Jiyong stretched his arms, letting out a yawn as the last of his dreams disappeared and his bedroom came into focus. For a while he watched the dust motes stirring in the air, breathing in the fresh air that was blowing in from the open window. A pleased smile stretched its way across his face and lingered, the atmosphere of the morning comfortable and peaceful- until he shifted to the right and was instantly blinded by the sun shining through the open blinds. Dissatisfied, Jiyong pulled himself out of bed and went through his morning routine, deciding to grab breakfast on the way as he headed out the door.

     Jiyong had been sleeping so well the past week that his usual perpetual state of grumpiness seemed to have made a complete turnaround. The trainees at YG studios no longer cowered in fear at his passing, and his friend and collaborator, D-lite, had begun singing with more enthusiasm at recording sessions. The lack of yodelling from next door did help Jiyong to sleep better at night, but the thought of his blonde neighbour had been the main reason for Jiyong's recent smiles. After their initial introductions in Seungri's living room, the two of them had spent hours talking about high school anecdotes and how Seungri had accidentally walked into a women's washroom the other day. A running gag at Jiyong's studio that Jiyong told Seungri had the two of them in stitches for nearly 20 minutes. Jiyong hadn't wanted to get to know his neighbours when he'd first moved in, but he would have made an attempt much earlier if he'd known that Sengri was actually funny and adorably naïve. Jiyong's infatuation stemmed even to his dreams, where the blonde man had begun making guest appearances.

     The first time it happened, Jiyong had been on stage in his dream, trying and failing to sing one of his self-composed songs. His voice cracked, the notes seemed impossible to hit, and the words just weren't coming to him. The crowd booed and threw their lightsticks in anger, while Jiyong could only curl into himself with embarrassment and push himself to keep singing. Just when he was on the verge of breaking down, dream Seungri had appeared on stage and started cheering. Jiyong turned towards him in shock, choking back tears as Seungri's cheers drowned out the fan's boos. Some of the fans eventually began joining in , the cheers growing into a roar that drowned out Seungri's cheers and even Jiyong's own thoughts. The sea of people in the stadium were now screaming Jiyong's name, so he started his song over again. With the support, Jiyong finally was able to hit the notes, and finished with a smile plastered on his face. In every nightmare after that, Seungri had shown up and miraculously made with that same dumb grin on his face that Jiyong saw when he had first met him.

     Jiyong hadn't actually seen Seungri in person since that first night. He'd started working on D-lites's upcoming album the following day and been so busy that he hadn't found the time to go over to talk to Seungri just yet. 'I haven't even seen Seungri leave or enter his apartment though,  so he's probably busy with stuff too' thought Jiyong, dismissing the guilt that nagged at him.

--

     It wasn't until the sun had made a full sprint across the sky and disappeared past the Seoul skyline that Jiyong decided to call it a day at the studio. After a traffic packed trip home, Jiyong made his way through the doors of his building and into the elevator, pulling up a video that he had taken with his phone at the studio. Jiyong chuckled to himself as he hit replay, TOP's face filling the tiny screen as he screamed into the camera while a laughing D-lite fell off the studio's couch behind him.

     The recording session that day with D-lite was very productive. Or at least it had been until YG's goldenboy artist TOP had shown up. Jiyong always had a good time when he was able to joke around with the artists in studio, but now they were behind almost a full day on recording. Thankfully, in the TOP- enduced chaos, Jiyong managed to have the rapper agree to fill a featuring spot on the album. The title song was originally just supposed to be D-lite, but Jiyong now planned TOP to rap a solo part and scream BABY YOURE SOFT LIKE A DUBU alongside the chorus. Yang CEO was going to be furious about it when he found out, Jiyong thought. I can't wait to get started.

     The apartment was quiet when Jiyong unlocked the door and walked in. It was quiet when he set his bag down and checked the time flashing on the livingroom clock. Its too quiet in here, mused Jiyong, I should get a dog or something. The unnerving quiet followed him to the bathroom as he washed up before bed. Jiyong leaned on one arm against the sink while he brushed his teeth, looking in the mirror. Spotting something on his face, Jiyong leaned closer, his face inches from the smooth glass as his dark eyes stared down their reflection.

