The apartment was unusually quiet without Jinyoung there. Mark was having a hard time getting used to it, even though he’d only stayed up for an hour or so after arriving back from the convention last night, and had only been up about two hours this morning. Already he was feeling the absence of Jinyoung at their table eating breakfast, Jinyoung singing pop songs in the shower, Jinyoung settling down beside him on the couch as they got to work on their research for the day.

He tried to get a start on said research on his own, but about twenty minutes in to reading into a cold case that was recently being reinvestigated, he had to push his laptop to the side and confront the jumble of thoughts in his head.

Jinyoung was in love with him, it seemed. Since over a year ago, and maybe earlier. He’d intended to buy a Valentine’s Day present to encourage Mark to make his own feelings known, but when that plan hadn’t panned out, he had for some reason not tried again.

The whole situation was a flustering blend of elation and confusion. On one hand, Mark didn’t really want to care about anything else because Jinyoung was in love with him, and since Mark was very much in love with him back, they could be together once they got the smaller details sorted out, and there was nothing Mark wanted more in life than to call Jinyoung his and shower him with the love that he’d been holding on to quietly in his heart. But on the other hand, a part of him still felt anxious about all the things they’d left unsaid—would Jinyoung forgive him for being too cautious with his feelings? Would he be able to understand why Jinyoung had chosen to join in on his silence, even though he’d apparently known about Mark’s feelings for him?

I wish he was here, Mark thought, falling back on the couch. I wish we could be talking about this now, rather than waiting. Still, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t known in advance that Jinyoung would be occupied celebrating his childhood friend Jaebum’s wedding over the next few days. The timing of having the partial truth come out couldn’t have been worse, and he wasn’t looking forward to the slog of getting through Jinyoung’s absence with this big question mark floating over everything he did.

Just as Mark was hauling himself back up to grab his laptop and make another stab at his research, his phone started going off. It was Jinyoung, so he answered right away. “Hey, don’t you have a wedding to attend?” he asked, glancing at his watch. The ceremony would be starting in less than an hour-and-a-half, if he was remembering correctly.

“Mark.” Jinyoung’s voice sounded urgent. “Did you watch the news this morning?”

“No. Why?”

“Three prisoners escaped from the Fairhill Correctional Facility around 3 AM last night. There’s a manhunt going on in our county to track them down.”

“Oh?” Mark grabbed the TV remote. “That’s not the high-security prison, is it? Were the escapees serious offenders?”

“Two of them were in for armed robbery. The third…” Jinyoung took a breath. “Fairhill was where Derrick Chase—Daphne Cromwell’s killer—was remanded after he couldn’t make bail. He’s the third escapee.”

“Well, I’m sure the police aren’t liking that, having a murderer on the loose.”

“Forget the police,” Jinyoung said, a bit wildly. “It was highly publicized that you and I had a hand in his arrest. What if he tries to go looking for you out of revenge?”

“Isn’t it more likely that he would try to flee out-of-state?”

“This is Derrick Chase, Mark! The guy who laid in wait for years to kill a woman he held responsible for his loved one’s death! Who’s to say that he won’t carry over that attitude to getting his revenge on us?”

This was a fair point. “It’s not like he knows where we live, at least. We’ve made sure that information stays unreleased and private so that we can avoid any surprise visits from fans. And if he just wanders around the city looking for us, the police will nab him before he’s able to do much of anything.”

“I’m not about to bank your life on that, Mark! Who knows what people can pull up on the internet these days if they’re motivated enough?” He took a shaky breath. “Could you please just get out of the house until the police catch him? Don’t go to BamBam…his name appears on the credits of all our videos. It would be better to go to someone with no traceable connection to us that someone doing an internet search could turn up.”

“So I’m assuming that eliminates my sisters?” Mark asked, watching the news footage on mute of the police sweeping the area for the escapees.

“Go visit Jackson or something. Stay the night at his place until this calms down.”

