Jinyoung woke up to the early morning sunlight streaming through Mark's blinds, forcing him to crack open an eye and attempt to orient himself. Naturally, this didn't prove difficult when the first thing he saw was the body of Mark sleeping next to him. The memories came flooding back in a beautiful rush, and he was half tempted to shake Mark awake so they could do it again when he happened to spot his jeans lying on the floor, his cell phone peeking out of the back pocket.

Oh , he thought to himself, his stomach sinking. He had no memories of calling Yugyeom or Kunpimook or Jaebum to tell them he wasn't coming home last night. He would be lucky if his mother hadn't phoned into the national media that he'd been abducted. There was probably a manhunt going on for him right at that moment, and any second now, some armed cop was going to burst in and catch him in bed with another man, covered in kiss marks and sporting some pretty obvious hair.

His hips protesting, Jinyoung still lunged for his phone and pulled it out of his pocket, scrolling down the long list of missed calls alternating between the three servants. There was also a steady stream of threatening text messages from Yugyeom, the last of which read “YOU ARE LUCKY THAT I'M COVERING FOR YOU TO YOUR PARENTS RIGHT NOW, I DON'T CARE HOW GOOD THE IS, WHEN YOU COME HOME, I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU.”

. As much as Jinyoung hated the idea of screwing and ditching, he knew he had to get home in case his mother was still debating the manhunt. Jinyoung had never stayed the night over at someone's place. That's what happened when you didn't have friends, but now that he apparently had a boyfriend, all bets were off.

Pulling on some clothes, Jinyoung scuttled into the kitchen where he wouldn't disturb Mark. He punched in Kunpimook's number, praying that he wasn't disturbing his sleep.

Kunpimook answered on the third ring. “Hey, man, congrats. Yugyeom is flipping.”

“I know,” Jinyoung whispered. “Could you come pick me up?”

“Where you at?”

“Umm...” Jinyoung didn't actually know. He hunted around Mark's kitchen until he found an electricity bill stamped with Mark's address, and read that off to Kunpimook. “Could you please tell Yugyeom I'm sorry?”

“It's okay, Young Master, really. He's just annoyed because he had to put up with the mistress's hysterics all last night. And I highly doubt you're sorry if you were doing what I think you were doing, so don't mention it.”

Jinyoung couldn't deny he was right.

When he hung up, he went back to the bedroom, debating about whether or not to wake Mark up. He wanted to say goodbye (for now) and sneak some more kisses in, but Mark looked so peaceful sleeping that he couldn't bring himself to do it. They'd had a late night—Mark deserved the rest after all he'd done to and for Jinyoung the night before.

Instead, Jinyoung dug up some stationery and jotted down a quick note for him:

Happy contract ending! I truly enjoyed our celebration, and I'm sorry to run, but I don't want certain family members to suspect I've been kidnapped. Silly concern for a twenty year-old, I know, but you were the one who seduced the sheltered twenty year-old, so I'm not too guilty.

See you again sometime soon? I promise not to pay you for it!

Xoxo, Jinyoung

He placed it on top of the pillow he'd used the night before and went outside to wait for Kunpimook and either the racecar or the limo to come pick him up.

It wound up being the limo. “In case you need space to stretch,” Kunpimook explained when Jinyoung stepped in. “You look a little rough.”

“I feel great, actually.”

“Sure you do. But make sure to change into the clothes I left you in the back so your mother doesn't realize anything is wrong. We told her you were staying the night at Youngjae's, FYI. Also, please comb your hair. You need it.”

Jinyoung did so obediently. He'd been a bit rebellious lately, but even he wasn't dumb enough to raise his mother's suspicions or tick off an already very ticked off Yugyeom.

Things were easier to manage at home than he'd thought they'd be. His parents were both slow to wake up in the morning, so they were on the drowsy side when he strode into the dining room to join them for breakfast. His mother simply kissed him on the cheek, asked him how Youngjae was, and reminded him “Sweetie, please call home in a more timely manner, all right?” His father simply launched into a half-awake analysis of what he thought of the Choi Group's recent business dealings, which Jinyoung could safely tune out as he replayed the events of the night before in his head.

