The pain in Donghyuck's back woke him up, his head spinning at the sudden movement and his eyes barely caught sight of Mark running out of the room. For a second, he forgot everything that had happened and nearly called out to the older. But then it all crashed down onto him and his gaze dropped to the ground, his face flushing at the memory of Mark holding him close to his chest. After everything that had happened, Mark had done that to him, and what was the meaning? Donghyuck was honestly tired of the mixed signals the older sent, so instead of dwelling on it for too long, he shrugged his shoulders to get rid of the thought.
He was snapped out of his jumbled up thoughts when Jaehyun spoke to him from his bed. "Donghyuck," he said, sitting up and leaned over to raise an eyebrow at the younger. "Why was Mark in your bed?"
Well, that was a question Donghyuck also wanted an answer to. He had assumed that Mark had gotten tired from all the travelling and had headed straight for bed, which is what the rest of the members also thought. But in reality, Mark had been bundled up in Donghyuck's bed with Donghyuck's sheets and had ended up falling asleep with his arms around Donghyuck.
To give Jaehyun an answer, all Donghyuck did was shrug his shoulders, not in the mood to speak to anyone, especially not in the morning. Kicking the blanket off himself, Donghyuck swung his legs over and rushed to the toilet, glad that it wasn't occupied by anyone else. He needed that time to think, or well to clear his head. Too much stress caused spots and that was one thing he wasn't looking forward to dealing with.
Donghyuck sleepily stripped his clothes, throwing them into the basket in the corner, which seemed to be full but- Donghyuck really wasn't in the mood for anything. With a sigh, he sunk into the bathtub, which he had filled up when he was struggling with his clothes. Donghyuck brought his knees to his chest and took a deep breath, his eyes fluttering close as he did so. It felt calming as if something had been taken off his shoulder. A burden of a sort had been lifted. But as much as Donghyuck wanted to just stop thinking and enjoy the comforting feel of the water brushing against his sides, his mind betrayed him and the image of Mark hugging him tightly appeared. A sudden spike of annoyance hit him when he realised that Mark had caught him crying yet again.
Donghyuck was not a crybaby and that was well known. He hated crying, not because he believed it made him any less of a boy or anything, but because he simply hated feeling sad to the point of crying, to know that it had all gotten that bad that he was forced to vent everything out through tears. It should never be that bad. And the fact that it was Mark's fourth time catching him cry in private, it annoyed Donghyuck even more.
The first time he had been caught crying was just before debut. The stress was over the roof, the ache in his body only seemed to worsen the more he practised and the dance moves suddenly forced the breath out of him. He was terrified. The only thoughts that flooded his mind every time he looked in the mirror were that- what if he was no longer good enough? What if the evaluators thought that his singing had faltered, or that his ego had grown after the news of debut being close?
It had gotten too much and Donghyuck was left crying in the corner of the resting room, his head tucked between his knees as self-doubt filled him, forcing him to give himself a second look and another glare. But then a hand had come over his, tugging him forward and into a warm embrace, one that somehow managed to fight away all of his thoughts. One that included a Mark Lee who was willing to share a bit of love and concern.
The second time was after the comments under the music video had gotten too much, his heart unable to tolerate another 'NCT Flop' comment and his eyes too blurry to read anymore. Sure, they didn't understand English that well, but he was smart enough to understand something like that. And twitter always had a google translating button. It hurt too much and Donghyuck buried himself under the pile of blankets on his bed. Taeyong had gone out to check on something, so Donghyuck was left alone in the room. Just when Donghyuck was about to sleep with unshed tears held up in his eyes, the door to his room opened. The phone in his clutches was peeled off and the blanket was pulled up for a moment. The bed dipped and another body pressed up against his, the comforting scent spreading around them.
"Ignore them. They're a waste of time," Mark had said softly, his hand brushing through Donghyuck's hair as the younger shook with sobs. "Ignore them."
The third was something that Donghyuck wished he could forget or could erase from his life. He always teased Mark as a joke, but somewhere around two years ago, Mark had had enough with the constant fooling around. He had snapped at Donghyuck and told him to give him some space and some time to be able to think in peace. Donghyuck, being one to never give up on a fight, spat back some words he didn't mean and left the room. Everyone fights their best friends at some point in life, everyone does and so did Mark and Donghyuck. But this was too much. Donghyuck had been walking with a 2-meter distance from Mark, avoiding eye contact and whenever anyone had asked him why he did it, he would respond with a, "I'm giving him the space he wanted". Donghyuck was one for dramatics, but even this was going too far.
