Daesung was many, many things. Cowardly was not one of them. 

Seunghyun had decided to take a year off from his music, try to write some of his own tracks, maybe, but mostly wind down and get himself reacquainted with the idea of being a musical creator rather than simply an audience. Seungri, with Yongbae and Daesung's help, had finished his album and was working on his press for it. Daesung, however, has spent all the time she had planned for her own album working with Jiyong or Seungri, sometimes even just singing to Yongbae's piano because they had the studio and they could. Or they were dancing together, backups in Jiyong's mini album videos or working choreography for Seungri, even though he didn't particularly dance much.

Now, with all this new time for herself and her apartment too empty for her liking, Daesung had taken up Jiyong's place as a permanent resident of Bigbang's recording studio in the YG building. The oldest and youngest members had found her more than once slumped over the soundboard, tucked into a crevasse in the sound booth or at odd angles over her drums. They wouldn't have minded caring for her like this if there had been any evidence of progress. More often than not, they cleaned up Jiyong when he was like this, lost in a creative daze he didn't come out of for months. But he left half-mixed tracks and incomplete or disgarded songs laying all around the studio, waste baskets piled with disgarded papers, crumpled together with messy hangul strewn about the white surface. Daesung left nothing like that, not even recordings of whatever she had going on in her head were left in the machines. 

"Do you think she's lost it?" Seungri asked one evening as he helped Seunghyun adjust Daesung into a comfortable position on the studio's couch. 

"I don't know." The elder replied, brows furrowed in worry. 

"I don't think its good for her health." Seungri added, brushing some hair away from . She had braided it earlier, probably to keep it out of her face, but it had long since come out. "I almost want to stop her."

"No."

The maknae raised a sarcastic eyebrow at the elder. "Aaaand why not?"

His brows furrowed harder. "I don't know what's she's doing or what she's planning, but something's there and if we interrupt it, it's only going to gnaw at her harder. Remember the last time we tried to restrain Jiyong?"

"Yeah, but that's Ji. That's just how he operates. Daesung isn't like this."

"Maybe not." Seunghyun smiled a little, the smudged permanent marker on Daesung's wrist peeking out at him from under her jacket sleeve. "But D-Lite might be a different story."

"What the hell does that mean?" Seungri barked before he followed his hyung's eyes. He knelt and pulled the sleeve completely away before his eyes widened, Daesung huffing softly in her exhaustion-induced coma. "Ooooh."

It was two months of basic before Yongbae got assigned his unit and was pleasantly surprised to see Jiyong there. His skin was darker, his hair it's natural black even close shaven and he looked a little crazier, if better rested. Maybe military sleep schedules would actually do their crazy dragon some good. 

"Yongbae! What a day this is!" The older man laughed, throwing his arms around him. "So good to see you!"

Yongbae hugged him back, smiling. "Good to see you too, Ji."

It didn't take his leader too long to notice the sterling silver ring dangling next to his dog tags. "And that is?"

Yongbae the metal fondly. "My promise ring to Daesung."

Jiyong punched him in the arm, the fondness he felt for the elder only slightly subduing the sting of the strike. "Right on! You actually put a ring on that!"

Yongbae flushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Kinda the other way around, actually."

"You made her put a ring on you? Man . . . " He whistled, then laughed. "Well, there's one way of getting her to admit her feelings."

Yongbae shrugged. "I'm the one who has to ask her to marry me."

Jiyong laughed. "I hope so." He smiled, but then blinked. " . . . Are you planning to ask her to marry you once you're out of here?"

Yongbae smiled softly at the ring. "Yeah."

"Oh , you're serious." Jiyong's shock almost bordered on horrified and Yongbae didn't know whether to be offended or not. "Does she have any idea?"

"I was planning to surprise her with it, so no."

"Well, I suppose of there's ever a test to see if she's willing to marry you, waiting for two years certainly is it."

Yongbae didn't quite know how to take that, considering the radio silence he'd recieved from Daesung since he'd left. 

Seunghyun and Seungri entered the studio with food only to find no one. The place was clean, with the lights off and everything put away, the soundboard reset. 

"Daesung?" Seunghyun called, flicking the lights on. "Daesung, are you here?"

"You just missed her."

Spinning around, the two men saw Sandara Park standing in the doorway.

"Do you know where she went?" Seungri asked. 

"Said she was going to see a designer. I think she's working on concept outfits for her album."