He'd really done that. Mark had really done it with him. He couldn't recall being officially asked out as a boyfriend, but did one even do that when they were in their twenties? He was pretty sure they were together now. He, Park Jinyoung, had a boyfriend for the first time in his life, a handsome, funny, intelligent, endearing, jack-of-all-trades boyfriend who also happened to be highly skilled in bed. He couldn't imagine things getting any better than this. It was even easy for him to ignore Yugyeom's look of pure annoyance when he came into the dining room under the pretext of grabbing Jinyoung's “overnight bag.”

After breakfast, Jinyoung was about ready to pass out from exhaustion left over from the night before. He seriously needed a nap, and badly. He crept upstairs, hoping there weren't any servants following him, so naturally when he opened the door to his bedroom, all three were sitting on his bed.

“ you, Young Master,” Yugyeom said petulantly when Jinyoung entered the room. “I hope that was worth it. The mistress thought you'd been captured by pirates. Pirates. I had to spend a precious hour of my life explaining to her that you weren't going anywhere near the ocean, and even if you did, you'd be more likely to be struck by lightning than kidnapped by pirates. I don't think that made her any happier, either. She freaking fainted again.”

“Why are you mad at me?” Jinyoung asked with a yawn. “You should be mad at Jaebum, since it's his job to take care of my mother.”

“Oh, don't think I'm not,” Yugyeom said, glaring at Jaebum.

“Could you please get off my bed? I need to sleep.”

“Come on, Yugyeom, you can at him in the evening,” Kunpimook said. “He has clearly been well and truly nailed, he couldn't walk straight when I picked him up this morning.”

“Thanks for announcing that to everyone,” Jinyoung said sarcastically.

“Hey, don't you want that picture I promised you before you pass out?” Jaebum said, lifting up a photo between his thumb and forefinger. “I take it you guys are dating now, so here's your present.”

Jinyoung revived quickly, and snatched it from Jaebum's fingers. It was a picture of him and a large group of young children posing along a wall with giant “HAPPY 8^th BIRTHDAY JINYOUNG” banners strewn across the back drop. It was almost unnerving how uniform they all looked to each other, each wearing the nearly identical designer-wear that had been determined acceptable for children that fall, all the boys sporting that same, stupid upswept hair Jinyoung still had to remind himself it was OK not to style himself with every morning. Jinyoung almost had a difficult time finding himself among the party-goers, since he looked nearly identical to Youngjae on his left and one of the DigiComet Jungs on his right.

There was only one boy who was different, one wearing slightly different clothes and sporting a close cut hairstyle which was too short to sweep up. At first, the boy was unfamiliar, and Jinyoung couldn't assign a family name or industry to him, but a second later, it hit him as he stared at the picture.

The tiny details of the boys face, like his eyes, nose, and lips were similar to the adult Mark's. This was surely one of the events Mark had been invited to in connection with Youngjae, just like he had mentioned. The boy who stood out as different was different, and it was Mark.

But more important than that. Old memories were assaulting Jinyoung's mind, a view of a young boy mostly obscured through a blindfold, but one whose silhouette was visible enough for Jinyoung to remember the details he had seen. The unfamiliar face, the unfamiliar voice saying “I love you.” The hair which hadn't been upswept, but lying flat. It wasn't the TeleKomMart Bang after all. Jinyoung had gotten it wrong.

“Oh my god,” he said out loud, his heart pounding as he stared at the picture. “It was Mark. Mark was my one minute first kiss.”

It all clicked into place for a moment. Mark's silent reaction to his first kiss story, his refusal to give the details of his own story, his repetition of the fact that Jinyoung had been hiding in the closet as if it had snagged his memory, the fact that he had claimed he'd spoken less than five words to Jinyoung, because in actuality he'd only spoken three.

It sent Jinyoung's mind whirling. Mark had been the one who had kissed him at the party and said the words “I love you” to him when they were eight years old. Had he really loved him all along, all this time, and the reason he'd never confessed in the first place was because his family had moved again, pulling him away? Had he taken advantage of fate throwing them together again to do everything right this time that they'd messed up last time?

But the more Jinyoung thought about it, the more things fell back out of place. Yes, Mark had recognized his name from the file, but he'd seemed shocked when Jinyoung had started talking about the first kiss story, as if he hadn't remembered it until that moment. He'd even assumed the person in Jinyoung's kiss story was one of the girls from the party, until Jinyoung had explained it to him. And what reason did he even have as an eight year old to love Park Jinyoung, who had never spoken to him and hadn't interacted with him enough to remember his face in the first place? It didn't add up, and the more Jinyoung tried to stretch it, the less it made sense.

