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In Donghyuck’s opinion, public transport is the worst place to get yourself into during a hot, almost-summer day.
The weather should not be this warm yet since June has just started, but the sun is bright enough to force Donghyuck’s eyes to a squint even through the dirty glass of the urban bus. If only he wasn’t a broke college student, he could afford a nice car with good air conditioning.
“And if only you had a brain,” Chenle says right before he gets off the bus—too many stops before Donghyuck’s, the lucky bastard, “you wouldn’t have forgotten your sunglasses.”
Donghyuck flips him off. He gives him the middle finger through the window until the bus drives off, leaving behind a waving Chenle happily smiling from ear to ear.
How in the world can someone look that happy when they are about to spend a Sunday afternoon locked in their room studying, Donghyuck doesn’t know.
He shifts on the hard bus seat, trying to get more comfortable. His beach shorts ride further up the back of his thighs and his exposed skin sticks to the plastic chair with a mix of sweat and sunblock. His entire body still smells like the ocean, his long fringe falling into messy chunks over his forehead, tangled together with saltwater.
Donghyuck can see the sand glued to his skin when he peeks down at his own feet, small glittery grains shining between his toes when he wiggles them in his flip-flops. If he concentrates hard enough, he can still feel the wet, mushy sand of the shore under his soles.
But there’s no shore, no cold water, no gooey seaweeds inside of this hot bus.
All Donghyuck’s got now is the smell of the beach clinging to his skin and clothes, a pile of unfinished assignments waiting for him at home, and a sunburn across his nose and cheeks.
Donghyuck pouts at no one when the screen of his phone lights up with a brand new notification from Renjun. He doesn’t need to click it open to know it’s another damp picture of his friends at the beach, smiley and refreshed and college-free because they are a lot less lazy than Chenle and Donghyuck himself and got their work done ahead of time.
It’s not fair, to be trapped on an overheated urban bus on his way to a work-filled afternoon when it isn’t even 3 pm and there is not a single cloud in the sky.
“It’s your own fault,” a very diligent and terribly annoying voice whispers into Donghyuck’s ear—it sounds an awful lot like Jeno. “That’s what you get for being a procrastinator.”
With a groan loud enough to make the lady-next-seat glare at him, Donghyuck slides down until the crown of his head hits the backrest.
When the doors open at the next stop, it only makes Donghyuck feel even more miserable when a fancy-looking dude climbs into the bus to sit right across from him, facing him.
The guy is all dressed up. He’s wearing some ironed pants and an expensive-looking blazer. He has his jet-black hair gelled away from his forehead, curving nicely to the side so the very tip of his fringe brushes his right arched eyebrow. Even his glasses look fancy—Donghyuck has never seen crystals that clean before. At least Jeno’s are always dotted with specks of dust.
Donghyuck drops his eyes to his feet again, swallowing down the urge to groan one more time when he sees the pitiful comparison of his sand-dirty feet and the guy’s pristine dress shoes.
This boy is all ironed out—he even smells clean.
It is almost physically painful when the stranger picks up the big-ass picnic basket he’s carrying to drop it on top of his thighs, wrinkling up his nice buttoned-up shirt when he hugs the box to his chest.
The basket looks heavy as hell. It’s not properly closed, and a cute, cliché picnic blanket sticking out of a corner.
Whoever this guy is on his way to, they are really fucking lucky.
Donghyuck would kill for an afternoon picnic right now. Honestly, he would kill for anything that would save him from the boring schoolwork day he’s got ahead.
It takes him another bus stop to realize the guy in front of him doesn’t look as happy as he should for someone who’s seemingly on a way to a date.
You see, Donghyuck has been called nosy more times than he can count. When he was little, his dad had to remind him he should not speak to strangers almost every day. But if he didn’t pay attention when he was five, what would make someone think he’d listen at 21?
In his defense, Donghyuck doesn’t talk to the dude. He just gets this terribly tingling feeling in his gut when he picks on the tightness of the stranger’s jaw, on the way he keeps rolling his eyes to the ceiling, blinking rapidly as if trying to stop himself from crying in public.
Donghyuck’s been there before. There as on the verge of tears on the public transport.
It only happened once, around a year ago. He needed some coin for the summer, tried to get a part-time job on the side to gain enough for a proper trip with his friends, and ended up in tears on the train back home when he got rejected for the first time in his life.
It was awful. The only thing worse than the pure sense of uselessness stuck to his gut was the half an hour of embarrassment he spent on the train, with all the strangers staring at him as if he had grown a second head when he couldn’t stop the tears from dripping down his flushed cheeks.
So, yeah, it’s not like Donghyuck is trying to pry because of his gossip-addicted heart. He’s trying to distract the guy to save him a traumatic experience, he’s welcome.
Again, in his defense, Donghyuck doesn’t even talk to him. He only slides a flip-flop-clad foot between the stranger’s fancy shoes and wiggles it as if to shake off the shiny sand. His foot taps into the guy’s ankles with each wiggle, and Donghyuck bites a growing smile when he sees him straightening up in his seat.
The dude doesn’t look happy about it, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry at any second, either. Donghyuck will take it as a win.
He presses his sole to the floor of the bus and tries again. This time, he bumps his big toe into the clean tip of the guy’s black shoe. Donghyuck does it again when he catches the boy sneaking a glance at him, arms tight around his basket.
Again. Again and again and—
“Ow, dude!”
“Oh my god. Was that too—” The stranger leans over his basket, sliding forward in his seat as if to look at Donghyuck’s foot. “Sorry. Was that too strong? I didn’t mean to—Shit. I’m so sorry, dude. Seriously.”
Donghyuck props his right foot up on the edge of his seat and wraps both hands around his throbbing toe. He squeezes tight, as if that will do anything to stop the pain coming from a careless stomp and glares up at the guy through his messy fringe.
“Are you sure you didn’t mean to?” Donghyuck snarls. “Because that felt like you were trying to squash my toe.”
The guy doesn’t reply. He keeps his huge eyes focused on Donghyuck’s foot, his eyebrows arched into perfect arcs as if he’s trying to stop the pain with a single glance.
“If I was bothering you that much, you could’ve just said so,” Donghyuck tries again as he slides his fingers through the gaps between his sand-rough toes. “I would’ve stopped.”
But the stranger is too focused on Donghyuck’s foot—no, on his legs—to pay attention to what he’s being told.
A smile curls up the corners of Donghyuck’s lips and his belly goes all sticky and tingly, like it always does when he’s got someone else’s full attention on him.
He lets go of his foot and stretches his leg to the floor. Slowly, Donghyuck slides his hands up his bare tanned skin until he can curl his fingers on the hem of his shorts in a little test. Eyes on the stranger’s face the entire time, Donghyuck tugs at the material of his shorts, riding it further up his thigh.
His mouth dries up when the guy’s eyes follow the movement behind his clean glasses.
Leaning forward in his seat, Donghyuck waves a teasing hand in front of the stranger’s face.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
The guy’s head shoots up, his eyebrows hairline-high on his forehead.
“Oh. Oh, sorry. You weren’t—I’m sorry.” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat when he swallows, a blush blooming under his thick-rimmed glasses. “You weren’t bothering me. I was just, you know, trying to joke back and—”
“Well, you kinda suck at joking, then.”
