One.
Our Favorite PlaceJinyoung sometimes wondered why he was still friends with Kim Wonpil - he was noisy, annoying and wasn’t even fun to be with, that and he was an awful friend to begin with.
It was the very first day of winter break, after what was a torturous semester of doing nothing more but studying like crazy for the college entrance exam and the least he expected from his so called best friend was go somewhere to celebrate their freedom together.
But that damn traitor didn’t hesitate a second to turn him down for Park Jaehyung and his band, that just that afternoon would have a practice and obviously, Wonpil wasn’t going to miss one of his crush's garage practices .
Jinyoung couldn’t even understand why Wonpil was so obsessed with Jaehyung, the guitar player was already dating Kang Younghyun in the first place and in second, it was a bit evident that he didn’t like Wonpil a lot, he was always making fun of his pink sweater.
But as his ex-best friend clung to the fact that he wanted to see the band during the whole thing and after a couple of songs he got a headache hearing everybody yelling above the already loud music, he just went back home - from being in an uncomfortable couch in a garage to be in his house locked up, better stay in his house, at least there he would have more interesting things to do than see Wonpil drool over a guitarist.
There was no one home when he came, but the tv in the living room was on, the screen showing a video game on pause. He rolled his eyes, his sister must have thought it was a good idea to leave it like that while she went to who knows where, of course, as she didn’t pay the electricity bill - he neither, but that wasn’t about him.
When he approached to turn the tv off, he read some plot about game that was showing on the screen. To tell the truth, he wasn’t very interested in video games so he had no idea what that was about, but in this game, the gamer apparently had to find some kind of secret object hidden somewhere along with 6 characters that would appear in different situations.
One could only find the lost object until the 6 characters in the game were unlocked.
Intrigued, he sat down in front of the tv and took the controller, he was just curious to see what it was about, sure it would bore him instantly, anyway.
The whole game was easier than he thought - the main character just entered a new school and now looked for this mysterious object in the gardens, with the help of his friends - Jinyoung was the decision-maker, controlling the main character.
The game was already advanced by his sister, but up until now there was 3 other characters; Mark, Jackson and JaeBum. Jinyoung thought that some of the characters were foreigners because of the names and he proved his theory right when a new character named Bambam showed up at some point, while the other 4 walked through the gardens of the school.
Jinyoung's character fell and the options were "Run away from the scene" or "Stay and let your friends help you get up", thinking that his sister had chosen the second option, he selected the first one just for fun and ended up in the infirmary where Bambam helped him with a bandage for the scraped knee.
Besides looking for this lost object, the characters developed some kind of relationship and it was obvious that his sister had chosen Mark to be the romantic interest and just to ruin it, he started answering to everything negatively when it was about Mark and making the character get closer with Jackson.
As that time when Mark asked the character to have dinner with him (with a charming smile and a special glow in his eyes,) there were options like: "Sure, we all can go together", or "Will it be a date? (you asked blushing)", he replied that he wanted to go with all his friends.
Apparently, Mark didn’t like the decision very much, but Jackson found the idea particularly good, and the now 5 friends went to an establishment where new characters were found: Youngjae and Yugyeom, when Jinyoung chose to spill a drink and reject Mark's help and the rest’ of the characters he already knew.
At first, he only played with the goal of ruining his sister's game, actually, but there came a moment when he really got lost in the story and kept playing and playing, developing his character, entertained in the resolution of the supposed mystery, but more focused in the improved relationship with Mark.
He understood why his sister had chosen him from the beginning as the main romance, the 6 of them were really charming in their own way, and went out of their way to help Jinyoung's character, but Mark had something different. He supposed that this was how the game was configured, so that everything was focused on Mark. He even lost interest in Jackson after some scenes.
He was so enthralled in the game, that he didn’t hear when his parents came home, or when his sister sat next to him, trying to tell him what he should do with her game, he didn’t even notice when she gave up and let him play but not before warn him that she would reset the game in the morning.
