that’s a big shocker.” Donghyuck gaped at his best friend’s painful words while dramatically clutching his heart as if he was physically wounded, causing him to laugh around his bite of pizza, “Oh my god, Hyuck you are so dramatic.”
Donghyuck silently chuckled and reached over to continue eating his mediocre lunch, simply happy with his company.
Renjun was Donghyuck’s best friend. They have known each other since they were kids. Well, even smaller kids than they were now. When the mute first started school he expected to be just like the home he grew up in, a place where no one wanted to be around him and thought of him as a nuisance. Although at the time he had two new dads - great dads - he still had a long way to go before he began to build up in confidence.
The first few years of school were rough. While Donghyuck was finally able to communicate with his parents it was still marginally more difficult to do so while at school. He learned fairly quickly that other students didn’t care at all about his disability and made no effort to befriend the lonely boy. All of his teachers didn’t even try to work with him so he still ended up learning slower than his peers. It wasn’t until Donghyuck was nine when he was finally able to be placed in his proper grade where he met Renjun.
***
It was after an embarrassing painful introduction with his handy dandy whiteboard he was required to carry around and he was told to sit next to a boy named Renjun. At first young Hyuck was shocked at the utter bluntness of the boy next to him, though he found out later that was how he was all the time, nine year old Hyuck had yet to find that out.
“So you can’t talk?” Donghyuck nodded, yeah. As he mentioned mere moments ago, “Have you ever tried?” Donghyuck just stared at him this time. He stared for a few moments wondering if he had ever encountered someone this stupid, maybe at the orphanage but he felt that was long enough ago that he wouldn’t of needed to worry about it again.
Once he broke eye contact, Donghyuck uncapped his dry erase marker and wrote a reply on his whiteboard, adding a little heart for emphasis, ‘ Have you ever tried to stop talking? <3’
The boy named Renjun yelped out a laugh before covering his mouth. Donghyuck just watched in confusion as his desk partner laughed and laughed and laughed. It was the silent kind where he could tell that he was really struggling with breathing. At some point Donghyuck thinks he might actually pass out.
After what seemed like an hour , Renjun calmed down and took a shaky breath before turning back to his new deskmate with a wide smile, “I like you, Donghyuck.”
Donghyuck froze while erasing his whiteboard. I like you. I like you.
I like you.
It was the first time he ever heard those words from anyone besides his parents. No one at the home ever told him anything other than the way it was hard to take care of him and how no one else liked him. He never had any friends so that was out of the picture as well. He always believed that something was wrong with him aside from his vocal chords that made people repel from him like a sort of disease. Just three words were enough to shake him to his core. He turned to the other boy who had already switched the direction of his attention to the front of the classroom, like he didn’t just change Donghyuck’s world.
During the first class together, the two boys started passing notes back and forth, the two were very similar in their hobbies. Playing games, listening to music and trying to set their own personal records on how high they can swing - vowing one day to challenge each other on the playground. Donghyuck learned that Renjun lived with his mom nearby and that she was a teacher at their own school and taught only three doors down. Renjun also had no negative opinions on the fact that Donghyuck had two dads, only answering with a mumbled, “What can I say? I don’t even have one.” That made the two burst into laughter, biting onto their sleeves, receiving some disapproving glances from the neighboring desks.
Finally this was it, Donghyuck’s first friend. The whole day Donghyuck was riding this wave of euphoria that he had experienced since his first sign language class. He was so ecstatic that he was almost crushed when the school day ended and he would be separated from his new friend. The pair walked out of the building together. Renjun wanted to meet his parents and since he had to wait for his mom to finish her work before they could leave together, he had some time to spare.
When Donghyuck saw his papa he immediately ran to him, pulling Rejun behind him. His papa bent down and lifted up his son in a crushing hug before placing him back down next to his new friend, “Hi, baby. How was school? Who’s this?” Renjun hid his smaller frame behind Donghyuck, feeling shy at the young man’s attention pointed at him. He waited for Donghyuck to reach into his bag to get his white board but Donghyuck simply waved his arms in excitement. At least it looked like that to Renjun. However, looking at the man in front of them it was clear that the movements of his arms and hands meant something to him.
The man brought his attention back to Renjun, “So you’re Renjun, right? My son’s new friend?” Renjun’s eyes widened in surprise. Wondering how he knew that, “I’m Taeyong, Donghyuck’s papa. You can call me Yong, Mr. Jung, Hyuck’s papa, it doesn’t matter to me” Renjun accepted the man’s outstretched hand, his smile making the child want to trust him immediately.