“All right, if it makes you feel better.”

“It will.” Jinyoung took a few more breaths. “I know I said I’d be staying longer, but I’m coming back first thing after the reception is over. I’ll join you at Jackson’s, even if I have to show up at 2 in the morning.”

“It’s a three hour drive, Jinyoung, and I know you already made hotel reservations where you’re staying. Besides, wouldn’t it better for you to stay away until he’s caught?”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I won’t be alone if I’m with Jackson.”

“Let me be clearer. I need to have you in my sight and physically watch you breathing until he’s back behind bars, OK? If they catch him today, I swear I’ll calm down and stick around with my friends here as long as I’d originally planned. But as long as he’s out there, I need to know you’re OK.”

He was probably getting a little too excitable, but Mark would have felt the same if he’d been in Jinyoung’s shoes, so he decided not to make light of it. “All right, Jinyoung. I’ll pack up and head over right away. I’ll spend the night tonight, but I’ll head back to the apartment tomorrow if Derrick Chase gets caught at any point today.”

“All right. I’ll call and check in when I have the time.”

“Give my best to Jaebum.”

“I will. Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“Will do. I won’t take one step out of Jackson’s house as long as there’s a killer on the loose, I promise.”

Mark called Jackson as soon as he’d hung up to let him know he was coming over, then tossed the phone on the sofa as he went to his room to pull together a duffle of clothes for however long he’d be staying. He felt eerily calm compared to Jinyoung’s panic and urgency, which was strange, considering he knew what Derrick Chase was capable of. He’d gotten away with his crime with ease before given his lack of connection to Daphne and his ability to catch his victim alone and defenseless given the remote location of her winery, but it wasn’t as if he could go stalking around every apartment complex in the city now the he was a wanted man. Mark still thought it was far more likely he was trying to get out of town than stick around in a place where he’d be easily identifiable and caught.

Still, he kept his eyes open as he headed into his apartment complex’s underground lot, and was relieved to find it vacant. He steered his car out, and from there it was a relatively short trip to Jackson’s. No one followed him there, and he felt pretty comfortable getting out of the car to knock on Jackson’s door.

“This is weird,” Jackson announced upon Mark entering his house. “Having a killer on the loose, and knowing the guy who helped put him behind bars. I’m still used to thinking of you as Mark, the guy who knocked down six piles of stacked auditorium chairs in 3^rd grade.”

“I can be capable of both, believe it or not.” Mark tossed his overnight bag down. “And it becomes a little less weird to think about when you consider that if he’d made bail, he’d be out and about anyways—though with restrictions, of course.”

“Well, ‘escaped from prison’ sounds a hell of a lot more terrifying than ‘out on bail.’ I was watching about it on the news, and it looks like they managed to break into some locked off area and gain access to the roofs. Crazy .”

“It was only a minimum-security prison.”

“Minimum-security prison or not, there was still a murderer in there, and it’s going to give me nightmares knowing that he broke out of there so easily.” Jackson shivered, “But I bet you’d rather not think about a coldblooded killer who knows your name lurking the streets, so I’ll be good and help you put it out of your mind for now. Other than being on someone’s hit list, how’s life?”

“Weird,” Mark admitted. “Things between me and Jinyoung kind of turned a corner at the convention thing I told you we were attending the other day.”

“Oh?” Jackson perked up. “I’ve been waiting to hear about this. Was it sharing another hotel bed? Did you accidentally poke him with a late night surprise finally?”

“No. One of our fans kind of brought it to light.” He explained to Jackson about what had happened with Hanyoung, and how his confession scheme had revealed the existence of the ‘ASK ME’ bear.

“Didn’t I tell you, Tuan?” Jackson said, smiling smugly. “Jinyoung’s been laying it on so thick for so long that he had to be interested in you. You were just too blockheaded to realize it for yourself.”

