Its not the destination,
Its what's around the curve
Coming over to come down
Gotta talk to you before I hit the ground

A/N: -whispers- I'm back~ I've decided to do another multi-chapter story for ya'll, so I hope you enjoy! I know I'm pretty good about updating weekly, but since things might get crazy at work in the meantime, they may be bi-weekly or whatever works. Chapters are long, though, so there's that! Once again, please enjoy, and Markjin fighting!

1. Gotta Talk to U

Jinyoung should have been an expert at breaking up by now, but like every time it happened, he had to question his “sorrow drowning” ritual and why he felt the need to haul his brokenhearted to 1000₩ Pizza to gorge himself on cheap slices and beer until he lost all of his fragile dignity and self-respect in the process. It wasn’t even a good atmosphere for it. He’d be much better served doing it in his empty apartment with all of its atmospheric half flickering lightbulbs he was too cheap to replace, and best of all, the tub of Ben & Jerry’s he hadn’t gotten around to opening yet. 1000₩ Pizza was lit up like a Christmas tree with glaring fluorescent lights, was jam packed with bratty children demanding more pizza, had a floor sticky with spilled soda, and constantly pumped whatever the cashier Jackson had decided was his favorite song of the day over and over again. The beer wasn’t even that good, even though the bus boy was very generous and filled up his pitcher without charging him whenever he showed up in a post-breakup stupor.

The pizza, however, was fantastic. It made him feel better for at least the first ten minutes, and those beautiful ten minutes were enough to take his mind off of the latest jerk who’d stomped on his feelings and think “You know what,  them!” But after the first ten minutes, the gazillion greasy slices he’d devoured started hitting and the song on the radio and Jackson’s incessant singing along got annoying and he started realizing that the even though the person he’d dated was a jerk, it didn’t change the fact that he kept dating jerks and they always broke up with him for the same jerk reason and it was hopeless, and that’s when the serious beer drinking started and the night would get progressively worse up until the shop owner kicked him out and the bus boy would call him a taxi and he wondered all over again why he kept on doing this to himself unendingly.

At only 1000₩ a slice, at least it’s a relatively cheap form of self-torture, Jinyoung thought as he started on his third slice. At the counter, Jackson was wailing along with his song of the day, using a plastic utensil pack as a microphone. The bus boy was at the next table over for some reason trying to clamp his hand over the mouth of the customer sitting there, and said customer was kicking him in the legs, chanting “Go, go, go!” He couldn’t help but think that no one at this place was normal. Himself included.

By time he had started his fourth slice, the bus boy had apparently been nailed really well by the unruly customer and stumbled back into Jinyoung’s table, thankfully just missing knocking his beer pitcher over. “Ow, sorry,” he muttered, throwing a glare over his shoulder at the now smirking customer, who was probably one of his friends since the bus boy didn’t seem like he was going to call the manager for being assaulted. “Um, are you okay?”

"Yeah, you didn't hit me."

"No. I mean about the break up thing. Are you okay?"

Jinyoung blinked. He’d been going to 1000₩ Pizza after his break ups since high school, and since he was twenty-one now, that amounted to a lot of breakups. And none of them initiated himself. Bus boy had worked there part time ever since Jinyoung had started going there, being broke and unable to afford anything else but cheap pizza in his moments of heartache (the beer had been added years later when he was older and had slightly more money),  but never in those several years had bus boy actually spoken to him. Jackson would come over during late hours and regale him with his own romantic escapades, the shift manager Jaebum would talk to him from time to time—or yell him to get out of the store, more honestly, and the junior pizza chef Youngjae would call back “The usual?” from the kitchen whenever he came in. Even in the new delivery boy Yugyeom, who was always in and out of the store and never stayed long, said hi to him in passing. But bus boy, allegedly named “Mark,” from all the times Jackson yelled “Mark, clean up on table 6!” in between his musical numbers, never said a word, not even when he helped Jinyoung into his taxis. The guy had his address memorized and got him free beer, but apparently felt that was as far as their relationship needed to go.

Until today, oddly.

“I’m fine,” Jinyoung said automatically, even though he wasn’t and both he and Mark knew it.

“Are you sure you want to eat all of that pizza this time?” He cleared his throat. “You always regret it afterwards.”

