***

TaeYang was much more on edge than normal during practice for the next three days. He would jump when anyone touched him, and stared almost unseeingly at a wall if GD were talking to him. He never stood still and his eyes traveled around the room, never pausing, when anyone else spoke and he was expected to listen.

“I’m worried” GD said suddenly, knocking everyone out of their post-practice reveries.

“What about?” DaeSung asks. It had become obvious after about a minute that GD wasn’t going to elaborate unless asked, Seungri and T.O.P were upset that GD had ruined their quiet, and TaeYang was just sitting in a corner.

GD heaves a sigh and hooks his thumb over toward the corner TaeYang was in, “What is the matter with him? He’s been acting strange for the past few days…” What GD wanted to say was that TaeYang was acting strange with him specifically. He wanted to complain that it wasn’t fair that TaeYang hadn’t so much as given him a passing glance since he had asked him to sing (why was he so obsessed? It had only been a few days).

“We should go out tonight!” Seungri suggests suddenly, causing GD to look at him with a little bit of confusion etched onto his face.

“No,” DaeSung starts, trying to get GD’s attention back, “that won’t work since we will be here all night” he gives Seungri a pointed look before continuing; “Ji, I’m sure everything will be fine, just give him some time.”

The pat on JiYong’s back that DaeSung bestowed upon him did not feel as reassuring as JiYong supposed DaeSung had been going for (then again, he did not know what DaeSung was going for, so who knows). He just hoped that Dae was right, because right now .

***

TaeYang was still going crazy. Ever since they had moved from their short break after their choreography practice and into one of the studios, the other four had been staring at him. Actually, it was only GD that was staring at him, eyes following him as he moved and even as he sat still. The other three would look at him periodically, but he just knew that they were paying attention to him as well.

TaeYang had placed himself in a chair in the far corner of the room, while GD and Seungri were sat at the table in the center of the room and DaeSung and T.O.P were whispering to each other on the floor by the door. The placement of his band mates made him feel uneasy, but he tried not to show just how uneasy it made him.

“Hey GD?” Seungri asks suddenly, looking up from the notebook he was scribbling on.

“Yeah Ri?” he says, moving his eyes away from TaeYang (rather reluctantly, what was the matter with him?).

He was graced with an almost full-body scan from Seungri. To say that Ji was taken aback would be an understatement; his eyebrows disappeared up into his hair, and his head moved back involuntarily; “Did you just check me out?” He whispered, leaning forward so that hopefully no one else could hear.

TaeYang noticed, mostly because he had started staring the second that he heard GD respond, and he wasn’t very thrilled by it. Whatever Seungri thought he was doing, was definitely not making TaeYang feel any better, at all. But he continued watching, and though he couldn’t hear what GD said (because it was obvious that he said something) he could hear how Seungri responded.

“Maybe, but that’s only because the person who should be checking you out is being a brat” Seungri looked triumphant, and it was at that moment that TaeYang noticed that both T.O.P and DaeSung were watching just as intently as he was.

Seungri’s triumphant expression fell off of his face when GD looked away from him, “I don’t understand…?”

DaeSung shook his head and stood up, heading toward JiYong, “Don’t worry, Ji-hyung! It’s his first time.” TaeYang watched as Daesung dropped into the seat across from JiYong, and leaned in toward him in an obvious ploy to make the man forget about what Seungri had just said. He was so intent, in fact, that he didn’t even notice when T.O.P sat down next to him (well, ‘next to’ is kind of misleading, it was more like ‘on top of’ because of the way that YoungBae was sprawling across the large chair).

“His first time doing what?” JiYong asks, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion, and annoyance starting to edge into his voice.

The smile that DaeSung awards him with only serves to confuse him further, “Helping a friend get what he wants” He said it so nonchalantly, dismissively even, that YoungBae could tell that JiYong wasn’t paying attention to the meaning of the words. “Have you come up with a way to confront YoungBae-hyung?”

YoungBae hears JiYong sigh again, and is so focused that when T.O.P finally (finally) moves off of him, he barely reacts to the hand in his sweatshirt pocket. ‘Barely’ because he does dimly notice it, but doesn’t actually do anything more than shift a little out of the way.

“Nah, I can’t think of anything, been distracted” JiYong says, looking back down at the notes in front of him.

DaeSung nods mutely, before reaching forward to pat him on the back (when did he start doing that? It’s not even really very reassuring). He gets up slowly and moves back to the floor where he had been sitting previously, Seungri following behind him with his notebook in hand.

