best friend ꒱ markhyuck

six

It had, in fact, not been a piece of cake.

Donghyuck felt like he had looked at more tween and teen articles about "signs someone has a crush on you!" than any normal person would ever look at in a lifetime, and still none of them offered him anything that wasn't super basic and generic.

"They smile at you", "they make eye contact with you", "they initiate physical affection"— the more he read, the more Donghyuck felt like pulling his hair out. Of fucking course Mark did all of those things, they had been best friends for the past ten years.

In his desperation, he tried specifically searching for "how do you know if your best friend has a crush on you", but again he came up empty handed. It was difficult for him to figure out what Mark might be doing that was just him being a good friend, versus him actually having any romantic feelings towards Donghyuck. Was Mark especially attentive to him because he liked him, or was it just because he knew Donghyuck well enough to know he needed a little extra attention sometimes? Was Mark protective of him in a boyfriend way, or in a "this kid is like my little brother because we grew up together" kind of way? At the end of the day, Donghyuck didn't have a fucking clue, and eventually he decided it was time to give up on all the stupid internet articles and try to look at it from a different perspective.

What did he do that had made his feelings so obvious to his other friends? The main component he was able to pinpoint was his jealousy, the way he got jealous over not only Mark's girlfriends, but also the other boys in their friend group. Okay, that's easy enough, right? I can try making Mark jealous.

So the next day, he walked into the lunchroom towards their usual table, but instead of sitting next to Mark, he opted to instead sit next to Jaemin on the other side of the table.

His sudden seat change seemed to confuse everyone, especially Mark, who looked up at his best friend across the table and gave him a questioning look. Donghyuck tried not to feel too insecure with all the attention suddenly directed at him, and instead shuffled closer to Jaemin—who looked the most confused out of all of them.

"Whatcha doing, Hyuckie? You always sit next to Mark at lunch," Renjun chimed in, with a teasing lilt to his tone that didn't go unnoticed by Donghyuck. The brunette shot his friend a warning glare that he hoped was subtle and wasn't too obvious to everyone else.

"I just wanted to sit next to Jaeminnie today," Donghyuck huffed, laying his head on Jaemin's shoulder and hugging his arm. Jeno, who was sat on Jaemin's other side, was staring at him like he was some sort of alien. Mark looked nothing short of bewildered, glancing between Jaemin and Donghyuck repeatedly as if the answer to Donghyuck's sudden shift in behavior would appear in thin air between the two of them. Renjun was next to Mark, trying and failing to hide an amused grin behind the palm of his hand.

"Mark, what the hell did you do to him?" Jaemin suddenly said accusingly, startling everyone at the table. Jaemin was looking down at Donghyuck with concern clearly written all over his face, and Mark's eyes immediately went wide, his face turning pink.

"I didn't do anything! At least, not that I know of..." he trailed off purposefully, looking down at his best friend, "Hyuckie, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?"

Donghyuck flushed, closing his eyes and wishing that the ground would just swallow him whole. He had no idea his dumbass friends were going to make such a big deal out of this. Was he really that clingy towards Mark that even just sitting next to someone else was enough to make his entire friend group think he'd lost his damn mind?

He slowly pulled away from Jaemin, folding his hands in his lap and shaking his head, staring down at the table. "No Hyung, you didn't do anything wrong, I'm not mad."