the definition of fearless (Jiyong/Seungri)
Jiyong/Seungri (Big Bang)
PG-13 for some language.
Entry for the ‘What happened to G-Ri?’ prompt for the gdheartri one-shot contest. It's also my first Big Bang fic, so I hope you all enjoy it!
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Kwon Jiyong is beginning to feel - uncomfortable - around Lee Seunghyun. Well, okay, it's not so much that he feels uncomfortable… it's more like he feels too comfortable around him. It's a discomfort/comfort that he can't quite shake when he knows that they're in the same room and he feels almost clumsy if there's nothing to fidget with, his hands feeling awkward, too big for his body, but just right when they're practically violating Seungri. He tries not to let it show, though - it would be stupid to purposefully let anything as ridiculous as this… this… thing affect the awesome group dynamic they have with each other in Big Bang. And wanting Seungri isn't something that he really wants to think about, either.
And besides, it's not that he wants him, exactly. He doesn't, not in that way. Really.
It's just… it's this weird feeling he gets, sometimes. Like, for instance, on the set of Smoothie Prince, when after their all-too-short naptime he sees Seungri blinking up at him sleepily from beneath a fuzzy polka-dotted blanket and saying, his voice small and muffled, "Aish, Jiyong-hyung... turn off the light, yeah?" It's that feeling that almost stops him from donning Seungri's wig and taking one of Daesung's drumsticks and poking him, singing in falsetto, "Seunghyunnie! I've got your wig, Seung SoonEe!" until he shifts and squirms, finally wriggling out from under the blanket with a grumble (or is it the feeling that makes him do it?).
It's waking up in the morning with the pajama-clad back of a sleeping Seungri facing him on the other side of the mattress and feeling both empty and complete, his mind comparing the distance between them to the length of his arm without his even thinking about it. It's almost reaching out his hand and - and... and instead, forcing away the lazy sleepiness that threatens to let him snuggle deeper into his blankets, swinging his legs out of bed to pad in his slippers to their kitchen area.
It's always being the first one out of bed and the one who starts the coffee machine and the one who's already had two cups by the time the last one of them - Seunghyun-hyung, of course - shuffles in for breakfast. It's explaining away his 'early-to-rise' sentiment with "It's my obligation - I'm the leader, maknae, don't you forget it," to Seungri, who's got his head buried in his arms on the table. It's patting the sleepy back of Seungri's head, mussing the hair with his fingers and, okay, maybe resting his hand on his head a little longer than is necessary, before reluctantly letting the strands slip between his fingers as he moves his hand away. It's seeing Seungri's hand following his as he reaches up just a split second too late to dislodge Jiyong's, Seungri's hand hovering in the air where his own was for an almost imperceptible instant (and is it just him, or does his hand look lonely, hovering there?); then the fingers curl into the palm and he tucks it back under his head with a disgruntled sigh.
It's being driven to a greater song-writing frenzy all the time, trying to scribble down lyrics that won't leave his head and that flash like irritating neon lights within his mind until he finds something on which to pen the words: a scrap of paper, or a mini cereal box, or even the back of Seungri's hand, the ink of Jiyong's pen soaking into the valleys of his skin. Whenever the latter happens to be the only thing around, Jiyong pretends that he's just reading over what he's written and not holding Seungri's hand because it's warm and dry and he's imagining it doing... other things. He's not watching the path of the ink bleeding into the little crevices and wishing, bizarrely, that he was the ink that was seeping across Seungri's skin, marking him and dyeing him blue. Whenever that happens Seungri squints and tilts his head, trying to read Jiyong's chicken scratch and to (discreetly and unsuccessfully) remove his hand from Jiyong’s grasp.
Later in the day, he'll copy it down onto a piece of paper and hand it to Jiyong, his hands ink-free. For some reason Jiyong never likes the lyrics as much as when he'd first written them down - they seem too abstract, too saccharine - and after he re-reads them, all too often he ends up crumpling the paper into a ball and throwing it onto the steadily growing pile by his bedroom door.
It's all this and more; all these small things that are adding up to some huge thing that threatens to overtake his whole sense of self, which is frightening. If he doesn't know who Jiyong is, what can he do? So much of what he does - everything he does, actually - revolves around the characteristics and mannerisms of G-Dragon. When he doesn't have that, what will he do? So he's desperately trying to avoid thinking too much about anything, brushing away the nudging, whispering feeling that almost scares him with its persistence and its intensity. He doesn't want to be scared of anything.
He isn't scared of anything. He's their leader, and he's fearless.
He's fearless, right?
***
He thinks he's doing well on the whole pretending-everything's-the-same front, until one night of insomnia and a couple of egotistical Google searches born from boredom bring him to these videos. Videos of him and Seungri, him with his arms over his shoulders, around his waist, his face up close to Seungri, and he thinks Shit, man because this goes way beyond fan service, because he can remember doing these things not just in front of a camera but at home behind closed doors as well, and for some weird reason he can't stop watching all these videos of them together, of him laughing far too close to Seungri's face and aigoo does Seungri really hate it that much that he always flinches away? But no, there are some videos (here he clicks, and bookmarks, for some indiscernible - oh, who are you trying to fool anyway, Jiyong?) where the look on Seungri's face is almost too much to bear, like he's on the precipice of letting his face burst into a silly, ear-to-ear grin, like there's nothing that makes him happier than having his hyung draped over him like some kind of skinny-armed, wild-eyed violator of personal space.
Jiyong thinks he must look hilarious to anyone who walks in (and God, he hopes that no one does, especially not Seungri), hunched over his laptop with the glow of the screen on his pale, wide-eyed face, furiously clicking on links to video after video.
When the sun comes up the next morning, he hasn't had a wink of sleep. He’s still slouched on their sofa, his laptop open on his lap, his wrists pale against the keyboard, and he's staring into space when Daesung walks in, yawning. Jiyong quietly closes his laptop and, ignoring Daesung's morning greeting, heads back to his bedroom.