“Apparently,” Mark grumbled, having a feeling that this was just the beginning of him being made fun of his crappy detective skills when it came to Jinyoung. “I just can’t figure it out, though. Why didn’t he follow through with telling me when he’d clearly thought about it in the past? If he knew how I felt, what did he have to lose?”

“Maybe he was worried about the same thing you were—that if things didn’t work out, it might mess up things for your career or your fans.”

“But when I gave that as my reason for not telling him about the whole shipping culture surrounding us on YouTube, he told me that it didn’t worry him. He said that he doesn’t factor in outside opinions when it comes to us, and that he doesn’t think I’m capable of doing anything that would make him think badly of me.”

“God, I wish someone would say that to me.” Jackson rubbed his chin. “Well…looking at it another way, maybe he took the fact that you weren’t confessing to him as a bad sign. Like, maybe he took it to mean that you hold your career as a higher priority to him. I don’t know Jinyoung as well as you do, of course, but he doesn’t seem like the type who would stand for being second place when it comes to anything important to him.”

“Maybe,” Mark said. “But my career being a high priority is because it’s with him. It’s something we love, something that brought us closer together, so of course I didn’t want to risk it…it’s my biggest connection to him.”

“I know that, Mark, and you know that, but who’s to say how much Jinyoung knows? He’s sharp and observant, but he’s not a mind reader. I’m sure he would love to know everything you’re thinking, but you can’t expect him to get everything right just by guessing, no matter how smart he is.”

Mark nodded. This made sense to him, given the amount he also internally obsessed over what Jinyoung was thinking.

“Well,” Jackson continued brightly, “the good thing about all of this is you’ll be able to talk to him about it and find the answer soon, and then you two are going to be all lovey-dovey and happy and I bet you’re going to have an absolute joy of a love life. I mean, you two are basically already honeymooners with your shared YouTube show-baby and sugary domestic bliss.” He paused. “Actually, you’re already so couple-y that your lives really aren’t going to change that much. You guys eat together, cook for each other, hold hands for no reason, finish each other’s sentences…you’re already snuggling on the couch constantly as it is, but at least now you get to throw passionately Frenching in to the mix, I guess.”

“Um, I’m not sure how that’s going to work out. You can’t just French someone while watching a TV program about people dying.”

“Commercial breaks exist for a reason.” Jackson grinned. “It’s all for the best, though. You guys don’t even have to do the whole ‘get to know each other and establish harmony’ phases, which means you can basically skip right ahead to the screwing.”

“Charming, Jackson,” Mark said drily.

“Which also means this would be great opportunity for you to pump me for advice on all my trademark moves so you can leave him speechless right from the beginning.”

“Speechless in all the wrong ways, you mean,” Mark quipped. “Actually, I’d rather just have a few beers and play games so I don’t have to think everything that’s happening to death.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say so? I’m all for that!”

They spent the next few hours messing around with Jackson's Playstation, and ordered pizza and chicken wings for dinner to go with their beers. It felt good to relax fully for the first time in a while, though the thought of Jinyoung still nagged in the back of his head, unable to be fully shaken off.

After their tenth or so round of MarioKart, Jackson pulled out his phone and glanced at it. “Damn, it’s already nine? I can’t believe Jinyoung hasn’t called to check in on you. That’s so unlike him.”

Mark jolted, immediately grabbing into his pocket for his phone. Both of his pockets turned up empty, and when he went digging through his overnight bag, he couldn’t find it there either. “Try calling my cell, Jackson,” he said, hoping he’d misplaced it somewhere in the house and would be able to use his ringtone to find it again. Unfortunately, he was greeted by silence when Jackson dialed his number.

“, I must have left it at home,” Mark cursed. “Knowing Jinyoung, he’s probably freaking out. Can I use your cell to call him?”

“Uhhh, I don’t think I have his number, but if you have it memorized, sure.”

Mark shook his head. There was no reason he would have the number memorized, given that it was programmed into his phone and he rarely needed to call it anyways since he and Jinyoung lived and worked together.

