[oneshot] with a little luck we could get away from where we are
Title: with a little luck we could get away from where we are
Pairing: big bang ot5
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, slice-of-life, mild humor
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: big bang absconds. that's it, that's the fic. 3,095 words.
They run away after the last Alive Tour stop, Hong Kong still chanting their names as they go.
It is not as if they have never considered the idea before, and it is not as if they are leaving forever. The combination of Seungri's scandals (blown out of proportion as scandals are wont to be), Jiyong's solo promotions (as harrowing as they ever were the first time around, physically if not mentally), the drastic uptick of sasaeng encounters in the past year, and the prospect of a new time zone and twenty-hour transit cycle every week for the next three months-that specific mixture of stress and exhaustion is what's so caustic. By the end of the summer, Daesung's reached another impasse with his latest efforts at a solo album and says he really does need a change of pace. Youngbae quietly agrees.
Seunghyun, then, is the one they have to convince. He doesn't pull the "hyung, and therefore lone voice of reason" card that often (usually because it's never really been effective), so when he does, it seems all the more dramatic. "I have Alumnus to think about," he says. "And what about my solo album? Look, I'm still doing all of this even with my goddamned hand cut open. I can't believe you guys would be so irresponsible-"
This is about when Jiyong reminds him that their unsuccessful attempt in 2009 was Seunghyun's brainchild in the first place, so if he didn't want to look like a hypocrite then he should probably rethink his strategy to guilt them out of their plans. "Which won't be possible, by the way," he concludes drily. "We'll do it after the tour's over, and before the YG Family concert. Does that assuage your concerns?"
"I wouldn't say 2009 was unsuccessful," Seunghyun points out, ignoring the last question. "They did give us a month and a half off."
"I was the only one who left Asia," Jiyong says. He crosses his arms and stares hard at Seunghyun. "Anyway, is a vacation even a vacation with an army of managers and handlers still breathing down our necks? I mean, I love them, but I just need to get away. From everything. Just for a little bit."
Seunghyun's mouth twists.
"Aren't you tired, hyung?" Daesung presses.
"I think we deserve a vacation, however brief it might be," Seungri pipes up. "We've had a pretty productive year."
"Thank you, maknae," says Jiyong. "Look, hyung, even Seungri agrees. He's not turning us in like last time. Are you?" His smile goes wooden. Seungri shakes his head quickly.
Seunghyun exhales. "We should tell the manager hyungs at least," he finally says, a slow smile tugging at his mouth. Jiyong lets out a little whoop and Daesung claps him on the shoulder.
"No managers, though," Jiyong says with an air of finality. "The less people who know about this, the better."
Youngbae frowns. "Won't they be concerned? They'll wonder where we went."
"We should leave them a short note before we leave," Seunghyun insists. "We don't have to tell them where we're going. Just that it was all planned, so they know we weren't like, kidnapped or something."
"Fine," Jiyong says, waving a hand. "Okay, so it's decided. We'll leave right after Hong Kong. We can figure out of the other details later."
"We don't have to sign in blood or anything, do we?" Youngbae asks, wry.
Seungri spits in his hand enthusiastically and holds it out. "We can shake on it!"
Seunghyun laughs, shakes his head. Jiyong wrinkles his nose and shoves Seungri away to wash his hands.
They spend their last night in the hotel room in Thailand debating where to go.
"It needs to be somewhere where nobody knows who we are," Jiyong says loudly, breaking through their separate conversations and slamming Seungri's laptop shut. Everyone snorts.
"And where might that be?" Seunghyun asks. "Antarctica? Come on, Jiyong, that isn't practical."
"It'll be the middle of winter, too," Daesung adds.
"Some place warm, then," Seungri says. "The Caribbean? Australia? We could go back to New Zealand, that was fun, Daesung hasn't been-"
Jiyong shakes his head. "All of those places are too accessible. They're all out in the open. It'd be too easy for us to be recognized and found."
"You're asking for something impossible," Youngbae says.
"Unless you want to go to the moon," Seunghyun adds. "This isn't going to work if you want-"
"Wait," Jiyong says slowly. "Wait-Antarctica."