“What is life but instant gratification?” Jinyoung asked bleakly.

“Um, okay, then.” Mark stood there awkwardly for a moment. “It’s only been a month since you were here last time.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Did you really move on from the last person that fast?”

Jinyoung paused. “Well. No. Not exactly. It’s more like there was someone who had been interested in me who took advantage of me being single to ask me out.”

“And you said yes.”

“Yes.”

“Without being over the other person?”

The way Mark said it made it sound stupid. “…yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you never know when you’re going to find love, and you shouldn’t throw any chance away?”

“True. So within that month, you managed to fall in love with that person. And they broke up with you.”

“Yes.” Jinyoung paused. “I mean no.”

“Which one?”

“I mean, I wasn’t that in love with hi—them—this time. It started and ended too early for that. It’s just that…”

“Yeah?”

“If it’s the same reason every time, you start to wonder… if something’s wrong with you. And if something isn’t wrong with you, you wonder… if maybe something’s just wrong with love overall.”

“Okay,” Mark said. He sat down at the table and folded his hands. “If you don’t mind me asking, why do people always break up with you?”

Jinyoung stared at him. “You’ve never spoken to me before this.”

“Or more like you were too drunk to notice or care when I have spoken to you.”

“It takes me awhile to get drunk, so I’m sober for most of the night. You never spoke to me then.”

Mark shrugged. “I had nothing in particular to say.”

“Huh. ‘Sorry for your miserable love life’ wouldn’t work?”

“I didn’t even realize why you were coming here for a long time. I thought you had a self-destructive relationship with pizza or something and came here every once in awhile to binge.”

“And after that?”

“Well, considering how often you ended up here, I thought maybe you were a jerk who deserved to be broken up with all the time.”

“But you don’t think that now.”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because you always seem sad in a real way. I thought you must have really given your heart, even if you did it too easily. And so now you say it’s because you’re losing your faith in yourself and in love, and I want to know what it is about you that make people hurt you and make you think that way about yourself.” Mark sighed after this speech, as if vaguely annoyed Jinyoung had made him say so much all at once.

“Maybe it’s because I’m constantly gorging myself with pizza and getting fat?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Jinyoung snorted at that. “Yeah, well, I have a good metabolism.”

“That’s nice.” Mark twiddled his thumbs.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“I’m not scheduled to work today.”

“Then why are you here?”

He poked his thumb back at that guy who had kicked him earlier. “My friend.”

“The one who kicked you? Why was he kicking you?”

“Because.”

“Okay…” Jinyoung realized he had completely stopped eating pizza during the conversation and picked up his next slice. “Go back and hang out with your friend.”

“You seemed kind of annoyed that I don’t talk to you a lot. I’m talking to you now.”

“About really personal things.”

“Jinyoung, I’m not going to lie, there’s a limit to the number of times I can pick up your deadweight drunk body and haul you to a taxi while you cry on my shoulder without calling a therapist. No one should live like that.”

Good point. “Good news for you. I’m thinking about just not dating anyone again. Ever. I’ve pretty much reached my limit on how many times I can do this, too.”

“You’re just in your twenties, right? Isn’t it a bit early to give up completely?”

“You try not giving up on love when you have people treat you the way they’ve treated me.”

Mark blinked at him. Now that Jinyoung was looking at him sober, he was kind of attractive. Like Jackson, he was supposed to be an overseas student, but he didn’t look terribly exotic. Just nice. Nice eyes, nice mouth, nice hair, nice body. A well-rounded vision of niceness. Jinyoung wondered why he had to go out of his way to make beauty judgements on every man he met, and Mark probably realized that Jinyoung was outright staring at him at this point, but here he was. In a way, Mark overt niceness was beginning to calm him down. He set down his pizza and looked into Mark’s eyes. Maybe it would help to talk about it genuinely. He couldn’t tell his own friends. As far as they knew, he’d never dated in his life and was just completely unpopular with girls, nevermind the fact that he’d never even attempted to get together with a girl to begin with. That was the point of everything, wasn’t it? You couldn’t talk about it, and by not talking about it, it never seemed like a real thing. Or it seemed real to him, but never to anyone else. To them it was a secret, a burden, a part of their life shoved into a corner and brought out only when they needed it and couldn’t avoid giving into what they wanted and who they were. They compartmentalized their lives to be normal, and Jinyoung was put in the furthest, dustiest part and to them that was okay, it was expected, because the relationship wasn’t a relationship. It was something that happened, until it didn’t.

