Epilogue~~~

Jinyoung told him to breathe

And Mark sighed one last time, encompassing the feel of the familiar fingers as they ran through his coarse and brittle hair, his own personal hell which had been able to suppress for eighty years finally opened their doors to him

And he burned

alone

As  Jinyoung watched , eyes of gold and a heart made of black stone.

Mark Tuan, my lover

September 4th 1993 - May 5th 2014

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Jinyoung taught him to feel, so Mark felt; what he was sure was gasoline, was instead serotonin, plummeting his bloodstream at 140 miles per hour, everytime.

Mark told him to lie, so Jinyoung lied; losing people around him as fast as sand runs through the fingers of a child’s open hand.

Jinyoung told him to smile, so Mark smiled widely, because the world was his Broadway and he had only one spectator.

Mark told him to cry so Jinyoung cried; salty tears burning and scaring a little deeper everytime

Jinyoung told him to laugh so head thrown back Mark laughed, a little louder, a little heartier and a little more real, and everytime he thought he recognised happiness.

he didn’t

Mark was autistic…..

Mark told him to cut so Jinyoung cut; scissors, razors, penknife, and his favourite, shards of glass, harder and deeper every time. Mark had thought as he along the inflamed skin that he liked the scarlet, he liked it very much.

Jinyoung told him to kiss, so they kissed; in nostalgic settings, slow and intimate under  warm duvets in the morning, gentle fingers dancing alongside milky inner thighs and, rough and passionate in alleyways of foreign cities at night, hands hurried and determined, pulling and grazing around waistbands of designer boxers— no time for decency .

and one day Mark told him to burn, Jinyoung didn’t flinch as he gently caressed the other’s eyelashes, closed his own, and they burned.

Together.

No one watched them in their haven.

Jinyoung told him to love, and decades will pass and their story will be critiqued and analysed in college literature classes, but no one will ever be able to underpin why Mark had simply smiled and stabbed the broken glass further into his hand, letting ribbons of crimsons and ruby dance their way onto Jinyoung’s skin.

so when Mark told Jinyoung to jump……

not an eyelid battered nor a care in the world, 

for it was his last command

and Jinyoung seemed to be the only one who had learnt to obey

Mark was an outlaw.

…….he jumped

Park Jinyoung, my lover 

September 22nd 1994 - May 5th 2014

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