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nobodyeverasked · 3 years ago

Text

stars around scars; mark lee

(11,997) words - large

summary ➣ Mark Lee and Y/N, nothing but mere shadows to each other, spend a little more time together after school one night and realize that they had more in comment than they ever thought.

genre ➣ angst (+ a little fluff)

requested - 👍

note ➣ Hello 😊! This is ending four of seven for the dear dream series. This story takes place right after the dear dream prologue, an alternate path to endings such as champagne problems (Jeno) and true colours (Renjun).

Same as the last few endings, if you want to know a little bit about what’s going on then the prologue is a good place to start. But this story can also be read on its own, so if you want some good ol’ Mark content, then happy reading 💛!

⛥ revised version ⛥

-: ✧ prologue --- mark - renjun - jeno - haechan - jaemin - chenle - jisung �� :-

.・゜-: ✧ :- .・゜-: ✧ :- -: ✧ :-゜・. -: ✧ :-゜・．

Ending 4 of 7

Y/N slung his bag over his shoulder, gently tucking in his chair and slinking through the door frame with nothing but the muffled whispers of his trainers against the hallway tiles. Leaving that classroom, he could feel this weight being lifted off him. But even as he kicked up the stray remnants of sunlight that settled between the cracks in the floor and gaps between the lockers, there was something he couldn’t quite shake - cinders and ash lodged into his skin.

The intense heat that felt as if it pierced through his chest and left him breathless, it scratched at him like misgivings of a dirty conscience, as if there was a gaze from behind him that lingered there with this suffocating presence. It only relented as he made it to the stairwell by the art corridor, the lifeless, pale overhead lights seeming to talk it down.

Y/N took a deep breath and stopped before the doorway to the stairwell - trying his best to pull away from his mind which tugged him in too many directions to keep track of. Stray thoughts reminded him how tired he was, how sad he was, how the sparks in his heart were ground out the moment he stepped through those damned school doors on that say sophomore year; that day the hand that used to hold his in earnest let him slip, fall and sink deeper into a darkness that was only once folklore to him.

This feeling of emptiness. A vast, ever-stretching shadow that ate away at Y/N’s resolve was only ever in the stories he and Jisung would tell each other about as they rested themselves against the foot of Y/N’s bed, a ukulele that’s seen better days rested in Jisung’s lap as they linked pinkies and promised to always be each other’s light.

Nothing ever felt the same to him anymore, at least, the things that he and Jisung shared together. The sunrise, the moonlight, the golden twines of the sunlight that’d tangle them together and leave them in an embrace until they could feel another day slip right out from under them.

Jisung slipped right out from under him too, just like one of their countless night’s they’ve burnt to the ground, the stars only being swept away by the morning when they deemed it so.

Y/N’s just stranded now, left to pick up pieces of memories only he seems to have to live with, left to struggle through raging tides of constantly resurfacing thoughts and questions of what they used to be. It feels as if he’s the only one who lost a part of him, who feels but a sliver of his former self without that one person by his side who said he’d never leave.

But he left. Jisung left…

He didn’t even say ‘goodbye’ with one of those small, barely noticeable waves he threw Y/N’s way as they split up for their mid-morning classes only to reconvene right after for their lunch.

That was always one of Y/N’s favourite parts of the day, seeing Jisung’s smile in all its glory in the golden glow of the afternoon sunlight, still shaking the delicate, blue light of the freshly broken dawn off his back as he’d wake up with Jisung at his side to catch the butterflies they’d leave in each other’s stomachs. Jisung would brush Y/N’s hair away from his forehead and get a better look at the leftover moonlight they had yet to quell as it lay in shimmers in Y/N’s eyes. He’d always tell Y/N how handsome he looked, and he always boasted that he never needed his glasses to tell apart Y/N’s smile from the rest - even the thin, dark, round-framed glasses Y/N would always stick on the corner of Jisung’s dresser so they didn’t have to waste all their time with Jisung’s inability to choose.

Jisung wouldn’t even need to spend time choosing glasses anymore, not after Y/N told him how he looked like his ‘cute little nerd’ with the round ones framing his eyes with a gentle, innocent shine. It’d take until the end of their lunch period to see the scarlet flush that the complement would leave blooming on Jisung’s cheeks finally fade.

Y/N nodded to himself, finally pushing through the doors and slowly descending the concrete stairs toward the art corridor. Those waves that Jisung would always give to him were always more of a ‘see you later’, than a ‘goodbye’.

He gets it now, Jisung didn’t want to leave with a broken promise.

At least not with any more than he already left with...

Y/N wound down the rest of the stairs and scuttling further down the art hallway he just reached. With the gaps his mind finally took, he decided to text Renjun back. He took another breath, feeling wrung dry of air already, as he read over Renjun’s text.

He said he was ‘still free tonight to make up for yesterday’, and it left Y/N pacing back and forth across the tiles, desperately trying to read between the lines - even if there was only one line.

Y/N needed to find something to work with as he started to realize how quickly Renjun’s smile faded nowadays, how frequently he was ready to say sorry and own up to a mistake he didn’t make before Y/N could condemn him. Y/N found it hard, though, to blame Renjun for anything. In his darkest time, Renjun that his fray of silver curls atop his head have been the only light in his barren sky.

Maybe all he needs, all he could have used, was a little bit of reassurance, for Y/N to just grab him by the shoulders at their favourite picnic table or that same blossom tree they eat their lunch under every day and set those flickering flames under his heart alight again.

He wished that he'd made it more obvious from the start, how much he appreciates Renjun, and how sorry he is for leaving Renjun to fill the spaces between in a story they’re supposed to be starting together. Staring fondly over the avocado and grandma emojis that hovered right next to Renjun’s name on his phone, Y/N finally stopped his pacing and leaned against one of the corners that interested the art corridor. Every breath Y/N took, it was as if he was turning himself inside out. Y/N tapped into his phone, stating to a probably paranoid Renjun on the other side of his screen that ‘It’s fine,’ that he ‘didn’t need to make up for anything’.

That wasn’t enough… Y/N thought to himself as he wore away at his bottom lip. ‘I’m free tomorrow, though, there’s something I need to make up for’. Y/N sent another message, feeling this strange satisfaction as he looked up from his phone and started again down the hallway.

He hoped he wasn’t too late to reassure Renjun, that hopefully he’d save him a seat at the back of the classroom where all their morning conversations lingered like the glimmer of a morning haze. The faint smell of Renjun’s homemade tea still clung to every one of his knit cardigans, especially that one Renjun got him for Christmas.

That one in particular, Y/N wore it on those days where his guilt about his complacency in Renjun’s inner struggle resurfaced, parting the tides of all his other thoughts that clambered for attention. Those moments where he’s always annoyed before he’s concerned, where he’s bothered before he’s available, and he’s in grief before he notices Renjun’s wonderful presence or that beautiful luster in his eyes.

On those stressful mornings without Renjun in the seat next to him to keep him company or to gently touch their fingers together as he leaned over to ‘borrow an eraser’, Y/N would take the fabric of that cardigan between his fingers.