     A sudden loud crash followed by yelling from beyond the wall broke the silence, causing Jiyong to flinch. This in turn had caused Jiyong to lose his grip on the sink and subsequently smash his face into the mirror. Thankfully the only damage was a bruised eyebrow, but Ji nonetheless threw his toothbrush into the sink and stared at the wall in irritation. What is Seungri doing over there? Playing goddamn sports with his dinner plates? Jiyong spit out his toothpaste and marched up to his neighbour's door, knocking angrily. There was no answer from inside. "I know you're in there dammit" he muttered before impatience made him grab the door handle and turn. The click that followed shocked him just a little.

"Who doesn't lock their door? Even if they live in a ritzy building like this?" Flashes of someone having broken into the apartment and done away with Seungri suddenly appeared in his mind at his words. Had the door been locked until someone forced their way in? Jiyong pushed open the door in panic and grabbed the nearest weapon, a black umbrella, before sprinting through the first level of the apartment. His heart began to beat faster when he heard the sound of pans dropping onto the floor coming from the kitchen. He pressed his back to the nearest wall and slowly moved along it, stopping where the wall took a turn before the doorway to the kitchen. He hoped Seungri was still ok, still alive. He didn't know what he'd do if... Seungri...

     He took a deep breath to still his nerves. 'You can do this Jiyong. Don't just look into the kitchen. Attack the criminal before he has a chance to react. You've watched enough movies to know where to hit a guy to knock him out. It's probably the head' Jiyong tensed his shoulders and turned into the kitchen, umbrella raised for attack when-

     oh no.

     The situation that greeted Jiyong in the kitchen was not of a burglar causing trouble. It was instead of Seungri cowering on top of a stool next to the counter, with hundreds of tiny black bugs scuttling across the floor. Seungri's arm was frozen mid-air, prepared to throw a small steel pot at the tiny creatures below when his head shot up and his eyes met Jiyong's.

“Jiyoung-ssi! Thank God you're here! You have to help me! I was just grabbing something to eat and- and I wanted to open the bottom cupboard to throw something out and when I did all these bugs started crawling outand I hate bugssomuch andthereweresomanyandIdidn'tknowwhattodoIdidn'twantthemtotouchmeand-”

     Jiyong held up a hand to silence him. He took a breath and gathered his thoughts so that he didn't accidentally voice what he was REALLY thinking. He had to be a little more gentle in this situation. “Yah, Seungri-ah they're just bugs. You have a bug problem, so come over here and we'll call an exterminator to see if he can come over tonight to check this out.”

    Seungri looked fearfully at Jiyong, then the ground, then Jiyong, then the ground again before mumbling something Jiyong couldn't quite hear. “Seungri-ah, you're gonna have to say that again I cant hear you.” Seungri looked up at Jiyong with a pitiful look in his eyes and repeated, “I- I can't go over to you because there are bugs on the ground.” Jiyong scoffed. “What, do you want me to go over there and carry you out of the kitchen?” Seungri paused for a moment before nodding slowly. Jiyong sighed so deeply that he thought he was going to run out of air. There was no way that Jiyong could refuse the blonde man's adorable pleading gaze, but he also couldn't remember the last time he had to carry anything heavier than a laptop by himself. 

Why are the cute ones always so much trouble? Jiyong thought, bugs crunching under his slippers as he made his way over to Seungri. He turned his back to the man crouched on the stool and bent his knees a little so that Seungri could climb onto his back. With some struggle on Jiyong's part and once Seungri was settled, Jiyong straightened up(as much as he could without falling over) and walked over to the living room. Seungri, thankfully, remained silent until Jiyong dropped him gently onto the couch. “Okay” Jiyong huffed, out of breath from exertion, “Now you call up the exterminator and see what happens." 

After googling exterminators in the area, calling the most legitimate sounding one, and having a lengthy 20 minute conversation with Mr Joo “the bug man”, Seungri hung up the phone and turned to Jiyong with lines creasing his forehead. “The guy said that he won't be able to come until tomorrow! Jiyong-ssi, I can't stay in my apartment with these THINGS here, what am I going to do? My parents live all the way in Gwangju! I could call up a friend but they're all sleeping or partying.. or maybe I can-”

“You can stay with me.”

