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Mark has been told time and time again that he laughs like a little kid—he punches the air and kicks his legs, and throws himself to the floor when happiness overflows him. He's been told he's got baby hands and a baby face, round eyes so big that they make him look like a child, even now that he’s already in his mid-20s. He jumps when he gets excited, stomps his feet when he gets frustrated, and he's got a mouth that's way more used to pouting than he'd like to admit.
You'd think that someone who gets compared to a child almost every day would get along with children pretty fine, but kids are one of the most fascinating, most terrifying things Mark has ever had to deal with. Even if he's been dealing with them for years, now.
"You're lucky," Taeyong says when he walks out of the preschool classroom, "they are asleep now." He leaves the door ajar and comes to stand next to Mark, patting his back with a conciliatory smile.
Mark nods at him and tries to smile back, but he's never been good at faking, so the seams of his mouth tug his lips downward in concern. His lower lip juts out in what Donghyuck would call a baby's pout.
When he sticks his head into the room, all Mark can see is a bunch of little bundles lying on the floor on top of blue mats, cuddled up next to each other and sharing thin blankets too big for them. They look cute like this—quiet mouths half-open as they sleep soundly, chubby cheeks squeezed into the mushy mats, small feet peeking out from underneath the sheets—but Mark knows what waits for him once they wake up.
"How long's their nap supposed to last?" he asks, straightening up to look at Taeyong.
Taeyong's smile spreads wider, his lips curling into a teasing smirk. "You've never watched them before?” he raises an eyebrow at Mark. “You'd think Donghyuck's boyfriend would know more about his kids."
Mark blinks slowly, stares at Taeyong over the rim of his black round glasses as the words sink in. "Donghyuck's wh-"
"Did you two finally start dating and didn't tell me?" someone screeches behind Taeyong, so loudly that it has Mark glancing inside of the classroom in a panic to make sure the kids are still asleep.
"Goddammit, Doyoung," Taeyong whisper-shouts, one of his hands clutching the fabric of his shirt dramatically, over his chest. He turns to frown at Doyoung, who is approaching them with wide-open eyes, his mouth open in a perfect circle. "The kids are sleeping!"
Doyoung stops next to Taeyong, both of his hands lifted to his shoulders in a sign of innocence, but it doesn't have that effect when his fingers are tightly wrapped around two matching coffee cups. Mark can't stop his eyes from lingering on the silver band on Doyoung's left hand, the jewel hugging his ring finger snuggly, shining bright in contrast to the washed-out yellow of the coffee cups he's holding.
"I'm sorry, I got excited!" Doyoung mumbles, lowering his voice to speak in exaggerated whispers. He holds one of the cups out for Taeyong and, once he takes it, Doyoung curls his free hand around his mouth as if he's about to share a secret. He leans a tad closer to Mark and hushes, "So, no dating yet?"
"What do you mean yet ?" Mark frowns, leaning back and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a chalk-stained finger. Doyoung and Taeyong don't reply, but the matching raised eyebrows are more than enough to convey what they are thinking. They’re so annoyingly cute, in sync for more years than Mark can count with the fingers of both hands. "There's nothing. You two just see romance in everything because you just got married. You're cheesy like that."
"We're cheesy like that?" Taeyong scoffs in a high-pitched voice. That earns him a playful blow on his stomach, and Doyoung pouting offended as he looks pointedly towards the ajar door. "You were just telling me about how you spent the night taking care of a sick Donghyuck!"
"Oh, so that's why he looks like shit," Doyoung asks, pointing at Mark with his coffee cup, eyes fixed on Taeyong as if Mark isn’t right there.
"Thanks, dude," Mark sighs tiredly, running one of his fingers through his tangled black hair.
Mark knows he looks like shit, got 2 hours of sleep tops cuddled up on the small, uncomfortable couch in Donghyuck's living room, the hard armrest doing a poor job as a sorry excuse of a pillow.
