Everything is strange and foreign and new.

 

It’s scary.

 

When Jia-Er peels his eyes open his mind foggy and throat parched as though he’s been chewing on cotton, no recollection of anything. Still infused with sleep, he groggily reaches a tentative hand to touch the walls of his glass prison but recoils sharply when sirens suddenly blast at an eardrum-splitting volume, seeming to resound everywhere, alerting of abnormal rates of movement detected within the glass case.

 

He retracts his hand to his side and watches the situation unfold before his eyes helplessly. Thundering footsteps come in his direction and then an oddly dressed man appears, stumbling in with his white cloak flapping behind him and cheeks ruddy from exertion.

 

The man rushes over and when he gets a clear view of what lies within the glass, gasps. His hand immediately shoots toward a panel of something that’s beyond Jia-Er’s range of vision on his left, deft fingers flying over the keyboard, twisting knobs and pulling levers before finally slamming his palm on a big red button that lies in the middle of the panel.

 

The cold, stiff bed Jia-Er’s lying on hisses, startling him, and with a jolt the glass panels slide open. A gush of air equally as cool rushes in and when the gap is wide enough, the strange man reaches his hand in and helps Jia-Er out of the weird contraption. His knees wobble just the slightest from disuse but he manages to right himself in time.

 

His first breath of outside air smells…. Clean. Extremely clean. Too clean, nothing like the tinge of compose and livestock manure that lingers in the crisp, countryside air he’s used to. It is extremely disconcerting.

Then Jia-Er turns his attention to the man who still has a grip on his elbow. The man traces his gaze to the point fo contact before he jerks his hand away, scuttling to the side jumpily. His eyes are so wide they resemble a child getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Sorry."

 

The man has airs so feminine Jia-Er nearly mistakes him for a female, if not for the telltale bass of his voice and bob of his Adam's apple.
 

The first thing Jia-Er notices is that the man’s hair is in an odd shade of very, very pale yellow like those he’s seen of vagabonds and merchants that travel from far beyond his kingdom, but his features remain starkly Asian. The man has big, expressive black orbs, so dark they’re bottomless pools that Jia-Er in, that are now blown wide in a near-state of panic, a sharp nose bridge that twitches with a frequency that matches his flitting eyes, and plush, full lips. His alabaster skin shines with a healthy, rosy glow that makes him look extremely young, perhaps around Jia-Er’s own age, if not just a couple of years older.

 

An extremely good-looking individual, Jia-Er notes, he bears superior genes worthy enough to continue the bloodline. He conisiders extending a proposal but decides it would be downrightly disrespectful before he finds out more about the other man.

 

"Uhm," The man begins unsurely in a language Jia-Er vaguely recognises as English he was required to master in order to facilitate his father when consorting with foreign delegates from neighbouring kingdoms as the Crown Prince of the nation. "Hi."

 

“What’s your name?” Jia-Er prods, accent lilting.

 

“U-Uh,” The man stutters haltingly. He clearly had not been expecting the question. “Mark.”

 

“Mark?” Jia-Er wrinkles his nose. “What kind of name is that?”

 

“W-What?” Jia-Er doesn’t think Mark’s eyes can get any wider than they already are, but they do.

 

“Nothing,” Jia-Er dismisses with an airy wave of his hand, looking around the room and then down at the stark white gown that falls mid-thigh, in distaste. “Where am I? What is this blasphemy?” He picks at the scratchy, thin cotton material with enough disdain his mother will be proud. “Is this a lady’s frock I am wearing?”

 

“Actually,” Mark interrupts Jia-Er mid-rant, “I am under instruction to bring you to meet someone. That person will explain things to you further.” He produces a set of clothes seemingly out of nowhere and hands them to Jia-Er, who greedily grabs them over. “Here, put these on. They’re a T-shirt and denim jeans, uhm, mine, and they should fit you.”

 

“Good, good,” Jackson says, distracted, as he surveys the garments critically. They’re plain, this tee and jeans Mark speaks of, nothing befitting of royalty. The top is of a peculiar cut he’s never seen before, sleeves cut short unlike the tunics he's accustomed to wearing, and the pants provocatively tight around his thighs, but really anything’s better than what he’s currently wearing (Jia-Er feels utterly humiliated simply at the thought of being seen in public wearing a dress. What will his people think of him?). As odd as the attire appears, Jia-Er can see Mark wearing the same underneath, all-black contrasting with the white, and he finds slight reassurance in that.

