“Hey, Mark, have you checked the comments on the new episode yet?” Jinyoung asked, plopping down onto the couch next to him with his bowl of breakfast cereal.

“Not yet. I haven’t watched the final upload either.”

“Me either. Want to watch it now? I really need to make sure BamBam edited out some of the behind the scenes footage I bribed him out of my paycheck to.”

“What behind the scene footage?” Mark asked curiously. BamBam would sometimes stick a blooper or a funny moment he’d caught during recording to the end of the video after the credits, but usually it was something innocuous that neither of them minded.

“Nothing important,” Jinyoung said, much too defensively. “It’s just since Dani Jo’s an old friend, we were talking about some personal stuff before filming, and it wasn’t the kind of stuff I’d want our entire fanbase knowing, that’s all.”

Mark raised an eyebrow. Personal stuff? That automatically sent off warning bells. Had Jinyoung and Dani Jo been talking about relationship related things before Mark had arrived on set? It must have been something pretty revealing if Jinyoung had actually bribed BamBam not to air it, and Mark was immediately desperate to know what it was. Jinyoung had never confided in Mark on the subject, and Mark had no idea where he even stood on the spectrum of who he wanted to date or if another guy like Mark would even be an option for him.

Before starting the video, Mark scrolled down to check the comments. The first two were discussing the case itself, and then the next one…

Is it just me, or did Jinyoung totally have the hots for Dani Jo?

-markjinunited-

↳

It wasn’t just you! He was super attentive to her and everything. Did you notice how he soft he was when he looked at her? I ship it!

-mmomfreak-

↳

What should their ship name be? JinJo? Dani Jin?

-markjinunited-

Mark made a strangled noise as he continued to scroll through the comments. It wasn’t just that thread—there were several commenters implying a flirtation between Jinyoung and Dani Jo, with timestamps to alleged moments to back it up. And worst of all, based on the usernames, it seemed like there were a handful of Markjin fans themselves involved in squealing over this development as if they didn’t normally devote their lives to rooting for himself and Jinyoung to hook up.

Traitors, Mark thought, surprising himself with the internal violence of his annoyance. You complete and utter traitors!

Still, if there was enough evidence that Jinyoung and Dani Jo had an interest in each other to get such passionate fans of Markjin to change lanes, didn’t that mean the evidence must be valid? Didn’t that mean there was fire to go along with all the smoke, and there was a good possibility that Jinyoung had taken an interest in Dani Jo during the episode they’d shot with her, or had liked her from all the way back in university, and that the bonus footage he was trying to keep from the fans was them verbally expressing an interest in each other?

“What’s with that noise you’re making?” Jinyoung asked in a panic as Mark continued to unintentionally release a low whine like a leaking balloon. “Did BamBam not edit out my footage?”

“I…I don’t know,” Mark said, trying to snap himself out of it. “Er…Jinyoung…you and Dani Jo are pretty close, right?”

Jinyoung gave him a weird look. “Why are you asking that now? I’ve been friends with her since university—you should know that, since we were all in the same department together. I mean, you were friends with her and close to her too, weren’t you?”

Mark nodded numbly. They’d both shared a lot of classes with her and gotten along with her really well, but Mark had been so focused on his budding crush on Jinyoung at the time that he hadn’t really been overly aware of anyone else in comparison. Had he missed out on a potential attraction between them back in university? Was that why Jinyoung had reconnected with her and invited her to join them on their show?

“Come on, let’s watch the video,” Jinyoung said impatiently. “I want to see how it turned out!”

Mark sighed, scrolling back up. He was curious to watch himself, but was also partially terrified. Was he about to subject himself to an episode of Jinyoung flirting with someone else right under his nose?

Three Weeks Earlier

“Seriously, I’m just so grateful to ya’ll for inviting me out like this,” Dani Jo said, taking a seat behind their investigation table. She had a Georgian southern accent which you couldn’t help but enjoy listening to. “It feels like I just went from the minor to the major leagues.”

“Come on, give yourself more credit,” Jinyoung said encouragingly. “We’ve been really into your podcast these days. Mark and I are more of investigation junkies, so listening to your stuff has really helped us grasp the legal aspects of the trial portion of the cases we cover.”

