What the hell?  Who knew rapping would be so hard?  He thought it was just talking really fast and slurring his words, but no, apparently there’s a technique.  And he’s failing at it.

They’re all sitting in little desks in a semicircle around their vocal coach, running through their parts, only now everyone is staring at him with dubious looks. 

Youngbae’s brows are pulled together in a frown.  “You sound like a meat grinder.  But not in a good way.”  Seungri scowls.  .

Jiyong reaches over and feels at his forehead.  “Are you coming down with something?  Is your throat bothering you?”

Seunghyun’s sitting in the desk on the far end with his head in his hands, staring at Seungri in a mix of exasperation and secondhand embarrassment. 

Seungri pouts.  He didn’t think it was that bad.  “I’m sorry, isn’t that what I usually sound like?  I thought I was just supposed to growl and say ‘yeah’ a lot.” 

He grins while he waits for everyone to laugh at his joke, but apparently, no one else thinks it’s funny.  Well, Daesung cracks a smile, but he doesn’t count ‘cause that dude is always smiling.  Seunghyun just stares at him balefully. 

Their instructor finally in a deep breath, letting it puff up his cheeks before releasing it in a rush.  He shuffles with some papers on his desk.  “Okay, then.  Moving on.”

Midway through the next song, Seungri comes to the acute realization that he should’ve been a little nicer about the whole rapping thing, if for no other reason than his own self-preservation.  When it’s time for Seunghyun to sing Seungri’s part, he starts wailing, loudly and off-key, eyes closed while he croons for some imagined audience.  Their instructor stops the accompaniment immediately, and Seunghyun’s singing, if it can truly be called that, trails off. 

Seunghyun beams around their makeshift circle.  “I’ve been practicing.”

“Yah,” Youngbae smacks him upside the head.  “You need to take this seriously.”

The small scolding does nothing to temper Seunghyun’s smile, though.  He just shrugs his shoulders and gives Youngbae an innocent look.  “But I tried my best.  Maybe I just at singing.”

Seungri glowers, opening his mouth to stick up for himself, but Jiyong beats him to it.  “Yeah, but you don’t  that bad.” 

Seungri’s head whips toward Jiyong, betrayed, and Seunghyun’s shoulders shake from his snickering.  Seungri glares at him.  “Or maybe we’re both coming down with the same thing,” Seungri grits out.

Seunghyun blinks.  Then he smiles happily.  “Nah, that can’t be it.  I feel fine.”

Seungri slumps down in his seat and pouts.

Finally, practice ends.  As he bundles up in Seunghyun’s puffy coat, everyone discusses what they’d like to have for dinner.  Seungri doesn’t know why they bother, though.  They always wind up having whatever Jiyong wants.

And of course, the moment Jiyong suggests this little restaurant a few blocks away, Seunghyun says that sounds good, and they’re off, walking instead of taking the van since it’s not that far.  Seunghyun falls into step with Jiyong, but then Jiyong stops, pausing on the sidewalk, for what, Seungri’s not sure, not until he gets closer.  As soon as Seungri catches up with him, Jiyong resumes walking. 

Oh.  Jiyong was waiting for him.

Jiyong pulls a cigarette out and lights it.  It’s cold enough that they can see their breaths so Seungri’s not sure what’s smoke and what’s just air.

“Want one?” Jiyong offers, and damn, Seungri really does.  He makes a note to himself never to have one when he’s back in his own body because he doesn’t want to be such a slave to these things.

“Sure,” he says, freeing a cigarette from Jiyong’s pack. 

Seunghyun looks longingly at it, but he doesn’t ask if he can have one, too.  Instead, he teases Jiyong, “When are you gonna start smoking real cigarettes?”

“I like them,” Jiyong defends.

Chuckling, Seunghyun relents.  “I think it’s cute that you smoke Lights.”

Jiyong gives Seunghyun an odd smile.  “What would you know?  You don’t even smoke.  Have you been talking to Hyung?”  He looks over at Seungri, and Seungri just shrugs.

Seungri’s second cigarette is much easier than the first.  He gets the thing lit on the first try, and he doesn’t cough up a lung this time.  He’s got this down.  Jiyong smiles at him and bumps their shoulders together.

