(ATTN: If you haven't seen the BIGBANG episode aof Running Man, you might not understand this chapter! It's really really cute, so if you haven't, you should! Without it, this chapter just might not make sense to you.)

VI

        The sound of the whirring helicopter was bound to be tumultuous.
                Seunghyun was apprehensive climbing into it. He would have liked a quiet, serene car ride to meet up with the Running Man cast much more, but he didn’t utter a single complaint. Even the dull mustard-yellow color of the chopper stressed TOP’s sleep-ridden eyes. He was thankful that he’d thought to bring sunglasses. Though the sun wasn’t making an impact on the temperature of the day, it still beat down and reflected off of the clouds. The shades were Seunghyun’s best defense mechanism. He supposed he seemed more daunting with them on, anyway.
                Lately he liked things that discouraged questions.

                As the helicopter slowly descended, Seunghyun’s problem stopped being that he couldn’t get relaxed, but instead his mind began to scramble, trying to remember what he was supposed to do once he’d landed.
                But as he got near the ground, and the cameras, he once more pulled his face into a relaxed expression, trying to give the illusion that he was perfectly prepared for the event.
                The doors opened, and simultaneously there was a flurry of excitement at the group’s arrival. Daesung reacted immediately, waving his arms goofily at the mass of people and cameras on the strip of asphalt.
                Seunghyun walked.

                Jiyong and Youngbae got to the cast first, bowing respectfully and greeting everyone hastily.

                Seunghyun walked.

                Daesung sped up to hug one of the Running Man members.

                Seunghyun walked.

                Youngbae took a selca with someone, Seungri greeted someone else.  

                Seunghyun stood, waiting for his cue for someplace to be.

                Daesung seemed to be hugging just about everybody.

                Seunghyun watched carefully and bowed once or twice. He forced a smile at anyone who looked at him, reminding himself constantly that there were cameras everywhere and that he had to look like he was perfectly fine.

                Seeming to sense his uncertainty, Jiyong grinned at him and came to stand next to him to help, rocking backward and forward on his toes excitedly. Seunghyun knew they didn’t have time to talk, but he just wanted to take Jiyong aside. A small part of him wanted to tell his confidant what had been going on in his head, but as he looked at the way Jiyong was smiling – perfectly content, excited, and prepared for the long day ahead – he had no inclination to ruin his mood by making him worry.
                And so he just stood there, smiling back.
                After Jiyong had taken his place in line, everyone else fell into their own designated spots. It was almost as if there were taped ‘X’s on the ground. Everyone knew exactly where to be.

                The banter that followed flew through one of Seunghyun’s ears and out the other. He remembered to follow the conversation with his eyes – they can’t see your eyes – He corrected himself. Though he hadn’t the slightest idea what was being exchanged, Seunghyun leaned forward and craned his neck to give the idea that he was listening intently.

Everyone started clapping. Seunghyun blinked once or twice before it registered that he’d probably better clap too.

He felt like he had a hangover.

Some joke was told. Seunghyun was quicker to register it and tilt his head downward to chuckle, keeping a smile pinned on his face for a few minutes. Whatever was going on, Jiyong was getting really into it. Seunghyun hadn’t had time to be with him this morning. He was jealous of the Running Man members, who were able to talk with him and entertain him. Since they’d gotten up so early that morning, shooed out of their dorm, prepped, and shunted into different helicopters, Seunghyun hadn’t said a single word to Jiyong.

And he wasn’t sure how to get his attention now.

But he wanted his attention.

His eyebrows scrunched a little, so fractionally the cameras wouldn’t be able to pick it up from their distance. His smile may have grown into more of a grimace as he thought about how much he’d missed Jiyong…

He smiled more obnoxiously to compensate for what he was going through in his head.

What’s the point in being famous if you can’t even see your best friend?

How darethey not let you see your best friend?

You have to do something about it.

Get away. You can’t let them control you like this –

“Hey TOP, why do you have sores here?” Yoo Jaesuk cut into his thoughts by addressing him, pointing to his lip.

Seunghyun was yanked out of his stupor upon hearing his name. He’d trained himself to be able to listen when it was really necessary. Like in school. He’d be talking to one of his friends while the teacher was talking. When she’d noticed he hadn’t been paying attention, the teacher would call Seunghyun’s name and get him to answer a question. Immediately he’d clued in, and was able to fake that he’d been listening the entire time.

