Mismatched

15

      Mark bought primroses to keep in his room and other parts of the dorm. The others are confused as to why he's bringing flowers every few days, but they don't question if they find spare petals around the flat.

Mark is eating... just a little without throwing up. He has to make everything into a shake and drink it, slowly. He makes sure every shake has the vitamins and nutrients he needs, and he gets shots to keep himself alive. Doing everything he can just not to lose too much weight and to stay strong to carry on as an idol. When the others ask him —everyone except Jackson— why he looks so pale and sick, Mark replies he's just tired and he misses home.

Jackson continues not caring about him.

Mark continues throwing up yellow petals, he doesn't even remove his face mask by now.

Yellow petals in his sheets. On his pillow. On his carpet. In his pockets. Yellow heart-shaped petals everywhere.

One day, Mark is alone at home because J.Y. Park ordered him to take it easy until he stops looking unhealthy pale and he looks just chic pale. Mark nods and obeys even if that isn't happening, but it's okay, he cannot do anything else like photoshoots or whatever. He wants to sleep even if he can't. He wants to eat, even if he can't.

He is completely alone at home, so he curls in a blanket on the sofa, watching television, feeling sleep crawling, calling him, but his flowers don't let him fall asleep, instead he coughs more petals.

By now, the petals slip so easily from his lips, almost effortless. He just coughs and the petals are out, as if they were waiting in his oesophagus.

Mark is so tired, just lying on the sofa, eyes closed, the telly loud muffling every sound, many petals on the floor, tangled in the blanket he keeps up to his neck.

Mark knows he is dying and he isn't scared, not really. He is worried, wondering how long it'll take, for how long he'll keep it hidden. He worries about any of the members —not Jackson, he doesn't care— finding out he is sick and forcing him to get the surgery. What if his parents find out? They'd definitely force him, not caring about Mark's idiotic need to hold on to his feelings for Jackson. No, no one would care about what he wants, they would just force him to stay alive even if that means taking away from him the most important thing he has: his love for Jackson.

Just thinking of one day not feeling anything at all for Jackson makes his symptoms even worse, as if the flowers grew tenfold and forced him to throw up many more petals. He doubles over and lets the petals fall to the floor, coughing until he feels he can finally breathe again.

Exhausted, he lays back, catching his breath and wiping away the petal in the corner of his mouth. He is so tired he cannot even listen to the telly, he cannot even open his eyes.

Maybe he'll die sooner than expected.

Mark is worrying about how to explain to his parents what he did when he's on his deathbed, how to finally confess to Jackson he's loved him all along, so much he ended up growing primroses inside of him, probably in his stomach, and he let himself die because he couldn't live without him, without loving him.

"What the fuck?!" Someone screams, a voice that's all too familiar and that breaks through Mark's daydream of his final moment.

Mark's head snaps towards the voice, meeting Jackson's wide eye, watching him in disbelief. Watching Mark and all the petals around him, all the evidence that Mark is a freak.

"Jackson," Mark whimpers, suffocated and horrified that the person who must've never found out is the first to witness his freak show. "I can explain."

"You better do, Mark Tuan."

And he will, Mark will explain and figure out what to do...but his flowers get in the way, growing, moving, tearing him apart from inside and Mark is gasping for air, right in front of Jackson, with the most violent attack he's ever experienced. He starts drowning as he coughs and gags, trying to survive this. Falling off the sofa, on his knees, crying in pain and shaking in fear as he feels the petals coming up from his stomach, slow and burning him.

This time Mark doesn't throw up only petals, oh no, Mark throws up a whole flower, a clear primrose, withered and disgusting, but an evident flower. Mark is mortified, but that's nothing to what he feels when he looks up and meets Jackson's eyes, not cold but horrified, angry.

"Gaga," Mark cries, tears rolling down his cheeks and flowers choking him.