Archive of Our Own

Mark hears the news, because of course he does.

“I heard that idol boy joined your company,” Chenle says around a mouthful of his overpriced burger. “What was his name, Jun? Joon?”

It’s the first time Mark’s seen him in a while. Chenle is the sort of person who’s notoriously hard to get a hold of, though Mark supposes that comes with the territory of being a—

Well, he doesn’t actually know what Chenle does for a living, aside from all the private jet travel and the expensive car buying. But he looks good. Better than the last time Mark saw him a month or so ago. His hair is bright pink now and breaking at the ends, and his scalp must be suffering, but it still suits him surprisingly well.

(You’re the celebrity, Chenle said once, half-joking. Are you sure you have the time to be hanging out with me?

It’s okay, Mark was tempted to reply. I haven’t charted in years. I get one comeback a year if I’m lucky. My schedule is wide open.)

“Renjun,” Mark corrects him, poking at his own fries unenthusiastically. “His name is Renjun.” Huang Renjun, former member of Dream, referred to by Chinese media as the nation’s grandson, referred to by Mark as way too relevant to be breathing in the direction of KS Entertainment, let alone signing with them.

Chenle wipes his greased fingers on a crumpled napkin. “Right. Think you could get me an autograph?”

“I didn’t think you were a fan of idols.”

“I’m not. I just want to sell it.”

Mark has to laugh a little at that, half-because Chenle is far too rich to be wasting time auctioning off celebrity autographs, and half-because in all their years of friendship, Chenle has not once tried to sell one of Mark’s autographs. “I’ll see what I can do. I haven’t even met the guy yet, though.”

Which is sort of unusual, considering their company only has a handful of artists under its belt. Mark had met everyone else within a week of them signing, and yet it’s been two weeks since the news broke that Huang Renjun was leaving SM Entertainment. Statements from both parties insisted it was a mutual agreement, but Mark—in all his insignificant years in the entertainment industry—has never heard of anyone at Renjun’s level of fame voluntarily ending their contract so early. Almost overnight, their tiny little label rose to a level of prominence they’d been unprepared to deal with. Johnny had to hire a secretary. Up until then, he’d stubbornly insisted on doing all the work himself. Mark helped them field calls all night, into the early hours of the morning.

“I’m sure you’ll meet him sooner or later,” Chenle says. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll have you collab, or something.”

Mark snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “Right.” He’s listened to some of Dream’s music. Their genres are worlds apart.

Chenle wiggles his eyebrows. “He is your type though. I find it hard to believe you’re not at least a little excited to meet him.”

“I don’t—” Mark stutters involuntarily, caught off guard, then clears his throat and tries again: “I don’t have a type.”

“Sure,” Chenle says, his voice warm and fondly indulgent. “Of course you don’t. Whatever you say.”

🎵

Between the years of 2018 to 2021, Mark releases two albums. One mini, one full. In between, he puts out his own low-budget mixtapes. A well-known music blogger describes his career in one word: Disappointing.

Mark is a quick learner. He’d been that way even as a kid. Back then, he believed anything could be overcome if you just kept at it long enough. Put enough effort into learning something, put enough hours into studying, and success was all but guaranteed. It was the stuff of all great stories—the underdog protagonist with their hard-won triumph. And Mark did think of himself as a protagonist, maybe because all people do. Everyone thinks they’re the main character of their own lives, even when they’re not. And then Mark watches his debut single plummet down the charts at the ripe age of nineteen. His realization is twofold: hard work has very little to do with success in the entertainment industry; and maybe he’s not the protagonist he once thought he was.

He’d been sensitive as a kid, too. The kids at school teased him, because they were kids, and because Mark looked and acted and spoke differently than they did, so of course they were going to tease him. It hadn’t been anything bad, but sometimes Mark still felt like an outsider; like that kid who brought bibimbap for lunch instead of Lunchables and got jeered at for it. Those roots didn’t just go away. They were still there as an adult, anchored deep in the ground, and they showed every single time he happened to read a malicious comment or dealt with an upturned nose behind cameras from other idols who thought they were too good to associate with him. This industry was good at that—making you feel like an outsider.

It’s a beautiful lie they sell, he thinks. This world of beautiful people, and beautiful things, all wrapped up in a shiny, sparkly, pretty bow. It’s like putting a fresh coat of paint on the outside of a house while the interior, the foundation, all rot and crumble. All the unsavory ugliness covered up and covered up behind five layers of gold. But gold-plated trash is still trash, and ugliness can only stay hidden for so long.

So it’s not that Mark doesn’t have a type. He’s always been drawn to beautiful things. You have to be, to choose this line of work. He can’t help what he’s attracted to. He’s still naturally trusting of others. But he’s more cautious about it now. The more beautiful something—or someone—is, the more he wonders if all that beauty is there to draw your eyes away from what lies underneath; if it’s there to hide something.

He wonders if he’s not hiding something, himself.

🎵

You’ll meet him sooner or later, Chenle had said. It turns out to be sooner—much sooner—and Mark doesn’t know it at the time, but it comes in the form of a text from Johnny that reads, simply—meet me in my office at 9.

That could mean anything, he thinks, but if Johnny isn’t keen on giving him the details upfront, there’s no use in needling him for them. Maybe today is the day he finally tells me the label is letting me go, he thinks next. First in, first out. As quick as the thought comes up, he shoves it back down.

Winter in Seoul is a miserable thing. The snow melts into dirtied concrete and becomes something else altogether, and the overcast sky brings with it the kind of drab grayness that exhausts the body as soon as it’s awoken. The dull light that does filter through the cover of the clouds doesn’t do much to help.

Not that Canada was any better, but at least Canada was home. Mark thinks about calling his mother and then decides against it in the same breath. Every time they talk, Mark has to force a smile and lie through his teeth about how well things are going. How happy he is. How wonderful it is to be here. And that he’s definitely going to have his big break soon, he can feel it.

The last lie feels like the most egregious one of all, but it’s worth it for the way it brings relief into his mother’s voice. Mark is lucky. Mark has good parents, ones who encouraged him to follow his dreams and make music and didn’t mind that he had to drop out of high school to do it, or even that they had to refinance their mortgage to afford sending him overseas.

Now that his brother’s been off to college for a few years, they’ve even been talking about downsizing. Mark wonders, with no small amount of shame, if they truly feel their house is too big a place to live anymore, or if his growing expenses in Korea have anything to do with it. Songwriting pays his bills, but just barely. Truthfully, part of himself has long since given up on achieving the success people claimed he would find in this career. If Johnny terminated his contract today, it might even be a relief.

Liar, the insidious voice in his head hisses. At least be honest with yourself. You can’t even do that much?

Mark pushes that down too, buries his face into the collar of his coat and tries not to shiver. It’s a quick walk to KS Entertainment; the lobby is small, not much to speak of. As he crosses the threshold, a group of female trainees approaches from the opposite way. They’re huddled close, talking in excited whispers that carry across the small space.

“I saw him yesterday,” one of them giggles. “He looks even nicer in person.”

“You should’ve texted me”, another complains. “I would’ve left class if—”

As soon as they catch sight of Mark, they immediately fall silent. Mark knows what they say behind his back. They ask why the company continues to waste resources on him when they could be better spent on other artists. It’s just gossip, but now that Renjun is under their label, it’s really only a matter of time before Mark expects the higher-ups to start asking similar questions. Humiliation curls around his throat and strangles the air from his lungs, but he smiles and nods politely at them anyway, quickens his pace until he reaches the elevator.

He does not breathe until the doors have closed, and even then, it feels difficult to pull air back in. Mark’s used to being the outsider—first a speck of yellow in a sea of white and now a speck of yellow in a sea of gold—but the reminder of it stings every single time. Some consonants still don’t feel like they fit quite right in his mouth, in either language.

By the time the elevator has gotten to the 30th floor and Mark is standing in front of Johnny’s office, he’s still not sure why exactly he’s been called in. Only one way to find out. He raises his hand, knocks once.

“Come in,” Johnny calls out. “Door’s unlocked.”

That’s unusual in itself. Mark pushes the door open, prepared to ask Johnny what the fuck is going on, but when he walks in to find Huang Renjun, in the flesh, standing off to the side, the words leave him almost immediately. He doesn’t look surprised to see Mark. Mark is surprised as hell to see him.

Huang Renjun is wearing a hoodie so big he’s practically drowning in it, his fingers just barely peeking out from the sleeves. He clutches at the fabric of it like it’s a shield, wears it like armor. His lashes are long and dark and his hair is a honey-brown that reminds Mark a little bit of the color he’d worn when he and Chenle, just trainees at the time, bleached each other's hair in the dorm bathrooms one night on a whim. They didn’t have the foresight to buy toner, so on their heads it just looked like a brassy mess. On Renjun’s, it looks warm, purposeful.

Those girls were right. He is prettier in person. Maybe Mark does have a type.

“Mark,” Johnny says, voice warm, waving him in. Okay, so Mark probably isn’t getting fired after all. “Hey. Thanks for coming in on such short notice. You haven’t met Renjun officially yet, right?”

Mark shakes his head. He swallows around nothing and croaks out, “Hey.” It’s a miracle he doesn’t stutter.

Renjun’s eyes fixate with disinterest somewhere to the left of Mark’s face as he averts his gaze. The set of his mouth seems grim. Mark still can’t stop staring at it. It’s a nice mouth. “Hi,” he replies quietly.

There’s a beat of silence before Johnny clears his throat. “Right,” he says. “Now that you two are acquainted—let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“Business?” Mark repeats dumbly. Maybe he should’ve figured. There was no way Johnny would ask him to come in just for a meet and greet.

“Already?” Renjun asks. “I thought this first meeting was just to—you know, to see if things would work.”

“Things are going to work,” Johnny tells him, and it’s like they’ve both totally forgotten Mark is in the room too. “We’re going to make it work.”

“No, it’s too soon, I’m not ready—” Renjun inhales sharply. “Not with him—”

“We talked about this, Renjun. You’ve had a month to think this over. If you give this a chance, this could—”

Despite his best efforts to concentrate, Mark has quickly found himself losing the thread of the conversation. He’s clearly not on the same page as they are. “Sorry,” he interrupts. He normally wouldn’t do that, but if they go any further he might never catch up to them at all. “Can you guys, like, slow down for a sec? What do you mean make things work? Does someone mind filling me in here?”

Renjun and Johnny exchange a look. Neither of them seem particularly eager to speak up. Finally, Johnny heaves a sigh. “I know the last few years haven’t been easy for you,” he says, and what he means is that Mark’s career has been barely hanging on by a thread. “The label thinks it’s best if we try a new angle with you.”

Mark bites the inside of his cheek. “Meaning?”

“We’ve made the decision to re-debut you,” Johnny says, folding his arms over his desk. His tone leaves no room for argument. Not that Mark could argue at all right now—his mind is racing, thoughts flying around in a jumble of Korean and English he can’t even understand himself. “As part of a singer-rapper duo. With Renjun.”

“What?” Mark asks, blinking slowly. Shock runs through him in tremors. He turns to Renjun, who’s still resolutely refusing to meet his eyes. His posture is guarded, defensive. Almost standoffish. “I don’t get a say in this?”

It’s definitely not the worst outcome. But it’s a definite blow to Mark’s pride. Johnny is giving up on him, essentially. He can hide behind the label and stakeholders and investors all he wants—the core truth is that it’s Johnny calling the shots. It’s Johnny who doesn’t think Mark is good enough to make it on his own anymore, and why would he? Mark’s got nothing to show for his career in terms of accomplishments four years in.

A muscle in Renjun’s jaw jumps. Johnny shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but no. We think this is the best path forward for you—for both of you.” The emphasis seems meaningful. It does nothing to quell Renjun’s apparent discomfort.

Mark understands, on an intellectual level, that Johnny must expect him to reply, but his mouth won’t cooperate. He opens and shuts it several times to no avail. He’s blindsided, really, and just the tiniest bit bitter that he was kept in the dark while Renjun at least seemed to be more informed than he was. What is there to say?

It’s this, or nothing.

He turns to Renjun. “I…look forward to—” Working with you, he was going to say. I look forward to working with you.

Renjun pushes past him without a second glance. The door slams behind him, and Mark swears he can hear the pitter-pattering of angry footsteps all the way down the hall for a very long time after that.

“Well,” Johnny says mildly. He seems unconcerned. “Give him some time. I’m sure he’ll warm up.”

🎵

He and Renjun don’t see each other again for a while after that, but regardless, the details come slowly over the next month. Winter melts into spring. Mark starts hitting the gym again. They’re aiming for a June debut. Kun will be brought on to produce their first single, and if all goes well, he might stick around for the first album too. They’ll be called Citrine—Doyoung says they’re aiming for a bright, fresh image. Something Bol4-esque. They want to lean more heavily into Mark’s guitar playing.

