May slowly, agonizingly passed to June. Recovery just wasn't a clean, simple process, but I do believe Daesung's smiles started reaching his eyes again after awhile. He was visiting his family and attending church regularly.

     Jiyong didn't let on that he was going through a sort of struggle as well. In June, he muttered under his breath about something to do with the prosecutor's office. He didn't appear concerned, so I didn't ask.

     Whatever was going on, either Jiyong just genuinely didn't know himself yet or he simply didn't care. I wasn't under the impression that Jiyong was hiding something. Or if he was, it was trivial. In fact, he had opened up to me in ways we hadn't in a long time. There were those June and July nights where we'd stay up late and talk about anything, or we'd check up on Daesung, or make meals together. Sometimes he'd be cautious around me, remembering the old me that used to dislike his touches. Then there were days he'd forget, twinkiling his fingers against my nose or slapping my shoulders. Sometimes, if I was brave, I'd lean into his touc h. Other days, I would just stare at him when he wasn't looking, and sometimes he noticed, smiling teasingly back at me.

     In August, Jiyong shaved his hair. He said it wasn't meant to symbolize anything personally, and I believed he was honest, but even so, I wondered.

-----------------------------------

"What could it be? What could it be?"

     His voice was uncertain, soft and cracking at the edges. Jiyong was deep in thought, hunched over the writing desk in his room. I was just outside his doorway, observing him quietly in his distress. There wasn't a piece of paper or his lyric book in front of him this time, nor his cell phone. His fingers were rubbing at his temples as he simply stared straight ahead, no where, any where. I called to him from his door.

"Hyung?"

     His shoulders raised for only a moment before dropping back down. I figured it was okay to enter his room, since he wasn't objecting, but his mood was still off. I wondered if he would snap.

"Maknae," Jiyong breathed, turning back from his desk to face me, dropping his arms from his head to his lap.

"What's wrong?" I asked carefully. He appeared nervous, eyes darting from my shoulders to my eyes to my lips, and back to my eyes again.

"I'm trying to remember something," he replied.

"Remember what?" I asked, walking over to his bed to sit at the mattress's edge. His eyes followed me, swallowing.

"A night in Japan."

He stared at his hands then, folding and clenching.

"Its really important that I remember," he continued. "It had to have happened at one of those parties..."

"From our concerts there?"

     He looked back up at me then. It was really odd; he looked more like a boy than a man at that moment, a side of Jiyong I hadn't seen in awhile; lost, searching.

     It was then that he told me about the prosecutor's office. A second test, a hair test, came out weakly positive. I wasn't there. I couldn't help him remember something I wasn't there for. I had left him, and I felt extremely useless.

----------------------------------------

     The news came out to the public in early October. YG was going to release its press statement at any moment. The media was going crazy, huntng like vultures on its own prey. Police drug investigator statements, prosecutor statements, and all sorts of comments were surfacing on the web, full of hate, spitting cruelties at one another, for such a small act.

Jiyong was terribly scrutinized for everything he did. We all were. It was just that the golden child had it the worst.

I loved Jiyong, but I didn't worship him. I knew he wasn't perfect, like how I wasn't. I knew the real him enought not to believe so.

     It wasn't disappointment that had wet my cheeks. It was guilt for not staying with him that night. It was utter shock for the things people were calling him, saying about him. Just like they did with Daesung. It was love, frustrating love, bottled up and waiting to be expressed properly.

     Jiyong hadn't slept. Those same tired lines of stress and nervous anxiety were etched on his face, on his dull skin, in his blank eyes. It was an otherwise calm morning in October. His room was neat as usual, the bed was made and unwrinkled, the carpets were recently vaccumed, his lyric book lay smoothly on his pillow.

     I wondered if he needed comfort. I wondered how atrong he was. But somehow, upon entering his room that morning and observing how quiet and motionless he was while staring at his computer screen, I found myself crying in front of him.

     Without saying anything, Jiyong pulled me close to him, forcing me to sit in his lap with my forehead pressed to his neck. The sobs and hiccups came in full force. I felt so raw, so skinless, so afraid of what I was showing him. He simply sighed and my hair with one hand while the other wrapped behind my back to keep me there, his fingers tracing tiny circles on my right arm.

