Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.

When Jinyoung thinks about it now, lying in his bed and counting seconds left to the departure of a plane he’s not on, a new version of events starts to form in his mind; a calm, cold assessment of what really happened over the years, without any unnecessary emotions twisting his insides like a heartburn, without blaming everyone else for it, like he’s been conveniently doing for years.

He finally is able to draw a conclusion that everything started with Youngjae, however, it wasn’t because of him. Sounds complicated? But it really isn’t. If only he noticed the signs earlier, maybe they would’ve been able to prevent this all from happening; maybe everything would be different now; maybe he would be in that damn plane right now.

Maybe.

“Hyung, I’m moving out.” Youngjae said one day, casually leaning over to steal a piece of apple Jinyoung was slicing for his salad. The opportunity of eating something else, not a convenience store ramen and sandwiches that usually tasted like paper was always appealing, but that moment it left only bitterness in his mouth.

It demanded some quick reaction of Jinyoung’s to move his fingers away when the knife slid to a wrong direction, almost cutting his fingers. The sound of a knife hitting a chopping board resonated across the kitchen, followed by his confused, but silent voice, as if they were discussing something forbidden. “I didn’t know we’re changing rooms again.”  

“We’re not.” Youngjae was obviously avoiding his stare, the piece of apple clutched in his palm like it could save him from explaining things he already regretted bringing up. “I’m— it’s me who’s moving out.”

At first, Jinyoung was absolutely sure that this guy was just messing with him – borderline cruel pranks wasn’t a new thing to them anyway.

Then it was Jaebum’s turn to be surprised, thinking that both of them were playing around, when he got Jinyoung’s text while working on some new songs in the studio. The news eventually reached Mark, Yugyeom and Bambam – they didn’t know what to say. Jackson didn’t say anything either, because he didn’t even know what was going on – he was in China, filming yet another variety show.

“What did you do this time?” That was the first thing Mark got asked after they finally gathered in their living room to discuss the situation. It wasn’t anything personal, just that they all knew he and Youngjae had fought more than once, bits of these stories known even to fans, the infamous breaking the air conditioner in the car one, for example, so it was only natural that the group’s eyes shifted to Youngjae’s roommate.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not because of him. It’s not about the group at all.” Youngjae quickly said, stare fixed on the floor because it was way more convenient than to face his friends. He offered some half-assed fairytale about his brother coming to live in Seoul; the story had more holes in it than Jinyoung’s dance practice shoes, and that was a strong statement on its own, but it wasn’t like they could do anything about it.

A few weeks passed, Youngjae took all of his belongings and Coco, and bid a goodbye to them. Mark expected to feel lonely in their empty room, but for some reason he felt numb instead, and maybe a little hurt when Jackson one afternoon casually asked him if Youngjae really wasn’t lying about Mark having nothing to do with this sudden urge to move out.

“Do you also believe that it happened because of me?” Mark asked Jinyoung one night, when they were just back home after schedules, brushing their teeth in the bathroom.

Jinyoung didn’t respond, spitting the toothpaste out and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; he only softly patted Mark’s shoulder, even though the latter wasn’t sure what did that mean, especially coming from a guy he was in some sort of an on and off relationship with for almost three years.

It was forgotten quite soon though, Mark wasn’t the one to hold grudges for a long time, they moved to a new dorm soon anyway and it felt like another dream coming true – a separate room for each of them, even if Yugyeom and Bambam refused to live separately.

But turns out, a few new things didn’t fix old problems.

(“I’m sleeping at my friend’s tonight.” Ironically enough, it was none other than Youngjae that time, tired of the gloomy atmosphere of the dorm. Jaebum was still loudly slamming all the possible doors as if them falling off their place would prove a point of some sorts, Jackson was still sitting on the living room’s couch with arms crossed on his chest and refusing to even breathe the same air with the leader. Mark only looked at Youngjae’s backpack, hanging on his shoulder, but didn’t say anything. “If they don’t speak with each other for a month over a god damn chicken wing, imagine what we’ll see later.”

Youngjae had this weird trait – he was always fucking right.)

ii.

Looking back it, Mark would draw a conclusion that their twenties were cruel. He would say it was a time they whiled away, completely unaware of the tide that could’ve suddenly pulled them out beyond the shallows into the sea of hardships and even death.

But if there was one thing that was even crueler than their twenties, in his opinion, that was undoubtedly the entertainment industry.

It always had clear requirements, seemingly easy for any dummy to follow – one, the most basic and unquestionable out of them all, was to smile.

Smile and remember to breathe properly, because otherwise you’re going to fuck up your singing. Eventually fucked it up? Play it off as a joke or pray to god that someone would cover up your untalented ass. Smile again, don’t throw up. Want to puke? You can’t – your stomach is empty, the last time you ate was a day and a half ago, since you’re a fat pig that can’t dress in size 90 and you don’t have a sixpack to back up a larger figure. You can’t starve completely though – you still have to have the energy to dance and not miss a step. Going to faint, because it’s just too much? Too bad, wait till the song is over and you’re backstage, or better yet, just don’t fucking faint.

And never, ever forget to smile.

(Jackson knew the rules quite well, lying on the floor in the living room of their old dorm, because that was where he landed after having another fainting spell due to his anemia - he was still smiling while Mark was figuring out how to lift him up and put back on the couch. Damn, he knew the rules so well he even cracked a joke after throwing up in front of a fan in a fanmeeting; he had a chat with the paramedics in Japanese after the ambulance took him away after their showcase.

“I saw you and Jinyoung today.” That was the only thing that Jackson said when Mark’s miscalculated motions sent another wave of nausea up his throat. The latter didn’t reply, trying to ignore the words, but Jackson only laughed at this failed attempt, using Mark’s arm as a leverage to try and stand up.

Mark didn’t know why was his teammate laughing, maybe it was because of the stupidity of Mark’s, thinking that he and Jinyoung could sneak out of a photoshoot unnoticed, or maybe it was the dizziness that played tricks with Jackson’s head, leaving him dozing off again.

The point was, even then he was still heroically smiling - out of breath, with cold sweat on his forehead, but the smile was there, he was smiling.

Like a true idol.)

iii.

You could say Jinyoung always was a jealous person. Not in a way he would drown in that nasty feeling of thinking that life was unfair to him because someone had better things or more of them, quite the opposite – he was jealous, but in a good way, that kind of jealousy pushed him to work harder, to strive for more; to practice singing a bit more, to spend more time in a dance studio.

But sometimes he felt jealous that others knew their exact place in this training system, whereas he was tossed from one place to another all the time, and it made him a little bit uneasy – at that time, Jaebum knew for sure that he can dance and sing; Yugyeom knew how to sing, dance and rap on top of it; and Jinyoung felt like he knew none of that.

That hot and stuffy evening in August 2010, Mark Tuan knew a total of two words in Korean.

He wasn’t sure what to expect when his Los Angeles-Incheon flight landed into a humid hell Seoul always turned into during summers. He didn’t have any prior expectations nor hopes, it was more of an adventure to him; maybe to see whether he can survive in a foreign and unfamiliar culture without his family and friends, to see if they really could mold a perfect superstar out of him, which was deemed impossible by his friends.

Mark Tuan, your typical LA fuckboy in the making, with a layer of sweat-proof makeup, dressed in flashy tight clothes and performing dance routines synchronized with god knows how many other guys? Yeah, right.

Mark wasn’t really that worried to be honest, his Korean classes were supposed to start the next day after his arrival and if anything, he had a number of this guy, what was his name again, Peniel, who was also from the States, training under JYP before switching agencies. They got introduced over a Skype call, just for Mark to get as much information about trainee life as possible before permanently moving to a country across the ocean. Besides, there was this guy in the dorms who was good at English too, at least the woman who picked him up at the airport said so.

However, he had to tilt his head in confusion when after dropping his two huge suitcases in a corridor of his new home, because the guy who greeted him said, “Hi, I’m JYP.” It was the moment when Mark finally got a faint idea that this whole thing won’t go as smoothly as he imagined.

