dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.29

The last person to spill the beans about their secret was Jisung, who informed the group of his bizarre love of the word 'moist'. Apparently that's a thing, although the group wasn't really allowed to have any mixed reactions to the confession when Chenle was there to stare them down. The Chinese boy was the lucky seventh, so he was allowed to keep his secret under wraps.

In the end, the game was basically a failure. Renjun didn't end up actually releasing any personal information and they forgot to ask Mark about his at the end. In addition, Jaemin's secret wasn't particularly dark, nor was it really a secret.

It was late, around twelve o'clock, and some tired faces began to surface as they sat on the floor against Chenle's bed with a big blanket over them. "Wanna go to bed?" Donghyuck asked quietly after a period of unspoken silence. Mark stirred beside him as though he had just been woken up from a state of sleep.

"Sounds good to me," he hummed and lay his head on Hyuck's shoulder, his eyes fluttering shut again.

There were two people per bed and Donghyuck's mattress from downstairs had been dragged up after their game ended. Renjun opted to use Jeno's old sleeping bag. Even though the single beds were a bit of a tight squeeze for two boys, they made it happen. Chenle and Jisung were assigned Chenle's bed, Mark and Donghyuck were assigned Donghyuck's mattress and Jeno and Jaemin were assigned Jeno's bed. Renjun had his sleeping bag set up near the door.

The seven boys crawled away from Chenle's bed to put the blanket down and clamber into their assigned sleeping places. Everyone was quiet as they settled down. Soon enough, the pairs each went into their own little worlds to have separate conversations.

Donghyuck had his back to Mark's chest but was finding this to be a drag when trying to have a conversation. He rolled over until he was facing his friend and could only see the faint outline in the dark. Their breaths were intermingling with the close proximity, because, after all, space was minimal in a single bed even for one person. Mark's sleepiness was disappearing as he focused on Donghyuck's dark figure and the small, warm puffs of air escaping to fan across his face. "Mark," the younger whispered hesitantly.

The Canadian boy startled and adjusted his eyes in the dark to be able to recognise the features of Donghyuck's face. "Hmm?" He hummed back.

"I noticed that you never got to tell your secret."

"....Oh." He closed his eyes and shifted, feeling the body heat of the other boy radiate. The covers were pulled tightly over them even though it wasn't particularly cold. "And you want to hear it?"

Donghyuck paused and nodded. "I'm curious."

Mark felt heat rush to his cheeks when he thought about his feelings for Hyuck. There was really no other time for him to talk about them, so if he didn't get this weight off his chest now, he felt that he would forever hold his silence.

Donghyuck, being the theorist he was, began to catch on to what was running through Mark's mind. He gently curled into his friend and smiled. "Take your time. Whatever it is, I'll still be with you. Unless you've killed someone, because that'd be a prime example of a dealbreaker."

Mark nervously nodded and let out an exhale of much-needed pent up stress. "Hyuck, if I was to tell you that I had a crush, how would you react?" He was in the process of discovering how hard it truly was to make a love confession. Especially to his first love.

Donghyuck was smiling to himself, completely aware of how obvious the boy was being. He was treating Donghyuck like someone who wasn't good at reading the mood ('cause he ain't). "Well Mark, I guess I'd just hope it was me." In saying this, he had either made the biggest mistake in his life or the best decision, although, if it was indeed the wrong move, he could try to make a cover-up. Maybe he could play it off as a friendly joke...