“You know what?” BamBam said. “Everything is fine.”

“No it isn’t,” Jackson yelled, throwing his arms open. “We’re stuck raking leaves in these huge- lawns for our families. Tell me how that’s supposed to be fine.”

“Not that. Everything else.”

“Is this because you’ve grown a few inches? Is that what this is all about? Stop rubbing it in!”

“Oh, come on. Even if you’re short, you’ve got that new girl you’re flirting with. Everything’s fine for you, too.”

Jinyoung paused his raking, rubbing his sore back. Yes, everything’s mostly fine, he thought. Ian still seemed oblivious to the fact he and Mark were hanging out. And he and Mark were still having a blast together, and Mark still seemingly had no idea Jinyoung was in love with him. It was all going as well as he could have hoped for.

Unfortunately, how fine everything was going made him extra worried that it was all going to come crashing down at any second. It reminded him too much of the last time, how right when he started feeling like he and Mark had become super close, that was exactly when Ian decided it was time for him to ruin everything.  Or at least, that’s how he felt whenever he was alone and thinking about it—when Mark was around, nowadays Jinyoung couldn’t do anything else but smile.

And because Mark was around and currently pretending like his rake was an electric guitar, Jinyoung was smiling now, 100% in tune with this uplift in everyone’s spirits from how they’d been in the summer. Everything really is incredibly fine, isn’t it?

“Yeah, high school really isn’t so bad,” Jackson conceded. “The first few weeks were rough, but there’s some really cool people here. And at the last football game, Mr. Trombone tripped during the halftime show and faceplanted, so there’s that.” He dragged his rake across the ground, corralling a few stray leaves. “By the way, you two are going off to high school next year, yeah?” He nodded to Mark and Jinyoung. “Either of you coming to my school?”

“You’re at Wilmington High, right?” Jinyoung asked.

“Yup.”

“Then, yeah, that’s where I’m going.” He glanced at Mark. They’d never talked about this before, and he was suddenly feeling a flash of anxiety that Mark would be going somewhere entirely different and they’d drift apart again.

“Me, too,” Mark said. Jinyoung sighed in relief. Of course, this is not going to help at all when it comes to getting over your crush, he reminded himself in the back of his mind. He could just imagine himself spending his four years of high school pining one-sidedly for Mark while Mark wound up hooking up with someone decidedly female like Anisa.

“Then I’ll have to go there in two years, too,” BamBam decided. “We’ll all be able to hang out together at school for once!”

“As if I’d want to hang out with you in public, dweeb,” Jackson teased.

“Heh, just you wait. I’ll be the next one coming to steal your girlfriends, Jackson Wang.”

“Oh? Do you have trombone playing skills you’ve never told me about?”

“Dude, why are you hung up on the fact that he was a trombone player?”

“FINISHED!” Mark announced loudly as he swept up the last few leaves into the pile, drowning out Jackson and BamBam’s bickering. “Finally!”

“We still have to finish up my family’s yard,” Jinyoung pointed out.

“Yeah, but we’re allowed to take a lunch break now, at least.” Mark threw down his rake. “Not going to lie, though, I’m dying to jump in.”

“You’ll mess up the pile.”

“It’ll just flatten the pile a bit. It’s not like it’s windy today, the leaves aren’t going to go flying that far.”

“Just go for it,” Jackson advised. “Don’t hold back your urges. Let it all out.”

Mark grinned and gleefully threw himself into the leaf pile. Sure enough, he only wound up flattening it a little, so it wasn’t as if he was completely destroying their hard work. Still, Jinyoung really couldn’t see anything appealing about rolling around in leaves that were dirty and flecked with mud and most likely home to all kinds of insects. When Mark looked up at him, Jinyoung rolled his eyes deliberately at his childishness, but Mark simply laughed and extended his hand. “Come help me up, Jinyoung,” he said in a voice he’d started using recently, a cute, petulant voice that made Jinyoung’s heart melt a little whenever he heard it.

