Chapter XXIII

“You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.” 

 

Charles Chaplin

Deep Breaths. Deep Breaths. He repeated as a mantra until his hands stopped –as much as possible- quivering. He wept the sweat shinning over his palms with the fabric of his pants and went out of the car. Deep Breaths. Deep Breaths. Nervously, he knocked one or two times at the door and waited, waited for what felt like an hour or two or even longer. The sound of the cars slowing down the street, the chirping of the birds at the distance, the orange tones up in the horizon signaling the end of the day and the simplicity of the house in front of him that even though it was as austere as possible had something that screamed “Seungri” out loud, everything tangled in such a way Jiyong felt suspended for an instant, as if time had stopped only for him to remember that instant.

A click made him stir back surprised when a dark-haired boy at the other side opened the door slowly. Or maybe it was him who was looking at everything in slow motion, saving every single detail and second he could in his memory. His fingers grasped tightly the little box at his right hand and waited, fidgeting with his hair with his other free hand, fighting with the growing desire to turn back and run away.

A boy in his twenties wearing a big hoodie and low-waist pants opened the door and the first thing he did was to look at him from head to toes almost flirty, then raised his eyes and gave him one deep of a smirk, white teeth showing and all.

“Hey!” he greeted him, lacking any kind of social rules, his body leaning over the door lazily.

“Hey?” answered Jiyong only to follow with the boy’s strange ways and peered behind the boy’s back at the interior of the house, something silly to do because the boy cut his sight immediately with his body and without erasing his smirk, asked.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Lee Seunghyun,” he said, for some strange reason finding the presence of the boy in front of him extremely disturbing. “He lives here, right? Jongno-gu Dongsung-dong. 31-14 Dae…”

“…hak-ro. That’s here, yes sir,” nodded the boy and cracked into a wider playful smile. “But he is not at home, I’m afraid. You are…?”

“Kwon Jiyong,” he introduced himself with reluctance, and stretched one hand, scolding himself silently for being so rude though he could not help but wanting to be rude towards the boy and his white teeth for some maddening reason.

“Jong Hoon,” replied the boy and grabbed his hand, shaking it kind of vigorously and looking at him different. Some strange recognition imprinted in his eyes and something, a sneer appearing over his face… a sneer Jiyong found anything but appealing. “I’ve heard about you. Come on in!” he added, pointing at him with an accusing finger and moved to one side letting him in. But Jiyong stood frozen, hesitant.

“I’m not really sure I should…” he started apologizing but Jong Hoon merely pushed his back inside the house and muttered something like “bull” while he closed the door behind him. The boy was the exact reflection of Seungri’s determined self, thought Jiyong.

The walls inside the house were painted with pale blue tones. The furniture was simple, straight lines and dark colors. There were almost any decoration but photo frames here and there of Seungri with a dog, Seungri with some strange someone, Seungri with that Joon Hoon someone… smiling.

Jiyong averted his eyes from the photos and gazed at Joon Hoon who was standing at the middle of the living room, hands inside his pockets and eyes sternly focused on his movements, as if he was simply analyzing what he would do once inside the house. He looked young, fresh and actually handsome now that he had the time to watch him carefully. And he carried himself with a confidence that was similar to Seungri’s one.

“It’s a nice place,” was the only thing Jiyong find in him to comment, finding the interior of the house just as calming and relaxing as all those nights next to Seungri’s presence. He smiled shyly, averting his eyes to any other place except where Jong Hoon was standing, in an attempt to avoid the boy guessing out his thoughts.

The other boy merely raised one of his eyebrows and snorted, shrugging nonchalantly. “Actually I find this house pretty boring. But it’s Hyun’s and I have not much opinion in what he does or prefers.”

Jiyong turned to look at the boy, incapable to hide his surprise. “You live here too?”

“I do,” confessed the other one while running a finger over one of the photo frames inside the house. “I take care of this house when Hyun is not here,” he answered uninterested and sat –amazingly- over the floor, as if sitting over the cold floor in winter was the most normal thing to do. “But is a pain in the to be honest. I have to clean, to prune the grass, to pay the bills. Well I even have to buy cookies from the little girl at the other side of the street… with my money,” he said and frowned.

“How long…?”

“Have I lived here? Not much. Two months and five or six days, I guess,” answered the boy frowning, and part of his hair fell over his forehead making him appear younger than what he already looked. “Why?”

“I never heard about you,”

Jong Hoon cracked a silent smirk and crossed his legs in front of him while staring at Jiyong. “Funny! Cause I heard about you quite a lot,”

And after hearing that a warm feeling crept over Jiyong cheeks forcing him to avert his eyes for the third time inside that house. How to answer to that? It could mean many things, from the best to the worst, so Jiyong chose to stay quiet and listen to anything else the boy wanted to say.

