Renjun doesn't stop drawing.

The sun crawls across the sky and he switches on his desk lamp, unbothered by the moon pitying him through the window. He draws all night: sketching his ideas, testing different colours and media, finding the best kind of paper, which in the end turns into buying a brand-new sketchbook.

It's dainty and thin with just enough pages and bound by a leather cover as blue as the sky on the sunny days where they'd walk to the market together. Mark's favourite kind of blue. Renjun thumbs the paper between his fingers and sighs happily. So many pages, ready to accept all kinds of exciting colours, to absorb all the ideas that tingle in his core, to bring them to life. Inspiration strikes in the middle of a lecture, and he ignores the dirty glare he receives from students around him to rummage through his bag for the sketchbook and pencil case, immediately getting to work so he doesn't waste a moment.

Mark floats on a cloud in this sketch. The exact shapes don't quite form, but Renjun finetunes the details of Mark's smile and fluffy hair in the meantime. He learns to be patient. There's no point prodding and scratching to drag ideas out before they're ready, so he lets them develop on their own until the flowers bloom and he can gently coax them out. When he can't paint, he writes in his journal. He figures he'd want to show that to Mark at some point, too.

He paints a lot of flowers that evening. White and red roses for a fresh start and deep love; gladioli with long, sturdy stems for faithfulness; a field of daisies for purity, and for fun. He plants meaning and symbolism into each piece of art, knowing Mark will melt when he has the chance to explain it all.

Then studying catches up with him. It was inevitable, really, but Renjun keeps his chin high and keeps going, the promise of a break luring him to the library with his friends. Exams lurk around the corner, also inevitable, but he paints until his neck is stiff and he doesn't have spare energy to waste on extra studying, content to just tick the bare minimum off his to-do list. He does enough work to get by, enough to justify being at university, and even that is enough to drain him and send him to bed earlier each day.

Regardless, he doesn't sleep. The alarm blares through his tiny room before the sun has even broken free from the horizon, and when he does a quick calculation while tripping into his socks, he's grateful for two hours of sleep. No one comments on his tense shoulders or swollen eyes, but their silent stares are loud enough.

"Don't." Jaemin takes Renjun's cold hand in his own, guiding it away from the pot of instant coffee.

Renjun lets him take the mug, afraid it'll slip from his fingers and smash on the floor tiles. It's all too much for a Thursday morning. He has a lecture at nine. Jaemin has two mock exams, and Chenle an important recital. But they still fuss over him, making sure he gets a soothing mug of tea and steers clear from caffeine. Had he even had the tiniest sip of the battery acid Jaemin depends on, Renjun would have lost it. He wasn't thinking, however, and supposes the intrusive thoughts had taken advantage of his sleepiness. He drinks his tea and laughs to himself at the thought drinking coffee.

He gets fifty-six percent in his own mock exam and lets the emptiness brew. It's far from satisfaction but not quite disappointment or anger, either. Just emptiness. Like he's stuck in a fierce tug of war between too many emotions, so he collapses and cries in the middle of the floor to let them rip him apart late at night, a flightless bird abandoned as easy prey.

Another week passes, and Renjun is tetchy. He has been all day. The fears about Mark persist, now harder to swallow and laugh off, and Jisung's chatter and Chenle's bickering and the click of Jeno's computer keys don't soothe them. They only rile him up, feeding the fear so it can beat Renjun down until it's eight in the evening and he's curled in bed, unable to breathe.

Toes numb, fingers trembling, vision blurred by dizziness and tears, Renjun sits up and hunches over, legs spread long and back arched over as he gasps for breath, desperate to catch some air. His curtains block out the last of the evening light, but even there's a dim, sinister haze in the room. The room is too small and cramped and so messy that it makes it all worse, as though the walls themselves are squeezing his lungs, or all the unorganised books are stacked up on his chest, heavy so he can't move under their weight.

He presses tight fists to his eyes and wheezes. The air burns hot in his throat and sets fire to his heart and lungs. Tears burn his cheeks, scalding in their insistence yet freezing in their sudden appearance, numbing the skin of his face. Seconds later, his cheeks become itchy and irritated.