"Jiyong, no," Seunghyun counters hastily. "We're not going to Antarctica. Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm pretty sure you'd need a billion permits to even get there on your own," Daesung says. "Plus, Seunghyun-hyung would freeze to death."
Seunghyun shoots him an unimpressed look. "Thanks."
"We aren't going to Siberia either, by the way," Youngbae says at the look on Jiyong's face. "So you can just rule out that alternative. We're trying to take a vacation and relax, not exile ourselves."
"If you all would let me finish," Jiyong says pointedly, "I was thinking-Iceland."
"Just the name sounds terrible," Seungri says.
Jiyong pulls his phone out and does a couple of quick Naver searches. "Don't be fooled, Seungri. The temperature doesn't go very far below zero in the coldest months of winter. Plus, it helps that it's beautiful, and it's secluded enough that fans shouldn't be much of a problem." He pauses, scrolling. "We won't even need visas to get into the country, just passports."
"You sound like a travel agent," Daesung says.
"I'm telling you, it's perfect."
"I do know Björk," Seunghyun offers, which brings the conversation to a grinding halt.
"Cute, eccentric singer noonas with eclectic creative output and a penchant for violently-colored clothing," Jiyong says after a moment, rolling his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Hey, hyung," Daesung says, grinning. "See if she'll let us borrow her house."
Seungri manages to acquire copies of the layout of the Asia-World Expo venue in Hong Kong, and then it's like they're planning some sort of elaborate heist, stealing the king's diamonds instead of just trying to map the easiest routes out.
"Isn't that what this is, though? A heist?" Seunghyun asks after Jiyong voices the thought out loud. "We're stealing ourselves."
"Poetic," Jiyong says drily. "You should figure out how to work that into your album."
Seunghyun sends him a rude gesture and flips to the next grid.
They smuggle disguises into their luggage whenever they get the chance, and Seunghyun has the tickets by the time they hit Malaysia, Hyeyoon's name on all the transactions processed. "Hong Kong to Iceland, with a layover in Amsterdam, two weeks there, and then back to Seoul via Copenhagen and, again, Amsterdam," he says, handing them to Jiyong for safekeeping. "Just in time for Christmas. Hope sajangnim and company don't kill us, but we can think about that when we get there."
"Living arrangements?" Youngbae asks.
"Sorry, Daesung, I couldn't get Bjork's island," Seunghyun says.
Daesung mimes tear tracks down his face. "I'm heartbroken, really."
"We're registered under my name at a guesthouse in Reykjavik that'll let us pay upfront in cash this time of year," he continues. "As you can imagine, it's kind of the off season for them.
Seungri cocks this head to the side. "We're actually doing this, aren't we?" he says abruptly, gazing around at all of them.
Seunghyun raises his eyebrows. "You aren't backing out now, are you?"
"No," Seungri says, quiet in a way that makes Jiyong believe him. He grins, eyes crinkling. "Just excited. I'm glad we get to do this. That we're doing it together, I mean."
"Don't get all sappy on us now," Jiyong grumbles, but he's smiling too.
The escape part of their great escape goes off without a hitch. Seungri makes a huge commotion at the other end of the venue and Jiyong steals their passports, replaces it with the note. (Gone fishing, it says. Be back soon.) They all make it out to the exit point at the back of the building. Daesung laughs and Youngbae shakes his head when Seunghyun shows up with a rubber nose and mustache pasted on his face as a disguise.
It's a fifteen-minute walk to the airport, the straps of their backpacks digging in through the layers of clothing. The man who checks them in doesn't seem to realize who they are. There's a close call when they go through security and Seungri has to remove his facemask, but it's nearly one in the morning and most of the terminal is deserted. The lady who pats him down looks startled and Seungri grins, raises a finger to his lips.
Jiyong's heart pounds in his throat as they wait at the gate. Youngbae's cell phone starts ringing, and he turns it off without a word. The minutes tick by. It becomes, suddenly, difficult to swallow. Daesung's eyes keep darting around and even Seunghyun looks like he's on edge. Jiyong doesn't ease into his seat until the plane finally takes off, Hong Kong's bright lights winking a goodbye through the window.
