Chapter Text
They don’t define their relationship explicitly although they do date exclusively.
Yukhei gets Mark a small gift on the one-month mark of their first date (courtesy of their stupid bet) and Mark returns the favour on the second month. They don’t really state what they are outright until the sixth month, when Yukhei lets it slip that they’re “dating” as he’s talking to Taeyong in the pantry.
Mark happens to be walking by at the same exact moment when he hears it, and he swears that his eyes threaten to bulge out of their sockets when Taeyong whips his head over sharply to look at him. “What?” Mark mutters, unwrapping the hot bar that he just took out of the microwave five seconds ago.
“Wait, you’re… dating?”
Mark shrugs, taking a bite out of the skewered sausage as he meets eyes with Yukhei. “What the hell did you say to him?” he asks.
“He asked if he could set me up on a blind date with his friend and I said, ‘Sorry, Mark and I are dating.’” Yukhei scratches at the back of his head in confusion. “Did I say something wrong?”
Taeyong opens and closes his mouth like a fish, visibly perplexed as he tries to wrap his head around the idea of Yukhei and Mark being together.
Well, Mark always thought that they made it very obvious that they’re in a relationship. Yukhei takes him to work more often than not now, and they still make stupid bets over work except whatever they put at stake in the recent wagers aren’t suitable for children’s ears.
They don’t bother talking about it with anyone in the precinct because it feels weird to interrupt work for this sort of announcement, and since they’re all detectives, secrets aren’t kept for long anyway. Especially not when they’re not even trying to keep anything under wraps. Maybe they’re not the most romantic of couples because they don’t give each other sickening nicknames (Yukhei does. He calls Mark a variation of “baby cakes” every chance he gets) or touch each other unnecessarily (They do. Mark especially loves touching one of Yukhei’s biceps whenever they’re talking face to face), but they’re not sneaking around or anything.
Everything has been out in the open from day one, ever since they returned from that failure of a planned date that they made their own. Ten wasn’t very happy about the change in plans, true to Mark’s prediction, but he didn’t react as explosively as Mark expected. He only asked for any pictures that they took that night, and Yukhei showed him photos of their dinner that he sneakily took when Mark wasn’t looking.
The days passed after just like that, but no one pointed out the growing thing between Yukhei and Mark.
Mark supposed that it was because the whole thing was too weird, so everyone just chose to ignore it.
It never passed his mind that they didn’t know.
“When?!” Taeyong yells, shoving the two of them aside as he skulks out into the office area where the rest of their colleagues only stare at him questioningly. “Does everyone know that Mark and Yukhei are a ‘thing’ now?”
Mark drags Yukhei by the pants pocket and they follow closely behind Taeyong. “Do you want some?” Mark offers his hot bar Yukhei’s way, but the latter only shakes his head with a smile.
“What kind of thing?” Yuta asks, tapping into his phone quickly without looking up.
“Partners?” Jaehyun suggests, his eyes flitting from Mark and Yukhei to Taeyong. “They’ve been working together for like, I don’t know… close to a year? I thought we all knew that by now.”
Taeyong shakes his head vehemently. “No! They’re together together.”
Mark sighs when Yukhei leans over to take a bite from his snack although he explicitly said that he didn’t want some earlier. He glares at Yukhei when he sees how much he ate. “Disgusting,” he mutters, poking Yukhei with a finger. “Get your own sausage.”
“That sounds dirty,” Taeil chirps. “‘Get your own sausage’... title of your sex tape.”
“Taeil,” Taeyong calls, hair in his hands. “They’re together in a way where they can record a sex tape together.”
“Wait, what? They are?”
“Yeah, they are.”
Mark realises belatedly that nobody in the station caught onto their relationship. Not one person. Are they all really detectives?
Everyone’s suddenly panicking right in front of them. Mark can hear Ten screaming shrilly as he runs into Johnny’s office, probably to tell Johnny the news. This isn’t anything new, he’s been touching Yukhei intimately for months now.
Yukhei even has his fingers grabbing onto Mark’s ass right now from behind.
Mark glares at him and he stops.
“It was worth a shot,” Yukhei giggles, his arm coming to wrap around Mark’s waist instead as he rests his fingers against Mark’s hip bone.