The guy huffs out a burst of surprised laughter, and Donghyuck finds out that his cheekbones stick out when he smiles. It’s kinda cute, even if his face is made up of sharp lines and pointy edges.
“Yeah, I’ve been told that before,” he says at the same time he scratches his blushed cheek. “Does it hurt?”
Donghyuck blinks at him, a bit hung up on the little mole on the stranger’s cheek. “What, my toe? Of course, it hurts. You just squashed it.”
“Your thighs,” the guy says, pointing at Donghyuck’s bare legs with a tilt of his head. “I think you got a bit sunburnt there… Your face, too.”
Blinking again, Donghyuck doesn’t even try to bite off his grin when the words sink in.
“You don’t even know my name and you’re already checking me out?”
“What?” The guy doesn’t only flush up to his ears when he’s shy, his voice gets all high-pitched and loud, too. “I’m not—I mean. What the… I wasn’t trying to—”
He cuts himself off mid-stuttery ramble when Donghyuck laughs out loud with his head pushed back onto the backrest of his seat. The lady that glared at him earlier is frowning again, but Donghyuck doesn’t really care anymore.
“You’re so red. Oh my god, you need to relax.” That only makes the guy shier, has him ducking his head down as he rubs the back of his neck. “At least you aren’t all pissy looking anymore.”
Head tilted to the side, he looks up at Donghyuck over the rim of his glasses. “Pissy looking?”
“Yeah. You were about to cry earlier, weren’t you?”
And Donghyuck is ready for the stranger to close off. He’s ready to be called off for being too nosy, ready to get flipped off or sent to hell. But the guy smiles with stuck-out cheeks again, his nose scrunching up a little with the tentative curve of his grin.
“So you don’t even know my name and you’re already prying?”
Donghyuck’s mouth falls open in an exaggerated silent gasp. The guy leans back in his seat, hands crossed over his basket proudly, and his fancy shoes bump into Donghyuck’s beach-dirty feet when he stretches his legs across the floor.
The bus is slowing down now, about to halt at Donghyuck’s stop.
He should get off. Donghyuck should pick up his duffle bag from under his seat, hang it on his shoulder and walk past the sliding doors.
There is a pile of homework waiting for him at home, three exams he has to study for, and the alarm on his phone is already set to 7 in the morning for his first-hour class. But there is also a guy with huge twinkly eyes focused on Donghyuck, with a smile big enough to show his tiny teeth as he waits.
Donghyuck glances out the window before he looks back at the stranger. He pushes his salty bangs away from his forehead, the roughness of his hair a reminder that he should get up, go home, and jump into the shower.
But he just said he’d kill for something to take him far, far away from a studying afternoon, didn’t he?
Stretching an arm between their seats, Donghyuck offers his open hand to a pretty stranger as the bus rumbles to a start underneath his sore legs.
“Lee Donghyuck.”
The guy’s nose scrunches up again when his smile widens. He’s got firm hands with rough fingers and a sweaty palm, and his grip around Donghyuck’s hand is calculatedly loose as if he’s scared he’ll accidentally hurt him again.
“Nice to meet you, Lee Donghyuck. Name’s Mark Lee.”
—
Two stops later, Donghyuck finally dares to ask the question.
“So, are you gonna tell me where you’re headed with all that food?”
Mark’s shoulders shake in a soft, huffed laugh.
He does that a lot, Donghyuck’s learned in the half an hour he’s known him. When he gets flustered or when he doesn’t know what to say, Mark laughs soft under his breath and stares at the floor, his mouth curved into a smile that is not big enough to sink his cheeks or to scrunch up his nose.
When Mark’s eyes drop now, he doesn’t stare at the floor, though.
Donghyuck has slid down in his seat as much as he can. He’s all stretched out, has the crown of his head resting on the backrest, his legs sprawled across the gap between their seats, one of his feet between Mark’s legs.
They are touching ankles. Mark’s got his legs closed, Donghyuck’s foot trapped between them because seriously, quit playing, you’re gonna bruise me up if you keep kicking me like that, dude.
That’s where Mark’s eyes are settled now, on Donghyuck’s shiny foot between his fancy shoes.
It is completely unnecessary, the improvised cage Mark has made for Donghyuck’s foot.
Donghyuck’s other foot is free. He could kick Mark with that one if he wanted to. And he would’ve stopped with no complaints if Mark was truly bothered by it.
It takes Mark another stop to reply, eyes still on their locked ankles. Donghyuck doesn’t try to free himself.
“I’m just going home.”
“And here I was expecting something cute, like a date.”
There it is again: the huffed laugh, the shoulder roll, the cheek scratch.
Mark’s eyes flicker up to Donghyuck’s face. He can only hold his gaze for half a second before he’s looking down again with a swipe over his upper lip.
“Well, yeah. That was—That was the original plan, actually.” Mark clears his throat before he keeps talking, legs tightening around Donghyuck. “But, you see, it didn’t go as planned.”
Donghyuck shoves his hands under his thighs with a hum, unsticking his sun-sensitive skin from his seat.
Looking down at their feet just like Mark, he tries to search for the right question that will make Mark finally spill his secrets. Before he can come up with anything, though, Mark is pulling lightly at his ankle to get him to meet his wide eyes.
“Are you thinking that I’m a loser?”
And how could Donghyuck think that if he doesn’t even know why the date didn’t go as planned?
He’s the one huffing out a laugh now, a little surprised at the concern on Mark’s face. Donghyuck’s never been one to care about what strangers think of him. Hell, he doesn’t even care about what his close friends have to say about his most stupid decisions.
The sun is still shining through the dirty bus window, outlining the sharp edge of Mark’s tight jaw in gold.
It is a nice day to bump into the opposite version of yourself.
“I’m thinking,” Donghyuck says, bending over closer to Mark as if to share a secret, “that your food shouldn’t go to waste. What if we get out of here and you can share it with me?”
Mark’s face lights up instantly. His eyes shrink in mischief as he smiles wide enough for his cheekbones to stick out.
“You just met me and you’re already asking me out?”
Donghyuck bumps his free foot into Mark’s leg with a scoff. “At least I know your name now. That’s way more than what you knew about me when you were checking me out earlier, you know?”
The picnic basket creaks when Mark leans over it, a hand cupping his mouth when he whispers, “Are you sure you wanna do this? I could be a serial killer.”
When he leans closer like this, the sunlight reflects on the clean crystal of Mark’s glasses. It looks like he’s got the sun between his eyelashes.
Donghyuck thinks, well, you’re lucky you’re pretty.
He says, “You’re lucky you’ve got free food, Mark Lee. You got yourself an easy victim.”
—
They get off the bus at the next stop and walk to the nearest river beach because their bus was driving away from the sea. It’s a long walk—the soles of Donghyuck’s feet start to ache halfway there—but Mark laughs with his head pulled back at every little thing that comes out of Donghyuck’s mouth, so it’s okay.
Mark keeps gravitating toward Donghyuck, somehow. He seems unable to walk straight and pushes closer with each step. They walk so close together that Donghyuck’s duffle bag keeps knocking onto Mark’s thigh, but Mark doesn’t seem to mind.
And Donghyuck may not know more than the name of the guy he’s brushing knuckles with, but he learns a couple of things along the way.