"It worked," Seunghyun breathes, grabbing Jiyong's wrist.
"Yeah," Jiyong says. He can't wipe the grin off his face. "It did."
The place they've rented is a quaint little villa in a less populated part of town, twenty minutes away from the airport. They'd all been restricted to one backpack each for simplicity's sake, so the first thing they do is go out to a grocery store two blocks away and stock up on food.
"We should establish some ground rules," Jiyong announces, when everything is packed away. Seungri's aiming his phone's camera at a painting on the wall above the couch, and Jiyong grabs it, slides the SIM card out before Seungri even has a chance to protest. "No Me2Day," he says sternly. "In fact, we should probably just give up long distance communication altogether, don't you think? I'll turn the router off. You can still keep your phones to tell time and take pictures and shit."
"That's fair," Daesung says. They all pass Jiyong their SIM cards.
"Alright," Youngbae agrees. He exchanges a look with Seunghyun that Jiyong can't parse-and then Seunghyun's reaching into Jiyong's bag and pulling out his latest writing notebook, already in tatters.
"No music, either."
Jiyong gapes at them. "What-no!" His eyes narrow. "Wow, hyung. I didn't know you could move that quickly.
"Ha-fucking-ha."
Youngbae takes the notebook from Seunghyun and tucks it into his hoodie pocket. "If you really want to do this vacation thing, we're going to do it right. You can always write when we get back."
"Writing helps me relax," Jiyong protests.
Daesung (badly) disguises his laugh as a cough. "Don't give us that," Seunghyun says, brows hiked up.
"Fine," he bites out, and tosses himself mulishly into an armchair. "Have it your way."
It's the first time in longer than Jiyong cares to admit that he's been able to sleep for more than three hours at a time-which means, of course, that he passes out for thirty. When he finally resurfaces, mouth cottony, eyelashes so gummed up he can barely open them, Seunghyun's balanced on the other side of the huge mattress. His wet hair's falling into his eyes, and there's a book in his lap. Jiyong gropes around blindly for his phone. The time blinks up at him, a glaring eight in the morning.
"What are you doing here?" he tries. Seunghyun grins at the dry croak of his voice.
"I was just making sure you didn't choke on your own drool, mostly." He snaps his book shut and walks to the door. "Daesung made breakfast before they went out to the lagoon, if you want to eat."
Jiyong totters out an hour later, stomach rumbling. The steamed egg's gone cold so he runs it through the microwave and eats it slowly with a large stack of toast. Seunghyun steals sips of his orange juice.
Jiyong piles the dishes in the sink and wipes the counters down. The view out the window of the adjoined living room is like something straight out of a snow globe, huge flakes drifting down and blanketing everything in clean, lovely white.
Iceland is, in a word, exquisite. They go out to the Blue Lagoon in the mornings, even Seunghyun (which might have to do with the fact that they're all in swimming trunks this time instead of Speedos). Lunch happens in town, and on the days where they aren't out skiing or haven't signed up for tours to see the volcanoes or natural geysers, they loiter around indoors doing stupid shit like play Dibi Dibi Dip until their arms glow red or challenge each other to Mario Kart battles that invariably end up with a controller tossed across the room.
"Aren't you glad you came?" Jiyong asks Seunghyun after a week's gone by, as they watch the sun set over the Elliðaá River, a canvas of pink and magenta and orange bleeding together in the sky.
Seunghyun sends him an amused look and doesn't say a word, just fiddles with the little Viking keychain on his phone that he'd gotten at one of the open-air markets, watches the light fade into the horizon.
At night, Jiyong drags them into the city to go pub-crawling. Seungri downs two beers in the first half hour and promptly turns even gooier than he already is, if it's possible. He giggles into Seunghyun's ear every two seconds and glues his arm permanently around Youngbae's neck. "You turning twenty is the best thing that ever happened to us," Daesung says, sardonic as all hell.
Jiyong slips into the crush of people on the dance floor at the third nightclub they go to, and is surprised to find the others joining him just as the DJ puts Gangnam Style on.
"Jesus," Seunghyun calls over the noise, cracking up as everyone in the bar goes absolutely berserk.