 After a couple of minutes of complete silence, T.O.P makes a loud yawning/stretching noise and gets up from his place next to YoungBae. As he walks past the table he reaches his hands up above his head and not soon after something lands on the table in front of JiYong with a rather loud ’thwack!’ sound.

“Top-hyung, what…?” JiYong starts to ask. Unfortunately for him, T.O.P didn’t even react and kept walking.

“I’ll be back” he says nonchalantly, opening the door and only looking back to give DaeSung a look that has him slowly standing up and ushering Seungri up as well.

YoungBae was so focused on them that he hadn’t noticed JiYong picking up what T.O.P had dropped onto the table. He also hadn’t noticed what DaeSung and Seungri had noticed (because, again, he wasn’t looking at JiYong), which was kind of a good thing because otherwise he might have panicked and done something stupid (like the chicken dance, or the Macarena). No, instead he just stared after their retreating forms as the door closed behind them and failed to notice (as he had been doing quite a lot lately) that someone was approaching him.

It had taken JiYong less than five seconds to recognize that the thing that had been dropped before him was a cellphone; and even as he was trying to ask T.O.P for an explanation, he was picking it up and coming to the realization that it wasn’t his hyung’s cellphone at all. In fact, as he (and DaeSung and Seungri) came to realize, it was YoungBae’s. JiYong was only confused for another four or five seconds, and in that time T.O.P had managed to get DaeSung and Seungri out of the room, leaving only YoungBae (poor, confused and frightened YoungBae) in the room with him.

YoungBae looked away from the door only after it had been closed for a few seconds and he had finally come to the realization that JiYong was still there. He jumped about a foot in the air when JiYong leaned in from what YoungBae noted was a kneeling position on the floor, and said:

“I think you’re missing something”

YoungBae couldn’t make eye contact with him, the way that JiYong had said it was so…intimate, which was odd because it wasn’t like he was actually saying anything overtly intimate (but he sure seemed to be implying it). Instead of looking at JiYong’s face, YoungBae looked at the cellphone resting in JiYong’s hand.

“How did you get my phone? It was in my pock…” He can’t finish the sentence because as he says it (confusion lacing every word) he runs his hand over the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt and realizes what T.O.P had been doing. He had barely even registered it as it was happening, and he wondered briefly when his hyung had gotten so sneaky.

He reached forward so that he could grab the phone, but JiYong pulled it out of his reach, “oh no, you can’t have it yet” he was grinning, and so YoungBae reached forward again, getting closer, but still not close enough. “No, no, you can’t have it ‘til you look at me.”

Frustrated, but starting to enjoy himself, he looks up and directly into JiYong’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something about the look that JiYong was giving him that made it so that he couldn’t look away.

Noticing the paralyzed look on YoungBae’s face, JiYong smirks lightly and moves in quickly, planting a light kiss on the corner of his mouth before pulling back far enough that he can have a clear and unclouded view of YoungBae’s reaction (because being as close as he had been was disorienting, he wasn’t sure what he used to think caused that reaction, but figuring it out had been a life-saver a few years back).

JiYong wasn’t disappointed by YoungBae’s reaction. He sat shocked for a short few seconds, before slowly turning red and making cute stuttering noises.

“Shh, do you want your phone back? If you promise not to let Seungri check me out again, ever, you can have it.”

YoungBae nodded mutely and caught the phone when Ji dropped it. “I can’t believe he did that.”

Ji just smiled at him and moved so that he was sitting in the chair along with Bae, “I can’t believe you let all three of them hit on me. You had to know it was going to happen.”

“I couldn’t…I couldn’t tell you.” YoungBae looks at the floor, flushing red again.

“It wouldn’t have taken much” YoungBae turns his head at that, and JiYong takes it as the question that it was intended to be, “It’s hard enough for me to control myself around you in general anyway.”

YoungBae was left rather speechless at that confession, but instead of saying anything, he brings his arm up to wrap around JiYong’s shoulders and pull him closer. He wonders briefly when the other three will come back as he kisses Ji on the forehead and moves a little so that they can be more comfortable on the chair (it really wasn’t big enough to fit two full people). He decides that he doesn’t care.

“Maybe they won’t come back for a while,” Ji says, as if reading YoungBae’s thoughts (like he always seems to do so well), “because I think that I am ready for a nap.”

YoungBae just smiles and closes his eyes, leaning his head on top of JiYong’s, “mm, me too.”