What if...? || Markhyuck

-75-

[august 2021]

When I finished work, it was really late. I couldn't make it with all of Marco's strange requests, mainly because my thoughts kept returning to Donghyuck. I kept thinking about boy and how we would actually begin to reconstruct our lives after the incident last month.

I wouldn't say we are doing well.

I wouldn't say we are doing badly.

We were just a little bit together, a little side by side. We spent the time close but at times we didn't speak to each other at all. I felt weird and comfortable at the same time. I was glad that we were together again in the full sense of the word. After all, we were unable to avoid such a very strange atmosphere at times. I couldn't really define it.

It felt as if we were functioning without getting along properly. As if there were still understatements and incomplete apologies in the air that had built up an invisible wall. Donghyuck didn't smile much, he didn't joke, he was very frugal in words. At first, he pursued timid physical contact and then he stopped. I didn't deny that it might also be my fault that our relationship looked like this. I didn't know how to approach it properly and often withdrew too. I didn't want to hurt him or rush anything and I guess that's why we ended up standing still.

We didn't make arrangements for anything today. We didn't write to each other, we didn't contact by any means. Despite everything, I was wondering if if I wrote to him so late right now, would he let me come over. The unsaid separation was much worse than being together in these understatements. And I hated spending the night alone. I sighed heavily as walked down the hall. There was no other option but to fix what was going on between us. The question remained - how? I entered a tracking app out of habit which showed me Donghyuck is still in the building. At this time? This surprised me a bit. I stopped in place, not quite sure what to do with this information.

I turned halfway to the exit and headed to the basement. Maybe it was meant to be this way, I thought. Maybe this is a sign that we should go home together today? I don't hide that I would like it very much, because we were still sleeping separately, each in own apartment. Except for the first night after we made up, we didn't share a bed anymore.

However, when I went downstairs, I felt something was wrong before I entered the basement. Some strange extra sense was whispering signals to me that I didn't understand. Therefore, despite everything, I entered the code without being convinced that it was right thing to do. However, I was struck by the impenetrable darkness and the quiet, subtle murmuring of machines operating around the clock. There was no one in the basement. I huffed under breath in disbelief.

It starts again.

Relationships come back to being a relationship and lying to a relationship routine.

I slammed the door with all my might, figuring that getting rid of my emotions like this would be better than lacing into Donghyuck and making a scene about real location. I don't know if the mere fact of giving up any questions is actually the solution. I just knew that for the moment I wouldn't be able to do it calmly. And a quarrel or confrontation in which he suffers from my anger would destroy us. I couldn't allow it.

In all my fury I walked down the corridor to the exit. I secretly asked the universe for empty roads, because I wasn't vouching for myself at the moment and I didn't guarantee that I would avoid head-on collision with pedestrian or a cyclist. In the first rush, I planned to go to Donghyuck and confront him with my discovery and his lie. Then, however, the remnants of rational thinking spoke to me that, first of all, if he was lying that he was at work, he was even more so not at home. Secondly, I would wake his mother and if she saw me banging on the door in the middle of the night, she would kill me with her own hands and I would have to dream of a blessing to continue seeing her son. Though I've been questioning the point of this seeing more and more lately, since there were still so many lies between us.