maayacolabackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maayacolabackup) wrote2012-05-02 03:32 am
maayacolabackup) wrote2012-05-02 03:32 am
KPop: Starts (GDragon/Seungri, R) [4/4]
*
Sometimes, Jiyong is so consumed by music that he forgets about consequences. Direct follow-throughs and results. It makes him seem arrogant in a different way than Seungri is perceived. Really, though, Jiyong is just impractical and whimsical, and unpredictable, and leaves everyone scrambling in his wake.
Chaos.
Seungri is the opposite. Seungri is the exact opposite, because Seungri likes everything in the correct box. Seungri knows their schedules two months in advance, and makes backhand deals with Japanese businessmen for endorsement contracts, and keeps his CDs alphabetized by language and artist. Seungri knows where to get the best property for your money, and when to ask for extra service at the restaurant because he’s a frequent customer. Seungri knows that you have to wash your whites separately from your darks, and that you can’t wash your reds with either of them if they’re brand new.
Seungri knows that once is an accident and twice is a pattern. Seungri knows he’s not going to be able to forget, this time, and that the more he doesn’t talk about it, the more it’s going to eat him from the inside. He knows that the more he pretends, the more rotted the wood will become, and Seungri will turn black and wither and fall.
Jiyong sweeps in like a tornado, scattering Seungri’s sanity like so much dust, and destroying the carefully built protections Seungri had installed around his heart. Jiyong is like a wrecking ball, and Seungri is made of glass.
Jiyong, Seungri thinks, has always been destined to ruin him.
Seungri starts to believe that it was inevitable, really.
*
Morning brings with it a pounding headache. Seungri opens his eyes and the light is terrible. His mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. He rolls over on his side, crushing his eyes closed, to curl away from the open window, and his body is sore, aching in bizarre ways.
Memories come back to him slowly. Salsa. A beautiful girl. Jiyong.
Jiyong.
Seungri opens his eyes, and Jiyong is sleeping, one hand on his stomach, fingers splayed, and one arm curled above his head. The ink of his tattoos looks dark against his pale skin, and MIND CONTROL looks more angry than usual, raised along his side like a warning.
Seungri is going to be sick.
Seungri crawls out of bed, swallowing when he sees last night’s clothes decorating the ground. Jiyong’s silky black underwear. Seungri’s simple cotton white.
The tile of the shower wall is cool against his back, and Seungri turns the water as high as it will go, so hot it’s scalding. He lets it beat down on him as he sinks down to the floor of the tub. The water burns at his legs, and he rests his head against his knees.
His stomach is rolling, with his hangover and with a general sense of wrongness that feels like it’s swallowing him alive.
When Seungri gets out of the shower, red as a lobster and prepared to face… Whatever it is he has to face, Jiyong is gone. His clothes are gone, and the covers, where he’d slept, are hastily pushed aside, clumped in the middle of the queen-sized bed.
Jiyong’s forgotten his phone. It’s sitting on the bedside table, blinking repeatedly, notifying its owner of a text message.
In Jiyong’s absence, Seungri supposes there’s an answer.
*
“When I wanted to give up half way, I reminded myself to be strong. Besides telling myself to stay strong, there was nothing more I could do.”-- Seungri
*
It was easier, when Seungri could deny his feelings. Before Seungri woke up on that Tuesday morning, twenty minutes past his alarm, and the light streamed in from outside and illuminated his bleeding heart.
Before that, Seungri could feel the emotions creeping up and wrapping themselves around him, and he could shove them off, shove them down, send them away with a little more denial and a lot more practicality.
But in that moment, when Seungri had let his guard down, the truth had snuck up on him and grabbed a-hold of him, sinking its barbed fingers into Seungri’s chest and doing all the damage it could.
And Seungri, when he’d first met Kwon Jiyong, had wanted… Lee Seunghyun wanted to be a branch strong enough to support Kwon Jiyong’s weight. A branch strong enough to climb.
Now, Seungri is suffused in emotions that have a name; emotions that have made a home for themselves inside of Seungri’s chest, filling him from head to toe with things he isn’t supposed to feel, and there isn’t enough air, Seungri thinks.
He’s dizzy with it, and whereas before, Seungri could close his eyes and wish the feelings away, now, all Seungri can do is suffer through him, and know that whatever he is to Kwon Jiyong, it’s not what Seungri wants to be.
Seungri is Jiyong’s only constant muse.
Seungri is not Jiyong’s love. Seungri is not Jiyong’s heart.
Jiyong had warned him, Seungri thinks bitterly, not to demand too much of him.
It starts to feel like that might be impossible.
*
“I thought Jiyong brought you home last night,” Seunghyun says at breakfast, and Seungri looks up blearily.
“Yeah?” Seungri says, before he remembers not to be too informal, lest it end up a variety show topic later on. “Yes, he did.”
