Archive of Our Own

The end of the world, it turns out, is as non-negotiable as Mark’s lingering feelings for Yuta, so he finds himself with a choice to make. Either he flies back to the place he thought he’d left for good to confess, or he dies without ever knowing if Yuta might love him back.

Mark scrolls through flight options and frowns.

He can’t afford anywhere near the prices that he’s being quoted. “My car is worth less than this.” He shows Donghyuck his phone, and points to the price printed in bold on the webpage. “This is so unfair.”

“Hmm.” Donghyuck spares Mark’s phone a brief glance. “Who would have thought, big business is still shitty in the wake of the end of the world.” His laugh is humourless.

Mark takes a breath. Asks, “Hyuck, am I an idiot?”

“Yeah, but that’s not really relevant, is it?” His friend grins, a glint in his eye that Mark recognises as Donghyuck deflecting Mark’s clear despair with humour. He’s a good friend like that. “You've been an idiot since we met.”

Mark opens his mouth and then closes it again. He deserves that. “Bro… Help me.”

Donghyuck laughs. “Just do it.” He makes it sound so easy. Maybe he just wants Mark to stop talking. Mark wouldn’t blame him. Ever since this whole asteroid thing made the news, he’s been debating his next move, and changing his mind back and forth constantly.

“I wanted to see him in person,” Mark says, as much to himself as to Donghyuck. “I wanted to speak to him, do this right, but maybe it’s a bad idea. Maybe I should just— Oh shit, look at this!” He stops to zoom in on the price he’s spotted. “It’s, like, almost reasonable. Much cheaper than the others. And it’s not like I’ll need the money for later in life, so…”

“So?”

“So I need you to tell me to buy the flight ticket. As my best friend, I need you to tell me that.” Mark closes his eyes. When he opens them, Dongyhyuck is gesturing for Mark to hand over his phone.

For some ungodly reason, he does it. “What are you going to do?”

“What you’re too chicken-shit to do.” Donghyuck smiles, focusing his attention on the screen. “There you go, all sorted. One flight back to Vancouver. You leave on Thursday.”

Mark takes his phone back and looks down at the booking confirmation. “I’m really going back.” He takes a deep breath. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Dongyuck throws an arm around his shoulder and lays his head against it, his hair tickling Mark’s neck. “I hope you get some really good dick before this is all gone.”

Mark laughs. “Thanks, you too.”

“Oh, I will.” Haechan sits up, his eyes alight with magic. “Didn’t I tell you I’m meeting up with Taeil-hyung tomorrow?”

The asteroid is due to hit on August 14th.

That’s what they’re saying— the news, the scientists, everyone. It’s all anybody has talked about since it changed direction slightly, into Earth’s orbit. Since it started to head directly towards Earth.

August 14th 2020: the end of the world. Probably. Very likely. There’s something like a 0.08% chance the asteroid will still miss Earth but, even though Mark only half listened during statistics at school, he isn’t holding his breath for that 0.02%.

Humanity has run through the five stages of grief already. There was denial, anger, then the bargaining. Some people refused to believe it would happen, and some still refuse.

The world’s top scientific minds got together and considered every way of avoiding impact. They spent millions on new military-provided equipment, but it turned out that there was something about the speed and the mass and the location that meant no one could guarantee any plan could stop it from making an impact, and what an impact it was going to make.

World leaders advised everyone to prepare for the end, and people mourned the future’s they would never have, the people they’d never meet.

Acceptance had not come easy, but it seemed to be the general consensus now. Live while you can, people have started to say. Swim naked in the ocean, write the song, do that big thing you’ve always wanted to. Do tiny things. Do anything. Tell somebody you love them.

All Mark can think about is Yuta.

Mark’s flight is due to arrive at YVR on August 6th, which gives him a week back in Vancouver before the end of everything.

“A week to do what?” Johnny asks. Mark had asked him to meet at their favourite coffee spot that morning, a nervous frizzle of course energy coursing through his uncaffeinated veins. When they’d arrived, only the owner and his dog were there; all of the other staff were already long-gone, having quit without notice to live their lives in the few weeks they have left to do it.

“To see Yuta.” Mark sips his coffee while Johnny eyes him interestedly. “And tell him I love him.”

“Yuta? Oh.” A flicker of recognition crosses Johnny’s face.. “Didn’t he— he’s the guy you cut off when you moved away, right?”

“I didn’t cut him off.” Mark pulls a face. “We just lost touch.” It’s technically the truth, they did lose touch, but mainly because Mark made sure of it. “I mean, he probably barely thinks about me anymore.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “I hope for your sake he hasn't, since you’re travelling halfway across the world to see him before we all die.”

“It’s not halfway across the world,” Mark says. “It’s slightly less than that.”

Johnny laughs. “Whatever. Anyway, it’s been, what? Two years? Two years is nothing. He won’t have forgotten you.” He smiles at Mark. “You’re not that forgettable.”

Two and a half years, Mark thinks. He suddenly feels like he might be making a huge mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t go back. Maybe he should die here, with Hyuck and Johnny. “I stopped taking his calls in the end,” he admits. “So it’s my fault anyway.”

“Oh wow, you swerved the guy? Harsh!” Johnny jokes and Mark knows he’s joking, but his face must fall because Johnny suddenly reaches over the table and pats his wrist.

“I’m teasing you, Mark. Please don’t cry.” Johnny’s voice is softer now. “I think it’s very cool, following your heart and all. Honestly.”

Mark tries to smile. “Sorry. I’m just kind of tightly wound up right now. I keep thinking… I mean, this is it. This is all we have left.”

“I get it. I know.” Hey— we weren’t going to tell anyone this but I think you’ll like to hear and… Well, it won’t hurt to tell a few close friends. It’s about Kun.” Johnny looks around as though his boyfriend might suddenly appear behind him out of thin air. “Kun and me, we’re getting married.”

“Oh my god.” Mark wants to say congratulations, but— for what? For doing something they’d probably have done anyway in a few years, but are being forced to do now before they die? “Congratulations,” he says anyway. It seems par for the course.

“Thanks.” Johnny sips his coffee. “It won’t be legal, but who cares? We’re gonna go out married. Even if we’re not old and grey, it’ll be halfway to what we imagined.”

Mark thinks, fuck that’s sad. He says, “I’m really happy for you, hyung,” and smiles.

