The rest of the day passed in a blur. Jiyong robotically went through the moves at the dance practice. His body twisted and turned with a mind of its own while his thoughts raced between panic, anger for having to be scared in the first place, and panic again.

Seunghyun was not any better off. In fact, he didn’t have the luxury of having already mastered the difficult steps of the routine, so he was reprimanded even more than usual by the annoyed choreographer.

“You’re not even trying today, are you? My halmoni could do it better than you in her wheelchair! If I have to show you one more ti-”

“Noona, can you come over here and help me with the back step? I can’t seem to remember where to place my right foot after the turn,” Seungri quickly interrupted with his best puppy dog eyes. The choreographer narrowed her eyes and huffed. Seungri shot a meaningful look over her shoulder to Daesung and Youngbae. Understanding what the maknae was trying to do, Daesung turned to the upset lady with one of his innocent smiles.

“I’d like to see noona do that move again too. You look very cool when you dance.” He winked.

Blushing fiercely, the choreographer looked down at the floor and twirled her hair around her finger shyly. “That’s very nice of you to say, Daesung-ssi, but I’m too sweaty to keep dancing right now…”

“Use this to dry off, my pretty lady.” Youngbae expertly pulled his black tank top off and held it out to the now mesmerized woman. She openly stared at Youngbae’s chest and well-defined abs. Seungri pouted, feeling left out and maybe something else that he refused to think about, and hastily removed his shirt too.

“Hyung, you shouldn’t take your clothes off like that! It’s chilly in here with the air conditioner on, and you’re sweaty. A man your age can’t afford to get sick,” Seungri insisted as he tried to force his own shirt down over Youngbae’s head.

“Yah! What do you mean ‘a man your age’?”

“I mean,” Seungri grunted as he attempted to remove Youngbae’s stubborn arm from where he’d shoved it through the hole with his head, “maybe I should start calling you ajussi!”

“Disrespectful brat!”

Sighing inwardly at their childish antics while the two shirtless men bickered, Daesung caught a glance of Seunghyun and Jiyong out of the corner of his eye. They had gravitated towards each other at some point which always seemed to happen as if there was a sort of gravitational force that physically wouldn’t allow them stay apart for long. They both appeared anxious as they whispered with their heads bent together.

It was obvious that something was wrong, but in the middle of dance practice and in front of an outsider was probably not the place for Daesung to ask. Deciding to continue with the plan of distracting the noona from bullying Seunghyun, Daesung forced himself to smile wider and invited the lady to get a drink from the company cafeteria with him. She nodded enthusiastically in response.

He turned to invite the others along when he noticed Youngbae holding Seungri upside down in the air.

“Youngbae-hyung, please put Seungri back on the floor before you drop-”

“OW!” Seungri shrieked, rubbing his sore bottom. “Hyung! That hurt.”

Youngbae laughed, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Recognizing that no good could possibly come from that look, Seungri instantly began backing away, shaking his head and holding out his hands to bat away the approaching man. With the reflexes and speed of a cheetah, Youngbae caught Seungri as he tried to dart to the other side of the room. “I’m sorry, Riri. Do you want hyung to kiss it better?”

The maknae squeaked in a manly manner (or at least what he would argue was manly if anyone ever spoke of it) and squirmed away.

-----

“T.O.P., could you please stop staring like that? You’re going to give the interns a heatstroke,” Director Lee begged from behind the cameraman.

Seunghyun blinked back to reality for the moment, flushing as he realized that he’d been glaring directly into the camera for the past ten minutes, lost in his thoughts. Embarrassed, he mumbled an apology, “Sorry, Director-nim.”

“It’s alright. I just worry about my swooning helpers. How am I going to get anything done with them salivating over you?” The director joked as he glanced pointedly at the giggling interns that were more intent on watching Seunghyun than doing their jobs.

They quickly scurried back to their tasks like little mice when they realized they'd been caught staring.

