A/N: For the purposes of this fic, Arcadia High School is in New York City.

English, Chinese, Korean

I don’t know Mark, you think, then falter. “I don’t know a Mark,” you whisper.

But should I?

Unbidden, a memory from four years ago surfaces.

“Hey Jewel, how’s Mark? He never messages me back when I message him,” Susan suddenly asks as you’re eating lunch.

Confused, you just look at her. “I don’t know a Mark,” you reply after a beat, shaking your head. Somehow, though, the answer sounds wrong. It sounds like a lie.

Beside you, Peniel puts a finger to his lips, signaling for Susan not to say anything. You pretend not to notice.

The nightmares were bad that night.

Scrambling for your phone, you unlock it with shaky hands and open up to the page with Mark’s profile. Reading quickly, you find what you’d suspected.

You sit back and, for a few seconds, blankly stare at nothing.

In the months after the... incident, something had been off. You’d been confused a lot, as if you were a beat behind everyone else. You couldn’t fathom why, at the time.

Now, you know. You’d forgotten someone altogether.

How could this happen?

***

Wiping themselves down with towels and rehydrating, the GOT7 members get ready to head out for lunch with BTOB and BEAST. For some reason, however, Mark feels twitchy, even as they get into the van.

“Mark, get some sleep on the way there,” Jackson suggests.

Mark nods and rests his head on the younger’s shoulder. “Wake me up when Pen texts me.”

“Hey Precious, having fun in Seattle?” Mark asks over the phone, looking out at the nightscape. “I miss you.”

“So much fun, I wish you came! I miss you too,” you reply. “The dancers tonight were incredible. I’m just leaving the venue now. There was this one guy with all these tats that was just unforgettable. Couldn’t get a good look at him though, I was pretty far.”

“Too bad you’re so short, Precious,” he laughs, then becomes serious. “I have something to tell you.”

“Why the seriousness? Did something happen? Are you okay?” you ask, worried.

“Nothing bad,” he reassures you quickly. “You remember that audition I told you about?”

“The Korean one?” you reply. “Of course.”

“Well, I made it,” he announces nervously. “They want to fly me out next week.”

A beat.

“That’s great!” you exclaim, sounding slightly forced. “This is what you want, right? So go!”

“But Precious, there’s something else I need to tell you first,” he says, then slaps a hand to his face. He hadn’t been planning on telling you so suddenly, and over the phone, no less. Before he can backtrack, however...

A jarring clatter on the other end. A panicked shriek. Your voice. “Who are you?” Frightened.

“Jewel?!” Mark calls your name into the phone, shocked. “JEWEL!”

A pained scream.

Silence.

Mark jerks upright with a sharp gasp, startling the rest of GOT7. His face is damp with sweat, and his eyes in the rearview mirror are wide with fear. Jewel.

“What the- Bro, are you OK?” Jackson asks, worried.

Junior, on Mark’s other side, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Nightmare again?”

Mark nods stiffly.

It was a night of horrors. Mark redialed immediately, but your phone had gone straight to voicemail. Next, your parents and the Seattle police.

For hours, he and your parents hadn’t known if you were alive. Then, a call.

“We have her. Someone called in from nearby the hip-hop convention.”

“Let me talk to her. Is she alright?”

“I’m afraid that will be difficult.”

“What the hell does that mean?!” Mark had barked into the phone, heart beating fast. He never raised his voice.

“She was unconscious and bleeding out when we arrived on scene. The perpetrator seems to have stabbed a knife into her side. Luckily, it missed the vital organs. Even so, if the passerby hadn’t found her when he did, she likely would not have made it. As it is now, her condition is unstable and it is not certain that she will regain consciousness at all.”

Mark had gone speechless. Your mom sat down hard into the nearest chair and moaned, putting her face in her hands. Your dad put a shaky hand on her shoulder and closed his eyes.

“An investigation has been conducted.” A hesitation.

“W-what?” Mark asked. “What happened?”

“It’s still debatable until the forensics-”

“Just spit it out,” Mark growled, dreading the revelation of what he suspects.

“Armed ual assault.”

Your parents had flown over that same day. Mark, however, had been kept at bay by his own parents, who cautioned him against taking a leave from school, especially in light of his near departure to Seoul.

Two days later, finally. You woke up.

Mark scrubs his face with the sleeve of his shirt and leans back, body aching with too little sleep. Fearing what lurks behind his eyelids, he stares sightlessly at the ceiling of the van instead.

***

Heart beating fast, you dive into your investigation. “GOT7 Mark high school photos,” you type, waiting impatiently for the results to load.

When they do, however, you realize you’d underestimated the severity of your PTSD. Mark’s face, noticeably younger, hair pure black, jumps at you from a yearbook photo, and suddenly you’re thrown back into the familiar memory that assaults you from time to time.