Johnny smiles back.

“When do you go to Canada?” he asks, waving the owner over for a top-up of their coffee. The dog comes over too, sits at Mark’s feet and looks up at him with doe-eyes until Mark reaches down and scratches behind his ear.

“In three days,” Mark tells him.

“Are you going to call him before you go?” Johnny asks.

Mark nods. “Sure,” he says, and he does mean to do it. There isn’t much point flying back home if the person you’re going back for isn’t interested in seeing you, after all. The problem is that every time Mark goes to do it, the fear of rejection suffocates him, just like it used to every time he considered admitting his feelings to Yuta when they were friends.

It suffocated him so much that Mark had been unable to think of any other option than to run away from it all. That’s how he ended up here, in Seoul, living with Donghyuck and struggling his way through a grad course his heart has never really been in.

There’s never been a right time to tell Yuta he loves him, and now, unless he does something within the next 10 days, there never will be.

Mark doesn’t make the call before he leaves the country.

When Mark boards his flight to Canada, he is seated next to a woman with a baby. He’s in the window seat, not that he specifically asked for that. It’s a night time flight, so there won’t be much to see, anyway. Mark mainly hopes he will be able to sleep through most of it.

He helps the woman adjust the aircon nozzle above their heads, and she offers him a smile, albeit a nervous one. Or maybe it’s sad. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

The baby’s smile does.

She cries herself to sleep— the mom, not the baby. The baby doesn’t know what’s on its way, of course she doesn’t, and she’s quite content, peacefully snoozing for most of the flight.

Mark holds the woman’s hand during landing while her baby coos at him happily from her knee. “It might not happen,” he says, smiling at the woman. Trying to make her feel better.

She squeezes his hand and says, “maybe”.

They both know it’s not likely, but people are good like that. People are the only beacons of hope left and Mark is grateful for the interaction, even if it leaves him sadder than before.

He gets his luggage and contemplates getting on the Skytrain, but he isn’t even sure it’s running anymore, so he decides to get a cab instead.

His driver— who says he is still working because “it’s either that or contemplate our imminent deaths” — refuses to take the money Mark tries to pay him with.

“Go get your guy,” he says, when he pulls up outside of the hotel. Mark had told him the story, the whole thing, blabbed all of his secrets to the kind-eyed stranger in the driver’s seat in the twenty minute journey. “Before it’s too late.”

“Thanks, man,” Mark says. He leaves a fifty dollar note on the passenger seat anyway.

He showers as soon as he gets to his hotel, stands under the spray and tries not to ruminate too much on what he’s doing or whether he’s going to be able to sleep tonight.

He texts Donghyuck from his room later, looks out over the lights of a city he once swore never to return to, and wonders what Yuta is up to right now as nausea sets deep in his bones.

One of Mark’s most vivid memories of Yuta, of being in love with him, took place not far from here, at a sushi place with the best sashimi Mark had tasted.

Yuta had taken Mark there the day after his 21st birthday. They’d been out with the others the night before and Mark was hungover, but he’d agreed to go out when Yuta had texted him to see if he wanted a second celebration, because he couldn’t say no to Yuta. He never could.

It was just the two of them, and Yuta had blushed as he’d handed Mark a gift, wrapped in slightly scruffily sellotaped navy blue paper.

Inside was a box that held a silver chain bracelet. It was chunky and masculine, but it was pretty too. Mark hadn’t known what to say at the time, except for, “Wow.”

“Do you like it?” Yuta had asked him.

“Yeah. Shit, Yuta, I love it.” He’d looked up in awe. “You shouldn’t have.”

Yuta had shrugged, then, and Mark remembers the way his heart had jackhammered at the casual way Yuta had sat back in his seat and said, “I wanted to get you something nice.”

It had felt like a date, in a dreamy sort of way, and, after a couple of drinks, Mark had begun pretending in his head that it was. It was easy to get carried away— everything was easy with Yuta, and yet it was so damn difficult too. Mark never knew what to say, but he’d say something, something stupid without thinking, and Yuta would laugh, fond, genuine, and Mark would think, I love you.

He had almost said it that night, outside on the sidewalk under the awning, waiting for the Summer rain to stop. But he hadn’t said it and so this night was one of what Mark has since dubbed his many missed chances.

Except they weren’t missed, really. He was just too fucking scared to take them. Even when Yuta was giving him the chance to. Even that night, when he’d reached out and traced his finger over the silver on Mark’s wrist and had said, “You’re special to me, Mark.”

Even a week later, when Yuta had looked Mark in the eye and had said, “What do you think? Should I say yes to a date with the new guy at work or not?”

Mark had said, “Go for it,” and then he’d gone back to his dorm and he’d applied for grad schools abroad.

Mark grabs a coffee from the Tim Hortons on the corner of Nelson and Granville and then wanders round the busy downtown area he used to frequent when he was younger. The stores he spent his first paycheques in, the bars he first got drunk at, places he kissed girls from his class after awkward movie theatre dates.

He feels a pang of nostalgia he wasn’t expecting.

He heads down to Gastown, past the steam-clock where tourists used to take up the sidewalk taking photos. There are less of them now— vacations aren’t quite on the top of people’s lists in the last few weeks on Earth. Although, he wonders if, technically, he is on a vacation now. A vacation from real life, the new life he made for himself in Korea. A trip down memory lane, if nothing else.

The thought makes Mark feel incredibly foolish, again contemplating whether he’s made a mistake in coming here. But it’s too late now. He’s here, tripping over the edge of the sidewalk to avoid a double-stroller and choking on his coffee, and he has a goal:

Find Yuta, confess to Yuta, live happily ever after.

Except not forever. For one week.

Mark feels sick.

Ten spots him first.

Mark hears his name being called, half drowned-out by the traffic between them, and when he lifts his head to check if he misheard, there he is. He has more tattoos than Mark remembers and his hair is cropped short, dyed white-blonde, but he is, unmistakably, Ten.

Mark lifts his hand in an awkward kind of wave, and Ten grins, crossing over the road in between passing cars. “Oh my god, it really is you. Mark Lee!” He laughs, loud and surprised, when he reaches Mark’s side of the road. “What the hell?”

“Hi.” Mark stares, flabbergasted at the reality of seeing someone he knows. Someone who makes this trip feel all the more real.

