Work Text:
- ҉ -
[UPDATE] Wedding Plans for NCT Mark and NCT Haechan? Idol Soulmate Couple Spotted in a Seoul Jewelry Store
[ 502 / -124] omg so romantic
[ 237 / -375] Aren’t they a little young for that??
[ 943 / -286] this is so stupid these pics are literally from when they got the dream rings you can see where they cropped out renjun
- ҉ -
It’s been…a lot.
Going public with the whole soulmate thing had thrown NCT off-balance in a way that Mark, PR meeting attendee extraordinaire, could have never foreseen. If he thought that the press had been excessive when Donghyuck’s soulmark had been haphazardly revealed, making him the youngest Korean celebrity in history to have found their soulmate, he had no words, no way to adequately express what it was like when they revealed that Donghyuck’s mystery soulmate was him.
As the first idol soulmate couple literally ever, every news station, paparazzi, variety show, radio host, gossip rag, and then some wanted a piece of them. And pieces they got, as SM poured all its energy into dragging him and Hyuck to and from any and every schedule they could get their hands on. Mark thinks that he’s filmed as many media appearances in the last five weeks that he did in his first five comebacks combined. They hadn’t had a meeting about it yet, but he also knew that they were working on a proposal for a soulmate mini album, a duo unit with just him and Hyuck, potentially pushing back both 127 and Dream comebacks, but that was a whole ‘nother bridge that he was not prepared to even think about crossing until they got to it.
And on top of all of that, well, there’s also this teeny, tiny new problem that Mark has, and it’s that Renjun made all of Dream get matching rings, and Mark went with Donghyuck to get his, and now he knows Donghyuck’s ring size, but you know, it’s fine. It’s totally fine.
…
It’s 9, by the way. Not that Mark’s thinking about it.
Anyway, his real problem that he should be dealing with instead of thinking about Donghyuck’s size 9 fingers is that Donghyuck keeps doing this thing where he calls him random pet names during schedules because he knows that it flusters him. Which, to be fair, is not a whole lot different from how he behaved before they went public with everything, but now, there aren’t any other members to diffuse the situation, and it’s just them and the cast of Knowing Bros, all looking at Mark expectantly after Donghyuck had responded with a breezy, “I don’t know, darling, what do you think?” to their question of, “So, when’s the wedding?”
Mark drags a hand down his probably very red face as he says, “Dude, stop doing that!” to Donghyuck because that’s a question he’s absolutely not going to answer, and also, he’s never been very good at tempering his natural reactions. Donghyuck erupts into giggles and expertly diverts the attention of the studio onto a different topic of conversation with a joke in that way of his that Mark, though he’s done hundreds of schedules side by side with Donghyuck, has never quite learned how to replicate.
Mark doesn’t get off that easy, though. Kim Heechul eyes Mark when the attention is drawn back to him as he leans forward with his elbows propped up on his desk, chin in his hands. His sleeves are rolled up to brazenly display his usually-hidden soulmark, a delicate looking snowflake inked onto the back of his right forearm, for this rather unoriginally dubbed, “Soulmate Special,” episode of Knowing Bros. He says, “Mark, it’s clear that Haechan is much funnier than you,” and earns a few snickers from some of the other cast members. “Has that put a strain on your relationship?”
Mark can only laugh. “Why would it? It just means I get to laugh all the time. If anything, he should be bothered, not me.”
“Someone has to be the better half,” Donghyuck says, shrugging
Mark can’t stop from smiling dopily at his better half. “Can’t argue with that.”
After the filming is over, Mark can’t stop himself from collapsing into the first piece of furniture he sees that vaguely resembles a chair. Not that Mark doesn’t love Donghyuck, because he does, very much so, but constantly flaunting their relationship takes up more of his emotional energy than any song and dance he’s ever done for NCT. It’s been over a month and the schedules keep pouring in from all directions. It’s exhausting. Mark takes a few minutes to just breathe.
Donghyuck sits down next to him an undetermined amount of time later. His shirt is unbuttoned at the top, their sunny soulmark on full display as it has been for the majority of their couple appearances these past few weeks. “What are you thinking so hard about?” Donghyuck asks, poking at the wrinkles on Mark’s face where his eyebrows are drawn together.
“What if we never do a schedule alone again? What if it’s like this forever?” Mark asks, blurting out his worst, most intimate thoughts in an instant. He curses himself for never having the sense of self-preservation stop himself from spilling his guts at Donghyuck’s feet the second he asks.