“When the hell did this become a thing?” Doyoung exasperatedly questions from his desk, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I thought it was more of a friends with benefits kind of thing.”
“Wait, you knew they were getting it on with each other and you didn’t say anything?” Ten shouts from inside Johnny’s room just as Johnny makes a loud noise in surprise.
Yuta clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, waving his phone in the air as he smiles at Yukhei. “Xuxi! Sicheng asked if he can tell Kunhang, Dejun, and Yangyang,” he says.
“I think the entire team in 116 already knows, though?” Yukhei replies.
Taeyong is calmer when he rests a hand on Mark’s shoulder, patting it lightly. He takes a deep breath before he speaks. “Does this mean that every time you told Yukhei to suck your dick, you meant it literally?” he asks, more serious than Mark has ever seen him.
Mark doesn’t know what to say to that. Yukhei and him make a lot of bets involving sexual favours should one of them win against the other, but not all of the bets come to fruition. He wonders if it’ll be excessive to be honest right now.
“Sometimes,” Yukhei helpfully supplies on Mark’s behalf. “Other times he—”
“Yukhei,” Mark hisses, prompting his boyfriend to shut up. “See if I ever touch your dick again if you don’t shut your mouth right this instant.”
Jaehyun gags loudly from the corner of the room he’s in. “Gross!”
Taeyong sighs loudly, and he sounds like a disappointed parent. “They grow up so fast,” he says, only loud enough for Mark to hear. “I can’t believe my son is all grown up now.”
“We have your blessings though, right, dad?” Yukhei interrupts.
“Of course…”
“Mark! Yukhei!” Johnny’s voice bellows from inside his room. “Can I speak to the both of you for a minute?”
Yukhei shoves Mark towards Johnny’s office immediately and they bustle past the chatter that’s erupted in the station because their stale, six-month-old relationship just became the day’s hot topic. “What is it, Cap?” Yukhei asks when they stand before Johnny.
Johnny is smiling at them widely as he holds both his arms out, huddling them into a hug. “What the hell,” he mutters as he continues tightening the hug. “I’m so proud of you.”
Mark exchanges a look of confusion with Yukhei, who only mirrors his expression. They quickly neutralise their faces when Johnny lets them go. “Um, thanks, Johnny,” Mark replies awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.
He didn’t expect his coworkers to be anything less than supportive, and he’s glad that this really is the case. Although he initially thought that they were already aware of his relationship with Yukhei.
“Yeah, thanks,” Yukhei echoes.
“Any time, my boys,” Johnny clasps his hands together happily. “Drinks on me tonight?”
Yukhei nods just as Mark shrugs.
“127!” Johnny shouts, and Ten repeats what he says when it doesn’t seem to catch everyone’s attention. “Drinks on me tonight to celebrate MarkHei!”
There are several whoops and cheers that sound across the room, indicating affirmatives.
Mark sees Yukhei pout in annoyance. “What?” he asks gently, noting that he has a last bite to his hot bar before it’s gone forever. He selflessly holds it up for Yukhei, offering the last bit of sustenance he has in the whole of the station. “You want this?”
Yukhei shakes his head. “Why is it MarkHei and not YukMark?” he whines, looking less like a six feet tall man and more like an overgrown child. “Why does your name get to go first?”
“Because it sounds better.”
Yukhei is pouting when Mark finishes off his sausage and leaves the room. “Oh, come on, YukMark isn’t that bad,” he says, tailing after Mark.
“I don’t make the rules.”
“It’s definitely YukMark!” Yukhei stops to hold Jaehyun’s arm when he says that. “Right? Doesn’t it sound better?”
Mark pointedly ignores Yukhei as he heads into the pantry in search for his next snack.
Kim Youngmin, the head of The Double Dragons, is still on the loose six months after their last operation concerning the gang that ended up with Yukhei getting shot in the leg. It feels like a lifetime ago since Mark last heard the name, and maybe it’s for the better, because there hasn’t been any activity from the gang cropping up in the city for the longest time.
The last time they received an anonymous tip from someone regarding The Double Dragons, it was said that Kim fled to Southeast Asia and is very likely to be in Laos. That’s no longer Precinct 127’s jurisdiction, so the case was referred to the relevant parties until further notice.
