[oneshot] but i alas with weary feet
Title: but i alas with weary feet
Pairing: jiyong-centric (gtop if you really squint)
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, gen
Warnings: swearing, an oblique reference to past suicide of a friend
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: home is where tom and laura are (i.e. stretched over the new queen-sized bed). i kind of played it fast and loose with the summer timeline, so apologies for any inconsistencies herein. 1,343 words.
The apartment Jiyong lives in now is six floors below Yang-goon's and a block and a half away from headquarters. It also happens to be unit number 300, so Seunghyun, snickering, christens it Sparta.
For various reasons, it ends up taking him months to finally finish unpacking everything. He has a ton of shit, for one, and after January he's too busy with planning meetings and variety shows and performances to think about the cardboard boxes gathering dust in his walk-in closet.
Things simmer down a little in May. All Jiyong wants to do is go into hibernation for a while and then rattle out a few new rhymes before he has to start thinking about solo promotions-but Youngbae comes over the week after their goodbye stage, takes one look at the unpacked boxes and the crappy standard issue curtains Jiyong still hasn't replaced and the dust bunnies rolling out from beneath the couch, and puts his foot down.
"You're the weirdest person I know," Youngbae remarks offhandedly. They're going through the fridge and dumping out all the expired food. Every once in a while, Gaho pads into the kitchen and watches them curiously. "You hate living in filth but don't seem to object when-"
"When there are more important things going on," Jiyong points out.
"Yes, but there aren't anymore."
"Why else do you think I agreed to this?" Jiyong retorts, grumpy. Youngbae rolls his eyes and sends him to throw out the trash.
The belated housewarming party is Teddy's idea, naturally. It seems like everyone who's still in Seoul stops by for buttery champagne and the japchae and kimchi jjigae Jiyong orders in. Even sajangnim makes a brief appearance to present him with some detergent to match the set of porcelain plates from Bom and the dish-drying mat from Jiyeon.
Paris at the end of June is the first time he's been in the city since visiting with Seungho in 2009. This only occurs to him as he's walking around after the Rick Owens show and sees the Jean Paul Gualtier shop two streets down from the Louvre, the one where Daul had gotten that tattoo top she'd loved so much-and it is not so much a punch in the gut as it is a sort of gradual deflation, a shrinking inside himself as the old wound rises to the surface.
His hotel room blasts freezing air through the vents no matter how much he fiddles with the dials. Toiletries come in lavender and pomegranate. The toothpaste is a stinging mint. He stays up late thumbing through old photos and texts on his phone, and then lies awake in bed, thoughts clunking around in his head like they're wearing combat boots. Harper's Bazaar makes quick work of the dark smudges beneath his eyes before the shoot, anyway, so it doesn't matter.
He comes back right when Seungri and Daesung are about to leave for Japan. Seunghyun disappears for long stints to film his movie, so downtime for a while when they aren't flying around for Alive is just Jiyong and Youngbae-staying in the studio pounding out beats with Teddy all night, waking up early to walk the dogs, and still trying to learn how to skateboard. Just like old times.
Seunghyun rematerializes the first week of August-apparently filming's on hold. Directorial issues. Youngbae's fed up with being in the empty dorm all by himself, and Seunghyun, in true form, doesn't want to have to commute an hour to and from headquarters every day just to be home. By some sort of unspoken agreement, Jiyong's apartment ("This is Sparta!" Seunghyun crows gleefully, because he's an idiot) becomes the place to crash, three twenty-somethings living together again for the first time in years.
Somewhere down the line Jiyong had forgotten how Seunghyun curls into himself on the couch at night, how he always takes his first cup of coffee in the morning black, and the groggy, content look on his face when he's gotten just the amount of sleep he thinks he deserves. And there are other things, like the crumbs gathered on the sofa from where he'd been inhaling chips, the rumpled blazer thrown over a chair in the living room, circles of dried condensation on every flat surface because for whatever reason, Seunghyun never bothers to use the coasters that are so readily available.
Jiyong grumbles and cleans up his messes. Seunghyun shrugs and smiles toothily at him. Just like old times.
