Yongbae was always stunned by Daesung's talent.

She had a beautiful, raw talent that her vocal teacher had honed to perfection, but she was just as crazy dedicated as a member of Bigbang as Jiyong, in her own way. She had known some piano pre-debut, but she's made sure to hone it more as they progressed through the years, even if it became less and less necessary. Then came her guitar. Then drums. But what caught his attention the most about all of this was the fact that she remained largely silent when she played.

He remembered overhearing part of a nearly angry (of all things) whisper to Jiyong when they were doing Sober. It was quick, and he didn't remember the words she used, but it was very clear that if she was playing, she had no interest in singing. The leader had very firmly shut her down, face and voice firm but not harsh. 

"Be it now or later, you have to get over it. You're singing during Sober and that's it." Jiyong had said, turning away from her with clear dismissal. 

No, Daesung didn't play and sing outside of what she was forced to by Jiyong, which Yongbae found perplexing. She had never had a problem singing for him.

Yongbae rented a three-bedroom apartment simply for the sake of convenience: he wasn't too far from the YG building, almost the same distance between Seunghyun, Seungri and Jiyong's homes. That was when Daesung had approached him, asking tenitively if he would be interested in a flatmate. They had slept together often when they were trainees, slumped on one another after practise or cuddled together in the dorm. On their original tours, she would share either his or Jiyong's bed, the other two apparently too nervous with their female companion to let her that close to them while sleeping. 

Truthfully, Yongbae understood that. In fact, that exact fear had been realized for him about a month before he managed to get his own apartment. He'd woken up with her in his arms, in and of itself not uncommon, but the way he had himself fully plastered to her back with his morning wood none too subtle made him sure that she would never allow herself close to him so intimately again. To her credit, she had only looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. 

"It's natural. Don't think Jiyong hasn't done it."

He'd furrowed his brow, suddenly concerned about his best friend's level of propriety. She had chuckled at him, assuring him that she had gotten up and moving to spare him the humiliation and that it was never a conscious action. Then she threw him a curve ball, thoughtfully looking up at the ceiling. 

"This is the only time I've been more than . . . flattered? I don't think that's the right word. But this is the first time it's been more than just an idle curiosity."

Admittedly, he could be a bit slow. Some hints took him a few hours to pick up on, but this one took him three whole days fo puzzling. He didn't think dying his hair blonde had any affect on his brain fuction, but perhaps he was wrong there too. Regardless, it took him three days to figure out she'd dropped a major hint that she at least shared the same sentiment as his body had that night, even if she wasn't as forward. 

So, obviously, when she had timidly approached him two long months after that fateful morning and asked to share his apartment, he gave her an equally disarmed boyish grin and said yes. 

The apartment had been built with a family in mind, with a massive living/dining area, a decent sized kitchen and two decent bedrooms with an accompanying master, which they used as a makeshift storageroom/studio. She stored an acoustic guitar in there, on she would play whenever Jiyong came over, hungover on a night of binge creativity but couldn't find a tune to fit his lyrics. Thus, the reappearance of guitar in their newest album, but that was besides the point. 

The "dining" area was smaller than the "living" space, but since there were only two people living together and a table just felt too formal, Yongbae had decided his grand piano would go there. And this one piece of polished black furniture was the only thing in the apartment that Daesung absolutely did not touch. Again, it took him far too long to realize why she didn't touch it - she was out of her depth when her skill was compared to his and having spent more nights watching him play than watching their tv, she very acutely felt how outclassed she was. The piano was his baby, a treasure that he polished and cleaned, never allowing for stains or dust to ruin the shining black finish on the beautiful ashwood. 

A lot of the time, he woud play long pianist pieces like Mozart and Beethoven to keep his fingers nimble and his sounds fluid, but occasionally, when he would find something new, be it a piece of his own, like in Wedding Dress or the strong piano background in Adele's Hello, he was unafraid to bring it to life on his laquered instrument. 

It was during one of these "moments of weakness" as he closed his eyes and played the more simplistic piece that he was almost shocked into stillness. From with in the open kitchen, Daesung's harmonous voice rose, singing the lyrics unconsciously as she washed their dishes from the last couple of days. 

When she came out, her eyes were closed as she finished off the lyrics, a small smile on her face. When she opened her eyes, she became much more timid, immediately looking away and nervously chuckling out a sorry.

"No, no." He stood immediately, the bench loudly voicing its protest at being moved so suddenly. He held out a hand to her. "No. I really liked that."

She lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Come on." He sat back down, adjusting the bench once more and patting the space beside him. She quietly sat down, hands carefully in her lap, but it only took until halfway through the first song and her head was on his shoulder, eyes closed, voice filling the apartment with the ringing song of an angel. 

She was quick to loosen after that. She would sing with him almost very night, sometimes even making up lyrics as she went to classical pieces he would play. Sometimes as she was singing them, she was writing those songs down - some dark, some romantic, some funny and some somber. One night she even through out her guitar, perched herself up on the black wood and began to see if she could play the guitar along with his piano. 

And while that was all well and good, there was no time as special as one spent on stage. 

Playing together in Seoul, finally being allowed by YG to launch a duet group, Yongbae felt the most connected to her. Sure, this piano wasn't his special one back home, but watching Daesung lay across the belly of his instrument, draped on it like human artwork, it felt almost better than it did back home. 

Most of their songs together were peppy, upbeat things that they would dance to playfully onstage, even if they were all choreographed. A few were more ual but there was on in particular, a long slow song with only Daesung on vocals and Yongbae flowing through the complicated music. It was here that she would lay herself on the piano, sometimes propped up on her elbows, sometimes not. He could never recall what she was wearing, but because they both went backstage to change, he assumed it was something as dressy as what he wore. It didn't matter. She could be there in nothing or everything and it wouldn't change what it meant to him. 

This wasn't a song for their fans. No, even when they were live, thousands of screaming people cheering them on, a sea of yellow lights highlighting the absolutely massive space just the two of them demanded. No, this was an intimate encounter every time, where the world went silent around them as she gazed at him. He would gaze back, so many nights spent doing this very thing back in the silence of their apartment, filling the emptiness. But there was something more powerful here, surrounded by a mob of devoted fans, all crying out for attention. She was always gentle when she laid down and the sound around him muted. She locked eyes with him, one hand holding onto a microphone. As soon as she started to sing, acapella vocals opening up the song, then his world went silent. All he could hear was her, most of the time not even his own tunes. The only reason he was aware of it was because of the woman he was glued to, how she got even more soulful as the vibrations of the notes rang through her body. She almost cried into the mic. She did it every time, the lyrics reaching her emotional core and yanking on her heartstrings. Each press on the ebony and ivory keys felt like his way of soothing her, like the vibrations were an extension of the way he caressed the keys, the way he wanted to caress her skin, the way he wanted to kiss away the pain in her voice. 

It was never a ual kind of want. He wanted to hold her, to hold together her melting heart, keep her pieces from falling apart. He wanted to pull her onto her lap, protect her deep in his arms, kiss her forehead and let his affection for her shine through unhindered, unregulated by the constraints of their professions. He wanted to whisper to her on stage the same things he did when they were twisted together in the early hours of the morning; skin, feelings and hearts bared to each other, creeping and growing into each other like the baby pink and cherrywood tones of their hair blended together. He wished they could hold that intimacy all the time, close enough to sync the very breath between them. But this distance made it all the better, the stillness she gave his quivering heart as her head bowed, eyes closing in intensity as her voice rose, no trace of her vocal weakness as she gave all that she had to offer. And when she met his eyes again, softened with tender notes, his fingers played over the ivory the way he wanted to wipe away the tears that escaped her. Sound only slowly drifted back in, bleeding in as her voice faded out on the last, beautiful hanging verses. 

That song always got the most applause. 

As he helped her off the piano, her body shaking with the intensity of her own emotions, he reflected on that. When that song was performed, SOL and D-Lite fell away. Neither of them were performers during that song. They were Dong Yongbae and Kang Daesung, the people behind the idols, and perhaps the audience gravitated to that. They could sense the raw passion revealed only here in public, could practically taste the secret they were being let in on, let the air be stolen from them, allowed themselves to fall to the siren song of his ever-lovely Daesung. 

Yongbae knew better. 

Daesung kissed him as soon as they were out of sight, her hands fisted tightly in his hair as if to assure herself that he was real. It was just as devastating as it was reassuring, letting her know in that second perfect moment that he would remain there for her always. She would part from him then, a shy, secretive smile on her lips as she let herself be dragged away by the wardrobe and makeup noonas. 

He smiled, stupidly happy, to himself all the while he was changed and remade. The audience understood many things from just a performance, but they could never grasp just how much she adored him or how much he loved her.