As much as Jackson sometimes invaded his privacy and entered Mark’s room uninvited, he took the word intrusion to a whole other level when he simply refused to leave Mark’s thoughts.

Mark did not consider himself much of an overthinker, at least not in the past. If something were bothering him, he would process the thought, sleep on it, and resolve the situation as quickly as he could so he could move on to another annoying thought. He always thought of this as being the most rational and simple way of dealing with crap. But he had forgotten how stubborn his emotions would get when they got in the way.

After losing one too many games and having his brother call him a for not playing well enough, Mark decided he had enough and logged off to binge-watch something instead. While going through the movie list on Netflix, he quickly realised it was not the stomachache, or the headache, or the sleepiness that made him lack focus: it was his mothering roommate.

He found his mind wandering back and forth between the image of Jackson in the bathroom and completely made-up images of him in the shower. Those images usually combined and went as far as picture an entire scene in which Mark was the main character and boy did he hated not being able to control those thoughts. He would force his best memories of Jennie’s face as she was experiencing pleasure he was giving her but no could do. It was Jackson, Jackson, Jackson and ing Jackson at the most random and inconvenient times. The most annoying part was not to think about him 24/7 like a clingy , it was the sitting with his feeling alone because he couldn't bring himself to drop everything to face the truth that he had never fallen so hard for someone. The thought of it alone made him wince: he was not a boy. He loved his girlfriend, but there was a but that came every ing time he tried convincing himself of that fact which knocked him over. Every morning felt like waking up with a hangover because he had troubles coming down from the high of being on dopamine every second Jackson was around. It was like waking up to the realization that without his roommate, his life was the same old he was running away from and that none of these problems were fixed. He hated himself for growing so dependent on such a temporary and benign feeling which, for the record, was probably only in his head. He ing wanted it all to end, but at the same time he was holding onto that feeling like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He felt like the biggest joke.

Not only that, but it was important to mention that Mark's new job was the absolute worst to avoid thinking altogether as it involved so little mental abilities Mark could almost say he was paid to freaking meditate. Packing carts was not exactly the most stimulating task one could do. It seemed ironic considering all the time he had spent ranting about how ty his job was in the past years, but the truth was that Mark loved his job as a shipper. He could almost say he was close with his co-workers in the back and didn’t feel pressured to speak Korean all the time as their job didn’t necessitate talking in the first place. He knew he was treated like garbage by literally anyone else in the store, but Mark had learned to make abstraction of that as he didn’t really need to deal with them to do his job, and he had figured out a while ago that a resting face was enough for them to choose another employee to lash on when something went wrong. Plus, the drama was quite entertaining, and there were some moments he felt like being part of a, although highly dysfunctional, family.

This job, however, left Mark feeling… unwanted. Useless. Incapable. He didn’t believe he was doing it wrong, like, how could you mess this up? The job was so undemanding mentally he caught himself spacing out for several hours a day, not really seeing what he was doing anymore as he pushed the items to the end of the counter, waited for the heavy ones to slide his way, threw them in the cart, eggs and bread on top, and pushed the cart away with an indifferent nod which was supposed to mean “have a nice day.” No one cared about his politeness or anything he did or said for that matter. He felt like a robot, not only because he was doing the same movements for hours but also because neither the clients nor his coworkers acknowledged his presence unless he did something wrong according to a Karen, resulting in him being scolded by an old woman and pushed on the side so she can place her cereal boxes her way while he is being given a dirty look by the cashier who won’t even bother remembering the name on his name tag. At the end of the day, he was left with an empty mind and micro-cuts all over his hands, bruises on his hipbones and blisters on his feet, but no goodbyes, no “see you tomorrow”, and no one to about the job with while waiting for the subway. While it was a lot less stressful than getting on for causing a loss of a few hundred dollars for misplacing a returned item, Mark could say without a doubt that he’d take any bull from his previous boss, and any mistreatment from some two-faced colleagues over no recognition for his work at all.

He came back home completely drained every night, his body felt like a cracked, barely-holding-together empty shell as if his soul had vanished the time his alarm went off at five something AM so he’d have time to cook something before he commutes for over an hour to work, but we all know he was too damn tired and snoozed until last minute every morning because he didn’t wanna go, like a child faking sickness and whining long enough to hopefully miss the school bus. It was a never-ending circle of feeling too low to make an effort to change the things which dragged him down. He was too tired to eat well, too hungry to focus, too unfocused to initiate conversations and maybe make friends at work, and too lonely to sleep. Mark thought he was a bit dramatic on that, but he could assure he felt like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

*

“Alright, tell me about that job. Do they have a Soo Min too?” Jackson asked as he let himself fall on Mark’s bed while he was frowning at the screen of his laptop.

He didn’t look at the visitor right away. “Huh?”

“What are you doing?”