“I’m going to have to go back to get it,” he groaned. “I’d honestly rather chance running into a loose killer than make Jinyoung worry any longer than this.”

“Let me at least check the news and see if the police have any updates.” Jackson checked his phone, then sighed in relief. “Yeah, they got him. And dang, it looks like Jinyoung wasn’t far off base with his freakout.”

Mark froze. “What…he was trying to go after us?”

“Not you. They found him attempting to break into Quincy Cromwell’s house—if I’m remembering your investigation correctly, that’s the guy the woman who killed herself was sleeping with, right?”

“Yeah, Daphne’s husband.” Mark frowned. “Right…Derrick Chase probably didn’t even know about the affair until it came out given the evidence we found. He probably holds Quincy partially responsible for what happened, now he knows.”

“Or else didn’t like the fact that his ‘friend’ was seeing another guy. Wasn’t he like creepily obsessed with her or something?”

Mark nodded. “So I guess it makes sense that he cares more about finishing avenging her rather than himself. What time did they catch him?”

“Around 7:45.”

Mark also sighed in relief. “Good. Jinyoung probably read the news at the reception, so he knew to stop worrying about me hours ago.”

“Then you’re safe to stick around, huh?”

“Technically. But I really should go back and call him. He’s probably still anxious, and I don’t want to leave him worrying if I can do something to ease his mind, you know?”

“You’ll definitely earn yourself some sweetheart points, so might as well do it.” Jackson clapped him on the back. “Let me know how it goes with him later. I’m expecting lots of juicy details, so you better deliver.”

“We’ll see.”

It was a short drive back to his apartment, and sure enough, his cell phone was right where he’d tossed it earlier after ending his call with Jackson. He winced when he checked the display to see there were over forty missed calls from Jinyoung, along with a stream of texts begging him to pick up the phone and let Jinyoung know he was OK.

He called Jinyoung’s number, but to his surprise didn’t get an answer. The reception was probably wrapping up by now, but maybe he was occupied in clean up or saying his goodbyes to Jaebum. Mark left him an assuring message that he was safe and Derrick Chase had already been caught—but he was guessing Jinyoung already knew that by now, given that his desperate calls and texts had tapered off around the time of his capture.

A few moments later, he got a call from Jackson. “Hey, thought I should give you a head’s up—Jinyoung just dropped by looking for you, and he’s on his way to your apartment now.”

“What?” Mark asked in surprise. “But he should be at the reception three hours away from here!”

“He bailed at 6:30 to drive home after you didn’t answer his calls.” Jackson paused. “Another warning, but you are 100% going to get slapped after he’s done crying over the fact that you’re not dead. He’s crazily overwrought.”

“Any strategic advice on calming him down?”

“Apologize a lot. And hug him—that poor boy is in desperate need of a hug from you.”

Mark could only imagine. The frenzy Jinyoung had worked himself up into had probably involved him imagining Mark being offed in a similar way to the initial victim, Daphne Cromwell, made all the more vivid and terrifying by the fact that the two of them had visited the site of that murder in person. He felt terrible that he’d left Jinyoung to be tortured by his active imagination when he should have been especially careful to bring his phone with him, and he was prepared to wind up slapped for it if that was what it came down to.

About five minutes later, he heard the sound of someone thundering up the stairs, and seconds after, the door was being thrown open, and a very red-eyed and pink-cheeked Jinyoung stood there panting for breath, still in his rumpled wedding suit and tie. When he laid his eyes on Mark, his lips quivered and the tension in his body seemed to collapse, and then, before Mark could even open his mouth and say his name, he was flying across the room to tackle Mark against the wall and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.

