The Obnoxious Prince (Jiyong/Seunghyun AU, PG)
Title: The Obnoxious Prince
Characters: Jiyong/Seunghyun, Big Bang and Se7en.
Rating: PG for swearing. Mostly G.
Notes:
It's AU, based on mainly this pic, but everyone already knows how ridiculously princely Seunghyun is anyway (I'd post more links to pics here, but it might break some fandom do-not-take/repost rules, so just look them up on Tumblr. Linked gif is also from Tumblr.) There's a few snippets from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince as well as some Big Bang lyrics interspersed throughout. And as always, this is all entirely made up. I tried to write something a bit fluffier and more light-hearted, and this isn't ridiculously sugary but not super angst, either. I guess Gtop is just better bittersweet.
Jiyong Kwon
is cordially invited to
The exhibition of Fine Arts of Today's Youth
hosted by Seungri Lee of the YG Art Gallery
Please arrive by 7pm...
Jiyong sighed, straightening his bow tie for the third, fourth time, inspecting himself in the mirror. In the background, his roommate Daesung was playing Diablo 3, lounging in a tracksuit and a tshirt. Jiyong felt both jealous and overdressed.
The things he does for Seungri, Jiyong thinks, as he shrugs on a jacket (It's navy like a school blazer with silver tipped collars which he pops; and frowning in the mirror he turns it back down.)
Daesung whistles at him when he makes for the door. “Break a leg!” He says, not tearing his eyes away from the screen.
The crowd at the art gallery is mixed, older men and women in smart tuxes and long dresses, reflecting and refracting light; the younger crowd in more alternative outfits like his own, a mix of edge and hipster, scarves and oversized accessories, like children playing dress-up with their clothes.
Jiyong's hand closes over the little camera he has in his pocket with him all the time, but thinks twice about taking photos; he wonders around, looking for both his own display and some alcohol.
“Ji! Hyung!” a voice calls out, and Jiyong turns around and almost crashes in to Seungri, who claps him on the back. He's in a black business suit with a metal stud in one ear (“It's punk, but subtle,” Seungri stated once, before Jiyong announced he'd never met anyone who'd described fashion as subtle punk.)
“Hi, Seungri,” Jiyong says weakly, slightly winded.
“How are you, hyung?” Seungri asks, then adds, “I have heaps of people I'd like you to meet.”
Jiyong feels a pang of envy for his young friend, having excelled in both his business and art degrees whilst Jiyong wasted his time partying (before he honed his passion of photography into something more - and it was Seungri who suggested he pursue it, really, so he had a world of debt to owe him), running the youth art program at the art gallery in conjunction with the university, collecting art and setting up pop-up art displays for aspiring artists, including Jiyong. The art gallery sponsors Jiyong, having taken a note of his talent, but Jiyong takes it with a grain of salt, wary of the art gallery trying to mould him into the artist they want him to be, rather than what he wants to do.
“Just the best crop then, Seungri, I've been a bit headachey lately.”
Seungri gives him a fleeting once-over. “We need to hang out and catch up. After this exhib I'd be free for a while.”
Jiyong shrugs. “It's nothing. Maybe not enough sleep or not enough water and too much alcohol or something.”
“Well, we've only got champagne and red and white tonight.”
“Ah, no hard stuff?” Jiyong's grinning, but Seungri shoots Jiyong a wary glance.
“Don't become an alcoholic, hyung. It won't look good on the scholarship board.”
“Yes, mother,” Jiyong says, still smiling. He pauses at a painting.
“Ah,” Seungri says, his professional voice returning. “This one is something, isn't it? My Brother, The Obnoxious Princeling, it's like Duprey's The Little Prince with a modern twist, a bit of punk flare. Dongwook is getting along though, he's just borderline in our youth category-”
The painting was large, a life-sized boy in a regal battalion uniform, complete with shiny boots and shiny buttons and badges on his shoulders, a red sash crossed over his chest. It contrasted with a rebellious shock of neon blue hair, whipped upwards like the top of an icecream; piercing, challenging black eyes that Jiyong can't help looking at; and all topped off with a black officer's hat complete with an enormous, pretentious black feather.
“-you really must meet Dongwook one day, Jiyong, he's one of the gallery's favourites-”
Jiyong must be going mad. He thought he saw the boy in the painting blink.
“-of course you're my favourite, hyung, but the elders do prefer the more traditional oil on canvas than photography-”
Jiyong stares. The boy did blink. He's smiling, too.
“Seungri, do you see-” Jiyong stops when he realises Seungri's not there anymore.
He whips his head back to the painting. The boy is waving at him. Jiyong stares at the glass of pink, sweet liquid in his hand. He didn't remember drinking that. Did Seungri give it to him?
“Hello,” a voice says in front of him, and Jiyong nearly jumps out of his skin. The boy's crouching down to meet him at eye level. (He's got supernaturally defined features, Jiyong thinks absently). Jiyong stares.
“I'm gonna hop out, if you don't mind.” The boy says again. And he does so, gracefully and almost soundless, and Jiyong wonders if he's gone mad. He remembers that Harry Potter movie where Harry disappears into the painting.
“What,” Jiyong says, finally.
“What?” The boy says. He's taller than Jiyong by half a head. (Then again, Dongwook's painting was huge.) The feather makes him even taller.
“Are you real?” Jiyong asks.
“Am I?” The boy grins, and dimples create hollows in his cheeks.
“You're a painting.” Jiyong states, matter-of-fact, as if that explained anything.
“I'm a painting,” The boy echoes, still grinning, and Jiyong feels a mild throbbing in his temples.
“Do you just parrot me? Are you a parrot?” Jiyong asks again, trying to put authority in his voice to make himself seem taller than he was. He can feel that he's losing his cool, glancing quickly left and right to see if anyone can see him talking to himself.
“I'm not a parrot, I'm a painting,” The boy replies. He mimics Jiyong, placing his hands in his pockets.
The boy tilts his head to one side. “Are you my mother?” and Jiyong almost drops the cup.
“What. No.”
The boy looks half disappointed.
“Will you be my friend?” he asks again.
Jiyong sculls the rest of the drink and places it on the tray of the nearest waiter.
“I'm going home.”
He doesn't look back to check if the boy follows him.
**
Jiyong wakes with a light headache. He frowns. Surely he didn't have that much to drink last night? Not hard stuff, anyway...
He turns his head and sees a boy with large dark eyes watching him and remembers.
“Fucking hell,” Jiyong says. “Why are you watching me sleep?”
“What's sleep?”
“What I was doing. Lying still with my eyes closed and letting my body recover - why am I explaining this to you - why are you even here?”
The boy shrugs. “You can see me.”
“I know that,” Jiyong says impatiently. “Why?”
“I don't know, I'm a painting.”
Jiyong decides to ignore him. He heads off to brush his teeth, grabbing his phone along the way. “What was that last drink you gave me? Was it spiked?” He texts Seungri, hidden from the other boy.
“Dude, that was pink champagne. A bit of vodka I sneaked in. Otherwise nothing. Are you alright?” comes the reply.
Jiyong stares at the phone. What guy sees paintings come to life on pink champagne? There's no way to tell Seungri he feels like he's high and hallucinating right now - what would he do if his college scholarship got rescinded?
He glares at the other man, who's humming to the song they played yesterday at the exhibition.
“I guess I'm stuck with you until the drugs wear off” Jiyong mutters, tossing the phone to his bed and flopping onto it himself.
“You're stuck with me,” the other boy echoes, in an altogether too cheerful tone for this hour of the morning.
“Do you have a name?”
“My Brother, The Obnoxious Princeling.”
“I can't call you that,” Jiyong says. “Is there any - could we shorten it? Abbreviate it? T.O.P. - how about Top? Or I could call you Tabi? A nickname, or something.”
The boy shrugs. “You tell me.”
“Tabi it is, then,” Jiyong snaps impatiently, rubbing his eyes to relieve the throbbing in his head, looking at his watch. “Shit. Class.”
He throws on his clothes and is out the door in 3 minutes, and Tabi doesn't appear again until the afternoon.
**
“How was the exhib?” Daesung asks, falling into his space on the couch next to Jiyong. Jiyong continues typing away on his laptop. Daesung settles a bowl of dinner beside him, rice and egg and ham.
“Yeah, fine, a bit weird,” Jiyong replies, eyes not leaving the screen. He looks up suddenly. “Dae, how long do drugs last for?”
Daesung shrugs. “Depends on the person, I guess - a few hours usually? Not really too sure.”
“Hmm,” Jiyong says.
Daesung looks at him strangely. “Have you been doing drugs again?”
“What - no - that was just the one time - I don't know,” Jiyong sighs, raking a hand through his hair and looking away from the screen, “It feels like something was in my drink last night, but I'm not sure, you know?”
“Probably best to sleep it off,” Daesung suggests, spooning food into his mouth.
“Yeah that's not happening tonight,” Jiyong says, waving a hand back to the screen. His assignment was looking back at him. He continues typing.
“You should work in your room, its probably more productive in there.”
“But-”
“Correction, it will be more productive, because I've finished my assignments and I'm going to keep playing Diablo after dinner, and Youngbae's coming over to play after his shift.” Daesung grins, handing Jiyong his dinner in one hand and helping balance the laptop in the other, and pushing him down the hall leading to his room, ignoring Jiyong's protests.
Jiyong walks in on Tabi jumping on his bed.
“What are you doing.” (This was not a question.)
