Archive of Our Own

It’s the video games, Mark thinks, coupled with the fact that he’s always been just a little chickenshit.

(We interrupt our regular scheduled programming to bring you Na Jaemin, saying I told you so).

His shitty friends aside, what would’ve been a perfectly fine walk home from the convenience store is ruined by too many horror games and the little quivering part inside of him that begs him to sprint the rest of the way back, never mind the fact that he’s in flip-flops and his arms are full of energy drinks, condensation sticky against his skin.

It doesn’t help that the atmosphere is already spooky enough, with the fog that curls at his feet and the humidity that presses against his neck, heavy and oppressive. He hates summers in South Korea for this exact reason—it’s not hot, not really, but it’s so humid that he might as well be breathing water in, the air is so thick with moisture.

A car passes him, headlights cutting through the fog and casting the sidewalk in light. It’s late, nearly midnight, and Mark speeds up as the houses on the right give way to chain-link fence, where, if he squints (which he always does, for some reason, despite the his fear and general loathing of all things scary) he can make out the outlines of headstones in the cemetery. Most are old and crumbling—not many people are buried anymore, if Mark remembers correctly—and the descriptions are unreadable through the fog and disrepair.

He glances to the other side of the street, where the windows of houses glow invitingly. The quivering bit of him begs for the light.

Another car passes, and Mark takes cautious steps past the cemetary, resisting the temptation to hold his breath. The palms of his hands are sweating a little bit, and he clutches the bag in his arms closer. He’s done this exact same thing every single night for the whole summer, over and over, but tonight—for some reason—is different.

He’s not so sure if he likes being shaken from his routine.

If any of his friends saw him right now, they’d give him so much shit. Except for Yukhei, maybe, because he’s scared of everything, from butter on pancakes to Florida and even Chenle, who literally never stops smiling. Mark calls him a coward along with everyone else, but he feels like an absolute fool, the lowliest of hypocrites right now, one foot off the curb as he prepares to make a break for the other side of the street where he can take cover in the light, away from the cemetery.

But just as he’s about to run, there’s a noise. A shout, really—loud enough and close enough to make all the hair on the back of Mark’s neck stand on end. He takes a breath and hopes that he’s imagined it, or that it’s come from an alleyway or a backyard, and not from the fogged-over cemetery behind him.

(Somewhere, something out there goes fuck you, Mark Lee, let’s see what you’re made of).

There’s another shout, and yep, it’s definitely coming from somewhere between the headstones. It sounds close, and pained—not quite words, not yet, but that might be because it’s muffled, like the person is trapped under something.

Mark carefully sets his bag of energy drinks on the sidewalk and creeps closer, straining his ears for any more noise as he peers into the fog, trying to find the source of the shouting.

“Help me!” The same voice shouts, and Mark can hear what he’s saying now, strangled and high enough to make Mark think that he’s not very old, maybe just a kid. His heart picks up speed, adrenaline and fear trembling through his veins and making his hands shake and his knees lock up. He pats down his pockets and curses at his own stupidity—his phone is sitting on the couch back at his grandparents’ house, connected to his Bluetooth speaker. He’d left it there, halfway through that one Post Malone song Jisung doesn’t like.

He hadn’t even paused the music. He’d planned on being gone for less than ten minutes.

But now listening to the distant sounds of whimpering, punctured by an occasional anyone there?  or can anyone get me out of here? two sides of Mark battle each other. The first side—the winning side, to his great despair—says go see what’s up, go and help him, you can’t just leave. The other part, the one that had caused him to spend the majority of The Conjuring with his head in the crook of Jungwoo’s neck and his fingers stuffed in his ears, is just screaming wordlessly in fear.

With a reluctant sigh, Mark drags himself over to the fence and looks at it for a moment. He hasn’t had to climb one of these since he lived in Canada, where he and his friends would jump the fence during recess and skip the rest of school. His high school here, however, hadn’t had any security at all, and there’d been a couple occasions where he’d just…walked out. Sure, he’s turned right back around (see point A: Mark Lee is a bit of a coward) but he’d been able to do it, theoretically, if he wanted to. And now he’s nearly nineteen, and about to start his second year of college, and it’s pointless to jump fences when he can just open the gate.

Luckily, this fence doesn’t happen to be very tall. It does burn his fingers as he climbs it, and he about loses his dick coming over the top (he shreds the side of his shorts, though, which is almost worse, because they’re Nike) but for someone in flip-flops, in the dark, and half-paralyzed with fear, he thinks he does a pretty decent job.

He brushes himself off as he picks his way through the cemetery. Goosebumps rise on every inch of his skin as he ventures deeper and deeper, brushing past mossy, crumbly headstones and bent-over trees that cast gnarled, twisted shadows in the watery light of the moon. He’s lucky he remembered to put his smartwatch on, because without a flashlight he’d have tripped four times already.

The noises get closer, and Mark finally works up the courage to say something. “Hello?” he calls out timidly, wincing at how his voice wavers. The noises stop, and in the silence Mark notices how eerily quiet it is, the sounds from the streets and the oppressive whir of cicadas long-gone. It’s sort of like being underwater, or locked in a bubble of silence. Either way, he feels very removed from reality and he thinks sadly of his energy drinks, getting warm in the plastic bag he’d left on the sidewalk.

“Is that a human?” the person finally answers, and Mark takes a couple steps towards where he thinks the voice is coming from. “Are you a policeman? Can you tell me what’s going on? Or where I am?” There’s a growing note of panic in his voice that does nothing to settle Mark’s alarm, and he presses forward, able to make out a squirming shape on the ground. “Can you at least help me get out?”

Mark finally breaks through the fog, the measly light from his watch illuminating what has got to be the weirdest, most mind-boggling thing he’s ever seen: a boy, about Mark’s age, buried chest-deep in soil, fingers scrabbling helplessly at the dirt like he’s trying to get out—which means he must’ve been buried at some point, before he’d…clawed? dug? his way back to the surface.

Mark stares at him, unable to make sense of what he’s seeing. “Did you—were you buried?”

“No, I just like sitting in dirt,” the boy snaps, and Mark blinks, not expecting that. “Yes, I was buried. In a casket. Six feet underground. I had to dig myself out.”  

Disbelief grips Mark, and shock spreads through his chest, making his breath seem extra loud. His heart beats so hard he’s afraid his ribs are going to break, and he stares and stares at the boy, sprouting from the earth like some kind of bizarre flower.

“You were buried in a casket,” Mark repeats slowly, putting together pieces and not liking the result, “underground. So what you’re saying is…you’re a zombie?”

“A…zombie?” the boy repeats, trying the word out. “What is that, some kind of insult? You are speaking Korean, right?”

“You know,” Mark explains helplessly, waving his hand, “like, a reanimated corpse. You were…dead, and now you’re not. Clearly. Because you just dug your way out of your grave.”

The boy’s brow wrinkles distastefully. “Ew. I’m not that. I’m not a zombie.”

“But you were dead?” Mark says, shuffling closer and lifting his wrist. The boy squints, lifting a hand to his face.

“Jeez,” the boy grumbles, “put your light down, won’t ya? You’re blinding me.”

“Oh, sorry,” Mark says, and taps his watch a couple times to put the light out. “Didn’t mean to.”

The boy rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He gestures to the ground around him. “Now get me out of here.”

Mark huffs. “Two minutes ago you were on the verge of panicking, and now you’re making demands. I could just leave you here, you know. Zombies don’t need food or water. You’d be fine.”

“I’m not a zombie!” The boy cries, indignant. The effect of it is somewhat ruined by the fact that he can only really move his arms, and not much else.

Mark finds himself laughing. Yep, it’s definitely the shock, coupled with the adrenaline. It’s making him feel light-headed, like the situation is somehow funny, and not like he’s standing in the middle of a creepy-ass cemetery with a REAL LIVE ZOMBIE in front of him, fresh from breaking out of his casket.

“Stop that,” the boy says weakly, and Mark takes a deep, shuddering breath, noting the hint of panic that’s creeping back into his voice. “I’m trying hard not to lose my marbles, and you’re not helping.”

“Sorry,” Mark says. “But also, mood. I’m about to have a panic attack too. I can’t believe—I can’t believe you’re alive. A zombie. Goddamn. Jeno will never shut up about this.”

“I can’t believe I’m alive either,” the boy says, and there’s an edge to his voice. “I can…I can remember dying.”

“Clearly it didn’t last very long,” Mark jokes, trying to lighten the mood and immediately feeling stupid for it. This is a), a boy he just met, and b) a zombie boy he just met. But the boy’s mouth quirks anyway, and Mark feels some of the tension lift, just a little.

“Right,” the boy says, lifting his arms, “time to help me get out of here.”

Mark shifts. He’s watched his fair share of zombie movies, so he has to ask—

“Do you, uh, have any cravings to, um, eat my brain?” he asks, and the boy looks at him strangely for half a second before he bursts out laughing. The sound is verging on hysteria, but it’s a very nice laugh nonetheless, and yep, that’s enough, no more thoughts down that particular path, thank you very much.

“No,” the boy says, shaking his head, “but I could go for a cigarette. Now get down here and help me dig. My legs are cramping.”

Mark drops to a crouch, glad that the shock has faded enough so he no longer feels like vomiting and then passing out. There is still absolutely nothing about this situation that’s right, or even makes sense in any way, but somehow—well, he’s not scared, at least. It’s weird, and unnerving, and downright absurd, but it’s not scary.

“What’s your name, by the way?” Mark asks as he scoops handfuls of dirt away from the boy’s torso. “I’m Mark.”

The boy goes very, very still, and Mark falters. “I once…knew a Mark,” he says, and looks down hurriedly, wiggling around in the dirt and starting to pull himself upwards.

Mark may not know this boy at all, but he’s not an idiot. Zombie or not, he’s still clearly got some semblance of feeling, so Mark doesn’t push it.

“I’m Donghyuck,” the boy says at last. “Thanks for helping me. I thought I’d be trapped here forever.” He shifts around in the dirt some more, which is now down to his belly, and loose enough that he’s able to start tugging himself free.

“You’re lucky my common sense is easily overruled,” Mark says. “Whoa, nice suit.” It’s a little moldy,  and parts of it have disintegrated completely, but clearly, once, it was fancy.

Donghyuck looks down at himself. “Oh, huh,” he says, patting at the fabric. “This was my government uniform.” He looks up at Mark. “What…what year is it?” There’s fear printed so clearly across his face, like he already knows the answer is something he doesn’t want to hear but has to anyway. Based on how he’s been talking, Mark guesses that he died (god, it’s so fucking bizarre to talk about an alive (?) person being dead ) a while ago. Which means that his whole world—and everything in it—is either gone, or changed past his recognition.

Mark glances at the headstone behind him. Lee Donghyuck, it reads, 1924-1943. The sun sets with you. Greatly loved, dearly missed.

“What are you staring at?” Donghyuck asks, attempting to turn and look. He doesn’t manage to turn quite far enough, but his back pops approximately six times, the sound so loud in the quiet of the cemetery that Mark startles, landing hard on his ass.

Donghyuck breaks into laughter again, and Mark feels his ears heat. “That was so loud,” he accuses. “Are you sure you didn’t just break your whole spine?”

“I’ve been dead for real long time,” Donghyuck reminds him. “It’s amazing I’m even upright.”

“It’s amazing you’re not completely decomposed,” Mark mutters, eyeing Donghyuck. “You’ve got legs, right? You’re not just a half-solid body?”

In answer, Donghyuck heaves himself out of the grave, pushing hard against the side of it and sliding out on his belly. Mark leans forward to help pull him out, wrinkling his nose at the smell that wafts from Donghyuck’s clothes, chemicals, rot, and dust making him sneeze three times into the crook of his elbow.

Donghyuck sits at the edge of the grave, patting himself down and moving his feet, bending his knees like he’s testing to make sure they work. He stretches his legs out and Mark winces when more joints crack, especially as he rolls his neck and shoulders out.

“Okay, question time,” Donghyuck says, and Mark startles at the sound of his voice. The dim moonlight reflects off his dark eyes, and illuminates the bridge of his nose—but that’s about it. The rest of his face is hidden in shadow and fog, and sitting like this makes him feel like Donghyuck’s one of those anonymous sources in a 60-minute episode.

“Can we get out of here, at least?” Mark asks, and thinks again of his energy drinks. God, he really hopes nobody’s taken them.

Donghyuck looks around, seeming to register that they’re sitting right in the middle of a cemetery. “What, you don’t like talking next to a bunch of crumbly ol’ dead people?” he asks, and the moon glints off his teeth, very white considering he was just dead a couple of minutes ago.

“No,” Mark says, getting to his feet. An owl hoots in the distance, and he jumps. Donghyuck laughs at him some more. It’s amazing how he’s literally only known him for ten minutes, and he’s already giving him shit like they’ve been friends for ages.

Donghyuck turns and looks at the headstone behind him, his face falling as he reads it. “Dearly loved,” he says quietly, and his voice is thick with emotion. Mark shifts awkwardly on his feet, unsure and unequipped to deal with crying—especially crying boys. Crying ZOMBIE boys.

This is not how he’d wanted his Saturday night to go.

“You were—you’re nineteen?” Mark asks, trying to switch topics. It works somewhat, because Donghyuck turns back. “Your voice makes you sound a lot younger.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Gee, thanks. Everyone was always saying that. It doesn’t help that I’m short, either, and all the Americans were so tall.”

“Americans?” Mark asks, curious. “You’re American?”

“Help me up,” Donghyuck says, reaching out a hand. “But I’ll only answer your questions if you answer mine.”

“Deal.” Mark grabs Donghyuck’s hand—his palms are dry and cool, but not the ice blocks Mark was expecting.

Donghyuck’s knees buckle almost immediately as he tries to put weight on them, and Mark catches him, the air rushing out of his lungs at the solid weight of him.

“Holy shit,” Mark groans, trying to shift so Donghyuck’s in a better position, and not slumped against his chest and threatening to pop his lungs. “You’re heavy.”

“I’m full of formaldehyde,” Donghyuck says cheerfully. “Also, I think I forgot how to walk.”

Mark grunts, finally managing to get an arm around his shoulders. Donghyuck’s legs quiver, threatening to give out on him again. “Don’t they take all the organs out of dead people?” he asks as they make their way back to where Mark had jumped the fence.

Donghyuck pinches the back of his neck. “The Ancient Egyptians did,” he says, and Mark feels his face go hot again. “I still have all my body parts, thank you very much. And speaking of organs, I’m hungry.”

“So demanding,” Mark comments, and Donghyuck fumbles with his feet some more, easing a little of his weight off of Mark’s shoulders as he does so. “Also, you never answered my question. Why did you mention Americans?”

“I worked with ‘em,” Donghyuck says, and starts to release Mark as he gradually puts more weight on his feet. “During the war. I was a translator, helped with the comms.”

“So you speak English?” Mark asks, in English. It feels a little weird on his tongue, the syllables familiar but unused. The last time he’d spoken English was to his mom over the phone last week, and that was only for ten minutes.

Donghyuck grins. “You betcha, baby,” he answers, even-toned and charming. He sounds like an actor in an old movie, and it’s so absurd Mark has to laugh again. It’s still hysterical, in case anyone was wondering, because yes, he’s still a little in shock. “And Japanese, and German,” he adds, still in English, boastful. “I was the youngest employee they had there. Pretty neat, right?”

“Pretty neat,” Mark copies, choking on his laughter. “What’s next? Swell? A-ok?”

“What’s wrong with swell?” Donghyuck asks, sounding indignant. “I think it’s a perfectly fine word.”

“It’s twenty-eighteen,” Mark says, but immediately realizes his mistake. Donghyuck’s eyes go wide as he counts the years and he stops walking, swaying on his feet as Mark nears the chain-link fence.

“Seventy-five years,” Donghyuck says at last, and his shoulders drop. He reaches out and puts a hand against the fence, holding tight to it and taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Did we win?”

Mark knows what he’s asking, and notes, offhandedly, how Donghyuck includes himself into the we. South Korea wasn’t even part of World War II, but if he’d worked with the Americans, hadn’t just lived through the war but had been part of it —well, it makes sense.

“Yeah,” Mark says, and Donghyuck seems to take a sort of comfort from that, the tension in his back easing. “We did. Well, Korea’s split into two parts right now—”

“ What —”

“And, uh, America dropped nuclear bombs on Japan—and then there was another war, and then some other stuff happened, and somewhere along there they invented Mario Kart and Instagram and K-pop. Oh, and Michael Jackson. Can’t forget about him.” He manages to cut himself off before he keeps rambling. There’s a very small, very annoying part of him that’s appeared very quickly, one that wants to take some of the weight off of Donghyuck and ease the tight line of his shoulders.

Stop it, Mark tells himself when his thoughts sneakily stray towards the dangerous territory of why, exactly, he’d want to do that for a zombie boy he just met.

Donghyuck looks a bit overwhelmed. “Christy,” he mutters. “Let’s just get over this fence, how about, and then you’re going to tell me everything that happened in the last seventy-five years.”

“That’s a lot, and I don’t know if I can recite the whole Beastie Boys discography from memory,” Mark says doubtfully. “I’m Canadian.”

“What does Canada have to do with anything?” Donghyuck asks, the fence wobbling as he grabs onto it.

“Canada has nothing to do with this,” Mark replies, “and that’s exactly the point. We just chill. When was the last time you heard Canada stirring up any drama?”

“Your slang is nonsense, but right, fair point,” Donghyuck concedes. “Hey, give me a hand, wontcha?”

“Sure.” Mark interlaces his fingers together and Donghyuck steps into it, and together, they get him to the top of the fence where he drops down with impressive grace for a recently-resurrected zombie boy in a suit. Mark, in his flip-flops, has another struggle and almost tears his dick off again, landing with significantly less flair and feeling bad about it when Donghyuck, for the hundredth time, laughs at him.

Distantly, Mark thinks he’ll get along great with his friends, who also love to laugh at him. Then he thinks no very firmly, because whatever Donghyuck is, he’s not here to stay and he’s certainly not here to make friends with the likes of Na Jaemin or Zhong Chenle.

There is something so wonderful about the sight of his energy drinks, untouched and still slightly cold, sitting in the bag exactly where he’d left them. All of his chips are in there too, and Mark feels like crying with joy. The fog has lifted somewhat, too, and a bit of the humidity has receded, making it easier to breathe. Mark scoops up the bag and gestures over his shoulder at Donghyuck to follow him across the street into the light, where they’ll figure out their next move.

“This is already so weird,” Donghyuck comments as they cross. “I sort of recognize stuff, but everything’s different. It’s so bright. Goddamn, do you guys need to put neon signs on all the stores?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, stopping under a streetlight. “How are you feeling, by the way?” he asks the second question tentatively, not sure if it’ll trigger another wave of emotion.

“Hungry,” Donghyuck says, and Mark nods and turns, sticking his face into his bag to find something for Donghyuck to eat. “And I could really go for a cigarette.”

“Don’t have any of those,” Mark says, picking out a bag of honey butter chips, “because I’m not really hyped to get lung cancer. But here are some chips. They’re pretty decent.”

He looks up, and Donghyuck freezes in place, hand outstretched to take the chips. The air around them goes very, very still, and the breath is sucked out of Mark’s lungs as he gets a look—a good, real look—at Donghyuck’s face. The first thought that goes through his head will trigger a hysterical mental breakdown later, but the second thing he thinks is I know you, which is untrue, nonsensical, and in a voice that isn’t quite his own.

