[oneshot] what i have, held in these hands
Title: what i have, held in these hands
Pairing: GTOP, YBCL
Rating: PG13
Genre: alternate reality, slice-of-life, character sketching, angst
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: gdybcl are a hiphop/r&b trio. top is affiliated with the movement. for the ever amazing jandi and lovelyable ;__; ♥ i’m so sorry but this is unbeta-ed!
“Hey!” Jiyong sprints after a fast retreating shape, hopping down the front steps three at a time. “Hey, slow down, will you?”
The boy he’s shouting at turns around and pins him straight in the eyes with a look that reads of annoyance and disappointment. Jiyong manages to skid to a halt before he crashes into the still figure.
“So I failed the audition.” Seunghyun glowers and pushes him back a step. “What else do you want from me?”
Jiyong staggers backwards and glares as well. His breath comes out fast and erratic, visible pants in the cold air. “Dammit, so you’re going to give up after one try? The next auditions are in three months so you can always practice and try aga-”
“Hell no,” Seunghyun cuts in, stepping away again. “You can keep your silly fashion and half-assed hip-hop and fake glitter. I don’t want that kind of life, that kind of career.”
Jiyong’s jaw drops; the comforting, consoling words die in his throat and his gaze hardens. “Well then, Tempo, you can just go back to being the unnoticed fatty at those underground gigs you always loved, right?”
“I hope you and your ridiculous poppy shit are happy together.” With that, Seunghyun stalks away, footsteps heavy against the pavement.
Cursing under his breath, Jiyong trudges back to the building. He slams a fist against the fire extinguisher’s casing so hard that the glass shatters, broken pieces pinging onto the linoleum tile. The blood running down his split knuckles is painfully satisfying.
- -
In the long run, Seunghyun thinks, it was the right thing to do. He’s always tried to make choices based on what he really wants, and he has never wanted to be led by the ebb and flow of some greater tide.
Looking back, debuting on a major label would have capped his creative tendencies for years, and the audition had shown him what exactly he’d be getting himself into if he’d walked down the same path as one Kwon Jiyong, one Dong Youngbae. Or maybe hindsight is just 20/20 and he’s been giving himself a little too much credit.
He shrugs a blazer from Lanvin’s spring collection over his shoulders and checks himself in the mirror. Aviators tint the world in shades of dark gray and he smoothes the hem of his jacket out.
The text from Choiza reminds him not to be late for Inkigayo.
- -
“Yo, check it out!” Jiyong turns around curiously - Youngbae never shows this much interest in other artists that appear on the music shows. “There’s a third rapper on Dynamic Duo’s stage.”
He peers into the hazy smoke drifting around the stage. “Are you sure it isn’t just Drunken Tiger or Tablo or someone?”
“No, listen, he’s about to start.”
Something low and husky is coming through the blaring speakers and the fangirls are going crazy. The audience is a roiling sea of movement; a tingle runs up Jiyong’s spine and he squints through the rotating strobe lights to make out a tall, wiry shape.
“Who is that?”
Chaerin appears behind them, slinging her arms around their necks. “New member of the Movement, maybe?”
Distracted, Jiyong pushes at her side and grins. “Took you long enough to get here, we’re about to go up-”
“Yah, move out of the way!” They’re shunted off to the side as Dynamic Duo steps off to raucous cheers, the third performer shuffling after them. Youngbae bows to greet them as they pass, and Chaerin has to press down hard on the small of Jiyong’s back to get his attention.
“Sorry,” he mutters hurriedly, and he tries to see past the stage effects and bad lighting as he bows, eyes narrowing in concentration.
A smooth hey filters through the dull roar of background noise as Jiyong straightens up. I recognize that voice crosses his mind before the objects of his perusal are whisked away down the hall to the waiting rooms and then it’s Big Bang’s turn to take the stage.
- -
They perform Haru Haru today, and Jiyong lets the music swallow him whole, like a piece of peppermint candy, warm and hard underneath its tongue. They dance and he spits rhyme and Youngbae sings with his whole heart, his whole body. Chaerin harmonizes at a higher octave and they burn the stage together, bring the whole house down. He closes his eyes and that nameless something washes over him with a shiver, a sigh.
