Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Johnny’s radio silence chomps at Mark’s attention and focus, and despite his best intentions, he finds himself slipping back into bad habits. He puts off replying to texts from his mom because he doesn’t think he can pretend to be upbeat; he busks too many hours in the hot sun and spends most of the money within twenty-four hours so he has to do it all over again; he hurts his hands practicing too much; and he goes back to spending every other evening with Hyuck and Jaemin.

He could use a roommate to force him into, like, cleaning the room and speaking to other human beings, but someone taking Lucas’ place is too much to grapple with. He’ll put that off until the literal day he gets a roommate assignment.

Basically, after having his habit of avoiding things blow up in his face, Mark’s right back to moonwalking away from his problems and pretending they don’t exist.

He misses Johnny.

He’s so humiliated by being so myopic about his own life that he forgot other people lived differently. It’s not even like Mark thinks every queer dude under the age of thirty only hooks up—he knows plenty who date seriously, who have committed partners. He doesn’t think everyone is sleeping with strangers or doing no-strings-attached stuff with their friends. It’s not something he can have, so he boarded up the idea and poured concrete around it and, you know, just forgot to mention that to Johnny. For months.

He’s also burning up with unfinished business like he’s a fucking ghost desperate to cross over. Johnny’s silence haunts him. Mark can’t do much of anything now without thinking about Johnny—a weird experience he has while busking, he wants to text that to him. He finds a meme he thinks Ten would laugh at and remembers Ten’s off-limits, now. But more than all of the small stuff, he wants answers Johnny won’t give him. And it’s not like he can violate Johnny’s clear line in the sand and ask.

Hyuck and one of Hyuck’s friends that Mark’s only met once drag him out for noraebang to celebrate his twenty-first birthday, courtesy of Hyuck’s fake ID. Maybe it’s because they’re rolling dice against being arrested (though Hyuck’s used a dozen times all over the city, usually in noraebang rooms), but Mark goes into it with a distant feeling of dread. He’s too mopey to have a good time, and he suspects the second he gets liquor in him he’ll make Bad Decisions.

Still, he makes half an effort to pretend like he’s happy to be celebrating; he showers off all his sticky sweat from busking, picks out a fit Hyuck won’t make fun of, and does a face mask, though that’s partially because his skin has reverted to looking like shit because he’s been skipping his nightly routine.

He Ubers to the address Hyuck texted him and is unsurprised to find it trendy and expensive-looking, a far cry from the joints he and Lucas used to hit up to sing. They stuck to the all-ages places, venues Hyuck would never be caught dead in.

Hyuck is already inside a room, so Mark gets to make his grand entrance while the dude whose name Mark doesn’t know is reading aloud ddukbokki add-ins and their prices. There are three pitchers of beer on the little table. Three.

“Oh my Jesus, is it like one each?” Mark nods to the guy and slides in next to Hyuck. “Or are more people coming?”

“I ordered you pajeon,” Hyuck says, ignoring his questions entirely. He’s scrolling through what looks like a song list, but it’s not the well-curated Excel sheet of his favorite songs, ranked by difficulty. There’s a reason Lucas—chill, funny Lucas who treated karaoke like a fun night out and not an Olympic sport—was his buddy for stuff like this and not Hyuck. “Did you eat today?”

“Yeah.” The turkey sandwich he nabbed from a convenience store for lunch doesn’t feel totally digested, honestly.

“You should try the chicken,” the guy suggests.

“It’s kinda weird we’re sitting in dead-ass silence,” Mark points out. He can hear muffled bass and warbling from one of the other rooms. He reaches for a napkin and wraps it around the wing, not excited to get sauce all over himself and inevitably his clothes.

“This is the first time Doyoung is hearing me sing, so.” Hyuck is trying to find something with maximum impact, Mark guesses. He chews his bite of chicken, leans out to catch Doyoung’s eye, and gives him a ‘what can you do?’ look. He gets a bemused grin in response. The dude’s already friends with Hyuck. He’s aware of what it’s like. “Did you invite anyone, by the way?”

“I mean, I texted a few people, but it’s kinda short notice.”

Hyuck just shakes his head as he continues browsing the song list. In this low lighting, against the dark, red-painted walls, he looks older and sharper-faced. He dressed up, too, in a nearly sheer dress shirt with many buttons undone, shadows pooling in his collarbones. He looks like he’s wearing eyeshadow and left off his glasses to show it off. He looks good. Mark, despite his efforts, looks like a schlub compared to him. “I told you last week to reserve tonight, Mark-yah. You could have asked them then.”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” Mark says tightly.

One of the employees opens the door, balancing a huge plate of pajeon and soju bottles. They somehow make room for everything on the already crammed table. Doyoung pours him the first shot, which Mark takes, and it’s flavored soju, some kind of citrus, that burns nice all the way down.

“Okay,” he says around a cough from the sting of the soju, “I legit can’t take this silence, I’m picking something.”

Mark grabs the place’s iPad and sorts by recent hits, and he’s about to queue a Post Malone song when Hyuck yanks it out of his hands.

“No, we are not starting with your depression playlist.”

“Pick something in the next thirty seconds or I’m invoking, like, birthday privileges and picking all the songs.”

Hyuck sulkily picks a BoA song, and Mark sits back to watch him do his thing. If Doyoung hasn’t seen Hyuck perform (as much as howling into a shitty noraebang mic to a midi backing track counts as performing), he’s in for it. Doyoung pours Mark some shots and a glass of beer, and Mark eats like half of the pajeon before Hyuck even hits the glory note.

When Hyuck is finished, Mark is far less sober, and Doyoung looks impressed. When Doyoung claps, Hyuck gives a sarcastic bow, and Mark thinks he sees a flush on Hyuck’s cheeks that can’t be blamed on liquor, since Hyuck hasn’t had a shot yet.

---

Doyoung waits until everyone has had a turn before he gets up and fiddles with the mic.

“I heard Donghyuck likes Michael Jackson, so I practiced this,” he says shyly, as I Just Can’t Stop Loving You starts. “I hope you enjoy.”

Next to him, Hyuck stiffens and sets his phone down. Mark is elbow-deep in wings and beer, but he stops eating long enough to gape at the sounds coming from Doyoung’s mouth. He’s good. Like, really good. And it’s clear he’s holding back, gliding around and getting comfortable in his mix register.

“Oh my God.” Hyuck grabs Mark’s thigh.

“Where did you find this man?” Mark mutters into his ear.

“He—he was just on campus, trying to find the library. He looked lonely,” Hyuck hisses back. “I had no idea. Oh my God?”

Doyoung continues absolutely killing it as if his audience isn’t gossiping about him. He smiles a few times between notes, so Mark thinks he’s aware of his impact—for one, it’d be hard to miss how Donghyuck’s eyes are gleaming, his mouth parted as he stares—but also, with a voice like that, he must be accustomed to flooring people.

Mark’s phone starts buzzing incessantly in his pocket, and he pulls it out to find Lucas is trying to video call him. Given that Doyoung is still mid-chorus, and odds are that Donghyuck will want to sit him down and interrogate him after, Mark thinks he’s clear to sneak out and talk for a few minutes. When he stands, he’s immediately unsteady, and Hyuck laughs at him as he feels along the wall on his way out.

“Be right back.” The door closes behind him and muffles Doyoung’s voice. He accepts the call in the dim hallway, and Lucas starts singing Happy Birthday the second Mark pops up on his screen. “Holy shit, Lucas, hold on.”

The hallway is cramped, and occasionally an employee has to make their way down it with platters full of food and drink; just standing there is too disruptive, so Mark hunts for the bathroom. It’s thankfully empty, for now, and relatively quiet, and he secures himself in there, next to the sink.

“Hokay, Jesus, here I am.”

Lucas giggles at him. “You’re in the bathroom? I feel so special.”

“It was that or not being able to hear you over the sounds of Hyuckie’s new best friend belting Michael Jackson. How are you?” Mark demands, squinting at his screen as if that will make him less drunk. Lucas’ hair is fluffy, his T-shirt hanging off his shoulder. “Awww, did you just wake up?”

“I set my alarm, man! I wanted to wish you a happy birthday when it’s actually your birthday there.” He yawns wide and loud, tinny over the dubious connection, and Mark laughs because it reminds him of hearing Lucas’ grumpy morning routine every day for months. “So how is it? You at karaoke?”

“Yeah, Donghyuck booked us a room at this fancy noraebang place.”

“Sing Bieber in my honor,” Lucas says, and he firms his expression into determination when Mark groans. “No, really, do it. Have Hyuck record it. It’ll be like I’m there.”

“I wish you were here, man. I miss you.” He leans against the wall near the paper-towel dispenser even though he knows it’s germy as hell. But standing on his own seems like a surefire way to end up falling over or getting dizzy. “I miss you so much.”

“Mark,” Lucas asks, sounding delighted, “are you drunk?”

“Ah, you found me out.” He smooths a hand across his cheeks to feel how warm they are, and yeah, he’s flushed. “I’m out drinking on my twenty-first birthday.”

“If you won’t sing Bieber in my honor, at least do a shot for me.”

“I’m probably capable of that. D’you have any plans for the day?” Mark asks.

“Just hanging out, man. I have the day off.” Lucas moved back to Hong Kong with half a plan, self-described as ’helping my parents with their restaurant and, like, doing whatever until I find a real job.’ “Did you invite Yuqi to karaoke? You know she’s always down.”

Mark shakes his head. Yuqi was Lucas’ friend. It would have been awkward to invite her for a Mark-only thing. Sure, he feels weird about Hyuck having dragged along a veritable stranger, but that’s Hyuck; he forces his friend groups together like mismatched LEGOs because he’s too busy to hang out with people separately.

Lucas was Mark’s first up-close exposure to true popularity, where Lucas could go anywhere, and someone would know him or he’d manage to make new friends. Even if the night started out just Lucas and Mark, by the end of it, they’d have picked up stragglers. Mark got overwhelmed sometimes, mostly when people stopped by their dorm room all the time until Lucas noticed and told people to stick to texting first, but it was still nice to know he wouldn’t be lonely if he stuck to Lucas.

Now that Lucas is gone, Mark doesn’t have the bravery or social pull to reach out. Hence why he’s at his own birthday celebration with his best friend and some guy his best friend found wandering campus.

“Next time, I can invite Yuqi for you,” Lucas says with the gentleness he’s always capable of for Mark. “No big deal, hey?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, swallowing hard. He pauses, gathering his thoughts now that he has Lucas on the line and is drunk enough to be honest. “Question, uh, do you ever have second thoughts? About moving back?”

Lucas cocks his head but doesn’t seem put off by the sudden subject change. “To Hong Kong? Nah. I mean, I miss you, I miss campus, I miss American food—but I can get a lot of that here. It’s my home, you know? And I’m only like half as funny and charming in English.”

“Are you… Do you think you’ll stay near your parents?”

“Maybe?” Lucas scratches his neck and makes a face as he considers. “Depends if I get a job somewhere else, or if I meet someone. My parents don’t really need my help, and my mom keeps talking about retiring to Thailand, and I don’t know that I want to live there full-time.”

Mark doesn’t even have the excuse that his parents own a restaurant and want to pass it down to him. He doesn’t have the excuse that his home country’s culture is super measurably different from America, either; he prefers Canada, of course, but there was next to no culture shock once he moved because he’d been fed American culture every day of his life. There’s no language barrier, either, though it did take Mark several marked-up papers to figure out how to switch his dictionary from Canadian English over to U.S. in Microsoft Word.

“And if you met someone and they wanted to move to, like, Macau—or like, Detroit?”

