There was silence in the kitchen after Daesung left.  JiYong looked up from the bench and watched YG try to wipe the frustration off his face. “Can we go now?” he asked quietly.  The older man turned and refocused his attention on JiYong. 

“Nae.”  He replied then added cautiously, not sure how much to say in Seungri. “I’m glad… things have changed.  You look better.”  JiYong nodded, carefully keeping his face expressionless so YG would not see the cynical amusement he felt at the idea of being “Better”.  It was true he no longer had to deal with the guilt of blaming Seungri but, better?  That would take YoungBae coming back to life.  He stood and left the kitchen without saying anything else, heading for the gym. 

Slowly he opened the door, almost holding his breath for… he didn’t know what.  Letting the door swing shut behind him JiYong laughed at himself.  Did he think Dara lived in the gym, just waiting for him to come and drown her in all his sorrow?  For a while he roamed around the gym, unable to settle down to any piece of equipment for more than a minute or two at a time.  He felt lost.  YoungBae had been his link to life before BigBang.  Up until now he had not had a chance to recognise the thoughts that were beginning to creep, unwanted into his mind.  “GD, the Korean Popstar known for his unique fashion and flair.”  GD, not having an identity outside his eccentricity; apart from the identity YoungBae gave him.  GD presenting a formal, stiff face when facing his fans alone, frightened of what they would say about the real JiYong.  YoungBae dispelling those fears, no longer able to dispel those fears…   JiYong half groaned, half sighed as he tried not to let himself think.  Picking up a hand weight he hurled it across the gym and bitterly mocked himself for the small distance it travelled before smashing into the floor.  Leaving the weight in the slight dents it had made in the carpet, he went to find Daesung, remembering what his younger brother had said about being there if JiYong wanted to talk. 

He knocked on Daesung’s door then let his head rest against the timber while he waited for Daesung to open the door.  Daesung didn’t so JiYong knocked again then said through the door, “Dae?  Hey, wake up!”  Nothing happened so after some hesitation he opened the door himself and looked into the room, feeling as if he was invading his dongsaeng’s privacy without wanting too.  The room was empty, only Daesung’s laptop, open on his bed.  Slowly JiYong crossed to the bed and looked at what Daesung had been doing.  Reading the Bible??  He turned and saw Daesung in the deck chair.  Glancing once more at the words on the screen he went over to the doorway and looked at Daesung, feeling strangely and totally unreasonably cheated of something.  His brother said he would be there if JiYong wanted to talk.  Well he wanted to talk now and Daesung was asleep.  Folding his arms JiYong frowned, fighting the anger he was feeling at Daesung being able to just go to sleep like that.  He looked oblivious.  There was no torture on his face.  The pain lines that had looked so wrong on that habitually happy face of Daesung’s were no longer there.  For a few seconds JiYong let himself envy the other man with such intense fierceness it clenched his fists and jaw of its own accord; then he left.  He could have woken Daesung.  JiYong knew Daesung would have pulled himself out of sleep, listened to his hyung with that everlasting caring and tried to help but JiYong didn’t want to disturb his oblivion.  Wishing he could have the luxury of insensibility, JiYong wandered back to his room, not knowing where else to go and suddenly loathing the echoing, empty gym with it’s cold staring wall of glass reflecting his lostness back to him.  Feeling thankful for the privacy of his own room and hating the aloneness it made him feel, JiYong grabbed his notebook and pencil and slid onto the floor beside his bed; dropping his head back against the wall with a sigh of acknowledged helplessness.  Slowly words began to scrawl across his page.

“What do I do now?  I don’t have anyone left that knew me before.  We used to look at pictures of us from when we were kids and joke, tell stories, tease each other in ways that the others could never understand.  If ever I needed to get… back, you were the line that went from my ship to the land.  Now my anchor’s been cut loose and I’ve drifting all by myself in the middle of a storm with no anchor, no navigational system.  You were both.  I wasn’t dependant on you like I think Seunghyun hyung was but… how can I describe what you were to me?  How can I describe how you helped me find the confidence to be your leader and trust you and the others until I actually did start trusting you and we became the unstoppable BIGBANG?  People say that I hold BigBang together by my leadership but without you, I wouldn’t BE a leader.  Do you remember that day the week before we applied when we went to the park?  We were playing around, laughing at nothing and everything.  You pushed me on the swing and I flew.  I remember it.  I remember flying, again and again, you sent me soaring up to meet the sky.  I was yelling like a babo kid and you were laughing.  You said ‘Kiss the sky Ji.  Kiss the sky and be infinite.  Fear nothing and no matter how many times you come back to earth you’ll always swing back up again.’  Well all these years I’ve been doing that.  Because I knew that if ever I needed to come back and stop reaching for the sky, you would be there to help me stop and lead me back.  You always stayed so grounded. You never got carried away or lost like I do.  But now I can’t come back down.  My whole life is like that.  I fly, people say I’m kissing the sky, but could only fly because you were pushing me, letting me reach that high.  Now…  I’m alone.  Like I’m sitting on a swing but someone pushed me too hard and I flew right off the swing and now I’m crashing back towards the earth.  Or worse, I’m not falling back to earth, I’m just floating, away, further and further, uncontrollably caught up in the life I wanted but that I never wanted without you. We were supposed to kiss the sky together but instead it’s just me alone.  I can never get back…”