For the first time in a long time, Mark woke up feeling more refreshed than ever. More happy. More vibrant. More content with life. Content with the life that’s he’s been disgusted of. Now, however, he found the beauty of it all. With Jinyoung in his arms like this, Mark already felt like he could finally conquer the world. Smiling to himself, Mark buried his face in Jinyoung’s hair and closed his eyes, taking in the addicting scent of love and happiness.

“Are you awake?” Jinyoung stirred a little but still planted his face against Mark’s warmth chest.

“Yeah,” Mark replied quietly, “Sorry, did I woke you? I didn’t mean to-”

“Ssshhh, it’s okay. Just stay like this.”

“Okay.”

And Mark felt Jinyoung’s lips curving into a small smile against his beating heart. Embarrassed and squealing internally, Mark just settled his awkward hands to play with Jinyoung’s hair as the male went back to sleep under the soft caresses. Jinyoung looked so peaceful in his sleep, Mark concluded, eyes dragging over the features on his love’s face, letting his brain process the refined diamond that is Park Jinyoung. Mark wished time could just stop right now, so he can have all the moments in the world to gaze upon this star that he had thought he couldn’t reach. The star that outshines all the others.

“I was going to sleep,” Jinyoung’s hoarsed, sleepy voice grounded the redhead back, “But you’re staring too hard and I’m embarrassed, so…” Jinyoung opened his eyes and stared back up at Mark, “I’m fully awake now.”

Mark smiled apologetically, “Sorry… If you’re tired, I, um, could leave-”

“No!” If Jinyoung wasn’t wide-awake just seconds ago, he is now. Sitting up, he frowned, obviously upset.

“I mean if you can’t sleep because of me, then maybe I should step out for a bit so you could sleep.” Mark sat up, too, reaching out to rub Jinyoung’s arm, “But I’ll be here when you wake up.”

A sigh deliberately left Jinyoung’s mouth. He scooted back into Mark’s embrace, laying his head on the redhead’s chest. “Sorry, I overreacted. I thought you were going back to that whole do-I-deserve-you crap.”

“I’m over it,” Mark admitted, ruffling and petting Jinyoung’s raven locks, “Well, not entirely… But baby steps.”

“Hmmm,” snuggling closer to Mark’s warmth, wrapping his arms around the redhead’s torso, Jinyoung grinned, “Baby steps.”

They stayed like that for a while. Just bathing in each other’s warmth and affections, leaning against each other’s touches so dearly. Calmness blanketed over them with such admiration for the purity of their love for each other. Their hearts intertwined without missing a single beat.

%%%

Of course, words get around, and soon enough, reached the ears of Mark’s predacious group of friends. Breakfast at camp has never been this sly and weird and awkward and just childish in general. Even Jinyoung’s new circle of friends wouldn’t stop sending teasing glances and smirks towards his way whenever he felt the little hairs on his nape shivered. Heechul was the worse at being discreet. But Jinyoung tried his best to just ignore them. He knows they’ll corner him some time today and make him spill everything. Jinyoung gets the creep just thinking about what his new friends would do to him just to get some information on his new blooming love life with the school’s famous basketball captain. Though, now, he has Mark’s friends to deal with. And Jinyoung hates to admit it, but Mark’s circle is far more dangerous than his.

“Soooooooooo,” Jackson’s eyebrows wiggled up and down comically, “Have y’all -”

“God, Jacks,” Mark rolled his eyes, “Stop it.”

Anything involves the fencing captain, Wang Jackson, is dangerous. Period.

“Come ooooon,” Jackson whined, “I’m just being realistic! You two are both healthy eighteen-year-olds-”

“Um, actually,” Jinyoung cuts in purposely with an unfazed expression masking his face, “The percentage of high school seniors who are ually active, statically, ranges from forty to about a bare sixty, thus, leaving that remaining sixty to forty of seniors who aren’t active. Mark and I don’t have to be within that forty-sixty if none of us had any intentions of-”

Jackson groaned exaggeratedly, “God, I hate your boyfriend already.”

Jinyoung just offered a smile in return to that annoyance, “Feeling’s mutual, Jacks. It’s always been.”

“You…” The fencing captain squinted his eyes suspiciously, “You don’t actually mean that, right…? Because I don’t actually hate you…”

Chuckling and shaking his head, Jinyoung’s eyes turned into crescents, forming light whiskers around his eyes, “No, I don’t! I was kidding, too.”

“Well, Jinyoung-hyung’s intelligence makes up for Mark-hyung’s nonexistent smartness!” Bambam cheered, “They balance each other! So perrrrrrrrfect!”

