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“I look good, don’t you think, hyung?” Donghyuck lips curl up in satisfaction as he twists this way and that to check himself out.
Mark looks at him through the mirror as appropriately as possible considering the practice room is teeming with people. The staff and members are probably occupied with one thing or the other, but still, Mark is careful. Donghyuck’s clad in his usual t-shirt-tucked-into-Badidas-pants combination, but something about the way the clothes cling to his body is different.
His shoulders are sharper, thighs more noticeably filled out, waist cinched to give him a sturdier take on an hourglass figure. The veins in his forearm seem more prominent, which is probably a weird thing to notice, but Mark’s always liked the shape of Donghyuck’s arms, cut just like marble.
He definitely doesn’t look neat, hair sticking up from his fingers pushing through it over and over again using sweat as styling gel, but it makes him no less magnetic than usual, and his hands rest confidently on his hips like he knows it, too, adorned with three rings each, one of which is definitely the Dream ring, but the other five are just there for—
Mark clears his throat. Stop staring.
“Big and strong,” Donghyuck baits, nearly singing as he skips over to Mark’s corner. Clearly his occasional totally normal admiration of Johnny and Jaehyun’s impressive figures has not gone unnoticed. Donghyuck wiggles his eyebrows as if to agree with his thoughts. Mark sighs.
He does consider it—giving in, that is—because he knows how much Donghyuck loves compliments, silently preening with a folded-in smile that barely touches his cheeks but lights him up privately all the same, kept turned away from other people because god forbid someone figures out he requires external validation from time to time.
Also, in line with popular belief, Mark does do most of what Donghyuck asks or hints at him to do because it’s easier than resisting, and Donghyuck’s happy smile is always a treat to see afterwards, softer and realer than the one that usually paints his face.
But the consideration is gone as quick as it comes, because Donghyuck may like compliments, but Mark knows what he likes more is working for them, the payoff that comes from finally tugging one out of Mark, who is usually as liberal as can be with them.
They’ve been playing this game for so long, just the two of them, so Mark bites his tongue and doesn’t let his stoic expression waver, raising a single, unimpressed eyebrow before shoving Donghyuck away by the shoulder and walking out of his corner.
“Focus, Hyuck.”
“Hyung,” Donghyuck pouts in that special way he’s reserved for Mark and The Game, lip jutted out an extra millimetre coupled with big, innocent eyes that Mark should logically know are fake, but it’s always hard to keep in mind when they’re shoved right up in his face. “You really don’t notice anything different about me?
Donghyuck’s been trying to draw attention to his changing physique for weeks now. Mark chews his tongue in half before replying, simply, “No.”
And he must’ve given up a tell or something, because Donghyuck’s face cracks open into something bright and gleeful. He cackles like a little devil, probably well aware of the vestigial guilt that Mark still carries over not giving Donghyuck what he wants, even if it’s for The Game.
“Cute,” he croons, cozying up next to Mark and pinching his cheek with a smile that flip-flops between doting and condescending. They’re literally in the middle of practice. Mark wonders how long it’d take for him to quit his job if he always felt a little like he was third-wheeling the people he worked for. His members are angels, honestly.
Well, most of them.
Donghyuck leans in right next to his ear, pinching a little too hard.
“Cute and futile,” he says sweetly, “you’ll break eventually.”
Mark thanks every god there is when Taeyong calls for another run-through.
It’s a thing of recent years.
The Game, that is, because the whole Mark and Donghyuck thing has been around for a lot longer, if Mark were to be honest with himself.
It goes a little something like this: like a carefully crafted dance, Donghyuck keeps finding ways to draw Mark’s attention and trick him into handing out the kind things Donghyuck knows Mark thinks but doesn’t say, and Mark finds the strength to avoid falling into every one of Donghyuck’s traps.
It excites Donghyuck in a weird way that Mark thinks only Donghyuck can be excited. Plus, given their long history of constant clashes, it doesn’t take much for something to turn into a competition. Mark sees the glint in Donghyuck’s eyes when he’s being particularly persuasive and still fails to get to Mark, can tell when Donghyuck’s smile morphs into something increasingly predatorial as Mark gets less and less poker-faced and more and more inclined to fold.
