Jackson was watching Jieun get ready in front of him by stretching her legs against the wall. She was dressed in very casual clothing, wearing a pair of loose grey sweats and a white top that outlined her features. 

Not that Jackson was paying any attention to those.

He cleared his throat and shot her a cheeky smile when she finally looked up from her feet.

"Whenever you're ready." Jackson offered with the fakest smile he could produce.

"Oh, I'm ready. Let's see if you are." was her blunt reply.

"Alright. Show me what you got."

Jackson was a little amused by her sudden boost of confidence as he started to casually circle around the room with her in front of him, never losing eyesight of her so he could see her eyes and figure out her next move.

Her eyes darted a little lower, looking towards his stomach and just as she drew her fist up and was about to hit the spot her eyes had remained on just a moment too long, Jackson grabbed her from the wrist and spun her around so that her back was pressed against his front and whispered in her ear: "Lesson number one: Learn how to mask your eyes. I can read you like an open book. Never let your opponent see what you're about to do. Have the element of surprise."

Jieun's breath caught up in when she felt how close Jackson suddenly was to her body and shivered at the sudden sensation. She was so used to him keeping his safe distance from her that she didn't really know how to react.

So she did the only thing she could possibly think of in this moment.

She used the hand that was not caught in Jackson's grip and sent her wrist flying up until it collided with Jackson's jaw. He let out a surprised groan as Jieun spun around and distanced herself from him and admired her handywork in satisfaction.

Jackson was standing there, dumfounded, holding his jaw with one hand. Jieun stood in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest with a smug grin playing on her lips.

"That's what I got. You didn't think I'd actually hit you? I can throw some mean punches, in case you happened to forget. You volunteered to be my punching bag and just for the record, I'm going to make the best of that."

"I can see that. You know we're just practicing, right? It's not like you have to hit me like I'm actually the enemy..." Jackson snorted and made a show about letting go of his jaw which was a little red due to the force of her punch.

"Awww. Does it hurt? Do you need me to blow on it and patch you up?" she teased.

Jackson's eyes hardened as a black glint took over his eyes. "Don't worry about me. Since you set these new rules, I'm going to go hard, too. Then we'll see whose body needs patching."

Jieun gulped as Jackson started taking slow, predatory steps towards her, like a lion about to attack it's prey.

Now what have I done?

----

Thirty minutes and a considerable amount of pain later, Jieun collapsed onto the ground, her shirt drenched of the sweat that was pouring out of her like a volcano, panting like she'd just ran a maraton and every muscle in her body screaming in agony.

When Jackson said he was gonna go in hard, he really meant it in every sense of the word.

She took a glance to her side and couldn't help but feel pride when she noticed that Jackson had to sit down too and even he was out of breath, lines of sweat forming on his forehead.

They took a moment in cooling down and catching their breaths. Neither of them knew how much they had actually needed that. They usually spent majority of the time being jerks to one another and now that they had been able to physically let out their feelings, it felt oddly relieving.

"Thanks for the lesson", Jieun snorted. "I'm pretty sure you hit me a lot harder than you actually had to."

Jackson shrugged with a smirk. "Maybe."

Jieun scoffed at him. "Unbeliavable."

Seeing him smirk at her instead of staring her down was a nice change.

"You knew back then, that I was close with your sister. Why didn't you say anything?" Jackson changed the topic out of the blue with a stern but curious voice.

Jieun's expression changed into a more serious one as she played their former conversation over in her mind.

----

"If it wasn't for your cousin I would not participate in this thing where we let you stay with us."

"Really? Not even for Eunji?" Jieun wondered.

Jackson's world stopped for a moment.

"Mark told you?"

Jackson was a little shocked. Mark hadn't even told the ones closest to him, only to Jackson and now he'd told Jieun, who was basically a stranger? It didn't make sense. Just because she was Youngjae's cousin and Eunji's sister didn't mean she was somehow a 'part of them'.

"What alarms me more is that you knew all this time and you didn't."

For a slight moment Jackson caught himself feeling quilty for not telling her about his past with Eunji. He was so used to keeping it a secret. It had always been something that just wasn't brought up.

Instead he just scoffed at her. "I don't owe you anything."

Jieun eyed Jackson, all the way from his fair hair, trough his toned figure and dark clothes to his feet, something close to disappointment flashing in her eyes.

"No. No you don't."

----

"I think everyone has something they don't