Jiyong yells himself hoarse, arms aching from being raised for so long, and his heartbeat feels like it's recalibrating to the bone-deep thrum of bass in each new song. Youngbae and Seungri's grinning faces rematerialize in and out of the crowd. Seunghyun and his shitty dancing reveal themselves in all their terrible glory when the strobe lights flash bright and hot. Three girls are dancing up on Daesung when Jiyong sees him next, and he sends him a discreet thumbs up that he's not sure Daesung catches-but no matter. Jiyong closes his eyes and lets the music take him.
Three of them nearly topple into the harbor on their way home, and Seunghyun tells him later that, like the kind and responsible hyung that he is, he'd had to play glorified shepherd dog to get them all going in the right direction, let alone back to the house.
"Doing God's work, truly," Jiyong drawls, nursing his hangover with a strong cup of coffee, and narrowly avoids Seunghyun's swat with a duck that makes his head swim.
On their last night in the country, they see the Northern Lights.
It isn't planned-they're actually on their way back from another tour when Youngbae nudges his shoulder and points out the window, eyes wide.
At first, Jiyong isn't quite sure what he's seeing, but Daesung mumbles aurora borealis in the seat behind him and Seunghyun presses his cheek flat against the glass, gazes up at the swirling loops of green and red. Behind Youngbae, even Seungri's struck speechless.
The rest of the ride back into the city is quiet, ribbons of brilliant light still peeking down from high above them.
"Aren't you glad you came?" he asks again, when he and Seunghyun are sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, counting bags and trying to eat the rest of the food before they have to leave. Everyone else has gone to bed already. The house is very still and very warm.
Seunghyun rubs absently at the long scar on the back of his hand. "Yeah," he says, elbows on his knees, face balanced on a palm, the beginnings of a smile flitting around his lips. "What kind of question is that? Of course I am."
His stomach sinks when they come out of customs and see Namgook and Byungyung leading a horde of handlers straight at them. He sets his jaw, though, and strides forward, a hand clenched around the strap of his backpack. "Before you say anything-"
"Before you say anything," Namgook interrupts drily, "you really aren't as sneaky as you think you are, Jiyong."
"What?"
Namgook turns to Seunghyun. "You didn't think Hyeyoon wouldn't talk, did you?"
"Shit," he says, rubbing the back of his head.
"You didn't think you would've actually been able to escape if we didn't know about it, did you?"
In retrospect, it was a little too easy. "But-" Jiyong splutters. "Wait, so you just let us go off on our own? What if we'd been killed?"
Namgook points wordlessly behind them. Boram shuffles out of the baggage area with a bulging suitcase and a jaunty wave. "The others are still waiting for their stuff."
Daesung shakes his head, a suspicious look on his face. "Do you work for the government, hyung? Are you spies?"
"You guys just have no sense of situational awareness, I think," Byungyung says, rolling his eyes. "Junggeun said tailing you was laughably easy."
"Oh," Jiyong mutters. "Thanks."
Photos from the trip end up littered all over the dorm and the studio, tacked onto the fridge or the Polaroid wall. A resin magnet of Iceland gets plastered onto the Yamaha mixer. A corner of Seunghyun's wall of collectibles is populated now with little Nordic figures, a couple of mountain trolls, and inexplicably, a pewter drinking horn.
Jiyong gets his notebook back from Youngbae and scribbles in it, pages of pages of words he'll probably never even use. "Aren't you glad we went?" Seunghyun asks, grinning at him from the swivel chair.
He chucks a pencil at Seunghyun's head that's dodged easily. "You know I'd do it all over again if I thought we could get away with it." He pauses and chews on a fingernail, head rattling with beats and hooks, concert plans and concept ideas. The clutter doesn't feel bad. There is, however temporarily, no undercurrent of weariness-just a blazing desire to keep moving forward. "But, hey. It's good to be back."
"Yeah," Seunghyun says. He hits play on the track they're working on, floods the room with sound. "Yeah, it is."
fin
A/N: title from 1000 miles per hour by ok go. a rather pointless, uneventful exercise, but it was really fun to write anyway! apologies for any errors and inconsistencies; do feel free to point any out.
