hey, my sun-eyed girl (i've landed) [ fic ]
hey, my sun-eyed girl
cl/seungri | pg-13, 2459 words, canon
crushes can crush you.
for pause and envoler with this prompt. originally posted here, 09/20/2010.
i saw her yea, i saw her, her black tongue tied round the roses.
fist pounding on a vending machine, toy diamond ring stuck on her finger.
a noose she can hang from the sun, put it with her dark sun-glasses.
and i know i'm gonna steal her eye - nothing that i wouldn't try.
GIRL/BECK
this is what seungri remembers:
1
standing at a vending machine alternatively kicking and cursing at it for eating kush's money, half-gripping at the sides in a fruitless effort to shake out the damn soda he knows is in there - before chaerin, in full stage makeup and stilettos so high they could probably cut seungri's heart out, sighs and motions for him to get out of the way.
she braces her hands against both sides of the machine ("like you can do any better," seungri mutters, eyes still glued to her shoes) and gives it a vigorous shake, once, twice - with such force seungri almost swallows his tongue - and cue instantaneous telltale thunk as the aluminum can hits the bottom of the machine.
then, chaerin beats out a very embarrassed and flustered seungri in grabbing the soda can from the slot, and she smugly waves it in his face before saying something along the lines of "nice seeing you, seungri-yah" like she's the cheshire cat.
"you can't take it," seungri says;
"why not?" chaerin asks, pressing the can close to her chest;
"i paid for it," seungri says;
"finder's keepers," chaerin answers, and seungri wants to strangle her and pull her hair and tell on her all at the same time.
he is interrupted by chaerin's signature snort. "i'm only kidding, don't start crying." she tosses the beverage at seungri, who fumbles to catch it with rather embarrassing flaily arms. before she walks off, she raises a brow, though seungri can't see her eyes from behind her oversized shades. "by the way, i thought we weren't allowed to have soda."
chaerin's heels are already clicking sharply down the hall by the time seungri finds an answer ("well it's not for me! and call me oppa!") and it's so not what he wanted to say. stupid kush. stupid soda.
2
"here," chaerin says flatly, and seungri can't hardly believe his eyes.
it's not often that during breaks in practice the 2ne1 girls drop by, much less with tupperware of snacks. technically they're not supposed to eat for another two hours, but seunghyun-hyung and bom-noona manage to badger hwang-ssabu into letting the girls stay. seungri looks down at the plastic container chaerin is shoving at his nose and blinks at the pieces of fruit and vegetables, neatly cut into different shapes. chaerin, who can't even sit still long enough to sign autographs.
"you did this?" he says suspiciously, and chaerin whacks him in the shoulder with her lacquered nails.
"don't get too excited, loser," she says, and slides her eyes over to the side. "i thought i was giving mine to - well, basically, not you."
seungri supposes he should feel hurt, but whatever, it's not like he's not used to being treated this way - he's pretty sure the place on his shoulder she always hits has a chaerin's-palm-sized indentation on it - and anyway, he spots pieces of dragonfruit in the mix. he plops down next to minji and daesung-hyung to pick out the pieces and shovel them into his mouth.
after a moment, chaerin slides down into a sitting position too, hood over her face and her arms clasped over her knees. "you're gross," she says, and he jabs her in the side.
"i'm not the one who cut pears into little tiny hearts," he says, mouth stuffed full of peach and apple.
chaerin gives him a rather sour look in answer, and they then sit in silence for a moment, listening to minji and daesung-hyung laugh about whatever on seungri's other side. eventually chaerin starts fidgeting, and finally motions to youngbae-hyung on the other side of the room. "so, uh," she starts.
before seungri can stop himself, he accidentally blurts, "or you can just stay here." chaerin stares at him, pointer finger still in the air, and seungri shrugs, already starting to regret his words. "or not, whatever."
but chaerin shrugs too - a little halfheartedly and too late for seungri to think she actually wants to. but the important thing is chaerin stays.