“The first one,” Jinyoung said softly. “The first time I came here, the first time you saw me. That was the one that mattered. That one was me and my childhood friend. Youngdal. And yes, before you ask, that is a guy’s name, and it was a guy. I’m like that.”

He stared at Mark, waiting for Mark to react. Mark didn’t. “Yes, I knew that,” he said finally.

“How?”

“Well, for one, I could tell by the names you whimpered during the drunk half of your evenings. Number two, I can tell on my own.”

“What, is it my clothes?”

“No. I have spidey senses, don’t you?” Mark deadpanned.

“Er…”

“Not good ones, anyways. So, things didn’t end well with Youngdal?”

“No. For the same, stupid reason so stereotypical that I should have seen it coming. Who am I kidding, I can’t do this to my family, it would disappoint them so much, really, it was probably just a delusion on my part all along, just a fling or whatever, wasn’t it for you? I can’t live the rest of my life with a secret like this, everyone will find out. My parents already suspect things are weird with you, I can’t let them figure out more than they already have. It’s been fun, though. Really, I love you a lot, but it has to end here before it gets worse. Worse. As if what he did, what all of them do, isn’t the worst, deciding to lie about everything because it’s too difficult to be brave. And so much easier to throw love away than hang onto it in the face of everyone else’s opinion, apparently. I thought if I tried with enough people, I’d eventually find someone who wouldn’t be like that. I thought, oh, maybe it’s because I’m young and the people around me are still immature and I just have to live with that for now. But maybe it’s just love. Love isn’t the way it should be. You get the things you think you want, the emotions you think you can’t even exist without, but you can’t just receive them, you have to give up something, too. And I learned that before Youngdal, before any of them. I learned that love has a price, and if you want to have it, you have to risk your safety and people’s approval and sometimes even everything you have, and you don’t just pay it once, you have to keep paying and paying for the rest of your life. And then you have to watch someone you love or want to love learning that too and deciding that the price is too high and that you are more worth giving up than everything else, and you have to look at it in their eyes and see them start cutting you off until you finally hear the words yourself and realize that that’s just the way it is, and no matter what you do, people will always, always choose the rest of the world over you.”

With that off his chest, he picked up his beer and took a deep chug. Why wasn’t he drunk yet? Why was this night taking longer than any other before? Mark was staring at him, fingers laced underneath his chin, and he was a part of that ‘rest of the world’ who would probably think everyone was justified in dumping him and that if he knew what was good for him, he'd just do what everyone else did and treat each little thing like a fling that he was lucky enough to have, given the way things were.

"I think," Mark said slowly, "that it's horrible that there are so many selfish idiots in this world and that you've wound up dating all of them."

Jinyoung coughed. "Uh... thanks?"

"I also think that it takes a person who's really little inside to behave that way. And that if you got the chance to see that littleness inside of them before going out with them, you wouldn't go out with them in the first place." Mark looked at him with a deadly serious expression. "Jinyoung. Next time someone asks you out, you have to say 'no.'"

"I told you I was going to. I'm done with this love thing." 

"That's not what I meant. You have to say 'no' until you really know them and you're 100% sure that they aren't one of those selfish idiots. And that they really love you. Because no one who really loves you would qualify it by saying it has to end before it gets worse."

Jinyoung tilted his head. Maybe Mark was right. After Youngdal, he'd never bothered with getting to know whoever it was he was dating before dating them. He'd thought he'd known Youngdal and had only wound up disappointed by him, so he hadn't wanted to get caught in that trap again. After him, he'd drifted from person to person, trying to fix his pain in the feeling of new love, never wanting to be alone to dwell on his loneliness after losing his best friend and first love all in one go. He'd wanted to have the faith that one of them had the sincerity Youngdal hadn't. But Mark was right. He hadn't really known any of them before giving his heart. Maybe it was no wonder that not a single one of them had loved him in return.