 

He allows Mark to assist him in donning the garments, feet fitted into a pair of the blond'es chunky work boots, and so minutes after, Jia-Er is whisked away to see this strangely dressed guy referred to as Dr J. The eccentric man identifies himself as a scientist and shows him around the two-man facility, proclaiming how Jia-Er’s helped them advance immeasurably in their quest to “save mankind”. Whatever that means.

 

J then animatedly launches into a narrative on the now-possible ability to transcend time with the development of heavy narcoleptic drugs. It is all nonsensical garble to Jia-Er but from the sound of it he supposes it is a good thing.

 

Supposed.

 

That is, until Mark breaks down the door to his guest room he’s assigned to recuperate in afterwards and sits him down firmly on his bed. The assistant shrugs off his lab coat and folds it with OCD-level precision, setting it down at the side before launching into a lengthy anecdote about the white lies and half truths spun to mask the horrible, sinister reality.

 

JIa-Er learns that it is no longer the year 1454 but 2083 – he later realises, with horror, this means that he’s not eighteen but six hundred and thirty-one and the revelation nearly gives him an aneurysm – and the era of the Wang dynasty ended over half a millennium ago. The concept of monarchy has ceased to exist. So has democracy, communism or, well, just any form of governmental or social structure in general, really. The planet has been reduced dystopic shambles, destroyed by uprisings of the people and become a free-for-all, Darwinism-style buffet – mere survival of the fittest.

 

J is also a mad scientist, a complete “nutjob” who plans to replicate the poison extracted from his body and mass-produce it into a “bio-weapon” to wipe out (what’s left of) mankind. And Jia-Er apparently is the only person who can stop him from doing so.

 

Okay…

 

It’s startling, even to Jia-Er himself, how quickly he’s come to accept the status quo. It leads to the current situation, them huddled together conversing in harsh whispers in the same room Jia-Er woke up in.

 

“It’s suicide,” Jia-Er declares once Mark explains his plan. Can he even trust the blonde? “It’ll never work.”

 

“I know it sounds absurd, Jackson, but–”

 

Jia-Er frowns. Mark’s been continuously mentioning that name and he doesn’t know why. “Wait, why do you keep calling me Jackson?”

 

“Your kingdom’s language died out after the era came to an end," Mark explains as though he's been anticipating the question. "Nobody truly knows how to write or spell your name in your native tongue. The closest linguists predict your name to sound like, in modern day language, is Jackson so that’s just how your name is written in History books.”

 

Despite the direness of the situation, Jia-Er can’t help the grin the spreads on his face. “I have a book written about me?” Books, Mark corrects. “Nice. I’ve always wanted an autobiography. How was I portrayed in them? Was I as cool and suave as I am now?”

 

“Y–yeah,” Mark stammers, head lowered, rose dusting the apples of his cheeks when Jia-Er shoots him a dazzling smile. He fails to mention how majority of those books begin from when his prone form is chronically discovered in the mid 1850s and only mention Jia-Er as a living miracle of the medical world, an enigma, nothing written on his character or personal life. It is enough to have Jia-Er beam at him as though he put the moon in the sky.

 

“Uhm…” It only takes one mumbled syllable for Mark’s head to shoot up and he’s already looking at Jia-Er expectantly, eyes bright and animated. Jia Er’s throat dries, mouth agape. Half a minute passes with them locked in a staring battle with each other, neither saying a word.

 

The spell gets broken when a hovering thing flies in through the door, heading straight for the pair. Jia-Er is on the other side of the room in a split second, curled up behind a tall, cylindrical tank of some use, peeking through his fingers. “What is that?”

 

“This?” Mark jerks his thumb towards the thing that’s in the middle of rambling off a series of announcements monotonously. Jia-Er nods. “It’s an android; a robot.”

 

Android? Jia-Er echoes. Mark nods distractedly.

 

Jia-Er watches with horrified fascination as the blonde, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully, taps on the buttons on the side of the android, giving it new commands and sending it flying off. He dusts his hands off and turns back to the younger, whose eyes are still transfixed on the entrance where the android left. “It’s uhm, kind of like an automated human. It was sent here to remind me of the work I have to finish by today.”

 

Emerald green eyes, cold to the touch, no feet. What sorcery is this? Back in his time, Mark would’ve been tried and found guilty for witchcraft.

