warnings: homophobia, internalized homophobia 

Mark felt his jaw slack and his stomach start churning at the realization. 

His sister.  Her brother.  Siblings. 

He should’ve realized, maybe just a bit.  They didn’t look that much alike, but they shared the same pale skin and dark hair that made them look almost doll-like.  He most definitely looked like a prince.

“Uh… Prince Tuan.  Hello?”  Jinyoung was staring at him, arm still outstretched.  “Are you going to shake my hand or are you just going to stare at me all day?”

“S-sorry.”  Mark shook his hand while trying not to meet his eyes… or think about his hand felt in his. 

Jinyoung put his hand on Mark’s chin and forced him to look up into his eyes, which were now much closer as he leaned in to look at his face.  “Are you okay?  You were acting strange when we met yesterday as well.”

Mark swallowed loudly and tried not to make direct eye contact.  He knew he couldn’t handle that just yet.  “I’m fine.”

Jinyoung didn’t look convinced but he decided to let go of his chin and let Mark breathe.   “Alright then.” 

Just when Mark thought he was free he felt Jinyoung’s hand on his forehead.

“Are you sick?  You’ve been kind of red since yesterday.  You’re really hot too.”  Jinyoung looked concerned and Mark wasn’t sure what to say.

“No, I’m in good health… I’m just… anxious?”  No!  That’s not what I wanted to say!

“Anxious?  About the wedding you mean?” That was definitely not what Mark was anxious about but he decided that was a good response.

“Yes!  The wedding is in just a few months…”

“I heard.”  Jinyoung finally removed his hand and Mark wanted to put up some sort of barrier just so that he would stop touching him out of nowhere.  “You shouldn’t be worried though.  We all have to go through this process, it’s part of our lifestyle.”

“Oh, so you’ve already married?”  Mark shouldn’t care, but he did.

“Oh, no!”  Jinyoung chuckled a bit.  “Let’s just say… I don’t think I’ll be finding a wife anytime soon.”  Mark was about to question him but Jinyoung changed the subject before he could ask what he meant.  “Really, you’ve got the best wife in the northern kingdom.  No regrets allowed!”

“I guess…”

“You guess?  My sister is the complete package. “He spun around and leaned against one of the shelves dramatically.  “You don’t understand how hard it was for me to let her go…”  He put his hands over his heart in mock sadness.  “You better be a good brother-in-law. “

Mark just nodded.  Every single type of thought was flowing through his mind and he was uncertain about everything.

“Not very talkative, are you?  That’s okay.  I enjoy silence more than most people, which would explain why I’m here.”  Jinyoung gestured to their surroundings.

“You like to read?”

“I love to read.  I spend more time here than anyone else. “Jinyoung noticed that he had left the fallen books scattered all over the ground and walked over to start picking them up.  “They’re so much to read, I haven’t even gotten through a quarter of them yet.  The collection is amazing.”  Mark walked over to join him in picking up the books.  “Do you enjoy reading as well?”

“Ah well, not really.  Sorry.”  They both reached to grab the same book and Mark drew back his hand so quickly Jinyoung just laughed at him.

“That’s alright, it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.”  Jinyoung examined the pages of the heavy tome that fell on his head before putting it back on the shelf and getting up.  “Why are you here in the library then, if I might ask?”

“I just needed somewhere quiet to think.”

“That’s respectable; I’m surprised you even found this place.”

“Yes.  I found it.”  Mark was frustrated by the way he fumbled over his words.  He probably sounded like he had the intellect of a ten-year-old.  “Are you alright?  I mean your head…”  Mark took notice of the large bump that formed on his temple.

“Oh, I’ll be fine!  Believe it or not, this is not the first time this has happened.  I really should use the ladder when I want to reach a book up high… I was so sure it was low enough .”  Jinyoung looked up at Mark and stopped mid sentence.   “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“It’s alright!  I don’t mind.”  Mark wanted to bang his head against the wall repeatedly.  He wasn’t making a good impression and he knew Jinyoung was probably judging him.

“You still seem kind of nervous.  You don’t need to feel uncomfortable around me you know; I’m not your wife.  It’s nice you care so much about making a good impression on me.”

