when mark wakes up, his hands are shaking.
he gives it a few minutes, waiting for it to go away. it doesn't.
he presses them together, fingers curling into knuckles, palms aching.
ok, this is nothing. this is a fluke. this is a bad day. he’s fine. or, he’s going to be. one way or another he will stand up, and he will get ready to go. then, he will go. because that’s his job.
his stomach is twisting but it’s fine. he’s not going to puke. this is nothing. he squeezes his hands together tight, and then tighter than that. he wonders if he’s strong enough to leave bruises on the backs of his hands. he thinks of renjun.
he’s fine.
he stretches out his legs. they feel detached. apart.
fuck.
it’s honestly kind of novel. his body’s never done this before; the feeling is brand new and subsequently terrifying. almost like a rollercoaster, without the ups. one, unending drop. if only he could start breathing again. that’d be good.
he squeezes his hands. they’ve started to go numb, but at least they’re not shaking. he’s fine.
mark lee, fine. that sounds right.
donghyuck’s alarm goes off.
fuck. he’s late. he needs to wake the kids up and he’s already late for the day? somehow. somehow he hasn’t gotten out of bed but the day’s already begun without him and he’s late for it. insistent pings pierce the air in the small room, and after a moment mark hears a familiar inhale, an even more familiar groan. there’s rustling and the alarm stops.
there is a countdown in mark’s head, huge red numbers across the inside of his skull. the seconds he has left until donghyuck talks to him. until he has to be ok. he squeezes his hands.
“hyung?”
it’s a groggy and confused greeting. what a bad morning.
“morning,” mark says, voice detached like his legs, apart apart apart from him.
if he keeps trying to use his body normally he’s pretty sure it’ll all come off of him and drift away until he has nothing left. mark lee, nothing. that sounds right.
he can feel donghyuck’s eyes on the back of his neck. a mattress spring squeaks and mark thinks he must be sitting up, on his phone, checking the time.
“why aren’t you up yet? you’re usually dragging chenle out of bed by now.”
it’s casual, nothing out of place yet. mark has about a minute left.
“just overslept. sorry.” the apology tastes strange in his mouth; it’s not something he’d usually say sorry for. he feels like he’s operating his brain from five feet away, arms outstretched to reach the levers and switches. donghyuck says nothing for another 44 seconds.
“did you… wanna use the bathroom first?”
damn. he underestimated.
“yeah, sure.” he stands, on those legs that aren’t his.
the thought vaguely occurs to him that he’s got to get better at this, if this is what his life is now. add it to the list of things he needs to practice, along with five separate choreographies and twice as many rap verses.
he shakes his head. nothing about this is right, or usual. he feels like a different fucking person, or maybe not one at all. he loves doing those things. he does. he’s mark lee, and he’s fine, and he doesn’t mind staying late for practice, and he doesn’t mind pushing himself, and he doesn’t mind doing whatever is asked of him by the next set of black hangul inked on their schedule.
he settles his hands on the bathroom counter. he doesn’t know how he got here. he doesn’t remember walking or the hallway or his hand on the doorknob. he stares into the sink, and turns on the faucet. he should be doing something. using the bathroom. showering? no, he did that last night.
fuck.
his shower shoes are still in the corner, damp.
he puts his hands under the stream of water. this feels right. he gets the soap, rubs it over his palms.
he’s drying his hands. he doesn’t remember rinsing them, but there’s no soap residue on the towel between his fingers, so he must have. he eyes his toothbrush. leaves the bathroom.
right, the kids. he moves into the room down the hall, and the sight of jisung and chenle completely knocked out makes him feel a little better. something normal to hold on to.
“jisung, chenle,” he says, and his voice sounds much too quiet. would he usually be yelling?
it’s the strangest feeling. like he’s lost his own user manual.
he clears his throat, “kids!”
chenle jerks awake, propping himself up on his elbows, but jisung remains unmoving.
“i’m awake, hyung!”
