-A few years back-

“…so, that’s the gist of the project,” Mr. Walters said, setting down the paper he’d been reading from. “Like I said, you’ll be working on your assignment in pairs—think of yourselves as being co-counsels, working together to unite your audience under the story of your case. You’ll need to communicate a shared message, so choose carefully and think of who in this class you feel you can best collaborate with.”

Mark sat up straight, heart pounding. Jinyoung Park, he thought. Absolutely Jinyoung Park. He scanned the class wildly to make sure no one else was sending furtive glances towards Jinyoung. He could kind of see Dani Jo McKenzie eying him, and though Mark had always liked Dani Jo, no way was he about to let her beat him to his target. Not only had he been dying for an excuse to get closer to Jinyoung on a personal level, but he also thought it would be incredible to work with him on something connected to their shared passion for justice.

“All right, class,” Mr. Walters finished. “Let’s take about five minutes to work out the pairings, starting now.”

Mark practically rocketed out of his seat. Luckily, others in the class who had a clear thought of who they wanted as a partner did the same, so he didn’t make that big of a fool of himself in his eagerness. Jinyoung was seated just a row over, so Mark was able to reach his desk well before anyone else was able to.

“Jinyoung?” Mark said, catching his breath. Adrenaline was still pumping through him, as if this was a make-it-or-break it matter instead of just a class project.

Jinyoung blinked up at him. “Yeah?”

“Want to…want to partner up on this?”

Jinyoung's eyes widened, and he looked disbelieving for a moment. “I…I didn’t think anyone would want to partner with me,” he blurted out. After the words were out of his mouth, the tips of his ears turned red.

Mark smiled, a warm feeling spreading through his chest. “Well. Someone wants to. Up for it?”

“Of course I am!” Jinyoung leaned forward. “Did you have any case in mind?”

“Not at the moment, but I figured Mr. Walters will probably give us time to brainstorm. Did you have anything you wanted to do?”

“Actually, I might have an idea. I don’t know if five minutes is enough time to go into it, but we can discuss it later, right?"

“For sure.”

“You’re really sure you want to partner with me, though?”

“Yeah. Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

“No, no reason.” Jinyoung smiled again. “I’m actually really happy. I wanted to work with you, too.”

God. It was almost embarrassing how good hearing that made him feel. He was experiencing an almost romance manhwa level of chest flutters. He’d thought those soppy crush emotions would die out after high school, but apparently not.

When the five minutes were up and everyone was back in their seats, Mr. Walters explained how he would set aside ten minutes at the end of every class for the project partners to convene, but encouraged every one of them to meet outside of class when they could to more fully flesh out their project. Mark smiled to himself. He and Jinyoung had been friendly to each other within the classroom thus far, but hadn’t really had much opportunity to hang out outside of it. With this project as an excuse, maybe they could start hanging out at each other’s dorms, or at least in the university’s library or cyber café. And maybe that could extend to the two of them continuing to hang out after the project was over.

When class was over, Jinyoung walked over to his desk. “Hey,” he said. “Do you have any classes after this?”

“No, this is my last one of the day. You?”

“Same.” Jinyoung shuffled his feet a little. “Hey…if you’re not busy, do you want to drop by my dorm? We could talk a little more about a potential case for the project without, you know, digging into any gory details where people could overhear us in the cafeteria.”

Mark hadn’t expected to get his wish so soon, and had to struggle to keep his facial expression casual. “Yeah, sure. What dorm building are you at?”

“Hazelett Hall.”

“Oh? I’m just down the street in Beekman.”

“Isn’t that 80% theater kids?”

“Hey, I was assigned to it randomly. I never asked to be woken up by the neighbors belting showtunes at one in the morning.”

Jinyoung laughed as they walked out of the classroom together. “I feel like Hazelett gets all the druggies. Everyone’s sluggish, but at least they’re quiet.”

“They should be careful of the drug use when a criminal justice major is in residence.”

Jinyoung shrugged. “I’ll let the nice ones off the hook. The ones that annoy me, though…they’re definitely ending up on my list.”

“I’m curious…do you have any plans for your degree?”

“I’m still on the fence. I’m considering law school, but at the same time, I’m kind of interested in the journalism side of things. You know, like reporting on cases for either newspaper or television? Like that woman you talked about in the case you presented on for our last project, Ms. Townsend. Or like one of the correspondents for shows like 48 Hours or Dateline.”

