Mark explodes into Jinyoung’s room, the door swinging so hard it slams back into the wall.

“Jinyoung!” Mark barks out into the room.

Jinyoung literally jumps so hard he topples off the bed, landing into a broken mess on the carpet floor. “What- what, has the cavalry arrived!?” Jinyoung groggily mutters in English, poking his head up into the air.

“Jinyoung, Jinyoung,” Mark stomps his way to Jinyoung and drops to his knees to meet him all half-asleep and perky in his delusional state. “They’re alive.”

“What? We’re alive? That’s awful.” Jinyoung mutters, blinking hard.

“No, they’re-they’re not memories, Jinyoung,” Mark takes in a deep breath, his hands jumping erratically before him. “They’re like...ghosts. Actual ghost, like entities...like the idea of your soul departing your body when you die.”

Jinyoung squints at Mark now, his eyes mildly swollen and his breath shallow. He gives his temples a soft rub and goes to look at Mark one more time. “I’m sorry, my hearts like slamming in my ears right now, what are you talking about professor?”

Mark places two firm hands onto Jinyoung shoulders and inhales loudly, “We’re not reincarnations, we’re haunted.”

“Sounds like a poem,” Jinyoung retorts, his concentration too far lost.

“Jinyoung, are you listening?” Mark exasperates.

“I’m listening, professor,” Jinyoung says lowly. “I’m just not understanding, can you explain a little bit?”

“I think I get whatever this curse is just a little bit. In some sense we’re reincarnations but not the type where we’re just born with our past memories. Let’s say for instance when we die our soul departs our body, and said soul therefore, I don’t know, descends into hell or ascends to heaven. They move on, find peace, find...torture and hell-fire? I don’t know. Some go limbo. That’s not how it is for our past lives though, they didn’t get to ascend or move on, they got tied to the next soul born. They don’t get to rest, they don’t get an after-life, they’re forced to continue living forever through other people.” Mark explains, and it comes out so complicated and messy out loud but he’s staring into Jinyoung’s eyes hoping he’d at least understood something.

“So we’re being haunted? And when we die we won’t get to move on to the afterlife but be grounded here?” Jinyoung says slowly, leaning up against the side of the bed for support. “So what is this about you forgetting and me remembering?”

“It’s a form of torture for you, I think.” Mark crosses his legs over, and looks down at the dull carpet. “You did something and this is an act of revenge. We were maybe attached to one another, and so as punishment you always remember me and I don’t remember you. But the curse is the same, our past-lives ghosts are attached to us.”

“So they’re alive in the sense that they’re actual souls, minds per se without physical matter.” Jinyoung nods slowly. “How did you come up with this?”

“Barrick, and…” Youngjae. “He said he’d been trying to break through, since he died he’d been trying to get through his reincarnations, to talk to them but up until me no one could hear him, until they died of course.”

“What? How can you break through a curse? Why? What is going?” Jinyoung sighs heavily into his palms.

“He wants revenge Jinyoung, for Henrikka’s death, he’s been wanting revenge for 200 years now. It was Carl, you know the other person, back then in Finland it was Carl-”

“I know,” Jinyoung interjects. “I knew it was Carl.”

Mark’s eyebrows stitch together, “Henrikka knew?”

“Yes, but...she didn’t want to tell Barrick. He was your friend back then, and she knew what kind of presence he was in your life. She hated him but at most she was jealous,” Jinyoung chuckles, the shadows below his eyes disappearing ever so slightly into the folds of his smile. “But I don’t know who they are in this life. Things are pretty complicated.”

“Yeah, they are,” Mark murmurs, sighing quietly.

He’d thought about telling Jinyoung that the person they’d been looking for is Youngjae, but he still didn’t know what kind of danger Youngjae posed. He said he wasn’t going to hurt him but how could he trust someone that burned an entire city down for one person? Youngjae may not have any motives to harm the two of them but if Barrick taught Mark anything now it is the fact that sometimes your intentions don’t always belong to you. He isn’t going to put Jinyoung in front of a danger like that.