Mark raised his eyebrow, “Wow. You’re going to insult me when I’m right here? Beautiful, Bam, truly beautiful.” The redhead rolled his eyes and scoffed. Sarcasm, he realized, has become his fourth language after English, Mandarin, and Korean.

“You’re smart,” Jinyoung nudged Mark playfully and smiled, “Don’t listen to him. He’s a kid. He doesn’t know what’s he’s talking about.”

“HEY-” The younger prepared himself to throw hands when his best friend quickly covered his mouth and pulled him down.

Yugyeom gave a pretense bitter smile, “Sorry, I’ll learn to control him better. You two can have your cute, cuddly moment.”

Jackson laughed as he watched Bambam struggled against Yugyeom’s strong hold. Soon, Mark and Jinyoung joined in, half feeling bad and half enjoying the youngers’ little play fight.

“Well, now that you both worked things out and are happily together…” Youngjae piped up suddenly in the midst of everyone’s laughter, “Jinyoung-hyung, have you read Perfume: Story of a Murderer? It’s by a German writer… But oh, of course you’ve read it, I saw your name in the book’s reading log,” in a split second, Youngjae had already teleported from the other side of the table to Jinyoung’s side, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “So like-”

Mark looked over at Jaebum, whose guts probably twisting with insecure jealously but face adorned a quite neutral expression as he watched his boyfriend getting all chummy with the new member of their family. Kicking Jaebum lightly under the table to gain the male’s attention, Mark winked and smiled reassuringly when Jaebum removed his hard gaze on Youngjae and turned his head towards Mark. Jaebum stared for a few seconds and smiled, shaking his head and giving his redheaded friend a mouthed “I’m fine” earnestly. Mark nodded, knowing that Jaebum was telling the truth. And he’s glad. He’s glad that the couple he admired finally reached a stability of trust in their relationship.

“So, Jinyoung,” Jackson leaned over a little, a smirk perched on his lips, “Since you read so much, have you read Fifty Shades of Grey? I heard it’s a really good book.”

With Jackson’s evil intents, the youngers even stopped fighting with each other and dropped their jaw open. Mark looked at his best friend between disbelief and are-you-ing-serious-right-now. Jaebum quirked his eyebrow but soon the corner of his lips turned upwards to a vicious smirk, matching Jackson’s, when he noticed the faint redness decorating Youngjae’s cheeks. Jackson glanced over at Jaebum and the smirk grew wider. Checkmate.

“Um…” Jinyoung looked like he’s going through a panic attack, shooting urgent looks at his boyfriend and eyes bulging as if getting ready to defend his innocence. “I, um, I-I-I… Tha-that… Um, I… Mark...” He hung his head in shame, giving no comment on the situation. He was caught by surprise. Should have known Jackson would totally pulled something like this.

Jaebum exhaled, pursing his lips together, “Last mission’s about to start.” Looking over to his boyfriend, Jaebum just shrugged and smiled, gathering his trash and Youngjae’s as he stood up, “Come on, Youngjae. We got an hour. You can tell me about that book.”

“What… What book,” Youngjae avoided his boyfriend’s gaze, attempting to flee the scene by acting dumb.

But Jaebum was smarter than that. “You know what book,” Jaebum said nonchalantly, “Since Jackson brought it up, I kind of want to read it. But you’ve already read it, right, babe? We have an hour. Why don’t you come and enlighten me with your knowledge?”

Youngjae gulped. His eyes moved to instinctively asks Jinyoung for help. Jinyoung didn’t even notice since he’s too far up his own embarrassment of being exposed to even bother. Youngjae sighed in defeat and got up on his feet, obediently following his boyfriend to somewhere that they could spend the next hour indulging in this book Jaebum suddenly held so much interest for. Alone.

As soon as the swim captain and soccer captain exited the scene, Mark scratched the back of his neck and cleared his throat, getting suffocated with this awkwardness hanging in the air so thickly, so empowered. “Jinyoung, why don’t we go over there? I’m sure your friends want you to introduce me to them. They’ve been staring and giving weird looks at me for a while now.”

“H-huh,” Jinyoung’s head snapped up and immediately whipped over towards his friends, who waved excitedly at him, “Um, y-yea-yeah, okay. Y-yeah, l-let’s go…” And without thinking much about it, or care for anyone else around them, because Jinyoung desperately needed to get out of this sticky situation, the nerd grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and dragged the redhead away from that corrupted table that’s been terrorized by Jackson Wang as its king.

“You’re unbelievable, hyung,” Yugyeom said, the first words after a long silence.