Jinyoung reached out his hand, but as soon as Mark grabbed onto it, he yanked Jinyoung forward and caught him off balance so that he would fall into the leaves with him. Jinyoung made a hard landing right on top of Mark, his face practically buried into his chest. He immediately yanked his head up, but that didn’t change the fact that their bodies were pretty much pressed entirely together, a sensation which outweighed everything else, even what would have been his typical annoyance at Mark’s prank. All he could do was stare down at him, face flaming and mouth sputtering like a fish out of water while BamBam and Jackson laughed in the background.

Mark was grinning up at him, but the grin slowly shifted into something more serious as they continued to look at each other. Suddenly, Mark reached up one of his hands and swiped it through Jinyoung’s hair as if to remove some debris or leaves, but Jinyoung didn’t feel anything falling from it, and Mark didn’t make any kind of comment about something being there. Their eyes never left each other, and something felt strange about the moment, as if something bigger was happening that wasn’t being fully conveyed. Jinyoung was beginning to feel panicked about the fact that his eyes might be giving him away and Mark was interpreting the way Jinyoung was looking at him, and even if he wasn’t, there would probably be other things to interpret soon with the way their bodies were pressed against each other, and remembering that terrified him enough to pull him out of the moment. Quickly, he grabbed a fistful of leaves and ground them into Mark’s face before leaping to his feet and backing away. BamBam laughed hysterically at this, saying, “Ooooh, Mark, he got you!” But Jackson suddenly wasn’t laughing. He was looking at Jinyoung curiously, his head tilted as he studied him. Then he glanced at Mark and back to Jinyoung, and slowly a somewhat amused and knowing smile appeared on his face. Jinyoung flushed again, and looked away.

“Ughh, it feels like I have mud on my face,” Mark said, swiping away the leaves and sounding completely normal as if nothing strange had just happened. “Thanks, Jinyoung.”

“That’s what you get,” Jinyoung said, though his voice came out a little shakily. “You shouldn’t mess with me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Mark rose to his feet, still wiping his face. “I deserved that, I know.”

“So,” Jackson said, his voice almost too nonchalant. “Are we taking that lunch break, now?”

The minute they got inside, Mark made a quick excuse about needing to go to the bathroom and practically bolted upstairs to lock himself in. As soon as he was safely behind closed doors, he sized himself up in the mirror, checking for any visible signs of the strangeness he felt inside him. His face was red, but that could have been from rubbing the leaves and mud off it. What about his eyes? He leaned in to look at them, but whatever emotion had been inside them before was now replaced by panic.

What the hell just happened?, he now asked himself. The million dollar question.

What had happened was that he had attempted to play a cute little joke on Jinyoung, and had gotten all weird because of it. The eye contact, the body heat…he hadn’t prepared for any of that when he’d pulled Jinyoung down, and it had hit him harder than he’d thought it would. And why had he felt such an irresistible need to run his hands through Jinyoung’s hair? What had that been about?

The feeling that had struck him was in many ways new, but it was also terribly familiar. He could still remember the last time he’d felt it and what that had led to. But he couldn’t be falling for Jinyoung. He couldn’t be. Jinyoung was off-limits on several levels because these kinds of feelings would destroy the relationship they had, and they both needed that relationship. Mark could still hear Jinyoung’s voice echoing through his head: Don’t stop being my friend, because I won’t have anywhere left to go.

No, of course he wasn’t in love with him. That would be stupid and ridiculous. He’d given all of that up, anyways. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

But, a traitorous part of him nagged, what about those other times? Because today definitely wasn’t the first time he’d gotten all weird like this about Jinyoung, though this incident was definitely the time it had happened on the biggest scale. There had been the time Mark had felt hyper-aware of him when they’d been watching Deputy Dog Duffy in his bed. There had been the time a few days later where Jinyoung’s smile had made his stomach nosedive. There had been the time just a week ago where their legs had touched a little when they sat together in the vivarium and Mark had found it strangely hard to think about anything else.

It doesn’t mean anything, he told himself furiously. It’s just…it’s just that I like having him as a friend, that’s all. It’s nothing more than that.