He kept playing, until his character and the group of friends found the first clue to get the lost object.
When Jinyoung woke up, he was in a bed too comfortable as to be the couch, he couldn’t remember going upstairs to his room, according to himself, he had fallen asleep in the middle of the game and should have woken up in the uncomfortable couch of his living room, with the TV still switched on.
Surely, his parents would kill him when they realized he was up playing all night, he thought exalted, but relaxing instantly - if he was in his room, that meant he also turned off the tv, erasing all evidence that he was there until dawn, it didn’t matter if he didn’t remember doing it or not.
Relaxed, he stretched his body lazily, thinking of a very hot coffee and some donuts - sure, it wasn’t the healthiest breakfast in the world but it was winter break and he was dying to waste time and eat junk food.
And then, he felt it.
There was something soft around his waist and between his legs, and something very cold moved at his feet and he opened his eyes startled.
He almost had a heart attack when he saw the room, which was not his room. There was nothing there that he could recognize - not the books on the desk, not the posters, not the furniture, not the photographs, not even the painting on the wall.
Beside him, there was an unknown boy asleep, his arms were those that held him by the waist and his legs were still intertwined with Jinyoung’s. That cold feeling, was the boy's own feet, which were frozen and rubbed against Jinyoung’s in an attempt to seek heat.
Jinyoung jumped up from the bed and if he didn’t scream it was because he was too scared to make a sound, standing still as the boy on the bed began to roll on the bed, stretching and a second later, his sleepy eyes settled on him.
"Hey..." he said hoarsely, smiling softly at him.
Jinyoung shook his head, frowning, "Who are you? Where the am I?"
The boy looked at him confused but his smile didn’t fade, maybe he thought Jinyoung was playing with him, "Come back to bed Nyoungie, it's still early."
What?! None of that sounded alright in Jinyoung's head. The stranger just asked him to go back to bed? As a reflex, he looked at himself and at the boy, both were fully dressed, so maybe everything was okay, no hidden meaning.
And he was talking to him so familiarly, as if they knew each other for years and years, he called him 'Nyoungie', he hadn’t heard that nickname since he left kindergarten, not even his parents called him that already.
"I'm not joking, what's all this?"
The boy smiled again, "What do you mean? Yesterday we had a party, and you slept over, you said you didn’t want to go home."
"Yesterday?" Jinyoung shook his head a couple of times, he was getting a headache and every passing second, he understood less, "Yesterday I was with Wonpil seeing the band and then I went back home, I stayed gaming all afternoon."
"Uhmm..." The guy finally seemed a little more confused but not too much, maybe he still thought that Jinyoung was joking, "I'm pretty sure you were with us yesterday, you even hit Jackson when he tried to kiss you, it was funny."
"Who?"
"Though I think it was really more Jaebum's fault for proposing that stupid game," the boy said, getting up from the bed reluctantly, as if realizing that Jinyoung wouldn’t go into bed again. "If what he wanted was a chance to kiss Youngjae, the only thing he had to do was ask him.”
"I don’t know..." Jinyoung stepped away when he saw the stranger walking towards him, this was starting to scare him, the boy talked with such a naturalness that disturbed him and he didn’t like anything about it, the person this guy was talking to it couldn’t be Jinyoung, "I don’t know what you're talking about."
The guy laughed, "Don’t tell me you didn’t notice? Those two aren’t more obvious because they can’t. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Yugyeom or Bambam hadn’t noticed, but you? You were the one who told Youngjae that Jaebum felt the same."
Jinyoung's eyes opened wide, so much so that they were going to come out of their sockets.
"Wait, wait... Bambam? Yugyeom, Jaebum, Youngjae, Jackson..." he stuttered, numbering with his fingers, looking at the stranger for the first time. Sure, he didn’t look like a computer animation but there was something in him that reminded him of that character, "Are you... are you Mark?!"
