Chapter Text
Donghyuck had been watching out of the corner of his eye for some time now, just long enough for his suspicions to be confirmed: Mark wasn’t okay.
They were in the middle of a soundcheck, preparing for the first live performance of their newest title tracks. Jisung was with them even if he wasn’t going to be able to dance and Taeyong had been sent home but the rest of them were buzzing.
This kind of energy was always present when an album was peeking over the horizon. Everyone was excited to be – mostly – together, chatting and joking and laughing with one another while the technicians fiddled about backstage. Everyone was grinning.
Everyone except Mark.
He had his mask pulled down beneath his chin and his snapback lodged low over his eyes, keeping his nose pointing towards the floor so that nobody would see the very deliberately controlled breaths he was taking.
His hands were on his hips. He only did that when he was feeling faint.
Donghyuck peered up at the stage lights looming over their heads. They were unnecessarily bright and some of their more rigorous routines required a plethora of flashing colours that could make even a healthy person experience some pretty serious dizziness.
They hadn’t even started to practise yet, but Donghyuck wasn’t confident that Mark was going to make it to the first song. He looked like he was trying not to fall over, keeping his distance from the others and covering his eyes with his hand.
Even from twelve feet away, Donghyuck could see the hunch in his shoulders that signified the pain he was in, and the support tape was plastered over the back of his neck like some kind of toddler’s collage.
It would have been blindingly obvious, even for someone who didn’t know him, that he was pushing his body further than it was meant to be pushed for the sake of his team. It didn’t matter if someone went over there and asked him if he was okay. He was just going to lie.
Donghyuck wished, not for the first time, that Taeyong was with them. He would know what to say. He was the only one with the guts to tattle-tale to the managers without fearing being on the receiving end of Mark’s wrath because he knew it was in the boy’s best interests.
“Okay, WayV!” their manager hollered over the chatter. “We’re gonna go with ‘Nectar’ first so everybody else, get your asses off stage!”
Xuxi and Kunhang made a great deal of noise as their unit was taking positions, hyping up themselves and each other with needless shouts of indecipherable nonsense and a level of energy that was to be envied.
Most of the others were laughing at them as they took their seats in the bleachers to watch the practise performance, but Donghyuck was distracted by the sickly skeletal figure that slowly sidled out of the door.
Muttering something to Renjun about needing to use the bathroom, he rose from his chair and followed. His instincts were on fire and nobody else seemed to have noticed what was right in front of them.
To put it in the politest way possible, Mark was an idiot. He had an inflated sense of self-importance that had managed to convince him that promotions couldn’t possibly proceed if he wasn’t there to be centre stage.
He wasn’t arrogant – not by any means – but he was a moron. He probably knew he wasn’t going to make it to tomorrow when their album would drop officially, and that was why he was still trying to hide the severity of his condition.
So that nobody would be able to do what needed to be done and pull him out.
Donghyuck heard the booming beat of Nectar reverberating down the hallway, accompanied by the voices of his friends and the stomping of feet on floors before he slipped through the bathroom door and the noise was reduced dramatically.
“Hyung …”
He’d known it was bad.
He never could’ve known it was this bad.
Mark had ripped off both his mask and his cap, abandoning them on the floor by his feet as the water splattered into the basin and his pill bottles tumbled out of his pocket due to the violence of the tremor in his hands.
“I’ve got them,” Donghyuck murmured, stooping to retrieve the containers and returning them to his hyung’s grasp.
Mark was sweating. Profusely. And shaking. Alarmingly. His fingers fumbled for the caps before he finally managed to rip them off and empty the tablets into his palm. He was having to lean all of his weight against the sink just to support the instability of his legs.
He threw back his head, shovelled the medication into his mouth and swallowed it dry before letting out a shaky groan of discomfort and slumping low over the basin.
Donghyuck didn’t know what to do other than put a hand on his back.
“Do you … need something?” he asked uselessly. “Water or …?”