He sees Youngbae sling his arm around Seunghyun’s shoulders and ruffle his hair.  “What’s up with you?  You’ve been quiet all day.”

“Nothing,” Seunghyun says.  “Just puberty.”

Everyone laughs except for Seungri.  Really now, he should probably get some sort of truce worked out with Seunghyun.

When they get to the restaurant, Jiyong squeezes in next to him in the booth, and he’s reminded again just how awesome it is to be the eldest.  Every time he tries to reach across Jiyong to get at one of the side dishes, Jiyong gently waves his arm away.  “I got it,” he says, and he always makes sure to give Seungri the best portions.

Finally, Seungri stops reaching and just gestures at what he wants with a nod of his head, and Jiyong wordlessly gets it.  He even puts a little piece of shrimp on Seungri’s spoon before he takes a bite.

He’s watched Jiyong do stuff like this for Seunghyun for ages, but he’s never thought much of it.  He just remembered all the horror stories Jiyong and Youngbae told him about Se7en and figured this type of over-the-top manners was ingrained in Jiyong from that.  Whatever the reason, Seungri thinks he can get used to it.  This is way better than the reverse where Jiyong whines and bullies him till he fetches a bottle of water Jiyong’s not even going to drink.

But when he raises his glass to his lips to wash down the shrimp Jiyong’s just given him, he catches Seunghyun’s eyes across the table.  Seunghyun’s watching him and Jiyong with an odd expression on his face, but when he sees that Seungri’s looking at him, Seunghyun swallows and looks down at his lap.

, it’s cold.  They should’ve called for a ride, but his hyungs didn’t want to bother anybody since they weren’t that far away, so now Seungri’s hunkered down in his coat, trying to stay warm.  He shoves his hands in his pockets, eyes lighting up when he realizes that there are gloves stuffed in them.  He pulls them out and gets ready to put them on.

“Cold?” he hears his own voice ask.  He turns his head to answer the question, to tell Seunghyun of course he’s ing cold, but then he sees that the words aren’t directed at him.

Jiyong has his arms wrapped around himself, teeth chattering, Seunghyun looking on in concern.  “I’ll be okay.”  Jiyong laughs when he can’t stop shivering.

The corners of Seunghyun’s mouth pull down in a frown, and then he snatches the gloves out of Seungri’s hands and gives them to Jiyong.  “Here.  Put these on.”

Seungri gasps in mock outrage.  “But those are mine!”

Jiyong looks uncertainly up at him.  “Do you want them back?”

Seungri almost says yes and demands them back, but then he sees the way Seunghyun is glaring at him and says mulishly, “No.  You keep them.”

Jiyong gives him this bright smile, and Seungri has to take a step back at how luminous it is.  Wow, Jiyong must really be grateful for those gloves.

When they finally get back to their dorm, they take off their shoes and shrug out of their coats.  Jiyong plucks the gloves from his hands, one finger at a time, and then he holds them out to Seungri.  He’s wearing that same beaming smile from earlier.  “Thanks for letting me borrow them.”

Their fingers brush together as Seungri takes them back. 

“Oh!”  Jiyong’s eyes fly down to Seungri’s hands.  “Your hands are like ice.”

No kidding.  “Probably ‘cause someone stole my gloves,” he responds, wryly.

Jiyong lets out a soft giggle and cups Seungri’s hands, drawing them up toward his lips so he can blow on them.  “I guess it is my fault.  But I can help you warm them?”  Jiyong looks up at him through his lashes as he blows a warm breath across Seungri’s knuckles.

“Uh…yeah…”  Seungri gently pries his hands away.  “That’s not really necessary.”  Wow, Jiyong and Youngbae weren’t kidding.  Se7en-hyung must’ve done a number on them if this is what Jiyong thinks being a good dongsaeng means.

“Hyung.” 

Seungri turns his head at the interruption.  He sees Seunghyun standing a couple steps away, staring at him with a dark expression.  “We’ve got that thing we need to do, remember?”

There’s steel in Seunghyun’s voice, or rather Seungri’s voice, but Seungri doesn’t get why.  Maybe he’s just impatient to get back into his own body.  They did agree that they’d get this whole mess sorted out as soon as they got home.  And Seungri did promise.  Only in his head, but he thinks it still counts.

