eternal ↬ markhyuck

ten

"Tell me about yourself. I feel like I know nothing about you," Mark instructed with his focus on the preoccupied boy beside him.

Donghyuck looked up and blinked dumbly. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."

"Because you're doing this," the older sighed and pointed to the half-made flower chain in the other's hand. The daisies' stalks had been split so many times that they were barely holding together. "What's so good about making chains anyway? And tell me about yourself."

"I will if you help me." He smiled slyly. "Plus, the only way to understand is to make one yourself, so go ahead."

Mark raised his eyebrow questioningly and eyed the string of flowers. But he conceded in order to learn more about the beautiful boy. He really really wanted to talk to him all day everyday, spend his life in the field relaxing and just be himself with Donghyuck the way he felt he couldn't with anyone else. That was the thing though: he had no one else to be himself around. It was only the sandy-haired individual. He watched Donghyuck pluck more daisies with a subconscious smile. He was struggling to take his eyes off him these days, but the warmth in his chest kept him on track. "Sure. But you have to play along with me. We can do twenty questions or whatever."

Donghyuck nodded and brushed his hair out of his eyes, locking them with Mark's. "Do you need me to teach you how to make one?"

"I think I can manage," he chuckled lightly.

•・•・•

"Oh my god, I need help so bad! Where did I go wrong?!"

"Calm down, you just need to start again. This stalk is useless now."

"How many times- Never mind. I'll get it this time."

Donghyuck watched in amusement as Mark struggled to split the stalk again, and then over-compensated and ripped the flower down the middle. He smiled warmly at him and felt the foreign urge to wrap him in a hug and just laugh. He observed Mark's focused face - the one he made when his teeth tugged at his lip and his eyes narrowed at the petite flower. It was just so cute and coo-worthy. "Give up the ghost. There's no use in flogging a dead horse, so how about you leave the chain and I can tell you about myself?"

"I'll get it if you help me, so can we work and talk at the same time?"

"If you're up for it."

He shuffled closer to Donghyuck until their legs touched and held out the chain of two flowers he had spent ages trying to expand on. The younger picked a new flower and threaded it on, showing Mark how effortless it was if he just stopped overthinking it.

"I live here, but you knew that already. I guess it's been my home for as long as I can remember."

"Do you have a family?"

"Well," he paused to ponder on his response, plucking a new flower and holding it out for Mark to use. "That's actually debatable. It's too hard to answer."

"Don't they visit you?"

"No."

Mark frowned but Donghyuck didn't seem fazed by the question or the answer he had to give. In fact, he was rather nonchalant about it. "I don't see mine either, but that's because they're up there." He raised his finger to the sky and smiled sadly.

Donghyuck halted what he was doing and felt his shoulders deflate. "They're probably watching over you. Do you suppose they are?"

"I couldn't say. I wonder what happens after you die," he shifted his focus from the flower chain to Donghyuck's unsure face. "I hope there's a paradise waiting for me. No bills, no worries, no budgets...It would be like that if it was my own version of paradise."

Donghyuck cocked his head to the side. "You have to worry about all that and you're only nineteen?"

"It's nothing compared to living alone in a field. You must be so lonely here, and your family doesn't even come to see you...And not to mention the cold winters."

"To be honest, summer is eternal here."

But Mark couldn't tell if he was speaking figuratively or literally. His mind flashed back to the day when Donghyuck told him that the garden was 'special', and that it should remain undiscovered. "The biggest mystery about this place is you. I just..." he trailed off and felt around behind him for another flower. "Let's just say that if you actually were a fairy, I wouldn't be surprised."

Donghyuck laughed quietly and threaded another daisy through, making the chain a lot longer than the initial two flowers. He tied the two ends and held it up. "You flatter me. Unfortunately, fairies are too kind a creature to be me."

Mark guided the daisy chain onto Donghyuck's head, where it settled atop his fluffy overgrown hair that caught the sunlight, turning it to gold. He hummed in delight at how it turned out and how pretty the younger boy looked adorned with the very beings he was surrounded by. "You definitely aren't a troll, anyway."

"But an ogre on the other hand-"

"Nah, you're too pretty to be an ogre." They locked eyes and laughed at their childish behaviour. But Mark was being serious; he wouldn't feel so drawn to this place if the boy in it wasn't who he was. The person across from him was Donghyuck, a special boy with so many secrets - the number of untold secrets swamped the number of flowers growing here. But somehow, it worked. He felt drawn to him regardless of what he knew about him. "Aren't you lonely here?"

"Maybe I once was," he shrugged, unsure since he had spent so long alone that he'd never had anything to compare it to. He glanced up at Mark and his eyes softened. "But I'm not now that you're here."