Chapter Text
markleuleees: did you know johnny was bi?????
NCTZENHOLE: MARK DID YOU SEE THE ARTICLE?????
The same sort of words appear over and over and over in the chat on the side of the VLive stream. Mark brushes it off. Fans do this shit all the time, have done so for years now, so there's no reason for him to pay it any attention.
"What music am I listening to right now?" Mark says, willfully ignoring the questions about Johnny, even if it makes no fucking sense that the fans would be asking him about an old trainee.
He picks his phone up with the intention of opening the Melon app when he sees it, part of the news alerts he has set: an article on Koreaboo, with the headline "Former SM Trainee Johnny Suh Comes Out As Bisexual."
What the fuck is going on?
He gapes at his screen for a second before realizing that's damning, that his silence has gone on too long, and he forces out, "Uh, the usual, you know, lots of Frank Ocean, but I'm digging the new DPR LIVE album." It's a question he gets asked multiple times per week, so he's used to mumbling out an answer on command, but he probably looks as unnerved and unfocused as he feels.
He skims the article, hoping against hope it looks like he's reading the feed of VLive comments. Whatever unpaid intern wrote this is clearly and understandably phoning it in; they get Johnny's age and his date of departure from SM all wrong, but the rest of it seems to be accurate.
There are some tweets of people spotting Johnny at NYC's Pride Parade—that's right, he remembers, Johnny lives in New York now—and a blurry candid shot of someone from the side that could be Johnny or any other moderately tall man with dark hair and a pointy chin.
But then Johnny's own Instagram is featured, a shot of Johnny in sunglasses and a muscle tank, smiling in front of a lively parade float. His caption is a rainbow, and Mark spots a multi-colored pin on his shirt that he's ninety percent certain is the bisexual flag.
Mark almost drops his phone. He hasn't seen Johnny Suh in six years, and he never assumed he would be forcibly reminded of his existence because of Johnny… coming out.
Not that there's anything wrong with Johnny being bi. Mark's just caught off guard. It's fine, it's not like Mark doesn't know any bi people, or gay people, or whatever. It's that he hasn't thought about Johnny in ages, and learning this about him feels like an invasion of privacy or something.
And he's becoming increasingly, horrifyingly aware that fans are going to be able to put the pieces together of his weird behavior, and that he needs to get off live fast because they're going to keep asking questions about the article.
One glance at the comments lets him know he's right; it's devolved into a frenzy of the same questions in basically every language Mark has ever encountered. Did you know about Johnny? Do you hate gay people?
It's only been a minute since the bomb dropped, but his manager has texted him five times, a panicked entreaty to get the fuck off. He'd be delighted to, but Mark is scrambling to come up with a reason, considering that he's only been live for a little while.
He eases into it, saying he's gotta go for lunch and thanking the fans for joining him in all the languages he can think of. Mark ends the broadcast, his heart still racing, thrown by the fact that his manager seems to have been more wound up than he was, but he takes a breath, closes his eyes, and presses the heels of his hands into them.
The last six years have seen NCT weathering a lot of the bullshit that comes with unfounded claims and little fires that, for the most part, did not require a statement from them or from SM. There have been controversies before, hand-written apologies posted on Instagram pages, times when they've had to do damage control by flooding Bubble with inane updates until the fandom calmed down somewhat.
It's not easy. There's so much work that goes into PR for them, though the leash has slackened somewhat over the years.
Mark rubs the back of his neck, sighing as he picks his phone up to see the stupid article again, really taking in the details of what's been said. He ends up searching further, to see if there's legit coverage outside of Koreaboo, and there are a lot of results as the story is big news in K-pop.
What Mark sees is mostly speculation, the worst of which is a nasty article written by some internet rando claiming that Johnny Suh was forced to leave SM because of his sexuality.
Mark knows he shouldn't keep looking, but he's gone this far already. He opens Twitter, and when he keys in 'johnny suh' into the search bar, it's all there, happening in real time: the Instagram post; screencaps of Mark's confused face on VLive, then shots of him frowning at his phone; tweets with the hashtag #SMHomophobes and #SMapologizeToJohnny. The conspiracy theory that Johnny was full-on kicked out of SM because they somehow knew about his sexuality is gaining momentum.
Suddenly, there's a small legion of fans coming forward to talk about someone that Mark hasn't really given much thought to since—well, since Johnny left. The tweets from the old SM Rookies account start to make their rounds again, and the tag is an onslaught of photos from when he was tiny and fresh-faced, and it really brings his reality crashing down on him that he's been doing this for this long. For longer.
There are photos of him with Johnny, perched on Johnny's shoulders after graduation, two bouquets in either of Mark's hands; a mirror shot of the two of them, Mark dressed in denim and Johnny holding his old DSLR up to take the shot; the day that Mark led the surprise for Johnny's birthday, when he was tasked with bringing Johnny through the rooms for the Post-it notes and the ultimately to the room with Eomma Suh's birthday greeting.
Mark feels like those Bugs Bunny cartoons where the character has an anvil dropped on their head, because suddenly he feels it all over again, like someone's taken a scalpel to his chest and cut through old scar tissue clean.