Mark takes a good long look at himself in the mirror that morning and gives his reflection the brightest smile he can muster, and thinks that it’ll take a lot of practice before he can embody the concept convincingly.

He’s technically not supposed to tell anyone, not yet, but Chenle is a discreet sort of person, and Mark really needs someone to talk to about all this, so he fires off a text anyways. Tells him in the vaguest of terms about the re-debut. About Renjun.

Mark gets the notification for Chenle’s reply within a matter of minutes, and it’s a simple one: Are u happy? he asks.

It should probably be less of a loaded question than Mark feels it is.

Should feels like a word that’s been haunting him lately, a chip on his shoulder, weighted iron around his ankle. Mark carries should like a brand. He should be thankful for the opportunity. He should be happy.

Renjun has a faction of extremely loyal fans—this much is clear. Even with the pushback he’s gotten, the baseline level of popularity they’ll be guaranteed off those fans alone is more than Mark could probably garner on his own. But Mark can’t be happy about it. It feels like cheating—he’d wanted to do that on his own. He wanted to be recognized for his own talent, his own merit, as himself, not as Renjun’s plus-one.

Mark should have been better, but he wasn’t.

He’s not sure what compels him to search Renjun’s name on YouTube, but he does. He starts with an interview, then with some variety show he can't place the name of, then eventually he lands on a fancam. Renjun’s hair is dark and a little shorter in the video than it is now, his smile bright, and his dancing is impressive; but it’s when he opens his mouth and sings that Mark suddenly understands—oh. This is a boy who was born to perform. This is what it must be like to look at a star, up close, in 1080p high-definition resolution.

He looks happy and open and light, and so unlike the guarded person Mark met over a week ago in Johnny’s drab, gray office underneath that drab, gray sky. So he watches another. And then another, and then another, and then suddenly the door to the practice room is opening and Mark is scrambling to turn the volume down, turning it face down on the floor as his manager walks in.

“What are you watching?” Doyoung asks, and a knowing smile tugs at the corner of his lips as Mark rushes to turn his phone off, shoving it into his pocket.

It’s not like it’s weird for him to be watching a fancam—totally innocuous, even if he had to rewind more than once because he was too busy looking at the taper of Renjun’s waist to process anything else. But Mark suddenly feels embarrassed, like he’s been caught doing something a lot sleazier than he actually was. Like when he was ten, and his mother caught him Google searching boys kissing boys.

Embarrassing. He wasn’t doing anything bad, but Mark had blushed all the same, the same way he’s blushing now, the back of his neck hot and the tips of his ears even hotter. “I’m not—” he splutters, unable to meet Doyoung’s eyes. “It’s not—” Not what?

“You're curious about him,” Doyoung says decisively when it’s clear Mark’s words have failed him.

It’d be a little better for Mark’s pride if Doyoung didn’t sound so sure of himself, but—is that what this is? Curiosity?

“I can’t help it,” he says. For better or worse, he’s always been drawn to beautiful things.

Renjun just happens to be as beautiful as they come.

🎵

They get called into the studio on a Wednesday afternoon. It’s nice out, so Mark forgoes a jacket and instead relishes in the feeling of sunshine on his skin as he makes the short walk over. The sun shines through what little shade the trees lining the streets provide, a splintering of light against the concrete sidewalks. It’s nice. Soon, it’ll be summer—which brings them that much closer to their debut. Mark’s not sure if the churning feeling he gets in his gut when he wakes up most days is excitement or dread. Mark’s not sure if it even matters.

The weather has warmed up, but Renjun has not. He gives Mark a nod of his head in acknowledgement and nothing more when he arrives, bundled up in a sweatshirt-and-coat combination that would’ve been more befitting of an early January morning rather than a late afternoon in May. It’s comically large on him; somehow makes him seem tinier than he looked before.

“You look a little cold,” Mark tries to joke. “You sure you don’t wanna put on another layer?”

Renjun stares at him blankly.

Mark coughs. “Sorry. I was trying to be funny. Um. Sorry. It’s stupid.”

“Haha,” Renjun says, in the flattest voice Mark has ever heard, but he does shed the coat after that. Small wins, maybe. The thin silver chain around his neck glitters in the light; his fingertips curl right above the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Cute.

They lapse into an exceedingly awkward silence before Kun joins them a few minutes later. He introduces himself to Renjun, brings Mark in for a semi-awkward side hug. Kun is all smiles, but he’s also all business, so he doesn’t force them to sit through much small talk before he’s booting up his laptop and gesturing for them both to come closer.

“I want you two to let me know what you think,” he says, fiddling with a variety of controls Mark can’t quite keep up with. It takes a totally different skill set to write songs than to produce them, and Mark is pretty decent at the first but less than proficient at the second. “It’s pretty different from anything either of you have done before, so—just keep an open mind, okay?”

Mark nods. Renjun turns his head to the side and shrugs.

Kun presses play.

🎵

It’s not a good look to storm out on a well-respected industry professional who is doing you a favor by producing your debut song. They’re lucky Kun is more gracious with his forgiveness than others probably would be. Mark tried to apologize for Renjun, but Kun only shook his head and said, I thought something like this might happen.

Johnny said the same when Mark filled him in on what happened, and Mark wondered not for the first time if there was something about Renjun that he was missing.

No one cares to fill him in if that’s the case, so Mark decides to just forget about it. He and Renjun keep running into each other after that, which is more uncomfortable than it is anything else. In the practice room several times, for obvious reasons. In the elevator. At the gym. In the coffee shop right next to the KS Entertainment building. Mark doesn’t press Renjun to talk about why he ran away that day—mostly because they just don’t talk. He kind of actively avoids it as much as possible, without thinking too much about how this will look when they debut. Fans read into every micro-interaction, every blink, every twitch of the hand. Mark’s never been subject to that sort of scrutiny before, and he has a feeling it won’t fare well for him. There’s a huge chasm between them—Mark doesn’t have a whole lot in common with Renjun that he can see. That’s a problem they’ll have to get over later.

The conversations they do have are stilted, mostly one-sided. But, whatever. Mark is a professional. He can get this under control. Between practice and recordings (done separately from Renjun, thank god) and his other responsibilities—Johnny’s gotten him a songwriting credit on some up-and-coming girl group’s next album—Mark keeps busy. He spends most nights hunched over his tiny little desk in his studio apartment, plucking at the strings of the acoustic guitar he’d saved up to buy years ago when he first moved to Korea. He’d been bright-eyed and optimistic back then. Not so much now.

It’s on one such night that the sound of his phone startles him out of the work-induced trance he’d gotten himself into. He looks to the alarm clock on his nightstand—nearly 10 PM. Not many people would call him at this hour, let alone an unknown number. He hesitates over whether to answer it or not for so long that it just goes to voicemail.

When the same number calls a second time, Mark figures—okay, maybe it’s important. With some trepidation, he picks his phone up and slides his thumb to the right, and says, hello?

“Hi,” a nervous voice on the other end replies. “I know you don’t know me, but I’m with Renjun right now, and he’s um—he’s drunk. He keeps saying your name, so I got your number from his phone. And I don’t know who else to call, but please don’t hang up, I—”

Mark is out of his seat and pulling on his jacket before the other person can even finish their sentence. “Text me the address,” he says, phone sandwiched between his cheek and his shoulder. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He can’t stop remembering the look on Renjun’s face as he stormed out of that studio: miserable. Despondent, like the Earth had been pulled from beneath him. A lonely island, surrounded by nothing but stretches of ocean as far as the eye can see.

🎵

Renjun’s friend—Park Jisung, Mark comes to learn—stands an imposing 180 centimeters tall, but that’s just about the only thing that’s imposing about him. He hardly even looks his full height, all hunched in on himself and drowning in an oversized cardigan. “I’m sorry to have called you out here so late,” he says by way of greeting when Mark sees him outside the bar. His eyes are wide and apologetic, and he’s clearly a little flustered by the whole situation. It’s a hell of a first meeting.

“It’s okay,” Mark says, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Where is he?”

“He’s inside.” Jisung continues to ramble as he pushes the door open. The bar is unnaturally dark inside. But that’s probably a good thing, Mark thinks, if it’s discreet enough that a well-known celebrity like Renjun can drink without fear of being recognized. Mark’s never had to worry about anything like that, but Renjun might. It feels like a reasonable assumption to make.

“Like, seriously, this isn’t like him at all, I didn’t think it would get to this point. I should’ve stopped him, I know I should have, but he’s my senior so I didn’t want to be disrespectful, and I couldn’t send him home alone because what if—”

Mark sighs, squinting into the darkness. He’s got half a mind to pull out his phone to use as a flashlight, but that would just draw too much attention. “It’s okay, really. I mean it. Renjun is an adult. He can make his own choices, however poor they might be. It’s not your fault.”

The reassurance, however slight, seems to calm Jisung. Some of the tension bleeds out of him. “Thanks,” he says. “But um. I should probably tell you, fair warning. He’s not in… the best emotional state.”

Before Mark can ask him what exactly that means, or say something like I’ve actually never seen Renjun in a good emotional state, his vision seems to adjust. The faint outline of Renjun slumped over at a table in the corner comes into view. His arms are crossed, his cheek pillowed atop them. He’s not passed out—not yet—but he’s definitely not entirely lucid either. Mark counts the empty soju bottles around him—one, two, three, four—

“How much did he have?” he asks Jisung.

The grimace Jisung sends his way tells Mark he probably doesn’t want to know. “I’m going to try and get a cab for him—do you think you can get him up for long enough to tell you his address?”

Now it’s Mark’s turn to grimace. “I can try,” he says. He’s not hopeful about how well it’ll go over, but that’s a separate matter.

Jisung gives him a grateful nod. His eyes soften when he turns back to Renjun, who’s starting to stir. “I’ll be back soon, hyung, okay?” he asks, reaching one huge, gentle palm out to smooth over his shoulder. “Drink some water.”

Renjun makes a somewhat-incoherent noise in response. Without moving, he gives Jisung a thumbs up and begins to grope blindly across the surface of the table, like he can’t be bothered to actually lift his head to find the cup. “Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck, shit, fuck—”

If Renjun’s fangirls knew he cursed like a sailor, they’d probably cry themselves to sleep. After a few more seconds of grappling, when it becomes clear Renjun hasn’t noticed him yet, Mark decides to push the glass forward into his outstretched hand. “Here you go,” he says, gulping.

“Thanks,” Renjun mumbles. Mark watches the realization set into him, slow and steady, and when he finally lifts his head up there’s a moment of confusion—something in his face looks almost relieved. And then it’s gone as quick as it came, replaced instead with what Mark has come to consider Renjun’s default expression. Distrustful, cagey, like the skittish alley cat Mark used to try and feed behind the back of the studio when he was still a trainee.

Fortunately, all the cat did was claw at him when he got too close. Unfortunately, Mark thinks he’ll come out of this interaction with a lot worse than a scratched hand.

“You,” Renjun says, bringing a hand up to point at Mark. The action is made sluggish by what Mark can only assume is an unreasonable amount of alcohol in his veins. “What’re you doing here?”

“Your friend asked me to uh,” Mark stutters through his sentence. It’s difficult to think clearly when Renjun’s eyes are on him like that, dark and blotted. “To uh. To come get you.” He decides to leave the part about Renjun saying his name out. Doesn’t feel like the right move.

The tension between them is so awkward Mark thinks he could die of it. And then Renjun tips his head back and laughs, and laughs, and laughs some more. Mark isn’t sure what’s so funny, not until Renjun’s breaths finally even out and he’s wiping a tear from his eye—seriously, was it that funny—and he says, “Jisung isn’t my friend.”

“Whuh?” Mark manages.

Renjun rubs the palms of his hands up and down his face, then sighs. “He’s not my friend,” he manages, with a surprising amount of articulation. It’s the most he’s ever spoken to Mark in one sitting. “Just a hoobae I force to drink with me occasionally.”

Would a hoobae really go so out of his way to make sure Renjun got home safely? Mark isn’t sure what to say. He settles on, “Oh.”

Renjun’s eyes glaze over, like he’s there but not-all-there. “We met when we were—” He cuts himself off, probably thinking better of mentioning the past, but Mark fills in the blanks himself anyway.

So Jisung is a friend from when he was at SM. Makes sense. “Do you think you can stand?” Mark asks, just to make sure.

“Of course I can stand,” Renjun says, an indignant flush crawling across his already-red cheeks. The table wobbles on shaky legs and screeches against the tile as Renjun braces his hands on it to push himself up—and by the grace of god himself, does not attract any attention from the other patrons.

Mark breathes a sigh of relief that quickly turns into a panicked wheeze as Renjun’s legs crumple underneath his own weight. His body has always moved a little quicker than his brain, which is a good thing, because it means he catches Renjun before he can hit the ground and concuss himself a month before their debut.