Why had Mark kissed him and confessed to him on that day? What was the missing piece which held everything together into a clear and logical answer? He was half desperate to know the answer and half terrified. His last memory of Mark had been so beautiful and perfect wrapped in bed with him, their sweaty, bare skin warm and pressed together from head to toe, and he didn't want to confuse his emotions from that moment or find a single flaw in their process of falling in love. But the truth remained that Mark had once again deliberately kept something from him, and he wanted to know why.

“Are you OK?” Yugyeom asked, finally sounding concerned. “What did you say about a first kiss?”

Jinyoung shook his head. His body was heavy with exhaustion. He couldn't do this now. He needed to be alone, and he needed to calm down.

“I'm sorry guys, but I'm just really tired,” he said, his voice shaky. “Would you mind letting me take a nap for a little bit?”

“Ah, yeah, of course,” Jaebum said. “Sorry for bothering you during this, um, delicate time. Sweet dreams.”

Yugyeom was still hesitating to get up and leave with his question unanswered, but Kunpimook hauled him up to his feet. “Let's go, man,” he said lightly. “I'm sure Jinyoung will have plenty to say when he's feeling better, whether you want to hear it or not.”

When the servants were finally out of the room, Jinyoung threw himself down into bed, staring at the photograph in his hands. Who were you?, he wondered, staring at Mark's image. What did you think of me, and does it have anything to do with what's happening right now? Why have you never told me?

But the photo of Mark remained silent, frozen in a time Jinyoung felt like he no longer understood. Exhaling sharply in frustration, he buried his face in his pillow and tried to shut out his thoughts long enough to go to sleep.

He woke up again sometime in the afternoon to the sound of his phone ringing. He thought it would be Mark, but it was instead an unfamiliar number. He roused himself as quickly as he could and accepted the call. “You've reached Park Jinyoung. May I ask who's calling?”

“Hey, this is Jackson Wang from Anything, Inc. You've recently had a contract expire, and we like to ask our clients to come in and evaluate our service and discuss a contract renewal if that's something they're interested in. Do you have time to come in?”

“Uh, sure?” Jinyoung said, still a little bit disoriented. “Today?”

“Today is fine, or sometime this week if you're busy.”

“No, I'm fine.” Jinyoung glanced at his watch. “How about 2 pm?”

“Sounds good. Just tell the receptionist in the lobby that you're here for an evaluation, and she'll direct you to the right place. I'll see you then.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Jinyoung stretched out after he hung up, working out the many kinks in his back. His head still felt muddled about the photo of Mark at his birthday party, but he was suddenly feeling a little bit calmer after his rest. Mark loved him. Whatever was in the past, he was pretty sure he could at least have faith in that. Maybe while he was at Anything, he could drop by and see if Mark was in the office and they could get the whole silly thing sorted out.

While he was getting dressed into something a little less rumpled, Jinyoung checked his phone. There was one short message from Mark: Hope you made it home OK. Let me know when you're free to meet up again! Jinyoung felt a little more at ease seeing his words, but decided to hold off on responding until he'd handled everything at Anything.

The Anything lobby was similar to the last time he'd seen it, with people calmly waiting for all their problems, worries, and trivial tasks to be soothed. Jinyoung wondered what shape their journeys at Anything would take, and if any one of them would find something as important as what he'd found. He wondered if any of them would ever be assigned to Mark.

Jinyoung went to the reception desk and told the girl there that he was there for an evaluation with Jackson, and she directed him down a hallway to his left which would end in a private meeting room where he was supposed to wait for Jackson. He spotted the entrance to the men's room on his way down the hall and ducked in for a moment to triple check to make sure he didn't have any visible hickeys exposed.

While he was looking over himself in the mirror, he could hear two voices coming from the toilet stalls. “Hey,” one was saying. “Want to go out to the new restaurant down the street for lunch? I'm starving.”

“Nah, I already ate,” a voice Jinyoung recognized as Jackson's responded. “I have an eval at 2.”

