Broken Things (Request fic #2)
Rating: PG (some language, adult themes)
Pairing: GTOP
Disclaimer: I bet Tabi's REALLY glad he ain't mine right about now...
Description: request fic for blushingtabi.
Prompt: With the recent concerts and events, Jiyong begins to worry about Seunghyun's health. He has gotten so skinny and his lack of energy is starting to show on stage, and the tours in Japan haven't even started yet. As the leader, Jiyong must confront this somehow.
Seunghyun supposed, at the time, that he'd been so weak and so careless because he just needed someone, anyone, to see through the carefully crafted wall of 'I'm fine' and 'don't worry' he'd built up over the past year. It was all bullshit; every reassurance he'd uttered to concerned friends and family had been a lie. He stopped feeling guilty when they stopped asking 'are you sure?', and by the time he'd convinced everyone that he was ok, really he was, he almost believed the lies himself.
But he hadn’t eaten in almost two days, now, and it was taking a toll on him both physically and mentally.
Dance practice was Hell on Earth; worse than it usually was. He could hardly lift his arms, and though that might not have been noticeable, the way his legs shook certainly was. Daesung gave him a bottle of water, a banana, and a meaningful look during one of the breaks. He smiled gratefully, guzzled the water… and tossed the banana into a trash bin when the other man wasn’t watching.
Later that night Jiyong dragged him downstairs to a recording booth to work on some material for their new album. He slumped in his chair and lazily watched the audio make patterns on the screen while Jiyong rapped into the mic. Seunghyun tweaked the sound and restarted playback when the younger man asked for it, but otherwise he was glad for the break from physical exertion. When it was his turn to rap, however, he found it nearly impossible to stand, and even more impossible to speak without slurring. His tongue refused to wrap itself around the words on the page in front of him. Not that it really mattered; they were blurring as it was, ink bleeding like it’d been submerged in water.
Suddenly the music stopped, and someone was shaking him. God, he was cold. And when had he laid down?
“Hyung? Hyung! Hey, wake up!”
Jiyong loomed above him, dark eyes swimming in his pale face.
“You passed out, man. I’m gonna call Teddy. Stay there-”
“-No!” Seunghyun wheezed, jolted back to consciousness by the threat of being seen, weak and shaking, by anyone else. “Don’t c-call Teddy. I’m fine. Help me up.”
He gained his feet, in no small part thanks to Jiyong’s entire body being used as a cantilever, and took several deep breaths.
“What is wrong with you today? You were dragging your feet at practice, and now you’re passing out in the sound booth.”
The older man didn’t have a good answer for that. What was he going to say? I’ve been starving myself because I’m ugly and worthless? The only time I feel attractive is just after I’ve thrown up everything I might have eaten all day? I passed out because I can’t even remember the last thing I put in my mouth?
“I’m just… just really tired. Been pulling long hours getting ready for this tour, you know?”
Jiyong gave him a skeptical look, but nodded his head. “Yeah, me too. Um… look, just go home, ok? Take tomorrow off. Get some rest, eat something for God’s sake, and come back stronger Friday. We need you to be at 100% for this tour, hyung. You’ve got people depending on you.”
Seunghyun took another deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. “I know, Kwon Leadah, I know.”
He slid his eyes sideways to his black-haired friend and grinned, a move which was done more to convince Jiyong to stop worrying and less because he actually felt like smiling. What he actually felt like doing was going home and sleeping for days; shutting himself up in his villa, away from the pressures of the world.
The rapper spent the next day just as he’d wanted: in bed. He forced himself to eat an omelet, and when that came back up of its own volition, he choked down an apple. It stayed down.
Later that night, just days before he was due in Japan for the YG Family concert, he got stuck in his own head with only a bottle of Jack to distract him. Jiyong, who had come to see how he was feeling, found him on the floor of his bathroom in a puddle of vomit.
The younger man hauled him into the shower, drenching him in freezing cold water when he refused to open his eyes. That did the trick, and soon he was coherent enough to remove his soaked clothing and beg Jiyong to turn on the hot water. He emptied his guts into the toilet once more after his impromptu shower, and the other man helped him stumble into his room where he landed face first on his bed, naked as the day he was born and feeling like just as big of a baby.
"Okay, I’m done tiptoeing around this. You’re going to tell me what’s going on right now, or I’m calling Yang, and you can explain why you’re slowly killing yourself to him."
If Seunghyun could have given voice to the dark emotions swirling around inside his brain, he would have, but he honestly couldn't pinpoint any particular reason for feeling the way that he did. It was if a weight had settled on his chest, and sometimes it got so heavy that he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Most days he simply wanted to stay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and the most frustrating part about it was that he didn't know why.
And here was Jiyong, playing the leader, wanting him to just spit it out. Perfect fucking skinny Jiyong who’d probably never found a mirror he didn’t like. It made him angry.
"Nothing’s going on,” he slurred, lips not moving as fast as the air coming out of his mouth. “You wouldn’t understand… like you fucking care anyway."
"Hey, fuck you. I didn't just clean up your vomit to have you shut down on me now. Please, hyung. Tell me what's wrong. You’ve gotten so goddamn skinny recently it hurts to look at you. I want to help. Please.”
The abrupt change of tone and the hand that began to rub up and down his spine comfortingly had his breath hitching in his chest, and tears stinging his eyes. How long had he waited for someone to notice that something was wrong, truly wrong, with him? How long had he watched everyone - friends, family, his bandmates- eat up his lies, nodding their heads as he spoon-fed them his bullshit?
