Love wasn't a walk in the park. Well, for Donghyuck it wasn't, at least. He was lost amidst wondering when it had all begun; definitely not the day they first met. The day they first officially met. He had heard Chenle mention the name Mark a few times before, but there were no sparks around it and he had to reach deep into his memory bank to put face to name.
Mark, Mark, Mark... Oh! The alpha who hangs out with different people everyday.
That was that. He heard through the grapevine, and that 'grapevine' being a black-haired troublemaker omega, that Mark was very well-liked. At that point, all 'Mark' was, was in Chenle's words, "a nice guy in my history class". He was in their P.E class too, but Donghyuck didn't notice until they properly started to hang out. And that happened one Friday afternoon when Chenle sidled on up with a guy to his right and an excited smile on his face. But there was no excited smile on Mark's face; he was really nervous.
"This is Mark," he had said, then whispered, "the guy I was talking about."
Mark really liked Donghyuck and had asked Chenle to introduce them, but of course, the tanned omega never knew this and probably never would. Their first meeting was a headache. Mark banged his knee off the table before he and Chenle sat down with him, then he ripped open a packet of raisins too fast and they took their first flight, some landing in Donghyuck's hair and the rest on Chenle's noodles. Mark's homemade lunch had been prepared with mouldy bread. A group of other friends he was chummy with wandered by and asked him to kick a ball around with them at the back of the school and he complied, then tripped over his untied lace as he walked away (head lowered in shame). At that time, Donghyuck had thought, He really isn't like other alphas. That being said, the meeting was a headache.
But Donghyuck watched him leave with an endeared smile. Mark was good at making him smile like that.
It wasn't then that the feelings began. In fact, Donghyuck supposed it was closer to the time that the vengeful goose at the Crazy Duck Pond went on a spree chasing Mark. That was a funny day. The animal had it in for him so ferociously that they had no other choice than to literally run away with the tormented alpha.
No, maybe it was when Mark did his impression of Tarzan at the bar. Donghyuck remembered thinking it was cute that he had a peaceful personality but an... active drunk side. He was so far from violent. He was fun, and the omega liked that Mark could be fun. He needed a bit of that in his life while Chenle was off galavanting with the local ruffians, but luckily Jisung was able to put a stop to that, and after putting up with that behaviour for three (long) years, Donghyuck believed Jisung to be a miracle worker.
Presently, Donghyuck was visiting the pond. He was crouched at the water's edge while many little kids looked at him, gobsmacked that his parents weren't getting cross for being too close to the pond. He touched the water, a distant memory of learning about surface tension playing in the back of his mind. He could see the pond skaters making use of it. Oh, that was it. It was when he offered to walk Chenle and I home after his Tarzan stunt at the bar. He smiled a small, vague gesture. Mark had been in an even worse state than them (Chenle had been on duty that night so he was as sober as on a normal day), and yet he insisted on taking both of them home because it was the middle of the night.
Donghyuck remembered thinking, does he know I'm an omega? The conclusion, after detailed observations the following few days, was no; Mark would have walked him home even if he had been a beta. That was the source of his feelings, but he supposed they didn't grow wings strong enough to take off until Jisung came along to put Chenle right. That was most likely the point at which Donghyuck began to notice his emotions more vividly. They had always been there but his concern for his rapidly-sinking friend was much stronger.
"You're here?"
He looked up from the glistening water, a hue of orange tinting the sky. Mark was right there. "Hey. I'm trying to flush out my emotions at the moment."
The alpha took a hesitant moment to crouch down beside him. "That sounds pretty harsh. Is it that you're worried about getting the job at the café?"
"...Yes. Absolutely. That's it, you're a mind reader."
Mark chuckled happily and pressed at the water too, watching the way the pond skaters took off in the opposite direction. This really was the nicest place in the entire area. "When the manager took up your resumés, she looked at you both up and down, and she released satisfactory pheromones. I think you're worrying for no reason."
"People change their mind all the time."
"..."