The boy - Mark, laughed as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world "Yes, I’m Mark and you’re Jinyoung."
Jinyoung almost fainted.
It couldn’t be possible, he had to be dreaming, this was a total joke.
He pinched himself so hard that he bruised his arm and Mark had to stop him before he hurt himself again and this time he looked at him with a confused glare. Luckily he didn’t ask what was wrong, he only suggested cooking the breakfast.
Jinyoung decided just to go with the flow, it wasn’t as if he could tell Mark that he looked like (or was) a character in a video game, it was a bad dream surely, all for playing who knows how long, he’ll be waking up any time now.
"Do you want pancakes?" Mark asked him once in the kitchen but Jinyoung was too busy looking at everything in the place to pay attention. He couldn’t recognize anything about that apartment, even though in the game he actually was at Mark's house at some point.
Now that he thought about it, in the game, Mark lived in his parents’ house and had a pool and everything, in this apartment it seemed that it was only Mark.
"Jinyoung?"
"Yes, it's fine," the other answered without really knowing at what he was saying yes, but as Mark smiled, he supposed it had been a correct answer.
"Then come here," he said, grabbing him by the arm to take him to the counter, where he started to take out all the necessary tools for the pancakes, gently pushing Jinyoung, who was in the middle of the kitchen not knowing what to do, "Take out the flour."
"Where is it?"
Mark frowned, amused and genuinely surprised, but didn’t mention the fact that Jinyoung should already know it, and only pointed to one of the drawers on the countertop. "You're acting really weird today, are you okay?" He told him.
"I think... I'm still asleep," Jinyoung tried to reply smiling a bit doubtful, Mark smiled sweetly.
"Do you want to go back to bed?" He said tenderly, caressing his cheek and Jinyoung blushed profusely with the other boy's closeness, "The guys will come in a couple of hours, you still have some time to sleep more."
Jinyoung nodded quickly, getting away from Mark instantly and going to the room without saying anything else, ignoring the speed that took his heartbeat at being so close to Mark, it had to be the nerves that all this insane dream was giving him.
Without thinking it much, he lay down over Mark's bed, instantly identifying the other boy's scent but he could also smell his own. He shook his head as if to ward off strange thoughts, and closed his eyes.
When he woke up, he would do it in the uncomfortable couch in the living room, in front of the TV set. His parents would scold him for staying there all night and his sister would take away the game and scream at him for grabbing her things. Then Wonpil would call him to tell him in great detail the band’s practice that he didn’t get to see the previous afternoon.
Yeah, and he would laugh out loud at his friend when he tells him that Jaehyung made fun of his sweater again.
Everything normal, as it should be.
When he woke up again, it was because of loud voices he heard outside the room, he couldn’t identify what they were saying. He didn’t pay attention, thinking that maybe his parents were having an argument with his sisters, but his calm didn’t last long when he realized everything around him - the smell of Mark, his bed and his things were still there even after blinking a million times.
He didn’t even have time to panic for the second time in the day as someone entered the room and smiled at him, his smile was so beautiful and bright, he would surely win a competition against the sun. Jinyoung could immediately guess who of the 6 characters he was, apparently his mind was quite faithful to the game's programmed personalities.
"Hyung! You're already up, breakfast is ready," Youngjae greeted him, his smile unwavering and he came over to whisper, "I did it!"
Jinyoung blinked confused, "You did what?"
"Well you know..." Youngjae rolled his eyes, as if it was something obvious, but the only obvious thing for Jinyoung was that he didn’t know anything about what they were talking about. As Jinyoung just raised his eyebrows shaking his head, Youngjae growled desperate but the smile widened.
"Yesterday, Jaebum hyung asked me why I said no when Daein asked me out."
As it seemed that Youngjae expected some kind of reaction on his part he just managed to say, "And what happened?"
