Part 1. Jiyongchyria's Lover

 

"I remember now," was the last thing he said before he walked into the toilet. He was pissed. I slowly got up and began to change into a pair of jeans, a shirt and a hoodie. I couldn't stop thinking about his reaction. 'Did I go to far?' or 'Was he disgusted?' My own feelings were a mystery to me, 'Why did I do that?' and 'Did I like it?' I heard him unlock the door. Instantly I stood up straight to apologize, but he walked right past me and out the door. Coldly ignored, I collapsed on the inside. Hating myself was all I could do, yet I didn't even know why. 

 

I joined everyone else at seven, being the last to arrive. Without realising it, I was staring at Seunghyun-hyung the whole time. I couldn't see anything else - even Lion failed to get my attention, as I missed his speech completely. After Lion had finished speaking, he left and returned to his cabin.

I asked myself aloud, "What's going on?" 

"Weren't you listening?" Youngbae asked me back.

"No..."

"We're having a barbecue, but we're doing everything ourselves 'cause it's a guests-only thing."

"What about the campfire?"

"Yeah...he said that was the initial plan, but the firewood was really wet or something, so he gave us some grills instead."

 

Youngbae and Daesung went to get the marinated meat that the chefs had prepared for us in the kitchen. We decided that cabin three would grill the food and cabin two would prepare the salad and side dishes. Cabin one was in charge of serving. However, everyone's duties would begin after the grills were ready, which took quite a while, since the coal was taking forever to burn. In the meantime, we entertained ourselves by gathering in a circle and talking.

Daesung poked the ground with a dried twig that snapped in his hands, and started speaking."I feel really bad that we haven't properly welcomed Jongin yet."

Daesung was wearing a long-sleeved plain black t-shirt with a deep red collar and cuffs decorated with embroidered patterns. He rolled up his sleeves as he waited for someone to say something. Nervously, Jongin cleared his throat and smiled at Daesung before talking to everybody. He tried not to tremble.

"It's not really that much of a problem, you guys are quite nice to me anyway."

Seungri softly added, "Why don't you tell us more about yourself?" 

Being polite and gentle was something we rarely saw Seungri do, so everyone was suspicious of his behaviour. At the same time, everyone wanted to know about Jongin's background, but the guy wouldn't say anything, so I spoke for him.

"He used to be in a band."

Daesung inquired, "Really? What position?" 

"I played the bass."

Seungri gave Jongin up and down looks, until he attacked him with random questions. Maybe I shouldn't have answered for him.

"'Used to be'? Why, what happened? And the tattoo on your left side, what is that about?" 

"Wow, Seungri, you should be a news reporter," Youngbae commented.

Jongin began explaining, "The thing is, I'm gay. When my band mates found out, it was a little complicated and it just didn't work out for me in the end. My tattoo..." He lifted his jumper and revealed his large tattoo of a roaring lion's head. Everybody nodded as they observed him. "I grew up with this lion."

"You grew up with a lion?" Seungri repeated curiously. Ok, even I didn't know this.

"Yeah, I grew up in Zimbabwe until I was fourteen, then I moved to Korea and lived in the countryside where I started my band. To be honest, I've always been uninterested in pop music, so that's why this is the first time I've heard of you guys."

We were all surprised about Jongin's story, and even Seungri's jaw had dropped. Seungri went on to questioningly repeat things Jongin had already said.

"Zimbabwe? Gay? Lion? Countryside?"

Then, Daesung stopped him. "Dude, I don't think he's bullting with us."

"B-but, you're gay?!"

This time, I jumped in again. "Seungri, I think you're being very insensitive."

"Sorry."

Daesung looked at me suspiciously. "Jiyong-hyung, you haven't developed feelings for Jongin have you?"

"May be that's why Seunghyun-hyung has been so pissed off recently," Seungri added.

I couldn't believe that they were actually saying this. "Yah, I-"

Seunghyun-hyung interrupted me.

"I think Jiyong and Jongin should go public - maybe it would stop the fans writing disgusting gay crap about Jiyong and me..." Seunghyun got up and stormed off before he spat the word 'fags' at us. We all sat in silence, shocked at my roommate. Everyone looked at Jongin who got up, clearly offended.

"Where are you going? We haven't even eaten yet." Seungri asked him. Jongin silently walked off and Seungri followed him in to the cabin.

 

With annoyed expressions, Daesung and Youngbae stared at me. I looked away to check on the grills.

"I think we can grill the meat now," I changed the conversation.  Like parents about to scold their child, they looked at me sternly. 

Daesung started. "What did you do?"