And, well, it’s fun, which is a weird thing for Mark to think, probably, but it just makes sense between the two of them.
Affection isn’t something Mark keeps on a tight leash. Donghyuck is an exception to that, an anomaly. In a roundabout way, withholding his affection somehow translates as the most obvious form of affection when it comes to Donghyuck.
It used to annoy him whenever Donghyuck got all teasing and needy, but now it’s a game, and if there’s one thing Mark’s always loved, it’s the chase.
Donghyuck’s filled out slowly but surely. His gains are visibly noticeable, but even if they weren’t Mark can definitely confirm it through moments like these when he gets to touch and play it off as casual.
The movie blares loud in the dark room because Dream is already a rowdy bunch on the regular but they somehow find ways to get even louder when they all watch a movie together, arguing and cracking jokes and sometimes literally just sharing random anecdotes over the dialogue until it’s nearly indistinguishable, hence the maxing out of the volume for people who actually want to shut up and watch the movie, like Mark and Donghyuck.
Although, it’s a little harder to focus on the movie today than it normally is.
For one, Donghyuck’s pressed up next to him like they have oppositely charged magnets resting in their cores and he can’t help but be pulled close, almost melding into Mark. His skin is hot to the touch which comes as no surprise because Donghyuck always runs hot. It usually balances out nicely because Mark always runs cold, but when they’re being fused together like this Mark can’t help the slight rise in his resting body temperature.
Donghyuck is wearing those old basketball shorts that Mark’s pretty sure he’s had since, like, middle school. They’re shorter than the average pair, hem stopping somewhere mid-thigh when he’s sitting down. Those paired with the classic oversized t-shirt is a combination that screams boy, but Mark’s not all too sure about that title just yet, because the way Donghyuck’s thighs feel scream something more mature.
He’d slapped Donghyuck’s thigh mid-laugh at the beginning of the movie and had casually kept it there after realizing it felt firmer and wider than he was used to. He’s been mourning the loss of soft, squishy thighs ever since, the kind that made Mark absentmindedly squeeze in the middle of interviews sometimes. It always sucked some of the activity out of Donghyuck, who went strangely quiet and still whenever it happened.
But Mark’s sort of coming around now. They don’t feel the same, but he would be certifiably insane to think they don’t still feel good. Like, really good.
God, Mark is so fucking weak.
He squeezes without thinking, nails accidentally digging in too hard, and he’s just about to apologize when Donghyuck breathes out beside him like he’s letting go of a wordless secret, a little pleased, a little too much like a sound he should not be making in a room full of their friends.
And me, Mark thinks dazedly, I’m his friend, too.
Donghyuck does not stay quiet and still.
Instead, he subtly comes closer (because somehow, that’s still possible), fitting his shape into Mark’s side more and more tightly as Chenle’s giggles and Renjun’s complaints about watching the damn movie are drowned out, replaced by a tinny capsule of space where all Mark can hear is Donghyuck’s breath, warm on his neck.
He keeps his eyes stubbornly on the TV, refusing to look. Reflexively, his fingers dig into flesh, and Mark can tell even without looking that Donghyuck’s mouth peels right open to reveal pearly whites, smug and blinding and directed only at him.
“Hyung,” Donghyuck whispers, mirth making the word bounce, “you really like my thighs now, huh?”
The corner of Mark’s lips twitches. Key word: now—that’s his way out.
He schools his expression into something honest and innocent and turns to look at Donghyuck head on, who doesn’t even flinch, smile widening.
Mark blinks blankly, and then, just as quietly says, “But I’ve always liked your thighs, Donghyuck-ah.”
He can track the words working their way through Donghyuck. His smile goes slack, eyes calculating as they flip between Mark’s, seemingly trying to decode his game plan (which hasn’t changed once in the time since they’ve started playing, Mark knows how to press Donghyuck’s buttons just like Donghyuck knows how to press his). When he doesn’t find anything, he scoffs, rolling his eyes as he sinks back into the couch, arms crossed across his chest in something like defeat though he’d never admit it.
