January

No. Seungri didn’t love Jiyong anymore.

Sure, sometimes he pulled on one of his overly oversized jumpers, one that had somehow gotten into the younger's stuff when he hastily emptied his closet, in their shared apartment, into his suitcase.

Sure he tried to lose himself in it, in the phantom smell of Jiyong that had long faded but played in Seungri's nose nonetheless, as he cried himself to sleep.

Sure he played Jiyong's new song, the one he hadn't bothered to give a name, on repeat sometimes, pretending Jiyong was saying those words to him. Just him, personally instead of singing to the thousands who had bought his album, the millions who streamed it.

Sure he saw his eyes when he closed his own. Sure he tasted his lips when he kissed his girlfriends and boyfriends. Like a phantom limb that he felt no matter how hard he tried to shake it off.

But no,  Seungri didn’t love Jiyong anymore. Because he knew Jiyong didn’t love him anymore. And maybe that was the only reason.

 

 

 

February

"umm…what are we doing?"

"We are looking at each other."

"Why?"

"So I can remember. Imprint it in my brain."

"what? My face?" the younger chuckled.

But the older only nodded, his intense gaze still fixed on the boy lying across him, making him squirm a little.

"One day when all this is in the past. When this moment right here is nothing but a memory, I can look back and remember exactly how you looked. How your left eyebrow was a little messy and I reached out  to smoothen it" he said with a smirk as he put his words into action.

"And how you smiled at me after," he narrated the younger's reaction making him chuckle softly.  "And how it was the prettiest thing I'd seen all day," he completed, his voice going softer until it was barely above a whisper.

Jiyong looked at the younger intently for a few moments, making him want to squirm the way he always did under the elder's gaze.

"And maybe," he went on in a more serius tone, "in the future when you don’t love me anymore, I could remember your eyes right at this moment, so soft and so loving and how happy I felt knowing it was all for me. Maybe on a cold lonely night when I reminisce this moment, I could remember the warmth of your touch and the privilaged feeling of being loved by you."

"Hyung," the younger shimmied himself closer to the leader. "Why do you have to talk about such depressing things early in the morning? Also what's with the when? like you're sure it will happen."

He draped his arms over the older's smaller frame and engulfed him in his embrace.

"You don’t have to memorize any of that because I'll always be right there to remind you. I'll always love you hyung. Nothin's going to change that."

With that seungri flashed him a briliant smile that made the older look away bashfully.

With his eyes focused on Seungri's bare chest, Jiyong said, "you're young and naïve maknae. You don’t know how life works. Feelings change and people leave Seungri. They always do. And one day you're going to stop loving me too."

"You know this?"

"I do."

"For certain?"

"I do."

"Well then I'm just going to prove you wrong."

The older sighed and closed his eyes. He wished he could have that kind of faith. But Jiyong was never an optimist. Besides, What even was the point of hoping against something that was inevitable?  He relaxed into the younger's embrace for now.

Maybe.

 

 

 

March

The sound of the door slamming  reverberated in the otherwise eerily silent room.

 

I will always love you

 

The other didn't hear.

 

He wasn’t meant to

 

Seungri and Jiyong. They were idols.

Not just any idols, they were Seungri and G-dragon of one of the biggest kpop groups in the history of Kpop. But it hadn't come easy to them, any of them.

They started at the very bottom, worked immensely hard and had to sacrifice a lot to finally be able to claim the fruits of their hard work. And so, they knew the value of it. They knew that their career, BIGBANG was the most important thing. Nothing was worth risking what they had achieved after years of combined hardships and sacrifices.

They had made peace with what  they couldn’t have. Love, a healthy functional relationship, privacy, free time.

Especially Seungri and Jiyong.

They knew that there was a part of them that they would always have to keep supressed. A part of their identity that they weren't allowed to explore, act upon, that they had to smother, for the sake of BIGBANG, for the sake of everything they had achieved.

But that didn’t stop them from stealing a handful of bliss even if they both knew, deep down, that it would be short lived and it would eventually slip through their fingers, meeting the ground with a deafening crash, but they were just kids stupidly in love.

And that was exactly what it was, blissful. For a while.

Somehow they managed to keep it a secret, to build a fortress out of their sheets, protecting them, their love, their secret. But eventually it started suffocating them. It wasn’t enough anymore, they needed to come out for air.