His insides clench up, and his back bows under the weight of memory.
↩️↩️↩️
There's shouting inside the dorms. That's the first thing that Mark picks up on after getting back from his rap lessons.
The noise isn't surprising, but the source of it is.
Taeyong's door is closed, the raised voices filtering through regardless. Their walls are paper-thin. Mark drops his backpack and moves in closer. He doesn't even know where the rest of the group is, but he's the only one out here, and he wonders if the others can hear it in their rooms.
"—just tired! I don't want to fight you on this anymore—"
Johnny's voice.
"You just—it's coming! I swear, I swear that you're going to debut—"
Taeyong's voice.
"Can you both please stop shouting?"
Ten?
Mark's shaking a bit, and he knows he shouldn't be listening in on this. He's running on four hours of sleep since both his anxiety over debut and the practices they've had to run to prepare for The 7th Sense have been grueling, and the smartest thing for him to do is to go shower and put his earphones in and pretend that his older members aren't duking it out inside Taeyong's room.
Except he's frozen there, in the middle of the kitchen, a few meters away from the white door that separates him from his hyungs, and what Johnny says next roots him to the spot.
"I've given nine years of my life to this company. I've watched everyone else come before me and after me debut, and I know! I know that I'm fucking up here, I know that I'm spoiling your debuts because I'm bitching about my own, but I just cannot do it anymore!"
The silence that follows is deafening.
Mark trembles, because what Johnny is saying sounds dangerously like he's leaving, and Mark doesn't know how to handle that. Johnny can't leave. He just can't. That isn't how this is supposed to go. Johnny's been learning Mandarin; he's trained with them since before Mark even showed up. He can't leave.
"Yong, you can't promise me anything—let me finish—you can't promise me anything and I don't hold that against you. This isn't about you or Ten, I'm not angry that you're debuting, I just. I'm sorry. I can't stick around waiting to get my heart broken over and over again. I didn't arrive at this decision overnight—what do you take me for?"
Mark jumps when the door is wrenched open, and Ten comes out, face tear-streaked and nose red. He catches Mark, looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and then slams the door behind him.
Ten looks at Mark with shining eyes, the light dancing off of them.
"What's going on?" Mark asks with a raspy voice, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He balls his fists like he's bracing for impact.
"Johnny's leaving," Ten says, voice flat, before sniffling and walking off.
Ten's departure seems to spell the end of that conversation, or at least the screaming match that took place. An eerie calm settles over Mark, over the expanse of the room. Mark can't compute it, Johnny leaving, but it isn't like he can knock on Taeyong's door and ask to be involved in this when clearly they tried to keep it contained. It doesn't matter that it didn't work.
Mark doesn't sleep that night, despite knowing full well that he has practice early in the morning the next day. He lies awake and wonders if he'd missed any of the signs, if Johnny had been so unhappy in their conversations that Mark should have seen this coming. Mark knows that it must be frustrating.
He thought that he and Johnny were friends, but it makes sense that he wouldn't confide in Mark about this. Mark's just a dumb sixteen-year-old, with no wisdom like the kind Ten and even Taeyong carry. But that doesn't stop his thoughts from spiraling.
It takes him three hours to convince himself that that fight was a blip, that it'll smooth over like all the other fights that they've had to wrangle in the years they've been together, working themselves to the bone.
Except that in the succeeding weeks, Mark sees less and less of Johnny, since he's stuck in the practice rooms perfecting the choreography for a song that feels like a long-shot as a debut.
Taeyong's hair turns icy white, and Ten's hair is shaved off into a pattern that leaves Ten staring at his reflection in mild horror for a good hour after it's done. Mark's given a fringe that makes no sense to him unless it's styled, and when they come home to the dorms after another grueling day, half of Johnny's things are packed into boxes, and Johnny's sorting his clothes on his bed with his door open.
Taeyong pointedly walks into his and Doyoung's room. Yuta's perched on Johnny's bed folding some T-shirts and putting them on a pile.
Mark feels like he's going to fall apart.
Tears prickle at his eyes, and he stumbles over his socked feet toward Johnny's room, his hand on the door frame.
"What—wait, wait, you were serious?" Mark chokes out, making Johnny look up from the pile of jeans on the floor. "You're really… what?"
Yuta glances between the two of them and rises from the bed, circling around it until he reaches Mark. He squeezes Mark's shoulder once and exits the room. It feels like he takes the life out with him when he goes.
"Yeah, dude," Johnny says in English. "I got the approval today. So I'm going."
"But why?" Mark can feel a swell of emotion he can't explain rising inside his throat, and he holds onto the door frame tighter.
Johnny sighs, like he's had to explain himself over and over again. "I've been in the company since 2007, man," Johnny says, tired. "Gave my entire life to being a trainee. I'm done wasting it here."
Waste.
"What about us? What—"
Johnny looks up at Mark, and there's pain there that is bold and open, and he clamps his jaw shut, his teeth clicking together like a lock.
