Mark flinches at the click of the door before him, then there’s the sound of wind that comes with the absolute ferocity of the swing of the door. Professor Jung stands in the entrance of her office with a frown so deep Mark thinks it’s about to dig six feet into the ground. Her eyes drag from Mark to Youngjae, who stands beside him looking just as unpleasant.

“Professor Youngjae, Professor Tuan, come in,” She didn’t say it politely, in fact, Mark was pretty sure the absolute venom in her voice was the sweetest tone she could conjure.

Youngjae’s the first to step into the room, and Mark follows in with his tail between his legs. Youngjae’s been in a horrible mood ever since Mark told him what happened that same morning.

Over the past couple of months, Youngjae has pretty much built this content and composed image that Mark thought nothing, absolutely nothing could break. A bomb could go off and the first thing he’d know to do is to lead people out orderly to the nearest safest exit. Mark had constantly wondered just what kind of discipline he must have gone through to turn out so poised and realistic. Nothing seemed to phase him.

That being said, seeing Youngjae so incredibly stiff and evidently displeased made a new set of butterflies erupt in Mark’s stomach. Youngjae has been working so hard on keeping Jinyoung safe and in classes, and this one incident could literally flush that all down the toilet. Along with Mark, he’s pretty sure he’s going to get dragged down somewhere into the sewer after all this.

“Take a seat,” Professor Jung orders as she makes herself round her desk. Mark figures in some other dimension where your feelings can be felt in your feet, the light sound of her heels are actually creating earthquakes right now. “Now, I’m sure you both know why I’ve asked to see you.” Professor Jung says as she slips off her glasses and throws them onto her desk.

Mark keeps himself from wincing. For all the things Professor Jung is, neat, calculative, and professionally evil, she is not someone that seemed to display her frustration and worry like she seems to be doing right now. She looks younger without the frames circling her eyes, and a lot more human. Which didn’t settle right in Mark’s guts.

“Do you know how many calls I have received this morning?” She sighs, her eyes looking from Mark to Youngjae as if any of them were going to offer her the answer. “A dozen, over a dozen at least, and it is only eight in the morning. Does anyone want to tell me exactly what, how, and why this has happened?”

Mark feels like the air has been knocked right out of him. It isn’t that he particularly fears Professor Jung to such an extent she renders him breathless but he couldn’t deny she is the one thing that could make or break Jinyoung at this very moment. Anything she says or does right now, any fluctuation in her mood could literally set Jinyoung on a path to safety or hell.

“Mark reported the article and video last night,” Youngjae says first. Despite the hard set of his jaw, the words seem to come out of his mouth smoothly. “It was taken down and we’re making sure no other copies are circulating the internet.”

“Is that the problem, right now?” Professor Jung hisses. “The damage has been done. The one thing, the one thing I wanted to avoid has happened. Do you know what parents are asking me? They’re asking what kind of establishment allows a lunatic to run around without any security. In fact, they’re asking why he’s even allowed in class period. Journalists are calling me asking if this is really a case of xenoglossy. I don’t know who they’ve been talking to but I am not happy. This issue needs to be resolved, and if for the sake of the university I have to expel Jinyoung then so be it-”

“You can’t be serious,” Mark exasperates. “Your university has the biggest psychology department in the country and you’re telling me you’re not even going to think twice about kicking out a student for his mental issues? Don’t you think that’ll do more damage than what’s already been done?”

Professor Jung looks taken back for a moment and Mark wants to feel like he won something but the current worry and anxiety that soars in his head is almost blinding.

“Professor Tuan’s right, kicking him out won’t ease any worries Professor.” Youngjae says, leaning over Professor Jung’s desk. His body language oozed ease and comfort, and Mark realises he’s trying to relax Professor Jung. “They’ll begin to question the university's ability. This will badly affect everyone if we don’t figure out the best way to resolve this issue.”

Professor Jung let’s out a heavy sigh, her fingers to the bridge of her nose. When she speaks again, her voice is lower and she sounds far more exhausted, “What do you suggest then? We need to come up with some sort of solution before midday otherwise parents will become restless. Journalists are already crowding outside round the campus. I trusted you Youngjae because I believed you when you said he’d get better but this…” She says, giving her computer screen a point. “This is not better.”

