"Oh."

Daesung turned around and saw Yongbae standing in the doorway. "What?"

"You're a girl."

" . . . I don't know whether to feel offended or not."

Yongbae quickly averted his eyes. "Sorry, sorry." He closed the door behind him, but remained in the room, eyes shielded by his hand. "How many of the others know?"

" . . . You say that like they don't. I've put my shirt on, you can look again."

He met her eyes and smiled sheepishly. "I'm going to be honest. We all thought you were a boy."

She raised an eyebrow, realized he couldn't see it under her hair, then cocked her head. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"All the media refers to you as a he as well. Are you trying to hide it?"

"No. I'm a girl. I thought everyone knew."

He sighed, but smiled. "Okay. Well, to make this less awkward for you, I'm going to go tell the others. Just to make sure."

She brushed hair out of her eyes. "Yongbae-hyung?"

He smiled at her, soft and without judgement, much the same way he had the night she confessed to him how ugly she felt. "Yes?"

She went to speak, but the words caught in . She tried once more, but nothing passed her lips. He seemed to understand, only coming over and wrapping her in a hug.

"I'll take care of it." He whispered into her hair, squeezing her tighter. "Don't worry."

When Daesung entered Seunghyun's villa, the place they had promised to meet for dinner (courtesy of Yongbae's cooking), she was assaulted by Seungri.

"Are you really a girl?!"

Jiyong, mercifully, pulled the maknae off her. "You have to be sensitive about things like this! She just got told that her whole group thought she's been male the whole time we've been together." He pushed the maknae into the living room, then turned back to her and smiled sheepishly. "For all the times I've been mistaken as a girl, you'd think I'd recognize when it's the other way round. I'm sorry, Daesung."

She just smiled. "No harm done."

"And I'm sorry for Seungri, too."

"Seungri is Seungri."

Jiyong winced. "I wish that was a compliment rather than an excuse. Anyway, the rest of us aren't going to be weird to you."

She just smiled. 

Jiyong kept his promise, at least by himself. He treated her no differently, never suggested different clothing or shoes or makeup or hairstyles. He treated her with the same comraderie he had since he'd warmed up to her in the first place. 

Yongbae was much the same, though the smiles he gave her were kinder and he joked with her more, spoke a little more seriously in their time alone. 

Seunghyun . . . Well. He had always enjoyed skinship with her. Perhaps now, since it would be more acceptable, he took it a little farther. Jiyong saved her more than once, though, from too many on-stage kisses. 

And Seungri . . . harassed her. Lewd comments, bad pickup lines, subtle gestures and some outright flirting. Needless to say, on variety shows and the like, she wedged herself between Yongbae and Jiyong. 

Not gonna change my .

As time wore on and the media coverage wore off, Daesung found herself most often in the company of Yongbae. The man was quiet and understanding, even if she didn't really want to talk about anything, Perhaps sharing an apartment helped with that, but she found herself more attached to him than anyone else. They tried not to treat her differently, and the effort was commendable, but only Yongbae had completely succeeded. 

He gave her courtesies, sure. He didn't walk into her room without knocking. He was never been afraid to help her with a costume malfunction. More than once, he'd helped adjust the skin coloured chestpiece which held her mic pack and kept her contained during dances and shirtless stage performances. He even rescued her a few times from awkward variety show moments. Such as the one she found herself in now.

"So, Daesung, you just came out as a girl, right?"

She didn't know how to answer. To her own mind, she was a girl all along. She'd never seen herself differently. She didn't even know that others did. 

"She's been a girl all along." Yongbae answered, hand dropping down between their thighs, hidden from the camera, to twine their fingers together. 

"It's not really a subject we're interested in speaking any more on." Jiyong cut in, face steeled under his friendly demeanour.

"We?" One of the hosts prodded. 

"It affects all the members when even just one is put under scrutiny. It's been an adjustment for all of us, realizing we assumed something about her that's a part of who she is as a person. And it's not easy for her, either, to have to deal with the fallout from that all alone." Jiyong replied. His tone was firm, but the truth of the words were undeniable. She squeezed Yongbae's fingers. 

"Well then, Daesung, I have to ask." One of the female hosts giggled. "Which of these men would you date?"

She met the other woman's eyes. "Jiyong."

Apparently that wasn't the answer everyone was waiting for, because they looked shocked. But she knew this question would come even before she was told of this interview. She had prepared an answer long in advance, one that would shut everyone up about it. 