“Well, isn't that just the sweetest thing to say! And even more since ya'll were my inspiration for starting the podcast. My Men of Mystery is just the best there is when it comes to making expertise fun and easy to listen to.”

“So how’s law school going?” Mark asked.

“It’s going,” Dani Jo said modestly. “My apprenticeship is a lot of hard work, but just so fascinating, let me tell you. It’s the thought of the bar exam that’s giving me hives.”

“You’ll do fine,” Jinyoung said. “And you’re going to make a great lawyer, I know it.”

“Well, I figure I’ll end up the secret weapon of some prosecution team,” Dani Jo said, elbowing Jinyoung playfully. “No one expects much from a 4’11” blonde southern girl who looks like she should be playing Dolly Parton in a biopic.”

“You three ready to get started?” BamBam asked, positioning his camera. “Or do you need a few more minutes?”

“Mark and I are good,” Jinyoung said, glancing at Mark. “Dani, are you ready to go?”

“Ready!” Dani Jo said, flashing a thumbs up at BamBam.

“All right. Let’s begin in 3…2…1!”

“Welcome to a new episode of My Men of Mystery,” Mark began. “On today’s episode, we'll take a look at a controversial case with an even more controversial verdict. Joining us is Dani Jo McKenzie from the popular legal themed podcast Let’s Take it to Trial.”

“Dani Jo is a personal friend of ours from university, and a lawyer-in-training,” Jinyoung added with a warm smile. “Happy to have you with us today, Dani.”

“And I’m so happy to be here,” Dani Jo said brightly. “It feels just like old times, being back together with ya’ll.”

“Maybe we should bring in the rest of the class sometime?” Mark suggested. “Have a criminal justice reunion?”

“Now that would be a blast! I’d love an episode where you had us all trying to solve a crime just like you did for Jinyoung on Valentine’s Day!”

“But this time, you have a crime for us to deliberate, don’t you?” Jinyoung asked.

“Well, it’s not so much a crime, but a trial. In this case, it was clear as day who was responsible, but the evidence of whether or not it was an accident or intentional, and whether or not the defendant should have been found guilty or not guilty was all a little bit fuzzy. There are plenty of opinions on this one out there, but there’s really no definitive answer. I’m curious to see what ya’ll will think of it and what verdict ya’ll would have reached about it. Shall we start?”

“Let’s get to it!” Jinyoung said, whipping out his investigative notebook. “Hit us with the facts.”

“I’ll start by setting the scene,” Dani Jo said. “Our crime scene was a bright yellow Porsche 911. In the driver’s seat was Neil Johnson, 34, the co-founder of a successful investing app called Stock-a-Bull. In the passenger seat was his business partner, Colin Kenning, 35. Seated behind Kenning was Kenning's girlfriend, Jenna Hart, 19.”

“So…the 35 year-old was dating a nineteen year-old?” Mark asked, frowning. “I already don’t like where this is going.”

“It was one of those stereotypical set ups,” Dani Jo explained. “Filthy rich, average looking man ending up with a pretty young thing. Depending on the side of the story, Kenning is painted as a creep or a caring boyfriend, and Hart a naïve innocent or a scheming gold digger. But we’ll get into that later. For the time being, Johnson and Kenning were just two businessmen on the way to a routine meeting with investors, and Hart was a tagalong intern. Johnson parked the Porsche in the lot of the company Wilson & Sons, where the potential investors worked. Wilson & Sons was in the bad side of an urban city called Engle Heights, and wasn’t exactly the kind of place one should normally go around driving a Porsche or wearing expensive watches and jewelry as Johnson, Kenning, and Hart all were.”

“So why did they?” Jinyoung asked.

“As a status thing, since they were meeting with investors. Johnson and Kenning enjoyed flaunting their wealth.”

“And I’m assuming that’s going to backfire on them?”

“But not in the way you’d think! According to Hart’s testimony, Johnson left the car first to go inside. Kenning stayed in the car about a minute longer with Hart. According to Hart, Kenning pulled out a handgun he kept in the car’s glove compartment and gave it to Hart to hold onto since she’d be staying in the car during the meeting. He told her that if someone approached the car or she felt unsafe, to threaten that person with the gun.”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Jinyoung asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Not in America, it isn’t,” Mark reminded him.

