Jinyoung wasn’t really looking forward to his “date” with Mark. Instead, he felt like a big bundle of apprehension. He had no idea what Mark was going to throw at him or if he’d actually be able to enjoy a day talking to a person who put him on his guard so much, even if they did take the topic of soulmates off the table. He didn’t even know what kind of thing Mark would find fun on a date. He’d apparently gone to the arcade with Minki a lot to play skee-ball, but Jinyoung was hoping he wouldn’t just recycle that idea on him without trying to come up with something original.

Still, when Saturday morning rolled around, he went through the motions of preparing himself for whatever was to come. He dressed in a striped sweater and a pair of nice dark wash jeans, and sprayed on a little bit of subtle cologne to give himself a fresh, crisp scent.

He met Mark in the kitchen at eleven. Mark was also dressed nicer than usual in a snug looking flannel shirt and un-ripped jeans. He smiled upon seeing Jinyoung and immediately started bouncing on his heels as if he were bubbling over with energy.

“Hi,” he said. “How’s your ankle doing?”

“Better,” Jinyoung responded. “Still in the brace, but it doesn’t hurt so much to walk on it as before.”

“I’ll go easy on you today, then. But if at any point you need to sit down or take a break, you just let me know, all right? I want this to be a pain-free day for you. But let’s worry about that later. The first thing we’re going to do today we can do sitting down.” He gestured to the small table where an opened newspaper was covering the surface with a little bucket and two considerably sharp knives on top. Jinyoung sat down at the table, staring at the newspaper in confusion. What was this about? Were they going to be solving the crossword puzzle together? Debating politics? Stabbing the newspaper? Cutting it up to make papier-mâché?

A few moments later, Mark returned with two small pumpkins that were taller and narrower than the squat ones Jinyoung was used to seeing. “Ever made a jack o' lantern before?” he asked.

Jinyoung’s eyes widened in instant excitement. He’d never made one before, but it was the kind of thing he’d wanted to try after learning about American customs after finding out he was destined for an American soulmate. He wanted to experience everything—grilling out on Fourth of July, putting up Christmas stockings and trying eggnog, going to a football championship game just to say that he’d gone.

“I haven’t,” he said. “Actually, I don’t really even know how to.”

“It’s actually not too hard. First step is to cut a hole in the opening and start pulling out the goop. Then you draw on a face, and cut it out with a knife. Then you can put a candle inside to light it up. Simple.”

“So, these are going to be decorations for the dorm for Halloween?”

“That’s the idea. Since you’re here in America, I thought it would be fun for you to get the full experience. Besides, I used to love doing this when I was little. My parents said that when I was little, I thought the pumpkin was my best friend and wanted to hang out with it all the time. I named it ‘Pum Pum’ and everything.”

Jinyoung laughed. “That’s cute. Maybe you can make this one today Pum Pum Jr.”

“That’s not a bad name. I’ll give it a try.”

They cut off the top of their pumpkins and began shoveling the insides out with long spoons. “This was not what I was expecting it to look like inside,” Jinyoung commented.

“Oh, you’ve never seen the inside of a pumpkin before? What were you expecting?”

“I thought it would look like pumpkin pie filling.”

Mark laughed. “Not quite. But when you’re doing this when you’re a little kid, how gross it feels is half the fun. You can even use it to attack your sisters with so they get all grossed out and start screaming.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yup."

“I have sisters, too, but I can’t say I ever pulled that kind of thing on them. It felt like they were always pulling things on me instead.”

“Yeah, trust me, my sisters did that, too. It’s part of their charms, I guess.” Mark tossed a handful of pumpkin innards into their bucket. “You know, it’s almost hard for me to remember sometimes that you’re from another country. Your English is fantastic. You speak it naturally, and you’ve been handling living over here amazingly well.”

“I prepared for it a lot,” Jinyoung said—because of knowing that this was where his soulmate would be, though he couldn’t mention that today. “I wanted this to be my new home.”

“That’s pretty incredible. I think it takes a special kind of person to have the bravery to do that. I know you had your specific reason for coming here, but still…it’s a big sacrifice.” He paused. “You’ve been enjoying LA so far, then?”

