When Xiumin looks into the mirror, it isn't Xiumin he sees.

When Xiumin looks into the mirror, it's Kim Minseok that stares back at him, and he doesn't like it.

Not one bit.

He knows the engraved gilt frame contains just a mirror, speckled with tarnish, but when it shows him the person he wants to see least of all he begins to suspect that it's not an ordinary mirror.

He places his right hand on the glass, the boundary between the two realities, and sure enough Kim Minseok copies, his left hand touching Xiumin's, but not quite.

Because that's what Minseok does.

Copy.

His eyes bore into his reflection's, except he's not his reflection, and they aren't reflections of each other, because Xiumin is not Kim Minseok.

But Kim Minseok is Xiumin and they both know that.

Xiumin stares at the copy - the fake, the image, the Minseok-that-Xiumin-is-not - plastered onto the glass. The glass gets warm under his hand, as if a living hand was pressed against the other side.

Xiumin pulls his hand away abruptly and so does Minseok. Except, Xiumin thinks, Minseok doesn't exist.

They both know he does.

The more he looks, the more Xiumin picks out how they were completely different. How they were not just two sides of the same coin, but two completely different coins altogether. They may look the same, but they weren't.

It was going to stay like that, and Xiumin would make sure of that.

After all, Xiumin would never have those hollow eyes of a dead man, and while he was pale it was not the unhealthy, sickly hue of someone wasting away. His clothes would never hang off his frame that loosely, and most of all, he would never be as weak as Kim Minseok.

He smirks at himse- Minseok , he smirks at Kim Minseok, the one that isn't him, and while he knows it is confident and carefree, his reflec- Minseok, looks worried and uncertain. Insecure.

Xiumin is not insecure.

The only problem is that Xiumin is not exactly real either.

He touches the glass again and Minseok meets him, fingertips grazing mere millimetres apart, separated by glass, but also something much more. "Pathetic." Xiumin whispers. "That's what you are. Isn't it?" His fingers slide smoothly down the surface and the reflection - no - Minseok copies, although he seems to lag slightly, less than a second out.

"Look at you," Xiumin sneers. "So weak and pathetic."

He withdraws his hand and this time there is a noticeable time difference between the two of them. "All you do is copy me, don't you, because you are pathetic."

His fist makes a dull thud on the mirror, but this time Minseok just stares back, dead eyes gazing out into the world.

Minseok wonders if Xiumin has lived on his lies for so long he has forgotten just which one of them was real, and which was a mere facade.

On the other side of the window (because that's what it is, really) Xiumin is unimpressed at Minseok's sudden show of independence. "Pathetic." He spits, and for a moment they both wonder who he was referring to. Xiumin pulls the dusty velvet curtains back over the golden framed mirror with a jerk, making sure the red fabric covers the full length, before turning on his heel and striding away.

He never wants to see the mirror again.

As the cloth sways and obstructs his view, Minseok doesn't fade yet. He heaves a silent sigh and palms the glass, still warm from Xiumin's touch. As he caresses it he remembers the days before Xiumin and wonders when it all went wrong. How Minseok had become trapped in his own soul whilst Xiumin raged and dominated.

Minseok gazes sadly at the loose threads of the curtain as the footsteps echo away.

If only they could swap places, just for a while.

If only Minseok could come out and see the world again, even if it was only for a minute.

Because despite what Xiumin thinks, Kim Minseok isn't at all that bad.

Not really.