Jiyong stares down into the murky water restlessly lapping below his feet. The tips of his leather shoes poke out over the concrete edge. His gold chains are heavy around his neck and bracelets tight around his wrists. They’re shackles more than jewellery, really.

He peers at his own reflection and vacant eyes stare back. The water below swirls, twisting the image, but he can still see the emptiness that haunts him.

Jiyong knows to jump is to be stupid, so he doesn’t waste his time.

(Plus, the whole world would be hurled into a frenzy if G-Dragon launches himself into the river, and he’s considerate enough to spare the public of that turmoil.)

Instead, he turns his body and walks right on the edge, which cuts a straight line down the middle of his soles’ length. His feet half step on the concrete, half hover over the water. Heel to toe, heel to toe. Rather than having his arms out for balance, his hands are clasped loosely behind his back. Because why make life easier when you can always make it riskier?

It makes him feel better, just a teensy little bit, to have that small chance of losing his balance and falling in loom over him like a rain cloud.

One needs to be on the brink to feel alive. Life is all about taking risks after all.

***

Living his life as an idol adored by the world with fans who scream his name until it’s become like his constant background music, international hotshots who respect him and his work, and enough dough to buy out as many Chanel stores as his heart desires, one would think Kwon Jiyong is not familiar with the word empty.

But the truth is, he's not just acquainted with empty. Empty is so much his soulmate that when he looks at himself, he doesn't know what's empty and what's Jiyong. Because to him, emptiness and Jiyong are both one and the same, like they define each other.

When he returns home after a long day of pleasing fans, the emptiness strikes him, hard, like a blow to the chest that leaves him winded. Peel away the grandeur and bling and oozing charisma of G-Dragon and you’re left with just Kwon Jiyong. Small, and maybe not so great.

The silence roars in his ears and crawls under his skin. How can emptiness, the absence of something, be so substantial that it crushes the walls of his chest and smothers his heart?

So he drinks and drowns, and drinks and drowns in the alcohol, and the combustion of his insides helps numb the pain in his heart. Just a little.

So he shuts the windows and lights a cigarette, and another, and another, until the whole house becomes as grey and corrupted with smoke as his lungs are. It makes the place feel a little less empty. Or maybe it’s just a distraction, to purposely blindfold himself from seeing the truth that he’s all alone.

***

But then there's the maknae.

He’s always loved Seungri, but in what way and to what extent, he’s never allowed himself to think that far. Seungri shines so bright in his eyes, and precious things should be let free, right? He doesn’t want to taint that. Doesn’t want to corrode a shimmering jewel with his grubby hands, doesn’t want to pollute an unspoilt landscape with his contaminated breath.

But sometimes it can be so hard to hold back, to banish these bubbling feelings away to the shadowed depths of his hollow heart.

***

10 years. 10 years of living the dream job he’s always aspired for since he was a kid. He should be celebrating. Throw a party, shower in some confetti, dance like there’s no tomorrow.

But instead he wonders when this will all end. When he will stop having to check behind his back for the eyes and cameras pointed at him, stop having to scroll through news articles online dreading seeing the words G-Dragon and scandal, stop having to think twice, thrice, in case he makes a single blunder that can send everything tumbling down in one fell swoop.

Privacy is only an illusion that he had soon learnt to stop believing in.

He lives in a glass box with everyone observing, scrutinising from outside. Every time he sees his fans, his paranoia whispers to him of the daggers behind their backs. And sometimes he believes it. He feels like a filthy fugitive even with a clean criminal record. Always on the run. Run, Jiyong, run. Run away from all your problems. Run away from this world.

But he simply collides into a wall. He can’t just become un-famous. It doesn’t work that way.

***

“Hyung, you seem down.”

“Hm? I’m not.” There’s nothing wrong with Jiyong, really.

“What’s wrong? You know you can always tell me.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

How is Jiyong supposed to tell Seungri that he loathes his perfect life? That he feels loveless even with millions who worship the ground he walks on? That he feels deprived even with so many digits in his bank account? That he feels maddeningly bored even with the most hectic of schedules? That he feels so ugly, so foul even when most would beg to differ?

“Seriously, what’s wrong?”

Jiyong would like to know too.