It’s a bad thing, because Mark thinks he might remember the weight and shape of Renjun in his arms for a very long time. Underneath the stale scent of alcohol he smells like lemons and honey blossoms, warmth bleeding through his clothes to overwhelm Mark instead. “Whoa,” Mark says, lifting him up to his feet. “Are you good?”

Renjun fists his tiny hands in Mark’s shirt and nods. “I’m fine,” he says, gritting his teeth. Mark should’ve expected him to shut down at a moment like this. Renjun doesn’t ask Mark to let go, and Mark doesn’t particularly think it would be a good idea to let him fall again. His frame is so slight, almost delicate, and it’s not like Mark hasn’t noticed that before, but it’s one thing to know Renjun’s waist is so small that stylists often have to binder clip his pants at the waistband. It’s another thing to feel the softness of that waist, to map the curved dip of it underneath his own hands. Mark isn’t some big beefy dude or whatever, he works out as often as pretty much any other run-of-the-mill idol does, Renjun is just—really small. And now Mark is really aware of it.

The air has somehow managed to cool significantly in the ten or so minutes Mark was trying to wrangle Renjun out of his seat, enough to make Renjun shiver despite the artificial warmth drunkenness is supposed to provide. He tucks himself closer to Mark’s side, whether unconsciously or not, and Mark considers offering him his jacket for a moment before deciding against it.

“Over here,” Jisung calls from the curb, waving them over. With his help, Mark manages to deposit Renjun into the cab with minimal struggle. Mark moves very carefully: slides his arm around Renjun’s back to hold him underneath the shoulder, his other hand at his hip. Renjun sags like a broken doll, allowing Mark to take his full weight, then leans up against the window and groans.

“Can you tell the driver your address?” Mark asks, but Renjun only groans again and shakes his head.

“I don’t…” he mumbles, and trails off. His hand is fastened tight in the fabric of Mark’s sleeve, and he seems to have no intention of letting go. “I don’t want…” His voice leaves him, but his lips keep moving, forming the shapes of the words he’s trying to convey.

Mark has no clue what he’s trying to say, and the driver is getting visibly impatient. He looks at Jisung, who shrugs, helpless. So Mark does the only thing he can think to do, which is stumble into the backseat alongside Renjun and rattle off his own address.

“Take care of him, okay?” Jisung asks through the half-opened window. The look on his face is so miserable Mark hardly knows what to do. “Please. I just—I want him to be okay.”

“I got it,” Mark promises, and thinks again of what Renjun had said to him. Jisung certainly looks like a friend from where Mark is standing. “I’ll make sure he’s fine.”

The ride back will only take ten minutes, tops, but Mark can’t stop looking over at Renjun, worried. He seems a little more lucid than he’d been in the bar, but that’s not saying much.

“Stop staring,” he mumbles, after the fifth or so time Mark has glanced over.

Mark winces. “Sorry,” he offers lamely.

There’s a few beats of silence. And then Renjun laughs, the sound of it hollow. “I fucking hate idols,” he says, out of seemingly nowhere. “You’re all so— You never know what’s real in this industry.”

You’re an idol too, though. “I’m real,” Mark says, confused at the sudden change in conversation.

“No, you’re not.” Renjun laughs again, but it sounds more like a cry this time. “I know you think you are, but you’re not. I’m not real either. Everything is so fake, and it doesn’t even matter whether it’s real or fake anyway, because it’s so temporary. All of it is. Everyone is temporary, and everyone leaves.” He waves a hand in the air lazily. “You wake up in the morning one day, and—poof.” His fingers stretch out against the suede of the car’s upholstery, mimicking an explosion in a cloud of smoke; a magical, sudden disappearance. “Gone. Everything, gone.”

The moon is hiding behind a cover of clouds tonight, but what little light it gives off washes Renjun in a pale, melancholy glow. He’s picturesque in the way most art is, which is to say—beautiful, faraway, and somehow a little bit sad. Like something that’s just a little out of reach of Mark’s understanding.

Chenle took him to an art museum once, and laughed when Mark squinted at the seemingly random splatter of paint on canvas and admitted out loud that he didn’t get it.

Don't think about it so much, or you’re going to miss the point, he told a somewhat-embarrassed Mark. Art is whatever you want it to mean. It’s whatever it makes you feel.

“You’re coming back to my apartment,” he tells Renjun, because he has to say something, and at least this is a fact. “I’ll be here when you wake up in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Renjun says, his hand falling to his side. His voice is weak and plucked out. “But you’ll still leave.”

Against his better judgment, Mark outstretches his hand, laces their fingers together. Renjun turns to him with wet lashes, and Mark didn’t know how he felt, back in that art museum, staring at a painting he could not figure out. But he thinks he might be beginning to understand how he feels now, staring at Renjun, who is no more comprehensible but no less beautiful.

“I’m not going to leave,” he says, with more conviction than he’s felt for anything in a long time. “I’m going to stay right here, okay? I promise.”

Renjun looks at him—really looks—and Mark swallows nervously, feeling suddenly exposed. The look in his eyes is… intense. He can’t describe it any other way.

“Thank you,” Renjun says, voice soft. “You’re really nice, Mark.” His gaze, hazy and unfocused, flickers down to Mark’s mouth as he leans in.

Mark finds himself leaning forward too, with only the slightest awareness of what he’s actually doing. “Yeah?” he breathes. What is happening. What is going on.

“Yeah,” Renjun whispers.

Then he lurches forward and empties the contents of his stomach into Mark’s lap.

🎵

Mark wakes with a stiff neck and a soreness in his shoulder that won’t go away no matter how much he tries to roll it out. God. People weren’t kidding—it really does all go downhill after you turn 21. If this were a few years ago, Mark could’ve slept on a folded sheet on the ground and woken up fresh and ready to start the day. How is a few hours of sleep on his own couch enough to incapacitate him? His clothes are creased from sleeping; the gray daylight filters through the curtains and washes Mark’s living room in a pale glow.

A clattering noise comes from the kitchen. Mark’s first thought is—oh shit, robber. Mark’s second thought is—eh, I don’t have anything particularly worth stealing.

Mark’s third thought is—oh shit, Renjun.

He let Renjun crash in his bed last night. Didn’t mean to, it just happened. Initially he planned on letting him sober up enough that he’d be okay getting in a cab to go home by himself. But then Renjun had crawled into Mark’s bed and curled up beneath his blankets and he just looked—so small. So vulnerable, so exhausted and how could Mark have the heart to wake him up after seeing him like that?

When he pads into the kitchen, Renjun is standing by the sink and looking very embarrassed. His head jerks up as Mark comes to stand a fair distance away from him—as much as his tiny little kitchenette will allow—and for a moment, all they do is stare at each other.

Mark says, “Hey,” and immediately winces. Are you okay? How’s your head? Do you need any water? Anything would’ve been better than hey.

“Hi,” Renjun says. “I was gonna make breakfast, but your fridge is kind of barren.”

Mark tries to remember the last time he went grocery shopping. Does 7/11 count as a grocery store? “Oh. Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Renjun just looks annoyed now. He crosses his arms over his chest, defensive. “I mean—I should be the one apologizing for—you know—”

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” Mark tries to reassure him. So what if his favorite jeans are air-drying out by the window? Worse things have happened. “I’m just glad you’re…okay.”

It’s clear from Renjun’s face that he does not think he is okay. What happened last night was not okay. They are not okay. Okay died in Johnny’s office three months ago. Maybe even before that. “Can we just forget about what happened last night?” he flushes, looking down, hiding the pink in his cheeks behind the curtain of his hair.

Maybe it’s an inappropriate moment to think so, but Mark kind of thinks he looks beautiful like that. “No,” he says, and for a second he’s surprised by his own answer.

The warm morning light spreads across Renjun’s face and gleams in his eyes. He looks momentarily startled, like he wasn’t expecting Mark to say no to him, like he’s seeing Mark for the first time. For a few, glorious seconds, there’s a field of emotion in his face, rich and expansive, laid out in the sun, before his barriers come back up. Mark wants so badly to see more of it—more of him.

He couldn’t possibly forget the way Renjun looked in the backseat of that taxi, talking about Mark leaving him like it was a foregone conclusion, even if he tried. And he doesn’t want to try.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “But I don’t want to forget it, either.”

“...Okay,” Renjun mumbles, looking a little displeased. “I can’t force you to forget it if you don’t want to.”

Mark realizes this discomfort—in part—has to stem from the fact that they’re on unequal ground now. Renjun has revealed a part of himself to him, even if it was inadvertent. This will only work if Mark shares a part of himself with him, too. “You know I originally wanted to be a writer?” he asks.

“How would I know that?” Renjun asks, but his curiosity shows in the glint of his eyes. Or maybe that’s still the sun, and Mark is imagining it.

He pushes on anyway. “Well, I did. It’s even in my elementary school yearbook. And then I sat down one day, and I realized…”

“Realized what?”

“That I’m terrible at longform writing,” Mark says, and Renjun tries to stifle his laugh, but Mark still sees it. “But I’m not half-bad with shortform stuff. And then my older brother started learning the guitar, so I decided I wanted to learn it, too, and from there, writing songs just seemed… like the natural thing to do.”

Renjun tilts his head to the side. “So that’s why you came here?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “I don’t have some big, deep reason for wanting to make music. I just want to do it, more than anything else.”

“I get that,” Renjun replies, leaning back against the counter. His gaze is focused somewhere between the barren fridge and the sink full of dishes.

“I didn’t want to be in a duo either,” Mark says, and watches the way Renjun’s face shifts. Didn’t, past tense. Curiosity, resentment, hope. “I felt like—I thought the company was saying I failed. That I wasn’t good enough to keep investing in on my own. It was a big blow to my pride. But I realized it doesn’t do me any good to keep thinking of it that way. I want to think of it as a second chance, for both of us.”

Renjun flushes under the scrutiny, then looks away. “A second chance, huh?” he asks, more to himself than to Mark. He sounds so hesitant, and it’s so unlike him that Mark has to blink for a moment, recalibrate. “Maybe… that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“If you want to make music—”

“I do. I do, more than anything.”

“—Then we’ll make it work,” Mark finishes. Something is rustling in his chest like wings thrumming at the edges of his pulse, beating, breathing. He and Renjun still have barely anything in common. And it’s okay to not have a lot in common, as long as they have the important things in common—this one important thing. “We can make this work.”

Renjun smiles, soft and tentative, and reaches his hand out. “Truce?” he asks.

Mark breathes a sigh of relief. “Yeah,” he says, taking Renjun’s hand in his. “Truce.”

🎵

It doesn’t get perfect immediately. But one byproduct of being in a duo is that there’s nothing else to do but get to know each other. It’s much easier knowing they’re on the same page, and that they’re both trying. For now, it’s enough.

Somewhere along the way, Mark sort of forgot that one of the hallmarks of idol life was an obligatory hair change for any new release. Renjun takes a trip to the salon for a trim and comes back with cotton candy pink locks. “They’re really set on me keeping my pure boy image,” he grumbles, pulling his hood down over his head. They’re set to shoot their album jacket tomorrow. Mark is already excited to see how it’ll look on film. “I don’t even think hair colors like this really suit me.”

“They do,” Mark says, trying not to feel dumb. The unfortunate part about getting closer to Renjun is that it’s only made Mark’s initial attraction to him harder to ignore. “You look—” Cute. Handsome. Beautiful. Perfect. “—You look good.”

Renjun eyes him. “Just good?”

If he wanted Mark’s validation (and it’s beyond Mark why he would want his validation at all), he could’ve just asked. But this is something Mark has learned quickly about Renjun—he can never just ask for things, or outright say what he wants. He likes to coax it out of other people instead. “Really good,” he says, correcting himself. “You look really great.”

“Okay,” Renjun says. A pleased flush crawls up the tips of his ears with the word, even as his face goes sour. “You’re laying it on a little thick now.”

“I can lay it on thicker,” Mark offers.

“Please don’t,” Renjun says, but he’s smiling. There are these little not-quite-dimples that appear at the corners of his mouth whenever he smiles, which he’s been doing more often these days. Mark nearly always finds himself staring at him when they appear. He has to stop doing it. Even Doyoung is starting to notice.

I’ll stop doing it tomorrow, he thinks, and says something else just this side of cheesy to see Renjun laugh at him.

Mark is a little less fortunate in the hair department. They give him these short bangs, barely short enough to cover his forehead. It looks decent enough with styling, but after he goes home and showers, and stares at himself under the cold, greenish bathroom lights, he thinks the cut brings too much attention to the sharpness of his jaw, the unevenness of his eyes.

“You look good,” Renjun insists the following day, when he notices Mark is staring at himself a little too long in the practice room mirrors. Mark is starting to realize he’s unnaturally observant—when it comes to other people, but not himself. “Stop worrying.”

