Jackson had really been hoping that his discussion with Mark late that evening was just a fragment of his wild imagination and tired brain since it would have been much more convenient for him. After all, what would someone like Mark, a boy which was now in international, widely known star be doing late at evening, after the sun had gone now, around filthy side streets filled with the smell of rotten food and subpar paid workers. The correct answer he believe to be ‘nothing’. Or so he hoped it was.

It’s been two days after that not-meeting when Jackson woke up early in the morning, took his time with washing up and changing to his training clothes, mind fixed on running around the neighbourhood for a while in order to clear his thoughts.  

And running he did, quietly and nicely for the most part before he heard a very well known and unwelcome voice behind him. “Hey! Wait for me for a second!”. For a moment he felt like running even faster. Or screaming bloody murder in hope that someone will come and save him from the meeting with the one he wished the least to see.

He slowed down though, and yet he didn’t know why he did that.

“Thank you.” Mark told him, now jogging alongside Jackson on the pave walk.

So they jogged together and Jackson was facing a really bad time trying to keep his composure and his mouth shut. From what he knew very well about the man beside him, the young actor had no problem staying quiet for ridiculous amounts of time, at least in the younger’s perspective.

it was crumbling way too fast, he realized, when he started stealing glances at his old friend, not being all that surprised to see him doing the same. He was the mad one god dammit!

“Why are you doing this?”

Mark smiled at that, nodding his head to show that he heard the younger boy. “Do what? Run?

Jackson stopped in his tracks, ruffling the messy blonde hair into an even messier look. He didn’t feel all that good and that innocent eyes Mark was giving him weren’t helping him stay calm and collected either. Especially because Mark wasn’t that cute innocent boy from years prior. He was this handsome person that somehow resembled every wet dream Jackson has ever had involving a man.

“Trying to fix whatever friendship we had up.” He retorts, watching as Mark stops as well, a few steps ahead  and sighing deeply.

“I told you, I miss you. “

Jackson felt like gagging.

“No, if you’d have missed me you would have acted like a friend. But you didn’t which leads me to believe you didn’t ing care. Why would you care now?” He took a deep breath, eyes fixed on Mark’s wide ones. “Because some dude dumped your and went for ? That’s why?”

He regretted it in the moment he said it. It wasn’t what he was thinking. No one deserved to be cheated by their loved one. No one.

Mark’s expression hardened, remaining as stoic and quiet as ever, though Jackson could see that the comment about the break up made him upset. “Never mind that, I didn’t mean it-” He tried to fix this somehow, even though he already knew he couldn’t take his words back. But- Didn’t Mark deserve to be  hurt too?

“Maybe I deserved it.” He said softly.

His voice was shaking and Jackson realized that old saying his mother used to tell him when he was a kid was true. 'you never pay for blood with blood' and that's exactly what he had done.

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean it." he scratched the back of his head, analyzing the elder's facial expressions carefully. Mark never were an expressive guy, but his eyes spoke spoke a thousands words once you've learnt the language of their flickering and movement. He could tell by the way the man before him was looking that he was trying to keep the hurt in, because he had a purpose and another fight with Jackson wasn't what he was after.   

“I know you didn’t.” Mark says earnestly, lifting his gaze to look at Jackson and just the way that he looks makes Jackson want to go to him and sweep him into his arms. He doesn’t do that. Just not yet.

Even if he hates the idea of the angelic man suffering, the younger still keeps up the idea of letting Mark bare just a bit the uncertainty and suffocating loneliness he has been feeling for the past years.

“Why?” Jackson asks after a long while. He dislikes the silence in general, preferring to always talk, crack a joke and whatnot just to keep it away, but he hates it when is like this, tensioned and thick enough to cut through it with a knife.

Mark takes a deep breath, his hands are in front of him, nimble fingers playing with the assortment of rings adoring them. He’s nervous, the blonde realized, more nervous then Jackson has ever seen him, and in a way, he’s cute like that, innocent and humble in his stress. He wonders if he’ll get a rehearsed speech, after all, Mark’s a good actor. But he doubts that in the same time, knowing Mark is more of a heart than brains person.