Because of the surprise evident in the foreigner’s eyes, Jinyoung got slightly embarrassed about the joke and the situation he got both of them in. He quickly got himself together, lowering his head and mumbling, “Park Jinyoung. And you’re probably Mark, they told you’ll be coming today.”

Mark’s facial expression didn’t change, face and brain completely frozen at the amount of Korean thrown at his face a few seconds ago. He recalled the name though, or at least he hoped it was an actual name hidden between all those weird words; the familiarity of it tickled Mark’s tongue, as Jinyoung was the guy the woman was talking about, but he was too shy to repeat it, afraid that he’ll mess up the unfamiliar sounds and insult the guy.

Jinyoung, being as observant as he is, soon realized that something wasn’t going smoothly at all, so he lifted his head and told, slowly, as if trying to test something out, “They said you speak Korean.”

None of the words the guy in front of him said were known to Mark, they weren’t even familiar sounding, so he mustered up all of his courage to say, “They said you speak English.”

Jinyoung’s reaction to English was slightly better than Mark’s to Korean – he at least got an idea of what the new trainee was trying to say, even if he wasn’t one hundred percent sure if he understood it right. And at the same time, he was a bit angry at himself, because he couldn’t find words to explain this misunderstanding, shy and not trusting his language skills mumbling only, “English, no.”

No meant no and Mark sighed for the very first time, suddenly getting a reality check, his brain finally realizing that games were over and that it was very stupid not to think things through – now he was all alone in a foreign country with a language he couldn’t understand yet, away from his family, and not even having an opportunity to catch the nearest flight home and be there in less than fifteen hours. Now he was stuck with a bunch of guys who already had their rules and traditions. To say that he started to feel isolated was an understatement.

When Jaebum came back from a practice, he didn’t know how to act around a foreigner, so he just stood in Mark’s room, awkwardly clearing his throat and rubbing the nape of his neck out of uneasiness, unsure how to say his greetings. He then stuttered a quick hi in English and Mark appreciated it, even if Jaebum ran away from the room in the speed of light, for some reason embarrassed. Some other residents of the dorm only nodded to him, some didn’t say a word, drained by their training schedules.

All Mark wanted that moment was to sleep the remaining evening and the rest of the night away, because he survived a thirteen hour flight and his body still couldn’t really understand the time difference; the heat wasn’t in his favor either, especially when the air conditioner of his room turned out to be broken (that, or he just didn’t understand how to navigate with all these Korean symbols written on the buttons of it). But there were other plans, plans taking a form of Park Jinyoung, who was shyly knocking and peeking his head into Mark’s room.

The latter turned around in his bed to see who it was – it could’ve been yet another guy who came to somehow greet him, it could’ve been his roommate who had yet to come home from god knows where. But it was only Jinyoung, incredibly bold at that time, which was something that will change during the years and Mark will be a witness of it, with a smile that made his eye corners wrinkle in a weird way.

Jinyoung hesitated for a while, unsure of what on earth he was doing, but in the end, he and Jaebum were one of the trainees that lived here the longest; and while Jaebum was too tired to think about it, saying that it’s probably a better idea to let Mark catch up on sleep, Jinyoung felt some sort of responsibility to make him feel welcomed. So he took a deep breath and spoke, letting the word escape into the room slowly, so that Mark would understand. “Ice cream?”

It wasn’t exactly English, at least it didn’t sound fully English to Mark, as he was bound to discover the joys of Konglish only later; however, it still was strangely familiar to him, allowing him to make some links in his mind to understand the trainee, who was standing there completely frozen, nervously waiting for an answer.

“Ice cream.” Mark repeated, a small grateful smile lighting up his face in response. “Okay.”

And off they went, probably a quite weird-looking duo as they didn’t talk while heading to a convenience store. Jinyoung put his hand on Mark’s back and forced him into a small bow to a cashier as soon as they entered the shop, and at first Mark didn’t understand why did he do that – he faintly remembered reading about it, he really did read about bowing, but it seemed like the information was hidden somewhere inside his tired mind. After seeing more people bowing to each other, though, he finally decided that it must be a greeting.

He stood there looking at a container full of ice cream while Jinyoung was pondering on which flavor to choose, and Mark was getting anxious. He didn’t know what to pick, he couldn’t understand anything that was written on packagings, even the prices seemed weird, because if he saw a price tag saying 2,000 for a cone of ice cream somewhere in Walmart, he would’ve laughed his ass off; but at the same he felt wary of Jinyoung, afraid that he’ll laugh at his culture shock and confusion.  

However, the newly found friend was nothing like that, observing the newcomer with a corner of his eye, and smiling while picking two packs of cookies and cream flavored ice cream. Mark will deem it as his favorite flavor a few years later and it will always have Jinyoung wondering whether it was because of that day.

Mark closed his eyes, trying to gather all his courage to come up to the cashier and pay for his ice cream – it didn’t matter that no Korean skills were needed for that, asides maybe a thank you and he learned that one in the plane, but it still felt incredibly frightening. Luckily, Jinyoung saved him once again, flashing one of those understanding smiles, and paid for both of them.

They were supposed to take their things and return to the dorm, at least Mark thought so, not really thinking about this whole gesture turning into something more than a friendly trip to a store so that he wouldn’t boil alive in his room, however, Jinyoung was full of surprises – even though Mark wasn’t sure, he had an idea that the path they were taking at the moment wasn’t leading back to the dorm.

Instead of the dorm, Jinyoung took him to see the river nearby – and that moment it was one of the most stunning landscapes Mark had ever seen in his entire life, the water of Han River being tinted black due to the approaching night, slightly sparkling from the moonlight above it; skyscrapers on the other side of river shining clearly and brightly; a bridge above their heads, the rails of 7th line of subway crossing it and the train deafening Mark before continuing its journey.

Jinyoung only smiled at Mark’s awe while eating his melting ice cream – he was living in Seoul for more than a year already and everything seemed dull and boring to him by now. The water was actually polluted as heck and sometimes it would stink, the bridge for subway was a bit too old for him to feel safe under it, so he soon dragged Mark away, to a park nearby, and plopped into the nearest swings.

They still didn’t talk in any language, asides from Jinyoung putting all his knowledge and efforts to stammer some words, asking how old Mark was.

“Seventeen. Eighteen next month.” Mark said, but Jinyoung just blinked at that, once again mad at himself that he couldn’t understand the very ending of the sentence. But there was sand below their feet, free to use, and Mark took the opportunity.

Jinyoung looked at the number 17, which Mark etched into the sand thanking all the gods out there that there was some streetlamps to light up the area, then at 18 and 09/04 written next to it. Then he nodded, taking out his phone and quickly pressing the buttons, typing something into his calendar. A reminder to wish Mark a happy eighteenth birthday on September 4th.

“You?” Mark asked, returning to his seat in the swings.

Jinyoung erased Mark’s writings with a few swipes of his palm. He could’ve just typed it into a message box on his phone instead of getting his hand dirty, but he followed Mark for some reason, and 17 was changed into 16, 18 and 09/04 were turned into 17 and 09/22. Mark didn’t need a reminder – he was always kind of good at numbers, so remembering Jinyoung’s seventeenth birthday was supposed to be an easy task for him.

They came back to their rooms only in the middle of the night and continued to visit the park even when they still couldn’t communicate with each other; seasons changed and everything around slowly changed too, including themselves – Bambam and Jackson joined them in the dorm, Mark’s Korean vocabulary was growing and so was Jinyoung’s English; but they still preferred to stay silent, too used to communicate without any words.

Sometimes, sitting in the same swings, Jinyoung would cry, because at times things were too much to handle – the pressure, competitions, schedules, everything, and Mark wouldn’t know any words to console him, because his Korean was still lacking so much; so he would let the younger to put his head on his shoulder and sob all his frustrations out.

Sometimes it was Mark who was crying, feeling homesick or just simply tired of adjusting to this whole new world that was in front of him, when it felt like didn’t have a free minute to even breathe. In the beginning, Jinyoung wasn’t capable of saying anything either, so he would just let Mark rest his head in the crook of his neck – he didn’t really know where the habit of hugging people exactly like that came from, but it didn’t matter as long as it helped – and Mark would patch himself up on his own.

