3 months later

“Ok great. Now lift your chin… a little to the left… stop.” Click “Good. Bring your hand down.” Click Click “Great… and…” Click “We’re… done.”

Jiyong brought his camera down and turned to face the rest of the staff on set. “Thanks everyone, that’s a wrap.”

The room was soon filled with people moving things and breaking down equipment while Jiyong turned to the model. “Allison you were wonderful, as always.”

The tall red head smiled and walked toward him in her yellow summer dress. “It’s always a joy to have you take me photo’s Jiyong, but I had no idea you were even in town. How long have you been back in L.A.?”

“Umm 3 months…”

“Really! That long! And you didn’t text me…” She playfully frowned.

Jiyong chuckled. “Sorry. When I originally came back I wasn’t planning on staying this long.”

“Do you know how much longer you’re going to be here?”

Jiyong shrugged his shoulders, “Not really, time will only tell.”

“Allison! Come on we have to go to your fitting across town.” Her manager yelled.

“ I forgot.” She muttered. “Well if you have some free time we should meet up, get the old gang back together and have a couple drinks…”

“Sounds fun.”

She flashed him her brilliant smile that he had just been taking photos of. “Sweet. I’ll try and give you a call soon. See ya!”

As soon as Allison was gone from his side, Seungri came up and quickly replaced her with his iPad in hand.

“Ok so this was the last shoot for this week. Tomorrow you’re scheduled for an editing session and then Friday you have some phone conferences with some magazines in Japan and Korea.”

They walked towards the back of the studio where his equipment was and started packing up while he listened to him. “Oh and your mother called to say that everything was fine this morning and they already left the hospital and are almost back to the house.”

“Did she say if she needed anything for him?”

Seungri shook his head. “No, just that they are still expecting us tonight for dinner.”

“Ok.” Jiyong finished putting the last lens away and stood up as he looked at his watch. “Well its only 3 now and we don’t have to be at their house till 8, so let’s head back the apartment and let me get a jump start on editing for tomorrow.” 

“Sounds good. I’ll meet you outside,” Seungri said as he grabbed Jiyong’s hard case and wheeled it out to the car.

Jiyong went around saying goodbyes and thank you’s to the rest of the staff as he grabbed his laptop with all the photo’s from the day on it and then finally made it outside where Seungri had the car ready and waiting for him. He threw the rest of his belongings on the front seat and then opened the back door and crawled in, laying on his back.

“I’m just gonna take a quick nap on the ride over ok,” he yawned to Seungri as his eyes started closing.

“Still not sleeping well?” The younger man asked as he started driving.

“No… not really,” he said as he adjusted himself to get comfortable. He tried using his arm as a pillow but his watch kept digging into his wrist bone. Bringing it in front of his face, he slowly took off the black accessory, his fingers running over the smooth face that showed the silver detailing. His heart clenched and he could feel his throat tightening up as he looked at it in his hands, remembering the person who gave him the watch.

Letting out a long sigh, he to his side trying to fall asleep. He knew the dream would be coming any second, but no matter how much he wanted to avoid it, he thought it would be better to just get it out of the way and maybe he could find a peaceful sleep afterward.

The dream was the same every single time. He always found himself walking down the street on a bright sunny day. He was always his 12 year old self. And he always had 12 year old Seunghyun by his side.

 They would be walking home from school together when they would stop at their favorite playground, not wanting to be separated just yet. Jiyong knew that this was his happiest time from childhood. When he actually had a friend. Seunghyun was there for him and helped him come out of his shell a little bit.

They swung on the swing set, Seunghyun jumped off and landed gently on the ground as he asked Jiyong if he wanted to head home. Jiyong followed suit and jumped off as well to stand next to his best friend as he said that he didn’t want to leave just yet. Seunghyun smiled and said, “Great.” He then quickly reached out and tapped Jiyong on the shoulder as he yelled, “You’re it!” and ran away as fast as possible.

“Ahh hyung, you know I can’t run that fast,” he whined, even though he had a smile on his face, as he started chasing after the boy, hearing laughter ahead of him.

He saw Seunghyun round the corner of the jungle gym and as soon as he rounded the corner too, the older boy was nowhere in sight.

He knew deep in his subconscious that this was when his dream turned into a nightmare, for the sky was slowly turning dark as the playground started to fade away.

“Hyung…” He would always cry out, looking for the lost boy. “Seunghyun… where are you…” His voice would echo against invisible walls. “I thought we were playing tag… not hide and seek…” By now the playground had completely faded away and he was left in total darkness save for a light that came from somewhere above him. “Seunghyun… where are you…” He would always follow the same path, still trying to find the boy in the darkness, but every time he would trip and fall.