“It's bouncy!”
“How old are you?”
“Oil on canvas, started 2007, completed 2012.”
“You're five,” Jiyong states, deadpan.
“I suppose I am,” Tabi says, smiling.
Jiyong runs a hand through his hair again, switching the light off and grabbing his earphones.
“I'm gonna work on the dining table, turn that down,” Jiyong orders Daesung, shoving his earphones into his ears and continuing with his work. Daesung frowns, more particularly because the dinner he made for Jiyong was getting cold, but then an explosion occurs on the television screen and he turns his attention back to it. Youngbae, hot young bartender at their local pub and Jiyong's best friend, joins Daesung later, and finishes Jiyong's untouched plate.
**
The obnoxious little prince, Jiyong figures over time, thinks ice-creams are awesome and gets excited when he figures out the colour of his hair is bubblegum; he's amused by the little things, the tinkering jukebox at the bar where Youngbae works, the comical mustache on Jiyong's professor, the way text boxes on Jiyong's phone resemble whales.
Tabi watches Thor and imitates the demigod every time at the coffee shop, throwing down his empty cup after coffee and demanding more; the first time it scared Jiyong out of his wits, and Tabi laughed, a sound that hits Jiyong to the bone, promising to never do it again. (“This stuff is really good,” he says, grinning.)
Most of the time Tabi really is five.
One day Jiyong gets irritated with him, tired of the relentless questions, “Why do roses have thorns?” Tabi asks, when Jiyong was busy typing up his paper, and he asks Tabi if he minds just to stop, because he's trying to be serious.
Tabi gets angry with him. “You are talking like a grown up!”
“But I am a grown up!”
“You're five like me!”
“I'm almost twenty-five!” and Tabi snorts.
“You argue like you're five! Grown ups have never smelt flowers, never looked at stars; all day long they count figures and say, 'I am a serious person! - I am a serious person!' and they're not people at all - they're mushrooms!”
“A what?”
“A mushroom!”
Silence. Jiyong blinks at Tabi, whose face had gone red. It doesn't make any sense to Jiyong, what Tabi said. A part of him wants to laugh; he doesn't. Tabi, who looked more twenty-five but was actually five, looked upset. It distressed Jiyong.
“I'm sorry.”
Tabi sniffs. “I'll leave you to your grown up stuff.” He disappears, but then Jiyong finds concentrating even worse.
Tabi comes back fifteen minutes later, and sits quietly beside Jiyong as he types. “I got lonely. I missed you in ten minutes, but I wanted to make you wait,” he says in a tone strangely both sheepish and proud, and Jiyong smiles. Tabi curls up beside him without reply, and Jiyong is reminded of a cat.
“It's lonely around people too,” Jiyong throws into the silence.
“But the loneliness is lighter,” comes the reply, and Jiyong smiles again.
**
Sometimes Tabi surprises Jiyong with little words of wisdom, or takes care of Jiyong, and Jiyong has to start over and reassess, because at those times Tabi appears to be fifty instead of five.
Tabi embodies the voice in Jiyong's head, and Jiyong goes a little mad bantering with himself, in which Tabi's lack of social awareness always comes back to the simple fact that “I'm a painting,” as if that's all Jiyong can expect out of a figure most likely in his imagination that he can't seem to shake, because any drugs should be out of his system by now.
Tabi disappears when appropriate and appears when Jiyong's alone (or lonely). Jiyong is not sure if he gets headaches because Tabi is sometimes really annoying and asks too many questions or if something is wrong.
Jiyong googles “pink champagne hallucinations”, which returns 0 results. None that applied to him, anyway.
**
“What are you doing,” Jiyong calls into the darkness. This is a question he is starting to get used to. Next to him, the bed shuffles.
“Sleeeeeping,” Tabi says, stretching the word out with his voice, like it was obvious. “You said, just sleep when you sleep. So I'm sleeping.”
“This is weird,” Jiyong states. He turns to see Tabi with his shock of blue hair and pale pale skin. He looks like a marble statue. (A marble statue with blue hair).
He hopes Tabi is wearing pants.
“Why is it weird?” Tabi asks.
“Because I don't sleep with guys.”
“What's a guy? I'm not a guy. I'm a prince.”
Jiyong snorts. “You're a princeling and an idiot.”
“I'm an idiot?”
“Yes.”
Tabi huffs. “I'm your idiot.”
“You're not real,” adds Jiyong, as if to remind himself.
“I'm a painting,” Tabi smiles.
“Could you put a shirt on?” Jiyong asks, distracted. Tabi blinks.
“You don't have a shirt on. Am I supposed to have a shirt on?”
“If you want to sleep here, yes.”
It's the only time he gets to see Tabi topless. Later, Jiyong absently wonders if he regrets it.
**
The week before his multiple assignments are due Jiyong goes into crisis mode, glued to his laptop and obsessively backs-up his files (the disaster of 2010 where Jiyong had to repeat a year will never happen again). Tabi flits in and out of his consciousness, not saying much. At four in the morning when he's shivering and jittery with cold and fatigue and the night is dead, Jiyong is comforted by his presence, curled up with his head cradled in his arms, blinking sleepily underneath his massive hat that he wears for Jiyong's amusement, soothed by the steady rise and fall of Tabi's body as he slips in and out of sleep.
If he were real, Jiyong wonders if he'd have found a friend in a boy with blue hair.
Tabi takes that same moment to sniff slightly, wrinkling his nose and shuffling with his eyes still closed. The hat slips down over Tabi's eyes. He grumbles, irritated, pushing it back, only to have it fall again, and Jiyong almost laughs. Tabi blinks up at him then, looking slightly pleased with himself.
“Keep typing, Ji, you don't want your friend to fall asleep on the table.”
Jiyong thinks “obnoxious” and thinks maybe the answer is yes, blue hair and all.
**
“Goodbye mid-terms!” Jiyong exclaims cheerfully, and Daesung clinks his glass against Jiyong's, racing each other to the bottom of the glass. Youngbae's eyes smile as much as his mouth as he pours them another round.
“Slow down, guys,” he says, “Otherwise I'll have to carry you both home.”
“You're the responsible one tonight, Youngbae”, replies Daesung, downing half his drink again. “Tonight is for getting wasted.”
“Says the one that has two more midterms to survive before the end,” Jiyong says, shooting Daesung a wicked grin. “This one's my very last midterm.”
“Shut up, and catch up, Ji,” Daesung shows off his empty glass.
“I got here before you did, and drank more before you came, so you catch up.”
“Well then,” Daesung says, challenging, “How many did you have before I got here?”
“Who the hell's counting, Daesung?” Jiyong scoffs. “Too many to remember.”
Daesung pulls a face. Youngbae grins.
Jiyong spots Tabi in the crowd, blue hair sticking out like a sore thumb. “Tabi!” He calls out, waves him over. Tabi looks magnificent in the dim light of the pub, light reflecting through his blue hair and cutting along the long angles of his face.
(Alternatively, Jiyong is also lightheaded. Could be that.)
His eyes twinkle at Jiyong. “Hi,” he says. Daesung and Youngbae look at Jiyong with interest.
“This is Tabi, my friend I bumped into at Seungri's the other night,” Jiyong says, smiling. A pause, and then Daesung goes, “Hello, Tabi. You're good looking.”
Tabi dissolves into low-pitched giggles (How are low-pitched giggles even possible? thinks Jiyong, and he thinks Tabi smiling with his long dimples are a sight to behold,) and turns to Jiyong, “I like him. Can I stay with him for a while?”
Jiyong snorts. “Have you seen your blue hair?? It's a shock to everyone.” Youngbae starts laughing, shaking his head.
“Ji,” he says, “Keys, please.”
“Will you be our chaffeur tonight, Youngbae?”
“No, we're walking home. Don't worry, I can look after two children.”
Jiyong pouts. Tabi smiles affectionately at him. “You're five,” he says triumphantly, and Jiyong stops pouting immediately, handing over his keys without protest.
**
“You'll take care of me, right Tabi?” Jiyong says, drunkenly content. “Take me home, Tabi!”
“I'll take care of you,” Tabi replies, an arm around Jiyong, steadying him. “We're going home.”
“You parrot,” Jiyong laughs. Tabi is sturdy and warm.
“I'm not,” Tabi says indignantly, and Jiyong laughs again.
“You're my friend, right Tabi?”
Tabi furrows his eyebrows. “What's that?”
“A friend is - someone you care about?”
“Then I'm your very best.” Tabi says seriously, nudging him forward. “Follow Youngbae.”
“Youngbae,” Jiyong calls, and the bartender turns to look at him, eyes curious, busy leading Daesung with a hand on his elbow. (“I'm not the drunk one, Youngbae,” Daesung had said, but Jiyong refused assistance.)
“You right, Ji?”
“You're taking me home,” Jiyong says happily. “Tabi said so.”
“Right,” Youngbae says shortly in reply. “Comeon, then.” He links their arms together, him between Daesung and Ji, pulls them both forward.
“Tabi said I was his best friend,” Jiyong says, “but I think you do well.”
Youngbae laughs. “You've really outdone yourself tonight, Ji,” he says, shoving him playfully through the doorway before leading Daesung in as well. The floor at Jiyong's feet suddenly appeared very comfortable.
“Shoes,” Jiyong says dreamily, settling and spreading out on the floor. Youngbae nudges him with his foot.
“Ji-”
“I'm fine, Youngbae, just look after Daesung.” Jiyong pulls himself up, ruffling his hair and making his way to his room, crashing down into the warm comfort of the bed.