He’s got no idea what Mark’s favorite color is, but he knows he stops by every flower he sees to take a picture. They would make it to the beach twice as fast if Mark hurried up, but he always has to try two, three, four more times before the picture comes out right because he always leans in too close and his camera is too bad to focus properly.
And Donghyuck has no clue how much money Mark makes, if he makes any at all. If he were to speak with Mark’s shiny shoes and fancy clothes as guidance, he’d say Mark is far away from struggling, but:
“This would be a lot faster if you had an iPhone, you know?” Donghyuck says, standing crossed-armed next to the picnic basket because Mark won’t let it carry it for even a second. “That thing you’ve got looks prehistoric, dude.”
Mark doesn’t look away from the tiny purple flower on his blurry phone screen, but the seams of his mouth tug downward, glasses sliding down the proper bridge of his nose when he frowns.
“My phone’s fine, thanks,” he says, even if he’s on his fifth try. “I don’t need to spend on an iPhone.”
So, yeah, Donghyuck doesn’t know Mark’s favorite color or how much money he earns or what he’s studying at university, if he’s even attending university. But he knows Mark has to step on every single white stripe whenever they cross a street, and he counts all of them out loud.
He couldn’t tell you if Mark is a good boy, either. Doesn’t know if Mark has been raised nice and polite, but he presses the button of every spotlight. Mark looks left and right even if no one is coming, and waits for the green light in the middle of deserted roads.
And Donghyuck can’t talk about Mark’s zodiac sign, has got no idea if he’s a winter baby or a summer baby or somewhere in between. Was he born ready for sunlight or has he always thrived when the sky turns grey? Donghyuck doesn’t know, but he holds back and watches as Mark walks near a sprouting fountain, biting complaints about the too-warm weather but keeping his ironed jacket on.
Mark gets near enough for the water to splash all over his fancy shoes. He bends over the sprouting water and lets it sprinkle his clean glasses with tiny droplets. He stays there closed-eyed until he’s wearing glitter-like drops from head to toe, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Donghyuck’s favorite finding, though, is the high-pitched squeal Mark lets out when Donghyuck crowds in from behind, setting his sweaty hands on a tiny waist to threaten Mark with a light shove. Mark screams loud and high, turns around with his lips sucked in, and punches Donghyuck on the shoulder with a strength Donghyuck swears no one could see coming with that shy, small smile Mark is always wearing.
No matter how many things Donghyuck asks, how many times, in how many ways, he gets no proper answers out of Mark. So that’s the full list of things Donghyuck knows about him when they finally reach their destination.
Donghyuck kicks off his flip-flops as soon as they make it to the river, his sore soles meeting the prickly grass in tickle steps.
“Dude, I’m beat,” he groans, flopping down onto the cliché checkered picnic blanket Mark drapes over the grass. “I seriously hate walking. The things I do for you.”
Is Mark a lover of old-fashioned love? The dramatic theater love kind, like he seems? One more addition to the endless list of things Donghyuck does not know.
Mark’s got his eyebrows raised in two perfect arcs when he sits cross-legged in front of Donghyuck. “Are you always like this or are you giving free way to your dramatics only ‘cause I don’t know you?”
Eyes forced into a squint because he’s facing the sun, Donghyuck grins at Mark as he drops a leg into his lap.
“Oh, I’m always like this. Always a delight.”
Mark frowns down at Donghyuck’s leg like it’s the most offensive thing he’s seen in a while. “I am not massaging your feet, if that’s what you’re trying to achieve. No matter how delightful you are.”
“Oh, so you do think I’m a delight,” Donghyuck says, wiggling his eyebrows teasingly.
He pushes his leg further into Mark’s lap, bending his feet down so he can dig the tips of his toes into Mark’s well-ironed shirt. Mark doesn’t shove him away, but he sticks his pointer finger into Donghyuck’s sole, right where it tickles most.
Donghyuck springs away with a jolt, cradling his foot between his hands just like he did back on the bus when Mark stomped on him. His skin is too warm and too sticky between his fingers after the long walk. He wonders if Mark felt it when he touched him, if he found it disgusting enough to leave.
But Mark is smiling small and smug when Donghyuck looks at him again, his eyebrows still curved into that knowing face. What he looks so knowing for if they met 2 hours ago, that Donghyuck doesn’t know.
“What’s up with you?” Donghyuck asks, nudging Mark’s knee with his own.
He doesn’t know what it is about today, that his body seems pulled to Mark’s as if Mark’s got gravity running through his veins. Donghyuck keeps searching for the tiny bumps, the small brushes, the seemingly accidental, poorly concealed caresses.
There’s something addicting about the tingling touch of a body you share no baggage with. It’s about the nothing-to-lose, about the don’t-know-don’t-care.
Donghyuck can only blame it on the weather—spring fever, as they call it.
“You sure like compliments, don’t you?” Mark asks, scooting closer so both of their knees press together.
At least Donghyuck isn’t the only one under the springtime spell.
Donghyuck leans back on the heels of his hands, head cocked to the side. “Who doesn't?”
“Just a heads up,” Mark says, crooking his left eyebrow. “I’m not about to spend the afternoon sweet-talking you.”
If he was talking to anyone else, this would be the exact moment Donghyuck would back off in fear he’s being too much.
He’s been called annoying before—overbearing, someone told him once, not a single positive connotation hidden between each letter. The good thing about strangers-talk is the free pass to be yourself for once.
Who cares if this guy finds him annoying? It’s not like his opinion will stick to Donghyuck’s skin like the words from those who actually know him.
And, by the way, Mark’s eyes slide down Donghyuck’s face to his neck when Donghyuck pulls his head back, he looks anything but annoyed at Donghyuck’s pushiness or whatever they wanna call it.
“Why, though?” Donghyuck asks, staring at Mark through squinted eyelashes as he pulls his head to the side. “Am I not pretty enough for you?”
Mark is caught somewhere between the slope of Donghyuck’s neck and the dip between his collarbones, eyes sliding over the tan skin that Donghyuck’s oversized basket shirt can’t hide.
But he still has it in him to shake his head, his slender fingers running down the ironed wrinkle of his pants.
“What you aren’t,” Mark says, leaning forward, “is smooth enough to fish for praise. You might as well just beg for it.”
And god, maybe Donghyuck will.
He hasn’t felt this in a while—the maddening pull of attraction, raw and unadulterated by everything that comes with caring too much.
Donghyuck wants to figure out this guy only at lust-level. He wants to get under his skin only enough to get him thirsty. Maybe if he gets close enough to dump noses, he will find out where is the jittery boy he’s met on the bus, and where all this smugness comes from.
“Alright, I’ll stop for now,” Donghyuck says instead. “But you have to give me some food. That’s what we’re here for, right?”
Mark drapes an overprotective hand over his half-open picnic basket. “I don’t think you deserve it.”
Donghyuck scoffs, “Why not?”
“‘Cause you spent the entire way here trying to pry into my life, maybe? That’s not a nice way to treat a stranger.”
“I’m just trying to get to know you better, man,” Donghyuck says. “So, you know, you’ll stop being a stranger.”
“But you didn’t answer any of my questions,” Mark points out, flickering Donghyuck’s bare knee with his free hand. “What if I wanna get to know you as well?”
