Chapter Text
“Just like the life
In which I’m forever a child looking out my window at the night sky
Thinking one day I’ll touch the world with bare hands
Even if it burns.”
- “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” by Tracy K. Smith
When Jiyong sneezes into his mask, he nearly folds in half from the force of it. He glances around the dark room, at the shifting pools of blue reflected on the floor, the ceiling, the walls around the exit doors. Only a few stragglers are lingering still, mostly gathered around the opposite end, but they pay Jiyong no more than a cursory glance in his direction. He relaxes, the moment of tension passing. He sniffles.
Next to him, Seunghyun stands unmoved. His hands are bundled up inside the pockets of his thick wool coat and he’s looking up through the glass at the different fish swimming past. The combination of the mask, sunglasses, and scarf wrapped tight around him like a shield makes his expression inscrutable. Though, these days, Jiyong finds that he can’t read him even when he’s not covering himself up.
He turns an idle eye to the massive fish tank before him, teeming with multicolored life. In his peripheral vision, he watches the last group of people crazy enough to hang out at the aquarium past its closing hours leave through the exit door. The sound of it swinging shut echoes up to the room’s lofty ceilings.
Jiyong feels himself relax, relief slowing the rapid thump of his heart against his chest. He shuffles closer to Seunghyun and slips a hand into his pocket, taking hold of his cold hand before he has the time to talk himself out of it. Seunghyun twines their fingers together, the corners of his eyes visible behind his shades crinkling in a smile.
For a few more minutes, they can be normal.
The aquarium had been Seunghyun’s idea, a rare respite from the circus that has become their daily lives for the past several months. It’s probably not a good look for Seunghyun to be taking personal time off from his service for the day like this, but Jiyong is happy he did; they both need this.
Jiyong allows himself the risk of resting his head against Seunghyun’s shoulder. He sways a little from the added weight against him.
“Which one is your favorite?” Jiyong asks, gesturing with his free hand at the tank in front of them. A listless-looking gray blob of a fish drifts by, its mouth open and its one visible eye staring at them blankly, uncomprehending. It makes Jiyong laugh, if a bit sardonically; it reminds him of himself, recently.
Seunghyun takes a full minute to respond. He exhales through his nose thoughtfully, while his thumb starts to stroke the bony jut of Jiyong’s knuckle. “I’m not looking at them individually. When they swim together, it’s like the stroke of a paintbrush.” Jiyong watches Seunghyun follow a school of fish flitting about the tank. When his head tilts, he can see his eyes that have been hidden behind the sunglasses, glassy with awe. “It’s the full picture I like. I can hear,” he gestures around his ear with his free hand. “Beautiful music.”
Jiyong had already known the answer; he’s heard Seunghyun say something similar before in art galleries or at the beach. He just wanted to hear him say it again.
“What does it sound like?” He glances around the empty room.
Subtly, Seunghyun’s body shifts closer into his. “Blue,” he says simply. At Jiyong’s unimpressed snort, he clarifies, “like our song. It's a little melancholy, but it keeps going.”
It's warm between them. Jiyong aches, and wishes they didn't have to keep running on borrowed time. He doesn't even know when the next time he'll be able to see Seunghyun is, what with the group tour coming up alongside his own impending enlistment. He can't even begin to add Youngbae and Daesung to that equation.
“I like that,” Jiyong replies. He follows Seunghyun’s gaze towards the fish, never stopping. Always moving.
Abruptly, Seunghyun changes the subject. “How much longer do you think we have before they kick us out?”
His thumb continues to caress Jiyong’s knuckles. His cold hand is just beginning to warm up.
Jiyong checks the time on his watch. “A few minutes at most. They played the last call message a while ago, now.” He feels Seunghyun nod in response. “Do you want to come in for a drink, after?”
They’ve spent the entire day together, cooped up in Jiyong’s apartment as they passed the time before it would be the least risky to be in a public place together. They’d watched old movies, ordered in takeout, then fucked on the couch and took a long, much-needed nap together.
