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“No one has ever warned me about the sheer number of textbooks that you will never end up using.” Yangyang hefted another stack of books into a stray box and let out his seventh groan of the morning. “Imagine how much money you could have saved if you hadn’t had to buy Norton’s Anthology of Western Music: Ancient to Baroque.”
“Hey, that class wasn’t half bad actually,” says Donghyuck from where he’s filling a box of his own with odd bits of cutlery they’d collected over the years. “Managed to score an A with an essay about the social phenomenon of Rick Rolling. Lecturer loved it.”
He slots the last bent spoon into the box with a cry of triumph. With Yangyang flying back North after graduation, they’d voted Donghyuck as the bearer of their mismatched kitchenware. Now it looks like he’s going back with not only the three plates they’d accidentally stolen from the cafeteria and still don’t know how to return but also the free mug they’d won at a cafe by pretending to be a couple.
“I remember you studying for that class,” Yangyang groans. “You insisted on blasting ‘Never Going to Give You Up’ on repeat for two days—something about understanding source material. I swear, our RA has never hated us more than she did in that moment.”
Donghyuck laughs. “That’s fine, it’s not like she didn’t already hate us. Have you ever heard her say anything nice to either of us? Or to anyone?”
“Well,” says Yangyang while taping the book box closed, “maybe if you hadn’t mistaken her for a fifty year old professor the first time you met her, she wouldn’t glare at us in the hallways.”
“It’s not my fault she wears sweater vests so often!”
“You wear sweater vests.”
Donghyuck waves him off. “I am young. I am fabulous! I look great in sweater vests.”
The eye roll he receives in response is warranted so he doesn’t argue. Donghyuck’s gaze is drawn to the open window of their dorm. From the third floor you can see out far across the lawn. He can even spot the tree he’d claimed as his study spot and proceeded to forget about for the rest of the semester. They’d gotten lucky in their third year and landed a South facing room, giving them an unobstructed view of the campus—no pesky lecture halls or libraries getting in the way.
“This is really it, huh?”
Donghyuck’s gaze flicks up to Yangyang, who has taken his own position by the window. “Yeah, I think it is,” he replies. “Goodbye dorm room.”
“And hello leg room! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be sleeping in a bed that my feet don’t hang off.”
The idea is heavenly. Donghyuck can already imagine sinking into his mattress back home. “Ooh, it’s also going to mean no more two am study freak outs.”
“Unless you do a post grad!”
More studying? He groans. “I don’t even want to think about taking another class for a whole five years. And don’t get me started on neighbours making out against our door. I want that erased from my memory, please and thank you.”
“Oh come on,” chides Yangyang, “that happened twice.”
“Three times! I caught Jaehyun and Johnny at it last week.”
Yangyang’s eyes went wide. “Again? They don’t even live on this floor.”
“Ah, the wonders of love,” grins Donghyuck, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “What fools it can make us.”
Donghyuck doesn’t even need to look at Yangyang to know what face he’s pulling. “And what would you know about love, Resident Campus Bachelor? Nobody has been able to pin you down for a second date since first year.”
“What can I say? I have high standards.” At this point, the response is automatic. They’ve had this same conversation more times than Donghyuck can count.
“Might these standards be about yay high,” Yangyang asks while sticking out a hand around head height, his eyes glinting with mischief. “Perhaps the height of a certain someone back home?”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes “I’ve told you a million times, I’m not holding out for anyone.” He averts his eyes before he gives himself away. It’s the truth. Mostly. No one has caught his eye in a while. And that, “hasn’t changed in the very short span of time since you last asked, Yangie.”
They hold gazes for a long moment before Yangyang breaks out into a grin. “I’m going to miss you, Hyuckie.”
The control Donghyuck has over his expression wavers for a moment. He’s a little worried that it goes all soft and mushy. “Of course you are,” he says with only slightly less bravado than normal.
He gets a punch to his shoulder for that and then a tight hug that he doesn’t back out of for a long moment. It’s been good; his first step away from his hometown. The parties, the random friends he’d make in group projects, all the classes he’d loved and all the ones he complained to YangYang about.
Many things had been different from back home and he’d needed that, truly. The want to get away from home used to suffocate him, latching around his lungs until it was a struggle to even breathe.
“I think I was angry,” he had ended up confessing one night, illuminated by only the grainy light of his phone. “Like I knew people were expecting things from me and I pretended not to care but I hated hearing about it because… because it meant they were thinking the same things I was and all I could think about was the fact I was failing. It burned.”
