Archive of Our Own

If it had been Mark's choice, he would currently be at home in his pajamas staring at his laptop screen while episodes of whatever anime Chenle had last recommended him run one after another until he falls asleep.

Renjun had been adamant about dragging him out of his house for the night, though, as much as he knew how much the latest investigation was driving him up the wall.

"Drinking isn't going to stop innocent people from being killed," Mark had said over the phone, but he already knew the battle was lost when he had answered Renjun's call in the first place.

"Neither is laying alone in your dark, depressing apartment stressing over a case that won't be solved overnight," he had thrown back at him without missing a beat, far too casual for his liking. Sometimes it seemed like he was the only person who truly appreciated the value of a human life in his office, but he isn't about to wax philosophical to a bunch of other late twenty-somethings who only cared about what time their shift ended. He knows when his words are falling on deaf ears.

Renjun picks him up in his flashy muscle car, and Mark is grateful that he apparently isn't in the mood to lecture him for being a hermit like he usually does. The volume of the car reaches painful levels when Chenle and Jisung climb in, and Mark chooses to mentally check out at that point.

He's pretty sure the staff at Neo Zone are on a first-name basis with nearly everybody in their department at this point. It's one of those restaurants slash clubs with private booths, allowing their large groups to be as loud as possible without bothering the other patrons.

Jungwoo smiles at him when they enter, and the knot that's been in his chest ever since he had left the crime scene that morning loosens—just a little, but it's enough. They've hardly ever shared more than a few lines between themselves, but his presence always manages to ease the tension in his shoulder somehow.

He seats them at their usual booth, sliding menus around the circular table with practiced ease. There are three more than are people currently present though, and it's less than five minutes before the rest of the party shows up.

"Ooh, Renjun convinced the maknae to come out for once!" Johnny teases, settling in between himself and Chenle. He doesn't grace Johnny with a response, instead choosing to just roll his eyes.

"I still don't believe Mark is the youngest employee in the office," Jaehyun says, taking a seat. "He acts at least ten years older than all of us."

"I might as well be," he mutters to himself. Johnny overhears it anyway, laughing way too loudly in response and draping a heavy arm across his shoulders. Mark really has no idea what he could be so jovial about, but he suffers through his goofiness silently like he always does.

At some point while he's engrossed in a conversation Chenle and Renjun are having about a recent orchestra concert they had seen together, the last member of their group walks in—at least, he had only been expecting one other person. Ten waggles his fingers at them from across the restaurant, and the only thing more distracting than the way the rings on his fingers reflect the light is the stranger his arm is linked with.

What immediately draws Mark's attention is the hint of dark eye shadow around his eyes, giving him a somewhat mature look. Ten introduces him as Donghyuck once they're seated, one of the models he works with on the runway. Mark can see it if he stares for long enough; he definitely isn't the most conventionally attractive person, but he has to admit that he is attractive.

The second thing he notices is the odd strain of his voice, not unlike the uncomfortable buzzing of a guitar string that isn't quite touching its fret correctly. Mark thinks it's grating after the first few words that come out of his mouth, but as the night wears on, he finds that it's charming in its own way. He laughs just as loudly as Johnny and talks just as much as Chenle, and Mark's only a little jealous when he effortlessly charms Jungwoo when he comes to take their drink orders as well.

Between the overflowing extraversion at the table and his own somber mood, it's easy to let the dim lights and loud voices fade to a blur as images of the day begin to float around his head. It had been a student who had found him dead. A janitor had given him the room key to retrieve a forgotten notebook that he needed for an upcoming test the next day, and the rest was history.

Jaehyun's autopsy report had named drug overdose as the cause of death, but there was no evidence to indicate it had been self-induced—and that, Mark thinks, was the only reason they had called him in.

He remembers walking onto the scene of the crime; a chemistry classroom on the second floor of a nearby highschool, completely ordinary save for the cooling corpse rotting in the chair of the teacher's desk, posed as if he was grading a stack of papers and his pulse hadn't stopped days ago.

It's the third case like this they've had in the last year; long-dead corpses repurposed to be dolls in a dollhouse. Upper management made the executive decision not to release the killings to the public just yet, but among those working on the case, they had dubbed the killer as the Puppetmaster. Mark thought it was a little kitschy, but until they had a suspect and a name, he had to roll with it.

The thing is, he's at just as much of a loss as anyone else working on the case. There are absolutely zero connections between any of the victims, save for the fact that they were all Seoul residents with otherwise completely normal lives: no debt, no mental illnesses, nothing. As much as he hates himself for even thinking it, the most he can do right now is wait for the killer to strike again and hope he slips up enough for Mark to start connecting the dots.

A particularly loud guffaw from Johnny shakes him from his thoughts. He looks up from where his eyes have been trained on the table to see Donghyuck looking at him with a curious expression. He flushes slightly at being caught staring, but instead of looking away, he offers a shy smile. It's cute. Cute enough for Mark to return it without thinking, and he thinks it's the first time he's smiled all day.

The clock strikes midnight when their party decides to move to the dancefloor on the second level. Normally this is where Mark would call a taxi for himself, but Donghyuck grabs his hand just as he's about to recite his 'I'm leaving, don't try and convince me to stay' spiel. He doesn't say a word, just gives him a look that's equal parts innocently pleading yet provocative, and the next thing he knows he's pressed up against too many warm and inebriated bodies.

Donghyuck, for his part, looks completely sober, which is a brownie point in his books. He laughs when Mark comments on it.

"I like to be aware of my surroundings," he justifies, and Mark agrees. He reaches a hand up to tug at the badge on his black trench coat. "So you're a police officer?" he asks, and it's definitely too loud to be having a conversation like this, but Donghyuck is so close and he doesn't really feel like moving.

"I'm a special consultant," Mark corrects. "A detective."

"Ah, I see," Donghyuck says before a playful smirk comes across his face. "A cop with extra flavor, then."

Mark would have been offended if it were anyone else, but instead he finds himself laughing. He's not exactly wrong, anyway.

It's been years since Mark has danced seriously. In another lifetime he might have pursued it seriously, if his leg injury hadn't come at the exact same time that his internship at the Bureau had decided to hire him full on. It wasn't often that students six months out of law school were added to the government ranks, and it certainly wasn't an opportunity he was about to turn down for the hardly-above-zero percent chance that an entertainment company took him in as a replacement.