Youngjae’s puts his head down and nods. “I know, I thought he’d been improving but it seems that wasn’t the case.”

Mark bites his lip, shrinking deeper into his seat like the leather of the chair was just going to slither its way onto him and swallow him down. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hopes it would.

“You’re looking comfortable Professor Tuan,” Professor Jung chides, and Mark looks away knowing that she couldn’t really turn him to stone with just a glare but not risking it anyway. “Would you like to contribute any ideas in solving this? You’re just as responsible for Jinyoung as Professor Choi is.”

Mark inwardly grumbles and gives Youngjae a brief side look as if to ask for his permission to speak, but Youngjae looks too immersed in his own thoughts and now Mark just feels stranded. “Why don’t we take him out of school?” He blurts out, and it was enough of a line to sweep Youngjae right off whatever track his mind was riding on.

“Excuse me?” Professor Jung gapes, a ridiculous look on her face.

“Not permanently...just temporarily.” Mark says quickly, the words slipping out of his mouth before his brain even had time to process them. “Take him out of classes. Release a statement, that he’s been dealing with psychological issues and that because you care about the health of every single one of your students, you will be going to make sure you offer him the proper support. As for the journalists, tell them the same thing and ignore anything they say about xenoglossy. It’s easier to sweep those away as baseless rumours.”

Professor Jung blinks, mildly wide eyed like she wasn’t expecting anything coming out of Mark’s mouth to be useful.

“That’s probably the best we can do in this situation,” Youngjae pipes in. “Except Jinyoung can’t stay in the dorms. He won’t be able to move or breathe, it’ll take a couple of days, a week or two for the reporters to die down.”

“He can stay at mine. I live in a large house with just my landlord, and it’s on a pretty vacant street, just some elderly people for neighbours. I think it’d be the best place.” Mark tells them, more than eager to offer what he could. The look on Jinyoung’s face last night when he’d first seen the article had left a sour taste in Mark’s mouth.

Professor Jung nods to herself, finally going back to pick up her glasses, sliding it back onto her nose. “That is probably the best we can do for now,” She says mostly to herself, and then looks up to meet Youngjae and Mark’s eyes. “Let’s do as much damage control as we can for now. After this has settled down, we’ll need to reconsider the methods you’ve been going about trying to ensure Jinyoung’s sanity.” She says the last two words like they were a myth and Mark thinks about knocking the glasses back off that pointy nose of hers.

“We’ll get going then,” Youngjae says quickly, apparently just as eager as Mark to get out of this room. It’s ridiculous how one person could make a room half the size of a football pitch make you feel like you were in compartment filled with water up to your neck.

The two leave the office with a fine click of the door and a deep sigh on Mark’s part. Personally, he’s relieved to have prolonged any decisions that meant getting Jinyoung expelled but the look on Youngjae’s face says otherwise.

“What’s wrong? We got through probably the worst obstacle without a scratch, ease up Youngjae,” Mark says, giving his friend an encouraging pat to the back.

Youngjae gives him a look from the side and shakes his head, “Mark, I can understand you and Jinyoung have gotten particularly close over the past couple of weeks, and I know you haven’t always been honest during our meetings, but this incident is a big deal. As far as we were concerned any trouble Jinyoung found himself in wasn’t intentional but this...this was a suicide attempt. How could you not mention it?”

Mark goes to rub at his temples, and let’s out another exhausted sigh. “Youngjae, I don’t know how to explain it to you but he doesn’t want to kill himself. Believe me. After the incident I tried to make sure he wasn’t alone for any length of time. Telling you is one thing but if anyone really had known what happened I was worried they’d drag him to a hospital.”

Youngjae reads the desperate look on Mark’s face and gives in with a meager nod. Mark knew he wasn’t satisfied with the explanation, but he also knew that there was some things that can’t be explained.

“Let’s just...solve one thing at a time,” Youngjae says, giving Mark’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “You go grab Jinyoung and take him back to yours, I’ll sort out the journalists. Okay?”

“I got it, I’ll call you later.” Mark says, giving Youngjae a smile before turning on his heels and sprinting down the corridor.