"I told him I wanted to go out with someone else and he got so serious! He was giving me his death glare," Youngjae was way too happy about rejecting someone and making Jaebum mad, but from what Mark said, he already had an idea where he was going with that.
Jinyoung smiled inevitably, infected by the boy’s enthusiasm, “So?!"
"He asked me with who and when I didn’t say anything got a little bit more angry," The other laughed softly, "And he said under his breath that he didn’t want me to go out with anyone," he rolled his eyes and Jinyoung mirrored him as he heard the outcome of the story, he was hoping that Jaebum would have said something else but actually, he wasn’t sure if that reaction was the expected one or not.
"Tell me you punched his face or something."
Youngjae laughed so hard and Jinyoung for a second forgot that he didn’t belong there, whatever that place was, "I asked him ‘Not even with you?’ And that was it, a second later he confessed and asked me out."
"Better you said yes, cause if you didn’t..."
Youngjae blushed slightly and nodded, "I told him I liked him, we're like officially dating now."
"It was about time!" Jinyoung shouted and the other hugged him, which took him a bit by surprise, but he returned the hug quickly, feeling a little calmer than a few minutes ago when he was going crazy because he had woken up inside a video game.
"Are you okay hyung?" Youngjae asked out of nowhere and Jinyoung wondered how well this boy knew that other Jinyoung who lived with them, that was definitely not himself, to notice something weird.
"Yeah, fine," he replied, patting his back and breaking the hug, Youngjae smiled sweetly at him and then he understood why this Jaebum guy was in love with him.
"Is everything alright with Mark hyung?"
Jinyoung hesitated, but he hoped it wasn’t too obvious, "We're fine, why wouldn’t we?" ‘You're a stranger here’ , he replied to himself.
The younger shrugged, "I thought he had asked you to-"
But Jinyoung never got to know what Mark had asked him, because just then a voice was heard from the living room, calling them both for breakfast.
Youngjae dragged him along, and Jinyoung decided to go keep pretending everything was okay. As it seemed that he wasn’t going to wake up or come back or whatever he decided to behave as normally as possible until all that was over, and not get much attention from the other guys.
Once they reached the dining room, Mark smiled softly and Jinyoung's insides jumped and made him shudder, he didn’t even know him, he didn’t have to feel that way.
"Did you rest?" He asked, gently removing a strand of hair that was on his face.
Jinyoung smiled, nodding and a quick thought that definitely he could get used to those treats crossed his mind. On the other hand, he wondered what kind of relationship he was supposed to have with Mark, it scared him a little that it was something serious because he wouldn’t know how to react to certain situations, but it wasn’t as if he could ask him either.
To divert his mind from those thoughts and from Mark, he fixed his eyes on Jaebum who was trying to get Youngjae to feed him in the mouth while the other just laughed, trying to push him.
Without thinking, he smiled at the image and Jaebum frowned, diverting his attention from Youngjae, "Say it now."
"Say what?" Jinyoung asked confused, losing his calm again.
"Youngjae already told you, right? About yesterday."
Jinyoung shrugged and the other continued, "Just say I'm an idiot and stop looking at us like that."
Mark, who had sat next to him, laughed and Youngjae rolled his eyes but as it looked like everyone was waiting for his response, he mirrored the younger one and also rolled his eyes, answering what he would have said to any of his other friends in real life.
"You're an idiot, but at least you already asked him out. I thought you would take forever."
Jaebum rolled his eyes and turned his gaze to Youngjae, smiling at him tenderly and Jinyoung couldn’t help but add, "And you look disgusting with that look on your face."
"As if you didn’t act like this with Mark all the time."
Jinyoung snorted and turned around only to find Mark grinning at him and offering him a piece of pancake with his fork. Jinyoung inhaled deeply, reminding himself that he should act as normal as possible to avoid strange questions that would only make him more nervous.
So, with the best smile he was capable of, he approached and accepted the bite that was offered, and then the next, ignoring Jaebum who said something between the lines of "And dares to judge me" , his attention completely on Mark.