***
Things change after that night, and no one except Jiyong knows why. He makes up for his past actions by snuggling up closer to Youngbae and Daesung, by laughing loudly and fooling around with Seunghyun-hyung. He decides that they'll switch the sleeping arrangements, "to build better inter-group relationships", and, because Seunghyun always gets his own room, he switches Seungri with Daesung. He becomes cold, almost cruel, towards Seungri, focusing on the things about Seungri that annoy him; on variety shows, he says certain things that, while true, are a little unnecessary. He tries to avoid Seungri altogether, but sometimes it's really hard - sometimes, when he's leaning on Youngbae or trying to kiss Daesung or mocking Seungri with Seunghyun-hyung, he catches fleeting glimpses of Seungri, and he looks almost confused, the slightest bit hurt - he's never been good at masking his emotions - and sometimes Kwon Jiyong feels like he's not going about this the right way.
It's not like there's anything else that he can do, though… right? He has to do this; otherwise he'll get so caught up in this not-Jiyong he's becoming that one day G-Dragon will leave him. He'll leave him, and all he'll have left is… he doesn't know what he'll have left. A shell, maybe, or someone that looks like him and sounds like him but isn't really him. He's already losing his words, giving them over to some other being who writes scraps of songs like my lips against your eyelids and watching you makes me feel alive and I'm losing myself around you. I'm losing myself without you. His love songs have never before been so incredibly mushy or angst-filled but lately it seems like they're the only kinds of songs he wants to write.
It's just so hard, though; it's hard not to be silly and goofy with Seungri, because he's just so used to it. It's difficult because it would just be so easy to give in and let himself fling his arms around Seungri whenever he wants to… but no, he tells himself, he has to get past this weird phase. So when his arms feel empty and awkward he finds someone else - mostly Youngbae or Daesung, sometimes Seunghyun - to hold.
If Seungri's fallen asleep on the set of a photo shoot or during a rehearsal (there are so many things to keep up with now, so many things they have to do in order to best present themselves, that Jiyong doesn't blame him for falling asleep; he would as well, if it weren't for the coffee that, lately, he's been downing like water), Jiyong only allows himself a brief moment to check the rise and fall of his chest and to observe his eye circles, smudged dark like bruises under his eyes, before he sends Youngbae to wake him up with a, "Eh, Youngbae, the maknae's napping again. Make sure he doesn't oversleep, yeah? We have a lot to do today." By the time Seungri wakes up, looking drawn and tired as he scrubs his face with his hands, Jiyong's on the other side of the room, talking to Wolly, playing up to the cameras, and pretending he's not watching Seungri stretching from the corner of his eye.
***
It's April, and the weather is not quite warm. It's windy, and there's still the slightest chill in the air that Jiyong can't quite shake.
Jiyong's lying in the backseat of the convertible they're using for the Baskin Robbins shoot on Jeju Island, and Seungri’s perched awkwardly, hesitantly, on the back of the car. He doesn't slide his legs from the seat so that Seungri can sit; instead, he stretches his legs out obnoxiously and tilts his straw hat over his eyes, peering at Seungri's form through the little gaps in the weave. He's half-hoping that Seungri will just roll down of his own accord, will fall and flop down with his limbs sprawled over Jiyong and his body warm (because he's always warm, even on chilly days like today) against the length of his own and he'll laugh, the sound bright in Jiyong's ear - but not really, he amends to himself, not exactly. It would just be funny if he slipped… as he was sitting. Right.
"…Right, Jiyong?" Seunghyun is grinning at him from the front seat, and Jiyong nudges his hat up with his nose and laughs a little louder, nodding vigorously even though he has no idea what his hyung just said. It's just a little too cold in the backseat, and Jiyong can't help but shiver a little in the wake of a persistent breeze.
When it's his turn to do his individual shoot for the commercial, he has to ditch his hoodie in the backseat, where the rest of them are lounging. He shakes out his body quickly to warm up his muscles, then strides over to the set. As he's positioning himself and repeating the lines under his breath for the final time before they start shooting, he glances over at the pink convertible. Daesung's taken his place in the backseat (as well as his hoodie, Jiyong notes with a bit of a wistful shiver - aish, it's cold), and as he watches, Daesung pats the seat beside him with a grin, and Seungri slides down from the back of the car. Daesung throws himself across Seungri and all of them crack up. Jiyong can't hear them above the chatter of the technical crew, but he can read Daesung's lips saying So warm! He’s like a portable heater! and see Seunghyun and Youngbae reach over to touch his hands, their faces lighting up in surprise.
For some reason, Jiyong finds himself frowning.
"Eh, Jiyong! In 3, 2, 1…!"
He forces a smile as the cameras start rolling.
***
It's five months later, and on the whole, Jiyong's plan has been going quite well, he thinks. At the very least, he hopes. There have definitely been some trying times, though - he's caught himself watching Seungri maybe a little more than is normal, and Seungri's the one that’s been - well, Jiyong wouldn't say that Seungri's been acting like him, but that hug at the Ulchin Music Festival in August, the one that made him flush with embarrassment even though he'd been working on his Seungri Avoidance Tactics, was certainly unexpected and wrecked havoc on his psyche for the day until he locked himself in his room and did some breathing exercises that he looked up online (he deleted his browser history afterward, just in case).
It's been tricky, but he has, for the most part, stopped bothering Seungri. If he ever gets the urge to touch and be touched, he finds someone else. There's always someone else around; there always will be.
Though it had begun as a matter of self-preservation, Jiyong realizes that he's also, in fact, doing Seungri a favour. He'd always hated it when Jiyong tried to get too close to him, right? He should be grateful to Jiyong for what he's doing. That hug at the festival was probably just a friendly hug for Big Bang's leader, right? Nothing more, nothing less. What Jiyong's been doing, well, it's been in the best interests of all involved parties, really.
So he's not quite sure why, when he wraps his arms around Youngbae and sees Seungri looking stoically ahead at the camera, his face as unreadable as if it were carved from stone, he still feels as lost and unsure and scared as that night in front of his computer, seeing all those videos of Seungri's expression wavering between resigned and pleased.