But his traitorous head kept reminding him that it had never felt like that with Jackson or BamBam. It had only felt like that with one other person, the one time he’d ever admitted to himself that he was feeling something close to love…

“And look how that turned out!” he snapped out loud, glaring at himself in the mirror. “Don’t, just don’t. Not again. Not anymore.”

Before he could overthink it anymore, he threw open the bathroom door and resolutely marched downstairs, determined to act as if nothing was wrong. Lucky for him, Jackson was in the middle of one of his trademark hilarious stories, and BamBam and Jinyoung barely even seemed to notice when Mark plopped down at the table across from them.

Mark stared blankly down at the placemat while Jackson prattled on, trying not to think of anything. But little by little, he found his eyes being dragged upwards to Jinyoung, his brain flooding with completely unnecessary thoughts. They’d never talked to each other about girls before. Did Jinyoung have anyone he liked? Could it be possible for him to…? Mark shook that thought off, but others popped up immediately in its place. Hadn’t he also looked a little flushed after what had happened in the leaf pile? Was the fact he hadn’t laughed and played along with the joke because he was annoyed or because…?

He made a low note of frustration at his mind’s insistence of thinking of these things. Never mind the fact that he still had no clue how to navigate the world of same- crushes—he wasn’t supposed to throw himself back into that world again to begin with. And he was definitely not supposed to be dragging someone else into it with him. How would Jinyoung feel, if he knew Mark was trying to overanalyze his uality?

“OK there, Mark?” BamBam asked. Mark looked up, realizing that everyone was now staring at him.

“Uh, yeah,” Mark said, clearing his throat. “Sorry, my backache from all that raking just kicked in.”

“You always were a slowpoke,” Jackson said. “Mine started ages ago.”

“Doesn’t that mean you’re out of shape?” BamBam asked.

And then the two were off bickering again, and Mark’s little lapse was forgotten. Or at least by the two of them—Jinyoung was still looking at him a little anxiously, up until Mark turned to meet his gaze and Jinyoung gave a half-smile and looked away.

No, you’re not going to let this affect him, Mark told himself firmly. You are not going to make every time you see each other from now on weird. You are going to snap out of it and never think of it again.

When they went back outside, Mark did his part to pretend like nothing had happened. He laughed and joked around the way he always did, and when he ended up next to Jinyoung, raking up leaves into the same pile, he gave him his best friendly smile and started talking about something safe.

“So we’re going to be going to the same high school, huh?” Mark said, though now he was wondering in the back of his mind whether this would wind up being problematic to the internal struggle he was going through. “That’ll be interesting.”

“How so? We already go to school together.”

“Yeah, but we’re never in the same class.”

“Maybe we won’t end up in the same classes in high school, either,” Jinyoung pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe we’re cursed.” Mark grinned, relieved that it still felt natural, talking to him. “But it’ll be interesting considering we’ll get to ditch a lot of our junior high classmates. It’ll be a fresh start.”

“You know, I was waiting for years for a fresh start. But now that it’s actually coming, I hope it’s not too fresh.”

“How so?”

Jinyoung smiled at him softly. “I don’t want erase everything I already have right now. Like you.”

Mark knew, somewhere inside him, that this was a perfectly normal thing to say between friends. But he couldn’t convince his heart of that. It was already mocking his attempts to silence its roaring in his chest, declaring itself the victor over his better judgement. In every beat, Mark could feel it telling him that it was fully intending to let these unwanted emotions to get much worse before it ever deigned to consider pushing them away.

Jinyoung had spent enough of his life quietly focused on Mark to notice that he was acting differently. He wasn’t blatant about it, and they were hanging out on a daily basis in the enjoyable way they always did, but there were subtle differences from before. He was jumpier, for one. If they accidentally touched or brushed each other, he was much quicker to jerk back. He also didn’t look Jinyoung in the eyes as often, but at the same time, Jinyoung could feel Mark's eyes on him more often when he wasn’t looking back.

Though each of these changes were small, they left Jinyoung feeling incredibly nervous. Had Mark read something in how Jinyoung had looked at him during the incident in the leaves? Was he now trying to figure out if Jinyoung was in love with him or not, and if so, was the fact that he was becoming so physically evasive mean he was turned off by the possibility?