“Then I guess I’d move to Macau?” Lucas says, bewildered. “Or we work it out and stay here? Mark, is this—”

Hyuck literally kicks the bathroom door in, drunk and wearing subtly heeled boots. Mark, having turned to the door when he heard a loud fucking noise, sees him wobble as he redistributes his weight onto two feet. “Are you in here crying about Johnny?” he demands.

“No! What the fuck!” Hyuck crams himself into Mark’s space, nearly knocking his head against the paper-towel dispenser. “I’m talking to Lucas, you demon.”

Hyuck wraps himself around Mark and glances at the call to see Lucas grinning at the pair of them. “Xuxi,” he says, stroking Mark’s sweaty neck, “is Mark lying to me?”

Lucas hesitates, and Mark’s affection for him goes down a tick. “No,” he says slowly. “He’s just asking me weird questions.”

“Sounds like Mark,” Hyuck says, rubbing his chin against Mark’s shoulder so hard it hurts. “Drunk and sad on his birthday when he could be singing with me.”

“Lucas called me! Sorry for having a friend,” Mark scoffs. Hyuck smells like Hyuck and also expensive cologne, and in this lighting, with Hyuck so close, he can see how much eye makeup he has on. He looks really good. Mark squeezes his hip. “You look nice, Hyuck.”

“Yes,” Hyuck sighs. “All dressed up and you left me in there by myself.”

“Doyoung is your... whatever,” Mark objects. “You invited him!”

“Okayyyy,” Lucas says, laughing, “I think I should let you go. Mark, happy birthday, man. I love you.”

“Aw, me too, man,” Mark croaks, and it’s humiliating that Hyuck is wrapped around him and can feel how bowled over he is hearing that from Lucas.

It’s not like he didn’t think Lucas cared about him—that was pretty clear during week one of their roommateship, when Lucas answered a bunch of Mark’s hypotheticals until he got fed up and said, “Hypothetically, I would have no problem living with a gay person. Hypothetically, I think gay people named Mark Lee are really cool.” It’s just that Lucas has never said that. Love.

“Donghyuck, make sure he lives through the night, okay?”

“Mmmkay,” Hyuck agrees, and then Lucas’ face, thousands of miles away and not here, vanishes from the screen.

Mark slips his phone back into his pocket but makes no move to dislodge Hyuck, who is still draped around Mark like an overprotective parent dropping their kid off for their first day at preschool. Not that Mark lived through that song and dance until the first day of sixth grade or anything.

It’s always easier to touch and be touched when he’s drunk. He feels Hyuck’s breath hitting his neck. He keeps his arm wrapped around Hyuck’s waist.

“Mark,” Hyuck whispers, and Mark makes an inquisitive sound, closing his eyes against the slight flickering of the overhead light. They need to stop hanging out in the bathroom, but Mark isn’t ready to stagger back to the room yet. He’s still shaking off the strange mood he fell into during the call with Lucas. “I’m afraid of Doyoung.”

His eyes fly open, and he starts laughing before he can say anything. “Of Doyoung? Because he’s as good of a singer as you, you mean?”

“He’s better than me,” Hyuck groans into Mark’s chest. “It’s awful.”

“I’ll tell you what’s awful—me third-wheeling your weird date with Doyoung on my birthday.”

Hyuck actually lets go of him, leaning back and looking gobsmacked. “He isn’t… Fuck, Mark, I invited him because your friends are too chicken to get a fake ID.”

Mark shudders. “God, I need new friends. This is so fucking sad.”

“It’s not sad that your friends are out of town or can’t come out drinking on a Sunday night,” Hyuck says, and Mark feels a flutter of warmth in his chest over how, deep down, Hyuck is always on his side. “Your life is sad for other reasons.”

That at least tugs a weary laugh out of him, as intended. “Okay, we should… not leave Doyoung in there by himself, shit.”

The two of them make their way out of the bathroom, and luckily Doyoung doesn’t seem too perturbed at having been abandoned, though his entire vibe so far, when not singing, is just politely bewildered. Mark can relate.

After having a spiritual experience with a Bruno Mars song, Mark gets a text from Wendy saying she’s stopping by with a birthday present for him. They’re not close or frequent friends, but she welcomed him into the LGBT student life club like she was shepherding a baby lamb, all but holding his hand through meetings and showing him queer-friendly spots around campus. He’s glad she’s decided to stick around Chicago after finishing her Master’s, even if he suspects it’s for a girl as much as the city. When she appears in their red room, and with a totally different hair color from when Mark last saw her, he’s so fucking hyped on rapping and soju that he ends up hugging her, too. Drunk Mark really is a different creature.

She laughs in his hold and kisses his cheek, accepting compliments and a shot for coming all the way out for him. Somewhere between convincing her to stay for a duet with Hyuck and opening the gift she brought him—a sleek silver bracelet with a delicate charm that she said reminded her of him, whatever that means—Mark finished several drinks.

The evening melts into dizzy snapshots: Wendy digging in her purse for a hair tie to perfect her Ariana Grande imitation; Hyuck absolutely losing it over Doyoung’s cover of a Stevie Wonder song; all of them sharing mics to sing george’s Boat; Mark and Hyuck doing not their worst Billionaire but nowhere near their best, especially since the drunker Hyuck gets, the more English he loses.

Mark has a slip of a memory of being wrapped up next to Hyuck in the cab, heart in his throat with affection for his drunk, complicated best friend who dragged him out for the only kind of therapy Mark can stand—music. That one fades after he opens his texts and sees the damning silence Johnny left behind.

The rest of the night is far less worth remembering. He collapses into bed without brushing his teeth or washing his face, though he managed to peel off most of his clothes and chugged a room-temperature bottle of water he’d had the foresight to leave out for himself. He plays with the delicate silver on his wrist, smiling at Wendy’s thoughtfulness. He should make a note of her birthday and get her something nice.

He thinks about how usually he’s loaded down with presents from his family, how his mom shipped him a big box but it hasn’t shown up to his dorm yet. He thinks about how he’d been looking forward to spending his twenty-first with Johnny, who would know how to make it special and memorable.

He thinks about silence again. About the way he can’t think of anything without thinking of Johnny, eventually.

At some point, he passes out.

---

Mark wakes with a splitting headache and the sinking feeling that he texted Johnny last night, which feels worse than the hangover. Mark groans, recoils at the smell of his own breath, and digs for his phone under his pillow to see how bad the damage is.

It’s pretty bad.

Mark’s headache starts throbbing in time with his heartbeat, which is accelerated; it’s a little like his temples are being tap-danced on.

Mark: Imso DUCKING ANGRY at u
Mark: What thr fuck man

Well, Mark thinks through a swell of nausea and mortification, it could be worse. He could have texted about the way he can’t even get off now without thinking of Johnny, how his body and brain battled it out for what felt like hours as he worked himself up to orgasm while trying to think of nothing but only being able to conjure up incendiary images of Johnny.

Or Mark could have sent something during one of the nights he was unable to sleep, tossing and turning and replaying moments with Johnny’s family versus memories of his own. There’s no way to articulate I don’t live on the same planet as you without sounding self-pitying or accusatory, and it’s not like it matters now. Johnny wanted to be serious; Mark had no idea it was an option; and now Johnny won’t answer his pathetic drunk texts.

He spends a few minutes feeling sorry for himself, staring at the lack of response, until the hangover snaps his patience.

Mark: Sorry, was out drinking for bday and it got away from me
Mark: But tbh? Still kinda angry I guess

Johnny doesn’t reply to that, either.

---

Halfway through his planned set busking in Millennium Park, Mark realizes that he’s been thinking about Johnny pretty much the whole time, and his mood is sinking with each person who drops him a pity quarter.

“Does anyone have any requests?” he asks the half-interested cluster of people near him, smiling with gritted teeth, hoping someone will suggest something so ubiquitous and overdone that Mark can’t possibly link it back to Johnny somehow.

Unfortunately for him, a little girl shouts Billie Eilish.

Mark guesses at most the chord progressions because he’s never had occasion to sit down and practice Billie Eilish; he’s usually busy lying in bed feeling emo when he listens to Billie Eilish.

Singing her lyrics, even hushed and putting most of his attention on the guitar, feels like tugging at something very deep and essential in Mark’s body. Ultimately, he does a credible version with his shitty range, smiles at the five-dollar bill someone drops, and hopes he can find a way to do his job without thinking of Johnny Suh, even though he can’t jerk off or eat or function without somehow having Johnny Suh Thoughts.

The next person requests Creedence Clearwater Revival. Mark draws in a grateful breath before diving in. At least there’s no way for his brain to try to make a bad moon rising about Johnny.

---

Mark’s had enough hindsight (more like over a week of lying in bed reexamining every interaction they had and groaning in embarrassment at how obvious it all was) to realize how much of the varnish on Johnny has worn off. The tight, awed feeling in his chest whenever Johnny laughed at his jokes, the ferocious nervousness wondering how someone as cool as Johnny found Mark hot or interesting at all, those are gone. The pedestal Mark had him on wasn’t huge, but it made Johnny loom larger in Mark’s imagination. The pedestal has officially been destroyed.

Weirdly, none of that makes Mark miss him less. It just makes him ache to have a redo, to go into it with his eyes open.

It also doesn’t stop him from, say, opening Johnny’s photography Insta and creeping on his latest pics. He doesn’t go in with any particular reason. Generally, he wants to see how Johnny is doing, if he’s shot at any neat locations.

If he’s as sad as Mark is.

Johnny’s story is empty, but his most recent post is of a duck, feathers gleaming in the bright sun. Mark almost laughs at how anticlimactic it is. Like, what did he think he was going to glean from Johnny’s public-facing self-promotion account, a diary entry outlining all of his Mark Lee feelings?

But then he scrolls down and sees a two-picture post of a cup coffee with fancy latte art of a heart. The second photo in this set is the heart deliberately destroyed by the spoon Johnny’s pulled through it. The caption just says “Yeah.”

He has no idea what to make of it. His emotions don’t seem to know how to shift; part of him is bemused, part of him is furious that Johnny’s willing to make some shit that looks like it belongs on Pinterest to express his feelings but won’t deign to text Mark back, and part of him is genuinely upset that Johnny is fucked up about him.

He screenshots the post with the intention to send it to Hyuck, but he’s not sure he wants to endure Hyuck’s snidely supportive comments. It would be a lot easier if he was only angry or frustrated with Johnny, if he didn’t know exactly how many moments there were when Mark could have said something about his expectations, of how many signals he let himself misread because he didn’t want to rock the boat and ruin what they were to each other.

Though Mark told himself it was just hooking up, it wasn’t. He was dating Johnny, and it wasn’t strictly casual. He can look back and say that with certainty now. There was a murky moat of ambiguity surrounding them the whole time, is all. That they ended up tripping and falling into it isn’t exactly shocking.

So Mark fucked up, and Johnny fucked up, and probably Mark should take this as a growing pain, as a life lesson. Johnny wasn’t wrong when he said Mark should warn people up front about wanting casual, and Mark wasn’t wrong when he said Johnny never disclosed that he wanted anything serious. Johnny wasn’t wrong for setting a boundary, even if Mark needs the opposite of what Johnny did for closure.

Mark texts Hyuck “want dim sum?” instead of spending the rest of the night lurking on Johnny’s socials in his feelings. Luckily, Hyuck always wants to go out with Mark, even when he’s made other plans. His reply of seven enthusiastic emojis gives Mark a reason to roll out of bed and to restart his skincare routine so Hyuck doesn’t give him that moue of displeasure, like Mark’s failure to control his acne is somehow indicative of his failure to control his whole life. Which, Mark thinks as he slathers toner on his face, might be true, but he could use a break from the awareness of his own shortcomings.

