My Muse

12

Jinyoung woke up with sunlight in his eye, blinking it out only for his vision to clear and focus on some auburn strands of hair that flowed in the morning rays. He tilted his head further down, feeling the warm weight on his chest and soft puffs of air on his neck. Mark rested peacefully against his chest, still curled around his body like a large koala.

Some strands of hair had swept into Mark's face. Jinyoung gazed down at his peaceful face, hesitating before doing any sort of movement. He took the moment to admire the elder's calm features. He had a weird urge to punch Mark in the face for looking so beautiful. He didn't of course, but he sort of wanted to.

Instead he lifted his eager fingers to Mark's forehead, brushing the hair that covered it out of the way. His thumb landed on Mark's cheek and accidentally lingered there, long enough for Mark's eyes to slowly open and through their haze find Jinyoung's face.

Jinyoung pulled his hand away, hiding it at his side as if it hadn't been there all along.

"Morning." Mark rumbled in a low and lazy voice that sent a slight shiver down Jinyoung's spine.

Jinyoung almost forgot how to speak. Almost. "Morning. Slept well?"

Mark hummed, giving a little nod of his head. Jinyoung felt Mark's arms tighten around his waist and boy, did his heart flutter. "Very well. Your chest is nice."

Jinyoung surely was flustered then, and the weight of Mark's head on his chest suddenly felt ten times heavier. His heart pumped so loud he was sure Mark had to hear it considering how close his ear was to the organ. Jinyoung didn't know how to respond to Mark's answer, so of course he clumsily switched subjects. "Um... d-do you want breakfast?"

Mark shook his head while lazily moving it for a better position. "Don't worry about me, I'm okay."

Jinyoung glanced down at the elder, his brows slowly knitting together as he noticed something odd. "Mark, why aren't you eating?"

Mark seemed to had frozen into ice. "Hmm?"

"The other night I made dinner, and you told me you were too tired to eat, so I had to force you to eat something. Then when we had the picnic you ate like, two bites of your sandwich and didn't even finish the dinner we ordered later on. Now you're refusing breakfast. What's up?"

Mark was quiet for a minute, which Jinyoung knew the elder was using to think up a response. Mark suddenly moved away from him, turning over and facing the opposite direction of Jinyoung. He suddenly regretted mentioning it at all, his chest grew cold from Mark's absence.

"Nothing's up. I'm okay." Mark replied in a sigh as his head rested on the pillow beside Jinyoung's.

Jinyoung knew that answer was bullshit, and though others would leave the conversation alone to avoid conflict, Jinyoung just couldn't leave such an important topic alone. "Mark."

Mark shifted onto his back, now looking up at the ceiling. He let out another heavy sigh, momentarily closing his eyes before shaking his head and speaking. "I just... gained a few pounds..."

Jinyoung instantly sat up on his elbow. "So? It's unnoticeable. You feel the same as always."

"I noticed it though. A little diet doesn't hurt." Mark mumbled.

"That's not a diet, that's starving yourself. I'm not letting you do that." Jinyoung urged. It was obvious that Mark knew what he was doing wasn't exactly the ideal way to lose weight, judging by the way he refused to look Jinyoung in the eye and overall had that guilty look on his face.

Mark just shrugged in response. "Well I don't wanna be overweight."

"You're not overweight. You weren't ever overweight. You're gonna eat something." Jinyoung concluded, lifting himself up from his bed to head into the kitchen and make Mark some food. One thing he refused to do was let Mark suffer under his care, and staying healthy was a large part of that.