It was happening again, and as usual, there was nothing any of them could do about it. That understanding did not make it any easier to watch Jongin being pawed by an older man as their manager, who was supposed to be looking after them, stood by and allowed it.

All five boys sitting on the sidelines considered Jongin to be one of their very best friends. They had been through so much together, the twelve members of EXO, that there was no way they couldn’t hold onto each other as tight as they possibly could. The photographer shooting the ad they were featured in was touching their friend in ways that made Jongin, and the group of boys watching from the other side of the room, uncomfortable.

Jongin took one honest look at his group, helplessness clear in those dark, hooded eyes as he stared at his friends, wishing he could be with them. From that momentary glimpse of his own inner psyche, he was feeling just as used and uncomfortable as they were, if not more.

The photographer got even more handsy, tugging suddenly on the edge of Jongin’s already low-slung jeans. His grabby hands pulled them lower, showing an obscene amount of skin. Jongin, however, took this like a true professional. His eyes had glazed over, and that cold, unfeeling distance was the difference between Jongin and Kai.

Kai could handle being d and pawed. Jongin could not.

The photographer prompted Kai to remove his shirt and replaced it with a thin cotton hoodie that only covered one arm and about a third of his chest. The man’s hands slid over Kai’s exposed pectoral muscle as though appreciating it. Suho wondered what the man’s face looked like. He liked to imaging he looked like a monster from a comic book, but knew that he looked just as human as everybody else in the room.

At one slow drag of the photographer’s hand dangerously close to Kai’s exposed , Sehun, sitting next to Kyungsoo, felt the older boy tense and wondered for a brief second if this was it. Would it finally ne the time when they would stand up as a group and rush to Kai’s defense? Would they let the few months of groping and ual harassment be something they absolutely could not deal with, ending their hard-earned career before it had even really started? They were spared, because at just the right time, the photographer moved away, putting a camera between himself and Kai.

They were all objectified. It was part of the whole Idol package. None of them, however, were objectified as much as Jongin. He had been trained from the very beginning to appear docile and sultry. Men took advantage of him for this. It made Sehun sick. Jongin was naïve. He wasn’t cut out for all the underlying ual undertones that they forced Kai to exhibit.

“Why can’t he wear a shirt?” Chanyeol muttered.

“It’s freezing in here,” Baekhyun said.

“He’s your group’s visual,” the manager replied in way of explanation. “He needs to be showy. They’re almost out of time anyway, it’s almost curfew.”

The shoot ended a few minutes later and Kai was given the okay to leave the set. He made a beeline for his group, and when he had reached them, scooting directly in the middle so that they were all around him, he was Jongin again.

Chanyeol removed his own hoodie and Jongin took it. He knew he was safe now, and he didn’t even try to hide the way his hands shook as he secured it around himself and disappeared inside it.