ᴀғғᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ-ʟᴇss | ᴍᴀʀᴋʜʏᴜᴄᴋ [ᴇᴅɪᴛɪɴɢ]

10

Mark was right. Donghyuck was childish. He threw tantrums whenever someone didn't listen to him, he pouted and playfully cried when someone was to be rude to him. Even Donghyuck's decision to stop showing affection towards the members was childish. He shouldn't have listened to Jaemin. He should've known better. There was a reason as to why Donghyuck was put into another sub-unit; he had the responsibility to be mature. Sure, he was the maknae of the unit, but that didn't mean he was supposed to be childish.

Maybe if Donghyuck didn't act so out of character, it wouldn't have been so awkward at the breakfast table.

"Have some of this, Haechannie," Taeil offered with a sweet smile. Donghyuck glanced from between the bowl of rice and Taeil before accepting it hurriedly, returning a soft smile he wished looked genuine — it didn't and they all knew.

The night was worse than this. Once everyone reached the hotel, Johnny had entered the hotel room to find a sniffling Donghyuck, tucked under the sheets. Donghyuck's bed dipped and a pair of hands slid beneath the sheets, trying to get the younger out of his little cave, but he refused and pulled the sheet right about over his head. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, but could you blame him? His best friend of many years had yelled at him for the first time in...well, many years.

Mark wasn't the type to use anger and irrational ways to solve a problem (he wasn't like Donghyuck). Mark would sit down with people and explain his problem with them. It was obvious that he was going to be expecting Donghyuck to have done the same. But of course, Donghyuck hadn't. Donghyuck was childish, Mark wasn't.

"Thanks," Donghyuck mumbled and passed the bowl back to Taeil before stealing a glance at Mark. The older had been staring at his plate ever since Donghyuck had entered the room. He wasn't sure if Mark was like this because of him or because he was just tired. Both would make sense.

It was obvious that Donghyuck wasn't the only one affected. The dark eye bags of all the members caused him to feel guilty. They were tired and exhausted because of him. He had one job — to be a moodmaker — and he couldn't even do that well. They were on tour and Donghyuck had made everything worse. He felt bad. This was his fault.

Yet, there was a small part within him shaking his head, disagreeing with him. He couldn't find himself blaming himself completely. If Mark had just asked him politely, sat him down and actually talked to him about everything, it could've been so much better. Mark was normally so level headed, so why did he lash out this time?

When Donghyuck had stormed out of the dressing room, leaving everyone else inside shocked, their manager had repeated his question and then waited for an explanation. The members looked at each other in shame, but Mark could feel most of their eyes on him. Their manager, seemingly catching on to what was going on, had told Mark that he was in the wrong and simply left the room without waiting for an explanation. There was silence and no one even tried to comfort Mark, to tell him that he wasn't the only one at fault.

Donghyuck wasn't the only child in their group. Just because Mark was once the leader of Dream and just because Mark had done things that only older artists did (and tolerated Donghyuck's behaviour) didn't mean he wasn't allowed to slip up every now and then. Having a strong back and calm mind is difficult, not everyone can be like that all the time. Mark, obviously, felt bad about what happened between him and Donghyuck, but that didn't mean he was the only one that was in the wrong.

He wanted to know why, after so many years of love and care, Donghyuck had suddenly left his side for the past three months. It didn't make sense. Mark didn't understand. He had never done anything—

"Oh," Realisation dawned upon him and his eyes wavered from his plate, almost raising his head to stare back at Donghyuck, but the guilt forced them back down.

"Anyways," Taeyong tore his eyes off Mark and put his fork down, catching everyone's attention. He took a deep breath and glanced in Donghyuck's general direction. "We have one last concert left, so can we please pretend to be normal? At least in front of the fans?"

The members all slowly nodded as the heavy weight of awkwardness pushed them to look over at Donghyuck. The younger averted his eyes but nodded nonetheless. It was going to be hard to pretend as though everything was alright. But then again, Donghyuck had everything under control before he followed Jaemin's advice. It wasn't good to hold in your emotions, however, this was the only way.

"Donghyuck," Sicheng whispered, placing his hand on Donghyuck's thigh and tilted his head towards him. "Can we please talk about yesterday?"

Donghyuck stiffened at the mention of that and tried his best to not shove Sicheng's hand off. It was making him uncomfortable. They were going to ask about yesterday and the things he said. They were probably going to be angry at him — how could he doubt their friendship? He had taken all their actions negatively and assumed none of them actually cared about him. The guilt was enormous in the room. Donghyuck looked at Mark, who still had his eyes fixed on his plate but his blank expression had been replaced with a sad one.

"What do you want to talk about?" Donghyuck asked although he already knew what was coming. He couldn't escape this. They had to talk things out sooner or later since they weren't going to be ignoring each other. Renjun had told him that teamwork is the most important thing in a group and if there's none of that, the group can fall apart easily. Donghyuck didn't want them to fall apart.

"You know we all love you, right?" Sicheng said, tightening his grip on Donghyuck's thigh, the small smile on his face became more and more sad when Donghyuck didn't answer. "We really do love you. And we don't treat you any differently from the Dream members."

Donghyuck let out a sigh at the words. He expected them. He knew that was going to be their answer. He had already heard a sorry from everyone — except Mark — yet none of them sounded genuine. The apology they made became useless only a few days after as they all returned to their normal antics. The pushing and groaning was clear and Donghyuck couldn't filter out the things he heard. The only times Donghyuck was given a hug was when they wanted it.

"Mhm," Donghyuck hummed, feeling his heart ache as he looked up at Sicheng with a weak smile. There was no way they could fix this at this rate. They weren't understanding what Donghyuck had meant. He didn't just want a pathetic sorry or a hug with a deep meaning he was too tired to look into. Donghyuck wanted to be treated the same as the others. He wanted to be loved by the members.

They never did it intentionally, he knew. He was sure his friends (that were brotherly figures for them) would never hurt him on purpose. Donghyuck had debuted with them, so their minds had altered the image they had for Donghyuck before (the little child with little devil friends) into a responsible kid that knew what he was doing. He was younger than both Jeno and Renjun, but wasn't treated the same way as them. It hurt.

The dream members, including Jungwoo, had grown up with Donghyuck. They used to shower him with as much love as he would send their way. The kisses from Jaemin, the cuddles from Jeno, the soft praises from Chenle; it was always so overwhelming.

"So do you forgive us?" Doyoung asked the big question from across the table, snapping Donghyuck out of his trance. He heard Mark make a noise of surprise when Doyoung had spoken but kept his eyes to the table. As much as he wanted to say yes, give them a hug and allow for all of this to just get brushed under the carpet, he couldn't trust their words as much anymore. What was the possibility that they weren't going to push him away? He just couldn't.

"No," Donghyuck finally said and licked his dry lips, the stress looming over his head and he quickly stuffed his face with food. As he got up from the table, he caught Mark's eyes, the dark emptiness almost catching him off guard. "I'm sorry."

With that, Donghyuck spun around and began to walk away, feeling his body heat up from nervousness and dread. He knew he was going to have to forgive them one day or another — team work was important, as Renjun said — because they needed to trust each other and make sure their group wasn't falling apart. However, today was not that day.

And honestly, Donghyuck couldn't see that day being anywhere close.