“I’m –”
“Hyung, if you say you’re fine then I’m calling an ambulance right here, right now.”
He didn’t know if the threat was empty or not but it effectively silenced Mark halfway through his favourite lie. Or maybe it was the moist retch that abruptly exploded from his lips.
Nothing came up but he kept gagging, bent almost completely over the sink as his knees wobbled beneath him. Donghyuck slipped an arm around his waist just to provide some extra support and make sure he wasn’t going to collapse but other than that, he was helpless.
He glanced over his shoulder, almost hoping that someone would just walk in so he could ask them what he was supposed to do with somebody who was so sick but so adamant that they weren’t going to go back home and rest.
He tried to remember everything he’d read about Meniere’s Disease and how to help a patient through an episode.
“Can you hold yourself up?” he breathed in Mark’s ear, reluctant to let go of him for fear that he would hear a loud thump as soon as he turned his back. “Just for a second while I turn the lights off?”
Still retching and dry heaving, Mark probably didn’t have the strength or state of mind to reply. Donghyuck suddenly remembered that a symptom of an attack this severe was hearing loss and tinnitus. It was probable that his hyung didn’t even know he was talking.
Throwing caution to the winds, Donghyuck released the grip he had on his friend and lunged for the light switch but as soon as he let go, Mark’s knees buckled and he was forced to abandon his mission in favour of catching him before he could fall.
“Okay … Guess I’m staying here then.”
Mark had both forearms resting on either side of the sink, waist digging into the porcelain rim and legs trembling violently with the effort of keeping him up. If it weren’t for Donghyuck, he probably would’ve crumpled like paper in the rain.
And he was still dry heaving into the basin, disgusting belching sounds projecting themselves from his mouth as his stomach protested the lack of food to throw up.
“Hyung …” Donghyuck winced, returning to gently rubbing up and down the boy’s back. “I know you want to be a martyr and all that but this is ridiculous. There’s no way you can go on stage tomorrow like this.”
He still wasn’t sure if Mark could hear him over the sound of his own retching and the metallic jangling that was probably plaguing his eardrums, but he had to try and get through to the idiot who seemed determined to collapse in front of a dozen cameras and a packed audience.
“Yeah …” Mark wheezed, catching Donghyuck off guard as he realised that his words were actually carrying some weight. “I’m beginning to think you … might be …”
Alarmed at the sudden heaviness to his breathing, Donghyuck glanced at his hyung’s face in the mirror just in time to see his mouth fall open in a final gasp for air before his eyes rolled back and his weight grew dead.
“Okay …” Donghyuck repeated, tightening his arms around Mark’s middle as he carefully guided him down onto the ground. “Okay … It’s okay … I got you …”
He managed to get his hyung seated on the filthy tiles with his back against the wall but the guy’s head was rolling on his shoulders and his limbs were like lead. And Donghyuck was starting to wonder if there was something else he should be doing.
Like dialling 119.
“Hyung, this is just an episode, right?” he probed, cupping Mark’s cheek to stop his head from colliding with the sink. “This is just the Meniere’s Disease, isn’t it? This is … This is normal?”
He was trying to think back to the first attack when Mark had collapsed in the company hallway. Everything had been so hectic as they rushed to get him help that none of them had actually bothered to take notes.
Donghyuck couldn’t remember if it had been this terrifying back then, or if there was something different this time around that hadn’t been present before.
“Hyung …” Why wasn’t he responding? “Can you hear me?”
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. It’s alright. Mark has a diagnosed condition. It’s not like you have no idea what’s wrong with him. He’s been through this before and he was okay. He just needed time to recover afterwards. He’s … It’s okay … Right?
Mark’s hand gave a very violent, very restricted twitch that resembled more of a partial seizure than anything else before it flopped into his lap like every bone had just vanished.
His head lolled back against the wall, still with Donghyuck’s hand supporting his chin, and their gazes met. Eyes that were blown wide and terrified met ones that were narrowed and bloodshot.