**
The next morning Jiyong wakes up with his head pounding so hard he has to throw up, worshiping the porcelain god. There's a warm hand on his head pulling his hair back.
“Are you alright,” Tabi asks him, following him from the bathroom, sitting on Jiyong's bed. Jiyong squints at the light already filtering into his room, catching the edges of Tabi's hair and the outline of his shoulders. He pulls all the blinds down.
“Hangover,” Jiyong mumbles, tucking his fingers into the long sleeves of his cotton shirt. He crawls into bed, feels the bed shift as Tabi lies down next to him.
“You haven't had much sleep this past week,” Tabi says.
“Let me sleep, Tabi,” Jiyong replies.
“Good night, baby.” Tabi drifts off quickly. Tabi feels warm beside him, and all Jiyong wants to do is curl himself against the fold of his arm. He doesn't.
Jiyong watches him for a while, looking more five than twenty-five, before slipping into sleep to the sound of his breathing.
**
Jiyong knows he pushes it too much when Tabi starts following him to college, starts being around when Daesung is at home and trying to talk to Daesung, and also following him to the bar.
A part of him needs to keep reminding himself that Tabi is not real, but how is he not real when he is so solid, so interactive, slotting into Jiyong's life so easily like a puzzle piece he didn't know he was missing?
“Jiyong,” Daesung says one day, “are you sick?”
“Hmm?” Jiyong replies, distracted by Tabi dancing in front of the television awkwardly like a drunk man.
“You know, Tabi or whatever, it was funny at first, but it's starting to worry me. And Youngbae, too, I might add.”
Jiyong looks at him then. “What do you mean?”
“He's not real, Jiyong.”
“You guys sometimes talk to him.”
“As I said, it was funny at first. We played along. When you were drunk. You're not supposed to see people when you're sober.”
“I'm fine,” Jiyong says, mildly irritated. He can feel another headache developing. Tabi stops dancing, looks at the two of them without a sound.
Jiyong tries to ignore him.
“You should go to the doctor,” Daesung suggests.
“I said I'm fine,” Jiyong replies, and that was that.
**
Jiyong drinks at Youngbae's bar. Tabi is again fiddling with the jukebox, dancing in lazy spins around it. (Chooming, Tabi once said, and Jiyong laughed because it was absurd).
“Your friend here again?” Youngbae says, pouring him a glass. Jiyong waves in Tabi's direction.
“By the jukebox. Chooming.”
“Right.” Youngbae says in reply. Jiyong shoots him a glance.
“What is it?”
“We can't see him, Ji, you know that.”
“Yeah,” Jiyoung replies, bitterly. Not this again.
“I thought you were drunk.”
“I'm not drunk.”
Youngbae shakes his head. “As in, I thought, you see him when your drunk. We just played along.”
“That's what Daesung said,” Jiyong sighs.
“So are you drunk?”
“I'm not fucking drunk, Youngbae!” Jiyong snaps.
“But you can see him.”
“Yes! I see him all the fucking time!”
“Calm down, Ji,” Youngbae says gently, voice low. Jiyong breathes.
“I'm going to go dance with Tabi.” He finishes his drink. Jiyong doesn't want to fight, he really doesn't.
“What if you're schizophrenic or something? Like that Russell Crowe movie?”
“I'm - not. I’m alright, Youngbae, I’m really, really alright.” (Jiyong makes a mental note to google it later).
Youngbae stresses a bit. “I know you think you have yourself under control, but we're just worried. We fret because we care. And I know you. This is not you. You're going home in half an hour.”
Jiyong makes a sour expression. “Youngbae, it's fucking 9 o'clock! The night hasn't even started yet!”
“Drunk or not drunk, you're seeing things and you're swearing at me. You need to go home.”
“So I see a boy in fucking blue hair with a big fucking feathered hat. It's fine, I can handle it.” Jiyong glances over at Tabi, who's looking at him with a bright smile on his face, waving him over. Jiyong hops off his bar stool.
“You're just dancing on your own, you know,” calls Youngbae, and Jiyong waves him away.
Youngbae sends him home in a cab at 10pm. “Go with Daesung to the doctor tomorrow. I'm not gonna let you have another drink until this thing is sorted, okay, its for your own good.”
Jiyong rests his head against the cool glass, swearing under his breath. “At least I still have you,” he says, into the darkness.
Jiyong can feel Tabi cover his hand with his own.
**
One bright sunny day Jiyong decides to head to the park, wanting to get his project that Seungri wanted ready by Children's Day started. Tabi, inevitably, hangs with him as he does; Tabi pulls him along by the elbow, excited at the prospect of meeting actual five year olds, and Jiyong allows himself to be led.
Tabi asks questions about everything.
“What are those?”
“Puppies. Little dogs.”
“Do they bite?”
“They're tame.”
“What's tame?”
“Like not wild? They're dependent on their human owners. And the humans are their friends? They kind of, like, need each other.”
“So I'm like a puppy right? I'm tame and you're my owner?”
“I don't own you.”
“Yeah, you do. You're the only one that can see me. And I need you. We need each other, right? Are you going to take a picture of the puppy?” Tabi looks at him with dark, enquiring eyes.
Jiyong finds he is unable to say “-but I don't need you”, knowing it was a lie, wonders if he’s been tamed by an imaginary prince with blue hair. Jiyong simply obliges, pulling his camera out of his pocket.
Then Tabi is distracted again.
“Oh, Ji, what are those?” - and the cycle goes on.
Eventually Jiyong takes photographs of Tabi too, wanting to capture him with the tassles on his shoulders flying behind him as he runs, the big hat balancing precariously on his head; Jiyong takes photos of Tabi chasing the pigeons and running around with balloons and blowing bubbles and laughing on a swing and takes a photograph of him with his arms wide open after climbing to the park's tallest hill and looking over the city; they fly a kite and Tabi holds onto the string as Jiyong sends the kite flying.
Jiyong laughs a lot that day.
**
“The areas where your exhibition is going to be set up has been allocated,” Seungri tells Jiyong over coffee. (“Bit too early for alcohol, Ji, don't you think?” Youngbae suggests weightedly, when they take their order. Jiyong glares and relents, ops for a double black expresso instead.)
“Great,” Jiyong replies, nonchalant. He tries to be attentive, he really does, but Tabi is sitting next to him and kicking his foot against his. Jiyong's trying very hard to ignore it.
“The judging panel really liked it, by the way,” Seungri continues. Jiyong rolls his eyes.
“That's because the judging panel is you and three other people. I automatically get a 25% vote from you.”
“It's not automatic,” Seungri retorts, “it's calculated.”
“It's biased,” Jiyong grins.
“Yeah, towards you, so don't complain,” Seungri says. “But I always like your stuff, hyung, it's really - something.”
“Did you hear what you just said? Your stuff; something, you're going to be a great art collector one day, man.”
Seungri shrugs. “Nothing wrong with collecting art based on gut instinct. Besides, it's not like you can get in with a quarter vote. It needs to be at least three quarters. So relax, you have skill, man,”
In the corner of his eye, Tabi imitates Seungri, (“Man,” he says, brows furrowed slightly with a serious look on his face), and Jiyong laughs. Tabi laughs with him.
“Jiyong?”
“Yeah?”
Seungri looks at him with a strange expression. “Hyung...your ear is bleeding.”
Jiyong freezes, hand flying up to his ear, feeling liquid, warm and sticky on his fingers. He stares at his fingers, red and smelling lightly metallic and absently wonders how much it'll cost to dry-clean his shirt.
His head hurts, then. Everything suddenly appears really bright, tunnel vision, blinding white surrounding him. Jiyong looks around in a frantic daze, trying to focus, trying to see. “Seungri?” he calls out, hearing the panic in his own voice, groping blindly and grasping air.
He hears Seungri calling out for Youngbae and sees Tabi's eyes looking at him before everything goes sideways and fades to black.
**
Jiyong comes to in a bright room, harsh white light bearing down on him stark against a white ceiling. He was vaguely aware of white walls and voices muttering in the background.
He sees Tabi at the foot of his bed, black pants and frilly black shirt and white jacket and black hat. It's a different outfit, less colour, simpler, purer. He blinks.
“Tabi - I think I'm sick - am I...?”
“Don't worry, Ji, you're still alive,” Tabi smiles, and then Jiyong feels a grip on his arm, closes his eyes and slips off again.
**
Kwon Jiyong has a mass in his brain. It explains the headaches and it explains the hallucinations.
It explains Tabi.
Jiyong doesn't hear much of the doctor's explanations, staring at the MRI scan with the pea-sized lump; he hears “chemotherapy” and “hair loss” and “high chance of success” and wonders how Daesung and Youngbae and Seungri are doing.
He wonders if, at the end of all this, he'll be alive but he'll lose Tabi.
**
Jiyong is discharged and home to see Daesung tossing food together in the kitchen and Tabi watching him.
“You've moved on to Daesung, have you,” Jiyong says spitefully, and Daesung turns around and looks at him, concern on his face.
Jiyong blinks, shaking his head, and Tabi's gone. “Sorry, Dae,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. (He'll have to stop doing that when his hair falls out, he thinks, vaguely), “I'm really sick, aren't I?”
He heads to his room without an answer, flopping onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. He can feel Tabi in the room.
“Are you sick?” Tabi says, lying down beside him.
Jiyong wants to cry.