“Right, the thing.”  Seungri eases away from Jiyong.

“What thing?” Jiyong asks.  Seungri and Seunghyun pause, turning to give him identical wide-eyed looks.

Seungri elbows Seunghyun’s arm.  “Tell him about the thing.”

Seunghyun gives him a comical look before whipping his head back toward Jiyong.  “Puberty,” he blurts, and Seungri feels the urge to smack his face against a wall.  Is that really the only thing Seunghyun can think of?  It’s the same crack from earlier.

Now that Seunghyun’s put an explanation out there, he grins and rolls with it.  “Yeah, uh, my body’s going through a lot of, um, changes?  I think I’m a late bloomer.”

“So you asked Hyung to talk to you about it?” Jiyong asks, like he’s still waiting to hear the punchline to a joke.

Seunghyun grins and nods.  “Yeah.  He’s just so cool.  I knew he’d be the best to ask.”

Seungri nearly vomits.  “Okay, okay.”  He grabs ahold of Seunghyun’s arm and starts leading him away before he can do any more damage.  “Let’s go have that talk.”  He gives Jiyong a last look over his shoulder and sees him smiling at the two of them fondly.

They pass by the living room where Youngbae and Daesung are hunkered over a bible – they spend almost as much time reading that thing as they do practicing their choreography – and when they reach Seungri’s room, they carefully shut the door behind them.

“Okay,” Seunghyun says, all the day’s frustration pouring out of him.  “How do we fix this?  Should we go to the hospital?”

Seungri rolls his eyes.  “Great idea.  ‘Cause they totally have a machine for zapping people back into their bodies.”

“Well, I don’t know.  There has to be something we can do.”

Yeah, there is.  Seungri looks toward the little desk where the box that holds the wishing rock is sitting.  He nearly reaches for it, but then he stops.  Because once he shows Seunghyun the rock, he’ll have to come clean and admit that he’s the one who did this to them.

He looks back at Seunghyun.  “Don’t get mad.”

“Why would I get mad?”  At Seungri’s guilty look, Seunghyun’s confusion turns into a scowl.  “Why would I get mad, Maknae?”

“I didn’t know it would do anything!” he rushes to explain.  “It was just a rock.  How was I supposed to know it would actually work?”

“Seungri,” he says slowly, teeth clenched together.  “What are you talking about?  What rock?”

Seungri hands Seunghyun the little box that was meant for him all along.  Some of the wrapping paper is still clinging to it, including the tag that says Seunghyun’s name.

Seunghyun’s brows knit together.  “This has my name on it.”

“I thought it was mine,” Seungri pipes up.  “We do have the same name, Hyung.  It’s an understandable mistake.”  Seungri smiles real wide and hopes his hyung believes him.

“But my surname is right here,” Seunghyun points out, but Seungri just keeps smiling.  “Okay, whatever.”  Seunghyun opens the box and plucks out the rock.

“There’s a note,” Seungri helpfully adds.

Seunghyun looks back down at the box and pulls the note out next, scanning the page before his eyes flash back up to Seungri.  “What did you do?”

Seungri sniffs, a little miffed that Seunghyun is so accusing; Seungri already explained that it was an accident.  “I just made a little wish,” he mumbles.

“A wish,” Seunghyun repeats, flatly.  “I can’t believe you did this.  And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”  The more Seunghyun talks, the more he gets worked up.  “How long were you gonna let this go on for?  Were you gonna steal my body forever?  Why would you even want to be me?”

Seungri’s shoulders droop further and further down with each scolding word, but at that last question, he draws them back up, and all his unhappiness explodes out of him.  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe ‘cause you have it so easy?  You don’t have to work for anything.  You just show up, and everyone fawns all over you.”

Seunghyun’s jaw tightens.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s why I held onto this,” Seungri goes on, pointing at the fan gift.  “You always get so many.  I just wanted one.”

Seunghyun’s still glaring daggers at him.  He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but then he presses his lips back together in a hard line.  “Just wish us back.”

Seungri huffs.  “Fine.”  He takes the rock from Seunghyun’s hands and wishes for them to switch back.  “There.  It’s done.”

