“Did it hurt?” Jackson leans in to the seat next to his; despite attending one of the largest universities in the country, the liberal art lecture halls are quite small, making room for their blossoming sport and science programs, so Jackson doesn’t have to lean very far. Plus, to Jackson, invading someone else’s personal bubble is usually fun. He takes weird pleasure in gauging the diverse reactions from friends and strangers. His notes are scattered, but he’s more interested in this new student than he is in cramping his fingers writing pages of European History. He’ll just steal Mark’s later.

“When I fell from heaven?” the young man smirks, never taking his eyes away from the board. Jackson grins back, appreciating the young man’s opulent, coral lips and the pretty wrinkles that crease the soft skin around his eyes.

“What are you doing?” a voice hisses from his side. Jackson swivels his head to the left.

“Making friends,” Jackson replies.

“Stop goofing around,” Mark socks Jackson quickly and quietly in the arm while the professor has his back turned, the latter flinching. “You’ll get us both in trouble.”

“I was just-” Jackson begins to say, but is cut off by a stern ‘shush’ from their professor, who continues to grind his nub of chalk into the board. Jackson huffs and turns back around in his seat. He spends the rest of History stealing glimpses of the new student and pretending to take notes when he’s actually just doodling the shape of the young man’s eyes, he never does get them right. There’s a sweet youthfulness to their round shape while still harboring a gentle maturity that Jackson can’t save himself from drowning in.

Sometimes, they lock gazes, and Jackson has to remember that there’s an unspoken human rule that when oxygen goes in, it’s also supposed to go out. But, surely, no one came blame him after sharing eye contact with this young man.

When class is over and the scrape of wooden chairs on the linoleum flooring resonates throughout the cozy lecture hall, Jackson jumps at the opportunity. He presses his hand on top of the new student’s backpack and slips his fingers through the loop to stop him in his tracks. There’s a pause where Jackson takes a breath to clear his thoughts--remembering at the final moment before the young man turns around that he has to let it out, too.

“Yes?”

“Your name?” Jackson breathes awkwardly.
“Jinyoung,” he smiles radiantly, crinkles appearing. “Park Jinyoung. And your name is Jackson Wang.”

“How did you…-”

Jinyoung nods to Jackson’s strewn note cards, “Someone warned me of a friendly senior that had a terrible habit of stealing notes and wasting class on other things. A handsome one with a lot of face, but not so much behind it.”

“I’ll kill Mark, the bastard.”

“See ya’ around, hyung.”

Jackson gapes as Jinyoung sways his pretty hips up the steps and out of the lecture hall. He probably should be offended for Jinyoung having called him out of his intellect, but, somehow, ‘handsome’ coats all of the bitter words with sugar that Jackson doesn’t mind as much as he should.

“Talking to yourself again?” Mark pipes up beside him, arranging his papers and books. Jackson doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Mark’s just being an asswipe because he can’t have any of Park Jinyoung while Jackson plans on getting all of him.

“I’ve met an angel.”

“Sure you have, buddy.”

“Asswipe.”

Of course Jackson spends the afternoon harassing the head of Student Relations for a xerox copy of Jinyoung’s class schedule and all of his contact information. And of course, the crabby old lady says ‘no’ more than once and Jackson resorts to staging a fire where he can at least get his room number.

“I need your name for the emergency report. What is it?” a tall man with glasses asks Jackson on his way out of the nearly cleared SR office, a few prime documents hidden in his armpit. Jackson pauses and fixes the man a smile.

“Mark,” Jackson says. “Mark Tuan.”

***

Jackson finds himself planted outside of Jinyoung’s dorm room, all clammy palms and restless fingers. He spritzed so much cologne that the musk is clogging his nostrils and clouding his senses. Now that Jackson’s properly thinking about it, he hasn’t been so interested in someone since Freshman year; Mark had introduced Jackson to Jaebum. They dated for a month and broke up promptly after he’d caught the older man stuffing his hands down some bastard’s pants in a utility closet. The moral of the story, children, is not to date boys. Especially boys with bad dye jobs and egos big enough to wrap around the moon more than once.