"I've got a lot of stuff to pack, Mark," Johnny says quietly, turning back to the jeans. "I'll talk to you when I'm done."
Mark lets go of the door frame, takes a step back, and walks away.
↪️↪️↪️
They're instructed to stay radio silent for the evening, no Bubble messages, no VLives. Even WayV stays quiet.
When Taeyong comes home from having spent all day at the studio, Mark watches him enter the dorm from where he's seated on the couch, and Taeyong stretches out before coming over to flop down next to Mark. It's obvious that he's had his shoulders in a tense knot all day.
"Hey, hyung," Mark says, pausing his rewatch of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
"Hey, yourself," Taeyong groans, his face buried in his hands. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Mark replies, knowing that Taeyong's asking about the VLive debacle. "Just another day, you know?"
"Sure," Taeyong says.
Mark sees the lines on his face, usually hidden from anyone's view because of all the makeup. Taeyong's always been sort of baby-faced without all of the glitter and the foundation, but right now, Mark can see the weight of the years in the downturn of Taeyong's mouth, the hard set of his eyes.
"Do you think the company is gonna put out a statement? Did manager-hyung say anything?" Mark asks, worrying at a hangnail with his teeth.
Taeyong frowns at him and swats Mark's hand away from his mouth, even though his own nail-chewing habit is out of control. "No," he says. "It's not big enough to warrant a statement. You know how SM is about this. Besides, the k-nets don't seem to care much."
Mark purses his lips. He figured that that was probably going to be the case, but it doesn't quell the sense of unease that sits heavy in his stomach over it. Sitting here with Taeyong jogs something from Mark's memory, from the messy days that led up to their debut and Johnny's departure.
"Did you know?" Mark asks, turning to get a good look at Taeyong.
"Know what?" Taeyong replies, his hand covering his eyes like the glare of the white fluorescent is too bright for him.
"That Johnny-hyung is bi?"
Taeyong pulls his hand away before twisting his head to the side, then the other, like he's working knots out of his neck. "Yeah, I did," he says.
"Do you think the rumors are true? That he left because of that?" Mark asks, gulping through the dread of whatever answer Taeyong has.
Taeyong's quiet for a moment, before exhaling loud and long and clearing his throat. "I can't say for sure if that ever really factored much into it," he finally replies. "He'd alluded to it, sure, but the main reason why he left was because he was tired." He breaks off, looks past Mark, out the window. The tight set of Taeyong's jaw makes Mark worry.
"What is it?" Mark asks tentatively. "Why do you look like that?"
Taeyong's shoulders drop, then straighten out, like he's remembering that he's supposed to be a functional human at the moment and not a sack of bones. "Johnny was intended to debut with Limitless, with Doyoung. I only found this out a few years ago, around Punch promotions, but that's what one of the producers told me."
"Jesuuuus," Mark says, leaning back into the cushion.
"Yeah, I know," Taeyong says. "I wonder if he regrets it."
"You guys don't talk anymore?" Mark asks, surprised. Johnny and Taeyong were close—close enough that Taeyong brought Johnny to his sister's wedding; close enough that they'd been inseparable for most of training, along with Yuta and Ten. Mark assumed Johnny would have kept up with Taeyong, at least.
Taeyong shakes his head. "Not much. I messaged him when we had our last stop for The Awards, but he just said he was busy that night and sent along some flowers," Taeyong says. "He's moved on from… whatever. All of this, I guess."
Mark itches to ask more, dig deeper, but it's then that he realizes that there are too many things about Johnny that he's kept under lock and key all these years that are suddenly, all at once, starting to make themselves known to him again.
There is an entire Pandora's box of stuff that he kicked into a forgotten corner of his mind when he watched Johnny pack his things away, and he'd been go, go, go from then until now. This conversation with Taeyong, coupled with the old SM Rookies photos he saw earlier, is really starting to make him cave in on himself.
When Johnny left, Mark cauterized the wound and refused to think about it, and now he's realizing maybe that wasn't for the best.
"Do you think he's like, okay? Like, his name's all over Naver right now," Mark says.
Taeyong takes a moment and scratches the corner of his mouth with a ragged thumbnail. "I don't know," he says eventually. "I know he thought about what would happen if it got out, but that was when he was with the company."
Mark lost his phone in a shopping trip once and worried for twenty-four hours that some sasaeng had it and would blast the contents of his texts and gallery—and internet history—all over. He worked himself up to a sweaty panic, scrambling to put together a plan to combat the bad press and hit to his reputation, until his manager found it, all of his swearing and company-unapproved behavior safe and sound.
That was just, like, a taste of a nightmare that never ended up coming true, but Johnny is living it for real. He's a civilian now, yet he's still dealing with the fallout of being associated with the company. Of almost being famous, once.
It's got to feel pretty bad. Mark sits in silence and tries to sift through old, buried feelings and this new spark of worry for Johnny. He's trying to live his life in the States and put all this behind him, and now he's got to be drowning in media requests and fans and homophobes. It seems like he came out of his own volition, at least.
But maybe being spotted at the Pride Parade forced his hand? Jesus, Mark hopes not.