Happy that the filming could now continue, the director checked his notes once more. “Okay, G-Dragon, could you step to your right? Yes like that. Over a little more,” he said as he readjusted the camera angle a bit. “Very good. Now I need the two of you to lean into each other.”

Seunghyun looked down at Jiyong who was now pressed tightly against him. The scent of hairspray was thick in the air around them. He wondered briefly why his hair had to be plastered straight up while Jiyong got to leave his all soft and pink and wavy. It was entirely too tempting like that. Even though he knew what it felt like, Seunghyun always had the urge to run his fingers through the younger man’s hair to test the strands against his skin.

Jiyong smiled up at Seunghyun, forgetting about the people and video cameras surrounding them the instant their eyes met. His heart began beating faster in anticipation at the look in that dark gaze. He remembered when they were kids and Seunghyun had hardly ever made eye contact with him because he’d been too self-conscious. All those wasted years before they’d become comfortable enough with each other to do more than make awkward greetings whenever they met. Luckily, by the time that they’d become trainees, they were good friends.

Thinking about it now, Jiyong wasn’t sure how he’d ever survived without those deep brown eyes to keep him grounded.

His smile softened around the edges, becoming gentler and more sincere as Seunghyun’s own lips formed an answering grin. It was like a secret language between them. Words and praises written in the subtle curve of lips that voiced their feelings louder and more clearly than talking ever could.

“No, you two are supposed to be fighting! Scowl and look menacing!”

They jumped as the director’s voice invaded their moment. Suppressing the laughter that threatened to break free, Seunghyun bit the inside of his cheek and did his best to glare at Jiyong. Carefully pinching his thigh on the side facing away from the cameras and prying eyes, Jiyong schooled his face into a mask of anger and glared right back.

“Excellent! Now, Taeyang and Daesung, you two need to walk through with the girl. Laugh and flirt naturally!”

“Director-nim…what is the concept of the video again?” Seungri asked with a bright red face as he tugged his trench coat tighter around himself.

Sighing heavily, the director flipped to the beginning of his notes and summarized them for everyone.

“There are two best friends. A girl comes between them and they begin to resent each other. Right as they are about to irreparably ruin their friendship, the girl walks by with two other men who are about to fall into her trap.”

“What are we trying to sell?” Daesung wondered aloud.

“Perfume. ‘The fragrance that can entice men enough to ruin friendships.’”

“That’s not very catchy… What kind of woman would want to do that to innocent men?” Youngbae mumbled to himself.

Seungri frowned as a chill ran up his bare legs. “I understand all that, but why do I have to be the girl?”

“Because you’re the prettiest,” Youngbae supplied with a playful smirk and a pat on the back.

Frowning even more deeply, Seungri took off his coat and readjusted the black skirt the wardrobe people had squeezed him into.

-----

Hours later, everyone climbed into the van with hungry stomachs and tired eyes.

“Can we eat before we go back to practice? Pretty please?” Daesung puffed out his cheeks and fluttered his eyelashes.

Laughing, Jiyong rested his head against Seunghyun’s shoulder. A contented sigh escaped him as Seunghyun wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer, dropping a soft kiss against his forehead.

He was able to hear and feel Seunghyun’s stomach growl against his cheek. “Hyunnie, are you growing a monster in there?” he asked as he poked his human pillow.

When he didn’t receive an answer, Jiyong poked him again. Frowning when he still didn’t get a reply, he looked up.

Seunghyun was fast asleep. His neck was bent at an awkward angle and his face bounced against the window every time they went over a bump. Jiyong leaned forward and was unable to resist the temptation of placing a tender kiss on Seunghyun’s lips. He felt the older man’s mouth smile against him, but when he pulled away Seunghyun was still sleeping. Gently, he moved his boyfriend’s head so it rested more comfortably against the seat.

“Jiyong-ah… don’t leave me.” Seunghyun whispered in his sleep as his arm tightened around Jiyong.

Their predicament was immediately brought back to the forefront of his mind. Jiyong slumped into his seat, clutching at the arm that held him as if Seunghyun was going to be ripped away from him at any moment.