They were G-Dragon and Seungri of Bigbang but they were still human and eventually they got tired. Things got strained. People, by then had started to notice, particularly at YG. Their schedules were deliberately separated, made so they practically never crossed paths. Distance grew. They fought some more. With every rumour, every tabloid article, they got more and more distrustful.

 

Who Is she?

 

You know YG set it up. It's just a marketing thing.

 

This doesn’t look like just marketing to me.

 

It seems you're back with her.

 

How come you didn’t tell me about going to japan to spend an entire weekend with him? I thought you were working.

 

You know I love you!

 

Do You even love me anymore?

 

They didn’t even have the privilege of mourning the death of their relationship openly because to the world, they were always and still were just Seungri and GD, maknae and leader of BIGBANG, nothing more.

So they each built a fortress of their own to replace the one they shared and let their tears laced with their love and their pain soak into the soft cotton as they stifled their cries from ever escaping the four walls.

 

 

 

April

One time, BIGBANG was in Las Vegas to shoot a music video. It was back when they weren't that famous, especially oversees.

They walked the streets  freely. Five young pairs of eyes reflecting the bright lights that surrounded them and still somehow outshining them all.

They had wrapped up the shoot and had one last night in Vegas before their flight back to Seoul.

Taeyang and Daesung decided to try their luck at the hotel's casino. Seunghyun who had trouble sleeping on flights, decided to make use of these precious hours to make up for the sleep he was going to definitely lose on-board. Seungri and Jiyong on the other hand decided to explore the hotel, ending up on its rooftop restaurant.

The place though not crowded was lively. They could see the Vegas skyline beyond the fairy lights that adorned the parapet. They were so high up that it almost felt  like they were somehow between heaven and earth, just floating.

A live band stood in one corner playing soft music and without thinking, Seungri slipped his hand into Jiyong's and pulled him towards the make shift dancefloor which was strewn with a few other couples swaying softly to the music, engrossed in each other.

Maybe it was the Vegas air, maybe it was the fact that they were in a foreign country or that no one seemed to recognise them or even care to give them a second glance or maybe it was the fact that Seungri knew that they wouldn’t get a chance like this again that made him act upon his instict without a second thought.

 Jiyong seemed to sense this too. He held on to Seungri like he wanted to hold on to that moment. He rested his head on Seungri's broad shoulder.

How strong and manly his Maknae had grown, he mused. He closed his eyes feeling safe in his embrace. He wanted to bury himself in the crook of the younger's neck, the music filling his ears, Seungri's scent tingling in his nose. He just wanted to stay like this forever. Blocking out,  every other sound, every other smell, every other sight, every other person. He wanted to make this his whole world. Because here it was just them. Here it was peaceful, almost tranquil. 

After a song and a half, he looked up at the man he was definitely head over heels in love with, in that moment more conscious of that fact than ever. And as the soft breeze caressed his face, he reached out to caress the younger's before leaning in to plant a feather light  kiss on his lips. It was just a peck, but the simple act was enough to send a surge of adrenaline shooting through Jiyong's body.

Here they were, out, in public, kissing, outside their fortress, where people could see them. He could never have imagined how much that could mean, to be able to show his affection, express the love he felt for his man for the world to see.

Seungri who was taken aback by the brazen act instinctively looked at the people around them but no one seemed to notice, much less care. He audibly sighed and turned to face a smirking Jiyong. Visibly relaxing, his face mimicked his lover's as he leaned in to take back the kiss the leader had stolen.

 

When someone, usually an interviewer, asked Seungri about his happiest memory, he would tell them some bull story about riding bikes up a hill as a kid back in Gwanju but in the privacy of his mind he pictured that moment. That very moment of unashamed, unrestricted, unabashed love on the rooftop of a random hotel in America.

The one Seungri would forever keep locked up in the depths of his heart as the most precious memory he owned. The one he wouldn’t allow himself to let go off, even as he forced himself to let  go of Jiyong.

 

 

 

May

Jiyong woke up inhaling sharply gripping hard at his sheets. He could hear his heart thumping, threatening to break out of its cage.

He took his sweat covered face in his hands. He had had a nightmare. The kind he always had when he tried to quit smoking. The heavy smoker that he was, the withdrawal symptoms were that much worse. Which is why he had tried to quit so many times and failed miserably every time, crawling back to the comfort of the poison stick, sometimes privately taking pleasure in the knowledge that it was killing him slowly.