“Look at you! Your shoulders kinda filled out, huh? And your ears! You finally got them pierced?” He clicks his tongue. “Markie, you got really hot.”

“Thanks.” The word gets stuck in his throat. Did he get hot? He got— well, older, obviously. Filled out, Ten said. Mark can see that. It’s not like he’s been conscious of it, but he works out more: runs, follows Johnny around the gym and occasionally goes to one of the pole-dance fitness classes he does. Still, it’s kind of cool to hear it.

Ten smiles. “I’ve always liked gassing you up, Mark Lee. You used to have, like, a worryingly little amount of self-confidence in your looks. You wouldn’t have said thanks to that compliment, you’d have said “bro I’m not hot, don’t joke.” He lowers his voice in an effort to mimic Mark’s.

“Don’t remind me. I was pathetic when I first met you guys.” Mark cringes. Maybe he still is, he thinks. He feels it.

Ten shakes his head. “Not pathetic. Never pathetic. But you’ve evolved, I can feel it. Oh! Do you like my hair by the way? Just got it done.” He turns his head this way and that. It’s got a silver shimmer to it in the sunlight. “Did you know the salons are running out of appointments? Who would have thought everyone wants to go out with freshly done hair?”

“That… Doesn’t surprise me, actually,” Mark says. “The end of the world is a pretty big event, as they go.”

“It is… “ Ten smiles. “And you came back for it. Interesting.” He looks as though he wants to press further, but then clasps his hands together and grins. “You have to come over to mine for dinner. When are you free?”

Mark shrugs. “Anytime until August 14th,” he says. Ten just laughs.

Ten has an apartment in a quiet, leafy street not far from sunset beach. It’s spacious and light, and has a balcony which Ten has crammed with plants, but still somehow manages to fit in a side table and two chairs.

“Does Yuta know you’re here?” He calls out to Mark, pouring Mark a glass of wine from the kitchen.

So there it is.

“No.” Mark tenses up. “Not yet.”

“Ah-ha!” Ten grins, like he’s caught Mark out. “So you are planning to see him.”

“He’s— Yeah, he's why I’m here,” Mark admits. It’s a relief, almost, to share it with someone else, someone who knows Yuta, who knew them both before. “To tell him how I— to confess.”

Ten sits down next to Mark and nods, like he isn’t at all surprised. “Fucking finally,” he says, handing Mark a glass of wine. Some sort of red, Mark can’t tell what. “I’m glad you’ve realised you deserve to try having what you want, even if it’s kind of untimely.”

“Hmm.” Mark sips the wine. “How, um, how is he?”

“Oh, he left town months ago.” Ten shrugs. “I think he’s in the US.”

“What?” The jolt of panic Mark feels throws his world sideways.

“Joking.” Ten holds up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry. Don’t hate me!” He grins.

Mark groans. “You nearly gave me a heart-attack.”

“Sorry.” Ten doesn’t look sorry. “I saw him a few weeks ago actually, at a party, so he’s still here. He seemed well.”

“Good.” Mark puts down his glass. This conversation feels like a dream, and he isn’t sure if it’s a good one yet. “Is he…?”

“Is he… What?” Ten clearly isn’t going to throw him any bones here. He’ll have to say it.

“Is he single?”

“Honestly?” Ten pulls a face. “He was dating someone last I heard, but— no, hey, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking of not seeing him now you’re here and it’s too real.” Ten looks at him, measures his expression carefully. “But he’d want to know you’re here. That you came back for him. He would.”

It’s a bad dream, Mark thinks, definitely a bad dream.

“How can you be sure? If he’s with someone, if he’s happy... Oh man, oh—I don’t know what I’m doing, Ten.” He runs his hands over his face. “What if I tell him how I feel and I’m just fucking his life up?”

“The one that ends in a week?” Ten scoffs. He kicks his sliders off and tucks his feet underneath himself, curled up on his chair like a cat basking in the evening sun. “Go and fuck his life right up, baby. Do it while you still can.”

When Mark moved away, Yuta had promised to stay in touch. They’d made plans for weekly video calls, and Yuta had even said he’d try to make it out to Korea for a vacation, if he could get the time off between work and his volunteering.

The first call had been nice, like the relief of cold air on a hot day. The tightness in Mark’s chest, from the exhaustion of moving and starting again, had eased when he’d heard Yuta’s voice and watched him smile, even on a heavily pixelated screen.

But it had been a mistake. Mark had needed a clean break from being in love with his best friend and instead all he’d seem to do was drag those feelings a few thousand miles away, and stew in them.

So he’d made an excuse that he was too busy studying to take Yuta’s call the next week, and the week after there was a party he claimed to be going to, and the excuses kept coming until Yuta stopped asking if he was free anymore.

It was for the best, Mark had thought. As usual, he’d been wrong.

The next morning, Mark gets up and thinks about going for a run. Instead, he walks. Walks, and stops to sit on benches, to watch the ocean as he heads round the marina.

He remembers days like this from before he left, remembers long walks with Yuta that lasted all day. He was in love with Yuta by then, the lump in his throat making it more and more evident to Mark every time Yuta looked at him for more than a brief moment, every time he made a joke that he knew Mark would find hilarious, just to make him smile.

It was evident in the way his heart stopped every time Yuta mentioned dating someone new. Evident in the dreams he had and the fact that Yuta was the only person on his mind the day he got knocked off his bike by a car and he thought he might be dying (he wasn’t).

He was in love with Yuta then, and he’d never really stopped being in love with him. But Yuta was his best friend, and fuck if he was going to potentially ruin that.

Yuta isn’t even his best friend anymore, and Mark can’t tell if that relieves him or makes him feel a thousand times worse about the whole situation.

Mark thought he’d do the whole drawn out, memory-lane tour if he ever came back to where he’d grown up. Imagined visiting his old high school, his childhood neighbourhood, the swing-set he’d played on when he was a kid, but it doesn’t feel necessary now.

Now he’s in the midst of the city, he feels as at home as he thinks he’s going to. Mark had never much been attached to the area around his parents house, not after he moved out. They’d been fairly close, when he was younger. When he was a kid and did as he was told to do and he hadn’t quite yet worked out how much he liked boys, so neither had his parents. Not that he’s ever really told them properly. But they’ve figured it out, probably. Maybe from a cousin who’s seen his social media and put two and two together based on his friends list and the fact he is always checking in at queer venues. Maybe they know, maybe they don’t. They’ve never reached out to him to clarify.

