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maayacolabackupSeungri tries to sit next to Jiyong on the plane, but Jiyong feels cruel, and sits next to Daesung, laughing loud enough for Seungri to hear, and turning away enough to exclude him.
Seungri is right about one thing. Jiyong will always, always use it against him, because the wounded look in Seungri’s eyes is Jiyong’s way of proving to himself that he matters.
Jiyong has always been selfish and greedy.
“I’m so glad you guys are getting along again,” Daesung says, and Jiyong doesn’t ask him for clarification.
“Me too,” Jiyong says. He’s seen Seungri twice this week, and only once was it to perform. The other time, Seungri’d simply asked Jiyong to go out with him to pick out a suit, and Jiyong had gone without much fuss. Seungri always likes to pick out suits that make him look like chairman of the board, and Jiyong thinks it’s a shame.
Seungri’s been in the military the past couple of years, and his shoulders are broader. But Seungri still shivers a little when Jiyong brushes the imaginary flecks of dust from the lapels, and it sends a trill through Jiyong’s chest, like a tiny, fluttering bird’s early morning song. “Me too.”
Daesung frowns down at his tea. “You’ve always liked Seungri the most,” Daesung says.
“It’s not like that-“ Jiyong starts to say.
“Or differently, maybe,” Daesung corrects smoothly. “And he’s always been the same about you.”
Jiyong stirs his coffee.
“It’s like you were missing a bit of yourself, the past while.” Daesung smiles, and Jiyong can’t see his eyes. “But it’s back now.”
“Daesungie…”
“When you were a kid, hyung, did you ever collect caterpillars?”
“Yes,” Jiyong says. “I kept them in glass pickled mushroom jars and poked holes too small to escape from, in the top of them, through the aluminum lid.”
“For how long did you keep them?” Daesung asks, and Jiyong winces.
“Until they made cocoons. I always meant to open the jars, then, so when they burst free they could fly away, but I was always afraid I’d wake up in the morning and they’d be gone.” Jiyong takes a sip of his coffee. “So I never unscrewed the lid. Then I’d have all the dead butterflies at the bottom of the jar.”
Daesung hums thoughtfully, and adds a little more sugar to his tea. “A lot of kids did that,” Daesung says. “My sister did it once, the first time she’d captured a caterpillar.”
“I still do it,” Jiyong says. “Except now I do it with people.”
“My sister let the second butterfly go,” Daesung says. “And for the next three weeks, maybe four, it came every morning to the flowers my mother grew on the kitchen windowsill, because it’d seen those flowers every day.”
“People don’t do that,” Jiyong says. The coffee is too bitter. Seunghyun might like his coffee black, but Jiyong likes things that are a little more milky.
“Seungri does,” Daesung says. “Seungri always has.”
It’s year’s end, and Seoul is covered in a blanket of white.
Jiyong is exhausted down to his bones, but it’s not over yet… the ALIVE tour will continue into the new year, and the 2013 BIGSHOW rehearsals will start soon after that.
Jiyong just wants to breathe.
Still, he’s grateful to still be so wanted. After last year, when they weren’t even sure they’d still be together… it’s amazing to still have it all. From those tentative steps through London, to that triumphant global victory at the EMAs… BIGBANG was not a band that could be kept down.
Seungri comes home, loudly, and Gaho barks and barks. “Shhhh, puppy,” Seungri says. “Jiyong-hyung must be sleeping.”
“I’m not,” Jiyong yells out into the hallway. “And if I had been, the sound of you slamming the door would have woken me up way before my dog.”
“Sorry,” Seungri calls back lightly, in a way that sounds like he’s not very sorry at all. Seungri is known for his half-assed apologies, so Jiyong doesn’t really care.
Seungri continues through the dorm, making a racket that has Jiyong smiling more than frowning, and he rolls onto his back as Seungri opens his bedroom door.
“Hey,” Seungri says, and now Jiyong can smell ladies’ perfume.
It’s nothing like what Seungri wears. Seungri’s girlfriend in Japan is long gone, but Jiyong supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that Seungri’s found someone else, even if it’s only for sex.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Jiyong says, and the words are like acid in his mouth. “Didn’t come home last night.”
“I was. Busy,” Seungri says, and the atmosphere feels thick and awkward when Jiyong doesn’t immediately answer. Seungri fills the silence, like he always does, with nervous chatter, and he ventures further into Jiyong’s room, finally settling next to him on the bed. “What did you do?”
“Worked,” Jiyong says. “I had a lot to do for Bean Pole.” Jiyong frowns. “We were supposed to get dinner.”
“Ah,” Seungri says, and his weight shifts, and Jiyong feels Seungri’s thigh warm against his side. It’s sickening, the way Jiyong’s stomach lurches. He wants to reach out and touch Seungri. “Something came up.”
“I see,” Jiyong says.
“We’ll spend tonight together instead.” Seungri phrases it like a question, maybe because he isn’t sure if Jiyong will want to, but Jiyong is greedy, and he’ll keep every piece of Seungri that he can.
Jiyong always wants to reach out and touch Seungri, but Jiyong knows if he does, he might not be able to stop touching. It’s already thin enough ice.
They’d never talked about the argument before. Back when Jiyong had broken Seungri’s phone.
Jiyong just gets so angry at the idea of other people touching what’s his.
