Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 62

TW: Panic Attacks

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We're here if you need us.

Several dozen newer messages now filled the group chat that Donghyuck shared with Na Jaemin and Huang Renjun. In fact, he would need to scroll up several times to find that particular message, received while he'd been out with Mark two days prior.

Three good swipes of the screen, to be precise. Which he knew, because it felt like he'd repeated the same reflexive series of actions at least once an hour in the interim, fingers grazing over the glass screen of his phone in smooth, practiced motions as Donghyuck relived the moment over and over inside his head.

He also knew that it was seriously unhealthy to dwell, to allow himself to be dragged into the past so often—but the truth was that Donghyuck had yet to take advantage of the open promise coded within Jaemin's words. Sure, he'd taken a break from the all-encompassing nerve fest that was his stagnating relationship with Mark to respond to his friends, once they'd gotten home, but the in-person heart-to-heart that he had really been craving had yet to materialise.

Tentatively, Donghyuck had admitted to them both via text that he was in desperate need of guidance, having already decided that he was far too weak to ask for it with actual spoken words. However, for whatever reason, it hadn't felt right to try to go into greater detail when they weren't all in the same room.

This was too important for that. Mark was too important for that, so face to face it was—except that hadn't quite happened yet.

Instead, he had received twin, typed-out promises of support—face to face—whenever he was ready. Whenever he could finally drag himself away from his hectic schedule of fretting, second-guessing and openly avoiding basically everyone else he knew—all while preparing for what would have been the biggest performance of small-town Lee Donghyuck's life, with near-constant, back-to-back dress rehearsals—for long enough to give his friends fifteen uninterrupted minutes of his time.

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As it turned out, adopting constant fretting as a pastime had taken a lot more out of Donghyuck than he'd anticipated. Before he knew it, it was Tuesday afternoon and he was finally fresh out of time...and rehearsals.

Opening night; their first real performance of Les Miserables—'high-school-abridged-version'—was officially less than an hour away from curtains up, and he was currently trapped in a high-backed wooden chair by a girl he didn't know. One who was determined to cover his face in cheap, ill-matching stage makeup, and didn't like taking no for an answer.

"Really, I can do the rest myself," Donghyuck told her firmly, trying and almost completely failing to moderate his tone into something bordering on patient. Frustration rose in his chest, threatening to spill out and turn his expression harsh, as he gently tugged the makeup brush from the girl's fingers when she tried to make a third, heavy-handed pass at the sensitive skin beneath his eyes. "I've got it."

"I'm just trying to help," she insisted, a frown marring the sweet smile that previously graced her lips. However, she must have finally registered the discomfort in his posture, because she shrugged indifferently and then hurried away, presumably to try to 'help' someone else. "Your loss."

As he watched her leave, Donghyuck only hoped that, unlike him, whoever she chose as her next victim actually enjoyed having a dirty makeup brush forcibly embedded in their eye socket. He shuddered, brushing the thought away and turning his attention back to the mirror in front of him. This wouldn't be the first time he'd done his own makeup for a performance—although it had admittedly been a while...

"You look like you need an assist, my friend." For a split second, Donghyuck tensed, ready to flee from yet another threat to the paper-thin personal space he'd fought so hard to manifest. Then Renjun's lilting tone registered in his brain, mercifully familiar and sounding entirely unbothered by the chaos around them backstage, and he sagged into his chair.