But then it ends, like it always does, with confetti streaming down in bright strips and the music inevitably fades until all that’s left is the screaming of fans and the label of just another idol group, their hard work categorized as the product of some pretty mayfly that will taper off into oblivion, out of style after a few more years.
Oh, he thinks. Oh, and it makes him a little sad every time he sees the optimistic bounce in Chaerin’s step and Youngbae’s slow, easy smile, because he knows no matter how hard they hold on, it’ll always be like trying to catch the fleeting wind.
Old conversations come to mind, some with Youngbae, some with the other company artists, conversations about music and dreams and soul. Conversations with Seungho, and a long, long time ago, with Seu-something clicks inside his head, and this time he voices it out loud. “Oh.”
Youngbae looks up from a bottle of vitamin water. “What’s up?”
Jiyong shakes his head and slumps back into the sofa, soft cushions pillowing around him as he covers his face with a hand. “I know who that rapper was, goddamn. No wonder he sounded familiar.”
Chaerin pauses in the pulling of pins out of her long hair. “And?”
“Seunghyun,” he breathes out. “Choi Seunghyun.” Youngbae’s eyebrows go up and Chaerin stands, hands on her hips.
“You should go visit him in the waiting room, Jiyong. I bet he’s still there.”
He shrugs in noncommittal apathy. “Why would I do that? We haven’t spoken in forever.”
She drags his arm over her shoulder and marches towards the door. “It’s a common courtesy, Jingyo, so-” She stops abruptly as the door opens on its own, her hand still circling the doorknob.
Seunghyun is there, looking self-conscious in a bright blazer and scratching the back of his head. He bows politely, Youngbae half standing and half sitting, Chaerin’s mouth open in a small ‘o’ of surprise.
“Can I borrow Jiyong for a few minutes?” he asks, and his voice comes out deeper than it was years ago and softer than it’d been an hour earlier.
And then Chaerin’s shoving him out the door; he trips over his own shoe, and by the time he turns around to swear at her, all he sees is smooth, paneled wood.
“I’ll keep it short since you seem uncomfortable,” Seunghyun begins, and Jiyong swivels on his feet, slouching against the cool cement of the wall.
“Tiger JK wanted me to talk to you because we… know each other. Sort of.” He’s scratching his neck again and Jiyong cracks a small smile.
“Just,” flustered, Seunghyun runs a hand through his hair. “Dammit. You’ve done really well.” The unspoken for an idol group is still heard. “He wants to offer you a spot in the Movement, wants to know if you’re interested.”
Jiyong freezes but his heart is beating a mile a minute, Seunghyun’s words and a million other things forming and breaking apart in his head like falling dominoes. The first thing that comes to mind is are you even allowed to do that?
“Say something,” Seunghyun prods, expression unreadable.
“I,” Jiyong starts. “I don’t-what about Big Bang? YG Entertainment?” His stomach twists as Seunghyun looks down. He swallows around the dry lump in his throat.
Seunghyun pulls his wallet out and flips to a small card, scribbles a few numbers on the back. “Meet me Tuesday night, dinner and drinks. We’ll talk about it again.” He hands him the card, and before Jiyong can say anything else, Seunghyun is gone, disappearing behind a group of backstage staff carrying props down the hall.
He enters the dressing room again and shuts the door behind him, slumping against the wood and looking up. Youngbae’s curious face hovers over his.
“So did you try jumping him yet?”
“What the fuck, Youngbae?” he replies angrily, latching onto his bandmate. “Just because you’re sexually frustrated doesn’t mean you have to live vicariously through me.”
Chaerin sidesteps around Jiyong’s flailing limbs and crosses her arms. “You trying to say I’m not doing anything for his sex life, oppa?” She laughs at his confounded look and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it, just write your music, do your thing.” Youngbae does a bit of fancy footwork and follows her out the exit.
He’s left alone, with only troubled thoughts for company.