Donghyuck’s smile slips, and he looks at Mark steadily, a hint of challenge in his eyes. “Then we never do a schedule alone again, and it’s like this forever,” he says with a small shrug.
Mark almost laughs. “Are you okay with that?” he asks honestly.
There’s a hard look on Donghyuck’s face. “You said that it would be worth it to tell the world that you’re my soulmate no matter what happened. Do you regret it already?”
“What? No, I—” Mark cuts himself off and looks around at the Knowing Bros staff milling about before getting up and pulling Hyuck into a corner of the studio that’s at least somewhat shielded from the eyes of anyone who isn’t looking. He meets the steel in Donghyuck’s expression and tries to pour as much sincerity into his own as he possibly can. “Hyuck, I will never regret being your soulmate, okay? It doesn’t matter if nobody knows, or if the whole world knows, and we never get a day of peace again for the rest of our lives. No matter what happens, that’s the one thing that I will never be sorry for, ever.”
Donghyuck sighs, and Mark can see the fight bleeding out of him. He rubs at his eyes, and his makeup smears, orange glitter from his eyelids finding its way onto his cheeks and into his eyelashes. “Right, I know. I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”
Mark brings his hand up to Donghyuck’s face to wipe his thumb under his lashes in an attempt to clean up the mess he made of their makeup artists’ hard work, but he only manages to make it look a little worse. Donghyuck looks up at Mark through smudged brown eyeliner, and even though his smile is tired, his eyes crinkle at the corners, and he’s just as beautiful as the day Mark first met him. “I love you,” he says, and Mark, well.
Mark cannot wait to marry him.
- ҉ -
After Donghyuck’s publicly released a statement about his soulmark, but before their big VLive couple reveal, the worst part for Mark about the whole media circus had been the speculation. Donghyuck announcing that he found his soulmate at 14, the same age he’d been when he joined SM, had made the internet go absolutely wild with theories. There had been rumors that everyone at SM and their mother was his soulmate, and Donghyuck had found it all extremely funny. He kept sending the articles to the NCT group chats. There was, “Is One of the Members of EXO NCT Haechan’s Soulmate?” and, “Some Fans are Claiming NCT Haechan’s Soulmate is His Roommate NCT Johnny”, but most memorably there was, “Forbidden Love? NCT Haechan’s Soulmate is NCT Doyoung”.
Donghyuck had found that last one so funny that he did a dramatic reading of it aloud during practice and laughed until he was sobbing. Doyoung didn’t talk to him for two days.
Mark knew that it was stupid to be affected, to feel jealous when no one in those articles was actually dating Donghyuck, but at the time, he couldn’t help it. Somewhere between his id and his ego, he couldn’t take the idea of people thinking that someone else was dating Donghyuck, even if some of the Dispatch rumors were so obviously fake that it was unlikely anyone actually bought them. When a photo of the two of them walking from the SM Entertainment building to a car out front with the rest of 127, Mark pulling Donghyuck behind him as the paparazzi surrounding them started to close in, was posted with an article entitled, “The Speculation Continues: Could NCT Mark Be NCT Haechan’s Soulmate?” he was inordinately pleased. Johnny still hasn’t stopped making fun of the smug look on his face that he couldn’t stop from making when he first saw it.
So, yeah, the worst part for Mark had been his own jealousy, but the worst part for Donghyuck had been being physically attacked at the airport, and Mark feels sick for thinking for even one second about his stupid fucking ego. The pictures of fans grabbing at Hyuck, pulling him into the fray, while their staff shoved their way through the crowds of people to get to him were all he could see on the internet for days. They never really talked about it after, but maybe they should have. It was probably a little naïve of Mark to think that Donghyuck seemed to have miraculously forgotten about it the instant it was all over. Today, they’re making their way through Incheon with more staff and bodyguards for just the two of them than there had been for all of NCT 127, before.
Donghyuck’s grip on Mark’s hand is so tight that he thinks he might bruise.
Mark turns to look at him, but Hyuck’s looking directly forward, back ramrod straight, and Mark, feeling anger and grief rising in his throat like bile, doesn’t know what to say. It’s fairly obvious to him that he needs to do something, so Mark does the only he can think to do, which is talk incessantly about whatever is passing through his mind in a feeble attempt to distract Donghyuck from reliving what is probably one of the most traumatic moments of his life.