He disentangles his hand from his hair to run his palm down his neck, pressing hard into the contractured muscles there. He winces at the biting flash of pain that runs from his shoulder to his fingertips, a shock-like ache that leaves his entire arm tingling unpleasantly. Still, if he could turn back time, he knows he’d run out of his house and jump into his car to drive up to a sick Donghyuck in the middle of the night a million times over, despite the consequences. That's what best friends are for, after all.
"Wait, what do you mean taking care of him all night?" Doyoung asks, sliding closer to Taeyong to throw a casual arm around his shoulders. "You guys finally moved in together?"
Mark opens his mouth to deny it, about to ask why the hell everything that has to do with Donghyuck always leads them to ask coupley questions. But, the thing is, Mark knows the answer.
He's been putting up with the fond teasing since he started working at the same school as Donghyuck—best friends for longer than half of their lives and, apparently, closer than anyone else their coworkers had ever come across with. Usually, Mark goes along with the jokes. Sometimes, though, it gets a bit too much.
He doesn't get the chance to come up with a cranky response. Suddenly, the ajar door is creaking open to reveal a little girl with entangled wavy hair, barefoot and looking tiny in her light green smock. She looks up at them blinking sleepily, one of her small hands rubbing his left eye and cheek so harshly that Mark is scared she will scratch herself.
"Is teacher Hyuck back?" she asks in a quiet mumble, and Mark isn't sure if she's shy or just half asleep, or maybe both.
"No, sweetheart," Taeyong says, crouching down in front of her. "He needed to rest today, but you will see him tomorrow, alright?" He reaches out to grab one of the girl's chubby hands, and she allows her to take it, nodding at him exaggeratedly. "Mark here will take care of you now, okay?"
The kid stops rubbing her face to look up at Mark, her sleepy eyes growing big in recognition.
"Are you the Mr. Mark teacher Hyuck always talks about?" she asks as she takes a step backward. "Did you come to poison us?"
"Did I come to- What?" Mark asks in a high-pitched voice. He dances his eyes between Doyoung and Taeyong in a silent question, waiting for any of them to come to his rescue. They’re too busy trying not to laugh to be of any help, though. "Donghyuck talks about me?" Mark asks, walking closer to the girl to place one of his hands on her small shoulders.
"And that is the part he focuses on," Doyoung scoffs, throwing his hands in the air.
Taeyong gets up from his crouch snickering. "We have class now, we're already running late," he says, and ruffles the girl's hair before grabbing Doyoung's arm to lead him down the hallway. "Good luck, Mark," he waves as they walk away, still whisper-shouting. "Two hours and you'll be free!"
Mark doesn't know what Taeyong understands by free, but he's pretty sure it is not a math class full of 10-year-olds that never listen to him. That's the freedom waiting for Mark after two hours with these little enigmas, he isn't sure which class terrifies him more.
The peaceful nap lasts far less than Mark guesses it was supposed to. The girl doesn't go back to sleep once she's settled down on the blue mat, instead, she spends the next 15 minutes shaking her classmates awake, blabbering something about running away before they get poisoned. Mark sits on Donghyuck's desk and watches it all unfold before his eyes. If he isn't able to understand the 10-year-olds he teaches math to almost every day, there’s no way his brain will be able to understand 3 to 5-year-olds.
"Is teacher Hyuck sick because you poisoned him?" another kid asks a few minutes later, crawling closer to the desk on his hands and knees.
"What? Why would I poison him?" Mark isn't even trying to play along with them, he’s genuinely confused.
"The other time you poisoned him!" the same girl he talked to earlier screams from across the room. "Are you gonna poison us too?"
Mark gets up from his seat to move closer to the kids. He draws one of their small chairs out from one of their small desks and bundles up his too-long limbs as best as he can to sit in front of them.
"Teacher Donghyuck is my friend," he explains slowly, elbows resting on his thighs as he watches the mostly half-asleep kids blinking bleary eyes at him. "Why would I poison my friend?"
"Maybe teacher Hyuck knew about the poison!" one of them shouts.