Noticing the dark shift in their leader’s mood, Youngbae leaned forward in his seat with a concerned frown. “Ji, what’s wrong? You two have been acting strangely all day.”

Jiyong sighed as he averted his gaze to the passing streets of Seoul. Should he tell them? It wasn’t that he wanted to hide things from his friends, but he didn’t want to worry them. Everyone had their own busy lives and concerns; they didn’t need the stress of his relationship pushed onto them too.

“Stop right there,” Youngbae ordered quietly, placing a reassuring hand on Jiyong’s knee. He stared at Jiyong until he stopped staring out the window and finally met his worried eyes. “I know that look, Jiyong, and its bull. You think that you shouldn’t tell us because you don’t want to be a burden, but that’s stupid. We’re your friends. Your family. We want to know what’s wrong. Your problems are our problems whether you tell us about them or not because what affects you affects all of us.”

Seungri and Daesung nodded in agreement.

Steeling himself in preparation for his friends’ reactions, Jiyong took a deep breath and squeezed Seunghyun’s hand. He sort of wished that Seunghyun was awake for this, but one look at his peaceful sleeping face, and Jiyong couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the tired man.

“Yang knows about us.” He was pleased that his voice didn’t crack or stutter. He almost sounded calm, but his friends weren’t fooled at all.

“What?! How?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“What did he say?”

“Walked in when we were fooling around. Just sort of stood there and then demanded a meeting in the morning,” Seunghyun mumbled sleepily.

“Sorry for waking you up, hyung,” Seungri said quietly. Seunghyun nodded in acknowledgement and leaned his head against Jiyong’s.

Daesung shared fearful looks with Youngbae and Seungri. It was unlikely that the President would just allow them to continue dating. Seeing Jiyong and Seunghyun snuggled together in front of them, Daesung couldn’t even imagine them being with anyone else but each other. He’d seen both of them date other people before, but they’d never been so happy or energetic. It was clear as day to anyone that bothered to look, that Jiyong and Seunghyun were good for each other. Where Seunghyun was laid back and mischievous, Jiyong was hyper and straightforward. Jiyong pushed Seunghyun into trying harder and being more than he was comfortable with, and in return Seunghyun mellowed Jiyong out. They were both stubborn, but it only seemed to make them closer rather than driving them apart.

He’d seen them argue before, petty fights that were more about boredom than actual anger. At first, he had been worried that it would ruin their friendship and ultimately the band, but the fights only lasted a few hours or a day at most, and then they were always even more inseparable than before. He shuddered when he realized it was really probably just a type of to them.

What would they become if Yang tore them away from one another?

“We’ll go with you to the meeting,” Seungri stated matter-of-factly into the silence that had gathered over the group.

Jiyong furrowed his brows in confusion. “Why?”

“It’s what families do.”

-----

The next morning the five men were crowded outside of President Yang’s office at 9:45. Despite the fact that Jiyong had cancelled their second dance practice so that they could rest, nobody had gotten much sleep the night before.

They’d all been plagued with thoughts of what was going to happen. Their entire future was up in the air.

Daesung had tossed and turned while trying to formulate a plan. There had to be some way that everyone could be happy. There just had to be.

Seungri had pulled his sheets over his head and cuddled with his stuffed rabbit that Youngbae had given him for his twenty-first birthday as a gag gift. If Jiyong and Seunghyun weren’t allowed to be together then that meant he couldn’t be with… Refusing to go any further with that thought, he pulled the rabbit closer.

Youngbae had buried his head under his pillows. Frustrated and afraid, he had to keep reminding himself that Hyunsuk wasn’t a bad guy—he’d given them a chance to be friends and become a world famous band after all—he was just a man trying to run a business. Youngbae loved all of the members of the band (not that he had the time or curiosity to examine what type of love he felt for each of them at the moment), but Jiyong was his best friend. It was hard to tell himself that punching Yang in the face was something he shouldn’t do, especially if he was about to hurt Jiyong.