A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Mark’s face.
“I can’t feel … my legs …” he rasped, so hoarsely that Donghyuck barely heard him over the sound of the tap still gushing water into the sink. His eyes welled up as the realisation hit him. “I can’t … feel anything …”
That was the clarification that Donghyuck needed.
“Okay …” he echoed for what felt like the umpteenth time as he scrambled to his feet. “Okay … Okay …”
This wasn’t Meniere’s Disease. There was no way it could be. Never once on any of the websites that Donghyuck read had it said that a condition of the inner ear caused … this.
He had to get someone. He had to call for an ambulance, make sure Mark got to hospital so they could figure out what was happening and why. He never should’ve come here alone. He should’ve brought someone else with him.
How far was it from the bathroom back to the stage? Could he make it there and back in less than twenty seconds? Could he risk leaving even for that long? What if Mark threw up and suffocated? What if he had a seizure or … or his heart stopped beating?
He couldn’t risk it.
His hand leapt for his back pocket and cursed out loud when he remembered that he’d left his phone in his bag. He could yell for help but no one would hear him over the music. He could go and find somebody but he didn’t want to leave Mark in case he choked on his own tongue.
Muscles locked with terror, he lurched towards the door. Maybe he could just stick his head out into the hallway and scream until someone heard him? Would Mark be able to wait that long?
He glanced over his shoulder.
One look told him all that he needed to know: Mark couldn’t wait that long.
“Come here,” Donghyuck gasped, lunging forwards and wrapping his arms around the patient’s chest so he could heave him off the floor.
The only reason that was even possible was because of the sheer amount of muscle mass that Mark had lost over the past few weeks. He was completely useless, unable to move a single limb to assist in the process.
It was terror and adrenaline alone that helped him get his hyung onto his back, arms hanging heavy over his caretaker’s chest and chin digging into the muscle meat between his neck and shoulder.
Donghyuck knew he’d made the right choice when his best friend lost consciousness as soon as they made it out of the bathroom.
He started running, Mark’s weight feeling a thousand times heavier now that he wasn’t awake enough to at least try to support it.
With every step he took, his hyung’s body grew denser and limper and more and more boneless until Donghyuck was having to lean forwards almost forty-five degrees to stop him from sliding off his back.
Panting from a combination of the panic and the exertion, he finally reached the door to the auditorium and, with his hands hooked beneath Mark’s knees, he had no choice but to kick it open so violently that it ricocheted off the opposite wall with an almighty crash.
There had been no music playing as everybody prepared for the next number, probably wondering why two members had vanished off the face of the Earth, and so there was no background noise to drown out the sound of Donghyuck’s arrival.
Gasping for breath, tears of panic in his eyes, his best friend and one of NCT’s most important components hanging, unconscious, on his back.
No wonder everybody turned to stare at him.
“Help me …” was all he could come up with.
Too little, too late.
-----------------------------------
Mark woke up in a bed that wasn’t his. He could tell just from the texture of the blankets and the feel of the clothes he was wearing. There was no way he would ever wear polyester to go to sleep in.
Before he opened his eyes, he knew where he was. The smell of disinfectant, the rhythmic beep beside his head, the noise and multitude of voices bustling around just outside the door.
He gave his fingers a twitch, knowing he would feel the sharp tug of the needle in the back of his hand. He opened his eyes, blinked, and familiarised himself with the plain white slab of the ceiling tiles.
Damn it.
What happened? Did he fall asleep while he was getting an IV? Did he just not wake up when his members tried to rouse him that morning? Did he run a fever so high that it risked damaging his brain? Did he fall? Did he collapse? Did he collapse on stage?
His head shot up off the pillow and pain ricocheted down his spine like a bolt of lightning, drawing a hiss from deep within his roasted throat. He fell back into the softness of the material beneath him and closed his eyes once again.
It should be illegal for a person’s body to hurt this much.
Every bone ached. Everyone tendon, every neurone, every nerve, every cell, every … every muscle.