"I told you she was doing work." Seunghyun muttered.

"How the hell was I supposed to tell?"

Sandara shook her head. "You're both stupid. You're the only bandmates in all of existence that could show up at the only times when she's not working."

"How does it feel?"

Yongbae looked over at the man beside his bunk. "What do you mean?"

"I heard you talking to Corporal Kwon. You got a girl back home?"

He smiled softly to himself, the ring once more. "Yeah, I do."

"What's her name?"

"Daesung. Kang Daesung."

"Odd name for a girl."

"A little." Yongbae admitted, rolling onto his side to better face his companion. "Daesung is very different from most girls. Almost the exact opposite of what I thought my ideal type was."

"Really? How did you fall for her, then?"

"I don't know, really. We've been in the same group so long it's a miracle I recognized her for what she is at all."

"Oh, are you an idol?"

"Taeyang."

"Oh! From Bigbang? Like Corporal Kwon?"

"Yeah."

"And Daesung . . . You mean D-Lite?"

"Exactly the girl."

"I could see how she wouldn't be your ideal type. Too muscly for me. I prefer a more petite girl, myself. Like Minzy from 2NE1."

For the next month, no one could find Daesung. Not the 2NE1 girls, who she had become better friends with since Jiyong left and she got the studio to herself, nor her other bandmates. According to a Skype session with Jiyong and Yongbae, she hadn't called them either. 

"Dammit, where did she go?" Seungri hissed, gripping the wheel angrily. 

"I'm worried about her too, but we shouldn't chase her down like this." Seunghyun said from the passenger seat.

"She's scaring me and I can't take it anymore." He parked the car in the most aggressive manner Seunghyun had ever seen and marched himself up to Daesung's apartment. Opening it with the spare key Seunghyun had been given, he was greeted to a silent, dark apartment. Flicking on the lights, the layer of dust hit them. She hadn't been here in a while. "Where the hell did she go?!"

There was a small knock on the doorframe and the two stars looked back at a young girl. "Do you mean Daesunggie?"

"Yes. Do you know where she went?" Seunghyun replied before Seungri's foul mouth could get the better of him. 

"She said she was going to Japan for a week, then to the America."

"You mean the United States?" Seunghyun asked, kneeling to her level.

"I guess." The girl shrugged. "She gave me her plants and asked me to water them for her until she came back. Once she comes back, she's bringing me to the dance studio to teach me Taeyang's dances, since he's not here anymore."

"Do you live in this building?"

The girl nodded. "Down the hall, with my grandparents. Mom and Dad both have to travel a lot to work, so they leave me here until they come back to Korea. Granny didn't really like me hanging out with Daesung and Taeyang because she said they were 'dirty', but she likes them now because of how nice they are to me. I hope Taeyang comes back soon - I've memorized the songs he gave me to learn on the piano."

"Oh my God, they've already adopted a child." Seungri burst out, disappearing deeper into the vacant apartment to have his own meltdown.

"What's got you down?" Jiyong plopped down beside him, casting him a raised eyebrow. "You're always quiet, but not like this."

Yongbae frowned as he his promise ring. "I haven't heard from Daesung."

"She's probably working. She was planning on an album before I left, so I'm not surprised that she would be lost in it now."

"Seungri and Seunghyun said she's not even in Korea anymore and she's not answering her phone. They don't even know what country she's in."

Jiyong frowned at him. "What's your real issue here? Do you not trust her anymore . . . ?"

Yongbae shrugged. "I really, really want to say she'd never do that to me, that we love each other more than that, and my heart agrees with that, but my mind just won't let the worry be."

Jiyong nodded slowly. "I can understand that. It's difficult, way more to do than to say, but try to listen more to your heart. It knows Daesung better than your mind ever can. After all, that's what she gave herself to, isn't it?"

That July, when Yongbae and Jiyong returned from drill, there were several packages on Yongbae's bed and a small letter. 

Dear Yongbae,

I'm sorry I haven't called you or spoken to really anybody, but I've been really busy these last months. You don't have to worry about me, I promise. I hope your time in the miltary is going well. If you see Jiyong, tell him hi for me, okay? And, if you Skype with Seunghyun and Seungri, tell them to stop calling me. I swear I'm okay, I just don't have time right now. I hope you like what I've given you, though. :)

Yours, 

Daesunggie

Gently, he put the note under his pillow and moved to the packages. The first one he opened was a cardboard tube. It was obviously a poster, but he hadn't been expecting to see Daesung on it. 