***
Their group shoot having just finished, they disperse throughout the room to wait for their individual and paired shoots.
Jiyong's standing by the cameraman who's going to be shooting Seungri and Youngbae for the calendar, and he absently watches them fooling around on the set. Yep, all is well.
Youngbae takes hold of Seungri's tie.
Jiyong begins to feel a bizarre sense of dread as the photographer continues to take a couple of shots, the whirr of the camera after each shot accompanying the strange feeling that makes him feel almost anxious. He scratches his nose, and then folds his arms, stretching his neck. He unfolds his arms again, scratching behind his ear before refolding them. That's when it happens.
Seungri inches forward - it seems like he's in slow-motion - ducking his head slightly. The closer he gets to Youngbae, the more that sense of dread seems to build, and the faster Jiyong’s heart seems to beat. Jiyong fights himself, trying to resist the frantic impulse to leap out in front of the camera and pull his friends apart. An unfamiliar desperation seems to overtake him as Seungri gets closer and closer to Youngbae, who isn't fucking moving away -
It all happens very quickly. Youngbae glances up at Seungri before starting and jumping away, clutching his hand to his chest, saying something that sounds like, "Seungri-ah! Aish, you scared me, I thought you were going to-" and Seungri just laughs and Jiyong practically dies from relief. God, he thought he was going to have a heart attack.
As he calms down and the shoot continues, however, his relief is replaced by an irrational, burning anger.
How many times has he leaned forward, just like that? How many times has he ducked his head to try and press a sloppy kiss to Seungri's cheek, or lips, or forehead? How many times has Seungri flinched or leaned away from him? How many times has Seungri protested, saying, "Ew, hyung! Stop it!"? How many times has Jiyong laughed it all off, just like Seungri is doing now?
A snide little voice in the back of his head pipes up with, That's right. How many times have you done the same thing? But how many times have you replaced Seunghyunnie with Youngbae, or Daesung? Yah, so why do you care? It's not like it means anything, Jiyong. There's no rule saying he can't do it as well.
Jiyong bites his lip.
***
Jiyong's eyeballs actually hurt with the force of his glare.
Youngbae - his best friend! - is seated by the window seats at the opposite side of the large room. Seungri's sitting beside him and playing with Boss. They're laughing together, and Seungri briefly presses his forehead against Youngbae's shoulder, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Jiyong wants to murder something. He clenches his fists.
"What's wrong with you, eh, Jiyong?" Startled, he glances up to see their manager hovering over him. He blinks a few times, relaxing his hands.
"Nothing's wrong, hyung." He looks down at his hands, wondering when he'd shredded that napkin and rolled the shreds into little grey balls of tissue. He rubs his hands together, trying to get rid of the tissue bits clinging to his fingers. He doesn't look back over to where Youngbae and Seungri are sitting, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands as their manager drops down beside him on the couch.
"Are you sure? You look stressed. You don’t need some time off?" Yeah, right, Jiyong thinks bitterly, like Korea will give me time off.
"Yah, I'm sure. I'm fine, see?" He spreads his hands, waving them awkwardly in the air for a moment.
Manager Yang looks around them hesitantly before he lowers his voice to say, "You just… you haven't been yourself, lately. We've all been worried. You've been so out of it, you know? All these mood swings-"
"I said I'm fine."
He's silent, scrutinizing Jiyong for a long moment. Jiyong feels slightly uncomfortable under his gaze, and shifts in his seat, clasping his hands together. Manager Yang heaves a resigned sigh before clapping his hand on Jiyong's shoulder, shaking him a little as he gets up. "Ai, what happened to the Jiyong we all know and love, hnh? What happened to G-Dragon?"
In normal circumstances, Jiyong would simply shake him off with a scoff or a laugh, but today, he remains silent, and asks himself the same questions.
He allows himself to steal a glance at Seungri and Youngbae, messing around with Boss. All of a sudden, Seungri glances up, and catches Jiyong's eye. Before Jiyong can look away, he smiles, the action crinkling his eyes at the corners.
That's it, Jiyong thinks to himself. He glances up.
"Don't you worry, manager-sshi. I've just been tired from all the performances. I'll be back to normal in no time." He grins back at their manager, his smile more genuine than it's been in a long time.
***
One day in early October, Jiyong wakes up and writes Seungri a song. It's certainly not a love song, and it's meant for Seungri to sing, not Jiyong, but even so he almost feels nervous when he corners Seungri in their dressing room before they perform at the MBC Seoul Design Olympic Opening Concert. It's a pretty damn sexy song. He hopes Seungri doesn't take it the wrong way (or the right way, that little voice inside him sniggers).
He clears his throat in an attempt to maintain his cool. "Seunghyunnie."
Seungri glances up from his phone, looking surprised (Why? It hasn't been that long since they've spoken to each other alone… has it?), and smiles slightly when he sees Jiyong leaning nonchalantly against the counter. "Yeah?"
Jiyong taps the song against the tabletop. The paper is neatly folded into quarters (Jiyong won't admit to anyone that the carelessly crossed-out words and the slight creases on the paper were meticulously added to this draft after he'd ditched the last one, which had been wrinkled and heavy on discarded lyrics. He doesn't want it to look as though he'd spent that much time on it). "I was thinking, we should add a solo song on the Remember album," he says casually.
"Yeah?" Seungri repeats. His voice is similarly casual, but the eager look that creeps onto his face makes Jiyong smile. He bops the kid over the head with his paper. "Yeah."
Ignoring Jiyong, Seungri asks, "Who's going to be singing it? Daesung had his already, right? The trot one? And Youngbae just released his album, yeah? Are you… is it for Seunghyun-hyung?" Seungri's eyeing the paper hopefully, and Jiyong has to stifle his grin back to a smile behind the hem of his sleeve.
"Idiot. Why would I be talking to you right now if it was for Big Seunghyun? No, I think you should be doing a solo this time."
