She was visited by a crow.
A crow not of this desert.
Black drenched birds with perfectly pointed beaks to dig into flesh cleanly.
She’d never seen one before, but she knew what it was.
An omen.
Perhaps, she’d seen this coming. Happiness is never a permanent thing and although you may cling to love with the very last strings of your life, it will always somehow slips through your fingers.
She’d almost died in the sand. She was willing to give herself to the heat and let herself succumb into the earth, but he’d come.
A foreigner, a traveller, a trader. Skin sweet and dark like cinnamon, with eyes wide, bright for the world he had seen to thrive in.
He spoke with laughter bubbling between his words, and slept with the ends of his lips upturned.
He was bright, something she did not think was possible in a land where the sun burned down as if waiting for hell to rise between the dunes.
She did not think it were possible, or maybe she did not want to feel her heart slip into the hands of the very kind she’d been running from.
She’d fallen in love with a man, and cursed herself everyday with the ends of her own lips turned upwards.

Mark wakes up in the middle of the night to familiar shadows and unfamiliar sounds. The swelling clouds seem to have made their journey to the coast, the sounds of the waves outside harsh and ragged. Mark’s eyelids lay heavy, struggling to grasp wakefulness. He could just go to back to sleep–sunrise seems to be a while away still–but he’s already sensed Jinyoung’s absence.

Even though they kept a certain distance between themselves when they slid under the covers earlier that night, Mark had shut his eyes to the presence of Jinyoung’s shallow breathing and the very faint scent of soap. A presence, like a lullaby he’d only heard in his dreams, had drifted away into the folds of the sheets, leaving only faint remnants of body warmth.

In the narrow slits of his eyes, Mark barely makes out a silhouette at the foot of the bed, staring out through the double doors of the balcony. In the back of his head he knows it’s Jinyoung, but there’s a fear that skitters in the depths of his chest, as if he were watching a ghost. He thinks about what they are, Jinyoung and Mark, a collection of ghosts. But it has him wondering how many lives must you remember to finally feel disconnected from life?

Mark’s only been living with one but Jinyoung… Jinyoung has tasted obliviousness and has had it trampled on by what could be the voices of a hundred different people all at once.

“There’s something about the dark,” Jinyoung says, his voice light and foggy, like he were speaking through layers of cotton. “It makes you feel… separated.”

“From yourself or from the world?” Mark roughly replies, pushing himself up to sit. The thin blanket slides off him and curls at his ankles, exposing him in his t-shirt and boxers.

Jinyoung’s head tilts in Mark’s direction as if he hadn’t realised Mark was awake. He’d spoken though, and a chill runs down his spine at the thought that he may not have been talking to him.

“Both?” Jinyoung playfully throws, and Mark can hear the smile in the dark.

“It’s just in your head, the darkness gives your imagination space to roam.” Mark says, grimacing as he finds the sweat lathered between him and his clothes despite having taken a shower before going to bed.

“It’s just in my head.” Jinyoung echoes, his voice lost in the space between them. “Why do we brush away the things in our head so easily?”

Mark sighs into the dark, “Because it’s easy to pretend something you can’t see doesn’t exist.”

“So you know,” Jinyoung scoffs.

Mark bites the inside of his cheek, an attempt in curling up the frustration that is slowly but surely awakening inside him. He could consider the fact that Jinyoung isn’t alone anymore, that his thoughts no longer belong to him and him alone, but the fact of the matter is that Mark is tired of being considerate. How many sleepless nights did the two of them have to crawl through with groundless words and clouded theories before they realised there really isn’t an answer for anything? No matter how much they could strip down the world to fimble bones, in the end all that’s left between the marrow will be space, nothing.

Mark his lips and a sigh, broken and faint, slips through the opening as he pushes himself to the edge of the bed. Looking down at his hands, he plays with the little light that casts upon his palms, his fingers narrow and pale.

“There is a difference though,” Mark says. “Between our physical and mental worlds.”

