"Luhan, look!" Minseok's voice calls out. Luhan, being Luhan, immediately gets up from the living room and bounds into Minseok's room, panting a little after he stopped.

 

Minseok looks up from his laptop. "Come here," he beckons, and Luhan walks over, curious to see what the older has to show him. Minseok says nothing and simply scoots over, allowing Luhan to sit beside him on the chair. Luhan's eyes scan the Facebook post on the screen before him, eyes widening at an alarming rate after every sentence.

 

His finger trembles as he scrolls down, and by the time he's reached the end, he looks like he's seen a ghost. Well, maybe seeing a ghost would actually be better.

 

"Well, what do you think?" Minseok asks cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to Luhan's anguish. 

 

"I... I think... nothing?" Luhan answers weakly. 

 

"Come on! Don't you think he's handsome?" Minseok laughs, nudging him with his shoulder. He goes back to looking at the post again, smiling to himself. 

 

Luhan doesn't like it one bit.

 

Admittedly, Kim Eun Soo is handsome, in the edgy way. His face is chiselled and his eyes are like blazing fire. 

 

"Well, I think I'm better looking than him," Luhan argues. He pokes Minseok's arm to get him to look at him.

 

Minseok just laughs, mouth crooked and gums showing. Luhan hates how Minseok ignores the growing insecurity in his heart. Either he really doesn't know, or he's pretending not to.

 

"His name is Kim Eun Soo, and he's a model. And I can't believe he likes me! Such an honour," Minseok mumbles excitedly, blissfully unaware of Luhan whose expression is growing darker every second. The latter looks like he's about to kill this Kim Eun Soo. (Not to mention he actually really wants to.)

 

"Why do you like him so much?" Luhan asks, distaste evident in his tone.

 

Minseok blinks, taken aback by the question. "He's cute." Luhan almost regrets asking. Almost.

 

"He's just another fanboy. You have thousands more," Luhan mutters darkly. Minseok purses his lips but says nothing.

 

Later that night, Luhan can't sleep. He keeps thinking about Kim Eun Soo and how happy Minseok looked when talking about him. He can't help it when phantom fingers curl around his heart and squeezes the breath out of him. For the first time in his life, he feels threatened, and by a man he doesn't even know, at that. He makes up his mind to do something fast, to stop Minseok from slipping through his fingers.

 

-

 

Luhan starts by dissing him. 

 

'"He's 188 cm, you know," Minseok remarks casually. "I don't even think Kris was that tall."

 

"He's way too tall for you. You'll look like a little kid next to him and he'll look like a e. And you probably couldn't kiss him if you tried." Luhan tells him while flipping through a magazine, but his focus is on anything but the words.

 

"Ouch. Are you saying I'm short?" Minseok asks, narrowing his eyes.

 

"No, I mean yes, I mean—it's a fact anyway." Minseok gives him an odd look, but Luhan continues, "I'm the better height for you. Not too tall, and we're cute together. The fans say so. Right, Chanyeol-ah?" He asks the unsuspecting younger when he passes by.

 

"Huh? Oh, um, yeah, of course!" Chanyeol answers, eager to appease Luhan. He's looking for Kyungsoo to play games with him. 

 

"Yeah, see? Even Chanyeol agrees," Luhan beams. Minseok blinks a few times.

 

"O...kay?" Minseok looks at him weirdly.

 

Luhan promptly deflates. "Fine," he pouts, staring at the floor. A lone bread crumb stares back at him.

 

-

 

"He has abs too," Luhan hears Minseok talking in the other room, presumably introducing Kim Eun Soo to Zitao and Jongin. 

 

"Wow, he's hot. I approve," Jongin says.

 

Luhan enters the room without warning and sees the two maknaes stare at Minseok's phone with rapt attention. The other three stare at him, taken aback by his sudden intrusion. 

 

"Minseok-ah, I have abs too, you know?" Luhan remarks. "I mean, they may not be as defined, but..." he pauses, feeling his abs through his shirt, "they're definitely there. And they're quite manly too, I must say." He exposed his abs during his The Lost Planet solo to the screams of tens of thousands of fangirls. Surely Minseok would find his assets equally as appealing.

 

Minseok chuckles softly. "So do I, Lu."