Seunghyun sighs. “I don't think I should be out any later. Sorry.” He squeezes Jiyong’s hand.
“No problem,” Jiyong lies. “I’ll drop you off.”
He allows them to stay there a few minutes longer. Seunghyun has never been one to be overly conscious of their discreet displays of affection in public, but even this feels a little reckless by his standards—by Jiyong’s, too. Aquarium security would be here any moment now to escort them out. With that proximity, they would undoubtedly be recognized. They’re recognizable people. Still, Seunghyun clings to him just as hard.
In the end, it’s Jiyong who breaks the moment. He slips his hand out of Seunghyun’s pocket and says, “come on. It’s getting late.”
Jiyong parks the car behind a 24-hour laundromat a block down from the barracks. He kills the engine, turning the headlights off until the two of them are lit only by a single, buzzing lamp over the back door of the building. He braces himself for the goodbye when he turns to Seunghyun, but he is still, making no move to leave.
His hands are folded in his lap, and his head is tilted towards Jiyong. Soft, brown eyes meet Jiyong’s, thick eyebrows drawn up in the middle in that face Seunghyun always makes before he starts crying.
Before Jiyong can break the silence, urge Seunghyun to go before he gets in even more trouble than he already is, he’s beaten to it. Seunghyun places a hand on the console between them. “I love you,” he says. “I’m sorry I don’t say it as much as I should.”
For a moment, all Jiyong can do is stare back at him, feeling like his throat is clogged with a thick coat of honey. Seunghyun has a way of catching him off guard with his confessions. “I love you, too,” Jiyong replies hoarsely. He slips his hand off the gear shift and laces their pinky fingers together.
Seunghyun smiles, then, and it’s wider and more genuine than Jiyong has seen it in months. “We’ll see each other again, soon.”
Jiyong wants to say when? He wants to cry and collapse into Seunghyun’s arms. He wants to turn the car around and run away to somewhere else, somewhere where they can be normal people who love each other, with no obligations to country or company, or anyone but themselves. Instead, he smiles, and says, “I’ll be looking forward to it,” because the past year has forced him to be stronger; even more than he was before.
All too quickly, Seunghyun’s hand is on the handle of the car door. Jiyong wants more than anything to kiss him again—it’s been hours—, but he knows this is one risk neither of them can afford. “Bye, hyung,” Jiyong says. “Please call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”
The door opens, and Seunghyun climbs out, though he leans down for a moment to say goodbye. “I know. I will.”
Love you, Seunghyun mouths again before shutting Jiyong’s car door and walking down the alley, briskly.
Jiyong stays in the parking lot, watching Seunghyun leave until he becomes an invisible speck against the night sky.
Iye is rubbing against Jiyong’s ankle and begging for a late-night snack as soon as he walks in through the front door. He removes his coat, making sympathetic, cooing noises down at his cat.
It's only then, as he’s hanging his coat up on the rack, that he notices something sticking out of the pocket. Jiyong pulls out what turns out to be one of Seunghyun’s military-issue gloves, folded up into a ball. Jiyong sniffs as he unfurls it and finds a balled-up scrap of paper inside, uneven at the edges as if it has been torn from a book.
He opens the paper and finds a familiar-looking piece, hastily photocopied if the rough edges of the paper and faded black ink are anything to go by. Jiyong slides to the floor in a crouch, Iye butting his head against the jut of his knee.
His vision starts to blur as he reads and reads and re-reads each already well-tread line of the letter. The image with the two clocks joined together at the top of the page overlap when his eyes cross.
Jiyong flips it over, but there's no hidden message for him. The letter speaks for itself.
It's not often that Jiyong feels hope–especially not recently; there has been a marked lack of it since the end of their last tour together as a group–but against all odds, it starts to balloon inside of him again. He imagines Seunghyun worrying about pulling off this little scheme of his, and it startles a watery laugh out of him.