Only, this time he wasn’t quitting. In fact he had been smoking more than ever.

He rocked himself, humming a soft tune under his breath as he tried to steady his breathing and calm himself back to a normal state. He didn’t remember the dream. Only that it was terrifying, making him feel like his very soul was being out of his body. Sighing, he reached for his peaceminusone cigarette case on the bedside table.

It was supposed to get easier, he thought as he lit himself a smoke with still shaky fingers. It had been a while. More than a year.

Who would have thought that quitting Seungri could be harder than quitting smoking.

 

 

 

June

Jiyong scanned the heads of the people that had gathered backstage. He wasn’t there. He peered at the VIP seating area, he wasn’t there.

He looked up at the approaching Youngbae expectantly only to be met with a slight shake of head, no. He wasn’t coming.

"I tried calling him. His phone is switched off. His manager said its probably cuz he's on a flight…..to America."

"America?" Jiyong didn’t actually care why Seungri had gone to America. Just that he wasn’t here.

"Yeah. Something about training for some jujitsu tournament. I don’t know."

"Not like he tells me anything about what he's up to," he added with a tinge of bitterness under his breath, leaving Jiyong with a pat on his back and a sympathetic sigh before joining Hyorin in the far end of the room.

 

Jiyong hadn't expected Seungri to show up and yet he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

 

Ever since they called it off, Lee Seunghyun had been the perfect Seungri, the lovable panda, the bullied yet cheerful Maknae, the master entertainer, the hilarious MC.

But that’s all he was, to Jiyong at least. T

heir interactions restricted to the stage and on camera. Never off it. He laughed with him, let himself be teased, did fan service, he did what he had to, but never more.

Sometimes Jiyong wondered at how his baby maknae who couldn’t even hide his anger or sadness on camera, the one who blinked furiously to hold back tears, had turned into such a pro showman.

BIGBANG was just a job to him, nyongtory, a part of his job description. He played his part to perfection.

Jiyong wondered if it even hurt Seungri as much as it did him to be around the other. Was he just a bloody good actor or did it not affect him at all?

Because for Jiyong, every touch, every "saranghae" set his body up in flames.

But he wasn’t one to speak though, because in spite of that, he too played his part to perfection. 

 

Taeyang and Daesung were here. Dara, Chaerin, Dami, Hyun Suk, Soo Hyuk, even his dongsaengs BlackPink and Ikon were here. Hell even Taeyang's girlfriend Hyorin and Dami's new boyfriend were here.

But Seungri wasn’t.

Because attending the opening concert of kwon jiyong's biggest and last world tour before enlistment wasn’t part of his job description. Instead he was on his way to the US, to train? Jiyong knew that was just a bull attempt at securing a legitimate alibi for when the fans noticed his absence, and they both knew they would.

Jiyong sighed as he dumped his weight on the makeup chair for some final touch ups.

Three years.

When? Wondered Jiyong. When would he be free of the 'curse of Lee Seunghyun'? How much time before he could finally stop caring?

He hadn't even contributed to the video montage of messages from Jiyong's loved ones that they were going to play at some point during the concert. A sad smile ghosted on Jiyong's lips. It kind of made sense didn’t it? This album, this tour, the concept, it was all about Kwon Jiyong. Not G-Dragon. The real Kwon Jiyong. 

And as much as Seungri was still the lovable dongsaeng to G-Dragon, Lee Seunghyun had exited Kwon Jiyong's life a long time ago. And so his absence in the concert, all though not his intention, was a reflection of his reality, admittedly more than he wanted to expose . 

 

 

 

July

"Tanoshinde Iru?" Daesung screamed into the microphone, asking all the fans that had gathered at Tokyo dome if they were having fun.

Jiyong took this opportunity to rehydrate himself taking a swig from his water bottle as he watched his dongsaengs carry the show while the others took a breather.  It was almost time to wrap up the show and if the look on their faces were anything to go by, the bright green haired man could tell the other members were just as tired as he was.

His eyes flitted between the two youngers ,who were busy hyping the crowd, but somehow always ended up on the youngest.

 

Sometimes when they were on stage, chatting, making jokes to entertain the fans in between songs or during fan meetings, Jiyong pretended as if things were the way they used to be. Like the looks, smiles that Seungri threw at him were genuine.