It is followed by another kid getting up on his tiny legs to say, "I love pancakes."
And a different girl adding, "I'd eat poisoned pancakes!" and almost all the kids in the classroom agreeing with her.
Mark can't help the burst of laughter that crawls up his chest. He has to rub his face and temples to calm himself down, a mix of amusement, frustration, and exhaustion making him feel too old and awkward for this kind of interaction.
The next 2 hours don't get any less weird, and Mark considers calling Donghyuck to ask for help about a million times. He chooses against it, though. The image of a runny-nosed, red-cheeked, fever-hot Donghyuck curled up between a bunch of fluffy blankets still fresh in his mind. Mark doesn't want to interrupt his much-needed rest, so he ends up nodding along to whatever the kids say, his body twisted in uncomfortable angles to fit the small children's chair.
Once the class is over, Mark walks out with more contractured muscles than he had when he walked in, fingers covered in modeling clay instead of chalk, and smelling of talcum powder.
Jungwoo is already waiting outside when Mark's turn ends, his hands occupied by a big box full of what looks like theater masks and scarfs made of fake feathers.
"You survived!" he exclaims with a smile that looks more teasing than anything else. "I thought you’d ask for help at least 10 times. How many times did you call Donghyuck?"
Mark fake-laughs, rolling his eyes as he walks past Jungwoo. "I didn't call him once! Not even when one of the kids started crying because he missed him. Like, full-on tears, with the snot and everything."
"Man, these children love him an awful lot, don't they?" Jungwoo comments, leaning his back against the door frame to look at Mark.
Mark nods, twisting his dirty fingers together. He may not like children that much, but he's always had many things in common with them. He likes molding clay and pretty things and the color pink, he loves cakes and candy and would probably eat poisoned pancakes if they tasted good. Now, after Jungwoo's words, Mark is unable to stop his brain from thinking that yeah, kids seem to love Donghyuck an awful lot, just one more thing he has in common with them, apparently.
"You got class now, right?" Jungwoo asks when he doesn't get an answer. "Good luck. At least your kids are easier."
If Jungwoo had said that yesterday, Mark would've agreed with him in an instant. Now, with aching soles from all the times he's stepped on blocks of lego in the past two hours, he isn't that sure anymore. Having a bunch of little kids blabbering about nonsensical stuff and crying about things Mark can't comprehend is pretty frustrating, but not as much as his usual students ignoring lessons he spent hours preparing.
By the end of his shift, Mark's hands are a mess. He jumps into his car and stares at his fingers around the steering wheel, dry skin covered in white powder, knuckles stained blue with smudged ink, and remnants of molding clay stuck under his nails. He taps the pads of his fingertips against the rubber of the steering wheel, looking over his shoulder at the pile of homework sheets he has to revise tonight, crumpled pieces of paper that will end up full of red pen lines because he's never been good enough to make his kids listen.
It's very easy to slip into a self-deprecating slope after a long day at school, low on sleep and patience, body aching all over, knowing there's nothing else but more work waiting for you at home. But Mark's phone rings just in time to cut his thoughts clean.
"I knew you'd be fine," Donghyuck says on the other end, sounding lively even though his voice is still sick-thick. "You're just dramatic."
"I kind of have to swing by tomorrow to bring your kids waffles, peace offering," Mark tells him, the hand that isn't holding his phone rubbing his tired eyes underneath his glasses. "They think I wanna poison them for some reason?"
That sends Donghyuck into a fit of giggles, something light and lilting that draws a smile on Mark's face despite the exhaustion curling around every single one of his joints.
"I might've told them about that time you cooked for me and gave me a stomach ache for a week," Donghyuck confesses in muffled words. Mark can imagine him, lying in bed with the blankets up to his nose, right where he left him when he walked out of the apartment this morning. Mark grunts into the phone, but Donghyuck keeps talking before he can complain. "That was the first time I ever skipped a class. They were worried!"
"Yeah, and now they hate me," Mark sighs, his head pushed back against the headrest, smiling up at the ugly grey ceiling of his car.