He was really handsome, more than any video game could come to imitate, with his delicate but sharp features, his thin lips and deep eyes. Eyes that looked at him so gently that Jinyoung had never felt more loved before. He wondered if the other Jinyoung, the one who really belonged there, saw Mark the same way Mark looked at him.
If they looked the same as Jaebum and Youngjae in front of them.
He supposed they did, and it saddened him a little that, right now, he couldn’t see him the way he should, because to him, Mark was someone he didn’t know.
And that's when he remembered the game plot, maybe that could help him get back to normal, "Do you know something about a mysterious thing that it’s lost?"
The 3 friends looked at him amused, it was Youngjae who asked him back, "What kind of thing?"
"I don’t know, it was something secret, we had to look for it in the school gardens," he tried to explain, but it didn’t seem that any of the 3 knew what he was talking about until Mark reacted, snapping his fingers.
"Ah! The time capsule?"
"What? That silly project?” Jaebum intervened and for his good luck he didn’t have to ask what they were talking about because Youngjae took care of that.
"What project?"
"In high school one of our teachers hid a time capsule and we had to look for it in all the gardens," explained Jaebum, "It was very stupid honestly. He gave us weird clues every week and the group that found it first exempted the final exams."
"And what was in the capsule?" Curious Youngjae asked.
"Old photographs and letters from former students."
"The teacher made us write letters too, to hide them and be discovered by next generation." Mark added.
"That was all?" Jinyoung asked disappointed, that much for nothing. Maybe in the game it was something different and more exciting than that.
"Yeah and yet you forced us all to decipher the clues," Jaebum rolled his eyes but when Youngjae said, "It sounds funny!" he softened his expression, smiling, and nodded.
God, he is so in love with him.
"Why do you ask?" Mark finally said and Jinyoung coughed a bit to clear his throat.
"I couldn’t remember what was in the capsule, I thought it was something more interesting."
Mark shook his head and everyone drop the subject, but Jinyoung did felt a bit disappointed that it hadn’t been much better than some old photographs. He really was expecting to find the answer of how to wake up from that crazy dream, but apparently that wasn’t the answer.
When they finished breakfast, Youngjae and Jaebum left, leaving Mark and Jinyoung alone, which caused the initial nervousness to return.
But Mark smiled and proposed to see a movie that was also one that, strangely, Jinyoung loved.
They spent all afternoon it in the couch, eating popcorn and pizza, hugging each other. Jinyoung at some point started caressing Mark's hair and all of that felt curiously familiar.
It didn’t take Jinyoung long to get used to Mark, and though in his mind he repeated that he shouldn’t because he didn’t really know if that was going to be permanent or was going to end from one day to the next, so he couldn’t afford to get closer to him.
But it was just so easy to fall in love with Mark.
He was loving and caring, he was kind and a good listener, and though he wasn’t too talkative, when he did talk, he had a way of expressing himself that was so special - simple but direct. And when neither of them had anything to say, their mere company was enough, lying down watching a movie or him reading while Mark played a video game.
Everything about Mark was incredible perfect.
Jinyoung felt so comfortable with him, so peaceful and he liked being this way, he liked him and sometimes, even when he missed his real life, he wished he could make this his reality. But deep down, he always lived with that fear of waking up and not seeing Mark again.
On the other hand, there were times when he really wished he wasn’t there, when he was suddenly asked questions that he had no idea how to answer and ended up in an awkward situation, as in that moment.
They were lying on the sofa, after eating and they were planning what they would do the next day - they were on vacations so they had a lot of free time, and then Mark asked him a question that he definitely couldn’t answer.
"Jinyoung, have you thought about my proposal?"
"Uhm... what... proposal?"