When there's a knock at his door, Renjun sobs. Someone's here. It's not Mark, but someone else is here, someone else cares, and Renjun wails like a toddler into Jaemin's chest. Even through the blaze in his chest, he clings onto his friend, adamant to never be abandoned again. He's given a paper bag and Jaemin is saying something about how he needs more carbon dioxide. Renjun doesn't understand, can't care to understand, but he cares that Jaemin knows how to solve his hyperventilation and that he came, that he's here.

"There you go," Jaemin says when he prises the bag from Renjun's hand and rubs reassurance into his back. "Lie down for a bit." Renjun wishes to never get up again. "It'll stop you getting dizzy. Is your heart okay?"

"Stop being such a med student," Renjun mumbles, voice muffled by his elbow.

"I wish I could," Jaemin replies. "I'm in pretty deep now. Plus, I need people to practice on."

The slap Renjun offers is weak, his fingertips barely grazing over Jaemin's thigh, let alone inflicting pain, but Jaemin seems to get the message and drops his smile.

The room is quiet until Renjun's phone rings. He blinks at the ceiling when his body doesn't react. There's no urgency to answer, even as Taylor Swift sings with more desperation, and Jaemin stiffens. "Want me to decline it?"

Renjun sniffs. "Who is it?" His throat is sore, making him wince.

"An unknown number."

"You can answer."

"Why me?" Jaemin stares at the phone like it could combust at any moment, as though the beat of the music is a ticking time bomb ready to explode. Renjun sniffs again and rolls over to face the wall.

The music finally stops, and Renjun closes his eyes when Jaemin clears his throat, voice broken where anxiety seeps through the cautious greeting.

"They're asking for you," Jaemin whisper-shouts and waves the phone at him. Renjun stares back and blinks, slowly. "It's the hospital."

Renjun doesn't care that the world spins when he sits up too fast and yanks the device from his friend, pressing it to his ear and demanding to be told that Mark is alive and well.

He's phoning Jungwoo next to plead for a ride to the hospital. Jungwoo is more than delighted to help and silences the monotonous drone of the news on the radio at the first set of lights, both tense with fluttering hope. The nurse said Mark is stable now, that he's ready to see Renjun.

"He's not awake, though. The coma was necessary as a precaution, I'm afraid. To allow his body to properly rest. But he's in very good condition." Renjun can't even decipher the words the nurse offers upon arrival at the ward. And he doesn't try, either, because he's desperate to see his soulmate. This nurse's smile isn't warm, more of a forced requirement of the job, and reeks of cigarette smoke. It's enough to scratch his throat and prod at the tears that lurk just beneath the surface of his restlessness.

Their footsteps echo in the corridor. Renjun rings his hands together but stands up straight, not letting his pride or hope sink. The façade crumbles as soon as the door opens.

His heart grows enough to fill the emptiness that's been eating away at his insides since that dreadful day. It sings an irregular melody that resembles more of a scream and beats with all its might, persistent as ever to get Renjun's blood pumping, spirit filling every corner of his body. The dust glows like a soprano come to steal the show right at the finale, and Renjun misses the nurse patting his shoulder and closing the door as she leaves. He can't see anyone except Mark. Can't hear anything except the slow beeps of the heart monitor. Can't feel anything except his heart and the dangerous first sparks of anger.

He doesn't know if they're all the cause of his sweaty palms, or the excessive heating in the room, or the sudden anxiety that hits him. He wipes his hands on his thighs anyway and swallows to quench his feelings.

"Hi, Mark." Renjun sits in the chair next to the bed. It's not as comfortable as it first looked and the yellow cushion is an ill match for the blue floor and white walls, like a poor attempt at brightening the room. He hugs it to his chest anyway.

There's a window to the left, but the curtains are shut. Renjun hopes they aren't always closed, even if Mark hasn't been awake to admire the clouds as he loves to do. He wonders if he can see the clouds in his dreams. Maybe he's been flying through the sky, free and healthy and so, so happy. Renjun really hopes he has.

"I..." Words fail him. "I've really missed you."

Only now does Renjun look at Mark.