“Have you been thinking about this all night?” Jinyoung asks softly, bringing his hand to the base of Mark’s neck, where his thumb gently the skin beneath Mark’s jaw.

Mark sighs and leans into his hand, “No, but I think Barrick’s trying to take control now.”

“What?”

“He wants to kill him, kill Carl, whoever he is now,” Mark sighs. “And he knows I won’t do it, I think he’s really trying to take over me. I woke up with this crushing feeling this morning, I couldn’t breathe and it was like something was weighing down on me.”

“What triggered this? How is that even possible?” Worry is clear in his voice, his hands now wrapped around the back of Mark’s neck protectively .

“I don’t know,” Mark lies. “But I have an extensive amount of experience in blocking him out, so I just need to talk him out of it while I can.”

“If you ever...need help, I don’t know, just come to me, okay?” Jinyoung asks, leaning closer to Mark.

“I will, thank you.” Mark replies, taking a comforting hand to the top of his head. He pats his hair down softly and smiles to himself. Jinyoung takes a hand up to Mark’s and holds it down on his scalp, he closes his eyes and hums as if recharging.

After a couple of seconds he opens his eyes and exhales a deep breath, “Okay, I think I got it. I need to remember everything from the beginning to the end, that’s the only way we can get answers I think.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to force yourself into doing anything. These memories, Jinyoung, you don’t have to remember them, you don’t need them.” Mark says almost like a beg. His heart ached, for this boy full of trapped mischief and generous smiles, for a man that had so much wonder and care in him. He doesn’t deserve this.

Jinyoung looks at Mark like he can almost hear his thoughts. A wistful smile smile spreads on his face as he takes his own hand down to hold Mark’s. “Professor, I haven’t had much direction all my life. Nor did I think it’d be possible to feel so much. If you’d ask me whether I’d choose to forget all this and redo then I’d tell you no. I want to remember, maybe not so painfully and so out of control, but I’ve seen things, so many beautiful places so many wonderful people. I’ve felt pain, yes, and fear, but I’ve seen life in ways no one could ever see before.” His eyes sparkle as he speaks, he swallows down hard and blinks to hide his tear-lined eyes.

“I understand,” Mark breathes, knotting his fingers in between Jinyoung’s. He closes his eyes briefly, and see’s tiled roofs blanketed in snow, spruce trees shivering in winter cold, and smoke dancing from chimney tops. “I understand.”

There is a house. A house made of wood and fimble stone. A once empty house that had found a companion in a small boy. This boy was alone and afraid, but he was never lost. This house was built out of whim, it was owned with carelessness but once this boy had entered through it’s rackety door, it had transformed. A metamorphosis of some sort, and this house had become a home.

This home burned down, and with it a soul, among many souls.

She had slept in anticipating peace upon the rough sofa of the lounge, tightly knitted to the kitchen where she had previously made herself a cup of tea. A metal cup, rusted at the handle, and worn down from excessive use, had sat on the counter. It peered through the window where the first signs of smoke had come from. This cup had seen everything; the Aura river at night, the boy’s tears made of secrets, the woman’s eagerness of a love sewn into time itself, and it had seen the forthcoming end.

The leg’s had been gnawed at first, and like a head with no neck to carry it, the roof at fallen upon her. She’d been crushed; fimble bones and tender flesh. We are such weak things, are we not?

The fire had done the rest. Flames up at the wood with a hunger not even hell could satisfy. Skin cooked, and burned, and swept into the marrows of her bones until she was nothing but a corpse made up of ash and charred bones.

Henrikka. Henrikka. Henrikka.

Barrick was never one to be emotional. He was a boy with too much of a goal to stay young forever. A boy plagued with responsibility, and maturity. He’d become an adult, and adults don’t have emotions.

He left his parents, and he did not cry. His sister had died, and he did not cry. His other-half had burned, and he did not cry.

That is, not straight away because the thing about emotions is that the more you pretend they do not exist, the more they wish to be heard. Like a mountain of stones piling up bit by bit, with no strong foundation, the mountain will fall. Barrick fell.

He’d wanted to see her, he’d wanted to see those eyes that sparkled like she held the world within them, the same eyes that’d drain like a dam and look as if they were staring into the pit of a black hole.