 

Back in his time, which doesn’t even exist anymore. Because he slept the past six hundred years away. Right.

 

No more stern talks from his father or firm pats on his back when he’s done exceedingly well in the annual jousting meet, no more warm, loving smiles from his mother, no more sharing conspiratorial glances with his butler and best friend Jin Young before getting up to mischief. No more daily visits to the kitchen before dinnertime, begging the royal cook to let him have a sneak taste of the prepared dessert and no more sneaking to the stables and saddling up his horse for a secret ride in the woods at midnight. Everyone he knows and loves is dead, disintegrated into the whispers of time.

 

Suddenly Jia-Er feels so, so tired.

 

He looks away from Mark and sighs. “I want to go back to sleep.”

 

Getting nothing but silence and a blank stare in return Jia-Er repeats himself, enunciating each syllable to get his message across.

 

“Did everything I said simply go over your head? You can’t. You need to stop J. You’re the only one who can.” Cold, pallid hands grab his shoulder, desperate to change his mind.

 

Jia-Er shrugs. “There’s nothing I can do to stop this all from happening.” He states matter-of-factly.

 

Resigned eyes meet the shiny, pleading ones and Mark tightens his grip on him even more. Jia-Er belatedly thinks he will bruise the next morning. “Yes you can!” The other man cries. “I believe you can! You just need to try!” Determination blazes in every word.

 

“Look,” Jia-Er says, trying to keep the frustration welling up inside him from seeping into his rising voice, “I didn’t ask to be here, I don’t want to be embroiled in this mess.”

 

One moment he’s wandering around the basement of the castle, stumbling upon a spinning wheel, and the next thing he knows he’s waking up to the sight of cold glass panels, blindingly white light and strange tubes all around and in him. “I don’t even understand what’s going on. There’s all these crazy talk going on using jargon I cannot comprehend that’s making my head hurt. I don’t want to do this. I just want to return back to my world. Please let me return to my world, Mark.”

 

“This is the world. Your world.” Mark states firmly. “Times have changed greatly in the centuries you were asleep. This is what’s left of the world you once knew.”

 

Jia-Er shakes his head furiously. “No. My world is filled with flora and fauna and majestic trees that stretch infinitely into the azure blue sky, but all I’ve seen out the window since I’ve woke up is a sea of ebony.” Death, destruction, hopelessness. “And inside here it’s a whole different dimension, all these strange blinking things powered by magic.”

 

“It’s called a machine, Jackson.” Mark corrects evenly. “I told you that earlier.”

 

“And I don’t care,” Jia-Er shrugs, indifferent. “I don’t want to stay here any longer. I want to get out of here. And stop calling me Jackson, I told you my name is Jia-Er.”

 

“Jacks–” The shorter man shoots the other a glare fierce enough to rival the Sun’s and Mark hastily corrects himself. “Jia-Er, why can’t you see that you’re our last chance to stop him? J’s going to destroy humanity, Jia-Er. He plans to kill us all. How can you stand aside and watch it happen?”

 

“Don’t you see we’re already doomed? Look outside! The world is dark, just like the tainted souls of the beings that inhabit it. Humans are destined for inevitable damnation. If not J, it’ll be someone else. Give up.”

 

“I cannot believe you. How can you be so heartless? I give up. I give up on you.” Mark turns away and begins to rearrange a tray of test tubes, exasperation boiling over.

 

Jia-Er lets out a harumph, refusing to dignify his accusations with a response. Arguing with Mark is futile. For someone who possesses a brain and logical thinking, he’s infuriatingly stubborn and insistent and stupid.

 

Leaving the blonde to sulk in a corner Jia-Er glances around the room, properly surveying his surroundings for the first time. He takes in the bleeping machines with flashing red and yellow bulbs, the cold, rectangle box that once imprisoned him making humming sounds that resembles that… refrigerator thing in his room, before his attention falls on the row of colourful syringes encased behind a panel of glass mounted on the wall.

 

J had explained, at some point in his thorough facility tour, the extent of the research done on the poison found in Jia-Er and his intentions of developing an antidote “to ensure the continuity of humanity”, or well, so he claimed. He’d administered the initial prototype without much hope for success but...

