Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 6

After Donghyuck had not quite so elegantly ugly snot-cried all over Renjun again, he'd excused himself to freshen up in the customer bathroom. When he returned, his thoughtful friend had ordered coffee and more ice cream. Neither of them mentioned that eating dessert at 10:30 am was a strange choice, and they tucked in with enthusiasm. A comfortable hush reigned at the table for a good few minutes, allowing Renjun to think and Donghyuck to attempt to drown himself in sugar.

"So, I think there are two possibilities here," Renjun finally announced, as he watched the other boy scrape at the base of the sundae glass with his spoon. A grunt of acknowledgement told him that Donghyuck was listening, so he continued. "First, this was an accident, a random act of fate that chose you out of everyone in the universe." The other boy frowned, abandoning his spoon with a clatter as he stared up at Renjun.

"I think that's highly unlikely." Renjun was almost certain of the truth in his words. Random chance wasn't logical, and something told him that Hyuck needed him to be the logical one in this situation. He had a level of detachment from this that made his thought processes more objective, and he was doing his best to play the part that his best friend needed him to play. "The statistical probability of everything you've told me happening at random is so close to zero that I think we can discard the idea entirely."

"You sure?" Donghyuck examined his face, looking for signs of a lie.

Renjun fought to keep his expression relaxed and appropriately blank. Inside, his thoughts were churning at a million miles a minute, as all the possibilities and probabilities fought for space. He was convinced that they could figure this out, but a not-so-small part of him didn't really want to, if he was honest. He liked this Hyuck, and he didn't want him to disappear again. Renjun had been alone, lost for so long. He wasn't alone anymore and he wanted things to stay that way, but he knew that wasn't fair on the boy currently watching him like he held the secrets to the universe. This wasn't Hyuck's home and, although it would hurt Renjun, he had to do what he could to help him. There was really no other choice, as his friend.

"Yeah." Renjun shot Donghyuck a reassuring smile, heart leaping as the younger boy's face lit up in response. "Absolutely."

"So what's the second option?" Donghyuck asked curiously.

"Ah. So that's a bit more complicated." Renjun quickly leaned down to retrieve his messenger bag from the floor, pulling out a small notebook and pushing it towards Hyuck across the table. "I have a few ideas, but I need your help."

Flipping open the ring-bound book to the first empty page, he dug around in the bottom of the large bag until he found a pen, passing that over as well. Tapping the pen against the lined sheet absently, Donghyuck waited for instructions obediently. Renjun hoped that one of his ideas sparked something in Hyuck, or in the mysterious forces of the universe. They were playing with things that he couldn't even begin to comprehend. This had to work.

"While I run through some ideas, I need you to make a list for me." Renjun watched as Donghyuck popped the lid and promptly stuck the blunt end of the pen in his mouth. He stifled a snort of mild disgust and then pointed at the top line on the page. "You mentioned your members, right? Since they--I mean, we--seem to be the common factor here, I think that we need to focus on them to figure out the rest."

"You want me to make a list?" Donghyuck asked, not sounding entirely convinced, but he had already started listing names in large, blocky characters. Renjun couldn't read well upside down, but he could make out his own name in the third position, below a name that Hyuck had written out carefully in both Korean and English.

"Perfect," Renjun mused, running a hand through his hair. He kept one eye on the growing list of names, as he pulled another sheet of folded paper from the back pocket of his jeans. Smoothing it out, he ran his index finger over the first bullet point listed on it, before launching into the monologue he'd worked on late into the night.