“Henrikka,” He whispered upon the white cloth that covered what remained of her. His hands shaking, and his breath hot. “I’m sorry.”

He’d been warned not to remove the cloth. The whiteness of it so bright and pure, a blanket to cover the horror beneath it. He’d see it, he’d see what he’d done and he’d regret for the rest of his life.

To which he did, but it had not come without the first spill of tears.

There’s nothing more anxiety inducing than the knock of a door, or the ring of a bell. They are sounds that come with the crippling thought that something bad is about to happen. As bad things can happen, out of nowhere, or expectantly. It is however the waiting, the feeling of what seems to go on forever of the unknown. What’s on the other side of the door? Who is calling? What change will it bring?

It’s maybe why Mark’s always avoiding phone calls. Why the site of private numbers makes him cringe back. Why he tends to keep his doors open. It is also why he is reluctant to call others, to be the bearer of news, to knock on closed doors. In some sense, he see’s it as an intrusion.

Today, however, when he stands before Youngjae’s office. He doesn’t think about these things, he doesn’t think about the person on the other side of the door, he doesn’t think about what change will come in the next few moments. Anxiety is but a flutter of a wing in the back of his head, and for one, one breathless moment as he turns the doorknob and barges into the office, Mark thinks of Jinyoung.

Youngjae looks up from where he is, perched by the window. The sun is bright outside and it drowns Youngjae into nothing but shadows. Mark squints, blinded, nothing but the outline of Youngjae’s head turning indicating he wasn’t just a ghost to Mark’s eyes.

“You didn’t knock?” Youngjae says.

“I knew no one was inside,” Mark replies flatly and shuts the door behind him.

“So what brings you here then?” Youngjae asks, pushing himself up from the windowsill and out of the light, where the shadows return his features. He looks a little different today, his glasses gone, and his hair parted to the side compared to it’s usual natural, messy look. “The way you left my place the other night made it seem like you already bought a one way ticket out of this country.”

“I told you I wasn’t running,” Mark retorts.

“And I would have believed you in any other life,” Youngjae says as he makes his way to his desk. He puts a hand to the back of his leather seat and tilts his head to the side in thought. “But I don’t really know you in this one.”

Mark’s face twitches, his lip quirking down ever so slightly. “Are you saying our relationship up until before was a lie?”

“No…” Youngjae trails off, looking for the words. “You are different.”

“What?”

Youngjae sighs heavily and pulls out his chair, lowering himself into it slowly. He pauses to look at the seats across his desk and looks as if he were to offer Mark one, but he doesn't, maybe knowing Mark would reject it.

“Maybe it’s because you remember but I just couldn’t figure you out Mark. Who are you without Barrick’s memory?” Youngjae asks casually, the question as a light as a feather on his tongue but one that quickly shifts into a beast, stampeding it’s way into Mark.

“I didn’t come here to talk about myself,” Mark half-snaps, taking in a quiet breath. “I came for answers.”

“What makes you think I’d give them?” He taunts but there’s no amusement in his face.

Mark’s eyebrows stitch together, “I don’t see him.”

“See who?”

“Carl.”

Youngjae half-smiles, a faint turn of his lip. “Why would you? I’ve had nearly five hundreds years of practice, of separating myself from the rest of them. Jinyoung could do it just as well too, till, well, this life happened.”

“People keep saying that.” Mark huffs. “Saying something’s changed, that this life has changed. Tell me, what happened.”

Youngjae’s face drops. “Who told you...what?”

“Henrikka, Barrick...the fact I remember, the fact Jinyoung doesn’t remember. There’s a curse and it’s been broken.”

“A curse that’s been broken would suggest there’s no longer a curse,” Youngjae corrects, turning slightly in his seat, looking out towards the window. “This curse has simply...derailed?”

“Derailed?” Mark repeats.”And do you know what caused it?”

“Unfortunately for me...I know everything,” Youngjae mutters this, and Mark can’t see the face he’s making as he says this, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “So forgive me if I ask you to be a bit specific with your questions?” He says, looking over his shoulder. He carves on a small smile and Mark can feel it’s edges cutting into the air.

