lapis lazuli (2/2)
For the first few months, the novelty of their blossoming relationship gives everything the sparkle of rose-tinted glasses, but as time passes cracks start to appear like faultlines. Their personalities and lifestyles contrast vastly, and these differences start being more irreconcilable than interesting. While Mark is homely, content to stay cooped in the house leisurely reading the newspaper on weekends, Jackson is a party animal who thrives on excitement. Jackson is impatient with the way Mark is so conservative and tightly-strung and just can’t let loose and have fun. Mark is fed up with the way Jackson is indiscriminately affectionate, always pushing the boundaries and doing shocking and outrageous things, never satisfied until he’s the life of the party.
Jackson knows that Mark dislikes the way he has no inhibitions and is an incurable flirt, but he can’t help it. This is who he is, and he can’t change himself, even for Mark. And it hurts more than anything that Mark can’t accept this, that the very qualities that he had once been drawn to in Jackson now tire and repulse him. In hindsight, he should have known that they wouldn’t work out. Something as beautiful and transient as the miracle between them was bound to end in disaster.
“Why do you have to be such an attention whore?” Mark explodes one day after walking in on him and Bambam gyrating and grinding their hips against each other on the dance floor at a fencing team party. They’re not words that Jackson hasn’t heard before, but coming from Mark’s lips they hurt so much more.
“Are you jealous of Bambam now?” Jackson retorts incredulously. “You’re crazy. He’s just a harmless baby.”
“Jealous?” Mark sneers, a condescending glint in his eye that Jackson hasn’t seen before and doesn’t like. “I don’t waste my time on such juvenile and petty emotions. This isn’t about Bambam. This is about you. Do you have to seduce the whole world before you’re happy? Aren’t I enough for you?”
“You’re not my freaking father, don’t tell me what to do! I’m sick of how you’re such a goddamn stick-in-the-mud. From the first day we met, you’ve only made me feel cheap,” Jackson lashes out.
Mark flinches, stung, as if the words are physical blows, and too late, Jackson wishes he could take them back. Then his face smoothens into blankness and Jackson stumbles backwards as Mark advances, backing him against the wall. His eyes are cold and devoid of their usual warmth, his voice icy as he says bitterly, “You’re right. Don’t you only like me for my money anyway? If I were poor, you wouldn’t give me a second glance. How much must I pay to buy you? A million? Two? How much do you want?”
Jackson trembles, shrinking away instinctively from the hard frightening glitter of Mark’s eyes. He gasps as Mark grabs him by the hair and forces him down onto his knees, unzipping his fly and thrusting his cock into Jackson’s mouth, shoving him down on it until he gags and chokes. Mark comes with a shudder, and hauls Jackson up onto his feet, burying his face in Jackson’s neck as he ravages Jackson’s collarbones, his hands sliding roughly and insultingly beneath Jackson’s shirt and against his bare skin. Jackson doesn’t even feel the pain as Mark’s canines pierce his delicate skin, only a feeling of numbness that lasts until Mark finally releases him and he trudges wordlessly to his room like a zombie and shoves all his belongings haphazardly into a suitcase, dragging it noisily down the staircase of Mark’s apartment as he stands there looking devastated and watching Jackson leave.
Jackson mopes on the couch of his shared apartment with Jinyoung, thinks about Mark, watches cliché Korean melodrama reruns, thinks about Mark, goes through boxes of tissues and blows his nose every five minutes like a foghorn, thinks about Mark, binges on ice cream and junk food and thinks about Mark. And then he mopes some more.
He ignores all the missed calls piling up on his handphone and threatens to sever ties with Jinyoung if he dares to answer the house phone.
Jinyoung comes back after spending the weekend at Jaebum’s house, with Jaebum at his heels. He raps loudly on Jackson’s door and Jackson stumbles out of bed, wrapped in his comforter and drags his feet to open it.