“great, the bathroom’s open. we’re running a little late.” the sentences sound disconnected to his own ears, but chenle seems to understand, groaning as he rolls himself out from under the covers.
mark makes his way over to jisung’s bed, pulling the comforter and top sheet off in one motion.
“jisung, it’s morning.”
jisung makes a gurgling noise, arms twitching like he wants to curl in on himself but isn’t conscious enough to even access those motor skills. mark sighs, feeling a little like himself. he plants his feet, socks sliding on the hardwood, and grips jisung’s right arm, yanking him into a sitting position. he makes a confused garbled noise, head hanging limp from his neck.
“jisung. park jisung. jisung park.”
this seems to rouse him, and he coughs, lifting his head to squint at mark.
“you have to get ready. music show today,” mark says, trying to be gentle but not nonurgent. jisung clears his throat and scrunches his nose, moving his eyebrows around and stretching his arms above his head.
“christ. it’s like raising the dead,” renjun says, suddenly appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. mark turns to look at him, and he breathes a little easier, just for a moment. he feels a bit closer to his body, seeing renjun, casually leaned up against the doorframe, dental wax for his braces in hand, looking tired but completely normal. completely normal. mark blinks.
“is jeno up?”
he wanted to say, thank god you’re up, or maybe, can you take over today?
“i threw a sock at him and he was upright when i left, but that’s not exactly a guarantee.” mark wants to snort, or ruffle renjun’s hair on the way out, but he’s not quite there. closer, but not quite.
he ghosts down the hall, drifting a little. the third bedroom is empty spare jaemin, who looks to be bent over his phone while he massages his lower back with both hands. worry prickles in mark’s head, potent and sudden. it brings him back entirely, without warning. the shift is jarring, but he’s grateful for it. he takes a deep breath, and squeezes his eyes shut. his head aches a little, and he notices how gross his mouth feels from not brushing his teeth. no time for that now, though.
“you ok, hyung?” jaemin is looking at him from across the room, eyes owlish and hands paused over his back.
“what? yeah, yeah. i mean, are you ok? i can get you an ice pack for the car.”
jaemin stares a moment longer before shrugging and returning his attention to his phone.
“sure, if you want.”
that’s the way jaemin accepts help nowadays, nonchalant and perpetually exasperated, but never actually turning them down. he’s a lot less defensive than when he was trying to hide it.
mark heads into the kitchen, where their manager is spooning rice into bowls for them. jeno’s at the table, eyes puffy behind the thick lenses of his glasses, eating his own serving. mark opts to grab some cold kimchi from the fridge and opens the freezer while he’s at it, popping out one of the frozen gel packs and setting it on the table next to jeno.
“make sure that gets to jaemin in the car, ok?”
jeno hums, nodding. mark makes his way back to his room, this time feeling like an actual person as he walks down the hall. as long as he can stay like this, now. as long as whatever made his limbs lock up and his brain split open doesn’t come back.
*
“oh, mark is good at that,” yuta says, and a hand lands on his back.
“what?”
ok. he’s missing a little time, but it’s fine.
he carefully looks around, at the three camera set-up, at yuta next to him, at the staff member holding up a card with something written on it ending in a question mark. he tries to focus his vision but the hangul is all muddled and nonsensical.
“yeah, he’s good at guessing this stuff even though he’s still learning korean.”
oh, so it's a language game. slowly, things fall into place, and he gets a bit of the last ten minutes back, like his brain recorded it but didn’t bother to make him conscious for it. he remembers arriving, performing, panting in the dressing room as he was un-mic’d and de-hairsprayed. then, the van, then more walking.
ah, an interview. variety show? something. he feels eyes on him.
“uhhh,” he says intelligently.
taeyong’s voice cuts through the silence, effectively saving him. his timbre is always noticeably different for broadcast, all bouncing and drawn out, words sharp like cotton candy crystals.
“well since he always gets them right the rest of us should give it a try, for once.”