“Then why do you look like you were attacked by a vampire?” Seunghyun reaches forward and taps his index and second finger against Seungri’s neck. Seungri jerks away and adjusts the collar of his shirt.
Seungri considers lying, but he’s never been too good at it. “That’s why Jiyong brought me home.” Not a lie. Not the whole truth.
“Are you alright?” Youngbae takes a huge bite of cereal, and it makes Seungri’s stomach flop dangerously. The thought of food makes him nauseous.
“Too much to drink,” Seungri says. Another half-truth. Jiyong’s the real expert at those. Maybe Jiyong has given him something after all.
Jiyong appears halfway through breakfast, dressed in comfortable clothes and wearing sunglasses inside. “Jiyong-hyung, even TOP-hyung beat you,” Daesung says cheerfully, and Jiyong’s mouth quirks in a tiny smile. He doesn’t even glance in Seungri’s direction.
“I think I’m done,” Seungri says, standing from the table. “See you guys for stage-rehearsal in an hour.” He pulls Jiyong’s phone out of his pocket and sets it carefully on the table, and it’s Seungri’s way of making sure Jiyong doesn’t have an excuse to come see him. Not that he would.
It’s just two more days, Seungri thinks. Nothing impossible.
Two days.
Seungri is a branch that shakes and shakes in the wind.
*
I gave you everything I had
The only thing left for me is you
Don’t stay away from me anymore
--Seungri, What Can I Do?
*
Jiyong curls a frizzy piece of Seungri’s hair around his finger. “It’s totally fried,” he says, and Seungri laughs, poking at a blond curl.
“You’re one to talk,” Seungri replies, licking his lips.
“Shut up, maknae.” Jiyong’s smiling though, the uncomplicated smile he saves for when he’s almost completely relaxed. “It’s stylistically fried, stupid.” He stabs a finger into Seungri’s cheek, and Seungri laughs. “I don’t know why I bother with you.”
“You love me,” Seungri says, and Jiyong’s smile turns a little wry. His eyebrows, peeking dark through his hair, draw together.
“No.” Jiyong clears his throat, then takes his thumb and smoothes it across Seungri’s forehead. “The things I love, I lose,” Jiyong says. “I’m going to keep you.” The sudden tension is strange, and Seungri’s not sure what to make of it.
“It’s okay, Tom,” Seungri says, and it breaks the mood. Jiyong chuckles, a low sound that vibrates across Seungri’s ribs. “Jerry isn’t going anywhere.”
“Good,” Jiyong says, and Seungri starts to ache.
*
When Seungri gets off the plane in South Korea, at Gimpo airport, it’s like he’s survived an odyssey. The last two days of the tour were like torture, Seungri’s heart tied at four corners and pulled by horses.
Jiyong had seemed content to pretend nothing had happened, just like before, but Seungri couldn’t do it. He’d never missed the choreography so profoundly before. He’d never been so completely out of sync.
On stage, BIGBANG was BIGBANG, and Seungri hit all his queues, but off-stage, he’d stumbled through social interactions in a way that had been painfully obvious. Just counting the minutes until they were back on the plane.
Seungri’d sat in a window seat, and Daesung, with no words exchanged, had sat on his left.
When Seungri drops his bags in his dorm, the one he now lives in alone, it’s with a profound sigh of relief.
Still, he can’t help but remember the way Jiyong had looked over his sunglasses, eyes trained on Seungri as Seungri gave his best effort not to look back.
He hadn’t quite managed. The wood of Seungri’s branch is rotting from inside.
“Seungri,” Jiyong had said, as Seungri had hailed his own taxi and told the manager he had plans and he was in a hurry. “Seungri, look at me.”
“I can’t,” Seungri had replied. “It hurts too much.”
*
“I don’t know what it is about you that’s so…”
“So what?” Seungri asks, and when he looks up, Jiyong is looking at him with wide eyes, leaning back in his chair. Seungri is sitting on the arm of the sofa. It’s just them in the studio. Jiyong is mixing a project and he’d made Seungri come with him.
Jiyong licks his lips, and if Seungri didn’t know any better, he’d think Jiyong was afraid.
“Inspiring for me,” Jiyong says, and Seungri starts to wonder about the shadows in Jiyong’s gaze.
*
In university, Seungri learns three things about himself.
One. Seungri is really good at making friends. Seungri’d always thought that maybe it was because he was the least busy of the members, that he had more friends, but in reality it’s that he’s the only one with social skills.
Two. Seungri can make people feel comfortable with him after only a short time. He finds that out when a girl he’s just met spends a few hours after dinner one day spilling her life story, while her boyfriend smiles cheerfully and invites Seungri out to play billiards with them later in the week, not remotely jealous because he’s charmed too.