It’s been six months since Yukhei and Mark received a “big” case from Johnny, but they’ve been working together on their usual cases and although Mark still regards his partner as his competitor, somewhat, they get the work done twice as fast. Except Yukhei still hasn’t let go of his old ways and consistently urges Mark to tackle problems his way.
His way, being the “let’s go undercover” way.
Which brings Mark to their current situation where he has a bandanna tied over his haphazardly tousled hair coupled with an oversized hoodie and a pair of low-hanging jeans. It’s the typical getup for a college kid, and Mark hasn’t dressed like this in a long time. It feels even weirder that he has a gun strapped to his waist.
Yukhei is radiating with excitement from beside him. He has a white t-shirt on with an obscure band’s logo in the middle paired with his leather jacket. It’s probably his way of hiding the imprint of his gun under his shirt. The only upside to Yukhei dressing like a typical fuckboy at university is probably the fact that his black jeans are really tight.
Okay, maybe the whole outfit is kind of nice, but Mark’s not going to let Yukhei know right before they’re scheduled to infiltrate a college party.
Trust Yukhei to make a whole drug dealing crackdown so complicated. They could probably just seek out the dealer the old fashioned way, but no, Yukhei wants to relive his teen fantasy of crashing a frat party. He looks like he belongs in the frat anyway.
“The music is so loud,” Mark muses as they walk towards the house from which music is blaring deafeningly from large speakers. The song being played isn’t even a good one.
Yukhei isn’t bothered by the sheer volume of the music, however. He nudges Mark lightly with his elbow teasingly. “Is somebody getting old? Does partying just not do it for you anymore, old man?”
“I’m literally your age,” Mark sneers, narrowing his eyes at Yukhei. “I’m even months younger.”
“How many months? Be exact.”
Mark opens and closes his mouth as he tries to recall Yukhei’s birthday. Oh my God, he’s the worst boyfriend ever. He knows Yukhei’s birthday is at the end of the January… January 25th? 26th? When’s his own birthday, anyway? He can’t really do math. “Um…”
“It’s 6 months, you idiot,” Yukhei chides, looking pleased with himself. “It’s as long as our relationship, actually. Huh.”
“It’s going to be as long as the time our relationship lasts if you don’t stop talking.”
Yukhei gasps, offended. “I should be saying that to you. I didn’t miss the look on your face when you were trying to recall my birthday. Do you even know it?”
Mark coughs loudly as he trudges past Yukhei towards the house, hoping to avoid having to own up to his own mistake. It’s not his fault that he’s bad with dates. It took him a whole minute to recall his own birthday, but that might not be the best argument when he’s trying to save face.
Yukhei follows right behind him, his long legs carrying him further per step so he falls into pace with Mark within seconds. It still frightens Mark how he’ll never be able to run from Yukhei because he’s sure he’ll catch up to him in no time.
They get in by handing the cover charge to the bouncer at the door, and a little bit more, because their made-up names aren’t on the guest list. Tonight, Mark is Billy Moon (Taeil graciously offered up his Johnny-given English name to him for the night) while Yukhei never learns and is insisting to steal Jaehyun’s name, so he’s Jeffrey Jung, another Johnny-given English name.
Mark wonders if the bouncer let them in because he just couldn’t be bothered to deal with two older-looking frat boys with ridiculous English names looking far too eager to be let into the party.
“Who are we looking for?” Mark asks Yukhei when they’ve stepped into the house. He pushes past a girl with a plastic cup in her hands and she glares at him. “Sorry.”
People seem to make a path for Yukhei, though. Mark ignores the look on Yukhei’s face because he knows just what the latter is going to say. “What?” Yukhei questions, visibly confused. “I can’t hear you!”
Mark gives up for the time being, looking around to find the kitchen. He doubts they would’ve installed speakers in there, so it’ll probably be quieter. He spies the entrance to it in the corner of his eye and he immediately tugs Yukhei over with him, cutting his conversation with two college girls short.
“Hey! I was about to get info.”
Mark raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh, right, because those two girls didn’t start talking to you first,” he retorts, realising how petty he sounds about the whole thing. “I mean, obviously two sober-looking college girls will know where to get drugs.”