“Nothing bad, really. I know Hyun lived with you for some time and he helped you dealing with something… He never really explained with what, but to what I heard he make it seem like a great deal. Are you ok now?” Jong Hoon asked, and the innocence in his gestures snatched away all doubts of possible cynicism coming from the boy that Jiyong could have.

“Yeah, I’m better, thank you,” Jiyong said, after hemming and hawking for a while quite embarrassed.

Jong Hoon nodded pleased and stayed in silence, as though everything he wanted to say was already said and now was Jiyong’s turn to explain his sudden –and strange- presence there. Jiyong gulped uncomfortable.

“I heard he is been traveling a lot,” he suggested and redirected his eyes to the photos placed over one of the tables at the entrance of the house, behind the boy. Jong Hoon followed his stare, turning his back to where Jiyong was looking.

“Oh! Yes he does, a lot. But he never brings photos from the places he goes, tho. Those photos are from our trip to Busan one month ago,”

“It looks like you really enjoyed yourselves,” Jiyong implied, lowering his voice to a murmur and his fingers clenched around the little box he was carrying in his right hand, with some kind of silent discouragement. Could it be this, what Daesung had suggested back then? This kind of happiness?

“You say?” Jong Hoon cracked into a gentle grin, “I don’t know dude, Seunghyun is sometimes difficult to understand. He was excited to go but once we were there he had this grim face all day long,” he said and for Jiyong’s misfortune cracked an imitation of “Seungri’s grim face” which made the boy look even cuter.

Jiyong frowned at that, got closer to the frames and stared again at the photos carefully. “He is smiling,” he mentioned, while he pointed at one of the photos where Jong Hoon was holding Seungri by his shoulders while both were standing at the seashore.

Jong Hoon approached to look at the photos too and once he saw which picture Jiyong was referring too, snorted and giggled, amused.

“If you know him, you can easily see that that one is no other but the face of real torture,” he said between laughs. And Jiyong could do nothing to stop the smile twisting his lips. Yeah. That was one of a constricted smile, to be honest.

“But we did have fun. It was nice. I think he was afraid of the sea… Can you imagine? That was like the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Seunghyun running away from the sea,”

“No. I didn’t know,” Jiyong answered listening to the sound of something breaking inside of him. How many things did he know about Seungri? His fingers trembled inside his coat pockets at the answer: a few, a really limited few. “I’m sure that was one charming moment,”

“It was dude!” Jong Hoon agreed, laughing at his side. “But he never allows me to remember him about that “I will drag you out of this damn house, Jong Hoon”,” chanted the boy with an imitation of a voice close to Seungri’s husky one.

“This one was from when one of his friends, Daesung, came to the house one night completely wasted,” he said pointing at one of the photos at the right in which the blonde hair of Daesung was all you could see, and a really small glimpse of an annoyed Seungri at the background. “I took the photo at the exact moment Daesung threw up over Hyun’s slippers.”

“Oh, boy!”

“Yeah. I take Hyun as the most patient and calm person in this world. But do never; never throw up over his cotton slippers. I swear you he went crazy, dude! I’m sure Daesung’s drunkenness faded away from the scare,”

“Oh, boy!” laughed Jiyong because really, just to imagine the scene and Seungri’s bad mood. It surely had been something amusing to see. Something he would very much loved to see.

“You like collecting photos,” Jiyong simply commented as a matter-of-fact thing, but Jong Hoon shook his head immediately.

“No, this is Hyun’s idea,” he said pointing at the collection of photos in front of them. “He had a few when I arrived and he has been gathering more every time. I just take the photos once in a while,”

“Oh, I guessed... Never mind, they are awesome,”

“Thanks! In fact, we should take one now. I’m sure Seungri would love to have one here of you,” suggested Jong Hoon, already walking away to the living room to retrieve the camera. 

“That sounds good. But I’m sure Seungri will not love that,” Jiyong rushed to answer smiling, though his smile was a bad interpretation of a happy face and more a strange combination of distaste and sadness. Jong Hoon automatically caught onto that, looked back and frowned for the first time getting the message.

“Oh,” he gasped and backed away. “I guess you two are not in good terms?” he asked slowly.

Jiyong simply beckoned his head in agreement with a bitter smirk and looked at the way Jong Hoon now was looking at him with different eyes, between suspicion and confusion.