“Physical and mental worlds?” Jinyoung repeats, looking over his shoulder and watching Mark as he slides out of bed.

“Yeah, there’s a difference. And in a sense they work together, like in a circle.” Mark continues as he makes his way around the bed. He’s dropped his formal professor voice, something he’d have used before to fill in the space between them. “To fulfill our internal needs, like hunger or ual frustration, we have to incorporate the physical world by eating or having . Right?”

Jinyoung’s turned around now, the blue street light outside their hostel window casting a fine line of light across his face. He glows in a pale blue and his eyes spark a little as he watches Mark move closer to him. “Where are you going with this?”

Mark puts a fist to his mouth and clears his throat. “Nowhere. Well, not conversationally anyway.”

Jinyoung quirks an eyebrow up, watching Mark as he closes off the space between them. “But physically?”

“Physically…” Mark in a deep breath as he leans into Jinyoung, shuffling him further enough to have his back against the balcony doors. Over his shoulder, Mark could see the coast shrouded in night, thick and overbearing grey clouds completely eating up the moon, its light dwindling down into a dull glow. Jinyoung shifts, his head moving to block the view Mark’s eyes had lost themselves in.

“You do it too, you know,” Jinyoung says, voice thick and coarse, his breath tickling at the skin of Mark’s neck. “Lose yourself.”

Mark flickers his eyes to meet with Jinyoung’s, his lips curving into a crescent. “I know, it’s sometimes the most peaceful I’ve ever been.” Mark whispers as he presses a palm to the window behind Jinyoung, the inside of his elbow just slightly tucked, an invitation for Jinyoung to lean his head into him.

Which he does, ever so slightly, a slight tease in the twinkle in his eyes as he looks up at Mark through the curtains of his hair. “I get that.” He hums, pressing his cheek onto the soft side of Mark’s arm. “I wonder recently, though. If we have to get lost, do we have to do it alone?”

Mark’s half smile grows wider as he leans into Jinyoung, where his lips meet with Jinyoung’s forehead and his laughter spills down Jinyoung’s face. “You speak like a poet.”

“I was one once,” Jinyoung chuckles, wrapping his arms around Mark’s waist. “She was always heartbroken.”

“Are you?” Mark asks, leaning back just a little.

“Am I what?”

“Heartbroken.”

Jinyoung considers the question with a slight twitch of his eyebrow. “Many times. Over and over again. I suppose after a while though you aren’t really breaking, just… chipping.” Mark hears the hollowness in his words, his voice echoing, lost in history.

“Do you think you can mend it?” Mark asks but he doesn’t wait for an answer before he presses his lips against Jinyoung’s.

He kisses him, really kisses him. Jinyoung’s lips are warm and soft against his own, smooth flesh with a heartbeat of its own, melding into the betweens of Mark’s. Thoughts lose themselves in their breaths and a feeling close to lightning takes over. They move fast, by instinct, their hands gliding, turning like storms and soon enough they’re on the bed.

Legs long and bulky lock into each other, hands shaking and slipping, clumsiness bubbling between them but it’s okay. It’s okay. Naivety, anxiety, awkwardness, and impatience accompany them but they float whimsically. Alongside is the heat, the frustration, and the taste of letting go.

Night blankets them in comfort for once. In the darkness, where once there were demons that haunted their thoughts, there is now an infinite amount of space to lose themselves in. The darkness is the woods you fear, the tracks you followed, and the signs you ignored.

Keep going.

When Mark and Jinyoung leave the coast, they leave in silence. The space between them, once filled with doubt and ghosts, has become warm and comforting. Once the physical space had been eradicated, the emotional space, all tangled and twisted, had soon enough come loose too.

