The One with 100 Ways
Jackson Wang x Kim Namjoon/ RM
Description: Jin is away on his year of military service, and Namjoon needs a friend. He just never expected it to be Jackson Wang.
Content Warnings: Steamy and sensual but no smut, mild cursing, mild drinking
A/N: Have we decided the definitive ship name for Jackson x RM?? Anyway, this is an addition to the last fic “The One Where Namjoon Doesn’t Know What to Say,” but you can totally read this on its own! I hope you enjoy!
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Jackson Wang was standing in his kitchen. Watching him, laughter suspended in his eyes over the rim of a beer bottle.
Namjoon had given into the other man’s countless phone calls, texts, emails for god’s sake – and anyway, what with the Bangtan Boys on break, Jin away, Jungkook at university, Jin away… it’d been a year already. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe.
“Wait, wait – show me again!” Jackson prompted. “Teach me your ways. I –”
“You’re fine. You’re not a bad rapper, Jackson,” Namjoon said, a little exasperated and a little confused. He wasn’t even sure why he was so frustrated, his insides unruly like the storm outside the window. He wasn’t even sure why he was confused at Jackson’s presence here, except maybe that bit in the back of his head that kept trying to remember whether Jin had ever even been in this apartment. They’d never stopped, had they? Was it that each other’s faces reminded one another of the endless moving?
“Are you okay?” Jackson asked, and Namjoon started as he continued to absently stir the pot, lost inside of it as he was.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“Nothing important. Can I sit here?” Jackson asked, gesturing to the counter. Namjoon shrugged and Jackson nimbly scrambled up on the counter, swinging his sock feet near the other man’s knees.
“That doesn’t count, you know.” Receiving only a confused look, Namjoon elaborated, “You’re still shorter than me!”
Jackson gave a short laugh, though his eyes remained thoughtful and deep. He reached out a hand and pointed to Namjoon’s face, fingers stopped just short of the other man’s dimple. “There it is!” Before Namjoon could react to Jackson Wang’s hand hovering near his face, he withdrew it, expensive watch flashing, and ruffled the back of his own head. “Do you need help there?”
Namjoon, deciding that he was done being flustered by attractive men sitting on his counter, was sloppily cutting vegetables. Slaughtering them really. Who forgot to teach this man how to adult? “Nah. I’m good.” Jin usually does the cooking, he thought. But he didn’t want to talk about Jin to Jackson. Not that it mattered. Not that anything had happened. I mean, a couple of letters? Just the same to the other guys.
But he plastered a smile on his face and turned towards Jackson. “I’m good, but thanks.”
“I can leave if you want me to.” The problem, Namjoon supposed, was that he wasn’t even sure if he liked Jackson. It was awful, really. But he was nice, he was fun… in small doses. Really, he hadn’t had a chance to see him as anything but a puppy. Namjoon heard Jackson ask him for help, heard him make casual, self-deprecating remarks, and assumed that the other man only said those things because he wanted a free handout of compliments. Because, though Namjoon was insecure in many ways, he was cocky too. He recognized confidence, or thought he did.
Jackson was shallow, Namjoon assumed.
But he was leaving.
Namjoon had once said he wanted to be found. He’d wanted to be found by Jin (but hadn’t the other man stopped looking?) (But hadn’t it been beyond both of their control?) Namjoon whipped around and caught Jackson by the wrist. “I’m sorry, I’m a shit host,” he said, because Jimin told him to have a good time, and Taeh had said he understood, and J-Hope had cried when he couldn’t relax enough to cry himself.
Jackson nodded his head, sizing him up as if they hadn’t hung out a few other times before in the previous month, or that he hadn’t admired RM and basically chased him down for a single beer, just one before hitting the road. “Okay, but I’m helping you cook -”
Namjoon backed up, hands raised. “No way! I’ve seen that smoothie you make…”
“Hey! It’s nutritious!” Jackson walked up to the pot and stared in, wrinkling not just his nose but his entire face. Definitely a puppy. “We can order out,” he began before Namjoon walked up and nudged him out of the way with his hip.