And Donghyuck may know nothing more than Mark’s last name—doesn’t know if he likes the color red or strawberries or dudes—but he is only human and was born a flirt from head to toe.
He’ll blame it on human nature when he props his foot up on Mark’s lap again and says, “Oh, yeah? And how deep do you wanna know me?”
Ah, there it is.
Mark blushes under the shadow of his black-rimmed glasses. He ducks his head in airy laughter, his lips tucked between his teeth.
“Seriously, you’re too much,” he says, looking at Donghyuck with stuck-out cheekbones. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
Yes. Yes, they have. More times than Donghyuck could count. But never with positive connotations hidden between each letter, through pink lips pressed into the bitten smile that’s born out of belly butterflies.
“Alright, let’s make a deal.” Mark slaps Donghyuck’s calf, but he doesn’t push the leg off of his lap. “You tell me something about you, I’ll give you something to eat.”
Donghyuck frowns and pokes Mark’s belly with his toes. “But I wanna know about you too.”
“Offer something in return, then.”
The smile Mark gives him is a poster-boy grin—the kind of sideways smirk that would make anyone swoon. Donghyuck is so sure Mark used to be a high school heartthrob; that he’s probably one of those popular college guys that have people turning necks when he walks down the hallways of his faculty, if he even attends university.
He’s dying to know who was strong enough to ruin a date with a guy that smiles like a heart attack.
“I have nothing to offer,” Donghyuck says while looking around. “That is, unless you’ve got some weird kink and want to keep the wet swimsuit in my bag.”
Another slap to Donghyuck’s calf. This time, Mark lets his hand rest there, warm on the wax-smooth skin of Donghyuck’s leg.
“Think of something, dumbass.”
Donghyuck clutches his chest dramatically, pulling his oversized basket shirt into a fist. And he doesn’t even know if Mark likes men, but he swears the inevitable fall of his daydream eyes to the exposed skin of Donghyuck’s chest is louder than any confession.
“I could get really offended by your insults, you know?”
Mark ducks his head at the same time that his smirk parts, widening. The hand on Donghyuck’s leg squeezes lightly.
“I have a feeling you’re not that kind of person.”
And something about having nothing to lose gets Donghyuck ready to risk it all.
It’s not like Donghyuck is obsessed with love, a romantic at heart, affection-seeker from head to toe. Renjun would disagree, but Donghyuck swears it’s not about that.
He’s got a down-to-earth head that is fully aware that love can’t spark at first glance. But it’s not about love. It’s about playfulness—about the tingling in your belly when you’re willing to bump into someone else bare-chested, clueless and blindfolded.
Donghyuck hasn’t felt this in such a long time. And if it was anyone else, he’d get too jumbled up between the what-ifs and maybes, tongue-tied, thinking of all the things he could ruin. But what is there to ruin between him and Mark?
Sand-shiny toes digging further into Mark’s perfectly white shirt, Donghyuck cocks his head to the side and says, “I’ll give you a kiss for each answer.”
Mark’s big eyes widen into perfect circles under his glasses. He stares at Donghyuck in silence before he chokes on nothing, coughing as his hand squeezes Donghyuck’s leg again.
“We don’t even know each other!” he squeals into that high-pitched tone he used back at the fountain, his lips curled upward into a nervous smile.
He’s blushing again, all up to his ears. And he keeps his head ducked down as if he’s trying to hide it, looking at Donghyuck with arched eyebrows over the rim of his glasses.
“Well, that’s even better! We probably won’t see each other again, so you don’t even have to feel embarrassed,” Donghyuck reasons, ignoring the tightness of Mark’s grip around his leg. “They say talking to strangers is easier, anyway. And I’m pretty cute, so don’t act like getting a kiss from me would be the worst thing ever. That’s offensive.”
“Are you trying to bait me into praising you again?” Mark asks, still pink on the stuck-out apples of his cheeks. His thumb is rubbing absentminded circles on Donghyuck’s leg now. “You are a little bit cute, though. I guess.”
Donghyuck takes his foot out of Mark’s lap so he can sit cross-legged in front of him, elbows resting on his thighs.
“I know,” he mumbles, looking down at where his leg tingles. “You start.”
Mark stares at him in silence for a while, but he reaches into his picnic basket without a word and takes out a plastic-wrapped sandwich.
“Alright,” Mark says, twisting the snack between his slender fingers. “What’s your favorite color?”
“It’s red.” Donghyuck looks up at Mark’s face with a scoff. “That’s what you’re curious about? Oh, man, you’re so easy.”
Lips pursed together to hold back one of his nervous huffed laughters, Mark throws the sandwich on Donghyuck’s lap.
He starts playing with the cuffs of his jacket, rolling his eyes to avoid Donghyuck’s gaze. “Shut up. I never said I was good at this.”
Donghyuck unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite. He tucks the bread into his right cheek and asks, “Why were you about to cry earlier?”
If he was with his friends, Donghyuck would have at least three people calling him out for speaking with a full mouth. Now, what he gets is Mark leaning closer so he can squeeze Donghyuck’s cheeks between his thumb and index finger.
“You’re starting big, aren’t you?” Mark laughs, shaking Donghyuck’s jaw a little. “Someone hurt me, alright?”
Cheeks prickling when Mark lets go, Donghyuck grabs Mark’s wrist before he can move too far away. He’s still munching when he presses a loud, wet kiss on the back of Mark’s hand.
“There you have your reward.” Donghyuck watches Mark drop his arm on his lap, the fingers of his other hand trailing after the feel of Donghyuck’s lips. “Not that bad, now, was it?”
“Favorite number?” Mark asks right away.
Shoving the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth, Donghyuck drops back on the heels of his hands with a bread-muffled laughter. “God, you’re so boring. Six.”
He huffs out a groan when Mark throws a can of Pepsi at him, hitting him right on the stomach. The aluminum is cold and sweaty to the touch and Donghyuck appreciates the refreshing feeling against the warm palms of his hands.
What he doesn’t appreciate, though, is the way the drink bubbles up and sputters when he pops it open, spraying him with sugary liquid. Most of it hits Donghyuck’s already dirty, tangled up hair and his worn out shirt.
Of course, Mark laughs at him—sitting pretty in his put-together jacket and his perfectly white shirt. Donghyuck playfully kicks at Mark’s knee as he wonders what they must look like for the few people walking by. If they ask themselves, why is someone clean and proper, like Mark, wasting his time on a mess of salt skin and ocean hair?
But Mark is looking at him with sunken cheeks and sunlight in his eyes. No one could tell he was seconds away from crying earlier today.
Donghyuck takes a gulp of his Pepsi, then asks, “Who hurt you?”
“The person I like.”
“You’re being so fucking vague, it’s pissing me off,” Donghyuck complains as he pushes himself up on his knees so he can reach Mark’s shoulder. He presses his Pepsi-sticky cheek to Mark’s fancy jacket, stares at the bumpy line of Mark’s throat, at the way his Adam’s apple bobs underneath pale skin when Donghyuck whispers. “You don’t deserve my kisses.”
And Mark’s neck is a clean canvas in front of him, a single lonely mole on the side as if signaling the exact spot where Donghyuck should kiss him.
Donghyuck turns his head around and presses his closed lips to Mark’s clothed shoulder before he’s flopping back down on his ass.