"What are you, some kind of expert?" Jinyoung asked, still feeling a bit stubborn. He glanced down at his pizza; Mark had filched the last of his slices, and stolen his beer on top of that. The night had taken a drastic turn from his usual crash and burn, and he wasn't at all sure what he was supposed to do. By now, the room should have been spinning, the sound of Jackson and belting "Gotta talk to you before I hit the ground" should have been more hazy, and Jaebum should have stuck his head out of the backroom and started yelling at him to stop scaring the children with his drunken muttering. And Mark... Mark should have been standing off in some corner, not saying anything. Not caring.

"No," Mark said. "I don't know anything."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"Because you're miserable."

"And what's that to you?"

Mark chewed on his lips. "I'm someone who would rather try to stop a train wreck with my body than watch it fly off the rails."

"So I'm a train wreck now."

"Pretty much. Look, if you just be more careful about who you fall in love with, you won't have to come here so often just to eat too much pizza and get drunk. Maybe you could actually come here and enjoy yourself. I mean, how would you feel if someone came to your workplace only to get wasted and cry?"

Jinyoung glanced around the pizza place. "I think this place is actually better when I'm wasted. Hey, your friend left without you."

"Good. It's almost closing time, anyways. You got here late today."

"I got broken up with late today." Jinyoung glanced down at his watch. "Hmph."

"What?"

"I've never...actually had to go back home sober after one of my break ups. You distracted me from drinking."

"What's the problem? Live alone?"

"Yes."

"Well... you said yourself you didn't really fall in love with the last person. And we talked about the other issue, and how you can make it not happen next time. So just go home and fall asleep or something."

"But..." Jinyoung trailed off. He didn't want to go home alone. He knew he'd wallow, and that everything that Mark had said so sensibly would stop making sense when he was left to dwell on it alone. That's how it always was. There was some sort of gap in him that needed filling, and he was always trying to shove someone into it whether they fit or not. He couldn't content himself with his own company. He needed validation, somehow. He needed someone to tell him he wasn't as worthless as he thought he was.

"Fine," Mark said. "Come over to my place."

"But I don't know you."

"Yes. You do. We've known each other since high school. I'm Mark Tuan, in case you never bothered to find out, Park Jinyoung. Just because I didn't talk to you a lot doesn't mean that I don't know you."

"Yeah. But I don't know you."

"Then find out. Come on. You don't want to go home by yourself, and I'm not just going to let you go around and find someone random. It's just for the night."

Mark hauled him to his feet, and over at the counter, Jackson started whistling. "Maaaaaark. My man!"

Youngjae poked his head out of the kitchen. "Oh my."

Jaebum was next. "Mark, you better be getting his drunk out of... wait. Why isn't he drunk?"

"Something wrong with them?" Jinyoung asked.

"What isn't?" Mark asked, shrugging.

0

Mark lived in a small, sparsely furnished studio apartment a few blocks away from the pizza parlor, funded by his job at 1000₩ with a side of long distance support from his family. It was such a cozy place that Jinyoung was instantly glad he came. So what if he didn't know Mark Tuan all that well? Spending the night with him meant one huge benefit of not having to spend it alone. In the morning, he'd think more seriously about all the other things Mark had said and try to swear off his dating-break up-and-pizza-binge days for good. For now, he just wanted to be in an environment that didn't remind him of anything and have a nice long sleep.

"I just have my bed, no air mattresses or anything," Mark said, pointing to his bedroom.

"Thats fine," Jinyoung said. "It's not like I'm going to seduce you."

"Yeah, because you're supposed to get to know the next person. Right?"

"Right."

"So... guess I'm going to have to find you pajamas." Mark led him into the bedroom and dug through his drawers for a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. Mark was shorter than him, but they fit well enough. Jinyoung also borrowed a spare toothbrush and towel and cleaned up in Mark's tiny bathroom. It felt so much like a middle school sleepover, and Jinyoung was awkwardly reminded of the fact that this was a lot like the old days with Youngdal. Back in the days when it was a puppy love crush, innocent and uncomplicated, and they would spend nights together in camping sleeping bags and stay up late talking about the comics they were reading and stage super hero battles so noisy their parents would come and scold them until they went to sleep to wake up in the morning to home cooked breakfasts and orange juice. It had been thrilling when things started changing in high school. Super hero battles turning into stolen kisses, early morning breakfast spent being smugly guilty over everything that had happened, but certain it would only happen again next time. And it did, until the line was drawn. Youngdal thought they could still be friends, and Jinyoung didn't. That was the reason he moved on to the next person, so Youngdal wouldn't feel comfortable hanging around with him anymore. It had worked, and it had been agonizing, but it had worked.