“Oh, move! I’m trying to do a thing here.”
And that was, more or less, how they ended sitting with their backs against the stove and the pot in between them. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have plates, but it seemed to be the mood of the night. Besides, it wasn’t a date or anything, Namjoon figured. Just two bros, being bros.
“I thought I was gonna die. It was that bad,” Jackson elaborated. “Okay so, here I was…” he continued, waving his arms and gesturing with his chopsticks.
“Wait, wait, wait, you had a panic attack and that’s how you tell the story?”
“Hm?” Jackson asked through a mouthful. He glanced around for a napkin, but Namjoon reached over instead and wiped away the spot of sauce near his lips with a flick of his finger.
“I said – nah man, you heard me!” He laughed. “Are you ever serious?” Namjoon said it jokingly, but it was a serious question.
“When I have to be,” Jackson responded, and they stared at each other for a moment in the silence. Namjoon noticed how close their heads had gotten, though Jackson didn’t seem to – or at least didn’t acknowledge it – when he broke into a smile. “It’s better to be wild. The funny guy. But I’m happy you guys are on a break. It helps with burnout.” Namjoon opened his mouth and then closed it, looking away. “Okay, your turn!”
“What?”
“Confess! I mean, not the deepest darkest stuff, I don’t know you like that.”
“Don’t know me like that, or don’t want to know me like that?” Namjoon said, wiggling his eyebrows. Sometimes Namjoon had no idea who the fuck he was.
“Hm, what time is it? Check back in an hour.” Namjoon bent his head as he laughed, to hide his red face.
“Okay, okay,” Namjoon began, sitting up. “I think I’m a shitty dancer.”
“Not a secret. Next!”
“Hey, asshole!” Jackson gnawed the edge of his chopsticks, cheeky and thoughtful, before balancing them carefully on the edge of the pot.
He stood up and brushed off his immaculate pants, reaching his hands down to help Namjoon up, hands to forearms. RM was a live wire. “Okay, follow me!” he shouted, standing in the middle of the kitchen, just out of reach of the bright light. The wind buffeted the screen door against the wooden one.
“You look like you’re in one of your music videos…”
“Yeah, hm, you have a fog machine? I’ll look like a better dancer if you can’t see most of me. You really are already a better dancer than me…” Jackson said, glancing over his shoulder at Namjoon.
“Jackson, why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’re shitty at things. Fish for compliments,” RM said. Oh God, had he said that out loud?
Jackson shrugged. “Are you in my head, RM?” Jackson started dancing, leaning forward and whispering, “Maybe I just like the sound of my name on your lips.” RM had never met anyone he wanted to hit almost as much as he wanted their fingers to hover near his face, almost touching. “Come on,” Jackson said, and they were dancing together, nearly. No music, just the rain outside on the windows and the whisper of their socks on the wood floor. “No, no,” Jackson said, his voice with the soft pedal pressed.
He walked near the other man, reaching his hands towards RM’s hips. He stopped, his hands hovering again. RM, lips dry, throat a desert, nodded and Jackson put his hands on his hips. “Like this,” he said, and moved his RM’s hips underneath his hands. Slowly, Jackson knelt down and looked up at RM, his eyes dark. He leaned forward and rested his head in the other man’s stomach, RM’s own shell-shocked hands reaching around and touching Jackson’s hair. “I’m sorry I like you so much,” Jackson said, his hands holding around RM’s middle.
“I thought I hated you,” RM said, and he could’ve sworn he was drunk on something, though he’d only had one or two beers. Maybe he was drunk on the rain and the sound of socks on wood floors or a watch that slipped down an arm as its owner brushed his fingers through his own hair.
Jackson snorted into RM’s stomach. “I get that a lot, I think.”
“And then what happened?” Yoongi asked, smirking, eyeing the hickey that peeked out from inside Namjoon’s loose collar.