“You smell like a whore,” Jiyong says, and turns away from Seungri. “Get out of my room.” Jiyong turns away, curling into himself. Seungri flinches, and Jiyong feels only a little guilt, but it’s buried in… what he’s pretty sure is jealousy, or possessiveness, or whatever it is that echoes in Jiyong’s head ’mine mine mine’ whenever Seungri looks away.
“I’ll go take a shower,” Seungri says, and when Jiyong doesn’t respond, Seungri rises from the bed. Jiyong misses him immediately, and resists the urge to grab onto Seungri and pull him into a hug.
They’re getting too old for that now, and Jiyong is hyperaware of the way Seungri is constantly shifting away from those touches these days. Besides, Seungri smells like a woman Jiyong will never meet, and Jiyong knows he can’t stand it because Seungri should be his.
Jiyong sits up when he hears the water start, and rubs at his eyes. They’re probably red, but it’s nothing Jiyong can help. He can’t sleep now; not with the nervous energy thrumming through his veins. Not when Jiyong needs to make sure that Seungri still fits into his side as perfectly as he always has.
He wanders into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water, and it wakes him up a little. It clears the fog, anyway, and it’s easy to go out to the living room to sit on the sofa and wait.
The water stops, and Seungri isn’t humming like he usually does, making so much noise that Jiyong can hear it through the closed bathroom door.
Maybe Jiyong drifts off, but the next time he opens his eyes, Seungri is standing behind him, hands on Jiyong’s shoulders, thumbs pressing right where the muscles are tightest.
“Your hands are wet,” Jiyong says irately, voice cracking with sleep, and then he blinks twice because he’s not wearing nice clothes, so it doesn’t matter. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”
“Yeah,” Seungri says. “I know. I’m worried about you.” Seungri laughs, but it’s a tremulous one, unsure. “I thought your door would be locked when I got out of the shower.”
“Why?” Jiyong says, and Seungri doesn’t answer, because they both know Jiyong is often irrational when it comes to Seungri. Jiyong can’t help himself.
“You need to rest more.”
“I need to do my job even more than that,” Jiyong says, and Seungri’s hands drop from his shoulders. “Maybe I would have slept if I hadn’t waited for you.”
“You waited for me?” Seungri is too far away.
“It was snowing last night. It was dangerous on the roads.”
“I was careful,” Seungri says, and Jiyong reaches blindly behind him for Seungri’s hands, because he misses the weight of them. He wants to remind himself that even though Seungri’s been out with a girl, now he’s clean, fresh out of the shower, and home with Jiyong, and Jiyong doesn’t have to admit that other people have touched what belongs to him.
He wants Seungri to smell like him. “Come back.”
“My hands are wet, remember?” Seungri’s voice is a little anxious, and Jiyong finally snags Seungri’s wrist, and he rubs his thumb along the bone he finds there. Seungri inhales sharply, and wrenches his hand out of Jiyong’s grasp. “Let me go get dressed, hyung. I’ll come back out in a minute.”
Jiyong’s so exhausted. He wants Seungri nearer. “If you come back out in a minute, I might be asleep, so just stay.”
“If you’re asleep when I come back out, I’ll wait for you to wake up,” Seungri says. “Should I order food?”
“Yes,” Jiyong says. “Enough food that I can take a picture of it and send it to Seunghyun with a bitchy message about how I’m going to eat all of it and not get fat at all.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Seungri says, and his voice still sounds odd. Jiyong wonders if he’s missing something, because there’s a lilt there, in his tone, that Jiyong can pick out because he knows Seungri’s voice so intimately. “I’m going to go get dressed.”
Jiyong stands up, slowly, joints creaking like he’s old, and Seungri doesn’t move as Jiyong walks around the sofa. His vision is a bit blurry, and maybe his eyes are too dry, but Seungri is in perfect clarity, looking at him measuredly, like one looks at a predatory animal. “Wait,” Jiyong says.
“Maybe you should get some sleep, hyung.” Seungri presses his lips into a line for a moment as he considers. “I’ll wake you up in two hours, okay?” He takes a half-step back, and self-consciously tightens his towel, retucking the edge to keep it from sliding down.
He moves his hands as he speaks, and all it does is make Jiyong pay attention to he shift of muscles in his arms, and the thin layer of puppy fat that disappears and reappears in turns as the season changes.
Seungri is beautiful in the day’s fading light. Jiyong’s throat is dry. The water is back over on the table. Jiyong’s not sure it would help.
Seungri is so beautiful, and Jiyong’s chest hurts.
Jiyong’s just delirious enough; just tired enough and just crazy enough that as he looks at Seungri, standing there with his towel around his waist and that strange look in his eyes, he snaps.
He doesn’t know what comes over him, really, only that he’s so done with pretending to be mature, when really he’s a child who likes taking the things he wants, and he wants Seungri so bad the pain of it cuts into him like a knife.
The water dripping down Seungri’s bare chest and lingering in the hollows of his clavicles is a temptation Jiyong can’t resist. He realizes he’s pinned Seungri to the wall, one of his larger hands holding Seungri’s wrists above his head while the other presses flat against Seungri’s abs, after he’s already leaning down to taste.
Seungri’s skin tastes sweet and fresh, exactly as Seungri should taste, and Seungri is trembling against Jiyong’s mouth as Jiyong drags his tongue across Seungri’s collarbone, Seungri’s abs clenching and unclenching beneath Jiyong’s hand as Jiyong holds steady.
Seungri whimpers when Jiyong nips at the skin, and Jiyong soothes the tiny wounds with gentle kisses, and now his own hands are starting to shake, and he can feel the terrycloth of Seungri’s towel through the thin fabric of his jeans.