The scent of cigarette smoke. An arm around your neck, heavy breathing by your ear. Pressed against a wall, you can’t move.

A hand fumbling at your shorts.

Biting his hand, screaming for help.

Suddenly, a warmth blossoming in your side.

Screaming in pain.

But this time, there’s something new.

A phone on the ground, lit-up by the call screen. Mark, it says.

Mark.

And with that simple revelation, it all starts coming back.

“Hey Precious, having fun in Seattle?”

The phone call.

“They want to fly me out next week.”

Mark had always loved performing.

“Precious, I’ve got the latest MMA match downloaded, come over.” A smile, quick and easy.

Mark was the reason why you took to Muay Thai so quickly.

“Iced chai–”

“Extra cream, I know.”

Iced chai was Mark’s favorite drink. You’d started drinking it after Seattle. You hadn’t known why but it quickly became your staple.

“Jewel, baby, Mark’s been worried sick about you,” your mom says, after the tears that had started when you finally woke up.

“Who’s Mark?”

The visit from a stranger.

A lean teenager darts into the room, followed by your parents.

“Precious, you’re alright!” he sighs, sinking into the chair by your bed.

You move away from him, whimpering slightly when the stitches pull on your waist.

He meets your eyes. “You... really don’t remember me?”

“Who are you?” you whisper. Looking at him makes your wound twinge.

His face crumples, and somehow you can read the emotions on his face. Heartbreak, sadness, anger, resignation.

He turns and leaves without another word.

Your nightmares start this night.

You’ve dropped your phone and scooted back against the wall, hugging your knees against your chest, eyes wet. The scar on your waist seems to burn. Peniel squats in from of you, resigned as he looks at the photos on your phone. Behind him, the BTOB members are curious, but reign themselves in to give you guys privacy.

“Jewel...”

“You didn’t tell me,” you interrupt him, crying. “My best friend. I forgot my best friend and you didn’t tell me.”

“Jewel, I couldn’t!” he bursts out, frustrated. “You don’t remember how I tried? You think I enjoyed seeing your face when you came to me the next morning after those damn nightmares? Every time the name Mark popped up, your nightmares were triggered. Why do you think he left? You think he would have left you? His dreams, they were nothing to him without you. But you couldn’t see him without him causing you pain.”

“But Precious, there’s something else I need to tell you first...”

Cigarette smoke. Fingers pulling at your shorts.

With an effort, you force yourself out of the memory, and surprisingly, you feel... glad. You shake your head.

“It’s good I forgot him then, at least temporarily,” you say softly. “Otherwise he never would have pursued his dream. I’d been so dependent on him. Now, I can take care of myself.”

Peniel knows how Mark regrets that phone call every day. But even he has to agree, in the face of Mark’s heartbreak, that it was good for the two of you.

“He’s the other beneficiary, isn’t he? In my parents’ will?” you ask, already knowing the answer. Peniel nods.

“Pen... I’m so different now. I’m not the same person that I was when I was Mark’s best friend,” you admit. “The memories are mostly back, I think. But all my new memories, the ones that have changed me, they’re there too. I’m still the same person I was an hour ago, before...” you wave your hand at Mark’s adolescent face. “...this.”

“I know. There are a lot of things he doesn’t know about you now,” he agrees. But there are a lot of things you don’t know about him, too.

“I still don’t feel familiar with him, Pen. I know I used to be, but four years is a long time to get over by merely removing a memory block,” you say, unsure.

I think I know what she’s saying, Peniel thinks. “Jewel...”

You barrel on forcefully. “So I guess what I mean, Pen, is that you can’t tell Mark I remember him, at least not yet. I think I still know him well enough to say that he would distance himself from me again, from guilt. He knows that I wouldn’t have been caught unawares-” Cigarette smoke. You swallow. “-in an alley if I hadn’t been shocked by his news.”

So that’s what he meant when he said it’s his fault. Makes sense, then, that he was the one thing she forgot.

“If you tell him, I think he would feel more hurt that I can’t respond the same way I used to,” you conclude.

Peniel nods again. “Better to get to know him again. But Jewel-” Isn’t it weird at all? Knowing that if he’d never called you, you would have been safe? Don’t you blame him, even a little bit?

“I don’t blame him, Pen,” you muse thoughtfully, deducing Peniel’s train of thought, as always. “I came out almost unscathed, and even the scar’s nearly gone. Besides, who’s to say it wouldn’t have happened otherwise? Psychologically, I might be ed, but I function normally most of the time. I have friends, Pen, that I wouldn’t have had.”

Peniel feels relief beyond measure. He always knew you would never blame Mark, but over the years, his hyung’s undying despair has eaten away at his surety. And seeing you so strong, now, after days of weakness, gives him the determination to help his other best friend get through this in one piece...

“I won’t tell him.”

...even if it means he’ll be hated, in the end.

You smile wanly but with a determined glint in your eye. “Let’s go to lunch.”