Meanwhile, Donghyuck’s eyes are wet, and his outstretched hand begins to shake so violently Mark is afraid he’s going to collapse again. His bottom lip trembles, and a tear slips down his cheek as he breathes, ragged and loud.

“Donghyuck?” Mark asks tentatively, and that seems to snap Donghyuck out of it a little, at least enough for him to unfreeze and tuck his arms around himself. He looks very small, and vulnerable.

“Mark Lee,” Donghyuck says, voice raw with emotion. “I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.”

“What—what’s going on?” Mark asks, heart picking up speed. There’s a lump forming in his throat, like he might cry too for some unidentifiable reason. “How do you know my last name?”

“Because it was your name before, too,” Donghyuck says, wiping his eyes and smiling at Mark, sad, mysterious, and playful all at once. “Back when you were a different you, and we were going out.”

Mark’s soul temporarily leaves his body, and the air is punched from his lungs. Donghyuck looks at him, expectant. “We—what? What the fuck? ”

Donghyuck continues to stare at him, and shrugs, very casual about someone who’s just dropped a goddamn bombshell. Mark doesn’t even know where to start with it, honestly. There’s—there’s a billion pieces to sort out, a hundred questions to ask, a crisis to have—

He releases a breath. “Okay. Okay. I can’t do this here. I’m too sober and we’re in the middle of the fucking street—” He glances over at Donghyuck, who’s still studying Mark like he recognizes him—which, if what he’s saying is right (which Mark uselessly hopes that it isn’t), he does. “—and you’re a zombie.”

Donghyuck sighs, but doesn’t say anything.

“Follow me,” Mark says at last, turning on his heel and making a beeline for his grandparents’ house.

“Where are we going?” Donghyuck asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Finally remember? Wanna get your hands on me?”

“Shut the— no,” Mark huffs, feeling hot and prickly all over. “We’re going back to my grandparents’ house. I’m calling backup.”

Mark forgot about the technology. Donghyuck’s jaw drops when Mark opens the back door to his grandparents’ house. First there’s the microwave, which he spends two minutes pressing all the buttons on. Then there’s the electric kettle, which scares the shit out of him, and the fridge, which he opens a hundred times just to see the lights turn on. He turns packaged food over in his hands and marvels at Mark’s grandma’s supply of canned soda. When Mark offers him one, though, he just stares at it blankly, and then jumps when Mark opens it for him, the crack of the tab echoing around the dark kitchen.

Donghyuck tentatively takes it, clutching it in his hands and cradling it to his chest. Something in Mark goes a little soft looking at him, standing in his stained, dated suit, covered in dirt and looking around him like something’s going to jump out of the oven and grab him.

“C’mon,” Mark says, and Donghyuck startles again, nearly spilling the soda on himself. “Let’s go up to my room. My grandparents are asleep.”

“Where are your parents?” Donghyuck asks as they make their way up the stairs.

“Canada,” Mark answers. “But I go to school here, so I’m staying with my grandparents.”

“You were American last time,” Donghyuck tells him. “New York. Queens, I’m pretty sure.”

“I still have so many questions,” Mark mutters, opening the door to his room. Sure enough, his phone’s still connected to his speaker, playing something by Vampire Weekend. “None of this makes any sense.”

“Trust me,” Donghyuck answers, stepping tentatively into Mark’s room and peering around, “this is way above my paygrade too.”

Mark scoops up his phone and disconnects from his speaker. “I’m gonna call my friend,” he says, pointing at his phone. Donghyuck stares at it, blank-faced.

“With that?” he asks, reaching out to touch it. “What…what is it?”

“My phone,” Mark explains, turning it on and showing it to Donghyuck, who squints at the light from the screen. “But you can do a lot more than just call. You can, uh, send messages, or play games, or look things up—”

“Look things up?” Donghyuck asks, tapping the screen tentatively and making a noise when the music app he’d hit opens up. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” Mark laughs, swiping up and returning it to the home screen. “It’s fine.”

Donghyuck exhales shakily through his nose, eyeing the phone in the same way he’d looked at the kettle—like it was going to bite.

“I’ll show you more later,” Mark says, opening up his contact book, thumb hovering over Jaemin’s number. “Just—I wanna see what my friends think. Is it okay if I tell them about you?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “As long you bunch aren’t in cahoots to get me committed, it’s all good with me.”

“In cahoots,” Mark repeats, and then laughs, feeling a bit like he’s stepped outside his body. “Right—okay, got it. No, uh, mental institutions.”

Donghyuck gives him two thumbs up and winks. “Thanks, baby.”

Something in Mark’s chest tugs a bit, and he swallows down the wonderful mix of hysteria and panic and turns around very firmly. Behind him, Donghyuck starts rummaging around Mark’s room, picking things up and running hands over his posters.

Jaemin picks up on the second ring, and Mark can barely hear him over the sound of voices and and music in the background.

“What’s up?” Jaemin shouts. “Sorry, I’m just out with Jeno and Renjun! Lemme get to a quieter spot.”  

“I’ve got an issue,” Mark replies, as Donghyuck picks up his laptop like it’s made out of glass and turns it over in his hands.

“What?” Jaemin yells back, and there’s the sound of a door slamming, and the noise cuts out. “’Kay, I can hear you know. What’s happening?”

“Is this just a big phone?” Donghyuck asks, still holding the laptop. “It has the same apple on it.”

“No, it’s a computer,” Mark answers. At Donghyuck’s blank look, he waves a hand. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Who’s there? Was that English?” Jaemin asks, the speed of his questions giving Mark whiplash.

“Yeah, uh, about that,” Mark starts, “there’s a situation.”

“Did you fall down the stairs again?” Jaemin asks.

“No,” Mark says, and glances over at Donghyuck again, who’s now picking up all the books on the shelf and squinting at them. “It’s—well, there’s a zombie, for one—”

“A what—”

“And, uh, in my previous life, we dated,” Mark continues, knowing how ridiculous he sounds. “Apparently.”

There’s silence on the other end of the phone.

“For the record,” Donghyuck points out, “I’m not a zombie.”

“Jaemin?” Mark prompts tentatively when the silence stretches on for even longer. “Are you alive?”

Jaemin takes a deep breath. “Are you high?”

“No,” Mark says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sorta wish I was, though. This is so fucking weird.”

“Is this for creative writing? Are you pulling my leg? You expect me to believe there’s a zombie? That you dated? In your—in your past life?”

“Uh, yes?” Mark says, and winces at how his voice cracks. “His name is Donghyuck—"

“His?”

“Please, please, please don’t get into that,” Mark begs. “I’m—yes, his name is Donghyuck, and he worked in America in the 1940s, and then died in 1943.”

Donghyuck goes stiff in the corner of Mark’s eye, just for a second.

“And now he’s alive,” Jaemin says, breathing out.

“And now he’s alive,” Mark repeats. “I wouldn’t believe me either, except—well, I literally helped dig him out of his grave.”

“He’s not, like, rotting, or anything?” Jaemin asks, and Donghyuck makes a noise of complaint. “And he doesn’t wanna eat your brains? And he’s coherent?”

Mark looks at Donghyuck, who clearly can hear everything Jaemin is saying. “You sure you’re alive?” he asks.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Heart’s beating, if that what’s you’re wondering about.” His eyebrow lifts, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “You’re welcome to check, if you want.”

Mark chokes on his own breath, and Donghyuck bursts into laughter.

“What’d he say?” Jaemin demands, and Mark secretly is very glad Jaemin’s failing English.

“He says his heart’s beating,” Mark mutters, ignoring the way that Donghyuck’s laughing at him. “So no, not a Walking Dead zombie.”

“I’m coming over,” Jaemin says immediately. “I wanna see this guy for myself.”

“At least let me wash my hands,” Donghyuck replies, gesturing to the dirt covering his body. “I just hopped out of a casket.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Jaemin tells Mark, and he shouts something unintelligible. It sounds like goodbye.

“Please don’t bring—”

“I’m bringing Jeno and Renjun,” Jaemin cuts in. “Sucks for you.”

It does, Mark thinks miserably, watching as Donghyuck rifles through his desk, flipping through polaroids of Mark and his friends.

Jaemin hangs up, and Mark walks over to his closet to find something for Donghyuck to change into. “The bathroom’s on your left,” Mark says, nodding at the door. “You can shower. Feel free to use the shampoo and stuff in there, too.” He pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and is about to toss them to Donghyuck before he hesitates, then adds an still-packaged set of boxers his grandma had bought him—ones he hasn’t worn yet, because they’re green and pink plaid. He has no idea what men’s underwear was like in 1943, especially not with the suit Donghyuck is wearing.

Donghyuck sets down the photos he’s holding and accepts the clothing. He’s got a thoughtful expression on his face, lips pursed.

“You don’t remember anything from the past,” Donghyuck says quietly, “so why do you believe me?”

Mark stops in his tracks. “What?” he asks stupidly, staring at Donghyuck. “What do you mean, believe you?”

“That I knew you before,” he says, and then pauses. “Or…not quite you. Very similar, I think. But different.”

“You knew my last name,” Mark answers. “That was pretty spooky.”

Donghyuck gives him an unimpressed look. “Everyone in Korea has the last name Lee, Mark. You don’t want more proof?”

“Like what?” Mark asks before he can help himself. Okay, he’ll admit it: he’s a little bit curious. Just a little. He doesn’t believe in reincarnation or second lives or anything like that—honestly, it’s probably just a coincidence, and Donghyuck was in love with this guy, clearly, so it makes sense that he’d be a bit shaken up seeing someone who looked just like him.

“You liked blue,” Donghyuck starts, crossing his arms. “And fall. October, especially, because you stopped sweating while you were biking.”

Mark blinks. “Okay, but everyone likes blue. And fall, too.”

“Matcha,” Donghyuck continues, raising his eyebrows like he’s daring Mark to interrupt. “Seafood. Ketchup. You hated those. Probably still do.”

“You’re…you’re not wrong,” Mark stammers, thrown-off. “But, like—it’s physically not possible. Reincarnation isn’t—it’s not a thing.”

“And the dead don’t come back alive,” Donghyuck answers, challenging. He pats down his pockets like he’s looking for something. “If I had my wallet, I’d show you a photo.”

Mark lets out a long breath. “I need—this is a lot to process.”

“I get it,” Donghyuck says, and his face falls, just a little bit. “I know you’re not him. It’s just…it’s hard. You’ve got the same face.” Donghyuck offers Mark a tentative smile before heading into the bathroom. “Thanks for the threads. I’ll be back.”

Then he disappears into the bathroom, leaving Mark with his thoughts.

Jaemin, Renjun and Jeno show up about five minutes later. Mark can tell they’re here because Jeno knocks something over in the kitchen and Jaemin swears. Mark rolls his eyes and goes back to scrolling through his phone. He’d looked up Donghyuck’s name, but all he’d gotten results for were doctors or random people on Facebook—no real results. At least, not yet. Jeno opens the door to his bedroom and launches himself on the bed next to Mark, kicking him hard on the side when there’s not enough room for the both of them.

“Ouch, what the fuck,” Mark says, dropping his phone with a clatter and shoving back. “That was unnecessary.”

“Is the zombie in the shower?” Jaemin asks, cramming onto the bed also. The frame creaks and Mark hurriedly evacuates, not sure how much weight it can take. It’s probably as old as Donghyuck, if he’s being honest.

“Yeah,” Mark says, sitting down at his desk chair. “I gave him some clothes to wear, too.”

Renjun, still standing, tilts his head to the side. “You let a complete zombie-stranger into your house and gave him clothes?”

“He literally just came back from the dead,” Jaemin says, like Renjun’s being unreasonable. “Give him a break.”

“I can’t believe he’s a zombie,” Jeno adds, looking more impressed than scared. “That’s awesome.”

“What really gets me is that he dated your past reincarnation,” Jaemin continues, and Jeno nods in agreement.

“This all sounds made up, you know,” Renjun cuts in, crossing his arms. “Gay zombies. Past lives.”

“Can we just slow the fuck down for a second,” Mark interrupts, holding up his hands and swallowing down his panic for the thousandth time.

“No,” Jeno and Jaemin say in unison, and Mark’s about to snap back when there’s a loud clatter from the bathroom and a sharp swear word in a language Mark doesn’t recognize.

“Was that…German?” Renjun asks slowly, and Mark sighs.

“He worked with the Americans during World War II,” Mark explains wearily. “He died in 1943.”

There’s more crashing, and yet another long string of curse words—these, Mark recognizes because they’re in English.

Mark gets up, slightly worried, and gets up to go knock on the door. “Donghyuck?” he asks, pressing his ear against the wood. “Are you okay?”

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, and it’s nearly a whine, “the water won’t get hot.”

“What’s he saying?” Jeno asks.

“Jeno, what’s the numerical difference between 2018 and 1943?” Jaemin asks, staring down at his fingers as he attempts to count.

“Bold of you to assume Jeno can do math,” Renjun says, and Jeno throws a pillow at him. Renjun launches it back at him, and Mark sighs.

“Do you need help?” he asks through the door, trying not to think about how angry his grandparents will be if they wake up.

“Yes please,” Donghyuck replies, and there’s a noise and a large thump, like Donghyuck’s fallen. There’s a low groan, and Mark opens the door to see Donghyuck sprawled on the ground, water puddled around him because he’s left the shower door open and the whole bathroom floor is soaking. He’s not wearing much, either, just a tank top and some goofy-looking boxers. He’s flushed with chagrin, the color sitting high on his cheeks and creeping all the way up his neck and ears.  

He certainly doesn’t look dead, Mark notes subconsciously as he creeps closer towards the shower, dodging around puddles so his socks don’t get wet. He offers a hand up to Donghyuck, who takes it, scowling.

“It’s fine,” Mark assures him, trying to ease some of his embarrassment. “Look, I’ll show you.”

“Not my fault you nutjobs went ahead and invented fancy showers,” Donghyuck mumbles, coming up behind Mark as he shows Donghyuck which way is hot and which is cold.

“And when you’re done with the water,” Mark continues, and Donghyuck leans in, so close that they’re nearly touching, close enough that can smell something sweeter underneath the dirt and the chemicals. The breath seizes in Mark’s lungs, and something inside of him tenses—both uncomfortable with the sudden lack of space, but also humming with a sort of familiarity. Yet another thing Mark’ll have to figure out. Or attempt to. Either way, sleep will be lost.

“When you’re done?” Donghyuck prompts, looking away from the water and up at Mark. There are hazel rings around his pupils, nearly gold against the brown.

“Uh,” Mark says, shifting awkwardly, “just push the handle down.” He demonstrates, and the water shuts off.

Donghyuck nods, and grins. “Thanks,” he says, reaching up to squeeze Mark’s arm briefly. “What should I do about the water?”

“Just leave it, I can clean it up,” Mark replies, and feels a combination of relief and a strange emptiness when Donghyuck’s hand falls away so he can turn the shower back on. His fingers flit to the hem of his tank top and Mark experiences a very acute feeling of sheer panic as he starts to lift it, clearly very comfortable despite Mark being there.

He loved a previous version of you, that’s why, Mark assures himself, quickly turning on his heel and opening the door. “Have a good shower,” he tells Donghyuck. “Don’t slip again.” And then he’s back in his room, safe from having to watch Donghyuck… well. You know.

His friends are all watching him with various amused expressions, like they can tell exactly what’s going on in Mark’s head. He sends Renjun a silent, pleading look, and the younger picks up on it with a sigh before switching the topic.

“So tell us,” Renjun says, “how exactly did you find this guy?”

Mark mouths a quick thank you to him before launching into an explanation about how he’d jumped the fence and found Donghyuck, buried waist-deep in dirt.

“Man, Chenle and Jisung are seriously missing out,” Jeno says. “I just texted them—”

“Please tell me they said they couldn’t—” Mark begs, not sure how many more of his friends he can emotionally handle.

“They can’t,” Jeno confirms, looking rather put-out. “Chenle says he can’t wait to meet your zombie boyfriend from your past life. That’s a direct quote.”

Mark drops his head into his hands, resigned. His friends pester him with more questions for a couple more minutes and Mark is about to ask them to let him breathe when the bathroom door opens, letting a cloud of shampoo-scented steam out.

“These are the weirdest pants I’ve ever worn,” Donghyuck announces as he steps out, and Mark’s heart does the weird glug-glug thing again, like it’s a fish out of water. He’s literally just wearing a pair of Mark’s sweatpants, the old Adidas pair with the hole in the pocket, and a grey t-shirt, but he looks—

“Aw, you didn’t tell me he was a cute zombie,” Jaemin says, and Mark fights hard against the heat on his cheeks. Donghyuck blinks at him, clearly not expecting there a) to be so many people in the bedroom and b) to be called cute, of all things. Mark’s guessing it’s not really a compliment people—especially men— gave each other in the forties.

Donghyuck’s face is a little pink. “Thanks,” he stutters, twisting his hands together. “I’ve never—uh, that’s definitely not something I’ve heard before.”

“Well, it’s true,” Jaemin replies, and Jeno nods enthusiastically. “At least you’re not all rotten, like the zombies in The Walking Dead. ”

Donghyuck looks over to Mark, confused.

“It’s a TV show,” Mark explains, and Donghyuck nods. “I can show it to you later.”

“Later? ” Jeno asks, grinning. “Planning on keeping Donghyuck around?”

“He has nowhere to go, Jeno,” Jaemin points out.

“No, it’s a good question,” Renjun continues, “what are you going to do, Donghyuck? Do you have family? Or at least money?” All three of them turn and look expectantly at Donghyuck, who crosses his arms.

“I’ve been dead for seventy-five years,” he says, eyebrows raising, “and you’re wondering what my plan is? Can’t I have a bit to wrap my head around where I am? And why I’m alive again?”

Jaemin winces guiltily. “I mean, yeah, sounds reasonable. Sorry.”

“Sorry,” Jeno echoes, offering Donghyuck a tentative smile. “We didn’t mean to push.”

Renjun shrugs. “It’s good to think about, though. Are you sure you don’t have, like, a time limit? Like, before you go back to being dead?”

“Renjun,” Mark hisses, but the look on Donghyuck’s face is more thoughtful than offended.

“I honestly don’t know,” Donghyuck says, and crosses to sit at the foot of Mark’s bed. “I think—I think I woke up for a reason, though. I can remember hearing something right before I started digging myself out.”

“What was it?” Jaemin asks curiously, but Donghyuck shrugs, a helpless look on his face.

“I don’t know,” he answers, sounding about as lost as Mark feels. “I just know that it wasn’t chance.” He looks around at them all, eyes lingering on Mark for a beat longer than the rest. There’s something in his expression that is so familiar it frustrates Mark, because he feels like he should recognize it, but it’s like grasping at air.

“Well, you said you and Mark-hyung dated in your past life, right?” Jaemin asks, and Donghyuck suddenly goes very pale. He turns sharply to Mark, and fear—deep, instinctive, and absolute—flickers across his face.

“You—you told them?” he asks Mark in English. “Are you sure they won’t—?”

And just like that, Mark understands where Donghyuck is coming from. “Donghyuck,” he says quietly, “it’s alright. They won’t judge you, or hate you for it.” He nods at Jaemin. “Jaemin’s gay, too.”

Donghyuck blinks, digesting Mark’s words. The rigid line to his shoulders softens, just a little, even if he doesn’t quite yet believe what Mark’s saying.

“Things have changed,” Mark continues. “A lot. Especially with our generation.”