“No,” Seungri whispers, and Jiyong hears him, he really does, but Seungri tastes so lovely and Seungri isn’t pushing him away. The thing is, Seungri’s ‘no’ sounds so very much like a yes, desire threaded through it and reaching out and grabbing Jiyong, pulling him in closer, and when Seungri throws his head back, Jiyong bites down on the exposed skin of his neck.
Seungri’s exhale is heavy, turning into a whine as he starts to struggle, and Jiyong lets him go, letting Seungri shove him back. He looks at him, and his cheeks are flushed, and it extends all the way down to his chest. He’s looking at Jiyong with wild, confused eyes, and Jiyong licks his lips. He can taste Seungri’s skin.
He wants to taste Seungri’s mouth. “No,” Seungri says again, but it’s weak, and Jiyong moves forward again, trapping Seungri between himself and the wall, and takes what he wants.
Seungri’s lips give more than Jiyong would have expected, but it’s perfect. It’s kind of like the rush Jiyong feels the first time he listens to a finished song, singing in his blood better than any drugs. Kissing Seungri is kissing Victory, after all, and Jiyong is triumphant when Seungri falls open beneath him, blooming like a flower in the morning dew of spring.
When Jiyong dips inside that mouth, leaning up and tilting his head to the side to taste more, touch more, Seungri mewls and leans down cautiously, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Jiyong knows Seungri has kissed before, done more than kiss before, but maybe he’s never kissed anyone like Jiyong, who is so very greedy and selfish and likes to own, and that’s fine, because now this little piece of Seungri’s innocence belongs to him. Jiyong eases his tongue along the inside of the smooth row of Seungri’s teeth, and then their tongues are tangling together. Jiyong scratches his nails down Seungri’s chest, and Seungri’s tiny noises just make Jiyong want to throw him down and take him right here in the living room, on the heated ondol floor.
But then Seungri is pushing him back, hard, and Jiyong stumbles, this time, and Seungri is panting and his eyes looks scared, now, not just confused.
“Why?” Jiyong asks, and Seungri’s hands clench into fists. Jiyong loves the image he makes, cock half hard underneath the towel, Jiyong’s marks all over his chest and neck, marring that milky skin. But Seungri’s face… there’s something Jiyong doesn’t like there. Something that looks like a ‘no’ that Seungri means. A ‘no’ that Jiyong can’t ignore.
“I don’t want to play,” Seungri says. “This will just be used against me later, and I don’t want to play.”
“Play?” Jiyong asks, and he knows exactly what Seungri means, but this isn’t… for Jiyong, this isn’t like that. Jiyong isn’t kissing Seungri to give himself leverage. He’s kissing Seungri because he can’t deny himself anymore. Because it’s all he’s able to think about sometimes, when Seungri is a little to close and Jiyong wants to push him a little bit farther.
Seungri gives Jiyong meters and Jiyong takes kilometers, and Seungri never denies him.
Except now, Seungri has wrapped his arms around himself, and it’s almost as if he’s curling into himself. “What does this cost?” Seungri asks. “What does one kiss cost?” He leans against the wall for support, and he’s still trembling. “Will you fuck a girl in front of me now to prove you don’t want me? To prove that I want you?” Seungri is almost hyperventilating.
Jiyong frowns, and runs his hand through his hair. “Maknae.”
“No,” Seungri says. “Leave me alone. Leave me be.” Seungri shudders. “Stop hurting me. Find someone else to torment.”
Jiyong doesn’t want to do that. Jiyong wants to press maknae back against the wall and kiss the words right out of him. Jiyong doesn’t understand how his control became so weak, sanity slipping through his fingers as he watches the man in front of him, a newly minted twenty-two year-old, look at him through ash-dark lashes, shoulders still slick from the bath. He doesn’t understand, but Seungri is consuming him.
“You have no idea what torment is,” Jiyong says, and his voice is raspy, and it hurts. When did his throat get so dry?
“Yes, I do,” Seungri says, and his lips look plump and swollen, and then he’s gone and Jiyong is left standing there with his hand inexplicably pressed to his chest.
Jiyong dreams of a Seungri who is only the length of his thumb, not as tiny as a caterpillar but with those sweet eyes and even sweeter smile; drowsy and lovely.
Jiyong, in the dream, puts him in a glass jar, and Seungri pounds with his tiny hands and screams and screams and Jiyong doesn’t have to let him go.
Jiyong refuses to let him go.
He wakes up in a cold sweat, and his hands tremble, fisted in the sheets, and he’s hard, straining against his briefs, muscles in his thighs tight as well-tuned guitar strings.
“I’m so fucked up,” he whispers at the ceiling, and Jiyong knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep.
Jiyong always falls out of love as quickly as he falls in love.
But not with Seungri.
Seungri is an obsession that Jiyong will never let go. Jiyong writes songs like ‘Shut the Door’ and millions of people download it, but Jiyong can’t put the feeling that fills him down into easily processed words, because even Jiyong is not that good at what he does.
Jiyong knows better, but he can’t help himself.
“Where are we going?” Seungri asks. “We’re leaving Seoul.” He’s sitting perfectly straight in his seat, and the gray of the seatbelt matches the gray of his shirt.
His face is still painted in stage make-up. They’re finished with the music video for ‘Shut the Door’, which replaced Jiyong’s original choice for second single with its sheer popularity.