*
mark braces himself after they wrap up; he can feel subtle tension in the air, even as they thank the staff members, even as they walk out together, and especially once they settle into the van. he puts earbuds in.
jaehyun orders food while they shower, and mark is looking for his shower shoes until he remembers he left them in the dream dorm. he and donghyuck are constantly back and forth with the dual promotions of touch and go (hah, touch-and-go) so at this point he wonders if he’ll ever have all of his belongings in one place again.
stepping out of the tub, he curls his toes into the towel on the floor. he holds another around himself, and takes the precious seconds to breathe. the steam is doing wonders for the dry throat he’d been swallowing over all day, through both prerecording and casual conversation.
they eat separately, and it’s just his luck to catch taeyong in the kitchen. he’s ready for anything except the guilty, pitying, watery eyes taeyong gives him as he steps to the counter, trying to focus on making a plate for himself. he knows he’s not about to escape unfettered but tries anyway, sighing at the hand that catches his arm as he turns to leave.
“mark…” taeyong says, and god, his voice is even worse. any public affectations dropped, soft and wavering and sorry.
“there’s nothing to be done about it,” mark says, getting right to the point. it’s the fact of the matter, after all.
“but… but mark you’re tired.”
it’s the most obvious thing in the world until it’s said aloud. until mark hears it in actual sonic form and suddenly the ache in his limbs becomes real. agitation chafes in his chest. why does taeyong have to do this? mark turns to face him.
“we all are.”
the words are even more tired than mark himself, old and worn with use. but he can’t help it. it’s just what you say. taeyong gives him a tiny disapproving dart of his eyes before leaning on the counter, hand flat next to the rice cooker.
“you know it’s different.”
of course he does. that doesn’t mean it’s something he has to think about.
taeyong sighs, “i just wish —”
he cuts himself off with a bite of his lip, but mark hears the rest in his head loud and clear.
i just wish i could protect… all of you. but especially you. especially you, mark.
this has been said to him a million times already, whispered backstage and through wavering air in a shared bedroom. endlessly, endlessly taeyong wants to save them. it’s his life’s failing, from his perspective. mark shifts his plate from one hand to the other.
it’s annoying because it’s not taeyong’s fault. of course it’s not — it’s poor management and it’s circumstance and it’s luck, always luck when you’re talking about the industry. but those aren’t really… things they’re supposed to think about. they’re almost just surreal concepts when held up to things like filming boyfriend videos and taking acceptable selfies to post on twitter, and trying to be likable on national television. it’s hard to think about the impact of a multi-billion dollar industry on your specific situation when everything else feels so fucking personal. when they’ve grown up together. when they get fanmail holding up their music as being a comfort. they don’t think about those things because it can make you apathetic and depressed and angry, and none of those things are marketable on a pretty face. so when things go wrong, they don’t exactly sit around and think about the unfairness of it all. they don’t blame the fact that mark almost fell over with exhaustion after performing on the fact that he’s in three units of an endless group. well, maybe they do, but they certainly don’t say it.
the whole thing's done quite a number on taeyong, if you ask mark. he has a lot of sympathy for the teenager pulled off the street, already too handsome to be ignored. for the teenager trained raw and thin and then told to lead an experimental, supergroup. and then they didn’t even let him do it, not really. he’s not allowed to touch the schedules, and he can’t argue with management, not a measly two years into their career.
by the time mark wasn’t, you know, twelve anymore, taeyong was already shaking apart under the weight of a world.
so yeah, mark gets it. he gets that he’s overworked, and he gets that taeyong stands helpless, responsible, watching it happen. but that doesn’t make it easier to face.
standing under the yellow kitchen bulbs, taeyong looks nearly jaundiced, perpetually thin with his shoulders raised to his ears, stressed and tense and wanting to help.
“i’ll be fine, hyung.”
it sounds empty even to his own ears.
taeyong turns, and mark half expects him to be crying, but instead he’s solemn, lips bitten raw and pressed together like he’s trying not to keep biting. he’s almost regal, like a mid-renaissance carving. stoic and somber and beautiful in equal measures, stepped off of his marble block.
he puts a shaking hand on mark’s shoulder.