"Can you ask him how he's doing?" Mark asks.
"I sent him a message earlier," Taeyong says, and cracks a tired smile. "If I hear back at all, it'll be in a week or two, knowing Johnny."
Mark fights a swell of bitterness that even Taeyong is locked out of Johnny's life. Taeyong. But he reminds himself that Johnny's in the midst of a storm and Mark doesn't know his reasons for doing things.
He's not even a hundred percent on what made Johnny leave in the first place, since the hyungs pretty much only talked about it amongst themselves. Mark has a lot of unanswered questions—and unresolved feelings, apparently—if this weird-ass day and its revelations are any indication. He never got that talk with Johnny; it was never explained to him why Johnny left, not really, and it wasn't like he could go ask Ten about it and risk setting him off like a firework.
Hansol leaving was different. It was point-blank obvious; everyone knew he struggled with management's demands and wasn't happy—unlike Johnny, he made no show of pretending to be. The company didn't even dangle a debut in front of him to get him to stay, just let him out of his contract and washed their hands of the whole thing. Mark misses Hansol, sure, but he deserved better, and he made a point of talking to Mark in private before he announced he was leaving. And as much as Mark has fond memories of the guy, he's not… he's not Johnny.
"Hey, uh, could you give me his phone number?" Mark asks before his bravery runs out. "I want to at least tell him I wasn't scowling because of him."
Taeyong eyes him, and Mark wonders if Taeyong will invent some excuse not to give him the number, or if he'll bring up the fact that Mark has not mentioned Johnny Suh by name since the day he left. "Give your phone," he says, and Mark hands it to him with relief.
Now he just needs to figure out what to say to someone he's avoided thinking about for six years. No big.
↩️↩️↩️
Mark doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be at this fucking send-off, not when he can't even really wrap his head around the fact that they're sending someone off at all.
Johnny's decked out with tinsel in his hair and a stupid party hat on, but it's a tense sort of air in the conference room they've booked for this going-away party. Taeil, Taeyong, and Yuta, being the eldest, take the reins over the entire thing, trying to put on a brave face and make the event jovial. Ten barely even looks at Johnny, and it's a painful thing to watch them dance around each other.
There's a lot of food, a mishmash of Johnny's favorite Korean dishes and, like, platters of sushi and boxes of pizza, and Mark tries to play along, but instead busies himself with Donghyuck and the rest of the maknaes, stuffing himself with food so he doesn't have to deal with the nervous, jittery cloud that follows Doyoung around, or the fact that Jaehyun's been quiet for most of the evening.
It's obvious no one wants Johnny to leave, all to varying degrees, sure, but ultimately all of this just really fucking sucks. Hansol and Johnny are talking at the head of the table, heads knocked together like it's serious. Something clenches inside of Mark at the scene, something uncomfortable, a fear that he's seeing an omen right before his eyes.
"Yo, Canada," Donghyuck says. "I asked you if you were okay."
Mark turns his attention back to Donghyuck and Jeno, who are both staring at him like he's grown another head. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine."
Donghyuck looks skeptical, but then Donghyuck always looks skeptical, so Mark just brushes it off, helps himself to another slice of pajeon, and willfully looks away from Johnny.
It works for the most part, except that half the trainees around Mark start breaking into tears when the party winds down. Ah. Right. Not everyone lives in the same dorm. Not everyone has to watch Johnny actually leave in the morning.
Johnny's surrounded by Yeri, Jisung, and Jaemin, all of them saying their goodbyes. There's a whole round of it, some high fives, and Johnny still just towering over everyone, ruffling the hair of every person his hands can reach.
Ten accosts Johnny in one corner of the room and cries into the front of Johnny's zipped-up jacket for what seems like a solid ten minutes before Ten quite literally pushes away from Johnny and bids him goodbye. Mark tries not to stare, but it's hard to look away from, like a car accident.
The room starts to empty, and the party winds down. The tinsel and the paper plates get tossed in the trash. They get herded into their vans and shuttled back home to their dorms.
Mark doesn't know how to articulate what it is that he wants to say to Johnny. Four years is a long time, and it eats away at him to know that Mark is very much losing someone who he looked up to as a friend, as an older brother.
It's hard to not feel like he's being discarded. Mark wishes there was a better way to frame it, but it's kind of like he's been tossed to the side, and he's pretty sure that he is not the only one feeling it.
In his head, he remembers the fight that transpired, the one that he wasn't even supposed to have been privy to, and on some level, he feels the guilt of his own impending debut while Johnny prepares to fly back home to Chicago. It certainly doesn't help that all the ones closest to Johnny are in this unit.
Johnny's shipped off most of his things back home already, and all that remains for him to bring back on his flight are his one giant suitcase, his backpack, and his neck pillow, all of which are already parked in the living room when they all file into the dorm.
Silence blankets them as they step into the room. The clock reads 11:47 p.m.
He's not officially their leader yet, but Taeyong wears the crown like he was made for it. He herds everyone in, tells people to get enough rest, early morning ahead, etcetera.
"No staying up too late," Taeyong intones, mostly directing his attention at Donghyuck, Taeil, and Yuta.
