jackson doesn’t notice.

jackson doesn’t notice the hurt that flashed through mark’s face when him and jinyoung flirted in front of live television (although he knows the viewers and fans noticed.)

he doesn’t notice the flash of jealousy when he flirts with a random girl when they were at the club earlier, celebrating their new comeback.

he doesn’t notice the tears or the sobs or the sniffles when he entered their shared room, he justs takes off his jacket and throws himself on his bed.

he doesn’t notice anything.

and mark tries.

he tries to make jackson notice, tries to grab his attention. but nothing works. nothing works on jackson.

the first attempt was telling his stylist to make him more attractive today. and the stylist happily obligued (she even gave mark a compliment; “why mark you’re always attractive” which he didn’t believe in) but it didn’t work anyway, jackson ignored him for the whole day, and mark tries not to burst into tears when he sees jackson talking with another girl, a staff member, when they were being interviewd.

mark still tries.

the second attempt needed more effort than the first, he tries to hang out with jackson every single minute of the day, even tries to make small jokes when he has the opportunity. but unlike jackson, mark notices that he’s getting uncomfortable, so he stops.

the third and last attempt needed a lot of courage and help from his bandmates. he tells youngjae and jaebum the plan (which jaebum didn’t agree to at first) and called all the boys downstairs. the plan was to invite the boys down to play truth or dare, and when it was mark’s turn, he chose dare (which was part of the plan) and jaebum told him to play seven minutes in heaven with jackson in the closet (also part of the plan) and then it was up to mark to do whatever he needed to.

once the pair was inside the closet, they sit down so they could both fit comfortably. mark’s fingertips shakes and his lips tremble, unable to form words.

“you alright hyung?” jackson asks, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“y-yeah” mark stutters and gulps.

they sit their for awhile, quite awkwardly because they haven’t talked in awhile and that spark they used to have in their friendship was now gone, nowhere to be found.

a few minutes later mark tries to speak up, but is cut short when the closet suddenly opens and jackson is already out of the closet before mark could blink.

after those three failed attempts mark finally stops, he sits in the couch and stares straight ahead, which has bambam and yugyeom worried. yugyeom opens his mouth to speak but jaebum shakes him off, tries to warn him that, no, he’s not in the right condition to talk right now

at least jaebum notices, mark thinks. at least.

jackson stretches and sits up from his bed. mark’s been acting weird lately. he thinks. he missed him really. even though he shares a room with him, and is always with him, he misses him. he misses that old mark who doesn’t even care what people thought of him. that old mark who used to have that stupid gummy smile and that loud laugh. that old mark who used to be his best friend.

jackson sighs and crashes back down on his bed, burying his face unto a pillow.

the next day, the group has to be up early for practice. mark is usually the first to wake but he ended up sleeping late last night, so he wakes up the same time as jackson (he’s the last to wake up) and they both end up arguing over who showers first.

“no, uh, it’s okay you shower first.” mark mutters and he’s glad jackson is still half asleep to notice the pink tint on his cheeks.

“no, hyung, you go first.”

“no, go ahead.”

“it’s fine, you sh-“

“oh would you both just hurry up?” jaebum screams from his room. mark ends up showering first.

the practice was worse than mark expected, their new choreography teacher was reckless, he notices every tiny mistake, including yugyeom’s.

“alright from the top! let’s go!” their teacher shouts for the twelfth time, clapping his hands and the boys groan.

“can we please rest? we’re all tired.” bambam pleads, panting and trying to catch his breath.

their teacher just glares at him and their all back to their feet, groaning and grunting.

by the time their teacher finally lets them rest for five minutes, mark collapses to the ground next to his bag, grabs his bottle of water and gulps down the whole bottle in one go. jackson passes him another one and he thanks him quickly.

when practice was over, everyone ends up collapsing in their beds, all exhausted from the previous practice. mark feels to tired to mope so he crashes on his bed, not bothering to change his clothes. while jackson lies awake on his side, staring at mark and tries his best not to think about him too much.

the next few days were a nightmare. especially for mark.

they were all busy with their different schedules; youngjae and jinyoung both had vocal practice, yugyeom and bambam had dance practice, while jaebum had a meeting with their manager. that leaves mark and jackson alone, in an interview.

mark swallows and sits next to jackson, careful that their knees wouldn’t bump or that his fingertips wouldn’t accidently brush against his arm.

the interviewer (a girl) smiles and shakes both of their hands and introduces herself, mark just smiles and nods and lets jackson do the talking, he usually lets him or the other members talk with the interviewers, since he’s not fond of talking that much on in front of live television. he gets pretty anxious and stumbles over his words, english, korean or chinese.

the interview soon starts and the pair smiles and waves at the camera. jackson introduces both of them and mark’s glad that at least, jackson still understands him.

he’s pretty sure the viewers took notice of mark’s actions. he’s barely smiling (the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes) and he fiddles with his fingers a lot.

jackson looks over him and quirks an eyebrow, gesturing for him to speak when the interviewer asked him how he was.