It's so very Seunghyun, to do something like this, something this thoughtful in the most ridiculous, roundabout way possible. My hands are sweaty, Seunghyun had blurted out around a minute into their date at the aquarium before he made a show of wiping them on Jiyong’s coat and presumably performing some sleight-of-hand to subtly shove his glove into his pocket.
Something inside of Jiyong stirs, the flicker of a spark lit by a meager hope for the future, for a life after the next tour, after Seunghyun’s mandatory service ends. After his own.
The acute awareness that he cannot keep going like this forever had first invaded his mind around the creation and release of MADE. It has only compounded itself, like a snowball racing to the bottom of a steep hill, building momentum with each new burden folded into itself. A group tour. Jiyong’s new album. His solo tour. Everything that has happened with Seunghyun. Their upcoming final shows. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, only the darkness of obscurity and the inevitability of his body deciding that the next time he lies down will be his last.
Jiyong sits back heavily against the wall of the entrance hallway, pulling Iye up into his lap with his free hand, the other gripping that crumpled piece of paper.
His body feels heavy, but he clings to this lifeline, confessional, and so intimate. He is bone-tired and weary of his own life and the burden of living it. But still, impossibly, Seunghyun loves him. Jiyong is loved and loves in return. Maybe, for a while, he can let that be enough.
“Lovers, 1988
Don’t be afraid of the clocks, they are out time, time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space. We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit where it is due: time
We are synchronized, now and forever.
I love you.”
- Félix González-Torres in letter to Ross Laycock
Abruptly, Jiyong jolts awake just as his entire body is thrown backwards by a sudden, jarring movement. He blinks the sleep from his eyes as he takes in his surroundings—harsh white lights above him, a loud roar assaulting his ears, a few scattered people sitting around him or holding onto metal poles.
The last thing he remembers is crawling into bed with Iye and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep. And now he’s woken up on…a subway?
Panic slams into him with the weight of a freight train.
His first thought is that he’s found himself leaving the club blackout drunk, but he feels fine if a little disoriented and freaked out. He looks down at himself, still clad in the lounge pants and ratty older sweater he’d fallen asleep in. Well, that rules that option out. Unless he’d randomly decided to go back out after getting wasted in his own apartment. That still makes no sense—Jiyong hates drinking alone.
Then how the hell had he ended up here? Jiyong hasn’t taken the train since he was in high school.
Jiyong pulls himself together, sitting up straight and scanning for the subway map to figure out where the hell he is, and where he’s going. Conveniently, an electronic voice chooses that moment to announce that the train is approaching Myeongdong station.
What the hell? With the panic and adrenaline pumping through Jiyong’s body, he can’t for the life of him figure out what he’s doing here, or how long he’s been asleep on this train.
None of that matters, now, because a group of young women is starting to recognize him from the corner of the traincar. He hears a camera flash and his heart sinks straight down out of his ass.
The company is going to kill him. Scratch that, they’re going to come up with some new form of torture that makes that freaky medieval bullshit pale in comparison. They’re certainly capable of it.
As soon as the train comes to a stop and the doors start to slide open, Jiyong leaps out of his seat and bolts out the doors, feet pounding against the tiled floors as he races off in search of a bathroom. Oh, God, I’m barefoot, too, Jiyong curses to himself when he steps on something sharp. He just barely contains a pained scream as he drags himself into the bathroom and slams the stall door shut behind him.
The privacy brings some small modicum of calm to his thundering pulse. Jiyong tugs at his hair, grown out now to the nape of his neck, and pats himself down in search of his phone. He can call his driver and camp out in here while he waits, maybe contact his manager to get ahead of the release of whatever pictures have just been taken of him.
Except he doesn’t have his phone. His pockets are empty. He doesn’t even have his wallet.
Jiyong drops down into a crouch, groaning into his hands. What an absolute clusterfuck.
How could he be so stupid as to get himself into this situation? He must have been drinking something last night—there’s no other possible explanation! Maybe it’s just a once-in-a-lifetime miracle that he doesn’t feel any of the effects of blacking out. It makes some sense. Jiyong was emotional last night after dropping Seunghyun off at the barracks; maybe he poured himself a glass of wine or two. But that still shouldn't be enough to make him end up here.
