Kyungsoo finds her hanging out with Kris in the living room, their English conversation ringing in his ears as soon as he enters the dorm. Immediately he’s anxious. She and Kris had never hung out before, barely exchanging bows and polite greetings the few times Kyungsoo had brought her to dinner with the rest of the guys. Kyungsoo doesn’t like his girlfriend getting friendly with the other members. It’s unnecessary and adds absolutely no value to their relationship. She doesn’t need to get to know them, doesn’t need to hang out with them. Just, no.

At the sound of Kyungsoo closing the door behind him, she gets up from where she was perched on the couch beside Kris and makes a mad dash towards her boyfriend of 5 months. She stops abruptly in front of him in an awkward pause, second guessing herself for a moment, before shyly taking another step forward to give him a kiss on the cheek and a warm hug even before he could take his shoes off and properly set foot inside the dorm. The entire time, Kyungsoo’s eyes are wider than usual (which is saying something), a dorky grin plastered on his face – that happens to him often when he’s around her. Yes, she’s his noona, but often she’d be all awkward and cute without even trying, and he couldn’t help but be awkward and cute back (the fans don’t call him “squishy”for nothing, after all). It was the foundation upon which their relationship had been built.

Kyungsoo sees Kris look over his shoulder from the couch to give his dongsaeng a quick nod and a wave before turning back again. Kyungsoo reckons his hyung isn’t a big fan of PDA (though he’d argue that a completely innocent kiss and hug from his endearingly awkward girlfriend could hardly count as that), but then again, who is?

“I’ve been waiting for forever! I’ve been boring Kris with my random stories. But I’ve got everything set up in the kitchen, so let’s cook!” She takes his hand (more sure of herself this time) and starts walking toward the kitchen.

But he was delusional - nothing short of crazy, really - to think that he could have the dorm all to himself and his girlfriend for a night. He lives with 11 other rowdy boys after all, and at least one of them always manages to turn up (often uninvited) at pivotal moments in his life. Like when he realized too late that Sehun had been looking over his shoulder the first time he ever read EXO fan fiction. It was bad enough to have been discovered as a bit of a narcissist, reading stories written about himself and s. But even more mortifying still, was that he was reading fan fiction that wasn’t exactly…appropriate for all ages. Sehun had run out of the room before Kyungsoo could stop him then, laughing like a maniac and consequently announcing to the entire dorm that Kyungsoo had been reading about Chanyeol and Baekhyun getting it on in some Moulin Rouge-like parallel universe.

And for the second time in his entire life, Kyungsoo feels an immense desire to metaphorically puff up his chest in smugness, because no, Kris-hyung, those songs remind her of me, and they won’t ever remind her of you. He couldn’t understand where this extremely irrational feeling of possessiveness was coming from, especially as it was against a friend, someone he treated as an older brother, even. He’s only distracted from his thoughts by her hands gently brushing against his as she takes the wooden spatula from him, offering to do the stirring and urging him to set the table instead.

---

Kris joins them for dinner and seems incredibly oblivious to how much of an intrusion he’s being, at least in Kyungsoo’s opinion. Worse still, his girlfriend seems to not mind having Kris around. Throughout dinner the two are incredibly chatty, asking each other questions, throwing witty comebacks at each other in excited English that becomes spoken too quickly and too hastily for Kyungsoo to follow. It isn’t that she’s ignoring Kyungsoo for Kris – she’s paying them equal attention. But Kyungsoo wants all of her attention. His ridiculously hectic schedule already limits the chances he gets to spend time with her, so he expects in those moments that he has all of her rapt and undivided attention. Even if there was an uninvited gigantor (albeit a horrifyingly good looking one) in the room.

The thing is, she’s always been pretty accommodating and generally sociable around people. One time, when Kyungsoo invited Jongin (the only member he trusted around her) to hang out with them as a third wheel of sorts, he appreciated that she had made an effort to make the younger boy feel at ease around her. Jongin, as the complete opposite of his stage persona, is by nature shy and incredibly awkward around girls. But she made him feel comfortable, asking him questions in her broken Korean which Jongin found endearing, and he had warmed up to her in no time. Kyungsoo hadn’t felt any jealousy then, but this time, for some reason, it feels entirely different.