3
every other week, they somehow end up in the studios while jiyong-hyung, or youngbae-hyung, or choice-hyung is laying down a track or mixing a beat or working on a lyric. sometimes seungri and chaerin are surrounded by others who drop by, same time they do - other times seungri is in there doing his homework when dara and chaerin swing by after their voice lessons - still other times chaerin is spinning in teddy's desk chair and seungri will just make some snide comment about it to see her turn a little red - but in any case seungri-and-chaerin gets to be routine.
chaerin still doesn't call him oppa, so whatever they first start off awkwardly talking about, it quickly descends to nothing except -
"it's oppa! not seungri-yah!"
"sorry, seungri-yah."
"...shut up, chaerin."
"you shut up."
"you shut up, oppa," he corrects.
and then chaerin smirks and says, "aww, that's okay, you don't have to use any honorifics on me for today, seungri-yah."
it takes seungri a million years to come up with a comeback, usually when chaerin has moved onto something else.
and it always ends with them getting kicked out of the studio for being a "fucking disturbance when some of us are actually trying to do something productive" (jiyong-hyung when he's being g-dragon) and then, out in the hall, chaerin remembers her real life and that it's her turn to cook dinner and she leaves without saying goodbye, but that's all right with him. after a while it's not so awkward anymore; chaerin starts to come by for no reason at all.
4
chaerin's hair. it changes so often these days seungri is worried she's trying for jiyong version 2.0 and that it's all just going to start falling out one day. but whichever color it is, chaerin shakes it out of her ponytails and seungri smells lavender. it's not anything new, he's heard her talking about the shampoo with dara-noona when they run out and apparently all four of them use it, but something about chaerin's hair - brown, black, red, highlighted, blonde, even if it were alien green and striped with pink - seungri likes the lavender on her best.
this is what happens - rather quickly - after that:
5
being woken up by his phone buzzing somewhere near his right ear and picking it up to blearily read, rise & shine! come 4 a run, ur getting fat.
since he is half-asleep stumbling out of bed and into his shoes, it isn't until seungri sees chaerin in her sweatpants waiting on the ground floor lobby by the car, extra water bottle for him, that he wakes up enough to feel like maybe she is getting the wrong idea about things, and also, maybe he should talk to her about it because that's the grown-up thing to do.
and then minji sticks her head out of the backseat window and says, "we're going to the river, oppa!" and seungri silently amends that maybe chaerin's not the one with the wrong idea.
6
"look, seungri-yah," jiyong-hyung says, "i don't think it's such a good idea. you're really not her type."
"you mean he's not teddy," seunghyun-hyung summarizes.
jiyong-hyung scrolls through seungri's phone that he doesn't remember giving, chewing on his bottom lip and every so often stopping at a contact to show it to seungri and say, "what about goo hara? i thought you guys were friends and all that. she's cute."
no thanks.
"or nicole? i'm sure she would introduce you... hmm, or gyuri?"
"you really think she'd go for seungri?" seunghyun-hyung comments, and jiyong kicks his shin.
"do you know gyuri's numbe - are you paying attention? look seungri, i'm trying to help you, you little fucker. come on."
but seungri doesn't care, because it's taken him a week and a half to decide not to hang himself on the closet rod, to figure out that it's not gross and incestuous and weird and all things self-deprecating (well, maybe a little), to hope that maybe it can work out and maybe she will understand and that it's actually kind of beautiful and precious and something he wants, something worth hanging onto. and seungri is not going to let jiyong-hyung talk him out of it this time.
so he stands and plucks his phone from jiyong's fingers, and he says no thanks.
7
he ends up phoning hara anyway, but only because her number was still highlighted when he took his phone back, and he accidentally presses the call button (and hangs up two seconds afterwards. but the call had already patched through, so he calls her back in hopes of not seeming suspicious. plus she's a girl, and girls have insights).
hara is indeed more understanding than seungri's hyungs, but when he tells her who it is, her tone becomes a little dubious.
"chaerin?" she says. "lee chaerin? i thought you hated her."
"well, i don't anymore," seungri says. "most of the time, anyway."
"but doesn't she hate you?"
seungri stops short. "why would you say that? did she tell you that?"
"no-o-o," hara says, and now she just sounds a tiny bit exasperated. "you told me that, stupid."