“Shhh!” Yukhei hisses, bundling Mark into his arms as he looks around the empty kitchen suspiciously. “People might hear you. You’re not usually this careless… Are you that jealous that I’m popular at college parties?”
“I’m not jealous,” Mark snaps, wriggling out of Yukhei’s grasp.
“Then why drag me all the way in here when I’m trying to find someone who will sell me blow?”
Mark scrunches up his facial features into a look of distaste. “Do you have to word it like that? ‘Blow’? Why can’t you just say ‘cocaine’ like everyone else?”
Yukhei rolls his eyes. “Do you not know what street lingo is? I’m looking for crack… snow… coke.”
“You ran out of names?”
Yukhei nods meekly. “But you get the point.”
Mark wants to laugh at Yukhei, but he knows he should keep his professionalism. Or whatever’s left of it, really, because they’ve been openly talking about looking for a dealer in a public space and anyone could’ve heard them. Oh dear. One word out the door about two undercover detectives looking to crack down on drug dealing in college parties and it’s going to be over.
This is a smaller case as compared to an organised crime gang, but the use of hard drugs on campus has gotten increasingly rampant as of late. There’s someone behind pushing mixtures of cocaine and heroin to young, idiotic college brats and it’s caused quite a bit of trouble in the recent weeks.
They’re going to need to catch one rat so they can determine the source of these deals and hopefully put a stop to it.
Maybe they already blew everything by talking so loudly about looking for cocaine in this place.
“Dudes,” Mark hears a third person’s voice coming from a corner.
Both Yukhei and Mark turn their heads to look in that direction so fast that they could’ve gotten whiplash. There’s a boy lying under the large dining table amidst the chairs. How did they not see this kid while they were talking?
Fuck, they’ve blown it.
“You’re like… looking for a good time, yeah?” The boy asks when they approach him slowly. His voice is slurred, and Mark can see that his pupils are dilated up close. He looks high. The pink highlights in his bleached hair don’t do much to help.
Mark feels his breath hitch and he pushes Yukhei to speak. Maybe they can use this to their advantage.
“Do you know someone?” Yukhei questions casually, kneeling next to him. “I’m looking for something… strong.”
The boy chuckles, too far gone to realise how suspicious Yukhei sounded when he put emphasis on the word “strong”. “Well… he told me I could only recommend trustworthy friends to him…”
“I’m Jeffrey,” Yukhei says immediately. “And that’s M— Bill. Moon Bill.”
“That’s such an ugly name.”
Mark has never felt such an intense urge to slap someone awake before this kid. How dare he say that Mark’s chosen name of the night is bad? Maybe it isn’t one of the best names out there, but Billy Moon is something Johnny himself gave Taeil, so if it’s good enough for Johnny, it’s good enough for Mark. Johnny is pretty much his idol after all.
Yukhei joins the boy in a series of giggles as they continue making fun of Mark’s name. It’s almost three minutes before Yukhei sees the look Mark is giving him that makes him speed up the conversation. “Now that we both know each other—” They do? Mark must’ve missed the boy’s name. “—why don’t you tell us where we can get the good stuff?”
Does Yukhei even know how lame he sounds right now? The stupid kid isn’t going to—
“He goes by the name of Astro, I think…” The boy replies. How high is he that he isn’t aware of the fact that Yukhei’s pressing him for information? “I last saw him behind the pool…”
“Behind the pool?”
“Yeah, like… behind the bushes or something.”
Mark nods. “Alright,” he speaks for the first time in awhile. He reaches over to pull Yukhei up by the arm. “We’re going to go look for Astro now. Let’s just keep this between us, okay?”
“Keep what between us?” The kid asks, blinking slowly up at the ceiling (or what he thinks is the ceiling but is the underside of the dining table) for a few seconds. “Oh! About the two of you dating? Yeah, of course, your secret’s safe with me… I know how frats are.”
Mark clears his throat, meeting eyes with Yukhei as they both struggle to keep their laughter in. “Yeah, just don’t even mention we were here. That’ll be great.”
The boy nods and Mark quickly pushes Yukhei out one of the sliding doors, slipping into a quieter corner of the backyard.
“That was funny,” Yukhei giggles, walking towards the large swimming pool when he sees it. “Did you see the look on his face when he thought he figured out what we wanted to keep a secret?”