Maybe they weren’t even fairly close. Maybe they weren’t close at all. Maybe, Ten and Yuta and Jungwoo, and everyone that came into his life along with them, were more his neighbourhood than where his parents lived ever was.

If not for them, for him—for Yuta, Mark would never have considered coming back here so soon, and yet, here he is. Twenty four years old, back on home-soil after two and a half years away.

Sometimes, life works in mysterious ways. Not that his impending doom is particularly mysterious. Scientists have pretty much got the time of impact down to a five minute timeframe, after all.

It’s going to be just after dawn, here on the Pacific coast, when they die. It’s going to be somewhere between 05:02 and 05:17.

The predictability of it makes it no less terrifying.

He receives a text from Ten that afternoon. Spoke to him yet?

Mark texts back, No :/

Ten calls him straight away. “Do I need to stage an intervention? Set up a chance meeting?” He wants to, Mark can hear it in his voice. “I could invite him over and-“

“Please don’t. I’ll call him,” Mark promises. “After this.”

Mark doesn’t call.

Instead, he buys a six-pack of some new BC craft ale —support local and all that, even at the end of the world, he decides— and sits by himself on the grass clearing near the beach. The beach itself is full of people: families trying to make normality last as long as they can, teenagers making out, groups of friends spending time together, watching the sunset.

Sitting alone, watching everyone, even from back here, makes him feel suddenly incredibly lonely, so he calls Donghyuck, not caring about the charge to his account. He’ll never live to pay it, anyway. It’s midday the next day in Seoul, which is weird to think about.

“You’ll technically get a day longer,” he says when Donghyuck answers.

Donghyuck doesn’t even balk at the weird opening statement. “No,” he says. “Because you got that time back when you flew over, right? It was still the day you left when you landed, but it should have been the next day.”

“Huh. Yeah. It’s just…Weird.” Mark doesn’t really know where he’s going with this. Thinking too hard, not thinking enough. It’s warm today out here, and the sun beats down on him from its perch in the sky. “It’s all weird.”

“It’ll be the same day for us at the end, at least we have that.” There’s a pause on the line while Donghyuck is counting. “It’ll be nine PM here on the same day as you’ll be in. That’s nice, right?”

“Yeah.” Mark lies back against the grass and closes his eyes against the sun. “Say hi to Taeil for me.”

“You can say it yourself, he’s right here next to me,” Donghyuck says.

Mark can’t help but smile. Donghyuck has always been a fast mover. “Has he moved in already?”

“Of course he has, stupid. The worlds about to fucking end, Mark. There are no relationship rules anymore. There’s no responsibility. We just fuck constantly.”

“Okay, okay. TMI.” Mark pulls a face, but he’s happy for them. He’s glad his friends are making things happen, even if he is still putting his own life-events off. “Speak to you later, okay?”

“Wait!” Donghyuck says before Mark can end the call. “Before you go, Taeil wants to know if you’ve spoken to your one true love yet?”

Mark sighs. Even with his eyes closed, the sun is too bright. “What do you think?”

Donghyuck makes a strangled noise. “Don’t call me again until you do,” he says. “Now I gotta get back to cuddling. Naked.”

Yuta slotted into Mark’s life with such ease, it felt like he’d known him forever.

Yuta was enigmatic, outspoken but sensitive, funny, prudent. He was everything that Mark had never considered could work so well together. And he had this smile, the only fucking smile in the whole world. Mark thought he was so cool.

Mark was nineteen, Yuta was dating Taeyong, and Mark had pined, and pined like it was his god-given duty. If he was obvious about it, Yuta was gracious enough never to say so, and he was there, always with kind words and a warm touch, when Mark needed him to be.

He’d gone with Mark to his grandfather’s funeral, stood at the back of the hall, where Mark stared at the backs of his parents that didn’t even know he was there, and squeezed his shoulder gently when he thought Mark needed it. “You’ll be with him again one day,” he’d said quietly, Mark sobbing silently into the shoulder of Yuta’s suit, and Mark had felt so grateful for that— for Yuta’s words of comfort, despite his staunch atheism.

He’d picked Mark up from nightclubs when he’d got too drunk on more than one occasion. He’d taken Mark home and tucked him into bed, and he’d frowned at him softly and had said, “Please stop trying to break yourself, it hurts me too,” and Mark hadn’t understood what he meant.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Jaehyun had smiled one afternoon they’d spent hanging out at the beach, Yuta laughing at the water’s edge as Ten kicked sand at him.

“Here,” Mark had answered— easy, obvious— immediately. “With you guys.”

He’d left to go to school in Seoul eighteen months later, with no intention of returning back home.

And it’s only four years after that conversation now, but here he is, looking out at the same ocean. He was right in a way— he’ll be here next year, if only as a memory of what once was. They all will.

It’s poetic, really, he thinks. And then he opens his fourth beer.

Mark doesn’t know how he makes it back to his hotel. After only 6 beers it seems stupid that he’s feeling so out of it, but Mark has never claimed to be able to hold his liquor. He climbs into bed and lies there, thumb hovering over Yuta’s contact number. At least, he thought it was hovering, but he must have touched the screen because then the call is connecting and the ringing tone is loud even away from his ear, and before he can fully understand what is happening, Yuta’s there, on the other end of the line.

“Mark?”

Mark drops the phone on his chest. He fumbles to grab it and puts it to his ear. “Hi,” he says. His voice sounds too loud for the room.

“Mark. What… Are you okay?” Yuta asks. He sounds concerned, or maybe just confused. He sounds good. Mark has always loved listening to Yuta talk.

“I’m— yeah. I’m good.” Mark’s heart is beating loudly in his ears.

Yuta’s voice is soft. “Are you sure you’re okay? It’s been so long.” He pauses. “What time is it there?”

“Just after midnight, I think.” Mark closes his eyes and concentrates on drowning out the sound of his pulse as nervousness flows through him.

“No.” Yuta chuckles “That’s the time here. In Vancouver. What time is it where you are?”