“i hope so.”
*
mark stays in the dream dorm the next few days, needing a break from worried looks and hands combing his hair back, paternal. that’s one thing he appreciates about the kids; they might make fun and tease and joke, but at least here he can’t see a reflection of his twelve year old self every time someone looks at him.
that comes with it’s own burden, though, and perhaps it’s a great karmic lesson that when mark moves to dodge taeyong’s leadership, he falls right into his own.
of course it’s not just counting heads backstage, or standing in the middle when they line up; he wishes it were that simple. it’s making sure chenle and jisung get their homework done, it’s knowing when renjun’s braces are hurting him too much to talk in an interview, it’s keeping track of jeno’s contact lenses when they travel. it’s that searing, instant, boiling worry that comes over him when he sees jaemin wince during practice, hand at his back.
worst of all, it’s knowing they look at him and see an example. a good hyung, a hardworking hyung, a slightly dorky but nonetheless fully capable mark lee.
he thinks he should’ve answered taeyong better in the kitchen. then he realizes he still doesn’t know what he should’ve said.
*
he doesn’t let himself panic again.
because that’s really what it was, wasn’t it? a panic attack. his brain supplied the term in the moment, but he hasn’t acknowledged it until now, given months to process.
it’s black on black rehearsals, and he’s not letting himself panic. his days mix together into one solid blur of van rides and rushed meals and sweat, but he’s fine. each time he gets that creeping, locked up and thrown away feeling, he squeezes his eyes shut, takes a huge breath, and clasps his hands so tight he has fingerprint bruises blooming over his knuckles.
it’s kind of fucked up, but everything’s kind of fucked up. lucas and jungwoo have finally arrived, and though he’s been expecting it, they still throw the whole thing into disarray. they win a music show and jungwoo’s crying, sobbing in fact, terrified he’s not good enough, that he’s dragging the team down. lucas is taller than mark remembers, and definitely more screechy, and he can hardly speak korean at all, so here mark is, translating his half-english quarter-cantonese sentences, brain aching while he does it. kun is nearly invisible, quiet and kind of sad, on the outskirts. ten seems to be holding his breath — knowing something they don’t, as always.
mark is keeping tabs on it all because — because he has to. they’re all part of the same group, but he’s part of all their groups, so he should kind of know everything that’s going on, right?
the thing that’s really killing him, like keeping-him-up-at-night, making-him-nauseous killing him, is that he has to stand on jaemin’s back for the choreo.
on jaemin’s back.
he’s been reassured countless times that it’s fine, that jaemin’s fine, that his back is good now, that he’s better, that he’s been going to physical therapy. but mark, privately, is inconsolable.
each time he steps up he’s convinced that he can feel the vertebrae through his sock and shoe, that the muscles are tensing in horrible pain, that jaemin must resent him for eating before practice, and that he’s going to give any second now, collapse to the ground and repaint the memory of him doing the same so many months ago. it’s on loop in mark’s head for the duration of practice, always. jaemin dancing — twisting — and then not doing much of anything at all. limp like a doll on the floor, panicked and whimpering in pain.
mark is half-convinced there’s something in the water, surely some kind of stimulant, but no one else seems to be going half-crazy, not even taeyong. he feels like his nervous system is cranked to 11 in the worst way possible — every brush of clothing on his skin is uncomfortable, every word in lucas’s booming voice is much too loud, every drop of sweat on the floor is something he’s focusing on lest someone slip.
on tv he probably looks fine — more attentive than usual, even, but in reality he’s sort of losing it, and he sort of knows it.
he’s probably known it from the beginning of this year, that he wasn’t going to make it through without having some sort of breakdown. he thought it would be physical, though.
getting sick and having to take a break, or twisting an ankle. something justifiable.
how do you ask for a break because you feel like your brain’s on fire most of the time, and sometimes in the morning you get so unsettled and overwhelmed by your own existence that you can’t move? you don’t.
this is a career that requires pure endurance; the ability to go, to do the hard thing when everything else has already been hard. the rest is unspeakable.