“You're making me sick,” Jiyong says finally, turning away and shutting his eyes.
“Will you get better?” Tabi asks. Tabi grips his shoulder, shakes slightly.
Jiyong looks at him, pulling his body up into a sitting position, eyes glaring. “If I get better then I won't see you, will you be happy for me then?”
“But,” Tabi bites his lip, “You have to see me.”
“I'm not supposed to fucking see you.”
“You can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Tabi responds, and Jiyong thinks it’s something wise but just wants to punch him because he doesn’t understand; doesn’t want to understand, not right now.
“You're a painting,” Jiyong reminds him, through half gritted teeth.
“I'm not,” Tabi says then, and Jiyong blinks, because it's the only time Tabi has disagreed, “I'm not just a painting. I'm your idiot. I'm your friend.” Tabi scrambles up so his eyes are level with Jiyong's and Jiyong thinks Tabi might kiss him but Tabi just pulls him into a hug, warm and fierce and bear-like, and Jiyong can feel the tightening in his chest and the water prickling behind his eyes.
“Please,” Jiyong's head pounds. “Please, go away. Let me rest.”
“But I don't know where to go,” Tabi says, quiet. Jiyong's heart feels like breaking.
“I know you don't want me to leave,” Tabi says, as if not reading Jiyong's mind, but his heart, (Jiyong, in response, pulls out of Tabi's arms and turns away.) “But I will because you asked. I'll come back - I'll be home if you need me to. Want me to.”
Tabi disappears, and Jiyong is alone, hugging his pillow to sleep, choking in sobs of air.
**
Jiyong feels the vacancy when Tabi's not there, when Jiyong's truly alone, left without even the voice in his head, no presence in the air, devoid of the feeling that both comforted and calmed him. He sees memories of Tabi everywhere, misses Tabi with his tossled blue hair a mess when he's still groggy and half-awake, blinking as Jiyong is blinking, squinting against the light that filters through his blinds; he misses the running commentary from Tabi beside him during class and when he hangs with Daesung and Youngbae; he misses the questions that Tabi peppers at him, what's this and what's that and how am I supposed to know, I'm a painting. He misses Tabi when he sees children in the street, he misses Tabi when he sees kites, he misses Tabi when he takes photos with his camera. He misses Tabi accompanying him to sleep at night, misses his light breathing.
He misses Tabi like the dull ache in his head has migrated to his chest, gnawing and eating away at him from the inside out.
A bit of him says that it means the meds are working. He hates the meds.
**
Jiyong wonders if he can buy Dongwook's painting.
He visits Seungri's gallery often whilst he's out of college, and Seungri lets him stay with the painting because he's sick and Jiyong just sits there anyway, talking to it only in his head and not scaring the rest of the art gallery visitors.
He sees Tabi less and less; reduced to fitful dreams, faded like old movies from old film reels. He tries not to think about him; tries not to dream about him, because one day he'll be gone, for good. Jiyong's hair starts falling out and his eyes get sensitive to light; he starts buying headscarves and hats; he gets so thin from throwing up because of the medication, and his heart feels heavy because he doesn't want to see himself in the mirror; he hates looking at his eyes, sunken and haloed and bruised with sleeplessness; he wanders what Tabi would say to him, he thinks of the days when he was drunk and Tabi would be there for him, where was his little officer to guard and protect him when he needed it?
Seungri takes him to preview the gallery he made up with Jiyong's photographs; Seungri loves them, a wall of polaroids, slightly faded in the sunlight, purposely altered to resemble the movies in his dreams: photographs of children laughing and running around with balloons and pigeons scattering when a cat runs in amongst them and non-descript stock images of bubbles, in focus and out of focus; puppies, a vacant swing, closeups of pink and blue bubblegum icecream, a kite lost in the air.
Seungri declares triumphantly “This is what childhood looks like,” and Jiyong almost wants to burst into tears, blames it on his medication.
Daesung buys Jiyong ice-cream, and Jiyong thinks when his hair grows back he'll dye it bubblegum pink.
**
Tabi appears to him in a dream again one night, and he's all shiny and smiling and he's reading Harry Potter.
Jiyong wants to scream, what on earth is there to smile about, I barely see you, why are you reading Harry Potter, and Tabi says, “Look at this,” and Jiyong reads, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”, and Jiyong doesn't understand.
Jiyong looks up at Tabi, face so close to his, bright eyes bearing into his, and he temporarily forgets to breathe. “If you need me,” Tabi says, “I told you, I'll be back - the question is do you want me back?”, and Jiyong wants to say “Yes, fuck you, I miss you, you idiot, yes yes yes,” and Tabi just looks at Jiyong and smiles in understanding, without Jiyong needing to put anything into words.
The following day he visits the doctor again; the mass has reduced significantly with the aggressive treatment (Well it better, because there's almost no hair left to lose, thinks Jiyong); they can start reducing the medication, and the doctor's smiling. Jiyong wants to smile but can't, wanders if the dream was either a cryptic goodbye or a sign that the mass in his head will be back; Jiyong doesn't feel like celebrating.
His hair does grow back at a snail's pace but it's thinner and sort of limp and he hates it, destroys it further with hair bleach and a shock of pink. People stare when he walks down the street but he gives up caring, and when has he ever cared that much about what people think, anyway, who really gives a damn.
Daesung sees him and returns from the hairdresser with his own hair a bright silver and Jiyong offers to play Diablo with him the whole night. He can hear Tabi in his head saying that it looks awesome and it both scares him and delights him at the same time.
Follow-up checks do not reveal any relapse. Jiyong tries to relax and get back into the scheme of things. College. Taking photographs, wandering around the city with Daesung and Taeyang. Playing Diablo with Daesung and dropping in with Seungri at Youngbae's bar. Youngbae still refuses him strong liquor, much to Jiyong's chagrin.
In truth, he hasn't seen Tabi, in his dreams or elsewhere, since that last time. Jiyong visits the painting in the gallery and stares at it as if willing Tabi to come out, but he doesn't, eyes unblinking, watching him. Obnoxious, Jiyong thinks, but the painting was a painting and it didn't move like he wanted it to.
Tabi just disappeared as quickly as he had come.
**
On Children's Day, Seungri spots Jiyong almost as soon as he walks into the building. Jiyong thinks he looks like a student in high school dressed in a crisp checkered shirt and a blue sweater with skinny pants. He really should have brought a hat, at least, to cover up his hair.
“Jiyong! I want to introduce you to someone,” Seungri says, all business in his sharp navy blue suit and skinny tie, “This is Dongwook, who made that painting you really admire.”
Oh. He's good looking, all brown hair and smiling brown eyes and crisp black suit.
“Aren't painters meant to dress really badly,” Jiyong starts without thinking, and Dongwook bursts out laughing.
“I hear you like my painting,” Dongwook says after, eyes friendly. Jiyong shrugs, feeling under-dressed. And short.
“Yeah,” Jiyong says, awkwardly. “It looks a bit like you.”
Dongwook grins. “It's my brother, Seunghyun, he's just back from the army and I really missed him...that's the short version of the story.”
“Tabi's your brother?” Jiyong asks before he could stop himself. He clasps a hand over his mouth.
Dongwook's eyes twinkle familiarly. “Tabi, eh? Yeah, he's here somewhere actually, he wants to transfer to the university - hang on -”
Oh, God. Tabi was suddenly standing in front of him. In real life, slightly taller than he imagined, slightly broader shoulders -
No blue hair. Just normal, black and shiny and falling over his eyes. (Damn.)
“Hi,” Tabi - Seunghyun - says. He's smiling and friendly and unabashed. “Nice hair. Thought of dyeing mine blue, once.”
Jiyong doesn't know if he's joking or not. He thinks maybe he should start to regret dyeing his hair pink but finds that he doesn't. He shrugs, unable to respond.
“Jiyong did the polaroids,” Dongwook comments, “Which are excellent, by the way.”
“It reminds me of old memories,” Seunghyun adds, nodding.
“That was the point, I think,” Jiyong says, distracted when Seunghyun takes a sip from his glass of champagne, exposing an expanse of neck. Seunghyun's finger taps lightly on the side of his glass.
“Have we met before?” Seunghyun asks, and Jiyong blinks out of his reverie. Seunghyun doesn't really wait for an answer. “I feel like we've met before. It's weird. Kind of like I've been to wherever you took those photos.”
“Yeah, no, I don't think so?” Jiyong says, shrugging again. He rakes a hand through his hair.
“So listen, I'm obviously new here, and Seungri said, if I ever needed to make friends more my age at the college, I'd better talk to you.” Seunghyun glances at him enquiringly.
“Yeah, definitely, I'll help you out.” Jiyong says.
Seunghyun breaks into a grin, dimple lines showing. “I'm into jackets. With lots of badges. And bearbricks. And-”
“How old are you?” Jiyong asks, worried that the answer might be five.
“Twenty-five.”
“Oh, good.” A pause, and Jiyong shakes his head when Seunghyun raises an eyebrow at him. “Sorry. I'm just a bit shocked because of the painting. I'm coming off weird, aren't I? I'm better in my jeans and my t-shirts. I'm better when you get to know me, I'm pretty okay, I promise.”
“I'm sure you're more than okay,” the older boy replies, and Jiyong wonders if Seunghyun is hitting on him, but shoves the thought into the back of his head.
“I feel like I know you already, so maybe that's something,” Seunghyun adds, hopeful. He looks at Jiyong with those dark eyes.
