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mark didn’t really expect to get any gifts this valentines day.
every single year his school did a little fundraiser where you could buy your valentine a bag of candy to… let them know you liked them? mark thought it was stupid, leading somebody on and not putting your name on the package so that they’d never know who did it was kind of shitty and really not up his alley.
this hating of the gift had nothing to do with the fact that mark, in all his four years at the school, had never received one.
that was, until today.
he walked into the school this valentines day and his locker was covered in red, pink, and white wrapping paper, shitty dollar store heart decorations covering it.
now, one of the reasons mark hated that candygram thing was the anonymity, but whoever had decorated his locker had left a few clues as to who had done it.
one of the biggest clues would happen to be the large “BY JACKSON WANG” placed above his locker on a large gift tag cut out of cardboard and addressed to mark.
mark put his head in his hands, feeling a tap on his shoulder and turning around.
“so, what do you think?” jackson asked, a proud smile adorning his face at the sight of both his handiwork and mark’s cute blush.
“i— jacks i…” mark trailed off.
“do you not like it?” jackson’s voice became more serious, reaching a hand up to pull at one of mark’s, revealing the large smile on his face.
“no… fuck jackson i love it, thank you.”
jackson smiled and swooped up, pressing a quick kiss onto mark’s lips before walking up and opening mark’s locker, revealing a large teddy bear stuffed into the small space.
“that’s good because i have
way
more presents than this!” jackson said happily, reaching around the bear to grab mark’s books before grabbing the older’s hand, starting to pull him towards his first period class.
“god, i love you,” mark mumbled, jackson’s smile splitting his face with how wide and bright it is.
“i love you too markie, happy valentines day!’
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
taemin didn’t think they’d ever been nervous in their entire life.
they clutched five red-wrapped letters in their hands, looking left and right and up and down to make sure that they didn’t trip over anything and drop the letters and ruin everything.
they needed this to be perfect.
even though this wasn’t their first valentines day with their boyfriends and their s.o.s they still wanted it to be absolutely perfect.
their walk from home and bus ride was ok, seeing people with flowers and chocolates and red and pink was really fun because they got to make up fun little stories for them, for who they were giving those chocolates to, for who that entire bag of dollar store valentines day paraphernalia was for. they liked to watch people twist engagement rings, wedding rings, promise rings, around their fingers, their soft smiles as they thought of who those things were for, of who held that little piece of their heart.
taemin liked to think that those people felt like they had in the morning when they received all of the ‘good morning’ and ‘happy valentines day’ texts in the group chat this morning.
of course, after that perfect morning, everything would go wrong.
“HEY! fag!” someone called as soon as they walked onto school grounds, approaching them right outside of the doors.
they clutched the letters tighter, trying to slip them into their pocket discreetly and keep walking.
“faggot! i’m talking to you!” taemin stopped in their tracks.
“what’s that you slipped into your pocket, huh pretty boy?” taemin shivered. he was too close to them, and they got misgendered, and it was only 9 am.
he grabbed the letters out of taemin’s pocket, holding them in the air so that they couldn’t get them.
taemin thanked whatever was out there that they had decided to leave the letters unmarked.
“hmm? what’re these?” the boy asked, and taemin frowned.
“c-could you give those back?” they stuttered out, trying to adopt a more confident persona because
those letters are important to them and they might hate taemin if something happens because they promised them the letters and after this taemin is really not in the mood for anything that might negatively impact their mental health.
“ha… no. i think i’ll take them actually.”
taemin’s eyes widened.
no.
nonononono that was much
much
worse than the letters getting ruined.
“you don’t like that, do you pretty boy? you don’t want me to take these letters? i wonder what they say…” the boy trailed off, reaching for the letter at the top of the stack (
no no no that’s minho’s do not
do not
touch that letter
)—
“hey! what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” taemin and the boy’s heads whipped around to catch jonghyun running across the lawn at the front of the school. taemin felt like at the sight of the boy the corner they had been backed into had widened into a small room. still trapped but not as much.
the boy scoffed, “you’re not worth it. fag.” he spat, throwing the letters down into the mud and melting snow and walking away.
taemin collapsed to the ground as soon as the boy was far enough away, gathering up their letters and trying to wipe the mud and slush off but to no avail. the elements had already attacked the letters beyond repair.
except for one.
the one taemin hadn’t really planned on giving but the one that they had brought anyway. the fifth letter.
they threw the other four in the recycling just as jonghyun reached them.
“baby, god sorry i didn’t see what was going on sooner, did he hurt you, god what did he say i heard a few slurs god taemie,” he started trying to wipe some of the quickly-drying mud off of taemin’s pants, “god baby are you ok?”
“‘m ok jjongie.” taemin hummed, taking jonghyun’s hands off of his legs and wrapping them around themselves instead.
jonghyun hugged them tighter.
“god. i’m so glad. so so sorry i didn’t get here earlier god taem are you sure you’re ok?”
jonghyun pulled back and fretted over them some more.
“i’m ok hyung, i’m ok!” taemin assured.
“that’s good. what’s that?” jonghyun pointed at the envelope.
“oh it…” taemin flushed, “‘s for later.”
jonghyun smiled widely, “ok… well we have a surprise for you so…”
he held out his hand and taemin grabbed it, letting themselves be dragged away from the front of the school, towards a more secluded part close to the auditorium.
“wait here,” jonghyun whispered, going around the corner.
“jjongie! did you find taemin! we just finished!” someone called out.
