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Jackson still remembered the first time Mark had kissed him.
It had been just a short, fleeting touch of lips on lips, but it had left him speechless with his heart pounding in his chest, taken completely by surprise. When he had looked at his friend, eyes questioning, the other had already gone back to watching the movie as if nothing had happened. And maybe nothing had, as far as Mark was concerned?
Jackson hadn’t been able to concentrate on the TV screen for the rest of the evening.
After the movie was finished, Mark had acted like always, wishing Jackson a good night, going to bed.
And Jackson hadn’t known how to bring it up – after all, one didn’t usually kiss their best friend and move on like it hadn’t happened. At least, Jackson didn’t.
When they had gotten up the following morning, Jackson had half-convinced himself that he had only imagined it. Mark certainly hadn’t been acting anything out of the ordinary. And, he had argued, it was better that way. Jackson liked his life nice and uncomplicated. He kissing his best friend… or Mark kissing him… or any kind of kissing action between the two of them was anything but. Thus, Jackson had been inclined to ignore the small but persistent voice in the back of his head that insisted the kiss had happened and he should deal with it by talking to Mark, the sooner the better, aka now. Ignoring the whole thing had seemed like a much better option than that.
His blissful ignorance had lasted all of twenty-four hours to the next morning, when Mark had reached around him to take some clothes from their shared closet, pecked Jackson on the lips and then left to take a shower first, humming softly to himself. Jackson had stood there, staring at the closet, frozen and stunned into stupidity.
That had been two weeks ago. By now, Jackson had gotten somewhat used to the situation, Mark just randomly kissing him whenever he felt like it. Honestly, it was a lot less weird than Jackson would have thought. They had been holding hands, cuddling, touching pretty freely for a few years, those innocent pecks fit right into their habits. With the only exception that Mark never kissed him when anyone could see. Not in front of the cameras or fans, obviously, but also not when the other group members were in sight. There had been one rather risky incident when they had only been hidden from Bambam’s eyes by the opened door of their dorm fridge that had ended with Mark flashing him a cheeky grin and leaving Jackson motionless, his hand clasped around the bottle of orange juice.
Jackson’s gaze flickered from the screen of his laptop to his best friend who was sitting next to him about every ten seconds. They were sitting on Mark’s bed, watching a movie, because the other five had wanted to watch some comedy, and both of them had been more in the mood for action.
Jackson still hadn’t brought the topic up between them. In the beginning, because he had been surprised and insecure and hadn’t known what to say, and now… Well, it would be kind of awkward. Hey, I just wanted to know why you’ve been kissing me for the last two weeks… Yeah.
Still… This was too damn confusing.
“Mark?” he asked quietly, not moving his gaze from the screen.
The other hummed softly as a sign that he had heard him.
“What exactly… are we?” Jackson wanted to know, a slight tremor in his voice. He caught Mark turning his head in his direction in his peripheral vision and swallowed nervously before he turned his toward the other as well, trying to summon his courage as he looked up at the other boy through his lashes.
Mark had a puzzled look on his face, his brows slightly furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” There wasn’t any way to make this not awkward, he supposed. “I guess I just want to know what all those kisses in the last two weeks were about.” There. That hadn’t been so bad.
Mark shrugged, turning his attention back to the screen. “I don’t know. I felt like kissing you, so I did. Also, those hardly count as kisses. They’re pecks, like parents give their children.”
They fell silent again.
Jackson was frowning, a tiny, unconscious pout on his lips. The parent comparison irked him. Shouldn’t he be relieved, though? That meant their relationship was still purely platonic. Uncomplicated. The way he wanted it.
“So do you give pecks to Jinyoung as well when you’re alone with him? Or to Bambam?” His voice had an irritated edge to it. He didn’t know where it came from. There was nothing to be mad about. Or was there?
“Huh?” Mark seemed surprised. “No. What? Why would I?”
Jackson glared at the screen of his laptop. “Don’t know. Because you wanted to.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
By now, there was quite a bit of irritation paired with a touch of exasperation in Mark’s voice as well. “Jackson, what is this about?”
Well, if only he knew that.
Jackson didn’t answer, and after a few more seconds, Mark turned his attention back to the movie.
The younger, on the other hand, wasn’t able to concentrate on the plot anymore, no matter how fiercely he stared at the screen.