Jinyoung's eyes misted over in the mirror. The whole point of coming here was so he wouldn't think of these things. What was he doing? Rinsing out his mouth, he left the bathroom and crawled into bed next to Mark. As little as he knew him, there was nothing awkward in it. Mark gave a kittenish yawn and scooted over, and Jinyoung slid into the space he wasn't filling.

"Mark?" he whispered after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever been in love before?"

Mark thought about it. "Not all the way."

"Not all the way?"

"Yes. I've only reached a certain part of love. The part of not wanting someone to go out of your life once they're in it. I don't know anything about what comes after that."

"What comes after that part is making sure they stay."

"Yeah. But it seems like there's so many ways to mess it up."

"You're telling me," Jinyoung said. "Anyways, it's not much of anything, love. Whenever I ask myself if it's more or less than what I was imagining it would be, it's always less."

"Hmmm," Mark murmured, his eyes fluttering shut. "I'll have to ask you a few years from now if you feel the same"

Jinyoung swallowed back the lump in his throat. He wanted to believe it could be different. He wanted it to be more than he was imagining, so much more that his heart ached from just how much it was. But things always ended the same way. They always did.

But not this time, he reminded himself. I've never found myself here before. Maybe that was something. He wasn't drunk and he wasn't alone, and he was only a fraction of how miserable he usually was. He didn't know. Like Mark, he didn't know what the next step after this was supposed to be.

As he drifted off to sleep, he thought to himself that whatever it was, finding out wouldn't be such a bad thing. At the very least, it would be a shift in everything he'd always done, a small step from the cycle that was slowly trapping him and out what little faith in love he had left.

0

Mark woke him up before noon the next morning. "Feeling all right?" he asked. Mark was already dressed and showered, which Jinyoung had apparently slept like a baby through. He rubbed his eyes and stretched out his long limbs, sighing as he little by little woke up.

"Fine," he said. Better than he usually was. Not hung over and bloated. That was a plus.

"I made breakfast. Want some?"

He nodded. He could smell sausage sizzling in the kitchen, and his stomach growled expectantly. Mark led him to the table and began pulling out plastic plates with Disney characters on them out of his cabinets. It reminded him a bit of his own home, where the nicest tableware he owned was a chipped plate from his parents' wedding set which they had deemed unfit for company and handed over to him.

Mark loaded a Hercules plate with eggs, sausage, and French toast, an American style breakfast, and passed it along to Jinyoung. Jinyoung dug into it eagerly. Even though he hadn't associated Mark with cooking since he was only a bus boy, it tasted excellent, and he'd polished most of it off after only a few minutes. Mark lifted an eyebrow, clearly impressed.

"So," Mark said. "What are you doing today now that you survived yesterday?"

 "Go to Disney."

"Never heard that one before."

"Usually I'd go out and do something to take my mind off it."

"In locations frequented by ually insecure gay men, judging by the fact of how quickly you usually find your next partner."

"Coincidentally."

"Sure." Mark tapped his knife against his plate. "How on earth do you do it, anyways?"

"Do what?" Jinyoung hoped that as a fellow twenty-something, Mark wasn't about to ask him how gay worked.

"Find them all. I thought the whole thing was entirely underground here, and you had to be super secretive about it. Plus, your spidey senses don't seem very good."

Spidey senses again? "I don't find them, they find me," Jinyoung answered.

"I can believe that."

"Plus, there's like code words and stuff," Jinyoung exaggerated. "Like 'Do you know the backwards tango?'"

"Now you're just making up." Still, Mark smiled. Jinyoung mentally added 'teeth' to his list of things that were nice about Mark.

"Anyways, what are you doing?" Jinyoung asked. "Don't you have to go into work?"

"I have the night shift, remember? I take classes during the day, but since it's the weekend, I'm free." Mark stabbed into his sausage. "Why, want to do something?"

"Did I say that?"

"No. But do you?"

Jinyoung pursed his lips. "Sure. Let's go swimming."

"Swimming?"