"Why?" The host pushed. 

She squeezed Yongbae's fingers one more time before a smile was plastered over her face and she clapped her hands together. "He's rich!"

There was a breath before the studio started laughing. 

"You really have a woman's heart!"

"You know what a woman wants!"

"You're a true woman!"

She knew Seungri and Seunghyun were going over her answer in their heads. She could feel how much they wanted to stare at her. Jiyong, merciful god that he was, cracked up in good humour. Yongbae chuckled, reconnecting their hands in their hiding place. 

"If you were her, GD, who would you date?"

Following her example, Jiyong put his hand on Seunghyun's thigh. "TOP. He's a lady-killer."

"TOP?"

An impish look overcame him and he grinned. "I'd go through them all."

"Seungri?"

His gaze met hers for a fraction of a second. "Myself. I'd love to see what I'm like as a man."

"Taeyang?"

"Daesung. But it would be dangerous."

"Oh?" The hosts looked genuinely taken aback. "What's so dangerous about Daesung?"

"You fall hard and fast for her." Jiyong said, looking down at them and grinning. 

"It's really true." Seughyun added. "She just has that way about her that you can't help but fall for her."

The back to their homes was a largely quiet one. Daesung was in the back not only with Yongbae, which, as flatmates, was not uncommon, but Jiyong as well, who was laying with his head on her shoulder. 

"Were you uncomfortable int he interview?" Jiyong asked, hand resting palm-up on her thigh. 

"Yes." She admitted quietly. "But you saved me. Thank you, hyung."

He sat up, meeting her gaze with furrowed brows. "What kind of a leader would I be if I left you hanging like that?"

She shrugged. "Thank you anyway."

Seunghyun sighed heavily, reaching a hand back and squeezing her knee. "I know I've been making you uncomfortable. I'm sorry. I'm not helping you much, am I?" He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Can I still do skinship with you?"

She hid her jerk of surprise, but Yongbae felt it. "Of course."

"I'll scale it back, though. More chaste actions." He promised, squeezing once more before facing the front again.

"Not a word, Seungri!" Jiyong interrupted the maknae before he could even speak. "You say enough as it is."

"Fine. I'll apologize later. When it's not so cheesy." He huffed and stuck his nose up in the air.

There was a soft knock at her door. "Can I come in?"

Quickly, she hid behind her bangs. "Yongbae-hyung? What are you still doing up?"

He peeked open the door. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah. I'm decent."

He gently closed it behind him, then sat beside her on the bed. He gave her a heartbreakingly tender smile, then pulled her into a hug. "You can talk to me about anything. Anything at all."

She sighed and rested her head in the crook of his shoulder. "I've been singled out all of my career and even my life for how I look, with my nose, lips . . . the roundness of my face, thickness of my neck. I got used to that, I thought. Especially when it came from the media. I stopped looking, stopped listening. I only looked at fan things, the reviews Jiyong would show me. But I always thought they were judging me like the girls in 2NE1, or any other female idol. It never even occurred to me to consider that they thought I was a boy."

He winced. Having been the one to open the wound, it always touched him deeper than the other members, outside of their protective instincts for their bandmates.

"I didn't even notice. Usually I'm so good with these things: I see a lot of things and keep a lot of secrets. Should I have known? Am I really such an ugly girl that it gets assumed that I'm male?"

"You're not ugly, Daesung."

"Then what was it?"

"Honestly, it was how you presented." He her hair, resting his cheek on the crown of her head. "You were put into a group with four men, which has never happened. Your name is Daesung and not something like Daesee. The clothing we wear is purposefully ambiguous because Jiyong is androgynous. You're very muscular, even for a man, and the way you would wear your sports bras kept you flat enough that they could be mistaken for pectoral muscles. But there are many feminine things about you that I completely looked over."

She nodded slowly. 

"For instance, how you smell. You always smell wonderful because, as I now know, you use a coconut bodyset that your mother bought you. You're the only member to wear anything on their chest outside a shirt. You have the fullest, thickest and most lushious hair that you wear down to your shoulders instead of up like the rest of us. Your speaking voice is very soft and muted. Your smile can light up the whole world. You put a lot of effort into your skin, in keeping your face clear."

He could feel the twitch of a smile against his collarbone. "But I'm not feminine."

"No, you're not." He kissed her head. "But if you were, you wouldn't be Daesung. And that would be a travesty."

With that, her arms wrapped around him and she finally began to cry.