In Seongdong

Seunghyun grew up with money – not like he has now, but they’d always been comfortable. Very comfortable. Like where his dad thinks being an idol is a crass way to make a living. That kind of wealth. So the money part of being T.O.P isn’t too big an adjustment.

But the fame is.

The thing about being famous is that it is incredibly isolating. Everyone wants to be your friend, but you can’t trust them. You can be friends with other famous people, but so often it becomes weird and catty, not to mention awkward since everyone keeps sleeping with each other.

And in truth, sometimes it outweighs the good. Sometimes Seunghyun wishes he had never done this, that he could go out for a cup of coffee without having his picture taken, that his interactions in public weren’t microanalyzed to the point of absurdity.

He gets lonely.

It’s funny, but no one bumps into him anymore, not really. Everyone’s so aware of his presence that if they do, it’s plainly on purpose. And it’s funny that he misses that, but he does. Because it’s simple and honest and unselfish. Sometimes he’ll go days where the only people who touch him are fans and stylists and actors in a scene. Sometimes weeks.

Seunghyun was always one for spells of melancholy, but he’s had some bad times since he started his career. Some really bad times.

He wouldn’t undo it, though; not really. He pictured it once: Jiyong reconnects with him to encourage him to audition for YG and Seunghyun says no instead of yes. Jiyong turns away, promises to stay in touch but doesn’t. Becomes just a face on a billboard that he used to know.

Seunghyun would never want that. Ever. Just imagining it made it feel like his heart was in a vise. That’s what he reminds himself of when everyone feels far away and disconnected: He still has Jiyong. He still had Jiyong. No one can take those memories from him, and even if Jiyong told him to stop coming by, it would still be worth it. He’ll take all the bad because it means having known him. Jiyong was always going to be famous, so Seunghyun might as well go along for the ride.

*

It is a ride, this life he’s living: Seunghyun feels himself being drawn forward inexorably, even as he traces the same paths again and again.

Like the bridge he takes to Jiyong’s house. The red light he always gets stuck at. He’s so full of anticipation that he feels himself trying to push the energy out of his body and into the cars in front of him, trying to will them forward faster, faster; just because it’s one in the morning doesn’t mean people don’t have places to be.

Sometimes Seunghyun doesn’t call. Sometimes he just shows up. Sometimes he waits until he’s close and then pretends like he just happened to be in in the neighborhood for something else.

It scary, how strongly he feels. How his desire pulls him like a magnet to Seongdong.

Jiyong tastes like the tan you earn in the summer, not the kind from a spray can. Jiyong tastes like taking a nap in the middle of the day and waking up happy. Jiyong tastes like the peace you feel after a long, cathartic cry. Sometimes the thought of him makes Seunghyun’s mouth water. Sometimes Seunghyun can’t see what’s really in front of him because his eyes are full of memories of Jiyong’s lithe, naked body, his smooth legs and how they fold around Seunghyun’s hips. Being with Jiyong is intoxicating and Jiyong knows it. He sends Seunghyun blurry pictures of patches of his skin and Seunghyun always knows exactly where they’re from: his hip, his neck, the valley in the middle of his chest. It drives him crazy. Sometimes when they’re together in public Jiyong will excuse himself to use the bathroom and Seunghyun will get one of those pictures and have to pretend like everything’s normal, like he doesn’t want to march Jiyong by the arm back to the bathroom to fuck his brains out.

But it’s serious. It is. As fun as the sex is, as much as they tease and play, their relationship is putting their careers on the line. They could lose everything if it got out. And not only that, but taint Daesung and Youngbae and Seungri too. Seunghyun could handle it if it was just himself, he thinks. But the thing he knows he couldn’t stand is to see Jiyong lose his dream. Jiyong loves performing so much. He’s so creative, so talented, so very much the epitome of an idol. You’d think Jiyong would be the more cautious of the two of them, but he isn’t. Seunghyun always tries to leave and sleep at his own house for the sake of appearances, and Jiyong always tries to convince him to stay.

Jiyong’s got a pretty good success rate.

*

Seunghyun’s sitting at a red light in the middle of the night waiting to make a left, left towards home, left away from Jiyong. He managed to leave, even though Jiyong very fairly pointed out that staying at someone’s house until four in the morning isn’t that much better than staying the whole night. But something about leaving in daylight makes Seunghyun shy, makes him feel like every eye is on him, so he leaves in the middle of the night instead. It’s barely half-an-hour since there’s no traffic; just him on the road with his thoughts.

Kanye West comes on the radio and his eyes drift down when he reaches out to adjust the volume and in that moment he misses the light turning green. When Seunghyun’s going to Jiyong’s, he’s so keyed up that his foot’s on the gas the instant the light changes. Coming from, he’s a lot more relaxed.

It’s a good thing he was delayed that second, because just as he lifts his foot from the brake an SUV comes tearing through the intersection. The screech of its brakes are loud and clawing and the only thing Seunghyun can hear, his heart suddenly in his throat. The SUV comes to a stop about ten feet past where it would’ve crushed Seunghyun if he’d been watching the light.

For a moment they both sit there stunned, and then when nothing happens – no police show up, no sirens sound – the SUV drives off.

“Asshole!” Seunghyun shouts after it. In a slightly different world he would’ve been Seunghyun’s killer, but now he’s just some stranger Seunghyun will never know.