Three. That neither of the first two things matter all that much in the long run, because for all his friends, and all the stories he learns, and all the phone numbers he collects, what he likes to do most is come home and lie on Jiyong’s bed, while Jiyong pets his hair or his back, and tests out rap lyrics in the from underneath his Tom&Laura comforter.
Seungri starts to accept that maybe this is something more.
*
He meets Dara at a samgyeopsal restaurant. She takes one look at his face and frowns.
“What did Jiyong do now?” Dara marks off three sojus on the order form, and enough meat to feed five people.
“Are you expecting someone else?” Seungri jokes, and Dara levels a glare at him.
“No, but I’m hungry, and I need to be drunk to listen to your romantic woes,” she jokes. “And you probably need to be drunk to tell me about them.”
“I don’t have romantic woes.”
“Okay,” Dara says. “Your really-close-and-touchy-feely-friendship-that-has-never-been-consummated woes, then.” She sighs dramatically. “Plus, something about Jiyong’s ‘artistic melancholy’ drives me to drink.”
Seungri laughs, loudly, maybe for the first time in days, and it’s a rusty sound. Dara raises an eyebrow, and smiles. “Tell noona all about it, dearest.”
She makes Seungri grill the meat, because Seungri ”doesn’t know any important life skills” and she and Seungri are a through a bottle and a half of soju before Dara leans forward on her hands and sighs.
“So, what happened?”
“Is this a no judgment zone?”
“Seungri,” Dara says, cradling her flushed face between perfectly manicured fingers. “Thanks to Jiyong, half of Korea knows you tried to watch porn on your manager’s computer. And didn’t even manage to download the whole video. Really, what’s left to judge you for?”
“I’m in love with hyung,” Seungri says, and then quickly shoves a piece of pork belly into his mouth. It’s too hot, and he yelps, and Dara laughs.
“I thought you said it wasn’t romantic woes?” Dara says, pouring them both another shot. “Tell me something new.”
Seungri licks his lips and blinks twice to clear his vision. The alcohol, as Dara had expected, has made Seungri mellow. Less afraid to talk about it.
“It’s not romance,” Seungri replies. And he taps his fingers on the edge of the table, before picking up his spoon and taking a bite of budaejigae. The tofu is rich, and just a little salty. Jiyong never eats the tofu; he eats around it, and leaves it all for Seungri. “But not so much on the unconsummated, either.”
“Oh my god,” Dara says, dropping her chopsticks to drink straight from the bottle. “What happened, kid?”
“I’m so dumb,” Seungri says. “I’m so, so stupid.”
Dara stands up and walks around to the other side of the table, sitting next to Seungri on the bench. She wraps an arm around his waist, and leans her head on his shoulder. “We’re all a little bit stupid when we’re in love,” Dara says.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Seungri says. “I need to get over it.”
“Well,” Dara says, reaching across the table to retrieve her bottle of soju, “doesn’t that mean he likes you back?”
Seungri looks at Dara incredulously. “Do you think I’d be this miserable if he did?”
“I guess not,” Dara says. “I thought you were too practical for this, Seungri.”
“I let my guard down,” Seungri says, and his fingers trace the wood grain of the table. His bracelet clinks like a terrible reminder. “Just for a moment. And it’s always been there.”
“You’ll be okay, kid,” Dara says, and she puts the last slab of pork belly onto the grill. “I’ll cut the meat for this one.” She scratches his back comfortingly. “Just this once.”
*
My broken heart is like an ocean wave
My shaken heart like the blowing wind
My heart vanished into nothing like smoke
The pain is irremovable like a tattoo
--BIGBANG, Haru Haru
*
Seungri remembers the way it felt, the first time he woke up with Jiyong asleep beside him.
Jiyong slept with his mouth parted, and the faint beginnings of stubble had appeared above his upper lip and along his cheeks; just enough that Seungri would feel it, if he were to touch.
Seungri wanted to touch. Seungri wanted it all, but he settled for brushing a strand of Jiyong’s hair from his face. Jiyong had reacted, just a little, wrinkling his forehead and releasing a tiny sigh, and Seungri had felt like bursting.
Instead, he’d pulled Jiyong’s notebook from his arms and closed it, setting it beside him, and then pulled a thin sheet over his slightly shivering body. He’d done that and then he’d gone back to sleep.
Looking back on it now, Seungri should have known.
Looking back on it now, Seungri thinks it was another start.
*
I miss you, maknae is all the text says, and it shouldn’t make Seungri’s heart stop, but it does.
Jiyong has a way of doing that without even trying.
i miss you, too Seungri writes back, because he does, and Seungri is a terrible liar. but it doesn’t change anything, does it?
Jiyong doesn’t answer, and Seungri pours himself a drink.
*
Haerim is an accident.
