Jiyong hyung has a favourite flower. It’s a daisy.

Sometimes hyung will post pictures of sun flowers. Sometimes he’ll stand and pose in front of big, beautiful roses on a bush. Sometimes he’ll place small, little, coloured, flowers in his mouth for photos. All these flowers plastered on his Instagram account as G-Dragon.

But he loves daisies the most.

He places pictures and paintings of daisies in his home. He sticks daisy stickers on his writing book. He draws daisies on his shoes and clothes.

Jiyong loves daisies.

Promoting La La La eventually got easier. I started to show my true self… well a shade of it anyway. Jiyong hyung was showing me how to blossom slowly.

But as nice and caring as Jiyong hyung was…

G-Dragon was mean, harsh, and cruel.

Jiyong would tell me to be true to myself and show my true colours, but G-Dragon would give me that sickly, sweet smile when he thought I overdid certain things while promoting. A smile that told me to stop because he wasn’t pleased.

Jiyong was caring at night as he would lay in bed with me, protecting me from my loneliness and insecurities, but G-Dragon was disgustingly caring in the day, in front of all the cameras. Pressing me against walls, saying “I love you,” in radio shows but his whole attention towards the camera.

Fan service is essential in this industry.

Confusion was overwhelming. Confusion made me pull away. Confusion was too much for a 16-year-old boy.

Youngbae hyung was right.

I started to pull away from Jiyong hyung. Not only because he was constantly pulling as Jiyong and pushing as G-Dragon, but because everyone saw us in a certain way. His touches were being misunderstood.

We were being misunderstood.

At first, it was okay. I could take holding his hand. I could take the soft touches. I could take the whispers to my ear, the kisses to my cheeks. I could take it even if he was doing it with none of his attention to me.

I could take it…

What I couldn’t take was how they responded. People started saying that the two of us were together, that we were too close, that it was unusual for two boys to be so close.

Jiyong would take me shopping, his hand around my wrist, dragging me to whatever shop got his attention.

Whispers…

People would whisper.

“Are those two boys together?”

“Freaks…”

I started to pull away.

But funnily enough that wasn’t the wedge that drove us apart. It was still Jiyong. So far, our relationship, our entire friendship, moved at Jiyong’s pace. Jiyong would push and pull, while I accepted every motion and responded accordingly. If Jiyong wanted to be close, I accommodated. If Jiyong wanted to be far, I stayed away.

I accepted everything he gave me but that gets tiring after a while. Cuddling close to Jiyong, while pretending to welcome G-Dragon’s actions that were done to please people behind a screen… that was tiring.

Her…

She was someone I met when I was 13, living in Gwang-ju- the sister of one of my fellow members in Il Hwa. I knew she was interested in me back then. It wasn’t hard to tell, she was painfully obvious.

But at 13, I had very little interest in romance. I only had interest in myself. Now at 16, confused about myself and where I stood, I was very interested in her.

I met her again after debuting, when she moved in Seoul with her family. We got along well…We got along well enough for me to find some semblance of normalcy in being interested in the opposite .

It was normal.

Despite our recent debut, we had no dating ban. Hyun Suk believed it was unreasonable to place dating bans on his artists, so we could date so long as we were discrete.

… so long as we didn’t air our dirty laundry in public…

“I saw you with someone… that same girl as before.”

“Who is she?” He didn’t even attempt to hide his irritation.

“No one, hyung.”

All the irritation disappeared from his expression, his eyes completely cold as they stared at me. As he listened to me lie.

“I hate liars. I hate liars the most.”

He walked away.

Who is she?

Hyung got his answer on December 12, 2006, my birthday.

I had celebrated my birthday in YG with all my members and the staff. Everyone was having fun, even Jiyong hyung was back to his usual, adoring and drowning me in affections.

I’m outside YG. Meet me for a bit. I have your present. – Her

I rushed down after receiving that text, hastily putting a hood over my head to make sure I was hidden.

As I got out, a hand yanked me to the corner of the building, away from wandering eyes.

Before I could react, hands were placed on each side of my face as I was yanked down for a kiss.

A kiss…My first kiss on my 17^th birthday.

As romantic as that sounded, the kiss was nothing but awkward. I really wasn’t feeling it, not the romance anyway. Not for my lack of interest in physical intimacy, I was just caught off-guard.

Well… that and someone had caught my attention in the corner of my eye. Apparently Jiyong hyung had followed me down and was now staring at me as I received my first kiss.

The excited and blissful smile that decorated his face before, now nowhere to be found.

He walked away again.