Still, it wasn’t as if he was truly acting like Jinyoung disgusted him. They still seemed to be growing closer and closer with each passing day, after all, and Jinyoung couldn’t read any cruelty in his actions. If anything, Mark simply seemed like he was being a little shy, which wasn’t completely out of the blue given that Jinyoung knew that part of the charm of Mark’s personality was his occasional (or frequent) awkwardness. He was probably looking way too deeply into it.

Remember, he told himself, Mark probably thinks of you a fraction the amount you think of him. Keeping that in mind would help him maintain a realistic view of the situation.

With a sigh, Jinyoung grabbed his lunch from his locker and began walking down the hallway towards the vivarium. Every moment with Mark was a sweet torture, but he wasn’t about to stop subjecting himself to it, apparently.

Right as he was about to turn down the hallway leading to the science rooms, he felt a hand on his shirt pulling him back. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Mark standing behind him. Instead, it was Ian Westcott.

“Hey, there Jinyoung,” Ian said in a somewhat mocking voice. “Long time no see, man! We haven’t had a heart-to-heart together since, what, two or three years ago, now?”

Jinyoung stared at him wordlessly, his heart sinking like an anchor in his chest. When he’d first started hanging out again with Mark, he’d been expecting Ian to in at any moment, but enough time had passed that he’d gotten a false sense of security that Ian had no clue. He should have known better. Ian was the -stirrer in their grade, so anything anyone didn’t want other people to know about, he eventually uncovered.

“Not going to say hi to me?” he asked as Jinyoung stayed silent. “Not even a ‘it’s good to see you, bro’?”

“Is there something you needed?” Jinyoung asked instead, his voice flat.

“Yeah, actually. There is. You know, I’ve been wondering about Mark’s whole viv-whatever thing during lunch and how I can get him out of it since I kind of need him back at our table, so I had a chat with Mr. Whittaker. And Mr. Whittaker tells me that not only is Mark a volunteer, but you are, too. Which is kind of funny, considering how I told you to screw off him already. Just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“We’re just volunteering,” Jinyoung said, turning red. “And besides, that was back in 5^th grade, I’m not-”

“You’re not still gaaaaaay?” He said the word in the kind of overly effeminate, jokey way guys did, as if by refusing to take it seriously they were able to distance themselves effectively from the entire concept. “You don’t want a kissy-kiss from Marky-poo?”

Jinyoung scowled at him, folding his arms protectively across his chest.

“It’s OK if I tell him, then?” Ian asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “It’s OK if I tell him he’s spending lunch every day with a homo who wants to be his boooooyfriend?”

Jinyoung hated the fact that such a brat of a human being was the one who was blackmailing him. He would have actually preferred someone more traditionally harsh about it if it meant he didn’t have to put up with being looked down on by someone who acted like a five year-old. “What if he already knows?” he snapped, hoping Ian wouldn’t call his bluff.

“Riiiight, because Mark would totallllly willingly hang out with some gross guy who wants to do him. Nice try, huh?” He laughed. “Look, Jinyoung. You know I don’t want to tell him, right? And you don’t want that either. It would make things all weird and uncomfortable, and I don’t want to do that to an old friend, you got it? So let’s just resolve this again in a way where everyone wins. You, me, and Mark—I want all of us to get what we want.”

“Really?” Jinyoung said coolly. “Even me?”

“I’m not saying I want you to go out with Mark. He’s not a homo like you, thank god. But maybe I could find a way for you to stay friends with him, since it seems that’s what he wants . I mean, this is seriously the second time he’s tried to ditch us for you.” He wrinkled his nose, as if this was beyond his comprehension. “You still remember why I need him around, right? Although, I guess the reason has changed a little. Before I just thought about doing baby things like holding hands and kissing. Now, I’m ready to level up a bit. Run a few more bases. I just need that little boost to make it happen.”

“You still can’t manage to get a girlfriend on your own?” Jinyoung said, mimicking his scathing tone.