Jackson is in no way prepared for when Jinyoung opens the door, dressed down in sweats and a t-shirt. His hair sticks out in the cutest way; he probably just woke up from a nap. Jackson can’t begin to describe the awful tricks the younger’s scrappy yet adorable appearance is playing on his mind.

“You-” Jackson hiccups, face heating. “You...are you…”

“Hyung,” Jinyoung grins sleepily.

“F-free...tonight?”

“Huh?” Jinyoung’s face scrunches in confusion.

“Are you free tonight?” Jackson manages to ask without passing out.

“You’re asking me out on a date,” Jinyoung laughs.

The confidence leaks out of Jackson’s ears and pools around his ankles. He’s shaking like a toddler who wet the bed. This isn’t going the way he planned at all. In a perfect world, Jackson would’ve strolled up to Jinyoung’s room, charmed the knickers off of him and they would proceed to ride off into the sunset in Jackson’s maserati. Never mind that he doesn’t have one yet, but he has about seventy dollars in his savings account and that’ll only keep growing if he manages to keep his job at the aquarium. You know, if he isn’t scouted by a modeling agency or something first. Point being, Jackson Wang doesn’t cower, stutter or make an idiot of himself.

Funny how one young man has the power of making him do all three.

“I mean if you’re busy, you know, you don’t really-”

“I’d love to,” Jinyoung says with a cute smile that palpitates Jackson’s heart.

“Really?”

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever you wanted to go,” Jackson replies breathlessly.

“PC-bang, then. Pick me up around seven.”

“Got it,” Jackson nods.

“Later, hyung.” Jinyoung steps back in and gives a little wave before closing the door. Jackson stands outside of his door for a few minutes, flabbergasted. The excitement and anxiety is bubbling through his veins like lava, hot and unruly. He can hardly believe that he’s going on a date with Jinyoung. Those were his full intentions in coming here, and yet, he’s scared to death of making a complete douche of himself that he has to race back to his own dorm.

He whacks some faceless students in his haste to get to his room, he’s a little sorry.

“Where’s the fire?” Mark quips as soon as Jackson throws the door open. The latter shakes out of his coat and skips over to his bed, falling onto it and shuffling all of his homework.

“The only fire I know is the fire of burning passion with flames stronger than the sun itself.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mark twists his mouth into a confused frown and his eyebrows pinch together. “You eat something weird?”

“I only need Jinyoung to keep me full.”

“Who is Jinyoung?” Mark stuffs something into the drawer of his desk and turns around in the chair. The glare of his desk lamp spills over one side of his face and Jackson can only think of Jinyoung’s smile that could light of an entire city, his roommate’s face being the least medium to prove his radiance.

“The new kid,” Jackson sighs and rolls his eyes. “You really don’t listen to a word I say, do you? What a friend.”

“What new kid?”

“He was sitting right next to us, Mark.” Jackson sits up and stretches out his arm to poke the lense of Mark’s glasses enough for Mark to punch him square in the chest. Jackson hisses, rubbing his chest and glaring. “You’re really blind. What’s the point of having glasses if they don’t work?”

“They work fine,” Mark fixes them and stands. “Look, Jackson, I don’t know what’s going one. If this is some weird you’re pulling or not. But, there’s no new kid in Euro History. I asked the professor to give me his number so I could see if he wanted to join the Joseon Techs-”

“You were gonna deck him out with your nerds,” Jackson scoffs.

“-and he said there was no new student. Maybe you’re losing your mind or something. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Mark rips his jacket off his bed and stalks over to the door. He spares Jackson a glare and some colorful words before slamming the door closed in his acute rage that Jackson is all too familiar with.