- -
Tuesday comes too quickly, and he spends the days before brooding and avoiding Youngbae and Chaerin. They leave increasingly anxious texts and voicemail messages, which he ignores in favor of chewing his fingernails down to the skin and counting the wrinkles in Gaho’s skin until the sharpei sniffs into his hand, annoyed.
A half-written song forms itself on bits and pieces of crumpled notebook paper before he tosses it all into the wastebasket. There’s nothing wrong with the lyrics, or the part of the beat he’d scribbled down, but nothing in his head is making sense right now and a sort of lethargy is seeping down into his bones, a blanket of exhaustion wrapped around him.
It’s his own alarming passive-aggressive behavior that scares him into actually going to the bar (Big Electric Cat, he reads with an undignified snort) and keeping the appointment.
“Jiyong,” Seunghyun acknowledges, and there’s a relieved look in his eyes that make this all feel a little less like betrayal and a little more like dinner out with an old friend.
It starts out a bit awkward, but by the time they start ordering drinks Jiyong is regaling him with stories about Teddy and Kush and trying to talk about everything except what Seunghyun really came here for. He’s surprised that Seunghyun doesn’t just cut to the chase and whip out a bunch of papers for him to sign. They play a bunch of stupid drinking games and before he knows it, it’s almost two in the morning and they’re both drunk out of their minds.
“I’m fucking jealous, Seunghyun,” he slurs at one point, vision tunneling so that all he can see are the beads of water trailing down his glass of beer. “Not even gonna front.”
“Really?” is all Seunghyun has to say, and it makes him a little angry but he presses on. “Do you know how lucky you are?” He downs more gulps of alcohol and slams his cup on the table. “You get to do your own shit and produce and there’s no one to fucking hold you back.”
Seunghyun is nodding now, and he drinks directly from a bottle of 1982 Bordeaux vintage that he’d apparently brought with him. “Which is why,” he says, “you should leave your company and come join us. Tiger, Tiger JK thinks you’d do very well in the underground.”
Jiyong peers at him with blurry eyes, and all of a sudden he can feel himself teetering on the edge of the precipice, looking into a yawning gap with no light at the end of the tunnel.
“I can’t,” he says with a desperate finality, trying to fight down a fit of drunken giggles. “You know how much I want this, but I have to think about Chaerin and Youngbae and I can’t just leave them in the dust like that, you know I can’t. There are things called contracts, Seunghyun, and I can’t break them. It doesn’t matter what I want.” His eyes go even blurrier, and he rubs at them in agitation. “It’s always about what they want. What’s best for them.” He stands up, sits down, stands up again. “I have to go, I can’t stay here.”
He turns on his heel and prepares to leave, but Seunghyun grabs his wrist and spins him around and plants the sloppiest, most engaging kiss Jiyong has ever received on his half-open mouth. A slow burn spreads from every place that Seunghyun’s touching him, the light grasp on his arm and their legs tangled awkwardly.
After a few moments, Seunghyun pulls away, looking strangely satisfied. “I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he says, breaking the silence.
“I’m not gay,” Jiyong sputters, but their shared breath is sending heady rushes of euphoria down his spine and he has to start breathing through his nose to keep from shaking. “And I can’t accept the Movement’s offer, I’m sorry.”
“You know what they say,” Seunghyun breathes, and there’s still a thin string of saliva connecting their mouths together. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
- -
Somehow, Jiyong makes it back to the door before dawn, collapsing bonelessly onto the grimy couch in his living room and crashing until three in the afternoon, when the shrill sound of his cell phone finally manages to rouse him.
“What?” he growls into the receiver, voice husky from the hangover that’s splitting his head in half.
Youngbae’s voice is serious. “Come downstairs, right now. Chaerin’s apartment.”
Suddenly, he’s wide awake and scrambling to remember the previous night’s events. He pulls on a moth bitten hoodie and takes the stairs two at a time. Chaerin’s door is already open, and he barges in. She turns from her position standing next to the computer with Youngbae and pins him with a hurt, accusing expression.
It takes him three large steps to get to where they are; Jiyong shoves Youngbae out of the way and stares at the monitor, but the bright, bold words that jump out at him say nothing about “possibilities of a breach in contract” or “G-Dragon leaving YG Entertainment?” He scrolls down through the article, which speculates about his alleged relationship with the Movement’s T.O.P, and sighs in relief.
