TRUST SECRETS (Source of noodles)

 

 

“This is not working,” Jinyoung places a magazine on the table, scanning everyone’s eyes in the little room that they call office. He looks very scary, Jackson may say. “Bambam, those pictures are blurry.” He says glaring at the said boy. “Next time try do better ones.”

“I can’t, I just barely managed to capture those.” Bambam defends himself. “Last time you told me that I shouldn’t use Hyuna as model anymore because the people are sick of her pictures.”

“Jackson,” Jinyoung continues moving on to the next. “No one cares about Mrs. Im, next time interview a person the students want to read about.”

“In my defense, all the students want is to read about Mark Tuan and he never will give us an interview.” Jackson defends himself.

“Exactly, why do you think those pictures are blurry?” Bambam shouts. “I had to hide in the storage room to capture that.”

“Youngjae, good job with the dance rubric,” Jinyoung smiles and pats the boy head in an affectionate way.

When Jackson signed up for the High School Magazine, he never imagined that will be this hard. Firstly, Jackson trough that writing an article is easy or getting some interviews from some teachers, but now it seems harder. People don’t want to read about teachers, people don’t give a about grades or their ranking, all they want to read are gossips and some more gossips.

“If the next number will be as poorly as this one, the headmaster said that will take the magazine out, so guys, we need to work our butts off,” Jinyoung says. You can see the sadness in his eyes, first because he is the leader and second because this is a legacy that he must carry. His brother was the leader before him.

“But what should we do then?” Bambam asks, crossing his arms. “We are short of people who are willing to help us.”

“Listen here,” Jinyoung motions with his hands for everyone to get closer. “Yugyeom, you write an article about this year winter play, use last year pictures or pictures from this year practice and please write an announce about how we are taking people in our editing team.”

“Yes sir,” Yugyeom replies.

“Bambam, I think we should stop chasing Mark Tuan and use blurry pictures for now.” Jinyoung says smirking at his own idea that Jackson knows that will be something out of contest. “Let your imagination grow and dress some girls, don’t just take pictures of how they dress because they already have those clothes.”

“Ok, I’ll try my best, but I need to borrow some clothes from your sister, I don’t own girls clothes.”

“I’ll talk with her today then,” Jinyoung says turning to Jackson. “You, my best friend have to get an interview from Mark Tuan.”

“What, why me?”

“Because you are Jackson,” Jinyoung smiles, clapping his hands together. “If you can’t then at least get one from those two puppies that follow him.”

“You mean his friends,” Jackson says shaking his head. “Especially the one who is in your class and calls you cutie all the time, right?”

“Anyway, if not at least try to write an article about him with lots of information about his personal life.”

“Yes, of course,” Jackson replies. This will be hard as hell and depressing considering that Jackson information on Mark are poor.

“That’s all, the rest I’ll do myself,” Jinyoung says taking his bag from the desk. “Now go, go, you have two weeks.”

***

 

 

 

Jackson sighs taking glances at Mark Tuan from time to time. What’s so great about him that everyone likes him? Why are they interested in him?

All he knows about Tuan is that Mark is rich and has one friend. The rest is mystery. Well, at least for Jackson. Should he just go and ask for an interview? It wouldn’t be the first time someone will try anyway. Jinyoung tried three times and never got one.

“So, any plan on asking him to an interview?” Bambam asks, placing his tray of food on the table.

“I am thinking of it, but I guess is safer to follow him around and write about a day of his life.” Jackson says, looking behind him at the school football team star. Because Mark has the looks and is the best of the football team is so damn popular among the high school. “I don’t think he will say anything helpful on the interview.”

“Like he will give you one,” Bambam smirks and starts to dig in his food.

Yes, it won’t be easy but he will do it, for the sake of the School Magazine.

***

 

 

“Ok Jackson, you can do it.” He says taking a deep breath and starts the car that he barely can take care of since he is short of money.

In no time, he sees himself in front of Mark Tuan house; his car parked two streets away. He heard about the big mansion at the end of the street, but Jackson never took any interest in looking over it. True to the stories, this house is big, that big that will let your mouth hanging open.

First, he can’t just ring the bell and tell Mark that he is here, so the second option is to climb that three that he sees and let himself in the hands of God. Who knows what is behind the big gate.

With a lot of effort and sweat, Jackson finally he sees himself on earth again. A feeling like this is a blessing.

Where he is, Jackson doesn’t know exactly. Around him, there are trees and some more trees. He takes a deep breath and starts to navigate between them until finally he spots the big house that he had seen outside the gates.

“What the hell is this place?” He asks himself as he walks beside a wall, probably the back one. “You can get lost and never find your way out of here.” He shivers at the thought.