Jinyoung nodded. “I have. It’s hard to fully get my mind in the same place you Americans have it, but I like it all the same.”

“So where do we Americans have our minds, hmmm?”

Jinyoung thought for a moment. “I guess…you guys have a strong sense of self. You know who you are and what you want and what you think, and you’re able to voice it with this kind of confidence I’m not used to. Like you, for example. You believe in what you want so strongly.”

“I don’t know, Jinyoung. You’ve voiced your own opinion to me. Several times. Quite firmly.”

“But with me, it’s just the way I’ve always thought. But your confidence seems to me like it comes from having thought out every other option and come to the best answer for you. That’s what I mean by a strong sense of self. My answer comes from what I think is best for everyone. But you’ve thought most of what you want. I might not agree with it, but maybe…maybe I can at least respect your commitment to that.” He shook his head. “But I can’t make my mind think like that. I might be firm, but I’m not exactly that confident.”

“I think a lot of us Americans have undue confidence, though. Meanwhile, someone like you has every reason to be confident. You’re smart, good looking, driven, and put together. You’re what they would have called ‘a good catch’ in the old days. What would they even call that now? The jackpot at the end of someone’s red string?” He pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket. “Anyways, time to do the face. You know, I can’t really remember what Pum Pum’s face was like. I’ll have to wing it. What do you think? Scary? Silly? Evil?”

“Evil,” Jinyoung said. “I want to do a happy one.”

“All right, then.” Mark drew in narrowed eyes under heavily slanted brows paired with a jagged and sinister smile. “Dark Pum Pum Jr. I like it.”

Jinyoung drew one with the standard triangle eyes and wide grin. “Happy Pum Pum Jr.”

“The eternal battle between the dark side and the light side. Perfect.”

The carving part was a bit tricky, and Jinyoung was lucky to avoid slicing a finger open at several points, but there was something fun about the whole thing. In this case, not having things going perfectly according to plan was part of the entertainment, like when a chunk of Mark’s evil smile broke off or one of Jinyoung’s triangle eyes refused to pop out of the pumpkin no matter how hard he pushed. It had them both laughing, and it struck Jinyoung that he hadn’t felt like really, truly laughing in a long time with everything that had been going on inside his head.

Still, through all the difficulties, they wound up looking pretty amazing when they were finished. “I’m going to take a picture from Instagram,” Mark said, posing Dark and Happy Pum Pum Jr next to each other and snapping a shot. Jinyoung watched as he uploaded it to Insta and captioned it “Making pumpkins with Jinyoung~”

It was such a coupley thing to do, Jinyoung realized. And he’d never really thought of being a couple in his life—he’d only thought of being more than that, being a part of a eternally bonded pair that went beyond all the simple associations of being a part of a couple. In the grandeur of it, he hadn’t really even reflected on the little things like this, and was almost shocked by how much he had enjoyed it. It was odd, but the thought of something as small as a “me and Jinyoung~” photo caption made something in his pulse flutter.

But he didn’t want to begin to think of what feeling that way meant, so he was relieved when Mark brightly announced that it was time to clean up and head out to the car to go to the next activity. He simply focused on the methodical tasks of clean up, followed Mark out to the car, and slid into the passenger seat to move on to what would be coming next. “So, where are we going?” he asked.

“Salvation Army.”

“To an army?!?!” Jinyoung’s eyes darted nervously. He’d seen movie interpretations of American boot camp, and he was not interested in experiencing it for himself.

“It’s a used clothing store.”

This somehow seemed to make even less sense to him. “We’re going clothes shopping together…?”

“Kind of. We’re getting Halloween costumes. Have you ever dressed up for it before?”

Jinyoung shook his head. “It’s becoming more popular in Korea to do that, but I’ve never tried it.”

“Well, it’s pretty fun. Some people make their own costumes, some people buy them at specialty stores, but I’ve always liked piecing together something random from discount stores. It’s an adventure going in and having absolutely no idea what you’ll come out with.”

“Are we going to go trick-or-treating, too?”

“Today isn’t actually Halloween, so no. But when it comes around next week, there will probably be on-campus parties. Or we can sign up to have Baldwin Hall added to the trick-or-treat route of the neighboring suburb and pass out candy to little kids in our costumes.”