DAMN IT.
“I imagine you’re not in the mood to try that again,” came a very unimpressed voice from somewhere to his left. “So next time you feel like getting up, do it a bit more slowly, okay?”
Mark groaned low in his throat, “I’m your hyung, Jisung. Show me a little courtesy.”
“No,” came the indignant retort. “I’m mad at you.”
Made sense. Mark was mad at himself, too, even if he didn’t quite know why yet. But if he was here and if Jisung of all people was with him, he must’ve done something stupid enough to warrant a hospital admission that he couldn’t even remember.
He opened his eyes again now that the throbbing in his head had died somewhat, and sighed up at the ceiling.
There was no way the others didn’t know now that he’d been hiding something, that he’d lied to them and that he’d knowingly been putting himself at risk because of his own selfish desire to be on that stage with them.
The following days were going to be filled with cold shoulders and bitter scoffs, death glares and conversations that involved the words, “what the hell were you thinking?”, and there was absolutely no chance that he would be allowed to participate in the comeback.
He turned his head and caught sight of Jisung sitting beside the bed, slouched in his chair with his toes perched on the railing and his phone in his hand. He was sulking but Mark could still see the ever so slight redness in his eyes.
“Jisung …” he croaked, needing to know what had happened and what was going to happen next. “Jisung, what day is it?”
His maknae shot him a glance over the top of his phone before returning his attention to the screen and huffing out a reluctant, “Tuesday.”
Mark allowed his eyes to flutter closed for a brief second of release and fought the urge to punch himself repeatedly in the face. The frustration and the rage was bubbling up inside him but he didn’t have the energy to let it out.
Tuesday was comeback day.
He’d missed it. After everything he’d gone through to guarantee his presence on that stage, after lying to his friends and putting his body through hell and praying to God that he would just be able to make it, he’d fallen at the final hurdle.
He’d failed, and he might have destroyed his body along the way.
Pushing aside the tears of hopelessness that threatened to well up in his eyes and deliberately avoiding asking any questions regarding his own health for fear that he would hear something he didn’t want to, he focused his attention on the only thing that mattered.
“Who took my spot?”
Not every single member was a part of every single song, and they’d all watched each other in practice enough to know the routines. It was entirely possible for somebody to step in and take the role he’d played until the very last second.
They must’ve found someone to cover his extra part’s, too, since he’d taken over most of Taeyong’s lines and positions in the wake of their leader’s withdrawal. Whoever it was, he didn’t envy them. That was a lot of work and not a lot of time to prepare for it.
He glanced over at Jisung when the silence stretched on a little too long, frowning in bewilderment at the sudden look of sheepish discomfort on the youngest’s face as he directed his gaze anywhere but at the patient in the bed.
“Jisung?” He still refused to make eye contact. “Jisung, who took my spot?”
“Taeyong-hyung.”
Mark heard the spike in the heart monitor’s rhythm, saw out of the corner of his eye that big green number jump several digits until it was broaching 130, but he couldn’t feel the organ beating inside his chest. He couldn’t feel anything.
“What?” he choked in disbelief. “But … His back … He …”
“There wasn’t enough time to rearrange the positions,” Jisung admitted in a shameful mumble, playing with his hands in his lap so that he wouldn’t have to look up. “And we don’t have any backup dancers so … there wasn’t anyone else who could do it.”
It shouldn’t be possible for somebody to hate themselves this much, but that was exactly how Mark felt as he lay there in stunned silence, gaping at Jisung in horror.
Taeyong should’ve had a rest. He should’ve been able to take the time to heal but instead, because of Mark, he’d lost that chance. He could worsen his injury, he could maybe even get another one and he would definitely be in a lot of pain.
If Mark hadn’t been so weak. If Mark had just been able to hold on for a little longer. Or maybe if Mark wasn’t so egotistical and had just dropped out of the comeback when he’d known he was sick, they would’ve had time to rejig the formations and Taeyong would never have had to go on at all.