"Why is he like that?" Youngbae snapped at me.

"I didn't do anything..."

Youngbae looked at me fiercely and began the scolding, "You know he's only like this when someone really s with him."

"God... How can you guys accuse me like this?"

"He was fine when we were playing basketball. He got like this after he came out of the cabin where he met you," Daesung sharply pointed out.

"Oh my god... Fine, I pissed him off but you guys were the ones fanning the fire. I admit it. I was wrong. Now help me out and please stop talking about this," I begged them.

"But hyung, what about Jongin?"

"I'll figure it out, just..." I was beginning to sound extremely regretful and the other two were sympathising. 

"Okay, we won't ask," said Daesung. Youngbae got up and brought the grills over and we helped him.

 

When the food was ready, we quietly divided it into portions to deliver it to the rest to cabin one and the instructors. I went in to see if Seunghyun-hyung wanted to eat. Whether he was pretending or not I don't know, but my roommate seemed to be sleeping with his blanket rolled around him like a cocoon.

 

I left to go eat with the cabin three guys. I sat and silently chewed on the food, so that I could indulge myself in the flavours of the seasoning and the meat to avoid thinking about anything else. The texture of the lamb and the taste of the slightly burnt carbon-like sides were all I wanted to think about. 

 

After we finished eating, we began to clean up. Seungri also came out to help. None of us spoke about what had just happened. It was obvious that Seungri was about to explode at me, but Youngbae gave him a hard glare to silence him. Afraid of going into my cabin, I went into cabin three instead and talked to Youngbae and Daesung for about an hour. They encouraged me to go back to my own cabin and sleep there so it didn't seem like I resented Seunghyun-hyung for what he did. I washed my hands in their bathroom, taking my time to increase the chances of my roommate being asleep by the time I came in. It was time to head to the dorm. The water was cold, and it made my hands shiver when the icy wind kissed them as they swayed by my sides. 

 

The same chilly breeze brushed my face as I stood in front of the door, thinking about what would happen when I walked in. 'Is he still sleeping? Did he get up? Is he going to do something?' My eyes were welling up and I didn't know why. 'What is this feeling? Am I crying?' I opened the door, glided in and found Seunghyun-hyung sitting on his bed. Impulsively I ran up to him and hugged him from the side, stuffing my face in his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," I cried, "please don't hate me." Seunghyun-hyung had frozen in my arms. Only in those few seconds of silence had I realised what I had done. Rather than feeling sorry for Jongin or angry at Seunghyun-hyung, I was terrified of him hating me. I felt like my pride had vanished as I stuck to him like glue. 'Was I chasing him? Why?'

"You can let go now," he whispered. I slowly loosened my grasp around him and stared at his face, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Whilst gazing in to my eyes he frowned slightly. "Thank you for not hating me, and I'm the one who should be sorry to you...and Jongin too."

I was smiling through my tears and jumped on him to hug him. He ended up falling back and I was on top of him. My leg was in between his legs, my hands were on each of his shoulders, my nose was almost touching his and a tear from my cheek fell on his. I blinked so many times that I probably flicked more tears into his eyes.

"Are you going to kiss me again?" he chuckled and rolled us over so that he was on top. "Or do you want me to kiss you?" I started panicking. He devilishly laughed at me as he got up and lent me a hand. 'Wow, Jiyong, you actually thought he was making a move on you,' a voice in my head was making fun of me. 

 

You'd have thought I would be able to sleep when Seunghyun-hyung was finally back to normal, but that wasn't the case at all. Rolling, shuffling, adjusting and stretching. I moved around in the bed so much because I just couldn't fall asleep. It was too hot. I kept stripping in the dark until I was in my underwear, yet I couldn't stop boiling up. Okay, honestly, it was Seunghyun-hyung. At that point, I was so confused about myself that I just didn't care anymore. I listened to my emotions because I couldn't understand anything else. My head was just full of him. I spent the night thinking of a billion different scenarios of what would have happened if he was actually making a move on me. 

"Dude, will you stop moving? I need to sleep."

"Sorry." And then I whispered the next part, "I can't stop thinking about you."

"What?"

"Nothing."

He would have strangled me if I had told him what I was thinking. At that moment, I needed to enjoy the he-doesn't-hate-me-and-I-can-sleep-in-the-same-room-as-him bliss.