“Like Peter van Sant?”

“Exactly like Peter van Sant!” Jinyoung grinned. “What about you, what do you want to do?”

“I’m also considering options, but I guess something involving field work? I always wanted to be a detective, when I was younger.”

“Detective Mark Tuan. It has a nice ring to it.”

Jinyoung swiped them in to Hazelett Hall and led Mark up the stairwell. “My roommate Jaebum should be out,” he said. “He’s been dating another Korean expat since Freshman year and is always off on karaoke or coffee dates. It’s part of the reason I love rooming with him so much. He gives me space.”

“Wish I could say the same for mine. I don’t know how Jackson can be such a busy guy and yet still be so persistently clingy.”

“Some people just have a talent for it, I guess.” Jinyoung unlocked the room and stepped inside. “Yup, looks like Jaebum’s not here. Perfect.”

Mark followed him in. His room was clean—or at least his half of it was—and decorated pretty minimally. The focal point was the massive bookshelf which was full to bursting with a wide array of books. Some were two-minute mysteries and criminology books, but others were literary novels or short story collections.

“Take a seat,” Jinyoung said, gesturing to his desk chair. Mark dropped into it, and Jinyoung plopped down cross-legged on his bed. “So,” he began. “Potential cases.”

“Yeah?”

“Reading over the project guidelines, it seems like international cases are fair game. So I was wondering if it would be all right with you if we covered an attempted murder that happened in Korea?”

“Sure. Of course. Which did you have in mind?”

“Actually…there’s this case that haunted me for a long time, one that happened in my neighborhood.”

“Your neighborhood?”

“Yeah. Actually, interestingly enough, that’s kind of the reason why I’m here in America in the first place. Me and Jaebum both. We were just little kids when it happened, and it freaked us out so much that we would have night terrors about it constantly. The fear of how close to home it was bothered us so much that the first opportunity we got, we applied for international study programs at high schools that offered them, and eventually ended up here in the states. A place even more famous for homicides, but I guess we forgot to take that into account.”

“Are you sure you want to do a project on this?” Mark asked anxiously. “It sounds like it might be stressful for you.”

“It’ll be fine. You know, I always kind of wanted to prosecute the case myself since it made me so angry, and now here’s my chance to do it. Even if it’s only in a fictional context. I think it might actually help.”

“OK,” Mark said, leaning back in his chair. “Tell me about it.”

“It happened in early October, back when I was in second grade. After school at around 3:35 PM, a high school student named Song Donghyun was walking home from school through a kind of off-the-beaten path area that took him through a small wooded area and an overgrown park on the outskirts of the neighborhood I grew up in. At about 4:13 PM, Donghyun was found in the park by a woman walking her dog, bloody and unconscious. There was a knife protruding from his back.”

“Creepy,” Mark said, shuddering. “How close was this to your house?”

“Less than a mile? And to make it even creepier, Jaebum and I had been planning on going to the park after dinner. It may have been overgrown, but it was still a fun place to play catch or whatever. If the woman hadn’t been out walking her dog, we may have been the ones to find Donghyun. And by then he may have been dead.”

“So you said it was attempted murder, right? Song Donghyun survived?”

“He did, and the fact that he did was vital to the case. Of course the police wanted to know right away if he’d seen his attacker. Donghyun had been stabbed in the back, so he didn’t get a good look at the person’s face. But Donghyun was able to testify that before he lost consciousness, the attacker walked in front of him, and he was able to see that the person who’d stabbed him was wearing a pair of bright orange Nikes.”

“Did that wind up being valuable? Given that this happened outdoors, were there footprints involved?”

Jinyoung nodded. “Yeah, there were actually several usable prints they could make casts of. It was also helpful because the first people investigated were Donghyun’s classmates, and there was a guy in his class known for collecting sneakers and having a pair of bright orange Nikes…Shim Chanyong. Who also happened to be my neighbor.”

“Damn.”

“Tell me about it. The evidence piled up against him. The police confiscated his sneakers, which matched the footprints from the scene. The bottom of the sneakers were also covered in dirt, which a soil test also confirmed was a likely match to the park. Oh, yeah. And there was a bloodstain on them. Donghyun’s blood.”

“All right…pretty damning. Did Chanyong seem like he was capable of doing something like that, to you?”