---

Johnny’s left him on read for two weeks (and Mark’s definitely still keeping track) when he sees Ten.

He’s dragging a clothing rack of costumes along the path between Mark’s classroom building and the auditorium. He looks good, wearing some gauzy white shirt over a crop top and shorts, and his hair is alarmingly blond.

In the pre-Johnny era, he would have stopped dead upon recognizing Ten, admired his crop top, and then scurried along with his head down before someone could catch him staring.

During his Johnny era, he would have helped him out with the unwieldy rack and teased him about his hair.

In the here and now of post-Johnny, Mark is frozen between scurrying away and sheepishly acknowledging that they spent two seasons of Avatar together, got lunch and boba and snacks together, saw Johnny through his tattoo together. That Ten was friendly to him beyond what was required. It would be a punk move to put his head down and pretend none of that happened, but it also feels too close to Johnny. Like he might stand too close to the heat and get burned.

He doesn’t have to spend too long navel-gazing; Ten pushes his hair back from his face, slides some costumes along the rack to redistribute the weight, and glances up to spot Mark frozen on the sidewalk. His expression slackens with shock, but that’s locked up quickly behind pleasant interest.

Ten’s hand goes up. “Hey, Mark.”

Mark fiddles with the strap of his backpack and walks forward as if through mud. “Hey, Ten.” Closer, he can see Ten is dappled in sweat, chest rising and falling as he pants and tries to contain it. Mark thinks about how his mom raised him and decides it’s probably better to stick to that than finding transparent excuses to run away. “Do you need help?”

“Yeah, I just need to get it back to storage. Can you guide the back end?”

Mark positions himself and makes sure they don’t get stuck in the cracks in the pavement that their top-tier private university should maybe use their tuition dollars to fix rather than erecting yet more buildings named after rich people. Ten and Mark trudge along, the rattling of the costumes on the rack and the wheels over uneven pavement enough to make speaking pointless.

Then they’re in the dark, air-conditioned, and kind of moldy-smelling storage room, after Ten punches in the passcode. Ten points at a far wall, and they park the rack there.

Now that Mark has nothing to do and would reasonably be expected to say something to Ten, he tries not to look totally out of his depth. He leans against the wall, near Ten, and clears his throat. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you know,” Ten says breezily, dabbing at sweat on his face with his wrist. “Teaching. Enjoying the weather, trying to get rid of my weird farmer’s tan.”

Mark gives him a blank look, not sure if Ten is joking, and Ten laughs at him. “Thailand is hot, angel. This is just like home.”

Hearing Ten call him angel again jabs him, something Mark doesn’t want to dwell on. “Hey, I’m glad somebody enjoys Chicago summers. Listen, I should get going—”

“Mark,” Ten interrupts. “You look like I’m going to jump you. I don’t like it.” He pauses, working his lower lip between sharp-looking teeth. “Do you want a smoothie?” he asks.

“What?”

“Let’s go get you a smoothie.”

---

Ten insists on buying his drink at the bougiest of the on-campus cafes. Mark’s gotten water and an overpriced bland cookie here before and hasn’t been back. Ten knows at least one of the baristas (or whatever their juice equivalents are), and he leans against the counter while waiting for their order, catching up and occasionally glancing back to make sure Mark hasn’t snuck away.

He can’t say he hasn’t thought about how much easier his life would be if he didn’t have to go along with this. But he’s not cowardly enough to literally run away from his problems. Just figuratively.

Ten hands him his drink and steers them to a secluded table near the back. The A/C is blasting, indie coffee shop music is playing, and Ten crosses his legs, sips his green smoothie, and fixes Mark with serious, inquisitive eyes.

“Did you get like a green tea base?” Mark asks, tasting his non-dairy chocolate protein thing and deciding it’s drinkable.

Ten is not dissuaded by and does not acknowledge Mark’s weak attempt at distracting him. “How have you been, Mark?”

He asks it plainly, without any condescension, looking actively interested in the answer. Like he cares what Mark says, and not because of Johnny. “I mean, not great,” he admits. The smoothie has a strange note in its aftertaste, but it’s good, rich and not too sweet, and he takes another sip to try and identify what health things Ten put in his drink. “But you probably knew that.”

Ten firms his lips. “I had a suspicion, but I hoped I was wrong.”

“Ten, not that I don’t appreciate this, you being cool to me, but like, why? You don’t owe me anything.”

“It isn’t about owing you anything,” Ten says, exasperated, stabbing his straw deeper into his cup. “It’s about liking you. You’re a nice kid.”

“Thanks,” Mark says, and means it, even if he’s still not satisfied. “But Johnny’s your best friend, and I’m some dude.”

“Johnny’s my best friend, so I had a pretty good seat to the whole thing. Which is why I know you need someone asking how you are.”

That… hits harder than it has any right to. Mark glances down at the cafe table, buying himself a second. “I’m not… I’m not handling Johnny icing me out super well, because I kind of thought we were friends, but I, uh, I get it. I hurt him.”

Ten studies him for a moment, the tip of his finger over the top of his straw, and sighs. “Angel, do you want my advice? I didn’t say a lot of stuff I could have along the way, since I like to let adults handle their own business, but I think I might be able to help you.”

“No offence, but I don’t want to mine your friendship with Johnny to get him to text me back.”

“I can tell you that if you want to fix things with Johnny, you need to call him on his shit. No mining required.”

Mark’s eyebrows rise. “Uh, I did, basically, and I’m still on read.”

Ten slumps in his chair, one arm crossing over his chest. He flicks his pointer finger over a spinning ring on his thumb, clearly thinking. “Figures. Listen, if you want closure, you have to bang on his door. A lot.”

“Well, I want it, but like, it’s all a waste of time, yeah? Even if I bug him enough for a text back, which is gross, it’s not like we’re going to work everything out and end up pen pals.”

“Why not? Do you have something against pen pals?” Ten takes an insouciant sip and blinks at Mark.

“Nothing, I just… Dude, I’m moving back to Canada. Say Johnny and I become, like, friends. We work it out. Then what? A year later, two years later, he’s really gonna text that Canadian dude he had an intense summer with? He’s gonna fly out to visit me?”

“Yes, knowing Johnny,” Ten says, which has Mark momentarily covering his face. Christ. He hates that some part of him intrinsically knows Ten’s right, that Johnny would put in work to remain in Mark’s life. “But more importantly, do you want Johnny to be in your life in a year or two?”

“Of course I fucking do, man. But he’s gonna find someone who isn’t Canadian, who isn’t closeted, or a… a girl, and that’s it for him. And I’m his pen pal, because he’s a nice guy.”

Ten is quiet for a moment, studying Mark across the table, none of his exaggerated expressions or fidgeting. “And that would hurt you,” he says slowly.

“I mean, it wouldn’t feel great.”

“What I’m hearing from you isn’t so much that being closeted is the issue, it’s the distance?”

“It’s all the same issue,” Mark says, though that is not quite true. Ten is perilously close to stepping on things Mark won’t let be stepped on.

“What if you meet someone back home?”

“Then I guess that’s my problem to figure out,” Mark snaps. “Jesus, Ten, I’m living day to day right now. Can I start making plans for the rest of my life once I’ve graduated?”

“You can do whatever you want, Mark. It’s your life. I just… You don’t need to wait for things to happen to you. You’ll end up waiting forever.” He blows a breath so forceful it stirs his bleached bangs. “I want to say one thing and then you can tell me to shut up, and we can talk about other stuff. I want to be friends with you, even if you think so little of pen pals.” He levels Mark a faux-stern look, but his eyes are cautious, his body language cagey.

Mark nods and braces himself for whatever’s coming. “Yeah, do your worst, I guess.”

“Johnny locked you out because he’s proud and hurt and kind of a black-and-white thinker, which I’m sure isn’t news. But he’s, um, touchy because he assumes you saw him as a good time.” Ten sighs and presses his thumb between his eyebrows like he’s got a headache brewing. “Like, he caught feelings and you thought he was... a hot piece.”

“A hot piece of wh— So he thinks I think he’s just a piece of ass?” Mark asks, getting increasingly high-pitched. That’s not it at all, it’s wildly off base, yet it’s similar enough to his willfully oblivious horniness that Mark cringes. “No, that’s not... Oh my God, I like him so much.”

Ten’s eyes gleam, and he leans across the table like he’s making a point. “Then prove it!”

“How, Ten? Bang on his door, text him when he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to hear from me—”

“Oh, he does—”

“—when I know it’s all going to end anyway?”

“It doesn’t have to! Canada isn’t Antarctica, Mark. It’s not even… I visit my family two to four times a year, and that flight is twenty-two hours. You do that for people you love.”

“I don’t—” The words love Johnny stick in his throat, and Mark sucks down a mouthful of smoothie to bury it.

Ten lets that pass by unremarked on, because though he’s ripping Mark’s insides out for him to look at, he’s pretty respectful about it. “If you want Johnny in your life, as a friend or something else, you need to tell him that until he hears you. Johnny’s an asshole right now, and that’s not your fault.” Mark laughs humorlessly, because it kind of is. “It really isn’t, Mark. And it isn’t your job to deal with Johnny’s bullshit. But if you want to, even a little, I know how you can.”

For all the exasperation Mark’s felt during this conversation, Ten striding across territory that isn’t his business, the spark of hope Mark feels is overwhelming. “How?” he asks, tired and weak, run down by weeks—if not months—of his mistakes piling up. If Johnny actually thinks he doesn’t matter to Mark, that what they did didn’t matter beyond the sex— If Ten has a fucking magic word, Mark might take it.

“Welllll,” Ten says, looking momentarily guilty before he discards that and turns conspiratorial. “He’s at his parents’ getting ready for the wedding.” Which is in two days, as Mark’s calendar keeps reminding him. “You could go up there, talk things out, and be his plus-one the way God and my machinations intended.”

“One, I can’t believe you told me with a straight face that you let adults handle their own business. Two, that’s the rudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Oh my God, Ten.” It’s so wild that Mark isn’t outraged about it; he’s smiling. “You can’t be for real.”

Ten, impossibly, takes out his phone and starts typing. Mark stares at him, at his intense squint as his thumbs work, and then is struck by horrified awareness of what Ten could be doing. “Are you texting him right now?” he squeaks.

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” Ten says, concluding his text and setting his phone on the table, face down. Mark relaxes in his seat some, but then Ten says, “I was texting Mama Suh.”

“What the fu— What are you doing, man?”

“I’m getting you permission to give Johnny the big dramatic gesture he craves. It’s up to you if you take it.”

Mark’s hands are shaking, to the point where he wonders if there was secretly coffee in the smoothie. “I can’t just show up, not even with her permission. Johnny wants me to fuck off, so I have to fuck off.”

“Did he tell you that? Or did he just dump his feelings on you and then stop replying?” Ten takes a strong sip of his drink until his straw noisily hits an air pocket.

Before Mark can corral his thoughts, Ten’s phone buzzes with a new text. His face when he sees what Johnny’s mom wrote speaks volumes, as it looks like victory, and Mark can’t bear hearing what she might have said.

He stands up, the chair scraping against the floor loud and abrupt. “I can’t do this. This is… Legit, this is too much.”

Ten eyes him, the excitement leaving his face. Mark’s gripping the strap of his backpack, body thrumming with a desire to leave. But he’s still not enough of a coward to actually run. “That’s fine, then,” he says, low and measured. “I wanted you to have the option.”