Mark can’t help it—he grins, tries his luck. “Just good?” he asks, mimicking Renjun’s words from the day before.

Renjun rolls his eyes. “Stop digging for compliments,” he says fondly, like he didn’t do the same thing himself. “But fine, yes, you look really good. Great, even.”

“You’re laying it on a little thick,” Mark says, just to tease, and has to dodge the fist to his arm that flies out.

They stay up together the night their music video drops, watching as the view count goes up, up, up. Whether people are tuning in out of genuine interest or morbid curiosity doesn’t really matter. Renjun frowns over his own performance and points out specific areas he thinks he could’ve done better. Mark pokes fun at his own acting, and graciously accepts the compliments Renjun fires his way before returning them tenfold.

The single does well enough on the charts—better than Mark has ever done on his own, that’s for sure. Renjun curls up on his couch, his socked feet tucked underneath his own legs, and reads out all the nicer comments on Weibo to Mark. Mark can sort of tell he’s only reading the nice ones from the way his gaze flickers every so often, deliberately leaving them out for Mark’s benefit.

It’s okay, he wants to say. I’m sure I’ve read much worse. Netizens are sort of equally cruel in every language. But he appreciates the effort, and Renjun’s voice is soothing to listen to, so he tucks his head into the curve of his shoulder and just listens.

Kun texts him an hour later that he’s been confirmed to stay on to produce their first album. The pieces finally feel like they’re falling into place.

“It’s nice,” Chenle says, when he calls Mark the next day. “Something fun for the summer. I’ve already forced everyone I work with to stream the music video.”

“Aw,” Mark says, embarrassed but pleased all the same. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I’m a little worried about how good your acting is, though.”

“What? I’m a terrible actor.” Mark isn’t even trying to be humble here. He is aware of his own deficiencies as much as he is aware of his strengths.

There’s a long silence, long enough that Mark wonders for a moment if Chenle has hung up on him, and then Chenle laughs. “You’re in trouble then,” he says, and Mark doesn’t need to see him to know he’s smirking. “You look like you’re half in love with him already.”

🎵

Their first official schedule is an interview. Promotion is the name of the game, after all. Ironic that an industry focused on music isn’t actually about the music anymore, Mark thinks, and then feels like a boomer for it. They put him in a $200 sweatshirt and push his hair back with gel, and then they carefully, methodically, cover all the texture and all the blemishes and all the pores in his face. Mark catches a glimpse of himself in the all-glass walls. He thinks he looks very nice. He also thinks he doesn’t look very much like himself.

Ten, the journalist in charge of the interview, is put-together, and sharp as a whip, and he looks at Mark like he sees right through him, like he can see every last unsavory thought Mark has ever had. And Mark is… not great with the press, so he is justifiably nervous. When was the last time he actually did any press at all? It doesn’t escape him that KS has poured more money into the production and promotion for this pre-release single than they have in four years for any of his solo activities before this. Mark gets it. Really, he does. In an oversaturated market, it only makes sense to spend money on the projects that have the highest chance of success. But it does make the pressure now a little more tangible, a little more real.

Ten starts them out easy. It feels almost like making conversation with an old friend—he’s got a magnetic quality to him, and Renjun thinks so too, if the way he hangs off Ten’s every word is any indication. In an alternate universe, maybe, Mark is the journalist, and Ten is the one being interviewed. But it doesn’t stay easy for long, not that Mark ever expected it to.

“I know the reaction from some people has been mixed so far,” Ten says, directed towards Renjun. He’s not trying to be mean, just trying to find the story, and Mark understands that. He hopes Renjun does too. “Especially considering the circumstances of your departure from SM. What do you think about all the speculation?”

Renjun gnaws on his lower lip, and Mark bumps his thigh against Renjun’s, the subtlest sign of comfort he can think of. “There are a lot of things I could say,” he replies solemnly. “At the end of the day, all that matters is that my life is my own to live. I’d like it if people could see me as I am. Not who I was, not who I was with in the past. Who I am, standing in front of them, right now.”

Ten’s article comes out a week later. He writes:

🎵

One week after Lemonade gets its first RAK, Mark steps outside of KS Entertainment to grab a coffee and gets swarmed. He lasts just two seconds in the crowd with its screaming girls and all the flashing lights before Doyoung is dragging him back inside. “Use the back entrance from now on,” he tells Mark.

Mark has never used the back entrance. Mark didn’t know there was a back entrance. It’s a very low level of fame—whatever the Korean equivalent of an F-list celebrity is—but Mark still isn’t sure how to feel about it. On the whole, it feels good. But disorienting too, and strange, because he’s not used to people stopping him for photographs or actually having to cover up when he goes outside. Renjun takes it in stride, because he’s probably been dealing with this for years now already. He offers a finger heart to one camera, then waves to the next, then winks in an entirely different direction, all while keeping pace with Mark.

“I see why they call you the waving fairy now,” he says to Renjun once they’re inside Doyoung’s car.

“Once, I waved at a fan, and they didn’t wave back because they were staring at their phone,” Renjun says, faux-miserably. “I’ve been trying to fill that void ever since.”

Mark hasn’t been to a proper music show in years, but somehow it’s Renjun who ends up being the most nervous of them both. He’s jittery with nerves, his entire jaw clenched tight, and he’s been pacing the room in circles so much it’s starting to make Mark’s head spin. After the third time he unconsciously runs his fingers through his hair and has to go back into the stylist’s chair to get it redone, Doyoung takes Mark aside into the hallway.

“Please do something about him,” he begs, hands clasped together tightly. Mark is beginning to worry he might start graying early, if he hasn’t already. He eyes the top of Doyoung’s dyed ash brown hair with distrust.

“What am I supposed to do?” Mark asks.

Doyoung sighs. “I don’t know. But he trusts you the most out of anyone here, and if you don’t do or say something he’s going to burn a hole into the ground with how much he’s been walking back and forth. So. Please?”

It’s less than ten minutes until recording. Mark doesn’t have much of a choice, the same way Renjun doesn’t have much of a choice. One way or another, they’re going to get out there and perform. “Okay,” he says. “Just—maybe run down to the vending machines and get him a tea or something to calm him down. I’ll try talking to him, give us a few moments alone.”

Renjun isn’t pacing anymore by the time Mark re-enters the room, which is better. He sits on the couch, feet tucked beneath his legs. He hardly looks up as Mark crosses the length of the room, and when Mark sits, an uneasy feeling twists in the circuitry of his nerves.

“Hey,” he says gently. “What’s wrong? You feeling nervous?”

Renjun shakes his head.

“Are…you going to be okay to go out there and perform?” It’s a meaningless question. Renjun has to, so he will. But Mark still feels like he has to ask.

“I’ll be fine once we’re actually out there,” Renjun breathes out. Something cautious flickers across his face as he toys with the silver chain around his neck. He’s always wearing that necklace—Mark has noticed his tendency to fidget with it when he’s feeling uncomfortable. “It’s just—I haven’t been back here in a while.”

The last time Renjun was here, he was with Dream. Mark observes the way Renjun’s face shifts as understanding dawns on himself. God. He’s stupid. So stupid. How could he not have realized? They’re at the tailend of promotions for their most recent repackage album, too—he remembers Johnny saying something about that at their last meeting. But dressing rooms for the biggest groups are usually at the opposite end of the building, so it’s not likely their paths will cross—the thought hadn’t even crossed Mark’s mind. Still, he can’t exactly blame Renjun for being on edge.

“Hey,” Mark says, reaching out to lay a hand on his knee, even though he’s not sure how much of a reassurance it'll be. “I’m with you, okay? You’ve got me. Everything is going to be alright.” He wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He leaves it at that, and waits. Continues waiting, really, while the silence stretches further between them, punctured only by the swell of music coming from down the hall.

Renjun’s shoulders drop. He leans into Mark’s side, almost melts, resting his head on his shoulder. For a few moments they don’t speak. Mark attunes himself to the steady cadence of Renjun’s breath, the barely-there shift as his chest contracts and expands with each movement. “You promise to stay?” he asks, finally. His own voice has grown whisper-quiet.

A hum emerges from Mark, low and toneless, a wordless acknowledgement. “Of course.”

Renjun smiles into his shoulder, and Mark’s stomach does a backflip, or maybe twenty. The moment is broken as soon as Doyoung barges back in, T-minus three minutes til they have to go onstage. He has a tablet of what appears to be Xanax in one hand and a bottle of green tea in the other.

“Pick your poison,” he says. He looks like he could use a Xanax himself. “And do it quickly, because you’re on in two.”

Renjun points weakly at the tea.

The performance goes as well as it can. The backing track is a little too loud and Mark forgets which camera to look at once or twice, but really, he’s just relieved they’ve gotten the most nerve wracking part of this entire ordeal over with. And Renjun, of course, had been perfect. A vision, really. It felt surreal for a moment—looking over at him halfway through the chorus underneath the fluorescing stage lights, his eyes shining, sparkling glowing—and remembering how Mark felt all those months ago while watching his fancams.

This is a boy who was born to perform. This is what it must be like to look at a star, up close, and it’s blinding, but I don’t want to look away.

He feels compelled to tell Renjun this while they make the short trek back to their dressing room. “You did so good today,” he says, quietly indulgent. It’s getting difficult to mask the overabundance of affection that colors his voice when he speaks to Renjun these days. Lately, he hardly tries to hide it anymore.

Renjun giggles behind one hand, and shoves at Mark’s shoulder with the other. “Stop that,” he complains. “You did good, too.” There’s a pleased flush decorating his cheeks. He’s still glowing. Supernova-bright. Even now.

It doesn’t last. Mark isn’t necessarily a superstitious man, but he somehow senses them before he sees them. Something frigid runs up his spine. He shivers, eyes darting up. In all fairness, they seem just as surprised to see Mark and Renjun as Mark and Renjun are to see them. A difficult silence fills the hallway.

“Renjun,” Donghyuck greets, his voice agonizingly level. Mark recognizes him from the fancams. He recognizes Jeno and Jaemin, too, but whereas Jeno looks like he’s about to cry, Jaemin looks like he’s about to punch Renjun in the face. Possibly worse.

Renjun flinches minutely. The look on his face is utterly foreign. “Donghyuck.”

Mark feels a little misplaced here; the tension is making it burdensome to breathe. He realizes Renjun never told him about his fallout with his ex-groupmates. He only knows that there was fallout, and that’s obvious, given the suddenly defensive stance Renjun has taken up. His hand curls into the hem of Mark’s shirt, a silent plea.

“So this is the new partner, huh?” Donghyuck drags his gaze up Mark’s body, ends at his face. Mark flushes under the scrutiny. “You guys look good together. I liked the song.”

“Uh,” Mark manages. “Thanks.”

They fall silent again. Mark isn’t sure how he would react, if he were in Renjun’s shoes. Would it be fair game to ask how they’ve been? Would it be better to act as if there’s no history?

Renjun opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can, Jaemin’s eyes narrow. “I have nothing to say to you,” he spits, brushing past him. The way he knocks their shoulders together is probably deliberate. Renjun stumbles back, deflating immediately, and bites his tongue.

“Hey—” Mark says, getting a hand around Renjun’s waist to steady him. “C’mon, man, that was—” Uncalled for. That was uncalled for, he was going to say, but Jaemin is already storming off.

Jeno’s face crumples. He seems for a moment like he’s torn between staying here and running after him. In the end he chooses the latter. “I’m sorry about him,” he mumbles, but even he doesn’t look Renjun in the eyes before he takes off in Jaemin’s direction.

“Are you going to say anything for yourself?” Donghyuck asks pointedly, staring directly at Renjun. “Anything?”

Renjun’s expression collapses for a brief moment, before it remakes itself. “Good luck with the rest of your promotions,” he says, voice unsteady.

Donghyuck laughs under his breath, shaking his head as if in disbelief. “Of course,” he mumbles. He sounds disappointed. “Yeah, you too.”

He doesn’t shove past Renjun like Jaemin did. Instead, they move around each other like giant ships around icebergs. Navigating treacherous waters. Renjun stares down at his feet, like looking at Donghyuck for too long would pierce through his hull and leave him drowning.

For a moment they stand together in the invisible wreckage of that encounter. Then Renjun turns his face into Mark’s chest. “Can we go,” he says weakly, in the aftermath of it all. “Please?” His voice is thick with emotion; it sounds like he might cry, except Mark has never seen Renjun cry. Mark has to be missing something here. It has to be bigger than a fight between coworkers, or even close friends.

He saw the way Donghyuck looked at Renjun. It reminded Mark of himself.

“Yeah,” Mark says, a little shaken himself. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

🎵

Mark doesn’t ask for an explanation, but Renjun gives him one anyway.

