[Nyongtory] [GRI]Reunion

Chapter 16: Finding Journey

If a person has flavor, Jiyong's must be strong coffee with crumbs of honey bread. He's sweet and bitter but in opposite end of each other that you can't tell which one is the real Jiyong, until you have a taste and see with your own two eyes that the collision is a whole complicated process of serving tea; authentic and mesmerizing.

***

"You're spacing out," it was a hot day. With a little miracle and persistency, they were finally granted a week off. Seungri was wearing his home suit –white tight shirt and shorts.

"I was thinking," Jiyong blinked then yawned.

It, Seungri noticed, was the third time in 2 minutes. "You didn't sleep?"

Jiyong shrugged. "I guess I'm just bored."

"Let's go out then?" quickly bounced to his feet, Seungri thought of things they could do and places to visit. He hadn't show him his latest interest, hadn't tell him yet about his newfound plan.

"No," Jiyong tugged on his sleeves, pulled him back to sit beside him. His head moved lazily to lay on Seungri's shoulder, wet against his thin clothes. "We should just stay here."

"I thought you're bored?"

Jiyong hummed. "Just stay with me."

He should've realized that Jiyong never said they should be home.

***

"What's wrong with you, hyung?"

Jiyong stumbled right into his arms, gripping tight. "I don't know."

Seungri frowned. It wasn't the first time he witnessed Jiyong came home drunk, it certainly wasn't the last time either, he's sure. But something was off. The way Jiyong talked, the way words slurred out from his mouth, the way his eyes avoided Seungri's.

"Is it about the disbandment?"

They had talked, they had decided, they had planned it together. If there's something Seungri was so sure about, it wasn't his relationship with Jiyong; it was his bond with his bandmates. And Jiyong had known about it, long before the others did, even longer before the President.

BIGBANG was Jiyong's heart, despite his struggle against it in the beginning. It's in Jiyong's head, within his fingertips and ran in his veins like blood.

"Maybe," Jiyong lifted his face to see Seungri. "I hate parting ways."

Seungri should've known that Jiyong wasn't talking about disbandment at all.

***

Jiyong slipped like water. He was a flood Seungri didn't manage to escape then one day he's nothing but droplets.

And Seungri couldn't catch him, not even a single part of him because Jiyong had planned it like that.

He should've understand.

***

"You think I wouldn't know?"

Jiyong remained silent, admiring his burning cigarette without actually tasting it.

Seungri choked on his own breath. "Why are you avoiding me, hyung?"

Jiyong reached for him and it's their first touch in a month because Jiyong needed to go overseas for his fashion business and what not. Seungri waited for his first sentence because Jiyong hadn't talk to him for that long too.

"I don't know," Jiyong's voice was small and he snuggled to Seungri's embrace like it was the safest place he knew.

Seungri should've seen the tears through the smoke surrounding them like a blanket.

***

"Are you nervous?"

Jiyong shrugged. "Are you?"

Seungri watched the make-up noonas running around them like bees, a man with walkie-talkie tripped on Youngbae's abandoned shirt on the floor, Daesung entertained their hairstylist with his choreography for Look At Me, Gwisoon, two of their managers taking pictures of food sent by VIPs, Seunghyun who just emerged from the bathroom to take his phone then running back to the stall in hurry, and finally at Jiyong.

"Yes," he said. "I am."

"Me too," Jiyong smiled bitterly. "Last stage, Seungri."

"It was nice to work with you, G-Dragon."

"I wish I could say the same."

"Why not?" Seungri shrugged, their break-up still all around him like rope. "I wasn't a nice bandmate?"

"I don't say goodbye," Jiyong shook his head. "I can't."

Seungri turned around and didn't see Jiyong reached for the empty spot he just walked away from.

***

Once, Seungri had a nightmare.

Jiyong was a caterpillar he couldn't keep in a jar, no matter how hard he tried. So he let him be, watched it crawled on the floor, on his desk, under his blanket, or sometimes along Seungri's arms.

One day, it's suddenly disappeared and Seungri's heart slowed down as he looked around. World had change color into ugly orange, there were fallen stars scattered on the ground like fire.

Under an abandoned tree, he found a cocoon.

So Seungri waited and waited for days, for the only friend he had to return.

He had hoped that this time, it would stay. Not in a jar, not in a box, just stay with him.

Seungri forgot that butterflies had wings.

***

Tell me your secret.

Seungri's thumb lingered on the display of date the text been sent to him. Sender name display had been changed thousand times, depending on his mood, but this final time it's clearly written Kwon Jiyong.

Years, tears, memories, and so many secrets had been said and shared already. But today, as he pressed delete, he would keep the last one. The only one he would take with him, the one he could make a space for.

You, he whispered. His flight was soon to be boarding.

He wrapped his secret in a piece of broken heart, carrying it along like a weapon although he knew best that in time, it'd be the only comforter he needed.

Seungri vowed he would never tell anyone, the secret he wanted to be part of, the love he could never let go.

***

Why?