“Vancouver,” Mark says. The word sounds foreign on his tongue. Six beers hadn’t felt like a lot, but his head is filled with jelly now and he is struggling with being awake. “Yes, here. Here in Vancouver,” he says. The weight of the phone in his hand suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

“You’re here?” Yuta asks. “Mark? Are you still listening? Mark?”

“Yeah,” Mark mumbles, “I'm here,” and then he falls asleep, phone laying beside his head on the pillow.

Mark wakes up to a bunch of missed calls and texts from Yuta. It reminds him of the old days. Before he left Yuta was always at the top of his recent contacts. He was always too scared to check if he was at the top of Yuta’s, because even if he was, he was never sure if it would mean anything. Everyone liked Yuta, everyone wanted to hang out with him, thought he was cool. Everyone wanted Yuta and Mark knew he was nothing special.

Still, the first text that Mark received in the morning was usually from Yuta.

Just as he’s about to open the first message, Yuta calls him again.

“Hello?”

“Oh, you’re awake!” Yuta sounds relieved. “Good. I’m in the lobby.”

“What lobby? The— this lobby?” Mark looks out of the hotel room window, as if that might give him a clue. “My hotel?”

Yuta laughs. “Yes, the lobby of your hotel. At least I hope it’s your hotel, it’s where Ten told me to come. The Sheraton, right?”

Mark takes a breath. “You spoke to Ten.”

“Well, you hung up on me in the middle of our first call in years,” Yuta says softly. “So, are you coming down? I don’t want to wait another second to see you!”

Mark laughs. Hope blooms in his belly. This isn’t half as awkward as he’d imagined it could be, though he guesses that might change when they’re face to face. “I’m not dressed,” he says. “Can you give me five minutes?”

“Shall I wait across the street? There’s a coffee place. I could get us drinks and you can take your time getting ready.”

“Sure.” Mark tries not to make it clear in his voice that he’s practically swooning. “That would be really nice.”

He’s nervous. He wasn’t expecting to be this nervous, but his body feels like it’s filled with erratic energy, trying to escape his limbs as he showers and dries himself and pulls on his underwear.

He gets it under control enough to remember to pick up his keycard and his wallet before he heads out of the door, and takes the stairs down to the lobby to work off the excess nerves.

Mark heads over the street, where he can see Yuta sitting in the window. He looks handsome, his dark hair falling over his face in a curtain.

Mark almost turns back.

When Yuta spots him, he stands up from his seat and waits for Mark to approach. “Can I?” He puts his arms out, hesitant, until Mark nods.

Yuta gives great hugs, Mark has always thought so, and even though he’s biased, he’s sure it’s objectively true as well. There’s a genuineness to the way that Yuta hugs— the way he envelopes your body with warmth, the way he rests his cheek against your shoulder. Mark finds himself choking back the threat of tears.

It’s not awkward, it’s just nice.

When Yuta pulls back, he smiles at Mark. Says, “Hey.”

Mark smiles back, he can’t help it. “Hey. You look…” Amazing, he thinks. But instead he says, “The same.”

Yuta pushes his hair back. “So do you,” he says.

“I do? Ten said I got hot.” He isn’t sure why he says it, and he feels stupid as soon as he does, but Yuta doesn’t laugh at him. He just raises an eyebrow.

“Like you weren’t before?” He smiles. Mark blushes.

They sit and sip at too-hot coffee, and Mark takes a breath. “I’m sorry about last night, about calling you. I must have fallen asleep.” He cringes. “But not because you’re boring or anything!”

Yuta smiles. “I’m glad. Afterwards I sent a message round to Ten and Jaehyun and everyone. Asked if they might know why you were claiming to be in VanCity. Ten told me where you were staying.”

“Did he tell you anything else?”

“Only that he met you by chance the other day.” Yuta pauses, looks down at his coffee. “Were you not going to tell us you were here?”

“It's not like that. I mean— it’s not that I wasn’t going to, I just hadn’t got round to it yet.” He sighs. “It's complicated.”

“Are you flying back before— before the 14th?” Yuta stirs his coffee with his spoon. There’s something in his manner that Mark can’t quite grasp, like he’s nervous too.

Mark shakes his head. “It was a one-way flight,” he says. “No going back.”

Yuta just looks down and smiles.

They finish their coffees and then they walk right along Davie street to Sunset Beach. They sit on a log looking out to sea and Yuta spreads his palms out in the sand. “How are you, in general, I mean? Is Seoul good? School going well?”

Mark nods. “Not that I’ll ever get my masters now.” He rolls his eyes. It’s funny though, because finishing school didn’t even cross his mind when the news was announced. School paled in significance to everything else. A lot of things that had seemed important before— when there was a hypothetical future— seem so small, so pointless now. It’s probably the same for a lot of people, Mark guesses. Everyone is in the same situation, caught between the present and the imminent end.

Yuta clears his throat, interrupting Mark’s thoughts. “And do you have someone special over there?”

Mark tries not to read into the question. Yuta is kind, he’s interested in the people he knows. Still, part of Mark plays with the idea that Yuta is asking for the same reason Mark had checked with Ten about Yuta’s relationship status. “I have good friends,” he replies, carefully. “I have— my friend Donghyuck, he’s probably who I’m closest to. We met at my part time job and now we live together. As friends.”

Yuta’s expression doesn’t change so much as it softens round the edges. “And you’re… You’re doing well?”

Mark says, “I'm doing as well as anyone can be right now, considering… You know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s… It still doesn’t feel real, does it? Part of me hopes they’re wrong. That it’s all a big joke.” Yuta takes a fist full of warm sand and Mark watches as he unfurls his fist and it slips through his fingers.

“Maybe we’ll wake up and it will have all been a dream,” he suggests. He’s joking, but it’s definitely crossed his mind. There are thousands of theories about what might happen on August 14th. This isn’t even one of the crazier ones.

Yuta shakes his head. “I don’t like that idea.”

Mark is still watching Yuta’s hands, the way the soft sand falls from his fingers. It’s mesmerising. “Why?”

“Because then you won’t be here again,” Yuta says.

Mark looks him in the eye. “I missed you,” he admits, the words escaping him before he can stop them, even as his heart races. “I missed this.”

Yuta considers this. “Then why did you leave?” He asks.

Mark hasn’t got an answer for him.

