Chapter Text
☁
one hundred twenty-seven days after
“are you sure you have everything?”
“yes, mom.”
“your laptop?”
“it’s already in the car.”
“your meds?”
“you put them in my bag yourself.”
“don’t forget to take them, alright?”
donghyuck sighs, but he can’t really be annoyed with his mother. by now he knows she means well. and it is his first time in four months that he leaves his home for more than a doctor’s appointment.
“yes, mom. i have a reminder on my phone and you told mark like three times already.”
mark nods beside him, hand still on the car door.
his mom stares at them both, still worried, but eventually she nods.
“okay. i trust you.”
he’s not sure whether she means him or mark, but either way could be true. she puts her hand on mark’s shoulder and pulls him into a hug. she must say something to him that donghyuck can’t hear, because mark gives a short laugh and nods.
his mom then turns to him and gives him a hug so tight it almost takes his breath away. out of the corner of his eye, he can see mark getting into the driver’s seat already.
“take care of yourself,” she whispers into his ear. “if anything happens, call me. we’ll come get you.”
he nods. it’s weird to think of how only a few weeks ago he would have doubted his mother’s words immediately, but now? he can see himself believing her.
“i know,” he says. “i love you.”
she squeezes him even tighter.
“i love you, too. you always have a place here,” she tells him. “this is your home.”
once they separate, he sees that she has matching tear track on her cheeks, just like him. she laughs at that and wipes his away.
“go on, now. you’ll be late.”
he gives her one last smile before rounding the car and getting into the passenger seat.
mark turns the engine on and they pull out of the driveway in silence. he follows his mother’s figure in the mirror until she’s nothing but a small dot in the distance. only then does he exhale and turn to mark.
mark returns his gaze immediately. he smiles.
“alright?”
donghyuck nods.
“yeah. alright.”
mark grins and turns back to the street.
“good,” he says. “let the road trip begin.”
donghyuck snorts, but he’s not sure he can hide his excitement nonetheless.
“i’m not sure the drive back to college counts as a real road trip.”
“a road trip is journey made by car,” mark counters like he expected this answer. “are we not in a car?”
donghyuck rolls his eyes but answers anyway.
“we are.”
“and are we not on a journey?”
“fine. we are on a road trip, i guess.”
mark laughs.
“damn right we are.”
they drive in silence for a while. donghyuck keeps watching the roads of their hometown pass by them. the past months he’s been here have been the most stressful and at the same time calming days he’s had in years. he felt like he’d been stuck in his childhood but in a body that didn’t fit inside the walls that had shaped him. and yet, he felt like he’s evolved still.
he’ll miss this town, but he’s also glad to be gone again.
to be back in school. in a flat with mark.
turning his gaze from outside back to mark, he can’t help but smile.
he had been so sure that mark would hate him, but they’ve gotten even closer than before. just as they had been as kids, as teenagers.
he can’t even imagine going a day without talking to the other now.
“can you believe you’ll be done with your bucket list at the end of the day?”
the thought is relieving, but not in the way it would have been half a year ago.
he won’t lie and say that he sometimes isn’t thinking how much easier it would be to just disappear rather than go back to school and start the same classes all over again. to face his fellow students on campus yet again, to go back to the classrooms he’d sworn to never return to. but somehow, there’s also the feeling of excitement there (among a lot of anxiety, of course). it feels like a new beginning. like the donghyuck from last semester was a whole other person.
and he’s pretty sure mark won’t leave him out of his sight for the foreseeable future, even though he says he will. donghyuck doesn’t really mind, not when it’s mark.
“we won’t have to be back on campus until saturday night, right?”
donghyuck nods.
“yeah, classes start on monday, but i have my first shift at the bakery on sunday morning.”
jaemin had gotten him the job at the bakery he worked at a few weeks ago, after he had a long talk with both his parents and his therapist. they’d agreed that it would be a good thing to get back to a schedule immediately after starting school. he can admit that he’s quite excited to work with jaemin, as well.
“okay, that’s three days. we have plenty of time.”
mark seems happy with that. suspiciously happy. donghyuck furrows his brows.
“time for what?”
mark just glances at him sideways and smirks.
“you’ll see.”
donghyuck is still suspicious, and his face must show it, because mark simply laughs.
“don’t you trust me?”
donghyuck simply huffs at that. does he?
life is mostly a rollercoaster nowadays. he never knows when he has a good day or a bad day. sometimes he relies on his medication to keep him afloat, and other times someone else has to remind him to actually do something with his days. sometimes he wants to give up and start all over again with a new notebook – and other times he sees his little sister get so excited over a new song release that he wants to cry from how happy he is and wonders how he could ever wish to die in the first place.
at the end of the day, though, he knows he can always rely on mark to pick up his phone.
so –
“yeah, i do.”
maybe he’s said it quieter than intended, because mark’s eyes turn soft again. he holds out his hand and donghyuck grabs it, intertwining their fingers.
“good,” mark says and squeezes his hand.
“good,” donghyuck repeats and squeezes back.
they drive into the city, the sun rising in front of them.
the end