It's a few minutes before 3pm. Mark walks towards the building with 'Wang's fencing' written on it. He looks up at the building, sun shining in his eyes. His eyes squint and he blocks his eyes with his hand.

Mark is sure that this is the building Jackson told him about yesterday. He waits outside, not daring to go inside to be met with new people. He'd rather wait here, meeting Jackson is already nerve-wrecking enough.

Mark barely slept last night, he drifted off to sleep easily but he kept waking up throughout the night, wondering if it was time to get up yet. Every time he was met with his alarm which indicated that it was only half an hour later than the last time he checked.

Mark sighs and places his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground. Though it was a sunny day outside it was nearing winter. He had wrapped his neck with a scarf to try to stay away from the cold, but also partially to cover his face from Jackson.

Why he does that actually had no logical reason, Mark knows that. Yet something inside of him tells him to do so, so he did.

Mark looks up to see the door of the large building open. Jackson walks out, a bag slung over his shoulder and jacket open.

"Mark!" Jackson greets with a wide smile.

Mark smiles a little, "Hi Jackson."

"How have you been? It's been such a while since we've seen each other." Jackson says excitedly, all day he's been anticipating on meeting the elder again.

"I've been good, what about you?"

"I've been good too, my schedule has been killing me but it's okay because I really want to win this tournament."

"I can understand that, it must be so exhausting to train so much."

"It is, but I have to make everything perfect and I have to be prepared for every possible situation."

"Are you sure you're done for today?"

"Not really, but it's okay since I'm meeting up with you."

"It's okay, you can practice some more. I'll just wait."

"You don't have to wait, you can watch me. If you want to of course."

"Yes, I'd love to. I don't really know anything about fencing so it'd be interesting to watch you practice."

"Okay, let's go then."

Mark and Jackson enter the huge building. Jackson walks past the reception and up the stairs, Mark follows him.

At the end of the stairs Jackson walks to the dressing rooms, he takes Mark in to the room full of benches, lockers, showers and a weird kind of smell. Mark assumes it's probably the smell of all the athletes' sweat.

Mark sits down on a bench while Jackson changes into his fencing gear. They don't really talk, which makes that Mark is consumed by his thoughts again. He's waiting for the right moment to apologize to Jackson. He feels guilty again thinking about it. 

'Maybe after practice I can tell him?' He thinks.

Jackson is done changing and puts all the stuff away in his locker. He locks it and walks towards Mark.

"Okay let's go Mark. I'll show you around." The younger boy holds his sabre and his mask.

Mark has to admit that he looks good in his fencing gear, this muscles visible in his tight gear.

"Uh- yes, let's go." Mark stand up and walks besides Jackson.

The blond haired boy shows him around the building, explaining fencing as they walk. He ends their walk at his practice room. His trainer looks up at them.

"Jackson, I thought you said you had to be somewhere?"

"I did, but my friend here wanted to see me practice, how could I say no to that."

His trainer laughs, "Of course. Well take a seat.."

"Mark." The said boy answers.

"Ah, Mark, take a seat. Jackson will show you how it's done."

After a couple of hours seeing Jackson train and him and his trainer explaining the game, Mark receives a text.

'So how's it going?' it reads.

Mark unlocks his phone and sees it's in the groups chat Youngjae, Jaebum and him have. The one texting being Jaebum.

'It's good, I'm watching him practice at the moment.'

Almost immediately he gets a reply.

Youngjae:
'What?! Oh my god!!'

Jaebum:
'Seriously?! Does he look hot? ;)'

'Oh, hi Youngjae.'

'And.. Well.. His muscles are very visible in this gear he's wearing.'

Youngjae:
'OH MY GOD JAEBUM HE DIDN'T EVEN DENY YOUR STATEMENT!!! WE'VE REACHED A NEW STAGE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP.'

Mark can feel his cheeks heathen. He didn't even think of denying what Jaebum said, he just said what came to his mind that very moment.