"Really? No! Really? Are you sure?" Contrary to his hesitant words, Seungri's already reached out and snagged the paper from Jiyong's grasp, quickly unfolding it and scanning the lyrics. Jiyong feels the familiar flare of nerves in the pit of his stomach as he's reading, and he speaks to break the silence. "It's just a rough draft, maknae; it's not set in stone. I have to talk to Perry about it first, yah? And I've been composing it… well, you come talk to me if you want to do it, okay? Then I can show you what it sounds like so far."
Seungri looks up at him, grinning like Daesung. He looks pleased, but almost embarrassed as well, though that may be because of those lyrics Jiyong had scrawled in blue ink across the paper. "Thanks, hyung."
"Eh, maknae, it's no problem. You had to have another solo song sometime, right?"
Somehow, Jiyong thinks that Seungri's thanks is for more than just the song. Before he heads back to his own chair, he grabs Seungri into a headlock, just for good measure - and to make up for lost time.
Jiyong isn't sure if he can define what he feels for Lee Seunghyun, but this feeling - this blossoming, breaking, sunrise-and-daybreak feeling that flays his chest open and makes him smile as he walks away from Seungri - is pretty close to what he feels whenever Seungri looks at him like he's the greatest man who ever lived, or like he's an idiot, or… just looks at him. He can't put a name to it. He's only just realizing the importance of it, the weight of it; only just finding out how to keep it from becoming bigger than it should be, only now discovering how to maintain the delicate balance between friend and bandmate and something else.
…But Kwon Jiyong has always lived his life pushing boundaries, both others' and his own, seeing how far he can fall before he has to pull himself back up, and this is no exception. This time, though, he's not sure he ever wants to get back up from the fall.
***
Seungri's birthday passes with not nearly enough fanfare. Though he still can't go out to a club, they do have a small party with their various friends and other acquaintances at the main YG office building. He and Seunghyun-hyung tease him relentlessly about his maturity and age, or lack thereof (when do they not?), and complain about having to wait until the New Year to really party.
(Despite what they all say to each other or to Seungri, deep down, none of them are quite ready to let him grow up completely. He's the maknae of the family, after all.)
Jiyong watches him greet everyone at the party, giving his funny little bow - well, Jiyong thinks it's funny, though it's not much different from his own. It's just because it's Seungri's, and most of what he does is funny in that... cute sort of way. He watches as Seungri spends the night thanking everyone for their birthday wishes, thanking them for coming; he watches as he makes others smile and laugh on the day they should be doing the same for him.
The night isn't a total loss, though. It doesn't end without at least a few laughs - they are Big Bang, after all - especially since Seungri has his first shot (or several) of soju, the glass pressed into his (progressively less and less) reluctant hand by Seunghyun, and Jiyong, and Daesung. By the end of the night, he's gotten a little tipsier than they'd intended, and leans heavily on Jiyong in the backseat of the van on the way home, giggling uncontrollably and trying to stifle the sounds against his shoulder. Jiyong tries to ignore him by staring out the window, downing the rest of his own bottle of beer. He's never really been a fan of drinking, and beer is a little too yeasty for his tastes (when he does drink, he typically prefers soju), but the slightly bitter, spreading warmth of the alcohol in his chest as it passes down his throat, which he can feel Seungri nosing against, is an oddly pleasant feeling. Outside the window of the van, the streetlamps they pass on the side of the road look like yellow glowing comets, slowed in motion, smudged bright in the darkness.
It's weird, but… Jiyong kind of wishes that they all knew each other in some other life, in some other universe, where no one would care what they did or who they dated or what they sang. He kind of wishes that, for Seungri's birthday, they could be spending it with friends who spoke with real meaning the words and birthday wishes that fill the night air along with the clinking of glasses and laughter that isn't quite as full-bodied as it should be. He kind of wishes that they didn't have to watch everything they said or did whenever they were around others for fear of having it plastered across Korea's trashy tabloids.
He kind of wishes that he, Kwon Jiyong, could look at Lee Seunghyun without anyone else looking and without everyone else seeing.
He realizes the futility of wishing, though, and despite the fact that he, perhaps a little too often, uses fans' obsessions and Big Bang's popularity to their advantage, he knows that without this world and without YG, they would never have met each other; none of them would have met each other. He's grateful for this world in which they met, and he does want the world to hear his music, to hear their songs. It's what he was born to do, what he's dreamt of doing and has been doing ever since he was thirteen.
There's just… it's just something that bothers him, sometimes. That's all.
Seungri gives a bubbly, slightly hysterical giggle at absolutely nothing in particular, and the sound reminds Jiyong that Seungri's probably inebriated enough to have lost his normal, albeit rather debatable, rationality. He pokes at Seungri's nose and prods at his shoulder, saying, "Seungie-ah! Come on, sit up. Urgh, I think you got drool on me. Disgusting."
The kid doesn't seem inclined to move, instead cracking open a bleary eye and saying, a little too loudly, "Jeeee-yong hyung!" Lowering his voice, he stage whispers, as though he's letting Jiyong in on a conspiracy, "you're my… my favourite hyung, you know? I'd rather drool on you, even if you tell, if you n' Seunghyun tell ev'ryone on Come to Play." Daesung cracks up in the seat in front of them, and Jiyong, feeling a grin threatening to split his own face in two, pats Seungri's head in what he hopes is a slightly encouraging, comforting way. Youngbae raises a bemused eyebrow at him from the seat beside Daesung, but Jiyong just continues to grin back at him.
Sure, Seungri probably deserves more than half-hearted birthday wishes and (most likely) a hangover, but right now, in this instant, Jiyong's feeling ridiculously happy and wildly self-confident, fearless like the leader he's supposed to have been all this time, that he hopes he's finally becoming, and he's thinking that maybe yeah, he can give Seungri that something more. Maybe not now - not when they're getting so popular, not when all of Korea and other parts of the world are watching their every move - but someday, maybe, in the quiet darkness of their van, the crunching of the gravel under the wheels soothing white noise to the feel of Seungri's smile against his skin.