"Actually, they pretty much love you," Donghyuck tells him, still laughing lightly. "They've asked about you so much. Oh, the terrible pancake monster."
"Fuck you, Hyuck," Mark grunts, but the smile on his face stays put. "They hate me just like my own kids."
"Your kids don't hate you, idiot," Donghyuck replies in a heartbeat, so used to this conversation that he knows exactly what he needs to say. "They just hate math, like every single sane person does." Mark is about to protest, but Donghyuck stops him one more time because he's always been one step ahead. "Now stop pouting, you big baby," he says, even though can't even see Mark's face. The words have Mark trying to bite a smile off his lips.
"You good to come tomorrow?" Mark asks, his voice dropping into a whisper. "Should I pick you up?"
"Yeah, same hour as always."
And there's still a big pile of homework Mark has to go over, his muscles still ache with each movement he makes, and the alarm on his phone set at 6 AM feels like a death sentence. But he smiles the whole drive home.
---
"I don't understand how you can handle all those kids every single day," Mark says the next morning, seatbelt on and his car smelling of just-out-of-the-oven waffles and hot coffee. "Two hours with them and my entire body hurts like hell."
"That's not my kids' fault, you should've stayed home yesterday," Donghyuck tells him as he gets comfortable in the passenger's seat, their coffee cups poorly balanced on his knees. Mark would get worried about the possibility of Donghyuck spilling liquid all over his car if it wasn't for the fact that they've been doing this every weekday for the past three years. "You look like hell. You might be sick."
Mark feels sick, but not less sick than he usually does. It's not illness, it's just exhaustion he's gotten used to throughout the years, permanent eye bags under his eyes, and joints that crack far too often for someone his age.
Donghycuk leans over the console to place his warm hand on Mark's forehead, but Mark swats it away and shakes his head.
"I'm good," he mumbles, taking one of the coffee cups from Donghyuck's knees to take a quick sip before he starts the car. "Just tired."
"I feel like you haven't taken a proper break since you started working at the school," Donghyuck mumbles, low in a weak whisper because he knows Mark is always cranky when he wakes up, and he doesn't want to start a fight.
Mark doesn't reply, because he doesn't want to start a fight, either. And because he knows Donghyuck is just speaking out of concern. He doesn't need a break, though. Doesn't need lost hours he won't be able to make for in the future, doesn't need kids falling behind on the lesson when they can barely keep up on the daily. What he needs is the money to cover all his bills, and longer days to prepare better lessons that will actually work.
Sometimes, Mark feels like a little kid in the worst kind of way. He's trapped in an adult body that hurts as if it's not his own—too big and too pointy and too sharp—walking through a life that seems too boring to control. It gets too much too often, responsibilities piling on his shoulders and threatening to push him down into his worries. Sometimes, all he wants to do is curl up in his bed and cry like a little kid that misses his mom's guidance because, most times, that's exactly how he feels. But, when you grow up, life gets too fast and too tangled up to afford the time to act like the child you will always be, and Mark has too many actual kids counting on him to afford a tantrum.
So he swallows his exhaustion and his tears, he gels his hair and irons his shirts, and starts up his car as if he knows what he's doing. Fake it 'till you make it, they say.
Donghyuck, though, can see right through him every single day. He's been seeing right through him since Mark was 10 years old and used to run to Donghyuck's house each time his mom yelled at him. He buried himself in sheets that smelled like Donghyuck and cried about how badly he wanted to become an adult so he could do whatever he wanted. How little did he know, back then, that freedom as an adult costs far more than he makes each month.
"You can come by and give it to them yourself," Donghyuck says once they walk into the school, hands tightly wrapped around the bag full of waffles. "We could sit down on the floor and eat with them."
"I'm busy today," Mark says, stopping outside of the preschool classroom. It's still early, eerily quiet in the usually bursting school hallways, calm in a way they rarely get to enjoy. "One day with your demons was enough."