There won't be much fanfare—none of them are seeing Johnny off at the airport, but Mark wishes that they could, even if Mark has no idea what the fuck he'd say to Johnny there, considering that he doesn't even know what to say to Johnny here, right now.
Mark settles on the couch and watches as Johnny walks into his room, Yuta already there on the other bed, fiddling with his phone while Johnny lays out the clothes he's wearing tomorrow.
Mark's been trying to write it down, figure out what to do with the mess of emotions that he feels, but it's impossible to extricate the inexplicable anger that seems to simmer under his skin whenever he does. This isn't about him; this is about Johnny's years devoted to training, Johnny's constant almosts and what-ifs. Mark can't even begin to know what that feels like training for years and years and then being benched, one group after another. Exo. NCT U. And now with NCT 127 in the works, there's still no word about Johnny.
This isn't about him. This isn't about him.
There's a bracelet in Mark's room that he's had for a couple of weeks now, some dumb thing where he'd attached an old guitar pick and thought that maybe it could be something that Johnny could remember him by. But he's put off giving it to Johnny this entire time, and he doesn't think he's going to go through with it. Johnny probably won't want any reminders of his time here, which is a bitter pill to swallow.
"Hey, Mark?" Johnny calls out, and Mark's startled into action, realizing that Johnny is calling him over.
"Yeah, hyung?" Mark asks. He hates that his voice cracks. It's taking a while for him to learn how to modulate it.
He walks into the room, Johnny seated on the edge of his bed. He's hunched over himself, and Mark sees a small seal plushie in his hand.
"Remember when we won this at Lotte World?" Johnny asks, holding it out for Mark to take.
Mark doesn't remember the plushie exactly, but he remembers that day and how he'd been too terrified to get on any of the rides that the hyungs wanted to go on, and how Johnny had had his fill of the big rides before he'd taken Mark by the shoulder and said, "C'mon, let's go do some non-rollercoaster-y things."
He holds the seal in his hand and blinks away the errant tears that spring to his eyes. Four years of friendship, and what do they have to show for it? It feels supremely unfair, and it doesn't seem like there are words enough to get that message across.
"I'm gonna miss you, hyung," Mark says. His English slips out less and less these days, mainly because he hasn't been talking to Johnny much. He'll be talking to him even less once he leaves.
Johnny's face brightens up. "You're gonna be too busy to miss me, Mark Lee," he says, and Mark wonders if he means it, or if Johnny's just really that good at masking his bitterness. "You're gonna be non-stop from here. I know it. You're gonna go so far."
Mark flushes, feels the heat rise to his cheeks. He has no idea what it's going to be like when The 7th Sense drops. Has no idea whether the GP is gonna like it or if their modest smattering of fans will take to it. He swallows.
"Thanks, hyung," Mark says. Hesitantly, Mark steps in and goes for a hug that Johnny stands up for and takes to like it's effortless. Mark feels the clap on his back and steps back.
"Get some sleep, dude," Johnny says. "See you later."
Mark doesn't slip into sleep until maybe four in the morning, seal plushie in hand.
↪️↪️↪️
> Hi Johnny, it's Mark.
The cursor blinks at him, and Mark blinks back.
He has no idea what the fuck he's doing. He deletes and tries again.
> Johnny, this is Mark. I just wanted to reach out
Groaning, Mark rolls over on his bed and faces the wall. All of his grand ideas to extend an olive branch to Johnny—and to make sure he knows Mark isn't, like, wildly homophobic or cursing his name or whatever the screencaps might be implying—have stalled out. It's just so fucking awkward. He thought about what to say until he fell asleep last night, and he's been distracted all morning since waking up, frozen in bed considering his options. The internet storm hasn't died down since yesterday, but it doesn't seem to have gotten much worse. Management still has them under a gag order, but he saw Ten posted a picture of Leon to Bubble as a quiet fuck you when his patience at being controlled ran out. Chenle's been posting to his Instagram like nothing even happened, but Mark's not sure what it would take to make him take SM's leash seriously.
> Hey, I don't know if you saw the VLive stuff, but I wasn't
There's a loud slam on his door, which has Mark fumble his phone out of his hands and onto his bed.
"Mark," Yuta yells. "Get up for lunch, it's getting cold." He opens the door and pokes his head in as Mark twists uncomfortably to look at him.
Oh yeah. Yuta texted him to get up for lunch a while ago. They're having a once-in-a-blue-moon big group meal on the tenth floor, ostensibly for no reason but actually because a former trainee and one-time friend is being hounded and they all feel weird about it.
"You're not jerking off in here, are you?" Yuta asks, sniffing the air.
Mark groans a laugh and forces himself upright. He's still in his sleep clothes, but his hoodie is draped over his headboard, so he grabs it and tugs it on. "I know how to lock the door, thanks," he says, teasing out his bedhead with his fingers.
"Hurry up, no one cares what your hair looks like."
"Give me a second, I'm finishing something." Mark's impatient with himself and hungry and ready to be done agonizing over this. He'll never come up with a message that will cover all bases and not be awkward, so he might as well go for it.
