Rating: PG-15
Length: 2 556
Summary: They were just friends with maybe a little bit more than benefits.
Notes: Basically changed perspectives and twisted the end a BIT. Strong language. Remix of corpuscallos-m's I Swear You'll Never Know.

SeungRi’s there and does he not know how he’s making me feel right now?

I don’t wait for him to answer my thought and then I press my lips to his. He freezes for just a millisecond before he responds and there’s a pang that runs through me and I press even closer.

“This is just—” he manages before shuddering under me, cut off by the return of my lips, “—just friends with benefits, right?” He gasps and I choose not to answer, much too focused on the curve of his lips and maybe he thinks the ‘yes’ that’s drawn from my own lips is an answer to his question.

At any rate, I’m not correcting him, and it’s exciting when he relaxes against me. I push roughly and we fall onto the bed, and it hurts just a bit.

---

My fingers slip carelessly over the doorknob.  I’m not in my own room, but I don’t care because it’s SeungRi’s room. He’s sleeping and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

I collapse, or maybe my feet give out from under me, and I’m inches from his neck. I have a raging hard-on and maybe SeungRi…

SeungRi’s skin is warm and sweet and feels nice under my tongue.

“Hyung, what—” SeungRi mumbles, suddenly awake and he’s not rejecting me yet. A smile tugs at my lips, but not quite, because there’s no reason to be smiling.

“I need you, Ri,” I whisper into his ear and maybe I mean more than just that, but SeungRi is simple and SeungRi doesn’t ask questions. And for now, his ignorance is bliss.

 A shiver runs through him and SeungRi never says no.

---

I pull the air through the skinny in my mouth and the smoke fills my throat, warming me against the frigid winter air. Warming me, killing me, no big difference. Dying wouldn’t be so bad as long as I didn’t die alone, I reasoned. I find myself thinking about love and wondering why SeungRi comes to mind when I do.

Speak of the devil, I think to myself and I allow myself a smirk as his hand fists my pants.  I find myself thinking about addictions and how there are worse things as I stub the cancer stick on the ledge and press my lips against his waiting mouth.

And I promise myself that he’ll never know. It wouldn’t be that hard, I didn’t know myself. Did I?

---

SeungRi doesn’t see the sidelong glances and doesn’t hear the whispers that stop whenever he walks by. But I do, and I don’t do a thing about it because what do they matter? It’s nothing serious, it’s just friends with maybe a little bit more than benefits, and SeungRi thinks it’s easier that finding himself a proper girlfriend so it’s all okay. Besides, there are no feelings involved, so leave him the alone, thanks.  

And anyway, what have they got to complain about? Everyone’s breathing clean air again and we’re a hell of a lot farther with our album then we’ve been in the past three months. Even SeungRi’s singing better, a welcome change that only serves to enlarge his already swollen ego. We’re all high on something and I don’t tell anyone I’m high on SeungRi, and YG’s so excited he sends us off to Japan.  I smirk at the maknae’s not-so-subtle smirks about more lines and more parts and how he and his favourite hyung are sharing an apartment again.

Confusing, maybe it’s a little confusing, because I’m not in love. Or maybe I am. I think maybe I am. It’s a scary thing.  Who ever knew dragons get frightened too?

And SeungRi doesn’t even know, oblivious little bastard.

He doesn’t know I’ve been hiding, hiding under sheets of music and lines of lyrics. He doesn’t know about how scared I’ve gotten, about how I dread his touch, because we’re not just friends anymore and I don’t think we ever were, but there’s always a first time for everything.

Love. I sigh. What is love, anyway? A pain in the , that’s what it was.

---
 
Japan’s the same as ever and I get the bigger bedroom just because. I like to think I’m happy because how could I not when SeungRi’s right where he belongs—snuggled against me and utterly willing and maybe, just a little, in love.

There must be something in the water. Or maybe the crazy is just beginning to kick in. In love? In love is not a good thing, and I shouldn’t be feeling this way but I do. SeungRi’s hand begins to wander, and perhaps I like it too much—too much. Suddenly, her name pops into my head and an idea, an absurd plan starts to formulate in my head.