The next day, Yuta is waiting for him in the lobby again. “You still wear the bracelet I bought you,” Yuta notices, looking at Mark’s wrist.

“Yeah, I do.” Mark tries not to blush. “It’s the nicest gift I’ve ever received.”

Yuta buys them take-out coffee and bagels, and asks Mark what he wants to do.

“Are you sure you’re not busy?” Mark asks him, just to be sure. While seeing Yuta is literally why Mark came here, he can’t help but feel guilty about it, like he’s stealing Yuta’s precious time from other people.

“I'm sure.” Yuta nudges his arm gently. “I thought that you might want to walk to Stanley Park today. Maybe walk the whole sea-wall round, like we used to when we were bored.”

“Okay, let’s do it.” Mark bites into his bagel (everything with cream cheese) and tries not to drool. “How long does that take again?”

“Walking?” Yuta shrugs. “Like three hours all the way round maybe, if we take our time.”

“Three hours?” Mark hesitates, before smiling. “No, that’s cool, I can still do that!”

Two hours in and Mark is already too hot and his ankle is playing up, and aside from following Johnny around the gym and to the pole-fitness studio and, admittedly, not doing half of the reps Johnny tries to encourage him to do, Mark hasn’t been particularly athletic over the last few years. But, in his defence, he’s been studying and avoiding his feelings for a guy back home.

“Oh fuck, I can’t do it.” Mark eyes the bench a little way ahead on the path. “How are we only half way round?”

“Because we keep stopping to talk and look at things!” Yuta laughs. “Which I don’t mind, for the record. I’m having lots of fun.”

“Me too. I’m just— I’m not used to this much walking now. I take a lot of taxis these days.”

Yuta scrunches up his nose. “I couldn’t live somewhere where there wasn’t lots of places to go walking, see nature. Me and Jaehyun do the Grouse Grind every month,” he says.

“Isn’t that, like, a trail with a billion steps?” Mark shakes his head in disbelief. “That’s torture!”

“It’s not!” Yuta laughs. “It's fun! I’d take you, if we had more time. I think I could get you to enjoy it.”

“How?” Mark would do anything Yuta asked, in reality, but he still has trouble imagining himself psyched up about a vertical hike.

“I’d think of something to persuade you with.” Yuta grins, and Mark isn’t certain, but it almost seems like Yuta is flirting with him.

Yuta invites him over to his place to eat that evening. It’s not too far from Ten’s, a block away from Davie street, and when they arrive, there’s a half naked marble statue of a guy sitting at the table, drinking iced coffee through a straw.

Yuta stops in the doorway. “Hey,” he greets the shirtless guy. “This is Mark. Mark, this is Jungwoo. He’s my— roommate?”

“Roommate, yeah.” Jungwoo sucks on his straw. “Hi Mark!”

“Hi.” Mark blinks. “Nice to, uh, meet you.”

Yuta excuses himself to go to the bathroom and Jungwoo examines Mark, though not unkindly. He just looks— interested.

“So, you’re roommates?” Mark repeats. The way Yuta had said it seemed kind of unsure. Mark doesn’t get it.

Jungwoo nods. Says, “Well, we were seeing each other. Kind of. For a while. But the world is ending, so now we’re just roommates. You know how it is.”

Mark doesn’t know at all. “Oh, right. That’s, um, that’s really cool. I think.”

“I’ve heard all about you.” Jungwoo holds out a box. “Want a cookie? They’re cinnamon crunch.”

Mark takes one. “Thanks,” he says. It reminds him of the type of cookie he’d eat after school back when this was the only place he’d ever lived. Before he drifted away from talking to his parents. Before he discovered himself. Before he met Yuta.

It’s a weird feeling, disassociated with the present, aside from the fact he's standing with a half-naked guy he doesn’t know in a kitchen he’s only just walked into, being told about how Yuta used to date him.

It’s weird.

They eat, and they open some beers, and they watch old movies, like this is a regular Friday night downtown, like Mark is always here. Yuta keeps glancing at him and he smiles when he manages to catch Mark’s eye. It’s a bit like before and Yuta even smells the same, laughs the same. Points out the same scenes as they watch the movie.

He slips his hand easily around Mark’s shoulder and Mark is almost sad when he inevitably has to get up to use the bathroom.

Like before, he’s perfect. Like before, Mark wants to kiss him. Maybe tonight, he thinks, he will.

Jungwoo joins them for the second movie they watch, and he clings to Yuta’s side most of the night like a baby koala except he’s tall and he has broad shoulders that put Mark’s to shame, and Mark feels embarrassed to have thought he could just waltz in here and tell Yuta he loves him, when Yuta has this, even if they are only “kind of” dating. Or were. Whatever,

Mark seethes quietly as Jungwoo gets up off the sofa, gym shorts ridden up his thighs and Mark thinks, I bet he has a big dick. It’s not even a fleetingly pleasant thought, even if Mark hasn’t got laid in months, it’s just pure jealousy.

It’s not a good feeling.

When he gets back to his hotel room, Mark makes a long-distance call and tells Donghyuck everything he’s missed.

“I don’t know why I came back,” he sighs. “Why did you buy the ticket?”

“Because you made me?” Donghyuck snorts. “You have a week to live, stop being weirdly obsessed with his live in fuck buddy guy and just make a move.”

“Urgh.” Mark wants to smother himself with his pillow. “He doesn’t want me.”

“He wants to take you on some death hike! He asked you why you left him behind!” Dongyuck argues. “I mean, come on Mark!”

“He just asked why I left, not why I left him specifically,” Mark clarifies.

“It's the same thing.” Donghyuck hums. “You said it yourself that you thought he was flirting with you in the park.”

“That was before I met the hot model guy he lives with.” Mark rubs at his temple with his free hand. “Now I’m less sure.”

“Look,” Donghyuck says. “Why don’t you just give him a blowjob and see what happens?”

“What? I’m not just— why would you even suggest that, dude?!” Mark does not welcome the image when he is wallowing in self pity. Sad and horny have never been a good combination.

“It worked for me,” Donghyuck remarks, and Mark has had enough.

“I’m calling Johnny instead, he’ll be kinder to me.” Mark groans. He isn’t usually this petulant, but then again his life isn’t usually this fucked.

Donghyuck laughs at him. “Goodnight, Markie,” he says.

