A/N: Read carefully through this chapter, there's a lot of information!

Jinyoung impatiently tapped his foot as the swim team was arguing about where they wanted to go get food. He honestly didn't care where they ate as he wasn’t too hungry and would just rather find out what Mark had to do so urgently. From his given information, he guessed it had to do with one of the fencing members, most likely Jackson.

“Jinyoung hyung? Are you okay?” Jaehyung asked, waving his hand in front of the vice captain’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jinyoung reassured, getting back to his senses, “Will you excuse me for a bit? I have to do something real quick.¨

“I’ll wait for you. The place we decided to go is a bit of a walk and the rest of the members have a ride so I’ll drive us,” Jaehyung said with a smile.

Jinyoung nodded and left the locker room and checked the time. He didn't even realize that almost an hour had passed with the swim team changing and arguing over where to go. Hoping for the best, the swimmer waited in front of the fencing locker room, only to bump into Jaebum who was about to leave.

    “Jinyoung, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?” the fencer asked, confused by the swimmer’s sudden appearance.

    “Did Mark come by here? I could’ve sworn he had business to do with one of the fencers after what he asked you today at lunch. He usually never asks questions like that randomly,” Jinyoung explained.

    “I was expecting him to come by too honestly because it did seem a bit suspicious to me as well but nope. He hasn’t stopped by and I just locked up the room too,” Jaebum informed, shaking his head.

He must be at the swimming pool with Jackson. That’s my last guess.

The vice captain said goodbye to Jaebum and hurried over to the swimming pool, only for someone else to run past him.

Mark.

Jinyoung stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at the boy, only for him to be long gone. As he was close to the doors already, he opened them only to find absolutely no one around. Not even Jackson in the stands.

What the happened? He didn’t even lock up the pool like he said he was.

The Korean boy locked up quickly and met up with Jaehyung who was already in his car, waiting out front. Jinyoung quickly got inside and put on his seatbelt. The junior’s car wasn’t much honestly, but it was expected of a typical high schooler. The driver simply grinned at Jinyoung before driving off, oblivious to the chaos going in the passenger’s mind.

I usually have the right suspicions, but this time I was either wrong or late. I have to figure out what are Mark’s recent intentions.

Mark ran to the student parking lot, not paying attention to his swim mates’ reactions who were surprised to still see him on campus as they all thought he was off school grounds, attending to something important. He always parked on the last floor where no other cars were parked as his car was not of the typical high schooler; it was a high end model. Not only that, but it was black, had tinted windows, and was still in top condition as the boy hardly used it to keep people off of his radar. No one needed to know that he had the car and how he got it.

He quickly the engine and drove to the airport. He focused his mind on what he had to think about for the trip and tried to push out any thought of Jackson. Once he got to the airport, he parked his car in one of the parking garages and climbed over to the back seat, where he quickly changed from his school uniform of black pants and a white collared button up into an all black suit. Black slacks, black button up, black tie, and black blazer; just the way he liked it. He threw his uniform into a duffel bag and got out of the car. Mark dusted himself off to make sure there weren’t any noticeable wrinkles on his outfit, at which there weren’t, and grabbed his suitcase and luggage from the trunk.

    “First class, Yien Tuan,” the airport staff read as Mark showed her his airplane ticket and passport.

    “Yes,” the boy confirmed before receiving his ticket and passport and stepping onto the airplane.

I lead a double life too with different names too, Jackson.

Mark settled onto the airplane in first class. He sat in the back, luckily, as no one could peek over at what he was working on. The person sitting next to him was already knocked out and the plane wasn’t even off the ground yet. Not being able to use his laptop yet due to plane rules, Mark sat there impatiently, his fingers tapping his armrest. He tried to think of important things such as the swim team and the trip, but after hearing his other name, he could only think of Jackson.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know that I trust you. Even though you act cold towards me and we hardly know each other, for some reason, I can trust you. I don’t even know your big secret and I don’t care if you tell me or not either! So don’t think that’s the case either.”

Jackson’s voice rang in Mark’s head. His body shuddered thinking about how Jackson used that word. Trust.

Is he really harmless? Did I just have the wrong impression of him? I thought he was just going to use me, but he trusts me? Someone he hardly knows? It doesn’t make sense.

    “You may now use your electronics on airplane mode. The wifi is complimentary for those in first class. The rest of you can still use the wifi with a small fee,” stated the flight attendant.

Mark immediately got out his laptop and briefcase under his seat. He took out Jackson’s packet and searched up whatever he could find on him that his caretaker didn’t tell him.

There’s gotta be something that’s wrong with him that will give me a reason not to trust him.

After a good 15 minutes of searching online and through his packet, he was stumped. He had to have a reason to not trust Jackson because he could feel his heart want to at least be well acquainted with the guy, but he wanted his brain to shut his heart down and say no. His interaction with Peniel still scarred him and honestly, it scared him.

    “Is there anything else that you didn’t include about Jackson? Anything about how people around him felt about him and his personality?” emailed Mark to his caretaker, not waiting long for a response back.