"oh, yea." he thinks he hears hara smothering a laugh on the other end of the line, or maybe the connection is just faulty. either way, hara isn't exactly uplifting afterwards ("your last names are both lee" is the best thing she can think of to say) so seungri decides to give it a few more days.
he and chaerin go on a few more runs, slap each other around a few more times, and still the only 2ne1 girl who respects seungri is minji (and that's still only when they're around other people). seungri sometimes hears her in jiyong-hyung's room playing video games, and she won't ever ask him to join - or he goes over to pick up boss from her room and she'll call him a name when he asks bom-noona if he can stay for dinner - and seungri keeps looking for a - a difference, something changed in her face or her walk or whatever - or maybe chaerin's just a good liar.
anyway, when he's hauling a fatter-by-the-day dog out the door, he hears dara-noona say, "you guys are spending a lot of time together, lately, huh, cl-roo!"
chaerin just says, "yea," and seungri can picture her usual shrug. when he chances a look over his shoulder, she isn't the slightest shade of red.
8
he decides on a soda.
this time the coca-cola drops down into the slot smoothly, and by the time chaerin arrives at the studio with her backpack, make-up free and hair tight in a knot on top of her head, seungri's wiped all the condensation off the sides in lines of anxiety.
"okay," she says, "we're definitely not allowed to have soda. i checked." she knocks on the side of the can. "aka, throw it out before i tell on you."
"um," seungri says, and in a fit of panic, offers it to her. "you can have it."
chaerin frowns first at the soda in his hands, then at his face. "i'm not allowed to have it either, hello? we're under the same diet regimen?"
"yea," seungri says, flustered and blinking rapidly, "right, but," and then he drops the entire thing in favor of looking the least amount of stupid he can at this point. the worst times of his life is when he tries to make a gesture.
they're in teddy-hyung's studio today. aforementioned man and youngbae-hyung are the ones at the forefront of the room, hunched over the computer monitor muttering at each other and playing three seconds of noise over and over again while chaerin and seungri watch in silence.
"hey," she says, tapping him on the hand with a finger, "you okay, seungri? you look weird."
"fine," seungri says.
"dude, you can have the coke if you're gonna pout all day." she grins, leaning forward so her eyelashes are all seungri sees for a split second. "i was just kidding about telling hwang-ssabu."
before seungri can answer her, teddy-hyung and youngbae-hyung lean back in their chairs at almost exactly the same time, identically satisfied looks on their faces. "take a break, yb," teddy-hyung says, and claps the shorter man on the back. "take a break."
youngbae-hyung asks chaerin and seungri if they want anything from the machines on his way out, and after chaerin says she's fine and seungri holds up his soda, youngbae-hyung disappears down the hallway. teddy-hyung does too after a minute, stretching and muttering something about coffee and how he's been here since eight this morning.
as soon as they're alone, chaerin sits up straighter and shifts in her seat so she's facing seungri, one leg folded underneath her body. "okay, look." she closes a hand around seungri's wrist. seungri has no idea why all of the sudden she is whispering - until finally - finally, he sees the difference in her face he's been looking for. it's so apparent he feels a bit foolish, and then abruptly remembers that chaerin has always been somewhat of a terrible liar the same time he realizes she would never, ever look this way about him.
"it's teddy-hyung, right?"
"teddy-oppa?" chaerin laughs. "no, that's way too obvious. no, not teddy, actually." her eyes unconsciously flick over to the other chair in the room, and seungri feels his stomach drop a few more feet. he wonders if jiyong-hyung knew, if seunghyun-hyung knew, if everybody knew and their way of telling him was to push him onto hara (or nicole, or gyuri, not that seunghyun-hyung thinks she'd go for him, seungri thinks).
chaerin still has her hand on his wrist. "so you think," she stutters, "you think i should give up, right? i wasn't gonna do anything about it."
nah, seungri thinks, don't do anything. "i think you should," he says, and lies because it's chaerin. "he kind of likes you, too."
chaerin looks surprised just as youngbae-hyung walks back in with (as it turns out, because youngbae-hyung always knows what to do) three herbal teas, one for each of them. as youngbae-hyung sits back down on his chair and rolls it up in front of the computer, seungri steals a look at chaerin. she catches his eye and flushes, head dipping down to sip at her tea.
at a loss of what to do, seungri holds up one fist in a lame victory punch. "hwaiting," he whispers.
chaerin grins over the rim of her mug. "thanks, oppa."
it's the first time seungri misses being seungri-yah.
landed
gd-centric | pg-13, 823 words, canon
five vacations jiyong promised himself.
for pause, originally posted here, 09/14/2010.
i opened my eyes and walked out the door
and the clouds came tumbling down. and it's bye, bye,
goodbye, i tried. treading a sea of a troubled mind
had to leave myself behind. i've been on some other planet
so come pick me up... i've landed.