*
he loses time again. that’s when he knows.
an entire practice goes by and everything from the music turning on to taeyong telling everyone a job well done is simply… well not gone, exactly, but in some inaccessible dungeon in mark’s brain where his thoughts go to die. it’s scary; he’s scared. mark lee, scared.
they’re in the van on the way home and mark is sitting, only partly in his body, in abject terror. he hopes he looks fine, because jisung and chenle are in the back. so it can’t happen now.
his hands start shaking. he blinks, takes a deep breath, clasps them together.
“what are you doing, hyung?”
it’s high-pitched, alarmed, confused, donghyuck. mark can’t open his eyes.
“hyung,” donghyuck says again.
there’s some shifting. mark squeezes his hands and they ache. the click of a seatbelt being undone. a warm hand on top of his own. he flinches away, the touch sending his skin tingling and his stomach turning. he opens his eyes. donghyuck’s kneeling next to him, leaning a wrist on mark’s armrest to keep himself from swaying too badly with the motion of the van.
“hyung,” he says again, and his eyebrows are pushed together, and his eyes are worried and lost and scared. mark opens his mouth, lips sticking to his teeth. his voice is nothing but a whisper of air past his vocal chords.
“are chenle and jisung looking?”
donghyuck blinks, brows knitting further, but he ducks his head to the side quickly.
“no,” he says, lowering his voice as well.
“chenle’s showing jisung something on his phone.”
mark closes his eyes again.
“ok. i’m not feeling too good.”
he can’t see the face donghyuck’s making but he thinks it’s probably some sort of disbelieving duh expression.
“hey — donghyuck get back in your seat! we’re on the highway, goddamn it,” their manager says, and mark feels donghyuck’s hand tighten around his.
“just a second, hyung,” he hisses back, and an exasperated sigh sounds from the front.
“do you feel like you’re gonna throw up?” donghyuck asks, voice much gentler.
mark shrugs.
“just help me to our room when we get back. please,” he manages, voice pinched.
“in 127 or in dream?”
“i —” mark begins, but his lungs seize and he can’t breathe again, so that’s him done talking. he just shakes his head. if this is gonna happen he’d prefer it not to be in front of the kids, but he also doesn’t want nine of his own hyungs worrying over him.
the fact is that mark lee all twisted up inside and he can’t feel right anymore and he is sick, he's sick of it. he’s so, so tired of not feeling normal.
they arrive at the dorms and he doesn’t remember passing the tteokbokki place, or the shopping center. it’s not fine.
donghyuck makes quick work of shuffling them all inside, keeping jisung and chenle an arm’s length away from mark, and by some miracle they make it into their bedroom without trouble. finally, alone.
mark collapses on his bed and the sheets don’t feel right, he doesn’t sink into the mattress right, and his scalp is itching where sweat is drying. donghyuck stands awkwardly at his side. it's like he's already dead, his best friend standing vigil.
“do you need anything? water or… something?”
mark doesn’t move. he can’t, anymore. he’s going to die on this bed feeling uncomfortable and taken apart.
“ok, fine but you have to tell me what’s wrong, at least,” donghyuck says, sitting next to mark’s knee.
“when mark lee isn’t feeling well he can tell lee donghyuck, after all.”
it’s not something he’s said since they were trainees, when mark couldn’t bring himself to ask for breaks. he doesn’t realize he’s crying until he has to breathe and he sniffles instead.
“oh god. ok.”
the mattress dips further and there’s warmth along his body and when mark opens his eyes donghyuck’s looking back, attentive and concerned.
“ok, hyung. whatever it is i’m sure it’ll be fine. nothing that can’t be fixed.”
out of some primal desire for comfort, mark lifts his hand, palm open in a silent request. the back of it is blue and yellow, aching. it shakes. donghyuck takes it, the added weight and warmth steadying him.
