His blank eyes see nothing. His cracked lips are frozen in their slightly parted position. His brain is a void where not a thought flitters by.

It’s a paradox in his chest though, because as much as his heart is asively empty, it is overflowing with and choking on a constant dull pain.

“Jiyong-ah. Jiyong-ah. Jiyong!”

He is grabbed by the shoulders and shaken harshly. Blinking furiously, his eyes focus on Seunghyun in front of him.

It’s the wrong Seunghyun.

“Jiyong, I’m really sorry, but you have to pull yourself together soon. We’re here for rehearsals and Seungri’ll be here anytim–”

A guttural cry escapes his throat upon hearing that name. He shrinks further into the hollow shell of himself.

“Don’t say his name,” he whispers, feeling the bags under his eyes get heavier.

“What else am I supposed to say, huh? Voldemort?” Exasperation slips into Seunghyun’s tone but he breathes deep, reminding himself that Jiyong is dealing with enough.

Ignoring him, Jiyong says in a shrivelled voice, “I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that he left me or the fact that he is perfectly fine after leaving me.”

Seunghyun bites back another sigh. He knows that the latter statement is far from the truth. Jiyong is just too caught up in his own misery to realise that Seungri isn’t hopping around the world partying and getting faced for fun. He’s doing it to distract himself, to fill up the gaping cavern in his heart. Seunghyun can see the sadness that haunts his eyes in pictures his international acquaintances post on Instagram and bets the maknae feels the same smothering absence that Jiyong feels.

Seungri shows up late to rehearsal, forever handsome like a distant dream. Jiyong’s eyes rake over his form to greedily take it all in and fill up up up his heart, but like water through fingers, it spills out of the cracks in his heart and he’s left with nothing.

Jiyong desperately tries t