Seungri stared at Jiyong, mouth open in shock. He didn't take Jiyong as the kind of person to just let people sleep over. He seemed more... uptight than that. Seungri was about to insist that he couldn't impose on a fellow neighbor, but at that moment a black creature that had made a journey from the kitchen decided to scuttle past Seungri's foot and under the coffee table. Seungri, in response, folded. “Eeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu they followed us to the living room! They KNOW we're here! I'll stay with you just for tonight I promise! I don't want to bother you but we need to get out of here so I'll just find somewhere else to stay tomorrow! We need to leave now though, right now now now right now”. He got up and sprinted to his bedroom, throwing clothes and toiletries into an empty duffle bag. Once he ran out of space in the bag he heaved it onto his shoulder and ran back out, grabbing the hand of Jiyong, who had begun to follow his neighbor to his room, and moved as fast as his legs allowed out the door, slamming it behind him.

The two men began walking more calmly down the building hallway, and Jiyong was reminded of something. “Seungri-ah I've been meaning to ask, don't you lock your door?” Jiyong asked as he began punching in the code for his apartment. “I thought someone had broken in before I found you in the kitchen.”

“But my house was broken into. By bugs.”

“Yah! Answer when your hyung asks a question!”

“Ah sorry. I don't really lock my door when I'm home because this building is full of people who have way more money than I do. And, people who don't live here can't get in because of all the security, so there's nobody who would break in.”

Jiyong rolled his eyes. Aish this kid...

Teeth brushed and changed for bed, the two men stood in Jiyong's kitchen thinking to themselves about how to approach sleeping arrangements for the night. Jiyong hadn't had any guests sleep over at his apartment yet so he hadn't thought to furnish a guest bedroom, and the evident problem was, that Jiyong only had one bed. Seungri was the first to break the awkward silence.

“I'll go ahead sleep on the couch Jiyong-ssi”

“No, Seungri-ah you're a guest in my house. I can't let you sleep on that ancient thing. I'll sleep on it, it's no problem.”

“But you're already being nice enough to let me stay here, I can't kick you out of your own bed! If the couch isn't good I can just sleep on the floor-”

“I don't have any sleeping mats or bedding for that.”

“Ok then, the couch-”

“No Seung-”

“But Jiyong-ssi-”

“Listen, I'm going to sleep on the couch and you're gonna sleep in my damn bed because you look like you haven't slept in damn near a week and are about to fall over at any goddamn second-”

This kid thought that Jiyong wouldn't have noticed how tired he looks. How his dark circles had become dark valleys and how his shoulders drooped in exhaustion. Jiyong knew what not sleeping for days looked like from personal experience, and he was going to make sure that his neighbour was able to sleep well. Jiyong stomped off to his hall closet and grabbed a blanket and pillow before making his way to the sagging black couch.

“-So you'd better go upstairs and get some sleep Seungri-ah. At the top of the stairs you just have to turn right and it'll be the last room on the le-” Jiyong's sentence was cut off by his own yelp and a series of awful sounding cracks and rips that came from the couch.

Seungri ran over to see what had happened, only to find a very angry Jiyong who had fallen halfway into his newly broken couch. When the producer had dropped onto the couch, the old wooden framework inside had snapped and the fake leather ripped as he had sunk in. It was only a matter of time anyways, Jiyong thought, that the couch I always throw myself onto would fight back. The string of colourful curses that spilled from the producer's mouth was drowned out completely by Seungri's howling laughter. Jiyong hid his reddening face as he tried to free himself from the couch.

"Yah! ! Help me out of this damn couch!"

_____________________________________

 *Jiyong casually forgets that he carried Seungri to the couch the first time they met*

Yo yo! A lot more people have read and subscribed and commented to this story than I had expected so I wanted to first say a big THANK YOU to all of you!  I had planned to post an new chapter much earlier but when I first wrote this chapter it came out really angsty and eeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhh that didn't really match this story so I ended up rewriting most of it ┐(`～`;)┌  I've been writing short chapters because I didn't really want it to drag on too much (and because I'm lazy), but they seem a little too short now. Should the next chapters be longer? Do short chapters strike your fancy? idk leave a comment and let me know

Until the next chapter, stay primo my friends.