It’s cute how competitive he gets, especially when vying for attention, and it’s a shame that Mark refuses to tell him that. (Kind of, he sort of gets a kick out of it from time to time, if he’s being honest.)
Smiling privately to himself, Mark smiles and gets comfortable. He slides his hand a little higher only to have Donghyuck slap the back of it lightning fast.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters grouchily.
Mark can only laugh, throwing his face into Donghyuck’s shoulder to muffle the sound.
This particular bit goes on longer than expected, but assuming it wouldn’t is mostly Mark’s fault. Donghyuck is a persistent player, especially when pitted against the right opponent, and Mark should know that by now.
He should also stop voluntarily walking into traps clearly pre-designed for him. It was stupid of him to think that Donghyuck—the same Donghyuck who is surprisingly picky about having space and time of his own when he’s winding down, going so far as to travel to the Dream dorm when the kids are out on a schedule just to be surrounded by complete silence—would let Mark into the bathroom when he was brushing his teeth and tell him to stay solely out of the goodness of his heart.
Of course there was an ulterior motive.
Shoulder to shoulder at the sink, Donghyuck stands like he’s training to be a prince with books on his head, posture so perfect it makes Mark feel small. It’s weird, but not as much when he realizes what Donghyuck is trying to draw attention to.
He’s wearing a shirt he usually only wears during practice in order to accurately examine and correct his form, which means that it isn’t two sizes too big, which means that it fits well, which means that his newfound chest definition is that much more obvious, which means that—
A pointy shoulder jostles his, and Mark blinks only to find Donghyuck giving him a pointed Look through the mirror. He looks ridiculous attempting to be all pompous and snooty with a literal cloud of foamy toothpaste rimming his entire mouth, but he tries anyway because he’s Donghyuck and it would kill him not to, probably.
“Stop staring, freak,” he says clumsily through his mouthful of toothpaste. Some of it drips down his chin and lands on his chest. Mark wrinkles his nose. Gross.
Donghyuck nudges him again with an elbow this time, eyes narrowed. Mark gives him a tired look, unwilling to talk with a toothbrush hanging from his mouth but widening his eyes all the same as if to say what.
“You’re doing it again.”
Okay. So what Mark’s attention keeps getting caught up in the way Donghyuck’s chest swells when he breathes, shirt hanging differently off his torso to accommodate new curves? So what? He’s just being observant, and the last time was out of disgust more than anything, it’s not like—“What, you wanna feel me up or something?”
Mark twists his head to take in Donghyuck’s cocky, toothpaste-streaked face that’s trying so hard not to show how much effort he’s putting in to break Mark, and it’s impossible to stop the laugh from bursting out of him, toothpaste flying out of his mouth and raining down entirely on Donghyuck.
Donghyuck jumps immediately, spitting out his own paste in sink just to cry, “Gross! Where’d your fucking manners go, Minhyung?”
Mark shrugs happily as he spits out and rinses while Donghyuck continues to nag and complain at a rate that would make Doyoung proud, pinching his shirt away from his torso like he didn’t literally steal Mark’s shirt a week ago to work out in and didn’t even wash before returning. He could just leave to change, but of course he stays so Mark is subjected to his whining.
“—and my great-great grandfather actually bought me this shirt so—”
“Okay, first of all,” Mark cuts him off impassively, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I was there when you bought that shirt, genius, so you’re not exactly pulling a fast one on me here. And secondly, if it really bothered you that much—” He reaches up to rub away a few white spots on Donghyuck’s chin, “—you’d have gotten rid of the shit that’s actually on your face first.”
“Is this your way of trying to feel me up?” Donghyuck replies without missing a beat.
Jesus.
“I’m just saying,” Donghyuck continues in that tone he adopts when he’s trying to convince you everything he’s saying is one-hundred percent for your benefit and doesn’t have anything to do with his own sadistic tendencies, “it’s understandable if you want to, you know? I know I look incredible. The chin’s a strange place to start but to each their own, right?”