“I think that sounds more fun,” Jinyoung said immediately. “We can go to a party any old time.”

“Except for the fact that neither you nor I actually do go to any of the parties we get invited to. I’m usually too busy with my website stuff, but I just assumed you weren’t into that kind of thing.”

“It can get a little overwhelming with all the noise and trying to understand what everyone’s saying. English is my second language, after all. I’d usually just rather watch a movie or read a book.”

“I don’t blame you on that. Maybe we should have a weekly Netflix night. I used to do that last year, with Aron, Peniel, and...Jaebum.”

That was his ex-boyfriend’s name, Jinyoung remembered. He was surprised Mark was speaking of it so frankly. “Was he also a student at Hayer U?”

“Yeah, he was the year above me. He’s already graduated. And started working.”

“What does he do?”

“I don’t know if you’d have heard of him in Korea, but do you know Jackson Wang?”

The name sounded vaguely familiar. “He’s some kind of performing artist, right?”

“He’s a popular hip-hop artist from China. He was recruiting backup dancers in LA this past summer for his world tour, and Jaebum took a chance and auditioned. Not only did he pass, but he got signed on as the lead dancer. And…” Mark cleared his throat. “Jackson Wang was coincidentally his soulmate, so that happened, too.”

“Oh.” Jinyoung didn’t know what to say to that. Words didn’t feel sufficient enough to convey or sympathize with how that must have felt.

“So, yup, Jaebum’s on tour right now.” Mark barreled on, somewhat emotionlessly. “It’s crazy to think about, because it feels like just yesterday he was passing out on the common room couch and the rest of us were drawing mustaches and pimples on his face with a marker.” He pulled his car into the Salvation Army lot. “Anyways, here we are. I’m excited to see what you’re going to come up with, so don’t be afraid to get creative on me, OK?”

Once inside, they split up to browse different racks in search of anything that could be made into a costume. While he browsed, Jinyoung thought about Mark and Jaebum. He’d always thought the discovery of a soulmate was an unquestionably beautiful thing, but now that he was imagining Mark waiting by the phone to hear how his boyfriend’s audition had gone only to hear that he’d found his true love along with his next gig, he couldn’t see it as purely happy. He could only imagine how terrible Mark had felt, even in spite of the inevitability of an ending. He wondered as well how it had felt to Jaebum—had it hurt him as much as Mark, or had the discovery of his special person blinded him to the pain he caused?

Life isn’t supposed to be this way anymore, he thought to himself. All of this can be avoided. Why couldn’t he have just…? But at the same time, there was that part of him that still respected Mark for choosing for himself what he truly wanted. His revulsion for the choice was lessening the more he understood about it and the more he understood about Mark.

Shaking off the gloomy thoughts, he tore into the clothing racks looking for something he could use for his very first Halloween costume. In the blazer section, he found a nice blue suit jacket and white dress shirt set at a very low price, and immediately came up with an idea. He hunted around the bottoms section until he found a pair of gray shorts, then looked for a red bow tie and pair of round, wireframe glasses in accessories.

When he’d gathered everything together, he met up with Mark at the check out. Mark also had a stack of clothes in his hands, but Jinyoung couldn’t tell immediately what his costume would be at a glance. They rang up their order, and when everything was bagged, Mark turned back to Jinyoung. “I know we’ve kind of a had a Halloween theme going today, but it’s lunchtime and I don’t really plan to take you out for pumpkin pie or anything like that. Do you have anywhere you want to go for food?”

Jinyoung shrugged. “I’m still new to the area, remember? I don’t know where the best places are. I’m up for you recommending something.”

“Don’t mind if I do, then. One of my favorite places is just around the corner. Let’s go.”