He thinks he's retained a good portion of the skill he had accumulated during all those weekends he spent practicing with Sicheng and Yuta back in college, anyway, and Donghyuck looks appropriately impressed with what he's able to show off. Mark notes that he isn't so bad himself, and for an hour or two, he feels like that bright-eyed nineteen year-old from seven years ago who thought he was going to end all crime in Seoul.

They stumble out of the crowd together to the island bar, and he thinks it was pointless that all he had ordered was a tall glass of water, because Donghyuck's laughter makes him feel drunk anyway; or maybe it's the weirdly dizzying cologne he's wearing, reminding Mark of rainy afternoons and old, creaking trees.

"You're insane," he tells Mark. He's hanging off of his arm, head pressed into his shoulder while the last of his laughter bubbles out of him. "Seriously, I was a trainee at SM at one point and I've never seen anyone bust it down like you do."

Mark blushes at his phrasing, but he accepts the compliment. "What's an ex-SM trainee doing at a modelling company and getting drinks with a bunch of cops?"

"Nothing good, Detective, I'll tell you that much," he teases.

"Mark is fine," he says. Donghyuck's smile is so dazzling that his own words don't feel like they're coming out of his mouth. He's about to say something in response, but then they both hear Johnny's voice rising over the din, and immediately after he's stumbling out of the crowd holding Jaehyun and Renjun in what looks like more of a chokehold than what's probably meant to be a friendly shoulder hug.

"I think that's my cue," Mark says. He watches as Johnny trips over his own feet, dragging his captives down with him and causing a scene that might have been hilarious if Mark didn't know them. Donghyuck just nods, releasing his arm.

"Will I be seeing you again soon?" he asks.

It's been several years since Mark has been in a serious relationship, and he makes it a point to avoid one-night stands lest it become a problem. Donghyuck is pretty and fun to be around, but his resolve isn't going to break that easily.

"I'm not one to make promises I can't be sure I'll keep," he answers. Donghyuck freezes for a moment before smiling.

"Of course," he says, nonchalant, and Mark can't help but wonder if he's used to being rejected. "It was fun with you, for what it's worth."

"The feeling is mutual." Mark is surprised to find that he means it, too; he doesn't think anyone in their department has ever gotten him to loosen up like Donghyuck has tonight.

They don't exchange numbers before Mark leaves, shoving Johnny into Renjun's car unkindly and putting in his address into the GPS first. He's grateful that Renjun and Chenle are sober enough to get into the car by themselves, at least.

Putting Johnny to bed before he vomited all over himself proved far more exhausting than anticipated, so he and Chenle end up passing out on the floor of Renjun's bedroom when they manage to drag themselves into his apartment.

The last thing Mark sees behind closed eyelids before sleep overtakes him is tanned skin, dark eyeshadow, and cologne that reminds him of a home he's never lived in.

It's a week before the Puppetmaster strikes again. This time the body was left on an inflatable chair in the middle of a casino pool, sunglasses on and martini in hand. Her hair was done up flawlessly post-mortem, but this time the cause of death was far more violent than the previous. Her stomach is cut open, intestines trailing into the water like fleshy pool noodles. Even from a distance Mark can see that the incision was a clean one; something patient and deliberate, not the result of unrestrained anger. The pool water is tinged a light pink around her.

Back when he was just an intern, he really thought that seeing these kinds of things would get easier. It never did for him, but he definitely thinks he's mastered shoving down the queasiness that came with the job.

"She lived alone in a highrise apartment across the city," Renjun appears behind him. He puts a hand on Mark's shoulder, and even though Renjun is the least comforting person he works with, he appreciates the gesture anyway. "Johnny and the others are there now. It's a bloodbath, apparently."

Mark takes a deep breath and counts down from three before releasing it. "That's where I should be, then."

Completely expectedly, they don't learn anything from the woman's apartment aside from the fact that it was extremely minimalist, bordering on looking unlived in. The walls and all her furniture are a perfect, unassuming white, making the deep bloodstains on her bed sheets stand out just that much more.

Also, it's fucking freezing.

"Killer turned the AC as high as it can go," Johnny tells him with red cheeks.

"Well, now I just feel like he's fucking with us," Mark deadpans. Johnny agrees.

There's enough blood pooled on the bedsheets to produce a steady drip onto the carpet, long tendrils of red stretching out into the fabric. The pungent smell of iron permeates the room, but as Mark approaches the bed, he thinks he picks up on another scent just barely rising above it, tickling his memory. He thinks it was something earthy—maybe pinewood or petrichor? He has half a mind to chalk it up to his mind just making up things, but he notes it down in the report anyway.

The sun is setting by the time he leaves headquarters. He does a double take when he sees a familiar red coat exit from the other end of the lobby, and he locks eyes with a frowning Donghyuck. He looks distressed, almost harrowed, and Mark finds his gravitational pull is too much to ignore.

"Detective," Donghyuck greets. Mark doesn't like the way he doesn't even smile.

"Donghyuck," he returns. "What brings you here?"

"They wanted to interrogate me. A lady a floor below me was murdered in her room." He looks at the ground as he talks, and Mark can tell his hands are balled into fists in his pocket.

"I'm sorry," he tells Donghyuck. He looks up when Mark steps just a little too much into his personal space. "Maybe a drink would make you feel better?"

Donghyuck's response comes in the form of a mischievous smile slowly creeping onto his face, and there—there are those bright eyes he remembers from Neo Zone a week ago.

It's one of the more expensive cafés that Mark knows of, but he's feeling generous today. Or maybe it's just because he likes the way Donghyuck hangs off of his arm. Either way, he pouts when they approach the building.

"Ten got us kicked out of here once," he says.

"What? Why?"

Donghyuck tries to hide himself behind Mark as they enter anyway, but the waitresses are busy enough to hardly even mind their entrance. "He was drunk and wouldn't stop flirting with one of the waiters."

That's...objectively hilarious, Mark thinks. It's easy to imagine an inebriated Ten trying and failing to appear sexy to anyone but himself. He files it away as blackmail material for later, and lets their own waiter lead them to a cozy two-person booth far from the exit. It's an intimate arrangement, but the sparkle in Donghyuck's eye tells him that he wouldn't have it any other way.

Mark lets him talk away the evening, and it's not because he finds him attractive that he laughs at all of his jokes—not completely, anyway. He watches Donghyuck's tension from earlier completely slip out of his shoulders, and he finds that in the cafés gentle lighting and cozy atmosphere, he looks almost...soft. The Donghyuck from a week ago was full of sharp edges, from his makeup right down to the lilt of the words wrapped around his tongue. He knows how intimidating Jaemin can be when he's put on interrogation, and he's glad that Donghyuck's managed to shake it off so quickly.