“I don’t care about the beginning or the end, or anything,” Mark states, taking a step closer to Youngjae. “I just want to know how I can make Jinyoung...better. How I can make this stop.”

Youngjae scoffs then, it’s light like he’s laughing but it comes out all broken. “I’ve spent nearly three years trying to get him to remember, and you’re asking me to help him forget? To make him better?”

“What will it take? For it stop? For you to stop?” Mark demands and it almost sounds like a beg. He’d come here with conviction, and courage cultivated out of nothing, and yet he could feel it all quickly crumble between his fingers.

“The thing is, Mark, you need to know the beginning to know why this started, and the end to know why it changed. And when you do know, the things won’t be as simple as asking me to stop because you will realise that I don’t have as much power in this as you may think.” Youngjae says as he gets up from his seat and makes his way round his desk.

“Then tell me,” Mark hisses through his teeth. He could feel Barrick stirring inside, a dormant anger bubbling through the surface and if Mark couldn’t control himself, he definitely couldn’t control Barrick.

Youngjae takes him in with a calculative stare. “Tell you what? The first life? The second? The third? The twenty fifth? The last?”

Mark grimaces, “You talk like him, but you don’t act like him.”

“Like Carl?” Youngjae guesses. “He is so...loud...and playful. There’s only so many years one person can be so...haughty. I can see Barrick’s ticking away there though, is he trying to find something, Mark?”

Mark in a breath. “I haven’t been asking the questions?”

“No, you have…” Youngjae mutters. “But he’s slipping through...you’re focusing on Jinyoung but he’s trying to divert your attention to Carl.” Youngjae steps closer to Mark, his movements without real direction.

Mark jerks on instinct, his fists balled up and his body stiff, as if ready to fight. “Barrick,” Mark mumbles under his breath. Youngjae brings a hand to Mark’s face, his palm cold against his cheeks and his fingers tracing the skin of his temple. Mark cringes, ready to shrink away from his touch but he wills himself to stay there. “What are you doing?”

“Barrick…” Youngjae says the name with years of nostalgia mixed into his breath, and Mark feels sick at the taste of it. “How is it that in the end he was no different to all the others?”

“What do you mean?” Mark asks, his voice thick in struggle, his eyes sharp as he stares into Youngjae’s eyes.

“People so easily succumb to two things, Mark.” Youngjae says, dropping his hand. “Revenge and regret. I’d thought Barrick was different, or at least Carl did.”

“He burned a whole town, he killed the person he loved, he was his best friend, of course he’d feel like this!” Mark snaps, a threat stirring up in the veins that protruded in his neck. Agitation and anger stitching it’s way through his blood, Barrick pumping his way through his body.

Youngjae coughs into his hand and turns on his heels lightly, “If only you knew the irony.”

Now that irritates Mark personally. “Then why don’t you tell me? Or was your plan to string me along, playing mind games, and laughing at personal jokes until I actually let Barrick out just to kill you?”

Youngjae looks over his shoulder with a flaccid look, “Barrick should know by now that killing me is virtually pointless, I’m not entirely sure what his revenge plot is when we’re pretty much stuck together for eternity?”

“I don’t know...maybe making your death as painful and long as possible?” Mark suggests with a raise of his eyebrow.

“Then I’ll be the one in pain, not Carl, and if you think that’s going to give him any emotional distress then you clearly don’t remember the detached bastard he was.” Youngjae remarks in monotone, leaning back into the corner of his desk.

Mark bites his lip, frustration so suffocating now, he couldn’t even think of the words to retort. Youngjae notices this, and instead of a triumphant smirk, something maybe Carl would have offered, he simply sighs deeply.

“He didn’t do it, you know?” Youngjae says, his voice low.

“Do what?”

Youngjae opens his mouth to respond but his jaw just hangs, a thought suddenly coming to a halt and then he slams his mouth shut. “Nevermind.”

“Youngjae,” Mark hisses, now completely at a loss at who this anger belongs to.