If Mark had been asked ahead of time what he thought his first kiss with Jinyoung would be like, it wouldn’t have been this. He’d always imagined a simple moment on the couch during one of the times where they were snuggled up close where Jinyoung would tilt his head back and look up at him with the kind of eyes which would tell him exactly what he wanted him to do, and then Mark would lean down and kiss him, and Jinyoung would kiss him back, and they’d come together naturally just like that. If he’d been more realistic with himself, he probably would have remembered that he tended not to look Jinyoung in the eye when they were that close because he was scared of reacting too much or not seeing any kind of deep affection in Jinyoung’s eyes, and that it would instead take something like Jinyoung throwing him into a wall and just tearing into him like this to make it happen in reality instead of just his fantasies.

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but it was heart-stopping all the same. Jinyoung was kissing him like he’d never have the opportunity to again, clinging to him tightly, hands digging into his shirt as if he never intended to let go. His body was shaking with all the pent up nerves and adrenaline that had built up because of his fear, but when Mark reached out to touch his waist, he seemed to settle little by little, loosening up and melding into Mark’s arms as his emotions shifted from anxiety to joy.

Not that joy was the only thing he was feeling. When he broke apart from Mark, his eyes narrowed, and he swung his hand back and delivered a stinging slap to Mark’s face. “How could you forget to bring your cell phone when you knew how scared I was about the jail break and how freaked it would make me feel if I couldn’t get ahold of you!” he yelled.

Mark had really meant to say “I’m sorry” since he knew Jinyoung had every reason to be angry, but what came out instead was a tremulous, “You kissed me.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious! Is this the part where you want me to inform you that you kissed me back?”

“Or maybe it should be the part where I tell you I’m in love with you.”

This only made Jinyoung look angrier. “No! No it should not! That part should have happened years ago—maybe like when we finished our project together and you looked at me with those eyes that my heart feel like it was doing somersaults in my chest. This is the part where you somehow give me back the years of my life you scared off with making me think you were hurt or in danger or dead. This is the part where you make my heart feel steady again, because I still can’t help but think that even though you’re right here, you could vanish on me when I blink my eyes.”

Mark swallowed, throwing his arms around Jinyoung and giving him that hug Jackson had so correctly guessed that he’d needed. “I am so sorry,” he said, Jinyoung’s back. “It was wrong of me. I never want to give you a moment’s worry or make you upset, all right? The happiest moments of my life are when you’re happy, so I hate that I made you feel this terrible. I won’t let it happen again, I swear to you. I’m going to try and take perfect care of you from now on, and if I ever screw up again, you’re more than welcome to keep on slapping me until I get it through my thick skull that you deserve the best that I can possibly give you.”

He’d hoped this might help Jinyoung calm down, but it seemed to make him cry harder, judging from the tears and tremoring he could feel against his shoulder where Jinyoung’s head had fallen against him. Mark rested his cheek against his hair and closed his eyes, holding back his own onslaught of tears. It felt so right to have this immeasurably precious person in his arms, but at the same time so weighty to face up to the knowledge that someone as pitiful as him was being tasked with the provision of happiness to this person who deserved so much more. He wished he could shower Jinyoung with only good things, but he was still so lacking in so many ways—he really had missed the point where he should have told Jinyoung how loved he was, and had left him and his imagination to fill in too many important blanks for too long.

A moment later, Jinyoung had lifted his head again, pushing him back a little so he could look at Mark with glistening eyes. It wasn’t a pretty cry—his face was splotchy, and his mouth straining to control itself. When he spoke, his voice was watery and out of its natural key. “I don’t need you to be perfect or to get everything you do right,” he said in that wavering voice. “I just need you to stay with me. Never leave my side. Love me in whatever way your heart is capable of, perfect or imperfect. Don’t make me feel like it’s possible for me to lose you when you’re holding my heart in your hands.”

He placed his hand on Mark’s still stinging cheek, gently this time, and pulled him towards him for another kiss, also gentler than the first. It was damp with tears and he was still shaking a little, but there was something trusting about it, as if he already knew that Mark was willing to give all he’d asked for now that he’d put it into words, like a part of him had always known that if there was anyone in the world who’d always stay at his side, it would be Mark.

