〈 I Wish You Were Mine ╱ MarkHyuck 〉 ✓

서른여덟

Donghyuck didn't know when the air between them shifted.
Maybe it was when Nakyung started waiting for him outside their classroom. Maybe it was the way she brought him snacks, laughing too easily at his bad jokes. Maybe it was just that she was there—soft, warm, uncomplicated.

And Minhyung wasn't. Not in the same way anymore.

But the problem with trying to replace one warmth with another was that the body knew the difference.

At night, Donghyuck lay on his bed, phone glowing against his face. The dorm was quiet except for the hum of the electric fan. A notification blinked:

Minhyung: Where are you?

Donghyuck stared at the message for too long. His thumb hovered above the keyboard. A reply sat at the tip of his tongue—something easy, something simple. Here. Want to hang out?

But he didn't send it. He locked the screen. Tossed the phone onto the pillow beside him.

And then, after a full minute, he picked it back up again, staring at the notification as if it were a lit fuse.

He wanted to reply. God, he wanted to. But every word he thought of sounded too heavy, too dangerous. So he did nothing, and the silence between them stretched longer, heavier.

The next day on campus, Donghyuck was with Nakyung when he heard it. Minhyung's laugh.
It was faint, carried across the courtyard like wind chimes in the distance, but Donghyuck froze mid-step.

That laugh was muscle memory. He could hear it in his sleep, could picture Minhyung's face without even looking. It had always been his favorite sound—bright, unguarded, unashamed.

Now, hearing it from far away, Donghyuck's chest ached in a way he didn't understand. He stopped walking, but Nakyung tugged on his sleeve, pulling him along. He let her. He always let her.

Sometimes, he tried to convince himself that he liked her. That the way her hand curled around his wrist meant something, that the bouquet he bought for her on Valentine's Day wasn't a lie.

She was kind. She listened. She looked at him like he was worth something.

But at night, when he closed his eyes, it wasn't Nakyung's face that came to him.

It was Minhyung's.

The memory of Minhyung's hand steadying his when he was nervous before a presentation. The way Minhyung always saved him a seat in class without saying anything, as if it were their unspoken rule. The way Minhyung used to look at him—like he was both problem and solution, gravity and air.

And lately, Donghyuck had noticed things. Subtle, almost invisible things.

The way Minhyung's smile didn't reach his eyes anymore.
The way he kept glancing at Donghyuck and Nakyung when he thought no one was watching.
The way silence pressed heavier between them than words ever could.

Donghyuck noticed. He always noticed. He just didn't know what to do with it.

One night, after Nakyung had fallen asleep on his shoulder in the rented room, Donghyuck slipped away quietly. He walked out to the balcony, the city's neon lights buzzing below, the cold air biting at his skin.

He pulled out his phone again. The chat with Minhyung glared back at him—dozens of unanswered messages, questions left hanging, invitations ignored.

His thumb hovered again. He typed three words:
I miss you.

For a moment, he let himself feel it—the rush in his chest, the way his heartbeat stuttered at the thought of sending it. But then, fear clawed back. What if it broke everything? What if it wasn't what Minhyung wanted to hear anymore?

He erased the words.

Locked the phone.

And whispered into the night, so quietly even the wind almost didn't hear:

"Why does it still feel like you're mine?"

The campus never felt too loud for Nakyung until she started walking beside Donghyuck. His laughter carried farther than anyone else's, bright, shameless, like the sound could split the afternoon open. People turned their heads — sometimes out of admiration, sometimes out of curiosity — but always because Donghyuck had that pull. And Nakyung, against her own will, found herself being tugged into that light.

She liked him. That was the simplest truth. His humor was the kind that loosened her chest; his eyes had a way of softening whenever he looked at her too long. She had no plans of falling for him, but she did — quickly, quietly, like stepping into water without realizing how deep it would get.

But there was something else.

Every time Minhyung was there, the air turned heavy.

It wasn't anything visible. Donghyuck didn't cling to him the way he did to her now, didn't speak with the same easy sweetness. But there was silence in the room whenever Minhyung's eyes lingered too long, whenever Donghyuck's laughter faltered for a split second as if remembering something only the two of them knew. Nakyung felt it in her chest, like walking into a place where every picture frame still carried another name.

She hated that she noticed. She hated that she couldn't stop noticing.

When Donghyuck brushed her hair behind her ear, she wondered if his hand had once done that to Minhyung.
When he smiled at her across a crowded table, she swore she caught Minhyung's gaze stiffen, darting away like the sun was too bright to look at.
When she kissed him — that first kiss outside the convenience store, soft and tentative — she felt the burn of someone watching, and she hated how her joy curdled into guilt.

She told herself: This is real. He chose me. He's here.

And yet.

There were moments when Donghyuck's silence stretched too long, when his phone buzzed and he paused, thumb hovering over a name, only to shove it back into his pocket. She didn't need to ask who it was. She already knew.

Minhyung.

She liked Donghyuck. She wanted to believe it was enough. But every time she saw the weight in Minhyung's eyes, every time she felt the history she could never rewrite pressing against the present, Nakyung realized love was not a fair game.

It wasn't a triangle. It was a collision course.