[Me: 11:45 am]
> Hi Johnny, it's Mark Lee. Got your number from Taeyong. I just wanted to see how you're doing and if you need anything. Take care, okay?
He presses send and exhales heavy. That's done.
Yuta is still waiting in the threshold, bare arms folded across his chest, rangy muscles on display. He grins at Mark when he finally stands up, slinging an arm around Mark's shoulders when he gets close enough.
The two of them make their way into the kitchen, which is fucking loud, seven of them plus the dorm auntie packed in, with chairs pilfered from different rooms. There's space next to Taeyong, which is where Mark heads, and Yuta pats his butt as they separate.
"You all are feral," Mark says, fishing for matching chopsticks among the pile on the table, and Doyoung gives him a squinty look of disapproval. "Seriously," he insists, as Jaehyun and Donghyuck argue about what background music to play and prove his point. "We're going to get another noise complaint."
"We don't get noise complaints on the fifth floor," Donghyuck says, not even looking away from his phone. It seems like he won the argument, and his favorite playlist starts playing from the Bluetooth speakers, a decibel too loud for an already crowded space.
Taeyong snorts. "That's not true. Remember when you and Doyoung—"
"That was last year, and I think the staff were lying about the neighbors complaining to make us feel guilty," Donghyuck protests, and then turns a winning smile up to the dorm auntie when she sets another plate of banchan in front of him. "Thank you, Auntie."
"I offered to switch," Jaehyun says mildly. "I've roomed with Doyoung before, I can do it again."
It's probably a little unfair that Mark and Taeyong more or less have rooms to themselves when everyone is doubled up. On paper, Mark shares his room with a manager, but they have an apartment and a girlfriend they prefer to a sad twin bed, so most nights he's on his own. "We have that empty room until Taeil gets back," Mark says. "Hyuck, you could take that and avoid starting World War III."
That causes a hiccup in the conversation. It's not like they're not used to Taeil being gone, or like it's a forbidden topic. Still, on the heels of everyone thinking about Johnny, the reminder of how weird and unbalanced things feel—a whole room empty because Yuta and Jungwoo doubled up after Taeil enlisted—is sobering.
Mark quickly prays under his breath and pops some egg into his mouth to stop more awkward things from tumbling out.
"What would Doyoung complain about if I'm not there?" Donghyuck says.
Taeyong pets his head, like Hyuck is still a precocious little kid and not a grown man who barely gets along with his roommate. Though that's more than half Doyoung's fault, since he always rises to Hyuck's bait, even when Donghyuck is clearly joking. Mark's fallen for the same trap a hundred times; there's a reason he refuses to share with Hyuck for more than a night or two. Their friendship is better for it this way.
Conversation settles down as everyone starts really digging in, and true to form, most people are on their phones. Yuta's reading a novel in his little corner, spooning stew and rice into his mouth without looking.
He's not surprised that Doyoung's the first one to bring it up, the reason they're all together.
"I don't think SM will make a statement, and they will probably tell us not to." He pauses for effect, stirring his bowl, and eyes everyone on the opposite side of the table from him. "If things get worse for Johnny, it might be useful if one of us does break rank and post something."
Okay, he is surprised Doyoung is the one to suggest they go against the company line and potentially invite a shitstorm. Doyoung avoids scandal like a master; for all that he's painfully transparent, he keeps his nose clean and his mouth shut.
"You could get in a lot of trouble," Taeyong says, mouth full. "And Johnny might not want us making him even more of a headline—"
"We could ask him," Doyoung says calmly. "But frankly, this is as much about Johnny as it is reinforcing the idea that being gay is a terrible scandal. It's not."
The room is even quieter but for Donghyuck's playlist. While everyone looks thoughtful, measuring Doyoung's words, Mark does not kid himself into thinking it's that black and white. There's a reason there are no openly LGBT idols, except for a few on the fringes, none with a Big Three. Johnny's much safer back in New York than he would be here. If he'd come out as bi while still with the company, he would have torpedoed his career, possibly beyond saving. Posting something supportive against company wishes won't be the same level of dangerous, but they will get blowback.
Still, there's little doubt in him that anyone in the band would do it, to hell with the consequences. Mark realizes he would, and not only because he's uncomfortable with the hashtags calling him a bigot. He would support Johnny publicly if that's what Johnny wants. He feels like the worst possible person to do it, after six years of radio silence, but he would.
The weight of Mark's phone in his hoodie feels like it's pulling him down to the ground, somehow. He retrieves his phone, and his heart beats in double time when he sees he has a notification, but it's his mom, asking if he's okay.
[Me: 12:10 p.m.]
> I'm fine mom ❤️ Having a big lunch haha. We're waiting to see if SM wants to make a statement
He sets his phone face-down next to his bowl as Taeyong, Doyoung, and Hyuck talk over the finer points of how they could show support without making it worse for Johnny.
"People will believe whatever they want if we don't say anything," Hyuck says. "But if we do speak up, we can correct some of it."
