Dara sat on her bed for a very long time, thinking about what had just happened. She couldn't figure out why Jiyong did what he did, but she truly felt frightened when he did it. She wanted to call Bommie to tell her what had happened, but she knew that Bommie would over-react.

Aish, this was so confusing... Dara buried her head in a pillow, kicking her legs on the bed in frustration. Forget it, I'll think about it tomorrow. Dara promised herself as she fell into a slumber.

---

"Good morning Sandara! Look at what's on the news today!" One of Dara's fanboys caught up with her the moment she stepped into school. He shoved the school's newspaper into Dara's hands.

Dara was still absorbed in thinking about what had happened yesterday and how to face or confront Jiyong that she looked at the newspaper half-heartedly.

What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

"SHOCKING NEWS: Seoul High School's 2nd biggest playboy, FAT???"

The headlines screamed at Dara's face. What? What was happening? Dara thought as her eyes scanned the headlines and the article, finally resting on a picture. The first picture was a class picture that had a red circle around a familiar chubby looking boy. The next picture was a very confident TOP.

"BEEP BEEP!" Her phone rang

To: Dara

From: Bommie <3

TOP's missing. HAVE YOU SEEN TODAY'S NEWSPAPER? His face turned deathly white when he saw it and he ran away. Jiyong and the boys are extremely worried for him. They're afraid he'll do something stupid. We're all looking for him. Call someone when you find him.

---

Dara's heart started pounding as she read the text, her mind running wild as she thought of all possibilities. She didn't know what was going on, but the most important thing was to find TOP first and make sure that he was okay.

Ok, FOCUS DARA, where would TOP be? Dara thought. Ah! He ever mentioned that there was a corner in the library where he liked to sit and think! Maybe he's there!

"Noona, would you like to..." Dara's fanboy started but trailed off as Dara started running into school

---

Where are you, TOP? Don't scare me. Please be here! Dara prayed silently as she scoured every corner in the library. Just as she was about to give up and leave, something caught her eye.

In one of the most secluded corners of the library. Dara saw a long leg dressed in a pair of expensive sneakers and jeans stick out from behind one of the massive bookshelves.

"TOP..." Dara sighed in relief at having found him. Running over quickly, she saw him sitting in the corner, his other leg hugged closely to himself as he simply stared at the news article in dreadful silence. In the dim lighting, she saw that his eyes were dead and unfocused and his eyelashes shimmered with tiny teardrops.

"Oh TOP..." Dara's heart broke as she saw TOP sitting there. She knelt down in front of him and placed one hand on his knee gently.

TOP flinched at the contact, pulling his knee closer to him and further from Dara.

Dara gulped painfully. This was not the confident, charismatic TOP that she knew. This was a shell of him. A shell that was too painful to watch.

His eyes never left the article as he stared blankly at it. His face was devoid of emotion. His infamous smirk, his wink, his heart-stopping stare, all gone.

TOP refused to look up from the article. Did he even know that Dara was there?

Dara knelt there for what seemed like eternity, waiting desperately for him to look up at her and say something. Anything. Anything to show that he was fine. But he didn't even move.

Worry turned to hurt turned to anger. Scrunching her eyebrows up in anger, she snatched the terrible article out of TOP's hands and started ripping it to pieces.

TEAR, TEAR, TEAR.

When she was finished, she threw the pieces at TOP. "Stand up!" Dara commanded him.

TOP simply looked up at her and said in a monotone voice, "Dara. You came."

Dara's anger burned painfully in the pit of her stomach. "Get up!" She yelled, kicking and screaming at TOP, not caring of the librarian found them. Just show me an emotion, TOP. Don't do this to me. Even if it is pain, show me an emotion! Dara thought, her heart beating painfully as she kicked his legs.

When TOP refused to move, not even caring if he was covered in bits of newspapers, Dara's chest heaved in anger as she pulled on his arm, forcing him to stand. Dragging a stumbling TOP out of the library, Dara headed towards the nearest toilet. Bursting into the empty boys toilet, she pushed him into a cubicle, to sit on the toilet bowl.

Grabbing the hose that was beside the toilet bowl, Dara the tap.

When the ice-cold water hit TOP's emotionless face, Dara started crying.

"Wake up TOP! Why are you doing this! It's not worth it!" Dara yelled painfully through her tears that were flowing freely down her cheeks as TOP was getting completely drenched from the hose.

Then, TOP started crying.

It started with a few tears. But the more he cried, the harder he cried. Soon, he started wailing.