When Professor Jung said that reporters had already began crowding the campus she was not joking. Mark had been in his university office all night last night trying to get the video and circulating articles down, not realising the absolute chaos that was ensuing on the outside.

When Mark manages to get to Jinyoung’s dorm building he thinks he’s too late. The amount of reporters with note pads in their hands and big flashy cameras crowding the front of the building is ridiculous. There is no way Mark was going to be able to get Jinyoung out of here unscathed.

Luckily Mark had brought his car round the corner of the road so it wouldn’t be a long fight to get Jinyoung into safety. Now it’s just getting into the building and out, which evidently is going to prove more of a trouble just by the mere thickness of bodies blocking the front door.

He decides he’s got to start making his way through eventually and begins sliding between people. Excuse me’s and sorry’s don’t seem to cut it and eventually Mark finds himself barrelling his way through the crowd, almost getting himself knocked out by a camera lens at a point.

Once he finally reaches the intercom he thinks he’s reached heaven, but quickly disappointed to find no one at Jinyoung’s room answers to the press of the door bell, so he presses it another ten times.

“I said stop ringing the door!” Jaebum’s voice seethes through the intercom. “Did you think I was joking when I said I’d call the police?”

“Jaebum, it’s me,” Mark quickly interjects, already worried about the people around him eavesdropping. “Professor Tuan, let me in, quickly.”

“Professor?” The line cuts then and a second later, the door makes an audible unlocking sound. None of the reporters around him seem to notice him as he quickly slips into the building and makes his way straight for the lift.

When Mark finally makes it to room fifty eight, he’s greeted with a scowl and dark circles. Jaebum looking as displeased as ever. “Professor,” He greets him gruffly and opens the door wider for him to enter.

“Where is he?” Mark asks, eyeing the empty room.

Jaebum nods to Jinyoung’s bed where a pile of clothes are knotted together in one corner and a duvet is scrunched up like a piece of chewing gum on the other corner. “He’s beneath there?”

Jaebum’s nod, “Don’t think he’s slept all night, it’s been pretty rough from what I’ve heard."

“What’s been rough?”

Jaebum eye’s Mark for a moment, a flaccid but calculative look on his face. “The voices, the people...I don’t know, but they’ve been coming and going and coming.”

Mark’s eyebrows knit together in the middle, “Did he tell you something?”

“No, not particularly out right,” Jaebum says, crossing his arms over his chest. “But they come out when he sleeps so it’s hard not to get the gist of things eventually.”

“Is that why you were avoiding him?” Mark asks, and he doesn’t want the words to sound bitter, but his voice betrays him.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jaebum shrugs, looking unphased. “At first I thought he had a personality disorder, I thought to report it, you know - he could prove a danger to himself or others. But then the languages started coming through, and one of them spoke to me.”

“One of them spoke to you? What-”

“They spoke in Korean so I thought it was Jinyoung at first but I don’t know, the look in his eyes...it wasn’t the same,” Jaebum gives Jinyoung a narrowed look then. “They told me to stay away from him, for my own safety.”

Mark didn’t know what to say to that, he’s looking at Jinyoung whose trembling beneath his covers, thinking things were making less sense every single day.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it,” Jaebum says, going to grab his rucksack from behind the door. “I can’t say it’s going to easy but good luck, Professor.” Jaebum leaves with those words and Mark wonders just exactly what part of this whole situation he needs luck in, and quickly decides all of it.

“Jinyoung…” Mark calls out softly and slowly makes his way to Jinyoung’s bed. He goes to sit on the ground just where the duvet curls and Mark think’s Jinyoung’s head is. Delicately, he tugs at the cover, revealing Jinyoung. He’s balled himself up, still in the clothes he was wearing last night, his head is in his arms and his fingers knotted into his hair. “Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung doesn’t really hear him. He’s mumbling under his breath, a different language, many languages and Mark can’t tell if the past has itself chained around his ankle, dragging him down or if he’s drowning himself in it. Mark thinks even he wouldn’t want to settle in this reality if he was in Jinyoung’s shoes right now.

Mark goes to fling the rest of the covers off him then and wraps his hands around Jinyoung’s wrists. They feel so thin and brittle between his fingers and Mark quickly loosens his grip. “Jinyoung,” He whispers as he gently tugs on his arms. “Jinyoung, wake up.”

