Ice Cream on Lips (Anxieties Blissed) | RenMark/MarkRen

The Track Meet

Renjun shuffled through the swell of people and eventually settled on a bleacher that sat relatively toward the middle of the track, right at the very top, so he had a bird's eye view of the whole field.

High schoolers of various builds stood in clumps along the outer lines of the track itself. Some stood around with pensive postures swimming against the rising collective noise of the crowd; others were in varying stages of stretches, a thin sheen of sweat spreading against their toned bodies.

And then there was one student, in particular, that stood worlds apart from the rest: Lee Mark.

For whatever reason, he was leaning against the wall that led to the boy's locker room's entryway. Renjun's vision was too blurry from high altitude winds and overall distance to make out what sort of expression the elder was wearing, but he could make an educated guess and round it up to one of depressive terror.

Renjun wished he could go down there, on the field, and assure Mark that he would do wonderfully and that he had support in the bleachers, but...

But what?

Nothing was stopping him from approaching the elder; he knew from the simple observation of family members and crowds of friends gathering around a handful of the athletes that he could easily waltz up to Mark, coy and cocky, and relish in the sure astonishment that was to come from his mere presence.

So, what was with the hesitation?

Renjun wasn't able to linger on the thought for much longer. The referee's shrill whistle and the crackle of the intercom coming to life signaled that the event was about to start.Renjun sat at attention and waited.

Waited for Mark to show off the talent he had been so eager to show him and Jeno that night.

--

The weather report had been wrong.

Anyone with working eyes could tell that the lumbering coal clouds in the near distance were a threat, but nobody wanted to rain on the parade that was already well underway.

Unfortunately, the swollen clouds didn't share the same sentiment.

It was a slight drizzle that the coaches and referees collectively agreed on ignoring. The athletes, already high in tension with a competitive spirit and drunk on their own prideful egos, were quick to return to their war against one another.

Mark finally came out in the five hundred meter dash.

By then, the drizzle had turned into a pestering trickle, a constant slap to Renjun's face as the winds picked up speed. The rain-slicked track shone underneath the field lights, and Renjun worried about the probability of someone slipping on the smooth surface in their haste, but the athletes remained unbothered and aggressive, so it was probably going to be just fine. Renjun reasoned out that there was a possibility the students were already used to practicing in less than perfect weather, so it wasn't like a competition was going to blunder their professionalism.

The whistle blew, and the sharp pop of the starting pistol rang through the icy winds, and soon the crowds' shouting was reaching an all-new high as the students sped down the concrete track in violent succession. A hierarchy of speedsters soon took their place above the rest: some string-bean kid who fell behind the other two by a good few feet; another no-name that was bulkier and moderately faster than string-bean; and, taking reign of first place was—

"Mark," escaped Renjun as he stared, breathless from awe, at the sheer immensity that contorted the elder's limbs as he pushed himself beyond his absolute limit: legs stretched long and thin above the dampened road; arms moving in pace with his strides, muscles shifting, bulging underneath his undershirt; face taut and focused as heaved breaths made their escape from him in rapid succession.

It was a sight that Renjun could never imagine from an insomniac that sought comfort from buckets of sweetened ice, and it honestly kind of impressed him. Passion could really change someone's everyday behavior, he supposed.

But the spell that had been placed over the both of them—the absolute belief that brief, insignificant victory was right at his fingertips broke the moment his foot slipped over a puddle that hid underneath the false, shadowed midnight.

The crowd gasped in collective horror, and Renjun's world came crashing down with a sickening slap of broken flesh on concrete.

(The incident imprinted itself behind his eyelids every time he gazed at a raging storm outside his bedroom window; it was fresh and clear on his mind when Mark collapsed onto the store's floor in much the same fashion: defeated and agonized.)

A/N - sorry that it wasn't actually epik.