Mark reaches out to touch him before he realizes what he's doing. Donghyuck's hand is warm from where it was holding his hot chocolate, the skin on the back of it unexpectedly soft. He turns his palm up after a moment's hesitation, sliding his fingers in between Mark's.

Mark kisses him on the cheek before he leaves. He had offered to drive him home, but Donghyuck was adamant on taking a taxi. They at least exchanged numbers this time, and Mark makes him promise to text him when he gets home.

"Clingy already, Detective?" he had cooed. Mark had blushed, but didn't bother denying it.

He sees Donghyuck a lot after that, and for a while Seoul's resident serial killer decides to take a break, too. Though he keeps it in the back of his mind, there really only so much he can do when absolutely nobody else in their department is able to put two and two together.

He's not sure if it's a good or bad thing that Donghyuck seems to do exceedingly well at taking his mind off of his work regardless. His eyes have trailed to the very beginning of Chenle's autopsy report for the third time when Renjun clears his throat loudly.

"Something on your mind, Mark?"

Oh, certainly. He's not sure how anyone could forget the feel of Donghyuck's lips on his throat, or just how low and gravelly his voice can get when he really wants to get under Mark's skin. So far, he's yet to resist giving him what he wants.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he answers, but he's never been good at lying anyway. Renjun lets out an annoyed sigh, as if he's the one who hasn't been able to focus on anything for the last two hours.

Mark hears his footsteps approach behind him, and suddenly his chair is being rolled away from his desk until it bumps into Renjun's. He then returns to his own chair, sitting opposite of him with his hands folded on the table and his brows furrowed. He glances suspiciously to either side of them as if they aren't the only two people in the office space, and his face suddenly lights up.

"So, who is it?" he asks coquettishly, and Mark is already kicking off the front of his desk to roll back to his own cubicle. "Come on!"

"Nobody!" he calls to him. He's glad that Renjun can't see the light blush on his face from where he's angled.

"I know you think nobody noticed, but everyone can see the hickey on your neck!" Renjun yells back, and Mark's hand flies to the side of his neck before he realizes that Donghyuck had put makeup over it before he left his apartment this morning. He tries to cover it up as an itch, but Renjun's triumphant a-ha! has already sealed his fate.

"Is it Ten-hyung?" Renjun asks once he's wheeled himself over to Mark's desk this time.

"No, oh my god," Mark immediately refutes, his face scrunching up in disgust.

"Johnny, then?" he presses, and Jesus Christ. Mark thought this was FBI HQ, not a highschool classroom. "Or maybe Jaehyun? I always felt like he had the hots for you."

"I really wish you would stop talking," Mark tells him. He sets the autopsy report down neatly with the other stack of papers on his desk, deciding that he really isn't going to get any more work done for the day.

Renjun senses his exhaustion and stands to grab both of their coats on the nearby rack. "Why don't we go for a walk?" he suggests. "Fresh air could do you some good. And I promise I won't bother you about it anymore." he finishes at Mark's dubious look.

It's out at the Han River's edge that he's reminded of all the reasons he entertains Renjun's antics. He was a pain in the ass at work, but anywhere else, he was extremely easy to talk to. He seemed to soak up all of Mark's stress in such a way that Mark doesn't even feel bad about taking his mind off of the lives at stake for once.

He still doesn't do any more paperwork when he gets back to headquarters, but at least his heart feels a little lighter about it.

After hours, Mark stops by a florist before heading to Donghyuck's apartment. He had moved from the previous complex, claiming it felt too weird living in a place so close to where someone was murdered. Mark understood completely.

"Wo-ow," he drawls once he opens the door for Mark. "I don't know, Detective; flowers? For me? Someone might think we were romantically involved or something,"

Mark wants to roll his eyes and shove them into his chest, but for once, he just decides to play along. "Oh, deary me, I can't believe I hadn't considered that before," he says, matching Donghyuck's flowery tone. "I guess I'll just have to go give them to someone else, then,"

Predictably, Donghyuck reaches out to take the flowers just as Mark turns to step away. He cups Mark's face with his free hand to kiss him, and Mark smiles into it, basking in the softness of his lips.

"Are you ready?" he asks once they've pulled apart, and Donghyuck nods.

The entrance to the art gallery is deceptively small and somewhat ominous, a downward sloping ramp that leads to two rusted metal doors. Donghyuck had mentioned it one night while the sweat was still cooling from their bodies; a quaint hangout spot only known to those who did—and Donghyuck, apparently, knew. He didn't want to go alone though, and though he hadn't asked Mark to accompany him, he had the date planned in his head from the moment the words left his mouth.

A well lit corridor stretches before them when Mark opens the doors, and eventually it dumps them out into a kind of mini-labyrinth.

"The artwork here might not immediately appeal to your senses," Donghyuck warns when the bouncer (?!) waves them through. "But it's the only place I know of where you can see more avant-garde works."

"Mainstream never caught your eye?" Mark asks. They stop at the first painting they see; authorless, it sort of looks like what the Garden of Eden might have looked like if you were having a fever dream and biological competition didn't exist.

"No, not me," Donghyuck says. "Back in art school, all they ever cared about were technical details—anatomy and color theory and this and that. That's not what interested me," he explains. His gaze has taken on a far-away look, but it clears away as soon as it appears. "What interested me is the feeling. Who cares what the author was trying to express when ultimately, all the audience can ever perceive is influenced by lives separated by an uncountable number of experiences and inexperiences? At that point interpretation is meaningless, and all that's left is feeling—the most baseline connection that can exist between two people. Isn't it just so beautiful? And the fact that that feeling can transcend life and death..."

He shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts, but the excitement in his eyes doesn't fade. He tugs on Mark's sleeve, and then they're moving.

The next one is a little more realistic, an oil piece in primarily yellow depicting two lambs resting in the grass with their eyes closed. It's a simple painting compared to the one before, but he'd be lying if he said there wasn't an odd quality to it that made it hard to tear his gaze away. There's something almost sinister about it that he can't place. Just like the previous one, its author goes unnamed.

"Have you ever considered how much of a person's humanity goes into a single brush stroke, Mark?" Donghyuck asks once they've moved past it, and Mark is caught off guard by the profoundness of it.

"I'm no artist, so I don't," he answers. Donghyuck shakes his head.