Not a bad one, but an unexpected one. Seungri meets her when he and Youngbae go to a night club on a Wednesday night, just to catch up and enjoy the atmosphere of a noisy party. Se7en and Hanbyul come too, and Seungri is relaxed and comfortable, and his stomach has stopped twisting for the first time in weeks.
Haerim is a friend of Hanbyul’s, a costume designer from a drama Hanbyul had worked on forever ago, and she’s just so interesting. Her mom is a real estate agent, too, and Seungri delights in her practicality; the way she lets him be the center of attention and doesn’t waste time with her words, speaking straightforwardly. She doesn’t baby him either, and that’s new, because Seungri is used to girls telling him how cute he is and treating him like he’s a child.
Seungri’s not a child, even if it feels like show-business is trying to make him stay one forever.
When Haerim invites him to dance, Seungri takes her up on the offer, and when she asks him if he’d like to get coffee later in the week, he takes her up on that offer too.
”I like to plan ahead,” she says, and so does Seungri, so they both pull out their hand-phones and check their perfectly organized calendar apps and decide on a date and time, and Seungri is sure that she’ll be five minutes early.
She is, and she’s wearing a perfectly normal dress, and she looks pretty, and Seungri offers her his arm and she hesitantly takes it.
She doesn’t put sugar in her coffee, and she’s not wearing any lip gloss, and her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail.
“So tell me about your day,” she prompts, and Seungri talks about his mother and about how he’d tripped and fallen while practicing, and Haerim listens before easily responding, with no metaphor or ambiguity in her speech.
She has her whole attention on him, but it doesn’t scare him, or make him uncomfortable. It doesn’t feel like her eyes are taking him apart and finding him lacking. It doesn’t feel challenging at all.
She’s nothing like Jiyong, and Seungri figures that means he might finally be doing something right.
“Someone like me will tear you apart.”
He asks her to be his girlfriend on their third date, and she accepts with a smile. You can’t see Haerim’s gums when she smiles; just her white teeth and her full lips, and she’s so pretty.
“She’s nice,” Seunghyun says. “Hanbyul’s friend, right?”
“Yes,” Seungri says. “And she is. Nice, I mean.”
“Good for you,” Seunghyun says. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“Worried?” Seungri asks, and Seunghyun raises an eyebrow.
“Worried you were going to keep letting him push you around forever,” Seunghyun says, and Seungri laughs, a dry, harsh sound that reminds him of crackling leaves in the fall.
“No one is that strong,” Seungri replies, and Seunghyun chuckles.
“Well, if anyone could have managed it,” Seunghyun adjusts his hat and sunglasses while gazing at himself in the mirror, “it would have been you, maknae.”
“I don’t know about that,” Seungri says, and Seunghyun gives him a secretive smile.
“I almost thought he didn’t want to push you anymore.”
*
“Nyongtory,” Jiyong says, laughing. “Nyongtory~”
“It’s really cute, right?” Seungri pokes at the sign, lost in the shuffle by a fan at the recording. The hangeul letters are in red and yellow and blue, and they’re large and bubbled. “I’ve heard it before, but I didn’t know it was a thing.”
“Of course it’s a thing,” Jiyong says. “Our fans can see how precious you are to me.”
“They’re going to get the wrong idea.” Seungri flushes, and looks at his shoes, and Jiyong wraps an arm around his waist.
“So?” Jiyong says, and Seungri swallows.
I’m going to get the wrong idea, Seungri wants to say, and he starts to ignore the way his heart is growing wings.
*
And time passes.
“I haven’t seen you in a week or two,” Seungri says, and Daesung’s laugh is rich, even over the phone, where everyone else’s voice loses a bit of depth. “Let’s get lunch.”
“I don’t feel like disguises today,” Daesung replies. “But if you come over, we can order take-out and watch episodes of Kamen Rider to practice our Japanese.”
“Sounds perfect,” Seungri says.
It’s fun to see Daesung again. The one thing Seungri has always noticed about his bandmates is how much he misses them when they aren’t on top of each other, breathing the same air for months at a time.
They use Daesung’s phone to call for jjajangmyun, because Seungri’s forgotten his at home, and then they prank call Seunghyun and Seungri tells Daesung about his new girlfriend. Daesung smiles at him kindly and asks if Seungri is feeling better now.
“Yeah,” Seungri says, and it’s mostly true. It’s more that he just tries not to think about Jiyong at all, because thinking about Jiyong brings back that moment when Seungri walked out of the bathroom and Jiyong had already disappeared, leaving behind only his imprint in the sheets and his misplaced phone.
Seungri doesn’t want to think about that moment. Seungri doesn’t want to be in love with Jiyong anymore.
Seungri leaves when Daesung starts to nod off, excusing himself and making the short walk back to his own place.
He sets his flat keys on the hall table. There is an extra pair of shoes in the foyer. They’re covered in metal studs.
Jiyong is in his room.
