Do Kyungsoo's fingertips hovered over the like button before ignoring the negative voice at the back of his mind and just going for it. 3...2...1...and done!

He'd just liked an Instagram photo posted by kai_ss.

But his reluctance wasn't because he was embarrassed, no way; it wasn't like he personally knew 'Kai' whose real name was Kim Jongin. No. What bugged him was the fact that this post was fifty-three weeks old. It wasn't one of the oldest snaps but still pretty ancient if you considered the other boy's impressive number of posts, not that his meagre like would get noticed under all the love each picture and video was showered with. 

There was a reason for that though. You see, Kim Jongin was a member of a group called Exo (the main dancer to be specific) and although Kyungsoo considered himself a fan he had no idea why, when he was meant to be studying, he was stalking Jongin on his Instagram page and liking blurry videos of the younger boy singing.

His voice wasn't particularity powerful or as stable as some of the other vocalists in the group but it had something special to it, something that drew him in. The blond haired boy had always been interesting, most likely due to his quiet and painfully shy nature offstage. He always looked thoughtful, like he was deep in thought but unwilling to share his musings with the rest of the world. Kyungsoo wished he was privy to even the most ridiculous ones.

"What are you up to?"

His roommate stumbled in to his room, bangs covering half his face and a smug look on his face. Kim Myungsoo was a good friend of his but honestly, had the grace of a baby elephant. Their names rhymed perfectly and that was the reason most of their friends had said caused them to hit off so well.

Kyungsoo practically threw his phone under his pillow, not wanting the loud boy to find out what he was doing and laugh at him. It was already bad enough that his roommate had found his Exo posters and hidden merchandise a few days ago and wouldn't stop giggling about it every time he remembered. That was a memory he wished he could erase from his brain. The cruel world didn't work like that though. Your memories stayed with you until death, on loop whenever something triggered them unlike how the dramas portrayed it. In the real world, amnesia wasn't so common and depending on the individual - they could decide whether or not that was a good thing. 

Unfortunately, because he wasn't fast enough, Myungsoo grabbed the phone at a rapid speed and began mentally analysing what he saw. Then, he burst out laughing. Not in an attractive way either, it was all snorts and seal like clapping. Disgraceful.

"Did the great Do Kyungsoo just like a picture from...." he paused to take a breath, "almost a year ago?"

This caused the owl eyed boy to flush and glare hotly at his friend.

"Shut up and give me back my phone, ," he ordered, flatly, eyes leveled on the pleased looking face.

Myungsoo's grip had slackened considerably due to his laughing, making it easier for the older boy to snatch his possession back and stuff it back to its rightful spot under his pillow. Under layers of material, where it should be, safe from any mocking or laughing from a certain someone.

Ruffling his hair and chucking, Myungsoo bent down, "Don't get so worked up Kyungsoo, you know I'm kidding."

And that was something Kyungsoo did know, annoyed or not. Sure his friend could be a little irritating at times and rarely left him alone, but he was there for him when it counted and never had any real bite to his teasing.

"Yeah, yeah. Now get out so I can actually revise. Aren't you out chasing Sungyeol at this time anyway?"

His best friend's crush on their other friend was obvious to the entire year and probably all the lecturers. He probably wouldn't know what subtlety meant even if it grabbed him and made him swallow a dictionary. The gossip mill was well and truly running, most people predicted that it wouldn't be long until one of those two somehow got a clue. Most had their best bets on Sungyeol but even that was being optimistic. Kyungsoo had it on good authority that those two were going to get married to women, have a few kids, then retire and realise on their deathbeds that their bro-boners were raging for each other. A tragic love story that he had no choice but act as a side character for.

"You're right. See you later man," smiling at the thought of the cheerful giant, Myungsoo practically skipped out of the room.

All of a sudden the room was back to quiet. He contemplated picking up his books and stared at his pillow, remembering what he'd been doing before interruption. The black haired boy typed in the password and opened the app again, ending up on his home page.