When he was about to turn the corner, a voice stopped him. His heart is beating fast and his hands are sweating around him phone. Yes, he is holding his phone for emergency calls. Jackson takes a look around and finally, he is brave enough to pick his head around the corner to see Mark, because honestly he knows that voice very well.

“What the hell?” He whispers looking around. Mark is nowhere to see, but Jackson knows what he heard earlier. When the voice starts to talk again, just then Jackson noticed Mark into a tree. There is a big tree, with one of its branch long and strong enough to travel from the tree until a window. Mark is sitting on it with one of his legs hanging low and looking at that window.

“It’s alright, I’ll call you back.” Mark voices out as he closes the phone he was holding at his right ear.

Jackson opens his phone at the camera with lots of effort because his hands are sweating, but stops in midair when Mark talks again.

“You know that I can see you, right?”

Jackson looks around than at himself and back at Mark. The older is still there on the tree, his eyes at the window. Yah, he can’t talk with me. Jackson laughs and raises his hand again to snap a picture.

“Yes, with you I am talking.”

Jackson lowers his phone. He looks up at Mark and then around him. There is no one in sight that Mark can talk to. Is Mark talking to an imaginary friend? That would be super-duper ultra-strange.

Jackson shakes his head and looks at Mark again. After all, Mark can do as many strange things as he wants, Jackson doesn’t really care. All he wants right now is to save the school magazine.

His phone starts to vibrate into his hands. “Why is Jinyoung calling me?” He rejects the call and gets to his mission, but this time when he looks up he meets a pair of eyes looking down at him. The bad part, the pair of eyes is too close. He holds his breath, waiting for the person to say something. In the worst case scenario Mark will call the cops.

“What are you doing here?” Mark asks, offering a small smile. Well, isn’t he all charming with a stranger who invaded his yard?

“I just, you-“Jackson rubs the back of his head while he feels the heavy phone into his other hand. “I just heard a lot about you and I wanted to see where you live.”

“Oh really?” Mark looks a bit taken aback. “I thought you wanted an interview or something too.”

“Me? Interview? Of course not.” Jackson laughs waving his hand in dismissing, probably looking like an idiot.

“Oh, now that you’ve seen my house, I guess I have to show you the exit since you climbed the gates just to see the house.” Mark has a glint of something in his eyes as he speaks with Jackson.

Jackson is taken aback by the older and starts to follow Mark, who has a slow walk. “Won’t you call the police?” He finds himself asking.

Mark turns at him with a smile on his face. “To be honest you are the first who went so far to climb a wall just to see where I live, but I’ve seen you at school, so I guess you are one of those crazy fans of mine.”

Jackson shakes his head at Mark’s kindness, let’s say. “Actually, I am not one of those crazy fans, someone sent me here.” He lied. He doesn’t want to be in Mark’s memory as one of his stalkers from school. He doesn’t know why it is so important this. “I am sorry, ok?”

“Ok then, if you say so,” Mark says continuing to walk on a path, probably toward the exit.

Jackson doesn’t want to leave yet, not when he climbed that damn gate just to get a glimpse of the older. He knows that the next time he won’t be as lucky as now. Mark seems kind enough to overlook this little incident, so Jackson won’t let the moment to pass. “If is not much to ask, can I get a glass of water?”

 Mark looks surprised when he turned at Jackson. He opens his mouth to reply but settles at nodding his head waving to Jackson to follow him.

***

 

 

 

Jackson sighs in content when he arrived in his safe room. Thanks God, his mom hasn’t seen him shaken up. He throws his bag into his bed and runs a shaky hand on his hair. He still is in a daze by Mark attitude. If Jackson was in Mark’s shoes probably he will have called the cops and thrown a tantrum, but he isn’t Mark. He is just Jackson.

When he remembers that he took some pictures of Mark’s big living room while the older went to bring the water Jackson smiles in victory. Something is something.

He jumps up and down and starts to dig into his bag for his phone.

There is no phone into his bag. Jackson goes looking again and when he realizes that he put the phone on a table to drink the water, he wants to facepalm himself.

Now he has to ask Mark for it tomorrow at school.

***

 

 

 

“Where the hell is your phone?” Jinyoung asks the moment Jackson puts foot into the school magazine office. “I called you million times last night.”

Jackson massages his temple with his fingers and glares at Jinyoung. “I didn’t come here to be shouted at; I just came take a paper I forgot yesterday.” Jackson replies. He takes a folder from one of the office table and leaves. He needs a plan to approach Mark and ask for his phone.

He stalks, yes; you can call it that, Mark the whole day. He sees Mark walking with his friend trough the school cantina doors, he sees Mark borrowing a book from the library, he sees Mark taking a call, he sees Mark all day but he is too chicken to actually go and approach him.