Donghyuck's hand shook the water off and he wiped it on his knees. Sandalwood. At this proximity, he could smell it. Mark didn't have a very obnoxious scent. Well, the scent itself was quite dominant, but the degree at which the alpha released it was lovely and mild. Jisung, on the other hand, he shook his head, I can smell him from a mile away. This was an exaggeration. He turned to Mark, arms wrapping around his knees for balance while he crouched. "What do you think of Jisung?"
"...Jisung? He's nice. Friendly, too, and I feel a solidarity between us. Why?"
Coming from another alpha, it meant that he must really believe so. Donghyuck liked Jisung too. "I'll be handing Chenle off to him soon. Could be any day now."
Mark blinked. "Hand him off? As in, they'll start dating? Hold on, hold on, they like each other? I've heard rumours about them but I thought they were only rumours. They never even told me... I thought we were in on this together..." 'This' being Jisung's and Chenle's help in playing cupid, but if he had known, then Mark would've offered to do something in return. After all, Mark considered Chenle to be his closest friend — of course he could've given Jisung some pointers.
Donghyuck wanted to shake the alpha's shoulders. How could he be so dense?! Poor Mark was so focused on his relationship with Donghyuck and how to boost it, that he barely noticed the other relationship forming in front of his eyes.
"Would you look at that," the omega mentioned and cast his gaze down at the pond, fingers touching at the water again.
Mark followed with his eyes, still confused over Jisung and Chenle, and noticed the boy's reflection. He was so soft and fluffy and the alpha wanted badly to give him the tightest hug he could. His eyes were a shifting sea of deep colours, a tint of orange from the sky passing over his sun-kissed skin. It was a breath-taking reflection. "Beautiful."
Donghyuck flicked his disbelieving gaze towards Mark. "Not really, but whatever floats your boat."
"No, you really are. I promise."
"...Mark, I was talking about the carp..." Donghyuck's face was a heated blush. He never blushed. He just didn't. Yet here he was.
"Oh, um, carp are beautiful too. I mean, look at that face." Flustered and heart rate spiked, he pointed to the fish that had become oh so clear to him now, it's body a shimmering mass of browns and silvers, mouth coming up to kiss Donghyuck's fingers in a ticklish way. It wasn't very big compared to its full potential and the habitat it lived in. "So beautiful."
"Okay, you can stop now. I get it." He fanned his face. "You have a thing for fish."
"For the love of god..."
"It's alright, I was only joking. And you caught me at the right moment. I... I think I needed to hear someone say that I'm beautiful today. My mind has been a mess for a few weeks now, between Chenle's incident, mediating Renjun's contact with alphas so that he can take his time to heal, and..." My predicament about my feelings for you. "Just... I'm glad I saw you again today."
The alpha calmed. He reached for the back of his head and bashfully scratched it. Even if it was the only thing he could do to help Donghyuck through this stressful time, he could most definitely tell the omega that he was beautiful. Mark wasn't a fan of lies and euphemisms. He told it as he saw it. Except when he called the carp beautiful a minute ago — he didn't mean that. "I'm here if you need to hear me say it again. Free of charge."
Donghyuck laughed and tickled the surface of the pond, observing the way the carp would disappear further into the centre of the body of water then circle back to see if his hand had any food, possibly forgetting that he had just checked this very hand only a moment ago, and then repeating the cycle. "Sometimes I think I'm crazy." He was looking at the fish, but it was doing a good job of acting out the relationship that he and Mark had.
The alpha would stay with them for a temporary period of time before returning to another group, then come back to them, then go to an entirely different group altogether. Sometimes Donghyuck thought himself to be crazy because he liked that his little group, including himself, Chenle, and now Jisung, Jeno, Jaemin and Renjun, was a constant. Mark would always come back to them. But other times, he thought he was crazy because the very fact that Mark wasn't permanent made him sad. It was a moment he remembered very well when he realised that he and Chenle had become part of what Mark would call his friendship circle. After three or four visits from him, Donghyuck (not even romantically attracted to him yet) noticed that they were becoming a staple in his week.