His display picture was an aegyo selfie that was a result of a painful dare. Suffice to say, just looking at it made his toes curl - cute was not his style. It was a picture of him with his fingers making a peace sign on either side of his head and framing his face. He had that heart shaped smile that made him "stop looking like a serial killer" and "an adorable high school student" instead.

A lot of people told him that his looks didn't really match with his personality and voice and it was something that he agreed with completely. He looked a lot younger that he actually was but with his deep voice and gruff personality, he was the opposite of a typical university student.

His actual profile wasn't as bad as it could be. He mostly uploaded videos of himself cooking: one because someone had to feed Myungsoo and two because it was an actual hobby of his. A lot of his followers asked him questions about the recicpes or gave him beneficial tips which he was always grateful for.

There was the occasional group picture but none of him by himself, all the ones he'd taken alone looked either weird or incredibly awkward. Were there lessons for these things or were some people naturally born with camera ready faces? It wasn't fair.

A few seconds later a notification icon popped up and his phone buzzed quietly. 

Kai_ss liked your photo.

He blinked a couple of times, unable to believe what was in front of him. Did the exclusive celebrity who had millions of followers like his picture? The celebrity he would never ever tell anyone he watched compilation vieoes on YouTube containing his body rolls and pelvic s because Kyungsoo was a loser and Jongin was hot.

Logic told him this was a dream but his eyes were still showing the same image. The picture wasn't one worth liking either. It was one of him, wearing a pair of old glasses in the kitchen with a large knife in his hand and an apron around his waist. That's right, a hideous pink apron that he'd got on sale along with most of his kitchen appliances.

The caption was 'Kim Myungsoo, run' and he'd posted it after baking a birthday cake for his best friend only for the ungrateful prat to run off with half the icing.

Back to Jongin. He'd probably been scrolling through his feed and accidentally liked it. Most likely a one time fluke, he thought, frowning at the screen. He ignored it and put it back down, only for it to buzz again.

Kai_ss is now following you.

And it was at that moment when Do Kyungsoo's heart stopped. The Kim Jongin, the dancing machine and handsome man of the most popular group in Korea was following him, a broke, gay college student. What had the world come to? It was as if someone had come to his door and given him a personal invitation to meet the Queen of England. That was how surprised and shocked he was feeling right now.

He wasn't exactly the most interactive out of all the members. In fact, he could be called a recluse. No one really knew much about him. It was Baekhyun and Chanyeol who usually replied to their fans and spoke the most in interviews. Lay, Kai and Sehun preferred to watch their antics and occasionally join in whereas Kris, Luhan and Tao laughed or shook their heads.

His bias was Chen because he saw many similarities between them. They both had a slightly evil side to them that involved bullying their friends for fun and laughing at their misery. Was he a little messed up? Yes. Did he care? No, of course not.

But out of all of them, the one whose eyes he was drawn to and wanted to to meet the most was undoubtedly Kim Jongin. His lean body and handsome features gave him heart problems whenever he sat down to watch a music video or live performance.

Emphasis on 'watch', he was admittedly far too poor to actually go to their live events recently. Kudos to fans that actually had the time and money to see them perform regularly because they were winning in life. He'd attended a few of their concerts in  Seoul last year when he'd been working at a convenience store and saving up and it has been amazing. But now his savings were something he could only dream about and Exo were promoting their new album which was so different from their previous works that he was seriously contemplating selling a kidney to go see them live. Unfortunately he needed that kidney and he needed great grades this year so recovering from a major surgery was not on the list of things to look forward to.

By now, his slight obsession with the other boy wasn't exactly a secret from his friends but being a fan boy did have its down perks. For one, attending concerts did cause a few eyebrows to go up and he understood, honestly.

Sure, being a boy and liking a male group wasn't exactly the norm so many girls did look at him weirdly but nowadays he just avoided going to events. But that was also due to the fact that Myungsoo refused to accompany him to any more concerts, simply because: he claimed his ears were damaged enough and also, he didn't want any of his precious Sungyeol time being taken up just so they could get smothered by teenage girls.