“i’m fine, just slightly stressed for our comeback.” he smiles and clears his throat.

fortunately the interview ends quickly and before he even knows it, their all back in the dorms again. mark quickly walks to his room without saying a word. he groans and changes into something comfortable and wipes off the make up on his face. mark sits on his bed again.

he hates this, thing going on with him and jackson. he misses talking about the most random things with him, misses laughing at his stupid jokes, misses everything about him. but he can’t really talk to him these days without turning into a stuttering mess.

it has been a few days since mark find out he was deeply in love with jackson.

a few days since his life turned into hell.

he groans and hits his head a couple times against the wall behind him.

“hyung?” he hears and then the next thing he knew jackson was sitting on his bed.

“jackson.” he mutters and sits up properly.

“can i ask you something?” the boy scratches the back of his head, a thing he does when he’s nervous, mark noticed.

“yeah. sure.” mark’s glad he’s not stuttering anymore.

“have you- do you have an issue with me or anything? i keep noticing you’re ignoring me, but not the others. is- is everything alright?” he asks.

mark swallows and his lips, tries to find an excuse. but he realizes he has no escape on this one, “uh, yeah, no, kind of. i don’t know.”

“what do you mean?” jackson’s eyebrows furrow.

“i don’t know jackson, i don’t know. i’m confused, alright? please, give me some time alone.” he says but he can see in jackson’s eyes that he’s getting mad.

“what do you mean give you some time alone? mark, i've given you enough time alone. please, just- just tell me.” mark takes notice of how he had called him with his name and not ‘hyung’

“jackson just go!” he screams and tries not to cry, swallows the lump in his throat.

“no!” jackson is screaming in chinese now, not caring if he wakes up the others or the neighbors.

jaebum slams the door open, the other boys on his tail, “what’s going on? why are you both screaming?”

jackson glares at mark, “nothing, hyung.” he leaves the room, and so does the others.

mark collapses on his bed, he hides his face on his hands as loud sobs escape through his lips.

few days has passed and everyone is worried. mark is not eating, he doesn’t get much sleep and whenever their practicing, mark moves slow and weak (which earns him loads of scolding from their choreography teacher).

jackson is choking on regret and he feels guilty. he wishes he shouldn’t’ve shouted at him, he wishes he would’ve been more calmer, maybe everything would be fine between them by now. but no, he chose pride over friendship. he wished he didn’t.

jackson finds himself knocking on mark’s door (even though they both shared a room) but after a few minutes of no answer, he lets himself in and sees he’s already asleep. so he stays there for awhile, just stares at him. he walks closer and presses a quick kiss to his forehead before heading off to sleep.

mark wakes up the next morning with a tingly feeling on his forehead, he rubs it a couple of times and yawns, they have a free schedule today, so he decides to stay in bed.

jackson wakes up minutes after and realizes mark is also awake, so he gets up and leaves the room. he couldn’t stay in the same room as him without getting overwhelmed with regret and guilt.

Instead he sits on the couch with bambam, the talk, but never really manage to make up a real conversation, until bambam speaks up,

“hyung, why don’t you try fixing your relationship with mark-hyung. it would hurt, right?” he asks.

“yeah.” jackson mutters. “yeah.”

he gets up and heads for their room, where he sees mark lying in his bed with his eyes closed, although he’s not asleep.

“hyung?” he calls out.

“hm?” mark mumbles, but doesn’t look at him.

“can we talk?” he asks and sits at the end of mark’s small bed.

mark sits up and they find themselves in the same position as they were days before, before mark screamed and before jackson glared at him.

jackson breaks the awkward silence, “i’m sorry, hyung, for my attitude a few days ago. i was just worried because i thought i did something wrong or that you hate me or anything. i shouldn’t have shouted. i’m sorry.”

mark swallows the lump in his throat, “it’s ok, jackson, i get it. but no, you didn’t do anything wrong and i don’t hate you. i’m just going through something okay?”

jackson sighs in relief, “can you tell me? please?”

“can i trust you?” mark asks. the other nods his head.

“the truth is, jackson,” mark closes his eyes and his lips, “i love you.”

there was silence. mark didn’t dare to open his eyes even if he felt tears pouring out of them. jackson stares, completely frozen. he thinks about the past events and laughs to himself, all of those, just because he loves me? he thinks.

he holds mark’s hands and wipes the tears on his cheeks.

“look at me.” he says and mark opens his eyes.

“i love you too.” he mutters. mark smiles, actually smiles and presses his lips against jackson’s. he feels jackson smiling against the kiss and his hands are on his waist while he wraps his on jackson’s neck. he feels lightheaded, maybe it was from the lack of oxygen or maybe it was because jackson was finally kissing him. all those negative thoughts went straight out of the window. he didn’t care anymore, none of those matter now. all that mattered was them.

they pull away and mark giggles. jackson presses a sweet kiss to mark’s forehead and they stay there for a while, in each other’s arms and not caring about anything else but themselves. because in that moment, nothing mattered anymore. all that mattered was them.