Title: Of Coming Home and Leaving (or, Of Learning to Wait)
Author:
vvipforseungriRating: PG
Pairing: G-Ri
Word Count: 920
Genre: Angst/Fluff
Summary: Sometimes staying behind and waiting is best after all.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, no matter how hard I try.
AN: pssssh I totally couldn't help myself writing this after watching KRY's
"Reminisce" w/ eng subs. Made me want to cry and write about it. It's. so. good. C'est incroyable comment j'adore ce chanson. I usually don't even like SuJu!
Waves crash in the background, the waters thick with white, angry froth slapping against the jagged rocks lining the coast. The sharp sea wind blows cruelly; the electricity was almost tangible in the air. SeungRi stops three feet away, watching and waiting as JiYong stood staring out at the sea.
“Is that it, then? You’re leaving?”
JiYong turns around, and his face is weary, like he’s heard this too many times.
“Yeah. I’m leaving.”
JiYong bites his lips, a gesture SeungRi knows he only does when he’s trying to keep from crying.
“And you’re not taking me with you.”
SeungRi says it like it is, but the undercurrent of hurt rings loudly in JiYong’s ears. Irritation flashes through him for a moment, frustration at how much easier it’d be to say goodbye if SeungRi would just let him go.
“You know I can’t. It’s not safe for you, you need to stay here. I know you don’t like being so far away from everyone, but can’t you do that much? For me, SeungRi?” JiYong pleads this, uses that voice he knows tugs at SeungRi’s heart.
“And it’s safe for you?” retorts SeungRi, ignoring for the moment what the words for me, SeungRi, did to him. “You know they’ll make me go eventually. So why can’t I go with you?”
“I can’t do that, SeungRi, I can’t! I need to know, be absolutely certain, that you’re safe while I’m gone. I won’t be able to concentrate if I know you’re out there with me, your life in danger when I’m not allowed to help you! At least here you’re protected. There’s no such guarantee where I’m going.”
“That’s not fair, hyung. What about me? Am I not allowed to be worried for you, to want to be there to help you if you need it? Why are you allowed to protect me, but I can’t do the same for you? I’m strong, hyung, I can help you. I swear.” SeungRi scowls and kicks at the sand beneath his boot. They were only a few years apart, after all. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t.
JiYong sighed and smiled wanly. “Trust me, SeungRi; you’ll be helping me more if you don’t come. If you stay here, at least I’ll have a reason to come home, a reason why I shouldn’t die. If I ever found out that you-that you were killed... well. Let’s just say I wouldn’t waste time looking for someone to shoot me.”
“So you expect me to wait here. For you. While you go off and do your duty. Treating me like a child.”
“Treating you like the man I love and can’t bear to live without,” corrected JiYong gently, reaching out hesitantly to touch SeungRi’s face.
SeungRi leans into the familiar touch for a moment before his eyes darken and he steps back. JiYong stares at him, hurt shining clearly in his eyes, hand still outstretched.
“And if I can’t wait for you?”
The words are barely murmured, by JiYong hears them anyway. He flinches as if they actually struck him. SeungRi sees this, sees JiYong’s hand start to shake, and immediately wishes he could take all his stupid, impulsive words back.
“Then... Then I guess I’ll let you go. It-It’s too much to ask of you, you’re right. I’m sorry, SeungRi. Just-just let me go, then, I-”
JiYong’s cut off because SeungRi’s lips were suddenly pressed to his, SeungRi’s tears painting down JiYong’s cheeks, SeungRi’s arms holding him so close JiYong could break. Then SeungRi’s head is resting in the crook of JiYong’s neck and JiYong can feel SeungRi whispering apologies and I love you’s against his collarbone. JiYong holds SeungRi just as tightly, as if he’d be able to remember exactly the way SeungRi’s body seemed to fit perfectly against his like this when SeungRi wasn’t there for him to hold anymore.
“I’ll wait,” SeungRi whispers, trying to see through his tears to look into JiYong’s eyes, only to find that his were wet as well. “I’ll wait here for you, on the beach, every day. Of course I’ll wait. There’s nothing else for me in this world but you, not anymore. And on that day, when you finally come home, you’ll see me standing right here on this spot, waiting for you to hold me like this again, and so I can tell you what I’ve been up to while you were gone and ask you about-”
This time, SeungRi was the one interrupted as JiYong’s lips claimed SeungRi’s possessively. This kiss was different; there was a subtle edge of pain and desperation and a faint sense of goodbye behind the way their lips moved against one another. And so when JiYong finally pulls away, SeungRi knows that it’s time. It doesn’t make it any easier.
“You’re leaving now?” SeungRi’s hand clench tightly around JiYong’s shirt, he tries to fight off the panic and hysteria he can feel coming on.
“You’ll wait for me?”
“Forever.”
“Good. Then I’ll come home. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
SeungRi stands on the spot where JiYong had been standing, and he watches JiYong turn and walk away from him, over the cliffs and jagged rocks, not looking back. He thinks the way the sunset’s dying rays illuminate him from behind makes him look beautiful with his army greens. He makes one last promise, one last wish on the falling (dying) star in the sky.
And then he sits down and begins his wait.