2012
The Evolution of Nyongtory
Our extremely long flight to the US was just as unbearable as I remembered it. At least I wasn't sick this time, but it was still a challenge to properly sleep. With a numb rear and stiff back, I was just thankful for a speedy landing so that I could get up and walk.
Of course being spoiled with take-out burgers and bags of chips backstage didn't help either. At least Seunghyun was doing a good job of taking as much as the free junk food as he could from us on his birthday. The always-sunny weather of LA seemed to match Seunghyun's cheerfulness perfectly. This was, after all, the second year in a row that he would be spending his birthday with us, on a schedule, in a different country. I wanted that same care-free mindset, but I was trying to keep in mind that Jiyong still had those "plans."
That said, our first concert in California was the next day after landing and the truth was that we were all tired. I slept on a full stomach and hoped I would wake up at a normal enough time in the morning to get a work out in there somewhere. It turned out I did, and off I went, both the day before and after our first concert, working up a sweat in the fitness room with Hwangssabu.
The crowds were amazing; our shows were sold-out and we were starting anew with fresh costumes and a short break from the bad weather. It was a great comfort to hear the screams of fans no matter the country or language. I couldn't help but feel uplifted and excited here though, in the U.S. where foreign artists were still trying to break out.
Once the two days of concerts were complete, Jiyong and Youngbae went off to meet people and shop around at Chrome Hearts and art studios. I was more interested in the Hollywood side of town, so my manager accompanied me to Universal Studios. These people really did live on a whole other scale. I wondered if this kind of thing would interest Seunghyun hyung, but he was off visiting his mother elsewhere in the states. Making a small vacation out of a busy schedule of promotions was a job well done, I thought, to say the least. Seunghyun definitely had a happy birthday.
New York was a different story, however. The west side was sunshine and Hollywood, while the east was having blizzards and still repairing from Hurricane Sandy. What should have been a five hour flight became ten, and we had to wait around at the Buffalo airport until conditions were better for flying to JFK.
Without much thought, I decided to bite at my nails as we sat around in a waiting-to-board area at the airport. Just the usual gray-cushioned seats and busy-bodied strangers walking briskly to their own terminals in the not so far distance. Beside me Jiyong was tapping away on his cell phone.
"Yah. Quit it out, you're making me nervous," Jiyong laughed, reaching a hand over to curl my fingers into my palm. "Its not good for your nails."
I rolled my eyes.
"But you do it all the time," I retorted. He swat my hand away playfully.
"You have good hands, maknae," he smiled. "Small and soft. Nails like mine would ruin it."
I scoffed.
"I what? My hands, really? Serious?"
It was his turn to roll his eyes as he stuffed his phone into a pocket.
"Aish, of course leave it to Seungri to always be digging for a compliment," he chided, though taking my hands into his, flipping them over to my palms, examining them. His eyes were merely blank as he flipped them over again and brushed his own digits across my knuckles.
"So don't bite them," he smiled again.
---
When we finally arrived at our hotel, I was too tired to even care who my roomate was at that point. After a numb, dreamless sleep without so much as even changing into pajamas or brushing my teeth, Daesung had pushed at my shoulders until I rolled around and groaned.
"Seungriyah, get up already!" Daesung laughed, poking my ribs. "Even Jiyong hyung is already awake, you bum!"
My eyes blinked open easily then. It must have been late. Too late. Daesung backed up on the mattress so I could sit up.
"You okay, maknae?" Daesung asked, patting the back of his hand against my forehead. "I don't think you even moved all night."
Still half-awake, I couldn't yet connect the dots, but it was slowly occuring to me that Daesung wasn't as awkward around me anymore. Seeing his worried gaze woke me up completely, and then I noticed just how bright the room was, turning my attention to the room's window.
I just sort of had a feeling. A good one. Out below us was New York; there was something romantic about it. We were really here. I imagined Jiyong was probably already out there making plans to visit designer stores. Taeyang had talked forever about getting a tattoo. Seunghyun had some friends to meet. Daesung had a few restaraunts in mind to visit.