Mark was sweating and he needed to escape somehow.  Luckily, his angel came to save him under the guise of a man dressed in a servant’s outfit with dark hair and strong features.  Jinyoung jumped when he heard his voice because his back was facing the entrance.

“Jinyoung, you’re needed downstairs.” 

“Ah, Jaebum, don’t sneak up on me like that! Is it your goal in life to scare me?”

“You’re needed downstairs.”  The man deadpanned.

Jinyoung just groaned and reluctantly walked towards the door.  He turned around and called out to Mark before he left.  “Hey, it was nice seeing you again.  My evaluation of your suitability as a brother-in-law isn’t over just yet!  Meet me here tomorrow and maybe we could talk again?”

Mark nodded way too eagerly and Jinyoung threw him the most handsome smile he’d ever seen.

“I told you we were going to talk.”  Jackson motioned for him to sit down next to him.  Mark still had time to make a run for it but he decided he couldn’t avoid him forever.

He sat down beside Jackson and braced himself.

“Mark, you know we’re best friends, right?  We share everything with each other, or at least, that’s what I thought.”  Mark felt kind of hurt, even though it was his fault for trying to hide things from him.  “You’re not normal, that’s for sure, but you’ve been acting even weirder than usual since this whole engagement thing.  I thought you were completely confident about this whole thing?  What happened to ‘no regrets’?”

Mark wanted to tell Jackson everything that was on his mind, and why he was feeling this way, but truthfully he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling himself.  “I’m not sure what’s going on.  Part of me is still confident but there’s a part of me that wishes I never agreed to this, and it’s growing larger every day.”

“Well first, have to remind you that I thought this was a bad idea from the beginning.”  Mark hit him on the shoulder and Jackson pretended that it actually hurt.  “Anyways, what made you start doubting yourself?  You’re usually pretty set in your decisions.  This is kind of unlike you.”

Mark wasn’t sure if he should tell Jackson all the details but he realized that there was no way he was going to keep his sanity if he kept these weird feelings trapped inside.  He trusted Jackson.  “Well, I was confident, at first.”

Mark paused and Jackson waited patiently for Mark to find the right words.

“They hosted a party in honour of our engagement the same night.  I was feeling okay about the decision then as well.” Mark’s mouth twisted as he finally got to the crux of his story.

“And then… you started doubting yourself when….”  Jackson eased him forward.

“We did partner dancing… I danced with Sooyoung but then we switched partners.  The last person I was partnered with—“ 

“Oh my god!” Jackson shot up from his seat on the best and gasped loudly.  “You’re in love with another girl!”

“What? No, I’m not.  That’s impossible.”  Jackson sat himself back down and started suspiciously at Mark.

“You were about to say you start having second thoughts after you danced with her, am I right?”

“No, just let me finish properly.”  Jackson gave him a scrutinizing gaze.  “You see, there were uneven partners so my last partner was a guy actually…”

“Oh my god!” Jackson shot up from his seat again, gasping.  “You’re in love with another guy!”

“Jackson, for god’s sake will you stop jumping to conclusions?”

“Well, you were definitely going to say you danced with the guy and suddenly felt like you didn’t want to marry your fiancé?  Am I right?”  Jackson was still standing but he leaned forward to stare straight into Mark’s eyes.

“I wasn’t going to phrase it like that but I guess… in summary… yes, that’s what happened.”  After Jackson had stated it so plainly that Mark almost didn’t want to believe him.

“Well, now that’s cleared up.  Why do you think you’re so full of doubt and anxiousness?  It has to be because of him.”

“Are you saying that I like him?”  Mark felt weird even saying that sentence.  “In a romantic sense?”

“That would make everything make sense, am I right?”

“I can’t though, that’s just silly.  He’s a guy Jackson, I don’t like him.”

Jackson just started giggling and patted him on the head.  “Oh, my poor Markie-pooh, so sheltered, so innocent.  Cooped up in the palace all your life…”

“Jackson, seriously stop.  You’re not making any sense.  I can’t like him, he’s a guy.”  Mark’s mind was racing, rapidly shifting and rotating puzzle pieces in his mind, trying to fit them together.

“Let me rephrase this for you then, Mark.  You like girls then, right?  How many girls have you liked?”