“Yeah, maybe.” Jiyong smiles.
~FIN~
Characters: Jiyong/Seunghyun, Big Bang and Se7en.
Rating: PG for swearing. Mostly G.
Notes:
It's AU, based on mainly this pic, but everyone already knows how ridiculously princely Seunghyun is anyway (I'd post more links to pics here, but it might break some fandom do-not-take/repost rules, so just look them up on Tumblr. Linked gif is also from Tumblr.) There's a few snippets from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince as well as some Big Bang lyrics interspersed throughout. And as always, this is all entirely made up. I tried to write something a bit fluffier and more light-hearted, and this isn't ridiculously sugary but not super angst, either. I guess Gtop is just better bittersweet.
Jiyong Kwon
is cordially invited to
The exhibition of Fine Arts of Today's Youth
hosted by Seungri Lee of the YG Art Gallery
Please arrive by 7pm...
Jiyong sighed, straightening his bow tie for the third, fourth time, inspecting himself in the mirror. In the background, his roommate Daesung was playing Diablo 3, lounging in a tracksuit and a tshirt. Jiyong felt both jealous and overdressed.
The things he does for Seungri, Jiyong thinks, as he shrugs on a jacket (It's navy like a school blazer with silver tipped collars which he pops; and frowning in the mirror he turns it back down.)
Daesung whistles at him when he makes for the door. “Break a leg!” He says, not tearing his eyes away from the screen.
The crowd at the art gallery is mixed, older men and women in smart tuxes and long dresses, reflecting and refracting light; the younger crowd in more alternative outfits like his own, a mix of edge and hipster, scarves and oversized accessories, like children playing dress-up with their clothes.
Jiyong's hand closes over the little camera he has in his pocket with him all the time, but thinks twice about taking photos; he wonders around, looking for both his own display and some alcohol.
“Ji! Hyung!” a voice calls out, and Jiyong turns around and almost crashes in to Seungri, who claps him on the back. He's in a black business suit with a metal stud in one ear (“It's punk, but subtle,” Seungri stated once, before Jiyong announced he'd never met anyone who'd described fashion as subtle punk.)
“Hi, Seungri,” Jiyong says weakly, slightly winded.
“How are you, hyung?” Seungri asks, then adds, “I have heaps of people I'd like you to meet.”
Jiyong feels a pang of envy for his young friend, having excelled in both his business and art degrees whilst Jiyong wasted his time partying (before he honed his passion of photography into something more - and it was Seungri who suggested he pursue it, really, so he had a world of debt to owe him), running the youth art program at the art gallery in conjunction with the university, collecting art and setting up pop-up art displays for aspiring artists, including Jiyong. The art gallery sponsors Jiyong, having taken a note of his talent, but Jiyong takes it with a grain of salt, wary of the art gallery trying to mould him into the artist they want him to be, rather than what he wants to do.
“Just the best crop then, Seungri, I've been a bit headachey lately.”
Seungri gives him a fleeting once-over. “We need to hang out and catch up. After this exhib I'd be free for a while.”
Jiyong shrugs. “It's nothing. Maybe not enough sleep or not enough water and too much alcohol or something.”
“Well, we've only got champagne and red and white tonight.”
“Ah, no hard stuff?” Jiyong's grinning, but Seungri shoots Jiyong a wary glance.
“Don't become an alcoholic, hyung. It won't look good on the scholarship board.”
“Yes, mother,” Jiyong says, still smiling. He pauses at a painting.
“Ah,” Seungri says, his professional voice returning. “This one is something, isn't it? My Brother, The Obnoxious Princeling, it's like Duprey's The Little Prince with a modern twist, a bit of punk flare. Dongwook is getting along though, he's just borderline in our youth category-”
The painting was large, a life-sized boy in a regal battalion uniform, complete with shiny boots and shiny buttons and badges on his shoulders, a red sash crossed over his chest. It contrasted with a rebellious shock of neon blue hair, whipped upwards like the top of an icecream; piercing, challenging black eyes that Jiyong can't help looking at; and all topped off with a black officer's hat complete with an enormous, pretentious black feather.
“-you really must meet Dongwook one day, Jiyong, he's one of the gallery's favourites-”
Jiyong must be going mad. He thought he saw the boy in the painting blink.
“-of course you're my favourite, hyung, but the elders do prefer the more traditional oil on canvas than photography-”
Jiyong stares. The boy did blink. He's smiling, too.
“Seungri, do you see-” Jiyong stops when he realises Seungri's not there anymore.
He whips his head back to the painting. The boy is waving at him. Jiyong stares at the glass of pink, sweet liquid in his hand. He didn't remember drinking that. Did Seungri give it to him?
“Hello,” a voice says in front of him, and Jiyong nearly jumps out of his skin. The boy's crouching down to meet him at eye level. (He's got supernaturally defined features, Jiyong thinks absently). Jiyong stares.
“I'm gonna hop out, if you don't mind.” The boy says again. And he does so, gracefully and almost soundless, and Jiyong wonders if he's gone mad. He remembers that Harry Potter movie where Harry disappears into the painting.
“What,” Jiyong says, finally.
“What?” The boy says. He's taller than Jiyong by half a head. (Then again, Dongwook's painting was huge.) The feather makes him even taller.
“Are you real?” Jiyong asks.
“Am I?” The boy grins, and dimples create hollows in his cheeks.
“You're a painting.” Jiyong states, matter-of-fact, as if that explained anything.
“I'm a painting,” The boy echoes, still grinning, and Jiyong feels a mild throbbing in his temples.
“Do you just parrot me? Are you a parrot?” Jiyong asks again, trying to put authority in his voice to make himself seem taller than he was. He can feel that he's losing his cool, glancing quickly left and right to see if anyone can see him talking to himself.
“I'm not a parrot, I'm a painting,” The boy replies. He mimics Jiyong, placing his hands in his pockets.
The boy tilts his head to one side. “Are you my mother?” and Jiyong almost drops the cup.
“What. No.”
The boy looks half disappointed.
“Will you be my friend?” he asks again.
Jiyong sculls the rest of the drink and places it on the tray of the nearest waiter.
“I'm going home.”
He doesn't look back to check if the boy follows him.
**
Jiyong wakes with a light headache. He frowns. Surely he didn't have that much to drink last night? Not hard stuff, anyway...
He turns his head and sees a boy with large dark eyes watching him and remembers.
“Fucking hell,” Jiyong says. “Why are you watching me sleep?”
“What's sleep?”
“What I was doing. Lying still with my eyes closed and letting my body recover - why am I explaining this to you - why are you even here?”
The boy shrugs. “You can see me.”
“I know that,” Jiyong says impatiently. “Why?”
“I don't know, I'm a painting.”
Jiyong decides to ignore him. He heads off to brush his teeth, grabbing his phone along the way. “What was that last drink you gave me? Was it spiked?” He texts Seungri, hidden from the other boy.
“Dude, that was pink champagne. A bit of vodka I sneaked in. Otherwise nothing. Are you alright?” comes the reply.
Jiyong stares at the phone. What guy sees paintings come to life on pink champagne? There's no way to tell Seungri he feels like he's high and hallucinating right now - what would he do if his college scholarship got rescinded?
He glares at the other man, who's humming to the song they played yesterday at the exhibition.
“I guess I'm stuck with you until the drugs wear off” Jiyong mutters, tossing the phone to his bed and flopping onto it himself.
“You're stuck with me,” the other boy echoes, in an altogether too cheerful tone for this hour of the morning.
“Do you have a name?”
“My Brother, The Obnoxious Princeling.”
“I can't call you that,” Jiyong says. “Is there any - could we shorten it? Abbreviate it? T.O.P. - how about Top? Or I could call you Tabi? A nickname, or something.”
The boy shrugs. “You tell me.”
“Tabi it is, then,” Jiyong snaps impatiently, rubbing his eyes to relieve the throbbing in his head, looking at his watch. “Shit. Class.”
He throws on his clothes and is out the door in 3 minutes, and Tabi doesn't appear again until the afternoon.
**
“How was the exhib?” Daesung asks, falling into his space on the couch next to Jiyong. Jiyong continues typing away on his laptop. Daesung settles a bowl of dinner beside him, rice and egg and ham.
“Yeah, fine, a bit weird,” Jiyong replies, eyes not leaving the screen. He looks up suddenly. “Dae, how long do drugs last for?”
Daesung shrugs. “Depends on the person, I guess - a few hours usually? Not really too sure.”
“Hmm,” Jiyong says.
Daesung looks at him strangely. “Have you been doing drugs again?”
“What - no - that was just the one time - I don't know,” Jiyong sighs, raking a hand through his hair and looking away from the screen, “It feels like something was in my drink last night, but I'm not sure, you know?”
“Probably best to sleep it off,” Daesung suggests, spooning food into his mouth.
“Yeah that's not happening tonight,” Jiyong says, waving a hand back to the screen. His assignment was looking back at him. He continues typing.
“You should work in your room, its probably more productive in there.”
“But-”
“Correction, it will be more productive, because I've finished my assignments and I'm going to keep playing Diablo after dinner, and Youngbae's coming over to play after his shift.” Daesung grins, handing Jiyong his dinner in one hand and helping balance the laptop in the other, and pushing him down the hall leading to his room, ignoring Jiyong's protests.
Jiyong walks in on Tabi jumping on his bed.
“What are you doing.” (This was not a question.)
“It's bouncy!”
“How old are you?”
