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 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