Before he can collapse into a pitiful state of despair, Jiyong shoves himself back up to his feet and exits the stall. He splashes his face with water, pushing his overgrown bangs back from his face.
He looks okay, all things considered, though a bit gaunt, and his eyes are still red from crying. His stubble looks a little patchy from his rushed shave job, though, and Jiyong wishes he’d somehow had the foresight to bring a mask with him before he mysteriously decided to leave the house.
Well, it’s too late to worry. Jiyong has spent the last decade or so wrangling three other men through the motions of being an idol. They've survived everything from dating to drug scandals and, present circumstances notwithstanding, Jiyong thinks they've managed to do okay for themselves. He can get himself back home with his image intact. He can navigate a transportation system he hasn’t set foot in in years without getting his face blasted all over every single gossip site in the country.
Jiyong gets to work quickly and efficiently. He successfully navigates the train switch that will get him to his neighborhood without hearing any more stray camera flashes, and when he climbs the stairs up to the street level he breathes a sigh of relief. The smell of the river and the familiar sounds of the streets, quieter here than in the city center, help to center him. As long as he manages to get himself up to his house without stepping on any other sharp objects, he can leave this whole mess behind.
On his way into the building lobby, Jiyong nearly falls flat on his face tripping over a decorative planter. He stumbles, then looks behind him to find a sculpture of a birch tree in a square golden planter. He stares at it, dumbfounded, sure he’s never seen it before.
Unnerved, Jiyong proceeds to the face scanner and is admitted into the elevator where he hits the button for his floor.
Now that he’s given a brief moment to rest, the bottom of his foot starts to throb. He has no idea what he stepped on in the subway and he can’t bring himself to take a look just yet, stomach already churning and churning because of the disorientation and fear from this nightmare of a night he has found himself trapped in. The priority is calling his manager to sort this shitshow out; he can tend to his wounds later. Besides, if he’s not noticeably trailing blood in his wake, it can’t be that bad.
The tension leaves Jiyong’s body when the elevator door opens to his familiar entranceway. He strides down the short walkway and punches his code in, ready to catch what little sleep he can before he has to wake up for production meetings and rehearsal. Briefly, he considers begging off his first meeting with Hyunsuk to get a little bit more sleep and asking Youngbae to go in his place, but he scratches that thought away as soon as it appears. He can already imagine the CEO going nuclear with him over the phone for pleading leniency after the proverbial pile of shit he’s tossed himself into tonight.
The exhaustion and anxiety are weighing down on Jiyong so heavily he doesn’t immediately notice that the door hasn’t opened for him.
Jiyong blinks, swaying on his feet. Had he just been standing here like a zombie forgetting to unlock his own door?
He grabs the handle and punches the code in again. The light on the keypad flashes red.
What? This time Jiyong knows he’s not imagining things. Maybe he put in the wrong number. He tries again and is greeted with the red flash once more. Shit. Again.
“Warning: the next wrong attempt will result in the contacting of the authorities.” Jiyong nearly jumps out of his own skin at the sound of the keypad.
He stares down at it, still flashing red in warning, numb. He must be dreaming.
For a startling moment, Jiyong feels like his mind has burrowed its escape through the back of his skull and is looking down at his frozen body in pity. He is unrecognizable to himself, shrinking away in fear—had he done this himself? Is it possible Jiyong had taken the note from Seunghyun with him to bed and abruptly fallen into a state of delusion that took over and caused him to change the code to his own house before going outside without his phone, his wallet, his shoes, doing who knows what before ending up passed out on the subway.
All at once Jiyong comes back into his body. Bile rises acidic and sickly in his throat.
Fuck. Maybe he should just give up here and lie down, curl up and sleep until someone eventually comes looking for him.
He wishes Seunghyun were here with him. He misses the way things were before, when they would be facing the wrath of the company together.