LANDED/BEN FOLDS
1.
when we finally get our big break: THE WORLD!!!
(and why wouldn't he want it, when jiyong has consistently seen nothing except the inside of a dusty practice room for what seems like his entire childhood? hyunsuk doesn't ever promise anything, but jiyong's gotten good at reading the lines of his face and he just knows that yg means big things for the six - no, five - of them.
los angeles isn't the world, but it's seas of fair-skinned people, bigger buildings and brighter lights, and the air is different enough that jiyong figures he can embellish a few more cities into the mix when he calls his umma to tell her about it. never mind that daesung gets airsick, or that seungri embarrasses himself gawking at the billboards of scantily clad women. or that youngbae's stomach can't handle the food, or even that all seunghyun picks up is a penchance for american swear words.
never mind that jiyong doesn't sleep the entire time and falls ill on the plane ride back.
it's the best time jiyong's ever had in his life.)
2.
when i finish my solo album: europe (england, italy!!!!, spain, amsterdam? czech republic? [prague] FRANCE.)
(this is the reason why jiyong says he'll rest tomorrow. this is the reason why the pads of his fingers are bruised with computer keys and soundboard controls and why his fingernails are stained yellow from coffee and cigarettes - how predictable. this is why jiyong says i just need three more days, i just need three more weeks, it'll get done, it'll get done, and the reason why he starts stuttering in rhyme and chorus, why the words start burning into his retinas until they blur into the slightly worn leather couch in studio b.
this is the reason why, when hyunsuk finally shakes him awake and says, "i've heard you always wanted to go," jiyong feels like he is taking everything away from him.
"it'll be good for you," hyunsuk says, but not like this, jiyong thinks, not like this, not when his album is three-fourths of the way complete shit and he's inching his way around in the dark and god please don't make him go, please don't make me go. like every other word that he tries to say these days, jiyong can't.
so he gets london. he gets blocks of fashion powerhouses in milan. he gets his bull fights in spain and, in the crowd chanting ole, ole, the foreign words spill easily from his tongue. jiyong gets a hotel room in france, dines at the coffeehouses he'd envied in daul's pictures and carriage rides in prague. hell, he even spends a day in luxembourg.
when they pick him up at the airport, they keep asking him how it was with these hopeful looks on their faces, so jiyong tells them it was good.)
3.
when 2ne1 debuts: japan; tokyo in particular
japan.
(japan comes later, much later, and stays on jiyong's list long after he knows the streets of shinjuku like the back of his hand.
he'd crossed it off, once, after big bang spend practically their entire summer and every other holiday in tokyo. he gets a few days off, and goes shopping with seunghyun. youngbae brings him to his favorite steakhouses, and he plays car games with seungri when they travel from one island to the next. i have seen enough of japan, jiyong thinks; i know japan.
and then he talks to dami on the phone, once, when she says she's thinking of going for a weekend with a few of her friends and her boyfriend, and it isn't until dami asks if he's all right that jiyong realizes he's stopped talking.
eventually, jiyong writes it in again, nihon, in the kanji he knows more by number of strokes than appearance.
he'd like to visit japan sometime, as a korean, as someone who doesn't know much more than kohnnichiwa and sayonara. maybe he'll stay in a themed hotel, maybe he'll go to the countryside and stay the winter, marvel at the quiet snow.)
4.
when i'm done with this song beat chorus line: the moon
(no one really knows about this except seunghyun and seungho. at first it's just cigarettes, whenever he can duck down to the corner store and buy a pack when nobody's looking. he'll have one on the balcony after dinner when he's feeling really swamped with work.
then it's cigarettes and cigarettes and cigarettes, and his manager asks him to cut back, please, you're getting yellow under the eyes, so jiyong shrugs and says he was never addicted anyway.
cigarettes, cigarettes, his hood over his head, cold air so sharp against his skin he can't feel his ears.
seungri finds his list once and asks jiyong if he's talking about rocket ships. jiyong laughs.)