Jinyoung flinches and Mark takes it as indication that he heard him but doesn't make an effort to uncurl himself. “Jinyoung, it's me.” Mark takes a hand to his hair and pats him comfortingly for a moment. It seems to ease Jinyoung ever so slowly, the trembling settling and his hands unhinging their grip from his roots.

Eventually Jinyoung unlocks himself from his position, revealing the dried tears that trailed his cheeks. His eyes were red from a lack of sleep, from the thoughts, maybe both and Mark feels unwarranted guilt sprout in his chest. “Jinyoung, what are we going to do with you?” Mark sighs, mostly to himself.

“Professor?” Jinyoung’s voice comes out ragged and hoarse and everything wrong. The look in his eyes, the kind of tortured, dark look he’d have whenever he’d swim out of the nightmares, seems to dwindle at the sight of Mark. Rigidly, he pushes himself up from the bed, moving to lean over the edge where he takes his arms and wraps them around Mark’s neck. In the next moment, Mark finds Jinyoung sliding onto his lap, his face dug into the nape of his neck, the tremble in him now transferring between their bodies.

Mark has his hands out and stiff from under Jinyoung’s arms. His chin propped on the younger one’s shoulder and his eyes doing laps around the room. “J-Jinyoung…?” Mark mutters nervously, he’s not entirely sure what to do with his hands, he’s not entirely sure how they managed to get into this position. Mark counts the seconds tick by, thinking Jinyoung may just need a moment, but they continue to tick tock away and Jinyoung is still on his lap, his arms locking them in a tight hug.

With a deep breath Mark takes a palm to Jinyoung’s back, patting him gently. “Jinyoung, it’s okay, everything’s okay.” He soothes, now letting his body relax against Jinyoung’s, he indulges a little by hugging him back. Mark can feel the flutter of Jinyoung’s heart, unsteady with fear maybe, his breath spiking like he’s crying but no tears seem to well up in his eyes. Mark takes both his arms and wraps them around Jinyoung, tightening his own grip, and inhaling the very faint scent of cologne.

That’s when Jinyoung stiffens, his shivering breaths coming to an outright halt and then he begins to awkwardly lean back. It’s dark in the room, nothing but morning daylight slipping through the tiny slits of the shutted blinds but Mark could still see the absolute look of horror on his face as he seems to realise just what he’s doing. Mark wants to feel just as bewildered but there’s something amusing about the flustered look on his face.

“P-Professor?” Jinyoung stutters, crawling back and off Mark onto the bed, he’s in the corner of his wall now on all fours like a feral cat.

“Jinyoung?” Mark pipes from where he is on the floor.

“What were you doing?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one that crawled on my lap,” Mark shoots back.

“I-what-” Jinyoung’s looking across the room, the ceiling, the floor, the door as if he needed a sudden exit or anything to speak to that wasn’t Mark’s face. “I thought you were someone else.” He concludes hurriedly and jumps off his bed.

Mark watches him as he makes his way to Jaebum’s side of the room without any real direction. He doesn’t make the fact Jinyoung had definitely called out professor before he went to hug him out loud, and decides to keep it to himself.

“What...what are you doing here?” Jinyoung asks, placing his arms on his hips for the sake of putting them anywhere.

“I came to pick you up,” Mark says, getting up onto his feet. “Pack some of your clothes, toiletries, essentials, the lot.”

“The what? Wait what?” Jinyoung gapes from across the room. He’s looking a little ridiculous, his jeans all tattered and wrinkled, his t-shirt hanging off his shoulder and his hair pointing out in all directions.

“Actually, shower, then do all that. They’ll probably take a lot of pictures and we can’t have you adding to the whole lunatic thing,” Mark says with a wave of his hand. He then goes to make his way to the window where he opens the blinds and lets the sunlight flood in.

“I have absolutely no idea what's going on,” Jinyoung replies, covering his eyes.

“Look,” Mark says, giving the window a nod.

Jinyoung gives him a skeptical look like he didn’t want to get too close to Mark but he eventually makes his way to the wall and peers down onto the road just of the front of the building. “Holy ,” Jinyoung gasps and presses himself against the windowpane to get a better look. “Don’t tell me they’re all here over one stupid article?”