Jiyong can live with that, especially since it means Seungri is sitting next to Jiyong in Jiyong’s car, fussing with Jiyong’s radio and trying to find the pop station instead of the hip hop station Jiyong’s been listening to lately.
“I live outside of Seoul,” Jiyong says.
“Oh,” Seungri says. “I always wondered what your house looked like.”
Gaho greets Seungri so enthusiastically that Seungri falls to his knees, protecting his face from Gaho’s tongue, and rubbing one hand across the dog’s wrinkled sides. “Been a few years, hasn’t it boy?”
Seungri steps inside, and he looks up with a little awe at the high ceilings. “A bit big for one person,” Seungri says, and Jiyong frowns.
“It was meant for two,” Jiyong says, and Seungri laughs nervously.
“I keep forgetting,” Seungri says. “I’m sorry.”
“Forgetting that I’m married, or forgetting that I’m getting divorced,” Jiyong asks.
“Not sure,” Seungri says. “I guess I just…” He coughs. “Nevermind.”
“Maknae.”
“I guess I just blocked the whole thing out,” Seungri says. “Because. Well. You know why.”
“People make mistakes,” Jiyong says, and he can’t really apologize, because Jiyong doesn’t really do that, at least not to people he knows. “People lose…control.”
“We all do,” Seungri says. “Make mistakes, I mean.”
“You’re welcome to look around,” Jiyong says, and he heads to the kitchen to get energy drinks for them, because in four hours they’ll both be heading out for a music show, and they’ve been up all night. They should both be asleep right now, but Jiyong had offered, and Seungri had accepted, and maybe they’ll watch TV, or something else they don’t usually have the chance to do.
After he retrieves the beverages, he finds Seungri in his room, sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s got his hand on Laura’s calf.
“You pervert,” Jiyong says, and Seungri laughs.
“This brings back memories,” Seungri says. “What did your wife think about Tom and Laura?”
“I took them out of storage when she left for Japan,” Jiyong says. “I don’t like sleeping alone.”
Jiyong sits next to Seungri on the bed. “I don’t like it either,” Seungri says, and he lies back on the bed, snagging a pillow.
“You’ve always been good at making yourself at home in my space,” Jiyong says dryly, and he lies down too, on his side, propping his head up on his hand, elbow sinking into his mattress.
“It’s part of my charm,” Seungri says, and his eyes flutter.
“Are you going to fall asleep?”
“Yes,” Seungri says. “Tom and Laura are singing me lullabies.”
Gaho pads into the room, and licks at Jiyong’s toes, and looking at Seungri’s drowsy face makes Jiyong feel sleepy too. “We have to get up in three hours,” Jiyong says.
“Okay,” Seungri replies, and then he’s gone, mouth slightly parted, slow breaths that are almost snores escaping his mouth. His eyeliner is still thick. It’s going to smudge on the comforter if he turns.
When Jiyong wakes up to his phone alarm, Seungri has rolled onto his side, and one of his hands has found the flat of Jiyong’s stomach. It’s hot through Jiyong’s tank top.
Mine, mine, mine, Jiyong’s heart whispers, and he doesn’t want to wake Seungri up.
“Time to go?” Seungri whispers, and Jiyong can’t admit it, but it’s the best he’s slept in weeks.
“Yeah,” Jiyong says, and Seungri moves, and Jiyong misses the warmth of his hand.
Nikon gives Jiyong a camera, and he takes hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Most of them are of Seungri, and he keeps them in a drawer, with that seventeen page letter he’ll never send.
Jiyong marries a woman he doesn’t love because she hurts him in all the right ways, and because he knows he can never have what he truly wants. Besides, it’s not as if Jiyong has ever expected to truly be happy: Jiyong is someone who can be an asshole; who creates best when he’s miserable. Being an artist has always meant more to him than being content.
Jiyong knows it isn’t fair to either of them, but at least they’re both using each other. Jiyong tries not to think about the thickness of Seungri’s fingers when he holds her slim hand, and he tries not to remember Seungri’s high pitched giggles when she laughs in that husky chuckle.
Kiko isn’t Seungri. They couldn’t be more different. Seungri is fire and Kiko is ice, standoffish and cool and impulsive where Seungri was warm and soft and patient.
Kiko’s got a way of slipping under Jiyong’s skin and leaving tiny cuts where he can’t see, and sometimes Jiyong is singing or writing or recording a demo and he stumbles across them, and they burn and burn and he’s not sure if they ever really heal. They’re barely noticeable, anyway, compared to the gaping wounds Jiyong’s already got that ooze and fester when Jiyong closes his eyes.
They meet again when Jiyong is twenty-four, and Jiyong already feels like he’s lost Seungri even though an outsider would think Seungri was still there. Jiyong can feel the difference in every glance.
It’s at a party his friend Diplo throws in Japan that they run into each other. Jiyong hasn’t seen her for more than brief greetings in a few years, and hasn’t thought of her in depth in at least that many; barely registering her face on magazines as he walked past newsstands in the streets. He’d said hello to her when she went to a BIGBANG concert, back in 2012, but it’s a year later, and he’s seeing her alone now, face to face.
“It’s been awhile,” she says, and the way she talks, with that exaggerated drawl to her Korean that speaks of disuse, hasn’t changed a bit. As she takes a sip of her mixed drink, her lipstick leaves a mark on the foggy glass, and yes, Jiyong remembers, fondly, the way those thick, full lips feel skating down his chest, and the way they look when she smiles playfully around his cock.
