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:) i dedicate these to my favourite beta (and only beta), atheovia, and upon her request, sungminnie of super junior! <3 since it's his birthday. lol. a very merry christmas and happy new year to all of you~ (ironically, these ficlets are completely un-beta'd as the aforemention chills overseas, so do forgive any errors and generally bad writing. kkkkk)

21 [highschool!au]

The library is watched over by an eagle-eyed, beak-nosed old woman with greying hair and an intense dislike for noise. Seungri is sure he’s number one on her blacklist, having been kicked out for “disrupting the silence” multiple times - Jiyong’s fault, he swears - but he still likes to return to the quiet, book-lined shelves to read up on whatever topic has caught his fancy at that particular moment in time.

Today it’s biology - and Seungri is reading up on the circulatory system. Jiyong leans over his shoulder, singing lyrics into Seungri’s ear out of boredom and unwillingness to do the calculus homework in front of him: “You’re my heart - heart - heart - heart - heart breaker.”

Seungri turns the page, eyes lingering over the diagram of the heart’s left ventricle. “You know, that’s kind of stupid.”

Jiyong blinks. “What?”

“The heart is a muscle. It doesn’t think. It just pumps blood around the body, all day, every day, and it can’t love someone, you can’t break it.” Seungri taps a finger on a picture of bunch squiggly grey noodles, labelled “brain”. “This is what does all the thinking and feeling, hyung. The brain. That’s where all your emotions come from. Where your love comes from.”

Jiyong frowns and adjusts his lyrics a little. “You’re my brain breaker - that sounds ridiculous.”

“At least it’s scientifically possible.”

“So, you wouldn’t say, ‘Seungri loves Jiyong with all his heart’, but rather, ‘Seungri loves Jiyong with all his brain’?”

“That’s correct.”

Jiyong smiles. “Really?! You do?”

“Yeah - hey, wait, what?”

“Seungri loves Jiyong! Seungri loves Jiyong!”

His retaliating swat earns him the dirtiest glare he’s seen from the librarian yet, and a month long suspension from the building (for “Violence and uncivilized behavior!”) - but he’s okay with it. After all, Jiyong loves Seungri with all his brain, too.

22

2006

Seungri wakes up one very ordinary morning in a bed three hundred kilometres away from his home in Gwangju, and realises he’s sixteen.

There’s nothing in the room to indicate his coming of age; no handmade banner strung across the wall, or balloons and streamers hung on the ceiling; no presents waiting to be unwrapped, or well-wishing cards slipped beneath his door, not even a measly birthday text on his phone - just the slightly lopsided calendar pinned beside the window, displaying DECEMBER 12 as ordinarily as it showed any other day of the year.

He sighs as he swings his legs out of bed, fighting bitter disappointment. Yeah, so maybe it was a little too much to expect the entirety of YG Entertainment to have remembered his birthday, but come on - not even his own roommate? Seungri glares pointedly at the empty side of the bed that is Jiyong’s. He’s probably out writing lyrics, or recording songs, filming music videos, or - or whatever it is that leaders of newly-formed South Korean boy bands do.

“Happy birthday to me,” he mutters.

“Happy birthday to you.”

Seungri sits up straight as the door is kicked open by none other than Jiyong. He’s balancing a cake precariously in one hand and a roughly wrapped package in the other, panting heavily.

“I’m sorry,” Jiyong says, words tumbling so fast they begin to collide into one another. “I figured I should get you a really nice cake but this morning when I went down to the bakery they were out of strawberry so I had to run down to the cake shop on the other side of town, and then I remembered we’d run out of wrapping paper but it was too late so I just took Seunghyun hyung’s newspaper and I think he’s still really mad at me, and... and happy birthday.”

Seungri doesn’t say anything, but he hopes a hug will be enough.

23

If there’s something called personal space, Jiyong’s never heard of it. He’s always looking and touching and hugging and kissing and - he doesn’t care if it’s in a locked room or in front of a twenty thousand strong crowd of VIPs, but Seungri does. Seungri minds that there are cameras to catch every squirm, every fidget, every whine of discomfort, and every time that Seungri fails to keep the smile tugging at his lips.

If there’s one thing that Seungri is sure the world would be a hundred times better off without, it is this. Stumbling from his bedroom, he on the mortal wound that now marks his left index finger and shoulders his way through the bathroom door, only to find that they’ve run out of band aids, and there’s no way that’s he’s even going to touch the roll of gauze, unless he wants to end up looking like a mummy from a low budget horror movie (not that that happened last time, or anything.)

He drags his mangled limb down the corridor once more, bursting into the kitchen with an cry of pain and slumps down in the nearest chair, cradling his gash gently. Jiyong looks over the notes spread on the table and sighs, putting down his coffee.

“What is it now?”

“Paper cut,” whimpers Seungri.

“Ugh. You baby. Show me,” says Jiyong, rolling his eyes. With an agonized moan, Seungri lifts his finger and launches into an emotionally charged speech about the dangers of infection and blood-borne diseases, and the fact that he could wake up tomorrow with AIDS, and that would be the end of Big Bang and then quite possibly the rest of the universe -

Jiyong presses warm lips to the finger, in a gesture that is unmistakably a kiss. “There. All better, right? Now shut up before I give you a real injury.”

Seungri’s mouth flaps open but he doesn’t say another word.

25

There’s something not quite right. It’s not the copious amounts of glittery tinsel strung across the tree’s branches, or abundant number of baubles hung on the leafy limbs - is it the flickering fairy lights, stretched hazardously over the lot? Jiyong takes a step back and tilts his head. No, it’s not it at all.

“It’s that,” he says, pointing a finger at the angel perched proudly on the highest point. “It’s wrong.”

“W-Wrong?” Seungri huffs indignantly. “It’s perfect.”

“Who puts angels on their Christmas trees?”

Seungri shoots him a filthy look. “Me, obviously.”

“You don’t count.” Jiyong rummages around in the box where ornaments are kept, pulling out a dusty, golden star. “Use this instead.”

“Stars are overrated,” Seungri scoffs. “It’s just a pointy thing that sparkles.”

“Like some random girl with wings is any better,” Jiyong shoots back.

“Is so.”

“Is not.”

“Is so.”

“Is not.”

“Could you two take your childish arguments somewhere else?” calls Seunghyun from the kitchen.

“No,” they reply unanimously.

Seunghyun pokes his head into the doorway, frowning. “How about I choose what goes on the top of the tree?” Without waiting for approval, he strolls up to the tree and digs through the box once more.

“But-” starts Jiyong.

“Hyung-” Seungri begins.

“Done. Have fun,” says Seunghyun smugly, putting the finishing touches on the oh-so-controversial tree with a flourish. He walks cheerfully past the duo, looking forward to enjoying the rest of his coffee in silence.

Positioned above their heads is a sprig of mistletoe.

25½

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” Seunghyun smirks.

Youngbae stops mid-step. Being the oldest (and therefore, he insists, wisest), Seunghyun’s advice usually carries quite some weight. “Why? Hasn’t Seungri finished decorating the tree yet?”

Seunghyun waves a hand airily. “No, not exactly. You know what they say - curiosity killed the cat.”

But Youngbae reckons he’s more of a dog person - so he peers into the dormitory living room, and promptly withdraws seconds later. “Oh,” he says. “I guess he’s... busy.”

New year’s resolution: listen to Big Seunghyun’s advice.