Himchan was an amazing brother, but sometimes, I couldn’t help but feel he overreacted sometimes.

Upon hearing that I wanted to completely reengineer my face, he had freaked out, breaking into unnecessary tears and clinging desperately to my shoulders. It took five minutes and his friend to pry him off me and calm him down. I wanted to tell Himchan that he was wasting his tears on me, but decided against doing so. Something told me that doing so would only make him cry some more.

That night, Himchan had brought – dragged, more like it – me into his room, shouting something out to our mother that he was helping me study for a test, to lecture me some more. I thought he was going to cry again, but somehow he managed to it up, his cheeks a shade of tinted pink still.

“You’re not ugly.” He frowned, crossing his arms as he told me this.

I don’t know how he wanted me to believe this, but the way he stared sternly down at me told me that he wanted me to at least try. It was almost like he was trying to brainwash me into believing.

But I wasn’t so easily fooled. Not when I’d spent the past fourteen years of my life being told I wasn’t enough. That I would never be good enough. “Yes, I am,” I sighed, shaking my head. I wasn’t in the mood to argue. Who knew there would ever come a day that I would have to argue my lacking appearance to someone?

Eyes going a little wild, Himchan grabbed my shoulders, giving me a rough shake. “No, you’re not Youngjae. You’re not ugly. What about you do you think is ugly?” His voice had pitched by this point, and by the end of his sentence, his grip on my shoulder had tightened.

And something about the tone of his voice told me that he didn’t want a reply.

It was a rhetorical question.

“You’re not ugly Youngjae,” he repeated, shoving me to sit on his bed as he ran about his room, fetching the desk mirror he always kept face down in the drawer. “You’re beautiful, alright?” He shoved the mirror in my face, making me cringe as I came straight back into my view.

I was hideous.

Hissing a little, I shoved his hand away from me, turning my head to stare down at the floor. “You’re wrong, I’m not beautiful.” I was anything but beautiful. I was overweight, nerdy and a hundred percent demonic, but I was not, most definitely, beautiful.

It had always been what I saw when I looked into the mirror. I’d see my cheeks, twice the size they were supposed to be. The fat surrounding my stomach always seemed bloated, ugly red lines remaining from where my pants squeezed my waist. My thighs were the worst; pants of all sizes felt too small on me, threatening to burst if I wasn’t careful. My lips weren’t full and my skin wasn’t pale or flawless. I was just stupid old Youngjae, just barely hanging off at the point of average.

Himchan didn’t understand though. Beautiful people just couldn’t understand what I saw when I looked into the mirror.

But he was a good brother. He tried to see what he couldn’t anyways.

He cried for me that night, keeping me tucked into his arms as he wept together. I because I was too ugly and Himchan because he had a disgrace like me for his brother.

It just didn’t make any sense. How was he as perfect as he was, and me … … well, me?

I wanted to curse all the gods out there.

For everything.

For being so unfair.