For a short while, a fleeting yet peaceful moment, all the chaos that’d leave him too tired to think would just fade away, submerge under the cologne Renjun seemed to wear more often after Y/N set an aimless comment aside about it. Y/N never thought once, let alone twice, about how he carelessly tossed it out with a snicker, bringing Renjun closer by the shoulders and pressing the sides of their heads together.

But maybe Renjun thought about it more, maybe he thought about it endlessly. Maybe the thought of that very spring morning brought a smile upon his lips when everything seemed to weigh him down. Nothing but an absent-minded comment from Y/N keeping him afloat when his tides nearly swept him over.

Y/N really did have something to make up for.

Continuing down the hall and letting his eyes wander over the murals on the walls of the art corridor, Y/N tucked his phone into his pocket. Something tore his focus away, however, a shifting silhouette of gray and black in a doorway of one of the art classrooms, their jostling shoulders and their black hair framed by the dimming sunlight streaming through the still open windows. Y/N couldn’t help but stare, their jet black leather jacket draped loosely from their frame, it looked all-to-familiar.

When Y/N recognized it himself, that his stare was lingering for a little while too long on Mark Lee, he was already too late. Mark was already whipping himself around one of the tables, pulling at the strap of his dark grey computer bag and tugging carelessly at his shirt collar with a rough sigh. Their gazes caught one another for a brief moment of silence - even the overhead lights didn’t stir an inch - but Y/N instantly averted his gaze and made his way further down the hallway.

Mark tried to shake it off, like he always does, but something he can’t quite determine; a rising in his chest, a falling in his breath, a clangor in his head that he always had the energy to silence but can’t quite find the strength to do so now. It made him want to follow in the settled sunlight that Y/N kicked up meekly with his languishing steps.

With a scoff, more to himself than Y/N - maybe both - he wrapped around the door frame and followed in Y/N’s direction, his eyes falling to Y/N’s tightened shoulders as he continued to scuttle towards the side exit. He had something new to focus his thoughts on, not that half-hearted critique his art teacher just gave him about some ‘underlying inauthenticity’ in his work that made him want to laugh. At least it was something to do, Mark kept trying to convince himself as this feeling, this urge tucked away in the back of his mind kept dragging his steps forward and finally bunched up at the back of his throat in a-

“Hey!”

Mark’s call, hoarse yet strong, commanding yet relaxed passed right through Y/N’s chest as if he was nothing. Y/N flinched at the echo that seemed to course through the hallway and looked slowly over his shoulder to see Mark leaning against the lockers that were right outside the art classrooms - arms folded with a usual sly smile settling upon his lips, something expectant glimmering in his eyes.

Y/N never knew what was so intriguing about Mark, or what made Mark something worth the extra few seconds of his stray stares. Maybe it was how he didn’t hate Y/N’s guts like the rest of his ‘friends’, no bitter glares around the corner, no snide remarks to bite into the side of his neck as Jeno shoved past him in the hallways. Or how he’s actually a functioning member of society despite associating with someone whose main hobby is literally defiling Y/N’s sanity.

Maybe, just maybe, it was the way Mark’s dark brown eyes spun the plaid, lifeless light that hung overtop of them like a mistake they’ve never made into this glistening silver on those mornings where they would bump into each other around the social sciences block. Whenever Mark hummed a weak apology with a curt lift of an eyebrow and a subtle nod before sauntering off as if he was never there, as if his footsteps held no weight. It always made Y/N stop for a minute, made the sunlight that fell gracefully through the window still and regain its breath.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, you know.” Mark cocked his head playfully. Y/N was one of the only people that made existence in this school more sufferable, it brought him this vague sense of hope that not all juniors this year were just a gaggle of superficial egomanics who cared more about their name being known by the masses than having their name on a diploma. He’d probably be more of a people person here if all the people here weren’t borderline trash.

Y/N tried to regain the rhythm in his step, but he kept stammering, hitching as if that stoic, resolute shine in his eyes - one he’d always go to the sky for to have his moments of peace that were so few and far between - was calling to him. “Okay, well… You’ve had me fooled with that claim on multiple occasions.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Mark made his way over to Y/N and did his best to conceal a smile as he saw Y/N slowly put a halt to his way out the side exit. “You know I’d never hurt you… On purpose…”

“Yeah, ‘cause that explosion in chemistry class that completely deleted my eyebrows wasn’t on purpose.”

“Wow~” Mark nudged Y/N in the side coyly as they continued to follow the glimmers in the ashen tiles. “That was like, freshman year!” Mark tried to reflect on that year, but those two and a half years felt nearly like a lifetime. So many nights he’s wasted away, spent a hair’s breadth away from all the things in his life that he’s barely taken the time to actually see how everything has changed. Not even the shifting in the colours of the leaves as they began to crunch under his boots garnered any attention. Every day was just about weathering school’s expectations and then heading home, probably waiting for the moonlight and its entourage of stars to greet him before he actually did anything worthwhile.

That’s how his life was, that’s how it is. Mark sees no reason to make it any different or any more significant than that.

Y/N, though… He remembers everything, every minor detail, every major leap. He’s tasted that sweet nostalgia too many times to see it as special, as anything more than a vapid dream. The reliving of events he always wants to crawl back to, but he knows the golden glow that inhabits all of his fondest memories will never feel the same. Everything shifted so much since freshman year, a beat of a butterfly’s wings that used to settle in his stomach as he laughed away his lunch out at the center table in the cafeteria now ripping through the air in the form of his wistful sigh down the hallway.

How has everything changed so drastically, so quickly? It was as if the test of time was waiting only for the cracks in Y/N’s armor to finally show, for the loose ends in his cherished friendship with Jisung to finally snap and for their highest hopes - all their plans for the future, the only thing to their names a blank slate and wide smiles - to fall from grace.

He never expected the landing below to hit this hard, to hurt this much.

“You still haven’t let that go?” Mark’s joking words finally made it through to Y/N’s head, everything seeming to blur for a quick second as Y/N snapped his head up to look over to Mark. Y/N hoped that he didn’t miss too much of what Mark said in between.

‘Exactly’... That’s what Y/N wanted to say. Y/N wants to cling onto anything from the time where everything was normal, where the monotony was in shared smiles and fond memories. Not in the grief that pried into Y/N’s heart or in the things he already knew Jeno was going to say to him around that corner by his first period class.

Eyeing Y/N up and down, taking their silence in for a while, Mark finally recognized what unknown desire pulled him out the door of that classroom. That comment that Jeno made about Renjun being Y/N’s ‘fake best friend’ - that was what it was.

It even burrowed under Mark’s skin, left to simmer in his veins and weather the heat of Jeno’s glare despite him being behind Jeno’s squared shoulders and the furious glint in his eye. It stung all the same. He’s sure that if he heads to the science block where the altercation happened this very morning, the sparks lit by Jeno’s remark would still be dancing in the coppers of the afternoon sunlight - glimmering with the pride that always follows in Jeno’s footsteps wherever he goes - could still burn his skin.

Mark was glad that he held Jeno back by his shoulder this morning before he advanced further on Y/N and Renjun. He knows that Y/N doesn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfires of whatever inner conflict Jeno has going on right now. He’s had the great pleasure of knowing Jeno for most of their lives. When they were little, back when being around each other and having each other’s backs were practically a necessity and back when the sunlight shone silver on their backs, they would spend all their days together wearing the horizon’s light on strolls down a path Jeno - the one Mark knew before his egotism got to his head - would always say was ‘their safe place’.