“Oh, shut up!” Namjoon said into his drink.
“This is good. Have you told Jimin? He’ll probably throw you a party.” Namjoon sighed and fixed him with a half-exasperated, half-fond smile that was cracking around the edges and near his eyes. “Okay, okay,” Yoongi said, grinning just a bit. He leaned back and watched his friend with half-lidded eyes. Anyone would think he wasn’t listening, sleeping or wanting to sleep. But he was the best listener. “Does this have to do with Jin coming home?”
“He is home. He – he came to visit me. Yoongi, he saw Jackson. Who may have been wearing one of my shirts.”
If Yoongi was surprised, he didn’t show it. Namjoon didn’t fail to see his tell as his eyes shifted and he shifted in his seat before going back to his composure. “Are you okay?” he asked.
RM thought back. He had woken up in the morning nearly dizzy, looking over and seeing the beautiful back of a beautiful man in his bed. But it wasn’t a bad dizzy. He wasn’t ashamed or awkward, but not confident really either. He was more stable than he’d ever felt before. Sum, zero, placid, the sun that streamed in through the window and bounced off of the rain drops still suspended on the window. What time was it? Nearly eleven, he saw. Found a shirt on the floor, a pair of sweats.
Then there was a knock on the door. Almost eleven, he reminded himself. Namjoon was usually a fairly early riser, but then again, he usually went to bed early too. Earlier and earlier as of late. He was running out of reasons to stay awake. He glanced back at Jackson, wondering why he had hated him. Maybe he was afraid of him, a bit. But like most people, he was without any mask when he slept. Come to think of it, Jackson was pretty mask-less when he was awake too.
The knock came again, and as he remembered in a sunny café with one of his best friends sitting across from him, he flinched.
It was Jin, of course it was Jin. And RM realized in that moment, that for once, he hadn’t thought of the man grinning on his doorstep. He hadn’t thought of any of them. Nothing. But then, of course, it hit him like a truck. But, could he cheat if they had never said I love you and meant it like I love you – could it be called cheating when they’d never really held one another like they were holding one another? When he’d only got two letters, the same letters the others received?
Jin rubbed an awkward hand through his shortly cropped hair. “Hi!” he said before cracking up. Meanwhile, RM was cracking. “I wanted to see you. I have so much to tell you.” Jin had dropped the bag he was carrying on the ground. Honey, I’m home. He pulled Namjoon into a hug, head tucking into the neck of the nearly paralyzed rapper.
Jin was starting to talk, but all Namjoon could hear was I forgot him I forgot himIforgothim, until that is, he could hear Jackson’s voice calling as he walked down the hallway. “Hey, I think you have my shirt, so I stole your shirt…”
“Hey! Snap out of it,” Yoongi said.
“It was bad,” Namjoon said absently.
“Do you regret sleeping with him?”
“Of course not,” he said far quicker than he had thought he felt.
“And yet, you feel like you betrayed Jin.”
“I thought –”
Yoongi held up a hand, leaning forward again. “You don’t have to know everything. We can’t know everything. Not even what’s inside of us. Especially what’s inside of us.”
“Suga, that doesn’t help me at all.”
“Well, maybe when you’re older…” But the other man was smirking even as he started his joke. “Have you talked to Jin about it?”
“Oh, sure. Hey, um, I thought we were in love with each other, but we never talked about it or showed it, and now I feel sick a bit that you saw me with someone else.”
“You can love more than one person,” Yoongi said, as if it’s the simplest equation, written in his DNA. Yoongi tapped his friend’s forehead. “Stop trying to wrap your head around it, because it won’t make the kind of sense you’re looking for…” Yoongi paused and read the face of his friend. “It’ll be okay.” He thought back to when Jin touched his face and told him to shut his brain off, and he thought of Jackson’s hands on his hips, or his fingers hovering near his face. Everything was in stark relief, yet he could see nothing.
Was he really okay? Would it be okay?