He was the last addition to the group that fans knew as Dream. By the time he joined SM, Jaemin, Jeno, and Donghyuck had already been friends for years. They’d been together since the time they were scrawny little preteens, and they didn’t take kindly to a new addition to the group at first. It was understandable, but that only made Renjun all the more determined to break past those walls.

“It took time,” Renjun says, smiling weakly, like he’s trying to remember the good times. Mark can tell it’s only making him sadder. He looks down, his lashes cutting deep shadows across his cheeks. “Donghyuck was the first to warm up. Jeno and Jaemin came a little later. There was a trainee who’d been there a lot longer than me, and I guess he was angry that I got tapped to debut just a few months after joining the company. He said some pretty nasty shit to me one day. And then Donghyuck heard him, and I swear—I thought he was about to kick the shit out of him. Instead he just chewed him a new one. And then he turned to me, and he said, I’m the only one who’s allowed to make fun of you. If anyone else is mean to me, you tell me, and I’ll set them straight. It was funny, because he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and he was built like a string bean. But everyone listened to him, because everyone loved him, and so no one bothered messing with me anymore. All four of us became inseparable after that.”

Mark tries to picture it—tiny versions of all four of them. It must be inherently different, he thinks, to have spent the formative years of your life with three other people the same age as you, and to have relied on each other so much. To have cared for each other so deeply.

Renjun’s next laugh turns into a sob. “I loved them,” he says. “I was just happy to be with them for a while. You know we got rings? All four of us. It was my idea. I basically forced them into it. I was so stupid.” He tugs at the ever-present necklace around his neck, the thin chain cutting into his flesh. Mark can just barely make out the telltale curve of a ring underneath the fabric of his shirt. Things begin to fall into place within the jumbled mess of his mind.

“There was always this closeness to them that felt insurmountable. And they never meant to leave me out, but it happened sometimes anyway. And I couldn’t even begrudge them for it—they had so much history. How was I ever supposed to overcome that? I realized eventually that no matter how much they accepted me, I would never really be part of their group. But it was bearable for a while, until—”

“Until?” Mark prompts him gently, massaging the back of his neck. Tactile comfort is the only type he knows how to give. He doesn’t want to risk being clumsy with his words at a moment like this.

“Until I realized I was in love with Donghyuck,” Renjun says. The words land like knives in Mark’s stomach. “And that he would never love me back, not in the way I needed him to. With me, it was just fanservice. But what they had with each other was real in a way I could never have.”

What do you say to a confession like that? I’m sorry just doesn’t cut it. Mark isn’t even really sure Renjun’s interpretation of events is entirely accurate. He remembers Renjun writing Jisung off as just a hoobae who hung out with him out of obligation. He remembers the way all of them—especially Donghyuck—had looked at Renjun. There was hurt there, obviously, confusion, anger, all emotions Mark himself was very familiar with, but underneath that: the sort of aching that could only come from being hurt by someone you loved.

I think you have a problem with thinking you aren’t as loved as you are, he wants to say. The words won’t leave his mouth. This isn’t the moment for him to give his own take on the situation.

Renjun wipes his face, staring resolutely at the floor. “I did a shit job at hiding it. They could tell the way I looked at them wasn’t right. One day I got called into the CEO’s office, and they asked me, point-blank, if I was in love with one of my bandmates. I should have lied, but I didn’t. I think part of me was just tired of hiding it. And then they asked next if I wanted to leave. They gave me an out, and I took it.”

“I know everyone thinks I was kicked out,” he says, sniffling lightly. The sound of it drags a lump into Mark’s throat. His eyes are red-rimmed. “It’s true that I didn’t want to leave. But I did it voluntarily. And you must think that’s stupid, right? Well, you try it. You try spending your entire life with the same people you’re in love with, knowing they won’t be able to love you the way they love each other. Knowing that in the end you’ll end up alone.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Mark says quietly. He understands it more than Renjun might realize. “Why did you decide to come here? To KS Entertainment.”

“I couldn’t stay,” Renjun chokes out.

“I didn’t ask why you left. I asked why you came here. You could’ve gone anywhere, if you still wanted to make music—plenty of companies would have welcomed you with open arms, even with the media uproar. Why KS?“

Renjun falls silent. “Don’t laugh.”

Mark bends down, stares until Renjun finally looks back at him. “I’m not going to laugh.”

“I was packing my bags,” Renjun says. “And your song came on the radio. Rainbow? I don’t know. It felt like fate. I’ve always believed in signs from the universe.”

Of course it was that song. Mark’s one-hit wonder. He’d written it at his lowest low; it only got popular a month after its release because a popular drama at the time happened to play it in the background of a major scene. They always hoped it might lead to bigger and better things. It never did. But if it somehow led to Renjun, then it’s worth it.

“There was a moment where I thought I wouldn’t be able to make music without them. I didn’t want to confront that fear. And then I met you, and—” Renjun’s gaze goes hazy; like he’s somewhere faraway again. “You reminded me of Donghyuck, in a certain way. And it was like being punched in the gut. It’s strange, because you two are barely similar at all. But you both have this warmth to you—like just standing close enough to you would melt anyone eventually. But I didn’t want to melt. I wanted to stay cold. I was afraid of what would happen if I let anyone in again after what I’d already been through. I couldn’t lose that twice.”

Mark suddenly realizes what Renjun had been saying in that cab, all those months ago. He’d held onto Mark like he was the last anchor he had and tried to say, I don’t want to be alone, and the knowledge of this is near-debilitating. The realization is staggering. It breaks something in him. Unable to hold it back any longer, he pulls Renjun into his arms, holding him tight. “You’re not going to lose anything ever again,” he mumbles into his hair. “I promise. Please believe me.”

Renjun stiffens for a half-second, and then seems to wilt all at once. All the fight drains out of him, replaced with exhaustion instead, and he turns his face into Mark’s neck. His arms are shaking when he wraps them around Mark’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he says, letting the tears run freely down his face, dripping fat droplets down his chin and onto Mark’s skin. Mark isn’t sure what Renjun is thanking him for. “Thank you.”

Doyoung finds them like that, curled up together and red-eyed and sniffling, nearly half an hour later. “Do I even want to ask,” he says.

They exchange a glance. “Probably not,” Renjun says.

“I’ve been looking for you two everywhere, do you even kn—”

Mark tugs him down by the tie until Doyoung topples over to join the pile, and wipes his runny nose into his sleeve just to hear his indignant sputtering.

🎵

Johnny’s brow is pinched. He looks stressed as hell, and Mark can’t blame him. “I assume you both know why you’re here.”

Mark never finished high school. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be called into the principal’s office. He’s guessing it feels a lot like this.

“Yes,” Renjun says, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

Mark really hadn’t meant to glare, but he supposes he’s a little worse at masking his expressions than he initially thought he was. To be fair, he’s never had to conceal his feelings before, and certainly not in front of so many cameras.

Doyoung already chewed them out that morning. I don’t care what actually happened, the only thing that matters is what everyone else thinks happened.

“I asked you if you’d be fine interacting with them in public, and you said yes. You should’ve been honest with me. If you said no, then we could’ve avoided this altogether.”

“It’s not his fault,” Mark protests, rising to his feet, suddenly impassioned. “It’s mine. I—”

He’s cut off by a gentle tug to his sleeve. “Mark, it’s okay,” Renjun says quietly, and doesn’t continue until Mark settles back into his seat with a huff. “I’m sorry. I really thought I would be alright. It was just because it was the first time I’d seen them in a while, that’s the only reason anything happened. I shouldn’t have brought Mark into it.”

Johnny’s face softens. No one is truly immune to Renjun, after all. “I mean, even if you say that…”

“The damage has been done. I know.” Renjun looks down at his lap. His voice trembles at the edges.

“...There are a couple things we can do as far as damage control,” Johnny says, rubbing at his forehead like he can feel a headache coming on. “We can put out a statement. We can delay the release of your album until things blow over. We can—”

“Play the game,” Mark says, realizing suddenly that Doyoung was right. The only thing that matters is what everyone else thinks happened. “Let’s lean into it. I’ll write a song. We can put it on the album.”

Chenle has always called him a people-pleaser. If the people want to believe there’s a story there, Mark will give them what they fucking want. Anything to throw them off what really happened.

“No,” Johnny says flatly. “What? No. Absolutely not. Your image is halfway in the gutter already.”

Next to him, Renjun bites into his lower lip. “I mean, it’s free publicity,” he says, thinking out loud. “People will listen.”

“We can put out a statement. But at the end of the day, people are going to believe whatever they want to believe,” Mark offers. “We might as well put on a good show for them, yeah?”

Johnny remains unconvinced. “We have a lot riding on this,” he says. “You understand that this is risky, don’t you?”

“Yes. Which is why it’ll work.”

“And what will you do if it doesn’t? If it backfires?”

“I’ll let you terminate my contract,” Mark says, without hesitation. “And I’ll pay back my trainee fees. In full.”

For a moment, Johnny’s expression breaks. It’s likely not the answer he’d been hoping for. Truthfully, Mark has been wondering for a while if Johnny has kept him around for so long out of a sort of misplaced sentimentality. Pity. Mark was the second person he ever hired, after all. Doyoung was the first.

Mark still remembers it like it was yesterday. He had just finished recording for the last episode of High School Rapper. There were plenty of scouts backstage, but Johnny stuck out like a sore thumb. He was a good 10 centimeters taller than everyone else, and dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans. He was a speck of white in a sea of black suits, and instead of giving Mark a business card, he scrawled his number on the back of Mark’s coffee cup and said, “I can’t offer you what other agents have probably offered you, but I think we could build something great together.”

And they did. Mark watched as their three-person company turned into ten turned into twenty. Watched as they bought out a floor of the building instead of just the three rooms at the end of the sixth-floor hallway, and then bought the entire building altogether. They brought on more artists. They weren’t big, but they were getting big.

Mark watched Johnny grow his company from nothing to something. Johnny watched Mark freefall down the charts, and shielded him from the investors for as long as he could.

Renjun’s voice is panicked. “Mark—”

“So it’s like that, huh?” Johnny asks, sounding a little wistful, like a mother sending her child off on their first date. His gaze drifts meaningfully towards Renjun.

“It’s not like that,” Mark insists. His ears feel like they’re on fire.

“Fine,” Johnny says, and stretches his hand out over his desk. Mark reaches out, shaking it firmly. “We have a deal.”

Renjun stays suspiciously quiet as they iron out the details. He walks out of Johnny’s office without waiting to be dismissed, without even glancing back to see if Mark is following—like he expects Mark to follow, which is a fair assumption. It’s not until they’re in the hallway and the door has closed behind them that Renjun rounds on him.

“Why would you say that,” he says, voice hoarse. He reaches out, curls his hands loosely in Mark’s shirt. “Why would you put your own contract on the line, that’s not fair. This is your dream just as much as it is mine—Why can’t I just put out a statement, It’ll be a few days of messiness and then we can wait for it to blow over—”

Gently, Mark unravels Renjun’s hands and shakes his head. “This is the chance, remember? Of a lifetime. That’s what you told Ten. So I figure we have two options: we can wait for it to blow over, knowing people will talk either way, or we can use it to our advantage.”

“You said you were going to stay,” Renjun hisses. His fists tremble. “So what is this? What do you think happens to me if your contract is terminated? I’m going to be alone again. I—”

“There’s nothing to worry about. The plan is going to work,” Mark says, with more confidence than he actually feels. The plan is going to work, because it has to work, and Mark will do whatever it takes for them to get there. “I’m not leaving you. I promised you I would stay, and that you wouldn’t lose anything again—including me—and I meant it.”

There’s something in Renjun’s gaze, like he’s trying to parse Mark’s words but can’t quite understand them fully. Like they’re suddenly having a second conversation underneath this one. “But you can’t guarantee that. You shouldn’t make promises you don’t intend on keeping.”

It’s gently insulting that Renjun still thinks Mark is somehow not being serious. But Mark can’t blame him. This is how things work around here. Everyone has two faces. Trust is a fool’s game, and trusting the wrong person can feel like a matter of life or death. Renjun has all the fragility of someone whose trust has been broken one too many times already.

Even now, Mark can’t forget the image of Renjun in the cab that night; terrified to be left alone but even more terrified to let anyone in. Mark realizes now that even as Renjun was telling him that everything about idols was fake, that everyone would always leave in the end—he’d been desperate to be proven wrong. “I know you don’t want to be let down again,” he says, trying to keep his face open; trying to convey with everything he has—you can trust me with all of you. I’m going to keep my promises to you. I’d make one hundred more just to prove that very point. “But have a little faith in me, okay? I wouldn’t do anything if I thought it would jeopardize our future together.”

Renjun looks at him like he's searching for something. Mark has noticed now he has this way of looking at people that makes them feel seen in ways they’ve never felt before. The moment stretches on, suspended taut, like the corded strings on Mark‘s old guitar. “Our future?”