Currently, he is watching Mark waving goodbye to his friend at the end of the day and turns to go back into the school. Jackson hides behind a wall, to let Mark pass by, but with no success.

“You know, I can see you, right?” Mark's voice echoes into the empty school.

Jackson hits his head on the wall and slowly, he walks out from his hiding. “Sorry, but I forgot my phone at your place and you see, it’s an important matter and I need it back.” He rubs the back of his head, looking down at his feet. He isn’t sure why is he acting this way around Mark.

“Yes, that’s right, “Mark chuckles and Jackson raises his head to look at him. “But you should have told me this morning, it wasn’t necessary to follow me all day.”

“Did you see me?” Jackson dares to asks, looking how Mark’s eyes sparkle with something. “I am sorry, but you always are surrounded by fans and I didn’t want to be mistaken for one of them.”

“Anyway, I have your phone in my locker.” Mark waves his hand for Jackson to follow. “It rang all night; you have a persistent boyfriend there.”

Jackson wants to die in embarrassment right now. “That’s not my boyfriend, it’s just a friend, and he signed like that in my phone to annoy someone.” Jackson doesn’t know why he wants to clarify this misunderstanding.

“I see, well.” Mark stops in front of his locker and opens it. He takes Jackson’s phone from it and gives it back to him. “You won me a meal for bringing it back to you.”

“What?”

“What? You don’t eat?” Mark laughs, closing his locker. “Are you a vampire? Should I run for my life now?”

Jackson shakes his head, trying to recover. “Thank you,” He waves his phone putting it in his backpack. With one last look, he turns around leaving Mark watching him.

“Ok, that was strange,” Jackson whispers into nothingness as he closes the school doors after him. “Mark is really strange.”

***

 

 

 

“I am not doing this anymore, he is weird.” Jackson pleads his case at Jinyoung. “He is really weird,”

“But he has a good sense of fashion,” Bambam adds sipping from his strawberry milkshake. “Unfortunately, I can’t use him again for that rubric, plus the entire pictures all damn blurry.”

“Do you want to save the magazine or not? Do you want to get into a good college or not?” Jinyoung brings back all the things Jackson said before. “Jackson, you need the credit for the scholarship.”

“I know,” Jackson lets his head fall on the table to meditate.

He knows that this work is nothing compared to what college will bring, but he has this off feeling about Mark. In a way, Mark seems an alright kid, but Jackson is afraid that he will discover something big about him and he won’t be able to publish that because of his feelings.

Jackson is a good guy, and he isn’t sure if he wants to bring someone down just because he wants to get into a good college.

“Ok, back to work, alright?” Jinyoung smiles at them and shows them the exit.

Jackson pushes back all his toughs and leaves in search of Mark. He feels like a stalker right now, to be honest; he is not far from it anyway.

After watching Mark for like five minutes, Jackson decided that this is called stalking and by doing it he won’t get any secret information. He has to look deeper than just follow Mark around, somewhere when no one looked.

In the end, he ends up searching the internet with Mark’s name, because no one did that (note the sarcasm there). Somewhere on a page should be something about him or not but Jackson is willing to try. Probably there won’t be anything, sue Jackson for trying.

He puts his earphones in, plays this new rapper that he started to like and starts in search of every little detail that could help him save the school magazine.

Long down on his list search, suddenly he feels something cold pressed to his check.

Jackson jumps a bit and looks to see what’s going on, meeting Mark’s eyes looking at him with a small smile on his face and a bottle of water in his hands. He takes out the earphones and looks questioning at the older.

“Here, I bought it for you,” Mark says, extending the bottle of water he was holding his hands.

Jackson looks a bit suspicious at him but accepts the bottle. Ok, he isn’t sure what’s going on but he ends up by patting the space beside him. Damn body acting before thinking. Can’t his own body cooperate with him in this?

Mark still has that smile on his face when he sits down. It kinds of creeps Jackson’s out, but who is Jackson to question it when Jackson himself can be creepy at times?

“I saw you here looking engrossed on whatever you do and I said that I should bring you a bottle of water,” Mark says looking up at the sky. “The sun shines so brightly today, even the shade of this tree can’t compare with the hotness.”

No Sherlock.

Jackson turns back at his laptop and puts in the menu bar his works, not wanting Mark to see any of it; not that he has any work on it, but is better to be safe. “Thank you, I guess.”

“When are you going to buy me a meal?”

Jackson’s head snaps at Mark, he totally forgot this stupid idea of the older. What meal anyway? “When do you want it, but nothing expensive because I am saving for college?” Jackson says once again before thinking.

“Really?” Mark happy face kind of leaves Jackson wondering if Mark is rich like he is supposed to be. Why is he being so happy by some meal? “Thank you so much. What about tonight?”