Pairing: big bang ot5
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, slice-of-life, mild humor
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: big bang absconds. that's it, that's the fic. 3,095 words.
They run away after the last Alive Tour stop, Hong Kong still chanting their names as they go.
It is not as if they have never considered the idea before, and it is not as if they are leaving forever. The combination of Seungri's scandals (blown out of proportion as scandals are wont to be), Jiyong's solo promotions (as harrowing as they ever were the first time around, physically if not mentally), the drastic uptick of sasaeng encounters in the past year, and the prospect of a new time zone and twenty-hour transit cycle every week for the next three months-that specific mixture of stress and exhaustion is what's so caustic. By the end of the summer, Daesung's reached another impasse with his latest efforts at a solo album and says he really does need a change of pace. Youngbae quietly agrees.
Seunghyun, then, is the one they have to convince. He doesn't pull the "hyung, and therefore lone voice of reason" card that often (usually because it's never really been effective), so when he does, it seems all the more dramatic. "I have Alumnus to think about," he says. "And what about my solo album? Look, I'm still doing all of this even with my goddamned hand cut open. I can't believe you guys would be so irresponsible-"
This is about when Jiyong reminds him that their unsuccessful attempt in 2009 was Seunghyun's brainchild in the first place, so if he didn't want to look like a hypocrite then he should probably rethink his strategy to guilt them out of their plans. "Which won't be possible, by the way," he concludes drily. "We'll do it after the tour's over, and before the YG Family concert. Does that assuage your concerns?"
"I wouldn't say 2009 was unsuccessful," Seunghyun points out, ignoring the last question. "They did give us a month and a half off."
"I was the only one who left Asia," Jiyong says. He crosses his arms and stares hard at Seunghyun. "Anyway, is a vacation even a vacation with an army of managers and handlers still breathing down our necks? I mean, I love them, but I just need to get away. From everything. Just for a little bit."
Seunghyun's mouth twists.
"Aren't you tired, hyung?" Daesung presses.
"I think we deserve a vacation, however brief it might be," Seungri pipes up. "We've had a pretty productive year."
"Thank you, maknae," says Jiyong. "Look, hyung, even Seungri agrees. He's not turning us in like last time. Are you?" His smile goes wooden. Seungri shakes his head quickly.
Seunghyun exhales. "We should tell the manager hyungs at least," he finally says, a slow smile tugging at his mouth. Jiyong lets out a little whoop and Daesung claps him on the shoulder.
"No managers, though," Jiyong says with an air of finality. "The less people who know about this, the better."
Youngbae frowns. "Won't they be concerned? They'll wonder where we went."
"We should leave them a short note before we leave," Seunghyun insists. "We don't have to tell them where we're going. Just that it was all planned, so they know we weren't like, kidnapped or something."
"Fine," Jiyong says, waving a hand. "Okay, so it's decided. We'll leave right after Hong Kong. We can figure out of the other details later."
"We don't have to sign in blood or anything, do we?" Youngbae asks, wry.
Seungri spits in his hand enthusiastically and holds it out. "We can shake on it!"
Seunghyun laughs, shakes his head. Jiyong wrinkles his nose and shoves Seungri away to wash his hands.
They spend their last night in the hotel room in Thailand debating where to go.
"It needs to be somewhere where nobody knows who we are," Jiyong says loudly, breaking through their separate conversations and slamming Seungri's laptop shut. Everyone snorts.
"And where might that be?" Seunghyun asks. "Antarctica? Come on, Jiyong, that isn't practical."
"It'll be the middle of winter, too," Daesung adds.
"Some place warm, then," Seungri says. "The Caribbean? Australia? We could go back to New Zealand, that was fun, Daesung hasn't been-"
Jiyong shakes his head. "All of those places are too accessible. They're all out in the open. It'd be too easy for us to be recognized and found."
"You're asking for something impossible," Youngbae says.
"Unless you want to go to the moon," Seunghyun adds. "This isn't going to work if you want-"
"Wait," Jiyong says slowly. "Wait-Antarctica."