Seunghyun stares at him as if he’s stupid.  “Nothing happened.  We’re still switched.”

Seungri gives him a long-suffering sigh and fights the urge to roll his eyes.  “I know that.  It wasn’t immediate last time.  I made the wish, and then we were like this when I woke up.  I think we have to sleep first.”

Seunghyun looks at the rock suspiciously.  “So that’s it?  We just pretend to be each other for the rest of the night, and when we wake up, everything’ll be back to normal?”

Yeah, normal.  Where Seungri’s the maknae and always draws the short straw.  “As far as I can tell.”

“Good,” Seunghyun says, voice hard.

Seungri feels an uncomfortable pit in his stomach.  Maybe he was too harsh.  He’d basically just called his hyung lazy to his face, and it doesn’t look like Seunghyun’s over it, yet.  Sure, it’s how Seungri feels, but that doesn’t mean it was his place to say it.

He’s just about to apologize when there’s a knock on the door.  Jiyong cracks it halfway open and grins at them.  “I came to see how the talk is going.”

“Fine,” Seunghyun says, the hardness in his eyes softening now that Jiyong’s here.  “We’re all done.”

“That was fast,” Jiyong smirks.  “Did Hyung not have much to teach you?”  He catches his bottom lip between his teeth and stares impishly up at Seungri.

“I guess not,” Seunghyun says.

“Then if you’re done with him, can I have him?

“He’s all yours.  I just want to go to bed and forget this day ever happened.”

Apparently, the reason Jiyong wants him is so he can make him sit in the little studio room and listen to the same beat over and over and over.  Seungri rubs at his temples and wishes he hadn’t left the rock in his bedroom so he could wish himself somewhere less boring.

“Do you think it needs more bass?” Jiyong asks for the third time that night.

“No, it’s perfect.”  Maybe now Jiyong will just stop.

Jiyong hums in the back of his throat.  “I think it needs more bass.”

God.

Maybe he was wrong.  Maybe Seunghyun doesn’t have it so easy.  If this is what he puts up with every night when the two of them disappear into here, then Seunghyun’s a saint.

Jiyong finally shuts the track off and turns in his chair to face him.  He pulls out a worn notebook with doodles on the front and flips through the pages.  “I’ve been working on some lyrics for it.”  He finally reaches the page he’s seeking and hands the notebook over to Seungri.  “What do you think?”

Seungri reads over it.  It looks good, he guesses.  It rhymes, so there’s that.

When he looks up from the paper, he sees Jiyong waiting expectantly.

“I like it?” he says, hoping that’s the right answer.

Jiyong looks put out.  “You normally have more to say.”

Ah hell, if there’s one thing Seungri’s learned today it’s that he doesn’t know the first thing about rapping, much less writing lyrics for it.  “Sorry,” he says.  “I’m not myself today.”  That’s an understatement.

“You have been a little off,” Jiyong agrees.  “Maybe you really are getting sick.”

Seungri jumps on that like a lifeline.  “Yeah, maybe.  I should probably go lie down.”

“Yeah.  Let me know if you need anything.”

Jiyong watches him as he gets up and heads to the door.  He gives Seungri one last gentle smile before turning back to the computer screen and clicking play on the same beat from earlier.

Seungri’s getting out just in time.

He changes into a pair of Seunghyun’s pajama pants and brushes his teeth because even though this isn’t his body, it’s still his responsibility for tonight, and he figures it wouldn’t be very nice of him to let his hyung get cavities.

After that he heads to Seunghyun’s room.  There are three mattresses in a row.  Jiyong’s is the closest to the door, Youngbae’s is in the middle, and Seunghyun’s is all the way up against the far wall.  Seungri goes over to Seunghyun’s bed and faceplants on it.  Finally.  His own bed.  At least he gets to enjoy this before they switch back.  He burrows under the covers and sighs happily.

Youngbae comes in a little while after that.  Seungri’s doing his best to fall asleep, but it’s really hard when the lights are still on and he can sense Youngbae’s shadow falling across his face.  He cracks an eye open to see Youngbae looking down at him.  “Can I help you?

“Your clothes are in my part of the room.”