Once, two months into training when Mark was crying in the park after their vocal coach told him to get out if he can’t hold a decent note for more than two seconds, Jinyoung messed up the syllables and instead of don’t cry said don’t smile out of desperation to calm him down, what made Mark lift his teary eyes in confusion. When he finally understood what happened, he started laughing, genuinely amused, even though Jinyoung was burning red in embarrassment.

Once, a few more months later, Jinyoung was crying because it was too much for him, he was ready to quit the same second, sick of the trainee life. Mark didn’t say anything – he just hugged Jinyoung really tight, as if determined to not let him move.

That was the basis of their relationship, all the small things that made them grow both separately as individuals and together as a team – Jinyoung operated on trials and errors to find his way to Mark, and the latter preferred to keep things quiet, letting his actions speak better than he would in any language.

They lived like that for a while, until something unpredicted happened; something that pierced right through Mark’s heart and left it with a first open wound. That was the time when he felt actual pain for the first time during his entire stay in Korea, pain that had nothing to do with their hellish training routines.  

“It’s a secret.” Jinyoung told, avoiding Mark’s stare, when the elder was leaning against the door of his room.

It was late 2011 and Mark was already decent at conversational Korean, but even then he didn’t understand why Jinyoung deemed it so difficult to answer the question why he and Jaebum were packing their suitcases. Later in the evening, Jackson, who had been there only for three months, said that he heard rumors about those two having their own drama and debut early next year.

In early January of 2012, Mark couldn’t decide what was more ridiculous - Jinyoung hiding such a thing as debut from him, or the company telling him to prepare for a cameo as a dancer in their drama.

On May 24th, seeing his name in the “Thanks to” section of JJ Project’s album, he couldn’t decide whether he was surprised that Jinyoung didn’t say a word about him or that Jaebum addressed him as his best friend. He caught himself thinking that maybe it was a printing mistake, that maybe Jaebum’s message was actually Jinyoung’s and vice versa, but after a few seconds he realized how dumb this idea was.

One thing he knew for sure though – he hated secrets.

(“It’s a secret.” Jaebum softly laughed into a microphone a few years later, sounding apologetic when a fan during some fansign asked if his back still hurts.

It was a bad day for Mark, he was tired and with a fever, so all he wanted to do was snort and mock the leader’s answer, because yeah, of course it was a secret – no one allowed them to voice out that the only reason Jaebum was able to sit on a chair without crying from pain was four shots of the strongest over-the-counter painkillers their manager could fetch on the way to the venue.

But Jaebum kept smiling, smile wide albeit fake, and Mark realized that there was certain way JJ Project told lies.

It was 2016 and Mark still hated secrets.)

iv.

Jaebum and Jinyoung returned to the dorm in 2013, but everything was completely different from what they remembered leaving.

By that time, they were sunbaes to everyone in the dorm, that title creating such a vast distance between them and everyone they interacted with; there were some new people, Mark was rooming up with Jackson now, Yugyeom shared his room with Bambam.

There was something different about Jaebum and Jinyoung themselves as well, Mark thought, seeing the two idols choosing to live in separate rooms with new people instead of sticking together. It didn’t take long to notice that they weren’t talking to each other at all on top of that – Jaebum talked with a cat he brought to the dorm much more often.

Even though their official activities as a group were done, JJ Project still had some gigs here and there – some school festivals, sometimes Mark would see Jinyoung waking up at the crack of dawn and waiting for Jaebum to get out of the bed, heading to shoot some cameos in dramas; however, it was obvious that they were thrown back into the pit of uncertainness all the trainees lived in. Something just didn’t work out for them – the song, the concept, maybe the timing wasn’t right, perhaps they were too young. And it was okay, they all still had plenty of time.

Mark didn’t talk with Jinyoung much either, asides those bland good mornings and some encouragements before evaluations, a few is everything okay and did you eat today, and even those were more out of politeness than a real urge to talk. And maybe it was possible to forgive Mark all that, because he was like that with almost everyone, feeling like he shouldn’t trust people that much anymore because apparently they came and went away; but Jinyoung always took that personally, feeling slightly suffocated by all the tension around them.

“Hey.” He half-whispered one day. It was a cold one, with snow unexpectedly falling from the sky a good two months too early and they all were lazing around in their rooms or in the living room of the dorm because none of them had any schedules.

Yugyeom was shamelessly beating Jaebum’s ass in some video game and Jackson was busy begging Bambam to make pad thai; Brian was sleeping in his room and Sungjin was gone somewhere with Wonpil, like they used to do. There was also another new guy in the living room, Choi Youngjae, who came a few months earlier, getting a shock of Bambam greeting him only with a towel wrapped around his hips. (Rumors has it that he might’ve been completely naked, but both he and Youngjae refused to confirm the details.)

At first, Mark didn’t react to the whisper at all, he didn’t even turn his head from his phone playing some game. It was mostly because he didn’t realize that he was the one being addressed, he didn’t even know Jinyoung was in the living room, but the latter was there, next to him on the couch, a book in his hands and eyes clearly looking at Mark.

“Yeah?” Mark finally opened his mouth after a moment of hesitation. They were still awkward around each other no matter how much time passed, but they had to fix it somehow – the year neared its end and some of them were finally promised a chance to debut as a group. The results of evaluations were supposed to come out next week and the teamwork had to be flawless.

“Want to go get some ice cream?” It was obvious that Jinyoung was afraid to say it, those words holding so many memories that he himself fucked up by accident. He just didn’t want Mark to look at him differently after he and Jaebum were set to debut; he was just afraid of seeing Mark getting jealous.

Mark’s answer came after a while, and it was only an incredulous, “It’s snowing outside.”

“I know.”

Mark knew that it wasn’t about ice cream, most probably Jinyoung meant something completely different, but something inside his head told him to stop holding grudges and put an end to this story after a bit less than two years; so he wordlessly stood up and started searching for his jacket. Jinyoung followed, and step by step they returned to the park they kept visiting each on their own throughout the year.

Their feet left traces in the snow and later it will become some nice and aesthetic Instagram and Twitter updates, Jinyoung’s post maybe a little bit more well-known at the time, since he was still technically an idol with a decent social media following.

They didn’t speak at all on their way there, and for a second Mark wished they could return to 2010, when the wish to talk was drowned only by the language barrier, not by a massive amount of secrets and unanswered questions. Back then, they had this assuring certainty that they didn’t understand each other only because of their lacking vocabularies and that was why it didn’t bother them that much; but now Mark was nearing fluency in Korean and Jinyoung was pretty good at English as well, even if he chose not to it show it off.

There was so much they both would’ve liked to say to each other that moment, snowflakes landing on their hair and skin shivering even under their padded jackets, but their mouths didn’t open until, surprisingly, Mark became the one to break the ice. 

“Is it hard?”

“What?” Jinyoung asked, a bit dumbfounded by the unexpected question.

“Being an idol.”

It was the question that was slowly eating brains of their entire dorm away, now that the possibility of debuting was so near. Jinyoung and Jaebum were unsure how to feel about the news, afraid of going through the same shit twice, but at the same time it was an opportunity they were ready to die for. Yugyeom was worried, because he had a leg injury that he stupidly tried to hide - it resulted in almost breaking his hip during a dance class and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to live his life like that. Jackson was in doubts if this path was his, too, these days talking about quitting more often than not. Youngjae was a walking ball of anxiety because of his dance skills; only Bambam seemed to laugh and joke around as per usual. However, Mark still managed to notice that one day the Thai trainee approached Jaebum after lunch, telling him something to what the latter just raised his eyebrows, took his hoodie and dragged Bambam for a walk, returning only late at night.

They all were scared, even if they tried to conceal it somehow.

Jinyoung had to think a bit before answering, gaze a bit sad and tired. “Depends on how you look at it.” He made a brief pause again, trying to come up with a way to explain his thoughts. “In a way, it’s a tad bit more certain than being a trainee. You know that that’s it, you debuted, your name is out there and… And that you won’t need to compete with your friends to get a chance to stand on stage.” He looked at Mark after saying that, but the elder’s stare was fixed on the snow. “But then again, you still never feel safe. Your song might flop, you might get into a ridiculous scandal and be exiled from the industry, your trainee friends might hate you, and you feel very alone. In the end, you might even have to return to where you started from. It’s hard being an idol, but then again, being a trainee is just as hard.”