Dara turned off the hose and just stood there as TOP cried. She blinked away her tears as she heard him cry. He grabbed the front of his shirt as he cried. His tears contained years of pain, years of hurt and years of keeping all his emotions to himself.

Taking a step forward, Dara embraced a very wet TOP, not caring that she was getting wet too.

"It's ok. Let it all out. It's ok... It's ok..." Dara chanted softly as TOP cried on and on...

After a while, TOP stood up and rubbed his eyes with his palms. Dara looked up at him worriedly, but he gave her a small smile. "Thank you Dara, I needed that." He said in a sad whisper. "Come, there's something you need to know about Jiyong and me."

---

TOP brought Dara to the basketball court. Classes were still ongoing, hence the court was deserted.

They settled in silence on the bleachers, facing the court. "Dara, there's something you need to know. We... didn't use to be like that. I didn't use to look like that, nor behave like such a big player."

---

FLASHBACK

They were 13. Unreasonable screams and quiet begging could be heard in the silent corridors of the school. School had ended for the day and it was late. The sun was setting and the red walls of the school were painted in hues of orange and pink.

A pretty girl with thick makeup caked on her face, dressed in skin-tight clothes and 10 inch heels stormed out of the school's main building, a much taller, slightly chubby boy in thick glasses trailed behind her, his tears streaked with tears.

"Please, Ariana, don't leave me! Tell me what you want from me and I will change!" The boy fell down on his knees, clutching desperately at her ankles as the girl walked further from him.

"Let go of me!" The girl trampled on his fingers mercilessly, making the poor boy scream in pain.

"You're too fat and ugly. That's it. I can't believe I'm even going out with you! Now leave me alone!" The girl spat in a high-pitched voice before stomping off.

The boy watched her walk towards a handsome, older man who was waiting at the gates. The pair got into a flashy sports car and drove off, without a second look at the boy who was still lying on the gritty pavement in school.

At that moment, he had no tears left. He got up and started walking aimlessly. He didn't know how long he had been walking for, but he didn't really care either.

It was dark, He found himself at the school's basketball court that was lit with a few spotlights. There was a boy sitting on the bleachers, facing the court. It was Jiyong. His classmate, neighbour and almost-friend. He didn't want Jiyong to see him in such a state so he turned to walk away.

But Jiyong had spotted him and called out to him. Reluctantly, the boy had gone to sit beside Jiyong.

There was a calm silence between them that Jiyong broke first. "I lost my best friend. She just left me without telling me why." He said in a calm, practiced voice.

"My girlfriend left me. She said I was ugly." The boy said, his voice breaking as he managed those few words.

Jiyong was silent as the boy started whimpering, a fresh bout of tears forming.

 Finally, before the boy could start wailing, Jiyong turned to face him. "Let's go. Basketball. Let's play a match." Jiyong stood up and pulled on the boy's hand, pulling him towards the court.

Confused, the boy dried his tears on his sleeve and simply followed Jiyong. Jiyong found a basketball in the corner of the court and threw it at the boy. "Go on, throw it! Throw it and yell, you'll feel better!"   

When the boy looked at the ball in confusion, Jiyong marched over to snatch the ball from him. Throwing it at the net, Jiyong yelled, "Go to hell! I don't need you!"

"There. Understand?" Jiyong placed the ball back in the boy's hands.

Nodding, the boy threw the ball at the net, saying, "I don't need you..." in a timid, soft voice.

"No, louder!" Jiyong retrieved the ball and put it into his hands. "Again!"

"I don't need you!" The boy said, slightly louder.

"Again!" Jiyong put the ball back in his hands and ordered the boy.

"I DON'T NEED YOU!" The boy yelled with all his strength. Looking back at Jiyong, he saw Jiyong smiling. "That's more like it." Jiyong smirked.

"I HATE YOU!"

"I'M BETTER THAN YOU!"

"I'M NOT UGLY! I'LL PROVE TO YOU THAT I'M THE MOST HANDSOME MAN IN KOREA!"

"LEAVE! LEAVE AND DON'T COME BACK!"

"I'LL HAVE YOU BEGGING AT MY KNEES!"

"I DON'T CARE IF YOU LEAVE!"

The two boys took turns at throwing the ball at the net, yelling with all they had in them. After a few hours, they were exhausted and their voices sore from yelling. They sat back to back in the middle of the basketball court, panting heavily.

"Never cry because of a girl again, ok?" Jiyong reached out a pinky behind him, towards the boy.