“The option to what? Humiliate myself and trample Johnny’s boundaries and, like, the concept of—of etiquette?”

Ten looks so cool and calm and collected, staring up at Mark with his serious eyes and placid expression. Like he didn’t suggest something impossible. “The option to have a face-to-face conversation with him, and honestly? To see him crumble once he gets a look at you in a suit.”

“Thanks, I guess? But that’s just— It’s not me, Ten.”

“I believe you. You know yourself the best.” He stands up from his own seat, and he stands an arm’s length away from Mark. “I’d hug you, but I think you’re not a hugger, so let’s call the smoothie my best attempt at comfort, yeah?”

Mark looks down at the drink still sitting on the table, unfinished. “It means a lot that you’ve always been nice to me.”

“Does it mean enough that you’ll actually give me your number so I can text you? Be your pen pal?” Ten teases.

“Yeah, but only if you never text me about this,” Mark says with a nervous laugh.

Ten gives a closed-mouth smile and holds his hand out, palm up, for Mark’s phone. “I promise to mind my own business.”

---

When he tells Donghyuck about Ten’s outrageous proposal, busting in on his usual studying time at the back of the library to do so, Hyuck laughs his meanest laugh.

“You should go specifically to yell at him in public,” Donghyuck says. “I’d pay money to watch that.”

“Thanks for your help, you’re the best friend ever,” Mark says, deadpan, slung in one of the uncomfortable old chairs the staff have stashed here. The place is nearly deserted this late in the evening, so they don’t have to whisper, but something about having this conversation in the library feels like trespassing.

Hyuck’s utter lack of taking Ten’s suggestion seriously soothes the second-guessing Mark’s been battling most of the afternoon. Sure, yeah, it’s as likely that Mark would show up to the suburbs for Grace’s wedding to work things out with Johnny as it is for Mark to show up and start a fight with him.

He’s glad he’s moved beyond the stage of not telling Donghyuck stuff to spare his own feelings, at least.

Mark waits for Hyuck to finish his study session and walks him back to his dorm, where Jaemin and Hyuck both try to get him to come in, eat convenience-store kimbap, and game, but Mark’s had enough socialization for the day.

The stuffy, too-warm dorm room still feels hollow without Lucas, but he’s gotten used to sleeping and living in privacy over the last few months. Mark showers, does his skincare routine, and even finds the mouthguard he’s supposed to wear to stop grinding his teeth into stubs at night and pops it into his mouth after giving it a thorough wash.

He watches more tiny-house content and thinks about his busking schedule, and Johnny Suh only inserts himself into Mark’s train of thought once every thirty seconds.

It’s bearable. He can live like this until something changes—like him getting on a plane and going home.

---

Friday night finds Mark playing Overcooked badly, so late into the night that Jaemin has passed out on his bed among the refuse of candy wrappers and shrimp chip crumbs. Historically, he sleeps through light and noise fairly well, so Hyuck and Mark keep playing; Hyuck keeps goblin hours at the best of times, and summer seems to have really set him off. It’s nice to have an excuse to not be alone with his thoughts, even though it involves Hyuck hissing criticisms of Mark’s ability to move plates around and hyping him up in equal turns.

At around one a.m., his phone lights up with an incoming call, and Mark glances at it mostly because it’s weird someone is calling him this late. He worries for a second it might be his mom calling about an emergency, but then he realizes it’s—Johnny.

Johnny is calling him.

And Hyuck has just realized it, too, pausing the game and leaning forward like he might grab the phone himself.

Panicking, Mark grabs his phone and answers it, keenly aware of Hyuck’s eyes on him, and there’s silence on the line, making him worry he missed the call.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Johnny says, and Mark fights a full-body shiver at what the sound of his voice does to him. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

He can’t have this conversation, any conversation, sitting on Hyuck’s floor with Jaemin making his nasal little snores two feet from him. He can’t stand knowing Hyuck could witness Mark’s vulnerability, and that he’ll be watching Mark like a hawk for the first sign of trouble.

Mark breathes out a, “Hi, hold on, I’m just leaving Hyuck’s, I need to finish putting my shoes on.” Hyuck follows him as he walks toward the door and jams his feet into his sneakers, stomping once as gently as he can to shove them on without messing with the laces. “I’ll see you later,” he murmurs, covering the phone’s mic with his palm. Hyuck stares at him, and Mark makes a face that’s pleading and confused. “I’ll text you if I need you,” he says, and Hyuck sighs, nods, and flicks a lock of hair off Mark’s forehead. He needs a cut soon; it’s getting longer than he likes it.

He sees himself out of Hyuck’s room and down the hall, chancing a “Just in the hallway now, one more sec,” and he hears Johnny’s patient noise of affirmation.

When he gets to the stairs that lead outside, Mark pushes out a breath but tries to keep it quiet. “Okay, I can talk now.”

“Okay.”

Mark’s shoes slap on the stairwell, and he pushes open the exit door and takes a gulp of night air, thick and relatively cool. It’s still warmer than he’d like, but it’s nothing as bad as the daytime.

“Johnny,” he says carefully, starting on the same oft-traveled and substantial walk back to his own dorm at the south end of campus from Hyuck and Jaemin’s north. “You’re pretty quiet for being the one who called me.”

Across the line, Johnny sighs, the end of it tilting into a weary laugh. “Sorry. I was expecting you to be asleep so I could ramble into your voicemail.”

“Well, sorry for ruining your plans.”

“God, you didn’t, this is—better.” There’s another pause, another sigh, and Mark hears a car horn in the background.

“Are you outside?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m outside the piano bar where Gracie is having her bachelorette thing.”

“Oh.” Her wedding is the next day, Mark remembers. He hopes she’s having a nice night.

“I came by to give her a present, and to hang for a bit. She asked about you, and I wanted to tell you that— I wanted to apologize for… Anyway, I missed you, and I’m weak.”

“You’re also drunk,” Mark accuses, laughing a little at his realization.

“That, too,” Johnny says wryly.

Mark bites his lip, glancing up at the canopy of stars above him, though this deep in the city, despite the pastoral aspects to the campus, there’s a lot of haze from light pollution. There’s almost no one out and about at this hour; during regular semesters, the quad and all the walking paths are dotted with people even late at night, but not now, in summer session.

“I should— You wouldn’t call me if you were sober,” Mark says decisively, though he’s inwardly screaming at himself to take the opportunity he’s finally got to talk to Johnny. “I should let you go.”

“No— Fuck, Mark. I’m a few whiskey sours in, but I’m not trashed. I keep picking up my phone and drafting you these awful enormous texts and then deleting them.” Johnny’s voice is matter of fact, quick, like Mark’s going to end the call unceremoniously and Johnny needs to get this in first. “I want to talk to you. I’m just… humiliated.”

“Because you didn’t know I was…” Mark trails off, uncomfortable putting a name to it with Johnny finally talking to him after weeks of icy silence. He feels like if he says the truth, Johnny will remember his hurt and retreat again.

“Because I acted like an asshole and then compounded it by being more of an asshole. Because you were right.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Johnny. That’s kind of the point?”

“No, I at least… I owe you a reply to your texts,” Johnny says, in the voice of someone wincing through an unspoken apology. “I owe being honest to you. About my feelings for you.”

Mark’s even less sure what to say. He tries to come up with something, stalling with “Johnny,” but ultimately, Johnny continues, voice urgent in Mark’s ear.

“Would you believe I thought I was being smart, mature, by not telling you I wanted you for real? That I was being respectful by not letting you know I’m crazy about you?”

Mark is silent, but he thinks Johnny can hear his slightly labored breathing as he keeps his pace up, striding through the patches of sidewalk and grass lit well by lamps and the darker sections that usually creep him out. It’s eerie, being alone but feeling overwhelmed with Johnny’s presence, which is in reality just a voice coming through his phone.

“My last partner, we broke up because I went all in too fast.” Johnny chuckles, but it has an edge of bitterness. “So I figured I didn’t need to scare you off by, uh, how did they put it? ‘Trying to U-Haul me after a month.’”

If Johnny had opened his mouth at any point and asked Mark the sort of question that might involve the word partner (the word alone sends uncomfortable heat up Mark’s spine), he would have bolted. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was because both Mark and Johnny stayed silent.

“I get that,” Mark says.

“It’s not an excuse. You thought you were, uh, having some normal casual sex, and little did you know, I’m the guy who grew up with a grand plan to get married and start a family by twenty-five.”

Mark almost trips and eats it on what he knows is very unforgiving pavement. The flat self-recrimination of Johnny’s words is enough to rattle him, but then there’s Mark’s honest surprise. Johnny complained so much about weddings, to the point where he bemoaned small stuff Mark thought sounded cute. Mark supposes disliking the performance and drama of weddings, or even the heteronormativity baked into the concept itself, while still wanting to, like, actually partake in the institution isn’t mutually exclusive. But planning on it with such a firm date in mind? Mark has a hard time reconciling that with Johnny’s easy-going nature, otherwise.

Maybe that’s the point. He doesn’t know Johnny that well.

“We both know we should have sat down and talked about it,” Mark says. “Like, way earlier.”

“Yeah, but then we would have stopped way earlier, too.” Johnny falls meaningfully silent.

Yeah, Mark can’t regret the time he spent with Johnny over the last few months. Not the chill stuff, like when they’d be on Johnny’s couch and work their own projects in comfy silence, or the times Johnny ordered food for himself that was weird to Mark’s under-stimulated taste buds to see if Mark would take his dare and try some of it.

He super doesn’t regret the time he spent getting fucked really well. Mark blows out a heavy breath. “I was thinking before, if either of us had said something, we wouldn’t have gotten past that hookup at the party. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

“Right,” Johnny says, rough. “And I think I hate the idea of that.”

Mark is shocked silent at the honesty, almost shy under it. He struggles to find something to say, even if it’s to agree, because this sucks, this sucks so hard, but not having had the last few months would be a tremendous loss.

“Hypothetically,” Johnny says. “If—if you could take away all of it, going back to Canada and... your family, would you want me? Would you want to be my boyfriend?”

Mark stops where he is, right under the dark silhouette of an old tree, branches whispering in the summer breeze, and closes his eyes.

“Of course I would. Johnny, I want to be your boyfriend now,” he admits. Only the tree and Johnny are around to hear him. His chest is tight, almost sore, from letting out a truth he’s kept under lock and key, even from himself. “If I thought we could date for a while, and I could forget about you when I got on the plane to Canada—” He swallows, heavy and audible. “This has never been about not liking you enough.”

There’s a long pause, during which Mark hears a siren on Johnny’s end of the call approach and then fade away. “You’re dangerous,” Johnny says quietly. “I’d take anything you’d give me.”

“You shouldn’t.” Johnny deserves to be someone’s husband, not a secret kept by some kid in Canada.

“I miss you,” Johnny says, and Mark suspects a finality to it that has his fingers clenching around his phone, pressing it closer to his face. “If you text me after this, I’ll answer you. I just… Mark, none of it is a deterrent to me wanting to date you. Not Canada, not your being in the closet. I think we could work it out.”

The earnestness in Johnny’s voice hurts. Mark stares ahead, unseeing, eyes blurring behind his glasses. “I can’t,” he chokes. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. It’s okay,” Johnny says, but he exhales shakily and ends the call a few moments later.

Mark stays under the tree, frozen in place, until he gets himself under control and his vision is clear. The rest of his walk to the dorm is empty of people, and it feels oppressively quiet even though he can hear the wind and the sounds of nature and distant car noise. Without Johnny in his ear, Mark feels afraid of the dark.

