DFFS has now got 20 subscribers in what... two, three days? Thank you guys so much ><
GANJ! has suddenly started getting more subscribers, is it cuz of the foreword? xD Anyways, I'm glad. Because Big Bang fics haven't died out here yet #_# Exo's everywhere and... Well, i'm not really a fan. I don't have anything against them though, but half the stories on AFF are about exo now xD Where did SHINee go? B2ST? ._.

Btw, I see a LOAD of you are from GANJ! Welcome back, how ARE YOU GUYS? O_O I've missed you all, tell me how you're doing :D?!!
Nothing much except that, here's the character poster for Jiyong, and your second chapter.
:P Go~

J I Y O N G

The lights go off.

“Ah, what the hell, not again,” A groan breaks the eerie silence and after some fumbling and fidgeting, the lights flicker back on. The man from whose mouth the groan had come from, stands in the middle of a paper-ball strewn room, messy, unfocused and confused.

“Jiyong, are you still up?” The door opens soundlessly and a second man, with short cropped hair peers into the room. “Man, this is messy.”

Jiyong waves him in and throws himself into the unmade bed with an audible sigh. “Come in Youngbae. Why are you still up?”

“It’s not easy to sleep when you hear a string of curses and other expletives in the room above,” Taeyang’s voice is dry as he sits down on the edge of the bed, but his eyes twinkle. “So? What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.” A paper ball flies across the room and hits the ceiling with a dull thwack.

“You’re a really bad liar. Come on, might as well spit it out. It’s the ninth night in a row that you haven’t been sleeping well.” Taeyang starts cleaning the room, picking up randomly strewn shirts, jeans and jackets and folding them into the shelves. Jiyong likes to have a simple room.

Jiyong sighs. It is true, he hasn't been sleeping well. Not that anything is wrong, but it has been a while since Big Bang’s last comeback and their manager let them take some time off. ‘Stay away from the media and relax a bit. Go someplace, you need the rest.’ And after a month long vacation in New Zealand exploring the glow-worm caves and other wondrous sights, they’d come back. But the last 2 months had been spent just idling around at their dorm. Seungri had gone home to spend time with his family, Seunghyun was away in Japan, endorsing a clothing brand. Only Taeyang, Daesung and he were left in the dorm, having nothing to do and rotting their lives off.

But they weren't feeling up to preparing another album yet.

“I don’t know,” Jiyong says, his elbow shading his eyes from the LED light above. “It’s just… don’t you feel like you’re… rotting away?” Taeyang pauses briefly for a moment, studies Jiyong’s lean frame sprawled on the messy bed and then shrugs.

“Not really? Elaborate?”

“I don’t know, it’s just,” A sigh. “It’s the same routine every time. Youngbae. I… I can’t feel the excitement anymore. Of… I don’t know.” Jiyong doesn't finish, but Taeyang understood.

“You’re tired of the routine.”

Jiyong bites his lip, wondering if this hurt the other man. It shouldn’t… It didn’t mean he wanted out. He is just tired of the same old routine. Maybe he needed a-

“Change?” He looks up, startled. Taeyang stands in the center of the room with an armful of dirty laundry, his eyes understanding and his lips forming a smile.

 

“I think you need a change. Leader of Big Bang.”

“Y-yeah.”

>>----------------<<

The streets are cool, it isn't freezing tonight. But his breath forms puffs of smoke and he loosens the scarf around his neck. Jiyong liked the cold, even if it did get unpleasant sometimes. He had headed out for a can of Asahi – which incidentally is his favorite drink – and he took his time reaching the store. There is no need to hurry, anyway. He chews on his bottom lip, lost in thought.
 

It had been many years since their debut. They had shot up to fame pretty fast too. No, Jiyong hadn’t expected it, but it was nice. The fame. The attention, the media. Preparing for an album had taken shivers out of him and pebbled gooseflesh on his skin. Penning the lyrics, sitting for discussions on the theme, designing a concept, approving album covers, dance practices, recording sessions, shooting for the music videos… this had all been a dream at first. That dream soon became a reality, and the boys had cried hard when they reached their peak. They had thrown a huge celebration “500 days of Big Bang!” at YG Headquarters and it was a night he’d never forget.