After a few minutes of seeing nothing, he groaned in frustration, before turning abruptly to his side, grabbing Mark’s face between his hands.
The older rapper stared at him in surprise. “Ja…” he began but was interrupted abruptly by Jackson pressing his lips on Mark’s.
The kiss was not soft, not short, and definitely not a peck, Jackson made very sure of that before pulling away and getting out of Mark’s bed. “Now you’ll have to stop pretending we haven’t kissed,” Jackson muttered without looking at the other. “I’m going to watch the rest of the stupid comedy with the others.”
As it turned out, Jackson was wrong about that. Mark could in fact pretend that nothing had happened between the two of them. He proved it right the next morning when Jackson was standing in front of their closet and Mark moved next to him, when Jackson turned his head in automatic expectation of one of Mark’s little pecks and Mark just smiled at him before leaving the room, and he kept proving it over and over through the next week.
It was as if those two weeks had never happened.
At first, Jackson was confused. Then he was hurt, even though he kept telling himself that there was no legit reason to. He had wanted to show Mark that you didn’t just kiss – or peck – your friend on the lips, and apparently, he had succeeded. They went right back to being friends.
Only to Jackson, it didn’t feel the same. He kept noticing Mark everywhere, whether they were in a dance practice, in front of the camera, or just chilling in their dorm. He noticed the way the other moved, smiled, and breathed.
Also, he developed a weird fascination with Mark’s lips.
He just couldn’t stop staring at them, thinking about how soft they had felt on his, unconsciously swallowing when Mark bit down on them or let his tongue dart over them. It drove Jackson crazy.
That had definitely not been not been his intention.
It ruined his concentration. Even his self-confidence was a little attacked because Mark didn’t seem like he had any of those problems.
After one week, Jackson was moody and irritable. Mark was acting the same as usual. Jackson was frustrated. Mark seemed to breeze through life. Jackson wanted to kiss his friend more than anything. Mark didn’t seem to care about anything.
Jackson burrowed his head deeper into his pillow and groaned loudly.
Why was this happening to him? What horrible things had be done? Why had Mark even started the whole thing?
He had never seen himself as attracted to guys. Though he had no desire to kiss any of the other guys, so maybe he was just attracted to Mark.
He’d ended up avoiding Mark for the last two days, ignoring the confused glances the other group members sent his way and the narrowed eyes Mark was sporting whenever Jackson changed seats or fled the room with a ridiculous excuse in favor of some peace of mind. He was fine when he didn’t have to look at his best friend; or so he liked to tell himself. He was getting pretty good at ignoring the fact that Mark’s face tended to spook around in his head at any given time, no matter if the elder was actually near or not.
Currently, he was alone in his dorm room because he had a very bad case of imaginary headache while the others were spending the evening playing games in the living room. He was fine being alone, he tried to convince himself, he didn’t want to play some stupid children game anyway. He wasn’t lonely, nope, not at all. Also, being alone was definitely preferable to being squished next to Mark on their couch, their shoulders pressed together, Mark’s laugh in his ears.
Jackson sighed and closed his eyes. There he went again, Mark haunting his thoughts even though he had tried so hard to run from him.
The rapper almost didn’t notice when the door to his room opened, deeply lost in thoughts that may or may not have involved his best friend – again. He jerked upright and almost fell off the bed when he heard someone entering the room.
Mark. Of course it was Mark who was walking straight out of his thoughts and into the room.
Jackson’s heart almost jumped out of his chest when he met Mark’s eyes and suddenly, he felt too vulnerable like this, lying on his bed. Warily, he got to his feet, looking at the half open door behind the slightly taller boy and calculating his chances of making a run for it. Mark obviously wanted something from him, he was probably going to call him out on his behavior the last few days.
Jackson didn’t want to deal with that right now, but before he had decided what to do, his choices were taken away from him.
Mark closed the door, leaning against it for good measure to keep Jackson from immediately bolting. Head leaned back against the wood of the door, he looked at Jackson through lowered lashes. “You know,” he started lazily, “I tried kissing Jinyoung. No, wait, what did we call it – pecking. He gave me a ‘What the fuck are you doing; Bros don’t kiss bros’ lecture immediately after. And then he actually asked me whether that was a habit I had brought from America. The guy has known me for three years, I think he would have noticed that earlier.”