"I feel fine, hyung," I smiled, patting his hand. "We're going to have fun. Let's make good memories."
His hands squeezed back as he smiled, and after a quick change of clothes, we met up with Hwangssabu in the lobby for a quick breakfast and work-out.
-----
The first day of our New Jersey concert was a little depressing. Oil was limited, so cars could only fill their tanks so much. There were quite a few empty seats when we were rehearsing at the stadium, and I wished the skies would clear. Staring up into gray clouds, I sincerely prayed that conditions could be better. These concerts cost money, and fans who had paid couldn't come. There were faces out there who I couldn't make smile.
Not that we didn't have a good show, of course. Perfoming always felt great. I was just a little let down, and Jiyong had noticed it. As soon as we exited the stage and made it to our dressing rooms after the show, Jiyong had grabbed a hand and pulled me off into a corner of the hallways backstage close to the restrooms.
"Maknae."
He took both my hands in his own then and swung them lowly at our sides, back and forth, wrists brushing against hips. I stared down at the floor, and he bowed his head down to meet my gaze from below.
"Seungriyah."
His brown eyes pulled me in, I couldn't help it. A smile spread, first gentle and then teasing.
"Aish, its okay, you know. Good show tonight, don't be so down. I know you are," he laughed.
I couldn't lie to him anymore, and he knew it. He knew me. The blank face that I had mastered for the cameras was long gone when I was with him. I blinked away at my watering eyes.
"Hyung."
"Tell me what's up," he said casually, smoothing thumbs over fingers, arms still swinging. I my lips.
"Hyung, everyone loves you, so make the bad weather stop."
"What? Maknae, I can't do anything about that," he laughed. " happens."
"But I want to see them," I pouted. "What if some of them were my fans?"
He threw his head back and laughed harder.
"Yah! Maknae, you don't need any more fans, you've already got a big head!"
"But still," I whined.
"Aish! Seungriyah, seriously. You're loved. Don't be greedy."
"But still," I said again. "Everyone loves GD."
He shook his head and sighed.
"Maknae, you know you're loved, and that is precisely why you can't compete with me. First, it would only swell your huge ego, and second-"
He leaned in and promptly kissed my forehead.
"I love you more than them, and they know you're mine."
My face felt really hot, and he was chuckling at me again, pulling my hands with him as we walked back to the dressing room. He went over to Daesung in his makeup chair and asked if he could switch rooms with him back at the hotel, and he nodded while smiling at me.
---
Everything clicked at some point.
I took a shower while Jiyong had a smoke and talked on the phone over the balcony. Upon stepping out of the restroom, steam sticking to my skin, I simply stared at Jiyong's back for a few moments. He was hunched over the railing, faded-blue hair illuminated against the bright city lights of yellows, whites, and neons. I felt that for once, his shoulders weren't heavy. No stress this time. Just lights, a city of opportunity; everywhere just screamed of adventure. His conversation on the phone was at a close, voice low and scratchy, maybe due to the cigarette or maybe the singing. I was afraid of staring any longer, so I quickly busied myself with a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. I needed to visit a noona soon so she could make a run to the hotel's laundry room.
"Ah, maknae, you're out," he observed, turning around to rest his back against the railing. His eyes looked me up and down with a teasing note in his eyes.
"Oh, you're finally doing something useful," he smiled. I rolled my eyes and told him I was always useful.
"Only because you know what happens when you're not," he stated dryly.
He bit his lips into another smile, dark brows raised playfully.
Memories of socks, pillows, shoes, and water bottles being thrown at me was enough to remind me to listen to the hyungs.
"You've grown so well," he laughed, expression smug. He stomped out his cigarette then and stepped back inside the suite, balcony door smoothly sliding closed with a light thunk. After placing his phone from his pocket to the edge of the room's writing desk, he approached me with something darker in his eyes and I couldn't help but to back away in slight panic.