Waking up that morning, with Jinyoung soft and vulnerable in his hands, Mark realised that he’d finally found it. Found what was right. For a philosophy professor, for a man at thirty years old, for a human who has spent his entire life questioning things he would never find the answers to, he’d finally found comfort. The irony was funny in itself, to find comfort in the fact there is no answer to anything, really. That in the end life is just a whimsical concept, and we could spend it searching, or we can find content in the small things, or in the one thing.

Mark had found it, and with it, Mark knew what he had to. That in exchange for answers, he’d give himself up to an entirely different cause. To protect Jinyoung, to protect what he found, to protect what he felt right. Even if that meant exposing himself.

Which is why Mark finds himself standing in front of Youngjae’s apartment at this moment. When he’d left the last time, he never thought he’d return. He left with a new horizon of thoughts. Mark had grown up with Barrick’s shadow hovering over him all his life but what he’d come to learn in recent events was that it wasn’t him alone in the dark.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here again,” Youngjae says, back turned to Mark. He hadn’t even looked to see who was at the door before he opened it, inviting him in. Mark walks into the hallway, slipping off his shoes and shutting the door behind him.

As usual, he’s greeted with suffocation. The heating has been blasted up despite the scalding temperatures outside and Youngjae stands in the middle of his apartment with a thick sweater on.

“What are you trying to do here?” Mark asks, already feeling his t-shirt stick to his chest.

“What do you mean?” Youngjae replies, tilting his head as he looks out towards the city lines through his windows.

“All summer, you’ve been wearing jackets and jumpers like it’s minus degrees out.” Mark retorts. He pauses then, a brief thought weaving it’s way round the clues in his mind. “Ah, is it your way of remembering?”

Youngjae stands still where he is, Mark taking his silence as an answer. Several quiet breaths are exchanged between them whilst Mark peers around the apartment to find it oddly clean. Youngjae was never one to sort out his own mess. Then again, Youngjae wasn’t the person Mark initially thought he was.

“I… wasn’t cursed to remember, not like Jinyoung was.” Youngjae says. “Five hundred years is a long time, I could have let them slip away. When you see the possibilities I see, giving in is easy… but they won’t let me.”

“The ghosts?” Mark asks, making his way round the apartment and into the kitchen. In the dark and quiet of the space, the hum of the fridge is thundering.

“The heat helps.” Youngae says flatly.

“Jinyoung said something before… he said you see memories that don’t exist?” Mark asks curiously, making his way to the corner of the kitchen where he eyes a photograph of Youngjae and an elderly woman, most likely his mother.

“Possibilities.” Youngjae whispers, his voice delicate and lost in the dark. Mark looks over his shoulder to see the expression Youngjae must have on but the dark has sheltered him. “They like to taunt us you see. It isn’t enough for them to live for eternity so they play with our insides, eat off our emotions.” He sounds raw, the darkness of night being a comfort to a person that has hidden himself for centuries.

“What do you see?” Mark presses on as he goes to grab the fridge handle and pulls it, the light of the fridge almost blinding.

“So many different possibilities. I die young or I live forever, I get married, I love… I am loved. But at most, in all of them one thing is constant… I’m smiling. A wide smile I have never seen before… I constantly wonder how it feels to smile like that.” Youngjae admits and it has Mark pausing in front of the cold of the refrigerator for a brief moment before he goes to grab the carton of apple juice from the door. Realising the oddness to Mark’s actions, Youngjae finally moves from his spot and turns to Mark. “What are you doing?”

“Confirming something.” Mark says as he opens the carton and takes a sniff. He winces as the harsh smell of vodka violates his senses and then quickly goes to close the carton again. “You know Barrick always saw Carl as a caring man.”

“Liar.” Youngjae retorts quickly before turning back to the view.

“He only played along with the cruel act he kept up. You don’t think Barrick didn’t know his father was abusing him?” Mark says as he returns the intoxicated juice to its place and shuts the door of the fridge. He looks up to find Youngjae thinly glaring at him, the lights of the city illuminating him. “You still put vodka in your juice carton.”