“It has,” Jiyong agrees, and he turns toward her, his own glass of whisky clinking against the metal of his bracelets that hang low on his wrist. He likes the way her eyelids shimmer silver in the light.
“I really fucking hated you,” Kiko says, and Jiyong smirks.
“I wrote a song about how much I hated you,” Jiyong says, and he takes a drink and watches her over the rim of the glass. “Heart-heart-heart-heartbreaker.”
“Bullshit.” Kiko snorts, and she’s talking loud enough that Jiyong can hear her over the bass, pumping loud as Diplo spins at the DJ stand. Jiyong can see Youngbae up there with him, dancing and hyping the crowd, wearing sunglasses inside, even though he’s told Jiyong he can’t see when he wears them. “I would have needed to have your heart to break it,” she says, and her nails are fake, and they’re painted silver too, and Jiyong wonders if she’s just come from a shoot or something. “I never had your heart.”
“What do you know about it, Mizuhara?” Jiyong licks his lips. They taste like his whiskey.
“I know you’ve always been in love with someone else, Kwon Jiyong. I think we both know that.”
It’s true, but Jiyong really hadn’t known at the time. He’d been confused, and balancing at the edge of a cliff then, one foot firmly on the ground while the other foot stepped out onto nothing, and trying not to fall. Jiyong remembers his aching heart, and remembers how lost he’d been.
So it’s true, but hearing it from her leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “Not like you loved me, either.”
“That’s true,” she says, and she fingers her locket. Jiyong wonders who gave it to her. She’s always worn it. “But I liked you a lot. Still do. I don’t know why. You’re kind of a bitch.”
“Birds of a feather,” Jiyong says, and they clink glasses, and Jiyong likes the look in her eyes, like she can give as good as she gets, the same way he liked it the first time he ever met her.
Somehow, he ends up fucking her at her new flat, her hands clasped to the bars of her austere, hipster, iron headboard as sweat pearls on his back, and her fake nails leave rivets in his skin as she screams, head thrown back and hair matted to her forehead with perspiration. Her neck is exposed, and as Jiyong slides in and out of her, slick and smooth and still a little too rough, he fights the urge to lean down and bite until she bleeds. When she comes, clenching around him in a way that’s familiar and intoxicating, she calls out a name that isn’t his, and it stings, but the name on the tip of Jiyong’s tongue isn’t hers either, and she knows it, so perhaps it’s only fair. After, she lights a cigarette and they share it, getting ash on the sheets and neither of them giving a fuck. Kiko’s pretty hands look good holding a cigarette, Jiyong thinks, and he likes the way she looks in profile; the gentle slope of her small breasts, locket hanging between them, and the long column of her throat. Her mouth; that beautiful mouth that looks nothing like Seungri’s mouth at all, puckers gorgeously around the fag, and she hasn’t really changed at all.
Maybe that’s a good thing, Jiyong thinks, because Jiyong hasn’t changed much either, except that he’s grown more stubborn and more lonely and more selfish, but he’s always been a lot those things, so maybe the difference is negligible.
“We should do this again,” Kiko says, and Jiyong lifts his hand and runs it through her chin-length hair, letting his hand rest on her cheek. He can’t read anything in her eyes except mild amusement, and oh yes, Jiyong remembers how good Kiko is at not caring at all.
“We should,” Jiyong replies, and they do, and somehow Jiyong finds himself doing it again and again, fucking Kiko and pointedly not thinking about Lee Seunghyun and getting caught by the paparazzi leaving Kiko’s place at four in the morning because he wants to shower at his hotel with his own body wash, and avoiding Youngbae’s phone calls.
They don’t have a normal romance, because they live in two different countries and they’re busy people, but it works. Maybe it’s because Jiyong’s heart is already taken, and so he’s less crazy and obsessive, or maybe it’s because Kiko’s quirks are all familiar, but they fit together in a way that’s surprisingly comfortable, because Kiko doesn’t expect more than Jiyong is willing to give, and because Kiko already knows Jiyong is an inherently flawed person and he doesn’t have to waste energy pretending to be someone loveable when he’s not.
Jiyong also doesn’t feel like he’s caught in this inescapable tide, being rushed against his will toward the jagged rocks on the shoreline.
Jiyong feels completely in control. Not like when Seungri had told him no.
“Are you going to marry her?” Seungri asks him, on his twenty-fifth birthday, and Jiyong looks at Seungri out of the corner of his eye as he leans back on the couch.
It’s just them this year—Youngbae is promoting a song with Psy, and he’s in Busan tonight, and who knows where the hell Seunghyun is—he might still show up, late as hell and wearing a long-sleeved polo even though it’s August like he’s afraid the sun is going to give him leprosy. Daesung is sick. He’d called Jiyong this morning, sounding stuffed up and miserable, to wish him a happy birthday, and Jiyong had wished him a speedy recovery in return. So it’s just Jiyong and Seungri, sitting on Jiyong’s sofa, two feet of space between them that never would have existed five years ago, watching some dull TVN program about people who foster dogs or something, and it’s Jiyong’s birthday. Jiyong’s twenty-fifth birthday.
Seungri’s lips look dark in the dim light of Jiyong’s living room, like raspberries, and Jiyong swallows around the sudden dryness of his throat.
Jiyong thinks Seungri looks sad, but his heart has played tricks on him before, and he knows better than to assume things about Seungri anymore. “Do you think I should?” Jiyong asks, making sure to keep his tone light.