Donghyuck smiles kind and gentle, still sleep-soft and concerned when he whispers, "Yeah, alright," instead of teasing Mark back as he usually does. "You know where we are if you change your mind."
Mark waves his goodbye, waiting for Donghyuck to walk into the classroom. Donghyuck lingers enough to take one of the waffles out of the bag and hand it over to Mark, no tissues to prevent his hands from getting sugar-sticky.
"Lick your fingers afterward, don't be a coward," he says with a smirk. Then, he disappears inside of the classroom with one of his contagious happy giggles.
Mark munches on his waffle on his way to his first class, licking his sugar-sweet fingers clean once he's done. He wipes his hand with a kleenex afterward, but the nonsensical, childish giddiness in his belly stays there throughout the entire class.
---
Usually, once his classes are over, Mark waits for Donghyuck in the teacher's room. He likes to sit next to the open window to make the most of the natural light when he goes through exams and assignments, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he grips his red pen tightly.
Today, his feet lead him to the preschool classroom.
The door is half-open when he gets there, so he leans his sore back against the doorframe and peeks inside. He rubs red-stained fingers over his sore right hand, massaging the pained wrist before he rubs on the callus that has formed on his middle finger for spending way too many hours—way too many years—writing.
Mark watches the little kids gathered on the floor, kneeling down around a huge sheet of paper in a rare calmness, and wonders if Donghyuck has ever known this kind of pain. The numbness that comes from holding a pen too tightly, red fingertips from pressing down too hard, tickle-like soreness that crawls up your arm like a million tiny ants. It seems boring for someone like Donghyuck, who has hands made for molding clay and paper animals and finger painting.
Finger painting, that's what they are currently doing. Donghyuck is sitting cross-legged with the kids, empty waffle wrappers scattered around him, his hands covered in oranges and pinks and yellows as he points to where the children should place their hands next to create a pretty picture. The kids look up at him attentively, round-eyed in a way Mark's students would never stare at him.
"Hey there, Mr. Mark," Donghyuck says when he finally notices Mark in the doorway. He motions him closer with a yellowish hand, golden skin dirty up to his elbow, "Come join us."
Mark rests his heavy briefcase on Donghyuck's desk and walks closer, flopping down on the floor next to him. His black dress pants are tight on his knees when he sits cross-legged, his white shirt untucking from his waistband when he leans across the floor to reach the paint, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to try to stay clean.
Less than an hour later, he ends up covered in paint anyway. The tip of his loose baby blue tie is colored purple, the front of his shirt stained green, red paint stuck between his nails and splashed all over the tips of his shiny black shoes. Mark even has to look over the rim of his round glasses to see anything, the usually pristine glass full of little colorful droplets of paint.
He's uncomfortable, his nose itches with the smell of paint, joints numb after spending such a long time folded up on the floor. But his ribs hurt good, his tummy aching in a happy way he rarely has time to feel, lately.
Mark ends up slumped against a paint-dirty Donghyuck, his sticky hands slapping fingerprints on Donghyuck's working smock as he laughs out loud at the weird monster designs the kids have painted. He's laughing more now than he has in months, and it is the type of laughter that only comes with Donghyuck, the kind that burst out of him at the weirdest moments, doubling him over in happiness when his body was just on the verge of cracking due to exhaustion.
He's suddenly transported to Donghyuck's childhood bedroom, gloomy days of wet cheeks and red eyes and Mark's mother's screaming voice playing in his ears like a broken record. Back then, Donghyuck always managed to turn his tears into giggling, clever fingers pressing over the right spots of Mark's body to tear laughter out of him. He used to turn his bed into pretty, dreamy forts of blankets and pillows that you only see in the movies, for Mark only.
Donghyuck's hands have always been made to build dreams and paint smiles, Mark thinks now, aching down to his gut with laughter, cheeks wet with paint and giddy tears.
