“So I’m picking Seungri up from the airport tomorrow,” Youngbae says suddenly, looking up from his phone. Jiyong tears his eyes away from the stupid soap opera they’re watching, surprised.

“He’s coming home?” he asks. “What the ? Why didn’t I know about this?”

Youngbae snorts. “Because you changed your phone number when you were drunk one night, and also because you don’t talk to him anymore.”

“Since when?” Jiyong replies, affronted. “I talk to him. All the time.” This is very untrue, and they both know it.

Youngbae gives him a long, measured look, one that simultaneously judges the out of Jiyong and also pities him just a little, because Youngbae isn’t sure how he allowed his best friend to become so pathetic. Jiyong wilts and pulls at a loose thread in his sweatpants.

“You should, like, cut your hair or something. If you’re going to see him.” Youngbae smiles and takes in the mop on Jiyong’s head. Once, Jiyong had styled his hair religiously, demanding nothing short of the most trendy, fashion-forward hairstyles, regardless of whether or not it made him look like a radish (it had, but no one ever says anything because Youngbae likes to pretend it never happened).

“Who says I’m going to see him?” Jiyong snaps, and yeah, maybe he’s more than a little annoyed that he’s finding out about this now, because where is he going to find a hairdresser this late at night? Also, his ex-best friend slash crush-that-I’m-secretly-in-love-with-but-I-haven’t-confessed-yet is coming home, but that’s clearly not the issue here.

“Whatever, dude.” There Youngbae goes with that judgy/pitying look again. Jiyong sort of wants to throw the popcorn bowl on his face, but then his couch would be covered in popcorn and Jiyong is not about that life.

“You don’t even own a car,” Jiyong says instead, crossing his arms moodily, trying to ignore the sulk in his voice. “I’m picking him up.”

Youngbae doesn’t reply, but he smiles down at his phone and forwards the flight information to Jiyong’s email.

It’s been four years, and in that time Jiyong has gone through approximately four crappy relationships, one really bad date, and there was also that one time he’d gotten drunk and tried to kiss Youngbae. Needless to say, he’d slept in the hallway that night and being hungover way worse when he had to throw up in a potted plant instead of porcelain.

He doesn’t know if he’s still in love with Seungri. Not after Seungri had more or less announced a week before he was due to leave that he was going to study abroad, and ‘I can’t believe it, hyung, aren’t you so excited for me?’  It had stung majorly back then, and Jiyong had spitefully refused to accompany Seungri to the airport, but then he’d regretted it for a month afterwards. He’d also been too chicken to call Seungri and apologize, and by the time he’d worked up the guts to do it, he’d realized he never asked for Seungri’s new number. He was coward enough to not ask Youngbae, so he’d ended up never picking things up with Seungri. He saw the Facebook updates now and then, when Seungri remembered to.

And now Seungri was coming home, and , it’s been so long. Jiyong groans and buries his head into the cushions. Youngbae pats his back comfortingly, because he knows, everyone knew (except Seungri, evidently), but this for some reason makes Jiyong feel worse.
 

Luckily for Jiyong, the plane wasn’t due until three in the afternoon, plenty of time for Jiyong to both get a haircut (a safe, vanilla cut that suits him but Jiyong pretends to be above it anyway) as well as buy a new pair of jeans. He’s been living out of the one pair that he still likes (because Jiyong is a fickle creature and Youngbae always complains about children starving in Africa when Jiyong brings home a new wardrobe), and now it’s holey and altogether unsuitable for picking up Seungri from the airport.

When Seungri finally emerges, Jiyong has no problem recognizing him. He’s even wearing the same scarf he’d worn on his departure flight (the one Jiyong had bought for him one Christmas, but Seungri pretends to have forgotten this detail). Likewise, Seungri spots Jiyong right away, and makes his way over with the same blinding smile as always.

, Jiyong thinks despairingly to himself. Yeah, wow, I’ve still got it bad.

“Lee Seungri?” Jiyong asks, wiggling his poorly made welcome sign, written with the elementary school chicken scratch that Seungri once as “proof that you’re evolutionarily stunted, hyung”. He’d wrestled him into a headlock for that comment.

Seungri chuckles and lets go of the carry-on in his hand so he can pull Jiyong in for a hug. It’s kind of awkward, because Jiyong has to wrap his arms around the bulky backpack on Seungri’s back. Seungri’s arms are as sturdy as ever, and yeah, okay, Jiyong has sort of missed this. And by sort of, he really means a lot, crap, how is he still this lame after all of this time?

“Coffee,” is the first thing Seungri says. “I definitely need coffee. It’s good to see you, hyung.”

Jiyong rolls his eyes and says something about Seungri’s priorities, but pulls him into the airport café. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says pointedly, scrunching his nose and sticking his tongue out.

Seungri shrugs. “I know. Also, you love me, so.”

Jiyong hesitates for a half step, but Seungri is still smiling peacefully at him, so he thinks that maybe it’s okay. “That, too.”

They place their orders and waits for the barista to call their names. Seungri checks his phone quickly, and this annoys Jiyong just the tiniest bit, but then he remembers that Seungri has just come off from a twelve hour flight. He probably has people to reassure about him unfortunately still being alive, sorry. You know, since he’s been living a completely different life for four years and Seungri makes friends the way Seunghyun makes money just by staring passively into a camera.

“Wow, this coffee ,” is Jiyong’s first reaction after having tasted his caramel macchiato. The barista hears this and shoots them a nasty look, but Seungri had snorted into his drink and now has Americano dripping off of him, which makes Jiyong cackle with laughter.