When Mark speaks again, eyes huge behind his glasses, his voice fades out on his first try.
“Favorite song,” he says after clearing his throat, words roughened up and pupils jumping around.
“Now, that’s a difficult one.” Donghyuck leans back in one hand and takes his can to his mouth with the other, thinking. “I’m gonna go with Michael Jackson’s Thriller.”
Mark shakes his head, still avoiding Donghyuck’s eyes as he turns around to rummage through his basket. “I may be vague, but all your answers are lame.”
“Are you about to shit-talk Michael Jackson’s discography? ‘Cause I will leave right now.”
“Alright.” With a small shrug, Mark takes a chocolate bar out of the picnic basket. “I’ll just finish all this by myself.”
Donghyuck pushes himself to his knees again and snatches the candy out of Mark’s grip.
This time, he doesn’t sit back down properly. Donghyuck stays kneeling right in front of Mark, eyes focused on his pink-toned face as he rips the bar open with his teeth.
It’s so warm today that the chocolate bar is partly melted. The sweet is soft between Donghyuck’s fingers. He can feel chocolate smearing on the corner of his mouth when he takes the first bite.
“How did the person you like hurt you?” Donghyuck asks, chocolate melting on his tongue.
Still avoiding meeting eyes, Mark looks down at Donghyuck’s dirty mouth instead.
“They kinda stood me up.”
Donghyuck rests his soda can and the chocolate bar on the blanket and drags himself closer with a low hum. Knee-knocking Mark’s crossed legs, Donghyuck holds onto Mark’s broad shoulders as he leans in, the thread of the expensive-looking jacket soft and smooth under his sweaty palms.
The kiss Donghyuck drops on Mark’s cheek is purposefully loud and his nose bumps awkwardly into the temple of Mark’s glasses. When he pulls back, fingers tight on Mark’s tense shoulders, Donghyuck can’t stop the laughter that crawls up his throat at the sight of smudged chocolate on Mark’s pink cheek.
“‘m sorry.” Donghyuck rubs at Mark’s cheek with a dry thumb, but it only smears the stain down to his chin. “I kinda made a mess.”
He tries again, running his finger from Mark’s stuck-out cheekbone to the sharp edge of his jaw. The skin is smooth save for the short prickly stubble at Mark’s chin, as if he shaved today to get ready for his date, but couldn’t get it quite right because of his lovesick nerves.
Donghyuck doesn’t know when his other hand crawled up to Mark’s jaw, but he pushes Mark’s face to the side a little to get a better look, pointing his rubbed-red cheek to the sunlight.
“Alright.” Donghyuck swipes his thumb one last time across the heated skin. Is it warm because of Donghyuck’s rubbing or because of Mark’s own blush? That Donghyuck doesn’t know. “It’s better now. Sorry.”
He lets go of Mark and goes to sit back down properly, but Mark sneaks an arm around Donghyuck’s waist before he can move. Hand balled at the small of Donghyuck’s back, knuckles digging into the soft flesh, Mark looks up at Donghyuck with hooded eyes, pink lips half-open.
His fingers are clutching the back of Donghyuck’s basketball shirt. Donghyuck can tell by the way the thread tightens around his belly. He wonders if Mark can feel the damp sweat at the small of his back through the fabric. If he does, he doesn’t seem to mind.
Mark’s voice is lower than Donghyuck has ever heard him, nothing but a rough whisper crawling out of a dry mouth when he says, “My turn.”
Holding onto Mark’s wide shoulders again, Donghyuck waits as he watches him blindly rummage through the basket with his free hand. Mark’s dark eyes stay on Donghyuck’s collarbones the entire time.
Mark takes grabs a single cherry and holds it between them by the stem. He tugs at Donghyuck’s shirt lightly, and Donghyuck doesn’t need words to figure out exactly where Mark wants him.
The light pink skin of Mark’s lower lip disappears between clean white teeth when Donghyuck climbs into his lap. He doesn’t sit down. He places his knees at either side of Mark’s waist and stares down at him, taking in the slight shake of the small cherry between Mark’s slender fingers.
They are so close that Donghyuck can hear it when Mark swallows before asking, “Are you into guys?”
“Oh, we’re getting brave now?” Donghyuck teases, giving Mark’s shoulders a squeeze. “All close and personal and shit. I like it.”
The fruit is smooth and cold when Mark presses it to Donghyuck’s lower lip. His eyes flicker between Donghyuck’s mouth and eyes, as if they cannot decide where they want to settle.
Mark gives another pull to Donghyuck’s shirt. “Answer the question.”
Sticky summer warmth twirls in Donghyuck’s belly and shoots up his body, getting his palms sweaty against Mark’s expensive jacket. He sticks his tongue out to draw the cherry into his mouth with his gaze focused on Mark’s jumpy eyes the entire time. Donghyuck grabs Mark by the wrist to keep him steady enough to tear the fruit out of the stem.
The beat of Mark’s heart drums crazy underneath the thin skin of his wrist. Donghyuck swears it falters against his thumb when he tugs at the cherry with his teeth.
“You know what?” Donghyuck tucks the fruit into his cheek, loosely curling his arms around Mark’s neck when he lets go of his wrist. “I’m into potential serial killers, actually.”
Mark’s hand falls to Donghyuck’s hips with such ease, his palm fitting perfectly into the dip of Donghyuck’s waist, that anyone walking by would say they’ve known each other for years. He lets go of Donghyuck’s shirt only to trace the curve of his back with his fingertips, his hand drawing a feather-light line up to Donghyuck’s shoulder blades.
When Mark pushes him into his lap, Donghyuck falls down with no complaint.
“What did you mean by kinda?” Donghyuck asks, in a tight voice that has been punched out of him by the tension piling up between his ribs. “When you said they kinda stood you up?”
Mark blinks at him as if he’s confused, as if the heat of their closeness has melted away his thoughts and he’s having trouble remembering how they got here— why they are here.
“They did show up,” he explains. His hand keeps crawling up Donghyuck’s back until he can hook his fingers into the collar of his shirt. “Just not like I was hoping them to.”
Donghyuck drops his forehead on Mark’s shoulder with an exaggerated whine.
“This game is going so slow. It could’ve been over ages ago if only you gave me straight answers.”
When he turns his head around, Donghyuck comes eye-to-eye with that one mole on Mark’s neck again. He’s flushed all the way there now, a pretty shade of pink that crawls underneath his fancy clothes.
This time, Donghyuck doesn’t hold back. His nose bumps into Mark’s throat before his mouth reaches the skin, and he swears he can feel Mark swallow underneath his dry lips when he finally pecks him on the side of his neck, as light as he can get.
Mark speaks when Donghyuck’s mouth is still attached to him, the rumble of his voice crawling down Donghyuck’s spine as an unexpected shudder.
“Maybe I don’t want it to be over.”
Donghyuck pulls himself, the seams of his mouth tugging upward in a small he’s unable to bite off his face. “Oh, you liking it?”
“It’s my turn to ask.” Mark shakes his head, and Donghyuck doesn’t know when it happened, but there’s another cherry in his hand. “Are you liking this?”
“Would I be sitting here if I was hating it?” Donghyuck says with a roll of his eyes, tightening his legs around Mark as if to prove a point.