"Jiyong, no," Seunghyun counters hastily. "We're not going to Antarctica. Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm pretty sure you'd need a billion permits to even get there on your own," Daesung says. "Plus, Seunghyun-hyung would freeze to death."
Seunghyun shoots him an unimpressed look. "Thanks."
"We aren't going to Siberia either, by the way," Youngbae says at the look on Jiyong's face. "So you can just rule out that alternative. We're trying to take a vacation and relax, not exile ourselves."
"If you all would let me finish," Jiyong says pointedly, "I was thinking-Iceland."
"Just the name sounds terrible," Seungri says.
Jiyong pulls his phone out and does a couple of quick Naver searches. "Don't be fooled, Seungri. The temperature doesn't go very far below zero in the coldest months of winter. Plus, it helps that it's beautiful, and it's secluded enough that fans shouldn't be much of a problem." He pauses, scrolling. "We won't even need visas to get into the country, just passports."
"You sound like a travel agent," Daesung says.
"I'm telling you, it's perfect."
"I do know Björk," Seunghyun offers, which brings the conversation to a grinding halt.
"Cute, eccentric singer noonas with eclectic creative output and a penchant for violently-colored clothing," Jiyong says after a moment, rolling his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Hey, hyung," Daesung says, grinning. "See if she'll let us borrow her house."
Seungri manages to acquire copies of the layout of the Asia-World Expo venue in Hong Kong, and then it's like they're planning some sort of elaborate heist, stealing the king's diamonds instead of just trying to map the easiest routes out.
"Isn't that what this is, though? A heist?" Seunghyun asks after Jiyong voices the thought out loud. "We're stealing ourselves."
"Poetic," Jiyong says drily. "You should figure out how to work that into your album."
Seunghyun sends him a rude gesture and flips to the next grid.
They smuggle disguises into their luggage whenever they get the chance, and Seunghyun has the tickets by the time they hit Malaysia, Hyeyoon's name on all the transactions processed. "Hong Kong to Iceland, with a layover in Amsterdam, two weeks there, and then back to Seoul via Copenhagen and, again, Amsterdam," he says, handing them to Jiyong for safekeeping. "Just in time for Christmas. Hope sajangnim and company don't kill us, but we can think about that when we get there."
"Living arrangements?" Youngbae asks.
"Sorry, Daesung, I couldn't get Bjork's island," Seunghyun says.
Daesung mimes tear tracks down his face. "I'm heartbroken, really."
"We're registered under my name at a guesthouse in Reykjavik that'll let us pay upfront in cash this time of year," he continues. "As you can imagine, it's kind of the off season for them.
Seungri cocks this head to the side. "We're actually doing this, aren't we?" he says abruptly, gazing around at all of them.
Seunghyun raises his eyebrows. "You aren't backing out now, are you?"
"No," Seungri says, quiet in a way that makes Jiyong believe him. He grins, eyes crinkling. "Just excited. I'm glad we get to do this. That we're doing it together, I mean."
"Don't get all sappy on us now," Jiyong grumbles, but he's smiling too.
The escape part of their great escape goes off without a hitch. Seungri makes a huge commotion at the other end of the venue and Jiyong steals their passports, replaces it with the note. (Gone fishing, it says. Be back soon.) They all make it out to the exit point at the back of the building. Daesung laughs and Youngbae shakes his head when Seunghyun shows up with a rubber nose and mustache pasted on his face as a disguise.
It's a fifteen-minute walk to the airport, the straps of their backpacks digging in through the layers of clothing. The man who checks them in doesn't seem to realize who they are. There's a close call when they go through security and Seungri has to remove his facemask, but it's nearly one in the morning and most of the terminal is deserted. The lady who pats him down looks startled and Seungri grins, raises a finger to his lips.
Jiyong's heart pounds in his throat as they wait at the gate. Youngbae's cell phone starts ringing, and he turns it off without a word. The minutes tick by. It becomes, suddenly, difficult to swallow. Daesung's eyes keep darting around and even Seunghyun looks like he's on edge. Jiyong doesn't ease into his seat until the plane finally takes off, Hong Kong's bright lights winking a goodbye through the window.