Sometimes, Mark still feels like a little kid in the best kind of way, fascinated by the most mundane things, thrilled about the bare minimum. That's how he feels now, staring in awe as Donghyuck gets up from the floor once the last bell rings, leading his kids towards the sinks at the end of the classroom to help them scrub their hands and faces clean with pink soap.
Mark might dislike kids sometimes, but he might love Donghyuck most when he makes him feel like one.
Realization is a warm, quiet thing, something familiar and gentle turning inside of his brain and making him think, Oh.
He sits there—knees drawn to his chest, still covered in paint—and watches as a kid bursts into tears because tomorrow is Saturday, which means he won't get to come to school. Mark imagines a weekend without Donghyuck, and he gets it.
"We will see each other on Monday, alright?" Donghyuck says quietly, crouched down in front of the kid. He's got paint-stained fingers cradling his face softly, thumbs wiping off his tears the same way he used to do when Mark allowed himself to go through one of his tantrums, 10-years-old and probably in love already.
"Did you have fun?" Donghyuck asks once they are alone, rubbing his still dirty hands on the front of his smock and making an even bigger mess, spreading paint everywhere.
Mark doesn't reply, so Donghyuck approaches him and offers him a hand, his yellow fingers wrapping tightly around Mark's dirty-red hand to pull him to his feet.
They stand so close once Mark gets to his feet, Donghyuck's soft face a breath away from his. He's got grey smudges under his eyes that match Mark's permanent eyebags, the tip of his nose is peeled off and red due to the cold he just recovered from, and his skin is pale from the lack of sleep. But he's got soft cheeks and long eyelashes and light-brown hair, all splattered with droplets of different colors, and he looks so beautiful like this. Mark wants to cup Donghyuck's round face between his hands and press fingerprints to his cheeks, play make-believe and imagine that they'll stay forever.
"I'm gonna kiss you," Mark blurts out.
And Donghyuck giggles, his eyes disappearing behind his eyelids with laughter. "About time, right?" he says, fisting Mark's white shirt to pull him along with him when he starts to walk backward.
They stumble into the small storage room where Donghyuck keeps all the arts and crafts tools, Mark's sore back hitting one of the shelves when Donghyuck pushes him inside. The small lightbulb lits up automatically and it shakes when Donghyuck kicks the door shut after him.
"You could've kissed me sooner if you're this impatient," Mark mumbles, grabbing Donghyuck's smock to tug him flush against his body.
"Been wanting to kiss you since I was 9," Donghyuck confesses, bringing his hands up to Mark's shoulders as he leans closer. "You would've run away if I did."
Mark can't even complain because he knows Donghyuck is right. It took him more years than his hands can count to realize that he's in love, even when everyone around him could see it. Donghyuck has always seen right through him, has always understood better than anyone else, has probably known since day one. And he's still here, patient hands placed gently on Mark's shoulders as he waits.
When Mark kisses him, Donghyuck tastes bitter and sweet all at once. He opens up to Mark immediately, and Mark can taste the remnants of black coffee mixed up with the sickeningly sweet sugar of homemade waffles. It's so Donghyuck, bitter and sweet blended in together into something addictive, like the quiet warmth of their childhood years together and the terrifying thrill of whatever is to come now.
"Stop thinking," Donghyuck mumbles against Mark's mouth because he's always known better.
Hands slipping into Mark's gelled hair, Donghyuck tugs his head backward, molding their lips together perfectly, deepening the kiss further. He kisses the way he lives, Mark thinks, fast and messy and greedy, trying to make the most out of each second.
"Oh, responsible Mark Lee kissing me at work cause he likes me that much, hm?" Donghyuck giggles into Mark's mouth when they pull away just enough to breathe. He runs warm thumbs down the side of Mark's neck, drawing gentle circles under the collar of his rumpled shirt. "How inappropriate of you, who would've thought?"
And he is everything Mark isn't, just as much as he is everything Mark wants. Donghyuck is made of endless teasing, carefree laughter, impulsive actions, and everything Mark needs to keep him sane in a world of grown-ups he doesn't think he'll ever belong to.