He expects Seungri to ask him questions, like ‘do you love her?’ or ‘are you seriously thinking about it, hyung?’, but Seungri doesn’t. Instead he leans back on the sofa and closes his eyes, tilting his chin up in a way that casts a shadow against his jaw.
Seungri grew up pretty, Jiyong thinks, not for the first time, and probably not for the last.
“Yes,” Seungri says, after a moment that feels impossibly long, and Jiyong’s pulse is too fast so he clenches his hands into fists and makes it slow down through sheer force of will.
“Why?” Jiyong asks, and Seungri’s tongue peeks out and wets his lips, and Jiyong wonders why the room feels so hot. Seungri’s hands are locked together in his lap, and Jiyong can see the bracelet he gave him almost three years ago now, twice broken and twice repaired, thick on Seungri’s wrist, the only jewelry he’s wearing today. Seungri opens his eyes, and turns to look at Jiyong, and there are shadows there that Jiyong’s never noticed.
Jiyong wonders if he put them there.
“Because then I’d be able to-“ Seungri starts, and then his eyes widen a fraction, and his knuckles go white, and Jiyong can see the muscles in his arms tighten, golden skin stretching over hard-won biceps.
“Able to…” Jiyong says, but it’s more of a question. Jiyong’s rings feel heavy. And they clink together as he moves, turning to face Seungri straight on. “You know I hate it when people don’t finish their sentences.”
“Stop worrying about you!” Seungri says, and he laughs, and it’s too loud in the quiet. It’s jarring, and forced, and not at all like Seungri’s really laugh, which is obnoxious and terrible and one of Jiyong’s greatest treasures; a noise he hoards and replays in his mind sometimes when no one else is around. “Maybe then I’d be able to stop worrying about you.”
Jiyong doesn’t respond, at first. He just sits there and stares at Seungri, whose eyes are closed, a wide phony smile stretching across his face like he’s a clown, and Jiyong wants to slap him, or scratch at his face until he makes an expression that’s real.
None of that matters though, not really. It doesn’t matter that Jiyong has watched Seungri sleep and counted his eyelashes (and there are 127 on the upper lid of his left eye, except when there are 124 or 133) or that Jiyong sometimes imagines wrapping a collar around Seungri’s throat so that the whole world knows whom he belongs to. It doesn’t matter because it’s all inside Jiyong’s head, and Jiyong’s dating Kiko, and Seungri is something that Jiyong wants and can’t have, because being an artist has always meant more than anything else, and because Seungri has said no.
“I will,” Jiyong says finally. “I’ll probably marry her.” And Seungri flinches, and that ugly smile gets a little bit larger, and this, this is real heartbreak, right here on Jiyong’s couch on his twenty-fifth birthday: looking at the one thing Jiyong’s always wanted the most and watching it slip through his fingers like so much water.
And Seungri pulls himself up, back straight, and pulls the cake towards them, and Jiyong reaches forward to take the knife, and the backs of their hands brush, and it’s a jolt, like electricity, and Seungri pulls back like he’s been burned. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and Jiyong remembers Seungri curling up against him, head tucked beneath Jiyong’s chin, breath steady against Jiyong’s neck as Seungri slipped into slumber. Remembers, and it’s like poison, because now they barely touch at all.
Jiyong misses Seungri’s warmth.
“I hope you’ll be happy,” Seungri says thickly, and Jiyong doesn’t want any cake, because his stomach’s twisted itself into knots.
Jiyong can’t be happy, because Jiyong wants to straddle Seungri and kiss him until neither of them remember how to breathe without each other; wants to fuck Seungri until he screams and screams Jiyong’s name in that voice Jiyong loves. Wants to see Seungri look up at him with a fevered gaze and a need, just one step further than Jiyong has seen in his face before.
He remembers the taste of Seungri’s mouth, like candy and coffee and liquor, and the way Seungri hadn’t known what to do, letting Jiyong teach him.
Jiyong wishes that he could forget.
He asks Kiko to marry him on a Tuesday. It’s not a special day, or a special place, because Kiko has seen all of Jiyong’s ‘events’ and is incredibly uninterested in them. So they just go out for coffee and Jiyong asks her if she’d like to marry him.
“Are you sure?” Kiko asks steadily, and Jiyong thinks about the way the icing of his birthday cake had lingered at the corner of Seungri’s mouth, and the way he had wanted to lick it off. Then he thinks about the way Seungri had moved away from Jiyong, every time Jiyong had ventured closer. The way he’d felt helpless and out of control as Seungri said ‘no’ with every shift of his thighs and sigh and furrow of his brow.
Jiyong feels in control right now, pulse beating at a steady pace and world right side up. He’s thinking about deadlines and projects, and yes, this can work. Jiyong is an artist, first, and maybe he can finally close the door on his heart.
“Yes,” Jiyong says, and Kiko smiles; this little, smug smile that Jiyong likes a lot, because it makes Kiko look like she has all the answers and sometimes Jiyong likes to take a break from pretending that he has all the answers.
“Alright then, Kwon Jiyong,” Kiko says. “But you’d better not write any sad songs about me.”
“They won’t be about you,” Jiyong says, and Kiko nods, and looks down at her necklace, that heart-shaped locket that Jiyong almost imagines is a part of her. Maybe she has doors she wants to close, too.
That night, as he kisses his way down her flat belly, tongue delving into her navel before venturing lower, Kiko starts to cry.