Mark swallows. “Yeah.” His hands are already itching for pen and paper. He wants to put words to this feeling before the moment passes.

It seems like Renjun struggles with his words for a moment before he settles on, “You’re ridiculous.” He’s laughing, like he can’t quite believe what Mark is saying is real.

It’s real. I’m real. This is real. “Yeah,” Mark says again. “Maybe I am.”

🎵

So maybe it is like that. But what Johnny doesn’t know won’t hurt him. They get the go-ahead, at any rate, and with that, they’ve got just under three weeks to write, produce, and record a song.

Should be easy, right?

Mark has written songs before, but never for himself. Or like—technically, this song is as much for Renjun as it is for him, but either way, it’s different. More difficult, in some ways. The pressure is immense. He spends even more nights hunched over his tiny little desk in his studio apartment than ever before, enough that he’s memorized the pattern of wood grain underneath his wandering hands as he jots down notes, lyrics, everything in between.

It’s different though, because now Renjun joins him more often than not, sitting side-by-side with him as they work in a companionable silence. Occasionally he pulls Mark away from his desk to sit on the couch. Play something for me, he’ll say, and Mark will sigh, like he’s extremely put out by this request, but even that doesn't stop the helpless grin curving at his mouth. And then he’ll pick up his guitar and play whatever comes to mind first—a jingle from a commercial, a song that’s just debuted #1 on the Gaon Digital Chart, an OST from a drama he’s been watching lately, any random made-up tune he’s come up with on the fly.

Tonight it’s the last one. Mark hums along, strums a chord to finish, and when he looks up he finds Renjun is staring very intently at his face. “What’re you looking at?”

Every so often, Mark will look briefly to the side and find Renjun staring right back at him. Renjun usually turns away, pretends he was never looking to begin with. In the dream Mark doesn’t—can’t—tell anyone about, Renjun is staring at him because he wants Mark the way Mark wants him. And he smiles when Mark asks him a question, and leans over and kisses him like it means something, like he’s so full of affection he can’t think of doing anything else.

But of course this isn’t a dream, so none of that happens. “Nothing,” Renjun says, snapping out of it. “That last one wasn’t bad. You should write it down before you forget it.”

Mark nods, ducks his head down and searches in the mess of sheet music surrounding them for a pen. The companionable silence returns for a good half hour, and then Mark watches Renjun shift in the corner of his eye, like he’s growing restless.

“They make this look so much more fun in the movies,” he complains. Mark isn’t sure what movies Renjun has watched that would make him believe songwriting is somehow a glamorous affair. It’s not. It’s waking up in the dead of night because a lyric has suddenly come to you, it’s staying up until the sunrise because you had a burst of inspiration that you couldn’t risk losing, it’s a lot of hard work and long nights spent surrounded by Kyochon delivery boxes and frankly, a whole lot of grief for not that much reward. “Give me your guitar. I want to try playing.”

Mark hesitates, a careful hand wrapped around its neck. “You know how to play?”

“No, but how hard could it be?” Renjun nearly fumbles the guitar as Mark passes it to him.

“Hey. That’s my baby, be careful with her,” Mark says. “I saved up my first four paychecks to buy her when I first moved to Korea.”

Renjun plucks at a few strings, makes a face at the dissonant sounds he pulls. “It looks so easy when you do it,” he whines, brow furrowed.

Mark wants to laugh, just because he’s always so cute when he sulks, but thinks better of it once he realizes it’d probably offend Renjun. “I’ve had more practice than you, that’s all,” he says, cajoling. “You still have a lot to learn.”

“Well, teach me,” Renjun suggests. “Maybe we could be a guitar-playing duo. I’m sure Johnny would love that.”

“I’m sure he would,” Mark laughs. He sits up straighter, leans in so their arms are pressed together. Renjun is warm, even through the thicker fabric of his sweater. “Here, you’re probably going to want to roll up your sleeves first.”

Renjun smiles, because he’s learned Mark will let him get away with almost anything if he just bats his eyelashes a little. “Do it for me?” he asks, like he doesn’t have two perfectly capable hands himself.

“You’re terrible.”

“You love it.”

Mark hums noncommittally and folds up the edges of Renjun’s sleeves. They’re exaggeratedly long, almost falling past his fingertips. Renjun is partial to oversized clothing, which is good in a way, because it means Mark can’t be distracted by the slim outline of his waist or the curve of his body. It’s bad, too, because sometimes his collar slips and Mark will struggle not to stare at the expanse of bare skin it reveals between his shoulder and collarbone. “How’s that feel?”

“Good,” Renjun says, a little breathless, the sound of his voice riding on the wisps of an exhale. “So what do I do next?”

“The easiest chord to learn is A major.” Mark rearranges his fingers, tries not to think about how much smaller Renjun’s hands look underneath his. “You see these metal strips on the neck? Those are frets, and they’re used to sort of mark the correct placement of notes. For this chord, you’re going to be in the second fret.”

“Like this?” Renjun whispers, moving his hand up the fingerboard. He looks up at Mark through dark lashes, eyes half-lidded.

The room is getting dark, aside from the pool of light the desk lamp casts over their laps. Outside, the air is stale and sticky with heat despite the hour, and Mark suddenly regrets cracking the windows—he’d assumed it would have cooled down by now. Should’ve just turned on a fan or something. There’s still a trace of glitter from an earlier schedule in Renjun’s hair, smudged eyeliner around his eyes. His foundation has worn away at his forehead.

“Yeah,” Mark says, suddenly warm underneath his collar. “Just like that.” He guides Renjun’s fingers into the proper placement, a collective effort guided by expert hands overlaid by amateur ones. “You put your first finger on the fourth string, second finger on the third, third finger on the second—now try strumming.”

Renjun drags his fingers across the string, and it’s just one chord—just one simple sound—but his entire face lights up. A smile breaks across his face, and Mark’s heart does something weird that makes him think he’s just experienced an entirely new emotion.

But even that’s nothing compared to what he feels when Renjun looks up at Mark, eyes bright. “You’re a good teacher,” he says, and is Mark just imagining it, or is his tone a little coy? “Good with your hands.”

Mark stares him down for a long moment, trying to figure out his angle—if there is an angle at all. Is he flirting? Is it some kind of test? If Mark flirts back, is Doyoung going to beat down his door and kick his ass? There’s no way to tell from Renjun’s carefully neutral expression. “Uh. You too.”

Okay. Actually, he’s sort of thankful he cracked the window. It’ll be easier to jump out of, now. Which he’s absolutely going to do, in five, four, three, two—

Renjun’s smile shifts into something dark, sensuous. “To be honest with you,” he says. “I’m a lot better with my mouth.”

This can’t be real. “Oh?” Mark asks, tugging at the collar of his shirt. God, it’s hot. The room is hot. Renjun is hot. Hell is hot, and Mark is going there. “I mean, I guess that makes sense, cause you’re a good singer and all—” He’s rambling, and he can’t stop.

He can’t stop, until Renjun sets the guitar aside and crawls into Mark’s lap like he was made to sit there, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and then suddenly he has no words at all. “Um,” he says intelligently, blinking. “Uhhh.”

The way Renjun’s thighs tighten around his hips is so stupidly obscene it should be illegal. “You wanna see for yourself?” he asks, pressed chest-to-chest with Mark.

Mark wonders if Renjun can feel the rapid flutter of his heart beating against its skin-and-bone enclosure. “Yes,” he breathes out, against his better judgment. This can’t possibly end well, can it? “God, yes.”

The energy shifts almost instantly—Renjun swipes his thumb across Mark’s cheekbone and watches the way Mark’s lips part. “Say please,” he murmurs, syrupy sweet, and Mark is going to die, right here, with the most beautiful man in the world in his lap, who is also his coworker.

All things considered, it’s not a bad way to go.

“Please,” Mark says hoarsely. His own want is so palpable he feels like he could choke on it. When he leans forward, it’s almost unconscious.

Renjun laughs, and then they’re kissing. There’s nothing tentative about it, no careful exploration—Renjun’s mouth is soft and plush and open, and his tongue glides against Mark’s like oil over water. The energy shifts instantly. He pulls at Mark’s lower lip with the slightest hint of teeth until Mark starts panting quietly, his hands curled loosely into fists at his sides. And even then they just keep kissing and kissing, without reason, without end.

If Mark knew this was going to happen—a moot point, considering he’s still not actually sure it’s happening for real—he’d have jerked off in the shower or something this morning. He’s too worked up. Renjun threads his fingers through Mark’s hair, and blood rushes south. Heat flares in his belly unexpectedly. His breaths are growing shaky from the exertion of holding himself still.

“You can touch me if you want,” Renjun whispers, tugging at Mark’s hair to peel his head back until his throat is bared. Mark feels so vulnerable like this. They’re pressed so close together Renjun might be able to hear the shuddering of his heart against the inside of his chest.

If Mark touches him he’s afraid they’ll really have gone past the point of no return. If Mark touches him he’s afraid he won’t be able to stop. If Mark touches him he’s afraid he’ll never be able to think about doing anything else again in his entire life.

If you want, Renjun said, as if it were possible for Mark to not want him. He’s never wanted anything more.

Mark starts off slowly, laying his hands at Renjun’s hips. He isn’t brave enough to touch him below the waist yet, but everything else seems like fair game, and Mark is nothing if not thorough in his exploration. At some point they start kissing again—could be minutes, could be hours, Mark wouldn’t know, he’s lost track of time entirely. What started as playful quickly turns charged, a little desperate. Renjun starts squirming in his lap, which has two immediate and disastrous consequences.

One—Renjun’s shirt has ridden up at the hem, and suddenly Mark finds his hands touching skin instead of fabric. His skin is feverishly hot and so soft, beyond smoother than anything Mark has ever felt before. Two—Mark is like, fully hard now, and yeah, he’s had an erection for the past century, but he hoped they were both going to ignore it. This is the opposite of ignoring it. He could lift his hips up and find friction against the warmth between Renjun’s thighs, if he wanted to. He does want to. It’d be so easy.

God. What is he, a teenager? Mark forces his breaths to even out. He’s better than this. He has to be better than this. And just when he thinks this whole calming himself down thing might be working, Renjun reaches between their bodies and teases a hand over the tented waistband of Mark’s sweatpants.

“Oh fuck,” Mark exhales against his mouth, grabbing his wrist.

Renjun’s eyes are blown wide and dark when Mark pulls back to look at him. “What,” he says. “You don’t want me to?”

“No, I just—” Mark screws his eyes shut. He can’t believe this is happening. He sort of thinks he should pinch himself, except he doesn’t actually want to wake up. “You don’t have to do anything, you know, I don’t want you feel obligated to take care of it just because we’ve been… you know…”

“Making out?” Renjun finishes for him. A flush rises to Mark’s cheeks. “I know I don’t have to do anything. But I want to. Is that somehow unbelievable to you?”

Mark tries and fails to suppress a shudder. Yes, he thinks desperately. Yes, it is. Renjun is beautiful. And he’s more dedicated, more hardworking, more talented than anyone Mark has ever known. He’s the best thing to happen to Mark’s music in a long time, he’s the best thing to happen to Mark in a long time, period, and how could he want Mark when he could have almost anyone else?

“I want to do this for you,” Renjun continues, voice low and steady. “I want you. Do you understand?”

No, Mark thinks. “Yes,” he says hoarsely, sitting there with his heart pounding, dick painfully hard. It feels like a dream, watching Renjun lower himself until he’s framed between the gap of Mark’s thighs. He can’t lie and say he hasn’t dreamt of it before—of a small hand, of dark lashes peeking up at him through cotton-candy pink bangs—but normally, he’d wake up before things ever got a chance to get this far.

Renjun pushes the hem of his shirt up, his breath fanning hot over the tensed muscles of Mark’s abdomen. Mark is torn between screwing his eyes shut and keeping them wide open, because on one hand he would hate to miss the way Renjun’s mouth parts instinctively, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, as he pulls out Mark’s cock. On the other hand, he thinks the sight might actually kill him. All Mark can do is throw his head back and groan at the sheer relief of finally being touched—and stare, hypnotized, as Renjun drags a hand up his length.

And speaking of staring, Renjun is looking very intently at him, his eyes hooded and somehow even darker than before. It’s not like dicks are the most beautiful things in the world or anything, so Mark is almost a little self-conscious about it. Then he bends, tongues at the head of his cock and whimpers low in his chest, pulls the same sound out of Mark as he sinks down deeper. Deeper. He doesn’t stop until his nose is pressed against the hair at the apex of Mark’s thighs. Mark is in so much trouble. His pulse beats a rapid-fire pace.