“Totally. Chanyong was well known at the high school for being a bit of a bully. His dad was this huge hardass—he reminded me of the American drill sergeant stereotype—and he was always yelling at Chanyong and I think roughing him up, too. So I think Chanyong felt the need to be that big, intimidating guy at school to give himself a place where he could be the one in power in his life. Not that it fully excuses him. On the same day Donghyun was stabbed, another student, Ahn Sungyoon, had been beat up by Chanyong in the bathroom a few hours earlier.”

“And now Chanyong looked guilty of attempted murder?”

“Right. And Donghyun was his trademark kind of target. He was like…I was joking about it earlier, but he would be pretty similar to the theater kids in your dorm. And Chanyong had verbally harassed him in the past. You know…anti-gay stuff. That kind of crap.”

Mark nodded grimly.

“So basically everyone thought he’d done it. Jaebum and I thought he’d done it, too, and it scared us less because he was still living in our neighborhood before they arrested him. He was living next door, in my case. I remember being terrified he’d stab me, too. Or that if the police came, Mr. Shim would go crazy and beat everyone in the neighborhood up as punishment.”

“That’s pretty heavy stuff to deal with, for a kid.”

“Hence the night terrors. I was actually into showtunes back then, like Donghyun, but I stopped listening to them after that, and I’ve never listened to them since. I guess it became associated in my head with…I don’t know, getting stabbed.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Still, kind of a shame. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t bought into that fear so much.” He frowned. “Anyways…Shim Chanyong was arrested pretty early into the investigation. You would have thought that would make me less scared, but it actually didn’t. I thought he would break out of prison and go on a revenge killing spree.” Mark accidentally smiled in amusement, and Jinyoung glared at him. “What? Ted Bundy escaped from prison and killed a handful more people. It’s a real thing.”

“True enough,” Mark said. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK. I know a lot of my reactions verged on a bit silly.”

“You were just a kid. Honestly, I would have been pissing myself every five seconds if I were in your shoes.”

Now it was Jinyoung’s turn to smile in amusement. “Are you sure that’s the mental image you want me to have of you?”

“Depends on if it’s better or worse than your current mental image of me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Would I?”

Jinyoung rolled his eyes.

“Back on subject,” Mark said, the fluttering feeling returning to his chest. “This seems like a pretty open and shut case as you’ve described it. But I have a feeling that since you want to use it for the project, a plot twist is coming.”

“Yes, but the plot twist was very slow to arrive. Shim Chanyong’s case went to trial, and his defense was that when he was leaving school for the day, he noticed his orange Nikes were missing from his locker, so he wound up walking home in his school shoes. However, the next morning, the shoes were in his locker and were dirty, even though as a sneaker enthusiast, Chanyong made an effort not to walk through dirt and mud in his nice pairs.”

“Well, I guess that’s a smidgen of doubt. Provided someone could confirm the story?”

“No one could. People in that high school avoided Chanyong like the plague, so no one hung around by his locker when he was there.”

“Could he establish an alibi?”

“Not one that eliminated him as a suspect. He said he walked home on an alternate path through the parking lots of nearby stores, but the police weren’t able to find witnesses that could confirm that. And he arrived home at 4:10, just three minutes before the body was found, which meant he was outdoors when the stabbing happened. The guy across the street from us was the one who testified to that, since he’d been out washing his car.”

“So…I’m guessing with all this evidence, he wound up with a guilty verdict on the attempted murder?”

“Bingo. He was a minor, so he went to a juvenile reformatory. Just like in America, juvie isn’t really helpful, and in a lot of cases, it just makes things worse. But in Chanyong’s case, it actually seemed to help. Maybe it was the fact that he got away from his father. Whatever the case was, he did pretty well there, and seemed really fixated on learning about the law. He was determined to appeal his conviction, and strongly maintained his innocence. And his determination caught the attention of a police detective who began to wonder if there was any merit at all to Chanyong’s continued assertion that his shoes were stolen.”

“I don’t know,” Mark said. “It’s kind of weird. I mean, yeah, high schoolers are pricks and they’d totally steal a classmate’s shoes for a laugh, but…it’s a bit of a stretch to follow up petty robbery with murder, no?”

“You might want to widen your scope a little,” Jinyoung said. “Remember the fact that whoever stole them returned them to the locker. With dirt and blood from the crime scene on them.”

“…which would implicate Chanyong for the murder, even if he was innocent.” Mark sat up. “OK. I can see where this is going. So either the murderer stole the shoes, tried to kill Donghyun in an unrelated crime, and saw an opportunity to dispose of the evidence and shift focus on someone else…or they stole the shoes specifically to commit the murder and pin it on someone else.”