“—And then I told Ten, ‘Bro, you cannot be serious,’ but he totally was. I, like, don’t even know how WinWin can survive a day in the WayV dorm, but I guess he and YangYang have some sort of eternal bro bond that makes it worth it even if Ten is constantly trying to pull pranks that could literally kill you. I mean, I don’t know, maybe Ten was exaggerating? He sounded pretty serious though. The knives, dude, like, I really can’t imagine it. If he wasn’t worried about actually killing someone, you’d think he’d at least be worried about hurting his cats, you know? So then, I texted WinWin because I couldn’t just let Ten try to kill whoever it was who next used their kitchen, but—”
“Mark?” Donghyuck says with surprising steadiness for someone who is still shaking a little when they’ve sat down in the VIP waiting area, their staff dispersing to do whatever it is they do before it’s time to board their flight.
“Yeah?”
“You can shut up now.” Donghyuck says it as if he’s not very affected, but Mark, fluent in Donghyuck after all these years, can read the “thank you” hiding behind the curl of his lips.
“Okay,” Mark says. He tries to untangle his hand from Donghyuck’s as slowly as he can, but it’s hard to do, considering he lost all of the feeling in his fingers several minutes ago.
Donghyuck seems to realize and finally releases him from his death grip, and Mark can’t stop himself from massaging his left hand a bit, willing circulation to return. Donghyuck gives him a rueful smile as a silent apology and reaches out, wrapping his fingers around Mark’s left palm to help.
Size 9 fingers, Mark’s stupid brain supplies, unhelpfully.
- ҉ -
Is it weird to go and look at rings by himself? Will he be recognized? They arrived in Tokyo last night for their Soulmate Tour™, as Hyuck as taken to calling their couple schedules, so he’s definitely less likely to be photographed here, but how would he get away from Donghyuck? It was easy to slip out to spend an afternoon alone when he was out in a foreign country with all of 127, but with just him and Donghyuck, it would be a lot trickier. They had a specific soulmate section in the jewelry store where they picked up the Dream rings. Do other stores have those, too? Would Donghyuck want something like that or something more classic?
“I can hear you thinking from way over there.” Donghyuck’s voice breaks Mark out of his own thoughts, and he rolls over from where he’d been brooding in bed to see Donghyuck dressed in one of Mark’s old t-shirts, toweling off his hair in the doorway of the bathroom in their hotel room.
“Just thinking about how much I love you,” Mark says, which is not exactly a lie.
“God, you’re so full of shit,” Donghyuck laughs, throwing his wet towel onto the other bed that they’ve designated for luggage and, apparently, dirty laundry. That’s one thing about going on an international tour to literally promote their own relationship; they don’t have to put up a pretense anymore about pretending they’re not dating. Donghyuck gets under the covers and Mark scoots closer to him, resting his head on his chest. Donghyuck hums and pulls his arm out from underneath Mark to wrap it around him.
“Okay fine, I was thinking about how to get away from you for even 10 minutes tomorrow, but I really don’t think it’s possible, so I’ve resigned myself to having to look at your face all day again.”
Donghyuck shoves Mark off of him. “I was going to let you be the little spoon because I was feeling generous, but now I’m not anymore,” he says, turning away so his back is facing Mark.
“No, what? You always make me be the big spoon!” Mark pouts, pulling at Donghyuck’s shoulder, but he doesn’t budge.
“Well, that’s because I’m shorter!”
Mark snorts. “By what? Two centimeters?” he says, but Donghyuck doesn’t respond. “Please,” Mark whines.
“Okay fine, turn over, you big baby,” Donghyuck says, rolling over and pushing Mark onto his side. He presses his chest against Mark’s back, and Mark is happier about it than, objectively, he probably should be.
“Yay!” Mark cheers, and Donghyuck laughs into the nape of Mark’s neck. Mark can’t help but giggle in return.
“Maybe, if you pretend to go to the bathroom and then just make a run for it in the middle of the photoshoot tomorrow, you can escape from me and make off with some designer clothes at the same time,” Donghyuck suggests while he works on tangling their legs together until he’s satisfied with the result.
“Ooh, that’s a good idea. I can buy a train ticket to Kyoto at the station and be out of the city before they even know I’m gone.”
Donghyuck yawns, loudly, like he does when he’s really tired. “Just remember to take me with you.”
“Hm, but the whole point is to get away from you, though.”
“Yeah,” Donghyuck says slowly, “but think about how much more fun you’d have playing hooky in Kyoto if you were there with me.”
Mark doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, and Donghyuck only hums in response, sleep overtaking him.