“Insurance claims,” he sighed before he pushed the lid of the computer shut and place it next to him on the bed. “You were asking?”

“Who’s the Soo Min at your new job?”

Mark smirked as he looked down. Soo Min was a at his previous job who lived to make his life miserable by disagreeing with every order he would fulfill for her clients. Let’s just say he had mentioned her quite a few times.

“I haven’t come across one yet. But there is a lady who seems fit for the role, although not in a ‘I need attention’ way.”

“I am so glad I work with kids. They will point out your pimples and your bad breath, but at least they won’t drag you through the dirt in front of your boss just because they love being a prick.”

“I mean, you’ve got a point.”

“Of course I do. Kids are not all bad. They just wanna play and have people laugh with them, even if that means trying to put the instructor’s eye out with a tiny sabre.”

“That’s a level of patience I’ll never have.”

“You work in customer service. Give yourself a week, I’m telling you.”

Mark smiled and looked down because he knew the other was right. As a shipper, he seldom had to deal with clients, especially not face to face, and he had grown forgetful of the atrocity of working in retail and dealing with the general population's ridiculous behaviour and pettiness. While he had not gotten an opportunity to engage with clients yet, he had witnessed some really silly situations involving grumpy old people and he was glad he was not the one who had to keep a straight face and apologize for something he hadn’t done.

“What about your colleagues? Aside from that Soo Min 2.0,” Jackson added.

“We don’t really talk. It’s not a job that is hum… good for chatting.”

The other narrowed his eyes with a playful smirk. “They don’t really talk to you, or… you don’t really talk to them?”

“A bit of both I guess,” Mark mumbled before biting his lip.

“Korean time, come on,” he declared and he laid on his side.

“What? Why?”

“Because I think that the reason you don’t speak to them is that you… are afraid of speaking Korean to them.”

Mark couldn’t remember the last time he had an actual conversation with his roommate in Korean. He heard him speak it sometimes with Ten, mostly when Yugyeom was around, but he never really paid attention to how fluent he was getting. His accent was still pretty thick, but he somehow managed to speak fast enough to sound confident in his abilities, something Mark could never do, and his voice appeared lower, at least in the other’s opinion.

“I’m not afraid. I’m just bad at it,” Mark finally answered in Korean.

“I’m bad at it too but… you just have to speak; you know what I mean?”

“It’s easy for you because… Ah, it.”

“No, no it. Take your time. I’m not judging you.”

Jackson dropped his hand on the other’s forearm, gently as he looked at him with a soft smile, and Mark could’ve sworn he was on a rollercoaster for the way his heart dropped down his ribcage to his stomach. The sight of his roommate made him nervous.

“It’s just that… my work is really boring. We just have to… take things, then, place them in a cart. All day. So sometimes, I feel like I don’t… I don’t think anymore. I space out all day. You understand?”

Jackson nodded with somewhat of a proud smile.

“I should get job there too. I will be your friend,” he teased.

“I don’t need a friend; I need another job.”

“Right.”

Mark wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but he was curious and didn’t want this conversation to end, so he asked while feeling himself blushing: “This boy… last time I saw him in the bathroom…”

“Ah Jinyoung. What’s wrong with him?”

“Well…?”

Jackson rolled his eyes with a smile he couldn’t contain. “Okay fine, Korean,” he laughed. “I like him. But that’s it. He’s not really the serious type of guy, at least from what I know.”

Mark nodded and somewhat frowned for a millisecond when he realised he was glad to hear that it was nothing serious. He thought to himself that he needed to get over himself.

“We should hang out with Jennie,” Jackson suggested as he pulled out his phone.

Mark smiled in confusion. “Why?”

“Why not? Things are alright with her, yeah?”

Jackson looked up, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, but… I don’t think she’d agree.”

He looked back down on his phone. “Text her. Harms no one. I’m texting Jinyoung.”

Jennie would agree, of course she would. She would do anything to hang out with Mark, and it would be one of the first times he was actually being a sociable boyfriend and invited her to hang out with his friends, or whatever they were, and not the other way around. But Mark thought it was a terrible idea.

*

He had barely woken up, but Mark was already over it.

Admittedly, he was nervous. He didn’t know why. His previous manager had asked him to go back to the store to pick up some paper as if they were too dumb to just ship it. He agreed nonetheless, partly because he wanted to go back one last time to see his favorite colleagues and to properly move on. The truth was, he truly missed the place, he did more than he should and more than he thought he would he knew, and the idea of going back made him feel… hopeful. Like maybe they’ll change their mind. Maybe they couldn’t hire anyone else. Maybe, just maybe, they cared enough. Don’t be delusional, he thought to himself, they never did. They never will.

