[Nyongtory] [GRI]Reunion

Chapter 27: Stay, Stop

When he left his hometown to pursue his dreams, Seungri didn't think about coming back. Not yet, he's tell himself as his legs stood up again for another try, another practice, another day. Not yet.

When he left his country to forget his dreams, Seungri heard his heart said the same. Not yet, as he counted the steps toward a new place he didn't wish to go. Not yet, except this time, it's about leaving instead of coming back.

***

The question renders him speechless.

"What?"

"Stay the night," Jiyong repeats. "Here."

"I –we can't."

"Why not?"

The question came too fast and with so much pressure it suffocate them both, hangs in the cloud like umbrella of fire. Answer is coming to his tongue but every fiber in his body refuses to acknowledge it because it'd be true; because then, everything will fall apart once again.

"Why not, Seungri?" Jiyong's voice cracked it stabs Seungri in the chest. "Do you hate me?"

Can he? Will he?

"Because I love you," there's no room for hesitation between his words. "And that I always will."

"I can't lose you," but even so Jiyong knows it's slipping passed the gap of his fingers. That even with Seungri being so close and he's holding him as tight as he can, it's a losing battle. Not again.

"And I can't lose you," Seungri's voice hits his shoulder. Even if that means I have to lose us.

"You won't, I'll do something –"

"Like giving up on your dreams?"

"You are –"

"I can't," Seungri feels like he's underwater and surface is too far he can't even see the reflection of the sun. "If you lose your dreams, you won't be you anymore."

It's true, they both know that.

"I can get through it," Jiyong takes Seungri's hand in his. "I will."

"How would you stop dreaming? How would you stop singing? How would you step back from that world?"

Jiyong chokes a sob but Seungri's eyes are full of tears and there's thunderstorm ringing in his ears he can't see past the sadness.

"Exactly," Seungri says. "You don't."

"Seungri –"

"And you won't."

"Please?"

"Promise me, hyung. Promise me you won't."

"I can't lose you, I really can't, Seungri..."

"You won't," he breathes Jiyong, it feels like living again. "You know where to find me, you always know."

***

What comes after disaster? You know how to take precautions. You know that it could come anytime and you put up your best barricade of defense to protect what you have, what you want to save. You wait and wait.

But what you do when it's over? When thunderstorm is gone and earthquake stops and silence hung in the air and moon shaped wrong? Do you pick up leftovers and build a new thing? Do you walk away so that you don't have to see the broken pieces?

Do you start anew? Do you continue?

***

"Who is that?"