“I told you it’s because of my mother-”

“Your mother died, Youngjae. You told me over a year ago.” Mark states.

Youngae in a breath and sighs, “A habit, then.”

“You care for people. You cared for Barrick and you care for me.” Mark says softly.

“What is this sudden change in attitude, Mark?” Youngjae huffs, holding his arms out in question. “Did you forget that just the other day you were trying to kill me?”

“I wasn’t thinking- Barrick wasn’t letting me think. He hasn’t been thinking.” Mark exasperates, twisting his way out from behind the counters of the kitchen. “Tell me, Youngjae, what happened in Turku? Who started the fire?”

“Why does it matter anymore?”

“It matters to Barrick, Carl. It matters to him. Let him stop regretting.” Mark begs, almost. The feelings almost his own, the tiring type of ache that withers away at your insides and leaves you hollow.

“What makes you think it wasn’t Carl? All the proof leads to him.” Youngjae says, letting his eyes drop away from Mark and onto the floor.

“Jinyoung said it would be the last thing you’d do. Burn a city. I’d imagine that’d be because you suffered in it, in the desert.” Mark says and he sees it, an odd flicker in Youngjae’s eyes that he couldn’t quite understand. “But also, it doesn’t make sense. If Carl really wanted to kill Henrikka, there was no reason for him to burn the entirety of Turku down too. Not to mention, there was no way for him to have known she’d be at Barrick’s house at the time.”

“So stubborn… but I guess without his stubbornness he’d never have broke through in the first place. He doesn’t even understand half of what he’s done, that man.” Youngjae says under his breath. His jaw is set hard when he returns his look and in that moment Mark could feel Barrick stirring, restless.

“Carl’s father didn’t just beat him, he beat his mother and he beat his servants too. But, he did more than that. He them, the maids and their… children. The serving boys and girls.” Youngjae clears his throat and turns around to pace beside the windows.

“You know Carl. Despite his attitude, he’d always done his job well, always put his effort into his work. He’d been focusing on bringing his father down, to take over his position. It frustrated him, to work so meekly and obediently. To attend balls and banquets and socialize in the name of his father. But he was weak, he had to be careful if he wanted to succeed. After all when you outright go against people with power they’ll-”

“come raining down on you like the Lord came down upon Sodom and Gemorrah.” Mark finishes, naturally. There is a heavy weight upon his chest and he does not bother deciphering whether it belongs to him or Barrick, but he feels as though it may just belong to the both of them.

“Yes,” Youngjae says. “But not everything goes according to plans. Do you remember once, Carl had told Barrick about a maid that had left the mansion because his father had gotten her pregnant?” Youngjae pauses mid-step and tilts his head, a silhouette against the night sky and city lights. Mark blinks several times, an odd sense of deja vu washing over him. Odd for someone that has remembered a past life.

“She had miscarried. One of the butlers had found out she’d been starving on the streets because no one wanted to take in an unmarried pregnant maid into their homes. So she came back, and with the very last piece of strength she had, she set fire to the mansion. The fire had started in the kitchen, Carl saw the smoke from outside his bedroom window. He had worked on getting everyone out before he’d seen her, walking into the flames as if… it were a door, she walked so calmly.” Youngjae takes another heavy breath and continues his pacing.

“Unfortunately for her, what she did not know was that Carl’s father had gone to London. Her revenge was fruitless and in the process so many lives ruined. Plans had changed and what Carl was striving to achieve had been lost, the fire would heavily impact his father’s empire. Henrikka died as well. He realised then that we had to move on.”

“When one of us dies, the rest of us have to follow?” Mark says, Carl’s words a heavy echo in his mind.

“Carl knew this. But he wasn’t going to go without bringing his father down some way or another. So he’d gone to England, and killed him with a gun, two bullets to the heart.” Youngjae says like an executioner on stage, his voice flat and emotionless.

“Then he came back and killed Barrick.” Mark says.