These days, being a staple in Mark's week wasn't enough.
"You're not crazy, Donghyuck, you're eighteen. There's a massive difference."
"Maybe I'm eighteen and crazy."
"Nah. If I was to say that someone was crazy... Well, that title belongs to Zhong Chenle. You've been a supporting beam in your friendship with him for so long now that I feel you don't know how to... what's the word... relax? Yeah, I think that's the word. He isn't a troublemaker anymore, he hasn't had a detention in four solid weeks, maybe more, and now you don't have to worry about him like you used to."
"I'll always worry about that guy, let's be real."
Mark smiled. It was difficult not to worry about Chenle, especially since the day he saw him in the toilets with those four other guys and Jisung. He was loud and boisterous. He was also a kind soul who meant well. They met by chance when they were partnered in history class, and Mark was hit with a brick of a statement; Mark, right? I've seen you watching my friend Donghyuck. That was enough for Mark to want to throw himself in a rubbish bin. The fact that Chenle had kept his voice lowered while saying this gave him the sign that there was probably no malice behind it. That entire class was supposed to be spent on their project, but instead they talked about Donghyuck. "You don't like too much sun, you're struggling with physics, you enjoy P.E but sometimes you pretend to be sick so that you and Chenle can mess around in an empty classroom..."
Donghyuck watched with wide eyes, but Mark's were directed at the returning fish, which took its final leave and didn't come back.
"You like strawberry ice-cream the most, you're particularly moody on Wednesdays, although I haven't figured out why yet. You like horror movies as long as they're paranormal — I know that from when you, Chenle and I went to the cinemas last summer. You hurt yourself while we were practicing self-defence last week, but you wouldn't tell me because you didn't want the two of us to have to stop."
"...Mark, you-"
"It's more complicated for me to tell you exactly how I feel. It would be easier for me to just say 'I like you, and I have for a while now', but it's more than that. It's not really that I like you, but that I... Ah, I keep losing my words today. I can't think of a word to sum it all up. I don't know if there even is one."
Donghyuck was in a state of shock, a form of shock, in which he could only watch. He could only watch the alpha grasp for what to say but he couldn't say anything in return. He really wanted to. There was a lot to say. Or maybe there wasn't. It might have been simpler for Donghyuck to say than it was for Mark. He opened his mouth to verbalise it, whatever 'it' was. His knees gave out on him for the prolonged crouching and he felt himself fall forwards.
Mark saw it happen in slow motion as the expression on Donghyuck's face warped from determination into surprise, and then the boy's hands reached out to grab at Mark's shirt and pulled him in too. They landed with a large splash into the pond. They could just about touch the bottom but they were soaked and the omega had to smack a curtain of his own hair out of his vision while letting out a shocked gasp. "Oh my god!" He grasped at the edge and tried to pull himself up, but was too slippery with algae and pond sludge to make it.
Mark coughed and spluttered from behind him. Donghyuck turned around, arms treading water while he tried not to touch the bottom and lose his shoes to the quicksand-like mud. The alpha was standing still, hands brushing wet hair from his eyes, and he made eye contact with the omega. There was a moment of nothing. A buffer. And then he let out a stress-free laugh. His hands settled on the back of his own neck, face a round smile. "I more-than-like you. That's what I've decided to say."
"The word is 'love'!" Donghyuck exclaimed, yet found himself reduced to giggles nonetheless. "Isn't it?"
"That sounds about right."
The omega waded over to him, ignoring the looks from passers by who realised that they weren't drowning. There were also a few little kids onlooking with even more gobsmacked expressions because their parents wouldn't let them jump in. "Mark, I lied. I wasn't worrying about getting the job earlier. I was worrying that I might be in too deep, but now I realise that I like it better this way." He reached forward, a bit 'in too deep' into the mud floor, and lost a shoe as he pulled the alpha in.
Their lips collided without so much as a force of resistance. It was long-awaited by both of them, yet it couldn't speak in place of their words.
"I think we're both in too deep together then," Mark concluded, frazzled, and most definitely grinning like an idiot.