Jackson had turned stiff as a board at Mark’s words, and he showed no signs of relaxing. “Good for you,” he forced out between clenched teeth. “Then go peck our self-declared mom and leave me the fuck alone, alright?”
Mark tilted his head to one side, still keeping eye contact. “But I don’t want to kiss Jinyoung,” he replied slowly, watching Jackson’s reaction closely. “I tried it to prove a point but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as kissing you.”
Jackson jerked in surprise when he heard that but soon enough he was back at glaring at Mark, even though there was a light pink dusting his cheeks. “Tough luck for you, buddy, because I’m not down with that,” he announced. “Now get out of the way, would you?” The Hong Kong native moved forward, fully intending to just pull the door open, no matter if Mark was leaning against it or not.
The older rapper watched him draw closer through his lashes, not moving an inch. However, that stillness only lasted until Jackson was near enough. Then, with a fluid motion, Mark jerked him closer by his wrist and turned them around until he had them both pressed against the door.
There was no doubt that Jackson could have fought him off if he had really wanted to, but the younger was too stunned to react.
Mark had each of his wrists in one hand, pinning them to the door by his sides. There wasn’t an inch separating them, Mark leaning into him with his full weight.
“I really want to kiss you again,” Mark whispered into his ear, his warm breath caressing Jackson’s ear, making a shiver run down his back. “I’ve wanted to since your stupid experiment last week.”
“W-why?” Jackson croaked out, hating the way his voice cracked at the word.
“Does it matter?” Mark murmured, leaning, impossibly, even closer. His lips were brushing against Jackson’s ear. “I just really want to.”
“I don’t,” Jackson forced out, trying to keep his breathing steady. He was pressing himself hard against the door, eyes closed.
“Oh really?” Jackson could feel Mark’s smile against his skin when the other moved his incredibly soft lips to the side of his neck. “I think you’re lying, Jacks.”
“Am not,” Jackson breathed, struggling weakly in the elder’s grip.
Not strong enough to count as real resistance.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Mark mumbled, giving in to temptation and grazing Jackson’s skin lightly with his teeth.
Jackson gasped, surprised.
“Who’s pretending now, huh?” Mark was smirking before he harshly bit into Jackson’s shoulder that was conveniently exposed by the younger’s muscle shirt.
The smaller rapper jerked in his grip. “You’re an ass.”
“Maybe.” Mark straightened up, shaking his hair out of his eyes. Their faces were only separated by a few inches of air. “But you don’t mind too much, do you?”
Jackson returned his gaze for a short while before looking down, giving up, finally abandoning his pretense at resisting. He was searching for words but was interrupted by Mark who seemed to have interpreted his silence as agreement.
Suddenly there were full lips on Jackson’s, silencing any sound he might have decided to make. He didn’t protest the matter, though, allowing his eyelids to fall shut at the soft touch. He’d been about to give in anyway, since there was no way he could pretend that he didn’t long for this.
The kiss started out slow, with Mark testing the water and both of them getting used to the unknown situation.
But Mark wasn’t one for slow, and he certainly hadn’t waited a week just for ‘slow’. As soon as he was sure that Jackson was returning the kiss, he deepened it, licking his way into the younger’s mouth. Jackson tasted sweet and slightly minty as if he had just brushed his teeth. Mark thought the taste was addicting.
Jackson opened his lips eagerly, welcoming the other into his mouth. A breathy little sound slipped past his throat when the kiss grew more heated. Impatiently, he tried to wriggle one of his hands free, desperate to touch the body that was currently pressed to his.
Mark didn’t fight him, releasing Jackson’s wrists, and placing one of his hands on Jackson’s hip instead, fingers digging into skin through the fabric of his pants. The other slipped under the younger’s shirt, grazing softly over smooth skin.
Jackson gasped silently into the kiss. His hand went up to Mark’s neck, holding him steady while he pressed forward, tilting his head to a better angle.
Mark made an appreciative noise, moving his hand between their bodies, exploring the hard muscles on Jackson’s stomach, and suddenly Jackson couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t Mark’s lips, or skin, or voice, or fingers on his body.
The hand that wasn’t tangled in Mark’s hair pushed at Mark’s shirt and lightly traced the curve of the older rapper’s back, familiarizing himself with the slim but strong body.