“Hyung? Seungri says, pasting a smile on his face to cover his surprise, and waiting in the doorway. “Did you call? I left my phone here-“
It’s been three weeks and six days since Jiyong’s last text. Not that Seungri has been counting. Not that Seungri hasn’t been wishing and wondering if Jiyong would appear and take the decision out Seungri’s hands, the way he’s always done before.
“Who is she?” Jiyong says, holding up Seungri’s phone.
“That’s my phone.”
“I’m leader,” Jiyong says. “I have to pay attention to your texts.” Jiyong glares down at Seungri’s phone. “You have lots of texts from her.”
“She’s a girl I like. We don’t have a dating ban,” Seungri says flatly, and Jiyong raises his eyebrow.
“You like her?” Jiyong says, and it’s low, almost a purr. Then Jiyong is walking closer, and Seungri tenses, because Jiyong is walking like he has a purpose. He rests his hands on Seungri’s hips and presses a soft kiss to the side of Seungri’s throat that makes Seungri pulse quicken. “How much?” His lips leave a brand like a burn there as he speaks, and Seungri can feel each word on his skin, Jiyong’s breath warm in the cool room.
It hurts, and it hurts far too much for Seungri to stand. Seungri can’t breathe, he can’t sleep, he can’t eat, because everything is Jiyong and everything hurts. Seungri wants to pull Jiyong closer, and pull Jiyong inside of him, but he can’t, and maybe that’s what hurts the most.
“A lot,” Seungri says. “I like her a lot.” He takes a step back, backing out of Jiyong’s embrace. “Stop it, please.”
“Why?” Jiyong asks, tilting his head to the side, looking at Seungri through narrowed eyes.
“Because I don’t…” Seungri sighs, and his hands are trembling. He shoves them into his pockets, and trains his eyes on the floor. “I think she likes me too. Likes me. Not just what she can take from me. Not just how much I can put up with.”
“She’ll never understand you,” Jiyong says, and Seungri peeks up and Jiyong’s eyes are hard like diamonds. “No one can understand us.”
“We could understand each other,” Seungri says. “If we wanted to.” If you’d let me. It’s too cold, in the room, and Seungri wants to fidget, but he’s afraid then Jiyong will know that he’s barely holding himself together. “I like her, Jiyong.”
“You like her.” It’s flat. “What does that mean?” Seungri takes another step back, and the room feels even colder. “What are you trying to say?”
“This is my room,” Seungri says boldly. “Not yours.” There’s a ringing in his ears, and Jiyong’s still got his cell-phone, and Jiyong’s face is unreadable, and Seungri looks back down at the ground. He feels wrung out, and a little bit like he’s teetering on the edge of insanity.
The world moves in slow motion. “Maknae?” Jiyong asks, and now his voice is strange, almost hesitating.
“I’m a person,” Seungri says, and his voice cracks and shatters, and his eyes feel wet. Forever the baby, Seungri thinks, as he frees his right hand from his pocket and rubs it across his eyes. “Not a stained glass window. Not a broken toy.” Seungri chokes on the rest of the words. “I like her, and she likes me, and it would be nice if…”
“If what?” Jiyong says, and now there’s a slight waver in Jiyong’s voice, but Seungri thinks it might be his imagination. He’s shivering, and it’s not because the room is cold. It’s because Seungri is afraid, and because Seungri is weak, and because Seungri, more than anything, wants to be strong.
“It would be nice to feel…” Seungri looks up, and Jiyong’s eyes are wide but his mouth is set in a firm, straight line. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore, hyung.” Seungri lets out a quavering breath. “I won’t demand anything from you. But I’m not strong enough.”
“Right,” Jiyong says, “Because you love me.” Jiyong’s tone is strange.
“No,” Seungri says. “Because you don’t love me.” Jiyong wraps his arms around himself, and Seungri watches him throw Seungri’s phone on the bed. “You’re so selfish.”
“Didn’t I tell you that I was?” He leaves without another word.
Seungri hears the front door close.
And then Seungri is alone in his room, and the floor is like ice beneath his feet, and his chest is even colder. Seungri climbs into bed, and even though his sheets are clean, fresh from the wash, they somehow still smell like Jiyong, and Seungri will never be free.
Seungri cries, because Seungri is a wayward branch waiting for his turn to fall.
Seungri isn’t going to get over Jiyong.
It’s a hard truth.