5.
when all of this is over: home
cl/seungri | pg-13, 2459 words, canon
crushes can crush you.
for pause and envoler with this prompt. originally posted here, 09/20/2010.
i saw her yea, i saw her, her black tongue tied round the roses.
fist pounding on a vending machine, toy diamond ring stuck on her finger.
a noose she can hang from the sun, put it with her dark sun-glasses.
and i know i'm gonna steal her eye - nothing that i wouldn't try.
GIRL/BECK
this is what seungri remembers:
1
standing at a vending machine alternatively kicking and cursing at it for eating kush's money, half-gripping at the sides in a fruitless effort to shake out the damn soda he knows is in there - before chaerin, in full stage makeup and stilettos so high they could probably cut seungri's heart out, sighs and motions for him to get out of the way.
she braces her hands against both sides of the machine ("like you can do any better," seungri mutters, eyes still glued to her shoes) and gives it a vigorous shake, once, twice - with such force seungri almost swallows his tongue - and cue instantaneous telltale thunk as the aluminum can hits the bottom of the machine.
then, chaerin beats out a very embarrassed and flustered seungri in grabbing the soda can from the slot, and she smugly waves it in his face before saying something along the lines of "nice seeing you, seungri-yah" like she's the cheshire cat.
"you can't take it," seungri says;
"why not?" chaerin asks, pressing the can close to her chest;
"i paid for it," seungri says;
"finder's keepers," chaerin answers, and seungri wants to strangle her and pull her hair and tell on her all at the same time.
he is interrupted by chaerin's signature snort. "i'm only kidding, don't start crying." she tosses the beverage at seungri, who fumbles to catch it with rather embarrassing flaily arms. before she walks off, she raises a brow, though seungri can't see her eyes from behind her oversized shades. "by the way, i thought we weren't allowed to have soda."
chaerin's heels are already clicking sharply down the hall by the time seungri finds an answer ("well it's not for me! and call me oppa!") and it's so not what he wanted to say. stupid kush. stupid soda.
2
"here," chaerin says flatly, and seungri can't hardly believe his eyes.
it's not often that during breaks in practice the 2ne1 girls drop by, much less with tupperware of snacks. technically they're not supposed to eat for another two hours, but seunghyun-hyung and bom-noona manage to badger hwang-ssabu into letting the girls stay. seungri looks down at the plastic container chaerin is shoving at his nose and blinks at the pieces of fruit and vegetables, neatly cut into different shapes. chaerin, who can't even sit still long enough to sign autographs.
"you did this?" he says suspiciously, and chaerin whacks him in the shoulder with her lacquered nails.
"don't get too excited, loser," she says, and slides her eyes over to the side. "i thought i was giving mine to - well, basically, not you."
seungri supposes he should feel hurt, but whatever, it's not like he's not used to being treated this way - he's pretty sure the place on his shoulder she always hits has a chaerin's-palm-sized indentation on it - and anyway, he spots pieces of dragonfruit in the mix. he plops down next to minji and daesung-hyung to pick out the pieces and shovel them into his mouth.
after a moment, chaerin slides down into a sitting position too, hood over her face and her arms clasped over her knees. "you're gross," she says, and he jabs her in the side.
"i'm not the one who cut pears into little tiny hearts," he says, mouth stuffed full of peach and apple.
chaerin gives him a rather sour look in answer, and they then sit in silence for a moment, listening to minji and daesung-hyung laugh about whatever on seungri's other side. eventually chaerin starts fidgeting, and finally motions to youngbae-hyung on the other side of the room. "so, uh," she starts.
before seungri can stop himself, he accidentally blurts, "or you can just stay here." chaerin stares at him, pointer finger still in the air, and seungri shrugs, already starting to regret his words. "or not, whatever."
but chaerin shrugs too - a little halfheartedly and too late for seungri to think she actually wants to. but the important thing is chaerin stays.
3
every other week, they somehow end up in the studios while jiyong-hyung, or youngbae-hyung, or choice-hyung is laying down a track or mixing a beat or working on a lyric. sometimes seungri and chaerin are surrounded by others who drop by, same time they do - other times seungri is in there doing his homework when dara and chaerin swing by after their voice lessons - still other times chaerin is spinning in teddy's desk chair and seungri will just make some snide comment about it to see her turn a little red - but in any case seungri-and-chaerin gets to be routine.
chaerin still doesn't call him oppa, so whatever they first start off awkwardly talking about, it quickly descends to nothing except -
"it's oppa! not seungri-yah!"
