Chapter 4: Gay boy kisses straight boy!

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Someone might be marathoning Jackson's old videos, and Mark and JB wear heels for a day.

***

8 years ago

Jackson starts a youtube channel for the same reason many high school students do: out of boredom. To be fair, getting attention from random strangers on the internet, validation and lots of love is not too far behind, but Jackson likes to think he does it for something other than internet fame.

“Who are you even fooling?” Bambam roars in laughter, rolling on the floor.

“What?” Jackson does his best impression of an innocent face, but Bambam isn’t even looking, “I’m not fooling anyone. Dude, please, come on, you know this would be fun!”

“Kissing a dude on camera for a video to be posted to youtube is not my idea of fun,” Bambam says, as seriously as he could while recovering from his laughing fit. (Which isn’t very serious. Jackson doesn’t point it out thought. See, he can be mature if he wants to.)

This isn’t how Jackson had imagined this conversation going, “Come on, Bam, I know you’re straight and all, but how can you be sure until you’ve at least kissed a guy?” He blinks his eyes innocently, pouting, “In fact, I’m doing you a favour by helping you confirm that you are, indeed, 100% straight.”

“That is a lame- excuse, Jackson. At least have the decency to admit to your best friend that you want to make a video of you kissing me simply because the whole ‘gay boy kisses straight boy’ videos have been really popular lately.”

“If I admit it, will you appear in my video and let me kiss you?”

In the end, Bambam reluctantly agrees, but not without constantly repeating how this stuff stays on the internet forever, and how no one is ever going to believe that the effeminate looking Thai teen is straight. Jackson decides that it’s only fair that he gives Bambam a particularly wet kiss instead of the peck they agreed on for having to endure the complaining, although he does put a 30 second explanation at the back explaining that Bambam’s totally straight.

The comments section does not believe him, but sadly, Bambam is, indeed, totally straight. Jackson would know.

Nevertheless, Jackson knows that nothing good comes out of pining after a straight boy, so he distracts himself with making videos. He is pretty good at getting views and likes once he figures out his audience and their preferences. The videos where he’s topless easily get more views than those when he’s wearing any shirts (except the mesh shirt for some reason). The videos where he does suggestive asks from his (crazy but loving) subscribers tend to be pretty well received, particularly the one where he ate a banana ily (other than the first , Jackson had chomped the banana viciously, but the first few seconds has his subscribers squealing). The videos where he talks about troubles he’s had from being gay are also rather popular. Jackson knows this, so he does all of them. He doesn’t make any more videos where he kisses a boy, gay or straight, because after making that video with Bambam, it doesn’t feel right to.

***

Present Day

It’s been a really long time since Jackson updated his old youtube channel, but he’s still signed in on that account, so sometimes he clicks on channel statistics for fun.

Wildny. Jackson would change the name, but he has a proper youtube account under JacksonWang and he doesn’t want people to accidentally find his old account, so he keeps the terrible username. Technically, Jackson can just delete the old channel, but he’s kind of sentimental, or maybe just a hoarder, so he doesn’t.

It’s not like people will bother linking 18 years old Wildny, bright eyes and a smile to match, to 26 years old Jackson Wang, typical adult and office employee. Not unless they try really hard, in which case, they can probably find all his old videos in some hidden corner of the internet anyway.

Either way, he checks the statistics over breakfast because he’s kind of bored, not expecting to see much views (usually there’s no new views or likes), but his eyes must be failing him, because almost all the videos on his old channel have around 20 new views, all from LA. Huh. Weird.

I wonder if someone’s marathoning my old videos, Jackson thinks, amused, driving to office.

Jackson’s supposed to give Junior’s contact to Mark so that Mark can arrange schedules, but given how he hasn’t finished a full script yet, he doesn’t think Mark needs it so urgently. He probably shouldn’t have assumed, because he spots pink hair above the back of his office chair the moment he enters the door. Well, it’s not like seeing Mark is a chore, he thinks.

Jackson puts his coffee down on the desk, setting his shoulder bag on the side. Mark notices him then, turning on the swivel chair to face him.

“Morning,” Mark nods.

“Morning!” Jackson points at the chair, “Any reason why you’re sitting in my chair early in the morning? Do you miss me?

The teasing gets a soft laugh from Mark, and Jackson grins in return. He takes a sip of his coffee to give Mark time to reply.

Mark his lips slightly before opening his mouth, then closed it again. A few blinks passed before he says, “You know what, never mind. Just let me know when the script’s done because we need it for the next meeting.”

“Oh-kay,” Jackson’s left feeling puzzled as Mark walks off to the second floor. He prides himself on reading most people well, and Mark h