---

He dreams about Johnny giving a toast at his own wedding, next to a faceless bride, and Mark’s watching from the back of the church, his home church in Vancouver, with its warped-wood pews and the ever-present smell of rug cleaner. He wakes up feeling like something sat on his chest and slowly choked the life out of him all night.

Mark lies on his back with his arms near his head, winded, wide awake, starting to sweat in the summer sunlight. He doesn’t put much stock in dreams, but he does know that sometimes the stuff he pushes down and refuses to look at likes to take revenge in the night. Likes to make him look. He blows out a shuddery breath.

---

The worst part is, while Johnny’s conversation gave him some closure and a chance to say some of what he’d wanted to for weeks now, it didn’t do anything but sprinkle salt on the wound of how much he wants to talk to Johnny. He still wants it. The wanting still occupies him.

Johnny saying that he’ll text Mark back is a dangerous temptation.

He shouldn’t, though, thinking of Grace and her big day and how busy Johnny must be, even at an early hour. He buries his phone under his pillow and takes a shower and fucks around with some video footage on his laptop, and that keeps him busy until lunch.

---

When Mark texts Hyuck to bug him in the afternoon, Hyuck says he’s busy doing something with Doyoung, though he says Mark can join them if he wants.

Mark has almost no desire to sit at home and torment himself with the thought of texting Johnny. He has even less desire to third-wheel Doyoung and Hyuck again. It was weird enough when they were drunk and singing. He has no idea what’s going on there, aside from Hyuck’s jealousy (normal) and hero-worship (super not normal for Hyuck) and Doyoung’s oddly serene smile through the entire evening, but it’s not his business.

Or rather, it’ll be his business if Hyuck ever confides in him, but after two years of knowing him and never hearing more than passing comments about random people being hot or pretty (usually because of their clothes, Mark’s noted), Mark’s not sure where Hyuck’s comfort level with the concept of sex, or dating, is.

Which is pretty funny, if he thinks about it. Mark, closeted and unwilling to risk a romantic life, and Hyuck, never expressing interest in the concept at all. Two peas in a pod.

Without anyone there to give him baleful eyes and make fun of his lack of spine, Mark gives in and texts Johnny forty-five minutes before the ceremony is slated to start. He does it because he’s convinced himself Johnny will be too busy with prep to check his phone, but to his nervous surprise, Johnny answers him almost immediately.

Mark: Tell Grace I said congrats, and good luck out there, photographer boy

So it’s a bad text, but Mark’s hands were shaking, and it was the best he could do before he chickened out entirely.

Johnny: I will. She’ll be over the moon.
Johnny: Wish you were here. Sorry if that’s weird.

Mark doesn’t reply yet. He doesn’t have the first clue where to start, but beyond that, Johnny really should concentrate. It’s clear Mark can only distract him and also, you know, send a thoughtless text and remind him of how badly it ended.

He uploads one of his finished videos to YouTube, a newer guitar arrangement of a Bieber cover he’s busted out a lot to entertain Lucas. It’s not his usual stuff for YouTube, which is basically his portfolio. He has some original stuff he set to unlisted last year, but there’s plenty of footage related to assignments and even some attempts at classical guitar up, along with busking footage he made Donghyuck or Lucas take.

As an afterthought, he sends the link to the family group chat, mostly so that his sister can make fun of him for Bieber, as if she didn’t go through a Belieber phase in middle school.

He thinks he should have expected his mom to call. She usually likes to give him compliments over the phone before plastering him all over her Facebook wall, so that he doesn’t think she’s ‘showing off,’ whatever that means. Though she’s been calling slightly less over the last few months, trying to give Mark space, she’s still invested in trying to reach him.

For the first time in weeks, Mark doesn’t screen her call. He picks up his phone, thoughtful, lonely, on edge, not quite sure what might come out of his mouth.

“Mark-yah!” she crows with delight when he accepts. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, I was only working on some video stuff. Did you like the cover I sent?”

“Your father cast it on the big TV in the living room. You looked so handsome! You sounded beautiful, too.”

“Thanks, Mom.” While Mark isn’t great at handling compliments beyond his handful of rehearsed platitudes, he’s so used to his mom’s enthusiasm—and her direct critique, when she thinks Mark isn’t trying hard enough or practicing enough—that it washes over him. “Are you and dad doing anything today?”

“Just puttering around. Your sister has a solo in a week, so we’re watching TV to tune her out.”

“Tell her to go down into the basement. If I had to practice down there, so does she,” Mark jokes.

“Oh, she’s in the basement,” his mom says archly. “No one can project like her.”

The basement is a land of abandoned furniture and old instruments, from when his parents used to jam. His first keyboard is there, and one of his guitars. The acoustics are decent, and it’s relatively soundproof. The fact that his sister’s audible upstairs means she’s going to shatter the church windows.

“How are your classes going? Oh, and what about that wedding you said you were going to?”

Right. Mark told his mom something about helping Johnny photograph Grace’s wedding around when he went and stayed with the Suhs, mostly to make it look like he had a thriving and healthy social life. “That ended up falling through, actually. It’s fine, though, I passed my congratulations along to the bride.”

His mom makes a noise of confirmation and then sighs wistfully. “Too bad you couldn’t go. I love a summer wedding.”

“You wouldn’t love them out here,” Mark says, trying to stop her from getting too comfortable with the wedding concept. “It’s thirty-four degrees with like a hundred percent humidity. I’m pretty sure brides have melted.”

“At least their makeup has,” she giggles, and Mark lets himself sit in the rush of homesickness that sound brings.

For all that returning to Canada is ruining the life he carved out for himself, as pathetic as it is, and for all that it’s ruining his chances at anything with Johnny, he misses it. He misses the weather, the clouds, the food, the mountains, the water—he chose Chicago in part for its proximity to water, but it isn’t the same—and the people. He misses his childhood home and the people in it. He misses his annoying brother living up the street and stopping by all the time with his perfect wife who makes perfectly rolled kimbap. He misses his church, the people he grew up with. He misses his friends, even if they know an outdated version of Mark.

It would be a lot easier if just hearing her talk didn’t make him feel loved. She’s letting him get away with so much, being avoidant and taking money that could be used for his parents’ retirement or to do repairs on the house to study music in the States. Mark’s getting away with things she has no idea about, could never suspect.

“Ma, can I ask you something?”

His voice doesn’t betray him, but maybe the fact that he’s going out of his way to ask does. Maybe the fact that he picked up the phone is enough of a sign that he’s going through it.

“Of course?” she asks, quizzical and careful.

“You’re proud of me, right? Like, you’ll still be proud of me if I—if I can’t make it in music, or if I fail a class, or when I’m bad at calling you back, when I’m a bad son, you still—”

He clamps his mouth shut, wincing and falling forward against the tiny dorm desk, bracing himself with a damp palm.

“I’m your mother, Mark-yah, I love you unconditionally. And I’m proud of you, even if this is your way of trying to tell me you’re failing a class.”

Even though Mark’s eyes sting with tears, he lets himself laugh. He’s silent after, and there’s a whining in his head, an almost physical tension in his skull from trying to hold back.

It hurts his whole body, because he believes her, but he doesn’t know how much. Maybe she will still love him if he tells her he’s gay, but she’ll love him differently. She’ll be afraid for him, for his safety and his soul, made uncomfortable by him, her dreams for him shattered. He’ll be a stranger to her, in some ways. And that’s his mom, the person in the whole world he trusts most, loves the most. Who knows about the rest of his family? His church, his neighbors, his grandparents, his pastor, the kids he used to supervise at camp every summer, his sister’s friends?

“I’ll love you and be proud of you no matter what,” she says firmly, as she’s likely able to fill in the blanks of what Mark’s silence means. She never drew attention to his tears after it became clear how humiliated and repulsed he was by crying in the first place, just quietly passed him a tissue or let him leave the room to save face.

“What if I don’t stay in Canada?” he blurts out. It’s the crux of the matter, ignoring the whole part about his sexuality. If he’s peeling back layers of himself in the interest of being better, of running less and enduring more, he owes it to himself to at least ask.

She pauses for a moment, and Mark fights a sinking sensation. But then she speaks, and Mark can barely believe the words that come out of her mouth. “Well, I won’t say we wouldn’t miss you like crazy, and not to mention we’d need to make sure you were safe and ready to establish yourself somewhere else”—Mark hears the unspoken, sharper edge of We aren’t paying for that, Lee Min-hyung—“but it’s your life. You live where you want to. Would you want to stay in Chicago?”

There’s a very long lull where Mark only hears the white noise in his head.

Her voice breaks through when she worriedly asks, “Mark?”

He shakes his head. His eyes are still closed, hot tears escaping onto his cheeks to roll down his chin. “I don’t know,” he says, the stuffy note to his voice threatening to give him away. “I’m thinking about it in general.”

He’s a liar. When he pictures staying, like when he found himself on the immigration website a few nights ago, familiarizing himself with rules and procedures he more or less skimmed before when he was just looking at information pertaining to students, he pictures Johnny’s face. He doesn’t mind Chicago. He doesn’t mind America, and during his late nights, he checks Craigslist postings for music gigs in New York. L.A. Berlin, once. He checks Toronto, too, but that feels somehow less acceptable, to be in his home country but so very far away from home.

His whole adolescence, he knew he needed to pursue music. It was his biggest talent and the only time he really felt at ease, especially when his teenage years hit. Around the same time, thanks to puberty, he discovered he couldn’t keep denying his attraction to men, either, not long-term. It was keeping him up at night and giving him indigestion, and he was praying way, way too much, asking for the impossible: to be turned normal. When one of his extremely temporary high school girlfriends tried to sext him, he panicked and broke up with her on the spot. He sort of had to confront the truth then.

Mark concocted doing a few years of school in America to… try it out. To see if he could stand to be touched and kissed by men when the same attention from women left him cold and confused. He even decided to do his prerequisites at a community college, to save his parents some money in his selfish experiment—and to give himself a time limit. He could get it out of his system, and then Mark would come back and be a good son.

He knew within a week that was a futile goal, that opening his mouth and telling Donghyuck he’s gay, or letting Wendy convince him to join the LGBT group, that going to gay bookstores and reading about gay history—and fucking men, even if it was bad and messy and complex a lot of the time, before Johnny—that it all changed him, reshaped him, and he couldn’t fit back into Mark Lee’s old life.

He was a fool for thinking two years would be enough. For not realizing two days would be enough to fracture him.

Now, hearing that she doesn’t expect him to follow in his brother’s footsteps, it’s so big, he can’t look at it head-on.

He truly thought the only way he’d be able to leave was if he married some woman (best-case scenario, a lesbian in similar circumstances) and had his family’s blessing. Or maybe if he garnered the courage to slink away as a disgrace. His parents lived at home until they got married and moved into their first condo. It’s the same for most of his family, his community. You stick close until you get married and you or your spouse gets a job offer somewhere far away, and it’s lucrative enough to be worth the cost of leaving everyone behind. To do otherwise is an aberration.

“I’m coming home after I graduate,” Mark tells her, voice rough. It’s the only thing he’s sure of right now, the fact that he’s got a plane ticket and promised her he’d be home for her birthday. “I’m not… I’m just thinking.”

“I’ll be so happy to have you home,” she says. “But Mark, just because your brother lives up the block from us doesn’t mean you have to, too.”

Mark’s heart is clogging his throat, beating like a wild thing. His face is still wet, his eyes still stinging. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

She lets him go with a minimum of fuss, probably because she can hear the tears in his voice and knows he needs to make his escape with what’s left of his dignity.