“Mark’s got the right of it. But Hart, being a bit on the young side, wasn’t overly concerned about being in a dangerous area. In fact, she thought the whole thing was a bit insulting, since they weren't allowing her to attend the meeting and basically only had her around to guard Johnson's fancy little car, which he called his 'baby'. Not what you'd call the kind of motivating job task you apply to intern at a tech company for. Anyhow, she monitored the area for about five minutes, and after not seeing any foot traffic around the parking lot, she decided to take a nap until the meeting was over. In fact, she fell asleep with the gun still in her hands.”

“Had she fallen asleep during gun safety classes, too?” Jinyoung asked, looking horrified.

“It’s doubtful she ever had them,” Dani Jo said. “The gun wasn’t hers, for one, and, well, plenty of people can get guns without gun safety classes. A lot of it is common sense, especially not falling asleep while holding one, but Hart testified that she didn’t really know anything about guns, other than how to pull a trigger. She said she thought it would be smarter to fall asleep with her finger close to the trigger, so that if she was woken up by a potential threat, it would be easy for her to shoot quickly.”

“That’s one way of looking at it…” Mark said drily.

“As it turned out, it was close to what actually happened. Hart was startled awake by a sudden noise about thirty minutes after falling asleep, and in her alarm, she squeezed the gun and fired into the back of the passenger seat. But what she claims she didn’t know was that the sound was Neil Johnson shutting the driver’s door, and that she’d fired the gun straight into the back of her boyfriend Colin Kenning, who had just taken his seat on the passenger’s side.”

Mark processed this, immediately seeing all the difficulties that would come with this kind of case. Given how Hart had fallen asleep with the gun, there would be a strong case that the whole thing had been accidental. But it would be just as easy for her to stage these accidental circumstances and commit a very intentional murder.

“It was an eruption of chaos, at first. The bullet wound wasn’t immediately fatal, and Johnson tried to provide basic assistance before Hart started screaming to take Kenning to the hospital. They both testified later that they hadn’t thought to call the police immediately, but drove him to the nearest emergency room themselves. Kenning was admitted straightaway, but it was too late. He survived only another thirty minutes in the hospital before dying from his injury. By this time, the police had arrived on scene to question Johnson and Hart. Hart claimed she had fired off the gun accidentally, and initially Johnson agreed with her version of events. But partway through questioning, as he began to calm down from the initial shock and grief, he began to suggest to investigators that it may not have been accidental. In fact, he claimed Hart had every reason to want Kenning dead, because she was the beneficiary on his three million dollar life insurance policy, since he was an only child whose parents had already passed away.”

“So there’s motive,” Mark said slowly. “But there’s no real way to prove it unless she told someone what she was going to do ahead of time, right? I mean, her fingerprints would obviously be on the gun, since there’s no doubt she fired it, whether intentionally or accidentally. As long as she stuck to her story, there would be no way to arrest her for it.”

“There could be a circumstantial case,” Jinyoung argued. “The life insurance policy is a pretty big motive, and if investigators combed through her computer and found incriminating searches like they did for Rand the Third, they could cast doubt on her claim.” He paused. “Was there CCTV at Wilson & Sons? Maybe Kenning didn’t even give her the gun! Johnson wasn’t in the car for that alleged exchange, so what if Hart made it up and grabbed the gun for herself after he left?”

“Unfortunately, there was no CCTV,” Dani Jo said. “But there were many who considered that same possibility. But even if there was evidence of Hart taking the gun out of the glove compartment, all ya’ll could establish from it on an evidential basis was that she lied to investigators. If she took the gun out herself, ya’ll could still argue she just wanted to have it because they were parked in a dangerous area.” She paused. “The police did do a comb of her computer and phone and found nothing particularly incriminating. The life insurance was the biggest thing they had to go on… along with rampant speculation among Kenning’s friends and co-workers that Hart was a gold digger who was after Kenning’s wallet from the beginning.”

“But they took it to trial?”