He’d sucked in a breath through his teeth as muffled shuffling from the other end of the line filtered through his phone. “I know,” Mark had said, as gentle as he was in person. Of course he knew. There was no one, there is no one, that knows him as well as Mark does.
They’d drifted away from the topic after that—like looking at it too long would start to hurt their eyes—but right at the end, as Donghyuck was half-asleep against his pillow and dreading his nine o’clock class tomorrow morning, Mark said softly, “I never thought you were failing.”
“Your stubborn ass couldn’t give up on me,” Donghyuck mumbles back sleepily.
“That’s not it,” Mark said, and you could tell just from the sound of his voice that he was wearing that smile of his, the one all soft around the edges that makes Donghyuck feel all hazy. “I knew you. Sometimes, yeah, I got scared. But I kept telling myself that it’s you and I know you and everything will be okay.”
Something deep inside Donghyuck’s chest settles as if it were the sun against the skyline after a long day. Because Donghyuck had known then, mostly. He had known, and almost hated, that Mark always believed in him. His faith had been unshakable, even against Donghyuck's own lack of it, as he patched up as much of Donghyuck as he could reach.
But to hear it spoken aloud is different from knowing.
It’s one of the worst losses, Donghyuck thinks, that he can never go back to his past self and console them. There’s no way to reassure the Donghyuck he was then that things are going to be okay, there’s no way to celebrate with them about how far he’s come.
He was quiet for a long time, so long he’s worried Mark might have fallen asleep, but when he finally remembers how to open his mouth, he doesn’t know what to say. Thank you. I believe in you too. The other thing that they rarely ever say and never say like Donghyuck thinks he wants to.
“Mark?”
“Yeah?”
He breathed in deep, pillow soft against his cheek. Mark’s seen him, everything he is and everything he’ll never be. “I’m glad it was you.”
“Me too,” Mark whispered back and the next time Donghyuck had looked up it was to the sight of Mark fast asleep, with the faintest hints of a smile still curled around his mouth.
Donghyuck had stayed awake after that and couldn’t remember a time where he’d missed his hometown this much.
By the time his heart had returned to its normal, manageable size in his chest, he’d followed in Mark’s footsteps and drifted off into sleep.
(He rocked up to his early morning class that day with a flat phone, his hoodie on backwards and absolutely no fucks to give about any of it. He was grinning the whole day.
Until he crashed at three o’clock and took an emergency nap under a library desk.)
“That’s the last of them,” says Donghyuck proudly, slapping a hand on top of the box he’d just put down. “Thanks for helping us out.”
Shuhua waves him off. “I would say that any friend of Yangyang’s is a friend of mine, but I grew up with him and I’m not sure I always trust his judgment.”
“Hey!”
She grins. “However, I do like you, Hyuck, so I’m happy to help out.”
“You’re the best,” he says, half because she helped him out and half because she’s great at teasing Yangyang.
“So, you still planning on driving home by yourself?”
Donghyuck lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve done the drive before so I know it’s manageable as long as I stock up on enough snacks.”
Shuhua laughs. “Yangyang was telling me about it on the way down but I didn’t end up catching the end of it. Have you decided if you’re staying there yet? Back in your old town?”
He’s been asked the same question in many different versions over the last couple of months so the answer slips right off his tongue. “All depends on whether I land my internship or not. If so, it’s off to the big city for me.”
Shuhua smiles her big sister smile that Donghyuck remembers seeing tons of at their graduation. “I’m equally excited and worried for you. Everyone’s stacked on top of each other in the big city.”
“I can see you in the big city,” Yangyang grins. “Lots of lights, always noisy. You’d fit right in.”
“Speak for yourself,” Donghyuck shoots before, just as Shuhua checks her phone and starts grabbing her things.
“I’ve got to get the car ready and talk to mum before we go. You take care of yourself now, you hear me, Donghyuck?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Yah, don’t make me feel old.” She punches him in the shoulder then gives him a hug. “I’ll see Yangyang back in the car. Stay in touch, alright Hyuck?”
“I will,” he calls after her. He turns to the side to catch Yangyang grinning at him.
“You’re going to have to watch yourself in this big city,” he tells Donghyuck. “Don’t follow anyone you meet on the street, especially if they promise that they’ll make you a star.”