They actually do watch 300 together, a couple of nights before he starts shooting One of a Kind and the rest of them have to trickle to Japan. Youngbae flinches through all the gratuitous violence and looks a little ill by the end of the film, his mouth pinched and unhappy.
"Leonidas was a fucking badass," Seunghyun announces with satisfied conviction as the credits come on. His pleased expression so offsets Youngbae's unamused one that Jiyong starts laughing, face pressed against the seat of the couch, feet braced against the coffee table.
Youngbae rolls his eyes, but his lips pull up just a tad. Seunghyun keeps extolling the virtues of Gerard Butler and Jiyong wrinkles his nose. "Really? Him?"
"What do you have against Gerard Butler?"
Jiyong thwacks him with a cushion. "Next time, we're watching Troy."
The day Youngbae leaves, they go to Seunghyun's place to drop the dogs off. Hyeyoon meets them at the door, keys swinging from her index finger.
"Thanks for this, noona," Jiyong says.
"My pleasure, as usual," she says, dimpling. "And anyway, it gives me an excuse to take advantage of the villa while this one's globetrotting."
Japan is Seungri and sushi and Kiko, a whirl of performances and talk shows and late night runs for junk food. One of a Kind drops while they're there and Jiyong obsessively checks stats on his phone until Seunghyun tugs it out of his hands, an exasperated, knowing look on his face.
Every time Jiyong releases something new it feels like he's just on the threshold. Of what, he isn't sure-he's twenty-five now, but there's always the feeling that he's still a rookie, just on the verge of breaking into something big. Here, the world is your oyster. Here, this is yours to take and shape and make your own. Constant reinvention and constant evolution: everything is new ground to tread. Never do anything twice. The apprehension never goes away-but maybe that's just artistry, and the idea of irrevocably handing a part of yourself over to be judged.
The five of them are all over the place these days, bouncing around Asia like ping-pong balls (to the immense delight of the pap). During the in-betweens when they aren't traveling, though, somehow Sparta does become home, in all the little ways a home is familiar and comfortable and entirely yours. The set of mugs from Jaewook start gathering chips and scratches, there's a stain in the carpet of the guest bedroom where Seunghyun spilled soy sauce, and the fridge door fills up with magnets and polaroids and stupid notes scribbled in the middle of the night that he can never seem remember the context for the next morning.
He can navigate the entire layout of the house even with his eyes still gummed over from the two hours of sleep he managed to catch last night, after shooting for Crayon finally wrapped. Closet: shove a beanie on, grab yesterday's jeans and threadbare shirt off the floor. Bathroom: try in vain to scrub the fake tattoos off, splash water in face, rinse and repeat. Kitchen: cram a stale bun from above the microwave into his mouth. He realizes later it's the first food he's had in at least thirty-six hours.
He naps against Seunghyun's shoulder all the way to Incheon and then again from Pudong International, Seunghyun's cheek pressing down on the crown of his head from above.
Seunghyun shakes him blearily awake in front of the venue. "Hey, you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," he croaks, and clears his throat, cracks a smile. "Of course." I have to be.
fin
A/N: title from one version of "the road goes ever on and on" by jrr tolkien for the lord of the rings.
also, here is a random scrap of kissing set some time during gd&top vol. 1 promotions:
One of the dressing room lights flickers a bit when they slam in from the hallway after the performance, Jiyong still hopped up on nerves and adrenaline, skin cooling as he tugs his studded jacket off. Seunghyun is somewhere behind him, idly shuffling paper around in front of the vanity. "Good job out there today," he murmurs, lifting his head, and Jiyong just laughs, closes the distance between them in two long strides and crushes their lips together, hands fisting in Seunghyun's suit jacket.
Seunghyun falls back against the table and Jiyong hears vials of makeup and nail polish tipping over into the mirror.
"Shit," he breathes feverishly into Jiyong's mouth. His fingers curl around Jiyong's hips so hard that they're definitely going to leave marks, but Jiyong doesn't care enough to stop himself from channeling all of his excess energy into pulling as many abrupt curses as he can out of Seunghyun with the severe slant of his body and the sharp scrape of his teeth.