Youngjae brushes a hand through his hair, the side parting lost to the messiness he equipped so naturally before. “What is it, exactly, you want to know Mark? And before you start begging me on how to break the curse, I can already tell you I don’t know the answer.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Mark exasperates.

“Did you think I was speaking in riddles or poems when I mentioned demons, Mark?” Youngjae retorts harshly, a snap almost. His eyes shiver as he looks at Mark, a buried emotion of his own working through the cogs of his mind.

“What do you mean demons? You can’t be serious-”

“Resurrection, past lives, ghosts, curses - by now, you should know this world isn’t what it’s made out to be, don’t you Mark? Demons for a better lack of the word. Things way beyond what humans think is reality. More than meets the eye and all that...crap.” Youngjae huffs and gets back up onto his feet. His face has taken on a new tired expression, as if suddenly the past five hundreds years could be seen in this lines of his skin.

“But demons, Youngjae? The one’s that sprout from hell?” Mark exhales in disbelief, finding even the will to stand on his own two feet difficult.

“Hell? Who knows? Maybe they’ve always been on this planet, or maybe this is hell?” He laughs hollowly.

“And what? They caused this? All this? They made a game out of all this?”

“No...they’re essentially what has tied our souls to one another.” Youngjae starts, moving again to return to his seat. “Sit down, this is a bit of an explanation. One I’ve never done before.”

Mark stays where he is.

“Well, whatever suits you.” Youngjae shrugs. “You’ve heard of Jinn’s right?”

“Jinn’s? As in the spirits? From Arabian mythology?” Mark replies.

“Essentially yes, they’re said to be of a shapeless creation that could take the form of human or animal. They weren’t particularly good or evil, just like us, they had free will and thought. But unlike us, they had power. Immense power.” Youngjae intertwined his fingers together, his elbows perched on the chair hands either side of him. His eyes a little vacant, the kind of lost Jinyoung get’s when he’s remembering but not entirely lost. “We had lived among them once, a long time ago.”

“Demons?”

“They’re not exactly the kind of demons you’re thinking about, Mark, with pointed tails and horns, or saliva made of black toxins.” Youngjae says with a roll of his eyes. “The world wasn’t always like this, Mark. The world has changed. Species have come and gone. We weren’t always here before, people, and we won’t be here forever either. They feared that, they saw it coming.”

“The...spirits?” Mark mutters weakly, now regretting a little bit on refusing the seat.

“They saw their future, they saw the worlds we were going to build, they saw the metals, and the buildings, and they saw they would not be able to live in it. So they started making deals, an exchange of wishes.” Youngjae explains, his tone growing deeper and his words coming out heavier.

“What could a demon possibly wish for from a human?” Mark exasperates.

Youngjae flicks his eyes up to Mark like he’d just remembered he was standing in his office. “The chance of eternity.” He whispers. “They wanted to live, Mark. They knew humans had souls, that once one would die, they would forget in order for another to be born, a cycle that goes on forever. They didn’t have that. So while they could they started doing the bidding of humans, in exchange, they’d live forever through their reincarnations.”

“And that’s what you did…? To make us suffer, you gave your soul up to a demon. You remember five hundred years of life just for revenge?” Mark asks accusingly, distress evident in the way his body shook. In fear? In anger? Was the feelings surging through him his own, or Barrick’s? He couldn’t tell anymore, and that fact was beginning to scare him.

“Just for revenge,” Youngjae bitterly mutters. “You don’t remember so I highly doubt you don’t say things so easily, Mark.”

“And who’s fault is it that I don’t remember!?” Mark snaps back.

Youngjae slams up to his feet, banging his hands to the desk. “You should be thanking me, Mark. That you never remembered was probably the only blessing I could give you after what happened.” He huffs, his breath ragged and his hair now looking more distraught than it did natural.

“W-what’s that supposed to mean?” Mark quickly crumbles down to his knees, his fingers clawed into his hair. “I don’t understand anything.”

Youngjae stares down at him, his own breathing heavy as he tried to calm himself down. “You can’t expect to understand five hundred years of a curse just like that. Jinyoung should be remembering everything soon too.”