Youngbae gives him a weird look when he drops into the desk chair and leans back. “You’re relieved about a tabloid headline like this? I wasn’t aware you wanted to come out of the closet at all, let alone in such a flamboyant way.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you had a date with him?” Chaerin adds, smacking him lightly on the head. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Jiyong says, a smile plastered on his face. “Nothing.”
- -
There’s a feeling in the air tonight, and it’s raw and real and something he can’t describe in words (if he could, it’d be in one of his songs already). It’s that time of year again, Gayo Daejun season, and he can’t suppress the bubbling feeling of excitement rising up in his chest, much to Youngbae’s chagrin and Chaerin’s endless amusement.
SBS’s is first this year, and they stomp onstage with all the subtlety of wild horses. The hip-hop collab of all hip-hop collabs, they call it. He shares a grin with Mithra and watches as Chaerin and Tasha do some elaborate handshake that he’s never seen before. Youngbae leads them into the first song, voice soaring above the background music, and the next fifteen charged minutes are easily some of the best of his life.
This is what I have, he thinks, this is what I have chosen.
There are shining faces in the audience, hands in the air waving crown-clad glow sticks and screaming fanchants. He raps and shouts and jumps and screams, running around the stage and slapping at all those hands rising up wherever he goes. It won’t be all happy, fun times and it won’t be easy to let go in the end, but-
This is mine.
Seunghyun’s back is warm and firm against his.
fin
A/N: i don’t know… what this is? i know there are a whole shitload of problems with it and i'm not happy about that but i just wanted to get it out lol sigh. i tried so hard to fit gtop sexytiems into it but sdfgdfg it didn’t work out :'( and lol @ my half-assed attempt to stick ybcl into this, fml. anyway CNY is on the 14th, so as a filial family member i’ll be in beijing visiting my gparents from the 12th-17th :) yesss 红包 kekeke. idk if i’ll have internet access, so if i don’t, i’ll tty all soon :Db
Pairing: GTOP, YBCL
Rating: PG13
Genre: alternate reality, slice-of-life, character sketching, angst
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: gdybcl are a hiphop/r&b trio. top is affiliated with the movement. for the ever amazing jandi and lovelyable ;__; ♥ i’m so sorry but this is unbeta-ed!
“Hey!” Jiyong sprints after a fast retreating shape, hopping down the front steps three at a time. “Hey, slow down, will you?”
The boy he’s shouting at turns around and pins him straight in the eyes with a look that reads of annoyance and disappointment. Jiyong manages to skid to a halt before he crashes into the still figure.
“So I failed the audition.” Seunghyun glowers and pushes him back a step. “What else do you want from me?”
Jiyong staggers backwards and glares as well. His breath comes out fast and erratic, visible pants in the cold air. “Dammit, so you’re going to give up after one try? The next auditions are in three months so you can always practice and try aga-”
“Hell no,” Seunghyun cuts in, stepping away again. “You can keep your silly fashion and half-assed hip-hop and fake glitter. I don’t want that kind of life, that kind of career.”
Jiyong’s jaw drops; the comforting, consoling words die in his throat and his gaze hardens. “Well then, Tempo, you can just go back to being the unnoticed fatty at those underground gigs you always loved, right?”
“I hope you and your ridiculous poppy shit are happy together.” With that, Seunghyun stalks away, footsteps heavy against the pavement.
Cursing under his breath, Jiyong trudges back to the building. He slams a fist against the fire extinguisher’s casing so hard that the glass shatters, broken pieces pinging onto the linoleum tile. The blood running down his split knuckles is painfully satisfying.
- -
In the long run, Seunghyun thinks, it was the right thing to do. He’s always tried to make choices based on what he really wants, and he has never wanted to be led by the ebb and flow of some greater tide.
Looking back, debuting on a major label would have capped his creative tendencies for years, and the audition had shown him what exactly he’d be getting himself into if he’d walked down the same path as one Kwon Jiyong, one Dong Youngbae. Or maybe hindsight is just 20/20 and he’s been giving himself a little too much credit.