“That’s what the police detective wondered. It was controversial, but she battled hard to get the sneakers sent for DNA testing, even though the case was technically solved.”

“Wait. They’d never been tested?”

“Just for soil and to match Donghyun’s blood to the blood on the shoe. The laces were never tested for DNA, for example. Because everyone in the class testified that the shoes belonged to Chanyong, so it was a given his DNA would be there.”

“True. But that doesn’t mean someone else didn’t wear them and leave DNA.”

“Exactly.” Jinyoung looked incredibly fired up. “And though a lot of people were infuriated about it, the police detective successfully had the shoes tested for DNA. As expected, Chanyong’s DNA was present. But so was someone else’s….on the laces, on the tongue…on all the places a person would need to touch to put the shoes on their feet.”

“Whose DNA?” Mark asked eagerly.

“Ahn Sungyoon.”

“Ahn Sungyoon…wait, you mentioned that name before…was that the kid who got beat up in the bathroom by Chanyong on the day of the murder?”

“The very same.”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” Mark asked in an exaggerated voice. “No, seriously. What? A bullying victim stabbed another bullying victim? Why?”

“I know, right? The bit character from the investigation winds up being the murderer—this was seriously the plot twist of the century in my city. I think the media’s collective head exploded at the time.” Jinyoung took a breath. “So basically what happened is that Ahn Sungyoon was enraged about Chanyong beating him up and wanted to get revenge. Life ruining revenge. He knew Chanyong also picked on Donghyun. He also knew Donghyun walked home alone. What if, he thought, someone does something to Donghyun, and everyone blames Chanyong for it? But Chanyong beating someone up wasn’t news. He did that frequently enough. It needed to be something more serious. Something more violent. A knife attack. A stab in the back, so the victim wouldn’t be able to fight back and see who his attacker really was. But how to get Chanyong blamed for it beyond a doubt? Simple—steal his very unique and distinctive shoes. Get the victim’s blood on them, and plant them in his locker. No one would question who had done it.”

“That’s like evil genius level of planning,” Mark said. “Especially considering he thought of the idea and executed it all on the same day.”

“Seems, a little far-fetched, right? That’s what Sungyoon’s lawyer claimed when the accusations started coming out. That it was so crazy that it couldn’t possibly be true.”

“I’m not big on that kind of defense. I mean, it is nuts that someone would do that. But impossible? No way. It was totally possible, right?”

“Completely. And it’s what happened. After getting that huge lead with the DNA, the police detective started pursuing more information on Ahn Sungyoon. Not only did Sungyoon not have an alibi for the time of the murder, but there was another piece of testimony which wound up implicating him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Testimony from the victim himself—Song Donghyun. He’d actually given it during his original interview with police, when he was describing the shoes his attacker was wearing. His exact wording? ‘I saw a pair of bright orange Nikes with white laces. The person’s heel was crushing down the back part of both shoes as if they didn’t fit right or the person had shoved them on in a hurry.’”

“Wait, that testimony existed from the beginning?”

“In police records, yeah. Donghyun didn’t mention it at Chanyong’s trial, probably because the prosecution urged him not to. After all, if Chanyong was walking all the way home from school, why wouldn’t he take a second to get his foot properly in his own shoes so he wasn’t wobbling along the whole time?”

“And Sungyoon’s foot size?”

“Two sizes bigger than Chanyong’s. There was no way he’d be able to fit into those shoes without his heel dangling out.”

“Seriously, what a crazy case! So, what happened to Chanyong after all this came out?”

“His conviction was overturned, and Ahn Sungyoon was tried for the attempted murder instead. And the judge wound up giving him a way harsher sentence than the one Chanyong had initially received since there was obvious premeditation involved.”

“Wild. I can’t imagine how Donghyun felt when all of this came out. I mean, the thought of someone trying to kill you is chilling, but at least it being someone who’d bullied you previously at least has context, you know? But someone using you as a pawn in an elaborate revenge scheme just to have a crime to frame someone else for?”

“And I know it’s selfish of me to push myself into the narrative when it’s not about me, but I grew up haunted by that very same revenge scheme. It affected my psyche to the point where I left the entire country to get away from my fear of it. I could have wound up with a completely different life, if not for what Ahn Sungyoon did.”