- ҉ -
@NCTsmtown: TOKYO VLOG | Mark and Haechan Soulmate Tour Behind #NCT #MARK #HAECHAN #Soulmate_Tour youtu.be/f22pusqXZ6g
@dnghyyck__s: theyre calling it their soulmate tour IM WEAK
@NCTV_zen: [image attached] All of these Japanese photoshoots theyre doing with their soulmarks out do u think mark regrets having his in a spot that requires him to be shirtless lmaooo
@mrkhyck_thoughts: [media attached] Marks eyes when he looks at haechan are the same in every interview how did we not notice before honestly
- ҉ -
Mark gets a ring.
- ҉ -
There’s a lot be said for waiting until the timing’s right, but as far as Mark and Donghyuck’s relationship is concerned, the timing has never been right so much as it’s been extremely inconvenient, totally random, and well, premature, to say the least. So, that’s going to be his excuse for whenever anyone asks Mark why he chose this particular Tuesday night, on the way back from a convenience store run that Donghyuck had demanded they go on since it had been months since their last “date,” to propose.
(Donghyuck had not been amused when Mark had suggested that the last 6 or so weeks they’ve spent on their Soulmate Tour™ could be considered one long date, really.)
The thing is, though, aside from time spent literally bathing or sleeping, it was hard to think of the last time they had spent more than 20 minutes alone together in an interaction that wasn’t carefully, artificially constructed for maximum marketability. Maybe that was what made Mark grab the velvet box he had judiciously hidden inside a pair of notoriously uncomfortable dress shoes in the deepest recesses of his closet, the only place he could think of that Donghyuck wouldn’t invite himself into, on his way out the door.
That box is now currently burning a hole in his pocket, which is a phrase that Mark had heard before, but he never truly understood until this moment. Donghyuck’s in the middle of giving an impassioned reenactment of Renjun and Jisung’s last roommate argument when Mark, pocket positively ablaze with fire, puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him in his tracks. Donghyuck gives him a questioning look, and Mark takes a deep breath.
“Hyuck, I know that we decided that the only way we could do this was if we weren’t going to do it as soulmates, that we were just going to be us, instead. But you are my soulmate. The universe got it right. And, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I thought that it would be years before I could have you like this. But now, I can, and I can’t wait. I don’t want to wait anymore.” And right there, in the middle of a deserted street in the depths of Seoul at a quarter past midnight, Mark shakily gets down on one knee. Mark would like to say that he didn’t fumble the velvet box onto the ground while trying to open it with hands trembling so violently that he could barely control them, but, well, at least the ring didn’t fall out. “Lee Donghyuck, will you marry me?”
Donghyuck looks completely shocked, eyes blow wide open. Speechless, for once in his life, Mark might have said if he wasn’t so nervous that he could barely string two thoughts together. “You’re stupid if you thought that you didn’t have me forever just because you never bought me a ring,” he finally says, but he’s crying while he says it. He holds out his left hand; it’s shaking a little. “Well, are you going to put it on me or not?”
“You haven’t said yes yet,” Mark says, processing Donghyuck’s words like his brain has turned into molasses and started dripping out of his ears.
“Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you. Now give me the ring,” Donghyuck demands, and Mark, with one knee still on the ground, complies. Donghyuck holds his hand out in front of him in the glow of the streetlamps above, and the light catches it, and Mark doesn’t think he has ever been happier.
- ҉ -
@j0hnnys_first_wife: [image attached] Okay I know we decided that all the engagement rumors were fake but like…the new ring haechan’s been wearing on his left ring finger…are we just ignoring that or
@nct_sunflower: [image attached] I found the ring haechans been wearing its uhh a 4k cartier white gold ring ??? im not saying theyre engaged but yes im saying it theyre engaged
@hy__uck_666 replied: @nct_sunflower SM where are you hiding their secret tokyo wedding pics WE NEED TO SEE THEM
@on_your_m4rk: [image attached] damn this ring tho…
- ҉ -
(When Mark is 15, a new trainee starts at SM named Lee Donghyuck. In an interaction he would spend the better part of the next three or so years overanalyzing, Mark reaches out and puts a hand on Donghyuck’s shoulder when he first meets him, even though he doesn’t even know this kid at all yet. He’s about to continue whatever he was saying, but his eyes are caught by what appears to be ink spilling onto Donghyuck’s skin, swirling in an amorphous shape underneath Mark’s finger. He means to pull his hand away, he really does, but he finds that he is absolutely frozen, unable move a single muscle in his body, unable to even blink. The black shape slowly forms into six even lines erupting out from a neat spiral, a sun. Mark can only stare at Donghyuck in shock.
“Well, where do you want yours?” he says, unbothered, and Mark’s whole world tilts on its axis into the gravitational pull of Lee Donghyuck.)