“Goodnight, Hyuck.” Mark sighs. He’s been lucky, really, to have known good people like his friends, and he really does appreciate them, even if their idea of a good plan is just dropping to their knees.

Mark falls asleep trying not to think about sucking Yuta off and fails miserably.

Yuta borrows Jaehyun’s car three days before the world ends and drives them out to Horseshoe Bay. Most of the gas stations are empty, and the few that are still manned are charging ridiculous amounts for gas, on the off-chance that this doesn’t end how it’s expected to, and they’ll be able to profit off the desperation of the days leading up to August 14.

Yuta whistles in shock at the price of their half-tank of gas, but he waves off Mark’s attempts to pay towards it. “This was my idea,” he says. “And I want to pay. I want to spoil you! I have two years of buying you stuff to make up for, right?”

It’s not meant as a barb, Mark can see that. Yuta is genuine when he speaks, always, and he’s being genuine now. He means it when he says he wants to spoil Mark, and it breaks Mark’s heart.

The bracelet on his wrists feels like it’s branding him, telling him he’s selfish, telling him he doesn’t deserve a friend like Yuta, not when he now can’t stop thinking about sucking him off no thanks to Donghyuck.

Not when he left Yuta behind and cut off all contact with him.

Mark can’t do it any longer. “I’m sorry, “ he says suddenly. “That I left. I know I didn’t… I didn’t give you much of an explanation. I owed you that much and I didn’t — I just left.”

“You didn’t owe me anything,” Yuta tells him and Mark feels helpless, guilty and stupid. They’re looking at mountains in the distance, counting the peaks, when Mark says, “You should go back home.”

“What?” Yuta looks at him.

Make takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to be here just because I came back. I mean… Like, Jungwoo is insanely hot and you could be at home and—“ he swallows the lump in his throat. “You’re— you’re wasting your last little bit of time here with me.”

“Spending time with you isn’t wasting time. It’s— fuck, Mark. You know it isn’t.” Yuta looks hurt. “Why would you say that?”

“I didn’t mean... “ Mark doesn’t know where to begin, or where to end either, so he just talks, “I just— I’ve done this all wrong. I shouldn’t have flown back. I shouldn’t have called you. Ten said you were with someone, he said you were happy and I still… “

“Well Ten gave you bogus info.” Yuta frowns. “Me and Jungwoo cooled things off months ago, didn’t he say? It was always casual. I don’t— why is that even on your mind?”

Mark closes his eyes. “Because… I know you like spending time with me, but I was meant to tell you and I haven’t, and Donghyuck’s only advice was to get on my knees!” He’s talking crap now, a whole spiral of every worry that is going through his head. Every stupid thought. Every insecurity.

When he opens his eyes, Yuta looks so confused it’s almost funny. “What? What is with the cryptics, Mark? What haven't you told me? What do you mean?”

And Mark thinks, this is it. This is when you have to confess.

“I’m in love with you, okay?” He says. “I loved you then and I still do now and— I came back to tell you. That’s why I’m here. And I couldn’t even— the world ends in two days and I still hadn’t even told you.” He looks away, over blue waters. “I’m sorry.”

“You… Oh Mark,” Yuta breathes, and Mark is scared to turn back and see his expression, so instead he starts walking away.

“Mark. Mark! Where are you going?!” Yuta calls, and Mark realises he’s laughing. “Mark!” Yuta shouts again. “Come back so I can tell you I love you too.”

Mark stops still just as Yuta catches up with him.

“Really?” Mark asks, just as Yuta gets to his side.

“Yes.” Yuta smiles. “I’ve loved you for years.”

Mark still can’t accept it, not properly. “But you dated Taeyong, and then that Doyoung guy, and…”

“And they never compared to you.” He tilts his head to the side, his expression almost dazed. “You came back for me? I'm why you’re here?”

Mark nods. It feels good to tell the truth. It feels right. “I’m sorry I left it so late,” he says.

“I don’t care about that.” Yuta inches closer. “Can I kiss you now?” He asks.

Mark closes his eyes. “Please,” he says. “Please kiss me.”

And, with an audience of blue sky and mountains, Yuta does.

They get back to Yuta’s a little after dark. They had done more making out than hiking, thank goodness, and then they had managed to drag themselves away from each other for long enough for Yuta to drive them back downtown.

If Jungwoo is there when they get back to the apartment, he doesn’t make himself known, not that Mark would have noticed. He’s too caught up in Yuta: the way he feels, smells, the noises he makes when he kisses Mark deeper.

They make it to Yuta’s bedroom standing up, but only just, and then Mark is on his back and he’s being kissed to within an inch of his life, and the irony of it isn’t lost on him.

The whole world ends in two days. He really is within an inch of his life, no matter what. At least what is happening right now is that Yuta is undressing, that Yuta is pressing him to the sheets, touching him, wanting him.

At least he knows Yuta loves him.

If nothing else, at the end of the world, he has that.

Jungwoo puts a whole box of cookies in front of Mark at the table in the kitchen the next morning.

“Eat,” he says. “Cookies for breakfast are acceptable in times like these.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Jungwoo leans on his elbow across the table and grins. “I heard you last night.”

Mark knows he turns beetroot red, but he can’t help it. He was not in control of his volume control last night. “I’m sorry.“

Jungwoo laughs. “It made me happy! You sounded happy, both of you. Lots of laughing.”

“Oh, laughing. Yeah.” Mark holds in a sigh of relief. It’s not like he’s sex-shy, but Mark has never been one to enjoy exhibitionism. Maybe that’s the fault of his upbringing, but whatever. He’d work on changing it if he had any time to.

“And, like, loud sex noises, obviously.” Jungwoo laughs again. He takes a cookie and shoves the whole thing in his mouth.

Mark wishes he had longer to get to know this enigma. He must be a good person if Yuta likes him, Mark knows, and he doesn’t have time for petty jealousy over the people the man he loves has slept with. He should never have spent time on petty jealousy, he realises that now. It’s funny how these things seem so obvious the closer they get to time running out.

Yuta walks into the kitchen, towel drying his hair. “Good morning,” he greets them, pulling out a chair and moving it closer to Mark before he sits down.

“Good morning.” Mark can’t help but smile. Yuta is gorgeous like this. There’s still toothpaste on his bottom lip. “We have cookies for breakfast.”