Dani Jo nodded. “There was a lot of pressure on the DA from Kenning’s next of kin, his aunt and uncle. If Hart wasn’t put on trial and found guilty, nothing would stop her from collecting on the three million. So they took it to trial, and the scenario as I’ve described it was laid out to the jury. There was no useful forensic evidence presented—ballistics, blood splatter, and scene recreation all established that it could have been accidental. The only compelling circumstantial evidence for it being a homicide was the life insurance policy. Hart testified that she never even knew about the policy, and would not have naturally assumed he’d mark her down as the beneficiary. She said she thought he would have made Neil Johnson his beneficiary, and suggested Johnson's anger about her being listed instead may have been what led him to suggest the shooting wasn’t accidental.”

“She could just be saying that, though, to move suspicion away from herself, right?” Jinyoung asked.

“That is correct. There’s no evidence that she knew or didn’t know about the policy other than her own testimony.”

“So, basically they had a whole trial with nothing but inconclusive evidence?” Mark asked, frowning. It made him think back to the Crosby murder back in Colorado which had come with heaps of evidence, but still hadn’t gone to trial.

“It was essentially a trial of dueling character witnesses,” Dani Jo said with a nod. “Neil Johnson and Kenning’s extended family insisted she was gold digger who would murder in a heartbeat if it meant she would live out the rest of her life in luxury. They claimed Kenning was head-over-heels for her and blind to her faults and manipulation of him. Meanwhile, Hart’s friends and family claimed Kenning was a cunning charmer who used his power to seduce a young intern and used money to control her. In their view, Hart was nothing but a naïve pawn, and that she couldn’t be blamed for her boyfriend handing her a gun when he knew she had never been trained to handle it.”

Mark considered this information. In his book, relying on character witnesses was usually faulty. Family and friends were naturally biased, and that could also skew their perception of the other party. Even if they’d previously liked the person, they could quickly invent reasons why they “always had a bad feeling about them” if it benefitted their loved one. If he were reaching a verdict in this trial, the completely opposite and contradictory character portrayals would most likely be thrown out of his consideration.

“There was a very long jury deliberation on this trial, which is rarely a good sign for prosecutors,” Dani Jo continued. “Long deliberations more often than not end in a mistrial because it indicates that an agreement is not being made. But before we get into the actual verdict, I want to hear what ya’ll think. Let’s start with Jinyoung—are you thinking guilty or not guilty?”

Jinyoung pursed his lips, then sighed. “I just really don’t like that three million life insurance policy. If I were a nineteen year-old girl with a choice between being set financially for a huge chunk of my life or continuing to date a thirty-five year old creep, even I’d consider going for the former.”

“But there’s no proof she knew about the policy,” Mark pointed out.

“Come on. This is a thirty-five year-old guy trying to maintain the interest of a younger girl. Of course he’s going to brag about taking care of her financially. Haven’t you heard of ‘flexing’? It’s an actual thing.”

“But there’s still reasonable doubt,” Mark said. “A lot of reasonable doubt. And reaching a guilty conviction with that much in question is how we end up with innocent people in jail, Jinyoung.”

“I know that! But on the other side of the coin, double jeopardy makes it so that if she’s declared not guilty, she’ll never be able to be tried for the case again and may never go to jail if more compelling evidence comes out. Which means she’ll get away with killing a guy for his life insurance policy. She’ll get to live the high life with absolutely no punishment, and isn’t that a horrible precedence to set? As long as you’re good enough to make it look accidental, you can just kill people off scot free!” He took a breath—Mark knew Jinyoung tended to get passionate about this kind of case, thanks to a case they’d done in the past where a guy was declared not guilty of killing his girlfriend only for new evidence to come out confirming he had committed the crime, which double jeopardy then prevented him from getting arrested for. “I get that there is that chance it was an accident. I wouldn’t declare her guilty of anything like first degree murder because of that. But involuntary manslaughter…I’d most likely charge her with that, though I really do think she could have had the intent to kill him, even though it wasn’t fully proven.”

“The prosecution didn’t file ‘involuntary manslaughter’ charges against her, though,” Dani Jo said. “They insisted there was intent as evidenced by the life insurance policy, so they filed murder charges. If they'd wanted to bring a lesser charge back to the table, they would have had to work out a plea deal with the defense.”