*
“Maybe a lot of people think I am always full of confidence but in reality, this isn’t entirely true. I have a fragile heart… very fragile. I don’t like showing my weakness to others so I just practice and practice and act confident. Toward my [confident] self, I am sometimes still bothered when other members say, ‘Why are you so proud?’” – Seungri, October 2010
*
Seungri knows exactly the way Jiyong walks, and the slant of his eyes, and the curve of his neck where it meets his shoulder. He knows it better than he knows anything about himself. Seungri looks for those things in strangers; in random people on the street and in people in magazines and everywhere he goes, and tells himself those things aren’t special. It’s the kind of lie that it’s impossible for Seungri to tell himself, because even when he manages to find someone who bites their lower lip like Jiyong, he imagines the way Jiyong tastes, the way Jiyong once leaned forward and caught Seungri’s lip just like that, hard enough the Seungri knew he was being claimed. Seungri remembers, without effort, the way the curve of his nose fits into the hollow of Jiyong’s shoulder, and the way Jiyong smells of eucalyptus and expensive cologne.
Seungri tries to forget the way Jiyong makes him feel alive in ways he’s never felt before, because despite all those snatches, sometimes Jiyong sucks the life out Seungri, leaving him so cold and empty he’s not sure he can even recall what it means to feel whole. Seungri tries to forget what it means to be so aching and broken and pasted haphazardly back together with parts in all the wrong places. Seungri tries to forget because it’s too much. Seungri’s somehow lost himself in Jiyong’s art, or to Jiyong’s art, and he’s a well worn page near the front of Jiyong’s notebook that Jiyong revisits and then discards all over again.
Being in love with Jiyong is like being on a rollercoaster with no end, and those moments of triumph at the top are so exhilarating that the valleys don’t seem so terrible. Seungri is an adrenaline junkie, and he can’t get enough.
But Seungri can’t go on like this. BIGBANG can’t go on like this, making due with the tiny bits of Seungri that will show up for rehearsal when they should have the whole thing, Daesung’s worried looks and Youngbae’s warm, protective arm thrown across his shoulder as Seungri tries to gather up the pieces.
Seungri’s tired, and it’s not enough, anymore, to be the thing Jiyong needs to create, because Jiyong’s way of creating destroys everything else, and Seungri’s only a shell of himself and people are beginning to notice. Seungri’s mask is slipping, and it hurts more now than it heals.
Seungri tries to forget how Jiyong reaches out and asks for everything, with greedy hands and greedy eyes, and Seungri tries to forget just how easily he gives it to him, falling to the spell of Jiyong’s soft voice and Jiyong’s intense, captivating eyes.
Seungri tries to forget the way his heart leaps when Jiyong doesn’t remember to be afraid and he just laughs, unfettered and beautiful, and the way sometimes, when he thinks Seungri is asleep, Jiyong runs his fingers, bedecked in his wide silver rings, across the planes of Seungri’s chest, reverently, like Seungri is something special.
Seungri tries to forget the way his name sounds on Jiyong’s lips, when Jiyong sits next to him, with no make-up and sweatpants and his hair messily pushed back from his forehead with an elastic band, and a sleepy smile in his eyes.
Seungri tries and tries, but in the end, it’s all just remembering, and Seungri’s bleeding, bleeding, and he’s not sure there’s anything that can fix him.
“Seungri,” Jiyong says. “Come here.” And Seungri goes, letting Jiyong hug him from behind and kiss the nape of his neck. “You know you’re my favorite, right?” Jiyong’s thick bracelet, the one that matches his own, digs into his sternum.
“Yeah,” Seungri says, and wonders what that even means, when Jiyong is always falling in love with someone else.
Seungri starts to give up.
*
“It’s not going to work out,” Seungri tells Haerim, and she takes it well. She says all the right things, and smiles just the way Seungri likes, and she wants to still be friends, and Seungri gratefully tells her he wants that too, and Seungri doesn’t see a trace of tears in her eyes.
It’s better this way, for her. Seungri’s heart, after all, is full of holes that bleed with every beat, and it isn’t much to offer her.
Seungri doesn’t hear from Jiyong.
The silence between them is profound.
Jiyong doesn’t text, or call, or try and contact Seungri at all, and Seungri throws himself into MC-ing, and into writing his own music for a new solo mini-album. He goes out to see movies with former classmates, and convinces Youngbae to waste tons of money at COEX mall, where they walk around in perfect disguises and no one ever recognizes them.
Seunghyun tries to invite Seungri out with himself and Jiyong a few times, but Seungri finds clever ways to turn him down, and ends up accompanying Dara and Bom more often than not, to whatever clubs they sneak out to go to, and while Seungri dances to trashy techno beats he’s not thinking about how Jiyong must look at the same moment, leaning against the wall in a hip hop club with his lips wrapped around a cigarette and a vodka drink in hand.
It’s the sort of escape that Seungri has always been good at. The kind bostered by denial.
Seungri just wonders how long he can keep it up. BIGBANG will be back in the studio in two months. Hopefully, Seungri thinks, the wound will have scabbed over by then, and seeing Jiyong’s face won’t make him want to simultaneously push him away and pull him closer.
Two months will be enough time. If not, Seungri will grit his teeth, and then he’ll go into the military, and hope two years will be enough time.