“Too long,” he mumbled.
“What?”
The hand on his back stopped moving, and a sob broke from his mouth. It was the most pitiful sound he’d ever heard, and it just made the tears come faster. A year ago he was on top of the world, and now? Now he was sniveling into a pillow in front of one of his closest friends, naked, hungry, cold, and still so very tired.
Jiyong resumed his calming massage to Seunghyun’s back and shoulders, letting him cry. Eventually, the tears turned into hiccups, and then to slow, even breaths as the older man relaxed. He sat up once he got control of himself, bunching the covers between his legs so that he could lean against the headboard without giving Jiyong another eyeful of his junk.
“I need help, Jiyong.”
The younger man grabbed his friend’s hand and squeezed his fingers tight. “We’ll get it for you.”
Seunghyun let his head fall back against the wooden support, and he watched Jiyong through half-lidded eyes. Jiyong smiled at him, and he could tell the black-haired rapper was unsure what to do or say next. After all, he hadn’t had to deal with any of his other members suffering through a breakdown like this. Even Daesung had thrown himself into church activities after his accident, and Jiyong had been mostly absolved from the responsibility of making sure he was mentally prepared to start band-related activities again. But Seunghyun wasn’t active in any churches, he was hardly what Jiyong would call social, and his family… as much as he knew they loved their son, he also knew he wouldn’t want to burden them by asking them for help with something that was culturally considered a taboo.
Men didn’t starve themselves. Men didn’t have mental and emotional problems. Men dealt with life on their own, or they were weak. Well fuck culture, and fuck taboos. Seunghyun wasn’t weak. Having problems didn’t make someone weak, it just made them human. This was just a painful reminder.
“I’m… I’m going to get better,” he stated firmly, as or firmly as he could with his tongue feeling like lead.
Jiyong squeezed his fingers again and nodded. “Of course you are. You’re the motherfucking T-O-P,” he said in English, grinning like a little boy. Jiyong could never curse with a straight face, unless it was done in anger. It was endearing, and Seunghyun couldn’t help the answering grin from lighting up his own face. Soon enough they were snickering, hiding their mouths behind their hands.
Some time later, after they’d stopped laughing, Seunghyun dressed himself in a pair of pajamas while Jiyong busied himself in the kitchen. When he returned with a bowl of miso soup, the other man wrinkled his nose in distaste and pursed his lips. Food didn’t sound very appetizing ever, and especially not to his alcohol-soaked system.
“I’m not leaving until you eat at least a few bites, so you’d better just suck it up.”
Seunghyun grudgingly slurped down a few ounces of the bland liquid, though he wasn’t keen on being alone. He let Jiyong know as much when the other returned from placing his dirty dish in the kitchen sink. The smaller man smiled again at Seunghyun’s words, and hopped up on the bed.
“Can I sleep here?” he asked. He was already pulling the covers back. Jiyong had clearly not been denied much in life.
“With me?”
“No, I was going to make a pallet on your floor out of all of your stuffed animals. Of course with you, you skinny bastard.”
The older man laughed at Jiyong’s jibe, but looked at his hands all the same. Jiyong realized his mistake almost as soon as he’d made it, and put a hand on Seunghyun’s shoulder.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to give you shit, at least not about your weight.” He smiled at his friend and waited for him to tentatively return it before continuing. “Hyung, you’re honestly one of the most handsome guys I’ve ever known, and I’m not just saying that because I want you to cheer up. You’re tall, you’ve got great hair, facial features I can only dream of having. Shit, man, you have dimples. That alone should keep you happy,” he said, poking said dimple that had appeared in the rapper’s left cheek. Seunghyun batted it away and laughed, genuinely laughed, so Jiyong kept up his tirade of compliments.
“Seriously, I’m very jealous of you. You’re obviously unhappy about something to do with the way you look, but don’t be. I know it’s not as simple as that, but you’re perfect, hyung. You were perfect six months ago, and a year before that, and five years before that. Remember when I called you the most handsome member of Big Bang?”
Seunghyun nodded, grinning. “Which time?”
Jiyong flopped himself down onto the mattress and slapped the other man on the leg in retaliation.
“Any of them. I only said it because it’s true. You are; you always have been.”
Seunghyun looked down at Jiyong, whose face had gone red, and smiled affectionately. He was still drunk, and hunger was probably going to be a constant gnawing pain in his guts, at least until he started eating regularly again, but Jiyong’s efforts to cheer him up worked like a charm. Suddenly the thing that seemed most pressing was not how he was going to make it through another day on an apple and a bottle of water, but how long he could keep his eyes open lest he fall over and pass out on top of Jiyong. He yawned, jaw nearly unhinging itself like a snake’s, and the man beside him did the same.
“Okay, time to sleep,” Jiyong announced.
He pulled the sheets down far enough so Seunghyun could slide under them, and then he shed his jeans, turned out the lights, and crawled back in next to him. Jiyong rolled over onto his side to face Seunghyun. He threw a leg over both of his friend’s, and propped his head on his shoulder.
“You know I’m gonna be watching you like a hawk now, don’t you?”
And finally, someone cared. Someone had seen through his lies, and cared enough to call him on it. Cared enough to bathe and feed him when he couldn’t do it himself. Cared enough to get him the help he so desperately needed. Being watched like a hawk was better than being ignored, better than being left to wither away until he was nothing but a shell of his former self, so TOP smiled into the darkness.
"I know, Kwon Leadah."