Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 52

"Hyung?"

As he poked his head cautiously around the door, peering into the darkened drama studio, Donghyuck wondered if Dejun had changed his mind. He didn't think it was likely that he'd forgotten—not in the few short hours since they'd last spoken—but he wouldn't blame the senior if he'd decided not to spend his fleeting hour of peace and quiet in Donghyuck's company.

"Hyung, are you in here?" He was already turning to leave, wondering if he might be able to catch up with Mark if he took a few tactical shortcuts on the way to the cafeteria, when the soft click of a door opening somewhere beyond the silence gave him pause.

"In the back, Hyuck-ah."

Turning to face the inside of the studio again, Donghyuck realised that, where there had previously been nothing but blackness, there was now a tiny sliver of light spilling out from a crack in the wall to one side of the small rehearsal stage. It looked to be coming from a room that he'd always assumed was a storage cupboard, but there now appeared to be soft music emanating from that vicinity, so he figured that was where the disembodied voice had come from.

Crossing the studio quickly, he soon found himself peering into yet another room, this one far smaller and lit from above by a single filament bulb, hanging from a thin cord overhead. There wasn't much in the way of furniture within, save for a small desk and a few chairs dotted about, but that wasn't what caught Donghyuck's eye. What did was Dejun, folded almost in half as he sat slumped in a chair against the far wall, and Hendery, curled in on himself on the hardwood floor at Dejun's feet.

"Hi, Dejun-hyung. Kunghang-ssi." Offering an overly enthusiastic greeting seemed a little gauche, considering the obvious tension coating every surface in the room—a room that Donghyuck strongly suspected was the Drama Society office, now that he'd seen it, but hadn't known about before today—so he offered the pair a small bob of the head instead, as he discarded his bag by the door. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's fine." Dejun glanced down at Hendery as he spoke, drawing Donghyuck's attention to the hand he had curled protectively around the other boy's shoulder. He looked like he was debating whether to remove it or not, staring just a little longer at his own fingers than was socially acceptable, but then seemed to decide against it. "Come on in. Make yourself—I mean, obviously, make yourself comfortable. This is your office as much as it is mine, after all, even if you never come in here anymore."

The senior made very deliberate eye contact with him as he spoke—a shiver passing up Donghyuck's spine at the keen intellect in Dejun's gaze as they stared each other down—but he didn't say anything further. Just watched as Donghyuck selected a seat from the eclectic collection, a stiff-backed wooden chair with a garish pink cushion, and waited for him to settle.

"So, uh, you said you wanted to discuss some ideas for the musical?" Surprised that they were jumping into things so quickly, all the very real suggestions he'd spent his last hour of class coming up with fled Donghyuck's brain in a hurry, leaving him with nothing but tumbleweed and subterfuge. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as he frantically scrambled for brain cells, hoping Dejun wouldn't immediately spot the lie in his face, before finally managing to manifest a logical thought.

"Yeah, that's right." Donghyuck glanced down distractedly at Hendery as he began to speak. The boy still hadn't looked up from where he was slowly tracing grains of wood between his legs with his thumb, and he didn't look to be remotely interested in their conversation, so Donghyuck quickly turned his attention back to Dejun. "Um. Well to start with, I was thinking that we need to completely rethink the blocking for the climax in Act 1. The freshmen are really struggling with the cues in that final scene."

Even if he hadn't ever intended to bring it up on this particular day, this was something that had actually been festering in the back of Donghyuck's mind for a while, so it didn't take much for him and Dejun to immerse themselves in a detailed discussion of blocking and cue markings for the musical. As they talked, Donghyuck couldn't help but notice the way that both seniors visibly relaxed, Hendery leaning further and further into Dejun's thigh as he let their conversation wash over him.