*
The way Seungri writes music is boring. He sits down at his computer and types words. Then he thinks about them, and erases them, and starts all over again. He writes and produces his first mini-album in one week, and it’s good. He’s proud of it. But the way Seungri writes isn’t soul-searching or revelatory.
In comparison to the way Jiyong shifts and spills over with ideas and songs and poetry that resonate, Seungri seems more like a salary-man than an artist.
“What are you doing?” Seungri asks, and Jiyong grins and plunges Seungri’s hands into the paint. It’s dark green, and it gets all over Seungri’s shirt when it splashes, and Jiyong is laughing.
The paint is oil-based, and sits thick under his nails, and it’s dripping all over the floor that Jiyong’s covered in big sheets of white paper when Jiyong pulls Seungri’s hands out. “We’re going to get creative,” Jiyong says, and he takes Seungri’s wrists in his cleaner hands. He drags Seungri down to his knees, and draws words using Seungri’s fingers like brushes.
“This is crazy,” Seungri says. “Also, this shirt was expensive.” Jiyong chuckles, and rests his chin on Seungri’s shoulder, and it’s like he’s hugging Seungri from behind. His breath is warm on Seungri’s ear.
“Relax, maknae,” Jiyong says, and there’s a giddiness in his voice that is intoxicating, and Seungri listens, letting the tension melt out of his arms. “That’s better.”
Seungri closes his eyes, and when he opens them, the words in front of him are written in a mix of his and Jiyong’s handwriting, and Seungri….
Starts to breathe.
*
It’s a rainy March evening. Seungri is sitting on his sofa, watching the news, and debating going out tonight with Jonghyun, who has his eye on an exclusive club event in Gangnam. He’s halfway towards saying yes when his front door opens.
Seungri doesn’t have to turn to know who it is. Only two people have the key, and one of them is manager-noona, who is at home with her family for the next three days.
“Hi,” Seungri says, and he doesn’t look. He doesn’t hear much movement, just the shutting of the door, and Jiyong sliding the deadbolt home and relocking the two bottom locks.
Jiyong’s always been finicky about the locks. Seungri can remember the first night it had been just the two of them in this dorm, and Jiyong had checked the locks twice before bed.
Now Seungri does it just because he’d gotten used to the sound.
“Why are you here?” Seungri stands, and Jiyong is standing in the foyer, drenched and miserable and anxious. Seungri doesn’t mean to, but he walks closer, and closer still.
Jiyong, he thinks, is like a magnet, and Seungri is drawn to him, always.
“How’s the album coming?” Seungri asks, and he wonders if that’s why Jiyong is here. If Jiyong can’t write, and he needs Seungri even though Seungri’s got all these inconvenient demands and feelings. “Is that why you’ve come?” Seungri looks at the rainwater collecting on the floor. “You should’ve carried an umbrella.”
“Fuck umbrellas,” Jiyong says, and he sniffles, and Seungri debates getting a towel but Jiyong is pinning him in place with his eyes. “Listen to me.”
“I always do. It’s always the same thing.”
“You don’t understand,” Jiyong says, and his voice crackles. “I can’t lose you.”
“How would you write?” Seungri says, and he studies the way Jiyong is twisting the rings on his left hand in circles, switching between them as he talks.
“Not… because of that,” and Seungri looks up, and Jiyong is staring at him, and there’s that strange look in Jiyong’s eyes, the one Seungri’d refused to identify last time because he’s been so afraid to hope. “I’ve written without you before.” Jiyong licks his lips. “Seungri, you know how I am.”
“Yeah, I do.” Seungri doesn’t take his eyes off of Jiyong’s face.
“I didn’t want to fall in love with you,” Jiyong says, “because whenever I fall in love, it ends with a hit song and another broken heart. Another person who I might never see again.” Jiyong’s eyes stare into Seungri’s, and Seungri is afraid to breathe. “So it’s more that I didn’t want you to leave me. So I decided I wouldn’t fall in love with you. Wouldn’t do whatever it is that makes people leave.”
“Oh,” Seungri says, and Jiyong steps closer, taking Seungri’s face between his hands. He’s soaking wet, and it’s still chilly, and he’s shivering just a little. “Is it that easy to choose?” Jiyong’s thumbs caress his lower lip.
“I wake up in the morning and I tell myself not to love you. I eat breakfast, and tell myself not to love you. I go to the studio, or meet a friend for lunch, or call my sister, and I tell myself not to love you. I push you away, and I tell myself not to love you. I write the lyrics to love songs along your skin and I tell myself, as I write, that I can’t, absolutely can’t, fall in love with you.”
“You should have told me not to love you,” Seungri whispers, and Jiyong’s hands drop to Seungri’s shoulders.
“I did,” Jiyong says. “It feels like I told you countless times.”
“My heart didn’t listen.”
“You’ve never been the best at following directions.”