“Oh? Who's being evaluated?”

“Mark.”

“Oh, sweet, so you get to have tea and cookies with an old lady who does grocery shopping with him? Jealous. All of Mark's clients are sweethearts.”

“Actually, this one's a younger guy, so probably no tea and cookies. Still a sweetheart, though.”

“Oh, is it that billionaire chaebol?”

“Actually yes, but not the one you're thinking of. A makeup chaebol instead of the retail empire chaebol. I just got a good feeling about the guy, you know? With how hung up Mark's been for the past year on that retail guy, I thought he needed a wake up call from someone equally adorable. And you know what, I was 100% right as usual, Mark is completely smitten. He actually gave me the money he earned from the last few meetings in the contract since he didn't think it was fair of him to take it. Then again, he did that a lot with the other guy too, on the days when Mr. Retail showed up with food or donuts or something, but those times he was a lot more miserable about it.”

“Damn, why can't any of my workers be rich boy magnets?”

“Look, I didn't do it for the money, kay? I did it for Mark because I hate to see him looking so pitiful. And trust me, this past year he's been the definition of pitiful.”

Jinyoung could hear one of the guys flushing the toilet, and he knew he had to get out of the room, but his body felt incapable of movement. Youngjae???? Mark was in love with Youngjae??

He knew it shouldn't have hurt. He knew he needed to think more of how Jackson had said Mark was smitten with him and how he'd given up the money on the contract because of the whole ethics conundrum, but his mind kept going back to the fact that Youngjae was the piece that had been missing the whole time, the piece that held everything together from the beginning. Youngjae, who Jinyoung had already been envious of his whole entire life had been the original object of affection, the one Mark had originally been thinking of when Jinyoung had stepped into his office. The reason Jackson had said not as cute, but the hair... when he'd been looking at Jinyoung before he paired Jinyoung with Mark. Because Jinyoung was like a more basic expy of Youngjae when they had their stupid, rich boy hair and their designer clothes on. The Walmart version of the real thing.

The hair. That was the reason Mark had kissed him during the party, because with his eyes covered by a blindfold, Mark had confused him for Youngjae since they'd been wearing almost the exact same clothes and had the exact same hair. The kiss that had left Jinyoung reeling for years had been meant for Youngjae.

It shouldn't have hurt because he knew Mark at least wanted him now, but it hurt, it hurt so much that he felt like he was going to be sick. He felt like a replacement shoved into the hole in Mark's heart because he'd been the exact right shape of the one who made it in the first place. He felt like a hollow replacement that had always and still did pale to the original.

He heard the bathroom stall door opening, and knew he had to get out. He bolted from the bathroom, running down the hallway, and back to the lobby. He stopped at the reception desk just long enough to inform the girl there that there had been a family emergency and he needed to go home and to apologize to Jackson on his behalf. Then he was out the door running, feet smacking against the pavement, drowning out his thoughts a little, but not enough.

I'm such an idiot, he thought. This whole thing was a mistake. First I was a robot with no personality, and now that I have a personality, I'm just a stand in for someone else. What was the point, what was the ing point except discovering I have a heart enough to be broken? I wish I hadn't found it at all. I wish I could go back. I wish I felt absolutely nothing.

But it was too late for that already. He couldn't just excise the things he'd learned from his brain and pretend like the world hadn't changed when it had. He couldn't unknow himself now that he understood what he wanted and had been touched by the unmistakable feeling of love. The love would always be there mingling together with the hurt, and he couldn't separate one without destroying both. That was the risk he had taken from the beginning, and now he had to it up and realize that he had wanted to face the real world, and this was exactly what the real world was like.

He shut himself into his room when he returned home, pulling down the blinds and locking the door, pretending as if he was still sleeping. He checked his phone, and there were a few new messages from Mark there, but he shut off the power without bothering to read them—frankly, he didn't want to be wooed by sweet words that would make him forget that he had been used and lied to. He just wanted to be swallowed up by a thick blanket and forgotten by everyone.

But apparently that didn't work in his household. Within minutes, Yugyeom was knocking on his door. “Young Master? I saw you run in looking upset. Is everything OK?”

Jinyoung didn't answer. The last thing he wanted to do right now was talk.

“You do realize I have the master key to your room and I'm not afraid to use it, right?”