Three hours later and Jinyoung’s face was throbbing from too much laughter. His cheeks literally hurt from it, and even his eyes felt slightly gunky from having laughed to the point where tears had leaked out from time to time. He hadn't entered into the restaurant—a 50s style diner with a jukebox, black and white tiling, and lots of memorabilia like old license plates, vinyl records, and pin up girl posters stuck up on the walls—with the expectation of being thoroughly entertained by Mark in their chat, but Mark had surprised him once again. As soon as they’d ordered their milkshakes and burgers, Mark had started telling him about some of the craziest things that had happened during his time in Baldwin Hall, and his stories had Jinyoung laughing uncontrollably. It wasn’t even just the stories themselves which cracked Jinyoung up, it was how Mark told them. Mark did his best to tell the stories with a straight face, but then would wind up bursting out into a manic fit of giggles to the point where he couldn’t finish what he was saying, and the way he desperately tried to fight his way through his uncontrollable laughter just made Jinyoung laugh even harder.

Who knew this guy could be so endearing?, Jinyoung thought, wiping down his eyes as he did his best to collect himself. But he was beginning to realize that was exactly what Mark was. He was intelligent, funny, and even surprisingly cute in the way he spoke and acted at times. He was also thoughtful and attentive, immediately arranging with the staff to get a special chair for Jinyoung to prop his foot up on and popping up to get Jinyoung salt or napkins or ketchup whenever he expressed even the slightest need for something. He still had his sly, troublemaker side, and often teased Jinyoung whenever he left an opening, but instead of letting this tick him off, Jinyoung just right back, enjoying Mark’s various responses. The past three hours had flown by so quickly that Jinyoung couldn’t even begin to pinpoint where the time had gone.

“You know,” Mark said suddenly. “I’ve never actually picked a song out on a jukebox before.”

“Is that so surprising?” Jinyoung asked. “No one actually uses them anymore other than these kinds of themed places.”

“But there are so many themed places like this in the US. I ran into jukeboxes at a ton of different party centers and restaurants, and I’d always scroll through the songs, but I never paid to play one before.”

“Well. There’s no time like the present, is there?”

Mark grinned and pulled some change out of his wallet. “Right. Now’s my big chance, huh? Now I’ve got to pick something epic.” He sprang up from his seat and headed across the room to the jukebox.

Jinyoung toyed with his straw wrapper, watching as he walked away. His whole body felt different and strange. His cheeks were throbbing, his eyes stiff from the dried wetness of leaked tears, his throat a little tired from having talked so much, his heart…how to describe that? It felt like it did when you stepped off a rollercoaster, all excited and jumbled and somewhat confused that it had been sent on such a wild and unexpected journey right in the middle of a normally calm and feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground existence. He liked how it felt in some ways, but in other ways it was beginning to terrify him. He kept thinking back to how he had told Minki that he was 99.9% sure Mark wasn’t his soulmate, and now that number was plummeting every moment, taking away his certainty and leaving him with the same frightening unknown as he’d started with, the nervous sense of his heart starting to be swayed without even knowing if the right person was swaying it.

Are you really so weak that you’d let just a few hours influence you so much?, he scolded himself. Think of this logically. You have to stop guessing and guessing over something too important to just gamble blindly on.

The song that had been playing overhead shut off abruptly in the middle only to be replaced by the soft chords of a new song. Jinyoung glanced over at Mark by the jukebox. He’d obviously made his selection, the memorable first song he’d ever chosen on a jukebox. There was something familiar about it. Jinyoung recognized the instrumentation of it, but couldn’t remember what it was until Elvis Presley’s distinctive voice started crooning.

Wise men say only fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you

Mark turned around to look at him, an excited smile on his face. Jinyoung smiled back and flashed him a thumbs up. It was a beautiful song choice, soft and romantic and filled with nostalgia. One of those songs most people couldn’t help but sing along to.

Shall I stay? Would it be a sin

If I can’t help falling in love with you?

Mark walked back to the table, singing the words along with Elvis. He didn’t have a perfect voice, but it was soft and clear and purely delivered with no frills. And most of all, every word felt intimate and personal, as if he wasn’t singing along, exactly, but singing to. As if these were his words, and not someone else’s.

Like a river flows surely to the sea

Darling so it goes

Some things are meant to be

Jinyoung’s breath was catching. He wanted to tear his eyes away, but he couldn’t. This feeling that was bubbling up in his heart was just like he’d imagined it would feel like when he first laid eyes on his soulmate. The exact right feeling he’d been waiting for, coming upon him belatedly, but for… the right person? The wrong person? He didn’t know and he hated not knowing and it scared him that his heart was trying to choose the answer before his mind was even sure that it was guiding it down the right path.