“Jiyong…” Seunghyun’s voice would echo around him. He would turn around in circles trying to find the source of the voice. “Jiyong… Jiyong…”

“Seunghyun… please… come back…” Panic started over taking him, his breath getting caught in his throat. “I’m scared…”

And as always, as soon as he uttered those words, the light would go out leaving him alone in total darkness.

He jerked awake, breathing heavily from the panic he felt in the dream, and found himself still in the backseat of the car. Sitting up he rubbed his eyes and stretched as he looked out the window to see where they were. He gave an internal sigh of relief as he saw that they were approaching their apartment complex. He was ready to be out of this car and away from the memory of the dream he just had.

Walking into the apartment Jiyong looked to Seungri and said, “Hey I’m gonna take a shower real fast, can you set up my laptop so I can start editing when I get done?”

Seungri nodded but could see that something was bothering the older man. Well, bothering him more than normal. He saw the look in Jiyong’s eyes, the distant, lifelessness look. It was almost like he was the shell of the man he once knew. There was no spark of life or happiness left in him, and no matter how carefree he presented himself out in the world to others, Seungri would see the broken man that he really was at the end of every day.

It was as if Jiyong had become a robot, like he would flip a switch and be the charismatic young photographer when he needed to, but the rest of the time he would shut down and confine himself to mindless work.

If Seungri was honest with himself he knew that at least “robot” Jiyong was better than the “other” Jiyong that he had walked in on 3 months ago, he knew it was better for the older man to drown himself in work rather than alcohol.

3 months ago, after the news broke out about Seunghyun to the world, Seungri tried his hardest to be there for his friend. He saw him go through so many different things since they’ve been friends, but this one was the worst. At first Jiyong was just using work as a distraction while he waited for Seunghyun to contact him. But after a couple weeks of nothing, Seungri started noticing that the older man was starting to lose weight and he had dark circles under his eyes, however the thing that changed the most was his attitude. In all their years of working together, Seungri had never seen Jiyong yell at a model or staff on set, but as the rule of the world says, there’s a first for everything.

Even though they still had photo shoots and appointments, the number of jobs was starting to dwindle, but then you throw in the attitude that Jiyong was taking to the few shoots they did have, and Seungri knew that if he didn’t do something soon, no one would want to hire Jiyong again. So with that in mind, Seungri stood up to his boss one day and tried to knock some sense into the older man. He thought that it had worked until the next week when Jiyong’s name was finally released to the media that he had been Seunghyun’s boyfriend.

When Seungri got the phone call from Jiyong, asking to cancel the rest of the appointments for the week, he completely understood why, even if Jiyong tried to play off that he was sick. However after a few days of not hearing from him, he decided to go over to Jiyong’s place to see how he was doing, but what he found had truly scared him.

Jiyong was never a heavy drinker, he was more of a social drink and sometimes he would like to get drunk with friends, but what Seungri walked into when he arrived at Jiyong’s apartment, was truly terrifying. He could smell stale beer mixed with other hard liquors that burned his nose and he could only imagine at how much it would burn going down his throat. When he couldn’t immediately locate Jiyong in the living room or kitchen, Seungri looked in his bedroom. But when he looked down the hall, he saw Jiyong passed out on the bathroom floor.

As soon as he had seen that, he knew that he had to get Jiyong out. Out of the situation, out of the country, and out of this dark pit that he had pulled himself down into. So after sobering him up and trying to get him back to being a functioning human being, which took several days, Seungri had come up with a plan.

He told Jiyong that they had a couple offers from magazines over in America and tried to explain to his boss that not only would it be a great opportunity to take these jobs, but it would be good for him to get away from the whole situation that was happening around him.

Surprisingly, Jiyong agreed without hesitation and before they knew it, they were back in America working nonstop. As soon as they arrived he knew they had made the right decision in coming back, if only for a short while. No one in America really knew about celebrity gossip in other countries, so it was almost as if nothing had happened… almost. Despite being away from all the hate and slander, Seungri could still see how the whole thing affected Jiyong. He did try and ask Jiyong if he had talked to Seunghyun, but he would always brush off the question and change the topic.

During the first month of being back in America, Seungri helped Jiyong to back into the swing of things. He saw him smile during photo shoots, but he could tell that it was just for show, it never reached his eyes. He was starting to think that he would never see Jiyong as happy as he had been with Seunghyun, and that scared him. Even though they had a boss/assistant relationship, underneath he knew that he was one of Jiyong’s closest friends, and of course as a friend you never want to see someone you care about go through heartache.

Just when Seungri thought they were starting to make more progress, helping Jiyong put his life back together, the world decided to throw something else at the already broken photographer.

