Chapter Text
“Taeyong.”
The words slid out of Mark’s dry ad cracked lips as he saw the other man amongst the crowd of sweaty bodies in the dimly lit club. Mark could barely see the older because the crowd was always swarming and shifting from place to place, person to person. But, he knew it was Taeyong for the fluff of pink hair was inevitable in the dark place. Mark will know Taeyong if he’s in the crowd, any place, anytime. Blind Mark, pierce holes through his two eyes and bind him to a thorn chair with chains amongst many other dreadful things, still, Mark will know. He can’t explain the queer connection he has with his former lover. It’s like a 7th sense, it comes so naturally but for others, bystanders, it is unnatural as shit can get.
Mark pushed and swam through many hormonal, unthinking bodies that felt like an endless vast of water, to get through his way to the other man. For Mark, everything was in slow motion and his vision was crystal. Somehow, without much explanation to be offered, he could see a fallen eyelash on the smaller man’s flushed cheek. Taeyong had a black tank top that had some strange wavy lines on the middle of the fabric, black converse, and skinny black jeans that as Mark clearly remembers like it was, no, not yesterday, but today, making his ass look like some Greek sculpture in a museum or maybe even, hell, Elysium. He saw two other things that left him speechless but that comes a tad bit later in the chapter. Upon noticing Mark, he darted his eyes elsewhere and immediately fled into the night, crossing not as much crowd as Mark had to. Feeling lost, Mark just stood there. He didn’t what to do, he didn’t know what he was supposed to think in a situation as painful as this.
His mind went blank for about a dozen seconds before he left in a similar fashion as another did just now. However, unlike the man in black, he didn’t call for a taxi the moment his feet hit the stone sidewalk. Instead, he took a moment or two to breathe air that wasn’t mixed with other people’s breath and sweat. He put on a big smile, stretching his lips almost up to his ears and had a little spring in his steps. It looked unnatural, it was unnatural. He kept it up until he reached his dorm.
He pulled at the yellow knob, opening the door, he didn’t lock it when he left the place, earlier. He should’ve because now he’s all alone in the dorm. There’s no more random noises, often scrubbing noises, because, “It just didn’t look as clean.” There’s no more crackling sounds coming from the other side of the table during dinner or other meal times. There’s no more boxes of Fruit Snacks in one of the bottom cabinets. There’s no more smell of strawberry and no more gingery smell from medical oils for joints. There’s no more essential materials to make food in the fridge anymore because Mark doesn’t know how to cook. There’s no more piercing eyes and adorable smiles littering all over the dorm. But most important of all, there’s no more Taeyong.
The moment he closed the door, his back slid against the door, his butt hit the floor and he sat still on the floor. His hands moved up to his hair and he grabbed at it, pulling as he cried pitiful sobs. Tears slid out of his eyes like waterfalls. He pulled his knees close to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, now he was full on bawling. He opened his mouth to breathe, his nose was clogged. Even with his mouth opened, he couldn’t. Trying to breathe while sobbing like how hard Mark was, is hard. He opened his mouth again like a fish out of water. He got up and stumbled into the bathroom, almost punching the lights on. He grabbed the tissue box and took a bundle of tissue. He blew his nose and threw away the used tissue. He did this over and over until he could breathe fine. He splashed his face with some cold water from the sink and didn’t bother to dry himself. He left the bathroom, turning the lights off and leaving the door open, the lock was broken on that dismaying day. He went to his bedroom, sat on his bed, and stripped off everything. He hated sleeping with clothes in bed. He went under the blue blankets and closed his eyes, making a futile attempt at sleep. He may have not slept that night so there was no drool on the pillow but there was other salty stains on the pillow, tear stains.
The flaming sun glared at the brunette’s face the next hopeless day in the hopeless morning. Mark sighed, he had classes he was unwilling to attend and faces he was unwilling to meet. He put on a random outfit, grabbed his backpack and MacBook, and then showed himself out the door. He walked down the stairs to his class calmly, he would still have twenty minutes when he arrived there. He didn’t bother to actually pay attention to his surroundings on the way to his class. Still, nothing cliché like running into the self-certified “King” of the school, got bullied, secretly loved the other, and then the bully fell in love because there was a project they had to work on together, happened. (Author: I am not about that life, boo. I MEAN WHO DAFUQ FALLS IN LOVE WITH THEIR TORTURER?!! THAT’S JUST MESSED UP.) He safely got to his class, devoid of anything really bad happening. His classes drifted by, Mark didn’t really pay attention. He wanted to, but a certain male in black clothes from the night before kept intruding his thoughts. Especially, the little red mark on his neck and the man next to him, having wrapped an arm around his thin waist bothered him and his thoughts so much. Thoughts like, “Was it a fucking hickey?” “Did it mean something?” “Did he move on from me this fast? Or was it just a one night stand?” “Who dared to mark Taeyong like that?” “Why did Taeyong let him? When did he do it? And who was that man with his arms around MY Taeyong- Oh, he’s not mine anymore. I don’t deserve to be questioning his love life, at least not after that happened,” crossed his mind a lot and even if he called himself undeserving of questioning Taeyong’s love life, his mind still wouldn’t rest and begged on its knees, if it had knees, for explanations and a further look in the hickey, the man and the story behind each. He wanted to beat the cat looking man to a pulp and whoever that was the cause of the red mark on Taeyong’s neck, all the more easier if the same man is responsible. Yet, oh so much more than that, he wanted to hear it from Taeyong himself but that would be extremely hard to accomplish, if not impossible. Even if he did talk to him, the petite man will probably ask him why in the whole world would he want to know and Mark did NOT want to deal with that question.
As Mark was walking down the stairs at the front gate of the school, he spotted the man that was intimately close with Taeyong the day before. He immediately ran down to the man and grabbed him by the right shoulder. Startled, the cattish looking man whipped around to face Mark. His features relaxed after knowing who it was, he even looked a little amused.
“And I suppose you’re that Mark?”