Jinyoung frowned. “Isn’t that a bit out of character for a prosecution team? They’d definitively get a conviction with involuntary charges.”

“I’ll go on the record saying I don’t think this prosecution team filed charges which reflected the body of evidence—or lack of it—they were working with.”

“In that case…” Jinyoung bit his lip. “My suspicion is that she was guilty of criminal intent, but I guess I couldn’t agree to charge her with that based on the evidence they had.”

“And what about you, Mark?” Dani Jo asked.

“The prosecution has the burden of proof, and they proved absolutely nothing,” Mark said with a shrug. “I would have also considered involuntary manslaughter, but since that wasn’t brought to the table, she should be cleared.”

“But do you agree with Jinyoung that it was likely she was guilty?”

Mark thought for a moment. “Actually…not really. Assuming she was a gold digger, it would have benefitted her more to have him alive to continue to amass his fortune, wouldn’t it? His company was still a start-up, so it had barely met its full potential for earnings. If she’d waited around and even married the guy, there would have been a lot more for her than three million. These days, three million isn’t even that much in the scheme of things. Plus, I actually found her accidentally firing the gun plausible. When you’re woken up unexpectedly, your body does tend to jolt in that way, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone accidentally set off a gun.”

“Wow, so ya’ll are actually on opposite sides about this?” Dani Jo asked. “That doesn’t happen often. But actually, it fits perfectly because you both represent the two prevailing opinions that made the case so controversial.”

“So what was the official verdict?” Jinyoung asked.

“Not guilty of all charges,” Dani Jo said. “The jury agreed the burden of proof hadn’t been met. In the legal world, this was viewed as the correct decision. In the community, though, there were many people who were furious and believed Jenna Hart had gotten away with murder. She had to move out of the area based on all the threats she received.”

“But she got the life insurance policy, didn’t she?” Jinyoung asked glumly.

“She did," Dani Jo said, patting Jinyoung comfortingly on the thigh, "though there was a civil battle with Kenning’s extended family first. I’d think you’d be interested to hear how she spent it, Jinyoung.”

“How? On lavish parties?”

“Not at all. She wound up donating the three million to a cancer foundation. Her mother had passed away from it.”

“…oh.”

“Opinions of her softened after that. Still, there’s always a chance she did deliberately kill him, but not for the money. There was a lot of rumors going around that he was holding her career hostage based on his power over her. But whatever the case is, it will most likely never be proven.”

“Which makes this a good case for our viewers to sound off on,” Jinyoung said. “What do you guys think happened that day in that shiny yellow Porsche 911? Was it an accidental shooting or a calculated murder? Did Jenna Hart deserve to go to jail, or was she a victim in this? Did the legal team act appropriately, or did they flub their duty under pressure? We’d love to hear your thoughts!”

“For the time being, though, it will have to remain-” Mark started to say.

“Oooh, can I finish this part?” Dani Jo asked excitedly. “I’ve been absolutely dying to!”

Jinyoung smiled indulgently. “Go right ahead.”

Dani Jo cleared . “For the time being, though,” she said, straining her voice to go low to imitate Mark’s, though she couldn’t quite fully kick her southern accent, “it will have to remain a mystery.”

The YouTube video finished playing, and Mark set his phone down. He’d watched Jinyoung like a hawk through the entire episode to pick up on what the viewers had decided was his interest in Dani Jo, and now felt a little at a loss. Jinyoung had looked at her kindly throughout the episode, but no differently than Mark would expect from someone as naturally kind as Jinyoung. And his attentiveness was the exact kind of way he’d get with anyone they were playing host to or working with (outside of BamBam). He’d been just as attentive to Spring Townsend, hadn’t he? Or perhaps that was just what the side of Mark that didn’t want Jinyoung to have a special interest in anyone else thought.