“Yes and no,” Mark huffs. “The article and video were one thing, but people started making threads about you. Theories and more articles started growing, people’s comments and statements started coming in. Some exaggerated, some outright lies. In the end, this was the result.”

“How the hell…” Jinyoung groans, giving the glass before him one bump with his forehead. Mark slides a hand between the two of them and shoves Jinyoung backwards. The touch makes Jinyoung jolt and jump back, earning Mark an unpleasant look. “What am I going to do? Professor Jung is probably already done and signed all the papers for my expulsion.”

“Don’t worry, Professor Choi and I already talked to her,” Mark says reassuringly, staring down at his hand where he rubbed his fingers together. “You won’t get expelled, well for now anyway. They’re going to release a statement saying that you’re on leave to deal with your psychological problems but that won’t stop the reporters and articles straight away. So we decided it’s best you stay with me for now, just until this dies down.”

“We? Who is we? How can you guys just decide this without talking to me?” Jinyoung grumbles.

“Jinyoung...I’m sorry it came down to this but you have to trust me on this, okay?” Mark pleads, willing Jinyoung to meet him his eyes but that seems to be the last thing Jinyoung wants to do right now.

“So, I have to stay at yours...for how long exactly?”

“I don’t know, a week, two tops, just until this dies down. Look, I know it’s not ideal but what’s done is done. Let’s just go about solving this the best way we can, so Professor Jung doesn't feel the need to kick you out and you aren’t ripped apart by reporters.” Mark urges, impatiency starting to buzz through him. He didn’t know how long it’d take before it wasn’t just curious reporters crowding the campus but bystanders, online fanatics, conspiracy theorist, the whole lot started taking an interest in Jinyoung.

“Fine,” Jinyoung huffs. “We going now?”

Mark nods.

“I’ll take a quick shower and pack.” He says, going to grab a toiletry bag and towel from his drawer quickly. When he heads to the door, he gives Mark a look before disappearing into the hallway.

Mark and Jinyoung had barely made it out of the dorm building alive. At first they had walked out nonchalantly, their faces on full exposure and masked with disinterest. They’d just made it through the cut of reporters before someone had noticed him and then they made a run for the car. It was easy after that, too quickly losing them all after Mark had driven across the bridge.

“Yes, mum, I told you I’m fine,” Jinyoung’s voice comes from the hallway. “No...mum...I don’t want to kill- no, I’m fine, I promise. It was just a joke gone wrong, I swear. I’m not sad about anything- I know I can talk to you. I’m fine, seriously, I’m fine. I’m staying with a professor for a while, I’ll call you often, okay? I love you too...bye.” There’s silence then, and a sigh before Jinyoung makes his way into the kitchen.

Mark looks straight ahead, chewing nonchalantly at his apple. “Everything okay?” He asks Jinyoung as he goes to grab his own apple from the fruit basket on the kitchen island.

“As they can be,” Jinyoung mumbles, his thumb rubbing on the skin of the fruit. “She watched the video and well, anyone would be shaken up if they saw their child trying to jump off a bridge.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark says out of a lack of nothing else to say in this situation.

“Why are you apologising?” Jinyoung asks, giving Mark a half smile that looked both tired and a little content. “This was bound to happen eventually, I guess I’m just glad I got people like you and Mihyun on my side. It makes me feel a little less insane.”

“You’re not insane,” Mark says.

“I know, I know I’m not. I guess, though, after seeing that video and all the comments, if I was in someone else’s shoes, even I’d call myself crazy.” Jinyoung sighs and then goes to prop himself up on the island. He looks small where he is, his head snuggled up in the hood of his jumper, his legs swinging just off the ground.

Mark considers his words for a moment, taking a crunch out of his apple. “I think people do it too easily, making assumptions. If someone were to do something they didn’t understand, they automatically would class it as insanity. What is insane anyway? Going against the norm? You ever think that those people that suffer from hallucinations and voices in their head, you ever think they’re real? Maybe there’s just people out there that can tap into a world not everyone can see. Not to make mental illness into a fairy-tale but what I’m trying to say is that just because we can’t see something, just because we have no way to physically prove something, doesn’t automatically mean it’s false. There’s things way beyond this world, that we cannot even fathom.”

