Head Down

◤thirteen◢

Stepbrothers.

Donghyuck and Jeno were stepbrothers.

It baffles Mark to no end, warps his mind in a way he didn't think possible. To the naked eye, to anyone who wouldn't have explicitly heard it from one of them, wouldn't ever piece it together, that Donghyuck and Jeno were stepbrothers. What kind of truth was that anyways? Surely, the students had school had no idea, since all of them portray Donghyuck and Jeno to have a romantic relationship. It couldn't be farther from the truth, even though Donghyuck seems solemn and saddened, talking about the subject.

Not that Mark should care.

Not that he had any right to care either.

But he'd keep it in the back of his mind though; people with chemistry as strong as theirs' weren't just stepbrothers.

They don't mention it again, they never talk about it again. In passing, they don't look at each other. In silence, they don't speak a word. Frankly, they don't interact with each other often at all. The only time they do is when Jeno and Jaemin are together. Sadly, it's more often than not that the two latter boys are hanging out, and Mark feels boiling jealousy course through his viens. He doesn't know how Donghyuck feels about it, has half the mind to not care about how Donghyuck feels about it, but he'd be lying if he said he isn't at least a little curious.

He's more curious, however, about Jeno and Jaemin's budding relationship. Whatever the relationship was, Mark wants to know why it's happening. Jeno has been nothing but vile to Jaemin, from what Mark knows. The two of them have gotten into a fiat fight on the first day, and Jeno had never stepped in for Jaemin, save for that one singular time. Jaemin seems more zoned out lately, and Mark isn't stupid, despite popular belief. He knows that Jeno is on Jaemin's mind, more often than not, and he, for the life of him, doesn't understand why. Jeno has the same thinking as everyone else Mark has met here so far; city boys and small town boys. They were different, even Mark agrees with that to a certain extent, and he knows Jeno does too. It's clear in his actions, his ideology, and in the way he's best friends (stepbrothers?) with Donghyuck. Jeno and Donghyuck seem to share a lot of things, Mark supposes; parents, schools, family, ideology... Their hatred towards a certain Mark Lee.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It's the sixth time that Donghyuck sees Jeno handing Jaemin a coffee that he decides he's angry.

Angry at Jaemin. Angry at himself. Heck, he's even angry at Jeno.

But most of all, he's angry at his father. Because everything is his fault. If he hadn't gotten a divorce, if he hadn't let Donghyuck invite that one friend over, if he hadn't met her—

Donghyuck has a lot of pent up hatred for his father, and he doesn't know what to channel it into. It's often why he finds himself dismantling flower petals in the park, because the only thing he knows is to tear apart what means most to her: the flowers his father brings home. It works, for a while. He gets high off of the feeling of knowing he destroyed something which means something to his stepmother. It's the only thing close to her that he can tamper with, because the only other thing which means shit to her is Jeno. And Donghyuck would be damned if he harmed Lee Jeno in any way, shape or form.

So he finds an empty classroom at the end of the day, one day where Jeno isn't waiting for him at the front gates, probably because he's with Jaemin. It's been happening for a while know, but it still makes Donghyuck angry when it does. It isn't hard to find an abandoned room, he knows the school like the back of his hand. It's always the math classrooms which are empty, in the east-most hallway. It's usually the third classroom which vacates the fastest: Mr. Moon could never wait to go home at the end of the day. It's mainly so that he could get his marking done in the comfort of his own house, but Donghyuck knows that it's because the last thing Mr. Moon wants is to bump into the principal while he's making his final rounds, bidding the staff a good rest of the day.

He's right, when he walks into the classroom and sees that it's empty. Sitting down in the teacher's desk, Donghyuck takes out a few petals from his jean's pocket. The petals are a soft purple colour, since the most recent bunch he dismantled was a bouquet of lilacs. He cut them off this morning, and stuffed the dead petals into his pocket before leaving for school. No one noticed, as per usual.

There are a pair of scissors in a mug on the desk, and Donghyuck thinks that they're redundant since Mr. Moon is a math teacher: what did he need scissors for? They're useful though, for Donghyuck at least, who takes them in one hand, and a singular petal in the other. Since they were lilac petals, they were long and thin, which made snipping them into tiny slivers super easy. Donghyuck is concentrated as he cuts through the satin-like material of the petal. He doesn't even hear the classroom door open, or the sigh coming from above him.

"Lee Donghyuck," the tired voice calls, smiling softly down at the boy. He's cutting petals again, and Mr. Moon finds himself looking at him with pity. "Stop cutting flowers."

Donghyuck shakes his head, never looking up from the growing pile of lilac slivers in front of him.

"Come back home Taeil." Is all the younger says, finally putting his scissors down, one singular perfectly intact petal between his thumb and pointer finger. He stares at it for a long time without saying anything, almost going cross eyed trying to keep his focus on it.

"It's Mr. Moon to you," the elder reprimands quietly, looking at the pile of cut up petals. "I'm your teacher, Donghyuck."

Finally, the younger lifts his head and looks at Taeil, lips quirking up into a little smile.

"It's Taeil to me. Come back home, I miss you."

Taeil sucks in a sharp breath at that, looking down and shaking his head. He takes a sigh to collect himself before staring at Donghyuck again, looking him right in the eyes.

"Donghyuck. It's over between your father and I." He says bluntly, knowing that it wouldn't get through to Donghyuck unless he did. "You have a mom now, a brother too."

Donghyuck shakes his head, still keeping that friendly smile on his face as he walks up to Taeil. He wraps his arms around Taeil's torso, squeezing him close. Taeil momentarily panics for a while when he realizes that anyone could walk in on them at any time. Even worse than a student walking in; the principal.

"She's not my mom. Jeno's not my brother. Only you. Just you and father. I miss you Taeil."

Sighing for the nth time, Taeil pushes Donghyuck away, keeping him at arms length.

"Youngho and I are divorced Donghyuck—"

"Just you," Donghyuck interrupts, stepping a singular step closer and putting his tiny lilac petal into Taeil's breast pocket. "Just you, me and father." Donghyuck smiles, and it breaks Taeil's heart when he sees Donghyuck trying to convince himself that they're still a family. Because they're not. And they haven't been ever since Youngho became principal of this school.

Taeil looks at the petal in his shirt pocket, and then looks at Donghyuck, who has unshed tears in his eyes.

"Come home. Come home so that she won't be my mother and so that Jeno won't be my brother. Come home so that I can have my family back, Taeil."