Mark’s hand flies to his chest, an ache tightens his heart and although silent, he could feel Barrick crying. His throat closes off and the air remains lodged behind his lips, and inside is a feeling so close to death he wonders if he’s remembering Barrick’s end all over again. “I’m sorry,” Mark whispers, crumbling to his knees. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for, Mark?” Youngjae asks, now looking over his shoulders.

Mark in a breath, “I’m saying it for Barrick.”

Youngjae snorts, “He is stubborn, isn’t he?”

What have I been fighting for?

Mark leans down onto the floor and presses his shoulder to the cold counter of the open kitchen. The darkness has flooded down below, like the sea at the coast, the water as black as ink drifting just below his chin. It’s him in, a sight so infinite and frightening, a place of so many possibilities and a place for the end. He’d fall into it–like Barrick fell–and never surface again.

Youngjae appears before him and places two hands to his face, pulling him quickly out of the black sea. “It’s easy to give in, Mark. It’s easy to die. Much easier than people think. It is then we have to remember that death is inevitable, that living is just prolonging the inevitable. I know what you must be feeling, I’ve felt it a thousand times over but don’t give in. Don’t give in, Mark. Death is by no means an escape.”

“Is that what this feeling is?” Mark murmurs to himself.

“Get up.” Youngjae demands as he pulls Mark up to his feet, his hands clenched tightly around Mark’s shoulders. “I know you have more questions, so just ask, while I still feel like telling.”

“You should stop acting so cold,” Mark huffs, leaning his side into the countertop. Sweat sticks to his skin and slides down his temples, the heating inside the apartment insufferable. “You’ve been so transparent and I never realised.”

Youngjae makes a displeased face, lips knotting together. “I think our conversation is done here-”

“Okay, okay,” Mark shoots up, his palms up in defence. Youngjae gives him a thin look before stepping back and nodding, as if giving permission. “Can you explain to me, this curse? Or deal? Or whatever… properly because it seems not even Jinyoung understands it.”

Youngjae gives his ear a little tug, a contemplating look upon his face. “When you wish to a Jinn, they can take it in any way they want to. They’ll give you your wish in any way they deem fit, and they’ll take what they want from you without a question. When Hakim wished for the city to drown, he’d given up his soul to a devil. Given up the chance to rest in peace forever.”

“So where do you and I come into this?” Mark asks in a sigh, brushing a hand through his hair. He’s got his hip leaning up against the kitchen counter, trying not to show just how weak he felt.

Youngjae gives Mark a side-look, guilt slipping through the gaps of his frown. “You are the consequence of my wish.” He admits, his voice heavy and dark like a tree had fallen in the night.

“What did you wish for? For Hakim to suffer?” Mark asks, his hand clutched the edge of the marble counter. There’s an anger, an unwarranted anger swirling in the pools of his stomach. A storm he’s trying to keep at bay because he knows no matter what he knows now, it won’t change anything.

Youngjae rubs a palm over his face and takes a step further away from Mark, edging to the windows, watching cars and lights twist and turn. The colours of orange and white reflect in his eyes, what is maybe the most colour Mark has ever seen in him, or Carl.

“I was no one really. Not to the two of you anyway. Hakim was just a man that had passed by me and I had many people pass by me in that life. I’d just never thought he’d be the last.” He his lips and clears his throat, and Mark can tell there’s a struggle going on inside.

“There’d been rumours going around that day, about the run-away girl that had returned. I’d seen Sadiya before, growing up, she was pretty famous for the scar going across her face. We’d never really spoken though. Her family were among one of the higher classes, I was just part of the slums and she was just this… ghost.”

“I don’t know what had happened. Rumours had been flying, things like she was an omen, or bringer of destruction. Things were bad at the time, odd things were happening around the deserts. People talking about horses made of sand, crows the size of tigers, oases being lit on fire like the pools were made of oil. The Jinns were getting out of hand. Before, they had kept themselves hidden, watching humans, playing around with the odd one or two. You see, they were like bees, once they touched a human, they’d give themselves up forever to keep up their end of the deal.”