All of the places in which he found sanctuary, all the places where he felt included, loved and accepted were ripped from the ground, uprooted like that one sycamore tree that withered away and fled from his and Jeno’s grade school’s field between a shift of the seasons. Its branches carved shattered the shadows that once used to loom over them, its leaves carrying this faint tint of the jade greens that used to dance so beautifully with their laughter. Jeno would lie on Mark’s lap on days warm enough to sneak onto the premises and set there for hours, the whistling and chuckling between the breeze and the small flowers in the grass that’d bloom near the tree’s roots, Mark could understand them once, everything they were saying. Now it was nothing but a fumbling, incoherent mess, a blur of memories that always forces Mark to look the other way.

They’ve already lived out their grand visions for their supposed future, just an overplayed record spun too fast until it shattered. So when Jeno made that remark, when he loomed over Y/N and Renjun like the shadows that carved his and Jeno’s evenings and dwindled their light, Mark was just reminded of all the broken hearts Jeno’s been leaving in his wake, watching them with this twisted sense of glee and satisfaction as they burned themselves out in order to try and prove him wrong. It’s taken Mark quite a long time to recognize this himself, but Jeno’s words don’t matter, all the gravity with none of the meaning.

“Anyways…” It’s been a while since Mark has had to face this stale, contemplative silence that Y/N’s left him in. A part of him wanted to find a way to guide Y/N out of his stupor. “Why’re you here so late? You’re still in the photography club?”

“No, I quit that sophomore year, and the soccer team too…” Y/N nearly cringed at the thought of him and all the clubs he was a part of in freshman year, back when he knew how to keep himself afloat. “You? Why’re you here, being all solitary and mysterious?”

“I’ll leave that up to your imagination…”

They shared a weak chuckle as Y/N rolled his eyes and nudged Mark in the side, something that Mark wouldn’t usually let slide, but with Y/N he didn’t seem to care as much about all the things that shortened his fuse. However, the tension that slowly rolled off from their shoulders as the corners of Y/N’s smile finally started to lift up came rolling back as harsh as the bite of a winter breeze as something caught Y/N’s eye. A painting perched behind a wall of glass ripped Y/N’s tentatively shifting gaze up from the notches in the tile floor.

“What is it?” Mark matched Y/N’s slowing steps, and then stopped behind him, following his gaze to the canvas stained green and blue, held in a glass cabinet between a couple art classroom doors. He first lifted an eyebrow, wondering what was so special about a vibrant oil painting. It’s marks of vivid colour were expressive, full of feeling - genuine yet unexplainable. It was something to decipher, sure, but not necessarily something worth the acclaim.

Mark wanted to let those feelings spill over, but he didn’t want to disturb whatever thoughts he knew were churning so loudly in Y/N’s head.

“Uh… I-” Y/N felt himself tripping over his words, all the memories of the night Y/N and Jisung stayed up to finish this painting a day before the deadline of the competition it was for. Y/N almost wanted to shine a small, reminiscent smile at it, recalling all those colours soaked into his fingertips, and all the chaos that ensued under this roof that night. One memory, most of all, glimmered in his mind like that lone star that pierced through the violets in the sky as Y/N and Jisung took a break and dangled their legs over the edge of Y/N’s roof. That one, never-fleeting moment from that night entwined with their laughter that Y/N can never scrub from his conscience no matter how hard he tried.

Jisung had his chin rested on Y/N’s shoulder, taking Y/N’s hands in his - away from the paintbrush Y/N was anxiously fiddling with - a playful chuckle taking flight from the both of them as the colours seared into their hands began to mix between their skin. This breath in the chaos, where nothing filled their air other than the remnants of Jisung’s shy chuckle and the silence that followed, that stillness rendered Y/N nearly breathless. Y/N turned around in Jisung’s embrace, not a second thought given to the blues and purples that stained one of his favourite hoodies - it was Jisung’s anyways - and held his face, the reds and yellows he held in his hands against Jisung’s flushed cheeks as he smoothed his fingers against his skin - eyes fastened to Jisung’s smile, whose light guided him through everything.

He was so close, they were so close, to just taking the shards of moonlight that shifted restlessly in their melding breaths and having the coy smile on the other end stain his lips golden.

“It’s nothing…” Y/N fidgeted with his hands and looked up to Mark, who began to look a little more concerned than perplexed as he began to study the nervous shifting in Y/N’s defeated gaze. Their familiar shimmer wasn’t there, at least the one he always saw igniting in the afternoon sun as they always crossed paths by the history department every other day. “I did that with a friend-” Y/N cut himself off, his false hopes already ingraining themselves into him. “An old friend… I haven’t really seen it after we finished it, or after we spent all the prize money.”

“Jisung, I’m guessing?” Mark tried to tread delicately, the floor felt like glass under him, and with the way Y/N shoved his clenched fists into his pockets, he could tell it was shattering. He continued anyway.

He knows, almost better than anyone, that trying to outrun problems until they’re nothing but ash in weathered hands will only make them gain on the mind faster. He could sense all the whisper’s Y/N’s been bottling up and playing repeat, all the memories cycling through his head, his hopeless yet ceaseless attempts to relive the past. It may feel better in the moment, but it only makes the scars deeper, it will only fray the ends of the tapestry Y/N’s been trying to desperately stitch back together.

“Sorry… He’s all Jeno ever talked about for a while-”

“It’s okay…” Y/N tried to finish his thought, but the name Mark just carved out of the air left him stumbling over. Hearing Jeno’s name, it sent a shiver down Y/N’s spine, an overwhelming discomfort to bubble beneath his skin with the low hum that always trailed after Jeno’s harsh words. No matter how hard Y/N tried to rub it off, stains of the pride and disdain that always seeped through Jeno’s voice always managed to stick onto him. Steadying himself, looking over his shoulder toward Mark who was walking behind him, the concern that shone in Mark’s eyes not making Y/N feel any better. “Jeno…? I didn’t think you guys actually talked. Are you friends with him…?”

Mark released a breath he didn’t know he was holding, as if the memories of Jeno that’ve barely surfaced until now still seemed to claim the air in his chest. “It’s a long story…”

“I have time. It’s not like I have anywhere to be…” The more Y/N thought about it, the lonelier he felt. Part of him wants to pull out his phone and text Renjun again, but based on the tension he felt gradually creeping between their conversation in the morning, the last thing he wants to do is to make one of the only stars left in his sky burn himself out. He wished he felt this guilt sooner so he could realize what expectations he placed on Renjun’s shoulders. The entire world he used to live in, Renjun had to bend to its rules instead of them creating their own like they always talked about doing on their windswept strolls by the forest on their spare periods.

Maybe tomorrow, with the jovial blue light of a new dawn laid in glimmers against the paths they’ve walked together, Y/N could finally be the best friend that Renjun has always deserved.

“My parents are out on business so nobody’s really expecting me…” Y/N continued, trying not to let the emptiness in his hands show through in the gradual crumbling in his voice.