“Let’s forget together,” she says, and she’s holding that locket in a tight fist as her other hand clutches at the bed sheets, and Jiyong understands her completely.
“Yes,” Jiyong says, and his bracelet, the one whose twin is in Korea on another wrist that’s thicker than his, feels like the heaviest thing Jiyong has ever worn.
That night, he writes ‘Shut the Door’.
“What are you working on?” Seungri asks, and Jiyong looks up. It’s Seunghyun and Seungri in the door, Seunghyun wearing his thick-frame glasses and looking kind of like he just stepped out of a drama, and Seungri wearing his workout clothes.
“New songs for BIGBANG’s comeback album,” Jiyong says. “This one’s going to be a dance track.”
He plays a bit for them, and Seunghyun starts freestyling to it, and Seungri laughs. “It’s no ‘Shut the Door’,” Seungri says, as Seunghyun walks over and starts messing with the track. Jiyong lets him, because you need a password to save changes to anything on his computer, and Seunghyun has tried for almost a year to guess his password, and he’s never managed.
“No, no, of course not,” Jiyong says. “That song speaks from me, but not from us.”
“That makes sense,” Seungri says, and Jiyong nods.
“This beat is great,” Seunghyun says. “So there’s this one, and the one from Boys Noize, right?”
“And two others,” Jiyong says. “I’ve had a while, and there are some tricks up my sleeve, still.” Jiyong smiles at Seungri. “And not too many sad songs, maknae.”
“I love ‘Shut the Door’,” Seungri says. “Even though it’s sad, it feels real.” He scratches at his cheek. “It’s sort of the opposite of the last song we did as a duet, isn’t it?”
Jiyong swallows.
“Like, on my mini-album, we did ‘Open the Window’. Isn’t that a coincidence?” Seungri is studying the ground, and Jiyong thinks Seungri knows it isn’t.
“Yes,” Jiyong says, and turns away, looking over at where Seunghyun is still replaying bits of the song, trying to get a feel for where his rap goes, and the kind of flow it needs to have. Seunghyun looks back, raising a single eyebrow, and Jiyong knows from that single glance Seunghyun’s been listening to their conversation.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” Seungri says. “I’ll come back to pick up the kid when I’m done.”
“Can we go out for cake?” Seunghyun asks, and Seungri taps his chin.
“Only if you don’t fall asleep in it,” Seungri says. “Youngbae and Daesung are still recovering from their heart attacks.”
“I was really drunk,” Seunghyun says. “And that was years ago. There should be a law that the things BIGBANG members do when they’re really drunk and it’s only them in a room, should stay secret and undiscussed forever.”
“I veto,” Seungri says. “What else am I going to talk about on talk shows? I have to earn the sheer amount of throwing me under the bus Jiyong-hyung does.”
“You’ve earned it a lot,” Seunghyun argues, but Seungri is already out the door, leaving Jiyong and Seunghyun alone in the studio.
“Do you guys always say so many words without saying anything to each other, or is that just special because I’m here?”
“What are you talking about?” Jiyong taps his fingers to the beat, bobbing his head and trying not to replay the conversation in his head.
“You’re both so dumb,” Seunghyun says. “Both of you just staring at each other like there’s so much you want to say, and saying nothing at all.”
“Hyung.”
“I guess I’m glad you’re talking to each other at all, though,” Seunghyun says. “I was beginning to feel like I was going to have to act my age to solve the problem. Especially since Daesung wasn’t being the mature one for me.”
“I think we’re friends again,” Jiyong says quietly. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Good,” Seunghyun says. “I mean, in the long run, I’m still probably going to ditch you guys when you go out for dinner, but at least I can ditch you all at the same time instead of on separate occasions. It was hard to bail out twice on my short vacations during service, let me tell you.”
Seunghyun chuckles to himself, and Jiyong thinks it’s pretty ridiculous that Seunghyun looks handsome doing that weird little laugh to himself, but he does. “One day Youngbae is going to get a gold metal, and then what are you going to do?”
“Have dinner with him,” Seunghyun says. “I like people who have won gold metals.”
“I like Seungri,” Jiyong says, as a test, and Seunghyun snorts.
“I could have told you that ten years ago, Jiyongie.” Seunghyun replays Jiyong’s song again. “So could any of us, except for Seungri.”
Jiyong wonders what the expression is on his face. “Oh,” he says.
“Anyway,” Seunghyun says. “Can you please not do anything crazy that has the maknae re-enlisting? If necessary, I’ll come over and throw away your shoebox of hair cuttings and whatever other creepy shit you’ve collected.”
“I hate you,” Jiyong says.
“No you don’t,” Seunghyun replies. “Cause I’ve got a sweet rap to fit that empty bit before the hook.”
Kush and Seunghyun plan Jiyong’s bachelor party, (even though Youngbae is Jiyong’s best man), which Jiyong knows is a bad idea, because Seunghyun is still mentally ten years old and Kush is a total pervert. Jiyong knows at best, he’ll have strippers wearing thongs made out of action figures, dessert foods, and silly-string, and at worst he’ll be arrested, but Jiyong doesn’t really want to argue because it’s not really a Korean tradition to have a bachelor party, anyway, so no one else would plan it instead. Teddy and Se7en probably won’t let him get arrested, too, so he thinks it’ll be alright.
It winds up being rather tame; just good drinks and good friends, and all of BIGBANG is together again in one room for the first time in almost six months.
“This feels nostalgic,” Youngbae says, and he takes a small sip of his beer, nursing it so he doesn’t have to get another. “All of us together celebrating something, not just working.”
