Super

54. a city-full of people

Mark didn't remember the last time he had felt so dejected.

Okay, maybe he did. It was probably that time he had thought Taeyong was dead—had that really been just a month ago? It felt like a lifetime ago and a few seconds earlier at the same time. Time is funny, Mark mused, remembering both his misadventures and Stephen Hawking.

Even now, it felt like Taeyong was gone. Not dead, but it still felt like some kind of private connection between them had been severed. He didn't feel as depressed as before, though, because he still held on to a very humane hope that the blue-haired male would get back, change his mind and join him again. Mark knew he shouldn't hold out hope for something that seemed so far away, but he did. Maybe that was expected, like an inbuilt feature no kind of programming could remove.

He walked down the street, feeling lonely, and not just because of the lack of people. Yes, the roadside was uncharacteristically empty, but that didn't correspond to the feeling in his chest. He felt like something vital had been scooped out from within him, and knowing that he was the only one to blame for it made it even worse.

Not the only one to blame for Taeyong leaving, of course, but the only one to blame for him staying that way. If only he hadn't brought up Jaemin, or if he had been a better and more understanding teammate—Mark wished Kai had been there with him. Even if his awkward convincing didn't help, Kai could always just...persuade Taeyong into coming along.

Mark wasn't staying for Taemin, and he hated that he hadn't made that clear. Looking up to someone so much, almost worshipping him and believing everything that had come out of his mouth, only to be brought down to reality in such a harsh way was too much for him to bear. But Mark hadn't joined the team for the same reasons as the others. He had joined to be able to help people in a way he had never been able to do before, and nothing anyone else said or did affected that.

He was staying for Capitol City, not Taemin.

It still felt like the worst kind of betrayal. Baekhyun had tried his best to soothe him, to repeat in kind tones that Taemin had been misled and blinded by his past, but to Mark, that felt like no excuse. He would never betray a whole team of people he didn't know to save the only person he had ever truly cared for his entire life.

Mark grimaced, realizing how it sounded. You'd do it too, said a voice in his head. If it was Taeyong or Baekhyun or Jaemin.

They would never do something like Irene, he argued back.

Wouldn't they? Fight for an ideal they care about with all the might they have?

He thought about the fierce protectiveness in Taeyong's eyes at the merest mention of Jaemin, and felt like he had suddenly run out of words like a well run dry.

He had been so distracted by his own thoughts that he didn't notice the man walking towards him from the opposite end of the sidewalk. The man didn't notice either, and the two bumped together, a hard collision that jolted Mark to life. He apologized profusely and distractedly, and turned to walk down the road again.

And stopped.

There was a sharp pain in the side of his neck, small and concentrated like a bee sting. He winced, reaching up to cup his neck, and took another step, only for his muscles to wobble dangerously. Or a syringe bite.

The last thing he heard were the brisk footsteps behind him before his knees buckled, and his vision went dark.

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Taeyong's vision was dark.

He felt nothing for a few moments, only the blissful detachment of the emotionless, the apathetic. His mind was murky but full, the sensory stimuli of the outside world having no place in his new awareness. He felt light, as if the atoms in his body had halved—well, technically that wasn't what had happened, but he was halved.