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Mark was sitting on the couch with Jeno when they first brought it up. Renjun and Jisung were knitting on the floor, and Jaemin was yet again watching the neighbors through the window.
“I don’t like them,” Jaemin declared loudly.
“That’s nice, darling,” Renjun hummed without looking up from his needles.
“Why don’t you like them?” Mark asked. Jaemin didn’t answer, but he did look over with a disdainful expression, which was more than Mark expected.
They didn’t get along most days, and argued on their worst. Jaemin regularly called Mark his “mortal enemy“, which Mark found hilarious.
“Mark, your birthday is coming up,” Jeno said out of the blue. His hand was tracing light circles on Mark’s thigh, and it was making him flustered. “What do you want to do?”
“You know my birthday?” It was still three weeks away, but Mark was beginning to learn that Jeno was a punctual person. Unlike Jaemin, who didn’t have respect for anyone else’s time except for Renjun’s.
“Of course I know your birthday!” Jeno sounded affronted. “I know everyone’s birthday because I love you guys.” The corners of his lips were turned up in a pleased smile.
“When’s your birthday, Jen?” Jisung asked from the floor.
“My creation date,” Jeno corrected gently, “is April 23rd.” He was always gentle. It was hard to believe that he was physically stronger than Jaemin when he handled everything so tenderly, especially Chenle and Jisung.
Renjun lit up. “Hey, that’s a month after mine!”
Mark watched them get excited, Jeno practically falling over himself to plan a joint birthday party with Renjun for next year, but he couldn’t help but notice Jaemin standing silently at the window, lips pressed in a thin line as he watched everyone else.
He looked unhappy. Mark sometimes caught him making that expression, when he and Renjun talked about things that Jaemin didn’t understand and he felt left out. But he seemed sadder this time, almost lost. Mark opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Jaemin would get embarrassed if he brought it up in front of everyone, even if he would pretend it didn’t affect him.
Later, though, Mark stopped him in the kitchen before he could follow Renjun upstairs.
“What,” Jaemin bit out crankily. Mark didn’t take it personally; Renjun was going to some kind of conference out of town tomorrow and Jaemin wasn’t allowed to tag along. He’d only be gone for a couple days, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
“Earlier we were talking—I mean. Um. When is your birthday?” Mark asked, wincing when Jaemin’s blank expression turned into a scowl.
“I don’t know,” he snapped.
Huh? “Huh?” Mark said dumbly.
Jaemin sighed, glaring up at the ceiling like he was trying to stop himself from punching Mark. He did this regularly — Mark was no longer fazed by it.
“I don’t know, okay? No one ever told me, and I didn’t have a grasp on the concept of time when I was Made. Is that all you wanted to ask?” Jaemin didn’t wait for a reply, brushing past Mark roughly. Mark heard his footsteps padding up the stairs, his angry stomping ruined by his fluffy slippers, gifted to him by Chenle.
Mark sat by himself in the kitchen, a mug of coffee rapidly cooling at his side, and wondered what he could do to make it up to Jaemin.
“Good morning.”
Mark glanced up from his pan of eggs to see Jeno shuffling into the kitchen, eyes barely open and hair a wild mess atop his head. He was wearing one of Mark’s hoodies, and the sleeves were too short at the wrist. He immediately looked back down, cheeks going red, but Jeno just came closer, hooking his chin over Mark’s shoulder as he peered at the stove.
“G-good morning, Jeno,” Mark stuttered out.
“Hmm. Markie, I don’t think eggs are supposed to look like that,” Jeno said. Mark sighed and turned off the heat, poking at his failed breakfast forlornly. Some of the eggs were runny and undercooked, but other parts were blackened at the edges.
Jaemin wandered in a few seconds later, giving Jeno a wide berth as he grabbed chocolate milk out of the fridge. “Mark, you would make a bad wife,” Jaemin informed him. Mark felt his cheeks heat up. So Jaemin was still mad at him.
“That’s okay, I know how to make breakfast,” Jeno said gently, and Mark’s heart raced at the implications. He realized too late that Jeno’s super hearing would mean that he could hear Mark’s heart rate pick up, but by that time, Jeno had already moved away. Jaemin hissed like a disgruntled cat when Jeno drew near, but the other Type just held up his hands and reached past Jaemin to grab the carton of eggs.