“Well,” Mark said. “It may be selfish of me, but I’m still really glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” Jinyoung’s smile looked a little sheepish. “So…think this will work for the project? I was thinking we could outline Ahn Sungyoon’s case. It’s a challenge, since to prove him guilty, we also have to prove Chanyong not guilty after he was previously convicted for the crime, but I still think it’s really compelling.”

“I think it’ll work fantastically,” Mark said. “Looking at the project guide Mr. Walters gave us, it’s also up to us to decide how we go about presenting our case. We could write a court script and act it out, write a newspaper article, do a mock Dateline episode, and so on…”

“Any idea of which you would like?”

“I was actually thinking maybe a YouTube style video would work. You know, something that would speak to millennial and Gen Z murderinos? We’d still have to be clear, on point, and convincing with our explanation of the case, but I think that also leaves us room to have banter, just like we did when you were telling the story to me now. I thought that it was really fluid and even kind of exciting that way. Don’t you?”

Jinyoung nodded. “Yeah. It can be hard for me to talk about that case sometimes, but it felt really right and natural talking about it with you.”

Mark grinned. “In that case, I think it might be a good homework assignment for us to do a little research on YouTube and see how other show hosts do it, so we can kind of follow off of that style.”

“Actually, want to just do that now?” Jinyoung asked. “Jaebum’s probably not going to come back for a while, and I don’t have anything going on today. If you’re free, want to watch some videos together now?”

“Are you sure it’s OK for me to stick around?”

“Of course it is. It’s our project, you know? I think it would be better if we did as much as we can of it together.” He grabbed his laptop and opened it, then patted the space next to him on the bed to indicate that he wanted Mark to sit beside him. “You seem more like a YouTube person than me, so how about recommending me some videos to start with?”

Mark felt embarrassingly shy as he got up and sat next to Jinyoung. Their thighs touched a little, and he could smell a pleasant whiff of Jinyoung’s cologne. Could watching videos about murder together actually count as a flirtatious activity? Was it even appropriate for his heart to be racing in a situation like this?

“Mark?” Jinyoung fished. “Video ideas…?”

“Oh. Right. Um, look up the Lizzie Borden case, there was a really great video I watched a few months ago on that.”

“Oooh, classic.” Jinyoung settled his back against the wall. “Feel free to steal a blanket or pillow or something. If we’re going to be watching a whole video, might as well get cozy.”

It was strange, Mark thought. He felt in one sense like he was on pins and needles being so close to Jinyoung, who he was pretty obviously head-over-heels for. But at the same time, sitting beside him on his bed and watching a video together about something they were both nerdily passionate about really did have to be one of the genuinely coziest feelings he’d ever had in his life.

Within weeks, he was making himself more than just a little cozy at Jinyoung’s place. He felt like he practically lived there, since every time Jaebum left, Jinyoung would call and invite him over to work on the project. And most of the time they did actually work on the project. It was a lot of work getting the filming aspect right since neither of them had been filmed for anything formal before, and neither of them knew much about video editing or making use of graphics like timelines or case photos either. But other times, when it felt like they were ahead on their project and had a little free time to kill, they’d turn on 48 Hours or Dateline and watch that together, or Jinyoung would pull out one of his two-minute mystery books and challenge Mark to a time trial.

Sometimes, though, they’d just talk. Mark loved learning the most random things about Jinyoung just by watching and listening to him. He was an easy person to talk to, and aside from being incredibly intelligent, he was also someone who wasn’t afraid of silence and didn’t always need to be running his mouth to have a good time. Mark really liked that about him. In spite of being in the midst of a somewhat embarrassingly pink-tinged crush, Jinyoung rarely made him feel awkward or unnatural. Everything just felt homey and cozy and exactly like the kind of love he wanted to be in.  

The more they saw of each other, the more determined Mark became. When this project is over, he decided, I’m going to ask him out. He wasn’t sure if Jinyoung was even gay or not, but he at least knew that if Jinyoung wasn’t into him, he wouldn’t be insulting about it. And he was kind of hoping how touchy Jinyoung was meant he had a shot. Maybe it was a cultural difference, but there barely seemed to be a moment where Jinyoung didn’t have his arms around his shoulders anymore.

He liked thinking about what would happen if Jinyoung said yes. He liked the thought of his visits to Jinyoung’s dorm not having to taper off, but instead become a daily occurrence. He fantasized about how good it would feel to get closer to him. To know more about him. To be the person he told everything to. To do more than just touch casually. To begin to unravel the mystery of what was going on inside that head of his.

