tea lights (8/8)
jaebum flies back to taiwan to attend jinyoung and jackson's graduation and spend the rest of his year-end holidays here. he turns up with mark dressed sharply in dashing navy suits and ties, standing up and applauding with warm pride from the audience as jackson and jinyoung collect their diplomas on stage.
then they rent a battered secondhand car again, and take jackson and jinyoung on their graduation road trip. this time, they drive to jiufen and shifen, picturesque and tranquil little countryside towns. as they listen to mayday on the staticky car stereo, jinyoung and jaebum sing along loudly in remarkably precise mandarin. jaebum is uncharacteristically more chatty than usual, seeming over the moon (no pun intended) to see all three of them again. he has grown taller and more lanky, sporting a few new piercings, and jinyoung looks absolutely dazzled by his new striking good looks and improved fashion sense.
as they drive along a stretch of deserted highway along a craggy cliff overlooking the ocean, jaebum tells them about how he used to make diy rocket and space shuttle models as a kid with the waves crashing in the background. he would collect used, empty one-litre plastic bottles of soft drinks and mineral water and cut the bottom off with scissors. disregarding the grown-ups' warnings not to play with fire, he would conduct dangerous and risky experiments with chemicals he mixed from harmless kitchen substances like cooking oil and sugar. they all laugh as he tells them darkly about the one time he nearly ended up setting fire to his own hair, and the other tragic disaster where he actually blew the kitchen in his house up. his father was furious and worried about his safety, of course, but his mother's eyes sparkled as she kneeled down to his eye level and stroked his hair, smiling seriously as she told him how proud she was of him and that she knew without a doubt that one day he would be a very clever and great man. that was the day he had set his mind on pursuing astronomy professionally.
the first night, they light firecrackers on the suspension bridge that is the city's attraction and hold hands as they stroll down the abandoned railway tracks, balancing on the narrow rails. they walk down to the large area of open space near the overgrown fields where they can purchase a large sky lantern from the roadside tourist stalls, big enough for all four of them to write their wishes, and send it up into the sky.
by prearrangement, jackson writes on his side the numbers 1314 vertically down. yi sheng yi shi, meaning for one whole lifetime. on the opposite side, he knows mark is writing 520. wo ai ni -- i love you. they crane their necks to follow the slowly ascending route of the white lantern lit from the inside with an incandescent orange glow, rising like a beacon in the pitch dark night sky. until it's a mere speck, and then disappears, swallowed up by the blackness. jackson wonders where it will go, where it will end up. where the roads the four of them will take from now on will lead to, and whether they will lead back to each other again, in the end.
as they stroll back to the motel in the late night serenity only interrupted by the peaceful chirping of crickets, each blissfully tired from the long drive and lost in their own thoughts, jackson quietly studies mark's princely profile, thinking of the long road behind them and the even longer road ahead. this road was sometimes rocky, occasionally uncertain, but always fulfilling. the past three years spent alongside mark, jinyoung and jaebum have been nothing short of priceless, and jackson wouldn't have exchanged this journey for anything in the world.
people say that 18 is everyone's most memorable year, and jackson realizes that this cliche had turned out true for him too. mostly because of mark but also because of all the countless friends and clubmates he had gotten to know, jackson's eighteenth year had been an unforgettable and breathtakingly happy one.
when jackson entered high school, he had never in a million years expected that he would one day become the vice-president of the astronomy club. but merely three years later, here he is, wearing that position proudly like a badge of honour. yes, this, here, this place beside mark, jinyoung and jaebum wasn't where jackson had predicted he would end up.
but maybe, it dawns on jackson like an epiphany, that he is exactly where he's supposed to be.
later, deeper into the night, lying satedly in mark's arms in their shared room at the motel which this time they had chosen voluntarily to be roommates even though they have enough money, jackson contemplates change.
at fifteen going on sixteen, that single word encompassing an inevitable phenomenon, was what he dreaded most. he had been reluctant to grow up, to leave the security and familiarity of his childhood and preteen years behind.
but then he had met mark, breathtakingly courageous and brave yi-en who faced the future head on with an undimmable smile and positive outlook, who had taught jackson that change was something natural, something that could be a good thing. something that he shouldn't fear but try to embrace with an open mind.
