One-Shot
Just the Same"Is Jackson still in the pool?" asks Jaebum, following Mark as fast as possible down the hallway as they both try not to drench the floor, bodies still wet from their pool.
"Yeah, forcing Yugyeom to stay in so they can go against Andrew again," replies Mark, rounding the corner. He points to the door on the furthest right as he opens the door to the bathroom. "My room. Take anything!" He says before slamming the door shut.
Jaebum blinks.
Not even a second after the bathroom door opens again.
"Oh, Dad said Jinyoung went to lay down because he had a headache."
Jaebum chuckles at the pained expression on his friend's face. "Just go take a dump. I'll take ca-" he doesn't even finish before the bathroom door is slammed shut again, "-re of it."
"Hm?" Jaebum replies, looping the sweatshirt over his head. It barely reaches past his hipbones and is too tight around the shoulders, but he doesn't mind because it's warm and smells like Mark.
"Don't you think Mark hyung seems... different?" says Jinyoung, crossing his arms as he turns on his side to face him.
Shaking his head, Jaebum hurries towards the door the oldest pointed to, making a mental note to apologize to Mark's mom for soaking her pristine wood floor.
Jinyoung's head pops up from the pillow when he makes his way in.
"Hey" he says.
"Hey" replies Jaebum, giving him a quick once-over as he scurries towards the built in closet on the opposite side of the room, "You okay?"
"Yeah," comes the monotone reply, but he sees Jinyoung turn away from the wall to face the ceiling. That's a relatively good sign.
Jaebum trembles from the blasting air conditioning as he peels away the borrowed swimming trunks. By the time he finds a loose enough pair of shorts and a t-shirt, there is a small puddle by his feet. Not to mention the trail of water that starts by the door.
"Aish," mutters Jaebum, toweling his hair quickly before using the same towel to quickly wipe the water off the wood floor.
Jinyoung remains silent, and Jaebum let's him be. He knows the youngest is in one of his moods, and coaxing him to talk will only make him retreat into himself more. So he swiftly cleans the mess he has made in silence, opening the door to clean as much of the hallway as he can. The door to the bathroom is open and the lights are off, so he assumes Mark already left back to the party.
"Hyung?" Jinyoung calls when he closes the door. He feels Jinyoung's eyes follow him as he makes a beeline towards the red sweatshirt he spots tossed on the chair by the desk. At the rate the air conditioning is going, he won't he surprised if he catches a mild cold.
Jaebum leans on the back of the chair, tilting his head at the younger man, "Different?"
"Like," starts Jinyoung, using one hand to scratch at the back of his right ear. Jaebum watches him attentively, recognizing the action as one of the many nervous habits he has come to associate as purely Jinyoung's over the years. Jinyoung catches him watching and sighs dejectedly, not bothering to lie now that he knows Jaebum can tell he is feeling uneasy. "Like he isn't really himself."
"What do you mean?" says Jaebum curiously, crossing his arms. Jinyoung watches him for a few seconds before getting up and sitting cross legged on the bed instead.
"Don't you think that the Mark hyung we know is a bit different?" he says, eyes pensive as looks at the oldest. He tries again when he gets no reaction. "That the Mark hyung we know is different from the Mark his friends here know him as?"
That's when Jaebum get's it, when Jinyoung forgoes the honorific without even a second thought, frowning even when he says it himself because the thought of Mark being any different than he knows him makes no sense. That's when he gets it. Because this is the first time Jinyoung is seeing Mark being a bit different in this sense. Because for Jinyoung the strongest connection between him and Mark back when the oldest had still been new to Korea had been their mutual friendships with Jaebum and Hyunwoo*, and it wasn't until Hyunwoo's absence had become suffocating that Jinyoung had truly gotten closer to the American.
It's not even that the difference itself is very big - at least from what Jaebum has noticed in the time they have spent with the LA residents since the group had landed - just that Mark is a tad bit more stubborn and a tad bit less patient when it comes to his childhood friends, and that there seems to be more comfort in roughhousing between them than the affectionate hugs or reassuring touches that have become so common place between the seven of them back at the dorms.
But of course Jinyoung noticed, no matter how small the change. Jinyoung who is the most in-tune with his own emotions and to the emotions of the people around them, who notices even the smallest changes in demeanor, even more so than Jaebum himself sometimes.
"He is different," Jaebum finally says after pondering for a minute, and continues before Jinyoung's frown gets any deeper. "But he is still the same Mark you know, Jinyoung-ie"
He waits for Jinyoung to look up from his hands before continuing. He knows that Jinyoung knows what he is about to say, understands it better than most people around them to be honest, but he also knows that what the younger man needs right now is the smallest bit of reassurance, just someone to tell him that noticing these things doesn't mean that the change itself is bad, that it isn't permanent, that it doesn't invalidate how Jinyoung feels something is a bit off.
"People change people, remember?" says Jaebum softly, and he vaguely remembers a quote he had once written down by Murakami during one of those days when the presence of words seemed much more comforting than that of human warmth.
What happens when people open their hearts?
They get better.
They get better.
"Mark is still the same Mark-hyung you know, the same Mark-ya I know. Even if he is different for a bit, different here with different people, he is still the same."
Jaebum wishes he could explain what he means better, present the words in a more comforting and welcoming manner, maybe wrap them prettily so they don't seem so disjointed. He wishes but then he stops, because Jinyoung gives the smallest of smiles, clearly understanding what he means.
"Plus, it's not like we don't change back to our old selves either," Jaebum continues with a smirk, crossing his arms. "I sometimes become Im-Rage* and you become pretentious."
"Did you just call me pretentious?" ask Jinyoung incredulously. But there is a grin on his face, little wrinkles forming by the corner of his eyes.
"Did I?" retorts Jaebum offhandedly, but he is also smiling wide.
Jinyoung open his mouth to retaliate when the door bursts open and Jackson pokes his head in, beaming wider than both of them and resembling very much an overly excited wet dog.
"We are gonna dunk Bambaaaaa-," Jackson whispers conspiringly, then notices the grins on their faces," Wait, what's going on?"
They look at Jackson's confused expression, then at each other, and then promptly burst out laughing.
People change people.
But that's okay,
Because they can also change them back.
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*Hyunwoo. Real name of Shownu from Monsta X. He used to be a JYP trainee and is close to Jaebum, Jinyoung, and Mark
*Im-Rage. Jinyoung said this is Jaebum's nickname from trainee days, since he used to lose him temper really quickly.
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