"Of course you are," Donghyuck counters. "You're a dancer, aren't you? The performance arts are as real as the visual are as real as the literary. But it's just as good an example. Maybe you don't even realize it, but every movement of your body contains an aspect so completely you that nothing else could ever match it. And here I am holding your hand like it's nothing," he raises both of their hands for emphasis, then drops it with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so…" He gestures vaguely with his free hand before eventually giving up on trying to find the right words.

"Hey," Mark murmurs, and Donghyuck looks up at him. There's only one other person in the gallery tonight, but they're not watching, so Mark presses a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Don't apologize. I want to hear what you have to say,"

For a few moments Donghyuck just looks at him with wide eyes. "There's just so much humanity in everything around us...sometimes it's overwhelming." he says sotto voce, and suddenly his gravitas seems stronger than ever, deep brown eyes threatening to swallow Mark whole. "Don't you ever feel that way? Like all the love in the world wants to eat you alive?"

Mark thinks about it. Feelings like love and hate have, for better or worse, escaped him for most of his life; but somehow he knows that those two words barely scratch the surface of what Donghyuck is trying to express.

"Maybe it's wrong of me to say," he starts, "But I always feel like I'm the only person who takes my job seriously. I know it's not true, but nobody else ever seems to get as...attached as I do, to each individual case. They don't really try to understand the life, the heart, the mind of a killer like I do. I'm the only person who gets close enough to even consider the murderer's humanity as much as the victim's." He pauses to take a breath, chest suddenly feeling tight of emotion.

The worst of it happened just over a year ago, when there had been a series of murders on the outskirts of Seoul. He hadn't told anyone lest he be branded a sociopath, but it had been the easiest case of his career; not because the killer was easy to track down, but because Mark had understood him. From the first time he had laid eyes on the crime scene—a young girl whose throat had been cut open, posed in the center of her family's own cattle that had been culled in a similar manner—he had just known. The killer's sympathetic cruelty had so easily touched his heart, for a split second he had wondered if he himself had been the one to clean off the blood from the girl's pale yellow dress and gently brush her hair behind her ears.

That case hadn't been too unlike his current one, actually. The only difference was the strain of sentimentality that seemed so obvious to Mark he wasn't sure why they had called him. It didn't take very long for him to realize that they didn't see what he saw, nor did they feel what he felt.

He had gone home that night and cried tears of guilt, wondering what it meant to be able to relate so easily to a cold-blooded killer, to share a connection so intimate with a person so malign.

"I've never tried to explain it to anyone, but there's just something so intimate about sifting through a crime scene, searching for any little detail or flaw that can link us back to another person. When it's your job to figure out what a killer was thinking, what he may have been feeling or hoping for, how long can you keep it up before you become what you're hunting?"

Donghyuck listens with rapt attention until the very end, and Mark doesn't know how he managed to maintain eye contact through the entirety of his little spiel. It feels like an eternity has passed by the time he finally speaks again.

"The only difference between your crime scenes and the art here is the medium; but ultimately, it's all the result of other people. If you're able to pick up on that, it means you're alive." He pauses for a moment to let his words sink in before continuing. "It doesn't make you evil to relate to a killer, Detective. It just makes you human."

His voice is warm as he says the last bit, gentler than Mark has ever heard it. He finds a bright smile creeping its way onto his face, and Donghyuck returns it. The catharsis of being seen and understood by a kindred spirit is one that Mark doesn't think can be paralleled.

As they explore the rest of the gallery together, Mark finds that none of the pieces here have an author listed; only dates and an occasional epithet. He's about to ask Donghyuck about it, but he changes his mind at the last moment. In a gallery as obscure as this one, the lack of proper accreditation only seems proper.

Otherwise, Mark tries really hard to see the rest of the paintings as Donghyuck does—that is, not focusing on any of the artistic skill or technical ability, but instead trying to simply experience them as they are.

For the most part, it escapes him. He's about to ask Donghyuck how he does it when his eye catches on what looks like a sheet of normal printer paper strung up using colorful yarn. On it depicts two riders on horseback traversing what he thinks is a beachfront—it's a little hard to tell what with the land blending in with the sky and the ocean, all of it very nearly monochrome in color.

Mark doesn't really know what it is, but something about the picture tugs violently at his heart strings. The scene looks so despairingly lonely, but the subjects still seem to have each other in their ghastly unplace, moving in unison towards an unknown destination.

"To know and be known is something precious," Donghyuck says, watching him blink away the tears welling up in his eyes. Mark is still feeling a little choked up, so all he does is nod.

The second they exit the gallery, all seriousness that had suddenly come over Donghyuck disappears, his usual playfulness returning full force.

"Would you ever show me your art if I asked?" Mark says once they're in the car.

Donghyuck shoots him a coy smile. "You think you haven't seen it already?"

"What? Back in the gallery? Which one?"

He just shrugs in answer, teasing, but Mark thinks he already knows which one of his pieces had been on display.

He orders takeout for the both of them at Donghyuck's apartment, and it's in a linen closet that's left ajar that Mark sees stacks of canvases piled on top of each other, taking up space on every available shelf.

Immediately visible atop the biggest stack is a finished painting. It takes Mark a several seconds to make out the mess of reds and yellows, but then a gorey scene makes itself apparent, shocking enough in its detail that Mark is startled backwards. He collides with something, and he turns around to find Donghyuck watching him with a blank expression.

"Sorry, I was just—"

"My art isn't a secret, Mark," he interrupts softly, offering an amused smile when Mark doesn't immediately relax. Donghyuck just pulls at the sleeve of his coat so they can go eat.

He ends up asking Mark to spend the night, so he does. He isn't interested in sex this time, instead content to just cuddle up to Mark until he falls asleep.

It takes a little while longer for Mark to succumb to sleep himself, but just before he does, he can't help but wonder about feelings that transcend life and death.

Falling in love with Donghyuck is so, so much easier than Mark could have envisioned. Whatever game of cat and mouse they had been playing in the beginning of their relationship has ended, and Mark finds that the comfort of being on equal footing is much more preferable to constantly being kept on his toes by Donghyuck's teasing.

Donghyuck still teases him, of course, but it's gentler; little quips here and there not meant to get on his nerves as much as they're meant to remind Mark that he's here with him, and he wants to stay. It's not a love language he speaks himself, but he can appreciate it regardless.

As the months wear on, he finds that beneath Donghyuck's veneer of extraversion lay an incongruously sensitive and romantic persona. Maybe it should have clicked when weeks after their trip to the art gallery Mark discovered that he had still been taking tender care of the bouquet he had bought him, but hey, whatever.