 

“I can’t believe it actually worked,” J told him gleefully. “This is amazing; it’s beyond my expectations. Usually it takes years of trial and error just to get to this point...” He continued to ramble, hands flapping to illustrate himself. Jia-Er tuned him out then. “I was so certain it was going to fail I didn’t even bother preparing a backup…”

 

Jia-Er’s eyes flash. His gaze falls on the spent syringe carelessly tossed onto the work table, traces of bright ruby red lingering at the tip, before darting back to the entire row of ebony in the display case, and the epiphany that strikes washes over him with startling clarity and fires up new determination burning within his chest.

 

“Hey, Mark…” Jia-Er begins slowly. He sidles up to the case and slides it open silently, plucking the first syringe from its holder. He holds it up, examining it against the light, the obsidian solution glistening mesmerizingly like a precious jewel.

 

Beautiful, his one-way ticket out of this hellhole.

 

“What?” Mark snaps irritably. A quick glance to the side confirms that the blonde is still sulking.

 

“The drug you said J is mass-developing…” Jia-Er drawls, “What colour is it?”

 

“Black, why? What are–” Mark spins around the same moment Jia-Er positions the needlepoint against his jugular gutsily. The blonde draws in approximately half of the oxygen in the room, paling so considerably Jia-Er almost thinks he’s going to pass out. “What are you doing? That’s dangerous! Put it down!”

 

“Make me.” Jia-Er mocks, eyes challenging.

 

“Please, Jia-Er,” The blonde begs. His eyes are wide and pleading, onyx pools already drawing him in like a blackhole. Moths dangerously close to a flame. “Don’t do this.”

 

Jia-Er’s willpower wavers. He’s being in. He fights the pull. “Mark, you don’t get it.” He shakes his head slowly, sadly. “Unlike you, there’s nothing left for me to fight for.”

 

Mark looks so petite and frail and pitiful without his authoritative lab coat. Dressed in only a thin t-shirt and jeans, all black, his shoulders look hunched and narrow, thin arms pale and sinewy, as though he’s trying to shrink in on himself, and he shivers slightly whenever a gust of cold wind from the air-conditioner hits him. He triggers in Jia-Er an irrationally overwhelming urge to protect, protect, protect.

 

“Yi-En,” The blonde whispers, words that barely leave his dry, cracking lips so soft Jia-Er almost thinks he’s heard wrong.

 

“What?”

 

“My real name,” Mark says in a louder volume, gaining confidence, voice low and velvety smooth and pleasant. “It’s Yi-En.”

 

Jia-Er freezes in his tracks when the garbled syllables of his native tongue, sounding both familiar yet so, so foreign, wash over him. "You told me your name was Mark!”

 

“Mark’s just an alias that I go by because Yi-En’s a mouthful to pronounce for the people here.” The lab assistant says slowly, unsurely, fingers twisting and wrenching in his own grip. Jia-Er ignores how lost and puppy-like Mark looks like this, and how the sight of the blonde vulnerable makes his heart hammer against his ribcage. “My real name is Yi-En, Tuan Yi-En, and I’m the eleventh generation Tuan after the end of the Wang dynasty.”

 

Jia-Er's head throbs as he tries to process this new pieces of information. "B-but, how?"

 

“The Wangs might have fallen but the people survived,” The assistant explains. “The culture survived and the language survived and continued to be passed down generations after. So please, Jia-Er, you’re not alone. Don’t ever think you’re alone.”

 

Not alone. Jia-Er falters. The thumb pressing against the plunger slips, hand shaking so much he nearly drops the syringe. He feels utterly betrayed yet immensely liberated at the same time, the oppressive stuffiness in his chest lifeted.

 

“Please, Jia-Er?” The blonde presses on. It's like he already sees through Jia-Er's facade, knows Jia-Er's been cornered to the edge of a cliff, almost ready to throw himself off anytime. “Think about the people.”

 

His people, is what the other leaves unspoken. The citizens whom Jia-Er thought he abandoned and left to die when he slipped into his comatose-like dormancy. If he wins this war, he has a chance to regain their trust. He can prove to all who once doubted him because of his age that he is born to lead. He can leave behind an amazing legacy just like his father, grandfather, and all the forefathers before him.

 

He will no longer just be an urban legend but a true legend.

 

Jia-Er parts his mouth, tongue running over dry lips. He struggles to find the right words to say, but nothing leaves his jumbled mind and his throat makes a scratchy grunt.