"Yes. Swimming."

"Okay. Fine."

For some reason, Jinyoung hadn't actually expected him to say yes, and now that he had, he was a bit at a loss. He was grateful for all the consideration Mark had paid him, but it still seemed a bit odd to go swimming with the pizza bus boy he hadn't spoken to sober for however many years.

Which didn't make sense. Staying over at his house, wearing his pajamas, and sleeping in his bed hadn't felt odd. Why should this?

"I'll have to go to my apartment and get my swim suit."

"That's fine. It's not too far from here, anyways."

"How did you know that?"

"Who's gotten you taxis ever since you came of age?"

"...right."

Mark quickly finished his own meal and went back to his room to pick up his suit. "Let's go to it, then," he said. Jinyoung shrugged. Why in particular did I pick swimming?, he wondered as they stepped outside. At least it was definitely hot enough for it. And his apartment had a pool that no one except the little kids on the second floor seemed to use, but it was there nonetheless. If he got bored of hanging out with Mark or Mark changed his mind about hanging out with him, he wouldn't be inconveniently far from home, and neither would Mark.

"Feels weird," Mark commented as they climbed up the steps of Jinyoung's apartment.

"How so?"

"I never thought I'd actually have a reason to come here that didn't involve not being able to get you a taxi."

"Hilarious," Jinyoung said, but he smiled unwittingly. No matter how you looked at it, he had made a public display of himself time after time at Mark's workplace, and pretty much deserved to be called out for it. If someone had told him yesterday that he'd be bringing Mark here, he'd have thought it was pretty hilarious himself.

Luckily, he'd left his apartment pretty clean before leaving it the day before. He usually did; even when his personal life was in shambles, he didn't let it spill over and ruin his pristine house. Mark whistled in appreciation at his well stocked kitchen and plasma TV. "You were rich?" he asked, off handedly rather than rudely.

"My parents feel sorry for me sometimes and get me things."

"Sorry about what?"

"Uhh...well, they found out about the guy I was dating after Youngdal."

"Ah."

"It's not like they kicked me out or anything. I was in high school, and honestly I think they had kind of guessed before that. Youngdal was the one overly concerned about his parents finding out, not me. I... I don't know. I guess I just always thought it would be inevitable that mine would find out some day and didn't see the point in making this big effort about it." He cleared his throat. "But when I was old enough, they tactfully suggested I get my own place. They didn't want... things... happening under their noses."

"Fair enough, I guess."

"I don't mind, really. As I said, they pay for a lot of the things here when the guilt gets to them." He grabbed his swimsuit from the closet. "Ah, I guess we can change here. The pool's just outside of the ground floor. No locker room set up, or anything."

"Got it." Mark started undoing his belt.

"Uh... I guess I'll take the bathroom then."

Mark cocked his head. "You're bothered? I didn't think you'd mind."

"Err... well, I can't say I particularly mind bodies or whatever, but I don't know you that well, and I don't want you to get the idea that I'm checking you out if that makes you uncomfortable... not that I check everyone out just because they happen to be , it's just that-"

Mark laughed. It was a rather uncharacteristic laugh, loud and a bit awkward rather than calm and cool like the rest of Mark, but it was endearing in how unexpected it was. "You're a bit more innocent than you let on before," he said, smiling.

"I'm not sure 'innocent' is the word for it," Jinyoung sputtered. "But just because I've been in a lot of relationships doesn't mean they were all about jumping each other. I'll have you know, I'm not an easy man."

"Noted."

"Anyways, a lot of guys see actually having as the final nail in the coffin of gayness. If they commit to doing it, it's like they can't go back."

"You really have dated a lot of idiots."

"Yeah. Pretty much.'

"If you're worried about me worrying about you checking me out, you can just turn around, you know." Mark pulled off his belt.

Feeling completely lame, Jinyoung did. It was a shame, in a way. Perhaps the rest of Mark's body could be added to his growing 'nice' category, or maybe better than nice. He wouldn't know now. But turning around now would also invite Mark to look at his own body, and after another pizza binge attempt and a huge breakfast, he wasn't sure that was a good idea.

After he'd slipped into his swim shorts, he gave a cursory glance over his shoulder. Mark was all dressed. Or half-dressed, Jinyoung supposed. His upper body was filed neatly into the 'better than nice' category.  Not bad, for a bus boy.