“Oil on canvas, started 2007, completed 2012.”
“You're five,” Jiyong states, deadpan.
“I suppose I am,” Tabi says, smiling.
Jiyong runs a hand through his hair again, switching the light off and grabbing his earphones.
“I'm gonna work on the dining table, turn that down,” Jiyong orders Daesung, shoving his earphones into his ears and continuing with his work. Daesung frowns, more particularly because the dinner he made for Jiyong was getting cold, but then an explosion occurs on the television screen and he turns his attention back to it. Youngbae, hot young bartender at their local pub and Jiyong's best friend, joins Daesung later, and finishes Jiyong's untouched plate.
**
The obnoxious little prince, Jiyong figures over time, thinks ice-creams are awesome and gets excited when he figures out the colour of his hair is bubblegum; he's amused by the little things, the tinkering jukebox at the bar where Youngbae works, the comical mustache on Jiyong's professor, the way text boxes on Jiyong's phone resemble whales.
Tabi watches Thor and imitates the demigod every time at the coffee shop, throwing down his empty cup after coffee and demanding more; the first time it scared Jiyong out of his wits, and Tabi laughed, a sound that hits Jiyong to the bone, promising to never do it again. (“This stuff is really good,” he says, grinning.)
Most of the time Tabi really is five.
One day Jiyong gets irritated with him, tired of the relentless questions, “Why do roses have thorns?” Tabi asks, when Jiyong was busy typing up his paper, and he asks Tabi if he minds just to stop, because he's trying to be serious.
Tabi gets angry with him. “You are talking like a grown up!”
“But I am a grown up!”
“You're five like me!”
“I'm almost twenty-five!” and Tabi snorts.
“You argue like you're five! Grown ups have never smelt flowers, never looked at stars; all day long they count figures and say, 'I am a serious person! - I am a serious person!' and they're not people at all - they're mushrooms!”
“A what?”
“A mushroom!”
Silence. Jiyong blinks at Tabi, whose face had gone red. It doesn't make any sense to Jiyong, what Tabi said. A part of him wants to laugh; he doesn't. Tabi, who looked more twenty-five but was actually five, looked upset. It distressed Jiyong.
“I'm sorry.”
Tabi sniffs. “I'll leave you to your grown up stuff.” He disappears, but then Jiyong finds concentrating even worse.
Tabi comes back fifteen minutes later, and sits quietly beside Jiyong as he types. “I got lonely. I missed you in ten minutes, but I wanted to make you wait,” he says in a tone strangely both sheepish and proud, and Jiyong smiles. Tabi curls up beside him without reply, and Jiyong is reminded of a cat.
“It's lonely around people too,” Jiyong throws into the silence.
“But the loneliness is lighter,” comes the reply, and Jiyong smiles again.
**
Sometimes Tabi surprises Jiyong with little words of wisdom, or takes care of Jiyong, and Jiyong has to start over and reassess, because at those times Tabi appears to be fifty instead of five.
Tabi embodies the voice in Jiyong's head, and Jiyong goes a little mad bantering with himself, in which Tabi's lack of social awareness always comes back to the simple fact that “I'm a painting,” as if that's all Jiyong can expect out of a figure most likely in his imagination that he can't seem to shake, because any drugs should be out of his system by now.
Tabi disappears when appropriate and appears when Jiyong's alone (or lonely). Jiyong is not sure if he gets headaches because Tabi is sometimes really annoying and asks too many questions or if something is wrong.
Jiyong googles “pink champagne hallucinations”, which returns 0 results. None that applied to him, anyway.
**
“What are you doing,” Jiyong calls into the darkness. This is a question he is starting to get used to. Next to him, the bed shuffles.
“Sleeeeeping,” Tabi says, stretching the word out with his voice, like it was obvious. “You said, just sleep when you sleep. So I'm sleeping.”
“This is weird,” Jiyong states. He turns to see Tabi with his shock of blue hair and pale pale skin. He looks like a marble statue. (A marble statue with blue hair).
He hopes Tabi is wearing pants.
“Why is it weird?” Tabi asks.
“Because I don't sleep with guys.”
“What's a guy? I'm not a guy. I'm a prince.”
Jiyong snorts. “You're a princeling and an idiot.”
“I'm an idiot?”
“Yes.”
Tabi huffs. “I'm your idiot.”
“You're not real,” adds Jiyong, as if to remind himself.
“I'm a painting,” Tabi smiles.
“Could you put a shirt on?” Jiyong asks, distracted. Tabi blinks.
“You don't have a shirt on. Am I supposed to have a shirt on?”
“If you want to sleep here, yes.”
It's the only time he gets to see Tabi topless. Later, Jiyong absently wonders if he regrets it.
**
The week before his multiple assignments are due Jiyong goes into crisis mode, glued to his laptop and obsessively backs-up his files (the disaster of 2010 where Jiyong had to repeat a year will never happen again). Tabi flits in and out of his consciousness, not saying much. At four in the morning when he's shivering and jittery with cold and fatigue and the night is dead, Jiyong is comforted by his presence, curled up with his head cradled in his arms, blinking sleepily underneath his massive hat that he wears for Jiyong's amusement, soothed by the steady rise and fall of Tabi's body as he slips in and out of sleep.
If he were real, Jiyong wonders if he'd have found a friend in a boy with blue hair.
Tabi takes that same moment to sniff slightly, wrinkling his nose and shuffling with his eyes still closed. The hat slips down over Tabi's eyes. He grumbles, irritated, pushing it back, only to have it fall again, and Jiyong almost laughs. Tabi blinks up at him then, looking slightly pleased with himself.
“Keep typing, Ji, you don't want your friend to fall asleep on the table.”
Jiyong thinks “obnoxious” and thinks maybe the answer is yes, blue hair and all.
**
“Goodbye mid-terms!” Jiyong exclaims cheerfully, and Daesung clinks his glass against Jiyong's, racing each other to the bottom of the glass. Youngbae's eyes smile as much as his mouth as he pours them another round.
“Slow down, guys,” he says, “Otherwise I'll have to carry you both home.”
“You're the responsible one tonight, Youngbae”, replies Daesung, downing half his drink again. “Tonight is for getting wasted.”
“Says the one that has two more midterms to survive before the end,” Jiyong says, shooting Daesung a wicked grin. “This one's my very last midterm.”
“Shut up, and catch up, Ji,” Daesung shows off his empty glass.
“I got here before you did, and drank more before you came, so you catch up.”
“Well then,” Daesung says, challenging, “How many did you have before I got here?”
“Who the hell's counting, Daesung?” Jiyong scoffs. “Too many to remember.”
Daesung pulls a face. Youngbae grins.
Jiyong spots Tabi in the crowd, blue hair sticking out like a sore thumb. “Tabi!” He calls out, waves him over. Tabi looks magnificent in the dim light of the pub, light reflecting through his blue hair and cutting along the long angles of his face.
(Alternatively, Jiyong is also lightheaded. Could be that.)
His eyes twinkle at Jiyong. “Hi,” he says. Daesung and Youngbae look at Jiyong with interest.
“This is Tabi, my friend I bumped into at Seungri's the other night,” Jiyong says, smiling. A pause, and then Daesung goes, “Hello, Tabi. You're good looking.”
Tabi dissolves into low-pitched giggles (How are low-pitched giggles even possible? thinks Jiyong, and he thinks Tabi smiling with his long dimples are a sight to behold,) and turns to Jiyong, “I like him. Can I stay with him for a while?”
Jiyong snorts. “Have you seen your blue hair?? It's a shock to everyone.” Youngbae starts laughing, shaking his head.
“Ji,” he says, “Keys, please.”
“Will you be our chaffeur tonight, Youngbae?”
“No, we're walking home. Don't worry, I can look after two children.”
Jiyong pouts. Tabi smiles affectionately at him. “You're five,” he says triumphantly, and Jiyong stops pouting immediately, handing over his keys without protest.
**
“You'll take care of me, right Tabi?” Jiyong says, drunkenly content. “Take me home, Tabi!”
“I'll take care of you,” Tabi replies, an arm around Jiyong, steadying him. “We're going home.”
“You parrot,” Jiyong laughs. Tabi is sturdy and warm.
“I'm not,” Tabi says indignantly, and Jiyong laughs again.
“You're my friend, right Tabi?”
Tabi furrows his eyebrows. “What's that?”
“A friend is - someone you care about?”
“Then I'm your very best.” Tabi says seriously, nudging him forward. “Follow Youngbae.”
“Youngbae,” Jiyong calls, and the bartender turns to look at him, eyes curious, busy leading Daesung with a hand on his elbow. (“I'm not the drunk one, Youngbae,” Daesung had said, but Jiyong refused assistance.)
“You right, Ji?”
“You're taking me home,” Jiyong says happily. “Tabi said so.”
“Right,” Youngbae says shortly in reply. “Comeon, then.” He links their arms together, him between Daesung and Ji, pulls them both forward.
“Tabi said I was his best friend,” Jiyong says, “but I think you do well.”
Youngbae laughs. “You've really outdone yourself tonight, Ji,” he says, shoving him playfully through the doorway before leading Daesung in as well. The floor at Jiyong's feet suddenly appeared very comfortable.
“Shoes,” Jiyong says dreamily, settling and spreading out on the floor. Youngbae nudges him with his foot.
“Ji-”
“I'm fine, Youngbae, just look after Daesung.” Jiyong pulls himself up, ruffling his hair and making his way to his room, crashing down into the warm comfort of the bed.