“You can say that,”

“I... Well, Seunghyun never mentioned anything about having any problem with you. I’m sorry,” the boy said, one hand scratching the back of his head and his eyes studying Jiyong as if suddenly he was aware of something and it was making him feel intimidated by Jiyong’s presence. “You know, I thought you still were good friends,”

Friends? Jiyong wanted to ask back, but the boy hadn’t done anything to deserve such a bad treatment. And for some reason there was something inside the boy’s eyes, something close to a quite begging that stopped Jiyong from replying back. Surely the boy knew already “friends” wasn’t the right word to describe whatever Seungri and him could have had but that was the one he chose to use and Jiyong slowly guessed his reasons.

“We had a fight about something and sadly we are no longer… friends,” answered Jiyong and congratulated himself for keeping his voice steady. “I-I came here to apologize for my bad actions… But ended up meeting you, which is nice actually,”

Jong Hoon grinned -not grinned- beamed at that. And even stood straight. Yeah. That boy had feelings for Seungri and Jiyong could see it clearly.

“So you two…?” Jiyong suggested and Jong Hoon automatically blushed embarrassed, but he made his best effort to conceal it.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe?” he answered and smiled foolishly, like he probably would have done if someone had asked him that very same question five months ago. “I don’t know, maybe”. Jiyong merely smiled at his thoughts. That could have been him, easily.

“I know you will, soon,” Jiyong let out against his will. The boy was a nice person, a really nice guy to be honest and seemed to cherish Seungri a lot. Which Jiyong as much as he wanted to blame and complain about, he could certainly not.

“So you came here to apologize? You know, he is recently never home. Maybe I can tell him you where here when he calls, if he does, that’s it,”

He was about to say, “no, thank you” or “Yes, he is mine, back off” but the knowledge that anything of it would actually change what was there or any of it would make any real helpful change in Seungri’s happiness, he bowed his shoulders, gave up to his urge to shout and scream in frustration, and inhaled deeply.

“Maybe you can give him this? I mean once he is back. That would be helpful. And tell him that Kwon Jiyong says thank you,” he said and gave the boy the small box in his right hand and incapable to hide the trembling of his fingers he chose to avert his eyes and avoid any suspicious eyes the boy could give towards him.

“I will, sure,”

“Then I think I’m leaving. Nice to meet you, Jong Hoon,”

And once he returned his eyes to see the boy's eyes he saw something that make him back away surprised. There it was, compassion, even a glimpse of sympathy in the boy’s eyes as if he knew, if he could see Jiyong’s suffering, Jiyong’s crumbling heart right in front of him. And that was enough to break him into tinny little pieces.

“Can you promise me something, Jong Hoon?” asked Jiyong with a broken voice. “Don’t hurt him. Never hurt him the way I did. Keep him tightly next to you and don’t ever let him go,”

And with that he turned and ran away from that house, from those images, from that stupid happiness Daesung had warned him before. And once inside his car, he let go, he broke down in sobs and whimpers, his body shaking furiously, his lips muttering silent frustrated screams, his hands hitting the steering wheel with anger, with fierce defeat.

Youngbae stepped inside Jiyong’s house caring the heavy somethings he was forced to help Jiyong with and once the things were safely placed against one of the walls, slumped down in the sofa and try to ease his fast heartbeats and inhale some really needed oxygen. They had picked those things from the decoration store and had to drive with them through Seoul, and then without the help of the bulky man back at the store, carry them from the car to the house. And counting on the really not strong arms of Jiyong, it had been a one-man task, really.

“So, tell me again what are those things?” he asked, one annoyed finger pointing at the packages and stared at them with the face of someone who is seeing at the responsible of all his life problems.

“Drawings, Youngbae. Expanded drawings,” explained Jiyong for the third time that evening, while tearing the paper wrapping from them, kneeling on the floor and a pair of scissors in one of his hands. “I want to hang them on the walls. They look empty,”

Youngbae looked at the walls and tilted his head to one side. They looked pretty the way they were already, plain but nice, but whatever Jiyong wanted. It was his house and he would have to help him hang those drawings on the walls whether he liked them or not, and whether he wanted or not.

“Fine,” he grumbled and closed his eyes while Jiyong ended unwrapping the frames. “I heard Soo Hyuk was sentenced for 10 years.”

“Hmm… I heard that too,”

“Has he called you?”

“No,” Jiyong answered immediately, sounding completely detached from the conversation. Youngbae was sure Jiyong knew about whom they were talking about.

“Have you called him?”

“I went to his house, Youngbae. I’m sure you remember that very well. He wasn’t there and I have no desires to force him about anything.”