It really hits him sometime in early June, just a few days after they had celebrated Donghyuck's 24th birthday. Mark is lounging in his bed, watching Donghyuck work at one of the easels he set up in the corner of the room. The canvas is angled away from him, but he hasn't so much as glanced at Mark since he started working, so he knows he isn't the subject.

"I'm really glad you're here, you know," Donghyuck says suddenly, breaking the hour long silence they had going.

"Mm?" he questions, suddenly pulled out of a light doze.

"I mean...I think you're good for me. When you're here, it's easier for me to keep track of myself."

That catches Mark off guard. He shakes off the vestiges of sleep to sit up, and he notices that the way Donghyuck is angled, the light from the window lands perfectly on the canvas. Some of it spills onto his face, giving his profile a delicate yellow highlight that looks almost angelic.

"Is that something you have trouble with?" he asks. Donghyuck leans in close to his canvas, using a thin brush to put in detail work.

"Isn't it something you have trouble with?" he deflects, then shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I just mean...it feels like I don't have to justify myself around you," Then he finally turns to face Mark, and the way his eyes reflect the sunlight makes him look absolutely striking, like he's looking straight through his soul. "I don't even know where to begin explaining how cathartic that is."

Mark's heart swells, threatening to burst through his chest with affection. There's never been a point in their relationship where he's pretended to completely, wholeheartedly understand every part of Donghyuck, but he wants to. This is about as emotionally sincere as Mark's ever seen him, and that he trusts him enough with his feelings makes him feel elated.

Just as he's about to respond, his phone rings from the bedside dresser. It's Jaemin.

"I want you here at the office," he says before Mark can even say hello. "Apparently Jaehyun found something."

"About the Puppetmaster?"

Jaemin hums an affirmative. "Jaehyun thinks it's worth looking into. I want you for a second opinion."

It was supposed to be his day off, but boss's orders, he supposes. He promises to call Donghyuck once he's off, his goodbye kiss sweeter than what he normally offers.

The sun is gone by the time he makes it to the forensics office, a cold, lifeless space that he tries to avoid at all costs. Jaehyun beckons him over when they make eye contact. It looks like they're the only ones in the facility, with Jaemin standing somewhat off to the side wearing his usual vague scowl.

"I was looking over one of the crime scene reports from earlier in the year," Jaehyun starts, tugging him over to where a wrinkly bloodstained button-up is laying on the table. "I know you said that the petrichor smell was inconsequential, but the way you described it got me thinking—it seemed way too specific to be written off,"

He draws Mark's attention to a small, clear bottle set out on the table. It's cologne, and Jaemin finally steps forward to spray it on a sample paper and wave it in front of his face.

Almost immediately images of colorful lights and dark eyeliner flood his memory, strong enough to make him feel vertigo. Jaehyun pats him on the back.

"Too strong?"

Mark shakes his head, then nods. "It surprised me,"

"Our killer was wearing this cologne at the scene of the crime," Jaemin chimes in.

"And you know for sure it wasn't the victim's?"

Jaehyun nods. "Unless people are spraying cologne onto the tail end of their shirts, it's not likely."

It's easy for him to envision a soft spray of cologne rubbing off on clothing, especially if it was applied to the wrist. He'll run with it for now, but it's not exactly easy to track down a person based on what cologne they wear. The most they could do is find any stores that sell this specific make of cologne, but if their killer was smart he wouldn't be shopping anywhere near where they'd be able to track him down. He tells Jaemin as much.

"I'm sure you'll work something out," is all he says, and he knows that's code for Figure it out, because I'm not paying you to let killers run loose.

His mood is thoroughly soured by the time he makes it back to Donghyuck's apartment. He had almost texted him an excuse not to return for the night, but Mark knows that he owes him more than that.

The thing is, Donghyuck doesn't answer the door when he knocks, nor does he pick up the phone when he calls. Mark is confused; he had only been gone for an hour, and he can't imagine Donghyuck going to bed before midnight without him around to cuddle him.

There isn't much to be done though, so in the end Mark returns to his own apartment feeling uncomfortably on edge. While he lays in bed trying to fall asleep, soft notes of petrichor and pine dance torment his senses.

When he wakes up again, it's to the sound of a heavy downpour and a knocking at the door so sluggish he almost thinks he made it up.

Dragging himself out of bed to open it, he finds Donghyuck standing in Mark's black trench coat—had he forgotten it at his apartment?—completely drenched. His gaze is startlingly blank, and Mark doesn't waste time pulling him inside and peeling the clothes from his body on the way to the bathroom.

"What happened to you?" he asks, and Donghyuck slumps to the ground against the sink cabinets without a word, pulling his knees up to his chest. He's shivering violently. Mark leaves and comes back with spare clothes and a fresh towel and starts drying his hair gently.

"I just…I got restless," Donghyuck mumbles. "I missed you so much. You left your coat…"

Said coat is resting on the edge of the bathtub with Donghyuck's shirt and his pants. A small pool of water is forming on the tile where they drip.

He still looks completely out of it, and Mark knows when someone is too delirious to give any meaningful answers. Instead he just helps Donghyuck into dry clothes and tries not to freak out when he starts shedding quiet tears, whispering 'I love you,' over and over almost religiously while he stares blankly into his lap.

"I know, Donghyuckie. I know," Mark says, even though he knows he probably isn't getting through to him. He's still shivering, albeit slightly less now. He doesn't think it's from the cold anymore. "I love you, too."

He lets Mark lead him to bed, warming up his cold skin with his own body heat. He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillows, but Mark is still feeling a bit too harrowed to relax into unconsciousness just yet.

The digital clock on his bed stand glares quietly at him, a mocking 2:34 A.M. He doesn't fall asleep until the sun starts peeking over the horizon, and his bedroom takes on a deathly serene quality to it as pale orange light trails in through thin curtains. He can't understand the dread he feels at the day ahead, but it feels more real than anything else.

He opens his eyes around noon the next day, and Donghyuck is gone. He nearly falls out of bed with how quickly he tries to detangle himself from his blankets, and his hair stands on edge at how cold it is; the room feels like a total ice box.

He feels dizzy with relief when he realizes that he's just sitting on the floor in the opposite corner sketching something on a piece of loose leaf paper.

"Good morning," Donghyuck says, completely composed. His gaze travels to somewhere above Mark's eyes, and he smiles. "I love your curly hair."