Donghyuck lets out a long breath. “Really?” he asks, like he can’t dare to believe it.

Mark nods at his friends. “Ask them.” They’re all looking between Mark and Donghyuck with varying levels of confusion, but when Donghyuck clears his throat, looking shy and terrified all at once, they smile at him.

“You don’t—” Donghyuck stops himself short, twisting his hands together. He purses his lips, and takes a breath. “You don’t care?” he blurts, and immediately goes stiff, like he’s expecting a rebuff.

Renjun is the first one to break the silence, surprisingly. “Nope,” he says casually, like Donghyuck had asked about the weather. “Date whoever you want. Just don’t be gross.”

“Doesn’t matter to us,” Jeno says, grinning brightly.

Jaemin nods in agreement. “I came out to everyone about a year ago,” he says, reassuring, “and it went fine. Honestly, I think some of them knew I was gay before I did.”

Something like wonder passes over Donghyuck’s face, and his eyes get a little shiny. “Uh,” he says, voice thick, “wow.” He scrubs aggressively at his eyes, and Mark has half a mind to get up and give him a hug. “I, um. This has never happened to me before,” he says at last, and Jaemin, clearly thinking the same thing as Mark, gets off the bed and squeezes Donghyuck tightly.

“Thanks,” he says into Jaemin’s shoulder, hugging him back. He makes eye contact with Jeno and Renjun, smiling. “Really.” Finally, his eyes fall on Mark again, and his face does that softening thing, lips quirking at the corners. “Couldn't have picked a better guy to help dig me out.”

When Jaemin finally lets Donghyuck go, it’s one in the morning and Mark, who hadn’t drank any of the energy drinks he’d bought, is feeling sort of like he’s been hit by a bus.

“Nana,” Jeno says gently, digging an elbow into Jaemin’s side, who’d fallen asleep halfway through Donghyuck telling them about learning four languages. “Wake up. We’re going home.”

“Thank fuck,” Mark sighs, rubbing his eyes. “I’m exhausted. Get out of here.”

Jaemin grumbles and yanks open his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep. I was listening to Donghyuckie talk about how he learned German.”

“I have an aunt,” Donghyuck volunteers when Renjun’s eyebrows go up. “Or, well—I guess I had an aunt. She was the only family I knew when I went to America.” There’s a distant sort of sadness on his face as he furrows his brow, clearly sorting through memories. “She traveled a lot—for the Japanese government, I think—so I grew up in an orphanages. One of those Korean-speaking ones in Japan.”

“And then you went to America?” Jaemin asks.

“And then I went to America,” Donghyuck confirms, nodding. “I was sixteen.” He meets Mark’s eyes again, the corner of his mouth turning up. Mark, for the millionth time tonight, feels like he’s missing something.

Jaemin looks between the two of them, and Mark can almost hear the gears turning in his head, cooking up some sort of evil, meddling plan. Jeno, thankfully, operates sort of as Jaemin’s impulse control (at least, when it comes to Evil Meddling Plans) and grabs him by the elbow, hauling them both to their feet.

“Come on, you guys,” he says, “let Donghyuck and Mark rest. Plus, Jaemin’s got his chem class tomorrow at nine.”

Jaemin groans. “I don’t know why I decided to sign up for summer classes.” He scowls at Renjun, who blinks innocently at him. “I know it was you , Renjun. You’re the only one of us here that isn’t illiterate.”

“Hey,” Mark protests weakly, if only out of habit. If he’s being honest, his IQ’s probably gone down since he’s started college, taking classes like Astronomy or Medieval History in an attempt to stave off commitment to a major—not because he has issues with committing, or anything, but because he just—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t really have any skills, or any interests, besides playing video games and helping zombies dig their way out of their graves, apparently. Once, he’d thought he’d do something with writing, but that was a while ago and besides, he’s long since accepted that there’s no future for writers, not when the world demands people in technology.

He barely registers his friends saying goodbye until Donghyuck clears his throat, watching Mark expectantly. Mark jumps, startled, and Donghyuck laughs, the sound too bright and too loud in the sudden quiet of the room.

“You really are chicken,” Donghyuck teases, falling back into English. It seems to be a bit more comfortable for him. Maybe it’s because there’s not really a formal tense, which is nice—Mark doesn’t have the brainspace to think about Donghyuck possibly being his hyung.

“I really am,” Mark agrees, climbing up onto his bed next to Donghyuck and sighing as he relaxes into the pillows. “Ah, shit, I need to brush my teeth.”

Donghyuck leans back against the wall, drawing his feet up onto the mattress. He pushes his damp hair out of his face, expression thoughtful.

“You were a waiter,” Donghyuck says quietly, tilting his head towards Mark. “And you told me, when we met, that I couldn’t have come at a better time. And then you laughed and dropped all of the plates you were holding.”

Mark swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. It sounds like something he’d do, which is incredibly weird to think about. The fact that Donghyuck knew a version of him—had… dated a version of him—is so bizarre it makes him slightly dizzy.

“Do you think it’s magic?” Mark asks, and immediately feels stupid for saying it aloud. But Donghyuck doesn’t laugh at him, or make fun—only lapses into thoughtful silence again.

“Nah,” he decides, brightening, “but that’d be pretty on the beam, right? Like, a wizard or something bringing me back to life?”

Mark shudders, thinking about dark mages and necromancers. “What’s on the beam mean?” he asks in an attempt to distract himself from the mental images of gross, rotten zombies rising from their graves.

“Uh, like,” Donghyuck gestures vaguely, “killer-diller. A-one.” He grins helplessly at Mark’s flat look. “Swell?” he offers doubtfully.

“Go with awesome,” Mark suggests, “or cool. Sweet works too.”

Donghyuck wrinkles his nose. “Sounds stupid.”

Mark can’t hold back his laughter. “Yeah, but nobody will understand on the beam,” he points out, and Donghyuck’s pout deepens.

“That’s what everyone was saying before I…left,” Donghyuck finishes, looking unsure. “You’ll have to teach me what all the kids are saying these days.”

“Not much,” Mark says, hauling himself off of his bed and heading towards the bathroom, where he grabs his toothbrush and starts opening drawers in search for some toothpaste. “Mostly just cryptic, self-deprecatingly ironic shit about how much we all wanna die.”

Donghyuck stares at him, eyes wide. “You want to—”

“No, no,” Mark jumps in, feeling itchy. His palms are sweating a little as he trips over his words in his hurry to explain to Donghyuck. “It’s ironic, dude. It’s like, it’s a joke, really dark and morbid, I know, but it’s a joke.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck says gently, and Mark looks up, embarrassed. “It’s okay. I just have a lot to catch up on, you know?”

There’s a note of sadness in his voice, and Mark feels bad for him, sitting there in unfamiliar clothes, studying his hands like he still can’t believe he’s alive.

“What’s America like?” Mark asks, sticking his toothbrush in his mouth and leaning against the doorway so he can face Donghyuck. “Or, what was your America like? How was working with the government?”

Donghyuck snorts, and some of the light comes back into his eyes. “Absurd,” he says, but there’s a hint of fondness to his voice. “I was one of two Asians, and I was the youngest, so nobody ever really listened to me.”

“Oh man,” Mark replies around a mouthful of toothpaste. “I can’t imagine.”

Donghyuck’s nose wrinkles, mouth pulling down in an expression that’s quickly becoming familiar. “Yeah, it wasn’t too good,” he agrees. “But there was Hiiro and Elizabeth, and we were all part of the Nobody-Listens gang.” He laughs a little, eyes misting over. “Gosh, you shoulda seen how everyone reacted when he heard there was gonna be a gal working as a translator.”

Mark spits out his toothpaste and rinses his mouth. There’s something…warm about the way Donghyuck speaks, that makes Mark want to sit down and listen, really listen. Plus, it’s kind of cool, hearing about the 40s in America. Mark’s not a big history person, but the way Donghyuck tells it—bits of memories instead of dates, nostalgia-fogged stories taking the place of cold hard facts—is genuinely interesting.

“Like this one guy, Joe,” Donghyuck is saying, getting animated now, “complete fathead, total bluenose, absolutely flipped his wig. He buzzed our boss, if you can believe it, all in a rage, tellin’ him he needed to fire Lizzie right now or he’d quit.”

Mark makes his way back to Donghyuck, opening the linen closet in an attempt to find Donghyuck something to sleep on. “So what happened?”

“He quit,” Donghyuck answers, smirking, and Mark laughs, partially because it’s funny to imagine, but also because Donghyuck looks so smug. “Lizzie’s German was twice as good.”

“She didn’t speak anything else?” Mark asks, gazing down at the air mattress and wondering if it’s worth it.

Donghyuck, if it’s possible, looks even more satisfied. “No,” he says smugly. “I was the only one who spoke more than three languages.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s pretty impressive,” Mark admits, though he can sense he’s only inflating Donghyuck’s ego more.

Sure enough, Donghyuck preens under the praise, grinning at Mark. His teeth glint against his skin, which is pretty tan given that he’d been, y’know, dead for seventy-five years.

Mark looks down at the blow-up mattress again, exhaustion and laziness winning out. He shuts the closet with a snap. “Hey, are you good with sharing a bed?” he asks. “I know it’ll be a little hot, because it’s summer, but I’ll turn the fan on.”

Donghyuck nods, looking completely unfazed. “Fine with me. It’s not the first time I’ve shared a bed with you, remember?”

He’d been trying not to. “Yeah,” he says, fighting back awkwardness, refusing to let it make things weird between them.

“Or at least, a version of you,” Donghyuck continues, casual. “Besides, I don’t think I’m one hundred percent alive yet.” He whacks his chest, right over his heart. “I’m still not giving off very much heat. Should be a-okay, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mark echoes, feeling like a broken record. He changes into a different pair of basketball shorts and an old shirt from his high school, not totally comfortable with sleeping shirtless in a bed next to a stranger. A zombie stranger. Who, in Mark’s past life, dated him.

Mark hits the lights and flicks on the fan. Donghyuck slides into bed next to him, and Mark is extraordinarily glad he’d traded out his twin mattress for a full-size one at the beginning of the summer.

They lie there in silence for a couple minutes, letting the sound of the fan and the cicadas outside fill the room. Donghyuck’s breathing is even, but Mark doesn’t think he’s asleep, not yet.

Outside, a lone car passes, its headlights temporarily turning the walls yellow. Mark rolls onto his back, and his arm brushes against Donghyuck.

“Why are you doing this?” Donghyuck asks at last, so quiet Mark nearly misses it.

He takes a moment to answer. He’s got a reason, sure—but it’s more of a gut feeling than a rational explanation. He tells Donghyuck this, who mulls it over for a second.

“That’s what you said last time,” Donghyuck says, and their arms brush again.

Donghyuck was right; he doesn’t give off much heat. His skin is still cool.

“I’m not the me from last time,” Mark replies, equally as quiet, not wanting to shatter the atmosphere. “I’m different.”

“I know,” Donghyuck sighs, and it sounds like the weight of the world is pressing on him. “But in some ways, you’re exactly the same.”

Then he turns over onto his side, and Mark is left with nothing but the quiet sounds of the room and his own thoughts, more confused than ever.

Mark can’t remember the last time he’s dreamed—really dreamed, where he’d been aware of it. Which is why, as soon as he opens his eyes and realizes he’s not awake, he nearly jerks himself out of it.

But then Donghyuck walks up to him, smiling, his hands tucked into navy slacks. The top two buttons on his shirt are undone, and he’s nearly glowing with life.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, looking past him and grinning wider. Frowning, Mark turns to see who he’s talking to—and then chokes a little when it’s himself.  

Well, sort of. He’s wearing some goofy-looking outfit with a tie (Mark has never owned a tie in his life) and he’s carrying a fucking briefcase, of all things. His hair is a lot shorter, and neatly parted to the side.

“Hyuck,” Dream-Mark replies, and Donghyuck reaches out, fingers ghosting across Dream-Mark’s collar before he steps back, putting distance between them like he’s afraid.

The pieces suddenly come together. This isn’t a dream at all—it’s Donghyuck’s life. His life too, if he really thinks about it. Or, at the very least, a past life of his, the one he lived in 1943. And somehow, impossibly—Mark is in it, watching it replay in his mind.

“Let’s go eat,” Donghyuck says, earnest, gesturing towards the doors. “Lizzie’s already there with her date.”

“Aw, jeez,” Dream-Mark says, in the same old-time accent Donghyuck has, and Mark misses whatever he says next because he’s too busy cracking up. Eyes watering and sides aching, he straightens just as Dream-Mark and Donghyuck make their way to the door. Mark, unable to move, is tugged along like he’s a balloon pinned to Dream-Mark’s cardigan. Donghyuck opens the door for Dream-Mark, and then the three of them are outside, and Mark’s breath is quickly stolen by what has to be New York in the 1940s.

Cars sputter past, so loud Mark can’t hear what Donghyuck is saying unless he gets closer. Buildings rise up all around him, the tops glinting in the midday sun. People rush past, but it’s emptier than Mark expected—probably because everyone’s at work, or off fighting in the war.

Dream-Mark and Donghyuck stand a full body-length apart as they walk, but they still curve towards each other, like two magnets unwilling to separate. When they crowd together at a crosswalk, their hands brush, and Dream-Mark grabs Donghyuck’s thumb for a half-second before they separate again. If he wasn’t paying attention, Mark would’ve missed it.

A woman and her boyfriend pass by, pressed against each other, arms linked tightly. Dream-Mark’s gaze lingers on them, and Mark watches yearning, sadness and resignation pass over his face one-by-one, like a slideshow. It’s weird, to say the least, watching his own expressions. Actually, seeing himself in person is throwing him off, too—there’s a dimple on his left cheek that he didn’t notice, and his face isn’t quite as angular as he always thought. Dream-Mark still sort of looks like a baby.

The world goes foggy, and Mark spends three seconds in total confusion before it reforms—this time, they’re sitting with two other people in a tiny restaurant, half-eaten food in plastic baskets in front of them. The first is a fair-haired woman, red lipstick faded, and the other is a man, his hair buzzed close to his head, broad-shouldered and smiling.

Donghyuck and Dream-Mark are crammed together on one side—maybe just a bit closer than they need to be—and from where Mark is standing, he can see that Dream-Mark’s got a hand on Donghyuck’s knee. Anytime anyone enters the restaurant, though, he removes it like he’s been burned.

“So how do you two fellas know each other?” the man asks, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Mark works at a diner I really like,” Donghyuck says, “down by 10th and 54th. Good place.”

“He kept trying to make conversation,” Dream-Mark adds, and he squeezes Donghyuck’s knee under the table. “But the big cheese kept yellin’ at me, so we went out for drinks. And now we’re friends.”

“Well, Lizzie here’s spoken so highly about you two,” the man replies, smiling at the woman—Lizzie, who must be Donghyuck’s coworker—before turning back to them. “I didn’t think you’d be Asian, though.”

“I’m American, same as you are,” Dream-Mark points out mildly, but Mark knows himself well enough to recognize the way his jaw clenches.

“Why aren’t you out fighting in France, then?” the man answers, also even-toned. But his eyebrow is raised and the way he leans forward more is challenging, almost threatening.

“Robert,” Lizzie says sharply, but he pays her no mind.

“I’ve got a hearing issue,” Dream-Mark answers, and Donghyuck puts his hand over the one that’s on his knee.

“Mark, you don’t have to,” Donghyuck says, quiet and low. “It’s not his business.”

Mark eyes Robert, who just waits, cocky. “I’m deaf in one ear,” Mark says at last. “So I’m no good.”

Robert opens his mouth to respond, but Lizzie grabs his wrist tightly, frowning. “Leave them alone,” she snaps.

Robert turns to her, already starting to argue with her. Mark watches with growing irritation as Dream-Mark stands and quietly slips out of the booth, heading towards the bathroom. Mark is tugged along after him, glad he doesn’t have to stand and watch Robert be a dickhead.

Dream-Mark is only alone in the bathroom for a couple seconds before the door swings open and Donghyuck is there, tan and tousled-haired. He looks good, even under the old fluorescent lighting. Dream-Mark, on the other hand, does not. There are deep circles underneath his eyes and there’s a frail, fine-boned aspect to him, like he’s a breath away from collapsing into himself.

“Are you okay?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark’s brain registers the shift to Korean.

“I’m fine,” Dream-Mark answers, still in English. He’s bent over the sink, looking hollowed.

Donghyuck crosses over to him, and, after a thorough check of the stalls, wraps his arms around Dream-Mark’s waist, tucking his chin over his shoulder. “No you’re not,” Donghyuck argues, and Mark sighs, spinning in Donghyuck’s arms so they’re face-to-face.

“Hyuck,” Dream-Mark says, lifting a hand up to Donghyuck’s face, careful and cautious and absolutely screaming of restraint, “why are you with me?”

“Because I love you,” Donghyuck says easily, with the same charisma. Mark fidgets, not sure when the mood shift happened. “I love you, baby,” he repeats in English, and Dream-Mark looks so charmed that Mark shifts uncomfortably, weirded-out (it’s literally him! And DONGHYUCK!) and out-of-place, feeling very much like he’s intruding on something.

Dream-Mark looks up all of a sudden, directly at Mark. At the same time, Donghyuck freezes, mouth pursed around words he’s in the middle of saying.

“Do you believe him now?” Dream-Mark asks, and it takes Mark a second to realize he’s being spoken to. He glances over his shoulder to make sure it’s really him that’s being spoken to.

“Believe what?” Mark replies slowly, not sure what Dream-Mark is getting at.

Dream-Mark shrugs. “Everything,” he says, simple and straightforward. “It’s the same Donghyuck. All the stuff he’s told you—it’s all real. This really happened.”

“Well, I know that,” Mark stutters, flustered. “I just—I dunno, man, it’s a lot to take in.”

“I get it,” Dream-Mark answers seriously, and Mark gets the feeling that he does. Probably because they’re essentially the same person. “Take care of him, will ya?” Dream-Mark asks after a second, glancing down at Donghyuck. There’s a deep, sad look on his face.

“I’ll try my best,” Mark says, even though he has no idea what he’s going to do with Donghyuck or the situation they’re currently in.

“He’s a really good person,” Dream-Mark promises, and his gaze is thoughtful. “Let him take care of you, Mark Lee. You need it more than you think.”

Mark desperately wants to ask what he means, but before he can even open his mouth, Donghyuck is unfreezing and the world is going foggy again.

Dream-Mark leans down to kiss Donghyuck, and just as their lips brush, everything goes black.

Mark wakes up with his face against the wall and a knee digging into his lower back, and immediately, his day is already infinitely different.

Carefully unsticking his cheek from the plaster and raising himself on his elbow, he turns to see Donghyuck passed out next to him, sprawled against the pillows and breathing evenly. Even as Mark shifts, he doesn’t even react, back rising and falling slowly. Without realizing it, Mark studies his face carefully, the dream seared into his mind like he’d actually been there.

In sleep, Donghyuck is relaxed—there is no trace of any of the fear Mark had seen when people had looked a second too long their way, or when he and Dream-Mark got an inch too close. There’s no anger, either, like when he’d looked at Robert, mouth tightening and eyebrows drawing together like he was two seconds away from launching himself across the table.

No—Donghyuck, right now, is unrecognizable from the one he’d seen in the dream, fast asleep and a little washed-out. They don’t even look like the same person.