Take my hand, take my whole life, too

For I can’t help falling in love with you

Mark sat down across from him, a soft smile playing on his lips. “Such a beautiful song,” he said.

“Yes,” Jinyoung said. His voice came out in a bit of a croak. His throat felt unbearably dry.

“I remember it being the couple’s first dance together at a wedding I went to when I was younger. I thought to myself, ‘That is definitely the number one song I’d want to play when I dance with the person I love, too.’ So when I saw it on the jukebox, I just had to pick it.”

“And? Did you ever get to dance to it?”

Mark tilted his head. “You mean with Jaebum? No. I think it works better with the person you just know you’re going to spend your whole life with. You know, take my hand, take my whole life, too? This at least is one thing I’m saving for just one person.”

Jinyoung’s heart lept a little at the thought. That could be him. There was a 50% chance that it was him, a thought that continued to both excite and frighten him, now more than ever because there was a faint whisper in his heart that seemed to be saying I want it to be me.

No, Jinyoung thought. What I want is for it to be December. I need to be put out of my misery. I’m no good at being divided in two. I’m no good at not knowing for sure.

Mark cleared his throat. “It’s getting kind of late, so we better move on to the next phase. We need to get changed into our costumes.”

“What?” Jinyoung asked, blinking at the abrupt pull out of the little moment in his head. “Why? It’s not Halloween.”

“No, but there’s a Halloween-y thing going on tonight that I want to take you to. I think it’ll be more fun if we’re in costume.” He gestured over to the bathroom. “Come on, let’s get changed.”

Mark’s costume wound up being Han Solo—a white shirt with a deep v-neck under a black vest, tight pants and boots, and a thick belt. Mark looked at Jinyoung for a moment, looking confused as if he wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be, but then suddenly snapped his fingers. “Case Closed!”

“If by that you mean Detective Conan,” Jinyoung corrected.

“They call it Case Closed in the US. That’s actually a really good look on you. I think you could pull it off as regular fashion if you wanted to.”

“You, too,” Jinyoung said. He was really enjoying the deep v-cut which gave him a sneak peak of Mark’s chest in particular.

“Tell me you love me,” Mark said suddenly.

“W-What?”

Mark grinned. “I wanted to do Han’s famous line. You know, where Leia says ‘I love you’ and he says ‘I know’. What did you think I meant, Jinyoung?”

Jinyoung laughed nervously, his heart trying to steady after that out-of-left-field shocker. “N-Nothing. Should we go?”

As the sky darkened with nightfall, Mark drove him out to an area that was lit up with bright orange pumpkin signs advertising for a Haunted Hayride: Asylum Escape. “What is a hayride?” Jinyoung asked. “And why is it haunted? Actually, what is an asylum? I don’t know that one either.”

“Hooboy,” Mark said excitedly. “An ignorant victim. Even better.”

Jinyoung elbowed him. “Tell me!”

“All right, all right. A hayride is riding in the back of the kind of truck farmers use to transport hay. In fact, there will probably be some hay inside of it for effect. An asylum in this case was the kind of mental hospital they had back in the day. You know, the spooky kind where patients weren’t actually helped and were kept in conditions that pretty much encouraged them to lose their minds."

“So…we’re going to be riding in a hay truck to a mental hospital?”

“You’ll see, Jinyoungie. It’s this fun Halloween tradition. You’ll love it, trust me.”

“I’m going to get scared, aren’t I?”

Mark smiled innocently. “Probably. But if it makes you feel any better, I screamed like an idiot last year when the theme was killer clowns.”

Mark got them tickets and they went to stand in line. There were other people in costume as well, and a few people even asked to take their picture.

After a bit of a wait, the hay truck finally rolled around. The truck bed was long and flat, leaving them plenty of room to pile in and settle on the benches. There was enough of a crowd that Jinyoung was practically pushed up against Mark, their legs completely pressing against each other, but he tried not to mind. It would be nice at least to have someone familiar close if he was going to get the crap scared out of him.