With that practice, he was able to snap back to reality just in time. “Oh, I’m getting ready these days… So I haven’t slept in two nights,” he replied quickly, brushing the cold sore on his lip.

“Really?”

“Daesung! I haven’t seen your hair like that for a while. Dyed.” Someone else interrupted, and Seunghyun was thankful that they didn’t dwell on his loss of sleep. He felt like he had revealed too much. Why couldn’t he have just said that he was working hard on something new?

                Jiyong was trying to catch his eye, to maybe give him a sickeningly pitiful glance. Though he had been up for the last two days, Seunghyun would have given no indication that he’d been up. No more cleaning.

                Seunghyun purposely flicked his head in Daesung’s direction every time Jiyong looked his way, pretending to be seriously interested in what they were talking about. Still Daesung’s hair color? He didn’t know. Oh, everyone was snickering again. He bent over to laugh convincingly, trying to shake off Jiyong’s concern.

                The directors gave a motion to the Running Man team to get the actual show started. It was difficult for Seunghyun to follow what was going on exactly – Jiyong ran forward to get a ‘mission card’, had they said? He shook himself off and began to actually listen.

                “Divide the teams into offence and defense,” Seungri read, taking the card from Jiyong. He held it out for the others to examine. “Each team, one person has bells, and take the other team members out.”

                No one seemed to understand the instructions directly.

                “So we take turns one by one?” The girl on the Running Man team asked.

                “That’s correct.” A director replied from behind the cameras.

                Seunghyun still didn’t understand.

                He tried to listen carefully to the more detailed instructions that were being given, but the dots didn’t seem to connect. There was more Seunghyun had to do and say before everyone piled into the car, but he slowly stopped listening.

***

                “I don’t get this game yet,” Seunghyun admitted in the front seat with Youngbae. He had been shunted to the front, and hadn’t gotten to sit next to Jiyong like they had wanted. “Do we have bells?”

                “We don’t know. We’ll find out there.” Daesung clarified, the excitement in his voice showing.

                Seunghyun wished he could have been just as amped up for the game. If he hadn’t been so tired, maybe he would have been.  But all he could focus on was that his head hurt. As Daesung tried to continue to explain the concept of the game all over again, Seunghyun tuned him out, nodding obediently.

                The car was quieter than the helicopter. He liked that.

                And Jiyong was there. He liked that.

***

                “It’s TOP! Hey TOP! TOP! I’m going to run!”

                Seunghyun glanced around. He was in the center of the balcony out in the open. What was it Jiyong had told him to do? He had the weapon-bomb-thing under his nametag, but who was supposed to catch him? He glanced behind him as he began walking in the opposite direction of whichever member was coming after him. There were the two guys attached with a bracelet, right?

                He thanked Jiyong silently for making him practice running as he started sprinting down the steps to avoid whoever was chasing him. Goodness, he didn’t even know where in the museum he was anymore. Could he hide? Should he just let them rip his tag off?  Despite his efforts to run around corners to evade the team, almost instantly he found himself surrounded by Running Man members in the main lobby.

                From what he understood, he could just stop running now. Whoever would wind up ripping his tag off would be out, right? And he was tired. So tired. It would be best to stop now. He let them back him into a corner before he registered the cameras.

                He had to make it look like he was really trying. Right. Of course.

                Taking a deep breath, Seunghyun tried running at one of the members of the opposing team to maybe get him distracted. But he found himself in another corner.

                He supposed there was a good reason behind him not being able to drive a car.

                “How do you run like this?” One of the men asked him, grabbing his arms and forcing him to sit. “You should run faster!”

                Despite the fact that the Running Man team was suspicious, TOP’s nametag got ripped off almost immediately. There was a moment of confusion as the secret weapon fell from behind his nametag.

                “Sukjin, out.” The loudspeaker went off, announcing the one person Seunghyun was supposed to avoid. He lowered his head and ruffled his hair, disappointed in himself.

                “TOP, out.” His voice rang out next, and he remembered that he would just be happy to be able to sit down and relax.