Him and Dream-Mark, on the other hand—

Mark stops himself short right there with a surprising amount of mental strength, and decides that he’s going take a shower now, while Donghyuck’s still asleep. It will also give him some time to clear his head, formulate something to tell his grandparents—and attempt to remove some of the vividness of the dream, Dream-Mark’s words echoing in his head.

Let him take care of you.

Mark chews on the inside of his cheek, glancing down at Donghyuck as he begins to extract himself from bed. He’s got no idea what that could mean—or, if he does, he doesn’t really want to open the Pandora’s box that comes with it. He’s pretty comfortable right where he is, as boring as it might be. He’s not hurting, or in any dire need of help, so it’s sort of weird that Dream-Mark would phrase it like that. He doesn’t need to be taken care of, as far as he’s aware. He’s got his mom, he’s got his grandparents, and he’s got all of his friends. Life is simple, life is good; only now, he’s got a zombie to somehow fit into it.

Donghyuck shifts, mumbling something sleepily and stretching out farther. Mark dodges an arm, back cracking violently as he performs a very impressive contortionist act to get around Donghyuck, shifting slowly over his legs and back until he tumbles silently off the bed and onto the ground, gently rolling onto his knees. A quick peek above the edge of the mattress reveals that Donghyuck is indeed still asleep. He must be dreaming about something, Mark thinks, because his eyelashes are shifting against his cheek, and his mouth is pursed like he’s thinking.

He realizes he’s staring a second later and yanks his gaze away, cheeks burning. He’s glad Donghyuck is still out cold.

Mark showers as fast as he can, not wanting Donghyuck to wake up and start wandering around the house. That would be a fantastic way to scare the shit out of his grandparents. He shampoos his hair violently, banging his elbow on the side of the shower in the process.

“Shit—fuck,” Mark hisses. “Ouch. Goddammit.”

“Mark?” Donghyuck calls sleepily, barely audible over the shower.

Mark grips his elbow, holding back another string of curse words. “I’m in the shower!”

Donghyuck says something else, but Mark can’t hear him. It sort of sounds like he’s going back to sleep. And sure enough, when Mark comes out of the bathroom, wearing a pair of mostly-clean shorts and toweling off his hair, Donghyuck is asleep on his stomach, dangling halfway off of Mark’s bed. His eyes flicker open when Mark opens his closet, and he smiles a little.

“Morning,” he says, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. “What are we up to today?”

“Uh,” Mark replies, pulling a shirt over his head and turning to look at Donghyuck, “nothing? I don’t really do much during the day.”

Donghyuck frowns and sits up. “Why not? You don’t work, right? And isn’t the city right there?”

“It’s a lot of effort,” Mark says, “and it’s so hot. It’s much easier to just sit here and play video games all day. I go out at night when my friends are done with their stuff.”

“Boring,” Donghyuck intones, flopping backwards. “Past you wasn’t such a crumb.”

“A…crumb?” Mark asks slowly, not sure if he’s being insulted or not.

“A boring person,” Donghyuck informs him, sitting back up so he can stick his tongue out at Mark. “Well, I’m here now, and it’s been seventy-five years since I’ve been alive. And I may not know what video games are, but we’re getting out of this house.”  

“When was Pac-Man invented?” Mark asks weakly, but Donghyuck ignores him in favor of steamrolling him, listing off reasons as to why they should leave the house and Mark is the Most Boring, Crumbiest Person to Ever Exist.

“—and thirdly, even though you’re cute, I refuse to just stay inside all day when the sun is out and there’s things to see.”

“There’s literally nothing out there,” Mark insists, even though he’s already starting to compile a list of things he could show Donghyuck in Seoul. “Listen, if you really wanna go out, go out. You can take my train card and I’ll show you how to work the GPS.”

Donghyuck eyes Mark. “You’d really let me go alone? I was just dead, Mark. And the last time I was in Seoul, I was eleven, and it was nineteen…” he pauses here, doing the math in his head, and the curve of his smile drops a little. “Thirty-five,” he finishes, and the same deep sadness flickers across his face before he scowls again, turning back to Mark. “Anyway, it’s been an unfairly long time,” Donghyuck informs him. “So no, I’m not going out by myself. You’re coming with me.”

And Mark caves. Maybe it’s out of pity, or concern that Donghyuck’s going to get lost and never return—or maybe it has something to do with the mix of deep-seated grief and the bright-eyed determination that mingles in the way he looks at Mark now.

Either way, he’s going out with Donghyuck, whether he likes it or not.

“Fine,” Mark says at last, and Donghyuck launches into celebration, flinging his arms around Mark’s neck briefly before flopping back on the bed. “Just let me get dressed first.”

Donghyuck doesn’t hear him, too busy chattering away about where they’re going to go and what they’re going to see.

Mark is glad Donghyuck can’t see the smile that creeps across his face, carefully hidden in the folds of his clothes.

His grandparents are awake when he and Donghyuck get downstairs, fully dressed. Donghyuck, after complaining about their “lack of appropriateness” for a solid five minutes, is grumpily wearing a pair of denim shorts that had shrunk in the wash. And while they were too tight on Mark’s legs, they fit Donghyuck perfectly—and since Mark had convinced him to ditch the dress shoes he’d risen from the dead in, he’ll fit right in with the rest of the trendy Seoulite teenagers.

“Morning, Mark-ah,” his grandmother says, looking up from where she’s refilling his grandpa’s juice glass. “And Mark’s friend?”

“Lee Donghyuck,” Donghyuck says, glancing nervously at Mark. “I, uh—thank you for letting me stay over.” He gives her a stiff bow, and Mark’s grandma laughs.

“No need to be quite so formal,” she assures him. “All of Mark’s friends are always welcome here. Did you meet recently, Donghyuck-ah?”

“Yes,” Donghyuck says, shoulders relaxing when both of Mark’s grandparents give him kind looks. “About a week ago, I think? I work at a restaurant in the city.”

“A diner,” Mark adds on, thinking of the dream. “One of those American-style ones. ”

“Ah, yes,” his grandpa says, nodding understandingly. “You go to school around here, Donghyuck-ah?”

Donghyuck nods. “I just finished my first year. I’m studying foreign languages.” There’s no hesitation, his voice even.

“Very nice!” His grandma comments, looking impressed. “Do you know English? Mark speaks English very well, since he was born in Canada.”

“I know English,” Donghyuck says, pressing his lips together and casting an amused look at Mark.

“I think he misses it, you know,” his grandma says conversationally, like Mark isn’t standing right there. “Canada. English. I keep telling him to find some English-speaking friends, but he never listens.”

“Grandma,” Mark groans, but she and Donghyuck are already laughing. “Come on, Donghyuck, we’re going.”

“But I like your grandma,” Donghyuck says, grinning. Mark, wishing nothing more for the ground to open up around him, grabs Donghyuck’s wrist and tugs.

“We’re going out, Grandma, Grandpa,” Mark says, dragging Donghyuck towards the door.

“Don’t you want some breakfast?” his grandpa asks.

“No, it’s fine,” Mark says hastily, jumping in before Donghyuck can accept. “It’s nearly lunchtime anyway. We’ll get something in the city. Bye!”

“Be safe,” his grandma says, and then he’s pulling Donghyuck through the living room and out into the humid summer morning. They start down the street, Mark fielding Donghyuck’s questions with more patience than he knew he possessed. Donghyuck, it seems, has seventy-five years of being silent to make up for because he never stops talking during the whole walk to the train, and Mark realizes how rusty his English is as he strains to keep up as Donghyuck asks about cars and Mark’s sneakers and why everyone is basically naked in public. His mouth drops open when Mark scans them both through the train turnstile and he jumps at the automatic voice that chimes through the platform, announcing that the train is coming. His wonder—raw, unchecked, and absolutely unashamed—is endearing and kind of awesome, too. Mark doesn’t know the last time he was that genuinely excited about something. His college acceptance, maybe, or over winter break, waiting for his parents at the airport in Canada. But even still, it was nothing like how Donghyuck is now, wide-eyed and gaping at the skyscrapers that tower over them as they walk up the steps from the subway station.

“I don’t understand,” Donghyuck says as they start down the street, “how you can live so close to all this and not go outside.”

Mark shrugs. “It gets boring, and the city is expensive. Plus, it’s so hot.” The last part comes out whinier than he’d like, but it’s humid out and there’s sweat already building at his hairline and sliding down his spine. Donghyuck, on the other hand, looks perfectly fine—not a hair out of place, looking like he’d stepped right out of K-pop photoshoot. “How are you not sweating?”

Donghyuck casts a furtive glance around before pressing his fingers to Mark’s wrist—a quick brush of cool, dry skin and then it’s gone, and Donghyuck is hastily shoving his hands back in his pockets like he’s been burned.

Mark thinks back to his dream, where the version of himself had yanked his hand off of Donghyuck’s knee in the same way.

Old habits die hard, he thinks to himself, as Donghyuck tells him about how his blood is warming up really slowly, and that’s why he’s not sweating.

“Never thought being a zombie would be an advantage,” Mark teases, and Donghyuck makes a face at him, nose scrunching.

“I’m not a zombie.”

“Then what are you?” Mark asks, still mostly teasing. But Donghyuck falters in his tracks, looking unsure.

“I—” he starts, before he cuts himself off, lips thinning. “I’m human.”

Mark notes that he’s switched back to English. “Of course you are,” he says, trying to keep the mood light. “Never said you weren’t.”

“’Course I am,” Donghyuck echoes quietly. Mark cringes inwardly, cursing himself for mucking everything up again with his inability to read social cues. God, he needs to get out more. Desperately, he looks around for something to lift Donghyuck out of his funk. It doesn’t take long, his eyes landing on a popular fried chicken chain.

“Hey, Donghyuck,” he says, and Donghyuck snaps out of it, his chin rising as he looks where Mark is pointing. “How do you feel about fried chicken?”

That, at least, seems to do the trick. Donghyuck’s eyes gleam as they walk into the restaurant, and he inhales deeply, swaying a little on his feet. “I haven’t had fried chicken in ages ,” he says. “Not since forty-one, at least.” He walks a little farther into the restaurant, and Mark follows, trying not to appear too relieved that whatever… that was had passed. When they order and sit down, he doesn’t bring it up, Donghyuck doesn’t try to explain, and they settle back into conversation like it never happened.

Halfway through their meal, Mark’s phone chimes with an alert from his banking app—his mother’s deposited a hundred thousand won into his bank account just like she has on the first of every month for the last five years he’s been living here. Donghyuck peers curiously at the screen, tapping it hesitantly like it might bite him.

“It’s just an alert,” Mark says. “My mom just gave me my allowance.”

“A hundred thousand won?” Donghyuck asks, eyes wide again. “That’s so much! We could do anything!”

“Not quite,” Mark mutters, hastily typing how to explain inflation into his phone. “Yeah, uh, there’s this thing called inflation—and basically, you have to pay more for the same amount of stuff.”

Donghyuck stares at him. “I’m not an idiot, Mark. I know what inflation is,” he scoffs. “What do you take me for?”

Mark sputters for a moment, off-kilter, before Donghyuck bursts into laughter. “Jeez, don’t look so blue. I was just jerking your leg. I’m not actually offended, and I really am surprised by how much stuff costs around here.”

“You can’t just do that,” Mark says, but can’t find it in him to be irritated.

“Yes I can,” Donghyuck cackles. “Boy, it’s fun to mess with you.” He releases a breath, still grinning. “Where to next?”

Mark eyes Donghyuck’s (his, technically, since it’s on loan) shirt, which has a sauce stain on it. “Do you, uh, want something else to wear?”

Donghyuck looks down at his borrowed shirt. “Is there something wrong with this? Do I look bad?”

“No, no, of course not,” Mark assures him quickly. “I just thought…you’d want clothes of your own. If you plan on sticking around for a while, that is.”

Donghyuck looks at him for a couple seconds, something weighty in his gaze. “Stick around?”

Mark shrugs, the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably with the way the conversation is going. “Yeah?”

“Mm,” Donghyuck says, and leans back, the tension dropping from the air so suddenly Mark gets mental whiplash. “Yeah, I’m sticking around. Certainly not going back in that stupid box, that’s for sure.” He purses his lips. “I don’t have any money, though.”

“I can pay,” Mark offers before he can even really think about it. “We’ll go to the mall and find some stuff on sale.”

“No,” Donghyuck rebukes immediately. “I’d feel crummy if you did. You already paid for lunch.”

“It’s fine,” Mark assures him, and when Donghyuck opens his mouth again, he tacks on, “I don’t have enough clothes for the both of us, anyway.”

Donghyuck closes his mouth, unable to argue with that logic. “Fine. But I’m paying you back when I get the money to.”

Mark doesn’t even think about how that’ll happen. “Cool. Let’s go—I know a good place.”

“For the last time, Lee Mark, I’m not giving you a discount,” Kun says without looking up from his computer. “We can’t afford it.”

Doyoung, who’s standing next to Mark looking unfairly smug, says, “I told you so.”

Mark wishes Jaemin were here—he’s way better at the whole puppy-eyes thing. He takes a deep breath, trying to channel his best cute dongsaeng.

“Please, hyung,” Mark says, gesturing to Donghyuck, who’s picking things off of racks with interest. “Look, my friend’s really low on cash, and he lost his suitcase at the airport—”

“You could just tell them I’m a zombie,” Donghyuck trills in English, prompting both Kun and Doyoung to give him curious looks.

“Does it look like either one of them will believe me?” Mark replies, before turning back to Kun. “Please? I can’t afford department store clothes, hyung, you know that—”

“Fine, fine,” Kun says, caving with a sigh. “You can have half-off.”

“Hyung,” Doyoung protests, because he likes to see Mark suffer.  

“The flight from America is long, and losing a suitcase isn’t fun,” Kun replies, waving a hand.

“America?” Mark asks, before he realizes it’s because of the English. “Oh, yeah. America. He’s from New York.”

“My name’s Donghyuck,” Donghyuck says cheerfully, waving and ducking his head. “Thank you for helping us, Kun-ssi.”

Kun visibly softens under the force of his smile. “I’m glad I can help. I wouldn’t want you to have to share with Mark. He has no style.”

“Agreed,” Donghyuck answers, decisive, like he knows anything about style or fashion at all.

“What—hey,” Mark says, looking between the two of them and feeling like he’s somehow being ganged up on.

“Call me hyung,” Kun says, and Donghyuck beams. “Doyoung, will you help them out?”

“I could do a perfectly fine job,” Mark says, but Doyoung gives him a flat look before moving off to help Donghyuck pick out clothing.

Kun turns to him, a curious look on his face. “When did you meet an American named Donghyuck? ”

“He, uh. Well,” Mark stammers, “it’s a long story. But he’s a good friend of mine and he’s really pulled through for me in the past—” The far, far past, and a different me, he adds silently, “and he, uh, came out to his family but it didn’t go well. So he’s staying with me for a little bit.” He winces internally at his bad lying skills—outing someone is something he generally tries to avoid—but Kun is also one of the kindest people he’s ever met, so, he’s not too worried.

“Oh,” Kun says, brow wrinkling. He leans around Mark and watches Doyoung and Donghyuck rove around the store. “Oh. Yeah. That’s—that’s really, really hard.” He looks up at Mark. “You’re a good friend.”

Mark shrugs. “I try. Donghyuck hasn’t had the easiest time.” Rising from the dead seventy-five years later to find out that everything he knew and loved is gone.

“Understandable,” Kun says, and nods. Donghyuck disappears into the changing room with a stack of clothing; another customer comes through the door. “Go on and help him. Don’t let Doyoung talk him into buying anything absurd.”

Mark walks back just as Donghyuck steps out, wearing a yellow shirt and a baseball hat. Mark’s whole face goes hot, for some reason, and he has half a mind to turn away and make Doyoung do this.

“How do I look?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark scrambles for something reasonable and not-creepy to say.

“Uh, good,” he mumbles.

“Is the yellow too bright? I’ve never worn a shirt like this before,” Donghyuck says nervously, smoothing his hands down the front of the fabric and squinting at the mirror.

Mark takes a deep breath. “No, it’s a good color. Makes you look less dead-pale and stuff.”

“And stuff,” Donghyuck repeats, meeting Mark’s eyes in the mirror and raising an eyebrow. “Like what? The corpse smell? The moldy suit? Ooh, the formaldehyde?”

“You’re messing with me again,” Mark says, and does a finger gun at Donghyuck before he can help himself. Donghyuck laughs, and Mark wants nothing more than to disappear. His face is probably bright red.

They stick around in the store for another forty-five minutes—Donghyuck, surprisingly, is very methodical when it comes to his clothing, rotating through combinations of shorts and sweaters and shirts until he emerges with a small stack of clothing and a satisfied smile.

“Got everything?” Mark asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. He doesn’t know how many times he can watch Donghyuck walk out in something yellow or light blue, both of which make him look like he’s glowing, just a little. It’s disorienting, and stupid, and Mark really needs to get out of here and clear his head.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, shifting the pile in his arms. “Time to pay?”

They meet Doyoung at the counter, who gives them the fifty-percent discount with a sigh. Donghyuck takes an inordinate amount of joy from sticking Mark’s card into the chip reader, neatly printing out Mark’s name in English when Doyoung asks him to sign the receipt. He signs the customer copy too, and folds it in half before sticking it into his pocket.

“For memories,” he tells Mark as they walk out of the shop, laden down with bags. “For later.”

Mark doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t want to think about later, when things will inevitably get infinitely more complicated and he’ll have to figure it all out.

“Where to next?” Donghyuck asks, pulling him from his thoughts. “More food? More shopping?”

Mark’s debit card weeps silently at the thought of more shopping. “Uh, are you hungry?”

“Sort of?”

Mark stares at Donghyuck, who gives him a guilty look. “We just ate, Donghyuck.”

“Okay, but I just rose from the dead,” Donghyuck fires back. “I haven’t eaten in seventy-five years.”

Mark sighs. “Do you want to eat again?”

“Well, if you’re offering,” Donghyuck says, smiling sweetly.

They go to a convenience store and get ramen. Or, Donghyuck gets ramen and Mark buys a bottle of water, peeling his sweaty shirt away from his chest and wiping his face. Donghyuck eats and Mark watches his hands, wishing his blood ran cool as well. Donghyuck’s got funny hands. Crooked fingers, bony knuckles—and he’s so, so pale. Like the color’s been sucked out of him. Which, honestly, makes sense, because he was dead. It’s pretty impressive that he’s not rotten through. Probably thanks to the same kind of magic or whatever that resurrected him in the first place.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Donghyuck asks between bites, and Mark yanks his gaze away.

“Nothing,” Mark says quickly. “Do you wanna do some tourist stuff?” Mark sort of regrets asking—it’s hot, involves a lot of walking, and prices he doesn’t know if he can afford. But Donghyuck’s whole face lights up, and Mark immediately knows he can’t take it back, not when he looks so excited.

“Yes!” Donghyuck exclaims, nearly knocking over his bowl of ramen in his enthusiasm. “Can we go to the tower-thing over there? And the palaces? And—”

“Yes to all of that,” Mark says, shrugging and resigning himself to his fate. “Why not? You’ve been dead for seventy-five years. Seoul’s changed a lot.”

Donghyuck crams the rest of his noodles into his mouth and nods. “I left Seoul when I was four to go to Japan,” he tells Mark when he swallows. “It’s been a long time.”

Mark looks out at the busy street, cars whirring past people with their noses in their phones. So different from the New York he’d seen in his dream, with its quiet emptiness and wide sky, so much clearer than the one he sees now. “It has,” Mark agrees. “It really, really has.”