"You have sunscreen here, right?" Mark asked.

"Yeah." Jinyoung grabbed it from one of the kitchen cabinets and tossed it over.

"What's with this super high SPF?"

"So I don't get burned."

"And apparently not tanned, either." Mark sighed, but slathered it onto his chest and shoulders.

"It's easier not to get burned if you wear a t-shirt," Jinyoung pointed out.

"Oh, is that why you do it? I thought it might be a modesty thing in this country. In America, sometimes they'll kick you out of the pool if you're wearing regular clothes."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And since I'm not afraid of getting a tan, I'll forgo the t-shirt if you don't mind." He passed the sunscreen to Jinyoung. "Get my back."

Jinyoung grimaced. Mark was turning out to be a completely inscrutable person, thanks to the poker face of his. Jinyoung had no idea whether he was being teased and baited by Mark, or not in the slightest. He squeezed some of the cream onto his hands and rubbed it against Mark's back. It was cold and he'd put too much on, so it didn't rub in very well, leaving white traces on his back. Jinyoung made a few smiley faces in the leftover cream, just to be spiteful.

"I take it you'll be leaving yours on," Mark said, pointing to Jinyoung's shirt.

"Sadly."

"Sadly."

The two took the elevator down to the ground floor, luckily without neighbors  popping in on the still shirtless Mark, and they slipped out of the back of the building towards the pool. It was pretty clean, no incredible excess of leaves or dead bugs, though there was a net to clean it out had there been any. The lounge chairs were a bit more sunfaded than the last time he'd been there, but they hadn't been destroyed yet by any of the children climbing all over them, so that was a plus.

"This is obviously a 'be your own lifeguard' pool," Jinyoung said. "So please don't do anything reckless. I do know how to do a bit of CPR, but I'd rather not."

"I'll take that as you don't want me to risk my life rather than you not wanting to do mouth to mouth with me." This time Jinyoung was pretty sure Mark was joking, due to the slight quirk to his lips. "That's too bad, I could have done a flip into the deep end."

"Yeah, and it's not a very deep deep end, so don't."

"Cannon ball, then?" Instead of waiting for an answer, Mark jumped right in, sending up a huge wave for someone so skinny. Jinyoung instinctively winced away from the spray, but realizing he was going to get into the pool and get wet anyways, brushed it off when his t-shirt wound up splattered. He dipped his toe into the water as Mark emerged, hair plastered to his forehead. The water was cool, a good temperature for the weather without being too freezing.

Mark tapped his ankle. "Get in."

"I was going to."

"When? This year?"

"You've got a bit of an attitude on you, did you know?"

"That's one of Jaebum's favorite compliments for me, too."

Jinyoung sat on the edge of the pool and slipped in. Mark snorted at the lack of a more entertaining jump-in, but left it at that. Jinyoung tread water, adjusting to the temperature, while Mark dove in and out of the water, shaking his hair out like a dog whenever he emerged.

"Can I ask you something?" Jinyoung asked when Mark had finally stayed above the water for more than a few seconds.

"Yeah?"

"How much do you actually know about me just from me showing up at 1000₩ Pizza  on and off through the years?"

Mark paused. "I don't know. You go to church, right?"

Jinyoung nodded.

"It's like that. You may not actually talk to every person who shows up every week to services, but you familiarize yourself with them. You notice when they change their hair, when there are new additions to their family, when they're in a good mood or a bad mood. You watch them grow older." Mark shrugged. "You showed up when you were, what, sixteen or so? My first impression of you... well, you were just another customer, weren't you? I was kind of surprised when you started crying and going hog on the pizza out of nowhere, though. You seemed a little bit too dignified for that, but then again, you were pretty much just a kid. We all were. Anyways, you slipped my mind until you showed up the next time. No offense, but most customers do."

"None taken."

"After the next few times, I recognized the pattern of you coming when you were depressed. Other than that, let's see... other than the finding you crazy part, I noticed you liked singing along with Jackson's songs until they started to annoy you. You ripped up your napkins while you were eating-- fun for me to clean up, by the way. You always ordered Coke up until you were old enough to drink. Oh yeah, and when you started college, it was easy to tell that you were majoring in psychology. The text books were always spilling out of your bag. Plus, I wondered if your classes were teaching you about your own psyche and possibly helping you, but I figured nah when you kept up showing up anyways."

