EPILOGUE: Eyes Ahead!

BamBam pouted at his expression in the mirror. His lips were looking particularly nice these days, he thought. He'd heard it was your skin that was supposed to improve when you fell in love, and maybe the whole “glowing” thing had worked for Youngjae and Jinyoung who had their pleasant little auras, but he liked his freshly kissed lips better. Maybe the pheromones around him were starting to increase, too? All the people who had decided he was the perfect best friend before were starting to take notice of him, finally, not that it particularly mattered now anymore. Besides, the presence of Jackson seemed to warn them off all over again; BamBam had no idea how because Jackson was warm to everyone and he didn't do anything possessive in particular, or at least no more physical contact than he would do with anyone else, but always when Jackson was around if someone got too close to BamBam, the air would somehow shift and whoever it was would start keeping their distance just a little. BamBam had never noticed why exactly it happened, but the result of it was clear enough.

Still, it made him a little happy. Or maybe a lot. Even with them dating now, Jackson was the same Jackson he always was. Friendly, boisterous, flirty, always bluffing, and constantly causing trouble. He had a degree of affection with everyone he interacted with, but BamBam could spot the differences now. The difference of BamBam simply being BamBam, which changed the meaning of everything for Jackson. He felt himself becoming like that as well. He could spend hours eating pizza and playing video games in Jackson's room, just like he did with his other friends, but because it was Jackson, it could move seamlessly into other things, things you couldn't do with just anyone, things that created chest fuzzies that couldn't exist without love.

“Why are you trying to kiss the mirror, I'm sitting right over here?” Jackson asked loudly from his bed.

“You admire yourself all the time, why am I not allowed?”

“Because I arguably do it better than you. Both the admiring you and the admiring me.”

BamBam stuck out his tongue. Jackson returned the gesture. Rolling his eyes, he returned to his close study of his lips. “How bad was I, really?” he asked, tilting his head. “When this whole thing started?”

“At kissing?” Jackson snorted. “Kunpimook, there are ways of face crappily, and most of them involve things like having your mouth wide open and trying to eat a person's face with your tongue wiggling like an earthworm and reeking of garlic. You were never bad bad. And unless you're a kiss expert like moi, your first kiss with someone new is never going to be the make out to end all make outs because you don't get the person all the way yet. I mean, I'd give a C for not responding, but I will GENEROUSLY admit I pretty much surprised you the first two times so I can let it slide.”

So I probably wouldn't have embarrassed myself too much if I'd kissed someone without lessons, BamBam interpreted. He could have been mad at how thoroughly Jackson had tricked him, but once again, it didn't really matter. Without repeated exposure to Jackson and the chest fuzzies he caused, BamBam wasn't sure he would have ever figured out that all his uncharacteristic edginess around Jackson was all a prelude to budding feelings for him. It had worked out in that way, even though he slightly resented his lack of confidence being so craftily taken advantage of.

“And you were so mad at Mark for tricking Jinyoung,” BamBam muttered testily, just so Jackson wouldn't get too smug with himself.

“Yeah, well, Mark made Jinyoung think he was in love with Jaebum, and I was clear from the beginning about liking you. You were the one who wasn't taking my pure affection seriously. The meanie here is you.”

He slipped out of his bed and went to where BamBam was sitting, resting his chin on top of his head. BamBam smiled in spite of himself. All the others always told him to be less indulgent with Jackson, but with all the cozy buzzing going on in his chest, he dropped things much too quickly. He'd pay Jackson back later by stealing his food or getting him in trouble with Mark for something, but now it was better to just enjoy things as they were.

“How would you grade me now?” BamBam asked, meeting Jackson's eyes in the mirror.

“An F.”

“Eh? I know my breath was really bad after the stir fry that one time, but I don't have an earthworm tongue!”

“How would you know? I'm the one kissing you, right?”

BamBam frowned. “Well, if I've gotten bad, it's your fault since you were the one who was supposed to be teaching me.”

“Yeah, it's my bad.” He ran his hand against BamBam's chin. “But since you're like this, you should realize I'm the only saint in the world who would put up with your F minus kissing, so don't think about taking those kissing lessons anywhere else. Get what I'm saying?”

“You're saying I'm really good now but you don't want me to think so in case I want more people to know just how good I am,” BamBam translated.

“Ah, who taught you Jacksonese? There's no point if you figure it out.”

“It's okay. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Here feels good.”

Jackson grinned. “Ahhhh. You win, I take it back. You're nothing but an A+. You're the cutest when you're being honest, after all.”

“If I'm an A+, what does that make you?”

“Triple A+ and pretty damn lucky, huh?”

BamBam laughed, and Jackson pulled him closer against his chest, burying his face in BamBam's hair. It wasn't a kiss, but it felt intimate like one, and his insides reacted like they always did, warming up with both love and the satisfaction of that love being returned to him. Finding this was definitely worth everything, even the moments when he hadn't understood what was going on and the moments he thought there was no way it would ever possibly end up like this. He was happy to be mistaken, happy to be wrong. He'd been right when it had mattered most, after all.

Breath tickled his ear; there was no voice saying words to accompany it, but there didn't need to be. He felt it throughout his entire body what those words would be. Love was chaos, it didn't need to be nailed down and defined, not when it could be felt so perfectly, not fuzzy at all even if it bombarded you in so many different ways at once, but like second nature and instinct, a part of him, a part of everything.