"How does it feel to loosen up a bit?" Donghyuck asks, his dirty fingertips staining the front of Mark's shirt yellow as he toys with the buttons. "Would you go further for me, Mark?"
It's not as if Donghyuck needs an answer, his clever hands already popping Mark's shirt open because he knows. Still, the words have Mark nodding frantically, pushing Donghyuck backward in the small space until he's got him cornered against the closed door, hands framing his feverish face and spreading red paint over his blush.
There's not much you can do in the tiny storage room, the charged air smelling of glue and clay and talc, speckles of dust twinkling under the lit-up lightbulb. Donghyuck makes it work, though, ‘cause he's always had magic hands. He sneaks his right hand inside of Mark's dress pants, getting yellow paint on the fancy fabric as he pushes the zipper down, and he cups him through his underwear with eager fingers.
"You gotta keep quiet," he mumbles into Mark's sweaty hair. "Can you do that for me, Mark?"
All Mark can do is buckle impatiently under Donghyuck's palm and nod. He keeps his face buried into Donghyuck's neck, mouth occupied lapping at the salty skin to stop himself from moaning out loud when Donghyuck starts to rub him off over the fabric of his underwear.
It's dirty and dry and dangerous. Maybe that's the reason why Mark gets close to the edge embarrassingly fast, humping against Donghyuck's palm like a desperate teenager, the thrill of possibly getting caught doing something he shouldn't running through his body like a shock. It's always like this with Donghyuck, electricity through his bloodstream that has Mark feeling awed like a child, elated like a teen, and calm in a foreign way, like an adult that knows exactly what he wants.
"You close?" Donghyuck asks into his ear as his hand speeds up. Mark can only groan, pushing closer and sinking teeth into Donghyuck's shoulder. "Don't mark me up, that's inappropriate."
Mark's mouth falls open in a silent scoff. "You're an asshole," he chokes out breathlessly, his body shaking with laughter that never gets to bubble out, interrupted by a low moan when Donghyuck squeezes his hard-on tightly, causing Mark to twitch in his underwear.
"And you like it," Donghyuck giggles, light and lilting and painfully familiar. "Right, baby?"
Donghyuck has used that pet name on Mark countless times—light-hearted jokes and cruel mocking and shameless teasing in front of their friends—but never like this: hushed hotly into Mark's ear, quiet like a secret, fragile like a promise, fingers pressing against the oversensitive skin of Mark's swollen dick merciless.
Mark comes like that, Donghyuck's arm around his waist the only thing keeping him up as he shudders in his hold. He keeps his sweaty forehead pressed to the crook of Donghyuck's shoulder, half-lidded eyes staring down through his dirty glasses, Donghyuck's hand moving non-stop inside of his pants and sending Mark's heart into overdrive.
"You're so cute," Donghyuck laughs once Mark pulls himself together enough to stand straight, zipping up his pants with weak thighs.
"And you're an asshole," Mark grunts out again, cheeks flaming now that what he's just done at his workplace is finally clicking in his brain. "I think you're a bad influence," he says, lifting one of his hands to press a red finger to Donghyuck's nose, spreading still wet paint over the round tip.
"Yeah, right," Donghyuck grabs Mark's hand before he has the time to pull away. His fingers are sticky with cum and paint, but Mark doesn’t stop him when Donghyuck brings his hand closer to his mouth to press a light kiss to his knuckles, getting paint on the seam of his lips. "I think you need the bad influence."
And who is Mark to fight him on that, when Donghyuck's been seeing through him since he was a kid?
Mark is feeling a lot more relaxed than he has in years, a little drunk on happiness and danger. So he pops open the button of Donghyuck’s jeans and falls to his knees.
---
"I'm not even gonna ask," Jungwoo says as a greeting when they bump into him in the parking lot. They managed to clean most of the paint off their skins, but their clothes and hair are still a rumpled, colorful mess. Mark feels himself flushing red one more time, holding his briefcase over his crotch to at least spear some of his dignity. "I just wanted to say congrats on moving in together! Doyoung told me, it was about time."
