The World Stopped Moving {MarkRen} | complete

six

I got carried away so have another update <3

𓆩♡𓆪

Renjun finds Mark reading on Monday morning. No one else has dragged themselves out of bed to spend extra hours on their projects, so Renjun's footsteps echo through the art room, tentative and dwarfed by the colours that spill across every canvas and every table. He wants to speak to Mark, but also doesn't want to disturb him. The elder turns the page, then clears his throat and leans back on his elbow and continues reading as though the world around him didn't exist. A particular sentence makes him smile, then another makes his brow furrow in concentration, lips parted slightly.

The screech of the chair legs sliding across the floor has Renjun wincing when he goes to sit down, and Mark jolts up, book snapping shut. He relaxes with an audible sigh when he sees who it is.

"Hey," Mark says. A reminder of their awkward meeting at the café must flicker through his mind, because he casts his gaze down and spends the next moment mumbling to himself as he tries to find the page, marking it with a slip of scrap paper.

"Good morning," Renjun replies with a smile. Mark traces his fingers over the book cover, flicking the dog-eared corners with his thumbs. The swirly lettering of Pride and Prejudice sings amongst a mosaic of flowers, and the navy cover has faded on the spine, cracked from years of being read. "When did you get here?" The younger asks, checking his phone. It's hardly half eight in the morning.

"Seven." Mark rubs his eyes under his glasses. It's no wonder he's so tired.

Renjun does a poor job of hiding his surprise. "Did you sleep here or something?" Mark shakes his head with a truncated laugh that pricks Renjun with guilt, who clears his throat to continue. "Jaemin isn't my boyfriend, by the way."

"Who's Jaemin?" Mark asks. His voice is gruff, unused for hours, and the slight crack brings heat to Renjun's cheeks.

"At the café?" Renjun says. The elder squints, then nods when he remembers, although still seems confused. "We weren't on a date or anything." Renjun wants to make that clear. Mark nods again. "But he is my ex. Turns out we're not soulmates." It's Renjun's turn to laugh now, and his doesn't have any more life than Mark's did, only bitter where Mark's was full of indignation.

"That sucks," Mark offers, and the conversation doesn't venture any further.

Renjun opens his sketchbook to the mind map. There are a few more additions now, thanks to Chenle prodding him and telling him to just put anything down. As long as he can waffle on about his project in a way that vaguely justifies it, it doesn't matter what he does. Those were Chenle's words of wisdom. He begins to experiment with various thumbnails anyway. A human heart, deformed by the torment of heartbreak, preserved in a glass jar. A tiny boy lost in a jungle of his houseplants. An empty, discarded sketchbook on his desk, surrounded by blunt pencils and crumpled pages and spilt paint water.

"You seem upset by that," Mark says after countless quiet minutes. They're still alone, but students have started to fill the nearby corridors, so the scratch of Renjun's pencil disappears amongst the chatter that creeps in.

"Upset by what?" Renjun examines the worry on Mark's features, then realises he's gripping the pencil hard enough for his fingers to cramp, pressing hard enough into the page to leave fierce indents in the paper, and it must alarm the elder. What were intended as experimental sketches are etched forever, resistant to the threats of being erased.

He bites his cheek while he scrutinises the drawings. He likes them all. He hates them all. Mark tilts his head, doesn't answer his question to nod in appreciation of them, and Renjun deduces what he's talking about.