It takes a moment for Seungri to get what Youngbae’s talking about, but then he props his head up and looks down at the little valley between their mattresses.  There’s a t-shirt and a couple of hoodies strewn there.  “Sorry.”  He reaches down and pulls them closer to his own bed, and Youngbae huffs.

“Why can’t you just hang them up like you’re supposed to?  Or put them in the hamper?”

“Do I have to do that now?  I’m tired.”

Youngbae glowers at him.  “I’m just tired of our room always being messy.  It’s not that hard to pick up after yourself.”

Wow.  And he thought Jiyong was a nag.  So this is why Seunghyun and Youngbae always bicker.

Seungri nearly rolls up out of bed to do as Youngbae says, but then he remembers that he’s still in Seunghyun’s body, so that means he still gets to be the hyung.  He settles back down into the mattress.  “Nah, I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Youngbae’s mouth twists like he’s swallowed something sour, but he backs off.  “Okay, fine, but please do it tomorrow.”

Seungri grins and waves him off.  “Sure thing.”

Seungri thinks that’s the end of it, but a moment later, he hears Youngbae ask, “So, what?  Did you and your girlfriend break up?”

Seunghyun has a girlfriend?  And no one told him?  Why is he always the last to find out things? 

But when he opens his eyes, there’s a teasing glimmer in Youngbae’s eyes and a smirk about his lips.  Youngbae nods pointedly at the big stuffed panda beside Seungri on the bed.  “I thought you couldn’t sleep unless you were holding that thing.”

Oh.  Right. 

Seungri pulls it to him and wraps his arms around it, wrinkling his nose when he gets a better look at it.  It’s old and beat up, and he sincerely hopes Seunghyun doesn’t drool.  Seungri doesn’t see anything that looks like dried spit on it, but that doesn’t stop him from staring at it suspiciously.  It’s not right for a grown man to be so attached to something like this.

When Jiyong enters a few minutes later, he turns the light off before crawling into bed, and finally, Seungri’s able to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Seungri’s woken by the sound of the door opening, followed by a triangle of light filtering in and cutting across the room.  Seungri blinks a few times before he sees Jiyong quietly slipping out the door.

A couple minutes later, he hears the sound of water running in the bathroom before it stops again, and then Jiyong comes slinking back in.  He shuts the door gently behind him, casting the room back in dark, and Seungri smooshes his face against his pillow and tries to fall back to sleep.

But his eyes pop back open when he feels his covers being raised and a slim body sliding in beside him.

“I can’t sleep,” Jiyong whispers.

Yeah.  That makes two of them.  Only Seungri’s pretty sure his problem would fix itself if Jiyong would go back to his own bed and stay there, but it doesn’t look like Jiyong plans on going anywhere; he’s settling in for the night.

Seungri feels the urge to whine and kick his feet in frustration.  He never gets his own bed.  The company is too cheap to spring for a bigger apartment or even another mattress, so Seungri always gets stuck sharing.  If it’s not his normal roommate Daesung, it’s a situation like this where Jiyong decides he needs attention and refuses to go away until he gets it.  Why can’t Seungri just sleep alone?  Just this once.

The mattress they’re on is fairly narrow so Seungri tries to use that as an excuse to get Jiyong to leave.  “I don’t think there’s room for all three of us,” he says, gesturing down at the old, crusty panda in between them.

Jiyong doesn’t take the hint, though.  Instead, he takes hold of the panda and drops it over the edge of the bed.

“I’m supposed to cuddle that,” Seungri protests, but Jiyong ignores him, fitting himself against Seungri so that they’re spooned together.

Jiyong reaches back and pulls Seungri’s arm around his waist.  “You can just cuddle me,” he whispers, a teasing lilt in his voice and maybe a bit of a pout.  Seungri frowns because he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Jiyong sound like that before.  It’s almost…girly.

Well, whatever.  He’s too tired to care.  “Fine,” he says, exasperation evident.  “Can we go to sleep now?”

Jiyong nods his head and snuggles further back against him, and Seungri nearly groans.  This .  He thought Seunghyun wouldn’t have to put up with Jiyong’s penchant for slumber parties, but apparently he was wrong.  His hyung’s just as much of a victim.

Maybe once they’re swapped back in the morning, they can commiserate.  If Seunghyun’s not still pissed at him, that is.