'Shut up Youngjae!! I'm just stating facts here.'

Jaebum:
'So.. He does look hot ;)'

Jaebum:
'I think you've found yourself a daddy Mark'

'YAH JAEBUM WHAT THE FUCK NO'

'I'M SO DONE WITH YOU BYE'

Youngjae:
'NO MARK HYUNG DON'T LEAVE!!'

'BYEE YOUNGJAE'

Youngjae:
'NO MARK PLEASE :('

Jaebum:
'MARK DON'T JUST LEAVE TF'

Mark puts away his phone, too embarrassed to reply to his friends' texts.

A little while later Jackson and Mark are outside of the building again, Jackson had finished training and they were both pretty hungry. The two walk over to Jackson's car and decide to go to Jackson's place for some dinner.

This actually makes Mark more nervous than he already is, since there'd be a chance that his roommate and best friend Jinyoung could be there.

During the ride Jackson and Mark talked a bit about their activities from the last few weeks as they didn't get to talk much during Jackson's practice.

"I was happy that you contacted me Mark. I thought you wouldn't anymore since our first meeting." Jackson speaks while he drove the car.

Mark freezes. He wasn't prepared to tell Jackson this yet, he thought being at Jackson's place would be a better place since he could escape if he needed to. But right now, he is in a car which is driving quite fast on a highway and there's no escape possible.

"I- uh.." Mark tried forming his sentences.

"You what?" Jackson looked at him. Mark's face starts to heathen up once again today and he lowers his gaze, fiddling with the end of his t-shirt. A tingly feeling spreads where he's sitting and he can't help but to feel miserable.

He sighs. "It's a long story."

"We have time Mark, please tell me. I won't get mad I promise."

Mark once again doesn't know what to say. His brain is trying to form logical sentences which wouldn't make it look like Mark hates Jackson.

"I just felt bad."

'Great well done Mark. This definitely makes it look like you hate him, congratulations.' He scoldes himself after, realising what he just said.

"Felt bad for meeting me?" Jackson's voice dropped and sounds filled with regret and sadness. Did he really just bring this boy to watch him fencing for hours, only to find out that he doesn't like him at all?

"No! It's just.. I'm not great with meeting new people. I thought I made a wrong impression on you as I was so quiet during our first meet-up. I couldn't get myself to text you."

Jackson looks at Mark again. A wave of mixed emotions hit him. He felt accused of something he didn't even know he had been involved in or had any control over.

"I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you sooner, but I couldn't. It's not your fault, I swear! I just- felt bad because I thought I had been a bothersome to you." Mark rambled on.

"Don't ever say that again. I liked being with you on our first meeting. I noticed that you were quiet and held back, but I thought that was your personality. You didn't do anything wrong, really." Jackson placed his hand on Mark's upper leg and squeezed it a little in reassurance.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes Mark, you didn't do anything wrong. Don't let your thoughts play you like this. You can decide what to do with your thoughts, they won't out themselves until you bring them into action." He gives him a smile and another squeeze.

"It's okay, really. I was just wondering anyway. No big deal." Jackson continues.

Mark smiles a little and looks up to Jackson again giving him a little smile. Jackson smiles back and places his hand on the stirring wheel again.

Fifteen minutes later they arrive at Jackson's place and once they get out of the car the atmosphere changes. Mark breathes in the fresh autumn air and he feels reborn. He needed that really badly.

The tension of the car ride is gone and a weight falls of his shoulders. He's glad he told Jackson.

He's even more glad about the wat the younger responded. He looked very calm, unlike how he is usually.

Jackson walks up to him and they enter the house. Jackson walks straight to the kitchen cabinet to see what they can have for dinner.

Mark sneaks up behind him, cautiously looking around to see if Jackson's roommate is there. No one is to be found so Mark shrugs it off, trying not to let it bother him too much. He's here with Jackson and he should enjoy his time.

"Do you like ramen?"