But recently, he had begun to think. And sigh. These were the two things he’d been doing the most, the past two months. It was nice, being a celebrity. A singer. Rapper. Lyricist. Musician. “But the good things don’t last long…” He murmurs to himself, deep in his musings.

But where was it going? It was not that he felt fed up, it was not that he wanted to leave. He’d never leave the others, which was certain. But working with them all the time was suffocating. Yes, he got to collaborate with other singers sometimes, but that was mostly just for a few songs.

He doesn't know how to explain it. He really did need a change, like Taeyang had said.

He spots a vending machine a few feet away and draws his change. He presses the buttons for his can of Asahi and waits as the machine hums. He wipes a snowflake away from his eyelashes - it makes the lights of the city look like a bokeh. Then he looks back at the machine and catches his own reflection.

Kwon Jiyong is good looking, there is no doubt about that. He runs a hand through his hair – it is back to its normal color, black. He has a long, straight nose, well-shaped lips, high cheekbones and unique eyes. But the eyes – he stares at himself a little longer. His eyes look dull and lifeless.

A thud snaps him out of his reverie and he notices that the can of chilled soda has landed. Picking it up, he opens it in a swift movement and takes a long swig. The cold stings his throat but he likes the feeling. He is just about to take another long sip when he hears a muffled scream.

What? He thinks, his senses on alert after a long while of being unused. Where was it coming from? What was it?

Roughly shoving the opened and nearly empty can, he starts towards the sounds of the scream. They were coming from… In front? From behind? He strains to hear them, jogs toward a narrowly lit street and looks around. No, definitely a bit further.

Running faster now, Jiyong pants, the cold atmosphere biting into his skin and making it harder for him to catch his breath. The sounds grow louder and he felt closer to wherever – and whatever – it was coming from.

“G-get OFF me!”

He stops dead in his tracks. He recognizes this area immediately. It is away from the hustle and bustle of traffic and noisy city life. They are streets, bordering Seoul and other towns – cities which are known for being ‘not so safe’ areas. Jiyong hadn’t been here much lately, but he knew them well. He had grown up with bad company once, in these very streets, when he was very young. Before his family moved, before his training years.

“Ouch! Let me go!”

Feeling positive that the sound was coming from the next street, he turns right and sure enough – on the poorly illuminated snow-covered road is a girl, struggling with another person – a man – twice her size. He sees her brace herself and thwack his shoulder with a large broken tree branch, but then she loses her balance and falls with a loud scream.

Jiyong doesn't think twice having completely lost all sense of caution and the words of his manager telling him never to do things impulsively because of the idol he is don't register in his brain. He runs and picking up the nearest object he can find – an empty whisky bottle – shatters it against the head of the attacker. The glass splinters into a thousand shards and there is a slight splatter of blood… blood, from the attacker’s neck, before he falls face-first into the ground. Jiyong pants, shaking slightly. Once he makes sure that the bear-sized man was out of his senses, he glances at the girl, crouching on the ground a few feet away next to the streetlamp. She was trembling as well, and staring wide-eyed at these new developments that had him barging into the scene.

“Are you- Are you okay?” Jiyong asks, slowly, catching his breath and crouches down next to her. She nods, before asking in a surprisingly strong voice “Is he… is he… dead?”

“No, he’s just passed out I think,” He glances at her bare hands that were shivering slightly. “Hey, you’re cold.” He pulls her hands out of her lap and rubs them. “Um, we should get out of here.”

“Yeah…” She looks back up at him and faint recognition flicks across, but she ignores it, nodding her head, still visibly in shock. She gets up on her feet as he pulls her up, picked up her abandoned bag from a few feet away and they both break into a run.

>>----------------<<

“So… thank you for that. I think I’d really have been in trouble if you weren’t passing by,” Jinhee says, stirring her coffee as they both sat in a café far away from the scene of their encounter. “It isn’t the first time… this has happened.”

“Really?” Jiyong sips his drink – a new can of Asahi which Jinhee had insisted on buying for him – and studies her face. She is pretty, but not overly. Her face is devoid of make-up and she looked around his age. Probably a bit younger. She somehow piqued his curiosity, but he didn’t know why.