Mark pursed his lips, he seemed hurt by the response and Jinyoung felt a twinge in his chest, he didn’t like to make Mark feel that way, but he couldn’t pretend that he knew - since he had arrived at that place, he had the hunch that Mark wanted to ask him something that he always left unsaid, and Jinyoung didn’t insist for him to tell him, because he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to answer him. It was possibly that.
"You moving in with me, I know you told me you were going to think about it but..." Mark clarified but his eyes were fixed elsewhere, as if he thought Jinyoung was pretending not to remember it on purpose, so as not to have to give him a negative answer. "Forget it, it wasn’t that important anyway."
"It's not what you're thinking!" Jinyoung hurried to say, and he hated the other Jinyoung a bit.
He had learned several things from observation while there, one of them it was that Mark and he had been dating for almost 3 years, since they graduated from high school and what he had noticed, was that Jinyoung practically lived with Mark since it was very rare when he returned to his apartment so he couldn’t think in a single reason why he had to think about it.
"It doesn’t matter," Mark told him dryly and Jinyoung panicked, babbling parts of the truth, not stopping to think too much.
"I'm sorry... I really don’t know about anything you talk about... I'm not the Jinyoung you love Mark, I don’t even know why I'm here!" He spat suddenly, in a desperate attempt that Mark didn’t look at him that way. He didn’t want him to hate him for not remembering it.
"What are you talking about?" The other frowned and at least the gesture of disappointment had been erased, replaced by a curious one.
"Is just..." The younger sighed, this time he was meditating a little more what he was going to say, but he couldn’t back down or lie again, he didn’t want to lie to Mark, "A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even know you! Everything is really weird, I don’t know what happened but I don’t belong here... you're supposed to be a video game."
"A video game?"
"Something like that... a character of one. I don’t know anything about you, I don’t know you, I never know what you are talking about the most of the time, the things that I said or we did together... I’m not that person who is your boyfriend."
"But you are my Jinyoung," Mark said, touching his cheek softly, "Smart, funny, who takes care of everyone even though sometimes it seems that you want to kill them... The Jinyoung who loves books and who also likes to go climbing. Sometimes it’s as if you have forgotten something but you are my Jinyoung. The same Jinyoung that I have always loved, I couldn’t be wrong."
"Mark..."
"If you forgot things, I’ll help you remember."
"It's not that I've forgotten it, it's that I never lived it."
"Then let's make new memories!"
Jinyoung smiled a little, he didn’t know if Mark had believed him or not, but to stay after what he had listened was good enough, that he was willing to keep going with all of this, showed him what Mark really felt for that other Jinyoung and he would have be jealous, but then he remembered that at that very moment, the one there was him and he could enjoy that as much as he wanted.
Because at that time, he was Mark's Jinyoung.
And they made many new memories, at least for Jinyoung.
Mark took him to eat his favorite ice cream and to the park where they kissed for the first time - they kissed again and though that was the n time for Mark, it was the first for Jinyoung and it was perfect, as well as the previous ones of which he had no knowledge but he didn’t want anymore.
They went to the mountain and Mark had to teach him how to climb for the second time, but he didn’t seem to mind, he was patient and tried to contain the laughter whenever Jinyoung slipped, until he told him to laugh at once and leave him alone. Mark burst out laughing at last and it was a sound that warmed Jinyoung's interior, even though it was terribly cold.
They also went to an arcade where Jinyoung lost every single one of the games they played but Mark was so happy that it didn’t matter, he liked to see him laugh.
They went to a library, Mark bet that he would love it, and he was right, it was the most perfect place to be - quiet, in silence, with a coffee and whatever book he could think of. He liked that place so much that he memorized the address to look for it once he returned to the ‘real world’ and visited Seoul at some time.
Actually it was a very weird weeks, Mark treated him as if he had lost his memory and Jinyoung knew that he didn’t believe anything about the video game thing, but he made an effort to try to remind him of all his favorite things and what he liked to do and everything was pretty faithful to what he would have found as a favorite.