Jinyoung’s words turned into a ramble and Mark lost the ability to keep up with his speech, everything turning into one incoherent mess of words, spiced up with some occasionally slipping Busan accent; it happened when Jinyoung was angry or emotional, and that was exactly the case now.

“Who do you think will make it?” Mark didn’t know why he kept insisting on talking about training related questions instead of catching up, because damn he missed talked with Jinyoung so much, but he also didn’t expect the younger to immediately say his name. “Why?”

“They need someone to speak English.” The answer lingered in the air and Mark felt his insides twisting. It was one of his biggest fears, to be debuting only because he could draw some international fans in. Jinyoung bit his tongue until he felt that metallic warmth spreading in his mouth; he didn’t want to be so blunt, but that was the truth, he already had an idea of the universal formula of a perfect group.

An English speaker, non-native preferably, for the media to be fed a story about how they overcame all the struggles and taught it to themselves or were born geniuses. If there’s a native – that’s alright, in eight out of ten cases they all are going to be rappers anyway; then you need a cold and blunt person to create that mysterious aura, a jokester for varieties; and incredibly good dancer also might go into the equation followed by a decent main vocalist. Double or triple some roles depending on how many members you want to throw in together and that’s it, a wonderful all-rounded group.

“Sorry.” Jinyoung mumbled and his words were almost blown away by the cold wind. He never said he didn’t mean it though, at least not until a few years later, and Mark always felt like that evening he brought to the dorm yet another scar in his heart.

However, they finally started talking again and it even seemed like they were back to the point they were at before JJ Project debuted. They stayed outside for quite a while, laughing and hitting each other with snowballs, and it was the evening when Mark had his first kiss, with a guy at least.

It was a first for Jinyoung too, and it was clumsy and messy, anxious and quick, but it was okay – they were still learning things. About themselves and each other, about the world that was surrounding them.

A week later the list of people debuting was announced like it was scheduled. Jaebum, Jinyoung and Yugyeom made their way into it with no problems, to no one’s surprise. Jackson, Mark and Bambam were also set to debut with them, what kind of surprised some people. Youngjae was added too, the news marking his seventh month in the company.

They bid their farewells to Brian, Wonpil and others; Mark almost got jealous about the long hug Jinyoung have to Wonpil, but didn’t say anything – didn’t even have the right, because their relationship still wasn’t determined by any words.

They moved into a new dorm two days later, got their haircuts a day after that and some of them were seriously thinking about quitting this instant – Bambam had a blond blot in the middle of his head, Jaebum’s hair was colored the exact shade of grey like the tiles of the pavement leading to the company building, they voted Jinyoung’s new stage name to be Spock. (Little did they know what’s about to happen to their hair approximately less than a year later.)

They filmed their music video and debuted another three weeks later; and something was different from the last time he stood on the stage, Jinyoung thought to himself in the dressing room, when his knees were still shaking after their first showcase. He still couldn’t realize that this something was Mark’s calming presence.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.” Jaebum’s weak voice reached him as the leader was pacing back and forth blinking rapidly to suppress his tears. He was a leader, he couldn’t cry – that was one of his many ridiculous rules he condemned himself to obey after realizing that he will need to lead a group.

(“Don’t cry.” Mark told Yugyeom two years later when it was the youngest’s birthday, but instead of holding a regular fansign they were trying to fit a table next to trashcans in some corridor, because someone couldn’t handle their schedules properly.

Some fans were angry, some of them were complaining, rumors and gossip were spreading online like a wildfire, but all seven of them couldn’t do anything else but bow as deep as their hurting bodies allowed, apologize and hope that fans would understand.)

v.

Mark found the answer to his question approximately two weeks after their debut. Yes, being an idol is hard, it’s so damn hard he sometimes cried into his pillow, thinking why the hell he even was there to begin with. Jackson always pretended he didn’t hear all the muffled cries – not because he didn’t care, quite the opposite, just over the years he came to realize that Mark never let others to console him, taking the role of the oldest a bit too seriously sometimes.

Being an idol was so hard for Mark, that most of his free time (that they didn’t have much of) he always spent sleeping in his room. He never felt hungry or thirsty, he was exhausted to the point where he didn’t feel anything for a while, his body trying to get somehow accustomed to sleepless nights and muscles always sore due to unending dancing. Everyone else felt more or less the same, their dorm reminded a bit of a zombie lair with everyone sleeping wherever they would find a spot, not bothering to even return to their rooms.

Time was passing though, seasons were changing, as well as their hairstyles and clothes, Nora was unceremoniously gone from their dorm because of Youngjae’s allergies, Coco will join them about a year later. Their songs changed, the way they were promoting did too, and now they were in a filming site, shooting a drama.

Mark felt a little bit weird playing some sort of a guardian angel, Jaebum was internally shrieking every time he had to act cute or in love, others complained about certain things too, but overall, most of them looked at it as some kind of an adventure, a new challenge.

Jinyoung though…. Jinyoung was glowing.

Despite the cringe-worthy plot and all the awkwardness, it seemed like he, somewhere deep in his heart, found a confirmation that he was cut out for acting; all the roles fit him like a second skin no matter what they were – a school boy dancer, a convenience store part-timer or a guardian angel that turned evil after his love was unrequited.

It all somehow fit him and Mark was never able to figure out whether it was because Jinyoung had this incredible ability and talent to take his own personal experiences and somewhat align it with his characters’ ones; or maybe there was just a lot of different people living inside of the guy. And it wasn’t far from the truth – they all were hiding a lot of people inside them.

Fierce Jaebum on stage and Jaebum eating two days old chicken in their dorm. Jackson flashing his abs during a show and Jackson biting his lips till they would start bleeding so his mother wouldn’t hear him choking up whenever she called. Youngjae goofing around in public and Youngjae crying in a dance studio because in his opinion, his dancing still wasn’t good enough. Jinyoung, living the moment to its fullest on cameras and Jinyoung with an empty tired stare looking at the ceiling of his small room in a closet.

When time momentarily stopped for both the latter and Mark, it was nearing 2015, almost a year after their debut. It was late, but the cameras were still rolling because it seemed like none of them could get their lines right.

Mark felt the shirt he was wearing sticking to his back despite the fact that the weather was somewhat chilly, his back was drenched in sweat after trying (and failing) to film an intense fight scene. He was lying on a cold cement somewhere near the Han River, enjoying the short break they were given when he noticed a hand reached out to him.

“It’s not good for your back, get up.” It was Jinyoung, all tired himself, makeup streaky and face shiny and sweaty, but Mark couldn’t bring himself to point that out, because he himself didn’t look any better at the moment, and besides, makeup artists will be fixing everything soon anyway. 

He took the hand of his younger groupmate and faintly heard the director saying that they had fifteen minutes left, which should’ve been used to rehearse their lines, but Jinyoung started dragging him further from all the people and nearer the river. All this time he didn’t let go of Mark’s hand, and the latter felt slightly surprised about that, to say the least.

They never properly discussed what happened that evening in winter just before their debut; they weren’t ashamed of that kiss though, they weren’t running away from the topic and it didn’t even feel like they regretted – they just didn’t talk about nor repeated the kiss. They weren’t in a rush, thinking that they have tons of time to sort everything out, but they should’ve remembered that nothing should be taken for granted, especially time.

“You looked cool when you were doing all those flips.” Jinyoung sheepishly said, eyes crinkled into those weirdly, stupidly adorable cat whiskers. There was a wide smile on his lips as well, however, a bit worn out.

“You know you can do those just as good as I do.” Mark replied, and he wasn’t making things sound flattering to his groupmate, it simply was the truth – they all were trained in martial arts and Jinyoung really was good at it, it was a pity that he couldn’t perform it often because he needed to sing.