It comes off too snappy, even to his own ears. He’s about to apologize, has been called out enough times to become hyper-aware of the edginess his tone sometimes hides even to those who know him well. But Mark is huffing out one of his soft laughs, shaking his head again.
And if Donghyuck knew him any better, he would assure that is fondness written all over Mark’s scrunched-up face.
Donghyuck doesn’t wait for Mark to feed him. He grabs the cherry from Mark’s fingers and tugs it off the stem with his teeth, getting some juice on his fingers. He’s making a mess again, sticky from head to toe in a mix of saltwater, sunscreen, soda, and cherry juice.
Mark doesn’t look grossed out at all, though. He sits clean and pretty underneath Donghyuck, his eyes two black circles that can’t meet Donghyuck’s, but can’t look away from him, either.
He’s looking at Donghyuck’s fingers now, at the stem between the tips, at the juice dripping down the back of his hand. Mark stares in silence and swallows like he wants to lean closer and find out tongue-first what Donghyuck’s skin tastes like.
Donghyuck bends to the side to spit the two cherry stones onto the grass. His head spins a little when Mark tightens his grip on him to stop him from toppling to the floor, one hand still curled around Donghyuck’s waist, the other grabbing his nape with firm fingers.
“How did they show up?” Donghyuck asks when he straightens in Mark’s lap. “Your date. What did they do?”
Mark hums, frowning like he doesn’t get why they are still talking about this.
“She showed up with her ex-boyfriend,” he explains, finally gifting Donghyuck the piece of information he’s been dying to know since he saw Mark jaw-clenched on the bus. “Well. I mean, I guess he’s not an ex anymore, right?”
Donghyuck cups Mark’s neck, thumbing at the edge of his jaw when he feels him tensing up again. He’s so sharp there, his stubble rough to the touch. Donghyuck wants to touch him with his lips.
So he does just that, rewards Mark’s honesty with a peck on his chin, and sighs through his nose when Mark melts between his fingers.
“So it’s a she,” Donghyuck says, speaking into the edge of Mark’s jaw.
For once, Mark doesn’t complain about Donghyuck stealing his turn.
He hums again, softer this time, and whispers back, “It could’ve not been, though.”
Donghyuck’s mouth has gone dry, his tongue sticky after all the soda he’s drunk today. He swallows on nothing, feels his heartbeat bumping under his eyes when he closes them, and he hopes he lands where he wants to when he leans closer.
Moving by touch, Donghyuck thumbs at Mark’s warm face until he finds the seam of his mouth, and then replaces his fingers with his lips. Mark’s shoulders sag at the kiss, his breath hitting Donghyuck right across the cheeks. It’s as if Donghyuck has cut off every tense string that’s been keeping Mark on edge all day with a single kiss—he goes soft all over but on his hands, his grip impossibly tight around Donghyuck’s waist.
“Are you liking this?” Donghyuck asks again, dropping his forehead against Mark’s temple.
Another huffed laughter. One more greedy squeeze to Donghyuck’s waist. A single mumbled, “Yeah.”
When he opens his eyes, they are so close that Donghyuck can see every detail of Mark’s face. He’s close enough to catch the peeling skin between Mark’s curved eyebrows, the light shine to the tip of his aquiline nose, the grayness of impeding stubble on his upper lip. Donghyuck can see the scar of old acne on Mark’s right cheekbone, the small mole on Mark’s fluttery eyelid, and the faint one on his lip.
Donghyuck can trace the arch of Mark’s bottom lip with his eyes. It’s a tender curve, thumb-shaped, as if signaling the spot you have to press to get Mark to open up just right. Donghyuck wonders if his fingers fit.
He wonders. That’s all he does. He sits here on a stranger’s lap, hovering over him, closer to him than he’s been to some of his closest friends, and wonders.
Donghyuck may not know this guy that much, but he wonders how many people have ever come close enough to see Mark like this—this bare, even if fully clothed.
Fingertips tapping the temples of Mark’s glasses, Donghyuck asks, “Do you like it enough to kiss me?”
Mark’s long eyelashes flutter one more time. His dark, round eyes ballroom-dance all over Donghyuck’s face, taking him in smooth and slow in a tip-toe glance.
Mark is all tense again. Donghyuck can almost swear he’s not breathing.
“Maybe.”
Donghyuck takes Mark’s glasses off. His mouth goes drier at Mark’s arms wrapping fully around his middle, holding him firm when Donghyuck bends down to place his folded glasses on the plaid blanket.
They are such a cliché, Donghyuck thinks as he straightens on Mark’s lap. A tooth-ache-inducing romance, a poster-movie meet-cute, the kind of insta-like in bad books that makes Donghyuck hurl.
And Mark’s eyes are just as big with and without glasses. Just as round, just as dark. Just as mind-bending when he looks at Donghyuck like that—head tilted to the side, eyebrows low, bottom lip squeezed white between his teeth, setting sunlight between his eyelashes.
“But I could be a serial killer,” Donghyuck says in a last, fleeting attempt at grounding himself through humor.
But he’s already halfway down, on a freefall with no safety rope tied around him—just Mark’s arms pulling him down faster, closer.
And Mark is breaking into a smile when Donghyuck lands against him, his words making it past his lips and into Donghyuck’s at the very last second.
“Well, I guess you’re lucky you’re pretty.”
Mark kisses like he’s shy, and it makes Donghyuck feel shy.
It’s a slow one, starts with a simple press of lips that catches Donghyuck’s breath in his throat for one single, endless moment.
Donghyuck holds himself steady with his hands on Mark’s broad shoulders, the thread of the expensive jacket warm under Donghyuck’s fingertips because the sun is setting right behind Mark’s back. He breathes out slowly through his nose, feels his own breath on his flaming cheeks, sweeter and mellower when it bounces off Mark’s skin.
It’s just a simple press of closed mouths, closed lips to closed lips, but Donghyuck’s body is already sprouting goosebumps.
Trying his luck, Donghyuck presses his thumb to the dip on Mark’s chin, his own mouth opening at the same time as Mark’s. And Mark kisses him with his tongue first, but it’s a short-lived kiss, a hide-and-seek game, a shy hello before Mark’s going closed-mouthed again.
Mark kisses sweet and shy like he wasn’t the one pulling Donghyuck into his lap a few minutes ago. He kisses slow and tentative like he doesn’t have an iron–grip around Donghyuck’s waist right now. He kisses short and chaste as if he isn’t sliding a hand down to Donghyuck’s thigh right now, slipping slender fingers underneath Donghyuck’s shorts, pressing down to the tender sunburnt skin.
Donghyuck gasps through his nose. He hisses at the feeling, but the faint sting only makes him want to ask Mark to please press harder, better, closer.
Pulling back for a second, he fights back the need to hide in the crook of Mark’s neck and forces himself to meet eyes. His thumb moves from Mark’s chin to his bottom lip, damp with Donghyuck’s own spit under his fingertip.
“What about your girl?”
Mark shakes his head no, his big eyes struggling to focus on Donghyuck’s face as if he wants to look at him everywhere at once.
“Who cares?” The hand on Donghyuck’s leg tightens its grip, a thumb pushing into the soft flesh of his inner thigh. “She doesn’t want me, anyway.”