Usually, Jisung would be expecting him, waiting with anticipation coursing through him by Y/N’s locker as Jisungs class always finished a few minutes earlier. Wherever Y/N foes, Jisung would be pulled into his gravity - sent careening through Y/N’s orbit with every memory they shared in the starlight.

Being in each other’s orbit - Y/N now greets that vague concept that was once so vibrant, so real, with a wistful sigh and a bitter chuckle - a notion that was all they could ever ask for.

At least, it was all Y/N could ever ask for…

Jisung seemed to need more. Y/N just wasn’t enough for him supposedly.

Shaking off the thoughts that made Y/N yearn for evenings drowning in the maroon fabric of Jisung’s hoodie, one he’s sure he still has in a dust-ridden shoebox at the base of his closet - an assortment of keepsakes he hasn’t built the courage to return yet, he pivoted around to catch Mark’s gaze for longer. Mark let out a dry chuckle watching Y/N’s attempts to walk backward towards the side exit. Narrowing his eyes and leaning forward, almost trying to inspect the smile that began to break free from the firm line Mark pressed his lips into, Y/N’s voice settled to the floor, impishly pestering the sunlight that began to stretch across the floor as windows took the classroom doors’ places. “I wanna know who the real Mark Lee is.”

“The real Mark Lee?” Mark bit back his laughter as his very own words began to run bitter on his tongue. First his art teacher today, now Y/N? Why does everyone have trouble ‘seeing who he is’? Why does everyone care so much about his authentic self as if they’d like him any more if he were to show it?

If Y/N really wanted to know that badly, then Mark was going to show him. Not to prove him wrong or to spite him like others who’ve asked the same exact things, but for something else. He didn’t quite know how to articulate it, as feelings that made this warmth swell in his chest always left him tripping on his words. But something about Y/N makes him want to open up, to shed a few more smiles and be unashamed of the person he really is.

“Yeah, you know too much about me for comfort. It’s only fair if I get to know you too.” Y/N cocked his head, a smile just bright enough for the sunlight to see finally flourishing for the first time since the morning sun swept it away.

“You wanna see who I really am? Fine.” Mark stopped Y/N and turned him around, holding the door for him. I have somewhere special in mind to do just that.” He couldn’t help but be a little nervous, though, stammers in his thoughts and an uncertainty leaving his breaths dry like that shrivelled up coastline he and Jeno used to call a ‘second home’.

The nervousness seemed to naturally subside like a breeze that grew too tired as he met Y/N’s gaze once more. The darkening sunlight streaming in through the glass doors leading outside, they made Y/N’s eyes shimmer in a way he never really noticed in anyone else. Only in their brief encounters in the hallway or fleeting glances of acknowledgement halfway across the cafeteria, it was there, Mark always worked so hard to find it.

He was ready, he was ready to show him who he truly is.

Y/N’s voice seemed to ring with a melodic chime, his words already dancing with the clouds in the coral sky before they even made their way outside.

“Lead the way.”

Y/N and Mark shoved themselves through the side exit doors, Y/N clinging to his sweater as the evening breeze nudged playfully against them. The sun was already resting on the rooftops overlooking the basketball courts, faded streaks of lavender and blue in the sky like brushstrokes against an amber canvas. These skies used to be so beautiful, a moment to share. If Y/N really wanted to plunge into the depths of his memories, the ones he constantly tells himself to never wade through in fear of never being able to breach the surface again, the sunlight would remind him of happy things, cherry-stained scenes distorted by the aftertaste of that bitter nostalgia that never leaves him. Now, all the sky is to him is a neutral party to his torment, nothing but a stoic, resolute figure that Y/N could come to, sit himself at his and Renjun’s favourite table and receive nothing but a moment of peace he could get nowhere else.

Following Mark around the corner, the clangor by the baseball diamonds caught both of their attention. Mark groaned, his coarse, sharp breath being swept up from under his tongue and into the sky, and Y/N winced at the rattling of the cages. Blurs of red and white nylon circled tattered bases and kicked up scarlet sands, and if Y/N forced himself to look harder, he could see a head of dark hair leaning against the bleachers. Shoulders that have housed his hands, hands that have molded his very nights and eyes that still hold the shimmer that Y/N’s tried so hard to forget.

Mark’s gaze soon trailed Y/N’s to see Jeno at the pitcher’s mound, rallying his teammates toward the bleachers and grinding his cleats into the sand. Stray thoughts make him wonder if Jeno still has pieces of his and Y/N’s hearts ground beneath the soles of those shoes, and he wonders if Jeno still harbors the satisfaction he said he had when they were fighting under the sycamore tree that was once theirs. It was weathered, tired, a heavy wind away from bursting into cinders. It was just like them. Part of Mark was satisfied too, that he put a distance between the part of him that Jeno’s still been holding onto, he wasn’t ready to change his colours to suit Jeno’s vision.

The songs in their chests begged them, pleading with them to turn around to rip their gazes away from the baseball diamond, but they just stepped closer in this silent contemplation. Jade greens of the cedar trees at the edge of the lot, carried in by the wind, tried to fill the silence between them, but Y/N tentatively weaved his way through.

“So…” Y/N’s voice made Mark practically snap to attention. Trying to hide a chuckle, he continued and looked back longingly at the diamond. Mark’s eyes were unreadable, detached, as if he was trying to protect or inhibit something. “You and Jeno, huh…?” Y/N couldn’t hide his perplexity in his folded arms or the dumbfounded gape in his hung-open mouth. He was trying to finish his thought, but he just let Mark meander through the blanks in his head.

“Oh yeah… That… As I said, it’s a long story.”

“I mean, I see you guys in the same group sometimes…?” Y/N tried to think about how many times he’s actually seen them together. They haven’t necessarily been side by side, but the way Mark clasped his hand on Jeno’s shoulder, the way he stopped him in his tracks before he blazed his trail right through Y/N and Renjun this morning.

No normal person, no onlooker of Jeno’s will could ever maintain that kind of authority. Y/N’s never seen Jeno relent like that since he was threatened with suspension for heckling Y/N in class, and even then, he knows those threats are always going to turn up empty-handed when the principal wants to maintain his son, Jeno’s, spotless record. It’s why he needed to skip, only look forlornly into that classroom as he scuttled by, catching up on readings.

“But I never thought anyone could hold back a wild Jeno, at least anyone who’s lived to tell about it…” Y/N nearly shuddered at the thought. Jeno’s cruel, ruthless rasp cutting through the air, the strength that Y/N could feel radiate off him whenever he shoved past him in hallways.

“He knows better than that.” Mark rolled his eyes with a smirk bordering on cockiness - a mixture between his pride and certainty against Jeno and the sheer amusement he got out of Y/N’s completely awestruck face. He thought about when he and Jeno were younger, shedding the skins of the early morning wrestling in the dewy fields first thing in the morning. Most of them he won, nevermind what Jeno still likes to believe or quietly boast about privately by his locker on those fateful days they’re paired together for a biology project.

Mark would be lying if he said Jeno never phased him anymore, but he can’t let that show, not again. He made the mistake of giving him that much power over him before everything collapsed like a house of cards.