A helpless sort of fondness overcomes Mark as he just stops and listens to Donghyuck spin a web for Mark to stick to, thumb still suspended on Donghyuck’s chin. He’s taken all of his makeup off which only pronounces the dichotomy between his soft, gentle looks and his sharp, fae-like powers of persuasion.
Call Mark crazy but he still finds him cute, adorable even, the way he feigns nonchalance when his competitiveness is eating him up on the inside. Afterall, The Game is all about the chase, and no one has as much fun when you can tell the other person is wearing down.
Of course, the more Donghyuck talks, the more Mark wants to shut him up (it’s some sort of evolutionary response, Mark thinks), so he finally secures Donghyuck’s chin tightly between his fingers and takes a step closer.
“Tell me where to start next time then, and maybe I’ll take you up on that offer,” Mark says, mouth curling into an easy smile at the way Donghyuck’s eyes spark, words dissipating mid-sentence.
“Don’t be dirty, hyung,” Donghyuck drags out, rolling his eyes even with a telling smile on his face. He leans back against the door, the picture of ease.
Mark grins, crossing his arms across his chest. “I didn’t say anything dirty Hyuck, what were you thinking?”
For a moment, Mark’s sure he’s won this round.
Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, just examines Mark carefully, thoroughly, head tilting to the side as his eyes rake down his body, gaze heavy in a new, mouth-drying way. He knows it’s not over yet when he watches Donghyuck reach for his drawstrings, curling each one around his fingers before tugging him in until their hips are nearly touching.
Untangling themselves from the strings, his fingers find purchase on Mark’s waist in the way they always do when they’ve landed themselves in a position that requires proximity like this.
If anyone has a problem with feeling anyone up, it’s definitely Donghyuck—he has a strange thing for Mark’s waist that Mark dutifully indulges every time but is sure would be vehemently denied if he tried bringing it up. He considers trying it now just to attempt to gain the upper hand, but one look at Donghyuck’s face tells him it probably wouldn’t work all that well.
Donghyuck’s eyes flick up then, fun and edged with something rare.
“I don’t know,” he says with a rough smile, absolutely knowing, “why don’t you go ahead and take a wild guess?”
Skin prickling all over with heat, Mark tries not to swallow too hard, letting out a small, hopefully not too nervous sounding laugh. This is new territory, but before he can even attempt to cut through the thick air between them, someone knocks on the door and Donghyuck flinches before pausing, then blowing a deep breath out.
He doesn’t even ask who it is, just pushes Mark back, turns around, and throws the door open. Behind it, a confused Johnny meets Donghyuck’s eyes as he passes him, and Mark decides he doesn’t even want to know what kind of look he sent out because Johnny’s expression morphs into a teasing leer immediately after, directed right towards him.
“Dude,” Johnny says simply, grin vulture-like.
Mark groans and shoulders his way past Johnny, retreating back to his room where it’s safe and Donghyuck-free.
Listen, it’s not like Mark didn’t like Donghyuck before, because Donghyuck’s always been hot, objectively speaking. He’s got an unfortunately perfect face, features round, soft, and full of a unique allure that no one else in the group really has—not even Taeyong. With country-road legs and the sort of charm that stifles the pain of falling when you’re swept off your feet, Donghyuck’s impossible not to like. He draws people in without having to hand out even a sliver of his attention, and it’s just the right amount of infuriating and mystifying to have people keep coming back in hopes of more.
But, okay, barring all of that, here’s the thing.
There’s a difference between that Donghyuck and this Donghyuck. This Donghyuck is confident in an active way as opposed to the more passive tendencies of that Donghyuck. This Donghyuck wears shorts that seem to climb impossibly higher every time they’re home, and he’s got the kind of thighs and calves that had Jaehyun asking him for the details of his workout routine the other day, and he comes close like he’s hellbent on making every muscle on his body known to Mark, indented into his skin.
Sometimes, he’ll even do this thing where he’ll put on sweatpants, sure, but he’ll forgo a shirt entirely—which is an entirely new, entirely worrying development—and then Mark will be subjected to the curve of his chest and tight lines of is stomach and sharp juts to his shoulders and he’ll have to pretend he isn’t seconds away from spontaneous combustion.
