Head Down

◤ten◢

Cotton candy.

Affiliated with childhood and innocence, right? Cotton candy reminds you of the first time you went to the town fair, or a carnival. An amusement park even, cotton candy always reminds you of fun and childish times, reminds you of youth and what some would consider the better days.

Cotton candy has such a story to it. It's like a cloud, but it starts from just powder. Just powder sugar, just grains of the finest matter which can sift and fall right through your fingers. And then it's tortured. It's spun, and hung, it's made dizzy and made pretty. But at what cost? It's spun and goes round and round and round again, until it doesn't. Until it stops, and then it's done. It's pretty, but it's crafted. It's soft, but it had to be formed. It's round, because it had to be tortured.

Pink and blue, the colours the most associated with cotton candy. Pink and blue, the colours most associated with girls and boys. Pink for girls. Blue for boys.

And Na Jaemin?

A boy with a lovely head of pink, spun-sugar cotton candy hair.

No wonder he gets shit for it.

Because cotton candy? Everyone knows the truth about it now. It's fake. It's crafted. It's moulded to be what it is known for. Cotton candy is tortured and it starts from nothing. It's a soft cloud, which can be demolished with a singular drop of water. It's weak. Cotton candy is pathetic. And everyone knows that.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

Mark watches as the group of snickering boys leave the scene, and he's so tempted to go after them. His eye are trained on their jogging figures, and he's a half second away from beating the shit out of them, but then he lets his eyes flicker to Jaemin and second guesses his priorities.

Jaemin looks horrible, to put it simply. His lip is busted, his eye is bruising rapidly, his jaw is bright red, and his cheeks are cut. He looks like a mess, hair sticking up everywhere and eyes bright red.

"Jaemin," Mark breathes out, seeming almost as if he's pained as he makes his way over to the other boy. He crouches down in front of the clearly injured one, not knowing what to do with his hands in case he hurts some part of Jaemin's fragile body. "What happened?" He asks, worry evident in his voice and clearly shown in his eyes.

Jaemin doesn't say anything at first, and Mark is ready to ask again in case he didn't hear the first time, but then Jaemin starts to chuckle dryly, so Mark keeps his mouth shut. The younger still doesn't say anything, instead he just buries his face in his hands, and Mark notices for the first time that they're red and cracked. The humourless laughter dies down after a few seconds, and instead replaced with a beat of silence, followed by a sniffle.

"I don't know what happened," Jaemin finally says, and it's barely audible because of the hands blocking the boy's mouth. "I was just waiting for you so we could walk home, and then some stupid boys came and...," Jaemin explains, trailing off near the end. It seems as if he can't bring himself to finish his sentence, and Mark understands that. There were many times when he'd rather keep his mouth shut than recount the events.

"It's okay," Mark assures, using a gentler voice in order to soothe Jaemin. "You don't need to say anything." He puts a hand on Jaemin's shoulder, and he hopes it's as comforting as he wants it to be. He feels for Jaemin in this moment, because it's not easy, whatever he went through. Mark wouldn't say that he's been through the same or similar events, but he knows the feeling of wanting to tell someone something but deciding to keep it in. To keep it in for as long as you can, for not saying a word until you're ready or until you're forced to. Preferably the former.

"Mark," Jaemin starts, slowly moving his hands down his face.

"You really don't have to tell me anything—"

"You're gay, aren't you?"

Mark pales at the that, throat parching the longer he leaves the question unanswered. He doesn't know how to find the words to speak, and it makes him open and close his mouth, without anything leaving it, continuously.

"B-Bisexual," the elder stutters out eventually, correcting Jaemin's previous statement. "Half and half." He adds, trying to be humorous while hiding his own internal panic.

"And what's wrong with that?" Jaemin asks, a bit too loudly for Mark's liking, even though he knows that no one is close enough to them to hear their conversation. "Everybody leaves you alone." Jaemin adds in a low tone, sounding so defeated that it almost breaks Mark's heart.

"No one knows, Jae," the elder says quietly, gently putting a hand under Jaemin's chin and tilting his head up. Once they make eye contact, Mark sends the younger a small smile. He hopes it's comforting. "Only you."

"Mark hyung," Jaemin calls out softly, gripping at Mark's wrists. "I'm gay."

Mark doesn't want to say that he knows, but he did kind of already have an idea that Jaemin wasn't straight. But all he does right now is nod his head, keeping the soft smile on his face.

"It's okay," he assures. "I won't judge you for anything you do Jaem. Don't worry about the people who will, they don't matter."

Jaemin has been holding it in this entire time, but at Mark's words, he finally lets go of the tears and hurt, pain and sadness he's been keeping in since those boys had started having a go at him.

"Mark hyung it's not fair!" He cries, looking back down while his face is still in Mark's hands. "J-Jeno and Donghyuck don't get shit for what they do! But me? I've been here for a fraction of the time they have, and people have already stepped on me!" He complains, letting the sobs, which he's kept in too long, wrack through his body. "It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair!"

Part of Mark feels so bad for Jaemin, so sorry that he has to go through something like this. Especially since he knows that Jaemin grew up in California, somewhere which is acceptant to the LGBTQ+ community. He hasn't gone through something like this before, and it shows by the way he's handling the situation. Not saying that Mark thinks he doesn't have any right to be feeling the way he is, but if Mark were in Jaemin's shoes, he'd probably be unaffected. He's been through hell and back, and this scenario he's found himself in just adds to his mental list of why nobody knows about his sexuality.

"I know," Mark sighs, pulling Jaemin's head into his chest so that the younger doesn't have to worry about anyone seeing him. He thinks about how he's going to clean up Jaemin's cuts and ice his wounds, and thinks he'll be spending quite a while at the other's house before heading to his own.

"Nothing's fair, Jaem."