“I think that’s fine though,” Jinyoung says, a complacent expression on his face. “I don’t think we need to know everything.”

“Is that coming from someone that knows too much?”

“Maybe?” Jinyoung grins, but it’s only brief and it quickly disappears into the apple as he takes out a bite from it. He chews slowly, his eyes looking out into the distance and Mark finds himself just watching him until he speaks again. “You know what I think is the saddest out of all this?”

“What?”

“That as much as the world has changed in the past couple hundred years, nothing's really changed at all. I mean sure there are laws now, better justice systems, technology, and I guess open-mindedness. But there’s still wars, and not the wars where generals fight and die with their men but wars now with men in suits moving armies like chess pieces on a board game. In the last hundred years alone there’s been genocide, massacres, bombings, there’s been pain on a scale way larger than was possible before, and you’d think we were getting better. But I guess just as much as our minds begin to expand, so does our destructiveness. I’ve seen so much pain, and in every life I wish for one thing, that the next one will be better. The next one will be better. And if you want to look at it optimistically it has gotten better, and it hasn’t. In the west they accept homouality and diversity, and yet they continue to force themselves on countries that can barely keep their homes up. Here, we pride ourselves on our technological advancement and knowledge, and yet we can’t even learn to accept that people are different, that everyone is different. Do you think we get better, Professor? Or is change inevitable and we’ve just learnt to tolerate it?”

Jinyoung’s not really looking for an answer, for someone who has lived for five hundreds years, he’d imagine if he couldn’t find the answer for his own question, no one else could. Any comfort Mark offers now would sound like pity, and that was the last emotion Mark felt for the younger man before him.

“You don’t have to think about it so hard,” Mark says, staring at the core of his apple where two apple seeds are nestled into the centre. “Things have changed, maybe not always for the good but there has been good. And the good has always started with one person, then two, then three, then there are groups, protests. Whether it was women fighting for equality or people of colour fighting for freedom, it always started with someone. Someone is a start. There’s always going to be bad in the world, Jinyoung, but if the bad didn’t exist, how are you going to differentiate between what is good, and what is bad?”

Jinyoung finds himself grinning like the two of them had just told each other a private joke. “For someone only two hundred years old, you certainly sound like a wise man.”

“Only two hundred years old.” Mark repeats, laughter bubbling in him.

Insook makes her entrance into the kitchen, looking stuffy and grouchy as usual. “I’ve made up your bed, Jinyoung.” She announces with a clap of her hands. “If you need anything else boy just tell me.” She says with a casual wave of her hand, making her way into the kitchen.

“Thank you Ahjumma,” Jinyoung smiles, pecking the old woman quickly on the cheek as she brushed by him. She gives her cheek a quick swat, not even bothering to pay a glance in Jinyoung’s direction.

“That’s unfair. Where’s my kiss?” Mark jokes, raising his eyebrows up at Jinyoung.

“W-what?” Jinyoung chokes out, a clear of the throat quickly turning into a set of coughs.

“I got you from your dorm and drove you here, and I didn’t get a thank you, so where’s my kiss?” Mark demands, throwing a pointed finger across the room.

“Are you being serious?” Jinyoung mumbles.

“Would you actually have kissed me?” Mark snorts and Jinyoung raises his hand like he’s so close to chucking the half-eaten apple in his hand at the professor’s head.

“Anyone ever tell you how bad your jokes are, Professor?” Jinyoung snaps, jumping off the island counter.

“Actually, all the time,” Mark mumbles under his breath as Jinyoung stomps his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

“Do you have to so bad? Hasn’t he gone through enough, Mark?” Insook sighs disapprovingly from the fridge, where she’s taking out several ingredients to start lunch.

“It’s to get his mind off things, I think I succeeded pretty well,” Mark shrugs, taking out a big bite from his apple as reward.

“In angering him...yes…” Insook says with a shake of his head.

“Details.”

It’s three in the morning when Mark hears the faint sound of whining coming through the walls.