Jinyoung, however, only laughed at that, shaking his head and refusing to accept the compliment. A few people passed by and they lowered their heads out of a habit, even though they didn’t expect anyone recognizing them in the dark; but they could never know, and they definitely didn’t need a bunch of people surrounding them, or worse, getting into the filming site.

They found a place to sit a few moments later, the pile of rocks a bit further from the sidewalk, accompanied by the sounds of small waves of the river quietly crashing into them and sometimes splashing onto their shoes. As per usual, they didn’t talk much at first, only glancing at their clocks from time to time in order not to be late to get back to work.

“Why—“

Mark didn’t finish his sentence because Jinyoung kissed him. He always was on the more dominant side when it came to their relationship, but Mark still felt a bit taken aback at this suddenness. Jinyoung’s breath on his skin felt like a blanket, like a sun that they couldn’t see at the moment, shining right into his face.

They also knew that if someone saw them, they’d be in trouble, but it all just made a nice, exciting twist to it. Time stopped for a while, stopped the same second Mark decided to lean in and accept whatever was happening.

This wasn’t bound to last for long though, and Jinyoung was the one to break the kiss he started and say that they need to return before that staff started searching for them. Mark only rolled his eyes at this, because it was so Jinyoung, to offer this sudden intimacy one second and talk about work the other. The younger noticed and a slight smile curved his lips upwards as he reached his hand out to smooth out Mark’s hair.

Before turning to go, he asked, “Do you trust me?”

Mark didn’t know what the question meant exactly at that moment, but he had always trusted Jinyoung and that time wasn’t an exception.

vi.

When you’re a rising idol group, days never feel similar to one another – one day they were in Japan, another they were back in Korea, waiting for a plane to Thailand; the other day they were signing documents for American visas, next one they were practicing for their showcases and concerts – and it all was passing in one huge blur.

Jinyoung and Mark’s relationship was passing in the exact same manner, with every day being completely different. One day Jinyoung loved him, ready to fight the entire world if someone hurt him, another one he wouldn’t even see Mark even though he would be sitting right next to him, tapping the surface of a table in a recording studio trying to finish writing raps for Jinyoung’s compositions.

On some days, Mark hated Jinyoung, on others the members had to pretend that they didn’t understand why Jackson was suddenly sleeping with maknaes in their room, letting them two have a room of their own for a night or two.

Sometimes they, Jinyoung and Mark, didn’t understand how it was possible to have so many different emotions towards one person, but they were a living proof that it was.

“Would you run away with me?” Jinyoung said in English one day, and Mark lifted his eyes full of sleepiness of confusion. They were sitting on some bed in a filming site of their trailer movie, a notebook tightly clutched in the younger’s hands and Mark automatically made wrong assumptions.

“You’re writing a song?” He asked and that amused Jinyoung, because that wasn’t what he was talking about at all.

It was more of a rhetoric question at first, just a sappy and sentimental what if. Jinyoung had three years of his contract left, Mark had five, and sometimes the younger thought what would happen if he didn’t renew. What would happen if he just said no, throwing everything away and hitting the road, leaving all those years of being an idol behind. Not that he felt like he’d have the guts to do so, but as the seconds passed, Jinyoung felt like he was indeed interested in Mark’s answer, interested in seeing whether the rapper would blindly follow him because of their relationship.

“Would you run away with me?” He repeated, this time in Korean, and Mark finally realized that this time it wasn’t about song titles or lyrics.

“Depends on when you’d want to leave.” His answer was humorous, but honest – he always was the loyal type, never having the heart to leave someone behind, not even a job that they were all slowly getting tired of, some of them more, some of them less.

“Five years from now.” Jinyoung blurted out the first random number coming into his mind, and it got Mark actually thinking about it.

He shrugged his tiny shoulders and said, “Okay, let’s do that. Five years from now.”

Little did they know how fateful their words were going to be.

They didn’t care at the moment though, because Jinyoung started laughing again, throwing his notebook away and dragging Mark closer to place a kiss on his forehead. Later, the staff and members coming back from a lunch break will find them fallen asleep on that very same bed, Jinyoung securely, but softly locked between Mark’s arms.

They finished filming their trailer and a music video, the comeback passed and they won their first place, the prize they dreamed of ever since debuting, or maybe even before that; they filmed a bunch of variety shows, another comeback passed and a new one was bound to happen soon.

But then everything started to go downhill, even more than it already was, leaving Jinyoung feeling emptier and emptier, despite having his dreams coming true left and right – a leading role in a quite a successful movie, worldwide tours and praises.

Yugyeom missed an event because of flu, Bambam missed one because of a stye in his eye; Youngjae missed a whole leg of a fanmeeting tour in Australia because of his worsening back injuries, Jackson got diagnosed with anemia. At some point, Mark left to spend some time in the jungle and on top of everything, Jinyoung and the rest of the members were left only with worrying headlines about the most terrible air conditions in New Zealand during the past fifty years.

Youngjae moved out of the dorm like he told, and they always were afraid that he was going to accidentally oversleep and miss a flight or something, as if that was the only possible thing to go south; they accidentally let it slip during a fansign and fans started to talk and create their own theories.

Once, Jackson got into a fight with Mark over something stupid and openly ignored him on stage, walking straight past the guy when the latter offered him a water bottle; Mark couldn’t do anything else, but clench his jaw at that and hope no one noticed. Fans did notice, they were gushing about that, and facts turned into rumors, and rumors were deemed to be facts - it felt like nobody, not even Mark himself, scrolling down his social media accounts, knew the truth anymore.

Ironically, Mark and Jinyoung kissed in public playing it off as a punishment the same day, in the same fanmeeting, and it was all suggested by Jackson. The latter didn’t really care about anything else anymore and it was more than understandable – he saw his brother for the first time in years and his niece for the first time in his life; and being a family man, Jackson couldn’t help but wonder whether concert venues and being an idol was worth the sacrifice.

But it wasn’t Jackson who left first. It was Bambam.

Military was always a somewhat terrifying concept for idol industry, knowing that male performers had to go away for at least 21 long month, not being sure that things are going to be the same when they return. For the longest time there was a comfort – you could plan in advance, enlisting while you were in between nineteen and thirty, but it was taken away in a blink of an eye; government and regular people were fed up with celebrities avoiding their duties, and now they were called in to enlist whenever the government felt like so.

It was like a lottery and Bambam lost one too, just not in Korea, but in Thailand. The company tried to pull some strings, but laws are for everyone, even for Bambam; even if the fandom went full-on hysteric.

It felt weird and quiet in the dorm after all the farewells were said, the remaining members were left to wordlessly sit in the living room only with Bambam’s promise that they will throw the biggest dabbing party after he comes back two years later. Youngjae felt twice as weird, looking at the surroundings of the flat and knowing that he was just a guest here, on top of everything.

The group was put on hiatus, members getting various individual gigs here and there. Jinyoung got a few MCing jobs, but never any script for a drama or a movie, except for that ridiculous web drama of the company; Jaebum shut himself in the recording studio, feverishly writing songs for a comeback that wasn’t bound to happen anytime soon and deleting all the tracks he recorded even more feverishly. Jackson was in China again, working in varieties as per usual, Mark was enjoying his little moments of laziness and a couple of photoshoots here and there; Yugyeom couldn’t find a place for himself, trying not to spend much time at the dorm, his and Bambam’s room feeling too big for him when one side of it is wiped clean of any belongings, as if Bambam was just a shared hallucination they had been seeing for years.

Youngjae was the second one to leave, not being able to stay for long enough to see Bambam returning from his service – his back problems got so serious that the doctors told him that if he continues like that, he probably won’t be able to get up from his bed in the future. They were left without the main vocalist, but from the way Jaebum was sitting on a chair in the company’s meeting room, Mark thought that he was dreading not only that.

They needed a plan and needed it quick, before the word got out to the public and fans – they needed to know what to say, how to operate with two losses now, but they just didn’t. fucking. know. Nobody told them the answer, because at the time, it was relatively fine, they were still on hiatus, and no rash decisions needed to be made – Bambam had one and a half year left to serve and they still had time.