"Should Taeil-hyung be here for this? I can call him," Jungwoo says. "I think he might have today off." Taeil's still in their group chats, of course, but he checks them in an exhausted speed-read after his working day is over, or on his days off, and he usually can't keep up with the flood of information. They secretly, guiltily, made a new one for all the active members, one that's sure to cycle through people once Taeyong enlists.
Mark almost chokes on his bite thinking of that eventuality. Christ.
"We're not bothering Taeil until we know what we're doing," Taeyong says firmly, and Doyoung hesitates before nodding.
"We're not doing anything until we hear from Johnny," Jaehyun says. "It's up to him. Yong, did you text him?"
"Not about this," Taeyong says grimly, and sighs. "If he answers me, I'll ask him, okay?"
"Oh, shit," Yuta says, and every head at the table snaps to him. He's sitting cross-legged in his chair, food and book forgotten, wearing an expression of dawning delight. "Johnny got hot," he crows, and brandishes his phone like he's found the secrets to the universe.
Mark, on the far end of the table from him, shakes his head and goes back to his food. Taeyong does the same, but the two of them are repeatedly disrupted by theatrical gasps and Donghyuck's running commentary on Johnny's fashion sense, mostly in the positives.
"Oh, he looks so different," Jungwoo says.
"He looks exactly the same," Jaehyun argues.
It's almost cute, kinda, the way they're freaked out by the fact that time has passed and Johnny doesn't look like the twenty-one-year-old he used to be. The cognitive dissonance is to be expected, he guesses. Mark—and the rest of the maknaes—grew up in front of their eyes gradually, so they could barely track the changes beyond his cracking voice and shitty skin. Johnny just left, and his memory is pretty much unchanged for all of them.
Yuta's phone is forced into his field of vision, and Mark glances down at the screen to see Johnny—well, eye fucking the camera. Johnny's on his belly, looking over his shoulder, and it shouldn't look so alluring, considering that Johnny's fully clothed in jeans and a white shirt, but it's the come-hither expression that Johnny has on that makes Mark do a double-take. That and how tight his jeans are.
"Shit, he would have made such a good idol," Yuta says, shaking his head. "Look at him."
Yuta's right, Mark thinks, as they scroll through the rest of Johnny's feed. His face has sharper edges now, cheekbones more prominent, hair cycling through varying shades of blond and brown and burgundy and a few different lengths. Handsome. So handsome. Johnny always looked good, but Jaehyun needs glasses if he thinks Johnny looks the same as he did in 2016.
His phone buzzes, clattering on the table, and grateful for the distraction, Mark grabs it. He expects it's his mom, probably trying to get him to open up about what's going on in her careful way, but no.
It's Johnny. A spike of adrenaline hits Mark, his heartbeat loud in his ears.
[Johnny Suh 12:16 p.m.]
> Seriously, this now? Fuck off sasaeng
Mark almost squawks in panic, realizing that Johnny must be under a deluge of messages. Phone numbers don't stay secret for long, and now all the saesangs have a reason to care a lot about Johnny again. No doubt Mark's auto-block app for numbers not in his contact list is working overtime lately.
If anyone notices him glued to his phone, chewing his lip raw and frantically trying to come up with something to reassure Johnny that he's not a stalker trying to fake him out, they don't say anything. Small favors.
He could send Johnny a selfie, but he's sitting at the breakfast table with everyone and they might have questions. He's not ready to announce that he texted Johnny—it still feels uncomfortable, like he's doing something he shouldn't, and he has no idea how Johnny will react when he discovers it's actually Mark. God, if he hasn't already blocked him yet.
[Me: 12:17 p.m.]
> No no no hold on it's me I promise give me a sec
He pulls up his gallery and searches through his recent photos, but it's just a sea of selfies he could have ostensibly sent to Bubble, or pictures of the dorm—a dorm Johnny isn't even familiar with. He finds a shot of his desk, his Macbook open to the latest track he's fucking around with, and behind it, there's a peek of soft blue-gray.
The seal plushie. He's never been able to part with and put away with the rest of his adolescent bullshit. He hopes Johnny remembers it. If not, he's going to have to ask Taeyong to send Johnny Mark's contact info, and this whole thing will become even more cringe.
[Me: 12:19 p.m.]
> You gave me this little guy, remember?
Mark hits send and holds his breath, glancing up once to make sure no one has caught on or wants his attention. Doyoung slides him an odd look, but everyone else is still enraptured with Johnny's Instagram. Yuta's yelling something about thirst traps, a phrase in English Mark wasn't even aware he knew.
Doyoung starts lecturing them about Johnny's privacy and how this is inappropriate, but Mark is back to jiggling his leg under the table and staring down at his phone like it can manifest a reply if he focuses hard enough.
Weirdly, it does work.
[Johnny Suh: 12:21 p.m.]
> Mark??? Holy shit, sorry about that
> I'm glad you kept him
Mark's not sure how to cope with the swirling emotions that evokes in him. He's relieved Johnny knows it's him and that Johnny remembered the little relic he'd left Mark that last night he was here; nervous because he doesn't know where to go from here; and… glad? To be talking to Johnny again, glad despite thinking his well of Johnny feelings ran dry years ago.
