The World Stopped Moving {MarkRen} | complete

deux

"You don't say much," Renjun notes. He leans his elbow on the open sketchbook, pencil hanging limp between his fingers as something to fiddle with, to quench the awkward twitch of his hands.

The other boy opens his mouth, eyes wide with surprise, and points to his chest. "Me?"

"Who else?"

"Oh. Right. Um..." The stranger trails off, picks at a dried paint splatter on the table with a faint frown. "I'm just tired, I guess. I didn't mean to be rude. Sorry."

"What's your name?"

"Mark."

"Mark?" Renjun repeats, commits the name straight to memory. He likes the way it rolls off his lips.

"I'm from Canada." He explains, shying away from Renjun's raised eyebrows.

Renjun nods. The silence strings out as Mark licks his lips, and his chair creaks when he shifts around to cross his legs the other way and sit on his hands, like a child picked on by the teacher just when he wasn't listening. His glasses frame his wavering gaze, eyes never resting, never able to focus on a single detail, instead flicking across all the art supplies on the table.

"I... well... I study literature, actually. Second year." Mark speaks after a minute.

"Then what're you doing here?" Renjun asks.

Mark shrugs. Renjun doesn't push, but the stutter in the other's movements when he presses the pencil into the corner of the page tells him that maybe Mark doesn't know either.

The bustle of students fades from the corridors, and the scratching of the pencil fills the quiet as the elder sketches a vague approximation of a tree, all messy leaves and spiky branches and a lopsided trunk that is just as undefined as the confidence in Mark's hand. A diseased tree, Renjun notes with a curious gaze, relieved for the distraction that meeting the new boy has provided. Mark sighs through his nose, scratches his head, adjusts his glasses, glares at his drawing some more.

"I suck at art. God."

Mark looks at Renjun, who looks back with a smile teasing the corners of his lips.

"Artist's block is shit. I get it."

"So..." Mark starts, and Renjun hums when he watches the other's gaze trail over the scattering of art supplies on the desk, all untouched since he sat down. All untouched for too many weeks. "So, are you an art student, then?"

"It's complicated," Renjun mutters. Mark's mouth remains open, a fragment of a stutter escaping his throat, but then Renjun leans back and twirls his red mechanical pencil between his fingers with a playful grin. "I am. But I'm so behind on work it's not even funny."

He proceeds to tell Mark about the upcoming project. The World Through My Eyes. Renjun scorns the given title, curses how they're never straightforward, and rubs his cheeks to ward off the stress that creeps back into his head while he explains that he's behind because of recent laziness.

"It was my birthday yesterday, you see. And I-"

"I'm sorry I missed your birthday, dude," Mark says, rushed, forced out by the instinct to be polite. Renjun stops mid-sentence, then turns to look at the elder, amusement climbing through his features. He places his pencil down, but only picks it back up when it tries to roll away.

"We only just met."

"Yeah, but... I feel bad?" Mark tries again.

Renjun bites his cheek to muffle his laughter. The earnest shine of Mark's eyes speaks truth, and he would feel bad teasing him. They have yet to know each other, and he learnt the hard way not to test people's boundaries too soon. Mark seems sweet, too pure to tease so early on.