"They don't teach you anything particularly valuable about love in class. Even the clinical aspects of it aren't that revealing."

"I think looking too deeply into it is a mistake, usually."

"You're probably right."

"You probably know next to nothing about me, right?" Mark asked abruptly. "Bus boys are kind of fade into the background guys, and in our little business, Jackson is the one who stands out for the most of the annoying radio thing. The only times you really paid attention to me were during the glazed over or glaring parts of the night."

"Sorry."

"I'm not offended."

"I know you're quiet. And that no matter how many times you mop the floor, it's still sticky. All the other employees really like you. You're good looking. You're surprisingly attentive and have a sly attitude. You fall asleep really quickly."

"After about five years of seeing me, most of those were things you figured out last night, or are completely obvious."

"Well. I'm learning." Jinyoung skimmed his hands over the top of the water. "Speaking of which, now that you've taken an interest in my welfare, what exactly are you expecting me to do about my little problem? I know I'm supposed to get to know whoever better, but at what level can I move forward?"

"I don't know. Can't you sense that on your own?" Mark ran his hands through his hair. "Or, you could just report back to me on whoever, and I can follow your progress. That will mean coming to the place without having been dumped, though."

"Is that even possible?"

"I'll monitor your pizza intake as well."

"Generous of you." Jinyoung tilted his head. No matter how he thought of it though, the whole idea of finding someone and courting them without immediately dating seemed exhaustive. He was losing his interest in love and wading through all the scum in the dating pool to actually find someone valuable. He really had hit his limit, and even if Mark thought things were optimistic, that was simply because he too didn't want them to get any worse. Shouldn't he, for once in his life, actually make the effort to spend some time alone?

But what would he do with all the time he wasn't spending dating and getting his heart broken? He didn't really have a whole lot of friends; after Youngdal, he hadn't really trusted himself with them. He supposed he could start making the effort again since there were a handful of interesting types in his classes, but now that he thought about it more, really, wasn't the most interesting option right in front of him?

Mark Tuan, the quiet and observant bus boy who had been paying attention to him over the years in his own little way, and, unexpectedly, the first of the 1000₩ Pizza bunch to try and help him. Jinyoung had spent the last five years pretty much glancing over his existence, only to spend one (entirely uneventful) night with him and wind up swimming in his apartment pool together with him hours later. Mark had the advantage of knowing him so much better, so why shouldn't he use his free time to figure him out? In a way, it seemed like a pretty fun idea. Mark, for having such a quiet aura, had been interesting thus far. Straight forward while at the same time teasing, and sympathetic without being pitying. He actually listened to whatever Jinyoung was saying without condemning him. It was somewhat refreshing, and definitely soothing considering how well he'd recuperated from a break up for once in his life. And Jinyoung wasn't sure that he wanted to end after only a day.

"Aren't you going to do more than just tread water?" Mark asked. Without warning, he wrapped his arms around Jinyoung and dunked him. Jinyoung sputtered as the water hit his nose and he was quickly submerged. He flapped his arms and brought himself back to the surface. Mark was snickering at him.

"You're dead meat!"Jinyoung said, launching himself at Mark. The two wrestled for a minute, and Jinyoung wound up submerged a second time. Nice muscles, hair extra nice even when wet, Jinyoung added to his list.

Mark was back under water by time Jinyoung had lifted his head up again. He could feel him swimming around him like a predatory shark, so he wasn't surprised when a hand reached out to grab his ankle. Touching skin felt so different underwater. Cold, slightly impersonal, but a touch all the same. He nudged Mark with his foot, and Mark slowly let him go, one finger at a time.

Jinyoung waited for him to emerge again, smiling to himself when he did. The past 24 hours had been so oddly unexpected that he was almost excited to see what new turn it would make, and just who the person in front of him would turn out to be. Perhaps it wouldn't be exciting as a love affair, but maybe it wouldn't be so heartbreaking as one either.

Mark met his eyes and smiled, maybe knowingly, maybe not. And with that, his decision was made. He wanted to know which one it was more than he wanted to do anything else. More than he wanted to fall in love.