Haechan needs someone to blame to make himself feel better about everything. Should he blame Mark for making a stranger his muse? The stupid fans that took pictures of him and spread his image around? Or should he direct his malice at the interviewers who asked the question?

Mark on the other hand; he needs to scratch that itch in the back of his brain that comes far and few in between, that itch that usually leads to a genius creation, a composition ahead of its time. Revolutionary. He’s only experienced this feeling twice before in his life.

The first time is when his favorite uncle passes away. For weeks, Mark struggles with depression, struggles keeping it all together. The itch in the back of his brain is the thing that pulls him out once he starts scratching at it. He composes a heartfelt dedication, a ballad.

It’s in memory of his late uncle, and he keeps it under wraps for the most part, but somehow the higher ups at the company get wind of the production and convinces Mark to let them take a listen which turns into them convincing Mark to sell them the song.

One of the company’s veteran singers falls in love with the song, saying that it’s the ballad his winter special album needs. While Mark feels honored to have the opportunity, naturally, he’s adhesive to giving something so precious to him away. It seems so wrong.

But after hearing the emotion behind the man singing his lyrics, after hearing his voice alongside Mark’s music, seemingly fitting together like a puzzle, Mark has a change of mind. The world needs to hear this, too, he thinks. Hear his music. His message. He sells it to him.

The song is released as a side track for the veteran's winter special album, but charts better than his title track. That time was when he was still a trainee. The second time Mark gets an itch is after the boy group he would be debuting in learns of their name, BnB (Black on Black).

It’s an exciting time for him and the other trainees. All of their hard work seems like it’s finally paying off. And then, their company shares their debut track with them… and they’re confused. The song chosen for them is dated, extremely conventional, and lackluster.

“We’ll flop with this song. It .”

Mark hears these complaints daily and somewhere in the midst of all of them, the itch begins. He takes his time scratching it, but once he finally digs in, the song he produces is exciting, and much more suitable for a debut track.

With a lot of convincing, Mark’s title track is switched with the garbage one, and the future looks bright again. They have a hot debut because of the song and claim the title of Monster Rookies. Mark’s learned to respect that odd itch, the “Hitmaker Itch” as he’s dubbed it.

His muse brings back the Hitmaker Itch, but Mark can’t quite figure out how to scratch it this time. Before, it was easy; all he had to do was just focus in on it, meditate. But now, he has no clue. He can still compose, but none of his creations even come close to satisfying.

On top of that, Mark starts to think of his muse a lot more frequently than he’d care to admit. It’s like one second he’ll be minding his own business when all of a sudden--BOOM!-intrusive thoughts. Who is he? What’s he doing right now? And more importantly, where the hell is he?

Mark’s seen the pictures their group’s fans have uploaded of the boy with the lip print jacket. He’s seen the gossip sites’ headlines. The speculation within the comments. He’s read all of them, too. It amazes him how fans come together when there’s a good mystery involved.

He’ll never admit it, but he also has one of the better quality, higher res photos of his muse saved to his phone. It captures the dark shade of his hair and the melanin of his skin in high definition. Mark almost feels like he’s here with him whenever he looks at the photo.

But at the end of the day he’s not and a creepy picture can only do so much for his mind. He likes it better when all he had to do was just strike up an idea in his brain and run wild with it. When he had no muse. Everything now is just a little bit too complicated for him.

He wishes he at least knew a name. “Lip print jacket boy” turns into quite the mouthful after a while. And to say it’s been a while is an understatement. Almost two months have passed and Mark and the rest of the world have gotten zero leads on lip print jacket boy.

If it makes Mark sad over the last few days of BnB’s short-lived promotional period of their impromptu EP ‘His Confession’ and hit single “Outburst”, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say much, actually, these days. He grows accustomed to s’ hasty shushes when he comes around.

What always amazes Mark is how naive s can be in their attempts to keep something hidden from him when in actuality they’re super obvious about it. The only ones who do even a remotely decent job of keeping their composure around him are Renjun and Jaemin.

He would add Jeno, but his eyes are too expressive to not read them like a book. The youngest of the group, Chenle and Jisung, couldn’t keep a secret if they were the last two on Earth. Mark is pretty sure, though, they’ve developed a secret code for when he comes around.

Somehow, someone always ends up shouting water isn’t wet and then the group proceeds to rehash the same ol’ debate as if they hadn’t done that twice the day before. Suspicious, no?

After a schedule one day, Mark is sitting in the front with their manager when he hears whispers in the back.

“Is he okay?” Chenle asks.

“No, he’s in one of those moods,” Jeno says.

“Artistic moods,” Jisung responds.

“No, if it was one of his artistic moods, then he would be writing. But he’s stopped,” Jeno says.

“How do YOU know he’s stopped?”

“Yeah, you don’t room with him.”

“Yeah, but Jaemin does and he told me.”

“That’s not a bad thing, is it? That he’s stopped writing?” Jisung inquires. He looks to Chenle for an answer and when he has none, they both look to Jeno. He gives them an uneasy smile.

“It’s just temporary, not a big deal, I think.”

“You think?” They say it simultaneously. They exchange looks of awe and nod their heads, confirming their mental link.

Jeno hums. “Jaemin says he just overworked himself with the last EP and just needs to rest.”

“The power of a muse, huh?” Jisung wrinkles his nose in disgust.

Mark pretends to be asleep as he listens to their conversation and continues the facade of ignorance when they arrive back at the dorm. Later that night, Mark realizes that replaying Jisung’s comment in his head scratches at his Hitmaker Itch. He stays up writing notes for hours.