The night after they had finished their performance at a music show and rushed home, Mark had barged into Donghyuck's room and dragged him out to the roof. It was chilly and Donghyuck cursed at the fact that Mark hadn't even allowed him to wear any extra clothing. They had stood side by side, looking over the crowd of apartment buildings beside theirs. No words were exchanged before the gate of emotions inside Donghyuck broke open, his eyes tearing up when he felt Mark's hand slip into his, their fingers intertwining in a way that his heart ached. He felt another hand cup his cheek, wiping away the tears that rolled down them. Mark chuckled at him and called him, "a baby, honestly, a baby".
Everything managed to fit back into place after that.
A knock on the door of the bathroom brought him back into reality and he looked around in surprise. His body felt numb and he hurriedly got out of the tub, shaking his head at the thoughts corrupting his mind and rushed over to the clean laundry near the door. He pulled out a few pieces of clothing, throwing it on before stumbling over to the door, Jaehyun's voice still ringing in his ears to hurry up. But just as his hand hovered over the handle, he glanced at the mirror and froze. He was wearing Mark's hoodie. A groan escaped his mouth and he cursed at himself. Why did it have to be Mark of all people?
Rolling his eyes at the sight of the clothes he was wearing, Donghyuck pulled open the door, a disturbed Jaehyun almost falling onto him as he pushed past him.
There was no one else at the dorm and Donghyuck guessed they had all left for the practice room. Donghyuck slowly walked over to the kitchen and poured a bowl of cereal and milk for himself. He sat in silence and ate his food, his mind immediately providing him with the fact that Mark also loved the brand of cereal he was eating. Suddenly, he lost his appetite.
The drive to the building wasn't long, or maybe that was because Donghyuck hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings.
Upon arrival, Donghyuck opened the door to the car, his arms coming to embrace himself as the wind hit him. A sigh left him as he strolled through the building, his legs moving on auto-pilot as he turned left and right before entering the practice room. Silence. There was complete silence. For a moment, Donghyuck thought he had entered the wrong room since his eyes had been glued to the ground the whole time.
He looked up to see everyone distributed around the room. A few of them were huddled up by the sofa, scrolling through their phones with a frown etched to their faces whilst a few of them were spread out by the mirror. Mark was sitting by the corner of the mirror, his head tilted back and his eyes screwed shut.
"Donghyuck," their manager called out to him, causing everyone to look up at him. "Hurry up. Where's Jaehyun? Did he not come with you?"
"He was still at the dorm when I left," Donghyuck answered his questions before shuffling over to him so that they weren't shouting from across the room.
"Okay, then we'll start to practise once they arrive," their manager said. "And some other members were going to be joining you all today, you will be sharing the room as the others are occupied."
They all nodded and fell back into silence. Everyone had returned to their things and Donghyuck felt awkward. No one was talking to each other and he couldn't help but blame himself. Were they not talking to avoid making Donghyuck feel left out? Were they perhaps not in the mood to talk to him in general? Or had he made them upset to the point that they weren't even able to talk to anyone else?
Donghyuck was quickly shaken out of his thoughts as Jaehyun burst in, muttering an apology that sounded more of an excuse when he said, "Donghyuck took too long in the bathroom that I didn't get enough time".
As they all stood up and chose what half of the room they would take, the door opened and a pair of arms found their way around Donghyuck, lifting him up and spun him around.
"Haechan!" The voice of the owner of the arms yelled, earning a laugh from Donghyuck. "It's been so long."
Hendery placed Donghyuck down and they both immediately broke into a conversation, the other members of WayV entered in the back and circled around them. It only took a few minutes of them all talking over each other before their managers to tell them to break apart and actually start practising.
Despite not meeting quite often, Donghyuck still considered himself close to them all. They had already once spent an hour awkwardly stealing glances at each other (and getting caught nearly every time) before they finally spoke to each other. At first, it was difficult because although they had been learning Korean - and were pretty good at it - they still found themselves tripping a few times and trying to explain what a few words meant. But then they all got used to, laughing at each other when they pronounced something wrong, and their conversations were the best, especially that one time when Donghyuck decided to use google translate.
During their breaks, Donghyuck turned to talk to Sicheng, who was taking turns to practice with each unit, and asked him whether or not he was doing fine, to which he replied with a smile and a nod.
Donghyuck wasn't sure if what he felt on his back were eyes because whenever he turned around to check, the members all had their faces directed to the ground, their shoulders slumped and their minds definitely not on Donghyuck. He turned back to the mirror and watched from the corner of his eye as everyone raised their heads. Not everything is about you, Donghyuck thought and let out a shaky breath. The rest of practice was filled with silence between them, other than the sound of Superhuman playing in the background.