Mark shifted under the touch, and sucked the younger’s lower lip into his mouth, biting at it and making Jackson hiss sharply before releasing it with a wet sound and tracing Jackson’s jaw with his lips. He moved on to his neck, sucking and biting at the sensitive skin, though he was careful not to leave a mark.
Jackson was breathing shallowly, using the chance to suck in some air. His fingers were still tangled in Mark’s hair and he had to blink a couple of times until he was able to see clearly again. The younger almost whimpered when Mark removed the hand that had been holding his hip in place, instead pulling at Jackson’s loose neckline, exposing more skin to taste.
Jackson liked what they were doing. He liked it a lot. Too much, maybe, especially since he didn’t know what, exactly, was happening to them.
“Stop.” He was panting. Weakly, he pushed at Mark’s shoulder with one hand, tugging at his hair with the other. “Stop. Enough.”
The elder complied, grinning widely while he moved back. His eyes were sparkling and he licked his slightly swollen lips in a quick motion. His gaze moved over Jackson’s form, enjoying the way the younger looked right now, flushed, breathing hard, his eyes glazed over and his shirt hanging off one shoulder.
Jackson couldn’t help himself, his eyes followed the short flash of tongue and then stayed glued to those pink lips.
“Well, that was fun,” Mark stated, tilting his head slightly to one side. “We should repeat that.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes at the rapper. “Mark, what are we doing?”
The elder raised one eyebrow. “What do you mean? Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy this as much as I did. Your body was pretty explicit about that.”
“No, I did,” Jackson ground out. “But what does that make us?” That was the central question, wasn’t it? The one he’d been asking himself for the whole week. After what had just happened, he was safe to say that he definitely liked the other as more than just his best friend. However, he didn’t quite know what to classify them as which had him ask questions that made the smile on Mark’s lip fade.
The elder sighed. “Jackson, do we really have to do this?”
Jackson’s face tightened. “No, I guess we don’t,” he answered curtly and tugged his shirt back onto his shoulder. “Maybe you should give kissing Jinyoung another try because I’m not doing this if you refuse to talk about it.”
“Jackson…”
“Fuck you, Mark,” he added, almost like an afterthought, and turned to leave the room, head held high.
When Jackson woke up, he felt like he had aged about seventy years over night. Groaning, he sat up and stretched in hope of feeling like a normal human being again. Next to him, Bambam mumbled something in his sleep and hid his face into one of the couch cushions.
After his dramatic exit from Mark’s and his room, Jackson hadn’t wanted to return there, so he had convinced Bambam to watch a movie instead. They had both fallen asleep halfway in and had spent the night curled up together on the couch.
Jackson felt like someone had taken him apart and put him back together but in a slightly wrong way.
“Slept well?” Mark’s voice interrupted his stretching session, and when Jackson turned his head, he could see the older rapper lean in the kitchen door, smiling at him knowingly.
He refused to blush. “Great, thanks,” he replied dryly and tried to get up without pushing Bambam off the couch.
The corner of Mark’s lips twitched and Jackson was well aware that he was watching him as he climbed over Bambam and stepped away from the couch, unavoidably placing himself into the older boy’s reach. He half expected him to do something, something similar to last night, but Mark just smirked at him and turned away to get himself some juice from the fridge.
It took another week of Mark haunting his thoughts and his eyes following the older rapper constantly for Jackson to accept that yep, he was indeed gay, and if not gay in general, then at least gay for Mark. He’d been dreaming about the guy, for god’s sake. It was not just physical attraction, either, and that really sucked big time since Mark obviously wasn’t interested in anything more than casual make-out sessions.
He’d been earning more than a few concerned glances and questions because he had been scowling so much lately, especially at their oldest group member. Not that that specific member seemed to care, or even notice, for that matter.
He’d been five seconds away from confronting Mark at least ten times this week but had backed out each time. Mark had made very clear that, in his opinion, there wasn’t anything to talk about, and alone the thought of Mark telling him that there was nothing between them, or Mark watching indifferently as Jackson spilled out his pent-up feelings, made Jackson feel sick and nauseous.
Therefore, he really didn’t do anything except making sure that the only moments they spent alone together were when at least one of them was sleeping, and quietly cursing at Mark for the bullshit stunts he kept pulling on him. He had never asked to be kissed by the guy who was supposed to be his best friend and nothing more and now he had to deal with stupid feelings and attraction and other stuff he really, really didn’t need to be thinking about when they were dancing, or rapping, or giving interviews, or at any point of his day, really, just because the asshole hadn’t been able to keep his fingers to himself.