"I'll maim you," he blushes, crawling over to sit beside him and draping an arm around his shoulder.

"Only do it if you mean it," he replies without missing a beat.

Donghyuck's hair is messy and there are still stress lines outlining his eyes that make him look older than he is. His face scrunches up when Mark kisses him on the cheek. It's horribly cold.

"Did you turn the AC on?"

Donghyuck's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh. I did, sorry. The cold just…it helps me calm down."

Mark stands to retrieve his blanket, wrapping it around both of them when he returns. "That doesn't sound healthy."

"I know it's not," Donghyuck frowns. He sets his pencil on the ground and sighs. "Listen, I'm sorry about last night. I just get that way sometimes. I go out, and...I just get lost. I make dumb decisions."

"Like getting caught in the rain?"

Donghyuck chuckles to himself. Mark gets the feeling it's not because of what he said. "Yeah. Like getting caught in the rain."

It's then that Mark's eyes travel down to the paper in Donghyuck's lap, braced on an old notebook from his desk. It's a messy sketch depicting a person slumped over what looks like a piano, their feet resting flat on the ground neatly and their head buried in their arms. A scratchy mess of blood pools beneath them, like Donghyuck had been holding the pencil in a fist to draw it, dark scribbles bruising the paper angrily.

Mark tries very hard not to feel any one way about it, and surprisingly, he succeeds. He leans in to brush his nose on Donghyuck's cheek until he turns his head and Mark can capture his lips in a kiss.

Jaemin calls him later that afternoon. The grimness of his voice is concerning, because Jaemin rarely has any vocal intonations that express anything other than vague disdain or straight up contempt.

"You're not gonna like what you find," he says, and Mark doesn't understand why he's being cryptic until he gives an address and his blood runs cold.

Renjun's apartment complex is a little more on the upscale end, and he's visited so often that he's on a first-name basis with the security guard at the gate. He doesn't look particularly welcoming right now though, all the color completely drained from his face while Jaemin talks to him, notepad in hand.

He doesn't bother stopping to greet them, instead following the trail of CSI staff to the complex's seventh floor. They're still taking pictures when he enters Renjun's apartment.

"Where is he?" he demands as soon as he spots Johnny.

"In the study," he tells Mark, and the goosebumps on his skin come more from the deadness in his voice rather than the freezing cold temperature of the apartment.

A massive, careless smear of blood runs from another room down the hall into the study, heavy in some areas and patchy in others. There are two rookie investigators there when he enters, and they flee the room wordlessly as soon as they see the look on his face.

Renjun always used to complain to him about never having enough time to practice piano. Like Mark, the joy of the performance arts had been shoved aside in order to pursue a career in criminal justice, for better or worse.

He wonders if the killer had known about how he still clung onto that old dream, because his body lay slumped over the keys of his grand piano, the fingers of one hand manually posed in the shape of what would have been a C, while his other arm hangs limply at his side. His eyes are wide open in surprise, pupils slightly dilated and glassy as they stare blankly at the wall.

He very nearly steps in the pool of blood trying to get nearer to him, but speaking candidly, contaminating the crime scene is the farthest thing from his mind right now. What troubles him instead is the fact that from the pitch of the blood smears on the carpet floor down to the few locks of hair sticking up from Renjun's head, the crime scene is a picture-perfect copy of the sketch Donghyuck had been working on earlier—that, and the faint smell of pine and petrichor emanating from Renjun's body.

Mark doesn't know why or how he doesn't panic. He doesn't know why he doesn't feel like throwing up, or even shedding tears for the death of his friend, as heartless as it sounds.

His phone feels heavy in his pocket, but somehow he knows that Donghyuck wouldn't answer even if he had called him and demanded, pleaded, or begged for an explanation. He doubts that he was even still at Mark's apartment—or maybe he was, and the drawing he had been working on had simply been a premature confession, and he was still waiting there for Mark to put him in handcuffs.

If he were a better person, he would sound the alarm right now. It's the only correct decision, really, as withholding information now would just incriminate him more.

Suddenly his phone buzzes, and Mark tastes a weird concoction of dread and exhilaration on the back of his tongue as he opens his lock screen. Written in all lowercase, as all of his texts are, Donghyuck asks him to come to a train station he's never heard of.

Mark stares at the message until his phone turns dark—and immediately after it does, it lights up again.

i just want to talk.

Considering he's already romanced the devil, he figures simply talking to him wouldn't hurt.

Johnny doesn't stop him as he exits the apartment in a hurry, and neither do any of the other investigators who have been idling around waiting for his verdict.

Jaemin does try, as Mark knew he would, but he ignores him. Let Johnny or Jeno take this case; he thinks the death of his closest friend would warrant a bit of space before he takes it on seriously.

Truthfully, Mark doesn't know why he agrees to see Donghyuck. Maybe it's that devilish magnetic pull that drew him in during the first night they had met at Neo Zone, still irresistible despite the ten miles between Renjun's apartment and the abandoned depot on the other end of the city.

Maybe part of him hopes that this will work out somehow; that Donghyuck hadn't murdered Renjun and the six innocent people before him, and the sketch from this morning had just been a perfectly impossible coincidence.

The stone foundation of the train station is unkempt and rusted, with old cracks and dark stains Mark can't identify dotting its surface. The steel roof is supported by similarly dilapidated poles, and at the very back of the area, too far for the sunlight to reach, sits one Lee Donghyuck.

The only reason Mark even sees him is because the glow of his phone illuminates his face; he's smiling at something, and for a few moments Mark just watches him. It's difficult to place the playful, gentle, loving Donghyuck he knows as the cold-blooded serial killer that he's been tearing his hair out over. He thinks about phone calls lasting into the wee hours of the morning, usually resulting in Donghyuck coming over because he wants to hear Mark's voice in person. He thinks about how Donghyuck had a tendency to become worryingly listless, but he had promised Mark that it wasn't anything serious—it's just a thing that happens, baby, I'm okay, I promise. Freezing cold apartments and petrichor and tan skin; it all feels like everything and nothing at once.

He doesn't realize he's moving forward until Donghyuck locks eyes with him, and he stands to meet him.

"You came," he says. Mark can't understand why there isn't any vitriol rising at the sound of his voice.

"Yeah," Mark says. "I did."

For a few long moments they just stand there, silent. Mark watches him raise a slow hand and reach out toward him, one hand cupping his face.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way," Donghyuck 's voice is sickly sweet. Inviting.