“Don't come in,” Jinyoung warned. His face was all puffy and disgusting and he didn't want to be seen. “Just stay outside.”

“Fine, whatever.” He could hear Yugyeom press his back to the door and sink to the ground so he could be comfortable while they talked “What happened?”

“You knew, didn't you?”

“I knew what?”

“Who Mark was. That he was in love with Youngjae. Jaebum said something about the richest guy in our age group being after Youngjae, and that was Mark, wasn't it?”

Yugyeom released a long sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “That was Mark. We heard about that one through servant gossip awhile ago.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because if Mark fell in love with you naturally, why would it matter if he'd been in love with Youngjae before?”

“It matters,” Jinyoung said sharply. “Of course it matters. Haven't you realized that I'm a less rich substitute for Youngjae? If you look at our closets, we probably have the exact same clothes, and we certainly have the exact same hair most of the time, and we pretty much had the exact same upbringing and experiences growing up. Mark was able to change his mind and be with me because it's almost the exact same thing as what he originally wanted.”

“Young Master. Are you literally out of your mind? What exactly other than a few designer khakis and a bad haircut do you have in common with Choi Youngjae? He's this adorable, giddy, cuddly, upbeat, constantly laughing fluffball, and you're a gloomy, mopey, awkward guy who barely had a personality until recently. You are like the complete opposite of Youngjae to the point where I'm genuinely surprised that Mark was able to go from having a thing for Youngjae to having a thing for you because you have like 0% of Youngjae's charms. If it were so easy to replace you for Youngjae, why hasn't Jaebum done it yet, huh? He has easy access to you. He could have easily shifted his fantasies to you other than the part where you don't match a single one of those fantasies in the slightest because you have more in common with a broke shut-in than you do with Choi Youngjae. God, you're such an idiot.”

Jinyoung blinked. He'd never thought of it that way before, but wasn't Yugyeom right? He was jealous of Youngjae because he'd wanted to be like him, but the whole point of that was because he was nothing like Youngjae in the first place.

“Why, then?” Jinyoung asked. “Why didn't Mark just tell me?”

“I don't know Mark personally, so I can't tell you why. But don't you think maybe he realized that your feelings would be hurt that he originally liked your friend? Maybe he knew your reaction would be as bad as it is right now. I don't know. But Young Master, I did warn you, didn't I? If you have faith in Mark, stand by that even if there are things he has left to tell you. And if you have faith in yourself, stand by that most of all. So where is it, Jinyoung? Where is your faith in yourself? Where is your certainty that you made him love you and that's why he forgot about Youngjae, because why does he need Youngjae when he has you?”

It crept back to Jinyoung slowly. He wanted to believe that Yugyeom was right. He wanted to believe in Mark, who had after all insisted that Jinyoung had gotten him unstuck, presumably from his previously unshakable feelings for Youngjae. He wanted to believe it was because of him, the things about himself which made him who he was and different in his core from someone like Youngjae, that Mark had fallen in love.

It would be terrifying, but so had believing in the first place. If he had been strong enough for that, maybe it was time to be strong enough for this.

“I...I guess I still have a little faith left,” Jinyoung said finally. “I can try.”

“Good, because you're going to need it. Mark Tuan has been standing at the gate for about twenty minutes, and I've just pressed the button to let him in.”

“You...you WHAT?!?”

“Clean up your face and unlock your door, Young Master. The world has been good about giving you second chances, so don't turn back now. It seems I have a little bit of faith left in you, too.”

Jinyoung didn't have to be told twice. He threw open his blinds, scrambled to his walk in bathroom to give his face a quick scrub, and was just attempting to rearrange his blankets out of their miserable heap when Mark walked through the door.

“Hey...” Mark said. He was also looking in rougher condition than Jinyoung had been expecting. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before as if he'd just rushed to throw the nearest thing back on. “Look, we need to talk.”

“Yeah?” Jinyoung said, trying to act normal.

“Jackson thinks you may have overheard his big mouth talking about something he had no business talking about in the first place?”

“Something I should have heard from you maybe before I had  with you? Yes, I may have overheard something like that.”

Mark threw his head back, his expression falling. “. Listen Jinyoung, I did not want you to hear about it like that, and I am so, so sorry.”