After dinner they transfer to the living room, and she takes out the bottle of Ciroc she brought and pours them all a drink, mixing the vodka with cranberry juice. Kyungsoo takes up one end of the couch, trying his best to keep from sulking. It helps that she immediately cuddles up beside him, and he gently throws his arm around her shoulder so she could snuggle up to him better. Kris sits at the other end of the couch, eyes glued to the television, looking to be pointedly ignoring the couple. Even Kyungsoo momentarily forgets the presence of his hyung, finally truly happy to be spending time with his girlfriend. It’s the best moment of the night so far, Kyungsoo thinks, placing a soft kiss on her forehead as she blinks her eyes sleepily, stifling a yawn. It had been a long day, and all three of them were fairly exhausted, seemingly ready to doze off.

The vodka wouldn’t let them though, and the free flowing drinks keep their conversations going, so much so that even Kyungsoo feels a little lighter, a little happier, chiming in and taking part in the witty banter between her and Kris a little more willingly, much to the delight of the two. That is, until the conversation somehow ends up on the topic of tattoos.

His girlfriend stares in awe at Kris after finding out that he has a real one. She’s always had a thing for tattoos. She had told Kyungsoo on one of their earlier dates that after she had gone backpacking in Cambodia, exploring the ruins of Angkor Wat and many more lost, forgotten temples, she had been so enamored with the intricate carvings and artwork found within their walls that she someday hoped to get a tattoo inspired by the art she witnessed there.

Kyungsoo immediately dismisses the memory at the sight of Kris pulling up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the intricate details of the tattoo on his left arm. He’s seen his hyung’s tattoo more times than he’d care to count, seen it so much he hardly ever pays attention to it anymore, until now – it’s all he could see at this point, along with his girlfriend’s impressed expression in his peripheral vision.

It’s effectively the definitive last straw. Kyungsoo has officially had enough.

He quickly stands up and in an instant has a strong grip on her wrist.

“It’s getting late, I should take you home.” His voice is stern, but controlled, wide eyes seemingly void of emotion.

“It’s not that late. Besides, it’s okay, I can go home on my own.” She turns away from Kris completely to stand up and give her full attention to Kyungsoo. For the first time that night, she realizes something’s been bothering the boy.

“Soo, it’s only 11,” she says calmly, a little more quietly.She takes Kyungsoo's free hand in hers and the inside of his palm gently with her thumb, a trick she had learned to calm him down.

Kyungsoo doesn’t waver. “Exactly. It’s 11. Time to walk you home."

He turns to glare at Kris, huge eyes still expressionless and seemingly cold. “I’ll be back tomorrow, don’t wait up. Hyung.” He deliberately adds the honorific as if it were just an afterthought, intended to mock than to show respect. The younger doesn’t look away, holding the older boy's gaze while he pulls his girlfriend closer to him, wrapping his arm around her waist gently but possessively, and whispering into her ear with a gentle yet stern tone that they should get going.

She smiles an apology to Kris before picking up her things and leaving the dorm with Kyungsoo.

---

The walk to her apartment is tense. It’s chilly and she only has a thin sweater on, but Kyungsoo still has his arm around her protectively, effectively keeping her warm.

They’re silent for the first few minutes until Kyungsoo speaks up, voice stern and controlled, refusing to look at her.

“You can’t talk to Kris Hyung anymore."

She sighs. “Soo, I was just being nice. He’s your friend, he’s almost your family, I wanted to make a good impression,” she tries to reason in as gentle a manner as she could manage. Truthfully, she had never seen him this way before.

“You don’t have to make a good impression on my friends,” Kyungsoo says, seemingly void of emotion.

“Of course I do! Your friends care about you, they won’t let you have a girlfriend who didn’t deserve you."

“I don’t care what they think,” he snaps, but his anger is betrayed by the whine in his voice and the sudden droop in his eyes as he pauses to look at her.

And just like that, after being incredibly manly and ridiculously possessive, Kyungsoo is back to being squishy again.

“It’s just that…you seemed so…comfortable with him. I mean you two had never hung out before but you looked like you had been friends for ages! There was no shyness, no awkward moments, not like when we first went out…"

At the memory of their first date – all tongue-tied greetings and inane ramblings and general derpy failure from the both of them – and the realization of what Kyungsoo was getting at, she laughs a hearty laugh that catches him off guard. She's suddenly finding her boyfriend's weird behavior throughout the night ridiculous. Admittedly his jealousy was cute, but still incredibly ridiculous. And in an instant she knew how this should be settled.