 

 

 

Part 2. Day 5

 

Day 5 on YaHyung Island, Wednesday

 

I woke up first that morning and went to for a jog before breakfast. I had to buy time to think about what I was supposed to say to Jongin. Going through about half an hour of self-reflection, I came up with my conclusion. I arranged to meet him in his cabin and Seungri left us alone to talk. Jongin couldn't look at me, his eyes were swollen and his face was red. He was dressed for breakfast and was sitting on his bed, waiting for me to speak. I sat opposite to him on Seungri's bed and took a deep breath. 

"I came to apologise," I told him. He looked me in the eye, with no expression on his face. "There's more to it...but I don't know how to explain." Still expressionless, he walked over to the door. I was getting more ad more desperate. "Hey, I didn't mean what I said." He stopped, looked at me, turned back and put his hand on the handle. Just before he opened the door I thoughtlessly said it, "I think I might be gay." 

 

I didn't know why I told Jongin such a big lie. I didn't even know whether it was a lie. At the time I thought I had made a big mistake, but when I think about it now - well, stuff happened. I'll leave what happened after that a mystery. I'm not sure if I was saying it so that he would forgive me or if I really meant it, but the conversation definitely didn't go as I had planned. At the end, Jongin accepted my apology but on one condition. I'll reveal the condition later, as it really fits in well with what happened that Wednesday evening.

 

Anyway, we had breakfast as usual in the dining hall at seven thirty. Jiyong and Seungri arrived at breakfast after eight. It was normal seeing Seungri with eye bags, but Jiyong seemed to not have had so much sleep either. My roommate sat down in the free space next to me and Seungri sat on the other side. 

"Are you okay? Do you want to sleep in some more?" I asked Jiyong. Seungri replied instead.

"Aw, hyung, you're so nice - But it's okay, I'm always like this." 

Then Jiyong laughed at Seungri. "Seungri, I think he was asking me." He then looked at me and said, "I'm alright, I can cope with this. I don't think G-Dragon would be what he is if he couldn't handle a late night once in a while."

"Someone's cocky..." said Seungri.

Then, Daesung started, "Idols have it so tough these days, the competition and demand is just..." 

"Ridiculous?" Youngbae finished for him.

Daesung corrected him, "Well yes, but I was going to say 'too much to handle'. Their schedules are ridiculous, but the important part is that they're having a hard time keeping up with it."

"That's going to be us when we release the new album," Jiyong reflected. "Some groups have it worse though, it really depends on the company. But in general, I think K-Pop has some really messed up aspects to it."

"Yeah, I can probably write a book about it," Seungri responded.

Jiyong chuckled, "To imagine you of all people writing a book..."

"'The reason I sing: behind the stage with the other Seunghyun.'," I added to Jiyong's joke.

"Why am I the other Seunghyun?" Seungri snapped. 

"Seungri, I thought we all just accepted the fact that Seunghyun-hyung is the ier one," Daesung gestured towards my face. 

Youngbae countered Daesung's comment with a, "Yeah, unlike you." Daesung was almost steaming at Youngbae and Seungri was snickering beside me.

"Hey, we're all special in our own way," Jiyong quickly butted in to avoid a fight, "Daesung can move his y muscles, Seungri can keep up with nine girls at once, Youngbae can do funky and hyung... Well I suppose his face is his only strong point." Jiyong quickly said the last bit and got up before I managed to process it.

"Hey," I firmly replied to him with a glare. He ran out before I got the chance to stop him and Jongin laughed at me. Everybody else looked at Jongin in surprise.

"You guys made up already?" Daesung asked.  

Jongin smiled at me and then looked at Daesung to answer him. "Something like that." 

I got suspicious stares from everyone on the table and it was a bit unnerving how they all interrogated me afterwards. I left the dining hall with a headache.

 

When I walked back into the cabin, I caught Jiyong walking around with just a top on.

"Oh, hey, have you seen the shorts I always wear with this top?" he gestured towards his purple tank top. Silently, I shook my head. 'Those legs...' I thought to myself. He turned around and slowly bent over to look under the bed. I couldn't help but stare at his . It wasn't my fault he had the most interesting pair of angry birds boxers on - or at least that was what I hoped I was staring at. Then he got up to put one knee and both hands on the bed as he stretched over, looking on the other side. His position was very suggestive this time, and I was beginning to wonder what the hell was going on with him. But more importantly, what the hell was going on with me? I even wiped my nose to check, in case a river of blood had been pouring out of my nose while I was eyeing Jiyong's legs. Did telling someone that I'm gay actually make me gay? The power of words... I had to say something to release the tension.

"Why do you need to change your outfit? The stuff you were wearing before... it was fine."

Jiyong stood up and looked at me, he hesitated to answer my question. 

"Well, I-I look really bad in that orange colour."

