but i like you; markhyuck

twenty five

A week later, and they're nearly back to normal.

It's almost startling just how quickly everything falls back into place. How quickly both he and Donghyuck seem to have both agreed silently to forget about the past two weeks, returning to the teasing smiles and playful touches they had grown up doing together. This is exactly what he wanted, yet the painful pound of his heart against his chest betrays him, pushing into him ever so slowly like a dull knife, twisting, twisting, twisting.

They're not quite there yet, though. No matter how much they feign normalcy with their very real smiles and laughs, Mark can detect the caution in every one of Donghyuck's movements, the slight restraint in his casual touches. He's careful now, the authenticity in his interactions with Mark genuine yet blocked ever so slightly by something else that he can tell is nagging at Donghyuck badly.

If Mark were a little bit braver, a little bit kinder, he would've asked him why. But Mark is neither of those things, so he stays quiet, watching as they dance around one another, never straying too far from each other yet never touching either.

And so, they continue doing just that. When Mark comes over to Donghyuck's house to do homework, he's all too aware of the small space between them when they sit on his bed, or when he hovers over his back to look at Donghyuck's paper. When Donghyuck comes over to make him dinner at his house whenever his mom texts him she's coming home late, he doesn't lean in close to look over his shoulder at the food like he used to. He doesn't do all these little things, and he realizes just how touchy they were, along with how unabashedly okay Mark was with the affection when he didn't come to terms with the abnormal pace of his heart at every little touch from him.

He misses it. He wishes Donghyuck would initiate the touches like he usually does. But Donghyuck already does everything he used to do, from impromptu hugs to fake whines, and still, Mark isn't satisfied because it just isn't the same.

Maybe, he thinks to himself one night, the clock reading 2:25, maybe it's because I want more. And it's true that he does. He knows fully well what his dreams mean, how his mind flits to the warmth of Donghyuck's waist in his hands and how every single time, without fail, he feels the sick urge to hold him tight and never let go.

But if Mark knows anything, he knows that above all, he’s a coward who can’t change.

–

"Mark, what do you think of Valentine's Day?"

It's a simple question, so Mark answers distractedly without sparing him a glance. “It’s whatever. Romantic, ideally, but nothing special has really happened that day to me.”

Donghyuck snorts. “What would the nine girls who confessed to you over these years think if they heard that?”

Mark’s ears redden, gripping his pencil. “Shut up. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I mean, no one I’ve liked has confessed to me.” He swivels around in Donghyuck’s chair to face him with his brows furrowed. “Also, haven’t you had, like, six guys confess to you anyway?”

Donghyuck sits up on his bed and shrugs. “Yeah. I’m not complaining about it, though.”

Mark sighs and decides not to fight back. “Okay. Fine.” He bites his lip and oh so carefully asks, “So why’d you reject them?”

“The same reason as you. Because I didn’t like them,” he replies easily. “And even if I did like someone and they confessed to me, I don’t know if I’d accept it either.”

Mark’s hands twitch. “Why?”

Donghyuck pauses abruptly. He glances up from the pillow on his lap and gives him a long look, eyes unreadable, before looking away. “It's… it's scary, I guess. Because once you start dating, you can never really go back to what you were. You can try, but you'll never be as close of a friend as you were before. I'm too scared to do that. I'm scared I'll mess everything up and I'll lose everything that I had with that other person."

There's a lump in Mark's throat that he forces himself to swallow down, fingers uncomfortably picking at a loose thread in his ripped jeans. "But… isn't that just hurting the both of you anyway? Breakups hurt, yeah, but you're still going to feel pain even if you choose not t—"

"Mark." Donghyuck gives him a weak smile. "We should get back to studying."

His stomach churns uneasily.

"Yeah."