Mark looks up from between his hands to where Youngjae stands, the sunlight behind him blinding. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When you died...did you think it was a coincidence that at the very same time Jinyoung suddenly had access to about 90% of his memories?” Youngjae says, slowly settling back down into his feet. “I knew Jinyoung’s memories were coming back to him, broken as they may. But the process was becoming messy...at the rate he was going at the stress would kill him before he remembered everything, and if I didn’t solve this in this life, god knows what I’d meet in the next.”

Mark slowly rises to his feet, his body shaking now with what he is sure is a fire of emotions that solely belongs to him.

“I opened the vault, a vault with many keys and locks, a vault hiding a demon of his own. A demon that does not want to remember anything anymore.” Youngjae takes in a breath and relaxes back into his desk. “But you see anything that happens to Jinyoung, happens to you Mark. You’re connected by the same spirit. So just as I unlocked Jinyoung’s memories, I seemed to have unlocked something in you.”

“You killed me?” Mark takes a step back.

“Not on purpose,” Youngjae clears up quickly with his palms up defensively, as if it would solve everything. He then looks down at his fingers, peering into his palm curiously. “It was the first time I used it’s powers, you see our deal still remains intact even after all these years, and I had to make sure Jinyoung remembered. I understood that meant tampering with you indirectly but I’d assumed you already remembered what you could and this wouldn’t change much...it would seem however Barrick’s stronger than we both think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Barrick’s getting stronger, I can sense it. If he keeps this up he may really be able to take you over and extract his revenge,” Youngjae says, as if he found amusement in the whole matter. “However that also means that Jinyoung’s memories are solidifying. His demons waking up.”

“What put it to sleep in the first place?”

Youngjae his lips and gives his jaw a hard rub, “Now that’s something not even I want to think about. And thank god…” Youngjae huffs, looking down at the clock upon his desk. “I have a lecture, and you are ten minutes late to yours.”

Mark jumps and quickly goes to look at his wristwatch, “.”

“I’m sure you have more questions but let’s leave them for another day, hm?” Youngjae says casually as if inviting an old friend for tea. “I enjoy these conversations of ours, I feel like I may actually be making a real friend out of you after so many hundreds of years.” Youngjae says whimsically as he goes to grab his briefcase from beside him on the ground and get’s up to his feet.

Mark wants to retort with something harsh but an entirely new thought rams its way into his stream of thought, and just as Youngjae moves past him and heads towards his door, Mark calls out to him. “Youngjae…”

“Hm?”

Mark doesn’t look over his shoulder as he speaks, maybe in some fear to see the words before he heard them. “Is it possible for us...or for you and Jinyoung to cause something like...an earthquake?”

The question warrants silence, and silence is what Mark gets. It goes on for so long Mark moves rigidly to look over his shoulder, checking Youngjae hadn’t already walked out of the office. Instead, he see’s something far worse than a vacant door frame, he see’s a look of worry, a look of the unknown shroud Youngjae’s face.

“Us? Make an earthquake?” He repeats, a little breathless like he wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness but couldn’t find the will. “No, we can’t. But...can a demon? I don’t know.”

When Mark enters the kitchen the next morning, he finds Jinyoung already there. He has himself perched upon the kitchen counter, an untouched apple in his hand, and his attention far away. He hasn’t noticed Mark’s presence yet, and so Mark takes advantage of it and leans silently into the door frame of the hallway.

The dark shadows below Jinyoung’s eyes aren’t so bad today, just the lines of the hollow of his eyes slightly more defined. In the bright light that swims in through the garden doors, Mark can even see the faint scars of popped pimples, skin slightly embedded in like small craters against the landscape of his skin. Skin so white and smooth, tight against his jaw and soft at the nape of his neck.

Mark swallows down and takes a step into the kitchen now, his footsteps light and soundless, as if he were waking upon the rays of sunlight as he gravitated towards Jinyoung. Jinyoung doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, and Mark thinks he may be remembering but he see’s his eyes, drinking in the sunshine. “Jinyoung?” Mark whispers as he takes a hesitated hand to Jinyoung’s, where he tugs lightly on his index finger.