“So when were you planning on telling me? Were you even planning on telling me, or was I just supposed to stay oblivious forever?”

“Of course I was going to tell you!” Mark insisted. “It's just that everything between us happened so unexpectedly and suddenly, that I was still trying to wrap my head around it myself when we got together. Maybe I should have waited a little longer before confessing my feelings to you, but having to be around you all the time because of the contract and you being so sweet...I couldn't wait until it all made sense because when I'm around you, absolutely nothing makes sense anymore other than that I love you. And I do love you, I really do, so if you have to doubt anything about me, please tell me it's not that.”

“If you want me to believe that, you have to be honest,” Jinyoung said. “Completely honest, because if you can't tell me the truth, then you don't really love me and we shouldn't go any further than this.”

“I'll tell you the truth,” Mark said, sitting beside him on the bed. “And I'm sorry in advance if it makes you upset or angry, but I just want to tell you that you weren't some coping mechanism or replacement for Youngjae. I'm not in love with him. At least, not anymore.”

“But you were.”

“Yes.” Mark sighed to himself. “The reason I didn't want to tell you my first kiss story was because it was the exact same as yours. There were three people who hadn't been found yet when the girls returned. You, Youngjae, and the DigiComet Jung. The guys who'd already been found were messing around, saying that they should send up some of the guys who hadn't participated yet to kiss you guys instead. You were right about one thing: the TeleKomMart Bang was all over the idea for your sake. He told me that he thought he'd seen you go down into the basement, so that's where he was going to look. He also said he was pretty sure Youngjae went up to the master bedroom, so I...” Mark sighed. "It was just a little crush on him back then, OK? I thought I'd just give it a try, see how it felt. And that kiss...well, you said so yourself. It did something to me. It made the whole thing go from a crush to an obsession. I liked it so much that I went ahead and told him...well, you, technically...that I loved him. It was huge for me. I had absolutely no idea until a few weeks ago that it was you. Especially since Youngjae mentioned it a few times afterwards. I guess the TeleKomMart guy wound up kissing him, thinking it was you.”

Jinyoung's eyes widened. He couldn't believe it. All along, he had thought the boy had never confessed to him because he'd had a change of heart and wasn't brave enough, but Mark didn't even know it had been him from the moment it had happened.

“Anyways, we left for America not long after that,” Mark said. “I never got the chance to confess to him, but I was still obsessed over the fact that there could have been something if I had just stayed in Korea with him. I grew up a little bit and started dating someone else, but I still couldn't forget that kiss. All I wanted was to see Youngjae again and have a moment as simple and sweet as that one had been. When I arrived here and met him again, I had these delusional thoughts that he'd also been waiting for me and dreaming of being together with me, and then to have to hear right away that he was interested in someone else and barely even seemed to remember that kiss at all... it was like being punched in the gut. I was ing miserable for the past year because I'd been incurably nuts for him for so long that I couldn't just give it up when I found out he was into Jaebum. I thought we were soulmates, and I was just waiting for him to figure it out, too.”

“Wow,” Jinyoung murmured, his chest aching. “I'm really sorry. When you were asking me to hook Youngjae and Jaebum up, you were asking for help to get over him... and I told you not to hold Youngjae or Jaebum responsible for your feelings. God.”

Mark shook his head. "No, you were exactly right. I was holding Youngjae responsible. I was forcing him to fit this memory and ideal that he never really belonged in, and I was forcing myself to hold onto that ideal, even though it wasn't real. What you said woke me up to that. And it wasn't just what you said. It was you. That simple straightforwardness and genuine way of thinking you have mattered more to me than anything Youngjae has ever done.”

“Are you sure?” Jinyoung asked. “Are you sure you're not just saying that? Because if you're not sure, you're only going to put me through the exact same thing you went through, holding out hope for something that never even existed.”

“I'm sure,” Mark said fiercely. “The thing with Youngjae was half my own delusions, but it felt enough like love and hurt enough like it for me to recognize it a second time. And with him it didn't even hurt half of the extent it feels and hurts with you. Knowing that I may have just ruined things forever with you hurts a thousand times worse.” He looked at Jinyoung, his expression pained. “Is that not fine with you? Because I can't erase it, Jinyoung. I can't change the fact that I fell in love with someone else before falling in love with you.”