Jiyong lets out a choked sob at a distant memory, years ago, when they got one of the worst scoldings of their career after getting caught kissing outside Seunghyun’s villa, too drunk and in love to wait until they were safely behind closed doors.
He remembers sitting with his head bowed in shame, listening to Hyunsuk repeatedly tell him how much money the company paid out to the paparazzi who took the photo. In his memory he sees Seunghyun touching his foot with his, nudging him repeatedly throughout. Jiyong remembers sneaking glances at Seunghyun and feeling simultaneously grateful and shattered that he looked just as scared as he was.
Seunghyun. Jiyong feels his heart rate slow back down just a fraction as clarity returns to him. Seunghyun’s villa is within walking distance. Sort of. He keeps an extra phone there in the nightstand that they both have access to.
Venturing back out into UN Village is risky this time of night, what with all the opportunistic tabloid photographers lurking about hoping to catch high-profile people in the midst of a midnight tryst. Right now, Jiyong is past the point of caring; he can endure whatever consequences come his way as long as he can spend the night curled up in Seunghyun’s sheets, wrapped in the comfort of his scent in his absence.
And so he picks himself up and forces his body to carry him back down the elevator to the lobby, nearly tripping over the same weirdly out-of-place planter on the way, and out onto the street. He doesn’t stop, the streetlights and lingering pedestrians becoming an indistinguishable blur on the periphery of his vision, forcing himself to keep going until the familiar, comforting sight of Seunghyun’s villa stands before him like a lighthouse calling a sailor lost at sea home.
Jiyong shuffles towards the door wearily, fantasizing about Seunghyun’s perfectly plush bed and the paintings hung up about the room. His mom comes in once a week to clean up the place, so he knows it’ll be nice and clean.
There’s a moment when he’s entering Seunghyun’s pin at the keypad that he fears that this nightmare will get worse and he’ll have somehow changed even Seunghyun’s passcode, but that moment is short-lived. The lock chimes cheerily, the light flashing green and Jiyong hears the sweet sound of the lock turning.
He sighs in relief when he pushes the door open and is greeted with the cool darkness of the entranceway. Jiyong locks the door behind him and slides down to the ground against it, pressing a hand to his chest to slow his racing heart. I’m safe now. I can still fix this.
Jiyong steals a pair of cushy house slippers from the hall closet, giving his aching feet some much-needed relief as he shuffles through the house in search of Seunghyun’s bedroom in the dark.
Before he can make it past the living room, the sound of sliding doors stops him in his tracks. The sleepiness that took over his body the minute he stepped inside leaves in an instant. He strains his hearing.
Is that…footsteps?
Jiyong’s stomach drops out of his body. This time he might actually throw up; there’s only so much nauseating fear one can handle in such a short period of time.
His mind runs through every possible scenario.
A sasaeng? It wouldn’t be the first time one of them had managed to worm their way too close for comfort—it would be easy to take advantage of Seunghyun’s absence to break in and snoop around. A burglar? Same reasoning, Seunghyun is a high-profile celebrity with an incredibly valuable art collection displayed in his home. Not great options, but options Jiyong can handle. Seunghyun has a sophisticated security system that he can access without having a phone to call for help.
Another possibility is that one of Seunghyun’s family members is staying the night for whatever reason. Maybe his mother missing her son, or his sister doing some sort of upkeep on Seunghyun’s collection. Jiyong is close with Seunghyun’s family, but not close enough to let them see him in this state, nor to endure them asking uncomfortable questions like Why come here first before going to anyone else? or Why did Seunghyun take a day off to spend with you instead of us? That possibility makes Jiyong sick more than anything. Seunghyun still hasn't told his family about them. The last thing he needs is for them to suspect him more.
Jiyong darts to the opposite wall to the alarm, cleverly hidden behind an abstract piece protruding from the wall. “Who’s there?” He calls out, inwardly cursing himself when he’s unable to control the way his voice shakes.