“Good morning,” Jinyoung murmurs softly, voice like honey slicked over wood. He doesn’t look towards Mark but instead takes his hand to grab Mark’s and intertwined their fingers naturally, the fingers locking into place.

Your spirits are connected.

Mark in a breath and tightens his grip back. “Morning, you’re up early. What are you looking at?”

Jinyoung takes his free hand and raises it, with a point of his finger he indicates to the glass doors. “Those flowers, the pink and white ones growing out of the pot, what are they called?”

Mark follows his fingers to where the windmill flowers seem even more vibrant and perky in the brightness. “Oleander, I think I remember asking Insook about them.”

“They’re pretty.” Jinyoung says.

“Yeah, and poisonous.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s why she has it up hanging above the ground so no animals go pecking at it.” Mark says as he jumps back onto the counter beside Jinyoung, their hands still tightly woven together.

“Why would she have a poisonous flower in her garden? That old woman is odd.” Jinyoung chuckles, naturally leaning into Mark’s side, their legs pressed together.

“I wondered about that too,” Mark hums lightly, smiling a little to himself as Jinyoung locks their ankles together subconsciously, as if it were them most natural thing to do. “Did you sleep well?”

“Hmmm as well as I could have,” He sighs, and lets his head drop into the corner of Mark’s neck. His hair is soft against Mark’s skin, the scent shampoo dancing between the strands. Mark breathes it in, feeling it warm it’s way through his body. “I keep dreaming about a bird.”

“You mentioned before? What is it?”

Jinyoung slides back and let’s his head tilt up. “I don’t know, I’m just on the ground looking up and in the very far distance, against a big bright blue sky, a small black bird is falling down...and I’m afraid.” His eyebrows twitch together and he takes in a quick breath before turning to look at Mark. Their eyes meet for the first time then and Mark sees the anxiety and fear in Jinyoung’s eyes quickly disperse. “Just looking at you calms me down.”

Mark smiles and goes to pat the top of Jinyoung’s head. “Glad I can be useful for something.”

“Where’s this lack of confidence coming from?” Jinyoung laughs.

Mark sighs and takes his hand from the top of Jinyoung’s head to the side of his face, the end of his eyebrow and the corner of his eyebrow. “I feel like there’s nothing I can do for you, to help the memories, the pain…” He trails off before the anxiety in him starts to slip through his voice.

Jinyoung blinks in contemplation. “I didn’t realise you wouldn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“How much you’ve helped me?” Jinyoung says. “I mean at first just the fact I had someone that believed me, that would listen to me, you don’t know how much of a weight it took off my shoulders. Then slowly you became something more than help, you became something I looked forward to beyond the memories, something I could hold onto while I was in pain, someone I could run to when I needed to escape.” He looks up at Mark with this genuine expression, with eyes so wide it was as if Mark could reach into them and grab the stars, and Jinyoung would give them willingly, he would give them all. “Then I found out who you were, who you were to me, and how we were connected. And I thought if there’s such thing as fate, this has to be it, you are it.”

Mark wants to cringe back from that. How could he tell him? That this wasn’t fate, that this was the work of a person so intent in keeping his revenge intact for another five hundred years to come, he’d go out of his way to pull people across the country, to coax and to twist things to suit him. How could he tell him that it was his presence in the first place that sent Jinyoung into oblivion?

He wouldn’t tell him, he couldn’t, because as much as Mark is willing to leave, to do whatever he could to protect Jinyoung, he also couldn’t bare the thought of letting go of this hand that held so tightly and surely, like he was the only thing that made sense.

Jinyoung’s looking up at him expectantly and Mark wants to laugh a little at the look on his face, but instead he hides it with a quirk of a smile as he takes his hand down to cup the side of his face. He hears it, very faintly, the shaky breath Jinyoung takes in and Mark follows it, quick to catch it with his own lips as he brings the two of them together.

They move against each other warmly, slowly, unknowingly. Where behind their eyelids world's erupts; mountains made of sand, towers of tsunamis, snow melting to spring, tree’s giving way to winter, armies of birds taking the sky.

They see everything together, the first breath, and the last, the first thought, and the last, the first move, and the last. They have started together, and they will end together.