Jinyoung stared down at his hands. No, he couldn't just throw his feelings away for that shallow of a reason. If Mark loved him, that was enough. He couldn't live his life always anticipating being someone's first love when it was just as good of a thing to be a second love, as long as there was love at all.

“There's just one other thing,” Jinyoung said softly. “Was it just figuring out about the kiss that made you change your mind? Do you really love me, or do you just think you do because that kiss made us soulmates in your viewpoint or whatever?”

Mark put his hand on top of Jinyoung's gradually, as if he thought he might wince away. “I'm not going to lie, I was happy I could find you again, the real you. And the kisses yesterday...everything about yesterday was real to me, and I did it because I'm in love with you and I wanted to be together with you, not because I was trying to relive a memory. I'm not just in love with you because physically we're a match, but because everything about us is a match. Your simplicity, your straightforwardness, your effort, your determination, even your innocence. All of it is yours, and has nothing to do with that one little memory of you where I didn't even know it was you. I'm in love with all the things that add up and make up you, and I just have 100% faith that it's not a mistake this time. Even if I had kissed Youngjae that day, I still would have fallen in love with you during all our meetings together.” Mark squeezed his hand. “What about you? Do you hate me now? I promised not to hide things from you, and did it anyways. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't want to see me again.”

Jinyoung clutched his hand tightly. “No, you're not going anywhere. Enough of that.”

Mark's eyes softened a little. “So...it's okay if we're lovers now, now that everything's out in the open? Because I didn't lie about any of my feelings for you. I will never ever lie to you about that.”

“I just said that I didn't want you to go anywhere,” Jinyoung said. “Not that I'm not incredibly pissed at you.”

“Ah...”

“If I let you get away with this, what if you just do it again? I want us to trust each other completely, so I don't think we should just go back to, um, the way we were last night without getting back on track. I think you're right, we just did everything so fast in the completely wrong order. So I'm proposing a new contract.”

Mark had the decency to look contrite. “Um, Jinyoung, I gave all the money to Jackson from last time because for me everything with you wasn't like work. I really don't think I can or should be in a business relationship with you anymore.”

“It's not going to be an Anything contract,” Jinyoung said. “Just an agreement between you and me. That we're going to take the time to fill in all the blanks we've been leaving out and keep falling in love with each other without holding anything back. I feel like you know so much about me and how I feel, but I really don't know much of anything about what it was like for you then and what it was like for you when I came into Anything and you recognized my name. I want to know everything. The whole truth this time. So let's start meeting again. Let's try and have some more new experiences together. And after that...”

“After that?”

“I'll probably still be in love with you, but there will be no missing pieces in it. And I'll be the proudest person on Earth to call you my lover.”

Mark exhaled his pent up breath. “I think I can live with that.”

“Good. I was hoping you wouldn't say no to some more dates. Our old meetings were good, but they were more like intensive questioning. I'd like something more relaxed, where we can just focus on being natural together.”

“But...I'm getting the feeling you're saying no until the point where you're more secure about us.”

“Yes, that's the idea. Think you can live?”

“Uhhhh...I'll try?”

“Don't worry. I don't think it will take long. Just focus your energy on being open with me, and I'll be open with you. Um, all the way open.”

“All right. Fair enough. I'll walk the straight and narrow and not mess this up a second...ahem...third time.” He leaned over and kissed Jinyoung gently on the lips, holding it a bit long for someone who had just been told would not be happening right away. “Kissing is still OK, right?”

“As long as you don't push it.”

“I told you, Jinyoungie. Ever since the first time, I can't do small kisses. Not with you.”

Jinyoung lifted an eyebrow. “Just...be good. Be good to my heart. It's apparently not good with explosions.”

“Explosions?”

“Like today.”

“All right.” Mark wrapped his arm around Jinyoung's shoulder, his arm gently. “I'm never going to make you feel like today again. I love you. I'll spend as much time as you need proving that to you. Starting now.”

A/N: And now you all know the reason why I've been cackling to myself since chapter 3 came out...usually I can't pull anything on you guys without you figuring out, but most of you were only half right in your theories about Mark's backstory :p You can't ignore Jaebum when he's deliberately dropping hints all the way back in Chapter 1 ;)

Anyways, an epilogue is still left. It will be coming soon!