“yeah! they’re right here!” jonghyun grabbed taemin’s arm and pulled them out from behind the wall.
he covered their eyes for a second before letting his hand fall, letting the fucking mess that was a very small space with what seemed like an entire store’s worth of decorations grace his vision.
“oh my god,” they whispered, eyes catching on the endless pink, red, and white and their boyfriend and s.o.s.
minho was wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt but had a number of red and pink hair ties in his hair along with a cheesy bear covered hear sign strung around his neck, resting on his chest.
gwiboon was forgoing self-preservation for fashion (again) and wearing a short, flowy pink skirt and a white crop top. her makeup included all of the usual stuff and a few temporary tattoos, some half finished and one with the plastic still on it.
jinki was wearing black jeans with horrendous pink leg warmers that taemin just knew belonged to gwiboon. he seemed to be one of the ones most in-tune with the holiday without being horrendously extra about it. taemin also noticed that his nails were a jarring bright red that didn’t match with anything else in the room.
it seemed that jonghyun had missed the decorating extravaganza since he was in normal clothing, his pink hair a good accessory for the holiday already.
“happy valentines day taemie!” jinki yelled, and taemin pressed a hand to their mouth, both very overwhelmed with sensations (this much of only a few colours was a lot to take in) and emotions.
“guys i—” they started, and gwiboon came up to them.
“do you like it taem?” she asked, wrapping an arm around their waist. taemin really wanted to peel that tattoo film off.
“yeah i—i love it!” they said, and they really did.
it just made what they did for them seem a bit less… amazing.
“baby what’s wrong?” jinki asked, and suddenly taemin felt all of them around them.
a tear dropped off of their face and
fuck
.
“
fuck
,” taemin whispered.
“oh, taemin what’s wrong?” jinki cupped their face.
“god i’m so sorry i don’t know why i’m crying this is supposed to be a happy holiday please i just… you guys did all of this for me and i just… i didn’t do anything that nice i just wrote you guys letters but those got ruined but i still have this one and i…” taemin pulled the letter out of their pocket, “sorry i couldn’t do anything better.”
someone grabbed the letter from their grasp and they were sat down on the floor by gwiboon as she ran her fingers through their hair.
“taemin you have nothing to be sorry for. letters come from the heart and i’m sure that whatever you wrote for us is miles better than our little surprise for you,” jinki whispered.
“no but i…” taemin hiccuped, “you guys are just so good to me and you did all of this and i just wrote a stupid letter and you guys are just always so…” taemin trailed off.
“i love you all, you know. i’m just sad i didn’t get to do anything better.”
“oh, taemin god…” taemin heard a choked off sob and looked up, seeing jonghyun with their letter clasped in his hands. “god taemin that… i didn’t know you felt like that taemin god…”
there were tears running down jonghyun’s face and taemin frowned, reaching up to brush them off.
“was it that bad?” they asked, and jonghyun let out a wet laugh, more tears flowing down his face.
“it was amazing.”
“you were always so emotional,” gwiboon mused, and jonghyun snapped his head to her.
“you read this without crying! come on!” he unfurled the letter, shoving it into gwiboon’s face and pointing at something.
“look at that line!”
“
you all are so nice to me, and i wanted to let you know how thankful i am
,” gwiboon read aloud, “
i was so insecure before, i would flinch every time someone would misgender me, would wince at loud voices… but meeting you has made me better, being around you shaped me into a better person and because of all of you, i will forever be this upgraded version. you all were my changing factor and i could never thank you enough for that. i love you all so much, please tell me you love me too.
” gwiboon finished, her voice cracking.
now, taemin wasn’t as good with words as jonghyun, or as silky in his delivery as jinki, but they thought the choked up sound of gwiboon’s voice was a good indication of her starting to cry.
“see!” jonghyun cried.
minho placed his forehead on taemin’s, “i love you so much taem.” he said, looking them in the eye.
taemin flushed, making minho smile and reach to wipe the rest of the leftover tears off of taemin’s face.
jonghyun squeezed the envelope, “you guys are so cute!” he cried.
suddenly, he released it, the paper falling to the floor with a metallic clink.
taemin reached for it, pouring five promise rings out onto their palm and looking up at their stunned partners.
“happy valentines day. be mine?” they asked, getting subsequently tackled by 4 bodies.
“yes!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“stupid, stupid, you’re so stupid,” yixing muttered under his breath, raising a hand up from yifan’s chest before remembering what situation they were in and putting his hand back gently, continuing to emit a golden light.
yifan grunted ad his rib flew back into place, tissue tying itself back together and coming back to the state it was in before yifan had fallen out of the tree.
yixing remembered the moments before perfectly, yifan flying up into the tree, telling yixing “no, i’ll be ok, don’t worry!” and then yifan falling out of the tree, his bones cracking on the hard forest floor.
“ow, ow yixing it’s… you’re pressing too hard please—” yifan groaned as yixing pushed down harder.
“you know i need to push down for it to work really well,” yixing growled out, pressing a little bit harder.
“yeah but—urg—could you not like,
oh my god
,” yifan groaned again.
“i can’t fucking believe you hurt yourself fucking falling out of a tree when you can literally fly,” yixing let up on the pressure and yifan took a deep breath, bending his knee an dhis arm to make sure everything was working well.
“thank you,” he said, and yixing groaned, grabbing yifan’s hand to pull him up.
“let’s get going. luhan said he was waiting,” yixing takes a few steps forward.
“well?” he asks, and yifan steps forward, grabbing yixing’s hand.
they fall into step beside each other, walking deeper into the forest to meet up with their friends.