The vibe was just strange. He had a chat with a few of the people on the floor, updated them about his situation, told them that things were looking good for the sake of the small talk, and found the director. Now his director was the biggest hypocrite he had ever come across, that was no breaking news, but Mark was still shaken by how he had to walk on eggshells with his old boss. He had grown used to a different mindset in his current work environment, a looser one, that allowed him to be frank and to be told things as they were. But the store was like that. Beating around the bush was its second name, they are sellers, sugar-coating is what they do best, omitting relevant but harmful information was usual, for instance forgetting to mention that Mark’s position was already covered.

All was over. The Band-Aid was off.

They asked him how he was doing like they didn’t really mean or wanted to know it at first, but they said it again a bit differently, a bit more like “how are you, really?”, and then “but you’re okay, right? Things are going well for you?” as if they knew. , of course they knew. They knew just how they got Mark into such a stressful position by making him an unemployed foreign student overnight simply because a had said so and they didn’t have the ing balls to argue with her. Mark was appreciated at his workplace, he had made his mind on that fact despite no one ever explicitly stating it, and he knew that they knew. He didn’t deserve to be treated so unfairly, and he did consider telling them, with composure and professionalism, to play their game and be as subtle as possible about it, but he deemed it unnecessary and petty. So he told them he was well, turned his back on them and walked out the door for the last time. And God, that stung.

He sat at his usual seat in the subway, the one next to the wall so he could rest his head and close his eyes after a long shift. He turned the volume up on his phone, his finger turning white as he pressed the button so hard. He didn’t want to hear anything. Mostly, he didn’t want to hear his own choked sobs. The tears running down his eyes like streams straight under his mask were more than enough to make him look like an idiot in front of the whole Seoul population. He had little mental capacity left to even care about what others thought, though. His eyes were closed shut and his hand clung onto his phone, his favourite song blasting through his AirPods as if becoming deaf would make it all go away. Actually, he didn’t want it all to go away. He wanted all not to slip between his fingers as he couldn’t hold on to anything anymore. Mark felt like he was losing his grip on reality as he watched his world spin out of control. And that’s what was choking him at that moment.

He missed it. He didn’t only miss his job; it was much greater than that. He missed the before. The stable. He missed not being worried about getting laid-off. He missed the subway ride between his place and work. He missed… heck, he missed receiving a picture of himself sleeping a few rows ahead in class from Jackson. He missed buying Jennie her favourite milk tea before picking her up at dance practice. He missed the bowling nights in high school. He missed the certain, the seemingly unchangeable future. He missed not caring so much because nothing could go that wrong. But everything went wrong. Everything was fragile, on the edge of falling and breaking, like his life was a game of Jenga coming to an end.

*

Jennie had agreed. Jinyoung had agreed. And so Mark could only follow Jackson to that silly double date which might have been one of Jackson’s worst ideas to date.

It was just as painfully awkward as Mark had expected it to be.

First, the food was meh. Not that he wanted to complain, but that had to be mentioned. Then, the conversations were about studies and working out, two things that Mark felt confident enough to talk about in Korean because no, Jinyoung did not make the effort to learn English and they all had to accommodate him because he was in his country. It could have been fine except that out of all the things Mark hated talking about these days, studying and working out were probably very high on the list for very specific reasons: he was failing classes and he hated going to the gym just to look like lifting a single dumbbell would probably break his bones. Jackson made clumsy attempts at including his roommate in the conversations by changing the subject but Jinyoung and Jennie were so stubborn about talking about their superficial . It left Mark wondering why the guy didn’t leave with his girl while he was at it. After all, Jackson wasn’t nearly as annoying as Jennie when she faked-laughed like a in need of attention, and having Jinyoung outta here would also mean Jackson would finally stop moving the guy’s hand away from his inner thigh because they were in a ing restaurant and he doesn’t understand the sheer concept of letting go of someone’s in public, let alone the concept of consent altogether.

“Right Mark?” she said as she dropped her hand on his.

He removed his hand before he could even realise what he had just done. The group fell silent and Mark closed his eyes to take a deep breath. They had seen that.

“What?” he faked a confused smile.

“Are you okay?” she frowned with the same fake smile as his.

“Sure,” he muttered.

“Yo, sorry to interrupt, but I really need to pee,” declared Jackson as he stood up.

He moved behind Jinyoung, apologized to the couple sitting at the table behind him for brushing his against their chair, and walked around the table to pass by Mark. He dropped his hand on the latter’s shoulder and tapped without looking at him, and he didn’t have to say anything for Mark to get the hint. Too done with the night to even bother finding an excuse, he just stood up without a word and followed the other to the bathroom.

“Yo what’s up with you?” Jackson blurted out in English as soon as he pushed the bathroom door open.

Mark could’ve ranted for an hour. Jennie annoyed the out of him. Jinyoung was being a tool and Jackson was too nice to admit he was making him uncomfortable. And on top of that, his potatoes were barely cooked. But he couldn’t tell Jackson all that because it was his idea and his boyfriend and Mark knew he was trying his best. So Mark just crossed his arms and sighed. 