“I just head over to his table and talk up a few of his lackeys when I need to get my social interaction quota for the month. They don’t really mean anything to me…” Mark said, trying to sound unimpressed so Y/N didn’t have to worry about Mark’s heavy burden too. Two years of telling himself he’s moved on and he can still feel the ache from where he swore he let it go.

“I wish I could say the same…” Y/N looked away from the diamond shamefully just before the figure he was staring at felt the back of their head simmer and turned around to meet nothing but a silhouette against the sunlight that looked too familiar. A defeated sigh oozing from between Y/N’s lips, the shine in his eyes wavered, threatening to be stifled by a sadness so strong it nearly made Mark stumble past his breath. “You’ve talked to Jisung too, I’m guessing?”

“Not alone, but in groups, yes.” Mark answered Y/N’s questions surely, but also curtly. He didn’t want him and Y/N to spend more time here than they have to. He could feel everything, as if the cracks in Y/N’s armour were only being pried open further by that hectic chanting behind those chain link fences, by the sunlight he knows frame some of Y/N’s most cherished memories with Jisung. “Speaking of, maybe we should leave… The sooner you move on, the better…”

“Wait, what…?” Y/N stumbled over himself, looking over to Mark.

Mark continued despite Y/N’s pout, standing still and resolute despite the defiance and protest he heard in Y/N’s voice.

“Losing a friend makes you feel awful, it makes you feel worthless. I get it, I feel worthless too, all the time…” Mark nearly shuddered, the will to be strong, it was harder and harder to find as the sky flared up. “But, you need to just… Let go. They’re not coming back…” Mark didn’t know if he was speaking to Y/N, the reflection of himself in Y/N’s eyes, or both. Even now, Mark still needs to convince himself that Jeno’s not just going to wind around the corner with open arms.

Y/N shook his head, Mark’s words clinging to his skin but not sinking in. “How do you know that-”

“Because I know what it’s like to lose a friend, okay!? I know what it’s like to lose someone who thinks that you’re a loose end, a weak link that needs cutting off…” Everything ceased for the moments his words hung in the air. Everything he kept locked away in his chest, every skipped heartbeat Jeno made him feel and every melody they made together under their own starless skies, they all came boiling and spilling over.

Mark could feel his facade slipping, fleeing from his desperate grasp. How worthless he feels, how unworthy he feels, how lonely he feels, it’s all rushing back to him in a flood of emotions. He knew he could only hold them back for so long until they burned through him like the stars laid weathered in his hands that he and Jeno once forged between their interlacing fingers.

“But guess what… Life goes on without them. Clinging to your past will only make it eat away at you. I’ve been doing that for far too long…”

Mark and Jeno, even when they were too small to pluck stars from the sky and hold them between their stares like they did mere moments before they fell apart, always had a terrible habit of having their cake and eating it too. Jeno’s strong, cunning, ruthless, but that never stops him from coming back to Mark one way or another.

When that happens, though, it tears Mark apart from the loose threads in his weathered heart. Whether to be alright with what they’re given or to long for what they used to be, that mix of emotions always overtakes him as he meets Jeno around a corner of the school and they act like nothing ever happened. The purgatory of being so close yet so far, it’s brutal…

It’s been really easy for Mark to act like it doesn’t hurt, like Jeno turning his back on him and only coming back at his convenience to lure Mark into this false sense of normalcy wasn’t on his mind. But it was, it was all the time.

“I…” Y/N drew a breath as Mark reached out and took Y/N by the shoulders. His voice was nothing but a shrivelled whine, barely strong enough to lift itself off the ground. “I don’t know if I can do that…”

“Yes you can, I know you can.” Mark could feel something in his chest slowly unwinding the longer he stared at the shattered light in Y/N’s gaze. He felt safe, and he could feel himself slowly accepting everything with every breath he let out by Y/N’s side. He wasn’t fully there - far from it - but he was closer than he’s ever been right now than the last three years he’s had all of his misgivings dangling vindictively in front of him. “Now let’s go.” Mark tugged on Y/N’s arm, urging him to follow and finally leave their shadows behind them. “I’m sure they loved having an audience for long enough…”

“Alright…” Y/N said. If Mark believed in him and his strength to finally loosen the shackles of his delusion, then Y/N needed to believe in himself too. He followed Mark and squeezed back reassuringly at the hand that slowly slid into his. Maybe he was ready to move on and focus on those who are trying to brighten his shine, not the one who took it away with one unread text.

As they wrapped themselves around the corner, someone was still stealing glances at the spots where they just where, where their footprints have already vanished in the chattering of the grass like their footprints in the sands of theirs and one of the missing silhouettes’ favourite beaches. The golds and silvers spun in the shadow’s stare, that’s all they could feel drifting their way even all the way by the bleachers by the diamond, a few stray tethers keeping them bound to the way the shadow’s voice drifted meekly above the gilded clouds and faded into the horizon before they could hear what they were saying.

“Jisung! Let’s go, you’re up to bat!”

Jisung reluctantly tore his gaze away from the chain link fence he was peering through, trying his best to still remember the curves of Y/N’s silhouette, and being unable to forget the withering, dying light in Y/N’s eyes when Jeno made that comment towards him and Renjun. Grabbing his bat and pushing past Jeno who had another bark bubbling at the back of his throat, he took a deep breath.

There’s so much to do, so much to rebuild.

That is, if he isn’t too late…

Mark guided Y/N through the entrance of the lot, slipping behind a half-open gateway in the fencing and making their way further inside. It wasn’t too far from the school, just a ten minute walk. It felt like forever, though, with the way the sky slowly bled black and the horizon shone with a silver glow.

The chain link fence carved the newly emerged brandish of the moonlight into shards as it fell against the thin patches of grass. Y/N could see rows of trailers lining hand-made cobbled paths which stretched down the center passageway as they continued to trot along. Mark just shoved his hands into his pockets, taking no time to spare anything an extra glance.

The density of the trailers and the warm, golden light that shone behind windows and thin drapes diffused as they made their way to the back, a clearing in the quaint, metal houses revealing a large scrapyard. Rolling hills were made from the trash that piled up here, mutilated rock and mounds of dirt, spare metal parts, notches of distorted plastic sticking out from their silhouettes as the moonlight pressed up against the brick wall they were lined against. Y/N took a pause in his step to admire a few small, hand-made sculptures placed at the base of the hills of trash, looking fondly over their jagged edges as they embraced the sapphire glow of the moon that spilled down on them.

He scrambled to catch up with Mark, however, as he made his way to a back corner of the lot, silent laughter easing out from Mark’s small smile as Y/N made his way to him.

“Hey, Mark…?” Y/N looked up from the fidgeting hands he held out in front of him. He hasn't known Mark for long, at least not like this, but for some reason, he felt so comfortable, so safe in a way that felt oddly familiar. He tried not to think too much about it, though, as he knows that running his hands over the gaps in his memory he’s already tried to wash away will only make that simmer of sadness he’s grown way too close with nowadays to come barreling back in.

The halting in Y/N’s pace made Mark stop and turn around too.

“Yeah?”

“I never said thanks for before… But thanks for before…” Y/N’s voice grew delicate, frail, as if one wrong move against the breeze would render him speechless.