“It does,” Seungri says, and then he hiccups. His face is flushed, and Jiyong’s noticed he’s been drinking heavily, at twice Jiyong’s pace, for most of the night, leaning against Seunghyun’s side as Seunghyun looks down at him amusedly. “We’re never together anymore.”
“We’re busy,” Daesung says. “Spread out and on completely different schedules. It makes sense we’d have trouble matching five schedules together.”
“Yeah,” Youngbae says. “But still. Nostalgic. And now our Jiyong is getting married.”
Seungri takes another shot, and Daesung frowns at him. “Seungri, are you alright?”
“Fine,” Seungri says, and Seunghyun wraps an arm around him. Seunghyun looks drunk too, red cheeks and carefree smile.
“I’ll take care of maknae.” Seungri smiles up at him, and jealousy bubbles in Jiyong’s stomach. They look comfortable together. Seungri won’t let Jiyong even touch him, but he’s half in Seunghyun’s lap.
Jiyong’s going to be sick.
“I wanna dance, dance, dance, dance,” Seungri whines, and Seunghyun chuckles, pulling Seungri up and out onto the dance floor.
“Oh, I feel old, now,” Youngbae says. “Let’s go.”
And they follow, and Seungri is dancing too close to Seunghyun and Jiyong hates it, hate it, hates it. Jiyong had kissed Seungri, and Jiyong had proposed to his girlfriend, and Seungri feels so far away that Jiyong’s slowly losing his mind.
He moves close to Seungri, wrapping his arms around Seungri’s waist from behind, and Seungri grinds back into him, and Jiyong’s fury abates, and Seungri is drunk and knows exactly who Jiyong is but he doesn’t move away. Seunghyun is laughing at him, and Youngbae thinks it’s funny, snapping pictures on his camera phone as Seunghyun turns his attention to Daesung, hopping onto Daesung’s back. Kush has just poured a drink on Teddy, but Jiyong barely notices, because Seungri smells like liquor, and Jiyong is slowly becoming more and more intoxicated.
The song ends and Seungri pulls himself free, mumbling about going to the bathroom. He doesn’t meet Jiyong’s eyes, and Jiyong follows him.
“Are you running from me?”
“Yes,” Seungri admits. Another hiccup. “I’m drunk and I’m thinking bad things.”
“Bad things?” Jiyong asks, and this is wrong, because Jiyong is getting married tomorrow, and Seungri has said ‘no’ so clearly that Jiyong should know better than to move any closer. Still, he does.
“Stop it,” Seungri says. “Don’t come any closer to me.”
“I want to,” Jiyong says. “I’m selfish and it’s my party and I want to.”
“Does it matter what I want? I want to go out there and dance with TOP-hyung and laugh at his stupid dance moves and forget the way I feel, just for tonight.”
“I don’t want that,” Jiyong admits, and the alcohol he did drink is sloshing around in his belly, mixing with all the other feelings he can’t quite pinpoint.
“I do. I really, really do.” Seungri hiccups, and it’s almost a sob. “You win. Whatever’s happening, you win. I know you hate to lose, so I surrender, and-“ His tongue is tripping over the words, slurring them, and Jiyong’s half sure that Seungri doesn’t even know what he’s saying. “I am-“
“Maknae is mine,” Jiyong growls, shoving Seungri against the wall of the club, pressing them together chest to chest, Jiyong’s thigh slipping between Seungri’s as they share air. “Mine.”
Seungri’s breathing is harsh, and his eyes are closed, and his mouth looks ripe, and Jiyong want to-
“No,” Seungri says. “It can’t be this way.”
“I don’t want anyone else to touch you,” Jiyong says, voice low, and the helplessness and jealousy bubble and froth in his belly.
“You’re getting married,” Seungri says. “Can’t you- Can’t you stop playing this game with me, even now? What are you even winning anymore? Can’t you see that I’m done? I’ve been done since you kissed me, last year in December, and…”
“Maknae,” Jiyong says, and Seungri takes both hands and pushes at Jiyong’s shoulders. Jiyong stumbles backwards, not expecting the strength, and Seungri looks at him, and Seungri’s eyes are wild, and there’s something lost and sad in his eyes that makes Jiyong want to scream.
“You’re such a bastard. You know I-“ and Seungri takes a deep, shivering breath. “I would have done anything to be… You told me once, that I couldn’t be most important to you. That I shouldn’t take our interactions so seriously, or I’d lose. But then you- You do these things, and I want… I want… I hate this game, hyung. I hate it. It’s terrible. I feel like I lost years ago, and you’re only rubbing it in.” Seungri wraps his arms around himself, and it makes him look so young; more like the boy Jiyong had found crying in his room when he’d thought no one was home. More like the boy that just wanted Jiyong’s attention, any way he could get it. “It’s like you thrive on tearing me apart and putting me back together wrong. It’s like you like making me think that you might actually-“ He bites his lip and Jiyong just stares at him, watching Seungri slowly straighten himself up and uncurl his back. Jiyong remembers the way those muscles feel beneath his fingers. “Go. Get married. Let me go.”
“Let you go?”
“Please,” Seungri whispers. “Please let me go.”
Jiyong tries to ignore the way his heart shatters, but it’s so loud he thinks it’s a miracle Seungri can’t hear it.
Seungri leaves, rushing out and forgetting his coat, and Jiyong gets so fucking drunk he’s surprised he makes it to his own wedding.
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