"It worked," Seunghyun breathes, grabbing Jiyong's wrist.
"Yeah," Jiyong says. He can't wipe the grin off his face. "It did."
The place they've rented is a quaint little villa in a less populated part of town, twenty minutes away from the airport. They'd all been restricted to one backpack each for simplicity's sake, so the first thing they do is go out to a grocery store two blocks away and stock up on food.
"We should establish some ground rules," Jiyong announces, when everything is packed away. Seungri's aiming his phone's camera at a painting on the wall above the couch, and Jiyong grabs it, slides the SIM card out before Seungri even has a chance to protest. "No Me2Day," he says sternly. "In fact, we should probably just give up long distance communication altogether, don't you think? I'll turn the router off. You can still keep your phones to tell time and take pictures and shit."
"That's fair," Daesung says. They all pass Jiyong their SIM cards.
"Alright," Youngbae agrees. He exchanges a look with Seunghyun that Jiyong can't parse-and then Seunghyun's reaching into Jiyong's bag and pulling out his latest writing notebook, already in tatters.
"No music, either."
Jiyong gapes at them. "What-no!" His eyes narrow. "Wow, hyung. I didn't know you could move that quickly.
"Ha-fucking-ha."
Youngbae takes the notebook from Seunghyun and tucks it into his hoodie pocket. "If you really want to do this vacation thing, we're going to do it right. You can always write when we get back."
"Writing helps me relax," Jiyong protests.
Daesung (badly) disguises his laugh as a cough. "Don't give us that," Seunghyun says, brows hiked up.
"Fine," he bites out, and tosses himself mulishly into an armchair. "Have it your way."
It's the first time in longer than Jiyong cares to admit that he's been able to sleep for more than three hours at a time-which means, of course, that he passes out for thirty. When he finally resurfaces, mouth cottony, eyelashes so gummed up he can barely open them, Seunghyun's balanced on the other side of the huge mattress. His wet hair's falling into his eyes, and there's a book in his lap. Jiyong gropes around blindly for his phone. The time blinks up at him, a glaring eight in the morning.
"What are you doing here?" he tries. Seunghyun grins at the dry croak of his voice.
"I was just making sure you didn't choke on your own drool, mostly." He snaps his book shut and walks to the door. "Daesung made breakfast before they went out to the lagoon, if you want to eat."
Jiyong totters out an hour later, stomach rumbling. The steamed egg's gone cold so he runs it through the microwave and eats it slowly with a large stack of toast. Seunghyun steals sips of his orange juice.
Jiyong piles the dishes in the sink and wipes the counters down. The view out the window of the adjoined living room is like something straight out of a snow globe, huge flakes drifting down and blanketing everything in clean, lovely white.
Iceland is, in a word, exquisite. They go out to the Blue Lagoon in the mornings, even Seunghyun (which might have to do with the fact that they're all in swimming trunks this time instead of Speedos). Lunch happens in town, and on the days where they aren't out skiing or haven't signed up for tours to see the volcanoes or natural geysers, they loiter around indoors doing stupid shit like play Dibi Dibi Dip until their arms glow red or challenge each other to Mario Kart battles that invariably end up with a controller tossed across the room.
"Aren't you glad you came?" Jiyong asks Seunghyun after a week's gone by, as they watch the sun set over the Elliðaá River, a canvas of pink and magenta and orange bleeding together in the sky.
Seunghyun sends him an amused look and doesn't say a word, just fiddles with the little Viking keychain on his phone that he'd gotten at one of the open-air markets, watches the light fade into the horizon.
At night, Jiyong drags them into the city to go pub-crawling. Seungri downs two beers in the first half hour and promptly turns even gooier than he already is, if it's possible. He giggles into Seunghyun's ear every two seconds and glues his arm permanently around Youngbae's neck. "You turning twenty is the best thing that ever happened to us," Daesung says, sardonic as all hell.
Jiyong slips into the crush of people on the dance floor at the third nightclub they go to, and is surprised to find the others joining him just as the DJ puts Gangnam Style on.
"Jesus," Seunghyun calls over the noise, cracking up as everyone in the bar goes absolutely berserk.