“Do we expect any less from Jackson-hyung, though?” Bambam tried to sound unaffected but failed to do so when his face inked with big, bold, red letters that spelt out his immense feeling of shook.

“Life’s great, isn’t it?” Jackson’s smile reached from ear to ear like a sadistic Cheshire cat.

%%%

Slamming his book close, Jinyoung couldn’t stop a sigh slipped past his lips. He’s alone in the tent, like usual, just trying to get some reading done. But he’s been distracted a lot recently. Not in a bad way, though. Jinyoung doesn’t know how to properly explain it, but since last night, all Jinyoung wanted to do was Mark. Well, not do Mark, but, like, just hanging, being with Mark, and not caring about anything else. Which that’s what they did. It’s the last night at camp. The last mission at camp. The last chance for the two partners to grab first place for the class. But Mark and Jinyoung could care less and just ran away. Ran away from everything else and just be with each other.

Jinyoung sighed. This wasn't exactly good. Everyone was having such high hopes for them. The class would be disappointed. But the memories of Mark kissing his cheeks and picking flowers for him set Jinyoung’s face in flames. He covered his face with his hands and groaned in embarrassment. Jinyoung laid down and stared up, body burning up from thoughts of his boyfriend, Mark. Jinyoung scoffed, biting down his lip from breaking into another fit of acting like an idiot all over the tent’s mattress. His boyfriend. He has a boyfriend. Jinyoung has a boyfriend. And his boyfriend is Mark. Yes, the Mark Tuan.

And Jinyoung rolled all over the place, covering his red face and squealing in his hands, smiling so brightly, so wide that his cheeks were hurting. It can’t be blamed, though. Jinyoung was beyond thrilled, beyond excited, beyond any emotions he ever had before. He’s experiencing so many new things with Mark and it’s just… It’s just… It’s just so…

“… Amazing,” uncovering his faces and letting his hands fall to the mattress, Jinyoung sighed in content. He’d never been so ridiculously happy before.

“What’s amazing?” Mark’s questioning voice jumped Jinyoung right from his dreaming trance. The redhead entered the tent and raised his eyebrow at the scattered pillows and bundled blankets. “Goodness gracious, what did you do, Jinyoungie? It’s a mess.”

Immediately pulled himself up, Jinyoung crisscrossed his legs and looked down at his hands with a pout. Mark pursed his lips and nodded, already feeling the I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it-because-it’s-embarrassing air hitting him straight in the face. So he didn’t ask anything else and just settled in front of Jinyoung. “Have you freshen up yet? They’re about to set the alarm soon.”

Raising his head up a little to look at Mark, Jinyoung muttered quietly, “Yeah, I have.”

“Okay,” the redhead exhaled calmly, “Then good night, Jinyoung-ah.”

Jinyoung watched Mark moved the pillows back to their places and unraveled the blankets. Mark did everything so calmly. Jinyoung watched as the redhead laid down and settled softly, pulling the blanket over himself. With a smile at Jinyoung, Mark turned off the flashlight in their tent and everything went black. Jinyoung remained sitting in the darkness because what the just happened?

Not a few minutes after, the alarm blared loudly, spreading its warning throughout the campsite. Jinyoung cringed, snapping out of whatever disbelief he was in. Blinking a couple of times, Jinyoung shook his head and sighed, a bit confused, but whatever, he’s kind of tired. Even though all he did today was going on a date with Mark that consists of them climbing mountains and laying in the middle of a flower field and chasing each other through an ocean of wheat and messing with each other at a nearby river and did a little making out here and there against some trees, Jinyoung was still tired. It takes energy to keep up with Mark, Jinyoung realized. But then again, he should expect that if he’s dating the captain of the basketball team.

After a full ten minutes of stillness, Jinyoung was sure Mark wasn’t going to lean over and kiss him goodnight, so he rolled his eyes and turned to his side, back facing Mark. Guess he’ll go ahead and sleep then. Jinyoung closed his eyes, determined to get some sleep because tomorrow will be spend cleaning up and packing to leave. He needs energy for that.

But of course, Mark wouldn’t let Jinyoung go to bed just like that.

“Jinyoung-ah,” Mark whispered softly, knowing full well that his boyfriend was still awake and probably disappointed. Mark bit back a smile. Jinyoung was too cute.

“What do you want, Mark?” Jinyoung replied coldly.

Mark grinned, “Nothing, just thought the day shouldn’t end like this, you know? Well, our day.”

Opening his eyes, Jinyoung’s lips revealed a little smile before he cleared his throat and went back to his cold character. “I’m tired, Mark.”

