𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 || 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐜𝐤/𝐍𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧

5

Donghyuck runs to the bathroom, hunching over the toilet and dry heaving. There is nothing that can come up because he hasn’t eaten today. His stomach hurts all the same, nausea making him dizzy.

I need go find something to eat soon. Donghyuck thinks weakly, stomach still trying to expel what wasn’t there. He’s knows it won’t get better until he finds something to settle it.

This time he would be more careful, since it was probably the expired food he ate yesterday that made him like this. He hadn’t had the energy to go out in search of something better, and yet his hunger was still there, making him so desperate that he ate it against his better judgment.

Donghyuck rests his cheek on the cold tile of the floor after the last spasm stops, closing his eyes and trying to slow his breathing.

He’s sure that Mark would have gotten on to him for this, even as he rubbed at his back and asked if there was anything he could do to help. Then he would proceed to tease him, talking about how it was always a surprise that someone so paranoid like Donghyuck could make a stupid mistake like eating food that’s gone bad.

Emotions easily sway Donghyuck, and he knows it. He feels them intensely, so much so Mark always had to slow him down if he wasn’t careful. That’s why the others came to him for comfort, or when they needed someone to lend an ear. Sympathizing and understanding where his friends were coming from had never been a difficult thing. Rational decision making under pressure, was.

Donghyuck is emotional. Mark, on the other hand, was more of a calculator. He saw things in a less emotional and more logical way. His words and actions could sometimes be cold and removed, his jokes ignoring a person’s sensitivities. But Donghyuck softened the blow, soothed the burn. He comforted where Mark snapped. That’s why the two of them worked well together. Together they tried to keep everyone safe the best they could, to watch over the others and let them have a life that wasn’t filled with pain.

If only it worked.

Donghyuck groans and pushes himself off the floor, leaning over the toilet again as another wave of nausea leaves him gasping for mercy, this time not because of the bad food. He can only think about how things fell apart so quickly, how the happiness they had started to build was taken away in one day.

It’s all because of me. I could have changed it all.