Mark reached up to brush some of the tears from his cheeks, then pulled away slowly. “I love you,” he murmured, looking him in the eye. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, though…I guess you already knew pretty close to the beginning? It was actually before the project, though. I asked you to be my partner because I was already crazy in love with you.”

Jinyoung’s lips at last showed the hint of a smile. “Since when, then?”

“Well…I won’t be cheesy and say it was from first sight, although I did pretty much think you were the most beautiful person ever from the moment I saw you. It was somewhere in the moments that came after that it happened. The way you were so enthusiastic about solving those two-minute mysteries of yours. The way you smiled. The tangle of thoughts in your head that I couldn’t help but want to figure out.”

“It wasn’t the tangle you thought it was,” Jinyoung said, shaking his head. “I always thought loving you was the most uncomplicated thing I’ve ever done. You just…came into my life, and that was that. My heart just made the natural response, and I never really had to think about why, because I just knew I wanted to be with you.”

“Then where did we let it get so complicated?”

“I feel that’s the question I should be asking you. You were going to tell me, weren’t you? After the project? I thought for sure you were going to.”

“I was. But then the whole thing with BamBam happened and shook everything up, and by time things calmed down, that’s when I realized that I would be screwing with this amazing opportunity we had if I told you and you said ‘no.’” He winced. “It sounds cowardly when I say it aloud. But I guess that was my own way of being afraid of losing you.”

“Well, that I can understand at least,” Jinyoung said, swiping his cheek with his hand. “Even if I can’t understand how you thought I would ever say ‘no’ to you. Was I not making it obvious? I’ve never made any effort to hide it, so I don’t get how it took this long for you to figure it out.”

“Probably because I was too afraid of seeing ‘no’ that I stopped looking at you head on enough to see the ‘yes’.” Mark bit his lip. “This is going to sound even more stupid, but…I was looking at it through the lens of our fans and what they saw. But the downside of that was that every time they said something plausible about how you looked at me or how you acted, there was someone else calling them delusional, so that just made me waffle even more.”

“So that’s what you were really doing when I told you to read the reactions to our videos?” Jinyoung looked slightly amused at this.

“Among other things. I was reading the more general and episode-specific comments, too, but…there were a lot of them out there about us.” He sighed, feeling a little flustered. “So…that’s my side of things. Now it’s your turn to explain to me why you never confessed, and what happened with that ASK ME bear vs the CALL HOME one.”

Jinyoung’s smile slipped. “And now I’m the one who’s going to look like an idiot.”

“That thing you said to me about how you don’t think there’s a side of me you’d hate? I feel the same way about you, you know. You can tell me. I just want to understand.”

“There were several reasons. After the first time, when you didn’t confess to me after our project…in that case, I just assumed you wanted to focus on our YouTube thing first, then get back around to it later. You never were as good at multi-tasking as me, after all. But then as time passed, I thought you just needed that little nudge to remind you that…you know, we weren’t officially a couple or anything. Because we were living so much like one, doing everything together and being close to each other in so many ways, I thought you may have lost track of the fact that we still needed to be a little more direct about it to clear that final step. That was what the bear was going to be for. Like, you know, ‘I’m here and I love what we’re doing now, but I kind of want to kiss you and hear you tell me how you feel about me, so ask me out already!’”

Mark couldn’t help but smile to hear that. “But you said you waffled about buying it?”

“Yeah. I think the part of me that wanted you to do it without the nudge won out the day when I first saw it. And then when I came back, it was sold out…maybe I kind of took it as a sign that it wasn’t the right time yet. And then I took that sign to kind of reflect on myself and what I was doing. I thought that maybe the fact that you didn’t want to take the leap was because I hadn’t proven to you yet that I was worth it, that it was worth it to risk everything else if it meant we could be even closer in the way we wanted. I guess that’s what this last year has been, for me. Trying to prove it to you. Trying to dig up the piece of evidence that we belong together regardless of everything else, evidence you wouldn’t be able to come up with any reasonable doubt against.”