"Why? Why Renjun?" he demands, his heart not curling around the softness of his voice as it had just a few hours ago. "What even was the point of...of any of this?" he gestures between them, and Donghyuck understands. He just shrugs.

"Renjun couldn't stand the life he was living," he says. "He felt so bad about wanting, always wanting more than what he had; it was heartbreaking, Mark. I was only granting his wish by killing him."

Renjun always did seem to be living a life that didn't match up with reality. Mark would be lying if he had said that feelings of pity arose whenever he considered his friend. But how could that ever warrant the loss of his life?

"As for us," Donghyuck continues, "The idea was to keep my enemies close, but I didn't realize I'd find a kindred spirit; a detective sympathetic to a killer's cause."

Mark's brow furrows. "A killer's cause? You—You're a monster, Donghyuck, how—"

"If I'm a monster, then what does that make you, Mark Lee?" Donghyuck interrupts him sharply, gaze suddenly turning hard. "You don't get to insult me when you're standing here with me right now. Feeling transcending life and death—that's what I told you back at the art gallery, and that's the kind of beauty you've been experiencing first hand all of this time since you've been a detective. Do you think I killed all those people and modeled them after life just because I just felt like it? Because they were meaningless to me, or because I hated them so much I couldn't stand the fact they were still breathing?" He pauses, evidently waiting for Mark to answer. He shakes his head slowly.

"No," Mark answers barely above a whisper. "That's not it."

"No, it's not," Donghyuck agrees. "You knew from the very beginning that what I was doing was art, something more intimate than anyone at the police department would be willing to believe. And nobody would believe you if you had told them what it really was, would they? You alone understood my thesis, and for that I'm grateful, Mark Lee," He takes a step closer then, so close that Mark can feel his breath falling on his lips. "I admit that I hadn't expected anyone to feel what I felt or to appreciate my work, but I don't regret how this all turned out."

Donghyuck's hand falls from his face as he brings both of his arms to wrap around Mark's shoulders. He brushes the tips of their noses together, and there seem to be angels and devils singing a deathly chorale from somewhere within him, so loud that he just barely makes out Donghyuck's next words.

"You loved me before we even met, detective." he breathes against his lips, and then he presses their lips together.

Mark wants to say that it was the worst kiss of his life, that the feeling of Lee Donghyuck's mouth on his own made him want to retch up whatever it is he ate for breakfast now that he knows he's a killer, but he knows it wouldn't be true. What's true is that he can't imagine anyone ever making him feel the same kind of vile euphoria that Donghyuck makes him feel, and he doesn't know what he's going to do when it's inevitably ripped away from him.

So for now, he just relishes in the jolt of electricity that hums through his body as he turns his head to deepen the kiss.

"What happens now?" Mark asks once they pull away. Donghyuck runs a hand through his hair, and he can't help but nuzzle into it. He has a sharp tongue, but his touch has only ever been gentle and soothing. Death's embrace was a comforting one, apparently.

"Whatever you want, love," he says. Mark chuckles at the pet name.

"Love," he echoes, and Donghyuck frowns.

"I don't know what you're thinking, Mark, but my feelings for you have only ever been true," Donghyuck tells him seriously.

"You love me in the same way you love your paintings and your corpses," Mark says. "Right down to the very depths of your heart, beyond life and beyond death."

Donghyuck twiddles with the hair that's grown beyond his nape. He told Mark he liked it a little long and a little messy, so he hadn't bothered cutting it. Regardless, it's a nervous habit that he had picked on early in their relationship.

"Would you reject my feelings?" he asks.

Mark smiles sadly at him, because he wouldn't ask unless he already knew the answer. "You know I don't have any other option, Hyuckie."

"If you don't come with me, they'll find you. Arrest you." Mark can tell he wants to plead, but Donghyuck was prideful to a fault, so begging won't come easy to him.

"I know," Mark says. Donghyuck stares at him for what seems like a long time, searching for something in his eyes. Whether or not he finds it is a mystery though, as resignation comes over his face and he sighs; a sound that sends an unexpected flurry of daggers into Mark's heart.

"Okay. Okay. I understand."

Mark squints his eyes at Donghyuck's acquiescence. "Do you?"

"Of course I do," he confirms without hesitation. "People like you and I, all we ever do is understand. It's why we mesh so well."

There isn't really much to say after that, because it's true. Mark leans in for one last kiss, and Donghyuck returns it happily, their lips melding together with such bizarre innocence that Mark almost wants to laugh at the ludicrousness of it all.

There's one thing Donghyuck had been wrong about, and it's the department finding him. They don't have to, because Mark confesses all by himself. They don't believe him at first—of course they wouldn't—but even Jaemin has to admit that he can't explain away Donghyuck's perfect recreation of the crime scene, Renjun's approximate time of death, and the timestamp of Jaehyun's phone call just the day before.

He had been selfish with Donghyuck, but ultimately he had sworn to uphold justice when he agreed to work with the police department, and that has to be worth something at least. Chenle, bless his heart, is sympathetic towards his cause, which Mark knows he doesn't deserve but he appreciates anyway. He thinks Jaehyun might be willing to vouch for him too, but it doesn't take very long for him to realize that the sad look in his eyes isn't pity—it's disappointment.

The stifling boredom of sitting in a jail cell while he waits for Jaemin's final jurisdiction can't compare to the looks of betrayal he and the others had given him when they had brought him in. Their faces are tattooed into the back of his eyelids, his own personal tribunal for the ten days they've left him to rot around gray walls and an awful leaking pipe that's threatening to drive him insane.

Mark has a lot of time to contemplate how much was expected of him at the department. With Donghyuck gone and his reputation destroyed though, he begins to wonder if he even had their support—if he was just a get-out-of-jail-free card for when there were murder cases that required Mark's expertise. Donghyuck had been right when he said that they wouldn't have believed him if he had come clean about what his homicides really were. Jaemin had slammed his head against the table and yelled at him to get his head on straight, and it was then that Mark wondered how Donghyuck had survived the loneliness that came with being able to appreciate someone's humanity for what it was.

Johnny comes to visit him at some point—it might be five or six days since the key to his cell has been thrown away, but he can't be sure without a clock or a window to tell how much time is passing.

"Jaemin has been having a mental breakdown since you were convicted," he tells him casually. Mark laughs, because he can vividly imagine the hell he's probably putting the department's neophytes through.

"Sorry about that," Mark says.