PG-13 for some language.
Entry for the ‘What happened to G-Ri?’ prompt for the gdheartri one-shot contest. It's also my first Big Bang fic, so I hope you all enjoy it!
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Kwon Jiyong is beginning to feel - uncomfortable - around Lee Seunghyun. Well, okay, it's not so much that he feels uncomfortable… it's more like he feels too comfortable around him. It's a discomfort/comfort that he can't quite shake when he knows that they're in the same room and he feels almost clumsy if there's nothing to fidget with, his hands feeling awkward, too big for his body, but just right when they're practically violating Seungri. He tries not to let it show, though - it would be stupid to purposefully let anything as ridiculous as this… this… thing affect the awesome group dynamic they have with each other in Big Bang. And wanting Seungri isn't something that he really wants to think about, either.
And besides, it's not that he wants him, exactly. He doesn't, not in that way. Really.
It's just… it's this weird feeling he gets, sometimes. Like, for instance, on the set of Smoothie Prince, when after their all-too-short naptime he sees Seungri blinking up at him sleepily from beneath a fuzzy polka-dotted blanket and saying, his voice small and muffled, "Aish, Jiyong-hyung... turn off the light, yeah?" It's that feeling that almost stops him from donning Seungri's wig and taking one of Daesung's drumsticks and poking him, singing in falsetto, "Seunghyunnie! I've got your wig, Seung SoonEe!" until he shifts and squirms, finally wriggling out from under the blanket with a grumble (or is it the feeling that makes him do it?).
It's waking up in the morning with the pajama-clad back of a sleeping Seungri facing him on the other side of the mattress and feeling both empty and complete, his mind comparing the distance between them to the length of his arm without his even thinking about it. It's almost reaching out his hand and - and... and instead, forcing away the lazy sleepiness that threatens to let him snuggle deeper into his blankets, swinging his legs out of bed to pad in his slippers to their kitchen area.
It's always being the first one out of bed and the one who starts the coffee machine and the one who's already had two cups by the time the last one of them - Seunghyun-hyung, of course - shuffles in for breakfast. It's explaining away his 'early-to-rise' sentiment with "It's my obligation - I'm the leader, maknae, don't you forget it," to Seungri, who's got his head buried in his arms on the table. It's patting the sleepy back of Seungri's head, mussing the hair with his fingers and, okay, maybe resting his hand on his head a little longer than is necessary, before reluctantly letting the strands slip between his fingers as he moves his hand away. It's seeing Seungri's hand following his as he reaches up just a split second too late to dislodge Jiyong's, Seungri's hand hovering in the air where his own was for an almost imperceptible instant (and is it just him, or does his hand look lonely, hovering there?); then the fingers curl into the palm and he tucks it back under his head with a disgruntled sigh.
It's being driven to a greater song-writing frenzy all the time, trying to scribble down lyrics that won't leave his head and that flash like irritating neon lights within his mind until he finds something on which to pen the words: a scrap of paper, or a mini cereal box, or even the back of Seungri's hand, the ink of Jiyong's pen soaking into the valleys of his skin. Whenever the latter happens to be the only thing around, Jiyong pretends that he's just reading over what he's written and not holding Seungri's hand because it's warm and dry and he's imagining it doing... other things. He's not watching the path of the ink bleeding into the little crevices and wishing, bizarrely, that he was the ink that was seeping across Seungri's skin, marking him and dyeing him blue. Whenever that happens Seungri squints and tilts his head, trying to read Jiyong's chicken scratch and to (discreetly and unsuccessfully) remove his hand from Jiyong’s grasp.
Later in the day, he'll copy it down onto a piece of paper and hand it to Jiyong, his hands ink-free. For some reason Jiyong never likes the lyrics as much as when he'd first written them down - they seem too abstract, too saccharine - and after he re-reads them, all too often he ends up crumpling the paper into a ball and throwing it onto the steadily growing pile by his bedroom door.
It's all this and more; all these small things that are adding up to some huge thing that threatens to overtake his whole sense of self, which is frightening. If he doesn't know who Jiyong is, what can he do? So much of what he does - everything he does, actually - revolves around the characteristics and mannerisms of G-Dragon. When he doesn't have that, what will he do? So he's desperately trying to avoid thinking too much about anything, brushing away the nudging, whispering feeling that almost scares him with its persistence and its intensity. He doesn't want to be scared of anything.
He isn't scared of anything. He's their leader, and he's fearless.
He's fearless, right?
***
He thinks he's doing well on the whole pretending-everything's-the-same front, until one night of insomnia and a couple of egotistical Google searches born from boredom bring him to these videos. Videos of him and Seungri, him with his arms over his shoulders, around his waist, his face up close to Seungri, and he thinks Shit, man because this goes way beyond fan service, because he can remember doing these things not just in front of a camera but at home behind closed doors as well, and for some weird reason he can't stop watching all these videos of them together, of him laughing far too close to Seungri's face and aigoo does Seungri really hate it that much that he always flinches away? But no, there are some videos (here he clicks, and bookmarks, for some indiscernible - oh, who are you trying to fool anyway, Jiyong?) where the look on Seungri's face is almost too much to bear, like he's on the precipice of letting his face burst into a silly, ear-to-ear grin, like there's nothing that makes him happier than having his hyung draped over him like some kind of skinny-armed, wild-eyed violator of personal space.
Jiyong thinks he must look hilarious to anyone who walks in (and God, he hopes that no one does, especially not Seungri), hunched over his laptop with the glow of the screen on his pale, wide-eyed face, furiously clicking on links to video after video.
When the sun comes up the next morning, he hasn't had a wink of sleep. He’s still slouched on their sofa, his laptop open on his lap, his wrists pale against the keyboard, and he's staring into space when Daesung walks in, yawning. Jiyong quietly closes his laptop and, ignoring Daesung's morning greeting, heads back to his bedroom.