It seemed as if the Jinyoung there and he himself were the same person.
The same one that Mark loved. The same one that loved Mark.
It was an icy day, a couple of months after he got there.
He had already gotten used to being with Mark and his friends, he had grown really fond of all of them and Mark, well, maybe in other circumstances he would have said that it was impossible to fall in love with someone in such a short time but now, he supposed that if he fell in love it was because he was already in love with Mark for 3 years long, even if it had been his another me.
But that day, he woke up and something didn’t feel right.
Mark wasn’t in the bedroom (in the end, he said he wanted to move in with him, the other Jinyoung would thank him) but he could hear him in the living, it sounded like he was playing some online thing with Youngjae - Jinyoung was surprised how early Youngjae could get up when it come to gaming, when Jaebum always had to come out with new ways to wake him up.
Everything seemed normal, but he had a weird feeling in his chest, it made him feel that something was going to go wrong at any moment.
The bad feeling lasted all day, and he couldn’t get out of his head that something bad was going to happen and he tried with all his might to hide it so that none of his friends would notice when they went to eat together, but Mark knew him better.
"Jinyoungie, are you okay?" He asked discreetly, when the others were busy trying on clothes in a store.
"I don’t feel very well," Jinyoung answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders, he didn’t want him to think it was something important.
Mark looked at him worriedly, "Do you want to go to the hospital?! Something happened? You have stomach ache?"
"No!" The other couldn’t help but laugh, "I'm fine, just... do you think we can go somewhere else?"
"We can tell the guys that..."
"No, can we go alone?"
Mark nodded, going with Jaebum a second to inform him they were leaving and tell the others. Once outside the mall, Mark asked where he wanted to go.
"To... our favorite place?" he had no idea if they had a favorite place, but since Mark didn’t say anything and just took him by the hand to guide him, he decided to trust him.
The way there lasted a couple of hours, they went to the sea, according to Mark, it was very close to Jinyoung’s hometown, and they sat on the sand in silence, hand in hand, to watch the waves come and go.
"What are you thinking about?" Jinyoung just shrugged and Mark continued, "Do you remember when we first came here?"
Jinyoung sighed, because no, he didn’t know it but he would have liked it, "Hyung..."
The older boy shook his head, if he was disappointed he didn’t show it on his face and smiled at him, talking to him about that time, "We were going to go to your parents' house, it was the first time I went there so I was really nervous, so much that before leaving, I was having a panic attack because I thought I had lost my car keys, until you not so kindly made me see that I had them in my hand."
Jinyoung laughed and Mark's smile grew bigger, "The thing was, when we were on the way, a tire struck out and we didn’t have the spare one. At the end, when you stopped complaining, we could finally push the car to this rest area and while waiting, we came to see the sea, just like now. Jaebum took so long to come that we could see the sunset."
"It was good, then."
"Yeah, do you really don’t remember?"
'I was never here with you Mark.' Jinyoung thought, pursing his lips, reminding himself that he wasn’t that person Mark had lived all those things with. Moreover, most likely all this was a product of his imagination, a dream that one day he would wake up.
Then, he realized. Maybe it was time, maybe something inside him was telling him that he needed to say goodbye now, before he couldn’t do it.
And if this was his imagination, then he could play pretend a little, he could imagine that he did had spent all that time there.
"Of course I remember" he said and Mark smiled, approaching to kiss him gently, "Do you think that if there were alternate worlds, we could know each other in all of them?"
Mark raised an eyebrow, "You've been reading weird books again, haven’t you?"
"Maybe." the answer made Mark laugh.
"I think so, I'd like to meet you in all the worlds out there."
"Yeah, me too."
They fell silent again, Jinyoung came close enough to lean his head on Mark's shoulder, and they watched the sunset together, only with the sound of the waves in the background.
"I love you, Mark."
"And I love you too, Jinyoung."