Their tour stretches from one hour to three, then four and five. The sun is setting by the time they finally get up to Namsan Tower, Donghyuck breathless and slightly sunburnt but grinning so widely Mark’s afraid his face will stick like that.

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Mark asks as the elevator jerks to a halt at the observation deck.

“Nah,” Donghyuck says. “I’ve been up the Empire State Building before, and it was fine.”

Still, Donghyuck fidgets when they step off the elevator, staying near the center of the tower and away from the windows. Mark hesitates for a moment, looking between the windows and Donghyuck, who knots his fingers together and takes a deep breath.

“Are you…are you okay?” he asks, feeling a little stupid for having to ask. Clearly he’s not.

Donghyuck shifts awkwardly, swallowing. “Yeah, I’m good,” he says, “I’m. I’m adjusting. No need to flip your wig, just gimme a sec.”

Mark waits while Donghyuck takes another deep breath. People are starting to give them curious looks, so Mark pushes closer, touching Donghyuck gently on the shoulder.

Donghyuck jumps like he’s been burned, skittering backwards and glancing around.

“Donghyuck, if you’re scared—”

“I’m not,” he says hotly, scowling. “I’m working up to it.”

Mark purses his lips, looking at the way Donghyuck’s hands are twisted on the front of his shirt. “Would it help to hold onto my arm?”

Donghyuck glances at him sharply. “Are you—we’re in public,” he whispers, and something like pure terror crosses his face. “Everyone will see. Everyone will know.”

Mark points at two other boys, maybe a little younger than them, the taller one clinging desperately to the younger’s arm like his life depends on it. “They’re doing the exact same thing and they’re not getting any shit for it.” He turns back to Donghyuck. “It’s mostly foreigners and teenagers up here, anyway.”

Donghyuck still looks unsure. Through the windows, the buildings outside start to turn golden. “Come on,” Mark prompts. “You’re missing the sunset.”

That seems to convince him. Donghyuck reaches out slowly and sets his hand in the crook of Mark’s elbow, and together, they inch forward towards the window. Donghyuck’s knuckles turn white as they approach the glass, fingertips cold where they dig into Mark’s skin.

“It’s high,” Donghyuck mumbles, dragging his feet and keeping his eyes on his shoes. “And we could fall at any second and die, I could die all over again—”

“You’re not gonna,” Mark says, loudly enough that it draws the attention of two girls next to them. “You’re not gonna die again.”

Donghyuck doesn’t lift his head. “You don’t know that.”

“You’re not,” Mark repeats, much quieter this time. “Look up, Hyuck.”

Finally, Donghyuck looks up. The sky is on fire, the last rays of sunlight turning the clouds red and pink and yellow. Donghyuck blinks, eyes golden, and goes very, very still.

They don’t say much for the rest of the time—they just stand there, shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the sun go down past the edge of the horizon.

“Thank you,” Donghyuck says quietly as they take the elevator to the lobby. “That was incredible.”

Mark nods, patting Donghyuck on the shoulder. “Yeah, of course. Wouldn’t have wanted you to miss it.”

They walk out of the elevator just as Mark’s phone buzzes. Jaemin’s sent a message to the group chat, asking about dinner and Donghyuck.

“What are you doing?” Donghyuck asks curiously, stopping short so he can peer over Mark’s shoulder at his phone screen.

“Talking to my friends,” Mark explains. “It’s called texting. Way faster and easier than a phone—and, see, everyone can talk at once.”

Donghyuck’s eyes go wide. “Whoa.”

“They want to have dinner with us,” Mark says. “Jisung’s ordering pizza and we’re gonna catch up on YG Treasure Box.”

“Your friends?” Donghyuck asks, hesitating. “Do they all know about…where I came from?”

BRING THE ZOMBIE I WANT TO MEET HIM!!!! Chenle’s written excitedly.

“Yeah,” Mark says, pointing at the texts. “They all like you already.”

Donghyuck relaxes, smiling wide. “Probably because I’m cute.”

“Probably,” Mark agrees before he can think about it, and Donghyuck glances over at him, eyes glinting. “I mean. Jaemin said so.”

“Jaemin,” Donghyuck repeats, still looking at Mark, whose hands are beginning to sweat slightly. “Right.”

“Look, he said it, not me,” Mark points out, shoving the phone in Donghyuck’s face. “I’m not…you know what I mean.”

“Sure,” Donghyuck replies and nudges them both towards the door. “I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

Thankfully, he leaves it at that, and they chat easily on the train ride home. Mark catches himself filing the things Donghyuck tells him in the back of his mind—little details, like his coworkers or the baseball games he’d gone to or living in the Korean orphanage in Japan. Donghyuck shares things easily, willingly. And maybe it’s because he’d known Mark—a different Mark, but a Mark nonetheless—in the past, but there’s something comfortable about the way they talk, like there’s an implicit trust that’s come built-in.

They drop their bags at Mark’s house and tell oMark’s grandparents where they’re going, and then it’s onto Mark’s bike—Donghyuck balanced unsteadily on the back, hands locked around Mark’s middle—and off to Jisung’s.

There’s a lot of shouting when Mark rings the doorbell, bike propped against the side of the house. Donghyuck fidgets nervously behind him—nervousness that immediately melts away when Chenle throws the door open and shouts “YOU CAME!” before Jaemin comes rushing past him and launches himself into Donghyuck, pulling him into a tight hug.

Donghyuck hugs Jaemin back, looking slightly overwhelmed. “Hi,” he says, patting Jaemin’s back. “How are you?”

“Don’t bother speaking formally with any of them,” Mark says as he pulls Chenle into a brief half-hug. “Jisung’s the youngest but he doesn’t do it either.”

“Speaking of Jisung,” Chenle says, leaning back into the house, “he’s eating all the pizza. And Jeno watched Treasure Box without us.”

“A whole house of traitors,” Jaemin sighs, still holding onto Donghyuck.

“Well, I want pizza,” Mark says, ready to square up if need be. “And Jisung’s a goddamn bully.”

“I can hear you!” Jisung calls back, and Mark rushes into the house to fight him, leaping over Jeno, who’s sprawled out on the ground.

“Mark-hyung never fights,” Chenle tells Donghyuck, unbothered, “unless it’s specifically Jisung and specifically over pizza.”

“I’m also surprised that Mark brought you with him,” Jaemin says, and Mark goes ice-cold at his tone of voice, sly and pointed. He freezes, and Jisung takes the opportunity to cram the whole slice of pizza into his mouth. “I thought he’d want to keep you all to himself.”

“Jaemin, do not,” Mark pleads, and Jaemin smiles at him, all fake innocence and white teeth.

Donghyuck purses his lips. “I’m not sure I understand—”

“You guys, if you don’t hurry up I’m starting it without you,” Jeno calls from his spot on the floor.

“We already know you watched ahead, you cheater,” Jisung accuses, but he scoots over anyway to curl up at Jeno’s side.

Mark tries not to look too relieved. Chenle leads Donghyuck into the kitchen for some food, leaving Mark to glare menacingly at Jaemin, who just shrugs. “You have it coming for you,” he says, which is so incredibly ominous Mark is torn between decking him and demanding to know what he means. Jaemin winks at him, clearly amused by his struggle, but says nothing else. And eventually, Mark forgets all about it, engrossed in the show despite all his attempts to deny it. Trainee life looks awful, it really does, and there’s something almost cruel about these survival TV shows. But at the same time, there’s something incredibly satisfying in knowing that it’s not him that has to suffer through that, and he’s safe and comfortable on this side of the TV, where he can root for his favorites.

Donghyuck doesn’t know a thing about trainees or about K-pop, so Mark explains it to him as they go, pulling up pictures and Wikipedia pages on his phone.

“—for the record, I’d totally go for Junkyu,” Jaemin says casually, slumped on the couch. “Or Jaehyuk. Or maybe both.”

Chenle wrinkles his nose. “Gross, hyung. We know you’re single but you don’t need to act so desperate.”

Jaemin lunges from the couch and Renjun catches him around the waist before he can knock Chenle’s teeth out.

Mark sighs, and Donghyuck leans in, saying, “are they always like this?”

“Yes,” Mark replies, and grimaces. “I’m sorry, I know it’s overwhelming—”

“No, no,” Donghyuck assures him. “I like it.” He leans back on his hands, surveying Mark’s friends. Something warm passes over his face, and Mark likes it much more than the sadness he’d seen earlier.

“Oh, Mark-hyung,” Jaemin asks, tilting his head up against the couch, “did you end up applying for that writing program?”

Donghyuck turns curious eyes on Mark. “Writing?”

“Yeah, I originally wanted to go to school for writing, or literature,” Mark says, “but it wasn’t…it didn’t work out.”

“Why not?”

Jaemin looks between the two of them, and Mark knows he’ll intercede if Mark needs him to. But Donghyuck’s shared so much already, has shown cracks in his facade and tiny little vulnerabilities Mark already has stored away in his mind.

“Because it’s not a viable career path,” Mark admits, and he sounds exactly like his father. “What could I possibly do as a Lit major?”

Jaemin presses his lips together, but doesn’t say anything because they’ve had this argument a hundred times already.

“Oh, Mark,” Donghyuck says, and his hands twitch on his lap, like he might reach out. Mark’s sort of glad he doesn’t—he wouldn’t know what to do if he did. “You—the other Mark Lee was writing.”

Mark looks up sharply. “He—he was?”

Donghyuck nods. “Journalism. Used to work overseas, as a war reporter. That’s how he blew his ear out, y’know. He was twenty.” He looks thoughtful, eyes unfocused as he remembers.

“It’s insane that you guys knew each other in the past,” Jaemin comments. “Even more insane than Donghyuckie rising from the dead.”

“Sort of like magic, don’t you think?” Chenle comments, draping himself over Jisung to include himself in the conversation.

“Magic,” Renjun says, pursing his lips, clearly not buying in.

“Aw, come on,” Chenle argues, nudging Renjun, “it has to be. Things like this don’t just happen in real life!”

“If it’s not magic, then what is it?” Jaemin asks, propping his chin on his hands. In the background, the show plays, forgotten about.

Renjun eyes Mark and Donghyuck. “Fate, maybe,” he says slowly, “destiny. Something up there deciding it was time for you two to meet again.”

Everyone blinks at Renjun, who slowly turns pink under the attention. “Just throwing out ideas. Magic is ridiculous.”

“Aww, Renjun, ” Chenle coos, throwing his arms around Renjun’s neck, “I didn’t know you were a romantic!”

Renjun shoves Chenle aggressively. “I’m not. ”

The rest of them dissolve into argument, but Donghyuck’s gone quiet, pensive almost.

“What do you think?” Mark asks him. “Magic? Fate?”

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck replies. “But I like the idea of it being…something bigger than us.” He sighs, leaning back into the couch, and gives Mark a small, golden smile. “It’s nice to think,” he continues, “that something that all-important would take the time to bring us back together.”

They cram into the same bed later that night, and Mark dreams again.

This time, it’s just Dream-Mark and Donghyuck, standing shoulder-to-shoulder against a brick wall. They’re in some kind of alley, and the only light comes from the slightly-open door across them and the glow of their cigarettes.

“I’m going to Japan for a week,” Donghyuck says quietly after a moment. Dream-Mark exhales smoke but says nothing. “I’m sorry.”

Still, silence. Mark can tell Dream-Mark’s really upset about this but is doing everything in his power not to show it. Mark knows this because he does the exact same thing (and has done it, too, just in slightly altered circumstances).

“Say something,” Donghyuck begs.

“You were gone two weeks ago, also,” Dream-Mark mumbles. “How much longer before they ship you off somewhere and you don’t come back?”

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, surprised, but Dream-Mark isn’t done.

“It’s always work this, work that. You’re jetting off to places where you can’t write or call and it kills me, Hyuck, it really does. You’re killin’ me.”

Donghyuck drops his cigarette. Dream-Mark looks down at his feet.

“Mark,” Donghyuck repeats, softer. Dream-Mark finishes his cigarette and crushes it beneath the heel of his foot. Mark notices now that he’s wearing a uniform, the logo on the back matching the faded one on the partially-open door. “Why didn’t you say any of this earlier?”

Dream-Mark shrugs. “Didn’t know how. Didn’t wanna run you off.”

Donghyuck reaches up to cup Dream-Mark’s face. “Listen to me, Mark Lee,” he says sternly. “I love you. I love you. You could never run me off, or any of that. So don’t be afraid to tell me stuff, okay? We can work something out.”

“Can’t believe I’m getting my chops busted,” Dream-Mark mutters, and gives a watery-sounding laugh, “by my own goddamn boyfriend in an alley.”

Donghyuck laughs too, and Mark notes the way they seem to fit together when they hug, and wonders if it’d still be the same. And then immediately kicks his own ass for thinking that. What the hell.

“I’ll talk to the big cheeses about a phone call,” Donghyuck says when they separate, much farther than they really need to. Mark assumes it’s the paranoia that seems to dodge their every footstep and follow their every move. “I’m sorry I’m away so often. It sucks for me too. Hopefully this silly war will be over soon, and I can quit and work much closer to you.”

“I’d like that,” Dream-Mark says, and Donghyuck gives him an eye-crinkling smile so steeped in affection Mark is glad for the darkness. He doesn’t really want to see any more of this—the flirting, the intimacy, the obvious connection between his past self and Donghyuck. It’s throwing him off big-time.

Luckily, the dream seems to be over, because Donghyuck freezes, and just like last time, Dream-Mark turns to look right at him.

“You’re back again,” he says, only a little surprised. “You still haven’t figured it out?”

“Figured what out?”

“Can’t tell ya even if I wanted to,” Dream-Mark shrugs. “That’s all you, buddy.”

“You’re me,” Mark points out. “I didn’t even know there was something I had to do in the first place.”

“Nothing you gotta do, really,” Dream-Mark says, tapping his chin. “Just…think things through, yeah? Air your laundry. And let Donghyuck—”

The world suddenly goes soundless. Dream-Mark’s mouth is moving but the alley is dissolving around him, brick by brick, into dreamy blackness. The last thing Mark sees before it all goes dark is Donghyuck and the shining love in his eyes, backlit by the light from the door.

And then he wakes up.

Mark still doesn’t tell Donghyuck about the dreams. He can’t, not when Donghyuck looks so sad whenever he mentions the past—any aspect of it, whether it’s Dream-Mark or smoking cigarettes off the balcony of his tiny New York apartment or the way Times Square looked in the early-morning light. He tells Mark all of this, and it breaks Mark’s heart, just a little, to hear it. Because Donghyuck’s eyes go dark and the cheerful tilt to his English falls flat.

And as right as it is to bring up the dreams, Mark can’t. He just can’t. Instead, he fills the space with chatter, with sightseeing and trips to the convenience store and bike rides down to the park where they swing until their hands burn from the chains, and Mark talks about how he’s not good at anything, nearly in tears. Donghyuck hits him on the back of the head and then hugs him tightly, and tells him that he’s good at a hundred different things, listing them off on his fingers until it starts to rain. They hang out with Mark’s friends and watch TV and drink beer and soju leftover from the last party Jungwoo threw at Jisung’s house.

And through it all, there’s Donghyuck, slowly turning golden from all the sunshine and opening up with startling ease, sharing and giving and leaning into Jaemin and Jisung like he’s known them for years. It makes Mark’s heart do funny things. It sort of feels like it’s doing laps in his ribcage, and it never really listens when he tells it to shut the fuck up and stop it.

It’s the evening of the fourth day with Donghyuck that sort of starts an unstoppable process, one of those sticky, yucky ones that’s going to give him about a hundred aneurysms and several distressed dreams in which he’ll imagine being kicked out of home and disinherited, neither of which will feasibly happen, but Mark’s an overthinker and he needs to stop right now.

“Mark?” Donghyuck prompts, nudging Mark with his foot. They’re crowded onto the couch in the basement, waiting to load into a match of Overwatch, and Mark can count the freckles on Donghyuck’s face, that’s how close they are. Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck, something in the back of his mind repeats, perking up with a little interest. Like—

“NO,” Mark says aloud, and knees himself in the stomach in his hurry to distance himself from Donghyuck. Not that there’s really anywhere to go but off the couch— “Fuck, ouch, my elbow—“

“Are you okay?” Donghyuck asks, concerned, leaning down. “Wait, your game is starting—“

Mark’s whole left arm has gone numb, and he’s a little breathless from having kneed himself. Donghyuck is still close, and he’s getting closer oh god why is he doing that someone send help—

Mark sits up so quickly that he and Donghyuck knock heads, their foreheads colliding with a dull thunk. Donghyuck topples back into the couch as Mark shoves away from the couch, raising his hands to clutch at his forehead. But he’s forgotten that there’s a PS4 controller in his right hand, too, and that Big Something they’d talked about earlier must be in a some kind of funny mood because to top it all off, Mark clocks himself in the eye with the end of the controller.

“Three, two, one,” says the game. “Stop the payload.”

Mark lies on his back and wheezes. His controller clatters to the ground and his whole body aches, like it can’t remember where he’s been hurt so it’s gone and activated every pain receptor just in case.

Donghyuck scrambles off the couch, a red spot already forming above his eyebrow. “Christy, Mark, I’m so sorry,” he says, wringing his hands. “That was all my fault, I apologize—“

Mark sits up, clutching his watery eye, and Donghyuck lets out a snort before clapping a guilty hand over his mouth.

“It’s not funny,” he says, sounding strained. “It’s really, really not, but—“ He takes a deep breath, but as soon as they make eye contact, he bursts into laughter, body folding over with the force of it.

Mark’s hand is still numb, and behind him, he gets kicked from the match for inactivity. “It’s fine,” he relents at last, because it is funny, the comedic timing of it all, the spectacle that had unfolded around him. “It’s pretty funny.”

Donghyuck is gasping for air, tears building on the corners of his eyes. Mark laughs too, even if it hurts a little bit, but it feels better, like a weight is lifting off his chest. He’s laughed more in the last four days than he has in the last month or so. He’s also been out of the house every single day, too, because Donghyuck is too antsy to keep inside all day. It’s so vastly different than the life he’d been living a month ago that even his grandmother has commented on it.

He sleeps much better, too, as a result. He hasn’t opened the melatonin bottle on his nightstand since Donghyuck’s risen from the dead. Tonight is not an exception; Mark is asleep within minutes of turning the lights off and the fan on, Donghyuck breathing slow on his left. There is no dream this time, which is surprising, but welcoming—Donghyuck’s affectionate expression lingers in the back of his thoughts through the morning, which makes it incredibly hard to focus.

Mark sleeps easy for a couple hours before waking to the pitch-black darkness of his room, jolted awake like someone had called his name. For a moment, he’s disoriented, confused as to why he’s awake—and then Donghyuck makes a soft, terrified noise on his left, a cross between a whimper and a cry.

“Donghyuck,” Mark whispers as Donghyuck jerks violently, thrashing in the sheets, still asleep. His movements grow more frantic as seconds tick past, and Mark wonders if he should wake Donghyuck up. Or are you not supposed to? Maybe that’s sleepwalkers, though, not people stuck in what’s clearly a nightmare—

“No,” Donghyuck croaks, voice raspy. “No. Stop it. I don’t…I don’t.” He jerks, heel striking Mark hard on the calf.