---

SeungRi looks at me, shocked, his hands groping nothing but the air when I pull away. I look at him and tell him something I wish I could say truthfully;

“I have a girlfriend now.”

And so maybe I’m searching his face for a trace of pain, of hurt, but he just looks surprised and shifts away from me and I’m already regretting the absence of his warmth.

“Since when?” he asks, his voice still coloured with shock, but he doesn’t give anything else away.

A twinge of regret and apprehension, but I find the lies coming out of my mouth without my consent. “Hmm… about a week?” I shrug noncommittally, it’s not really a lie, because I did see her last week, and maybe I don’t mind the lies because what SeungRi doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

SeungRi scoffs and rolls his eyes at me, “We've had plenty of in the past week, hyung. Did you just now decide it was serious with this girl?”

Finally, a reaction. A little part of me smiles in victory and I begin not to mind much that she’s just a friend, and besides, SeungRi’s just a friend, too. Or should be.

I retreat to my room and I pretend I don’t want to cry.

So I lost my pal.

So what.

---

“I miss you, too!” I say, smiling. My sister chuckles dryly on the other end of the line and I can tell she’s not amused.

“JiYong, cut the bull. You miss me? What are you, high? Drunk?”

I see SeungRi glance over at me through the darkness of the car and I blush and I laugh like my sister’s just said the funniest thing in the world as I smile into the phone, “Ah, don’t say that!”

“Don’t say what? It’s true, isn’t it?!” my sister shrieks into the phone. “You’re drunk!”

But when I look back at SeungRi, his nose is stuck in a dictionary and the three inch separation between us is bigger than ever and my sister keeps questioning me through the phone, so I do the only thing I can do; laugh louder than before so no one can hear me crying and answer like I’m in love.

---

The interviews are terrible because they keep laughing and it sounds faker than my own laughter and I can’t understand a word they’re saying. ing schedule. ing Japanese.

SeungRi laughs along with them, sitting three members away from me; shouting in Japanese like it’s his goddamn native language. He must have said the right thing because they’re all slapping him on the back and I’m smiling like I couldn’t be happier.

---

At the apartment though, SeungRi never laughs. Never shouts.

He’s never even there.

I sit on the couch, waiting anxiously for him to get home, listening to my dial tone because all of my female friends are sick of talking to me. And when he does walk in, I pretend not to notice because I’m too busy telling a story to the attentive beeping on the other end of the line.

---

I’m tempted to just it and get on a plane back to Korea, because anything’s better than eating cold leftovers in a country where no one understands you and your maknaes don’t bother coming home. Anything’s better than watching the clock tick past hour after hour, slowly, while the pen in my hand remains still and I try to ignore the fact that I’m waiting for the soft click of the door to signal SeungRi’s arrival home.

I don’t even remember falling asleep, but when I get up, my blanket’s smothering me and my face has indents in it from where the couch has pressed into my skin. I don’t remember why I’m on the couch.
My thoughts immediately fly over to SeungRi and I let the blanket drag behind me as I creep over to SeungRi’s room, pushing the door open quietly.

SeungRi’s room isn’t exactly messy, but it’s not up to my standards as I take in the shoes flung about
everywhere and the books that litter the floor. I chuckle and remember how SeungRi had once taken delight in muttering “neat-freak” under his breath when I took offense at the state of his room, but I stop abruptly as SeungRi stirs a bit on a bed he once admitted was too big for just himself. I find myself slightly entranced by how his eyelashes quiver in his sleep and how his eye bags are worse than ever, and how much better he looks without a cocky smirk on his face to hide the Lee SeungHyun that appears when he sleeps. The one he’s been hiding from me.

I’ve drifted right next to the bed before I come to my senses, slowly lowering the leg I’d just made to lift onto the bed, and hurried out of SeungRi’s room. My heart pounds and a powerful loneliness overcomes me. I discover that I miss my ‘just-a-friend’ more than I’d realized.

---

I give up.

After a month of laughing to the dial tone and enormous phone bills, I give up.

After trying to distract myself, trying to find someone else that’s supposed to be right, I give up.

After realizing there’d never be anyone right if I was in love with someone so wrong, I give up.