Donghyuck shoves him. “As if I would! And I think it will be fun.”
“If not, you’ll make it fun.”
Damn right he will.
“I’m really going to miss you, Yangyang.”
Yangyang bumps their shoulders together. “Me too. The roommate gods were really looking out for me this time.”
“Compensation for our RA.”
“Definitely,” he agrees, before twisting around to face Donghyuck. “You’ll call me, okay? And text. Facetime. Everything—I might get withdrawal symptoms from not seeing your silly face every day. Don’t hold any of my delirium against me, okay, ‘cause I hear going cold turkey is really bad for you.”
Because he’s Donghyuck, he nods and promises him. “I’ll be sure to squeeze in all the teasing I can.”
Yangyang looks proud. “This is why we’re friends.”
And for the next long moment, Donghyuck just lets the quiet fizzle around them while he wraps his arms around his friend and holds tight. It’s been good. Really good. Living here, hanging out with Yangyang and yelling at Johnny and Jaehyun whenever they end up on the wrong floor. Hell, for all they joke, it really does feel like he’s going cold turkey. There’s no prep work he’s been able to do for this leap.
He squeezes his arms gently and feels Yangyang do the same. It’s the letting go part that takes the longest.
“See you soon, loser,” Yangyang says when they finally part. Donghyuck is not at all ashamed to admit he’s blinking away tears. Especially not when it looks like Yangyang is doing the same.
“Right back at you, darling.”
Yangyang smiles wide. And then he’s staring off towards the lawn, somewhere in the direction of his sister. He only gets a couple of paces away when he stops and turns back. “Hyuck?”
Donghyuck looks up from where he’s shuffling around boxes. “Yeah?”
“Good luck with your boy back home. He better be worthy of you.”
Happiness burns bright on Donghyuck’s tongue. “He is.” He always has been. Even before, especially then, he’d always been more than Donghyuck ever felt he deserved.
Yangyang shoots him one last secret smile.
Now it’s Donghyuck’s turn, like he’s seen so many other students do, to look up at his college building for the very last time as its student. It looks different from when he’d first arrived—feeling a little disjointed from the plane ride and a lot sick of lugging around his bags—and yet entirely the same.
The big oaks were here when he arrived and so were the sloping archways of the lecture halls; the benches and the library and the two statues lining the entrance way.
Except now they’re all familiar. Now Donghyuck knows all the best shortcuts to the lecture halls near the East wings and the names of the servers in the dining halls. He knows the exact shade those oaks turn in spring and what its leaves look like in autumn.
The place isn’t just some clump of buildings he’s seen on the front of a pamphlet anymore.
Before he’d left high school, he couldn’t entirely picture what a life looked like without it or how he’d go about his day without ever attending homeroom again. He’d wished for it, he’d dreamed, but it hadn’t quite felt real until he was at the terminal, pressing that token into Mark’s palm.
Now, for the first time in a year, he’s heading back to familiar sights. He’d missed Christmas because of a folio project his professor had decided should be a group task and hadn’t been able to make it to Chuseok before that because of his exams. His mother hadn’t been very happy with him about that.
Well, here it goes, leap of faith and letting go—all that jazz.
He can do this.
Just keep your arms steady, and jump.
Okay, maybe he was wrong.
Maybe he can’t do this.
Nope, no. He grossly overestimated his capacities.
Because Donghyuck is standing in front of Mark’s house—his parent’s place because he’s staying with them after graduation—and all of his nerves are sitting right at the base of his throat.
He’s already been by his mum’s to drop off his things and let her hug him and offer him snacks before she had to head off for an evening shift. “I love you, stay safe, don’t get into trouble,” she’d told him just before she’d had to go, like he was fifteen again.
He feels fifteen now. Or younger than that.
Young and nervous. Except with none of the unchecked bravado he’d had as a kid. Because he and Mark have talked, texted, video called, voice messaged—you name it. They’d seen each other in person whenever they got the chance.
But the what ifs run circles around his head. All the things they’ve never talked about come up to haunt him. He’s back, finally, after years. Except he didn’t run away, like Mark had said all those years ago. He’d done it right.
And now, the doorbell is sitting there, mocking him, and Donghyuck is standing there on the doorstep feeling like an idiot.
“Donghyuck?”
He whips around just in time to see Mark coming through the gate. All Donghyuck’s worries slip away like sand through fingers.