Jackson followed suit not so late after, taking a hiatus from a group that was on hiatus. Complicated? It wasn’t, it was the best solution for his health too, both mental and physical. They all saw it coming, even if they foolishly turned a blind eye to it, thinking that if they pretended that their problems didn’t exist, those problems would actually disappear.

Jinyoung noticed how slowly, one by one, Jackson’s things disappeared from the dorm over the time, how one day there was no shower gel and toothpaste of Jackson’s in the bathroom and those items never returned; eventually, Jackson didn’t return from Hong Kong either, the friendship necklace they made a while ago, left lying on his bed in the dorm.

Now they were five people with contracts, only four of them being actually able to do something, even if they slowly were coming to terms that the worst case scenario now seemed so close; fans were slowly preparing for the news too.

Yugyeom’s parents told their son to leave two months after Jackson was officially out of the group. The situation was just too uncertain - who knew at this point, they might never return to the stage as a group and according to his parents, Yugyeom always could dance somewhere else, he had all the connections and resources. Initially, Yugyeom’s reaction was to oppose, not only because he wanted to stay in the group since he still felt slightly insecure about this whole being alone in the business thing – he just genuinely loved his teammates.

Not that the other didn’t, of course – it’s just that Yugyeom had a choice of some sorts, because he wasn’t a twenty-two year old cripple in the making like Youngjae was, or a homesick foreigner with his health deteriorating at the fastest rate possible like Jackson. That choice kept him in the dorm for an additional month, but blood was always thicker than water. It was also thicker than the pile of papers he signed back in the day, his contract.

It was terrible for all the people leaving, but it was also terrible for people staying. It felt awkward for Mark, Jinyoung and Jaebum, and most of the times some members of the remaining trio wouldn’t even talk with each other directly. Mark talked with Jinyoung and Jaebum; Jaebum sometimes talked only with Mark or only with Jinyoung, the latter acted similarly too.

Mark and Jinyoung’s relationship transformed into this weird distorted mess of desperation and bottled up anger, a desperate need of closure just because the world was shattering around them; and slowly the long talks while lying in one bed, soft whispers that everything will be fine and they will survive whatever was happening, turned into angry snapping at each other and even more angry sex, because they didn’t know any other way to deal with it. But they all knew that their relationship won’t last long either.

They didn’t become the two last men standing, because Jaebum was still there, ready to stand on the stage even if his back sent him to an ER a few times even without having any schedules or promotions. Jinyoung was the fifth person to move out from the dorm, much like in 2011 not saying a word to Mark about leaving.

Mark learned it all only from the headlines, the word [BREAKING] being etched in the screen of his laptop next to Jinyoung’s photos. GOT7’s Jinyoung becomes a free agent after parting ways with his company, the articles said and Mark wanted to cry, to scream or to be mad at the guy, but he couldn’t – there were more important things to deal with, because finally all the stories, everything that happened with Youngjae, Yugyeom and Jackson surfaced in the media, and it felt like his phone was about to explode from all the calls. Ironically enough, Park Jinyoung never called nor returned Mark’s calls.

The latter still hoped though, after the pain of being betrayed by the same person twice died down a bit, he still foolishly thought that maybe there was a possibility to make something out of this situation – they, him, Jaebum and Bambam when he gets back from Thailand, could make something; they could stand on stage as three no matter how their hearts would be hurting seeing all the holes in their choreography, holes that were supposed to be filled by certain people.

Bambam still had a half a year to serve, the problem was, he never returned, only sent his lawyer to sign the contract termination papers. Jaebum and Mark were told that their contracts as boy group members were nullified as well.

They were free, but it wasn’t the kind of freedom they always wanted.

(“At first,” Bambam said to him, and Mark didn’t really remember when it happened exactly, maybe during one of their got2day episodes. “I didn’t realize what the saying “Over the years it gets harder” means. I think I understand it now though, when I turned twenty, everything’s harder for some reason.”

That moment, Bambam didn’t know that he still wasn’t aware of the true meaning of these words, and even Mark figured it years later, when it was the last night in the dorms, his and Jaebum’s suitcases packed and ready for the unknown.

Mark couldn’t sleep that night, because he kept dreaming of Jinyoung, thinking where he was and why did he leave and never contacted Mark, and he thought he could maybe calm down after having a talk with Jaebum, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

But when he silently opened the door of the leader’s room, he saw Jaebum sitting on his bed and crying.

It was always exceptionally scary and heartbreaking to see him cry, because Im Jaebum just doesn’t cry, and then it finally hits Mark, that while Jinyoung left on his own while the group was still somewhat alive at least in the documents, it was a second disbandment for Jaebum.

And indeed – even if the first time was tough, over the years it only got harder.)

vii.

If someone asked, Mark thought he wouldn’t be able to tell what was the worst part out of it – everything seemed equally bad. It took a while for him to readjust to the fact that their managers won’t be waking them up at ungodly hours of dawn; that there won’t be any more dance practices, no more song recordings, no more fanmeetings.

It took some time to understand, to have this permanently etched in his head, and it was painfully hard to come to terms with the fact that they all weren’t together anymore – and sometimes, up to this day three years later, whenever he took a flight, Mark would unconsciously look around the airport to make sure all the members have their passports and are ready to leave, only to see a bunch of unfamiliar travelers around him.

Sometimes, Mark still caught himself thinking “Oh, Jackson must still be in the bathroom, he’ll be back soon and then we can board the plane” or “Bambam is probably buying coffee in one of the cafes”, but in reality, which he was growing to hate, there was only him, Mark Tuan – clutching a boarding pass that was supposed to take him from Los Angeles to Incheon three years after their disbandment.  

If someone asked Jinyoung the same question, he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash before opening his mouth. It was the attachment, the loyalty he always felt burning in his blood ever since he left – he thought that back in the day it was hard to forget that “I’m JJ Project’s Jr.”, but dropping the GOT7 part of his introduction felt even harder.

“Hello, I’m GOT7’s Jinyoung, nice to meet you.” Would always escape his lips when meeting producers, scriptwriters or directors. At first they looked at him with pity and a bit of compassion, but as the time was passing, they were getting confused, because this group had already disbanded, no? And Jinyoung would get slightly embarrassed about this word slip.

Sometimes, he thought what would’ve happened if he followed Jaebum and renewed the contract – maybe they wouldn’t have disbanded, operating on three or four members, maybe there would be someone new added, maybe Mark—

He purposefully tried to avoid thinking about Mark specifically, because it still gave him this pang of guilt for not explaining things before leaving; for leaving their relationship hanging up in the air.

Jinyoung himself wasn’t sure if he knew why he did this to the elder – explaining everything that was running through his mind probably might’ve opened more opportunities, more ways to solve it. But he always considered himself a coward, not being able to say a word before selfishly running away for his own benefit. Jinyoung still remembered Mark’s trusting and warm sight when he said that he was going to visit his family in Jinhae, that he was going to come back a day or two later, three, tops.

In reality, he was living in a small hostel room in the outskirts of Seoul, where there was so little chance of someone finding him – he spent most of the days in that room actually, not going anywhere, just lying on the bed, looking at nothing, so there was no danger of fans or someone else recognizing him in the streets anyway.

And now, they both had come to the low point of their lives, even if they both didn’t notice it, busy trying to stay afloat – the true aftermath struck their lives with full force only three years later, after countless attempts to make all the strings attached in their head to die.

Mark’s business that he was trying to set up was slowly falling apart and Jinyoung, a B-list actor at the best, with no hit dramas under his belt was now trying to save his career in Japan and China, stooping so low that he agreed to sign a contract telling that only his body will be used for the movie, another actor will record the voice, because even after all these years and Jackson and Mark’s countless lessons, he still was shit at even forming sentences in Chinese.

Jinyoung’s mind wandered away for a while, even though he was in a rush that moment, remembering those lessons that always used to bring so much laughter; then remembering the members themselves.

They tried to stay in touch, they really did despite all the circumstances and terminations – when Bambam first went to the army, they still chatted in their Kakao chatroom as if nothing had changed, well maybe the frequency of Bambam’s replies was drastically reduced – Jackson would still drown the chat with stickers, Mark would still ignore all the messages, threatening that if he got one more notification he’d leave the chat, maknaes would still bug their hyungs.