**
The next morning Jiyong wakes up with his head pounding so hard he has to throw up, worshiping the porcelain god. There's a warm hand on his head pulling his hair back.
“Are you alright,” Tabi asks him, following him from the bathroom, sitting on Jiyong's bed. Jiyong squints at the light already filtering into his room, catching the edges of Tabi's hair and the outline of his shoulders. He pulls all the blinds down.
“Hangover,” Jiyong mumbles, tucking his fingers into the long sleeves of his cotton shirt. He crawls into bed, feels the bed shift as Tabi lies down next to him.
“You haven't had much sleep this past week,” Tabi says.
“Let me sleep, Tabi,” Jiyong replies.
“Good night, baby.” Tabi drifts off quickly. Tabi feels warm beside him, and all Jiyong wants to do is curl himself against the fold of his arm. He doesn't.
Jiyong watches him for a while, looking more five than twenty-five, before slipping into sleep to the sound of his breathing.
**
Jiyong knows he pushes it too much when Tabi starts following him to college, starts being around when Daesung is at home and trying to talk to Daesung, and also following him to the bar.
A part of him needs to keep reminding himself that Tabi is not real, but how is he not real when he is so solid, so interactive, slotting into Jiyong's life so easily like a puzzle piece he didn't know he was missing?
“Jiyong,” Daesung says one day, “are you sick?”
“Hmm?” Jiyong replies, distracted by Tabi dancing in front of the television awkwardly like a drunk man.
“You know, Tabi or whatever, it was funny at first, but it's starting to worry me. And Youngbae, too, I might add.”
Jiyong looks at him then. “What do you mean?”
“He's not real, Jiyong.”
“You guys sometimes talk to him.”
“As I said, it was funny at first. We played along. When you were drunk. You're not supposed to see people when you're sober.”
“I'm fine,” Jiyong says, mildly irritated. He can feel another headache developing. Tabi stops dancing, looks at the two of them without a sound.
Jiyong tries to ignore him.
“You should go to the doctor,” Daesung suggests.
“I said I'm fine,” Jiyong replies, and that was that.
**
Jiyong drinks at Youngbae's bar. Tabi is again fiddling with the jukebox, dancing in lazy spins around it. (Chooming, Tabi once said, and Jiyong laughed because it was absurd).
“Your friend here again?” Youngbae says, pouring him a glass. Jiyong waves in Tabi's direction.
“By the jukebox. Chooming.”
“Right.” Youngbae says in reply. Jiyong shoots him a glance.
“What is it?”
“We can't see him, Ji, you know that.”
“Yeah,” Jiyoung replies, bitterly. Not this again.
“I thought you were drunk.”
“I'm not drunk.”
Youngbae shakes his head. “As in, I thought, you see him when your drunk. We just played along.”
“That's what Daesung said,” Jiyong sighs.
“So are you drunk?”
“I'm not fucking drunk, Youngbae!” Jiyong snaps.
“But you can see him.”
“Yes! I see him all the fucking time!”
“Calm down, Ji,” Youngbae says gently, voice low. Jiyong breathes.
“I'm going to go dance with Tabi.” He finishes his drink. Jiyong doesn't want to fight, he really doesn't.
“What if you're schizophrenic or something? Like that Russell Crowe movie?”
“I'm - not. I’m alright, Youngbae, I’m really, really alright.” (Jiyong makes a mental note to google it later).
Youngbae stresses a bit. “I know you think you have yourself under control, but we're just worried. We fret because we care. And I know you. This is not you. You're going home in half an hour.”
Jiyong makes a sour expression. “Youngbae, it's fucking 9 o'clock! The night hasn't even started yet!”
“Drunk or not drunk, you're seeing things and you're swearing at me. You need to go home.”
“So I see a boy in fucking blue hair with a big fucking feathered hat. It's fine, I can handle it.” Jiyong glances over at Tabi, who's looking at him with a bright smile on his face, waving him over. Jiyong hops off his bar stool.
“You're just dancing on your own, you know,” calls Youngbae, and Jiyong waves him away.
Youngbae sends him home in a cab at 10pm. “Go with Daesung to the doctor tomorrow. I'm not gonna let you have another drink until this thing is sorted, okay, its for your own good.”
Jiyong rests his head against the cool glass, swearing under his breath. “At least I still have you,” he says, into the darkness.
Jiyong can feel Tabi cover his hand with his own.
**
One bright sunny day Jiyong decides to head to the park, wanting to get his project that Seungri wanted ready by Children's Day started. Tabi, inevitably, hangs with him as he does; Tabi pulls him along by the elbow, excited at the prospect of meeting actual five year olds, and Jiyong allows himself to be led.
Tabi asks questions about everything.
“What are those?”
“Puppies. Little dogs.”
“Do they bite?”
“They're tame.”
“What's tame?”
“Like not wild? They're dependent on their human owners. And the humans are their friends? They kind of, like, need each other.”
“So I'm like a puppy right? I'm tame and you're my owner?”
“I don't own you.”
“Yeah, you do. You're the only one that can see me. And I need you. We need each other, right? Are you going to take a picture of the puppy?” Tabi looks at him with dark, enquiring eyes.
Jiyong finds he is unable to say “-but I don't need you”, knowing it was a lie, wonders if he’s been tamed by an imaginary prince with blue hair. Jiyong simply obliges, pulling his camera out of his pocket.
Then Tabi is distracted again.
“Oh, Ji, what are those?” - and the cycle goes on.
Eventually Jiyong takes photographs of Tabi too, wanting to capture him with the tassles on his shoulders flying behind him as he runs, the big hat balancing precariously on his head; Jiyong takes photos of Tabi chasing the pigeons and running around with balloons and blowing bubbles and laughing on a swing and takes a photograph of him with his arms wide open after climbing to the park's tallest hill and looking over the city; they fly a kite and Tabi holds onto the string as Jiyong sends the kite flying.
Jiyong laughs a lot that day.
**
“The areas where your exhibition is going to be set up has been allocated,” Seungri tells Jiyong over coffee. (“Bit too early for alcohol, Ji, don't you think?” Youngbae suggests weightedly, when they take their order. Jiyong glares and relents, ops for a double black expresso instead.)
“Great,” Jiyong replies, nonchalant. He tries to be attentive, he really does, but Tabi is sitting next to him and kicking his foot against his. Jiyong's trying very hard to ignore it.
“The judging panel really liked it, by the way,” Seungri continues. Jiyong rolls his eyes.
“That's because the judging panel is you and three other people. I automatically get a 25% vote from you.”
“It's not automatic,” Seungri retorts, “it's calculated.”
“It's biased,” Jiyong grins.
“Yeah, towards you, so don't complain,” Seungri says. “But I always like your stuff, hyung, it's really - something.”
“Did you hear what you just said? Your stuff; something, you're going to be a great art collector one day, man.”
Seungri shrugs. “Nothing wrong with collecting art based on gut instinct. Besides, it's not like you can get in with a quarter vote. It needs to be at least three quarters. So relax, you have skill, man,”
In the corner of his eye, Tabi imitates Seungri, (“Man,” he says, brows furrowed slightly with a serious look on his face), and Jiyong laughs. Tabi laughs with him.
“Jiyong?”
“Yeah?”
Seungri looks at him with a strange expression. “Hyung...your ear is bleeding.”
Jiyong freezes, hand flying up to his ear, feeling liquid, warm and sticky on his fingers. He stares at his fingers, red and smelling lightly metallic and absently wonders how much it'll cost to dry-clean his shirt.
His head hurts, then. Everything suddenly appears really bright, tunnel vision, blinding white surrounding him. Jiyong looks around in a frantic daze, trying to focus, trying to see. “Seungri?” he calls out, hearing the panic in his own voice, groping blindly and grasping air.
He hears Seungri calling out for Youngbae and sees Tabi's eyes looking at him before everything goes sideways and fades to black.
**
Jiyong comes to in a bright room, harsh white light bearing down on him stark against a white ceiling. He was vaguely aware of white walls and voices muttering in the background.
He sees Tabi at the foot of his bed, black pants and frilly black shirt and white jacket and black hat. It's a different outfit, less colour, simpler, purer. He blinks.
“Tabi - I think I'm sick - am I...?”
“Don't worry, Ji, you're still alive,” Tabi smiles, and then Jiyong feels a grip on his arm, closes his eyes and slips off again.
**
Kwon Jiyong has a mass in his brain. It explains the headaches and it explains the hallucinations.
It explains Tabi.
Jiyong doesn't hear much of the doctor's explanations, staring at the MRI scan with the pea-sized lump; he hears “chemotherapy” and “hair loss” and “high chance of success” and wonders how Daesung and Youngbae and Seungri are doing.
He wonders if, at the end of all this, he'll be alive but he'll lose Tabi.
**
Jiyong is discharged and home to see Daesung tossing food together in the kitchen and Tabi watching him.
“You've moved on to Daesung, have you,” Jiyong says spitefully, and Daesung turns around and looks at him, concern on his face.
Jiyong blinks, shaking his head, and Tabi's gone. “Sorry, Dae,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. (He'll have to stop doing that when his hair falls out, he thinks, vaguely), “I'm really sick, aren't I?”
He heads to his room without an answer, flopping onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. He can feel Tabi in the room.
“Are you sick?” Tabi says, lying down beside him.
Jiyong wants to cry.
“You're making me sick,” Jiyong says finally, turning away and shutting his eyes.