***

Music is his friend. No, his lover. He spills his feelings and whispers his secrets to music. And music wraps its soothing arms around his heart and consoles. But music is also his enemy. It strips him down to his raw self and exposes every single one of his cracks that he’s carelessly tried to fill in and the irreparable rips that frayed threads struggle to hold together.

Music is the oxygen in his lungs. He inhales melodies and exhales lyrics. Music is something that’s always there, wherever he goes. It’s a part of him, without it he can’t live. But music drowns him, suffocates him with the twisted melodies that scream in his head, the overflowing chaos of shredded and crumpled papers and the inky words scribbled out to never see the light of day again. They push him into the dark depths where the pressure is so high that he ought to implode.

It’s not music’s fault, really. He just needs a scapegoat because he’s so sick of shouldering this crushing blame he puts on himself.

***

"Hyung.” Seungri is soft to him, eyes emanating warmth. “Good morning.”

“Mmm.” Jiyong hums in response, but then decides to look up and add, “You too.”

Seungri smiles, a strand of hair falling into his eyes, and Jiyong can’t stop his hand from reaching out to brush it back.

Jiyong, you have no self-control.

Seungri always seems to have a small secret smile reserved just for Jiyong, sitting space next to him reserved just for Jiyong, extra food reserved just for Jiyong, whispered words of warmth reserved just for Jiyong.

It makes Jiyong want to clutch Seungri close to his chest and never let go. But he doesn’t feel he has the right to.

Jiyong, you have no self-control.

***

Sometimes he feels too many emotions.

Sometimes he feels none.

***

"Eat.”

“Not hungry.”

“Eat anyway.”

“Busy.”

“I don’t care. Eat.”

“Seu‒” Jiyong half-chokes on the word when a spoon is shoved into his mouth.

His pride won’t quite let him admit that Seungri is right. But the growling of his stomach speaks for itself. So he silently chews and swallows while continuing to work.

In his periphery, he vaguely makes out the upwards curl of Seungri’s lips.

***

Jiyong curses the stars. He used to gaze at them with utmost fascination, these twinkling gems scattered over a black vastness. But now when he looks at them, breeze wrapping around his ankles on his balcony, he feels bored.

The air outside isn’t heavy with cigarette smoke, but it’s so crisp that his tattered lungs flap feebly with each breath. Fragile.

Everything is grainy, like the night sky is an old, poor-quality film. The stars almost look like some technical glitch in the scene. They look stifled under all the light pollution from the city. Faded. Dull. Dead.

He steps back into the room and slides the glass door shut. His gaze momentarily flickers to his own eyes in the reflection of the glass and he wonders when he had started becoming not so much different from these stars.

***

Jiyong removes his sunglasses momentarily, just to wipe a smudge off of them, and slides them quickly back up the bridge of his nose. He hopes no one sees.

But Seungri does. Somehow always does.

Even with sunglasses back on, Seungri sees right through everything. Maybe right into his soul even. That sounds so pathetic that Jiyong doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Though instead of berating Jiyong for the darkness around his eyes or the redness in them, Seungri smiles, eyes dripping with reassurance that it’s okay.

And it takes an immense amount of mental exertion, but Jiyong manages to crook his mouth up in return, just a little.

***

He wants to scream and cry and throw things.

But then again, he can’t really be bothered.

***

Jiyong’s lips are curled around a cigarette and he takes a drawn-out inhale, as if the cancerous smoke is the only kind of air he can breathe.

“Hyung, smoking again? I told you to stop.”

It’s unmistakably Little Seunghyun’s voice, high pitched, whiny and cracking slightly, tutting in disapproval when Jiyong had left for a quick smoke in between their dance practice. Jiyong’s struck by how clear the memory rings in his head to this day.

“Just leave me alone, maknae.”

“Hyung! It’s bad for your health! Throw it away!”

And though the request might have been made a decade ago, Jiyong finds himself stubbing out the stick in the ashtray and tossing the rest of the packet into the bin, belatedly fulfilling the wish of the seventeen year old boy with the blinding smile.

***

What is love?

Jiyong doesn’t quite know.