“Donghyuck,” Mark repeats, a little louder this time. His hand hovers over Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“STOP IT!” Donghyuck cries, and he sounds so anguished that it grabs something in Mark’s heart and twists, and yep, fuck it, he’s waking Donghyuck up, bringing a hand down onto his shoulder and shaking.

“Hyuck,” Mark says for a third time, and that seems to do it. “Wake up. It’s a nightmare.”

Donghyuck’s eyes fly open and he bolts upright, face sheet-white. He looks at Mark, gaze wild and panicked. “Mark?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, unsure. “It’s me, it was just a nightmare—“

Donghyuck looks at him a second longer before his eyes fill with tears and he crumples, tipping forward into Mark’s chest and going boneless. Mark freezes, awkward and completely out of his element—but then he realizes that Donghyuck’s actually crying (sobbing, more like, but Mark’s not gonna say that because it’s incredibly embarrassing to think about, having a sad zombie boy sobbing into his shirt), complete with great heaving breaths. He’s quivering all over like he’s cold.

“I thought…I saw…” Donghyuck attempts, but can never quite get the words past his lips. Mark puts a tentative arm around him, and Donghyuck collapses further.

“It’s okay,” Mark says, and gets a second arm around him, propping him up so his head’s on Mark’s shoulder instead of against his sternum, where it’s awfully damp. “You’re here. It’s now. Everyone’s okay.”

After a minute or so, Donghyuck’s tears stop, but they stay there, Donghyuck’s cheek pressed against Mark’s shoulder, Mark’s arms wrapped around him.

“I need a cigarette,” Donghyuck mumbles at last. “Really bad.”

Mark sighs, and the moment breaks. “My grandpa has a pack in the kitchen.”

The house is dead silent and dark, and even though his grandparents are fast asleep, they still whisper, keeping the lights off save for the glow from Mark’s phone. Mark roots around in the junk drawer for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, handing one of the former to Donghyuck before closing the drawer.

“Just one,” Mark says. “And then you’re taking a shower. I’m not getting back into bed with you if you smell nasty.”

Donghyuck sniffles. “Alright.”

They sit on the patio while Donghyuck smokes, studying the glowing end of his cigarette and blowing the smoke into the wind, away from Mark’s face. Mark doesn’t ask him about the dream, and Donghyuck doesn’t offer anything. The Great Big Question— how did you die— hovers between them, though, unasked. Mark’s not even sure he wants to know the answer.

“New York wasn’t kind to me,” Donghyuck says at last, when his cigarette’s almost out. “I was young, Korean and gay.” He puts the cigarette to his lips again, inhales, exhales. “Nobody really wanted me there. Nobody except the past Mark.”

“You guys were lucky you had each other.”

“We were,” Donghyuck replies, slightly wistful. “Life was short, back then, and a lot harder. I worked. He worked. We snuck around and stole moments we shouldn’t have. We lived our whole lives tucked away, keeping out of sight and in the dark.”

Mark thinks about the dream he’d had, where they’d been in the alley. “But?”

“But it was him,” Donghyuck says, and looks up, eyes bright. “You, but not. And it was like a light in the middle of the dark.”

Donghyuck stubs out his cigarette, and Mark can sense that the he’s done talking.

“That was writing, once, for me,” Mark admits. Donghyuck hums, nodding. “I used to live for it. Reading, too. I got a lot of shit for it, but it was the only thing I was good at.” Donghyuck gives him a look, and he corrects himself. “The only thing I wanted to be good at,” he says, giving Donghyuck a small smile. “I guess I’m good at other things, too.”

“But then there was your dad?” Donghyuck guesses. “You’ve mentioned him a couple of times.”

“Yeah, my dad,” Mark says. “He shut me down. Said I wouldn’t go anywhere.” He shrugs, though it still stings to think about. “Guess he was right. Informatics is better.”

“But you hate math,” Donghyuck says, eyebrows pulling together. “And you’re a killer writer.”

“How—how do you know that?” Mark asks, taken aback. He wonders if he’d left some of his old stuff out, back when he used to write on paper. “I never—“

“You were back then, too,” Donghyuck interrupts softly, “and I betcha that hasn’t changed.”

Mark considers Donghyuck for a second, yellow-gold in the single outdoor light. “You can read the last thing I wrote, if you want,” Mark says abruptly, on impulse.

“Are you sure?” Donghyuck asks, frowning. “You don’t have to feel pressured—“

“No, I want you to read it,” Mark replies, and is surprised by how true this is—how much he genuinely wants Donghyuck to read what he’s written. “I have it on my phone. It’s probably not as good as Past Mark’s.”

“It will be,” Donghyuck insists, sounding very sure of himself. “And I know this because I know you, Mark Lee. Both then and now.”

Mark can’t think of anything to say to that, so he just gives Donghyuck his phone, the screen lit up with the last thing he’d ever written: a prose piece, done right before he’d gone off to college and had his dream thoroughly crushed by reality.

Donghyuck reads it quickly, eyes flickering over the screen. His smile grows as he scrolls until Mark can see the white glint of his teeth, and something warm and fuzzy settles in Mark’s stomach with a resolute thump , like it’s there to stay. Mark knows it’s not really permanent, because it hadn’t been with Cha Ah-rae in junior year, with her pretty eyes and infectious laugh, sort of similar to Donghyuck’s—

Donghyuck.

Mark’s heart does a loop. The last time he’d felt like this was when he’d liked Cha Ah-rae, but even then, it hadn’t been as warm or as encompassing as whatever Mark felt now, looking at Donghyuck.

God-fucking-dammit, Mark thinks to himself, cursing Jaemin and Donghyuck and the Big Something but mostly himself, because he’s cracked open the Pandora’s Box and that thought (That Thought, the one that’s been creeping up on him ever since he’d walked in on Jungwoo and Doyoung doing Things at a party over winter break) and now it’s too late to go back.

“Mark, this is amazing,” Donghyuck beams. “You’re incredible.”

“Thanks,” Mark says, a little strained. “That means a lot.”

Donghyuck grins wider, and the thing in the back of Mark’s brain makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like I told you so.

Shut up, he tells it, but if the way the way his heart slides sideways when Donghyuck looks at him is any indication, it’s too late.

Yuta, a senior Mark knew in high school, invites them all to a party, five days after Donghyuck Rose From the Dead, as Jaemin dubs it.

“Sort of like A.D. or B.C.E,” he says. “To mark a time when everything changed.” He looks right at Mark then, and it’s like Jaemin can see all the way into Mark’s brain. All the way to the turmoil that’s taking place in there right now, a struggle to reconcile a hundred different puzzle pieces, half of which had just been dumped on him the day before.

“Yeah, like the beginning in my belief in zombies,” Mark says, keeping his face as neutral as possible. He hasn’t told anybody about the dreams, about the growing sense of familiarity, about how he wakes up each morning with new details he knows about Donghyuck—his favorite color, the dogs at the orphanage, and the way his face looks in the rain.

His secrecy doesn’t seem to matter much, though—at least, not to Jaemin, who’s known him for the longest and has always been able to see straight to the truth of the matter, at least regarding Mark.

“Mmm,” Jaemin says, noncommittal. He looks up at the sky. “Sorta looks like it might rain.”

“You wanna just chill and watch some TV?” Mark asks. “I know you and Hyuck were gonna go get lunch, but it’s monsoon season.”

“Did someone say TV?” Donghyuck interrupts, appearing behind Mark.

“Yeah, it’s gonna rain,” Mark says, nodding at the heavy clouds gathering on the horizon. “And I don’t know how you feel about walking around in the rain, but—“

“TV sounds good,” Donghyuck says, and his smile feels like sun on the back of Mark’s neck.

“What have you and Hyuck been watching?” Jaemin asks pointedly, kicking his shoes off.

Mark glares at Jaemin, already regretting inviting him in. “Just a show on Netflix. It’s in English.”

“How sweet,” Jaemin replies, wiggling his eyebrows. Mark progresses to regretting ever becoming friends with Jaemin in the first place. “But we all know what Netflix and chill is code for, hyung.”

“Do not—“ Mark threatens.

“What’s Netflix and chill?” Donghyuck asks innocently, and Jaemin’s smile is so wicked that Mark fears for his life.

“Jaemin-ah,” Mark says, nearly begging, inching towards Jaemin and desperately trying to tamp down the panic that rises in his throat, threatening to crush the breath from his lungs. “Don’t. Leave it be.”

Jaemin sticks his nose in everyone’s business, and he’s meddlesome to a fault—but he’s also an incredibly good friend, and there’s not a mean bone in his body. So he drops it, and the panic recedes, Mark’s heartbeat slowing as they debate between video games and TV and end up opting for Mario Kart. Jeno and Jisung join at some point, shaking the rain out of their hair and peeling off their wet socks. Thunder shakes the house, but the basement is comfortable and air-conditioned, cocooning and protecting them from the storm outside.

Mark doesn’t know when or how he falls asleep, but he does—and he dreams. But unlike all the others, where he’d been a silent spectator, tied to Dream-Mark like a balloon, he’s actually in this one. He hurries off the subway and people bump into him, irritated, and the winter air nips at his cheeks and nose. It feels less like a dream and more like—more like an actual , real life. Which it is, he supposes—a past life, but a life nonetheless. One that sort of (?) belonged to him.

Time blurs around him, the city lights dissolving and conversations melting around him. Next thing he knows, he’s standing in front of a rundown apartment building, the paint on the door peeling and the number 5 on it crooked. Inside, Mark can sort of hear music, staticky and jazzy.

He has no control over his body, he finds, as his hand lifts without thought to knock on the door, which flies open so quickly it slams against the wall. Then there’s Donghyuck, looking exactly like he does now, haircut and all. He looks at Mark for a second, breathless, before he grabs the front of Mark’s shirt and hauls him inside.

“You cut your hair,” Donghyuck says, sounding like he’s on the verge of tears.

“You’re back,” Mark replies, and his voice quivers as well. “You—you’re back.”

“Is that all you can say?” Donghyuck teases, but the corners of his eyes are leaking tears. He scrubs at them, annoyed, with his free hand. “I’m not cryin’, I’m not, I just—“

“I love you,” Mark blurts, because he has no control over this memory. It’s playing out exactly as it happened, probably.

Donghyuck stares at him, mouth partially open. Despair, panic and doubt begins to creep up Mark’s spine, and just as he’s about to ask if he did something wrong, Donghyuck smiles.

“First time you’ve got me speechless,” Donghyuck says, and lays his hand flat against Mark’s chest, fiddling with the buttons on his coat. “Finally worked up the moxie to say it?”

“Liz wrote to me and said she’d kick my knees in if I didn’t,” Mark admits. “But I’ve been wanting to say it for a while.”

Donghyuck hums, still smiling. “So, you gonna kiss me now, or what?”

Oh no, Mark thinks distantly, but the dream doesn’t end, and then they’re kissing, and it’s fantastic; Donghyuck’s lips are soft and he knows exactly what he’s doing, making the breath catch in Mark’s throat. Donghyuck licks into Mark’s mouth and undoes the buttons on his coat, then the buttons on his shirt, and the room melts around them and they’re—they’re in bed, and Mark has his mouth on Donghyuck’s neck, on his collarbones, and Donghyuck’s hands are in his hair, palms burning hot against his skin.  

He pulls back for a second, just long enough to see Donghyuck’s face, kiss-swollen lips pink and shiny with spit, color high on his cheeks. Donghyuck tugs Mark back down to him, presses his mouth to Mark’s chin, his nose, and finally his lips—softly, gently, like he’s got all the time in the world.

It’s not real, Mark tells himself. It’s not me. This isn’t my life, this isn’t my memory.  

It’s yours as much as it’s mine, another voice answers. One after another. Mark and Donghyuck.

He wakes up, and finds that Jeno and Jaemin have turned the TV over to cartoon reruns. Jisung is knocked out under a pile of blankets, and Donghyuck—Donghyuck’s slumped towards Mark, head hovering an inch from the crook of Mark’s neck, eyelashes dark against the bronze of his cheeks. His mouth is slightly parted, and his hair flutters away from his face every time he exhales. Feeling hot all over and suddenly aware that he’s staring, Mark shuts his eyes tightly.

Outside, the rain begins to lift, and Mark tries to pretend the warmth coming from Donghyuck’s skin isn’t familiar.

They arrive at the Partytime Golden Hour, as Jaemin calls it, slightly buzzed from the pregaming they’d done at Mark’s house, taking advantage of his grandparents’ absence. The door is answered by Sicheng, who’s definitely hooking up with Yuta (somebody told Mark that at the last party and now it’s all he can pay attention to—that, and Jungwoo and Doyoung, and god, have there always been so many not-straight people in his life? He’s practically been raised by them. How has he not noticed it before? Is it maybe because he’s starting to realize Things as well?)

Mark stops his thoughts right there, palms sweating preemptively.

“Oh, it’s you guys,” Sicheng says, and turns curious eyes to Donghyuck. “And a new boy.”

“Donghyuck,” Donghyuck says, and starts to offer a handshake before he catches himself and loops his arm through Mark’s instead, fidgeting.

Sicheng watches this very closely, but his face is unflinchingly neutral. Mark wants to jump out the window, sort of—or at the minimum, step away from Donghyuck. The dream still clings to him, and every aspect of Donghyuck threatens to pull him back into it, from the freckles on his cheeks to the way his mouth parts to the smell that curls off his skin, like summer and clean laundry. There’s also the heat, which is new—Donghyuck’s fingers press into the crease of Mark’s elbow, and he feels—he feels alive. Warm and sunkissed and alive.

The inside of Yuta’s house is crowded, and stepping in is like walking into a greenhouse, except a lot noisier, darker, and reeking of body odor, smoke, and alcohol. Yuta himself, however, is a good host, appearing at Sicheng’s elbow within a minute and foisting slightly chilled beers onto them before vanishing back into the crowd, an arm around Sicheng’s waist.

Jisung finishes his beer in a concerningly short time, and as soon as Donghyuck pops the tab on his, it all goes downhill very quickly, the seven of them slowly deteriorating into increasingly drunken states. Mark and Donghyuck are roped into a game of Tap, which Mark barely understands the rules to despite having played it a hundred different times. Donghyuck, of course, picks it up in half a second, and he’s slamming his bottle of soju on the table with the rest of them, yelling whenever someone messes it up (usually Mark) and has to drink. By the third shot he takes in under ten minutes, Mark gets up, head spinning, and excuses himself to the bathroom.

He’s impressed he makes it in one piece, and plops down heavily on the toilet seat, dropping his head in his hand.

“You suck, Mark Lee,” he tells himself, tilting forward and barely catching himself. “At writing, at Tap, at being not-straight, at liking Donghyuck—”

There’s a knock at the door. “You’re not peeing, are you?” A mostly-familiar voice says.

“No,” Mark says, and the door opens, revealing Ten, who’s most definitely someone’s boyfriend and also Thai. That much Mark can remember. He’s sort of bizarre, too. In a really self-confident, self-deprecating way.

“Johnny Seo,” Mark says, recalling Ten’s boyfriend’s face, and Ten nods, like he understands.

“Yes.” Ten sits down on the edge of the bathtub, facing Mark. “Johnny Seo.”

Mark doesn’t think he has the neck strength to lift his head from his hands. “And Donghyuck.”

“Mmm.”

“I should go find him, shouldn’t I? He’ll be worried. He does that now. It’s concerning.”

Ten gives Mark an amused smile. “Give me your hand for a second,” he says, and Mark does, nearly sliding off the toilet again. Ten catches him by the shoulders, grips his hand, and the fog surrounding his brain lifts a little, somehow. Ten’s hands are really cold.

“He’s a really good guy,” Ten tells Mark. “Whatever you need to say to him, he’ll get it. He’s been through a lot. His heart is strong.”

“You met him?” Mark asks, confused. “Did he tell you?”

Ten’s eyebrows draw together. “Who? What?”

“Donghyuck,” Mark says, but Ten just shakes his head.

“Never met him,” he says airily. “Come on, up you go.”

“But you said—”

“Someone’s calling your name,” Ten interrupts, pointing across the crowd at Donghyuck, who’s scanning the sea of people with an incredibly worried look on his face, swaying a bit on his tiptoes.

Mark turns back around to ask Ten more questions, but he’s gone, vanished into the depths of the house like he was never here in the first place.

With nothing else to do, Mark resigns himself to his fate, picking his way over to Donghyuck, whose relief melts the tension from his face as soon as he spots Mark.

“Oh, thank God,” Donghyuck breathes. “Are you okay? You didn’t look so happy playing that game.”

“I suck at Tap,” Mark says, shrugging and trying not to show how bruised his ego is. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have played.”

“You don’t suck at it,” Donghyuck rebukes fiercely, grabbing Mark’s wrist and tugging him through the doorway they’re standing next to. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

“What, that I suck? That I’m terrible at everything I try to do and won’t ever amount to anything?” Mark says, taking a twisted satisfaction in the way Donghyuck’s brow wrinkles, mouth tightening.

“I’m not gonna snap my cap, Mark, if that’s what you want,” Donghyuck says, voice calm despite the barely-restrained frustration in his expression. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not,” Mark says, and it’s true—sort of. The haze has significantly lifted, and he can speak without feeling like his tongue’s five sizes too big for his mouth. “Mostly.”

Donghyuck sighs. “Then why are you being like this?”

Mark shrugs, feeling itchy all over. “Because.”

“Because why?” Donghyuck’s looking at him, and it’s in the same way that Jaemin does, like Donghyuck can see straight into the inside of his head.

“Don’t know,” Mark says, and Donghyuck takes a half-step closer, eyes flickering over Mark’s face. They catch on his mouth—Mark watches Donghyuck look at his mouth—for a half-second too long, and Mark’s breath hitches in his throat.

“You do know,” Donghyuck whispers, and Mark watches his eyelashes shift, frozen to the spot. Maybe this is another dream. “You just need the moxie to say it.”

Mark can’t tell if he wants this to be a dream or not.

Donghyuck lifts his hand, and his fingertips graze Mark’s cheek. He moves closer; their noses brush. If he wanted to (which he does—it’s all he’s been able to think about, for fuck’s sake) Mark could close the little space between them.

He doesn’t, though, because his hands are sweating and there are alarms going off in his brain while his body tries to rip itself in half, part of it straining towards Donghyuck while the other part screams TIME TO GO OKAY SHUT IT DOWN PACK IT UP LET’S GO.

Donghyuck has always been braver than he is. Mark’s known this, deep down. And it shows, because Donghyuck takes a deep breath and starts to ask, “can I—”, and then he’s woefully, wonderfully interrupted by a group of girls supporting their unconscious friend.

The moment is shattered, and everything comes crashing down on Mark’s head, knocking a migraine into existence and forcing the breath from his lungs.

Donghyuck steps back, dropping his hand. He looks extremely disappointed, and opens his mouth again, probably to say something nice, when Mark fumbles for his phone and holds it up.

“I’m getting a phone call,” he says, tapping on the screen. “Gotta go. I have to take this.”

Donghyuck’s eyebrows pull together, and the hurt that flashes across his face makes Mark want to vomit. “But—”

The panic is starting to close in on Mark, looming darkly in the corners of his vision. “Find Jaemin,” he tells Donghyuck, and then speed-walks from the room and out of Yuta’s house with a sudden burst of sobriety.

It’s cooler outside, and a lot less humid now that the clouds have lifted. The sky is clear, and there’s a faint smattering of stars here and there. The moon is so bright it almost hurts to look at.

