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Johnny saw the two sisters, Yeri and Wendy, giggling in the hallway. "How is he? Will he live?" Wendy asked dramatically. "I think so. He gave me a scare. Bleeding all over the dining table."

"Really? I'll be back in a minute. Don't go anywhere." Wendy dragged her younger sister towards the living room. The girls bursted into the living room where Mark was lying on the couch. Wendy sat at the foot of it and Yeri stood peering down at Mark. He looked up at her a bit sheepishly.

Wendy took a cigarette out of a pack and lit it. She took a long drag on it before holding it close to the sole of Mark's barefoot. He pulled it up fast. "You felt that? You have peasant feet. Peasant!" Wendy laughed. "Leave him alone!" Yeri glared at her sister as she caressed Mark's hair softly. "Easy. You'll make him bleed again." Wendy held out her pack of cigarettes to him and he took one. She lit it up (like dynamite 😩) for him and he smoked it.

Wendy looked at him coolly, it was as if she was looking at a rival.

"So... are we going somewhere?"

"Maybe.. but if I go out my mother can't see me. She'll get worried. Where's Johnny?" Mark asked looking around.

"How would I know?"

[~▪-▪~]

After a swim with his friends, Johnny was still nowhere to be seen. Mark went to Jungwoo's kitchen to make himself a smoothie. He cut up a peach, a banana, a pear then some dates. Jungwoo wanted to do it for him and tried to take the knife away. To him, a smoothie was a foreign concoction.

"Let me."

"No, thanks, I'm doing it by myself." Mark put the cut up fruit into a blender, he glanced out at the garden from the window. He saw his mom sitting on a bench overlooking the south garden while she worked on a manuscript. Mark took the smoothie out into the garden looking at the beautiful sunset, it was the last hour of the sun in the waning day. He drank the smoothie, feeling rested.

"Is Johnny around?" Mark called out to his mother. "Didn't he go out?" Jungwoo exited from the kitchen while Mark went to sit with his mother. "Madame, do you want a smoothie too?"

"No, thanks Jungwoo, we're going to have dinner."

"I'm going out this evening, I won't have dinner." Mark added to the conversation. "But where at this hour? I worry..." Jungwoo said. "About what?" Mark asked, he genuinely wanted to know. "Let's leave him." Mrs. Lee smiled as Jungwoo nodded before walking into the kitchen.

"You like him, don't you? Johnny?"

"Everyone likes Johnny."

"He likes you too. More than you do, I think." Mark looked at his mother with his eyebrow raised.

"Is that your impression?"

"No, it was Johnny's."

"When did he tell you that?"

"A while ago." Mrs. Lee caressed Mark's hair.

[~▪-▪~]

After dinner.

Mark was in his tiny room waiting for Johnny to return, he had decided to stay for dinner instead of going out. He tried to read a book but he couldn't concentrate. He huffed looking down at the star of David on his chest.

Some time passed and it was now late night, Mark sat at his desk, wide awake. He left the bathroom door intentionally ajar, hoping that the light from the foyer might stream in just enough to reveal Johnny's long body. As Mark heard Johnny step onto the landing in the hall, he jumped back into his bed pretending to be asleep. Johnny walked past Mark's room without stopping, without even a hesitation and went into his own room shutting the door.

A few moments later, Mark heard Johnny open the door from his bedroom into their common bathroom then he heard the door into his own room from the bathroom click shut as if it was being locked. Mark sat up in the bed putting his head on his hands. He said he'd stick around, did the kiss really mean nothing to him?

"Traitor. Traitor!" He said to himself under his breath.

[~▪-▪~]

The next day.

Mark was the last to arrive. He pretended to ignore Johnny who was cracking open the top of his soft boiled egg. Mrs. Lee looked at Johnny in a worried way. "You look so gaunt!" Professor Lee looked up from his newspaper. "I pray to god you made a killing last night, otherwise I'll have to answer to your father."

"I never lose, prof." Johnny spoke down into the messy egg.

"Does your father approve?"

"I pay my own way. I've paid my way since highschool. My father couldn't possibly disapprove."

"Did you have a lot to drink last night?"

"That.. and other things." Johnny said as he buttered his bread. (War flashbacks to John D and Jaehyun's bread)

"I don't think I want to know."

"Neither does my father and to be perfectly frank, I don't think I care to remember myself." Mark looked up at this.

"Do you save your winnings?"

"Save and invest, prof."

"I wish I had your head when I was your age. I would've spared myself many mistaken turns." Johnny scrunched his eyebrows.

"Mistaken turns? I can't picture you ever imagining a mistaken turn."

"That's because you see me as a figure, not a human being. Worse yet; an old figure.. but there were some mistaken turns. Every one goes through a period of backtracking- when we take, say, a different turn in life. Some recover, some pretend to recover, some never come back, some chicken out before ever starting and some, for fear of taking any turns find themselves leading the wrong life all life long." Both young men listened. Johnny proceeded to crack another egg, he had big bags under his eyes.

He did look gaunt.

"Sometimes the backtracking turns out to be the right way, prof. Or as good a way as any. I know myself."

"At your age I knew nothing but today everyone knows everything and everyone talks, talks, talks." Professor Lee said as he lit up his cigarette. "Perhaps what Johnny needs is sleep, sleep, sleep. " Mrs. Lee added worriedly. "Tonight, I promise. No poker, no drinking. I'll put on clean clothes, go over my manuscript and after dinner we'll all watch TV and play games like old folks in little Italy." Mrs. Lee sighed melodious,  relieved that her husband's words had convinced him to stay and rest.

She offered Johnny more coffee before telling her seventeen year old son not to slouch in his chair. Jungwoo brought in some apricot juice in a chilled, silver platter.