***
Things change after that night, and no one except Jiyong knows why. He makes up for his past actions by snuggling up closer to Youngbae and Daesung, by laughing loudly and fooling around with Seunghyun-hyung. He decides that they'll switch the sleeping arrangements, "to build better inter-group relationships", and, because Seunghyun always gets his own room, he switches Seungri with Daesung. He becomes cold, almost cruel, towards Seungri, focusing on the things about Seungri that annoy him; on variety shows, he says certain things that, while true, are a little unnecessary. He tries to avoid Seungri altogether, but sometimes it's really hard - sometimes, when he's leaning on Youngbae or trying to kiss Daesung or mocking Seungri with Seunghyun-hyung, he catches fleeting glimpses of Seungri, and he looks almost confused, the slightest bit hurt - he's never been good at masking his emotions - and sometimes Kwon Jiyong feels like he's not going about this the right way.
It's not like there's anything else that he can do, though… right? He has to do this; otherwise he'll get so caught up in this not-Jiyong he's becoming that one day G-Dragon will leave him. He'll leave him, and all he'll have left is… he doesn't know what he'll have left. A shell, maybe, or someone that looks like him and sounds like him but isn't really him. He's already losing his words, giving them over to some other being who writes scraps of songs like my lips against your eyelids and watching you makes me feel alive and I'm losing myself around you. I'm losing myself without you. His love songs have never before been so incredibly mushy or angst-filled but lately it seems like they're the only kinds of songs he wants to write.
It's just so hard, though; it's hard not to be silly and goofy with Seungri, because he's just so used to it. It's difficult because it would just be so easy to give in and let himself fling his arms around Seungri whenever he wants to… but no, he tells himself, he has to get past this weird phase. So when his arms feel empty and awkward he finds someone else - mostly Youngbae or Daesung, sometimes Seunghyun - to hold.
If Seungri's fallen asleep on the set of a photo shoot or during a rehearsal (there are so many things to keep up with now, so many things they have to do in order to best present themselves, that Jiyong doesn't blame him for falling asleep; he would as well, if it weren't for the coffee that, lately, he's been downing like water), Jiyong only allows himself a brief moment to check the rise and fall of his chest and to observe his eye circles, smudged dark like bruises under his eyes, before he sends Youngbae to wake him up with a, "Eh, Youngbae, the maknae's napping again. Make sure he doesn't oversleep, yeah? We have a lot to do today." By the time Seungri wakes up, looking drawn and tired as he scrubs his face with his hands, Jiyong's on the other side of the room, talking to Wolly, playing up to the cameras, and pretending he's not watching Seungri stretching from the corner of his eye.
***
It's April, and the weather is not quite warm. It's windy, and there's still the slightest chill in the air that Jiyong can't quite shake.
Jiyong's lying in the backseat of the convertible they're using for the Baskin Robbins shoot on Jeju Island, and Seungri’s perched awkwardly, hesitantly, on the back of the car. He doesn't slide his legs from the seat so that Seungri can sit; instead, he stretches his legs out obnoxiously and tilts his straw hat over his eyes, peering at Seungri's form through the little gaps in the weave. He's half-hoping that Seungri will just roll down of his own accord, will fall and flop down with his limbs sprawled over Jiyong and his body warm (because he's always warm, even on chilly days like today) against the length of his own and he'll laugh, the sound bright in Jiyong's ear - but not really, he amends to himself, not exactly. It would just be funny if he slipped… as he was sitting. Right.
"…Right, Jiyong?" Seunghyun is grinning at him from the front seat, and Jiyong nudges his hat up with his nose and laughs a little louder, nodding vigorously even though he has no idea what his hyung just said. It's just a little too cold in the backseat, and Jiyong can't help but shiver a little in the wake of a persistent breeze.
When it's his turn to do his individual shoot for the commercial, he has to ditch his hoodie in the backseat, where the rest of them are lounging. He shakes out his body quickly to warm up his muscles, then strides over to the set. As he's positioning himself and repeating the lines under his breath for the final time before they start shooting, he glances over at the pink convertible. Daesung's taken his place in the backseat (as well as his hoodie, Jiyong notes with a bit of a wistful shiver - aish, it's cold), and as he watches, Daesung pats the seat beside him with a grin, and Seungri slides down from the back of the car. Daesung throws himself across Seungri and all of them crack up. Jiyong can't hear them above the chatter of the technical crew, but he can read Daesung's lips saying So warm! He’s like a portable heater! and see Seunghyun and Youngbae reach over to touch his hands, their faces lighting up in surprise.
For some reason, Jiyong finds himself frowning.
"Eh, Jiyong! In 3, 2, 1…!"
He forces a smile as the cameras start rolling.
***
It's five months later, and on the whole, Jiyong's plan has been going quite well, he thinks. At the very least, he hopes. There have definitely been some trying times, though - he's caught himself watching Seungri maybe a little more than is normal, and Seungri's the one that’s been - well, Jiyong wouldn't say that Seungri's been acting like him, but that hug at the Ulchin Music Festival in August, the one that made him flush with embarrassment even though he'd been working on his Seungri Avoidance Tactics, was certainly unexpected and wrecked havoc on his psyche for the day until he locked himself in his room and did some breathing exercises that he looked up online (he deleted his browser history afterward, just in case).
It's been tricky, but he has, for the most part, stopped bothering Seungri. If he ever gets the urge to touch and be touched, he finds someone else. There's always someone else around; there always will be.
Though it had begun as a matter of self-preservation, Jiyong realizes that he's also, in fact, doing Seungri a favour. He'd always hated it when Jiyong tried to get too close to him, right? He should be grateful to Jiyong for what he's doing. That hug at the festival was probably just a friendly hug for Big Bang's leader, right? Nothing more, nothing less. What Jiyong's been doing, well, it's been in the best interests of all involved parties, really.
So he's not quite sure why, when he wraps his arms around Youngbae and sees Seungri looking stoically ahead at the camera, his face as unreadable as if it were carved from stone, he still feels as lost and unsure and scared as that night in front of his computer, seeing all those videos of Seungri's expression wavering between resigned and pleased.