Donghyuck’s always been a fairly small-boned kid, you can see it in his childhood pictures clear as day, he’s just been gifted with a frame on the smaller side. So, he’s not as broad or bulky as some of the others, at least not yet, but he’s undoubtedly toned in a way that makes Mark feel a little like he could easily be swallowed whole by him, and, well, Mark doesn’t think he’s entirely ready to address the way that makes him feel.
So, yeah. It’s not that Donghyuck suddenly starting to work out unlocked some new undiscovered desire deep inside Mark, those feelings have always bobbed gently on the surface of most of his thoughts. It’s just that Mark’s been in-like with Donghyuck since forever and it makes it infinitely harder to not be the one to give in first when Donghyuck’s supply of bait seems to be never-ending.
For example.
“You walk around naked too much,” Mark says, grip tight on his mug.
“I’m not naked,” Donghyuck replies, voice still a little rough with sleep. He feigns innocence while fiddling with Johnny’s coffee machine, hair unkempt and ugly but still dangerously attractive. Mark’s in such deep shit. “I literally have shorts on.”
Mark takes a sip to calm down. “Your boxers don’t magically double as shorts just because they’re the same shape, dude.”
Donghyuck’s fingers stop fiddling. He takes in a long, deep breath, and then turns to squint at Mark, backlit by the morning sun in a way that literally makes him look like he’s glowing. It’s ridiculous.
“I’m gonna get you eventually, you know that, right?”
Mark leans further back into the counter and uses the slight ache in his lower back as an anchor to stay grounded, keep his voice steady. He raises an eyebrow. “No, you’re not.”
Honestly, he already has.
The precipice comes into sight in the middle of a rare day off.
Mark’s awoken by three aggressive knocks on his door, and when he finally rolls out of bed to swing it open, the last person he’d expect to be up before 12 PM is standing there in shorts and a black tank with a bag slung across his body.
“Why aren’t you dead?” Mark grumbles, already knowing he’s not going to enjoy whatever comes out of Donghyuck’s mouth next.
“I haven’t gone to the gym in a while,” Donghyuck says with a shrug. It’s too nonchalant. There’s more. Mark continues to stare at him.
Donghyuck’s expression subtly slides into something more sly. “My trainer’s out. I need a spotter.”
He’s not even asking, and Mark already knows he’s going to agree. He shuts the door in Donghyuck’s face and bites his cheek to hold back a fond smile when Donghyuck says cheerily from the other side, “Meet you at the door in ten!”
They know each other far too well.
The Game is to blame. It’s the primary reason Mark finds himself in the gym with Donghyuck even after he told himself a month ago that he’d never end up in a situation like that again, reeling from seeing Donghyuck bench a few pounds short of what he could with little to no effort.
But the challenge was there in Donghyuck’s voice when he’d “asked” Mark to come with him, and turning down a challenge would mean forfeiting in Donghyuck’s eyes.
So now Mark’s here, having done far more looking than spotting so far, currently helping Donghyuck out with sit-ups he definitely could’ve done with a barbell or something instead of acting out his Secret Garden fantasies.
Legs crossed and Donghyuck’s feet nestled between them, Mark holds Donghyuck’s knees together and counts perfunctorily (without flinching every time Donghyuck’s tired breaths hit his face, thanks).
“Aren’t sit-ups kind of ineffective, though? I think I read that somewhere,” Mark says as Donghyuck comes up, ripping his eyes away from the dip between his collarbones. “Thirty-five.”
“That depends,” Donghyuck grunts, a few stray strands of hair shifting as he blows out a breath then goes back down.
“On what?”
“On what I’m trying to achieve,” Donghyuck punches out. His shirt’s ridden up from the constant movement. Mark can see the muscles in his stomach move every time he swings up. “Obviously.”
“Thirty-six. I thought people do sit-ups to get abs,” Mark says, only really half-tuned into the conversation at this point. “What else could you achieve?”
Suddenly, Donghyuck speeds up, and Mark barely remembers to count thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine before Donghyuck’s coming back up for his last one. He stays there, folding his arms atop of his knees as he breathes loud and heavy. He’s quite literally covered in a glossy membrane of sweat, Mark can see drops running down his forehead and collected on his upper lip, but when he grins in that cocky, self-assured way of his, he manages to look about ten times more attractive than when he’s clean and freshly showered.