“It really is you,” Mark grins, walking up the path and hell, Donghyuck’s little phone camera does not do him justice. He looks taller—even though Donghyuck knows he hasn’t grown at all. “It’s so good to see you. I remember your mum mentioned something about you coming back soon and I’m sure you talked about a particular day but–”
Donghyuck cuts him off with a hug.
The town around them lulls and Donghyuck isn’t sure who melts into who first, maybe they’re both melting, but it warms him right to the bone.
“It’s good to see you,” he murmurs into Mark’s shoulder.
“Right back at you,” Mark says back, hand finding the small of his back and holding him close. “It’s been a while.”
“Too long.”
Mark huffs out a laugh. “And whose fault is that?”
“You could have visited.”
“You’re right,” Mark grins into his hair—and Donghyuck knows he’s grinning, just trust him. “You should come inside, my parents will be dying to catch up with you.”
Very reluctantly, Donghyuck pulls back a little, not enough that the arm across his shoulders disappears but enough that he can look Mark in the eye. “Y’know, I wasn’t quite sure I would still find you here.”
“Well,” Mark tells him, “You got lucky. Caught me just in time.”
Donghyuck tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Grad school,” announces Mark, pulling out a slightly crinkled envelope from his pocket. “The acceptance letter came this morning.”
“No way!” Donghyuck grabs his arms and gives him a little shake. “That’s awesome, Mark. Off to bigger and greater things with that brain of yours.”
Mark rolls his eyes but doesn’t deny it.
“Which school did you apply for?” Donghyuck asks, happy that the question doesn’t get stuck in his throat. He only just got Mark back.
“I”m headed upstate,” Mark tells him.
“New York?”
“Further. Boston.”
Donghyuck stops dead. No way. “Shut up,” he whispers, eyes going wide.” You– That’s like, one train ride away from Quincy.”
Mark looks confused. “They’re next to each other, aren’t they?”
“No. Freaking. Way.”
“What? What’s going on?”
Donghyuck feels strangely like he’s going to scream. “I hate you, I hope you know that.”
“What did I do?” Mark whines.
“And seriously, why do you always have to copy me? I applied to the internship in Quincy first, that was my thing! How dare you steal it from me by trying to go to grad school in Boston? How dare you try to live right next to me?”
It’s somewhere in the middle of his rant that Mark finally seems to grasp what he’s on about and his eyes widen impossibly. He reaches out to grip Donghyuck’s arms, a mirror of their position from before. “Quincy?”
Donghyuck sucks in a breath that rattles past his teeth. “If I get the internship.” And there isn’t much of an if about it anymore because while he was stopped at a gas station on the way over, he’d flicked through his emails only to find one from the manager who’d interviewed him reaching out to discuss start times and availability.
Happiness starts to take form inside his chest, branching up and out, reaching for the sky and he already knows that his leaves are strong enough to make it there.
“We’re going to be within walking distance of each other again,” Mark mutters after a moment.
“Well, I’m not sure that you’re going to want to be walking that far.”
“Hush,” Mark says while wrapping him in a one armed hug, “Let me live the dream.”
Living it they are.
Catching up with Mark’s parents over dinner makes Donghyuck realise just how much he’s missed this. It hadn’t really hit him until halfway through his freshman year, that there was more to miss than Mark and Jeno and Jaemin and getting to annoy Renjun whenever he liked.
Sitting around the table and having Mark’s parents coo over how much he’s grown and congratulating him on his internship reminds him of the good parts of his hometown.
When they learn that he’ll be headed off in the same direction as Mark, the real cooing begins. There’s something so gentle and knowing in the way that Mark’s mum smiles, like a tree that’s been anticipating the rain, and it makes his cheeks colour.
Mark’s dad piles more meat onto each of their plates as he suggests they go house hunting together. “Mark’s all booked up with a real estate agent to show him around up there next weekend, you should tag along, Donghyuck. Get an idea of where you’re going to be living.”
“You’re not staying on campus?”
Mark shakes his head. “I’m not sure yet. I wanted to check out all my options first since I can afford a place.”
“You’re a proper adult now,” Donghyuck grins, ignoring the fact that they’ve both been eighteen for a couple of years now. An apartment, Donghyuck thinks to himself with a private grin. He can picture Mark in one, some lofty studio place that he’d never complain about the size of because all he’d focus on is the big windows looking out across the city and what the sunrise looks like from up above.
