Seunghyun has always been a constant in Jiyong’s life. 

Years ago, when TOP was still supposed to be Mark and Big Bang had yet to shoot all of them into stardom, Jiyong asked Seunghyun if he believed in soulmates.

“No? Come on, you know that’s just crap. No one’s ever magically fated to be with another person. That kinda stuff only happens in Disney movies.”

Jiyong frowned, and thought about rapping in middle school; thought about moving away; thought about phone calls and recorded demos; thought about failed auditions and lost weight; thought about where they were now. 

He thought he disagreed.

——

Jiyong remembers confessing to Seunghyun, back when they still wore baggy jeans and hoodies and still dreamt of being different, of setting themselves apart from all the other ty generic idol groups.

(They stopped dreaming after a while. Big Bang was different, alright, but they still wore coordinated outfits and danced on stage, so what the , anyway.)

As a kid, he’d spent hours on end planning the perfect love confession - a dozen blood red roses, complete with a handwritten note that would be received with a vivid blush and a kiss on the cheek. Or maybe the lips. He’d never been able to decide if he’d prefer a sweet or passionate start. (Not that it’d mattered in the end, anyway.)

As a 20-year-old, this is how his epic reveal actually turned out. Sitting on Seunghyun’s bed, the artificial scent of something vaguely floral in the air, Jiyong turned to Seunghyun as they listened to foreign underground rap music and told him, “I like you, Hyung. I want to be your boyfriend.”

The track whirred to a halt. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?” Came Seunghyun’s reply in the five-second interval they had before the next song played.

So much for dramatic confessions.

“I said,” Jiyong huffed, “I like you. Be my boyfriend.”

Seunghyun blinked.

The next song began.

(One month later, sitting in the back of some company van, Seunghyun looked at Jiyong. “Oh yeah, I never answered you. Well here it is, so listen up. Alright.”

“Alright?”

“You never listen when I talk, . I said, fine. I’ll be your boyfriend, or whatever.”

“What? Wasn’t that, like, 2 months ago? How long have you been thinking about it?”

Seunghyun’s tone was defensive as he replied, “Since you brought it up? Come on, isn’t true love worth waiting for?”

Jiyong buried his face in the crook of Seunghyun’s shoulder to tamp down the radiance of his grin. “Yeah, it is. I guess it is.”)

——

Seunghyun is a thousand suns and a million moons. He is the weather; sudden, turbulent, unpredictable. He is the tide; pushing out and drawing in.

Jiyong wants to love him the way one might love something wild and dying - with a buffer, so that if he’s burnt, at least his heart still beats.

But he can’t, so Jiyong loves Seunghyun like he loves music; freely, entirely, wholeheartedly. His sun rises with Seunghyun’s smile and sets with his tears. His world shifts with Seunghyun’s mood.

Jiyong’s never been able to hold himself back whenever he’s in love. He’s always had to veer a little too close for comfort, straddle the line between obsessive and devoted. 

He plays with fire, and he has the burns as proof.

——

They break up on a Wednesday.

They always break up on Wednesdays; gloomy, rainy days where Seunghyun refuses to come out of bed if not physically manhandled into the living room. Days where the only way to drag any semblance of emotion out of Seunghyun is to shock him into action.

After the first few times, even that didn’t work anymore.

——

Jiyong remembers proposing - not marriage, but the idea of it.

He’d always pictured himself as a white picket fence, beautiful wife and two kids kind of guy. If his love confession was big, his proposal had to be infinitely grander in comparison. A thousand roses, maybe. Or a ring, adorned with so many diamonds it glowed with an intensity that couldn’t be rivalled by the fiercest suns.

At age twenty-seven, in a needlessly lavish hotel room with Seunghyun by his side, Jiyong proposed.

“Do you think we’ll ever get married?”

“What, the two of us? You know that isn’t legal, right?”

“Answer the question! Or, you know, we could at least come out, or something.”

“Jiyong,” Seunghyun went, slowly like he was speaking to a child, “this has been your dream since we were kids. Would you really ruin your entire career for one person?”

The flames flared up right in front of Jiyong’s face.

“Yeah, you’re right. It was just a rhetorical question anyway, just a bit of fun.” Seunghyun raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously, Hyung. Sometimes I just ask stupid questions. Whatever, I have fashion week stuff to attend. I’ll catch you later.”

(Jiyong booked another hotel when he left; somewhere far away from Seunghyun where he couldn’t see him even if he tried.

They broke up after that, if you count completely ignoring one another’s existence breaking up.

Jiyong realises belatedly, weeks later back in Korea, that it was a Wednesday.)

——

Jiyong and Seunghyun have always a bad habit of breaking up one day and waking up in the same bed the next.

Not that time, though. Not in Paris, because Jiyong made sure he was a hundred, a thousand, a million miles away from Seunghyun, far away enough that he couldn’t get drunk and stumble back into Seunghyun’s arms, into this mutually destructive routine that they’d developed over the years.

(That night, he stayed up late with a bottle of wine, just in case Seunghyun knocked on his door.

He didn’t.)

In his dreams, Seunghyun came up from behind and whispered promises of a life together in his ear.

He woke up alone on cold sheets, with the Eiffel Tower watching mutedly from a distance.

——

Jiyong still loves Seunghyun, still feels the same fondness that he’s come to associate with all things Seunghyun.

Only now, he feels from a distance, like he is merely a bystander observing a tale of unrequited love. Cyrano and Roxane; Marius and Eponine; all hidden behind a heavy, oppressive shroud of hurt and anger.

But then again, it’s not like Seunghyun and him ever see each other anymore.

Jiyong loves Seunghyun the way you love something you can never have. Carefully, wistfully, longingly.

Seunghyun doesn’t love Jiyong. Maybe he did, a long, long time ago; and maybe his head was once filled with visions of rings and roses and vows; but he’s never loved Jiyong in the same way Jiyong loves him; and he’ll never see the stars in Jiyong’s eyes like Jiyong always has with him.

And Jiyong’s learnt that that’s okay.

They’ll be okay.

——

They say that most of the stars you see in the sky are already dead, or beginning to die. 

Jiyong’s always thought this to be man’s fatal flaw; that we are born dying, and can only find beauty in the things that we relate with.

Jiyong loves Seunghyun. Always has; always will.

And Seunghyun has always been a constant in Jiyong’s life.