Mark pitches forward, phone clattering on the desk, and buries his face in his arms to quell the sobs that are finally catching up with him.

He hates it, he hates the lack of control and the vulnerability, even in an empty room, but there’s a relief to it this time, too. A horrible and incredible letting go.

—-

After, he drinks an entire bottle of water and a tea from his mini fridge, trying to stave off the inevitable crying headache. He picks his phone back up, opening the text conversation with Johnny that he’s left hanging, then closes it when he immediately wants to type something. Immediately wants to tell Johnny… what? That his mommy gave him permission to leave home? That maybe they could try something?

God, the simple idea stops his breath. His body feels light, like the news carved him out, like he could float around his own room.

He needs to stop and think about what this means for him, not just his potential—whatever with Johnny. He could live anywhere, presumably; he could start sending out resumes and reaching out to people his parents knew in New York. He should at least decide if that’s what he wants. If a career in music in the U.S. is his priority.

If he even wants to actually be the Mark Lee he imagined in his guiltiest, most self-indulgent dreams.

He’s cut off from chasing the rabbit of that thought by a text message from Ten. Mark texted him once after their smoothie conversation, to make sure Ten would know Mark didn’t plan on blowing him off, but they’ve been silent since.

Ten: How are you, angel

He frowns, wondering if Ten knows Johnny and he are talking, kind of, again, but then remembers Ten is well aware what today is. The day he was supposed to be Johnny’s plus-one-slash-assistant to Grace’s wedding.

Mark: Kind of having a meltdown but good lol
Mark: Wait how r u!!!! Isn’t one of your student showcases today?????

Ten surprises him by calling, and Mark picks up, fumbling the phone he’s so startled.

“Hello?” he tries.

There’s the sound of muffled running water on the other end, and Ten hisses under his breath, “What’s wrong? What meltdown?”

“Aren’t you, like— Are you hiding somewhere?”

“I’m in the bathroom,” Ten says, “trying not to chew my fingers off, oh my fucking God, I’m so nervous.”

“For your students?”

“Yeah, they’re my beginner class. I always get like this before performances. Not my own,” he clarifies, and it’s odd to hear Ten being so quiet, so low, but his voice is almost soothing like this. “Just… I want them to do well and be happy with their hard work.”

“I’m sure you taught them really well,” Mark says. “And we all know that sometimes you have to, like, beef it on stage big time once or twice to realize the world won’t end.”

Ten makes a disgruntled noise. “No beefing it big time for my low-impact babies, thank you. But enough about me.” He raises his voice and sounds more like himself; he must be alone in the bathroom now. “A meltdown?”

“I said I was good,” Mark defends. “I said LOL and everything.”

“You’d send an LOL if you broke your arm,” Ten says, and Mark privately concedes the point. “How can I help?”

“Uh, I don’t think there’s anything you can do. But thanks? I got some really… wild news from my mom earlier, and I realized I don’t have to like, live at home and probably die there, haha.”

“That’s—good?” Ten says dubiously. “Not dying in your childhood home is ideal.”

“It’s good,” Mark reassures him. “It’s, uh, it’s something I need to talk to Johnny about. Maybe.”

Ten is silent for a moment, and Mark can hear his barely suppressed delight in his voice when he says, “Interesting. Is that why he— You know what, I said I was staying out of other people’s business. Specifically yours.”

Mark snorts. The amusement in him feels like it could expand in a second and fill his whole chest, his whole body. It feels a little like he’s high. Probably all the crying. “This coming from the guy who told me to confront Johnny at his cousin’s wedding, okay, sure, I buy it.”

There’s a beat where he hears nothing, then a quickly drawn breath. “I did not tell you to just show up at Grace’s wedding,” Ten yelps into the phone.

“Pretty sure you did,” Mark says.

“No, I encouraged you to go to his parents’ house and talk with him there. And then go to Grace’s wedding as his date. Separate events. Oh my God, Mark.”

“I—” Okay, that makes a lot more sense than Mark’s assumption that Ten was telling him to show up to make a scene at Grace’s wedding like some sort of K-drama villain. “It’s still pretty weird to show up at someone’s parents’ house, though!” The memory of Ten asking Johnny’s mom for permission to Mark to show up and talk to Johnny makes him cringe. He wonders what that poor woman thinks of Mark, who has been nothing but a nervous mess in her vicinity.

“It was that or wait for the heat death of the universe,” Ten says, clearly exasperated, but he’s started giggling. “Johnny would fall to his knees the second he saw you, is all,” Ten says. “If that’s what you want, you should just take it.”

It’s a somewhat uncomfortable reminder of what Johnny said to him the night before—that he’d take anything Mark would give him. The knowledge of that, buttressed by Ten’s casual admission, sits liquid and hot in his stomach.

Johnny seeing Mark for the first time in weeks, his eyes widening and his mouth parting. He can see it. The shock and the slow realization on his face. He doesn’t think Johnny would fall to his knees, Ten’s being dramatic, but he thinks he knows now that Johnny seeing him would be a revelation writ all over Johnny’s face.

“It is what I want,” Mark says, half-unconsciously, fingers spasming around the phone when he realizes he said it aloud, and to Ten. “Um.”

He supposes he answered at least some of his questions. He wants to try with Johnny. He wants to figure it out.

He wants to be Johnny’s boyfriend.

For the second time today, Mark’s eyes start stinging, and he furiously rubs them under his glasses. Bawling on the phone with Ten because he said he wants Johnny is something he can’t live down.

“Then you should go get it, angel.” Ten pauses. “Fuck, my students are starting to arrive. I need to get out of here. Can we switch to texting?”

“Of course,” Mark says, clearing his throat conspicuously. For some reason, he’s smiling. It’s wild. “Ten, they’re gonna be great, I promise.”

They hang up, and Mark reopens the text log with Johnny, eyes wide, heart thrumming.

---

Over the next hour, Mark makes a series of choices, and most of them make sense.

He texts Donghyuck first, since he’s had to deal with weeks of Mark’s semi-absent friendship followed by more weeks of Mark’s palpable misery. Also, Mark’s figured out that keeping things from him will always be a mistake.

Mark: I talked to my mom earlier n she said shed be ok w me moving out n living somewhere else longterm 😮

It takes a few minutes for Hyuck’s replies to start, but they pile up in a hurry when they do.

Donghyuck: WHAT
Donghyuck: 대박!!!!!!!!!!!
Donghyuck: Mark!!!

He sends six emojis all as their own messages, one after another, and Mark finds himself laughing, tugging his bangs, thinking about Hyuck’s enthusiasm. He’s known Mark for so long now, known about his dread to return home even if he never talked about it like that. He gets how huge this is.

Donghyuck: Where are you I am coming right now
Mark: Ah 😳 Im in my room but!!
Mark: Im actually leaving soon sooooo yea
Mark: Plus u should hang out w Doyoung!! Hows that going

There’s a pause, during which Mark feels thoroughly seen through, and he stops rustling through his skincare pouch to find the tinted BB cream his mom sent him. He waits, staring down at the screen like it might manifest Hyuck’s next message.

Donghyuck: 💀💀💀
Donghyuck: Does this have to do with JOHNNY perhaps
Donghyuck: Don’t worry about Doyoung that’s a whole other thing we’re talking about another day

Mark nervously checks his notifications again to see if Ten has replied, but he hasn’t yet. Mark uses one hand to answer Hyuck, the other dumping out his pouch for easier searching access.

Mark: Hahaha am i that obvious
Donghyuck: Yes
Donghyuck: Can’t believe someone told you to gatecrash a wedding and you’re ACTUALLY DOING IT 💀💀💀
Mark: Yea turns out i had that wrong but like
Mark: Idk how it will go but johnny said he wanted me there n uh turns out i dont actually want to die alone lmao
Mark: Jk
Donghyuck: Progress??? We love to see it
Donghyuck: Wait are you actually talking with JOHNNY again wtf

Mark winces, realizing he left out some of the story in the telling, but to his credit he is in the middle of what may be the strangest week of his life.

Ten texts Mark an address, followed by “Jaehyun ETA 15 min,” and Mark gasps and leaves the BB cream unfound. It’s way, way more important that he one) finish getting dressed and two) tell Ten not to send Jaehyun to ferry Mark to the suburbs. He needs the anonymity of an Uber driver who will politely ignore Mark melting from stress in their back seat, not Jaehyun.

Mark: No what omg
Mark: Not jaehyun!!!!! I will literally die ten
Ten: You want to spend $100 on an Uber when Jaehyun is right there with his Audi and dimples
Ten: It’ll be fine angel
Ten: And Jaehyun can drive you home if you need that

That sends a thump of dread through Mark, the idea that he could show up and Johnny could not want him there. It’s enough to panic him, put him outside of his body and show him that this is still weird and maybe unwelcome.

Ten: Which you won’t but I figure it will make you feel better to have an escape route 🙂

Mark sighs and finally manages to text Hyuck back with shaking hands. He’s wearing his boxers and an undershirt, and he already put his contacts in, but he’s not sure about which one of his whopping two dress shirts is the better choice. He already knows the shoes are going to pinch, but at least they weren’t dusty when he pulled them out of his side of the closet.

Mark: Yea he called
Mark: And apologized
Mark: And Im thinking I might just
Mark: Go for it??????
Mark: U can tell me if u think im crazy lol
Donghyuck: I don’t think that. I think you’re brave
Mark: ?????
Mark: U dont think its a mistake????
Donghyuck: I have no clue if you’re making a mistake
Donghyuck: But you should do what you want even if it’s a mistake

Mark cannot handle this. He feels like he’s been walloped in a boxing ring for multiple rounds. The hits keep comin’, he thinks, and wills himself to not fucking cry again.

Mark: That means a lot man
Mark: I gotta go tho need to get ready
Donghyuck: Text me if you need me
Mark: 👍

---

He finishes styling his hair right when Jaehyun texts to let him know he’s in Mark’s parking lot. Mark is dressed, his suit thankfully still fitting from when his mom bought it for him a few years ago, though the sleeves feel like they could come down a little. Mark’s reflection seems especially bug-eyed, but that’s because he’s wearing contacts and not used to it.

He tells Jaehyun he’ll be out in a few and gives a frantic glance around at his stuff. His wallet is in his pocket, and he’s as shined up as he’ll get. The fabric of the suit isn’t forgiving in this weather, since it was made for Canada versus Illinois, but it’s not like he can show up in khaki shorts and a polo. He’s showing up in his suit, tie knotted deftly with hands that have performed the motion on a thousand Sundays, his slightly too-long bangs styled so they basically cover his eyebrows, and his face is as open and unencumbered as it can get, bare of his glasses.

Minus the acne. Mark checks his pile of skincare products with one last, desperate glance and finds the BB cream under a package of facial wipes that have probably dried out. Moving quick, he slathers some on his face, tries his best to rub it in evenly, and rinses the excess off his fingers. His complexion looks a lot better, at least.

“It’s fucking now or never, dude,” he says to the mirror, his scared and elated almost-self.

---

Jaehyun’s Audi looks like it just left the showroom floor, gleaming in the waning afternoon light. Mark worries about getting fingerprints on the door when he fiddles with the handle. Jaehyun’s general shape is behind the tinted glass, gesturing for him to get inside.

Mark climbs into the passenger seat, tries not to touch anything, and, in a ramble, says, “Hey, thanks so much, this is mad nice of you. Oh, this is a really nice car. Did Ten send you the address or only me?”