He's gone before either of them can correct him. Donghyuck keeps walking towards Mark's car as if the words mean nothing, but they stay with Mark like something permanent.
It's in the back of his mind when Donghyuck asks him to skip his apartment and drive him over to Mark's, inviting himself to stay overnight like he did when they were kids. It's in the back of his mind when he wakes up the next morning to a sleeping Donghyuck in his bed, tangled hair still paint-stained, wearing one of Mark's worn-out shirts that’s too big for him. It's in the back of his mind when Donghyuck cooks lunch for two of them, and when he complains about the lack of ingredients in Mark's kitchen, and when he borrows a pair of Mark's sweatpants to run to the convenience store. It's in the back of Mark's mind when the clock hits midnight and Donghyuck decides to slip into Mark's sleeping shirt one more time, and then into Mark's bed, and into Mark's body. It stays in the back of his mind when Donghyuck decides to stay another night, and the night after that.
It’s still in the back of Mark's mind when it's suddenly Sunday, and he doesn't have to drive by Donghyuck apartment on his way to school because Donghyuck is right there to start the car with him.
Mark doesn't want to say it out loud, not even when Donghyuck kisses him see-you-later outside his preschool class. It took him more than half of his life to get to this point, Mark's never been one to rush things, no matter how much he wants them.
It's probably the first time that Mark is as distracted as his students, the sound of chalk hitting the blackboard erratically like an overplayed soundtrack. He keeps spacing out, daydreaming of a life where responsibilities won't feel as heavy on his shoulders because he'll get the chance to share them with someone.
The only thing that breaks him out of his thoughts is one of his students’ voice, jarringly high in the turbulent mess in Mark's head when she says, "Hey, Mr. Lee. Your boyfriend is waiting outside."
Mark's head snaps up so fast that he almost gets whiplash, his face getting impossibly hot at the snickering that follows him when he walks out of the classroom.
"God, Hyuck, did you really need to come here?" he asks in a hushed whisper, the door pulled ajar after him.
"Just thought I'd provide them with some fun," Donghyuck says with a wicked smile, his hands coming up to fold the collar of Mark's shirt properly. "I feel bad for them, math sucks ass."
"Are we invited to the wedding, Mr. Lee?" one of the kids screams from the inside of the room.
Mark grunts out loud, throwing his head back exasperatedly. "They hate me and now they have power over me," he mumbles, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"They don't hate you. Kids ignore everything they don't like," Donghyuck tells him, taking Mark's hand off his face so he can push his glasses up the bridge of Mark's nose with his index finger. "They tease you 'cause they like you. They just hate math."
It's not the first time Donghyuck's told him this, and Mark still doesn't believe him, but it always soothes the disappointment.
"What are you even here for?" he asks, the seams of his mouth curled downward to stop himself from smiling.
"Just wanted to tell you that I'll be moving my things to your place next week, if that's okay with you," Donghyuck says, playing with the top bottom of Mark's shirt absentmindedly.
"Wait, what?" Mark asks, too loud and too high-pitched in the quiet of the hallway. It has the kids inside of the classroom bursting into laughter one more time.
Donghyuck raises his eyebrows at him, his fingers halting on Mark's chest as he looks at him pointedly. "You have a problem with it?"
And it's weird, a very grown-up thought to have, knowing full well that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone else. It's probably the first time Mark feels his age in a non-paralyzing way. But, after all, every single step with Donghyuck has always felt natural.
Mark opens and closes his mouth, biting down on his lower lip when no words come to him. He shakes his head no, warm up to the tip of his ears with the way Donghyuck's face lights up with a smile.
"I thought so," he says, popping open the last button of Mark's shirt. "Have a good day, Mr. Lee," he slaps Mark's cheek playfully and disappears down the hallway.
And if Mark's students spend the next half an hour mocking him because he's beet-red and unable to stop smiling like a fool, well, he can complain about it later. At home. With Donghyuck.