He thinks, at some point, Mark will always find his way back here. Like Hansel and Gretal except without all the breadcrumbs and the parental fuss. It’s inevitable in a way that used to scare Donghyuck and inevitable in a way that he hasn’t found himself yet—not with a place at least.
But he can see Mark in the big city, at least for a little while. He can see himself there too.
He agrees easily to the apartment hunting and then it’s dessert and the dishes and lying around on the floor while he recovers from Mrs Lee’s famous apple crumble.
A while after that, or perhaps only moments, it’s time for the drive home. Mark walks him out without even asking, which is more than okay. On the steps leading to the path leading to the gate leading to his car, Donghyuck lingers. Something has started to take root among his ribcage, nestling right among his bones. A promise.
Mark lingers with him.
“Come into town with me tomorrow?”
Donghyuck pulls his gaze away from the night sky. “How much has changed?”
“Not a damn thing.” His eyes twinkle. Turns out you don’t have to be looking skywards to catch a shooting star.
“The cafe on main street still has terrible coffee?”
“Absolutely.”
“And the pizza place still gives you extra slices?”
Mark blushes. “They won’t stop,” he pouts with the air of someone who has had his cheek pinched far too many times by a tiny little Italian lady who runs a pizza shop. “I even offered to pay for them but they won’t let me.”
A laugh bubbles out of Donghyuck’s mouth. “What about the arcade? Have they finally started on a replacement for it?”
“Not yet. Although Mrs Choi next door does have bets on it being a bowling alley. I just don’t think there’s enough room.”
“Maybe if they had really short bowling lanes?” says Donghyuck, thinking of pale blue lighting and glow-in-the-dark stars and the little gold token he still keeps in his wallet. “Maybe you’ll actually be able to score some points now.”
Mark rolls his eyes because they’ve both been terrible scorers since the start. Donghyuck wonders if he’s thinking of gold tokens too.
“I can believe we’re both going to Boston,” Mark says quietly, reverently, to the stars. Donghyuck’s waiting for him to say something about fate and them and their souls, but he doesn’t. He’s just smiling all soft and it should be sappy but it’s Mark—so it is and it isn’t all at once.
That something in his chest starts to spread, wiggling its roots around. He leans across to nudge his shoulder against Mark’s. “Don’t disrespect Quincy like that.”
Mark’s nose scrunches as he laughs. “Sorry, Boston and Quincy.”
“The big cities.”
Mark nods. “We’ll have to be careful not to get lost.”
All the lingering is worth it for Donghyuck getting the chance to link his arm with Mark’s and bump his chin against his shoulder. “You’ll have me.”
Mark rests his cheek atop Donghyuck’s head. “And you’ll have me.”
They touch down in Boston Logan airport at four in the morning because Mark should never be trusted to book flights ever. (“They were so much cheaper, I didn’t think to check the time.”) Donghyuck craves death. Or maybe just sleep.
His first glimpses of Boston are hazy, a fog settled over the rows of buildings, too late for anyone’s lights to still be on and too early for the night-shift replacements to be rising from their beds.
Mark flags a taxi and they clamber in together, Mark’s face pressed to the window and Donghyuck’s to his shoulder. He can see Boston after he’s slept a solid twenty hours.
He tries to get ahead on a couple of them but the taxi jerks to a stop before he can and then he’s been herded out by Mark and up some steps with his suitcase slapping on his heels. The lady at the desk is nicer than she needs to be at four thirty in the morning but Donghyuck supposes it is her job.
He dozes some more against Mark’s shoulder as Mark sorts out their rooms and snags their keycard—they’ve got one hotel room and Queen bed between them because Mark had already made the booking before Donghyuck had decided to tag along and they’d had no other availabilities.
Donghyuck for one, doesn’t mind one bit. Any horizontal surface will do at this point.
At the least, he’s shared with Mark before, just like the old times, and he isn’t worried about that. The strange thing settling down roots in his chest and the gold token he carries with him and the lingering of his heart in the night says otherwise.
It still feels familiar—even with the agony of anticipation simmering ever-present in the air—to flop down onto the covers and have Mark follow him. The mattress moulds to their shapes as they kick off shoes and discard jackets but Donghyuck knows Mark better. He knows the rise and fall of his chest like the sandbank knows the waves, can trace and retrace by memory the lines of his shoulders as he stretches and burrows under the covers, taking Donghyuck with him.