     "Tell me what's on your mind," Jiyong whispered. I was still gathering myself, desperately needing my control back, my air. I was so used to restraining, building a wall of emotions around myself when I was around him.

"Too many things," I told him meekly. "You don't deserve the names they're giving you."

Jiyong let out a little huff and squeezed my arm.

"No, maknae. I do. I deserve it, I made a mistake."

"But do you really deserve all of it? I mean-"

My eyes were stinging again as I squeezed them shut to keep the dumb tears from coming out.

"Its my fault too," I whispered, voice shaking.

"What?" Jiyong huffed again, voice incredulous.

"I left you that night," I swollowed. "I left your side. I could have-"

"Yah! No, Seungri. Don't go there."

     He tapped his knuckles at the top of my head. I tried to continue my argument, in a new breath, but he continued knocking on my head. The moment I opened my mouth, he'd hit. It didn't hurt, but it seemed to be hurting Jiyong. The next thing I knew, he was sniffling with each tap of his fist. His voice croaked, and out came his quiet tears.

"Please," he breathed. "Don't go there, Seungriyah."

     I threw my arms around him then as he leaned onto my shoulder, wetting my t-shirt. His shoulders gently rose and fell, taking in little gaps of air, and then it gradually became more erratic.

"Hyung, please hear me out," I softly demanded. For just a fleeting moment, I had my control back, and it felt so wonderful and reassuring.

My fingers massaged his neck, etching mindless patterns into his skin. I relaxed my own shoulders a bit, giving him more room to breathe.

"But I know there are burdens that you can't just carry on your own, hyung."

I never knew my fingers could be this steady around Jiyong, while my heart betrayed me like usual with its throbbing. I took a deep breath, in and out.

"I told you its okay, didn't I? Hyung, don't you still possess a part of me? Because I'm maknae? Because I'm Seungri?"

It was then that my control wavered. The rhythm of Jiyong's shaking breaths had matched my own.

"I'm yours, Jiyong. I want to be yours. Your guilt, your hurt, your mistakes-they're mine too."

The tears quietly streamed down again, my control lost.

"So please. Let me be there for you and share your burdens."

     With his forehead still pressed into my shoulder, he lifted a hand to wipe away my tears. Even without looking, he still managed to know me. Maybe he had memorized my facial features and the different sounds that my voice made like I had of his.

"I love you, hyung. I've loved you for years."

     He lifted his head to look at me then, eyes pink-rimmed and staring at me with an odd mix of wonder, confusion, and pain, maybe denial. He pulled away to really look at me, slightly tilting his head.

"Did you really just..."

He smoothed his thumbs over my cheeks, eyes wavering, searching my face again, on my eyes, my nose, my lips.

     The light dancing in Jiyong's eyes sparkled and faded, piecing together some sort of mental puzzle that was too complicated to just reach out and touch. I wondered what Jiyong was thinking, but I was certain that his previous sorrow had morphed into something else. His eyes had dried and he was breathing normally again, sliding his fingers from my cheeks to my nose, down to my lips, down to my chin.

     Cupping my chin, he cautiously tilted his head and leaned into me, watching me as he did so with half-lidded eyes. Not quite sure of myself, I settled with fluttering my eyes closed, anticipating each inch of space being closed off between us.

     I had never kissed a man. I thought it would feel weird. Unnatural. But Jiyong wasn't any of that. He was soft, tender, barely touching, testing. Not anything I would expect, nor what I was used to.

     Even in turmoil, in scandals, in outside hatred, in desperation, Jiyong would be there, and maybe, I hoped, he could let me be his. Whatever this was, it was foreign and new and maybe it lacked direction, but here I was as Seungri, as Jiyong's.

     I was sure we would get through this. Not just with self-reflection, not just with apologies and press statements and time to think, but together. Whatever was to happen later, at least we were here. Finally, I was brave; finally, I was accepted.

A/N edit: about the scandal: http://www.soompi.com/2011/10/05/yg-releases-official-statement-regarding-gdragons--incident/

Healing Camp stuff: http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/02/big-bang-on-healing-camp-news-articles.html