Mark stared everywhere but Jackson’s face.  “I mean, I haven’t liked any of them seriously yet but—“

“Really, Mark, 22 years and you haven’t had the slightest crush on any girl?”

“I haven’t had a crush on a guy either Jackson, so I don’t know what kind of point you’re trying to make.”

Jackson just sighed and started pacing back and forth in front of Mark.  “Do you remember Jonghyun?  He worked in the kitchen for a couple of years back in the palace.”

Mark remembered.  Kind of, but he still didn’t know where Jackson was going with this line of questioning.  “Yeah, I kind of remember him.  Why?”

“One time he was frosting the cakes in the lobby and you kept telling me what nice arms he had…”

Oh, Mark did remember that.  “So what?  He did have nice arms.  Can’t I appreciate arms?” Now that Mark thought about it, he definitely thought Jonghyun was kind of attractive, but he didn’t think much of it at the time.

“Well, okay.  What about Sungjong?  He was on the serving staff.  You said he was really cute and that you had t fight the urge to give him cheek kisses every time you saw him.”

Cheek kisses were innocent, and he was super cute.  “I didn’t want to kiss him because I liked him, Jackson, I wanted to give him platonic kisses because he was cute, and that was six years ago!  He’s not even that cute anymore.”  Well, if he was being completely honest with himself he wanted to give him much more than cheek kisses, but he was barely 15 years old when this happened.  Every time that thought crossed his mind he pushed it right back into the depths of his mind, no matter the fact that it nagged him almost constantly.

“Alright, alright, fair enough. “  Jackson stopped pacing and turned around to face him again.  “What about Lee Junho?”

Jackson and smirking and Mark suddenly realized it was going to be hard to deny this one.  “What about him?”  Mark tried to act like he was clueless.

“You know you told me what a nice he had every single day for a year,”  Jackson smiled teasingly at him.  “You were seriously obsessed with him.”

 “Okay, first of all, everyone thought he had a nice , not just me.  Even you agreed with me!”

“I’m not the one in denial here.    At least, my attraction ended there, you know what you said to me one day?  You told me that you wished he stuck around for longer so that you could get to know him.”

“…did I say that?”  Mark was still trying to deny his actions.  He could barely remember saying all these things without a second thought.

“Yes!  You definitely said that.”

“Okay, but ‘get to know’ doesn’t have to mean anything weird.  I could’ve just wanted to be his friend?”

“Well Mark, is that true?  Did you just want to be his friend?”

Junho had been perfect in Mark’s eyes.  It wasn’t even just that he was definitely attracted to him physically – what – but even if he just looked his way and flashed his eye smile he could feel his heart skip a beat. He did manage to start a conversation with him one day, but it went awkwardly enough to make Mark forget about all the senseless thoughts in his mind and just give up on whatever he was trying to pursue.  The whole time he wasn’t sure what these feelings were but the more he thought about it the more he realized he must’ve had feelings beyond that of a casual friendship.

When Junho announced he was getting engaged he tried hard to hide the fact that he felt like he couldn’t breathe properly.  All he remembered doing was locking himself in the bathroom for two hours until he felt like he was okay to face the outside world.  Nobody had really known about that except for him.  Even Jackson barely sensed something was up, or so he thought.

“No?  I mean… no. I kind of… I honestly wasn’t sure what I wanted.”  Mark racked his mind over and over, more puzzle pieces aligning and falling into place the more he thought.

“Well, you didn’t want to just be his friend you wanted to be, more than a friend?  As in you…”  Jackson urged Mark on to try to get him to finish his thought.

“I… wanted… to be more than friends with him?”

“Yes, and that means…?”  If Mark’s mind wasn’t so muddled he would be annoyed at the way Jackson was talking to him like he was a baby.

“I…”  Jackson had put his jokes away and finally decided to look at him with genuine concern.

That was when the last puzzle piece fell into place.

The realization him hard despite the fact he had known for years, technically.  He had been dismissing his feelings for so long it had become normal to be in constant denial. 

 “I like guys.” 

Jackson‘s face lit up.  “There it is!  You finally said it!  Hey, aren’t you relieved?”  Mark was kind of just staring at him blankly.  “Mark, are you okay?”

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”