"Yah, why are you moving away?" he laughed. "I'm not going to punish you. Not today."
"I don't know, hyung. You look a little..."
I froze in place as he stepped closer, all smiles, wrapping his arms around me carefully.
"Say, maknae," he started, leaning his head against a shoulder, digging in with his chin. "Anything you want to do here? Touristy things?"
Of course I didn't hesitate to tell him I'd like to see a show on Broadway.
"Yeah. Okay, let's do that when we're done," he nodded.
"But I want to see Wicked," I whined. "And didn't you say before that you'd like to watch Lion King?"
"Oh well," he shrugged, then proceeded to scratch at my shoulders with his scruffy chin. I winced and squirmed about as he chuckled.
"Let's go together, hm? I don't think you've been rewarded lately," he mused.
"Eh? For what?"
His lips spread into a smirk as he narrowed his eyes and squeezed me, still wrapped in his arms.
"Don't play dumb. You've been working hard," he started, fingers grasping the hem of my t-shirt, lifting up the cotton fabric to poke a digit into my belly button. "On this."
"Hyung!"
He snickered as his thumbs smoothed over the skin of my stomach, sending tingles wherever he touched, finding the spaces between my ribs, silently counting them under his breath.
"Not so soft anymore, maknae," he sighed. "Hwangssabu told me you remained very diligent."
"Of course I was!" I complained, trying to act normal. His hands were cold as he continued to touch beneath the cotton. There were only two things on my mind: remember to breathe and provide warmth. I placed my hands on his hips as I rolled my eyes at his still-smirking face, and it felt almost as if he sort of leaned into it, allowing me to pull him closer.
"He also told me that you complained too much."
"But I pushed through anyway, hyung!" I groaned, knuckles against those hips. "I woke up early and took showers late for this."
His brown eyes lightened then, bowing his head down with eyes raised up at me, almost innocently, before those eyelashes lowered on his hands at my stomach again. Carefully, he lifted up my shirt all the way as his eyes darkened. I let the fabric swoop over my head and arms as the flutters in my chest ensued.
Maybe that's when it all clicked. When he slid a finger carefully down the center line of my abdominals, when he pressed himself even closer to me as I kept my hands at his waist, sweeping my own hands up and down his sides in an attempt to warm him somehow, to comfort him. When he gently pressed lips against the middle of my collarbone before lazily trailing fast kisses up to my mouth.
It just suddenly clicked that this time, I wasn't the one waiting for Jiyong. He was waiting for me. That I was his now. I wasn't in Japan eating and entertaining. He wasn't in Seoul promoting. Right now, I was his.
Lips parting to let the little breaths escape, I heard the roaring of crowds. The heat of his mouth sent shivers down my spine, as kissing him was as effortless as breathing. He retreated back for a moment to lean his head backwards, a groan escaping his reddenned lips, then forming into a moan as he hastily brought himself back to me. My hands found his as he proceeded to touch my skin, now so much warmer. I lifted one of his hands up to my lips, pressing gently into the ridges of his knuckles as he smiled and smiled, moving his free hand to thread fingers into my hair.
Sparkling brown orbs bored into mine until I was swimming in him, drinking in the features of his gentle expression, silently speaking of adoration and possessiveness that I knew all too well. I returned the smile with more and more confidence. He almost seemed shy, even now. I imagined little music notes forming in his head, like Jiyong was a happy tune. Jiyong was a care-free melody, a wild chorus that liked to skip around scales and present himself in different colors. But now I'd like to think I was a part of his song somewhere. Maybe I was as important as the beat, or maybe I was the simple embellishments. Either way, I was there. In his smile, in his softly drumming fingers. I was certain I was his.
----
I called Jiyong a genius on stage the next day. I said I loved him. I called him the hero of my heart, claiming him as my own so that everyone in the crowds with their flashing lights and energetic souls would hear my voice. And I was heard.