“Of course I did,” Mark responds, slapping Yukhei across the arm lightly as they near the hedges.
There are a few college students lounging around the pool. A few of them have lit blunts held tightly between their fingers and they barely pay Yukhei and Mark any mind.
They see a group of four people settled behind the bushes on a picnic mat just as one of them passes a blunt to the other. They all look up in unison when the two detectives approach. “Who are you looking for?” One of the guys ask.
At first glance, the guy who spoke looks very clean-cut. He has large eyes to a classically handsome face, and he looks like one of the Korean-pop idols Mark often sees on TV nowadays. He must be smoking to get away from the pressures of looking like that.
“Have any of you seen a guy who goes by the name Astro?” Yukhei asks, trying to look blasé about the whole thing. Like it doesn’t matter if they tell him or not.
“No,” the handsome college kid immediately replies, taking a long drag from his rolled blunt. “Haven’t heard of him.”
Mark glances towards one of the girls lying on the mat who has her arm resting over her face. “Wait… Cha Eunwoo… don’t you go by Astro, you dick?” She nonchalantly offers. “Oh, wait. Fuck.”
Astro—or Eunwoo—narrows his eyes at her form as he kicks her with one of his feet.
“So you’re Astro?” Yukhei takes a seat next to him, ignoring the way the other two people in the circle look to him warily. “I’m just looking for something I think you can give me.”
Eunwoo laughs dryly. “Really?”
“Really.”
It’s a minute before Eunwoo says anything in return. He nudges his fallen friend with a foot. “Can the three of you assholes get out for a second?”
His friends groan as they get off the picnic mat, the two more-conscious ones supporting the weight of the girl who was previously lying down. “I’m getting 10%,” the other guy says to Eunwoo, clicking his tongue in disapproval when his friend retches in his arms.
Eunwoo doesn’t respond.
“So…” Mark goes to stand next to Eunwoo, unsure if he should sit down. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t. This way he’ll be able to catch Eunwoo if he tries to run.
“Who are you two anyway?” Eunwoo asks, looking Yukhei up and down before craning his neck upwards to study Mark. “And what do you want from me?”
“I heard that you’ve got the good stuff,” Yukhei starts, but he winces slightly probably in realisation that he sounds like an amateur. “Uh, I mean. I heard you’ve got… speedball.”
“Speedball?” Eunwoo laughs. “That’s some strong shit you’re asking for.”
Mark sighs, already tired of this back and forth. He kind of really wants to end this whole conversation and just tackle Eunwoo to the ground to search him. He looks like a college kid anyway, so he’ll probably tell them all he knows after he’s arrested to save a few months in jail.
“Do you have it?” Yukhei presses, his gaze suddenly becoming stronger and less friendly. Mark wants to remind him that he’s undercover because Yukhei’s evidently going into detective mode.
“I don’t play like that,” Eunwoo shakes his head. “It’s green or nothing.”
“But the kid in the kitchen—”
“Pinkish blonde hair?”
Yukhei nods.
“Wait, are you… cops?”
Mark wants to keel over and die. They are. Sort of. He’s not about to blow his own cover, though. This isn’t part of the plan. “Um, no?” He tries, making a face that he hopes expresses his false sense of disbelief. “Uh, gross.”
“Gross?”
“Law enforcement is gross.”
Yukhei shoots Mark a look before sighing. “Mark, can you… I don’t know, do what you have to do? I’m going back in.” Yukhei runs off immediately, leaving Mark and Eunwoo.
Mark guesses he can reveal his identity now, because if he didn’t read Yukhei wrongly, Yukhei wants him to search Eunwoo.
“I’m going to be real with you now,” Mark begins, cracking his knuckles. “I love law enforcement.”
Unsurprisingly, they don’t close the case that night. The kid in the kitchen made a fool both Yukhei and Mark because he was the one who was dealing the hard drugs. Mark knew it was too good to be true that he didn’t fully pick up what the two detectives were arguing about.
It kind of is their own faults, though, so Mark doesn’t dare to mention it when they’re driving back to Yukhei’s place after a fruitless night of going undercover.