"Ji, come help me."

The two men rolled the poster flat on the ground, the other man in the barracks coming to take a look. 

Daesung was the centre of the poster against the backdrop of the sea. She was soaked, the rich auburn cherrywood of her hair only shining because of the sunset. Her lips were an icy pale pink, her eyes rimmed in dark black and flared around the edges. She had on black ripped jeans, a black band and a black denim jacket with was caught around her arms. On the right thigh of her jeans, near the top, was white writing that read D-Lite. She was knee-deep in the surf, water sliding down her rippling abs and caressing brawny arms. A long, soaked tendril of hair fell down her face, glancing off her nose and falling to the left. She was looking straight at the camera, posed like she was walking out of the sea rather than into it. Shimmering with pre-dusk fire, she wore her promise ring, her other hand tangled around his thick golden chain. Across the bottom of the poster there was only one word. 

T A E Y A N G

"And what did I tell you?" Jiyong said smugly from beside him, elbowing him. "Huh?"

"That your girl, Yongbae?" One of the other soldiers asked.

"Yeah." He answered breathlessly, grinning like an idiot down at the poster. She had sent him this. Purposefully. Knowing where he was, what he was facing. And his stage name . . . 

"Open the next one." Jiyong prompted and another package into his hands. 

This one was small, but he opened it anyway only to see a CD. The cover was another picture from whatever shoot Daesung had been doing in the poster, but she was laying down in the sand this time, hair still plastered to her, on a partial angle to show off her name on her pants. And along the bottom, in the same white font as before:

T A E Y A N G 

He would definitely listen to it later, shoving it under his pillow to rest with the letter. The next package was a collection of photographs, large enough to pick out details, but small enough not to be a bother, like the poster. Most of them were of the beach scene, her in various positions at various times of day, sometimes wetter than others but mostly soaked. In one, she was more in the surf than the sand, facing the camera with a smouldering, half-lidded gaze as she was arching ally into the sky, mouth parted just enough to see blackness. It was in that picture that he figured out that there was a name on the other thigh too, embroidered in dark grey and in the crease where hip met thigh: SOL.

The next package was larger, another cardboard box. Opening it, he was let with a copy of the jacket Daesung was wearing in the shoot. Across the back, embroidered in white, was D-Lite  T A E Y A N G  Tour.

He could have cried. Her whole concept was him.

"Convinced she loves you yet?" Jiyong whispered, leaning over his shoulder to look at the jacket. 

He pursed his lips, but he was smiling stupidly, nodding rapidly, trying to keep back the tears. Jiyong patted him and gave him another package.

"Man, you sure mean a lot to her, don't you?"

"I can't believe you're dating D-Lite. I love her stuff."

"I didn't know D-Lite could look so good."

"At least have the courtesy to make these comment when her boyfriend isn't standing right here." Jiyong sniped. "She's wearing her promise ring in the photos and everything."

Yongbae wasn't listening. Inside the package was a rosary, hand carved out of turquoise and strung up on a leather and beadwork necklace. Daesung left him another note inside the box. 

Dear Yongbae,

I've been in Canada doing my photoshoot for the new album. Did you like the pictures? They were done in Lake Erie, near Port Dover. I've been learning English here as well as working on the recording of my album, since Seungri, Seunghyun and 2NE1 won't leave me alone in the YG building. My tutor from Hamilton took me down to a native reservation, where I found this rosary. The craftsman used to live up in the Canadian Shield, where there are large deposits of these gems. I can't pray with you while we're away from each other, but this way I can be with you in spirit when you pray. I hope you like it.

Yours, 

Daesung

Yongbae wiped his eyes, pressing the rosary to his heart. Jiyong's heart melted at the sight. 

"There's two more packages." He said gently.

"Yeah." Yongbae wiped at his eyes once more, shakily laying the rosary back in the small ash box it came from. "Next one?"

The next package was more pictures, this time promotional posters and cover art for the songs she would be launching as singles, of which there were four. The obvious one was Taeyang, where she was sitting on top of a building, looking out over what was probably a lake but looked like an ocean, the sunrise setting her hair on fire, the wind making it flare around her. Her eyes were closed and she looked like she was taken away in the rush of the sea, her legs folded off to the side. Her band for this one was solid black, his stage name emblazoned in white across it. 

