He'd roll his eyes at me when he thought I wasn't looking. I remember thinking how dark and cold those eyes were.

He was displeased and annoyed. There was always something we could work on. He was meticulous and harsh.

Jiyong was cold towards me and I deserved it. I needed to be put in my place; I wasn't Lee Seunghyun from Gwanju's award-winning dance team Il Hwa. No, not here in YG, in Seoul. I wasn't the oldest brother or the respected eldest son.

I was maknae.

I became Little Seunghyun, stripped of what little reputation I had. I was once a big fish in a small pond, and now here I was in Seoul, drowning. I couldn't breathe in the cramped compartments of our first dorm. I missed my mother. I was teased by the hyungs. I was only fifteen. My voice was breaking, my eyes burned from lack of sleep, and my muscles ached. I lived and died and lived again as I let the coaches and trainers take and take from me. There was never enough time in our schedules. It would take years to catch up to the others, if I even could, and I had only months.

So, in the end, I wasn't enough. I would never be the kind of flawless and perfect that Jiyong wanted. Instead, though still displeased with my abilities, he attached himself to me, slowly but surely.

I could only continue to look at those crooked teeth, chapped lips, and bitten-to-the-nub fingernails. His bony arms would reach up to his mouth to cover his laugh after he sneered at me and asked me to be cute and silly. I think he gave up on trying to change me, so he stopped treating me seriously and I became a new, shiny toy.

I was maknae.

The youngest. Baby cheeks. I refused to cut my hair, hoping the long fringe would cover those childish features. My girlfriend in high school liked my hair too.

I was maknae.

I took everything in with my own eyes and judged my surroundings just as harshly as I was being judged. I was presumed to be the weakest and the least experienced.

I was maknae.

I developed a thick skin in response to those so-called weaknesses. So what if my parents were in debt? I was going to make it. Push through. Act tough.

I don't even know how Jiyong saw through my facade. I hated it. I still couldn't deal with him, so I did what I could to give us distance. I didn't want to be the toy. I had scratches, and maybe he played with me so much that his eyes finally narrowed in onto the manufactured details.

I tried to distance myself, but he picked up on it.

A/N edit: credits for the prologue, and basically what started this whole fic XD :

http://godlovesrice.tumblr.com/post/9614834938/extract-quoting-day-7-seungris-shout-to-the-world

http://fyeahseungri.com/post/9866074972/so2tw-seungri-thirteen-so-what-if-its-difficult