As he crawls down the road, checking his mirrors every few seconds for more potential murderers, Seunghyun thinks about what the media would’ve said if he’d been killed: first they’d assume he’d been drinking (he hadn’t) and was therefore the cause of the accident, then someone would wildly speculate that the SUV driver knew Seunghyun was in the car and was trying to kill him, and then someone would ask what Seunghyun was doing in Seongdong at four in the morning in the first place.

But there’d be nothing to indict Seunghyun. His phone would probably be destroyed in the accident. Jiyong wouldn’t have to deal with being outed on top of his hyung’s death.

There are worse ways to die in Seongdong.

He could be murdered by a jealous stalker, for example. A stalker who might have incriminating photos. He could be crushed to death in a swarm of paparazzi showing up to document the fallen idols after their relationship became public. Or he could just die a metaphorical death, caught fucking Jiyong. That might be worse than becoming a celebrity tragedy, a blameless martyr for the cause of not driving like a god damn lunatic.

When you’re a celebrity, Seunghyun reflects, even your death is not your own. His death would belong to the fans, to the media, to Seongdong.

*

Seongdong is exactly the sort of place Seunghyun’s father would never live. (Not that he could afford to live in Jiyong’s building – Seunghyun doesn’t know exactly what Jiyong paid, and he doesn’t know exactly how much money his father has, but he knows his father couldn’t afford to buy an apartment like that and just live in it.) It’s too new. Too ostentatious. Too many famous people around.

That’s what makes it perfect for Jiyong. Jiyong lives in a luxury tower overlooking a brand new park and the river. It’s glamorous, just like him. Because even before Jiyong was famous, it felt like he was. He’s always had this aura of mysterious charisma, this ability to make all his outfits look trendy and all his movements seem graceful. Back when they were kids and Jiyong told Seunghyun he was moving away, Seunghyun had been crushingly disappointed but not surprised. He’d known from the start that Jiyong didn’t fit into his demure, uptight neighborhood; that he was just there for the moment, not for good.

Seunghyun never thought he’d feel at home in a place like Seongdong. Even when he debuted and started to picture a life as a celebrity, he hadn’t imagined it really lasting. Not long enough to get comfortable. At first he thought they’d be big for a while and then by their mid-twenties it’d be over. A few years later he figured he’d make it to thirty, then do his military service and fade from relevance. Now he wonders if he won’t be able to make a comeback when he gets out. If he won’t be famous forever. And won’t that be strange? To have wrinkles and sagging skin and still be stared at? It’s so hard to reconcile his images of quiet old age with his current life as an idol. Flashy highrise apartments, packed nightclubs, throwing out top-shelf champagne because it went flat – that stuff’s okay now, but when he’s sixty, seventy, eighty? Will he still attend fashion shows and movie premieres? Will he still cover his face in airports and keep his eyes peeled for the flash of a camera?

Will he still feel at home in Jiyong’s extravagant kitchen?

*

“I heard the best proposal story today,” Jiyong says. They’re in his apartment, eating take-out.

“Oh yeah?” Seunghyun doesn’t think much of this, since this has always been the sort of thing Jiyong likes to talk about. It never takes him long to find out a couple’s story.

“Yeah. From my mom’s friend.” Jiyong slurps up some noodles, then continues. “She said she couldn’t remember how her husband proposed to her. They’d been friends for so long, it just seemed natural to start dating, and then it seemed natural to get married, and so they did. She couldn’t remember when or how they decided they would. It just happened.”

Seunghyun starts laughing. “Are you joking? What kind of story is that?”

“I think it’s sweet,” Jiyong says. He’s put his chopsticks down, Seunghyun notices.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t sweet. But it’s not a story. It’s the opposite of a story. Anyway, I thought you liked big romantic proposals.”

“I do,” Jiyong says, “but that’s me. What I really like is when the story matches the people. And my mom’s friend is really reserved. So it’s perfect for her. That’s what makes it a good story. Anyway,” he adds, picking his chopsticks up again, “she remembered before I left. She made him dinner and afterwards while they were washing the dishes together he asked if she thought they were ready to get married and she said yes.”

Suddenly Seunghyun understands the implication and heat flushes through his face. They’re in Jiyong’s kitchen right now. He focuses all his energy on avoiding looking at the sink. “That’s nice,” he says.

It’s so quiet now that Seunghyun can feel it filling up his ears. Jiyong can’t possibly mean anything by this, right? Even if they were just two regular guys, they couldn’t legally marry in Korea, and they’d have to deal with so much hatred from narrow-minded people. And that’s if they were normal. He and Jiyong are famous. He can’t even imagine what would happen if they announced they were getting married.

He can imagine, actually. He can imagine the outrage. He can imagine getting yelled at in the street. He can imagine death threats.

Seunghyun’s heart is racing and he wants to gather Jiyong in his arms and cry and keep him safe and explain how important it is that no one hurt him, that people would try to hurt him if they knew, that when he was a kid and asked what being gay meant and if his mother knew any gay people, she’d casually told him there were no gays in Korea because they’d all killed themselves out of shame. And his mother isn’t particularly bigoted; what she said’s not just talk. Kim Jihoo hanged himself after he came out, doesn’t Jiyong remember that? Doesn’t he know?

Seunghyun clears his throat, about to say something like ‘If you want to come out, we can’t do it here, we’d have to go somewhere safer and we could never come back, and wouldn’t you miss your noona, your mom, your friends? Don’t you like the life we have now?’ But before he can get any of it out, Jiyong smiles brightly at him and says, “Do you want to order some dessert? I’m still hungry.”

Notes