Before Mark could open his mouth with one of the many sarcastic retorts he always has saved away in the back of his mind, he felt Y/N shuffle closer and wrap his arms around his shoulders. Mark froze in Y/N’s embrace. He was surprised but he wasn’t, he wanted to be shocked but couldn’t. He’s never connected to another person like this, at least not for a long time, someone who listens rather than reacts, someone who accepts and doesn’t judge. It made Y/N’s hug that much warmer, stirring those sparks in Mark’s heart he thought he stifled the first time he let them do too much thinking.

He let them dance, though, parade through his veins in a simmer as his hands drew themselves to Y/N’s waist, pulling him in closer, closer. This silence and the song it sang on its very own, some part of him that he locked away years ago wanted it to last for as long as the night still bled with the indigos that strung the stars together.

“Don’t mention it.” Mark pulled back, only now realizing how his touch still tentatively hung from Y/N’s hips, and how Y/N barely moved between his hands, barely a flinch or a stutter. Just stillness. The rhythm of the butterfly’s wings in Mark’s stomach, he always hated the way they fluttered there. But here, now, he didn’t really mind that much.

“So, why the trailer park?” Y/N said as he looked at the rows of trailers closest to them, but some form of silent reassurance washed over him as a single peak at the buildings’ dishevelled edges and unkept exterior made them look so lifeless. At least the ones at the back.

Mark stopped and guided Y/N’s stare with an arm around his shoulder. They craned their necks to overlook a nearly stripped, warped lawn chair nestled in a heap of scrap, looming over what looked like a fire pit built in a slashed tire. The flame in the middle was still lit, its dying breaths whipping up into the sky in clouds of dull russet smoke that dissipated into the night with a wheeze and a crackle.

“Well, it’s a place where I spent all my time denying my experiences - the truth of them - but now, even though I was helping you let go, maybe I can finally try too… I don’t know if I need to come here that much anymore.” Mark was drawn to the faint glimmer of a metal baseball bat that held Mark’s place in the lawn chair. He heard Y/N’s footsteps behind him, satisfied in the attentive silence that they stood in.

He met Y/N’s eyes as he tested the weight of the bat, curving it up and out in his hands as he tested a swing. A few years after he quit the baseball team, and he’s still got it.

Mark couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at himself. So many things he’s left behind, not just for himself - the Mark so familiar with making mistakes that they barely phased him - but for the other people he thought would determine his future. Without them here, part of him felt empty, half his weight and ready to topple over at the slightest breeze.

He hated himself for that, he hated himself for everything he was, everything he is. He felt as if his fate wasn’t even held in his own hands, but stolen away as Jeno slipped away from him. It wasn’t fair, and all he could feel was anger, sadness, and the self pity that always crept into his chest whenever he stared into his bedroom mirror for so long. Because once upon a time, the other person who’d fill in the other half of Mark’s mirror was part of his destiny - woven in so tightly.

Y/N watched as Mark fiddled with the bat some more, looking around at their surroundings to see a slab of concrete jutting up from the ground, shards of what looked like glass scattered around the top and its base. He left Mark’s side to go investigate the shimmer of the ceramic pieces that laid in the dirt. “So, what did you do here?”

“Looks like you already figured that out…” Mark rested the bat in his hand on his shoulder and trotted over to Y/N. Hovering over Y/N’s crouched form and stifling a small smile behind pursed lips, he watched Y/N try and piece together one of the many cracked and distorted ceramic vases he’s smashed on that very concrete pedestal.

Y/N tilted his head up and chuckled as he saw Mark looking down on him, who took a hand out from his leather jacket pocket to help Y/N back up to his side. “What, breaking stuff? Very edgy…”

Mark drew a deep, yet wavering breath. It felt thin in his chest. He hasn’t really stepped foot in this place for a while, being too tired to act, only brave enough to think about all the things he wasn’t.

They just talked about Y/N moving on, and here Mark is, relapsing as soon as he thought he grew too.

He scoffed at himself, fidgeting with the bat in his hands. “Well it seemed for a while that the only thing I was good at was tearing things apart, breaking them.” Nights of nothing but him and the cool, ironic sting of Jeno’s old baseball bat in his hands, that’s how he spent the lifetime between the days where he had everything and now. “Now these things are just like me, expendable, disposable, valuable ‘till they aren’t, you know?” Mark being back here, it feels like with every step he took forward, he stumbled ten steps back. He knew he couldn’t change, couldn’t get better. Whatever Jeno leaves in his wake will never be stitched together the same. “Here, watch.”

Mark brushed past Y/N to a nearby pile of trash, pulling out a chipped, warped ceramic vase, the pink floral design engraved in its shape heaving its final breath of colour. Mark set it on the pedestal and pulled Y/N back behind him to make sure he wasn’t caught in Mark’s crossfire - that was the last thing he wanted.

He wound his arms back to strike it, sparing no time to see Y/N’s panicked expression.

“Wait!” Y/N’s words cut harshly through the air, the night sky rippling to the force of his voice as he swept the vase off the pedestal before Mark could hit it. The wind whistled, wincing as Mark swung the bat in a swift, ruthless arc, just missing Y/N’s shoulder and catching a fold of fabric in his sweater just below. “Please don’t…” Y/N tried to focus less on the near death experience that just flashed before his eyes and staggered back, checking the vase and then peering up to Mark who stood there stunned, immediately dropping the bat and rushing over to Y/N.

“Shit, Y/N! I almost hit you!” Mark smoothed his hands against the shoulder he nearly hit, the one he thought he hit. He looked at the vase and its withered shine, his face twisting with the confusion that rose in him. “What’re you doing!? Are you okay?”

It took Y/N until it was almost too late to realize what Mark’s been doing. Mark sees himself in every shard of glass on the ground, in every hollow cry of every vase or glass or plate he’s ever reduced to fractions of their former selves. Y/N couldn’t help but feel one of these very shards twisting in his chest as he thought of it, the way Mark views himself.

He needed to find some way, any way to realign those stars he knows still rest under Mark’s skin, he felt it once as they hugged on that street corner, how Mark’s hands seared into his waist.

If Mark was going to project like this, then Y/N needed to find another way to speak to him.

“Please don’t break it down while it’s putting itself together. It’s still standing despite all it’s gone through and I think that’s so beautiful...” Y/N cradled the vase in his hands and looked up to Mark. This brilliant hope, a silent plea, hung still in Y/N’s eyes as he shuffled closer. He did think it was beautiful, the courage it takes to become whole even after a part of something is taken away. It takes so much strength, a strength Y/N didn’t know he was ever capable of until Mark took him by the shoulders and shook the dying starlight from his heavy shoulders.

Y/N knew Mark had it too.

“There’s some parts missing, sure, but it’s stronger than the pieces it doesn’t have. It deserves to be proud of what it has, the sum of its many parts is worth more than what was taken away from it.”

“Y/N-” Mark was nearly dumbfounded as he wanted to stop Y/N before he was ahead - he didn’t deserve this much effort from Y/N, he thought - but the intensity in Y/N’s words, the way they fell against his skin with this warmth and sincerity. It rendered him speechless, biting back the tangle of arguments tucked under his tongue.