Jiyong yells himself hoarse, arms aching from being raised for so long, and his heartbeat feels like it's recalibrating to the bone-deep thrum of bass in each new song. Youngbae and Seungri's grinning faces rematerialize in and out of the crowd. Seunghyun and his shitty dancing reveal themselves in all their terrible glory when the strobe lights flash bright and hot. Three girls are dancing up on Daesung when Jiyong sees him next, and he sends him a discreet thumbs up that he's not sure Daesung catches-but no matter. Jiyong closes his eyes and lets the music take him.
Three of them nearly topple into the harbor on their way home, and Seunghyun tells him later that, like the kind and responsible hyung that he is, he'd had to play glorified shepherd dog to get them all going in the right direction, let alone back to the house.
"Doing God's work, truly," Jiyong drawls, nursing his hangover with a strong cup of coffee, and narrowly avoids Seunghyun's swat with a duck that makes his head swim.
On their last night in the country, they see the Northern Lights.
It isn't planned-they're actually on their way back from another tour when Youngbae nudges his shoulder and points out the window, eyes wide.
At first, Jiyong isn't quite sure what he's seeing, but Daesung mumbles aurora borealis in the seat behind him and Seunghyun presses his cheek flat against the glass, gazes up at the swirling loops of green and red. Behind Youngbae, even Seungri's struck speechless.
The rest of the ride back into the city is quiet, ribbons of brilliant light still peeking down from high above them.
"Aren't you glad you came?" he asks again, when he and Seunghyun are sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room, counting bags and trying to eat the rest of the food before they have to leave. Everyone else has gone to bed already. The house is very still and very warm.
Seunghyun rubs absently at the long scar on the back of his hand. "Yeah," he says, elbows on his knees, face balanced on a palm, the beginnings of a smile flitting around his lips. "What kind of question is that? Of course I am."
His stomach sinks when they come out of customs and see Namgook and Byungyung leading a horde of handlers straight at them. He sets his jaw, though, and strides forward, a hand clenched around the strap of his backpack. "Before you say anything-"
"Before you say anything," Namgook interrupts drily, "you really aren't as sneaky as you think you are, Jiyong."
"What?"
Namgook turns to Seunghyun. "You didn't think Hyeyoon wouldn't talk, did you?"
"Shit," he says, rubbing the back of his head.
"You didn't think you would've actually been able to escape if we didn't know about it, did you?"
In retrospect, it was a little too easy. "But-" Jiyong splutters. "Wait, so you just let us go off on our own? What if we'd been killed?"
Namgook points wordlessly behind them. Boram shuffles out of the baggage area with a bulging suitcase and a jaunty wave. "The others are still waiting for their stuff."
Daesung shakes his head, a suspicious look on his face. "Do you work for the government, hyung? Are you spies?"
"You guys just have no sense of situational awareness, I think," Byungyung says, rolling his eyes. "Junggeun said tailing you was laughably easy."
"Oh," Jiyong mutters. "Thanks."
Photos from the trip end up littered all over the dorm and the studio, tacked onto the fridge or the Polaroid wall. A resin magnet of Iceland gets plastered onto the Yamaha mixer. A corner of Seunghyun's wall of collectibles is populated now with little Nordic figures, a couple of mountain trolls, and inexplicably, a pewter drinking horn.
Jiyong gets his notebook back from Youngbae and scribbles in it, pages of pages of words he'll probably never even use. "Aren't you glad we went?" Seunghyun asks, grinning at him from the swivel chair.
He chucks a pencil at Seunghyun's head that's dodged easily. "You know I'd do it all over again if I thought we could get away with it." He pauses and chews on a fingernail, head rattling with beats and hooks, concert plans and concept ideas. The clutter doesn't feel bad. There is, however temporarily, no undercurrent of weariness-just a blazing desire to keep moving forward. "But, hey. It's good to be back."
"Yeah," Seunghyun says. He hits play on the track they're working on, floods the room with sound. "Yeah, it is."
fin
A/N: title from 1000 miles per hour by ok go. a rather pointless, uneventful exercise, but it was really fun to write anyway! apologies for any errors and inconsistencies; do feel free to point any out.