Pairing: jiyong-centric (gtop if you really squint)
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, gen
Warnings: swearing, an oblique reference to past suicide of a friend
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: home is where tom and laura are (i.e. stretched over the new queen-sized bed). i kind of played it fast and loose with the summer timeline, so apologies for any inconsistencies herein. 1,343 words.
The apartment Jiyong lives in now is six floors below Yang-goon's and a block and a half away from headquarters. It also happens to be unit number 300, so Seunghyun, snickering, christens it Sparta.
For various reasons, it ends up taking him months to finally finish unpacking everything. He has a ton of shit, for one, and after January he's too busy with planning meetings and variety shows and performances to think about the cardboard boxes gathering dust in his walk-in closet.
Things simmer down a little in May. All Jiyong wants to do is go into hibernation for a while and then rattle out a few new rhymes before he has to start thinking about solo promotions-but Youngbae comes over the week after their goodbye stage, takes one look at the unpacked boxes and the crappy standard issue curtains Jiyong still hasn't replaced and the dust bunnies rolling out from beneath the couch, and puts his foot down.
"You're the weirdest person I know," Youngbae remarks offhandedly. They're going through the fridge and dumping out all the expired food. Every once in a while, Gaho pads into the kitchen and watches them curiously. "You hate living in filth but don't seem to object when-"
"When there are more important things going on," Jiyong points out.
"Yes, but there aren't anymore."
"Why else do you think I agreed to this?" Jiyong retorts, grumpy. Youngbae rolls his eyes and sends him to throw out the trash.
The belated housewarming party is Teddy's idea, naturally. It seems like everyone who's still in Seoul stops by for buttery champagne and the japchae and kimchi jjigae Jiyong orders in. Even sajangnim makes a brief appearance to present him with some detergent to match the set of porcelain plates from Bom and the dish-drying mat from Jiyeon.
Paris at the end of June is the first time he's been in the city since visiting with Seungho in 2009. This only occurs to him as he's walking around after the Rick Owens show and sees the Jean Paul Gualtier shop two streets down from the Louvre, the one where Daul had gotten that tattoo top she'd loved so much-and it is not so much a punch in the gut as it is a sort of gradual deflation, a shrinking inside himself as the old wound rises to the surface.
His hotel room blasts freezing air through the vents no matter how much he fiddles with the dials. Toiletries come in lavender and pomegranate. The toothpaste is a stinging mint. He stays up late thumbing through old photos and texts on his phone, and then lies awake in bed, thoughts clunking around in his head like they're wearing combat boots. Harper's Bazaar makes quick work of the dark smudges beneath his eyes before the shoot, anyway, so it doesn't matter.
He comes back right when Seungri and Daesung are about to leave for Japan. Seunghyun disappears for long stints to film his movie, so downtime for a while when they aren't flying around for Alive is just Jiyong and Youngbae-staying in the studio pounding out beats with Teddy all night, waking up early to walk the dogs, and still trying to learn how to skateboard. Just like old times.
Seunghyun rematerializes the first week of August-apparently filming's on hold. Directorial issues. Youngbae's fed up with being in the empty dorm all by himself, and Seunghyun, in true form, doesn't want to have to commute an hour to and from headquarters every day just to be home. By some sort of unspoken agreement, Jiyong's apartment ("This is Sparta!" Seunghyun crows gleefully, because he's an idiot) becomes the place to crash, three twenty-somethings living together again for the first time in years.
Somewhere down the line Jiyong had forgotten how Seunghyun curls into himself on the couch at night, how he always takes his first cup of coffee in the morning black, and the groggy, content look on his face when he's gotten just the amount of sleep he thinks he deserves. And there are other things, like the crumbs gathered on the sofa from where he'd been inhaling chips, the rumpled blazer thrown over a chair in the living room, circles of dried condensation on every flat surface because for whatever reason, Seunghyun never bothers to use the coasters that are so readily available.
Jiyong grumbles and cleans up his messes. Seunghyun shrugs and smiles toothily at him. Just like old times.
