i

He’s here, again.

Seungri can’t help himself. The room is the perfect size - big enough to sit down and stretch his legs and small enough to feel safely surrounded by thick plaster walls, caging in the smell of leather and mothballs. It’s his own little paradise where he can run his fingers through the coloured fabrics that he can’t have anywhere else but here. He can sing and shout until his throat is raw and his eyes are red and nobody will hear him - nobody can hear him. Until -

“Yeah, let me grab my jacket and I’ll be right - Seungri?!”

The door is swung open and light floods the windowless room. Seungri trips over Jiyong’s shoes as he scrambles to his feet. “Um. Hi, hyung.”

“What the - what the hell are you doing in there? Are those my limited edition Jeremy Scott’s? And are you seriously wearing them with those pants?” Jiyong’s expression is a mix of disgust and amusement. “Is this where you’re always hiding, Little Seunghyunnie?”

Seungri’s cheeks are flaming. “Um.”

A long sigh and an exaggerated eyeroll. “If you really wanted to borrow my clothes, all you had to do was ask.” Jiyong shakes his head but he’s smiling, really wide. “I won’t get mad. Promise.”

Seungri smiles too. “Well, at least this time, I didn’t rip your pants.”

“...you WHAT?”

Seungri insists that their dear leader is overworking himself. Jiyong says it’s his bad immune system and he’ll be better by Tuesday.

He isn’t.

Jiyong says he’s too old for a babysitter and how ridiculous is it that his caretaker is two years younger than him? But Seungri just rolls his eyes and valiantly counters Jiyong’s attempts to get out of bed, and replies he was always really mature for his age, well, his mum said so anyway.

Jiyong mutters something unintelligible and pouts. It’s his best ‘wounded puppy’ face but Seungri just laughs and sticks a thermometer into Jiyong’s mouth.

Seungri busies himself with a hot water bottle and by the time he turns around, the mercury’s risen a couple of notches too high, so he gets a stool and rummages through the kitchen cupboards. He finally finds an unappetizing, bitter-looking and bitter-smelling medicine with a faded label that he desperately hopes isn’t ‘rat poison’.

Jiyong acts like it is anyway. He snuffles and sighs and whines, and there is absolutely nothing Seungri can do to make his hyung just drink the goddamn medicine.

I’m hungry moans Jiyong and rolls over face down on the bed, as if that’s a legitimate reason to dodge his medicine. Seungri reminds him of yesterday’s Chinese leftovers, and Jiyong mumbles into the pillow that’s probably the reason why he’s sick in the first place.

What can I do, sighs Seungri.

Breakfast in bed, Jiyong replies.

Two minutes later there’s eggshells scattered throughout the kitchen and Seungri is reassuring himself the “best before” date on the canned tuna was only two-and-a-half weeks ago, so everything should be fine, right? And apparently it’s all right, because Jiyong hasn’t spontaneously combusted yet and he’s already swallowed six spoonfuls.

Jiyong laughs and tells the younger it’s terrible, and why haven’t you improved at all, I mean, isn’t this your twenty-third tuna omelette? But he scrapes the little wooden bowl clean, sets it on the bedside table and announces he’s going to sleep before Seungri can get the medicine bottle open again.

Seungri doesn’t know how but Jiyong is miraculously better the next day.

Jiyong puts the thin metal slab to his ear and listens to the dial tone, hoping. And somewhere in Korea, he knows a phone will be screaming: hey y,

CRACK! CRACK! CR-

“Hello? Who is this?”

Jiyong smiles at the voice heavy with sleep and annoyance.

“Hey, mak-”

“Hyung? Is that you? How’s America?” There’s a slight pause on the other end. “And you do know what time it is, right?” Another brief pause. “And why are you calling? You just called me six hours ago. Did anything happen? Or...” Jiyong can feel the sly smile through the phone. “You miss me, don’t you, hyung?”

Admitting to that, Jiyong thinks he would rather wear socks with sandals. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, maknae!”

“But you do, right?”

(Maybe Jiyong can make socks and sandals the new trend.)

“They’re boring.”

“You just don’t have any appreciation for the world, Seunghyunnie.”

“Yes, yes I do. But they’re so overrated. They’re twinkly and pretty but they don’t do anything, hyung.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Hyung is so cheesy.”

“Shut up.”

Jiyong punches the boy lightly on the shoulder and Seungri pretends it’s a mortal wound. “You bully me and it’s cold out here,” he sniffs. “Can’t I go inside?”

“No.” Jiyong pulls the blanket around them tighter, making sure Seungri doesn’t leave (but he wasn’t planning to, really).

“Why not? You always whine about how I whine. Wouldn’t it be better if I wasn’t here?”

“No.”

Seungri waits for an explanation. There isn’t one. Typical Jiyong.

“You’re a terrible leader, hyung. Everyone teases me about the dark circles under my eyes. Well, it’s because you’re always dragging me outside to come look and the dumb stars. Last night, I only got three hours of sleep. My life span is decreasing!”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Hyung, you’re horrible.”

“That’s no way to talk to your leader. I’ll make you sleep on the floor tonight.”

“No way! Not if I can help it!”

Seungri scrambles to his feet, pulling the blanket with him, and makes for the balcony door - but he nearly falls flat on his face when Jiyong snakes out an arm and hugs his leg.

“Don’t abandon me!”

Seungri freezes, arms out for balance, bright pink cape of a blanket around his neck and held firm by Jiyong, who is closely resembling a demented tree-hugging creature.

“You’re warm, okay, Seungri? So stay out here, or I’ll get pneumonia and die.”

Seungri sighs.

“...Please.”

“Seriously, hyung. The things I do for you.”

“Hyung, why are you always touching me?”

Seungri cringes a little. That didn’t come out right - but he ploughs on nevertheless.

“Sometimes,” Seungri says, but he means mosttimes, “there’s not even any cameras around to film it so I don’t see why-”

“But do you like it?”

The question catches him off guard and Seungri splutters to a stop. Jiyong waits and tilts his head as if he’s only mildly interested in the answer.

“That’s not... Wait, answer my question!”

“Why don’t you?”

“H-Hey, I asked first...”

“But I’m older.”

Seungri has a million and one things to say to that like hyung that’s so unfair and hyung you always use that excuse! But he also knows Jiyong will just shakes his head, a million and one times if he has to, because he’s G-Dragon and he always gets what he wants.

Or maybe Seungri lets him have his way, every time.

“Idon’tmind,” Seungri mutters in a jumble of words and red cheeks, and all of the sudden the floor is so interesting right now.

And Jiyong smiles, smiles as wide as he can - and it’s not until the next morning that Seungri realises Jiyong never answered his question in the first place.