He wasn’t delusional. He knew it was all an act.

But he let himself believe even if it was for a few minutes.

He let himself be consumed in the feeling of still being loved by Seungri, even if it was fake. Sometimes he let his guard down, letting his eyes linger a little longer than they should.

Letting his longing escape through the cracks. But Seungri was never that reckless.

Or so he thought.

If Jiyong had looked close enough, he would have seen his own longing reflect in Seungri's eyes.

But even as Jiyong grabbed Seungri's head, touching their foreheads to a backdrop of loud cheers, Seungri averted his eyes, feigning shyness, too afraid to let Jiyong take a peek at the windows to his soul and what lay within it.

 

 

 

August

It was late in the night. So late, it was almost early morning.

But they had just gotten done with a long gruelling week of schedules and  had no plans of wasting the only weekend they got, before their next gruelling schedule, by sleeping.

I will sleep when I die, maknae, as Jiyong often said.

Instead they had opted to spend their time doing more important  and pressing things like watching shrek.

Not that Seungri was paying attention. At that very moment, his eyes were fixed on Jiyong, taking in the contours of his face, the reflection of the TV's lights playing in his eyes, making them gleam and noticing tiny details that the younger had never noticed before.

Not that it mattered, because Seungri knew exactly what was going on on the screen. He knew the exact scene and the exact dialogues. Maybe it was because in the three years that he had known Jiyoong and the three weeks that they had been together (if you can call sneeking kisses In the changing room and between schedules, 'being together'), they'd watched it twelve times already.

Jiyong would never admit it out loud but he was a er for fairytales and happy endings and prince charmings and all that jazz. And he loved shrek the most.

Maybe he related to the cursed princess with her two faces. Seungri never did ask why he loved the movie so much. But in the few weeks that he'd started knowing Jiyong as more than just his hyung, it kind of became their go to movie.

Jiyong suddenly turned to him, startling Seungri out of his daze. He looked at him for a second with a funny look in his eyes before turning his attention back to the screen.

He slid down the sofa a bit and rested his head on Seungri's shoulders as his left hand intertwined with the younger's right. They continued to watch in silence for a couple more minutes before he spoke.

"How hopeless are we?" He half sighed, half wispered. It sounded more like a statement than a question.

Seungri didn’t know what he was referring to. Their current situation? Humaity as a whole? Their chances of finding a fairytale like true love? He figured it was the first but he couldn’t be too sure.

"Very," Seungri replied just as vaguely.  Jiyong might have guessed Seungri was just shooting in the dark, because he heard Jiyong chuckle softly before he took the younger's arm and wrapped it around himself while pulling his legs up to his chest to make himself more comfortable, cocooning himself in his embrace.

"let's have some hope then, shall we?" 

 

 

 

September

Seungri watched the leaves float down adding to the yellow-brown carpet that covered the pavement below his flat.

The air was warm and the people on the streets floated about lazily much like the leaves. Days like this, Seungri thought of Jiyong a lot.

He didn’t know what it was or why it was but once in a while he'd have days like this one when his mind would be occupied by nothing but Jiyong.

Where was he? How was he? Was he happy? Content? Was he eating properly? Working too hard? Smoking too much?

What was he doing at this very second? Was he playing with AI? Was he chilling with friends? Did he ever think of him?

Seungri felt an arm snake around his waist. He leaned back and relaxed himself into the warm hold.

"What are you doing?" whispered the soothing voice in his ear.

"Just watching the trees."

"Watching the trees," the other repeated with a soft chuckle. "How entertaining."

"I love this kind of weather. It makes me feel sad and happy at the same time."

"Mmhmm" The other seemed to mull his words over in his head.

They stood like that for a moment, Seungri gently the arm that held him. The touch so familiar and yet so strange.

It was nice. It just didn’t feel  quite right.

Jiyong.

The word, the name, the face, bounced around in his head.

Could this have been you? If things were different, if we were different? Could it have been you holding me, kissing my neck gently as I pretended to be engrossed in the view? Or would we have faded away eventually if we hadn't been forcefully pried apart in the first place?

There were just too many 'what ifs' and 'could have beens' when it came to Jiyong and it ate Seungri up from the inside out.