He had used to think that it was love each time there was a girl who was the right mix of pretty and charming enough for him. But now, it’s clear that it never was. Whatever he had felt for all the girls he’s dated was more of an infatuation. Falling in “love” fast, only to fall out of “love” even faster. Instead of hurting during the aftermath, he had only ever felt a sense of “oh well”.

Love is elusive.

But perhaps if he searches hard enough, Jiyong can find it hiding in Seungri’s frisky form, radiating from his gentle eyes, woven within his tender words, and overflowing in the soft curve of his smile.

It’s different with Seungri. Jiyong had never realised that he’s been falling slowly for these past ten years. Or maybe he had just never let himself believe it. It scares him, to be honest. That if he lets himself love Seungri, it’ll all come crashing down.

***

He avoids glancing at the image in the mirror, instead keeping his eyes trained down at the white sink as he rhythmically moves the toothbrush back and forth over his teeth.

Who is that? He’s afraid of what he’ll see if he looks up.

Where is the G-Dragon everyone sees? He’s afraid of what he won’t see if he looks up.

***

The raindrops prick his skin, and he’s oddly scared that they’ll corrode his flesh like acid and he’ll become a monster with tiny holes all over his body. To his relief, they slide off his skin passively. But that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s getting drenched. A shiver shoots through his spine. His hair, sticky with rain, clings to his forehead for dear life. The wind howls curses at him.

Drip drip drip. He’s dripping. Maybe he’ll melt away into a puddle.

Why is he outside again? He doesn’t even remember. Doesn’t have the energy to.

Even though the water soaks his clothes until they weigh down on him like a suit of armour, he still feels as if he can be knocked him over by a single breath of the wind’s mocking chuckle.

Suddenly there’s a solar eclipse. And it’s stopped pouring buckets too.

Oh, no wait. It’s just an umbrella over his head.

Jiyong turns. “Seungri?”

“No, it’s the mothering tooth fairy. Yes, it’s me.”

Jiyong doesn’t even blink. Unthinking, unfeeling.

Seungri scrunches his nose. “It was a joke, hyung. Just trying to brighten the y weather.” He cracks a sheepish grin.

A beat of silence.

Then…

HAHAHAHAH!

Jiyong laughs too loud, too hard. The raindrops slice through his hollow laugh, making it choppy and slaughtered.

Jiyong, what are you doing? Jiyong, have you lost your mind?

He’s still laughing when the tears stream down and mingle with the raindrops on his face so he turns and runs, out into the rain, away from Seungri’s umbrella.

HAHAHAHAHA…

***

Jiyong hates everyone and everything. The hatred stews in his chest like a pit of vipers, hissing and writhing, ready to strike and sink their venomous fangs into anything within range.

(The truth is that he hates just himself. But it's easier to say he hates everyone else.)

He hates HATES HATES everything. Everyth‒

But then he stops himself there, because he will never hate Seungri.

***

Sometimes he thinks too much.

Sometimes he doesn’t at all.

***

Seungri rarely cries, and when he does, it’s not something to be taken lightly.

"Hyung...” Seungri hiccups, tears spilling from his eyes and leaving wet streaks on his cheeks. “Hyung, you need to take care of yourself… Please hyung. You idiot. Please take care… Why can’t you…”

Jiyong flinches. He can hear the alcohol laced in Seungri’s voice. Seungri looks especially vulnerable bathed in the darkness.

“I worry about you, hyung… I worry… I care… I- I wish I could make everything okay for you. I…” The rest of his sentence is muffled into Jiyong’s chest as he envelops Seungri in a hug.

Jiyong wordlessly Seungri’s back and cries into his sweet-smelling hair.

His heart tears because Seungri doesn’t know how to fix him, and neither does he himself.

***

His legs dangle freely over the miniature roads, cars, people and problems below. They all seem so insignificant from up here. Like a prisoner, he clutches at the bars of the railing that are preventing him from plummeting from the rooftop through the air and landing on the ground with a satisfying sickening crunch. No Jiyong. That scene will not play. Don’t think that.

He shakes his head violently as if that will shoo his thoughts away, but all it does is rattle them around in his head. The concrete ground is hard underneath him. He taps the back of his heels rhythmically against the side of the building but stills when he’s addressed.

“I’ve told you before that you can always turn around because I’ll be right here behind you. But I guess I’ll just have to catch up to you instead.”

