Super

21. stayin' alive

By the time Mark reached the bar, Shao had already found Taeyong.

He rushed towards the two, concern creasing his brow and turning down the corners of his mouth, barely able to keep himself from shaking. Taeyong was on his back next to a wall, on a bed of glass shards, multiple tiny cuts littering his bare arms and face. That wasn't what concerned him, though. No—what concerned him was that Taeyong didn't seem to be breathing.

Mark was on his knees before Shao even had the time to look up. Her lips were pressed in a thin line, and she was kneeling next to the man with a defeated air. Kai was next to him in a second, hesitant and worried. "Where's Lucas?"

"Is he breathing?" Mark asked, the words sounding rough-edged through the dryness of his throat. "Did you give him CPR?"

"I don't know how," Shao said helplessly, and Mark's heart turned to ice. "I did push his chest a couple of times, though. I don't know if that works."

He swallowed against the scream threatening to climb up his throat, and turned over Taeyong's limp wrist. The pulse was alive, but thready, too strong for him to be dead but too weak for him to be alive long enough. Mark placed his arm at his side with shaking hands and pressed an ear to his chest, his own heart beating wildly in his.

"He's..." The boy swallowed again. His hands were shaking too much, and there was a loud buzzing in his ears that didn't seem like it was going to go away soon. "He..."

Shao sat back on her haunches, silent. There was a hesitant fear in her eyes as they flicked between Mark's face and Taeyong's. "Mark—"

"No, no, no, no," Mark chanted as he pressed his ice-cold fingertips to the base of Taeyong's throat. So many ways to check a pulse, and Mark was going to go through every single one of them until he got one. "No."

Kai was frozen. The rest of the members had dispersed into the bar, using the split-up method to look for Lucas, but Mark wished someone was here to help him. To help Taeyong. He placed his hands over the man's limp chest and started pushing, singing along to Stayin' Alive.

"What are you doing?" Shao asked, but Mark wasn't listening. He was pushing, as hard and deep as he dared, trying not to mess up the lyrics and focusing on his own breath as he sang.

His pulse was weak and fluttering, getting weaker by the second, and Mark's eyes were beginning to sting. No pulse. He sat back and covered his mouth with his hand, trembling all over. "No, no, no," he whispered into his fingers, sweaty and cold. How could he live in Taeyong's house when Taeyong wasn't even in it? He'd worried so much about his own safety, but he'd put someone else's safety on the line to keep himself out of trouble. Someone besides Taeyong. Someone out there really needed Taeyong back—

He went cold as a new thought struck him. Jaemin.

"What's happening here?" He didn't look up at the new voice, recognizing it to be Lucas's. Kai didn't even let out a breath of relief. All he heard was some shuffling as the man knelt next to him, and an uncomfortable warmth that wrapped him. "Is he...?"

Lucas was bare-chested, his shirt hanging in tatters around his shoulders, looking like it had been burnt right off his torso. Thankfully, his pants—which were a part of his suit—were fine, but the man was sizzling. Quite literally.

"There's no pulse," Mark said, robotically neutral, but his mind was in pieces, all of his thoughts screaming he's gone with the ugly disorder of the singing of insects, in chaos and disbelief.

Lucas stared at him for a moment, silent as stone. "Was there a pulse when you found him here?" he asked. "How long has it been gone?"

"A few seconds," he replied in a whisper. He had gone as pale as a sheet. He's gone he's gone he can't be gone. "But—"