“Mark Lee.” For a mere second, a flicker between the stars in the sky, Y/N’s voice was level and stern. It made Mark straighten up, ease out of the defensive stance he always took when he felt like things were going too well for his own comfort. “This thing in my hands right now, it holds value no matter what its place in life deems it as. I think it’s precious. It’s special and worth having faith in. So please believe in it too… You’re the one who taught me that…”

“I-” No matter how hard Mark tried, he couldn’t find a way to edge himself into the silence that hung between them. Y/N’s words still filled up the sky and wouldn’t fade from the starlight and they stood tall, strong and resolute in Mark’s mind, unrelenting and unwilling to let go.

Mark finally cracked a smile, the mock annoyance he tried to sheath everything in crumbling to the ground as Y/N’s compassion left him falling helplessly, his chest weightless for the first time in way too long.

“I know what a metaphor is, Y/N, thank you...” Mark's sarcastic tone shrivelled up, replaced by the sweetness that traced his tongue before he took the pot from Y/N’s hands and set it atop the pedestal Y/N plucked it from.

Mark felt like a fool drowning in the echo of his own heartbeat as he looked into Y/N’s eyes and moved closer to make a wish on the stars he saw in them. He couldn’t find himself wanting anything more, though, as he could feel Y/N’s hands rise - almost upon instinct - to Mark’s waist as soon as he stepped within his reach. There was a small tremble of uncertainty in Y/N’s touch, but as Mark settled his hands atop Y/N’s, he could feel Y/N’s trepidation dissipate as quickly as it seemed to come.

“How about now? Does the thing in your hands hold value?” Mark smiled to himself, the way Y/N’s touch hung from his skin, the warmth that pooled in his hands, it made him feel so cherished whether Y/N could work up an answer or not. How their fingers tentatively roamed along each other, wandering aimlessly and lighting sparks in the night sky. Mark never thought this feeling could actually be real, something he deserved. The only way it existed for him, these fires coursing through him that made his chest ache in the most blissful way, were in thoughts he’d cut off halfway before he’d let them finish. Nothing but a hopeless venture, that’s what this feeling once was, but now, with Y/N, he can feel it, and he never wants it to cease.

Their breaths settled, trickling into the sky like the final sweeps of an evening haze across lifeless streets and moon-stained rooftops. Pressing himself closer, Mark guided Y/N backward with a tender grip on his hands, the violets beneath their fingertips, blooming in the space between them that grew smaller and smaller melting against their skin.

Everything seemed to pause the moment their steps took them nowhere, Y/N’s back meeting the cool metal of a trailer wall and Mark taking the back of Y/N’s head in his hand, slowly, gently, making sure he didn't hit the surface too hard.

He doesn’t want Y/N seeing stars before he’s allowed to take the next step further.

“My answer is always gonna be the same.” Y/N kneaded his hands into Mark’s waist, soaking in the sting of the groan Mark stifled in his shoulder. “I think ‘the thing’ in my hands is amazing, precious and worthy…” Working his hands up to Mark’s neck, he relished in the way Mark’s skin felt against his fingers. Lilacs in the starlight dripping from his grasp and down Mark’s chest was the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes with a hum and nudged his forehead against Mark’s, who was still closing the distance between them - slowly and cautiously, but surely.

“I’ll be gentle, I promise...” Mark let his words dance seamlessly with the violet glow of the night as it hung in glimmers around them. His breath scratched mischievously at the surface of Y/N’s lips, and he failed to hide a smile when he opened his eyes to see Y/N staring right back at him. Y/N’s gravity kept Mark careening in his orbit, drawn to every star rekindled under Y/N’s skin as he could feel something eclipse his thoughts with every second they held each other in their gazes.

Y/N tangled his hands in Mark’s hair, forcing another low, gravelly hum to spill from between Mark’s teeth. A small smile tugged at his lips, not even a minute dancing on Mark’s horizon and his cockiness was already rubbing off. He wondered if it tasted any sweeter if Mark would just tilt his chin up a little bit more, if he just followed the remnants of the groan he let stain the corner of Y/N’s mouth.

“Gentle...?” Y/N snickered as he nudged Mark’s chin up himself, Mark’s smirk already beginning to part, welcoming Y/N’s melody. “Fuck that.”

The starlight burst, reduced to shimmers and ashes the moment they entwined their lips. All the inhibitions, the hesitance that rose to their chests, melted from off their skin as the light in their hearts burned straight through them. Mark let himself sink into the tides of Y/N’s touch as he reached up to Y/N’s cheeks and took his face in his hands. The searing sting of Y/N’s scarlet flush as it bloomed on his skin, the sweetness that stifled their senses rendered its heat useless.

Mark’s thoughts were blank, nothing guiding the light in his sky but the crack of daylight that shone between their lips as tongues pushed between teeth and ran tender like velvet, sweet like honey. The sparks that rose to the back of his throat soared in the midnight air, the harmony in the rhythm between their lips making Mark feel safe, treasured. As if there was no safer place that wound in Y/N’s arms, feeling the flames of their devotion and compassion lap mercilessly against them.

Their touches grew brave and restless, Y/N’s hands sailing the seas of Mark’s waistline as he buried his hands under his shirt and pulled him in closer, the groans dripping from their lips teaching deeper in the back of Y/N’s throat. Mark entwined his fingers in Y/N’s hair, ripples of his once lifeless indigo nights being stitched back together by the twines of the starlight enveloping them in their ivory glow and tangling their breaths.

All the burdens on Y/N’s heavy shoulders fled from Mark’s touch, and all he felt was peace as Mark’s hums buried themselves into his neck and stained his cheeks with the moonlit blues worn under their fingers. Between the hands that worked down to his waist, this is where Y/N’s never felt freer to fly with all his flaws, all the imperfections in his jagged edges that circled them in cinders as he smoothed his hands against Mark’s chest and shoulders. In Mark’s light is where he can shine them without any fear of his skies darkening.

They barely noticed the burn of their unbridled happiness until they pulled back to take a breath and the numbness that ran under Y/N’s skin as Mark caressed his cheek with a free hand began to fade. Mark held their hands in a knot above Y/N’s head, pinned against the reassuring coolness of the trailer wall pressed against Y/N’s back, and brought them down to hang between them, still caressing Y/N’s fingers with his own.

Mark just took a second to look into Y/N’s eyes and how the moonlight hung still when they did, how the starlight finally began to gather its bearings in the brilliant glimmers held between their gazes. He took the silence that danced between them and tucked it between Y/N’s teeth with one more, delicate kiss. A beautiful, tender rose for Y/N to keep for the night and paint golden with his touch. The pauses in their breaths said all they needed to say, all they wanted to say.

“So…” Mark tried to speak, but the air he thought he had was still nowhere to be found, ripped from his chest as Y/N’s touch settled back on his hips and caressed under his shirt. With a stammer he pushed himself off Y/N and gathered enough of the midnight air that wasn’t diminished by the flurries of fires Mark could still taste along his tongue. “You have nowhere to be, right?”

Y/N was still trying to catch up with his lost breath, every attempt to regain his footing in vain as all he could keep his eyes on was Mark’s affectionate smile and the desire that ran from his mouth, down his neck. Y/N stifled the desire to chase it and mustered a hum in agreement. The melody sung in tangles between their tongues still left his lungs wrung dry, and all he earned was a giggle from Mark as he leaned in and planted a peck on his cheek to bloom just like the daisies that lined all the memories that felt just like this one.