Donghyuck swipes his thumb across Mark’s bottom lip, pressing down on the little mole there. “Who cares?” he mimics. “You’ve got me now. You don’t need her.”
When Mark huffs out a laugh, Donghyuck feels it right against his fingertip.
“Yeah? You want me?”
“You kiss fine enough for a day, I guess.”
Mark’s hand flies to Donghyuck’s nape, and he curls his fingers into Donghyuck’s salt-rough hair. He arches his eyebrows at Donghyuck, pulling.
“For a day only?” he asks, his face a mask of perfect innocence even though he’s got Donghyuck neck-bent, mouth open in a silent gasp. “Maybe I have to try harder.”
And he does try harder.
It’s like Mark’s shyness melts away in the heat of their mouths when he kisses Donghyuck again. He kisses him deep and needy, his knuckles digging into the back of Donghyuck’s skull as he shoves his tongue into Donghyuck’s throat, licking him everywhere he can reach.
Mark laps behind Donghyuck’s teeth, tongues at the seam of his mouth, nibbles down into Donghyuck’s bottom lip until he’s got him dizzy with the lack of breath and moaning in public. And Donghyuck can taste the sweet edge of Mark’s smirk at the hoarse noises he’s dragging out him, Mark’s pretty pink mouth molding itself to the shape of Donghyuck’s bottom lip to suck him hard—as if he’s eager to drink up everything Donghyuck has to offer and some more.
It’s fast and messy and bone-melting. Donghyuck can’t keep a coherent thought in his brain for longer than half a second. He feels cotton-made, volatile, so light he might evaporate at any second, even if Mark’s hand on his thigh could not be more grounding.
“Hookups are fucking gross, dude,” Renjun said not too long ago over some tequila, lemon shiny across his lips, and salt spilled all over the table between them. “Why would you shove your tongue down someone else’s throat when you don’t even know their name? Disgusting.”
In Donghyuck’s defense, he does know Mark’s name. And he doesn’t think this can be considered a hookup if all of their clothes stay on. Even if Mark’s hand keeps creeping up Donghyuck’s leg, the material of his shorts all crumpled up around Mark’s wrists as his fingertips rub along the seam of Donghyuck’s underwear. Even if Donghyuck sneaks his hands down the back of Mark’s collar, pleased to touch sweat-damp skin underneath Mark’s perfect-looking suit.
It’s good to know that Donghyuck is not the only one that’s got something burning out of control under his skin.
Renjun can say whatever he wants. Donghyuck dares him to say no to a guy that looks at you like he’s daydreaming when you pull away from him to breathe.
Mark is glassy-eyed and pink all over, his mouth a puffy smile that only grows when he realizes Donghyuck can’t look away from his lips. He’s warmer than the weather, wears hands with the power to turn Donghyuck’s skin more tender than any sunburnt ever could.
It’s not kissing for the hell of kissing, Donghyuck thinks. There is nothing wrong with kissing for the hell of forgetting.
Oh, the little things that make you stop existing for a few minutes, like the gentle downfall of Mark’s hand down Donghyuck’s leg and the soft swipe of his thumb across the tender dip where his knee bends. Slender fingers on burning up skin and Donghyuck isn’t Donghyuck anymore.
He doesn’t remember at what time he’s supposed to wake up tomorrow, can’t recall how many exams he has this week, nor how far away from home he is right now. Donghyuck has lost the track of time and the track of mind. He is just a boy with no name whose first and only priority is kissing the stranger in front of him. And Mark is so close, has his puffy pink lips parted as if waiting on Donghyuck.
The sun is setting behind Mark’s back, a clean-cut orange line framing the horizon. Donghyuck doesn’t know how long it’s been since they made it to the river. All he knows is that he’ll gladly sit here and wait for a kiss ‘till his heart exploded.
Call it a hookup. Call it daydreaming. Call it escapism.
Donghyuck will call it human nature.
He allows the easiness of it all to pull him down. It’s the lack of gut-twisting tension, the absence of the bitter worry that comes with wondering if you are enough. It’s the lack of fear of ruining something because they have nothing.
Hands on either side of Mark’s neck, thumbs pressing on the sharp edge of Mark’s jaw, Donghyuck falls once again, eyes closed, and calls it gravity.
And Donghyuck doesn’t know what Mark likes in a girl—in a person. He has no idea how much Mark likes his girl. If he loves her, even.
Donghyuck doesn’t know how deep the hurt runs through Mark’s chest, if there even is a heart to mend between his ribs. But he will try anyway. Just for a little while.
For a day, only.
—
Just for a little while turns into a night-black sky and moonlight between Mark’s eyelashes.
They kiss until Donghyuck’s mouth goes numb and tingly from pressing too many kisses to the stubble on Mark’s chin. They kiss until Donghyuck is way too tired to keep kissing anymore, droopy-eyed and loose-limbed as Mark cradles him close to his chest, running calloused palms down Donghyuck’s cold arms.
Donghyuck’s entire body creaks like an old machine after sitting in the same position for too long. There’s pain blooming on his lower back, a sharp ache creeping over his shoulders, dull soreness on his ass. He’s got goosebumps down to his toes and it’s not because of Mark’s hands on him, it’s the late-spring breeze draped all over his exposed skin.
Still, Donghyuck groans in protest when Mark tries to push him off his lap, his tender lips meeting the curve where Mark’s neck meets his shoulder.
“Don’t wanna,” he mumbles against Mark’s skin. His body feels so heavy, Donghyuck is half-sure he will come crumbling down if Mark lets go of him.
Mark’s chest rumbles against Donghyuck’s ribs when he laughs. He runs his hands down Donghyuck’s arms, his warm palms trying to smooth over the skin from shoulders to wrists.
“C’mon, Hyuck.” The nickname rings impossibly familiar in Mark’s kiss-hoarse throat, even if not even Donghyuck’s closest friends use it. “‘s late. You’re so cold.”
It takes Mark pinching Donghyuck’s sides, right where it tickles best to get him off his lap in a heap of flushed skin and breathless laughter. He starts to shake the second he stands up, his body already so used to the heat coming off Mark’s skin that the breeze hits him extra hard now, teeth chattering as if Donghyuck has been physically sent back to winter.
But it’s okay. The dark night streets, the cold spring wind, the sore soles of Donghyuck’s feet after a full day out in flip-flops only. It’s okay because Mark hands him his blazer before they walk away from the river.
Mark’s jacket is too big on him. The fabric runs smooth down Donghyuck’s goosebump-rough arms, its sleeves long enough to hide his fingers down to their last knuckle, the hems soft when Donghyuck bunches them between his fingers. The shoulder seams fall lower than the edge of Donghyuck’s shoulder bone and the entire piece of clothing is long enough to hide Donghyuck’s beach shorts.
Donghyuck knows he must look ridiculous, with this fancy jacket over his over-worn, oversized, soda-stained basket shirt.
There’s sand still pooling in the dips of his body, his hair a messy tangle of saltwater and the trace of Mark’s greedy fingers, skin still pink all over for the excessive sunlight. He’s still sore, from the tip of his nose down to the thighs, but the hem of Mark’s jacket rubs nicely across the tender flesh of Donghyuck’s back legs.