----
And yet, no. I wouldn't say Jiyong was my savior.
Not in the beginning, at least. Not when he was just YG's golden child. The cold stares, the stiffness, the petting, the taming. I didn't think it meant anything more than that in those early years. But without realizing it, it was exactly those first impressions that made him become what I thought he wasn't.
All along, he was. He actually was my hero. I just didn't realize it as my young self.
All I saw were the flaws, the negatives. His crooked teeth, his chapped lips, his bony fingers, his cold toes against my shins under the covers of our first dorm bed. His unamused expression beneath his long brown fringe after coming home from a concert that I left early, his furious gaze burning everywhere into me in an alleyway outside a club. His heavy sighs as I pretended to ignore him on a car ride. His countless looks of embarrassment in my direction. His 30-line text after my solo debut. The list could go on.
What Jiyong had given me from the very start were signs that he cared enough. Almost like a strict parent, I think he simply wanted what was best for me so that I could succeed. Not just as a band member, but as a person. He just wanted to be an older-brother figure, someone who could set me straight and do things he otherwise wouldn't be able to get away with if it weren't for him being a family member. His criticism was what I needed, his closeness was what I needed.
So I learned to love him. The brother who knew nothing about me at first yet could read me like a book.
His smiles, in particular those rare ones that were just for me. His pursing lips, his lost-in-thought sparkling eyes. His twitching fingers to a mindless beat against his writing desk. His rising and falling shoulders after his scandal. All those negatives, too, became essentials, became positives.
And that was all it took. Years of triumphs and mistakes, of teasing, of pushing and pulling, of jabs and tackles, of anger, of worry. That was all it took to love him. He was the hero of my heart.
------
We left New York for Peru, each of us with our own little souvenirs such as Youngbae's new tattoo on his back and various articles of designer clothing and toys mainly for Seunghyun and Jiyong, while Daesung was starting his own small collection of hotel memo pads and soaps. As for myself, I left naturally with a smile, feeling more self-assured than ever before. Perhaps now, after two months since my own scandal, I was finally at ease and self-reflected upon it enough to shed that layer of shame off.
As always, I busied myself on the plane studying a bit of Spanish, and we were rewarded with extremely passionate fans. Many stood outside our hotel, singing and dancing and celebrating, like a festival. The atmosphere, language, and culture were all different yet their energy was contagious. It seemed the smile that I had left New York with stayed, yet I was worried too. These fans had spent the night in lines, on the floor, just to see us since this was our first visit. And yet we were only here for one day. I didn't want to leave them so soon.
From Peru, we flew back to LA, where everyone but myself caught a plane back to Seoul. I had a good friend who was a chef at a great hotel in Las Vegas, and we were allowed another short vacation since our next concert was more than a week away. Jiyong had already said he wanted to go to Bali, so I figured I'd take the friend's offer to visit him in Vegas along with seeing a house/trance DJ whom I was a fan of, as he was perfoming at another hotel there. So I enjoyed a great meal and good music, with no interest in gambling or doing anything too crazy. I was proud to say I knew my limits now.
And with that, well-rested and eager for the spot light again, I made my way back to my second home, Japan, and time quickly passed into December, the final month of 2012. There were only a handful of shows left before it was time to prepare for award shows and finish up solo projects to able to present to the new year. Things only continued to look up for us.
A/N edit:
http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/11/seung-chans-diary-man-of-winter-seung-chan-121031-photo.html
http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/11/seungris-cam-t-o-ps-birthday-alive-tour-la-121104.html
http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/11/seung-chans-diary-seungchan-met-bumblebee-121106-photo.html
http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/11/seung-chans-diary-blizzard-war-121107-photo.html
http://bigbangupdates.com/2012/11/seung-chans-diary-seungchan-in-ny-the-last-day-121112-photo.html
Comments