“Yeah,” She replies, meeting his eyes. “The same man, he’s tried to do this before. He knew my mother,” She continues, her voice casual as Jiyong's eyebrow rises. She takes a sip of her coffee – Jiyong had noticed with mild surprise that she’d dumped three spoons of sugar into it – and leans her elbows on the table. “My father passed away when I was a little kid. My mother went missing when I was six years old, she-“

Jinhee stops abruptly and Jiyong frowns. He’d dragged her away from that area and made her sit down in this café and bought her a coffee. She’d slowly relaxed enough to stop trembling, but once she had, she’d become completely composed much to his shock. In situations like this, wouldn’t you go normally go into some sort of shock? But she did say it hadn’t happened just this once… her behavior was strange nevertheless. But he doesn't blame her even though it was weird – you don’t normally spill your family secrets to a stranger in a café after you’ve just been attacked by a drunken man.

“So where do you live?” He asks, changing the mood after noticing that she’d been staring at her phone the last 5 minutes.

“Um… the same street we just… came from.” She answers with a slightly apologetic smile.

“What? You live there?” He is taken aback. His eyes rake over her clothes – those were professional clothes. Expensive. Why did she live in a dump like that? Jinhee notices his expression and she shakes her head with a smile.

“I work at The Oven. You know, by the InfoCenter? This is my uniform but… I live there. I know it looks mismatched.” She laughs.

“You can’t go back there.”

“Um, I guess not? I’ve been texting my friend to see if I can stay over there but she hasn’t replied. Maybe I should just go over and see.” She nods. Jiyong wasn’t sure of that plan. He didn’t know this girl, but letting someone walk into the lion’s den on purpose – what if that attacker was still there? – didn't sound like a good idea.

“You could…” He clears his throat. “You could come stay for the night at my place. There’s a couple of free rooms so…” Jinhee looks pretty startled by the offer but after a pause she grins and nods.

“Thank you, it's just for this night! I’ll repay you with something someday so-”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” He shrugs indifferently, forcing a casual smile on his face. He actually wasn't sure of it at all, but he didn't know what else to do. His manager would kill him if he found out. Bringing a strange girl into their house - their secret dorm, secret so that crazy fangirls wouldn't find out about it - was definitely an idea that could possibly get him lectured by a very angry CEO.

“By the way, could you… not tell anyone about this?” He coughs, looking pretty embarrassed. “Thing is… it wouldn’t look good if it got out in the media and…”

“That you’re G-Dragon? From Big Bang? No worries,” Jinhee maintains a poker face as Jiyong nearly chokes on his drink. “I won’t tell anyone. Besides nobody would believe me. And I’m not interested in being the center of attention.” The poker face stays. “I did recognize you, you know. I’m not crazy about your band.” She chuckles, shocking him even further.

“Uh… okay,” He smiles awkwardly. This girl was painfully honest. Not that he minded, in fact it was rare to come across anybody who didn’t sugarcoat their words these days. “Shall we go then?”

“Okay.”

As they leave the café and walk out on the road, it begins to snow. Jinhee twirls and sticks out her tongue, laughing when she catches snow on it and flashes him a bright grin, stretching her hands out on both sides. Jiyong is dazed, never had he seen a girl like this before. One second she is calm and composed with a brilliant poker face, the next second she is twirling under a snowing night sky, catching snowflakes on her tongue.

“Don’t you think Jiyong- wait… is it okay to call you Jiyong?”

“Uh, yeah I guess.”

“Look up.”

“What?”

“Just look up.”

Jiyong tilts his head back well and stares into a dark vacuum of nothingness out of which blindingly white snowflakes fall slowly.

“Don’t you think the falling snow looks like diamonds?”

“Diamonds?”

“Yeah, look. They shimmer if you look closely.”

Jiyong closes his eyes and listens to the soft sound, drowning out every other noise. There is a soft ‘whoosh’ as the snow falls on him, around him, everywhere. Then he opens his eyes. They did have a shimmer that he never noticed before.

“Yeah, they do.”

Maybe, Jiyong thinks. Maybe, I can change my routine. Things don’t have to stay so dull. He smils, but nobody sees.

>>----------------<<