"Of course, who doesn't."

Jackson laughs and he grabs the packages of ramen and starts preparing them.

Soon after it's done and the two take place at the large dinner table standing in the middle of the room.

The night continues and Mark and Jackson start to get to know each other better. They talk and talk and they can't seem to stop talking or laughing.

Jackson gets to know that Mark stopped with school after getting his high school degree. He was a good student but he didn't know what he wanted to study after so he decided to work instead.

He ended up in the grocery store and at the time he came in an old man was the boss of the shop, he was nice and gave Mark loads of advice, about life but also on how to deal with his sexuality. At the time Mark just came to terms with his sexuality and as he felt the old man was his second dad, he decided to tell him.

The man died after a few years. Mark was so sad when it happened, as he felt like he had just lost his dad. The elder had no family anymore and no kids either. To him, Mark was his son, he cared about him like his own son and he wished for Mark to take over his store when he passed away.

The man is like a second dad for Mark and on his behalf he decided to take over the store. He took courses so he could manage the store properly and although the learned a lot from the man he could use some extra classes.

Mark on the other hand gets to know that Jackson used to be quite defensive to his parents when he was 15 because he was struggling with his sexuality.

His parents became really concerned about him as they saw their loved son changing and behaving weird. He'd scream at them for no apparent reason, he'd get mad at them for the most stupid reason and he would not listen to them at all. They wanted him to go to a psychologist for a talk.

When Jackson first heard the idea he got insanely mad at them. How could his parents do something like that to him? Like they didn't even care about him, probably thinking that he was crazy. He didn't need a psychologist.

So at first Jackson protested against the idea of going there because he wanted to handle it himself and he only protested more and became more defensive when they started to argue with him. His parents became more broken because of their son's behavior. They were fighting almost every day and Jackson heard them every single time.

He knew it was because of him and though it made him feel bad, he didn't change his behavior. He was too subborn.

After a while though, his parents were in front of him both crying over everything. It broke Jackson to see them like that so he agreed with their idea. He also agreed because he was still such a family guy he couldn't say no to them. Especially not in a situation he knew he caused. He hated how much he had hurt them already.

That talk at the psychologist became sessions and they were emotionally draining for him. The sessions would last hours.

Over and over again they'd talk about his feelings and about how to come to terms with himself about this.

His parents knew nothing about what happened at the psychologist, Jackson told his psychologist he didn't want them to know. Not yet.

If he couldn't even come to terms with himself then how was he supposed to clear this up to his parents?

They saw their son changing even more and his behavior towards them became worse.

At some point he didn't even care anymore about what they felt.

They saw him changing from their son who would always be happy and caring to a son who wouldn't care about a single thing.

Though his parents weren't sure about what happened at the sessions, they gave him all the space and time they felt like he needed. Even if that meant that they'd occasionally get hurt.

After every session Jackson would get some assignments to do at home, he had to do those before every next session. He hated doing them and usually didn't do them.

Like that he struggled with himself over and over again. Day in, day out, his thoughts would be with the sessions, the exercises and he wasn't able to change himself.

There was almost no hope for Jackson left because he wouldn't open up too much.

Just then the psychologist decided it would be a good idea if Jackson would write a letter. In which he would write all his feelings down.

The psychologist didn't want to read it after but he just wanted Jackson to see what was going on in that little head of him.

At first he refused to do it, because he thought it was stupid.

But then on a gloomy Thursday afternoon he decided to write down all his feelings. It was driving him crazy and he had to get it off his mind.

That's when he wrote the letter which got him to where he was now. With Mark. Without that letter, he wouldn't have been here, talking to an amazing person who decided to respond to the only cry that Jackson let out to the rest of the world.

-----------------------------------------------
A/N: I really hope I'm not rushing it too much because I already explained why Jackson exactly wrote the letter.

Anyway, I hope y'all still enjoyed. Love you guys! Until next time!

~Jacksonsidiot❤