There’s no answer save for the shuffling of footsteps getting closer. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Someone’s broken in. If it were Seunghyun’s mom or his sister they would have recognized his voice and said something. Even a sasaeng would know it was him.
Heart in his throat, Jiyong fumbles for the call button, getting his thumb poised and ready to press it as soon as whatever stranger is lurking in his boyfriend’s villa shows himself.
The sound becomes clearer, slippers dragging on the floor tiling, coming straight from the corridor between the living room and the bedroom. There’s something about it that tugs at Jiyong’s awareness.
Incomprehensibly, his rapidly racing heart slows, just barely.
But it's not really incomprehensible. Because Jiyong knows those footsteps. He’s listened to them for almost half his life–sneaking back into the dorm late at night after going out to meet up with his secret girlfriend, coming back to bed from the bathroom and slipping under the covers with Jiyong, or puttering about in the kitchen attempting to put something edible together.
Even then his body resists making the connection. It doesn't make any sense.
Jiyong opens his mouth to call out to the intruder again but stops, freezing with his jaw hanging open.
Because Seunghyun is standing there in the threshold of the hallway, ruffled from sleep with his hair sticking up in all directions.
Seunghyun doesn't seem to have registered his presence, groaning and swaying on his feet like he does when he's interrupted in the middle of a vivid dream.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jiyong blurts out, voice pitched to a borderline hysterical register. Fuck borderline—he is hysterical.
Even in the darkness, he can see Seunghyun visibly startle at the sudden sound of his voice. He fumbles for the switch and flips it on. When he sees Jiyong in the light, his eyes widen, jaw turning slack.
For a moment they stare at each other in silence. Jiyong blinks, taking in Seunghyun’s pajama-clad figure and his messy hair.
Hair that is a vibrant purple.
And long.
Jiyong feels like someone has reached into his brain and turned him off like a piece of machinery that has lost its use. He can’t comprehend the sight in front of him, so he speaks before he can think to stop himself. “Have you lost your damn mind?” He shouts.
Seunghyun flinches at the raised volume at first, but then Jiyong watches unfathomably as the shock on his features abruptly twists into anger. “You’re one to talk!” He shouts back. It’s Jiyong’s turn to flinch. His heart rate picks right back up and pounds heavily against his ribcage. “I told you last time not to pull this shit again.”
Jiyong opens his mouth to shoot back a rebuttal but wait-what? Seunghyun isn’t supposed to be here. How could he possibly be here right now? This has to be some crazy, stress-induced dream that he’s fallen into, his mind so exhausted and anxious he can’t force himself to wake up even as he becomes aware of it.
When Seunghyun receives no response to his bewildering provocation, he crosses the room swiftly, agitation radiating off him in waves.
Dumbfounded and, unexpectedly, frightened, Jiyong backs up into the wall behind him. The sweet, melancholy Seunghyun who’d given him that letter as a gesture of his devotion just a few hours ago is nowhere to be found. This Seunghyun is all wrong. He hasn't looked at Jiyong like this, this angrily, since they were much, much younger people.
Seunghyun speaks again before Jiyong can gather his wits.
“Are you listening to me?” Seunghyun’s eyes are wide, wild with fury. “What the hell is wrong with you, huh?–breaking into my house at four in the morning and putting on this…this act.” He gestures at Jiyong, who notices belatedly that his eyes have started to water. He swallows heavily, quickly growing indignant. What is Seunghyun talking about?
“Breaking into your house?” Jiyong responds, more confused than angry, now. “I have the code that you gave me? I just—,” he chews at a persistent hangnail on his thumb. “I don’t know what just happened, but I woke up outside without my phone or my wallet and I can’t get back into my apartment so I came here to use the spare phone—.”
Seunghyun scoffs, exasperated. He eyes Jiyong warily, arms crossed over his broad chest. Jiyong’s gaze catches on the strands of his dyed hair, falling down to the tops of his eyebrows where just a few hours before it had been too short for Jiyong to run his hands through, sticking straight up out of his scalp. “You look unwell. Are you having some sort of episode?”