Jiyong had gotten a call from his mother asking if him and Seungri would like to go out to dinner to catch up and of course Jiyong couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see his family after so long. They had agreed to meet at a nice restaurant and were in the middle of enjoying their meal when Jiyong’s father all of a sudden started having chest pains.

That night was a complete blur after that, with everyone going to the hospital and waiting to find out if he would be ok. Seungri saw the panic in Jiyong’s face, no matter how much he tried to hide it. Jiyong had already come a long way from where he was when they first came back, but now all he saw was the scared child who was frightened that he would lose his father on top of losing the person that he loved the most.
 

Fortunately his father had pulled through. It was a massive heart attack but the doctors said that with plenty of rest and stress free living he would make a full recovery.   

However after the whole scare with his father, Jiyong shut down even more than before. He wouldn’t talk unless it was about work and he would spend his days locked up in his room editing. The one time that Jiyong did talk to Seungri was to tell him that he wanted to stay in America until he knew his dad was better.

So here they were 1 month after his dad’s heart attack and they were stuck in the same routine for weeks. Go to photo shoot, watch Jiyong pretend that everything is ok, come home, and then watch Jiyong shut down and hide himself away.

But today when they walked in to their apartment that they had rented for the time being, Seungri saw the way Jiyong was carrying himself. Like all the weight he had been carrying for the past three months had finally taken its toll on him. He watched as the older man walked into the bathroom and just as he turned the corner, Seungri saw him wipe a tear from his eye.

When Jiyong got out of the shower, he told Seungri to call his parents and tell them that he wasn’t feeling well and that they should reschedule dinner for another time. Hearing this, the younger man knew that it was finally time to speak up, and before he let Jiyong disappear from sight he grabbed him and pulled him onto the couch.

“Jiyong, we need to talk.”

“Seungri, I don’t want to. I just want to be left alone.”

“Well I’ve done that for the past 3 months and I’m tired of seeing you like this.” He gestured to his face. “You’ve lost weight, you have dark circles under your eyes from lack of sleep, and all you do is work. You’ve been miserable for months and I think it about time to finally talk about what happened in Korea.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Jiyong tried to get up but Seungri just pushed him back down.

“Bull! If there wasn’t anything, then you wouldn’t be acting like this. You need to talk to Seunghyun.”

Jiyong flinched at the name. It had been so long since he heard it out load that it was like a nail piercing his heart when Seungri had said it. He had tried so hard to push all thoughts of the man out of his head, but as soon as he heard his name, everything they had shared came rushing back to him.

Seungri watched as Jiyong’s face fell, pain written all over it. Trying to be as careful about this situation as possible, he softly asked, “Have you talked to him recently?”

Jiyong just shook his head.

Seungri sighed. “Well I talked to Daesung the other day, you know just to catch up.” Jiyong shot his head up. “We didn’t really talk about much… just that you and I have been in America for a while. He said that things over in Korea have died down about Seunghyun… it’ll still pop up every now and then, but you know how gossip fades when a new scandal breaks out. The new topic is that some singer is caught up in a drug scandal so that’s been the hot topic for a couple weeks. Daesung also said that he and Seunghyun have been in Japan for about a month. Even though a lot of his endorsements in Korea dropped him once the news hit, some of his over sea’s endorsements decided that they still wanted him, so he’s been working in Japan.”

Jiyong nodded and mumbled, “That’s good…”

“Look Jiyong, I know you hate me telling you to do something, but know that I only do it when its something that would be good for you, so why don’t you give him a call?”

“Did Daesung say that he wanted to talk to me?”

“No, but-“

“I won’t.”

“Just call him.”

“I can’t!” Jiyong yelled, clenching his eyes shut as he took in a deep breath.

“Why not? You two had so much together and then once the world found out, you guys just ended it. I thought you’d be stronger than this Jiyong, you’ve gone through this kind of thing. You should be there for him.”

“You think I don’t know that.” He shot back.

“Then why are you guys ignoring each other?”

“I don’t know! Trust me I’ve tried, but… I…” His voice cracked as is eyes started watering. “You want to know why I agreed to come back to America, because the one time he actually did call me after all this happened, I accused him of being ashamed of me. That he wanted to hide our relationship. I was drunk and I was taking my insecurities out on him. I never gave him the chance to explain. But when he said that he didn’t want to see me, I couldn’t handle it. After everything we’ve been through, I just broke down. I was scared and hurt and all I cared about was trying to drink the pain away. And then you found me passed out and suggested we leave, all I could think about was how if Seunghyun didn’t want to talk to me or see me, then I would make easier for him and go halfway across the world. But then as soon as we got here I realized how idiotic I was being. I was running away, but running away wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t make me feel any better about myself and how I treated him when he was the one who reached out to me. And I knew that I was just being a coward by not trying to call him, but every time I thought about calling him all I could hear was his voice in the back of my mind saying “I can’t face you”  and I just can’t hear that again… I couldn't bare to hear that from the same voice that said 'I love you' to me so many times... I can’t handle this Seungri. With this and then the scare with my father… it’s all just too much. So I try and immerse myself in work just so I can pretend that I can still do something useful… because all I want to do is just give up! God…I’m such a coward.”