***
Their group shoot having just finished, they disperse throughout the room to wait for their individual and paired shoots.
Jiyong's standing by the cameraman who's going to be shooting Seungri and Youngbae for the calendar, and he absently watches them fooling around on the set. Yep, all is well.
Youngbae takes hold of Seungri's tie.
Jiyong begins to feel a bizarre sense of dread as the photographer continues to take a couple of shots, the whirr of the camera after each shot accompanying the strange feeling that makes him feel almost anxious. He scratches his nose, and then folds his arms, stretching his neck. He unfolds his arms again, scratching behind his ear before refolding them. That's when it happens.
Seungri inches forward - it seems like he's in slow-motion - ducking his head slightly. The closer he gets to Youngbae, the more that sense of dread seems to build, and the faster Jiyong’s heart seems to beat. Jiyong fights himself, trying to resist the frantic impulse to leap out in front of the camera and pull his friends apart. An unfamiliar desperation seems to overtake him as Seungri gets closer and closer to Youngbae, who isn't fucking moving away -
It all happens very quickly. Youngbae glances up at Seungri before starting and jumping away, clutching his hand to his chest, saying something that sounds like, "Seungri-ah! Aish, you scared me, I thought you were going to-" and Seungri just laughs and Jiyong practically dies from relief. God, he thought he was going to have a heart attack.
As he calms down and the shoot continues, however, his relief is replaced by an irrational, burning anger.
How many times has he leaned forward, just like that? How many times has he ducked his head to try and press a sloppy kiss to Seungri's cheek, or lips, or forehead? How many times has Seungri flinched or leaned away from him? How many times has Seungri protested, saying, "Ew, hyung! Stop it!"? How many times has Jiyong laughed it all off, just like Seungri is doing now?
A snide little voice in the back of his head pipes up with, That's right. How many times have you done the same thing? But how many times have you replaced Seunghyunnie with Youngbae, or Daesung? Yah, so why do you care? It's not like it means anything, Jiyong. There's no rule saying he can't do it as well.
Jiyong bites his lip.
***
Jiyong's eyeballs actually hurt with the force of his glare.
Youngbae - his best friend! - is seated by the window seats at the opposite side of the large room. Seungri's sitting beside him and playing with Boss. They're laughing together, and Seungri briefly presses his forehead against Youngbae's shoulder, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Jiyong wants to murder something. He clenches his fists.
"What's wrong with you, eh, Jiyong?" Startled, he glances up to see their manager hovering over him. He blinks a few times, relaxing his hands.
"Nothing's wrong, hyung." He looks down at his hands, wondering when he'd shredded that napkin and rolled the shreds into little grey balls of tissue. He rubs his hands together, trying to get rid of the tissue bits clinging to his fingers. He doesn't look back over to where Youngbae and Seungri are sitting, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands as their manager drops down beside him on the couch.
"Are you sure? You look stressed. You don’t need some time off?" Yeah, right, Jiyong thinks bitterly, like Korea will give me time off.
"Yah, I'm sure. I'm fine, see?" He spreads his hands, waving them awkwardly in the air for a moment.
Manager Yang looks around them hesitantly before he lowers his voice to say, "You just… you haven't been yourself, lately. We've all been worried. You've been so out of it, you know? All these mood swings-"
"I said I'm fine."
He's silent, scrutinizing Jiyong for a long moment. Jiyong feels slightly uncomfortable under his gaze, and shifts in his seat, clasping his hands together. Manager Yang heaves a resigned sigh before clapping his hand on Jiyong's shoulder, shaking him a little as he gets up. "Ai, what happened to the Jiyong we all know and love, hnh? What happened to G-Dragon?"
In normal circumstances, Jiyong would simply shake him off with a scoff or a laugh, but today, he remains silent, and asks himself the same questions.
He allows himself to steal a glance at Seungri and Youngbae, messing around with Boss. All of a sudden, Seungri glances up, and catches Jiyong's eye. Before Jiyong can look away, he smiles, the action crinkling his eyes at the corners.
That's it, Jiyong thinks to himself. He glances up.
"Don't you worry, manager-sshi. I've just been tired from all the performances. I'll be back to normal in no time." He grins back at their manager, his smile more genuine than it's been in a long time.
***
One day in early October, Jiyong wakes up and writes Seungri a song. It's certainly not a love song, and it's meant for Seungri to sing, not Jiyong, but even so he almost feels nervous when he corners Seungri in their dressing room before they perform at the MBC Seoul Design Olympic Opening Concert. It's a pretty damn sexy song. He hopes Seungri doesn't take it the wrong way (or the right way, that little voice inside him sniggers).
He clears his throat in an attempt to maintain his cool. "Seunghyunnie."
Seungri glances up from his phone, looking surprised (Why? It hasn't been that long since they've spoken to each other alone… has it?), and smiles slightly when he sees Jiyong leaning nonchalantly against the counter. "Yeah?"
Jiyong taps the song against the tabletop. The paper is neatly folded into quarters (Jiyong won't admit to anyone that the carelessly crossed-out words and the slight creases on the paper were meticulously added to this draft after he'd ditched the last one, which had been wrinkled and heavy on discarded lyrics. He doesn't want it to look as though he'd spent that much time on it). "I was thinking, we should add a solo song on the Remember album," he says casually.
"Yeah?" Seungri repeats. His voice is similarly casual, but the eager look that creeps onto his face makes Jiyong smile. He bops the kid over the head with his paper. "Yeah."
Ignoring Jiyong, Seungri asks, "Who's going to be singing it? Daesung had his already, right? The trot one? And Youngbae just released his album, yeah? Are you… is it for Seunghyun-hyung?" Seungri's eyeing the paper hopefully, and Jiyong has to stifle his grin back to a smile behind the hem of his sleeve.
"Idiot. Why would I be talking to you right now if it was for Big Seunghyun? No, I think you should be doing a solo this time."