“Fine, fine,” Youngbae gave up and pulled himself off the couch. Two of the drawings were already unwrapped and, well, those were a pair of really beautiful drawings. One was of a couple walking in a park Youngbae was sure he had been before though couldn’t really recall where, and another one was the shadow of a sign in the pavement with really amazing shadow and highlight tecniques.

“They are actually nice. Who’s the artist?”

“Someone I cherish,”

“Someone you cherish?”

“Yes. Someone I cherish deeply. Now move your and help me to hang them,”

“At your orders. Hell, if you are not bossy,” Youngbae complained, rolling his eyes and picked up one of the drawings.

The whole evening went by, one of them unwrapping and deciding where to hang the frames and the other man sweating profusely and carrying big wood pieces around the house because another someone couldn’t decide for once where to hang the drawings. At the end they were left with a really nice decorated living room which look similar to the way it used to do back then when Choi Seunghyun’s portraits still hanged from the walls, but this time they were drawings from the unknown artist Jiyong “cherished deeply” and one last, the bigger one, still wrapped looking at them mockingly from the floor.

“Where goes that one?” asked Youngbae whipping his forehead with the back of his shirt.

“There,” pointed Jiyong and signaled at the wall next to the stair, where a lot of photos looked at them, photos from his past, of him with all those persons in his life, Choi Seunghyun, Youngbae, his parents… “I think it has to go there,”

Once Jiyong finished tearing the envelope, Youngbae saw the quote at the bottom of the drawing, which was the first thing visible. “The One Beneath The Lie” and then what he saw took him completely taken aback.

“That’s you!”

“Yes, that’s me,” murmured Jiyong, smiling and looking with crystal clear adoration at the drawing of him smiling. “Is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I mean the drawing is. You are horrendous… but yeah,” Youngbae joked and broke down in laughter at Jiyong’s offended face. “It’s really beautiful. Again from your “cherished” artist?”

“Hmm,” nodded Jiyong. “It will help me remember,”

“Remember what?” Youngbae crinkled his nose and looked at Jiyong abashed. “How horrendous you are?”

“To smile, Youngbae. To always smile,” Jiyong answer ignoring Youngbae distasteful comments with his eyes lost in the drawing in front of them. "To always smile,"

After they finished hanging all the drawings, Youngbae sat at the living room, drinking a well deserved bottle of soju and stared at the drawings with a feeling of familiarity. They really gave the house a soft atmosphere, calming. And that portrait of Jiyong, it was made with such carefulness, Youngbae really felt intrigued to know who was the author of those pieces. Though Jiyong had kept quiet about it and for sure, would not reveal the name ever.

“Excited?”

“About what?” Jiyong asked at the back of the room, where he was preparing two packages of ramen for both of them. He looked well, for all what had happened, Jiyong looked well. He forced himself to smile, to move, to live and even though Youngbae knew something had happened that day when Jiyong went to Seungri’s house, he never dared to ask. Jiyong was making the greatest effort to actually be ok, and if that weren’t enough for him to be happy, then Youngbae would not consider himself a good friend.

“About your album. It‘ll be released in two days, duh?”

“Oh! The album. I don’t know… I’m relieved, actually,”

“Relieved?”

“I…I actually feel like I’m not keeping things anymore. I put everything I had in that album. I placed there everything I experienced these past months. Knowing soon people will hear about it, listen about it, know about it. I should be scared, I know. But I feel relieved. I feel they are no longer only mine, those feelings, like now they are public and less close to me. I feel… lighter. I feel I can move on, to write another album, to do other things. As if I did what I could with what happened to me and now… well now I’m free, open to anything new,”

“That’s one hell of a creepy discourse,” Youngbae said after a moment of silence. “I’m excited because of the money and you come with all that… whatever that was,” he added, moving his hands in front of him completely baffled.

And Jiyong smiled, not as openly, not as honestly as how he did in that drawing hanging at one of his walls. But he was close and he would soon find a way to smile like that, again. It was a promise, a sad one he had made to the author of those pieces, his cherished someone. 

Thank to all my readers. Really. For your patience, for not minding my mistakes and my slowly updates. For leaving beautiful comments or just reading the chapters silently every time. Thank you. I appreciate you and I wish I could be faster or give you better things. But really, thank you. We are at the end of this story. Two more (maybe three) chapters more and we are done. =) So... till now I'm thanking you for your support through this little story-journey. Hope it was of your liking. 

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And with that I leave you with a lot of thank you's (cause I lost count of how many times I said that in this post... ^^) and with this chapter. See ya soon! ^^ç

PD. And before you hate me terribly,and unfollow me, mark me in your "to murder" list... I swear! This is a GRi fic. Keep it in mind. GRI ^^

JessRa