[Me: 12:23 p.m.]
> Yeah it's me haha. I'm sorry there's so many people bugging you, you can tell me to fuck off if you want to.
He doesn't have to wait long for a reply. Mark keeps himself occupied by inhaling a few bites of kimchi and rice, and he's serving himself some watermelon when it comes in.
[Johnny Suh 12:24 p.m]
> Language young man! 😂
> No need to fuck off on my account. I'm really glad you texted. How's idol life treating you?
Doyoung apparently successfully managed to confiscate Yuta's phone. The table has moved on from creeping on Johnny's pics and back into bickering about table manners and how Jungwoo eats all the good banchan before anyone can get to it.
Mark almost feels like he is having an out-of-body experience. Texting Johnny Suh in the middle of the members, keeping his phone angled in case of someone snooping, trying to eat one-handed. Trying to master his long-dormant emotions.
"You all right?" Taeyong asks softly. "You're quiet."
"Ah, just texting my mom about the hashtags," Mark lies, and he's pretty sure Taeyong sees right through it, given how well they know each other at this point. It was a lousy attempt at lying anyway. He'll tell Taeyong—he'll tell everyone—later, once he feels like he's on something like solid ground with Johnny. Mark hesitates, long enough to chew and swallow another mouthful of food he barely tastes. "Anything from Johnny?" he asks on a hunch.
Taeyong shakes his head. "Nothing yet."
"I'm sure he'll reply," Mark tries. "He's probably, uh, busy. And the time difference, you know."
"Probably," Taeyong says, and Mark stops looking at him to contemplate the phone in his hand, the texts from Johnny awaiting his reply.
So that's weird, huh, he thinks.
↩️↩️↩️
There's no sunshine streaming through the window when Mark's eyes fly open, Jaehyun already rising from his own bed. That seems the first indication that today isn't going to go very well.
Doyoung is half asleep at the dining table, and Johnny is finishing up his breakfast.
"Does the weather forecast say it's gonna rain today?" Taeyong asks, emerging from his room, frowning in worry.
"This afternoon," Johnny says lightly, as if this isn't the last of the conversations they're going to have together with him. God, they're just talking about the weather.
"Ah, you'll have taken off already, then," Taeyong says.
The silence is so heavy.
"Yeah," Johnny says. Leaves it at that.
Mark enters the bathroom and locks the door quickly behind him, fast enough that he can catch the dry-heaving that wracks through his body when he grips the edges of the sink.
There is a small screaming voice in Mark's head that tells him that he needs to at least tell Johnny how grateful he is for having had him around, how Johnny made Mark feel less alone, less unanchored, growing up in this strange, strange world of theirs. It follows him after splashing his face with water, trails behind him like a specter as the reality of Johnny saying his last goodbyes, hugging the remainder of the Rookies, and really sinks in.
Mark walks directly into Johnny's outstretched arms, frowning into the material of Johnny's shirt, before Johnny hugs him tight, and says, "You're gonna shine so brightly, Mark."
Mark never gets the words out. He watches as Johnny rolls his suitcase out of the dorms, his neck pillow hooked onto his elbow, and then there's silence once again. Doyoung's seated at the dining table now, and Mark settles himself across from him.
It's all so anticlimactic. It happens just like that: Johnny leaves, and then it's done. They don't even get the day to recover from this because there's another photoshoot in a few hours, but none of them look prepared for it.
He certainly doesn't expect Doyoung to hunch over with his face in his hands, his shoulder shaking a bit, leaning forward, very visibly crying. Taeyong is by his side in an instant, arms around Doyoung while Taeyong himself sniffles.
"Is it unfair that I'm mad at him?" Doyoung asks quietly.
From behind them, Yuta sighs.
Taeyong chews on his lip before answering. "I think we're allowed to be, just in secret."
Mark rises quickly, pocketing his phone. Taeyong startles at the sudden movement.
"You okay, Mark? I know you guys were pretty close. Do you wanna talk ab—"
"I'm fine," Mark says, willing the tremble in his voice to steady. "I'll be in my room, hyung. We have to get ready for the shoot."
Mark doesn't wait for a response, just makes his way back through the doorway to grab his towel and get ready for the day. He takes the voices, throws them into a box, and tells himself There's no point in thinking about them now.
Never mind the fact that Johnny was one of the first friends he ever made in the company.
Never mind the fact that whenever Mark missed home the most, Johnny was the one he'd go to, his mouth reconfiguring itself to speak a language that reminded him of his childhood and the friends he left behind in Canada.
He finds himself thinking about the Book of Job as he steps into the shower, the hot spray matting his short fringe down and making it stick to his forehead. He wonders what he's done to deserve this, but then again, Job didn't do anything to deserve his lot in life. He's also pretty sure he's fucking up what the point of that story was, but he's so wrapped up in wondering why Johnny leaving hurts so much, and if he played a hand in it, that he can't be bothered to think about the Old Testament too much.
The point is: These things just happen.
He exhales, closing his eyes tight against the water. Box. Corner. Done.