“Nice.” Yuta takes one.

Jungwoo stands up. “Okay, lovebirds, I have to get dressed and go out. I promised Jaehyun I’d help him get booze in for his end of the world party.” He gives Mark a wave from the kitchen doorway, and they wave back in sync.

With Jungwoo gone, Yuta sits even closer to him, until he’s close enough to press a kiss to Mark’s cheek. “What do you wanna do today?” He asks.

“Just— anything.” Mark’s heart leaps. “Spend it with you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Yuta plays idly with Mark’s bracelet, the one Yuta bought, that he still wears every day.

“Can we not do any major hikes, though?” Mark asks.

Yuta throws his head back and laughs.

That night, after a full day of making up for lost time and doing every date-activity they can think of to do in the wake of an apocalypse, Mark falls asleep in Yuta’s arms and wakes up at dawn, wondering where he is. When he remembers, it washes him in a warm and happy glow. Yuta’s bed feels like home, he thinks, which makes sense. Yuta is his home, always has been.

It just sucks to only truly find home and settle there just before it’s all taken away again, that’s all.

He wraps his arms around Yuta from behind and kisses his shoulder. “You're not a big spoon,” Yuta mumbles, but he doesn’t do anything about it, his breathing returning to the rhythm of soft slumber within a few minutes.

The day he got accepted to grad school was a weird one. He’d long decided that he needed out— out of this city, out of his head, out of the terrifying rush of feelings that washed over him when he was around Yuta.

At this point, Yuta was with Doyoung or maybe they’d just broken up, Mark isn’t sure now. And they’d walked from Yuta’s old apartment, the one where he rented a room from a guy who smoked weed for breakfast, to some new super hipstery place at the edge of Gastown for brunch, just the two of them.

“I have something to tell you.” Mark played with the corners of the laminated menu on the table.

“Okay.” Yuta had said, “I have something to tell you, too.”

Mark had looked up, then, intrigued.

“Do you wanna go first?” Yuta had asked him and Mark wanted to shake his head. Wanted to say, no actually I’ve changed my mind completely. Instead, he took a deep breath.

“I'm moving away,” he said. “To Korea.”

It was Yuta’s turn to look surprised. “What?”

“My grandparents are still there, on my dad’s side,” he’d explained. “I thought it would be nice to reconnect with them, maybe. I don’t know. And the school is great. So— yeah. I’m flying to Seoul in two weeks.”

Yuta had hesitated for a moment, maybe gathering his thoughts. For a second Mark imagined Yuta asking him to stay.

“Wow. That’s great Mark. That’s— congratulations!” Yuta had smiled. “I’m really happy for you,” he’d said. “We should celebrate.”

He’d never said what he wanted to tell Mark that day.

They don’t spend the whole of their last day in bed, because that would be a waste, but they do spend a good few hours there, and then they shower in cold water, because the hot water seems to have been turned off now, laughing at each other’s goose-pimpled skin.

They walk aimlessly for hours that day, basking in the warmth of the summer sun. It’s nice, Mark thinks, that their last day on Earth is so lovely. The sky is blue and clear, and he can hardly believe an impact is imminent at all.

Mark hasn’t brought lots of clothes over with him, but Yuta lends him a shirt that fits perfectly, and they eat dinner together on the balcony. Yuta says, “This is our first official dinner date.”

Mark thinks, and our last, but he doesn’t say it. It’s almost too sad to say aloud.

“Our first dinner date,” he muses. “And it’s store-bought sushi and vodka. Perfect.”

“Are you saying I’m not a good date?” Yuta grins.

Mark shakes his head. “You’re the best,” he says, and Yuta kisses him with a vodka mouth.

Jaehyun’s end of the world party is messy, and it’s loud and it’s fun, the stupid kind of fun they used to have before Mark left for Seoul. Ten comes over with a bunch of friends, and Jaehyun’s neighbours turn up to join in, bringing homemade salsa that Yuta spills onto the carpet. Mark is introduced to their new friends by Jungwoo as Yuta’s boyfriend (which makes him smile like an idiot so much that he has to hide his face behind a bottle of vodka for five minutes) and people he’s never met before hug him like he’s an old friend when he and Yuta duck out early, leaving the party in full swing.

“We love you!” Ten calls to them both from the balcony, his voice echoing behind them.

“We love you too!” Yuta calls back, laughing, and the laughter is mixed with tears, and nothing feels like the end of the world. It feels like a beginning, and it’s hopeless and wonderful and tragic all at once.

They kiss each other’s tears away back at Yuta’s place and take their time with each other, savouring every single second they have left. Mark comes for a third time just before one in the morning, and then a pang of pure despair rips through him at the harsh realisation that it’s August 14th now.

It’s almost time.

They sit in bed, Mark resting his head against Yuta’s chest, and text their nearest and dearest their final goodbyes, and it hardly feels real, but it is.

Donghyuck texts him thanks for a great two years, bestie and Johnny sends him the most perfect wedding photo of him and Kun, hand in hand.

Mark thinks of the mother and child from the flight over here and prays silently, desperately, for that tiny chance of the asteroid being pushed off course just in time.

The newsreader on the television announces the countdown to impact at four AM local time.

It reminds Mark of New Years Eve celebration countdowns, except they’re not counting down a new year or even a new day.

They walk down to the beach together with the crowds. Hundreds of people are out, waiting for the last sunrise to appear on the horizon, streaming down towards English Bay just like they are.

Strangers hug. They adopt lone people into their groups, hold their hands, wipe their tears. No one needs to go out alone, here.

Out there, somewhere, are the Bezos and the Musks of the world, on their secret escape flights or whatever bullshit only the ultra rich of the world have up their sleeves. But here, downtown in Mark’s home-city, is something much more special.

Here is humanity— kind and compassionate in its final hours.

The sun rises over the water just before five and it’s the most beautiful sight that Mark has ever seen. Yuta pulls him close, kisses him one last time, long and lingering, and rests his forehead against Mark’s.

“We’ll see each other again,” he whispers and Mark smiles. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Either way, they’re together.

The sun stands proud, a beautiful orange glow across the wall of water ahead of them, and then they see it— like a flash of light in the distance. A flash that gets closer, and brighter.

Mark closes his eyes, holds onto Yuta’s hand tightly and waits.