It’s been so long since Mark’s been touched like this—it almost doesn’t matter what Renjun does. Any way he touched Mark would have him burning up in an instant, a candlewick burst of flame. But he touches him unrelentingly, careful consideration in each swipe of his tongue, each flutter of his throat.

I want to do this for you. I want you. Do you understand.

Renjun’s bangs fall into his eyes; without thinking, Mark threads gently through his hair to hold it back, curling his fingers behind the back of his head. It’s silky, despite all the bleach. Renjun makes what sounds like a soft noise of gratitude, but his concentration never lets up. It takes Mark all the effort in the world not to let his hips move; not to follow the almost primal need to bury himself deeper in the warmth of Renjun’s mouth.

He slips up—it’s too easy to get lost in the sensations of it all. Renjun swallows around him, hollows his cheeks, and even if Mark only lets his self-control slip for a fraction of a second, that’s long enough for his hips to jerk up. Renjun makes what sounds like a choking noise, eyes watering. But still, he doesn’t pull off.

“Sorry,” Mark says hastily, thumbing at the tears gathering at the corners of Renjun’s eyes. His voice is winded, like he’s just run a marathon. “Fuck, sorry, I—”

He trails off as Renjun glares up at him through his lashes, fiercely indignant, which is appealing in its own way too. Mark has problems. A lot of them begin and end with the way Renjun moves his head up and down, working him with long, flat strokes of his tongue. Like he’s savoring it. Like he’s enjoying it.

Mark is amazed. Mark’s head is full of static, and he can’t stop forgetting to breathe, which is a problem when he feels like his body is not his own suddenly. His heart isn’t his own. “Wait—Renjun, wait,” he breathes, frantic, barely coherent with lust. Even as he says wait, pushing at Renjun’s shoulder, he thrusts deeper into Renjun’s mouth. A living, breathing contradiction; his body feels full of mixed signals. “I’m gonna come if you don’t—”

Renjun finally pulls off, just for a moment. “Good,” is all he says. Almost seems smug about it. And with that, he leans in again and sucks the crown of Mark’s cock back into his mouth.

Mark groans, grabs a loose fistful of Renjun’s hair again and screws his eyes shut. He’s so eager now that Mark’s just told him he’s close; his throat relaxed and open and his mouth silk-soft and his chin wet with spit. Like this, he can feel every wet slide of Renjun’s tongue curling against the underside of his cock, can hear every obscenely slick sound as Renjun swallows him down like a man dying of thirst.

He comes like a teenager, without any buildup. He gets it everywhere; spilling across Renjun’s tongue, Renjun’s hand, Renjun’s cheek, Renjun’s shirt. And still, Renjun does not let him rest until he’s fully spent, until he’s shaking, exhausted, trembling in the aftermath. He eases off with one last teasing lick to the tip of Mark’s softening cock. Then he rises to his feet, leans over for a kiss, lets Mark taste himself on his tongue as he wipes his hand off on Mark’s sweatpants.

Mark’s cheeks burn. “Oh my god,” he mumbles against Renjun’s mouth, once he’s certain his voice won’t fail him. He can’t believe that just happened. He needs—

He needs his notebook. Music, chord progressions, pieces of lyrics. They all fill his head.

Renjun gives him a disbelieving look as Mark reaches off to the side, hand scrabbling for his composition book. “I’ve never had this happen before,” he says. “Is my mouth really that inspiring?”

“Yes,” Mark replies, absent of irony. He’ll make it up to Renjun later, if he’s willing. “Have you seen my pen anywhere?”

🎵

They do make it to bed eventually. Mark wants to return the favor, and Renjun is more than willing, so he does, tenfold. Renjun’s thighs squeeze around his head and tremble and when that happens Mark just licks deeper into him. Slow, unhurried, until Renjun says more. Mark is horrified to find that the box of condoms in his nightstand is expired. Has it really been that long? “We don’t have to,” he says. There will be a next time. And even if there’s not a next time, Mark thinks he’s probably already used up all his good luck for the rest of his life.

Renjun rolls onto his stomach and slides a finger into himself. “I’ll give you ten minutes,” is all he says. It’s an empty threat, but Mark still scrambles to pull on a shirt and runs to the convenience store two blocks over. He makes it back in record time.

When they kiss again this time it’s strangely soft; all giggles and bumping noses. There’s not an ounce of tension left in Renjun by the time Mark slides home. He’s pliant and pink all the way down his chest, and Mark can’t believe anything feels this good. Renjun is so absurdly tight Mark thinks there’s no way all of him will fit. But he does. Renjun’s cock drools messily against his own stomach as he claws down Mark’s back, lifts his hips up to take him deeper, deeper, deeper still. He’s noisy in bed but the only word he manages to say consistently is please and Mark takes that to mean he’s probably doing a pretty good job.

Renjun’s voice is absolutely wrecked by the time he comes, thighs clenching tight around Mark’s waist. “Mark,” he rasps, breaking off into a moan. Mark’s headboard knocks against the wall. “Mark.” His name sounds like a song in Renjun’s mouth.

And at this point it’d take little more than a gentle breeze to get Mark to come, he’s so worked up. Renjun forcing him onto his back and grinding down into his lap, in very much the same position that started this entire mess, has his stomach tightening and his brain whiting out.

“Say my name,” he demands, and clenches down with purpose, and of course Mark obliges. Says it again and again and again, and then once more for good measure, before Renjun is leaning down to steal the sound from between his lips.

In the afterglow, Mark reaches again for his notebook. Renjun gives him an incredulous look. “What? I have to strike while inspiration is hot,” Mark defends himself.

“You’re ridiculous,” Renjun says, two parts exasperated and—Mark catches it, even if just barely—one part fond. He drapes himself over Mark’s back under the pretense of helping him figure out lyrics, humming into his ear sweet and soft and low. And then he abandons all pretense about fifteen minutes in, and knocks Mark’s notebook off the side of the bed like a cat staring very deliberately at its owner while it pushes a glass or something equally fragile, equally breakable, off a table. He drags Mark down back on top of him and mouths at the shell of his ear, says— ”Kiss me again.”

Mark does a lot more than kiss him. With his remaining brain capacity he thinks—people have written songs about this. People have written songs about you. And if they haven’t, they should.

The final draft of their song gets finished just one week after they fuck for the first (second, third) time. Mark hasn’t counted how many times they’ve fucked since the first night. They’re in bed, ironically, and Renjun is naked save for Mark’s sheets wrapped around his own body. He’s leaned back against Mark’s similarly bare chest, sitting between his thighs. As he reads the lyrics, he squints, following each word with the pad of his pointer finger. “This is really good,” he says, finally. Mark hums into his shoulder sleepily. “You think this is the one?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, dazed. Something about Renjun is different today, but he’s not sure what it might be. “This is the one. We did it.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything, but he turns around to kiss Mark, slow and sweet. Mark is hard against Renjun’s hip, but there’s no sense of urgency. No rush. It’s dangerous, mostly because Mark thinks he could get used to this, and he probably shouldn’t get used to it.

Only after they part does the realization hit Mark. He blinks, thumbs across the width of Renjun’s neck, mottled with bruises. “You’re not wearing your necklace,” he says.

“No,” Renjun agrees. There’s a quiet, secretive smile on his face. “I’m not.”

🎵

Forty-eight hours before Citrine’s first album is set to release, Renjun and Donghyuck make the front page of Dispatch.

Mark is sitting in Chenle’s car when he gets the alert. The picture is one of those dark, grainy ones. But even in the low light and limited pixels, Renjun’s slight frame and bright pink hair are unmistakable. There’s a clearer one on the next page of Renjun sliding into the passenger seat of Donghyuck’s car. He can just barely make out the expression on Donghyuck’s face—it’s one Mark recognizes very well—the kind of slightly dazed look people get when hit with the full force of Renjun’s overwhelming charm. The redness at the tips of his ears is familiar, too.

Yeah, Mark thinks. I get it. I guess that doesn’t disappear, even with time.

Part of him wishes he could see Renjun’s face too. The other part of him, the cowards’ part, is thankful he’s facing away from the camera. The article spread looks like a dating reveal, he thinks, and it makes him laugh, and then it makes him feel sick. The lightness slides right off his face.

No less than ten seconds later, Doyoung calls. God, he moves fast. “I got the notification,” Mark says to him by way of greeting. “Did he tell you he was going to meet up with Donghyuck?”

Doyoung makes a dying man’s noise. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t.” Not only did Renjun not tell Mark he was going to meet up with Donghyuck, he’d gone out of his way to hide it from him. Mark still has the text on his phone—of Renjun canceling their plans for the night. I’m feeling a little under the weather, but I’ll see you tomorrow? Like an idiot, Mark believed him. Like an even bigger idiot, Mark had soup delivered to his doorstep. He wonders now if contentment was always meant to feel like such a trap.

He can feel hands in his hair now every time he closes his eyes. It’s getting debilitating.

There must be a reason Renjun didn’t tell him he met up with his—whatever Donghyuck was to him. Something between a best friend and a soulmate and a lover and an ex-bandmate. Mark just can’t think of one right now. Doyoung hangs up with a warning—don’t talk to anyone from the media, he says sternly. Mark doesn’t need to be told twice.

“You’re jealous,” Chenle laughs. It comes off as mostly nonjudgmental—Chenle’s seen and heard a lot worse than Mark.

Mark’s smile turns tight anyway. “You think so?”

“I know so.” It’s been months since the last time he saw Chenle. He’d spent some time in and around the Mediterranean, and he looked like it. He picked Mark up for dinner earlier that evening with saltwater-damaged hair (not pink anymore) and a truly incredible farmer’s tan. The color looked good on him. Mark asked what he was doing there, and Chenle just sort of waved his hand and said—business, don’t worry about it. “It’s cute. Your crush, I mean. Sorry for jinxing it when I called last time.”

“You didn’t jinx it,” Mark says. He was doomed from the start, with or without Chenle’s offhand comment. “And it’s not a crush.”

Chenle hums. “Then what is it?”

Mark wonders what might happen if he just told the truth. I think I might be in love with him. Chenle wouldn’t judge. He’s the kind of person Mark wishes he could be sometimes, because Chenle is confident and straightforward and probably hasn’t felt jealous of anyone a day in his life.

Love is a heavy word. Mark is a weak man.

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” Mark asks instead of answering. He feels a little disconnected from his body, like he’s surfaced from a dream after falling asleep unexpectedly. He stares blankly out the window. “Is it because he had something to hide? Or did he think it didn’t matter?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Chenle replies, voice steady. “Only he can.”

Maybe it doesn’t matter either way. Mark was just assuming, this whole time, that sharing a bed might mean something more than it actually was.

They see an LED billboard with Renjun’s face on it as they pass Coex. A two-meter tall Renjun smiles blankly, prettily, dressed up in a cream sweater and holding a bottle of face cream next to his cheek, all framed up against a bright blue backdrop. It suits him well—this picture perfect, larger than life, untouchable image.

It’s a beautiful picture of him—you’d have to actively try to get a bad photo out of Renjun—but the billboard Renjun bears very little resemblance to the Renjun Mark has come to know. Mark has mapped the curve of that half-meter smile with his tongue, and he likes it a lot better in its actual size. It’s as easy to appreciate his beauty all dressed up as it is to appreciate his beauty all dressed down, and even easier to appreciate his beauty when he wears nothing at all, his sharpness softened by the imprint of Mark’s pillow in his cheek. A fading bruise hid just out of sight, below the collarbone. Hyperpigmentation from old blemishes dotting his jawline.

The billboard passes as they drive. Mark continues to stare. He watches the crowd ebb and flow, watches the change of lights, the steady stop-and-start rhythm of traffic. Buses weaving in and out of lanes, a cyclist running through a puddle and sending a wave of muddied water at the window. Mark barely even flinches; he’s too busy waiting for a text that doesn’t come. Flicks his phone on, then off. Does it again. And again, until finally he stops doing it at all.

Later that evening, after Mark is back home, Koreaboo releases: “Fifteen times Dream’s Haechan and Citrine’s Renjun were total #FRIENDSHIPGOALS.” (Number two on the list is the matching rings.) A gossip vlogger with a grudge uploads a Youtube video entitled, The REAL Reason Renjun was Kicked Out of SM, which speculates the following: Renjun refused to go along with company-mandated fanservice, and it led to a fallout with Haechan so severe that SM had no choice but force him to leave the group. It also speculates, among other things, that Renjun had ties to the Chinese government and was committing espionage, that Renjun had been secretly dating a moderately famous actress he made eye contact with once at an awards show three years ago, and that he might have been involved in underground drug trafficking.

It’s a bleak day for journalism, though it’s a stretch to call Kpop listicles or conspiracy videos journalism. It’s almost funny that they both got things so wrong in different ways. He downvotes and reports the video and scrolls past the trending hashtags on Twitter full of fans asking for a Dream reunion, or at least a collab.