“i just… i just don’t feel good, hyuck,” mark says, and his voice sounds strange, high and breaking. his cheek is pressed flat into the pillow, and he can feel the gauntness of his face, cheekbone too sharp. donghyuck blinks.
“right… you said that in the car. so like, what, just sick? like a flu or something?” even as he’s asking mark can tell he knows it isn’t the case. he shakes his head into the pillow.
“i just. i don’t know how to say it better than that. i feel bad. like shit. and i don’t how to. how to feel better.”
donghyuck frowns, sighing a little.
“well… ok. what else?”
mark groans, blinking hard and feeling tears fall to the pillow.
“it’s not — fuck.” he licks his lips, turning and sitting up, hand still caught in donghyuck’s grasp.
“i’m sorry, sorry, i’m not like this, i mean — you know me, right?” donghyuck blinks at him again wide-eyed.
“of course i do.”
“right. so, so, so i’m not like this! this isn’t — i can’t — fuck,” he says, feeling like a scratched cd, catching on the same words. he’s not saying anything at all, really; he knows that, but his lungs are squeezed tight and his head hurts and his hands ache and he both wants to stop talking about it and have donghyuck understand perfectly in the next instant. mark feels him sit up, too, and he can’t look at him, he can’t look at anyone else being worried about him or he’ll die.
“hyung… why don’t you take a deep breath? you’re not breathing right.”
oh, he isn’t. mark grits his teeth and takes a long breath, and yeah, fine, it helps, but he’s still. losing it. he almost wants to, at this point? he’s spent so long holding it together, pretending to be fine, but that clock has been running all along. counting down to the moment he wouldn’t be able to take it anymore. mark realizes now, like sand between his fingers, he’s run out of time.
“hyuck…” he says, mouth dry. he swallows.
“have you looked at the schedule? there’s so much to do.”
there’s no reply, just a squeeze of his fingers.
“there’s so much to do. renjun has a dentist appointment and… and we have to film the music video. and we have to perform at the festival after that… and i have to get my rap ready for the end of the year thing. and we have to record the new songs…” out loud, it simultaneously doesn’t sound like that much and sounds worse than in his head. he lifts his gaze to meet donghyuck’s, and he feels despondent, far away, yet still locked in his never-ending panic.
“hyuck i don’t think i can do it.”
there’s space. it opens up between them, stretching like caramel, further and further and further.
mark lee, incapable.
“do what? tell me.” donghyuck asks, serious.
mark’s brows furrow, and he feels like a kid, like he’s twisted his ankle dancing too long and donghyuck is icing it, chastising him for pushing too hard.
“any of it,” and his voice is breaking and he’s losing it.
“any of it, hyuck. i can’t keep — i can’t stand on jaemin’s back anymore. it’s killing me. i won’t do it. i can’t talk to taeyong hyung and i can’t keep moving between dorms and i can’t get out of bed anymore and i can’t rap and i can’t dance i just, i can’t do it anymore! it hurts, hyuck,”
this elicits a soft, pained sound from next to him.
“it’s hurting me. my legs hurt and my arms hurt and my head hurts and i think i’m kind of going crazy because i can’t feel fucking normal anymore and i can’t find my shower shoes!” he’s nearly hyperventilating, chest heaving, eyes burning.
“like, every morning i wake up and like i can’t breathe? and my body doesn’t feel like mine and every morning i think i’ll die if i move and i can’t do it anymore, please, please, i’m sorry but i can’t,” tears fall hot down his face and his throat is sticking closed and he thinks he’s never felt worse.
“ok, ok,” says donghyuck. arms wrap around mark’s middle, and it’s closer this time; “ok, ok.”
a little scared himself, but holding mark close, donghyuck says again,
“ok, ok.”
mark lets himself sob, for once. he never does this; he is the ever-awkward but nonetheless politely dry-eyed mark lee.
but his time has run out and donghyuck is here and he’s tired, just like taeyong said, and he thinks he can have this small allowance. this moment of weakness at four p.m. on a thursday. that might be ok.