Seungri joins him, sitting down on the ground and slipping his legs through the gap below the railing like Jiyong. Loosening his grip on the metal bars, Jiyong lets his hands fall into his lap. The rest of the world continues distantly below them.

“So you found me.”

“Yeah.”

A fraction of him wants to be left alone, like he was a minute ago, like he always is. But the majority of him, the selfish part, wants Seungri to stay and never, ever leave.

“Oppa, cheer up!” Seungri’s voice cracks his thoughts apart.

Jiyong snaps his head to his right to find Seungri pouting cutely obnoxiously, index fingers poking his cheeks gwiyomi style. A confused smile splashes across Jiyong’s face.

“What’s up with that ugly face?” he snorts and nudges Seungri’s side teasingly.

Seungri falls out of his pose and shoves him back, bright grin infecting his face. “Made you smile.”

“Yeah. You did.”

The air is light and sweet with Seungri’s smile, and he regards Jiyong with sparkling eyes much like the sparks in Jiyong’s heart.

“You always do,” Jiyong adds, dropping to a whisper. “Make me smile, I mean.” It’s like Seungri has the power to lift the stones off Jiyong’s heart and fling them over the rooftop.

A baby breeze crawls between them, playfully tossing locks of Seungri’s honey-coloured hair to flutter with the wind. Jiyong’s heart thuds against his ribcage, image of Seungri pouting still carved into his mind.

Kiss him.

But Seungri speaks before there’s any time for the notion to unravel.

“Hyung-ah.” His voice drops its light and jokey quality and the corners of Jiyong’s mouth drop too. “I think… To help yourself, you need to let yourself be helped.”

Jiyong’s legs already itch to flee from this conversation. “How do you mean?”

“You probably don’t want to hear this but I’m going to say it anyway. If you want to stop feeling like , you need to stop digging your own hole of misery. It doesn’t benefit you if you keep hating yourself and telling yourself that your life is exhausting.” He cringes in anticipation of Jiyong’s wrath.

But Jiyong just grits the fury between his teeth and swallows it down. Despite the clench in his chest, he nods for Seungri to continue.

"You know that I see you. I see that every time a smile tugs at your lips, you just pull them down in a frown. Kinda like you mentally talk yourself out of smiling and then physically force it away. But you’re effectively preventing yourself from being happy.”

Jiyong suppresses the scoff gathering in his throat and lets out a bitter smile instead.

“Hyung.” The tightness in Seungri’s jaw indicates that this dialogue isn’t easy for him either. “I’m here. I know it’s really not an easy thing to do, but if you look up out of your hole, my hand will be up there waiting. All you have to do is take it and let yourself be pulled out.” He turns his left palm up.

The silence sinks in. Jiyong tosses Seungri’s words from hand to hand, twirling them between his fingers and inspecting them closely. He glances at Seungri’s upturned palm and closes his eyes.

Just do it. Can I, Seungri?

No, don’t. All you’d do is drag him down with you. Would you be strong enough to hold me?

It’s the maknae. You can trust in him. Would you want to hold me?

His eyes spring open and the image of his doubts scuttling around in blackness is chased away, replaced by the light of the afternoon sun and Seungri’s hand who is still waiting. He’ll deal with his qualms when they return later.

But for now, he slots his fingers between Seungri’s.

“Okay.”

***

Jiyong lays surrounded by his bedsheets. The fatigue presses down on his skull and hooks on his eyelids, aggressively threatening to draw them shut. Not that he’s putting up much of a fight anyway.

Normally, he wakes up not wanting to.

He wakes up terrified. After being lost in his dreams where he’s blissfully separated from his emotions by a glass wall, he has to open his eyes and have reality slap him in the face. The dread of facing life settles in the pit of his stomach like a rusty anchor that he just wants to be dragged down with so he can sleep forever on the peaceful ocean floor.

But today, something’s different.

Once he manages to recollect his memories of the previous day, a flicker of a smile actually graces his lips. Seungri is clogging up his head and Seungri is ballooning in his chest. And it’s not bad at all. It gives him a little of a reason to wake up this morning.

***

Fear crawls in his heart, tearing its way through with its black claws. He should back down, back away. For maknae’s sake.

