Dongwook doesn’t remember Hyunsuk as one for nervous ticks, but times change and people with them. The clicking of the pen lid echoes impatiently around the office and settles between them – staring each other down.

Perhaps that’s too harsh, ‘staring each other down’ implies confrontation and that’s not really what’s going on here. This is more like a game of chicken, or a kid waiting for an adult to gather the guts to tell them a bit of Bad News. The important thing to remember, is that they both know what Hyunsuk’s trying to say.

“I can handle it you know,” Dongwook dares to smile.

A corner of Hyunsuk’s mouth turns up but he looks anything but happy, “You changed a lot for us Dongwook, you changed a lot for me.”

Dongwook sighs and sits back, this is going to take a while.

The first time he met Yang Hyunsuk, Dongwook was almost passed out on a practice room floor. At the time, he hadn’t known it was it was a practice room. It was just the place hopeful teenage boys would come to have their dreams crushed and the kicked out of them by unnecessarily complex dance routines – but that was beside the point.

The point, was that he had been flat on his back, trying to summon the energy to get up and grab his water bottle when a familiar face had appeared above him, blocking out the light.

Hyunsuk is tall and always has been, and at the time Dongwook hadn’t finished growing. He cut an impressive enough figure without the added bonus of being one of the most recognisable faces in Korean music.

Dongwook still remembers the amusement with which Hyunsuk had stared down his nose at him as he scrambled to pull himself into a standing position and bow as deep as possible. He hadn’t known anything about him beyond the public image, but always assumed that better to grovel too much than not enough.

Hyunsuk had sighed loudly, “What’s your name?”

“Choi Dongwook, sir,”

“You’re the last one left,”

Dongwook had looked up and around the room and had seen that everyone else was gone. There had been three of them the last time he checked, none of them wanting anything to do with each other and here he was, the last one left.

He didn’t know what to say, he hadn’t even known the other boys’ names.

Hyunsuk had stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged like it was no big deal (Dongwook suspects he’s never really grasped what the training process is like for most people) and made to leave.

“Welcome to YG Entertainment.”

Dongwook never found out what happened to the other boys. He’s not even sure he knew their faces well enough to pick them out of a line up so for all he knows they went off and debuted under other companies quite happily. Most of his memories of training are skewed by the excitement of constantly being surrounded by accomplished musicians who had only ever been accessible to him through the television before.

He wonders if he was ever a role model for the kids who came after him – for Bigbang or 2ne1. Hell, given how long they spent training these new groups could just as easily have grown up listening to him.

They’ve all grown up, and in a lot of cases it’s time to move on. Dongwook had caught Bigbang in the studio just that morning and was surprised to find them weary and uninspired. Has it really been that long? It feels like just yesterday he was struggling not to swear on live radio as Jiyong mocked him down the phone.

Jiyong had been a little brat back then. He still is, only now he’s a brat with money and influence and it’s not cute anymore. He’s outgrown this industry and this lifestyle and though Hyunsuk will no doubt be sorry to see him go Dongwook watches his’s eyes dart towards the door and knows that it’s time.

Hyunsuk laughs nervously. He’s never been one for tearful goodbyes but he seems to wind up making a lot of them.

The biggest surprise to come home to was not Jinwoo and Seunghwan huddled over a notepad in the cafeteria. Honestly Dongwook’s not sure why they ever stopped with the music, he supposes Seunghwan had charity work and a family to slow him down a little. And Jinwoo had…

“What exactly is it that you do all day?” Dongwook beamed, dropping into a seat opposite them and dropping two lattes onto the table.

It had taken a moment for them to look up, and another for them to stare at him, slack jawed and wide eyed.

The next thing Dongwook knew he was on the cafeteria floor fending off hands not sure if they should tickle or strangle him.

“You little punk! Showing up out of the blue like that,” Jinwoo snarled. He peeled himself off Dongwook and sat back panting, he could sound as angry as he liked but he was smiling.

Seunghwan’s was smiling too, still trying to poke Dongwook in the ribs should his guard slip. 

Dongwook felt himself grinning hard enough to split his skull, “just thought my dear old hyeongs might want to see me,”

“Too right we wanted to see you! How long has it been since you got out of the army?”

“Long enough,” Dongwook had found it surprisingly hard to meet Seunghwan’s gaze. He’d have been lying if he said that he hadn’t been putting this off. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to see his old colleagues, but readjusting to civilian life wasn’t as easy as he’d expected.

Jinwoo got to his feet shaking his head, “and you didn’t think to call us. We could have gotten you so drunk on your first night back.”

They dropped back into their seats at the table and Dongwook watched Seunghwan take a long slurp of his coffee, “thanks for this.”

That right there, that was what Donghyuk remembered about YG Entertainment. A motley troop of over eager fools with a single minded passion for making music: his friends, his family.

Donghyuk's seen YG idols in adverts for everything from soft drinks to cars up and down the length and breadth of South Korea. Even as far as Japan. It doesn’t feel like a family anymore, not when everyone else is trying to get in on it.