“I hope you’re very miserable together,” Jaemin sniffed, pouring out the last of the chocolate milk into a glass and slamming the carton into the recycling bin. He coasted out of the kitchen, taking his milk with him. Jeno and Mark stared after him.
“He’s really not happy about Renjun leaving, huh,” Jeno said, looking concerned.
Mark shook his head in reply. He had heard Renjun leave before the sun had even gone out, hurrying to catch his flight. Jaemin was currently on a temporary ban from flying commercially because he had forgotten his knives in… every single one of his bags the last time he and Renjun had traveled together.
“I may have also pissed him off last night,” Mark confessed with a sigh. He heard metal clanking and the sound of a power drill, and peered out into the backyard in concern, but it was just Chenle and Jisung working on their rollercoaster. “Should we be helping the kids?”
“Renjun says it’s their newest passion project, so we should let them be for now. If they need help, they’ll ask.” Jeno dismissed his concerns with a wave of his hand. “I’m just wondering who keeps giving them heavy machinery. Don’t you need a license to operate a forklift?”
“Where’d you learn that?”
“Hey, I watch TV you know,” Jeno pouted. Mark privately thought Jaemin would benefit from watching TV like Jeno, but Jaemin didn’t care much for “the people in the glass box” because they were “not Renjun, why would I be interested in their lives?”.
“I think it’s better not to ask,” Mark said, finally pulling away from the kitchen window. “As long as they’re being safe.” Unlike last month when they nearly set the trees on fire testing their mini rocket.
“They’re so smart, aren’t they?” Jeno’s arm settled around his waist, and Mark did his best not to tense up. His ears were flaming, though, and he hoped Jeno wouldn’t notice. “I’m really proud of them.”
“Yeah.” Mark leaned his head against Jeno’s shoulder. “Me too.”
Mark woke up when Jaemin flung his door open, so hard the handle banged into the wall. There were already several indents from previous incidents, and Mark was already shrugging off his blanket so Jaemin could examine his chest.
Jaemin’s breathing was labored as he jumped onto the bed, one of his knees colliding painfully with Mark’s side. He still remembered the first time Jaemin did this, scrabbling so desperately at Mark’s shirt to check on something, though Mark wasn’t sure what. He remembered how long it took for the scratch marks to fade, and how Jaemin had looked at him with a haunted expression for the next week after that.
(“I killed you,” Jaemin had sobbed over and over again, while Renjun stood there with a hand over his mouth, unsure of what was happening. “I don’t understand. I killed you.”
He had cried, threw up blood all over Mark’s shoes, and then collapsed. Mark had no idea what he had gone through while he was with the president, and he vowed to himself he would never ask.)
“Nightmare again?” Mark whispered when Jaemin had finally calmed down.
“Yeah,” Jaemin whispered back, voice hoarse.
“Do you want to call Renjun?” Mark could see him hesitate, but eventually, Jaemin shook his head. He made to get off the bed, but Mark grabbed his wrist before he could leave. It was evident how distraught Jaemin was when he didn’t threaten to break Mark’s hand. “Do you want to stay here?”
Jaemin hesitated for even longer, like it pained him to even think about getting comfort from Mark, but eventually climbed into the bed, stealing Mark’s blanket and everything. Mark pretended to be annoyed, sighing loudly, but in truth he was more surprised that Jaemin had taken him up on his offer.
“Hey,” Mark said, when minutes or hours had passed and neither of them were asleep. “If you don’t know your birthday, we can just share mine. I don’t mind.”
Jaemin didn’t answer, and Mark wondered if perhaps he was asleep after all. A couple heartbeats passed and Mark was about to roll over and try to sleep himself when arms encircled his torso, and Jaemin forcibly tucked his head under Mark’s chin.
“Thanks,” he said roughly, sounding more choked up than Mark had ever heard him.
“It’s no problem,” Mark said awkwardly. “You seem like a Leo, anyway.”
Silence, and then: “I don’t know what that means.”
Mark laughed softly. Jaemin’s need to learn would always overcome his pride, the only reason he would ask Mark to teach him anything. He explained the different zodiacs to Jaemin until the sun was filtering through the blinds, and fell asleep in the middle of his explanation on Tauruses.
When he woke up, Jaemin was gone, and there were teeth indents in both of his arms that stung when he moved them, but Mark couldn’t even be mad. Not when he had a joint birthday party to plan, and he felt like for once, finally, he and Jaemin could get along.