He glances at Seungri, who gives him a smile that thaws the frozen edges of Jiyong’s heart.

Jiyong is selfish. He wants to keep Seungri’s smile in his heart and bring it everywhere he goes. He wants to be saved. And he wants to let Seungri save him.

Is it so wrong of him to want?

***

“We’re going somewhere,” Seungri tells him one cloudy morning and walks to his car, swinging the keys around his index finger.

Jiyong doesn't object and slides into the passenger seat. They have a few days free of schedules, and his heart had breathed a sigh of relief when he opened the door to find Seungri standing there wearing his trademark beam, as if knowingly coming to rescue Jiyong from the perils of his own twisted mind.

Seungri doesn't tell him where they're going, and Jiyong doesn't ask. The fuel gauge pointing to ‘F’ suggests it’s going to be a long ride, so he settles into the steady motion of the car, letting it carry him forward as he shuts his eyes.

When he next opens them, the day is crawling towards sundown. The area to his right is shrouded in trees and green, and to his left, a sizeable log cabin overlooks an idyllic lake.

“We’re here.” Seungri kills the engine.

Jiyong rubs sleep out of his eyes and croaks, “Where exactly is here?”

“In the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh good.” Jiyong doesn’t even know how to protest anymore. He simply exits the car and stands there as Seungri takes a duffel bag out of the boot.

Jiyong notices the sky is clear here, a pretty kind of blue he can’t help but look at with envy. The air is remarkably breathable, it’s soft and doesn’t pierce through his lungs like the harsh city air does.

“I own this place. Normally I rent it out to tenants, but I think I could make some personal use for it,” Seungri explains as he twists the key in the lock and pushes the door open.

The cosy interior welcomes Jiyong with open arms, a stark contrast to his actual home that makes him feel so alone. The lodging is fully furnished with couches, rugs, decorations and a fireplace, rustic wooden décor corresponding with the nature setting while retaining elegance. Seungri tosses the luggage onto the double bed in the bedroom before turning to him with lighted eyes.

“Let’s go outside.”

 

They’re sitting cross-legged on a mat that Seungri’s laid down on the grass near the edge of the water, accompanied by the sweet earthy scent of the outdoors and the occasional whispering of the wind sneaking through leaves. The sun makes its majestic descent in the sky, splattering clouds with pink and staining the sky a purple. The lake produces a perfect mirror image of the sky, as if two parallel universes existing on one earth. Jiyong wants to paint his bleak interior with the colours of the sunset and let it blaze inside of him.

But maybe he doesn’t need that, because just drinking with his eyes already causes a slight stir in his heart. It’s a foreign feeling.

“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Seungri’s face melts into a dreamy expression, lips curled into a soft smile.

“Yeah.” But Jiyong instead turns to gaze at Seungri whose face is tinged in the warm light, orange casting shadows on his face and pronouncing his handsome features. He traces Seungri’s profile with his eyes, revelling in the way his heart patters, then falters, then picks up speed again with each dip and curve of his face. “It is.”

Jiyong unconsciously leans a little closer, until their knees are just an electric shock apart. Maybe it’s a blush that’s staining Seungri’s cheeks, or maybe it’s the tint of the sunset that’s making Jiyong’s eyes play tricks on him. Either way, his heart does a clumsy pirouette.

He doesn’t really know when the smile erupts on his face, but he relishes it when it lingers. “Right now, it feels like the rest of the world doesn’t matter.”

Seungri finally turns to him, mouth twisting into a smile and sparkles dancing in his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Seungri-yah.” The view in front of Jiyong is truly breathtaking.

He absentmindedly hums a reply, goofy half-smile still dangling on his face.

“It's weird... when I’m with you, I don’t feel burdened.” Jiyong inhales and his chest is not knotted like it normally is. “You’re my sanctuary.”

The sky is now a greyish-blue, sun having laid to bed, and the pink trace on Seungri’s cheeks can’t possibly be due to the setting sun.

“I guess that means I have to stick with you all the time then.”

“I guess.”

A vague apprehension squirms in Jiyong’s mind, warning him that this fairytale illusion is going to shatter, that waking up to the harsh reality is imminent and inevitable. But he quashes it hastily, instead creeping his hand to Seungri’s and tangling their fingers together.