Mark definitely has a problem.
Even though they’re a little too close for comfort, Mark doesn’t move, too stubborn to be the first one to back off.
Donghyuck’s words hit his face, hot and smug, “It got you close, didn’t it?”
For a moment, neither of them say anything. Donghyuck’s smile doesn’t fall, not so much barbed as it is giddy, sincerely happy at having gotten his way, if indirectly. It’s awful and adorable and all Mark can stand to do is stare into Donghyuck’s bright eyes, fingers flexing on his knees, and wonder how he’s held on for so long without falling entirely.
Donghyuck’s knees are bruised and ugly from dancing, his cheeks and nose are red like they get when he’s overheated, and his hair is beginning to curl from the sweat up and away from his eyes, and in theory it should all paint the kind of messy picture Mark would never voluntarily look at, but here he is, positioned ten centimetres away from it and filled with the urge to get even closer. As close as he can.
His eyes flick down. Donghyuck’s teeth sink into his lips to keep them from curling up. Mark groans almost involuntarily, quiet and limp in a telling, pathetic way.
“C’mon Hyuck,” he whines as he drops his head onto Donghyuck’s arms. Fuck it. He still needs to shower anyway.
“What?” Donghyuck laughs genuinely. “How am I possibly supposed to know what you want?”
“Don’t even give me that shit,” Mark warns, bringing his head up again. It’s hard to keep eye-contact, still. “You know we’re…”
Inevitable, is what he wants to say, or something else incredibly cheesy like that, but he knows Donghyuck would absolutely rip him apart if he tried, so he just lets himself trail off, staring in frustration at the shine on Donghyuck’s nose. Donghyuck stares right back before laughing again.
“Whatever we are can’t possibly matter all that much then, hyung.” He cocks his head to the side, angelic in everything but truth. “Not if you can’t even bring yourself to say it.”
Mark untangles their limbs and shoots up, almost losing his footing in the process from how wildly his heart beats in its cage. His neck feels hot. He hopes Donghyuck can’t tell. “Fuck you. You look like shit, by the way.”
Donghyuck’s tinkling laughter follows him out, and Mark only turns back once to catch him lying back down on the mat, pushing his hair back with one hand while he wipes his face with the hem of his shirt using the other. His grin doesn’t fade, even directed at the ceiling.
“Sure I do,” is the last thing he says, a note of affection in his voice he doesn’t even try to hide. Mark leaves the room feeling warm all over.
It isn’t Mark’s fault that he snaps.
That same night is spent failing to get comfortable in bed despite knowing he has a schedule tomorrow because every time he closes his eyes he sees flashes of honey skin and sharp shoulders and lean muscles, but the full picture always stays a frustrating arm’s length way away, on the tip of his mental tongue.
At some point deep into the night, he picks his phone off the nightstand and clicks on Donghyuck’s name in the dark.
what are you up to?
The reply is immediate.
nothing.
alone?
what’s it to you?
Which, obviously, Mark takes as a yes. He’s out the door within two minutes.
The thing is, it has always been inevitable with them. From the very beginning, everywhere they rubbed each other the wrong way slowly eroded and smoothed out into a kind of comfort that takes years and years to build. Their initial reservations whenever they were paired together backfired, because now Mark has trouble remembering what projects they haven’t worked on together. It seems like they were fated to always be together, and Mark wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s just that in the last year, things have been getting… acknowledged more, Mark guesses. Heated. Always toeing over the line of friendship but never enough to set off warning bells for anyone but themselves, and yeah, okay, their members occasionally.
They’ve only just gotten to the age where they’ll both feel good doing something about it, where they both think they can handle it, and that’s not something that needs to be communicated in words, but everything else is—except The Game and their egos keep getting in the way, which—yeah. Yeah. No. It’s over.
Mark declares it over right now.
Mark declares it over again when he steps into Donghyuck’s room and finds him casually sprawled out on his bed, phone held high above his face with one hand even though he’s dropped it on his face from that same position, like, fifty times before, probably.
