Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 10

Still baffled by what had just happened between him and Jaehyun, Donghyuck retreated to the living room. He didn't bother pressing play on the show he'd been watching, staring at the static figures on screen instead, as though they might have the answers to his problems emblazoned on their foreheads.

Unsurprisingly, they did not.

When his mom arrived home a half-hour later, she found him curled in on himself on the sofa, arms wrapped around his knees. She was initially concerned and felt for his forehead, but he reassured her that he no longer felt sick. When he mentioned that his brother had arrived, she smiled sadly and nodded. She said nothing more on the matter, but it was obvious that their distance was not a new phenomenon.

"Do you want to eat in your room?" she asked sometime later, the enticing scent of something delicious cooking wafting in behind her as she opened the door. She sounded resigned, as though she knew the answer to the question already and that it would upset her. If only Donghyuck was clued into whatever it was that everyone else in the house already knew.

"Downstairs is fine," he said quickly, pushing up off the sofa. Her eyes narrowed in surprise as she followed his movement, watching as he tugged his hoodie down and smiled weakly at her. "I feel much better now and it smells amazing."

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, walking towards her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. He resisted the urge to flinch, letting himself relax into her embrace instead. "Is that a problem?" He leant back a little to look her in the eyes and saw that she was doing the same. She patted his cheek softly.

"Of course not. I'm just surprised." She smiled and swiped her thumb just under his eye, smoothing out the dark circles he knew were present. He wasn't physically tired, not after today, but the stresses of the situation had been taking its toll. "You don't usually--" She hesitated. "Not if your brother is home."

"What happened between us?" Donghyuck had texted Renjun to ask him, sometime after Jaehyun had disappeared into his room, but Renjun had been as clueless as he was. He could only hope that his mother had some insight, being closer to the situation. "When did we get like this?"

"I don't know." She swallowed thickly, blinking back the single tear that brimmed in the corner of one eye. "You were always so close when you were kids. You idolised him and then one day, about three years, you just stopped speaking. Neither of you would ever tell me what happened, but it wasn't the same between you after that." She was crying by this point, and Donghyuck felt his heart break for her a little bit. He didn't know this woman really, but the instinct to protect her was as strong as it would have been for his real parents. She was hurting and it was his fault. He tightened his arms around her and let her drop her head forward onto his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, mom." He had to find a way to fix this, for himself and Jaehyun but also for her. She deserved better than this, better than the person her son had become, somewhere along the way. He couldn't fix that Donghyuck, but he could try to be the son she deserved while he was here.

--

Dinner was--awkward. He sat opposite Jaehyun, with their mom acting as a buffer between them at the head of the table. The food was amazing, as he'd come to expect while living in this house, but the conversation had been stilted and awkward. Jaehyun spoke to their mother, chatting about college life and some sports event he'd been to with his friends. Donghyuck told her about his day, and what he had going on at school the next day. They both kept the tone light and casual, as though everything was normal, but neither could miss the dried, streaked tears on her cheeks and the way that Jaehyun pointedly refused to even glance at Donghyuck. Neither spoke a word directly addressed to the other and, as soon as he finished eating, Jaehyun stood and left the room.