After the project, Mark kept telling himself. After the project, I’m going to tell him everything. Maybe it won’t go well. But maybe it will.

“Twenty dollars,” Mark said, pulling a bill out of his wallet.

“Weak,” Jackson said. “How badly do you want to have this guy over, anyways?”

“Can’t you just think of how many of those organic cafeteria hot dogs you love so much you could buy with a twenty?”

“I could buy double that amount with another twenty.”

Mark sighed, but pulled a second twenty out of his pocket. “Deal.”

“er!” Jackson snatched up the bill. “That was $40 you could have spent on taking him out to somewhere more atmospheric than our crappy dorm room.”

“I happen to believe asking people out should be a private thing with no one else around.”

“Still, there are plenty of places out there you could be alone without having to throw down $40 to kick me out of. Not that I’m planning on giving it back. You’re rich enough to where you won’t miss it, anyways.” He pocketed the money. “So, what’s the game plan? Going to get down on one knee on our beautiful dogs playing poker rug and pop the question?”

“I…I’m actually not too sure how this is going to go,” Mark admitted.

“Weeeeeeaaakkk.”

“Shut up. Anyways, now that you have your forty, can you get out of here? I need to Febreze the place, and I can’t have you polluting it with your eau de gym socks.”

“You could really stand to brush up on your sweet talk, Mr. Lover Boy.” Jackson winked and opened the door. “Best of luck to you! Don’t do anything on my bed!”

Mark rolled his eyes. Truthfully, he did have a better idea than he’d let on of how he was going to confess, but was self-aware enough to know how cringe-inducing it was. As much as he liked Jackson, he knew better than to set himself up to be teased by him for the remainder of their acquaintance.

It would begin with a cake. He’d considered going the store-bought route, but had instead hunkered down and bought a ton of baking ingredients from the closest grocery store to the campus. The honors dorm had a student kitchen, so he’d had one of the residents swipe him in so he could spend the afternoon baking a cookies and cream cake, which when finished, he decorated with a cake topper that said “perfect team” he’d found in the wedding section of a party store.

That would be in honor of the A+ they’d gotten on their project together, which they were still riding high on. When they’d looked on their online report card and seen their grade, Jinyoung had launched into Mark’s arms and Mark had spun him around until they were both dizzy and laughing hysterically. It had been the first time in his life that Mark had ever been so jazzed about something school related, though he was pretty sure only a small percentage of his happiness had anything to do with academic achievement.

Along with the cake, he’d made a card. A cheesy, cringe-inducing card. A card that riffed off the cover of the two-minute mystery book Mark had been reading when they’d first met, but instead of the original title “A Crime Was Committed: Whodunnit?”, he’d changed the words to “My Heart Was Stolen: Whodunnit?”

He knew how embarrassing it was. But he also knew that it was the exact sort of thing Jinyoung would love and did it anyways. He was going to give it to him after the cake and hope for the best.

Jinyoung arrived at promptly 5PM, looking so put together and handsome that Mark felt like he wanted to skip to the part where he could kiss him. Instead, he hugged him warmly as they always did when they saw each other now. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Great, of course. You know me, there’s nothing better than getting a good grade.” Jinyoung chuckled. “You know, it feels weird since it was about an attempted murder, but…that project was seriously fun.”

“I had fun, too,” Mark said.

“Thanks for picking me as your partner.”

“Of course. If we get assigned another group project in the future, I’d pick you again.”

“Ha, now you’re just flattering me.”

“Not at all. I really mean it.”

The tips of Jinyoung’s ears turned pink. “Um, well, thanks. I’d pick you, too. You’re surprisingly entertaining.”

“Surprisingly?”

Jinyoung smirked. “What, were you only flattering me so that I would flatter you back?” He glanced around the dorm room. It was the first time he’d been there, since they usually hung out at Jinyoung’s place. “Wow…there are a lot of hats and shoes in here.”

“Jackson,” Mark explained.

“Where’s all your stuff?”

Mark shrugged. “I’m the kind of person who stores their universe inside their phone, I guess. But that bookshelf over there is mine.”

“Well…looks like you have every Spring Townsend book ever written.”

“Yup, I do.”

Jinyoung glanced back at him. “So…you invited me over for a surprise, you said. Where’s the surprise?”

“Close your eyes.”

