Half an hour later they were on the highway in Bethany’s car.  Both JiYong and Seunghyun had almost shoved Daesung into the front seat.  Almost before Bethany turned the car on JiYong had put his headphones on and dragged a hoodie over his face.

“Can he breathe under that thing?” she asked Daesung now and he turned around from watching the moon out the window and glanced back at his leader.

“Maybe.”  He answered and Laura stared at him quickly, before pulling her eyes back to the road.

“Maybe? That sounds really reassuring.”  Daesung’s chuckle took the irony off her lips and pulled them into a grin. 

“How old... you are?” Asked Daesung after a short silence.

“I turned eighteen in November last year.”

“Woh you are so young! You can even driving already!” 

“Yeah, but legally I can only go ninety kays per hours.” 

“Ninety?”  Daesung leaned over and peered at the lit speed dial on Laura’s dashboard.  “yeees… you rilly doing ninety.”

“Aahh come on… the worst that could happen on a road like this is we hit a kangaroo.”

The look Daesung gave her was so full of shock and dawning terror that Laura started giggling and almost swerved off the road.  JiYong woke up and Seunghyun leaned over to thump him on the hoodie, telling him with rough reassurance that everything was alright. 

Under his hoodie, JiYong turned his music off and listened sleepily to the others talking.  Bethany’s words were repeating themselves rhythmically in his head. What other V.I.P wouldn’t want to go to the beach with BigBang if they got the chance… What other V.I.P wouldn’t want to go to the beach with BigBang… What other V.I.P… V.I.P … V.I.P… He shifted his head slightly feeling impatient with the nervous tightening of his stomach.  She was a fangirl and JiYong had lived too long with the heavy weight of fangirls all over the world dragging him down to a slow painful death.  Most people had forgotten his scandal.  But JiYong often wondered what it would actually be like to slip under the freeing spell of drugs.  He knew drugs didn’t really free anyone.  They enslaved people and JiYong had never consciously touched any kind of drug.  He stuck to alcohol.  The others were talking about Bethany’s dog.  Seunghyun had told her about Charlie and Bethany after saying how cute his dog would be proceeded to be scornful about its size.  Her own dog was a Great Dane.  JiYong frowned and tried to find the appreciation he had felt when Bethany was yelling at Daesung about wanting to go to the beach with them.  But he couldn’t feel it again.  All he could feel was tension and reluctance.  He didn’t trust Bethany and he didn’t like her.  Hadn’t YG sent them away for him to have a holiday?  Why was he here? Feeling just as stressed as he did in Korea?  Slowly JiYong turned his music up loud, trying to lock out the all too familiar desolation as laughter from Daesung and Seunghyun cut across his ears.

“So have you guys tried TimTams since coming to Australia?” Asked Bethany then started giggling at their reaction.  Daesung collapsed back into his seat with a long drawn out “aaaaahhhh” and in the back seat Seunghyun bolted upright blurting out in childish excitement, “TimTam?? Where?! Yes! Please!”

“No…”  Bethany couldn’t speak until she had swallowed back her laughter.  “I meant have you eaten any since you came here. But I’m guessing the answer is yes.  What flavour do you like?”

“Flavour?” Daesung said the word questioningly, glancing back at Seunghyun to see if he knew what it meant.  Seunghyun shrugged and Daesung looked back at Bethany.  “What flavour?”

“You know, what it tastes like.  There’s mint Timtams and orange ones and Turkish delight – that is amazing – and Caramel… ohhh wow you have to try caramel TimTams while you’re here!” 

It was the boys turn to laugh at her enthusiasm.  They discussed TimTams for a few moments and Bethany found out that Seunghyun and Daesung both had an incredible sweet tooth that no one except YoungBae really understood.  “But you guys stay so amazingly fit.  Do you spend all your non touring life in the gym?”

“Longer.” Stated Seungyun; sounding so demoralised about it that Daesung turned around to laugh at him. 

Despite their lack of English Bethany found it was easy to talk with both BigBang members.  Seunghyun was slower at Daesung than expressing his words in English and he often turned to Daesung in frustration.  When that happened Bethany listened to Daesung correct him in Korean then waited while he translated into English.  By the time they reached the beach they had managed to cover a wide range of topics and Bethany’s eyes were sore from glancing sideways at the hand gestures which seemed to make up well over half of Daesung’s English conversation.  As Bethany pulled onto the bank of the beach under a light, Seunghyun leaned over and poked JiYong.  The leader made a sound like a boiling kettle combined with an asthmatic bear and Seunghyun looked up apologetically at Bethany.  “He always not waking up well.”  Jiyong grunted again, tried to roll over and was prevented by his seatbelt.  Pushing the hoodie of his face JiYong looked out the window, his face rounding as he realised where he was.  Then before anyone else in the car could say anything he had thrown himself out of the door and was sprinting down onto the beach.

Sometime later they were sitting in a row on the sand, watching waves break under dappled moonlight.   Bethany had tried not to come in contact with JiYong and the leader had not made an effort to talk to her so they had stayed in mutual distance.  “Look at the clouds.” Said Bethany now, speaking to anyone and pointing upwards to the strung out wreaths of clouds patterning the sky.  “They look like black lace over white satin.”  The others were silent, simply sharing the cool awe of God’s mighty nature.  Then JiYong suddenly muttered.

“Black lace over white satin.  Black lace on white satin…  Black lace and white satin?  BLACK LACE AND WHITE SATIN!”  And patting his pockets in search of something he scrambled to his feet and tore up the sand towards the car.  Daesung waited until Bethany’s gaze swung down from his retreating form then said explained apologetically. 

“He is writing… more, uh, new song.  Dhe words you saided, made him… thinking well. Inspire? Anyway… he is writing song now.” 

Bethany swivelled around and looked at the solitary figure sitting alone on her car bonnet, writing lyrics by the light of a street lamp.  Finally she turned back towards the beach. “He looks lonely.” She said quietly. 

There was a long hesitation that felt almost tense then Daesung answered haltingly, “He is.  Buuut, he is happy when he writing songs.” 

“Why are you talking about me?”  JiYong’s Korean words made them all jump; Bethany jumped with the best of them. 

“Did you finish already??”  Demanded Daesung incredulously. 

“No, my pen didn’t work.  So I came back to see if you or hyung had one but you were talking to her about me.”

“Hyung…” To Bethany, Daesung sounded tired.  “I wasn’t talking about you in a bad way. She said you looked lonely.”

“And you said yes.”

“I’m not going to lie to her.  She understands us; hyung, it’s scary how much she knows about us!”

JiYong blew out his breath, scraping his hands back through his hair.  His hand smoothed to a stop as Daesung asked quietly, “What would you have liked me to say to her?”

JiYong’s fingers clenched.  “Nothing! Don’t tell her anything! She’s an interfering brat!  Who does she think she is, capering into our lives like she’s our long lost maknae or something! She’s just a fangirl and I wish we’d never met her.  Don’t you get it Dae? She represents everything to me. Everything that drives me, hurts me, keeps me awake at night, makes me look so disgustingly gay and perfect on stage.  You guys can be real to fangirls; you are enough in yourselves.  But for some reason they want me to be so much more than I can ever hope to be and I have not stopped feeling sick with worry since she met us!  I just… wanted to be… no one for a while.  Now I’m G-Dragon again.”

“Mianhae JiYong-ssi.”  Bethany’s quietly spoken words may as well have been grenade thrown into their midst.  JiYong remained stock still, finger clenched over his neck while his eyes slowly widened in shock.  Finally he collected himself and asked in Korean,

“You can… understand Korean?”