The next was Dragon. She was wearing an orange band this time, the characters in hot pink. She was being dragged back to a wall on a fourty five degree angle to the camera by two faceless men, a third waiting behind her, ready with a thick steel collar attached to a chain embedded in the wall. She was straining against them, fighting to escape their grasp. Along the outside of the image there were hints of sand, the filthy concrete wet as if lapped by waves. 

After that was First To Go. Her band was bright cyan, the word a deep indigo. She was underwater, one arm reaching up, body facing the camera, but face sideways. Arms from below, unclear and unspecific, were dragging her back down forcefully enough that her hair was waving above her, blocking out her eyes. 

The last one was called Last To Leave. She lost the jacket for this one, sitting behind her in a damp mess. Sitting on a dock, facing the camera, but with her head tilted down, hair thrown over her shoulders. Her band was white with grey lettering. Beside her were three sets of army boots - the set closest to her were relatively simple red and black plaid with gold soles and laces, the inside a simple, warm cream. The pair next to that were a kaleidescope of colours, inside and out, with elaborate golden chains hanging off them. The farthest pair were an elegant, polished black, clean-cut white soles and laces, but were splashed with pastel purples, pinks, greens, yellows and oranges inside. Her legs were dangling off the edge of the dock and she looked forlorn, like she'd lost something to the depth of the sea that she wasn't going to get back. Her own boots were a storm-cloud grey, laces and soles a simple, matte black.

"She made singles about us." Jiyong whispered in awe, gently thumbing over his own. "We're her muses . . . "

"You guys really think she's hot?" One of the soldiers asked, peering disinterestedly at the poster.

"Isn't she?" Yongbae's bunkmate questioned back. 

"Not really. She looks like a guy."

"How so?"

"She's so muscular."

"So?"

"No one else finds it a little gross?"

"If you're going to speak ill of my girlfriend, could you keep it to yourself?" Yongbae shot across the room, silencing it. The set the pictures down and took the last package.

Inside was a hardcover handheld photoalbum, the front cover done after a picture frame. The cover photo was a printout of the Bigbang logo, their names, stage names and signatures written on it. The first photo was a group shot of their debut, followed with shots from their music videos and some memorable backstage incidents as well as personal ones. It followed through their whole career, then came four pictures of Seunghyun - just before enlistment, year one, year two, and just after enlistment. Next was Jiyong - just before enlistment, a picture he'd sent them of his first year and two blank. After that was a picture either Seunghyun or Seungri must have taken of the kiss Daesung gave him two nights before he left while they were half-drunk in a dance club. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, eyes closed and completely lost in him. He looked just as distant, holding her to him like she might disappear any other way, like she was the only person in this world worth noticing. Just the sight of that passion made his heart ache, his chest tighten with longing, but some twisting nervous jealousy deep in his soul disappear. 

Daesung was his, just as enamoured and enthralled with him as he was with her. She had gone to extraordinary lengths to prove to him that she was waiting for him, was willing to let herself be claimed by him, sure in her own love that he wouldn't start looking around for someone else just because she wasn't there. He smiled serenely at the image, over the plastic slot it was held in.

"Private Dong's whipped!" One of the soldiers annouced, startling him. "He's totally whipped!"

Jiyong grinned at him as he rolled his eyes, flipping the page once more.

Hey boys!

I'm not going to see you for a while yet, so I want you to fill it up for me! I wanna see it, too, when you come home!

Your Daesunggie~<3

"She's too sweet for her own good." Yongbae chuckled, passing the album to Jiyong, who snorted particularly loudly.

"Such an angel. It's actually kinda gross." He passed it back, then knelt in front of the poster. "We have to tell her how good she is in this picture, though. Total ten. Would bang."

"Ji." Yongbae scolded. 

"C'mon, she's like a little sister. You know I would never do that to a brother."

Yongbae sat back down on his bunk, rosary in one hand and unused photo proofs in the other. 

"Where is she?!" Seungri yelled, viciously dusting Daesung's tv while Seunghyun polished her coffee table.

"She already contacted Yongbae and Jiyong. You know she's in Canada. Let her do her thing. It's obviously working."

"But would it really be so hard for her to give us a phone call?! A text?! It's just inconsiderate, is all."

"How did you get in my apartment?"

They both looked up, Daesung standing in her doorway, before the maknae tackled her.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!"