I know.

I can see it in your eyes. It’s so obvious, so painfully clear.

So I’ll close my eyes for tonight, drift off to sleep in your arms, spend one more night with you.

---

When did things change? Why?

You told me forever. I never believed you, of course, because I don’t believe in forever, but in the end I guess I did, because it doesn’t hurt any less knowing I knew it was going to happen.

It didn’t even start as love, of course. I was a country boy, you were a city kid. I was younger, you were older. I wasn’t really good at anything, and you were good at everything. We were so wrong for each other, it’s almost laughable. I couldn’t string five words together I was stuttering so badly whenever I was around you, and you never really had time to help me when you were already so busy trying to outshine all of us.

I never expected to become friends with you. Never expected you to look my way, really, not before being chosen, and certainly not afterwards. That’s what HyunSeung was for, wasn’t it? He’s the one who was perfect for you; he was talented, he was cute, he was just the kind of ego-boost someone like you needed. Even afterwards, when he’d packed up and moved back home, I’d still hear you on the phone with him, talking late into the night when you were supposed to be resting for the day ahead.

It was a shock, then, when you decided to tell the whole world on national television all about the adorable maknae you had and how ‘my maknae loves me so much’. And after the shock, it was downright uncomfortable having an overly affectionate teenage boy glued to my side, always ready to pretend to kiss me, or hug me, or have your hands on any part of me, really. We were wrong for each other, remember? You liked to touch and I didn’t. You wanted to be best friends forever and I was perfectly happy to go along with being strictly coworkers.

I guess it didn’t matter to you what I wanted, in the end. You forced yourself into my life and suddenly here was this boy with ninety-nine problems and not a single person to tell them to. Maybe you thought I didn’t care, or that I’d keep your secrets for you, but all those nights you spent keeping me awake as you confessed your deepest and darkest fears to me were definitely not something I was expecting to like so much.

And we were like that for a while. A real long time. Onscreen, we were the epitome of fan service, love confessions and enthusiastic hugs, of meaningful looks and lingering touches. Off screen, I was the boy who’d never tell, the only one who knew about your secret fear of the dark and how it really wasn’t the fear of those that dwelled in the dark, but more the fear of one day fading into nothing but that opaque blackness. I was alright with that, too, because for all that we were wrong for each other, we were so right for each other as well. You liked to feel invulnerable, and I liked to feel important. You weren’t so keen on the limelight and I was more than happy to share.

You liked to touch and I so desperately craved love.

But then one day things changed. One day I woke up and you weren’t beside me. One day I went to the interviews and you sat next to Daesung instead. One day we drove home and you wouldn’t look my way – not even once.

The others noticed, everyone did. People began to talk, to whisper, to wonder about what I must have done to make you so cold and distant. Of course they suspected me, because they never thought to consider the fact that their great and flawless G-Dragon could possibly do any wrong. What happened, they asked me, what did you do. I had no idea at the time, no idea that you were in the middle of a personal crisis. No idea that you were ripping yourself apart because it was impossible that you could have fallen in love with me.

With me.

Your maknae.

Your Seungri.

But you were really only concerned about the fact that I was a man, and so were you, and so therefore this could not be happening.

And so months passed, and I left you be. I ignored the wealth of hurt I felt at your sudden disappearance from my life, telling myself that it was only to be expected after all. Told myself that you had bigger and better things to be interested in than just me. I watched as you would almost flinch away when I was near, how you’d suddenly decided that Daesung was your new favourite member, how you hid the nightlight I’d bought for you that Christmas years ago.

Then your album dropped and suddenly you were overwhelmed by the negativity and cruelty that was being slung your way. Cheap shots at your integrity as an artist, a delinquent, a ne’er-do-well, the nation’s punching bag. Suddenly, the girl I didn’t know you’d been seeing ran away, back to her own country, and you had no one. Suddenly, you weren’t as great as everyone had always said you were.

Suddenly, your fear of the dark came back and you realized all you had was me.

You’d always had me.

It was almost like before, the late-night confessions and that attachment you’d forced on me last time. Except this time, two things had changed. First, you were not the same cocky eighteen-year-old with a swollen ego that you had been all those years ago.

And second, you realized that you needed me just as much as I needed you.

The day you confessed was nothing special, no occasion, no different than any other day of the week. It was cute, the way you’d blushed a deep red and stuttered over your words, so different from the usual confidence of a boy who could pull off a name like G-Dragon, so similar to the Lee Seunghyun I had been all those years ago. You’d stuck your chin up and looked me square in the eye, told me you loved me and that you’d always had.

Loved me not like a friend, you were sure to clarify. Loved me like you loved that girlfriend of yours from Japan.

I didn’t take you seriously at first, of course. How many times have I heard you tell me you loved me, countless music shows and radio programs and concerts. How could I have known that you weren’t being funny this time, that you meant it?

Well, I suppose pushing me against a wall and kissing me breathless got the message through my head loud and clear all right.

It took a while before I believed you, though, because like you three years ago, I just couldn’t get over the fact that he was, in fact, another man, who loved me. A guy.

Some nights, all I could think of was how it would even work. Two guys, I mean.

But you were persistent, so intent on making me fall in love with you so that you wouldn’t have to be a freak alone. You were always good with your words, and you certainly used them to the best of your ability against me. Pretty nothings and promises and secrets, the kind that would make anybody’s heart flutter. Who doesn’t love the idea of a forbidden romance?

You got me eventually, and for a while nothing could be better. Where before it had meant nothing, now all those touches and hugs and smiles meant everything. I never spent another night alone if you could help it, we just couldn’t get enough of each other. We found out that we were right for each other in more ways than we believed before.

You, who could charm a snake with words alone, had me utterly captivated and entranced in this world of magic and love that you’d woven for us.

---

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

It never does. Not with you, Mr. Infamy, Mr. Excitement, Mr. Rebel.

I should have known you’d get tired of me like you do with everyone you ever have, Kwon Jiyong. You don’t love, you just feel, and take, and in the end you’re in love with yourself in such a way that you could never truly love anybody else.

Not even me.

But just for tonight, I’ll close my eyes so I won’t see the love you don’t feel when you’re holding me. Morning will come, and I’ll do what’s right. Just give me ‘til then to give up the fight.