All of a sudden, Myungsoo popped his unwanted head back into the room.

"Hey, Soo! Guess what! You know our classmate Joonhee, the one in our physics lecture...yeah that one. She has tickets to Exo's next fansign and I told her that you'd go with her," he smiled cheekily at Kyungsoo's stunned looked before continuing.

"I mean it's not like I told her that you're into them. All I said was that you're free this weekend and you know the poor girl likes you, so what are you waiting for?" He asked rhetorically, raising a smooth eyebrow.

Kyungsoo was torn. On one hand, his fan side was screaming and jumping with joy. Free fan tickets, it was like the fates were smiling at him. On the other hand, his logical side was shaking its head and saying that this was a bad idea.

He wasn't stupid, he knew about Joonhee's crush on him and unfortunately he didn't feel the same. The other girl was cute, with her wavy hair, chubby cheeks and an even sweeter personality but his feelings for her were brotherly at most. If there was a way he could let her down without shattering her heart completely, that would be nice. Breaking her heart would be downright mean but he refused to lead her on. She didn't need to know about his preference but that didn't mean he was planning on getting her hopes up for no reason.

Now that he thought about it...going to a fan sign with a girl would be much less embarrassing than going by himself. It would look like he was there for his friend and not for the group which was perfect. People would give him sympathising looks instead of baffled ones which would be a nice change.

So he found himself nodding along to Myungsoo's words.

"Alright then, I guess I'll go," he conceded calmly, pretending he wasn't heavily affected by this even though he wasn't fooling his friend one bit.

"Whatever, I know you're dying on the inside," the black haired boy rolled his eyes. "I'll leave you to fangirl in peace because I'm out of here," and he glided out of the room, delightedly, looking incredibly smug.

A soft smile passed Kyungsoo's lips as he watched him leave, mood elevated from the good news. He'd actually get to see Exo up close? Maybe he was dreaming. Though a few hard pinches later and he was still awake so clearly not.

In his twenty two years of living, he'd never really striked lucky. In fact, it was almost as though the universe was out to get him. As a child, he'd be the last to get picked for games, the first to get his work copied and not exactly the winner of any prizes throughout his education.

It was quite unfortunate how plain he was. No one really paid attention to him and his ability to blend in was almost unbelievable. Not that he minded, not really. Being a world class handsome man, with the features of a chiseled model, was not something he'd ever inspired to be. Even though that was true, a respectable height would be nice, he wouldn't say no to that. Unfortunately he'd inherited his father's short genes but by now he was used to it and had all of his cooking ingredients on the middle shelf instead of the top ones that were only made for "stupid giants" rather than the general population.

Staying in the background made his life a lot easier and the anonymity he possesed was something that bought him great relief, unlike Myungsoo who was well known by quite possibly the entire student body.

He picked up his phone once again, his black phone case glinting in the light. Black was one hundred percent Kyungsoo's favourite colour of all time. It was probably the colour of his soul too. Almost everything he owned was black or somehow had black in it. Bedroom walls, pillow, bedsheets, earphones, most of his clothes, shoes etc. The list was practically endless.

Other colours didn't even compare to it so he never felt the need to buy different clothes, even in hot weather. This also meant that he often looked scarily goth like and unapproachable - a fact which secretly made him smile. It wasn't his fault people tended to judge others on outer appearances rather than getting to know them first. It also wasn't his fault his eye sight , big time. In other words, his famous glare was a result of astigmatism rather than actual malicious intent but most didn't know that.

Was it a fault in society or simply down to human nature? Oh well. He shrugged, looking back at his last Instagram notification.

Kai wasn't following many people, he noted as he scrolled through the small list of names, most of who were his bandmates. And that was what was weird. Why out of all the people who's photos he saw and never followed, why did he click the follow button for his little unpopular account?

It was almost weird, so weird that Kyungsoo would actually wholeheartedly believe it if someone told him that the idol had been hacked.