“Hey, Mark,” Jaehyun says, kindly not laughing at him. He slips the gear into reverse and navigates them out of the parking lot. On his wrist is a broad watch Mark doesn’t recognize the brand name of but knows is bougie as hell. “I’ve got the address, don’t worry. You all buckled in?”

“Yep,” Mark says, tapping the seatbelt that’s constricting his already tight-feeling chest. “All ready to go, haha.”

“GPS says we’re forty-five minutes out. Even if traffic gets unpredictable, we should get you there in under an hour, okay?”

“That’s fine. I want to make sure I get there after all the big ceremony stuff but before everyone starts to go home, you know?” The thought of walking into the ceremony late gives Mark metaphorical hives.

“Makes sense,” Jaehyun says, nodding slowly. There’s no music on, only the almost imperceptible sound of the fans circulating cool air around the car. It’s just Mark, Jaehyun, and Mark’s bad idea, signaling to get onto the interstate.

“Thank you again for this. I can, like, Venmo you gas money.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaehyun says, popping a single dimple with a quick smile. “We’re friends, so I’m happy to help.”

Jaehyun calling them friends is a little funny. He’s not wrong, not explicitly, especially after the weeks of watching Avatar together and hanging out in the small group of Johnny’s household, but Mark previously considered him, like, Wendy’s friend. Jaehyun was beautiful and nice to him and kind of a distant star of a human being. And now he’s driving Mark on what might be a disastrous mission to give him and Johnny a shot at being something.

Mark’s heart kicks up its pounding, and rather than check his phone and hyperfixate over every text he’s ever sent Johnny, he decides to keep talking. “This really is a nice car,” Mark says, admiring it anew. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in an Audi.”

“Thanks. I traded in my Tesla because it wasn’t my vibe, and the Audi gets me where I need to go.” He pats the dashboard fondly. Mark pictures Jaehyun driving a Tesla around campus and his old and very middle-class neighborhood and stifles a laugh. “Just picked it up from being detailed yesterday.”

Mark has a vague idea of what detailing entails and makes a vague noise of approval to match. The two of them drift into silence, now on the interstate at a decent clip, though there’s always downtown traffic fuckery to slow them down around every exit.

He checks his phone though he told himself he wouldn’t, and it reads 6:07. He’ll get there by 7:00, most likely. The invite Johnny showed him said the ceremony started at four and ended at five, followed by a cocktail hour, and then the actual wedding dinner and reception. He remembers something about an outdoor ceremony and indoor celebration and hopes he’s right, that he won’t sweat through his suit jacket.

As is his habit now, he opens his text conversation with Johnny.

“This is kind of weird, right?” he asks, staring down at the words, and at his own conspicuous lack of reply. “Just showing up when we haven’t, like, worked it out.” He wonders if Jaehyun even knows that, how much Ten or Johnny have told him.

“A little,” Jaehyun says agreeably. “But not that weird.” He glances at Mark, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. “Especially if you’re me and you’ve lived with Johnny over the last few weeks.”

That, perversely, makes Mark feel better. He’s not sure he can trust his own judgement when his judgement is making him do fucking bananas things, like asking his mom if he can move away or showing up as a wedding date because Johnny sent him a sad text.

Still, Mark is worried Johnny will change his mind, or think Mark’s gone too far. He chews on his lip, reminds himself not to do that unless he wants to show up looking mauled.

Honestly, the only person who can convince Mark this isn’t going to end badly is Johnny. Ten can’t give him permission, no matter what he says about Johnny loving a dramatic gesture. Johnny’s mom can’t give him permission. Only Johnny can.

Mark: After everything, u still want me there?

Jaehyun hits a patch of rough concrete, but his Audi handles it like a champ; Mark barely rattles around. He stares down at his phone, turns off the screen, turns it back on, and considers how he would ask Jaehyun to stop and turn the car around, to take him home.

But then Johnny’s text is on his screen.

Johnny: Yes
Johnny: I want you anywhere I can get you, Mark.

Mark presses his knuckles to his lips and stares out the window. He sees a sliver of his reflection in Jaehyun’s very clean window, its secret smile.

---

The venue is gorgeous, an old historic estate with gardens and pavilions and a shocking amount of parking. Jaehyun pulls into a space a little bit away from the bulk of the cars, and Mark scrambles out of the passenger seat before the ignition is off. The air that hits him isn’t too bad, receding slowly from the hottest part of the day, and there’s a lot of shade from all the foliage. Mark buttons his suit jacket and then slips his phone into his trouser pocket before he remembers it ruins the line.

Where the heck is he supposed to put his phone if he can’t put it in his pocket?

“Do you want me to come with you?” Jaehyun asks, having exited the car, too. He comes around to where Mark’s standing, and he gives Mark’s suit a critical once-over before tugging the lapels. Mark appreciates it, and the offer, but as good as Jaehyun looks, he’s still not dressed for a wedding.

Mark shakes his head. “No, I got this. But… there’s a small chance I’ll text you an SOS and run back here, and I need you to get us as far away from here as fast as possible.”

Jaehyun blinks, draws his tongue over his lips, and then nods. “I can do that. I’ll hang out here. If I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m texting you. Okay?”

Jaehyun really is nice. Mark is going to find some way to thank him for real later. “Thank you again. It’s rad you’re doing this for me. I’m sure you have a hundred other things you could be doing on a Saturday,” Mark says.

Jaehyun’s face tightens almost imperceptibly, and his smile when it comes seems a little tired at the corners. “I really don’t,” he says, and puts a hand on Mark’s shoulder, squeezing. “Go talk to Johnny. I’ll be waiting.”

---

When he gets close enough to the estate house that he hears music and laughter and the general sounds of wedding merriment, Mark stalls. He managed the walk from the parking lot, past the fountain, past the little garden, if not resolute than at least putting one foot in front of the other consistently, but now that his goal is within reach, is tangible, of course he’s faltering.

He imagines turning around and telling Jaehyun he couldn’t go through with it, having to text Ten, having to text Donghyuck, and having to live with the specter of what-if, and he grinds his teeth and pushes forward.

No one is in the foyer when he enters, but he can see people in a big room off to the right. No one he recognizes, because life isn’t that easy, but he’s made it inside. It can’t be that much harder to keep going.

He sees a fancy banner with Grace and her fiancé's—now her husband’s—name on it and smiles. There’s a mountain of presents on a side table that spans the length of the foyer. He pokes his head around the doorframe leading to the bigger room, hovering awkwardly in the doorway and hoping he’s half-shielded by it, but aside from seeing that some people are sitting down and eating, there’s no sign of Johnny. Or Grace and her husband, at that.

Mark’s really going to have to wander through this big-ass house until he finds Johnny. Love that for me, he thinks, pushing forward and plastering on a smile. No one looks askance at him, although he gets some curious gazes simply because he knows he’s fresh meat.

Mark finds his way to a dining room that isn’t actually in use, then almost goes into the kitchen before one of the catering staff stops him to ask if he needs anything.

“Uh, actually—”

“Mark?” he hears, and even though it was not Johnny’s voice that said it, Mark feels himself flinch.

When he turns, to his simultaneous relief and terror, it’s Johnny’s mom. She looks really pretty, in a summery but sedate dress, her hair styled and her makeup flawless. She’s also smiling at him, though it’s subdued.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m, um—”

“John’s out in the gardens taking some scenery shots,” she says. “It’s just through the back, a little bit of a walk. I texted his father to come inside and eat cake, so you should be alone.”

Mark nods, though what she said makes little sense to him. Possibly because, although Ten told him she approved of the whole ’coming to see Johnny’ thing, Mark wrote it off as hyperbole, part of Ten’s attempts to get him to act. But no, she’s standing in front of him, looking at him expectantly, and she knows why he came here—she must know what Mark wants with her son.

Looking at her like this jogs his memory of something else entirely. Mark exclaims, “Oh jeez, I left your Tupperware at home, I’m so sorry. I would have brought it, but I was in a hurry, and—”

She steps forward, resting a manicured hand on Mark’s arm. Her smile has spread the smallest amount, and Mark is fine with it being at his expense. “Mark, don’t worry so much. You can bring me my Tupperware some other time, yes?”

He nods hurriedly, sheepish, and thinks he’d love to escape this conversation, but what’s waiting for him is even harder. She pats his arm fondly and points to the back door with raised eyebrows. “I’m going,” he says, almost trips over his own foot, and stops himself from careening into anything. “I swear.”

He has to murmur polite “excuse me”s to pass by some of the people milling around, the ones not seated or out on the patio, which is where he catches a glimpse of Grace standing next to her husband resplendent in her wedding gown, her mermaid hair piled on top of her head, smiling wide and doing a lot of hand-shaking. Mark catches himself smiling, too. He really does like weddings.

It’s not hard to find the gardens; there’s a path leading toward a bunch of ancient-looking trees and away from buildings, but also a nice placard with arrows pointing in the direction he’s already headed. Mark’s alone on the path, wandering over the crest of a slight incline hill until a huge, pristine lawn opens up before him, with riots of flowers growing near its edges. Beyond that, there’s only trees completely enclosing the back of the estate. The shade—and the sun, starting to set—makes this area feel like an oasis against the summer.

The only person out here is Johnny, his silhouette unmistakable to Mark. He’s not too far into the lawn; it looks like he’s taking wider shots, but then he meanders closer to some of the flowerbeds to take a close up, fiddling with his lens.

Mark is risking Johnny glancing over or turning around, and the performer in him knows it’s better if he manages to come closer undetected. Given that all of Mark’s natural instincts have abandoned him at this point, he’ll take what he can get. He treads quietly toward Johnny, his footsteps on the grass more or less silent.

Johnny looks so good in his suit. His hair looks darker and styled different from what Mark can see. He barely looks real, after weeks of distance and never having seen Johnny’s long lines in a suit. Mark can’t believe this is happening.

“Hey, Johnny,” he says, so quiet it’s almost lost to the wind in the trees. “Sorry I’m late.”

Johnny nearly drops his camera as he turns to Mark. Their gazes meet, and Johnny’s eyes have never been wider. Mark gets caught on them for a second, but then he can’t stand it, glancing down at Johnny’s lips, which are parted with shock.

He is, Mark thinks, stomach tightening, so damn beautiful. It’s gotten worse; his hair is different, darker and parted on the side in a pompadour. His face is somehow even more angular because of the style and the near shave of his recent undercut. He looks older like this.

“Mark?” he says in disbelief. “How— Oh my God.”

He scratches the back of his head and takes an uncertain step closer. Johnny, incredibly, does the same, until they’re a scant few feet apart. “Uh, I’m really sorry if this is inappropriate, but I’ve missed you so bad and I needed to see you.”

Johnny’s face does something complicated. “You’re really here,” he says.

It doesn’t sound like Johnny’s pissed at Mark’s presence, but he’s also not really saying anything. He looks less shocked now, eyes searching Mark’s face like he’s cataloging him. “Yeah, would you believe that Jaehyun drove me?”

“In the Audi?” Johnny demands immediately, but then he scrunches his brow and shakes his head as if irritated at himself. “Mark, I don’t care how you got here, I care that you’re here. Holy shit.”

Mark doesn’t know what to say, so he lets Johnny take his time. Not that Johnny takes much.

“Is this— ” He makes an abortive gesture with his free hand. The camera hanging from a strap around his neck is cupped with the other hand protectively, close to his body. “I told you I’d take anything you’d give me, and that’s true, but I don’t know what this is.”

“This is… me, wanting to be your boyfriend,” Mark says, voice nearly giving out midway through. “If you still want that. Like, we need to talk about it, but I just— I kept picturing you alone when I was supposed to be here, and I can’t stand it. Not when I can do something about it.”