He let himself take a deep breath. Making an effort to shove all those thoughts back into the box he kept locked up in the deepest part of his mind. He turned his focus, instead, to the person that was currently showering him with affection.

"Do you want pork stew for dinner?" He asked with a sigh, "I know it's your favorite."

 

 

 

October

Jiyong walked into his apartment that was bathed in darkness.

Without bothering to turn the lights on, he made his way straight to his, rather, their bedroom. He had been practically camping out at the studio all weekend working on his solo album and it being his second one, he felt even more pressure to meet people's expectations.

At this point, he felt like a walking corpse.

He opened the door gently, not wanting to wake the other who was most likely asleep. As he tiptoed to the bed, wanting nothing more than to crash his spent body onto his soft mattress and cuddle up to his lover, his foot hit a lump on the floor. Confused he crouched down.

"Seungri?" He called out, "baby what are you doing on the floor?"

The silence that followed made his voice go up an octave with panic.

"Seungri?"

He wrapped his arms around the lump that was his boyfriend. His eyes adjusting to the darkness, he could now make out the contours of the younger's form.

"Seungri, what is the matter?" he asked softly when he felt the other's body shudder under his hold. He was crying.When Seungri, once again, failed to produce an answer Jiyong pulled him up into his lap, cradling him like a baby.

"Seungri," Jiyong he whispered again, trying not to let his anxiety slip into his voice as he gently rocked them back and forth.

"Jiyong!" Seungri hiccupped into the crook of the elder's neck. "I…I… can't. It's …t..too….much…..its all…too..mu..much."  His voice was muffled against Jiyong's neck. His hands pulled at the back of the older's shirt. He held on to him tight as if for support. As if he would crumble if he let go.

"Baby," Jiyong was getting seriously worried now, "talk to me! what's the matter? What are you talking about?"

Seungri ,who was now sobbing into the other's chest, hiccupped some incoherent sounds unable to form words.

Jiyong let him take his time. Trying to calm him, he continued to rock him while rubbing his back in a soothing motion.

 "Shhhhh its okay. You're okay." Jiyong didn’t know what he was comforting the younger for. All he knew was that he was in pain and Jiyong couldn’t bear to see his love so broken and small.

His strong baby.

The one who had always been his iron pillar of support. The one who loved him and held him through all of his meltdowns and emotional turmoil.

The same Seungri now lay in his arms, a fragile mess and Jiyong's heart broke at his inability to make him feel better, to magically make everything that distressed the younger vanish.

"shhhh seunghun-ah I'm here for you."

"It's going to be okay" He kept whispering in the younger's ear like a mantra. 

"I'll always be here for you."

 

 

 

November

Jiyong wrote a song.

He called it untitled 2014.

how could he title it? Because if he did, they would know.

They would know who it was about. They would know everything that they had struggled to keep under wraps, destroying the very thing they tried to hide, in the process. They would know what lay in his heart. And that couldn’t be. Not after everything he, they, had to sacrifice to hide it.

Because in the end, the secret had become more important than what they had been trying to hide..

Besides, Jiyong thought 'untitled' suited the song. Because it was much like his relationship with Seungri, 'untitled'. It was just something that happened. That existed only in their heads, in the space between them and only them. A vagueness of emotions and the inability to define it.

No name, no official stamp, no definition, no boundaries.

 

As vague as the title was, the song was straightforward.

It was everything he wanted to tell Seungri. Everything he should have told him when he could, when he knew  Seungri would still listen. 

He didn’t mince words, he didn’t hide behind wordplay and metaphors like he normally would.

He knew Seungri would listen to it. But he doubted it would reach him. Deep down he knew he was a few years too late.

 

But a part of him had grown weary of the image he had to carry 24/7. Maybe it had something to do with him turning thirty or his impending military service, maybe he just had been doing it too long. Or maybe it was the fact that it was the very reason for the loss of the love he was convinced he could never have again. He felt like he needed to get it off his chest. And if he didn’t do it now, Jiyong didn’t know if he'd ever be able to. If, when he came back after his service, people would still want to listen, if he'd still be able to tell.

So he wrote down the song. One last ode to the year that slowly but surely, day by day drained his life of all colour. He recorded it. One last plea, a shot in the dark, a feeble apology to the man he tried so hard to unlove for the last 3 years.