“How do you know my name?” He asked curiously, the question making the father-son duo chuckle.
“Hyuck told me, silly.” Mr. Jung stated it, like it made complete sense, but it seemed that Renjun was still out of the loop.
Hyuck slapped his shoulder lightly to get his attention and began making more gestures with his hands that left Renjun more than confused. His papa’s voice came out a moment after he was finished, “He said that he doesn’t always use whiteboards and paper.”
Finally Renjun was picking up the dialogue, “Wait, you can understand what he’s doing?” Renjun made some quick movements of his hands, “You can understand this?”
Mr. Jung gave him another chuckle, “Of course, it’s called Sign Language. It’s how Hyuck talks. It’s a little different from how we do it, but it has the same meaning.” Renjun looked back to his friend who gave him a smile and tight nod, confirming his papa’s words.
Renjun bid the pair goodbye and walked back into the school. It was already empty as the other kids were long gone. The only bodies in the building being the teachers and the librarian. At this moment, Renjun was roaming the empty halls with his head clouded in curious thoughts. Being the son of a teacher, his first rational thought was to go into the library and see what he could find.
In the library, he quickly spotted the school librarian organizing some shelves and ran up to her, “Mrs. Gates, do we have any books on Sign Language?”
***
Donghyuck still remembers the day he came to school and Renjun first signed to him. He was clumsy and struggled to get the right signs, but he didn’t care. He still burst into tears and dove head first into the other boy while sobbing into his shoulder. It only took a year of friendship; complete with long talks, sleepovers and playground shenanigans for Renjun to be at a level where he no longer needed to write him notes. And now being fifteen almost sixteen year olds in high school, Renjun was as fluent as anyone else in Donghyuck’s family.
As the two continued to talk about their day - Donghyuck speeding away with his hands while Renjun nodded and added things with his voice or butting into Donghyuck sentences with his own hands if his mouth was full - Donghyuck kept thinking about how he would have never made it this far in life without the people around him that cared for him enough to teach him everything he needed to know. Whether it was Sign Language, the love a parent gives their child, or even the love between friends.
Somewhere in between those thoughts and bouts of silent giggles made in pure happiness, Donghyuck envisioned an older black haired boy with round glasses and a cute glare.
***
He was being followed.
No, it wasn’t paranoia like Lucas claimed it to be. It was the creeping feeling of actually being followed, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out by who. Mark wasn’t the smartest guy, but neither was Donghyuck. Mark could tell that the younger boy was trying his hardest to not be suspicious but what could he possibly be thinking, thinking that looking blatantly through a doorway in Mark’s range of view, was a good idea.
There were no words that Mark wanted to say to the other boy so he let him do what he wanted to do. Even if it gave Mark the constant feeling of being watched - Does he even blink? - and sent frequent shivers down his spine. Lucas told him that he’s hallucinating but there was nothing left to the imagination with how many times Mark has caught Donghyuck in the act. The worst part is when Mark makes eye contact with his stalker and he only smiles, or smirks, or raises a single eyebrow, like he knows what he’s making him go through. He probably does, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy.
While Mark is afraid for his life, Donghyuck was having a blast just observing . He didn’t mean to go as far as following the elder to class and staring at him for long periods of time, but when he saw the reactions he had, well he couldn’t say no to messing around with him just a little bit. Why is Donghyuck doing this again? That can be blamed on his best friend.
During one of their lunch catch ups, Renjun asked if he knew anything about the older besides that he’s, in Donghyuck’s words, ‘cute when he’s angry’. Donghyuck of course replied that, no he doesn’t know literally anything about the boy who sits in front of him in the mornings. So in true best friend fashion, Renjun suggested the two of them do some recon to see what kind of person they were dealing with. When prompted, Renjun only stated, “It’s totally not so I can get some dirt on him to make him regret ever yelling at you.”
So here they are, not even trying to conceal themselves from Mark Seo and his group of friends, just simply observing .
“Man, he’s so boring.” Renjun pouted from his spot on the cafeteria table where he was laying, watching Mark laugh with his friends, “All he’s done for days is go to class, go home, and hang out with the same three people.”