When he woke up, the smell of Mark's sheets wasn’t there and he knew immediately that he was back, and when he opened his eyes, he confirmed it.
Jinyoung was in his own room, surrounded by his things. He looked around, in a futile attempt to look for something that was related to that dream, but no. There was no sign of Mark or any of the other 5.
Life in his house was the same, as if he had never left. When he came down, his parents scolded him for half an hour for having stayed up to play so late and his sister explicitly forbade him to touch her things again, but Jinyoung had to ask what had happened with the game.
"The game, where is it?" He asked his sister when he followed her to her room and entered by force, preventing her from closing the door in his face.
"I already reset it, don’t bother."
"But... I was almost there to win," Jinyoung complained but it wasn’t the truth reason of his annoyance, "I had already unlocked all the characters and you and Mark were about to go out on an important date."
"Who’s Mark?" The girl asked, not caring what her brother was saying and Jinyoung rolled his eyes.
"Mark, the character in the game!"
"There’s not a character named Mark."
"Yes, there is!"
"No, is not."
"It is."
"Isn’t."
Jinyoung growled impatiently, rummaging through the room until he found the game’s box he played the previous night just to show his sister that he was right.
"Look! It's..." he stopped mid-sentence, because no, there was no Mark in the description of the game. Neither Mark, nor Jaebum, nor Youngjae, nor Yugyeom, Jackson, or Bambam. Not even the characters resembled what he had seen and that disturbed him.
It's as if nothing of that long dream has ever existed, in any place, not even a video game.
"You saw it, right? Go away."
Jinyoung rolled his eyes again, threw the game to the bed and left with a slam.
He didn’t understand why he was so sad.
He had already made up his mind that everything was a figment of his imagination and that none of that ever existed. But still, he hoped for Mark to be real somewhere and they could meet each other at some point.
And finally, the day came.
While walking on the beach, which had become his favorite place to be - it was as if he always wished to find Mark there, it was their favorite place after all and he kept going and going with maybe the useless hope to see him until finally, he found him.
He was sitting looking at the sea, and Jinyoung couldn’t contain the happiness.
"Mark!" He shouted as soon as he saw him, running to his side. It was as if everything inside him drew him to the other boy, like a magnet. But Mark looked at him with an illegible face but one could tell that he found it very weird that someone came to him in that place, and that he even knew his name.
"Sorry but… do I know you?"
Jinyoung couldn’t help the twinge of pain he felt at heard him say that, and the way he looked at him, with some distrust. Obviously, the weird one was Jinyoung, for being this way suddenly when he was fully aware that Mark didn’t know him.
"No but... uhm... I'm sorry, my name is Jinyoung."
Mark smiled a little, but he still seemed reluctant, "Hello."
"Hi," he said and felt a little stupid. "You're Mark, right?"
"Yes."
"Ah yes... is just... I'm sorry, this is so weird." Jinyoung apologized, blushing slightly, it was definitely not a very good idea.
"Wait!" Mark said when Jinyoung turned around to hide the redness of his face, "I know you from somewhere, right?"
Jinyoung smiled and his heart jumped, "Yes, we've seen each other here."
"I thought so," Mark softened his expression and smiled, one of those smiles that looked a lot like the ones he dedicated only to him in that strange dream and that made him happy.
"Can I sit with you for a while?" He asked pointing to some spot on the sand next to Mark and he nodded, turning his gaze to the horizon.
They remained silent, watching the waves and Jinyoung smiled at himself and thought, that maybe, that was the moment in which both could start from scratch, together.
I don't know why I still feel like I want to change something in this story, but whatever.
This story was for a Secret Santa but atually was posted under another name, under another author. Let's say we changed stories cause this fits me better and the one I was supposed to write fits her better. She just revealed the secret so well, let's do it publicly lol
Maybe if I found inspiration, finally change that something that still feel like missing, but I like it also like this.
2jae on the side cause I'm a er.
Happy Holidays everyone!
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