Mark makes it about ten steps before his knees give out and he sits down hard on the curb. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, heart pounding so hard he’s afraid his ribs will break.

“You’re chickenshit, Mark Lee,” he tells himself, forcing his thoughts away from Donghyuck. Or attempting to, at least. It doesn’t really work very well, and he still feels like he’s going to vomit and cry.

“I’ve really fucked it up now,” Mark groans, and punches the sidewalk before he can think about it And then he swears, because fuck, asphalt is unforgiving, and now his knuckles are all scraped and bloody.

Clutching his hand to his chest and trying not to cry (the theme of the night), Mark attempts to put himself back together and collect his thoughts (another theme of the night). He fails at all three, and ends up stumbling back home, hyperventilating and crying a little.

Donghyuck’s face is seared into his mind, and every time he blinks, the almost-kiss is played in slow-motion, torturing him. He’d almost kissed Donghyuck. And, even worse—he’s pretty sure he would’ve liked it.

This realization is heavy enough to knock his feet out from underneath him, and he plops down on the front steps to his grandparents’ house.

“I like Donghyuck,” Mark mumbles, testing the words out. “I’m. I’m—”

He can’t quite get the word out, That Word, past his lips. Something inside of him flinches away from it, says no way that’s me.

If he thinks about it, though, really thinks about—something he’d been avoiding for the last…three years, maybe—it makes sense. And that thought alone is enough to make him cringe and scramble to his feet, trying to escape the wave of self-acceptance that hovers on the brink on his consciousness.

He’s glad for probably the nine billionth time that his grandparents are heavy sleepers, because he knocks over two chairs and the dishrack on his way up to his room, and almost cracks his head open when he slips on the stairs, miscounting them. He closes the door behind him and flicks on the lights, head spinning a little in the dead silence of the house. It feels weird having the lights on like this, in the middle of the night. Like he’s breaking an unsaid rule.

He stands in the doorway for a moment before he realizes the whole bedroom screams Donghyuck, from the extra pillows on the bed to the pile of clothing in the corner, the souvenirs from downtown scattered carelessly across Mark’s desk. There’s another toothbrush in the bathroom and an extra pair of slippers by the window, as well, and Mark wonders how Donghyuck managed to split Mark’s life open and fit himself inside without Mark noticing. He’d turned everything upside down so quickly, smiling so widely Mark had failed to notice the spot Donghyuck had carved out in Mark’s heart.

He takes another deep, quivering breath, and his eyes catch on his computer, sitting half-buried underneath a pile of papers. Almost unconsciously, Mark crosses the room and sits down at his desk, logs on to his computer and opens up a new document. His fingers hover over the keys, and a hundred different emotions fight to come out first, begging to be put into words.

He doesn’t even know where to start. Everything is upside-down, so complicated, unnecessarily complicated. Fuck. Feelings are the absolute worst.

His hands shake a little as he puts them down over the keys. The language is set to English, almost like something (The Big Something) wants someone (Donghyuck) to read it.

So he starts there.

Dear Donghyuck,

I like you. But I’m chickenshit.

What comes after is complete word vomit, barely comprehensible. It’s part-letter, part-confession, and all truth. He cries during parts, while in others, he’s so angry the keyboard squeaks under the force of his typing. Minutes, hours—he doesn’t know how much time passes, but he keeps going until his eyes blur with exhaustion and his fingers physically hurt. He doesn’t bother saving, or even turning off his computer, when he finally gets to his feet and stumbles towards his bed. There’s a hollowness in his chest now that makes it easier to fall asleep, like he’s relieved a fraction of the heavy weight threatening to burst through his rib cage.

He barely registers that his pillows smell like Donghyuck before he’s asleep.

Peace, however, is much harder to find, especially when Donghyuck appears in his dream.

Dream-Mark is walking down the sidewalk. It’s midday, warm light filtering through the leaves on the trees, which are just starting to turn red. It’s quiet out—everyone’s either at work or at war.

Mark is tugged along for a couple more minutes, wondering why he’s here if nothing’s going to happen. He’s about to convince himself to wake up when Dream-Mark stops abruptly in front of a storefront, the paint on the door faded and the letters on the display window peeling: Relics of the Past Antique Shop.

“It looks closed,” Mark says, squinting past the glass into the dark interior of the shop. Dream-Mark can’t hear him, obviously—not that it matters, because the shop is open, albeit totally empty of people and gloomy.

The inside is a maze of shelves, which are cluttered with an unbelievable amount of shit, from books and knick-knacks to tarnished boxes and jewelry, heaped in piles.

There’s counter tucked in the back, barely visible through the towering piles of stuff. A guy is sitting there, his feet kicked up on the surface. He’s reading the paper, which obscures his face. His fingers are covered in rings, and they glint in the soft overhead light.

ITALY SURRENDERS, WILL RESIST GERMANS, the headline of the newspaper claims, ALLIED FORCES LAND IN THE NAPLES AREA.

It’s September of 1943, according to the paper, which the man flicks and folds when Dream-Mark approaches.

“Uh, hi,” Dream-Mark says tentatively, and the newspaper drops to reveal—

“Ten? ” Mark sputters, taken aback. But there’s no mistaking it—the set of his eyes and his jaw is exactly the same even if his hair is different, and the knowing smile that curls at his lips is the one he gave to Mark in the bathroom.

Ten looks up, and his gaze shifts over Mark for a second, lingering far too long to be a coincidence. He taps a finger to lips, signaling for Mark to be quiet, and smirks.

“What is going on,” Mark mutters, and Dream-Mark turns around, glancing around to where Mark’s standing, invisible to everyone but Ten, for some reason. “What are you even doing here? Are you a zombie too? Goddamn, can’t anything be straightforward?”

Ten rolls his eyes just slightly, and Mark sighs, giving in when he realizes he won’t be acknowledged, much less get an answer.

“Welcome to the antique shop,” Ten greets, sliding his feet off the counter and standing. He’s wearing a sweater vest and slacks, in traditional 40s fashion. He looks stupid, and Mark spends a couple seconds laughing at him, just in case Ten is still paying attention to him. “What can I do for you?”

“I called, uh, earlier,” Dream-Mark says. “Someone told me I should come here if I, uh, had something to mail.”

“To mail,” Ten asks slowly, and Dream-Mark fidgets. “The post office is down the street, if you’re looking to mail something.”

“No, I guess that’s not the right word,” Dream-Mark corrects quickly. “I meant—I have a letter to leave behind for…what’s next. Who’s next, I guess.”

Ten looks at Dream-Mark for a second longer before he smiles, and it’s a lot gentler this time around. “You had the dream? Already?”

Mark looks startled at the mention of it, but nods slowly. He reaches into his pocket, hands shaking a little, and pulls out an envelope. It’s too far for Mark to read the name on the front, especially since Ten takes it and studies it closely for only a second before setting it face-down on the counter.

“You’re so young,” he says softly. “You must’ve just met.”

Dream-Mark does a better job hiding his surprise this time around. “It’s only been about a year.”

“How much did you see?” Ten asks, folding his arms. “Spare the details, though—they tend to get pretty sore if I hear too much.”

“Not a lot,” Dream-Mark admits. “Just—”

“Hold,” Ten interrupts, and snaps his fingers. The dream freezes in place, just as it’s done before, and Ten finally turns all his attention to Mark.

“Haven’t met you yet,” Ten says, cocking his head, “but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you’re the next one.” He jerks a thumb at Dream-Mark. “Did I get it?”

“Yes,” Mark says. “But how can you—”

“It’s not time for you to ask me yet.” Ten waves him off. “Go find me in your time. I’ll help you out. Most likely.”

“Most likely?” Mark repeats, dubious. “You weren’t so helpful in the bathroom—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Ten jumps in yet again, waving a finger. “Don’t go bringing your present here. Stuff doesn’t mix well.”

Mark sighs, irritated and exhausted at once. “Okay, sorry. Wait, but why am I not allowed to hear what Dream-Mark says? Or ask you any questions?”

“I told him I didn’t want this damn job,” Ten mutters, exhaling loudly. He turns back to Mark. “Because it’s not your time yet, Mark. Get it?”

“Nope.”

Ten rolls his eyes. “You can’t hear it now because you’re gonna hear it later. Things have to happen like they’re planned, especially with all this reincarnation-soulmate business.”

Mark’s heart stops for a good second, and he pounds his chest to get it moving again. The words echo in his head, and his fingers go numb. “Soul-what?”

Ten smacks his forehead. “Ah, christy, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“Are you saying that Donghyuck and I,” Mark starts slowly, trying to process one thing at a time—but it’s very difficult, given that his brain has been over-saturated with Unbelievable Nonsense for the last week— “are soulmates? Like, fate, destiny, the whole nine yards?”

“The whole nine yards,” Ten says, looking as tired as Mark feels. “And now it’s time for you to wake up. Any longer, and Dream-Mark will unfreeze by himself. I’m not that powerful.”

“Wait a second,” Mark says, stepping forward, but Ten snaps his fingers, the sound oddly loud. Immediately, the edges of the dream go fuzzy, color diluting as it fades into nothingness.

“You won’t remember much of this,” Ten says, propping his hip against the counter, “but you’ll remember me. And if I can help you here, then I can definitely help you there.” He waves his fingers at Mark. “See you soon.”

Then the dream collapses completely, and Dream-Mark and Ten vanish into nothing.

The next morning, Mark wakes up with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and a name floating around his head.

He gets the feeling that he had another dream, but can’t remember it for the life of him. All he knows is that somehow, impossibly, Ten was there. Which means that it couldn’t have been a dream about the past, but rather the present. Right? Unless Ten was also somehow in 1943, which means he must’ve been resurrected or reincarnated as well, which means—

Mark’s head throbs, and he falls back into his pillow with a groan. He’s never had to think this much over summer break since he did summer school a couple years ago.

When he finally gets up to brush his teeth and take a couple ibuprofen, the events of last night slam back into him so hard it makes him a little nauseated. Man, he’d fucked up big time last night. Donghyuck hadn’t come back here either, Mark affirms, after a quick check around the house. His phone’s dead—he’d forgotten to charge it last night—so he doesn’t know where Donghyuck is or if he even found a place to sleep. Worry gnaws at him before he can stop it, and he hurriedly plugs his phone in.

Ten’s face flickers through his mind again. I can definitely help you there, Mark thinks he’d said. See you soon.

He’d said that in the dream. Not in the bathroom. Mark’s sure of that.

His eyelid twitches with the force of his headache, and his computer screen blinds him a little as when he hits the keyboard to wake it up. The document he’d been typing on last night is still open on the screen, and he closes it decisively. He’ll deal with all of that later.

He finds Johnny Seo’s contact information in the message app—the last conversation they’d had was about switching shifts at the cafe Mark had worked at during the school year.

Hey, he writes, I know this is out of the blue, but could I possibly have Ten’s number?

He sends it off, realizes it sounds very weird and slightly invasive, and quickly adds we were at the same party last night and I think he has my wallet.

His phone turns on just as Johnny starts to reply, buzzing violently as notifications flood in. Texts, missed calls, and messages from just about every social media Mark has light up the screen. Most are from Jaemin, but there’s a fair number from the rest of his friends too. Even Yuta’s texted him, a billion question marks at the end of his where are you message.

He reads Jaemin’s first.

where did you go????? i have donghyuck he’s upset

mark

mark

LEE MARK i’m seriously concerned are you ok???

HES CRYING NOW WHAT DID YOU DO

hi mark this is donghyuck. i’m really sorry about what happened i should’ve read the situation better. please don’t be mad and call jaemin when you get this. everyone is really worried about you.

please call me mark we don’t know where you went

There’s a break here, and Mark swallows hard against the guilt building in his throat.

wait ten-hyung found us he said you went home. is that true?? why didn’t you tell us??????

ok i’m hoping you’re home and asleep please PLEASE call me as soon as you wake up you stupid motherfucker also we need to talk!! donghyuck isn’t saying anything!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark’s thumb hovers over the Call icon just as Johnny texts back.

Mark Lee! how are you man? also yeah Ten said something like that too so here you go

Mark sends a quick thank you back to Johnny before entering Ten’s number into a new message. The screen sits there blank for a little while as Mark struggles to find the right thing to say. He can’t exactly tell Ten I think a dream told me to come talk to you, can he?

He opens the other text messages from his friends while he’s at it—all of them along the same line as Jaemin’s. Call me, where are you, we have Donghyuck but he’s sad . Basically, it’s a huge fucking disaster and it’s all Mark’s fault. He doesn’t even know where to begin to unravel the giant mess he’s created. It’s only eight in the morning, which means Jaemin will 100% still be asleep, so it’s (thankfully) pointless to call him right now. Mark texts him, though, because while he’s a coward, he’s not a shitty friend.

Then he fires off a text to Ten, typing out the first thing he can come up with and going with that. It’s a little oddly phrased, but if Ten’s in his dream, then there’s probably a chance he’s probably used to odd.

And sure enough, the reply Mark gets makes no sense:

oh yeah i knew this would happen soon lmao. come by my work n i’ll help you out ;)

Mark stares at the text for a second, before resigning himself to the fact that nothing about his life will ever make sense again. Most likely. At least, it’s looking like it, if the last week has been any indication.

It’s already unbearably humid despite it being early morning, and Mark’s sweating by the time he gets on the train. He nods off and almost misses his stop, and then spends ten minutes making wrong turns looking for the address Ten’s sent him. It turns out to be a tiny store tucked down a small side street, shabby and worn-down. It looks like a bookstore, but there’s no sign save for a banner that simply states Books & Antiques and nothing else.

There’s still something familiar about the store when he walks in, though Mark’s positive he’s never been here before, or anywhere like it. It’s tiny, and crowded with shelves of stuff. Books, mostly, but some other things as well—jewelry, and tarnished silver lockboxes and faded pictures in dusty frames. A bell jingles, loud in the quiet of the store. Behind the counter—one of those glass ones you can look into and pick out rings—a curtain shifts, and out comes Ten, wearing a shockingly red shirt and a pair of round glasses. There’s a layer of dust covering his hair and shoulders, and he sneezes twice before he waves to Mark.

“You found it!” Ten says, delighted. He rubs his nose and beckons Mark closer.

“Yeah,” Mark answers, picking his way around crates of CDs and vinyls, stopping at the desk. “It took me a minute, though. It’s sort of hidden.”

Ten nods, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the counter. “Don’t want the wrong kind of people to walk in, I think.”

“The wrong kind of people?” Mark asks.

Ten smiles. “Are you feeling better?” he asks, completely avoiding the question. “You were a mess last night. Didn’t take my advice, did you?”

“Your…advice?” Mark’s not really sure he’d call it advice. He’d barely even call it a conversation, he was so lost. Even now, completely sober, trying to talk to Ten is like trying to solve ten riddles at once.

“You didn’t say what you needed to.”

Mark doesn’t know what to make of the look in Ten’s eyes. “No.”

Ten nods briskly, like he already knew this. “That’s okay. You have another try. It’d be a shitty story if you didn’t, right? This isn’t a good place to end it.”

“End…the story?” Mark asks slowly, not following whatsoever. “Like, the story of me and Donghyuck?”

“Yeah, if you wanna call it that,” Ten says, shrugging. “Like, Donghyuck didn’t hop out casket-fresh for you to just reject him because you suck at healthy emotional expression.”

Mark blinks, stunned. At some point, Ten’s switched to English—but more importantly—

“You know? ” he asks, sputtering a little.

Ten shrugs again. It’s getting a little annoying. “Yeah. I know.”

“Donghyuck told you? Or Jaemin?”

“Don’t think so, no,” Ten says casually. Mark opens his mouth to rebuke, or possibly just to yell WHAT THE FUCK and storm out of the store, but Ten waves a hand. “That’s besides the point. And also not why you’re here.”

“Okay, how the fuck do you know that too?” Mark demands, and he can’t help how petulant he sounds. “Seriously. I have a huge headache. Can’t you help me out a little?”

“I’m trying,” Ten says patiently, and straightens. “I have all the answers you want. You just have to ask the right questions.”

“Can’t you just tell me?” Mark asks, desperate, but Ten just purses his lips and shakes his head.

“Not how it works.”

Mark takes a deep breath through his nose, trying to organize his thoughts. When it doesn’t work, he gives up and turns back to Ten. “Okay…so, me and Donghyuck. I’ve been having these dreams,” he starts, halting, “and I think we were…together before. If that makes sense.”

“Reincarnation,” Ten says, nodding. “I’m following.”

“But Donghyuck…wasn’t reincarnated,” Mark finishes, not sure what his question is.

“He was resurrected,” Ten replies. “You’re wondering why?”

“Yeah, I guess. Like, why wasn’t I brought back as a zombie too?”

“The universe isn’t perfect,” Ten says, sighing. It almost sounds bemused. “It fucks up every now and then. Time is hard to figure out, especially since we see it as linear. One of you left too early, and it forgot to wait for the other.”

There it is again—The Great Big Question.

How did you die?

“So we—we got unsynced, basically,” Mark summarizes, and Ten nods. “So it brought him back now. Why?”

“I’ve been waiting for this question,” Ten says, and he grins, teeth flashing white, “because I love the answer.”

Mark raises his eyebrows. “Which is?”

“Ask me the other ones first,” Ten prompts. “I wanna save the best for last.”

Mark deflates a little. “Really?” But when Ten refuses to say anything else, he moves on, and slowly, Ten helps him piece together the whole picture: Donghyuck was dead and then was resurrected for Some Reason (to be revealed later). Finally, they get to the dreams, and Ten’s answers slowly get less and less clear, until they’re so cryptic that Mark wants to knock something over.

“But why ?” Mark asks for the third time. “They’re—they confuse me. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is me, or the past Mark. Or if it’s because I feel like I’m supposed to, just because that’s the way it was in the past.” He scrubs his hands over his face and groans. “It’s so much to process.”

“Do you like him?” Ten asks, and Mark drops his hands quickly. Ten’s got a thoughtful look on his face, and he’s squinting at Mark like he’s scrutinizing him. “Don’t think about it,”  he tacks on when Mark hesitates. “Just go with your gut.”

Mark’s not a gut-person. That’s more Donghyuck’s thing. But for this—there’s a very clear answer, and his heart screams it out as soon as Ten asks.

“Yes,” Mark says quietly, and Ten’s whole face goes soft. Something lifts off his shoulder, and there’s a whisper in the back of his head like finally, finally. “And I don’t know what that means for me—like, am I…” He still can’t say it, cringing away from it like it hurts to think about.

Ten laughs, and the sound bounces around the shop, bright and loud. “Don’t worry about that,” Ten assures him. “You have plenty of time to figure that out. Let’s just focus on the now, yeah?”

Mark nods, and lets out a huge breath. “The now. I can do that.”

“Good,” Ten says, crossing his arms. “I have something for you. I think now’s a good time to give it to you.”

He bends down for a second, and when he reemerges, he’s got a smooth wooden box in his hands, about the size of a book. The latch on the front is rusted, but it’s in great condition otherwise. Ten hands it to Mark, and the wood is warm, like it’d been sitting in the sun.

“The other yous,” Ten starts, and pauses. “No, that’s not right. The past yous, I should say. Anyways, you’ve all been the same, deep down inside. They know you, Mark Lee, and your curiosity.” Ten nods at the box. “Open it.”

Mark does. Inside, there are three envelopes—two of which have been opened, and one that hasn’t. They’re all slightly yellowed with age. There are some photographs, too, and at the very bottom, a stack of folded papers addressed to Donghyuck.