Once everyone was safely inside, the truck jerked to life and slowly started steering them away from the bright lights and into the dark. In the distance, Jinyoung could see some faintly lit displays, but it wasn’t until they drove closer that he realized it was designed to look like a hospital cell. A patient was groaning and thrashing against the bars, reaching out to them desperately. At the next cell, the patient rested comatose on the bed, then suddenly jerked up with a ghastly wail, making all the kids in the truck scream. Mark wound his hands around Jinyoung’s upper arm and squeezed it tightly, huddling against him.

“Scared?” Jinyoung asked with a chuckle.

He’d gotten too cocky too soon. At the next cell, the patient broke their bars and lept out at them, and this time Jinyoung was the one cowering away and throwing himself into Mark.

“Oh my god!” he yelled. Mark chuckled a little at his reaction, so Jinyoung socked him in the arm. “Hey, you were the one freaking out just a second ago!”

The truck continued to a new display, this one filled with ghoulish nurses in blood splattered dresses holding sharp, stained knives. They crowded up against the truck, chanting about how they were going to make all the passengers their new experiments. The third display was filled with chanting children in hospital gowns singing an eerie song while cradling disfigured teddy bears. One of the children suddenly shrieked “It’S THE MONSTER!” and pointed at their truck. Every one whirled around, and sure enough, there was a terrifying nurse/ghoul hybrid in their truck pretty close to where Mark was sitting.

“No!” Mark yelled as she brandished her knife. “Stay back!”

Jinyoung couldn’t tell if he was seriously scared or just joking, but threw a protective arm around him nonetheless. “Get away from him!”

The nurse cackled manically. “I promise you, it won’t hurt a bit. You won’t feel a thing~!”

With another cackle, she lept off the back of the truck. Jinyoung was about to drop his arm away, but Mark grabbed onto his hand, holding it in place. “Phew!” he said. “Close call.”

“Were you actually scared?” Jinyoung asked.

“Yeah, but half the fun is exaggerating it. For the kids, and all.”

Jinyoung wasn’t sure he bought this, but kept his arm around Mark nonetheless. Which came in handy when the next display featured another jumpscare that startled Jinyoung to the point where he might have slipped off the bench if he hadn’t been clinging to Mark.

Finally the truck stopped at what looked like a field of corn. “There’s been an escape!” a man dressed as a doctor yelled, running past. “The patients have broken free! We have to get out of here before they kill us! Come on, everyone!”

“It’s a corn maze,” Mark explained as the passengers hopped off the truck. “We have to find the exit, and they’re going to unleash the mental patients—park employees—on us while we’re in there. A lot of people are going to be running around, so do you want to sit this out? I’m worried you might hurt your ankle again.”

“I’ve never done a corn maze before, though,” Jinyoung said wistfully.

“All right, then.” Mark hunched over a little, nodding to his back. “Hop on.”

“…really?”

“Yeah. I’ll get you through the corn maze no problem. Just hang on tight.”

Jinyoung hesitated a moment, but upon remembering how much caution he’d already thrown to the wind today, exhaled and hopped onto Mark’s back. Mark grabbed his legs to hold him securely, and Jinyoung looped his arms around his neck.

“Ready to go?” Mark asked.

“Let’s do this,” Jinyoung said, taking a breath.

Mark charged into the maze with Jinyoung clinging tightly to his back. At first it was a simple matter of just choosing which way to turn—since it was Jinyoung’s first time doing this, Mark let him choose each path they took—but after about a minute, they heard sirens going off from outside the maze and a message sounding on the nearby speakers. “CODE RED! THE MADMEN ARE COMING! ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!”

Mark picked up the pace, and Jinyoung’s directions became more and more frantic as he started to hear the nearby shrieks from the attendees running into the employees. When they jogged down a straight patch in the maze, a few hands shot out to grab them, but Mark yelled “NO!” in an hilariously intense roar and nimbly dodged out of their path. Their next two turns luckily didn’t run them into any dead ends, but on their third turn, they almost ran smack into a wall of corn.

“Turn around, quick!” Jinyoung yelled, but it was too late. There was a man in a hospital gown behind them muttering “Kill, kill, kill, kill” under his breath.

