Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 14

That was how their mom found the two of them twenty minutes later, Donghyuck kneeling with a leg on either side of Jaehyun's waist, the larger man face-first on the carpet, as he tried to knead out the tension in a particularly stubborn section of his brother's latissimus dorsi. She blinked in confusion for a few moments as she hovered in the open doorway, making eye contact with Donghyuck as Jaehyun pressed his face into the pillow beneath his head, but then she smiled wide and pressed a finger to her lips, leaving him to his task.

Later, once breakfast was over and Jaehyun had retreated to the living room to watch television with their dad, she wrapped an arm around Donghyuck's waist and told him in a low whisper just how proud of him she was. She still carried a hint of residual worry in her expressive brown eyes, worry for both of her sons, but the new lightness in her mood was contagious. Donghyuck couldn't help but smile at the way she seemed to glow from within as she practically waltzed around the kitchen, and he was glad that he'd been able to give her this much.

"Go and spend time with your brother," she told him, brushing off his protests when he tried to help her to wash up. "I can finish up here on my own." So he did, curling up on the sofa next to Jaehyun and delighting in how the man hooked an arm around him and pulled him in closer, until Donghyuck was almost completely sprawled across his lap. Every few minutes, he snuck a glance up at Jaehyun's face, checking that the smile on his face was still there, and he was equal parts embarrassed and overjoyed each time he caught his brother doing the same thing.

--

"Donghyuck-ah!" He was half-asleep again, the clock just ticking past noon, when the loud voice shook him back to awareness. He couldn't quite place the masculine voice for a moment, until he realised that the armchair across from him was empty, save for a laptop that looked to have been hastily abandoned, half-opened on the seat cushion.

"Dad?" He shifted, accidentally elbowing Jaehyun in the stomach for his troubles, and pitched forward off the sofa. Only Jaehyun's quick thinking and even quicker hands stopped him from face planting straight into the coffee table, but he quickly recovered and headed out in the direction of the voice.

"Donghyuck, do you know a Na Jaemin?" Rounding the door frame, Donghyuck stepped out into the hallway just in time to see a familiar face materialise from behind his dad's shoulder, keen gaze fixing immediately onto his face. The younger boy waved, looking a little embarrassed, and Donghyuck couldn't help but laugh at the confused look his father gave his friend in return.

"Hi, Jaemin-ah," he said, smiling at the boy as he racked his brain to try to figure out what he was doing here. He hadn't told him he was coming, and they hadn't made--Oh. The promise he'd made to Jaemin on Friday, for them to talk on the phone over the weekend resurfaced all of a sudden and he groaned internally. "I left my phone in my room last night."

He'd abandoned his phone under the sheets just before dinner the previous day, when he'd been forced to come downstairs for one of the most uncomfortable meals of his life. After that, he'd gone straight to Jaehyun's room, and he hadn't even thought about the device since. He instantly felt guilty for forgetting about his friend, and whatever it was that he had needed to talk to him about so badly.

"I'm really sorry," he started to say, but Jaemin shook his head with a soft smile.

"It's okay. I called you a couple of times and Renjun warned me that you might be busy, but I thought I'd drop by on my way past anyway." His smile faded a little as he eyed Donghyuck's dad guiltily. "I can just call you later, if this is a bad time." He started to turn to leave but a large hand reached out to grab his shoulder, even as Donghyuck let out his own noise of protest.

"Come on in, kid. Any friend of Donghyuck is always welcome," his dad told Jaemin, using his firm grip on the boy's shoulder to turn him a full one-eighty and guide him into the hallway. Jaemin barely managed to kick off his shoes, one landing on top of Jaehyun's boots by the wall and one skidding half-way down the hallway, before he was being ushered into the rear of the house, presumably to make awkward small talk with both of Donghyuck's parents at the same time.