Hold on; hold on, this is kind of soon.

“Whatever,” the soon the better, he wanted to add, but that would be impolite and Jackson is always polite, ok? You can’t tell him otherwise.

“Can we get like noodles and go to the park and eat it?” Mark asks, and Jackson really wants to get out of there, but instead he puts a smile on his face and turns to Mark. He finds this conversation totally strange; isn’t like they are long term friends.

“Whatever you want doesn’t matter to me.”

“Ok then, see you after school.” Mark bounce up from his spot and leaves Jackson watching after him with no goodbye. But who cares, Jackson doesn’t expect any other contact with the football captain after the meal.

Mark is plotting something, Jackson can just feel it, but who cares right now? All he needs is to save the magazine and get into a good college and far away from Korea. Isn’t like he doesn’t like here, but he wants to explore more of this world. And Mark craving for noodles is his last problem right now.

***

 

 

 

Jackson walks slowly side by side with Mark to the nearest store to buy noodles; if Mark wants noodles who is Jackson to say no to that?

Mark waited for Jackson in front of the school after classes and waved his hand like they are childhood friends. Really, Jackson never saw Mark so hyper before, not even when he won a football game.

“I never expected you to want noodles or any convince store food.” Jackson says as they walk. He is the talkative one in a group, and now staying silent is kind of new to him, so he decided to speak.

“I love noodles, but I don’t have the chance to eat it frequently.”

“Why not? Can’t you just ask for a cup of noodles if you have that big house and many people who take care of it?”

Jackson could hear Mark sigh even three foot apart before speaking. “I am not allowed to eat noodles, it gets me swollen and I won’t look presentable.”

Jackson isn’t sure if he heard right, so he turns to look at Mark. The other has his eyes locked to the pavement walking like someone put the world on his shoulders. He practically looks like a kicked puppy.

“What?” He gasps like a fish out of the water. “Noodles are the best thing that humans invented.”

“Easy for you to say when no one has expectations for you.” Mark looks long at him, and Jackson feels kind of threatened so he prefers to look front, just in case he will hit something on his way not that Mark gaze is kind of making him sweat.

“You know,” Jackson begins “people has expectation from me too, but they let me make my own chooses because they trust me.”

“I guess you are right,” Mark says taking a step closer to Jackson. “They don’t trust me.”

Ok, Jackson didn’t want to go in that part of what he said; he just wanted to make a point but apparently, Mark takes it too personally.

“Anyway, I see that you are different,” Mark says putting an arm around Jackson’s shoulder.

Jackson on the other side, he doesn’t know what to say or do. Preferably, he should shake Mark’s arm off, but strangely he finds it comfortable, so he ends by just walking alongside Mark.

Somehow, Jackson finds comfort in Mark’s words as well. He doesn’t know how Mark sees him or why he said what he said, but in a way it’s just awesome that someone barely knows him and already has a good impression. Not that Jackson is a bad guy or anything, but he tends to talk without thinking or doing extra things in some circumstances. With Mark, he is more calm, more attentive at his words, like he is most afraid that Mark will see the real him and will be disappointed in what he sees. Not that he cares of what Mark thinks of him.

Ok, he isn’t sure why he cares so much, so Jackson just shrugs it off.

They bought noodles, made them at the store and went to a nearby park to eat it. Jackson is kind of happy that he didn’t had to pay lots of money for treating Mark for giving back his phone, this way he can save some money for his college.

“Thanks for giving back my phone,” Jackson says between bites. “Somebody else will have sold it for money.”

“I have enough money, you see,” Mark laughs and something in Jackson’s heart cracks. Ok, this is strange.

“And why don’t you buy noodles for yourself?”

“They will see what I used my money for.” Mark laughs dies, and Jackson really wants to hear that again. It’s a pity that Mark doesn’t laugh that loudly and often at school too. Not that Jackson notice Mark at school too often.

“Oh well, then whatever you want noodles you can ask me,” Jackson isn’t sure where this came from, but he feels good saying that out loud. “I have enough money to buy noodles.”

Mark’s face lights up with a smile that could steal your heart away, and in that moment Jackson realizes why people are so attracted by Mark. He is really handsome; his black hair completes his white face so beautifully, and his doe-like eyes hold so much joy whatever he smiles, but sometimes Jackson noticed sadness as well.

Suddenly, Jackson feels so little and insignificant compared to the other.

“As a thank you, let me take you home, I left my car at school,” Mark says bringing Jackson back to reality. “Ok?”

Jackson left his car home this morning; to save money is the key to college in his world.

“Are you trying bribing me to buy you noodles again?”

“Nope, you already offered.” Mark smiles waving his hand for Jackson to follow him,