He looks away, sick to his stomach, then can't help but turn back and it's the fragility of his soulmate that glues his gaze in place, even as the residual tears make his cheeks sticky. Mark is layed on his back, arms at his sides to rest on the scratchy, white sheets. There are tubes poked into arms, and more that snake out from under his hospital gown. Mark doesn't like sleeping on his back. He prefers to curl onto his side and wrap all his limbs around Renjun, press his face into Renjun's hair and whisper into his ear. The one time Renjun has seen him spread out on his back was in a field to watch the clouds. His hair splits at the ends, in need of a wash. Without his round glasses, his face is bare save for the ventilator strapped over his mouth and nose. It fogs slightly with each forced breath. His jawline must be seconds from slicing through his paper skin, cheeks void of the usual rosiness that appears whenever he laughs too hard. Renjun wants to hold his hand and never let go but fears it would disintegrate upon a mere fleeting touch.

Renjun wants to cry and scream and let it all out, but instead he sits back in the chair and smiles at the ceiling, letting tears silently leak from the corners of his eyes and tickle his ears. He's back with Mark. Mark is alive, he's stable.

"I handed in my final project," Renjun says. He can't stand the silence, and believes his soulmate can hear him, that Mark is internally smiling at the sound of his voice. "It was pretty bad." His voice doesn't sound like his own with the backdrop of general hospital chaos.

He digs his nails into the cushion and breathes deeply. The burn of his heart is past the stage of painful and his eyelids feel like weighted magnets, desperate to snap together into sleep, but he rubs them and keeps them open, not wanting to waste a moment with Mark. He speaks slowly and quietly, each word stinging his tongue before it reaches the air, and even then Renjun isn't sure if what he's saying even matters.

Watching the steady rise and fall of his soulmate's chest, Renjun pauses, thoughts dying when he realises it's the man he'll be spending the rest of his life with. The boy who can't go a day without the comfort of a book, who fell in love with the clouds, who fell in love with Renjun despite his illness, now fading away on a hospital bed.

It's enough for Renjun to consider tearing his own heart out.

"I'm writing a lot, too." Renjun pulls out the little notebook from his bag, flicks through the pages although he never settles on reading any particular paragraph, just as indecisive as his thoughts. "I get why you love writing so much."

He's rambling, like Mark always does, but Renjun can't stand sitting in silence. He's never been great at leading conversation, comfortable taking the backseat to listen, blending in with the walls, but now it's just him, Mark and their feelings. He can't stop talking.

"When you're better, we can have a picnic in the park and watch the clouds all day," Renjun says. Mark doesn't react and at a first glance his face seems peaceful and relaxed, but Renjun swears there's a slight crease to his forehead and downturn to the corners of his lips. He still can't look away, although his voice wavers. "And the promise I made... it still stands. I'm waiting for you. I'll always wait for you. It doesn't matter how slow we take things."

Renjun has to look away when the urge to squeeze Mark tight in his arms grows too overwhelming. He hugs the cushion tighter and stares at the dark blue linoleum tiles on the floor. They reflect the light in a harsh, scattered pattern that hurts his eyes. A nurse brings him a cup of tea. Renjun holds the tag of the tea bag and swirls it round, not enticed by the pale brown liquid. Too much milk. And it's lukewarm. He cringes but doesn't put the cup down because it's warm enough. It's something, and he appreciates the nurse thought of him.

"I just..." Renjun swallows. He looks at Mark again, expecting those boba eyes to be staring back in earnest. When they're not, the next words catch in his throat and get all tangled until he can't breathe, and he resorts to choking them out, not giving up. "I love you, Mark. I hope you know that." He has so many hopes. Too many hopes that dig a naïve hole in his chest. "I want you to know that."

𓆩♡𓆪

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate ♥

I'm sorry to bring the angst, but there's one more update for this year and it's a happier one! That'll be up tomorrow - I seem to have done loads of writing and editing but somehow got behind with posting since everything has been so busy!

And WayV absolutely ate phantom... I'm just so, so happy to see them performing on stage again. What's your favourite song off the album? I really like broken love, although this time I might have to go for the title track hehe