"Really? You look good in any colour."

"Uh... Thank you?" he awkwardly muttered. Why was he being so awkward? I went to my suitcase to get a backpack out, and started filling it with the things I needed for the overnight stay at the old camp. I pulled out a pair of shorts that I didn't recognise from under my suitcase and showed them to Jiyong. 

"Are these the-"

"You found them. Thank you, I should have looked there before. Sorry." He took the shorts from my hands and put them on in front of me.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You're just being weird."

"How?"

"I don't know... Why are you thanking me and apologising to me over little things like this? And... I don't want to doubt you, but it really seems like you put your shorts there yourself." I went a bit too far analysing Jiyong's strange behaviour and his expression was telling me that he was a little startled by everything I had just said. "Don't worry, I'm just kidding. Just...go and pack your stuff, we have to meet in the courtyard at eight."

 

We seemed to be late for the trekking journey and we hurriedly rushed to start the walk. Lion led us and explained the details on the way as we followed him in a line. Cheetah and Gorilla had left earlier in a jeep with our sleeping bags and supplies.

"So have you been to, like, a tropical sort of hot spring before?" Jiyong asked me.

"Yeah, I think we visited a few on our tours and trips, didn't we?"

"Oh yeah," he mumbled. "They really exaggerate the experience. The sound of the forest at night, the feel of the steam on your skin, the smell of the trees and dirt. All that bull..."

"'All that bull'? You should write an article about this place when we go back to Seoul. Next thing you know, YaHyung island will be having so many more residents than they have ever expected." He smiled at me and continued to walk. 

"I know this is a random question, but what's your ideal type?" Jiyong suddenly asked.

"In terms of what?"

"You know, ideal type of partner. Life partner." 'What on earth is wrong with this man?' was the million dollar question of the day.

"Life partner?" I questioned. He nervously scratched his head and looked away. "Right, well I don't really have an ideal type."

"Really? So you'd go out with anyone?" he inquisitively asked me.

Not saying anything would probably have been mean considering how he was so curious. "Well, I guess I don't like tacky girls."

"Girls..." he repeated after me as he moved his gaze towards the floor.

"Are you okay?" 

He gave me one of those fake smiles that makes you worry. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but I was more worried about the answer he might have given me. Avoiding the 'conversation' was all I could do at this point, because I definitely wasn't in the position to express my feelings yet. Another thing I had to consider was whether Jiyong was ready or not. What I was afraid of most wasn't the conversation itself but Jiyong's reaction, his side of the story. 

 

Seungri raised his voice so that Lion could hear him from the back of the line. "Are we there yet?"

That was a good question. It had been three hours since we started and it felt as though we weren't getting anywhere. The average human walks at the speed of five kilometers an hour. The temple is supposedly five kilometers from the starting point, according to Lion. So theoretically, if we were walking at a steady pace we should have reached the temple two hours ago. 

"It looks like we took a wrong turn a while back, but I can assure you that we're almost there," said Lion.

 

Alas, we arrived at the temple. It was like a small and simple ancient Buddhist temple, but apparently it wasn't exactly Buddhist. After ten minutes of Lion telling us about an old religion that I would never have remembered the name of, he let us walk into the temple. The grey, withered pillars and doorway kind of creeped us out a bit. It looked like the place was going to break apart and fall on us any minute and we walked up the short stairs very slowly just to be safe. 

 

Looking from the outside, it seemed so dark inside that it seemed like nothing was there. However, when we walked in, the temple was full of random . Sculptures, statues, vases, weapons and all sorts of other artifacts were just lying there as if they were waiting to be stolen and sold off in some auction.

"Some of these things were passed down over generations and the landowner keeps them here for display," Cheetah told us as we wondered around the temple. Suddenly, Seungri screamed from one of the corners, and we all looked his way. 

 

A dark Asian middle-aged man wrapped in robes spoke to Seungri in a foreign language. He was large-framed and muscular. As he spoke, a rough and breathy sound took over his deep voice. His hair was in a high bun, and his beard-thing looked like something you'd see in an animated Chinese film (like the stereotypical 'perfect' old Chinese man who does calligraphy all day). Anyway, I couldn't determine where exactly this guy was from. He looked Mongolian but he was very dark and tanned. 

"Sorry," Seungri bowed, "I didn't know there was someone else here."

The man looked at Seungri and then at Lion. He nodded his head and spoke in Korean.

"Are these guys here for the resident ritual?"

 

POV (Part 1): Jiyong/G-Dragon

POV (Part 2): Seunghyun/TOP