“Okay, so we fucked up,” Mark tries to speak when they enter the penthouse, but Yukhei holds up a hand to stop him. “What? Are you mad at me?”
Well, Mark supposes that he did start the whole mess… He shouldn’t have pulled Yukhei into the kitchen because the college girls were talking to him. If he didn’t guide them into the kitchen, they wouldn’t have had that conversation that gave their identities away in front of their target.
He feels responsible for the failure of tonight’s operation, but should he apologise?
He’ll look weak if he does, though.
But he kind of likes Yukhei, so maybe it won’t be the worst thing to look weak in front of him.
“Huh?” Yukhei mumbles.
“I’m sorry I screwed up,” Mark says, softly, as he collapses onto the couch. He covers his eyes with his forearm because he doesn’t want to see Yukhei’s face as he’s humiliating himself. “I shouldn’t have pulled you away from those girls because I didn’t like them… otherwise we wouldn’t have failed tonight…”
“Huh,” Yukhei mutters once more, and Mark can hear his footsteps padding over to kneel beside him at the couch.
“Can you not look at me right now?”
“Wait a second,” Yukhei reaches over to pull Mark’s arm off his face. “Was Markie Mark jealous?” Yukhei’s using a tone that he uses to speak to babies as he mocks Mark.
Mark keeps his eyes shut. “I’m not saying I was, but I didn’t like them.”
Yukhei is silent for a moment. “Do you like me?” He asks after the pause.
Mark sits up, pursing his lips. “We’re literally dating,” he deadpans, moving his fingers to flick Yukhei behind the ear, but the latter grabs his wrist before he can. “Ouch.”
“Do you only ‘like’ me?”
“What are you talking about?”
Yukhei smiles at him a little hesitantly. “I mean… do you only ‘like’ like me or… is there… something more behind the ‘like’?”
Mark knows what Yukhei is hinting at. Yukhei’s talking about love. He’s asking if Mark loves him. On the same night they just ruined one of their shared operations. Wong Yukhei is trying to get Mark Lee to admit he loves him right after Mark just experienced one of his top three phobias.
And somehow, Mark isn’t too peeved about it. He feels his stomach churn in his abdomen and his throat tightens a bit as he considers the word ‘love’ but otherwise, he’s not that annoyed by it.
This is random, yes, but… huh. Does Yukhei love him?
“What about you?” Mark counters, already knowing his answer to Yukhei’s question at the back of his mind. He’s having trouble vocalising it, though. “Do you… like me, or…”
“Well, I little-more-than-like you.” There’s a playful smile on Yukhei’s lips as he stares into Mark’s eyes. He sticks his tongue out to wet his lips, and Mark instantly knows what he has to do to get out of this little hole he’s found himself in.
“Huh,” Mark mutters, wriggling his wrist out of Yukhei’s grasp so he can cup Yukhei’s face between his hands. “I guess I ‘little-more-than-like’ you too.”
When they kiss, the whole ordeal of their botched operation completely slips Mark’s mind. The only thing Mark is thinking about is how warm Yukhei’s hands feel against his waist, and how he’ll never really tire of kissing his dumb boyfriend.
It doesn’t help that Yukhei always knows what to say.
“I’m going to say it,” Yukhei utters against Mark’s lips before they break apart. He holds Mark by the shoulders so he can look him right in the eyes. “Mark, I love you.”
If Yukhei’s always this smart with words, Mark supposes that it’s only fair if he takes a leaf out of his book. “Okay…” he drawls, hooking one of his fingers into the collar of Yukhei’s t-shirt to pull him closer. Mark doesn’t really want to see the smug look on Yukhei’s face when he says this. “Xuxi… I love you too.”
Before Yukhei can smirk at Mark, Mark quickly closes his eyes and pulls him in for a kiss. It’s funny, though, because Mark can still feel Yukhei smiling against his lips as they kiss, but Yukhei’s pride in this matter is a lot less annoying.
When Mark says that they still make pointless bets with each other after having gotten into a relationship, he means it. Their punishments or rewards are all useless things like who has to drive the other to work the next morning, who’s going to get to choose what they’re having for dinner, and even getting to mark up a part on the other person’s body that the person always rejects. See? Pointless bets.
It happens so often that it’s become ingrained into their dynamic.