and the most important lesson he had taught jackson was that sometimes, change could be miraculous.
the biggest change in jackson's short life so far has undoubtedly been falling in love with mark. and it had altered his life forever. it sounds like a cheesy hallmark pickup line, but mark is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
jackson nuzzles closer to mark, trailing reverent fingers lightly over mark's pale, marble white skin, which gleams pearlescent in the silvery moonlight. he wonders if he will ever be able to tell mark that he is jackson's hallmark prince, the person every love song reminds him of, the one that made jackson realize all the corny cliches about love were true after all.
perhaps never. but one thing jackson is sure of, as he drifts off to sleep with mark as the last thing he sees, is that mark won't mind at all.
he wakes up to mark gently shaking him awake and the subdued lilac-grey light of daybreak streaming through the window. mark's eyes are tender but bright with excitement, his voice soft as feathers. "baobei, do you want to go down to the beach to watch the sunrise?"
jackson sits up groggily, the familiar lassitude and dull ache in his lower body still delicious and thrilling, after all this time. mark is sitting on the bed beside him, hair already combed neatly and half-dressed in comfy sweats. jackson leans his head decadently against mark's shoulders and yawns, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
he feels mark's chapped lips brushing his temple, and his arm wrapped snugly around jackson's shoulder. jackson noses up for a good morning kiss and mark obliges with tender and amused exasperation.
but mark is careful to stop before the kiss gets too heated and carried away, and jackson groans as he rambles dorkily about how they have to start the walk to the beach now or they will miss the full sunrise.
"will i ever come before astronomy for you?" he grumbles, climbing out of bed, and mark laughs, eyes sparkling with mischief.
"never."
but deep inside, they both know. that even as far back as a year ago, mark had already told jackson honestly, you're the most important person in the world to me.
as they stroll leisurely down the shoreline, baby waves lapping at their flip-flops and sand getting between their toes, mark drapes a protective arm around jackson's shoulder and solicitously queries if he's cold even though jackson is already bundled up in his old school jacket and new university sweatshirt he had worn all of this year and given jackson at the end of the term. it's washed to flannel softness and feels soft as a cloud against jackson's skin.
the air is moist with morning mist and smells freshly of dew and jackson takes a deep, appreciative breath. a smudge of pearl pink is creeping slowly into the dove grey sky like a palette of spilled, muted watercolours at the horizon but the fingernail of a waning moon is still visible, hung up in the sky like a secretive, mysterious smile. there's something about the beginning of a new day that makes him feel like anything is possible.
halfway down the shoreline jackson kicks off his slippers and holds them in his hands as he continues the walk to the prime sunrise-watching spot barefoot. mark laughs and gamely follows his lead, slipping his smooth, warm hand into jackson's easily as he catches up.
as they lie back on the sand next to each other after a ten-minute walk, relaxing and letting the stress seep out of their bodies, the words that jackson has been keeping inside him for the past few weeks bubble to the surface, slipping from his mouth, his lips loosening thoughtlessly as they always do around mark. even though jinyoung is his best friend, mark is the person whom jackson feels the most comfortable around in the world. in front of mark, jackson doesn't have to pretend to be anybody. he can just be himself. he can just be.
jackson watches a lone seagull gliding across the limitless vastness of the sky and, not for the first time, feels his insignificance in the face of the universe's enormity. he thinks of how mark makes him feel, free like a bird soaring through the skies, like he can fly.
he thinks of how no one has ever made him feel like that before, and how before he met mark, jackson hadn't even known that a feeling as exhilarating, as heavenly as this existed.
yi-en, his high school sweetheart, the person who taught jackson everything he knows about love, whom all his first times were with. his first kiss, his first night, his first relationship. mark had accompanied jackson through all the watersheds of growing up.
mark is jackson's first love, but will he be his last? in this unpredictable world buffeted by the winds of fate, where change is the only constant; this age they live in where their relationship is still considered something taboo and forbidden by society; this achingly fragile, tenous bond between them that could be more easily snapped than a thread of gossamer, do they have a fighting chance of staying together through thick and thin and still emerging hand in hand in the end?