They actually do watch 300 together, a couple of nights before he starts shooting One of a Kind and the rest of them have to trickle to Japan. Youngbae flinches through all the gratuitous violence and looks a little ill by the end of the film, his mouth pinched and unhappy.
"Leonidas was a fucking badass," Seunghyun announces with satisfied conviction as the credits come on. His pleased expression so offsets Youngbae's unamused one that Jiyong starts laughing, face pressed against the seat of the couch, feet braced against the coffee table.
Youngbae rolls his eyes, but his lips pull up just a tad. Seunghyun keeps extolling the virtues of Gerard Butler and Jiyong wrinkles his nose. "Really? Him?"
"What do you have against Gerard Butler?"
Jiyong thwacks him with a cushion. "Next time, we're watching Troy."
The day Youngbae leaves, they go to Seunghyun's place to drop the dogs off. Hyeyoon meets them at the door, keys swinging from her index finger.
"Thanks for this, noona," Jiyong says.
"My pleasure, as usual," she says, dimpling. "And anyway, it gives me an excuse to take advantage of the villa while this one's globetrotting."
Japan is Seungri and sushi and Kiko, a whirl of performances and talk shows and late night runs for junk food. One of a Kind drops while they're there and Jiyong obsessively checks stats on his phone until Seunghyun tugs it out of his hands, an exasperated, knowing look on his face.
Every time Jiyong releases something new it feels like he's just on the threshold. Of what, he isn't sure-he's twenty-five now, but there's always the feeling that he's still a rookie, just on the verge of breaking into something big. Here, the world is your oyster. Here, this is yours to take and shape and make your own. Constant reinvention and constant evolution: everything is new ground to tread. Never do anything twice. The apprehension never goes away-but maybe that's just artistry, and the idea of irrevocably handing a part of yourself over to be judged.
The five of them are all over the place these days, bouncing around Asia like ping-pong balls (to the immense delight of the pap). During the in-betweens when they aren't traveling, though, somehow Sparta does become home, in all the little ways a home is familiar and comfortable and entirely yours. The set of mugs from Jaewook start gathering chips and scratches, there's a stain in the carpet of the guest bedroom where Seunghyun spilled soy sauce, and the fridge door fills up with magnets and polaroids and stupid notes scribbled in the middle of the night that he can never seem remember the context for the next morning.
He can navigate the entire layout of the house even with his eyes still gummed over from the two hours of sleep he managed to catch last night, after shooting for Crayon finally wrapped. Closet: shove a beanie on, grab yesterday's jeans and threadbare shirt off the floor. Bathroom: try in vain to scrub the fake tattoos off, splash water in face, rinse and repeat. Kitchen: cram a stale bun from above the microwave into his mouth. He realizes later it's the first food he's had in at least thirty-six hours.
He naps against Seunghyun's shoulder all the way to Incheon and then again from Pudong International, Seunghyun's cheek pressing down on the crown of his head from above.
Seunghyun shakes him blearily awake in front of the venue. "Hey, you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," he croaks, and clears his throat, cracks a smile. "Of course." I have to be.
fin
A/N: title from one version of "the road goes ever on and on" by jrr tolkien for the lord of the rings.
also, here is a random scrap of kissing set some time during gd&top vol. 1 promotions:
One of the dressing room lights flickers a bit when they slam in from the hallway after the performance, Jiyong still hopped up on nerves and adrenaline, skin cooling as he tugs his studded jacket off. Seunghyun is somewhere behind him, idly shuffling paper around in front of the vanity. "Good job out there today," he murmurs, lifting his head, and Jiyong just laughs, closes the distance between them in two long strides and crushes their lips together, hands fisting in Seunghyun's suit jacket.
Seunghyun falls back against the table and Jiyong hears vials of makeup and nail polish tipping over into the mirror.
"Shit," he breathes feverishly into Jiyong's mouth. His fingers curl around Jiyong's hips so hard that they're definitely going to leave marks, but Jiyong doesn't care enough to stop himself from channeling all of his excess energy into pulling as many abrupt curses as he can out of Seunghyun with the severe slant of his body and the sharp scrape of his teeth.