“I know you are,” Mark stealthily draped an arm over Jinyoung’s body and pulled the male back towards him, closing the distance between them. He kissed Jinyoung’s head, “Of course you are, but I want to show you something.”

Jinyoung could be acting all cold and unbothered as he wanted, but he won’t deny how much Mark’s sweet little actions impressed him so much. Giving up his lame pretense, Jinyoung turned to face Mark and captured the redhead’s lips in a chaste kiss. “What is it?”

Smiling against Jinyoung’s lips, Mark gave a kiss back, “You have to get out, though, so go grab your jacket. It’s cold outside, babe.”

“But we can’t go out…”

“I know.”

“Mark… What are you…”

“I know you’re a goody-little-two-shoes, but you love me, so you’ll go out for me.”

“Wow,” Jinyoung scoffed, a little smile followed afterwards, “Aren’t you confident now? Getting a little arrogant, aren’t we?”

Planting a kiss on Jinyoung’s nose, Mark smirked, “Very arrogant.”

Jinyoung chuckled softly and shook his head, getting up to grab a jacket. “This better be worth it. I am not risking getting in trouble for nothing, Mark.”

“Trust me,” Mark put on his own jacket, “You’ll love it. I know you will.”

Quietly, the two snuck out of their tent and escaped into the woods. Mark held onto Jinyoung’s hand, guiding both of them through the darkness with only a small light from a flashlight. Jinyoung kept looking around, worried etched his face. What if they’re lost? He trusts Mark, but at the same time, two kids out deep within the woods in the middle of the night doesn’t paint out to be such a pleasing picture. After what feels like a good fifteen minutes, they stopped.

“What happened-” Jinyoung started to show his unmasked panic.

“Close your eyes,” Mark said, voice soft and calming and soothing like everything Jinyoung wanted to hear. “Trust me and close your eyes.”

Exhaling softly, Jinyoung nodded and closed his eyes. “Okay, now what?”

“Don’t let go of my hand.”

Jinyoung nodded, wasn’t sure if Mark had seen it, but he felt Mark tugging his hand and slowly dragging him. Now that his sight was blocked, Jinyoung’s other senses rippled awake. Every little noise, every little smells, every little branches that crunched under his feet, did a fantastic job scaring the life out of him. But he trusts Mark.

Another five minutes walk and they stopped again. Jinyoung quickly gripped onto Mark with both of his hands. He heard Mark chuckled, “It’s okay. I got you.” And he felt soft lips landing on his own. Jinyoung kissed back, wordlessly telling Mark that he trusts him. Mark’s breath fanning his face, “We’re here.”

“Can I open my eyes?”

“Not yet. Hold on.”

A bunch of sounds like leaves rustlings erupted in both of Jinyoung’s ears. It died down and Jinyoung couldn’t make out anything. He felt Mark guiding him to sit down on this soft sheet that’s covering over the bed of grass. His hands still gripping tightly onto Mark’s. Another kiss pressed on his cheek. Mark said, “You can open them now.”

Slowly opening his eyes, Jinyoung’s heart suddenly ran wild, madly ramming against his ribcage. He heard Mark’s voice telling him to look up. And he did. What greeted Jinyoung left him breathless. A dark sky that’s lit up with thousands of stars twinkling beautifully like a canvas of smooth of dripping bright paints gleaming against the dull white background. Jinyoung had never witnessed something so enchanted.

“Pretty, right?” Mark smiled, throwing an arm over Jinyoung’s shoulder and pulling him closer. He wrapped Jinyoung against him and rested the sides of their heads together as they both looked up at the enthralling night sky. “Those two nights that I avoided you, I couldn’t sleep. So this was what I did. I snuck out of Jackson’s tent, set a blanket here, and just lay down, star gazing and thinking about you.”

“It’s so beautiful, Mark,” Jinyoung could only said, still hooked up in the fascination of what’s written in constellations in front of his eyes. He leaned back against Mark and snuggled, feeling warm and protected. “Thank you.”

Mark shook his head, “No, thank you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Mark laughed, leaning over, blocking Jinyoung’s view of the stars for a bit to lock their lips together in a long, slow, melting kiss. When they pulled apart, they were breathless. But Mark still lovingly gaze into Jinyoung’s eyes. “I love you,” he said, closing the gap between their lips again, cradling Jinyoung’s head as he kissed him with unspoken passion.

Jinyoung whispered against Mark’s lips, “I love you, too.”

The stars above witnessed their blooming love, sparkling with the magically fuels of love and happiness entrapping the dark night sky, igniting with bewitched flames as they crossed sporadically over each other, torching the night with festive cheers. Love brought them together.