“Were you ever going to tell us?” Jisung suddenly spouted, finally raising his gaze to lock with his hyung’s. “About the muscle disease? The organ damage? The very real risk that you could die?”
Mark opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. Was he ever planning on telling them? He hadn’t thought that far ahead. All he’d concentrated on was getting through the rehearsals and the performances and then seeking treatment once it was over.
“You could’ve died,” Jisung repeated, and there was real betrayal behind his eyes. Anger he’d never shown before. “You could’ve collapsed on stage. You could’ve hurt yourself so badly that your career would be over. Did you ever think about that, hyung? That maybe, if you just missed out on this one comeback so that you could get better, you wouldn’t have to lose your job?”
Mark gulped.
“I … I lost my job?”
He couldn’t have. They wouldn’t fire him just for being ill, right? Or for lying? Right? Or would they? Did they deem him a threat to himself? Did they think he was too much trouble? Did they not want to pay for his medical bills? Were they going to blame all of this on him because he’d been too stupid to see just how serious things were?
“No,” Jisung grunted, and Mark breathed a very long sigh of relief as the heart monitor’s beep began to slow back down. “But you’re out of promotions for this comeback and probably the next one, too. And the award shows.”
When had it all gone so wrong?
If he’d just got the treatment when he’d had the chance, he might not have had to miss so much. He wouldn’t have had to be in so much pain. Taeyong wouldn’t have had to dance when he wasn’t ready. None of the others would’ve had to flounder about trying to cover his spot. Sungchan, Jaemin, Doyoung, Donghyuck …
Donghyuck …
Oh. Oh. He remembered now. The bathroom, Donghyuck’s panicked face, his own terror when he realised that he couldn’t move his arms or his legs, the feeling of Donghyuck gasping for breath beneath him as he was carried to safety. The world fading to black.
Had everyone seen?
The humiliation was almost worse than the thought of having to sit on the side lines and watch his friends perform without him there beside them.
Letting out another groan, he reached up to run his fingers through his hair, and something crinkled against his chest. Something hard and plastic dug into his skin and he frowned, craning his neck to try and see what it was.
The positioning was awkward. It seemed to have been inserted into his ribcage just beneath his left collar bone. He caught sight of white gauze and something blue and a tube that was red.
He went to touch it, to try and figure out what the hell it was and why it was inside him and apparently taking his blood, but Jisung grabbed his wrist.
“Leave it alone,” he ordered, but the harshness of his tone faltered when Mark looked up at him with fear and confusion and an intense vulnerability. “It’s your dialysis port.”
What? No. Hang on. Wait. Surely not. It couldn’t … Not yet anyway. Maybe soon but … but not yet. He couldn’t have –
“The doctors said they’re hoping to be able to reverse the kidney damage,” Jisung told him as he folded his fingers around Mark’s palm and squeezed reassuringly.
Mark’s vision was blurry. His eyes were wet, his head was spinning. His mind was foggy. He couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. He didn’t know how to wrap his head around the fact that, despite how many times his body had displayed the warning signs, he’d ignored them until he’d done exactly what his doctor had told him he’d do.
“But you’re going to have to stay here for about six weeks.”
Six weeks.
Six weeks.
Six weeks?
He’d lose his fitness. He’d gain weight. He’d never be the same again. Six weeks without even being able to go to the gym and lift some weights was like handing over his resignation letter on a silver platter with a bow.
A tear rolled down his cheek as he turned his gaze back up to the ceiling and once again asked himself the question, Where did it go so wrong?
This was his fault. He knew that now. He wasn’t going to die and there was a chance that the dialysis could reverse the damage that the myoglobin had done to his kidneys and yet, somehow, he’d lost everything.
He’d screwed it up.
Him. Not the disease. Him. His decisions and his ego and his inflated sense of self-resilience had done this to his body and all of it – all of it – could’ve been prevented if he’d just listened.
“I’m so sorry, hyung.”
So was he.