*
donghyuck lets him sleep for twelve hours and sometime during then he and renjun arrange to push an interview further down the week, due to a mysterious illness chenle’s developed overnight.
mark appreciates it, and he doesn’t move the entire day off, savoring the stillness. his headache recedes.
as it turns out, jisung had been hiding his shower shoes behind the couch, and he sheepishly unearths them, handing them over with a muttered apology. donghyuck cooks dinner, during which jaemin comments loudly about how great his back is feeling these days, and then they make the journey back to the 127 dorm.
“i texted the hyungs to be extra nice to you,” donghyuck says, matching his steps with mark’s as they trudge up the stairs. it’s fall again, and it’s chilly, and donghyuck’s nose is red.
“why’d you do that?” mark says, trying and failing to sound annoyed.
“i just said you haven’t been feeling well, but taeyong hyung seemed pretty worried. and no offense, but i think you need someone to worry about you besides me. the burden of being mark lee’s sole caretaker and best friend is quite heavy, you know? i can’t risk the wrinkles.”
donghyuck tosses his head, hair fluffed and shining under the moonlight. they stop on the landing between dorms.
“thanks,” mark says, small and awkward.
donghyuck shrugs. they linger.
“you… you’ll be alright, right hyung?” the year between them that induces the honorific stretches. donghyuck’s eyes shine, hands gripping the strap of his duffell too tight.
“yeah,” mark sighs.
“you’ll be fine,” donghyuck says, patting his ankle.
“i’ll be fine.”
*
taeyong’s waiting up for them. he pats donghyuck’s shoulder, and he puts a hand through mark’s hair, looking at him with an unreadable expression.
“hot chocolate, mark?”
donghyuck mouths an apology before skipping down the hall.
“sure, hyung.”
taeyong’s hands shake as he pours from the pot into two mugs, but the rest of him stands tall, steady. for the first time, mark notices the redness under a rubber band on his wrist.
“can you keep going?”
taeyong has the softest of voices. careful, tongue against his gum ridge, teeth barely parting for his words. steam rises from the mugs between them. mark swallows.
“i couldn’t, before. but i can now.”
as long as donghyuck keeps holding his hand, careful over the bruises, as long as renjun shoulders some of the load, as long as he can just have a few more moments… in between everything. taeyong hums, staring down into his hot chocolate.
“i’ve managed to push your appearance on that variety. and i shortened your verse for the next recording. i hope you don’t mind.”
mark looks up, shocked.
a slow, sad smile pushes taeyong’s cheeks up.
“i’m not completely useless, after all.”
mark blinks. “i don’t think you’re useless, hyung.”
taeyong takes a sip.
“maybe not. but i certainly could try and help us out more. we can’t have mark lee too deathly anxious to get on stage. he’s our only one, you know.”
mark huffs out a laugh, but his mind is stuck on that word. anxious, anxious, anxious.
“you know, when we first started i thought… i thought i’d be able to —” taeyong stops mid sentence, looking pained.
“if you ever have any problems, you can come to me. it’s my job to protect us.”
“well, i just thought it’d be different, i suppose.”
he clears his throat, standing abruptly and making his way over to the counter.
“get some rest, kiddo. i think i’ll wash these dishes before i go.”
mark sets his still-full mug on the counter, and taeyong stares at the back of his hand. and he stares.
he turns, carefully neutral. sharply jointed fingers pull through mark’s hair, and taeyong looks over his face.
“actually,” he says, barely over a whisper.
“that can wait until morning. we could both use some rest, i think.”
*
in the morning, donghyuck shoves mark’s body aside to clamber under the covers next to him, demanding he watch a documentary-type video about something called an axolotl.
he doesn’t realize he feels fine until he’s already out of bed, feeling fine. it’s strange, after so many mornings spent… not feeling fine.
yuta demands mark sit on his lap at breakfast, and someone lays out his clothes for him on his bed. they let him shower first.
his hands don’t shake all day.