Jinyoung could feel Mark squaring his shoulders underneath his arms. “You are not laying a single finger on Jinyoung!” he yelled. “And just so you know, I’m for increasing the financial support and patient protection regulations on mental facilities on a national scale, so I am not your enemy. But if you try to attack Jinyoung, you are going to get a beat down from someone trained in the martial arts, sir!”

The employee looked so bewildered by this announcement that they forgot to continue lunging towards Mark, and Mark took advantage of their distraction to bolt past them and back into the maze. Jinyoung felt a burst of laughter bubbling up and couldn’t help but loudly release it as Mark took him down the correct path.

“This is serious business, Jinyoung!” he insisted. “This is no laughing matter!”

“I know, I know,” Jinyoung said quickly. “Don’t let me stop you from getting into it. It’s just…” He started laughing again. “I just…I wasn’t expecting you to be like this.”

“I hope that isn’t an insult.”

“No. No. It’s a good thing. And now that I know, I’m counting on you to defend me the rest of the way, OK?”

They made another wrong turn, but luckily there were no menacing employees waiting for them, and they managed to turn around and make it safely to the exit. There was a table waiting for them filled with pumpkin cookies and apple cider at the end as a reward, but instead of immediately joining the other attendees in line, they instead collapsed into each other, laughing and panting for breath.

“We survived,” Mark gasped out, squeezing Jinyoung’s arm. “I thought we weren’t going to make it.”

Jinyoung couldn’t even say anything through his laughter. His cheeks were still throbbing so much, but he couldn’t stop. It was just all too much for him to handle, all these unexpectedly charming sides of Mark, the fun of being with him, the mingled hilarity and sweetness of how adamantly he had intended to protect him. How could he have gotten him so wrong? How had it been possible for him to blind himself to this extent based on one snap judgement?

When he finally calmed down, he smiled at Mark with all the genuineness and appreciation he had until then refused to give him. “Thank you,” he said. “You were just like a hero. Even cooler than Han Solo.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Mark said, grinning back. “You were trusting me, and I wasn’t about to let you down.”

They had their cookies and cider, and watched as the rest of the attendees spilled out of the maze either laughing hysterically or shrieking for their lives. It had gotten pretty late, so it was time to call it a night and head back to the car, although Jinyoung still felt as if he was thrumming with energy. He and Mark chatted energetically all the way home, laughing about the corn maze, teasing each other over the moments they had gotten scared, even plotting their own jumpscares they could try on their dormmates to keep things lively for them as well as Halloween continued to approach.

It wasn’t until they pulled into the lot by Baldwin Hall and Mark shut off his car that he suddenly became serious. He turned to Jinyoung, an unspoken plea in his eyes. Jinyoung was suddenly reminded that the whole day had been a part of a bargain—the one day Jinyoung had given him to lay his case for why they should at least be friends…if not more. And the remembrance of that ‘more’ also filled Jinyoung with a feeling of solemnity. Mark did want them to be friends, but he’d also said he was interested in Jinyoung and wanted to prove he was his soulmate. And the idea of that, which had originally annoyed Jinyoung, now stirred his heart in an entirely different way.

“So,” Mark said finally, reaching out to take Jinyoung’s hand. “Do I get to talk to you again after this, or did I blow it for good?”

Jinyoung looked into his eyes, feeling a wild tumult inside of him which told him that his 99.9% certainty was still on a steep plummet he could no longer ignore or brush off. He still could not commit to a fate he couldn’t be sure of or swear everything to Mark after such a fresh change of heart, but there was one thing he felt he could promise, something he was sure was true.

“Yes,” he said with one last smile to strain his exhausted cheekbones. “I’d be more than happy to keep talking like this with you.”

The next morning, there was yet another knock on Minki’s door as he was rousing himself. Aron again?, he thought to himself. God, the poor boy must be starved for it. Maybe I should just kiss him and explain to Jinyoung that it’s deductible as a charitable donation.

Instead, it was Jinyoung himself there this time when he opened the door. “Hey!” Minki said excitedly. “Where have you been off to recently? And how’s the ankle?”