He shrugs a blazer from Lanvin’s spring collection over his shoulders and checks himself in the mirror. Aviators tint the world in shades of dark gray and he smoothes the hem of his jacket out.
The text from Choiza reminds him not to be late for Inkigayo.
- -
“Yo, check it out!” Jiyong turns around curiously - Youngbae never shows this much interest in other artists that appear on the music shows. “There’s a third rapper on Dynamic Duo’s stage.”
He peers into the hazy smoke drifting around the stage. “Are you sure it isn’t just Drunken Tiger or Tablo or someone?”
“No, listen, he’s about to start.”
Something low and husky is coming through the blaring speakers and the fangirls are going crazy. The audience is a roiling sea of movement; a tingle runs up Jiyong’s spine and he squints through the rotating strobe lights to make out a tall, wiry shape.
“Who is that?”
Chaerin appears behind them, slinging her arms around their necks. “New member of the Movement, maybe?”
Distracted, Jiyong pushes at her side and grins. “Took you long enough to get here, we’re about to go up-”
“Yah, move out of the way!” They’re shunted off to the side as Dynamic Duo steps off to raucous cheers, the third performer shuffling after them. Youngbae bows to greet them as they pass, and Chaerin has to press down hard on the small of Jiyong’s back to get his attention.
“Sorry,” he mutters hurriedly, and he tries to see past the stage effects and bad lighting as he bows, eyes narrowing in concentration.
A smooth hey filters through the dull roar of background noise as Jiyong straightens up. I recognize that voice crosses his mind before the objects of his perusal are whisked away down the hall to the waiting rooms and then it’s Big Bang’s turn to take the stage.
- -
They perform Haru Haru today, and Jiyong lets the music swallow him whole, like a piece of peppermint candy, warm and hard underneath its tongue. They dance and he spits rhyme and Youngbae sings with his whole heart, his whole body. Chaerin harmonizes at a higher octave and they burn the stage together, bring the whole house down. He closes his eyes and that nameless something washes over him with a shiver, a sigh.
But then it ends, like it always does, with confetti streaming down in bright strips and the music inevitably fades until all that’s left is the screaming of fans and the label of just another idol group, their hard work categorized as the product of some pretty mayfly that will taper off into oblivion, out of style after a few more years.
Oh, he thinks. Oh, and it makes him a little sad every time he sees the optimistic bounce in Chaerin’s step and Youngbae’s slow, easy smile, because he knows no matter how hard they hold on, it’ll always be like trying to catch the fleeting wind.
Old conversations come to mind, some with Youngbae, some with the other company artists, conversations about music and dreams and soul. Conversations with Seungho, and a long, long time ago, with Seu-something clicks inside his head, and this time he voices it out loud. “Oh.”
Youngbae looks up from a bottle of vitamin water. “What’s up?”
Jiyong shakes his head and slumps back into the sofa, soft cushions pillowing around him as he covers his face with a hand. “I know who that rapper was, goddamn. No wonder he sounded familiar.”
Chaerin pauses in the pulling of pins out of her long hair. “And?”
“Seunghyun,” he breathes out. “Choi Seunghyun.” Youngbae’s eyebrows go up and Chaerin stands, hands on her hips.
“You should go visit him in the waiting room, Jiyong. I bet he’s still there.”
He shrugs in noncommittal apathy. “Why would I do that? We haven’t spoken in forever.”
She drags his arm over her shoulder and marches towards the door. “It’s a common courtesy, Jingyo, so-” She stops abruptly as the door opens on its own, her hand still circling the doorknob.
Seunghyun is there, looking self-conscious in a bright blazer and scratching the back of his head. He bows politely, Youngbae half standing and half sitting, Chaerin’s mouth open in a small ‘o’ of surprise.
“Can I borrow Jiyong for a few minutes?” he asks, and his voice comes out deeper than it was years ago and softer than it’d been an hour earlier.
And then Chaerin’s shoving him out the door; he trips over his own shoe, and by the time he turns around to swear at her, all he sees is smooth, paneled wood.
