The World Stopped Moving {MarkRen} | complete

quinze

The painted broken heart evolves each time Renjun visits his sketchbook and he experiments with new colours – colours he imagines Mark's soulmate dust would be. During the day, he meets Mark after morning class and they walk to lunch together, before heading to the library to study, whispering more than they read or write. Then during the night, Renjun hunches over his desk, paintbrush poised in his hand as inspiration floods his mind. He doesn't know where to start, overwhelmed by the foreign urge to just paint.

The damaged heart goes from black to red, but Renjun bites his cheek and frowns. There's only the flicker of his rose-scented candle to illuminate his work and yet the red is too mundane, he knows. Too predictable for a love that is anything but. It's not a movie, nor a drama. So, the next night, Renjun tries again. A professor had suggested he return to his mindmap. He does, only to be drawn to the same concept of fragile, hopeful love.

On Wednesday, the heart turns blue to match the oversized hoodie that hugged Mark's frame that afternoon. On Thursday, after spending their free day at Mark's apartment, the wounds begin to heal. The elder plucked his guitar and encouraged Renjun to sing along to all the Bruno Mars songs. Although a little shaky and inexperienced, their voices grew and intertwined like roses climbing an arch that finally met in the middle under the gleaming sun. The rubber bands that had been squeezing Renjun's skull weakened as the hours passed and their bond strengthened. The heart in his painting grows wings to replace the scars.

On Friday, Mark turns up at Renjun's dorm room with a yellow gift bag.

"Open it," Mark says.

He sits on the end of the bed to watch Renjun pull out the bracelet: a golden chain with a single pendant in the shape of the North Star.

"Because you're my star. You guide me and brighten up my life." Mark's voice wobbles just enough to give away the emotions brewing under the surface of his lovestruck smile.

The emotions spill over when they hug. Mark's shoulders heave and Renjun's fingers curl into the thick coat on the elder's back, unable to find purchase but secure nonetheless. He runs his fingers over the knobs of Mark's spine and bites back a comment on how thin he is. Frail, almost. Energy fizzes in the air around them, alive like a swarm of fireflies attracted to the glow of the soulmate dust and to the glow of Mark's heart, no matter how faint it might be. It's persistent and fierce, ready to fight for what it's worth. Renjun nearly slides off the sofa but Mark doesn't let him fall. He clings to the younger like it could be their last embrace. For Renjun, it feels like their first, intense as ever.

That night, the heart breaks out of the glass jar. It flies free, and when Renjun shifts his attention to who its owner might be, he finds himself staring back at Mark three hours later. Mark in art form, dancing through a field at midnight. Mark soaring above the city, far from the angry traffic and littered streets to join the stars. Renjun loves the stars. Mark resting in a tree, wings draping off the branch where he lays with one leg hanging as he gazes up at the sky.

Renjun supposes he's always loved a bit of fantasy. He spent hours with imaginary friends as a child. He could devour a whole fantasy book series in a week. And now, swirling his brush in the glass of murky water, he figures loving Mark feels like a fantasy. It feels surreal. Forbidden even, because it's not meant to work, because the universe tried to block them and yet they still eat ice cream together on the rusty roundabout in the playground, shivering from the bite of the evening chill but still warm in each other's presence.

"For me?" Mark asks when they're at the same playground on Saturday morning. The sunrise trickles over the horizon, and the light is enough for them to see each other's smiles, and to turn their breaths to white puffs that meet in an intricate dance as they laugh. They're high off love – the strongest of drugs – and high off fatigue. Neither has slept all night, since Renjun messaged the elder once his painting was complete. They met up and snuck through the darkness to watch the sunrise.