Mark kind of enjoys it because it gets him fired up about his job and he gets something from Yukhei in exchange if he wins, too. It’s definitely a win-win situation, and the only time he’s less than happy about the bets they make is when he’s the one on the losing end.
Mark’s success rate with the bets are 50-50. Their wins are split quite evenly down the middle, surprisingly, and it’s probably for the best because Mark still hasn’t gotten over his fear of failure and he doesn’t want Yukhei to be upset either. They’re both rather competitive especially when it comes to one another, so a ratio that’s imbalanced would definitely put a strain on their relationship.
Sometimes Mark grits his teeth and lets Yukhei win whenever he can see that Yukhei is desperate for the victory. He recalls some instances of Yukhei deliberately making a blunder of something just so Mark can come out on top, too.
Relationships are about give and take after all.
He’s glad that they have similar outlooks on their situation.
It’s comes to a point where they’ve run out of mundane requests to put on the line, though, and their bets start veering into uncharted territory.
Yukhei bets that if Mark can’t cuff their suspect by the end of the day, he’ll have to adopt a dog with him from the local animal shelter. Mark can’t quite figure out the logistics of dog-rearing (“Child-rearing!” Yukhei had shouted when Mark used the term “dog-rearing” because the dog is supposedly going to be their child) so he does his best to make sure that he’ll win.
Mark wins the bet, but at what cost?
Their bets only get weirder after that.
Mark doesn’t remember how they got to this point, but Johnny just assigned them a case to follow for the rest of the week and Yukhei’s already bouncing on his feet as he walks over to discuss the case with Mark over at his desk.
“I’m telling you that I know exactly where the target is,” Yukhei insists cockily as he watches Mark flip through the case file. “You don’t have to read that bullshit at all. I can tell you all you need to know based on my instinct and experience.”
“We’re both equally as experienced,” Mark points out. “Which doesn’t equal to much experience at all.”
Yukhei shrugs, shutting the folder and prying it out from between Mark’s fingers. “Trust me,” he enunciates each syllable with emphasis. “I know how we should go about this. Do you want to bet?”
Those five words. “Do you want to bet?” will always trigger something in the pit of Mark’s stomach. It’s a challenge, and Mark would look like a coward if he were to back down from it.
Yukhei looks all too smug about having caught onto one of Mark’s weaknesses.
“What do you want to bet?” Mark asks, raising an eyebrow. He knows by the look on Yukhei’s face that it’s something that Yukhei has been planning for awhile now. Probably something that will seriously make Mark suffer or wound his pride.
Why do they continuously hurt each other like this? Mark can’t really say.
Yukhei lets the anticipation linger in the air for a few more moments before he speaks. “If I win, you have to move in with me.”
Mark’s jaw falls open in surprise. “Me? Move in with you?”
Yukhei nods.
Mark doesn’t want to sound ungrateful, but Yukhei’s luxury penthouse is a little too much for Mark to just pack up and move into. What will he look like if he carries boxes on boxes over to Yukhei’s place without having to pay rent because Yukhei’s parents own the unit? He’d look like a jobless gold-digger and he’d be the talk of every gossip circle in the precinct and beyond.
Where will he even go in the penthouse if he has a row with Yukhei? (Which is quite often, he can’t just hide from Yukhei is his own home.)
This is a terrible idea, which is why Mark knows he has to counter it.
“If I win,” Mark starts, narrowing his eyes at Yukhei. “You have to move in with me.”
The concept of how they’re just casually throwing around the plan to move in together doesn’t even faze Mark. It’s the last thing on his mind to think about how they’re talking about sharing a living space this lightly. They’ve never discussed it prior to this impending bet, but all Mark can really think about is how he doesn’t want to be the one to lose.
Yukhei obviously feels the exact same way because his jaw tightens after listening to Mark’s retort.
“Why should I move into your dump?” Yukhei argues. “It’s like, barely 500 square feet. That’s tiny.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Rich Boy,” Mark mocks, punching Yukhei in the arm with a measured amount of force. “I’m sorry I don’t have a luxury penthouse with its own private pool. At least I pay my rent.”