He kept pondering this idea until he noticed all the notifications flooding his screen, like bullets. One by one. There were new comments on his last post and he couldn't help himself from reading them. Even though something at the back of his mind told him seriously not to, curiosity was hard to by pass.

@D.O_Kyungsoo
Arghh, what did Kai oppa even see in you? You look boring loool

@D.O_Kyungsoo
Lmao I love your captions, you're funny <3

@D.O_Kyungsoo
Stay away from Kai! Understand?!

@D.O_Kyungsoo
Oppa, I really like your stirring technique when you're baking. Please upload more videos for more useful tips. Thank you.

All the other comments were similar, either bashing him for even remotely being related to Kai or genuinely liked his page and wanted him to know that.

He wasn't a sensitive person in the slightest so the hate didn't bother him but it was a bit annoying that some of these so called 'fans' couldn't even respect their idol's decisions and felt overly defensive. He was about as close to the Exo member as they were, which was not close at all.

"Tch, keyboard warriors," he muttered under his breath before clicking on the home page of the app.

In life some people would hate you ile others might love you. You couldn't get it one way or the other, there had to be some some sort of balance. Expecting everyone to love you would be a bit ridiculous and far fetched. This was something he realised at a young age.

Growing up with an older brother, who took pleasure in picking on him daily, did make him very hard skinned and difficult to hurt. He supposed that Seungsoo did help him in some way but that didn't lessen the pain from when he was a child at the point where the verbal jeers started to get to him.

Kyungsoo -- Age 8

Little Kyungsoo was extremely short for his age; with his big eyes and nerdy love for books, he was the target of bullying in and outside his own house.

"Hey it's the bug eyed freak! Get him guys!"

Someone shouted from the other side of the hallway and suddenly he was surrounded by a group of boys who were much larger and taller than him.

One of them grabbed his book bag and tipped it over, another picked him up by his neck and slammed him into a locker harshly. This caused him to let out a groan of pain and the group laughed.

This was almost a daily occurance. Some days it didn't get physical but most days it did and there was no one that helped him, ever. Teachers turned a blind eye and other classmates occasionally joined in. After a while he stopped expecting to be saved and learned to wait for them to get tired. It wasn't like his skinny arms were capable of inflicting harm so what was the point?

But Do Kyungsoo never cried or spoke a word to them. That infuriated them even more. So the bullying got worse and worse. The worst of all of it - his brother was the ring leader.

He was a year older than him and personally made sure that the doe eyed boy never experienced happiness in or out of school.

Comments like, "Hey loser, clean up my mess before mum comes back," and "If it isn't my midget of a bother...sorry brother," were very common in their household.

Knowing that no one, teachers or parents, was on his side, he kept his mouth shut and tried to get through each day. Of course the comments did hurt and for a long time he would stare at his reflection and understand why they made fun of him. Understand that he wasn't worth much and deserved all the terrible treatment that came his way.

Seungsoo was taller and larger than him and wasn't afraid to get physical with him. His parents wouldn't listen whenever he complained to them and in the end, he just stopped trying.

He lived like that until he was lucky enough to get into university and leave that hell hole while 'their precious little angel' still resides at home, inbetween jobs and a general bum but that of course didn't make his parents any less proud. Every short conversation he had with his parents, once every few months, of course involved a section of bragging about his brother's incredibly less than impressive achievements.

But the lessons he learnt there would stay with him forever.

Now he was an adult and although he grew up to be quite confident, the scars and bitterness over his brother remained. Honestly, he doubted they would ever have a healthy relationship. He couldn't imagine forgiving him any time in the near future.

As they grew older, the more Kyungsoo started ignoring him and became more comfortable his own skin, the less Seungsoo picked on him. Preferring instead to go out with his equally stupid friends and bully people who were apparently "more fun". One day, he'd look back at his life and regret it all, Kyungsoo knew. And truthfully, he couldn't wait. Call it sadistic but he honestly couldn't.