“What can I say?” Ian said, sounding unbothered. “Not all of us can be Greek gods here. If I need a little help to get myself a hot chick, it is what it is.” He paused. “Eileen Montblanc.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, you know Eileen, right? Pretty brunette, big eyes, great rack? She’s in Mark’s class.”

Jinyoung did know Eileen, and felt disgusted to hear her boiled down to those few phrases. She was a really nice girl who was near the top of their grade and one of the stars of the volleyball team, the kind of person who kept her bright, upbeat attitude with everyone.

“She’s got the hots for Mark, of course,” Ian continued, rolling his eyes. “Girls just can’t stay away from that pretty face, non-existent personality combination. Anyways, I want to poach her, but she’ll get suspicious if I claim to want to help her out with Mark if she knows Mark and I haven’t been friends lately.”

“Poach her?” Jinyoung asked, incredulously.

“You know. Hunting on someone else’s land?” He mimed firing a rifle. “Not like it matters, Mark doesn’t even notice or care that he’s got fine game around.”

“You’re disgusting,” Jinyoung spat out. “She’s not an animal.”

“All human beings are animals, Jinyoung,” Ian said smugly. “Including you. I bet you wouldn’t mind doing something incredibly animalistic with Mark, if given the chance.” He glanced at his watch. “So, since we can both help each other out here, let’s get down to business. You find a way to get Mark spending time with me visibly again, so Eileen knows he and I are still cool. Just a few times should be enough, OK? Then I’ll move in and be the knight in shining armor trying to help her get with her true love and little by little charm her to be with me instead. If you do that, I won’t tell Mark anything about you, all right? But if you don’t…” He grinned wickedly. “Better be prepared to get dumped, Jinyoung. Either option is fine by me, since as soon as Mark knows about you, he’s going to be begging to be around someone normal like me again, and I’ll have him back in my circle to keep luring his pretty little admirers in. So really, Jinyoung, it’s up to you. How badly do you not want him to know?”

Jinyoung didn’t bother going to the vivarium when Ian finally left him. He wasn’t in the right state to put up a façade for Mark, and the nauseous feeling in his stomach felt enough to actually cause him to be sick. He texted Mark that he was going to the school nurse, then did just that, convincingly pleading a terrible stomachache and curling up on one of the resting couches, holding onto his stomach while they called his mother to come pick him up.

There was no question about what would happen. Jinyoung was not about to sell a nice person like Eileen Montblanc out to someone like Ian Westcott. It had been a different story back in 5^th grade when his argument had amounted to “If Mark hangs out with you all the time instead of me, I’m never going to meet cute girls, so screw off or I’ll tell him you’re gay for him!” That had seemed like a simpler decision, but now that he knew that Ian wasn’t just interested in ‘meeting’ these girls, there was no way he was going to be an active participant in him taking advantage of their feelings for someone else to “run a few more bases.”

But he knew what that meant. The game was up with Mark. Ian was going to tell him, and Mark was going to know the truth Jinyoung had been hiding.

He promised he wouldn’t turn his back on me, Jinyoung reminded himself desperately. And though Mark had said that without knowing fully what he was promising, Jinyoung still trusted him to see it through. Mark was just too kind of a person not to. Jinyoung wasn’t so worried about Mark going back on his word. He was more worried about the fact that their entire relationship would probably change once it was out in the open, and it most likely wouldn’t be for the better.

I knew this would happen, he thought miserably. I set myself up for this. Did I really think I would get lucky enough for everything to work itself out? What a joke. This was headed for heartache the moment I first met him, and I just pretended not to see it.

His stomach was starting to feel worse. He really wanted to go home, but he knew his thoughts would only follow him there. There was no escaping himself anymore, and though the thought was terrifying, he knew he couldn’t spend the rest of his life as a secret, and a part of him had never really wanted to be. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stay away from Mark. Maybe he’d kind of wanted him to know so he wouldn’t have to hide forever from the person he cared about the most.

Well, he thought, burying his head. I’ll be figuring out the result of that soon enough.

