"How do I say I miss you in a way that will make your heart ache as mine does?"  


"Yongie, I'm taking you out tonight," he said one evening, his palms flat on the counter he hunched over. A mischievous smile spread across his lips and touched his eyes with a childish glimmer.

Jiyong gave him a look, his cheeks puffed and full with too much cereal.

"You haven't been out for such a long time! Over two months, even! We need to have some fun, yeah?" He persuaded, nudging the other in a cheeky-cheesy fashion with his elbow.

The elder shook his head, raising another spoonful of dollar-brand cocoapuffs to his lips with little success --  considering how Seungri had swatted the spoon out of his hand, making it twirl to the other wall of the room in a helicopter motion until it clashed against the wall and fell to the floor.

Ignoring Jiyong's unamused glare, he shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "Wow, looks like you can't eat cereal for dinner again. Too bad. Hey, what's this--?"
He let out an over-exaggerated gasp, pulling out two slips of paper from his front pocket with widened eyes and a mouth in the shape of a tight 'O'.
"-- Reservations to your favourite steakhouse across town?! How'd that get there?!"
Seungri pumped his arm as if he were to score the best seats for a baseball game, giving an awkward hop as he did so.
"Well, it's here now!"
His hand clamped onto the other's wrist as he pulled back, using all his weight to pull a stubborn Jiyong out of his chair.
"We might as well use it!" Was said cheerily before the elder was shoved roughly into his dressing room, an outfit already picked out for him and set on the shelf by the mirror.
"Hurry up, we only have an hour to get ready!"

Jiyong pursed his lips, shooting daggers into the dress clothes set out before him.
He limply pulled at the pant leg of the dresspants, scowling at Seungri's choice. He had no fashion sense.

--

An impatient Seungri hovered by the door, yanking Jiyong out as soon as he heard the door unclick from the lock.
Jiyong shouted curses the entire journey to the car, his shoes crunching under the gravel of the driveway. He put all his weight into his heels, dragging dirty lines into the pathway as he bit at his bottom lip and swatted at Seungri's arm harshly.
"I can walk, you know!" He spat sharply, yanking his arm free.

Seungri -- unphased -- gave a low bow and opened the passenger side door of the car with an over-exaggerated flourish.

--

Seungri was about a dozen glasses down until Jiyong found himself with his feet tangled into Seungri's and a deep need to get home with him. He, too, had a few glasses himself, but Seungri was oozing with the drunken air that most alcoholics seemed to give off.

"Yongie, I'm going home," he slurred, his hand reaching under the table and moving up Jiyong's thigh.
Seungri moved in closer to Jiyong, as if he were going to whisper, but he spoke with the volume of an entertainer trying to do his show with a low microphone in a large club.

"I'm going to you sometime," were the words he shouted.

Jiyong's face went pale as every face in the restaurant turned to their table. Seungri was already standing, making his way outside before Jiyong could stop him. He bowed to the malcontented diners, running into a distressed waiter. The manager came running out of the back of the kitchen, yelling curses in his direction.
"Ah? You tryna get outta here without payin', yeah? Bein' brutish to our customers, yeah?"
It seemed that everything that flung out of the manager's mouth were accusatorial questions.
Jiyong bobbed his head past the tall servers gathering around him, the diners gawking at the sight.

"No, my friend is drunk -- and he's trying to leave -- please move, he can't drive in his conditi--" his words were crammed back into his throat as he was shoved roughly in the ribs.

"You payin' us first," he stated, even if the manager was shorter, he weighed much more than Jiyong did.

It was a little frightening.

He found himself hastily plucking out several hundreds out of his wallet and tossing it in the air. Despite the situation, he found it rather fun. He felt his heart flip as he "made it rain".

But as the furious waiters and the manager himself crouched to their knees, Jiyong was running out the door so fast he wondered why he didn't join track in highschool.
He saw Seungri enter a cab, the flash of his maroon jacket catching city lights. If he were able, Jiyong noted that he would be watching the nightlife.
But right now -- he was chasing down a wild panda.
He sighed, the breath burning in his throat from the run that he'd done. It stung when he breathed. OK, that's why he didn't join track.
Calling for a cab, he entered it before the driver could ask where he was going.

"Follow that taxi, please," he said, pointing to the only other taxi on the road.

"You a sasaeng or something?" the taxi driver murmured, eyeing the boy from head to toe.
 