"Do you wanna know something Jaemin told me once, Mark?" he asks, then continues before he can answer. "He saw how well you and Renjun got on from the very beginning. He put you guys in an office together and was adamant on no room swaps because he knew he'd be good for you. He thought that if he was around, you wouldn't lose too much of yourself in these investigations."

For a few moments Mark can only blink in surprise. It's honestly a bit difficult to imagine Jaemin having any kind of foresight into the interpersonal relationships of his employees, but he also finds he isn't surprised that he had the ability deep down. "I guess I ended up getting too close anyway."

"Don't you feel bad at all?" Johnny pushes, his voice getting a little louder. "I can understand that you didn't know Donghyuck was a killer at first, but—but now you do, and you just seem…" he gestures vaguely towards him, not finding the right words—or not being able to speak them.

Mark can imagine how indifferent he must look right now, laying on his back on the stone floor while his legs are folded neatly on the rusted bench he's been afforded in his cell. He shrugs.

"I fell in love with him, Johnny. Those feelings won't disappear overnight. I don't know what else I can tell you."

Johnny opens his mouth to say something, and Mark can see his face starting to flush with frustration. In the end, he just ends up sighing. "Anything that would convince me you're not a monster."

The thing is, Mark knows he's the monster in this scenario. It's not his place to justify himself to the sheep he's so clearly wronged. And it's for that reason he stays silent, and eventually all he has to listen to is the damning sound of Johnny's footsteps disappearing down the hall.

He replays their conversation over and over for what he thinks is the next day. He wouldn't be surprised if it had run on loop in his mind until the end of his life, but as it would turn out, he doesn't get to find out if that's what happens.

He's counted up to the mid 2000s in his head when a familiar face peeks in through the gate, completely throwing off his train of thought.

"Jungwoo?" he asks, hardly able to believe what he sees.

Jungwoo puts a finger to his lips, and Mark realizes that he definitely isn't decked out as a visitor. He's wearing the same staid outfit that the wardens usually have on. He recognizes the imprint of a bulletproof vest beneath the thin fabric, and he understands immediately.

"But my trial isn't for another few days," Mark says, but he doesn't stop Jungwoo from unlocking the door and pulling him out by the arm.

"And you think Jaemin will accept any outcome other than indefinite jail time?" Jungwoo tosses back at him. He's got a point. "Donghyuck said he doesn't want that for you. Says you don't deserve it."

Mark shouldn't be surprised that Jungwoo and Donghyuck are in cahoots somehow, but he is. Even now he finds it hard to imagine the Jungwoo that he sees right now—the one looking both ways before turning down any hall and disregarding the several incapacitated bodies they come across—as the same doe-eyed underpaid waiter that he had grown fond of at Neo Zone.

The sun is just barely rising over the horizon when they finally escape the compound, painting the sky a tranquil purple at the edges; Mark wonders if Donghyuck is watching the colors bloom overhead, too.

Jungwoo leads him to a nondescript black car parked just outside of the building, its windows tinted darker than Mark knows is legal. The engine is still running when he climbs into the passenger seat, and something crunches beneath him. It's a plain envelope with his name written in childish letters.

"It's from Donghyuck," Jungwoo says as he swerves onto the road. Opening it, he finds that inside is a one-way plane ticket to Toronto, scheduled for an hour from now. A glance at the rearview mirror reveals two duffel bags filled almost to bursting in the backseat.

"You went through my house?"

"You're more concerned about me being in your house than Donghyuck relocating you to a new country?"

Well, when he puts it that way. Jaemin would have confiscated anything in the apartment that he would have deemed 'evidence' by now, but truthfully speaking, that could have been literally anything. He doesn't respond, and instead spends the rest of the ride to the airport wondering if loving Donghyuck was worth it.

Nothing happens when he goes through TSA, and nothing happens when he lands in Toronto several hours later. He's traveled far enough around the globe for the sun to be setting, just as it had been when he had boarded at sunrise. If he thinks about it hard enough, it's far from impossible to imagine that time had frozen from the moment Jungwoo broke him out, and right now he's stuck in an odd limbo that he isn't sure how to dispel.

A sly looking man with dark hair greets him when he gets off the plane. He introduces himself in Korean as Kim Doyoung, a friend of Donghyuck's, and Mark doesn't even bother considering how extensive his connections apparently are.

Either way, Doyoung doesn't say very much after that. They get into another suspiciously unremarkable black car, and he's handed a folder containing a myriad of documents that Mark understands is supposed to help him forge a new identity. He thinks he should feel a bit sad about having to start his life over again; but really, he can't imagine very much that kept him attached to South Korea other than Renjun, and maybe the Han River.

It's only when he finally makes it to his new apartment that the spell breaks; and really, he should have known that it would only be Lee Donghyuck that could plunge him back into reality as violently as he does.

It happens when Mark opens one of the bags he had so graciously been afforded, and resting on top of his neatly folded clothes is a single laminated piece of paper depicting a scene so horribly familiar that for a moment Mark thinks he's going to throw up.

It's a painting of two people riding horses on a beach front; the very same painting he had seen at the art gallery in Seoul. Even now it evokes the same gut-wrenching sense of love and loss as it had the very first time he had seen it. He doesn't know how long he sits in the corner of his small living room staring at it; the longer he looks, the more details seem to become apparent. For instance, there's an incongruent smudge of color between the sand and the sky, breaking the illusion that they're one in the same.

Mark wonders if Donghyuck had something else on his mind why he left the inconsistency as it was; or maybe he had noticed and made the decision to leave it there anyway. He wonders if Donghyuck had painted this after he had turned some innocent person into his own vulgar art piece, if Jaehyun would be able to pick out traces of bloodstained fingerprints if he ran a full analysis of the piece.

A dizzying possessiveness strikes him at the thought of Jaehyun scrutinizing the piece, and it doesn't take very long for Mark to realize he doesn't want anyone else looking at it. He wants to keep this tiny piece of Donghyuck to himself, and for once in his life, he doesn't feel the need to justify it.

Flipping the paper over, Mark finds a note written in the same childish handwriting that had been printed on the envelope that held his plane ticket.

A love more permanent than death;

I'll be around, Mark Lee.

Mark reads the message over and over again until his eyes start watering, at which point he places it gently back into the bag and zips it closed. Then he lets his head fall backwards onto the wall, takes a deep breath, and shuts his eyes.

When the local news station covers an appalling homicide involving a body found lying in repose on the pews of a church, the skin of his back peeled and propped up like angel wings, all Mark can do is smile.