“Will you get better?” Tabi asks. Tabi grips his shoulder, shakes slightly.
Jiyong looks at him, pulling his body up into a sitting position, eyes glaring. “If I get better then I won't see you, will you be happy for me then?”
“But,” Tabi bites his lip, “You have to see me.”
“I'm not supposed to fucking see you.”
“You can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Tabi responds, and Jiyong thinks it’s something wise but just wants to punch him because he doesn’t understand; doesn’t want to understand, not right now.
“You're a painting,” Jiyong reminds him, through half gritted teeth.
“I'm not,” Tabi says then, and Jiyong blinks, because it's the only time Tabi has disagreed, “I'm not just a painting. I'm your idiot. I'm your friend.” Tabi scrambles up so his eyes are level with Jiyong's and Jiyong thinks Tabi might kiss him but Tabi just pulls him into a hug, warm and fierce and bear-like, and Jiyong can feel the tightening in his chest and the water prickling behind his eyes.
“Please,” Jiyong's head pounds. “Please, go away. Let me rest.”
“But I don't know where to go,” Tabi says, quiet. Jiyong's heart feels like breaking.
“I know you don't want me to leave,” Tabi says, as if not reading Jiyong's mind, but his heart, (Jiyong, in response, pulls out of Tabi's arms and turns away.) “But I will because you asked. I'll come back - I'll be home if you need me to. Want me to.”
Tabi disappears, and Jiyong is alone, hugging his pillow to sleep, choking in sobs of air.
**
Jiyong feels the vacancy when Tabi's not there, when Jiyong's truly alone, left without even the voice in his head, no presence in the air, devoid of the feeling that both comforted and calmed him. He sees memories of Tabi everywhere, misses Tabi with his tossled blue hair a mess when he's still groggy and half-awake, blinking as Jiyong is blinking, squinting against the light that filters through his blinds; he misses the running commentary from Tabi beside him during class and when he hangs with Daesung and Youngbae; he misses the questions that Tabi peppers at him, what's this and what's that and how am I supposed to know, I'm a painting. He misses Tabi when he sees children in the street, he misses Tabi when he sees kites, he misses Tabi when he takes photos with his camera. He misses Tabi accompanying him to sleep at night, misses his light breathing.
He misses Tabi like the dull ache in his head has migrated to his chest, gnawing and eating away at him from the inside out.
A bit of him says that it means the meds are working. He hates the meds.
**
Jiyong wonders if he can buy Dongwook's painting.
He visits Seungri's gallery often whilst he's out of college, and Seungri lets him stay with the painting because he's sick and Jiyong just sits there anyway, talking to it only in his head and not scaring the rest of the art gallery visitors.
He sees Tabi less and less; reduced to fitful dreams, faded like old movies from old film reels. He tries not to think about him; tries not to dream about him, because one day he'll be gone, for good. Jiyong's hair starts falling out and his eyes get sensitive to light; he starts buying headscarves and hats; he gets so thin from throwing up because of the medication, and his heart feels heavy because he doesn't want to see himself in the mirror; he hates looking at his eyes, sunken and haloed and bruised with sleeplessness; he wanders what Tabi would say to him, he thinks of the days when he was drunk and Tabi would be there for him, where was his little officer to guard and protect him when he needed it?
Seungri takes him to preview the gallery he made up with Jiyong's photographs; Seungri loves them, a wall of polaroids, slightly faded in the sunlight, purposely altered to resemble the movies in his dreams: photographs of children laughing and running around with balloons and pigeons scattering when a cat runs in amongst them and non-descript stock images of bubbles, in focus and out of focus; puppies, a vacant swing, closeups of pink and blue bubblegum icecream, a kite lost in the air.
Seungri declares triumphantly “This is what childhood looks like,” and Jiyong almost wants to burst into tears, blames it on his medication.
Daesung buys Jiyong ice-cream, and Jiyong thinks when his hair grows back he'll dye it bubblegum pink.
**
Tabi appears to him in a dream again one night, and he's all shiny and smiling and he's reading Harry Potter.
Jiyong wants to scream, what on earth is there to smile about, I barely see you, why are you reading Harry Potter, and Tabi says, “Look at this,” and Jiyong reads, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”, and Jiyong doesn't understand.
Jiyong looks up at Tabi, face so close to his, bright eyes bearing into his, and he temporarily forgets to breathe. “If you need me,” Tabi says, “I told you, I'll be back - the question is do you want me back?”, and Jiyong wants to say “Yes, fuck you, I miss you, you idiot, yes yes yes,” and Tabi just looks at Jiyong and smiles in understanding, without Jiyong needing to put anything into words.
The following day he visits the doctor again; the mass has reduced significantly with the aggressive treatment (Well it better, because there's almost no hair left to lose, thinks Jiyong); they can start reducing the medication, and the doctor's smiling. Jiyong wants to smile but can't, wanders if the dream was either a cryptic goodbye or a sign that the mass in his head will be back; Jiyong doesn't feel like celebrating.
His hair does grow back at a snail's pace but it's thinner and sort of limp and he hates it, destroys it further with hair bleach and a shock of pink. People stare when he walks down the street but he gives up caring, and when has he ever cared that much about what people think, anyway, who really gives a damn.
Daesung sees him and returns from the hairdresser with his own hair a bright silver and Jiyong offers to play Diablo with him the whole night. He can hear Tabi in his head saying that it looks awesome and it both scares him and delights him at the same time.
Follow-up checks do not reveal any relapse. Jiyong tries to relax and get back into the scheme of things. College. Taking photographs, wandering around the city with Daesung and Taeyang. Playing Diablo with Daesung and dropping in with Seungri at Youngbae's bar. Youngbae still refuses him strong liquor, much to Jiyong's chagrin.
In truth, he hasn't seen Tabi, in his dreams or elsewhere, since that last time. Jiyong visits the painting in the gallery and stares at it as if willing Tabi to come out, but he doesn't, eyes unblinking, watching him. Obnoxious, Jiyong thinks, but the painting was a painting and it didn't move like he wanted it to.
Tabi just disappeared as quickly as he had come.
**
On Children's Day, Seungri spots Jiyong almost as soon as he walks into the building. Jiyong thinks he looks like a student in high school dressed in a crisp checkered shirt and a blue sweater with skinny pants. He really should have brought a hat, at least, to cover up his hair.
“Jiyong! I want to introduce you to someone,” Seungri says, all business in his sharp navy blue suit and skinny tie, “This is Dongwook, who made that painting you really admire.”
Oh. He's good looking, all brown hair and smiling brown eyes and crisp black suit.
“Aren't painters meant to dress really badly,” Jiyong starts without thinking, and Dongwook bursts out laughing.
“I hear you like my painting,” Dongwook says after, eyes friendly. Jiyong shrugs, feeling under-dressed. And short.
“Yeah,” Jiyong says, awkwardly. “It looks a bit like you.”
Dongwook grins. “It's my brother, Seunghyun, he's just back from the army and I really missed him...that's the short version of the story.”
“Tabi's your brother?” Jiyong asks before he could stop himself. He clasps a hand over his mouth.
Dongwook's eyes twinkle familiarly. “Tabi, eh? Yeah, he's here somewhere actually, he wants to transfer to the university - hang on -”
Oh, God. Tabi was suddenly standing in front of him. In real life, slightly taller than he imagined, slightly broader shoulders -
No blue hair. Just normal, black and shiny and falling over his eyes. (Damn.)
“Hi,” Tabi - Seunghyun - says. He's smiling and friendly and unabashed. “Nice hair. Thought of dyeing mine blue, once.”
Jiyong doesn't know if he's joking or not. He thinks maybe he should start to regret dyeing his hair pink but finds that he doesn't. He shrugs, unable to respond.
“Jiyong did the polaroids,” Dongwook comments, “Which are excellent, by the way.”
“It reminds me of old memories,” Seunghyun adds, nodding.
“That was the point, I think,” Jiyong says, distracted when Seunghyun takes a sip from his glass of champagne, exposing an expanse of neck. Seunghyun's finger taps lightly on the side of his glass.
“Have we met before?” Seunghyun asks, and Jiyong blinks out of his reverie. Seunghyun doesn't really wait for an answer. “I feel like we've met before. It's weird. Kind of like I've been to wherever you took those photos.”
“Yeah, no, I don't think so?” Jiyong says, shrugging again. He rakes a hand through his hair.
“So listen, I'm obviously new here, and Seungri said, if I ever needed to make friends more my age at the college, I'd better talk to you.” Seunghyun glances at him enquiringly.
“Yeah, definitely, I'll help you out.” Jiyong says.
Seunghyun breaks into a grin, dimple lines showing. “I'm into jackets. With lots of badges. And bearbricks. And-”
“How old are you?” Jiyong asks, worried that the answer might be five.
“Twenty-five.”
“Oh, good.” A pause, and Jiyong shakes his head when Seunghyun raises an eyebrow at him. “Sorry. I'm just a bit shocked because of the painting. I'm coming off weird, aren't I? I'm better in my jeans and my t-shirts. I'm better when you get to know me, I'm pretty okay, I promise.”
“I'm sure you're more than okay,” the older boy replies, and Jiyong wonders if Seunghyun is hitting on him, but shoves the thought into the back of his head.
“I feel like I know you already, so maybe that's something,” Seunghyun adds, hopeful. He looks at Jiyong with those dark eyes.
“Yeah, maybe.” Jiyong smiles.
~FIN~