“Of course I want it,” Johnny says, gritty, eyes narrowed as he stares at Mark. “But you had some valid reasons for not dating.”

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know how to— I’m not saying I’m super confident about this. I’m, I still can’t come out back home, in case that, uh, factors into things for you.” Johnny doesn’t say anything, so Mark keeps babbling. “Right now, I’m adjusting to a new world view where I can live in America long-term. If that’s what I want. So. There’s that. Oh, I’m still going back to Canada at least temporarily, after I graduate, so if that’s an issue I get it—”

The play of emotions across Johnny’s face is so obvious, so easy to read, Mark almost feels like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t. He’s spent a decent amount of time with Johnny, by now; he’s never seen him look like this, made young by his awe.

“Mark,” he interrupts, and takes a step forward. “I want it. We’ll figure it out. Can I— Will you kiss me? We’re alone out here, but I could find—”

Mark is careful of Johnny’s camera when he grabs him, his hands sliding under Johnny’s suit jacket and digging into his hips before their mouths even meet. Johnny tastes like Chapstick and champagne, and he opens for Mark’s tongue immediately. He drags Mark closer, to the point where he’s almost unbalanced, and then struggles to figure out what to do with his camera, an obstacle between them.

Mark giggles into the kiss. Johnny breaks away but keeps an arm around Mark’s waist and doesn’t let him move an inch. “Fuck, Dad took my bag with him when he went inside. Maybe I can—”

Before Johnny does something like put his expensive professional camera on the literal ground, Mark shakes his head. “Don’t you dare ruin that camera.”

Johnny looks poised to argue, but Mark snags him by his tie and kisses him, remembering the softness of Johnny’s mouth all over again. It’s different now, from all the other times he kissed him, maybe because of the slight feeling of unreality Mark has, the unfamiliar joy expanding inside of his chest.

---

They kiss in the garden so long that Jaehyun sends Mark his check-in text, buzzing in Mark’s pocket. Mark makes a noise of realization against Johnny’s mouth and fishes his phone out from his suit jacket. “Oh man,” he says, feeling distractingly kiss-swollen and his carefully styled hair a mess, “I forgot about Jaehyun.”

“He’s still here?” Johnny asks, trailing his lips along Mark’s cheek to his ear. “Send him home already.”

“He’s my ride back, dude,” Mark objects, and Johnny pulls back to regard Mark with a scandalized expression.

“Uh, no? That’s boyfriend privileges?”

“Johnny, if I spend an hour alone with you in a car tonight, we’ll end up fucking in a parking lot.” He wishes he knew himself less well. But the inclination to pick up where they left off like nothing happened isn’t aligning with Mark’s determination to at least try to give himself and Johnny a real relationship. “And like, I want to do this right.”

“Me, too,” Johnny says. “And we will. But you should still let me be the one to drive you home.”

“Johnny—”

“I missed you. Forgive me for wanting to be alone with the boy of my dreams.”

Mark turns very red all at once. “We’re alone now,” he mumbles, gaze going to Johnny’s chin.

“Yes,” Johnny sighs, but lifts his camera. “I’m technically on photographer duty, though, and I need to go get more pictures of the flowers and my cousin’s transcendent marital bliss.” He beams at Mark, then darts in to press a closed-mouth kiss on him. Mark’s never seen him this happy, and it matches the joy burning inside of him.

“I’ll come with you,” Mark says. “Aren’t I your assistant?”

“Nah, my dad was, until my mom lured him away with cake.”

“I, like, love flowers,” Mark says pointedly. His phone buzzes in his hand, no doubt Jaehyun again. “I love bliss.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, but then his face softens, and he tilts his head at Mark. “If you want to come inside while I finish up, I’m sure Grace would love to see you, and I’ll get you some cake. But my family is nosy—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Mark says with a confidence he doesn’t feel. He stares up at Johnny’s earnest face, backlit by the purples and golds of the sun sliding into darkness, and rubs his thumb over the velvet-soft short hair of Johnny’s undercut. “I have to be careful, I’m still not out to my family, but here…” He shrugs, unsure how to explain the shape of the plan in his head. What he wants. What he can have, far enough away from home that there’s little danger of being found out. “I came as your date, not your assistant,” he admits.

Johnny’s smile crinkles his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “But first, can I ask a favor?”

Mark, who was typing out a text to Jaehyun telling him it’s fine and he can leave now, glances up with alarm. “Uh, yeah?” He presses send and hopes Jaehyun doesn’t ask any follow-up questions.

Johnny holds up his camera again. “Could I take your picture? I wouldn’t post it anywhere, it’s just—for me.”

Mark considers this, and the weight Johnny is putting behind a simple request. It’s not like Mark hates having his picture taken; it’s only that he has to make sure nothing can slip by his heavily curated online image, minimal as it is. There’s no harm in Johnny taking a picture of him or even posting it. It gives nothing away.

But then he remembers that Johnny’s been chewing on him for like a half hour, and he can feel his hair sticking up.

“At least let me fix my hair,” he says, and Johnny’s gentle hand immediately starts carding through his hair, adjusting his bangs. “How do you want me?” Mark asks, peeking up at Johnny, feeling a rush of satisfaction when Johnny bites his lower lip.

“You are,” he sounds out, cupping the side of Mark’s face with his warm palm, “ridiculously fucking hot.”

“Do you need me to pose or anything?” Mark asks rather than addressing that. His cheeks are still on fire. Johnny’s picture sure is going to be interesting.

“Stand in front of those flowers, and relax your hands at your sides. Yeah, like that.” His dark amber eyes disappear behind the camera, his mouth firming into professional concentration. Mark catches himself glancing away, suddenly very aware of Johnny’s level of skill and his own lack of worthiness as a subject. “Look at me,” Johnny instructs, and Mark stares straight down the lens.

He takes a few shots, Mark shifting his expression or his posture slightly when prompted, but always looking at Johnny.

“Beautiful,” Johnny mutters, as if to himself, and Mark’s embarrassed pleasure is like a chill rather than something hot.

“Ten said you’d fall over for me in a suit,” Mark says.

“Ten was right,” Johnny says, lowering the camera and sweeping Mark from head to toe with a heavy-lidded gaze. “Thanks for this,” he says, abruptly. “I realized a while ago I didn’t have any pictures of you.”

Something about that seems awful, even if it’s innocuous. He spent weeks with Johnny and never once did they take a selfie together. That Mark hasn’t so much as ended up in the background of a picture of Ten practicing high kicks in the living room, laughing, seems like a crime. “Whoa, really? That’s not right.”

By mutual unspoken agreement, they’ve started wandering toward the path again. Toward reality outside of this pretty little spot of privacy, where Johnny’s aunties and cousins are about to get the gossip of a lifetime. Toward Mark’s looming graduation and the thousand messy, half-baked plans he has to organize, questions he has to ask. Even the idea of the car ride home makes Mark’s stomach drop, thinking of all the things he and Johnny still need to say to each other.

Mark’s hand brushes Johnny’s as they walk, and he entangles their fingers to stop Johnny. “Hey, can we take a picture for my lock screen?” he asks. “I don’t have any pictures of you either, and your Instagram only has arty selfies that hide how hot you are.”

Johnny laughs, squeezing Mark’s hand. “Sure, baby, we can do that.”

Mark definitely doesn’t shiver at the pet name.

Johnny slides his arm over Mark’s shoulders, inclining his head close to Mark’s, and Mark tries to remember what Hyuck told him about his angles. His phone is wheezing toward obsolescence, and it takes a moment for the camera app to open. Mark’s almost startled by what he sees there, when he flips to the front-facing.

Johnny looks like Johnny, eyes twinkling, smile a little sly, and Mark looks... He looks like himself; the suit and the lack of glasses don’t render him unrecognizable. It’s the expression on his face that does: a wild, unrestrained happiness. His mouth is definitely still swollen, too. Mark smiles and takes a picture, and then another, and more when Johnny starts laughing. He tucks the phone back in his trouser pocket so he can sling his arms around Johnny’s neck and kiss him, one last time before they’re not alone anymore.

“Go on,” Mark says, dropping his arms and giving Johnny, who blinks syrup-slow and savors Mark’s taste on his mouth, a nudge. “I’ve kept you from your sacred duties long enough. I’ll go find your mom.”

“You sure?” Johnny asks.

“Yeah, I’m sure I don’t want you to skimp on Grace’s wedding pictures, Johnny.”

“All right.” Johnny gives Mark a playfully mournful look, but he’s already walking backward. “You won’t have time for seconds,” Johnny promises, and then smirks at Mark when he flaps a hand at him. His long legs take him up the path in a hurry, though he glances back a few times as if Mark might have disappeared.

Mark takes his time with the path. Despite what he said to Johnny, he’s in no enormous hurry to reach the reception and put himself at the mercy of curious strangers, even if they are Johnny’s family. Despite that, though, he’s not actually afraid. He thinks he can do it, if he seats himself next to Johnny’s mom and uses her as a life raft.

He exits the path and passes the patio, where a few people are chatting. There’s a DJ checking his equipment out here, and a dance floor assembled and ready to go. When he reaches the estate house, Mark pauses to the side of the entrance and opens his WhatsApp messages with Hyuck. First he attaches the best of the photos he took of them, though it makes Mark feel weird to look directly at it, his stupid toothy grin and too-sharp cheekbones and Johnny’s matching smile, so wide it looks fake.

Mark doesn’t send the picture to Ten, though he considers it for a second. Some part of him is still touchy about the meddling, even if Ten ended up being dead on. He’ll text him later, or maybe Johnny will, too excited not to, in between shots of the cutlery.

Donghyuck sends him another flurry of emojis, some of them incredibly freaking rude. Mark catches himself laughing, rocking back on his heels. His dress shoes really are too tight, but Mark is feeling absolutely no pain right now. Sore feet who? Not Mark Lee, boyfriend.

Mark: They say jealousy is a disease Hyuckie
Mark: 😘
Donghyuck: I’m happy for you Morgus
Donghyuck: Slightly less happy for JOHNNY SUH
Mark: Yo thats my boyfriend u r maligning
Donghyuck: I am actually terrified of you in a relationship
Donghyuck: Is this how my life is now Mark
Mark: Hey.....what DID happen w Doyoung btw 👀👀
Donghyuck: Go bother JOHNNY SUH
Mark: 👍

Still grinning, he slips his phone into his newly discovered inner jacket pocket and finally makes his way inside.

All he has to do is find Johnny’s mom in the crush of maybe fifty people, no big, and then he can sit down and stress-eat cake until Johnny’s finished. Mark winds through some tables, scanning all of their occupants as fast as he can, and he’s starting to despair that maybe she’s on the patio or in the bathroom when he hears his name called in an ear-piercing shout in close quarters.

“Mark!”

It’s Grace, changed into a white cocktail dress and with her hair down, headed toward Mark with her giant of a husband by her side.

“You came,” she says, grabbing his hands and pumping them up and down before dropping them abruptly. “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad. Oh, you look so nice.” She gestures at her husband, who hasn’t looked at Mark once, just stared down at Grace in wonder. “This is Jihoon, my husband,” she says with obvious relish. “Jihoon, this is Mark. He’s—” And he sees it hit her the moment it falls out of her likely very tired and overwhelmed mouth. She has no idea what to call him, let alone what he might be comfortable with.

Mark sticks his hand out for a shake, now that Jihoon is actually looking at him, somewhat confused. “I’m Johnny’s boyfriend,” Mark says, and smiles.