Mark wraps his arms around Donghyuck—hesitant at first and then all at once like he’s stepping out into the first snow of the year—and let's Donghyuck fit his cheek to the place where Mark’s throat becomes Mark’s shoulder.
It’s five in the morning and Donghyuck’s only been in Boston for a little over an hour but he thinks he might just love it already.
Okay, scratch that, a sleep-deprived Donghyuck has zero brain cells.
Boston is pretty. There’s so much water everywhere that Donghyuck might even forget they were in a city if not for the boats dotting the water and the noises of passersbys and buses and street vendors. It makes the air feel alive, fusing into Donghyuck’s bones and setting him alight.
Even the brownstone buildings had caught his eye, which Donghyuck had been a little dubious about because brown of all colour choices. But they fit, seamlessly.
No, the problem at hand was the apartments.
They’d looked through three yesterday and after a taxi ride across town, they were checking out four more today. The real estate agent Mark had picked out was clearly wonderful at her job. Every apartment she showed them ticked off most if not all of the boxes Mark had written down: small, one-bedroom, good use of space and storage systems, within budget. (Mark had shared his list with Donghyuck the first morning.)
Their agent, Marcie, knew all the best details to point out and things to flag, even throwing in pointers about the different neighbourhoods they were passing through.
And yet Mark liked none of them.
The moment he stepped through the door, he’d find something. The slightly off-white shade of the walls or the front door’s distance from the elevator or the tint of the windows. Some of the design choices were downright confusing and Donghyuck took pleasure in pointing them out and giggling with Mark over the layout of a way too thin bathroom. But every apartment they visited had something that irked Mark and Donghyuck couldn’t figure out why.
He wanted to take Mark by the shoulders and shake him because come on, the little green kitchenette was so cute and no, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the windows, but he couldn’t because it’s Mark who’s going to be living here not Donghyuck.
By their seventh, with still no luck on pleasing Mark, Donghyuck catches Marcie watching them curiously. She listens as Mark chatters about some small detail of the stairwell and security, and makes a note on her paper. She waves them goodbye with a smile dawning on her face and a promise of more apartments ready for them to see tomorrow. Donghyuck has no idea what any of it means and isn’t sure he wants to.
They take a walk around town instead of just heading back, even if neither of them have any idea of where they are or where they’re going. The air is warm even as the sun trickles down through the sky. It’s all so different from back in his hometown—the honks of the cars, the rings of shop bells, a woman chattering on her phone as she weaves through the crowd—and yet this, the sunset, is still the same. The feel of Mark beside him, just like they’d promised, is still the same.
Something tingles through Donghyuck’s fingertips; that lingering feeling that grows more like longing with each passing day. There had been a promise, once, that they made without breathing a word of it. One that had been made to each other through preflight selfies and late night calls.
And yet, whenever Donghyuck goes to reach out his hand and make good on it like it’s a New Year’s resolution he finally has time for, his breath catches and his limbs turn to stone.
It’s like he’s seventeen again and wishing to be thirteen and he’s tripped somewhere and forgotten the milestone he was supposed to reach that’s gone now, slipping through the folds of time.
Except he’s older now and he’s fallen and Donghyuck’s learnt what it means to stand up and fall and stand up a second time, a third time, a fourth. He’s an adult now, even if he rarely feels like it. Donghyuck’s an adult and he’s got inhibitions he never thought he’d want—maybe still doesn’t even want—and he’s staying up at night now thinking about jobs and adequacy and why he still feel like a kid trying on his dad’s shoes.
The world will be a competition soon for promotions and weddings and who’s vacation photos on Facebook look the nicest. Donghyuck can no longer be floating between majors, allowed breathing room to figure himself out as he works through college. He’s no longer a student, and for a second it makes him envy Mark, who’s found a way to not let go of it all just quite yet.
But here in this pocket of time, he tries to anchor himself. To a day, an hour, a moment. Like he and Yangyang used to do during exam season, throwing on their three day old hoodies because they’ve had no time to do a laundry run, abandoning their textbooks to meander around campus half awake. It was a reminder, even though everything was shrouded in the quiet of the night, what it means to be alive. To live in these bodies of theirs, these structures that are hammered just wide enough to hold the weight of their living.
The moment right now is him and Mark in a city they’re soon to call home.
He lives in it, as much as he truly can.
His eye stretches to the horizon then continues up, even though anything past the horizon is invisible and can only be imagined. He lets it stay that way—impossible, unseeable, imagined—and revels in all the light he can see.