Seunghyun had spent the night at the dorm. As soon as they’d all picked at their dinner, suddenly not as hungry as they’d been just hours before, he and Jiyong had retired to the safe haven of Jiyong’s room. Under the covers everything else seemed far away. They didn’t talk much, but they used the night to memorize the rhythm of each other’s heartbeats and synchronize their breathing. The dark cloud of the next day lingered over the room and gave a frantic need to touch and feel and taste because they both knew that their time together was running out.

As they stood in front of the office, Daesung, Seungri, and Youngbae huddled around Jiyong and Seunghyun protectively.

When the door swung open, Hyunsuk sent them a curious look. “I don’t remember calling you three here.”

Youngbae clenched his fists by his sides. Seungri leaned into him gently and instantly he was calmed by the reassuring contact.

“Can we get this over with please?” Jiyong asked with a forlorn expression. For a moment, Daesung thought he saw sadness in the President’s gaze. Before he could look too closely, they were herded into the room.

Taking seats around the wide table, they all sat in silence.

Clearing his throat, Hyunsuk leaned his elbows against his desk and regarded them with a disappointed frown. “Would you care to explain what I saw yesterday?”

“We’re together. I love him.” Jiyong’s simple words bounced around the room. He stared at Hyunsuk in challenge as if daring him to disagree.

“How long has this been going on?”

Seunghyun grabbed Jiyong’s hand where it was sitting on the table and laced their fingers together defiantly. “Our one year anniversary is in six weeks.”

The President leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. He turned his frown towards the other three. “And how long have you known about it?”

“Seven months.”

“Ten months of dating, they say. Seven months of knowing, they say,” Hyunsuk muttered to himself. He stared up at the ceiling as if waiting for God himself to glide down and solve this problem. He took a deep steadying breath and forced himself to remain calm.

“Do you know what will happen when people find out? Big Bang will be over. Done. You two,” he pointed at Seunghyun and Jiyong, “will never be able to work in this business again. And you three,” he gestured at Seungri, Daesung, and Youngbae, “will be lucky if you are able to do toilet paper commercials. Don’t you understand? Because of your mistak-”

“It’s not a mistake! They fell in love. What did you expect to happen? Years of forcing skinship and fanservice and now you’re surprised? That’s stupid!” Youngbae slammed his hands onto the table.

“It’s not like it used to be. People are more accepting of homoual relationships now. Look at all the dramas that there has been in the last few years:  Coffee Prince, To the Beautiful You, You’re Beautiful, Extreme K-Pop Survival, and Personal Preference. The world is different now.”

“Seungri, most of those shows are about men falling in love with women pretending to be men. In the end they all find out that they are in fact women. None of them are actually in love with men,” Yang replied as if he was talking to a particularly difficult child.

“The doctor in To the Beautiful You really was gay…”

“But he didn’t tell anyone! Nobody knew about it! Do you think this is the only time it’s ever happened in the entertainment business? I’d say about sixty percent of the men in our line of work are either gay or curious. Spending every moment of your life with other guys without privacy. Being forced to touch each other to keep the fans happy. It happens all the damn time, but nobody goes around admitting it!”

The boys of Big Bang stared at the President in shock.

“I don’t care what you guys do in private. If you’re happy and safe, then good for you. But when it comes out and affects everyone at my company, I can’t just sit idly by.” Sighing, he pulled out an envelope from his desk and pushed it towards them.

Jiyong looked at the envelope suspiciously. His mind was still attempting to process what was happening. Did that mean Hyunsuk didn’t mind that they were together? His heart thudded painfully against his chest. His nails dug into Seunghyun’s hand that still held his tightly. He could feel Seunghyun’s own chaotic pulse through the contact.

The President sounded resigned when he spoke.

“Yesterday when I saw you two, I was surprised. Originally, I was just going to give you a lecture about being more careful in the future. What if someone else had walked in? You shouldn’t do things like that where you can get caught.” He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. Sometimes he wished that he’d just retired after his band days. “But last night this began being circulated on the fansites.”