“Soo, I’m not awkward with Kris because I’m not attracted to him! I've always told you that I’m completely comfortable being one of the boys. I could hang out and get along with the rowdiest, most obnoxious of your species. But you of all people should know that I’m a complete loser in front of guys I really like. I mean, you know how I am with you!”

Kyungsoo is taken back by her mini outburst, and his jaw drops a little, his mouth slightly open as he stares at her, dumbfounded, still trying to process her little impromptu monologue.

“So you really shouldn’t worry when I goof around with guys, it’s when I’m completely awkward and unable to speak around them that you should start being your overly possessive, territorial wolfy self."

(Kyungsoo knows she deliberately threw the “wolfy” comment in there to mock him – she never liked that song and always felt embarrassed for him and the rest of the group whenever they had to perform it, and she would often tell him how she still couldn’t get over how “lulzy” that whole concept was. In all honestly, her honesty amused him to no end, and it drew him to her even more.)

“…but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, really, because as you can tell, I’m probably never going to be as big of a dorky, awkward loser around anyone else as I am around you. Because you make me crazy nervous, and infuriatingly giddy and incredibly infatuated, and it drives me nuts, it really does, but what can I do? That’s how I feel about you. There isn’t anything I can do. ”

It’s the closest she’s ever come to a legitimate confession of her feelings towards him. Towards anyone, really. Those three words, the three words everyone else uses, they never felt right on her lips, on her tongue. She’d always hoped that if she met the right person she would find a way to tell him how she felt in a way that felt right, in a way that was her own, and not forced, and not necessarily with those three words.

It’s nearly midnight and they’re standing under a lamppost on an empty street corner, and she could only hope that Kyungsoo understood her.

He probably did, if the kiss they share is any indication.

The thing about their relationship is that it isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cliché. Their affection refuses to come out in grand gestures and toothache inducing, picture-perfect scenarios. Instead they’re expressed in confessions under the guise of overly articulate song lyrics, awkward hugs, subtle brushes of fingers, and dorky giggles. Theirs isn’t a regular love story, it’s spaghetti kicked up a notch with a handful of kimchi, and English tea macadamia ice cream instead of vanilla and chocolate. It isn’t for everybody, but it sure suited them perfectly.

That night, in her apartment, cuddled in the couch half-asleep watching cartoons on mute, Kyungsoo asks her the question that had been bugging him all night.

"Why me?"

And she wants to tell him all the reasons she could think of, and there are plenty: because he’s adorable and incredibly squishy, and dorky in a way that’s unbelievably cute; because he looks exactly the same way now as he did when he was five years old; because his whole face scrunches up when he smiles that heart-shaped smile of his; because he croons right into her soul every time he sings, as incredibly cheesy as that sounds; because he can be manly and protective and possessive, and she wants to prove her theory that he’s geeky but with a wild side to him. The list is seemingly endless.

But she’s a little too infatuated, and a little too scared of getting hurt, and a little too worried about giving too much of herself away to a boy who has temporarily turned over his life for an indefinite period of time for his dream and his passion. So instead of saying all those things, she looks up to his face from where she’s resting her head on his chest, voice soft and clouded in sleep.

"Because I have hipster taste."

---

Kris is still seated by the couch, drinking the rest of the vodka with the little that was left of the cranberry juice, recounting what had just happened. He thought it was endearing, kind of, that Kyungsoo had become so possessive of his girlfriend because of him. Although Kris really hadn’t meant to be threatening, and had no plans of stealing her away from him. He's a better man than that.

Still, he couldn’t help but think of her eyes and her smile and her laughter, and how she didn’t seem fazed or shy around him. It was refreshing - most girls only spoke to him to get into his pants, but she seemed to find him funny and interesting and asked him questions whose answers she seemed genuinely curious about.

The last thing Kris thinks about, before the other members come filtering through their dorm, taking away the vodka for themselves and changing the channel on the TV to their favorite late night show, before he's promptly distracted and his attention drawn to other things, is how much of a lucky guy Do Kyungsoo had been to have met her first.