"sorry, seungri-yah."
"...shut up, chaerin."
"you shut up."
"you shut up, oppa," he corrects.
and then chaerin smirks and says, "aww, that's okay, you don't have to use any honorifics on me for today, seungri-yah."
it takes seungri a million years to come up with a comeback, usually when chaerin has moved onto something else.
and it always ends with them getting kicked out of the studio for being a "fucking disturbance when some of us are actually trying to do something productive" (jiyong-hyung when he's being g-dragon) and then, out in the hall, chaerin remembers her real life and that it's her turn to cook dinner and she leaves without saying goodbye, but that's all right with him. after a while it's not so awkward anymore; chaerin starts to come by for no reason at all.
4
chaerin's hair. it changes so often these days seungri is worried she's trying for jiyong version 2.0 and that it's all just going to start falling out one day. but whichever color it is, chaerin shakes it out of her ponytails and seungri smells lavender. it's not anything new, he's heard her talking about the shampoo with dara-noona when they run out and apparently all four of them use it, but something about chaerin's hair - brown, black, red, highlighted, blonde, even if it were alien green and striped with pink - seungri likes the lavender on her best.
this is what happens - rather quickly - after that:
5
being woken up by his phone buzzing somewhere near his right ear and picking it up to blearily read, rise & shine! come 4 a run, ur getting fat.
since he is half-asleep stumbling out of bed and into his shoes, it isn't until seungri sees chaerin in her sweatpants waiting on the ground floor lobby by the car, extra water bottle for him, that he wakes up enough to feel like maybe she is getting the wrong idea about things, and also, maybe he should talk to her about it because that's the grown-up thing to do.
and then minji sticks her head out of the backseat window and says, "we're going to the river, oppa!" and seungri silently amends that maybe chaerin's not the one with the wrong idea.
6
"look, seungri-yah," jiyong-hyung says, "i don't think it's such a good idea. you're really not her type."
"you mean he's not teddy," seunghyun-hyung summarizes.
jiyong-hyung scrolls through seungri's phone that he doesn't remember giving, chewing on his bottom lip and every so often stopping at a contact to show it to seungri and say, "what about goo hara? i thought you guys were friends and all that. she's cute."
no thanks.
"or nicole? i'm sure she would introduce you... hmm, or gyuri?"
"you really think she'd go for seungri?" seunghyun-hyung comments, and jiyong kicks his shin.
"do you know gyuri's numbe - are you paying attention? look seungri, i'm trying to help you, you little fucker. come on."
but seungri doesn't care, because it's taken him a week and a half to decide not to hang himself on the closet rod, to figure out that it's not gross and incestuous and weird and all things self-deprecating (well, maybe a little), to hope that maybe it can work out and maybe she will understand and that it's actually kind of beautiful and precious and something he wants, something worth hanging onto. and seungri is not going to let jiyong-hyung talk him out of it this time.
so he stands and plucks his phone from jiyong's fingers, and he says no thanks.
7
he ends up phoning hara anyway, but only because her number was still highlighted when he took his phone back, and he accidentally presses the call button (and hangs up two seconds afterwards. but the call had already patched through, so he calls her back in hopes of not seeming suspicious. plus she's a girl, and girls have insights).
hara is indeed more understanding than seungri's hyungs, but when he tells her who it is, her tone becomes a little dubious.
"chaerin?" she says. "lee chaerin? i thought you hated her."
"well, i don't anymore," seungri says. "most of the time, anyway."
"but doesn't she hate you?"
seungri stops short. "why would you say that? did she tell you that?"
"no-o-o," hara says, and now she just sounds a tiny bit exasperated. "you told me that, stupid."