 

 

December

The snow stacked up on the window sill like tiny delicate fluffy tetris.

He watched them through a prism of tears that just lay on the brink of his eyes refusing to fall.

He hated winter. But he loved snow. Everything about it was so clean and pure and soft and delicate.

 

I need you I don’t thikn I'll ever be able to unneed you trust me I have tried

 

The letters merged into a blur, everything around him was spinning. Giving in to the sensation of being completely out of control of his body and his senses, he got up from the window seat only to fall onto the soft carpet of his living room and closed his eyes, his phone still clutched tightly in one hand.

Jiyong could hear sirens blaring, Loud. And they kept getting louder and shriller until it didn’t sound like sirens anymore but like bells. Bells? Doorbell. Doorbell? Wait…

His eyelids felt like they were made of lead as he made an effort to pry them open. Although the room wasn’t spinning as much, his body felt like dead weight that had somehow gotten ten times heavier in the last….how much time had it been?

The incessant ringing of the doorbell broke his chain of thought.

He focused instead on lifting his body off the floor and not falling over again as he carefully made his way to the door.

He figured he must have been out for an hour or so because he wasn’t as drunk as he was earlier, even though he still had trouble keeping himself upright.

He unlocked the door without checking who it was. If they got past security, he figured, it must be someone he knew.  Or, it was a serial killer who had somehow slipped through and would once and for all end his misery. Either way, he didn’t care.

 

Swinging open the door he was met with a stone cold face. Handsome, but grim.

A phone was shoved in his face.

"you spelled 'think' wrong. There is no such word as 'unneed' and also, ever heard of punctuations?"

Jiyong looked down, running a hand through his newly buzzcut hair as the memory of his drunken outburst came flooding back to him.

"Did you drive all this way to mock me? I was drunk okay?"

"Clearly."

"I'm sorry okay?" he slurred. "Think of it as just another irrational drunk text and forget about it. Please." The last word came out as more of a whimper than he had intended it to.

"So are you saying you didn’t mean any of it?"

"I didn’t mean to send it."

"But you meant it."

"I didn’t."

"Jiyong."

"Seungri."

He sighed, once again raking hs fingers through his phantom hair.

"Fine! I MEANT IT OKAY?......I mean it. I need you. I miss you. I love you."

.

.

.

"I know how pathetic I sound. I do! I get enlisted in two days and here I am drunk and scared and basically grovelling in front of you.  Are you happy now?"

 

 

 

 

"Say something."

 

 

"What is Seungri to you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You asked everyone what Kwon Jiyong was to them.

So let me ask you then, what is Seungri to you?"

 

Jiyong stared at the younger. His eyes were hard but there was a hint of something else in them. A curiosity, maybe hope. But Jiyong didn’t let himself read too much into it.

 

Jiyong was drunk and exhausted and felt like he had embarrassed himself in front of the younger enough times to not even care about self-preservation anymore.

 

"Lee Seungri…Seunghyun to me is," he sighed heavily before continuing,

"..Is love."

He didn’t dare look at the younger's face. Instead, Jiyong chose to fix his gaze on his gucci shoes with dragons embroidered on the sides.

He couldn’t help the slight tug on the corners of his lips.

 

"The kind that is so intense that I have the urge to destroy it lest it destroy me. The kind that consumes me. The kind that I'm terrified of, because doused in it, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.The kind that makes me feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, leaving me mentally drained and physically exhausted . And yet, I could never stop craving more."

Jiyong felt like a floodgate had opened somewhere within him and he couldn't help but let the words tumble out.

"Lee Seunghyun is everything beautiful in Kwon Jiyong's dismal world."

"He's everything Kwon Jiyong wants to possess, to lock up in an air tight box and swallow the key, but knows he can't. Because lee Seunghyun can't be owned. No matter how much Kwon Jiyong wishes to, or how much Seungri things Jiyong does, no one can own Lee Seungri. And deep down in some dark rational corner of Jiyong's brain, he knows that that is one of his favorite things about Seungri.

That no matter how much he tries to possess him, no matter how much he pulls, Seungri will never stop pushing. And maybe somewhere along the way Kwon Jiyong pulled too hard and Lee Seungri just snapped." He paused hesitantly and stole a glance at the younger's face, just in time to see a ghost of a grimace before the younger composed himself.