That snaps Jiyong out of his confused, circulating thoughts, his indignation quickly turning to confused anger. “Are you?” Jiyong sputters. “Why are you yelling at me? What is all this, hyung?!” He tugs at a strand of Seunghyun’s dyed hair.
He’s cut off by Seunghyun shoving his hand away from him, reeling back as if burned by his touch. “Don't,” Seunghyun says through grinding teeth.
Jiyong throws his hands up in frustration, every ounce of patience in his body drained from the rapid turn of events this past hour. “I don't understand why you're talking to me like I’m crazy. You're not even supposed to be here, Seunghyun. I mean, do you even know the consequences of leaving the base without permission in your position? You could get charged with desertion. And let's not even get started on whatever the fuck is on your head right now.” His voice has raised to match Seunghyun’s, if not touch more frantic. “Are you trying to desert? Good fucking luck with that–as if they're not still blasting your face all over the fucking news every hour of every day.” He resorts to insults to hide the hurt that stabs into his gut at the thought, at the idea that Seunghyun could have suddenly decided to up and leave everything behind–everyone behind. Leave him behind.
His words have put a crack in Seunghyun’s anger. He furrows his thick eyebrows and takes yet another step away from Jiyong, his eyes traveling all over his form. “Deserting?” He lets out a little disbelieving huff. “What are you talking about?” Jiyong watches his gaze flick to the emergency call button he’s standing next to, then around the rest of the living room to seek out the others.
“Well!” Jiyong flaps a hand frantically. “What else would you call it?”
Seunghyun squints at him, uneasy. “Jiyong,” he says carefully, like he’s simultaneously trying not to blow a fuse and trying not to frighten Jiyong. “I think there’s something very wrong with you right now, and you need to leave and call someone for help—.”
This time it’s Jiyong’s turn to lose his temper. “No, stop. You will not make me feel crazy right now. Not when you’re trying to leave me and go who knows where! I don’t-I can’t believe you’re doing this to me right now,” he chokes. All the pent-up emotion from the past year bubbles back up to the surface. The night he’d spent with Seunghyun had given him some reassurance, but now it all flies right out the window.
Seunghyun’s expression closes off, all traces of emotion abruptly erased from his expressive features. “I won’t ask again. Please leave. Or I’ll call someone to get you out. I don't think you want another media circus on your hands so soon after the last one.”
Jiyong balks. It's like Seunghyun, the love of his life, the man who tells him shitty jokes to make him laugh and leaves him love notes in the form of old artwork, has been inexplicably replaced with this hostile shell. Jiyong feels the latent ache that lingers in his chest swell and push at the frayed edges of his nerves.
“I don’t understand,” he says quietly.
Jiyong steps back into Seunghyun’s space, wanting to grab him and shake some sense into him. Seunghyun moves further away as he does, coming to stop under one of the overhead lights, putting his face into sharper relief.
It’s then that Jiyong realizes it’s not just his hair and this uncharacteristically closed-off personality that is different. He looks at Seunghyun, really looks at him and everything is wrong.
The man before him is undeniably Seunghyun, but his features are subtly just…different. It’s so unnerving that Jiyong feels the adrenaline spiking sharply inside his body, feeling very much like he’s the guileless protagonist in a horror film encountering his lover possessed by a malevolent spirit.
Jiyong inhales shakily. “What’s happened to you? I-.”
Seunghyun cuts him off, still watching him with that blank, unreadable expression. “Whatever else you’re going to say—don’t. You’re going to regret it once you’re in your right mind.”
The next minute is a blur. Seunghyun unceremoniously guides Jiyong to the door with a palm to the small of his back. His whole body heavy, Jiyong can’t do much else but allow it to happen. Time melts the very air around him, as if he’s been superimposed into a Dali painting, his body bleeding the blur of colors that is the world.
And then the door is shut in his face. And Jiyong is left alone.