“You wanna spend the night with me…?” Taking a look at the violets of the night bloom in the cracks of the coarse dirt beneath their feet, Mark shrugged with a sheepish smile. There was no way after Y/N set a glow free to flutter in Mark’s stomach that he was going back to an empty house to sleep alone. He peered up to Y/N’s eyes, the grooves in the unsteady ground seeming rather captivating as a blush seared itself onto Mark’s cheeks. “Well, I swear my bed’s big enough for two...”

Y/N shone a grin of his own. Until now, it was only Mark’s lips stained by the rubies in Y/N’s autumn flush, now it was Y/N’s turn as he brought Mark in by a hand against his cheek and kissed the corner of his shy smile. He hoped that the soft chuckle he let bloom under Mark’s jaw as he worked his lips down to the curve in his neck was enough of an answer for him. “Honestly, I think it’d be better if your bed wasn’t big enough.”

Mark could picture it now as he sighed into Y/N’s shoulder, heart igniting to every beat of the twilight’s breath as it all began to unfold before him. Y/N stumbling in through the doorway of his house, every urge to bring Y/N close, so close, even closer, and take him down into the silver sea of blankets he knows he has on the couch in the room just to the right of them being held back by a thread just seconds away from snapping. He would drag Y/N up the stairs and lead him to his room, where they’d do nothing but stumble over on their tongues and wear the moonlight down as it streamed through Mark’s bedroom window and sung shimmers into their skin.

Him and Y/N squeezing on that shitty twin-sized mattress he still has, taking Y/N in by the waist and their hands entwining off the edge of the bed. The morning that follows, it’s still a blank page stuffed in Mark’s desk drawer, only for the sunlight to tell as he’d prop himself up and suspend himself of Y/N’s gently stirring silhouette.

He never thought he’d have the strength, the confidence, the willpower to have someone else part the light gray tides of his sheets. The version of himself that Mark became so familiar with would let everything slip between his fingers as he’d lose faith in his emotions and fall back into the same pattern of congratulatory pity-parties and rounds of self hatred. Here, now, he’s not going to let his shadow take over the light Y/N just helped him find again.

“You know just what to say…”

“Of course I do…” Y/N hummed teasingly and leaned in to meet Mark’s lips on the other side, Mark’s tongue swiping languidly against his lips and leaving a spark to linger between his teeth. Taking Y/N’s hand and getting ready to trek past more starlit intersections, waiting for their adoration to pound at the pavement, Mark led Y/N toward the gate they originally came through. Even though the night sky retained it’s vibrant, dark violet colour, it’s felt like so long since he’s seen this gate. Maybe it was the weathered moonlight ground to a pulp between his hands as Mark absent-mindedly stroked Y/N’s knuckles or the way Mark’s lips on his swept him up and dipped his head into the clouds; the way Mark was able to knead out their minutes and turn them into possibly hours, it brought a smile to Y/N’s face once more.

With a sharp gasp from Mark, though, they stopped in their tracks.

“Hold on!” Mark scuttled back to the back of the lot where they just were, shrinking behind the corner of the trailer Mark pressed him against. He reappeared shortly, however, the ceramic vase Y/N swiped from Mark’s viscous bat swing cradled in his arms. Mark looked at it fondly as we brought it back to where Y/N was waiting for him, reminiscing on how Y/N held it like a treasure in his hands, the same way he held Mark’s waist, and the same way Y/N’s hands hung from his neck. Mark still couldn’t get over the way Y/N stopped him from repeating a cycle of merciless self-destruction. He couldn’t believe it took him a cute guy who made the melodies in his chest hitch for him to finally block the demons on his shoulder that would constantly urge him not to continue, telling him that he couldn’t continue now that he had nothing.

But he did have something, he had everything, he was just too blind to notice it until Y/N stumbled past his art classroom, tore him from his seat and made everything in between a blur.

“I think I’m gonna keep this…” Mark said, a gleeful smile plastered to his lips as he looked over to Y/N, who grinned warmly at him and the pride he took in everything Y/N said to him. Mark looked back down at the vase for a second, but he still caught Y/N shivering in the corner of his eye. “Oh, Y/N… You must be freezing in just that sweater…” Mark took off his leather jacket and wound it tightly around Y/N’s shoulders, nudging Y/N playfully as he could hear him stifle a scoff.

“Mark~” Y/N groaned as Mark wrapped his arm around his shoulders and brought him to his side. The way Mark’s protective embrace made a warmth pool in Y/N’s chest. He never really liked being on the other end of chivalry - never thought he deserved it - but with the way Mark made it feel, he could possibly make arrangements to pretend to be cold more often. “Thanks…”

“Of course, Y/N…” Mark tapped his fingers against Y/N’s shoulder, there was something he wanted to say, hanging desperately from the tip of his tongue. “By the way, I’m happy that you’re here with me… Honestly, I don’t know what I did without you all this time…” Mark drew his eyes to the notches in the pavement, his fingers fidgeting with themselves as he shoved his free hand into the pocket of his jeans. The way the dull sheen of his weathered leather jacket took in Y/N’s glow; as his chin was nudged up by Y/N’s hand, the thought of how Y/N already looked better in his favourite jacket than he ever did was all he could focus on.

Y/N beamed with a fond shimmer between his teeth - right where Mark left it - as he cradled Mark’s cheek and brought him in to kiss him once more. Being here for Mark, it made the fires rise in his heart in ways he thought he had forgotten, the dance of sparks in his chest being one he thought he lost to his lonely nights.

“Well, now that I’m here, I guess you’ll never know…” Rocking back and forth in his stance and poking Mark’s flushed cheek, he tucked himself back under his arm and resumed their paces toward Mark’s house.

The sight of Mark’s blush was something he already knows he’ll never get tired of. As deep as the winter night, and as dark as the shiraz on his parent’s kitchen table that’s dyed so many of his good memories. He wonders if the amber of Mark’s porchlight would do the same, claim the light much like and fill Y/N’s head with more stories and sonnets to sketch into Mark’s back.

“I guess I won’t…” Mark chuckled breathily, scrambling for every spare moment he had to savour the sweetness that Y/N’s kiss left on his lips before tucking a peck behind Y/N’s ear.

He hasn’t seen Y/N much until now, but that smile on his face was something he’s sure Y/N hasn’t felt in a while. It just took a bit to shed the weights of his guilt.

If this was how beautiful Y/N was when he was happy - eyes that lit the way home, that tender, melodious chuckle that ignited Mark’s skin and reminded him of all the daydreams he lost to his deep rooted cynicism… He never wants to make Y/N feel anything else.

As they continued walking down the street, the streetlights guiding their way home, they knew that this was just one of many nights to reclaim as their own. They’ve both wasted away so much time wishing they had more, when everything and anything they could have possibly wanted were in the places they forgot to look. It’s been a while since Mark’s signed his name in the byline of his skies, but with Y/N’s hands in his, spreading the twilight thin as their touches grew heavy and reckless, he’s sure he’ll be able to make up for lost time and learn in a single flash of the stars in Y/N’s eyes.

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