Maybe the fans just get over excited about the possibility of any type of romance, even if they have to invent it a little, Mark thought. Then again, that could also mean they were just making something out of nothing in the exact same way when they spazzed over how Jinyoung spoke to or interacted with Mark. He really shouldn’t rely on them and their opinions of Jinyoung’s feelings as much as he did. They were working with only inconclusive evidence, and their verdicts were determined in the heat of the moment without a thought of all the reasonable doubt. They wanted a romance to give them the fluttery high they wanted right when they wanted it, whether it involved him or Dani Jo or someone else equally interesting.

But Mark was invested in it in a different way. He needed to establish proof of Jinyoung’s feelings without even a fleck of doubt or the possibility of some alternate scenario where one or both of them would be better off or happier with someone else. And he didn’t want some answer that would only last momentarily, only to be overturned later. He wanted Jinyoung for life. Even if it took a little bit of extra time to find all the evidence he needed to solve the mystery of who Jinyoung’s heart belonged to.

“Well,” Jinyoung said, breaking into Mark’s thoughts. “BamBam didn’t include it after all. Thank god. It’s a really good episode otherwise. I bet it’ll spark a lot of debate in the comments.”

“After rewatching it, do you still think she was guilty?” Mark asked, shaking off the thoughts of the love triangle which probably didn’t even exist.

“Actually, I’m a lot less sure after taking how she spent the life insurance under consideration,” Jinyoung said sheepishly. “And really, not that I think he deserved to die over it, but that Kenning guy really shouldn’t have even gotten anywhere near a barely legal company intern.”

“And that’s why we don’t write off reasonable doubt in this household,” Mark said, gently rapping Jinyoung on the forehead with his knuckles. “It’s good to get passionate about these cases, but if you and I ever end up on a jury, we can’t let it cloud our judgement.”

“Yeah, yeah, lesson learned,” Jinyoung said, elbowing Mark as payback. “I bet you would have convicted Rand the Third from the case last month even if there had been reasonable doubt.”

“Hey, now. The reason I hated the guy so much was he was stupid enough not to leave a single sliver of doubt.” His phone pinged with a notification, and he glanced down at it. “Huh? It says our channel just uploaded a new video. We didn’t have anything scheduled to air today, did we?”

“Not that I know of. Let’s check it out.”

Mark swiped on the notification, and a video entitled “A Shot in the Back: Behind the Episode” started playing.

“TURN IT OFF, NOW!” Jinyoung yelled, immediately lunging and trying to take the phone from Mark.

Mark lifted the phone, out of his reach. “You do know I could just watch it when you’re not around since it’s up on YouTube, right?”

“I’ll make BamBam take it down before then,” Jinyoung said, still wildly attempting to grab the phone. “Please, please, please don’t watch it!”

Mark ignored him. At the start of the video, BamBam had filmed them trying to speak in Georgian accents like Dani Jo’s with hilariously bad results. Next, he filmed Mark tripping over a microphone cable after filming, set to the tune of dramatic sound effects.

“See, Jinyoung?” Mark said. “He just uploaded stupid stuff as always.”

But then, the video shifted to BamBam filming Jinyoung and Dani Jo at a distance in the studio, before Mark had arrived. They were speaking in super low voices so it was hard to hear them, though BamBam had provided captions.

“So,” Jinyoung whispered in the clip. “Did you ever get together with that *beep* guy you had a crush on?” The *beep* sound was accompanied by the caption Censored for our guest’s privacy.

“I sure did,” Dani Jo responded. “How about you, did you ever *beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*?” The long censor sound was accompanied by the caption Censored because the sick burn Dani Jo delivered about the state of Jinyoung’s love life is too devastating to air. The camera than zoomed in on Jinyoung’s expression, one Mark knew very well—it was the kind of look he got when you called him out about something he was guilty of but didn’t want to admit to.

Dani Jo wasn't finished either. When she saw Jinyoung's expression, she cackled. "What in God's green earth are you waiting for, then? You think being all sneaky and cute about it is the way to go? No way, ya'll aren't working with a sweetheart with that kind of radar, are y'now? What ya need is a billboard! A giant as heck billboard that says I LOVE *beeeeeep*, and you're going to have to put it right outside *beep*'s window. Or, y'know what, there's always cake, y'can always bake an I love you *beep* cake and decorate it with those little chalky hearts ya love so much, that's much better than sitting around and being a piney old fool, thinking *beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*"

This last beep featured a caption that read *Dani Jo aboely lays it into Jinyoung so badly that we'd have to rate this video mature if we didn't censor it due to the outright murder of his character*.