“I think there’s something you need to hear,” Jaebum says, and wedges a foot between the door and frame before Jackson can close it.
“Iowannahearanything,” Jackson slurs blearily, but Jinyoung marches him to the living room and shoves him onto the couch. “Listen,” he orders sternly and Jackson blinks pathetically.
Jaebum takes out his phone and presses a few buttons to playback his voicemail, putting it on speaker. There is a burst of static and then Mark’s voice rings out, tinny and muffled but still so familiar it tears at Jackson’s heart.
“Jaebum-ah, can you come and get me? I’m at the club I met Jackson and I’m too drunk to drive. What’s happening to me? I’ve never felt like this before. I’m scared. I think I’m out of my depth. Jaebum-ah, what should I do? I think I’m in love with Jackson.”
The message fizzes into static and then there’s a beep. The room plunges into a deep silence, so quiet that Jackson can hear his heart pounding like a bass drum in his chest. “This message...” he starts hoarsely. “It’s from -”
“Months ago,” Jaebum says quietly. “When you first met. I promised Mark to delete this, but...”
When you first met. The words ricochet in Jackson’s ears, his mind racing. Long before he told Jackson, long before Jackson knew - long before Jackson had fallen in love with him - Mark was already in love with Jackson. He had loved Jackson from the start.
Tears prickle the back of Jackson’s eyelids. He is starting to feel quite melodramatic indeed, allowing the emotions to carry him away and preparing to commence another tearful wallowing fest when Jaebum clears his throat. “I hate to rub salt into your wound, but we have something to tell you.”
“What?” Jackson huffs at his bubble being rudely deflated.
“Jaebum-hyung proposed to me yesterday! We’re getting married!” Jinyoung shrieks.
Jackson stares blankly at them. “Where?”
“SANTORINI!”
Jackson thinks he’s dreaming when he sees Mark in Greece, Santorini, two months after their breakup. Mark is dressed in a pristine white suit, looking so gorgeous that it hurts Jackson physically, so achingly familiar that Jackson’s heart plummets to his feet.
“Mark is here?” Jackson squeaks shrilly, clutching at Jinyoung’s arm.
Jaebum looks at him strangely. “Well, duh. He’s my best friend.”
Sunlight filters through the stained glass windows of the whitewashed chapel. Jinyoung looks ethereal in his pure white suit, making Jaebum’s eyes shine with fierce pride as he stands at the altar watching Jinyoung make his way down the aisle, smiling through his tears. But Jackson wonders why he can only see Mark standing unobtrusively in the first pew, his beloved face dappled by sunlight as he watches Jinyoung and Jaebum with soft eyes, looking for all the world like an angel.
He barely registers the pastor reading the wedding vows and pronouncing Jinyoung and Jaebum husband and husband until Mark starts clapping, a ridiculous smile on his face and lifting his hands to his mouth as he catcalls teasingly to Jaebum like a little boy. Jaebum’s arm is tightly wrapped around Jinyoung’s waist, his hand resting possessively on his hip. He can’t take his eyes off Jinyoung, who is smiling so dazzlingly he steals all the light in the church and for the first time, Jackson sees Jaebum losing his composure and blushing.
Suddenly, Mark turns, looking right at Jackson as if he can feel Jackson’s gaze, and Jackson tears his eyes away and whirls around hastily, heart thudding.
Jackson loses sight of Mark as the guests file out of the church doors to the wedding reception, but later when he has parked himself at the buffet table and is methodically stuffing canapés into his mouth Jinyoung pops up and ambushes him.
“Where are we going?” Jackson yelps as Jinyoung snatches his plate away and bodily drags him from the table. Jinyoung doesn’t reply, pulling him down a corridor until they reach a pair of stately white doors, which he opens and shoves Jackson into, slamming them behind him.
Jackson tumbles into the room, catching his balance before he faceplants. When he looks up, the first thing he sees is Mark silhouetted against an open window watching the cotton candy clouds drift past, the sky massive and azure behind him.