With shaking hands, Jiyong opened the envelope. He dropped the picture as if burned as soon as he saw it. It fluttered down and landed on the table quietly, staring up at them condemningly.

Seungri leaned forward to get a better look. It was from the commercial shoot yesterday. It must have been taken right before the director had told them to look mad. Jiyong and Seunghyun stood together, staring adoringly like the sun rose and set in each other’s eyes. It wasn’t like they were kissing or touching each other inappropriately, but the picture still brought a blush to Seungri’s cheeks. Looking at it, he felt like he was intruding on a private moment. There was no way to deny the sheer intensity and love that their warm smiles radiated.  

“It’s bound to hit the papers and more official sites sometime today, tomorrow at the latest. We can deny everything and say that it was just a joke, but it won’t do any good if you two stay together.”

Seunghyun swallowed, his tongue stuck somewhere in his esophagus. He cleared his throat a few times before finding his voice.

“What do you mean?”

“You guys have a difficult choice to make right now. I care about you. I’ve watched you grow up and become talented young men. You’re all like sons to me, and I don’t want to do something that will hurt you.” He met each of their eyes to make sure everyone knew that he meant what he was saying.

“Unfortunately, it seems you’ve become reckless after only ten months. I walked in on you yesterday; it could have been anyone. In this photograph, you might as well be shoving your tongues down each other’s throats for as obvious as it is. The company can try to cover it up, but the media isn’t going to let it go easily and right now I don’t believe that you two won’t slip up again. So… Jiyong and Seunghyun, you can either break up now, or you can quit the band.”

“No!” Youngbae shouted. His chair was knocked over backwards in his haste to stand. “You can’t do that. There’s a contract and-”

“The contract says that I’m able to terminate employment if there is behavior that is harmful to the company.”

Jiyong ignored everything going on around him. His head ached, bile rose in his throat, and his heart felt like it was being shredded into microscopic pieces. He’d spent his whole life working to be where he was today. He loved his job, loved singing, rapping, dancing. He lived to write and produce. The sound of the fans screaming from the crowd was practically oxygen to him now. But without Seunghyun would it mean anything? Would he be able to truthfully sing about love if he traded it in for fame?

Seunghyun stared down at the table, tracing the grain patterns of the wood with his eyes. He felt numb. The only thing that he could register at all was the heavy weight of Jiyong’s palm resting in his own. He knew without even looking that Jiyong was having his own private meltdown inside his beautiful mind. Seunghyun knew that Jiyong wouldn’t break up with him because he was too much of a romantic at heart, but he also knew that Jiyong would regret leaving music behind if he didn’t. He didn’t want to cause Jiyong to regret anything ever. Feeling tears prickle at the back of his eyes, he slowly pulled his hand away from his boyfriend.

“I think we should stop now, baby.”

Jiyong stared at him, speechless. Was he joking? Was there a hidden camera somewhere? He didn’t realize that his hand had moved until he began punching Seunghyun in the arm. “That’s not funny. What makes you think you can decide on your own? I won’t agree to that!”

Seunghyun caught his wrist and then pulled him into a hug. He breathed in the comforting scent of Jiyong’s shampoo and ran his fingers through that tempting pink hair. He sighed at the softness.

“I love you, Kwon Jiyong. That’s never going to change. Maybe when we’re older and the band has retired, we can try again,” he spoke softly, not caring in the least that everyone was listening. He heart broke even more when he felt Jiyong’s thin frame shaking in his arms. He tightened his grip, running his free hand down Jiyong’s back soothingly. “I’ll always wait for you.”

Needing to be alone before he fell apart completely, Seunghyun placed one last kiss on Jiyong's plump lips, and then left the room.

******

A/N: Thank you to all the commentors and subscribers and readers! I loooove you :) Also, does anyone want to make a poster or something? Just asking. I'm simply happy that people are reading :)