When Youngjae left, it was the time when the chat died down, and slowly was dying with every leaving member, eventually flashing only heartbreaking notifications.

2018/04/12 Youngjae left the chatroom

2018/12/24 Yugyeom left the chatroom

2020/02/13 Bambam left the chatroom

There still were people in the chatroom, Jackson, Mark, Jaebum and Jinyoung, even though the latter felt the urge to leave as well, to get rid of seemingly the only thing that was holding him back from fully living a new life, he was afraid and blindly convinced that if they all still were there in the chat, there might be a chance for a reunion.

But for now, as Jinyoung was running through the entire airport, because he mixed up the parking lots again (one would think that as a person who used to be travelling back and forth various countries almost every week, he was supposed to know how to tell the difference between departure and arrival terminals), dragging his suitcase in one of his hands.

He still found some time to look around the very familiar surroundings of the arrival area, feeling somehow weird not seeing a bunch of fansites blinding him with their camera flashes; or seeing some familiar faces, now taking photos of someone else, a new hot issue of the idol world.

Lost in his thoughts, Jinyoung didn’t notice a little bump on the floor, a small dent that someone left with a suitcase a tad bit too heavy for the old floor of the airport, and he lost control of his suitcase, it slipping out of his grip and getting a direction of its own, and that was hitting some man, who had just entered the airport, fresh out of a flight.

Jinyoung only sighed, ready to mumble an embarrassed apology, as the man was already turning around to see what was happening, but his eyes were met by a familiar gaze, warm and calm brown eyes that used to make his heart beat like crazy.

“Mark?” He said, trying to make sure the man wasn’t just a similar looking person, or worse, a hallucination caused by a few cups of coffee mixed with energy drinks too many. It wasn’t, because Mark slowly nodded, eyes filled with no less confusion than Jinyoung’s. “What are you doing here?”

“Business meeting.” Mark’s voice was low and calm, as if trying to oppose his shaking knees. “What about you?”

“I have a flight to Beijing to catch.” Jinyoung answered, leaving out all the unnecessary details. The board with departure times on the wall behind Mark announced that Jinyoung really needed to go if he wanted to make it on time, but for some reason he just couldn’t move. “How— how are you?”

Mark thought for a while, unsure of the answer, feeling like his heart was about to jump out of his chest upon seeing his former bandmate and lover. “I’m… Okay, I guess.”

He didn’t ask the same back and Jinyoung only nodded at that, feeling awkward, like he wouldn’t know the man in front of him anymore, like he wouldn’t have known him for more than ten years now. “I need to go.” He said, finding the tension unbearable. “It was… nice seeing you.”

Mark nodded and waved him off, quite surprised that he didn’t feel anything about that, like he would’ve been used to Jinyoung leaving, and for a while he saw only the latter’s back turned to him, but a few seconds later Jinyoung was turning around and asking, “How long are you going to stay here?”

“Two days, today and tomorrow. Why?” Jinyoung internally cursed hearing the answer, because he’ll be in China for at least two weeks.

“Nothing, it’s just—“ Jinyoung sighed, but something, a weird force inside him, was making him say words he didn’t think he wanted to be saying. “Maybe you want to meet later?”

Mark frowned, feeling like something wasn’t adding up in this offer. “You said you’re leaving to China.”

The younger went through the schedule in his head, knowing very well that he might be doing a mistake, but he only offered a slight smile, saying,” My shooting starts only tomorrow in the evening. If I change tickets to tomorrow’s morning, nothing bad will happen.” He wished so, at least.

“I hope that it won’t get you in trouble.” Mark said. They knew what being late to schedules mean, they knew it more than anyone else after that infamous accident when they were late to a fansign and were unceremoniously walked out when their time in the venue was over.

His suitcase was placed in the trunk of Jinyoung’s car approximately fifty minutes later after the younger takes care of his flight tickets, paying quite a sum for changing the date so late, but he didn’t really care for some reason, even if he wasn’t in the situation to spend this much money. They didn’t talk at all when Jinyoung started the engine of his car, slowly driving them away from Incheon and back to the good old Seoul, the city Mark didn’t think he’ll ever see again.

viii.

It wasn’t that different from what Mark remembered it being – it was spring and cherry blossoms were blooming everywhere, looking soft and inviting through a car window and there was a small smile on Jinyoung’s lips as he observed the poorly hidden excitement vivid in Mark’s eyes.

“Where are you staying?” Jinyoung asked as soon as they entered the city and Mark told him the address of a hotel. They didn’t talk anymore until they reached the destination.

Mark checked in, feeling a bit uncomfortable about the receptionists trying to hide their whispering about that “these two look somehow familiar”. Then he asked if Jinyoung wanted to wait for him in the lobby while he takes a shower and changes clothes into something more wearable for hanging out, or did he want to go with Mark. Jinyoung chose the first option.

Mark didn’t take long, he never was the one to keep others waiting for him while getting ready and Jinyoung smiled at this one memory of Mark in their dorm trying on countless of clothes when Jinyoung said he wanted Mark to meet his parents suddenly filling up his head. However, it soon got interrupted by one of the receptionists coming up to him to ask if he was a celebrity by any chance, because she definitely had seen him somewhere. Maybe in a drama?

“No, I don’t think so.” Jinyoung politely shook his head, faking a small smile. He chose to lie, because really, there was a chance the girl had seen him on TV, but he didn’t want to think about it at all, and thankfully, they were interrupted by elevator doors opening and Mark coming back, now dressed in simple blue jeans and a red hoodie, which made Jinyoung let out a shaky breath – it was definitely Jaebum’s, he still remembered the leader wearing it, he himself had borrowed it quite a few times.

“Ready to go?” Mark asked, unsuspecting of what was going through Jinyoung’s head, and that was a whole lot.

They were the last ones to stay, Jinyoung thought, there was more than one opportunity to hook up, maybe even have a relationship of some sorts; Mark and Jaebum always had a nice, trusting relationship between them, quite opposite from the shaky and bumpy road that Jinyoung and Mark were travelling on. Who knew, maybe Mark was supposed to meet Jaebum later, maybe they still were in a relationship, if Mark kept wearing his clothes, maybe—

Mark will never have the chance to explain that it didn’t mean anything, it was only a gift, and not even that, actually – Jaebum just wordlessly stuffed it in Mark’s arms the last night, when they were packing things to leave the dorm.

Jinyoung didn’t return back home to leave his suitcase for later, instead they pondered on where should they go, but in the end, the answer came naturally, as if they were carrying it inside their hearts all the time.

Mark wasn’t surprised at all when Jinyoung pulled his car up near Cheongdam and they got off the car near the park they used to spend their free time in when they still were something.

Things had changed over the years there – there was a new playground, new patches of incredibly green grass. Their swings, the ones they used to occupy whenever they visited, were gone too, probably placed somewhere else now, but they didn’t plan on searching for them, plopping on the grass instead, with so little care about their pants getting dirty.

They kept silent for a while, not sure of what was appropriate to say to each other after so much time, but Jinyoung was always good at small talk and ice breaking, he proved that countless times and this one wasn’t an exception. “What’s your business about?”

Mark snorted, not being able to believe that Jinyoung was asking that out of all things, but he answered nevertheless. “I opened a few cafes back in the states, and I’m planning to open some in Korea as well.”

“You too?” Jinyoung’s lips twisted into a smile. “Bambam’s restaurant wasn’t enough in this group?”

Mark laughed at this too, laugh being surprisingly easy to get out of his lips without it being forced, because really, it was ridiculous to him as well – he wasn’t interested in those kind of things at all; he just knew that he couldn’t live from the money he earned throughout the years for the rest of his life, and that his parents won’t always be there to support him when his pockets will become empty. And having a café was always a relatively safe option.

“A man has to live somehow.” He said, look at how the rays of soon were playing with Jinyoung’s black hair, making them light brown. “What about you though, what’s with the Beijing project?”