"Never again." The boy hooked his pinky with Jiyong's. "In fact, stop calling me Seunghyung. Call me TOP. I'm going to become a player and be the best at the game." The boy said.

"Heh, no, I'M going to be the best player around. Just watch me." Jiyong smirked bitterly.

---

 "Jiyong brought me back to life. I brought him back to life too, after you left him." TOP said quietly as he leaned back in the bleachers.

"In the days after that, whenever I saw the lost look in his eyes, I knew that he was missing you. And it happened quite often. So I would say something stupid or crazy to distract him from thinking about you. So as the days passed, he started thinking of you less and less often. It was the only way to help him cope and move on."

"He started bringing me to gyms and monitoring my diet to help me lose weight. The more weight I lost, the more confident I got. The more confident I got, the faster I forgot Ariana. Jiyong brought me back to life...

However, the both of us had scars in our hearts and we both started playing with girls. Maybe it was a sort of made-up revenge on the girls who had hurt us. We started wanting to hurt girls too. At that time, we were still with the clique of gangsters. No one was there to control us and the girls we played with were so hurt that they many of them tried to commit suicide or go for plastic surgery in order to get us back. We didn't really care, though. We had lost our hearts.

But then the gangsters we hung out with started being put into juvenile prison for drug or alcohol abuse. And we met Taeyang, Seungri and Daesung. We were the most notorious, heartless but best players out there, but we had lost ourselves. Those three rescued us from the pits of darkness and showed us that we could be happy. They helped us find ourselves. Something that neither me nor Jiyong could do for each other...

So we played less with girls. Or rather, we didn't play with them till they were totally in love with us. We knew when to stop. Then you, Dara, came into the picture. You changed something in Jiyong. I don't know what, but he's more alive than we could ever make him."

TOP finally stopped talking and looked at Dara. She was staring at the basketball court quietly, thinking. Nodding, she said, "I understand now."

---  

That was how the other Big Bang boys and 2NE1 girls found them a few minutes later. All of them were fussing over TOP and scolding him for worrying all of them. Dara could see how thankful they were for him being safe.

Jiyong simply went to engulf TOP in a hug. "Yah PABO! How could you do this disappearing act on me! I thought we promised that we would never cry because of a girl again?!" Jiyong angry whispered into TOP's ear, still hugging the taller boy.

"Arrasso, arrasso. It's just my pride being hurt ok? All my years of perfecting my perfect my image, to be destroyed by one article that let's everyone know how ugly I was in the past! I'm just embarrassed, ok?" TOP gave a small grin as he tore himself out of Jiyong's tight embrace.

He smiled at Jiyong, and Jiyong returned the smile reluctantly. Jiyong knew that it wasn't just his pride being hurt. TOP had a tender heart and never truly recovered from that break-up. But Jiyong was overjoyed that his friend was safe, so he decided not to pursue the matter.

His smile widened as he patted TOP on his shoulder, already turning to leave and return to class.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Dara. He gulped. He was so ashamed by his actions that he promised himself that he would apologise to Dara and do anything as long as she forgave him. The tear that rolled out from her eye and that frightened look cut his heart. How could do such a thing to his best friend? He was truly an animal! Yes, that's it, he would apologise, even if it meant putting his pride aside.

Jiyong opened his mouth to call out to Dara, but before he could say anything, Dara slipped one hand into the crook of TOP's arm. "Oppa, let's get back to lesson's before the teachers find out!" With that, she led him away, the rest trailing behind them, leaving Jiyong at the court with his mouth open.

What the...?! Jiyong was certain that Dara had seen him, so why hadn't she acknowledged his presence? Was she still angry with him and was ignoring him on purpose? And why was she still calling TOP "oppa"?! Hadn't he already told her not to?

Jiyong ran after the group, shouting, "Hey! Wait for me!" 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Oh man, I was crying buckets of tears when I was writing this! (please tell me that you at least teared a little!!!) T.T

Anyway, I told some of you all that I would update on wed, but I suddenly got well from my bout of flu that hit me over the weekend! So here's another update! YAYYYY!!!

I decided to give you all some history on the Big Bang friendship, esp Jiyong's and TOP's friendship so I hope you liked it!

On the flipside, I may not be able to update for at least a week, so do enjoy this chapter and look forward to the next chapter ok!

Love you all!

so COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE AND please please please UPVOTE!!! (three chapters and my upvoters still remain at 19??? Please please upvote me!!! Jebal!)

kamsahabnida!

-hannahnah