    “What goodie. I get to hear from you yet again! And to answer your question, from what my sources gathered, Mr. Wang is known to be a very positive person filled with energy. He’s considered the moodmaker especially on the HK national fencing team. He smiled a lot. I didn’t send you those photos so you can take a look in the attachment,” replied his caretaker.

Mark opened the photos and saw how bright Jackson’s smile shined. It even made him feel happier and so much more positive. Most of all, his smile looked so natural that Mark couldn’t tell if he was faking his happiness in any of the photos. He radiated and the Taiwanese boy understood how much this smile had an impact on those around him to be called the moodmaker. He even noticed all of the hair color changes Jackson went through, his hair was a nice brunette now, but there was something about Jackson in blonde hair that Mark fancied, but couldn’t put to his tongue why specifically. After looking at all of the photos, Mark unconsciously smiled and let out a soft chuckle.

    “Are you also looking for Wang Kayee?”

Mark turned around to his side only to see the person next to him looking at him and his laptop screen, most likely just woke up from his nap.

    “Why do you ask? Are you?” Mark hesitatingly asked, trying not to reveal what he knows.

    “Yes. I heard rumors that he came to South Korea. It is assumed he’s attending one of the sports academies, but none of them are releasing information on whether they have a Wang Kayee enrolled or not. I tried to even bribe them, but they refused. I had no choice but to come back and work on other reports,” explained the man.

    “Are there others looking for him as well?”

    “Of course!” the man yelled slightly louder than he should have, but immediately bringing down his volume, “No one knows what happened to him so everyone is confused and wanting answers.”

    “We will be landing in five minutes. Please turn off all electronics and store carry ons,” the flight attendant announced.

The two stopped talking to clean up and turn off what they had. The landing wasn’t too bad in Mark’s opinion, but he was used to it. The man next to him, however, was a bit shaken up. Once he noticed Mark looking at him, he laughed.

    “I can never get used to it. No matter how many times I ride an airplane,” the young man said as he shook his head in embarrassment, “By the way, my name is Alex. Remember that as one day I’ll be a big shot! What’s your name?”

    “Yien.”

Mark didn’t like to talk too much to random people, specifically when he went off as Yien. The more people knew about him, the easier it could get for him to be caught. Alex and Mark chatted for a little longer before the reporter pouted at how they didn’t have much time together. He made the Taiwanese boy promise to chat with him next time they were in the same area before going their separate ways.

Jackson sat in his room, trying to get his mind off of his incident with Mark as he watched TV, but it wasn’t working. Eventually, he turned off the TV and threw the remote onto his bed before getting up and looking at the corkboard in his room.

    “Okay, if today is the 25th, and school started on the 2nd of August, then I have…” Jackson paused as he counted, exhaling deeply right after, “8 more days until the fencing team starts using weapons.”

The boy opened his closet and brought out the box that contained his sabre. He opened it and smiled at it. The sheath was right below it, but Jackson didn’t even have the heart to put it inside. For the longest time, he just looked at it, praying to God that he’ll be able to use it in time.

I told Mark the person who I am. The one who can’t hold a sabre.

A small smirk appeared on his face as a slight burden was lifted off of his shoulders as he remembered that maybe now, with someone knowing that he trusted for some odd reason, he won’t have to go through this trauma alone.

“7 more days!” yelled Jaebum as the fencing team gathered after quickly changing and lining up in a single file line.

The members cheered, specifically the rowdy Up10tion who were all excited to finally start fencing with weapons. Jackson, of course, stayed silent as he was not ecstatic about how fast time had gone.

And he had not progressed at all.

    “I’m peculiarly enthusiastic to see this mysterious one fence!” Jaebum cheered as he pointed to Jackson, bringing all eyes toward him.

    “Are you a good fencer, hyung? Did you earn any awards? Are you well known back in Hong Kong?” asked Jinwook, who was standing right next to the Chinese fencer.

I earned awards, yes. I’m well known back home, yes. Am I good fencer? I was… but who knows about now.

Jackson stayed quiet, only for one of the fencers to yell at the curious Jinwook.

    “Of course he’s a good fencer! He wouldn’t have transferred here as a senior if he wasn’t, especially at this school with how competitive our fencing department is!” hissed Sooil, friendly smacking the boy.

    “Settle down,” Jaebum said, motioning his arms down as well, “We’ll find out about Jackson’s skill soon enough. If he belongs here at the varsity fencing team, or if he should go down to junior varsity. OR EVEN, if he shouldn’t be here at all.”

The atmosphere got cold and tense and the members went quiet at the last statement. Jaebum simply laughed it off, but Jackson had a bad feeling about it.

He knows something, doesn’t he?

    “I’m just joking! Geez! You guys get so tense,” Jaebum smiled, his eyes turning into crescents. The fencers sighed in relief, but one of them was just not having it.

    “Yeah, uh huh. Are you gonna make us tense again by not going to show up to another competition?” Jinwook snarked, getting the members to laugh.

    “When will you guys let that go?” Jaebum exasperated.

    “NEVER,” joked the mischievous boy, only for the captain to glare at him.

The members giggled around and Jaebum chased Jinwook who kept teasing the captain. Jackson sat down on the floor, not ready for what comes ahead.