Yukhei looks offended by Mark’s comeback. “Oh, it’s on,” he hisses, pinching Mark’s nose with his thumb and forefinger as he scrunches up his features. “Be prepared to move into my luxury penthouse suite at the end of the day, and don’t bother bringing your swim trunks because we’re going skinny dipping.”
Mark plasters a bewildered expression on his face. “Disgusting.”
They’ve actually been skinny dipping in Yukhei’s pool before and it wasn’t a terrible experience. But Mark digresses. He likes his own space. He’s not going to acknowledge that Yukhei’s living conditions are more pleasant.
Yukhei’s penthouse is nice, but it’s not Mark’s.
“How is this even a mildly exciting bet?” Doyoung interjects, hitting a bunch of rolled up papers against the palm of his hand as he stops walking to address the both of them. “You both win either way because you’ll still end up living together.”
Mark scoffs. “It’s different!” he insists. “The loser has to pack up their things and their pride, Doyoung. It’s humiliating.”
Yukhei nods in agreement. “Yeah, not to mention that moving places is a pain in the ass.”
“Especially if you’re packing up a whole penthouse suite, huh?” Mark teases, reaching out a hand to grab one of Yukhei’s biceps. He gives it a firm squeeze out of habit. “But don’t worry, I’ll help you pack when you have to move out of your place.”
“Why don’t you just find a whole new place together?” Sicheng, who Mark didn’t even know was here to begin with, says from his seat on top of Yuta’s desk. “Do I have to listen to you two argue over your dumb relationship perks every time I come around?”
“You should stop visiting so often, then,” Yukhei mumbles, but he shuts up when Sicheng glares at him.
“Well?”
Mark pales. He’s never considered the idea of both Yukhei and him moving out of their respective places to move into a new one. Along his previous thought process, this whole “moving in together” thing was never in their plans until today. It’s a whole new ball game that they’re stepping into.
It’s a challenge that he’s ready to tackle, but he can be the first one to admit that there’s not much planning, if there is any, involved in whatever they’re doing right now.
The self-satisfied smirk Yukhei has painted on his face is egging Mark on to destroy him, though.
“It doesn’t matter!” Mark says, shooing even Yukhei away from his desk as the exasperation hits him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Yukhei grins widely, one of his hands coming down to ruffle Mark’s hair. “Alright,” he says lowly, in the same tone that he knows has Mark weak in the knees whenever he uses it. “Be prepared to lose, my love.”
Mark blinks up at Yukhei a few times before smiling at him in a sickly sweet manner. “Oh, Xuxi, you have no idea.”
It’s probably for the best that they both lose that day, because Yukhei doesn’t get the felon with just his intellect and Mark doesn’t find anything of substance through the files.
They do, however, discuss moving in together for real this time.
“I’m going to call Daniel,” Mark announces when they’ve made the decision to move into a whole new place so they can both pitch in for rent (“Or the mortgage,” Yukhei had said, but Mark pretended he couldn’t hear him).
“Kang Daniel?” Yukhei hisses, looking scalded.
Mark can only anticipate what Yukhei is about to say next.
“Okay, let’s bet,” Yukhei says, moving swiftly to pull out a case file that he has stuffed into his backpack. He hands it to Mark as he collapses onto the sofa next to him. “This is a cold case from the 1990s. If we manage to crack this case by the end of the month, we’ll go to a different realtor.”
Mark sighs, rolling his eyes. Yukhei is such a big baby sometimes. They’ve talked about everything and it’s been established that Mark was never interested in Daniel, and that Daniel just felt more comfortable divulging information to Mark with no interest to pursue him romantically. And yet, Yukhei still harbours a mild dislike for the man.
This whole idea of working on a cold case together is exciting, though.
Mark’s inclined to take up Yukhei’s challenge.
“And if we don’t, Daniel gets to find us our home and he gets invited to the wedding,” Mark adds, swinging his legs over to rest them on Yukhei’s lap. He cages the taller man in by wrapping his fingers behind his neck as he presses their foreheads together.
Yukhei laughs, his eyes twinkling under the lighting of the living room. “The wedding?” he asks, and the words cause a blush to creep onto Mark’s cheeks.
Mark huffs. “It’s a joke,” he says, feeling Yukhei’s breath ghost over his skin as he breathes. “Bet?”
“Bet,” Yukhei echoes as he presses their lips together.