“I was scared. “ he starts and is not really promising, what would he be scared of? “I was scared because I knew I was going to go and never seen you again. I was afraid that from what we had, we’ll try being the same through the phone and emails and so. But we would have never succeeded in reality. I was scared that we would grow cold and superficial towards each other. We would promise each other we would see one another again but- we would never have.” He takes a break and his eyes are watery and Jackson wishes he could have the means of a magical spell to never let Mark shed a tear ever again. He looks disarmingly broken and confused and truthful and the younger didn’t know what to do with this information.

“I was afraid I’d grow to not care about you. I was afraid you’d grow to not care about me.”

He finishes his speech and with a rupture of his shyness, he looks Jackson in the eye, trying to make him see that all he had said was true.

“You’re so stupid Mark.”

But he’s smiling, barely there and still with a shadow of hurt, but he’s smiling and he can see a flash of momentary light falling across the older man’s features.

Jackson doesn’t lie to himself anymore, he doesn’t think he can anymore, it was so easy to see that he stood no chance against the beautiful mystery that was Mark Tuan.

He knows he will forgive him.

.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.

Jackson feels as if he had given Mark wings after their discussion midway jogging and in the next couple of days he sees the older man more often then maybe he was expecting to. He expected Mark to considerately let him think their discussion over, chew over it. But instead, he is smiling and he comes by the diner and he becomes friends with everyone so quickly that Jackson believes the aliens have abducted his old friend and let down on Earth a new copy of his body with heightened up social skills.

But if he’s smiling, he’s smiling in Jackson’s direction, and his eyes are crinkling with childish delight when Jackson offers a small smile of his own, leaving whatever conversation he has with Youngjae or Jaebum to approach him.

They start talking more and more, in the beginning only about casual subjects such as the weather conditions or a news report they’ve both found interesting. But then slowly the conversations started to drift towards more ‘fun’ stuff, as they rediscovered that their taste in music was very much similar, as well as their taste in movies and video games.  

It was too soon, Jackson believed when he started feeling comfortable around Mark again, he started laughing and talking a mile a minute, somehow taking some pride when he saw the older man returning to his old habits, like telling him to shut up.

“You love to hear me talk, don’t play Markkie~” he cooed one day, his legs placed on the actor’s lap while they were having a ‘men night’ at Jaebum’s house. If he was honest, he didn’t fully understand why Jaebum kept calling it like that, seeing that all four of them were gay. His co-workers flustered reply was that he was calling it like this because he invited Youngjae as well, who happened to be straight. But then Mark leaned in and whispered into his ear a soft ‘He doesn’t want to call it a sleepover’, Jackson burst out into laughter so sudden they they believed he went completely mental, which wasn’t such a hard thing to imagine happening.

When he heard Jackson whining like a little kid he was, Mark just flicked the man’s forehead. “No, I don’t. You talk too much and give me a headache.”

Well, maybe that was a bit too far fetched, the actor realized, watching his friend with a worried expression. There might be it, he thought, the moment in which Jackson put a stop in the rekindling of their friendship due to some dumb comment of his.

His heart almost left his chest then, observing that Jackson was frowning in his direction, seeming quite upset with comment. ‘’ was all Mark could think, but even before he could open his mouth to quickly apologize, he was surprised when he realized the frown had been 100% fake and now Jackson was laughing loudly, clutching his belly and falling off the couch in a dramatical roll on the floor.

“You should have seen your fake Markie~, it was precious.” he managed through pearls of laughter and that was it, the actor has had enough.

Mark swiftly got up from the couch and approached the younger man who was laying face up on the floor,still laughing softly to himself, and sat down on his belly, looking down at him. He could sense a light blush coming into his cheeks, but so could Jackson, as the older man bent down to talk right against his face.

“You , Jackson.” he said, but the words were lacking any actual bite in them.

Jackson chuckled, trying to seem more in control then how he actually felt, disregarding his racing heart for now.

“But you like me anyway.” was the younger’s answer.

And yes, Mark realized, yes nothing was changed, as much as he wish his feelings were only platonic.

He was so ed.