“My ankle’s fine,” Jinyoung said. “As for where I’ve been…I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Sure. Come in. Don’t mind the wrinkled sheets, I just got up. Also, don’t mind my pizza pajamas. It’s fashion.”

“Minki, you know I love your pajamas,” Jinyoung said with a faint smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

The two of them sat down on the bed. “OK, so you know how Mark was the one who took me to the hospital after I sprained my ankle?” Jinyoung began.

“Uh-huh?”

“Well…that day he also told me he was interested in me and wanted to take me out for a day to prove that he was capable of making me not hate him.”

Minki’s eyes widened. “Dude! Why would you withhold that information from me until now? This is major!”

“Because I didn’t think anything would come of it since every other interaction I’d ever had with him seriously ticked me off! I didn’t want to give you an update to our soulmate situation only to have it amount to absolutely nothing!” He took a breath. “I’m sorry, Minki. I should have told you anyways. I guess I’m just…increasingly aware of how every bad judgement or decision of mine is also affecting you, and it’s beginning to scare me a little.”

“Well, join the club. I’m worried about how everything I’ve been going through lately will affect you, too. And I guess I’ve been withholding my own share of information because of that.” He sighed. “You start. I’m assuming yesterday was your big day with Mark? How did it go?”

Jinyoung squirmed a little, chewing on his lip. “It was good,” he said after a moment. “Really good. Good enough to where I don’t…I don’t think I’m 99.9% sure he’s not my soulmate anymore.”

Minki sighed in relief. “That’s good to hear. Because frankly, Jinyoung, I’m pretty damn sure Aron’s supposed to be with me. And he thinks so, too.”

“I know. Mark told me. Was that what you were withholding?”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to feel bad…in case I wound up being wrong. If Aron ended up being your soulmate, I worried you might be hurt if you knew he’d fallen in love with me.”

“I may have been. But now…” Jinyoung sighed. “It’s such a jumble, Minki. I really think my soulmate could be Mark, but…”

“You still don’t want to act on it until you’re sure?”

He nodded a little. “At this point…I could probably let him go without it killing me, if he’s not the one. But if I commit myself fully and find out he isn’t and have to let him go…I don’t think I could survive that, Minki. I’m not that strong of a person.”

“So we’re still going to be waiting until December?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I…don’t want you to have to give up on Aron because of me. If you really want to…you should…”

“What? Sleep with him?”

Jinyoung flushed. “Um.”

“Are you actually sure it would be OK with you? If your sister informs you that Aron’s your guy after all, are you really going to be OK with me having slept with him then?”

Jinyoung chewed his lip harder. “Maybe…maybe you could save that until after December when we have our answer and I’ve digested my feelings a little more? But kissing…I would be OK with that, at least.”

Minki shook his head. It wasn’t that he doubted Jinyoung’s resolve, but he knew that sharing lovers between best friends was not as easy of a thing as Jinyoung was kindly trying to make it out to be. “How about this?” he said. “You may be melting a little to Mark, but you’re probably not sure if you’re 100% in love yet. I won’t kiss Aron until you’re sure of that. And I agree, I definitely won’t sleep with him until after December. As for you…my attitude’s a bit different than yours. Go ahead and kiss Mark the moment you feel like it. You can sleep with him, too. I seriously don’t mind. Not that I think you’re actually gonna go that far so quickly.”

Jinyoung looked freaked at the mere thought of it. “I don’t even want to think about that right now,” he said faintly. “Still, I’m glad we had this talk. And I’m sorry I insisted so soon about Mark not having a chance with me. I probably messed things up for you and Aron for a while because of that. I'm really going to try not to do anything like that again.”

“It wasn’t just your fault. I also thought I couldn’t possibly end up with Aron after I basically poisoned him. We both jumped to conclusions far too soon.” Minki leaned back into his pillows. “Just so you know, though, I’m already 100% sold on Aron. He’s my one. And because I believe that, I’m 100% sure that Mark’s yours. I hope you keep giving him chances to prove that, OK?”

Jinyoung nodded, a small smile breaking through the storm clouds on his face. “I think I wouldn’t mind,” he said softly. “I think I wouldn’t mind at all if that winds up being true.”

A/N: Thank you everyine for your support of this fic so Far! I hope you're enjoying!

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