It was hours before the thought hit him that they were at the countryside. He was exhausted, low on gas, he couldn't turn his blinker off, and the empowering static of the radio was less of a boost -- and now more of a headache.
He started driving around twelve or so.
It was 4:53AM, now.
He wasn't even sure if he was following the correct car anymore.
It was cold, Jiyong was tired, he wanted to sleep. The vigor of finding where Seungri was going dulled out.
His eyes searched the road for a motel of sorts, even a 2-star one would suffice, but the only thing his eyes caught to were the endless woods and eerie branches giving off the atmosphere of onlooking eyes. The feeling made him squirm in his seat. Eventually though -- the path started to clear, and after awhile, he was met with a large house. The same house that Seungri's taxi was slowing down by.
Jiyong chuckled under his breath.

Visiting family? While hammered?

But the chuckle dissolved quickly. The smile leaking the bitterness that pooled from his throat.

He saw Seungri's figure exit the cab and run up to the door of the house -- bright, welcoming lights and a tall figure competing against the warm company that the overhead lamp in the room seemed to give off.
Seungri stumbled on the rocky, chipped steps that the square of light broadcasted on the cloudy, dark night.

Jiyong narrowed his eyes at the sight of Seungri melting against the man in the doorway.
Crotch pressed against crotch, wet mouths colliding, the bigger figure pressed Seungri closer.
And with a shift of the clouds, with the moon's bitter sense of humour, Seunghyun was set under spotlight with Seungri.

Jiyong's eye twitched.

His stomach sank.

His knuckles made the snapping sounds of released pressure with his tight grip on the steering wheel.

He could hear the moans. The smack of the lips. The broken car window providing no mercy from their lust.

It wasn't long before Seunghyun was undoing the buttons of Seungri's jacket and backing up into the house before closing the door with a vigorous slam of Seungri's needy body against it.

And that was it.

Jiyong looked at his hands, hot, angry tears welling in his eyes.

They acted as if it were a regular thing. Seunghyun was waiting for Seungri.
He opened the door as soon as he saw the cab.
He greedily embraced Seungri.
He was waiting.
This was a regular thing.

Jiyong's knuckles were white. He could see himself trembling in the rear-view mirror. And he finally cried. His breaths came out ragged and hot, his eyes stung and his vision was blurred and hazy. He was sweating.
And he cried. He muffled his screams with the cheap leather of the steering wheel. The grimy fabric getting slick and sticky. His open-mouthed, agony-stricken lips were dry and cracked.
He went on for several moments this way.
Eventually, there was no sound left in this place other than the wind tickling the timid, restless leaves against the pavement of the broken country road and his fast exhales.

It was a deafening silence.

In Seoul, no matter how much you'd wish for it -- there'd always be sound.
The obnoxious beeping of an impatient driver's horn.
Casual chatter on the sidewalk below.
The echoing splash of a car colliding with a puddle on the side of the road a day after it had rained.

But here, in this place,
Jiyong was left with no other sign of life than the heart so full of anguish that it weighed down like lead. That, and the lovers kissing every inch of each others' bodies in the home just a few strides away.

Jiyong's mind went blank, and he put all his weight into the gas of the ty car Seungri had bought so long ago.
It screeched below him.

The car Seunghyun and Jiyong had shared their first awkward, uncomfortable, gross, sloppy, sweaty, holding of hands in after Seungri and Youngbae went out to get McDonald's frosties on that warm, welcoming spring day.

The car that Seungri had first shown Jiyong his middle-school poetry in.

The car that Daesung learned to drive in.

The same car that the group considered their home on worn out wheels for so, so long.

The car that Jiyong was hurtling forward so fast that the speedometer fluttered in a panicked wave to the furthest that the blurred numbers would go. The devilish screech of the burning tires shredding against the jagged road.
He was shaking his head, hot tears making their way down his face once again.
His sight was the cab.
The cab that he'd been chasing for hours.

The driver flung open the car door and leapt out -- landing harshly into the bushes just before Jiyong made a earth-shattering collide into the yellow machine.

Metal against metal -- just as Seunghyun and Seungri were tongue against tongue.

Crunching hoods and shattering glass -- much like the centre of Jiyong's chest at the moment the moon had showcased the lovers at the doorstep.

And shrieking tires that held no match against the cries that Jiyong let out at that moment, the taxi flipped elegantly over the hood of Jiyong's car -- preserving Jiyong's life for just awhile longer.

And as curtains began to flutter open from the front window, he pressed the gas pedal and managed to make it speed away in its clunking, destroyed, falling apart glory.

--

The physical pain of the crash didn't start to take affect until Jiyong was about ten miles away from Seunghyun's home.
Eight of those miles were squeezed out of the car.
Jiyong was now on this barren path, yellowing, tall grass and some stomped down weeds provided some source of direction.

Jiyong's hands were sliced into ribbons, blood cascading into a steady rhythm. Much of one you would find with a dripping faucet that set its way to a steady leak.
The soft flesh of his chest was now poked and slashed and decorated with crimson red and assorted gashes.

Jiyong only started to feel waves of regret after he lied down into the warm, yellowing, brittle grass that smelt of baked apples and bread.

Or maybe he just hit his head hard enough to feel that way.
His hyper-sensitive state returned.
The cool, burgundy-brown soil clumped into the wet pits of his tattered body.
Blood thickening against the dirt that made its way into his flesh.

He knew he wasn't going to be getting up.

He took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and soaked in the feelings around him.

The rising sun whispering promises of auspicious oaths of the unknown future against his swollen, leaking body.
The fresh loam grinding against and under his broken fingernails and delicate hands.
The scent of flowers around him, or maybe trees?
His mouth was numb through his broken jaw and steady flow of liquid down his closing throat.

He delicately scribbled in the characters, "노력" into the dirt, focusing into the blank darkness under his eyelids.

He gave an attempt.
Perhaps, like baseball isn't for everyone,
Some people weren't made with the correct heart to keep their way to life?

Pain seethed through his body.

Seungri was probably right;
Death is a bomb.
But he seemed to forget that,
It won't affect those that have already exploded.





                                    <sup>A/N:

                                   Thank you everyone.</sup>