Jinyoung groaned from behind Mark. “BamBam, that bastard!”

Mark’s heart was pounding. It wasn't decisive evidence at all, especially with the revealing details handily bleeped, but since he knew Jinyoung hadn’t been back in contact with Dani Jo until recently, that probably meant her comment towards Jinyoung was in reference to something she knew about him and his love life previously…something from back in the college…which could mean…

It had to be, didn't it? Based on the context, there was at least a 85% chance it was about him. All the same, he wanted to know for sure, and wondered if this could possibly be an opening for Jinyoung to tell him. 

“What did she say to you?” Mark asked before he could stop himself.

“I’m not just going to repeat it!” Jinyoung said, flushing. “You saw the captions, it was a low blow!”

“About who, though? You haven’t told me anything about your love life, ever.”

“Sure, and maybe that's for a good reason, OK?” Jinyoung said, darting his eyes away. “Besides, you’re one to talk about never discussing love lives. You don’t talk to me about these things either.”

Now it was Mark’s turn to go through that experience of being called out for something he was incredibly guilty of. Before he could come up with a retort or fish for more details about what Dani Jo had said to Jinyoung, Jinyoung had started talking again.

“Go tell BamBam to take it down,” he said forcefully.

“Why can’t you?”

“Because he won’t listen to me! I mean, I already bribed him, and that had no impact. He seems to get off on pushing my buttons, but he actually respects you!”

 “But he censored everything. The fans aren’t going to make anything of it.” Probably. Now that the “Dani Jin” ship had sunk based on that clip, the Markjin fans would have plenty to make of it.

“Our personal lives shouldn’t be an object of discussion of our fanbase!” Jinyoung insisted. “We’re there to talk about mysteries, not crushes or dates! That’s our business!”

Mark didn’t have the heart to tell Jinyoung it was already much too late for that. He didn’t want to know how Jinyoung would react to the knowledge that their personal life was almost as much of a discussion as everything they went into on the show. “Fine,” he said, relenting. “I’ll talk to BamBam.”

“Good.” Jinyoung’s eyes narrowed. “And don’t ask him anything about it.”

“What, are you hiding something big from me or something?” Like, being in love with me, maybe? Want to talk about it? If not, is there a reason why you don't want to talk about it? Or is the reason you don't want to talk about it because it's not me after all? Can you please, please, please just throw me a bone here so I can erase that last piece of reasonable doubt?

“No bigger than the kind of thing you’d hide from me,” Jinyoung quipped. “Look…just get him to take it down, all right? My personal business isn’t fodder for one of his little jokes.”

“Jinyoung wants you to delete the Behind the Episode,” Mark informed BamBam as soon as they crossed paths.

BamBam smirked. “Of course he does. Tell him that I didn’t even take the bribe money out of his paycheck. BamBam don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“Great, that’s wonderful, but the fact that something about his personal life is up on YouTube is stressing him out.”

“But I censored anything juicy! Basically all that clip reveals is that Jinyoung has a love life that’s in the state one of his friends could about. That could describe tons of people! Besides, no one would be able to tell for sure who she was talking about based just on that clip!” BamBam wiggled his eyebrows. “She could have even been teasing him about you!”

“Was she?”

“It’s not my secret to tell. But your fans sure seem to think it has something to do with you. Which is exactly why I want to leave it up.”

“Are you trying to make the frenzy over us worse?”

“Yes, in fact, I am,” BamBam said calmly. “It’s good for business, shoots up your view count, and increases your fandom outside of the murderinos. And, let me add, you two willingly do unprompted things to make the fans frenzied over you constantly and I am only taking advantage of the material you two in-denial lovebirds provide without actually going through the trouble of scripting it.” He cupped his chin in his hand. “Better get used to it, Mark. I just booked you two for a True Crime convention next month. You’ll be meeting those frenzied fans in person—and you can bet they’ll be polishing up their magnifying glasses, ready to pick up any clue you give them.”​