“Mine’s not too bad,” Seungri says, offering. Jiyong wrinkles his nose, because hello, Seungri just snorted into his drink, ew? “Your fault for not taking me to some pretentiously obscure coffee shop off Hongdae.”

“That’d take too long,” Jiyong admits, taking another sip of his awful drink because he might as well, since he’d paid. His heart weeps because he loves those coffee shops. “I want to know how you’ve been.”

Seungri doesn’t look very different. Maybe a little tanner. Still has atrocious fashion sense, but Jiyong has long forgiven Seungri for this. His hair is shorter, and lighter, and Jiyong feels a twinge of resentment because Seungri never agreed to dyeing his hair when he was with him.

“I’ve been alright,” Seungri says, shrugging. “School was tough, because I at English in high school and there wasn’t a single Korean person for ing miles.”

“Business, right?” Jiyong had judged Seungri a little, then, because Seungri hadn’t seemed like the type. But then Seungri had opened ddeukbokki stand that had actually done really well and Jiyong had conceded that Seungri might actually be good at it. (It certainly helped that the cart was manned by his very handsome best friend, but Jiyong is gracious and doesn’t raise this issue.)

“Yup.” He scrolls through his camera’s gallery until he finds the right picture, and shows Jiyong a crappy photo of his degree. “It wasn’t too bad, though, once I’d gotten the hang of it. Made a small fortune one summer when a business venture did better than I expected. I got extra credit for that one.”

“And now you’re back?” Jiyong asks, half hopefully and half apprehensively. “To stay?”

Seungri nods and leans back into his seat. His feet hit Jiyong’s, but this happened often enough that Jiyong doesn’t pull away anymore. “America was nice,” he states, “But I think I prefer Korea. Though I can’t say I’m loving the guyliner thing going on around here.”

Jiyong blinks, because although he hadn’t worn the eyeliner today, he normally did. Whatever, it made him look hotter, and Seungri was probably just jealous that he couldn’t rock it like Jiyong could. Peasant.

“What about us?” he asks instead. “Like, I didn’t think you’d come back after, you know, I was a huge dickwad to you.” He squirms in his seat. “Sorry, by the way. Um, a lot.”

Seungri nudges his foot with his own, and just smiles at him. “It’s alright, hyung. I understand why you’d be mad. But I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was hiding it from you.”

“Well, you certainly took your time telling me,” Jiyong replies grumpily.

“I didn’t really want to tell you, though.” Seungri coughs into his fist, face pinking. “I knew you’d take it hard, and also I really at saying goodbye.  And I thought maybe…” he trails off.

“Maybe what?” Jiyong asks, suddenly stricken. Did he find out? That I’ve got a really embarrassing crush on him?

“Maybe if I told you early, you’d somehow convince me not to go,” Seungri says quickly, words spilling out of his mouth. He shrinks, embarrassed. “Not that, you know, you would try and do something like that, since you’re such a good friend” – friend, Jiyong thinks, disappointed – “but, like, I’d probably feel really guilty and chicken out.”

“Was going away really that important to you?” Jiyong wonders, trying to pretend that he wasn’t hurt by these words. Jiyong’s an okay guy. He doesn’t smell that bad. He washes the dishes. Separates the whites and the darks.

Seungri huffs. “I had to do something to get away from you.”

“Um,” Jiyong says. “Ouch?”

“Because I was really in love with you and I didn’t want you to find out, because you were always talking about girls and stuff, and I didn’t want to lose you as my friend either, you know?” Seungri fiddles with his now-empty cup. “‘Cuz that would a lot worse than being all pathetically in love with you.”

There’s a long stretch of silence wherein Jiyong wonders if he’s just suffered a , because no way did Seungri just say what he thinks he said?

“What?” is what he manages to get out, once he’s ascertained that he did not, in fact, suffer from a . It comes out as sort of a half gargle in his throat, and that’s really embarrassing.

Seungri is thoroughly flustered. “I went to America because I thought that would solve everything, except that didn’t work.”

If Daesung had been there, he would probably have smacked Seungri upside the head because taking plot lines from stupid TV dramas would get him nowhere, you’re a Seungri.

“It didn’t?” Jiyong finds that he can’t seem to manage sentences longer than a couple of words. His palms are also sweaty, which is gross, and it’s not even hot, so he wipes them on his new jeans.

“Yeah, I’m kind of still desperately in love with you and also I ing hate that you didn’t talk to me the whole time I was away and I missed you a lot and now I’m rambling and you’re not saying anything and did I just mess everything up—”

Halfway through Seungri’s nervous word vomit, it suddenly registers to Jiyong that he’s been a ing idiot this whole time. He leans over and shuts Seungri up by kissing him and yes, it’s just as good as he imagined.

“We’re both idiots,” he informs Seungri, because his revelation is really important, when he breaks for air. “Because I’ve had this really lame thing for you for a long time and didn’t have the balls to say anything, and apparently neither did you. Also, you left for four years and I didn’t apologize, so we’re also both huge .”

“I really want to say something about huge but this isn’t really the time, or the place, so.” Seungri sinks back into his chair, a little dazed, and it goes straight to Jiyong’s already debatably inflated ego. “Wait, you like me?”

“I just kissed you, and unless you normally kiss people you don’t like at least a lot then yeah, Seungri, I do.”

Seungri snorts. “That’s good, because otherwise this could have gotten really awkward.”

“With you, it always is.”

“I’ve sure missed you, idiot.”

“Me too, , me too.”