“One, two, three! One, two, three!” shouted the swimming team in unison as Jackson walked in from the stands.

The swimmers were all in the pool doing simple yet tedious arm exercises. The one watching them and making sure they were doing it right was the vice captain, Jinyoung. He had a whistle that hung around his neck as the members could get quite noisy and didn’t listen to him as much as Mark, whom they respected far much more as he was their captain last year as well.  

Jinyoung noticed the door open and saw Jackson right away. He looked at the members and motioned for them to keep going as he walked away and toward the Chinese fencer. Jackson was looking for Mark as he wanted to try to process with him what had happened the day before, but he couldn’t see him at all.

“If you’re looking for Mark, he’s not here,” Jinyoung informed as he got close to the boy, startling him as Jackson didn’t even notice his presence.

“I--uhm,” the boy hesitated, feeling awkward around the vice captain as they hardly spoke except for the rare times in the one class they had together, Chemistry, “What happened to him? Do you know when he’ll back?”

“He has days where he just disappears and the administration just clears it. He’s scheduled to come back to school next Tuesday, so come back then if you want to talk to him.”

Jackson simply nodded and Jinyoung began to walk away and back to the swim team, but then he stopped and turned around.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Jackson.”

    “What is it?” Jackson cautiously replied as he turned toward the swimmer.

“What’s your relationship with Mark? Is he why you keep coming here to the stands?” asked Jinyoung with a strong tone that made the boy shiver.

“I… uhm. We’re just acquaintances, really,” Jackson shrugged his right hand scratching the back of his neck, “I only come here often because the pool is very… relaxing to me, I guess?”

“Well, acquaintances wouldn’t ask what happened to the other as they wouldn’t have a strong enough bond to care,” the swimmer pointed out.

“I just had a… misunderstanding with him that I wanted to clear up because I felt like I had to. Don’t take it otherwise,” Jackson said, showing slight frustration in his last statement.  

Jinyoung simply nodded before going back to the pool where the other swimmers were begging for a break. Jackson watched him for a bit and how he acted before walking to his dorm as he had no use being at the pool, especially since the vice captain’s presence made him feel more tense than relaxed.

There’s something about him that I don’t like.

    “Ugh, I don’t want to get up,” groaned Mark as he shut off his phone alarm, the sun seeping through the window blinds, attacking his eyes.

The time he had to wake up for today was much later than the time he had to wake up for school so he was grateful for that, but he was still unwilling to leave bed, notably as the sheets and mattress of the hotel bed were absolutely comfortable and probably expensive as well.

The boy snuggled into his sheets for a couple more minutes before getting ready for the long day. He quickly showered and got dressed. His outfit was similar to the previous day with black slacks, black tie, and black blazer, but this time he had a white button up. He put up his hair with some gel, put on a simple yet classy gold watch, and made sure all the files he needed for the day were in his briefcase and ready to go before leaving.

“We’ve been expecting you.”

Mark entered the building a couple minutes before the time he was supposed to come, but unluckily enough, almost everyone was already there. He shook everyone’s hands and greeted them well despite the fact that there was no part of him that wanted to be there.

But he was good at putting up a front.

He did it all the time when it came to his fangirls that desperately wanted his attention. Acting nice and grateful towards them was all a facade as he wanted nothing to do with them and wished they would just leave him alone. Most of them were in the JY as well, so instead of bothering Mark, he felt like they should be practicing instead.

He did it all the time when it came to the underclassmen swimmers that kissed his just to learn a few tips or even get an upper advantage in the teams. Luckily, no one on varsity was like that as they got into the top tier based on their own hard work and merit alone, not because they were kissing up to Mark. He pretended to be enthusiastic by their efforts to get close to him, but he was nowhere near the sort. He believed that if they really wanted to get into varsity and do well, they should spend more time at the pool than hanging out with him. It’s not like his talent wasn’t going to rub off on them either.

He did it even with his friends. Not all the time, however, but the days where their personalities were overwhelming, he wanted nothing but to be away from them. But he couldn’t do that to them. It was more of Youngjae and Jaebum that he felt that towards as Jinyoung had more of an understanding of what made Mark tick. It was worse when Jinyoung and Mark first met the other two.

The four of them were in the same group for freshman orientation. All of them seemed to have went to JY-Pro’s middle school sports academy, but never crossed roads as four. Youngjae and Jaebum were not too familiar but knew each other as Youngjae recently moved to Seoul from Mokpo at the end of their eighth grade year and they lived in the same neighborhood. They were getting along quite well though. Jinyoung and Mark lived right next to each other and the Korean was especially welcoming when Mark came from the States, helping him with his native language and offering his home to the boy if he ever felt lonely or homesick.

“I’m Youngjae and I’m a soccer player and this is Jaebum. He’s a fencer. Just a warning, he’s a bit of a grouch,” said Youngjae with a giggle, only earning a groan from Jaebum.

“You can’t just describe me like that. What a great first impression. I’m sorry. What’s your guys’ names?” the boy asked with a smile that Mark could tell wasn’t fully genuine.

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