they had fallen in love too quickly, too fast and too desperately; simply because they were young and stupid and reckless, simply because they wanted to and they could. even before they were fully-fledged adults yet, before they had realized how damaging and destructive love could be, they had fallen in love as only teenagers could -- with all of their heart and soul. despite everything people said about how first loves would always break your heart in the end, jackson had trusted mark with no reservations or hesitations. he wonders why.
but then as he inclines his head slightly to study mark, hands pillowed behind his head, quiet and looking reassuringly calm and grounded as he intently studies the dawn sky, jackson knows.
it's because mark's smile puts the sun to shame and all the stars in the sky can't hold a candle to the brilliance of his rare grin. jackson thinks of street lamp backhugs, bus stop kisses and shooting star wishes. he thinks of how mark's eyes still light up with that fanatical glint as he rambles about things that make jackson's brain hurt like radial velocity and ecliptic planes and the autumn equinox. perhaps jackson will never understand. but perhaps he doesn't have to, because the only thing he really cares about is seeing mark happy.
jackson realizes that he loves everything about mark, everything about yi-en -- from his eccentricities to his insecurities to his unexpected and breathtaking intensity. he loves mark's capacity -- for love, for life; loves how he reminds jackson of the proverb still waters run deep, but not in a negative way. mark is so much more beautiful within than he is without, and every day, he amazes jackson a little more.
jackson thinks of how breathtakingly mark loves him, how devoted he is and how selflessly and genuinely he actually cares for jackson, in a way and with a depth that no one in the world has ever done. jackson thinks once again of how blessed he is to even find one person amidst the billions in the world who is his soulmate. what were the odds of that? probably, as mark had said that day at the planetarium, as miniscule as how far two stars had to travel across the neverending sky to reach each other.
as he gazes at the vestiges of the fading stars glimmering faintly in the lightening sky, jackson ponders kismet and predestination. does such a thing really exist, or is everything that ever happens in this universe completely random? he'd like to be romantic and wishful for a moment and lean towards the former.
"have you ever felt nostalgic for a place that doesn't exist anymore?" he muses wistfully.
mark turns his head to look over at him, eyes thoughtfully dark. he doesn't say anything, seeming to think seriously over jackson's question before he answers slowly.
"sometimes."
jackson hears a silent caress in the simple word, and knows that mark intuitively senses what is really troubling him -- that jinyoung is leaving for korea at the end of the year with jaebum, for at least three years of university. leaving taiwan and leaving jackson. jinyoung has been his best friend for so very long now that jackson can't even remember what it's like not to have a best friend anymore.
as if reading his thoughts telepathically, mark adds quietly, "i'll still be here, you know. i felt lonely when jaebum left too, but it helped because i still had you two. and," he takes jackson's hand carefully, "this isn't forever."
"nothing is," jackson replies with a note of cynicism, and mark smiles bittersweetly, not refuting. jackson fondly recalls how the four of them had fought and laughed and fallen in love together, equally passionately and viciously and savagely. and that was something that no distance in the world would ever change. from the start, the ideal club in jackson's head -- one in which mark, jinyoung, jaebum, the three juniors and him were all present -- had been a temporality, something that had an expiry date and was too perfect to last anyway. but no matter how life scatters them in future, jackson realizes that those cherished memories that they had mindlessly made not knowing how precious they would someday become, will still live on like the treasured collection of random items jackson keeps in his memory box, the glossy lacquered one mark had given him the mooncakes in. the assortment of odds and ends may seem worthless to some people, but to jackson every single article holds infinite meaning -- the piece of torn notebook paper where jackson had complimented mark's hair and mark had scrawled thanks; the paper airplane he thought had accidentally fallen into his pocket; the ticket stub from the planetarium; mark's card from the mooncake box; the seashell mark had picked up on the beach at kaohsiung and given jackson, which sounded like the far-off ocean when he pressed it against his ear; and the various selcas they had taken together through the years which jackson had taken to a photography shop and developed into hard copies. like listening to an old song, each memento summons up a particular feeling, dredges up a different kind of happiness for him.
