wingate gardens -got7 ✓

40- 3 weeks

things didn't get any easier. sure, the arguments stopped, replaced by a weird tense sort of silence between mark and his father. but the emptiness mark felt without jinyoung, and bambam and jackson and yugyeom, felt enough to tear him apart. his heart broke whenever he thought of jinyoung's smiling face.

he remembered the first time he had seen that smile. god, it felt like so long ago.

his happiness felt so distant now.

as the days turned into weeks, mark hollowed out. he stopped caring, his hate towards youngjae even died down a little. he just broke.

there was no hope anymore. without a phone, a wallet and a passport- mark had given up. he wasn't getting back to korea. never. not as long as his father was alive and kicking.

forever, he would be stuck in his childhood bedroom, staring at the wall, wishing he was back in wingate gardens.

joey got worse, mark noticed. every time youngjae brought him over, he seemed a little more pale, a little weaker. mark knew it should've made him sad, to see his brother actually dying, but he just didn't have the energy.

all of it went towards missing jinyoung, there was never a moment where the sadness wasn't seeping through him.

and he didn't really care about much else.

eventually, it got so bad that he found himself crying, alone, enveloped in a pain he didn't know could be real.

there was a life back there, a life he had made for himself. one he was happy with. one that made him blissfully happy.

gone.

his selfish father had taken it away.

and so he couldn't help but cry, not that it changed his father's mind on anything. he was starting to think the man simply hated him, and enjoyed watching him suffer. it would make sense.

but whatever raymond's intentions were, mark found himself crying whenever possible- when he wasn't at an appointment with joey or spending time with youngjae.

a cold morning, and a piece of paper.

after three exact weeks of living in america, mark pulled out a pen and paper and tried his best to recreate the list he had given jinyoung. the list of things to do together, though of course, mark had no hope that any of the bullet points would ever happen now.

not when he was stuck in la.

regardless, he sat on his stiff mattress and rewrote the list, the paper quickly becoming littered with tear stains. before long, he was sobbing, clutching at his bed sheets as once again, he thought about all he had lost.

he wept, as he often did, for what felt like hours, deep and raw. a sadness so pure and heart-breaking that when youngjae pushed open the bedroom door with a bowl of cereal in hand, he couldn't help but drop the bowl, watching it fall to the floor.

milk seeped into the carpet.

youngjae rushed to mark.

he tried to wrap his arms around the older, but was immediately shoved away.

"fuck off youngjae." mark growled between gasps for air, the endless wails leaving him breathless.

"no."

youngjae hadn't expected this reply to fly from his mouth, but as it hung in the air, mark didn't respond with anger, just silence. youngjae expected this to mean he could stay, and once again wrapped an arm around mark.

this time, his arm stayed in place.

he felt as mark shook beneath him, face ruddy and glistening with tears. once again, the guilt washed over him. he had done this. he had done this to mark.