"Jaebum?” Mark turns, the word catching in his mouth when he sees Jackson. His eyes widen with panic, an unreadable emotion flashing across them.
“Sorry, I, uh... I came into the wrong room,” Jackson stammers lamely, and swivels on his heel to leave.
“Wait!” Mark says sharply, desperately, and Jackson hesitantly turns around again. When they find each other’s eyes, time stops.
“I have a ring,” Mark begins, his voice thick. “It’s white gold encrusted with precious gems, specially crafted, the only one in the world."
"Precious gems?” Jackson repeats with interest.
Mark smiles with his eyes. “Sapphires. That exact shade of blue.” He gestures to the endless expanse of Aegean sea outside the window, that lapis lazuli that Jackson feels like if he breathes in too deeply will paint the insides of his lungs cerulean.
Jackson inhales softly, unable to hide the greedy glint in his eyes.
Mark smiles tremulously, getting down on one knee. “If I give it to you,” he says shakily, “Will you marry me?”
When Mark pops open the box, Jackson finds that the sapphires are every bit as blue as Mark promised, not even disappointing him a little.
“I’m sorry,” Mark says later after he has invited Jackson to his room to continue their conversation. Presidential suite, as usual. Nothing has changed. Behind him, the filmy lace curtains flutter in the breeze rustling through the open window, bringing the scent of the ocean. Against the backdrop of the baby blue sky, Mark looks subliminally beautiful in his spotless suit, like a summer painting. Jackson can hardly believe the fact that this - this incredible, amazing person belongs to him, that someone like Mark wants to spend the rest of his life with him. Mark tilts his head, and his eyes tell Jackson how much he means to him.
“I know you’re priceless,” Mark continues quietly. “But I didn’t know how else to make you mine.”
Jackson draws in a bracing breath. Mark approaches tentatively, his hand trembling as he raises it to Jackson’s face, like he’s afraid Jackson will push him away. Mark caresses Jackson’s face with a callused but impossibly soft palm, and Jackson notices a familiar sapphire on his ring finger. The partner to the only one in the world. Mark smiles when he sees the realization in Jackson’s eyes, and he brushes Jackson’s hair back with the rough pad of his thumb. Jackson’s eyes flutter closed.
“Jackson,” Mark says, and Jackson can’t see him but only hear the bass of his voice, so deep and warm that it reverberates in his very bones. “I love your passion and the way you’re full of life. Don’t ever change, okay?”
When Jackson opens his eyes, Mark’s smile is the exact same one burned behind his eyelids, his eyes swimming with tears. Jackson is so happy his heart feels like breaking, so he cups Mark’s face with his hands and leans in to press a chaste, tender kiss on those sweet lips.
Mark loses it first, the laughter bubbling uncontrollably from the back of his throat and spilling from his lips, against Jackson’s mouth. It’s infectious and soon Jackson is shaking with silent laughter too, their breaths intermingling as they giggle against each other’s lips.
“This is getting kind of cheesy,” Mark quips, pulling away.
Jackson grins toothily at him. “My thoughts exactly.”
“So,” Mark raises an eyebrow. “What should I do now?”
“Throw me on the bed and fuck me until I’m screaming your name,” Jackson suggests, and watches as Mark’s eyes widen, darken and soften for the briefest, breathtaking instant before he grabs Jackson’s hair and complies.
(When Jackson wakes up, pillowed against Mark’s chest, he’s flipping through a guidebook of Santorini. Jackson snatches it from his hands and dangles it out of Mark’s grasp.
“Please tell me you can’t speak Greek,” he says darkly.
Mark doesn’t say anything.
“You already look like a Greek god. If you can speak Greek too, I am going to throw this book at your head,” Jackson says threateningly.
There is a lifetime of silence, before Mark breaks into a smile so cheeky that the book slips dangerously in Jackson’s fingers.
“I can’t.”)
thanks to 22_taken