He unfolds his legs and falls onto his back, tugging on their connected hands for Seungri to lie down with him. The night steadily drowns out the last slivers of light and Jiyong watches with his eyebrows raised as one by one, tiny pinpricks of light are poked into the fabric of the inky sky. Slowly at first, and then quickly, until the vast expanse above him is sprinkled with these… these… stars.

The realisation steals his breath away. They’re stars. They’re so plentiful and so bright, almost blinding, that all the diamonds he owns pale in comparison. It’s surreal but the world here is crystalline, high-definition, nothing like the night sky in the city. It’s difficult for him to wrap his head around the fact that something this mesmerising can exist… but then he turns to Seungri and thinks that yes, it can.

Yes it can. And yes he can feel… happiness.

Jiyong rolls onto his side and Seungri follows suit, causing Jiyong to gulp at the close proximity of their faces. The dim light of the cabin’s porch they had left on earlier kisses Seungri’s soft visage. The stars of the sky glimmer within his eyes.

Then everything’s a haze: Jiyong’s heart screaming, Seungri’s lip quivering, Jiyong inching forward slightly, Seungri’s breath hitching lightly…

But just noticeably enough for Jiyong to snap back into the reality of the moment.

The image before him hits him in full force: Seungri’s eyes wide and flickering, searching as well as approving, terrified as well as inviting. Jiyong shuts his eyes because it’s all too much to take in and his heart might collapse from its frantic galloping, as if trying in vain to flee.

A thought strikes him. What if this time, he doesn’t run away? What if this time, he gives in to the wrench of desire in his heart? What if this time, he lets himself… l-o-v-e Seungri?

Life is all about taking risks, right?

“Would it be too much to ask…” Jiyong’s voice almost gives up on him, but he forcefully s it out of his pounding throat. “…if I could kiss you?”

The thundering in his heart harshly grates against the drawn-out silence of the night as he stares at the blackness behind his eyelids.

“No. Yes.” Seungri clumsily breathes and Jiyong’s heart goes into catatonia. “I-I mean, no it’s not too much to ask and yes you can k-kiss me.”

The earnestness in Seungri’s tone leaves Jiyong too stunned to even grin. He closes the gap between them in tentative movements but accidentally tips his head too much to the side, landing his lips messily on Seungri’s jaw in a way that’s not quite perfect, because he isn’t quite perfect. But when Seungri giggles warmly and tilts his head down to connect their lips, it’s quite perfect and together they’re quite perfect.

Seungri tastes of whispered promises, of solace, of salvation, and of a romance that leaves Jiyong giddy in the head and craving more. Because screw the possible plunge and crash and shatter of Jiyong’s heart. Screw it. Because for now, the light at the end of the tunnel shines brighter and bigger.

And with Seungri leading him by hand, Jiyong thinks, no, he knows he can make it.

“Let me stay by your side,” Seungri says when their mouths part, cheeks painted in his flush.

If it isn’t too much to ask. “Sure.”

“Let me be yours.”

As long as I can be yours. “Okay.”

“Let me love you.”

Only if I can love you. “Gladly.”

“I love you.”

Jiyong feels reborn.

I love you too. “Thank you.”

***

Over time, Jiyong unlocks compartments of his heart to discover bits of Seungri already buried everywhere. The only difference between now and then is that he embraces each bit and feels no shame or dread in letting the glee run wild in his veins.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” Jiyong presses the words into Seungri’s lips, and fireworks explode in his heart, igniting from the ash that was once there.

His love for Seungri flows freely and plentifully and nothing’s crashed and burned, he’s still prancing on top of the world. And he plans to keep it this way for… well, forever.

Jiyong knows that he doesn't need to teeter on the edge to know how to treasure his life, doesn't need to devour a hearty meal to feel sated, doesn't need to smoke his sticks to relax, and neither does he need to drink himself into oblivion to feel intoxicated.

Because Seungri brings meaning into his vacant days, Seungri fills his wretched heart to the brink, Seungri restores peace amidst the wars in his head and Seungri has the power to make him dizzy and giggly and warm and drunk off his love.

Because Seungri makes him alive.