〈 I Wish You Were Mine ╱ MarkHyuck 〉 ✓

여섯

The night air had settled over the city like a thick, dark quilt, and Minhyung walked home on trembling legs, each step a silent echo of the chaos that had just passed. His chest burned, ribs aching from blows that had been meant to intimidate, to dominate—but none of it mattered. Nothing had mattered except the small, fragile weight of Donghyuck cradled in his arms earlier. Even now, the memory of that limp, trusting body haunted him. It was a gift. A risk. A promise that he had carried and survived.

The apartment door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded louder than any siren. He leaned against it, gasping, blood dripping faintly from a split lip, a gash on his forehead stinging with each heartbeat. The white walls offered no comfort—only silence. He pressed a hand to his face, trying to push away the memory of those faceless figures, their laughter slicing the night like broken glass. The echo of their taunts and the violence of their fists replayed endlessly in his mind, looping, relentless.

He sank to the floor, letting his body collapse in a heap. The pain was physical, yes, but the ache inside was deeper. Fear, guilt, love—all tangled together, suffocating, pulling him under. He had promised Donghyuck he'd stay. That he'd protect him. And he had. But at what cost?

"Don't die yet," he whispered into the emptiness, voice cracked. "Not now... not yet. You can't leave me, not yet. I promised. I promised him."

Tears slipped past his closed eyelids, warm and unwelcome. He didn't fight them. He hadn't fought so many things tonight, and maybe that was the difference—letting himself break just enough to remember he was human, fragile, alive.

Meanwhile, somewhere across the city, Donghyuck lay in his small room, the blindfold still snug across his eyes. The world felt quiet, almost too quiet. The adrenaline had ebbed, leaving only the thrum of his pulse and the echo of his own shallow breaths. His fingers curled over the bedsheets, clutching the fabric like a lifeline.

He didn't want to move. He didn't want to think. But every nerve screamed, his mind replaying the sudden assault—the masked figures, the flashes of violence, the surreal weight of fear that had wrapped itself around him so tight he could barely breathe. And yet... there was Minhyung. There had always been Minhyung. Even in the haze of terror, even when his own body had betrayed him with trembling legs and stuttering breath, the thought of Minhyung had been there. Solid, unshakable, a tether he could not sever.

He lifted a hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes. The blindfold felt thick now, stifling, but he didn't dare remove it. He trusted the unseen, the voice that had whispered against his ear with gentle urgency, the hands that had guided him through a storm.

When he finally sat up, the room smelled faintly of antiseptic from the small wound on his hand where he had scraped against the concrete earlier. He could feel the faint sting in his side, the ache that would likely linger for days. But it was secondary—tiny, almost irrelevant—compared to the tremor that had settled in his chest, the one that would not subside so easily.

He thought of Minhyung. Of how he had thrown himself into danger without hesitation, without a second thought. The bloodied hands, the bruised ribs, the silent pain. And yet he had carried Donghyuck without complaint, cradled him as if he were porcelain. As if he were the most precious thing in the world.

A soft buzz startled him. His phone lit up. The screen flashed with a single name. "Minhyung."

Donghyuck's fingers hovered above it, hesitant. His heart hammering in his chest, not with fear this time, but with an urgent need. He didn't know what he would say. He didn't know if the words would come out as apology, thanks, or confession. Maybe all three, maybe none. His chest tightened, and he pressed the green icon, holding the phone close like it was a lifeline.