The driver opened his mouth to say more, but was stopped short when Jiyong pulled out the last bills in his wallet, slamming it on the glove compartment with a firm expression.
All he had left was five dollars.

The driver nodded, rolling his eyes and he stayed a few cars behind the cab they were chasing.

He could see Seungri's figure lying down in the back of the taxi.

Was he going to sleep?

His house wasn't far from here.

Jiyong crossed his legs, impatiently waiting for both cabs to stop at his apartment.
But Seungri's cab showed no sign of slowing down when they reached the front road of what he thought would be their destination.
Instead, the taxi took a curve and sped down the dark road.
Jiyong's eyebrows furrowed.

The driver that was his company nudged Jiyong  in the shoulder roughly, Jiyong winced.
"Hey buddy, five dollars won't get you anywhere much, and this is where my knowledge of the map ends. Get out."

Jiyong let out a frustrated scream, slinging open the car door and dashing to Seungri's other car.
He d his pockets for keys, but remembered that Seungri still had them.
And that Seungri had left them in the other car near the restaurant.

The same car that was probably going to get stolen for that exact reason.

And, at that moment, he in a sharp breath and slung his elbow into the window -- the glass shattering and slicing through the thin fabrics of his clothing. The car alarm and lights lit the car to life. He suddenly was filled with joy as he recollected that nobody here gave a single about anyone else but themselves in this neighborhood. Someone breaking into and stealing their neighbour's car?

He smiled, opening the car door and quickly unscrewing the screws from the plastic cover under the steering wheel with the hair clip metal that Seunghyun had found for him during a hike.

No problem.

Jiyong didn't know quite the reason why he was so set on catching Seungri -- but as he made his way to attempting to hotwire the old junk-car that Seungri bought when he was fourteen -- he knew that he damn well needed to.

He mentally thanked Youngbae for getting him into learning about cars when he was younger.

He felt his entire right arm getting warm as the car flicked to life, pain quickly taking over the sensation.
Burnt plastic seemed to punch at his nostrils -- Seungri was probably too far gone now.

Yet Jiyong still placed himself into the driver's seat, the smell of the cheap leather knock-off stung in his mouth and nose of must and something like frenchfries.
The car was trashed. After all these years -- Seungri had never bothered to clean it? He found himself shaking his head as he pulled out of the driveway, not bothering to turn on the headlights for the reason that they made dollar-brand glowsticks look like they could illuminate a football field.
With a stubborn rumble of the car engine, crunching gravel filled his ears as he finally pulled out into the road, turning out where Seungri's driver had.

His heart did an excited flip when he saw that there was a line of traffic -- Seungri's cab only a couple cars away from the back of the line. Jiyong felt awkward that the relieved feeling still didn't go away when he saw that the traffic was caused by a car crash, apparently. Crunched, cheap cars set by the road near a police car and several ambulances.
He knew that it was wrong to rejoice, but he was still really glad that traffic was there.

The cars started picking up, though, making their way to different directions. Jiyong remembered how he hadn't driven a car in so long. He didn't know how far this engine would go, either.
But he followed the taxi, now only a single car behind Seungri's.

A setting expression of confusion placed on his face when the taxi started driving down the highway furthest from his apartment.
Jiyong stuck behind a few metres, watching the other car by the headlights.
He bit back a grin as he tried not to let the thoughts of him being a secret spy on a secret spy mission puddled in his mind.
 
Despite the bad car and the signs along the freeway that wished kind goodbyes from Seoul in obnoxious fonts, his smile grew wider.
It was just like those secret agent movies he and Seungri would watch together.
Except, rather than chasing homicidal druglords in a souped-up, black, sleek, spy car -- he was puttering along the interstate in a lime-green Ford that happened to be full of achient fast food wrappers after a taxi that contained his drunk friend that probably had no idea where he was going, either.

But if you think that would change his attitude, you couldn't be more wrong.

Jiyong adjusted the radio, the awful speakers producing an obnoxious static version of a rock song through the car.

 

Jiyong noticed the taxi moving and turned along with it, lagging behind a bit.

                                                So you kept telling me to send my friends off"

The song playing gave off the feeling of the 80's -- a classic rock energy. With as much light as the moon could provide on this cloudy night, Jiyong could make out mass amounts of trees and grass on each side of the road.
 

Did Seungri even know where he told the driver to take him? Or did Seungri suddenly decide to go on a road trip?

_{A/N:
The song is Mystery by YB, if you're interested in listening to it. Thanks a lot.}