Sometimes, Jackson doesn’t mean to tick his friend off knowing how sensitive he can be about certain things (especially concerning his geek elite), but he has no idea what he did this time. It wouldn’t be too bad if he just wrote it off like he usually does, though, something about the door slamming is the icing on the cake. He really didn’t say anything that out of line. And as long as they’ve been friends, Mark should be numb to 90% of the bull Jackson spews.

Jackson can’t focus on advancing in levels when Jinyoung is next to him, pressing buttons and making the cutest frustrated sounds. His eyebrows scrunch every now and then; that, paired with the pretty pout he does when the screen bleeds ‘game over’ with a triumphant laugh, is wearing on Jackson’s sanity. His playing streak is wavering in the presence of beauty, and for once, he doesn’t exactly mind the distraction.

“Why’d you suggest this place if you were this…” Jackson gestures to the screen with one hand, holding in a laugh, “um, yeah,...?”

“Someone told me you liked this stuff,” Jinyoung maneuvers the handle with a concentrated frown, before shrugging his shoulders with a sigh and looking over at Jackson as the losing trumpets sound. “I don’t remember these things being so difficult.”

Jackson chuckles and shakes his head a little, “You used to play?”

“With Mark,” Jinyoung nods.

Jackson can’t begin to describe the nauseating bird fluttering incessantly in his gut, sudden and strong.

“You know Mark?”

Jinyoung seizes up, his fingers fall away from the game controls and he turns away from Jackson for a moment, shoulders slumping, and then he looks up again.

“Come with me,” Jinyoung stands, grabs Jackson’s wrist and pulls him up. Jackson is bewildered, but he follows like a deer caught in a trap. Jinyoung shoves them both into a narrow closet near the emergency exit. There are only a few moments they spend in the darkness before filmy, orange light intrudes on the dank space.

“I’m going to tell you something and you have to promise not to say anything,” Jinyoung says urgently, finding Jackson’s wide eyes in the dimness.

“What if-”

Plush, peach lips press earnestly on Jackson’s own. This only causes his confusion to swell, but where common sense fails him, instinct reigns as Jackson wraps his arms around Jinyoung’s waist and lock solidly. Hands knots themselves in his hair, and in a matter of seconds, his lips split and accept everything Jinyoung wants to give him. His stomach convulses at the occurrence of events, though, the only thing that matters is how Jinyoung’s chest presses into Jackson’s and nothing can be wrong about this moment.

Jinyoung pulls away too soon; Jackson chases his lips, eyes closed and mouth slick with desire.

“I’m Mark’s guardian angel,” Jinyoung whispers into the air.

This confession dampens the mood quite a bit. Jackson’s groin stops stirring, his brain steps in and the confusion is back, more pungent than ever.

“I’m going crazy,” Jackson whines, eyes still closed and head muffled with thoughts.

“You’re not,” Jinyoung assures him.

“I’m losing my mind,” he whimpers and cranes his neck backward, hitting the edge of a shelf and hissing, standing up straight again. He cracks both eyes open and checks if Jinyoung caught his minor embarrassment. The younger seems distracted, his eyes are unsteady and watering.

“So, all this time,” Jackson heaves a sigh, “I’ve been talking to a dead soul.”

“An angel,” Jinyoung bites immediately, eyes flashing a surreal hazel.

“Sorry,” Jackson bites his lip timidly.

“It’s okay,” he backs down a little, eyes softer, and fingers ghosting over the agitated hairs on the back of Jackson’s neck. “You didn’t know.”

“That makes a lot of sense, a lot of ing sense,” Jackson groans more to himself than anyone, and then laughs without any humor. “And no sense at all.”

“You can’t tell Mark,” Jinyoung warns again.

“I won’t tell him because I’m going to keep you all to myself.” Jackson places a sweet kiss to Jinyoung’s forehead and tightens his grip on the younger’s waist. “Stay with me for a while.”

“I’m immortal, so that’s looking pretty likely,” Jinyoung leans up and presses a warm kiss onto Jackson’s lips.