“It’s a collaboration between some indie producers of Japan and China.” Jinyoung sighed. “Some historical drama, and I got a role in the supporting cast through some friends. Can you believe they’re going to play another actor’s voice on top of mine because my pronunciation is shit?” For a second, he started to ramble like he used to when everything still was okay with all of them, and soon he caught himself letting out a shy smile.

Mark seemed a bit surprised at this, but in a good way, but didn’t say anything except, “Are you planning to meet Jackson once you get there? I heard he’s filming something in Beijing as well.”

There it was, the name thrown out into the sunlight, reminding where are they from and how they all were connected, and what happened; all the things Jinyoung wanted to forget so much. But soon he got himself together, he was an actor for god’s sake, and shook his head. “We talked some time ago, he said it would be nice to meet if I have some free time there, but…” but it was said more out of politeness. “But we didn’t really discuss any details and haven’t talked ever since.” There was this feeling in Jinyoung’s guts though, making it seem like Mark asked about Jackson having something else in mind; that whole Wang Gae Park Gae thing used to get on his nerves quite a lot in the past, being a cause of a lot of their arguments. So in defense he asked, “What about Jaebum?”

“What about him?” Mark looked confused, because he didn’t understand this question at all.

“Do you get in touch often?”

“I was in the States for most of the time, I don’t even know where he is right now. We haven’t talked for three years.”

So did we, Jinyoung wanted say but swallowed the remark.

They talked about some nothings, avoiding the group topic again, even though Mark’s tongue was itching with all the questions he wanted answers for. The awkwardness started to melt somehow and they were able to breathe with some certain ease, cracking bad jokes and smiling; but there still was thing ridiculous cloud above their heads, threatening to burst any second, however, all the emotions were postponed for later, after they were done with aimless walking along the riverside. Jinyoung offered to drive Mark back to the hotel, because it was getting late and dark, but the latter had other suggestions.

“Do you want to go grab a drink? You know, like the good old times?” He offered, nervously rubbing the nape of his neck waiting for an answer, slightly afraid that it was going to be a negative one. But it wasn’t – Jinyoung agreed.

The winded up in a bar not so far from the park, in this area it wasn’t that hard to find one, and one drink turned into two somehow, and two turned into three; eyes started sparkling and tongues loosened; and the fourth shot of soju was accompanied by Mark’s, “To being traitors.”

Jinyoung’s hand froze midway, the glass of the drink never reaching his lips. Mark’s words felt like a cold shower, sending shivers down his spine. “Traitors?”

Mark was always a lightweight when it came to drinking, so it wasn’t really a surprise that his speech was a little slurred already. Not extremely noticeably, but Jinyoung was there next to him ever since he started speaking – in Korean, at least – so he immediately noticed all the little differences, all the unnatural pauses and prolonged endings. “Aren’t we all just a bunch of traitors though?”

Jinyoung wasn’t going to lie, he breathed out with ease, feeling relieved that this wasn’t directed specifically at him, and asked, finally finishing his drink, “What do you mean?”

Mark explained and it made perfect sense.

In an industry where they were supposed to dance and be ethereally happy till the end of their days while living in a glittery bubble of lies, they were nothing but selfish renegades, ready to leave the sinking ship any time and refuse to smile any more, even if that meant leaving other people behind.

A lot of things happened later than night, but even more of them didn’t happen.

“Why didn’t you renew?” - that was the question Mark didn’t ask, seeing Jinyoung vomiting from too much alcohol in the same bar’s bathroom, and feeling some sort of a pity, because he always imagined a dramatic scene of their meeting, with him maybe slapping the younger or something like that, maybe shedding a few tears, demanding for the answers; but it seemed like he didn’t want any kind of answers anymore, because he was trying to let go.

“Why don’t you hate me for that?” was the question Jinyoung didn’t ask, because he was busy kissing Mark, slamming him into the wall of the same bathroom, lips desperately searching for acceptance and forgiveness.

“Have you ever loved me, at all?” - Mark didn’t care about that either, when they caught a cab to take them to Jinyoung’s place a bit further from the city center. “Why did you leave me alone in a situation like that?” He didn’t ask that when Jinyoung was kissing him to distract him from the pain that was shooting up his spine thanks to the younger pounding into him, bodies tangled together in a heated mess, trying to compensate for long years of separation.

They were drunk and nothing mattered, as long as they had each other.

“Would you run away with me?” It was Mark’s turn to ask next morning, when the sun was lazily slipping through the curtains of Jinyoung’s flat at 6 AM, coloring the room dark blue. Mark’s hand was running through the younger’s hair and they both still felt drunk, but that didn’t make Jinyoung forget the meaning behind this question. It probably was nearing the fifth year since he asked Mark the same question in the trailer video shooting. To run away together after five years.

But he wanted to make sure that Mark truly remembered, he wanted to feel that weird and sick satisfaction of Mark caring a little too much and remembering all the little details, so he only blinked and asked, eyes innocent. “What?”

“Go with me to America.” Mark said, knowing very well what kind of game Jinyoung was playing, but he was too blinded, too in love not to play along. “You asked me five years ago if I’d run away with you. We can do that now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” This time Jinyoung’s answer was honest, albeit sad – he knew that all they had now was a game, a nice dream of not caring about anything and living their lives selfishly, somewhere away from everyone’s eyes. “My flight leaves in five hours and you have your business meeting. We can’t just disappear.”

Mark thought about that for a while, lying on his side to fully face Jinyoung. He reached out his hand to softly and admiringly trace the younger’s features and the latter closed his eyes when Mark leaned in to kiss him. “You can work in LA too, you do speak English. Actor Park in Hollywood, remember when I told you that long time ago? Wouldn’t it be like keeping a promise?”

Jinyoung remembered, he truly did remember Mark’s promise to teach him English so he could hit it big in Hollywood. But he had to be realistic. “I won’t make it there, besides I’m in a contract with that China and Japan thing, I can’t just stand up and leave to an unknown. I don’t know anyone in LA except for your family, we would have to start everything from scratch, I don’t even have a—“

“We would need to start everything from scratch, yes.” Mark calmly confirmed, interrupting Jinyoung’s feverish ramble, eyes soft as ever. “But wouldn’t it be nice, starting over?”

It would, Jinyoung said, not wanting to kill the joy and hope in Mark’s eyes, especially when that joy returned there only a couple of hours ago. Great, he said, when Mark made some calls to his friends in the embassy and Jinyoung got an American visa in half and hour with his Beijing ticket cancelled and a ticket to LA already in Mark’s email.

“See you tomorrow in the airport.” Mark said, when Jinyoung walked him out for a long day of business meetings. He leaned in to kiss Jinyoung, but the latter turned his head and Mark’s lips landed on his cheek.

“See you.” Jinyoung responded, but his voice cracked in the same way it did in 2011, when he moved out of the dorm with Jaebum to debut.

Mark didn’t notice, because he was a lovestruck fool.

x.

There’s no 10^th part, because Jinyoung doesn’t go to the airport the next day; he’s still in his apartment, in his bed, emotionlessly looking at the ceiling, counting the minutes until the plane is supposed to leave. He’s nothing but a twenty-nine year old coward who just blew away the opportunity to be happy with the man he loved, and completely ruined his already tragic career.

10:35 AM flight to Los Angeles sets off with Mark looking at the empty seat next to him, a seat that was supposed to be Jinyoung’s. There’s no Hollywood, no promises anymore – the amazing future they created in bed that lazy yesterday morning is now crashing and burning, exploding into tiny little pieces, every one of them getting stuck in Mark’s heart and leaving it to bleed.

(“Who’s the member you trust the most?” this question came up in some interview years ago and Mark tried to concentrate his sight on the floor of the studio they had their photoshoot in so he wouldn’t start blushing, when Jinyoung answered.

“Mark hyung.”

“What about you, Mark?” The journalist didn’t miss the opportunity. “Who do you trust the most out of the members?”

It wasn’t to return a favor, his answer was confident and one hundred percent honest. “Jinyoung.”

It was two months after their kiss in the drama shooting near Han River, one month and two weeks after they agreed on becoming some sort of a couple - and Jinyoung wished that Mark wouldn’t trust him so damn much, because he already knew it was going to backfire.)