About ten minutes later, his mother arrived to take him home, fussing over him and desperately trying to figure out what he’d eaten that may have made him so sick. Jinyoung just sat numbly in the passenger seat, cycling through his various emotions. How much time was Ian going to give him? How long did he have to prepare himself?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked it—he’d missed a few texts from Mark while he was in the nurse’s office, asking if he was OK. This new text was asking if he was feeling better yet, or if he’d gone home. Jinyoung texted back that he was going home to sleep, then put his phone on silent. Mark’s concern made him feel a little better and a little worse at the same time.

As soon as he arrived home, Jinyoung went straight up to his room to lie down. He wanted to sleep and banish everything from his mind, but he couldn’t. It all kept on popping back over and over again. A look of disgust on Mark’s face, after Ian told him. Mark continuing to meet up with him, but progressively growing more and more distant as time passed, until they finally drifted apart, for good this time.

He finally managed to doze off around two, though his dreams were unsettled. He dreamt of being in a cage in a zoo surrounded by his classmates, who were whispering, “He’s so weird, isn’t he? Not normal at all!” Mark was there in a zoo uniform cleaning out his cage, and then Ian appeared with a hunting rifle, lifting it in the air and laughing. “Time to go hunting!” He aimed it at Jinyoung and put his finger on the trigger.

Jinyoung awoke with a jolt when he heard a knock on the bedroom door. “Jinyoung?” he heard his mother’s voice coming from the other side. “Are you feeling better? Jackson’s here to see you!”

“Jackson,” Jinyoung mumbled blankly. Why would he be here, of all people? He glanced at the digital clock by his bed. It was 4:05—school was already over.

“Are you OK to see him?” his mother asked again.

“Uh…yeah, I guess.” Jinyoung sat up. He’d gone into a cold sweat from his dream, but he didn’t feel like he was about to vomit, at least.

“All right, I’ll send him up.”

Jinyoung took a moment to flatten down his bedhead and wipe down his sweaty face before there was another knock on the door. He flicked on his light switch and pulled the door open to reveal Jackson, still in his school uniform. “Hey,” Jackson said. “How you feeling?”

“Not incredible,” Jinyoung said honestly. “Did Mark tell you?”

“Yeah. He wanted to stop by himself, but he’d already promised BamBam something tonight. He asked me to drop by and check on you instead.”

“Well. You can tell him I’m fine.” Jinyoung paused, thinking that Jackson might leave now that he had a message to give to Mark. But he stayed right where he was in Jinyoung’s doorframe, eyeing the room behind him. Clearly, he was intending to stay. Jinyoung sighed. “Would you like to come in?”

Jackson nodded, stepping inside and sitting down on Jinyoung’s desk chair. He gazed around for a moment at all Jinyoung’s books and CDs, then turned his eyes back to Jinyoung. “Hey,” he said again. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What about?” Jinyoung said, immediately feeling cautious.

“Mark.” He pulled off his snapback and dug his hands through his hair. “You know how I was worried about him, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m not so worried about him being unhappy or lonely anymore. Thanks for fixing that problem.”

Jinyoung wanted to dismiss his responsibility in ‘fixing it,’ but could see in Jackson’s eyes how genuinely he meant it and how much it mattered to him that Mark was doing well and changed his mind and nodded instead.

“You know how I was also worried about him having something else going on behind the scenes that was upsetting him?” Jackson continued.

Jinyoung nodded. He still had no clue what that was, either, other than it probably involved the situation with Ty and Anisa from last year—Mark still hadn't confided in him about it in detail.

“Well, I’m a little less worried about that right now, since he doesn’t seem to be as caught up in it as before. Actually…I’m starting to worry a little about you, now.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” Jackson paused for a moment, pursing his lips. “I could be wrong, but it looks like to me that you’re going through something you’re afraid to talk about, too. I mean, you’re not acting miserable or anything, but I’ve noticed some things…things you’ve been probably trying not to show…and I know you probably don’t want me to stick my nose in it, but-”

“I thought you wanted to talk to me about Mark,” Jinyoung said, a bit shrilly in his panic.

“Uh, yeah. I do. I want to talk to you about Mark.” Jackson took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you if you’re in love with him.”​