The blazer smells like Mark, too. A combination of some cologne that is not strong enough to hide the faint scent of sweat, aftershave, deodorant, and the remnants of Donghyuck’s own sunscreen added to the mix.
Yeah, Donghyuck must look ridiculous right now, but the blazer hugs him soft and warm, and Mark is walking alongside him even though he doesn’t even know where Donghyuck lives.
Mark walks half a meter away from Donghyuck to avoid brushing arms as if they didn’t spend half the day attacked by the lips. He carries his picnic basket in one hand, the other shoved in the pocket of his dress pants. His white shirt is rumpled up, the first two buttons popped open, courtesy of Donghyuck.
He’s wearing his glasses again, but the crystal-clean lenses and the thick rims do nothing to hide the sneaky peeks he takes of Donghyuck off the corner of his round, round eyes.
Donghyuck stops walking when they reach the up-hill road that leads to his family apartment.
The roads have gone silent and deserted. It is that kind of late, and Donghyuck’s flip-flops groan low when he shuffles over the asphalt.
“What are you looking at?” he asks, stalling, one hand gripping the strap of his duffle bag and the other clutching the cuff of Mark’s blazer. “Do I have something on my face?”
And it should be a pretty easy, pretty safe answer. Mark could say that Donghyuck still has chocolate-stained lips, that the sunburnt on his nose has gotten worse, that he’s wearing half the ocean tangled up in his dirty hair.
Instead, Mark tilts his head to the side and half-shrugs, confessing, “You’re really pretty.”
Donghyuck laughs, startled. He twists the stripe of his bag, turning around to face Mark.
“Oh, I know,” he says, crooking an eyebrow. “But what was that you said earlier? Something about how you would not spend the afternoon sweet-talking me?”
“It’s not afternoon anymore.” Mark shrugs again, his lips twitching up into that bone-melting half smirk of his. “You’re very pretty, Hyuck.”
Donghyuck takes one last step to close the distance between them. He lets go of his bag to grab Mark’s glasses instead, taking them off of him carefully.
“Say that again.”
They are so close now, Donghyuck can see the effort Mark has to make to focus his eyes on him properly. Still round-gazed, Mark’s hand comes out of his pocket to touch sweet at Donghyuck’s hip.
“A little blurry. Still pretty, though.”
And Donghyuck doesn’t know what it is about the night sky, but he hasn’t felt this shy all day.
Maybe it’s the end of it all waving goodbye over their shoulders that’s getting him nervous. What closure can you give to something that’s never started?
Donghyuck pushes Mark’s glasses up the bridge of his own nose, frowning when Mark’s face blurs out of focus.
“Wow. You really can’t see shit.”
To Donghyuck, Mark is a mix of smudged colors and fuzzy edges now, but he can still catch the curve of his smile when he grins.
Mark’s hand twitches on Donghyuck’s hip, squeezing. “And you look even prettier now.”
Donghyuck tilts his head down enough to squint at Mark over the thick rim of his glasses. “You’re only saying that because I’m wearing your stuff.”
And there it is again, the huffed laughter, the sheepish smile, the half shrug. And the unfiltered confession.
“Well, yeah. Maybe.”
Fighting the urge to hide his warm face in his hands and fucking giggle is becoming increasingly difficult. Donghyuck is the one avoiding Mark’s eyes now, staring down at where his toes keep curling into his flip-flops at some level 1 flirting.
“What if I keep it all, huh?” Donghyuck says, trying to keep his ground.
“I mean, I kinda need the glasses to survive,” Mark says with another small laugh.
Donghyuck is still looking down. He catches the exact moment when Mark lets go of his picnic basket to place his other hand on Donghyuck’s waist, too. The wicker box hits the asphalt with a soft thud that is not near loud enough to make Donghyuck jump the way he does.
“But you can keep the blazer if you wanna,” Mark keeps talking, his fingers doing a smooth run up the seams of the jacket, tracing the sides of Donghyuck’s torso. “As a thank you.”
“What for?” Donghyuck scoffs, glaring at Mark through the glasses so he can’t actually see him. “You gonna thank me for some kisses? Seriously?”
Mark’s smirk is equally sharp and sweet when he takes the glasses off Donghyuck slowly, his stupidly smug face coming into focus along with a hard kick to Donghyuck’s gut—this terrible need to kiss Mark right now, for hours, before he’s gone forever.
“As a thank you for cheering me up, I guess?” Mark says, looking at Donghyuck with that daydream-like look of his, the one that comes with a small mouth and high eyebrows. “It could’ve been the shittiest day of my life. You kinda fixed it.”
The noise that Donghyuck makes should be embarrassing, but he doesn’t really give a fuck. Not when Mark flushes red and stammers when Donghyuck tells him, “God, you’re so fucking cute.”
Donghyuck might be sore all over and dirty and tired down to the bone, but he wants to sneak his arms around Mark’s neck and pull him closer, kiss him silly until the sun breaks at his back.
Mark leans only close enough to drop a tight-lipped peck to Donghyuck’s cheek. His thumbs trace the dip of Donghyuck’s waist one more time before he lets go completely.
“Goodnight, Hyuck,” Mark says, half-bent down to pick up his picnic basket. “See you around, I guess? I don’t know. I hope.”
Donghyuck watches him go, and the weight of his responsibilities crashing over him the second Mark is out of sight.
—
The following morning Donghyuck gets on the bus running on three hours of sleep.
He’s got gray eye bags down to his cheeks, the skin of his nose is pilling off, and he still has sand between his toes and salt between the locks of his hair because he overslept and didn’t have the time to shower properly. Sore on his feet and back and thighs, he touches at the sensitive skin of his neck and hisses at the welcome sting when he presses down on a bitten spot behind his ear. He can’t even remember Mark sucking a bruise on him, but it’s painful enough to convince Donghyuck that he didn’t dream up a stranger—it’s just real enough to cheer him up.
“Wait,” Chenle points at him with furrowed eyebrows the second he flops down on the seat next to Donghyuck. “Is that Mark’s blazer?”
Donghyuck blinks at him through the 8-am-fuzziness of his brain. His hand slips off his neck to run down the lapels of his jacket like an afterthought.
“Whose what?”
Chenle crooks an eyebrow, gives Donghyuck a pointed once-over. “Mark’s jacket.”
“Who is Mark?”
“My fucking team captain,” Chenle laughs, a high-pitched sound that’s way too loud for this hour in the morning. “I swear to god he wore that yesterday ‘cause he had a date. He texted us this morning, at ass o’clock, by the way. Said he had to skip practice today because he was too tired.”
Donghyuck bunches the lapel of Mark’s blazer into a fist. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chenle is looking at Donghyuck with both eyebrows raised now, his mocking tongue trapped between his teeth. “You sure? ‘Cause it was his best date ever, apparently.”
And there it is again, the embarrassing need to hide his face in the thread of Mark’s blazer and giggle out loud, in public.
“Um.” Donghyuck twists in his seat, letting go of the jacket to rub his burning neck. “When did you say is your next game?”
Chenle is full-on smiling now, holding himself at the edge of one of his high-pitched fits of laughter. “Donghyuck, you never come to my games. You fucking hate soccer, remember?”
“Well, tastes change with time, you know?”
“In a single day?”
Oh, if only Chenle knew all you can learn in a single day.