"but maybe some things are precious because they're not forever," mark counters, voice soft as felt as he squeezes jackson's hand. "because we know how easily they could be lost, how fragile they are, we treasure them all the more." he looks enigmatically into jackson's eyes, words seeming to shimmer with a deeper meaning.
jackson's throat constricts and it's all he can do to squeeze mark's hand back weakly. mark shifts his gaze away from jackson's face, turning slightly to look up at the now azurite sky again.
"do you know what struck me the most the very first time i saw you outside the school gates?"
jackson chuckles lightheartedly at the memory of their first meeting they have dissected multiple times by now. "you said..." he intends to tease mark, but finds that he's the one pinkening. "that i was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen."
mark laughs, tinkling and clear in the morning silence. "not only that. that morning, you also looked like... like you couldn't be held back. like you were unstoppable. and at that moment, i wanted you more badly than i had ever wanted anything."
discussing the future hopefully, like lovers -- this also feels like something jackson should feel grateful for, a quiet, mundane kind of bliss he should tuck away in his mental memory box. mark's mellow voice washes over him like the wavelets breaking over the shore, wrapping jackson in a comforting layer of security. mark talks quietly and thoughtfully about how soon they will have to tell more people -- their families, their parents -- about their relationship; how next year jackson will be officially moving into his apartment and entering his university. mark is nineteen and jackson is eighteen, and they're on the brink of adulthood, but this time jackson isn't walking through this door alone.
mark turns his head to face jackson again, looking straight into his eyes. mark's eyes are serious but warm, so deep and dark jackson thinks they could possibly hold his entire world.
"jia-er," mark says seriously, drawing jackson to roll onto his side too, meeting his eyes completely. there is no longer anything shy or awkward or intimidated about the way mark looks at jackson, just a careless, natural and adoring proprietariness that makes it crystal clear that mark knows he owns jackson, body and soul.
"do you know this song from disney's aladdin, a whole new world?" jackson blurts out without thinking. "there's one line: i'm like a shooting star --"
"-- i've come so far," mark rejoins without missing a beat, and smiles at the look of impressed surprise on jackson's face. "it's one of my favourite songs too, and that's my favourite line in the song."
"why am i not surprised?" jackson snarks, but there is no bite in his word and mark laughs gleefully.
"jacks," mark repeats his name, in a different variation. it's the first time he's addressed jackson by this nickname, but it flows off his lips just as smoothly as all the names he's ever called jackson by, and jackson knows, in his bones, that he wants to spend the rest of his life listening to mark call every incarnation of his name he can think of. every day.
"there's nothing scary about the future," mark continues, reaching out to caress his face lightly. "you musn't be afraid."
"..."
"because i'll be with you. we're going to be so happy together."
when jackson meets mark's eyes again through the film of his tears, mark is gazing steadily and openly into his, the rough pad of his thumb coming up to brush the tears off jackson's eyelashes.
"trust me," mark says, and smiles.
when his thumb moves away, revealing his face with new, startling clarity, framed by the last shadow outlines of the stars dusted across the morning sky, jackson closes his eyes and thinks of the glow-in-the-dark stars carefully arranged in an imaginary constellation on mark's bedroom ceiling, the long-ago ones they had seen that night at the meteor shower, scattered across the fathomless night.
when he opens them, he sees those very same stars reflected in mark's eyes like a compass that will always guide him home, twinkling like tea lights.
+ thanks to cass for giving me the jiufen and shifen idea and telling me about them, and markiepooh who all credit goes to for the galaxy and stars line :)
+ shoutout to two of the biggest fans of this fic korinne, and penny who joked with me that i should include the tea pickup line because tea lights :P
+ thank you so much to every single one of the many people who have ever left me a comment on this fic, kudos on ao3, including those silent readers who still spent so many hours reading all the chapters of this fic ;u; along the journey of writing this fic i've met countless amazing and wonderful readers and commenters and even new friends who gave me so, so much encouragement and support. without their input and feedback, this fic wouldn't have been possible. if you've been supporting this verse from the beginning, thank YOU for reading up till here :) it means so much to me.