His whole body feels numb. He stares down at the private road to Seunghyun’s villa, at the street below and the river alongside it. It's unseasonably cold outside, now that he’s able to stop and really feel it. He folds his arms around his thinning frame, shivering.
Jiyong drops down to sit on one of the steps, knees tucked to his chest. The bottom of his foot throbs; he still can't bring himself to look at the injury.
Everything feels numb and dull. Despite everything that just happened, Jiyong still wants to barge back inside and explain himself to Seunghyun, to demand explanations from him.
But he doesn’t. He drags himself back up to his feet—still wearing Seunghyun’s cushy house slippers— and trudges down to the street.
Deep down, he knows this isn’t some strangely vivid and convoluted dream, that he won’t wake up and find himself safe and back in bed with Iye. Even still, he has to smother it down with denial, because otherwise what else is he to do? It feels like someone has suddenly dropped him into the middle of the ocean, with no way to get back to shore.
Maybe Seunghyun is right. Maybe he is having some kind of episode. He knows something in him broke irreparably during his solo tour, leaving a festering wound that won’t heal.
More than anything, Jiyong wishes he could go back in time, back to the weeks leading up to Seunghyun’s enlistment. He should have been a better friend, a better partner. To all of them.
He doesn’t know how far he walks lost in his reverie. At some point, he’d left the strictly residential part of the neighborhood and entered a street lined with shuttered shops and advertising billboards scattered haphazardly above him.
Jiyong sighs and slumps against a lamp post. This is it, he thinks. This time, he knows for sure, he won’t get back up again. He can’t. His body won’t go any further.
Staring up at an electronic billboard listlessly, Jiyong slides down to the sidewalk. The advertisement on it shows an actress promoting a skincare product, but it quickly changes to something else.
It’s a perfume ad with an idol holding the bottle. Jiyong recognizes it because it’s for Frédéric Malle.
Jiyong blinks, uncomprehending.
That’s him on the billboard holding the bottle. His hair is shorter and black and his face is a little bit more filled out. Softer, than he is now. But undeniably him—it even says G-DRAGON in bold white type beside his face.
What?
His heart pounds in his chest and his breathing becomes labored. What is happening to me?
“Jiyong?”
He doesn’t have to turn to look to know that it’s Seunghyun behind him. He doesn’t respond. He can hear the blood pulsing in his eardrums.
Seunghyun’s blurred form blocks the billboard out of his line of sight. Jiyong looks up at him, vision coming back into focus. His thick eyebrows are furrowed together, wrinkling up in the middle.
“Jiyong. What year do you think it is?” Seunghyun asks, slowly, like he’s a frightened cat, backed into a corner with his hackles raised.
Jiyong frowns. “What?”
“What day is it, today?” Seunghyun asks. He’s standing so far away from Jiyong. Out of his reach.
“It’s October 29th, 2017,” Jiyong says, confused. His eyes flit to the advertisement barely visible over Seunghyun’s shoulder. “Or, I guess it’s the 30th now? We were just spending the day together since you couldn’t get time off for your birthday, remember?” After a beat of silence, he tries again, quieter, “don’t you remember?”
Seunghyun sets his jaw. “I believe you,” his gaze travels up to Jiyong’s hair, to the tattoos visible on his arms. He sighs. “But you’re wrong. Today is the tenth of April. It’s 2024.”
Jiyong’s gaze snaps back to meet Seunghyun’s, but he looks away, down at his own slipper-clad feet. “What?” He lets out a little disbelieving laugh. “Whatever sick fucking prank you’re playing on me isn’t funny anymore, hyung. I can’t.”
“Jiyong,” Seunghyun says. There’s a hint, just a hint, of that gentleness in his voice that always sweetens the vowels of his name when he speaks it. “This is going to sound crazy—fuck, I’m not even entirely sure I’m not dreaming right now—I think you might have…” He lets out an aggrieved huff. “Somehow traveled here from the past?”
A car passes them on the street, headlights washing the pair of them in bright light before it recedes into shadow.
“What!?”