What’s strange is that he’s wearing a long sleeve shirt and sweatpants, maximum coverage, and he looks like he just stepped out of the shower, hair a little damp and cheeks heat-stained. The soft light of his room paints him harmless and fuzzy around the edges, and the intensity of his eyes is dialed down with no makeup to amplify it. Donghyuck at his most natural is somehow also Donghyuck at his cutest, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that drives Mark crazy when he juxtaposes it with the Donghyuck he’s been dealing with for the past month, at least.
In a moment of finality, he takes in a deep breath and locks the door behind his back. The sound resonates so loud it gets Donghyuck to finally peek at Mark, arms lowering.
He throws the phone to the side and props himself up on his elbows, face carefully neutral. “What’d you do that for?”
Donghyuck’s got expressive hands even if he needs them not to be. Mark’s eyes flick to his fingers bunching up the sheets. Donghyuck notices and immediately stops, palms going still and flat.
Mark makes quick work after that.
Settling between Donghyuck’s legs so fast he doesn’t even remember how he got there, he puts a hand on Donghyuck’s abdomen and pushes him down even as his pulse spikes at finally getting to feel. For a few breaths, they just look at each other. Then, towering over him, Mark swallows and says, as bravely as he can, “You know why.”
It’s like all the years building up to this singular moment don’t even matter, because Donghyuck grins immediately, easily, managing to look cocky even as the slightest bit of colour rides up his neck. He hooks a finger in Mark’s shirt like they haven’t known each other since they were kids, like he’s just a boy teasing another boy in a badly lit bar at an ungodly hour.
It’s the kind of confidence that Donghyuck’s grown into perfectly, the kind that has Mark’s hands trembling a little from the rate at which energy floods through him.
Donghyuck pulls Mark down slow, voice quiet and suggestive. “Finally gonna tell me how big I look? Hm? How it fucks you up in all the right ways?”
All Mark can really do is hum eagerly, giving in faster than his pride would usually allow. It’s fine, it’s fine, he’ll throw his pride out the window if it means being able to slip a hand up Donghyuck’s shirt and map out the taut skin, thumb tracing the line creasing his center. It doesn’t matter, he’s the farthest thing from being a loser if he can do this, anyway.
His other hand explores Donghyuck’s thigh just as thoroughly, even if a small part of him smarts at the obstructive fabric blocking him off from skin.
“So easy, hyung,” Donghyuck whisper-laughs, going a little breathless when Mark dips low to press light kisses along Donghyuck’s stomach.
His fingers tangle in Mark’s hair, but Mark barely even registers the sensation, too caught up in the fact that he finally has a chance to appreciate what Donghyuck’s been throwing in his face for a month. He runs his tongue over the definition appreciatively, leaving a light trail of kisses when Donghyuck starts to suck in involuntarily and stopping short of just over his heart.
“Pretty,” Mark murmurs, moving to mouth against his jaw, nipping gently. “So pretty all the time but fuck, so pretty like this, Hyuck.”
He feels Donghyuck’s heart pick up speed under his palm half a second before he hears the quick hitch in Donghyuck’s breathing.
“What?” He says, voice small and more breath than anything. Nothing like Lee Haechan. A little like Lee Donghyuck. His chest rises and falls, fast and irregular. Mark grins, finally feeling more in control.
He noses his way up until their lips are millimeters apart, heart beating in his throat. Donghyuck’s breath falls shallow on his mouth. It’s a little dreamlike looking at him like this, like floating outside of his own body except he feels Donghyuck’s heat pressing into him through all his clothes, grounding him. Mark looks, keeps looking, wonders if this is what it feels like in all those stupid romcoms Donghyuck’s made him watch over the years—the moment of knowing.
“Say it again,” he rasps out, pupils blown wider than Mark’s ever seen them before.
Something flutters hard in Mark’s chest, and his cheeks hurt from smiling when he whispers, blowing the words straight into Donghyuck’s mouth, “I thought you wanted me to call you big?”