Even though it’s going to hurt him so much more. And maybe it’s going to hurt me, too.

---

SeungRi seems to notice. He notices the absence of my obnoxious voice filling the rooms of our apartment, notices the sudden, but welcome, silence, notices that my stupid phone is nowhere in sight. Now I’m just waiting to see if he cares enough to ask.

---

“How’s your girlfriend?” he asks distantly from the living room as I clang about with pots and pans in the kitchen. I freeze for a second and find myself feeling nervous and excited at the same time. After all, it’s the first time SeungRi’s spoken to me about something other than BIGBANG in a month.

“We broke up,” I say easily, wondering how SeungRi will react to this.

“Oh.”

Oh.

“Yeah.”

Just oh.

SeungRi sounds disappointed like how a good dongsaeng should be and he doesn’t take his eyes off from the television in front of him. He doesn’t seem to notice the fine tremors in my hands or the tremble of my lips as I carry just a glass of water with me into the living room and doesn’t notice that I’m just a little mad at him. Or maybe a lot mad at him. Mad at myself.

Just mad. Sad. Maybe just lonely.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice SeungRi’s eyes flicker away from the Japanese drama in front of him and catch me staring fixedly at a small spot on the television, obviously aware that I didn’t understand a word of it. His mouth opens, but I make a split-second decision and decide that if I’m going to hell, I might as well take SeungRi with me.

I sigh and curl into him, looping my hand over his stomach and pressing close, inhaling the scent of his fabric softener and relishing the warmth radiating from him, something I’d missed dearly. SeungRi stiffens in surprise but relaxes quickly, draping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me unconsciously closer.

And it feels so right that it’s wrong and it scares me and I thought giving up was supposed to be easy. I sigh again, knowing that pretending was so much easier, but a clean break would be so much quicker.

“You wanna talk about it, hyung?”

No, no I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t particularly want to face the truth and be unable to do anything about it. My mouth opened and closed a few times, dread preventing me from speaking.

“I…” I begin, hesitating, “… never had a girlfriend.”

SeungRi moves violently, so quickly it was like he’d been expecting it, almost sending me to the floor. He whips around to face me, eyes narrowing in anger. “You what?”

“There was a girl, but, we were just friends. We only ever met once. I think I was just trying to distract myself with her,” I admit, stung by his reaction.

“Hyung, I don’t understand—”

“SeungRi, I like you. I’ve always liked you,” I say dully. “Only you,” I mutter, closing my eyes so maybe they wouldn’t burn as much.

SeungRi sighs and it sound more like a choked sob than anything. “Oh, hyung.”

My eyes flash open in a fit of anger. How dare he be condescending? How dare he stand there and judge me with his ‘oh, hyungs’ and tears in his eyes?

Somehow, my hands find their way to the front of his shirt and I find my face inches away from his for a completely different reason than before. 

“But I’m not going to do anything about it!” I snarl, shaking him. “I’m not some sick freak; I’m not falling in love with you!”

“Hyung—” SeungRi whimpers.

“I’m NOT YOUR HYUNG!” I roar, dropping my hands from him and backing away, my eyes narrowing in rage and maybe fear. “I’m not anything to you! I was never supposed to be! SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU EVERYTHING TO ME?!”

I fall to my knees as I say this, my entire frame shaking, and cry tears I’d held back for so long, tears of love, tears of pain, tears of loneliness, and tears of regret. Somewhere along the way, SeungRi’s suddenly beside me and I’m not as lonely anymore as his arms wrap around me like he’s missed me too.

But I don’t miss him into my ear, “We can’t, hyung, we can’t,” and I don’t pretend to not notice when he begins crying, too.

I was wrong.

What he didn’t know would hurt him so much more. Hurt me.

---

I get my wish and we return to Korea quickly. SeungRi spends every waking hour in the studio, working feverishly. I throw myself into my own album, letting the sad, angry melodies and bittersweet lyrics come to life with every of my pencil, pretending I wasn’t signing each one with an invisible ‘I love you always, SeungRi.’

I pretend it doesn't sting when I catch SeungRi’s gaze from across the room.

SeungRi pretends he never looked at me in the first place.