“It’s just… ugh… Jennie’s just so fake tonight, she isn’t like that usually.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jackson repressed a smile. “Things aren’t going so well between you two lately, huh?”

“No. I mean… it’s not that.”

Mark frowned and looked down, but looked back up just in time to see Jackson nodding: “Honestly no offence but next time I’d be down to just order pizza and call it a night.”

“That should’ve been the plan from the start,” the other smiled.

Mark hadn’t noticed he had ended up leaning on the door of the bathroom until someone pushed it open hard enough for him to jump and almost lose his balance. Jackson grabbed him by the elbow to pull him closer in order to move him out of the way, but the door kept opening and Jackson eventually hit a wall so Mark’s body was pretty much pressed against him hip to hip, face to face. He looked over his shoulder to see if the man had finally gone through the door and felt Jackson’s warm breath against his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He felt the heat take over his face and ears.

“Sorry,” Jackson muttered.

“Don’t,” Mark answered too eagerly.

. He looked back at Jackson and he could swear he saw his eyes look down between their bodies to eventually hang on the other’s lips, but that might just have been his mind playing tricks on him because that’s what he wanted so badly to believe. His roommate swallowed thickly and exhaled loudly enough to shake Mark up and remind him that he could, and most probably should, move away now. Mark pulled on his own collar when he noticed he was still a bit hot and took a step back.

“They’ll wonder what we’re gossiping about,” he mumbled.

“Go. I actually need to pee,” Jackson blurted out as he moves past him to the stalls, leaving Mark no choice but to rush out of the bathroom to go back to their table.

That night, Mark chose to be that jerk and roll over to pretend to be asleep after having . He felt too much of a piece of to look at her in the eyes and cuddle her like he hadn't kept his eyes shut just to think of someone else while she rode him the entire time. He wanted him, bad, and the solemn act of admitting it to himself made him want to bang his head against the wall, for there was virtually nothing between them, but Mark was curious and wanted to experience that with someone who would care about him the way he feels proper, and maybe Mark was delusional in his fantasy that Jackson might be that guy. Maybe, but he needed to believe it because his own relationship was falling apart bits by bits every day and Mark couldn't pretend it was not happening anymore: he was falling out of love with a woman whom he once thought would bear his children, but the scariest was to fall for the unknown that followed Jackson like a shadow. Maybe Mark was just thirsty and wanted something up his . At this point, he would've rather laughed about that thought than the depressing situation surrounding it. Couldn't he just sleep without thinking of his for 's sake?

When insomnia kicked in like that, Mark laid in bed at night thinking that maybe he’d be better off in the US. It to say, but deep down he always knew Korea wasn’t for him, but as usual he had chosen to ignore the feeling. Life wasn’t that bad, nor was it too expensive or too boring, but that was before and things had changed. The more time passed and the more Mark realised that everything that was keeping him in Korea was coming undone and maybe that was a sign that he had done and seen enough here. If acknowledging that was a big step, thinking about his next move was a goddamn marathon. Mark had come to despise education so much that he couldn’t picture himself starting over again. Sure, he could probably get his credits transferred, but the process was not exactly cheap or hassle-free. But that was not the worst of it. Where would he go? What would he do? Was he mentally strong enough to go through the process of university admissions all over again? Applying to Korea hadn’t seemed like a smart move back then, at least to his family, because he had never shown interest in living in the country after his studies. In a way to convince them and himself that any university in Korea would be worth it, he often argued that South Korea was growing increasingly influential worldwide and that foreign languages were never a waste, and another bunch of lies and bull he only now realises after spending almost forty grants as tuition and learning all about the language. Mark didn’t care about the Korean culture, he never did. He dropped all of his friends and family and gave up on world-class education because he thought moving abroad would be “the best thing that ever happened to him” and look at him now, staring at the screen of some Californian community college website well past midnight with crippling anxiety that he had ed up bad and couldn’t allow himself to do it twice for the sake of his wallet, but mostly his mental wellbeing. On one hand, he would graduate from a South Korean institution, definitely not a prestigious one, and struggle to find a permanent position as he’d watch the money pour out of his bank account every first of the month. On the other hand, he would come back to a city where all have already forgotten him and add a few more years to his already late education, and most likely struggle to find a job anyway to the competitiveness of his field.

It felt like gambling. It felt like going all-in with all the wrong cards.

He thought the worst of it all was to deal with it alone. He couldn’t tell his girlfriend he intended on leaving the country when his lease ended: she would take it personal. He couldn’t run it by his roommates because they just wouldn’t care. He couldn’t tell his parents, because they would scold him for once again not finishing what he started. On this one, Mark was on his own.

            Wasn’t he always, though?