"oh, yea." he thinks he hears hara smothering a laugh on the other end of the line, or maybe the connection is just faulty. either way, hara isn't exactly uplifting afterwards ("your last names are both lee" is the best thing she can think of to say) so seungri decides to give it a few more days.
he and chaerin go on a few more runs, slap each other around a few more times, and still the only 2ne1 girl who respects seungri is minji (and that's still only when they're around other people). seungri sometimes hears her in jiyong-hyung's room playing video games, and she won't ever ask him to join - or he goes over to pick up boss from her room and she'll call him a name when he asks bom-noona if he can stay for dinner - and seungri keeps looking for a - a difference, something changed in her face or her walk or whatever - or maybe chaerin's just a good liar.
anyway, when he's hauling a fatter-by-the-day dog out the door, he hears dara-noona say, "you guys are spending a lot of time together, lately, huh, cl-roo!"
chaerin just says, "yea," and seungri can picture her usual shrug. when he chances a look over his shoulder, she isn't the slightest shade of red.
8
he decides on a soda.
this time the coca-cola drops down into the slot smoothly, and by the time chaerin arrives at the studio with her backpack, make-up free and hair tight in a knot on top of her head, seungri's wiped all the condensation off the sides in lines of anxiety.
"okay," she says, "we're definitely not allowed to have soda. i checked." she knocks on the side of the can. "aka, throw it out before i tell on you."
"um," seungri says, and in a fit of panic, offers it to her. "you can have it."
chaerin frowns first at the soda in his hands, then at his face. "i'm not allowed to have it either, hello? we're under the same diet regimen?"
"yea," seungri says, flustered and blinking rapidly, "right, but," and then he drops the entire thing in favor of looking the least amount of stupid he can at this point. the worst times of his life is when he tries to make a gesture.
they're in teddy-hyung's studio today. aforementioned man and youngbae-hyung are the ones at the forefront of the room, hunched over the computer monitor muttering at each other and playing three seconds of noise over and over again while chaerin and seungri watch in silence.
"hey," she says, tapping him on the hand with a finger, "you okay, seungri? you look weird."
"fine," seungri says.
"dude, you can have the coke if you're gonna pout all day." she grins, leaning forward so her eyelashes are all seungri sees for a split second. "i was just kidding about telling hwang-ssabu."
before seungri can answer her, teddy-hyung and youngbae-hyung lean back in their chairs at almost exactly the same time, identically satisfied looks on their faces. "take a break, yb," teddy-hyung says, and claps the shorter man on the back. "take a break."
youngbae-hyung asks chaerin and seungri if they want anything from the machines on his way out, and after chaerin says she's fine and seungri holds up his soda, youngbae-hyung disappears down the hallway. teddy-hyung does too after a minute, stretching and muttering something about coffee and how he's been here since eight this morning.
as soon as they're alone, chaerin sits up straighter and shifts in her seat so she's facing seungri, one leg folded underneath her body. "okay, look." she closes a hand around seungri's wrist. seungri has no idea why all of the sudden she is whispering - until finally - finally, he sees the difference in her face he's been looking for. it's so apparent he feels a bit foolish, and then abruptly remembers that chaerin has always been somewhat of a terrible liar the same time he realizes she would never, ever look this way about him.
"it's teddy-hyung, right?"
"teddy-oppa?" chaerin laughs. "no, that's way too obvious. no, not teddy, actually." her eyes unconsciously flick over to the other chair in the room, and seungri feels his stomach drop a few more feet. he wonders if jiyong-hyung knew, if seunghyun-hyung knew, if everybody knew and their way of telling him was to push him onto hara (or nicole, or gyuri, not that seunghyun-hyung thinks she'd go for him, seungri thinks).
chaerin still has her hand on his wrist. "so you think," she stutters, "you think i should give up, right? i wasn't gonna do anything about it."
nah, seungri thinks, don't do anything. "i think you should," he says, and lies because it's chaerin. "he kind of likes you, too."
chaerin looks surprised just as youngbae-hyung walks back in with (as it turns out, because youngbae-hyung always knows what to do) three herbal teas, one for each of them. as youngbae-hyung sits back down on his chair and rolls it up in front of the computer, seungri steals a look at chaerin. she catches his eye and flushes, head dipping down to sip at her tea.
at a loss of what to do, seungri holds up one fist in a lame victory punch. "hwaiting," he whispers.
chaerin grins over the rim of her mug. "thanks, oppa."
it's the first time seungri misses being seungri-yah.
landed
gd-centric | pg-13, 823 words, canon
five vacations jiyong promised himself.
for pause, originally posted here, 09/14/2010.
i opened my eyes and walked out the door
and the clouds came tumbling down. and it's bye, bye,
goodbye, i tried. treading a sea of a troubled mind
had to leave myself behind. i've been on some other planet
so come pick me up... i've landed.
