ɪ sᴀʏ ɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴇsɴ'ᴛ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ (ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴛ's ᴋɪʟʟɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ɪɴsɪᴅᴇ)

15 || ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ sᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ɴᴇᴇᴅᴇᴅ, ʏᴏᴜ ғᴀʟʟ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ

"You've always liked this guy, isn't it?" Donghyuck says from where he sat upon Mark's chair. Mark turns his head to the side and stares at him for a moment, allowing the silence to settle between them. Donghyuck doesn't seem to mind when Mark fails to reply to him and continues to flip through the CD's that were piled on the side of his desk. He has a small smile upon his lips as he reads through their contents before putting them back to where they were supposed to be. Mark hadn't seen Donghyuck smile in a while.

"What're you doing here?" Mark asks, his heart beating a little faster every time Donghyuck stole a glance at him. There's a faint blush on his cheeks as he gets up to walk over to Mark and brushes a strand behind his ear. He crouches down so that he was on the same level as Mark before speaking.

"You seem to be doing well," Donghyuck says, the smile on his face almost haunting, it felt more like he was mocking Mark. "You seem to be doing well after leaving everything behind like a coward, not even bothering to apologise to me, to the others, to your parents."

Mark flinches at the harsh tone and tries turning away, but then the gentle hand in his hair becomes rough and he's forced to look back at Donghyuck. The younger boy's expression remains calm whereas his fingers tug tightly at his hair. He whimpers under the pain and tears build up in his eyes as Donghyuck continues.

"Everyone here thinks you're some quiet kid who just can't socialise, why haven't you told them about what you did to me? About how you ruined my life?"

"I'm trying to move on," Mark gasps as Donghyuck's other hand comes round his throat and his breath gets stuck there.

"Trying to move on?" Donghyuck's grip on him tightens and his voice gets louder by the second. "How could you move on whilst I'm here still suffering from what you did to me?"

Mark tries breaking free but his entire body is frozen. His hands clutch onto the sheets of the bed in desperation as his voice finally manages to come out. "You're not the only person who suffered. I did as well!"

"Listen to your own words, Mark Hyung." The honorifics hit harder as his expression morphs into one filled with pain. "You're not the only one who was hurt. You're not the only person who suffered. Self-pity will lead you nowhere, it'll just keep you immobilised so that your future is no different to your past."

Mark shoots a glare at Donghyuck and his hands finally break free from whatever was keeping them locked in place and he grabs Donghyucks hands, anger flooding his mind. "You're acting as if I don't know that." Mark digs his fingers into Donghyucks wrists and attempts to peel them off him. The heels of his feet bump into the wall at the end of his bed and he arches his back, trying his best to escape Donghyuck's hold. "You think I enjoy overthinking everything? I hate the fact that I can't speak to a single person without questioning what their motives are, or if they figured out what kind of person I really am through a small conversation." The tears in Mark's eyes start rolling down and he hates how vulnerable he looks. "I hate it, I hate how things are right now. I hate going to work, avoiding everyone just to make sure they don't realise I'm not who they think I am. I hate acting like a child, but I can't help it. I can't-"

His breath picks up again as Donghyuck mercilessly looks down at him. He has the same look in his eyes that everyone back in high school did. What was Mark thinking, as if Donghyuck would be any different than them?

"I miss home," Mark cries, his hands dropping from his neck. "I miss Mum, I miss Dad. I want to talk to them, but they don't care for me anymore, they don't want to talk to me, they don't call me."

Donghyuck remains silent, his fingers slowly loosening and then he pulls away although. Mark takes deep breaths as his tears fail to dry up. "Mark Hyung," Donghyuck speaks softly, the tone of his voice completely different to what it was previously. Mark turns to look at him and sees him smile, but it was not like how it was before. It looked genuine, it looked like the smile Donghyuck used to give him when they were 10 and when they used to enjoy their time together. It looked like a smile from when Donghyuck was his closest friend. "You know how they feel about you. Apologising doesn't necessarily mean that you were in the wrong, neither does it mean that they were right. It just means that your relationship with them was far more important than your ego."