 

"Lee Seungri to Kwon Jiyong is fire. Hot and passionate and fiery. But lee Seunghyun is also a bouquet of daisies, soft and cheerful and pretty(calming).

 

"And over the years, lee Seungri has slowly crept up and painted every aspect of Jiyong's life in his hues, until lee Seunghyun became kwon Jiyong's everything.

 

"It sounds hollow, I know Seungri, especially after all this time, but my words are all I have to give you. I hope you can see the sincerity behind them."

"I love you Seungri-ah. I never stopped." The last sentence was barely above a whisper and Jiyong didn’t know if Seungri even heard him. Judging by the silence that followed he assumed he hadn't.

 

"…I haven't been happy since the day I walked out on you…on us. Not really."

Jiyong's head shot up to see the grim expression on the younger's face had been replaced by something much softer. And was that moisture he saw in his eyes?

"Excuse me?"

"You asked me if I was happy, I'm not." The younger gave a mirthless laugh.

"God knows I tried to be! I tried to forget you, to move and find my own happiness. But somehow it was you who always carried it."

"Seungri, I…"

Before he could finish the sentence, the gap between them was closed and a pair of big, warm, familiar arms engulfed him.

Suddenly he felt like the weight of the world was lifted off him. Breathing in his favourite scent in the world, he clutched on to the younger as if he might float away if he let go. of course, the light headedness could also be because of all the alcohol currently coursing in his bloodstream, but he decided not to dwell on that. 

All that mattered was that he was here. And he wasn’t trying to scurry away from him. He was hugging him, the way he used to and Jiyong didn’t realise just how much he had missed it, how much he yearned for it.

He just felt so….

 

Happy.

 

After a good couple of minutes, Jiyong pulled back to look at the maknae. His head was buzzing with so many questions but the one he chose to voice was, "so does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?"

"Hate you? I ing love you stupid!" Seungri reached out and gently held the older's face. "I never stopped either."

"Then why didn’t you ever say anything?  Why'd you keep avoiding me? Why'd you let me suffer in silence?"

 

"I didn’t know. I thought you were over me and I didn’t want to be a burden. I thought I must try my hardest to get over you too which is why I kept avoiding you. Just being around you drove me crazy."

Jiyong closed his eyes letting a single tear escape as he gave a little chuckle at the irony of their situation. Seungri was quick to wipe it away with his thumb before his palm gently rested on the older's face.

Oh how he had missed the feel of his skin against his own.

 

" Seungri-ah" The name rolled off his tongue effortlessly, "Its been too long and too painful. We tried this whole break up thing and it ."

"it really does," the younger gave a little chuckle, "."

Jiyong took the younger's hands in his own. Although it had been years, they were just as soft as he remembered.

"I should have told you this four years ago when you were leaving. I should have stopped you. Should have had faith in you, in what we had. I should have fought for us. But I didn’t. But I'll say it now, hoping that it's not too late. I'm sorry. I love you. And this time I won't give up on us no matter what."

"Seungri, will you wait for me?"

"I waited for you for 4 years Ji, what's another two?"  The words came out immediately and without hesitation, making Jiyong's heart fill to the point where he thought it would burst any second now. The dam to Jiyong's eyes broke, every tear he had cautiously held back for years flowed without retraint. "I love you. I love you so much." He said while showering Seungri's face with kisses finally coming to a stop inches from his lips.

"You have tortured me for years. You know that? You're such a pain in the Lee Seunghyun." They were so close, his breath mingled with Seungri's as he spoke, sending shock waves through his body.

"I could say the same about you, Kwon Jiyong." And how Jiyong had missed that boyish lopsided grin.

They inched closer cautiously, excruciatingly slowly, but neither wanted to rush. They wanted to savour every second of it, even the ones that led upto it because like Jiyong said, it really had been too long. Too long spent wallowing in pain, loneliness, frustration.

Their lips met like a stellar collision. Jiyong could have sworn he saw sparks flying beneath his eyelids as his lips captured the softest lips he had ever tasted, ones that he could never get enough of, ones he had been deprived of for far too long. As he found his way into the other's cavern, he made a silent promise. A promise to never let this man down, to fight for him and cherish him and never let him go.

The same promise he had made to the younger all those years ago as a teenagers. But this time he intended to go through with it.

 

 

 

A/N Do let me know what you thought. Comments are always appreciated!:)