“I’ll keep it short since you seem uncomfortable,” Seunghyun begins, and Jiyong swivels on his feet, slouching against the cool cement of the wall.
“Tiger JK wanted me to talk to you because we… know each other. Sort of.” He’s scratching his neck again and Jiyong cracks a small smile.
“Just,” flustered, Seunghyun runs a hand through his hair. “Dammit. You’ve done really well.” The unspoken for an idol group is still heard. “He wants to offer you a spot in the Movement, wants to know if you’re interested.”
Jiyong freezes but his heart is beating a mile a minute, Seunghyun’s words and a million other things forming and breaking apart in his head like falling dominoes. The first thing that comes to mind is are you even allowed to do that?
“Say something,” Seunghyun prods, expression unreadable.
“I,” Jiyong starts. “I don’t-what about Big Bang? YG Entertainment?” His stomach twists as Seunghyun looks down. He swallows around the dry lump in his throat.
Seunghyun pulls his wallet out and flips to a small card, scribbles a few numbers on the back. “Meet me Tuesday night, dinner and drinks. We’ll talk about it again.” He hands him the card, and before Jiyong can say anything else, Seunghyun is gone, disappearing behind a group of backstage staff carrying props down the hall.
He enters the dressing room again and shuts the door behind him, slumping against the wood and looking up. Youngbae’s curious face hovers over his.
“So did you try jumping him yet?”
“What the fuck, Youngbae?” he replies angrily, latching onto his bandmate. “Just because you’re sexually frustrated doesn’t mean you have to live vicariously through me.”
Chaerin sidesteps around Jiyong’s flailing limbs and crosses her arms. “You trying to say I’m not doing anything for his sex life, oppa?” She laughs at his confounded look and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it, just write your music, do your thing.” Youngbae does a bit of fancy footwork and follows her out the exit.
He’s left alone, with only troubled thoughts for company.
- -
Tuesday comes too quickly, and he spends the days before brooding and avoiding Youngbae and Chaerin. They leave increasingly anxious texts and voicemail messages, which he ignores in favor of chewing his fingernails down to the skin and counting the wrinkles in Gaho’s skin until the sharpei sniffs into his hand, annoyed.
A half-written song forms itself on bits and pieces of crumpled notebook paper before he tosses it all into the wastebasket. There’s nothing wrong with the lyrics, or the part of the beat he’d scribbled down, but nothing in his head is making sense right now and a sort of lethargy is seeping down into his bones, a blanket of exhaustion wrapped around him.
It’s his own alarming passive-aggressive behavior that scares him into actually going to the bar (Big Electric Cat, he reads with an undignified snort) and keeping the appointment.
“Jiyong,” Seunghyun acknowledges, and there’s a relieved look in his eyes that make this all feel a little less like betrayal and a little more like dinner out with an old friend.
It starts out a bit awkward, but by the time they start ordering drinks Jiyong is regaling him with stories about Teddy and Kush and trying to talk about everything except what Seunghyun really came here for. He’s surprised that Seunghyun doesn’t just cut to the chase and whip out a bunch of papers for him to sign. They play a bunch of stupid drinking games and before he knows it, it’s almost two in the morning and they’re both drunk out of their minds.
“I’m fucking jealous, Seunghyun,” he slurs at one point, vision tunneling so that all he can see are the beads of water trailing down his glass of beer. “Not even gonna front.”
“Really?” is all Seunghyun has to say, and it makes him a little angry but he presses on. “Do you know how lucky you are?” He downs more gulps of alcohol and slams his cup on the table. “You get to do your own shit and produce and there’s no one to fucking hold you back.”
Seunghyun is nodding now, and he drinks directly from a bottle of 1982 Bordeaux vintage that he’d apparently brought with him. “Which is why,” he says, “you should leave your company and come join us. Tiger, Tiger JK thinks you’d do very well in the underground.”
Jiyong peers at him with blurry eyes, and all of a sudden he can feel himself teetering on the edge of the precipice, looking into a yawning gap with no light at the end of the tunnel.
