“No way, man,” Mark whispered, shaking his head as he stared at the door in front of him. “I seriously cannot right now.”

“Oh, we are not going through this again,” Yukhei sighed, knocking on the door obnoxiously loud and putting his hands in his pockets as they waited. “There is no way-”

“My gay is leaving your gay , yeah, I know,” he intercepted, running a hand over his face as the door slowly opened to reveal a timid Jaemin whose smile became evident once he realised who was at the door. “Hey, Jaemin. Is Hyuck here?”

“He’s warming up for his opening act,” Jaemin informed them, opening the door a bit more to reveal Donghyuck sitting in a chair and drinking something from a thermos that Mark had seen Renjun give him earlier in the day. “Hasn’t been out for an hour.”

“We’ll leave you two to it,” Yukhei whispered, slapping his shoulder a few times in encouragement as Jaemin nodded and stepped out of the room – the younger stared at him as he tentatively put one foot inside.

“You’ve got half an hour before he goes backstage, hyung,” Jaemin said with finality and walked off with Yukhei to the remaining festival stalls outside of the theatre.

“You would have thought that Renjun would learn to not let Chenle add in the honey for this lemon-honey-hot water combination, but he never learns. It’s too ing sweet.”

Chuckling, Mark let the door behind him swing closed as he took step after step towards the tanned male.

It had been a few months since the incidents and the big reveal that Soeun had pulled off.

Three months, to be exact, of Mark being able to hold Donghyuck behind closed doors and kiss him to his heart’s content.

“Any news about Soeun from Renjun?” he asked, sadness filling his chest as he thought of the younger girl who had transferred schools almost immediately after the incidents – the guilt must have gotten to her were what the rumours said but Mark knew better than to trust those baseless accusations.

“No, she hasn’t bothered to contact any of us,” Donghyuck answered, putting the lid on his thermos and looking down at his feet that were in clean leather shoes. “Any news about Koeun?”

“I know she didn’t get that scholarship,” he replied, thinking back to the transfer sheets that Koeun had handed in to administration when she had been called in for questioning alongside Mark. “But other than that, she hasn’t contacted us.”

“Herin’s been ignoring Jeno,” Donghyuck stated, standing up and walking over towards him. “I don’t think she knows about his feelings for her.” Humming, Mark held out his arms to allow the smaller male to curl into him.

“Why are the only stable couples Yukhei and Jungwoo-hyung and Jisung and Chenle?” he whined, sighing heavily after as Donghyuck laughed heartily – Mark would never get tired of hearing that sound com