“Back then, I was nothing but a simple gate guard. Checked people coming in and out of the city. I was just twenty at the time, been working for five years. It was a pointless job, everyone knew there were holes around the city, I mean the walls weren’t even that high.” Youngjae scoffs to himself. “Anyway… that day was like any other day. Albeit unexpected when Sadiya had come. She had a burqa on but I could tell it was her, I mean other than the scar that went down across her face, her eyes were always… different. Alive.”

“Till this day I don’t know what had happened for her to turn out the way she did, but all I know is that four days after she died, our city made out of sand was burning. I’d survived it though, survived the screams, the images in my head as my siblings and parents burned alive, survived the fire. I didn’t survive the desert though, I eventually died due to dehydration, starvation, the elements? I didn’t go easily though, no… with that last, stubborn breath of mine I wished. I wished for revenge.”

Youngjae rolls out his shoulders stiffly as if he’d morphed from stone to flesh, and then turned his head to face Mark. “I didn’t really realise what that meant, but in the lives that came after we could sense each other, Hakim and I. I knew it was him I was chasing, but I hadn’t counted for you to be there again and again. Soon enough I realised that my revenge was far more than just remembering. I tortured him with the person he loved the most.”

Mark slumps up against the counter now. With the revelation and truth now out, he’d thought he’d feel something, anything. But all that came out of months of distress, of a lifetime of bitterness was the feeling of being cheated. Is this all it’s meant to come to?

“So that’s it? You both made a wish and that’s it.” Mark mutters under his breath, helplessness clutching at his throat. He wanted to cry.

Youngjae turns towards Mark then, his movements slow but almost calculated. As he steps closer to the kitchen Mark can make out a contemplating look upon his face. “What has Jinyoung said? About this?”

“About what?”

“You want to break the cycle right? You must have talked to him about it?” Youngjae asks.

Mark’s eyebrows knit together, he doesn’t understand where Youngjae is going but he answers him anyway. “He says there’s nothing to be done. He made a deal and now he has to keep it.”

Youngjae in a breath and takes a hand to his chin. “Maybe. But the one thing I’ve learned in life is that there are always loopholes.”

Mark stands up straight, he’s staring down at Youngjae with a furious look. “What do you mean? Are you saying there’s a way to break this? Break this curse?”

“I’m not saying anything, Mark,” Youngjae clarifies quickly, his tone like stone as he puts up a flat palm. “What I’m saying is that there are possibilities.”

“What do you mean?” Mark demands.

Youngjae turns around on his heels and brushes a hand through his hair. “Do you have… any other memories? Any chances you remember a different life than just Barrick’s?”

“Why?”

Youngjae grumbles something under his breath. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

Eagerness, hope and frustration all clump together and light up in Mark as he flies across the apartment. He clamps a hand on Youngjae’s shoulder and swivels him round. “Explain, Youngjae. I want to hear everything even if you think it’s ridiculous.”

Youngjae gives him a reluctant look, lips screwed together and eyes wandering around the room. “Answer my question first.” Youngjae sighs, pushing Mark’s hand off his shoulder.

Mark swallows hard and shuts his eyes, he tries to conjure the images so faint and broken in the spaces of his mind. Dark long hair, chapped lips and calloused feet. Hot sand, golden wind, and skies as blue as oasis waters. Mark gasps heavily, a hand to his chest.

“I wasn’t sure all this time but I see it, a desert.” Mark admits. “I thought maybe I was just making it up, but it’s a feeling so strong, a feeling between deja vu and remembering. The kind of feeling Barrick gives me.”

“A desert, are you sure?” Youngjae asks, his voice suddenly eager, possibly the lightest thing that’s stepped in the room in the last hour. “It could be Sadiya’s memories?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking too. It comes to me in bits, mostly when I’m sleeping. I think I’ve seen Hakim in it, too.” Mark says. He hadn’t even mentioned this to Jinyoung.