“I can’t,” he says with a desperate finality, trying to fight down a fit of drunken giggles. “You know how much I want this, but I have to think about Chaerin and Youngbae and I can’t just leave them in the dust like that, you know I can’t. There are things called contracts, Seunghyun, and I can’t break them. It doesn’t matter what I want.” His eyes go even blurrier, and he rubs at them in agitation. “It’s always about what they want. What’s best for them.” He stands up, sits down, stands up again. “I have to go, I can’t stay here.”
He turns on his heel and prepares to leave, but Seunghyun grabs his wrist and spins him around and plants the sloppiest, most engaging kiss Jiyong has ever received on his half-open mouth. A slow burn spreads from every place that Seunghyun’s touching him, the light grasp on his arm and their legs tangled awkwardly.
After a few moments, Seunghyun pulls away, looking strangely satisfied. “I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he says, breaking the silence.
“I’m not gay,” Jiyong sputters, but their shared breath is sending heady rushes of euphoria down his spine and he has to start breathing through his nose to keep from shaking. “And I can’t accept the Movement’s offer, I’m sorry.”
“You know what they say,” Seunghyun breathes, and there’s still a thin string of saliva connecting their mouths together. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
- -
Somehow, Jiyong makes it back to the door before dawn, collapsing bonelessly onto the grimy couch in his living room and crashing until three in the afternoon, when the shrill sound of his cell phone finally manages to rouse him.
“What?” he growls into the receiver, voice husky from the hangover that’s splitting his head in half.
Youngbae’s voice is serious. “Come downstairs, right now. Chaerin’s apartment.”
Suddenly, he’s wide awake and scrambling to remember the previous night’s events. He pulls on a moth bitten hoodie and takes the stairs two at a time. Chaerin’s door is already open, and he barges in. She turns from her position standing next to the computer with Youngbae and pins him with a hurt, accusing expression.
It takes him three large steps to get to where they are; Jiyong shoves Youngbae out of the way and stares at the monitor, but the bright, bold words that jump out at him say nothing about “possibilities of a breach in contract” or “G-Dragon leaving YG Entertainment?” He scrolls down through the article, which speculates about his alleged relationship with the Movement’s T.O.P, and sighs in relief.
Youngbae gives him a weird look when he drops into the desk chair and leans back. “You’re relieved about a tabloid headline like this? I wasn’t aware you wanted to come out of the closet at all, let alone in such a flamboyant way.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you had a date with him?” Chaerin adds, smacking him lightly on the head. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Jiyong says, a smile plastered on his face. “Nothing.”
- -
There’s a feeling in the air tonight, and it’s raw and real and something he can’t describe in words (if he could, it’d be in one of his songs already). It’s that time of year again, Gayo Daejun season, and he can’t suppress the bubbling feeling of excitement rising up in his chest, much to Youngbae’s chagrin and Chaerin’s endless amusement.
SBS’s is first this year, and they stomp onstage with all the subtlety of wild horses. The hip-hop collab of all hip-hop collabs, they call it. He shares a grin with Mithra and watches as Chaerin and Tasha do some elaborate handshake that he’s never seen before. Youngbae leads them into the first song, voice soaring above the background music, and the next fifteen charged minutes are easily some of the best of his life.
This is what I have, he thinks, this is what I have chosen.
There are shining faces in the audience, hands in the air waving crown-clad glow sticks and screaming fanchants. He raps and shouts and jumps and screams, running around the stage and slapping at all those hands rising up wherever he goes. It won’t be all happy, fun times and it won’t be easy to let go in the end, but-
This is mine.
Seunghyun’s back is warm and firm against his.
fin
A/N: i don’t know… what this is? i know there are a whole shitload of problems with it and i'm not happy about that but i just wanted to get it out lol sigh. i tried so hard to fit gtop sexytiems into it but sdfgdfg it didn’t work out :'( and lol @ my half-assed attempt to stick ybcl into this, fml. anyway CNY is on the 14th, so as a filial family member i’ll be in beijing visiting my gparents from the 12th-17th :) yesss 红包 kekeke. idk if i’ll have internet access, so if i don’t, i’ll tty all soon :Db