"Really? No! Really? Are you sure?" Contrary to his hesitant words, Seungri's already reached out and snagged the paper from Jiyong's grasp, quickly unfolding it and scanning the lyrics. Jiyong feels the familiar flare of nerves in the pit of his stomach as he's reading, and he speaks to break the silence. "It's just a rough draft, maknae; it's not set in stone. I have to talk to Perry about it first, yah? And I've been composing it… well, you come talk to me if you want to do it, okay? Then I can show you what it sounds like so far."
Seungri looks up at him, grinning like Daesung. He looks pleased, but almost embarrassed as well, though that may be because of those lyrics Jiyong had scrawled in blue ink across the paper. "Thanks, hyung."
"Eh, maknae, it's no problem. You had to have another solo song sometime, right?"
Somehow, Jiyong thinks that Seungri's thanks is for more than just the song. Before he heads back to his own chair, he grabs Seungri into a headlock, just for good measure - and to make up for lost time.
Jiyong isn't sure if he can define what he feels for Lee Seunghyun, but this feeling - this blossoming, breaking, sunrise-and-daybreak feeling that flays his chest open and makes him smile as he walks away from Seungri - is pretty close to what he feels whenever Seungri looks at him like he's the greatest man who ever lived, or like he's an idiot, or… just looks at him. He can't put a name to it. He's only just realizing the importance of it, the weight of it; only just finding out how to keep it from becoming bigger than it should be, only now discovering how to maintain the delicate balance between friend and bandmate and something else.
…But Kwon Jiyong has always lived his life pushing boundaries, both others' and his own, seeing how far he can fall before he has to pull himself back up, and this is no exception. This time, though, he's not sure he ever wants to get back up from the fall.
***
Seungri's birthday passes with not nearly enough fanfare. Though he still can't go out to a club, they do have a small party with their various friends and other acquaintances at the main YG office building. He and Seunghyun-hyung tease him relentlessly about his maturity and age, or lack thereof (when do they not?), and complain about having to wait until the New Year to really party.
(Despite what they all say to each other or to Seungri, deep down, none of them are quite ready to let him grow up completely. He's the maknae of the family, after all.)
Jiyong watches him greet everyone at the party, giving his funny little bow - well, Jiyong thinks it's funny, though it's not much different from his own. It's just because it's Seungri's, and most of what he does is funny in that... cute sort of way. He watches as Seungri spends the night thanking everyone for their birthday wishes, thanking them for coming; he watches as he makes others smile and laugh on the day they should be doing the same for him.
The night isn't a total loss, though. It doesn't end without at least a few laughs - they are Big Bang, after all - especially since Seungri has his first shot (or several) of soju, the glass pressed into his (progressively less and less) reluctant hand by Seunghyun, and Jiyong, and Daesung. By the end of the night, he's gotten a little tipsier than they'd intended, and leans heavily on Jiyong in the backseat of the van on the way home, giggling uncontrollably and trying to stifle the sounds against his shoulder. Jiyong tries to ignore him by staring out the window, downing the rest of his own bottle of beer. He's never really been a fan of drinking, and beer is a little too yeasty for his tastes (when he does drink, he typically prefers soju), but the slightly bitter, spreading warmth of the alcohol in his chest as it passes down his throat, which he can feel Seungri nosing against, is an oddly pleasant feeling. Outside the window of the van, the streetlamps they pass on the side of the road look like yellow glowing comets, slowed in motion, smudged bright in the darkness.
It's weird, but… Jiyong kind of wishes that they all knew each other in some other life, in some other universe, where no one would care what they did or who they dated or what they sang. He kind of wishes that, for Seungri's birthday, they could be spending it with friends who spoke with real meaning the words and birthday wishes that fill the night air along with the clinking of glasses and laughter that isn't quite as full-bodied as it should be. He kind of wishes that they didn't have to watch everything they said or did whenever they were around others for fear of having it plastered across Korea's trashy tabloids.
He kind of wishes that he, Kwon Jiyong, could look at Lee Seunghyun without anyone else looking and without everyone else seeing.
He realizes the futility of wishing, though, and despite the fact that he, perhaps a little too often, uses fans' obsessions and Big Bang's popularity to their advantage, he knows that without this world and without YG, they would never have met each other; none of them would have met each other. He's grateful for this world in which they met, and he does want the world to hear his music, to hear their songs. It's what he was born to do, what he's dreamt of doing and has been doing ever since he was thirteen.
There's just… it's just something that bothers him, sometimes. That's all.
Seungri gives a bubbly, slightly hysterical giggle at absolutely nothing in particular, and the sound reminds Jiyong that Seungri's probably inebriated enough to have lost his normal, albeit rather debatable, rationality. He pokes at Seungri's nose and prods at his shoulder, saying, "Seungie-ah! Come on, sit up. Urgh, I think you got drool on me. Disgusting."
The kid doesn't seem inclined to move, instead cracking open a bleary eye and saying, a little too loudly, "Jeeee-yong hyung!" Lowering his voice, he stage whispers, as though he's letting Jiyong in on a conspiracy, "you're my… my favourite hyung, you know? I'd rather drool on you, even if you tell, if you n' Seunghyun tell ev'ryone on Come to Play." Daesung cracks up in the seat in front of them, and Jiyong, feeling a grin threatening to split his own face in two, pats Seungri's head in what he hopes is a slightly encouraging, comforting way. Youngbae raises a bemused eyebrow at him from the seat beside Daesung, but Jiyong just continues to grin back at him.
Sure, Seungri probably deserves more than half-hearted birthday wishes and (most likely) a hangover, but right now, in this instant, Jiyong's feeling ridiculously happy and wildly self-confident, fearless like the leader he's supposed to have been all this time, that he hopes he's finally becoming, and he's thinking that maybe yeah, he can give Seungri that something more. Maybe not now - not when they're getting so popular, not when all of Korea and other parts of the world are watching their every move - but someday, maybe, in the quiet darkness of their van, the crunching of the gravel under the wheels soothing white noise to the feel of Seungri's smile against his skin.