 

Luhan's jaw drops because that's not fair, I haven't seen it yet and I want to so badly, and since when did Kim Minseok have abs, why didn't he tell me? Zitao looks at Luhan in disdain. 

 

"Please, yours aren't even abs. Mine, however," he lifts up his shirt with a flourish, "are the definition of perfect abs." Luhan winces because he didn't come into this room to invite more competition, which is the unfortunate situation that he has gotten himself into right now. He has to admit though, that Zitao's abs are indeed better than his own. But only by a little bit. 

 

"Jongin has better abs too, I mean," Zitao lifts up Jongin's shirt without warning to prove his point, and Jongin yelps and bats his hand away. But the little flash of tanned skin and deep lines has Luhan wilting like a plant on a hot summer's day. He realises that a couple of lines on his stomach does not equal to abs, but that's okay. Maybe if he increases his bench presses from 10 to 20 a set and doubles the weight of his dumbbells, he'll be able to ahieve enviable abs.

 

Luhan looks sadly at Minseok, or rather, at the empty space where Minseok used to be. Minseok, meanwhile, is nowhere to be found. It turns out that in the middle of their impromptu squabble of manly pride, he had quietly excused himself and went to look for saner people, like Junmyeon, who would actually listen to him and give him useful advice.

 

Luhan leaves the room with a bruised ego and a frown on his face. He dejectedly goes into his own room and laments about how it's society's fault for setting unattainable standards of the ideal male body. 

 

-

 

"You have really nice eyebrows," Luhan tells Minseok when he steps out of the shower one day, still dripping wet. 

 

"Oh, really?" Minseok his head in bemusement. His eyebrows do the thing again and Luhan wants to drag him into a room and kiss him. Or perhaps even more.

 

"Yeah, really." Luhan really wants to strip that flimsy towel right off his waist. 

 

"That's an odd thing to say, but thanks, I guess." Minseok leaves to put on some clothes, and Luhan wants to punch himself in the face. 

 

-

 

Luhan, then, tries marking his territory. He goes into Minseok's room before they leave for their schedule and takes out all of Minseok's clothes, dumping them on the bed. He then dives into the pile, wriggling around and trying to rub off his scent on all the pieces of clothing. Thankfully, Minseok doesn't buy weird clothes with rivets or metal hoops, because that would be painful.

 

"Luhan, what are you doing?" Uh-oh. It's manager-hyung. "We're leaving now for that radio show!"

 

"Just a minute, hyung," Luhan calls out from the room. He sniffs the clothes and is disappointed to find that his unique smell has not rubbed off on them at all. He redoubles his effort and squirms around in the clothes pile with the tenacity of a rabid dog.

 

"Luhan," two knocks on the door and Minseok asks him, “what are you doing?" 

 

"Just... rearranging some stuff." Luhan's nervous as he smells the clothes. The scent is very faint, but he supposes he'll have to make do. He gathers all of them into his arms and stuffs them into Minseok's closet, ignoring the potential consequences that his actions might bring. 

 

He opens the door to face Minseok's angry stare.

 

"We're late! Come on!" he huffs as he drags Luhan out into the van, and Luhan can't help but smile creepily at the contact.

 

When they get back after the show, Minseok opens his closet and promptly gets a heart attack.

 

-

 

They're backstage preparing for their music show performance, and Minseok and Luhan are whiling away time while waiting for the other members to have their make-up done. 

 

"What the heck?" Minseok stares at his phone incredulously. "'The content you are searching for has been blocked because of ographic content.' Excuse me? I wasn't searching for !" he complains to Luhan.

 

Beside him, Luhan whistles nonchalantly. He doesn't tell Minseok that yesterday, he had sneaked off with Minseok's phone and programmed it with a proxy such that he couldn't search for anything related to Kim Eun Soo. A clever strategy, really. He is a total genius.

 

"Well, I have no clue how it happened," Luhan says in mock concern. "What are you trying to search for?"

 

"Kim Eun Soo... I figured that since he was my fanboy, it wouldn't hurt to learn more about him, right?" Minseok sighs after the same message appears after refreshing the browser countless times. 

 

"Luhan, can I borrow your phone please? Mine is hopeless."