He’d been up on his laptop for a good six hours now surfing the internet, reporting videos, articles, and threads based around Jinyoung. Some of the pictures taken today had been put up, identifying Mark as the philosophy professor that had saved him from jumping off the bridge. He can’t say his presence helped Jinyoung much. In fact it only added fuel to the theories going round now that they had Mark’s thesis’ as back ups for the stories they were twisting. He can’t say the excessive amount of emails, flagging and reports he’s made has done much but it’s at least made it difficult for others to post comments and enlarge the situation.

A whine, close to a cry and groan, comes from the next room where Jinyoung is in. Mark looks up from his laptop and at the shadow covered wall for a moment before deciding to get up off his desk and making his way into the hallway. The corridor is a pit of darkness, nothing but the window at the end allowing moonlight to illuminate the floorboards from beneath Mark’s feet. Floorboards that creak painfully with every step Mark takes towards Jinyoung’s door.

He takes his knuckle to the door and at the third knock a cry cuts through the thickness of the dark. “Jinyoung?” Mark whispers as he grabs the door knob, turning it quickly to swing the door open.

Jinyoung’s sprawled on his bed, the right side of his body dangling off the edge. At the foot of the bed, Mark finds Jinyoung’s duvet in a heap on the floor as if he kicked it off. “Jinyoung?” Marks call out again, taking a slow step deeper into the room.

Jinyoung’s room is brightly lit, the full moon high in the sky and visible from this side of the house. It looked down into the room with an overbearing presence and highlighted Jinyoung, his sweat covered body glistening under the illumination. He’s twitching violently, his eyes scrutinized shut and the veins in his neck protrude and bulge with tension. The ends of his hair are damp with sweat, sticking to his pale skin, and his tank top is soaked. He looks like he’s at melting point even though the room coated Mark in a coldness that told him Autumn would be coming soon.

Mark makes his way closer to Jinyoung and settles beside him on the bed. He takes a hand to Jinyoung’s forehead, and flinches, he’s burning up. “Jinyoung, you got to wake up. Now.” Mark demands, taking a hard grip to Jinyoung’s shoulder, shaking him. “Jinyoung, you have a fever.”

Jinyoung gasps, his breath hot, his chest dips and rises like he’s struggling to breathe. “Jinyoung, wake up….please,” Mark whispers, sliding his palms to Jinyoung’s face. “Wake up.”

Jinyoung’s eyes flutter and his mouth begins to move, he’s saying something in his breath but Mark can barely make it out. “Are you really going to do this every time, Jinyoung?” Mark curses and goes to wrap his arms around Jinyoung’s shoulder, forcing him to sit up but it doesn't do anything and instead Jinyoung just falls limp against Mark’s shoulder. 

“Do I need to call a hospital? What do I do?” Mark finds a tremble in his words as he let’s out a sigh, his lips pressed against Jinyoung’s forehead. He closes his eyes and tries to think, but the only thoughts that run through his head is just how hot Jinyoung is, his skin scalding to touch and his breath like steam against Mark’s collar bones.

“Barrick?” Jinyoung murmurs.

“What? What did you say? Jinyoung?” Mark pulls Jinyoung back to look at his face. His eyes are open now but Mark knows it’s not Jinyoung here.

Jinyoung looks tired but there’s a small smile on his face as he looks up at Mark, “Barrick…” He murmurs and sluggishly brings up two hands to Mark’s face. “Barrick, you’re okay? You’re okay…I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Barrick?

“Henrikka?” Mark calls out, his words coming out tightly, like his throat had just closed itself off. “Henrikka, he’s not here.” He says this in Finnish but the look on Jinyoung’s face does not falter. The kind of look that people had when they stared at the stars and fell in love with the lights.

“Barrick, I missed you.” Henrikka whispers, her thumb gliding up the cheekbones of Mark’s face. “I missed you so much.” Jinyoung’s voice is so low and intoxicating, a bewitching harmony in the dark and Mark fell for it. He fell into the hands that held him thinking of another whilst he in a breath at the thought of the man before him.

“Jinyoung, come back,” Mark whispers the command and for a flicker of a second, he thinks he see’s something in Jinyoung’s eyes but he didn’t have enough time to catch it, because in the next second, Jinyoung’s eyes were shut and his lips were against Mark’s.