“I always tried to follow yours.” Seungri exhales. “Come here,” Seungri says, and he opens his arms. It’s a risk, but one he needs to take. One he wants to take. “Just… stop thinking with your head and think with your heart.”
“Are you telling me to be reckless?” Jiyong laughs incredulously. “Lee Seunghyun, who knows our schedule months in advance, and won’t gamble, and refuses to wash his red clothes with the rest of his clothes; that guy… is telling me to take a step forward into the dark with no idea what might happen next?”
“Yeah,” Seungri says, and he’s incredulous too. “I am.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one,” Jiyong says.
“Prove it.”
“I’m moody. I’m mean. I’m angry.”
“I know,” Seungri says plainly. “Don’t forget selfish.”
Jiyong blinks, and his eyes are wide. “And I’m selfish.” A tiny smile. “And I bully you all the time.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I hate everyone,” Jiyong says. “Sometimes I hate every person on this planet, and wish I could fall into my music and stay there, with the notes and the melodies and half-formed lyrics.” Jiyong’s skin is cool but he warms in Seungri’s arms. Seungri feels like he’s come home, the unsettled, empty feeling in his chest over the past couple of months fading away to nothing in the wake of Jiyong’s nails digging into his back and a tiny fluttering feeling that might just be hope.
“I know.”
Seungri knows Jiyong. Seungri knows that Jiyong can be a child just as easily as an adult, but they’re all a little screwed up, in their own ways.
“But I never hate you,” and now, his hands are sliding down Seungri’s arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake, and it is Seungri who shivers at the touch. “Because I’ve broken you down, and you stay. You always stay, and let me break you again, and now you’ve got little pieces of my music mixed in with all your pieces, and I can’t even separate the two anymore.”
“Yeah?” Seungri asks, and Jiyong presses a kiss to Seungri’s jaw. He smells sweet, like the spring rain.
“But you’ll get tired of me if I love you,” Jiyong continues. “You know how I love. I’ll finish breaking you, and you’ll leave, and there will be a song, and you won’t be there.”
There’s silence as Jiyong twines their fingers together. His rings are too thick, and they dig into the webbed skin between Seungri’s fingers. Seungri’s clothes are wet now too, and they stick to them both, and Jiyong doesn’t seem to notice. Seungri just doesn’t care.
“You finished breaking me a long time ago,” Seungri says, finally, and Jiyong pauses, seeming to not even breathe. “And I’m still here.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Seungri takes a deep breath. “I want it all. I accept the creepy texts and the obsessive clinging and… I want all of it, hyung. I’ve always wanted all of it, and I don’t think I’m demanding too much, because it’s what you’ve been trying to give me for years, and you just didn’t realize it.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Jiyong tells him, exhaling and pressing his forehead to Seungri’s shoulder. Seungri can feel Jiyong’s breath on his neck, and his heart is lurching. “Your brain has finally completely stopped working. You have no idea what you’re asking for, maknae-“
“But I do,” Seungri says. “After all, don’t I love to be the center of attention? Let me be the center of yours. The only center.” Seungri leans down and rests his forehead against Jiyong’s. “I know you’re fucked up already. You won’t scare me away.”
“No?” Jiyong asks.
“You’ve already done your worst. And I’m still here. You don’t have to chase me, Tom.” Seungri feels like laughing, or crying or maybe turning into a puddle even bigger than the one they’re standing in, made of the raindrops dripping from Jiyong’s soaking clothes.
“Good,” Jiyong says, and Seungri can feel Jiyong’s breath on his lips. “I’ve chased enough muses.”
*
“What we should be afraid of are not the failures, but the heart that is no longer brave enough to take risks and embrace challenges.” – G-Dragon
*
Jiyong isn’t perfect, but neither is Seungri. Jiyong scribbles lyrics with his lips along Seungri’s skin, and Seungri tugs Jiyong up to his mouth for kisses, and Jiyong writes love songs that make Seungri smile every time he listens, because Jiyong has tumbled, head first, into love with Seungri, and Seungri’s not going anywhere.
“I like you best,” Jiyong whispers, and Seungri smiles and bites his lower lip, blinking up at Jiyong. Jiyong’s eyes fall to Seungri’s bracelet, and Seungri smiles wider and holds it up for inspection.
“I like me best too,” Seungri says cheekily, and Jiyong grins and tickles at his sides, and Seungri laughs, because he’s so fucking happy.
“You’re like a sapling,” Jiyong says, and Seungri tilts his head in inquiry. “A baby tree just waiting to grow up.”
“A sapling?” Seungri asks, and Seungri, seventeen and full of dreams and ambitions and hope, has always thought of himself as that lonely fragile branch, so it’s hard to wrap his head around it.
“You’re going to be so strong,” Jiyong says. “The strongest tree of us all.”
And everything starts over again here.
END
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