LANDED/BEN FOLDS
1.
when we finally get our big break: THE WORLD!!!
(and why wouldn't he want it, when jiyong has consistently seen nothing except the inside of a dusty practice room for what seems like his entire childhood? hyunsuk doesn't ever promise anything, but jiyong's gotten good at reading the lines of his face and he just knows that yg means big things for the six - no, five - of them.
los angeles isn't the world, but it's seas of fair-skinned people, bigger buildings and brighter lights, and the air is different enough that jiyong figures he can embellish a few more cities into the mix when he calls his umma to tell her about it. never mind that daesung gets airsick, or that seungri embarrasses himself gawking at the billboards of scantily clad women. or that youngbae's stomach can't handle the food, or even that all seunghyun picks up is a penchance for american swear words.
never mind that jiyong doesn't sleep the entire time and falls ill on the plane ride back.
it's the best time jiyong's ever had in his life.)
2.
when i finish my solo album: europe (england, italy!!!!, spain, amsterdam? czech republic? [prague] FRANCE.)
(this is the reason why jiyong says he'll rest tomorrow. this is the reason why the pads of his fingers are bruised with computer keys and soundboard controls and why his fingernails are stained yellow from coffee and cigarettes - how predictable. this is why jiyong says i just need three more days, i just need three more weeks, it'll get done, it'll get done, and the reason why he starts stuttering in rhyme and chorus, why the words start burning into his retinas until they blur into the slightly worn leather couch in studio b.
this is the reason why, when hyunsuk finally shakes him awake and says, "i've heard you always wanted to go," jiyong feels like he is taking everything away from him.
"it'll be good for you," hyunsuk says, but not like this, jiyong thinks, not like this, not when his album is three-fourths of the way complete shit and he's inching his way around in the dark and god please don't make him go, please don't make me go. like every other word that he tries to say these days, jiyong can't.
so he gets london. he gets blocks of fashion powerhouses in milan. he gets his bull fights in spain and, in the crowd chanting ole, ole, the foreign words spill easily from his tongue. jiyong gets a hotel room in france, dines at the coffeehouses he'd envied in daul's pictures and carriage rides in prague. hell, he even spends a day in luxembourg.
when they pick him up at the airport, they keep asking him how it was with these hopeful looks on their faces, so jiyong tells them it was good.)
3.
when 2ne1 debuts: japan; tokyo in particular
japan.
(japan comes later, much later, and stays on jiyong's list long after he knows the streets of shinjuku like the back of his hand.
he'd crossed it off, once, after big bang spend practically their entire summer and every other holiday in tokyo. he gets a few days off, and goes shopping with seunghyun. youngbae brings him to his favorite steakhouses, and he plays car games with seungri when they travel from one island to the next. i have seen enough of japan, jiyong thinks; i know japan.
and then he talks to dami on the phone, once, when she says she's thinking of going for a weekend with a few of her friends and her boyfriend, and it isn't until dami asks if he's all right that jiyong realizes he's stopped talking.
eventually, jiyong writes it in again, nihon, in the kanji he knows more by number of strokes than appearance.
he'd like to visit japan sometime, as a korean, as someone who doesn't know much more than kohnnichiwa and sayonara. maybe he'll stay in a themed hotel, maybe he'll go to the countryside and stay the winter, marvel at the quiet snow.)
4.
when i'm done with this song beat chorus line: the moon
(no one really knows about this except seunghyun and seungho. at first it's just cigarettes, whenever he can duck down to the corner store and buy a pack when nobody's looking. he'll have one on the balcony after dinner when he's feeling really swamped with work.
then it's cigarettes and cigarettes and cigarettes, and his manager asks him to cut back, please, you're getting yellow under the eyes, so jiyong shrugs and says he was never addicted anyway.
cigarettes, cigarettes, his hood over his head, cold air so sharp against his skin he can't feel his ears.
seungri finds his list once and asks jiyong if he's talking about rocket ships. jiyong laughs.)
5.
when all of this is over: home