It stretches just as far and wide as any horizon could.
As usual, the night bleeds loser tongues and braver words.
The Queen bed fits them as long as Mark lets Donghyuck hook their ankles together and hog approximately two and a half of their pillows.
“Sorry for dragging you around town today,” Mark says somewhere around the time the moon hits its peak.
“Nah, it was fun. Didn’t you see me placing bets with Marcie? It’ll be the carpet this time,” he says in a silly voice, “No, I put ten dollars on it being the shape of the kitchen faucet.”
Mark laughs. “You didn’t.”
“We didn’t,” Donghyuck concedes. “But you still don’t need to apologise. If you don’t like it, then you don’t like it.”
He hears a sigh and watches as Mark runs a hand over his face. “I don’t… Just, none of them feel right. I can’t even explain it, which is the worst part because I wish I could figure out why and stop wasting everyone’s time.”
“Whose time do you think you’re wasting? ‘Cause it ain’t mine.”
Mark’s huff sounds appreciative. Don’t question it, Donghyuck knows these things. “Marcie’s time then.”
Donghyuck remembers the private smile she’d shared with herself at the last house and doesn’t worry. “Her job is to help you find a place. Just let her do her job.”
There isn’t a comeback this time so Donghyuck counts it as a victory. They silence lulls in time with the moon above and Donghyuck gets caught up in the shadows casted by Her light that paint themselves across the hotel walls.
Mark’s arm around his shoulder tightens then loosens like a kneading cat. “Do you ever get worried that you’re happy?” he finally asks.
Donghyuck blinks the shadows out of his eyes. “Huh?”
Another sigh. Mark takes a moment to himself. “I’m pretty happy with my life as it is, you know? Sure, there’s more things I want to do. I want to travel and see the Louvre and cherry blossoms in Japan. I want a nice job and a nice home and someone–” His mouth catches around the words for a moment but he ploughs on. “Someone to share it all with me. But if that’s all I ever get, I think I can be happy with that.”
Donghyuck’s breath does not stutter, thank you very much, at the mention of a someone.
“Everyone around me is always talking about the next step upwards as if life is some infinite podium which I want to be on top of. There’s a promotion and then the next one after that and then manager of your division and upwards and beyond and when does it stop? Because I think of all that and just get tired. But I shouldn’t, right? I should want more.”
On his inhale, Donghyuck lets the weight of Mark’s worry recognise his own. Then, after his exhale, he searches for something his lecturer had told them once. “I think people like to assume that everyone must want to move upwards. But maybe…” And he thinks of the blossom that’s taken root between his ribs. “Maybe we’re like plants instead.”
“Aspens, of course, grow tall to reach up to the sun.” The highway past their town winds right through forests of the great sweeping trees, stretched skywards. “But there’s other plants too, like dandelions, who grow deep and stick right into the earth so they’re a terror to uproot. And you’ve got thyme and that other one I’ve forgotten but creeping plants, you know?” Donghyuck brings his arms up to imitate dangly vines. “They spread themselves out everywhere so if some idiot does come along and chop off a bit of it, it’s got miles of dirt to choose from.”
A giggle slips from Mark’s mouth and lights up the room. He turns on his pillow to face Donghyuck and Donghyuck smiles gently at the fondness simmering there. It’s your turn to lean on me, Donghyuck had said before he’d left for college and since then they’d taken turns and lost tally.
“You can be any plant you like, Mark, no matter which direction you grow in. You can even be one of those carnivorous ones.” Mark’s laughter is all the reward he needs. “Let everyone else have their podium if they want it. Have a staircase or a hiking trail or a treasure map that’s full of x’s everywhere.”
Mark laughs again, the sound warm and rich like honey dripping down cheeks. He brings up a finger to trace it along the line of Donghyuck’s jaw. “When did you get so wise, Hyuckie?”
Donghyuck looks across the pillow, heartbeat fluttering against his ribcage, and can only offer raw honesty when Mark is looking at him like that. “I figured out that shoulds and shouldn’ts are silly, and that I was tired of grieving for a life I didn’t even want that much.” He thinks back to being seventeen again and desperately not wanting to reach eighteen. “I’d grieved enough over my old self, I didn’t need to grieve about the me I could be as well.”
You remember too much, his mother had said to him once. Why hold onto all that? And at the time he’d said, unknowing, Where can I put it down?