Donghyuck’s groan is swallowed up by Mark finally, finally, pressing their lips together, and Donghyuck melts into it, hands moving away from Mark’s collar and hair to slide down to his waist, intimate and knowing where they fit against his skin. Mark wonders how it’s possible that it simultaneously feels like the most mundane yet special thing in the world.
Inevitable.
Kissing Donghyuck feels right every step of the way, achingly familiar and yet foreign enough to set off rockets inside of him with every move: when Donghyuck’s hands pinch Mark’s side to make him squirm and he smiles into the kiss at getting the reaction he wants, when Mark bites down a little too hard and apologizes into the kiss, thumbing Donghyuck’s cheek right before he laughs so suddenly Mark ends up accidentally pressing a kiss to his teeth, when he scratches at Donghyuck’s collarbone, shirt rucked up all the way up, and stamps pretty into the insides of Donghyuck’s mouth—that one works differently, though.
Donghyuck makes a sound that does nothing to sustain Mark’s sanity, and in the blink of an eye he finds himself on his back, Donghyuck sat on his thighs like it was nothing.
Nope. Still not the time to process how that made him fucking feel.
Donghyuck leans over to suck at the hinge of Mark’s jaw with one hand cupping the side of his face, keeping him still, and Mark takes several shaky breaths to keep from making too much noise, fingers digging into Donghyuck’s thighs.
“Keep that up,” Donghyuck demands in-between leaving bruises on Mark’s throat. “God, please keep that up."
Christ.
“What do I—ah—what do I get for doing that?”
It’s mostly supposed to be a joke, draw out laughter and maybe a sarcastic is it not enough that you’re underneath me right now, Minhyung? But what happens instead is this: Donghyuck freezes for half a second before immediately detaching himself and shuffling down until he’s in-line with Mark’s thighs, an affair free of any snarky comments. He looks thoroughly flushed and completely out of his mind, hair and clothes ruined from Mark’s insistent hands, but he still manages to smile, one side of his mouth quirked up higher than the other in that characteristic Donghyuck way.
His fingers untie the string of Mark’s sweats in less than a second. Mark’s heart stutters.
“I’ve literally been waiting a year for this,” Donghyuck borderline pants in lieu of an answer, all games off the table. “’M gonna suck you off, yeah?”
Mark has the mental capacity to groan and say yeah a hundred times over, but that’s about it.
Donghyuck only pops back up one time after dragging Mark’s pants down and it’s to say, smile sweet as hell, “Keep quiet for me, okay, hyung? We’ve gotta record tomorrow.”
And, well, The Game’s over.
Mark gives him exactly what he wants.
“So, you’re just not working out anymore? You seriously did all that for attention?” Mark asks, not exactly incredulous because Donghyuck’s definitely done more dramatic stuff before, but still a little surprised.
Donghyuck shrugs to the best of his abilities on the ground. They’re lying down on the floor of Mark’s room for no good reason other than they can, and maybe Taeyong banished them from the kitchen because they kept making stupid faces at each other and bickering more than actually helping him cook.
“I don’t really like working out,” he says, focused on the game on his phone. Mark’s head rests on his stomach. From this angle, he can see the hint of stubble on Donghyuck’s chin. It’s another thing he doesn’t think about in the name of self-preservation. “I like every permutation of my body because it’s still mine at the end of the day.”
He raises an eyebrow then, looking down at Mark defiantly. “Why? You have a problem with a squishy boyfriend?” The way he asks is supposed to sound steady, but Mark can hear the slightest trace of hesitation.
He rolls over and flips Donghyuck’s shirt up to poke his soft tummy. Mark hadn’t even noticed it’d lost some of its tautness, too caught up in the whirlwind that is finally having Donghyuck as a boyfriend. He hums and then plants one, two, three kisses right above the belly button. Donghyuck cracks a grin, then giggles, all walls down.
“I like every permutation of my boyfriend too,” Mark announces, fixing his shirt before sidling up to him properly, entwining their hands. “Just as long as he’s mine at the end of the day.”
“Stupid,” Donghyuck scoffs, attention back on his game. It takes a few more seconds for him to say, quieter, “He is, though.”
They never needed The Game, anyway. It’s never not been real.