 

The blonde stands in front of Jia-Er, reaching a hesitant hand to encompass the shaking one wrapped around the syringe. The final move to push Jia-Er off the metaphorical cliff and into the dark, bottomless valley that lay below. “For me?”

 

Scarily psychic.

 

Jia-Er caves, needle clattering on the floor as his right arm falls uselessly to his side. He lost.

 

He attempts to put into words the relief he feels but then he hears, the both hear J’s disembodied voice echoing down the hallway, hollering for his assistant. The blonde jerks his hand away as though the touch burns. Their heads whip towards the door, jaws slack, eyes blown open in panic.

 

There was no time to hide. They’re trapped.

 

It’s over.

 

The voice grows in volume until J appears at the door, cat-like smirk stretching thin, chapped lips as he leans against the threshold looking oddly triumphant. “There you are, Yi-En! I’m bored; come play with me!”

 

Jia-Er turns to Mark in confusion, but he’s no longer there. In his place in the same clothes, with the same hair, standing in the exact same spot is Yi-En, his entire demeanour changed.

 

His eyes are still as dark as ever, but without the lively sparkle they’re just pits of black. Dead, destroyed, hopeless.

 

“Are you–” J’s gaze darts between the pair and the smirk slides off his face, sinister smile replaced by furrowed brows and pursed lips. “You’re still at it?” J whines, sidling up to Yi-En and intertwining their fingers. “This game’s getting old. Hurry up and catch the Wang boy already."

 

“Now, now, JB, that’s no way to treat our guest.” Yi-En tsks and clucks his tongue, but his free hand still comes up and pinches the other playfully on the nose. “Besides, I was just getting to the good part.”

 

"But you never play with me anymore!" J - or rather, JB - protests sulkily. "You're always cooped up in the lab working on the stupid drug."

 

The dots in his mind finally connect, bringing about revelation so sharp and stinging like a slap on his cheek. Jia-Er's head spins. Blood drains from Jia-Er's face so quickly dark spots appear in the peripherals of his vision. It feels as though someone has literally turned his world upside down because his head is spinning and everything hurts. He doesn’t seem to be in control of his limbs anymore, as though his arms and legs are detached from the rest of his body, and he stumbles when he tries to back away from the pair.

 

“Jia-Er, are you okay?” He must be borderlining delusional because Jia-Er thinks he hears deeply-seated concern lacing the advancing blonde’s saccharine voice.

 

“Don’t come near me,” Jia-Er hisses venomously. His knees buckle and he sinks to the ground. He can still make out the blurry shape of advancing black and he backs away frantically, hands and feet scrambling to find purchase against shiny tile. “Don’t touch me.”

 

HIs fingers make contact with a cylindrical object annd his hand curls around it. Jackpot.

 

Jia-Er makes a blind swing at the pair despite his fuzzy vision, thrashing and kicking wildly, and feels satisfaction tug at him when he hears a groan as his heel makes contacg with JB's stomach. At the same time, his fingers make contact with a cylindrical object annd his hand curls around it. Jackpot.

 

"You ed!" JB screeches in fury,sounding like he got the wind knocked out of him and the outburst momentarily takesthe blonde's attention off Jia-Er when concerned eyes swing to his lover.

 

Yi-En belatedly realises the mistake of his actions, because the split second he takes his eyes off Jia-Er is all the latter needs to swipe the syringe off the ground and press the needle into skin, applying pressure to the plunger.

 

“No!”

 

Yi-En lunges. Jia-Er falls into darkness.

 

- - - - - - -

 

A/N: Because #GOT71stWIN (FYEAH FINALLY!!!) on SBS MTV The Show and also how MarkBum's acting scene on The QMentary killed me over.

Sassy Jae Bum is sassy and I simply couldn't resist eep >_< Jae Bum would've fitted into the Mean Girls cast perfectly XD Watch all them fem!JB stories start popping up now that we've seen that y side of him teehee ^u^ Totes tried to channel that Jae Bum into this.

 

Also who else died over MarkSon in their GOT2Day video PUT YOUR HANDS UP!

From them stumbling over the correct Korean term for 'fruitfly' as they spent half the video time sharing their fruitfly invasion anecdote to Jackson complaining that Mark doesn't return to sleep in their room anymore (Awwwwww :3) to Jackson revealing Mark's hidden gag sense ("There's cucumber~" XD) I was laughing at their couple dumbness from start to end.