“Listen to me very closely, Mark,” Youngjae says, voice low and tight, tension evident in his jaw. “This could just be a very small chance. A very tiny 1% chance, I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to Sadiya before but only she’ll know.”

“Know what?” Mark asks, his fists shaking at his side.

Youngjae his lips and takes in a sharp breath. “We share a Jinn, you and I. I’d felt it when I first met you and I’ve felt it in every life I’ve met you. Maybe it’s why we’ve always… got along, I don’t know. The point is though, I don’t know any rule about a Jinn only granting one human a wish.”

Mark blinks, trying to fit Youngjae’s words together. “What do you meant?”

“You’ve been dragged into this due to my wish. Jinns don’t exist anymore except inside the humans or whatever they’ve already granted wishes to. My point is… Sadiya never made a wish, yet her reincarnations have been harbouring a Jinn.” Youngjae explains and his words unravel in Mark’s mind.

“Are you saying I have a wish?”

A wish to break the curse.

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Youngjae huffs. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, though. Before, there was no chance of asking you, you never remembered. But this life–this life is different–”

“Things have changed.” Mark shakingly breathes. “I could break it, I can wish to undo it!” He presses both hands to his temples and squeezes his eyes shut, as if the pressure could bring the theory to life.

Please, please, please, please. He begs in silence. Undo this curse.

“Mark, Mark,” Youngjae calls out, his voice distant but distracting.

“Let me try, Youngjae. I have to try.” Mark murmurs desperately, his head bent so far forward they were practically between his knees.

Hands slip in between his own, gentle and awkward, and when Mark opens his eyes he’s face to face with a solemn expression. “It isn’t going to be so simple, Mark.” Youngjae says, his voice dripped in pity, for Mark, for himself, maybe for all of them.

“W-why? Why can’t things be so simple?” Mark’s voice cracks, and he’s trying so hard not to let it get to him.

A half-smile grows on Youngjae’s face, the kind of smile Mark’s never seen on him, but the kind of smile he finds suits him the most. “Well let’s be honest, Jinns are tricky bastards. As if they’d give in without some fun.” He scoffs and drops his hands from Mark’s face. “Go home and sleep, Mark. There’s no rush, we can figure this out.”

“You say there’s no rush but why do I feel like time’s running out?” Mark murmurs.

Youngjae gives him a long look and then sighs. “Waiting is possibly one of the worst types of tortures so I’m not going to say sit back and do nothing. Maybe for now, try and connect with Sadiya, find out if Barrick knows anything? I don’t know if they can even communicate, but it’s a start.”

Mark in a deep breath and nods. “A start.”

Youngjae nods back and gives Mark’s shoulder a pat. “Now go, before Jinyoung gets annoyingly jealous. I have been at the end of that stick way too many times now.” Youngjae scoffs and turns around, heading to the wall beside the front door and flicking on the light switch.

In the light, the dark circles under Youngjae’s eyes are stark against his skin. He looks tired and even a little sad, being forced to recollect things he’d rather keep at the back of his mind was taking a toll on him more than Mark had thought it would.

Mark makes his way to the door without another word. Youngjae’s presence is faint from behind him as he slips on his shoes, as if Youngjae was ready to slip back into the darkness the second Mark was going to leave. As he reaches for the door handle, a brief thought runs through Mark’s mind.

“What was your name?” It slips out of his mouth before he even thinks about whether it’s appropriate to ask. He looks over his shoulder to find Youngjae stiff, a hand clenching the wall beside him. “Back then, in the beginning.”

Youngjae his lips and gives the floor a look, “Does it matter?”

“Is it hard to say?” Mark retorts.

Youngjae stretches out his jaw and gives Mark a final look. “See you at work, Mark.” He says, flatly.

Mark takes his expression in and decides not to push it. “See you.” Mark says before leaving.