#7clicks

“I know it was you! Don’t try to deny anything!” Jackson shouted.

“I swear! Let go of me or you’ll really regret it this time,” Bambam grunted. “It’s not as if anything you own would even fit me anyway,” he mocked.

“You bastard, you did not just say that to my face.”

“Oh yes I did,” Bambam sing-songed.

At that, Jackson had had enough, and charged at Bambam with the full force of his body. As they flew out the window, Jinyoung could be heard in the background, lamenting, “We just had the new glass put in last week!”

As if Jackson cared about the new glass put in when he was sitting on top of Bambam’s chest, all his weight balancing on the younger’s ribs in a way that had to be painfully uncomfortable. Luckily they had landed on the fire escape, or there would’ve been hell to pay.  

“Tell the truth,” Jackson demanded roughly.

“I didn’t do it!” Bambam insisted angrily.

“I’ll make Coco pee in your slippers,” Jackson warned.

Bambam stilled at this threat, face falling immediately.

“No, not the Gucci! What kind of sick world do we live in when a dude can’t even have some decent Gucci? ” he wailed miserably, sucking in his bottom lip as he glared up at Jackson. “Fine, jerkoff. I wore your leather kitten suit and I ripped it. You would have been way too big in it anyway.”

“It wasn’t for me,” Jackson admitted, uncharacteristically chagrin.

Bambam rolled his eyes, ignoring the way the older boy glared at him.

“Sure it wasn’t.” He pushed at Jackson’s shoulders, relaxing a little when Jackson finally moved off of him. After a few moments of unusual quiet, Bambam sighed, watching as Jackson stared over the edge. “Fine, who was it for?”

“None of your business!” Jackson snapped quickly, and Bambam had to fight the urge to laugh.

“Who else would wear a kitten suit?” Bambam countered, and when Jackson opened up his mouth to respond, Bambam held up a hand, “A leather kitten suit?” At that, Jackson went silent.

“Ya’know,” Bambam spoke up after a moment, leaning back onto his palms and crossing his legs at the ankles. He waited until Jackson met his gaze before continuing, “I’m not surprised Jinyoungie is a freak, I mean, the guy reads erotica novels for fun, but you,” he giggled as Jackson shot him a glare, “You always seemed like the vanilla type to me, hyung,” he finished, a teasing grin on his face even as Jackson quickly leaned over and dead legged him.

“It’s not like that, you brat!” Jackson shouted as he plopped back down on the floor, brushing the hair out of his face with a huff.

Bambam groaned, leaning over and smacking Jackson’s arm. That didn’t stop him from snickering at the elder, a smug smile tugging at his lips. “What’s not like what? You being vanilla isn’t like that? So after all this time, my assumption that you weren’t kinky was wrong?”

Jackson glared daggers into Bambam’s profile, hand quickly finding his way to the younger’s slim thigh, giving it a squeeze - nails included. “You mention this to anyone else, you’re dead to me, you hear me?”

“I can’t make any promises, hyung. This is just way too good not to share. I’m sure Jinyoungie hyung wouldn’t mind the word getting around anyway…”

Unfortunately, Jackson wasn’t joking. Right as Bambam had begun to turn away to inform the masses of Jackson’s intimate escapades, Jackson began to morph into a creature of pure menace. Skin turning green and nails lengthening, all trace of Jackson’s amiable demeanour fell away as his true self was revealed in the face of imminent danger.

“You will not tell anyone of what you know!” Jackson thundered. Bambam swore he felt the entire house shake. So in awe of Jackson’s unveiled power was he, he fell to the ground immediately and began to beg for forgiveness for the error of his ways.

Bambam could not raise his eyes, would not raise his eyes, in fear of Jackson’s festering rage. For an excruciating moment all Bambam could hear was the air flushing in and out of his lungs, the muffled clop clop of cloven hooves behind the door. “I won’t tell a soul,” Bambam promised and for a while, Jackson said nothing.

Then, with a suddenness that had Bambam’s whole body jerking, Jackson spoke, “Ogres are like onions. We have many layers.”

Bambam raised his head to look at Jackson who had visibly softened. “You have seen too many of my layers. Tell no one.”

Bambam stared deeply into his eyes, and he spoke with an unusual seriousness to his tone. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Jackson was, however, not yet satisfied. He took Bambam’s hands into his own and squeezed them with as much strength as he could muster. “You must swear on it. Swear on Coco’s life.”

Bambam gasped audibly. “How could you say such a thing? Do you not trust me that you would make me swear on the life of a living fluffball?”

Jackson jerked on his arms with an unnecessary harshness. “Promise me!” he begged. “No one must ever know.”

“Fine, I will,” Bambam huffed. “But if you tell anyone I was the one who stole Youngjae’s stuffed bear I’m telling on you,” he leaned in to whisper sinisterly, “to JYP-hyung.”

What feels like the combined power of twelve freezers shivers violently down Jackson’s spine.

“You wouldn’t.”

The sudden stillness in Bambam’s eyes, that emotionless, borderline-cruel blanket that covers his face speaks on the contrary. Betrayal is gripping. To think all those cumulative years of Jackson thinning his wallet out, meal after meal after meal - spontaneous ramen, the priciest meat, window shopping that never stayed window shopping and that already boyish voice reaching a squeaky hyung, please - would account for this kind of ridiculous threat.

Jackson feels his over-dyed brittle hair thinning.

“If I swear on Coco’s life, and if I fail still, don’t you think this is still really unfair to Youngjae? A dog and a teddy bear, how much can a grown man take!?”

“A swear is a swear hyung. PD-nim,” Bam shakes his head nervously, “there’s more to that man than meets the eye.”

A solemn, rigid nod. Jackson fights another shiver. “That’s why he wears sunglasses, Bam.”

And it’s with a swing of a door and a small breeze before Bam Bam leaves the room and Jackson to wallow in his thoughts. The traitorous image of the younger male’s backside burning into his mind. Jackson takes a small sigh, tugging at the ends of his—coarse, overdyed—hair. It’s then and there that Jackson considers the repercussions of failure and just how much compensation would be. Would it be the monetary equivalent of a pet dog? Or would it be some unmeasurable emotional equivalent that he’d spend this life and the next paying back. He considers asking Mark just how much getting Coco was, or maybe he could ask Jaebum what the best consolation for letting go of a dear pet be.

Everything seemingly falters along the slippery slope, “what-if’s” avalanching into a massive figure ready to roll across his aching (aging) body and leave him buried in the harsh, cold snow. “It’s okay,” Jackson tells himself, “I just have to not fail.” He reassures as he steps upon empty ground, gravity turning upside down as he tries not to succumb to his wavering vision. He places a hand on his chest, as if he could ease the restlessness of his heart. He wonders how much karma of all his past lives he needs to accumulate just enough luck for success. Or whether or not God would borrow him some to pay back in the afterlife.

It’s foolproof. Unfortunately, for Bambam at least, Jackson is the personification of stupidity, and knows that well. He is nothing if not self-aware (and health conscious).

He turns up the next day at the same shabby house with a crate under his arm, stubbing his toe on a step as he makes his way up. The sky is as putrid grey as his soul and the sun’s rays like feeble, unmotivated feelers poking through pathetically- it’s not a good day for an apology, but it’s now or never to change the course of Jackson’s shitty fate.

The door opens, and Bambam looks surprised and slightly discouraged- there’s also a Froot Loop on the front of his shirt that Jackson neglects to point out.