“Oh, Jinyoung,” Mark said, reaching out to gently tug the lobe of his ear. “How does that make you an idiot when I’m the one who made you feel like you needed to do that when I’ve never been in doubt that you’re the only one I want to be with?”

“That may be true, but if I’d gone through with buying you that bear, we’d have been a couple for about a year-and-a-half now.”

“And if I’d just told you how I felt after our project, we’d be close to our three year anniversary. Beat that.”

Jinyoung finally laughed a little at that, and Mark was unbelievably happy to hear it. “I guess it’s only fair to chalk up our late start to us both being idiots. But it’s hard to look at it as a waste, exactly. Since we still spent that time together.”

“And basically everyone thought we were acted like a couple anyways. So, it’s like we were in a relationship of sorts during that whole time. Just, you know, set at a very low heat.”

“Which I hope you’re planning on turning up from now on.”

“Well, you already set a pretty good example by shoving me up against the wall, so…”

Jinyoung kissed him quiet, pressing back into him and sliding his hands against the front of his shirt. Mark kissed him back eagerly, looping his arms around his waist and pressing him closer by the small of his back. Parts of him already felt comfortingly familiar—they really had been intimate in their own way without ever having crossed the line—but there were so many new things he was learning. How the fullness of his lips manifested in their kisses, the sound of his voice as he released muffled noises of excitement, the rough texture of his tongue, the curiosity of his fingertips. He wanted to touch him everywhere and be touched in return, to brand him with heat, to set them both on fire with the force of passion they had been trying to keep contained until now.

He started easing Jinyoung away from the wall and towards the couch until they were both collapsing onto it, with Jinyoung pinned down beneath him. They both broke apart for a moment, seeming to study each other’s expressions for a hint of what would and wouldn’t be OK after this.

“I suddenly feel a little weird,” Jinyoung said breathlessly.

Mark’s brows furrowed. That seemed to be a kind of juvenile way of saying he was feeling aroused, something he wouldn’t have expected from Jinyoung, who could be incredibly direct when he wanted.

“I mean, about us living together,” Jinyoung said quickly. “About us having our own separate rooms, and how this isn’t like most relationships where we don’t have to go through the whole thing of deciding when one of us can start spending the night. Because, you know…we’re both here. And I think it would be weird to just…kiss and do things and then say ‘welp, goodnight,' and split off down the hall.”

 “I’ve got a bed big enough for two.”

“Yes. And so do I. But…what happens in it and when is kind of a conversation we can’t put off since we’re already in the ‘living together’ phase.” He reached up to Mark’s shirt, undoing the first button. “To be honest…I’m fine not waiting very long for it. I’ve been into you so long, that I’ve thought about it a lot, and, you know…”

“Touched yourself?” Mark finished, cheeks turning a little red at the thought.

“Yes. So…I guess what I’m saying is I’m ready when you are? But…” He placed a hand on his still somewhat disheveled face. “Maybe wait until I look a little bit better than this.”

“I always think you look lovely, though.”

“The phrase ‘love is blind’ was invented for a reason.” He returned his hand to the front of Mark’s shirt. “But until I’m looking good again, you can…”

“Yes?”

“Show me what you’ve been thinking about in that head of yours? I’m interested to know. And…if you tell me about all these things while you’re showing me, I may even sleep with my special eye mask to reduce swelling so I’ll be looking fresh enough tomorrow to give you the go ahead on doing everything you want to do to me.”

“You want me to just come out and tell you everything?” Mark said in a low voice. "And lose my reputation as your man of mystery?​"

“You know what? I think I get enough mystery during the day. How about we use the evenings to make it past the exposition and enjoy a good ?”