That was the breaking point. All the pent up emotions that he had bottled up inside him for the past three months came rushing out. He doubled over in on himself and let the tears fall.

Seungri scooted closer and pulled Jiyong into his arms. He didn’t care if his shirt would be stained with the older man’s tears and snot, all he cared about was being the shoulder his friend needed to cry on. He was glad that Jiyong had finally opened up but he understood that doing so would bring heartache.

He felt Jiyong’s body shaking as he cried, his breath catching in his throat as he tried to get more are into his lungs. Gently rubbing his hand on the older man’s back, he tried his best to let him know that he was and always would be there for him.

They sat there on the couch for who knows how long, with Jiyong eventually laying his head in Seungri’s lap and falling asleep, tear stains  on his cheeks and eyes puffed red. The younger man stayed still, knowing that Jiyong needed some semblance of a peaceful sleep, and if he could be the one to keep him calm, then he would sit here for weeks hoping that he would one day return to the bright, cheerful man that he once knew.

The next day Jiyong went right back into his routine and immersed himself into work again, but this time Seungri saw a small change. He didn’t know what it was, maybe it was from just letting himself go the previous night, but whatever it was, it gave him hope that he was on his way to his old self.

That weekend they had a conference call with a Japanese magazine to go over the last minute details for the shoot next week, but the entire time Seungri could tell that Jiyong’s mind was somewhere else. Typically Jiyong would ask dozens of questions about the shoot, the clothing, the model, the story they wanted to tell, just so he could be ready for when they started. But all he did was just listen to the man over the phone and “hmmm” whenever was necessary.

When they hung up, Seungri asked him what he was thinking about and all Jiyong said was, “Seunghyun’s in Japan…”

“And…”

“What if we run into each other?”

“Well Japan is a pretty big place Jiyong… But what would you say to him if you did see him?”

“I-I don’t know…”

“Seungri can’t you drive faster?” Jiyong yelled at his assistant.

“Do you want me to drive through the cars in front of us? It’s not me, it’s the damn traffic?”

“Well we’re going to be late!”

“I know, I’m trying my best.”

They had been sitting in the traffic jam for the past 20 minutes in the middle of downtown Tokyo, trying to get to the photo shoot. They had already turned down 2 wrong streets and it was starting to frustrate Jiyong, he hated being late. Seungri on the other hand thought that it was good to hear some life in the older man’s voice, even if he was being yelled at. Ever since they had landed in Japan, Jiyong had been more vocal and talkative, again Seungri didn’t know what sparked the change in the photographer, but he was glad that listen to whatever Jiyong had to say.

After another hour they were finally pulling up to the studio. Jiyong jumped out of the car, grabbing his laptop bag and ran inside, they were 20 minutes late.

“Sorry everyone, we hit some traffic. Let my assistant and I set up really fast and then we can start.” Jiyong was so thankful that he and Seungri had come last night to set up all the staging with some of the staff from the magazine. It was almost like the gods knew that he was going to be late the next morning.

One of the staffers came up to Jiyong to tell him everything that was going on so far.

“Hello sir. Don’t be too worried about being late, all the lighting is set and the model is in hair and makeup.”

“Great.”

Seungri came in and started unpacking all of Jiyong’s camera equipment. He put a lens on the camera and handed it to Jiyong who had just finished setting up his laptop. The older man started to press buttons and change the settings.

“Ok, well I don’t like being behind schedule,” Jiyong said to the staff member who was still by his side. “So if everyone else is ready, let’s get this started.”

The staff member turned and said to the rest of the crew to get in their places while Jiyong looked around for the model.

“Is the model ready yet? Can I have the model on set?”

Seungri spoke up and said that he would go and get him, Jiyong nodded and turned to do some last minute adjustments to the lights and set. A few minutes later, Jiyong heard footsteps coming up behind and before he could turn around, someone called out his name.

“Jiyong.”

His blood froze in his veins and his breath had left his lungs. He could feel his hands starting to shake and was starting to see black spot in the corner of his eyes. However he somehow found a way to turn around to face the man who had spoke.

“Hello Jiyong… It’s good to see you.” The man said quietly.

His throat closed up on him but his mind was racing.

Seunghyun. Seunghyun is standing right in front of me.

A/N: I know a lot of you guys hated me for the last chapter and probably are a little confused with this one, but I really do have a method to my madness...