Renjun did say, back then, that Mark reminded him of Donghyuck. It’s possible that Mark was just a replacement for what Renjun couldn’t have; the next-best thing. Everyone is temporary, Mark hears in Renjun’s voice as he buries his face into his pillow. And everyone leaves.

You wake up in the morning one day, and—poof. Gone. Everything, gone.

🎵

Mark comes face to face with Lee Donghyuck under the cold, fluorescent lights of the men’s restroom less than a day later. He enters just as Mark turns off the tap, hands still dripping with water.

Right, Mark thinks, looking over his shoulder with a grimace. They’re here, too.

Citrine was asked to perform at this festival just under two weeks ago, after another artist had to drop out last minute. It was a big deal for rookies, but then again—they weren’t really rookies. One way or another, Mark had conveniently forgotten until this moment that Dream were headlining. Funny that he’d run to the bathroom like an idiot to avoid speaking to Renjun for a few minutes, only to run into the one other person he didn’t want to see. Funny, too, considering he’d spent the last 16 or so hours of his life thinking about Donghyuck and Renjun in that fucking car. Wondering if they just talked, or if Renjun was confessing his long-hidden love, or if maybe Renjun had gotten on his knees for Donghyuck the same way he’d gotten on his knees for Mark. Wondering if Donghyuck returned the favor the same way Mark did; wondering if Renjun liked it better than he had with Mark.

It strikes him suddenly that these are stupid, jealous thoughts, and that he has no right to be jealous over something so trivial. Renjun is his own person. He doesn’t belong to Mark. It also strikes him that he is dripping water all over the floor, and that he’s been staring at Donghyuck for close to half a minute now.

“Hi,” he says, short and clipped.

It’s a disgustingly humid day. Up until an hour or so ago, it’d been raining. Even despite the product in his hair, Donghyuck’s hair has gone frizzy. It makes him look soft; Mark momentarily forgets some of his resentment as Donghyuck sidles up to the sink next to him, fluffing his hair in the mirror.

“Hey, Mark,” he greets, like they’ve been best friends all their lives.

Mark really isn’t sure what to say after that. If he has to say anything at all. Outer space would be easier to navigate than this. He should probably just go. He nods at Donghyuck, gives a barely-there bow just to be polite, and turns to dry his hands.

“Wait,” Donghyuck says. “I just wanted to thank you.”

Mark turns his face away, tightening his jaw, then back to Donghyuck. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “For what?”

“For being there for Renjun,” Donghyuck says. Mark hates that he can tell he means it earnestly. He hates that just from talking to Donghyuck for all of five seconds, he can understand what Renjun sees in him. He has this presence, this charisma; a gravitational pull far beyond even that of a normal idol, because it felt personal. Like he’d probably remember your mother’s name, or your birthday, or your favorite type of candy. Probably would ask you how your day was and really mean it, too. “We talked some things out yesterday. It sounds like he’s really lucky to have you.”

In any sky there has to be a sun. It makes sense that Donghyuck could be that for many people.

Steps echo just outside the restroom. Voices ebb and flow as people pass. Mark’s ears are ringing. “Just talked?”

A knowing little smile flits onto Donghyuck’s face as he runs fingers through his hair. It’s still partially stiff with gel, mussed only by the gentle grasp of his own hands. He’ll probably get scolded later, though Mark would be surprised if he didn’t somehow find a way to talk his way out of it. “Just talked,” he confirms. “I’ll spare you the details for now. If you want to know what we talked about, you can ask Renjun.”

“Okay,” Mark says quietly. His mind spins. “Maybe I will.”

Donghyuck falls silent for what feels like a long time. When he speaks up again, his voice is barely a whisper. “Take care of him for us,” he says. “Would you? Please.”

For a moment Mark’s brows knit together. Then his features relax as his gaze drags across Donghyuck’s face. “I will. It would probably help if you guys weren’t so cold to him when our schedules overlap.”

“You’re talking about Jaemin, right?” Donghyuck snorts. “That guy’s got the worst attitude of anyone I’ve ever met. He felt blindsided when Renjun left. We all did. It’s no excuse, but he’s hard to get along with sometimes. In the end, I think he was the most hurt by Renjun leaving.”

“You weren’t hurt?”

“I was. But after the hurt passed, I started to think there probably had to be a good reason Renjun decided to leave. He wouldn’t have done that for no reason, you know? But Jaemin is… he hasn’t quite gotten there yet. And Jeno is just naturally non-confrontational.” Donghyuck’s next inhale is shaky, like he has to fight to let the air into his lungs. “Of course we were hurt—we love him. We all do. How could it not hurt?”

Mark considers this carefully. “Did you ever tell him that?”

“That we love him?” Donghyuck blinks. “He knows we do. He knew it then, too.”

It’s an easy trap to fall into, Mark supposes. Complacency. Assuming people understand how you feel, or assuming they just feel the same way you do. The need to communicate doesn’t magically dissipate into thin air just because you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time together. There’s always some effort required.

He and Donghyuck will probably never be friends. But Mark could probably stand to cut him some more slack. He’s still a little sore about possibly being next-best Donghyuck—but if Renjun thinks they’re similar, it feels more like a compliment than anything else. He can see them getting along under different circumstances.

Who knows? In another world, maybe they could’ve been friends. Maybe they could’ve made music together.

“Sometimes…” Mark starts, trying to be mindful of his word choice. “Even if you know something, it’s nice to hear it. I think he would have liked to hear that from you. I think he still would.”

Donghyuck perks up at that. “Really?” he asks. There’s so much hope in his voice you’d think Mark just told him something much greater than what he really did. “You think he would? Even now?”

“Yes,” Mark says, eyeing the silver glint of the band around Donghyuck’s ring finger. “Even now. Especially now.”

🎵

Mark is restless. He thought he’d have gotten all these nerves out of his system when he came face to face with Donghyuck, but while things seem clearer than they did before they’re also more confusing. He’s still nervous, like he’s about to go on stage for the first time, like he’s about to face a flurry of cameras again.

Renjun seems perfectly relaxed in their dressing room. His bangs are clipped back; he’s scrolling through an article on his phone and humming the song that they wrote together. Mark wonders—idly, pathetically—if there’s anything that could ever stop him from recognizing Renjun’s voice amidst any cacophony of sound.

He looks up as Mark enters; his entire face shifts from resting neutrality to something fond, gloriously light. “Hi,” he says, rising to his feet. “Are you done avoiding me now?” He’s teasing. Mark’s shoulders flatten in relief.

“Yeah,” Mark says. He drags in a long, slow breath, and finally turns to meet Renjun’s gaze head-on. He’s suddenly standing much closer than he was before. “I, uh. Ran into Donghyuck. In the bathroom.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He said that you guys… just talked the other day.”

The careful neutrality in Renjun’s eyes wavers, though the amused curve of his mouth doesn't. “Did he tell you what we talked about?”

Mark doesn’t respond yet. He’s still a little hurt, a little disoriented, a knot of disorganized emotions pulling tight in his chest. “He told me I should ask you.” And then, “I was hurt. That you didn’t tell me you were going to meet him. Or I guess it would be better to say that I was worried, I guess, I just didn’t think you would hide something like that from me. I didn’t want to find out through Dispatch. Not that you always have to tell me who you see, or anything, I get that it has nothing to do with me—”

“Nothing to do with you?” Renjun huffs in amusement, running a hand through his hair. Mark is too lost in the frantic rush of his own pulse to fully appreciate the sight. “Mark. It has everything to do with you.”

Mark hesitates. He only realizes once Renjun reaches out to curl slender fingers around his wrist that he’d been clenching his hands into fists. “What do you mean?” His voice catches in the depths of his throat and comes out hoarse.

“I asked Donghyuck to meet to clear the air, because I realized I didn’t want to just use you as a crutch,” Renjun explains carefully. “I had to face my own problems eventually, right? This was something I felt like I had to do on my own to stand on equal footing with you.”

Mark blinks. Bites his lip, blinks again to will away the sudden stinging at the back of his eyes, because this isn't what he anticipated. This isn't what he planned. “I never thought you were using me as a crutch.”

“Maybe not consciously,” Renjun says, shaking his head. “But I was. I can’t hide behind you and ask you to solve all my problems for me forever. It’s not how a relationship works. If we have a future together—and I think we do—I have to be able to stand on my own and face my past, whatever that means.”

“So you two… You didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

Mark tries for a laugh, tries to play it off, but his voice cracks instead. “I don’t know. I thought you were going to rekindle things with him. I thought maybe you were second-guessing leaving them just to be put in a group with me—”

The laughter that rises from Renjun’s voice is trembling in disbelief. “Why would you think that? This is—you are—the best thing to happen to me in a long time.”

“There are other people who are better than me— Other people who can give you more—” Mark says, strained. “Renjun, Donghyuck loves you, they all do.” He goes still, falls silent. The moment stretches on, suspended.

“Are you really going to make me say it?” Renjun’s voice is quiet, a touch bashful. His hand is warm where it makes contact with Mark’s skin. “I like you, Mark. I might even love you. And I’ll always love them, too, but it’s different with you.” His smile is warm and soft and beautiful and If this was a fansign—if this was a concert, a variety show, just a V LIVE—there would have been pictures of it all over the internet within seconds. This, though, feels like an expression just for Mark.

He looks and sounds like a dream. Mark desperately wants to pinch himself. He doesn't dare speak, but he has to. “I might love you too,” he croaks, even though he knows it’s a sure thing. It’s terrifying to say the stronger word. His ears are ringing, like he’s just dunked his head into a pool and failed to shake all the water out properly. “It’s not just because I remind you of him?”

Renjun shakes his head again, vehemently this time. “No. You are your own person. And you two might have similar energy, but you couldn’t be more different otherwise. I like you for you. So stop worrying about other people. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no one better than you out there.”

All the doubt, all the hurt—it sloughs away in an instant. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” Mark says. He feels a tug at the small of his back, then arms closing in around his waist.

“I’m sorry I gave you room to doubt me at all,” Renjun replies. Mark opens his mouth to protest, gets interrupted by a pinch to his side. “No, stop. I should know by now that some things have to be said clearly, even when it embarrasses me to say them out loud. I probably shouldn’t have jumped your bones before establishing that I had feelings for you.”

“It’s okay,” Mark says, pressing his face into the side of Renjun’s neck. He smells good. Like morning dew and fresh citrus. He pulls him in close, as close as their bodies will allow, and it’s still not close enough. “I enjoyed it.”

Renjun pulls back a little, enough that he can catch Mark’s gaze and hold it. Mark might be used to the attention of an audience, but having that kind of attention leveled on him coming from someone like Renjun sends a whole different thrill racing up his spine, curling into his chest, where his pulse is skyrocketing. Renjun presses their foreheads together, even as his cheeks redden, and murmurs, “Well, good. You’re going to have to get used to it now.”

Mark is never going to be used to it. He hopes it always feels exactly like this—the thrill, the giddiness, like a small piece of sunshine stored and kept away just for himself. “Are you sure you aren’t just using me for my body, then?”

“Shut up and kiss me already,” Renjun huffs, exasperated.

This time when he leans forward, it’s a conscious decision. Renjun meets him halfway; his hands slide up from where they’ve settled on the small of Mark’s back, working their way up until they’ve settled around the nape of his neck, tugging at the open collar of his shirt that the stylists had painstakingly pressed flat just this morning. It goes without saying that they’ve kissed before this, but it’s never been so good. It’s never been so real. His brain shuts down, caught in the flow of it, of Renjun’s mouth slotted over his and his hands on his neck.

“I didn’t think we would ever get here,” Mark admits once they part, touching his forehead to Renjun’s. Here, meaning, physically here, their first album on the way and soon to perform in front of fans. Real fans, of both of them, not just one or the other. And here, meaning, together. Partners in every sense of the word. “I hoped, but I—”

Renjun laughs, half-broken, half-amused, and kisses him again, his tongue swiping across Mark’s parted lips. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was hoping for the same thing?”

“Honestly? No.” Mark exhales weakly. “You’re kind of amazing, you know?”

Renjun rolls his eyes. “I know. You’re kind of amazing too, though.”

“I’m not—”

“You are,” Renjun insists. His tone leaves no room for argument. “You taught me it was okay to let people in. You’re the best thing that ever happened to my music, which is everything—and you gave me my second chance. Don’t you have any idea how much that means to me?”

It strikes Mark just how far they’ve come. Two boys. A dream, realized. They’re going to make music. They’re going to do it together. It’s a simple dream, maybe, but it’s still theirs.

“Aw, shucks,” Mark says. “Well when you say it like that…”

Renjun groans. “I’m going to ignore that you just said that. We have about ten minutes before Doyoung barges in here looking for us, so—”

“Let’s make the most of it then,” Mark says, grinning, and leans in again.

🎵