“So,” he had smiled, before he ran too far with that thought, “what’s new around here?”

Jinwoo’s fingers tightened around his latte, “everything! They even got a new kid with my name, a whole other Kim Jinwoo. Kid looks like a ing deer.”

“They’re replacing you,” Dongwook had cackled, knowing full well that it wasn’t a joke.

“I just…I don’t want you to feel like you’re being kicked out. And if you really want to stay we can probably make it work but you should know that…”

Hyunsuk trails off completely. He’s having a lot of trouble getting this out and Dongwook doesn’t feel best placed to help him. On the day they first met he had been star struck, today he knows that this is something Hyunsuk has to do by himself. He’s doing this as a businessman, but he’s trying to do this as a friend – standing in the new YG trying to work out how to handle the old. Maybe letting JinuSean back out wasn’t the best idea after all.

Hyunsuk’s eyes focus on the figurines on the wall behind Dongwook, a strange obsession that he didn’t understand when Seunghyun first started and he understands even less now Hyunsuk’s playing the game too.

“I’m sorry I’m making this so hard,” he mumbles.

Dongwook smiles at him, because everything’s going to be ok.

Hyunsuk always had an affinity for charity cases and therein lies the problem. He took Park Bom – the girl who never stopped trying to find a way into the industry. He took Choi Seunghyun, who couldn’t dance or sing and who everyone said was too heavy to ever be an idol. He took Jaesang and Tablo after their falls from grace, but he never likes showing people the door.

Hyunsuk likes collecting the lost boys, he hates to remember that Neverland is just a fairytale.

The biggest surprise to come home to was to walk back into the YG building and see that Jiyeon’s poster had been taken down from the lobby.

“No Gummy?” he had asked an unfamiliar boy dashing past him on the stairs.

The boy had bowed so deep his snapback fell off, “Seven sunbaenim.”

“Yeah, I-”

“My name’s Kim Hanbin…I mean B.I. I’m Ikon’s leader.”

None of that had meant anything to Dongwook, so he had smiled and nodded and when he asked again Kim Hanbin had informed him that ‘Gummy sunbaenim’ had moved onto greener pastures.

Dongwook couldn’t understand it. She was always so quiet, but he had thought that in her own way she was happy here.

“I didn’t know what to do with her anymore,” Hyunsuk shrugs, “I don’t blame her for leaving, even found her a new record label. I could do that for you if you wanted, when you-“

Hyunsuk stops short, he had come so close to saying it. Dongwook wishes his boss was just a little more brave.

“Look, sajangnim”

“Call me hyeong,”

“Sanjangnim,” Dongwook says forcefully. There will be time enough to call Hyunsuk ‘hyeong’ later, but he’s still on the payroll for now, “I don’t mind, really. Let the kids have their shot, you have enough on your plate without me.”

“It’s just…dammit Dongwook you’re gonna have a hard time finding somewhere else to go.”

It’s true, Hyunsuk takes on risky investments and handles scandals in the most blasé of manners but other companies aren’t so forgiving. YG is where you go for redemption, not where you leave from, disgraced.

Dongwook is a big boy though, he can handle it.

“Do you want to terminate your contract?” Hyunsuk asks too quickly, like he had to push the words out all at once or not at all.

Dongwook remembers Jinwoo and Taebin dragging him into prank wars only to pin everything on him. He remembers Hyosook laughing at his jokes even if they weren’t funny just to one up Teddy. He remembers Perry and Kush in an eternal war over who ate who’s lunch, Wheesung bringing him junk food as a late night snack, Hyunsuk counting out seven spicy radishes over breakfast. He remembers drawing a neat line through the word ‘diamond’ and writing ‘bigbang’ underneath.

He wants that back, desperately, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the people who made his YG have gone, and those that are left aren’t even working out of the same building anymore.

“I do,” Dongwook says solemnly.

Hyunsuk stares at him, there’s a beat and then they both start laughing.

“You make it sound so serious!” Hyunsuk grins his wide, froggy grin.

“Me? You’re the one who took half an hour to pop the question.”

“Ah, I’m an old man I can be as sentimental as I like.”

Dongwook feels better now they’ve both said it. Leaving for the military rather felt like the end anyway but his contract has been the final loose end that refuses to tidy up itself.

“What would you have done if I’d said no?”

Hyunsuk hold his hands up in surrender, “I guess we’ll never know.”

Dongwook leaves the YG building several hours later, after Hyunsuk has paraded him around for everyone’s amusement. He doesn’t know a lot of the new kids, but they seem nice and hardworking and completely unlike the rowdy bunch that he remembers from his teenage years.

He’s been tied to this company for the last seventeen years, even though he’s sure he’s ready, he knows it’s not going to be easy to adapt to life without it.

Hyunsuk offers his hand to shake as Dongwook leaves, “thank you for everything.”

Dongwook bats the hand away and pulls Hyunsuk into an embrace, “Sajangnim…hyeong, it's been a pleasure.”