Donghyuck rolled his eyes and gave his best friend a pointed look, ‘ That’s not true!’ He waved his hand to Mark’s table to show the older student returning to his lunch table with his second serving of Friday's special watermelon juice in hand, ‘ He’s about to go to the bathroom with all that watermelon juice. ’
Renjun snorted before training his eyes back on the table, “Damn, boy sure does love his watermelon juice.” Donghyuck had only begun to raise his arms when he witnessed the mirth obscuring Renjun’s eyes, “It would be a shame… if something happened to it.”
The look his best friend gave him, scared and excited Donghyuck. The excitement stemmed from the way Mark would look if something happened to his precious beverage. The fear was coming from the way Renjun was this excited. Donghyuck shot Renjun an identical evil grin and nodded.
Donghyuck still doesn’t know if he ever regretted that agreement or not.
---
Sitting in the principal’s office with a seething Mark and a disappointed Principal all the while nursing a sore jaw that had finally stopped bleeding was not how Donghyuck foresaw the ‘incident’ to end.
See, when Donghyuck agreed to the plan that Renjun laid out for him, he didn’t think anything of it. In fact, he saw it as an opportunity to mess with his favorite classmate even more, so he said yes in a heartbeat, not once thinking about the consequences.
According to Renjun, the plan was simple. Towards the end of lunch when Mark went to go get his last watermelon juice of the day, Donghyuck was to ‘innocently’ bump into the poor boy and spill his juice over the crummy cafeteria floor. Despite his initial hesitation, Donghyuck followed through with the plan. Making his way towards the black haired boy who was joyfully sipping his favorite beverage as he made his way back to his lunch table.
Mark was happy as a clam as he held his watermelon juice. It was his favorite part of the week, the Friday Special. There was something about the cold and refreshing taste that made him feel like he got a reward for dealing with all of the shit he had to go through the rest of the week. One ordeal taking precedence over everything else being the pastel boy that sits behind him in his oh so favorite class in the morning. It just so happened that during those displeasing thoughts, Mark was distracted enough to run right into said nuisance.
Though what happened in those seconds after contact made Mark think that he would rather have paper balls thrown at his head for eight consecutive hours than the torture he had to endure in those moments. Mark, being so shocked with running directly into someone, lost the grip on the plastic cup on his hand. He could only watch in horror and complete sadness as his precious watermelon juice fell to the ground, the lid popping off and spilling the deliciously pink liquid all over the mismatched tile of the cafeteria.
Mark slowly raised his eyes to meet with the culprit of the death at his feet.
Donghyuck had the audacity to smirk at him. The boy looked down and back up again. He let out a silent laugh and shrugged his shoulders in the universal tone of, “ Oops.”
That is IT.
Mark didn’t know what came over him, but the mere sight of Donghyuck looking so shameless and cocky and on the grave of his loved one no less, it made him the most angry the teen has ever been. So much so that Mark no longer had any control of his actions. Before he knew it, Mark used his full body strength to shove Donghyuck into a nearby table, one that luckily was cleared out since the lunch hour was coming to a close.
Donghyuck was surprised at the least. Sure Mark had snapped at him and shared his obvious disdain in the younger boy, but he was never once violent. However, it was only a second after Donghyuck’s hip met with the wobbly lunch table with a surprising amount of force, that Mark was in his face again. And boy was he angry.
Mark couldn’t stop himself. He kept pushing Donghyuck until he was on the floor, all the while screaming at the quiet boy, “ You are so fucking annoying! ” Push. “Do you get some kind of, “ Push. “ joy out of making everyone else around you,” Push, “miserable?!”
Donghyuck tried to defend himself, but there was only so much he could do when he was backed up against a table and a boy that was regretfully stronger than him. Each push added another bruise on his narrow hips and another buckle into his knees. It was the final push that sent Donghyuck to the ground. While he tried to catch himself, he’s not exactly the poster child for agility and balance, so in the act of moving to minimize the fall damage, he turned his face directly in the path of a chair.
There was a sickening wet sound as the rest of Donghyuck’s body hit the floor, the whole cafeteria having gone silent the second Mark’s cup hit the floor. Mark, however, was still seething when Donghyuck slowly turned to him with the heaviest glare he had ever had directed towards him. There on his deep red cut right on his soft jaw, slowly dripping on the floor and the skin around it turning yellow and in a few days time, a dark purple.
The two boys didn’t have the time to say anything more to each other before the principal came bursting through the doors of the cafeteria with a face full of disbelief and more so, disappointment, “Mark Seo, Donghyuck Jung my office. NOW!”