Mark’s hand settles over his cheek. He looks at Donghyuck and sees him like no one else. Mark is everything that Donghyuck remembers and everything new all at once. In him, Donghyuck can see all the people that Mark is and has been—thirteen year old Mark, eighteen year old Mark, twenty one year old Mark. Like a time capsule encasing him and all of Donghyuck’s memories with them.
He hopes Mark can see the same. He hopes Mark can see everything that Donghyuck’s become. He hopes, on a wish sent up to the moon, that Mark can also see all the things that haven’t changed. Flimsy gold tokens and a heart flapping in the wind.
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Mark’s looking for all the same things he is and not realising he’s found them but just hoping they’re there because the next moment he’s shifting closer, eyes darting up to Donghyuck’s and then back down.
“What about me,” Mark asks breathlessly.
“What about you?” Donghyuck’s voice is as unsteady as his.
When Mark exhales Donghyuck can feel his breath against his skin, tingles left across every surface it touches. “Where do I lie on your list of shoulds and shouldn’ts?”
The answer has been there for years but it only takes seconds to fall from his lips. “Mark.” He’s still breathless. “Mark, I wanted you even before I knew there was a list.”
And it’s there, instantly, a mirrored joy that spreads across Mark’s face like wildfire until he’s leaning in to close the gap and there’s a mouth against Donghyuck and the thing inside his chest is blooming like grape vines spread out in every direction.
It’s tentative and sweet and so easy to slip a hand into Mark’s hair like he’s done it a million times before. I’ve found it, he thinks as Mark’s lips part his and he draws them closer as if he wants to map out every inch of Donghyuck and commit it to memory. Happy New Year. It’s taken them long enough.
The next morning, they receive a text from Marcie while they’re debating who has to get up first. (Hint, it’s neither of them. Donghyuck pushes Mark off the bed only to result in being dragged down with him. They end up in a messy pile of tangled blankets on the floor.)
Marice (Realtor)
I’ve had an idea about your apartment hunting and might have found a solution
If it works for you both, please ignore our scheduled plans for today and meet me at this address
8:23am
They show up to the address she’d given them hand in hand and her excitement, which had been palpable even before they’d gotten out of the taxi, doubles.
“Good morning,” she beams, looking professional and bright and not like they hadn’t already spent two days unsuccessfully checking out seven apartments. “Lovely to see you two again.”
“You too,” says Mark, mirroring her smile.
Donghyuck’s curiosity peaks as he observes the apartment building they’re standing next to. It doesn’t look dissimilar to any they’ve visited with its rounded balconies and green hedges. They’d driven a little further south than previous days, past Carson Beach and Franklin Zoo, and on the way, if Donghyuck thinks about it, to Quincy.
His gaze returns to Marcie. She’s smiling wide. “You mentioned in your text about different plans?” he asks.
“Yes,” she agrees. “Over the past few days, I’ve watched you two observe a variety of different homes but none of them seemed to quite line up with what Mark was looking for.”
Mark looks guilty but she waves him off before he can say anything.
“I’m not blaming you at all, these things can be hard. However I went back to the drawing board and had a look over some of the criteria you’d set out.” Her smile from yesterday, the curious one, returns. “I wondered if we might have a little more luck tweaking some of those,” and she lifts a palm to sweep it over the apartment building.
The air flutters around them, ruffling the back of Donghyuck’s shirt. His palm is warm in Mark’s.
“On the third floor of this complex right here is a lovely little place, fitted out with a good floor plan and an adorable kitchenette, nice big windows facing south for lots of light and at a reasonable and affordable price.” Mark tenses like he’s waiting for a catch, except Marcie just cocks her clipboard on her hip and continues smiling. “It’s got just the right amount of room for two.”
And she can tell, just as quickly as Donghyuck can, that she’s hit the nail right on the head by the way Mark sucks in a breath and squeezes Donghyuck’s hand tight.
A laugh bubbles out of Donghyuck’s mouth as the blossoms inside his chest break out into full bloom. How could he not have seen it before?
Donghyuck knows, just as he knows the sky is blue and the grass between his toes is green, that they’ll find each other. That time and inevitability are friends that have chosen Donghyuck and Mark. Fate has long since tied together their strings and no matter where they end up going, in the great timeline that is life, they’ll find their way back home to each other.
Yeah, he thinks to himself as Marcie leads them up the steps. Room for two. That sounds about right.