As a consequence, Jackson kept spending a huge part of his free time either in Mark’s and his room because he didn’t have any better hiding places even though their room clearly wasn’t optimal, as past experiences showed, or out of the dorm completely which mainly happened when Mark suddenly decided to spent time in their room as well and Jackson had to make a run for it.
At least he was getting enough sleep lately, provided that he managed to make his mind shut up which wasn’t as easy a task as it should be. Sometimes, he just spent hours playing “Angry Birds” on his phone.
Jackson had managed to doze off on his bed, finally, and he wasn’t dreaming about a certain jerk for once, either. Honestly, it was his own fault, leaving himself so defenseless, because when he woke up to a warm body next to his and soft lips kissing his neck, he had no way out. Not that he tried. His half-asleep brain apparently thought it was a good idea to pull Mark closer by his waist and tilt his head to give Mark better access to the sensitive skin of his throat.
“I missed you,” Mark mumbled, his breath brushing over the damp skin.
Jackson shivered and finally managed to open his eyes though his thoughts were still foggy.
“You’ve been so busy glaring at me lately that we haven’t spent any time together.” Mark sounded a bit petulant. “I don’t like it.”
“Whose fault is that?” Jackson answered, voice rough from sleep. He lazily wondered whether he should be pushing the other away by now but it felt so good to have Mark this close to him that he couldn’t bring himself to.
“Yours,” Mark replied decidedly. “I’m not the one whose only two actions this week were glaring and running.” He pulled himself up until he was propped up over Jackson with his elbows on each side of the younger’s head, their legs tangled together.
Jackson opened his lips in protest but then Mark was leaning down and kissing the words right out of his mouth and Jackson had forgotten what he had wanted to say anyway.
It was nice, just allowing himself to drift in the kiss, the only thing on his mind being touched and touching in return, fingers in his hair, hands on his skin, their bodies pressed together. It worked for about five minutes before Jackson remembered, yeah, this was exactly what he had wanted to avoid.
Once that thought had managed to wriggle itself back into his brain, it didn’t take him long to remove his hand from Mark’s back and pinch the elder in the side instead.
Mark jerked back with an undignified squeak that brought a slightly spiteful smile to the younger’s face. For once he wasn’t the only one flustered.
“Got an answer to my question yet?” he asked. There was a sharp edge to his voice, no matter how hard he tried to seem indifferent. There was no indifference, not really, not when there were feelings involved.
Mark sighed and pulled back, flopping down on the mattress next to Jackson. “Why do you have to be so obsessed with labels?” he demanded, irritation seeping from every syllable.
Jackson sat up and glared at the other. “Because I want some clarity, you asshole. You’ve been pulling me in and pushing me away whenever you felt like it for far too long. I’ve been questioning my sexuality for you. All that and I still have no idea what’s going on. Are you gay? Do you like me? Is this some sort of game for you, are you that bored? I’m not going to keep fooling around with you if I’m just some plaything to pass the time with.”
Mark rolled his eyes and abruptly pushed at the arms supporting Jackson’s weight, causing the younger rapper to fall down on top of him. Before the other had the chance to get up again, Mark had wrapped his arms around Jackson’s body.
“You’re not a plaything, you idiot. And who cares whether I’m gay? Fact is, I want to kiss you. I want to hold hands with you. I want to make you laugh. I want you close. You, no one else. Why do we have to put a label on that? It will only make everything more complicated.”
Jackson was blinking at him with wide, brown eyes, cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted. It was probably the prettiest thing Mark had ever seen.
Since the younger seemed at a loss for words, Mark tangled one hand in Jackson’s hair, pulling him down, and kissed him. The kiss wasn’t as heated as the one before that, but just as passionate.
When they finally separated, Jackson wore a grin on his face. “Fine,” he replied, eyes sparkling. “Then I’m not telling you that I like you, either.”
Mark couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.
“And,” Jackson continued, “I think I have the perfect label for us.”
The elder sighed. “Jacks-“
Jackson put his index finger on Mark’s lips, effectively silencing him. “We’ve said it before, haven’t we?” Amusement shone in his eyes. “Markson forever.”