Mark takes them out one-by-one. The first is addressed to Lee Minhyung—a name Mark hasn’t seen in a while. The corner is marked with numbers:

1579-1645

“Is that…when this Mark lived?” Mark asks, almost afraid to open the letter. “That was the Joseon era.” He looks up, startled. “I was allowed to be with Donghyuck in the Joseon era?”

“Of course not,” Ten says, and smirks. “But that’s never stopped either of you.”

The next letter is dated from 1798-1860, and the third, the most recent one, is dated from 1923-1946.

“The last life was so short,” Mark murmurs, touching the numbers and thinking about Dream-Mark, with his one deaf ear and hardened expressions, only twenty-three years old when he died. “You put the dates on these?”

Ten purses his lips and deliberately dodges the question. “They all had a dream, once. The same dream, right before the end. And that’s when they wrote their letters. I’ve been in charge of keeping them for you.”

Mark pulls out one of the photographs. It’s grainy, but he can clearly make out Donghyuck, standing in front of a building with his arm around Dream-Mark. Both of them are grinning widely, and they look like they have a whole life in front of them.

He puts the photo away, suddenly choked-up. Ten’s looking at him intently, so he unfolds out the stack of papers, keeping his eyes down. It’s a lot of official-looking documents—a will, Mark thinks, which, upon skimming, looks to be from one of Donghyuck’s family members.

“His aunt,” Ten offers. “She passed away just before Donghyuck did. He, um, never got the news.”

Ten doesn’t need to say why.

Mark keeps skimming the will, and his eyes catch on a particular sentence, followed by a sum of money. “She left him everything she had,” Mark says, eyes widening. “Which is—“

Half a million dollars (500,000) USD, the will reads. In hopes that you’ll have a little more freedom. See the world like you’ve always wanted.

Mark folds the rest of the papers, shock spreading through him, but it’s quickly chased away by the warmth of realization. “He could—he’d be set. He could start over, right here. In this time.”

“He could,” Ten agrees. “If he wants. I could help him get the documents. And he has the money.” He gives Mark a pointed look. “You should talk to him.”

“I don’t know how,” Mark admits, pained. “He confuses me.”

“You confuse him, too,” Ten says in what’s probably supposed to be a reassuring tone, but it sounds exasperated instead.

Ten continues. “And I said this before, but I’ll say it again now: you don’t have to know what to do.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mark says for approximately the billionth time.

“You don’t have to know what to do,” Ten repeats, “you just have to have the courage to try.”

They hold eye contact for a second. Something about those words ring a bell, but once again, Mark can’t place why. There’s a beat of silence, and then another, then Ten claps his hands. “Right. I’ll answer your big question now. Why did Donghyuck come back now?”

“Yeah, why?” Mark echoes. “Not earlier, not later, or in my next life or whatever. Like, the Big Something specifically picked this week to resurrect him and stick him back in my life.”

“It’s easy,” Ten says, “because it’s been the same story, each time. You, Mark Lee, are in need of a little sunshine, and Donghyuck needs a reminder that the best person he can be is himself.”

Mark gets back around eleven. He still hasn’t heard anything from Jaemin—who he’s called by now—or any of this other friends. Not even Renjun, who’s usually awake because his mom makes him do chores on Saturday.

He slumps down in front of his computer, setting his forehead against the cool metal and sighing. His head spins with everything he knows, with everything he’s heard, trying to fit things together.

The house is quiet. Through the open window, he can hear his grandparents in the yard, working on the vegetable garden. His fan whirs, cool against the back of his neck. Overhead, an airplane passes, the noise crescendoing before fading to silence again. Sunlight filters through the trees, making shadows on the floor of his room.

Mark takes another breath, and wishes everything could be more straightforward. He could be lying next to Donghyuck right now on the grass, sticky-cold sodas cradled against their chests, like they’d done on Tuesday. Or he could be sitting on the patio, listening to Donghyuck complain about cigarettes and watching the sun go down. Anything but this—miserable, tangled-up, and awkward in his own skin and mind. He has absolutely no idea where to go from here.

He’d read the letters, too, starting with the oldest and working up. At first, they’d started out as careful detailing of how life had been, and when and where Donghyuck had appeared (each time, it’d been when Mark had needed it most without realizing it) but by the time he’d reached the most recent letter, it was more of a list of things he’d loved the most, and the things he didn’t—all of the things he’d learned that he wished he could take into the next life with him. And most of all, there was advice, a whole two pages of it, titled For when you get the moxie to be with him.

Mark’s not there yet, so he’d folded it up and put it back in the box.

Mark’s computer screen lights up with all the tabs he’d had open last night when he shifts his cheek. He hurriedly closes all the writing he’d done, and just as he’s about to minimize the rest of it, a forgotten window catches his eye.

The University of British Columbia - Creative Writing and English Program

There’s a knot in his throat. He can remember the first conversation he’d had with his parents about it, all the way back in Canada. He’d cried that night, and his dad had yelled at him—two things that hadn’t happened for a very long time.

He’d accepted the offer to go to school in Korea as soon as it came. The farther he could get from his parents, the better. The only reason he’d pulled it up again was—

Was to show Donghyuck. Who’d then told him he should go for it. And just like that, the same little kernel of hope that had carried Mark through high school—maybe I can write well enough—was set aglow again. God, he hadn’t written a single thing for so long, either, until Donghyuck had showed up and unglued everything. Mark had dug him out of the dirt, and in return, Donghyuck had lifted Mark out of the shadowy hole he’d jumped into without realizing.

He doesn’t realize he’s asleep until he sees Dream-Mark. Then, all of a sudden, they’re both sitting in an empty restaurant, one that looks simultaneously like the chicken place Mark had taken Donghyuck to and the diner where he’d seen Dream-Mark for the first time.

“You again?” Mark says dully, setting his chin on his hands. “Come to make out with Donghyuck right in front of me again?”

Dream-Mark wrinkles his nose. “Don’t be gross.”

“You’re gross,” Mark rebukes childishly, unable to help it. “It’s your fault I’m in this mess.”

“Jeez,” Dream-Mark remarks, leaning back in the booth. “It was inevitable, you fat-head. You know that by now, dontcha?”

“Can you not talk like that?” Mark asks, recoiling from Dream-Mark. It’s like looking into a mirror, sitting across from him like this—only, instead of a reflection, it’s a 1940s-version of himself, cheesy American accent and all.

“Aw, lay off and listen for a second,” Dream-Mark says, looking annoyed. “Alright? You’re clobbered for him, just as I was. It’s fine. There’s no judgement here.”

“That’s not the point—”

“No, I s'pose not,” Dream-Mark cuts in. He checks his watch and sighs. “Look. We don’t have much time. As in, I don’t have much time.”

Mark eyes Dream-Mark. Himself, technically, if he thinks about it. Which he’s trying not to. This is already weird enough.

“You got stuff figured out enough,” Dream-Mark continues. “You got the letters and such, which means my part’s over. You’re separate from all the other Marks in your own way, so it’s time for you to have a shot at your life without me trying to tell you how to do it.” He looks Mark straight in the eye, gaze intense. For the first time, Mark realizes their eyes are different colors—Dream-Mark’s are nearly green in this light. “Do you understand?”

“I’m trying to,” Mark says, tired of that question.

“Alright, that’s good enough,” Dream-Mark answers. “That’s about it from me.”

“Wait, I have a question,” Mark cuts in. “Why—why these dreams? If we’re supposedly different people?”

“Different in some ways, the same in the most important ones,” Dream-Mark says thoughtfully, eyebrows pulling together as he thinks. “We’re connected by the way we love.”

Donghyuck’s face immediately comes to Mark’s mind, and he shakes his head to get rid of it. Not yet.

Dream-Mark’s looking at him like he knows exactly what Mark’s thinking—which he probably does, if Mark’s being honest. Mark can sort of tell what Dream-Mark is thinking, too, which is why he can ask the next question:

“Can I—can we do it?”

Dream-Mark gives him a small smile, and reaches forward to touch the top of Mark’s hand. In the span of a breath, he sees him and Donghyuck. Some are familiar memories, others something like a dream, or a fantasy: him and Donghyuck, holding hands. Walking through campus. Sitting together on an airplane, looking older. And even older still, going to weddings and the movies and waking up in the same bed under a blue sky—

Dream-Mark takes his hand away. “There’s no yes or no, Mark. It’s up to you.” He gives Mark another glance-over. “Do you remember what I told you the first time?”

“You told me to let Donghyuck take care of me,” Mark says. How could he forget? It’s been in the back of his head this whole time, like a mantra on repeat.

“Mm,” Dream-Mark hums. He taps his temple, smiling again. “Don’t you forget that, alright? Promise me.”

“Okay,” Mark says, unsure. “I…I promise?”

Dream-Mark closes his eyes. “Good. And you take care of him.”

“I will.”

Dream-Mark’s eyes are still shut, but he’s smiling. “I have one more thing to show you. It’ll hurt.”

Mark opens his mouth to respond with something, but there’s no point—Dream-Mark fades into nothing, and the scene changes.

It’s dark out the next time Mark’s aware of his surroundings. Cold, too, if the way Dream-Mark’s breath clouds in the air is any indication.

“—will get you out of here,” Dream-Mark says, and Mark can see Donghyuck there too. They’re pressed into the nook between two buildings, and Dream-Mark has Donghyuck’s face cradled in his palms. “We’ll go to Canada, or Alaska, or somewhere far away where nobody will ever try to tell us how to live ever again.”

Donghyuck’s voice is thick when he speaks, and Mark’s heart aches at the sound of it. “C-can we?”

Dream-Mark gathers Donghyuck into his arms. “Yep. We’ll ditch this joint and find somewhere better.”

There’s a sudden shout at the end of the street, and the two of them jump apart like they’ve been burned. Mark flinches, and unease builds slowly in the bottom of his stomach.

“We should go inside,” Dream-Mark says quickly, and Donghyuck nods.

“My apartment is just a block away—” He starts, just as a group of guys come into the light, staggering and clearly very drunk. Donghyuck’s nose wrinkles as they get closer, and he steps partially in front of Dream-Mark, bristling.

Mark has a very, very bad feeling about this.

“Look at the two of you,” one guy crows, mouth curling menacingly. “All cozied up.”  He turns to his friends. “Sick bastards. Funny in the head.”

Another one spits at their feet. “Disgusting.”

“Get out of here,” Donghyuck says, eyes narrowing. “Or I’ll call the police.”

“And tell him what?” the first guy sneers. “Actually, go ahead. Maybe you’ll get locked up with all the other crazies. Just like you deserve.”

Dream-Mark tugs at Donghyuck’s arm. “Come on, Donghyuck. You’re making it worse.”

Donghyuck looks over at Dream-Mark and seems to relent. He moves to take a step back, away from the group of guys, but he’s not getting away so easily.

The first guy mutters, “oh no you don’t,” and lurches forward, nothing but violence, rage, and hatred in his eyes, twisting his features until they’re monstrous.

There are five men in total—drunk, but overwhelming, angry, and strong.

And just like that, Mark knows what he’s watching. He covers his ears, turns away—but it does little to muffle the echoing sound of the gunshot, and the way that Dream-Mark screams, pure anguish and grief, shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Aw, jeez,” one guy says, and he shoves at his friend, holding the gun and staring at Donghyuck, who’s collapsed to the ground a little ways away. “C’mon, we gotta get out of here. The police’ll be here soon.”

“Hell,” another guy whispers, looking stunned. “You—you shot him.”

“We have to leave,” the first guy repeats, panicked. “Now.”

They turn on their heels and run off into the night, disappearing around the block.

Mark is tugged closer, whether he likes it or not, and his stomach churns at the red on Donghyuck’s hands, smeared down his front and seeping into his clothes. Dream-Mark, too, is covered in it, but he doesn’t seem to notice, staring into Donghyuck’s face and struggling for words.

“Donghyuck,” Dream-Mark whispers, pulling Donghyuck towards him. Their hands slip, fumbling, before their fingers fold together, linking tightly.

Donghyuck takes a wet breath, and he looks terrified. Terrified and heartbroken. “I—I don’t wanna go yet.”

Dream-Mark bites back a sob, cradling Donghyuck’s tear-stained face with his free hand. “Hang in there. I can hear the sirens. Stay with me, Donghyuck.”

“Promise me,” Donghyuck says desperately, clutching Mark’s hand to his chest, “that you’ll find me. In the next one.”

“I promise,” Dream-Mark replies. A tear slips down his cheek. “And it’ll be a much better world, too. One that…one that loves your smile as much as I do. Or somethin’.”

“Or somethin’,” Donghyuck agrees, and his voice is so faint Mark has to strain to hear it. “I love you, Mark Lee.”

Then he lets out a deep breath, and his whole body collapses inward, eyes glazing over and hand going slack around Dream-Mark’s.

The police sirens grow louder, and the street turns red and blue. Dream-Mark starts to shake all over, curved over Donghyuck’s body like all he wants to do is join him.

And then the world goes dark.

Mark floats in space between dream and waking for a moment, feeling weirdly hollowed-out. The question—the Big Question—has been answered. And he’s not really sure if he’s glad for it or not. His whole heart aches, and there’s a weird pressure behind his eyes, like he might cry.

“Mark,” someone says from above him, and something about that voice tugs on Mark’s core. “Hey. Mark.”

It’s Donghyuck. He’s alive, he’s here, and he’s come to sort out all of Mark’s problems—

“Wake up,” Donghyuck says, and Mark snaps back into consciousness. His cheek aches from where it was pressed against the edge of his computer, and he jerks upright so quickly he nearly falls out of his chair.

Donghyuck is standing over him, looking concerned. When he sees that Mark’s awake, though, he clears his throat and steps back, looking incredibly awkward. “Uh. What’s buzzin’, cousin?”

“There’s no way people actually said that,” Mark says, rubbing his eyes. “When—how did you get here?”

“Jaemin walked me back,” Donghyuck replies. He’s not really meeting Mark’s eyes. “I thought—I wanted to give you some time. After last night…” He trails off here, and the tension in the air is so thick it makes Mark’s skin crawl. “Anyways,” Donghyuck continues after a beat, “your grandparents let me in, and I woke you up because you were making sad noises, and I thought—I thought it mighta been a nightmare.”

Mark takes a slow breath through his nose. “It was. Sort of.” And then it all comes spilling out—the dreams, from the very beginning, to the visit with Ten and the end of Donghyuck’s last life, to now. Donghyuck is uncharacteristically quiet while Mark talks. He nods every now and then, and when Mark talks about how he died (still a weird thing to think about) he sits down heavily on the edge of Mark’s bed, looking lost.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Mark says hurriedly, but Donghyuck waves him off, sighing.

“I don’t remember much, anyway,” Donghyuck replies. He studies his hands for a moment. “I can just remember your face. And I could see I’d broken your heart.”

Mark’s throat threatens to close up. He doesn’t bother to correct the subject. For all intents and purposes, it was him. It still hurts.

“Well, you’re here now,” Mark says tentatively, and Donghyuck looks up, eyes wide. “And I forgive you, if that’s what you want to hear. You’ve made up for it.”

Donghyuck smiles at him, small and hesitant. Then he nods to the papers scattered around Mark, to the page open on his computer. “While we’re talking about forgiveness…I sorta looked a little, and read a bit of what you wrote.”

The warm fuzzies flee immediately, replaced by the familiar tangle of dread. Fuck.

“Read it?” Mark squeaks, and knows his face is bright red. “How much?”

“Well,” Donghyuck replies, looking a little guilty, “I hit the little up arrow, and there was so much—”

“Donghyuck, you’re killing me,” Mark groans, mortified.

Donghyuck sucks in another deep breath, like he’s gathering the courage. “Do you mean it?”

That is absolutely not the question Mark was expecting, and it slams all responses he’d bene preparing out of his head.

Mark scrambles for a response. He thinks about everything he’s seen, everything he’s learned. He thinks about waking up before noon and wandering around the city, about the nighttimes with his friends and his grandparents saying things like you seem happier. He thinks about the UBC application, open on his computer for the first time in ages. He thinks about the dreams, about his past selves. Let him take care of you, he’d said to himself. The letters, too, were stained with love, sappy and over-the-top…and ringing with truth. Take comfort, the second Mark had written, for whatever life you live, you’ll have Donghyuck there with you.

This all happens in the span of a second, obviously, before Mark’s brain finally gives out (honestly, Mark’s impressed it’s held on this long) and fills with static.

Donghyuck meets his gaze head-on, waiting.

“Yes,” Mark says at last. “I mean it.”

The room is quiet. The words settle between them, and Donghyuck looks at Mark still, like he knows there’s one more thing Mark needs to say.

“I was scared,” Mark admits, and Donghyuck slowly gets to his feet. “And everything is just so hard to sort out, y’know—”

“You’re a real crumb sometimes, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck cuts in, crossing the room. Mark’s heart jumps into his throat as the distance between them closes. He’s just gotten to his feet when Donghyuck reaches for him.

They’re both smiling when they kiss, so it’s slightly too much teeth and not enough of everything else. And the world doesn’t cave in and nobody shows up to condemn Mark forever for kissing a boy, so he figures it’ll probably be alright.

Donghyuck pulls back, setting his forearms against Mark’s shoulders and linking his hands behind Mark’s neck. “Can’t believe it took us that long,” Donghyuck scoffs, but it’s good-humored. “You cop-out. I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw your dopey face.”

“So do it again,” Mark says, already leaning in. This time, it’s much better—soft lips and a tasteful amount of tongue and a soaring, swooping feeling in Mark’s chest. Donghyuck is warm and clean-smelling, and when they separate, Mark can feel his heartbeat against his palm, hard and steady.

Donghyuck smiles at him, and Mark basks in the light.

Things begin to fall into place after that. Mark talks with his parents for a long, long time, and tells them he’s going to apply to UBC, because that’s what he’s wanted from the very beginning. Donghyuck holds his hand while Mark’s father hesitates, and then finally relents.

“We’ll definitely have to talk about it some more,” he says, “but if it’s what you really want, we’ll support you.”

Mark can only get out a brief thank you, love you, talk soon before he (embarrassingly, unfortunately) bursts into tears.

Donghyuck meets Ten, too, and Mark waits anxiously at the front of the shop while he and Donghyuck talk. Donghyuck emerges fifteen minutes later, euphoric and grinning ear-to-ear. He doesn’t quite touch Mark—he still gets antsy about it in public, which makes sense—but he comes close, hands ghosting over Mark’s face.

“Ten told me about the money,” he says, “and I’m coming with you. Wherever you’re going, I want to be there too.”

“You’re nuts,” Mark tells him, blinking. “You’re joking.”

“I’m a real knockout, I know,” Donghyuck says, eyes glinting, “but I’m not messin’ with you. I just found you, Mark Lee, and you’re not getting away that easy.”

“Oh my god,” Mark mutters, scanning Donghyuck’s face and finding nothing but truth. “For real?”

“For real, baby,” Donghyuck answers, and pulls Mark behind a bookshelf to kiss him.

Details, Mark thinks, can come later. College and moving to Canada and passports, all of that. For now, he’s content just to lie in bed together, kissing under the streetlights and holding hands when they go to watch movies with their friends. Everything will work out. Most likely. Donghyuck’s still technically zombie, and Mark still has to get in to the school, but they’re together. And they’re happy.

Somewhere out there, a Big Something exhales, relieved. At last, at last, it says. The boy has found his sun.