 

"Uh, I left mine at the dorm," Luhan lies.

 

"But I saw you with it just now." 

 

Oh really? Damn Minseok and his sharp eyes.

 

"Oh, um, mine's broken too. I need to fix it soon." Luhan starts sweating nervously.

 

"Let me try! I think I may be able to fix it." Minseok fixes Luhan with an expectant look.

 

"Uhh... I need to go to the toilet!" Luhan shouts and dashes out of the waiting room.

 

"Wait!" Minseok shouts to stop him, but Luhan is already out of the room. Minseok wonders how he will react when he realises that he has entered the female toilet.

 

-

 

Minseok eyes Luhan for the n^th time today, but Luhan is still smiling cheerfully at him like nothing's happening. Minseok takes a deep breath and decides to tell him.

 

"Seriously, don't your arms hurt? You've been putting it around my shoulder for the whole day."

 

Luhan's smile grows wider because Minseok was concerned about him. He mentally fist pumps.

 

"No, of course not. I'm good," Luhan answers back, grinning.

 

"Why are you acting so funny today?" Minseok asks. Luhan's arm is starting to get sticky and uncomfortable, not to mention he can hear Luhan's breathing when they're not speaking. It's rather disconcerting.

 

"I'm perfectly normal." Minseok knows Luhan is clingy, but this is bringing it to a whole new level. Luhan's arm had practically never left his shoulder for the entire day. He didn't even switch arms, for goodness' sake. Minseok doesn't know how.

 

"But my shoulder aches because of all the weight you're putting on it."

 

"Here, let me give you a massage." Luhan, not moving his arm an inch, uses the same hand to knead Minseok's shoulder. Which is totally pointless.

 

It's time for the ultimatum.

 

"Luhan, I need to go to the toilet," Minseok says, or rather, pleads.

 

"Oh, I'll go with you." Luhan accompanies him to the gents, hand never leaving his shoulder.

 

Minseok sighs, defeated.

 

-

 

Minseok confronts him about it one day, unable to stand how Luhan is determined to occupy his field of vision every moment of the day.

 

"What happened to you? First you start dissing Kim Eun Soo, even though he's done absolutely nothing to you," Luhan winces at the name, "then you start becoming super clingy lately. It's like, you're suddenly superglued to my side and I can't shake you off."

 

Luhan's face falls immediately. "Do you want to shake me off?"

 

Minseok hurriedly shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You're clingier than usual, and I hope you realise I need my personal space."

 

Luhan is sullen. "Why do you not like me? I like you a lot..." he mumbles.

 

"What?" 

 

"Nothing!" Luhan's face flushes beet red like a tomato. 

 

"Tell me honestly, Lu. What was it? Was it something I did?" Minseok asks, looking at him in all sincerity.

 

"No, I mean, kind of—" Luhan starts. He decides now would be as good a time as ever, and confesses. 

 

"I like you, Kim Minseok. Maybe a little bit too much. When you showed me the picture of your fanboy it was the first time I sensed I had competition. He's well, you know," Luhan shrugs awkwardly, "chiselled and tall and handsome and you really like him, so I was worried I'd lose you to a man you've never even met! I tried to win you back, but I'm guessing it didn't work." Luhan has both eyes on the floor and doesn't look up when he finishes explaining.

 

Minseok cups Luhan's cheeks with both hands gently, and presently says, "But I was always yours."

 

Luhan's heart explodes into a million fireworks and he squeezes Minseok into the tightest hug.

 

"Really?" Luhan asks, eyes sparkling, when they pull apart. Minseok's breath tingles on Luhan's cheekbones, and he thinks it's kind of nice.

 

"Really," Minseok affirms. "And I will always be."

 

Luhan's further questions are stolen away when Minseok pulls him in for a kiss, and really, that's all the confirmation Luhan needs.

 

---

A/N:

This started out as a drabble and snowballed into a fic of 2k words hOW EVEN 

The ending wasn't as ~romantic~ as I would have liked, but well, time constraints. I will be really busy starting from now on, so don't expect updates on my other stories as of yet (I'm sorry!!) Meanwhile, I hope you guys enjoyed this piece and if you like it, please leave comments or give an upvote! It'll really make my day <3