Jinyoung did. Mark grabbed the cake box he’d hidden among the clutter on Jackson’s side of the room and set it on the end table he’d cleared off earlier. “All right, you can open them.”

Jinyoung opened his eyes, glancing down at the box. “I take it I’m supposed to open this, too?”

“Yup.”

Jinyoung pulled the lid up. “A cake? Perfect Team?” He beamed. “Awww, that’s really sweet. Looks fantastic! Where’d you get it?”

“I made it.”

“Oh, wow. Are you perfect or something?”

“It’s probably not as good as one from the store,” Mark said quickly. “But I thought it would be more special.”

“Of course it is! This was seriously so nice of you to do, especially after all the hard work you did on our project. You didn’t have to. But not going to lie, I’m happy you did. It looks delicious.”

“Then let’s have some.”

Mark only had plastic cutlery and plates he’d bought from the party store, but Jinyoung didn’t mind. They cut themselves slices and sat down on the dorm desk chairs to eat.

“Tastes just as fantastic as it looks,” Jinyoung reported.

“Thanks for saying so.”

“Anytime. I’m seriously really touched you did this. I was kind of worried…that since the project wrapped up, we wouldn’t be seeing as much of each other anymore. I didn’t want to lose my new murderino buddy.”

Mark was feeling torn between happiness at hearing this and not completely loving the use of the word ‘buddy.’ “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “We should absolutely keep hanging out.”

“48 Hours Mystery night on Saturdays?”

“And Dateline nights, too!”

“I’m up for it, if you are.”

Mark swallowed. “Actually…I was hoping we might be able to see a lot of each other, even though the project’s over. There…there’s actually something else I wanted to give you…”

He started reaching for the red envelope on the desk when his phone started ringing. He jumped in place and instinctively grabbed it. Even though he didn’t recognize the number, he answered it, maybe out of sheer nerves at having been in the middle of trying to confess to Jinyoung.

“Hello?” he said.

“Heeeeeey, am I speaking to Mark Tuan from the Criminal Justice Department?” the voice on the other line said.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“I’m BamBam, your manager-to-be,” the guy said brightly. “Is Jinyoung around? Do you have a minute to meet up with me and chat? Because I’m going to make the two of you YouTube stars. Want to hear how?”

-Back in the present-

Mark grumbled to himself as he dug around for another cardboard box. He’d wanted to spend the afternoon researching a case, but Jinyoung had unceremoniously announced he was ready to start moving some of his things into Mark’s closet, but before he would, he needed Mark to clean it out a little. Mark was all for having Jinyoung ‘move in’ so he would stop stealing all Mark’s clothes, but at the same time, he wasn’t at all feeling the idea of having to actually straighten anything up.

Still, he dutifully grabbed a stack of papers and books from his college days and began to sort them. He tossed his yearbooks into the cardboard box, and put his old notebooks aside to throw out with the trash. He was pretty sure he didn’t need his economics notes to get through the rest of his life.

Near the bottom of the stack was a red envelope. At first, Mark couldn’t place it—maybe it was one of the birthday cards his parents had sent him when he’d been away at school. But if that were the case, it would have been addressed and stamped to him. Not only was this envelope unwritten on, but it was also still sealed and unopened.

Wait, Mark thought. Is this…?

He thought back. After BamBam had called, Mark had tucked the card away for another time. He’d thought that time would come soon, but BamBam’s simple declaration that he was going to make them YouTube stars had come with a lot of work attached, and the right time had never presented itself. Mark had wanted to wait until things settled down so that he could put his undivided attention into expressing his feelings.

But he knew how that had gone. Things had never settled down. And over time, he’d lost sight of the pure, straightforward sense of certainty he’d intended to express his feelings with. He’d put the card away with doubts it would ever be shown or accepted, and the confession had eventually come instead in the form of a sobbing, distressed Jinyoung tackling him into a wall and kissing him.

Mark traced his finger along the perimeter of the card. It was hard to say that it would have been better to have just given it to Jinyoung when he’d meant to when the present was so satisfying even with the roundabout path things had taken. Maybe things would have been just as good, but he didn’t want to take everything he was feeling right now for granted.

Still, he thought. I’ve never liked loose ends. Maybe all this time, he’s been wondering what I was going to give him before BamBam called. Let’s rescue this from being a cold case.

“HEY, JINYOUNG!” he called out. “THERE’S SOMETHING I WANT TO GIVE YOU!” 

-FIN-