***

                “You were supposed to avoid Sukjin hyung.” Jiyong teased, swiveling his arms to turn the wheel of the car. “Not let him get you out.”

                “Right…” Seunghyun said slowly, confused as to why he wasn’t able to sit in the front again on the way to the second destination. “The whole team was behind me, I didn’t know who was going to pull it off.” Seungri shook his head at him and hit him. “Hey! At least I had a reason to be running slowly! Ji, you bragged about how good you were at running, but you sure got tired fast,” he chuckled.

                Jiyong shook his head, sticking his tongue in his cheek and chuckling.

                “Everyone got out too easily! I’m sorry for making us hide first. The building was too small.” Daesung whined.

                “Ugh, I feel really humiliated.” Jiyong said, leaning forward.

                Youngbae growled at the camera. “We’ll win the next part!”

                Seunghyun changed his mind about wanting to be in front. The way Jiyong was able to play to the cameras was so perfect and honest. If he had to deal with the lenses facing him again, he’d have nothing to act out. Jiyong, on the other hand, made it easy for whoever would add effects and subs to the video, making constant facial expressions and keeping conversation going.

                Taking advantage of the height of Youngbae’s hair compared to the camera angle, Seunghyun leaned back and let his head tilt onto the headrest.

***

                “Five of the rings join forces to rule the space!” The group chanted, holding all of their rings together foolishly.

                “This is the first time I’ve done something like this since elementary school,” Jiyong grimaced, grinning widely.

Seunghyun stumbled from over the couch to stick close to Jiyong. “Where do we even begin to look?” He asked, scratching his head. They could be anywhere in this place, it’s huge.”

“I don’t think the other team has even entered the building yet,” Jiyong replied, rubbing his eyes. Seunghyun was reminded how Jiyong had gotten up just as early as he had. He shook his head in attempt to wake himself up. Jiyong observed him over his shoulder. “You doing okay? I didn’t know you hadn’t been sleeping.” He picked at his fingernails. “Unless I missed you cleaning something else…”

“I stopped cleaning.” Seunghyun said simply. “My bed is comfortable. I’ll have a better chance of sleeping when I’m lying down.” He was lying. The night before, he’d decided his bed was the most uncomfortable place to be, awake, at four in the morning. Even though he was restless, he’d forced himself to stay in one place. Both nights he was so determined to sleep; to avoid the nagging feeling of hopelessness that had begun to cover him at night. He’d stopped cleaning. Instead of a nervous habit, his insomnia had become paralyzing. Every nerve in his body was too focused on what was going on in his head to respond to his inclinations to want to busy himself.

“I guess that’s good,” Jiyong’s eyebrows furrowed together as the men began walking toward the elevators side by side. “But then you’re able to deal with your head being empty? I thought you hated that.”

“I guess I got over it.” Seunghyun lied again. It hurt him to lie to Jiyong like this, but the cameras could be trained on them again in any second. And he didn’t want to give Jiyong another burden to carry. It was best to keep him in the dark. “Can I stay with you this time?”

“I think we’ll find them better if we split up.”

“Split up?”

“You said it yourself, this place is gigantic. Twelve stories. Ahh, this isn’t fair. Why’d we pick to hide first?” Jiyong sighed, jabbing the elevator button with a finger.

“But Ji, I want to be with you.”

Jiyong blinked a few times.

 “We really need to win this.” He gave him an apologetic look. “Haha hyung fooled me! I have to get him back.” He pleaded, holding up the radio. “We can still talk through these, okay? And then we’ll meet up later to use the rings.” The doors of the elevator opened and he stuck his hand between them so they wouldn’t close up again.

Seunghyun swallowed. “No, you’re right. You go up, I’ll start searching somewhere – somewhere else.” He said, his voice hollow.

Jiyong gave him a sad smile and stepped into the mirrored elevator. The doors closed too slowly.

A/N: Okay. Not too happy with this chapter... I wasn't sure how to span it or how specific to make it... My least favorite to write so far I think >//< So glad I finished, as soon as I was leaving my house my power went off!! Urgh. I cut the chapter off because I was in a rush and I myself don't like overly long chapters. It's probably good too because I had no idea what else about Running Man to do. Thanks again for reading, dahlings =3=